Students' role in Soeharto's fall

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.