FPRI, July 16, 2004
Democracy, Reform, and Military Suffocation in Indonesia: A
Review Essay
by Theodore Friend
Theodore Friend is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He has
just concluded a semester as the C.V. Starr Distinguished Visiting Professor of
Southeast Asia Studies at the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns
Hopkins University, Washington, D.C. He is author of Indonesian Destinies (Harvard
University Press, 2003).
Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia. By Kevin O'Rourke
(New South Wales: Allen and Unwin, 2002; Chicago: Independent Publishers Group,
2003. Paper. 499 pp. $24.95)
Power Politics and the Indonesian Military. By Damien Kingsbury (London and New
York: Routledge Curzon, 2003. 280 pp. $114.95)
Electoral democracy may be merely a rabies with which America has infected the
world by its historical bite. But the largest direct presidential election in history is
promising. It will have concluded seven weeks before the Bush-Kerry tangle in
November. Because Indonesian voters turn out in much greater proportions than do
Americans, their population of 230 million has been casting far more ballots than will
the 280 million in the USA. This in itself should be major international news. But
American media, including public TV, are asleep again. Indonesia's massive Muslim
population, its oil, its terrorism, its vigorous new democracy, apparently do not matter
compared to our gas pump prices, our threatened travel and shopping, our publicly
contesting personalities.
A pity, with so much of interest in the run-up to Indonesia's run-off. In April, the largest
one-day parliamentary election in world history (because India's takes much longer)
produced a new party configuration. Explicit clean government platforms scored
strongly; platforms for an Islamic state fared poorly. And sharp decline of support for
incumbent president Megawati Sukarnoputri became evident.
Since the euphoric days of deposing Suharto and his Golkar party, 1998-1999, reform
has been sluggish. Nonetheless: for a nation conceived in anarchy and dedicated to a
number of contradictory propositions, many of them authoritarian, the last six years
may be summed up as still hopeful. Constitutional reform has been astute and
persistent. The largest (again) world experiment in decentralization of government is in
process and individual voters are showing an autonomy and pride in choice beyond
prediction or seduction. Serious weaknesses nonetheless remain in the rate of
economic growth needed to reduce poverty, and in the legal environment required for
transparent and creative business. Gross defects persist in the military, upon which
this review will concentrate.
Megawati's half-presidency (it is three years since she replaced Abdurrahman Wahid
after his impeachment) has been regrettably sluggish, without social vision or
economic consistency. She has conveyed her father, Sukarno's, ambition for unity,
and his successor Suharto's ruthless way of ensuring it. The Indonesian National
Army (TNI) continues relentlessly bent on crushing separatist movements in Aceh and
Papua (in Indonesia's far west and far east, respectively). Their success in winning
hearts and minds in putting down the Darul Islam revolt (1948-1962) is forgotten, and
too many officers behave instead as territorial entrepreneurs or concessionaires.
As her major electoral opponents, Megawati has now encountered one general,
Wiranto (for the Golkar Party) whom Wahid fired from his cabinet for well documented
human rights violations, and another, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), for the
Partai Demokrat, whom she had fired from her own cabinet for alleged disloyalty-
which firing the public largely interpreted as her pique at his not obliging her corrupt
husband, Taufik Kiemas. Wiranto commanded the armed forces in 1998-99 and then
served as coordinating minister for politics and security from 1999 to 2000; SBY was
Wiranto's chief of staff for territorial affairs and then coordinating minister for politics
and security from 2001 until earlier this year, first under Wahid and then under
Megawati.
The direct balloting for president on July 5 (still proceeding toward certification) has
apparently reduced three serious contenders to two. SBY has won over a third of the
ballots; Megawati just over a quarter; and Wiranto less than a quarter. So it is now
SBY vs. Mega, with two months to go.
Amid democratic choices and cries for reforms, military and paramilitary phenomena
persist. Books by Kevin O'Rourke and Damien Kingsbury give the reader plenty of
background on these and many other matters. They are both clearly conceived and
courageously written. At the height of President Suharto's power, such books could
have resulted in their authors being denied readmission to Indonesia for research.
They are published in the apparent trust that open information and candid
commentary can breed more of the same, rather then its reversal. I hope such trust
remains sound. However, the June expulsion of Sidney Jones and foreign staff of the
International Crisis Group from Indonesia suggests otherwise. Apparently Indonesian
Army Intelligence either does not respect the superb research that Jones has done on
Jemaah Islamiyah, the jihadist perpetrators of 202 deaths in Bali in October 2002 and
another dozen deaths when it bombed the Jakarta Marriott in August 2003. Or
perhaps TNI fears that such openness could lead to additional public disclosures of its
own military misdeeds in Aceh, Papua, or elsewhere. Possibly TNI is worried that its
vast range of off-budget, for-profit enterprises will be further exposed. But why punish a
foreigner for pursuing what Indonesian critics themselves have already said very well?
[1]
Kevin O'Rourke worked eight years in Jakarta as consultant and risk analyst before
becoming the first editor of the authoritative biweekly Van Zorge Report. Writing about
Indonesia's tumultuous transition of May 1998, he concludes that the riots in Jakarta
that month, which killed over 1,200 people, were largely premeditated. The bullets that
killed protesting students at Trisakti University were from armed forces rifles, the event
"designed to serve as a triggering mechanism." Two days passed before Suharto flew
home from a conference in Egypt, to encounter in Jakarta "deliberately instigated riots
. . . meant to 'delegitimize'" him.
O'Rourke calls this series of events and what followed a "Coup a la Java." The military
took every official step to protect Suharto, while allowing bloody disorder to erode his
power. Under Wiranto, later patterns of promotion would advance and enhance five top
officers who could have quieted the city- but did not. Wiranto let General Prabowo
take deserved blame for having earlier abducted activists (several of whom, still
missing, may be presumed dead). He also let Prabawo be scapegoated for the
Trisakti killings and the disaster that followed. Those discredits of Prabowo are
probably unwarranted, but they helped Wiranto push his rival into temporary exile.
Wiranto and his associates, having appeared as tardy guardians of a tattered order,
eased Suharto safely home to retirement, and let B. J. Habibie, the Vice President,
succeed him "constitutionally." In order to protect the new president and new New
Order, in November 1998, Wiranto's troops at the Semanggi interchange fired into
protesting crowds, killing 15 and injuring 500. Ten months later in the same place
("Semanggi II"), they again shot live ammunition, killing four and injuring scores.
These brutal episodes remain unprosecuted, like others before them.
A year later, TNI further defamed itself in world opinion by its "scorched earth" policy
in East Timor, which led to 1,000 to 2,000 more deaths in actions that defied
President Habibie's policy, abrogated the country's agreement with the UN, and
violated human rights on a mass scale. Both the Indonesian Human Rights
Commission and the attorney general's office named Wiranto as a suspected
perpetrator of crimes against humanity. No national or international tribunal, however,
has yet been able to bring Wiranto to trial for his command responsibility in these
mass murders.
Instead, General Wiranto campaigned for the presidency as an "outsider." As a
crooner out of uniform, he sang dangdut and American pop, trying to meld an image of
reliable command and lovable sentimentality. Meanwhile, his agents in the United
States, where he might find it difficult to obtain a visa, advocated him to the Pentagon
as "the Musharraf of Indonesia." There are enough gross contradictions here that even
the mighty Vulcans in power in Washington could spot them and be en garde. But
one could not have been sure of that.
As for Yudhoyono (SBY), many educated people are powerfully attracted to him, and
his popularity has galloped forward more generally. They like his mild and flexible
style (he also croons), his experience in Bosnia, his apparently genuine support of
Reformasi, and his vaunted cleanliness regarding military profiteering and political
brokerage. Can this reputation hold up?
Damien Kingsbury is Head of Philosophical, International, and Political Studies at
Deakin University. His book is steeped in military procedures, personalities, and
politics; and offers relevant insights on concentric circles of related questions. Its
section on military businesses is detailed and unsparing. His handling of the military's
disinterest in Reformasi is highlighted by an account of the fate of the highly motivated
reformer, Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah.
This general, when promoted to command Kostrad (the strategic reserve), actually
investigated misuse of funds, including $22 million spent by his predecessor, an ally
of Wiranto. Some of it allegedly financed TNI's black operations and violence in East
Timor in 1999. But the army inspector general effectively cleared Kostrad of
embezzlement by ascribing error to "administrative disorder." That left Gen. Agus out
on a limb from which he was soon sawed off and deposed as Kostrad commander. A
year later Agus died suddenly at home at age 49. His family said he had had no
medical complaints. The reader is left to wonder if he died of a broken professional
heart; or, as Kingsbury goes so far as to suggest, if the death may have been
deliberate, a warning to any officer who would discuss with the public the military's
internal financing. Kingsbury's evidence here is allusion to "an Australian intelligence
analyst"- intriguing, but not compelling.
Agus Wira, at the height of Reformasi, edited a book of essays on advanced
military-global thinking. [2] SBY was originally to write an introduction for it, but in a
late display of caution, declined. By mid-2002, Kingsbury sees the "reform group" in
TNI as effectively finished. SBY started the Partai Demokrat to advance his own
presidential aspirations for 2004. As the first round of direct election approached, his
popularity numbers soared. He apparently benefited from his cloak of reform (a light
synthetic material that sheds rain easily), his military background, his unabrasive
manner, and his excellent sense of timing. But it was also SBY who helped command
the evacuation and destruction of Megawati's party headquarters in 1996. He was a
subordinate to, and ally of, Wiranto until mid-1999. They then fell out irreversibly over
Wiranto's opposition to Habibie's willingness to have the UN conduct a referendum in
East Timor on autonomy within the Indonesian state or independence. For
Yudhoyono, it can at least be said that he dreams of a different Indonesia [3]. For
Wiranto, it can only be said that he hungers for Indonesia's acme of power.
What can be said now of Reformasi? Kingsbury makes relatively few references to it,
realistically concentrating on the TNI "as an enforcer and guarantor of state cohesion."
O'Rourke, however, gives reform full play not only in his title, but in several of its
dimensions: political and legal; decentralizing and deregulating; of the press;
anticorruption efforts; even reform of the military. He acknowledges the slump of
reform euphoria and the loneliness of the long-distance reformer. But the major danger
to Indonesia that he sees in this book is not in rigid cultural habits, and not in the
dauntability of progressives, but that the "likelihood of an Islamic government taking
power seems stronger now then ever before."
Actually, the Bali bombing in October 2002- after O'Rourke finished writing- put a
crimp in Islamist, including military Islamists', enthusiasms, because so many
Indonesians were killed and millions of others frightened or strongly affronted by it.
Kingsbury doesn't have space for the Bali blasts, but he never veers from his
announced intention to examine "the imposition of fear and its associated lower order
of intimidation . . . the principal tactic of the Indonesian military, used almost solely to
quell and cow the population it claims to serve and protect."
Some experts on Indonesia were in paper-rock-scissors speculation, predicting that in
the presidential finals of September 2004, Megawati could beat Wiranto; SBY could
beat Mega; and Wiranto could beat SBY. If that were true, it was obviously critical
which two got into the finals. But in none of the three paired cases was Reformasi a
clear winner. Megawati never understood it as worth pursuing, except as an
anti-Suharto tactic. Wiranto could talk about it, but he opposed it in his gut, and
would clobber it (a Suharto verb) in open confrontation. SBY has committed to it
chiefly in his dream states, because of his acute sense of the real limits of Indonesian
political will. Now, after the July balloting, he needs only to add 50 precent to his vote
to become president, whereas Mega needs to double hers to remain in office. A
strong showing in September could give SBY traction upon further reform. But Wiranto
and the Golkar party are not likely to help him with that objective.
Friends of Indonesia nonetheless may hope that recent sound constitutional reforms
will be followed by legal reforms; that incremental growth of NGOs will give civil
society traction for gains in democracy and transparency; that new centers of citizen
conscience will arise from the interstices of a society slowly becoming (not South
Korea yet) too complex for the military to command by intimidation.
Indonesians can look forward to deciding their presidency on September 20 without an
electoral college, a USA boardgame of colored patches that puzzles the world. Their
second successive "free, full, and fair" national election gives citizens and observers
alike hope that the nation can rise above elite hubris and military obtuseness. Three
more successes in this basic genre of democracy might advance Indonesia, by 2020,
to other dimensions of a vital life as a republic. Along the way there must occur a
thinning out, then an extinction, of the military thuggery that O'Rourke and Kingsbury
document. SBY, even as a general, could not easily abet that reform. But could he at
least neutralize the political militias and the private armies that have recently marred
the face of Indonesia's democracy? There will be many jobs ahead for the winner on
September 20.
Notes
[1] LIPI (National Institute of Science), "Bila ABRI Menghendaki": Desakan-Kuat
Reformasi Atas Konsep Dwifungsi ABRI ["If ABRI wishes": Reform Pressure Upon
ABRI's Concept of Dual Function]; Bila ABRI Berbisnis [ABRI's Business Practices];
Tentara Mendamba Mitra [The Army's Desire for Friendship]; Tentara Yang Gelisah [A
Nervous Army] (Bandung, Mizan Pustaka, 1998-99).
[2] Agus Wirahadikusumah, ed., Indonesia Baru dan Tantangan TNI [The New
Indonesia and Challenges for TNI] (Jakarta, Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1999).
[3] Ltg. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, "Indonesia in the New Millennium: Promises and
the Price of Reform" (presented before the Temasek Society, Singapore, May 17,
1999).
You may forward this email as you like provided that you send it in its entirety and
attribute it to the Foreign Policy Research Institute. If you post it on a mailing list,
please contact FPRI with the name, location, purpose, and number of recipients of the
mailing list.
If you receive this as a forward and would like to be placed directly on our mailing
lists, send email to FPRI@fpri.org. Include your name, address, and affiliation. For
further information, contact Alan Luxenberg at (215) 732-3774 x105.
Become an FPRI member
|
