A new novel explores the ambiguous role of the outlaw in today's Indonesia
Marshall Clark
Back in May 1998, just a few days before president Suharto resigned, like most Westerners in Indonesia I was lying low and keeping out of trouble. This strategy allowed me to catch the late Saturday-night wayang kulit puppet show on Indosiar, apparently one of Indonesia's highest rating TV programs. The name of the puppetmaster, or dalang, escapes me, however the star of the show, Wisanggeni, was unforgettable. Small and petite in stature, Wisanggeni spoke in a high-pitched voice in ngoko, low Javanese, and, on a rampage against the gods, he parried, thrusted, somersaulted and taunted with the best of them. After the death of each adversary, he broke into an energetic victory dance. Considering the context of economic crisis, riots, and reformasi, my question was obvious: was Wisanggeni a student in disguise?
I later discovered that Wisanggeni is one of several Mahabharata characters indigenous to Java, and almost for this reason alone he enjoys great popularity. His popularity might also have something to do with his status as an outlaw and a rebel. Even before his birth, Wisanggeni was hunted by the gods, who are horrified by this offspring of a brief union between the playboy Arjuna, a mere 'human,' and the goddess Dewi Dresanala.
The gods are also aware that his weapons and magical powers make Wisanggeni totally invincible, which, in the context of the equally weighted fratricidal conflict between the Pandawa and the Kurawa cousins, is disastrous. According to popular understanding, if Wisanggeni were to participate in the great war at the climax of the Mahabharata, the Pandawa would almost certainly win, but at great personal cost. Eventually, for the sake of his family, Wisanggeni sees reason and relents, ascending into the heavens.
In the years after Suharto fell, Wisanggeni has proven himself an irresistable hero, the star of a story with purpose, passion, and pain. By opposing the will of the gods, and by refusing to use the polite registers of Javanese, Wisanggeni at once represents the dissatisfactions of the common people of Java and Indonesia who sympathise with him, as well as being set apart from them by his outlaw status.
Ned Kelly
Since 1998, Wisanggeni has appeared as a major figure in two critically acclaimed novels, Ayu Utami's Saman (1998) and Seno Gumira Ajidarma's Wisanggeni sang buronan (2000). He also appeared in a major drama production by Teater Tetas, Wisanggeni berkelebat (2000), the script of which was written by Arya Dipayana. As an oppositional figure, Wisanggeni clearly still has much to offer, much like Australia's own outlaw of stature, Ned Kelly. In the words of Graham Seal, author of Ned Kelly in popular tradition, '[To] most of us he is somehow essentially Australian. Ned Kelly has secured the national pedestal because the image that we have made of him has been our own. As long as most Australians see themselves, no matter how realistically, as tough, resourceful and independent pioneer types who give everyone a fair go but take no nonsense from anyone, Ned Kelly will endure. Perhaps we will too.'
The Wisanggeni placed on a pedestal (or is it stabbed into a banana trunk?) by the likes of Ayu, Seno, and Teater Tetas is by no means deliberately represented as a figure of political rebellion. Yet Wisanggeni's rebellious spirit, and the fact that he is a fugitive living outside the rule of the gods, can easily be understood as the focus for an alternative set of values, a rallying point for resistance against the Indonesian status quo.
However, when I spoke with Seno Gumira Ajidarma in Jakarta in November 2000, soon after the hunt for 'Tommy Suharto: Outlaw of the People' was launched, I realised that too many Wisanggenis might be too much of a good thing. In Seno's words: 'The problem with Indonesia is that it has too many Wisanggenis.' Tommy aside, there has been no shortage of Wisanggenis clamouring for attention, be they in the form of Sukarno clones, the clown-god Semar, or the long-awaited mythical Javanese saviour, the Ratu Adil. Many would even go so far as to say that Indonesia cannot benefit from any new Wisanggenis anyway, as she has already, as it were, lost the plot.
Meanwhile, in Seno's narration of the Wisanggeni legend, the opposite occurs. When Wisanggeni accepts the need to withdraw from the wayang realms, the plot of the Mahabharata is not lost but saved. In Seno's version, Wisanggeni does not ascend, Jesus-like, to heaven. Instead, he flies off, dips in and out of a few clouds, and ends up about 2000 feet above the sultan's palace in Yogyakarta, just in time to catch the last few scenes of a wayang kulit performance!
Intriguingly, the tale being performed is the very same tale that Wisanggeni had been enacting on the pages of Seno's novel. As the gamelan plays on, Wisanggeni slips in amongst the sleeping audience and sits behind the screen, watching the shadows of Arjuna and Kresna, who are discussing whether Wisanggeni has accepted his fate. At this point Wisanggeni, who looks like a tramp, bursts into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. The audience, however, fail to see the humour and, thinking he is mad, drag him off to be thrown out into the street.
Such a callous denouement to the novel is most unexpected, but in many respects Wisanggeni's fate sits perfectly with the rest of the novel. Earlier, Wisanggeni's life is often defined in terms of fiction. Even principal actors in his life story, such as Batara Brahma, are aware that Wisanggeni is but part of an extraordinary drama. However, Batara Brahma is unaware of how Wisanggeni's tale will unfold, even as he unfolds it himself. 'O dear holy baby, the child of fate', wept Batara Brahma uncontrollably, 'what tale is it that comes with your life, to the point where your grandfather is duty-bound to kill you?' (p39). Therefore, by leaving the relative safety of his fictional wayang world, Wisanggeni is confronted with a different type of threat, the threat of the 'real world.'
Fried dog
I use the word 'threat' here guardedly, as the world of contemporary Indonesia is only threatening when viewed in comparison to the comparative safety, predictability, and beauty of the wayang world. One narrative technique in particular highlights this point: the strategic usage of suluk verses, which are usually sung throughout wayang performances. The suluk verses in Seno's novel, however, not only present the majestic scenes of poetic beauty common to the traditional wayang world, but also foreshadow the sense of decay and lurking danger one may assume is inherent in the contemporary world outside the wayang universe. The juxtaposition between the 'heaven' of the wayang world and the 'hell' of the real world reminds us of the postmodern clichthat reality is as much a fictional representation as fiction itself.
The first suluk of Wisanggeni sang buronan, which from my observations has puzzled both critics and dalangalike, juxtaposes the timeless beauty of a lotus in a pond with the depravity of eating pork satay and fried dog:
a song for a scholar passed away, o, pork satay and fried dog o, how the oil oozes and drips and a lotus blossoms in a small pond awaiting the love of the outlaw, o!
Other suluk describe haunting Dante-esque images of burning wayang screens, drunk poets, debauchery, prostitutes, marijuana smoke, flowing arak beer, blood coughed up, and cold-blooded murder. Just as the narrator alludes more than once to the distant sound of gamelan accompanying his account, the suluk verses act as a significant point of convergence between the wayang world and the real world of contemporary Indonesia.
Despite the points of convergence, the two worlds are separate entities. So much so that, once Wisanggeni unwittingly disturbs the real world of Yogyakarta, he is no longer considered an outlaw representing the interests and perceived injustices of the supportive masses. On the contrary, his uncontrolled laughter at dawn confirms his reputation as a madman. Ironically, now that Wisanggeni, through death, has lost his fictional self, as reflected in the metafictional allusions throughout the novel, we find that the fictional self is hardly an object at all. It is a mere shadow, as it were.
In other words, Wisanggeni's self of real life imitates the self of fiction, only in reverse. Just as the gods reject Wisanggeni outright, and therefore attempt to wipe him from the Mahabharata slate, the audience at the wayang kulit in Yogya are equally unable to see the tramp as anything more than a madman, and so they too regard him as a threat to the natural order of the world. Wisanggeni's status as an outlaw is doubly ambivalent: on the one hand he has given up his fight against the gods, but on the other hand he is on the run from the very people who would normally consider him a kindred spirit.
Despite the imaginative use of narrative techniques such as metafiction and suluk to highlight the instability and lack of fixed identity of fiction and reality, the key point to emerge from such an unexpected climax to the novel appears to be ultimately political. Wisanggeni's fate suggests that for Indonesia's Mahabharata to continue, more and more of Indonesia's Wisanggeni-figures must give up their personal struggles and either have a glass of Baygon and a good lie down, or return to the real world, regardless of how bleak such a prospect may seem. Yes, Tommy, this means you.
Marshall Clark (Marshall.Clark@utas.edu.au) teaches Indonesian at the University of Tasmania, performs the odd GST-free wayang kulit puppet show, and is completing a PhD on modern Indonesian literature at ANU.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
Australia must be a good global citizen towards refugees who transit Indonesia
Anita Roberts
The ten men staring through the bars at me ask me questions I cannot answer. 'Why are we here? What have we done that so hurts the Indonesian government? Why does Australia do nothing?' Mr Daud, an Afghani asylum seeker, also doubts the UN: 'The United Nations is the whole world, they must accept us, they need all people, the poor and those from war.' Like his fellow asylum seekers in detention in Denpasar, Daud has taken too many risks to consider the possibility that he will not be granted refugee status.
Daud, 'the Commander', fought with the United Front against the Taliban. When the Taliban captured and killed his brother, also a United Front commander, he put his wife and six children into hiding and fled. He has been in detention in Bali since he was arrested there on 14 June 2000 for overstaying his tourist visa. He has not yet been able to contact his family.
An officer from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) interviewed the asylum seekers in mid-July. Five months later, they have heard nothing, and hopes are sinking. Time stretches endlessly. The treatment of Daud's group is inconsistent with the UNHCR's own guideline advocating a 'rapid, flexible and liberal' process of status determination. Nor has the Indonesian Immigration Office in Denpasar, responsible for the 'quarantined' group, been kept informed.
The Immigration Department, meanwhile, lacks the funds to put Mr Daud on trial for breaking immigration law, so it treats his overstay as a procedural offence and is holding him in immigration detention. Officials hope the UNHCR will take him off their hands as a refugee. They are confused with the lack of policy guidelines to direct their response not only to the asylum seekers but also the various international bodies which also claim a role, the UNHCR and international organisation for migration (IOM).
If Daud does not get refugee status, he will in theory be blacklisted and deported from Indonesia. This would mean waiting in detention until either Indonesia has the funds to deport him or his home embassy agrees to pay. The latter is unlikely, and in any case, Daud would refuse to be repatriated. Immigration sources acknowledge that people in this situation have been detained for over forty years in the Kalideres detention centre in Jakarta. Over five hundred asylum seekers like Mr Daud are now stuck in Indonesian detention centres.
Indonesia's 'selective policy' on immigration means it does not accept the principle of naturalisation, nor does it permit itself to become a processing centre for refugees. However, while not party to the Refugee Convention, Indonesia has chosen not to remain blind to the global issue of asylum and refugees. The Department of Foreign Affairs and that of Justice and Human Rights both speak of a new 'humanitarian approach' to the refugee issue, which is in fact at odds with domestic law. This stance has allowed UNHCR and the IOM to become involved in the refugee determination process as representatives of the international community. Thus Mr Daud's future is determined by several often incompatible bodies - the Indonesian and Australian governments, and these international agencies.
The two governments each effectively have isolationist policies. Indeed, Indonesia is operating in a legal and policy vacuum regarding the current flow of Middle Eastern asylum seekers. There is no issue-specific memorandum of understanding on it between them. The Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs argues that a framework for a MoU should be taken from the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime, held in December 2000. While this MoU remains unrealised, cooperation is largely informal and carefully understated.
Persecution
Since the beginning of 1999, Indonesia has become the key staging point for the movement of people from the Middle East to Australia. Eighty five percent of those illegally entering Australia come by boat via Indonesia. Most asylum seekers enter Indonesia legally and try to reach either Christmas Island or Ashmore Reef. An asylum seeker is a person who applies to a national government for recognition as a refugee, and for permission to stay because they face persecution on the grounds of race, religion, political opinion, nationality or because they belong to a particular social group.
However, asylum seekers in Indonesia do not have their applications considered by the Indonesian government, as Indonesia has not yet signed the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (the Refugee Convention) and its 1967 Protocol. Instead, the UNHCR branch in Jakarta considers their applications. If successful, they will await resettlement in a third country.
More than five hundred more illegal immigrants are feared to have died en route to Australia in 1999 alone. Yet, Indonesia and Australia both ignore this tragedy. Commenting on a report in December 2000 that 163 illegal immigrants had probably drowned while sailing to Ashmore Reef, Australia, Australia's Immigration Minister Mr Ruddock said: 'The incident appeared to have happened outside the area of responsibility'. What a contrast to the enthusiasm (and the money - an estimated A$2 million) the Australian Maritime Safety Authority exhibited to save Isabelle Autissier, the solo yachtswoman in 1995, and Tony Bullimore in 1997! Australia knows Indonesia does not have the capability to mount a 'coastwatch' service. Australia cannot hide behind its national boundaries.
Each year illegal people trafficking moves an estimated four million people worldwide, and generates proceeds of US$10 billion. Daud paid US$3,000 to an agent in Karachi, Pakistan, whom he met through an agent in Kabul, Afghanistan. For this fee he obtained an Afghanistan passport, Indonesian visa, and travel to Indonesia. In Indonesia, he contacted agents in Bali and Jakarta, and paid another US$2,000 in his attempts before arrest. Most of the asylum seekers I spoke to indicated they would try to reach Australia, even if it meant using up all their savings on up to three attempts. Indonesian police and immigration officials at remote ports, who lack the means to look after a sudden influx of foreigners, can sometimes be bribed just to let them leave. Their last resort was to contact the UNHCR and submit to status determination.
Peace
Australia attracts asylum seekers because of its wealth, peace, and stability. Mr Daud says: 'If our life is not in danger, why leave our children, our wife? I do not want to see Indonesia or Australia, I come here for safety.' The current flow is different only because they enter illegally. Does this make them criminals?
A recent letter to the editor in the Sydney Morning Herald stated 'illegals can nowadays not only drift in at will anywhere along our coastline but also demand the right to this and that'. Mr Ruddock himself claims illegal migration costs the Australian taxpayer millions of dollars in coastal surveillance, detention, litigation and removal costs. It is this perception that must be challenged. Firstly, from the 6,808 overstayers found in Australia in 1999, only 920 arrived as asylum seekers by boat. A media beatup. Secondly, the majority of those arriving by boat tend to apply to remain permanently in Australia as a refugee and as such contact Australian immigration. If any deception is involved it will be discovered when processing the claim for refugee status.
Asylum seekers rely on their own initiative and savings to reach safety. They face great dangers for a second opportunity at life. They use the established channels available to them - that is, narcotic and weapons networks. Restricted opportunity for legal migration has forced their hand. For those fleeing persecution, being smuggled is a reasonable alternative to bureaucratic, time consuming and therefore life endangering legal migration.
Each party is merely concerned with re-directing the flow away from their respective boundaries. There is no real recognition that this flow is due to migration issues such as reduced opportunity for legal migration combined with labour pressures, economic hardship, civil unrest, and persecution. The need is not for criminal but for migration solutions. The IOM does talk of resettlement and voluntary repatriation, but its counter-trafficking project gets substantial funding from Australia, so it has to concern itself with Australian views. It is senseless for individual states to act independently in the face of this global concern. Asylum seekers cannot call upon their homelands for protection. We cannot allow their plight to be viewed within the framework of individual nation states' interests.
For Australia, the 'boat people' are a hot topic, but they only become one at the moment they arrive in Australia and start affecting Australians. Those who make it that far are the lucky few. We should take a hard look at the asylum seeker situation before reaching Australian shores.
The global refugee flow is having an impact on our region. Australia should translate its global human rights rhetoric into regional action. This would ensure regional cohesion and security. People trafficking and smuggling networks should be destroyed. But criminal solutions should not be used to answer what is essentially a migration issue. Legal migration avenues should be improved. Australian obligations regarding the Refugee Convention should be fulfilled in the Australian spirit. Australia should also not be afraid to use its offshore humanitarian program to assist regional humanitarian migration issues such as the current flow. Regional benefits mean Australian benefits.
Only when nation states recognise that their global obligations transcend borders will people like Mr Daud know that their future is not arbitrarily determined by a political game of 'national interests'.
Anita Roberts (neetalr@yahoo.com) is a law student at the Australian National University, Canberra. She wrote a longer report on this topic while a participant in Acicis, the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/acicis/).
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
A new generation of victims speaks out. Will Indonesia now negotiate?
Lesley McCulloch
Brimob took my husband that day. I haven't seen him since. I pray he is still alive but in my sleep I dream he is dead. He was not a member of GAM and he was a good father.Now what will I do, I have two young children. (Aceh Pidie, 21 September 2000)
The Acehnese people, dispersed throughout their beautiful but remote homeland in the northern tip of Sumatra, have recognised that strength comes in numbers. In November 2000 the first 'Korban' Congress (Kongres Korban Pelanggaran HAM Aceh) was held. The word korban is usually translated victim, but also means blood offering, and sometimes refers more accurately to survivors (for which there is no Indonesian term). They came in any form of motorised transport they could find. Some who set out did not reach their final destination of Banda Aceh. The security forces ensured that terror remained their travelling companion. Friends and relatives paid tribute to those who were killed or 'taken' en route. The mood of the almost 400 who attended the congress over three days was of unity against the government in Jakarta. Long days of deliberation were followed by further strategy and tete a tete sessions into the early morning. The fact that so many had gathered was a success in itself.
The congress dismissed the argument from Jakarta that rogue elements of the military and police were responsible for the continuing violence. 'Someone, somewhere must take responsibility for the actions of a serving military officer,' said Jufri, chairman of the organising committee. The Acehnese are united in their feelings of betrayal by president Gus Dur. The congress passed resolutions calling for a UN monitoring team, for investigation of past human rights abuses, and for a special human rights court to bring to trial those accused.
The horrendous killings, torture, disappearances and rapes during Aceh's period as a Military Operational Area (DOM - Daerah Operasi Militer) 1989-1998 are well known. Since the end of DOM however, the Indonesian government has sought - and largely received - praise in the international arena for progress made towards reform in general and for their willingness to continue to strive for a negotiated settlement in Aceh. At the national level it gained itself the status of 'the world's newest democracy'.
The Aceh Refugee Forum (FPA) reported in December 2000 that there were 4,951 Acehnese refugees in North Sumatra, south of Aceh. Their latest data indicates that number has now risen to 10,972, mostly in Medan and Langkat, putting a severe strain on local resources. In Aceh itself there are almost 40,000 refugees, according to the People's Crisis Centre (PCC), a local non-government organisation.
The climate of fear is such that the mere proximity of security forces to a village often causes families to flee to the forest or farther afield. The degree to which each side is responsible is difficult to assess. No one denies that the Free Aceh Movement GAM has also been in part responsible for refugee flows and violations of human rights. It has often been argued that rumours, encouragement and threats by GAM play a not insignificant role in the refugee situation. However, my first hand experience and extensive interviews with civilians - other than those who attended the congress - suggest that it is the regular sweeping operations by the military and police which are the primary cause of the rise in numbers of internally displaced people.
The security forces under Gus Dur, and under Habibie before him, have continued to act with impunity in Aceh. The Indonesian Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) reported that 'the year 2000 has been the bloodiest in Aceh since before the military occupation which began in 1989'. Throughout 2000, almost 1,000 people died in the violence - half of those during the six months 'humanitarian pause'. The escalating violence, which was the impetus for implementing the pause in June 2000, has not abated.
Yet so far most of the international community has conveniently overlooked the situation in Aceh. As with the refugees, while no one is denying that GAM has contributed to the increasing number of deaths and atrocities, it is the Indonesian security forces that have perpetrated most of these violations. The government's hard line tactics have fuelled separatist demands. The 'new' generation of victims often supports not merely independence, but also GAM.
Dialogue
Swiss-brokered talks following the expiry of the pause in January 2001, while set against this background of on-going violence and verbal hostility by members of the Indonesian government, give hope that a functioning moratorium on violence may at least be a possibility. They concluded with a loose one-month 'provision of understanding', to come into effect immediately.
The latest agreement has only two provisions. The first is that it establishes a 'moratorium on violence' during which time both parties will 'work to substantially revise the security situation'. Second, further talks will include four substantive elements relating to security arrangements, democratic consultations, humanitarian law and human rights, and socio-economic development.
At the time of writing in January 2001, the common ground for any future agreement has yet to be identified. Dr Zaini Abdullah, head of the GAM negotiating team in Switzerland,said in a telephone interview with this author: 'for us the issue is quite simple. We (GAM) are united with the Acehnese people in their desire for independence. The first phase of any meaningful negotiations must be a cessation of violence.' This has proven to be elusive, as both the government and GAM have favoured, at varying times, a security approach to the Aceh dilemma.
Each of the four broad substantive areas constitutes a myriad of issues, and presents a possible hurdle to agreement. When pressed during the interview about such obstacles to progress, Dr Zaini said that GAM has recognised that the process by which the core demand of independence is likely to be achieved may include - by necessity - components to which historically they have been opposed. Zaini cited the following issues as central to the success of any future negotiations. They illustrate GAM's willingness to mix force with diplomacy:
GAM demands - in the first instance - the withdrawal of all non-organic troops from Aceh. The Indonesiangovernment (RI) continues to deploy increasing numbers of troops (now around 30,000). RI demands that all weapons in 'civilian' (GAM) hands must be surrendered.
GAM demands at least a vote for independence monitored by international independent observers. Initially this was a demand by SIRA (the Information Centre for Referendum in Aceh), long resisted by GAM, who said it meant dealing with the enemy, but, according to Dr Zaini, GAM are now ready to consider this option if civil society demands it assuming it is a precursor to independence. RI rejects such a vote (though Gus Dur once offered one), and has lobbied hard to prevent international support for GAM.
GAM demands the trial and punishment of those members of the security forces thought to be guilty of human rights violations. RI has convicted some low-ranking soldiers, but the process has stalled due to military obstruction. In January 2001, Komnas HAM announced it was establishing a long-delayed commission to investigate human rights violations in Aceh, and there are some indications of military and police support for it.
GAM demands that profits from natural resources remain in Aceh. However, a degree of flexibility may be possible at least for an initial transition period. The details of RI's 'special autonomy' package on offer to Aceh have still to be fine-tuned. It seems unlikely that RI will agree to give the 80% of natural resource revenues demanded by the Acehnese provincial parliament.
The Indonesian government goes into these negotiations knowing it is dealing with a more politicised Acehnese populace, and also it seems with a more sophisticated GAM. The growing support for civilian mass movements such as the student-led SIRA as well as for GAM reflects this newfound legitimacy. The Indonesian government is divided on how much compromise is appropriate to reach a workable agreement. The pause was always a Gus Dur project, while the military and police favoured a security solution. However, government actors are united in their claim that the loss of resource-rich Aceh would have serious consequences and could lead to the wholesale break-up of Indonesia.
The international community has its own reasons for fearing the disintegration of Indonesia, and is moreover reluctant to get on the wrong side of the world's fourth largest nation-state. There has been almost universal support for the efforts of the Gus Dur administration aimed above everything at preventing the break-up of this vast archipelagic state. The European Union (EU) for example has 'repeatedly stressed its support for a strong, united, democratic and prosperous Indonesia'. Japan, Australia and the US have made similar statements, which reflect concern for upheavals in investment, trade and security. Aceh is located at the entry to the Straits of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
The prospect of a 'domino effect' resulting from an independent Aceh is limited. Yet precisely the fear of 'disintegrasi' is often used both domestically and abroad to garner support, no matter at what cost in lives, for the continued unity of the state. The international community must realise that this cost can be too high, and that in the long term it may not be possible to maintain Indonesia as it exists today.
Lesley McCulloch (mcculloch_lesley2@hotmail.com) is a Research Associate at the Centre for Defence Studies, Kings College, London, and was in Banda Aceh during the congress.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
When reporting ethnic conflict, journalists can make a difference
Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick
Turning gently in the sea breeze which cools the town of Poso in the afternoon, the cover of Tabloid Mal is dominated by a crude cartoon drawing of a round black bomb, its fuse fizzing, and the headline Poso Bomb Mystery. Another local tabloid, Formasi, hanging alongside it from the canvas awning which shades customers browsing at the newspaper stall, is equally incendiary. Poso Reconciliation is Finished, its front page declares, in bright red capitals.
The fall of President Suharto and the repeal of his press laws triggered an explosion of new media. But no sooner was the Ministry of Information removed from the editorial process than Indonesian journalists entered a period of soul-searching about how to combine their new freedoms with a sense of responsibility.
Some coverage of the violence in Poso, in central Sulawesi, over the last two years shows these concerns. Jakarta Post, reporting on the third round of unrest in July of 2000, told its readers 124 people had been arrested for their part in 'communal clashes'. The Detik world web news service reported that a number of soldiers were being questioned, their commanding officer explaining that some had seen their own homes burned in the trouble: 'There are many whose families were murdered. That's why they helped and sided with those of a similar ideology.' Neither mentioned the religious identity of suspects or victims a restraint left over from the New Order, then a matter for the censor, now adopted as a self-denying ordinance for fear of stirring up trouble.
Can journalists in Indonesia help to reduce tensions by being honest about them? In November 2000 a group of reporters arrived in the provincial capital, Palu, in a visit sponsored by the British Council, to experiment with a set of techniques called peace journalism. All journalism is an intervention - peace journalism equips journalists covering conflicts to take an ethical approach. Three weekly magazines were represented, along with a radio station and the new 24-hour Metro TV service, as well as the Antara news agency and four national newspapers.
Kompas correspondent Maria Hartiningsih was clear about her reasons for making the trip: 'What really makes me want to do something with my reporting is that I saw a lot of innocent people become victims in this situation, especially women and childrenI have a spirit to do something to contribute to the reconciliation of this nation.'
Hope
At a rundown sports stadium on the outskirts of Palu which is now home to some 700 refugees, a clattering of carpentry tools interrupts Maria's conversation with a camp official. A group of men erect a makeshift partition to section off space for one of six or more families obliged to share a single room in sweltering conditions.
Not that she intends to wallow in the grief and trauma of the displaced. Though visibly affected by the scene, she explains: 'I want to prevent (violence), so that's why it needs another technique to explore the story, not the hatred of the people, not the emotion, not the anger, but the hope maybe, hope of the people for a new life.'
Further on, she encounters refugees living in very different conditions, thanks to a local grassroots organisation, Bantaya. A group of volunteers have banded together to care for people of either faith who were forced to flee their homes in Poso, some 220 kilometres away over the mountains.
Bantaya has persuaded landowners in Palu to lend fields for these unfortunates to cultivate. Maria is shown immaculately tended crops of black pepper and sweetcorn as well as a chilli harvest ten kilos, enough to fetch thirty thousand rupiah at local prices.
There are clerics, both Muslim and Christian, promoting understanding between their respective sections of the community. Kompas readers will learn about a church congregation working as volunteers, together with Muslim colleagues, to build and clean local mosques, for example.
To tell these stories requires frankness about the interreligious aspect of the 'communal clashes' coyly referred to by other accounts. What would be the point of reporting peace work to heal rifts between followers of different faiths if the rifts themselves were suppressed?
But peace journalism resists explanations for violence in terms of innate or essential enmities between parties the 'ancient hatreds' theory so prevalent in conflict reporting from the Middle East, the Balkans and Indonesia itself. This can make continuing strife seem inevitable, unless communities are segregated and the borders patrolled, which brings its own problems.
The road into Poso is salami-sliced into Muslim and Christian slivers, separated by paramilitary police (Brimob) observation posts at intervals of as little as fifty metres. Yet Maria's story suggests there is no inborn mutual loathing which automatically sets devotees of the two religions at each other's throats. So how did they lapse into a cycle of violence which has seen hundreds killed, three thousand houses burned down and perhaps as many as twenty thousand flee their homes?
The road itself holds a clue. It is part of the Trans-Sulawesi highway connecting the island's main cities a Suharto-era project which has brought the benefits of increased commerce as well as the problems associated with transmigration and development. The Pamona people who originally settled here learned Christianity a century ago from Dutch missionaries. New arrivals, mainly Bugis from Makassar but also a sprinkling of Javanese, tended to be Muslims until the groups attained roughly equal numbers.
By convention, the local government leader (bupati) would be drawn alternately from one section of the community, then the other. But the road and other developments made the office a valuable bauble in terms of kickbacks and patronage. With the fall of Suharto, the Muslim incumbent, Arif Patanga, challenged the convention by proposing his son Agfar to succeed him. The younger Patanga seems to have set out to turn religious difference into a political weapon to stir up trouble in Poso, with the object of keeping out the Christian candidate.
In the afternoon, the city is full of uniforms local police as well as Brimob, but also a large number of civil servants making their way home from the office. As a main administrative centre, Poso's livelihood depends heavily on public sector jobs. Simultaneous upheavals in both national and local politics were bound to have an unsettling effect.
At around this time, late 1998, a street brawl resulted in a Muslim man being cut in the arm with a knife. Instead of going to the police he rushed into a nearby mosque and called on believers to rouse themselves against the Christians who he blamed for inflicting the wound. The first round of house-burnings, known latterly as 'Poso I', ensued.
This trigger incident, and the background of political unrest, themselves suggest an alternative explanation for violence. A conflict model begins to take shape in which both parties inhabit a number of shared problems. The bupati was appointed from Palu, not elected in Poso, a deficient political system bound to encourage personal rivalry and 'top-doggery'.
Kickbacks from development projects were part of 'KKN', Corruption-Collusion-Nepotism, a flourishing culture under the New Order with its lack of transparency and accountability. These conditions encourage people to form and join groups to safeguard their interests, to stick together with those of their own kind they were one factor propelling the injured man into the arms of his co-religionists instead of taking up his grievance with the authorities.
Shared problems
By illuminating these shared problems, a peace journalist can expand the space to consider shared solutions, outcomes to the conflict which do not require one 'side' to 'win' and the other to 'lose'. As an alternative to apportioning blame, it makes it more logical to think of therapy than revenge or punishment.
About an hour's drive inland from Poso lies the town of Tentena, a Christian stronghold where blame is fixed squarely on the Muslims for 'starting it'. After Poso I, Christians turned the other cheek then that cheek was slapped in Poso II, which justified them in seeking vengeance, we were told.
At Tentena, the mountains of Lore Lindu National Park meet the shoreline of Lake Poso, famed for its wild orchids. But this bejewelled prospect is disfigured by gutted Muslim houses, while others bear a spray-painted cross to ward off the same fate. In caves in the mountains, it is said, leaders of the 'Red Squad' met and plotted Poso III, the Christians' revenge.
This version of events came from a local Christian guide who confidently asserted that Agfar Patanga had got clean away with his role as provocateur, and was now enjoying the comforts of a sinecure in Palu's local administration. Meanwhile, Christian militiamen Domingus Soares and Cornelius Tibo languished in jail proof, he believed, that the justice system could not be trusted, putting the onus on Christians to defend themselves.
Which turned out to be a symptom of another shared problem - a deficient information system. No newspapers were on sale in Tentena. It is doubtful whether townsfolk know even now that Patanga had been committed for trial in Palu.
Rumours flourish. One reporter, Misbah, from Muslim magazine Sabili, heard from refugees at Parigi that Laskar Jihad militiamen were organising and that members came openly to pray at the local mosque. They turned out to be white-robed students from the local pesantren, or religious high school.
In publicising and correcting these misconceptions, journalists themselves can contribute directly to reducing shared problems. Is that the same as the reporter's traditional role of 'reporting the facts'? For Maria Hartiningsih, this will not do. To report is to choose, and the journalist must take responsibility for those choices. The alternative to sensational tabloid headlines must include a positive choice for peace: 'Every journalist has the ideology in here, and me too my ideology is to contribute something for peace, to contribute something for justice,' she says.
Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick led the Peace Journalism trip to Poso for the British Council, organised in conjunction with a Jakarta-based NGO, LSPP, and with funding from the British Embassy. They teach the annual MA module in Peace-building Media at the University of Sydney, and run a website on responsible journalism at http://www.reportingtheworld.org/. For more information about peace journalism in Indonesia, contact Dr Nick Mawdsley (nick.mawdsley@britcoun.or.id).
Defence planners wake up and find Asia is (still) a threat
Simon Philpott
Despite the government's claims that the Defence White Paper is a forward looking and innovative document, its vision for the future remains wedded to an assumption that conflict between states is a permanent feature of international political life. It argues that 'changes [in the] dynamic Asia Pacific region could produce a more unstable and threatening strategic situation'. The White Paper is haunted by the twin implications of multiple poles of power in the wake of the Cold War, and the crisis in sovereignty in a region whose anti-colonial nationalism (including its Marxist variant) is under severe internal strain.
Australians find themselves living in a region in which the pitfalls and possibilities of postcolonial identity politics have spilled out of academic books and into day-to-day discourse throughout Southeast Asia. There is little doubt that so called separatists across Southeast Asia are encouraged by the tortured success of the East Timorese. In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire and the Balkans conflagration, the possibility of redrawing national boundaries is today less unthinkable in 'the West', even if it is intolerant of refugees fleeing the conflict the reconfiguration of boundaries often entails. How else are readers to understand references to the likelihood that peace-keeping operations may become more common in the next decade and beyond? And what are readers to make of the remark that in just the next decade, 'governments will consider using the Australian Defence Force in circumstances that we have not envisaged'. Arguably, these comments imply that the evolution of political community may be incomplete in the so-called arc of instability.
The White Paper enshrines a fundamental contradiction: a commitment to the integrity of existing nation-states (especially Indonesia), and an awareness that 'nationalism... remains potent and... an increasingly powerful motivator'. Nationalism may once have been a centripetal force, but currently it exhibits centrifugal tendencies. Thus, despite the veneer of optimism concerning the prospects for peace and prosperity in the region, and while welcoming the growing effectiveness of the United Nations, the White Paper warns that international politics is characterised by the permanent threat of disorder . However, it has little to say about the conceptual future of the nation-state, or about the question of sovereignty (resource sovereignty, indigenous rights), or about the moral and ethical justifications for maintaining colonial boundaries.
The White Paper foreshadows a return to a doctrine of forward defence, and emphasises self-reliance in the context of the US alliance, which remains the centrepiece of Australian security arrangements. Does the Howard government opposition to the emergence of other new states suggest that it now feels it paid a high price (politically and militarily) for its East Timor policies? Paradoxically, defending the national boundary status quo in the wake of East Timor may draw the Australian military further into regional affairs than the White Paper intends. Moreover, the government's habit of trumpeting (white Anglo) Australian values, particularly in the context of its well-executed East Timor intervention, has done little in the way of narrowing differences and building on common strategic perceptions, a stated aim of the White Paper.
Aceh and Papua
Aceh and Papua (Irian Jaya) are complex problems for this and any subsequent Indonesian government with democratic pretensions. In neither case do demands for independence look likely to dissipate, and Papuan activists may have a case in international law for separation from Indonesia given the deeply flawed Act of Free Choice (1969). While a defence White Paper may not be the place to canvass alternatives for the future of Aceh and Papua, defence and diplomacy are acknowledged there as opposite sides of the same foreign policy coin.
The dead bat of opposition to change not only diminishes the 'Australian values' of adherence to democratic procedures, tolerance and respect for human rights, but also implies acceptance of the fact of political repression in the present in preference to the potential for bloodshed that the Australian government believes will accompany Papuan independence.There is a contradiction in simultaneously seeking political disengagement from Indonesia's internal problems while seeking to develop a sense of regional security with a state whose defence forces have inadvertently nourished the fissiparous tendencies so clearly evident in Aceh and Papua.
John Howard has made much political capital out of playing a populist tune, so it is interesting that the Community Consultation Team reports that 'the public' supports increased expenditure on military affairs which 'contrasts sharply with the views of some academics and bureaucrats'. Whilst it would be wrong to overstate the importance of the consultation to the overall tenor of the White Paper and the proposals it outlines, the report presents the government with an anxious public ready to bear increased defence expenditure because of 'heightened instability' and 'unpredictability' in the region.
However, if the Hobart public consultation is anything to go by, overwhelmingly attended by white, middle aged or older males and conducted in a suburban Returned and Services Leagues club, the views gathered by the process are unrepresentative of contemporary Australian society.There is a good case for taking such meetings into schools and universities, to gauge the views of those who will be paying for defence expenditure long after many of those at the Hobart meeting have expired.
It was profoundly disappointing to hear 'Asia' so willingly constructed as an enduring threat to Australian security. Can it simply be assumed that younger Australians, a far more diverse group than was the case two generations ago, share the old white fear of invasion from Asia? After all, for a significant minority of Australians, the threatening sea of instability of the White Paper is a rather more domesticated setting of personal origins and extended family.
'Traditional' interstate tensions remain visible between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, and the Koreas. But much of Asia's postcolonial history foreshadows twenty-first century problems: intrastate conflicts involving ideology, ethnicity, religion, economic inequality and forced dispossession of resources and land. Whilst the White Paper anticipates more regular deployment of Australian forces in multilateral, UN led missions, its twentieth century assumptions about international politics continue the long standing tradition of constructing Asia as Australia's security bnoire.
In indicating that Australia 'would be concerned about major internal challenges that threatened the stability and cohesion of... Indonesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and the island countries of the Southwest Pacific', the White Paper vainly attempts to place the legacy of colonialism at the end of history. 'We' may not like it, but the consequences of European and Asian colonialism remain integral to regional politics. Idealising the world as it is not the answer to current and future challenges. As the White Paper observes, international politics offers few guarantees, but a genuinely forward-looking and innovative document would not so readily link change with fear. To do this is to remain in the cultural loop of assuming that no matter what happens in Asia, it is a threat to Australia's security.
Simon Philpott (Simon.Philpott@utas.edu.au) teaches at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. 'Groundhog Day' is a 1993 film about a man who keeps reliving the same day.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
Golkar and PDIP parliamentarians join forces to pull down Gus Dur
Gerry van Klinken
Gus Dur's supporters say New Order remnants are making a comeback. They are only partly right. The group of so-called 'cowboys' who are bringing him down are a new generation of politicians. They are young, well off, and say they hate corruption. They quite enjoyed the New Order, but they didn't like Suharto and don't like to be seen in public with soldiers. They may represent the beginnings of a new conservative alliance that will one day push aside the Suharto-era structures, and create new ones.
The most striking feature of this emerging alliance is its cross-party character, which belies all the symbolism of the 1999 election. Voters then thought of Golkar as the New Order bad guys, and Megawati's PDIP as the great hope for popular democracy. But Gus Dur is today being tackled at the knees by a group of Golkar and PDIP politicians for whom the 1999 symbols mean nothing, and who get along very well together.
Behind the major players - Abdurrahman Wahid (nicknamed Gus Dur), Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Golkar chief Akbar Tanjung - stand a host of often faceless party activists. These in turn represent groups that have long struggled for power within their own parties. The rebirth of Golkar after the fall of Suharto, in particular, is the result of a dramatic internal upheaval with dozens of key actors.
In the dying days of the Suharto regime, a dissident group within Golkar stood up against Suharto, and afterwards against Habibie too. They carried on a banner of internal reform unfurled in the late 1980s. Clustering around Harmoko first, then around Akbar Tanjung, they faced threats of expulsion. But in the end, fears that Golkar might lose the election helped them to prevail. They succeeded by turning it into a more conventional political party, cutting formal links with the military and the bureaucracy, building links with business, talking a lot about the rule of law - but all without apologising for a shady past.
The most dynamic figure of this new Golkar generation is Ade Komaruddin. Aged 35, he comes from an upper middle class family and runs a hotel in Jakarta, which he uses for political meetings. He is a former student activist with the Islamic Students Association HMI. The association has worked hard since the mid-1980s to influence national politics. Nearly half the last Suharto parliament consisted of former HMI members - in all the parties. Akbar Tanjung is one of many former HMI members who keep in touch through the alumni association KAHMI.
Behind Megawati Sukarnoputri stand similar factions. On one side is a group, led by her husband and major business figure Taufik Kiemas, who want her to stick with the Gus Dur alliance, presumably because it is a working arrangement, and moreover the symbolism is right. On the other is a group led by wealthy businessman Arifin Panigoro, who have long wanted her to dump a Gus Dur they see as incompetent, and set up shop with the Golkar that brought Indonesia prosperity for three decades. 'And hang the symbolism', this second group might say.
A key operative for the Arifin Panigoro faction is Zulvan Lindan. He comes from Aceh, but has long lived in Jakarta, where he headed the HMI in the early 1980s. Within two months of the June 1999 election, which pitted the PDIP against Golkar as light is pitted against darkness, he helped bring Megawati and Akbar Tanjung together at one table to explore the possibility of a coalition.
The 'cowboys', initially a group of twelve friends, are nationalists. Both Ade Komaruddin and Zulvan Lindan have said unsympathetic things about the East Timorese, Papuans and Acehnese. They belong to a new generation of young parliamentarians who, a Kompas survey showed, don't like federalism, fear 'communism', believe in the need for martial law powers, and think society remains 'immature'. They also seem to have forgotten the language of social justice. But they are not so easily bought and have made damaging revelations about money politics in parliament.
Topple Gus Dur
The group began to meet intensively but secretly from about May 2000 to try to topple Gus Dur. Some meetings may have involved military generals. They wanted a coalition between Golkar and PDIP to replace the shaky one that put Gus Dur in place.
At the end of May 2000, Ade Komaruddin presented Akbar Tanjung with a petition signed by 277 parliamentarians, from almost all parties, asking that the house question the president about his decision to sack two cabinet ministers in April. This led on 20 July 2000 to a stormy session, in which the president dismissed the questioning as unconstitutional.
Within a few days, Komaruddin made his next move. He handed Akbar Tanjung another petition, again signed by parliamentarians from most parties, to pursue the president on the so-called 'Buloggate' case, in which Gus Dur's aides allegedly took money from the state logistics agency. Since tickling the till of state agencies is standard practice, Akbar worried that Golkar would also be tainted by an expose, but he gave in, suddenly looking old beside the young Turks.
At the August 2000 MPR session, Ade Komaruddin and his mates hatched a plan to make Gus Dur divest day-to-day powers to his vice president Megawati. They wanted Gus Dur to be a constitutional head of state, 'like the Queen of England', with Megawati as head of government. Gus Dur agreed, but reneged once the MPR had dispersed.
On 5 September, parliament established a special committee (pansus) to investigate Buloggate and another problem they called Bruneigate, in which the Sultan of Brunei gave Gus Dur money to help the Acehnese. Ade Komaruddin was one of its key members. 'We have struck the hammer to call the president,' he said. He kept the committee in the headlines constantly since then.
In late November 2000, Ade Komaruddin used his trademark technique of the signature campaign once more to persuade the house to go down the road of a censure letter (a 'memorandum') that could result in the president's impeachment. For effect, Gus Dur's sins in this letter were multiplied. Zulvan Lindan, spokesperson for Ade's group, said Gus Dur had promoted separatism by allowing the Papuan flag to fly, had proposed to lift the ban on communism, had failed to prosecute Suharto for corruption, had replaced several key officials and ministers without consulting parliament, and had failed to divest powers to Megawati.
The memorandum came down on 1 February 2001. It led immediately to widespread popular protests around East Java, Gus Dur's political home base. At the time of writing (mid-February), Ade Komaruddin was at the heart of moves to call a special session of the MPR, at which a new president would replace Gus Dur.
What are we to make of all this? Much as they appreciate Gus Dur's democratic instincts, democracy activists will be advised to look less at personalities than at structures. Ever since its birth in 1945, Indonesia has had a strongly presidential system of government, with all important decisions made at the top. This system lent itself to authoritarianism and the abuse of power. But after the events of recent years, Indonesia no longer knows if it has a presidential or a parliamentary system. The parliamentarianism of Ade Komaruddin and his friends is actually preferable to a presidentialism wedded to the authoritarian 1945 constitution. But these new conservatives are out of touch with the popular mood, and their disgust of corruption is too selective to be convincing. This shows that the political parties themselves remain undemocratic too. Above all, it shows that authoritarian structures tend to reproduce themselves.
Gerry van Klinken (editor@insideindonesia.org) edits 'Inside Indonesia'.
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Not as remote as you might think...
Mike Cookson
English language resources online for Papua have developed in curious and constrained ways since Inside Indonesia's first report 'Irian Jaya on the Net' in Oct-Dec 1999 (see edition #60 atwww.insideindonesia.org). The proliferation of print media in Papua and the growing use of email, newsgroups and the world wide web within Papua has seen the creation of several useful websites in Papua, almost all in Indonesian and all accessible through an excellent Jayapura (Port Numbay) based internet portal (www.infopapua.com). Almost all the other websites listed here are located in North America, Europe, Australia or New Zealand.
Newsgroups are one of the least expensive and most efficient ways to source information about Papua from the internet. Kabar-Irian maintains several moderated newsgroups available in English and Indonesian as daily postings or in a digest format (see www.kabar-irian.com for details). The two most popular unmoderated (unedited) news or 'chat' groups (both with around 200 subscribers) are the West Papua News list (formerly reg.westpapua, now at www.topica.com/lists/WestPapua) and Kabar-L (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irianjaya). It is easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to these newsgroups and they don't forward your email to advertisers for spamming (junk mail). If you want more than the daily news, the following is a selection of the best Papua-related websites across the political spectrum.
Art, culture and tourism. Asmat art is the most widely known art form of Papua. The Crosier Missionaries have sponsored it for decades (www.asmat.org/default.asp) and others have collected it for as long (www.asmat.de/asmat-eng/index.htm). See more Asmat art at www.asmatart.net, Sentani barkcloth at www.artasiapacific.com/articles/maro/fn.html and a large (if at times unspecific) collection of Papua images at www.dinnissen.org. Search engines will turn up more, including tourist sites like: www.baliem.com, www.balimart.com/irian (very clear), www.irianjaya.de, www.papua-adventures.com/index.html, www.mountainmadness.com/gallery/carstenz/carstenz08.htm and travelogues like Where is Evan (www.whereisevan.com/indonesia00-3.html). The Biak Tourism Office is well worth a visit (www.infobiaknumfor.com) and you can combine an interest in culture, tourism and Christian missions at Eduventure (www.eduventure.net).
Mega projects. Reflecting the importance of its public profile and its massive financial resources, Freeport Indonesia offers one of the most comprehensive Papua-related sites on the web (www.fcx.com). An extensive Freeport bibliography (to 1998) is at http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/Pages/Textonline/Biblio_ij.html. Use local search engines for information on BP Amoco's huge Tangguh development (www.bp.com/index.asp) or Inco's exploration program (www.inco.com), or check some pages about the pending Mamberamo project (www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Island/4175 and http://home.snafu.de/watchin/Mamberamo.htm). Project Underground (www.moles.org), the Real History Archive (www.realhistoryarchives.com/collections/hidden/freeport.htm) and The Mineral Policy Institute (www.mpi.org.au) have news and critical commentary about some of these developments.
Concerned for the welfare, environment and human rights of Papuan communities? Down to Earth (www.gn.apc.org/dte), Tapol (www.gn.apc.org/tapol) and Inside Indonesia (you're reading it!) include Papua in their online newsletters, while Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org), Survival International (www.survival.org.uk), the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights (www.rfkmemorial.org/center/pro_act.htm) and the International Crisis Group (www.intl-crisis-group.org) have detailed reports available on Papua. The Kemala network (www.bsp-kemala.or.id) has useful information about NGOs already working on these issues in Papua, while the West Papua Project aims to build peace initiatives there (www.arts.usyd.edu.au/arts/departs/cpacs/wppmain.html).
Papua solidarity groups typically rely on voluntary support to promote the cause of Papuan self-determination and are often unfettered by institutional affiliations. One of the oldest, the Australia West Papua Association offers the West Papua Information Kit online (www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cline/papua/core.htm, while Bob Boyer's Papua page on this server has disappeared). Others include the West Papua Action Group (www.westpapuaaction.buz.org), the Oxford Papuan Rights Campaign (www.westpapua.org), the Cambridge Peace Initiative (West Papua subgroup at www.campeace.org/westpapua.html), International Action for West Papua (www.koteka.net), Friends of People Close to Nature (www.fpcn-global.org with amazing photos) and www.angelfire.com/journal/issues/irian.html.
A number of websites represent the West Papuan independence movement, reflecting ambiguities in the movement's leadership and the strong sense of identity the movement evokes among Papuan exiles and independence activists. Prominent sites include the West Papua Nuigini/ Irian Jaya homepage (www.converge.org.nz/wpapua), an 'informal' Indonesian OPM website (www.geocities.com/opm-irja), the Liberation Army of West Papua's Free Papua Movement (www.geocities.com/wp_tpnopm) and the Diary of the OPM (www.westpapua.org.uk or www.westpapua.net) and www.eco-action.org/opm.
Researchers can assist with some of the intellectual resources necessary for a peaceful, just and secure future in Papua. The internet offers new possibilities for sharing and even repatriating existing research to Papua. Since 1994 Irja.org Inc. has provided a valuable information resource on Papua (www.irja.org). Other useful sites include: http://users.bart.nl/~edcolijn/irian.html, www.sil.org/ethnologue/families/West_Papuan.html, www.bps.go.id (go to the regional offices - Irian Jaya page) and AusAID's training module (http://globaled.ausaid.gov.au/secondary/casestud/indonesia/3/jayawijaya.html). Learn about Dutch research projects in Papua at http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/host/isir/gen and from back issues of Oceania Newsletter (www.kun.nl/cps/index.html#index). PNG research (http://rspas.anu.edu.au/lmp) suggests important future collaborations for researchers on Papua. Finally, Kirksey's homepage (www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~wolf0983) offers the first free Papua-specific thesis online, while abstracts for other theses on Irian Jaya/ Papua/ West Papua (use all of these whenever you want a complete search) by North American researchers can be viewed or purchased at www.umi.com.
A popular Papuan peace building initiative can be found at www.wpu-fc.faithweb.com/main.html.
Mike Cookson (michael.cookson@anu.edu.au) is researching for a PhD
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Papua is not the Stone Age
Gerry van Klinken
Both Australia and Indonesia are probably about to get new leaders. We hope all the candidates for the top jobs - Megawati, John Howard and Kim Beazley - will read this edition of Inside Indonesia. So for that matter should George W Bush (who said we don't aim high?!). Papua has for too long been a remote, 'primitive' place whose fate is arranged in Jakarta, Canberra, New York and Washington. Today it is far less remote. Papua is all over the worldwide web, as Mike Cookson shows us here. Now is the time to start listening to Papuans themselves. That is the real meaning of self-determination, still one of the key beliefs underpinning the United Nations.
This edition does not take a view on Papuan independence as such. It wants to be a forum for ideas. What it does take a view on is the importance of people. No abstract idea of national sovereignty, or of a gross domestic product, can be more important than the right of ordinary children, women and men to live in peace and dignity.
I think this edition brings those Papuan people into closeup. Not surprisingly, we discover they are human beings who dream of a better future, not unlike humans elsewhere. Once we have 'met' people like John Rumbiak, Tom Beanal or Beatrix Koibur we can no longer talk about 'Stone Age rebels', as so many newspapers still do. We will also find it much less easy to say patronising things about what is advisable, permissible or possible for Papua.
This is about as packed an edition of our little magazine as we have ever managed! So many people contributed so gladly it has been an amazing one to edit. There is a growing Papuan solidarity movement out there, that's for sure. Of course, it would take a book to cover everything. Maybe this one can be a first guide to action.
Gerry van Klinken is the editor of Inside Indonesia
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Christianity, curly hair, and human dignity
Nico Schulte Nordholt
The two phenomena of ethnicity and ethno-nationalism are not restricted to West Papua. All over the archipelago they occur as a consequence of the present power vacuum in the 'centre' after Suharto's 32 years of centralistic and oppressive reign. Everywhere anti-Jakarta and, outside Java, anti-Javanese, sentiments can be noticed. To those who are not Papuan (or Acehnese, or any of the other ethnic groups now talking about seceding from Indonesia), these sentiments often sound dreadfully exclusive. Does this mean Indonesia is now inevitably headed away from earlier ideals of tolerance and diversity, towards narrower concepts of nationhood based on blood and religion?
The Dutch scholar Jan Nederveen Pieterse pointed out that an ethnic discourse is profoundly affected by macro processes such as post Cold War politics. For Indonesia, one can add to this the impact of the Asian economic crisis since 1997, which has led to the present Kristal(total crisis). IMF and World Bank policies such as 'the retreat of the central state', 'decentralisation', 'privatisation' and 'democratisation' are also driving politics in an ethnic direction.
The republic's national slogan of Diversity in Unity (Bhinneka Tunggal Ika) was intended in 1945 to express a unity (persatuan) based on a voluntary choice of belonging to the new republic of Indonesia. At that time there was great appreciation for the vast diversity of the republic. During Suharto's New Order, however, this national slogan shifted towards unity imposed from above (kesatuan). Ethnicity was reduced to folk customs, displayed on well-orchestrated TV performances.
Today the pendulum of ethnic diversity is shifting again, this time towards a kind of ethno-nationalism that causes many observers in and outside Indonesia to fear a complete falling-apart. I will show in a moment that I personally do not think the situation is that bad, but two regions, Aceh and West Papua, may indeed try to separate themselves from the republic.
'Being a christian'
When as a lecturer at a university in Java in the 1970s I first came to know students from what was then still called Irian Jaya, I discovered how diverse they really were. There were tensions especially between coastal and mountain Papuans. Moreover, individualism was deeply rooted. Even within one's own clan, creating co-operation was an uphill battle. But a number of things bound them together. They spoke Indonesian together. They all loved soccer. And 'being a christian' was important to them, especially when they experienced petty racism amidst their overwhelmingly Javanese and Islamic environment. They named the hostel where they lived 'Mansinam', after the small coastal village near Manokwari where the first missionaries landed in the nineteenth century. These things amounted to a Papuan ethnicity, which to them was not 'narrow' but broad and protective.
In the 1980s I helped the main Protestant church in Irian Jaya (GKI Irja) to develop some community development programs. I saw once more how 'being a christian' offered Papuans a new identity, lifting them above their own clan identity. Although separated by many Christian denominations, 'being a christian' gave them a self-respect that resisted the discrimination they experienced from the Indonesian authorities and the armed forces in particular. Even the distinction between Protestant and Catholic, elsewhere the source of much tension, appeared to be of minor interest.
Arnold Ap symbolised the severe discrimination most Papuans felt in the 1980s. This well-known Papuan anthropologist was killed by intelligence agents just before Easter 1984, on orders from the Jakarta headquarters. They saw him as the champion of a national liberation movement, and he therefore had to be eliminated. In fact he had only given Papuans back their self-respect, through church liturgy. He was a leader who bridged Papua's deep ethnic diversity. While himself from the coastal area, he equally supported the rights of the mountain people. The environment, and later in the nineties (entirely in Arnold Ap's spirit) human rights, were issues that rose above the ethnic divisions.
When the government announced in August 1983 that 750,000 households of transmigrants would be shipped to Irian Jaya, Papuans soon said: 'We will be no more than servants on our own soil', and: 'They wish to turn our curly hair into straight hair'.
To counter this widespread fear, the GKI Irja church synod thought it important to provide some hope for the future. Hence those plans for programs promising at least some kind of 'survival' as a group with their own identity. During the years that followed not many of those plans were realised. Church organisations did not have enough human capacity. Nevertheless, the churches did offer a shelter in which Papuans could experience their identity.
The churches, alongside several relatively small but influential NGOs, have similarly been vocal about the social cost of mining and forestry from the mid-eighties until today.
Emancipation
After the end of the Suharto regime these protests acquired a political meaning. The call for independence was first expressed openly in 1998. In June 2000, thanks to the tolerant attitude of the Wahid government at that time, a well-organised people's congress officially put forward the demand for independence to the government in Jakarta, although terms and conditions were negotiable.
Does this amount to a Papuan declaration of war on Indonesia, as Papuans dig in to fight for their own state, moreover one that is based on a narrowly racial and religious concept of Papuan ethnicity? I do not think so, at least not yet. Some leading Papuans have told me that in fact their main purpose was to win recognition of their human dignity, as well as full recognition from 'Jakarta' and the rest of the world of the grave injustice done to them by 'the treason of 1969'. In other words, they seemed to imply, their fight was for a better Indonesia rather than a separate Papua.
However, much will depend on how Jakarta now responds. Today, in May 2001, President Wahid is hostage to the Indonesian Armed Forces TNI, while the presidium of the people's congress is in jail. Possibly the present intelligence officers, like their predecessors who liquidated Arnold Ap in 1984, think that by 'decapitating' the leadership of a national movement they can enfeeble it. Meanwhile Wahid's likely successor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, leads a party that in all its statements about the regions beyond Java sounds centralistic and nationalistic rather than sympathetic to diversity. A government she leads may resort to increased repression in Papua.
Repression seemed to work in the eighties, at least at first sight. But now, nearly twenty years later, resistance against injustice is much more widespread. Besides the five leaders in jail, there are many more younger leaders who, in the spirit of Arnold Ap, are ready to stand up for the demands of the people. A policy of repression will only fuel the call for independence. Both within and beyond the church, these new leaders are at the same time rising above the boundaries of their own ethnic and religious groups and presenting themselves as representatives of a self-conscious Papuan nation in the making.
Nevertheless, much about Papuan self-consciousness remains fluid and open to different possibilities. It would be premature to jump to the conclusion that it is becoming a narrow and exclusive Papuan ethno-nationalism, completely rejecting Jakarta and threatening non-Papuans living in Papua with expulsion. Just as Papuan ethnicity has proved generous and inclusive towards Papuans from all over this vast territory, it has the potential to expand and embrace others too.
Nor is the concept of nationalism necessarily exclusive. All over the world, nationalism is 'Janus-faced' - it can be liberating and inclusive, or chauvinistic and exclusive. When nearly all Papuans loudly express the call for 'merdeka', that in itself is not sufficient to know what kind of freedom is envisaged. Does it mean 'emancipation' and 'liberation from injustice' - that is, to be accorded the same respect as all others within the one Indonesian nation? Or does it rather mean 'chauvinism' and 'domination' - that is, by Papuans against non-Papuan 'others', against 'Indonesians' and those who represent them locally, in particular traders and transmigrants?
Papuans who are (aspiring) state officials perhaps intend their call for 'merdeka' to be heard in a narrow ethno-nationalistic sense, meaning they want a state of their own where only Papuan Christians will be citizens. They say this in reaction against a Jakarta they see as the colonial centre. Their history of Dutch colonial rule, de facto, lasted only about fifteen years, but they endured the New Order for more than thirty years. For them, Papua must now coincide with the borders of the province of Irian Jaya as a distinct administrative unit.
It may turn out, however, that provided justice is done to the Papuan population the call for 'merdeka' will by and large be meant as a call for 'emancipation', a call to acknowledge the dignity of Papuan cultures in general, in line with the original Unity in Diversity slogan of the Indonesian nation-state. In my understanding, this interpretation is still the meaning and objective of the new leadership within Papuan civil society. If this leadership does eventually move towards the narrower meaning of 'ethnicity' held today mainly by the Papuan elite, that is towards a sovereign state based on an exclusive Papuan ethnicity, it will be because the domineering and chauvinistic, nationalistic politics of the TNI and of Megawati Sukarnoputri's PDI-P force them in that direction.
Nico Schulte Nordholt (n.g.schultenordholt@tdg.utwente.nl) teaches at the University of Twente, Enschede, in the Netherlands.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Beatrix Koibur explains why Christianity is important to Papuan women
Annie Feith
In August 2000, I had the good fortune to meet and interview Beatrix Koibur, one of two women on the Papuan Presidium, the executive body of the Papuan Council. I was researching West Papuan nationalism from a gender perspective. Beatrix is one of the few Papuan women leaders. She was in Brisbane with other presidium members, some of who attended the UN General Assembly the following month.
Beatrix Koibur Rumbino was born on July 10 1939, on Miokbundi, a small island to the east of Biak, and her own outlook reflects the influence of Dutch Protestant missionaries. This remains a strong influence in Papua, despite almost forty years of Indonesian rule. The Dutch are seen as having been a much more benign coloniser than the Indonesians. In some coastal areas such as Biak (from where many prominent nationalists originate), missionary efforts meant that by the late 1940s, most men and growing numbers of women were receiving a formal education. Hence this particular form of Christianity constitutes a strong part of Papuan - Melanesian identity.
In 1953, having completed three years at a Domestic Science Girls School, Beatrix was chosen to go to a missionary teachers college in Serui. As the first woman graduate in 1956, Beatrix was qualified as a primary teacher and Bible study leader. At that time, this was the highest level of education available to Papuan women. From 1963 with Indonesian rule, Beatrix said that it was only within the church that women had the confidence and courage to become leaders. Few government positions went to women, and almost all of those were given to women from Java and other parts of Indonesia, despite the fact that many Papuan women were capable of filling them, particularly those who had graduated from the Domestic Science Girls Schools.
Beatrix was proud of the fact that some women joined the OPM guerilla movement, and she pointed to a 1980 episode in which several women raised the Morning Star flag in Jayapura and were subsequently jailed. Women are now beginning to speak out about military repression, she said. In the past, if they spoke out they would be arrested. My argument that the militarisation of a nationalist movement tends to privilege men and masculinity to the detriment of women seemed not to resonate with Beatrix. Her perception of the Satgas Papua, the militia formed by Papuan nationalist Theys Eluay, was positive. She pointed out that these groups were not armed, but suggested that they may need to become so in the future.
Since late 1998 with reformasi, Beatrix has been called 'Mama Papua'. The title 'Mama' is also used for other outspoken women such as the Amungme leader Yosepha Alomang. For Biak people, powerful women leaders have historical significance. Angganetha Menufandu, for example, preached non-violence as she led a large anti-colonial millenarian movement in the 1940s (Koreri).
Church voice
According to Beatrix, the churches give great strength and hope to Papuans. Church leaders play a pastoral role, but also provide protection and a measure of political access, making possible the monitoring of human rights violations. As in East Timor, the churches have provided one of the few avenues through which Papuans can voice their grievances.
Beatrix Koibur is head of the Women's Christian Association of Indonesia in West Papua. In this position, since reformasi began in 1998, she has felt empowered to speak out. On 6 July 1998 in Biak City on the island of Biak, the Indonesian army opened fire on some two hundred people who were guarding the banned Morning Star flag. Beatrix went to Biak as head of a church team to care for the women and children survivors of the massacres. The naked mutilated bodies she saw horrified her. These massacres were even more shocking in that they took place after Suharto's fall. But they also had an empowering effect.
In the aftermath the three main churches - both Catholic and Protestant - formed the Forum for the Reconciliation of Irian Jaya Society (Foreri). Its aim was to create a 'national dialogue' to pursue political solutions for West Papua. From Foreri came the Team 100, which met President Habibie in February 1999 to demand independence. Beatrix was the only woman on the team.
Beatrix' account highlights the centrality of the Biak massacres of July 1998 as a catalyst in the most recent chapter of Papuan nationalism, and the crucial role played by the churches in it. With regard to gender relations within the movement, Beatrix' comments indicate that whilst Papuan women are actively involved, their engagement is contributive, and does not in general challenge the male-dominated power structures.
Anne Feith (anniefeith@hotmail.com) recently wrote an honour's thesis at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, on women and the West Papuan nationalist struggle.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Indonesian democrats have mixed feelings about Papua's independence drive
Stanley
To what extent has democratisation at the centre benefited Papua? When Habibie took over from Suharto, Papuans demanded that he give them what he gave East Timor, a choice for autonomy or independence. The new government under president Gus Dur tried to be more accommodating, for example by changing the name from Irian Jaya to Papua and sending home a lot of troops. He even gave a billion rupiah to Theys H Eluay to hold the Papuan People's Congress at the end of May 2000.
But if Gus Dur hoped this would dampen separatist demands he was wrong. The umbrella Papua Presidium Council (PDP) set up a militant Papuan Task Force (Satuan Tugas Papua) in many places. Its original purpose of preventing violence was soon buried under its own brutality towards non-Papuan settlers. These transmigrants are impoverished peasants from Java and Sulawesi and themselves victims of the New Order. Task Force members also demand money from business people and generally act thuggish. PDP leaders, meanwhile, take advantage of Papuan anti-Indonesian emotions in order to get themselves more gifts from the centre, for their personal use.
Unfortunately Papuans who interpreted Gus Dur's sympathy as a readiness to give them an independence option were also wrong. Papua was for Gus Dur just part of the political bargaining to retain power. Under pressure from parliament over alleged corruption, he said that if he was forced to resign, five Indonesian regions would secede - among them Papua.
The separatist issue, in other words, is a game for elites in Papua and in Jakarta. It has no significance for the great mass of Papuans.
As 'ethno-nationalism' grew and the PDP promised independence, economic envy led to clashes between indigenous Papuans and non-Papuan settlers, for example in Wamena in late 2000. Tensions also arose between highland and coastal people, with highlanders accusing coastals of dominating the PDP. Where nationalism should have been a force for democracy, PDP leaders turned it into an anti-democratic one with overtones of racial hatred, also among Papuans themselves.
The PDP leadership tried to accommodate popular feeling by forming the Penis Gourd Brigade (Pasukan Koteka) from Wamena to represent highlanders. Many of them flooded into Jayapura just before 1 December 2000, creating fresh tensions there. Non-Papuan settlers began to arm themselves - encouraged by the police chief. Hoping to prevent more trouble, the security forces took repressive action by arresting some PDP leaders on treason charges and bringing in more troops - a total of 12,000 of them. All this demonstrates a failure of democracy in Papua. Not to mention the many roadblocks and attacks on strategic economic assets.
Amidst this confusion, the media have thrown up many 'instant' leaders who might best be called democracy consumers, while the important figures of a real democracy movement in Papua are overlooked because they refuse to use primordial sentiments. Examples of such genuine democrats are Bishop Herman Munninghoff who fights military human rights abuse in the interior, Rev Herman Saud who campaigns against violence and discrimination, Agustinus Rumansara who works to strengthen civil society, Tom Beanal who pursues human rights violators and supports indigenous empowerment, and John Gluba Gebze who works to create clean government.
Nor do many Papuans get to hear much about important human rights institutions like the Jayapura Legal Aid Institute (LBH), the Papuan NGO Cooperative Forum (Foker LSM Papua) or Elsham Papua. People are as if transfixed by the PDP's promise of independence, even in the absence of a clear agenda to get there.
Suharto
The democratisers are overshadowed by the likes of Theys Eluay, Thaha Al Hamid, Don Flassy and Herman Awom, who in reality merely manipulate group sentiment for their personal ends. Their backgrounds make interesting reading. Theys Eluay was part of the Pepera council in 1969 that voted unanimously in favour of joining Indonesia. He was a provincial parliamentarian for several terms under Suharto. Thaha Al Hamid is a failed student and a failed administrator in a range of non-government organisations (NGOs). For the 1999 elections he campaigned with Adi Sasono on behalf of the Partai Daulat Rakyat, a party seriously stained by corruption allegations. Don Flassy, meanwhile, is the secretary of the provincial planning agency (Bappeda Irian Jaya) who failed to win the governorship.
Papuan nationalism has also turned several OPM guerrillas into popular heroes. What most people don't know is that they have now joined the National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional, TPN), which has a dubious relationship with the Indonesian army.
So what do Indonesian democracy activists think about Papua? Most are quite ignorant, but some Jakarta NGOs like Elsam and Isai work with local NGOs to strengthen Papuan civil society. There are differences among these Indonesian activists. Older ones want Papuans to join them in a common struggle against injustice everywhere. Younger ones are more open and ready to support anything they feel is good for the Papuan people themselves, including a desire for independence.
Stanley is a journalist and a manager at Isai, the Institute for the Free Flow of Information (isai@isai.or.id).
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Chronology of a remarkable process
Agus Sumule
21 May 1998.Suharto is forced to step down. The people of Papua seize the moment of reformasi by intensifying their demand for 'M' (Merdeka independence).
26 February 1999. A hundred prominent Papuans meet president Habibie and his cabinet. They openly convey the Papuan demand for an independent state separate from Indonesia.
October 1999. The People's Assembly (MPR) meets to elect a new president. Decree No. IV promises Irian Jaya 'special autonomy' and legal resolution of human rights violations.
29 May 4 June 2000. The Second Papuan Congress is held in Port Numbay (the increasingly popular name for Jayapura, Papua's capital city). Organised by the Presidium of the Papuan Council (Presidium Dewan Papua, PDP) and funded mostly by president Abdurrahman Wahid, the congress is attended by about 20,000 people from all over Papua, Indonesia and overseas (of whom 501 were legally appointed delegates). The congress unequivocally restates the demand for independence. Among its four commissions is one on the history of West Papua, and one on the basic rights of the people of West Papua. Jakarta strongly criticises the congress.
1 December 2000. Commemorations of the '1961 West Papua Independence' are mainly peaceful but take place under heavy pressure from Indonesia's security apparatus. Several PDP leaders are later detained on treason charges.
Fourth week of December 2000. Several prominent Papuan figures hold a series of meetings to consider how to achieve a peaceful win-win solution within the legal and political system of the Republic of Indonesia. They agree that special autonomy, as promised in 1999, should be the vehicle to achieve that goal. Among them are the newly elected governor Jaap Solossa, the then speaker of Papua's provincial parliament Nathaniel Kaiway (since deceased), the rector of Cenderawasih University (Uncen) Frans Wospakrik, the Indonesian Junior Minister for the Acceleration of Development in East Indonesia Manuel Kaisiepo, August Kafiar, and Rev Karel Phil Erari. Bas Suebu, a former governor of Papua and currently the Indonesian ambassador to Mexico, also takes part. The university rector is asked to form a team of Papuan intellectuals to start the process.
First week of January 2001. The rector's team begins collecting documentation - from non-government, university, provincial government as well as Papuan Congress sources - about the possible contents of a law on Papuan special autonomy.
Third week of January 2001. The governor, in a speech broadcast on radio and local TV, invites people to participate in discussing the contents of a special autonomy bill to be put to the central government and the national parliament. He assures people they are free to discuss anything they consider important, and urges the security apparatus to respect the people's democratic rights. Solossa also announces that the team formed by the rector of Uncen has prepared a discussion-starting document entitled 'The basic rights and responsibilities of the people of Papua'. He invites the people to add, delete or even refuse the document, and to write down their suggestions for improvement. He also invites representatives from each district to come to Jayapura for a Study Forum to discuss the draft, adding that the people should determine their own representatives.
Fourth week of January 2001. The rector's team divides into small groups to visit all districts, where discussions are held with local government and non-government leaders including with the district-based panels of the Papuan Council. Not all discussions are `trouble-free' - some meetings refuse to discuss special autonomy and firmly restate the demand for independence. However, many of those who read the document realise the provincial government is serious about finding solutions. Many visit the team and offer suggestions.
First week of February to first of week of March 2001. The team and a steering committee of Papuan intellectuals, including church representatives, academics, NGOs, government officials and provincial parliamentarians, start the legal drafting process. Eight drafts are produced consecutively. Inputs collected from the visits to the districts are seriously taken into consideration.
Second and third week of March 2001. Some outside experts on autonomy are invited to provide their inputs for improvement. Meetings are held with Papuan parliamentarians in Jakarta for the same purpose. This leads to draft numbers 9, 10 and 11.
28 and 29 March 2001. The Study Forum on Special Autonomy for a New Papua is held in Jayapura, organised by Uncen. It is attended by representatives from all districts, as well as some parliamentarians and Supreme Advisory Council members from Jakarta. Strong opposition from those who consider that special autonomy will compromise the people's demand for independence interrupts the opening session. Some participants who agree with this view walk out. However, a significant number remain and the meeting continues. Before each discussion session, Bas Suebu explains the proposed law (draft 11), including the article about the need to resolve the question of the validity of Papua's integration into the Republic of Indonesia. On the second day, better attended, Bas Suebu repeats the explanation. Participants add more suggestions that are substantial.
First week of April 2000. Based on the inputs gained during the Forum, three more drafts are produced.
Second week of April 2000. The Uncen rector hands the final draft (14) to the governor of Papua, who presents it to the provincial parliament. Parliament unanimously supports the draft.
16 April 2000. A delegation from the province of Papua, headed by the governor and the acting speaker of the provincial parliament, hand the bill to president Abdurrahman Wahid, vice president Megawati Sukarnoputri, parliamentary speaker Akbar Tandjung, and coordinating minister for political, social and security affairs Bambang Yudhoyono. Each is asked to support it.
As Tempo magazine put it, this draft is a middle way for the antagonistic relationship between Jakarta and Jayapura. It could be the most feasible and acceptable peaceful solution. I would like to add, however, that this draft is not merely a legal product through a democratic process. It is a mechanism for building trust, so sorely lacking in Papua today. If Jakarta accepts the people's draft, we can be optimistic that a strong platform has been built for the many future discussions. A one Papuan chief said: 'Problems are easier to solve between friends than enemies.'
Dr Agus Sumule (asumule@jayapura.wasantara.net.id) teaches agriculture at Universitas Negeri Papua (formerly Cenderawasih University, Manokwari campus). He was a member of the drafting team.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
He was a wood carver, musician, and mover and shaker for the arts on Biak
Danilyn Rutherford
Like so many parts of Papua, the islands of Biak-Numfor have seen many of their inhabitants die too young. Sam Kapissa is only the latest in a long line of Biaks to meet this fate. Perhaps the most famous was Sam's colleague, the anthropologist and musician, Arnold Ap, who was shot by Indonesian soldiers in 1984. But there was something particularly untimely about Sam's death last year. Sam died in Jakarta, apparently of a heart attack, on his way home from visiting family in the Netherlands.
Among Sam's many talents was his ability to cultivate the ideals he held dear under the harsh conditions of New Order Irian Jaya. There have been many Biak leaders with a knack for twisting the demands of the bureaucracy to meet the interests of local people. Still, Sam was particularly adept at using official rhetoric that talk of the 'unity in diversity' that linked Indonesia's far-flung cultures to justify endeavours that kept a sense of alternative identities alive.
I met Sam Kapissa on Biak in the early 1990s, a period when Jakarta's confidence in Irian Jaya's integration into the nation combined with a desire for tourist dollars opened new possibilities for indigenous cultural activists and anthropologists. I first heard about him during a trip to the sub-district seat of Korem, a sleepy seaside village on Biak's north coast, a few weeks after beginning my fieldwork. At the windswept market, my West Biak hostess introduced me to a grey-haired woman. She rose from behind the pile of betel nut she was selling and solemnly shook my hand. This was Sam Kapissa's mother, I was told.
Clearly, I was supposed to recognise his name, and soon I did, when friends and acquaintances included him in the list of Biak notables whom I had to consult. Among them were older men, retired colonial officials and evangelists trained by the Dutch, who showed me their unpublished writings on Biak history and culture. Sam belonged to a younger generation of artists, musicians, and independent scholars, who were working to preserve Biak's rich artistic forms.
Some of these forms, such as carving, required the study of old Dutch texts to reconstruct. The elaborate, sometimes erotic images with which Biaks adorned their canoes and houses vanished not long after the islands' conversion to Christianity at the turn of the twentieth century. Others, such as pancar, a lively dance inspired by the Dutch fighter planes based on Biak in the early 1960s, still thrived. At village parties, one still saw young dancers imitating a jet going into a stall. Here, the work of activists like Sam consisted of attracting official acknowledgment and, if possible, funding, for the most talented practitioners of these arts.
It was tempting to regard cultural brokers like Sam as agents in the New Order production of orderly traditions to be performed for tourists and visiting dignitaries. But the respect individuals like Sam commanded in the eyes of fellow Biaks did not rest on their ability to select the 'authentic' version of a particular practice an ability that local experts were all too ready to call into question. People admired figures like Sam not only for their knowledge, but also for their skill in navigating an alien, and often threatening, bureaucracy. Sam could sing like an angel. But he could also work the system, on behalf of people with obscure talents, few connections, and haunting memories of the violence of the regime.
Even within this small group of cultural experts, Sam Kapissa was in a class of his own. Born in Hollandia (now Jayapura) in 1947 to a Biak teacher and his wife, Sam spent his childhood in Biak, before returning to Jayapura to attend the newly opened provincial university. His commitment to the preservation of Papuan culture dated to the 1970s, when he gave up a career as a mathematics instructor to pursue a degree in ethno-musicology. After graduating, he travelled widely in search of local song forms.
He gave the songs he studied a new life through his work with Mansyouri and Mambesak, groups he formed with other Papuan musicians, including Arnold Ap. Through their frequent concerts and Ap's weekly radio broadcasts, these groups inspired an upsurge of interest in the province's diverse musical genres. Sam recorded several albums, singing in Biak and Indonesian. He was best known for his popular arrangements of traditional tunes. As is the case with so many Papuan artists, Sam's talents were multiple. His woodcarvings still grace the Hotel Marauw and Biak's House of Arts.
Album
By the time I knew Sam, he had become a famous and busy man. It was not until my friend Philip Yampolsky made plans to come to Biak to record an album of local music that I met Sam in the flesh. Articulate and energetic, Sam combined his mother's dignity with an unalloyed optimism: no matter the obstacles, whatever he sought to accomplish could be done. Philip planned to include on the album the music used for pancar's modern successor, yospan - western style folk songs sung to eukeleles, guitars, and gigantic homemade double basses. But he wanted to focus on an older song genre called wor. In the past, Biaks sang wor to the beat of drums at night-long dance feasts held to mark transitions in the life of a child.
Sam set up recording sessions with four troupes, consisting mostly of elderly men and women who learned to sing before World War II, when an uprising involving wor singing led colonial officials to prohibit this kind of feasting. He helped Philip obtain police permits, and educated him on the intricacies of the genre. As we discussed wor's unusual style, Sam would often break into song, perfectly replicating the strange melodies on Philip's tapes.
When Philip's recordings yielded an invitation to a national seminar and festival on oral tradition, to be held in Jakarta, Sam and I worked together selecting the singers, securing funding, and writing an essay published in the Jakarta Post as part of the publicity for the event. As we worked on this project, Sam shared some his writings with me, including a paper on how Biak members of the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, OPM) had sung wor for courage and potency during the turbulent 1970s. He also shared important tips, for example: we should get a letter from the festival's organisers listing the singers we had chosen. Sam knew how to prevent an opportunity like this from turning into a boondoggle for some official's family and friends.
The group we took to Jakarta included old men and women who rarely left the island, let alone the province, and younger singers who, unusually for Biaks, had had little formal schooling. Most of them belonged to families who had spent the 1970s and 1980s hiding from Indonesian soldiers in the island's forested interior. One of the women still carried a bullet from a raid. There was great irony in seeing this group performing a genre associated with resistance to alien states on stage, in the national capital. The festival's organisers presented their songs as a contribution to Indonesia's national culture, yet they recalled a tradition of opposition to the regime. Without Sam smoothing the way, it is hard to imagine how the voyage could have occurred.
During the time of my fieldwork, Sam refused to accept an official position, despite the fact he had to provide for a young daughter named, aptly enough, Melanesia. Instead, he lived off earnings from his records and the commissions he received from the government for serving on task forces and committees. But the last time I saw Sam, in July 1998, he was wearing a uniform. In 1997, he was elected to the district parliament, where he was active resolving land disputes, as well as promoting the arts. When I visited Sam's home, two weeks had passed since a flag raising demonstration in Biak City had ended in bloodshed when Indonesian troops stormed the site. Scores of men, women, and children had disappeared, many were feared dead. Sam told me how frightened families had come to him for help to find their missing sons and daughters. He was compiling a list of names to pass along to the National Commission on Human Rights.
Flag raising
On that day in Biak City, with his daughter bouncing on his lap, Sam spoke with me more openly than he ever had about his past and hopes for the future. Sam had not used the word 'Papua' often in our many conversations during my fieldwork, but he did then. Sam explained why the police had interrogated him after the recent flag raising. In 1969, when he was in college, Sam was arrested for participating in a similar demonstration. The youths were taken to a ship to await their punishment, which turned out to be three months of military indoctrination on Java. Sam negotiated the protesters' safe return to their homeland, only to be told that the authorities would be watching him closely from then on.
That conversation opened a fresh perspective on Sam's activities during the early 1990s. At the same time he was working the system, he was living on borrowed time. If it takes one kind of courage to die for a cause, it takes another to survive for it, as Sam did, with wisdom, generosity, even delight. Sam Kapissa won a victory in outlasting the New Order. Somehow, in these strange days of broken promises and stubborn dreams, this makes his death all the harder to understand.
Danilyn Rutherford (drutherf@midway.uchicago.edu) teaches anthropology at the University of Chicago.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Contemporary art in Papua is about new and contested identities
Robyn Roper
At the first Freeport-sponsored Kamoro art and cultural festival, in April 1998, a Kamoro drummer competing in the dance category wore a plaited grass vest with the words 'Pakaian Adat' or 'traditional costume' etched in charcoal on the back. Some audience members, mostly Freeport employees, government officials and invited journalists, laughed when they saw it. The drummer, meanwhile, showed no response to their attention. The meaning of this statement might seem ambiguous at best, but the power of ambiguity in art is its ability to prompt questions from its audience. What did made the audience laugh that evening?
Before European modern and surrealist artists discovered tribal 'art' in the 1920s, few people had shown an interest in the material culture of West New Guinea. Early missionaries and Dutch colonial officials both removed ritual objects from Papuan communities. The practice accelerated under an expanding missionary influence after World War II, and even at first under Indonesian governance. Woodcarvings embodied animist beliefs or allegiance to tribal leaders. They were seen as obstacles to Christian conversion and to colonial government alike. Objects were destroyed, or else collected from villages and placed in museums, breaking ritual and artistic traditions.
However, in the 1960s the Crosier missionaries took a novel approach to traditional culture. They saw woodcarving as integral to the identity of the Asmat people, and encouraged Asmat communities to continue carving, hoping it would provide artists and their communities with a source of income and pride. They encouraged the view that art forms can be free of traditional spiritual significance, and can thus be carried forth on the journey into a 'modern' future.
This approach produced the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress, as well as an annual juried art auction intended to foster a competitive spirit, community participation and innovation in carving styles. The Crosiers' success convinced the Indonesian government to allow Asmats to continue carving, and to end its 'modernising' practice of burning Asmat men's houses where carvings were made. Indeed, it demonstrated that traditional art could enhance the government's development plans by commercialising marketable art forms.
Indonesian art
The Indonesian government now began to actively promote an artistic revival in various Papuan communities. The policy was not restricted to Papua. In the early 1970s the government encouraged modern artists in Java to experiment with pan-Indonesian styles by combining traditional motifs from across the archipelago, to create a more distinctly 'Indonesian modern art' reflecting the national motto 'Unity in Diversity'. Artistic traditions were distilled into provincial 'identities', which were then consolidated as part of state-sponsored nation building.
In the provincial capital Jayapura local artists and landscape designers were commissioned to create public sculptures and government buildings that incorporated traditional architectural forms decorated with Papuan motifs. Stylised concrete sculptures of Asmat 'bisj' poles and shields appeared, as did concrete reliefs of the swirling motifs of Geelvink Bay and Lake Sentani, Yotefa Bay canoe and spirit motifs, and the round traditional huts, spears, stone axes and string bags of highlands people. Such a provincially formulated art style is common across Indonesia. Perhaps the most striking example of this appropriation is a large bronze Asmat warrior, who aggressively guards the main gate of the Trikora military command headquarters in the hills above Jayapura. The intention of this appropriation of Papuan symbols and art forms is evidently to create a redefined sense of place and cultural unity for the diverse ethnic populations now congregating in these urban centres.
Pan-Papuan imagery is not restricted to urban ornamentation. In 1983 a joint aid project established Batik Irian, an income-generating project aimed at developing a Papuan batik industry by introducing batik techniques from Java. Despite many operational setbacks, Batik Irian has been remarkably well received. The cloth is printed with a mix of ethnically distinct Papuan motifs, usually in bright colours (initially due to a difficulty in sourcing dye from Java). Batik Irian is worn with pride by Papuans and non-Papuan migrants and used in uniforms for school children and civil servants, ceremonial and special occasion attire and for tablecloths and drapes in public spaces and hotels. The bold bright colours and motifs have proven to be popular as an alternative to imported Javanese batik.
Popular Batik Irian may be, but the government's indifference towards cultural property rights sets a precedent for the unsanctioned use of tribal symbols. Official art developers convinced tribal leaders to abolish traditional carving rights and restrictions on the use of motifs, arguing that such concerns were no longer relevant. Among contemporary bark cloth paintings produced by the Asei islanders of Lake Sentani, I noted several unusual pieces clearly combining both Asmat and Sentani motifs. The Asmat motifs were the 'bipane' (boar tusk nosepiece symbol) and hornbill head (in brown), a crocodile (either Sentani or Asmat), Asmat human figures that transform into Sentani spiral motifs called 'fouw' and Sentani fish. Such a fusion is reminiscent of Batik Irian, yet the use of Asmat motifs by Sentani people for monetary gain goes against unspoken rules of conduct among many Papuan artists.
In the past, across much of Papua, use of another tribe's motifs without adequately negotiated compensation was grounds for retaliation. Traditional motifs were guarded and sometimes confined to members of carving lineages who were sworn to secrecy. But these new paintings were based on a stencil process quicker than hand painting. Two prominent Asei painters designed the stencil experimentally, as a teaching aid in a painting workshop. The resulting paintings based on the stencil were popular and sold well to tourists. It was a surprising development, since Asei artists are themselves frustrated that Sentani motifs have been appropriated by migrant South Sulawesian traders. The migrants monopolise the handicrafts trade at Papua's largest art market in Hamadi, outside Jayapura. The lack of controls on the use of tribal motifs is something many Papuan artists and cultural leaders are determined to remedy in the future in order to maintain the integrity of artistic traditions.
Take control
Other artists have reacted decisively against the homogenisation of cultural forms. Nico Haluk is a Dani man from Siepkosi village, near Wamena. Historically, highlands people did little figural carving, though bows and arrows carved with small geometric motifs were common. Nico initiated his own carving style in reaction to the sale of coastal Asmat art and of the penis gourd as the main highlands souvenir in Wamena's shops. Proud of his traditional Dani culture, Nico carves Dani figures wearing traditional dress including grass skirts and penis gourds, not simply as a novelty or curiosity, but contextualised into scenes of Dani myths and customs, everyday life and landscapes. In creating this new style Nico also addressed another problem Dani face, namely that they get plenty of tourist attention but few tourist dollars. Nico's innovative carving style has become popular. Several carvers are now involved in a Unesco project to promote Dani arts through an art cooperative.
Art provides Papuans with an income to pay for their children's education, medicines or household items. But the opportunities are limited. I visited Asmat villages where many artists, unable to make a living from their carving alone, were away for weeks at a time logging their land for foreign companies.
At the core of the relentless Papuan demands for greater political, economic and cultural self-determination in recent years is, ironically, a pan-Papuan identity that has been influenced by Indonesian government policy itself. With competing stakes in the control of cultural production, many Papuan artists are concerned to take control of their individual and collective identity and prevent its unauthorised use and manipulation by outsiders.
So why did that Freeport audience laugh at the Kamoro drummer with the words 'traditional costume' on his back? The deeper context in which he made his statement reveals more of its possible meaning. Freeport organisers had asked Kamoro participants to keep their outfits 'traditional'. In return, Kamoro villagers received a per diem payment and compensation for travel expenses for participating in Freeport's self-proclaimed 'revival of Kamoro arts'. Did the vest represent what the drummer thought would please Freeport staff in order to receive his payment? Or was he commenting in a subtle yet subversive way on Freeport's attempt to control his self-expression? Just possibly, he was making his audience laugh at themselves.
Robyn Roper (robyn.roper@home.com) recently wrote a master's thesis on contemporary art production in Papua at the University of Victoria, Canada.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
How Indonesia responds to human rights abuse in Papua is the measure of reform elsewhere
Lucia Withers
Impunity - literally exemption from punishment - is the status quo in Indonesia. One of the strongest legacies of the New Order era is that members of the security forces feel they can and do operate above the law. Since the fall of former President Suharto in May 1998 some tentative moves have been made to change this status quo but with little effect to date. This article examines the prospects for bringing an end to impunity, focussing on a recent case in Papua to illustrate the enormity of the task.
In February 2001, the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) announced it would establish two Commissions of Inquiry into Human Rights Violations, known by the acronym KPP HAM, one on Papua and the other on Aceh. The team on Papua was swiftly formed. Within weeks it was on the ground investigating the events of 7 December 2000, in which members of the police and the Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) had detained over 100 people during raids on student hostels and other locations in Abepura, near the provincial capital. The police operation had been launched to find those responsible for an attack on a police station earlier in the day in which two police officers and one other person had been killed.
In its preliminary findings published on 10 April 2001, the inquiry team confirmed earlier reports from Papua-based human rights monitors that the victims of the police operation had no connection with the raid on the police station. Instead they appear to have been the innocent victims of police revenge. One person was shot dead during the raids. Another two people died in custody from torture and others suffered injuries from being severely beaten and kicked.
If, as the KPP HAM report seems to confirm, Indonesian police officers were responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary detention in Papua the previous December, what prospect is there that they will be brought to justice, and what significance could successful prosecutions in a single case in Papua have for human rights in Indonesia generally?
The answer to the first question currently lies more in politics than with the law. Over the past year the Indonesian government has put in place a legal framework intended to facilitate the investigation and trial of gross violations of human rights - namely genocide and crimes against humanity. Act 26/ 2000, adopted by the Indonesian parliament in November 2000, provides for the establishment of four permanent Human Rights Courts, in Jakarta, Medan, Surabaya and Makassar. Significantly, the Act also allows for the establishment by presidential decree (on the recommendation of parliament) of ad hoc, or temporary, human rights courts, to try cases of gross human rights violations committed before the legislation was adopted. This provision potentially paves the way to investigate and bring to justice perpetrators of the massive violations which have taken place in Indonesia over the past three decades.
Should Komnas HAM, acting under this legislation, find evidence that a gross violation of human rights has taken place, the Attorney General takes over the case and initiates criminal investigations with a view to bringing suspects to trial in a Human Rights Court.
The principle sounds good. However, in the current political climate sizeable obstacles block the way to justice. The December 2000 torture and killings in Papua is the third incident to have been the subject of inquiry by Komnas HAM under the new legislation. Investigations of the other two cases are said to be complete, but trials have yet to take place. There are mounting concerns that the cases may never come to court, or that if they do the process will be compromised.
A brief look at the chequered progress of the first case to have been investigated - that of crimes committed in East Timor during 1999 - gives a clue as to what can be expected in Papua and why. It was the international response to the shocking events of 1999 in East Timor which prompted former President Habibie to legislate for the establishment of human rights courts and commence an investigation. The KPP HAM into East Timor was formed under Komnas HAM's direction. In a hard-hitting report delivered to the Attorney General in January 2000, it declared that gross human rights violations had been committed. Possible suspects were named, including senior military and government officials.
After a two-month delay the Attorney General formed an investigation team which began work in April 2000. Consisting of officials from the Attorney-General's office, the military police, national police and the home affairs ministry, the team's composition led to doubts about its impartiality and indeed its competence to investigate highly complex cases of crimes against humanity. Its legal status was also open to question, because the legislation under which the investigations had been initiated had been thrown out of parliament in March 2000 to make way for a new and more comprehensive law.
The new legislation was slow in materialising. It was only on 6 November 2000, just eight days in advance of a visit to Indonesia by a delegation from the United Nations Security Council to check up on the progress of the investigations into East Timor, that the legislation was adopted by parliament. Although a great improvement on earlier drafts, it is far from perfect and must be amended if the new human rights courts are to deliver justice to victims while at the same time protecting the rights of suspects. Among the outstanding problems are the method of appointing prosecutors and judges and the lack of security of tenure for judges. Both of these expose the judiciary to political influence. Similarly, vesting parliament and ultimately the president with the authority to decide whether or not to form an ad hoc court for a specific past case brings the risk that political considerations could influence this decision. This was graphically illustrated on 23 April 2001, when a presidential decree approved the establishment of an ad hoc court on East Timor but only for cases that took place after the 30 August 1999 ballot. In one move, justice has been denied to the hundreds of victims of militia and security force violence in the months leading up to the vote.
Among the other concerns is the inclusion of the death penalty, which flies in the face of international human rights standards encouraging its abolition and gives rise to fears of 'scapegoat' executions.
Protection of witnesses and victims is also not yet guaranteed. Act 26/ 2000 does include a provision for this, but a program has yet to be established. Without it the trials cannot safely proceed. The real risk of intimidation can be seen in Papua, where police have summoned witnesses and victims who spoke to the KPP HAM members.
There has also been fierce debate as to whether the legislation could be applied to cases which occurred before the legislation was adopted in November 2000. An amendment to the Indonesian constitution in August 2000 forbade the retroactive application of law. This was widely interpreted as a political move intended to block prosecution of past cases and thereby protect senior military and political elites still retaining influence. However, the crimes which come under the jurisdiction of the human rights courts are also crimes under international law. Regardless of whether or not they were codified in national law at the time that the crimes were committed, the state has an international responsibility to pursue judicial investigations.
Given all the foot dragging on East Timor, it was something of a surprise when on 21 March 2001 Indonesia's parliamentarians agreed to recommend to the president that two ad hoc human rights courts be established - one on East Timor and one on killings and disappearances which took place in the Tanjung Priok harbour area of Jakarta in 1984. The deputy speaker of parliament publicly admitted that they had taken this step to counter international attention and avoid international intervention in the East Timor case.
However, the president's decision to limit the jurisdiction of the East Timor court to the post-ballot period quickly dampened renewed optimism. It is still an open question whether the political will exists in Indonesia to see this process through.
Papua
The decision to proceed with the Abepura case may owe something to a high level of international attention. The events had been widely publicised by Papua-based NGOs and by the Swiss journalist, Oswald Iten, who witnessed police beating detainees while in police custody in Jayapura for an alleged visa offence. Komnas HAM's secretary general, Asmara Nababan, has also explained that this case was prioritised because it occurred after the legislation on human rights courts was adopted and therefore cannot fall victim to the argument on retroactivity.
This may be a smart move since, should there be sufficient evidence, the case should automatically be heard in one of the permanent human rights courts. As a test case, it could open the way to prosecutions of other cases of gross human rights violations which have taken place since November 2000, thus at least establishing a precedent of accountability for current cases. Moreover, the report of the inquiry team recognises that the Abepura case was not a one-off but part of a more general policy of repression in Papua both current and past. It thus looks beyond those responsible for committing the violations to those in positions of authority who ordered or tolerated them.
However, the Papua inquiry team is operating in an unreformed system. Witnesses have been intimidated and the police have proved uncooperative. Establishing mechanisms of accountability including a robust, independent judiciary is a long-term project which will require pressure and support - also from the international community - in equal measures. Each step will have to be fought for. Standards of justice cannot be lowered to accommodate judicial weaknesses - this would serve neither the needs of victims nor the wider aim of ending impunity in Indonesia.
Lucia Withers (lwithers@amnesty.org) is a researcher on Indonesia for Amnesty International. This article reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the position of Amnesty International.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Main points of the 76-clause draft special autonomy law for Papua
These are the main points of the 76-clause draft special autonomy law for Papua, delivered to Indonesia's president and parliament by the governor of Papua province, J P Salossa, on 16 April 2001:
The 'indigenous inhabitants' of Papua are Melanesians, different to most Indonesians. An indigenous Papuan must have at least one Papuan parent
Special autonomy applies to the (indivisible) province of Papua (rather than to more local regencies, as in Indonesia's regional autonomy laws)
Papuan provincial parliament to consist of two chambers: an indigenous upper house consisting of equal numbers of customary, religious and women representatives, and a lower house for political party representatives (both national and local)
Besides the Indonesian symbols of state, Papua to have its own flag, symbol and anthem
Papua to have powers of government in all areas except international political relations, external defence, monetary policy and the supreme court
Papua can conduct international relations in the areas of trade and investment, culture and technology, and may open international offices for that purpose. All Indonesian treaties affecting Papua subject to Papuan approval
Numbers and placement location of Indonesian military (TNI) in Papua to be subject to deliberation by Papuan parliament and government
Papua to have its own police force, which will 'coordinate' with the national police
Papuan provincial government to control all taxation resources, and will then hand 20% of that to Jakarta
Governor (who must be indigenous) to be appointed by the Papuan provincial parliament, and s/he is to be responsible to that parliament, as well as (in his/ her capacity of national representative) to the Indonesian president
Papuan parliament to determine the provincial budget together with the governor
Other institutions to include a legal supervision commission consisting of experts, and an independent human rights commission
Papua to have the right of self-determination if a special historical commission decides that integration with Indonesia was illegal under international law; similarly if Indonesia alters its 1945 constitution in such a way as to disadvantage Papua
Besides the regular courts there will be a human rights court and a customary court
Victims of human rights abuse due to integration with Indonesia have a right to compensation and rehabilitation
Papua guarantees religious freedom and supports various religions on a 'proportional' basis
Indonesian and English to be the language of education
Transmigration to be stopped
Economic policy to be ecologically sustainable, and sensitive to local and customary needs
This autonomy law will be a Papuan constitution and will come into effect over a five-year transition period; once law, it can only be changed by a Papuan referendum
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
What does the public in Jakarta think?
Peter King
It is a moot point whether there is an Indonesian learning curve on Timor, Aceh and Papua, or only a 'forgetting curve' that blithely overlooks a generation or more of failed repression. Yet there are a few (admittedly very few) commentators who advocate or would tolerate the limited, or even the extensive, breakup of the unitary republic. We may call them soft liners. They think that both Papuans and Indonesia itself would be better off if Papua were allowed to break away. Proposals are circulating not just to free the most aggrieved provinces of Aceh and Papua, on the East Timor precedent, but for the whole of Indonesia to devolve into a group of cooperating independent states.
George Aditjondro urged the Jakarta Post's readership in November 1999: 'Let go of the [1945] constitution and the reality is that Indonesia might become a commonwealth of states.' Political observer Soedjati Jiwandono agreed. Papuans and others have a right to independence: 'Unity is something you cannot force and everybody should have the right to determine what they want, including the right to be free.' Ultimately, he said after the Papuan People's Congress, 'unity should bring prosperity and thus it might be better if Indonesia split into three or four prosperous countries, rather than a single unity that is not thriving and costing the people more.'
Well known political commentator and (after October 2000) presidential press secretary Wimar Witoelar supported this pragmatic attitude in mid-1999: 'Human dignity and liberty are far more important than any arrangement of statehood. For the younger political generation it does not matter too much what form of autonomy, what form of federalist status or even what form of independence is granted to the provinces. As long as the people of Aceh are good friends with the people of Indonesia, it is fine.'
Professor Merle Ricklefs of Melbourne University disagreed. He spoke for many Indonesians when he told the Jakarta Post in mid-2000 that the costs of 'losing' Aceh and Papua would outweigh any benefits for Indonesia. But this view assumes that the giant resource projects in these provinces will continue to be cash cows for Jakarta in the teeth of local resentment. The closure of the Bougainville copper mine in Papua New Guinea should be recalled here. In fact Exxon Mobil's natural gas production in Aceh has already been severely affected by the military and police offensive launched there early in 2001. And plausible threats to close the huge Freeport mine in Papua have proliferated since a crackdown on the Papua Presidium Council began in November 2000.
If Papua and Aceh's resources can no longer be extracted by force, then the costs for Indonesia of clinging to sovereignty in terms of repression, loss of reputation and remilitarisation may indeed outweigh the benefits. These costs are moral and political as well as economic, and they are already onerous.
At the other extreme from the soft liners are military and civilian hard liners, among them Golkar diehards and most of Vice President Megawati's PDI-P nationalists. For them, the unitary 1945 constitution is an almost spiritual given which the state and the army must defend to the death. The view that even 'ordinary' autonomy might reinforce ethnic and regional exclusiveness and threaten the integrity of the republic is particularly favoured by the military.
What has happened in Kalimantan since 1997 gives superficial support to this view, particularly the ethnic cleansing inflicted by Dayaks on Madurese settlers in Central Kalimantan during March 2001. But the brutal way in which Suharto's centrally directed development marginalised the indigenous Dayaks is the deep underlying cause of Kalimantan's problems.
Soft hard line
In between the extremes of soft and hard we have a large group of people I shall call soft hard liners. These are strongly determined to preserve Indonesian unity, but not at any price and not necessarily the unitary state. For the Indonesian government generally, independence demands are to be assuaged above all by the offer of 'regional autonomy' to all provinces and 'special autonomy' to the most troublesome ones, Aceh and Papua/ Irian Jaya.
The government portrays the new laws on 'ordinary' autonomy as a large concession not only to Aceh and Papua but to all the other resource rich provinces which are showing secessionist symptoms, West Kalimantan and Riau in particular. Aceh and Irian, for example, have in the past received around one per cent of the enormous revenues generated by 'their' mining, oil and natural gas projects. Under the Habibie administration's Law 25 on fiscal balance between the central government and regional administrations promulgated in April 1999, they (and all other provinces) will receive fifteen percent of 'their' gross oil revenues accruing to the state, thirty percent for gas, and no less than eighty percent for mining, forestry and fishing.
Unfortunately for Papuans and Acehnese, however, whose national aspirations are focussed at province level, Law 22/ 1999 on regional autonomy places the emphasis on devolving power to the lower levels of regency (kabupaten) and city (kotamadya) rather than to the province. However, although the Jakarta government has displayed both lack of preparation and backsliding in embarking upon decentralisation, the process has nevertheless introduced a new, even if rather chaotic dynamic to the provinces.
The federal option in decentralisation would go much further. It would confer not merely fiscal and other rights under ordinary law but rights of 'substantive independence' from the centre under constitutional law, thus ending the unitary state of the 1945 constitution. Mohammad Hatta, Sumatran co-father of independence with the Javanese Sukarno, was actually a 'federalist' in principle. (He also opposed the inclusion of Papua in the fledgling republic.)
There was a lively debate about federalism in the aftermath of the overthrow of Suharto's New Order. MPR (People's Consultative Assembly) chairperson Amien Rais was still saying in November 1999 that he was committed to federalism in principle as 'the middle option [between the unitary state and secession] which is the best way the dissatisfaction of the regions can be resolved.' The Jakarta Post editorialised in December 1999, at the time of a million strong demonstration in Banda Aceh for a referendum on independence, that federalism 'could in the end become what saves our national unity.'
However, Jakarta seems to have lost the will to experiment. By the time Papua presented its own proposals on special autonomy in April 2001 - albeit often seen at home as too weak - they were being widely dismissed in Jakarta as a flirtation with 'dangerous' federalism.
But the only alternative to 'dangerous' federalism and even more dangerous self-determination is repression, and repression in Papua and elsewhere is a blind alley for Indonesia. The challenge of West Papuan self-determination is also a challenge to resume genuine reform in Indonesia itself. Only a revival of reform will make it possible to begin a more constructive discussion of all the options for Papua.
Peter King (p.king@econ.usyd.edu.au) is a research associate in government and international relations at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
A Papuan activist wins a prestigious prize for her work on the environment
Agung Rulianto
Yosefa Alomang has received the world's top environmental prize, but her struggle is far from over. An indigenous Amungme, from Timika, Irian Jaya, Yosefa has spent almost half her life fighting for the rights of the Amungme people against mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia. On 23 April 2001 in San Francisco, she was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which brings with it US$ 125,000 in cash.
First awarded 12 years ago, this year eight activists were selected by an international board of judges to receive the Goldman Prize. 'Their struggles have shed light on how the environment is affected by wars, international businesses, economic policies and the tendency to replace long-term solutions with short-term interests,' said Richard N Goldman, the founder of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Goldman's late wife Rhoda H Goldman was a descendant of Levi Strauss, of the world-renowned clothing company.
'She has managed to become a leader in a male-dominated society,' said Emmy Hafild, executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi). Two years ago the 54-ear old 'Mama' Yosefa received the Yap Thiam Hien Award in recognition of her achievement in defending human rights, but she refused to go to Jakarta to receive the award. 'I've been fighting for the sake of the Irianese. It is only proper that I receive the award here so that the people of Irian Jaya will be aware of its significance,' said Yosefa, who has only attended school until the fourth grade.
She began her fight when PT Freeport Indonesia appropriated the local people's land in the 1970s. Ten years ago, Freeport dismissed the right of the Amungme people to supply fruit and vegetables to the company and decided to import them from Australia and Java. The company then forcefully appropriated an 850-hectare vegetable plantation around the airport and in its place built a hangar, a Sheraton Hotel and some office buildings. To voice their disappointment the Amungme people cut up vegetables and spread them on the landing strip of Timika airport, and made a large bonfire in the middle of the strip. This not only prevented vegetable-carrying aircraft from landing but also aborted all other flights. Yosefa was thought to have masterminded the action.
One night seven years ago armed soldiers dragged her and her husband from their bed. 'We were tortured like animals, beaten up and degraded with vile language,' she was quoted as saying in a report on human rights violations in Timika drawn up by Jayapura bishop Mgr Herman Munninghoff OFM. For two weeks Yosefa and her husband Markus Kwalik were detained in a room full of human faeces.
Last year Yosefa set up the human rights organisation (Hamak). It also works to protect the environment and traditional cultures.
Agung Rulianto /LH, Tempo Magazine May 1 - 7, 2001
Life among Papuan and Timorese political prisoners in Jakarta
Jacob Rumbiak, with Louise Byrne
For quite some time I lived in Block E in Kalisosok Prison in Surabaya, and Block A in Cipinang Prison in Jakarta. These blocks were reserved for political prisoners from East Timor and West Papua. There were other blocks in the prison, just as big as ours, and always one distinguished by the presence of a number of cats, mostly rather fat, who hung around the inmates.
These particular inmates were 'koruptors'. For years in Indonesia the smartest businessmen have been koruptors. You won a government contract, stashed the money, got caught, and went to jail for two or three years. Thus, with minimal effort, your family accumulated a huge amount of money (with bank interest added) and only one member took the rap.
Life in prison for the koruptors was fairly easy. Family and friends visited with meat, fruit, fish, cigarettes, rice, knives and money. There was a special room for sex if you wanted it, or you could always go home for a couple of days if you paid off two or three guards.
None of the above applies to political prisoners. Jakarta is two thousand kilometres from East Timor and more than three from West Papua, so unless the Red Cross manages to keep track of where the army takes you, the military can hide its tortures behind the walls of its institutions that are situated all over the archipelago. One little lady from an Indonesian Christian church followed me to eleven different prisons, and I'll never forget the humbling experience of discovering, eventually, that she wasn't a soldier dressed in civilian clothes. As a political prisoner you assume your sentence will be shortened in one way or another. Forced to eat prison-prepared food, many die poisoned. Others hang themselves after hearing that their wives are raped or have run off with Indonesian soldiers.
Jesus loves me, and my life is part of his design. Of that I'm sure. But two men from West Papua inspired me to use my time in prison constructively. The first was Drs. Albert Sefnat Kaliele, a very spiritual man, jailed in 1989 for subversion. We were in Kalisosok together. When Abdurrahman Wahid was elected president of Indonesia, he relieved Kaliele of his eighteen-year sentence (although he is now back in prison in Jayapura, this time on a charge of corruption for the misuse of AU$7).
The other was Dr Thomas Wainggai, one of West Papua's most powerful intellectuals. In 1988 Dr Thomas was sentenced to life in prison for proclaiming the independence of 'West Melanesia'. His wife, who is Japanese, was jailed for eight years because she sewed the newly designed flag. Dr Thomas died in Cipinang Prison in 1996. At the moment I'm a refugee in Melbourne, and when I see Cathy Freeman on television, carrying the beautifully coloured flag of indigenous Australia, I often think about Dr Thomas. The world will also recognise these men one day, for Dr Thomas started our nonviolence campaign for independence and Kaliele is now leading it.
Bravo
Unlike most political prisoners I had a cat. A unique and clever cat called Bravo, who was my security and my very best friend. I found him, a lonely lost and hungry kitten, who soon befriended my family of baby birds who had fallen out of a tree. I taught the pigeons to carry messages to other prisoners, and Bravo learned to safeguard a key to my cell that I'd acquired by means of a small (but korupt-like) manoeuvre. With the key I was able to go to meetings at night - I would lock the empty cell, then Bravo would drag the key back through the grill by its pink soccer bootlace, and hide it in a special spot. Later, I'd whisper a code, and he'd bring me the key so I could let myself back in. His intelligence enabled discussions of issues like democracy and justice. It was, of course, our defence of these principles that condemned us to torture and prison, but they served equally to inspire our internment with a particular hue - a hue which the koruptors in the other block were unable to imbibe.
Bravo stayed lean and clean leaping in and out of a drain catching little fish. He usually gave me these morsels of protein, or otherwise laid them, unmarked, at the feet of some of my colleagues. Joao Freitas, a Falintil commander from East Timor, was a regular recipient, perhaps because he spent so much time treating my injuries. By the time I got to Cipinang, my heart was weak from electric torture, and I thought my eyes would never recover from the years of confinement in the dark. Joao's love and dedication, and his skill with traditional medicine and acupuncture enabled my remarkable recovery.
When President Habibie had me transferred to a military institution, Bravo adopted the patronage of Xanana Gusmao. Six months later Xanana was also put to house arrest, and Bravo, now called 'Rumbiak', accompanied him to a decrepit but well-guarded house in central Jakarta. Here, apparently, he occupied himself entertaining the numerous diplomats and dignitaries who visited East Timor's imprisoned chief. During the violence that attended East Timor's referendum, Xanana was moved again, this time in secret, to the safety of the British Embassy. But in the rush, everyone forgot about Bravo.
President's Cat
Vicki Tchong is one of the unsung heroines of the Timorese freedom movement. In 1975, after the brutal invasion of her homeland, the Tchong family escaped to Melbourne where Vicki spent years creating a relationship between her wealthier Chinese-Timorese community and other more politically motivated Timorese - who never had any money but nevertheless ran a successful independence campaign. In 1999, just before the historic referendum, Vicki moved to Jakarta to arrange for East Timorese students to return home. Living in one dingy rent-a-room after another, and with nothing except a cheap mobile phone, she managed to find the students, organise visas, buy air tickets, and arrange safe exits. Eventually she had fifty frightened Timorese sitting in the airport, ready to fly to Dili. And Bravo was with them; as usual, in the middle of the mob.
The Garuda officer said he couldn't fly, not without a cat box, so money was paid to find one. Then it was deemed he needed insurance, so money was paid to get some. Then, a separate compartment was required, so money was paid for that too. Then, and finally, the officer simply said it was impossible for the cat to fly to Dili. Since the students' escape was paramount, Vicki quickly re-christened Bravo 'Kay Rala Jose Alexandre Gusmao, the President's Cat' and left him behind with some Chinese friends in Jakarta.
Less than a month later the world gave birth to a new nation. But democracy, as they say, is easier said than done. The East Timorese are facing the challenges with the courage for which they are renowned. Indonesians are trying too, but struggling with the concept - primarily because there are still a few fat cats skulking about. Me, and all the other West Papuans, are still waiting for some. But when my country does manage to discard the thin layer of politics that binds us to a Southeast Asian empire, and becomes instead a new nation on the western rim of Melanesia Pacific, I want Bravo to be there, pulling the rope that raises the flag. It's the sort of prize that's absolutely appropriate for a lean, clean and personable cat who always got left behind.
Story by Jacob Rumbiak (jacobrumbiak@hotmail.com); edited by Louise Byrne.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
What are Europeans doing about Papua?
Siegfried Z'llner and Feije Duim
Three kinds of organisations in Europe have a special interest in Papua.
Papuans fleeing Indonesian state violence have been coming to Europe for years. Especially in the Netherlands, a community of some 250 has developed. They have long been divided into two factions - one more radical, the other more church-oriented. But since the situation in Papua has gained momentum, Papuan efforts in the Netherlands have become more unified. The most effective lobby is organised by PaVo (Papuan Peoples). With an office in Utrecht, its representative Viktor Kaisiepo travels around the world, promoting the issues put up by the Papua Congress of 2000. PaVo maintains good relations with the Papua Congress and its Presidium, sharing its dream of independence. It also relates well (and lobbies together with) the human rights organisation in Papua, Elsham, sharing its dream of non-violent transformation and of Papuans one day living free of the fear of human rights abuse.
Activists form the second group. In Europe several well established and many smaller human rights groups are active on Papuan issues. Many became more active as they shifted attention from East Timor to Papua. Of course we have our branches of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, managing information and urging for action. But regional human rights organisations such as Watch Indonesia! and others are gaining in importance. The latter have been stimulated enormously by the advocacy abilities of the German West Papua Network (see box). The network gathers information and co-ordinates action, linking churches and human rights activists, and working together closely with Elsham. The Uniting Churches in the Netherlands (UCN) have also linked up. The network also has a close relation with the World Council of Churches (WCC), for instance to facilitate Papuan testimonies at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. All these organisations lobby for the right of Papuans to organise, to speak out, and to develop without fear of repression.
Churches, missions and development agencies, the more traditional partners of the largely Christian Papuans, make up the third group. Two of the most prominent are the German United Evangelical Mission VEM (Vereinigte Evangelische Mission) and the Dutch Global Ministries UCN. The most active European development agencies are the German (Protestant) Brot fuer die Welt, Dutch Icco (Protestant), Dutch Cordaid (Catholic) and the Franciscans, and the Dutch humanist development organisation Hivos. Since early 2001, Novib-Oxfam (general) and Justitia & Pax (Catholic) take a more active interest in the area. All these organisations are broadly interested in institutional and human resources development, socio-economic development, the environment, human rights, indigenous peoples issues and political advocacy. They often coordinate their actions. So the Dutch churches and Icco started some initiatives with the WCC, and others joined in. They tend to see Papua as an important issue within Indonesia, so that human rights are on their agenda but not independence. They support the efforts of Indonesian non-government organisations (NGOs) to work with Papuan ones.
Several smaller church bodies (at the parish level) in Germany and the Netherlands are involved in exchange programs with the Evangelical Christian Church of Papua (GKI Papua). Growing feelings of solidarity lead them increasingly to join demonstrations or write letters against torture and other human rights abuse. Other smaller, mainly orthodox Calvinist and evangelical groups are more interested in church and community development issues than in human rights.
Dr Siegfried Z(szoellner@t-online.de) coordinates the West-Papua-Netzwerk in Germany. Feije Duim (F.Duim@sowkerken.nl) works at Global Ministries, Uniting Churches in the Netherlands.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Page 52 of 68
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