Thugs have always had an ambiguous relationships with the Indonesian military. If they kill a soldier - which they do on occasion - they usually become the victims of a massive 'anti-crime campaign'. Even such campaigns often have a 'political' aspect. The shooting of criminals in the early 1980s (Petrus) to an extent represented the elimination of Ali Murtopo's political thugs by Benny Murdani. More often, however, the relationship is one of live and let live, or even one approaching symbiosis. (I suspect the relationship ensures a relatively high rate of crime solution by the police).
At times of political tension, thugs are often used to do jobs that cannot stand the light of day if they were to be linked to the military. At every election they are used for intimidation. During the Malari riots of 1974 General Ali Murtopo paid thugs to provoke violent demonstrations, in order to clear the way for more military involvement in politics. Indeed almost all large demonstrations have stories of paid thugs/ agent provocateur associated with them. In the case of the Medan riots of 1994, and lately the Timika riots, these stories are credible.
Last year thugs - often Florinese masquerading as East Timorese - several times protested against the East Timorese protestors in Jakarta (the so-called 'counter-demonstrations'). They invaded foreign embassies to attack East Timorese asylum seekers and their Indonesian sympathisers. There was a story of one East Timorese who courageously identified himself, said he had been duped into participating in one of these counter-demos, and then gave details of the military officials involved.
This year political thugs have been in the news many times. They intimidated parliamentarian Sri Bintang Pamungkas, his supporters and even his family throughout his trial proceedings, which ran from January to May. Sri Bintang's supporters (Oposisi Indonesia, Opsi) were very noisy, it must be said. It turned out most of the thugs were petty local crims, paid Rp 10 000 ($5) to turn up and look agro at any event.
When students all over Java and in Ujung Pandang continued for weeks after the violent riot in Ujung Pandang to protest against the way the military handled the incident, thugs moved in on the demonstrators. About 20 'strong young men' attacked a meeting of activists in their headquarters in Garut, West Java, early May, stabbing one. About 50 youths of similar build pounced on 15 SMID activists camping in the grounds of the East Java Provincial Assembly very early in the morning of 28/5. On the same day a student was deeply stabbed in the leg by an unknown assailant whilst returning from a protest visit to the Ujung Pandang governor's office.
The independent election monitoring group KIPP, which uses facilities of the Legal Aid Institute LBH all over Indonesia, has also become the focus of attention by thugs. In mid-April, after plain clothes officers failed to break up a KIPP meeting in the Medan LBH office by shouting at them, thugs pelted the building with rocks. The next night the office was gutted by fire. The police have till now failed to act.
A bewildering number of groups have been set up explicitly to oppose KIPP. At least two of these are associated with Pemuda Pancasila. This youth organisation claims to provide training and moral guidance to unemployed youths, but is often accused of being the major source of political thugs available to the regime. Early in April, Pemuda Pancasila chief Ruhut Sitompul set up a group called TOPP in Jakarta. He said that unlike KIPP, which was based on liberal democracy, TOPP was based on Pancasila democracy and wished to support the official election mechanism (Panwaslak). TOPP would match KIPP for every action it took.
About the same time, another Pemuda Pancasila leader, Haji Susanto of Surabaya, set up a group with similar aims called BIP-KIPP, later LIP-KIPP. Susanto, who is close to East Java governor Basofi Sudirman, said his group could muster as many volunteers as KIPP and would trail KIPP everywhere it went. (Meanwhile, yet another group in Surabaya called KKSPI and led by Asmara Hadi plans to oppose LIP-KIPP step by step.)
Another Surabaya group, called FKPP '97 and associated with an Islamic youth group, also supports Panwaslak, and offers to help Abri secure the elections. In North Sumatra, two anti-KIPP groups that have been set up are PPPP and KIPPRAH. Finally mention should be made of KNPP, which also supports Panwaslak.
Not all these groups, clearly, should be tarred with the same 'political thugs' brush. I think there have been no reports of violence linked directly with any of them. Officials have routinely said none of them are necessary. Nevertheless, their existence illustrates a little-researched aspect of Indonesian politics, namely the capacity of the regime to counter popular opposition, not by overt military repression, but through direct action by civilian agents of sometimes disreputable origins.
Gerry van Klinken, editor, 'Inside
Indonesia' magazine.
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