A time for reflection

A time for reflection

Without much fanfare Indonesia today commemorates the 30th
anniversary of the transfer of a special authority by president
Sukarno to Lieutenant General Soeharto, his minister/army
commander and subsequent successor. Whatever the reason in
Sukarno's mind then, the transfer took place when the president-
for-life had failed to overcome the mayhem in the aftermath of
the abortive communist coup attempt, which took place five months
earlier.

Even before the coup tragedy, president Sukarno's regime had
been a long story of chaos and despair. The economy was in
shambles and politics had become a one-man business marked by
Sukarno's anti-West fever, which pushed Indonesia into isolation.

He declared that Indonesia was far from finished and stated
that the people were "willing to eat stone for the unfinished
revolution". He fed hungry Indonesians with chauvinistic slogans
and tranquilizing political mantras. He took all powers into his
own hands, banning opposition political parties and closing down
their newspapers. Sukarno also made the appointed-members of the
Provisional People's Consultative Assembly elect him president-
for-life.

Complacence led him to fatally misread the situation. His
refusal to address the economic troubles was a ruinous mistake.
U.S. president Richard Nixon might have exaggerated when he said
that Sukarno was "a product of the age of demagogues which
started in the formerly colonized countries after World War II."
An elder Indonesian statesmen was perhaps closer to the truth
when he said that the country's first president was a great
nation builder but not a state builder.

Gen. Soeharto picked up the pieces after receiving a special
letter of authority from Sukarno on March 11, 1966. With the
letter, known as Supersemar, Soeharto banned the Indonesian
Communist Party, which had been waging a campaign of mental
terror on people at every corner of the archipelago.

Soeharto declared that the source of Old Order's troubles was
its violation of the 1945 Constitution. He made the right
decision when he made economic development the top priority of
his administration. He assembled the leading economists, whom
Sukarno left in the cold, to heal the economy's ills. He formed a
cabinet of technocrats, an unprecedented move at the time.

Today the fruits of his programs are recognized by other
nations. Soeharto has moved Indonesia off the list of the world's
poorest countries and has charted an ambitious course for the
nation.

But the success story has given way to new problems.
Indonesians are demanding greater openness. They want more say in
the way the country is governed and greater political
development. The people want to exercise their rights and
freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution, especially the freedoms
of expression and association. They want to take their grievances
to a judicial body that is independent of the executive branch.

This phenomenon is common to all developing countries, though
many have yet to chart the right course and have been plunged
back into chaos. South Korea is a recent example of a country
that is trying to follow up its economic growth with genuine
political progress.

In commemorating the transfer of authority from Sukarno to
Soeharto we should reflect on the mistakes committed by the Old
Order as we try to pave the way to a better future.