‘Declare a national emergency’: Indonesian students protest as wildfire haze blankets Palangkaraya
INDONESIA: Hundreds of students gathered in Indonesia’s Palangkaraya late Friday to demand that the government do more to tackle a wildfire crisis that has shrouded their city and the wider region in toxic haze for months.
According to New Straits Times (NST), many wore surgical masks as they assembled under an eerily orange sky with severely reduced visibility, waving banners urging authorities to declare a national emergency to free up more aid. The protest took place outside the office of the governor of Central Kalimantan, the Borneo province where the fires are burning.
Protest leader Yuyun Sanjaya called on the provincial government to state plainly that it cannot cope with the disaster so that it can be officially designated a national disaster.
“How is it possible that such thick, dense smoke is being inhaled by helpless elderly people and newborn infants, and the government simply lets it happen?” he asked the crowd, as quoted by NST.
One placard accused officials of enjoying fantastic perks while ordinary people suffer. The demonstrators sang the patriotic song Indonesia Pusaka and engaged in light skirmishes with police. No injuries or arrests were reported, and the protesters cleared up their rubbish before dispersing peacefully as night fell.
Wildfires have burned more than 1.9 million hectares in the nine months to September, according to deforestation monitor Nusantara Atlas, a figure the government has neither confirmed nor denied. The haze has sickened hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia and reached as far as Malaysia, Singapore and East Timor.
Patience has been running thin at home as well as abroad, with sporadic anti-government protests emerging amid diplomatic objections from neighbouring countries. On Thursday, schoolchildren on Java island, where fires have also ravaged several regencies and conservation areas, prayed for rain.
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Why this matters for Singapore
The protest shows rising domestic pressure on Jakarta at the same time Singapore is widening its own probe into companies linked to the fires.
Public demands within Indonesia for a stronger response could shape how quickly firefighting resources, enforcement against concession holders, and regional cooperation on haze are stepped up, all of which bear directly on Singapore’s air quality in the weeks ahead.