Blame hypocrisy for lost of East Timor

By Donna K Woodward

MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): "To many leaders of the world, (B.J.) Habibie appears to be a democrat, a supporter of human rights. That is a pity." So says Megawati Soekarnoputri in her article in the Sept. 20 edition of Newsweek magazine, Blame it [East Timor] on Habibie.

No, the pity is that Megawati, admittedly a leading opposition figure, may be mistaken for a reform leader. The article might lead international readers and donors to believe that Megawati has exercised since January 1999 some leadership-like role on East Timor issues. Or that she has been a prophetic voice crying out in the wilderness of post-Soeharto Indonesia, urging Habibie to get on with reform. She has not.

Megawati was elevated in 1993 to the position of head of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) largely if not wholly because of her name. Only after the unrelenting attacks on the corrupt regime of Soeharto by other, braver national leaders -- which led to Soeharto's downfall in 1998 -- did PDI members transform their party (now called the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle -- PDI-Perjuangan) and Megawati as its head into a galvanizing political force.

Many neutral observers interpret the recent electoral success of Megawati as proof not of her leadership capability, but of the superior political network her party had in place. PDI Perjuangan was the only political party formed after the downfall of Soeharto to have had a past life and experience as a viable grassroots, vote-getting organization. And too, there is Megawati's aura, borne of her status as Sukarno's daughter.

Though Megawati won a plurality of nearly 40 percent of the popular vote in the June General Election, she is not guaranteed the presidency. The Indonesian electoral law has placed the election of a president not directly in the hands of the people, but with the members of the People's Consultative Assembly, which will meet in November.

Her suggestion that Habibie is doing something sinister by attempting to gain a winning position in that election as other candidates have tried, is simply not honest of her. Like the other hopeful candidates, Megawati will need to form a winning coalition to be elected president.

Like Habibie's Golkar backers, PDI Perjuangan leaders have actively sought support from other parties. Tentative coalitions have so far failed to hold. For the time being President Habibie is Megawati's only real rival for the presidency, which may explain her attempt to paint him almost as a second Soeharto. This, Habibie most assuredly is not.

Like Megawati, President Habibie would like to style himself as a reform-minded presidential candidate.

Habibie has, in fact, done some surprisingly positive things during his tenure, the most important of which is to allow a degree of freedom of political expression unheard of in Indonesia or most other Southeast Asian countries. He has recognized the right of the East Timorese to choose their own political destiny, though his government's preparations were woefully, even criminally remiss.

While declining to control his military subordinates properly, Habibie nevertheless has not resorted to misuse of his position as Commander in Chief to retain office. But he has thus far failed to execute the two most important reform mandates given him by the people of Indonesia: to bring Soeharto to trial on charges of corruption for the 30 years of theft of the national wealth by his children and cronies; and to bring to justice members of the military who are guilty of human rights violations committed over the last decades.

Now he is plagued as well by a bank corruption scandal surpassing all earlier bank corruption scandals. Like Caesar, Habibie is learning that appreciation for any good he has done will be buried under mounting resentment for what he has refused to do to clean up his government. Unless Habibie immediately takes decisive steps to prosecute corruption and human rights violations, and expose the rotten roots of Bali-gate, he will have no moral standing and virtually no popular support for his pursuit of the presidency.

And what about Megawati? Ironically, Megawati seems no more inclined than Habibie to prosecute Soeharto, or to alienate the military establishment by curtailing the broad authority they have so shamefully abused. A further irony: her party has also allegedly received huge "quiet" donations from the very banking establishment that, were she to become president, she would need to exterminate of its systemic corruption.

On crucial issues like the future role of the military in the government and the prosecution of corruption in the past, Megawati has been irresponsibly (for a presidential candidate) mute.

She did speak out to oppose President Habibie's offer of political choice to the people of East Timor, nostalgically mirroring the nationalistic bent of her late father: "East Timor is a natural part of Indonesia."

But Megawati has declined invitations to discuss other issues in public forums with other candidates, saying it was not the Indonesian way. It is not the usual way is what Megawati should have said. And this is precisely the problem. Despite the rhetoric and the mass appeal and the enormous hopes placed in her, Megawati and her party are likely to bring a business as usual approach to running the country.

Though Megawati's article purported to be a plea to readers not to confuse the people of Indonesia with the government of Indonesia, this is not what it was. The article was a well- written attempt to portray Megawati in the international media as something she is not -- a strong-minded, articulate, reform leader.

Megawati has held a political leadership role for nearly six years longer than President Habibie and the other presidential candidates have. Where has her voice of opposition to human rights abuses in East Timor been?

Megawati's article decried the current government's sacrifice of public interest for narrow political and personal interest; but has she or her party been different? Megawati was the people's favorite in the General Election, and in furtherance of democratic principles this should rightly be given the greatest weight when the Indonesian electors choose the next president of Indonesia.

But Indonesia's presidential election should be seen for what it is likely to be: a victory of pragmatic politics over principled leadership, just as elections are in the world's other democracies. For, Megawati's speech writer's words to the contrary notwithstanding, Megawati has yet to establish her own bona fides as a reformer. For the sake of the millions who believe in her, we must hope that she will.

We cannot blame Habibie alone for East Timor. Blame hypocrisy, from whatever source it slinks. America, Australia, Indonesia: we all witnessed Soeharto's Army's crimes down the years, and were silent. So too was Megawati Soekarnoputri.

The writer is president director of PT Far Horizons.