Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
23-09-2023
REMPANG: Eighty-year-old Halimah was born in Sembulang on the island of Rempang in Indonesia’s Riau Island province and spends her days pottering around the sleepy fishing district, cooking fresh seafood for her grandchildren and enjoying her retirement.
It is important to her that she dies there, too.
“I want to be buried in the local graveyard, next to my datuk [grandfather] and my other family members,” she told media.
Halimah worked as a domestic helper in nearby Malaysia for 20 years before she chose to return.
“This is my home, and this is where I want to die,” she said. “I love this place more than anything” but Halimah’s wish to live out her final years in Sembulang is now in jeopardy due to Indonesian government plans to evict the island’s 7,500 residents and build a multibillion-dollar Chinese-owned glass factory and ‘Eco-City’.
The authorities have given residents until September 28 to move out of their homes and into government-built houses some 60km (37 miles) away and inland.
The glass factory and Rempang Eco-City are a joint project between the Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority (BP Batam) and a local company, PT Makmur Elok Graha (MEG), in partnership with China’s Xinyi Glass, the world’s largest glass and solar-panel maker.
Xinyi has pledged some $11.6bn to the glass and solar panel manufacturing factory, and Indonesia’s Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia has said that the project will create some 35,000 jobs and net some $26.6bn of investments by 2080 but the residents of Rempang see little to celebrate in promises of investment that will mean they lose their childhood homes.
“When I was a child, there was nothing here, just jungle,” Halimah said. “There were no schools or villages, no motorbikes or mobile phones. We were here before all of that.”
“Now the government says we have to move, but what about us old people? I am so scared.”
It is not just Sembulang’s older residents who are concerned.
In recent months, thousands of people have taken to the streets of Rempang and the neighboring island of Batam, to show their opposition to the project. Police have responded with tear gas and water cannons, and arrested dozens. Demonstrations have also been held outside the Chinese embassy in Jakarta. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
