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.