Buru Revisited

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

TWENTY-SIX years after the departure of the last group of tapol (political prisoners) on November 12, 1979, what has become of the Island of Buru in Central Maluku? For 10 years the island of sago fields and kayu putih (Melaleuca cajuputi) forests was home to 13,000 political prisoners—called Mas Tapol by the local population.

During the 10-year period thousands of hectares of land were opened to sawah (wetland) and ladang (dry land) farming, irrigation networks and cattle breeding, and dozens of intermarriages consummated between the tapol and the local women.

Suddenly, it was all over. The tapol were returned to Java. In their place came the transmigration settlers from Java. Last month Tempo’s Amarzan Loebis and Akmal Nasery Basral visited Buru and filed this report.

. tempo : 178037036977.

FROM a height of 22,000 feet and through the window of seat 20A of Mandala RI-660 flight cruising at a speed of 800 kilometers per hour, the island looked to me like a piece of earth dropped on a vast expanse of the sea. The passenger sitting in seat 21B behind me whom I made the acquaintance of when the plane stopped over at Hasanuddin Airport in Makassar, patted me on the back, “That’s Buru Island, Sir,” he said, acting like a to

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