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United Development Party rallies in Pekalongan

Source
Voice of America - May 11, 1997

Jenny Grant, Pekalongan - The Muslim-backed United Development Party - or P-P-P rallied in this Central Java town of Pekalongan on Sunday as Jenny Grant reports from the riot-struck town, the local Chinese community feels it is under attack during the parliamentary election campaign.

Thousands of youths attended two big rallies in Pekalongan on Sunday, decked out in the green color of the Muslim Party, the P-P-P. They rode around the town in convoys of motorbikes, chanting Islamic slogans and making their party's sign. Chinese shop owners closed their doors, saying they feared there could be fresh attacks on their businesses.

For the past two months, Pekalongan has been the site of the worst election campaign violence in Indonesia. At least four separate clashes have broken out between the supporters of the ruling Golkar Party and the Mulslim Party.

The clashes twice deteriorated into anti-Chinese rioting. Dozens of Muslim youths have been jailed for between three days and three months for their part in the unrest.

Local Chinese residents say most of the 60 shops that were ransacked and burnt have been rebuilt, but some shops are still visibly damaged.

Tensions in this batik-producing town stem from the economic disparity between local Indonesians and ethnic Chinese. The locals say they have been locked out of the development offered by the Indonesian government. Many batik manufacturing workshops are owned by Chinese, with local Indonesian employees who spend hours painting intricate designs onto cloth.

Makmoud Maskour, the head of the P-P-P in Pekalongan, rejected the suggestion that his party played to anti-Chinese feelings in the community. He said third parties have been making threatening phone calls to Chinese shop owners in an effort to discredit the P-P-P. The Muslim Party won a 12 percent swing from Golkar in Central Java at the last election, in 1992. It has a strong chance of increasing that at the May 29 elections after the government ousted the popular leader of the other minority party, Megawati Sukarnoputri (of the Indonesian Democracy Party, or P-D-I).

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