The price of Madurese ambition

By Atika Shubert, CNN Correspondent

Borneo burns: Hundreds of Madurese homes were burnt to the ground in Sampit

Migrating across the archipelago

Two men lynched

KETAPANG, Indonesia (CNN) -- Mistimah is a slim 40-year old woman who has a blunt way with words.

She hardly bats an eye as she describes her husband's death, beheaded and mutilated by neighbors in her home of Central Kalimantan.

She is impassioned about one thing -- getting revenge.

"Of course, I would kill them. I would have killed them if they hadn't taken away my weapons. Even my scissors they took away," she says ruefully.

Mistimah is Madurese, one of the most reviled ethnic communities in Indonesia. They are infamous for a propensity to violence and ironclad family ties that allow them to hollow out exclusive niches of Madurese culture in every place they settle.

In Indonesian lore, every Madurese carries a freshly sharpened sickle. And while none were seen in refugee camps, vendors were happy to sell and demonstrate them as tourist souvenirs near the port.

Last month, nearly 500 Madurese settlers were slaughtered by their indigenous Dayak neighbors in Central Kalimantan.

While the world watched aghast at images of ritually beheaded Madurese bodies, many Indonesians chalked it up as an expected, if horrifying, reaction to Madurese belligerence.

Migrating across the archipelago

Because of Mistimah's ethnicity, her home was razed to the ground. Her family fled to a squalid refugee camp packed with tens of thousands of other Madurese.

It was not enough to save her husband. He was attacked when he strayed from the refugee camp looking to find medicine for their baby grandson.

Now, Mistimah has returned as a refugee to her ethnic homeland of Madura, a dry and impoverished island off the coast of East Java, roughly the size of Hawaii.

But thousands of Madurese claim homes in other provinces, having migrated across the archipelago over the decades. Mistimah's mother, for example, was born in Kalimantan, though she is ethnically Madurese. She pats the hand of her affable Madurese husband who she met, married and built a home with in Kalimantan.

They have two Madurese children who married two Madurese spouses and they now have a Madurese grandchild. Mistimah can barely conceive of marrying outside her ethnicity, particularly to a Dayak, despite living side by side for decades.

"They are a different tribe." She says brusquely: "Besides any Dayaks living here would have been killed."

Two men lynched

She may be right. Two Dayak men were lynched in Mistimah's village just a few days before. They were killed as they tried to evacuate their Madurese wives to safety.

Neighbors to the Madurese rarely have anything good to say, using unflattering descriptions such as aggressive and clannish. But ask a Madurese and he is likely to agree, provided you mention the positive steretypes as well -- hard-working, ambitious, and loyal.

Refugees, in particular, wear the slander as a badge of honor.

"Madurese aren't choosy. I'll do any work there is," says Sofii, a 45-year-old Madurese refugee who has set up camp next to Mistimah's temporary shelter. "The thing is, I admit, Madurese can be tough but we are also good."

People say the Madurese are evil, but that's not true. That's just how we appear on the surface."

Sociologists say the hatred between the Madurese and Dayaks is more economic than anything else. Madurese are commercially successful, aggressively competing for work with their neighbors, in this case, Dayak tribesmen

Mistimah couldn't agree more. "It's like this. The Madurese will do anything for work, always looking for work. Those Dayaks, they don't want to work.

"They do as they like. No work. So, they see us Madurese as well off, with a lot of nice things. They just got jealous.

The price of Madurese ambition, it seems, is their heads. Dayaks, so angered by the Madurese, went on a rampage, ritually beheading hundreds of Madurese.

Yet, both Mistimiah and Sofii seem determined to return to Kalimantan to claim back their land.

"That is what it means to be Madurese." Soffii says, "The Madurese don't lose. They always come back. And they always win."

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