While tensions had simmered for years—with smaller outbreaks of violence in 1996 and 1999—the full-scale "war" erupted in on February 18, 2001.
The Sampit conflict remains a national trauma. It forced Indonesia to re-evaluate its transmigration policies and ethnic integration strategies. The phrase " Dayak vs. Madura " is now a cautionary term in Indonesian sociology—a symbol of what happens when modernization ignores local wisdom. perang dayak dan madura