Word: dayaks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...dazed looking Madurese refugee cradling her 15-day-old baby beneath a stretched tarpaulin in Sampit. Her fellow refugees are squeezed into every bit of shade they can find within a few hundred meters of the regional government office building. None dare to stray any farther for fear of Dayak patrols conducting what they call "sweeping" exercises: they are searching for Madurese to murder. The hospital around the corner from the refugee camp is almost empty, a health official says, although hundreds of refugees need medical help. It isn't considered safe...
...What lies behind the appalling savagery of the Dayaks? It's a question that Kma Usop, a Dayak cultural leader and a professor at Palangkaraya University, strains to answer, his words pouring out in an emotional stream as he lights an unending series of Pall Mall cigarettes. "The Dayaks are in a panic, they are feeling marginalized. They have been provoked for many years. The Madurese are violent. They fight in the markets and in the farms. We don't have similar problems with the Buginese or Chinese or Javanese...
...gradually returning to normal in Palangkaraya. Yet fear is still very much in the air. It's almost impossible to find a car in the city that doesn't fly a red ribbon or piece of cloth from its antenna or wing mirror, a sign of loyalty to the Dayak cause. Neighborhoods remain blocked by makeshift barricades of logs and stones...
...These economic tensions, added to the age-old stereotypes of the Madurese as clannish, threatening and rude, made it easy to roil the Dayaks. Combine that with the Dayak claim that all Madurese men carry knives which they are all too willing to use, and the Madurese become in Dayak eyes a perfect scapegoat for their woes. It is easier, after all, to blame the Madurese next door for Dayak problems than the central government in Jakarta...
...violence that claimed at least 469 lives in Borneo came to an end, Indonesian Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri comforted victims and indicated that declaration of a civil emergency-a step short of martial law-was not required. After 10 days of attacks on Madurese settlers by Borneo's native Dayaks, security forces brought the conflict to an end. The Dayaks have long sought to drive out the Madurese, contending that they were taking Dayak jobs and land...