Instability 'threat to ethnic Chinese safety'

Instability 'threat to ethnic Chinese safety'

JAKARTA (JP): Ethnic Chinese businesspeople said yesterday
they were still hesitant to continue their businesses in
Indonesia as political instability remains a threat to their
safety.

The businesspeople said at a seminar that last month's riots
in Jakarta and other cities reflected the fragility of their
status as Indonesian citizens.

"Ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs are still reluctant to start
their businesses again because they are still traumatized," the
Gemala Group chairman Sofyan Wanandi said here.

He called for an end to the current political uncertainty, so
that the economy could return to normal.

"How can we start if there are still protests here and there
and ministers and officials are being solicited," he said, adding
that the country would collapse in three months if such
conditions persisted.

Yesterday's seminar, which adopted the theme reforms and good
corporate governance, was attended by more than 500
businesspeople of Chinese descent, including several prominent
public figures.

Speaking at the seminar were former cabinet ministers Emil
Salim and Siswono Yudohusono, economists from the Center for
Strategic and International Studies Djisman Simandjuntak and Mari
Pangestu and noted lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis.

Ethnic Chinese make up 5 percent of the population but control
about 70 percent of the economy.

The riots, which began here May 13, resulted in massive
destruction of stores and business premises, most of which were
owned by ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs, and physical assaults on
the owners and their families.

The businesspeople stressed yesterday that much ill-feeling
was still evident from indigenous people toward the Chinese
community.

"I built my business for years and it got robbed and burned.
Five years later, after I rebuilt the business, it got robbed and
burned again," said an emotionally charged man.

Others complained that they were never considered Indonesian
nationals, although they had been citizens of the country all
their lives.

"The ethnic Chinese community is like the government's
mistress, she is the prettiest and perhaps the most loved one,
but she never gets to be taken to a party," said political expert
Harry Tjan Silalahi.

Harry adopted the North Sumatra family name Silalahi, like
many ethnic Chinese, in an effort to assimilate into the local
culture.

Sofyan said the 32-year Soeharto regime, which ended May 21,
contributed to the prevailing sentiment regarding the ethnic
Chinese.

"Toward the end of the regime, government moves regarding our
community excluded us from other segments of society," said
Sofyan, who in the mid-1960s was active in student demonstrations
that led to the downfall of the then president Sukarno,

Nonindigenous entrepreneurs often feel compelled to collude
with government officials to survive, making some of them the
main source of income for the bureaucrats, he said.

Former cabinet minister Emil Salim called for the formation of
affirmative policies which would guarantee equal treatment for
both indigenous and nonindigenous Indonesians.

"Who can blame them (ethnic Chinese) for dominating the
economy if they have been prevented from entering other
professions?" he asked, adding that the government had limited
them from serving in the military or running for public office.

Separately, the Forum of Reform Entrepreneurs reported
yesterday that about 110,000 families of Chinese descent had left
the country since the riots erupted.

The group's spokesperson Nazar Haroen said 80,000 of the
families said they would return if the political and security
situations stabilized.

Twenty thousand families were still indecisive, and the
remaining 10,000 had decided to move to Singapore, Taiwan and
Hong Kong, Nazar said, as reported by the Antara news agency.
(das)