Over 12,000 refugees from Sampit enter Surabaya

SURABAYA (JP): An additional 12,000 Madurese migrants escaping possible execution in Sampit and Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan by ships, flooded the Tanjung Perak seaport on Friday.

A total of 5,979 refugees were carried by the ship Binaiya which arrived at 8:45 a.m., while 5,779 other refugees were on the Bukit Raya, and another 500 were carried by Kirana II.

The port medical team said that most of the refugees, who had very limited belongings, were in a poor condition.

With Friday's flood of refugees, Surabaya is now accommodating more than 27,000 Madurese refugees escaping the genocide perpetrated by the Dayak community.

Unofficial records indicate no less than 50,000 Madurese have fled their homes (in Sampit and Palangkaraya), some living in squalid conditions at refuge shelters while others managed to reach other towns in Kalimantan, Central or East Java.

As of Friday, more than 24,000 refugees had fled the troubled areas by KRI Teluk Bone and KRI Teluk Saleh. Some 3,000 refugees were waiting to be shipped to Java.

East Java deputy governor for people's welfare Imam Supardi had earlier said that the Madurese migrants' exodus sponsored by the Central Kalimantan administration was unreasonable.

Imam referred to a letter dated Feb. 23, 2001, signed by Central Kalimantan deputy governor Nahsea Taway saying that the Central Kalimantan administration planned to have all Madurese migrants in the province evacuated to East Java.

Imam said he was of the opinion that the plan to evacuate all Madurese migrants from the province was a part of efforts to expel the Madurese people, and to move the problem to East Java.

He said the East Java administration would help the refugees with 400 grams of rice and Rp 1,500 for each person per day.

Antara reported that the Navy war ship Teluk Ende had arrived at the port in the evening.

Meanwhile, Central Kalimantan Governor Asmawi Agani asserted on Friday that all the provinces in the country "are open to every Indonesian citizen and that the evacuation of Madurese migrants from Central Kalimantan would only be temporary.

"The decision to evacuate them was based on a deal between community leaders here in a bid to prevent further bloodshed and casualties from both (Madurese and Dayaks) groups," Asmawi told The Jakarta Post by phone on Friday.

Community leaders here in Central Kalimantan along with the existing security forces are trying hard to restore order and harmony in the province, he added.

In Jakarta Minister of Home Affairs and Regional Autonomy Surjadi Soedirdja said that the government would try to assist the Sampit refugees to return to their homes.

"We assert that every citizen has the right to live anywhere in the country, and resettling them would only create a bad image for us in the eyes of the international community," Surjadi said on Friday after a meeting with Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri, who visited the riot-torn towns of Sampit and Palangkaraya on Thursday.

Minister of Defense Mahfud MD, who was accompanying President Abdurrahman Wahid on an overseas trip, said on Friday in Mecca that the President would visit Sampit on March 8.

Reports from Sampit said on Friday that the "total evacuation" included more than 60 Madurese inmates at the Sampit penitentiary. Head of the Sampit penitentiary A. Hidayat said he planned to move more the Madurese inmates to the Kalisosok penitentiary in Surabaya.

However, the first shipment of 15 Madurese inmates was canceled as the crew of KRI Teluk Bone prohibited the inmates from boarding the ship bound for Surabaya.

They were then transported back to the penitentiary which houses a total of 215 inmates.

Despite the fact that Sampit and Palangkaraya had returned to normal, fourteen corpses were found in Sampit on Friday. They were all buried at a plot in Jl. Raya Pangkalan Bun, 13.8 kilometers west of Sampit on Friday.

Meanwhile in Samuda, Mentaya Hilir Selatan subdistrict, some 40 kilometers south of Sampit, 22 headless bodies were found in a waterway in Perebok village. They were not yet evacuated due to lack of equipment, a member of the subdistrict community's communication forum, Khairil Anwar, said. (team)