Migration Fuels Indonesia's Fires, Fears
12/19/99
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Title: Migration fuels Indonesia's fires, fears
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 19, 1999
Byline: Chris McCall
JAKARTA, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Indonesia plans to resettle hundreds of
thousands of refugees scattered across the archipelago through a much
criticised internal migration scheme which risks stirring up more
unrest.
The country's controversial ``transmigration'' programme, which
involved the relocation of thousands from crowded regions to remote
areas, came apart in tears earlier this year. Hundreds of migrants
were killed in communal and religious violence and far more forced to
leave the areas they had settled in.
The new reformist government accepts the old scheme had many
failures. But it also sees relocation as one of its few options for
dealing with growing overcrowding in the world's fourth most populous
country, and perhaps the only way to relocate the thousands of
refugees in camps across the archipelago.
The government has ordered a major overhaul of the migration
programme. Though details are still being discussed, the revamp will
include setting up a new goverment body to do much of the work and
slimming down the existing ministry.
The Transmigration Ministry says more than 400,000 people are
awaiting resettlement, many in squalid camps.
Jakarta must be wary of repeating the mistakes of the past, said
Harold Crouch, a senior fellow with the Research School of Pacific
and Asian Studies at the Australian national University.
Above all, newcomers had to be acceptable to people already in the
area, he said.
``It is very hard to find places where they can get land,'' he told
Reuters. ``There is no easy solution but they cannot leave them in
refugee camps forever.''
A DUTCH IDEA
'Transmigration' was first proposed by Dutch colonialists, but
Indonesia's mainly Javanese political elite later adopted it, citing
it as a way to develop outlying islands and ease pressure on
overcrowded islands such as Java. It has been slammed as neo-
colonialism and cited as a factor in the destruction of Indonesia's
rainforests.
Of the country's 200 million people, about 120 million people live on
Java.
Rights activists say the scheme has been used to subdue dissent,
bringing Javanese settlers and their culture into areas where they do
not belong. Others see a hidden attempt to foster the spread of
Java's main religion, Islam.
The first place Indonesia sent migrants was Lampung province, in
southern Sumatra. Its indigenous people have now been swamped by
settlers and their children, a trend other areas fear.
``They want to bring lots of Javanese women in, so the colour of our
skin will gradually disappear,'' said a pro-independence activist in
Irian Jaya, whose dark-skinned people are racially distinct from
those of Java.
A PATTERN OF ATTACKS
Scores of transmigrants from Madura island, off East Java, were
killed by indigenous Malays and Dayaks in Borneo's Sambas region in
March. Many were beheaded.
Most survivors have now been moved.
In Sumatra's violence-racked Aceh province, Javanese migrants are
seen as allies of the hated military, dominated by Javanese. Many
have been murdered and more have run away, leaving the plantations
they once tended without labour.
Saifuddin Bantasyam, head of Care Human Rights Forum in Aceh, says
they were used as political pawns. Many were deliberately moved into
areas where armed separatists have strong support, making them
potential targets for attacks.
``The transmigrants are put in enclaves. They stay in these
locations, not in old Acehnese villages,'' said Bantasyam, a law
lecturer at Syiah Kuala university in the capital Banda Aceh.
There is little mixing between Javanese and Acehnese, he said.
Generally they do not even speak each other's languages.
Similar stories of misery have come from the Moluccas, Timor and
Irian Jaya, where thousands of migrants are nervously considering
whether to stay amid loud calls for independence.
SAFETY VALVE OR
PRESSURE COOKER?
Farming has been cited as an important ``safety valve'' during
Indonesia's financial crisis -- providing work for people who would
have had none. But researchers say transmigration policy needs
changes if land is to be opened up in this way.
``These people are brought into areas that are not well served, and
cut down the forest whether the soil is fertile or not,'' said
Augustinus Rumansara, head of the World Wide Fund for Nature in
eastern Irian Jaya province.
``In terms of improving the quality of human resources, this is not
the case. In terms of improving agricultural production, this is not
the case.''
In the past only people from Java, Bali and Madura could apply. Many
refugees now on waiting lists come from Timor and elsewhere. Irian
Jaya's indigenous people may now apply for relocation within the
province.
Some Christian migrants say they were forced to convert to Islam to
apply, changing back later. Settlements ignoring local land rights
stirred up anger, made worse when migrants sold the land given to
them and returned to Java to apply again.
For others, unfulfilled promises have left many migrants stranded
with no way home. ``If they go back they have to give the money
back,'' said one researcher.