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HEARING ON INDONESIA
US COMMISSION ON INTERNTIONAL RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM
FEBRUARY 13, 2001
TESTIMONY OF DANIEL LEV
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Two over-simplified propositions may help to clarify the enormous complexity of Indonesian turmoil now. One is that Indonesian society is rather healthier than the Indonesian state. The other is that among various causes of the turmoil one, the influence of the army, stands out more than others.
In the history of independent Indonesia, the year that counts most for understanding the present is 1957, when the parliamentary system that governed the country for six years after 1950 disintegrated. It did not so much collapse, however, as it was brought down by the power of the army at a time of regional dissidence that led, in early 1958, to open rebellion. The United States, for cold-war reasons, supported the rebellion but also the army that put it down as the most dependable anti-Communist force in the country. The disastrous consequences for the country remain still. Indonesia has been perfectly capable of generating its own most serious problems since independence, but it has not lacked exacerbating help from abroad.
While President Soekarno was the authoritative public face of the Guided Democracy regime that replaced the parliamentary government, the army possessed the power that ultimately counted most. Indeed, its interests and claims-functional groups, the double function of the army (as defender of the country and as political participant), and the restoration of the strong presidential constitution of 1945-essentially defined the structure of Guided Democracy and its successor regime, the New Order. From 1958 through 1965 a dramatic centralization of power in Jakarta, and a parallel weakening of political parties and private organizations and associations throughout the country, rendered the government subject to few if any controls and initiated the subjugation of all state institutions to political authority. Corruption and abuse of power spread with extraordinary speed.
Following the coup of October 1965, the army, under the leadership of General and later President Suharto, became the sole determining force of Indonesian politics until 1998, when Suharto was dethroned by a combination of economic crisis and political protest. The New Order did not alter the basic attributes of Guided Democracy but rather streamlined them and initiated a period of economic growth that won much praise from foreign commercial investors and their governments, which by and large ignored, downplayed, or excused the deepening corruption of nearly all public institutions, widespread abuse of power, and violations of human rights.
It is no surprise that since the fall of Suharto there has been little success in bringing about the fundamental reforms required to repair the Indonesian state, though not for want of pressure from various sectors of Indonesian society and from abroad. Several significant reasons account for the failure thus far. One is that during the last forty years every essential state institution-national and local bureaucracies, the entire judicial order, the prosecution, police, regulatory agencies, state banks-has for all intents and purposes been functionally devastated and disoriented, filled with corruption, barely serviceable, and utterly devoid of public trust. The state is an institutional desert in which reformers, even at their best, can do relatively little without effective strategies of change fully supported by a unified political elite bent on thoroughgoing change.
The second is that there is no unified political elite, one capable of putting aside its differences momentarily for the sake of reform, for none outside the powerful Suharto regime itself was able to evolve during those years; and the relatively new middle class of educated professionals rooted in the economic boom of the New Order that might begin to constitute such an elite remains politically inexperienced, as yet generally reluctant to engage, and in any case uncertain what exactly needs to be done. Third, the presidential system in place since 1959 is not well suited to fundamental reform, in part because it focusses too much attention on a single figure and, in existing institutional and political circumstances, discourages effective cooperation between executive and legislative bodies.
Finally, given these conditions, the one fundamental that has seemed promising-the effort by the president, with much social support, to marginalize the army politically-is also endangered. While the post-Suharto army is on the defensive, beset by civilian hostility, much criticized and held in both contempt and fear, partially fragmented, and uncertain about its options, it is still the single most powerful force in the country and not at all resolved to accept a backseat to civilian leadership. Out of both interest and ideology, many in the officer corps are deeply reluctant to surrender the political prominence (and its rewards) to which they had become accustomed since the late 1950s.
Much of the violence in Indonesia since May of 1998 is most likely the result of army intervention or instigation. Quite apart from Timor Lorosae in 1999, Aceh since the early 1990s, and West Papua since the late 1960s, in each of which military approaches to political problems made them incomparably more intractable, elsewhere in the country army officers, sometimes on instructions but often on their own, have undertaken to set off serious local conflicts precisely along the most vulnerable religious fault lines.
Religious tension is not unusual in Indonesia, both between and within the major denominations, but religiously rooted violence has been relatively rare, even remarkably so. During the colonial period, the Dutch administration, always afraid and suspicious of Islam, persistently marginalized the Muslim majority, while Protestant and Catholic minorities were allowed advantages of education and support. In the independent state, political leadership, constituted in significant part by an old aristocracy also worried by Islamic potential, tried consistently to keep Islamic ambitions at bay, which meant, in effect, that much of the population (and particularly its most deprived part) felt politically ignored or worse. Muslims resented minority Christian (and other) historical advantages, while Christians feared Islam and inclined to a sense of superiority inherited from the colonial Dutch. Even so, the consequent tensions were not much greater, if at all, than the common social inclination of Indonesians in most parts of the country to mix easily across religious boundaries. At no time over the last two centuries has violent religious conflict been so prominent as during the last two years, but it took strategic intervention to incite it to the point that it would proceed on its own. It is hard to avoid the conclusion, for which there is enough evidence to be convincing, that military weaponry, intelligence, and hard work have been significantly involved.
The why of it is variegated: local military economic and political relationships developed over many years, including competitive interests among military (including police) units, revenge against the present political leadership for trying to reduce military influence, a concern to prove the military still essential to maintain order, and more. As of this writing, at the beginning of February 2001, the odds that the army might again involve itself directly are steadily increasing.
What can or should the United States do with respect to Indonesia? The short answer is "not much," but for at least two distinct reasons. One is that American influence in Indonesia has not always worked to Indonesia's advantage, to put it mildly; and it is not clear that political leadership in the United States has absorbed the significance of this elementary point. It is not simply that Washington played a part in encouraging the Indonesian army to assume a prominent political role in Indonesia, or that it applauded the extermination of 500,000 or more Indonesian citizens who happened to be Communists in 1965, and the incarceration without trial of another million or so citizens, but that it approved the New Order regime throughout much of its tenure despite more than adequate knowledge of its faults. Abuse of power and corruption were, in essence, explained away as bumps along the road to "progress," but it is fair to ask whether such optimism was partially inspired by the considerable gratitude Washington felt for a strong anti-Communist regime and the advantages enjoyed by American businesses and investors in the country. It makes good sense to recognize that American interests, whether public or private, are likely to influence American policies in Indonesia as elsewhere, but it should not be taken for granted that what is in the interest of the United States will be equally in the interest of Indonesia. I have in mind a particular worry that as American interests in Indonesia tend to be linked to questions of commerce and security that an impatient Washington may at some point be drawn to the conclusion that only the Indonesian army can restore the stability necessary to both. Any movement in that direction would be as tragic now as it was over forty years ago.
The second point, rather more complex, is that there is also little reason to suppose that the government of the United States has all that much to offer by way of advice in Indonesian conditions that must inevitably be dealt with by Indonesians. No one should simplify those conditions. During the last two years or more, the World Bank, the IMF, the government of the United States, and assorted other governments have been deeply frustrated by the intractability of the Indonesian crisis, not least because it is not one but many crises, none of them easy enough to be subject to simple solutions. If seasoned and knowledgeable advisors have failed, there is no hope at all for the various lawyers, economists, anti-corruption experts, and negotiators of peace who do not know the country well. Ultimately, conditions may improve in Indonesia, partly because they can hardly get much worse, but the solutions must be fundamentally Indonesian, and they will take time.
These strictures have to do by and large with the US Government. American and other NGOs are a different matter. It is worth repeating that Indonesian society is generating more pressures and more serious efforts at reform, across many different fronts, than is so of the state. It may be that foreign NGOs are rather more effective than official instances. They are often more attuned intellectually, more flexible, more suited to relationships with similarly concerned local NGOs, and, significantly, generally more trusted than are foreign state or international organization sponsored programs, which are often regarded as bound by their own agendas.
Realistically, however, it is likely that the US Government will continue to engage. Few if any of the principal programs of reform it has pressed have had much success. The failures of economic, legal, bureaucratic and related reform efforts are due in good part to their short-term ends and a lack of sensible strategies, along with the lack of adequate institutional bases in Indonesia. Ambitious programs have little hope in the short run unless there exists a set of powerful parallel local interests in the intended change. If anything, however, just the opposite is true in Indonesia. Pressure from abroad is inadequate to the task and may be counterproductive. More promising, in these circumstances, is a shift to longer term perspectives intended to lay foundations of change-for example, support for universities, secondary education, and professional schools, low-key assistance, when requested, for developing stronger professional associations, discrete (and discreet) injections of financial support for inter-religious councils that have begun to multiply on their own, and so on. Here too, however, NGOs can be fairly effective and should be encouraged.
Daniel S. Lev
February 4, 2001
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