One can easily spot the huge problem Indonesia is facing simply by walking on pedestrian pavements in the streets of its cities. Jakarta has never had such an enormous number of homeless people and beggars asking for mercy with their palms at traffic light stops, intersections, or business districts. The number can be as high as 20 to 40 in one single spot. The poverty is very vivid and heartbreaking, even to a foreigner.
It all began in mid-1997 when the Indonesian currency, Rupiah, was exponentially market-devalued. Some blame the foreign investors that played some ugly tricks on the foreign exchange market floor, while some on the lack of transparency that supposedly tie the government, businesses and banks. Despite all the arguments, the currency has hit as low as Rp 17,000 against the dollar in August 1998. It is loosing more than 80% of its original value, not to mention the severely decreasing purchasing power that goes hand-in-hand with.
As the consequence, mass bankruptcy yield in titanic unemployment and chaotic situation leading to starvation. Combined with unstable political climate that is endlessly demanding reformation and racial scapegoating movements towards the Chinese and other minorities, the price of daily necessities is skyrocketing and the poverty rate is pacing more rapidly than ever before. Unsurprisingly, experts' prediction that half of Indonesian population -220 million-will live under the minimum standard of living by the end of the millennium turned out to be correct.
Mass psychological anger towards the Chinese ethnic in Jakarta was triggered by a group of elite military snipers on May 12, 1998 who targeted innocent Trisakti University students in the -supposed to be-safe yard of their own college, added a heavy burden on the nation's shoulder. (This has led into a new series of political turmoil to this very day.) The conditioned and organized mass looting, mobbing, raping, mutilating and killing are now the most degrading factors that Indonesia has to bear in the international arena, more than the economic crisis itself. With those elements under the microscope of international audience, it is even more impossible to attain a smooth and clean healing of economic downfall within a couple of years.
