They have lived in Neglasari, Banten, much of their lives. Now officials want them gone. (JG Photo

On Tuesday afternoon, 50-year-old Ok Yong was sitting in the living room of her bamboo house in Tangerang. Behind her was a picture of Jesus, next to portraits of family members. Her daughter, seven months pregnant, was with her. Both women were keeping an eye out on the street, about five meters away from their doorstep. 



When Ok Yong agreed to an interview, her daughter walked away. “My daughter still feels the stress of the clash. She is still worried about eviction,” she said. 



She was referring to the encounter between residents of Neglasari subdistrict, part of Mekarsari district in Tangerang, on April 13. The clash occurred after the city administration attempted to evict about 3,000 people who live along the banks of the Cisadane River. 



After the incident, villagers were given 14 days to vacate their houses. Tuesday was the 14th day. Although the National Police chief assured residents that there would be no evictions on that day, that did not stop them from worrying. They demanded that the Tangerang city administration release an official statement outlining a relocation and compensation plan for them. 



“My clothes are still packed in tied sarongs and blankets,” Ok Yong said. She is not alone. Sri, another resident who works in a nearby warung , said she had already stored half of her belongings at an in-law’s house located a few kilometers away. 



Ok Yong has lived in Neglasari for more than 30 years. She moved there after giving birth to her second child. Her husband works at a nearby shop. 



“Back then, only four or five families lived around here and the streets were not paved,” said the mother of 12. 



She used to take water from the Cisadane River, several steps away from the back of her house, which her family used for drinking, bathing and laundry. 



“Sometimes, if there was enough money, I would buy bottled water for drinking,” she said. 



Everntuall her family earned enough money to install a water pump. 



Ok Yong said she was born in Mekarsari, in the community known as the Cina Benteng — best translated as Chinese of the Fort. Residents of the community are descendants of Chinese laborers brought to Indonesia by the Dutch in the 18th and 19th centuries. For generations, members of the community have lived in Neglasari, on the banks of the Cisadane. 



Ok Yong’s children are grown up and she is now a grandmother. Those who have married live with their own families, except for her oldest daughter, who lives in a brick house next to hers. 



Ongkin, the head of the neighborhood unit, has lived in Neglasari for 25 years. He said a lot of the residents had been there as long as he has. 



“Some of them are Javanese, but everyone is the same. Here, we’re all family,” Ongkin said. 



According to Thung Lu Yuan, a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), members of the Cina Benteng community are Indonesians of Chinese ethnicity with a high level of assimilation with the pribumi , or native Indonesians. “Physically, they even look like Indonesians, usually with darker skin than the typical Chinese-Indonesian,” Lu Yuan said. 



He added that the potential eviction of the Cina Benteng community should be viewed in the context of a marginalized group that lacked access to power to keep up with city development. “They share a similar history with the Betawi people, who are also mixed [in terms of ethnicity]. They get too comfortable [because they live close to the capital]. Then one day, they get evicted,” he said. 



Lu Yuan added that the problem with poverty was always related to education, and that was also true of the Cina Benteng community. 



“They lived by taking advantage of the land,” he said. “Most of them worked as fishermen or farmers and they shared wealth from the land. And just like other communities in Indonesia, they also slowly ran out of land to share.” 



These days, most of Neglasari’s residents earn their living as peddlers. 



“The residents sell vegetables and chicken. We’re just ordinary people,” Ongkin said. He said he worked in a syrup factory in the area and earned extra money by slaughtering pigs at a nearby farm. 



Other resident work in factories in the district. The factories are mostly food-related — syrup, sugar, vanilla, tofu and sago, among others. 



But the city administration has said that it will close down the factories and pig farms in Neglasari.



“The eviction is a program to maintain order,” Ahsan Annahar, a spokesman for the Tangerang city administration, previously said. He added that residents had received notification about the evictions and no compensation or homes would be provided for them “because they are occupying state land.” 



But residents have refused to move out before they are given some form of compensation or alternative housing. Ongkin said that it was understandable for residents to defend their homes because they paid taxes. 



Even though the head of Neglasari subdistrict has said officials will only evict factories and pig farms, residents are still worried. 



“We’re afraid that they will destroy our houses by mistake, whether intentionally or not,” Ongkin said. “This is why we are coordinating with other neighborhood units so that we can defend our area together.” 



Although some residents and businesses have already left the area, a number have decided to stand their ground and defend their homes. 



Abu Bakar, a community leader, said that as of noon on Wednesday, no houses or businesses in the area have been demolished. 



Given the situation, all that longtime residents like Ok Yong can do is wait and see what comes next.

Ministries, state agencies, legislative bodies and judiciary institutions can no longer avoid the public’s inquiry as the 2008 Law on Freedom of Information is finally coming into effect on Friday.



They state institutions are now obliged to fulfill any requests for information from the

public, except for a few that are considered state secrets.



Communications and Information Ministry spokesman Gatot Dewa Broto said Thursday the law affected all public institutions from the central to regional level, including political parties and non-governmental organizations that receive funds from the state budget.



“We’ve issued today on our website a press statement on the enactment of the law to remind all public institutions that they must comply with the law,” Gatot told The Jakarta Post.



“Exemption is given to types of information specified in Article 17 of the law, including that whose revelation can disrupt law enforcement process.”



Information related to defense and security issues, business deals and diplomatic negotiations will remain confidential.



Violations of the law can be reported to the Information Commission at its hotline number (021) 58900158.

To avoid electronic transaction scam, all credit card holders must immediately ask for integrated circuit cards (ICC), or chip cards, from their respective banks



Head of the Credit Card Issuer Association’s for Jakarta chapter Max Charles Taulo said Thursday that all credit card duplication syndicates currently could only hack data from cards that applied magnetic technology.  



"The skimmer device could easily read data from the magnetic part of a credit card but could not do the same thing to a card with an electronic chip," he told The Jakarta Post. 



Earlier in the day, Jakarta Police announced the arrest of three suspects and hunting down three more people for allegedly running a syndicate which duplicated credit cards belonging to tourists on Bali Island.



The police said the syndicate copied data from the original credit cards by installing a skimmer in the electronic payment machines in several restaurants and amusement centers in Bali.



Operating for almost a year, the syndicate has successfully reproducing more than 200 credit cards from various banks, including American Express, Bank of America, OCBC, Standard Chartered and Lippo Bank.

A journey to Adonara Island reveals stunning landscapes and age-old traditions. (JG Photo/Tim Hannigan)

The old man leading me along the forest trail carried a long spear over his shoulder. He moved quickly, pausing from time to time to cut aside a dangling creeper, pick wild guavas or shinny up a palm tree to cut fresh coconuts. 

Distant voices echoed through the trees as smallholders carried out conversations over kilometers of forest. The old man joined in, shouting in a tone pitched to carry through the creepers, “It’s Wilhem; I’m going to the mountain.” 

Pak Wilhem was indeed leading me to the mountain, Ile Boleng, the 1,659-meter peak that looms over the dense palm forests of Adonara, a small, remote island in East Nusa Tenggara. 

My first view of the island had come three days earlier as I stood on the deck of a small ferry, chugging away from Larantuka, a town of white churches at the eastern tip of Flores. To the south, across a strait of bright blue water, lay the long ridge of Solor. Closer at hand Adonara rose steeply from the shore. As the ferry rounded the island’s southwest corner, Ile Boleng came into view, a perfect volcanic cone rising into thin white clouds. 

Adonara is the first island in the Solor group, a chain of isolated landfalls between Flores and Alor. Few people visit, but it is a beautiful place with white beaches, a forested interior and villages where people live according to old traditions. 

After spending the night in a simple guesthouse in Waiwerang, a sleepy fishing village that passes for the main town of Adonara, I headed east along the coast. It was harvest time, and freshly cut maize, the staple crop here, was heaped in the roadside villages. 

The picture-perfect Ena Burak Beach lay at the end of a rough red track, a strip of blinding white sand, flanked by warty outcrops of black basalt. The sea was a shifting sheet of cobalt, and across the water the hills of Lembata rose under an empty sky. 

In the shade of a thatched wooden shelter at the top of the beach I met a local man name Herodes, who was sharing a picnic with friends. They invited me to join them, and as we picked at freshly grilled fish and crunched on jagung titi, the local staple made from crushed, dry-roasted corn, Herodes told me about Adonara’s culture. 

The island is home to a mix of Muslims, who hold sway on the coast, and Catholics, who dominate in the hills. For people of both faiths local adat , customary tradition, holds strong; village ancestors are still venerated, and tuak (alcohol made from fermented coconut water) is quaffed at every opportunity. 

Despite their remoteness, the islands of the Solor archipelago have been in contact with the outside world for many centuries. The area became a hub of commerce in the early 16th century after the Portuguese arrived in eastern Indonesia and tapped into the trade in sandalwood from Timor and spices from Maluku. Portuguese soldiers built forts on Solor and Adonara, while Catholic missionaries set about converting the locals. The Portuguese eventually lost ground to the Dutch, but their legacy remains among the Catholic majority in these islands. 

There are other traces of outside influence, too. Bride prices are still paid with heirloom elephant tusks, originally imported from mainland Asia. Adonara’s traditional music is quite unlike that of other parts of Indonesia; instead of clanging gamelan and trilling flutes there are wiry rhythms plucked on a simple guitar-like instrument and plaintive, rough-edged singing. It sounds remarkably like the music of the Middle East, hinting at the Arab traders who passed through these islands even before the Portuguese. 

The next day Herodes invited me to visit his mother’s village, Koli, deep in the palm-clad hills. There were both mosques and churches in Koli. In the nearby hamlet of Lama Nepa a local man named Anthony showed me the rumah adat, simple buildings of bamboo and thatch central to the pre-Christian and pre-Muslim traditions of the area. 

According to legend, the village was founded by two brothers, Patti and Bed, who were granted the land after slaying a man-eating dragon that had plagued settlements on Adonara’s north coast. The rumah adat traditionally used for planning clan warfare in Lama Nepa is still topped with a carving of a Chinese-style dragon. 

In another building, the Lango Belen, an heirloom sword said to have belonged to the dragon-slaying Patti, is guarded by a family who inherited the task from their forefathers. Each evening an offering of food and tuak is placed in the right-hand corner of the home for the spirits of the ancestors. 

As we rode back toward Waiwerang in the insect-filled dusk, Ile Boleng was clear of clouds, the last of the sunlight illuminating the mouth of its steep crater. I decided it was time for me to take a closer look at the mountain. So early the next morning I hitched a ride to the village of Lamalota, where I met Pak Wilhem, who was to guide me to the summit. 

The forest trail led to a clearing where Wilhem kept a few goats and grew a little corn. We stopped to snack on wild avocados then pressed on uphill, Wilhem moving swiftly with his spear over his shoulder. All men take a spear with them when they go into the forest, he said, a local custom that can be traced to Adonara’s past tribal warfare. 

Beyond the last stand of trees, the trail rose steeply between sharp rocks. It took an hour to reach the crater rim. There we met four men with a pack of thin yellow dogs. They were hunting feral goats, chasing them into the crater before bringing them to bay on the steep cliffs. 

Wilhem and I made our circuit of the volcano’s lip, scrambling up the outcrops toward the summit. 

Wilhem explained that local people believe the volcano, which last erupted in 1982, must be fed each year to ensure it stays dormant. Offerings of freshly slaughtered chickens are tossed into the fractured hollow of the crater during the early months of every wet season. The peak is also surrounded by taboos. You cannot bring fish or salt to the high slopes, and uttering words connected with the sea — “boat” and “whale,” for example — is forbidden. 

We looked out from the summit over a vast panorama of pale water and dark islands. To the west the green hinterland of Adonara was dotted with white villages. Wilhem pointed out Koli, the area I had visited the previous day. To the north the Flores Sea shone yellow in the sunlight, while to the south Solor lay like a ship at anchor. Behind it I could pick out the damp hills of eastern Flores. In the opposite direction Lembata lay under a blanket of pale clouds. 

There was a small white boat cutting across the channel far below — but I remembered not to point it out.

Cities across the country need to show greater urgency in dealing with global warming, mayors gathered at the Joint Expo of City and Climate Change Programs said on Thursday in Jakarta. 



“Everyone’s feeling the effects of climate change,” Eddy Santana Putra, mayor of the South Sumatra capital, Palembang, said at the event, referring to an unprecedented heat wave in the region. 



He said cities needed to share their expertise to deal with climate change. 



“In Palembang, we allocate funds to urban ward chiefs to mitigate future disasters rather than deal with them after the fact,” he said, adding that sanitation and regreening campaigns were beginning to take root at the neighborhood level. 



He said massive deforestation in upstream areas of the Musi River had led to regular flooding and needed to be addressed. 



“It’s amazing to see people cut down a 50-year-old tree in just five minutes,” Eddy said. “Deforestation leads to flooding, so please stop cutting down the forests.” 



A study by the Indonesian Municipalities Association (Apeksi) in five major cities — Bogor, Bandung, Palembang, Solo and Makassar — warns of more floods and storms, diminished clean water, increased health risks and rising temperatures as a result of climate change. 



Amirul Tamim, mayor of Bau Bau on Southeast Sulawesi’s Buton Island, said climate change was already making itself felt. 



“We can no longer predict the weather using our traditional methods,” he said. 



“For instance, in the past, each time the community across from our island began burning their plantations, we knew it signaled rain. But in recent years, this hasn’t been the case.” 



Amirul added that because of unpredictable weather patterns that caused crop failures, more rural people were moving to urban centers in search of employment, which in turn led to property developers building more homes, often on water catchments. 



Aspeksi executive director Sarimun Hadisaputra said urban centers needed to draw up plans to tackle the impact of climate change, establish agencies to effectively implement these plans and also form partnerships with other local administrations and the central government. 



“There are interesting examples of how individual cities are dealing with the problem,” he said. “In Palu city [in Central Sulawesi], youths are taught to make solar-powered traffic lights; in Bogor, there’s a move away from kerosene to less-polluting gas; and in Tomohon [North Sulawesi], Pangkalpinang [Bangka-Belitung] and Tarakan [East Kalimantan], the local administrations are allocating more urban areas as green space.” 



There are an estimated 114 million people living in urban areas across Indonesia, with the government estimating this will increase 68 percent by 2025. 



It says this burgeoning urban population will consume 80 percent of the country’s energy and contribute two-thirds of its greenhouse gas emissions, mostly through manufacturing and transportation.