Press censorship

It is with a disturbing sense of deja vu that we learn that the government has again barred foreign journalists from visiting Indonesia's trouble spots like Maluku, Aceh and Irian Jaya. This kind of restriction was practiced some 10 to 20 years ago when this country was under an authoritarian regime. To make the censorship effective, the regime then also imposed severe restrictions on the local media.

Thanks to this complete news blackout, the world knew little about what really happened in Irian Jaya and East Timor, a territory Jakarta acquired by force in 1975, for much of the 1970s and 1980s. When the restrictions were finally lifted in the 1990s, by the same regime but under strong international pressure, the nation as well as the world slowly learned of the atrocities committed by the regime during that period.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which informed foreign journalists based in Jakarta of the ban last week, cited security as the prime reason, without elaborating whose security exactly the authorities were concerned about. If it is the personal safety of journalists, then the government should have no fear. In their quest for truth, journalists know of the hazards that come with their profession. In any case, they would take precautions for their own safety before entering any conflict zone.

If the authorities are concerned about the security situation in these trouble spots, then banning journalists from reporting directly would be counterproductive to their own efforts to restore peace and order. In its attempt to curtail information in and out of these trouble spots, the regime will also likely extend the ban, albeit in different forms, to local journalists. The ban on foreign journalists must therefore be seen as a warning of an imminent attempt by the regime to impose a complete news blackout in Maluku, Irian Jaya and Aceh.

The lessons of East Timor seem to have been completely lost among officials in the current regime. In the absence of any independent and credible reporting, all news that came out of East Timor for much of the 1980s was mostly propaganda put out by both sides in the conflict. Since it was the regime which had imposed the blackout, news it put out had less credibility than that of the proindependence camp. The government and the military must have put out so many lies then that in the end few people believed them on the few occasions when they were actually telling the truth.

In the absence of any independent verification by journalists, news from East Timor then was so heavily distorted that no one outside the territory really knew the truth. The news blackout however kept the rumor mills busy, spreading false information, propaganda and half-truths among Jakarta's elite, diplomatic circle and the local and international press.

Whichever way you look at it, the latest ban on foreign journalists visiting Indonesia's conflict zones is but an initial attempt of the regime to reimpose media censorship. It has certainly created a strong impression that the government has something to hide from the rest of the people in this country and the world. And it could also herald an imminent news blackout.

The ban, and the ensuing news blackout if that is indeed the case, seems completely out character with the present reformation spirit and of President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was once known as a champion of free speech and democracy. Whatever the motive behind it, the government's attempt to control news in and out of these trouble spots however is not likely to succeed in this era of information technology. So, while the ban may be ineffective, the government's credibility will suffer nevertheless. Is it really worth the trouble?