A nation at the crossroads

A nation at the crossroads

It has been just a little over a month since President
Abdurrahman Wahid assumed office, but the peril of
disintegration, which has long been quietly smoldering beneath
Indonesia's fertile soil, appears to be increasing by the day. It
is now posing one of the most awkward complications to this
country's first democratically elected government since 1955.

The seeds of dissent and separatism were planted by a
succession of administrations and nourished during the last three
decades by corruption-ridden authoritarian central governments in
Jakarta. Those seeds have not only taken root, but in several
places the dissent has developed into stubborn shoots, which are
proving to be difficult to uproot.

This is true for Irian Jaya, Riau and other regions of
Indonesia. But nowhere has the problem become so vexing and so
representative of the spirit of mutiny against Jakarta's
domination as in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh.
Ironically, this province was one of the strongest supporters of
Indonesian independence under Jakarta's leadership during the
1945 to 1949 war against the Dutch.

It has been argued that a perceived injustice in the
distribution of the national wealth lies at the heart of the
current local rebellions against Jakarta's centralist policies.
Up to a certain point, this contention is true. This explains why
the most vocal demands for independence, or at least for wide-
ranging autonomy, are currently heard in regions rich in natural
resources, such as Aceh and Riau.

The explanation, however, provides just one part of the story.
Indonesia is one of the world's most diverse countries, whether
that be in terms of resource distribution, material progress,
culture, religion, language, or customs and traditions.

One of the outstanding achievements of the leaders of
Indonesia's independence movement was to mold in the late 1920s
all the diverse components living and existing in what was then
the Netherlands East Indies, into one unified whole under the
well known motto: one country, one nation, one language --
Indonesia.

Remarkable as that achievement may be, it has been made clear
that Indonesia's unity is not something that can be taken for
granted, but is something that requires hard work. It was created
by individuals and obviously must take the nation's effort to
maintain. This crucial reality, which previous governments failed
to recognize, has led to disastrous consequences.

The unenviable task of picking up the pieces after the
devastation left behind by his predecessors rests with the
present government of President Abdurrahman Wahid. This could
have been a much easier task -- or at least less of a dilemma --
to accomplish if Abdurrahman possessed the same authoritarian
powers which his predecessors freely resorted to using.

As it is, the President will have to carefully weigh how he
goes about resolving the crisis, lest he risk losing some of his
credibility. Assuming that a popular referendum is what the
majority of people want in Aceh and Irian Jaya, and perhaps to a
lesser extent also in Riau, holding one would clearly be the only
democratic way out of the problem.

After the trauma of East Timor however, the mounting
objections currently heard in Jakarta to this eventuality are
easy enough to understand. After East Timor, any further loss --
of Aceh, and possibly Irian Jaya, Riau and other resource-rich
provinces -- would be certain to generate outright rejection in
the rest of Indonesia that could, at its worst, end in the
fragmentation of the country. Such a scenario is certain to scare
not only the majority of Indonesians, but governments and
political observers throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
Additionally, it would mean a considerable increase in the
potential for trouble and conflict in the region.

As the situation currently stands, a possible way out that
could be acceptable to all parties involved would be to work
toward granting real and wide-ranging autonomy to the various
regions of Indonesia. This strategy takes into account the
reality that federalism is still a dirty word to many
Indonesians, in particular the military.

That problem, however, must be put on hold. The absolute
prerequisite for making such a settlement even possible to
resolve with absolute fairness, is to, for once and for all,
pursue outstanding cases of human rights abuses and injustices
wherever they exist in this country. Unless this action is
carried out, it will be disheartening to think about the future
of this nation, which our predecessors built at the cost of so
much blood and tears.