Jay Solomon,Medan – Textile trader Shie Hok Lai lost everything when the tsunami destroyed his shop and home in Indonesia's Aceh province December 26., but the ethnic Chinese businessman is getting ready to start over again – in the same place.
In a bustling refugee camp in this Sumatra city, Mr. Shie, 28 years old, has signed a formal contract with an Indonesian-Chinese self-help organization, Tolong Menolong, promising to return to the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, in exchange for food, transportation and 500,000 rupiah, or about $55, in cash. "By signing this, I'm volunteering to rebuild our community," says Mr.
Shie between puffs on a clove cigarette. "But I also agreed not to come back to [the refugee camp in] Medan."
The relief effort that is helping Mr. Shie return to Aceh provides one clear example of how life has changed for Indonesia's minority Chinese community.
It has been openly and actively organizing assistance for Chinese victims of the tsunami. During the 32-year rule of former Indonesian strongman Suharto, which ended in 1998, Chinese were banned from organizing politically and faced severe restrictions on communal or community activity. Promotion of Chinese language or identity weren't allowed.
But thanks to changes since Mr. Suharto's fall, a group called Tolong Menolong – a Chinese self-help group running quietly since the 1970s – is operating openly and working with the Indonesian military and government agencies. Its refugee camp is full of Chinese-language signs.
"If this had happened during Suharto's time, this refugee camp would have been isolated, with no government support," says Tjhin Tjung Maow, the organizer of Tolong Menolong's relief operation in Medan. "Now, there's fresh air. All channels are open."
During the Suharto era, ethnic Chinese – who account for less than 4% of Indonesia's 220 million people – were often treated as second-class citizens.
But since 1998, Chinese have become a growing political and cultural factor in multiethnic Indonesia, which is home to the world's largest Muslim population.
Chinese have formed political parties, been appointed to senior government cabinet posts and gained prominence in the arts and the media. Chinese culture, meanwhile, is again flourishing across the archipelago, with Chinese-language schools, Mandarin script and lion dances becoming increasingly common sights.
In the wake of the tsunami, groups like Tolong Menolong – whose name is Indonesian for "mutual assistance" – have also taken a central role getting Chinese in Aceh back on their feet. The group has tapped Indonesia's affluent Chinese merchant class to raise large sums of cash for relief operations, though Tolong Menolong declines to give the figure. Overseas Chinese groups from Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan have sent doctors and counselors to Tolong Menolong's refugee camp in Medan, 600 kilometers southeast of Banda Aceh.
The return of Aceh's Chinese business people is seen as essential to the province's recovery, say relief organizations and local officials. Although they make up less than 5% of the population of northern Sumatra, ethnic Chinese form the backbone of the entire region's distribution and trading networks.
In Banda Aceh, Chinese merchants are estimated to own 50% to 70% of the private-sector businesses, and their companies direct the trade of essential goods like cooking oil, rice and coffee.
Thousands of Indonesia's Chinese fled Banda Aceh and the western coast of Aceh province to Medan and Jakarta in the days after the tsunami struck. Many tell stories of having their shops and homes looted, on top of the substantial damage wreaked by the powerful earthquake and ensuing waves. At least 1,000 ethnic Chinese died, according to Tolong Menolong.
Most of the Indonesian-Chinese survivors sought refuge in one of Medan's main Chinese quarters, known as Metal Street. Here, Mr. Tjhin and his son Adriadi opened a camp for survivors and assisted in their evacuation from Aceh aboard trucks and Indonesian military transport planes. Tolong Menolong and other Chinese organizations provided medicine and food to the survivors.
The elder Mr. Tjhin was himself a refugee from Aceh almost 40 years ago and says he felt obliged to help the tsunami victims. In late 1965, Indonesian army forces rounded up thousands of ethnic-Chinese from Aceh and forced them to board ships headed back to mainland China. They were accused of being loyal to Beijing's communist government and of aiding the Indonesian Communist Party in a bid to gain power in Jakarta. The forced departures followed an abortive coup attempt the Indonesian military blamed on the communists; while some Chinese were deported, others were among the huge numbers of people – some estimates are in the hundreds of thousands – killed in the bloody aftermath.
But Indonesia-born Mr. Tjhin, now 75 years old, never left. He managed to stay in Medan and eventually developed the sprawling Chinese enclave on Metal Street. He also quietly helped form Tolong Menolong – as a support network for ethnic Chinese in Sumatra. The group worked on property disputes and trade issues and assisted Chinese during times of unrest, as in May 1998 when mobs razed and looted hundreds of Chinese-owned shops and homes in Medan during turmoil that spawned Mr. Suharto's resignation.
"For three days, we focused on defending ourselves," says Adriadi Tjihn about Tolong Menolong's efforts in 1998. He says Metal Street residents armed themselves with Molotov cocktails and other weapons to keep attackers at bay. "Since then, all the Chinese [in Medan] started to fight back," he says.
At the height of the tsunami crisis, about 7,000 ethnic-Chinese were housed and fed in homes, shop houses, and community centers in and around Metal Street. Medical volunteers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia arrived to help at the camp. And Chinese Buddhist, Christian and Confucian organizations also set up relief centers.
But the Tjihns are now focused on moving back to Aceh refugees that remain on Metal Street. They say they know from personal experience how brief stints as refugees can unexpectedly turn into permanent relocations. "We are making it clear that these aren't permanent camps," says 38 year-old Adriadi Tjhin, who was born in a refugee camp. "We want to get them back to business."
The process of returning begins at a process center in Tolong Menolong's main refugee complex where men wait in line to sign contracts. Many refugees remain wary of looters and the threat of disease in Banda Aceh. But men who sign pledges to go back will act as scouts to assess the damage. They are provided with cash, transportation and temporary shelter in Aceh's Buddhist temples.
In return, they promise not to come back to live on Metal Street.
Lai Fuk Nyen, 60, is one scout preparing for his first visit to Banda Aceh since the tsunami. Mr. Lai didn't lose any close family members, but says his home and business were destroyed. He guardedly holds out hope that he can rebuild his construction business by winning some of the billions of dollars in contracts the Indonesian government is expected to offer to rebuild Aceh.
"If the Chinese people don't go back, the economy won't be functioning well," says Mr. Lai. "If they go back, there will be an improvement." That sentiment is shared in Banda Aceh, where some ethnic-Chinese businessmen and local Acehnese traders are beginning to map reconstruction plans.
The Dharma Bhatia Buddhist temple in the city's central business district serves as a kind of halfway house for Tolong Menolong's program. The streets outside the temple are still clogged with mud and flotsam, but inside an increasing number of visitors discuss business and the future. The back of the temple is being converted into a larger settlement center.
On a recent afternoon, a Muslim Acehnese businessman named Syarafudin came to the temple to see one of his oldest Chinese friends and learn about his family. The two friends, who had lost contact, discuss ways to revitalize Banda Aceh. "It's true that the Chinese run the economy here," Mr. Syarafudin says. "We need to find ways to bring them back."
With Tolong Menolong's help, Joanes Jony Pandy and his wife Maria also have returned to Banda Aceh to reopen their optical shop. "Half of our customers are now dead," says a sad-eyed Mr. Pandy. "Yeah, but half of them are still alive," adds his wife.