The Madura migrants' fate: A lose-lose affair
The Madura migrants' fate: A lose-lose affair
SINGAPORE: Heads you lose, tails you also lose. Cruel though
this characterization of the Madura migrants' fate in Kalimantan
is, it is just one more hellish postscript to the unfolding
tragedy of post-Soeharto Indonesia.
Whichever way a toss could divine the future for them, the
Madurese who have settled in that part of Kalimantan island since
before Indonesian independence are plainly out of luck.
Their systematic hunting-down the past week by the indigenous
Dayaks, many for beheading, is not even a sudden eruption. There
was an attempt made by the Dayaks in 1997 to drive out the
settlers, whom they see as interlopers.
After President Soeharto's ouster in 1999, more bloodletting
ensued. Some 1,000 Madurese were killed in those two incidents
alone; victims of every perceived sin from encroaching on
ancestral Dayak land, to being too successful in making something
of their new lives.
In the present wave of killings, anything from 250 to 400
persons are believed dead, and the living have been fleeing back
to the safety of Java and Madura -- if they could. The Madurese
would not be alone in hankering after the relatively boring quiet
of the Indonesia under Soeharto.
There are two elements to this sickening display of atavistism
which would dismay even those whose faith in Indonesia is fast
diminishing. The reluctance of the military to intervene so far
has been a monstrous callousness.
The army should be disarming the roaming gangs, or shoring up
the local civilian administration by enforcing a province-wide
curfew. Ceding ground to lawless gangs only seeds future
upheavals.
Navy ships have been evacuating frightened Madurese, but this
must come at a cost to the state resettlement policy of
transmigration. Despite some negative features, the population
dispersal is right in concept.
In the face of this worsening crisis, President Abdurrahman
Wahid has been traveling North Africa, and warning blithely about
his country disintegrating if his foes would not stop all that
talk about impeaching him for alleged corruption.
Perhaps, Abdurrahman feels, the troubles in Kalimantan, Aceh,
Ambon and West Papua are uncappable oil-well fires, best left to
burn themselves out. These fires do not consume themselves -- as
the intrepid Red Adair would attest to. This is the second, more
serious act of inattentiveness to a grave emergency.
The Kalimantan killings will open up new questions about the
efficacy of transmigration. This movement that began in earnest
in president Sukarno's time has an economic rationale. Settlers
from the densely-populated islands of Java, Bali, Lombok -- and
Madura -- were offered incentives to start new growth centers in
empty outer provinces in Sulawesi, West Papua, Sumatra and
Kalimantan.
But under former transmigration minister Hendropriyono, the
dispersal became also a security tool in fostering mixing among
different ethnicities and religions to strengthen national bonds.
The persistent friction between the Dayaks and Madurese does
not invalidate the policy, but emphasizes the need for cultural
conditioning to go hand in hand with the land-settlement schemes.
The Kalimantan communal breakdown is not unique; Ambon, West
Timor and Aceh have been parallel battlegrounds between the
indigenous people and the more assertive Javanese "guests".
But, through it all, a dose of strong political leadership
backed up by a supportive military is a precondition for making
policies work. It almost always gets down to first principles.
-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network