Open letter to Mr. Maurice Glele Ahanhanso
UN Special Rapporteur on Racial Discrimination
c/o
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Dear Mr. Glele,
We, the undersigned - organizations of the international community, -write
this letter to you in regard to the continued acts of racial
discrimination against Indonesian citizens of ethnic Chinese origin. In
the wake of the economic and political decline of Indonesia, as a result
of the financial crisis in Asia last year, the Indonesian Chinese
community had been intentionally and violently targeted in numerous riots
that swept across the archipelago.
We appreciate the concern of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
with the current situation in Indonesia, and we were very encouraged by a
UN Press release of last November in which you had expressed your
intention to visit Indonesia on a mission to investigate racial
discrimination in that country this year. We are very pleased that Ms.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against women
visited Indonesia and will report to the Commission on Human Rights
regarding her findings of the systematic rapes against ethnic Chinese,
East Timorese, West Irianese and Acehnese women in Indonesia. Indeed, the
Human Rights record of the 32 years of Suharto's regime is appalling and
victims are certainly not confined to ethnic Chinese. We understand that
you postponed your visit due to other commitments. We nevertheless feel
that your visit, looking at the atrocities of the May Tragedy and other
atrocities from the angle of racial discrimination is of the greatest
importance.
The discrimination against ethnic Chinese is deeply entrenched. Anti
Chinese discrimination dates back to the Dutch colonial period, but the
process of a systematic campaign against ethnic Chinese Indonesian
citizens became particularly blatant since Suharto's rise to power in 1967
on the pretext of suppressing a suspected communist coup. In a campagine
to purge communists,an estimated 500,000 people and some believe more than
a million, were slaughtered by soldiers and vigilantes. The massacre
included Chinese Indonesians who were wrongfully blamed as communists.
Today, after 32 years of misrule by Suharto, discrimination, social
tensions and Human Rights abuses are rampant.
Despite recent assurances by President Habibie in Taiwan that racial
discrimination does not exist anymore in Indonesia, today, more than
twenty discriminatory laws and regulations are still in place (See
appendix for a selective list of these other laws), most of them having
been enacted by Suharto's New Order government, and the stated purpose of
some of these measures was supposedly to integrate ethnic Chinese into
Indonesian society and to prevent ethnic Chinese from acting as "spies"
for the People's Republic of China.
These discriminatory laws prohibited the use of Chinese characters, banned
Chinese-language publications and Chinese schools, banned the public
celebration of the Chinese New Year and the building of Chinese temples,
and obliged all ethnic Chinese to take "Indonesian" names. Informal quotas
were set for ethnic Chinese Indonesian citizens at subsidized and elite
universities, forcing them to study abroad or to establish private
universities at high cost. A government minister, Juwono Sudarsono
recently admitted in Singapore that a quota of 10 percent was secretly
enforce. A particularly humiliating law was the replacement of the widely
used word "Tionghoa" with "Cina" which is derogatory in the Indonesian
cultural context.
Furthermore, ethnic Chinese Indonesians must carry a special code on their
identity cards or passports identifying them as ethnic Chinese, thus,
subjecting them to be abused at random by any official or hoodlum who so
desires- very much like the use of the Jewish star in Nazi Germany. This
discrimination also applies whenever an ethnic Chinese applies for company
licenses, passport, legal papers, and other documents by way of additional
illegal "charges."
Chinese were also banned from entering the civil service and the military.
Because of this pressure, the ethnic Chinese can only participate in
professional and business related occupations, even though not everybody
of Chinese ethnicity has a talent for business. A few ethnic Chinese had
been nurtured by Suharto's cronyism, corruption and collusion policy,"KKN"
in Indonesian, to serve Suharto's financial empire-building and had
became super rich by world standards, but the Chinese community as a whole
has few political and social rights. They became dependent on the
government, especially for patronage and protection, or the lack of the
latter thereof, as the May riots vividly proved.
During the riots, Chinese-owned shops and homes were targeted, their
properties were looted,destroyed and burned, some Chinese were burned to
death in their own shops or homes, hundreds of Chinese were physically
attacked, many Chinese women were sexually assaulted and brutally
gang-raped.
The May 14-16 1998 tragedy in Jakarta and other cities such as Medan,
Solo, Palembang, and Surabaya was orchestrated, with anti-Chinese
sentiment manipulated by mob leaders. It has now been widely established
that the barbaric atrocities were not spontaneous acts committed by crowds
of ordinary poor people. The provocateurs and leaders of these goon groups
of the riots were seen by eyewitnesses as having been transported by
trucks and buses from elsewhere. They were equipped with sharp weapons,
explosives and walkie-talkies. Most of these hooligans had short hair and
wore army boots.
The failure of the government to punish the perpetrators and address the
roots of the violence makes it all the easier for unscrupulous groups to
mobilize anti-Chinese feeling for their own purposes. Since the May riots,
anonymous flyers have circulated in several Indonesian cities, threatening
rapes of Chinese women and castration of Chinese men in the crudest
possible terms. Isolated but well-documented rapes of and sexual assaults
on ethnic Chinese women continued to have taken place in June, July, and
August, 1998.
The May 1998 riots against ethnic-Chinese Indonesians was the culmination
of the riots that had began in January and February of 1998 which spread
from one town to the other, devastating Chinese properties and churches in
about forty towns in January/ February of 1998. Again, there were
indications that these riots were instigated by provocateurs from outside.
These riots had been fanned by irresponsible anti ethnic Chinese
insinuations by top members of the Suharto government.
A top level and powerful Indonesian general on January 14, 1998, in a
press conference called thirteen large conglomerates to bring their
dollars back from abroad.
Nowhere was the word, Chinese, used but the so-called appeal was an
implicit accusation that wealthy Chinese are contributing to the crisis by
keeping dollars abroad.
In late January 1998, after a Friday' prayer at Taman Sunda Kelapa Mosque,
several top military and lay leaders spoke of "eradication of rats" who
are not patriotic and at times of crisis "are salting away the fruits of
our national development". It was again clear that they were referring to
ethnic Chinese.
On January 23, 1998, Lt. General Prabowo Sugianto, the son-in-law of
President Suharto, then the commander of the dreaded KOPASSUS forces, held
another such hate-rally in the guise of an "opening the fast" religious
meeting. During the festivities, attended by five thousand Muslim clergy,
Prabowo and others, including General Syafrie Syamsuddin, the sinister
commander of the Jakarta military command, helped fuel anti-Chinese
sentiment by making veiled references to "traitors" who took their money
abroad. He blamed a 'political conspiracy' for the Indonesian financial
crisis. He urged his fellow officers and Muslim leaders to "close ranks"
in facing the challenges ahead. The challenges ahead were not identified
but other speakers explicitly linked the conspirators to the "conglomerate
group" and "their henchmen operating overseas.", two phrases which were
clear references to the Chinese Indonesians. Prabowo has since been
relieved of all his duties for his suspected atrocities and human rights
abuses.
Earlier, Prabowo's "Research Director", Fadli Zon, a declared anti-Chinese
told the Far Eastern Economic Review fervently that "If necessary, we'll
go backwards 10 or 15 years. The Muslim majority is ready to face any
challenge, as long as there is economic justice. We can start to develop
our country without them." This explains the burning of everything modern,
including shopping malls. General Syafrie Samsuddin, Prabowo's close
associate and now relieved of all his duties, not only failed to provide
effective protection but was even seen giving orders to military personnel
wearing plain clothes to sintigate brutal attacks on the Chinese.
The viciousness of the threats and violence led to a mass exodus of ethnic
Chinese from Indonesia and a desire of many more to emigrate. However, the
fact is that the majority of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia is too poor
to leave the country. No previous episode of anti-Chinese violence has
so convinced this important sector of Indonesia's population that they
will never be accepted as equal citizens nor ever be physically safe in
the country that has been home to them for generations. The deep wounds of
the May tragedy will be difficult to heal, if ever. Ethnic Chinese still
fear racist attacks in the now crime ridden capital and other major cities
of Indonesia. The Indonesian government has so far failed to create a
climate in which a serious investigation can take place, free of
accusations and recriminations.
Appeal
In view of the overwhelming evidence, we appeal to you, Mr. Maurice Glele,
to have as the first priority, on your intended visit to Indonesia, to
verify and confirm these acts of discrimination and report them to the UN
Commission on Human Rights soonest. The UN is our only hope to bring
justice to the ethnic Chinese minority in Indonesia. We make this appeal
on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Indonesia who live in constant
fear of a recurrence of the horrors of last may.
We plead that:
Submitted respectfully,
United Overseas Chinese of Greater New York
| IHCC - Indonesian Huaren Crisis Center | Back to Witnesses/News |