The forgotten victims of the Yogyakarta quake

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 09/13/2006 8:31 AM  |  Opinion

Julia Suryakusuma, Jakarta

Moving slowly through the narrow streets of the village, we passed houses in various stages of ruin: slightly damaged, partially damaged, totally reduced to rubble. Children were scurrying around tents that had been set up to shelter people who could no longer live in their houses. Elderly people lay on planks across the rubble with makeshift plastic awnings their only protection from the sun.

Mothers with children at their breast sat on piles of broken bricks, all that was left of their homes. The buildings that remained teetered precariously, propped up with flimsy timber struts. Outside the villages, makeshift placards announced how many people had been killed and how many injured.

Where was this? Kashmir? Afghanistan? Iraq? Somalia?

No, it was the nation's cultural capital and a key tourist destination, Yogyakarta. The massive earthquake that hit Central Java on May 27 this year measured 5.9 on the Richter scale. Although it lasted for only one minute, more than three months later the countryside is still devastated, with around 354,000 houses lost.

Aid has arrived from all around the world, from Indonesian businesses, the Kuwaiti Red Crescent and the usual major donors, such as Oxfam, among many others. But progress has been slow and patchy at best. Oxfam says central and local governments in Indonesia have so far failed to build a single house, and locals claim little or no government money has yet reached them.

Tragically, the situation is about to get much, much worse. In a month or so, the rainy season will start. The flimsy tents will do almost nothing to protect the homeless. Today's dust and rubble will quickly turn to mud and flood, and shattered septic and drainage systems will produce disease.

Already respiratory illness is increasing and experts predict more of that and the horrors of mosquito-born disease as well: malaria, dengue, etc. This means the future offers little but still more suffering for the rural poor of Java, who this year have also faced eruptions from Mt. Merapi near Yogya and the catastrophic mud-flood in Sidoarjo which continues to consume the land of the poor in East Java.

The initial outflowing of sympathy, funds and supplies during the first few weeks after the quake, while heartwarming, was insufficient. The situation that I saw in a few villages at the beginning of September was the same in many other villages, I was told. More than one-and-a-half million people are now probably homeless in central Java.

Incredibly, most Indonesians don't know or care much about this, and foreigners even less so. Unlike the Yogya quake, the tsunami killed many Westerners in Thailand and Sri Lanka -- and it ended the war in Aceh -- so it caught the attention of the West, which gave generously. Unfortunately, it also seems to have exhausted people's compassion and disposable cash. Java's disaster is today in the shadow of Aceh and many of Yogyakarta's poor are probably wishing they were Acehnese.

But not everyone has forgotten about the people in Yogya. We hear a lot about thinking global, acting locally, but one of the few to take it seriously is an Australian businessman. Ten years ago, when Warwick Purser set up Out of Asia, Indonesia's largest exporter of handicrafts, he based his operations in Tembi, a village 30 minutes from Yogyakarta.

His business benefited greatly from the skill of the villagers, but so did they. Purser employed hundreds of workers, and the area developed from a poor rural village into a model community, with Purser as the unofficial ruler. Not only did he provide jobs, but also schools, health clinics and even gamelan and dance classes. Tembi was reborn.

When the earthquake hit Yogya and its environs, it knocked down half of Purser's compound and 90 percent of the village. Everything still standing was badly damaged. A lifelong collection of irreplaceable art and books was destroyed. Most would understand if Purser walked away. Instead, he's pouring money into reconstructing Tembi with HSBC and other donors, as fast as he can before the rains come.

Another example is Iskandar Waworuntu, a local Sufi environmentalist who is using his own money and that collected from friends to build houses and schools for the homeless. These are simple and affordable houses of timber and plastered bamboo, but they are functional. Like Purser's homes, they are based on traditional Javanese house designs, and both are therefore much more attractive and livable than the few depressing (and more expensive) rough brick boxes being thrown up now, which will destroy the unique character of Central Java's villages.

What Purser, Iskandar and others are doing is the sort of selfless, urgently needed and heroic action needed in such a situation, but Yogya needs many, many more like them, fast. What is embarrassing for me as an Indonesian is that because our government has failed, our people have to look to foreign donors, committed foreigners and a few private citizens with limited means to help them out.

Nothing's more certain than that more natural disasters will be coming Indonesia's way, given that we sit on a ring of volcanic fire. So why can't our government be better prepared to help the wong cilik (little people)? Or is it another case of the center forgetting the regions? I can't help thinking our politicians' reaction would be different if the 1.5 million were homeless in Jakarta a month before the rainy season.

The writer is the author of Sex, Power and Nation. She can be contacted at jsuryakusuma@mac.com.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.