Jl. Jaksa turns into 'Little Afghanistan'
Jl. Jaksa turns into 'Little Afghanistan'
Bronwyn Curran, Agence France-Presse, Jakarta
On the Indonesian capital's backpacker strip,
the halternecks and sandals of over-sunned western travelers are
but a memory. In their place, bearded chess-players sipping sweet
tea and echoed greetings of assalamu allaikum.
Welcome to Jakarta's new Little Afghanistan.
The budget hostels that line the half-kilometer-long strip
known as Jalan Jaksa are currently home to dozens of Afghan
asylum-seekers.
This is where their dreams of sanctuary from the now-ousted
Taliban regime have brought them. Most have lost an average
US$4,000 each to unscrupulous people-smugglers who promised them
passage to Australia, then abandoned them to flimsy fishing
vessels that sank or broke down off Indonesia.
Now the Afghans are trying their luck with the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is determining
whether they deserve the title of refugee and the guarantee of a
new home.
The UNHCR has 476 refugee applications from Afghans stranded
here, which it has suspended processing following the fall of the
Taliban regime.
On average only one in five Afghans in Indonesia wins the
status and of these, many wait months or years until the UNHCR
can find a third country willing to accept them.
The International Organization for Migration pays for their
lodging in the backpacker hostels, which welcome the business
after months of watching tourists desert Indonesia in droves.
With the Taliban routed after months of U.S.-led bombardment,
some have talked of abandoning the anguished search for a new
country and returning home, according to UNHCR protection officer
Daniel Juliadi.
But of the 10 Afghan men and boys gathered around a chessboard
in the courtyard of the Wisma Delima hostel, only one wants to go
home.
"The government now is good," says Muhammad Akbar, an elderly
farmer from outside Kabul who has been in Indonesia for over a
year and taken two failed boat trips.
"I'd like to go home. But I've been told to wait because the
airport is broken and they're still repairing it."
Akbar's compatriots, however, share little of his desire.
"Now I hear the people have some problems with the mujahedin,"
says Muhammad Yusuf, a former police officer with the mujahedin
regime that was ousted by the Taliban in 1996.
"I cannot go back."
Yusuf lost US$12,000 to a Malaysian people-smuggler in
Indonesia who arranged a fake French passport and plane tickets
to New York from Jakarta. He was caught in Hong Kong, deported
back to Jakarta and arrested. He says he bribed his way out of
jail for $1,000.
Mohammad Daud, a former commander with the army of communist
leader Najibullah, ousted in 1992, also cites tensions among
Afghanistan's many factions for not going back.
"It will be a problem for me. I am a Najibullah man," he says.
Over the past two years Daud has boarded four boats for
Australia, all of which broke down or collapsed in high seas.
"The ships were no good. Water came in, the ships broke," he
says.
He has escaped from every prison into which he was
subsequently thrown by Indonesian police.
Muhammad Iqbal, a farmer from the western Afghan city of
Herat, does not believe the Taliban are finished. "They've just
changed their clothes," he says.
Iqbal, his wife, and son Shoeb, 12, have been granted refugee
status and are waiting to be accepted by a third country.
"They have a nice future," says Muhammad Yusuf.
While Yusuf and his friends still wait, they are prey for
people-smugglers who prowl the hostels tempting those fed up with
waiting months and years.