Chapter Title: Epilogue: Repeated Violence and Uncertain Outcome

Book Title: Golddiggers, Farmers, and Traders in the "Chinese Districts" of West
Kalimantan, Indonesia
Book Author(s): Mary Somers Heidhues
Published by: Cornell University Press; Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell
University

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv1nhn2g.14

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 EPILOGUE

REPEATED VIOLENCE AND UNCERTAIN

OUTCOME

In 1997, West Kalimantan was again rocked by large-scale terror as Dayak

bands attacked Madurese and drove them from their homes, killing many. The
center of the violence was not in the interior, but in the same areas from which
Chinese had been expelled in 1967, and names like Sanggauledo, Anjungan, and
Mandor again were key locations. Several of the same motifs that had appeared in
1967 reappeared, although in this case—unlike in 1967, when the role of the
military was obvious—it is not clear who touched off the violence. Nevertheless,
the two outbreaks are linked, if not by the victims, then by the perpetrators and by
the location.
In early 1997, beginning in Sanggauledo in the district of Sambas, Dayaks began
to attack Madurese in force, as they had once attacked Chinese.1 The "trigger"
seems to have been a fight between Dayak and Madurese youths at an event in
December, probably about a perceived insult to a Dayak girl. The violence spread
to other areas, to all of Sambas and Pontianak districts, finally working its way
south toward the Kapuas, to Sanggau. The center of terror was in the very areas
where Chinese had been expelled thirty years previously. This area is low and
relatively fertile, a contrast to the hilly interior and the waterlogged coast and
riverbanks, and eminently desirable for rice cultivation, a fact that suggests the
violence was connected to the value of the land. If this interpretation is correct,
then in 1997 the Dayaks were reasserting their claim to this strategic area.
In major towns like Sanggau-Kapuas, and in Anjungan, the military were strong
enough to protect or evacuate the Madurese. In one settlement after another,
truckloads of young Dayaks wearing headbands arrived. Others set up roadblocks
and controlled all passing vehicles, picking out the Madurese. Helpless Madurese
refugees were encouraged to leave the province or kept in camps, separating them
from the Dayaks. Thousands of Madurese refugees sought help in Pontianak; some
could find housing with family members, but, a few years later, thousands still
1
For a collection of press reports about these events, see Instituí Studi Arus Informasi and
Institute Dayakology Research and Development, Sisi gelap Kalimantan Barat: Perseteruan etnis
Dayak-Madura 1997 (Jakarta: Midas Surya Grafindo, 1999). Unfortunately, officials censored
press reports or held back information. Informative is Human Rights Watch, "West Kalimantan:
Communal Violence in West Kalimantan/' report, in http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/
wkali/Brneo97d-01.htm (September 11, 2002). See also Mary Somers Heidhues, "Kalimantan
Barat 1967-1999: Violence on the Periphery/' in Violence in Indonesia, ed. Ingrid Wessel and
Georgia Wimhoefer (Hamburg: Abera, 2001), pp. 139-151, and Nancy Lee Peluso and Emily
Harwell, "Territory, Custom, and the Cultural Politics of Ethnic War in West Kalimantan,
Indonesia/' in Violent Environments, ed Nancy Lee Peluso and Michael Watts (Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press, 2001), pp. 83-116.

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274 Golddiggers, Farmers, and Traders

remained in makeshift quarters in a sport stadium and in other locations. Along the
road from Anjungan to Mandor, the hulks of burned-out houses were still visible in
2000.
Following the removal of the Chinese from rural areas in the Chinese Districts
in 1967, this area might have been tranformed into the "Dayak Districts" instead.
Why did this not happen earlier? These fertile lowlands were not especially
suited for swidden cultivation, the typical Dayak agricultural method; perhaps
for this reason, Chinese-Dayak competition for territory was, historically, not
great, as has been argued above. However, with more and more Dayaks practicing
wet rice cultivation, both because of official policies and because of pressures on
resources elsewhere, lowlands and saw ah lands may have become more attractive
to them.
If the Dayaks who participated in the 1967 Raids hoped that this territory,
centering on Anjungan, would fall into their hands after the Chinese fled, they
were to be disappointed. Although Dayaks moved into the area, Dayak hegemony
did not last long. The New Order actively encouraged migration of settlers from
crowded areas of Java, Madura, and Bali to less-populated spaces in the Outer
Islands. Some of this involved large-scale, officially designed projects to open
previously uninhabited (or presumably uninhabited) spaces; all government-
sponsored migration was officially called "transmigration." A second kind of
transmigration, called "wild" or "spontaneous," brought settlers to West
Kalimantan and other areas on their own. In theory, "spontaneous migrants" would
include all settlers who moved between islands over the centuries, not only those
who relocated from Java-Madura and Bali, but also the Bugis, whose activities
were so important along the coast of Kalimantan since the eighteenth and
nineteenth century. As it turned out, of all the migrants to West Kalimantan, only
the Madurese were to become a focus of resentment in 1997.
MADURESE
The Madurese have been a presence for many years in West Kalimantan, as
they even participated in the colonial campaign against Monterado in the 1850s.
Some migrated during the rubber boom of the 1920s as indentured laborers; some
eventually managed to claim small plots of land.
They are known for living frugally and managing their money carefully. In
more recent times, they have worked as boatmen, fishermen, factory workers, and
petty traders, as well as farmers. Pontianak's becaks are driven by Madurese; they
dominate the unskilled labor force in the construction industry, or did until the
conflict. In 1971 and 1980, more immigrants arrived in West Kalimantan from East
Java, the home province of the Madurese, than from any other Indonesian province,
although in the 1990s the numbers of arrivals and departures was roughly
balanced, so that transmigration apparently did not increase the numbers of
Madurese living in the region during those years.2 Of all the regions in Indonesia,
West Kalimantan received, in proportion to the size of its population,
comparatively large numbers of transmigrants, official and spontaneous. By the
late 1990s, Madurese were estimated to constitute between 2 and 3 percent of the
population.3
2
Basil Sensus Penduduk 1990, Cornell University Library, Wason Fiche 887 SEI 50359, p. 35.
3
Human Rights Watch, "West Kalimantan/' Section II.

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 Repeated Violence and Uncertain Outcome 275

Many Madurese moved outside the towns and settled on agricultural land, including
land in the former Chinese Districts that Dayaks had first taken over. On an
overland trip from Pontianak to Bengkayang following the interior route from
Mandor in 1993, the author observed many Madurese agricultural settlements,
sometimes juxtaposed with Dayak kampungs. While the Dayak kampung dwellers
raised pigs, the Madurese Muslim settlements were easily recognized by one or more
cows tethered in the yards, and by a generally neater appearance.
Given Kalimantan's limited resources and the downturn in the economy in the
1990s, not to mention the potential for conflict between the two cultures, it is
perhaps not surprising that tensions led to clashes on several occasions before 1996.
In that year, different informants asked about interethnic relations repeatedly
ticked off on their fingers some ten incidents from the past involving outbreaks of
violence between Dayaks and Madurese (not necessarily the same incidents,
probably, but the number ten was important). At the same time, they insisted t h a t
Chinese-Dayak relations were good. In fact, Chinese were not harmed in the
attacks of 1997, at least not intentionally.4
Tensions over different cultural practices, for example the presence of pigs and
dogs in Dayak kampungs, animals which Madurese viewed as unclean, or the fact
that Madurese men seemed to be quick to use a knife, were one source of trouble. In
addition, Madurese competed with Dayaks for jobs in low-skilled professions, as
well as in agriculture.
In 1999, Sambas Malays attacked Madurese there and above Ngabang, and,
although the violence this time was primarily between Malays and Madurese,
some Dayak-Madurese strife followed. Soon other local men, from other ethnic
groups, joined in attacking Madurese, driving them from the interior (in those
places where they had not been driven out aready, or where they had returned).
The participation of Muslim Malays and others (according to some accounts,
Chinese and Bugis were involved in the attacks in 1999) confirms that religious
difference was not behind the incidents. Although the conflict appeared to be
between an alliance of "indigenous and long-term population" against "newcomers/7
in fact the fury concentrated on the Madurese; other newcomers, such as the
Javanese and others, were not targets. Many Madurese fled back to their home
island or moved to the south, but thousands of refugee Madurese still live in
Pontianak in squalid, makeshift quarters, as noted above.
POLITICIZATION OF THE DAYAKS
Missionaries had, since the early twentieth century, proselytized among the
Dayak, in particular opening schools for them. In West Kalimantan, the
predominant group was the Roman Catholic Capuchin fathers, but in addition,
there were Catholic nuns, the Basel Protestant mission, and other Protestant
groups. Especially after World War II, mission activities expanded. The efforts of
the mission schools, which were welcomed by the Dayak, resulted in the creation
of a group of "intellectuals" who would become leaders of and spokesmen for the
community.
The Dayaks saw opportunities for bettering their situation not only in
education, but also in politics. Some had participated in the local councils set up by
4
Both the sources mentioned in footnote 1 and various interviewees in 2000 agreed that
Chinese and their property were not deliberately harmed in the violence.

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276 Golddiggers, Farmers, and Traders

the Dutch under their "federal" policy. Under independent Indonesia, they formed
an all-Dayak party, Partai Dayak, which absorbed nearly all their political
energies.5 The party was led by Oevang Oeray (a former student at the Catholic
minor seminary in Nyarumkop), who in December 1959 became governor of West
Kalimantan. As an ally of Sukarno, who had named him to the post, Oeray seemed
to be in a good position to represent Dayak interests, although he was not quite as
successful as another Dayak politician, Tjilik Riwut, of South Kalimantan, who
succeeded in getting an all-Dayak province, Central Kalimantan, recognized as a
political entity separate from South Kalimantan.
When in 1959 the political parties were "simplified" by Sukarno, the Dayak
party was dissolved (because it was limited to one ethnic group). After an internal
conflict and defections, with some former members joining the Catholic Party,
Oeray and others became members of Partindo, a nationalist party that claimed to
be close to Sukarno and his platform, and which was far to the left of the
mainstream PNI (Partai Nasional Indonesia, Indonesian Nationalist Party).
Partindo was sometimes accused of being a front for the PKI (Partai Komunis
Indonesia, Indonesian Communist Party), an accusation that became dangerous after
1965, when the government initiated its deadly hunt for all Communists and
Communist sympathizers. Governor Oeray and those officials who were Partindo
members were replaced in 1966, and Oeray's political career appeared to be in
jeopardy, a situation that threatened the interests of the Dayaks he represented.
If the conflict in Partai Dayak had been traumatic, because it split Dayak unity,
the abolition of Partindo and arrest of PKI sympathizers was even more so.6 Thus
perhaps it is not surprising that a number of Dayaks would be eager to demonstrate
their loyalty to the nation by ridding the area of Chinese, who, the military
repeatedly told them, were Communists and a threat to their security.
Both the Dayak Raids of 1967 and the Dayak uprising against the Japanese in
1945 (see chapter six) acquired a certain aura in literature written in the 1970s and
1980s. The anti-Japanese rebellion of the Dayaks is also prominently
commemorated at the memorial in Mandor. Before the Dayak terror began in 1967,
a Laskar Pangsuma (Fighting Force Pangsuma: Pangsuma was a leader of the action
against the Japanese) appeared.7 Military histories recall the 1967
"demonstrations," as they are euphemistically called, as a "spontaneous" response
to a Communist threat of the PKI, the guerrillas, and China itself. Subsequently,
Dayaks who took heads in the anti-guerrilla campaign were awarded medals;
local military officials claimed head-taking was "in accordance with the [Dayak]
5
Kompas, December 27, 1967. The party is also called Dayak Unity Party, Partai Persatuan
Dayak.
6
Feith, "Dayak Raids"; Tempo December 27, 1967; private archives. Some of this is confirmed
by Soedarto, Sejarah Daerah Kalimantan Barat (Pontianak: Proyek Penelitian dan Pencatatan
Kebudayaan Daerah), pp. 220-221, listing the provincial governors since Kalimantan Barat
became a province in 1956.
7
Kompas, December 27,1967.

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 Repeated Violence and Uncertain Outcome 277

'field of experience' [sic]" and deserving of reward.8 Violence that is rewarded and
even glorified takes on a life of its own.9
Yet although Dayaks had participated in the anti-Communist violence of the
1960s, they received little reward for this show of loyalty; for the next thirty
years their frustrations were rarely addressed by Jakarta. Rioters, apparently
Dayaks, set fire to the local parliament in 1999, evidence of political frustrations
accumulated under Suharto's New Order. Not only migration, but pressure en
resources in general, had added to the tensions in the province. Much of West
Kalimantan's forest was being exploited by firms linked to Jakarta; palm oil
plantations were expanding on former forest grounds. Dayak villagers viewed much
of this territory as their own reserve, but development policies rode roughshod over
their interests.
The disenfranchisement of a group that sees itself as the original inhabitants
of the island (a disenfranchisement they attributed to both immigrants and a
distant government), the increased competition for scarce resources coupled with
economic depression, and a political culture that recalls the rewards it earned for
past violence against supposedly Communist Chinese in 1967—these defining
elements of the Dayaks' resentments and pride proved to be an explosive mixture.
In the absence of a single standard of law and ethics, tribal traditions (or what was
believed to be "tradition") of violence and retribution have become the ultimate
measure of right and wrong. These traditions include head-taking, the symbolism
of the bloody red bowl, and the mandau sword.10 All added to already volatile
ingredients in West Kalimantan society.

8
Soemadi, Peranan Kalimantan Barat dalam menghadapi subversi komunis Asia Tenggara: Suatu
tinjauan internasional terhadap gerakan komunis dari sudut pertahanan wilayah khususnya
Kalimantan Barat, 2n edition (Pontianak: Yayasan Tanjungpura, 1974), p. 118.
9
For a penetrating analysis of the events of 1997 and the role of violence and territory in
building Dayak unity, see Peluso and Harwell, "Territory, Custom/7 pp. 100-101, and also
Heidhues, "Kalimantan Barat/' p. 143.
10
The Dayak-Madurese violence of 2001 in Central Kalimantan cannot be discussed here.

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