Madurese face desparate lives in refugee centers

Madurese face desparate lives in refugee centers

By Edi Petebang and Erma S. Ranik

PONTIANAK, West Kalimantan (JP): There is a new scene in the
West Kalimantan capital of Pontianak. Child beggars, newspaper
sellers and hawkers roaming the streets.

They are the children of the Madurese who fled their villages
in West Kalimantan in the wake of bloody ethnic clashes between
the Madurese migrants and the indigenous Malays. The clashes took
place from January to March and claimed 185 lives.

New stalls selling everything from cigarettes, snacks, fruits
and vegetables have sprouted up on the roadsides. The number of
scavengers is raising and cheap laborers can easily be found.

"I can earn up to Rp 10,000 a day," said Marzuki, 55, a
refugee from Sambas regency. He runs a roadside kiosk selling
food, drinks and gasoline on Jl. HOS Cokroaminoto.

Marzuki, who supports his wife and five children, still
cherishes his dream of returning to Sambas once security has been
restored there. He said he could put all the tragedy and violence
behind him and did not hold a grudge against anybody in Sambas.

"You can regain your possessions, but not your life," he said
in the Malay dialect.

Marzuki is only one of thousands of Madurese forced to flee
the ethnic fighting which affected nine subdistricts in Sambas.

Official statistics show the clashes forced 35,000 Madurese to
flee to Pontianak and Singkawang, a large town in West
Kalimantan. A few thousand Madurese have returned to Madura. More
than 2,500 houses were burned down or damaged during the clashes.

Marzuki and many other Madurese migrants are lucky to have
relatives able to provide them a place to live in Pontianak and
Singkawang.

About 3,000 refugees in Pontianak are accommodated in Pangsuma
sports hall, where they face various health problems. The bad
smell coming from the crowded hall is the first sign of the
misery one will experience upon entering the hall. Drinking water
supplied by the local state-run water company is inadequate and
many of the refugees only have the clothing on their back.

The tragedy has left a deep scar on the refugees. The lost of
property and relatives is the most bitter experience for them.

Although the Madurese are safe in the refugee centers, it does
not mean their problems are solved. Health problems are rife, and
as of June, 85 refugees have died in the centers. Many have also
suffered mental illnesses because they cannot bear life in the
refugee centers.

The problem is made worse by a lack of nutrients. The local
government provides refugees two meals per day, at 12 p.m. and 5
p.m. Refugees complain they receive the same food every day: rice
with salted fish, tofu and vegetables. The salted fish is of the
lowest quality, the tofu is fried without any seasoning and the
vegetables consists of peas and vegetable marrow.

Babies, children the elderly, men and women all get the same
menu. Children under five years of age receive mung bean pudding
once every two weeks. It is no wonder many babies are skinny and
have potbellies.

Isnan is one of the many undernourished children in the
refugee centers. Isnan, from Rambayan village, often eat rice
without any side dishes and shows the signs of malnutrition.

His mother Midah said Isnan had a fever over the past couple
of months. "We took him to Sudarso Hospital but the symptoms
remain."

Many of the children have the same symptoms and according to
official figures, almost 80 children under five years of age have
died in the refugee centers as of June.

Anisa, the only child of Ema, a refugee from Tebas
subdistrict, died at the age of five months in mid-June. She was
perfectly healthy when she arrived at the refugee center.

The difficult life faced by refugees in the camps does not
allow many of the children to attend school, although the
government has made schools available for them. The children
instead prefer to spend their time playing.

Older children will take to the streets selling newspaper,
earning up to Rp 6,000 a day.

The children are not entirely to blame for not attending
school. According to Budiyono, an activist from the Indonesian
Muslim Student Association, which works with refugees in
Pontianak, the Madurese' awareness about schooling is poor. "They
did not attend school where they came from."

The refugees, mostly farmers, are also fighting boredom.
Instead of farming, men spend their time playing cards and women
taking care of their children.

Their future is full of uncertainty. The government has
offered to resettle refugees in Tebang Kacang and Padang Tikar
subdistricts, but the offer was widely rejected. Only 100 of 500
families accepted the offer.

Refugees still hope to reclaim the belongings they left behind
in Sambas. Salamah, a refugee from Jawai, worries that her land
has been taken over by somebody else. "I obtained the property
after 30 years of toil."

Their fate is even more disheartening after the local
government closed the public kitchen set up on their arrival at
the sports hall.

Soeyatno Yuwono, chief of the West Kalimantan office of social
affairs, said the kitchen was closed because the government had
run out of money to operate it.

"It is also meant to make people learn to be independent," he
said.

The closure of the kitchen was strongly denounce by refugees
and volunteers alike.

Instead of providing meals, the government now plans to give
Rp 15,000 a day to each refugee for their food and other basic
necessities starting in August. However, the plan has not yet
been approved by the National Panning Agency in Jakarta.

Aside from the Rp 15,000, each refugee will also receive
assistance from the International Red Cross in the form of 70
gram of mung bean, 20 grams of sugar, five grams of salt and 60
grams of vegetable oil per day. The refugees will also receive 60
tons of bean powder, which is to last them two months.

The refugees also have a problem obtaining medical services.
Under the local government's policy, refugees are entitled to
free medical services. However, according to Muharam, a volunteer
who works with the refugees, medical personnel from the local
community health center ask patients to pay their services.

The ethnic fighting in Sambas was a human tragedy. It proved
the terrifying presence of ethnic intolerance in Indonesia, which
prides itself on its ethnic, religious and cultural diversity.
The New Order regime, which ruled with an iron hand for 32 years
and suppressed ideas which were not in line with its policies, is
partly to blame for this intolerance.

The Sambas tragedy serves as an invaluable lesson on the
importance of tolerance. Forgiveness is the key to solving the
problem.

The writers are editors with Kalimantan Review Magazine
published by the Pontianak-based Dayakology Institute.