North Sumatra fisherfolk live in poverty and past glory
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan
Kamaluddin gently guided his 14-foot long boat to the pier where fishermen living in Block E of the Nelayan Indah housing complex tie up their boats.
The complex is located only 2.5 kilometers from Jl. Yos Sudarso, the main road to Belawan Port near Medan.
Not until he had tied up his boat did his fellow fishermen approach and ask if he had a good catch.
"Not really," he replied softly and reluctantly. After tying up his boat, he handed his catch to Pak Udin for weighing.
Pak Udin is a trader who usually buys fish directly from fishermen at the pier. Kamaluddin, 45, received Rp 15,000 for his catch that day.
Like the rest of the fishermen in his Nelayan Indah neighborhood, Kamaluddin can barely support his family with what he earns from the sea.
He often has to borrow money from friends to meet the daily needs of his wife and two children, the oldest of which is in elementary school.
Also struggling to survive is Ngateman, 38, a fisherman who lives in the same neighborhood with his wife and four children. The family has lived in a rented house in Nelayan Indah for seven years because they cannot afford to buy their own home.
Ngateman earns between Rp 15,000 and Rp 20,000 a day, which is far from enough to support his family. Three of his children are in elementary school. Often, he doesn't make enough to buy fuel and rent a fishing boat.
Ngateman explained that he had to pay Rp 10,000 a day to rent a boat, plus Rp 8,500 for the fuel. In Nelayan Indah, diesel fuel costs Rp 1,400 per liter.
Fishermen head out on their boats every day at about 2 a.m., when the sea is calm and the fish active. They usually return home at 10 a.m.
"Besides, we are not worried about drowning when the sea is calm," Kamaluddin said.
The dwindling catches by these fishermen has been blamed on sophisticated trawlers, which have been formally banned in areas reserved for small-scale fishermen but continue to operate in these areas regardless.
"Now, low tide and high tide does not make a difference. Fish are scarce," Kamaluddin said.
All of the fishermen here hope that the government will get serious about banning the trawlers.
But it is not only the trawlers that they must contend with, but also the deteriorating security in the eastern Sumatra seas. Dreaded pirates operate freely on the seas, robbing and killing fishermen that become their prey. Over the past year alone, 24 fishermen from Greater Medan reportedly have been killed by pirates.
So afraid of these criminals are the fishermen that they often do not go out in their boats.
Security officials have identified the areas of Tapakkuda and Kuala Serapuh along the North Sumatra-Aceh border as the most active piracy areas. A number of pirates have been caught in these areas.
"They (those arrested) are members of the Free Aceh Movement," a security officer said.
The acute poverty has not only left fishermen unable to live a decent life, but also unable to make the payments on their homes.
Nelayan Indah neighborhood chief Syahdanur Hasibuan said many residents were forced to sell their houses before they had paid them off.
He said there were only a few fishermen still living in the housing complex, with most of the houses now occupied by civil servants and businesspeople who had purchased the properties from the fishermen.
Built in 1993 on 420 hectares of land on the initiative of then Medan mayor Bachtiar Djafar, in cooperation with the State University of Sumatra Utara, Nelayan Indah was originally intended to house the fishermen of Belawan and Labuhan. Later, the village also accommodated fishermen from Deli Serdang, Tanjungbalai and Labuhanbatu.
"Today only 25 percent of the 6,066 people living in the village are fishermen," Syahdanur said.
When the village was built in 1993, the fishermen had to pay Rp 100,000 to Rp 300,000 as a down payment depending on the size of the house they bought. House payments were set at Rp 1,000 to Rp 1,500 a day for a period of 15 years.
In the first two years after the village was built, most fishermen could pay the installments, but in the third year a number of the poorer fishermen began to sell their houses at low prices.
A house on an eight-by-19 meter plot of land was sold for Rp 2 million. Some fishermen even sold their houses for Rp 300,000 without official consent.
The new owners must continue to pay the house installments.
The houses in the village were built on stilts some 1.5 meters above ground to avoid flooding. Now, many of the houses have been renovated and rebuilt with brick and other materials.
The original idea and design of this village of fisherfolk, once the pride of Medan, has now become nothing but a memory.