Black Friday due to impudence

Black Friday due to impudence

By Wimar Witoelar

JAKARTA (JP): In a recent edition of the Asian Wall Street
Journal, Jay Solomon wrote:

"The irony of Friday's clash is that parliamentarians said
they genuinely believed they had met the aspirations of the
people in passing broad guidelines to reform both Indonesia's
political and economic systems.

"Cloistered behind barricades manned by some of the 30,000
troops deployed for the four-day session, legislators signed off
on decrees that, among other things, paved the way for fully
democratic elections next year: presidential term limits, curbs
on presidential powers, and guidelines for more political
parties."

This newspaper is designed for international audiences whose
knowledge of Indonesia may be incidental, so we should add some
information to provide a proper perspective.

While some legislators may have the aspirations of the people
in mind, the government-controlled legislature had been
systematically engineering its membership in favor of close
supporters of the regime.

Apart from the majority who were placed in the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) by Soeharto's political machine,
members are chosen to perpetuate government control. This is the
government that failed to use the opportunity of mid-term
replacements as a means to get a political balance.

No opposition leader was invited into the MPR, with President
B.J. Habibie opting to choose friends, relatives and cronies
instead. Not having intimate knowledge of the political
personalities of the appointed MPR members, the foreign press
cannot easily see this. It was this MPR that was in session the
night the students were killed.

"Cloistered" is the right word, because as students and
supporters were being abused by police and military forces, the
MPR members had a boring time listening to speeches. One TV
station broadcast showed a succession of members snoozing and
chatting on mobile phones. Members stayed in the MPR compound or
were shuttled to their hotels, both of which were heavily guarded
areas, isolating themselves from the people they are supposed to
represent.

A weird touch was supplied by the armed civilians brought in
by government forces. Many foreign journalists failed to see the
significance of the unsavory types brought in from remote places
and given permission to arm themselves in the name of MPR
security. In fact, these violence-prone men started clashing with
local communities from the first day, turning off all remaining
public support of the MPR session.

By the second day, it did not matter to the public what
resolutions were being passed in the MPR. Nobody paid attention
to the last-minute compromises being forged by skillful
politicians of Golkar and their government-military patrons.
What mattered was that the attitude of the government and
military had become not only antipeople but also outright
hostile.

For the last six months since Habibie took office, the student
movement had been in limbo. They were fragmented between those
who thought Habibie deserved a chance to prove himself and those
who insisted on bringing the reform movement to its logical
conclusion.

The original idea was to reject not just Soeharto but the
entire New Order regime, of which Habibie was seen as an integral
part.

To make matters more complicated, newly awakened interests
found they could use Habibie to gain political ground. In a few
months, Habibie's supporters had consolidated themselves into a
new coalition looking beyond 1999, forsaking their transitional
role in favor of a more permanent role.

The crucial task was to stay in power until the elections and
participate through Golkar, which had taken on a new life. While
this is still open to analysis, the fact remains that the
government chose to stand by while troops shot students and
citizens in cold blood -- some were shot within campus
perimeters, once thought to be safe havens. Several were shot by
live bullets rather than rubber ones, which also are real enough
to kill at close range.

Much of the shooting was done while the President, the Armed
Forces commander and government officials sat through a tedious
final session of the MPR. Evidence abounds that numerous options
came and went to stop the shooting or to prolong a bloodless
standoff by using retreat points predetermined by riot control
planning.

It seems that the punitive fatal shooting was taken as a
policy option instead of the more benevolent preventive stance
taken with normal riot containment practices. The government did
not seem to realize that killing people as opposed to the other
options was a self-defeating way to ensure the passage of the MPR
resolutions. How could anyone with a strand of moral fiber see
the point in killing the very same people who are supposed to be
represented in the people's Assembly?

When Black Friday was officially acknowledged the next morning
by a body count of the dead and hundreds wounded, the nation was
brought to tears. What did the government do? To his credit,
President Habibie expressed condolences. But in the same breath,
he went into harsh rhetoric on television, instructing the Armed
Forces to take firm action "to ensure order", failing to
recognize that it was the military which created the disorder.

Various Cabinet ministers blamed the students for bringing the
tragedy upon themselves. Apologists for the military from the
minister of education and culture to government-sponsored
commentators flooded television airtime with propaganda to turn
the blame on the people and away from military violence.

In a tragicomic twist, the government arrested several people
for suspected makar (conspiring to topple the government). There
is no logic behind the sedition charges against highly respected
senior citizens mostly grouped in the National Front (Barisan
Nasional).

The accusations are largely based on a meeting held in a very
public hotel the same day the student demonstrations started. The
suspected declaration, while brave, was signed mainly by people
who are known for their civic spirit and many past contributions
to the nation. But in the Soeharto style of assuming ignorance,
the government is forging along with a high-profile
investigation. The idea seems to be to divert attention away from
the true issue to be investigated, the use of live ammunition and
extremely harsh handling of unarmed student demonstrations.

The students' desire originally was to have their voices heard
above the din of the 1,000 status seekers in the MPR building. So
what do we have now?

(1) A military defined by violence, a commander getting
further and further away from the Gen. Wiranto whom the
Washington Post said "had gone further than any of Soeharto's
other close aides in apologizing for abuses committed by the
military". Now, the Washington Post reports, people accuse
Wiranto of having the same blood on his hands as the soldiers for
whom he had been apologizing.

(2) A President whose facade as a democrat and reformer has
now been discarded in favor of a more realistic image of a
desperate, defensive and ruthless ruler who hangs on to his
position by the use of sheer power, much in the mold of his hero
and teacher Gen. Soeharto. Ultimately, it is Habibie's
insensitivity to the cries of the people that created Black
Friday.

(3) On a happier note, the students found unity for the first
time since May, when Soeharto's sudden resignation created a
vacuum that he masterfully filled with his creation: Habibie, the
man nobody wanted at first but everybody accepted for six months
as they jockeyed for power.

Given the chance to prove himself as a useful transitional
president, Habibie chose instead to maximize the enjoyment of
power. He luxuriated in the attention and the perks of office
such as by giving awards, presiding over a new cronyism and
grandstanding.

Habibie lost the people's patience over several days in
November. The mandate he never got from the MPR now has also been
withdrawn by the public. A state of political vacuum waits to be
filled by a new leadership worthy of capturing the trust of the
students, the only rightful owners of the reform movement.

The writer is a public affairs commentator.