In May 1998, the worst anti-Chinese violence of the 20th century in Indonesia left 1,200 people dead, thousands of shops and houses burnt and persuaded thousands of Chinese to migrate, taking their families and money with them.
But out of this violence came an unexpected good. Inspired by Tzu Chi (Mercy Relief) Foundation, a Buddhist charity based in Taiwan, many Chinese who stayed behind decided to show their concern for their fellow citizens - by distributing food, cleaning a polluted river and building a model village for the poor, with a school and a hospital. Tzu Chi is not alone in doing charity work in Indonesia, but its projects have a special meaning in light of the long-standing racial tensions between ethnic Chinese and indigenous people.
'After the riots, it was a time for self-reflection,' said Sugianto Kusuma, whose Chinese name is Kuo Tsai-yuan, a millionaire property and banking tycoon who devotes half of his time to the Tzu Chi Foundation.
'We realised that we had to do something. As I said to a banker when I asked him for a donation, if we did nothing to ease the tension, it would be a time bomb for us.'
Cheng Yen, a 69-year-old Buddhist Dharma master and founder of Tzu Chi, based in the eastern Taiwanese city of Hualien, told the tycoons they must give back to Indonesians something of what they had earned, and in this way win their trust and confidence. Only this might break the vicious cycle of anti-Chinese violence that had been part of Indonesia's history for the past 100 years.
Accounting for between 2 and 3 per cent of the country's 220 million people, ethnic Chinese own about 75 per cent of Indonesia's private corporate wealth, and have been the scapegoat for the anger of the poor and politicians who want to exploit them.
