Growth spearheaded in neglected areas of Southwest Maluku
M. Azis Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon | Mon, 05/04/2009 2:58 PM | National
Southwest Maluku, which officially separated from West Southeast Maluku Regency in 2008, is better known by most people in Maluku as "Far Southeast", likely due to its distance - it is isolated from most methods of transportation and communication. Ten of the outer islands bordering East Timor and Australia are located in the regency.
It takes about a week to reach Southwest Maluku by boat from provincial capital Ambon; its provincial capital of Pulau Kisar is located more than 500 kilometers from Ambon. However, it is located just 25 kilometers from East Timor's capital of Dili.
"It takes only three hours by boat from Kisar to Dili," Southwest Maluku acting regent Jacob Patty told The Jakarta Post at his residence in Ambon recently.
The regency spans more than 9,000 square kilometers and is inhabited by more than 100,000 people. Its sea territory covers 89 percent of the total area. Inter-island transportation is mostly by traditional boats, but during high seas, event this mode of transportation comes to a halt.
Now, Kisar is connected with air transportation from Ambon and Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, with scheduled flights once a week. Pioneer boats which make stopovers at a number of ports on major islands are also available, but it would take days to arrive in Ambon.
Given its isolation, the area is prone to food shortages, especially during the months when the sea is rough. The shift from corn and tubers to rice as the staple food has led to rice scarcity during those times.
"Food shortages usually take place during the westerly season, or stormy season, between the months of January and March. We often face food scarcity during the time. This is due to people's diet, which is now more depended on rice. During the stormy season, the Dolog logistics agency in Tual, Southeast Maluku, encounters problem in sending rice, especially to the islands, as boats can't sail," Patty said.
In times of scarcity before harvests, or paceklik, residents depend on dried corn for sustenance. "People still cultivate corn on rain-dependent farmland. They can only grow corn once a year, usually before December. They dry their corn after harvest and consume it during paceklik," Patty, who is the former vice governor of Maluku, said.
Electricity is also a major problem for the administration and residents. Of the eight districts in Southwest Maluku, only four are linked to the local power grid - Kisar, Serwaru, Tepa and Babar Timur. However, not all villages in the districts have been connected to the power line. Moreover, power is only provided for 12 hours a day.
"Government activities and public services are certainly affected because power is only supplied 12 hours daily, and that is only during the night when the offices are idle," Patty said.
In response to the matter, Patty has made efforts to work together with state power company PLN and has introduced fuel subsidies to generate power. Unfortunately, this has not been enough.
"I wish to procure a 20-KVA power generator just to make sure administrative activities are not paralyzed, especially for public services. Without power, the telephone, the fax machine and the internet connection at the office cannot be used because they depend on electricity," Patty explained.
Besides that, he added that the poverty rate remains high, at 57 percent. To alleviate poverty, Patty is in the process of initiating a number of programs. "We are focusing on three programs - education, health and family welfare improvement, including other state-sponsored programs," he said.
Although the regency is still fairly new, its administrative infrastructure has been formed. "There are currently eight offices, three agencies and five divisions. I have proposed to the provincial administration to add one more office - the mining office - due to vast potential for mining and because it is still combined with the public works office," he said.
Despite the isolation and neglect, Southwest Maluku is rich in natural resources, including mineral, oil and gas. Patty acknowledged that he was overwhelmed by the task of managing the regency's wealth.
"The private sector is needed to manage the wealth of our regency," he said.
He added that two mining companies, which had just carried out production trial runs this year, were able to produce five tons of a projected 20 tons of pure copper, daily.
Besides copper on Wetar Island, Romang and Moa islands have potential gold deposits and Kisar and Romang islands are potentially rich in copper and iron ore. Not to mention the Marsela Sea, bordering with West Southeast Maluku, which is rich in oil and gas reserves.
Patty said the mining companies were provided with operation licenses when the regency was still part of West Southeast Maluku regency.
"I have required the companies to renew their licenses and build their offices on Kisar in order to facilitate supervision and coordination," he added.
M. Azis Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon | Mon, 05/04/2009 2:58 PM | National
Southwest Maluku, which officially separated from West Southeast Maluku Regency in 2008, is better known by most people in Maluku as "Far Southeast", likely due to its distance - it is isolated from most methods of transportation and communication. Ten of the outer islands bordering East Timor and Australia are located in the regency.
It takes about a week to reach Southwest Maluku by boat from provincial capital Ambon; its provincial capital of Pulau Kisar is located more than 500 kilometers from Ambon. However, it is located just 25 kilometers from East Timor's capital of Dili.
"It takes only three hours by boat from Kisar to Dili," Southwest Maluku acting regent Jacob Patty told The Jakarta Post at his residence in Ambon recently.
The regency spans more than 9,000 square kilometers and is inhabited by more than 100,000 people. Its sea territory covers 89 percent of the total area. Inter-island transportation is mostly by traditional boats, but during high seas, event this mode of transportation comes to a halt.
Now, Kisar is connected with air transportation from Ambon and Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, with scheduled flights once a week. Pioneer boats which make stopovers at a number of ports on major islands are also available, but it would take days to arrive in Ambon.
Given its isolation, the area is prone to food shortages, especially during the months when the sea is rough. The shift from corn and tubers to rice as the staple food has led to rice scarcity during those times.
"Food shortages usually take place during the westerly season, or stormy season, between the months of January and March. We often face food scarcity during the time. This is due to people's diet, which is now more depended on rice. During the stormy season, the Dolog logistics agency in Tual, Southeast Maluku, encounters problem in sending rice, especially to the islands, as boats can't sail," Patty said.
In times of scarcity before harvests, or paceklik, residents depend on dried corn for sustenance. "People still cultivate corn on rain-dependent farmland. They can only grow corn once a year, usually before December. They dry their corn after harvest and consume it during paceklik," Patty, who is the former vice governor of Maluku, said.
Electricity is also a major problem for the administration and residents. Of the eight districts in Southwest Maluku, only four are linked to the local power grid - Kisar, Serwaru, Tepa and Babar Timur. However, not all villages in the districts have been connected to the power line. Moreover, power is only provided for 12 hours a day.
"Government activities and public services are certainly affected because power is only supplied 12 hours daily, and that is only during the night when the offices are idle," Patty said.
In response to the matter, Patty has made efforts to work together with state power company PLN and has introduced fuel subsidies to generate power. Unfortunately, this has not been enough.
"I wish to procure a 20-KVA power generator just to make sure administrative activities are not paralyzed, especially for public services. Without power, the telephone, the fax machine and the internet connection at the office cannot be used because they depend on electricity," Patty explained.
Besides that, he added that the poverty rate remains high, at 57 percent. To alleviate poverty, Patty is in the process of initiating a number of programs. "We are focusing on three programs - education, health and family welfare improvement, including other state-sponsored programs," he said.
Although the regency is still fairly new, its administrative infrastructure has been formed. "There are currently eight offices, three agencies and five divisions. I have proposed to the provincial administration to add one more office - the mining office - due to vast potential for mining and because it is still combined with the public works office," he said.
Despite the isolation and neglect, Southwest Maluku is rich in natural resources, including mineral, oil and gas. Patty acknowledged that he was overwhelmed by the task of managing the regency's wealth.
"The private sector is needed to manage the wealth of our regency," he said.
He added that two mining companies, which had just carried out production trial runs this year, were able to produce five tons of a projected 20 tons of pure copper, daily.
Besides copper on Wetar Island, Romang and Moa islands have potential gold deposits and Kisar and Romang islands are potentially rich in copper and iron ore. Not to mention the Marsela Sea, bordering with West Southeast Maluku, which is rich in oil and gas reserves.
Patty said the mining companies were provided with operation licenses when the regency was still part of West Southeast Maluku regency.
"I have required the companies to renew their licenses and build their offices on Kisar in order to facilitate supervision and coordination," he added.
Indonesia a far-fetched idea for victims of development injustice
The Jakarta Post
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Tony Hotland
Decades of development of injustices and resurging sense of ethnicity may serve as indications that Indonesian unity as a nation was still far-fetched or even losing its ground, a group of social observers said Friday.
They were having a discussion after a book launch by Riwanto Tirtosudarmo, an Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) researcher, titled Looking for Indonesia: The Demography of Politics post-Soeharto.
The observers cited the way former president Soeharto forged his idea of nationalism by establishing a "host culture" in a very centralized approach of development, leaving others outside Java with an outsider feeling.
"A gap in development and the powerful prevalence of a host culture made everyone outside Java feel they weren't Indonesians. They came to Java and learned the local culture just to get that supposed feeling of being Indonesian," anthropologist Moeslim Abdurrahman said.
He said Soeharto's authoritarian regime and his way of making Javanese culture as the face of Indonesia had left non-Javanese no imaginations of what Indonesia could be.
University of Indonesia sociologist Francisca "Ery" Seda said the country was steered by a sole authority during the regime and the state was too dominant in defining Indonesia -- a nation of thousands of islands and hundreds of ethnics and languages.
"Did the Acehnese know who (woman hero) Kartini was?" she said.
"Did the Papuans know what Majapahit was?
"They got this only in what they saw as Indonesian school."
Otto Syamsuddin from rights group Imparsial said Indonesia belonged only to those "within the asphalted yards", referring to those living in major cities that enjoyed the most of decades of development.
"We've begun deserting our unity and going for our diversity," he said.
"It's time we start building (the nation) based on our unity again."
LIPI political analyst Hermawan Sulistyo said such a view was evident in the fact that many new regions were created based on the ethnic identity.
"It's deplorable that while we're still trying to unify this nation after the fall of Soeharto, we're seeing new regions created simply based on ethnicity," he said.
The current repercussions of such ethnic consciousness, they said, included the resurging calls for natives as the leader to-be in local election campaigns.
"The issue of being a region's native has become a real issue in politics," Moeslim said.
"When one can't stand under the house of nationalism, they go back to their ethnic house."
Otto cited an example when transmigration to other regions used to be smooth and conflict-free, but now the local people immediately were possessed by fear newcomers would take over the economy and politics resources there.
An exit from the situation was an issue of even and just development across the country, they said.
"The approach to all conflicts isn't cultural, but economic fairness.
"Culture is given in Indonesia, and any conflicts now is basically an issue of economic and social injustices," Ery said.
Moeslim added "only when the government can supply and meet the basic needs of the citizens will the feeling of belonging to Indonesia flourish".
