Herb Feith
It is delightful to see so many old friends here. Let me say a few things on behalf of the 1950s generation of volunteers. I think the most important thing to say is that we enjoyed ourselves enormously while we were here. It extended our curiosity fairly persistently, it stretched us, it empowered us, it gave us a sense of being able to relate comfortably to more than one culture. And some of us got a lot of career advantages out of it too.
We were young, we were a bit radical, so we also saw ourselves as engaging in a form of protest, staying with Indonesian families and hostels rather than European enclaves, riding our bikes when other slack people were being driven in cars. We saw ourselves as particularly against white colonial attitudes, against expatriate lifestyles and so on. In fact we had a pretty a strong sense of our own moral superiority towards them. And when we got back to Australia, we saw ourselves as being in the van of enlightenment on things like racism and parochialism. And when I speak of parochialism I don't mean merely Australian parochialism, I also mean Western parochialism, which is sometimes called first-world parochialism and which is, as you well know, well and truly alive.
There's a temptation on occasions like this to exaggerate the contributions that volunteers have made particularly to the Australia-Indonesia relationship. Obviously, people who came here as volunteers are only a part of the Australians who've been Indonesianised in the way they live. But it is true that a lot of meaningful friendships developed from all of those people living here, and those have survived the bad period. They survived the '63 to'65 bad period, and they survived the bad period of two years ago.
Looking at Australia today, it's certainly a lot more multicultural country than it was when our fifties group of volunteers came here, and it's a country which engages Asia in far more ways. But it's still a country in which first-world parochialism is a very powerful force. Australians who see themselves as citizens of a planet are still a pretty small minority, and that's become painfully clear to us, particularly recently over the asylum-seekers issue, over the people coming in tiny boats from long distances, and ultimately from places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And of course it's become clear to us as a result of the events of September the 11th in New York and Washington. The 'all the way with the USA' responses that have been so dominant in Australia have given all of us a great deal to ponder about and indeed a great deal to be anxious about. So those of us who believe in solidarity with Asians and people in other third-world countries still have an awful lot of battles to fight. But it's a happy thing that we've been empowered in relation to those battles by a lot of very valuable Indonesian friendships. Thanks for doing that.
From Herb's remarks at the 50th anniversary celebration for Australian Volunteers International held in Jakarta, 2 November 2001.
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
The history of Australian Volunteers International begins in Indonesia
Peter Britton
In 1950, at an international student conference (World University Service Assembly) in Bombay, India, the Indonesian delegation challenged the Australians with an interesting idea. The Dutch had departed. Their colonial educational policy had left independent Indonesia desperately short of skilled graduates. Indonesia, the students said, would welcome Australian university graduates to make their expertise available. They would live and work alongside Indonesian colleagues, deliberately crossing the barriers of expatriate life in favour of solidarity. This would allow genuine understanding to flourish.
The idea inspired a group of people at the University of Melbourne to develop it further. They wanted to share their skills on the same rates of pay as their Indonesian colleagues, whilst learning more intimately about the people and their lives. Herbert Feith was a member of the committee. He became the first Australian volunteer that same year when he sailed to Jakarta to work as a translator with the Ministry of Information. His assignment marked the beginnings of Australia's international volunteer program, now known as Australian Volunteers International. Indonesia became the birthplace of international volunteering.
In the last fifty years more than 5,000 Australians have volunteered to live and work alongside local people in nearly seventy countries across Asia, Africa, the Pacific islands, Latin America, the Middle East and in indigenous communities in Australia. Most go for two years. They work in an amazing range of occupational sectors. All are placed in response to specific requests from host employers.
During the 1970s, volunteer programs started to be seen as service providers to foreign aid programs, and volunteers as a source of cheap technical assistance. Many volunteer agencies reacted to this quandary by ensuring that their volunteers were better remunerated such that the distinction between volunteers and other expatriate experts became blurred. Australian Volunteers International sought a different remedy, recognising that volunteers were privileged in other ways. Living and working together is a powerful tool for experiential learning - to establish common cause and exchange skills and understandings.
For Australian Volunteers International, a volunteer is a person who, at some personal cost, moves outside the comfort zone of familiarity. Through their actions they make a commitment to connect to their new community and try to make a difference. They challenge fundamental ideas in their home society, eg that people will only act if there is a promise of financial reward. They help build true partnerships across cultures, breaking down stereotypes of nationality, profession, and gender.
What motivates a volunteer is a complex mixture of factors. Altruism and self-interest can be important, not in the narrow sense, but in that personal growth represents valid self-interest, an avenue to participate in a sense of global community that crosses borders. When receiving Life Membership of Australian Volunteers International (University of Sydney, 19 January 2001), Herbert Feith preferred to call it 'curiosity': 'Curiosity can also be mischievous, but I think it is a pretty healthy thing that people with one set of cultural "baggage" should learn about people with a different cultural, social and economic background.'
The Indonesia program has always been a cornerstone of Australian Volunteers International. The experiences of the first Australian volunteers in Indonesia have done much to shape the organisation's style. Perhaps in large measure because the Indonesia-Australia relationship is one between neighbours, it is subject to a great deal of scrutiny. Over the last fifty years there have been tense periods in the official relationship between the two countries. Despite these difficulties a vibrant people-to-people relationship has always continued, helped significantly by the Australian Volunteers International program.
Many former volunteers, starting with Herb Feith, have gone on to influential positions in academia, government service, the corporate sector, the judiciary and the community sector. There they committed themselves to the relationship and became significant interpreters of Indonesian developments to the Australian community. Similarly, Indonesians who have worked alongside Australian volunteers have learnt that Australians do not fit the stereotypes as projected by the media and politically motivated opinion leaders.
The relationships have stood the test of time. In November 2001 a photo exhibition in Jakarta portrayed aspects of Australian Volunteers in Indonesia over fifty years. It was remarkable how many Indonesians, whose experience of the program was decades old, made the effort to attend the celebration.
Since 1951 nearly 400 Australian volunteers have lived and worked across the archipelago in most provinces. They have been engaged in education, health, agriculture, community development, environment and other sectors. They have worked in government departments and agencies, universities, schools and other educational institutions, as well as national level and local level non-government organisations (NGOs).
Recent changes
The post-Suharto era brought a whole new set of circumstances, including an abrupt break in the Australia-Indonesia relationship over East Timor. It became essential for Australian Volunteers International to take these changes into account.
Many central government functions have been decentralised to district level government. With the latter now delivering services to the people, this becomes an appropriate focus for Australian volunteers to share their skills, as well as learn directly about the communities they serve. Responses to this approach have been very encouraging. Several district (kabupaten) governments have requested volunteers to be with them.
Indonesian NGOs have changed as well. Vast increases in foreign funding saw many established NGOs abandon their traditional activities, and many new NGOs appear. Australian Volunteers International recognised a need to be even more selective, to ensure that the organisations we worked with were driven by values rather than simply business opportunities.
Many Australian aid activities have long been concentrated in the eastern part of Indonesia. We discovered during a review that there were growing misconceptions among some Indonesians about Australia's intentions. The view was that Australia wanted to see Indonesia 'break up'. To demonstrate our bona fide intentions, Australian Volunteers International has also sought opportunities for cooperation in western Indonesia.
The phenomenon was linked to assertions that Australians were anti-Islamic and only comfortable working with the predominantly Christian communities in eastern Indonesia. By seeking to work with Muslim organisations, Australian volunteers can demonstrate that not all Australians share the Western phobia of Islam, and are genuinely interested in the philosophy and ways of life of their neighbours. Just as importantly, the knowledge these Australians develop can inform their own community. We expect this component of our program to grow.
Indonesians have responded enthusiastically to the new strategies. They appreciate the intrinsic value of exposing Australians to Indonesian issues. Similarly, they recognise that Indonesians can learn from Australian outlooks and personalities. Each 'side' has the opportunity to make that leap of understanding that enables us to see through others' eyes.
Peter Britton (pbritton@ozvol.org.au) is a senior manager at Australian Volunteers International (www.ozvol.org.au). He first visited Indonesia in 1968, and has since then written widely about it (including 'Profesionalisme dan ideologi militer Indonesia', Jakarta: LP3ES, 1996).
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
The dilemmas of negotiating an end to conflict
Vanessa Johanson
Reverend Benny Giay exemplifies the complexity of approaches needed to resolve Indonesia's conflicts. As well as being one of the founders of the Irian Jaya Forum for Reconciliation (Foreri), he is also a vehement advocate of justice for human rights cases, is writing a book about Papuan heroes to rectify the skewed history in the history books, and was involved in the early days of the pro-independence Papua Presidium Council.
His story demonstrates some of the many dilemmas of conflict transformation work in Indonesia's complex conflicts. How does one stay neutral in the midst of brutality? How does one deal with one's own political preferences when trying to encourage a negotiated process? How does one take a stand for justice, while at the same time insisting on a non-violent, non-confrontational process? And how does one do any kind of work for change in a situation where one's life and one's colleagues' lives are under daily threat?
Many human rights advocates see themselves as being involved in conflict transformation (or its sister concepts: conflict resolution, peace-building, conflict prevention, etc.) and vice versa. It is indeed possible to work in both human rights and conflict transformation at once, but the distinction between the two approaches to social change, peace and justice is quite stark. Conflict resolvers try to work with both or many sides on many levels, in order to bring long-term peace and justice through mutual acknowledgement of the other sides' interests and needs. Human rights advocates focus as a matter of principle on the state as culprit and as the party ultimately obligated to create conditions and institutions which guarantee human rights protection and peace. Rather than dialogue, they tend to carry out investigations, lobby and utilise legal systems to achieve change.
I write as someone who has worked as a human rights activist, a non-violence and peace campaigner, and conflict transformation practitioner in Indonesia and Australia. In my view, Indonesia's many violent conflicts, some involving the state directly, some very indirectly, need many nuanced approaches in order to resolve them effectively. And we need to be clear about the methods we are using and the reason for choosing these methods.
Conflict transformation
The choice to use conflict transformation methods is both a moral and a pragmatic one. The moral choice is in part a recognition that process is as important as outcome, and a belief that, put simply, a conflict transformation approach brings out the best in people, and can fundamentally change people and systems in a moral and not just a legal sense. It attempt to engage and accommodate as many interests as possible by means of activities such as multi-level dialogue based on open mutual recognition of conflict and a need to end it through non-violent means; education for pluralism; joint multi-ethnic, multi-religious activities of all kinds; negotiation and mediation; and media which report and demonstrate resolutions rather than focusing on violence.
Conflict transformation workers do their utmost not to take sides. In fact the only thing conflict resolvers 'advocate' as such is a process which is non-violent and promotes dialogue. Benny Giay expressed the difficulty of neutrality when he explained his involvement in the mediation with pro-independence kidnappers for the release of two Belgian hostages in Papua last year. 'The church was seen by everyone as the most neutral party possible to do the mediation. But some of the people in the community there condemned Christianity, and called on the heavens to open up and bring floods on Indonesia.' In another example, the Irian Jaya Forum for Reconciliation became swept up in pro- and anti-independence politics and is now relatively inactive.
The moral choice of conflict transformation practitioners is also based on a belief that an aggressive approach to ending aggression will ultimately lead to continued bad relations in the future, and ultimately to more aggression. Even conflict transformation's most ardent supporters have their limits, however. Some would draw the line at pursuing dialogue with violent husbands, others with the likes of vicious East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres, others would only draw the line at Hitler or military butchers like Benny Murdani.
There are many pragmatic reasons for choosing conflict transformation techniques. Sometimes it is simply a matter of survival, in which case arguments of principle are regrettably less relevant. Continued use of force or vehement argument for change in some situations only invites destruction or endless expensive military deadlock, and therefore dialogue is essential. It is a pragmatic choice of taking the long road of discussion rather than the short one of annihilation or political and economic bankruptcy. Sometimes the pragmatic choice is not so extreme, but dialogue is seen as the most effective technique in a particular conflict, in order to resolve it to everyone's satisfaction and prevent recurrence. Those choosing a multi-level dialogue approach may not deny that the problem was perhaps caused - by commission or omission - by one powerful party, often the state. Nevertheless, in most situations, maintaining sustained peace and justice is something in which everyone needs to be involved, not just the lead antagonist/s in the conflict.
In many countries - Indonesia included - where genocide or long-term abuses have occurred, there are far too many culprits, far too many victims, far too little hard evidence and far too weak a justice system to execute, jail or fine everybody involved. Therefore reconciliation processes are chosen as the best way of achieving a sense of justice without using time-consuming human rights or legal approaches. Unfortunately, in Indonesia, sometimes the mediation road is taken because there is no other effective mechanism - be it strong democratic institutions, reliable media or a functioning, clean justice system - to help solve conflicts.
Justice
Conflict transformation approaches, however, have a hard time taking effect unless there is some kind of a justice system, or at least an overall sense of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour within which they can operate. This is acknowledged in mediation theory through what is sometimes called 'legitimacy', or a mutually agreed, 'neutral and objective' set of standards. This 'legitimacy' may be a pact like the South African Peace Accord, it may be shared religious values, it may be a law itself like the Geneva Conventions or a national constitution, or it may simply be a shared agreement, for example, that killing is unacceptable whatever the reasons.
Some human rights advocates reject conflict transformation as an invitation to do deals with the devil, to water down hard-won standards, and to deflect the blame for violence onto the victims, or at least onto the 'foot soldiers' rather than the 'generals'. Indeed, conflict transformation acknowledges that there are different versions of 'truth,' 'right,' and 'just,' and that for example General Wiranto should be able to have his version aired (non-violently) just as much as East Timor's Bishop Belo or ousted refugees should. Conflict transformation avoids allocating blame or dwelling on the past, no matter how painful, in order to try to achieve shared futures.
Unfortunately, like many useful terms (such as 'development,' and 'empowerment'), 'reconciliation' has gained itself a skewed meaning in Indonesia, both during and since the New Order. In Pontianak, West Kalimantan, a Madurese community leader told me how he had been asked by the local government to sign a peace declaration with the Dayaks. He was picked up from his house by the military, he recounted, and led to the forum with an already-prepared declaration by two soldiers, and asked to sign. 'It's not what I call reconciliation,' he laughed, several years, and several violent inter-ethnic incidents later.
The recently negotiated Malino Declaration for peace in Poso, Sulawesi, brokered by a flown-in top-level delegation from the government in Jakarta, has attracted much praise as well as criticism. Many see it as shallow and imposed. Others on the contrary see it as providing much-needed political space and legitimacy for community follow-up which will provide lasting peace.
Conflict transformation is far from the answer to all conflicts in all contexts. Human rights advocacy is very much in synergy with the work of conflict transformation by providing the space for dialogue, particularly with difficult and powerful players, by demanding top-level responsibility for abuses and by providing a norm of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Activists like Benny Giay demonstrate this fact in their different choices of approach.
Vanessa Johanson (vjohanson@eudoramail.com) is an 'Inside Indonesia' board member.
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
Why has this Muslim-Christian conflict continued for three years?
Lorraine V Aragon
Poso district residents have lived with religious violence since December 1998. After three years of episodic fighting, death toll estimates range from 1,000 to 2,500, with thousands more injured. Scores of churches and mosques have been torched. Nearly 100,000 have fled their burning homes, leaving the capital of Poso district described at one time as a 'dead city', though some are now returning.
It began as a street fight between hot-headed young men, one Protestant and one Muslim, during a tense local political campaign. The brawl quickly deteriorated into a religiously polarised battle in this formerly quiet, multiethnic region. Police and military forces could not, or would not, stop the arson and attacks between the two communities.
The infrastructure of Poso city and surrounding towns is devastated. Refugees in holding camps suffer harsh conditions and burden locals - mostly Muslims in Palu and South Sulawesi, mostly Christians in North Sulawesi, Tentena, and the Lore Valley. Fear and vengefulness have made it difficult to stop the cycle of bloodshed. A recent peace agreement formulated in Malino, South Sulawesi, shows promise but faces challenges in its implementation.
Dutch missionaries from the early 1900s converted indigenous animist groups in the mountainous interior of what is now Central Sulawesi province. The colonial administration envisioned these Protestants as an allied population buffer against Muslim-influenced coastal kingdoms. Many of these slash-and-burn farmers were resettled in model villages and taught wet-rice farming by the Dutch. Most groups living around Poso Lake, between Poso and the mission center of Tentena, came to identify themselves ethnically as Pamona.
The Japanese Occupation and independence in 1945 was followed by a chaotic period when Muslim rebels from South Sulawesi attacked interior animists and Christians. Yet, once the Suharto regime took control, the majority population of the region still was Protestant ('Kristen' in Indonesian), and Pamona leaders exercised partial control over the local bureaucracy.
Much had changed by the end of Suharto's presidency. In 1973, Suharto designated Central Sulawesi as one of ten new transmigration provinces. The Trans-Sulawesi Highway was cut into the rugged mountain forests to ease the path for transmigrants. The new roads and settlements also attracted a flood of voluntary migrants, especially Muslim Bugis and Makassar people from South Sulawesi.
The financial crisis beginning in late 1997 spurred further immigration into the ebony-producing Poso area. Entrepreneurial Muslims arrived from South Sulawesi to cash-crop cacao, an agricultural export that maintained an exceptionally high value during the crisis. Pamona Protestants lost their religious and ethnic majorities in the district. Many also had been displaced from their ancestral lands through processes of land commodification that had nothing to do with religion.
Pamona Protestant Christians, like many interior groups in the outer islands, had also lost some of their indigenous political control. After the 1970s, much local authority was removed from customary councils of elders and transferred to a national bureaucracy. Modernist Muslims were installed in high-ranking military posts and Christians found it harder to get their leaders selected for local governance. By the end of his presidency, Suharto himself had become more pro-Muslim. Protestant mission funding became closely regulated. The government seized many schools and clinics originally funded by churches.
District mayor
When the Poso violence began in December 1998, the district mayor (bupati) of Poso was a Muslim named Arief Patanga. Patanga's term of office was due to expire in June 1999. His district secretary (sekretaris wilayah daerah, sekwilda) was a Protestant Pamona named Yahya Patiro. This type of religious power-sharing at the district level had been known in earlier New Order Poso. Many Christians hoped Patiro would succeed his Muslim predecessor. Muslim factions, representing Bugis-influenced ethnic groups along the coast and towards South Sulawesi, promoted Muslim candidates. The new economic stakes raised the election heat. The 1999 Regional Autonomy Laws promised a shift in control over resources from the national to the regional level. Both Muslim and Christian elites in Poso viewed this election as critical to their future access to government contracts.
The street fight that began in the heart of Poso city on the eve of both Christmas and Ramadan, 1998, fed into religious tensions promoted by inflammatory graffiti during the campaign. Soon, supporters from allied towns arrived to reinforce the Protestant and Muslim mobs. After a week of chaotic street fighting and arson, about 200 people were injured and 400 homes burned.
Reportedly, Christians suffered most of the damage in what became the conflict's 'first phase'. A Pamona Protestant leader of the political campaign, Herman Parimo, was jailed for heading a group of fighting Christians. No Muslims were prosecuted. This apparently partisan response by the authorities increased Protestant resentment.
A second escalating street fight occurred in mid-April 2000. By that time, a Muslim (although not the prior incumbent's favourite) had been installed as the new district mayor. When a Muslim youth reported being knifed by a Protestant, a Muslim posse began a retaliation campaign that the police could not handle. Supporters with homemade weapons again arrived from allied Muslim and Protestant towns. Army personnel followed from Makassar, South Sulawesi, but the fighting continued for over two weeks. By early May, over 700 homes had been burned, mostly belonging to Christians, along with several church buildings and a police barracks. Thousands of refugees, mostly Christians, fled.
The 'third phase' began only three weeks later when a group of Christians made a night-time raid on the Muslims they considered responsible for the earlier destruction of Christian neighbourhoods. The masked 'ninja' group of about a dozen men is alleged to have included both Protestant Pamona and Catholic immigrants from Flores who resided in the Poso district.
Fighting then intensified throughout the region, abetted by teams of local Christian militias. This third phase culminated in a massacre of Javanese men who fled to a Muslim boarding school in a transmigration area south of Poso. Over a hundred were executed with homemade weapons, their bodies tossed in the Poso River and mass graves. The fighting continued until the end of July 2000, when three Catholic ringleaders were captured. These Flores immigrants were tried between December 2000 and April 2001, when they were sentenced to death. To date, their appeals have been rejected and they await execution by firing squad.
Despite a few high-profile reconciliation efforts in late 2000, many criticised the lack of government aid and biased processes of law enforcement. Sporadic fighting continued and most refugees were too scared to return home. Instead, the population underwent an increasing de facto religious segregation - Muslims in Poso city, Protestants in the highland towns.
During the first months of 2001, violence worsened again. In addition to surprise attacks on farmers, disgruntled factions planted bombs in religious buildings and police posts. After the three Catholics were sentenced to death, attacks on Muslims increased. This began to be called 'phase four.' Then in July, the Laskar Jihad group, based in Yogyakarta, sent emissaries to meet with senior religious and government leaders in Central Sulawesi.
Violence surged again at the end of 2001 when thousands of well-armed Laskar Jihad troops were added to the volatile mix of local fighters. Over a hundred more persons were killed in what we can call 'phase five'. By mid-November, desperate pleas emerged from Protestant towns. Christians reported invasions by Muslim militias who threatened to rule the area by the end of Ramadan. At least half a dozen churches and 4,000 houses in thirty villages were burned, seemingly under the blind eye of security forces. Roughly 15,000 more people fled their homes. Muslim militias seized control of fuel stations and roadside checkpoints, where some displayed posters of Osama bin Laden.
In the aftermath of September 11th, these reports caught the attention of government officials and human rights workers in the United States and elsewhere, and led to pressure on the Indonesian government to control radical Muslims.
Peace agreement
On December 4, 2001, Indonesia's chief security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, traveled to Sulawesi to meet with Muslim and Christian leaders. Jusuf Kalla, the Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare (Menko Kesra), was assigned as mediator. Roughly fifty delegates, half Muslim and half Christian, met separately with Kalla in Malino, South Sulawesi.
On December 20, 2001, a ten-point bilateral peace agreement was announced. With the arrival of 4,000 military and police, as well as national and international attention on Central Sulawesi, Christmas proceeded peacefully. At New Year's, four Protestant churches were bombed in the provincial capital of Palu, but implementation of the accord continued.
The Malino Agreement includes some unarguable points: both sides should stop fighting, obey laws, expect security forces to be firm and fair, reject unauthorised 'outside' interference or militias, stop slander, and promote apologies and respect for all traditions and religions. Problems likely will come in implementing points such as weapons collection and the return of property to 'pre-conflict' status. It will be difficult to divide rehabilitation funds fairly and resettle about 90,000 refugees, who may claim land now occupied by other mobile citizens. Finally, there is the lingering issue of power sharing at the political level, an issue raised by the Christian delegates, but not included in the final peace agreement.
Lorraine Aragon (aragonl@mail.ecu.edu) teaches anthropology at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, USA. She has published several articles and a book on highland Sulawesi ('Fields of the Lord', University of Hawai'i Press, 2000). Her longer article about the Poso conflicts appears in Cornell University's journal 'Indonesia', vol. 72, October 2001.
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
Mar 1998 - Acehnese students join anti-Suharto protests by highlighting military abuses in Aceh
7 Aug 1998 - Armed Forces Commander General Wiranto announces the lifting of Aceh's Special Operations Area (DOM) status, apologises for human rights abuse
4 Feb 1999 - Large Acehnese student congress (Kongres Mahasiswa dan Pemuda Aceh Serantau) demands referendum on Aceh's future. The call is taken up by religious leaders
Jun 1999 - Aceh military commander Col Syarifuddin Tippe offers GAM ceasefire negotiations
4 Nov 1999 - New President Abdurrahman Wahid says the Acehnese have a right to a referendum, but immediately 'clarifies' this
27 Jan 2000 - Negotiations begin in Geneva between the Indonesian government and GAM, facilitated by Henry Dunant Centre (HDC)
12 May 2000 - Humanitarian Pause agreed in Geneva. Not quite a ceasefire, it emphasises humanitarian cooperation
Sep 2000 - Humanitarian Pause extended till 15 January 2001
Jan 2001 - The Joint Forum in Geneva agrees to negotiate about 'substantive issues' to 'seek a formula for a lasting and comprehensive solution to the conflict in Aceh'
15 Jan 2001 - The Humanitarian Pause, renamed a Moratorium, is extended for only one month amid hardened rhetoric and growing violence from both sides
Mar 2001 - Exxon closes its three gas fields in Aceh after GAM attacks. They reopen in July
12 Mar 2001 - Indonesian cabinet declares GAM 'separatist'
11 Apr 2001 - President Wahid issues a presidential instruction (Inpres 4/ 2001) that permits redeployment of more troops to Aceh
20 Jul 2001 - Arrest of six GAM negotiators at Kuala Tripa Hotel, Banda Aceh
23 Jul 2001 - President Megawati Sukarnoputri installed. Her Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirayuda, was the chief Indonesian negotiator in Geneva
5 Feb 2002 - Military Area (Kodam) re-established in Aceh, amid determined push by TNI to defeat GAM insurgency
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
An insider speaks about peace negotiations on Aceh
Otto Syamsuddin Ishak
Dialogue was first discussed late 1999, but the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) was reluctant. The great service of the Swiss-based organisation the Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HDC) is that they were able to sit the two sides down at one table. The first HDC mission came to Aceh early in 2000. HDC had to decide which Acehnese resistance faction they would deal with - GAM or MP-GAM. Each was led by exiles in Sweden who had fought in Aceh in 1976. Indonesia preferred MP-GAM, but GAM had the biggest presence on the ground. The choice fell on GAM, and they formed a delegation with representatives from the Swedish leadership as well as commanders from Aceh.
It was difficult. GAM feared being deceived by Indonesia, while the Indonesian government thought of GAM as intractable. I went to Geneva for the first meeting on 24 April 2000. The atmosphere was tense. As a resource person, I had to provide information about human rights after 1998 that might help lead to a peaceful resolution.
HDC took a humanitarian approach. GAM accordingly stressed Indonesian human rights abuses. Indonesian representative Hassan Wirayuda, by contrast, said little about the situation on the ground and wanted to discuss a special autonomy solution like the one he helped broker in the southern Philippines. He was accompanied by the military attache from the Paris embassy, so the Indonesian delegation tended to ignore human rights.
However, the agreement signed on 12 May 2000 was fairly good in that it did revolve around humanitarian issues, and it called on both sides to show restraint. A Joint Forum was established in Geneva, to meet once in three months. In Aceh there were two joint committees, for security and for humanitarian action, as well as an independent team to monitor implementation of security aspects - of which I was secretary. Four district monitoring teams were formed in December 2000 as well.
In order to create a conducive sense of security, the agreement stipulated that all troop movements whether GAM or Indonesian should be reported to the joint security committee in Banda Aceh. However, President Wahid was unable to control his military, and the TNI just ignored that provision. After the agreement was signed, Indonesia unilaterally put in place a set of 'permanent procedures' (prosedur tetap, or protap). But GAM rejected them because they made no allowance for reporting troop movements.
Chivalrous
For me it was the first time I had met many of the top Acehnese in the resistance. They struck me as chivalrous. They were so committed. But I felt nervous that upon my return to Aceh I might be intimidated by both sides. So I asked HDC to guarantee my security. They produced a letter signed by GAM and by the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Department. Foreign Affairs picked me up at the airport. But the differences between them and TNI Headquarters became obvious when we went out to the field. Foreign Affairs had no authority there. I was often intimidated. Police Colonel Ridwan Karim, Indonesian delegation leader on the joint committee for security, and former commander of the force sent in to Aceh following the troop withdrawal in 1999, said in public that I was pro-GAM.
In Jakarta, President Wahid was under attack. Parliamentary speaker Akbar Tanjung of Golkar blamed Wahid for initiating the Aceh dialogue without consulting parliament. The TNI, meanwhile, made it clear it was not about to acknowledge GAM as an equal negotiating partner because GAM was 'not a state'.
Nevertheless, the 12 May agreement was unprecedented in Indonesian history. Unlike the final resolution of the Darul Islam revolt in 1962, which was a personal affair between Acehnese leader Daud Beureueh and Indonesian military commander LtGen M Jasin, this was an institutional agreement not dependent on personalities.
Its big weakness was that HDC was unable to guarantee the security of its partners in the peace process. For example when Tengku Al Kamal, a member of the monitoring committee for security, was killed by Indonesia in South Aceh on 30 March 2001, HDC did not even do anything for his family. Yet he had been killed while on duty as a partner with HDC.
The HDC negotiations of early 2000 did offer a new alternative for the conflict, but after it was signed HDC was no longer the engine of transformation. Instead, the initiative passed to GAM and the Republic of Indonesia. GAM took advantage of it to recruit new fighters and to establish a new village structure in areas it controlled. Indonesia meanwhile sent in even more troops, who set up new posts and, under the cover of providing humanitarian assistance, conducted counter-insurgency intelligence operations in the villages.
Nor was HDC able to create a new common understanding of the conflict, as its mission statement indicates it wanted to do. HDC used none of the abundant human rights information (which had strong humanitarian relevance) to create a new consensus. Instead, Jakarta dominated the media, leaving HDC with no room to build on the agreement that had been reached. That reduced the credibility of HDC especially within Indonesia. Indeed, HDC's influence declined sharply as one moved from the international to the grassroots level.
For example, the agreement made provision for regular meetings between GAM and TNI field commanders. And these did take place. But GAM was suspicious that TNI would use these meetings to capture senior commanders, so they only sent second or third level commanders. When Indonesia withdrew from the meetings, complaining that GAM was not sending its top commander Abdullah Syafi'ie, HDC again had nothing to say. This was followed by the arrest of the entire GAM negotiating team in Banda Aceh in July 2001. Of course HDC had no troops to enforce any agreement, but it might have been able to save its principles if it had brought in other mediators with more clout such as US-AID.
Lessons
I thought 12 May was a moment of great hope. I felt excited, but also anxious about attitudes on the two sides - GAM stubborn as Acehnese generally are, and Indonesia cunning and always ready to use violence. Considering the generally negative Indonesian response to the agreement, the enthusiasm with which countries like Norway and the US greeted it was perhaps naive.
We can draw two lessons from the HDC process. The first is that this cannot be resolved as a domestic Indonesian problem. Within Southeast Asia it has a negative impact on Malaysia and Singapore because of the Acehnese refugees. And more globally the massive American investment by Exxon is under threat of insecurity. These concerns should lead to more international involvement.
Second, the loss of HDC's credibility in Indonesian eyes led to a spiral of violence. That is why I am excited about the latest development, in which the United States is supporting the HDC process with an additional initiative known as the Four Wise Men. The American idea, conceived before Megawati became president, is that she can work together better with the military and may be able to control them. One of the four individuals will be an influential American, one a Japanese (they buy a lot of gas from Aceh, but are not keen to be involved), one from Yugoslavia who is a friend of Megawati, and Surin Pitsuwan, former Thai foreign minister who is Muslim.
TNI think they can resolve the Aceh issue alone. Shooting dead top GAM commander Tgk Abdullah Syafi'ie on 22 January 2002 encouraged them. But GAM immediately appointed a replacement, Muzakkir Manaf. They are well organised. And the Acehnese now have two new martyrs - Abdullah Syafi'i and his wife (who died with him). To them he was a model of humanism, unpretentious, simple, and devout. That he will become a legend is obvious even from the Indonesian press reporting of his death, which was positive about him and did not describe the soldiers who shot him as heroes.
Otto Syamsuddin Ishak has published two books on Aceh. The Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue website is: www.hdcentre.org.
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
How custom overcame religious rivalry in Southeast Maluku
P M Laksono
Southeast Maluku has been neglected not only in the story of the fighting throughout Maluku from early 1999, but also in that of its end. The district capital Tual is located in the Kei Islands, just 800 km to the north of Darwin in Australia. Indonesian newspapers reported hardly any details about the outbreak of fighting on 31 March 1999, except to suggest that hundreds died and tens of thousands became refugees. Almost nothing has been written about why the fighting stopped and what brought the community together again.
Like chocolate melting from the edges in, so the Indonesian state in Maluku experienced structural melt-down after Suharto resigned in 1998. Its ability to bind groups together vanished. The dominance of Golkar, of money, of the values of developmentalism, and of the military, which had held Indonesia together, evaporated and left people disoriented. They lost their trust in the system. When religious fighting broke out in Ambon in January 1999, it created enormous confusion in Southeast Maluku. People lost their grip on reality and a kind of anarchy broke out.
Why should the state be so important in a remote place like Tual? We have to understand that the classic liberal concept of the state - one that doesn't interfere in the market or in people's lives except to provide security and perhaps welfare - has never applied in Maluku. There has never been a free, independent economy. Instead, there is close collaboration between the state, capital, and the values of modernisation and development. Everything has been a monopoly of the state - from rice to petrol.
Southeast Maluku is actually not a remote area. In the early 1960s, the district head (bupati) was a big man. He had to be inventive to fulfil the area's budgetary needs. But by the mid-1980s, with the New Order at its height, all the money came from Jakarta, without any effort at all on the part of the district head. The district had gone from self-sufficiency to an extreme degree of dependency. Human development had actually regressed - the opposite of what the development program intended.
Instead of eating food made from the local sago and poisonous cassava, the civil servants in town now ate rice and instant noodles - all imported by the state and by big capital. Civil servants are the backbone of urban society. By the end of the 1980s nearly all the rupiah flowing into the district came from civil service salaries. Almost no rupiah came in outside the government budget. Agriculture is just subsistence. There is practically no export - just a little copra and marine products. The big fishing trawlers that frequent Tual harbour are Taiwanese and pay their money to Jakarta. The whole of society depends on the state - even if only as a labourer at a school building site.
Segregation
Even now it is not clear who started the conflict in the Kei Islands in 1999. There was a rumour that Islam had been insulted, and a fight broke out on the border between Tual town (Islamic) and neighbouring Ta'ar (Protestant). Every village is relatively homogeneous in religious terms. Even those few villages that are mixed have exclusively Protestant, Catholic and Islamic neighbourhoods. There is thus very little social interaction between people of different religions - just a memory that they were once one.
This kind of social segregation dates back to the introduction of the world religions in Southeast Maluku at the end of the nineteenth century. This was also the time when the highly extractive and bureaucratic colonial state of the Netherlands Indies was first established here. Religion is a state concept. Its introduction and maintenance has always been a policy of the state. Throughout the New Order, anyone who was not religious was an enemy of the state - a communist.
Religion invokes political issues. For Kei Islanders it is not just an inspiration for peace but also a political inspiration. The political institutionalisation of religion takes on fearful forms - it is the institutionalisation of fear. The communist issue is taken very seriously.
They do believe in religion, but in practice it becomes too serious and heavy. Religion is an initial barrier that must be overcome before Kei Islanders can interact more deeply. Religion is competitive. In colonial times power was distributed according to religion. Under the New Order the rhetoric was secular, but in reality religion remained important in determing who became district head or chairperson of the local assembly.
The moment that central power experienced melt-down was therefore also the moment when competition spun totally out of control. Everyone knows everyone else in a small community. But rumours immediately began to circulate of impending attacks from another community in a neighbouring village or island. As long as the Big Brother state was in charge, such outside attacks were impossible to imagine, although they did happen. There are always long-standing problems between neighbouring villages - whether it is over land or an unpaid bride price. Indonesia provided a kind of imperial peace that dampened inter-village warfare.
Ambon, the provincial capital 600 kilometres to the west, had always been the model of statecraft. No village head could be appointed without the approval of the governor in Ambon. The social segregation in Tual was very like that in Ambon too. So when Ambon descended into chaos, so did Tual. Suddenly people lost confidence in the 'guarantees of security' provided by the village head to protect those belonging to a minority faith. If someone heard a rumour that the village would be attacked, they just fled.
Everyone was suddenly on the stage, acting out a script of Christian-Muslim warfare that had been written in Ambon. Of course they all knew what inter-religious tension was, but they never imagined it could come to war. There was a kind of stage fever driven by extreme fear, as well as by a sense of exhiliration, that turned into real violence.
Kinship
However, the conflict did not sever all social relationships. It did not make a complete break in history. There were still some relationships across the religious divide, and especially within local communities. In that sense the conflict was a superficial one, although it had a big local impact.
It really wasn't 'themselves' up there on the stage. After a time they came to their senses, and got down to become spectators again. It became a kind of game once more - even if things were not the same because of the refugees and the dead. I don't believe there were hundreds of dead. In 'my' village of Ohoitel there were just eight dead. Talking numbers was part of the escalation of war. Even one is too many. There were also many stories of people helping one another across religious barriers. They said 'we are all one' - 'Ain Ni Ain'.
When Kei Islanders remember their golden age of enlightenment they do not mean the coming of religion, but the creation of their customary law, the larvul ngabal. The historical watershed for them was not the coming of the Dutch, or of the Republic of Indonesia, or of religion, but much longer ago than that.
They have long regarded Tanimbar Kei, a small island in the south, as the last stronghold of Kei custom and beliefs. During the conflict, this island became a sanctuary for refugees of all religions.
The resurgent belief in the efficacy of custom led to a revived interest in the remaining customary leaders who had not been coopted by the New Order. The key role in turning back to a history of customary kinship was played by Bapak Raja J P Rahail, the customary king of Watlar. Raja Rahail began by preventing any rioting in his own kampung. In the hierarchy of local raja he was the most junior of the twelve in the Kei Islands, but he was able to approach the others and start a movement of customary reconciliation.
Throughout the New Order, Raja Rahail had always been outside the system. He was something of a symbol of opposition to it. He revived the customary community known as the ratskap (from the Dutch 'raadschap'). Raja Rahail was close to the NGO community - being one of the chairpersons of the archipelago-wide customary association Aman (Asosiasi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara), as well as of an Asia-wide association since the early 1990s.
The 1979 law on village government (no 5/1979) had totally destroyed village autonomy. But Raja Rahail had succeeded in retaining custom in his ratskap of Maur Ohoiwut, and this was an inspiration for the community that lived there. The ratskap consisted of several villages, with different religions.
So there were two models of community in Southeast Maluku. One shaped by Indonesia, which bound together religions through the distribution of patronage in the form of official appointments. This experienced melt-down and violence in 1999. As a consequence, people once more began to look to another model, one based on custom and local autonomy.
Even though Raja Rahail was only relatively junior - not in age, he was about seventy years old and in fact died in November 2001 - but his statecraft became a model for the others when they saw how he was able to manage conflict.
Raja Rahail had only his authority and his prestige to offer. He was an expert in creating consultative mechanisms. Every year he held a great debate, a musyawarah, in his ratskap. This had been running since the early 1990s assisted by various non-government organisations (NGOs). He inspired Kei Islanders with the idea that they belonged to one community, and that peace depended on the people's initiative. This played a significant role in ending the conflict in Southeast Maluku.
P M Laksono (laksono@ugm.ac.id) teaches anthropology at Gadjah Mada University. His book 'The common ground in the Kei Islands' (Yogyakarta: Galang Press) appeared in March 2002 (see Bookshop page).
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
Reclaiming public ritual can help resolve conflict
Taufik Rahzen
When Herb Feith and I first met in 1984 I was reading a book on Gandhian non-violence by Rajni Kothari entitled A step into the future. Herb was astonished to find an Indonesian reading this. I found it in a flea market. That was the beginning of a long friendship. His ideas made us change the focus of the student discussion group I was leading then, from 'technology and philosophy' to 'peace'. This was the first group of its kind after the repression of 1978.
In 1985 we held a Peace Camp at Parangtritis Beach near Yogya. It was attended by students from all over Java. We wore black as a protest against the military. Very symbolic. Then we restarted the student press network, which the military had destroyed because of student protests against Suharto.
Then in February 1989 the Lampung massacre occurred, in which hundreds of Muslim villagers were shot in a military raid in rural southern Sumatra. We held a demonstration at Gadjah Mada University in protest. This was unheard of in those days and very dangerous. Actually it came out of an intense internal debate. Some students wanted to retaliate with violence. They spoke of urban guerrilla warfare. Others used the word 'non-violence'. Then I thought of the word 'anti-violence'. That became the theme of the protest, not just there but in other cities as well.
The Tien Anmien massacre happened in Beijing in the same year, and this led to 'anti-violence' protests around Indonesia. These did not just oppose violence by the military, but also violence used by big business, violence suffered by women, violence to impose the Pancasila ideology, or any kind of violence to resolve conflict. I was asked to write an Anti-Violence Manifesto, which was published in Inside Indonesia (July 1989).
Probably my most amazing experience was joining the Peace Camp in Iraq during the Gulf War early in 1991. There were 75 of us from many different countries, including three Indonesians, in tents in the desert on the border with Kuwait. Iraqi and US troops were visible on opposite sides. It was scary. I chickened out and went back to Baghdad. That was a bad choice. The first cruise missiles landed on government buildings right next to where we were camped! Herb Feith gave me travel money, but it was only enough for a one-way ticket. So I traveled travel back overland. I was a year on the road, learning how the Muslim world felt about the Gulf War and writing for the Indonesian media. That war destroyed all ideology for me.
Ritual
The 1998 protests that brought down Suharto were another moment when anti-violence ideas were strong. However, I myself had moved on by that time. Already in our student discussion group of the mid-1980s we wondered why all ideological experiments in Indonesia seemed to end in violence. Religion was the same. Romo Mangunwijaya used to say that the Indonesian character was amuk, like a volcano, that is, to be calm on the surface but then suddenly to explode.
I have now lost all interest in ideology. The only thing that matters to me is how we can have a world without violence. How can people resolve their conflicts without discrimination, with complete respect for plurality and human potential?
Every society has a dominant pattern of change. Here in Indonesia it is not ideology or rational knowledge, but ritual. The ceremony is the crucial ingredient in everything, from weddings to corruption and the economy. Ritual takes place in a public space and in public time, which is an extraordinary time. It belongs to everyone. All leaders use ritual - Sukarno, Suharto, Gus Dur, and Megawati. Clifford Geertz once wrote a book about the 'theatre state' in Bali. Ritual binds people together, and is therefore a method of resolving conflict.
The regular sekaten celebration in Yogyakarta is a good example. The Balinese with their completely routine rituals are another. In Kutai, East Kalimantan, they have long had the Erau festival every September, to mark the moment when the sun is directly overhead. It is not just for Kutai Malays but for Dayak and Banjar people too.
The problem is that the Erau festival was recently taken over by the local government and turned into a huge tourist attraction. This has been the case with ritual everywhere in Indonesia. The state dominates almost all public space and public time. It is no longer public, but Republic space and time! For example President Suharto made 23 June National Family Day just because it was the Javanese birthday of his wife Bu Tien.
Peace-making
In order to recover the peace-making potential of ritual, we have to reclaim that public space and time. My friends and I do that by reviving old rituals and festivals and investing them with new meaning or, more often, by making new, multi-cultural festivals.
One of the best new festivals I became involved in was held in the traditional Balinese villages of Sidemen and Tirtagangga on 9/9/99. Four completely different groups came together here for a joint cultural performance. Besides the Sidemen Balinese, there were Papuans from Komoro, near the Freeport mine; Bissu, the transvestite priests from South Sulawesi; and people from Larantuka in Flores. The Balinese were Hindu, the Papuans Protestant, the Bissu Muslim, and the Florinese Catholic - not all of them equally orthodox mind you!
They all experienced culture shock getting there. The Papuans lost all their dancing paraphernalia during the flight except a priceless statue they carried in their laps. The Florinese came on a ferryboat that was full of traumatised East Timor refugees. The Bissu were marginalised in their own society, and had never been outside South Sulawesi. None of them were fluent in Indonesian. To get them talking, the Balinese took them around to the rice fields, to see what Balinese eat. It worked. That night they held the performance together. It was very moving. At the end, the Florinese gave a hand-woven cloth to the Balinese, while the Balinese gave a wonderful mask to the Papuans. The Papuans gave their statue to the Bissu (instead of to the organisers as they had planned), and the Bissu gave one of their cloths to the Florinese.
After the meeting, each group felt they were given fresh confidence to go home and do something creative. The Komoro dancers did a festival. The Bissu elected a new leader after letting it slip for thirty years!
Another dream I have is to make a Culture Ship that travels around the eastern archipelago. Buildings are too static and Java-centric. People come to ships to trade. That is a good moment for a meeting between people, and for a celebration.
Herb phoned me from the airport in Jakarta two days before he died. We shared our concern about the war in Afghanistan, and its implications for the Muslim world. 'Taufik', he said, 'we have to step into the future.'
Taufik Rahzen lives in Bandung and directs the Indonesian Festival Alliance (Aliansi Indonesia Festival, Alif).
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
How to escape the mainstream, big money, newspaper thought police
Alexandra Crosby
While the mass media monster may appear to be growing stronger, fed on the fat of advertising and corporate sponsorship, new species of independent media are popping up in Yogyakarta. Angry about their lack of access to mainstream politics, and empowered by the 'do it yourself' philosophy, people are expressing their authentic thoughts and feelings by the cheapest print medium available, photocopied zines.
Debu is a brand new zine launched in November, 2001. It is put together by an organisation of street musicians called Serikat Pengamen Indonesia (SPI), among whom is Ibob. SPI began creating their own media under the New Order regime. Before 1998, they made political pamphlets criticising the government and military and announcing actions. These were distributed as widely as possible at bus terminals and train stations.
Ibob recalls this was a 'very repressive period... we could hardly move.' Underground media were being produced, but in a much more restricted form and not nearly in the quantities that they are today. SPI experienced constant intimidation from the military. As a protective mechanism, their material did not contain names or addresses which could be linked back to the group. The fall of Suharto in 1998 was a significant turning point. SPI now feels able to produce Debu, which openly identifies names, addresses, and contact details.
However, intimidation still occurs. Members of SPI recently experienced violent repression from the military again, which leaves Ibob uneasy that this apparent 'opening up' of the political environment will not last. But while it does, Ibob sees alternative media as crucial for expressing radical ideas. 'We must take advantage of this opportunity while we can. Debu is is an expression and affirmation of our political strength and an assertion of our rights as urban poor.'
Exi is part of a collective called anakseribupulau which makes a zine about environmental issues. He says that because there is no profit motive, alternative media can address important issues the mainstream media will not touch. Anakseribupulau (Children of a Thousand Isles) is produced with whatever money the collective can scrounge together at the time. No one is paid for their work or their time. There is no advertising, no business sponsors and no editorial selection. Although the result has more spelling mistakes than glossy photos, and has a circulation of just a few hundred, it is totally open to contributions. 'This,' Exi says proudly, 'is a free, independent medium.'
Emma
Emma makes a zine about gender equality called Kotak Komik. It is distributed through women's collectives as well as student and other activist networks. 'Mainstream media always support the status quo of capitalism and patriarchy. They never print writings or education directed toward ordinary people,' she complains. When asked whether mainstream media have the capacity to address issues of gender inequality, Emma was adamant that under a capitalist system this would be impossible. 'Under this system,' she goes on to say, 'ordinary people don't have access to the mainstream mass media because it is controlled by capital. So we must create our own media.'
Emma sees zines as not only an alternative to the mass media, but to academic textbooks. She is unsatisfied with a lot of writing from the Left in Indonesia because it fails to encourage debate and criticism. Emma doesn't wish to put her energy into media which are out of the reach of most Indonesians.
Ibob, Exi and Emma all agree, the problems with mainstream media are inseparable from those with gender inequality, the environment, and social injustice. Zines are a forum to educate ourselves about how we can live together on this earth without destroying it or each other. By creating media such as Anakseribupulau, Debu, and Kotak Komik, anybody who wants to, has the power to contribute to the debates which affect us all. When asked about the importance of alternative media in Indonesia today, Exi's response was emphatic. 'When faced with so much oppression, inequality, and injustice in the world, we have no choice but to speak out, in whatever way we can.'
Michel Foucault once remarked, 'We are subjected to the production of truth through power, and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth.' Dissatisfaction with the mainstream media in Indonesia essentially reflects a rejection of the centralised powers which produce it. The emerging zine scene in Yogyakarta is an exciting development in a growing culture of resistance and criticism.
Emma, Ibob, and Exi can all be contacted at kismiana2001@yahoo.com, debu_spi@lovemail.com , and anak_seribupulau@yahoo.com.au. Alexandra ('Sasha') Crosby (alicrosby@hotmail.com) was a student in Yogya with Acicis. She and her friends produced a zine called 'Arus'.
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
Independent films are young, free and radical
Katinka van Heeren
The voice of an old man singing a song of the time of Indonesia's struggle for independence, a song of pride, hope, and great expectations for the future. His singing is accompanied by the image of the Indonesian flag, SangMerah-Putih, the symbol of the nation's pride and glory. Yet, the flag is not blowing bravely and fiercely in the wind, but is weakly flapping around the flagpole, a symbol of the confusion and disappointment of so many in Indonesia today. This fragment is the last scene of the short Indie (independent) film Kepada yang terhormat titik 2 ('To the esteemed: '). It was produced in Purwokerto, Central Java, and had its premiere there on 18 January 2002.
The film is an unpretentious account of how common people in Purwokerto see their municipality. It captures city life with a deliberately gritty touch, showing the lives of street vendors, street kids, and farmers. At the end, an old peasant recounts that throughout his life nothing Jakarta has done ever improved the meagre livelihood of Purwokerto farmers.
Kepada yang terhormat titik 2 is part of a new development in Indonesian cinema. The spirit of reformasi in 1998 permeated into the Indonesian film scene and gave birth to a movement characterised by great diversity. The independent film has become an exciting and popular model for young Indonesians who want to make their own films. They have formed a community of so-called Mafin (Mahluk Film Independen, Independent Film Creatures), which holds its own film festivals. They exchange ideas on the subject of film on the internet and at get-togethers.
The independent film movement really began with the film Kuldesak ('Cul-de-sac'). This anthology of four short features dealt with the problems of middle class Jakarta youth - drugs, homosexuality, and the feeling of absolute desolation. Its four young filmmakers decided in 1996 to produce an 'underground' film that broke free of all the rules of film production under the censorious New Order. Despite the freer political climate, one of the most radical scenes of this film, two boys kissing in a bus, was censored. It appeared to be too revolutionary even for reformasi. Today these four have become leading filmmakers, producing national successes - Petualangan Sherina by Mira Lesmana and Riri Riza, Jelangkung by Rizal Mantovani - and even an international one - Pasir berbisik by Nan T Achnas.
Rebellious
The unexpected fall of Suharto enabled this film to reach movie theatres throughout Indonesia in November 1998. Reformasi was reaching its peak, and many restrictions on film production and exhibition were not being applied. Its rebellious production and fresh contents and techniques set Kuldesak apart from both the films produced by an earlier generation and from the everyday soap operas on television. The press labelled it the first-ever Indonesian 'independent' film, and often highlighted its 'non-Indonesian' features. The film was highly successful among young audiences. In several cities ticket counter queues stretched into the street.
Kuldesak, made by four filmmakers who 'just went for it', triggered a euphoric energy among other aspiring young Indonesians. The freer political climate encouraged a sense of freedom and creativity. Also important was the wide availability of new audio-visual technologies such as digital video cameras and projectors. In 1999 the Community of Independent Film (Komunitas Film Independen, or Konfiden) began to hold a series of film screenings and discussions in the bigger cities of Java. The objective was to introduce the concept of independent film to a wider public. They were also a warm-up for the first Indonesian Independent Film and Video Festival (FFVII), held in Jakarta at the end of October 1999.
This festival aimed to provide independent filmmakers with a forum to screen their films. More ambitiously, it hoped to revive Indonesian film as a whole, which had virtually died in the last decade of New Order rule. The film industry had collapsed under the combined weight of three factors. Restrictive rules were becoming ever more draconian. Secondly, a business group owned by Suharto's relative Sudwikatmono (Subentra's Studio 21 chain of quality cinemas) disadvantaged local films by showing almost exclusively Hollywood. And thirdly, soapies made for the new commercial TV stations since the early 1990s proved to be highly popular.
Since that year, a similar festival has been held annually - this year will be the fourth. Konfiden now also organises filmmaking workshops, publishes a monthly bulletin, and is developing a permanent cinema laboratory in Jakarta where new filmmakers can come to learn.
Meanwhile, others also formed matching communities in several cities in Java, Lampung (southern Sumatra), Makassar, Palu (also in Sulawesi), and in Bali. These organise their own festivals, complete with discussions, workshops, and bulletins. Generally speaking the films screened are rather unsophisticated and inexperienced in their technique. However, the topics are often stimulating and original. Many include maverick ideas. One example of a very popular indie film is Revolusi harapan ('Revolution of hope'), by Nanang Istiabudi. This is a surrealistic story about a gang of thugs who go out on command to kill and pull the teeth of artists, students, and others who are in any way critical. Dunia kami, duniaku, dunia mereka ('Our world, my world, their world'), by Adi Nugroho, narrates the life of a transvestite in Yogyakarta. And Kameng Gampoeng Nyang Keunong Geulawa ('The village goat takes the beating'), by Aryo Danusiri, is a chilling testament of survivors of torture inflicted by the Indonesian Special Forces Kopassus. It was filmed in Tiro, northern Aceh.
As members of the various communities discovered each other on the internet and began to visit each other's festivals, they began to think about a coalition. About a hundred people from all over Indonesia came together in Yogyakarta for the National Indie Film Festival late May and early June 2001. At the end, after great deliberation, they decided to form a national affiliation of independent film communities. The next step was to establish an information centre (ICE). It operated an internet mailing list called Forum Film, coordinated out of Yogyakarta. They also planned to hold a national meeting every two months.
On 26 August 2001, during the BatuIndieFilmmakerMitting held in Batu (a resort near Malang in East Java), the various communities tried to formulate a collective vision. They wanted a program to acquaint a broader public with the medium of film in general, and 'film independen' in particular. After an all-night debate, three new ICE divisions were set up. In addition to the earlier Forum Film mailing list, a web site was to be coordinated from Malang, and an archive and a publication division were begun in Jakarta. The four ICE divisions would each remain autonomous bodies, standing for the same ideal but free to formulate their own policies. For example, the publication division has taken the shape of a new organisation called Terapis (Terapi Sinema, cinema therapy). It will publish books, a magazine, and a bulletin, and intends to organise workshops and seminars as well as produce educational films.
Local pride
One reason why the independent film movement has adopted the form of a national alliance, in which the different communities remain 'independent' and have an equal say, is the fear of domination by Jakarta. This fear, a New Order legacy, has had a positive spin-off. Many new independent films try to reflect the characteristics of their home region. The filmmakers want to make something that differs in every sense from a film that would have been produced in Jakarta - something that carries local pride and joy.
For example, Di antara masa lalu dan masa sekarang ('Between the past and the present', by Eddie Cahyono) is the reflections of an old man about the guerrilla struggle for independence, and Topeng kekasih ('Mask of love', by Hanung Bramantyo) is entirely in Javanese and concerns the Oedipus Complex. Both these films depict a typical Yogyakarta atmosphere. Ah sialan ('Oh shit', by Danis) is about the problems of student life in Malang. Kepada yang terhormat titik 2, made by Dimas Jayasrana and Bastian, students at the Jenderal Soedirman University in rural Purwokerto and premiered in the same city, is another creative manifestation of this feeling.
Katinka van Heeren (cvanheeren@hotmail.com) is writing a PhD dissertation at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Websites: www.konfiden.or.id www.forum-film@yahoogroups.com, email: terapis terapis@cinephiles.net.
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
A multi-billion dollar gas project in a remote Papuan bay needs scrutiny
Down to Earth
In recent years BP - the world's third largest oil group - has become recognised in industry circles as one of the greenest and most socially responsible energy multinationals. It is 'pro-engagement': the company courts NGO opinion, funds conservation organisations and has signed various agreements committing it to respect human rights and protect the environment. The company claims green credentials by investing in solar power and cutting greenhouse gas emissions within its own operations.
NGOs and communities with direct experience of BP's operations see another side of BP which clashes with the public image. BP has been accused of collusion in human rights abuses in Colombia and has clashed with indigenous forest-dwellers in Venezuela's Orinoco delta. Further controversy has focused on projects and investments in Angola, Tibet, Sudan and Alaska. These all point to a yawning gap between words and deeds.
The company insists its new Tangguh liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in West Papua's Bintuni Bay should not be judged by past projects - but what other concrete evidence is there to go on?
It is also worth looking at BP's main partner in the Tangguh project. This is Pertamina, the notoriously corrupt state-owned oil company which has a dirty record on human rights too. Pertamina is in partnership with Exxon Mobil in Aceh where troops paid to guard the gas installations have committed a series of well-documented human rights abuses.
For the people living in villages around Bintuni Bay BP's project will mean irreversible change. Over 500 people will be moved from their homes in Tanah Merah to a newly created village 3.5 km to the west in Saengga. Forests will be cut - with resulting loss of resources and biodiversity. Gas platforms, pipelines, processing plant, port facilities, airstrip and employee accommodation will be built on the 3,416 ha project site. In Bintuni Bay, shipping will increase and local fishing activities will be disrupted. There will be an influx of outsiders as workers are brought in to construct the facilities.
Many of the changes to the physical environment can be predicted and plans can be drawn up to minimise some of the negative effects. This is what BP is attempting to do through the environmental impact analysis (Andal) process. But other changes are not so easily foreseen. These include the key question of security at the site - and arrangements for guarding the site will depend on external, factors outside the company's control.
Human rights
There is great concern that the Indonesian military (TNI) will initiate conflict in nearby areas in order to justify the need for a strong security presence at the site. Villagers have expressed fear about the military in various meetings with BP staff. People in Sidomakmur, for example, a village that lies within what BP describes as the 'indirectly affected area', were 'very concerned that the Tangguh Project might use the military in their operations. They have had experiences with the military guarding the sawmill and logging operations'.
Last year's military repression in Wasior, in which ten people were killed, others 'disappeared' and many homes burned down, has already been linked to the Tangguh project. Papuan observers point out that the killing of five police mobile brigade (Brimob) officers which sparked intensive military operations in Wasior, was timed to coincide with the visit of the British Ambassador to the region in June last year. The implied intention was to send a strong message to BP that they cannot do without the 'help' of the security forces.
For the TNI, big projects have always meant big opportunities for extra pay to guard project sites - a situation that has led to a sharp increase in the incidence of human rights abuses - at the Freeport/ Rio Tinto mine in West Papua and at Exxon Mobil's gas installations in Aceh. In the Bintuni Bay area itself, there is already a Brimob presence which has had negative consequences for local people. According to the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Djayanti Group, which has timber, plantations and fishing interests in Bintuni Bay, pays a 20-man police detachment 'to enforce land grabs from local residents.'
When confronted with questions on security, BP staff insist they want to reduce dependence on the military - at one stage the idea of creating a 'military-free zone' at Tangguh was floated. The company's 'Community Development Strategy' document says that trust and acceptance by the local community will be crucial: 'We pledge to work with Pertamina to ensure critical national resources are protected primarily through our acceptance by the local populace as a responsible, and welcome member of the community; thus eliminating the need for extraordinary efforts by security forces to preserve and protect people and facilities.'
How BP will deal with military opposition to this plan has not been publicly outlined yet. This is one of the issues that BP's human rights impacts study should be looking at. The study is being conducted by Bennett Freeman, a member of the Clinton administration's state department staff, contracted by BP. Freeman was one of the main architects of the US/ UK Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights which BP signed up for. Before leaving for West Papua, he contacted the UK-based NGO, Tapol and was keen to find out who, if not the TNI, would be suitable candidates for guarding the facilities. The possibility of 'buying off' the TNI was also raised.
The price may be high. The security forces are in a strong position to make demands and there is very little political will on the part of President Megawati to exercise any meaningful control over the military. The so-called 'security approach' used by president Suharto for dealing with unrest in West Papua and other trouble spots is back in vogue under Megawati, after her predecessor's attempts at dialogue were thwarted. In November Megawati's senior minister for political and security affairs, Bambang Yudhoyono Susilo, announced that a further 32,500 police and soldiers would be sent to conflict areas including West Papua and Aceh. The following month, Megawati said the military should 'be firm in carrying out their job and not to be worried about accusations of human rights abuses'.
Unlike other companies operating in West Papua, BP has made some effort to communicate its project plans to local communities and consult villagers on impacts, resettlement and compensation. It is far from clear, however, that communities have all the information and opportunities for dialogue that they want, as there are already signs of dissatisfaction. Over the resettlement of Tanah Merah, BP acknowledges that despite 'substantial upgrades to their current situation' being planned, the resettlement still has 'the potential for dissatisfaction.' The villagers have not been informed when they will be moved - a situation that is leading to some frustration, according to Indonesia's mining advocacy network, Jatam. The community is also very concerned about the prospects of pollution from the BP site threatening their shrimp, crab, fish and mangrove resources on which their livelihoods depend.
The issue of compensation is causing resentment too: land rates set in 1997 by the local government, were as low as Rp15 - Rp30 per square metre. (Rp10,300 = US$1.)
Despite BP's commitment to transparency, not all available information has been made public. A large document containing the Terms of Reference for the Environmental Impact Analysis which BP head office assured NGOs was available as a public document, turns out not to be public after all. (DTE has obtained a copy of this document.) It is important that all information - including the results of the human rights impact study - is made accessible to communities affected by the project and the NGOs working with them, if BP really wants to be perceived differently from other investors.
Codes of conduct
The British government's very public support for Tangguh reflects a high level of confidence in Indonesia's investment opportunities. According to British energy minister Brian Wilson, Britain was Indonesia's biggest investor in the oil/ gas sector in the year 2000 and second largest overall after Japan. Over the last thirty years Britain has invested more than any other country apart from the US in the oil/ gas sector. Wilson, who visited Indonesia in November last year, said that BP had committed to a total of US$11 billion in investments, with $1.9 billion in current capital to be spent on Indonesian projects, including Tangguh. In total BP planned to invest $3-4 billion developing Tangguh.'We continue to see great opportunities for cooperation in energy', he said.
Business codes of conduct or business principles have been developed by multinational companies, NGOs, governments and international bodies such as the UN agencies, and the EU in response to public pressure for companies to be socially and environmentally responsible. While many of the objectives in these codes are positive, their main drawback is that they are voluntary. There are no sanctions if the principles are not followed and there is no independent outside body to monitor compliance.
Indigenous communities attending a meeting on mining in London last year argued that voluntary initiatives are not acceptable. A statement drawn up by participants said:
'In recent years the mining industry has become more aggressive and sophisticated in manipulating national and international laws and policies to suit its interests. The mining laws of more than seventy countries have been changed in the past two decades. Laws protecting indigenous peoples and the environment are undermined.'
'For this reason NGOs supporting indigenous groups want "politically and legally enforceable measures that will hold the mining industry accountable, above all to mining and exploration-affected communities.' (London Declaration 20/Sep/01)
Down to Earth (email dte@gn.apc.org, web www.gn.apc.org/dte) is the UK-based international campaign for ecological justice in Indonesia. Extracted with permission from its February 2002 newsletter (DtE 52).
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
The murdered Papuan leader was an ambiguous figure
At Ipenburg
There was always something ambiguous about Theys Hiyo Eluay. He became a focal point in the struggle for Papuan independence. But he was also seen as close to top army and police commanders, and the Kopassus special forces were his friends. Theys did not have much support in his home area of Sentani, outside Jayapura, where memories were still vivid of the large number of people killed through him by the Indonesian army.
Theys Eluay was educated in the 'advanced primary school' (Jongensvervolgschool) in Yoka, Sentani, in the Dutch colonial period. He studied meteorology and later worked as an assistant meteorologist. He came from a family of traditional heads (ondoafi) in Sere village. Although not entitled to the responsibility, he became ondoafi himself because of his relatively advanced education.
After the Dutch relinquished power in 1963, Indonesia tried to eliminate Papuan protest against its integration into Indonesia. Theys assisted the army by pointing out people who were pro-Dutch and anti-Indonesian. This action caused many victims in the small Sentani community of about 15,000. Some are still in hiding in PNG. Theys was one of about 1,000 Papuans selected to vote for integration with Indonesia in 1969. He campaigned in favour of a positive vote. In 1971 Theys became a member of the provincial parliament.
However, by 1980 his influence had declined. This made him feel frustrated. He joined the officially sponsored Papuan Customary Council Assembly (Lembaga Musyawarah Adat Papua), first for the Sentani area and then for the province of Irian Jaya. In 1990 he became chairman of the provincial council. After 1996 this council became more politicised.
Morning Star
In October 1998 Theys Eluay, Don Flassy, and two students were arrested for holding meetings to discuss the raising of the Morning Star flag on 1 December 1998. When Theys was freed after a week, he appeared on the front page of the Cendrawasih Pos, stating that West Papua did not need to ask for independence as it had already been independent ever since 1 December 1961. The Papuans, he said, only wanted their sovereignty back. This interview highlighting Theys was a strong contrast with previous editorial policy, which had ignored independence demands.
The focus on Theys continued, and certainly increased the circulation of Cendrawasih Pos, the only province-wide daily. Other leaders in the struggle, like Tom Beanal or Herman Awom, were rarely featured. There were weeks when Theys was pictured almost every day on the front page. 'Theys is weeping', 'Theys is angry', the headlines said. 'Theys is sick and has to go to Singapore', and 'Friends at once' (after fetching the new military commander from the Sentani airport). All this increased Theys' popularity enormously. He had the courage to say things other people were afraid to say in the open. Yet all the time Theys remained very close to the top of the army and police. He was the customary (adat) leader, and now also the Great Leader of the Papuans. As such he was accepted into the select group of the most powerful in the province.
The rise of Theys Eluay started soon after the Team of One Hundred had gone to Jakarta to meet President Habibie, in January 1999. Afterwards the team announced, without a single dissenting voice, that the result of the dialogue initiated by Habibie was that Papuans wanted independence. The mobilisation in favour of independence had been done by Foreri, the Forum Rekonsiliasi Rakyat Irian Jaya (Forum for the Reconciliation of the Papuan People). This was an initiative of church leaders, joined by adat leaders, students and women's organisations. Theys Eluay, Tom Beanal and Gaspar Sibi were the adat leaders.
Theys was a self-appointed leader. He began to call himself Great Leader of the Papuan People some time in 1998. He proposed the Morning Star flag be raised after his birthday celebration on 12 November 1998. In reaction, the army said they would create a bloodbath if the forbidden flag should be raised. Theys then cancelled the event, saying that December was the month when the Prince of Peace was born and no violence should take place.
In 1999 Theys again announced a flag raising for 1 December, but then again wanted to cancel it. This time, however, his followers strongly resisted the cancellation. So Theys supported the flag raising. The army and police, after a visit to Irian Jaya by the national police chief, insisted it was illegal. Nevertheless, on 1 December 1999 people throughout the province raised the forbidden flag. This was a major achievement. Order was maintained by the pro-independence militia known as Satgas Papua. Papuans saw that independence was possible, and that they were still a majority in their own land. Most migrants preferred to stay at home, so on that one day Papuans dominated the streets, an unusual experience.
In September 1999 Theys proposed to hold a Great Meeting (Rapat Akbar) to give voice to 'M' (merdeka, independence). The idea spread, and in February 2000 a Great Debate (Musyawarah Besar, Mubes) was held to discuss the future of West Papua and to determine a strategy for the independence struggle. The Free Papua Movement (OPM) was also present. However, Theys had by then a large force of young people at his own disposal - the Papua Task Force (Satgas Papua). They were responsible for security at the Mubes.
Actually the majority wanted Tom Beanal to chair the Mubes, but with such a large number of satgas close by, Theys could not be ignored. A compromise was struck, and both became 'Great Leaders of the Papuan People'.
The Mubes decided to organise a congress with a wider representation than the Mubes. The Second Papuan Congress took place in May-June 2000. Theys stood up at the beginning of the meeting and said: 'I am the chairman, while you are the vice chairman, right?' Tom tacitly agreed, as he did not want a quarrel at the beginning of such an important congress. Unity was crucial.
The Presidium of the Council of Papuans (Presidium Dewan Papua, PDP) got a mandate to act on behalf of all Papuans. It was asked to report on progress towards independence by 1 December 2000. The provincial and national governments accepted the PDP as representing Papuan opinion. However, as PDP chairman Theys usually did not consult his fellow members. They often knew what Theys was doing only by reading the papers. For one of them, Benny Giay from Paniai, it became too much when Theys in October 2000 honoured the departing army commander by elevating him to the rank of 'Great Warrior of the Papuans'. Papuans from the highlands said they would not raise funds and pigs for somebody who had been ordering the killing of Papuans. Benny Giay then left the PDP.
Achievements
Theys had many achievements. He had the flair and courage to make statements the people understood. He raised an awareness of being Papuan. He supported the formation of 'command posts' (pos komando, posko) to guard villages and even cities. This came in response to the situation in the Moluccas, where outside provocateurs stirred up a religious conflict. These posko were very popular. They were built all over the province, and effectively took over control from the army and police. The police later dismantled them.
The Satgas Papua was also immensely popular. Theys Eluay controlled a small army of about 5,000 young men and women, led by his son Boy Eluay. They got some training, and were easily recognised by their black T-shirts and trousers. The satgas gave a purpose to marginalised young Papuans who had fallen victim to alcoholism and petty crime. He also from the beginning spoke out for peaceful means. Appealing to the Papuan religious heritage, he said prayer was to be their weapon. All over the province continuous prayer sessions were held. Through Theys the Papuans became more united.
At the same time, Papuans distrusted his good relationships with those they saw as their oppressors. Was Theys a spy, a provocateur? Or was he double spy, also cheating the army, Kopassus and the police? In either case, Theys was playing with fire. Radical highland Papuans twice threatened Theys with death if he should back down over the flag raising issue - in 1999 and 2000.
Theys may have underestimated the danger of any double play. Or he may have allowed the army and the police to use him, just like he accepted the support of Yorris Raweyai, head of the pro-Suharto Pemuda Pancasila youth organisation. Yorris was in turn supported by Tomy Winata, a businessman with Kopassus connections. Tomy also had business interests in Irian Jaya. In return, Theys possibly thought of getting immunity for his political activity of mobilising Papuan awareness. His natural skill in public relations made him popular with the press. Soon every man and woman in the streets of Java knew about the Papuan struggle. His dramatic and unexpected death on 10 November 2001 fascinated a lot of people in Indonesia and abroad. Theys, it seems, died at the hands of the very people who just before had honoured him publicly as the Great Leader and Hero of the Papuan Struggle. He and his driver considered these people their personal friends.
In the theology in which Theys believed, to die for a cause is nothing strange. It was what Jesus did. He had intimated to close friends that he was prepared to die for the cause. In the end Theys meant more for the struggle because of his death. In his death he united all the factions. He became a symbol for the absence of law that threatens every Papuan. He became a hero in the line of Arnold Ap, executed in 1984, and Thomas Wainggai, reputedly killed in 1996.
At Ipenburg (ipen@jayapura.wasantara.net.id) is graduate program director at the I S Kijne theological college in Jayapura.
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
September 11th and after
Kurt Biddle
'Every lame duck political idea that couldn't get any mileage in the past ten years, has now been repackaged in light of the events of September 11th and is now being sold under the guise of anti-terrorism.' - Congressional staffer
September 11th has changed our world. That's true, but not everything has changed. Tensions that began in the early 1990s between Congress and the Pentagon over aid to the Indonesian military continue. Only the Pentagon's justifications have changed. And the Indonesian military is just as brutal as ever.
US-Indonesian military ties were first restricted after the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in Dili, East Timor, in which more than 270 people were killed by Indonesian troops with US-supplied weapons. The massacre prompted human rights groups and activists to demand that Congress sanction the Indonesian military (TNI). Consequently, the US Congress restricted most military aid to Indonesia by refusing to fund the International Military and Training (IMET) program for TNI personnel in October 1992. In July 1993, after years of unrestricted weapons transfers to Indonesia, the State Department, under congressional pressure, blocked a transfer of US F-5 fighter planes from the Jordan to Indonesia, citing human rights as one of the reasons.
In 1994, the State Department banned the sale of small and light arms and riot control equipment to Indonesia. In 1995, Congress restored some military training funding under the Expanded IMET (E-IMET) program, which purports to be an 'educational program' briefing officers on issues of human rights, military justice and civilian control of the military. In June 1997, then-Indonesian president Suharto wrote to President Clinton rejecting E-IMET and a proposed sale of F-16 jet fighters. Suharto stated that he would not accept restrictions on military transfers based on human rights.
Throughout the 1990s the Pentagon clearly violated Congressional intent and continued to train Indonesian special forces troops (Kopassus) in urban guerilla warfare, surveillance, sniper marksmanship and 'psychological operations' tactics. In March 1998, the existence of this JCET (Joint Combined Exchange Training) program was publicised by Congressional allies of the East Timor Action Network (ETAN), who fought for and won an end to such training to the TNI.
East Timor
When Indonesian military, police and their militia proxies razed East Timor after the referendum vote in August 1999, then-President Clinton was forced by public outrage to ban all joint military exercises and commercial arms sales. Later that year Congress put part of this ban into law. The 2001 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act renewed those conditions, which must be met before normal military ties can be restored. These include the return of refugees to East Timor, and accountability for military and militia members responsible for human rights atrocities in East Timor and Indonesia. They also require Indonesia to actively prevent militia incursions into East Timor and to cooperate fully with the UN administration in East Timor. The President is required to certify to Congress that the conditions have been met.
The scorecard on the conditions isn't good. The incursions into East Timor have stopped, although January's UN Secretary General's report on Untaet said that 'hard-line militia may still pose a long-term threat.' According to the UN, there remain sixty to seventy thousand refugees in West Timor. One of the most important remaining issues is accountability. The Indonesian military and police along with their milita proxies killed thousands of East Timorese people, burned towns to the ground, destroyed eighty percent of the half-island's infrastructure and forced or led more than a quarter of a million villagers into Indonesian-ruled West Timor. The international community will be watching the long-awaited and much-delayed trial in Indonesia, but it seems few have much hope that it will bring justice.
September 11th
Just eight days after the attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, the Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri kept a previously scheduled appointment with President Bush. In the short meeting, Bush promised to lift the embargo on commercial sales of non-lethal military items. Indonesian military officials and much of the Indonesian press thought that Megawati had scored a victory in restoring military ties. Many speculated that Bush was offering Megawati a recruitment bonus to join his coalition against terrorism.
But in an off-the-record conversation, a White House official explained that the package Bush presented to Megawati was completed on September 10th, and not a word was changed after the events of the next day. Much of what Bush promised Megawati was from the administration's review of US-Indonesian military ties policy that had taken place over the northern summer. Bush is limited to what military support he can offer Indonesia, since most of the money for training and equipment is restricted by Congress.
Mega's visit was highly symbolic: the president of the world's most populous predominantly Muslim nation comes to Washington. Megawati would be useful to Bush in building his new coalition, demonstrating that a war on terrorism wouldn't be a war on Islam. But Megawati's trip was plagued before she even left Jakarta by Vice President Hamzah Haz' comments on his hopes that the September 11th attacks 'can cleanse the sins by the US.' (Later, Megawati's own comments criticising the US war in Afghanistan further angered many in Washington.)
Now that the Congressional appropriations cycle has finished, we see a mixed Washington policy towards the Indonesian military. In the 2002 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, Congress renewed and bolstered the ban on training and funding of the TNI. What originally were six conditions were expanded to seven. Congress saw that the military was acting in much the same brutal way towards people still within Indonesia's borders, so the conditions were reassessed. For example, because the UN relinquishes sovereignty to East Timor's government this May, the Congress dropped the condition of complying with the UN Transitional Administration. The new conditions include releasing political detainees (activists serving prison time include Faisal Syamsuddin, chair of the Jakarta chapter of the Aceh Referendum Information Center SIRA); allowing the UN and other international humanitarian organisations and representatives of recognised human rights organisations access to conflict areas such as Aceh, West Papua, Maluku and West Timor; and demonstrating a commitment to civilian control of the armed forces by reporting to civilian authorities audits of expenditures of the armed forces.
An audit of TNI finances is a key condition for accountability and civilian control. The International Crisis Group estimates that just 30% of the TNI's budget comes from Jakarta, the rest of the money is through the military's own fund-raising efforts, from both legal and illegal businesses. Human rights advocates argue that if civilians do not control the purse strings of the TNI, civilians will not have control of the military. Conditions regarding accountability and return of refugees to East Timor remained part of the law.
However, in a last minute move while finalising the Defence Department Appropriations Act, Senator Daniel Inouye (a Democrat from Hawaii) inserted language appropriating US$17.9 million to establish a Regional Defence Counter-terrorism Fellowship Program at the behest of Admiral Dennis C Blair, Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Command (CINCPAC). The new program contains no restrictions on which countries can participate, thereby allowing training for Indonesia. Both men have long opposed existing congressional bans on training for the TNI.
US battlefield?
The Pentagon seems to be chomping at the bit for military involvement in Indonesia. One of the most vocal advocates for military ties with Indonesia is Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz, a US ambassador to Indonesia for three years during the Reagan administration. He has repeatedly argued that Washington should help Indonesia fight terrorists. Wolfowitz told the Far Eastern Economic Review, 'Going after Al Qaeda in Indonesia is not something that should wait until after Al Qaeda has been uprooted from Afghanistan.' It remains to be seen if and how the US will be involved in Indonesia, but with 600 US military 'advisers' on the ground in the neighbouring Philippines, some see Indonesia as the next battlefield.
Many at the Pentagon and in the administration call the TNI the only viable institution in Indonesia. Admiral Blair claims he wants the same goals as Congress does for the TNI, but disagrees with congressional methods. He argues that 'engagement' will teach the Indonesian military to respect democracy, human rights and civilian control.
But the TNI hasn't met the basic conditions that Congress passed into law before training can resume. For years the Pentagon trained and equipped the Indonesian military, but this contact certainly did not instill the TNI with a respect for human rights. The military terrorises their own population every day. Over 1,800 were killed in Aceh last year, and the military committed more killing in West Papua, including what appears to be the Kopassus assassination of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay in November 2001. TNI atrocities show no sign of abating.
Unless the Indonesian military is placed fully under civilian control (including budget and command), stays out of politics (and not just when it is convenient for their goals), focuses on external defence, and stops committing human rights abuses - in other words, becomes a professional military - the US must not support them. The US should focus on helping civil society groups build Indonesia's democracy, and not hinder democracy by supporting a military that is both corrupt and brutal.
Kurt Biddle (kurt@IndonesiaNetwork.org) is Washington coordinator for the Indonesia Human Rights Network (http:www.indonesianetwork.org).
Inside Indonesia 70: Apr - Jun 2002
Viva Timor Lorosae!
Gerry van Klinken
A free East Timor was one of the dreams that inspired the birth of Inside Indonesia in 1983. We published more than sixty articles in support of it. Now that it's here, this edition goes out with our best wishes to the people.
From his Jakarta cell after he was captured in 1992, independence fighter Xanana Gusmao inspired Indonesian activist Titi Irawati by saying Indonesia could not be democratic unless East Timor was free. Not just Titi, but all the Indonesians featured in this edition - seven of them! - continue to believe that, even if now-president Xanana has prudently stopped advising Indonesians about democracy.
After 30 August 1999, with East Timor no longer 'inside' Indonesia, we restricted our coverage to the post-colonial issues for Indonesia. This edition shows those issues remain urgent. So what's still on the agenda?
First of all, the very freedom of East Timor itself. East Timorese fought for a state of their own that would protect them from exploitation and human rights abuse. As the forces of globalisation are stripping protective powers from states everywhere, the question is: can East Timor become a state that protects its weaker citizens? Mansour Fakih asks this question in his lead article, as do several others.
Second, freedom with justice. The audacity with which Indonesian troops destroyed East Timor in front of the eyes of the world in September 1999 must not be forgotten. It was the finale of 24 brutal years that have scarred the nation for a long time to come. A short attention span is causing international support for a war crimes tribunal to wane. John Miller in this edition explains one alternative - civil courts around the world.
The demand for justice over these crimes won't just go away. Richard Tanter, in our strong human rights section, reminds us that similar crimes committed in Indonesia over 35 years ago continue to cast their shadow today - and not only on Indonesians. Right now, similar crimes are being committed in Aceh.
New beginnings
Not as dramatically as Timor Lorosae perhaps, Inside Indonesia is also making a new beginning. We have a new board, new editors and office staff, and new energy. Five long-standing board members have said goodbye after years of devoted effort. They are David Bourchier, Kathy Gollan, Krishna Sen, Pat Walsh and Ron Witton. Most have been with the magazine since 1983. David, Kathy and longest of all Pat edited it at one time or another. We owe them a big terima kasih. We know they'll always be there for us still.
Four new members took their place: Michele Ford, Leon Jones, Anton Lucas and Stanley Adi Prasetya. Three stayed on from before: Ed Aspinall, Vanessa Johanson, and Gerry van Klinken. We now have two Jakarta-based board members. We are also broadening the editorial base. Four editors will each take on one edition a year. They are : Dave McRae, Vanessa Johanson, Jennifer Lindsay and Michele Ford. I will stay on as coordinating editor. The Melbourne office also has new staff: Clare Land and Dilrukshi Gajaweera. Melinda Venticich will say goodbye after nearly ten years. Melinda has been in many ways the backbone of the organisation,. These new people are all exceptionally talented. One of Clare's jobs will be to talk with potential funders. If you are one of them, she'd love to be in touch.
Gerry van Klinken is the Editor of Inside Indonesia
Inside Indonesia 71: Jul - Sep 2002
The latest on this new nation at your fingertips
John M Miller
News
The east-timor (formerly reg.easttimor) list is an e-mail news list that distributes news and documents from a wide range of sources, mainstream and alternative, official and non-governmental. The frequency of postings varies with the pace of events. A selection of past postings going back to mid-1998 is available at http://etan.org/et/default.htm. For information about subscribing to the full list or an abridged alternative send a blank e-mail to info@etan.org.
For daily web-based news often with pictures, video or audio try Radio Australia (http://goasiapacific.com/specials/etimor/default.htm), the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/default.stm) and Easttimor.com (http://www.easttimor.com/). Lusa provides regular coverage in Portuguese (http://www.lusa.pt/) with some English translations.
The UN
The UN's Untaet site (http://www.un.org/peace/etimor/etimor.htm) will no doubt soon be renamed for the new UN mission, Unmiset - but the link will remain the same. It contains Untaet's regulations and media briefings and links to UN documents and Unamet's archive. It also has links to UNDP in East Timor and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sites.
News from UN headquarters in New York is available at its Countdown to Independence site (http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=27&Body=timor&Body1=)
ReliefWeb (http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/vLCE/East+Timor?OpenDocument&StartKey=East+Timor&Expandview), another UN site, focusses on refugees, humanitarian relief and reconstruction, collecting documents from UN agencies, humanitarian and other NGOs and governments.
From East Timor
The website for the East Timor government (http://www.gov.east-timor.org/) is currently haphazardly maintained, but offers contact info for government departments. The Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation is found at http://www.easttimor-reconciliation.org/.
East Timorese NGO's and media are beginning to find their voices on the web. See for example the NGO Forum (www.geocities.com/etngoforum/), Lao Hamutuk (http://www.etan.org/lh) and Suara Timor Lorosae (in Bahasa Indonesia, though other languages are promised http://www.suaratimorlorosae.com/).
History, culture and economy
Although no longer maintained, TimorNet (http://www.uc.pt/timor/atop.html) contains historical, ethnographic and other background. As do the Timor Aid and Etra sites.
Mother Jones offers a primer on the history of the Indonesian occupation (http://www.motherjones.com/east_timor/), and Znet archives much of Noam Chomsky's commentary on the issue (http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Timor/timor_index.htm).
InfoTimor links to documents on economics and development in English and Portuguese (http://www.uc.pt/timor/atop.html). The Conference on Sustainable Development covers those topics in English and Bahasa Indonesian (http://members.tripod.com/sd_east_timor/)
Documents on Timor Gap oil issues from the official Australian view can be found at http://www.isr.gov.au/resources/timor-gap/index.html and from an alternative perspective at http://www.gat.com/Timor_Site/.
Human rights
Tapol (http://www.gn.apc.org/tapol/home.htm), Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) and Amnesty International's (http://www.amnesty.org/) web sites contain many of the reports and media releases on East Timor. A database of suspects in 1999's violence is available at:
http://yayasanhak.minihub.org/mot. The Justice System Monitoring Project is watching trials in East Timor (http://www.jsmp.minihub.com/).
While many activist sites are no longer maintained, other support groups are still actively campaigning and regularly posting analyses and action suggestions. The International Federation for East Timor site contains a global directory of activist groups (www.etan.org/ifet). Some of the more active sites, in addition to the human rights groups above, include the East Timor Action Network (www.etan.org), Asia Pacific Coalition for East Timor (http://www.iidnet.org/adv/timor/overview.htm), International Platform of Jurists for East Timor (http://www.antenna.nl/~ipjet/) and the Back Door Newsletter that focusses on Australia (http://www.tip.net.au/~wildwood/).
A comprehensive list of active web links on East Timor can be found at http://www.etan.org/resource/websites.htm.
John M Miller (fbp@igc.org) is media and outreach coordinator of the East Timor Action Network (http://www.etan.org/), facilitates the east-timor news list, and is webmaster of the Etan, International Federation for East Timor, and Lao Hamutuk websites.
Inside Indonesia 71: Jul - Sep 2002
A sampling of performances in Java
Julie Janson
My travels in Java coincided with the writing of my own new play The crocodile hotel, about a teacher's experiences in the Northern Territory, the Yolgnu (Aboriginal people in Arnhemland), and their relationship to Indonesia. I saw many Indonesian plays and was seduced by the vibrant energy of artists who were enjoying the creative freedom of Indonesia's reformasi era.
Yudi Ahmad Tajudin is the artistic director of Teater Garasi in Yogyakarta; Kusworo Bayu Aji is its executive director. The company creates two new performances a year and often tours to Jakarta and Surabaya.
At Utan Kayu theatre in Jakarta, I lined up with the young crowd eager to see Garasi's latest production, Percakapan di ruang kosong (Conversation in an empty room), a collaboration between the performers and the writer/ director Gunawan Maryanto. We crowded into the theatre space and took a place on the concrete floor, crouching in the darkness in anticipation. Three ash-covered actors, looking like they were set in concrete industrial cylinders, stared at us in the darkness. The audience was given medical masks, and the floor was covered in ash, perhaps a reference to the World Trade Centre disaster site. The actors recited the poem about a man taking a second wife. A beautiful woman entered, sheltering from rain under a banana leaf. She edged through the ash in a storm to the music of Sundanese drums and an electronic soundscape. She encountered a dog-man and eventually she too became a dog. Then the 'other woman' entered, creating a rich physical distortion between ugliness and delicate emotion.
Much of the work is non-verbal, but Garasi is intoxicated by Javanese traditional music and the influence of the Jathilan performance, which has a ritual basis and is performed in the open streets. They take their inspiration from Jalan Malioboro, Yogyakarta's main thoroughfare, which throbs day and night with music, and where it is possible to see seventy-year-old buskers playing the zither and singing to Dutch tourists.
In Yogyakarta, I met an old friend from Sydney, the musician Sawung Jabo. He was workshopping an innovative movement performance with street people, the desperate and creative young. He spoke about the inter-gang fights in Jakarta, with homemade bows and arrows. He hoped that the theatre and music would give them a means of expressing their feelings about current events. When I returned some months later, Jabo invited me to a rehearsal of Diantara langit dan bumi kita bergerak (We move between earth and sky) by the group Teater Oyot Suket (Grass Roots). The setting was dramatic, an earth floor outside an old house set amongst rice paddies and surrounded by flaming torches.
Aceh
Another friend, the playwright and actress, Ratna Sarumpaet, told me that her group was performing at the Bandung Performing Arts School theatre and said that I had to come. Her new play Alia, luka serambi Mekah (Alia, the wound of the verandah of Mecca) is about the war in Aceh. As in all of Ratna's plays, it concerns a woman fighting for justice. There were 32 actors so the performance had a strong ensemble character. The use of traditional Acehnese dance created a strong sense of village community. Ratna wrote about her play: Alia becomes number one enemy of the authorities ... breaking through the trap of traditional convictions for women, she becomes a person of vision and carries out the teachings of her religion (Islam) with the perspective of justice, the rights of men and women, including the rights of the dead.
When Ratna arrived in Bandung on 16th August she was interviewed on television. Immediately after the broadcast, the police came to the STSI university campus to see her. They asked her why she had not obtained permission for the performance, and she replied that it was art and as it was in a college it was no concern of theirs. The police left. I was struck by this woman's bravery, remembering that she had begun the play while in jail for three months during the days leading up to the overthrow of Suharto. In political terms, her plays are powerful documents that she takes around Indonesia, Europe and the US to educate people about human rights issues in Indonesia. In theatre terms, the plays are didactic and are prone to long impassioned declamatory speeches. Nevertheless they display a courage that is unmatched anywhere.
Overall, the modern and traditional theatre I witnessed in Java during 2001 is vital and dynamic, and it is time it was showcased in international arts festivals. If more Indonesian corporate sponsors would support these groups then the task of touring overseas would be less daunting. Indonesian theatre arts are unique, and the world awaits them.
Playwright Julie Janson (juliejanson@bigpond.com) was the Asialink Literature Resident in Indonesia 2001. Her travels were supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute and the Australia Council for the Arts.
Inside Indonesia 71: Jul - Sep 2002
Australian media responses to the Indonesian killings of 1965-66
Richard Tanter
In the aftermath of the Untung coup and the Suharto countercoup of September 30th and October 1st, 1965 between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Indonesians were killed by the Indonesian army or by civilians supported and encouraged by the army. This genocide was the foundation of Suharto's three decades of power, and beyond that for the whole of post-Vietnam War Southeast Asia. The killings can be regarded as the constitutive terror of the New Order state. How was this genocide seen in Australia? What could Australians have learned from reading the press of the day?
In mid-1966, while the killings that had started in October the year before were continuing unabated, the Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt visited the United States. Speaking to the Australian-American Association at the River Club in New York, Holt expressed his satisfaction with the pro-Western shift of Indonesian foreign policy and economic policy under Suharto after March 1966. This was hardly a surprising position for a conservative politician, but the language that Holt chose to employ was startling:
'With 500,000 to 1 million Communist sympathisers knocked off, I think it is safe to assume a reorientation has taken place.'
As a representation of genocide, the casual brutality of the first part of the politician's sentence (a million people 'knocked off') is stunning. Surely this is what the American psychologist of state terror, Robert Lifton, calls 'psychological numbing' at work: an adjustment to the normality of mass murder. And yet the brutality of Holt's throwaway line was enhanced for his listeners by the smug joke in the second part of the sentence: 'I think it's safe to assume a reorientation has taken place'. It is not hard to imagine the knowing smiles and even guffaws of the powerful and wealthy American audience.
Yet Holt's slip in New York was significant not just in the brutal clarity of his manner of speaking. Holt's remarks were reported the next day in the New York Times, but not, so far as I can discover, in any Australian newspaper. It is most implausible that no Australian US-based correspondents were present. The fact the remarks were not reported at home was not an accident. Even in the roughhouse atmosphere of Australian 1960s anti-communism, Holt had gone much further than would have been safe. Speaking to an invitation-only audience of powerful friends abroad, Holt relaxed his normal political guard and openly revealed the fundamental outlook of Australian anti-communism and racist perceptions of Indonesia. The Australian reporters touring with the Prime Minister or their editors protected their readers from the need to face the historical and moral reality of the genocide next door. (It was to be thirteen years before Holt's remarks were brought to wider attention in Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman's pathbreaking study of the systematic media differentiation of 'constructive' terror (Indonesia) and 'nefarious' terror (Cambodia) in their The Washington connection and Third World fascism.)
In Australia today there is very little awareness of the 1965 killings. In my own experience, apart from those with a close interest in Indonesian affairs, very few people have any knowledge of this set of massive crimes against humanity. While recent public opinion polls show a widespread negative image of New Order Indonesia in Australia, this is largely derived from perceptions of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. And of course, most people who know nothing of the Indonesian killings in 1965-66 know a great deal about the Khmer Rouge killings a decade later.
This ignorance is not a matter of forgetting something once known. An Australian public opinion poll conducted in the early 1970s by the political scientist Rodney Tiffen showed that while more than half the respondents could identify President Suharto, not a single person mentioned the killings as part of their description of their image of Indonesia.
How can this ignorance or amnesia of genocide in the country nearest Australia be explained?
The first question is a simple question of fact: exactly what information about the killings in Indonesia was provided by the mainstream media of the time? The newspapers of the city of Melbourne Australia's second largest city and the heartland of the old-monied conservative dominance epitomised by Holt make a reasonable sample of the press coverage of the day. I examined all issues between October 1, 1965 and August 30th, 1966 of Melbourne's two daily morning newspapers. These together dominated the Melbourne market: the tabloid Sun News-Pictorial and the 'quality broadsheet' The Age. Both newspapers published many articles on Indonesian politics at the time at least one or more each day. This was almost as many as were published on Vietnam, and far more than at any other time in Australian media history. Most stories were given great prominence in the papers, appearing either on the front page or the principal foreign affairs page.
The Sun
Coverage of the killings in both papers was extremely limited, and grossly distorted. The Sun, the more popular paper, while publishing almost daily major reports on Indonesia, published only five articles in eleven months that even mentioned killings of communists.
Two minor articles in November 1965 reported small numbers of PKI members killed in Java.
The execution of D N Aidit, the PKI leader, was reported in December.
President Sukarno's statement in January 1966 that 87,000 had been killed was reported on two occasions, but in a manner that suggested it was an unreliable report by an irrational politician.
On March 9th 1966, the political columnist Douglas Wilkie discussed Jakarta students as 'rioting in a good cause' (ie. anti-Sukarno), but then went on to make an extremely intriguing statement:
'Many of the students are tools of the Moslem extremists who butchered some 300,000 of their Communist countrymen with kris and club after the September 30 revolt.'
Two aspects of the way this single sentence is written are important. Firstly, in March 1966, the columnist is referring to the mass killings in a way that suggests they are common knowledge already: he sees no need to explain the reference to his readers. Yet those readers would not have been able to find that information in The Sun.
Secondly, Wilkie's allusions to killings by 'kris and club' and to 'Moslem extremists' are characteristic of contemporary Australian (and US) references to both the killings and to Indonesian politics as a whole. 'Indonesia' is a different world from 'here' (Australia), one characterised by immaturity ('It's children's hour in Jakarta'), and by unknowable and irrational causation ('Moslem extremists'), with connotations of racially informed separateness (Indonesians kill with 'kris and club').
Apart from these tiny allusions and reports, nothing appeared in this newspaper until early August of 1966, by which time most of the killings had stopped. On August 5, The Sun's prolific Jakarta correspondent Frank Palmos published a powerful and detailed report beginning: 'More than one million people died in the massacres triggered by the attempted coup in Indonesia on October 1 last year.' The graphic detail in the full-page report came from army participants in the killings, and from a military research report carried out in part by university students. Palmos' report also emphasised the irrational 'blood lust' and 'constant semi-amok' behaviour of young Islamic men.
In sum then, the largest newspaper in Melbourne barely mentioned the killings in the ten months while they were in full sway, and then allowed only a single detailed report to be published. There were no follow-up articles after Palmos' report. The limited information that did appear represented Indonesians as irrational and unknowable racial others.
The Age
Coverage of Indonesia in The Age was even greater than in its popular rival, and coverage of the killings was more extensive. Despite this, The Age's coverage was equally limited and distorting. Like The Sun, The Age published several minor reports of communists killed in fighting in late 1965. It also reported President Sukarno's January pleading for an end to the killings, though in a less hostile manner. In the remainder of 1966, The Age published three articles reporting the killings in some detail. Two of these were somewhat detailed reports by New York Times senior correspondents C L Sulzberger in April and Seymour Topping in August.
The flavour of Sulzberger's report, which did emphasise the genocidal quality and scale of the killings, can be guessed from its original title in the New York Times: 'When a nation goes amok'. Topping's article in August was a much more sober and more detailed account, based on extensive travel in Java, Bali and Eastern Indonesia. There was no editorial comment on Topping's report, nor any follow-up by any of The Age's own writers. When I asked one journalist who wrote extensively on Indonesia that year for The Age why he and his colleagues did not cover the genocide story, he answered, 'Well it's easy to criticise now, Richard. But in those days it was near impossible to get out of Jakarta.' When I put this to Seymour Topping, who like other New York Times correspondents travelled widely and reported in depth on the genocide, he replied, 'That was simply untrue. You could do it if you wanted to.'
Yet in January 1966, much earlier in the period of the killings, The Age published a detailed eyewitness account of the killings by one of its own reporters, Robert Macklin. In 500 words Macklin provided a graphic and convincing account of mass murder that could have left no reader in doubt of what was happening in Indonesia. In journalistic terms, it was a world scoop. Yet, given both its importance and its virtually unique status, Macklin�s article was published deep in the newspaper, well away from both the front page and the foreign affairs section, next to the daily cattle market price reports. Short of not publishing it at all, there could have been no better way of ensuring it went unnoticed.
There was no follow-up either by Macklin or the paper's Southeast Asian correspondent. Macklin himself wondered at the time whether editors of the paper who he even then knew to have close relationships with Australian security organisations had effectively spiked the story.
The choice of words with which The Age discussed Indonesian affairs in themselves carried powerful effects. As in The Sun, paternalistic and racialist assumptions of irrationality and immaturity were common. The day that Sulzberger's April article with its emphasis on amok and kris appeared, The Age editorial discussed Indonesia, without mentioning the killings, expressing the hope for a new direction in condescending but revealing terms:
'It is too much to hope that the new Indonesian regime will be logical; our best hope is that it will be practical.'
Yet there was a far more effective rhetorical device used by the Australian media to deal with the delicate problem of both acknowledging and denying the fact of genocide at the same time. The Southeast Asian correspondent of The Age, a senior journalist and academic political scientist named Creighton Burns, published a great many articles on Indonesian politics in this period. However, only one sentence in many hundreds actually mentioned the killings:
'Djakarta virtually escaped the violence which swept Indonesia in the wake of the October coup, and which resulted in the death of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, mostly Communist supporters and sympathisers.'
Burns here provides an early example of a formulation that was to become widely employed in the years to come in western writing on the killings. As George Orwell might have noted, the key to the political effect of the passage lies in the grammar: there is no agent of violent death here. Abstract and disembodied violence 'sweeps Indonesia', resulting in Communist death. In other versions, which were to be repeated during the East Timor crisis of 1999, the phrasing is even more telling: 'X number of Communists died in the wave of violence...'
The agent-less and passive voice was appropriate for what was needed in 1966, and was repeatedly used. Because of the report by Macklin (and later by Sulzberger, Topping, and other sources such as Palmos), it was impossible to deny the holocaust directly. Equally, it was politically highly undesirable that the agency of the army and its instigation of Islamic groups be emphasised.
Wherever possible The Age avoided direct reference to the killings, and effectively suppressed its own inconvenient world scoop by Macklin. When reference to genocide was unavoidable, the highly effective solution was to use the rhetoric of the passive voice. Writing about mass murder in the passive voice provided a remarkably effective complement to simple avoidance and suppression via a form of words that allowed both knowledge of genocide and denial of genocide at the same time. Denial - in the psychoanalytic sense - always involves a process of actively repressing knowledge.
Witness
'Witness' has a double meaning in English. There is firstly the person who takes the role of 'witness' in relation to an event, the person who says 'this is what happened'. My first question then is, where were the Australian witnesses? In what way did Australian newspapers report the Indonesian killings of 1965-66? What did Australian political figures say at that time? What was said in the Australian community at that time?
But there is a second meaning of the word 'witness' in English, a sense captured in the phrase 'to bear witness', meaning to speak of what has been seen, to speak actively of what has happened, and to not be silent. The Australian media and political response to the Indonesian genocide was a matter of 'witness denied' in this sense as well. This is significant not just in the real-politik world, but in the moral sense that many people assume flows from Auschwitz onwards: a responsibility to bear witness to holocaust and genocide. Unlike in Indonesia itself, in 1960s Australia, speaking truth to power required no great risk. Yet, witness was systematically denied.
I began this work trying to answer what seemed to me to be an odd puzzle: why didn't people my age and older in Australia know about the killings? That simple puzzle has led to somewhat more complicated puzzles, bearing a great deal of moral and intellectual weight. It has been a saddening study, particularly tracing back through the intellectual history of the study of Indonesian politics and history in Australia.
All of our work is an act of representation, but we have paid astonishingly little attention to our own intellectual history. The story of the representation of the Indonesian genocide is the point where anti-communism, the demands of the national security state, and in the Australian case at least, a deep measure of racism, fused to smother and then sever the connection to a shared humanity and moral responsibility.
Richard Tanter (rtanter@hotmail.com) teaches at Kyoto Seika University in Japan.
Inside Indonesia 71: Jul - Sep 2002
Aceh is the military's stepping stone back to power
David Bourchier
In the years since Suharto, Acehnese resolve has done much to push forward the national agenda on human rights and regional autonomy. Decades of military repression gave Acehnese demands for reparation of past wrongs a special legitimacy and intensity.
Yet the Indonesian military has consistently opposed concessions to the Acehnese and is now using the ongoing resistance there as a stepping stone back to power. There is no more tangible symbol of this process than the establishment in February 2002 of the Aceh regional military command, known as Kodam Iskandar Muda.
On one level, the new regional military command (Kodam) changes little. After all, there is no territory in Indonesia that is not covered by one or another Kodam. Kodam Iskandar Muda had itself existed prior to 1985 when it was absorbed into the larger Kodam Bukit Barisan, a Medan-based command that covered most of northern and western Sumatra.
But a closer look at the dynamics behind the formation of Kodam Iskandar Muda reveals a worrying picture.
Kodams are the key units in the military's so-called territorial apparatus, an intricate hierarchy that shadows the government's civilian administration from the national to the village level. Following the fall of Suharto, when anti-military sentiment was at its height, several pro-democracy groups called for this entire apparatus to be disbanded. Their calls had some support among reformers within the military who saw the involvement of territorial officers in local politics, business and criminal activities as detrimental to the military's image.
Expansion plans
Hardliners in the mainstream military, however, scoffed at the idea of abolishing the territorial apparatus. They used the outbreak of communal violence in several parts of Indonesia in 1999 and 2000 to argue instead for its expansion.
Away from the gaze of Indonesia's newly empowered parliamentarians, planners in armed forces headquarters hatched a scheme in 1999 to increase the number of Kodams from the existing ten to seventeen. The idea here was to resurrect the system of smaller Kodams that armed forces commander General Benny Murdani had rationalised in 1985.
The first move came on 15 May 1999 with the creation of the Pattimura Kodam in strife-torn Ambon, splitting the large Trikora military command that had covered West Papua and the Moluccas. The Pattimura Kodam was named Kodam XVI while the shrunken West Papua command began to be referred to as Kodam XVII. The use of this pre-1985 numbering system left observers in little doubt that the military intended to push ahead with its controversial expansion plan. This was confirmed when armed forces commander Wiranto announced to a bemused parliamentary commission in June 1999 a ten-year schedule for increasing the number of Kodams to seventeen, starting with the Moluccas, Aceh, West Kalimantan and Central/ South Kalimantan.
If Wiranto encountered little opposition to his plan from parliament, the same was not true of the Acehnese. From the moment they got wind of the plan in late 1998, there was strong opposition from student, human rights and community groups. Arguments put by Aceh's then governor, Syamsuddin Mahmud, that the resurrection of our own Banda Aceh-based Kodam would lead to a more culturally sensitive military were quickly howled down. The military was deeply unpopular in Aceh. Intense local opposition appears to have been a crucial factor in delaying the plan.
Presidents Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid both understood that the deep resentment against the military in Aceh could easily translate into support for independence. In August 1999 Habibie announced an end to Aceh's status as a so-called military operations zone (DOM) and ordered Wiranto to apologise for past abuses by the security forces there. Abdurrahman Wahid went further, engaging representatives of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in negotiations aimed at a peaceful resolution of the long-running conflict.
On the ground, however, military actions went on regardless. Local commanders viewed Wahid's negotiated humanitarian pause with contempt. By April 2001 the central command had succeeded in pressuring Wahid into allowing a formal resumption of hostilities. This led immediately to the formation of a new combat command for Aceh called Kolakops, under the effective command of Brigadier-General Zamroni, former deputy chief of the feared Special Forces (Kopassus).
Zamroni brought with him an elite force of about 2,000 troops trained by Kopassus. He was also put in command of all territorial troops in the province as well as all other outside forces including Kopassus and Strategic Reserve (Kostrad) troops, giving him control over at least 12,000 troops. Kolakops coordinated its actions at least in theory with the 20,000 police stationed in Aceh.
Kolakops forces launched a major offensive against AGAM, the armed wing of the liberation movement. Given the extent of support for GAM in the towns and villages of Aceh, however, troops under Zamroni's command frequently targeted civilians and only succeeded in further alienating the population. According to the Legal Aid Foundation, an average of seven people was killed every day in 2001.
Megawati's ascension further cemented the military's political power. Sukarno's daughter was far more simplistic in her approach to regional problems than Wahid had been, and far more friendly to the military. She made her attitude quite clear in December 2001 when she told her military audience: 'Suddenly we are aware of the need for a force to protect our beloved nation and motherland from breaking up. Guided by the soldier's oath and existing laws, carry out your duties and responsibilities in the best possible manner without worrying about being involved in human rights abuses. Do your job without hesitation.'
Soon the plans for a new Kodam were on again. This time the opposition was even more widespread, triggered in part by the killing of guerrilla leader Abdullah Syafi'ie by Indonesian forces on 22 January. A range of academics, NGOs and public figures spoke against the plans, warning of an escalation of conflict and an increase in predatory activities by territorial soldiers. In mid-January a three-day strike against the new Kodam reportedly succeeded in crippling two-thirds of businesses in Aceh.
There was also muted opposition from within Megawati's government. Speaking to reporters last January, Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirayuda expressed his scepticism about the plan, stressing the need for dialogue with GAM. This reflected the long-standing frustration in Indonesia's foreign affairs establishment with the military's repeated undermining of its attempts to negotiate a peaceful solution.
Local parliamentarians, however, had an interest in promoting the idea, with the new governor, Abdullah Puteh, one of its strongest supporters. By this time the position of Kolakops commander had been taken over by Brigadier-General Muhammad Djali Yusuf.
New faces
On 5 February Kodam Iskandar Muda was officially reinstated, with Djali Yusuf becoming Kodam commander. Much was made of the fact that he was Acehnese. Like most Kodam commanders across Indonesia today, Yusuf graduated from the military academy in Magelang, Central Java, in 1972. Between 1996 and 1997 he was responsible for operations in the Udayana military command that included East Timor. After serving for two years in East Kalimantan he became Zamroni's deputy in Kolakops in Aceh. He has repeatedly indicated that he endorses a hard-line solution to the Aceh conflict.
Yusuf's chief of staff is Colonel Syarifudin Tippe, the Buginese combat engineer who until April 2001 commanded Korem 012, the Banda Aceh-based military district that covers the northern and western half of Aceh. When Tippe was first appointed to his position as Korem commander he spoke of 'slaughtering enemies of the state.' After a time, however, he began to make conciliatory statements and even recommended negotiating with GAM. He wrote at least two books on Aceh that tackle the question of Acehnese nationalism and the reasons for the military's unpopularity. At the same time, he opposed the humanitarian pause and now appears committed to follow the same path as his new commander.
For military purposes, Aceh is divided into two district commands (Korem) and eight smaller military districts (Kodim). The latter correspond to civilian regencies (kabupaten). The current commander of Korem 012 is Colonel Gerhan Lentara, who had a long history of combat in East Timor. In Dili in November 1991 as deputy commander of Battalion 700, he was the officer whose slashing was followed by the Santa Cruz massacre. Meanwhile Colonel Azmyn Yusri Nasution, a 48-year old Kostrad officer with experience in many areas including Aceh, now commands Korem 011 covering eastern and southern Aceh. His most recent appointment was Operations Assistant at Kostrad headquarters in Jakarta.
Whether the new Kodam will replace the Kolakops structure is as yet unclear. If East Timor is any guide, the combat command will continue to exist alongside the territorial apparatus. This would leave ample scope for confused lines of command and friction between territorial and non-territorial forces. But as we saw in East Timor, such confusion is useful because it allows maximum deniability when things go wrong.
The formation of the Aceh Kodam bodes ill for peace in Aceh and for reform in Indonesia. It suggests that Jakarta is now fully committed to a military solution. Aceh is already reliving the nightmare of being a bloody combat zone. It is also a sign of growing military assertiveness at the national level. Weak resistance from national parliamentarians is another nail in the coffin of reformasi. With this success under their belt, the military is likely to push ahead with its plan to increase its influence by establishing more military commands throughout the country.
David Bourchier (davidb@arts.uwa.edu.au) teaches at the University of Western Australia
Inside Indonesia 71: Jul - Sep 2002
The gulf between rhetoric and evidence is wide
Greg Fealy
Indonesia has frequently been cast as a country with a serious international terrorism problem. The US, Singapore and Malaysia claim to have evidence of terrorists being based in Indonesia or of Indonesians leading offshore terrorist groups. Singaporean senior minister Lee Kwan Yew declared that Indonesia was a hotbed of terrorism. The claims have been used by the Bush administration to pressure Indonesia to take strong action against them.
A close look at the evidence suggests, however, that the terrorist threat has been overstated and that foreign officials and the media have been alarmist in their claims. The emphatic anti-terrorism policy pursued by the US and some of its allies towards Indonesia is misguided.
Among many alleged instances, I shall restrict this present discussion to the two most prominent and instructive cases. These are that: (1) al-Qaeda fighters received terrorist training in the Poso region of Central Sulawesi; and (2) Indonesian Muslims played a leading role in the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist groups in Malaysia and Singapore respectively, both of which have been linked to Osama bin Laden's network.
The claims of terrorist training bases in Sulawesi emerged originally in testimony given to a Spanish judge by eight al-Qaeda activists. They claimed 200-300 fighters had trained in Poso and mentioned an Indonesian, Parlindungan Siregar, as a pivotal figure. The claims were soon taken up by Hendropriyono, the head of Indonesia's State Intelligence Agency (BIN), who stated publicly in mid-December 2001 that his officers had found evidence of foreigners training near Poso. The US press also began carrying stories, presumably based on briefings from Bush administration officials, that high-resolution satellite imagery had confirmed the existence of the camps and their foreign personnel.
Much of this evidence, however, was soon shown to be equivocal. Key allies of the United States regarded the satellite photographs as inconclusive, because they failed to show who might have been using the base. A number of Western missions in Jakarta sent their own teams to Poso but found nothing to support the foreign base claim.
Hendropriyono's statements were also contradicted by senior Indonesian police and military officials, who admitted that, while there were certainly Indonesian paramilitary training bases in Poso, they had no evidence of outsiders training there. Finally, there was the general question of how the training of several hundred foreign Muslims could go unnoticed by the large Christian community around Poso or by local security officials.
The KMM and JI allegations surfaced following a series of arrests in Malaysia and Singapore between mid-2001 and early 2002. Officials in both countries claimed there were links between the two organisations. They said that testimony given by the detainees pointed to three Indonesians as having a leading role in KMM and JI. The three were Abubakar Ba'asyir, a fiery Islamic preacher from Central Java and supposed spiritual leader of both organisations, Riduan Isamuddin (commonly known as Hambali) who was credited with the daily management of JI, and Mohammad Iqbal. Iqbal was captured by Malaysian authorities in late 2001 and has not been seen in public since; Ba'asyir has returned to Indonesia where he maintains a high public profile; and Hambali went to ground after Indonesian police issued a warrant for his arrest. Malaysia and Singapore have pressed the Indonesian government to arrest Ba'asyir but have been told there is no case against him. This has led to highly critical reporting in the international press of Indonesia's soft stance on terrorism.
The JI-Indonesia connection received further coverage when Philippines officials arrested an Indonesian, Fathur Rohim al-Ghozi in January 2002, on charges of importing explosives. Al-Ghozi, a former student at Ba'asyir's boarding school, was soon identified as JI's bomb expert and accused of involvement in various bombings across the region. This was followed in mid-March by the detention of another three Indonesian Muslims Tamsil Linrung, Abdul Jamal Balfas and Agus Dwikarna in Manila on charges of smuggling C4 explosive in their luggage. Philippines authorities claimed the men were linked to JI and other terrorist organisations. Tamsil and Balfas were eventually released in mid-April for lack of evidence but Dwikarna remains in detention, reportedly at the request of BIN.
Sweeping claims
The KMM-JI connection has been frequently cited by foreign officials and the media in sweeping claims about Indonesia's terrorism problem, but the available evidence only warrants a narrower interpretation. In the case of JI, the Singaporean government has released substantial documentary and video evidence to back its claim that this was a genuine terrorist group, and there appears little reason to doubt this information. The case against al-Ghozi is also strong. Much of the original JI testimony that led to his arrest has proven accurate and al-Ghozi has admitted his involvement in terrorist training and bombings. He was found guilty in the Philippines in mid-April and sentenced to a minimum ten years jail. But the Singaporeans have failed to present evidence proving that Ba'asyir, Hambali and Iqbal had a role in JI's terrorism.
The KMM case is far less credible. The Malaysian government has offered the public almost no evidence to back its assertion that KMM is a terrorist group. Indeed, so flimsy is the government's case that a number of analysts have queried whether KMM even exists. The Mahathir administration has clear political and diplomatic motives in playing up the terrorism issue. It has sought to discredit its main political foe, the Islamist PAS, by alleging links between PAS and the KMM. It has also curried US favour by appearing pro-actively anti-terrorist. As with the Singaporeans, the Malaysian government has not revealed evidence showing the complicity of Ba'asyir, Hambali and Iqbal in KMM's terrorism. Indonesian police who have examined the testimony of the KMM detainees claim that, while it clearly shows that Ba'asyir and Hambali were militant preachers, it does not indicate any terrorist intent.
Also dubious is the case against Tamsil, Balfas and Dwikarna. Almost from the outset, their arrest showed signs of being a frame-up. Tamsil told the Indonesian press that he and his two associates had been the only passengers searched from their flight and that they had seen Filipino officials plant the explosives in one of their suitcases. Filipino police had later told them that their arrest had been ordered by Hendropriyono and that a senior BIN official had travelled to Manila to oversee the operation. Meanwhile the Filipino police refused to allow a visiting Indonesian police team access to the smuggled explosive. The role played by Hendropriyono and BIN has attracted strong criticism from Islamic groups, the press and parliamentarians.
Misinformation
A number of conclusions can now be drawn. The first is that there is little basis for asserting that Indonesia is a proven base for terrorist groups. While a small number of Indonesians can reasonably be assumed to have engaged in terrorism, the data regarding bases and cells is, at best, inconclusive. This is not to say that Indonesia has no terrorists, but rather, that those who assert it has a serious international terrorist problem lack sufficient evidence or are not placing what they know on the public record (I suspect the former).
A second conclusion is that US and Malaysian officials as well as Hendropriyono appear to be engaging in deliberate misinformation over the terrorism issue, apparently for domestic political and diplomatic purposes.
The Indonesian government and Islamic community have grounds for scepticism over foreign claims of terrorists within its borders. It is in part true, as outsiders often point out, that Megawati is wary of arousing Muslim sentiment. But the point remains that those doing the accusing have failed to provide compelling reasons for Indonesian law enforcement authorities to act. Rather than excoriate Jakarta, the international community should commend it for upholding the principle of presumption of innocence and not arresting citizens without evidence of guilt.
The above conclusions call into question the wisdom of the current US policy towards Indonesia, which entails pressuring it to step up action against terrorists. Indonesia's intelligence services, for example, have a notorious reputation of fabricating evidence and abusing human rights. The greater the US pressure, the greater the risk that these services will act in an unprofessional if not illegal way.
It seems that the Bush administration is planning to give a leading role to Hendropriyono and BIN as part of its anti-terrorism solution for Indonesia. In so doing, they appear willing to overlook the lamentable record of Hendropriyono and the organisation he leads. Apart from bungling the issue of al-Qaeda bases in Poso and arousing controversy over his role in the arrest of Tamsil, Balfas and Dwikarna, Hendropriyono has been accused of involvement in the massacre of more than a hundred Muslim villagers in Talangsari, Lampung, in 1989, when he was the local military commander. More recently he has attracted adverse press attention over his extensive business interests and for his suspected complicity in the assassination of Papuan leader Theys Eluay.
BIN's record under his leadership is little better. It has been publicly ridiculed for its inaccurate and often politically loaded reporting. In early 2002, it was derided by ministers and senior politicians when it emerged that BIN had written separate and contradictory reports on the economy for cabinet ministers and a parliamentary committee. BIN also prepared an error-filled briefing for parliament's Foreign Affairs and Security Commission prior to John Howard's visit to Indonesia in February. Among other things, it alleged that Australia's Lt-Gen Peter Cosgrove had written an autobiography denigrating Indonesia's role in East Timor. It also asserted that the Howard government had formed a secret twelve-person committee to engineer Papua's secession from Indonesia.
The cornerstone of any US anti-terrorism policy in Indonesia should be to win the confidence of the Islamic community. Cooperation from Muslims is critical if terrorists are to be exposed. This is only possible if the US and Indonesia's security officials and ASEAN partners provide reliable information to a community where anti-Western sentiment is already high.
Dr Greg Fealy (greg.fealy@anu.edu.au) is a research fellow in Indonesian politics at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Inside Indonesia 71: Jul - Sep 2002
East Timorese students in Yogyakarta suffer intimidation
Faustino Gomes
The wedding had been beautiful. Manuel Martins, a student in Yogyakarta from East Timor, had just exchanged vows with Agustina Maria Yosefa at the St Albert church. On that sunny 18 December last year, well-wishers were milling in the church grounds. Suddenly the atmosphere was shattered by the arrival of a gang of thugs, also East Timorese living in Yogyakarta. Shouting 'You pricks! We'll cut off your heads!', they bashed a number of those present.
I had acted as a witness for the happy couple. Later that day the same thugs, led by Octavio Osorio Soares, bashed up another student, demanding to know where I lived so they could come and kill me. In the evening they gatecrashed the wedding party and again beat up several guests.
This was one of ten such incidents reported to the Yogyakarta police by the East Timorese student association Aetil in a letter dated 14 January 2002. All involved attacks against East Timorese students completing their studies in Yogyakarta by a group of pro-integration East Timorese under the leadership of Octavio Soares. Octavio, a recently graduated doctor, is the nephew of the last Indonesian governor of East Timor, Abilio Osorio Soares, now on trial in Jakarta for crimes against humanity. Octavio accuses the students of being anti-Indonesian because most of them supported independence in the August 1999 ballot.
There are about 200 East Timorese studying in Yogyakarta. Most began their studies before 1999, but took leave of absence to help the independence campaign in East Timor in 1999. Afterwards they returned to Yogya to complete their studies, most with financial help from the UNDP and the Ford Foundation. The Untaet office in Jakarta has an officer responsible to help these students. Besides Yogya, substantial numbers are also continuing their studies in Malang (East Java) and in Jakarta, with smaller numbers in other places. Others have also reported intimidation by pro-integration East Timorese associated with the former regime, particularly in Bali where many civil servants from East Timor now live.
Indonesian universities still treat students from East Timor as if they are Indonesians, meaning they pay only the low Indonesian fees instead of the high fees denominated in US dollars foreign students pay. Some universities have indicated that after independence on 20 May they will move to the foreign fee system. This would be very hard for the East Timorese. Indonesia has a historical and moral obligation to the East Timorese. An entire generation was educated only in Indonesian. Many want to do their university education here. In our experience the universities have continued to welcome East Timorese students. I hope they will consider keeping the present fee structure. This has also been the hope of the UN transitional administration, Untaet.
We have no problems with our Indonesian neighbours in Yogyakarta. They like anyone who rents rooms and eats at local food stalls, and they have offered to protect us from the crude intimidation of Octavio Osorio Soares and his mates.
Apodeti
The Osorio Soares family claims it founded the Apodeti party in 1974. This party favoured integration with Indonesia, and its members were prominent in the Indonesian administration. Jose Fernando Osorio Soares was the first secretary-general of the party. His younger brother Abilio Soares became the last governor in 1992. A sister named Elsa Olandina Pinto Soares now lives in Yogyakarta, and her three children are part of Octavio's gang as well. Octavio, who studied medicine at Gadjah Mada University, was Jose Fernando's son. This all shows how 'integrasi' with Indonesia became a personalised affair.
Actually another family, that of Arnaldo dos Reis Araujo, also claims the key role in establishing Apodeti. But they do not agree with the aggressive anger of the Osorio Soares family. Their relatives in Yogyakarta generally show a friendly attitude, especially after the ballot, and they sometimes join the East Timorese students in social gatherings.
The Osorio Soares family has lost its formal authority. But police inaction over the intimidation in Yogyakarta shows that they continue to have friends in high places. Octavio Soares dreams of one day 'returning' East Timor to the Indonesian fold, and feels angry and frustrated that so many people are deserting him. Even the East Timorese civil servants who have become Indonesian citizens and live in Yogyakarta are embarrassed by his tactics. In the meantime, however, he is proving himself an impediment to restoring normal relations between East Timor and Indonesia.
Faustino Cardoso Gomes (aetil@eudoramail.com) is completing a PhD at Gadjah Mada University. He is an advisor to the students association Aetil.
Inside Indonesia 71: Jul - Sep 2002
Page 55 of 67
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