Opportunity to become 'hero' opens for Habibie

Opportunity to become 'hero' opens for Habibie

By Donna K. Woodward

MEDAN (JP): Soeharto's barely veiled attempt to intimidate
Habibie publicly may be the first time he has shown him any
respect. He is clearly afraid of Habibie's dawning (albeit
belated) independence.

The students are implacable. Women have left the kitchen and
taken up the struggle in the streets. The villagers and farmers
that Soeharto thought were his, have at last looked up from their
fields and said, "Enough!"

Habibie has no choice but to listen to the people -- Indonesia
is, after all, a democracy -- and the people are demanding
Soeharto's accountability. Soeharto sees that this time Habibie
may indeed be ready to embark on a journey toward reform, without
his handpicked escorts at Habibie's side. And he is nervous.

The politics of language and the dangers of euphemism have
become popular topics of discussion in Indonesia. Now the Master
of Euphemism, he who corrupted language as he corrupted public
ethics, has again spoken, this time through his "mouthpiece" (as
unprincipled lawyers are sometimes called in the United States).

"If Soeharto goes to court, it could drag down the government,
bringing senior incumbent and former officials as well as all the
cronies suspected of accruing ill-gotten wealth into messy
litigation," said Yohanes Yacob (The Jakarta Post Nov. 30, 1998)

Translation: "If you try this, you'll be sorry. I'll see to it
that you are the first of my cronies in the dock."

Next we are assured Soeharto is ready to be tried as a
suspect, but only if he can choose the triers of fact Attorney
General Ghalib and the National Police.

Other respected public figures need not apply. Yacob expressed
Soeharto's full support and readiness to be investigated for
corruption and immediately painted a terrifying picture of what
would happen to the nation if the investigation went forward.

Yacob denounced the public condemnations of Soeharto and
blamed these for slowing down the legal process, instead of
placing blame for the delay where it belongs: at the feet of the
procrastinating Ghalib.

The verbal obfuscation goes on and on. If Soeharto believes he
is innocent, he more than anyone should welcome a prompt,
independent investigation and open trial. In fact a few hostile
parties on the team might lend credibility to his cause. Of what
is Soeharto afraid? Could it be he is afraid of Habibie?

Though it will not seem so to those who have lost family
members to the murders and rapes and burnings, viewed in the
context of other reform movements and social revolutions
Indonesia's reform movement has accomplished a great deal in a
short time, and relatively bloodlessly.

Indonesians ousted a brutal and corrupt dictator; set in
motion the wheels of electoral and constitutional reform; forced
the almighty military to apologize for certain atrocities and
assent to the gradual phasing out of its sociopolitical role; and
reclaimed rights of free expression that had been thoroughly
repressed for generations: Indonesians did all this in less than
seven months.

If much remains to be done, there has nevertheless been a
portentous radical shift from political passivity to activism
that touches all social segments, from academics and political
leaders to becak (pedicab) drivers and farmers. How many other
countries have done this without protracted civil war?

For better and for worse, it is President Habibie who is now
at the center of Indonesia's survival. Habibie represents the
despised status quo, but he also represents constitutional
continuity. Few want the status quo to prevail, but people do
want the republic to survive.

So far Habibie has been more noted for defending a corrupt
status quo than for leading the country toward political reform.
Now he has another opportunity to exercise presidential
leadership.

On a more crass level, it is also his opportunity to avenge
Soeharto's May 20 cruelty, when the later said to those
counseling his resignation: "Do you really think this creature
here can handle the demands of the presidency?" (Soeharto may not
have used those words exactly, but this was the point he wanted
to make). How will Habibie now respond to Soeharto's desperate
warning to "Back off"?

Soeharto has paid Habibie an unparalleled compliment. He is
afraid not just of an independent investigation, but of him and
his government's unexpected survival. Soeharto may suspect that
Habibie at last has the political viability to cut the umbilical
cord that binds him to his past, and lead the reform that
Soeharto himself could not.

Do not bow before your former mentor's bullying. Proceed now
with an independent investigation of Soeharto. Let Soeharto come
to court and give evidence against you and other cronies. Though
Habibie is not yet his country's hero, he can still be its
savior.

The writer, an attorney and former American diplomat at the
U.S. Consulate General in Medan, is president director of PT Far
Horizons.