Aligning with Soehartoism won't end bombings, terror

Max Lane, Visiting Fellow, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University

Indonesia is in a process of transition out of the period of dictatorship during the presidency of Gen. (ret) Soeharto. This process of transition is occurring in the midst of a severe and continuing economic crisis, often seen to be linked to globalization.

The transition has already been marked by political volatility: A president has been ousted in a virtually unconstitutional manner; a war has been declared in Aceh; there are armed conflicts in Maluku and Papua; support for the president and all the major parties is declining; there are protests from all sectors of society every day. There has been two serious bombings of public places in a period of 11 months.

It is unlikely that the transition out of volatility will be over within a decade.

The Howard government's has renewed military cooperation with Jakarta, including with the army's special forces. This policy is an extension of the Australian government's statement of support for president Megawati Soekarnoputri's military solution to Aceh's political situation.

In this way, Howard has decided to stand with Megawati and the hangers on from the Soeharto order against all those voices of the newly emerging Indonesia who want the military to withdraw and who are striving for an end to state violence and coercion in politics.

The transition out of dictatorship -- a dictatorship which all Australian governments supported and lauded -- has not been and is not some kind of automatic sociological process. It has been and still is the result of a political struggle by Soeharto, the groups around him and the groups that still think like him against a new generation of Indonesians wanting a different, democratic future. Soeharto did not bow out voluntarily he was forced to go by hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating on the street.

But Soeharto's going did not end this struggle. The Megawati government represents an essential continuity with the Soeharto mentality constrained only by a stronger pro-democratic public. In the Politics and Security Committe of her Cabinet are herself; the Vice President Hamzah Haz, head of the conservative Islamic party forged by Soeharto during the dictatorship; the national police chief and several Soeharto Generals: Hendripriyono, Hari Sabarno, and Bambang Yudhoyono.

It is not surprising then that Megawati is implementing a military solution to the political problem of self-determination in Aceh; that there are more political prisoners in goal now than in the last years of Soeharto; that almost no military have been convicted for human right violations under Soeharto and that no human rights charges have been brought against Soeharto himself.

But democratic sentiment in opposition to the government remains strong. This is most obvious around issues of state and military violence. Over the last few weeks more and more Indonesians from the democratic camp have criticized the military operations in Aceh. These include the prominent writers WS Rendra, Ratna Sarumapet, Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Goenawan Mohamad. The Aceh Commission of the National Human Rights Commission has been increasingly critical.

Prominent labor and political leaders like Dita Indah Sari have called for an end to the war. There have been peace vigils, and even a peace concert involving pop groups and jazz singers echoing this sentiment. Journalists have often been at the forefront of these criticisms also.

These are the voices of change that represent the next Indonesia. All public opinion polls also show rejection of the old elites and a longing for something new.

The Megawati government, encouraged by the Howard government, continues to rely on violent coercion, that is terror, in Aceh, in Papua and often against farmers and poor workers.

Can anybody expect that there will not be some people, often driven to inhuman irrationality by desperation, hopelessness, or alienation generated by the deep poverty and humiliation of an economy in crisis, who decide to reply in kind? The current policies, which depend on violence and coercion, will bring no end to bombing incidents.