Sampit refugees in Madura, a ticking time bomb

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.