Observers: Economic motives behind riots

JAKARTA (JP): Observers agreed on Monday that unrest and hatred of Chinese-Indonesians was rooted in economic gaps rather than racial and religious differences.

The observers also told a seminar on assimilation that violations in business ethics by some Chinese-Indonesians, and the privileges accorded them by Soeharto's New Order regime, were the dominant factors in social disputes between the community and indigenous Indonesians.

According to a National Institute of Sciences' senior researcher, Thee Kian Wie, "It's huge economic gaps, not religious, ethnic and cultural differences, that have been behind the disputes."

"Although there are very wealthy native Indonesians and very poor Chinese-Indonesians, the latter community is, in general, living in better conditions than the first," he said.

The Indonesian Indigenous Businessmen Association's chairman, Suryo B. Sulistiyo, said the gap existed because of nontechnical factors such as collusion, corruption and nepotistic practices in business.

"It's the domination of the Chinese-Indonesians in business that is the root of the disputes," Suryo said at the seminar, which was opened by the Ministry of Defense secretary-general Lt. Gen. Soeyono. "No disputes would have occurred had there been equal distribution in economics."

A. B. Susanto, a Chinese-Indonesian consultant on human resources development, agreed that violations of business ethics by a few Chinese-Indonesian entrepreneurs were behind the strained relation between the two communities.

Politician Ridwan Saidi said the Chinese-Indonesians' "black" political record added to the hatred among the indigenous people.

"The activities of some Chinese-Indonesians affiliated with the (now-banned) Indonesian Communist Party in the early 1960s had brought negative impacts on the whole Chinese-Indonesian community, which are still felt now," said Ridwan, who now chairs the New Masjumi Party.

Junus Jahja, who chairs the Institute for Research on Assimilation, suggested that Chinese-Indonesians improve their relations with their native brethren.

"It will be wonderful if every Chinese-Indonesian can have at least 10 close indigenous Indonesian friends," he told seminar participants.

Junus, however, said people should not dismiss the success of years of effort to assimilate six million Chinese-Indonesians.

"If compared with Chinese-Malaysians, almost all of the Chinese-Indonesians can speak and write Bahasa Indonesia," he said.

"Only a small number of young Chinese-Indonesians now still have strong orientation for their homeland China, while most are Indonesia-oriented," he said. (imn)