Transmigration program
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The transmigration program (Indonesian: Transmigrasi) was an initiative of the Indonesian Government to move landless people from densely populated areas of Indonesia to less populous areas of the country. This involved moving people predominantly from the island of Java, but also to a lesser extent from Bali and Madura, to less densely populated areas including Papua, Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Sulawesi.
The stated purpose of this program was to reduce the considerable poverty and overpopulation on Java, to provide opportunities for hard-working poor people, and to provide a workforce to better utilize the natural resources of the outer islands. The program, however, has been controversial with critics accusing the Indonesian Government of trying to use these migrants to reduce the proportion of native populations in receiving areas, thus weakening separatist movements. The program has often been cited as a major and ongoing factor in controversies and even conflict and violence between settlers and indigenous populations.
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History
The policy was initiated by the Dutch colonial government in the early nineteenth century to reduce crowding and to provide a workforce for plantations on Sumatra. The program diminished during the last years of the Dutch era, but was revived following Indonesian independence, in an attempt to alleviate the food shortages and weak economic performance during Sukarno's presidency in the two decades following WW2.
Under the President Suharto, the program continued and was expanded to send migrants to more areas of the archipelago such as Papua. At its peak between 1979 and 1984, 535,000 families, or almost 2.5 million people, moved under the transmigration program. It had a major impact on the demographics of some regions; for example, in 1981 sixty percent of the three million people in the southern Sumatra province of Lampung were transmigrants. During the 1980s, the program was funded by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank as well as by bilateral donors.
Since the 1990s, violent conflict has occurred between some transmigrant and indigenous populations; in Kalimantan, hundreds were killed in fighting between Madurese transmigrants and the indigenous Dayak people.
In August 2000, after the Asian financial crisis and the fall of the Suharto government, the Indonesian government officially cancelled the large-scale transmigration program, due to a lack of funds.
Aims
The stated purpose of the program, according to proponents in the Indonesian government and the development community, was to move millions of Indonesians from the densely populated inner islands of Java, Bali and Madura to the outer, less densely populated islands to achieve a more balanced population density. This would alleviate poverty by providing land and new opportunities to generate income for poor landless settlers. It would also benefit the nation as a whole by increasing the utilization of the natural resources of the less-populous islands.
The program may have been intended to encourage the unification of the country through the creation of a single Indonesian national identity to augment or replace regional identities. Whether such a change is desirable remains disputed.
Criticism
Indonesia's transmigration program was the target of extensive opposition, particularly from within indigenous populations in the regions where transmigrants were settled. Some foreign and domestic observers have also criticized the program's intentions and implementation.
Many indigenous people saw the program as a part of an effort by the Java-based Indonesian Government to extend greater economic and political control over other regions, by moving in people with closer ties to Java and loyalty to the Indonesian state. This was particularly resented amongst some in areas such as Papua, which had an active scessionist movement trying to end what they saw as an unwanted Indonesian military occupation. The government agencies responsible for administering transmigration were often accused of being insensitive to local customary or adat land rights.
Transmigration has also been blamed for accelerating deforestation of sensitive rainforest areas, as formerly sparsely-populated areas experienced great increases in population. Migrants were often moved to entirely new "transmigration villages," constructed in regions that had been relatively unimpacted by human activity. By settling on this land, resources were used up and the lands became overgrazed, resulting in deforestation.
In many examples, the program also failed in its objective to improve the situation of the migrants. The soil and weather of their new locations were generally not nearly as productive as the volcanic soil of Java and Bali. The settlers were often landless people lacking in any farming skills, let alone skills appropriate to the new land, thus compromising their own chances of success. Despite major government spending, which in some years was equivalent to thirty or forty percent of the entire government budget for some outer islands, necessary investments in transportation, water, and education was lacking[citation needed].
Current Status
Under the restructured Department of Manpower and Transmigration (Indonesian: Departemen Tenaga Kerja dan Transmigrasi) the Indonesian government maintains the transmigration program, although on a far smaller scale than in previous decades. The department assists in annually relocating approximately 15,000 families, or nearly 60,000 people. The rate has shown gradual increases in recent years with funding for transmigration activities at $270 million (2.3 trillion IDR) and a target of relocating 20,500 families in 2006.[1]
See also
- Demographics of Indonesia
- Migration
- Illegal settlers
- Political migration
- Human rights in western New Guinea
- Bumiputra and Bumiputera
- Melanesia
- Green March
Further reading
External links
- Indonesia - World Bank Admits Transmigration Failures, Martin Colchester, 1994. Report on settler-Dayak conflict in Kalimantan.
- Kalimantan's Agony: The failure of Transmigrasi, American CNN news report, 2001.
- "Indonesia's transmigration programme: an update, 2001 report by "Down to Earth," a UK-based organization working on Indonesian environmental issues. Many details on the Suharto-era program and the changes since then. DtE is highly critical of transmigration.
References
- Hardjono, J. 1989. The Indonesian transmigration program in historical perspective. International migration 26:427-439.
- Hollie, Pamela. 1981. Jakarta fights overcrowding Bali and Java. The New York Times January 11.
- Rigg, Jonathan. 1991. Land settlement in Southeast Asia: the Indonesian transmigration program. In: Southeast Asia: a region in transition. London: Unwin Hyman. 80-108.
- MacAndrews, Colin. 1978. Transmigration in Indonesia: prospects and problems. Asian Survey 18(5):458-472.
