Cities in Darkness: Searching for New Hope

The Jakarta Post

08 October 2015

Jonatan A. Lassa

Ask any politician at the House of Representatives in Senayan who the real victims of rampant annual land and forest fires in Sumatra are. They will most likely say that the main victims of the catastrophic haze in 1997/1998 and 2015 have been Singaporeans and Malaysians. Why do powerful people in Jakarta still think like this?

And why does the Presidential Palace seem to react to complaints from Singapore and Malaysia while forgetting the voices from Palangkaraya and Riau?

The total population of Sumatra and Kalimantan is about 70 million. About 60 percent (42 million) have been affected by the haze catastrophe this year. And if not managed properly, the impact could reach 70 million people in total in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, just as in 1997/1998.

… The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Non–Traditional Security Studies at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

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Last updated on 13/11/2015