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• Historical Analysis of State-Society Relations in Indonesia!
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MIGRATION AND RESISTANCE: A CASE STUDY OF EAST TIMOR by Dr George J. Aditjondro ( Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Newcastle University, Australia) Paper presented at the "Anthropology of Migrancy" panel at the Australian Anthropological Society Conference, October 2-4, 1996 in Nowik Theatre, Charles Sturt University, Murray Campus, Albury, NSW, Australia.
Abstract :This paper will examine the utilisation of migrants from the dominant ethnic group to neutralize the resistance from peripheral ethnic groups to the rule of a faraway political centre, a political strategy as old as the English conquest over the British isles. In East Timor, the immigration of three Indonesian ethno-linguistic groups has been strongly encouraged by the Indonesian government for this reason. The Javanese and Balinese rice farmers have been encouraged to immigrate to East Timor under the official transmigrasi scheme. The South and Southeast Sulawesi small and medium scale entrepreneurs have been encouraged to immigrate to East Timor, by improving the sea transportation facilities in Eastern Indonesia, and by involving them in the economic development boom in East Timor. Finally, the West Timorese farmers and business migrants have been encouraged to immigrate since the beginning of the invasion and occupation, by involving them as partisans in the integrasi clandestine and overt military operations, by involving them consequently in the Indonesian civil service, the Indonesian churches as well as economic bounties in East Timor, and by improving the land transporation facilities--asphalted roads, trucks, and buses--which has triggered a chain-reaction of West Timorese immigration into East Timor. These three different ethno-linguistic groups have experienced different forms of responses--including resistance--from the host population in East Timor, which will be examined in this paper by analising the differing political, economic and social reasons behind those responses. Introduction :Using migrants from the dominant ethic group to dilute any potential resistance from the peripheral ethnic groups, in order to widen the territorial influence of the ruling group, is as old as the English conquest over the British isles in the 17th century (see Brain, 1972: 50-51). In the Indonesian archipelago, this strategy is known as the Transmigrasi programme, inherited by the newborn Indonesian state from its colonial predecessor, the Dutch East Indies. In East Timor, however, the picture is quite more complex, since there are three ethno-linguistic groups whose immigration to the occupied territory has been strongly encouraged by the Indonesian government. Namely, the Javanese and Balinese farmers, for whom the fertile agricultural land of East Timor, often abandoned by its indigenous toilers due to the depletion of their livestock during the pacification war (1975-1980), is seen as an excellent solution to the land shortage in the immigrant farmers' homelands. The second group are the entrepreneurial small business immigrants from South and Southeast Sulawesi, the Buginese, Makassarese, and the Butonese, who occupy the markets in all the major towns in East Timor, as well as the shops and stalls along the main roads from Dili to the interior. Next, the third group are the West Timorese immigrants, who came over land to East Timor, and are socially and geographically located in between the Javanese and Balinese immigrants on one hand and the South and Southeast Sulawesian immigrants on the other hand. How many people do each group of immigrants constitute? This is a difficult question to answer, since official Indonesian statistics of East Timor do not differentiate people based on race and ethnicity, but only on religion and sex. This religious statistics may be rather misleading, as far as the third group is concerned, but as far as the first and second groups are concerned, they do provide some indication of their orders of magnitude. Hence, let me show you those official demographic figures (see Tables 1 and 2). Table 1: Population of East Timor, based on religion, in 1993
Source: Timor Timur Dalam Angka 1993. Dili: Bappeda Tk. I & Kantor Statistik Propinsi Timur Timur, 1994: 166.Table 2: Religious composition of East Timor's population in each district (concelho) in 1993 Name of district (4) Dili:
Baucau:
Lautem (Los Palos):
Ermera:
Covalima:
Bobonaro (Maliana):
Liquica:
Ainaro:
Aileu:
Manufahi (Suai):
Manatuto:
Viqueque:
Ambeno (Oecussi):
Source: Timor Timur Dalam Angka 1993. Dili: Bappeda Tk. I & Kantor Statistik Propinsi Timur Timur, 1994: 166.Table 3: List of officially recorded Indonesian government-sponsored migrants (so-called transmigran umum or petani teladan ) in East Timor, until fiscal year 1990/1991 Year of placement; DISTRICT & location; number of families; number of persons; place of origin 1982/83: BOBONARO: Tunubibi: 50 families; 214 persons from Bali 1985/86: COVALIMA: Aidantuik: 38 families: 86 persons from Bali; 3 families; 3 persons from Jakarta; Maukola: 58 families: 188 persons from Bali; Salele: 96 families: 402 persons from Bali; 142 families: 567 persons from East Java; 3 families: 10 persons from Central Java; 9 families: 16 persons from Yogyakarta; 1990/91: Raimea: 120 families: 413 persons from Bali 1991/92: Kuluan: 75 families: 274 persons from Central Java MANUFAHI 1993/94: Weberek: 75 families: 235 persons from Central Java 1994/95: Besusu: 25 families: 69 persons from Bali; 11 families: 43 persons from Central Java; 15 families: 33 persons from Yogyakarta. MANATUTO 1993/94: Abat Oan: 50 families: 163 persons from Bali; 18 families: 67 persons from Central Java; 1994/95: Kakauman: 50 families: 176 persons from Bali; 25 families: 98 persons from Central Java. Total: 863 families: 3,057 persons Source: Timor Timur Dalam Angka 1993. Dili: Bappeda Tk. I & Kantor Statistik Propinsi Timur Timur, 1994: 63-63A.Now, if we look at Table 3 on Indonesian government-sponsored immigration into East Timor, then it seems that the first group of immigrants, namely those who came from Java and Bali with direct government support, then it seems that this group is very small, namely only around 3,000 persons. This does not match with the total figure of Muslims and Hindus in Table 1, whom together constitute around 35,000 persons. The gap between this two figures may give us a rough idea about the size of the second group of Indonesian immigrants, namely the spontaneous immigrants from Sulawesi, who came by sea to East Timor, benefitting from the improved means of sea transport in Eastern Indonesia. If that is the case, then we may talk about a ratio of 1:10 between the government-sponsored and spontaneous immigrants in East Timor, meaning that for every government-sponsored immigrant, ten spontaneous migrants will follow. This ratio is incredibly higher than in Irian Jaya (West Papua), where I discovered in the late 1980s that every government-sponsored migrant was 'attracting' two spontaneous migrants (see Aditjondro, 1986a). The spontaneous immigrants, however, do not only constitute of the agressive business immigrants from South and Southeast Sulawesi. Some of them are the Balinese and Javanese relatives and village mates of the government-sponsored immigrants. We have also to take into consideration, that some of the government-sponsored or spontaneous immigrants came from islands other than Java, Bali, and Sulawesi, or, were not Muslims or Hindus. They may have came from the nearby archipelagic province of Maluku (the Moluccas), or from North Sulawesi, two provinces with a predominant Protestant population. This may explain the nearly similar number of Muslims and Protestants in East Timor. A significant proportion of the government-sponsored and spontaneous immigrants may even be Catholics, which has indeed been the case. As I was told by an informant in the district of Covalima, a group of "transmigrants" in Salele at first declared themselves to be Catholics, but after having settled down, they returned to their Muslim belief (see fn# 43 in Aditjondro, 1994: 89). The significant number of Indonesian Catholic immigrants can also be inferred from comparing the statistics of religious believers -- especially Table 2 -- with the statisctics of the government-sponsored immigrants (Table 3). One interesting point to make about these statistics is that the population of "other religions," which include the indigenous religions of East Timor, not recognized by the Indonesian state as a religion (as does all other indigenous religions in the Indonesian archipelago), is still quite high in the districts of Bobonaro (Maliana), Ermera, Liquica, Ainaro, and even in Dili. In the case of Bobonaro it is even more interesting, since this is one of the border districts with a high number of Javanese and Balinese immigrants. This cultural resilience of the Timorese indigenous religion practitioners and believers supports a point I have made in an earlier work (Aditjondro, 1994: 64, 69), namely that the rapid growth of Catholics in East Timor was not only caused by a conversion of people whom the Portuguese classified as "gentios", or "pagans," but also because of the rapid influx of Catholics from the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Timur). Especially the Tetun- and Vaiqueno (Dawan)-speaking immigrants from the West Timor, and other Indonesian immigrants from the predominantly Catholic-island of Flores. Resistance Resistance of the local (host) population to these three groups of immigrants has been expressed rather differently. The most violent resistance has been exerted towards the South and Southeast Sulawesian immigrants, especially after inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts which have periodically flarred up in East Timor since November 12, 1994 (see Table 4). The agressive economic expansion, the closely knit communities, the very public expressions of Islam or these migrants, and allegedly some sinister plotting by the Indonesian military authorities themselves may have underlined this strong resentment of the local East Timorese against these business immigrants. Table 4: Some of the main clashes between East Timorese and Indonesian migrants in East Timor, since 1994
Sources : AFFET [Australians for a Free East Timor], Darwin, press release on Apakabar (internet) on Oct. 1, 1995 and June 12, 1996; Amnesty International press release on Apakabar, March 26, 1996;CNRM press release on Apakabar, Sept. 18, 1995; electronic mail letter from the Joint Committee for the Defense of the East Timorese (JCDET) in Jakarta on June 13, 1996; Fajar , January 5, 1995; Gatra , Sept. 30, 1995: 34-35; Reuter , July 25, 1995;West Australian, Nov. 24, 1995.This begs the question, then: why have the Javanese and Balinese immigrants became less the targets of local resentment? Is it because they are also seen as victims of the Indonesian government's development policies? Interestingly, these agricultural immigrants, which formed the crux of the World Bank sponsored transmigration programmes in other Indonesian provinces, have been the main target of the global anti-transmigration movement in the West. In the mean time, some far-sighted East Timorese are more concerned about the silent inflow of West Timorese migrants into East Timor, which may play a decisive role in a potential UN-supervised referendum in the future. Physically, these immigrants come from the same racial and ethnic background as the majority of the East Timorese. Religion-wise, they are mostly Catholics, the religion of the majority of the East Timorese. And language-wise, many of them speak Tetun, East Timorese lingua franca which historically originated from the Belu kingdom in West Timor. Yet, these Catholic-Melanesian immigrants have practically escaped the wrath of the young East Timorese resentment against their new colonial masters. Only some more educated East Timorese -- in Dili and in the diaspora -- have drawn a parallel between this potential Indonesian "Troyan horse" and the sad history of the Sahrawi independence struggle, where a UN-supervised referendum has also been sabotaged by King Hassan II's "green march" of Moroccan civilians into West Sahara, after the Spanish rulers pulled out from the territory on February 26, 1976. This demographic strategy has made it impossible for the UN to hold a free and fair referendum by the end of 1993, since it was very hard to distinguish native Sahrawis from Moroccans who had responded to their king's appeal to march into the territory, settle down, and marry native Sahrawis. What has made it even more difficult was the fact that the religion and ethnicity of the Moroccans and Sahrawis are very similar -- both are Muslims and of Arabic-Berber descent (see Smith de Cherif, 1991; Rigaux, 1995; Aditjondro, 1996). To compare the different forms of resistance and who have carried those forms out against which group of Indonesian immigrants, I have drawn the following diagramme (see Table 5). Table 5: Different forms of resistance of the East Timorese people against Indonesian immigrants in East Timor Social categories of East Timorese (1); Groups of Indonesian immigrants (2); Forms of resistance (3) (1): Urban-based youth who come from all the districts and ethno-linguistic groups in East Timor, including East Timorese of Chinese and Arabic descent; (2): Mainly the urban based Muslim immigrants who originate from South Sulawesi; (3): Public protests aimed at the economic dominance of the immigrants, by attacking their shops, markets, and the public transport vehicles owned or operated by these immigrants, and consequently their places of worship. (1): Local, rural, farm families; (2): Mainly the local farmer immigrant from Java and Bali; (3): Sporadic complaints to the local parish priest and foreign observers. (1): Highly educated East Timorese in Dili, Indonesia, and the diaspora; (2): All the groups of Indonesian immigrants, including the Catholic immigrants from West Timor, as well as the entire Indonesian civil service, military, and the higher-level business elite who control the entire East Timor economy; (3): Collect information from the field, pass it on to the diplomatic front of the resistance, and campaign for a speedy, UN-supervised referendum to carry out the East Timorese people's right to self-determination So, in conclusion one could say, there seems to be a gap between the internal and external perception on which immigrant group are the most harmful for the well being of the local, indigenous population. One can also say, in this case, at least, the immigrant group with the highest degree of similarity with the local population have attracted the least resentment from the host population, although they may strategically be the most harmful for the future of an independent East Timor nation-state. Which means that internally, there also exist a perception gap between the various social categories of East Timorese concerning the impact of Indonesian immigration. Bibliography :Aditjondro, George J., 1986a. "Dampak transmigrasi di Irian Jaya: suatu telaah sosio-ekologis." Paper presented at the seminar on Environmentally Oriented Development, organized by the Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI) in Kaliurang, Yogyakarta, in May. ---------------, 1986b. "Transmigration in Irian Jaya: issues, targets and alternative approaches," Prisma, No. 41, September, Jakarta, LP3ES, pp. 67-82.---------------, 1994, In the shadow of Mount Ramelau: the impact of the occupation of East Timor. Leiden: Indoc (Indonesian Documentation and Information Centre).Brain, Robert, 1972. Into the primitive environment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc. Colchester, Marcus, 1987. "The Indonesian Transmigration Programme: Migrants to disaster," in Proceedings of the Conference on "Forest Resource Crisis in The Third World" 6-8 September 1986. Penang: Sahabat Alam Malaysia, pp. 161-170.Rigaux, Francois, 1995. "East Timor and Western Sahara: a comparative view," in International Law and the question of East Timor. London/Delft: Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR) and the International Platform of Jurists for East Timor (IPJET), pp. 166-173.Smith de Cherif, Teresa K., 1991. "Peace in Western Sahara?" Africa Today, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 49-58. |
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