Javanese transmigrants refuse to return to Aceh

Javanese transmigrants refuse to return to Aceh

Debbie A. Lubis
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

Dozens of Javanese transmigrant families who were forced to leave
Aceh earlier this year now do not want to return to the troubled
province despite the signing of an agreement between the
government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to end hostilities
there on Dec. 9.

They urged the government not to send them to any part of
Sumatra island as they could not yet recover from the trauma they
suffered after being expelled from Aceh by GAM.

"We do not want to be relocated to any part of Sumatra because
we don't want to be hurt for a second time. It's hard to get over
the trauma," Panggih Suwito told The Jakarta Post over the
weekend.

Panggih, a Javanese transmigrant from Sumber Makmur village in
West Aceh, is just one of dozens of Javanese transmigrants who
fled Aceh early this year after GAM leaders gave an ultimatum for
them to leave Aceh.

Since August 2002, Panggih has had to share with 78 other
transmigrant families, a small temporary shelter owned by the
Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration in Pondok Kelapa, East
Jakarta. The ministry of manpower and transmigration provides
four ounces of rice and Rp 4,000 cash for each transmigrant
everyday.

"It's not an easy life, really, especially for the children.
We have to put up with eating porridge twice a day and we face
water shortages and bad sanitation. Many of us have been sick but
there is nothing we can do," he said.

GAM forced Panggih and 200 other families to abandon the
Acehnese village that they were occupying within 24 hours on May
26, 2002, leaving everything they had been given by the
government in the transmigrant program for the past 22 years.

"They (GAM members) expelled us because we are Javanese. They
say that Javanese are not allowed to live in Aceh," he said.

Some 42,000 out of 48,000 transmigrant families have left Aceh
this year.

Panggih alleged that his village in Aceh paid "security fees"
of between Rp 5 million and Rp 7.5 million to GAM every three
months.

"I was even kidnapped three times by GAM since my people
refused to give them money," he said, adding that GAM also burned
their houses.

Panggih said that after they were forced to leave Sumber
Makmur village, they stayed in a building in Darul Makmur
district for one and a half months before leaving the province
for Medan in North Sumatra, Jambi, Jakarta, and several cities in
Java.

Panggih and his fellow Javanese are demanding that the
government give them an extra Rp 20 million each to start a new
life in a new place.

The Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, however, has
refused to give in to their cash demands, and offered instead to
be relocated to Jambi to work on the palm plantations.

"We just want money (from state funds) to be handed to us, to
continue our lives, to educate our children, and to start
everything from the scratch," Panggih stated.

Meanwhile, Budi Atmadi Adiputro, deputy for internally
displaced persons (IDPs) and refugee affairs at the National
Coordinating Body for Disasters and Refugees (Bakornas PBP), said
on Saturday that the transmigrants could not be categorized as
IDPs because they voluntarily left their houses.

"We believe that there could be someone organizing their
evacuation with ulterior motives, in order to extort us. Besides,
it is common that transmigrants often return to their places of
origin if the soil is not fertile or something like that.

"I think the ministry is wise enough to not start doling out
public money because it would set a dangerous precedent," he told
the Post.