AUGUST 16, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 6

Batam's Moment of Truth
The industrial enclave strives for Singapore's prosperity but inherits Indonesia's ethnic strife
By ANTHONY SPAETH

Singapore and Batam are equatorial islands, not so different in size, with only 20 km of the Singapore Strait between them. The atlas paints them different colors because Singapore is an independent city-state and Batam is part of Indonesia's Riau Islands. But before the economies of East Asia took their mid-1990s stumble, the gap between the islands had narrowed--and Batam had become a must stop on the Asian Synergy Tour. Land-challenged Singapore was spreading industry across the Strait. Humble Batam gratefully accepted the investments, jobs and rising standard of living. The forces of global commerce were smudging once-inviolable national boundaries--for everyone's good.

Two weeks ago, that synergy turned into something that looked dangerously like chaos. At Budi Kemuliaan clinic in Nagoya, Batam's principal town, local doctors attempted for hours to save the life of an immigrant laborer from the eastern Indonesian island of Flores who had been rushed from ethnic riots with severe stab wounds. As the medics labored over a makeshift operating table, a television across the ward blared a variety show beamed from Singapore. The doctors ultimately failed. The worker from Flores, whose name was not released, became one of at least 20 victims of a week of sectarian violence that threatens Batam's chance of becoming something other than a far-flung island in the Indonesian archipelago.

Batam may be a victim of its own success. The cross-strait cooperation between Singapore and Indonesia is 20 years old and has seen Singapore Inc. shift substantial labor-intensive manufacturing businesses to the island. They were followed by big international brand names, including Sanyo, Sony, Philips and Matsushita. Beach resorts opened on the island's north shore--Singapore's towers can be seen on the horizon--catering to weekenders taking the 30-minute ferry to what Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong once dubbed "Asia's Caribbean." Batam now accounts for 10% of Indonesia's manufactured exports. Direct investment, most of it Singaporean and Japanese, totals some $5 billion and was expected to jump another $10 billion over the next five years.

Sony and Matsushita aren't the only big names associated with the island. Indonesian President B.J. Habibie was once chairman of the agency that managed the island's growth. Habibie's brother-in-law, Major General Sudarsono Darmosuwito, was chief executive of the island's main development agency. Two of Habibie's sons won the right to build ship-servicing facilities here.

The building up of Batam by the Habibies, Singapore and Japan made it a magnet for migrants from other parts of Indonesia. Since 1989, population has tripled to 300,000. That has given rise to a complex stew of religions and languages trying to coexist. The island's original ethnic Malay inhabitants have been joined by Muslim Padangs from Sumatra, who now comprise 35-40% of the population; Protestant Bataks, also from Sumatra; Catholic migrants from Flores; plus Javanese, Sulawesi Bugis, Dayaks from Kalimantan and others. "There are 10 different ethnic groups living in my village," says Erwin, a driver from northern Sumatra.

But families are still huddled in the Santo Petrus Catholic church in Nagoya, waiting for enough calm to return to their homes. That may take time. "We have always been hated here, but this is our home too," says Servasius, 40, a leader of the Flores community's hastily assembled mob. Or so it seemed until now: last week Indonesian officials were arranging the repatriation of 1,000 Flores migrants back to their impoverished island, Batam's first such official depopulation. Synergy on Batam was great when it was only about economics: now Indonesia and Singapore must get the inhabitants of its co-prosperity island to coexist.

Reported by Eric Ellis/Batam