Jakarta's poor people want peace from their new leaders

Jakarta's poor people want peace from their new leaders

By John Gittings

JAKARTA: In the muddy street of a city slum next to Jakarta
harbor, people have no doubt what they want from Indonesia's new
president.

"We want prices to go down," says Rasdullah, a pedicab driver
who has sent his family away from this desperately poor kampung
(urban village) to the countryside because he cannot feed them.

"And we want a peaceful society, so that people start spending
more money again."

Sitting in a bare wooden shack perched on poles over the
creek, Rasdullah and his friends explain they are opposed to the
street violence of the pro-Megawati demonstrators. Their reason
is entirely practical: "Violence makes the (ethnic) Chinese leave
the country, and then the people of Muara Baru can't sell them
any fish."

The village is just down the road from the harbor where
trawlers deliver their catch. It used to be a profitable business
to buy a load and sell it in the streets.

Kadi came to Muara Baru as a boy in 1965 and has seen life get
harder. "I could spend Rp 500,000 (US$73) on one load and make Rp
30,000 to Rp 40,000 profit. Now it costs Rp 1 million to earn
just Rp 25,000 profit."

But while disapproving of the demonstrations, they say they
know who is responsible. "If the government does not make
trouble, then things will be peaceful in the streets."

Muara Baru is a well-established kampung built along the road
to the outer harbor. It has extended to a parallel strip of land,
separated by a small creek, and has also spread on wooden stilts
into the lake.

There were 13,000 registered voters for the June election. It
is estimated that 80 percent of the families need help from the
social security net, but only the worst-off get anything.

Some people have enough money to build brick houses with tiled
porches, and to have color television. Half the accommodation
seems cramped but just adequate.

The remaining half are slums as bad as in Bombay or Phnom Penh
- particularly those on the rickety constructions over the lake.

These are built of plywood with plastic corrugated roofing.
The interiors of some are bare, except for a mattress, a rattan
mat and cooking utensils.

Small children must learn to survive on the walkways, roughly
laid with planks and scraps of plywood, which sway underfoot.
There is electricity but no running water. Flat carts line the
street with filled plastic cans for sale.

Everyone lives near the creek, a tongue of foul water filled
with shreds of plastic bags and lumps of nameless decomposing
matter. Yet the biggest threat for the people of Muara Baru is
that they may lose their homes.

"The government keeps on coming here to tell us to go away,"
says Aji, another pedicab driver. "They want to turn the water
into a lake for tourists, and they want to widen the road to the
outer harbor."

The pedicabs have suffered from increased competition as more
of the unemployed try to earn a living by pedaling three-
wheelers. There are almost 1,000 cabs in the kampung.

"Sometimes I wait from five in the morning till 1 p.m. without
a customer," says Aji.

If President Abdurrahman Wahid wants to achieve instant
popularity in Muara Baru, he should instruct local officials to
withdraw a regulation banning pedicabs from the fish market.

"They accuse us of being thieves and pickpockets," says
Rasdullah. "We are honest people who have lost a lot of
business."

Most families have come from rural areas all over Indonesia -
Java, Sumatra and even Kalimantan - where they still have
relatives. Some send their children and wives back to the
village, where they can grow their own food. Nearly everyone
voted for the party of Megawati Soekarnoputri.

"For 32 years Soeharto took away everything, and then came the
general election in June which the PDI-P (Megawati's party) won,"
says Aji. "The people of Muara Baru will be happier now she is
vice- president, but they are realistic about the limits of
politics."

They are also realistic about the limits of protest. "We are
all little people," says a village official on the main street.
"We are the flour: they decide what shape to make the cake."

The official was responsible for relief work after 450 houses
burned down in August. The fire engines could not stop it from
spreading because there were no hydrants. The government sent a
one-off gift: a tone of rice and 150 boxes of instant noodles.

No one has insurance and they must rebuild the best they can.

-- Guardian News Service