Indonesian people smugglers or fishermen trying to feed their families?

A powerfully muscled brown arm from the jetty above took hold of mine and began to haul. My colleague Wiranti, and I scrambled up the rotting timbers from the wildly rocking fishing boat in which we had arrived at one of the many tiny islands in Indonesia’s Wakatobi Marine Park, south east of Sulawesi. Jokes in Indonesian, many of them ribald, accompanied our ascent from sea to land. Lowering our backpacks, we shook our hair in the cool breeze from the Banda Sea.

The jailing last week of yet more Indonesian fishermen for supposed people smuggling offences brought back memories of the time I spent in Indonesia teaching safety and survival at sea. Wiranti and I had been hitching between islands for three months staying with fishing communities.

The fishermen’s arrest and jailing we were told would send a message that such activities would not be condoned. The smug parental tone, now far too often the background music of Australian political and bureaucratic managerialism, fell well short of any understanding of the lives led by these men and women. Quite simply if it’s a choice between illegal activities and feeding the wife and kids, illegal wins every time, particularly as the Indonesian political system in which they live conducts itself with varying degrees of cupidity.

While the Australian government seems more like a coterie of strict disciplinarians, sociologists, or anyone with some understanding of cause and effect have been booed off the stage. Thus the victims continue to be not only blamed, but incarcerated as well.

Two women hitching around the islands teaching safety and survival, attracted a large and curious reception at the jetty. This community was poor. The women wore faded batik sarongs, the men in shredded trousers, and the kids naked or in dirty T-shirts stretched over worm-infested bellies.

Between the islands of Riau, south of Singapore, to West Papua we heard stories of privation, narrow escapes, extraordinary endurance and tragedy. Artisinal fishers along with upland farmers are usually the world’s most destitute, but despite their material poverty, we were invariably greeted with generosity, humor and openness. Food appeared served on the floor, and quilts piled high to make beds while our hosts snored on the bamboo slat floors. I learned to publicly wash and shampoo my hair in one bucket of water. While surrounded by sea, drinking water is all too scarce.

What was increasingly obvious was that development was driving them further into poverty and into illegal activities. Fishing villages in the main are outside the purview of mainstream development activities. Increasing urban wealth and large international fleets have added to regional marine environmental destruction. Small-scale fishermen see their income retreating like the daily tide.

To most Australians, Indonesian islands are holiday locations. For the residents, islands hold no romance: only wild weather and soils too poor for agriculture. Wells dry up during protracted El Nino’s. Fishing and the occasional scam is often all there is.

Government officials, I often heard take every opportunity for some free range rent seeking or gate keeping. Women said they each paid the Coast Guard 3.6 million rupiah (about A$320) for their husbands, whose boat had sunk beneath them. Their average daily income was 43,000 rupiah (40 cents).

In the face of the banality of everyday illegality, a windfall profit from carrying people across what they regard as nominal borders is better than hunger.

Richer neighbors have vacuumed the sea floors, paying off the authorities. Local well-connected mobs export live, high value fish under the cover of darkness to Hong Kong. During the 11 years I lived in Indonesia, coral trout sold in the markets shrunk from 1.8 kilos to barely 300 grams.

Fishermen have one of the most dangerous occupations is the world. Wild carnivorous seas, winds that can lift you off the decks and far out to sea, sea junk that fouls the props of clapped out outboards, and general poor health, makes life hazardous. Fishers, classified as self-employed, are not eligible for social security.

Facing diminishing catches, fishers sometimes used explosives. A man blinded and missing most of his fingers after a fertiliser bomb exploded in his hands said his wife had left him to work as a domestic on the mainland. He depended on the local fishermen’s association for support.

When a boat was holed and sank, the fishers would be forced to pay a calo (middle man) who rent boats on behalf of richer town dwellers. These were often bigger than they were used to, and required additional crew. Sometimes the skipper would demand they help to smuggle in exchange for the right to fish.

The men complained that climate change made the weather kacau (in disorder). “I can’t read the clouds and winds any more,’ one said. ‘I can only guess. I can only afford to take one tank of fuel. If I am blown off course, I cannot get back and I have to go far to get fish.”

Few artisanal fishers owned a compass, much less a GPS. In deference to their poverty and practicality, we recycled cooking oil bottles for flotation devices, used old CD’s to signal passing boats or planes. In an age of hi tech communication these men were using garbage to stay alive.

Bapak Mus, village head of a tiny island eight hours by boat south of Sulawesi told me of refugees landing starving and sick on his island. “Many died.” he told me. “Many children. Their parents wanted them to be educated. They had heard that Australia had good education. They were afraid that the girls would face a life of ignorance. I would have done the same,” he told me. “Australia has so much. Why do they send them away?” Good question.

A Bajau man jailed in Darwin for fishing in Australian waters was still confused.  I needed an interpreter to understand his local language. “They said I was illegally fishing but my ancestors have always fished there. Its our adat” (customary law). Indeed the historical interchange of Indonesian and Aboriginal culture has been well documented. While in jail his wife and children died of neglect. The village could not support them.

His boat, owned by a wealthy trader, was burned. The debt was not forgiven. Later I heard that the fisher killed himself in hopelessness, drinking the cyanide his neighbor used to stun fish for the aquarium industry.

When I heard of the men’s jailings all I could think of was the women waiting for their husbands or sons to come home. What do they know of illegality and Australian provenance? All they know is uncertainty and the very real risk of hunger.