From the city's past marked by the May riots a decade ago, new lives and businesses are sprouting in spots once burned in the chaos.

Several workers at an East Jakarta chicken noodle stall, in one of the shop-houses badly burned in 1998, run their business today in the still-blackened building.

"I remember, the first day of our business after the 1998 riots, cleaning up the wreckage," said Narno, 30, one of the stall's five workers who started selling chicken noodles in the shop-house in 2001.

Little repair was seen a decade after the riots on May 14 and 15, 1998; the ceiling and parts of the wall remain black.

Narno did not know why the shop-house owner did not restore the building before renting it out. "Probably, the owners just don't have the money to do it," he said.

Next to the stall another shop-house has transformed into an automobile workshop. The ceiling and wall appeared worse than its neighbor's, yet it was business as usual for them.

Next to the shop-houses building stand the former Klender Plaza. Known as Citra Mall, the six-story mall was reopened eight years ago.

Narno said: "The business here is promising. We welcome more than 100 customers on a daily basis, mostly employees from the new Citra Mall."

A 53-year-old security guard at the mall, Muzain, who has been working there since 1991, said he remembered 10 years ago watching as a mob robbed the shopping center stores and set them on fire.

When asked whether there was anything to learn from the incident, he said, "No, let's just move forward. As we can see now, the mall is standing again, more beautiful and welcoming many visitors".

"Besides, I have no doubt that all the people killed in the burned mall were the robbers themselves."

Muzain said that at 10 a.m. on that violent day, he and his 20 guards had closed the mall and sent all customers, tenants and workers away from the building, while a mob of some 2,000 gathered outside and threw rocks at the mall.

He said he was not traumatized by the riots even though he'd witnessed them. "It was an awful memory, but I prefer to regard it as a valuable experience just like a soldier might regard experience in a war."

Chinese-Indonesian Hariyanto, who owns a cell phone accessories shop at the new mall, said he previously hesitated to go to the mall again. "I used to hang out here quite often, but stopped for awhile after it was burned."

Hariyanto, 31, finally gave up his worries when his brother, who works at a cell phone shop, told him the mall had a lot of visitors right after its reopening.

He said he would continue his business there, despite memories of the riot.

"I still remember that day when I saw the raging mobs wrecking this mall. It gives me a chill."

A mall attendant, Sumartini, said: "I do not want to think much about the mall history or the stories that came after that. It's too creepy."

Citra Mall is one of many other malls across the city with a connection to the riot.

A 46-year-old ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver Marjoko recalled seeing mobs ransacking Slipi Jaya Plaza in 1998.

"After the riots, I tried to find work at other places, but I returned eventually because I get better earnings here."

Agus Lim, 64, a regular customer of Slipi Jaya Plaza who lives in Tanjung Duren in West Jakarta, said he and his neighbors had to guard their homes for a week during and after the riots.

"In the first two years after the riots, I got easily startled by the sound of vehicles and people from down the street. But I think I'm over it now," said Agus. He said he was still worried a riot could take place again despite better acceptance of the Chinese-Indonesian and the country's reformed political situation.

The peak of the 1998 tension hit May 14 and 15, when mobs targeted property and businesses owned by Chinese-Indonesians. Many shops put up signs reading milik pribumi, "natives' property", to avoid being burned and looted.

A fact-finding team, established to investigate the May tragedy, reported nearly 2,000 people burned to death, 27 dead from sharp weapons, 52 women raped and 850 buildings torched.

Chairman of the Indonesian Anti-Discrimination Movement, or Gandi, Wahyu Effendi, said the most important thing was to make sure the tragedy never happened again.

"Ideally, the government would provide legal processes to give the victims' families some justice. But up to now, there has not been any remedy for the victims," he told The Jakarta Post.

In the era of the B.J. Habibie presidency, the government restored the business infrastructure in Glodok, Jakarta's Chinatown area in West Jakarta.

"But that was nothing more than a ceremonial thing," Wahyu said.

He said, "The victims need a more complete solution (including) political acknowledgement and justice".

He said the more time passed, the more difficult it would be to catch those behind the riot.

"What is most important is to understand what really happened in 1998, which can be done through legal processes."

Social investigations by civil communities have been made but none were recognized by the government, he said.

Wahyu also said, "Parliament members have a moral responsibility to endorse this, so that we can have justice from the current available system, like the Human Rights National Commission and the Attorney General's Office."

More women than ever are driving their own cars, but parking building managers still seem to think women are inferior to men when it comes to parking.

Several upscale shopping centers in Jakarta now provide special women-only parking areas for female drivers' comfort and safety.

"We started the service in anticipation of the increase in women drivers. We can see that some women are less competent than men," Mahdi Shahab, area business manager for parking services at Plaza Senayan, South Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

"We try to provide more convenient spaces for them as well as parking officers to guide them when they are parking," he said.

Plaza Senayan has allocated a total of 120 spaces for female drivers since August last year. These spaces are available near the entrances and exits of the first, second and third stories of its parking building every day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Three parking officers are ready to guide women when they are parking their cars.

Didi Haryadi, a parking operations employee at Plaza Indonesia in Central Jakarta, said the plaza's women-only parking spaces were available 24 hours every day.

"We take into consideration the safety of female visitors who go to the late cinema session, which usually finishes around 3 a.m.," he said.

The shopping center allocates to women drivers convenient parking spaces near the entrances and exits and ensures good lighting to protect women's safety at night.

"All of these are preventive actions we consider necessary, although there have not been any crimes so far," Didi said.

Plaza Indonesia has allocated 30 special parking spaces for women since September last year.

A visitor at Plaza Senayan, Satria Pulungan, said he supported the women-only spaces for safety reasons.

"Women need the service because they are vulnerable to crime," he said.

Another visitor, Nisa, said she was pleased with the extra attention from the shopping centers, even though it was based on lack of faith in women's driving ability.

"I am not bothered about that perception," she said.

"I've noticed many malls still provide parking lots where the spaces are too narrow and the lanes too steep. Also, not many parking officers are available. I definitely prefer to visit malls with better services."

Another visitor, Lisa, who was at Plaza Senayan with her family on Monday, said the service was quite helpful although it was not really necessary.

"I am grateful for that, but I am also all right without it," she said.

Two visitors at Plaza Indonesia, Shirley and Dinda, said they hoped the malls increased the number of women-only spaces.

Small businesses and street vendors in Jakarta are seeking ways to profit from the government-ordered transition from kerosene to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Some businesses, like a household appliance shop in Jembatan Lima, West Jakarta, have creatively assembled LPG stoves suitable for the high mobility needs of their major consumers, mostly street food vendors.

"I bought this new gas stove at a shop in Jembatan Lima. This kind of stove is selling like hotcakes there," a pancake seller in Petamburan, Central Jakarta, said recently.

The owner of the Surya Timur shop, 57-year-old Willy Rianto, said for the past two weeks he had been selling up to 60 of the stoves a day.

"On a slow day, I can still sell some 20 of these gas stoves," he said.

Willy said he started selling the portable gas stoves last year.

"Right when the government began to distribute free gas stoves and three-kilogram LPG canisters," he said.

He said he got the idea to assemble gas stoves similar to the kerosene ones used by street vendors after discovering a certain factory-made gas stove that was small enough to fit into vendors' existing stove stands.

The gas stoves distributed by the government are too bulky to fit into vendors' carts.

"It only took me a couple of days to figure out how to assemble a gas stove similar to the factory-made ones," said Willy, who had been in the stove and household appliance business since 1960.

He sells the portable gas stoves for Rp 130,000 for an assembled stove and Rp 135,000 for a factory-made one. Willy also sells a complete package of stove with a 1.5 meter gas pipe, a gas regulator and a gas lighter, for Rp 240,000 to Rp 260,000.

"My customers mostly are vendors selling noodles, fried rice, fried chicken and fried snacks," Willy said.

Amperiana, a vendor who sells salted eggs, came from Kalideres, West Jakarta, to buy a gas stove at Willy's shop.

"I bought my previous kerosene stove here," he said.

"I think it's about time to switch to an LPG stove, because the fire produced from LPG is faster to heat up compared to kerosene.

"I probably will only need some five hours instead of the usual eight to cook some 3,000 salted eggs a day," said Amperiana, who sells the eggs to traditional markets and food catering companies.

Asked about the safety of his assembled stoves, Willy said, "We always make sure to check the stove in front of our buyers, by connecting the stove to the gas tube and lighting the fire."

"If there is any leak, the fire would immediately spread to the leak hole," he said, while serving a fried rice vendor from Pademangan, North Jakarta.

Business players in Jakarta remain undeterred by the administration's plan to set higher tariffs on groundwater consumption because they primarily use tap water for operations.

"We realized natural resources would eventually deplete. So, over the last five years, we have been focusing on how to maintain economical water consumption," director of communication at the Shangrila Hotel in Central Jakarta, Ratna Sjamsiar Idris, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

She said a large percentage of water consumed in the hotel came from tap water as the quality of groundwater in the hotel area was not good enough.

Chief assistant to engineering manager at the Jakarta Stock Exchange building, Johny Hutauruk, said the plan to raise tariffs would not affect the building's operation, which uses tap water for 85 percent of the 18,000 cubic meters of water it consumes monthly.

"We only use groundwater in emergency conditions, as we might an electricity generator machine," said Johny.

He said the building's management always tried to respect the 30 cubic meter per day maximum limit of groundwater consumption.

The Jakarta Stock Exchange building is just one of six tower-buildings in the 44-hectares Sudirman Central Business District (SCBD), in Central Jakarta.

"Groundwater is more expensive than tap water. So, more than 80 percent of our water consumption is tap water," said head of SCBD estate management Hari Suryanto.

He said SCBD consumed on average 60,000 cubic meters of tap water per month.

"The use of groundwater depends on each building's caretaker. However, the increasing tariffs should not impact us because we mostly use tap water."

The Mining Agency recently announced its plan to increase groundwater fares for businesses and industries by six times to match its prices with those of tap water operators.

Head of the agency's groundwater management department Dian Wiwekowati told the Post the new prices ranged between Rp 8,800 (about US$0.97) and Rp 23,300 per cubic meter, while current prices stand at between Rp 550 and Rp 3,660 per cubic meter.

The fares depend on consumer categories, which include non-business; small business; large business, including hotels and offices; small industry; and large industry.

The new groundwater tariffs would be far higher than the current tap water tariffs of up to Rp 12,550 per cubic meter for businesses and industries.

Director of Amrta Institute for water literacy Nila Ardhianie told the Post on Monday there was little chance consumers of groundwater would turn to using the city's tap water, which he cited as unreliable.

She said the increases might instead trigger groundwater theft among the business entities.

She cited a 2005 study conducted by Amrta and Tifa Foundation in Sleman, Central Java, that showed only 8 percent of 337 hotels in the area were registered as having groundwater wells.

"The tendency for business players to steal groundwater in Jakarta may be worse than in Sleman," said Nila, who estimated more than 50 percent of hotels in Sleman were using groundwater.

With only few weeks before excess-use charges go into effect, most households are still in the dark about how to avoid the 60 percent penalty.

State electricity company PLN announced it would implement a new "incentive-disincentive" program starting Apr. 1.

Customers whose use exceeds national benchmarks (see Table) will have to pay 60 percent more for every extra kilowatt they use. But those who consume less will get a 20 percent discount. The benchmarks are calculated on the basis of average 2007 consumption shaved down by 20 percent.

"I overheard the news on TV. But I don't exactly understand the calculation," said Ibu Sumantri, who was queuing to pay her monthly electricity bill at a billing booth in Pondok Bambu, East Jakarta.

Another woman, hearing Ibu Sumantri's remark, said "Why bother counting. I prefer to turn off any unnecessary lights or electrical appliances at home."

The woman said she managed to push her electricity bill down from Rp 750,000 to Rp 500,000. Her home has a capacity of 1,300 volt ampere (VA).

Another customer, Bapak Tiarto, who is also head of a community unit (RW) in Pondok Bambu, East Jakarta, regretted that the new billing system was announced through mass media but not through official channels. "You can see for yourself. There's no poster here saying anything about the calculation procedure of the new system."

When asked whether the announcement about the billing system was mailed to his home, Tiarto said "I'm a retiree and stay at home most of the time. Up until now, I haven't received anything in the mail from PLN about it."

A resident of Cempaka Putih, Central Jakarta, 67-year-old Elly said she paid her bill via her bank's ATM. "I don't even know the exact electricity consumption because the ATM receipt only states the amount of money paid."

Elly, whose home is equipped with 2,200 VA of electricity, said all she could do now is use energy-saving light bulbs and set the temperature on the AC a few degrees higher.

Tulus Abadi from the Indonesian Consumer Foundation said PLN has yet to recognize the rights of customers to clear, accurate information. "Most of public isn't well-informed on the technical issues, like how they're going to make the calculations on this new program, because it was introduced so recently."

He said actual notice of the new policy should be given to each customer rather than merely announcing it via the mass media.

However, Deputy Manager of Communication of PLN in Jakarta and Tangerang Azwar Lubis said that "We have been publicizing this program for quite a while now with our "20 percent electricity conservation" campaign on the radio and in newspapers, magazines, banners, and leaflets."

As of the evening of Mar. 12 The Jakarta Post could find no information at the PLN website, www.pln.co.id on the "incentive-disincentive" program. There was no list of the benchmarks, for example.

North Jakarta is to acquire 26.8 hectares of land for the construction of a toll road to Tanjung Priok Port, an official said Wednesday.

The procurement of the land is expected to be completed by June this year at the latest, assistant for territory of the jurisdiction planning division in North Jakarta, Ciptono, told The Jakarta Post.

The 12.4-kilometer toll road will stretch from Rorotan in Cakung-Cilincing industrial area to Tanjung Priok Port, and then connect to the Ancol-Pluit tollway lane.

"Currently, the access road to Tanjung Priok Port, Jl. Cilincing Raya, is blocked with massive traffic congestion due to road damages," said Hendra Budi, public relations officer of the Indonesian state-owned port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) II.

The toll road heading to the port currently ends in Cakung, forcing container trucks transporting exported and imported goods to use the public road Jl. Cilincing Raya, causing long delays to the goods' arrival at the port.

He estimated that each day there were 5,000 to 6,000 container trucks passing through the two-lane and 10-meter-wide road.

"In good road conditions, a container truck can make up to three trips a day. But now it can only make a trip a day.

"It can take a truck 24 hours on busy days — Thursday, Friday and Saturday — just to get to the port from the industrial area (15 kilometers away) in Cakung," Hendra told the Post.

A government report stated up to 60 percent of Indonesia's imports and exports were made via Tanjung Priok Port.

The Land Transportation Organization (Organda) said the damaged Cakung-Cilincing road could cause losses as high as Rp 2.2 billion a day in trailer rental costs.

The construction of the toll road will be divided into two phases: first the eight-km segment from Rorotan to Tanjung Priok port, then four kilometers more from the port to the Ancol-Pluit tollway.

"Starting Wednesday and Thursday, we will announce the land acquisition plan in Cilincing and Koja, the two districts nearest the toll road's first entrance," Ciptono said.

Land acquisition for the second phase of construction will also be conducted later in two other districts, Tanjung Priok and Pademangan. Some 80 percent of the land to be acquired belongs to PT Pelindo.

Ciptono said the city administration allocated some Rp 350 billion (about US$38.5 million) to acquire a total of 26.8 hectares of land.

The toll road is a joint project between the city and the central government, with the city providing money for land procurement and the central government covering the cost of construction.

The Public Works Ministry will begin construction in October. The road linking with the Jakarta Outer Ring Road (JORR) will open in April 2010.

Dozens of Jakartans from all walks of life met Tuesday to provide feedback on Governor Fauzi Bowo's six minimum commitments signed last year.

The meeting was facilitated by the Jakarta Residents Forum (FAKTA) and TIFA Foundation and was aimed at ensuring broad public participation in the city's governance.

Representatives of the public invited to attend the meeting included street vendors, volunteers, the visually impaired, teachers and pedicab drivers.

Public officials at the meeting included those responsible for basic education, small and medium enterprises and community welfare.

As part of his election campaign last year, Fauzi Bowo signed a commitment comprising six points, which included the improvement of public services, informal sector management and a system to channel residents' aspirations.

"For the first time, we can hold a gathering like this between the representatives of residents and public officials to directly formulate the governor's commitment into implementation," said the assistant for community welfare at the city administration, Rohana Manggala.

"This discussion is in accordance with the governor's wishes — to listen for the people's aspirations and let the bureaucrats implement them," Rohana said.

Chairman of the Jakarta Residents Forum (FAKTA), Azas Tigor Nainggolan, said the administration needed to change the way it introduced policies and programs to residents.

"There must be no more one-way communication between officials and residents when introducing a program."

He said most of the points in the commitment had not been realized by the administration.

Azas said the governor was committed to some improvements, including a regulation to ensure public buildings provided access for disabled people, who prefer to be called differently abled.

Rohana said the administration had also renovated two kampungs in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, and Johar Baru, Central Jakarta. Ten kampungs were previously targeted.

Governor's six minimum commitments: