Regions know what to do to develop themselves<\/p>\n
The following is the second of two articles on management,
\nwritten by Owen Podger, a management consultant who for the past
\nyear has been team leader for an ADB-grant technical assistance
\nto support decentralization.<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Every region this writer visited over the past
\nyear is unique in its approach to decentralization, all
\nexperiencing excruciating frustration because of the lack of
\nguidance from the centre.<\/p>\n
But governments, representatives and fledgling civil society
\ninstitutions in every region are actively creating concepts of
\n\"region\" from scratch, carving out for themselves the respective
\nroles of government, legislature, community, activitists,
\nparties, and society as a whole.<\/p>\n
We may not agree with the style of leadership in regions, and
\nbe deeply disturbed by the small number of \"little kings\", but
\nmost regions would appear to have more effective leadership than
\nthe center at the moment.<\/p>\n
Vriens claims \"worse, the President has abolished the ministry
\nof regional autonomy that was responsible for introducing it\".
\nThe year and ministry are wrong. Vriens refers to the August 2000
\nabolishment of the State Ministry of Regional Autonomy. This
\nministry took six months to establish its own program, and in its
\n10 months produced only two of the vast number of required
\ngovernment regulations.<\/p>\n
During the year before, implementation of decentralization was
\nbeing led by a coordinating minister who was also responsible for
\ngovernment administrative reform.<\/p>\n
A coordinating minister is a more senior position than a state
\nminister. In October 1999, Gus Dur abolished this senior
\nposition, undermining the coordination between implementation of
\nregional autonomy and the central reform that is just as
\nessential for the success of decentralization.<\/p>\n
Creation of the office of the ministry of regional autonomy
\nwas the mistake, and abolition of this ministry last August only
\nhalf corrected it.<\/p>\n
Was regional autonomy introduced to avoid break-up of the
\nnation, as Vriens suggests? This seems to be a myth. Ten years
\nbefore the new law was introduced, former home affairs minister
\nRudini conducted his famous Golkar campaign trail throughout the
\ncountry \"listening to the grass roots\", and discovered that
\ncentral government policy and program, time and time again, did
\nnot match local needs.<\/p>\n
At that time, the fear was not so much the break-up of the
\nnation, for that was not even contemplated, but the internal
\nthreats to the power of the centre. Thus Rudini and his academic
\nadvisers from Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University and elsewhere
\nproposed the elimination of autonomy at the provincial level
\naltogether.<\/p>\n
A series of seminars around the nation in the early 1990's
\nillustrated just how enthusiastic regional administrations and
\neducated elites were for great autonomy at the local level,
\nthough the abolition of provincial autonomy was somewhat
\nsidelined in the debate.<\/p>\n
After all, regional government was enshrined in the
\nconstitution, and had been widely discussed throughout the Old
\nOrder, culminating in a decentralization act in September 1965,
\nthat was even more liberal than the Law 22\/99.<\/p>\n
It was introduced just weeks before the Sept. 30 incident that
\nintroduced the centralistic New Order, and was never implemented.
\nIt was replaced by Law 5\/1974, which still maintained the
\nintention of managing most government affairs locally, but this
\nlaw was never effectively implemented.<\/p>\n
While the Rudini initiative ran out of steam, regional
\nautonomy remained a central policy in the State Guidelines from
\nthe MPR for the following decade. Thus Law 22\/1999 is more a
\nbreakthrough of an old agenda, than an effort to hold the country
\ntogether.<\/p>\n
But the weakness of the provinces in the Law remained, as an
\nattempt to prevent too much power at a level which, the elite
\nconsidered, could challenge the state.<\/p>\n
It was the old principle of divide and rule. Irian Jaya was to
\nbe divided into three provinces, without consultation with the
\npeople.<\/p>\n
Law 22\/99 was prepared with reference to the draft World
\nCharter of Local Self Government, which calls for popular vote on
\nchanges to boundaries. At the time Indonesia even participated in
\nconferences debating the draft.<\/p>\n
It is interesting to note that Law 22\/99 does allow for the
\nviews of the people to be taken into account in the definition of
\nvillage government, complying with the draft Word Charter at that
\nlevel, but not in the definition of regions. This indeed would
\nappear to have been a deliberate policy.<\/p>\n
This long history of the development of regional autonomy, and
\nthe highly exposed dramas surrounding the former state ministry
\nof regional autonomy and the ministry of home affairs, can hardly
\nbe called introduction of \"change of Indonesia's government
\nstructure by stealth\", as Vriens claims.<\/p>\n
If it was not \"introduction by stealth\", then what was it? It
\nwas introduction with unreasonable haste, without a clear plan,
\nwith doubtful support in the huge central bureaucracy (which is
\nunderstandable but not honorable), and with an unfortunately low
\nquality of the little implementing regulation that has been
\ndeveloped so far.<\/p>\n
These are all signs of chaos in the center, not chaos in the
\nregions, though the impact of that chaos cannot help but be
\nmanifest in the regions.<\/p>\n
What is encouraging in the regions, in both government and
\ncivil society, is the level of hope that they will manage their
\nown destinies through the confusion, and the level of debate and
\nexpression of aspirations -- and thus conflicts -- despite the
\nenormous odds generated by the haste, and the lack of plan or
\ncentral support or legal framework.<\/p>",
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