‘No place like home’: ethnic Chinese who fled Indonesia for Taiwan remember the deadly 1998 riots that changed their lives
- A deepening economic crisis in Indonesia led to rumours of ethnic Chinese hoarding rice, and resulted in mobs attacking their homes and businesses in May 1998
- Researchers estimate thousands of them fled the country for Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and elsewhere in the wake of the riots that left more than 1,000 people dead
Thamsir, now 42 and a television and radio announcer, remembers a frantic phone call from his mother describing how their family was trying to flee, after a mob burned down a neighbouring house in Jelambar, a sub-district in West Jakarta home to many Chinese residents.
“‘We cannot do anything now, but luckily, there is a river in front of us,’ my mother said,” Thamsir recalls, explaining that residents had blocked the bridge that would have allowed the mob to cross the river and access the house that his mother, father and younger brother were living in.
“Then my younger brother took over the phone and told me to stop talking. He said the family members would take turns to patrol but he would stab anyone who broke in.”
In August 1998, he joined demonstrators on the streets of Taipei to demand the Indonesian government end what he described as a “vile act that had an impact on the Chinese community”.