Borneo’s Ethnic Conflict - Kalimantan
Borneo’s Ethnic Conflict - Kalimantan
Story & photographs by Andy Rain
Making sense of the chaos that has swept across Borneo’s West Kalimantan province during February and March is far<span lang="en-GB"> from easy by following the news reports that run in the daily newspapers or hit our TV screens. Stories of marauding Dayaks expelling whole Madurese communities, taking off their heads with machetes and torching homes was a pretty gruesome way to tell your neighbour that your not welcome here. </span>
But was this ethnic cleansing as we have come to know from the horror we have seen in the Balkans? Many Western TV networks including the BBC uttered the rash and convenient rhetoric that ‘this is ethnic cleansing at its worst’. But was it? What is behind the madness that we have seen?
The view from my car window as I drive toward the town of Sampit offers depleted forest, blackened tree stumps and savannah. The burnt out remains of ethnic Madurese homes flash past intermittently. My Dayak driver Taukaf, 42, and his young colleague Syamsul, 22, laugh and throw one another jokes at the site of the destruction. I know they are partisan to their own people but I can’t help but feel that they are lacking in a little human compassion. Lives and businesses built over decades have gone up in smoke in a moment.
The riotous killing that has swept across West Kalimantan since mid February has seen over some 500 people loose their lives, mostly ethnic Madurese the killing and house burning continues unabated across a vast area and no one is quite sure where or how many bodies will be found next.
Sampit, seriously affected by the fighting is slowly recovering after being turned into a ghost town The whole Madurese community has been driven out or fled in fear, their homes burnt to the ground. Businesses and shops are closed; all the hotels are trashed or have been torched, as they were Madurese owned. I find the only place still open, The Wella Hotel Homestay.
It’s a palace in size and luxury. Enormous traditional vases adorn the front steps, pillars and marble floor cover the entire lobby, along with Javan and Chinese artefacts. The owner is Javan, this explains why it’s still standing. My room has everything I need, double bed, TV, bathroom, water cooler, the marble is cool under foot. Outside my window though, the world is a darker place. Some 20,000 displaced Madurese are waiting under plastic sheeting in the rain, amongst the garbage and mud for a ship they must board to Java or to the island of Madura. Some of them have lost fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. Their heads chopped off by Dayaks. Some have lost everything. All have lost their homes and livelihood.
Rina Adam, 45, now lives in the camp with her husband, 4 sons and 2 daughters and will any day be forced onto a boat to Madura. “I want to go to Madura”, she says quietly, “but I have nothing there, it’s pointless, I just don’t know what to do. We stayed in the forest for a week for fear of our lives, we survived on bananas and coconuts, and when we returned our home was burnt down, and nothing left. We lived there for ten years”.
Such stories are pretty consistent throughout the camp. “We ran when the Dayaks came,” Edris Fadlilah, 42 a farmer from Sampit explains. “There were many of them, they burned our home but my father was trapped inside, he couldn’t get out. We have nothing left, I don’t know what to do. We will have to go to Java or Madura, but we will return once our security is guaranteed. I only hope that we can live in harmony with the Dayaks again, we must. The local and federal governments must find a solution”.
Mahruji Saliman, a young Madurese from Pina Hulu, himself now displaced explains why this has all happened. “It is because of the gambling and drinking between Madurese and Dayaks. This has caused many problems between the two communities”.
“The Madurese have tried to present this as a religious conflict,” explains Iskandria Rinow, 32, a Dayak teacher of English from Kuala Kuayan. “But you can see that not one mosque has been burnt down, Local and foreign media has said that this is ethnic cleansing, but it is not. Just prior to the riots Madurese took control of Sampit for 3 days, they set up checkpoints and burnt the Dayak owned Rama hotel. Then the situation exploded, Dayaks attacked. The Madurese have never really adapted to our way”.
Madurese a hard working diligent people from the island of Madura, off the north coast east Java, began migrating to Kalimantan in the 1920’s and have played a big role in the economy of the region ever since. “They want to colonise us with their culture and economy’, says Iskandria, “ they don’t consider us Dayaks”.
Dayaks have long felt marginalized by the Madurese, in the workplace and by the destruction of forest land. Many Madurese continue to log illegally. But the Dayak rampage has been brought on by an accumulation of factors. It is customary for Madurese to carry their sickle with them in the streets and to walk in gangs. “They say they need this for protection”, says Iskandria. “but this only provokes anger in the Dayak community”
Crime in the region has risen along with the rising numbers of Madurese, 70% of motorbikes in nearby Kumai have no number plates, most have been stolen by Madurese confirms the police HQ in Samuda, 40 south of Sampit. Scores of hand made bombs (molatov cocktails) have also been found in Madurese homes since they fled the fighting, indicating that they were planning an assault on the Dayak comminity.
“The local media have said that this conflict has been caused by the economy, but it has not”, says Arib Afendi, 49, a Dayak elementary school teacher from Kota Nasi. “Dayaks are not jealous of Madurese, there is no economic or social gap between us. The Madurese have a culture of violence, they like to gamble and they steal our cocks. Their behaviour is very bad. For example when we buy beef from them they will mix old meat with the fresh. We Dayaks are not easily provoked”.
In the village of Kota Basi, 16km’s north of Sampit, young Dayaks are setting up checkpoints on the road. Armed with spears and long knives, they check passing vehicles for ethnic Madurese. “ We will be prepared if they attack us”, says Tony Usup, 20, a young businessman who carries a spear.
“We will not kill them if they return peacefully, Tony tells me, but when I ask him what they will do if they find any Madurese he says, “ we send them back, we will reject them”. Hundreds of checkpoints have gone up across the province and are and taking tolls from every vehicle that passes.
Close to 50,000 Madurese have fled the region since the fighting began and although Presidaent Wahid has stated they will be able to return within a year, given the tense atmosphere across the province this is highly unlikely and most likely extremely dangerous. Rumours travel across the region at lightning speed that the Madurese are planning to return and take revenge. No one seems quite sure about the immediate future. Shops that are open close early in Sampit for fear that they will be attacked by Madurese.
In ethnic conflicts across the world today it is only too easy to see the black and white of the problems. The grey areas are always the most difficult to understand but they share a little of the truth. The images of mass suffering of Madurese displaced people shifted the blame of violence to the Dayaks and “ ethnic cleansing” was uttered in more than a few circles.
But the truth most likely lies in the decades of Madurese arrogance and general shiftiness. The Madurese are not liked by most Indonesians for their aggressive ways. Fear and the burning of the Rama Hotel ignited years of frustration. And so the Dayaks traditional hunters and gatherers, whose ancestors would chop off the heads of their enemies and devour their hearts, did what they had to in the only way they know how. Nobody can condone the brutal killings that took place and there were surely many good innocent Madurese killed or made homeless, but as one digs deeper into this conflict, certain truths are materializing. The Madurese had it coming and this conflict is only just beginning.
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