Students' role in Soeharto's fall

By Hermawan Sulistyo

JAKARTA (JP): While there is no doubt students played an important role in toppling the Soeharto regime, the question remains: What was the extent of their influence?

Different assessments have tried to gauge their role, and all have reached divergent conclusions.

Although Ikrar Nusa Bhakti's article Military to win if civilian fails (The Jakarta Post, May 2) focused on the possibility of the emergence of military rule, he also mentioned that the success of the student movement was partly because of the support they received from the middle class.

There is some truth in Ikrar's argument. But when he pointed out five factors that contributed to Soeharto's downfall, Ikrar seemed to belittle the role of the students.

It is definitely misleading to say that students would not have succeeded without the support of the middle class. The resignation of 14 cabinet ministers and other political pressure exerted by various elite groups indeed contributed to the political push for Soeharto to step down. But even without this "support", the students were already unstoppable. They had reached a point of no return.

The 1998 student movement actually started rather late in the wake of political movements. Various factors played a role, two clearly important. First, many students, especially those studying in Jakarta, come from middle-class families. The economic crisis first hit those students who are from the lower class. This fact alone explains why cities like Yogyakarta and Surakarta, where many students from the lower class study, were the first ones to experience the movement. Students from Jakarta were the latest in joining their friends from smaller cities.

Second, these students, who were mostly born in the late 1970s, grew up in an apolitical and nonpolitical atmosphere. There were no significant political affairs during their life, except when the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) was in conflict in 1996. Yet, this party's dispute was too far from their daily activities to force them to get involved in politics. Under such an apolitical and nonpolitical situation they ran their student organizations. Thus, many student leaders were "apolitically" elected.

When these student leaders, many of whom were elected through nonpolitical qualities such as high achievement in sports and arts, had to face a political crisis, they were disoriented for a while. Thus, small groups of student activists formed what they called posko, an acronym for pos komando which literally means "command post" (technically speaking, it was a "camping post"). Some became informal leaders of these posts, and they were the ones who first moved to the streets.

But within relatively a short time, formal student leaders learned fast. They were racing against these "informal student leaders", although there is no formal organization for the posko. Thus, we saw fragmented student movements. Many joined the formal organizations such as the student senates. Many others joined the posko groups. Still, many others founded various "action units" (kesatuan aksi) with their own posko.

Competition among these groups were not always a fair game. In many cases, this competition erupted into hostility and violence. But, the competition was a powerful driving force to exert political pressure. They tried to outdo each other in bravery to physically confront the security forces. Many posko, for instance, prepared what they called "death squads", although they were totally unarmed.

Learning from the past, student activists believed that student leaders were the ones who would have benefited from the movement. A consensus reached, then, that there should be no leaders. In most cases, a presidium was to replace a structured organization. Every activist then had an opportunity to lead a single action, although in practice still not many students reserved the ability to lead.

In a snowballing effect, student movements grew rapidly. Rumors making the round which gained currency had it that students received political and economic support from outside their campuses. These had a boomerang effect. Many campuses closed their "charity boxes", and students refused to receive money, even from their own university alumni.

Allegations that outside political powers were using the students also had a boomerang effect. Only a handful of "senior counterparts" were accepted into their circles. They were very suspicious toward people from outside their posko. Only in the latest stages of their movements did students receive outside support openly, especially in terms of food and other supplies.

Now, where are the student movements heading? This question has no easy answer. As with other segments of society, they are disoriented. When Soeharto resigned, some students believed that their duty was served. Some decided that Habibie deserved their support and that he should have his chance to prove his leadership. Others were determined to continue their movements under an assumption that Habibie's administration was nothing else than Soeharto's clone.

Many expatriates in Jakarta are unsure whether the riots that exploded concurrently with the mounting student movements would not reoccur in the near future. They use student demonstrations as an indicator of a climate favorable for a riot to explode. If student demonstrations can be used as a proper parameter for a riot, then we should not be afraid. Several reasons could be cited here.

First, student movements have passed their peak with the resignation of Soeharto. It is very unlikely they can gather up to hundred of thousands in number, as in the past. Fragmented targets of the movements also contributed to a smaller number of demonstrations. Second, demonstrations would not lead to another massive riot because the Armed Forces had almost settled their internal conflicts. Lastly, riots would not have taken place had the Armed Forces not been hesitant to deploy their forces.

Third, many segments of the elite have taken the student's role in channeling various interests. This is a kind of "political safety net" for the future. Political struggle is now taking place among various factions within the elite. At the same time, most campuses are now having finals, although some are still sitting their mid-term exams because the semester was so disrupted.

The situation in the near future is still difficult to assess. There are three "regimes" moving together in an unsynchronized composition. The economic regime is already bankrupt. There is still not even the slightest hint of economic recovery. Under Habibie's administration, the exchange rate seems to worsen every day. Meanwhile, the social regime is at a junction. If one of the measures is public trust in the administration, then it was partly recovered when Soeharto resigned. But now social distrust is increasing.

With economic and social regimes not working, it is impossible to expect a viable political regime to work even for a short period. Habibie's announcement of the time frame to conduct an extraordinary session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and the general elections is based on an assumption that the political regime is still viable. In fact, without two working regimes supporting this political regime, Habibie will not last.

To some degree, the viability of Habibie's transitional administration will directly affect the format and scale of student movements in the near future. If Habibie fails to overcome even part of the economic crisis, students will definitely come into action again, this time in a much less massive scale. However, more and more nonstudent segments of the society, especially the workers, will come to the fore to launch rallies.

The writer is a researcher with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and executive director of the Research Institute for Democracy and Peace.