|
By Uwe Parpart, Asia Times
Online Editor
Four years ago, the 33-year rule of former Indonesian president
Suharto came to an ignominious end. Over three years of political
turbulence and economic dislocation followed. But over the past
nine months, Indonesia slowly but surely appears to have taken on
some of the personality traits of its new leader, placid and
taciturn President Megawati Sukarnoputri. And that's a huge relief
after the noisy chaos that prevailed during her erratic
predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid's incompetent rule.
It's something of a slap in the face as well to those - this
commentator included - who saw Megawati as little more than the
daughter of Indonesia's first president Sukarno, with nothing but
her father's name to qualify her to be president and with no
evident ability to seriously tackle her country's problems. She
appears to be proving us wrong. But so be it. Wall Street analysts
will happily tell you that being wrong matters little when the
outcome is right.
Still, there is the important question of what exactly happened
and why and how, and whether the good news can last. Wahid had
left a mess: Uncontrolled insurgencies in Aceh and Papua,
uncontrolled violence pitting Muslims against Christians in the
Moluccas (Malaku) and elsewhere, festering Islamic radicalism soon
to be associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, an economy in
utter disarray. But now take a look at current sample headlines:
May 9: Aceh rebels and Indonesians in Switzerland peace talks
May 4: Indonesia arrests top Islamic militant
May 7: Islamic militants said willing to leave troubled Moluccas
May 7: Three Southeast Asian states sign anti-terror pact
May 14: IMF says economy shows encouraging progress
May 14: First quarter GDP up 2.15 percent from previous quarter
May 20: Megawati cheers Timor Lorosae's independence
May 14: Rumsfeld urges US Congress to ease curbs on military ties
They bespeak a remarkable turnaround.
The Geneva peace talks between the government and the separatist
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) produced no formal ceasefire agreement.
But progress toward ending hostilities was made and negotiations
will resume in Jakarta in two months.
The arrest of Jafar Umar Thalib, leader of the radical Islamist
Laskar Jihad militia, has not ended the violence in the Moluccas,
which to date has claimed 6,000 lives and displaced 750,000
people. But a peace deal between local Muslims and Christians has
been worked out and Java-based Laskar Jihad militants will be
expelled from the province or leave voluntarily.
Jakarta has been slow in moving against al-Qaeda-linked militants
and refused to arrest radical cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the
alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, which Singapore and
Malaysia say planned terrorist attacks on the United States and
other targets in Southeast Asia last year. But the anti-terrorism
pact signed by Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and to be
joined by Thailand, now provides for intelligence sharing and
joint action against suspected terrorist cells.
The economy was all but dead last year. But according to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) senior advisor for Asia-Pacific,
Daniel Citrin, "There's been encouraging progress in the
first months of the year. Under the [IMF] program, the market
sentiment has improved, the rupiah has started to strengthen, the
[Bank Indonesia interest] rates are starting to come down."
On the international front, Indonesia was a near outcast. But
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan invited Megawati to
attend the May 20 East Timor independence celebrations, and her
presence in Dili opened a new chapter in relations after decades
of Indonesian misadventures in its former province.
The atrocities committed there by the Indonesian military and its
affiliated militias will not readily be forgotten. But the US,
which severed ties with the Indonesian military in 1999, is ready
to restore military relations and aid. In support of it, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has told the US Congress that Jakarta
was dealing with past human rights violations "in an orderly,
democratic way".
Several factors have enabled Megawati to effect the return of a
measure of calm, political stability and civility to her country
and to take it on the road to economic recovery. Most important
among them is the support of the military (TNI), with which she
shares a strong commitment to national unity and the belief that
only a basically secular and religiously tolerant political creed
can safeguard such unity. The TNI, to be sure, even after ridding
itself of numbers of officers beholden to the old Suharto regime
and its methods, is not the most savory of institutions. But it's
the only one of national reach and relatively clear lines of
command. Megawati will have to continue to rely on it and keep it
in her camp.
A second factor in Megawati's favor, albeit of less certain or
lasting significance, is the war on terrorism. Its impact has been
to discredit radical Islamism, or at any rate slow its political
progress and inroads. Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
has made much more aggressive use of this than Megawati in moving
against opponents demanding an Islamic state under Islamic law.
But in fact, her apparent decision not to explicitly push the
issue of secular versus Islamic rule and instead to settle back
and let people draw their own conclusions may be the smarter
tactic in the long run. Why risk further offending those already
offended and chastised by the course of events?
A third factor, closely related to the two just noted, is the
Javanese elite's re-assertion of its political clout, creed and
style. Megawati's silence and studied calm in the face of conflict
and adversity are the marks of Javanese royalty rather than
democratic leadership. As in Javanese wayang shadow play,
personality and policy issues are settled behind the scenes rather
than in noisy public debate before the dalang (puppeteers)
have the backlit puppets act things out on screen. A leading dalang
is State Secretary Bambang Kesowo, whose position is the rough
equivalent of the US White House chief of staff and who has served
as a state secretariat bureaucrat since 1968. A few days prior to
Megawati's July 24, 2001, accession to the presidency, he defined
as her key task "to normalize political and economic life and
stop the country from disintegrating". Emphasis on stability
and national unity is the hallmark of the policy outlook of
Megawati's inner circle.
Along with key long-term advisers Laksamana Sukardi (now state
minister for state-owned companies) and Catholic economist Frans
Seda, a finance minister under both Sukarno and Suharto, and with
essential inputs from decade-long Megawati military supporters
Lieutenant-Generals (retired) Abdullah Mahmud Hendropriyono (now
head of the state intelligence agency) and Agum Gumelar (now
minister of transportation and telecommunications), Kesowo
conducted a two-week Javanese musyawarah (deliberation
session) to select the Megawati cabinet appointed on August 9.
Predictably, foreign as well as numbers of local observers saw the
long delay in the formation of a new government as another sign of
Megawati's indecision. It wasn't. It was a purposive harking back
to her founding-president father's principles which defined musyawarah
leading to mufakat (consensus) - with the minor nuance of a
usually pre-determined outcome - as the Indonesian way of
democracy. The very name she chose for the new cabinet, gotong
royong or mutual assistance, is a throw-back to the Sukarno
days - it's the name he gave to the House of Representatives he
formed after dismissing the elected parliament in 1959.
Sukarno's relations with the military weren't always easy and when
his populist rhetoric ran away with him and, in the eyes of
leading officers, threatened the very existence of the republic,
they overthrew him. But he and his close collaborator Mohammed
Hatta were instrumental in creating the Indonesian Armed Forces (Abri)
when they helped transform a Javanese volunteer force (Peta),
recruited by the Japanese from late 1943 onward, into the
national, nationalist and anti-colonialist fighting arm of the
August 17, 1945 republic. Formally established on October 5, the
Abri fought its first major battle starting November 10 (Heroes'
Day/Hari Pahlawan) at Surabaya against the British 5th Indian
Division. It lasted three weeks. Republican forces incurred heavy
casualties, but 600 Indian troops defected. It was the beginning
of the end of British attempts to heave the Dutch colonial masters
back into control. Sukarno always understood the crucial role of
the armed forces in the independence fight and the preservation of
national unity.
Similarly, Megawati understands the debt of gratitude she owes to
key armed forces factions and officers - and not just since they
sided with her against Wahid in July 2001. In 1993, Hendropriyono,
then commander of the Jakarta military region, and then-Kopassus
(special forces) chief Gumelar supported her bid for the
Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) leadership against Suharto's
explicit wishes - and prevailed, though they were later moved to
less important posts and suffered temporary career setbacks. Both
officers are considered part of the "red and white"
secular-nationalist faction of the armed forces as opposed to the
pro-Islamic "green" faction that supported Suharto. In
the 1990s, the most important cluster of power within the
"red and white" faction was led by the pendawa lima
or five knights, so-named after the five noble Javanese heroes of
the Indonesian version of the Hindu Mahabharata epic. They are:
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Wiranto, Farid Zainuddin (a former
military intelligence chief), Hendropriyono and Gumelar. Yudhoyono
now holds the powerful position of Coordinating Minister for
Political, Social and Security Affairs and, along with
Hendropriyono, Gumelar and Minister for Home Affairs General Hari
Sabarno, forms the military core of the Megawati government.
Can they and senior elite bureaucrats and professionals such as
Coordinating Minister for Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti
(former ambassador to the US) and Finance Minister Boediono and
their policy precepts and methods of governance hold Indonesia
together and take the country onto a sustainable future
development path? I doubt it. They have imparted some much needed
calm to the nation. Modest economic recovery will buy some added
time. But in the longer run, wayang theater must be
consigned to where it belongs - the theater. Its methods and those
of Sukarno's "guided democracy" lack the critical
elements of transparency, popular representation and checks and
balances required for the effective governance of a diverse
modernizing nation state. The next presidential elections will be
held in 2004. In the run-up, to assure her own legacy and not just
preserve Sukarno's, Megawati and her priyayi (elite) team
must enact the legal and institutional reforms required for
lasting democratic rule.
|
