Life is cheap in Indonesia

Life is cheap in Indonesia

Kornelius Purba, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta,
korpur@yahoo.com

A strong sense of grief would be felt by anyone who saw the
pictures of victims of the disastrous floods in Bahorok, North
Sumatra, in newspaper and TV reports on Thursday. However, that
sorrow would quickly turn to anger if they saw the front page of
Indonesia Pos, which showed four Indonesian Military (TNI)
soldiers treating the body of a Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebel
like an animal they had hunted and killed.

Whose consciousness would not be bothered by the death of 100
people in the disastrous torrent in the area surrounding the
orangutan reserve in Bahorok?

In the meantime whose sense of humanity would not be disturbed
to see three soldiers proudly grabbed the hair of the dead
Yustinus Murib while another soldier pointed his gun at Yustinus'
stomach? Even in the most brutal of wars such behavior is
intolerable,

On the Leuser disaster, President Megawati Soekarnoputri, with
no hesitation, placed responsibility for the disaster on the
shoulders of illegal loggers in the nearby Leuser National Park.

Her environment minister, Nabiel Makarim, described the
illegal loggers as terrorists.

"According to the criteria set down in the antiterrorism law,
environmental destruction such as illegal logging can be
classified as terrorism," Nabiel said after meeting with the
President.

But what else can the President do besides sending her husband
Taufik Kiemas to visit the scene of the disaster, distribute some
humanitarian aid and sing the same old song that those who are
responsible will be severely punished, whoever they are?
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla also
promised to disburse Rp 50 billion (US$ 5.8 million) to help the
victims. The family of the deceased will receive Rp 2 million.

Whether or not these promises are kept is not the issue, and
even the victims themselves do not expect much from Taufik or the
minister. There are too many examples of government officials
corrupting donations for victims of disasters, including the
victims of the tidal wave in Flores, East Nusa Tenggara,
earthquakes in Lampung and Jambi, and landslides in West Java. It
was this corruption that moved president Abdurrahman Wahid to
disband the ministry of social services in 1999.

Whenever natural disasters, terrorist attacks or severe
traffic accidents happen, everyone from the president to
ministers and governors act like generous state officials.

First, they promise to cover all medical costs, but if you
check with the hospitals where the victims are treated you will
discover that this promise is rarely realized. Then president
B.J. Habibie made a long list of promises for the victims of the
May riots in 1998 which forced Soeharto out of office, starting
from the upholding of justice to humanitarian assistance. What
happened then?

Second, the officials tend to think that they have solved all
the problems by showing some generosity. They think a death
caused by human negligence or greed, state terrorism or natural
disasters is thoroughly atoned for when the victims or their
families receive a small token of sympathy from the government.

The government officials do not want to think about how to
make sure that such deaths do not occur again. For the government
and many Indonesians, promises are seen as the final solution to
any conflict or problem.

And what of the fate of the Papuan rebels who were killed by
TNI soldiers on Wednesday? If after seeing the picture a person
can still say there is nothing wrong with four soldiers treating
a corpse in this manner, then we may conclude that there is
something wrong with that person's mind.

Indonesia calls itself a civilized and religious nation whose
life is guided by the sacred state ideology of Pancasila. We tend
to link our mystery to our destiny, which was decided by God upon
our birth.

But look at what Nabiel said after branding illegal loggers
terrorists. He clearly showed no interest in doing anything more
than talking. "It is difficult to combat illegal logging because
we must face the financial backers and their shameless
protectors, from the Indonesian armed forces and police, and from
other government agencies."

The last question then is: Who is responsible for all these
tragedies?

A remark by Amien Rais, speaker of the People's Consultative
Assembly, is interesting to note in this case: "Things are just
like a fart; invisible but spreading a foul smell everywhere."