Thousands flock to Passer Baroe Festival

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Thousands of visitors took part in the Passer Baroe Festival, which was held on Saturday over the Ciliwung River.

The festival, part of celebrations for the capital's 478th anniversary on June 22, was named after the adjacent Pasar Baru shopping complex, the first ever 'elite' shopping center in the capital.

Officiating the event, Governor Sutiyoso highlighted the urgent need for public participation to ensure the situation in the shopping complex was conducive for business activities, including eliminating insecurity owing to the presence of street thugs.

"The public, especially visitors, traders and residents around the Pasar Baru complex must get actively involved in efforts to quell thuggery here," Sutiyoso said, pledging that his administration would be in the frontline in the battle against thuggery.

The administration has been trying to promote the complex as a tourist shopping destination in the city since 1999.

Similarly, vice chairman of the Association of Pasar Baru Traders, Rup Gurbani, urged the administration to pay greater attention to building public facilities around the complex, like parking spaces and a lot for street vendors, besides addressing security concerns.

"We need the administration's help to make the complex more accessible for visitors," Gurbani said.

Currently, he said, there are at least 128 traders running their business in the complex.

Some shops, which were decorated in eye-catching and colorful Betawi (native Jakarta) ornamentation, offered discounts up to 90 percent during the one-day festival to lure visitors to shop.

Some attractions enlivening the festival included boat races on the Ciliwung River, parades of decorated carts, music performances and some traditional games over the river.

The festival ran smoothly and peacefully despite two anonymous bomb threats sent to the organizer via phone.

The threats, however, were hoaxes with no explosives being found by the bomb squad after hours of combing the area.

Around 400 public order officers from the Central Jakarta Municipality took part to ensure security during festival and to help direct traffic.

Traffic on Jl. Sutomo was rerouted and a giant stage was erected.

"The festival is like a big night market with thousands of visitors coming," said Folman, 30, a resident of Cempaka Putih, Central Jakarta, who came specially to see the fireworks, which were the climax of Saturday's celebration.

The fireworks were set alight by Sutiyoso at 7:30 p.m. and the festival ended at 10 p.m.