SBKRI: Segregation in practice

SBKRI: Segregation in practice

Frans H. Winarta, Council Member Human Rights Institute
International Bar Association (IBA), Jakarta

The document of citizenship affecting Chinese-Indonesians, the
SBKRI, has been a nagging problem for the country, in addition to
the 60 other regulations and decrees that discriminate against
ethnic Chinese, who account for up to 3 percent of the total
population.

Segregation started in colonial times, and the SBKRI is
nothing but a continuation of this policy of segregation. After
the abortive coup d'etat in 1965, the New Order government and
the Army developed the paradigm that Chinese-Indonesians were
prone to sympathize with communists and that the People's
Republic of China supported the coup attempt.

The minister of justice introduced the SBKRI in a 1978 decree,
which stipulated that every citizen, particularly those of
foreign descent, must apply for a SBKRI at the ministry.

In practice the decree was interpreted as only applying to
Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent, and thus became a form of
apartheid or state-sponsored racial discrimination, which is
expressed in laws and customs similar to those in the South
Africa of the apartheid era.

The requirement of the SBKRI was reiterated in a 1980 joint
decree issued by the minister of justice and the minister of
internal affairs, with the provision that an SBKRI may be granted
to an adult of foreign descent who wishes to become an Indonesian
citizen. Later on, the SBKRI became legal evidence of citizenship
for Chinese-Indonesians.

Although the President has revoked the decrees, the
certificate is still required by schools, universities and
various government offices, from the immigration office and
subdistrict offices to the civil registration office and the land
agency.

Obtaining an SBKRI has become the source of corruption
amounting to billions of rupiah per annum. Kompas daily reported
last year that the cost of obtaining an SBKRI ranged from Rp 2
million to Rp 7.5 million.

Not every Chinese-Indonesian can afford such sums. As a result
quite a percentage of them are stateless, some are illegally
married with children officially born out of wedlock, some cannot
enter state and private universities -- and the worst is that
they are helpless to fight back as they are politically weak due
to the expulsion of Chinese-Indonesians from politics more than
three decades ago.

It will take political will from the government to put an end
to these racist and discriminative policies, which run counter to
the principle of equality in the law and human rights.

The current policies could amount to cultural genocide as
described by Geoffrey Robertson (Crimes Against Humanity), who
includes in his definition of the term the prohibition of the use
of a group's language, "rewriting or obliterating its history or
destroying its icons".

According to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide, genocide is defined as the intention to
destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or
religious group.

By eliminating discriminative laws and policies, the
government of Megawati would be able to improve the country's
human rights record. Discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians
has been an international and national concern for decades, and
was critically watched and observed by international human rights
organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch
and the International Commission of Jurists. Among the local
campaigners to end the discrimination are the Indonesian Legal
Aid Foundation, Solidaritas Nusa dan Bangsa and Gandi.

Hopefully, by working together we can put an end to the
discrimination suffered by Chinese-Indonesians.