Abstract
This chapter specifically observes the critical implications of interconnection between development, migration and conflict which occurred in the mid-1990s. As a result of a series of communal conflicts between migrants and local populations in several places like Sambas in West Kalimantan, Sampit in Central Kalimantan, Poso in Central Sulawesi and Ambon in Maluku, thousands of people were forced to migrate. These internally displaced people (IDPs) were mostly migrants from Java and Madura; many of them spontaneously migrate to look for better economic opportunities in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and other places in eastern Indonesia. As population distribution policy, or transmigration, became the major migration policy under the New Order government since mid-1970s, it constitutes a form of demographic engineering. The demographic engineering sets the momentum for the people to move voluntarily following migration paths and networks created by their fellows and relatives many of them previously moved under transmigration program. The causal effect relationships between transmigration and the burgeoning IDPs, as some observers have argued, are therefore only partially true.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
NRC/Global IDPs Report , August 2002: 117.
- 2.
- 3.
Wertheim’s prediction about the probability of social conflict in Lampung as a consequence of rapid population growth and social tensions between migrants and local people was fulfilled in February 1989.
- 4.
Land reform, which was aggressively promoted by the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) prior to the 1965 abortive coup, was identified by the New Order as a Communist policy. Despite this, the legacy of colonial policies, as well as the population policies of the Old Order (which were basically pronatalist and viewed uneven distribution of population as the main population problem), could not be easily eliminated from the thinking of the ruling elite. An illustration of how the elites, particularly the military, have persistently regarded transmigration as an important undertaking is the request from General Suharto to the US Ambassador to Indonesia, Marshall Green, at their first meeting on 29 May 1966 when Suharto asked for US$ 500 million in grants or soft loans to assist the transmigration program. (This information was obtained from Dr. Terrence Hull at the Australian National University in December 1989 but also can be seen in Marshall Green’s Indonesia: Crisis and Transformation 1965–1968, 1990: 101–103.)
- 5.
Many sources note that the personal lobbying of the provincial bureaucratic leaders, particularly the governors and other high-ranking provincial representatives, is very important in determining project and budget allocations for their respective provinces.
- 6.
The geographic area designated by the central government as Eastern Indonesia comprises all provinces in the Kalimantan and Sulawesi islands, Maluku , Irian Jaya , East Timor and East and West Nusa Tenggara .
- 7.
A study conducted by the Centre for Regional and Political Studies, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, in 1992, shows that in reality the district-level government cannot be called autonomous as it had only quasi-autonomous governmental control (Sulistyo 1995).
- 8.
Sulistyo, 1995
- 9.
PEP-LIPI, 1997
- 10.
All the formal religions have created their own intellectual associations, such as the ICMI (Muslim ), PIKI (Protestant), ICKI (Catholic), PCHI (Hindu) and ICBI (Buddhist).
- 11.
See Widjojo (1997)
- 12.
For a detailed account of conflicts between the indigenous people (Amungme and Kamoro) and Freeport Inc., see part 4 of a book on human rights violations in the mining industries in Indonesia (Bachriadi 1998).
- 13.
Indonesian newspapers and magazines are rich sources of information on the incidents of ethnic conflicts.
- 14.
The actual number of people who were killed in the incident is very difficult to obtain. The local army commander estimated that about 300 people were killed, but nongovernment sources believed that the actual number of deaths was much greater than the government estimate. On ethnic politics in West Kalimantan , see Davidson (2000).
- 15.
King (1993) provides a comprehensive account of historical and social development in Kalimantan. The last chapter on modernization and development is particularly relevant.
- 16.
For Madurese migration to West Kalimantan , see Sudagung (1985).
- 17.
For information on the division of labour by ethnicity as observed during the author’s intermittent visits to eastern Indonesia between 1991 and 1993, see Tirtosudarmo (1997).
- 18.
The migrants are pejoratively called by the locals ‘straight-haired’, while the migrants call the locals ‘curly-haired’.
- 19.
- 20.
As a result of its disputed status in the international forum, East Timor certainly warrants special consideration. The emergence of the underground movement, interestingly organised by young people, obtained more international attention, after the so-called Dili Incident of 12 November 1991, in which an estimated 100 people were murdered by Indonesian soldiers while conducting a protest rally. From 1991, East Timor obviously was the most troubled region in Indonesia.
- 21.
The exodus of migrants, many of them BBM (Bugis, Buton, Makasar or Buginese, Butonese and Makasarese), from East Timor occurred in September 1996 and July 1998, following large anti-integration protests. The mass out-migration from East Timor occurred prior to and after the vote on 30 August 1999, when the majority of East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia.
- 22.
Jakarta Post, 3 August 1998
- 23.
For a detailed account on the impact of the military operation in Aceh , see ELSAM—Lembaga Studi Advokasi Masyarakat or Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (1995: 13–31).
- 24.
Reported atrocities by the military in Aceh, Irian Jaya and East Timor , mostly by NGOs and religious groups, including abductions, rape, torture and extrajudicial killing, have flourished in the mass media since the resignation of President Suharto on 21 May and the prevailing new climate of openness.
- 25.
The governor of Central Kalimantan reported that the number of people killed was 383, mostly Madurese migrants; the number of people who were forced to leave their homes, including those who were still in Kalimantan or had arrived in Java, were reported to be 80,000 (Kompas, March 8, 2001).
- 26.
See Vivienne Wee, ‘Ethno-nationalism in Process: Atavism, Ethnicity and Indigenism in Riau ’.
- 27.
‘The restructurisation of local institutions during the implementation of regional autonomy’, paper presented by the LIPI research team at the PMB Seminar, Jakarta, 17–19 December 2002
- 28.
This information was obtained by the author in a conversation in September 2000 with one of the senior staffs of the Central Bureau of Statistics who was involved in the preparation of the 1961 population census. This senior official had recently prepared the 2000 population census in which, for the first time since Independence, ethnicity is included in the census questionnaire. Statistical information on ethnicity is therefore lacking; if there are any statistics, they are usually an extrapolation of ethnic statistics based on the 1930 colonial census. Other sources of information are the statistics of languages spoken at home collected during the 1990 population census. According to the 1990 census, the composition of languages spoken at home is as follows: Javanese (40%), Sundanese (25%), Indonesian (13%), Madurese (4.3%), Minangkabau (2.3%), Batak (2.2%) and Bugis (2.2%), with the rest speaking other minority languages. The estimate of ethnic composition using languages as a proxy is very unreliable due to the fact that a relatively large number use the national language rather than their local language, and as people have migrated, they could replace their original languages with their new local languages.
- 29.
The local demands loudly voiced today are apparently a revival of the popular regional appeals of the 1950s.
References
Aditjondro, G. (1994). In the shadow of mount Ramelau: The impact of the occupation of East Timor. Leiden, The Netherlands: INDOC.
Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (National Archive of Republic of Indonesia). (1981). Laporan-laporan tentang Gerakan Protes di Jawa pada Abad XX (Reports on Protest Movement in Java at the 20th Century). Jakarta: Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia.
Bachriadi, D. (1998). Merana di Tengah Kelimpahan (Misery amidst Plenty). Jakarta: ELSAM.
Brown, D. (1997). The state and ethnic politics in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge.
Davidson Jamie, S. (2000). ‘Ethnic violence and electoral politics on the periphery: The case of West Kalimantan’, paper presented at the PERCIK International Conference, Yogyakarta, 3–7 July.
ELSAM. (1995). Ke arah ratifikasi anti penyiksaan kajian kasus-kasus penyiksaan belum terselesaikan (towards a ratification of covention on anti torture: Study on the unfininished cases of torture). Jakarta: Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Masyarakat (ELSAM).
Feith, H., & Lev, D. (1963). The end of the Indonesian rebellion. Pacific Affairs, 36(1). Spring), 32–46.
Hardjosudarmo, S. (1965). Kebijaksanaan transmigrasi dalam rangka pembangunan masyarakat desa di Indonesia (Transmigration Policy in the context of Rural Development in Indonesia). Jakarta: Bhratara.
Heeren, H. J. (1979). Transmigrasi di Indonesia (Transmigration in Indonesia). Yogyakarta: Gajah Mada University Press.
Kartodirdjo, S. (1973). Protest movement in rural Java: A study of agrarian unrest in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
King, V. T. (1993). The people of Borneo. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kuntjorojakti, D. (1978). The political economy of development: The case study of Indonesia under the new order government. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,. Berkeley: University of California.
Legge, J. D. (1964). Indonesia. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Mackie, J. A. C. (1980). Integrating and centrifugal factors in Indonesia politics since 1945. In J. A. C. Mackie (Ed.), Indonesia: The making of a nation (pp. 669–684). Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies/Australian National University.
Nitisastro, W. (1970). Population trends in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Norwegian Refugee Council. (2002, August). Global IDPs Report.
Paauw, D. S. (1963). From colonial to guided economy. In R. McVey (Ed.), Indonesia, Southeast Asia Studies (pp. 155–247). New Haven: Yale University.
Pangestu, M. E., & Azis, I. J. (1994). Survey of recent development. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 30(2), 3–47.
Pelzer, K. J. (1945). Pioneer settlement in the asiatic tropics. New York: Institute of Pasific Relations.
Penders, C. L. M. (1969). Java’s population problem during the colonial period. World Review, 8(1), 24–34 (March).
Ricklefs, M. C. (1983). A history of modern Indonesia. London: Macmillan.
Soetrisno, L. et al. (1995). East Timor: The impact of integration. An Indonesian socio-anthropological study. Australia: Northcote.
Sudagung, H. S. (1985). Migrasi swakarsa orang Madura ke Kalimantan Barat. (Doctoral Dissertation). Yogyakarta: Universitas Gajah Mada.
Sulistyo, H. (1995). State and local society: Study on regional autonomy, local government, and the capacity of local government. In D. J. Rachbini et al. (Eds.), State and poverty in the regions. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
Thompson, V. (1947). Aspects of Planning in Indonesia, Pacific Affairs, 20, No. 2, June, pp. 178–183.
Tirtosudarmo, Riwanto. (1996). The politics of international migration in Southeast Asia: The case of Indonesian illegal workers in Malaysia. Paper presented at the Regional Workshop on Movement of Peoples within and from the East and Southeast Asian region: Trends, Causes and Consequences and Policy Measures, organised by Southeast Asian studies program, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta, 5–6 June.
Tirtosudarmo, R. (1997). Economic development, migration, and ethnic conflict in Indonesia: A preliminary observation. Soujourn, 12(2.) (October)), 293–328.
twentieth centuries. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Visser, L. (1988). An interview with Koentjaraningrat. Current Anthropology, 29(5.), December), 749–753.
We, V. (2002). Etno-nationalism in process: Atavism, ethnicity and indigenismin Riau. Working Papers Series, No. 22, March, Southeast Asia Research Centre (SEARC), The City University of Hong Kong.
Wertheim, W. F. (1959, March). Sociological aspects of inter-islands in Indonesia. Population Studies, 7(3), 184–201.
Widjojo, M. S. (1997). Empowering the others in Timika, Irian Jaya. Analisis, 26(3), (May-June), 296–320.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Appendixes
Appendixes
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tirtosudarmo, R. (2018). Demographic Engineering and Displacement. In: The Politics of Migration in Indonesia and Beyond. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-9032-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-9032-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-9031-8
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-9032-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)