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.