Govts' responses to Bali: Part solutions, part problems

Max Lane, Visiting Fellow, Center for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

On Oct. 14, in the Australian parliament Prime Minister John Howard seized on the terrorist incident in Bali last weekend to justify a further strengthening of repressive "anti-terrorist laws" as well as of the security apparatus in Australia.

In this regard he is no different from scores of government power wielders cynically using the sympathy and solidarity generated among ordinary peoples when they react in horror to acts of terror. Civilized people everywhere want an end to these criminal acts and will demand that governments do something.

But are such government leaders serious? Whether in Canberra or Jakarta, when any social evil emerges, the first step of any serious effort would be to seek out and address the cause of the phenomenon: Why is it happening? Acts of terror do not emerge from no where.

The reality is, however, that all those governments and political forces supporting George W. Bush's war against terror, including the Australian government, show no interest in identifying and eliminating the causes of this social evil.

Of course, to know the cause is not to excuse the individual perpetrators, nor to say that no police measures at all should be taken. But in the end, no amount of tightened security will end this trend unless the causes are addressed.

In fact, heightened security that violates civil liberties and is based on such things as racial profiling will only generate further acts of terror.

Fanatical political, religious, or communal groups did of course, not pioneer the use of terror in politics. Terror in politics was pioneered, and thereby legitimized by states. In the case of Indonesia, terror in politics was institutionalized by the Soeharto-Golkar regime that controlled Indonesia since 1965.

Between 1965-1967 mass terror was carried out on a scale not repeated until the era of Pol Pot in Cambodia. At least one million people were slaughtered, often in public executions. But even after 1968, violence was used to terrorize the population on a periodic basis. Indonesians are very familiar with the history, including incidents such as the Tanjung Priok incident, the Lampung massacres, the "mysterious shootings" (known by the acronym petrus) of the 1980s, the kidnapping and disappearances of student activists in the 1990s are just some examples.

Since 1998 also, all the major political parties have developed para-military groups, which also use violence and terror to intimidate their rivals.

The Soeharto-Golkar New Order regime legitimized and spread the use of violence in politics. All Australian governments, including the Howard government, have defended that regime are complicit in this legitimization of violence.

At the same time the Soeharto regime was using terror to control politics in Indonesia, John Howard tried to tell the Australian and Indonesian people that Soeharto was a "caring and sensitive" leader. Now Howard laments the fact that acts of terror start to hit Australians in Indonesia.

The hypocrisy is mind boggling. Howard should have resigned in shame in 1999. His East Timor policy of acquiescing in the military occupation of East Timor while Soeharto was in power also laid the basis for the East Timorese people suffering also a wave of horrific terror in 1999. The U.S. government is complicit in the same way.

Indonesian regimes after Soeharto, including the Megawati government, bear the same responsibility. There has not been one single prosecution and jailing of any of those government or military officials responsible for the use of terror under Soeharto. Soeharto himself has not even been charged with violation of human rights.

If Soeharto and all the officials of the repression apparatus during his period can get away with terror as a tool of politics, why should anybody be surprised if more elements in society think that terror is a justifiable means of doing politics. While Soeharto and friends remain free and while major political parties maintain uniformed para-military units, terror, i.e. violence in politics, will continue to be legitimized.

Legitimizing terror is not the only form of Western complicity in causes of today's terror. The underlying cause of the spread of non-state terror throughout the world is the deepening social disintegration of so many societies. This is also beginning in Indonesia.

As unemployment and poverty increase and uncertainty about the future among 220 million people worsens social solidarity is undermined. A process is beginning of pitting all against all: Center against region (as with Aceh); regions against center; natural resource rich regions against their neighboring resource poor areas, such as in the Riau case; ethnic group against ethnic group; religion against religion; regency against regency etc.

This process is a direct result of the crisis since 1997. The crisis itself is caused by the plunder of the economy, forced open without protection by the International Monetary Fund.

Western commercial interests drain the country of wealth and destroy its productive capacity, even in rice and sugar, while the local political, business and military elite looks on, acquiescing and enriching itself.

The elite has no solution to the crisis, except to pointlessly beg for more foreign investment. In this whole situation, Western governments, including the hypocritical Australian government of John Howard, are fully complicit.

So a vacuum is created in the search for solutions. A real solution is being formulated out of the thinking by the activist and politicized wing of civil society, but they have not yet won a hearing among the most people.

The conditions have thus been created for the spread of scapegoat politics and demagogic agitation. This is the situation now in Indonesia, as well as globally. Scapegoat and demagogic politics in a world where the ruling elites and governments have legitimized violence in politics will inevitably foster the spread of non-state terrorism.

On the streets of Jakarta, there are many suggestions as to who the bombers are: Al-Qaeda, or some similar group, local or foreign; the U.S. or the CIA, wanting to create a terrorist scare; the Indonesian military or intelligence services; some elite faction wanting to distract attention away from current controversies.

There is no evidence yet who carried out the criminal and barbaric act in Legian, Bali. Whoever carried out this act should be identified and held responsible. But so should those who are responsible for the underlying causes of this violent world: Soeharto, Howard, Bush, the IMF, Megawati and all those who defend the unjust and semi-barbaric system the world now lives under.