The Washington Times

Willis Witter

JAKARTA, Indonesia

Atju, 22, usually spends Sundays selling stereos in a burnt-out indoor shopping arcade that was pillaged during anti-Chinese riots last May.

Now the terror is growing again. As many as 31 people have been killed in demonstrations and riots in Jakarta the past two weeks. Rioting earlier this week was ethnically motivated, with mainly ethnic Chinese and Christians targeted.

The week began with a Muslim mob burning or ransacking more than a dozen churches in Jakarta following a rumor that Catholics on the eastern island of Ambon had attacked a mosque.

Though churches were targeted, the rampage came as a familiar jolt to Indonesia's ethnic Chinese. The rage could just as easily have turned on them as it did last spring.

When Atju heard of the mayhem Sunday he quickly shuttered his store and hurried home. While he was away, the mob assembled outside his home. This time, he said, the army blocked them from coming in.

Atju sat inside his shuttered home, clutching the lacquered handle of a Japanese samurai sword for protection as angry mobs roamed outside.

"If they try to steal these," said Atju, pointing to his shop lined with speakers and boom boxes, "I just run away. I don't care. But if they try to rape my sister, I will fight to death."

The flight of wealthy, educated Chinese following last May's riots came as a shattering blow in a nation that has since become the frailest of Asia's once prosperous and now shattered economies. An estimated 70,000 of them left the country, taking with them tens of billions of dollars.

"The economic costs were enormous. You don't have to be an economist to figure that out," said Ong Khoo Kham, a history professor at the University of Indonesia.

The sudden exodus helped to plunge Indonesia into what could be called a classic depression.

An estimated 18 million workers have lost jobs since Asia's economic crisis began a year and a half ago, putting the unemployment rate well above 20 percent -- similar to that during the Great Depression in the United States.

Hungry children beg in the streets of Jakarta, a sight rarely seen before May, while others forage for food in piles of discarded, rotting vegetables.

The latest riot came at a time when business conditions in Indonesia had begun to show signs of a tentative rebound. The nation's 80 percent annual inflation rate appears to have stalled and its battered currency, the rupiah, has continued to strengthen even after Sunday's riots.

In outlying islands, exports of commodities such as timber and palm oil have increased, and after a period of drought, rains have given farmers an opportunity to plant.

"The nation could bounce back to an acceptable level [of economic activity] rather quickly. It would be starting now if it weren't for the social and political crisis," said one Western economist, speaking on condition of anonymity.

That makes the impact of Sunday's riots all the more devastating, the economist said. "The leading indicator of recovery will be the return of Chinese money and there's no sign of that."

The rapes continue to terrify the Chinese community. Just 4 percent of Indonesia's 150 million people, the ethnic group is widely resented for its perceived wealth.

A government commission documented that 66 Chinese women had been sexually assaulted and said that in some cases the nation's army was partly to blame. Human rights groups put the total at more than 160.

Families that are too poor to leave are scraping for money to send one or more daughters abroad.

Atju, an ethnic Chinese who gave only his first name, considers it fortunate that he was able to put his sister on a plane to Taiwan, where she hopes to find a husband and settle.

It took a harrowing monthlong journey from Jakarta to two cities in the northern island of Kalimantan, where, as in Jakarta, stone-throwing mobs forced all Chinese people into hiding.

With his sister safe, Atju headed home. Last Sunday, he once again went through a now-familiar drill, rushing home, bolting the front door and reaching for the samurai sword. He wants to leave the country but has nowhere to go.

Since May, an estimated 70,000 Chinese have fled Indonesia. For the 8 million who stayed behind, there is a growing realization that you have to live here and try to improve the situation, said the University of Indonesia's Mr. Ong.

Like Chandra, 23, who owns a small shop selling cellular telephones. "All I want to do is live in peace, to make a living with my shop," said Chandra, who refused to give his family name. "Even if the worst happens, civil war, I will stay and somehow survive."

Elections for a new parliament are scheduled for June, a watershed in the nation's shift to democratic rule after the May ouster of its military ruler of 32 years, President Suharto. But the transition remains tenuous.

The current president, B.J. Habibie, owes his position to continuing support from the military, which has a constitutional role as an internal police force.

Many remain terrified of the future, especially women.