Provinces told to create buffer stocks of rice

JAKARTA (JP): The government has decided to set up emergency stocks of rice across the archipelago to help deal with a likely food shortage caused by the drought.

The move follows the recent deaths of 251 villagers of cholera and starvation in Irian Jaya's drought-stricken regency of Jayawijaya.

Minister of Social Services Endang Kusuma Inten Suweno said here yesterday that the government has called on each province to have between 100 and 150 tons of rice available to deal with the crisis.

"The government has been quick and responsive on this matter," Inten said after attending a ministerial meeting on people's welfare.

Inten said the government has managed to send food relief and medical assistance to more than 5,000 villagers in the worst- affected subdistricts of Kurima, Ninia, Mapanduma, Tiong, Anggruk and Merauke.

He said the task of getting relief supplies to the villages has been made difficult by their remoteness in mountainous areas. Also, poor weather and thick haze caused by forest fires in the province has hindered relief aircraft.

Reports from Jayawijaya regency confirmed yesterday that supplies were getting through.

In the capital of Wamena, Regent J.B. Wenas said the supplies included a consignment from the social services ministry of 10 tons of rice, 250 boxes of mineral water, a ton of salt and 300 boxes of instant noodles, Antara reported.

The consignment also included 500 kilograms of salted fish, 100 boxes of canned milk, 500 kilograms of green beans, two tons of sugar, two tons of cassava, and medicine and cooking utensils.

The regency said it had also received supplies from Irian Jaya Military Command, including two tons of rice, a ton of salt, 500 kilograms of instant noodles, 500 kilograms of salted fish, and mineral water and medicine, the agency reported.

Church missionary planes and military helicopters were being used to transport the food and medicine to the worst-affected areas, despite the haze hanging over Baliem Valley, with its dried-up rivers and failed crops.

Jayawijaya regency has a population of around 50,000.

According to the secretary of Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Azwar Anas, Suyono Yahya, the plight of the villagers has been made worse by "the loss of livestock and the snow".

Suyono said that so far there has not been any other report on famine. He denied that the government received a report from the East Kalimantan governor about famine in the province's Kutai regency.

Antara reported early this month that villagers were starving in Long Pahangai district -- situated 300 kilometers west of Tenggarong, the capital of Kutai -- after crop failure because of this year's extended dry season.

Climatologists have warned that this year's prolonged dry season and related drought nationwide could continue until late this year.

The cause of the drought, which is affecting other parts of Asia, has been blamed on the freak weather phenomenon of El Nio, which has been building up in the southern Pacific Ocean since April.

El Nio is an abnormal state of the ocean water and atmosphere in the tropical Pacific which triggers exceptionally warm and long-lived ocean currents, disrupting global rainfall and wind patterns and causes droughts or floods in many regions.

State Logistics Agency chief Beddu Amang reported in April that national rice stocks were at 2.4 million tons. Indonesia was the world's biggest rice importer before it reached self- sufficiency in 1984. But since 1994 it has had to rely partly on imports when droughts and plant diseases have affected harvests. (aan)