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.