Post-Suharto, central power is weak and 'the local' becomes more important. A look at two very different cities.
Loren Ryter
Medan gets a new mayor
'The Minister of Interior Affairs shouldn't force the people of Medan to play hardball?. If they wanna make this country into [a nation of] cowboys, we're ready.' Medan assembly member Martius Latuperisa issued this threat late in March in the midst of a heated controversy over the planned swearing-in of Medan's new mayor, Abdillah Ak, MBA. Abdillah is a local businessman who on March 20 had been elected by a vote of 35-10 in the local assembly. If necessary, Martius warned, the assembly would inaugurate Mr Abdillah themselves, without Interior Affairs Ministry authorisation. 'We know best who's most fit to be the mayor of Medan. Moreover, the people of Medan are not subordinates of the central government,' asserted Martius, who is the Medan chief of the Armed Forces Sons' and Daughters' Communication Forum (FKPPI). Martius once represented Golkar in the assembly. He is now the faction head of the Golkar splinter party Justice and Unity Party (PKP).
After decades of regional subordination to Jakarta, it is tempting to laud the rise of the local. But this still looks like a New Order kind of conflict. The inter-bureaucratic, inter-personal, and inter-organisational competition for influence reaches from the local to the national. It is not strictly a matter of local autonomy.Yes, the advent of new political parties has heightened competition. A freer media and rising stakes make conflict more visible. But local power continues to be contested much as it has been ever since independence: through mass mobilisation, bribery, and 'lobbying Jakarta.'
Medan was once the colonial seat of the Deli plantation region in Sumatra. Today it is Indonesia's third largest city with a population of over two million. Medan's ethnically diverse composition reflects the legacy of a colonial economy which relied on Chinese, South Asian, and later Javanese contract coolies to work the tobacco and rubber estates, as well as on ethnic Chinese traders to provide basic commercial services. By 1981, ethnic Javanese comprised 29% of the population, and ethnic Chinese made up 13%, four times more than in Indonesia overall.
Military mobilisation during the 1945-49 revolution and during the late 1950s PRRI rebellion against Jakarta brought many Bataks and Mandailing to Medan, where they had previously been a minority. Once demobilised, these youths maintained contacts with military commanders even as they assumed territorial control in the informal economy. By the 1960s, these 'preman' (free men) as they were known, made a living as middle-men in markets, ticket scalpers at the movie theatres, and in private security in ethnic Chinese residential districts.
In response to leftist labour radicalism in plantations and industry, military authorities encouraged the formation of anti-communist labour unions such as Soksi and youth groups such as Pemuda Pancasila (Pancasila Youth, PP). By the time of the October 1965 'coup', these groups were well placed to lead the purges against suspected members of the PKI, and were indeed positively encouraged to do so. Chief among the victims were predominantly ethnic Javanese railway and plantation workers, and urban ethnic Chinese accused of involvement with Communist China.
The leaders of the groups which carried out these purges, as well as civilian and military officials who had violently demonstrated their anti-communist vigour, increasingly gained control of the early New Order economy and polity. Medan had long promised quick fortunes. During the colonial era it was the export hub for 'the land of the dollar' in its hinterland. Plentitudes of disposable cash made Medan particularly suited for gambling and prostitution. Tjong A Fie, the Dutch-appointed Captain-Chinese and the leading non-European power broker in late colonial society, operated government-licensed gambling, opium leases, and nearly thirty brothels. But with their political influence completely smashed by the late 1960s, ethnic Chinese fell to the mercy of power-holders for the continued operation of these ventures as well as legal commerce. The premanwere more than willing to provide the 'protection' they required, under threat of closure, seizure, or worse.
Bad boy democracy
Under these conditions, a kind of bad boy democracy flourished in Medan. Jakarta was never able to perfectly structure Medan's polity from the top down. Central and local authorities were forced to negotiate with the quasi-mafia forces at the grassroots whose growth they themselves had fostered. In fact, this year's controversy over the new mayor echoed a similar contest at the dawn of the New Order. Then, Pemuda Pancasila had openly and successfully championed Sjoerkani for mayor against a candidate backed by the regional military command. Installed in 1966, Sjoerkani served until 1974.
During Sjoerkani's tenure, Pemuda Pancasila's influence grew further. Its members squeezed legal and illegal commerce in the town so tightly that the ethnic Chinese community still calls them 'five claws' (go-jiao) rather than 'five principles' (Pancasila). Not merely a gang of thugs, Pemuda Pancasila also became a springboard into the bureaucracy and even the military. Pemuda Pancasila leaders still boast that even former Abri chief Feisal Tanjung was once a member and a market preman.
However, Pemuda Pancasila's chokehold became irksome to business owners and to military officers who themselves wanted a cut of the action. In the early 1980s a splinter group of PP began to fight for control of territory, and especially for gambling revenues. Ikatan Pemuda Karya (Work Service Youth Association, IPK) was funded in part by Chinese entrepreneurs, and was backed by some military officers including, so it is rumoured, then-Abri commander Benny Murdani. The idea was to create a balance of power.
IPK's leader was a shrewd Christian Toba Batak fluent in Hokkien named Olo Panggabean. Unlike PP, IPK began to directly manage gambling operations rather than merely squeeze them for protection money. Olo got his start while still a PP member at the 1973 Medan Fair, where he was in charge of security. Shortly thereafter he opened kim, a variety of bingo played for cash prizes, which he still runs openly at the Medan Fair ground.
Though they mortally fought each other on the streets, IPK strove to support Golkar even more fervently than did PP. Golkar election campaigns provided the ideal venue to stage a show of force. Each group mobilised thousands of its members clad in their respectively coloured camouflage uniforms. By the late 1980s and into the 1990s, other national Golkar-supporting youth groups became minor players in Medan's territorial scene, notably FKPPI, the army brats' youth group, which for most of its late New Order existence was led nationally by Suharto scion Bambang Trihatmojo.
Clashes between the groups' rank and file were often actually lucrative for their municipal leaders, who themselves sat comfortably in their assembly seats. (Each group had at least one representative in the local assembly, always with Golkar.) For several years during the early 1990s, a protracted three-way battle known as the 'the poison arrow affair' ensued between PP, IPK, and FKPPI in the Polonia district of Medan, an area adjacent to the airport slated for luxury housing development. Developers colluded with the youth group chiefs to provoke a protracted conflict which would scare off residents and drive down land prices.
For the Medan bosses, reformasi ushered in new opportunities as well as some new obstacles. They did not see multi-party elections as a formidable threat. IPK continued to support Golkar. FKPPI split between Golkar and its splinter party PKP. Senior leaders of PP hedged their bets, fanning out into Golkar, PKP, PAN, and also PDI-P. One local PP boss running on a Golkar ticket lost the election in his district of Padang Bulan but still gained a seat after negotiation within Golkar. Most bosses who held seats retained them, though sometimes under new party banners.
But what did the rise of the new parties imply for territorial control? To IPK in particular, members of the security wing of Megawati's PDI-P were dangerous pretenders, all the more so since many rank and file PP members had joined their forces. Golkar assembly member and Medan IPK chief Moses Tambunan told an IPK rally shortly after the elections to prepare for a fight: 'Clearly PDI-P is out to undermine us. They gotta eat too. If they beg for rice, give them some. But if they want the rice bowl, forget about it!'
Other institutional changes brought about by reformasi were more important. The separation of the police from the rest of the armed forces gave PP new leverage against IPK. PP began to demand that the police crack down on illegal gambling. As if obediently, in December the police mobile brigade avenged IPK's stabbing of one of its members by shooting up Olo's headquarters, known locally as 'the White House.' IPK in turn relied on the regional military command, whose logistics operations it has openly helped finance, to admonish the police.
'Cooperate'
Medan's established forces found a common candidate for mayor in Abdillah Ak. As a local entrepreneur he could be expected to generate numerous projects to be contracted out. During the mass mobilisations surrounding the mayoral candidacy, both FKPPI and the Youth Front of the political party PAN were among Abdillah's militant supporters. One of PP's senior leaders sits on the North Sumatran board of PAN.
Abdillah was fully willing to cooperate with all groups holding effective power in Medan. PDI-P's original candidate, Professor Firman Tambun, took a less pragmatic stance and suffered for it. After clashes between PP and IPK in November and December 1999, Tambun stated that the police must enforce the law and arrest criminals, not just summon the youth group leaders for reconciliation. He was subsequently shut out of the candidate list entirely.
PDI-P held more seats in the local assembly than any other party - 16 out of 45 - yet they failed to secure their mayoral candidate. The circumstances that led to this failure were only brought to light through non-procedural means. After the assembly voted to elect Abdillah mayor, a group of PDI-P cadres calling itself the Struggle Bull Youth Movement abducted 12 of the PDI-P's 16 assembly members and took them to the party's provincial headquarters. There they were pelted and threatened with knives. Four of them then signed a prepared confession that each of them had accepted 25 million rupiah from Abdillah's 'Success Team' in exchange for their votes.
On April 18, the governor of North Sumatra finally swore in the new mayor in a local assembly building guarded by army troops, members of the security wing of the PDI-P siding with their party's assembly members, and members of FKPPI. The inauguration caught Medan by surprise. It came the day after the Attorney General's Medan office indicted Mr Abdillah on charges of corruption and vote buying. Nevertheless, the inauguration was technically legal. The Minister of Interior Affairs authorised it in a decree issued mere hours after the Attorney General's office announced the indictment.
Loren Ryter (loren@u.washington.edu) is completing a doctoral dissertation on youth and preman in Jakarta and Medan at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
Business as usual
Until Gus Dur can bring military business activities under control, they won't go 'back to barracks'
Lesley McCulloch
In 1998 a study by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) exposed, not for the first time, the fact that the military had their fingers in the country's economic pie. What was different this time was the coverage it received in the media, exposing the size and variety of the pies in which the generals had their 'sticky fingers'. Amid the protests that led to Suharto's fall, military business activities were yet another 'open secret' to join the fray. Business down the barrel of a gun, a practice as old as Indonesia itself, has been lucrative indeed. Military business assets were estimated to be greater than US$8 billion in 1998. These activities are pervasive, corrupt and exist in the formal, informal, and even criminal economic sectors.
There can be no mistaking Gus Dur's desire to return the military to barracks and democratise both politics and the economy. But it is proving to be a delicate balancing act. The president has warned that the country still needs the armed forces as an institution, and should therefore not engage in 'anti TNI sentiment'. Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono remarked recently that Indonesia couldn't yet afford democracy. For most it is a daily battle for survival, he observed, and only 10% of Indonesians can afford the luxury of participating in democracy.
Like most ordinary Indonesians, the military rank and file does not reap rich rewards from their institution's business activities. The military initially became involved in commercial activities because the government could not afford to provide for their welfare and running costs. So what has changed since Gus Dur became president?
The government is still unable to provide for the needs of the military. Regular salaries do not adequately provide for the basic needs of personnel. Recent salary increases to public servants and the military averaging 30 percent are a start, but have made little difference with prices spiraling. While it is generally agreed that higher salaries do not necessarily guarantee less corruption and 'extra-military' activities, it would at least be a starting point.
Late last year Juwono Sudarsono demanded a 62.9 percent increase in the 2000-2001 defence budget, arguing that if this was not forthcoming the professionalism of the military as a defence force would continue to be compromised by corruption and commercial activities. Theodore Friend of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Washington says such commercial activities only produce 'clumsy entrepreneurs and flabby soldiers'. However, the 2000 defence budget did not include any raise. At Rp 10.1 trillion (about US$ 1.4 billion) it involved no change - it was merely a percentage of the 1999 budget to reflect its nine-month duration.
Nevertheless the military's hierarchy of needs is no secret. Armed forces chief Admiral Widodo Adisucipto has announced a 'wish list' of naval vessels and aircraft upgrades. He specifically mentioned the planned purchase of two Parcham-class corvettes and upgrades of seven F-16A/B jet fighters, at a combined cost of over Rp60 billion. He also wants large fast patrol craft. Navy chief Admiral Sucipto recently revealed plans to increase personnel numbers by 20,000 over five years to facilitate the expanding role of the navy. The result? More sticky fingers will be dipping into the economic pie.
The government has recently announced it intends to turn to China for weapons in its attempt to side step what it regards as politically motivated procurement barriers raised by the US and other Western defence manufacturers. Preference for these equipment upgrades was borne out by a confidential Indonesian military source who recently conceded to me that the priority is to channel additional government defence allocation to 'modernisation and maintenance of equipment', rather than to use it as a lever to extract the military from business by raising salaries even more.
In addition to weapons a considerable portion of the budget is to be allocated to recruitment and training. Here we have an institution that openly declares its inability to adequately compensate existing personnel, but still intends to increase its numbers. Until the effects of the crisis were felt in 1998, military budgets increased throughout the 1990s. But the number of active personnel also rose, from 270,000 active regulars in 1990 to 298,000 by the late 1990s (excluding paramilitary forces of around 177,000). These personnel increases made it impossible for budget increases to deliver enhanced welfare benefits.
Off-budget
Indonesian defence spending is much higher than that declared in the official budget. Revrisond Baswir, a prominent Indonesian economist, has suggested that the declared defence budget accounts for only 25 percent of true defence spending. The rest comes from military cooperatives, foundations and stock purchases, and from corrupt practices at the institutional, group and individual level. Profits from these 'ventures' are divided three ways. Some is siphoned off to well-placed individuals, some is reinvested in the companies, and some becomes extra-budgetary income for the military. The true amounts can only be guessed at.
The government has stated it must continue to accept these commercial activities as an inevitable necessity until it can afford to increase the defence budget. This means it is also implicitly saying it has no alternative but - to use an increasingly popular Indonesian euphemism - to expect a certain 'leakage' of any profits from these unsupervised businesses to individuals and groups within the military.
Gus Dur has recognised the wisdom of not trying to put the cart before the horse. Only when the problem of the official defence budget has been addressed can the government claim the moral authority to insist that the military relinquish its hold on the economy. Indeed in a country where the military remains the most efficiently functioning institution, this may be a wise move. Meanwhile a network of military influence continues, together with an institutional mindset that accepts off-budget financing as normal - a potentially unsettling combination.
Gus Dur wants to turn Indonesia into a fully functioning democracy, but removing the military from business is not top of the list on his hierarchy of priorities. In the months since taking office he has certainly declared his intention to stamp out endemic corruption, improve corporate governance (a pledge to the IMF), and oversee the retreat of the military from civil society.
But his real priorities have become quite apparent. They have been, firstly, to adopt an individual rather than an institutional focus by filling key positions with reformists both in the military and in government.
His second priority seems to have been to meet the requirements of the January 2000 IMF Letter of Intent (LoI) in order to secure the economic bailout on offer. Failure to deliver all reforms stipulated in the LoI has already led to a delay in the next US$ 400 million of the three-year US$5 billion support package. Following this action by the IMF, Gus Dur's somewhat confusing policy orations quickly sharpened to focus on these reforms, 90 percent of which the government says have now been met. Article 31 of the LoI addresses off-budget funds. The government intends to increase transparency and has instructed the State Audit Board (BPKP) that future audits of government agencies' financial operations should 'take full account of all extra-budgetary sources of support'. This 'best practice' begins in 2000 and 'will include the military'. Unfortunately this is the limited extent of the government's attempts to extract the military from business - military businesses will now be accountable to an independent audit.
Gus Dur is no doubt treading carefully. Powerful interests are at stake, perhaps none more so than the very existence of his government. As Indonesia continues to languish in the aftermath of the economic crisis there will be no significant increase in the defence budget for the foreseeable future. The military will become more rather than less reliant on a diminishing number of extra-budgetary sources - which themselves have suffered in the economic crisis. In the past, the 'clumsy entrepreneurs' had access to such perks and privileges that many businesses were kept afloat which were not commercially viable. Those military businesses and business connections that have survived can no longer rely on the levels of patronage they previously received.
If the government pushes this, the only truly functioning government institution, offside, in other words, if it pushes reform quicker than the military can accept it, the results may bring even more chaos. Perhaps Gus Dur is wise to concentrate on consolidating his power rather on reform. But so long as this is the case, it is 'business as usual' for the military.
Ms Lesley McCulloch (lesley@bicc.de) is writing a study of Indonesian military spending for the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) in Germany. BICC (www.bicc.de) is dedicated to promoting processes that shift resources away from the defence sector towards alternative civilian uses.
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
Fireside chat about AIDS
How do you reach illiterate young people at risk from HIV/AIDS? These volunteers take them camping.
Ingrid Hering
Vickram Amiri knows the ways of the streets. At 19, this Manadonese youth is the youngest outreach worker in an HIV/AIDS prevention project for marginalised youth run by a local non-government organisation.
His earlier years mirrored the lifestyle of the project's target group in the North Sulawesi capital - drinking, drug use, numerous partners who were also sex workers, hanging around with friends, and sleeping on the streets. He first came into contact with the non-government organisation Yayasan Mitra Masyarakat (YMM) two years ago when he participated in one of the monthly three-day camping sessions aimed at distributing information about sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and HIV/AIDS. The sessions convey the message through role plays, small group discussions, case studies, information sessions, and question and answer time with a HIV/AIDS specialist. Camping as a tool to reach marginalised youth is unique in Indonesia. Before camping, Vickram had never heard about HIV/AIDS.
He was subsequently trained as a peer educator. Although not instantly, his lifestyle slowly changed and he believed many of his friends were at high risk of infection by STDs, which is one of the channels of HIV /AIDS infection. The girls often had four to five partners in one night, encouraged by their boyfriends who acted as pimps and who were themselves often drunk or used drugs.
Early last year Vickram became an outreach worker. Despite finding it initially daunting he has come to view his youth as an advantage. 'They (the target group) receive me as a friend, which makes it easier to give them information and for them to receive it,' he explained.
Some of his friends are reducing their intake or using drugs in a safer manner. Others who are sexually active but have never used condoms have become aware of the dangers. 'Camping is very effective to give information because it appeals to youth,' Vickram said.
His work is sometimes made difficult by his age, or because discussing sex is still taboo. He has to overcome myths such as that lemon juice on the genitals will kill infection, that only foreigners get HIV/AIDS, or that only transvestites (bancis) use condoms. The project has led to behaviour change, but this can be difficult to sustain if the youth have no regular activities. 'Their environment does not support them to change. It can influence them to return to their former behaviours,' Vickram said.
Indonesia's official figure of 1080 HIV/AIDS cases is greatly underestimated, mainly due to a poor surveillance system. According to Dr James Sinaya, one of about 20 HIV/AIDS specialists in the country, HIV/AIDS here is a time bomb in the face of globalisation and a growing illicit drug trade.
Manado in particular is at high risk. Youth unemployment is high, a large maritime and unskilled labour force work overseas, and the town shares a reputation with West Java for its beautiful women.
The government supports the distribution of information, but Dr Sinaya wants to see more funds for testing kits, which had been dropped as a policy priority, and more recreational activities for young people.
Much of the question and answer sessions are spent dispelling popular myths such as the use of beads, needles and horsehair around or in the penis to increase sexual pleasure. Dr Sinaya believes the greatest obstacles for disseminating information are the diversity of ethnic languages, illiteracy and religious objections to discussing of sex.
YMM's prevention project is funded by USAID and has been running since 1997. It has reached more than 3600 youths to date. According to project manager Umar Mato, written material is not enough to be effective for this target group, due to their limited attention span, minimal education and transient lifestyle. The use of peer educators to reach them, outreach workers to give follow-up information, and activities such as World AIDS Day expos and small group discussions help reinforce information given during camping.
Pak Umar believes the biggest hurdles to be overcome are the resistance to condom use and the increasing prevalence of injecting drug use, particularly heroin. 'The Department of Religion here is not brave enough yet to talk about condom use or promote it,' he said. 'They still hope HIV/AIDS is not a big problem because in North Sulawesi there are only three (official) cases.'
Government prevention strategies are in place, as they were in Thailand 10 years ago, but Pak Umar believes it has not translated into action, partly because 100% condom use is not being pushed. Attention also needs to be focused on injecting drug use. 'Otherwise we will be late, like Thailand and Malaysia,' he added.
Ingrid Hering (ingrid_1010@hotmail.com) is an Australian Volunteers International volunteer, working with Yayasan Mitra Masyarakat in Manado, North Sulawesi.
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
In this issue
Democracy: How's it going?
Gerry van Klinken
In May it was two years since pro-democracy protesters brought to an end 32 years of Suharto's military-dominated rule. Since then, the country's first democratic elections in 44 years placed two leaders of the democracy movement in the presidential and vice-presidential offices. The military face constant humiliation over past abuses. So how far has Indonesia come on the road to democracy?
No one in this edition would dare say that what the protesters fought for has been achieved. With no Suharto on whom to focus dissent, the many dimensions of Indonesia's problems appear if anything more daunting. So much remains unchanged. The military who backed the anti-communist purges after 1 October 1965 have not yet confronted those evils. The economic elites who repressed labour and raped the environment are still piling up debt.
Many problems are deep-seated. The government of this vast country has been trying to decentralise for nearly a century, and the military have for decades been earning more outside their official budget than inside it. Elites in Medan (and in North Maluku where they started a war) have worked hand-in-glove with mafias for just as long.
And yet our authors would probably agree that change has been faster these last two years than in the previous thirty. Muchtar Pakpahan, Bu Sulami and Budiman Sujatmiko (who appear in this edition) were all Suharto's political prisoners. They now get a hearing even in the mainstream press. Indonesia has a Muslim president who apologised to the victims of the anti-communist purges of '65. But it just isn't enough yet.
Inside Indonesia is a small magazine produced on a shoestring. All our authors know this, and yet they continue to write because Indonesia moves them. Next time we hope to do something on the arts. With the help of the Australia Indonesia Institute, we also hope to bring you an extra four pages! Especially to help students, we want to include an educational supplement with background on a different topic in each of the coming year's editions.
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
Indonesia is definitely OK
Independent comic artists explore newfound freedoms
Laine Berman
One of the first things I noticed in the bookshops after Suharto's resignation was the amazing proliferation of books on sex. Then came humour books on every subject you can think of including politics. Finally and predictably, formal political commentaries flooded the shelves. For these few months, the Japanese comics that have been the best sellers in all Indonesian bookshops were pushed aside. Celebrating the freedom of the moment, Indonesians chose sex, humour, and politics over imported comics. Now, some two years later, enter bookshops and the window displays and shelves are again filled with comics. Sex manuals seem to have been shoved aside by religious books. Sadly, as I reported here in 1998, all of these comics are licensed, translated imports, with not a local comic in sight. The only local comic book found in some shops is Komik politik, which in its two volumes resembles New Order style hero-worshipping.
National Comic Week has since 1996 presented a yearly celebration of formally published Indonesian-made comics. Being restricted to those with 'permission' and slick presentations, it glorifies bad marketing, lack of distribution, translations, western copies, censorship, and ideological repetition. It also glorifies the 'Golden Age' - legend and silat (martial arts) comics from the 60s and 70s.
For the first time in 1999, local independent or underground comics were permitted to appear. Independents are those comics created by admirers of the art or those who simply choose to express themselves through the medium. These mini comics are 'self-published', meaning they are photocopied, distributed amongst friends, and occasionally sold in local shops. Illegal prior to May 1998, by the 1999 Comic Week fifteen 'studios' or groups from Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and Denpasar were actively making and self-publishing comics.
For the indie comic artists, it was a moment of idealism, mixed with the thrill of legitimacy and finally seeing their work in the same exhibition space as the great Indonesian 'komikus' Jan Mintaraga, RA Kosasih and others. Wahyoe Soegijanto, head of the Indonesian Comic Community (MKI), claimed great things for indie comics, even while maintaining New Order discourse: 'We're moving ahead step by step to advance Indonesian comics as our contribution to the development of Indonesia'. By the 2000 exhibition, however, these independents were already reduced in number and confined to one corner of the hall.
Freedom
What is so important about comics? For one, Indonesians love them and have a long, fond history of growing up with them. But if comics mirror the environment in which they appear, the 'Golden Age' was a time of heroes and legends, whereas now Indonesia is an occupied nation. Very few komikus have found their own voice under reformasi. The vast majority of comics on display at the 2000 Expo this past February were copies of western comics in terms of art, story, design, location, characterisation, and even language.
The poet Rendra once described freedom of expression as a reflection of the artist's degree of contact with the people, with life and nature. It was an ability to express the truth, or soul of society. So why are most Indonesian comics utterly removed from any direct contact with the everyday world? With reformasi, comics have the potential to reflect social and political life way beyond other types of communication. Where are these models of contemporary culture we would expect to see in such a genre?
Now let's go back to that little indie corner of the exhibition and see what comics look like when freed from the stranglehold of slick presentation or censorship.
First, there were the classics. Self-published comics had been a trend on campuses since 1994. By 1996 groups of Yogyakarta-based art students compiled their efforts into Core comic, Komik selingkuh, Kiri komik, Petak umpet komik, and Komik haram. They worked out of love for the medium, out of the need for self-expression, and in a vain attempt to revive a much missed local tradition. For the most part, and precisely like indies anywhere else in the world, they remain economically utterly unsuccessful. Like indie artists elsewhere too, many are self-conscious about presenting their work in public, evidenced by opening statements that justify their efforts as socially useful. 'Jakarta the hot and filthy can be transformed into a comic!!', said Rudi H in Komec perjoeangan, (1999). Rampok (1999, by Emte) avoided criticism by referring to the comic as garbage and without meaning.
The indie theme in the pre-reformasi era was predominantly despair. One of the earliest in the group comic output was Komik selingkuh (Deception, 1996). This comic-cum-manual is entirely devoted to deception with the ultimate goal of luring someone into sexual engagement. Success or failure both lead to the same ending: a fight with the wife, financial debt, unwanted children, divorce, misery, suicide, and the comfort and joy of imagining and/ or doing the whole sex scene again. Regardless of the consequences, sex as the reward for a good deception heavily outweighs the negatives, at least in terms of its presentational build-up within the comic.
Core Comics (1996) self-published a series called Berteman dengan anjing (Befriending dogs). Each volume contains compilations that conform to various dog themes, nearly all violent: dogs as mad scientists, dog heaven where dogs curse at and abuse people, space dogs fall in love with earth women, and others too weird to identify. Tanggaku kirik (My neighbour is a puppy) compiles stories based in dog worlds, where humans are the beasts, and dog dreams, aspirations for love, to become human, or to just survive. As a whole, nearly every story has a sad ending where man beats dog or dog aspires to greatness and fails.
Autobiography
Most of the New Order era indies share this pessimism. At the same time, and totally unlike indie comics in Australia or the States, they avoid any sense of a self within the social environment. By 1999, however, indies are beginning to show more autobiographical work, based on 'the material at hand' turned into a story or just a simple expos? of life. Not all of it is depressing or pornographic either, as seen in the Komec perjoeangan by Rudi H. His inscription reads 'Indonesia pancen oke lho' (Indonesia is definitely OK, you know). The comic reveals tidbits of the young man's life and experiences that are thoroughly normal and 'definitely OK'.
Nowhere to be seen at the 2000 Comic Expo was the work of the Yogya-based comic and organisational wizard, Bambang Toko. Bambang was the organiser for Core Comic and later moved to the far more interesting Apotik Komik. While extremely active makers of comics as autobiography, full of word plays and local trends, Apotik Komik also has taken comics to the streets through their humorous posters and by decorating walls and billboards. Their collective works have developed a good balance between telling a familiar story and using humour as a way to promote thought and different perspectives. Yet they and all the other Yogya komikus chose to boycott the 2000 Comic Expo. Hopefully, by the 2001 Expo, komikus, publishers, and the Indonesian public will make more effort to look forward instead of back and support a more lively, relevant local comic industry.
Laine Berman (laine@indo.net.id) lives and works in Yogyakarta.
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
Inside Jepara
Tensions between state, society and business
Jim Schille
Jepara is a small town of about 100,000 and a district of slightly under a million on the north coast of Java, two hours by car from the provincial capital Semarang. Unlike Medan it has only recently become urban and is not an ethnic or religious mixing pot. Nearly 98% of Jeparans are from one ethnic group, the Javanese, and more than 95% are Muslim.
Jepara was an important port kingdom in the mid-sixteenth century, once ruled by Queen Kalinyamat. The colonial Dutch burned it to the ground twice in one year for breaking their trade monopoly. It was also the home of Kartini the Javanese aristocrat whose life and letters advanced educational opportunities for Indonesian women in the early twentieth century.
Jepara exports more than 500 million Australian dollars of its famous handcrafted furniture each year. It makes antique reproduction, garden and other furniture in any design the customer wants. There is also a substantial domestic furniture industry. Together they employ more than 80,000 Jeparans. Many more are employed in allied industries. Most work in more than 2000 overwhelmingly Javanese-owned small and medium enterprises in Jepara's villages. Even most of the largest firms are indigenous or European. Elsewhere in Indonesia, Chinese Indonesian firms dominate manufacturing.
Jepara's economy has boomed. For several kilometres the road into town is full of furniture factories, showrooms and warehouses. There has been a related growth in public transport, in packing and shipping services, in upholstering, banks, and public buildings. Internet and telephone kiosks, good hotels and 'modern' restaurants cater mainly to foreigners and the new commercial elite.
In 1971 Jepara was one of the poorest districts in Central Java. Now it is near the top in regional per capita income. It has more registered motor vehicles than any other locality in Central Java except the provincial capital. Another sign of local prosperity is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which costs more than AU$5000. This year nearly 2500 Jeparans went, up from about 900 the year before. In both years Jepara sent more pilgrims than any other locality in Indonesia. Local government revenue is so strong that in the midst of Indonesia's 1998 economic crisis Jepara's local government could build a large two-storey office building without borrowing.
Jepara's recent wealth is also visible in new retail shops, department stores, motor vehicle dealers and even a super-market. While inequality seems to have grown, there is anecdotal evidence that the growth in employment in the furniture industry has helped to push up other rural wages.
Responsive
For decades local politics has been competitive and local society has been able to challenge the local state to be more effective and responsive. My argument about how Jepara got by New Order standards a relatively demanding society and a responsive developmental state can be found in my book Developing Jepara (1996).
Jepara has long had a strong Islamic institution, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), with deep roots and high status in Jepara's villages, small business community and Islamic schools. NU won nearly 60% of the vote in the democratic elections of 1955, and it expected to dominate local government after the destruction of the Indonesian Communist Party in 1965. It soon became clear that less-overtly Islamic bureaucrats from southern Central Java would fill local government positions. However, these 'outsider' bureaucrats soon found that they needed the support of local NU leaders to succeed with their development programs. Even in the 'controlled' New Order elections, Jepara's Muslim community resisted efforts to deliver the government party Golkar victories. They regularly elected PPP candidates to 40% of the elected seats, narrowly won one election, and found ways to make the assembly question government practices.
Encouraged by delegations to the assembly criticising poor government services, the Jepara assembly actively investigated corruption. They used the NU informal network to reveal the secrets of bureaucrats who showed signs of conspicuous consumption. On more than one occasion an assembly representative asked the district head (bupati) how it was that an official built a new house or deposited ten million rupiah into his bank account. The questions were well informed and embarrassing.
Jepara began to get a reputation as a difficult place for state officials to govern, because the people dared to complain loudly unless government was attentive and careful. As the furniture industry grew, entrepreneurs acquired cars, televisions, and stereos that gave them a new prestige in the materialist New Order.
Entrepreneurs gained further status when, after the oil boom, the state admitted it needed the private sector to play a leading role in making development succeed. In the 1980s and 1990s there was also a marked cultural turn to Islam in Indonesia. Jepara's officials began to see Jepara's Islamic and business communities as deserving their respect. Jepara's business leaders came to expect public services. Jepara's local government financed trade promotions, fought for better roads, for the right to use container trucks, for improved telecommunications.
All this does not mean that there was no conflict between state and society. It did mean that the risks of corruptors or tyrants being found out and humiliated were greater. The arrogance of power was constrained, not eliminated. That arrogance was most obvious when national or provincial interests wanted local land. Examples include the now-abandoned nuclear reactors, the huge, still-unfinished, Suharto family-owned Tanjung Jati power plant in Bangsri, and tourist development in the Karimunjawa islands. In these national projects the local state and local society had little voice.
One ongoing tension between state and society and between large furniture enterprises and small ones is over the role of (overwhelmingly European) foreigners. There have been pro- and anti-foreigner demonstrations, occasional mysterious fires in furniture factories, media attacks on the local state for condoning the presence of 'illegal' foreigners, and public threats to the safety of foreigners. Many indigenous firm-owners think that foreigners are trying to make a quick profit or establish a monopoly. However, many small business owners support the foreigners because they provide an alternative market which drives up prices.
Reform era
Jepara went through the New Order relatively well, with a strengthened economy and a society able to place limits on the state and a local state made more responsive. So how is Jepara managing in the Reform Era?
The local economy has remained strong with the rupiah value of furniture exports soaring. Many Jeparans now believe that they can do well at business even in adverse conditions. The worrying cloud on the horizon is the question of sustainability. Can the forests of Indonesia (and now Brazil) provide quality timber in ever increasing amounts?
Politics has been more problematic. The problem is not state-society relations but clashes within society. NU had established its own party, PKB, and thus came into competition with the other Islamic-based party, PPP, to which most Jeparan NU members had hitherto given their loyalty. One of the most widely reported clashes of the 1999 election campaign was in Dongos, near Jepara, in which four PKB supporters were killed when they tried to establish a local branch in a PPP-dominated village. Tensions remained high during the election.
PPP captured more than 40% of the votes, more than double the second party. Some election monitors saw PPP's victory as a sign that intimidation continued to play a big role. PPP, they said, did what Golkar had always done. Another view might be that voters remained loyal to the party that had battled the New Order in difficult times.
On the other hand, the PKB and NU leadership has been gracious in defeat. They did not challenge for the chair of the local assembly even though an everybody-but-PPP coalition might have succeeded. The PKB candidate withdrew and announced that it was better that the party with the most seats won the chairmanship. Such flexibility, inclusiveness and tolerance among the NU and PKB leadership provides the greatest hope that Jepara will do well in the reform era. Through the authoritarian years of the New Order it sustained resistance, but gave ground when it needed to. Eventually, it tamed the local state.
NU headquarters is now a place where Muslim and even non-Muslim activists feel they can meet and talk. The difficult task ahead for NU will be to accommodate and somehow soften their proud, exclusivist, PPP wing. Jepara has a flourishing civil society and a responsive local state. The question is how that society can learn to govern itself and constrain society-based power-holders.
Jim Schiller (asjs@sigma.sss.flinders.edu.au) teaches at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. He is the author of 'Developing Jepara: State and society in New Order Indonesia' (Monash Asia Institute, 1996).
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
No longer so 'special'
Keating's 'special' relationship with Jakarta was undemocratic. After East Timor, Howard is right not to rush back.
Scott Burchill
In the first weeks of September last year, 70% of all public buildings and private residences in East Timor were destroyed. TNI and their militia surrogates displaced at least 75% of the population. Between 500 and 2000 East Timorese were slaughtered.
These statistics measure the denouement of 25 years of Indonesian state terror in occupied East Timor. They also indicate the scale of Canberra's greatest foreign policy failure since federation. At the very least, one might think that these grim statistics would prompt Australia's foreign policy elite and its adjunct the Jakarta lobby - to rethink an approach to diplomacy with Indonesia which has been so conspicuously discredited. Incredibly, this hasn't happened. Instead, those wanting a rapid return to business as usual with Jakarta are attempting to blame the Howard government for the collapse of the relationship.
Within a month of Interfet's deployment in East Timor, which finally brought the killings to an end, the editor of The Australian believed it was time for Canberra 'to withdraw from the military leadership role' in East Timor, because 'an ongoing military presence by Australia could hinder the peace process by continuing to antagonise militia groups'. Fortunately for the people of East Timor, his request was ignored.
The foreign editor of The Australian, Greg Sheridan, was also keen to 'make up' with Jakarta as soon as possible. Reflecting his employer's distaste for foreign policy driven by 'humanitarian and moralistic concerns' (Rupert Murdoch), Sheridan believed that the cause of the problem was Mr Howard's regrettable habit of listening to the views of his constituents: 'The government's worst statement was the prime minister saying in parliament recently that he wanted foreign policy to be in step with public opinion'.
Veteran Indonesia analyst Bruce Grant also identified Mr Howard as the problem. According to Grant, the prime minister is seen as 'unsympathetic to cultures and aspirations other than his own', a character trait that apparently puts him sharply at odds with leaders in Beijing, Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur. Howard is 'suspect' in Asia because he is a monarchist, lacks 'an emotional commitment to the fortunes of the region', and loves cricket 'which does not help in Indonesia'. Grant doesn't explain the perils inherent in Indonesia's bilateral relations with other cricket-playing nations such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, nor does he note the damage done to ties with Kuala Lumpur when Malaysia hosted a cricket tournament during the last Commonwealth Games.
Cultural deference is clearly Grant's recommended strategy for engaging with Asia. The onus is on Australia, and only Australia, to change its ways. There is no suggestion of reciprocity from the region, even in the light of last year's horror in East Timor.
According to ANU Indonesia specialist Harold Crouch, Mr Howard's response to the terror in East Timor last year, rather than the slaughter itself, 'was offensive to many Indonesians'. The prime minister has a limited cultural understanding of Australia's great northern neighbour and 'doesn't quite know how to convey things to Indonesians', he says - true enough as messages such as 'stop the killing' clearly fell on deaf ears in Jakarta last September.
'Provocative'
Former diplomat Tony Kevin also worried about Australia's 'provocative' behaviour last year. 'Indonesian military and strategic elites will not quickly forgive or forget how Australian foreign policy cynically exploited their weak interim president in order to manoeuvre Indonesia into a no-win situation', says Kevin. If only John Howard stopped basking in 'jingoistic self-satisfaction over East Timor' and said sorry, bridges with Indonesia could be mended.
More recently, professional Asianists have sought to engender a moral panic about the current state of Australia's relationships with the region by claiming that John Howard's intervention in East Timor is indicative of a broader rejection of regional engagement. What they really mean is that Howard is ignoring the specific rules of engagement that they have drafted for successive Australian governments. Even more disturbing, the coalition isn't seeking their wise counsel.
According to his critics, Howard has disengaged Australia from the region, repudiating 'the Australia project in Asia' (Stephen Fitzgerald), painstakingly nurtured by every Australian prime minister since Whitlam. Emblematic of this has been the collapse of bilateral ties with Jakarta: 'Forty years of bipartisan effort to build up a relationship with Indonesia have been seriously eroded by recent events', argues Richard Woolcott, without detailing these 'events' or specifying the responsibility Jakarta bears for the downturn. 'The relationship has been destroyed?. Indonesians feel betrayed by Australia', laments Rawdon Dalrymple, who already looks back at the Suharto years with a nostalgia unlikely to be shared by the victims of the dictatorship: 'I fear we shall not see the like of him [Suharto] again'.
According to leading Sinologist Stephen Fitzgerald, 'in the game of self-identifying regions' Australia must 'commit to and find acceptance in Asia'. Our 'fundamental problem is that while we may have come to mouth the sentiment of belonging to the region, we have done too little to belong in human terms or to make the necessary cultural and intellectual adjustment'.
Under the old orthodoxy, Asia was seen as an exclusive club which Canberra must seek to join being left out would be 'a disaster for Australia'. Our need for belonging, however, brings with it obligations of membership which require us to alter our ethical and cultural outlook. The price of admission to the Asia club is never explicitly conceded, but by implication it includes the sublimation of our European political heritage, a less assertive commitment to universal human rights, and a greater sense of cultural deference to Asian sensitivities.
But does Asia see itself this way, as a club? If not, should we?
An alternative explanation for recent policy changes is that the Howard government is reflecting a popular unease with the rules of Asian engagement previously set by Australia's foreign policy elite though not the need for engagement per se. This discomfort dovetails with the prime minister's personal ambivalence about Asia, which is partly based on ignorance and partly on an exaggerated sense of the importance of cultural differences in international politics.
Howard believes that the Keating government's style of Asian engagement was elitist and lacking in domestic popular support, hence it was ultimately driven underground. In 1995 both the intention to negotiate and the content of the Australia-Indonesia security agreement was withheld from the public until after it was signed an unusual departure from the concept of 'due process'. Howard is perhaps understating the need for government leadership in this area of public policy, but he has correctly identified a widening cleavage between elite and popular perceptions of how Australia should present itself to the region.
Many Australians believe they can be equal partners in Asia without sacrificing their political or cultural identity: they merely ask to be accepted at face value. Differences between nations and cultures can be respected, they don't need to be resolved or dissolved. Convergence is unnecessary. Economic ties prompted by globalising forces, for example, are rarely dependent on shared values. Australia's most important bilateral trade relationship with Japan was formed at a time when anti-Japanese feelings in Australia were still potent from the Second World War. Many Australians would feel they have little to learn from the legal and political processes in most East Asian societies.
New orthodoxy
The outlines of a new orthodoxy about events in East Timor last year are becoming clear, at least as far as the Jakarta lobby is concerned. It's a strategic mix of inverted history and national self-flagellation.
Despite the absence of any alternative regional responses to the slaughter, Canberra 'took too much ownership of the process' (Greg Sheridan), meaning the East Timorese should have been left to their awful fate. Indonesia has nothing to be sorry about and no reparations to pay. The Howard government, on the other hand, was 'meddling' (Richard Woolcott) in Indonesia's internal affairs, and has been engaged in 'gratuitous displays of jingoism' (Peter Hartcher), as well as 'triumphalism', 'neo-colonialism' and 'latent racism' (Richard Woolcott).
According to this re-writing of history, Howard is primarily to blame for the cooling of the bilateral relationship between Canberra and Jakarta because he abandoned his predecessor's 'special relationship' with Indonesia and is personally uncomfortable with regional engagement.
An alternative view is that the Howard Government has deliberately distanced itself from what it regards as the supine posture of its predecessor because it believes the public disliked the morally dubious relationship struck between the Keating government and the New Order regime specifically, and what it saw as an 'over-accommodation with Asia' more generally. When Canberra cashed the bilateral cheque last September it bounced, despite claims about the 'ballast' which Gareth Evans and Paul Keating allegedly infused into the relationship.
For the Jakarta lobby, the bilateral relationship is refracted through the personalities of Howard and Wahid. Leaders' summits are more important than building democratic institutions. According to former diplomat Duncan Campbell, the lobby is 'making a ritual study of the entrails of Wahid's spasmodic performance divining how Javanese, and how much of an expression of Asian values it all is'. This is simply replacing the Suharto cult with the Wahid cult, a strategy which promises to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Howard, however, is unimpressed with Wahid's unpredictable and erratic performance, and is unsure that he yet commands support across the spectrum of Javanese elite opinion. The prime minister sees no need for an urgent restoration of good relations and is prepared to wait to deal with Jakarta on his terms. In the meantime he would be well advised to offer tangible support to those nascent democratic institutions which will embed a more liberal political and civic culture in Indonesia. This is much more important than the atmospherics of leaders' meetings.
Scott Burchill (burchill@deakin.edu.au) teaches international relations at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
Opening that dark page
Victims of the 1965-66 anti-communist mass murders are working to expose the truth. They face some determined opposition.
Stanley
The simple office sits in a cheap housing estate in Tangerang, 20 km west of Jakarta. On a tiny 250 square metre corner block, the house is not much to look at. Sulami is 74 years old and often sick. She and her younger sister rented this office in March 2000 to run the Research Institute for Victims of the '65-'66 Killings (Yayasan Penelitian Korban Pembunuhan 65-66, YPKP).
They set up the institute on 7 April 1999 to collect information on the mass murders that claimed about two and a half million lives. Last March they visited the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). They explained they wanted to work towards prosecuting those responsible for gross human rights violations against Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members or alleged members in 1965-66. They were considering prosecuting the Suharto government. However, Komnas HAM said they could only offer limited support because rules restricting the movement of people once labeled 'communist' were still in effect.
Supported by several non-government organisations, the YPKP committee became the first group to demand that a 1966 government decree banning the teaching and spreading of communism-Marxism/ Leninism (known as Tap no. XXV/MPRS/1966) be abolished. They first tried to meet with the speaker of parliament, but failed.
Opposition
A number of groups do not want the historical truth of the events around the 1 October 1965 Incident (when General Suharto took control of Jakarta and later of the country) exposed. An Islamic jihad group armed with swords recently visited President Gus Dur in his palace and expressed their anger because he wanted to abolish the 1966 decree on human rights grounds.
Even some leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama, Gus Dur's own religious organisation, vented their anger at him when at a Friday prayer meeting he suddenly declared he wanted to say sorry to the 1965 victims and their families. Gus Dur confessed that many members of NU's own youth organisation Banser had become militia members who took part in the massacres.
Muslim political parties within the loose Central Axis coalition had already begun to dislike Gus Dur's leadership when he showed a readiness to accommodate minority groups and open diplomatic relations with Israel. They seized on the proposal to abolish the 1966 anti-communist decree as a reason for building opposition to Gus Dur. Law and Legislation Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra, who comes from the Crescent Star Party PBB, even felt called to express his disapproval of his president's idea openly at the party's congress in early April. He had to do this to avoid being beaten in the race for party president by hardliners such as Fadli Zon, Eggi Sudjana and Ahmad Sumargono. When Yusril vowed to resign from cabinet if Gus Dur pushed ahead with his proposal to abolish the decree, he was greeted with loud applause.
The birth of YPKP and the unwonted appearance in public of several prominent leftists who had once been political prisoners, combined with the president's idea about the 1966 decree, made a lot of people fear the rebirth of the communist party PKI. Some parliamentarians even said the very survival of the state was at stake. Young people held some well-organised demonstrations opposing Gus Dur's idea in big cities in Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi. Some observers suspected that military officers with a grudge against Gus Dur were behind the actions.
The most amazing thing is that the strongest opposition to Gus Dur's reconciliatory idea came from old nationalists like Ruslan Abdulgani, who said it would provide an opportunity for the PKI to regroup. In Sukarno's days, Ruslan was the spokesman for a political manifesto that put forward the idea of combining nationalist, religious and communist parties into a single front called Nasakom.
Sulami, who was once secretary-general of the Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani), doesn't feel too anxious about these political developments. 'I believe President Gus Dur will push ahead with reformasi. Democratisation will go on. This will give millions of victims of the 1965 Incident a chance to discover the truth', she said.
To this end Sulami and her colleagues, among them committee members outside Jakarta and a French researcher, are busy building a database of all the cruelties inflicted around the military-backed 1965 Incident. Despite a shortage of funds, YPKP is growing. Branches now exist in several cities in Java, Bali, West Sumatra, and North, Central and South Sulawesi. 'Of course many of our supporters are our own compatriots. Most of them were on Buru Island', Sulami said.
Together with the human rights group Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa (NSB) and ably assisted by some young members of the People's Democratic Party PRD, YPKP on 5-15 April held a training session on the techniques necessary to investigate the 1965-66 killings. About a hundred people attended it. Initially the exercise was to be held in a Catholic retreat centre, but that failed when the proprietors found themselves being terrorised by military intelligence and several people who said they belonged to an Islamic group. These people threatened to burn down the place just as had been done to the (Protestant) Doulos Complex in Cipayung, East Jakarta, when they insisted on going ahead with hosting training for former PKI members.
Hasan Raid, former member of the High Command to Retool Revolutionary Elements (Kotrar) and now an advisor to YPKP, said the appearance of YPKP had stimulated anxiety among some people that their crimes against humanity in the past would be exposed. 'People who talk about a PKI revival are actually telling us more about their own fears that the sins they committed against their fellow citizens under the protection of the 1966 decree will be revealed', said this old man, who spent thirteen years detained without trial in Nusakembangan jail and who is now a grandfather.
Truth
YPKP says its only interest in opening an investigation into the 1965 mass killings is to discover the truth. 'If the PKI is proven wrong, let it be wrong. I am only challenging the way punishment was meted out. It's just the killings that we are making an issue of', Sulami explained. YPKP intends to conduct an evaluation of its discoveries in December 2000. 'At that time we will decide if we have enough data to proceed to prosecution or not. If not, we will go on collecting more information that has been kept secret by the New Order powers all this time', Sulami went on.
The idea of setting up YPKP arose from a simple humanitarian impulse. Between the Incident of 1 October 1965 and when the military arrested her in early 1967, Sulami had moved around freely for a year and a half. She heard a lot of stories about the military murdering civilians they suspected of communism, and even saw some herself. After her release she worked in the catering section of a detention centre. Bit by bit she saved the money she earned for the purpose of conducting an investigation into the murders. Her data gathering efforts became more intensive when she was asked to accompany several foreign researchers to some remote locations. She used these trips to add to her own data set.
In June 1998 a television crew came from Australia to make a documentary on efforts to open a mass grave in Blora, East Java. Sulami became the main source for the film. It was later broadcast simultaneously in several countries on 30 September 1998. Among those who contacted her with messages of support were the novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Hasan Raid, Kusalah Subagio Toer (Pramoedya's brother and formerly with Lekra), Sumini Martono (widow, formerly with Gerwani), Dr Ribka Tjiptaning and Haryo Sungkono. This eventually led to the establishment of YPKP
Stanley is a journalist in Jakarta.
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
Scenes from an occupation
Review: A lone Australian filmmaker records East Timor's history-making year of 1999
Carmela Baranowska
In September 1999 I was among the last group of journalists to be evacuated from the UN compound in Dili. In the middle of East Timor's crisis we never knew what would happen next. As the Hercules aircraft took off from Dili airport we expected the worst - further genocide and international indifference. We were wrong - but East Timor's history in the last 24 years would hardly have led us to believe otherwise.
By this stage I had spent four months in East Timor, filming day to day for my 67-minute documentary Scenes from an occupation, which was broadcast as two parts on SBS TV 'Dateline' in 1999. There were 600 journalists in East Timor during the referendum, but I was the only filmmaker to document the last six months of Indonesia's occupation.
From the beginning in March 1999 I was adamant that interviewing Timorese 'after the fact' would be of little use. I planned to be in East Timor over a long period. I believed I could document reality 'as it happened'. I wanted to see and hear the Timorese speaking to one another, without the mediating influence of a Western expert whom the audience could recognise. If I missed an event there would be no re-enactment.
After the massacre at Liquica in April 1999 my filming concentrated on reactions at the headquarters of the Council for National Timorese Resistance (CNRT) in Dili, specifically from the survivors who went there to give their eyewitness accounts of what took place. At that time there was no UN presence, nor any international observers in East Timor. Amazingly, the Australian government was still arguing publicly that the militias were not supported by the Indonesian military. Kosovo dominated world headlines. East Timor was largely forgotten.
The massacres at Liquica and Dili in April 1999 have been overshadowed by what is usually referred to as 'the post-ballot violence'. As a filmmaker who documented both periods I would argue that the killings in April were a well-orchestrated dress rehearsal by the Indonesian military and their latest offspring - the militias.
By late August there had been a predictable transformation in Dili's militia. They now wore personalised 'Aitarak' sweatshirts, provided by the TNI. They had also been joined by Kopassus soldiers - locals and journalists who knew them sighted them repeatedly in Dili's suburb of Becora, also wearing the 'Aitarak' logo.
For the East Timorese the role of the Kopassus special forces in destabilising East Timor was hardly a new phenomenon. In taped addresses, sent out from house arrest in Jakarta and circulated throughout East Timor before the ballot, Xanana Gusmao reiterated their prominent historical role in orchestrating violence for their own advancement.
Initially Australians showed only muted indifference to such allegations. However as 1999 progressed this gradually turned into a ready acceptance by the mainstream media and eventually even by the government. By the end of the year Australia's commercial Channel 9 network was referring to Indonesia's 'brutal occupation' of East Timor. Back in January, the ABC had still been politely referring to the territory's 'integration' into Indonesia.
Any account of 1999 - whether documentary or written - can only ever be partial. But the mere presence of a video camera in 1999 helped render individuals and organisations as documented history, whereas the massacres at Mt Matebian in the late 1970s and Kraras in 1983 live on only as memory, song and oral history.
As East Timor moves towards independence the Timorese have already begun to document their own histories for their own purposes. During this period of accounting it will be the East Timorese person who will sit opposite the Indonesian military general and ask 'Why?'
Carmela Baranowska is a documentary filmmaker. 'Scenes from an occupation' is available for sale to individuals, schools, universities and community groups. Email for Australia/NZ admin@roninfilms.com.au, elsewhere viagemfilms@hotmail.com, web site www.roninfilms.com.au.
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
Sulami explains why
An extract from Sulami's speech at YPKP's first anniversary
"Indonesia at this moment, all Indonesians, feel that this country is moving towards something new. Something free from the darkness of oppression and exploitation, from the corruption, collusion and nepotism that was born out of absolute power, from the economic and political crisis that grew out of the greed of its leaders. No nation can move into the future with its feet chained to a historical burden, to those dark, traumatic moments that will forever haunt the national character in the future. That burden must be released. This nation must bravely face up to its fears, to the truth that lies behind the trauma. Only then can its character once more grow healthy and strong.
This is no different to other nations who have had to leave behind a black page in their histories. They first of all needed to know what happened. So that their grandchildren will know, and not repeat the same mistakes committed by their forebears, not experience the same disaster over and over again. The South African nation, black and white, worked together to investigate, to dig out, to expose all the wrongs that they experienced together. The Cambodian nation have opened up all their records from their dark past, they have let their eyewitnesses speak so that those crimes against humanity should never be repeated. The Argentineans have done the same. West Germans have welcomed their East German brethren: communists at that! Many other nations have had the courage to face up to their dark past, to open up that bitter reality and then move ahead as nations that have become more democratic."
Inside Indonesia 63: Jul - Sep 2000
More than six decades after being inspired as an undergraduate in Sydney, Ron Witton retraces his Indonesian language teacher's journey back to Suriname