Madurese refugees devastated but not without hope

Madurese refugees devastated but not without hope

By Chandra H.N. Ichwani

SURABAYA (Antara): When asked if she wanted to return to Sambas one day, the weary woman looked into the distance blankly.

"I will go back there only if the government guarantees my safety. I have lost everything there... I am only a peasant," said Naroh, a woman from Bangkalan on Madura Island, East Java.

She was replying to a question from members of the East Java Family Welfare Movement at Katol Barat village, Bangkalan, which has accommodated Madurese since people fled ethnic violence in Sambas, West Kalimantan. The clashes claimed more than 200 lives, mostly Madurese.

The visiting delegation was led by the movement's chairwoman, Anik Imam Utumo, wife of East Java Governor Imam Utomo.

Naroh, 60, is one of an estimated 10,000 Madurese who returned to their ancestral island in the wake of clashes pitting Madurese migrants against an alliance of "indigenous" Malays and Dayaks.

She said she had left behind five cows in Sambas. "My husband could do nothing because he was here (in Madura) two months before the rioting took place."

Like many other refugees, Naroh now has nothing but the clothes she was wearing when she fled her Sambas home fearing for her life.

Naroh, whose Madurese accent remains thick even though she lived in Sambas for 13 years, begged Anik Imam Utomo to buy a ferry ticket for her son, who was stranded at a refugee center in Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan.

"Please, I have nothing left. Just give him a ticket so that he can return and be reunited with us," she said tearfully.

Anik Imam Utomo promised to grant Naroh's request.

Another refugee, Abdul Latif, a peasant who was born in Bangkalan 34 years ago and moved to Sambas when he was 10, swore he would never return to West Kalimantan. All five of his children were born in Sambas.

Unlike Naroh and Latif, Kacong has never extinguished a dream to return to Sambas, once normalcy has returned. The three anti- Madurese riots he experienced in West Kalimantan fail to discourage him.

Kacong, 47, resettled in Sambas in the 1970s. Living in Gudang Darmasari village, he used to be a model of the Madurese migrant success story.

He said he owned six hectares of rubber plantations and another four hectares of rice fields. Thanks to his success, he was able to send for 15 of his Bangkalan relatives.

The dark skinned man said he did not know what had happened to his wealth in Sambas in the wake of the unrest, because he claimed he had a lot of money in the bank. Thanks to his savings though, his family and the 15 relatives were able to afford to buy tickets and return safely to Madura.

"I will come back (to Sambas) once the situation has returned to normal and the authorities guarantee our safety," he said.

He adamantly refused the West Kalimantan government's offer of relocation elsewhere in the province.

"No matter what, I want to return to my home village in Sambas and cultivate my rubber plantations that earn me Rp 70,000 (US$9) a day. I earned more than that if my income from the farm was added."

The East Java government has treated the refugees as poor families and has paid for their living costs for two months. It is also planning to create crash programs that can employ them and is seeking money from the social safety net scheme in Jakarta.

Recently, President B.J. Habibie summoned the East Java and West Kalimantan governors, as well as related Cabinet ministers to his office, to discuss the possibility of relocating the Madurese community in Sambas and those taking refuge in Madura.

Problems have become even more complicated after Malay and Dayak leaders openly rejected the presence of Madurese, whom they accuse of disrespecting their culture.

The government has identified an island just off Pontianak as the best resettlement site for the Madurese. The government has said it would build 9,000 houses and would guarantee their safety.

But in a meeting with Madurese community and religious leaders in Surabaya on May 2, Minister of Defense and Security/Indonesian Military Commander (TNI) Gen. Wiranto flatly rejected the proposal, on the grounds that relocation would only create a new problem.

Madurese community leaders demanded the government send the refugees back to Sambas, as well as guarantee their security. They also demanded the authorities take action against perpetrators of the bloody ethnic clashes.

The government is yet to issue a clear-cut plan about the refugees.

Wiranto said there was no reason for one ethnic group to evict another. All ethnic groups should be free to live anywhere within the Indonesian territory, he said.

"If an ethnic group evicts another, then what we can expect is destruction," he said.