CGI creditors must now lend an ear the poor

H.S. Dillon, Observer, Economic Devepment Issues, Jakarta

This Wednesday morning a group of well-intentioned donors is scheduled to sit down with our politicians and bureaucrats to discuss the size of the loans we will get next year. Figures have been bandied around for some time, and it is safe to expect that the final sum will not fall too far from these well-informed estimates.

At the meeting with the Consultative Group on Indonesia, most of our ministers will read statements written for them, and will say that they have only been in their jobs for just over a 100 days. More than one will plead -- do not hold us accountable for the mess we have inherited, give us more time.

No doubt there are a handful of ministers with integrity and a high sense of commitment to fostering democracy in the current cabinet. But their fellow ministers who were junior bureaucrats under Soeharto seem to be intent on turning the clock back. Centralistic and statist, they are once again pushing for top- down, one-size-fits-all, Jakarta-knows-best solutions.

It is important to place the current predicament in context. First, the crisis was caused by widespread greed and complacency. Second, attempts to solve the crisis further exacerbated poverty. It landed Indonesia with a weak and wobbly exchange rate, bankrupt banks, hollow conglomerates and left the government with a mountain of debt.

Rather than keep spending to keep basic services intact and ensure that the poor are protected, our government cuts back on public services, decentralizes and tells the regencies to do the best they can -- in other words, central government issues them a license to beg, borrow, steal, and cheat.

The donor group discussion will center around what appears to be urgent, and sadly what is really important will get short shrift. Although the theme is "Working together to reduce poverty" one fears that the return to "strong and commanding central government" will inspire the bureaucrats to start working separately to rebuild their fiefdoms.

Earlier attempts to focus the debate during the donor consultations on important policies and institutions, which would enable the poor to climb out of poverty, suggests that the government has returned to its narrow concept of poverty, reminiscent of the way the topic was treated during Soeharto's fading rule. Those underlings who have assumed Soeharto's mantle will follow their hero's role as Bapak Pembangunan, the "father of development" who alone knew what was best for his people.

Certainly they do not need civil society to tell them what to do -- they know all that needs to be known about the poor and poverty reduction. They are confident. They have all the answers.

Nobody refutes that the centralistic bureaucracy can get the trains moving on time. Strong central government, backed by a strong and confident military, is an excellent extractive and rights-repressing machine. The chain of command is clear, and the job of the civil servant is to execute orders.

However, the lessons of the past clearly point out that it is exactly this concentration of authority that is most easily corrupted, and ultimately exposes our nation to tremendous vulnerability.

A strong, commanding central government does serve some interest groups well. If one wants to subjugate the poor and weak -- especially if you think of them as the "floating mass" -- then they can be side-stepped while government forms tight alliances with the cronies and their influence peddlers to quietly fleece whatever is left in the budget for their own ends.

In such a system -- as Soeharto learned far too late -- just about everyone is voice-less, and therein lies the frustration. As long as the population is docile, remains uneducated, uninterested, and uninvolved, than such a system can last.

But if, indeed, the population remains uninvolved and frustrated, than surely the economy cannot advance very far, and politics will remain contentious and increasingly divorced from what is needed to restore durable progress.

At this annual ritual, the honorable and distinguished diplomats and ministers will not come to a scuffle, unlike their counterparts performing another annual ritual in Senayan. They will also posture, though, and sound tough in their well-prepared statements.

But everyone knows that the donors want the current administration to survive and keep the radicals at bay in the post Sept. 11 global geo-political configuration. So, in the end, the distinguished representatives of donor countries and international foreign investors will nod wisely and concede that the new ministers are doing the best they can under very difficult circumstances.

They'll pat each other on the back, reminiscing how they had reminded the ministers of the government's unwavering commitment to poverty reduction expressed in Tokyo last year. The ministers, on their part, will be congratulating themselves on the new lending commitment that they have managed to secure, adding another layer to the mountain of debt that their successors must repay.

Indeed, the diplomats, bankers, politicians, and bureaucrats will all be happy at the end of the day. They will have mapped out the solution to poverty without having to bother about involving the poor.

For those who depart the Consultative Group meetings with a sense of mission accomplished, it is worth remembering that persistent poverty breeds despair, and that ultimately despair gives birth to radicalism.

Therefore, in our present context, it is even more important to recognize the links between poverty reduction and transitional justice to solve the overhang of past problems, in a way that addresses the issue head-on -- they who have caused the mess should be made to pay, irrespective of what the legal pundits conclude.

Our bureaucracy -- including civil servants, police, prosecutors, and judges -- have presided over the biggest rip-off in our history, and have done so in the guise of trying to solve the economic crisis to help the poor.

Perhaps, it is time to ask those responsible for this economic mayhem to make amends, and this includes the conglomerates, multinationals, foreign investors and politicians who have so effortlessly teamed-up to loot the state.

Ultimately democracy is the best guarantee that justice will prevail. If we want to be respected as a people, it is time to move beyond rhetoric and continue to advance democracy, in ways that open decision-making and foster public debate.

Learning to listen might well pose the greatest challenge to the current administration.