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 17 ethnic Chinese-owned stores in the area, including Tanujaya's. She escaped with her husband, throwing her 9-year-old son out the back window into a stream 24 feet below and plunging after him. They survived but lost everything. Now a refugee in Jakarta who sells chicken satay and fried rice to survive, Tanujaya laments the lack of sufficient money to allow her family to emigrate. "We're very afraid to stay," she says. "If we had the chance, we would leave Indonesia."