Images of injustice in the history of Kalimantan

Images of injustice in the history of Kalimantan

A long time observer of Indonesia, Herbert Feith, shares some
examples of historical incidents in Kalimantan to lend a greater
understanding of the current conflict. After years of teaching at
the Gadjah Mada University, he has returned to Australia where he
talked to The Jakarta Post's contributor Dewi Anggraeni in
Melbourne.

Question: What are the similarities between the current
conflict in Central Kalimantan and previous inter-ethnic
conflicts, especially in Sambas, West Kalimantan?

Answer: I certainly see similarities between the recent
happenings in Central Kalimantan and the ones in West Kalimantan
a few years ago. The persecution and expulsion of Madurese by
Dayaks was very similar there, not only in Sambas in 1999 but
also in Sanggau Ledo in 1996 and 1997.

"Ethnic cleansing" is a term that fits the actions taken
against the Madurese in each of those provinces.

So why have the Dayaks turned against the Madurese with such
ferocity in the last few years?

I see it as parallel to the way in which indigenous
communities have turned against immigrant minorities in other
parts of the country in the last six or seven years. The Bugis
and Butonese have been targets of that in Maluku and various
other parts of East Indonesia. And there has been similar kinds
of behavior in Aceh and Papua as well.

But there is also something distinctive about Kalimantan. It
has to do with Dayak identity and it has to do with the way the
logging industry has destroyed the habitats of large numbers of
Dayak people who were previously forest dwellers and slash-and-
burn cultivators.

Dayak anger has been building up for a very long time, and the
Madurese have become its principal target. It has always been
much easier to attack the local Madurese than to direct the local
people's anger against the big timber companies or the government
officials protecting them.

So are we seeing some kind of general resurgence of the
Dayaks?A.

That is certainly one useful way of seeing it. Dayaks have
long felt marginalized by the way Jakarta has pushed
"development" on their island. And they have long felt under-
represented in the way Kalimantan is governed. It is a very long
time since any of the four provinces of Kalimantan had a Dayak
governor.

In the pre-1965 period there were Dayak governors in Central
Kalimantan and West Kalimantan, Tjilik Riwut and Oevang Oeraay,
and they were both popular figures.

During the New Order period most of the governors were
Javanese army officers, and Dayaks who protested against abuses
of power were easily silenced and denounced as "PKI" (in
reference to the banned communist party).

Why haven't the Dayaks been in conflict with, say, the
Javanese minority in their midst? Is it because of the distinct
features of Madurese culture, the fact that they are seen as
tough, money-minded and individualistic, and always ready to pull
out a dagger when they get into a brawl?

That is certainly the stereotype that many Dayaks bring up,
and similar to stereotypes that local people in various parts of
East Indonesia have of the Bugis who have recently settled in
their areas. Like other stereotypes it contains a grain of truth.

But it is also a caricature. One major reason why the Madurese
have become the target rather than the Javanese is that they are
more vulnerable. Anyone arguing for throwing out the settler
Javanese would soon be in serious trouble with the government in
Jakarta.

Many believe that the current hostility has been provoked or
orchestrated by political elements in Jakarta. What do you think?

I have heard several versions of that, each with some
plausibility. One group of interpreters point the finger at
people with experience in army intelligence and at various
members of the Soeharto family and their cronies with an interest
in discrediting the present government. And another group
highlight rivalry between the army and the police. They argue
that army headquarters intentionally delayed sending troops into
Central Kalimantan because they wanted the world to know that the
police were incapable of handling the situation. But I am not in
a position to evaluate the evidence.

Do you see any likelihood that this Dayak violence against the
Madurese will spread to other parts of Kalimantan?

That seems unlikely at the moment because a lot of Dayaks are
ashamed of what they call the excesses of the anti-Madurese
actions. Many who wanted the Madurese driven out of Central
Kalimantan have been expressing shock about the scale of the
recent killing, and also about the recrudescence of traditional
forms of killing which have given currency to stereotypes of the
Dayaks as primitive.

And the ethnic patterns in the two provinces where there have
been no big anti-Madurese actions are different. Whereas Dayaks
are the largest single group in Central Kalimantan and as large
as any other in West Kalimantan, they are less significant in
South Kalimantan (which is heavily Banjarese) and in East
Kalimantan, the richest of the four provinces, where there is a
vast amount of mining activity and great diversity of non-local
ethnic communities.

The East Kalimantan pattern is particularly interesting, and
promising. Nongovernmental organizations of various kinds are
relatively strong there, including labor unions, and most of them
are trans-ethnic. Most of them see reform in terms of reining in
the depredations of business.

Is the Dayak movement connected to indigenous people's
movements in other countries?

Not on any major scale as far as I know, though some Dayaks
are actively interested in struggles for indigenous people's
rights in places like Australia, New Zealand and various parts of
Latin America.

Is there a Muslim versus Christian dimension in this Madurese-
Dayak conflict?

The possibility of it developing into a religious conflict is
there, and it is highly appropriate that the government should be
doing its best to forestall it. That is what happened in Maluku
in 1999. In January of that year Ambonese Christians mobilized
anti-immigrant feeling against the Bugis and Butonese minorities.

But I see no signs of that happening in the case of Central
Kalimantan. The Madurese there have been unable to attract much
active sympathy from Kalimantan Muslims from other ethnic groups.
Moreover the Christians who have been creating an "imagined
community" of Dayaks have succeeded in attracting some Muslims to
their cause.

During the late 1960s the Dayaks were also attacking the local
Chinese. What was happening then?

It happened in West Kalimantan in October-November 1967. Over
50,000 Chinese people living in villages in the northern part of
the province were forced to flee their homes in what was called a
"Dayak demonstration".

At least 300, and possibly as many as 700, were killed and a
large swathe of territory along the Sarawak border was cleared of
its Chinese population. Most of those Chinese were villagers and
some of them were the offspring of people who had lived there
since the 18th century.

The pattern of Dayak attacks were similar to the ones which
have occurred in Central Kalimantan over the last few weeks. At
that time also, bands of raiders arrived with red headbands,
brandishing traditional weapons.

After evicting the Chinese villagers, they looted their houses
and then burned them down and the army and police did nothing to
restrain them.

But the political context was very different in 1967.

The military was then fighting the remnants of a leftwing
guerrilla movement, a movement based principally in Sarawak. It
was a movement which the military itself had helped to build up
in the years of the anti-Malaysian confrontation.

Military leaders opted for a strategy of "draining the sea in
which the guerrilla fish swam", a strategy the British had used
effectively against leftwing Chinese guerrillas in Malaysia in
the 1950s. And they succeeded in involving an important group of
Dayak leaders in this strategy.

What lessons can the government learn from the recent violence
in Kalimantan?

I don't see any easy ways in which these conflicts can be
resolved, but I don't see them as a source of despair. Conflicts
between people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds have
mushroomed all over the world in the last few decades, especially
since the end of the Cold War.

Many of those in other parts of the world have been even
bloodier than the ones which have emerged in Indonesia.

On the other hand, governments and NGOs have been learning
about how to deal with conflicts in a way that forestalls
violence.

The government can probably learn from the experience of
various other countries, not only from developing countries like
India, Pakistan and Nigeria, where religious and ethnic conflicts
are often close to breaking out into open violence, but also from
more stable and fortunate places like Western Europe and
Australia which have experimented with race relation boards and
community radio and television, and with festivals honoring the
arts of particular communities.

What could the international community do to help?

A lot. One immediate need is material relief for the victims
of the recent violence. Tens of thousands of Madurese refugees
from the recent violence are still languishing in refugee camps
in Kalimantan and Madura.

And an estimated 17,000 Madurese are still eking out a living
in camps around Pontianak, victims of the ethnic purges of 1997
and 1999 in West Kalimantan. Medicins Sans Frontieres has been
aiding some of these people in and around Pontianak, but its
operation there is tiny.

In addition to providing humanitarian assistance, NGOs should
be offering help to Indonesian organizations active in the areas
of conflict resolution and inter-religious dialog.

Some of these are associated with universities (like Gadjah
Mada's Centre for Peace and Security Studies). Others are
associated with the National Commission for Women's Human Rights
and with various NGOs active in the legal aid and human rights
areas.