Indonesia: March 14, 2001

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Settlers continue to flee Borneo, with 50,000 now made refugees by the violence. The police have reduced stopped the killings, over 500 have died, but native Dayaks continue to burn settler homes. The problem in Borneo is similar to that in Irian Jaya, where native Melanesians feel threatened by better educated Malay settlers. On Borneo and Irian Jaya, the locals are often tribal peoples who, until the last few generations, were living a stone age lifestyle. Population pressures on the densely populated Malay islands caused the government to send Malays to settle the more thinly areas in Borneo and Irian Jaya. The two groups do not get along. The Malays see the Dayaks (a work describing non-Malay tribal peoples) as a bunch of savages. The Dayaks see the Malays as a bunch of arrogant hustlers.

 

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