Asia Times (atimes.com), November 16, 2001
Javanese colonialism: Autonomy tests Megawati
By Bill Guerin
JAKARTA - Java has been the power base of the republic of Indonesia for 56 years,
although it has little, if any, natural resources. Many of the other provincial territories
are rich, some extremely rich, but they have never received a decent share of the
national purse used by Jakarta to build up an empire and organize and control the
lives of so many non-Javanese.
The Javanese might extended almost 5,000 kilometers from Aceh in North Sumatra
through to West Papua, "From Sabang to Merauke" as the Indonesians say. And this
despite the fact that the island of Java is only 7 percent of the total land mass of
Indonesia.
Thus, Papuans, Acehnese, Malukkans, and all the others were "Indonesians", which
meant losing their rights to control the proceeds of their lands and resources, and to
administer their own peoples.
Under the iron fist of Suharto, there never was the slightest chance of a province even
protesting against Jakarta, but now, as the more committed (some would say more
fanatical) provincial leaders see what they perceive as a weak central government in
Jakarta, they smell blood and are moving in for the kill.
Such rebellion by provinces against Jakarta rule is not something new - Sukarno had
to deal with this as he presided over the newly independent Indonesia - but he was in
control, like Suharto, and not, like Abdurrahman Wahid and now Megawati
Sukarnoputri, prey to the whims, mischief and downright non-cooperation from
legislators who have so far, singularly failed to prove to the people that they can
govern.
The downfall of Suharto in May 1998 gave the disgruntled provinces the opening they
needed. The "dream duo" of Wahid and Megawati received the brunt of the regional
pressures almost as soon as they rose to power in 1999. The separation of East
Timor, ongoing demands for a referendum in Aceh and for separation in Irian forced
Wahid to speed up the planned Regional Autonomy Law 22/1999 and the Revenue
Sharing Law 25/1999.
To appease the resource-rich provinces, and to dampen their demands for splitting
apart from Indonesia, these were hastily cobbled together and implemented in January
2001, a year earlier than planned. This exposed the myriad conflicting rules and
regulations related to land acquisition and labor disputes, the result of 56 years of
national heritage.
Although widely criticized by the provinces and even legislators, the new laws were
seen as a quantum leap forward from the 1974 law, which ensured that the central
government controlled everything from the appointment of governors, mayors and even
heads of districts. The Suharto regime had regional offices to control its own planning
across the bureaucratic spectrum, a total of 27 provinces (including East Timor) and
354 municipalities. Agriculture, transport, education, religion, justice, social affairs,
labor and even the department of information were all tightly controlled from the
capital.
The revenue-sharing law is intended to redress the balance of income over
expenditures. Oil-rich Riau, for example, currently receives an annual 1.4 trillion rupiah
(US$132 million) from Jakarta, but contributes at least 38 trillion rupiah to the national
purse from its oil reserves operated by Caltex.
Under law 25, a few provinces will receive 80 percent revenue from forestry, mining
(excluding oil and gas) and fisheries, but the government still controls a large part of
the revenue from oil and gas with 85 percent and 70 percent respectively.
Regional governors say that the law is full of loopholes that can be used by the central
government to continue to wield power over regional governments. How and when the
promised decentralization process is implemented has hardly been discussed.
Conscious of the need to avoid their threats of disintegration encouraging a further era
of strong-arm tactics from Jakarta, an earlier cry from the regions was for a federalism
to replace the one-state system which Megawati has vowed to defend at all costs.
The resource-rich provinces of East Kalimantan Riau, and Irian Jaya had demanded
that the constitution be replaced by a federal system, giving People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR) speaker Amien Rais the chance of a new issue with which to
trouble the president. Rais described federalism as "the golden bridge between
centralism and separatism".
Rais, however, is out there all alone with this. Even his own National Awakening
Party, as well as Golkar, Megawati's Democratic Party of Struggle and the military
faction quickly saw that federalism would be just one step nearer to disintegration.
The Autonomy Law itself gives a more balanced relationship between central
government and regional governments, and the independence of regional governments
is virtually guaranteed because under the law they are not subordinate to the central
government. The revenue-sharing law is more complex. There is more potential for
growth in rich provinces, but, of course, the ability of central government to subsidize
the poor provinces decreases pro rata with decreased regional contributions.
Only four provinces will benefit from this law - Riau, East Kalimantan, Irian Jaya and
Aceh. Riau will leap from a 185 billion rupiah income to 3.98 trillion rupiah a year,
East Kalimantan will get 3.8 trillion rupiah from 400 billion rupiah before and "in the
news" Irian Jaya will receive 3 trillion rupiah rather than the 163 billion rupiah of before.
This is of little interest to the poorer provinces, which can never achieve
self-sufficiency and which will always need government subsidies to balance their
budgets. Jambi, Benkgkulu, Yogyakarta, Bali, North Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi,
South East Sulawesi, West and East Nusa Tenggara as well as Jakarta itself have
budgets founded on at least 80 percent of central government grants. These provinces
have little or no income from natural resources.
Is it possible, then, that Indonesia could end up falling apart like Yugoslavia?
The case of Papua (Irian Jaya), where flamboyant West Papuan separatist leader
Theys Hiu Eluay met his death over the weekend, would seem to suggest not. The
province, on the western half of New Guinea island, detests Jakarta's exploitation of
its rich oil, gas and mineral reserves and simmers with resentment.
There are large numbers of "re-settled" Javanese living in Papua and Theys and his
independence supporters have, since 1969, fought against an enforced United
Nations-sponsored plebiscite that reaffirmed Indonesian sovereignty over the former
Dutch East Indies territory. Wahid was initially responsive to their demands, visiting
the province frequently, but eventually lost interest, sticking to the Jakarta line of
offering special autonomy
Unfortunately, Wahid's hopes that this would appease the Papuan separatists and
stem the demands from other provinces, were unfounded. Theys and his
pro-independence campaigners rejected this autonomy, saying the people wanted
independence. In the final days of his administration, Wahid turned down the Papuan
Presidium Council's demand for a self-determination referendum, saying that the
province must remain part of Indonesia.
However, the House of Representatives (DPR) passed the special autonomy bill into
law on October 22 and Megawati is due to visit Irian Jaya on December 22 to enact
the law. The province will then receive 80 percent of revenues from forestry and fishery
and 70 percent of revenues from oil, gas and mining, which will give them 6 trillion
rupiah in the new year. Such largesse may be the determining factor which dampens
extremist separatist demands and diminishes the enthusiasm of their supporters.
Kalimantan, Maluku, Aceh and others are building up steam and will certainly give
Jakarta confrontational situations to handle. Riau has been at odds with its revenue
earner Caltex for years, and Papuan aggressiveness towards mining giant Freeport
McMoRan is fast gathering momentum. All of Sumatra's governors want majority
ownership - up to 70 percent - of each BUMN (state-owned enterprises) in their
province. They say that such money would be used for community development, but
at the same time are asking Jakarta to build a decent transportation infrastructure and
electricity network for Sumatra, from central government funds.
This is why the local Padang administration is holding privatization to ransom with the
government now forced to backtrack on a sell-off of Semen Padang, which would have
given the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) $520 million to boost the
national budget.
Megawati acknowledges a risk, saying, "Consciously or not, we often make a
disproportionate use of ethnic or local symbols ... I am very concerned when people
use ethnic pride, 'local people' or even religious symbols to support regional
autonomy." This was aimed at governors and district chiefs from across Indonesia,
and she warned that the spirit of national unity formulated by the founding fathers
would be transgressed if each region were to focus on pursuing its own interests.
This is classic Megawati. From the outset she has advocated and supported a unified
Indonesia, but has yet to implement government policies that would go some way to
redressing the balance. She has repeated her warning of national disintegration a
number of times and as a fervent nationalist has won popular support for her
opposition to total regional autonomy. But this cuts little ice with non-Javanese. She
warns that the country could perish if regional sentiments continue to grow,
expressing concern that regional autonomy could produce excessive regional pride,
especially in those territories rich in natural resources, as they may believe they
would better off outside Indonesia. When she was vice president, Megawati said that
the planned autonomy law went against the principle of Indonesia being a unitary
state as laid down in the 1945 constitution, which she holds as sacrosanct.
Minister of Home Affairs Lieutenant-General Hari Sabarno is pressing on with a review
of the two autonomy laws. Sabarno says he wants to revise the laws to avoid the
multiple interpretations that have led to confusion and bitterness, but most regents
and representatives of local administrations have little doubt that the real motive is to
centralize power and to appease Megawati herself.
Some schools of thought hold that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has gone
too far by insisting that regional administrations be forbidden from seeking foreign
loans for development. Hasan Jefry, one analyst, sees this prohibition as an indication
that the IMF's is anxious not to lose influence on the Indonesian government.
He is right surely in as much as regional autonomy, by its very nature, was meant to
devolve monetary authority to the provinces. In the old days, regions benefited from
the share-out of local and foreign development loans through Bappenas, the National
Development Agency, which controlled national borrowing. The provinces want this
authority for the regional legislative assemblies.
Revenue wise, around 60 percent of GDP emanates from non-oil and gas activities in
Java. Outside of Java, Sumatra has the largest income from resources and Riau and
East Kalimantan the largest oil and gas activities (60 percent of total Indonesia
production). Sumatra's economy is run on natural resources, with oil and gas, mining,
refineries, plantations and natural resources based manufacturing, while Kalimantan is
the number one province in forestry.
Sulawesi also has plantations with some small-scale manufacturing. Java, and
perhaps Bali to a degree, are industrialized provinces with labor-intensive
manufacturing and traders dominating the economy. Jakarta has none of this, having
been long ago set out as a services economy.
Minister of Finance Budiono, at the time of last week's Consultative Group on
Indonesia (CGI) donor meeting, pointedly said that the sources of Indonesia's
problems are widespread and include land, labor, ethnic and regional disputes. He
said that improved security is the precursor to sustained recovery and points out that
although the reforms of recent years have opened up society in many positive ways,
they have also reopened old conflicts and confused traditional lines of authority.
Last week, the United Development Party faction in the MPR warned that the
government must be more serious in dealing with the threat of disintegration,
especially from separatist movements in Aceh, Papua and Maluku.
Independence as an alternative to autonomy is not an option, and never will be as long
as Megawati is in power. The battle lines are drawn and the Javanese governmental
empire may reign supreme once more. Megawati this week called for an investigation
into the Theys case. Be that as it may, Jakarta itself approved the very special
autonomy for Irian Jaya, yet still proceeded with the trial of the murdered Theys Eluay
and three others, Presidium secretary-general Thaha Al-Hamid, youth chairman Don
Flassy and the Reverend Hermon Awom, for subversion.
Put at its most simple, they were being tried for advocating a deal which had just
been legalized by parliament.
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