Last ditch stand politics revisited<\/p>\n
By Herb Feith<\/p>\n
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Sunsets can be tranquil or turbulent. In the
\nturbulent ones there is often a moment of intense brightness just
\nbefore the sun disappears. The American cultural historian
\nWilliam Irwin Thompson developed his theory of \"enantadromia\" on
\nthe basis of that phenomenon.<\/p>\n
The theory explains a great deal of what happened in the last
\ntwo months of Soeharto's rule, and what is happening in Malaysia
\ntoday.<\/p>\n
It also helps to account for the fact that many well-informed
\nobservers of Indonesian politics thought in March, April and
\nearly May of this year that Soeharto would see out another five-
\nyear term as president.<\/p>\n
Enantadromia as it bears on politics is basically a theory of
\ndesperate behavior. It sets out the new options to which rulers
\nturn when they are cornered, and when new challenges have emerged
\nto which their previously successful policies are irrelevant and
\nthey are faced with new challengers which their earlier methods
\nare incapable of suppressing.<\/p>\n
Desperate situations call for desperate measures. Hardline
\nadvisers argue that some of the restraints the ruler previously
\naccepted need to be set aside.<\/p>\n
Unconventional thinkers come into their own, as do imaginative
\nintelligence operatives of Machiavellian outlook. Their message
\nis simple, though paradoxical: \"You badly need to buy time. You
\nneed to discredit the dissidents who are saying you are finished.
\nTo do that you must persuade people that it is 'businesses as
\nusual', that the dynamics of politics is basically unchanged. But
\nto do that you need to act ruthlessly\".<\/p>\n
The extraordinary behavior of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
\nin relation to his one-time protege and long-time deputy Anwar
\nIbrahim over the last month -- the strange accusations and
\nphysical intimidation and violence -- make sense if Mahathir is
\nindeed fighting for his political life.<\/p>\n
Theories of last stand politics are a useful tool in relation
\nto otherwise unaccountable ruthlessness in Indonesia as well.
\nThey help to explain the kidnapping and torture of 21 opposition
\nactivists in March and April, including Pius Lustrilanang and the
\n14 who have yet to reappear. They help to account for the
\nshooting of four students at Trisakti University on May 12, and
\nthey offer a plausible hypothesis in relation to the systematic
\nand \"engineered\" side of the rioting, burning and raping of the
\ndays immediately after.<\/p>\n
* The July 27 affair.<\/p>\n
There had been a dress rehearsal to this year's grand show
\nheld between May and July 1996. It seems clear that Soeharto
\nhimself decided in May of that year -- after weeks of hesitation
\n-- that Megawati had to be knocked out of the leadership of the
\nIndonesian Democratic Party (PDI). He was eventually convinced
\nthat he could not otherwise be sure of a Golkar victory in the
\nMay 1997 elections.<\/p>\n
He seems to have fully appreciated the risks involved.
\nPolitical sophisticates have described it as a situation of \"maju
\nkena, mundur kena\" (we will be hit if we go forward and hit if we
\ngo back).<\/p>\n
The decision to intervene forcefully led to army operatives
\norganizing a special PDI congress in Medan in which Soerjadi
\nreplaced Megawati as chairperson of the party. It also led to the
\nearly morning attack on the party's Jakarta headquarters, which
\nsparked the large-scale rioting of July 27, 1996. In combination
\nthese two actions succeeded in buying the regime time, almost 22
\nmonths in fact.<\/p>\n
* The \"Second Police Action\" of December 1948.<\/p>\n
The Catholic Party-dominated Beel government of the
\nNetherlands faced a similar dilemma in the last month of 1948.
\nIts negotiations with the Republican government of Vice-President
\nand Prime Minister Hatta were stalled.<\/p>\n
The Republicans were proving to be stubborn opponents,
\nunwilling to acknowledge their military weakness and political
\ndivisions. Having suppressed the Communist revolt which broke out
\nin Madiun in September (now known as the \"Madiun Affair\"), they
\nbecame bolder after American opinion began to shift in their
\nfavor.<\/p>\n
Gen. Spoor, the commander in Jakarta\/Batavia at the time,
\nargued that diplomacy had failed. The time had come, he told his
\ncivilian superiors, for Indonesian nationalists to be taught a
\nlesson. A quick strike at the Republic's three or four remaining
\nurban centers would get the government to the point where it was
\nnegotiating with a far more amenable group of Indonesians.<\/p>\n
Many Dutch leaders, both in Jakarta and the Hague disagreed,
\nofficers as well as civilians. Ruthless military action would
\nmerely inflame nationalist passions, they argued, and increase
\ninternational sympathy for the Republic, as had happened during
\nthe maverick Captain Westerling's time in Sulawesi (Celebes) two
\nyears earlier.<\/p>\n
But the Beel government eventually agreed to act on Spoor's
\nadvice. In defiance of UN-brokered cease-fire arrangements,
\nSpoor's forces attacked and occupied the Republican capital of
\nYogyakarta and other towns in Central Java and West Sumatra on
\nand after Dec. 18, 1948. Sukarno, Hatta and many other
\nnationalist leaders were captured and taken into exile in remote
\nparts of the country.<\/p>\n
It proved to be a disastrous mistake. The quasi-puppet
\ngovernments the Dutch had established in parts of West Java and
\nEast Indonesia under their control resigned in protest. Guerrilla
\nresistance became more vigorous than ever before and a campaign
\nof scorched earth operations against Dutch-owned plantations and
\nfactories began.<\/p>\n
The Dutch also came under stronger internationally fire than
\never before. Support for the Indonesian Republic emerged in the
\nU.S. Senate and the Truman administration threatened to cut
\nHolland out of its Marshall aid program unless it began
\nnegotiations with the Republican leaders it had just jailed.<\/p>\n
By the middle of the year the Dutch had decided to cut their
\nlosses and by December had formalized that decision, abandoning
\ntheir claim to sovereignty in the archipelago.<\/p>\n
The new entity which emerged, the Republic of the United
\nStates of Indonesia, was federal in form, which helped the Dutch
\nto save face, and it did not include West New Guinea, today's
\nIrian Jaya. But it was nevertheless a state headed by Sukarno,
\nthe Indonesian most feared and hated by the Dutch.<\/p>\n
In the words of a Greek saying: \"When the gods are about to
\nkill a person, they blind him first\".<\/p>\n
The writer, an Australian political scientist, is currently a
\nvisiting lecturer at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.<\/p>",
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