After a year, where have they all gone?

On June 21, 1994, the government revoked the publishing licenses of Tempo, Editor and DeTik weeklies. A year has passed and a lot has happened. The following story, and four others on Page 3, recount the activities of the former employees of the three publications, some of whom have sought to go their separate ways.

JAKARTA (JP): Bowo, a former journalist of the defunct DeTik newspaper, tried his luck as a singer after the weekly was banned a year ago. He began singing songs composed by his former chief editor, Eros Djarot.

Eros was already an accomplished pop-song composer before he entered the press business. His composition of the 70s, Badai Pasti Berlalu (The Tempest Will Be Over), for example, was made the theme song of a film of the period by leading director Teguh Karya and has become an evergreen melody in Indonesia.

Eros says that, thus far, no producer has been willing to release his latest album because the lyrics are considered to be too "strong", expressing what he and his colleagues felt in the wake of the banning.

"There is another album containing songs about love and other things. I'm sure we will be able to start selling it in late July," he said.

Bowo and Eros are only two of scores of people displaced by the banning of the Tempo, DeTik and Editor newsweeklies. It has been a year since the government revoked the licenses of the three publications. One year that has seen a lot of things: anger, frustration, fear, the bitter breakup of friendships and also glimmers of hope, determination, courage, camaraderie, struggle and victory. Some of the year's events were unprecedented in the history of the Indonesian press.

Each of the three weeklies has its own post-banning story. Editor, which the authorities said was banned for administrative reasons -- the weekly was managed by people other than those whose names appeared in its permit -- seems to have had the quietest time in the netherworld. Its former employees only gained public attention on one occasion, when they launched a new magazine, Tiras, early this year.

DeTik's afterlife has been more colorful. Considered the most gutsy publication in the country before it was banned, the tabloid, which managed to achieve a record circulation of 500,000 within a year of commencing publication, had its license snatched by the government on the basis that its focus on political news conflicted with its license to report on crime. Eros & Co. once tried to make a comeback by penetrating the editorial board of the Simponi tabloid. However, they quickly pulled out after the government threatened to close that newspaper down. It seems the tempest is not yet over for Eros & Co.

"I shall return," Eros quoted General MacArthur. "But certainly not now, because the situation is not promising. There are too many obstacles to creativity, too much fear and suspicion."

Today Eros and colleagues spend time making songs, publishing books, and writing poems. Some Eros' reporters -- mostly young people, some even students -- have gone back to college or joined various local NGOs to fight for their cause.

"When DeTik was banned, I decided to continue my studies. I want to fulfill my mother's hope to see me wearing a toga," said Dadang Rachmat, 24, a former DeTik reporter, now a student of political science at the National University in Jakarta.

But journalism is still in his veins and one day he will make a comeback, he says.

Tempo

Tempo no doubt grabbed the most public attention. Founded in 1971, for more than two decades it was a must for the country's middle class as well as Indonesia-watchers abroad. It also became well known as a factory for professional journalists. For Tempo's former staff, the past year has been a year of living graciously and proudly, if bitterly and painfully. The magazine achieved historic successes during its life and still, after its demise, its people have managed to act in a way unprecedented in the history of the press in Indonesia.

Several weeks after Tempo's banning, 40 of its former journalists and a number of non-editorial employees, including five office boys, who refused to join the Gatra magazine, set up a cooperative-like firm, PT Reksa Mitra Berjaya, and rented a house in Tebet, South Jakarta, as their new base. They have come to be known as the "Tebet Group".

They refused to join Gatra, which was founded a couple of weeks after the banning and is controlled by timber tycoon Bob Hasan, saying they suspected the editorial policy of the magazine would never be independent. About 70 percent of Tempo's former employees, mostly from the non-editorial sections, did join Gatra.

Some of the uprooted reporters are working on a contract basis for the Sunday editions of the Media Indonesia and Sinar Pagi dailies and act as consultants, paid and unpaid, for several papers in Jakarta, including Neraca, and in the provinces. Others work for the SCTV private television station, production houses, work freelance for various print media or write books. One photographer has opened his own photo studio.

They all donate between 25 and 40 percent of their earnings to the firm's treasury, which subsidizes former colleagues in need, including Ahmad Taufik, a reporter who is now in prison for publishing the Independen underground bulletin on behalf of the Alliance of Independent Journalists, of which he is the president.

Although they have been scattered all over the place, doing various jobs, they all still cherish a dream: to return to what Tempo's former chief editor Goenawan Mohamad terms "our promised land."

They are well aware that the road ahead is long and hard, despite their recent legal victory in the Jakarta Administrative Court.

"We are prepared to live this way for at least seven years," said Bambang Harimurti, a Tempo journalist since 1982, who rejected the label "heroic" for what he and his colleagues are doing. "It's nothing unusual," he said.

Split

Sadly, the events of the past year have pitted journalist against journalist to the point where reconciliation looks impossible.

The move of 70 percent of the former workers, especially the journalists, to Gatra is still a source of regret within the Tebet camp.

Said Bambang: "Had they not moved to Gatra, the government would have had no alternative but to allow Tempo to resume publication, because the President himself had promised (Australian Prime Minister) Keating to provide us with new jobs. Thus, with their move to Gatra, the government could excuse itself by saying 'The jobs are there. Only, they don't want to take them.'"

Feeling uncomfortable with the hard stance adopted by the Tebet camp towards Gatra staff, some journalists left the Tebet camp and set up their own base in Prapanca, South Jakarta, calling themselves GET-plus (The Association of ex-Tempo's -Plus). They argue that the antipathy towards Gatra staff is "undemocratic".

"If we failed to dissuade them from joining Gatra, so what? Everyone has the right to make his or her own choice. Willingness to accept differences in principles is part of democracy. Didn't Tempo itself teach its people to be democratic?" said Achmad Kurnia, 36, a member of GET-plus.

Gatra staff, meanwhile, have refrained from launching counter- attacks in words, preferring to concentrate on their work instead.

"We need to reassess the meaning of idealism," said Herry Komar, 49, a Tempo reporter since its birth who is now Gatra's chief editor. "In my view, we also provide a voice for people's aspirations through this magazine." (Johannes Simbolon/als)