The neo-conservative agenda
Indonesia's conservative shift
Chloe Olliver
Following the euphoria of reformasi, Indonesia has begun to slip back into some of its less reformist ways. The Megawati administration has increased military action in Aceh and Papua, and begun to limit the culture of tolerance that bloomed following Suharto’s fall. This is part of a global conservative shift. In Australia, too, critical debate has been curtailed as publicly funded and not-for-profit organisations are accused of bias for not supporting the prevailing ideological line. Leon Jones’ article ‘Neo-conservatives.com’ clearly outlines global ideological shifts to the right.
As with the neo-conservatives in the US, the Howard government assumes a moral right to impose its values on the rest of the world. These demonise already disenfranchised people in Australia, including refugees and aborigines. Overseas, multilateral diplomacy has been forsaken for coalitions of expediency that act unilaterally and pre-emptively against perceived threats to national security. Australia’s potentially neo-imperial ambitions in the Solomons and Papua New Guinea continue to subjugate local autonomy and civilian self-determination.
It is within this global and regional context that reformasi is dying. Anti-reform elements within the Indonesian elite promise to provide the stability that neo-conservatives argue will lead to global security and prosperity. As Scott Burchill notes, global obsessions with security have seen centralised, repressive, and undemocratic state rule in Indonesia supported by national and international elites.
The rolling back of hard-won freedoms of expression in Indonesia is evident in A’an Suryana’s War of Words, an insider’s view of the violence against journalists covering the conflict in Aceh. In Australia, Max Lane argues that funding for Asian Studies has been cut because a critical liberal humanities sector advocates ideas directly inimical to the prevailing ideology.
The security and prosperity of Indonesians, Australians, and all global citizens depends on open, informed, and critical dialogue, on equal terms. In this rapidly shrinking globe, there is no space for exclusive moral absolutism backed up by military might. Only self-determination and autonomy can reduce the resentment that generates terrorism. The neo-conservative agenda, inside Indonesia and abroad, is the biggest threat to peace and prosperity.
Chloe Olliver (chloeolliver@yahoo.com.au) is Guest editor of Inside Indonesia
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Showing posts with label Inside Indonesia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inside Indonesia. Show all posts
Saturday 19 March 2011
No money, no worry Islamic civil society in Indonesia has a great role to play in community development
No money, no worry
Islamic civil society in Indonesia has a great role to play in community development
Amelia Fauzia
Although the term ‘philanthropy’ is relatively new in Indonesia, and there is no precise translation for it as yet, the practice of philanthropy has existed for centuries. In Indonesia, as in other Islamic communities, Islamic charity is a form of philanthropy. Philanthropy can take the form of zakat (tithes), infak / sedekah (alms) and waqaf (religious foundations or property donated for religious or community use). It aims to enhance community empowerment and economic justice.
The majority of contributions are personal, in the form of zakat, sedekah, and wakaf. There are two types of zakat: zakat fitrah, is given at idul fitri, the celebration at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. It is usually in the form of money and basic food. This is given directly to poorer members of the community. Zakat mal, which is taken as a percentage (2.5 to 5 per cent) of ones total wealth (rather than simply income), when ones total wealth reaches a certain level. Those whose total wealth never reaches this point are not obliged to pay zakat mal.
Sedekah is often in the form of food, money, clothes, and other short-term consumer goods, and is usually given directly to those people in immediate need. To date, very little sedekah has been distributed via formal organisations.
Islamic philanthropy has great potential to empower the community. Unfortunately, in the past, resources generated by Islamic philanthropy have not always been managed professionally. Neither have they been distributed appropriately or in a clearly targeted manner. The late New Order used zakat to weaken traditional religious institutions, as the management of zakat was undermined and sedekah became a mere formality.
However, things have improved over the last ten years, with the establishment of several strong and capable philanthropic organisations, such as Dompet Dhuafa. Dompet Dhuafa and similar organisations manage zakat and sedekah money effectively to provide short-term community welfare. While this short-term charity used for procuring every-day consumer goods is necessary, Indonesia needs to develop sustainable, broad-based Islamic philanthropy to increase grassroots community development initiatives.
Nevertheless, waqaf and sedekah do pay for religious education, such as in pesantren and madrasah (religious boarding schools), which have been able to remain financially independent to a large degree. Contributions are given to kyai (Islamic scholars) and ulama (Islamic scholar-religious leaders), which are then used to pay teachers and develop the school.
Large religious social organisations such as Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah are in a similar position in that they are sustained by member contributions. These organisations have a great capacity to provide education, health, micro-finance, and other community services at the grassroots level.
Theology of philanthropy
In the teachings of Islam, there are prohibitions on amassing material possessions and being parsimonious. There are invitations and obligations to, and rewards for those who make charitable donations. Zakat and sedekah are of equal religious obligation as the five daily prayers (shalat).
Over time, these obligations have continued to be understood in their traditional form rather than in their modern context. The interpretation of philanthropic obligations developed in an exclusive cultural environment and therefore do not push for nor±achieve empowerment of the community. Justice, the fundamental principle expressed throughout the Koran, was drowned out by many of the pronouncements in Islamic law passed by ulama in the Islamic Middle Ages (9th to 11th Century AD). These laws were based on interpretations of what was revealed to Muhammad three hundred years earlier, and reflected and served an altogether different cultural and political environment.
While these interpretations are still considered sacred by many ulama today, others view them as a product of the stagnation, or even regression in discourse on Islamic law that was canonised in books written by the ulama of the middle period. These cemented narrow and piecemeal approaches to interpretation, and did not allow for contextual understandings and adaptations of the revelation.
One example of this unquestioning and traditional approach to interpretations and management of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia is the fact that a large part of the funds from zakat and sedekah is given directly to people to fulfil their everyday needs. Zakat is given to the amil (mosque official who collects tithes), the majority of whom are not professional administrators of philanthropy, and do not work within the principles of transparency and accountability. Waqaf, in the form of land or buildings, which should be used to alleviate poverty and may be used to turn a profit, is left untouched and unutilised.
Philanthropic organisations
Islamic philanthropic organisations are divided into three types — community zakat committees (UPZ); state zakat boards (BAZ), and zakat institutions (LAZ). UPZ usually have a temporary committee structures formed by local communities, BAZ are government run, and LAZ are private organisations. UPZ are formed primarily to distribute funds for consumption and short-term needs, such as zakat fitrah. They number in the hundreds of thousands, and are established in almost every mosque, in Islamic schools and residential areas.
There are BAZ located in each province, suburb and municipality in Indonesia. A number of these organisations have lost the respect of their communities, and are merely a formal government presence. There are some BAZ that enjoy a good reputation, such as Bazis in Jakarta.
It is the third type of organisation, the privately managed philanthropic organisations, that is proving the most inspiring, and which is cause for optimism regarding the development of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia. There are only a handful of these at present, but they are on the rise and their activities and assets are already quite substantial.
A few of the better-known LAZ include Dompet Dua’fa, Dompet Sosial Ummul Quro, Yasmin, PKPU (Post for Justice and Caring for Humanity), LAZ Bank BNI, and LAZ Pupuk Kaltim. Some of these are highly independent foundations and semi-independent agencies set up with funds from multi-national corporations, banks and educational institutions. These organisations are very dynamic, and many of these have won high levels of public trust due to their transparency and accountability.
Private philanthropic organisations have adopted some very interesting methods of fundraising. These include acquiring property donated for religious purposes, the collection and distribution of donations of second-hand items (BarBeKu), and facilitating on-line donations for events such as Idul Adha, a Muslim holy day on which goats and cows are slaughtered in remembrance of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail. Wealthier Muslims buy the animals, and the meat from the slaughter is distributed among poorer communities throughout the archipelago.
Management of LAZ philanthropic funds is professional and innovative, with some funds invested to ensure the long-term sustainability of programs, and other funds being used to provide credit to small businesses. The distribution of philanthropic assistance is also being diversified. However, the vast majority of funds is dedicated to education, health and religious activities. Aid to victims of natural disaster in the form of money, food and basic necessities remains a central focus as people are more touched by and interested in giving aid to this sort of cause.
Claims have been made that Islamic charities have financed terrorism. This may have been the case on a few occasions, but this is not at all representative of the mainstream. To date, Muslims’ views on charity have been very traditional in that they believe that funds should only be used for things that are of service to and in keeping with the faith, such as building mosques and religious schools, conducting Islamic activities and contributing to the development of the community.
Research, networks and dialogue
Research and development of Islamic philanthropy is relatively new in Indonesia. What research is being done is largely directed towards theoretical questions rather than towards issues of endeavour and initiatives. There are at least two research institutions that are focusing more intensely on philanthropy from the perspective of community development. These are the Public Interest Research and Advocacy Centre (PIRAC), and the Centre for the Study of Language and Culture (PBB) at the State Islamic University, Jakarta.
With assistance from the Ford Foundation, the research being conducted at PBB takes a more practical approach to the investigation of Islamic philanthropy. It focuses on strengthening institutions that emphasise social justice.
Efforts to create a philanthropic network in Indonesia are already under way. This is extremely important for the robustness of philanthropic discourse, especially in directing it towards promoting the strengthening of philanthropic organisations in areas such as fundraising, programming, management, financial self-sufficiency, and distribution mapping. Fortunately, in early 2003, the organisation Kehati received aid from the Ford Foundation to establish just such a network.
Further steps must be taken to ensure that Islamic philanthropic organisations can gain and enhance public trust. Principles of transparency and accountability, as well as professionalism must become entrenched. More importantly, the use of philanthropy for achieving social justice in a non-discriminatory manner needs to be elaborated on and monitored.
Donating does not require large amounts of money, as exemplified by the campaign of one Islamic philanthropic organisation using the slogan ‘No money, No worry’. It can take the form of labour, ideas, or goods that are no longer deemed necessary to their current owner. There is a need for a concerted effort to implement and expand such endeavours, and to demonstrate that the giving of zakat, alms and bequests is best done through trusted philanthropic organisations.
Amelia Fauzia (amelia@philanthropyforjustice.org), is Executive Director of the Centre for Language and Culture at the State Islamic University, Jakarta.
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Islamic civil society in Indonesia has a great role to play in community development
Amelia Fauzia
Although the term ‘philanthropy’ is relatively new in Indonesia, and there is no precise translation for it as yet, the practice of philanthropy has existed for centuries. In Indonesia, as in other Islamic communities, Islamic charity is a form of philanthropy. Philanthropy can take the form of zakat (tithes), infak / sedekah (alms) and waqaf (religious foundations or property donated for religious or community use). It aims to enhance community empowerment and economic justice.
The majority of contributions are personal, in the form of zakat, sedekah, and wakaf. There are two types of zakat: zakat fitrah, is given at idul fitri, the celebration at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. It is usually in the form of money and basic food. This is given directly to poorer members of the community. Zakat mal, which is taken as a percentage (2.5 to 5 per cent) of ones total wealth (rather than simply income), when ones total wealth reaches a certain level. Those whose total wealth never reaches this point are not obliged to pay zakat mal.
Sedekah is often in the form of food, money, clothes, and other short-term consumer goods, and is usually given directly to those people in immediate need. To date, very little sedekah has been distributed via formal organisations.
Islamic philanthropy has great potential to empower the community. Unfortunately, in the past, resources generated by Islamic philanthropy have not always been managed professionally. Neither have they been distributed appropriately or in a clearly targeted manner. The late New Order used zakat to weaken traditional religious institutions, as the management of zakat was undermined and sedekah became a mere formality.
However, things have improved over the last ten years, with the establishment of several strong and capable philanthropic organisations, such as Dompet Dhuafa. Dompet Dhuafa and similar organisations manage zakat and sedekah money effectively to provide short-term community welfare. While this short-term charity used for procuring every-day consumer goods is necessary, Indonesia needs to develop sustainable, broad-based Islamic philanthropy to increase grassroots community development initiatives.
Nevertheless, waqaf and sedekah do pay for religious education, such as in pesantren and madrasah (religious boarding schools), which have been able to remain financially independent to a large degree. Contributions are given to kyai (Islamic scholars) and ulama (Islamic scholar-religious leaders), which are then used to pay teachers and develop the school.
Large religious social organisations such as Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah are in a similar position in that they are sustained by member contributions. These organisations have a great capacity to provide education, health, micro-finance, and other community services at the grassroots level.
Theology of philanthropy
In the teachings of Islam, there are prohibitions on amassing material possessions and being parsimonious. There are invitations and obligations to, and rewards for those who make charitable donations. Zakat and sedekah are of equal religious obligation as the five daily prayers (shalat).
Over time, these obligations have continued to be understood in their traditional form rather than in their modern context. The interpretation of philanthropic obligations developed in an exclusive cultural environment and therefore do not push for nor±achieve empowerment of the community. Justice, the fundamental principle expressed throughout the Koran, was drowned out by many of the pronouncements in Islamic law passed by ulama in the Islamic Middle Ages (9th to 11th Century AD). These laws were based on interpretations of what was revealed to Muhammad three hundred years earlier, and reflected and served an altogether different cultural and political environment.
While these interpretations are still considered sacred by many ulama today, others view them as a product of the stagnation, or even regression in discourse on Islamic law that was canonised in books written by the ulama of the middle period. These cemented narrow and piecemeal approaches to interpretation, and did not allow for contextual understandings and adaptations of the revelation.
One example of this unquestioning and traditional approach to interpretations and management of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia is the fact that a large part of the funds from zakat and sedekah is given directly to people to fulfil their everyday needs. Zakat is given to the amil (mosque official who collects tithes), the majority of whom are not professional administrators of philanthropy, and do not work within the principles of transparency and accountability. Waqaf, in the form of land or buildings, which should be used to alleviate poverty and may be used to turn a profit, is left untouched and unutilised.
Philanthropic organisations
Islamic philanthropic organisations are divided into three types — community zakat committees (UPZ); state zakat boards (BAZ), and zakat institutions (LAZ). UPZ usually have a temporary committee structures formed by local communities, BAZ are government run, and LAZ are private organisations. UPZ are formed primarily to distribute funds for consumption and short-term needs, such as zakat fitrah. They number in the hundreds of thousands, and are established in almost every mosque, in Islamic schools and residential areas.
There are BAZ located in each province, suburb and municipality in Indonesia. A number of these organisations have lost the respect of their communities, and are merely a formal government presence. There are some BAZ that enjoy a good reputation, such as Bazis in Jakarta.
It is the third type of organisation, the privately managed philanthropic organisations, that is proving the most inspiring, and which is cause for optimism regarding the development of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia. There are only a handful of these at present, but they are on the rise and their activities and assets are already quite substantial.
A few of the better-known LAZ include Dompet Dua’fa, Dompet Sosial Ummul Quro, Yasmin, PKPU (Post for Justice and Caring for Humanity), LAZ Bank BNI, and LAZ Pupuk Kaltim. Some of these are highly independent foundations and semi-independent agencies set up with funds from multi-national corporations, banks and educational institutions. These organisations are very dynamic, and many of these have won high levels of public trust due to their transparency and accountability.
Private philanthropic organisations have adopted some very interesting methods of fundraising. These include acquiring property donated for religious purposes, the collection and distribution of donations of second-hand items (BarBeKu), and facilitating on-line donations for events such as Idul Adha, a Muslim holy day on which goats and cows are slaughtered in remembrance of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail. Wealthier Muslims buy the animals, and the meat from the slaughter is distributed among poorer communities throughout the archipelago.
Management of LAZ philanthropic funds is professional and innovative, with some funds invested to ensure the long-term sustainability of programs, and other funds being used to provide credit to small businesses. The distribution of philanthropic assistance is also being diversified. However, the vast majority of funds is dedicated to education, health and religious activities. Aid to victims of natural disaster in the form of money, food and basic necessities remains a central focus as people are more touched by and interested in giving aid to this sort of cause.
Claims have been made that Islamic charities have financed terrorism. This may have been the case on a few occasions, but this is not at all representative of the mainstream. To date, Muslims’ views on charity have been very traditional in that they believe that funds should only be used for things that are of service to and in keeping with the faith, such as building mosques and religious schools, conducting Islamic activities and contributing to the development of the community.
Research, networks and dialogue
Research and development of Islamic philanthropy is relatively new in Indonesia. What research is being done is largely directed towards theoretical questions rather than towards issues of endeavour and initiatives. There are at least two research institutions that are focusing more intensely on philanthropy from the perspective of community development. These are the Public Interest Research and Advocacy Centre (PIRAC), and the Centre for the Study of Language and Culture (PBB) at the State Islamic University, Jakarta.
With assistance from the Ford Foundation, the research being conducted at PBB takes a more practical approach to the investigation of Islamic philanthropy. It focuses on strengthening institutions that emphasise social justice.
Efforts to create a philanthropic network in Indonesia are already under way. This is extremely important for the robustness of philanthropic discourse, especially in directing it towards promoting the strengthening of philanthropic organisations in areas such as fundraising, programming, management, financial self-sufficiency, and distribution mapping. Fortunately, in early 2003, the organisation Kehati received aid from the Ford Foundation to establish just such a network.
Further steps must be taken to ensure that Islamic philanthropic organisations can gain and enhance public trust. Principles of transparency and accountability, as well as professionalism must become entrenched. More importantly, the use of philanthropy for achieving social justice in a non-discriminatory manner needs to be elaborated on and monitored.
Donating does not require large amounts of money, as exemplified by the campaign of one Islamic philanthropic organisation using the slogan ‘No money, No worry’. It can take the form of labour, ideas, or goods that are no longer deemed necessary to their current owner. There is a need for a concerted effort to implement and expand such endeavours, and to demonstrate that the giving of zakat, alms and bequests is best done through trusted philanthropic organisations.
Amelia Fauzia (amelia@philanthropyforjustice.org), is Executive Director of the Centre for Language and Culture at the State Islamic University, Jakarta.
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Insecurity for NGOs Western security agendas have shifted donor priorities, forcing NGOs to rethink their own agendas
Insecurity for NGOs
Western security agendas have shifted donor priorities, forcing NGOs to rethink their own agendas
Joel Backwell
In Australia we see members of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) shaking tins all year round. Millions of people give money to groups such as Amnesty International, CARE, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, just to name a few. This is a part of everyday life in a country where freedom of speech is taken for granted and philanthropy is an integral part of our society.
However, in Indonesia, where more than half of the population live below the poverty line and the majority of others are in no position to give financially, NGOs are much more reliant on external funding, the majority of which comes from foreign donors backed by Western governments. This can cause major problems because the foreign aid budgets of those nations are tied to their national interests, which rarely coincide with the needs of Indonesian people.
Funding the rule of law
To varying degrees the fall of the Suharto regime has brought about a more open political system, freedom of speech, and a greater respect for democracy in Indonesia. A less obvious consequence of the regime change is the paradigm shift in the field of NGO activism.
In 1998, with the objective of strengthening economic and democratic institutions and at the same time fanning anti-Suharto sentiment, support was given to what were termed civil society organisations (CSOs). Foreign governments, such as Australia and the United States aimed to increase awareness in the community regarding issues of democracy, freedom of speech, and respect for human rights. A detailed discussion of the problems caused by this influx of funding was given by Ana Lounela in ‘Take the Money or Die’ (Inside Indonesia No.69, Jan–Mar 2002, p. 21)
Their objective reached and Suharto out of the way, foreign governments no longer needed so many transformative NGOs pushing for radical change. Instead the focus shifted to good governance, anti-corruption and economic liberalisation, elements required if foreign capital was to flourish in post-Suharto Indonesia.
Large amounts of cash were given to local cooperatives to implement small business and finance schemes. PUSHAM, an NGO in Yogyakarta, received funding for a police education program. The judiciary, one of the three pillars of Western Democracy, became a primary focus, with an emphasis on the rule of law. This was essential both to stamp out corruption among judges and politicians, and to ensure the separation of powers doctrine that is integral to ‘good governance’.
The flow-on effect of this shift in foreign funding was that numerous programs initiated by NGOs in Indonesia were abandoned. Unlike Australian NGOs, Indonesian organisations cannot rely on tin shaking to keep them afloat and so they find themselves at the mercy of the agenda’s and priorities of foreign donors. When the focus of a country’s national interest shifts, as has occurred in response to ‘the war on terror’, so does the focus of foreign funding. The grass-roots issues addressed by local NGOs in Indonesia often do not correlate with the international issues upon which their funding is based, and this incompatibility creates uncertainty for many programs.
Millions of dollars is currently being given to consultants to implement better bureaucratic procedures at the highest levels of Indonesia government and administration. Unfortunately students attending schools in remote areas, who lack even the barest of resources, will fail to receive any tangible benefit from these kind of ‘good governance’ programs. A further example is poor farmers, who sometimes require aid to purchase materials for subsistence farming. However, the neo-liberal agenda prefers that these farmers pool their resources and land to create a surplus for export and profit.
Funding focus shifts again
The last five years have seen numerous programs funded by foreign donors such as USAID and AusAID, which focus on strengthening Indonesia’s political and judicial institutions. Now the biggest priority is security and eradicating terrorism, which holds special significance in Indonesia given the tragic Bali bombing that saw 88 Australians perish in October 2002.
A perusal of the USAID and AusAID websites demonstrates the obvious link between program funding and national interest. Following the recent war in Iraq and the ongoing focus on terrorism, both of these donor organisations now stress conflict resolution, peace building and reducing instability as being important focuses for developing nations.
The Indonesian people, already wary of interfering foreign governments, will not welcome some of the changes in Australia’s foreign policy. The problem with counter-terrorism as opposed to institution building is autonomy. Concerning the latter, foreign governments were happy to provide education and support to the Indonesian community to build awareness so that changes, albeit reflecting Western values, could occur from the inside.
In the case of security and peace building, there is a tendency for Western governments to step in and intervene directly, questioning the sanctity of domestic sovereignty. We saw in the wake of the Bali bombing how eager Australian intelligence forces were to step in and take control of operations. Discussion of renewing ties between Australia and Indonesia’s Special Forces (Kopassus) is another sign that in terms of Australia’s national interest, issues of human rights and local community development priorities are subordinate to security.
As occurred in 1998, the events of recent years have shifted the focus of foreign aid as the development budget is tied to national interest. Once again this is likely to lead to the abandonment of programs, leaving many communities to fend for themselves. The cycle of short-term projects and insecurity for NGOs, who are reliant on foreign funding, continues.
Fortunately the shift from a good governance focus to security and anti-terrorism is not as drastic as the shift that occurred in 1998. Good governance will remain on the agenda because without a stable, accountable government, the argument goes, it will be easier for terrorists to carry out their operations in Indonesia.
Economic liberalisation will continue to be a priority because poverty and anti-Western sentiment is seen as a major cause for the recent terrorist acts. By adopting capitalism as its ideology and strengthening economic ties with nations such as America, the cultural divide and misunderstanding between Indonesia and the West will in theory decrease.
It is likely that the focus on strengthening the judiciary will continue but for different reasons. Whereas it was previously intended to stamp out corruption, in the wake of the trial of the Bali bombers, it is now seen as a strong deterrent to future acts of terrorism.
Some would argue that as long as aid programs are providing support to poorer nations it does not matter what agenda is driving them. This may be acceptable where interests of foreign governments coincide with the needs of Indonesian people, but often this is not the case.
Unrealistic demands
Indonesian NGOs already face an uphill battle with a lack of resources, management skills, experience, and unreasonably high expectations from their communities. The current process for providing developmental assistance lacks long-term sustainability because funding priorities are not always in accord with local needs and programming cycles. The insecurity brought about by shifting foreign agendas is just one more challenge for NGOs in Indonesia. More importantly it is one more barrier preventing them from improving the standard of living for all Indonesian people.
Foreign governments are not about to fund foreign aid programs that operate contrary to their national interests. However this does not mean that the foreign aid agenda must continue in its current form. Imperialist notions of telling poorer countries what is best for them, without direct consultation, is no longer a tenable approach to foreign policy. Greater dialogue and cooperation between NGOs and foreign donors is essential, allowing Indonesian NGOs to play a more holistic, autonomous and ongoing role in the decision-making process.
Indonesia has a solid, experienced network of NGO activists who are clearly in the best position to determine how development assistance funds should be used. Rather than endeavouring to create another Australia by only allocating funds to neo-liberal-friendly programs and institutions, we should instead be upholding the inimitability of Indonesian society. This will only occur when Australian foreign policy allows Indonesians to implement programs for the greater good of the Indonesian people.
Joel Backwell (joel_amnesty@hotmail.com) is an Arts/Law student at Monash University, who has recently returned from a year in Indonesia studying and working with local NGOs.
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Western security agendas have shifted donor priorities, forcing NGOs to rethink their own agendas
Joel Backwell
In Australia we see members of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) shaking tins all year round. Millions of people give money to groups such as Amnesty International, CARE, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, just to name a few. This is a part of everyday life in a country where freedom of speech is taken for granted and philanthropy is an integral part of our society.
However, in Indonesia, where more than half of the population live below the poverty line and the majority of others are in no position to give financially, NGOs are much more reliant on external funding, the majority of which comes from foreign donors backed by Western governments. This can cause major problems because the foreign aid budgets of those nations are tied to their national interests, which rarely coincide with the needs of Indonesian people.
Funding the rule of law
To varying degrees the fall of the Suharto regime has brought about a more open political system, freedom of speech, and a greater respect for democracy in Indonesia. A less obvious consequence of the regime change is the paradigm shift in the field of NGO activism.
In 1998, with the objective of strengthening economic and democratic institutions and at the same time fanning anti-Suharto sentiment, support was given to what were termed civil society organisations (CSOs). Foreign governments, such as Australia and the United States aimed to increase awareness in the community regarding issues of democracy, freedom of speech, and respect for human rights. A detailed discussion of the problems caused by this influx of funding was given by Ana Lounela in ‘Take the Money or Die’ (Inside Indonesia No.69, Jan–Mar 2002, p. 21)
Their objective reached and Suharto out of the way, foreign governments no longer needed so many transformative NGOs pushing for radical change. Instead the focus shifted to good governance, anti-corruption and economic liberalisation, elements required if foreign capital was to flourish in post-Suharto Indonesia.
Large amounts of cash were given to local cooperatives to implement small business and finance schemes. PUSHAM, an NGO in Yogyakarta, received funding for a police education program. The judiciary, one of the three pillars of Western Democracy, became a primary focus, with an emphasis on the rule of law. This was essential both to stamp out corruption among judges and politicians, and to ensure the separation of powers doctrine that is integral to ‘good governance’.
The flow-on effect of this shift in foreign funding was that numerous programs initiated by NGOs in Indonesia were abandoned. Unlike Australian NGOs, Indonesian organisations cannot rely on tin shaking to keep them afloat and so they find themselves at the mercy of the agenda’s and priorities of foreign donors. When the focus of a country’s national interest shifts, as has occurred in response to ‘the war on terror’, so does the focus of foreign funding. The grass-roots issues addressed by local NGOs in Indonesia often do not correlate with the international issues upon which their funding is based, and this incompatibility creates uncertainty for many programs.
Millions of dollars is currently being given to consultants to implement better bureaucratic procedures at the highest levels of Indonesia government and administration. Unfortunately students attending schools in remote areas, who lack even the barest of resources, will fail to receive any tangible benefit from these kind of ‘good governance’ programs. A further example is poor farmers, who sometimes require aid to purchase materials for subsistence farming. However, the neo-liberal agenda prefers that these farmers pool their resources and land to create a surplus for export and profit.
Funding focus shifts again
The last five years have seen numerous programs funded by foreign donors such as USAID and AusAID, which focus on strengthening Indonesia’s political and judicial institutions. Now the biggest priority is security and eradicating terrorism, which holds special significance in Indonesia given the tragic Bali bombing that saw 88 Australians perish in October 2002.
A perusal of the USAID and AusAID websites demonstrates the obvious link between program funding and national interest. Following the recent war in Iraq and the ongoing focus on terrorism, both of these donor organisations now stress conflict resolution, peace building and reducing instability as being important focuses for developing nations.
The Indonesian people, already wary of interfering foreign governments, will not welcome some of the changes in Australia’s foreign policy. The problem with counter-terrorism as opposed to institution building is autonomy. Concerning the latter, foreign governments were happy to provide education and support to the Indonesian community to build awareness so that changes, albeit reflecting Western values, could occur from the inside.
In the case of security and peace building, there is a tendency for Western governments to step in and intervene directly, questioning the sanctity of domestic sovereignty. We saw in the wake of the Bali bombing how eager Australian intelligence forces were to step in and take control of operations. Discussion of renewing ties between Australia and Indonesia’s Special Forces (Kopassus) is another sign that in terms of Australia’s national interest, issues of human rights and local community development priorities are subordinate to security.
As occurred in 1998, the events of recent years have shifted the focus of foreign aid as the development budget is tied to national interest. Once again this is likely to lead to the abandonment of programs, leaving many communities to fend for themselves. The cycle of short-term projects and insecurity for NGOs, who are reliant on foreign funding, continues.
Fortunately the shift from a good governance focus to security and anti-terrorism is not as drastic as the shift that occurred in 1998. Good governance will remain on the agenda because without a stable, accountable government, the argument goes, it will be easier for terrorists to carry out their operations in Indonesia.
Economic liberalisation will continue to be a priority because poverty and anti-Western sentiment is seen as a major cause for the recent terrorist acts. By adopting capitalism as its ideology and strengthening economic ties with nations such as America, the cultural divide and misunderstanding between Indonesia and the West will in theory decrease.
It is likely that the focus on strengthening the judiciary will continue but for different reasons. Whereas it was previously intended to stamp out corruption, in the wake of the trial of the Bali bombers, it is now seen as a strong deterrent to future acts of terrorism.
Some would argue that as long as aid programs are providing support to poorer nations it does not matter what agenda is driving them. This may be acceptable where interests of foreign governments coincide with the needs of Indonesian people, but often this is not the case.
Unrealistic demands
Indonesian NGOs already face an uphill battle with a lack of resources, management skills, experience, and unreasonably high expectations from their communities. The current process for providing developmental assistance lacks long-term sustainability because funding priorities are not always in accord with local needs and programming cycles. The insecurity brought about by shifting foreign agendas is just one more challenge for NGOs in Indonesia. More importantly it is one more barrier preventing them from improving the standard of living for all Indonesian people.
Foreign governments are not about to fund foreign aid programs that operate contrary to their national interests. However this does not mean that the foreign aid agenda must continue in its current form. Imperialist notions of telling poorer countries what is best for them, without direct consultation, is no longer a tenable approach to foreign policy. Greater dialogue and cooperation between NGOs and foreign donors is essential, allowing Indonesian NGOs to play a more holistic, autonomous and ongoing role in the decision-making process.
Indonesia has a solid, experienced network of NGO activists who are clearly in the best position to determine how development assistance funds should be used. Rather than endeavouring to create another Australia by only allocating funds to neo-liberal-friendly programs and institutions, we should instead be upholding the inimitability of Indonesian society. This will only occur when Australian foreign policy allows Indonesians to implement programs for the greater good of the Indonesian people.
Joel Backwell (joel_amnesty@hotmail.com) is an Arts/Law student at Monash University, who has recently returned from a year in Indonesia studying and working with local NGOs.
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Whose stability? Indonesia’s troubles today result from the pursuit of repressive forms of stability
Whose stability?
Indonesia’s troubles today result from the pursuit of repressive forms of stability
Jay Bulworth
After World War II, the US State Department conducted a comprehensive review of the state of the world. George Kennan, the head of the Policy Planning Staff, described the problem in the American government’s publication Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948 as follows:
We have about 50 per cent of the world’s wealth but only 6.3 per cent of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction… We should cease to talk about vague and — for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratisation. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
Thus in terms of US foreign policy, the word ‘stability’ refers to the preservation of a pattern of relationships which permit the American elite to maintain this position of dominance, often with the aid of obedient and powerful elite in other nations, particularly developing ones.
In the same policy plan, post-war US planners designated a specific role for each region of the world: the US, given its dominant status after World War II, would take charge of the Western hemisphere and the Middle East. Western Europe would be entrusted with the ‘exploitation of the colonial and dependent areas of the African Continent’. Southeast Asia would ‘fulfil its major function as a source of raw materials for Japan and Western Europe’.
The threat to stability in countries like Indonesia, as defined by post-war planners in America, came from what they recognised as ‘an increasing popular demand for immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses’. They noted that governments were ‘under intense domestic political pressures to increase production and to diversify their economies’ in many newly independent nations.
Opposition to America’s global plans came from ‘nationalistic regimes maintained in large part by appeals to the masses of the population’ (NSC 144/1, ‘United States Objectives and Courses of Action With Respect to Latin America’, 18 March 1953). From the perspective of US planners, right-wing nationalism was as unwelcome as left-wing nationalism; the US was hostile to Perón in Argentina and to Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, because even though they were right-wing, they pursued an independent course of economic development. The US opposes economic self-determination, not ‘communism’ or ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, although it uses such labels as a pretext for opposing economic self-determination.
Meddling with sovereignty
The US was hostile to Sukarno’s presidency of an independent Indonesia because of his nationalist commitment and non-aligned foreign policy stance. It tried to unseat him by supporting right-wing parties and by backing armed rebellions.
The Indonesian army and the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) were two of the most important political forces following independence. The army demonstrated its utility to American objectives by putting down an uprising supported by the PKI in the Madiun region of Central Java in 1948. American and Australian foreign policy makers celebrated the army’s subsequent role in the massacres of 1965–66. As a result of the massacres, the PKI was physically annihilated and popular organisations associated with it were depoliticised.
Then the plunder began. At a conference in Geneva in November 1967, the Indonesian economy was ‘carved up, sector by sector’. According to John Pilger, representatives of top Western corporations including the major oil companies and banks, General Motors, Imperial Chemical Industries, British Leyland, British-American Tobacco, American Express, Siemens, Goodyear, the International Paper Corporation, US Steel and others met with Suharto’s economic team and organised the investment regime they wanted.
The labour force was tamed by a military dictatorship that employed various repressive measures to keep it in line. The Indonesian press, students, and unions were brought under control. Although Indonesia had possibly the worst working conditions and lowest wages in Asia, its rulers did not challenge or attempt to change this state of affairs. They were therefore exempted from the annual review of labour practices by the Clinton administration, which had the support of influential Senators.
American support for repressive regimes flows logically from its hostility to economic self-determination; a government that respects the wishes of its own population is unlikely to obey the contradictory demands of US investors. As Herman and Chomsky note in After the Cataclysm ‘the collective conspiracy of a comprador-business elite, local military officers, and foreign economic and military interests normally cannot maintain ‘stability’ without active or threatened terror’.
In 1996, with tensions rising and Suharto growing old, the US began looking for other segments of the Indonesian elite who could deliver what they saw as ‘stability’. This search for compliant rulers was on display as early as mid-1996 when, after two days of political rioting in Jakarta, the US Assistant Secretary of State, John Shattuck, met with trade union leader Mochtar Pakpahan. The Deputy Secretary of State, Winston Lord visited then-opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri, radical leader Budiman Sujatmiko, Mochtar Pakpahan, and others in September 1996.
On his return to America, Lord voiced his concerns about the difficulty of ensuring a smooth transition to a post-Suharto era. The next year, even before the Asian economic crisis began to be noticed, the US co-sponsored a resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Commission condemning the Indonesian government for human rights violations. The US had realised that Suharto’s days as president were numbered, and that an alternative political leadership would need to be found.
Stabilising reformasi
Since Suharto was forced to resign in May 1998, complex and often contradictory forces have been unleashed. Senior army officers who engaged in terrorism against the people of East Timor have not been punished. They have gone on to conduct operations against the people of West Papua and Aceh. The use of terrorism justified in religious terminology has also become a feature of the Indonesian political landscape, although this is minor compared to the Indonesian army’s track record in this arena. Indonesia’s foreign debt is now more than 140 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The government spends much more on debt repayments than it does on health care.
More positively, there has been an increase in the politicisation of the public. There have been mass protests concerning a variety of issues, and a proliferation of political parties. Press freedoms have expanded and criticism of the government’s actions is now commonplace. East Timor is now independent of Indonesian colonial rule, and Indonesian workers are able to organise in ways that were once simply impossible.
The US, which has long supported the Indonesian military (TNI) in the name of stability, is now concerned that ongoing TNI activities are creating even more problems and instability. It suspects that the TNI is creating instability in order to justify a greater role for itself in a post-New Order Indonesia. This is why the American Ambassador travelled to Tokyo and lobbied strongly to help broker a peace settlement between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the TNI.
The failure of the peace negotiations reflects the TNI’s unwillingness to accept demobilisation in Aceh. This would amount to a further diminution of its power and influence. As for other sections of the Indonesian political elite, they may also be opposed to the TNI’s operations in Aceh, but remain unwilling to say so openly for fear of making a powerful enemy in the lead-up to the 2004 elections.
Indonesia’s troubles today are directly related to the pursuit of a repressive form of stability. The contradiction of TNI’s actions, which are now at odds with those of their Western supporters, has opened a window of opportunity for exploring new global civil society links and activities. New concepts of stability and propsperity can be developed. For Indonesians and Australians of goodwill, the choice could not be more stark — their stability or all of ours?
Jay Bulworth (Jay.Bulworth@operamail.com) is completing a PhD in strategic policy at Deakin University, Melbourne.
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Indonesia’s troubles today result from the pursuit of repressive forms of stability
Jay Bulworth
After World War II, the US State Department conducted a comprehensive review of the state of the world. George Kennan, the head of the Policy Planning Staff, described the problem in the American government’s publication Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948 as follows:
We have about 50 per cent of the world’s wealth but only 6.3 per cent of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction… We should cease to talk about vague and — for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratisation. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
Thus in terms of US foreign policy, the word ‘stability’ refers to the preservation of a pattern of relationships which permit the American elite to maintain this position of dominance, often with the aid of obedient and powerful elite in other nations, particularly developing ones.
In the same policy plan, post-war US planners designated a specific role for each region of the world: the US, given its dominant status after World War II, would take charge of the Western hemisphere and the Middle East. Western Europe would be entrusted with the ‘exploitation of the colonial and dependent areas of the African Continent’. Southeast Asia would ‘fulfil its major function as a source of raw materials for Japan and Western Europe’.
The threat to stability in countries like Indonesia, as defined by post-war planners in America, came from what they recognised as ‘an increasing popular demand for immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses’. They noted that governments were ‘under intense domestic political pressures to increase production and to diversify their economies’ in many newly independent nations.
Opposition to America’s global plans came from ‘nationalistic regimes maintained in large part by appeals to the masses of the population’ (NSC 144/1, ‘United States Objectives and Courses of Action With Respect to Latin America’, 18 March 1953). From the perspective of US planners, right-wing nationalism was as unwelcome as left-wing nationalism; the US was hostile to Perón in Argentina and to Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, because even though they were right-wing, they pursued an independent course of economic development. The US opposes economic self-determination, not ‘communism’ or ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, although it uses such labels as a pretext for opposing economic self-determination.
Meddling with sovereignty
The US was hostile to Sukarno’s presidency of an independent Indonesia because of his nationalist commitment and non-aligned foreign policy stance. It tried to unseat him by supporting right-wing parties and by backing armed rebellions.
The Indonesian army and the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) were two of the most important political forces following independence. The army demonstrated its utility to American objectives by putting down an uprising supported by the PKI in the Madiun region of Central Java in 1948. American and Australian foreign policy makers celebrated the army’s subsequent role in the massacres of 1965–66. As a result of the massacres, the PKI was physically annihilated and popular organisations associated with it were depoliticised.
Then the plunder began. At a conference in Geneva in November 1967, the Indonesian economy was ‘carved up, sector by sector’. According to John Pilger, representatives of top Western corporations including the major oil companies and banks, General Motors, Imperial Chemical Industries, British Leyland, British-American Tobacco, American Express, Siemens, Goodyear, the International Paper Corporation, US Steel and others met with Suharto’s economic team and organised the investment regime they wanted.
The labour force was tamed by a military dictatorship that employed various repressive measures to keep it in line. The Indonesian press, students, and unions were brought under control. Although Indonesia had possibly the worst working conditions and lowest wages in Asia, its rulers did not challenge or attempt to change this state of affairs. They were therefore exempted from the annual review of labour practices by the Clinton administration, which had the support of influential Senators.
American support for repressive regimes flows logically from its hostility to economic self-determination; a government that respects the wishes of its own population is unlikely to obey the contradictory demands of US investors. As Herman and Chomsky note in After the Cataclysm ‘the collective conspiracy of a comprador-business elite, local military officers, and foreign economic and military interests normally cannot maintain ‘stability’ without active or threatened terror’.
In 1996, with tensions rising and Suharto growing old, the US began looking for other segments of the Indonesian elite who could deliver what they saw as ‘stability’. This search for compliant rulers was on display as early as mid-1996 when, after two days of political rioting in Jakarta, the US Assistant Secretary of State, John Shattuck, met with trade union leader Mochtar Pakpahan. The Deputy Secretary of State, Winston Lord visited then-opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri, radical leader Budiman Sujatmiko, Mochtar Pakpahan, and others in September 1996.
On his return to America, Lord voiced his concerns about the difficulty of ensuring a smooth transition to a post-Suharto era. The next year, even before the Asian economic crisis began to be noticed, the US co-sponsored a resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Commission condemning the Indonesian government for human rights violations. The US had realised that Suharto’s days as president were numbered, and that an alternative political leadership would need to be found.
Stabilising reformasi
Since Suharto was forced to resign in May 1998, complex and often contradictory forces have been unleashed. Senior army officers who engaged in terrorism against the people of East Timor have not been punished. They have gone on to conduct operations against the people of West Papua and Aceh. The use of terrorism justified in religious terminology has also become a feature of the Indonesian political landscape, although this is minor compared to the Indonesian army’s track record in this arena. Indonesia’s foreign debt is now more than 140 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The government spends much more on debt repayments than it does on health care.
More positively, there has been an increase in the politicisation of the public. There have been mass protests concerning a variety of issues, and a proliferation of political parties. Press freedoms have expanded and criticism of the government’s actions is now commonplace. East Timor is now independent of Indonesian colonial rule, and Indonesian workers are able to organise in ways that were once simply impossible.
The US, which has long supported the Indonesian military (TNI) in the name of stability, is now concerned that ongoing TNI activities are creating even more problems and instability. It suspects that the TNI is creating instability in order to justify a greater role for itself in a post-New Order Indonesia. This is why the American Ambassador travelled to Tokyo and lobbied strongly to help broker a peace settlement between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the TNI.
The failure of the peace negotiations reflects the TNI’s unwillingness to accept demobilisation in Aceh. This would amount to a further diminution of its power and influence. As for other sections of the Indonesian political elite, they may also be opposed to the TNI’s operations in Aceh, but remain unwilling to say so openly for fear of making a powerful enemy in the lead-up to the 2004 elections.
Indonesia’s troubles today are directly related to the pursuit of a repressive form of stability. The contradiction of TNI’s actions, which are now at odds with those of their Western supporters, has opened a window of opportunity for exploring new global civil society links and activities. New concepts of stability and propsperity can be developed. For Indonesians and Australians of goodwill, the choice could not be more stark — their stability or all of ours?
Jay Bulworth (Jay.Bulworth@operamail.com) is completing a PhD in strategic policy at Deakin University, Melbourne.
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Security reform Reform of the security sector is fundamental for achieving a democratic Indonesia
Security reform
Reform of the security sector is fundamental for achieving a democratic Indonesia
Riefqi Muna
Under the umbrella of the ‘war on terror’, the White House has gained Congressional approval to remove some of the restrictions on military-to-military relations between America and Indonesia. At present, American support for Indonesia’s military is still limited to Extended International Military Education and Training, which allows Indonesian military officers to attend American military educational institutions at select regional centres for non-lethal training.
When Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Indonesia in August 2002, it was reported that the White House was requesting Congressional approval for US$50 million in security assistance to Indonesia, half of which was to be channelled into the police force. This shift in American policy toward reinstating military relations with Indonesia significantly changes the dynamics of US-Indonesian ties. While there are other influences and forces at play, there is undoubtedly a connection between military reform in Indonesia and the greater global context in which it is taking place.
Global policy shift
The Bush administration has replaced Clinton’s ‘enlargement and engagement of liberal democracy’ approach to ensuring global stability with a new strategy of ‘pre-emption’ and uni-lateralism in which all states are forced to choose to be ‘with us or witä the terrorists’. This strategy was reinforced by the creation of the Homeland Security Department, which resulted in a more robust American security organisation capable of carrying out greater offensive security strategies.
America’s new security approach is narrowly focused on the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the uprooting of the ‘tentacle of terror’ — Jama’ah Islamiyah — in Southeast Asia. This is despite the obvious fact that the issue of terrorism is far more complex than this tactic suggests, and is intricately bound up in global and domestic political, economic, security and other issues.
Reviving conservatives
In Indonesia, the catchcry of reformasi is rarely heard any more, and the state’s commitment to policy reform is all but dead. The incumbent Megawati government lacks leadership and vision. Despite praise for her cabinet when she first came to power, Megawati appears to have adopted a ‘no policy’ stance, especially in the area of reform of Indonesia’s security apparatus. Yet reform of the security sector is fundamental for achieving a democratic Indonesia.
Reform of Indonesia’s security forces thus far has been limited to firstly, the separation of the police from the armed forces, and secondly, an end to military involvement in ‘day-to-day politics’ by discharging serving military officers from civilian posts. This occurred in August 2002, when the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) agreed to scrap the military’s and police’s automatic seats in both the MRP and the House by 2004. Should military and police officers want to join the legislative bodies, they have to contest in general elections, for which they have to resign from the service. Thirdly, the security forces held a relatively neutral position during the 1999 national elections. Little if any other reform of the security forces has been achieved.
The old security doctrines developed by 1950s army commander General Nasution remain deeply rooted in Indonesian military strategy and thinking. These doctrines include the notion of the ‘dual function’, whereby the military plays a political as well as an internal security role, and strategic reliance on ‘counter-guerrilla’ actions, by which the military is supposed to remain deeply embedded in the civilian population. More than two thirds of the army’s elite were trained and nurtured in the army’s territorial system, which parallels civilian posts at every level in every province. There has been little change in this system, or in the curriculum of new defence force recruits. To make matters worse, elite civilian politicians still perceive the military in terms of political power, and not as an element of the state that serves civilian needs.
Reform of the security apparatus and promotion of human rights are integral to broader reform in Indonesia. Both have suffered because of the Indonesian elite’s struggle to cling to traditional methods of power. Poverty of vision and a lack of will to implement strategic reforms continue under a corrupt bureaucracy and a stubborn political elite that are power hungry, greedy, and forgetful of its constituents. Add the effect of the global context, in which security discourse has been pre-eminent, and we see reform of the security forces being undermined by an anti-reformist group taking advantage of the rhetoric of national interest and global security to serve its own ends. This nexus is evident in several critical ways.
Shock and awe
Firstly, there is much less focus on issues of democracy and human rights than in the years immediately following the downfall of the Suharto regime. The global ‘war on terrorism’ has crippled rigorous debate on matters of civil liberties world-wide. Emphasis lies heavily on security. Renewed military ties between Australia, the US and Indonesia have caused great concern among Indonesian pro-democracy activists that the military will continue to act with impunity, and that the Australian and American governments will strive to legitimise re-engagement rather than condemn military human rights violations. Training and enhanced professionalism (the reason these Western governments usually give for engagement) is indeed essential. However, the legitimatioŽ of an unreformed and unrepentant military is counter-productive to the promotion of democratic control over the armed forces in Indonesia.
Nowhere is this emphasis more evident than in the current ‘security operations’ in Aceh. Within the global context of the ‘war on terrorism’, proponents of military operations in Aceh have used neo-conservative security rhetoric to win international legitimacy. Military officers surrounding Megawati have labelled the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) a terrorist group, against which pre-emptive and unilateral strikes, like the US ‘shock and awe’ campaign in Iraq, are justified. This is despite ample historical evidence that military operations in Aceh cannot solve the secessionist problem and will not guarantee the unity of the Indonesian state.
Security legislation
There has been political interference in, and military domination of, the development of security legislation in Indonesia. Democratic states obviously can and should regulate security matters to ensure the protection of their people. However, the way in which such legislation has been formulated in Indonesia in recent times has tended to violate the principles of human rights and due legal process.
This was evident in the recent controversy surrounding the drafting of the Bill on the Structure and Organisation of the Armed Forces. This Bill, which was put to the Indonesian parliament in March 2003, seeks authority for the TNI to declare a state of ýmergency and deploy security personnel without prior approval from the president. The Bill contradicts the newly amended constitution and the National Defence Law, which stipulates that the president alone, in his or her capacity as the supreme commander of military, has the authority to declare a state of emergency and order the deployment of troops to conflict-torn areas. The president is required to secure prior approval from the House of Representatives (DPR) or report the decision to the House within 24 hours.
In the interests of civilianisation and democratisation of the armed forces, the drafting of new defence force legislation was supposed to entail transparent and consultative processes. However, as was widely reported in the Indonesian media, the final Bill was the result of an undemocratic usurpation of the drafting process, using classic army strong-arm tactics. Civilian experts involved in the original drafting process openly rejected the resulting Bill, because it does not accommodate democratic values and principles of accountability. This is evident in Article 19, which states that: ‘the Chief of Defence can deploy troops without permission from the president (civil authority).’ There are many other problems with the new security Bill, particularly surrounding the issues of military budgeting and auditing, reform of which was rejected by the military.
The Indonesian military elite has used the priority of national security and unity to thwart reform of the territorial command structure. This structure allows the Indonesian military to generate up to 75 per cent of its own budget by controlling legal and illegal business operations at the local level. The success of this system is hinged on the fact that the armed forces are not geographically structured to defend the archipelagic nation, but to mirror the civilian administrative structure. They have defence posts shadowing each level of civilian administration, from the smallest village up to the national level. This structure will not produce an Indonesian defence system capable of defending the nation.
There is undoubtedly a correlation between the resurgence of neo-conservatism in the US and the slowing down of security sector reform in Indonesia. The new US security agenda sends dangerous signals for the future direction of Indonesian democracy, and especially for the potential for military intervention in the political process. When considering renewed military ties, the US, Australia and others should pay attention to the issues of security sector reform rather than simply the military’s ability to combat terrorism.
Both the global and local political contexts have proved to be stumbling blocks for security sector reform in Indonesia. International support is needed to promote reform, as are national leaders with vision and courage.
Riefqi Muna (Riefqi@Runbox.com) is a PhD student at the Royal Military College of Science, UK, and works with Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (www.gfn-ssr.org).
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Reform of the security sector is fundamental for achieving a democratic Indonesia
Riefqi Muna
Under the umbrella of the ‘war on terror’, the White House has gained Congressional approval to remove some of the restrictions on military-to-military relations between America and Indonesia. At present, American support for Indonesia’s military is still limited to Extended International Military Education and Training, which allows Indonesian military officers to attend American military educational institutions at select regional centres for non-lethal training.
When Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Indonesia in August 2002, it was reported that the White House was requesting Congressional approval for US$50 million in security assistance to Indonesia, half of which was to be channelled into the police force. This shift in American policy toward reinstating military relations with Indonesia significantly changes the dynamics of US-Indonesian ties. While there are other influences and forces at play, there is undoubtedly a connection between military reform in Indonesia and the greater global context in which it is taking place.
Global policy shift
The Bush administration has replaced Clinton’s ‘enlargement and engagement of liberal democracy’ approach to ensuring global stability with a new strategy of ‘pre-emption’ and uni-lateralism in which all states are forced to choose to be ‘with us or witä the terrorists’. This strategy was reinforced by the creation of the Homeland Security Department, which resulted in a more robust American security organisation capable of carrying out greater offensive security strategies.
America’s new security approach is narrowly focused on the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the uprooting of the ‘tentacle of terror’ — Jama’ah Islamiyah — in Southeast Asia. This is despite the obvious fact that the issue of terrorism is far more complex than this tactic suggests, and is intricately bound up in global and domestic political, economic, security and other issues.
Reviving conservatives
In Indonesia, the catchcry of reformasi is rarely heard any more, and the state’s commitment to policy reform is all but dead. The incumbent Megawati government lacks leadership and vision. Despite praise for her cabinet when she first came to power, Megawati appears to have adopted a ‘no policy’ stance, especially in the area of reform of Indonesia’s security apparatus. Yet reform of the security sector is fundamental for achieving a democratic Indonesia.
Reform of Indonesia’s security forces thus far has been limited to firstly, the separation of the police from the armed forces, and secondly, an end to military involvement in ‘day-to-day politics’ by discharging serving military officers from civilian posts. This occurred in August 2002, when the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) agreed to scrap the military’s and police’s automatic seats in both the MRP and the House by 2004. Should military and police officers want to join the legislative bodies, they have to contest in general elections, for which they have to resign from the service. Thirdly, the security forces held a relatively neutral position during the 1999 national elections. Little if any other reform of the security forces has been achieved.
The old security doctrines developed by 1950s army commander General Nasution remain deeply rooted in Indonesian military strategy and thinking. These doctrines include the notion of the ‘dual function’, whereby the military plays a political as well as an internal security role, and strategic reliance on ‘counter-guerrilla’ actions, by which the military is supposed to remain deeply embedded in the civilian population. More than two thirds of the army’s elite were trained and nurtured in the army’s territorial system, which parallels civilian posts at every level in every province. There has been little change in this system, or in the curriculum of new defence force recruits. To make matters worse, elite civilian politicians still perceive the military in terms of political power, and not as an element of the state that serves civilian needs.
Reform of the security apparatus and promotion of human rights are integral to broader reform in Indonesia. Both have suffered because of the Indonesian elite’s struggle to cling to traditional methods of power. Poverty of vision and a lack of will to implement strategic reforms continue under a corrupt bureaucracy and a stubborn political elite that are power hungry, greedy, and forgetful of its constituents. Add the effect of the global context, in which security discourse has been pre-eminent, and we see reform of the security forces being undermined by an anti-reformist group taking advantage of the rhetoric of national interest and global security to serve its own ends. This nexus is evident in several critical ways.
Shock and awe
Firstly, there is much less focus on issues of democracy and human rights than in the years immediately following the downfall of the Suharto regime. The global ‘war on terrorism’ has crippled rigorous debate on matters of civil liberties world-wide. Emphasis lies heavily on security. Renewed military ties between Australia, the US and Indonesia have caused great concern among Indonesian pro-democracy activists that the military will continue to act with impunity, and that the Australian and American governments will strive to legitimise re-engagement rather than condemn military human rights violations. Training and enhanced professionalism (the reason these Western governments usually give for engagement) is indeed essential. However, the legitimatioŽ of an unreformed and unrepentant military is counter-productive to the promotion of democratic control over the armed forces in Indonesia.
Nowhere is this emphasis more evident than in the current ‘security operations’ in Aceh. Within the global context of the ‘war on terrorism’, proponents of military operations in Aceh have used neo-conservative security rhetoric to win international legitimacy. Military officers surrounding Megawati have labelled the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) a terrorist group, against which pre-emptive and unilateral strikes, like the US ‘shock and awe’ campaign in Iraq, are justified. This is despite ample historical evidence that military operations in Aceh cannot solve the secessionist problem and will not guarantee the unity of the Indonesian state.
Security legislation
There has been political interference in, and military domination of, the development of security legislation in Indonesia. Democratic states obviously can and should regulate security matters to ensure the protection of their people. However, the way in which such legislation has been formulated in Indonesia in recent times has tended to violate the principles of human rights and due legal process.
This was evident in the recent controversy surrounding the drafting of the Bill on the Structure and Organisation of the Armed Forces. This Bill, which was put to the Indonesian parliament in March 2003, seeks authority for the TNI to declare a state of ýmergency and deploy security personnel without prior approval from the president. The Bill contradicts the newly amended constitution and the National Defence Law, which stipulates that the president alone, in his or her capacity as the supreme commander of military, has the authority to declare a state of emergency and order the deployment of troops to conflict-torn areas. The president is required to secure prior approval from the House of Representatives (DPR) or report the decision to the House within 24 hours.
In the interests of civilianisation and democratisation of the armed forces, the drafting of new defence force legislation was supposed to entail transparent and consultative processes. However, as was widely reported in the Indonesian media, the final Bill was the result of an undemocratic usurpation of the drafting process, using classic army strong-arm tactics. Civilian experts involved in the original drafting process openly rejected the resulting Bill, because it does not accommodate democratic values and principles of accountability. This is evident in Article 19, which states that: ‘the Chief of Defence can deploy troops without permission from the president (civil authority).’ There are many other problems with the new security Bill, particularly surrounding the issues of military budgeting and auditing, reform of which was rejected by the military.
The Indonesian military elite has used the priority of national security and unity to thwart reform of the territorial command structure. This structure allows the Indonesian military to generate up to 75 per cent of its own budget by controlling legal and illegal business operations at the local level. The success of this system is hinged on the fact that the armed forces are not geographically structured to defend the archipelagic nation, but to mirror the civilian administrative structure. They have defence posts shadowing each level of civilian administration, from the smallest village up to the national level. This structure will not produce an Indonesian defence system capable of defending the nation.
There is undoubtedly a correlation between the resurgence of neo-conservatism in the US and the slowing down of security sector reform in Indonesia. The new US security agenda sends dangerous signals for the future direction of Indonesian democracy, and especially for the potential for military intervention in the political process. When considering renewed military ties, the US, Australia and others should pay attention to the issues of security sector reform rather than simply the military’s ability to combat terrorism.
Both the global and local political contexts have proved to be stumbling blocks for security sector reform in Indonesia. International support is needed to promote reform, as are national leaders with vision and courage.
Riefqi Muna (Riefqi@Runbox.com) is a PhD student at the Royal Military College of Science, UK, and works with Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (www.gfn-ssr.org).
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Repressing reform Democracy and autonomy are sold out to Western economic and security interests
Repressing reform
Democracy and autonomy are sold out to Western economic and security interests
Scott Burchill
The attacks on the United States in September 2001, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and further terrorist attacks around the world since — including in Bali on 12 October 2002 — have had a significant impact on the way the West views Indonesia politically and strategically. These views are mired in double standards and neurosis.
The price of stability
In an ex post facto defence of the war against Iraq in March and April of 2003, Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer launched a scathing attack on the United Nations (UN) and multilateral diplomacy. Speaking in June, Downer targeted one of the central planks of international society: ‘Sovereignty, in our view, is not absolute,’ he said. ‘Acting for the benefit of humanity is more important’ (26 June, 2003).
The significance of Downer’s comments is revealed when they are contrasted with remarks he made a month earlier about Indonesia’s renewed military campaign against Acehnese rebels. Criticising the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Downer said ‘the violence perpetrated by the separatist movement is absolutely unacceptable’ (21 May 2003). This view was endorsed by defence minister Robert Hill, who argued that ‘Indonesia’s got the perfect right to maintain its internal integrity and we regret those who are in armed revolt’ (21 May 2003).
The contrast between Iraq and Indonesia is more striking than the failure of either Downer or Hill to criticise Jakarta’s brutal repression in its western province. Clearly there was to be no acting ‘for the benefit of humanity’ in northern Sumatra. Sovereignty may not be absolute in the Balkans, Central Asia or Mesopotamia, but in Southeast Asia, it is apparently inviolable. This is an excellent illustration of both a double standard and an ongoing Western neurosis about Indonesia’s territorial integrity.
Downer restated his view three months later at the UN: ‘Old shibboleths — such as the excessive homage to sovereignty even at the expense of the preservation of humanity and human values — should not constrain us’ (24 September 2003). Unless, of course, the victims are closer to home, when vocal Western cheerleaders can routinely traduce human values.
ühe West has long favoured metropolitan (meaning Javanese) control over an archipelago that is assumed to contain centrifugal and fissiparous forces. Jakarta’s suppression of an anti-colonial struggle in East Timor and secessionist movements in Aceh anÏ West Papua have long been supported diplomatically by Australia and the US. This is despite the lesson of history, which teaches that the immutability of political boundaries in the modern world is rare.
Irrational fears about political fragmentation and the diplomatic convenience of dealing with one administrative centre has frequently led Canberra to express a greater commitment to Indonesia’s territorial integrity than has been demonstrated by many of the Republic’s own citizens. As with East Timor, the West again risks finding itself on the wrong side of history.
Democracy or counter-terrorism?
There is scepticism about the prospects of an authentic democratic transition in Indonesia, which currently has the apparatus (eg free and fair elections) but not the political culture (eg civilianisation of political life) of a liberal democracy. A return to de facto military (TNI) rule along the lines of Pakistan is still possible, though optimists look to Thailand and Turkey as more desirable models for the future.
Despite much rhetoric to the contrary, global and domestic elite have little interest in how deep the roots of democracy in Indonesia spread. For over three decades Washington and Canberra felt very comfortable with General Suharto’s authoritarian ways. Stabilising the economy has always come first.
Since the East Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s, the West has argued for reductions in endemic corruption and greater technocratic competence in order to restore the confidence of the foreign investment community in Indonesia. An end to local subsidies, obedience to IMF rules, and openness to overseas markets are crucial for the repayment of loans and debt: they are more important than parliamentary democracy.
A much higher priority since the events of 11 September 2001 is the suppression of Islamic terrorists. Washington and Canberra want to see President Megawati crack down hard on Islamists today in the same way they backed Suharto’s suppression of communists in the mid-1960s.
The West has been very keen to portray Indonesia as ‘a model of moderation’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 17 May, 2002), with ‘Indonesia’s moderate traditions of Islam as a potential example for the whole Muslim world’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 1 June 2002). Such an image would help to both neutralise anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world and help sell US interventions in the Middle East and Arab world generally. In Indonesia, the neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration are looking for ‘some sort of public relations campaign against [terrorism]’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 21 November, 2002).
The Bali bombings on 12 October 2002 were not therefore just a ‘wake-up call’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 18 October, 2002). They were also an opportunity to renew old acquaintances. According to the US Deputy Defence Secretary, ‘the reason the terrorists are successful in Indonesia is because the Suharto regime fell and the methods that were used to suppress them are gone’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 18 October, 2002). A pretext to re-engage the TNI had been found.
‘I’m not saying that every military officer that comes through training in the United States turns into a great democrat,’ argues Wolfowitz, ‘but I would argue that by and large the ones that have been trained here have a much more modern outlook, a much more democratic outlook, and they’ll be much more supportive of what Indonesia needs to have in terms of democracy’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 21 November 2002). The problem with this argument, according to Ed McWilliams, a former State Department officer who served in the US Embassy in Jakarta from 1996-99, is that ‘the TNI’s worst abuses took place when we were most engaged’ (Asia Times, 18 July 2003).
TNI has a long, ugly and well-known history of internal repression, including links with Islamic militants (Laskar Jihad). It’s role in fomenting communal violence in the province of Maluku, and its state terrorism in provinces such as West Papua, make it a dubious partner in any counter-terrorist operations. Attempts by Canberra to re-engage Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus), justified on these grounds, has been sought for some time despite the obvious ethical contradiction and domestic public discomfort.
Model Muslim state?
The successful investigation and prosecution of the Bali bombers temporarily assuaged doubts in the West about Jakarta’s commitment to counter-terrorism. However, cooperation between Indonesia and the West on the ‘war against terrorism’ is showing serious strains.
Humiliated by Washington’s refusal to share Hambali — an Al Qaeda and Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) operative — Megawati told the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 2003 that the war against Iraq was alienating Muslim youth from the West. It had produced a ‘climate of violence’ that boosted anti-Americanism, and was increasingly seen by Indonesians as a war against Islam. These words will have confirmed the West’s fears about Jakarta’s unreliability.
Megawati’s criticism of the West at the UN General Assembly, and the doubts shared by many in her administration over the extent of their domestic Islamist problem may be driven by declining popularity and the prospect of a presidential election in the middle of 2004. However, it also suggests a return to the climate prevailing soon after the 11 September attacks when senior government officials, including the Vice President, expressed sympathy and understanding for Al Qaeda. Despite the Bali trials and the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Megawati and her government remain in denial about JI. Significantly, her refusal to attend the 12-month anniversary commemoration in Kuta was a clear snubbing of the Australian Prime Minister.
The public relations campaign for the model Muslim state has stalled. In the eyes of the West, Indonesia has again become the weakest link in the anti-terrorist chain.
Scott Burchill (burchill@deakin.edu.au) is a lecturer in International Relations at the School of Social & International Studies at Deakin University.
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Democracy and autonomy are sold out to Western economic and security interests
Scott Burchill
The attacks on the United States in September 2001, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and further terrorist attacks around the world since — including in Bali on 12 October 2002 — have had a significant impact on the way the West views Indonesia politically and strategically. These views are mired in double standards and neurosis.
The price of stability
In an ex post facto defence of the war against Iraq in March and April of 2003, Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer launched a scathing attack on the United Nations (UN) and multilateral diplomacy. Speaking in June, Downer targeted one of the central planks of international society: ‘Sovereignty, in our view, is not absolute,’ he said. ‘Acting for the benefit of humanity is more important’ (26 June, 2003).
The significance of Downer’s comments is revealed when they are contrasted with remarks he made a month earlier about Indonesia’s renewed military campaign against Acehnese rebels. Criticising the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Downer said ‘the violence perpetrated by the separatist movement is absolutely unacceptable’ (21 May 2003). This view was endorsed by defence minister Robert Hill, who argued that ‘Indonesia’s got the perfect right to maintain its internal integrity and we regret those who are in armed revolt’ (21 May 2003).
The contrast between Iraq and Indonesia is more striking than the failure of either Downer or Hill to criticise Jakarta’s brutal repression in its western province. Clearly there was to be no acting ‘for the benefit of humanity’ in northern Sumatra. Sovereignty may not be absolute in the Balkans, Central Asia or Mesopotamia, but in Southeast Asia, it is apparently inviolable. This is an excellent illustration of both a double standard and an ongoing Western neurosis about Indonesia’s territorial integrity.
Downer restated his view three months later at the UN: ‘Old shibboleths — such as the excessive homage to sovereignty even at the expense of the preservation of humanity and human values — should not constrain us’ (24 September 2003). Unless, of course, the victims are closer to home, when vocal Western cheerleaders can routinely traduce human values.
ühe West has long favoured metropolitan (meaning Javanese) control over an archipelago that is assumed to contain centrifugal and fissiparous forces. Jakarta’s suppression of an anti-colonial struggle in East Timor and secessionist movements in Aceh anÏ West Papua have long been supported diplomatically by Australia and the US. This is despite the lesson of history, which teaches that the immutability of political boundaries in the modern world is rare.
Irrational fears about political fragmentation and the diplomatic convenience of dealing with one administrative centre has frequently led Canberra to express a greater commitment to Indonesia’s territorial integrity than has been demonstrated by many of the Republic’s own citizens. As with East Timor, the West again risks finding itself on the wrong side of history.
Democracy or counter-terrorism?
There is scepticism about the prospects of an authentic democratic transition in Indonesia, which currently has the apparatus (eg free and fair elections) but not the political culture (eg civilianisation of political life) of a liberal democracy. A return to de facto military (TNI) rule along the lines of Pakistan is still possible, though optimists look to Thailand and Turkey as more desirable models for the future.
Despite much rhetoric to the contrary, global and domestic elite have little interest in how deep the roots of democracy in Indonesia spread. For over three decades Washington and Canberra felt very comfortable with General Suharto’s authoritarian ways. Stabilising the economy has always come first.
Since the East Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s, the West has argued for reductions in endemic corruption and greater technocratic competence in order to restore the confidence of the foreign investment community in Indonesia. An end to local subsidies, obedience to IMF rules, and openness to overseas markets are crucial for the repayment of loans and debt: they are more important than parliamentary democracy.
A much higher priority since the events of 11 September 2001 is the suppression of Islamic terrorists. Washington and Canberra want to see President Megawati crack down hard on Islamists today in the same way they backed Suharto’s suppression of communists in the mid-1960s.
The West has been very keen to portray Indonesia as ‘a model of moderation’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 17 May, 2002), with ‘Indonesia’s moderate traditions of Islam as a potential example for the whole Muslim world’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 1 June 2002). Such an image would help to both neutralise anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world and help sell US interventions in the Middle East and Arab world generally. In Indonesia, the neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration are looking for ‘some sort of public relations campaign against [terrorism]’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 21 November, 2002).
The Bali bombings on 12 October 2002 were not therefore just a ‘wake-up call’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 18 October, 2002). They were also an opportunity to renew old acquaintances. According to the US Deputy Defence Secretary, ‘the reason the terrorists are successful in Indonesia is because the Suharto regime fell and the methods that were used to suppress them are gone’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 18 October, 2002). A pretext to re-engage the TNI had been found.
‘I’m not saying that every military officer that comes through training in the United States turns into a great democrat,’ argues Wolfowitz, ‘but I would argue that by and large the ones that have been trained here have a much more modern outlook, a much more democratic outlook, and they’ll be much more supportive of what Indonesia needs to have in terms of democracy’ (Paul Wolfowitz, 21 November 2002). The problem with this argument, according to Ed McWilliams, a former State Department officer who served in the US Embassy in Jakarta from 1996-99, is that ‘the TNI’s worst abuses took place when we were most engaged’ (Asia Times, 18 July 2003).
TNI has a long, ugly and well-known history of internal repression, including links with Islamic militants (Laskar Jihad). It’s role in fomenting communal violence in the province of Maluku, and its state terrorism in provinces such as West Papua, make it a dubious partner in any counter-terrorist operations. Attempts by Canberra to re-engage Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus), justified on these grounds, has been sought for some time despite the obvious ethical contradiction and domestic public discomfort.
Model Muslim state?
The successful investigation and prosecution of the Bali bombers temporarily assuaged doubts in the West about Jakarta’s commitment to counter-terrorism. However, cooperation between Indonesia and the West on the ‘war against terrorism’ is showing serious strains.
Humiliated by Washington’s refusal to share Hambali — an Al Qaeda and Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) operative — Megawati told the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 2003 that the war against Iraq was alienating Muslim youth from the West. It had produced a ‘climate of violence’ that boosted anti-Americanism, and was increasingly seen by Indonesians as a war against Islam. These words will have confirmed the West’s fears about Jakarta’s unreliability.
Megawati’s criticism of the West at the UN General Assembly, and the doubts shared by many in her administration over the extent of their domestic Islamist problem may be driven by declining popularity and the prospect of a presidential election in the middle of 2004. However, it also suggests a return to the climate prevailing soon after the 11 September attacks when senior government officials, including the Vice President, expressed sympathy and understanding for Al Qaeda. Despite the Bali trials and the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Megawati and her government remain in denial about JI. Significantly, her refusal to attend the 12-month anniversary commemoration in Kuta was a clear snubbing of the Australian Prime Minister.
The public relations campaign for the model Muslim state has stalled. In the eyes of the West, Indonesia has again become the weakest link in the anti-terrorist chain.
Scott Burchill (burchill@deakin.edu.au) is a lecturer in International Relations at the School of Social & International Studies at Deakin University.
Inside Indonesia 77: Jan - Mar 2004
Islam and democracy cannot meet Irfan Awwas sets out his vision for Islamic law in Indonesia
Islam and democracy cannot meet
Irfan Awwas sets out his vision for Islamic law in Indonesia
Imam Subkhan
Editor’s note: This interview is the first of a set of three articles in this edition debating what Islamic law would mean for Indonesia. Inside Indonesia believes an open forum like this is important. Who is right? You decide! We started off by asking Irfan Awwas to explain his vision for Islamic Law (syariah) and respond to common criticisms of the campaign for its implementation in Indonesia. Jennifer Donohoe then reviews responses to a campaign for Islamic law in South Sulawesi, and Suraiya Kamaruzzaman presents a critical appraisal of what Islamic law has meant for Aceh and its women.
Irfan Awwas chairs the Executive Committee of the Indonesian Council of Mujahidin (MMI). Its spiritual commander (amir) is Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, currently detained for interrogation under Indonesia’s anti-terrorist laws. Irfan Awwas’s brother, Fikiruddin, was arrested in Malaysia under that country’s Internal Security Act and is now also detained in Indonesia. However, there is no evidence to suggest that either Irfan Awwas or MMI as an organisation are directly involved in terrorism.
Irfan Awwas has spent his life struggling for Islamic law. Born in 1960 in east Lombok, he was once a student at the Pondok Pesantren Gontor Islamic school in East Java, and after his teen years became a Muslim activist. During the New Order, he was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment because of his activities at the Ar Risalah bulletin, which advocated the implementation of Islamic law.
As the Executive Committee Chairperson (Ketua Lajnah Tandfiziyah) of the Indonesian Council of Mujahidin (Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, MMI) since 2000, Irfan has continually campaigned for the need to uphold Islamic law. The Council recently held an open debate with Yayasan Wakaf Paramadina at the State Islamic University (Universitas Islam Negeri, UIN) in Jakarta to discuss the book Fiqh Lintas Agama (Inter-Faith Jurisprudence) written by Nurcholish Madjid and his colleagues. Irfan considers this group to be provoking society to reject Islamic law.
Irfan is also a stern critic of American foreign policy, particularly as it relates to terrorism. Amidst conducting advocacy for the release of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, he met Inside Indonesia at MMI headquarters. In his outspoken style, he spelled out his thoughts on upholding Islamic law.
Why is MMI intensively campaigning for Islamic law?
Islam’s universal mission is rahmatalil’alamin. This means to free humankind from destruction and develop a harmonious and prosperous life blessed by Allah SWT. It was for this mission that Allah sent the Prophet Muhammad. To obtain rahmatalil’alamin, a person must acknowledge the oneness of Allah, and surrender their entire life to Allah’s laws. If we as the Indonesian nation believe that Islam is rahmatalil’alamin, then there is nothing to fear if we make Islamic law the law of the country.
What would you say to those who reject Islamic law, particularly non-Muslims? Even among Muslims there is a negative stereotype of the term ‘Islamic syariah’.
There is a discriminatory view in Indonesia and the rest of the world towards various conflicts. People frequently look at Muslims’ stance towards non-Muslims. Currently, people think that Islam is hardline and a threat to non-Muslims. But it’s not fair to ignore the attitude of non-Muslims to Muslims. What about the 500 people slaughtered in Nigeria, and the hundreds slaughtered in Pattani and what about America stripping naked prisoners in Iraq in a clear violation of human rights, and Britain as well. Why do they commit these crimes? Is it religion, a political mission, or something else? We need to get to the bottom of that, then people can be fair towards Islam. In Islam, all humans of whatever religion or ethnicity are objects for proselytisation. Not objects to attack.
How can you convince people that Islamic law will bring them blessings and help them in their lives?
It would be much easier to convince them if Muslim intellectuals all had the same stance. But talk won’t convince people that syariah is His mercy for the universe. That is why MMI’s main aim is the formalisation of Islamic law in state institutions. When there is a legal and political umbrella for the implementation of Islamic law, people will be able to see how effectively Islamic law can provide benefits and how effective it is in destroying kemungkaran (evil, harmfulness). This will be clear if Islamic law becomes the law of the state. But if we just give speeches or write about it in books, then it can never be proven. People will look more at the negative side.
One of the main causes of this opposition between secular people and religious people is secular democracy. Robert Hefner once asked me, ‘What’s the biggest obstacle to Islamic law being adopted in Indonesia?’. I answered, ‘Democracy!’.
Why democracy?
Firstly, democracy has driven out Allah SWT from national life. Allah’s sovereignty has been replaced by the people’s sovereignty. If the people hold sovereignty, then almost all of Islamic law is useless. Then people say, ‘Don’t bring Islamic law into national life,’ and, ‘Why must be the state handle religion, it’s a private matter?’.
Secondly, democracy states that truth lies with the majority. Whatever the majority says is correct. In Islam truth comes from Allah.
Thirdly, democracy uses the principle of ‘one man, one vote’. In democracy, a professor, a prostitute, a thief and a religious scholar all have the same say. In Islam, an educated Muslim has greater say than a layperson. Martin van Bruinessen asked me, ‘What if the prostitute is clever?’ But what does that matter if they have no morals?
Finally, democracy says nothing of the hereafter, so people don’t care about morals. In secular democracy, nudists are more valued than those wearing jilbab (Islamic headscarf). In France, people who wear jilbab are demeaned, while people are free to go nude in demonstrations. In all democratic countries, in the name of human rights people who drink, gamble or engage in prostitution have greater status than people who declare all of this forbidden. This is because democracy doesn’t deal with judgement in the hereafter. In Islam, it’s extremely important to build a virtuous life in this world and the hereafter.
What is MMI’s strategy in struggling for Islamic law?
At present we are conducting socialisation of Islamic law. Even at this stage, the obstacles are extraordinary. Imagine if we ever got to apply it. The socialisation involves seminars, producing publications and holding dialogues with officials and the People’s Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR).
To achieve formalisation of syariah, MMI will need to work through existing state institutions, such as the parliament and through Islamic political parties. When Islamic parties have struggled for syariah, they haven’t gained majority support. Their electoral support has steadily decreased since 1955. The secularisation of politics in Indonesia has succeeded. In view of this, does Indonesian society still need Islamic law?
Indonesian society itself, rather than just its leaders, is mostly Muslim and almost everybody longs for Islamic law. This is because they see Islamic law as a part of their faith, and because they’ve seen that living without syariah is no better [than living under it]. When secular people reject the formalisation of syariah because there are non-Muslims who do not agree, we can turn around and ask, when there are Muslims who reject secular legislation and demand that Islamic law be adopted, do people listen to them?
With so many Islamic parties, they never win. Imagine if there was one Islamic party in Indonesia and the entire Islamic community and all Muslim leaders had the same vision to uphold Islamic law. Instead of confusing the Islamic community and making them afraid.
Islam and democracy each seek to develop their own civilisations. The two cannot meet; in fact each defeats the other. So don’t expect that Islamic law will be enforced under secular democracy. That will never happen, it’s a fantasy.
So democracy and Islam can’t be married?
Islam is not identical to democracy, but some of democracy’s teachings are a part of Islam, for example, musyawarah (communal deliberation) although with different defintions. In Indonesian democracy, musyawarah is to find a consensus. Islamic musyawarah aims to find the truth.
How can you prove that Indonesians long for syariah?
Indonesian people have never been educated on how to become true Muslims. All that the state has fostered through its educational institutions and pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) is how to become a ‘Pancasila-ist’ Indonesian. There has never been education on how to develop into a Muslim living in the true Islamic way.
However, to gain majority support in this country, almost all leaders, be they Islamic, political or military, use Islamic symbols, for instance by wearing a peci (rimless black cap). So we can see that in the depths of their hearts, Muslims miss Islam. But what sort of Islam? That is what most of our Islamic leaders have failed to explain.
But the inclusion of the Jakarta Charter in our Constitution was rejected. And even Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, as the country’s two largest Islamic organisations, reject syariah, if it means formalising Islamic law in our Constitution. They prefer a cultural approach to introduce Islamic values.
Let’s not overgeneralise. Who’s to say that all of Muhammadiyah’s members follow Syafii Maarif [the Chairperson of Muhammadiyah’s Central Board]? Who can prove that all NU followers agree with Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur)? Even Hasyim Muzadi [the Chairperson of NU’s Central Board] is challenging Gus Dur as a presidential candidate. Many NU and Muhammadiyah people support Islamic law, it’s their leaders who are dominant.
Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia is not calling for the Jakarta Charter. We concentrate more on the socialisation of Islamic law and on convincing DPR members that Islamic law is valid under the Indonesian Constitution. They key is for Clause 29 subsection 1 and 2 of the Constitution to receive detailed clarification.
What does MMI believe the clarification of the clause should be?
We agree with the clarification provided by Prof. Dr. Hasairin, LLB, because we consider him to be a mufasir (expert in interpretation) on the 1945 Constitution. Hasairin interprets Clause 29 subsection 1 — ‘The Indonesian state is based on the One and Only God’ — to mean three things. Firstly, in the Republic of Indonesia, based on the One and Only God, legal stipulations and regulations that are inconsistent with religion are forbidden. Secondly, the government must give freedom and independence to the Islamic community to implement syariah, to the Christian community to implement their religious laws, and so on. And thirdly, if state support is not required, the government must give freedom and independence to religious communities to implement their teachings at a personal level.
If the government were to implement these three interpretations, then all of Muhammadiyah and NU’s objections would be refuted. Because the 1945 Constitution states that demands for the enforcement of syariah are legitimate and constitutional.
In several regions — Cianjur, Padang and Makassar for example — there are demands for Islamic law to be formalised, and in Aceh Islamic law is already in force. But after it was adopted, there was no significant change. And women tended to become victims.
The government’s response to demands for Islamic law has been half-hearted. When the syariah laws were ratified in Aceh, on the first day Abdullah Puteh [the Governor of Aceh] stated that all the laws of syariah were in force except for hudud (punishments specified under syariah for certain offences). How can Islamic law be effective if it is cut-down from the outset? Then we see a policeman on television blocking the way of a woman not wearing a jilbab. This gives the impression that Islamic law is just about jilbab and that women are the victims.
In truth, the correct understanding of syariah is not confined to law and punishments. When syariah is first adopted, the punishment would not be to cut off a thief’s hand because the thieves at that stage will have been produced by the democratic system. It would be irresponsible for us to cut off their hands. The first thing that the government will need to do in the implementation of syariah is to create an atmosphere where people will be ashamed to commit evil deeds and violate syariah. For example, the infrastructure for gambling and prostitution would first have to be removed.
Then the challenge would be to make it so that people did not need to steal to pay for school fees or to eat. The government must provide a guarantee to the poor and distribute employment evenly.
We only ask that people be fair, we don’t need them to defend Islam. If society is of sound mind, then they’ll accept syariah and reject democracy. In democracy, when a woman wears a tank top it is considered fine and not degrading to the dignity of women. But when syariah is adopted and women are told to wear jilbab, they are called victims. Do Indonesians prefer to see women exposing their aurat (parts of the body which must be covered according to the standards set by Islam) rather than wearing jilbab? Our logic is back to front.
But syariah has also been criticised for not addressing the root causes of social problems, such as corruption, unemployment and poverty. For example, when they call for places of vice to be closed, they only say it is haram (forbidden) and must be destroyed.
This is an error on society’s part. Why demand a solution from people who are not in a position to provide one. Give us power and we will provide a solution. They are in power, but they tell us to provide a solution. That is discrimination, it’s unfair. If we are only proselytising then we can only give a warning, hey, don’t do that or we’ll come there. Nevertheless, because Islam is rahmatalil’alamin, even though we’re not in power, we will still provide a solution.
How is syariah superior to the present system of government?
Islamic law is far more effective than democracy at facing kemungkaran (evil). In democracy thieves receive prison terms. Even if they’re sentenced to ten years, will this cure them of the habit? Will they stop robbing? No. In fact, they leave prison as more professional thieves.
Meanwhile, the state bears the cost. They give the thief free food, while their wives and children who have done no wrong receive nothing. What sort of government is this? Then the children may also become thieves, because their father was detained. So it’s not an effective way to stop theft.
Imagine if we used Islamic law, and the thief’s hand was cut off. Once we’ve created circumstances where the welfare of society is guaranteed, if there are still thieves, only then will we prosecute them. The judge can then decide whether the level of robbery justifies cutting off the thief’s hand or not. If we punish thieves in this Islamic way it may seem cruel. But by cutting off one thief’s hand, we teach all the other thieves their lesson.
Supporters of democracy are hyprocrites. They use exactly the same punishment as Islam but don’t want to call it Islamic law. For example, thieves in Singapore are punished with lashes, an Islamic style of punishment. And that is Islamic law. But when we use the same punishment and call it Islamic law they criticise it. What sort of logic is that?
Imam Subkhan (subkhan_yk@yahoo.com) is a program coordinator at LABDA Shalahuddin, an NGO that promotes civil society and progressive Islamic concepts in Indonesia.
Inside Indonesia 78: Apr - Jun 2004
Irfan Awwas sets out his vision for Islamic law in Indonesia
Imam Subkhan
Editor’s note: This interview is the first of a set of three articles in this edition debating what Islamic law would mean for Indonesia. Inside Indonesia believes an open forum like this is important. Who is right? You decide! We started off by asking Irfan Awwas to explain his vision for Islamic Law (syariah) and respond to common criticisms of the campaign for its implementation in Indonesia. Jennifer Donohoe then reviews responses to a campaign for Islamic law in South Sulawesi, and Suraiya Kamaruzzaman presents a critical appraisal of what Islamic law has meant for Aceh and its women.
Irfan Awwas chairs the Executive Committee of the Indonesian Council of Mujahidin (MMI). Its spiritual commander (amir) is Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, currently detained for interrogation under Indonesia’s anti-terrorist laws. Irfan Awwas’s brother, Fikiruddin, was arrested in Malaysia under that country’s Internal Security Act and is now also detained in Indonesia. However, there is no evidence to suggest that either Irfan Awwas or MMI as an organisation are directly involved in terrorism.
Irfan Awwas has spent his life struggling for Islamic law. Born in 1960 in east Lombok, he was once a student at the Pondok Pesantren Gontor Islamic school in East Java, and after his teen years became a Muslim activist. During the New Order, he was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment because of his activities at the Ar Risalah bulletin, which advocated the implementation of Islamic law.
As the Executive Committee Chairperson (Ketua Lajnah Tandfiziyah) of the Indonesian Council of Mujahidin (Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, MMI) since 2000, Irfan has continually campaigned for the need to uphold Islamic law. The Council recently held an open debate with Yayasan Wakaf Paramadina at the State Islamic University (Universitas Islam Negeri, UIN) in Jakarta to discuss the book Fiqh Lintas Agama (Inter-Faith Jurisprudence) written by Nurcholish Madjid and his colleagues. Irfan considers this group to be provoking society to reject Islamic law.
Irfan is also a stern critic of American foreign policy, particularly as it relates to terrorism. Amidst conducting advocacy for the release of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, he met Inside Indonesia at MMI headquarters. In his outspoken style, he spelled out his thoughts on upholding Islamic law.
Why is MMI intensively campaigning for Islamic law?
Islam’s universal mission is rahmatalil’alamin. This means to free humankind from destruction and develop a harmonious and prosperous life blessed by Allah SWT. It was for this mission that Allah sent the Prophet Muhammad. To obtain rahmatalil’alamin, a person must acknowledge the oneness of Allah, and surrender their entire life to Allah’s laws. If we as the Indonesian nation believe that Islam is rahmatalil’alamin, then there is nothing to fear if we make Islamic law the law of the country.
What would you say to those who reject Islamic law, particularly non-Muslims? Even among Muslims there is a negative stereotype of the term ‘Islamic syariah’.
There is a discriminatory view in Indonesia and the rest of the world towards various conflicts. People frequently look at Muslims’ stance towards non-Muslims. Currently, people think that Islam is hardline and a threat to non-Muslims. But it’s not fair to ignore the attitude of non-Muslims to Muslims. What about the 500 people slaughtered in Nigeria, and the hundreds slaughtered in Pattani and what about America stripping naked prisoners in Iraq in a clear violation of human rights, and Britain as well. Why do they commit these crimes? Is it religion, a political mission, or something else? We need to get to the bottom of that, then people can be fair towards Islam. In Islam, all humans of whatever religion or ethnicity are objects for proselytisation. Not objects to attack.
How can you convince people that Islamic law will bring them blessings and help them in their lives?
It would be much easier to convince them if Muslim intellectuals all had the same stance. But talk won’t convince people that syariah is His mercy for the universe. That is why MMI’s main aim is the formalisation of Islamic law in state institutions. When there is a legal and political umbrella for the implementation of Islamic law, people will be able to see how effectively Islamic law can provide benefits and how effective it is in destroying kemungkaran (evil, harmfulness). This will be clear if Islamic law becomes the law of the state. But if we just give speeches or write about it in books, then it can never be proven. People will look more at the negative side.
One of the main causes of this opposition between secular people and religious people is secular democracy. Robert Hefner once asked me, ‘What’s the biggest obstacle to Islamic law being adopted in Indonesia?’. I answered, ‘Democracy!’.
Why democracy?
Firstly, democracy has driven out Allah SWT from national life. Allah’s sovereignty has been replaced by the people’s sovereignty. If the people hold sovereignty, then almost all of Islamic law is useless. Then people say, ‘Don’t bring Islamic law into national life,’ and, ‘Why must be the state handle religion, it’s a private matter?’.
Secondly, democracy states that truth lies with the majority. Whatever the majority says is correct. In Islam truth comes from Allah.
Thirdly, democracy uses the principle of ‘one man, one vote’. In democracy, a professor, a prostitute, a thief and a religious scholar all have the same say. In Islam, an educated Muslim has greater say than a layperson. Martin van Bruinessen asked me, ‘What if the prostitute is clever?’ But what does that matter if they have no morals?
Finally, democracy says nothing of the hereafter, so people don’t care about morals. In secular democracy, nudists are more valued than those wearing jilbab (Islamic headscarf). In France, people who wear jilbab are demeaned, while people are free to go nude in demonstrations. In all democratic countries, in the name of human rights people who drink, gamble or engage in prostitution have greater status than people who declare all of this forbidden. This is because democracy doesn’t deal with judgement in the hereafter. In Islam, it’s extremely important to build a virtuous life in this world and the hereafter.
What is MMI’s strategy in struggling for Islamic law?
At present we are conducting socialisation of Islamic law. Even at this stage, the obstacles are extraordinary. Imagine if we ever got to apply it. The socialisation involves seminars, producing publications and holding dialogues with officials and the People’s Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR).
To achieve formalisation of syariah, MMI will need to work through existing state institutions, such as the parliament and through Islamic political parties. When Islamic parties have struggled for syariah, they haven’t gained majority support. Their electoral support has steadily decreased since 1955. The secularisation of politics in Indonesia has succeeded. In view of this, does Indonesian society still need Islamic law?
Indonesian society itself, rather than just its leaders, is mostly Muslim and almost everybody longs for Islamic law. This is because they see Islamic law as a part of their faith, and because they’ve seen that living without syariah is no better [than living under it]. When secular people reject the formalisation of syariah because there are non-Muslims who do not agree, we can turn around and ask, when there are Muslims who reject secular legislation and demand that Islamic law be adopted, do people listen to them?
With so many Islamic parties, they never win. Imagine if there was one Islamic party in Indonesia and the entire Islamic community and all Muslim leaders had the same vision to uphold Islamic law. Instead of confusing the Islamic community and making them afraid.
Islam and democracy each seek to develop their own civilisations. The two cannot meet; in fact each defeats the other. So don’t expect that Islamic law will be enforced under secular democracy. That will never happen, it’s a fantasy.
So democracy and Islam can’t be married?
Islam is not identical to democracy, but some of democracy’s teachings are a part of Islam, for example, musyawarah (communal deliberation) although with different defintions. In Indonesian democracy, musyawarah is to find a consensus. Islamic musyawarah aims to find the truth.
How can you prove that Indonesians long for syariah?
Indonesian people have never been educated on how to become true Muslims. All that the state has fostered through its educational institutions and pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) is how to become a ‘Pancasila-ist’ Indonesian. There has never been education on how to develop into a Muslim living in the true Islamic way.
However, to gain majority support in this country, almost all leaders, be they Islamic, political or military, use Islamic symbols, for instance by wearing a peci (rimless black cap). So we can see that in the depths of their hearts, Muslims miss Islam. But what sort of Islam? That is what most of our Islamic leaders have failed to explain.
But the inclusion of the Jakarta Charter in our Constitution was rejected. And even Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, as the country’s two largest Islamic organisations, reject syariah, if it means formalising Islamic law in our Constitution. They prefer a cultural approach to introduce Islamic values.
Let’s not overgeneralise. Who’s to say that all of Muhammadiyah’s members follow Syafii Maarif [the Chairperson of Muhammadiyah’s Central Board]? Who can prove that all NU followers agree with Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur)? Even Hasyim Muzadi [the Chairperson of NU’s Central Board] is challenging Gus Dur as a presidential candidate. Many NU and Muhammadiyah people support Islamic law, it’s their leaders who are dominant.
Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia is not calling for the Jakarta Charter. We concentrate more on the socialisation of Islamic law and on convincing DPR members that Islamic law is valid under the Indonesian Constitution. They key is for Clause 29 subsection 1 and 2 of the Constitution to receive detailed clarification.
What does MMI believe the clarification of the clause should be?
We agree with the clarification provided by Prof. Dr. Hasairin, LLB, because we consider him to be a mufasir (expert in interpretation) on the 1945 Constitution. Hasairin interprets Clause 29 subsection 1 — ‘The Indonesian state is based on the One and Only God’ — to mean three things. Firstly, in the Republic of Indonesia, based on the One and Only God, legal stipulations and regulations that are inconsistent with religion are forbidden. Secondly, the government must give freedom and independence to the Islamic community to implement syariah, to the Christian community to implement their religious laws, and so on. And thirdly, if state support is not required, the government must give freedom and independence to religious communities to implement their teachings at a personal level.
If the government were to implement these three interpretations, then all of Muhammadiyah and NU’s objections would be refuted. Because the 1945 Constitution states that demands for the enforcement of syariah are legitimate and constitutional.
In several regions — Cianjur, Padang and Makassar for example — there are demands for Islamic law to be formalised, and in Aceh Islamic law is already in force. But after it was adopted, there was no significant change. And women tended to become victims.
The government’s response to demands for Islamic law has been half-hearted. When the syariah laws were ratified in Aceh, on the first day Abdullah Puteh [the Governor of Aceh] stated that all the laws of syariah were in force except for hudud (punishments specified under syariah for certain offences). How can Islamic law be effective if it is cut-down from the outset? Then we see a policeman on television blocking the way of a woman not wearing a jilbab. This gives the impression that Islamic law is just about jilbab and that women are the victims.
In truth, the correct understanding of syariah is not confined to law and punishments. When syariah is first adopted, the punishment would not be to cut off a thief’s hand because the thieves at that stage will have been produced by the democratic system. It would be irresponsible for us to cut off their hands. The first thing that the government will need to do in the implementation of syariah is to create an atmosphere where people will be ashamed to commit evil deeds and violate syariah. For example, the infrastructure for gambling and prostitution would first have to be removed.
Then the challenge would be to make it so that people did not need to steal to pay for school fees or to eat. The government must provide a guarantee to the poor and distribute employment evenly.
We only ask that people be fair, we don’t need them to defend Islam. If society is of sound mind, then they’ll accept syariah and reject democracy. In democracy, when a woman wears a tank top it is considered fine and not degrading to the dignity of women. But when syariah is adopted and women are told to wear jilbab, they are called victims. Do Indonesians prefer to see women exposing their aurat (parts of the body which must be covered according to the standards set by Islam) rather than wearing jilbab? Our logic is back to front.
But syariah has also been criticised for not addressing the root causes of social problems, such as corruption, unemployment and poverty. For example, when they call for places of vice to be closed, they only say it is haram (forbidden) and must be destroyed.
This is an error on society’s part. Why demand a solution from people who are not in a position to provide one. Give us power and we will provide a solution. They are in power, but they tell us to provide a solution. That is discrimination, it’s unfair. If we are only proselytising then we can only give a warning, hey, don’t do that or we’ll come there. Nevertheless, because Islam is rahmatalil’alamin, even though we’re not in power, we will still provide a solution.
How is syariah superior to the present system of government?
Islamic law is far more effective than democracy at facing kemungkaran (evil). In democracy thieves receive prison terms. Even if they’re sentenced to ten years, will this cure them of the habit? Will they stop robbing? No. In fact, they leave prison as more professional thieves.
Meanwhile, the state bears the cost. They give the thief free food, while their wives and children who have done no wrong receive nothing. What sort of government is this? Then the children may also become thieves, because their father was detained. So it’s not an effective way to stop theft.
Imagine if we used Islamic law, and the thief’s hand was cut off. Once we’ve created circumstances where the welfare of society is guaranteed, if there are still thieves, only then will we prosecute them. The judge can then decide whether the level of robbery justifies cutting off the thief’s hand or not. If we punish thieves in this Islamic way it may seem cruel. But by cutting off one thief’s hand, we teach all the other thieves their lesson.
Supporters of democracy are hyprocrites. They use exactly the same punishment as Islam but don’t want to call it Islamic law. For example, thieves in Singapore are punished with lashes, an Islamic style of punishment. And that is Islamic law. But when we use the same punishment and call it Islamic law they criticise it. What sort of logic is that?
Imam Subkhan (subkhan_yk@yahoo.com) is a program coordinator at LABDA Shalahuddin, an NGO that promotes civil society and progressive Islamic concepts in Indonesia.
Inside Indonesia 78: Apr - Jun 2004
Bookshop The people next door: understanding Indonesia
Bookshop
The people next door: understanding Indonesia
Duncan Graham
Attempting to introduce Indonesia to an Australian audience unfamiliar with the country is a difficult task. Duncan Graham, however, takes on this challenge and has produced an informative book, introducing readers and prospective travellers to Indonesia to some of the colourful people, interesting issues, complex politics and diverse culture which make up the country.
The difficulty with writing about Indonesia is that every island is very different so generalisations are impossible. Graham, a journalist who has been travelling to Indonesia for over 20 years understands this complexity well. As he says, ‘a truth in Surabaya may be a lie in Medan. The statements of an East Javanese can be rightly ridiculed in Nusa Tenggara.’
With this in mind, Graham has succeeded in covering a wide range of issues, in an open and honest description of his many experiences of Indonesia. His constant comparisons between Australia and Indonesia are a timely reminder that we in Australia have our own cultural oddities, complex multiculturalism and dark moments of history and should not be quick to judge our neighbours.
Graham’s message is an important one. There are enough similarities between Indonesia and Australia for us to build the foundations of a strong friendship. However we must go into the relationship acknowledging, respecting and understanding our differences. If only our two governments would hear this message and turn it into policy!
Reviewed by Mayra Walsh (mayrakwalsh@yahoo.com.au)
Nedlands, University of Western Australia Press,2004, ISBN 1920694099, A$38.95
Indonesian reformasi as reflected in law
Petra Stockmann
This book provides an analysis of change and continuity as manifest in key legislation on the political system and human rights. Constitutional amendments and new laws on a variety of issues, including political parties, elections, the press, labour unions, human rights and human rights courts, are assessed against Suharto-era legislation as well as against international standards as laid down in international human rights instruments.
Münster, LitVerlag,ISBN 3825876799, 39.90 EUR
A comprehensive Indonesian-English dictionary
A Stevens and A Schmidgall-Tellings
Good Indonesian-English dictionaries are hard to find. Although beginners now have access to George Quinn’s excellent learner’s dictionary, most senior students of Indonesian, teachers and academics continue to rely on the companion dictionaries by Echols and Shadily, which were compiled over thirty years ago. The dictionaries by Echols and Shadily have remained remarkably relevant considering the speed with which the Indonesian language has evolved. However, they fail what I call the ‘kinerja test’ (a word meaning ‘performance’, which is too new to be included in Echols and Shadily).
The new Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary passes the kinerja test with flying colours. Its coverage of new terms, borrowed words, acronyms and colloquialisms is excellent, as is its brief, but useful, summary of non-standard nasalisation patterns and pronunciation notes. Its layout is one of the best I’ve seen. The pages are compact, allowing for relatively comprehensive coverage, but each derivative is highlighted and located on a new line within the main entry.
I have only three real complaints. The first is that sometimes the cross-referencing is puzzling (for example the entry for ‘ketombe’ (the most common word for ‘dandruff’) is cross-referenced to ‘ketumbe’ rather than the other way around). The second, and more concerning, is the dictionary’s excessive emphasis on Javanese-derived words (although there is some attempt to document words from other Indonesian languages). Finally, there is not yet a companion English–Indonesian dictionary — a fault that will hopefully be rectified sooner rather than later.
Overall, this dictionary is a valuable addition to the bookshelves of senior students, teachers and academics and is well-worth the hefty price-tag.
Reviewed by Michele Ford (michele.ford@flinders.edu.au)
Athens, Ohio University Press, 2004, ISBN 0821415840, US $65.00
On-line
Why salafism and terrorism mostly don’t mix
International Crisis Group
This ground-breaking report looks at the influence of Saudi-influenced salafi Islam in Indonesia, including the split between purists and more tolerant and inclusive groups willing to acknowledge some good even in deviant teachings. Arguing against a popular misconception, the report suggests that the purist salafi are more likely to reject terrorism.
http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?id=2967&l=1
New military operations, old patterns of human rights abuses in Aceh
Amnesty International
This report surveys the recent round of military operations in Aceh, finding that the human rights abuses that have taken place are so pervasive that there is virtually no part of life in the province which remains untouched.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA210332004
Inside Indonesia 81: Jan-Mar 2005
The people next door: understanding Indonesia
Duncan Graham
Attempting to introduce Indonesia to an Australian audience unfamiliar with the country is a difficult task. Duncan Graham, however, takes on this challenge and has produced an informative book, introducing readers and prospective travellers to Indonesia to some of the colourful people, interesting issues, complex politics and diverse culture which make up the country.
The difficulty with writing about Indonesia is that every island is very different so generalisations are impossible. Graham, a journalist who has been travelling to Indonesia for over 20 years understands this complexity well. As he says, ‘a truth in Surabaya may be a lie in Medan. The statements of an East Javanese can be rightly ridiculed in Nusa Tenggara.’
With this in mind, Graham has succeeded in covering a wide range of issues, in an open and honest description of his many experiences of Indonesia. His constant comparisons between Australia and Indonesia are a timely reminder that we in Australia have our own cultural oddities, complex multiculturalism and dark moments of history and should not be quick to judge our neighbours.
Graham’s message is an important one. There are enough similarities between Indonesia and Australia for us to build the foundations of a strong friendship. However we must go into the relationship acknowledging, respecting and understanding our differences. If only our two governments would hear this message and turn it into policy!
Reviewed by Mayra Walsh (mayrakwalsh@yahoo.com.au)
Nedlands, University of Western Australia Press,2004, ISBN 1920694099, A$38.95
Indonesian reformasi as reflected in law
Petra Stockmann
This book provides an analysis of change and continuity as manifest in key legislation on the political system and human rights. Constitutional amendments and new laws on a variety of issues, including political parties, elections, the press, labour unions, human rights and human rights courts, are assessed against Suharto-era legislation as well as against international standards as laid down in international human rights instruments.
Münster, LitVerlag,ISBN 3825876799, 39.90 EUR
A comprehensive Indonesian-English dictionary
A Stevens and A Schmidgall-Tellings
Good Indonesian-English dictionaries are hard to find. Although beginners now have access to George Quinn’s excellent learner’s dictionary, most senior students of Indonesian, teachers and academics continue to rely on the companion dictionaries by Echols and Shadily, which were compiled over thirty years ago. The dictionaries by Echols and Shadily have remained remarkably relevant considering the speed with which the Indonesian language has evolved. However, they fail what I call the ‘kinerja test’ (a word meaning ‘performance’, which is too new to be included in Echols and Shadily).
The new Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary passes the kinerja test with flying colours. Its coverage of new terms, borrowed words, acronyms and colloquialisms is excellent, as is its brief, but useful, summary of non-standard nasalisation patterns and pronunciation notes. Its layout is one of the best I’ve seen. The pages are compact, allowing for relatively comprehensive coverage, but each derivative is highlighted and located on a new line within the main entry.
I have only three real complaints. The first is that sometimes the cross-referencing is puzzling (for example the entry for ‘ketombe’ (the most common word for ‘dandruff’) is cross-referenced to ‘ketumbe’ rather than the other way around). The second, and more concerning, is the dictionary’s excessive emphasis on Javanese-derived words (although there is some attempt to document words from other Indonesian languages). Finally, there is not yet a companion English–Indonesian dictionary — a fault that will hopefully be rectified sooner rather than later.
Overall, this dictionary is a valuable addition to the bookshelves of senior students, teachers and academics and is well-worth the hefty price-tag.
Reviewed by Michele Ford (michele.ford@flinders.edu.au)
Athens, Ohio University Press, 2004, ISBN 0821415840, US $65.00
On-line
Why salafism and terrorism mostly don’t mix
International Crisis Group
This ground-breaking report looks at the influence of Saudi-influenced salafi Islam in Indonesia, including the split between purists and more tolerant and inclusive groups willing to acknowledge some good even in deviant teachings. Arguing against a popular misconception, the report suggests that the purist salafi are more likely to reject terrorism.
http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?id=2967&l=1
New military operations, old patterns of human rights abuses in Aceh
Amnesty International
This report surveys the recent round of military operations in Aceh, finding that the human rights abuses that have taken place are so pervasive that there is virtually no part of life in the province which remains untouched.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA210332004
Inside Indonesia 81: Jan-Mar 2005
Questions of judgement The new Constitutional Court combines law and politics
Questions of judgement
The new Constitutional Court combines law and politics
Selina Wrighter
On 12 October 2002, explosions tore through two Bali nightclubs. Over 200 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a premeditated act of terror.
Six days later, facing mounting national and international outrage, Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri passed an emergency regulation outlawing terrorist actions and giving police greater powers to detain and investigate suspected terrorists. By 22 July 2004 this anti-terrorism law had been used as the basis for the arrest, prosecution and conviction of 25 of the now infamous Bali bombers. Given that the law was enacted only after the bombings had occurred, in reaching these convictions the trial court had to apply the anti-terrorism law retrospectively. In other words, the suspects were tried and punished for a crime that, according to law, was not strictly a crime at the time it was committed.
However Article 28I(1) of the recently amended Indonesian Constitution states that the right not to be prosecuted under a retrospective law is a human right which ‘cannot be derogated from in any circumstances whatsoever’. And on 23 July 2004, by a bare majority of five judges to four, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court upheld its mandate as constitutional guardian and declared that in view of Article 28I(1) any retrospective application of the anti-terrorism law must be unconstitutional.
A controversial decision
The majority Constitutional Court ruling is probably the most prominent pro-rights decision to come out of an Indonesian court to date. It is also one of the most publicly criticised decisions by an Indonesian court in recent times. A common response among both Indonesians and Australians was to decry the ruling for giving confessed terrorists the opportunity to walk out of jail on a ‘mere technicality’.
Certainly, disappointment and anger at the majority Constitutional Court decision are a natural reaction from anyone who hoped that Indonesia’s courts would produce a clear, certain and just resolution to an undeniable human tragedy. Many people preferred the opinion of the four minority judges that justice in this case demanded deviation from the constitutional guarantee. That said, two points deserve to be made. First, the Constitutional Court decision in no way suggests or implies that the Bali bombers will be able to walk out of jail with impunity. While the bombers’ actions did not constitute an offence under the anti-terrorism law at the time they occurred, there can be little doubt that their actions would be punishable as crimes under Indonesia’s ordinary criminal code.
Secondly, since when is a constitutional right a mere technicality? And when is it okay to allow a political interpretation of justice to replace known laws and constitutionally-guaranteed liberties as the standard of legality?
It is almost conventional wisdom that the lack of a strong constitution, incorporating fundamental guarantees of rights, facilitated the rise of Suharto’s repressive New Order regime. At present, Indonesia is still trying to entrench government based on the rule of law and avert any reversion to authoritarianism.
The nine judges, all men, of Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, have been entrusted with a key role in restoring constitutional government in Indonesia. The anti-terrorism law decision — decided ultimately by only one man’s opinion — hints at how difficult a task this may ultimately be.
Constitutions and courts
So what exactly is a Constitutional Court, and what does it do? The short (but fairly unhelpful) answer is that it is the institution which enforces the constitution.
At the foundation of a Constitutional Court is the ideal of a government limited by law. Such a court assumes a certain kind of political system, one in which the members of the polity (and most importantly, the power-holders) agree that power should be exercised in accordance with the terms of a predetermined political consensus, and submit to this consensus being enforced upon them.
The consensus — essentially the rules of politics — is set out in a written constitution. The ‘enforcer’ is the Constitutional Court. When making a ruling of unconstitutionality, the Constitutional Court is saying that even the most powerful executive or legislative institution — a president or parliament — has exercised its power wrongly and must be corrected.
The notion of an Indonesian Constitutional Court is not new. The idea was first proposed in 1945, when Indonesia declared independence. It resurfaced in the early 1950s during the brief period of parliamentary government, and yet again in the mid 1960s when Sukarno’s Guided Democracy regime was overthrown by Suharto’s New Order. However the idea consistently lacked the political support needed to make it reality. Indonesia’s power-holders didn’t want a watchdog telling them when they were wrong. And they certainly didn’t want to have their powers limited, by law or otherwise. Indonesian governments were populist, alarmist, militarist and developmentalist. They were not constitutionalist.
Change came in 1998, when Suharto’s corrupt, unaccountable, repressive regime committed the final sin of becoming unresponsive, and imploded. The collapse of the New Order did not quite bring about a renaissance in Indonesia’s legal and political cultureˆ But it did create an opening for pro-reform forces to reassert themselves politically, both through the parliament and civil society.
In 1999, following fresh legislative elections, Indonesia’s supreme legislative institution, the MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly), embarked on a project to reform Indonesia’s dysfunctional constitutional system. The Constitutional Court — in Indonesian, the Mahkamah Konstitusi — is part of the proposed solution.
The source of the Constitutional Court’s powers is Article 24C of the amended Indonesian Constitution. The provision was enacted by the MPR in 2001, and provides the Court with the power to review the constitutionality of laws (specifically, legislation passed by the People’s Representative Council, or DPR), to determine jurisdictional disputes between key state institutions, to decide motions for the dissolution of political parties and to resolve disputed election results. The Court is also required to give its opinion in relation to a motion for the dismissal of the president or vice president.
The Court has nine members. The DPR, Supreme Court and the president each select three members. The current bench — comprising Dr Jimly Asshidiqie (Chief Justice), Dr H M Laica Marzuki (Vice Chief ustice), Lieutenant General H Achmad Roestandi, H Abdul Mukthie Fadjar, Dr H Harjono, Ahmad Syarifuddin Natabaya, I Dewa Gede Palguna, Maruarar Siahaan and Soedarsono — was sworn in on August 16, 2003, and will serve a five year term, open to renewal once. Selected for their expertise in constitutional affairs, the bench combines experience in academia, government, parliament and the military. Only two of the members are formally trained as judges.
A difficult balance
The powers of the Court are framed to address two major reform era demands. The first is the need for an independent arbiter capable of resolving electoral and inter-institutional disputes, an issue which has been problematic since the breakdown of Suharto’s all-powerful presidency. The second is the demand to prevent any reversion to absolutist government. The Constitutional Court therefore stands symbolically as the highest enforcer of a governmental system based on the supremacy of law.
Interestingly though, many proponents of the Constitutional Court have assigned it an even wider role: as a leader in remaking Indonesia’s political culture. Various lawyers and intellectuals writing in the Indonesian media have suggested that the Court shouldn’t simply ensure law-based government, but also play a correctional ‘policy’ function. They point to the Court’s potential to use its power to review laws, and hope that it will flexibly interpret Indonesia’s comprehensive new catalogue of civil, political and social rights, in order to intervene wherever laws deviate from popular aspirations.
Counter-intuitively then, some rule of law advocates have presented the unelected, nine-member court as the champion of democratic values, while they portray ‘representative’ legislative institutions as tainted by self-interested elite bargaining.
But balancing the roles of guardian of the constitution and national conscience may prove to be too much for the Constitutional Court. During the Suharto period, Indonesia’s judiciary developed a reputation for being corrupt and politically subservient. The Constitutional Court now faces the challenge of rebuilding public confidence in the judicial system, and cultivating public awareness of constitutional rights and the value of legal process. At the same time, it is expected to serve popular aspirations for justice and political ‘representation’.
The anti-terrorism law decision demonstrates the potential dilemma faced by the court. The majority displayed their commitment to upholding the constitution, but they were criticised for providing an unjust outcome. The minority demonstrated that the amended Constitution still leaves room to move around the strict legal rules when political considerations so demand. The Catch-22 is that both judgments could have the effect of undermining confidence in the Court.
The Court’s success or failure may depend on it walking the very fine line of being politically sensitive when engaging in constitutional interpretation, without becoming arbitrary in its judgments, or worse, captive to the political directives of the eÌecutive government. An independent, and trusted, Constitutional Court could be a powerful force in cultivating an Indonesian democracy based on more than merely majoritarian force or elite politicking.
One Indonesian commentator has described the Constitutional Court as the ‘nine doors to constitutional justice’. As it is, we’re yet to see quite what’s on the other side.
Selina Wrighter (swri3847@mail.usyd.edu.au)studies law and arts at the University of Sydney.
Inside Indonesia 81: Jan-Mar 2005
The new Constitutional Court combines law and politics
Selina Wrighter
On 12 October 2002, explosions tore through two Bali nightclubs. Over 200 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a premeditated act of terror.
Six days later, facing mounting national and international outrage, Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri passed an emergency regulation outlawing terrorist actions and giving police greater powers to detain and investigate suspected terrorists. By 22 July 2004 this anti-terrorism law had been used as the basis for the arrest, prosecution and conviction of 25 of the now infamous Bali bombers. Given that the law was enacted only after the bombings had occurred, in reaching these convictions the trial court had to apply the anti-terrorism law retrospectively. In other words, the suspects were tried and punished for a crime that, according to law, was not strictly a crime at the time it was committed.
However Article 28I(1) of the recently amended Indonesian Constitution states that the right not to be prosecuted under a retrospective law is a human right which ‘cannot be derogated from in any circumstances whatsoever’. And on 23 July 2004, by a bare majority of five judges to four, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court upheld its mandate as constitutional guardian and declared that in view of Article 28I(1) any retrospective application of the anti-terrorism law must be unconstitutional.
A controversial decision
The majority Constitutional Court ruling is probably the most prominent pro-rights decision to come out of an Indonesian court to date. It is also one of the most publicly criticised decisions by an Indonesian court in recent times. A common response among both Indonesians and Australians was to decry the ruling for giving confessed terrorists the opportunity to walk out of jail on a ‘mere technicality’.
Certainly, disappointment and anger at the majority Constitutional Court decision are a natural reaction from anyone who hoped that Indonesia’s courts would produce a clear, certain and just resolution to an undeniable human tragedy. Many people preferred the opinion of the four minority judges that justice in this case demanded deviation from the constitutional guarantee. That said, two points deserve to be made. First, the Constitutional Court decision in no way suggests or implies that the Bali bombers will be able to walk out of jail with impunity. While the bombers’ actions did not constitute an offence under the anti-terrorism law at the time they occurred, there can be little doubt that their actions would be punishable as crimes under Indonesia’s ordinary criminal code.
Secondly, since when is a constitutional right a mere technicality? And when is it okay to allow a political interpretation of justice to replace known laws and constitutionally-guaranteed liberties as the standard of legality?
It is almost conventional wisdom that the lack of a strong constitution, incorporating fundamental guarantees of rights, facilitated the rise of Suharto’s repressive New Order regime. At present, Indonesia is still trying to entrench government based on the rule of law and avert any reversion to authoritarianism.
The nine judges, all men, of Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, have been entrusted with a key role in restoring constitutional government in Indonesia. The anti-terrorism law decision — decided ultimately by only one man’s opinion — hints at how difficult a task this may ultimately be.
Constitutions and courts
So what exactly is a Constitutional Court, and what does it do? The short (but fairly unhelpful) answer is that it is the institution which enforces the constitution.
At the foundation of a Constitutional Court is the ideal of a government limited by law. Such a court assumes a certain kind of political system, one in which the members of the polity (and most importantly, the power-holders) agree that power should be exercised in accordance with the terms of a predetermined political consensus, and submit to this consensus being enforced upon them.
The consensus — essentially the rules of politics — is set out in a written constitution. The ‘enforcer’ is the Constitutional Court. When making a ruling of unconstitutionality, the Constitutional Court is saying that even the most powerful executive or legislative institution — a president or parliament — has exercised its power wrongly and must be corrected.
The notion of an Indonesian Constitutional Court is not new. The idea was first proposed in 1945, when Indonesia declared independence. It resurfaced in the early 1950s during the brief period of parliamentary government, and yet again in the mid 1960s when Sukarno’s Guided Democracy regime was overthrown by Suharto’s New Order. However the idea consistently lacked the political support needed to make it reality. Indonesia’s power-holders didn’t want a watchdog telling them when they were wrong. And they certainly didn’t want to have their powers limited, by law or otherwise. Indonesian governments were populist, alarmist, militarist and developmentalist. They were not constitutionalist.
Change came in 1998, when Suharto’s corrupt, unaccountable, repressive regime committed the final sin of becoming unresponsive, and imploded. The collapse of the New Order did not quite bring about a renaissance in Indonesia’s legal and political cultureˆ But it did create an opening for pro-reform forces to reassert themselves politically, both through the parliament and civil society.
In 1999, following fresh legislative elections, Indonesia’s supreme legislative institution, the MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly), embarked on a project to reform Indonesia’s dysfunctional constitutional system. The Constitutional Court — in Indonesian, the Mahkamah Konstitusi — is part of the proposed solution.
The source of the Constitutional Court’s powers is Article 24C of the amended Indonesian Constitution. The provision was enacted by the MPR in 2001, and provides the Court with the power to review the constitutionality of laws (specifically, legislation passed by the People’s Representative Council, or DPR), to determine jurisdictional disputes between key state institutions, to decide motions for the dissolution of political parties and to resolve disputed election results. The Court is also required to give its opinion in relation to a motion for the dismissal of the president or vice president.
The Court has nine members. The DPR, Supreme Court and the president each select three members. The current bench — comprising Dr Jimly Asshidiqie (Chief Justice), Dr H M Laica Marzuki (Vice Chief ustice), Lieutenant General H Achmad Roestandi, H Abdul Mukthie Fadjar, Dr H Harjono, Ahmad Syarifuddin Natabaya, I Dewa Gede Palguna, Maruarar Siahaan and Soedarsono — was sworn in on August 16, 2003, and will serve a five year term, open to renewal once. Selected for their expertise in constitutional affairs, the bench combines experience in academia, government, parliament and the military. Only two of the members are formally trained as judges.
A difficult balance
The powers of the Court are framed to address two major reform era demands. The first is the need for an independent arbiter capable of resolving electoral and inter-institutional disputes, an issue which has been problematic since the breakdown of Suharto’s all-powerful presidency. The second is the demand to prevent any reversion to absolutist government. The Constitutional Court therefore stands symbolically as the highest enforcer of a governmental system based on the supremacy of law.
Interestingly though, many proponents of the Constitutional Court have assigned it an even wider role: as a leader in remaking Indonesia’s political culture. Various lawyers and intellectuals writing in the Indonesian media have suggested that the Court shouldn’t simply ensure law-based government, but also play a correctional ‘policy’ function. They point to the Court’s potential to use its power to review laws, and hope that it will flexibly interpret Indonesia’s comprehensive new catalogue of civil, political and social rights, in order to intervene wherever laws deviate from popular aspirations.
Counter-intuitively then, some rule of law advocates have presented the unelected, nine-member court as the champion of democratic values, while they portray ‘representative’ legislative institutions as tainted by self-interested elite bargaining.
But balancing the roles of guardian of the constitution and national conscience may prove to be too much for the Constitutional Court. During the Suharto period, Indonesia’s judiciary developed a reputation for being corrupt and politically subservient. The Constitutional Court now faces the challenge of rebuilding public confidence in the judicial system, and cultivating public awareness of constitutional rights and the value of legal process. At the same time, it is expected to serve popular aspirations for justice and political ‘representation’.
The anti-terrorism law decision demonstrates the potential dilemma faced by the court. The majority displayed their commitment to upholding the constitution, but they were criticised for providing an unjust outcome. The minority demonstrated that the amended Constitution still leaves room to move around the strict legal rules when political considerations so demand. The Catch-22 is that both judgments could have the effect of undermining confidence in the Court.
The Court’s success or failure may depend on it walking the very fine line of being politically sensitive when engaging in constitutional interpretation, without becoming arbitrary in its judgments, or worse, captive to the political directives of the eÌecutive government. An independent, and trusted, Constitutional Court could be a powerful force in cultivating an Indonesian democracy based on more than merely majoritarian force or elite politicking.
One Indonesian commentator has described the Constitutional Court as the ‘nine doors to constitutional justice’. As it is, we’re yet to see quite what’s on the other side.
Selina Wrighter (swri3847@mail.usyd.edu.au)studies law and arts at the University of Sydney.
Inside Indonesia 81: Jan-Mar 2005
Aid with strings attached Foreign policy not poverty reduction drives the Australian aid program
Aid with strings attached
Foreign policy not poverty reduction drives the Australian aid program
Tim O’Connor
Indonesia has been a major focus of the Australian aid program for several decades. Despite this focus the goals of the program have not always been clear, beyond not offending the Suharto government and providing commercial opportunities for Australian business. In 1996 the government announced one new overarching objective for the global Australian aid program – poverty reduction through sustainable development. Despite this noble objective however, much of the aid in Indonesia still seems designed principally to further Australian foreign policy objectives, with poverty reduction a secondary consideration.
Since the early 1990s Australia has provided Indonesia with aid worth more than $100 million/year, and this year it will rise sharply to more than $300 million, or 12 per cent of the global aid budget. The big increase is a result of the tsunami of December 2004. Within a few weeks of the crisis in Aceh the government had announced a $1 billion aid package over five years for tsunami relief and reconstruction, in addition to the existing program. A new mechanism, the Australian Indonesian Partnership for Reconstruction and Development, was established to manage the new program. However a close examination of the government’s plans casts doubt on how much aid will actually reach Aceh.
More than six-months after the tsunami, little government money beyond the initial $33 million of emergency funds had begun to flow through to Aceh. In early July over $170 million of the new funding had been allocated, but of this just $50 million will go to Aceh. The balance is to be spent on other projects throughout the archipelago that have no apparent benefit to Aceh or other tsunami affected areas. It seems only about $150 million of the total $1 billion of ‘tsunami’ aid will ever be spent in Aceh. In spite of government media statements which imply the contrary, a detailed examination of the new ‘tsunami’ funding mechanism shows this money is not intended solely for tsunami affected areas but is to be used all over Indonesia. It is potentially of great value to poor Indonesians outside Aceh, but why has the Australian government not explicitly acknowledged that most of it is unrelated to the tsunami emergency?
National Interest or poverty reduction
The priority areas that Australia is funding through the new mechanism are remarkably similar to those outlined by Foreign Minister Downer in May 2004 – seven months before the tsunami struck. It seems clear that this aid package was developed primarily to further the relationship between the Australian and Indonesian governments, and that the needs of the many affected by the tsunami in Aceh are secondary. This is a common problem with the way in which Australia delivers aid. Putting Australian national interest at the forefront of the aid program raises questions about the nominal objective of ‘poverty reduction through sustainable development’.
The priority of Australian national interest in the aid strategy is really not so surprising. Australia’s aid arm, AusAID, is firmly ensconced in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This contrasts with other countries such as the UK, where aid is a separate institution and operates without the complications such connections imply. The junior status of AusAID within the Foreign Affairs department has often resulted in aid advancing foreign policy interests rather than focusing on sustainable development. Of course no country is likely to implement an aid program that will work counter to its own national interest, but sustainable poverty reduction could be pursued much more effectively in the Indonesia program without harming Australian national interest.
Boomerang aid
The continuing focus on the national interest is clear in the promotion of Australian business within the aid program, which has become widely known as ‘boomerang aid’. This results from a policy which allows aid contracts to go only to Australian contractors in most circumstances. While the policy gives these contractors a substantial advantage in tendering for aid contracts, it results in aid recipients getting a more expensive service – the World Bank estimates it increases aid costs by 20—25 per cent. It also prevents the aid being used to foster the growth of domestic industry in Indonesia, which should be a key element of aid with a poverty reduction objective. The policy has resulted in a small number of Australian companies developing a virtual oligopoly in the implementation of large aid contracts. There is an impermeable barrier to Indonesian companies, or even other Australian businesses, from participating in implementation of the program.
Education, which for many years has been the largest single component of the Indonesia program, provides another example of ‘boomerang aid’. Scholarships for three hundred postgraduate Indonesians students to study in Australian universities account for $35 million of the aid budget every year, and an additional $58 million of ‘tsunami’ money will be used for these scholarships this year. Significantly these scholarships provide substantial funding for Australian universities in a period of shrinking government funding for higher education. But are they the most cost-effective way of raising educational standards in Indonesia, and is the real intent to provide an additional source of income for Australian universities?
This scholarship program has also been criticised because of its lack of impact on producing an educated workforce in Indonesia, and because it is not linked in any way to reforms of the Indonesian public sector. One critic, a former AusAID staff member, says that despite the large sums spent over many years on providing postgraduate education to Indonesia’s civil servants, the effectiveness of the civil service is today at a low point and still declining. The training in Australia had made no difference. AusAID seems remarkably unresponsive on this issue, despite criticism from auditors within Australia.
Aid or counter terrorism?
In the aftermath of the Bali bombing in 2002 the Australian government initiated assistance programs to Islamic schools, designed to improve the quality of teaching, and provide English language training. This initiative followed much strident debate in Australia about Islamist terrorism, and the timing suggested the government’s motives might have included counter terrorism. Islamic schools are a deprived part of the education sector, and deserve much assistance. But if part of the motivation behind this initiative involves Australian security interests, it does not bode well for any worthwhile impact on eduction standards, or much valuable cultural exchange.
Since 2002 an explicit counter terrorism initiative has also been included in the program. It is designed to prevent money laundering, thereby stemming the flow of financing to terrorists, and developing better collaboration between Australian and Indonesian police. Beneficial to Indonesia and worth doing no doubt, but does it contribute to ‘poverty reduction through sustainable development’? Would it not be more transparent to finance this activity from some budget outside the aid program?
Good governance
The aid program has recently embraced ‘good governance’. This concept has arisen from the analysis of many aid donors that economic and social development is hindered by a lack of effective and functional institutions of government and civil society in developing countries. The term is rather vague, and in the Australian aid program activities as diverse as neoliberal economic reforms (pursued with great zeal), laudable human rights activities, unremarkable election funding and counter terrorism training all come under the heading of ‘good governance’. Even proponents of the ‘good governance’ model complain about the lack of experience within AusAID on this form of aid. The large number but narrow focus of activities, the lack of long term commitment, the poor design of programs, the lack of cultural understanding and a lack of adequate funding leading to an ineffective program have all been criticised. Critics say that for the most part Australian aid does not reflect Indonesian needs, but rather the accommodation of aid fads such as ‘good governance’ and the government’s political and other interests within Australia.
With Australian aid so broadly spread and lacking in transparency the prospects for a strong focus on ‘poverty reduction through sustainable development’ do not look good. The contradiction inherent in the antipathy from the Australian public towards the Suharto government over East Timor and other issues, and the desire of the national government not to offend a powerful neighbour, may have declined. But the closer relationship between a new President Yudhoyono and the Howard government is now being cemented by the use of the aid program. In such a vital relationship it would seem aid should focus more on the alleviation of poverty and the promotion of sustainable development. Ultimately promoting human security is likely to further advance our own national interest more than any short term, quick fix approach that is so typical of the aid that Australia delivers today.
Tim O’Connor (aid@aidwatch.org.au) is the director of AID/WATCH, an Australian NGO that critiques Australian overseas aid programs
Inside Indonesia 84: Oct-Dec 2005
Foreign policy not poverty reduction drives the Australian aid program
Tim O’Connor
Indonesia has been a major focus of the Australian aid program for several decades. Despite this focus the goals of the program have not always been clear, beyond not offending the Suharto government and providing commercial opportunities for Australian business. In 1996 the government announced one new overarching objective for the global Australian aid program – poverty reduction through sustainable development. Despite this noble objective however, much of the aid in Indonesia still seems designed principally to further Australian foreign policy objectives, with poverty reduction a secondary consideration.
Since the early 1990s Australia has provided Indonesia with aid worth more than $100 million/year, and this year it will rise sharply to more than $300 million, or 12 per cent of the global aid budget. The big increase is a result of the tsunami of December 2004. Within a few weeks of the crisis in Aceh the government had announced a $1 billion aid package over five years for tsunami relief and reconstruction, in addition to the existing program. A new mechanism, the Australian Indonesian Partnership for Reconstruction and Development, was established to manage the new program. However a close examination of the government’s plans casts doubt on how much aid will actually reach Aceh.
More than six-months after the tsunami, little government money beyond the initial $33 million of emergency funds had begun to flow through to Aceh. In early July over $170 million of the new funding had been allocated, but of this just $50 million will go to Aceh. The balance is to be spent on other projects throughout the archipelago that have no apparent benefit to Aceh or other tsunami affected areas. It seems only about $150 million of the total $1 billion of ‘tsunami’ aid will ever be spent in Aceh. In spite of government media statements which imply the contrary, a detailed examination of the new ‘tsunami’ funding mechanism shows this money is not intended solely for tsunami affected areas but is to be used all over Indonesia. It is potentially of great value to poor Indonesians outside Aceh, but why has the Australian government not explicitly acknowledged that most of it is unrelated to the tsunami emergency?
National Interest or poverty reduction
The priority areas that Australia is funding through the new mechanism are remarkably similar to those outlined by Foreign Minister Downer in May 2004 – seven months before the tsunami struck. It seems clear that this aid package was developed primarily to further the relationship between the Australian and Indonesian governments, and that the needs of the many affected by the tsunami in Aceh are secondary. This is a common problem with the way in which Australia delivers aid. Putting Australian national interest at the forefront of the aid program raises questions about the nominal objective of ‘poverty reduction through sustainable development’.
The priority of Australian national interest in the aid strategy is really not so surprising. Australia’s aid arm, AusAID, is firmly ensconced in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This contrasts with other countries such as the UK, where aid is a separate institution and operates without the complications such connections imply. The junior status of AusAID within the Foreign Affairs department has often resulted in aid advancing foreign policy interests rather than focusing on sustainable development. Of course no country is likely to implement an aid program that will work counter to its own national interest, but sustainable poverty reduction could be pursued much more effectively in the Indonesia program without harming Australian national interest.
Boomerang aid
The continuing focus on the national interest is clear in the promotion of Australian business within the aid program, which has become widely known as ‘boomerang aid’. This results from a policy which allows aid contracts to go only to Australian contractors in most circumstances. While the policy gives these contractors a substantial advantage in tendering for aid contracts, it results in aid recipients getting a more expensive service – the World Bank estimates it increases aid costs by 20—25 per cent. It also prevents the aid being used to foster the growth of domestic industry in Indonesia, which should be a key element of aid with a poverty reduction objective. The policy has resulted in a small number of Australian companies developing a virtual oligopoly in the implementation of large aid contracts. There is an impermeable barrier to Indonesian companies, or even other Australian businesses, from participating in implementation of the program.
Education, which for many years has been the largest single component of the Indonesia program, provides another example of ‘boomerang aid’. Scholarships for three hundred postgraduate Indonesians students to study in Australian universities account for $35 million of the aid budget every year, and an additional $58 million of ‘tsunami’ money will be used for these scholarships this year. Significantly these scholarships provide substantial funding for Australian universities in a period of shrinking government funding for higher education. But are they the most cost-effective way of raising educational standards in Indonesia, and is the real intent to provide an additional source of income for Australian universities?
This scholarship program has also been criticised because of its lack of impact on producing an educated workforce in Indonesia, and because it is not linked in any way to reforms of the Indonesian public sector. One critic, a former AusAID staff member, says that despite the large sums spent over many years on providing postgraduate education to Indonesia’s civil servants, the effectiveness of the civil service is today at a low point and still declining. The training in Australia had made no difference. AusAID seems remarkably unresponsive on this issue, despite criticism from auditors within Australia.
Aid or counter terrorism?
In the aftermath of the Bali bombing in 2002 the Australian government initiated assistance programs to Islamic schools, designed to improve the quality of teaching, and provide English language training. This initiative followed much strident debate in Australia about Islamist terrorism, and the timing suggested the government’s motives might have included counter terrorism. Islamic schools are a deprived part of the education sector, and deserve much assistance. But if part of the motivation behind this initiative involves Australian security interests, it does not bode well for any worthwhile impact on eduction standards, or much valuable cultural exchange.
Since 2002 an explicit counter terrorism initiative has also been included in the program. It is designed to prevent money laundering, thereby stemming the flow of financing to terrorists, and developing better collaboration between Australian and Indonesian police. Beneficial to Indonesia and worth doing no doubt, but does it contribute to ‘poverty reduction through sustainable development’? Would it not be more transparent to finance this activity from some budget outside the aid program?
Good governance
The aid program has recently embraced ‘good governance’. This concept has arisen from the analysis of many aid donors that economic and social development is hindered by a lack of effective and functional institutions of government and civil society in developing countries. The term is rather vague, and in the Australian aid program activities as diverse as neoliberal economic reforms (pursued with great zeal), laudable human rights activities, unremarkable election funding and counter terrorism training all come under the heading of ‘good governance’. Even proponents of the ‘good governance’ model complain about the lack of experience within AusAID on this form of aid. The large number but narrow focus of activities, the lack of long term commitment, the poor design of programs, the lack of cultural understanding and a lack of adequate funding leading to an ineffective program have all been criticised. Critics say that for the most part Australian aid does not reflect Indonesian needs, but rather the accommodation of aid fads such as ‘good governance’ and the government’s political and other interests within Australia.
With Australian aid so broadly spread and lacking in transparency the prospects for a strong focus on ‘poverty reduction through sustainable development’ do not look good. The contradiction inherent in the antipathy from the Australian public towards the Suharto government over East Timor and other issues, and the desire of the national government not to offend a powerful neighbour, may have declined. But the closer relationship between a new President Yudhoyono and the Howard government is now being cemented by the use of the aid program. In such a vital relationship it would seem aid should focus more on the alleviation of poverty and the promotion of sustainable development. Ultimately promoting human security is likely to further advance our own national interest more than any short term, quick fix approach that is so typical of the aid that Australia delivers today.
Tim O’Connor (aid@aidwatch.org.au) is the director of AID/WATCH, an Australian NGO that critiques Australian overseas aid programs
Inside Indonesia 84: Oct-Dec 2005
The final word Blanket travel warnings just don’t make sense
The final word
Blanket travel warnings just don’t make sense
Michele Ford
Many of Inside Indonesia’s readers are Australian school teachers and university lecturers who struggle to encourage students to learn about Indonesia. It’s not an easy task in the face of the now seemingly ever-present threat of terrorism. It’s not enough anymore for educators to tell students what a wonderful place Indonesia is. They must convince them that it’s safe.
Their task is made harder by the travel advisories issued by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). After the first Bali bombings, DFAT issued blanket warnings that Australians should cancel all ‘non-essential’ travel to Indonesia. It’s an insurance system for the government, so no-one can accuse them of ‘putting Australian lives at risk’.
But the advisories are counterproductive. They don’t differentiate enough between ‘hot spots’ and the rest of Indonesia, and they never seem to change (unless of course they are upgraded). They certainly don’t make it clear that terrorist attacks remain a tiny risk. And they are simply not fair. New York or London is at least as much of a terrorist target as Jakarta or Kuta, but you won’t find DFAT slapping blanket travel warnings on the US or the UK.
The problem also lies in the way the travel advisories are interpreted. Throughout Australia, state education departments treat them as travel bans and refuse to allow students to go to Indonesia. Although private schools have more leeway, it’s a brave teacher anywhere who tries to convince a school principal (let alone parents) that it’s safe to take kids on a school trip. And while teachers of other languages get to upgrade their language skills in-country, Indonesian teachers have to stay at home.
Most universities are less constrained in their interpretation of the advisories than schools. Even so, on many Australian campuses students and even academics have to get special permission to go to Indonesia – permission that is too often refused. The good news is that twenty Australian universities remain members of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS), which has continued to run a remarkable student placement program in Yogyakarta and Malang despite Australia’s hysteria about the security situation.
Since the mid-1990s, hundreds of Australian university students have (safely) completed a semester or more at Indonesian universities under the watchful eye of ACICIS. The greatest risk to their wellbeing has not been terrorism, but rather motorcycles, stomach upsets, or perhaps a broken heart. But ACICIS constantly struggles to convince university bureaucrats that students will be safe, even with its fulltime Resident Director and its sophisticated risk management strategy.
Again, the travel advisories are the major stumbling block. In the risk-averse university culture of the early twenty-first century, it’s extremely tempting for universities simply to say no to students who want to study in Indonesia. And from the university perspective, it’s much simpler to do so in the face of a DFAT warning against all non-essential travel than to recognise just how unlikely it is that students firmly embedded in a local community will be targets of a terrorist attack.
It’s not enough for the government to argue that universities and schools should just interpret the advisories differently. It needs to recognise the impact of blanket travel warnings and do something concrete about it.
There’s a great saying in Indonesian: the heart can’t love what it doesn’t know. What hope is there for the future of relations between Australia and Indonesia if even the keenest students can’t go and experience Indonesia for themselves? The Indonesian language program at the Australian Defence Force Academy may be booming, but fewer and fewer school students are studying the language to senior level, and university Indonesian programs are feeling the pinch. We have to ask ourselves: is a situation in which the only Australians studying Indonesian are soldiers and police officers really in the national interest? We all know that it’s not, but what are we going to do about it?
Michele Ford (michele.ford@arts.usyd.edu.au) teaches Indonesian Studies at the University of Sydney.
Inside Indonesia 85: Jan-Mar 2006
Blanket travel warnings just don’t make sense
Michele Ford
Many of Inside Indonesia’s readers are Australian school teachers and university lecturers who struggle to encourage students to learn about Indonesia. It’s not an easy task in the face of the now seemingly ever-present threat of terrorism. It’s not enough anymore for educators to tell students what a wonderful place Indonesia is. They must convince them that it’s safe.
Their task is made harder by the travel advisories issued by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). After the first Bali bombings, DFAT issued blanket warnings that Australians should cancel all ‘non-essential’ travel to Indonesia. It’s an insurance system for the government, so no-one can accuse them of ‘putting Australian lives at risk’.
But the advisories are counterproductive. They don’t differentiate enough between ‘hot spots’ and the rest of Indonesia, and they never seem to change (unless of course they are upgraded). They certainly don’t make it clear that terrorist attacks remain a tiny risk. And they are simply not fair. New York or London is at least as much of a terrorist target as Jakarta or Kuta, but you won’t find DFAT slapping blanket travel warnings on the US or the UK.
The problem also lies in the way the travel advisories are interpreted. Throughout Australia, state education departments treat them as travel bans and refuse to allow students to go to Indonesia. Although private schools have more leeway, it’s a brave teacher anywhere who tries to convince a school principal (let alone parents) that it’s safe to take kids on a school trip. And while teachers of other languages get to upgrade their language skills in-country, Indonesian teachers have to stay at home.
Most universities are less constrained in their interpretation of the advisories than schools. Even so, on many Australian campuses students and even academics have to get special permission to go to Indonesia – permission that is too often refused. The good news is that twenty Australian universities remain members of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS), which has continued to run a remarkable student placement program in Yogyakarta and Malang despite Australia’s hysteria about the security situation.
Since the mid-1990s, hundreds of Australian university students have (safely) completed a semester or more at Indonesian universities under the watchful eye of ACICIS. The greatest risk to their wellbeing has not been terrorism, but rather motorcycles, stomach upsets, or perhaps a broken heart. But ACICIS constantly struggles to convince university bureaucrats that students will be safe, even with its fulltime Resident Director and its sophisticated risk management strategy.
Again, the travel advisories are the major stumbling block. In the risk-averse university culture of the early twenty-first century, it’s extremely tempting for universities simply to say no to students who want to study in Indonesia. And from the university perspective, it’s much simpler to do so in the face of a DFAT warning against all non-essential travel than to recognise just how unlikely it is that students firmly embedded in a local community will be targets of a terrorist attack.
It’s not enough for the government to argue that universities and schools should just interpret the advisories differently. It needs to recognise the impact of blanket travel warnings and do something concrete about it.
There’s a great saying in Indonesian: the heart can’t love what it doesn’t know. What hope is there for the future of relations between Australia and Indonesia if even the keenest students can’t go and experience Indonesia for themselves? The Indonesian language program at the Australian Defence Force Academy may be booming, but fewer and fewer school students are studying the language to senior level, and university Indonesian programs are feeling the pinch. We have to ask ourselves: is a situation in which the only Australians studying Indonesian are soldiers and police officers really in the national interest? We all know that it’s not, but what are we going to do about it?
Michele Ford (michele.ford@arts.usyd.edu.au) teaches Indonesian Studies at the University of Sydney.
Inside Indonesia 85: Jan-Mar 2006
Newsbriefs Military officers deployed to villages
Newsbriefs
Military officers deployed to villages
The Indonesian Military (TNI) is reactivating its intelligence unit that used to work within the community to help the police fight terrorism.
TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto said that the military unit, comprising non-commissioned officers known as Babinsa, would gather all information required to help prevent acts of terrorism.
During the authoritarian rule of Suharto, Babinsa carried out surveillance work for the government and helped maintain security and order in the grass roots.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the military to actively take part in the war on terror during the TNI’s anniversary on 5 October. The request came soon after Bali fell prey to terror attacks for the second time in three years.
Human rights activists warned of the possible return of the military to non-defence areas, which they said would derail the ongoing military reform.
The Jakarta Post, 8 November 2005
Polio in Aceh
Indonesia tallied its first case of polio in Aceh province, where health services already are strained following last year’s devastating tsunami, the health minister said.
Polio has sickened 259 children since it reappeared in Indonesia in March following a decade-long absence, she said, adding that the virus had spread to ten provinces.
Most of the cases have been in Java, less than 100 kilometres from the teeming capital Jakarta.
Health officials expressed concern about the emergence of polio in Aceh where – ten months after the 26 December tsunami – tens of thousands of people still live in crowded and sometimes squalid refugee camps.
Associated Press, 18 October 2005
Journalists not to be imprisoned
Chief Justice Bagir Manan has given a directive to judges across the country to fine, not imprison, any journalist found guilty in a criminal case related to a press dispute.
However, Bagir said criminal charges against media outfits were still applicable despite calls from some journalists for the courts to use the Press Law, instead of the Criminal Code, in hearing media disputes.
Indonesian courts have jailed a number of journalists in the past. The latest case occurred in May when two journalists from Lampung were jailed for nine months for libelling Alzier Dianis Thabranie, the leader of Golkar Party’s Lampung chapter.
The Jakarta High Court also upheld in April a decision by a lower court sentencing Bambang Harymurti, the chief editor of Tempo weekly news magazine, to one year in prison for libel against business tycoon Tommy Winata.
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, October 2005
Govt to send in Army for bird flu battle
The increasing number of birth flu deaths in the country is prompting the government to deploy troops and volunteers to conduct door-to-door checks to find fowls infected with the virus.
The search would first be concentrated in Greater Jakarta and areas deemed ‘difficult’ for officials to detect the avian influenza virus, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.
Susilo said the Greater Jakarta had become the government’s initial focus because four of the five people who died of bird flu had lived in the area.
In Indonesia alone, nine people are confirmed to have contracted the virus in the past 10 months, with five of them dying.
The government also plans to increase the country’s stocks of flu medicines, including Tamiflu and Relenza, from 750,000 pills to about 20 million pills.
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Rendi A Witular, The Jakarta Post, 15 November 2005
Four die in cult clash in Palu
Police personnel and members of a little known cult clashed on Tuesday in a Palu subdistrict, leaving three policemen and a cult member dead.
The deadly clash between police and cult members, the first of its kind reported in the country, happened after a team of 16 police personnel attempted to arrest a cult leader in the morning. The leader was deemed responsible for spreading misleading teachings about Islam.
When the police tried to arrest their leader, the knife-wielding cult members attacked the police. One cult member was shot dead during the clash.
The sect has reportedly blended Islam with local traditions with the leader, called Mahdi, believed by the members to be the last Prophet as promised by the Koran.
The sect is just one among many that exist in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. The government has often taken an uncompromising stance against such groups, alleging that they have the potential to disturb social harmony.
Ruslan Sangadji, The Jakarta Post, Palu, 26 October 2005
Inside Indonesia 85: Jan-Mar 2006
Military officers deployed to villages
The Indonesian Military (TNI) is reactivating its intelligence unit that used to work within the community to help the police fight terrorism.
TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto said that the military unit, comprising non-commissioned officers known as Babinsa, would gather all information required to help prevent acts of terrorism.
During the authoritarian rule of Suharto, Babinsa carried out surveillance work for the government and helped maintain security and order in the grass roots.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the military to actively take part in the war on terror during the TNI’s anniversary on 5 October. The request came soon after Bali fell prey to terror attacks for the second time in three years.
Human rights activists warned of the possible return of the military to non-defence areas, which they said would derail the ongoing military reform.
The Jakarta Post, 8 November 2005
Polio in Aceh
Indonesia tallied its first case of polio in Aceh province, where health services already are strained following last year’s devastating tsunami, the health minister said.
Polio has sickened 259 children since it reappeared in Indonesia in March following a decade-long absence, she said, adding that the virus had spread to ten provinces.
Most of the cases have been in Java, less than 100 kilometres from the teeming capital Jakarta.
Health officials expressed concern about the emergence of polio in Aceh where – ten months after the 26 December tsunami – tens of thousands of people still live in crowded and sometimes squalid refugee camps.
Associated Press, 18 October 2005
Journalists not to be imprisoned
Chief Justice Bagir Manan has given a directive to judges across the country to fine, not imprison, any journalist found guilty in a criminal case related to a press dispute.
However, Bagir said criminal charges against media outfits were still applicable despite calls from some journalists for the courts to use the Press Law, instead of the Criminal Code, in hearing media disputes.
Indonesian courts have jailed a number of journalists in the past. The latest case occurred in May when two journalists from Lampung were jailed for nine months for libelling Alzier Dianis Thabranie, the leader of Golkar Party’s Lampung chapter.
The Jakarta High Court also upheld in April a decision by a lower court sentencing Bambang Harymurti, the chief editor of Tempo weekly news magazine, to one year in prison for libel against business tycoon Tommy Winata.
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, October 2005
Govt to send in Army for bird flu battle
The increasing number of birth flu deaths in the country is prompting the government to deploy troops and volunteers to conduct door-to-door checks to find fowls infected with the virus.
The search would first be concentrated in Greater Jakarta and areas deemed ‘difficult’ for officials to detect the avian influenza virus, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.
Susilo said the Greater Jakarta had become the government’s initial focus because four of the five people who died of bird flu had lived in the area.
In Indonesia alone, nine people are confirmed to have contracted the virus in the past 10 months, with five of them dying.
The government also plans to increase the country’s stocks of flu medicines, including Tamiflu and Relenza, from 750,000 pills to about 20 million pills.
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Rendi A Witular, The Jakarta Post, 15 November 2005
Four die in cult clash in Palu
Police personnel and members of a little known cult clashed on Tuesday in a Palu subdistrict, leaving three policemen and a cult member dead.
The deadly clash between police and cult members, the first of its kind reported in the country, happened after a team of 16 police personnel attempted to arrest a cult leader in the morning. The leader was deemed responsible for spreading misleading teachings about Islam.
When the police tried to arrest their leader, the knife-wielding cult members attacked the police. One cult member was shot dead during the clash.
The sect has reportedly blended Islam with local traditions with the leader, called Mahdi, believed by the members to be the last Prophet as promised by the Koran.
The sect is just one among many that exist in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. The government has often taken an uncompromising stance against such groups, alleging that they have the potential to disturb social harmony.
Ruslan Sangadji, The Jakarta Post, Palu, 26 October 2005
Inside Indonesia 85: Jan-Mar 2006
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