Sampit refugees in Madura, a ticking time bomb

By Santi W.E. Soekanto

SAMPANG, East Java (JP): Locals of Bunten Barat village in Ketapang district, Madura Island, are struggling to suppress the growing strain of accommodating thousands of fellow Madurese from conflict-torn Central Kalimantan.

The population of Bunten Barat was 4,200 but that was before February, when the recent resurgence of ethnic conflict between Dayaks and the Madurese reached its peak in the town of Sampit, Central Kalimantan, killing approximately 5000 Madurese and forcing over 100,000 others to abandon land and property to seek refuge in East Java. The number has swollen to 10,200 -- meaning, there are now more Sampit refugees than locals in the village.

Most of the refugees came in hordes to Sampang and, of course, with little more than the clothes they were wearing. The responsibility of feeding and housing them has fallen on the local villagers because neither the provincial nor national government have provided meaningful assistance to these refugees so far.

"It is indeed a heavy burden for the locals," according to Kyai Haji Faishol Basuni, leader of the Darussalam Pesantren (Islamic boarding school), citing how during their two months in local shelters, the refugees have so far only received Rp 1,000 per person. "That's the assistance given by (State Minister of Women's Empowerment) Ibu Khofifah Indar Parawansa."

"Imagine, a local family of five are now having to accommodate and feed as many as 20 refugees. In fact, there is one household I know of that now accommodates 56 refugees," he said. "The refugees desperately need help and the government should be the one providing the assistance."

The village has so far done its best to welcome the refugees, many of whom are people of Madurese descent born and raised in Central Kalimantan. Local villagers took them into their modest homes, placed them in any vacant space, shared their food and helped send refugee children to local schools.

"We have been making do with whatever is available. There's no tension whatsoever (between locals and refugees), because they're our own brothers," said Basuni, one of the two most respected Muslim clerics in the village.

Individual villagers, however, spoke differently. Syafiuddin, a local youth, sighed when describing how the harvest of a field of cassava--which took three months to cultivate--was eaten up by a local family and their refugee guests within three days.

"Three months of working, all gone in three days," he laughed ruefully. Did anyone resent the refugees for invading their living space? Syafiuddin shrugged, saying, "They have suffered so much and now they need help. What can I say?"

Another youth, Abdurrohman, confessed at being torn over feeling sorry for the refugees but concerned about the emerging myriad of social problems. "We now have frequent thefts in the village, and we never had this problem before. Some locals have had their bicycles and electronic goods, such as radios, stolen. We now have pickpockets operating in our small traditional market," he said.

Abdurrohman said it was a good thing the refugees came in the rainy season and the land was still green with cassava plants. As soon as the dry season arrives, they will have to deal with even greater problems. The only source of clean water in the villages were several wells which usually dry up mid-morning, so most people have to use the river for bathing, cooking and washing.

"We only have one mantri (a paramedic) in our puskesmas (village health clinic), there's no doctor so you can imagine the difficulty facing us when many people fall ill at the same time," Abdurrohman said.

The 23-year-old man described how in his village, some 120 kilometers east of Surabaya, people still frown at unmarried women and men who display intimacy by walking together. "The refugees are Madurese but they don't act like we do, having lived elsewhere for so long. They have their own code of conduct -- girls wear tight T-shirts and huddle together with men."

The locals had usually allotted different locations or times for men and women to bathe separately in the river. "The refugees however bathe together, men and women, without bothering to cover themselves up," Abdurrohman said.

The loss of privacy is another big issue in the region which has arisen from the influx of migrants. The traditional dwelling of Madurese villagers consist of a wooden house in the form of one large room with no partitions, a surau (a small prayer house on stilts), a kitchen and a cattle pen.

Madurese village women spend their time in the house, the kitchen and the marketplace where they are shrewd traders. The men usually farm and spend more time reading the Koran in the surau, as do the children in the afternoon and the evening. Somehow, married couples have always managed to find the time and space to be together.

Now, each house has to accommodate dozens of refugees and men and women mix together freely, sitting around doing nothing for hours on end. Understanding the need for married couples to have some privacy of their own, Habib, a local leader in Sampang, went from one surau to another to give the refugees straw mats (tikar).

"Here is a tikar for you. Whenever one of you feels the urge, take your wife to the woods and use it as your bed," Habib said. What about snakes? "Well, it is at your own risk," Habib retorted.

Basuni acknowledged that their uncertain future is among the most depressing problems for the refugees. "Some of the refugees who can farm have gone to find work at local farms, but most of the refugees are people who formerly worked and earned money as traders when they were in Sampit. What are they going to do here?" Basuni said.

"I imagine that a lot of problems will arise from the close proximity of male and female refugees," Abdurrohman said.

According to non-governmental organizations such as Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MERC), there are approximately 108,000 Madurese refugees from Sampit currently sheltering in various towns in East Java.

Sampang, however, has received the most refugees--it now houses 60,000 refugees. Some have found work as assistants, farm hands, becak (pedicab) drivers, but many more are still without employment.

Unlike in Ternate, North Maluku, or even Pontianak in West Kalimantan, where refugees areas are contained in makeshift barracks that separate them from the locals, the refugees in Madura have mostly been absorbed into local homes. There is no miserable picture of refugees huddling together in overcrowded buildings here, but one needs only to talk to a passerby to find out that he is a refugee and is near desperation.

"It's so difficult to earn even a small amount of money here to feed my family. There are too many refugees here," said Halili, a Sampit-born Madurese who fled to Sampang with his young family and is now working as a becak driver. "I am just thankful that we are still alive--and the locals have accepted us even though I was not born here and have never been here before."

Wahab Abdi, an ustadz (teacher) at the Darussalam boarding school or pesantren, recounted how a man -- despairing over the loss of his wife and children during a Dayak attack, and the continued uncertainty of being a refugee--had slashed his own throat, killing himself. "Several weeks before that, we had a man who hanged himself. He, too, had lost his wife and children."

The welcome of the local Madurese has for the past two months been helping to alleviate the social ills looming over the community. But it could wear off at any time, according to Ahmad Rozi, an activist of the Jakarta-based Center for Human Rights Advocacy (PAHAM).

"In some places, some villagers have begun to evict refugees," he said. "There's jealousy. The local people are not much better off though it is the refugees who receive aid."

Ahmad believed that unless some decisive measures were launched Madura would soon turn into a hotbed of social tensions. Theft is one thing, but potential sexual harassment in crowded shelters is another matter altogether. "That is what we are afraid of," said Ahmad.

Another point that Ahmad made was one regarding irregularities in the extension of aid for refugees, from both the government and non-governmental organizations. In the Kedungdung district, for example, a total of 3.5 tons of rice "went missing" unexplained. Each of the refugees was rationed 10 kilograms of rice, but it was later discovered that only 2 kilos of rice was given to each family of refugees regardless of the household size.

During the initial few weeks, the refugees received rice aid every three days; at the time of writing however the frequency of aid has been reduced to once-a-week.

"Even now some refugees have begun to speak up about their condition," Ahmad said. "Some refugees from Sampang recently went to the local government to demand that President Abdurrahman Wahid keep his promise to safeguard their property in Sampit, and to protest at the slow arrival of aid."

"If we allow such a situation to occur over a long period of time, I dread to think what could happen," Ahmad said.

An explosion of rage, similar to the way it exploded in Central Kalimantan perhaps?

The writer is a journalist with The Jakarta Post.