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.