INDONESIA: Thousands of poor demand cash assistance

Zely Ariane, Jakarta

On March 15, at least 2000 poor people, most of them housewives, rallied outside the office of the minister for people's welfare, before marching to the presidential palace and the Jakarta governor's office, to demand that the poor receive the payment of direct cash assistance (BLT) as compensation fuel price increases for all those living on incomes of less than $2 a day.

Hundreds of poor people in Surabaya in Eastern Java, Palembang in South Sumatra, and Samarinda in Eastern Kalimantan demonstrated on the same day outside the local governors' offices and the offices of the State Electricity Company (PLN).

The number of those who should be able to get the assistance, is growing all the time. Those living on 125,000-175,000 rupiah (US$13-18) a month now number about 118 million, out of a total population of 230 million.

Jakarta protest also called access to cheap rice, cheap cooking oil and kerosene, free education and health care, free civic administration services (identity and family cards, marriage and birth certifications), cheap housing and the legal right to residence without forced eviction for non-payment of rent. It also opposed projected electricity price rises.

At the presidential palace, five delegates from the Union of the Urban Poor (SRMK) led by its chairperson, Marlo Sitompul, as well as by Dita Sari, chairperson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), were received inside where they stated their demands.

From Green Left Weekly, March 22, 2006.

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 661