An Incomplete List of Indonesia’s Tragedies and Disasters

POLITICS

• May 1998 – 1000 killed in student protests hijacked and manipulated into riots by members of the Indonesian military, in part as pretext for forcing resignation of President Suharto.
• 1999 – ethnic violence between ethnic Madurese and Borneo’s Dayak “headhunting” tribe leaves up to 3000 dead in Borneo
• November 13, 1998 – 11 killed in “Black Friday” student protests aimed at democratic reform.
• 1999 –violence in eastern Maluku violence between Muslims and Christians leaves an estimated 5 thousand dead in two years of intermittent fighting
• September 1999 –  between 1 and 2 thousand killed in East Timor, following a UN-supervised independence referendum in which residents of the disputed territory voted to break free of Indonesian rule.  That’s after more than 200 thousand were killed in the Indonesian invasion and two decades of fighting.
• February 2001 – more violence in Borneo between ethnic Madurese and Dayaks leaves 500 dead.

Add to these an additional 100 thousand  killed in more than  40 years of fighting  for independence by the OPM, the independence movement in Papua, a land rich in timber, gold, copper and oil.

And add 15 thousand killed in another separatist conflict – Aceh, another province rich in natural resources.

TERROR (list by the BBC):

• October 2002 – - Bomb attack on the Kuta Beach nightclub district on Bali kills 202 people, most of them tourists.
• August 2003 – Car bomb explodes outside the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, killing 14 people.
• September 2004 – Car bomb attack outside Australian embassy in Jakarta kills nine, injures more than 180.
• October 2005 – Three suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali kill 23 people, including the bombers.
• July 2009 – July Bombs rip through the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, killing 12 .

NATURAL DISASTERS/ TRANSPORT DISASTERS – 2004 – 2009 (list by Reuters):

• Dec 26, 2004 -  — the tsunami.  More than 170,000 Indonesians are killed or listed missing after a 9.15 magnitude earthquake off Indonesia’s Aceh province on Sumatra triggers a tsunami. The toll in affected Indian Ocean countries reaches 230,000 dead.
• March 28, 2005 – Nearly 1,000 are believed killed after a quake of magnitude 8.7 hits the coast of Sumatra.
• Sept. 5, 2005 – Domestic airliner operated by local carrier Mandala Airlines crashes in a residential area of Indonesia’s third-biggest city Medan, killing 102 aboard and 47 residents in an inferno on the ground.
• May 27, 2006 – Earthquake rocks area around ancient royal city of Yogyakarta killing at least 5,000 and destroying or damaging 150,000 homes.
• July 17, 2006 – A tsunami after a 7.7 magnitude quake in West Java province kills at least 550 people. At least 54,000 people are displaced.
• Dec. 30, 2006 – A ferry with at least 600 aboard sinks during a storm as it travels between Borneo and Java. About 250 survivors are eventually found in the days after the accident.
• Jan. 1, 2007 – An Adam Air passenger plane flying from Surabaya to Manado with 102 people aboard crashes into the sea off the west coast of Sulawesi.
• March 6, 2007 – Two strong earthquakes kill at least 72 people and injure dozens in the West Sumatra provincial capital of Padang.
• Jan. 11, 2009 – Nearly 250 people missing after a ferry travelling from Pare-Pare on the west coast of Sulawesi to the city of Samarinda capsizes due to bad weather.
• May 20, 2009 – About 100 people are killed when a military transport plane crashes in East Java.
• Sept. 2, 2009 – A 7.0 magnitude quake strikes Java, killing over 60 people. More than 25,000 people are displaced in West Java since the quake, which hit just off the coast, and an estimated 86,000 homes are damaged, although no major power or industrial installations are hit.
• Sept. 30 – A magnitude 7.6 quake strikes off the city of Padang on the coast of Sumatra. At least 75 people have been killed. Thousands of people are trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. One hospital is known to have collapsed.