The mayor who fell down the well

Reformasi came to a Javanese country town almost like a revolution. Anton Lucas In Tegal, a town of nearly 400,000 people on Java's north coast, the sun is searing. It even burns your toes in the becak. There are lots more becaks (trishaws) nowadays than in 1975, my last research visit. At night the drivers lower their hoods and pedal at high speed along the city's straight flat roads. Instead of bicycle bells, they have those metal clangers suspended under the seats which, when struck with another piece of metal, resonate wonderfully around the streets in the evenings. I'd forgotten the taste of the strong sweet black tea called teh poci (served hot) and the sate gambing (goat sate), both specialities of the city. Thanks to the Indonesian newspapers now posted on the internet, I had read about the events here in mid-June 1998, when shops and bank windows 'that could not escape the frustration of the angry masses' were smashed (but not looted or set on fire). The angry crowd also set vehicles on fire, but no one was killed and Chinese traders were not physically threatened. Many now have the words 'Pro Reformasi' painted in large letters on their shop fronts. Suharto's resignation had a big impact on the local student-led reform movement. It was first and foremost directed at Tegal's mayor, HM Zakir, a retired army colonel, one time intelligence officer and a former commander of the local military garrison.. After Suharto left the stage, the local political and religious elite quickly joined the protest against HM Zakir for the same reasons, namely collusion, corruption and nepotism, or KKN. 'A carbon copy of Suharto's arrogance'. This was how the mayor of Tegal was described in one press interview. I discovered while in Tegal recently that he was much more than arrogant. He was also a heavy weight corrupter, making huge amounts on commissions, levies, manipulation of local taxes, and extra-legal payments for building permits on a grand scale (rather like Dutch officials of the VOC did in the eighteenth century). One student banner which appeared during the protests of last year depicted HM Zakir sitting on a red bag of money beside a pile of logs with his fingers in his ears. This poster portrayed his links with a local Chinese businessman named Ponco Dianto, who between 1991-96 was selling tropical timber, stolen from Kalimantan and smuggled into Central Java via the port of Tegal. To do this the businessman had to pay off the local bureaucracy, consisting of the harbour master, the police, the military and the local head of the Justice Department. Not to mention the regional and provincial military commands as well. 'How much did HM Zakir get paid?', I asked one of Tegal's leading Indonesian Chinese developers. He made some rough calculations. Ponco Dianto was smuggling into Tegal between 5-10,000 cubic metres of stolen Kalimantan hardwood timber every month, for six years. He sold this timber for between Rp 300,000-500,000 per cubic metre. Ponco paid the mayor a flat commission of Rp 30,000 per cubic metre. All this means he was making at least Rp 150 million a month, before the Indonesian monetary crisis! At the old exchange rate to the Australian dollar (about Rp 1,500), we worked out that the mayor raked in at least AU$9 million commission on the sale of smuggled timber in Tegal during his time in office. Ponco Dianto went to jail after the government cracked down on timber smuggling everywhere, but many are dubious that HM Zakir will be charged, for lack of evidence that will stand up in court. No receipts Mayor HM Zakir tried to make money on just about everything in Tegal. On taking office he stopped the local market redevelopment so that his own contractor could build a similar department store on another site (the old bus terminal), in return for free shares in the company. The old market site has now been empty for seven years. After the elections, the originally planned five-storey department store will be built at a cost of AU$40 million. The mayor levied compulsory payments for street cleaning on electricity bills, then contracted out the street sweeping to a private company, who employed women at rates below the regional minimum wage. He charged doctors one million rupiah for a licence to practice (young doctors couldn't afford to open a general practice). He charged banks Rp 25 million for permission to build a branch. He got all these fees paid to him in cash in his mayoral office. No cheques thank you (he sent one back), and no receipts of course. On 20 May 1998, the day before Suharto resigned, students from the local Panca Sakti University initiated a sit in at the local municipal assembly (DPRD). Cultural expressions of dissent in Tegal, through poetry and plays, had actually begun years before. The May event cleared the way for most of the local political elite to change sides and support the students. Even a majority of the DPRD supported a resolution, read out publicly on 26 June 1998, that Mayor Zakir must resign. A delegation went to the Ministry of Home Affairs in Jakarta to ask for his dismissal. There was no response. Then during the 17 August national independence day celebrations last year, several groups left the ceremony in protest rather than have to march past and salute the mayor. Ki Entus Susmono, the activist local dalang (shadow play puppeteer) and a new ally of the students, took the microphone to calm the crowd. The mayor was finally forced to resign two weeks later, on 5 September 1998. To celebrate the mayor's departure a shadow play was held. Dalang Ki Entus Susmono modified the story of the popular clown Gareng, who challenges the moral authority of King Prabu Duryadana for cheating his cousins and taking their kingdom. In the Tegal version, a familiar figure (Kumbakarna) was used to play a new character called Prabu Kala Muzakar, whom the delighted audience knew immediately was Zakir the Mayor. This character came from a kingdom called Bahari (Tegal Bahari is the New Order government's name for the municipality in the national Clean City competitions). Right at the end of the performance a puppet in the exact likeness of the mayor appeared, and fell down a well, presumably to his death. The 70,000 crowd was delighted, and went home satisfied that, ritually at least, HM Zakir was now gone for good. The bupati (regent) of Tegal was also later replaced for nepotism, but less dramatically. Two revolutions? The changing of local officials in 1998 was not as dramatic or as far reaching as in 1945, when all of Tegal's district and subdistrict heads (wedanas and camats), the mayor and the bupati, as well as most village headmen had to flee for their lives. These 1945 officials were targets of the people's anger because of the way they had been compelled to organise compulsory rice deliveries to the Japanese occupation army, and also because of corruption in the distribution of scarce cloth, rice and kerosene rations. Corruption on a smaller scale than today perhaps, but just as widespread in those days, and easier to prove. In 1998 it is much harder to remove corrupt officials. Cultural expressions of change are also different today, but still played an equally important role. Bahasa Indonesia is no longer the exciting new language that village people were learning to speak in 1945, but cultural activists, poets, playwrights, and of course the dalang, now use the local Tegal dialect of Javanese (bahasa Tegalan) through protest poetry, local radio, and literary magazines. As well there are now three monthly local newspapers (in Indonesian), all attacking corruption and promoting political change and a more open society. I was given a photo taken last year that showed a group of youthful village protesters. All were armed with the same sharpened bamboo spears (bambu runcing) that provided the leitmotiv of the pemuda revolution in Java in 1945. Except now motor bike helmets and baseball caps have replaced young coconut leaves (janur kuning), which back then gave the freedom fighters invulnerability. Just as fundamental social structures proved difficult to change in 1945, so today money politics is still around. One of the mayoral candidates to replace Zakir distributed mobile phones to his supporters. Everyone expects more changes in the future, just as they did in 1945. On Sunday 18 April 1999, Tegal city was a sea of navy blue and white. Twice the number of people than was expected by the organisers, perhaps 100,000, turned up to hear Muslim reformist leader Amien Rais speak at a mass rally in the city square. In Tegal city it will be a struggle between Amien Rais, who heads the Partai Amanat Nasional, and PDI Perjuangan. In the 1955 elections Sukarno's old PNI, not unlike Megawati's PDI today, won in Tegal. The surrounding countryside will be hotly contested too. Conflict is emerging within the Islamic community in neighbouring Pemalang. PPP is making an issue of the fact that PKB has as its party principle the Indonesian state philosophy, the Five Principles - Pancasila - rather than Islam. They want to try and stop the Muslim leaders (kiai) from leaving PPP to join Gus Dur's PKB (Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa). Tegal regency is more devoutly Muslim than it was 30 or 50 years ago. There is plenty of local government as well as party supervision of the electoral process. Dozens of new village headmen chosen since last year (in Tegal city over three quarters of headmen are new) won't have the same authority to force a Golkar victory, even if they are paid to do so as in the past. In Tegal there is cautious optimism for a democratic outcome. Anton Lucas teaches at Flinders University, Adelaide. He wrote this while on a research visit to Indonesia.

Mobilise or perish

After the victories of '98, why did '99 not become another glorious year for student demonstrators? Dave McRae Indonesian student activists started 1998 without a national network, and with little consensus about tactics. The same remains true today. In that respect little has changed. Yet 1998 will long be remembered as the year students toppled Suharto. Nothing underlined the special position students assumed better than the attention given to the deaths of four students at Trisakti University in May, and perhaps thirteen at the Semanggi overpass in November, in a year when hundreds, even thousands more non-students met innocent and futile deaths. Activists had great success mobilising in 1998. Only two weeks into the campaign, a demonstration at Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta on 11 March was already the largest in twenty years. Big years of mobilisation are landmarks in the student movement's history. Before 1998 came 1978, 1974, and 1966. Today's activists are acutely aware of this history. They have appropriated an even longer tradition of dissent dating to the turn of the century. Yet in certain key respects they were determined in 1998 not to emulate their forerunners. First, they did not want a small group of prominent central leaders to emerge. Many felt that previous movements had been co-opted by the government after their leaders were first compromised. Not all agreed with this new trend. Some later said that the lack of new leaders was one reason why the student movement 'failed' to become a popular revolution. Second, they were determined not to forge any alliance with more powerful partners. The armed forces, Abri, in particular were taboo. In 1966 a military-manipulated student movement helped hand power to Suharto. In 1974 students became pawns in a conflict between two generals. Student claims last year that Abri was 'returning to the people' were merely rhetorical. When Suharto resigned on 21 May, mobilisation had lasted for about 13 weeks. It ended several days later. Its first peak was on 11 March - the final day of the parliamentary session (MPR) that installed Suharto for a seventh successive term. It then continued unabated until late April. In the last week of April and the early weeks of May violence escalated. News emerged that several missing activists had been abducted and tortured by soldiers. The campaign now entered its final stage. In the week before 21 May the number and size of demonstrations actually decreased, as all awaited the rumoured national day of protest on 20 May, Education Day. Initially, activists affiliated to existing student organisations formed new organisations more suited to mobilisation. Their very success ensured that many activists, and the majority of protestors, had never participated in the much smaller demonstrations of previous years. It also created a certain diversity among the demonstrators, though most were students. Many of the organisations behind the demonstrations were loose alliances involving activists from varying backgrounds. This blurred but did not destroy ideological divides between them. The strength of these new organisations is often exaggerated. Student fronts that claimed to encompass dozens of campuses usually had only limited representation at each university. In fairness however, the fronts became so numerous precisely because they proved effective in mobilising large numbers of students. The mobilisation at times saw hundreds of thousands gather. But its success cannot be explained only by the activists' energy. After years of silence, the chance to criticise and even mock Suharto from the anonymity of a large crowd was a potent drawcard. The new organisations with unfamiliar names allowed students to join demonstrations without taking on the historical baggage of past activities. The intensity of mobilisation in itself was also an asset, as it prevented protestors from dividing according to their various convictions. It was not uncommon for non-Muslim students to attend the most overtly Islamic demonstrations. Violence Clashes were often due to Abri brutality, but certain activists deliberately provoked violence to increase the size and impact of demonstrations. Abri's attacks on demonstrations in fact injured only a small percentage of participants. The thousands of protesters who remained unhurt saw Abri as impotent. Even the injured usually returned to demonstrate again. Onlookers, meanwhile, were often outraged by Abri's cruelty. Demands before 21 May were by no means uniform, but even calls for lower prices were usually considered an implicit reference to Suharto. Some demands were unequivocal, such as appeals to 'Reject', 'Overthrow', 'Prosecute', and finally 'Hang' Suharto. Suharto's name proved a potent symbol to arouse anger. The concept 'reformasi' was in reality quite vague. But the name meant that many demands in the end devolved into one simple demand: overthrow Suharto. The focus on Suharto made it easier for the elite to finally move against him. They had less to lose than if they had had to deal with wide-ranging demands for reform. But once Suharto was gone it also meant that mass support for activists who wanted to continue the protest evaporated. Student mobilisation virtually halted for several months after Suharto resigned. Most students disagreed with those activists who asserted that the struggle was far from over. Habibie's presidency was a reality, and many preferred to give him a chance. Demonstrations had also lost their novelty. Having learned from their experience before Suharto's fall, the military usually attended demonstrations only in small numbers, or not at all. This removed the hint of danger from demonstrations, and helped undermine activists' ability to garner mass support. However it would be incorrect to depict Habibie's early days as a period when activists tried but failed to organise mass demonstrations. Several organisations turned their attention to consolidation or political education. Others continued to demonstrate but relied solely on their core group. This avoided the embarrassment of a demonstration where no one turned up, but did expose the actual weakness of many organisations. No consensus It is often said that mobilisation also declined because the agenda had become fragmented. After Suharto fell there was no common enemy, and no consensus about the next target. While essentially correct, this view needs some important qualifications. Long-standing conflicts between activists, obscured by the huge demonstrations, reemerged. In addition, although there was a common platform - almost every demonstration protested Abri's role in politics this could not create the same unity as the dissent against Suharto. Many conflicts related not to demands but to tactics. Forkot, the largest student front in Jakarta prior to Suharto's resignation, splintered mainly through disagreement over whether or not weapons should be carried at demonstrations, although mutual distrust was also influential. Whether or not students should use violence remained one of the most contentious issues in the movement, even after Semanggi. Large protests did not completely disappear after May 1998. Two big demonstrations occurred in early September: one in Jakarta and then two days later in Surabaya. Both were violent. The phenomenon of 'red date protests' also grew in prominence. This describes demonstrations organised on significant dates, such as Abri Day (5 October) and Youth Day (28 October), marked in red on Indonesian calendars. However, the simultaneous demonstrations in many cities on these dates merely revealed how obvious these occasions were for a demonstration, rather than any coordinated planning. In truth, red date protests were also common before Suharto fell, but their influence was hidden by the sheer frequency of demonstrations. One event in the second half of 1998 did loom as a focus for dissent, namely the special session of the super-parliament MPR in November. Mobilisation succeeded in Jakarta, with thousands, and then tens of thousands protesting every day for a week. When protesters were slaughtered on 13 November at Semanggi (as well as the previous night), the shooting triggered a national mobilisation for about a week. Indeed, demonstrations continued in Jakarta until the Islamic fast began one month later. However, even here the mobilisation outside Jakarta did not remove disquiet among many activists over the tactics employed in Jakarta. They feared the focus on the special session would be counterproductive, allowing the government to depict students as extremists. Student demands often did permit misunderstanding. Some activists themselves were unsure whether 'Reject the special session of the MPR' was a catch-cry or a political target. The government insisted it was the latter. Complex issues such as Suharto's trial, a transitional government, and Abri's dual function were addressed only with one line slogans, making it difficult to determine whether or not student demands had been met. Rhetorical devices were also misinterpreted. Activists switched from 'reformasi' to 'revolusi' because they felt reformasi had become a meaningless word. Yet their core aims remained the same. In the run-up to the 1999 election, students found it harder to manage demonstrations because political parties were mobilising so many other large groups. Somewhat less significant was the new 'freedom of expression' legislation. Activated in December 1998, it has been used to arrest many activists. But the penalties imposed are not harsh enough for it to become the focus of further solidarity. The greatest obstacle however, was the students' inability to offer a viable alternative to the election. Their demands for a transitional government never gained acceptance, nor were they well formulated. While some groups were demanding outright rejection of the poll, other students became involved in Unfrel, the student body to monitor the election. Students played a central and admirable role in making the election possible. Ironically, the very system activists have struggled for may have proved their undoing. Dave McRae is an undergraduate at the Australian National University. Inside Indonesia 59: Jul-Sep 1999

The Russian road

Two huge, undemocratic states face economic crisis. Each starts on the road to democracy. For Russia and Indonesia, where will it end? Anders Uhlin Having paid close attention to Indonesia for about a decade I recently switched my research focus to Russia and other post-communist societies. I find it fruitful to compare the USSR with New Order Indonesia, and Post-Soviet Russia with Post-Suharto Indonesia. An obvious similarity is that both countries are very large multinational states. The USSR had the third and Indonesia the fifth largest population in the world. This contributed to their international status - the USSR as a super power and Indonesia as a regional power. Ethnic diversity with one dominating group - the Javanese in Indonesia and to an even larger extent the Russians in the USSR - led to a strong centralisation of power in both countries. There was little regional or local autonomy in the Soviet Union and New Order Indonesia. Both political regimes were based on a state ideology: communism in the USSR and anti-communism/ Pancasila in Suharto’s Indonesia. Although ideological counter-poles, there were striking similarities between the two highly undemocratic regimes. Power was concentrated with a strong leader - the Party General Secretary in the USSR and the President of Indonesia. Both had totalitarian ambitions. The people should be controlled and no powerful dissenting voices were tolerated. There was an extensive surveillance apparatus on national, regional and local levels. In the USSR the communist party was responsible for the surveillance. In New Order Indonesia it was the military. However, Suharto’s Indonesia was far less successful in implementing its totalitarian ambitions than was the Soviet Union. The reason for that, I would argue, has more to do with bureaucratic incompetence in Indonesia than any ideological differences. We should also not forget some fundamental differences. Power was much more institutionalised in the USSR, where the party ruled. In New Order Indonesia power rested mainly with President Suharto and his clients. Another basic difference, of course, is that the USSR had a planned economy, whereas New Order Indonesia was built on a capitalist economy. This means that Russia and the other Post-Soviet states have to manage a double transition of both political and economic systems, whereas Indonesia at least does not have to face a transition to a new economic system. So one would expect Indonesia’s transition to be smoother and easier. However, if we take the basic thesis of modernisation theory seriously, the higher level of socio-economic development in the USSR should be a democratic advantage compared to Indonesia. The Soviet Union in many respects was an industrialised country, whereas Indonesia experienced a later and more limited process of industrialisation, and the degree of poverty and illiteracy is much higher in Indonesia. The regime transition which took place in the USSR in the late 1980s and early 1990s had an impact on developments in Indonesia. The fall of communist regimes made the New Order ideology of anti-communism obsolete. Western governments were less interested in supporting authoritarian regimes like Indonesia’s after the end of the cold war. Indonesia experienced its own version of glasnost - keterbukaan - a few years later. Economic problems were one of the major triggering causes behind the breakdown of both authoritarian regimes. Mikhail Gorbachev realised that the stagnating economy had to be revitalised and the burden of defence expenditure lessened. He therefore initiated economic and political reforms (perestroika and glasnost) aiming at a reformed socialist system and more cooperative and peaceful international relations. It turned out reform was not possible. Instead the whole system collapsed, paving the way for a transition to a capitalist economy and a political system that (at least on the surface) shows some similarities with Western democracies. In the case of Indonesia, the 1997 currency crisis put an end to the economic growth which had given the Suharto regime some legitimacy. With growing popular protests, regime elites realised they had to sacrifice Suharto and implement some reforms in order to save their own positions and some aspects of the authoritarian regime. Old elites In both cases the transition was characterised by strong popular pressure, but it was still mainly controlled by old elites. Sections of civil society (although weak and repressed in both the USSR and New Order Indonesia) played an important role in the collapse of the authoritarian regimes. In Post-Soviet Russia, however, politics soon turned into a struggle of a few persons, around whom political parties were founded. Social movements and other civil society groups were marginalised once more. In Indonesia we can witness a similar process today. Political parties in Russia exist only for the sake of elections. With the exception of the communist party, which used to rule the country, they have no institutional structures and few if any grassroots connections. It remains to be seen whether the new political parties in Indonesia will base their policies on collective interests, succeed in institutionalising themselves and develop a popular base, or if they will become personalised election vehicles like the new Russian political parties. The authoritarian rulers’ party Golkar is the most well organised party with branches down to village level in all provinces. Although thoroughly delegitimised after the fall of Suharto, it is not unlikely that Golkar will gain a substantial share of the votes due to its organisational and economic resources. By promising economic development and stability ‘like in the good old days’ of the New Order the party may also win votes, in the same way as the communist party of Russia has managed to remain the strongest party in the Russian parliament due to socio-economic grievances and political nostalgia. Golkar is unlikely to keep its dominant position if the June elections are reasonably free and fair. But if a new reform government does not succeed in improving conditions, a slightly reformed Golkar party could well make a comeback in the next election. The weakening of central power has led to an increase in open centre-periphery conflicts in both Russia and Indonesia. The wars in Chechnya and East Timor are the most violent cases. But there are many other parts of the Russian federation where demands for more autonomy or self-determination are strong. In Indonesia the people of West Papua and Aceh are demanding their right to self-determination just as the East Timorese have done. Social conflict often takes the form of clashes between different ethnic and religious groups - more severe and violent in Indonesia than in Russia. Being itself a federation with 89 subjects, Russia seems better prepared to handle demands from the regions than the still rather rigid unitary state of Indonesia. The idea of federalism, still widely associated with Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, has only started to reemerge in the public discourse after the fall of Suharto. Negative growth Since 1991 the Russian GNP has decreased more than 80%, and the average life expectancy for men has decreased 6 years. Indonesia after the currency crisis faces negative growth, enormous unemployment and a substantial increase in real poverty. This is not a favourable context for political democratisation. The International Monetary Fund is playing a similar role in the two countries. Both are dependent on loans from the fund and subject to IMF dictates on economic policies - policies that tend to be the same irrespective of variations in the local context. A major problem in both Russia and Indonesia is corruption. Widespread already in the Soviet Union, corruption has become even more common or at least more visible after the collapse of the communist regime. The way privatisation was implemented in Post-Soviet Russia led to an enormous concentration of economic resources to a few people who used to be part of the old nomenclature, and who seem to dominate the political scene in contemporary Russia. In Indonesia too it will be very difficult for a more democratic government to gain control of the enormous resources stolen by the Suharto family and clients. Finally, I would like to stress some important differences. Russia has no historical experience of democracy, whereas Indonesia had a democratic political system in the 1950s. It might be an asset to build on, although the way New Order propaganda has constructed the democratic period as a chaotic unstable one may still contribute to delegitimising democracy. Another important difference has to do with religion. The potential political impact of Islam in Indonesia is stronger than the impact of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church was accused of cooperating with the communist dictatorship during the Soviet period, just like the major Muslim organisations in Indonesia were accommodative towards the authoritarian regime. Since the fall of the communist regime there has been a religious revival. Leading politicians, including President Yeltsin, have sought support from the church. But the political impact of religion is not as strong there as in Indonesia, where several of the leading politicians are Muslim figures and many political parties are either directly based on Islam or more or less closely related to Muslim organisations. The role of the military also differs between the two countries. In Russia there is civilian control of a weak and disillusioned military, whereas in Indonesia the military is still strong and independent, although losing legitimacy. So what can we learn from this kind of comparison? Compared to Russia, Indonesia has some advantages which point to an easier process of democratisation. It has a less totalitarian heritage; democratic experiences from the 1950s; and the absence of a double transition. But there are more factors indicating worse prospects for democracy in Indonesia than in Russia. Among them are a lower level of industrialisation and modernisation; more severe conflicts between different ethnic and religious groups; a rejection of federalism; religious based politics; and last but not least a politically strong military opposing democratic reforms. Anders Uhlin is assistant professor in political science at Södertörns högskola, (University College) in Stockholm. He is the author of ‘Indonesia and the Third Wave of Democratization’ (1997). Inside Indonesia 59: Jul-Sep 1999

Will Indonesia break up?

Indonesians in the resource-rich outer regions no longer accept the heavy hand of Jakarta. Anne Booth On 17 August 1998, the leading news magazine Forum Keadilan devoted its National Day edition to a discussion of national unity. According to a poll it conducted, over 90 per cent of respondents were worried about the danger of the country falling apart, over 80 per cent thought the emergence of political parties based on ethnicity and religion would increase the dangers of disintegration, and over 85 per cent thought the control of the economy by minorities increased these dangers. The fact that a widely read magazine could openly conduct a poll about such a sensitive issue, and publish the results, indicated the extent to which press freedom had blossomed in the three months since Suharto's resignation. But the results of the poll could hardly have been gratifying to the new government of President Habibie. They were a clear indication of the extent of concern among middle class Indonesians about the fragility of their country. In addition the poll reflected a widespread conviction that the regions must be given greater political and financial autonomy. In effect, the message of the poll seemed to be that the resource-rich regions would have to be permitted to keep a much higher proportion of the profits from resource exploitation. At the same time the electorate would have to have the power to vote in, and vote out, key provincial and local officials such as governors, regents, and mayors. In the latter part of 1998 and early 1999 there were many manifestations of regional unrest. Some were violent and tragic, such as the events in Ambon and West Kalimantan. Some, such as student demonstrations in Caltex facilities in Riau, obviously intended to make a political point to both the national and the international media. The Habibie government's apparent promise, made at the end of January, of self-determination for the troubled province of East Timor, immediately provoked predictions of a domino effect in other parts of the archipelago, from Aceh to Irian Jaya. By the end of April, press reports suggested there was a strong military backlash against any promise of ultimate independence for Timor, based in large part on the conviction that, once the Pandora's Box had been opened, several other provinces would want to escape as well. Increasingly, newspaper pundits in various parts of the world began to talk about 'another Yugoslavia' in Southeast Asia. To many, the world's fourth most populous country appeared to be unravelling in much the same way as the former USSR in the early 1990s. To a number of observers of the Indonesian scene (myself included) it had seemed obvious for some years that the highly centralised system of government which Suharto and his key advisers had put in place in the 1970s was, by the 1990s, both politically unacceptable and, from an economic viewpoint, inefficient and inequitable. (My own views were expressed in a lecture I gave at SOAS in 1992: 'Can Indonesia survive as a unitary state?', Indonesia Circle no.58, June 1992.) Oil In the early 1970s, the establishment of firm central government control over revenues from natural resources (mainly of course oil) had seemed essential if the government was to provide infrastructure and improve the quality of life for populations in all parts of the country. After all, much of the oil was in fact located in two rather small and isolated provinces, both of which seemed to lack any strong sense of regional identity. Given the development needs in other parts of the country, it would have been very difficult to make a case in the 1970s for handing over a significant part of the oil revenues to either Riau or East Kalimantan. When huge gas reserves were located in Aceh, a province which did have a long tradition of rebellion against outside control, some observers predicted that there could be trouble, although I cannot recall anyone in the 1970s forecasting the tragic events of the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s in that province. But as rapid economic growth and industrialisation transformed both the urban and the rural landscape in Indonesia, and especially in Java, over the 1980s and early 1990s, the whole nature of the 'regional problem' in Indonesia changed. In the 1970s the central government could claim to be playing the role of a benevolent Robin Hood, robbing the rich few to pay for improved living standards for the poor millions, especially but not exclusively in Java. But by the mid-1990s, it was clear that the incidence of poverty in Java was in fact lower than in a number of provinces outside Java, including some such as Irian Jaya with abundant mineral wealth. Even in those provinces such as East Kalimantan and Aceh where poverty was lower than the national average, there was growing resentment at the differences in living standards between the local populations and those of neighbouring Malaysia. Per capita GDP in East Kalimantan in 1993 was about the same as in the neighbouring Malaysian state of Sarawak, and higher than in Sabah, but poverty incidence was much higher in East Kalimantan. Given the porous nature of the land borders and the widespread movement of labour from Indonesian Kalimantan into East Malaysia by the early 1990s, it was inevitable that local populations would make comparisons between their own living standards and those in adjacent regions of the neighbouring country. In addition, by the early 1990s, the combination of rapid economic growth and over two decades of administrative centralisation had produced a situation where government ministries in Jakarta were handling huge budgets for both routine administration and development projects in all parts of the far-flung archipelago. Given the absence of effective audit procedures, and the demonstration effect of growing nepotism in the first family, there was inevitably a sharp increase in the magnitude of official corruption throughout the central government apparatus. Even those government ministries and agencies which had been considered 'clean' in the 1970s became increasingly blatant in the way they creamed off funds for the personal use of senior staff, including lavish housing and cars, foreign travel and foreign education for their children. Regional and local government officials often followed suit. That there is now, with greater freedom in both the print and the electronic media, an explosion of public outrage against such manifestations of bureaucratic abuse is hardly surprising. The Habibie government has not been slow to sense the public mood. On April 23, the parliament (the same body which slavishly approved the centralist policies of President Suharto) passed a new law on inter-governmental fiscal relations which allows for a considerable amount of revenue-sharing between centre and province, especially for revenues from oil, gas, other mining, forestry and fisheries. The issues are complex and it is, as yet, far from clear how the law will operate in practice (see John McBeth in Far Eastern Economic Review, May 13, 1999). It is also possible that the new parliament, to be elected in June, will press for even more sweeping changes. Breakup? There seems to be little doubt that what James Mackie once termed the 'powerful centralising and integrating forces' of the New Order era have been halted and indeed thrown into reverse. But how far will the reverse process proceed, and will it inevitably lead to the breakup of Indonesia? On this question, I can only give a personal view, based on my own observations over nearly three decades of study. It does seem to me that, after more than fifty years of independence from Dutch colonialism, most inhabitants of this vast archipelago do wish to be part of some entity called Indonesia. Understandable demands for greater autonomy from a corrupt and predatory central government apparatus should not be confused with a desire for outright independence. Indeed it was the repeated failure of both Suharto and the armed forces to comprehend this distinction which led to so many human rights abuses in places like Aceh and Irian Jaya. While the East Timor problem may only be resolved ultimately by independence, it ought still to be possible for other regions to remain within the Indonesian state, but with different conditions of membership from those which were laid down in the Suharto era. New conditions of membership in effect mean constitutional change. Accommodating growing demands for such change while at the same time trying to restore confidence in both the economic and the administrative system will severely test the skills of whatever government assumes control in Indonesia in the post-Suharto era. But one thing is clear: Suharto's New Order has gone, and with it the highly centralised political and economic system which he fashioned. There will be a very powerful group of losers from the changes now in progress in the central bureaucracy (both civilian and military), and especially in its upper echelons. The logic of the decentralisation measures introduced in April will be that provincial and local governments will assume more direct responsibility for sectors such as health, education, family planning, women's affairs and environmental protection. Much economic and social planning will have to be done in the regions rather than at the centre. Many officials will thus have to move to the regions or find alternative employment. To the extent that they will be forced to leave central departments, they will also be cut off from the extensive patronage networks which developed at the centre; indeed these networks will themselves wither as they are deprived of resources. Senior bureaucrats were among the most privileged people in Suharto's New Order and they can hardly be happy about the inevitable attenuation of their power which a genuine process of decentralisation will entail. What, if anything, they can do about the situation remains to be seen. Professor Anne Booth teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She has written numerous books and articles on the Indonesian economy. Inside Indonesia 59: Jul-Sep 1999

Escape from the past?

Has Indonesia escaped from its authoritarian legacy? Gerry van Klinken People who write about transitions to democracy around the world often make it look so easy, but of course it never is. This election too has left so many questions unanswered that there has hardly been a moment to celebrate. Yet sometimes we who watch Indonesia have so trained ourselves to expect more of the same that we can’t recognise the big one for looking. The election did happen, and it was much freer than any in the lifetime of most Indonesians. The country is on the way to democracy. An Australian friend in Bali described to me ‘a golden, crystalline feeling’ on 7 June in Ubud. People lined up peacefully for hours, silent and focussed on their vote. They were angered, and determined to right the wrongs of the past. Afterwards they were proud of what they had done in that booth. It could all have happened so differently. Rioting could have engulfed the country until the election was postponed or cancelled. The military could have declared a state of emergency. Rivers of money could have so distorted the result that Golkar once more emerged with a major victory. But the campaign was mostly peaceful, and monitors at least in the heartlands of Java and Bali were pretty happy with what they saw. Some suspect the high Golkar vote in the less-monitored outer islands was due to traditional intimidation as much as respect for Habibie. But the army seems to have kept its promise to remain neutral during the campaign. Just two years ago, most Indonesia watchers thought they knew the shape of Indonesia well into the 21st century: a military-backed government, a booming economy, and merely decorative elections. It was more important to study the next generation of generals than to observe political parties. Anyone who suggested the country would have a popular, civilian government by late 1999 was from another planet. Suddenly that has changed. At last the voters matter. Pre-election polling - a primitive science as Suharto never allowed it - told us they felt good about the ballot, and that many favoured Megawati’s PDI-Struggle party. An electoral commission led by former Interior Minister Rudini vigorously resisted Suharto-era habits of government interference. It stopped most cabinet ministers from campaigning. It permitted the small People’s Democratic Party PRD, portrayed by the government as a dangerous communist party reborn, to participate. It stuck heroically to a schedule so tight it threatened to collapse under the weight of logistical problems. Thousands of independent monitors from various organisations, some from overseas (including Jimmy Carter), fanned out across the archipelago to watch proceedings. This too was new - although KIPP had laid the groundwork with the 1997 election. Today, just over a week after the election and with less than two thirds of the 100 million or so votes counted, the talk is not of military coups but of coalitions and party room intrigue - exactly the kind of talk one might hear in a multi-party democracy such as Italy. As the polls predicted, PDI-Struggle came in streets ahead of its nearest rival. That rival was Golkar, thus confirming that this was really a two-horse race. Behind it came Abdurrahman Wahid’s liberal Islamic PKB, then the Suharto-era Islamic party PPP, followed by Amien Rais’ open reformist party PAN. These were the big five. Their strong showing put paid to fears - there were so many fears! - that the electoral process would be swamped by its 48 participants. As it is, there will be coalitions, since not even PDI-Struggle has enough votes to rule alone, but they will probably not be unimaginably complex. This magazine will be at the printers before the final outcome is known. Most say a coalition will emerge around each of the two major contenders, one of which will then claim government. Megawati’s PDI-Struggle and Abdurrahman Wahid’s PKB have a history of working together. Some smaller secular nationalist parties will also join this group. On the other side, Golkar will be joined by PPP and a number of smaller Islamic parties. Unfortunately this places most ‘political’ Islamic representatives on the conservative side. Already some of these party leaders are saying that religion forbids a woman president. The poor ‘political’ Islamic showing put to rest (yet more) fears that Indonesian politics remained mired in the religious debates of yesterday. But there is a danger of wounded anger from this side. Amien Rais too has reason to be disappointed at his own poor showing, for different reasons. But, along with the army (which remains a power in parliament), his party PAN appears to hold the balance of power. In his oppositionist past he was close to Megawati and Abdurrahman Wahid, and many hope fervently he will join them now to form a government. Given Amien Rais’ Islamic connections it would help reduce the religious polarisation between government and opposition. A PDI-PKB-PAN coalition would have more right to call itself ‘reformist’ than a Golkar-led one, which Indonesians love to call ‘status quo’. Unfortunately, a number of PAN members may be thinking the unthinkable - they want the party to join Golkar if the offer is right. Yet it is difficult to imagine that a public which voted so strongly for Megawati will accept a government in which she does not play the decisive role. ‘We have escaped from the evil genius Suharto’, said commentator Wim Witoelar. ‘Now we want Megawati to be our mother’. Megawati may not have led her people to victory against tyranny, as Cory Aquino did in the Philippines in February 1986, but she is an honest woman who will restore a sense of popular sovereignty. Legacy This election will see a lot of old faces exit left and new ones enter right stage. That kind of ‘elite circulation’ will shake up corrupt networks and introduce new ideas. It almost doesn’t matter what they are thinking. But of course it does matter, and the faces are not all new. The truth is that all the major parties and players - except PAN - are Suharto-era leftovers. There is a conservatism about them that cannot yet grasp the big changes happening in their own country. Student radicals insist the agenda for fundamental change contains four items - prosecute Suharto, democratise the fascist 1945 Constitution, get the military out of politics, and do something to satisfy the regions outside Java. On none of those issues has PDI-Struggle distinguished itself from Golkar. Some suspect they may be quite happy to become the new Golkar with a feminine face. A Brisbane student studying the electoral process, Lars Bjorge, thinks the ruling elite had stalled on the idea of elections until Megawati and three other opposition figures issued the so-called Ciganjur Declaration in November 1998. When they saw how mild opposition intentions were, a comforting awareness dawned on them - ‘we can work with these people’. From then on the election was back on track. Any new government faces almost overwhelming problems – especially in the economy and in the regions. A coalition government will find it practically impossible to apply unpopular, authoritarian methods. The glow of Megawati’s popularity will not be sufficient if they are unwilling to embrace democracy wholeheartedly. And that means embracing the students’ agenda of radical change. For that we may need to wait till the next election. Gerry van Klinken edits ‘Inside Indonesia’. Inside Indonesia 59: Jul-Sep 1999

The book bridge

Review: Lontar books open a window on the hidden lives of ordinary Indonesians

In this issue

Colonial periphery

Sumatra by bus

By butt-busting bus from Jakarta to the archipelago's western extremity

Teachers do it

Things happen when dozens of Bahasa Indonesia teachers gather in an Australian country town

Star Wars

Obi-Wan Wiranto? Princess Megawati? Or Sultan Yoda?

Revisiting Inco

For this Sulawesi nickel miner, reformasi means more pressure from the people

Dirty landlord

A huge nickel mine in Sulawesi is set to expand. What do the locals think?

This complex crisis

Two years down the track, how does the economic crisis affect the people?

A peaceful road to freedom

Central Sumatra's Riau province contains some of the country's richest oil fields. Now it wants more freedom, and more money.

Banda burns

As Ambon's conflict spreads, fear breeds hatred of 'others' in the beautiful and remote Banda Islands Phillip Winn Burned-out houses with slogans on their walls: 'anti-Jesus', 'this house eats pork'. There had been little hint that such animosities existed in the Banda Islands. Only 18 months before I had spent nearly two years researching aspects of local identity in a Muslim community. The Banda archipelago is a group of eleven small islands in Central Maluku, six to seven hours from the provincial capital Ambon by the fastest passenger ship. The huge province of Maluku consists of islands scattered between Sulawesi and Irian. Clashes between Christian and Muslim neighbours occurred over the evening of 19-20 April. As elsewhere in Maluku, it related to events in Ambon, where unprecedented inter-communal violence has continued since 19 January 1999. As I write at the end of July, renewed unrest in the Poka and Galala areas just outside Ambon city adds more casualties and property damage to the toll. The initial episode in Ambon began with an argument between a mini-bus driver and his passenger. It led to a conflict between their respective settlements Batu Merah (largely Christian) and Mardika (Muslim). This was not in itself exceptional, but the conflict spread quickly, initially between groups of Muslim migrants from southern Sulawesi and Christian Ambonese, then embracing Islamic and Christian communities of all kinds throughout Ambon, and throughout the province. Reports of 'ethnic clashes' rapidly changed to 'religious violence' as indigenous Muslims and indigenous Christians, once belonging to single communities, fought it out. News quickly reached Banda. Local Muslims heard while calling relatives in Ambon to celebrate Lebaran, the end of the fasting month. Within a month, a formal 'peace accord' was signed between Muslim and Christian leaders in Banda Neira, district capital of the Banda Islands. But three months later conflict broke out here too, quite late when compared to the rapid spread in other areas. I want to focus on a single community, Lonthoir on the island of Banda Besar, to illustrate what happened. The timing of the first clash, during the busiest of Islamic holy days, was sufficient to convince Lonthoir residents that Muslims were the victims. Prayer sessions for Ambon-based relatives were organised at the Lonthoir mosque two nights each week. They continue to the present day. In the week following Lebaran, refugees from Ambon began to arrive in the Bandas, carrying with them stories, fears and rumours. Mosque attendance in Lonthoir rose sharply and remains high. One persistent story suggested that boats carrying armed Christians were landing on deserted beaches near Muslim communities in order to launch surprise attacks. Lonthoir men organised night patrols as a result, guarding remote sections of coastline in order to raise the alarm. While this story declined after the first month, Lonthoir people still speak of secret plans to 'Christianise' Maluku. Fear as much as anger seems to have been the initial response to the events in Ambon. People said they woke at any sound. A rumour predicted three days of 'darkness' (linked to the recent lunar eclipse?). Numerous kerosene lanterns were purchased in anticipation. These fears are difficult to explain. In Ambon, the historical advantages of the Christian population have eroded. Christians have migrated out, Muslims, mostly from southern Sulawesi (Bugis, Makassar, Buton) have migrated in. From a large majority, Ambonese Christians are now around half the population. In the Banda Islands, similar changes had rather increased an existing Muslim majority. Nonetheless, even before the Ambon conflict, Banda's Muslims sometimes expressed the vulnerable sense of being an Islamic outpost in a Christian area. They feared 'outsiders' would act violently against them. Refugees In the months leading up to the outbreak of violence in Banda, 3-4,000 refugees arrived, increasing the population of the islands by almost a third. Seven hundred settled in Lonthoir where the population was originally only 3,000. While the Bandas are more than 90 percent Muslim, the Christian minority forms a higher proportion of the population on the islands of Hatta and Ai, and in the administrative centre of Neira. Almost all the small number of Christian refugees settled in Hatta and Neira. Unlike Ai, the Christian population of Hatta has for some years sought marriage partners outside the Banda Islands, from areas now centrally involved in the events in Ambon in particular Saparua. Movement between Saparua and Hatta had been regular. It was here the Banda conflict would begin. Christians in the Bandas have historically participated alongside Muslims in traditional rituals, despite the fact these ceremonies incorporate aspects of Islamic practice. This was less the case on Hatta, where the two population segments had become distinct, partly as a result of links to outside areas and also concerns with issues of orthodoxy within the Protestant Church of Maluku (GPM). Sporadic instances of stone throwing began to occur at night on Hatta. In Neira, despite the presence of a newly arrived contingent of riot police (Brimob), unidentified assailants killed a local Christian at night. In Lonthoir, a small Christian settlement of immigrants from Southeast Maluku (present since the 1960s) sold their belongings and gardens and returned to that area. It appears they felt forced to relocate. A Christian teacher, also originally from elsewhere but living in Lonthoir for over twenty years, became a target of suspicion when he visited Christian friends on another island. His house was stoned on a several nights and he left the islands shortly after. Many Christians chose to leave Neira. On the afternoon of April 19, a stone throwing incident on Hatta became open conflict, with a Muslim man killed and Christian houses destroyed by fire. As police reinforcements rushed to Hatta Island by speedboat, the small contingent left on Neira could not prevent a mob from attacking Christian houses as the news spread. Some were already empty, but numerous Christians were forced to shelter at a local hotel (owned by a Muslim), or with Muslim neighbours. Lonthoir people heard the news of Hatta at the same time as fire and smoke became visible in nearby Neira. It seemed the conflict they had feared was beginning. While older men tried to stop them, a group of youths rushed to the coast to find transport to Neira Island. Some went to the nearby settlement of Waling, where a Christian family of mixed local and Dutch descent had already been attacked and five family members killed. The family's colonial-era plantation buildings were ablaze. Twenty-four men now await trial for these deaths. The Lonthoir men managed to find transport to Neira at Waling, while the remaining group back in Lonthoir destroyed a colonial-era church, originally built with the help of local Muslims. The empty homes of departed Southeast Malukan residents were also burned by Muslims living nearby. At this point no Christians remained in Lonthoir or on Banda Besar Island as a whole. Two days later the navy arrived to evacuate the entire Christian population of the Banda Islands, with the exception of 15 or so households on Ai who refused to leave and remain there today. Fragile In mid-July, I returned by passenger ship to the community of Lonthoir where I had lived. Refugees fleeing conflict had used this same form of transport. A number were now returning. A large group of southern Sulawesi Muslims were travelling back to Ambon, carrying their belongings and trade goods (this was several days before the new conflict in Poka and Galala). At the port of Banda sixteen armed Brimob personnel, weapons in hand, spread across the dock as people disembarked. My presence was taken as a reassuring sign tourists have been absent from the islands since the violence in Ambon began. Officers assured me that the Bandas were calm now, peaceful. Yet the Christians I had known were gone, their houses destroyed, or occupied by refugees who write 'Muslim House' or 'Refugee' prominently on the outside. The security forces have proved fragile instruments of authority where mass violence is directed not at the state but at other sections of local societies. Many Lonthoir people view the events of that single night with a mixture of regret and defensiveness. They say their youths did not participate in the events in Neira, Hatta or elsewhere in Banda Besar. This means their 'hands are not dirty'. But at the same time their 'name is not respected' by other Muslim communities, because they did not demonstrate support. They often point at refugees as the main instigators, although evidence suggests this is not so, since only a few refugees are among those arrested. How do we make sense of these events? This was a prominent concern at the International Maluku Research Conference, held at the Northern Territory University in Darwin from the 14-16 July 1999. One significant element may have been the erosion of traditional forms of authority. Reforms of village government during the 1970s shifted power away from local leaders (Muslim and Christian) to Jakarta, and bound provincial elites more closely to the central government. Local customary or 'adat' regulation continues to have an ambiguous relation to state administration. Both the state and local adat may be associated with discipline and control, rather than a viable vision of the future that might inspire the young. Both appear to be suffering a profoundly diminished legitimacy. Phillip Winn is a PhD student in anthropology at the Australian National University. A detailed account of the Ambon violence is in Human Rights Watch Asia, 'The violence in Ambon', www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/1999/ambon/. Two non-government organisations doing useful non-sectarian humanitarian work are Tirus and Yayasan Baileo Maluku contact both at tabaos@ambon.wasantara.net.id. Inside Indonesia 60: Oct-Dec 1999

What caused the Ambon violence?

Perhaps not religious hatred but a corrupt civil service sparked the bloodletting Gerry van Klinken Jefri was in the wrong place at the wrong time on 4 August. Walking around a shopping area in Ambon city he and his 21-year old friend Dominggus Hiraka were beaten by unknown men. Jefri later died of brain hemorrhage in a military hospital, while Dominggus was in a critical condition. At 4am on 27 July, Christian residents of Lateri near the city attacked the neighbouring Muslim village of Latta, leaving one dead. Latta residents sought refuge in Ambon’s Al-Fatah mosque, their story fuelling the anger of thousands of other refugees there fleeing similar incidents. Ambon is in a state of simmering civil war. The latest outbreak in mid-July had by early August left dozens dead. Hundreds died in earlier fighting between Christians and Muslims from January till April 1999. Similar communal battles broke out in the remote fishing town of Tual, also in southern Maluku province, in April, again leaving hundreds dead. Many tens of thousands of refugees, mostly Muslim, have fled the conflict for South Sulawesi. How do we explain such brutal violence between neighbours? Indonesia has seen so much violence lately, but this is the most difficult kind to understand. When it is committed by the state against the people, we can sympathise with the people. When, more rarely, it is committed by the people against the state, or even against privileged groups such as Chinese entrepreneurs, we might comfort ourselves with the thought that at least the people are standing up for their rights. But when it is neighbour against neighbour simply because they differ in religion or ethnicity, no such comfort is permissible. We can only think that this is a sick, bigoted society. Certainly the view that Ambon shows us a society mysteriously disintegrating from within is widely shared. But is it accurate? In every other type of collective violence people seem to be driven by motives we can understand - to get a better deal for themselves, or to protect their interests. Why should religious strife be any different? I’d like to suggest a better explanation than that such conflicts are triggered by pure bigotry. It is based on the idea that people often identify with a particular religious community for quite worldly reasons. In Ambon at least, joining the Protestant or the Muslim community means being part of a network that not only worships God in a certain way but does practical things for its members - provide access to friends in powerful places for example, or protection when things get tough. These networks extend up the social ladder to influential circles in Jakarta. And they extend downward to street level, where gangs of young men provide the protective muscle that an inefficient police force cannot provide. Communal violence has been episodic in Indonesia. The previous largest cluster of events occurred in 1965-66, when a quarter to a half a million (or more) alleged communists were slaughtered mostly by their Muslim neighbours in the countrysides of Java, Bali and some other islands. This cluster was associated with the fall from power of long-serving President Sukarno, and the rise of General Suharto. Anxious During the years of Suharto’s ascendancy, communal violence rarely broke out. However, it flared up again in various places at the end of 1996, just as metropolitan elites were beginning to feel serious concern about Suharto’s mortality. Several high profile corruption scandals showed us a picture of rival elite factions, some identified by religion, growing anxious about losing privileged access to money and power. For example Transport Minister Haryanto Dhanutirto, a member of the Islamic group Icmi, found himself the target of a bitter corruption allegation in late 1995, apparently launched against him by cabinet rivals. Such conflict was not just a spat between a few people in Jakarta. Each faction had its hangers-on down the social ladder and out into the provinces. These provincial people were dependent on their patrons in Jakarta to get senior appointments in the public service, as well as business opportunities in the form of untendered government contracts. Call it corruption, it’s how things works when the law is weak. Ambon’s urban population is rather heavily dependent on direct employment in the civil service: over a quarter by my crude calculations. Compare that with less than 10% in urban Java. More derive a living from contract work for the government. To get hold of that government money, you need connections. That’s where the religious networks come in. Maluku’s Governor Mohamad Saleh Latuconsina himself said there were two main reasons for the violence in Ambon. One was local feeling against ‘newcomers’ from Sulawesi, who are aggressive small business entrepreneurs. The other, more important for our purpose, was a rumour in Ambon that Saleh Latuconsina had replaced ‘all 38’ top civil servants in the province with Muslims. Latuconsina was referring to an anonymous pamphlet that circulated in Ambon in October 1998. It must have had quite an impact, for Latuconsina felt called to deny it vehemently and repeatedly, always affirming his belief in the importance of ‘balance’ between Protestant Christians and Muslims. The issue was given a boost when just after the outbreak of the conflict, and as an explanation for it, Nahdatul Ulama chairman Abdurrahman Wahid repeated the allegation contained in the pamphlet. Afterwards Wahid made repeated attacks on Latuconsina’s alleged Islamic nepotism. There is a lingering perception outside Ambon that this is a predominantly Christian society. A strong local elite certainly define themselves that way. However, figures show that Muslims now enjoy a slim majority. Maluku has in fact had a local Muslim governor since 1992, when Jakarta appointed Akib Latuconsina, another member of the extended Latuconsina clan, to the peak provincial job. Akib Latuconsina’s chief rival in 1992 was Freddy Latumahina, a Golkar national parliamentarian and senior party functionary, and a Christian. He had been an anti-Communist student activist in 1966. In 1997 Latumahina, now even more senior in the Golkar hierarchy, tried but failed again to win the governor’s post. Saleh Latuconsina, the current governor, is by no means fanatically religious. He is aristocratic in his demeanour, and has a technical degree from Germany. But personal religiosity is of no account in these matters. When he appointed a non-Protestant deputy governor, and a non-Protestant provincial secretary, the Protestant elite felt frozen out of the three most powerful jobs. Underworld In April 1999 the Jakarta news weekly Tajuk published information from what it said was a top military intelligence report on the Ambon crisis. It alleged there were links between Freddy Latumahina, prominent among the frustrated Protestant Ambon elite, and certain figures within the criminal underworld. An intermediary for these links, it said, was retired army colonel Dicky Wattimena, who had been mayor of Ambon in1983-88, and before that commander of Suharto’s presidential guard. Indeed, other reports confirm that the Ambon conflict was triggered by rivalry between semi-criminal gangs that operated both in Ambon and in the nation’s capital Jakarta. Each gang appears to have a more or less religious identity - one Christian, the other Muslim. The Christian gang was known in Ambon, bizarrely, as Cowok Keristen, the Christian Boys, abbreviated Coker. It was known to conduct meetings in the main Protestant church in Ambon, Maranatha. Coker’s Jakarta connection was with a man called Milton Matuanakota and his colleague Ongky Pieters. Milton and Ongky’s gang of Christian Ambonese thugs ‘controlled’ the shopping malls, parking, and gambling dens in northwestern Jakarta. The trouble in Ambon began when perhaps 200 of its members retreated to Ambon after they lost a gangland turf war in Ketapang, Jakarta, in November 1998. The rather unsavoury picture on the Christian side, then, if we can believe the stories about it, is of a network motivated by material gain but clothed in the language of religion. Near its top we have the failed gubernurial aspirant Freddy Latumahina. Below him an array of local movers and shakers connected with semi-criminal gangs spanning the archipelago from Jakarta to Ambon. The gangs run protection rackets in the national capital, but in Ambon are found in church halls holding meetings preparing for conflict with local Muslims. The network on the Muslim side is not as clearly delineated. Certainly there is a similar gang in Ambon on that side. Like Milton and Ongky’s boys they have connections with the national capital at its highest as well as is lowest level. But no one has suggested that Maluku’s governor, the urbane technocrat Saleh Latuconsina, is in any way dependent on them. Leader of the Ambonese gang that rivalled Milton and Ongky’s in Jakarta was Ongen Sangaji, Jakarta coordinator of the Moluccan Muslim Student Movement. They were involved with the recruitment of the largely Islamic PAM Swakarsa, civilian guards to ‘protect’ the November 1998 special session of the super-parliament MPR from anti-government protesters. The Ambon conflict erupted, as the Human Rights Watch Asia report so graphically describes, because these rival gangs were at the heart of two completely separate and increasingly anxious communication networks. The so-called ‘Reds’ were based at the Maranatha church, while the ‘Whites’ were at the Al-Fatah mosque. Each had prepared contingency plans for an attack from the other. When a trivial incident occurred at the city’s bus terminal, the word flew around each side that ‘it’ had started. From here on, events escalated as each side believed only its own version of events. Muslims spoke of halting the ‘christianisation’ drive. Christians spoke of Islamic ‘fanaticism’ in Jakarta, while some spoke nostalgically of the Christian-dominated South Maluku Republic breakaway movement of 1950. It is not a pretty picture. But if it is correct, it suggests the solution to the Ambon conflict lies not so much in the inter-religious area (important as that is), as it does in reforming government. In particular, the pattern by which government goodies are only available to friends and connections needs to be replaced with a more accountable and transparent one. Gerry van Klinken (editor@insideindonesia.org) edits ‘Inside Indonesia’. Inside Indonesia 60: Oct-Dec 1999

Whisky friends

The armies of Indonesia and PNG are growing closer, causing turmoil on the border Andrew Kilvert Thirty years ago a band of Ndani villagers fled the early Abri military campaigns in the Baliem valley and walked through the icy mountains to the relative safety of Papua New Guinea. At about the same time the tribespeople from the border area whose lands stretch almost to Jayapura fled the military occupation and moved to their remaining lands in Bewani on the PNG side, where they established Schotio village and became PNG citizens. Though poorly armed, these two groups formed the northern command of the OPM or Free Papua Organisation (Organisasi Papua Merdeka). They have been tolerated by the PNG army which until recently has (unofficially at least) put Melanesian solidarity before international pressure from Indonesia. On May 5 this year a faction of this OPM led by Hans Bomay made an attack on Arso on the Indonesian side of the border. They killed 4 civilians with machetes and took a further 11 people hostage including seven women and four men all civilians. This action was met with outrage from West Papua independence and human rights groups inside Irian Jaya, who accused Hans Bomay of being supplied and sponsored by the Indonesian armed forces (still widely known as Abri despite a name change to TNI recently). The accusation was supported by accounts from the people who delivered the supplies of food and whisky to the gang, as well as by people from Arso who regularly see members of the Bomay gang driving around with Abri. It was also supported by a spokesman for the Bomay faction, Augustus Runtoboi, who admitted to having close ties with the Irian Jaya military commander Major General Sembiring. The Bomay OPM members don't believe they've been compromised by Abri. Hans Bomay speaks of the Indonesians polluting his Melanesian race and talks of exterminating them all when the time comes. One OPM soldier said: 'The ones who give us supplies are good Koppasus ( Indonesian military elite). They want to be on our side when we have a free West Papua.' Certainly Indonesian whisky is so plentiful in some of these border villages it has become a form of local currency. So why are Abri supporting these OPM guerrillas? According to West Papuan activists on the Indonesian side of the border, the Bomay gang are a useful propaganda tool. For Abri intelligence the bloody activities of the Bomay gang are a powerful tool in garnering support, both for their ongoing military activities and suppression of dissent within the province. Cenderawasih, the local Abri-controlled newspaper, uses the Bomay gang to justify security clamp-downs on nonviolent activists inside Jayapura. Last year the Bomay gang killed three people in Arso on June 26, just days before the nonviolent (on the part of the protesters at least) July 1 independence rallies throughout the province. This year things went further. The Bomay gang became the bait to bring in the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF). On May 29 the PNGDF launched their first joint operation with the Indonesian military, called 'Operation Selamat'. After three days the hostages were freed. Two members of the OPM, Lego Jikwa and Max Tago, were in custody, having volunteered to stay behind with the hostages whilst the others escaped. Max Tago, an OPM noncombatant, had been part of the negotiation team trying to broker the release of the hostages. On May 31, Major General Singirok, the commander of the PNG armed forces, interrogated 62-year old radio operator Max Tago at Schotio base camp. Singirok then left him in the custody of members of Charlie Company under the command of Captain Oksap. Later that evening the villagers in Schotio heard gunshots. They later found Max Tago's body partially exposed in a shallow grave near the Schotio base camp with several bullet wounds to the head. On the same evening the other OPM member, Lego Jikwa, was taken to the Sandaun Motel in Vanimo, where he claims he was held in room 10 and tortured with a live power cord. Bob Namah, one of the PNG government negotiators during the hostage crisis, has called for a coronial inquiry into the death of Max Tago. 'If the PNGDF vommander did not give the orders to execute Max Tago, then who did?', he asked in a statement tendered to a PNG court. 'Heroes' The next day, June 1, the officers of the PNGDF as well as two PNG federal ministers and members of the Niugini Intelligence Organisation (NIO) went to Jayapura, where they were given a heroes' welcome by Abri. According to Sandaun Provincial Governor John Tekwie and Aitape MP Eddy Saweni, Abri's hospitality included the provision of 35 prostitutes. Moreover, members of both the PNGDF and Abri say that during the two day visit a high ranking officer in the PNGDF was given a reasonably large amount of cash in US dollars by Abri officials. Major General Singirok and his family were also treated to a holiday on Biak Island by Abri. Certainly members of the PNGDF are expressing a new loyalty to Abri. In late June I was accused of espionage and interrogated by members of the Niugini Intelligence Organisation in Vanimo. At one point one of my captors shouted: 'We don't trust Australia, we're with Abri now.' Singirok has now agreed to another joint operation against the border villages, this time in Bewani in the north and Kiunga in the south. Villagers and noncombatants will suffer. The last campaign left Bewani in turmoil, squeezed between two armies. The PNGDF had forced some young men from Schotio to give up the positions of the OPM camps, and the Schotio people were terrified of reprisals from the OPM. Their school was shut as a result of the operation, and they had no access to markets or to medical supplies. The PNGDF's new love affair with Abri may benefit some of its members. But joint operations against border villages are merely going to further destabilise the area. Bob Namah said: 'This is the first time that a West Papua brother has been killed by his own brother on his brother's land.' Andrew Kilvert (kilvert@octa4.net.au) is a journalist living in Darwin, Australia. Inside Indonesia 60: Oct-Dec 1999

Lost and Found

How did the world rediscover the ‘lost cause’ of East Timor? Geoffrey Gunn East Timor was for long viewed as an unfortunate lost cause. Despite remaining on the agenda of the UN Decolonisation Committee, it appeared to most of the world that Indonesia’s 1976 annexation of the territory was a fait accompli. Paradoxically, only East Timor’s sister colonies Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Angola stood behind the former colonial power Portugal to keep the issue flickering. The ‘law’ that says legal niceties are always subsumed to political realities worked to make Indonesia’s occupation an ‘irreversible’ case. As former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans once said about East Timor, ‘the world is a pretty unfair place’. Yet today, in a remarkably short time, the pendulum has swung back more into line with international norms. On 5 May 1999 Portugal, Indonesia and the United Nations Secretary General hastily cobbled together a New York Agreement. This paved the way for UNAMET - the United Nations Mission in East Timor. Its task was to conduct a poll to ascertain the views of East Timorese on the question of whether they wished to stay with Indonesia under an autonomy agreement, or reject that option, thus leading to independence. Even six months earlier such an outcome would have seemed improbable. How can we explain this turn-about in fortunes for supporters of East Timorese independence? Upon reflection, the Evans ‘closed case’ view is easier to explain than the current change in the tide of international opinion. The West always conspired with Indonesia to cover up the brutalities of its bloody occupation. True, the method of Indonesia’s annexation was never condoned, and ‘excesses’ were criticised. But few challenged the shocking mythology Indonesia sold to its public, to some naive East Timorese and to ASEAN allies: that Jesuit Fretilin were about to turn East Timor into a Cuba-like People’s Republic. The views of the East Timorese on their own destiny were irrelevant. From 1976 to 1989, the year when Suharto declared East Timor an ‘open province’, very few witnesses were allowed to verify first hand what transpired to be a bloodbath proportional to that then unfolding in communist Vietnam and Cambodia. Few academics or media practitioners, and especially Western media proprietors, thought self-determination for East Timor was anything other than unrealistic. The two major political parties in Australia simply closed ranks. East Timor was portrayed in mainstream discourse as a radical or fringe issue potentially damaging to the then emerging doctrine of Asia links. For the Jakarta lobby which emerged under the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, lucrative business links, including the newly negotiated Timor Gap Treaty with Jakarta, could not be held hostage to even an embarrassing human rights crusade. Inside Indonesia and in most ASEAN countries, the media were simply gagged. Even while the stench emerging from the dictatorship became unbearable, Jakarta’s foreign backers in Tokyo, Washington, and Bonn did not flinch, indeed went into damage control covering up for their client. Only the Netherlands dropped out honourably. Santa Cruz The Dili (Santa Cruz) massacre of November 1991 galvanised international outrage at Indonesian human rights abuses to a new level. But the UN body made only pro forma protests. The grisly event brought no serious reproach to confront the legality or morality of Jakarta’s vice-like grip over the territory. Senator Evans unhelpfully described the event as an ‘aberration’. The demonstration at Santa Cruz preceding the massacre exposed to the world the rekindling of Timorese nationalism by those actually schooled by Indonesia. Yet the capture in November 1992 and subsequent trial of armed resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, who had led the struggle from the mountains, appeared to be a public relations victory for Jakarta. The fall of the Berlin wall three years earlier may have been epochal, but for the Suhartos, the Mobutus, and the Ronald Reagans of the world, this was vindication of authoritarianism and the iron fist. Nevertheless, disquiet grew at another level, or rather multiple levels of what might be called a new emerging international society. In Australia, the US, Europe and Japan, vociferous East Timor solidarity and advocacy groups mushroomed, some with church contacts. In Portugal, a mixture of guilt and saudade or longing for the East Timor tragedy welled up. It was symbolised in the heroic but doomed cruise to the Timor Sea of the Portuguese ship, Lusitania Express, in March 1992. Portugal also found new empowerment in European councils as a member of the European Union. Inside Indonesia, meanwhile, the pro-reform forces that were to drive Suharto to resign on 21 May 1998 were incubating. They were abetted by the non-violent daring of East Timorese activists in Jakarta itself. On 10 December 1996 two sons of East Timor were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This calculated move by the Norwegian Committee did more than any event since the Dili massacre to raise international consciousness of East Timor to a new level. Yet the Tokyo government snubbed one of the laureates, Jose Ramos-Horta, out of respect for the wishes of Suharto, whose regime continued to villify him. Handling of the other laureate was not so simple however, as portrayed in a recent book by his unofficial biographer Arnold Kohen entitled ‘From the place of the dead: The epic struggle of Bishop Belo of East Timor’. There is no doubt that the church in East Timor has played a staying hand through the Indonesian occupation. Habibie The advent of the reformist Habibie regime in May 1998 created a new space for the East Timorese. Habibie acted in tandem with a new UN push on East Timor that had been unveiled by incoming UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in December 1996. Kofi Annan tasked Pakistani diplomat Jamsheed Marker to find consensus between Portugal and Indonesia. The UN viewed Habibie’s offer on 11 June 1998 to grant ‘wide ranging autonomy’ to the territory as the necessary breakthrough to extract compromises from both Indonesia and Portugal. At the same time, however, in an event little reported in the Western media, East Timorese youths from July to September 1998 ran a free speech campaign in rallies across the territory that demonstrated in no uncertain terms to Indonesia and the UN their unequivocal rejection of ‘autonomy’. They called instead for a UN-supervised referendum. There is no question that when he placed autonomy on the table, Habibie was answering international opinion. More importantly for his government, he was seeking international approval for desperately needed funds. IMF funding for his devastated economy had been halted because of the unrest that brought down his predecessor. He did the same thing even more dramatically on 27 January 1999, when he conceded a popular ‘ballot’ on the question of autonomy or independence for East Timor. He was at the time desperately formulating a national budget. For Portugal meanwhile, the UN ballot would mean an historic ‘foot-in-the-door’, since a rejection of Indonesia by the East Timorese would formally see the former colonial power working with the UN (and Indonesia) in a transitional administration. Late in 1998 Prime Minister John Howard sent a letter to President Habibie indicating a rethink on the irreversibility of East Timor’s status. This letter might also have been an influencing factor. Canberra’s interest in abetting the gathering UN process may have been less out of morality than expediency. The looming possibility that Indonesia would simply dump East Timor or that a new economically vulnerable state would somehow emerge out of the chaos of an Indonesian departure, demanded a radical rethink of the situation by Canberra. Meanwhile economic meltdown in Indonesia, the fear of instability or even secessionism across the archipelago, the ugly ethnic conflicts that beset Kupang and Ambon in late 1998, galvanised the defence establishment into making contingency plans. Chaos arising from a Timor ballot or, even more likely, post-ballot chaos weighs heavily in these considerations. The relocation of two rapid response battalions to Darwin underscores this concern. However, it is difficult to imagine that Habibie could have conceded so much without the direct approval of his military. Doubtless implicit in the Wiranto-Habibie pact was the understanding that Jakarta could fix (influence if not determine) the outcome. At least subsequent events demonstrated as much. The full import of Indonesian concessions leading to the New York Agreement began to become apparent with the knowledge that sections of the military, even members of Habibie’s Cabinet, were backing murderous militia groups inside East Timor through money and arms, in a campaign to either derail the vote, win the vote through terror, or destabilise the outcome. By mid-July 1999, with UNAMET fully in place, the Indonesian government, the militia leaders, and the UN appeared to be on a confrontational course. UN officials in New York (not to mention governments in Lisbon, Canberra, Washington and even Tokyo) were beginning to query Jakarta’s motives. UNAMET delayed the start of pre-ballot registration once, pleading inadequate security. But with most of the parties wishing the ballot to continue, registration commenced on 16 July. The flaws in the UNAMET mandate and mission were showing, namely the contradiction between holding a free ballot and leaving Indonesia in control of security. Geoffrey C. Gunn (nag-gunn@net.nagasaki-u.ac.jp) teaches at Nagasaki University in Japan and is author of a 1997 book entitled East Timor and the United Nations: The case for intervention (Red Sea Press). Inside Indonesia 60: Oct-Dec 1999

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