Racism in Asia - Indonesia

Indonesia

See also Jakarta Riots of May 1998 and Anti-Chinese legislation in Indonesia.

A number of discriminatory laws against Chinese Indonesians were enacted by the government of Indonesia. In 1959, President Sukarno approved PP 10/1959 that forced Chinese Indonesians to close their businesses in rural areas and relocate into urban areas. Moreover, political pressures in the 1970s and 1980s restricted the role of the Chinese Indonesian in politics, academics, and the military. As a result, they were thereafter constrained professionally to becoming entrepreneurs and professional managers in trade, manufacturing, and banking. In the 1960s, following the failed alleged Communist coup attempt in 1965, there was a strong sentiment against the Chinese Indonesians who were accused of being Communist collaborators. In 1998, Indonesia riots over higher food prices and rumors of hoarding by merchants and shopkeepers often degenerated into anti-Chinese attacks. There were also racism against religion & believe wide across the country, especially between Islam and Christian.

Amnesty International has estimated more than 100,000 Papuans, one-sixth of the population, have died as a result of government-sponsored violence against West Papuans, while others had previously specified much higher death tolls. The 1990s saw Indonesia accelerate its Transmigration program, under which hundreds of thousands of Javanese and Sumatran migrants were resettled to Papua over a ten-year period. Prior to Indonesian rule, the Asian population was estimated at 16,600. Critics suspect that the Transmigration program's purpose is to tip the balance of the province's population from the heavily Melanesian Papuans toward western Indonesians, thus further consolidating Indonesian control.