Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Gang Macan (Tiger Lane), a densely populated alleyway in North Jakarta, was notorious for its tiny brothels and deadly fights between vicious gangs. A fire in 1995 took care of all that.
These days the neighbourhood provides a service high in demand in Indonesia today – mob rental.
For as little as S$4, free transport and free lunch, residents of this slum neighbourhood in the rough Tanjung Priok seaport area would go out on the street en masse and defend any cause – be it political, business or personal.
Said Mr Saud, the community unit head: "You can tell when there's a major demonstration in town, it gets really quiet around here." The industry started in 1999, when some residents were paid to show their support for then president B.J. Habibie's attempt for re-election.
In 2000 they were hired for many rallies to show support for former president Suharto, who was being accused of corruption. Those were the days, he said, when "orders' kept coming.
Business this year has not been good. Most of the protests were anti-government, something the residents here tend to avoid.
Many of Mr Saud's residents, mostly small-time fishermen, voted for President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle.
Mr Saud is just one of many protest agents or field coordinators raking in the money from an informal industry that has been growing.
Community unit heads, youth group leaders or the most feared thugs earn their money for recruiting the crowd, and often unfairly take cuts from the protesters' fees.
Paid crowds are not a new phenomenon. In the New Order regime, authorities like the military or village chiefs often mobilise crowds with money and intimidation, to counter anti-government student protests.
But now these mobs are available to anyone: politicians, crime suspects, even businessmen. "The paid crowds have become very professional now," said Ms Wardah Hafidz, who heads the Urban Poor Consortium advocate group whose members were attacked by the notorious Forum Betawi Rempuk (FBR) last year.
They have little political influence; indeed most Jakarta residents can distinguish the real ones from the paid ones at a glance. In massive numbers, however, they could add some pressure to the object of the protests.
The recruits range from unemployed young men in their teens – some of whom are lured by the promise of drugs, alcohol and spending money – to pedicab drivers, fishermen and housewives with children.
At the rallies, they are given headbands or shirts to wear or banners to hold, all displaying names of the groups they supposedly belong to.
For three hours of work, they get between 20,000 (S$4) and 30,000 rupiah, a lunchbox and mineral water. Rented buses ferry them to the protest site and back.
But the more professional protesters are those belonging to groups set up especially for such hiring. Often these groups are used for their violent streak. The FBR for instance, last year, assaulted pedicab drivers and illegal squatters, including women and children, who were protesting against the city's policies they deemed hostile to the poor.
Students too are in the business, despite their reputation as the vanguard of the 1998 reform movement. The Straits Times understands some student leaders have close ties to certain political figures or parties. Said Ms Wardah: "Students are the most sought after because they add credibility to the protests".