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Beting village: Trapped in an ingrained narcotics ecosystem
The floating settlement of Kampung Beting in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, is a complex warren of factors that have contributed to an entrenched drug trade that few residents, if any, have been able to escape.
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Unsleeping village: Late into midnight, Two Beting residents wait at a riverside post for a canoe to ferry them back to their floating hometown. (JP/Reza Darwin)
This is Part 2 of a two-part story on Kampung Beting.
Read also: Beting village: Haven for drug users, hell for non-users
Maze with a purpose
The only land access to the floating settlement of Kampung Beting is over gertak, footbridges made out of ironwood suspended above its many waterways. Adding to the challenging accessibility are the mazelike, crisscrossing narrow alleys of Beting village, truncated only by the Kapuas River. All houses connect through concealed doorways.
According to Arief Nugroho, a Pontianak Post journalist who reported on a police raid in 2012, this interconnected architecture and winding geographical layout contribute the single greatest hurdle to unraveling the tangled threads of the local narcotics ecosystem. The village layout makes it easy for dealers to escape and hide, even get rid of evidence, in matters of seconds during a police raid.
