One of the more suggestive details on the Indonesian political landscape is the legal deception to cover up crimes committed by officers of the state. Two easy alternative options are readily available - dissociating the state from the crime by having the officer convicted, or simply stonewalling the whole story. Yet resort is often made to an elaborate, though usually incredible, construction in which some innocent dupe is sacrificed to the cause of exonerating the officer in question. That such constructions are felt to be necessary demonstrates something about the way legitimacy works in an authoritarian state. That the construction is usually upheld by the courts is a measure of the ultimate fragility of such legitimacy. Three examples come to mind. In the mid-1980s 'Pak De', an old soothsayer, was jailed for murdering the beauty parlour owner Dietje. All the evidence pointed to her having been murdered by soldiers on the orders of someone within the presidential family, as she was the disputed prize in a quarrel between two presidential sons. A couple of years ago a number of executives of a Chinese-owned watch factory were jailed for murdering one of their labourers, Marsinah. All the evidence pointed to the murder having been committed by the military because Marsinah was a persistent labour rights activist. (This case had a happy ending when the executives were freed upon appeal by High Court judge Adi Andojo Soetjipto. The ruling no doubt weighs against Andojo in his present predicament). This time it looks as if an innocent bystander will be committed to trial for the murder of a Yogyakarta journalist, Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin, over a supposed love affair. All the evidence points to him having been done in by a professional killer for having exposed irregularities in local political affairs. The 33-year old Syafruddin, known as Udin, had been a journalist with the Yogyakarta newspaper Bernas for ten years when he was bashed at his home with a blunt instrument on the evening of 13 August 1996. He was taken to hospital in a coma but died three days later. He had been writing vigorously for several months against the Regent of Bantul, to the south of Yogyakarta, whose name is Sri Roso Sudarmo. His articles exposed an illegal payment of AU$ 1/2 million to a well-connected man in Yogyakarta to ensure his reelection. He had also written about corrupt disbursement of a government scheme to assist poor villagers (IDT). There had been discussions at the local government office about taking him to court. He had also been summoned by the local military, and appeared to fear for his life in the last few days. Within a week of the attack, local Bantul police were saying there were no political motives. They suggested it may have been connected with a love affair between Udin and a woman named Tri Sumaryani. When this woman told the press she had been promised the earth to accuse Udin, but had refused to cooperate and instead asked for independent legal assistance, her name dropped out of contention. Then, on 22 October, police arrested a 37-year old Yogyakarta chauffeur with the initials DS, and charged him with Udin's murder. DS has no criminal record. They said his wife Sunarti had had an affair with Udin, and the murder thus had a personal motive of revenge. Udin's widow is unaware of infidelity on her husband's part. Udin's lawyer Triyandi Mulkhan points out other strange features in the case. DS's face does not resemble the sketch previously circulated, and neither the murder instrument nor the clothes presented as evidence resemble those seen by witnesses. Police meanwhile rejected a statement from the Yogyakarta legal aid organisation LBH that police had seized all Udin's journalistic files without a warrant. Both the government-supported journalists union PWI and the independent journalists union AJI have taken a strong interest in this case. PWI late in September sent a large delegation to the Yogyakarta sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, asking for his assistance in solving it. AJI brought out a detailed report on the murder in mid- September. Newspapers are openly using the word 'elaborate construction' (rekayasa). In some ways this is a depressingly familiar story of the state standing by its own against a society it perceives to be hostile, even if the affair is local and involves low-ranking officers. But it also demonstrates hopegiving features, not least the professional tenacity of a much under-rated Indonesian press even (especially?) in the provinces, and the persistence of various legal aid organisations. Between them they have brought all these cases to light and thus generated the public pressure that led to these elaborate, incredible constructions.
Gerry van Klinken, editor, Inside Indonesia magazine.
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