Ethnic cleansing in Borneo

Escaping the Kiwi winter in 2020

I woke earlier than I needed to.  AirAsia had a sale but I hadn’t prepared myself for it.  But I had this rough idea of using my free Air New Zealand ticket from Auckland to Seoul, then Buenos Aires to Auckland.  The idea was that from Seoul I can go see family in Kuching before finding my way to Europe.  That’s my escape from the Kiwi winter in June 2020.

Putting in a date for Korea/Japan to Kuala Lumpur, it seemed cheap.  Then the continuation to Kuching and onward to Singapore was cheap too.  Within 30 minutes I had everything sorted.  It took another 30 minutes with patchy internet and careful checking to confirm it.  Pusan – Kuala Lumpur – Kuching – Singapore, all booked for NZD106 fare + NZD49 taxes = NZD155 total. Not bad for 9h45 of flying time!

Road trip to Sampit

Breakfast followed and soon it was time for me to say goodbye to Natalia who will continue to Jakarta today.  I was picked up in my truffle for the 4h ride to Sampit.  This turned out to be a smoking truffle with the driver putting all windows down for a smoke about every hour.  And the music was strange with a song called “Kopi Kasihan” (Pitiful Coffee or something like that), which then repeated itself between other tracks.

The scenery along the way had fewer swift towers than the previous trip.  I was rather surprised to see Malay villages so far inland compared to Sarawak where the interior is largely Dayak.  Strangely, even though Malays are exclusively Muslim their architectural style (X at the apex of the end-piece of the roof) was seen on a church as well.

Of course, there was lots of oil palm too.  The peaty soil doesn’t support rice well.  In some areas, the rainforests were felled for rice but when crops failed, oil palms were grown.  But in other areas, I think the forests simply gave way to oil palms.

Arriving in Sampit, I saw a large monument.  The core was decorated with Dayak patterns while the exterior had Arabic calligraphy.  I later realised this was the Dayak – Madura peace monument upon the resolution of the Sampit ethnic cleansing (more about that later).

Another flight cancellation

I got dropped off at the Sampit Xpress Hotel around 1300 and grabbed lunch nearby.  I tried to check-in for my flight to Semarang tomorrow but it failed.  I had a bad feel about this despite my booking with Nam Air showing Confirmed when retrieved.

I thought I’d give it a few hours and walked to the waterfront for a look-see and Grab’ed back.  The situation with my online check-in hadn’t changed.  I rang the airline and they confirmed that my flight wasn’t operating.  They were happy to reroute me through Jakarta with a total travel time of 7h instead of the 1.5h originally.  Or give me a full refund.  Aarrgggh!

I almost always book with the airline rather than an online travel agent website.  But for Indonesia, some airlines have poor payment mechanisms for overseas credit cards while the Traveloka site was excellent and had a good discount code going at that time.  Because I had to get the refund from Traveloka, that involved an online chat to them.  For some reason they weren’t advised of the cancellation and they needed an hour to get back to me.

Thankfully Traveloka got back to me within 30 minutes confirming that the situation warranted a full refund.  I was OK to rebook on Wings Air via Pangkalan Bun with a 25min same-plane connection to Semarang.  The price was nearly identical and as soon as I had that booked, I got my original Nam Air ticket refunded online.

I was actually impressed with both Nam Air and Traveloka contact centres for their answer-time and response-time.  Their only downfall was not advising of the cancellation  (probably a technical fault) and having to deal with them in Indonesian.  They do have English-speaking staff but I didn’t want to be transferred around!

I grabbed dinner next door at the same place I went for lunch before an early night, in preparation for an early start tomorrow.

The Sampit Conflict

This trip, I finish my short Borneo adventure at the town of Borneo’s ethnic cleansing, Sampit.

In Feb 2001, a conflict arose between indigenous Dayaks against trans-migrants from Madura. Madurese had been moving here from Madura since the Dutch-initiated trans-migration programme, and had become 21% of the local population of the conflict. Largely rural Dayaks see town-based Madurese as taking away their jobs and businesses.

The conflict grew quickly and reports claim that about 450 Madurese were killed in the two week period, with about 300 decapitated by Dayaks (their most traditional way of killing). Around 600 houses were burnt.

The navy evacuated Madurese and about 100,000 of them were reported by the BBC to have been displaced. The area was ethnically cleansed of Madurese through slaughter and evacuation but the situation has returned to normal now.

Before you think this is a Christian (Dayak) vs Muslim (Madurese) issue, it isn’t. It is the local ethnic group reasserting themselves. For example in Sambas (just across the border from my hometown), Dayaks (Christians) and Malays (Muslim) ganged up in 1999 to massacre the Madurese (Muslim).

A monument on the edge of town marks the peace settlement.  According to the taxi driver I conversed with on the morning of my departure, there was a five-point agreement.  Two points that stood out was that people who had resided in the Sampit area for 20 years or more, or were born in Sampit, were allowed to return.  Well, not sure if taxi drivers are authoritative sources but that’s all I had.

I asked him how Dayaks distinguished Madurese from other people.  He said, there’s no difference in appearance between Madurese and Javanese  (whom he said were on friendly terms with the Dayaks).  But he said the Dayaks can smell the difference.  His son was in a car when it was attacked by Dayaks.  He was unscathed while the two Madurese on either side of him were slaughtered.