Lost daughters
Underage women in the commercial sex trade
Teguh P Nugroho and Jeff Herbert
It’s humid on Jalan Latuharhary in Jakarta. Just minutes down the road from the President’s house, the smell of reheated cooking fat hangs in the air, interfused with clove cigarettes and benzene. When it’s this hot it can be hard to think, hard to notice, hard to see what’s happening.
There’s a group of motorcycle taxis at the red light and the beggar woman clutching her belongings in a rolled up sarong. Just across the road from the offices of the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission Against Violence to Women, some guys are setting up a blue marquee metres from the railway track. The seductively intertwined disco-Arabic beats of dangdut crank up from over-pumped homemade speakers.
It would be easy to miss them in the grimey twilight, but the two women waiting for the traffic to pass stand out from the huddled groups of homeward bound staff from the nearby government offices. They could be mother and daughter – one forty the other nudging fifteen. But maybe not. It is hard to know on this street at this time. There’s too much make-up, too much perfume, too much polyester and big hair. Too much fear and uncertainty in the eyes of the younger woman, too much insistence and intent in the eyes of the older.
Jalan Latuharhary is a seemingly unremarkable street running literally metres from one of Jakarta’s busy train lines. At night under the cover of tarpaulin marquees, however, young girls are being bought and sold. Customers come and place an order with a middleman. Several weeks later, when a girl has been found, the customer will return to the marquees.
And so it goes, across the Indonesian archipelago, night after night, the story repeating itself over and over.
The practice of ‘ijon’
According to recent data from the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs, forty thousand children are exploited through commercial sex work in Indonesia. Accurate numbers are hard to quantify, but anecdotal evidence suggests that this figure is the statistical tip of a mountainous iceberg.
UNICEF’s End Child Exploitation campaign also estimates that children comprise around 30 per cent of people working in commercial sex work in Indonesia. Indonesia is also a major source of trafficked children, particularly to Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.
Like the children ‘employed’ as street beggars in Jakarta, or the underage workers in Bandung clothing factories, the journey of exploitation usually begins in their home village with a highly structured practice known as ‘ijon’.
A broker will approach a poor family and offer a ‘loan’ of up to two million rupiah (A$ 260). The family then repays the debt by bonding one of their children (usually a school age daughter) for a period of two years or more. Most families believe their child will be taken to the city for training as a domestic aide, handicraft worker, or even as a movie star. The reality couldn’t be further from the dream.
Families rarely hear from their child again, and if they do, it is usually only after the two-year bonded period is served. The brokers colloquially refer to children acquired through ijon as ‘ayam potong’. While literally meaning ‘chopped chicken’, conceptually this term translates as a new prostitute (ayam), carved off (potong) from her family.
A downward spiral
Once the initial transaction between the broker and the family is completed, the child is then temporarily moved to a holding house in a city such as Indramayu in North Java. She is given a new wardrobe, taught make-up and dancing, and is then deemed ready to be moved to the point of sale.
On the island of Batam, visiting tourists from Singapore, Malaysia and Western countries can buy a child for between two and five million rupiah. The act of forcibly taking a young girl’s virginity fetches the highest price. Many buyers believe it will give them longevity and strength, or even cure diseases such as HIV.
The child is then passed on among the pimp network in an incrementally downwards spiral through the countless nightclubs, karaoke bars, spas and massage joints in the major cities and tourist hot-spots of Indonesia, such as Batam, Bali and Pontianak. It ends at the lowest rungs of the sex industry – maybe again in the blue marquees along the Jalan Latuharhary railway tracks. Here the price can be cheaper and time spent with the girl longer. Up to a month, if the buyer provides the accommodation.
Should they manage to evade HIV, serious physical injury from continuous abuse, or not fall foul of some disgruntled pimp along the way, girls are ‘free’ to return to their village and families after the two-year bonded period. Most instead opt to continue on as freelance sex workers or become part of an organised street outfit.
The shame they feel about their experience and the lack of employment opportunities back in the village render family reunification seemingly untenable. Almost as untenable as the protections promised to vulnerable children when Indonesia ratified the Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) in 1990.
Supply and demand
Institutionalised paedophilia and child prostitution in Indonesia stem from a highly complex equation of supply and demand. Supply is fed by low incomes, endemic poverty, limited work opportunities for women, discrimination, inadequate education and an overall lack of community awareness.
Demand is sustained by the vast resources of organised crime, lax or corrupt law enforcement, bureaucratic indifference, and beliefs that diminish the status of women and tacitly condone violence against them.
To be effective, any response to the problem must comprise a coordinated and well resourced array of separate initiatives addressing all factors in the supply and demand equation. Key players must include governments at the highest levels, regional neighbours, civil society, the police, educators, international donors, human rights bodies, community leaders and provincial welfare programs.
There are already some innovative programs in place including those backed by international donors such as UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration, Save the Children, AusAID and the International Catholic Migration Commission.
A highly committed network of Indonesian NGOs does its best to provide on-the-ground responses ranging from education, awareness raising and advocacy, to emergency accommodation, rehabilitation and community development approaches. Some of the key organisations include: Care Foundation Indonesia (Bandungwangi), Star Children (ALIT), the Foundation for Indonesian Children’s Welfare (YKAI), the Indonesian Institute for Children’s Advocacy (LAAI), the Child Advocacy Network (JARAK), the Centre for the Study and Protection of Children (PKPA), the Indonesian Women’s Association for Justice (LBH-APIK), and Friends of the Children of Indonesia (PRAI). Their responses, however, can only ever be as effective as the finite limits of their funding.
On the demand side, there are renewed efforts between regional governments, donor nations and police to enhance domestic and cross-border cooperation in monitoring, detecting and deterring (if not prosecuting) perpetrators and their collaborators. But again, limited resourcing and effort is spread widely across other equally significant priorities such as counter-terrorism, illegal immigration, HIV education and prevention, responses to devastating natural disasters, governance reform, and economic development.
Efforts in these areas will certainly have spin-off benefits for the fight against child trafficking and prostitution, but the issue itself must remain a distinct priority on all government and donor action agendas.
New laws
In 2003, the Indonesian government took an important step in tackling this issue by passing new child protection legislation which articulates the basic rights of children to liberty, identity, education, health, recreation and protection from economic and sexual exploitation. The law provides specific sanctions against violators of children’s rights.
Following on from this legislation, in 2003 the National Commission for the Protection of Children (Komnas Perlindungan Anak) was established by presidential decree. The commission was set up to monitor Indonesia’s implementation of the CRC (particularly as reflected in the new domestic legislation) and to conduct research into the protection of children’s rights in Indonesia.
Yet the scope of the commission’s work is restricted by inadequate levels of funding for staff and infrastructure from the annual state budget. Similarly, despite the provision of sanctions in the new laws for those who violate the rights of children, in reality, few cases have made it to the courts. There are also inconsistencies in enforcement of the law by regional police. The US State Department cites instances of government officials, police and soldiers operating or protecting brothels that employ underage sex workers, and of corrupt civil servants falsifying identity documents to facilitate the entry of underage girls into the sex trade.
Indonesian police have recently demonstrated enormous capability in clamping down on illicit drug use in nightclubs across Indonesia. Likewise, corrupt and complicit police are more than ever under the scrutiny of public accountability. Is it too unrealistic to expect that the same capabilities be targeted to the protection of children and the prosecution of those who abuse them?
An international issue
Crowded boatloads of men travel each weekend to ‘play’ in the islands of the Riau archipelago. Yet over the course of a decade, Singapore successfully engineered one of the lowest smoking rates per capita in the world.
To what extent could the same ingenuity and effort be applied to re-socialising attitudes that degrade the status of women, challenging destructive sexual beliefs, and increasing the public shame factor for the forceful theft and abuse of a child’s dignity and future?
It is also too easy to escape from confronting child exploitation in South East Asia and to dismiss it as a symptomatic problem that won’t go away until other social and economic anomalies are addressed.
A lesson can be learnt from the dangdut that blares out in the evenings along the Lathuharhary railway tracks. Play it loud enough and the rhythm can be heard from miles away. The volume needs to be increased in the protection of vulnerable Indonesian children and in confronting an entrenched pattern of crime that destroys lives as much as any single act of terrorism or sale of narcotics.
Teguh P Nugroho (teguh@komnasham.go.id) is an Indonesian human rights activist and investigator based in Jakarta. Jeff Herbert (jeff.herbert@ekit.com) is an adviser who has worked with the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission, the Indonesian Ministry of Justice and Human Rights as well as civil society groups.
Inside Indonesia 85: Jan-Mar 2006
Showing posts with label Inside Indonesia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inside Indonesia. Show all posts
Saturday 19 March 2011
Reviews Review: This book is an important and timely discussion of how nation, belonging, same-gender/same-sex identity and desire as well as geography all intersect in Indonesia
Reviews
Review: This book is an important and timely discussion of how nation, belonging, same-gender/same-sex identity and desire as well as geography all intersect in Indonesia
Baden Offord
This book examines homosexuality in Indonesia in a comprehensive and astute manner. It is the first in depth scholarly analysis on the history and contemporary context of same-gender desires, love and identity in the Indonesian archipelago. Boellstorff, a gay cultural anthropologist and linguist, has spent extensive periods of time over twelve years (1992-2004) in fieldwork that took him specifically to Surabaya, Makassar and Bali. The results of his study are not only insightful about the Indonesian experience of homosexuality and same-gender desire, but are likely to set new standards in how human sexuality is understood across different cultures.
The structure of the book is well designed. The introduction fascinates the reader as it engages with ethical concerns of research on contemporary gay and lesbi experience, culture and everyday life. Central to Boellstorff’s study is a focus on the personal experiences and thoughts of his interviewees: traditional banci and waria (both mean transvestite homosexual), but particularly those people in Indonesia who refer to themselves as gay or lesbi, something that has happened only since the 1970s. The book helps us under stand what it means to be gay or lesbi.
After an historical overview of homosexuality in Indonesia, the book explores the emergence of gay and lesbi identities. A theoretical model — dubbing culture — provides a useful way of understanding the complex interaction between the local, national and global experience of same-gender desire. Throughout the book this notion of dubbing culture is present, for example, in the very italicisation of the terms gay and lesbi, to distinguish from the Western forms of gay and lesbian. In a nutshell, the personal lives of gay and lesbi people demonstrate ‘the paradoxes of sexuality and nation in postcolonial Indonesia’ (p 59). It’s almost like saying gay and lesbi are similar terms to their Western cousins, but not in synch.
Boellstorff’s analysis shows that the role of mainstream mass media has been crucial to the ways in which gay and lesbi people come to see themselves in relation to same-gender desire and love. He identifies print media as the primary source of knowledge about the terms gay and lesbi, for example, through women’s magazines like Kartini and Femina.
National identity
The fascinating irony of the New Order era of Suharto, according to the book, is that gay and lesbi people ‘think of themselves as Indonesians with regard to their sexualities’ (p 72). That is, the personal understanding of being gay and lesbi is not through their local belonging but their national belonging. This quirk of success (of the Suharto regime) is linked to the legacy of the national ideology of the family prin ciple (azas kekeluargaan), in which hetero sexual marriage and family are folded into the national consciousness as the binding agent for the archi pelago, more powerful than notions of citizenship. Gay and lesbi people reveal consistently through their personal stories in the book that marriage and having children is intrinsic to national belonging, and consequently their sense of belonging. Sustaining the family principle is fundamental to acts or performance of deeds (prestasi), which bring respect and recognition of being truly Indonesian. Boellstorff illustrates how the gay or lesbi person lives with several, often contradictory personal stories, which he calls the ‘archipelagic self’ in contrast to Western gay and lesbian experience, which is a single (‘coming out’) self. He relates how many of his interviewees are amazed, sometimes appalled, that he won’t be marrying a woman and having children.
The book demonstrates how gay and lesbi Indonesians ‘are the truest children of the archipelago’ (p 202). Using the metaphor of archipelago, which has enormous meaning in Indonesian history, culture and polity, the author argues that the essence of the nationalist ideology can be found in gay and lesbi people. He says that this is in spite of the fact that gay and lesbi people are not permitted ‘national belonging, authenticity, and recognition’ (p 203).
The Gay Archipelago is an important and timely discussion of how nation, belonging, same-gender/same-sex identity and desire as well as geography all intersect in Indonesia. The book provides a truly intimate account of the personal life-worlds of gay and lesbi folk, and tells us much about how contemporary Indonesian culture is changed, challenged and transformed through its archipelagic logic. Boells torff has successfully shown in this book that understanding gay and lesbi lives goes beyond traditional notions of same-gender desire in Indonesia. He has also challenged recent scholarly thought ‘that culture is by default local’ (p 218). This book will become a classic in Indonesian and sexuality studies.
Tom Boellstorff, The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005, ISBN 0691123349, A$41.36 (paperback)
Baden Offord (baden.offord@scu.edu.au ) is the author of Homosexual Rights as Human Rights: Activism in Indonesia Singapore and Australia (Peter Lane, 2003).
Inside Indonesia 86: Apr-Jun 2006
Review: This book is an important and timely discussion of how nation, belonging, same-gender/same-sex identity and desire as well as geography all intersect in Indonesia
Baden Offord
This book examines homosexuality in Indonesia in a comprehensive and astute manner. It is the first in depth scholarly analysis on the history and contemporary context of same-gender desires, love and identity in the Indonesian archipelago. Boellstorff, a gay cultural anthropologist and linguist, has spent extensive periods of time over twelve years (1992-2004) in fieldwork that took him specifically to Surabaya, Makassar and Bali. The results of his study are not only insightful about the Indonesian experience of homosexuality and same-gender desire, but are likely to set new standards in how human sexuality is understood across different cultures.
The structure of the book is well designed. The introduction fascinates the reader as it engages with ethical concerns of research on contemporary gay and lesbi experience, culture and everyday life. Central to Boellstorff’s study is a focus on the personal experiences and thoughts of his interviewees: traditional banci and waria (both mean transvestite homosexual), but particularly those people in Indonesia who refer to themselves as gay or lesbi, something that has happened only since the 1970s. The book helps us under stand what it means to be gay or lesbi.
After an historical overview of homosexuality in Indonesia, the book explores the emergence of gay and lesbi identities. A theoretical model — dubbing culture — provides a useful way of understanding the complex interaction between the local, national and global experience of same-gender desire. Throughout the book this notion of dubbing culture is present, for example, in the very italicisation of the terms gay and lesbi, to distinguish from the Western forms of gay and lesbian. In a nutshell, the personal lives of gay and lesbi people demonstrate ‘the paradoxes of sexuality and nation in postcolonial Indonesia’ (p 59). It’s almost like saying gay and lesbi are similar terms to their Western cousins, but not in synch.
Boellstorff’s analysis shows that the role of mainstream mass media has been crucial to the ways in which gay and lesbi people come to see themselves in relation to same-gender desire and love. He identifies print media as the primary source of knowledge about the terms gay and lesbi, for example, through women’s magazines like Kartini and Femina.
National identity
The fascinating irony of the New Order era of Suharto, according to the book, is that gay and lesbi people ‘think of themselves as Indonesians with regard to their sexualities’ (p 72). That is, the personal understanding of being gay and lesbi is not through their local belonging but their national belonging. This quirk of success (of the Suharto regime) is linked to the legacy of the national ideology of the family prin ciple (azas kekeluargaan), in which hetero sexual marriage and family are folded into the national consciousness as the binding agent for the archi pelago, more powerful than notions of citizenship. Gay and lesbi people reveal consistently through their personal stories in the book that marriage and having children is intrinsic to national belonging, and consequently their sense of belonging. Sustaining the family principle is fundamental to acts or performance of deeds (prestasi), which bring respect and recognition of being truly Indonesian. Boellstorff illustrates how the gay or lesbi person lives with several, often contradictory personal stories, which he calls the ‘archipelagic self’ in contrast to Western gay and lesbian experience, which is a single (‘coming out’) self. He relates how many of his interviewees are amazed, sometimes appalled, that he won’t be marrying a woman and having children.
The book demonstrates how gay and lesbi Indonesians ‘are the truest children of the archipelago’ (p 202). Using the metaphor of archipelago, which has enormous meaning in Indonesian history, culture and polity, the author argues that the essence of the nationalist ideology can be found in gay and lesbi people. He says that this is in spite of the fact that gay and lesbi people are not permitted ‘national belonging, authenticity, and recognition’ (p 203).
The Gay Archipelago is an important and timely discussion of how nation, belonging, same-gender/same-sex identity and desire as well as geography all intersect in Indonesia. The book provides a truly intimate account of the personal life-worlds of gay and lesbi folk, and tells us much about how contemporary Indonesian culture is changed, challenged and transformed through its archipelagic logic. Boells torff has successfully shown in this book that understanding gay and lesbi lives goes beyond traditional notions of same-gender desire in Indonesia. He has also challenged recent scholarly thought ‘that culture is by default local’ (p 218). This book will become a classic in Indonesian and sexuality studies.
Tom Boellstorff, The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005, ISBN 0691123349, A$41.36 (paperback)
Baden Offord (baden.offord@scu.edu.au ) is the author of Homosexual Rights as Human Rights: Activism in Indonesia Singapore and Australia (Peter Lane, 2003).
Inside Indonesia 86: Apr-Jun 2006
Rendra speaks Australia: an alternative West in Asia?
Rendra speaks
Australia: an alternative West in Asia?
Suzan Piper
Indonesian master poet, dramatist, and cultural statesman Rendra toured Australia during September and October 2005. It was his first visit to Australia since 1992. Much has changed since then in the two countries: in Indonesia the New Order has fallen under the pressure of reformasi; in Australia the Labor Party has lost office to the Liberals under John Howard. Bilateral relations have suffered from the impact of Australia’s perceived role in East Timor, terrorism and continued travel warnings, Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine, and the Bali bombings. The second attack occurred one week into Rendra’s poetry tour.
Rendra was accompanied by his wife Ken Zuraida, who read poems with Rendra, and Sawung Jabo, who played gamelan percussion to some of the poems. They performed in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane. The poems dated from 1957 to 2003, and included old favourites such as Tokek dan Adipati Rangkas Bitung (The Gecko and the Rangkas Bitung District Head) and new ones highlighting the impact of state indifference and violence against women, such as Jangan Takut Ibu(Don’t Be Scared Mother). Rendra also spoke to packed Indonesia study groups on the evolution of Indonesia’s future and of Indonesia’s perceptions of Australia, and drama students were drawn to his drama workshop in Sydney. Suzan Piper interviewed Rendra towards the end of his tour.
Your last visit here was 13 years ago. What brought you back?
I was reluctant to come to Australia due to the Australian government’s attitude and statements that seem to reflect a dislike of Asia, of Indonesia. Why come to Australia if the government doesn’t like us? I’ve come here now because I want to fulfil the invitation of Wot, Suzan Piper and Sawung Jabo; as Bengkel Teater Rendra family members I wanted to see how they were going in Australia. I also realised that my reluctance to visit was prejudiced by the situation in Indonesia. There the government is stronger than the people; its influence extends to the farthest reaches of people’s lives.
But it seems to me that in Australia, constitutionally the people are stronger than the government. The Howard government is very strong politically but the people do not automatically follow the government if they don’t like it. The government here is not the state; in Australia it’s the people who own the state. But in Indonesia the government identifies itself with the state so when people oppose a cruel and unjust district head, a corrupt governor or regional army commander, they’re considered to be rebelling against the state, whereas in fact they’re merely opposing the government.
What I’ve noticed in this visit is the power of the media, dragging out news items for their own commercial interests, as for example, with the Bali bombing. It was very sad but the coverage was very repetitious with little elaboration, nuances, or fresh information. Of course the Australian media rightly deserves to enjoy its freedom but it seems too commercially oriented and not skilful at covering the issues facing workers, women, university students facing VSU bans, etc.
The Bali bombings are of course very unsettling but the perpetrators were not the people, but terrorists. These terrorists do not represent the people’s aspirations. They represent informal political aspirations, like a virus suddenly disrupting public health. Neither the Indonesian nor the Australian people suspected that these bombings would occur; the bombings scared not just Australians but Indonesians too. Of course the politicians on both sides will interpret these events disproportionately but I’m sure this will not damage people to people contacts. There are rednecks everywhere. The bombers in Indonesia are rednecks too but neither country is dominated by them.
So what are your views on Australia-Indonesia relations?
It is difficult for us to accept the Australian government’s stance on such matters as the Exclusive Economic Zone and its impact on the livelihood and safety of traditional Indonesian fishermen, its statements on pre-emptive strikes and so on, and its overly close relationship with America. The Indonesian people preferred Keating. Under Keating, Australia stood proud, convinced of its own worth.
But after my long absence from Australia I’m amazed and admire how Australia has developed. I notice quite a large presence of Asians in Australia, both as visitors and as permanent residents, and also people from India, from the Middle East, and so on. Multiculturalism has really developed here and the future lies with them, people like the Vietnamese bringing in capital, adding to the economic strength of Australia. Their children become new Australians, developing harmony between East and West; scientific and philosophic disciplines alongside Asian traditions. So why do you need America?
In Brisbane you said that Australia has the potential to offer itself as an alternative West in Asia. Could you please elaborate?
I formed this impression in 1972 but the senior academics and Foreign Affairs people I spoke to at the time were not convinced. However, many young people were already showing the way with their underground, non-commercial films, painters, contemporary artists and dancers. They were Western but not American. The difference cannot be formulated but it is there. There’s a sense of being freer than Europe or the USA but not just that. There’s a sense of being free of American and European grammar.
Imagine, at one time I visited the Barossa Valley near Adelaide and was shown black champagne. This was something new, something that Europe didn’t have. And there was a sense of not needing to follow others’ paths, the ways of the old world, but to create your own in Australia. Australia can become the new hope of Asia. There’s no need to be America’s slave.
Rendra, you are a poet, a dramatist, a cultural statesman and deep thinker on many issues. As a creative artist, but also one who likes to challenge the mind-set of Indonesians, which task do you favour most?
They’re all linked. I was brought up as a child steeped in Javanese traditions, dating back to the Demak era. I believe in living according to the philosophy of ‘manjing ing kahanan’, meaning that one enters the contextuality of life. This touches on various disciplines but above all the humanities, the human sciences. (I must admit, however, that I have no aptitude for mathematics or technology.)
You have said that for you poetry is a space for worship.
That is because the process of making poetry means that you have to be sensitive to the call of the persona and environment of nature, humans and animals — all of God’s creations and the problems they face. You must want to be involved with them so you get to the stage of ‘manjing ajer-ajer’ (I exist because you exist). And the last is to be aware of ‘karsaning Hyang Widhi’, God’s will, or what you might call in secular terms universal values. Without these three the space for worship will not exist. One must be contextually involved, essentially present and aligned with the universal values. That’s when that space opens.
I have also heard you speak of ‘pockets of culture’ — or alternative arts centres? Can you explain?
This was a concept I developed in Bengkel Teater Rendra in response to invitations to revolutionary action. I believe that only gradual change brings lasting results. A grassroots-based process is required. I see these kantong kebudayaan as circles for interaction and friendship amongst the intelligentsia where alternative thinking can be explored, developed and matured.
And do you have any impressions or messages you would like to leave us with?
Australia has a real chance of becoming the new hope in Asia but it is up to Australia and its government. Australia is always slow to realise its position, but that’s normal. I was amazed by many things I saw, the focus on healthy food and a healthy lifestyle, the Sidetrack play I saw in Sydney on the Palestine problems (The Pessoptimist). Australians still have solidarity with the underdogs, indeed that’s a strength of Australia. The only problem is Australia’s head of government.
Sometimes Australians seem embarrassed about being seen as nothing deeper than a sports-loving nation but the Greeks are equally lovers of sport and wine. And Australians have not been left behind in other fields; they were the world’s first in contributing funds towards and researching into chronic fatigue syndrome. Provided you can free yourselves of America, you can be great. Actually America became great because of its multicultural society. Now in the twenty first century it’s Australia’s turn.
Suzan Piper(wot@iprimus.com.au) is an Indonesianist working in the arts, cultural and language studies and various other fields. The Rendra tour was produced by Wot Cross-Cultural Synergy and supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute.
Inside Indonesia 86: Apr-Jun 2006
Australia: an alternative West in Asia?
Suzan Piper
Indonesian master poet, dramatist, and cultural statesman Rendra toured Australia during September and October 2005. It was his first visit to Australia since 1992. Much has changed since then in the two countries: in Indonesia the New Order has fallen under the pressure of reformasi; in Australia the Labor Party has lost office to the Liberals under John Howard. Bilateral relations have suffered from the impact of Australia’s perceived role in East Timor, terrorism and continued travel warnings, Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine, and the Bali bombings. The second attack occurred one week into Rendra’s poetry tour.
Rendra was accompanied by his wife Ken Zuraida, who read poems with Rendra, and Sawung Jabo, who played gamelan percussion to some of the poems. They performed in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane. The poems dated from 1957 to 2003, and included old favourites such as Tokek dan Adipati Rangkas Bitung (The Gecko and the Rangkas Bitung District Head) and new ones highlighting the impact of state indifference and violence against women, such as Jangan Takut Ibu(Don’t Be Scared Mother). Rendra also spoke to packed Indonesia study groups on the evolution of Indonesia’s future and of Indonesia’s perceptions of Australia, and drama students were drawn to his drama workshop in Sydney. Suzan Piper interviewed Rendra towards the end of his tour.
Your last visit here was 13 years ago. What brought you back?
I was reluctant to come to Australia due to the Australian government’s attitude and statements that seem to reflect a dislike of Asia, of Indonesia. Why come to Australia if the government doesn’t like us? I’ve come here now because I want to fulfil the invitation of Wot, Suzan Piper and Sawung Jabo; as Bengkel Teater Rendra family members I wanted to see how they were going in Australia. I also realised that my reluctance to visit was prejudiced by the situation in Indonesia. There the government is stronger than the people; its influence extends to the farthest reaches of people’s lives.
But it seems to me that in Australia, constitutionally the people are stronger than the government. The Howard government is very strong politically but the people do not automatically follow the government if they don’t like it. The government here is not the state; in Australia it’s the people who own the state. But in Indonesia the government identifies itself with the state so when people oppose a cruel and unjust district head, a corrupt governor or regional army commander, they’re considered to be rebelling against the state, whereas in fact they’re merely opposing the government.
What I’ve noticed in this visit is the power of the media, dragging out news items for their own commercial interests, as for example, with the Bali bombing. It was very sad but the coverage was very repetitious with little elaboration, nuances, or fresh information. Of course the Australian media rightly deserves to enjoy its freedom but it seems too commercially oriented and not skilful at covering the issues facing workers, women, university students facing VSU bans, etc.
The Bali bombings are of course very unsettling but the perpetrators were not the people, but terrorists. These terrorists do not represent the people’s aspirations. They represent informal political aspirations, like a virus suddenly disrupting public health. Neither the Indonesian nor the Australian people suspected that these bombings would occur; the bombings scared not just Australians but Indonesians too. Of course the politicians on both sides will interpret these events disproportionately but I’m sure this will not damage people to people contacts. There are rednecks everywhere. The bombers in Indonesia are rednecks too but neither country is dominated by them.
So what are your views on Australia-Indonesia relations?
It is difficult for us to accept the Australian government’s stance on such matters as the Exclusive Economic Zone and its impact on the livelihood and safety of traditional Indonesian fishermen, its statements on pre-emptive strikes and so on, and its overly close relationship with America. The Indonesian people preferred Keating. Under Keating, Australia stood proud, convinced of its own worth.
But after my long absence from Australia I’m amazed and admire how Australia has developed. I notice quite a large presence of Asians in Australia, both as visitors and as permanent residents, and also people from India, from the Middle East, and so on. Multiculturalism has really developed here and the future lies with them, people like the Vietnamese bringing in capital, adding to the economic strength of Australia. Their children become new Australians, developing harmony between East and West; scientific and philosophic disciplines alongside Asian traditions. So why do you need America?
In Brisbane you said that Australia has the potential to offer itself as an alternative West in Asia. Could you please elaborate?
I formed this impression in 1972 but the senior academics and Foreign Affairs people I spoke to at the time were not convinced. However, many young people were already showing the way with their underground, non-commercial films, painters, contemporary artists and dancers. They were Western but not American. The difference cannot be formulated but it is there. There’s a sense of being freer than Europe or the USA but not just that. There’s a sense of being free of American and European grammar.
Imagine, at one time I visited the Barossa Valley near Adelaide and was shown black champagne. This was something new, something that Europe didn’t have. And there was a sense of not needing to follow others’ paths, the ways of the old world, but to create your own in Australia. Australia can become the new hope of Asia. There’s no need to be America’s slave.
Rendra, you are a poet, a dramatist, a cultural statesman and deep thinker on many issues. As a creative artist, but also one who likes to challenge the mind-set of Indonesians, which task do you favour most?
They’re all linked. I was brought up as a child steeped in Javanese traditions, dating back to the Demak era. I believe in living according to the philosophy of ‘manjing ing kahanan’, meaning that one enters the contextuality of life. This touches on various disciplines but above all the humanities, the human sciences. (I must admit, however, that I have no aptitude for mathematics or technology.)
You have said that for you poetry is a space for worship.
That is because the process of making poetry means that you have to be sensitive to the call of the persona and environment of nature, humans and animals — all of God’s creations and the problems they face. You must want to be involved with them so you get to the stage of ‘manjing ajer-ajer’ (I exist because you exist). And the last is to be aware of ‘karsaning Hyang Widhi’, God’s will, or what you might call in secular terms universal values. Without these three the space for worship will not exist. One must be contextually involved, essentially present and aligned with the universal values. That’s when that space opens.
I have also heard you speak of ‘pockets of culture’ — or alternative arts centres? Can you explain?
This was a concept I developed in Bengkel Teater Rendra in response to invitations to revolutionary action. I believe that only gradual change brings lasting results. A grassroots-based process is required. I see these kantong kebudayaan as circles for interaction and friendship amongst the intelligentsia where alternative thinking can be explored, developed and matured.
And do you have any impressions or messages you would like to leave us with?
Australia has a real chance of becoming the new hope in Asia but it is up to Australia and its government. Australia is always slow to realise its position, but that’s normal. I was amazed by many things I saw, the focus on healthy food and a healthy lifestyle, the Sidetrack play I saw in Sydney on the Palestine problems (The Pessoptimist). Australians still have solidarity with the underdogs, indeed that’s a strength of Australia. The only problem is Australia’s head of government.
Sometimes Australians seem embarrassed about being seen as nothing deeper than a sports-loving nation but the Greeks are equally lovers of sport and wine. And Australians have not been left behind in other fields; they were the world’s first in contributing funds towards and researching into chronic fatigue syndrome. Provided you can free yourselves of America, you can be great. Actually America became great because of its multicultural society. Now in the twenty first century it’s Australia’s turn.
Suzan Piper(wot@iprimus.com.au) is an Indonesianist working in the arts, cultural and language studies and various other fields. The Rendra tour was produced by Wot Cross-Cultural Synergy and supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute.
Inside Indonesia 86: Apr-Jun 2006
Zealous reformers Will a positive start for the Constitutional Court lead to practical changes for ordinary citizens?
Zealous reformers
Will a positive start for the Constitutional Court lead to practical changes for ordinary citizens?
Simon Butt
The post-Suharto period has witnessed significant reforms to Indonesia's legal and judicial systems, including the establishment of the Constitutional Court in 2003. The court has shown that it takes its role seriously, but future challenges await it.
The Constitutional Court is the only Indonesian court in over 50 years to have been permitted to review the constitutionality of statutes. In many countries, this 'judicial review' is considered a crucial element of the separation of powers and the rule of law. Through judicial review, an independent institution - usually the highest court of a nation or a specialist court - attempts to ensure that the country's parliament does not exceed the powers granted to it under the Constitution. In this way, lawmakers are subject to some accountability. Judicial review is considered particularly important in countries with a constitution containing a bill of rights - that is, a list of citizens' human rights that the state should not breach. Without this check on legislative power, parliaments might ignore these human rights on purpose or by mistake in statutes they enact.
Promising early signs
The Constitutional Court has already demonstrated that it considers itself independent of other arms of government and that it will enforce Indonesia's new constitutional bill of rights to protect citizens' rights.
First, Law No. 24 of 2003 ('the Constitutional Court Law') - the statute which established the court - states that the court can review only statutes passed after the first round of constitutional amendments, made in 1999. However, in several cases, a majority of the court has held that the Constitution - not the Constitutional Court Law - determines its jurisdiction. Because the Constitution does not restrict the statutes the court can review in the same way, the court has ignored the Constitutional Court Law and reviewed laws enacted as long ago as 1987. In years past, an Indonesian court would perhaps have quietly bowed to the will of the legislature and simply refused to review cases enacted before 1999.
Second, most of the human rights contained in Indonesia's Constitution are subject to Article 28J(2). This article states that citizens' human rights can be limited in the interests of 'morality, religious values, security and public order', which would seem to offer much scope for government to limit citizens' rights. The only exceptions are the rights to life, to be free of torture, to think freely, to embrace a religion, to be free from slavery, to be recognised as an individual before the law, and to be free from being subject to retrospective laws. These rights 'cannot be limited under any circumstances', according to Article 28I(1) of the Constitution.
A less independent or capable court might use the very broadly-worded Article 28J(2) to accept legislation as constitutional if it protects almost any perceived public interest, even if it appears to contradict one of the rights not protected by Article 28I(1). Yet, even though the Constitutional Court has allowed the People's Representative Council (DPR) to employ Article 28J(2) to override rights conferred by Article 28 in some cases, in others it has struck down legislation that it believes violates those rights.
Curbing state power
In 2004, a group of people, some of whom had been imprisoned after being accused of involvement in the 1965 coup, asked the Constitutional Court to review a provision in a statute that prohibited them from being nominated in elections for Indonesia's central and regional parliaments. The court invalidated this provision because it 'denied the human rights of citizens' and 'discriminated on the basis of political conviction', thereby breaking several provisions of the Constitution. These included Article 27(1) of the Constitution, which provides citizens with equal treatment before the law; and Article 28I(2), which provides the right to be free from discriminatory treatment.
Another conspicuous example was the case of Masykur Abdul Kadir, one of those convicted for involvement in the Bali bombings of 2002. The DPR had enacted a statute that declared that those accused of involvement in the bombings could be investigated and prosecuted under Indonesia's Terrorism Law, even though the law had been enacted after the bombings had taken place. The accused argued that the statute breached his 'absolute' right not to be subject to retrospective laws. The court agreed. This drew domestic and international criticism for 'assisting' terrorists, but attracted praise in legal circles for applying and enforcing the Constitution.
Most notable, perhaps, has been the court's willingness to recognise citizens' rights and state obligations that the court believes are implied by the Constitution, but not explicitly mentioned in it.
For example, the Constitution's preamble states that the government is to 'protect all Indonesians and their native land, and to further public welfare, the intellectual life of the people, and to contribute to the world order of freedom, peace and social justice.' In separate cases, the court has revealed that the preamble requires the state to protect its citizens from corruption, and must take steps to eradicate it; and from crime, including gross violations of human rights. The court has also used the preamble to justify the censorship of broadcasts and the protection of the domestic broadcasting industry from foreign domination.
Legal aid and the rule of law
The Court has also been willing to draw implications from the Constitution's adoption of the 'negara hukum', usually translated as 'the rule of law'. In one case, lecturers from Malang who worked at a non-profit university legal clinic providing community legal services and work experience for students, asked the court to review the Advocates Law. The law prohibited those not registered as an advocate from 'working as an advocate', including providing legal advice. As a result, police had prevented some lecturers from accompanying their clients during interrogations because they had been unable to produce evidence that they were registered.
Declaring this provision invalid, the court stated that … the right to legal assistance, as a part of human rights, must be considered a constitutional right of citizens, even though the Constitution does not explicitly regulate or mention it. The state must, therefore, guarantee the fulfillment [of this right] … [This provision may cause] legal uncertainty and injustice for many members of the community who need legal services and assistance … Article 31 could impede many poor people from using the services of advocates for financial reasons or because they live in an area in which there are no practising advocates. This would further restrict or close off the community's access to justice. However, access to justice is an inseparable part of another feature of the negara hukum - that the law must be transparent and accessible to all, as is recognised in developments in modern thinking about negara hukum …
Real hope or false dawn?
From its very first case, the Constitutional Court has actively interpreted the Constitution in line with what it claims be the Constitution's spirit - in particular, the rule of law and the state's obligation to 'protect the people'. In the process, the court has 'uncovered' new constitutional principles, citizens' rights and state obligations - a bold step, particularly for a judiciary that many in the past have characterised as conservative and subservient to government.
How, then, can this 'radicalism' be explained? In short, the court appears sincerely concerned to uphold the reformed Constitution. The court is composed mainly of academics. Some of them - most notably, its chairperson, Prof. Dr Jimly Asshiddiqie - are scholars of constitutional law and have a good understanding of the importance of rigorously-performed judicial reviews and ideas about how to interpret provisions of the Constitution. The court is also quite strongly supported by the academic and NGO community, at least partly because of the court's apparent integrity, and because its decisions are better reasoned than those of other Indonesian courts and are not tainted by allegations of corruption or other interference.
However, while this activism is certainly a welcome change from Indonesia's tradition of judicial impotence, there are concerns that the court might have overstepped the mark. To some, its decisions are too radical or are unworkable. The court runs the risk of not being taken seriously.
An example is the court's attempt at establishing the right to legal aid. How can the court - with no resources of its own to allocate - create such a right? Who is going to pay for, administer, and provide the legal assistance? Who will the legal aid be made available to? Does the right apply in all cases - criminal, civil, administrative and religious? Can the right apply to vexatious litigants or unrealistic claims? Rights to some legal aid already exist in the Code of Criminal Procedure and Human Rights Law - does the new 'right' replace these or just strengthen them?
The Constitutional Court is a group of nine judges not directly elected by the people. It reviews legislation passed by a parliament of several hundred democratically elected people with resources much greater than its own. Furthermore, it operates in a new institutional environment: lawmakers are not accustomed to being limited through judicial review. However, the court relies on the government to voluntarily adhere to its decisions. If the court does not sufficiently anticipate the practical difficulties that may arise from its decisions then it may lose respect, credibility and, eventually, the opportunity to protect the constitutional rights of Indonesians. ii
Simon Butt (indolaw@bigpond.net.au) is writing a PhD on Indonesia's Constitutional Court at the University of Melbourne, and is associate director of the Asian Law Group.
Inside Indonesia 87: Jul-Sep 2006
Will a positive start for the Constitutional Court lead to practical changes for ordinary citizens?
Simon Butt
The post-Suharto period has witnessed significant reforms to Indonesia's legal and judicial systems, including the establishment of the Constitutional Court in 2003. The court has shown that it takes its role seriously, but future challenges await it.
The Constitutional Court is the only Indonesian court in over 50 years to have been permitted to review the constitutionality of statutes. In many countries, this 'judicial review' is considered a crucial element of the separation of powers and the rule of law. Through judicial review, an independent institution - usually the highest court of a nation or a specialist court - attempts to ensure that the country's parliament does not exceed the powers granted to it under the Constitution. In this way, lawmakers are subject to some accountability. Judicial review is considered particularly important in countries with a constitution containing a bill of rights - that is, a list of citizens' human rights that the state should not breach. Without this check on legislative power, parliaments might ignore these human rights on purpose or by mistake in statutes they enact.
Promising early signs
The Constitutional Court has already demonstrated that it considers itself independent of other arms of government and that it will enforce Indonesia's new constitutional bill of rights to protect citizens' rights.
First, Law No. 24 of 2003 ('the Constitutional Court Law') - the statute which established the court - states that the court can review only statutes passed after the first round of constitutional amendments, made in 1999. However, in several cases, a majority of the court has held that the Constitution - not the Constitutional Court Law - determines its jurisdiction. Because the Constitution does not restrict the statutes the court can review in the same way, the court has ignored the Constitutional Court Law and reviewed laws enacted as long ago as 1987. In years past, an Indonesian court would perhaps have quietly bowed to the will of the legislature and simply refused to review cases enacted before 1999.
Second, most of the human rights contained in Indonesia's Constitution are subject to Article 28J(2). This article states that citizens' human rights can be limited in the interests of 'morality, religious values, security and public order', which would seem to offer much scope for government to limit citizens' rights. The only exceptions are the rights to life, to be free of torture, to think freely, to embrace a religion, to be free from slavery, to be recognised as an individual before the law, and to be free from being subject to retrospective laws. These rights 'cannot be limited under any circumstances', according to Article 28I(1) of the Constitution.
A less independent or capable court might use the very broadly-worded Article 28J(2) to accept legislation as constitutional if it protects almost any perceived public interest, even if it appears to contradict one of the rights not protected by Article 28I(1). Yet, even though the Constitutional Court has allowed the People's Representative Council (DPR) to employ Article 28J(2) to override rights conferred by Article 28 in some cases, in others it has struck down legislation that it believes violates those rights.
Curbing state power
In 2004, a group of people, some of whom had been imprisoned after being accused of involvement in the 1965 coup, asked the Constitutional Court to review a provision in a statute that prohibited them from being nominated in elections for Indonesia's central and regional parliaments. The court invalidated this provision because it 'denied the human rights of citizens' and 'discriminated on the basis of political conviction', thereby breaking several provisions of the Constitution. These included Article 27(1) of the Constitution, which provides citizens with equal treatment before the law; and Article 28I(2), which provides the right to be free from discriminatory treatment.
Another conspicuous example was the case of Masykur Abdul Kadir, one of those convicted for involvement in the Bali bombings of 2002. The DPR had enacted a statute that declared that those accused of involvement in the bombings could be investigated and prosecuted under Indonesia's Terrorism Law, even though the law had been enacted after the bombings had taken place. The accused argued that the statute breached his 'absolute' right not to be subject to retrospective laws. The court agreed. This drew domestic and international criticism for 'assisting' terrorists, but attracted praise in legal circles for applying and enforcing the Constitution.
Most notable, perhaps, has been the court's willingness to recognise citizens' rights and state obligations that the court believes are implied by the Constitution, but not explicitly mentioned in it.
For example, the Constitution's preamble states that the government is to 'protect all Indonesians and their native land, and to further public welfare, the intellectual life of the people, and to contribute to the world order of freedom, peace and social justice.' In separate cases, the court has revealed that the preamble requires the state to protect its citizens from corruption, and must take steps to eradicate it; and from crime, including gross violations of human rights. The court has also used the preamble to justify the censorship of broadcasts and the protection of the domestic broadcasting industry from foreign domination.
Legal aid and the rule of law
The Court has also been willing to draw implications from the Constitution's adoption of the 'negara hukum', usually translated as 'the rule of law'. In one case, lecturers from Malang who worked at a non-profit university legal clinic providing community legal services and work experience for students, asked the court to review the Advocates Law. The law prohibited those not registered as an advocate from 'working as an advocate', including providing legal advice. As a result, police had prevented some lecturers from accompanying their clients during interrogations because they had been unable to produce evidence that they were registered.
Declaring this provision invalid, the court stated that … the right to legal assistance, as a part of human rights, must be considered a constitutional right of citizens, even though the Constitution does not explicitly regulate or mention it. The state must, therefore, guarantee the fulfillment [of this right] … [This provision may cause] legal uncertainty and injustice for many members of the community who need legal services and assistance … Article 31 could impede many poor people from using the services of advocates for financial reasons or because they live in an area in which there are no practising advocates. This would further restrict or close off the community's access to justice. However, access to justice is an inseparable part of another feature of the negara hukum - that the law must be transparent and accessible to all, as is recognised in developments in modern thinking about negara hukum …
Real hope or false dawn?
From its very first case, the Constitutional Court has actively interpreted the Constitution in line with what it claims be the Constitution's spirit - in particular, the rule of law and the state's obligation to 'protect the people'. In the process, the court has 'uncovered' new constitutional principles, citizens' rights and state obligations - a bold step, particularly for a judiciary that many in the past have characterised as conservative and subservient to government.
How, then, can this 'radicalism' be explained? In short, the court appears sincerely concerned to uphold the reformed Constitution. The court is composed mainly of academics. Some of them - most notably, its chairperson, Prof. Dr Jimly Asshiddiqie - are scholars of constitutional law and have a good understanding of the importance of rigorously-performed judicial reviews and ideas about how to interpret provisions of the Constitution. The court is also quite strongly supported by the academic and NGO community, at least partly because of the court's apparent integrity, and because its decisions are better reasoned than those of other Indonesian courts and are not tainted by allegations of corruption or other interference.
However, while this activism is certainly a welcome change from Indonesia's tradition of judicial impotence, there are concerns that the court might have overstepped the mark. To some, its decisions are too radical or are unworkable. The court runs the risk of not being taken seriously.
An example is the court's attempt at establishing the right to legal aid. How can the court - with no resources of its own to allocate - create such a right? Who is going to pay for, administer, and provide the legal assistance? Who will the legal aid be made available to? Does the right apply in all cases - criminal, civil, administrative and religious? Can the right apply to vexatious litigants or unrealistic claims? Rights to some legal aid already exist in the Code of Criminal Procedure and Human Rights Law - does the new 'right' replace these or just strengthen them?
The Constitutional Court is a group of nine judges not directly elected by the people. It reviews legislation passed by a parliament of several hundred democratically elected people with resources much greater than its own. Furthermore, it operates in a new institutional environment: lawmakers are not accustomed to being limited through judicial review. However, the court relies on the government to voluntarily adhere to its decisions. If the court does not sufficiently anticipate the practical difficulties that may arise from its decisions then it may lose respect, credibility and, eventually, the opportunity to protect the constitutional rights of Indonesians. ii
Simon Butt (indolaw@bigpond.net.au) is writing a PhD on Indonesia's Constitutional Court at the University of Melbourne, and is associate director of the Asian Law Group.
Inside Indonesia 87: Jul-Sep 2006
Tortured legacy Legal reform must overcome a history of authoritarian development
Tortured legacy
Legal reform must overcome a history of authoritarian development
Agung Putri
With the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesians began to turn to the nation’s courts as a means of protecting their rights. Why would people hope that the legal arm of the old authoritarian regime would offer them succour?? Under Suharto, most people viewed the courts as a symbol of the regime and its control over society. Judges exercised their power systematically to remove basic freedoms and prevent access to justice for the community.
An important motivation for the demands for legal reform coming from ordinary Indonesians was the desire to punish Suharto and his cronies for what they had done. The courts should be somewhere to turn to. These demands were echoed by the nation’s political and legal elites, although their aims were for more ambitious reform of the justice system. But can reform of Indonesia’s justice system overcome 60 years of distorted development?
Early history
The struggle for an independent judiciary and an effective justice system in Indonesia began before independence. Indonesia’s first judges, trained in colonial times, were early advocates for an independent judiciary. The desire to create an Indonesian state based on law (rechstaat) was strong during the constitutional debates of the early 1950s. However, this important struggle was continually undermined by the executive government – the president, the civil service and the military.
Under Sukarno, failure was largely due to neglect. The government’s focus on international politics left little room for the development of an effective and independent judicial power. So when Suharto gained power, many had high expectations for improvement.
At first Suharto’s efforts were greeted positively. People saw signs of rationality and modernisation of the legal system. The passage of Law No. 14/1970 on judicial power, for example, was thought to provide a sound foundation upon which to build legal institutions. Among other things, it theoretically enshrined the independence of the judiciary and prohibited government interference in court processes. Later, in the mid 1980s, the government introduced protections of the rights of defendants in the new Criminal Code and Criminal Procedures Code.
Control and manipulation
The laws looked good on paper, and the rhetoric often sounded right. The problem, however, was that these laws were implemented by a regime that increasingly sought to control all aspects of society. Modernisation became an instrument of government control and centralisation.
The government unified and codified laws such as the Marriage Law in 1974 and the Village Governance Law in 1989. Most controversially, in 1985 parliament passed a package of five regulations concerning the conduct of national politics. These regulations ensured elections, the parliament itself, political parties and social organisations all operated within a framework tightly controlled by the government.
Further, with modernisation came the expansion of the formal bureaucracy into more and more areas of life, including local justice and dispute resolution. Progressively, local and traditional mechanisms of justice, which people were accustomed to, were lost. The government stripped the authority of local and tribal leaders and institutions such as the Batak ‘raja ni hula-hula’ in North Sumatra, the ‘batin’ in Riau, the ‘raja’ in the Kei islands, Maluku, and many others. These were converted into, at most, cultural institutions (lembaga adat) with roles limited to giving advice to village government. In 1989, Ministry of Home Affairs’ regulation took away traditional institutions’ control over land and their role in mediating conflicts on land issues. This authority was instead given to village heads, who were expected to make decisions in line with central government policy.
More serious was the Suharto government’s repression of political life. It banned political parties and organisations, and arrested and killed their leaders. It investigated individuals to ensure their beliefs and political orientation was ‘suitable’ before they could get jobs as public servants. It banned books, and broke up political meetings. Arbitrary killing, kidnappings and rapes were common in conflict areas. In this way, the regime implemented a kind of state terrorism.
Yet in the face of this the courts systematically failed to provide anything near a fair trial. People were often detained without being given access to lawyers. While in detention, they were commonly treated badly and even tortured. Lawyers were intimidated. Judges sometimes awarded stronger sentences than those requested by prosecutors.
Judicial failure
In practice, the Suharto government’s strategies for modernising and rationalising the justice system did not promote independence of the judiciary. While asserting judicial independence, Law No. 14/1970 had also made judges government officials, administratively part of the Department of Justice. This provision was exploited by the government to secure judges’ loyalty and subservience. The courts distorted fair process to suit government policy. Thus, even when local court decisions went against government policy, the Supreme Court inevitably turned the decision around in the government’s favour. Take, for example, Henok Hebee Ohe, the Papuan who won his case against the government in his indigenous land claim. Or the people of Kedung Ombo in Central Java, who won their case to stop the government from appropriating their land to build a dam. In both cases, the Supreme Court found in the government’s favour on appeal.
Not surprisingly, with courts and judges acting as part of the government, they were given no power to review legislation or to examine human rights violations by state officials. Power to conduct judicial review of laws in relation to the Constitution is an essential constraint on government power in most democracies. But such a power was never granted under Suharto.
There were also many trials of political activists and human rights defenders. From the start, with trials of communist leaders in the 1960s, the courts invariably endorsed the government’s self-serving interpretations of subversion and public disturbance laws. Soon the same was happening in trials of Muslim activists, Acehnese, Papuans, workers and student activists. For example, Papuan leader Dr Thomas Wanggai was sentenced to 28 years imprisonment in 1990; 25 Acehnese activists were sentenced in 1991 to between eight and 17 years imprisonment; and between 1988 and 1990 a number of student activists were sentenced to eight years imprisonment for distributing novels banned by the Suharto government.
The government also promoted non-judicial mechanisms to keep matters outside judicial processes. Examples included the ‘Pancasila’ industrial relations mechanism to mediate disputes between workers and employers, and national land institutions to solve land disputes. And to further ensure control and repression of opposition, a ministerial decree allowed military intervention in industrial disputes, particularly in the event of worker demonstrations. This particular ‘non-judicial mechanism’ of injustice resulted in the infamous death under torture of Marsinah, a female worker leader, at a local military post in 1993.
Suharto’s legacy, then, was a system of law and justice that had been designed to prop up the most authoritarian system of government in the country’s history.
After Suharto
Since Suharto’s resignation the parliament has made significant attempts to reform the legal system. It repealed the anti-subversion law. It sought to restore the power of the Supreme Court, established a Judicial Commission to oversee the courts, and made judges subject to the Supreme Court and not to government departments. It incorporated key human rights provisions in the Constitution, authorised the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to conduct judicial investigations, and established Human Rights Courts.
So have the reforms made a difference? Have the people been encouraged to place their trust in the courts and the justice system?
The truth is that the community is again losing confidence in the justice system. The people want Suharto and his cronies held to account. However, the justice system still lacks the capacity to bring key state officials, including Suharto and military officers, to justice for gross human rights abuses. In the three major cases heard to date by the Human Rights Court, those most responsible for the violence in East Timor during the referendum, for the massacre at Tanjung Priok and in the abuse and torture in Abepura, have all been acquitted and have even been able to retain their senior positions in government and the military.
Day to day realities haven’t changed either. Police still arbitrarily shoot, beat and detain student activists, peasants and workers. The courts still support the state apparatus as they did previously, accepting without question its allegations against those opposing the government or other powerful interests. In conflict areas such as Aceh and Papua, military violence has continued.
Law reform is a difficult and complicated process. There is confusion about overlapping jurisdictions between courts, and many reform initiatives lack coherence. Military and bureaucratic reforms lag even further behind. These factors seriously impede the justice system’s ability to protect people’s rights.
Yet despite the difficulties and disappointed hopes, the Indonesian people know they have no alternative. All recognise the courts are important. But there is much still to be done before the average citizen can access justice.
Agung Putri (putri@elsam.or.id ) is the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM), Jakarta. ELSAM (www.elsam.or.id) is the premier human rights research organization in Indonesia.
Inside Indonesia 87: Jul-Sep 2006
Legal reform must overcome a history of authoritarian development
Agung Putri
With the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesians began to turn to the nation’s courts as a means of protecting their rights. Why would people hope that the legal arm of the old authoritarian regime would offer them succour?? Under Suharto, most people viewed the courts as a symbol of the regime and its control over society. Judges exercised their power systematically to remove basic freedoms and prevent access to justice for the community.
An important motivation for the demands for legal reform coming from ordinary Indonesians was the desire to punish Suharto and his cronies for what they had done. The courts should be somewhere to turn to. These demands were echoed by the nation’s political and legal elites, although their aims were for more ambitious reform of the justice system. But can reform of Indonesia’s justice system overcome 60 years of distorted development?
Early history
The struggle for an independent judiciary and an effective justice system in Indonesia began before independence. Indonesia’s first judges, trained in colonial times, were early advocates for an independent judiciary. The desire to create an Indonesian state based on law (rechstaat) was strong during the constitutional debates of the early 1950s. However, this important struggle was continually undermined by the executive government – the president, the civil service and the military.
Under Sukarno, failure was largely due to neglect. The government’s focus on international politics left little room for the development of an effective and independent judicial power. So when Suharto gained power, many had high expectations for improvement.
At first Suharto’s efforts were greeted positively. People saw signs of rationality and modernisation of the legal system. The passage of Law No. 14/1970 on judicial power, for example, was thought to provide a sound foundation upon which to build legal institutions. Among other things, it theoretically enshrined the independence of the judiciary and prohibited government interference in court processes. Later, in the mid 1980s, the government introduced protections of the rights of defendants in the new Criminal Code and Criminal Procedures Code.
Control and manipulation
The laws looked good on paper, and the rhetoric often sounded right. The problem, however, was that these laws were implemented by a regime that increasingly sought to control all aspects of society. Modernisation became an instrument of government control and centralisation.
The government unified and codified laws such as the Marriage Law in 1974 and the Village Governance Law in 1989. Most controversially, in 1985 parliament passed a package of five regulations concerning the conduct of national politics. These regulations ensured elections, the parliament itself, political parties and social organisations all operated within a framework tightly controlled by the government.
Further, with modernisation came the expansion of the formal bureaucracy into more and more areas of life, including local justice and dispute resolution. Progressively, local and traditional mechanisms of justice, which people were accustomed to, were lost. The government stripped the authority of local and tribal leaders and institutions such as the Batak ‘raja ni hula-hula’ in North Sumatra, the ‘batin’ in Riau, the ‘raja’ in the Kei islands, Maluku, and many others. These were converted into, at most, cultural institutions (lembaga adat) with roles limited to giving advice to village government. In 1989, Ministry of Home Affairs’ regulation took away traditional institutions’ control over land and their role in mediating conflicts on land issues. This authority was instead given to village heads, who were expected to make decisions in line with central government policy.
More serious was the Suharto government’s repression of political life. It banned political parties and organisations, and arrested and killed their leaders. It investigated individuals to ensure their beliefs and political orientation was ‘suitable’ before they could get jobs as public servants. It banned books, and broke up political meetings. Arbitrary killing, kidnappings and rapes were common in conflict areas. In this way, the regime implemented a kind of state terrorism.
Yet in the face of this the courts systematically failed to provide anything near a fair trial. People were often detained without being given access to lawyers. While in detention, they were commonly treated badly and even tortured. Lawyers were intimidated. Judges sometimes awarded stronger sentences than those requested by prosecutors.
Judicial failure
In practice, the Suharto government’s strategies for modernising and rationalising the justice system did not promote independence of the judiciary. While asserting judicial independence, Law No. 14/1970 had also made judges government officials, administratively part of the Department of Justice. This provision was exploited by the government to secure judges’ loyalty and subservience. The courts distorted fair process to suit government policy. Thus, even when local court decisions went against government policy, the Supreme Court inevitably turned the decision around in the government’s favour. Take, for example, Henok Hebee Ohe, the Papuan who won his case against the government in his indigenous land claim. Or the people of Kedung Ombo in Central Java, who won their case to stop the government from appropriating their land to build a dam. In both cases, the Supreme Court found in the government’s favour on appeal.
Not surprisingly, with courts and judges acting as part of the government, they were given no power to review legislation or to examine human rights violations by state officials. Power to conduct judicial review of laws in relation to the Constitution is an essential constraint on government power in most democracies. But such a power was never granted under Suharto.
There were also many trials of political activists and human rights defenders. From the start, with trials of communist leaders in the 1960s, the courts invariably endorsed the government’s self-serving interpretations of subversion and public disturbance laws. Soon the same was happening in trials of Muslim activists, Acehnese, Papuans, workers and student activists. For example, Papuan leader Dr Thomas Wanggai was sentenced to 28 years imprisonment in 1990; 25 Acehnese activists were sentenced in 1991 to between eight and 17 years imprisonment; and between 1988 and 1990 a number of student activists were sentenced to eight years imprisonment for distributing novels banned by the Suharto government.
The government also promoted non-judicial mechanisms to keep matters outside judicial processes. Examples included the ‘Pancasila’ industrial relations mechanism to mediate disputes between workers and employers, and national land institutions to solve land disputes. And to further ensure control and repression of opposition, a ministerial decree allowed military intervention in industrial disputes, particularly in the event of worker demonstrations. This particular ‘non-judicial mechanism’ of injustice resulted in the infamous death under torture of Marsinah, a female worker leader, at a local military post in 1993.
Suharto’s legacy, then, was a system of law and justice that had been designed to prop up the most authoritarian system of government in the country’s history.
After Suharto
Since Suharto’s resignation the parliament has made significant attempts to reform the legal system. It repealed the anti-subversion law. It sought to restore the power of the Supreme Court, established a Judicial Commission to oversee the courts, and made judges subject to the Supreme Court and not to government departments. It incorporated key human rights provisions in the Constitution, authorised the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to conduct judicial investigations, and established Human Rights Courts.
So have the reforms made a difference? Have the people been encouraged to place their trust in the courts and the justice system?
The truth is that the community is again losing confidence in the justice system. The people want Suharto and his cronies held to account. However, the justice system still lacks the capacity to bring key state officials, including Suharto and military officers, to justice for gross human rights abuses. In the three major cases heard to date by the Human Rights Court, those most responsible for the violence in East Timor during the referendum, for the massacre at Tanjung Priok and in the abuse and torture in Abepura, have all been acquitted and have even been able to retain their senior positions in government and the military.
Day to day realities haven’t changed either. Police still arbitrarily shoot, beat and detain student activists, peasants and workers. The courts still support the state apparatus as they did previously, accepting without question its allegations against those opposing the government or other powerful interests. In conflict areas such as Aceh and Papua, military violence has continued.
Law reform is a difficult and complicated process. There is confusion about overlapping jurisdictions between courts, and many reform initiatives lack coherence. Military and bureaucratic reforms lag even further behind. These factors seriously impede the justice system’s ability to protect people’s rights.
Yet despite the difficulties and disappointed hopes, the Indonesian people know they have no alternative. All recognise the courts are important. But there is much still to be done before the average citizen can access justice.
Agung Putri (putri@elsam.or.id ) is the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM), Jakarta. ELSAM (www.elsam.or.id) is the premier human rights research organization in Indonesia.
Inside Indonesia 87: Jul-Sep 2006
Retrospective Looking back
Retrospective
Looking back
One of the little known pleasures for an Inside Indonesia editor is receiving mail from people who think we are Indonesian. Someone from Zambia wrote to protest the turtle slaughter in Bali. An American apologised for Bush’s ‘arrogance towards Muslims’. And then there were the rednecks. One wrote in 2005, ‘Indonesians have no respect for Australians. You just want to kill us … We should stop giving money to your country and develop nuclear weapons to protect our country from your hostile ways.’ The recent Lowy Institute poll, ‘Australia, Indonesia and the world’, showed that most Australians think the only country with which their relations are worsening is Indonesia. Relations with China, India, Japan, the US and the EU are all thought to be improving. The Bali bombs, Schapelle Corby and Papua dominate the images.
Inside Indonesia has always been a virtual community of people who do feel warmly about Indonesia. Flicking back through 23 years of the print edition is still a liberating experience. We scooped Robert Domm’s interview with Xanana Gusmao in East Timor’s mountains in 1990, the first with a foreigner since 1975. The topic index on the website (www.insideindonesia.org) shows us taking an interest in things that never reach the mainstream press — gay men in Surabaya, Bali’s Generation X, nude art, climbing an active volcano in Java, street kids and, of course, campaigning on the environment, labour, human rights, indigenous rights and gender equality. Inside Indonesia community members feel as much at home in Bandung’s urban slums as among Kalimantan’s forest dwellers.
Many have studied language in Indonesia and are now back in the west, fluent and itching to get on the plane again. Not a few fell in love with Indonesians. Our community finds something alive about Indonesia that is missing in suburban Melbourne the youthful feeling that anything can happen at any time, overwhelming hospitality, food that leaves chops and two veg for dead, the art of conversation, ridiculous amounts of laughter. Naively romantic perhaps, but a lot more appealing than some of the hostile attitudes of those who write letters to us threatening nuclear extinction.
The magazine
Inside Indonesia has always looked bigger than it actually is. Copies have been seen in the marble lobby of the Bank of Indonesia. Young journalists write asking us for a placement. In fact most of the work has been done by volunteers. The Melbourne office is run by a skeleton staff, working four days a week in total. The editor usually works from home and gets a paltry sum for the hundreds of hours it takes to put an edition together. The last seventeen editions were produced by guest editors, all academic or NGO experts with a busy career. Most could do only one edition.
The print edition is no longer viable and we are moving to the internet only. This is tragic for those without easy internet access, particularly schools. We now have to find alternative ways of communicating effectively about Indonesia. Please write to us with your ideas.
When a few Melbourne activists started the magazine in 1983 the oppressive New Order regime under Suharto was at its height. The little information in the western press highlighted security (Indonesia as Cold War ally) and western business opportunities. Today Indonesia is a democracy. Information is everywhere, increasingly in English. But the mainstream agenda remains far too narrow. A western obsession with the threat of Islamic terrorism in Indonesia is creating the tragic results visible in the Lowy Institute poll. Perhaps unfashionably, Inside Indonesia community members are internationalists. We also know the region includes Australia. The work for democracy, peace and sustainability and struggles against poverty, ignorance and intolerance are more important than ever. They do not stop at borders. Indonesians, Australians and all people interested in the region need each other more than ever.
Gerry van Klinken edited Inside Indonesia from 1996 to 2002 and now lives in the Netherlands. (Before that, Pat Walsh was editor for 13 years.)
Inside Indonesia 89: Jan-Mar 2007
Looking back
One of the little known pleasures for an Inside Indonesia editor is receiving mail from people who think we are Indonesian. Someone from Zambia wrote to protest the turtle slaughter in Bali. An American apologised for Bush’s ‘arrogance towards Muslims’. And then there were the rednecks. One wrote in 2005, ‘Indonesians have no respect for Australians. You just want to kill us … We should stop giving money to your country and develop nuclear weapons to protect our country from your hostile ways.’ The recent Lowy Institute poll, ‘Australia, Indonesia and the world’, showed that most Australians think the only country with which their relations are worsening is Indonesia. Relations with China, India, Japan, the US and the EU are all thought to be improving. The Bali bombs, Schapelle Corby and Papua dominate the images.
Inside Indonesia has always been a virtual community of people who do feel warmly about Indonesia. Flicking back through 23 years of the print edition is still a liberating experience. We scooped Robert Domm’s interview with Xanana Gusmao in East Timor’s mountains in 1990, the first with a foreigner since 1975. The topic index on the website (www.insideindonesia.org) shows us taking an interest in things that never reach the mainstream press — gay men in Surabaya, Bali’s Generation X, nude art, climbing an active volcano in Java, street kids and, of course, campaigning on the environment, labour, human rights, indigenous rights and gender equality. Inside Indonesia community members feel as much at home in Bandung’s urban slums as among Kalimantan’s forest dwellers.
Many have studied language in Indonesia and are now back in the west, fluent and itching to get on the plane again. Not a few fell in love with Indonesians. Our community finds something alive about Indonesia that is missing in suburban Melbourne the youthful feeling that anything can happen at any time, overwhelming hospitality, food that leaves chops and two veg for dead, the art of conversation, ridiculous amounts of laughter. Naively romantic perhaps, but a lot more appealing than some of the hostile attitudes of those who write letters to us threatening nuclear extinction.
The magazine
Inside Indonesia has always looked bigger than it actually is. Copies have been seen in the marble lobby of the Bank of Indonesia. Young journalists write asking us for a placement. In fact most of the work has been done by volunteers. The Melbourne office is run by a skeleton staff, working four days a week in total. The editor usually works from home and gets a paltry sum for the hundreds of hours it takes to put an edition together. The last seventeen editions were produced by guest editors, all academic or NGO experts with a busy career. Most could do only one edition.
The print edition is no longer viable and we are moving to the internet only. This is tragic for those without easy internet access, particularly schools. We now have to find alternative ways of communicating effectively about Indonesia. Please write to us with your ideas.
When a few Melbourne activists started the magazine in 1983 the oppressive New Order regime under Suharto was at its height. The little information in the western press highlighted security (Indonesia as Cold War ally) and western business opportunities. Today Indonesia is a democracy. Information is everywhere, increasingly in English. But the mainstream agenda remains far too narrow. A western obsession with the threat of Islamic terrorism in Indonesia is creating the tragic results visible in the Lowy Institute poll. Perhaps unfashionably, Inside Indonesia community members are internationalists. We also know the region includes Australia. The work for democracy, peace and sustainability and struggles against poverty, ignorance and intolerance are more important than ever. They do not stop at borders. Indonesians, Australians and all people interested in the region need each other more than ever.
Gerry van Klinken edited Inside Indonesia from 1996 to 2002 and now lives in the Netherlands. (Before that, Pat Walsh was editor for 13 years.)
Inside Indonesia 89: Jan-Mar 2007
Bali standing strong Hindu-Balinese identity is enforced through pork meatballs and praying competitions.
Bali standing strong
Hindu-Balinese identity is enforced through pork meatballs and praying competitions.
Elizabeth Rhoads
Walking the streets of Denpasar, you will probably notice small food stalls and carts bearing red and white banners that read ‘Bakso Krama Bali’ (BKB), meaning bakso (meatball soup) sold for and by Balinese. Previously, bakso was most commonly made from chicken and sold from carts by Javanese migrants. The new BKB often uses pork, thus violating halal (Islamic dietary) requirements, meaning not only that Muslims can’t eat BKB, but also that they can’t sell it. Non-Muslim Balinese therefore have a monopoly on the market.
BKB arose in an attempt to take back control over the Balinese economy from the perceived economic threat of Javanese transmigrants. Even non-BKB food stalls and carts will often paint ‘Bakso Ajeg Bali’ (literally, ‘Bakso Strengthening Bali’) on their signs, or advertise that they use pork, in order to benefit from the rising popularity of BKB. BKB is a reflection of what could be interpreted as the rise of Balinese nationalist or Hindu fundamentalist sentiment in Bali.
Post-Suharto, as elsewhere in Indonesia, Balinese are attempting to redefine their regional and cultural identity. In Bali this trend is exemplified by ajeg Bali, a discourse on strengthening Balinese identity through promoting and protecting Balinese Hinduism, language and adat (custom and customary law).
Response to 2002 Bali bombing
Ajeg Bali became a household term after the 2002 Bali bombing with the help of local media such as the Bali Post and Bali TV. While ajeg literally can be defined as erect, stable or strong, an ajeg Bali is a Bali standing strong, but also one that is more closed to outside dangers and influences, especially those from within Indonesia. Left open to interpretation, ‘ajeg Bali’ is quickly used by both proponents and opponents of the discourse as an excuse or justification for almost anything. Shortly after the 2002 bombing, notions of a strong Bali and how to create it grew from strengthening Balinese cultural and religious confidence to include safeguarding the economy and the island of Bali itself. Thus ajeg Bali was reinterpreted to include increased village security, special taxes for ‘outsiders’, identity card raids on migrants and other police work as part of the process of ‘strengthening Balinese culture’.
Those looking for a response to terrorism, rising Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia and the encroachment of their island by Javanese and other Indonesian ‘outsiders,’ found it in ajeg Bali. Safeguarding Bali means protecting the island from the influences and dangers of ‘outsiders’ — both foreign tourists and non-Balinese Indonesians. However, this protection is selective: while notions of Western modernity are an acceptable import, poor Indonesian migrants looking for work are not. The categories of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ have led to an increased anti-Muslim/Javanese sentiment and signs of a growing push for a renewed sense of a homogenous Balinese Hindu identity.
While Hindus are the majority on the island of Bali, Balinese Hindus see themselves as a threatened minority, since they are a religious and ethnic minority within Indonesia. This minority status has allowed for many Balinese post-Suharto and especially post-bomb regulations to focus on strengthening the status of the ‘insider,’ or the Balinese Hindu majority, and targeting the ‘outsiders,’ especially Javanese Muslims, with special taxes, identity cards and papers. To many, terrorists destroyed the peaceful, safe image of Bali, thus severely harming the tourism-based economy. These terrorists happened to be Javanese Muslims, as are many Javanese transmigrants who have been steadily migrating to Bali from overpopulated Java since the 1980s to take advantage of Bali’s then booming economy. This ‘direct’ link from the terrorist attacks of 2002 and 2005 to the lower class informal sector Javanese workers and other Indonesians living in Bali became the excuse for the midnight raids and heavy taxes — in addition to rent — imposed on the Javanese in many areas of Bali, especially in Denpasar.
Ajeg Bali has also been interpreted as aspiring to return to a ‘true’ Bali, a Bali of the past, or at least a Bali less under threat from the outside. However, this ‘Bali of the past’ is based on an image of a Bali as a homogenous, closed community, which belies the fact that Bali has long been involved in global networks of changes, invasions, trading and sharing of ideas. This began with the arrival of Buddhism and Hinduism in the eighth and ninth centuries. It continued with the spice trade that linked Bali to both Europe and Asia, the intermarriage between Balinese and Javanese Hindu nobility and the later conquest of Bali by the Javanese Hindu Majapahit kingdom in 1343. This was followed by Dutch colonialism, the Japanese occupation, and finally the rise of mass tourism and globalisation. Yet, some proponents of the ajeg Bali discourse portray Balinese culture and religion almost as if they are static — often denying the existence of a Balinese culture that has been heavily influenced from the outside, searching for a ‘pure’ Balinese cultural and religious identity.
Religion has long played a role in defining Balinese ethnicity. But there are many Balinese Muslim families — even villages — that have adapted to Balinese community structures, kinship patterns and wet-rice agriculture. They even join in the banjar (community organisation) and take part in village ceremonies, while adhering to the practices of Islam. Some interpretations of ajeg Bali define ‘Balineseness’ as Balinese Hinduism — excluding both Balinese Muslims and Javanese Hindus from the identity.
Recently, public school children in Bali have been asked to wear pakaian adat (customary dress) to school on purnama (full moon). To celebrate purnama, students pray during the school day in a Balinese Hindu fashion. Although wearing pakaian adat and joining in the purnama activities are not compulsory, non-Hindu children can feel left out of their school community, in addition to losing class time.
Redeeming Balinese Hinduism
It is not only Muslims and non-Balinese who are visibly excluded or even threatened by this discourse. It also affects Balinese Hindus who do not practise the ‘appropriate’ Hinduism as portrayed in the Bali Post and as taught by the televangelist Hindu priests on Bali TV. This form of Hinduism is supported by the PHDI (Indonesian Hindu Council). Ajeg Bali is part of a larger movement to ‘sanitise’, standardise and explain Balinese Hinduism. Thus Bali TV will often have programs explaining how offerings should be made and how rituals should be performed. There are also community and city-wide youth ‘praying competitions’, enforcing ideas of stylised praying and how a Balinese should and should not communicate with God. In addition to the standardisation of praying styles and ritual activity, ceremonial clothing has also become more uniform. Today, it is the norm to wear white for most ceremonies and black for cremation, whereas ten to 15 years ago ceremonial clothing was much more varied in colour. The Western colours of purity and grief have been appropriated by the PHDI, Bali TV and other ajeg Bali proponents and promoted as a form of standardising ritual and pakaian adat.
Balinese Hinduism is not only going through a process of standardisation, but also sanitisation of ritual practices. ‘Inhumane’ aspects of ceremonies and rituals, such as animal sacrifice, cock fighting and even the traditional practice of tooth filing, are heavily discouraged. In place of live animal sacrifice, symbols or meat are used. Instead of a full tooth filing, Balinese are encouraged to get a less invasive, more ‘symbolic’ tooth filing ceremony. While animal rights groups may be cheering about this, for many Balinese, ceremony and ritual is not about symbols and meaning but about practice. Thus, many Balinese believe that if the demons want a blood sacrifice they must be appeased, or else they could do serious damage to the lives of those who did not pacify them.
Ethnicity, religion, class and the general state of the economy are all thickly intertwined in Bali, and it is all but impossible to address one without addressing all of the others, as the lines between them are often blurred. While Bali’s society is generally fluid, the growing separatism and quest for clear ‘definitions’ of group membership, practices, identity and collective past and future are threatening Bali’s image as the peaceful and welcoming ‘island of the Gods.’ In this context, pushing for a more clearly defined and popularly supported ethnic and religious identity may leave not only Balinese Muslims, but also some Balinese Hindus out of a homogenised, Hinduised and sanitised vision of Balinese identity.
Elizabeth Rhoads (erhoads@brynmawr.edu) is a senior anthropology student at Bryn Mawr College, writing her senior thesis on the Balinese identity discourse ‘ajeg Bali’.
Inside Indonesia 89: Jan-Mar 2007
Hindu-Balinese identity is enforced through pork meatballs and praying competitions.
Elizabeth Rhoads
Walking the streets of Denpasar, you will probably notice small food stalls and carts bearing red and white banners that read ‘Bakso Krama Bali’ (BKB), meaning bakso (meatball soup) sold for and by Balinese. Previously, bakso was most commonly made from chicken and sold from carts by Javanese migrants. The new BKB often uses pork, thus violating halal (Islamic dietary) requirements, meaning not only that Muslims can’t eat BKB, but also that they can’t sell it. Non-Muslim Balinese therefore have a monopoly on the market.
BKB arose in an attempt to take back control over the Balinese economy from the perceived economic threat of Javanese transmigrants. Even non-BKB food stalls and carts will often paint ‘Bakso Ajeg Bali’ (literally, ‘Bakso Strengthening Bali’) on their signs, or advertise that they use pork, in order to benefit from the rising popularity of BKB. BKB is a reflection of what could be interpreted as the rise of Balinese nationalist or Hindu fundamentalist sentiment in Bali.
Post-Suharto, as elsewhere in Indonesia, Balinese are attempting to redefine their regional and cultural identity. In Bali this trend is exemplified by ajeg Bali, a discourse on strengthening Balinese identity through promoting and protecting Balinese Hinduism, language and adat (custom and customary law).
Response to 2002 Bali bombing
Ajeg Bali became a household term after the 2002 Bali bombing with the help of local media such as the Bali Post and Bali TV. While ajeg literally can be defined as erect, stable or strong, an ajeg Bali is a Bali standing strong, but also one that is more closed to outside dangers and influences, especially those from within Indonesia. Left open to interpretation, ‘ajeg Bali’ is quickly used by both proponents and opponents of the discourse as an excuse or justification for almost anything. Shortly after the 2002 bombing, notions of a strong Bali and how to create it grew from strengthening Balinese cultural and religious confidence to include safeguarding the economy and the island of Bali itself. Thus ajeg Bali was reinterpreted to include increased village security, special taxes for ‘outsiders’, identity card raids on migrants and other police work as part of the process of ‘strengthening Balinese culture’.
Those looking for a response to terrorism, rising Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia and the encroachment of their island by Javanese and other Indonesian ‘outsiders,’ found it in ajeg Bali. Safeguarding Bali means protecting the island from the influences and dangers of ‘outsiders’ — both foreign tourists and non-Balinese Indonesians. However, this protection is selective: while notions of Western modernity are an acceptable import, poor Indonesian migrants looking for work are not. The categories of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ have led to an increased anti-Muslim/Javanese sentiment and signs of a growing push for a renewed sense of a homogenous Balinese Hindu identity.
While Hindus are the majority on the island of Bali, Balinese Hindus see themselves as a threatened minority, since they are a religious and ethnic minority within Indonesia. This minority status has allowed for many Balinese post-Suharto and especially post-bomb regulations to focus on strengthening the status of the ‘insider,’ or the Balinese Hindu majority, and targeting the ‘outsiders,’ especially Javanese Muslims, with special taxes, identity cards and papers. To many, terrorists destroyed the peaceful, safe image of Bali, thus severely harming the tourism-based economy. These terrorists happened to be Javanese Muslims, as are many Javanese transmigrants who have been steadily migrating to Bali from overpopulated Java since the 1980s to take advantage of Bali’s then booming economy. This ‘direct’ link from the terrorist attacks of 2002 and 2005 to the lower class informal sector Javanese workers and other Indonesians living in Bali became the excuse for the midnight raids and heavy taxes — in addition to rent — imposed on the Javanese in many areas of Bali, especially in Denpasar.
Ajeg Bali has also been interpreted as aspiring to return to a ‘true’ Bali, a Bali of the past, or at least a Bali less under threat from the outside. However, this ‘Bali of the past’ is based on an image of a Bali as a homogenous, closed community, which belies the fact that Bali has long been involved in global networks of changes, invasions, trading and sharing of ideas. This began with the arrival of Buddhism and Hinduism in the eighth and ninth centuries. It continued with the spice trade that linked Bali to both Europe and Asia, the intermarriage between Balinese and Javanese Hindu nobility and the later conquest of Bali by the Javanese Hindu Majapahit kingdom in 1343. This was followed by Dutch colonialism, the Japanese occupation, and finally the rise of mass tourism and globalisation. Yet, some proponents of the ajeg Bali discourse portray Balinese culture and religion almost as if they are static — often denying the existence of a Balinese culture that has been heavily influenced from the outside, searching for a ‘pure’ Balinese cultural and religious identity.
Religion has long played a role in defining Balinese ethnicity. But there are many Balinese Muslim families — even villages — that have adapted to Balinese community structures, kinship patterns and wet-rice agriculture. They even join in the banjar (community organisation) and take part in village ceremonies, while adhering to the practices of Islam. Some interpretations of ajeg Bali define ‘Balineseness’ as Balinese Hinduism — excluding both Balinese Muslims and Javanese Hindus from the identity.
Recently, public school children in Bali have been asked to wear pakaian adat (customary dress) to school on purnama (full moon). To celebrate purnama, students pray during the school day in a Balinese Hindu fashion. Although wearing pakaian adat and joining in the purnama activities are not compulsory, non-Hindu children can feel left out of their school community, in addition to losing class time.
Redeeming Balinese Hinduism
It is not only Muslims and non-Balinese who are visibly excluded or even threatened by this discourse. It also affects Balinese Hindus who do not practise the ‘appropriate’ Hinduism as portrayed in the Bali Post and as taught by the televangelist Hindu priests on Bali TV. This form of Hinduism is supported by the PHDI (Indonesian Hindu Council). Ajeg Bali is part of a larger movement to ‘sanitise’, standardise and explain Balinese Hinduism. Thus Bali TV will often have programs explaining how offerings should be made and how rituals should be performed. There are also community and city-wide youth ‘praying competitions’, enforcing ideas of stylised praying and how a Balinese should and should not communicate with God. In addition to the standardisation of praying styles and ritual activity, ceremonial clothing has also become more uniform. Today, it is the norm to wear white for most ceremonies and black for cremation, whereas ten to 15 years ago ceremonial clothing was much more varied in colour. The Western colours of purity and grief have been appropriated by the PHDI, Bali TV and other ajeg Bali proponents and promoted as a form of standardising ritual and pakaian adat.
Balinese Hinduism is not only going through a process of standardisation, but also sanitisation of ritual practices. ‘Inhumane’ aspects of ceremonies and rituals, such as animal sacrifice, cock fighting and even the traditional practice of tooth filing, are heavily discouraged. In place of live animal sacrifice, symbols or meat are used. Instead of a full tooth filing, Balinese are encouraged to get a less invasive, more ‘symbolic’ tooth filing ceremony. While animal rights groups may be cheering about this, for many Balinese, ceremony and ritual is not about symbols and meaning but about practice. Thus, many Balinese believe that if the demons want a blood sacrifice they must be appeased, or else they could do serious damage to the lives of those who did not pacify them.
Ethnicity, religion, class and the general state of the economy are all thickly intertwined in Bali, and it is all but impossible to address one without addressing all of the others, as the lines between them are often blurred. While Bali’s society is generally fluid, the growing separatism and quest for clear ‘definitions’ of group membership, practices, identity and collective past and future are threatening Bali’s image as the peaceful and welcoming ‘island of the Gods.’ In this context, pushing for a more clearly defined and popularly supported ethnic and religious identity may leave not only Balinese Muslims, but also some Balinese Hindus out of a homogenised, Hinduised and sanitised vision of Balinese identity.
Elizabeth Rhoads (erhoads@brynmawr.edu) is a senior anthropology student at Bryn Mawr College, writing her senior thesis on the Balinese identity discourse ‘ajeg Bali’.
Inside Indonesia 89: Jan-Mar 2007
Newsbriefs
Newsbriefs
King Lear
Multiculturalism became reality when Shakespeare's play King Lear was staged in Jakarta 5-7 February 1999. The lavish production brought together actors and musicians from six countries. Naohiko Umewaka from Japan played King Lear and spoke in Japanese. Jiang Qihu from the Beijing Opera played Lear's oldest daughter Goneril and spoke Chinese. Thai actress Peeramon Chomdhavat played Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia in Thai, while Indonesian actor Gani Abdul Karim spoke his own language. 'We started from the philosophical assumption that no one culture or language can understand this tragedy completely without needing translation. I believe this play belongs to people of every nation and language', said Singapore producer Ong Keng Sen (36). Shakespeare's original script was adapted by Japanese artist Rio Kishida, who highlighted the strong, ambitious women in the play in order to bear out new values of female strength, as well as a new vision for Asia.
Kompas 6 February 1999.
Hollywood attacked
Two recent American films, according to Indonesian intellectual H Syamsi Ali who lives in New York, give a wrong image of Islam and should be banned in Indonesia. The Siege, starring Denzel Washington, shows a terrorist doing the Islamic prayer ritual before committing a suicide bombing in New York. 'Islam teaches salvation and peace. How could it be put in the same category as terrorism?', asked Syamsi Ali. He also said the animated film The Prince of Egypt, with the voices of Sandra Bullock, Michelle Pfeiffer, Val Kilmer, and Jeff Goldblum, was a Judaic depiction of Moses when in fact Moses was also an Islamic prophet described at length in the Koran. 'The film wants to show that Jews are world leaders, while other communities are their servants', said Syamsi Ali. (Nothing further has been heard of his call for a ban.)
Republika 2 February 1999.
Dirty seas
PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, a subsidiary of the largest gold mining company in the world, uses the cyanide heap leaching process to extract gold in a mountainous part of North Sulawesi, then pumps over 600,000 tonnes of waste daily to the sea and deposits it on the sea bed. The company now plans to create an artificial reef in Buyat Bay to increase fish yields. But environmentalists have questioned the plans. 'What is the point of making a reef if the sea water there is polluted?', they said. Coral reef expert Janny Kusen said there was no evidence of the stable thermocline which the company claims will prevent cyanide waste from rising up to the surface waters. Krapp, an NGO based in Central Java, explained that since PT NMR had been dumping mining tailings on the sea bed, the number of species in the bay had fallen from 17 to five. The local extinction of fish had significantly contributed to increased poverty and poorer nutrition in a community already hard hit by the economic crisis.
Kompas 5 May 1999, Down to Earth (dtecampaign@gn.apc.org).
King Lear
Multiculturalism became reality when Shakespeare's play King Lear was staged in Jakarta 5-7 February 1999. The lavish production brought together actors and musicians from six countries. Naohiko Umewaka from Japan played King Lear and spoke in Japanese. Jiang Qihu from the Beijing Opera played Lear's oldest daughter Goneril and spoke Chinese. Thai actress Peeramon Chomdhavat played Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia in Thai, while Indonesian actor Gani Abdul Karim spoke his own language. 'We started from the philosophical assumption that no one culture or language can understand this tragedy completely without needing translation. I believe this play belongs to people of every nation and language', said Singapore producer Ong Keng Sen (36). Shakespeare's original script was adapted by Japanese artist Rio Kishida, who highlighted the strong, ambitious women in the play in order to bear out new values of female strength, as well as a new vision for Asia.
Kompas 6 February 1999.
Hollywood attacked
Two recent American films, according to Indonesian intellectual H Syamsi Ali who lives in New York, give a wrong image of Islam and should be banned in Indonesia. The Siege, starring Denzel Washington, shows a terrorist doing the Islamic prayer ritual before committing a suicide bombing in New York. 'Islam teaches salvation and peace. How could it be put in the same category as terrorism?', asked Syamsi Ali. He also said the animated film The Prince of Egypt, with the voices of Sandra Bullock, Michelle Pfeiffer, Val Kilmer, and Jeff Goldblum, was a Judaic depiction of Moses when in fact Moses was also an Islamic prophet described at length in the Koran. 'The film wants to show that Jews are world leaders, while other communities are their servants', said Syamsi Ali. (Nothing further has been heard of his call for a ban.)
Republika 2 February 1999.
Dirty seas
PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, a subsidiary of the largest gold mining company in the world, uses the cyanide heap leaching process to extract gold in a mountainous part of North Sulawesi, then pumps over 600,000 tonnes of waste daily to the sea and deposits it on the sea bed. The company now plans to create an artificial reef in Buyat Bay to increase fish yields. But environmentalists have questioned the plans. 'What is the point of making a reef if the sea water there is polluted?', they said. Coral reef expert Janny Kusen said there was no evidence of the stable thermocline which the company claims will prevent cyanide waste from rising up to the surface waters. Krapp, an NGO based in Central Java, explained that since PT NMR had been dumping mining tailings on the sea bed, the number of species in the bay had fallen from 17 to five. The local extinction of fish had significantly contributed to increased poverty and poorer nutrition in a community already hard hit by the economic crisis.
Kompas 5 May 1999, Down to Earth (dtecampaign@gn.apc.org).
Jakarta's May Revolution
Jakarta's May Revolution
How did Jakarta in May compare with people movements against dictatorships elsewhere in world history?
Aboeprijadi Santoso
Analysts watching Indonesia in May were reminded of two models of change: the 1989 Chinese Tienanmen model and the 1986 Philippine People Power model. Some also thought of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The events in Jakarta turned out to be different to each of them. They were perhaps more bloody than in China. And unlike the total change in the Philippines, transition in Jakarta was quick, but less than total, and filled with tragedy.
In Tienanmen on June 4, 1989, the state's repressive apparatus used a heavy hand to resolve the crisis. The Chinese authorities managed to preserve the bases of the state, which had been challenged by the students. After making some changes within the elite, they restored stability while limiting further social and economic damage from the three month revolt. Despite five to seven years of diplomatic pain, at the end of the day, a monolithic regime was able to restore the status quo by bloodily crushing opposition forces.
Philippines
The People Power on the Edsa highway in Manila in February 1986, on the other hand, was the reverse of the Chinese solution. Popular anger against Marcos' dictatorship burst out at every social level. Mrs Corazon Aquino, widow of the popular assassinated senator Benigno Aquino, and Cardinal Jaime Sin provided political and spiritual leadership. The left wing National Democratic Front (NDF) and other movements provided popular opposition platforms. Marcos' decades of dictatorship had radicalised Philippine society. All that was needed to oust him were some generals to change sides. And this happened at a crucial moment when General Fidel Ramos did just that.
The People Power movement also opened up, and was soon threatened by, internal military rivalries and rebellions. The Rambo game of Colonel Gringo Honasan is the most well known example.
Both revolts were supported at least passively by most sections of society. But the mainly urban student revolt in China was too small and weak to face the state apparatus. In the Philippines, by contrast, the revolt was truly mass based, while the state apparatus was too weak and divided to act against it.
Mixed
Jakarta's 'May Revolution', as the student protests and the fall of Suharto are now called, contained mixed elements. As in China, the imbalance between the student movement and state apparatus in Indonesia was obvious. As in China too, the student rebellion was widely supported by society. However, the Indonesian state leadership - both before and after the fall of Suharto - suffered from a much more serious crisis than their counterparts in China.
The symbolism emanating from student power in Jakarta and Beijing provoked a quicker act of the state than it did in Manila. Like the Chinese, the Indonesian students chose the very locus of the power they challenged as their place of protest. Demonstrations at parliament house in Senayan, Jakarta, signified their opposition to what they saw as the illegitimacy of existing representative bodies. A similar protest at the National Monument had to be cancelled. The symbolism of the Indonesian student protests echoed among movements around the world - from Burma to Zimbabwe, Nigeria and elsewhere.
Much the same way, Chinese students seriously challenged the legitimacy of the 'Heavenly Peace Mandate' supposedly resting upon the government and parliament when they occupied Tienanmen, 'The Great Square of Heavenly Peace'. No state government could tolerate such a pointed humiliation before the eyes of the world one minute longer than was needed. In Beijing, as in Jakarta, the government was desperate to act quickly to end the international embarrassment: five days in the case of Jakarta, a few months in Beijing.
In China, however, moral anger was not so specific and deep as to awaken popular and middle class movements, as happened in Manila and Jakarta. Certainly, the Chinese students and urban masses' struggle for freedom was motivated by a general protest against a monopolistic communist regime. But Tienanmen lacked the great and specifically directed moral force manifested in the Philippines after the cold-blooded killing of the popular senator Benigno Aquino, and in Indonesia after the tragic death of students at Trisakti University in Jakarta.
Army
But if China's model lacks certain crucial ingredients, the role its armed forces played could have happened in Indonesia too. Indonesian opposition leader Amien Rais claimed that the reason he called off a mass gathering at the National Monument on the early morning of May 20th was that one Indonesian general had seriously warned him: 'We too can do a Tienanmen'. In the post-Suharto transition, uneasy and uncertain as it is, the 'Chinese way' remains a real threat.
Indonesia's Armed Forces (Abri) played a decisive, yet very cautious role. Lt-Gen Syarwan Hamid, as vice chairman of parliament, gave permission to the students to stage a big protest at the Senayan complex. He would not have done this without consent from the top.
However, top level Abri leaders only moved reactively during the crucial weeks in mid-May. Abri commander General Wiranto seemed to play a waiting game. He agreed to ask President Suharto to step down only after the people's protest had gathered momentum, and after some politicians - notably Coordinating Minister for Economy and Finance Ginanjar Kartasasmita, who had IMF leverage at his disposal - boycotted Suharto's last attempt to save his regime by reshuffling the cabinet.
With Suharto gone, Abri got its first chance in years to act independently. But General Wiranto, once Suharto's second longest serving aide, could only do so by trial and error. He did it with a lot of hesitation and, possibly, still under Suharto's shadowy influence. A worsening economic crisis did not help Abri to act decisively.
Rivalry
As a big ally and key powerholder during the three decades of Suharto rule, it was only natural that Abri should face an internal crisis in step with the national leadership crisis. As in the Philippines, People Power in Jakarta tended to intensify already existing military rivalries.
The racial riots and the burning of Jakarta on 13 and 14 May, following weeks of student protests, clearly suggested the intensity of those rivalries. Massive looting and burning left some 1200 dead. Hundreds of Indonesian-Chinese women were barbarically raped.
The tragedy was engineered, at least partly, by elements within the state, who hired hooligans known as preman from outside Jakarta. Some within the military elite clearly wanted to counter the reform movement by manipulating public frustration. They evidently hoped that, as in 1965 and early 1966, a strong man would arise out of the chaos to restore order, not necessarily to challenge the president immediately, but to open the way for a new leader with fresh legitimacy.
It became clear that Suharto's son-in-law Lt-Gen Prabowo Subianto, commander of the Army Strategic Reserve (Kostrad), had tried to gain power only a day after Suharto resigned. He had civilian allies among Muslim radicals associated with the group Kisdi.
However, General Wiranto called his bluff by hastily moving him from his command post to the staff college. Following this sudden demotion, Prabowo tried that same evening to move 'his' Kostrad men to the palace, apparently to pressure President Habibie into taking sides against Wiranto. But this attempt too failed.
It has also been confirmed that elements of Kopassus, a special corps then led by the same Prabowo, was responsible for the kidnapping of activists in March. The purpose was to ensure that Suharto was reappointed as president. The state terror in May -the Trisakti killings and the racial riots - should perhaps be interpreted as acts of the same military faction and its civilian allies to defend Suharto, or at least to manipulate his succession for their own purpose. So Prabowo was Jakarta's version of Gringo Honasan. Fortunately both failed. Although the Honasan-like game in Jakarta could not be played out openly, the essential ingredients, as in Manila, were there.
Both Honasan-like acts of state terrorism and the threat of massive Tienanmen-like reprisals will remain alive as long as the Habibie government or its successor fails to restore its domestic and international credibility and its ability to guarantee the people's basic needs.
Moreover, as soon as Suharto resigned, Abri made it clear it wanted to avoid a power vacuum, and that it continued to claim a stake in the national leadership. 'The most important prerequisite to reform is efficient and capable national leadership,' said Abri chief of Socio-political Affairs Lt-Gen Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently. The message was delivered before a thousand top military officers only a week after Prabowo's indisciplinary acts, the first such meeting since Wiranto took command.
More than anywhere else, pro-democratic civil society in Indonesia has to compete with the state apparatus to take the lead and decide on the agenda of reformasi.
East Germany
Lastly, Jakarta's May Revolution exposed weaknesses within Indonesia's own democratic movement. At the end of Annus Mirabilis, the European 'Year of Miracles' of 1989, a great number of students, joined by human rights- and church-affiliated organisations, marched in the East German cities of Leipzig and Dresden chanting Wir sind Das Volk (We Are The (sic!) People). This famous march led to the fall of Erich Honnecker's communist regime in East Germany. The call effectively targeted a regime that had claimed to be the only true representative of the people.
The call for 'Reformasi Total' from Senayan against a regime which refused to do real reform, could have had deeper effects - not only the fall of Suharto, but also real action to fulfil the needs of the people and to start a democratisation process as in East Germany. If only Jakarta's 'May Revolution' had not suffered so much from a Chinese-like imbalance between state and society, and from a Philippine Honasan-like internal military game.
Moreover as in Beijing, but unlike Manila and Leipzig, the pro-democracy movement in Jakarta lacked a solid political platform to lead the momentum of change. The student protest was too much insulated as 'a moral force'. The politicians were too divided, the masses too little organised, and the state leadership crisis in May resolved too quickly to allow People Power to present an alternative force.
No single power was able to carry the new legitimacy from Senayan to its full consequences. Jakarta's 'May Revolution' - including its weaknesses - was a direct consequence of Suharto's three decades of repressive policies.
Aboeprijadi Santoso is an Indonesian journalist based in Amsterdam. He watched closely the recent events in Jakarta, in Manila in 1986-87 and in Eastern Europe in 1989-90.
Inside Indonesia 56: Oct-Dec 1998
How did Jakarta in May compare with people movements against dictatorships elsewhere in world history?
Aboeprijadi Santoso
Analysts watching Indonesia in May were reminded of two models of change: the 1989 Chinese Tienanmen model and the 1986 Philippine People Power model. Some also thought of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The events in Jakarta turned out to be different to each of them. They were perhaps more bloody than in China. And unlike the total change in the Philippines, transition in Jakarta was quick, but less than total, and filled with tragedy.
In Tienanmen on June 4, 1989, the state's repressive apparatus used a heavy hand to resolve the crisis. The Chinese authorities managed to preserve the bases of the state, which had been challenged by the students. After making some changes within the elite, they restored stability while limiting further social and economic damage from the three month revolt. Despite five to seven years of diplomatic pain, at the end of the day, a monolithic regime was able to restore the status quo by bloodily crushing opposition forces.
Philippines
The People Power on the Edsa highway in Manila in February 1986, on the other hand, was the reverse of the Chinese solution. Popular anger against Marcos' dictatorship burst out at every social level. Mrs Corazon Aquino, widow of the popular assassinated senator Benigno Aquino, and Cardinal Jaime Sin provided political and spiritual leadership. The left wing National Democratic Front (NDF) and other movements provided popular opposition platforms. Marcos' decades of dictatorship had radicalised Philippine society. All that was needed to oust him were some generals to change sides. And this happened at a crucial moment when General Fidel Ramos did just that.
The People Power movement also opened up, and was soon threatened by, internal military rivalries and rebellions. The Rambo game of Colonel Gringo Honasan is the most well known example.
Both revolts were supported at least passively by most sections of society. But the mainly urban student revolt in China was too small and weak to face the state apparatus. In the Philippines, by contrast, the revolt was truly mass based, while the state apparatus was too weak and divided to act against it.
Mixed
Jakarta's 'May Revolution', as the student protests and the fall of Suharto are now called, contained mixed elements. As in China, the imbalance between the student movement and state apparatus in Indonesia was obvious. As in China too, the student rebellion was widely supported by society. However, the Indonesian state leadership - both before and after the fall of Suharto - suffered from a much more serious crisis than their counterparts in China.
The symbolism emanating from student power in Jakarta and Beijing provoked a quicker act of the state than it did in Manila. Like the Chinese, the Indonesian students chose the very locus of the power they challenged as their place of protest. Demonstrations at parliament house in Senayan, Jakarta, signified their opposition to what they saw as the illegitimacy of existing representative bodies. A similar protest at the National Monument had to be cancelled. The symbolism of the Indonesian student protests echoed among movements around the world - from Burma to Zimbabwe, Nigeria and elsewhere.
Much the same way, Chinese students seriously challenged the legitimacy of the 'Heavenly Peace Mandate' supposedly resting upon the government and parliament when they occupied Tienanmen, 'The Great Square of Heavenly Peace'. No state government could tolerate such a pointed humiliation before the eyes of the world one minute longer than was needed. In Beijing, as in Jakarta, the government was desperate to act quickly to end the international embarrassment: five days in the case of Jakarta, a few months in Beijing.
In China, however, moral anger was not so specific and deep as to awaken popular and middle class movements, as happened in Manila and Jakarta. Certainly, the Chinese students and urban masses' struggle for freedom was motivated by a general protest against a monopolistic communist regime. But Tienanmen lacked the great and specifically directed moral force manifested in the Philippines after the cold-blooded killing of the popular senator Benigno Aquino, and in Indonesia after the tragic death of students at Trisakti University in Jakarta.
Army
But if China's model lacks certain crucial ingredients, the role its armed forces played could have happened in Indonesia too. Indonesian opposition leader Amien Rais claimed that the reason he called off a mass gathering at the National Monument on the early morning of May 20th was that one Indonesian general had seriously warned him: 'We too can do a Tienanmen'. In the post-Suharto transition, uneasy and uncertain as it is, the 'Chinese way' remains a real threat.
Indonesia's Armed Forces (Abri) played a decisive, yet very cautious role. Lt-Gen Syarwan Hamid, as vice chairman of parliament, gave permission to the students to stage a big protest at the Senayan complex. He would not have done this without consent from the top.
However, top level Abri leaders only moved reactively during the crucial weeks in mid-May. Abri commander General Wiranto seemed to play a waiting game. He agreed to ask President Suharto to step down only after the people's protest had gathered momentum, and after some politicians - notably Coordinating Minister for Economy and Finance Ginanjar Kartasasmita, who had IMF leverage at his disposal - boycotted Suharto's last attempt to save his regime by reshuffling the cabinet.
With Suharto gone, Abri got its first chance in years to act independently. But General Wiranto, once Suharto's second longest serving aide, could only do so by trial and error. He did it with a lot of hesitation and, possibly, still under Suharto's shadowy influence. A worsening economic crisis did not help Abri to act decisively.
Rivalry
As a big ally and key powerholder during the three decades of Suharto rule, it was only natural that Abri should face an internal crisis in step with the national leadership crisis. As in the Philippines, People Power in Jakarta tended to intensify already existing military rivalries.
The racial riots and the burning of Jakarta on 13 and 14 May, following weeks of student protests, clearly suggested the intensity of those rivalries. Massive looting and burning left some 1200 dead. Hundreds of Indonesian-Chinese women were barbarically raped.
The tragedy was engineered, at least partly, by elements within the state, who hired hooligans known as preman from outside Jakarta. Some within the military elite clearly wanted to counter the reform movement by manipulating public frustration. They evidently hoped that, as in 1965 and early 1966, a strong man would arise out of the chaos to restore order, not necessarily to challenge the president immediately, but to open the way for a new leader with fresh legitimacy.
It became clear that Suharto's son-in-law Lt-Gen Prabowo Subianto, commander of the Army Strategic Reserve (Kostrad), had tried to gain power only a day after Suharto resigned. He had civilian allies among Muslim radicals associated with the group Kisdi.
However, General Wiranto called his bluff by hastily moving him from his command post to the staff college. Following this sudden demotion, Prabowo tried that same evening to move 'his' Kostrad men to the palace, apparently to pressure President Habibie into taking sides against Wiranto. But this attempt too failed.
It has also been confirmed that elements of Kopassus, a special corps then led by the same Prabowo, was responsible for the kidnapping of activists in March. The purpose was to ensure that Suharto was reappointed as president. The state terror in May -the Trisakti killings and the racial riots - should perhaps be interpreted as acts of the same military faction and its civilian allies to defend Suharto, or at least to manipulate his succession for their own purpose. So Prabowo was Jakarta's version of Gringo Honasan. Fortunately both failed. Although the Honasan-like game in Jakarta could not be played out openly, the essential ingredients, as in Manila, were there.
Both Honasan-like acts of state terrorism and the threat of massive Tienanmen-like reprisals will remain alive as long as the Habibie government or its successor fails to restore its domestic and international credibility and its ability to guarantee the people's basic needs.
Moreover, as soon as Suharto resigned, Abri made it clear it wanted to avoid a power vacuum, and that it continued to claim a stake in the national leadership. 'The most important prerequisite to reform is efficient and capable national leadership,' said Abri chief of Socio-political Affairs Lt-Gen Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently. The message was delivered before a thousand top military officers only a week after Prabowo's indisciplinary acts, the first such meeting since Wiranto took command.
More than anywhere else, pro-democratic civil society in Indonesia has to compete with the state apparatus to take the lead and decide on the agenda of reformasi.
East Germany
Lastly, Jakarta's May Revolution exposed weaknesses within Indonesia's own democratic movement. At the end of Annus Mirabilis, the European 'Year of Miracles' of 1989, a great number of students, joined by human rights- and church-affiliated organisations, marched in the East German cities of Leipzig and Dresden chanting Wir sind Das Volk (We Are The (sic!) People). This famous march led to the fall of Erich Honnecker's communist regime in East Germany. The call effectively targeted a regime that had claimed to be the only true representative of the people.
The call for 'Reformasi Total' from Senayan against a regime which refused to do real reform, could have had deeper effects - not only the fall of Suharto, but also real action to fulfil the needs of the people and to start a democratisation process as in East Germany. If only Jakarta's 'May Revolution' had not suffered so much from a Chinese-like imbalance between state and society, and from a Philippine Honasan-like internal military game.
Moreover as in Beijing, but unlike Manila and Leipzig, the pro-democracy movement in Jakarta lacked a solid political platform to lead the momentum of change. The student protest was too much insulated as 'a moral force'. The politicians were too divided, the masses too little organised, and the state leadership crisis in May resolved too quickly to allow People Power to present an alternative force.
No single power was able to carry the new legitimacy from Senayan to its full consequences. Jakarta's 'May Revolution' - including its weaknesses - was a direct consequence of Suharto's three decades of repressive policies.
Aboeprijadi Santoso is an Indonesian journalist based in Amsterdam. He watched closely the recent events in Jakarta, in Manila in 1986-87 and in Eastern Europe in 1989-90.
Inside Indonesia 56: Oct-Dec 1998
More educated, more ruthless
More educated, more ruthless
DAVID BOURCHIER looks at the new generation of military leaders, after a big shakeup between July and October 1997.
Indonesians found it hard to believe the headline in the afternoon papers: HARTONO REPLACES HARMOKO. Harmoko had sat in the cabinet as Information Minister for nearly fifteen years. As head of Golkar he had campaigned relentlessly and had just presided over the government's largest election victory ever.
The precipitous removal of Indonesia's second most prominent civilian politician came amidst growing signs that Suharto was also losing patience with Habibie, the country's best known civilian politician and presidential aspirant.
Suharto's new favourite is General Hartono, who until his 56th birthday in June this year was Indonesia's Army Chief. The strapping Madurese Muslim, popularly believed to be romantically involved with Suharto's daughter Tutut, was appointed to fill Harmoko's shoes as Information Minister. He is now also breathing down Habibie's neck at ICMI, the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association Habibie has headed since 1990.
Whatever future Suharto, and his increasingly influential daughter, may have in mind for Hartono, his surprise elevation to the cabinet and his widely publicised joining of ICMI have led to speculation that Suharto has mended his bridges with Abri and may once again be committed to ensuring that his successor comes from the military.
This is certainly what the military wants to believe. Yuwono Sudarsono, a political scientist second in charge at the Defence Department's National Defence Institute (Lemhanas), claimed in September there were no civilians with the leadership qualities required to run the country.
Who, then, are the current generation of military leaders and how did they get there?
Privilege of proximity
The most obvious pattern in the large scale rotations between July and October is that Suharto has again given trusted former adjutants and bodyguards with the important jobs.
The new Army Chief is Gen Wiranto, who served as Suharto's adjutant from 1989 to 1993. His new deputy, Lt-Gen Subagyo Hadi Siswoyo, served in the presidential security squad in the mid 1970s, and from 1988 to 1993 commanded Suharto's personal guard.
Wary of a coup, Suharto has also attempted to ensure that the key troop commands (the ones with the guns) are in safe hands.
His latest choice to head Kostrad, the 27,000 strong Army Strategic Command which Suharto used to seize control of Jakarta in 1965, is Lt-Gen Sugiono. The US-trained Sugiono was presidential adjutant from 1991 to 1995 and commanded Suharto's personal guard between 1995 and 1997.
Indonesia's most highly trained killers, the Kopassus 'red berets', remain under the command of Suharto's 46 year old son-in-law Maj-Gen Prabowo Subianto. Married to the president's daughter Titiek since 1983, Prabowo has a strong stake in the survival of the Suharto dynasty.
Day to day control of the Jakarta streets, meanwhile, has been entrusted to the man who headed Suharto's personal guard between 1993 and 1995, Maj-Gen Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin.
'Red and White' comeback?
The army's new number one, Gen Wiranto, spent most of his career as a Kostrad officer. He took part in many anti-insurgency operations, including at least one stint in East Timor in 1981.
Wiranto's term as a presidential adjutant put him on the fast track. After leaving the president's service in 1993 he climbed quickly from Chief of Staff of the Jakarta military region to Jakarta Military Commander and then to Kostrad Commander.
These positions - all in the capital - saw Wiranto extend his network to the Jakarta underworld. In 1995 he organised a rally of 15,000 'Cadre Upholders of Discipline', consisting largely of members of youth and strongarm organisations. Issuing them with ID cards, he unleashed them on Jakarta to create 'order' in public places.
His recent instruction to duplicate his example in towns and villages throughout the archipelago prompted fears that East Timor style state-sponsored thuggery is set to become a regular feature of Indonesian political life.
Politically, Wiranto is said to be aligned with the 'red and white' (nationalist, secular) military faction, which opposes the ambitions of ICMI under Habibie. His appointment might be read as an attempt by Suharto (and by Abri Commander Gen Feisal Tanjung) to wind back the influence of the ICMI camp.
Not long after Wiranto was appointed Army Chief, his protege Maj-Gen Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took up the strategic position of Abri Assistant for Social and Political Staff. The 'Sospol' staff are the military's main political managers.
Bambang Yudhoyono is the star of his 1973 Military Academy class. He recently commanded a multinational United Nations Military Observer force in Bosnia. Like Wiranto, he is said to be suspicious of political Islam, and is busy building alliances with like-minded military officers as well as with civilian intellectuals ranging from Christians associated with the newspaper Suara Pembaruan to the Muslim thinker Amien Rais.
Abri's Sospol also has a new chief, the sixth in as many years. Replacing the high profile Lt-Gen Syarwan Hamid in this powerful post is Maj-Gen Yunus Yusfiah, a Timor veteran known in Australia for leading the Kopassus assault on Balibo in which five Australian journalists were killed in October 1975.
Although Yunus has been described as a 'fighting animal', he demonstrated a keen interest in politics while in charge of the Abri Staff College between 1995 and 1997. His controversial invitation of Megawati to speak at the college suggests that his vision of Indonesia's future, like that of Wiranto and Bambang Yudhoyono, is more 'red and white' than 'green' (Muslim).
Suharto's long delay in issuing Yunus' letter of appointment may indicate that he was the military's candidate, not Suharto's. The test will come in the months ahead when the 75 military appointees to parliament, who are answerable to Yunus, reveal their candidate for vice president.
New generation
Slightly lower down the ladder are the ten regional military commanders, now dominated by officers aged between 47 and 50 who graduated from the Military Academy in the early 1970s. Most if not all of the current crop have served in East Timor. Many took part in the Operation Seroja invasion and the anti-population measures of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The hottest of the new generation of regional commanders is Maj-Gen Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, the 45 year old from Sulawesi who took up the highly strategic position of Greater Jakarta Military Commander in late August 1997.
A glance at Sjafrie's background provides a lesson in how to get ahead in the Indonesian military in the 1990s.
First, Sjafrie spent six years as part of Suharto's personal escort. He was his top bodyguard from 1993 until 1995, accompanying him to at least sixteen countries.
Second, he has spent the best part of his career in Kopassus, whose battle hardened 'tough guys' occupy a large and increasing number of positions in the regional commands and at Abri HQ.
Third, Sjafrie is highly trained, having earned himself - like a handful of other high fliers - an American MBA. He has also taken at least five specialist military courses in the US, including one on Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict which, according to Sjafrie, involved training by US Special Forces flown in from Peru on 'how to create terror'. Sjafrie topped his class.
A final plus for Sjafrie is that he is a mate of Prabowo, having shared a room with him while attending the Military Academy in Magelang. Most of Prabowo's known allies in the military have done well in the recent round of promotions. Probably the most important of these are Bambang Yudhoyono and Maj-Gen Zacky Anwar Makarim, head of Military Intelligence (BIA). Like Prabowo, both have extensive combat experience in East Timor and are regarded, within the army at least, as intellectuals.
Well connected
While it may be pointless to speculate, as Bob Lowry argues in this issue of Inside Indonesia, which particular officers will prevail in the post-Suharto era, a look at the rising military elite suggests some interesting trends. More professionally trained than their predecessors, they are also more educated, several holding degrees in management or business. Many are closely related to rich and influential civilian businesspeople. Apart from the obvious example of Prabowo, Zacky Anwar is the brother of Indonesia's highest paid corporate lawyer, and Maj-Gen Luhut Panjaitan, the new head of the Army Education and Training Command, is the brother in law of the wealthy economist and securities trader Syahrir.
Many officers, moreover, have taken part in international missions in Cambodia, Bosnia, the Philippines and the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s, exposing them to alternative military cultures.
But while these experiences may have given some a greater understanding of the economy and the outside world and reinforced their sense of belonging to the civilian elite, it does not appear to have made them any more sympathetic to democratic ideals.
The men in charge of the military have, after all, spent most of their careers fighting Indonesians, whether in Kalimantan, Lampung, Timor, Aceh or Irian Jaya. They are deeply imbued with the idea that the greatest threat to the state is from disloyal elements within the country. They see it as their role, as Sjafrie made clear in an October interview with Forum magazine, to watch the people very closely and to nip any trouble in the bud.
Perhaps the clearest manifestation of this attitude was the storming of the PDI headquarters on 27 July 1996 by thugs said to have been coordinated by precisely the men whose stars are now shining bright: Wiranto, Prabowo and Sjafrie, along with Jakarta's new mayor, Maj-Gen Sutiyoso, another former Timor commando with substantial underworld links.
Dr David Bourchier is a Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University, Perth.
Inside Indonesia 53: Jan-Mar 1998
DAVID BOURCHIER looks at the new generation of military leaders, after a big shakeup between July and October 1997.
Indonesians found it hard to believe the headline in the afternoon papers: HARTONO REPLACES HARMOKO. Harmoko had sat in the cabinet as Information Minister for nearly fifteen years. As head of Golkar he had campaigned relentlessly and had just presided over the government's largest election victory ever.
The precipitous removal of Indonesia's second most prominent civilian politician came amidst growing signs that Suharto was also losing patience with Habibie, the country's best known civilian politician and presidential aspirant.
Suharto's new favourite is General Hartono, who until his 56th birthday in June this year was Indonesia's Army Chief. The strapping Madurese Muslim, popularly believed to be romantically involved with Suharto's daughter Tutut, was appointed to fill Harmoko's shoes as Information Minister. He is now also breathing down Habibie's neck at ICMI, the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association Habibie has headed since 1990.
Whatever future Suharto, and his increasingly influential daughter, may have in mind for Hartono, his surprise elevation to the cabinet and his widely publicised joining of ICMI have led to speculation that Suharto has mended his bridges with Abri and may once again be committed to ensuring that his successor comes from the military.
This is certainly what the military wants to believe. Yuwono Sudarsono, a political scientist second in charge at the Defence Department's National Defence Institute (Lemhanas), claimed in September there were no civilians with the leadership qualities required to run the country.
Who, then, are the current generation of military leaders and how did they get there?
Privilege of proximity
The most obvious pattern in the large scale rotations between July and October is that Suharto has again given trusted former adjutants and bodyguards with the important jobs.
The new Army Chief is Gen Wiranto, who served as Suharto's adjutant from 1989 to 1993. His new deputy, Lt-Gen Subagyo Hadi Siswoyo, served in the presidential security squad in the mid 1970s, and from 1988 to 1993 commanded Suharto's personal guard.
Wary of a coup, Suharto has also attempted to ensure that the key troop commands (the ones with the guns) are in safe hands.
His latest choice to head Kostrad, the 27,000 strong Army Strategic Command which Suharto used to seize control of Jakarta in 1965, is Lt-Gen Sugiono. The US-trained Sugiono was presidential adjutant from 1991 to 1995 and commanded Suharto's personal guard between 1995 and 1997.
Indonesia's most highly trained killers, the Kopassus 'red berets', remain under the command of Suharto's 46 year old son-in-law Maj-Gen Prabowo Subianto. Married to the president's daughter Titiek since 1983, Prabowo has a strong stake in the survival of the Suharto dynasty.
Day to day control of the Jakarta streets, meanwhile, has been entrusted to the man who headed Suharto's personal guard between 1993 and 1995, Maj-Gen Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin.
'Red and White' comeback?
The army's new number one, Gen Wiranto, spent most of his career as a Kostrad officer. He took part in many anti-insurgency operations, including at least one stint in East Timor in 1981.
Wiranto's term as a presidential adjutant put him on the fast track. After leaving the president's service in 1993 he climbed quickly from Chief of Staff of the Jakarta military region to Jakarta Military Commander and then to Kostrad Commander.
These positions - all in the capital - saw Wiranto extend his network to the Jakarta underworld. In 1995 he organised a rally of 15,000 'Cadre Upholders of Discipline', consisting largely of members of youth and strongarm organisations. Issuing them with ID cards, he unleashed them on Jakarta to create 'order' in public places.
His recent instruction to duplicate his example in towns and villages throughout the archipelago prompted fears that East Timor style state-sponsored thuggery is set to become a regular feature of Indonesian political life.
Politically, Wiranto is said to be aligned with the 'red and white' (nationalist, secular) military faction, which opposes the ambitions of ICMI under Habibie. His appointment might be read as an attempt by Suharto (and by Abri Commander Gen Feisal Tanjung) to wind back the influence of the ICMI camp.
Not long after Wiranto was appointed Army Chief, his protege Maj-Gen Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took up the strategic position of Abri Assistant for Social and Political Staff. The 'Sospol' staff are the military's main political managers.
Bambang Yudhoyono is the star of his 1973 Military Academy class. He recently commanded a multinational United Nations Military Observer force in Bosnia. Like Wiranto, he is said to be suspicious of political Islam, and is busy building alliances with like-minded military officers as well as with civilian intellectuals ranging from Christians associated with the newspaper Suara Pembaruan to the Muslim thinker Amien Rais.
Abri's Sospol also has a new chief, the sixth in as many years. Replacing the high profile Lt-Gen Syarwan Hamid in this powerful post is Maj-Gen Yunus Yusfiah, a Timor veteran known in Australia for leading the Kopassus assault on Balibo in which five Australian journalists were killed in October 1975.
Although Yunus has been described as a 'fighting animal', he demonstrated a keen interest in politics while in charge of the Abri Staff College between 1995 and 1997. His controversial invitation of Megawati to speak at the college suggests that his vision of Indonesia's future, like that of Wiranto and Bambang Yudhoyono, is more 'red and white' than 'green' (Muslim).
Suharto's long delay in issuing Yunus' letter of appointment may indicate that he was the military's candidate, not Suharto's. The test will come in the months ahead when the 75 military appointees to parliament, who are answerable to Yunus, reveal their candidate for vice president.
New generation
Slightly lower down the ladder are the ten regional military commanders, now dominated by officers aged between 47 and 50 who graduated from the Military Academy in the early 1970s. Most if not all of the current crop have served in East Timor. Many took part in the Operation Seroja invasion and the anti-population measures of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The hottest of the new generation of regional commanders is Maj-Gen Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, the 45 year old from Sulawesi who took up the highly strategic position of Greater Jakarta Military Commander in late August 1997.
A glance at Sjafrie's background provides a lesson in how to get ahead in the Indonesian military in the 1990s.
First, Sjafrie spent six years as part of Suharto's personal escort. He was his top bodyguard from 1993 until 1995, accompanying him to at least sixteen countries.
Second, he has spent the best part of his career in Kopassus, whose battle hardened 'tough guys' occupy a large and increasing number of positions in the regional commands and at Abri HQ.
Third, Sjafrie is highly trained, having earned himself - like a handful of other high fliers - an American MBA. He has also taken at least five specialist military courses in the US, including one on Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict which, according to Sjafrie, involved training by US Special Forces flown in from Peru on 'how to create terror'. Sjafrie topped his class.
A final plus for Sjafrie is that he is a mate of Prabowo, having shared a room with him while attending the Military Academy in Magelang. Most of Prabowo's known allies in the military have done well in the recent round of promotions. Probably the most important of these are Bambang Yudhoyono and Maj-Gen Zacky Anwar Makarim, head of Military Intelligence (BIA). Like Prabowo, both have extensive combat experience in East Timor and are regarded, within the army at least, as intellectuals.
Well connected
While it may be pointless to speculate, as Bob Lowry argues in this issue of Inside Indonesia, which particular officers will prevail in the post-Suharto era, a look at the rising military elite suggests some interesting trends. More professionally trained than their predecessors, they are also more educated, several holding degrees in management or business. Many are closely related to rich and influential civilian businesspeople. Apart from the obvious example of Prabowo, Zacky Anwar is the brother of Indonesia's highest paid corporate lawyer, and Maj-Gen Luhut Panjaitan, the new head of the Army Education and Training Command, is the brother in law of the wealthy economist and securities trader Syahrir.
Many officers, moreover, have taken part in international missions in Cambodia, Bosnia, the Philippines and the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s, exposing them to alternative military cultures.
But while these experiences may have given some a greater understanding of the economy and the outside world and reinforced their sense of belonging to the civilian elite, it does not appear to have made them any more sympathetic to democratic ideals.
The men in charge of the military have, after all, spent most of their careers fighting Indonesians, whether in Kalimantan, Lampung, Timor, Aceh or Irian Jaya. They are deeply imbued with the idea that the greatest threat to the state is from disloyal elements within the country. They see it as their role, as Sjafrie made clear in an October interview with Forum magazine, to watch the people very closely and to nip any trouble in the bud.
Perhaps the clearest manifestation of this attitude was the storming of the PDI headquarters on 27 July 1996 by thugs said to have been coordinated by precisely the men whose stars are now shining bright: Wiranto, Prabowo and Sjafrie, along with Jakarta's new mayor, Maj-Gen Sutiyoso, another former Timor commando with substantial underworld links.
Dr David Bourchier is a Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University, Perth.
Inside Indonesia 53: Jan-Mar 1998
Dayak anger ignored
Dayak anger ignored
MICHAEL DOVE traces Dayak unhappiness to inequities in state development.
The recent so-called 'ethnic conflicts' between Dayak and Madurese in West Kalimantan are a classic example of economic tensions manifested as ethnic tensions. For three decades, the province's indigenous Dayak have seen their natural resource base steadily eroded by New Order development policies that privileged a national entrepreneurial class over local communities. Vast amounts of Dayak lands and forests have been destroyed or appropriated for logging concessions, rubber and oil-palm plantations, pulp plantations, and transmigration sites.
To the extent that the Madurese have participated in these appropriations, it has also been as victims, namely as participants in poorly designed transmigration schemes. The unfortunate spectacle of victims of wider political-economic forces pitted against one another instead of against their true oppressors is not new. It has characterised ethnic violence in the American South and in America's inner cities.
Plantations
My purpose here is to look at the impact of the plantation model of development in West Kalimantan. This analysis is based primarily on surveys that I carried out in the early 1980s, when many large plantation projects were being developed in the very same areas that became centres of ethnic violence in the 1990s.
Many of Indonesia's plantations date from Dutch colonial enterprises that were nationalised in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Today, most plantations are para-statal organisations, that is, directly or indirectly controlled by the state. Among them are the government plantation corporation Perusahaan Negara Perkebunan, and the semi-private Perusahaan Terbatas Perkebunan. The development of these para-statal organisations is the result of a wider effort by regional governments to exercise more direct and personal control of valuable commodity production. Para-statal enterprises play a significant role in the 'crony capitalism' that has been so important in the development of Southeast Asia's modern economies.
Equity
The drive by the Indonesian government, helped by international creditors like the World Bank, to develop these para-statal enterprises was stimulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s by projections of steadily decreasing oil and gas exports, and hence by the concern to develop alternate sources of foreign exchange.
When international observers raised questions of socio-economic equity regarding this commitment of national and international capital to the plantation sector, some smallholder programs were developed. One of these, called the People's Nucleus Estate (Perkebunan Inti Rakyat), consists of private smallholdings clustered around, and selling produce to, a nucleus government estate.
Beginning in the 1980s, some of these estates were developed in conjunction with outer island transmigration schemes. The hope was that such schemes would not only produce exportable commodities but would also promote social equity, regional development, and the transmigration of Java's population.
Conflict
The nucleus estate projects proved to be highly problematic. There was conflict between the estates and local communities, especially over the issue of land compensation. Most projects were developed on land consisting of swidden fallows, groves of fruit trees, and rubber gardens developed and claimed by local communities. When such lands were appropriated for nucleus estate projects, the claimants were hard-pressed to obtain any compensation from the estate. Compensation was routinely inadequate and long in coming, if it ever did.
If the claimant joined the estate project as a smallholder, even this chance of partial compensation was generally ruled out, on the grounds that participation in the project was sufficient compensation in itself. The problem with this reasoning lies in the government loans that each farmer had to assume as a condition of project participation (to cover the cost of investment in their share of the project infrastructure).
Loan
The size of the loan was the same for the local farmer, whose (say) 5-10 hectares of land were appropriated for the project, as it was for the transmigrant from Java or Bali who brought nothing to the project. The inequity of this lack of differentiation predisposed some local farmers against participation in these projects. And it lessened the commitment of those who did participate to repay their loans.
Even in the absence of problems with local communities, many nucleus estate schemes foundered on their own internal economics or ecology. In some cases, mortality rates for the high-yielding rubber clones provided by the estates averaged as high as 70 percent. In spite of this, the government still insists on full repayment of the loan that was provided to the participants to purchase these clones in the first place. Such problems mean that actual earnings average less than ten percent of official projections, forcing participants into migrant labour or even prostitution to stave off hunger.
Managers
Other problems with the nucleus estates involve labour and production relations between the estate and the smallholders. The plantation managers want the Dayak to be completely dependent on the plantation, to facilitate the mobilisation of labour on the plantation's own terms. But they do not want the plantation to be completely responsible for reproducing the conditions of the Dayak' existence, such as housing and social security, in addition to reasonable hours and wages.
The Dayak, on the other hand, want the reverse. They want the plantations to make more commitments to them and assume more responsibility for their welfare. But they still do not want to become completely dependent upon the plantations.
This difference in views is reflected in the rhetoric of the two sides. The plantation managers complain that the Dayak are not always ready and willing to work in the plantations, and the Dayak complain that the work is not always available when they want it. The managers worry that the alternate sources of income available to the Dayak give the latter too much independence, and the Dayak worry that if they lose these sources (dry-rice fields and rubber smallholdings) they will have too little independence.
Expertise
Perhaps the greatest flaw in the design of the nucleus estate projects is the studied way it ignores the successful experience of rubber smallholders over the previous three-quarters of a century. The nucleus estate projects were designed to take advantage, not of smallholder but of estate experience.
There was no conception whatsoever of the existence of other, more relevant repositories of expertise, such as among the rubber smallholders, because this would have opened to question the captive orientation of the smallholdings toward the state nucleus plantation.
This orientation toward the state plantations is, in fact, less a function of the smallholders' need for plantation expertise than of the plantation's need to publicly represent a smallholder need for plantation expertise that legitimates their control of smallholder cultivation.
The commitment of vast state resources to the development of this experimental and problematic form of cash crop cultivation, in the process ignoring existing and historically successful forms of smallholder cultivation, is a striking example of a state privileging political over economic considerations in what is supposed to be development policy.
Feedback ignored
The negative impact of para-statal plantation agriculture upon the local Dayak communities has been exacerbated by a bureaucratic tradition that is strongly averse to feedback from local communities to state managers and planners. This is especially the case for critical feedback delivered directly to the person responsible. Public demonstrations of Dayak unhappiness with plantation policies are termed mental terrorism (teror mental) and evoke near-hysteria among planters.
The implication is that any plantation worker with a complaint should, at most, make it to his immediate superior. The latter may then pass it on to his immediate superior, and so on, until - and if - the upper levels of plantation management and government are reached. This hierarchical structure shields upper-level officials from contact with the Dayak who bear the consequences of their management decisions. It thereby shields their views of Dayak from confrontation with a contrary Dayak reality.
World Bank
Para-statal plantation agriculture in West Kalimantan was developed in collaboration with international lenders like the World Bank, and does indeed look good on paper. In practice, however, plantation projects proved to be essentially an efficient mechanism for separating the local communities from their natural resource base and also from the full products of their own daily labour.
There is a record of Dayak unhappiness with and protest against this mode of production and extraction that extends back at least to the early 1980s. And there is a similar record of inequitable impacts and Dayak protest in the logging and pulp sector.
However, institutional norms for suppressing information on the deleterious consequences of official policies permitted the national government to continue to think that it was carrying out 'development' when in fact it was engaged in 'under-development.' The current ethnic violence in West Kalimantan is the tragic legacy of this policy.
Fifteen years ago in West Kalimantan, while I was studying Dayak disputes over a nucleus estate project near Sanggau, a traditional Dayak leader (temenggung) told me: 'As long as everyone profits the same and works the same, there is no one who will not want to cooperate with the plantation program'.
His gist was that all will be well if development in the province is carried out with equity and justice. The corollary, of course, is that if development is not carried out with equity and justice, all will not be well.
Michael R. Dove is the director of the Program on Environment at the East-West Center, Hawaii.
Inside Indonesia 51: Jul-Sep 1997
MICHAEL DOVE traces Dayak unhappiness to inequities in state development.
The recent so-called 'ethnic conflicts' between Dayak and Madurese in West Kalimantan are a classic example of economic tensions manifested as ethnic tensions. For three decades, the province's indigenous Dayak have seen their natural resource base steadily eroded by New Order development policies that privileged a national entrepreneurial class over local communities. Vast amounts of Dayak lands and forests have been destroyed or appropriated for logging concessions, rubber and oil-palm plantations, pulp plantations, and transmigration sites.
To the extent that the Madurese have participated in these appropriations, it has also been as victims, namely as participants in poorly designed transmigration schemes. The unfortunate spectacle of victims of wider political-economic forces pitted against one another instead of against their true oppressors is not new. It has characterised ethnic violence in the American South and in America's inner cities.
Plantations
My purpose here is to look at the impact of the plantation model of development in West Kalimantan. This analysis is based primarily on surveys that I carried out in the early 1980s, when many large plantation projects were being developed in the very same areas that became centres of ethnic violence in the 1990s.
Many of Indonesia's plantations date from Dutch colonial enterprises that were nationalised in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Today, most plantations are para-statal organisations, that is, directly or indirectly controlled by the state. Among them are the government plantation corporation Perusahaan Negara Perkebunan, and the semi-private Perusahaan Terbatas Perkebunan. The development of these para-statal organisations is the result of a wider effort by regional governments to exercise more direct and personal control of valuable commodity production. Para-statal enterprises play a significant role in the 'crony capitalism' that has been so important in the development of Southeast Asia's modern economies.
Equity
The drive by the Indonesian government, helped by international creditors like the World Bank, to develop these para-statal enterprises was stimulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s by projections of steadily decreasing oil and gas exports, and hence by the concern to develop alternate sources of foreign exchange.
When international observers raised questions of socio-economic equity regarding this commitment of national and international capital to the plantation sector, some smallholder programs were developed. One of these, called the People's Nucleus Estate (Perkebunan Inti Rakyat), consists of private smallholdings clustered around, and selling produce to, a nucleus government estate.
Beginning in the 1980s, some of these estates were developed in conjunction with outer island transmigration schemes. The hope was that such schemes would not only produce exportable commodities but would also promote social equity, regional development, and the transmigration of Java's population.
Conflict
The nucleus estate projects proved to be highly problematic. There was conflict between the estates and local communities, especially over the issue of land compensation. Most projects were developed on land consisting of swidden fallows, groves of fruit trees, and rubber gardens developed and claimed by local communities. When such lands were appropriated for nucleus estate projects, the claimants were hard-pressed to obtain any compensation from the estate. Compensation was routinely inadequate and long in coming, if it ever did.
If the claimant joined the estate project as a smallholder, even this chance of partial compensation was generally ruled out, on the grounds that participation in the project was sufficient compensation in itself. The problem with this reasoning lies in the government loans that each farmer had to assume as a condition of project participation (to cover the cost of investment in their share of the project infrastructure).
Loan
The size of the loan was the same for the local farmer, whose (say) 5-10 hectares of land were appropriated for the project, as it was for the transmigrant from Java or Bali who brought nothing to the project. The inequity of this lack of differentiation predisposed some local farmers against participation in these projects. And it lessened the commitment of those who did participate to repay their loans.
Even in the absence of problems with local communities, many nucleus estate schemes foundered on their own internal economics or ecology. In some cases, mortality rates for the high-yielding rubber clones provided by the estates averaged as high as 70 percent. In spite of this, the government still insists on full repayment of the loan that was provided to the participants to purchase these clones in the first place. Such problems mean that actual earnings average less than ten percent of official projections, forcing participants into migrant labour or even prostitution to stave off hunger.
Managers
Other problems with the nucleus estates involve labour and production relations between the estate and the smallholders. The plantation managers want the Dayak to be completely dependent on the plantation, to facilitate the mobilisation of labour on the plantation's own terms. But they do not want the plantation to be completely responsible for reproducing the conditions of the Dayak' existence, such as housing and social security, in addition to reasonable hours and wages.
The Dayak, on the other hand, want the reverse. They want the plantations to make more commitments to them and assume more responsibility for their welfare. But they still do not want to become completely dependent upon the plantations.
This difference in views is reflected in the rhetoric of the two sides. The plantation managers complain that the Dayak are not always ready and willing to work in the plantations, and the Dayak complain that the work is not always available when they want it. The managers worry that the alternate sources of income available to the Dayak give the latter too much independence, and the Dayak worry that if they lose these sources (dry-rice fields and rubber smallholdings) they will have too little independence.
Expertise
Perhaps the greatest flaw in the design of the nucleus estate projects is the studied way it ignores the successful experience of rubber smallholders over the previous three-quarters of a century. The nucleus estate projects were designed to take advantage, not of smallholder but of estate experience.
There was no conception whatsoever of the existence of other, more relevant repositories of expertise, such as among the rubber smallholders, because this would have opened to question the captive orientation of the smallholdings toward the state nucleus plantation.
This orientation toward the state plantations is, in fact, less a function of the smallholders' need for plantation expertise than of the plantation's need to publicly represent a smallholder need for plantation expertise that legitimates their control of smallholder cultivation.
The commitment of vast state resources to the development of this experimental and problematic form of cash crop cultivation, in the process ignoring existing and historically successful forms of smallholder cultivation, is a striking example of a state privileging political over economic considerations in what is supposed to be development policy.
Feedback ignored
The negative impact of para-statal plantation agriculture upon the local Dayak communities has been exacerbated by a bureaucratic tradition that is strongly averse to feedback from local communities to state managers and planners. This is especially the case for critical feedback delivered directly to the person responsible. Public demonstrations of Dayak unhappiness with plantation policies are termed mental terrorism (teror mental) and evoke near-hysteria among planters.
The implication is that any plantation worker with a complaint should, at most, make it to his immediate superior. The latter may then pass it on to his immediate superior, and so on, until - and if - the upper levels of plantation management and government are reached. This hierarchical structure shields upper-level officials from contact with the Dayak who bear the consequences of their management decisions. It thereby shields their views of Dayak from confrontation with a contrary Dayak reality.
World Bank
Para-statal plantation agriculture in West Kalimantan was developed in collaboration with international lenders like the World Bank, and does indeed look good on paper. In practice, however, plantation projects proved to be essentially an efficient mechanism for separating the local communities from their natural resource base and also from the full products of their own daily labour.
There is a record of Dayak unhappiness with and protest against this mode of production and extraction that extends back at least to the early 1980s. And there is a similar record of inequitable impacts and Dayak protest in the logging and pulp sector.
However, institutional norms for suppressing information on the deleterious consequences of official policies permitted the national government to continue to think that it was carrying out 'development' when in fact it was engaged in 'under-development.' The current ethnic violence in West Kalimantan is the tragic legacy of this policy.
Fifteen years ago in West Kalimantan, while I was studying Dayak disputes over a nucleus estate project near Sanggau, a traditional Dayak leader (temenggung) told me: 'As long as everyone profits the same and works the same, there is no one who will not want to cooperate with the plantation program'.
His gist was that all will be well if development in the province is carried out with equity and justice. The corollary, of course, is that if development is not carried out with equity and justice, all will not be well.
Michael R. Dove is the director of the Program on Environment at the East-West Center, Hawaii.
Inside Indonesia 51: Jul-Sep 1997
The peace dividend With no internal wars to fight, Yudhoyono can afford to reform the military.
The peace dividend
With no internal wars to fight, Yudhoyono can afford to reform the military.
Jun Honna
A decade after the fall of Suharto, the Indonesian military is facing a historically unprecedented moment. Peace has broken out and there is no internal warfare. What does ‘peace’ mean for TNI (the Indonesian military), and for civil-military relations?
Since the independence war of 1945-49, a number of struggles for territorial integrity have strengthened the military’s voice in government. During the 1950s, the military expanded its influence in the Sukarno government after defeating rebellions in Sulawesi and Sumatra. In the early 1960s, it was involved in the anti-Malaysian ‘konfrontasi’ (confrontation) and in Irian Jaya (now Papua). In the 1970s, the military invaded East Timor. In the 1980s, it expanded counter-insurgency operations in Aceh. A history of counter-insurgency helped militarise Indonesia’s political system, and politicised the military.
Even after the fall of Suharto in May 1998 and the arrival of democracy, the TNI was busy with domestic ‘wars’. In 1999, it sought to derail the independence of East Timor, and pursued a scorched earth policy when that failed. A few years later, the TNI shifted its attention to Aceh, pressuring civilian political leaders to introduce a state of military emergency in the region in order to crush separatists. Again, combat operations did not solve the problem. The breakthrough leading to Aceh’s peace settlement came as a result of civilian negotiations after the tsunami disaster of 2004.
Today, under the Yudhoyono government in power since 2004, the TNI is hard-pressed to invoke credible threats of national disintegration. Questions about its mission are increasingly urgent. The generals say they are targeting ‘terrorists’. The TNI also asserts that Papua has the potential to be the next East Timor. However, the political leaders running the country mostly do not support these claims. They understand that terrorism and Papua are political problems needing political solutions, not military force.
The TNI is hard-pressed to invoke credible threats of national disintegration. Questions about its mission are increasingly urgent.
With the end of armed conflict in Indonesia after sixty years of independence, the question is: has the moment arrived to transform the TNI into a modern, conventional armed forces organisation, without provoking a backlash? Is there a peace dividend, and how will it be realised? Can the Yudhoyono presidency use this opportunity to promote military reforms? How is the TNI responding to the new internal stability, which so radically challenges its self-proclaimed raison d’être?
The TNI has long claimed to be the main ‘guardian’ of the unified republic (NKRI, Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia). It emphasised this logic to influence Sukarno’s leadership, to dominate politics during the 32 years of the Suharto era, and to deflect pressure for change under successive post-Suharto governments. The pretext of preventing national disintegration has always bolstered TNI’s political autonomy. Military officers invoked that pretext in order to perpetuate impunity for abusive military actions. But the Aceh peace of 2005 has made it more difficult for the TNI to sustain this pretext. This, more than anything else, has placed fresh pressure on the military to accept reforms that would lead to democratic control over the military as an institution.
Limited commitment
During a decade of post-Suharto reformasi, the TNI has not enthusiastically embraced internal reforms designed to end its ascendancy over political institutions. Even so, there have been some important changes. In 1998, soon after the fall of Suharto, the TNI introduced new policy guidelines withdrawing its support from Golkar, the ruling party during the Suharto era. It also declared an end to day-to-day involvement in politics and scrapped military offices which dealt with socio-political affairs at both the national and local levels. In 1999, the police force was split from the military; it assumed responsibility for handling internal security, leaving the TNI to concentrate on ‘defence’ matters. Confirming these new arrangements, a national defence law was enacted in 2002, and the long-awaited TNI law was enacted in 2004. Both laws sought to rein in the military’s political activism as a step toward recasting military–civilian relations.
However, these reforms have not been sufficiently reinforced by efforts to develop effective civilian control over security sector agencies, including the military and the police. As a result, the TNI retains considerable autonomy in relation to budgeting and defence policy. There has also been little progress in holding TNI officers accountable for human rights atrocities they have committed.
If the official budget is too small, the military needs to streamline its organisation, not engage in self-financing beyond government scrutiny.
The TNI’s budget is a central problem. Traditionally, a large share of military income has been self-generated, coming from regular business activities and from illegal activities such as protection rackets and smuggling. Military leaders counter civilian pressure to end such activities by insisting that the government is unable to provide sufficient funds to meet military needs. They thus ignore the democratic principle that it is the elected civilian political authority, and not the military, who decide the country’s defence outlook, including the size and mission of the state apparatus. If the official budget is too small, the military needs to streamline its organisation, not engage in self-financing beyond government scrutiny. Civilian leaders seem unwilling to impose such a principle of accountable governance on the TNI, perhaps fearing the military’s response.
The problem of defence policy is typified by the debate about the territorial command structure. The majority of the more than 200,000 army personnel are serving under twelve territorial commands that cover the country from Aceh to Papua and that reach down to the village level. This system was designed to fight a guerrilla war against the Dutch, but the Suharto government transformed its mission into an ongoing nation-wide campaign to suppress opposition to the regime. In the post-Suharto era there have been many calls to eliminate the territorial commands so that the TNI can concentrate on external defence. But the generals have resisted this idea, asserting that the territorial commands remain useful. They have repeatedly insisted that the country’s police force remains inadequate to the tasks it is responsible for and still needs TNI support in case of serious security disturbances. It is true that the police were unable to stop the eruption of post-Suharto ethnic and religious conflicts around the archipelago. This poor record helped neutralise reform pressures on the territorial command system. The military’s assertions about ‘incapable police’ in conflict areas may have some basis, but they hardly justify continuing the old system in the non-conflict areas where most people live. Here too, civilian political leaders are vulnerable to military manipulation and are unable to assert their will in the face of military opposition.
Beyond appearances
Asserting civilian control in practice requires political support, leadership and, of course, good timing. It also depends on military cooperation, or at least acquiescence. Right now is a good time to take civilian control beyond mere appearances. First, an unprecedented absence of internal conflict has robbed the military of its ‘saving the NKRI’ pretext. Second, Indonesia’s first direct presidential election has given President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono an unmatched popular mandate. He has a strong hand to play, and could exercise leadership in furthering military reform.
Third, personal ties within the elite at present favour reform efforts, provided the government has the will. The current TNI leadership is loyal to Yudhoyono. In December 2007 he slotted two former subordinates into the top TNI positions. Djoko Santoso became armed forces commander, and Agustadi Purnomo became army chief. The trio shared younger days in the elite paratroop brigade of the army strategic reserve command. Yudhoyono was the first to graduate from the academy, in 1973; Purnomo followed in 1974 and Santoso in 1975. They were all involved in counter-insurgency operations in East Timor, albeit in low-profile roles. All three have political experience. In 1999 Yudhoyono, as the TNI chief of territorial affairs, struggled with civilian demands for military reform. Santoso supported him as his direct assistant, and Purnomo as a member of the TNI faction in parliament. The trio’s close relationship assures Yudhoyono of the loyalty of the current TNI leadership.
Right now is a good moment to take civilian control beyond mere appearances.
The present circumstances are conducive to the taking of significant steps towards effective civilian control, and towards improving TNI’s budgetary and policy accountability. No other post-Suharto president has ever enjoyed such favourable conditions for transforming the Indonesian military into a peace-time defence organisation under civilian control.
Is Yudhoyono willing to play this historical role? It depends on how he gauges his re-election prospects next year. If he sees adopting the mantle of reform as the key to boosting votes, it is not impossible that he may press ahead with reform initiatives. If, on the other hand, he thinks ‘friendship’ with the military is more crucial to his re-election, he may avoid any initiatives that might provoke TNI. This could happen out of fear that his competitors, such as the retired generals Sutiyoso and Wiranto, who are both his military seniors, may mobilise TNI support for their political campaigns. Will Yudhoyono seize the moment, or will he play it safe? Experience suggests he will act cautiously, carefully weighing the political merits of asserting civilian control. But if he faces stiff competition from credible civilians, he will be more likely to play his populist card and make significant gestures towards extending military reform. ii
Jun Honna (junhonna@gmail.com ) teaches at the Faculty of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. He is the author of Military politics and democratization in Indonesia (London, 2003).
Inside Indonesia 92: Apr-Jun 2008
With no internal wars to fight, Yudhoyono can afford to reform the military.
Jun Honna
A decade after the fall of Suharto, the Indonesian military is facing a historically unprecedented moment. Peace has broken out and there is no internal warfare. What does ‘peace’ mean for TNI (the Indonesian military), and for civil-military relations?
Since the independence war of 1945-49, a number of struggles for territorial integrity have strengthened the military’s voice in government. During the 1950s, the military expanded its influence in the Sukarno government after defeating rebellions in Sulawesi and Sumatra. In the early 1960s, it was involved in the anti-Malaysian ‘konfrontasi’ (confrontation) and in Irian Jaya (now Papua). In the 1970s, the military invaded East Timor. In the 1980s, it expanded counter-insurgency operations in Aceh. A history of counter-insurgency helped militarise Indonesia’s political system, and politicised the military.
Even after the fall of Suharto in May 1998 and the arrival of democracy, the TNI was busy with domestic ‘wars’. In 1999, it sought to derail the independence of East Timor, and pursued a scorched earth policy when that failed. A few years later, the TNI shifted its attention to Aceh, pressuring civilian political leaders to introduce a state of military emergency in the region in order to crush separatists. Again, combat operations did not solve the problem. The breakthrough leading to Aceh’s peace settlement came as a result of civilian negotiations after the tsunami disaster of 2004.
Today, under the Yudhoyono government in power since 2004, the TNI is hard-pressed to invoke credible threats of national disintegration. Questions about its mission are increasingly urgent. The generals say they are targeting ‘terrorists’. The TNI also asserts that Papua has the potential to be the next East Timor. However, the political leaders running the country mostly do not support these claims. They understand that terrorism and Papua are political problems needing political solutions, not military force.
The TNI is hard-pressed to invoke credible threats of national disintegration. Questions about its mission are increasingly urgent.
With the end of armed conflict in Indonesia after sixty years of independence, the question is: has the moment arrived to transform the TNI into a modern, conventional armed forces organisation, without provoking a backlash? Is there a peace dividend, and how will it be realised? Can the Yudhoyono presidency use this opportunity to promote military reforms? How is the TNI responding to the new internal stability, which so radically challenges its self-proclaimed raison d’être?
The TNI has long claimed to be the main ‘guardian’ of the unified republic (NKRI, Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia). It emphasised this logic to influence Sukarno’s leadership, to dominate politics during the 32 years of the Suharto era, and to deflect pressure for change under successive post-Suharto governments. The pretext of preventing national disintegration has always bolstered TNI’s political autonomy. Military officers invoked that pretext in order to perpetuate impunity for abusive military actions. But the Aceh peace of 2005 has made it more difficult for the TNI to sustain this pretext. This, more than anything else, has placed fresh pressure on the military to accept reforms that would lead to democratic control over the military as an institution.
Limited commitment
During a decade of post-Suharto reformasi, the TNI has not enthusiastically embraced internal reforms designed to end its ascendancy over political institutions. Even so, there have been some important changes. In 1998, soon after the fall of Suharto, the TNI introduced new policy guidelines withdrawing its support from Golkar, the ruling party during the Suharto era. It also declared an end to day-to-day involvement in politics and scrapped military offices which dealt with socio-political affairs at both the national and local levels. In 1999, the police force was split from the military; it assumed responsibility for handling internal security, leaving the TNI to concentrate on ‘defence’ matters. Confirming these new arrangements, a national defence law was enacted in 2002, and the long-awaited TNI law was enacted in 2004. Both laws sought to rein in the military’s political activism as a step toward recasting military–civilian relations.
However, these reforms have not been sufficiently reinforced by efforts to develop effective civilian control over security sector agencies, including the military and the police. As a result, the TNI retains considerable autonomy in relation to budgeting and defence policy. There has also been little progress in holding TNI officers accountable for human rights atrocities they have committed.
If the official budget is too small, the military needs to streamline its organisation, not engage in self-financing beyond government scrutiny.
The TNI’s budget is a central problem. Traditionally, a large share of military income has been self-generated, coming from regular business activities and from illegal activities such as protection rackets and smuggling. Military leaders counter civilian pressure to end such activities by insisting that the government is unable to provide sufficient funds to meet military needs. They thus ignore the democratic principle that it is the elected civilian political authority, and not the military, who decide the country’s defence outlook, including the size and mission of the state apparatus. If the official budget is too small, the military needs to streamline its organisation, not engage in self-financing beyond government scrutiny. Civilian leaders seem unwilling to impose such a principle of accountable governance on the TNI, perhaps fearing the military’s response.
The problem of defence policy is typified by the debate about the territorial command structure. The majority of the more than 200,000 army personnel are serving under twelve territorial commands that cover the country from Aceh to Papua and that reach down to the village level. This system was designed to fight a guerrilla war against the Dutch, but the Suharto government transformed its mission into an ongoing nation-wide campaign to suppress opposition to the regime. In the post-Suharto era there have been many calls to eliminate the territorial commands so that the TNI can concentrate on external defence. But the generals have resisted this idea, asserting that the territorial commands remain useful. They have repeatedly insisted that the country’s police force remains inadequate to the tasks it is responsible for and still needs TNI support in case of serious security disturbances. It is true that the police were unable to stop the eruption of post-Suharto ethnic and religious conflicts around the archipelago. This poor record helped neutralise reform pressures on the territorial command system. The military’s assertions about ‘incapable police’ in conflict areas may have some basis, but they hardly justify continuing the old system in the non-conflict areas where most people live. Here too, civilian political leaders are vulnerable to military manipulation and are unable to assert their will in the face of military opposition.
Beyond appearances
Asserting civilian control in practice requires political support, leadership and, of course, good timing. It also depends on military cooperation, or at least acquiescence. Right now is a good time to take civilian control beyond mere appearances. First, an unprecedented absence of internal conflict has robbed the military of its ‘saving the NKRI’ pretext. Second, Indonesia’s first direct presidential election has given President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono an unmatched popular mandate. He has a strong hand to play, and could exercise leadership in furthering military reform.
Third, personal ties within the elite at present favour reform efforts, provided the government has the will. The current TNI leadership is loyal to Yudhoyono. In December 2007 he slotted two former subordinates into the top TNI positions. Djoko Santoso became armed forces commander, and Agustadi Purnomo became army chief. The trio shared younger days in the elite paratroop brigade of the army strategic reserve command. Yudhoyono was the first to graduate from the academy, in 1973; Purnomo followed in 1974 and Santoso in 1975. They were all involved in counter-insurgency operations in East Timor, albeit in low-profile roles. All three have political experience. In 1999 Yudhoyono, as the TNI chief of territorial affairs, struggled with civilian demands for military reform. Santoso supported him as his direct assistant, and Purnomo as a member of the TNI faction in parliament. The trio’s close relationship assures Yudhoyono of the loyalty of the current TNI leadership.
Right now is a good moment to take civilian control beyond mere appearances.
The present circumstances are conducive to the taking of significant steps towards effective civilian control, and towards improving TNI’s budgetary and policy accountability. No other post-Suharto president has ever enjoyed such favourable conditions for transforming the Indonesian military into a peace-time defence organisation under civilian control.
Is Yudhoyono willing to play this historical role? It depends on how he gauges his re-election prospects next year. If he sees adopting the mantle of reform as the key to boosting votes, it is not impossible that he may press ahead with reform initiatives. If, on the other hand, he thinks ‘friendship’ with the military is more crucial to his re-election, he may avoid any initiatives that might provoke TNI. This could happen out of fear that his competitors, such as the retired generals Sutiyoso and Wiranto, who are both his military seniors, may mobilise TNI support for their political campaigns. Will Yudhoyono seize the moment, or will he play it safe? Experience suggests he will act cautiously, carefully weighing the political merits of asserting civilian control. But if he faces stiff competition from credible civilians, he will be more likely to play his populist card and make significant gestures towards extending military reform. ii
Jun Honna (junhonna@gmail.com ) teaches at the Faculty of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. He is the author of Military politics and democratization in Indonesia (London, 2003).
Inside Indonesia 92: Apr-Jun 2008
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