Everyday human rights violations under the New Order

By Mohtar Mas'oed

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The following stories were familiar to many of us during the New Order period.

Darmin, an orange seller from Nganjuk, always traveled from villages in East Java to Jakarta's markets. On the way he often got into trouble because of his failure to "keep things in order." Police officers patrolling interprovincal roads could always find fault with him: absence of delivery orders, incomplete documents for transporting merchandise and the like.

Every journey he would encounter a different mishap.

Darmin, however, was a good citizen, one who was smart and understanding. He could always find his way out of trouble through musyawarah (discussion to reach consensus) with the use of mutually understood language. Without this skill, he would have missed the opportunity to get ahead of other traders on the way to market. Late arrival meant a long queue and the possibility of late payment.

Darmin always knew that the trouble he met on the way could mean bankruptcy. Unfortunately, he did not know that as a human being he had the right to travel freely in the country of his birth without needing the cumbersome papers. Then, the officers who harassed him might also have been ignorant of the fact that they were violating Darmin's basic human rights.

There was another person, Parman, a clove grower from Temanggung in Central Java. He wanted to earn more from his cloves. He heard the price of cloves in a neighboring regency, Magelang, was higher. Unfortunately, selling cloves outside the district of a clove grower's domicile was prohibited. As a result, Parman had to take the cloves he grew to Magelang stealthily, like a thief. An officer explained the purpose of the prohibition to him, but Parman could not understand it. The officer himself may not have understood it either.

One day Durasim, a farm laborer in Situbondo, East Java, was visited by an official who told him that he had to move because the government needed his land for development purposes. What development? asked Durasim. The official did not reply, but his countenance showed that he was offended by the question. Durasim knew right away that as a commoner he could not pose such a question. Just like Darmin and Parman, Durasim was only confused.

Cooperative

Then there was Marjuki, a lime seller in Jember, East Java, who once had the bright idea to organize small-scale businessmen in his village into a cooperative. He hoped that in this way they could sell their limes directly to factories. The cooperative was set up and briefly ran well until it had to be dissolved because the regulations stated there could be only one cooperative per village, namely the government-controlled village cooperative (Koperasi Unit Desa).

Unfortunately for Marjuki and his friends, the management of the village cooperative did not wish to penetrate big markets directly but preferred to sell their produce through large distributors. They argued that large distributors could guarantee sustainable marketing.

Marjuki had been a university student for a short time and he knew that he had the freedom of assembly. However, the district head simply turned a deaf ear to his suggestions.

In the New Order era, confusion like in the above examples occurred frequently among the smaller people in our society. Is it true that you must have a number of papers to travel around the country? Can the national economy be split like in the clove story? Isn't a land owner entitled to information about why he has to relinquish his land? Is it taboo to exercise the right of assembly to fight for a certain cause?

Many people could not answer these questions and they became confused. Unfortunately the government did not have much time to provide them with the answers. Or maybe the government was confused too?

The above cases show the dilemma faced in enforcing human rights in this country. Frequently the problem does not lie in the violation of civil rights (such as the right of travel) or their political rights (such as the right of assembly and the freedom to express an opinion), rather the problem lies in conceptualization.

On the conceptual level the New Order government placed a greater emphasis on certain economic and social rights, namely the right to be free from hunger, unemployment, poverty and the like.

In this sense, human rights were technical problems to be solved by development undertakings.

If material needs such as food, clothing and housing could be provided for then it would be easier to handle other problems related to human rights, so the logic went. It was believed that these needs could only be fulfilled if economic development proceeded unimpeded.

Meanwhile, activists fighting for human rights saw the other side of the coin. To them, the real goals of development, namely justice and prosperity, could be attained only if citizens were allowed to exercise their civil rights (the rights to determine one's residence, to travel, to profess a religion) and political rights (the rights of assembly, opinion). These activists considered the observance of such rights to be prerequisite to achieving justice and prosperity.

The above stories show how small infringements of human rights can disrupt productivity.

The situation remained the same throughout the life of the New Order government. The government showed a stubborn unwillingness to entertain any discussion of the matter and was unassailable with logic. As a result, the country's political life was fraught with tension and danger.

In a recent discussion, an expert on Indonesia, Daniel Lev, disclosed that the number of people who died in politically- related violence from the end of 1968 onward was higher than at any other time in the country's history.

Political life in 1950, when the country was still in its infancy, was characterized by a much smaller number of deaths associated with political violence, so what has made the New Order so bloody? One of the most likely causes may be the fact that the government attempted to develop the economy very rapidly at a time when society at large, stripped of its civil and political rights, could exert virtually no influence or control over the ruling clique's activities.

The Habibie administration has the opportunity to avoid these mistakes and the incentive to this end is quite considerable. What is needed is national reconciliation. Economic recovery will need the support of all groups in society and this will only be possible if they are all allowed to voice their concerns and interests without restriction.

In the international arena one of the main requirements to gain support, both in commercial and political spheres, is the recognition and upholding of human rights.

Let us prove that the Indonesian government is not a Moloch God, a god who eats his own children.