Indonesia: The Plight Of The Ethnic Chinese

Veronica Suryati Tanujaya, 35, used to be a shop owner. As one of hundreds of thousands of general store merchants, she helped form a cornerstone of the Indonesian economy that has kept the archipelago running on credit since the 17th century. Her family, emigrants from China, founded the store in a small subdistrict of West Java three generations ago. She knew all the local farmers and how much credit to give each one for kerosene, rice, and cooking oil until harvest time.

In February, in the midst of the most turbulent months of Indonesian history since 1965, the farmers started rioting and burned down all the 17 stores owned by ethnic Chinese in the area, including Tanujaya's. She escaped with her husband, throwing her 9-year-old son out the back window into a stream 8 meters below and plunging after him. They survived but lost everything. Now a refugee in Jakarta, she runs a food stall selling fried rice and chicken satay. "We're very afraid to stay," Tanujaya says, lamenting the lack of sufficient money to allow her to emigrate. "If we had the chance, we would leave Indonesia."