The impossibility of controlling information reaching people under Indonesian government authority is amply demonstrated by the commencement of a Portuguese satellite television service aimed specifically at East Timor. RTP International started beaming the programme over East Timor on 28/1, using the largely Chinese government-owned AsiaSat 2, launched last November. The Portuguese-language broadcast costs the Portuguese government around USD 1.6 million a year. In the opening broadcast, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said he promised to support East Timor's struggle for its own government. Local parliamentarian Manuel Carrascalao said he was deeply moved. Portugal had previously beamed short-wave radio towards East Timor, but this had been frequently jammed by Indonesia.
Unlike Singapore, Indonesia does not ban satellite dishes and thus does not attempt to stop people watching foreign television broadcasts. The director-general for radio and television, Dewabrata, instead called on state and private television to 'straigthen out' the information broadcast by the Portuguese by increasing its Indonesian broadcasting in East Timor. The private network SCTV, based in Surabaya, said it was ready to alter the timeslot of its programming to suit East Timorese wishes. The other major private network, RCTI, said it had no plans to broadcast in East Timor, as it was financially unrewarding to do so.
The director-general's call on the nationalism of private networks would have sounded ludicrous just 7 years ago, when the state-owned network TVRI still had a monopoly on all television. Since that time no less than five private networks have begun operation throughout Indonesia. All of them are owned by politically well-connected, wealthy business people, prominent among them the President's own children, especially Bambang Trihatmodjo. With lucrative advertising incomes, they now dominate television in Indonesia.
TVRI meanwhile, has been starved of funds - it still is unable to carry advertising. A 1990 decree by the Information Minister, twice amended, forces private television networks to carry only news produced by TVRI. But this ban on independent news programming has been widely skirted, especially in the last few months. Indeed, one commentator pointed out that the private networks operate without any legislation at all, since the law on television has not been altered since 1963. The entry of foreign networks producing news in Indonesia - CNN, Reuters, BBC, ABN (Australia), and TF-1 (France) - has only increased competition for viewers.
The net result has been that, despite continuing intervention on specific news stories (eg. a ban on reporting the Sri Bintang Pamungkas political trial, and the cutting of the popular political talk show Perspektif with Wimar Witoelar), the days when the State had a monopoly on the manufacture of television news in Indonesia are gone for good. Arguments put forward by some critics that the elite ownership of the private networks comes down to the same thing do not ring true.
(Sources: especially Kompas 6/2/96, Republika 5/2/96, Republika 29/1/96, Lusa 28/1/96, Republika & Kompas 26/11/95, Kompas 19 & 5/11/95).
Gerry van Klinken, editor, 'Inside
Indonesia' magazine.
| Return to digest index |
