Sukarno, Nixon and Gus Dur

Sukarno, Nixon and Gus Dur

By Susanto Pudjomartono

JAKARTA (JP): It was mid February 1967. Five four-star
generals paid a visit to president Sukarno in his official
residence in Merdeka Palace, Jakarta. The generals, the chiefs of
staff of the Army, Navy, Air Force and National Police plus the
minister of defense were on a special mission.

They were sent by Gen. Soeharto, then the real power holder of
the new regime, to persuade Sukarno to officially transfer
presidential power to Soeharto.

The meeting was reportedly a deeply emotional event. Sukarno
had by then practically lost all of his official power. He had
been censured by the legislature, which on Feb. 9 called for a
special session of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly
to remove him from the presidency.

Sukarno's refusal to blame the Indonesian Communist Party as
the main actor behind the abortive Sept. 30 Movement drew strong
criticism and raised speculation that he was somehow involved in
the coup attempt.

Yet, although he had been stripped of power, Sukarno still
commandeered millions of loyal supporters, especially from his
political strongholds of Central and East Java as well as from
the marines and the Air Force. If he wanted to, Sukarno could
have easily mustered support from them to defend him.

Soeharto clearly understood the situation and that is the very
reason why he sent the five generals to meet Sukarno.

Reportedly there were a lot of tears shed in the meeting.
Being the only non-Javanese in the meeting, minister of defense
Gen. M. Panggabean could not follow the whole conversation, which
was conducted mostly in Javanese. But, he later revealed that
after Soeharto's message was conveyed, Sukarno repeatedly said
"Kowe kok mentala" (How could you do that to me?), and each time
everyone shed tears.

To make the story short, Sukarno finally agreed to hand over
his presidential power to Soeharto, leave Merdeka Palace and move
to the Bogor Palace with his second wife Hartini. While his
children -- including the current Vice President Megawati who was
then 20 -- were hastily sent to join their mother, Fatmawati,
Sukarno's first wife, who lived in Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta.

History later recorded that Sukarno did not call on his loyal
supporters to defend him. Obviously he knew that if he had done
so, blood would have spilled and Indonesia would have plunged
into civil war. Being a man whose obsession was the unity of
Indonesia, apparently Sukarno preferred to lose his power rather
than see shattered the country he helped found.

On Feb. 20, Sukarno issued a statement stipulating that "to
end the current political conflict and for the safety of the
people, the nation and the country" he agreed to transfer his
authority to Gen. Soeharto. On March 7 to March 11, the Assembly
convened and elected Soeharto as the acting president of the
Republic of Indonesia.

Years later, on Aug. 7, 1974, the patriarch of the Republican
Party, Senator Barry Goldwater, together with Senator Hugh Scott
and the House Minority leader John Rhodes, were ushered into the
Oval Office of the White House. They were also on a mission, an
"unpleasant duty to perform", as Goldwater later was quoted as
saying.

It was an unpleasant duty indeed. The three Republican
senators were sent by the Republican Party to inform president
Nixon of the grave situation that out of 100 Senate members,
possibly only four would vote against the move to impeach Nixon
for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

The word resignation was never spoken. But Nixon reportedly
responded, "I don't have many alternatives, do I?" It was later
known that even before the Goldwater visit, Nixon had actually
decided to quit. He announced his resignation the following
evening, and left the White House the following day, Aug. 9, at
noon, while his vice president, Gerald Ford, was being sworn in.

The morale of the two stories is that a leader should have a
sense of rationality and a sense of reality. In the case of
Sukarno, when he had to choose between civil war and removal from
office, he chose the latter.

By not even trying to cling to power, when he was still
capable of doing so, Sukarno showed his statesmanship, and chose
his destiny. After stepping down to live in "political
quarantine", his health deteriorated for lack of proper care. He
died a lonely man on June 20, 1970.

President Nixon was also a rational man. When he saw that
there was no other way to go, he decided to quit the presidency.
History later reviewed his presidential years, and he even
regained some of his popularity in the 1980s.

Indonesia now has Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid as president,
who has been censured twice by the legislature (DPR) and is
facing possible impeachment in the upcoming special session of
the People Consultative Assembly (MPR) scheduled for Aug. 1.
Instead of trying to accommodate the censures, Gus Dur has vowed
to fight to the end to hold onto his presidency.

He has called the DPR's move to oust him unconstitutional. He
claims he still has the support of the people and the armed
forces. He has threatened to unleash his millions of diehard
supporters in East Java and call them to the capital city of
Jakarta to take over the DPR building to stop the Assembly from
convening its special session.

He also has repeatedly threatened to impose a state of civil
emergency to give him extraordinary power to dissolve the
Assembly and the DPR, to arrest his political foes and call for a
snap election. In the event that the Assembly issues a decree to
remove him from office, he has vowed he will stay in Merdeka
Palace.

When asked who would execute his order, for the military has
to date defiantly resisted his plan to impose a state of
emergency, Gus Dur reportedly said that if needed, his millions
of supporters would execute his order.

It is a great pity for us to see a leader like Gus Dur, who
was elected for his democratic ticket, to resort to such
undemocratic tactics. Judging from his erratic moves in the past
months, all indications show that somehow he has not only lost
his sense of reality, but he is trying to deny reality.

The country has suffered enough in the last four years.
Another crisis caused by a -- God forbid, bloody -- showdown
between Gus Dur and the DPR (and the Assembly) would certainly
cripple the country.

Sukarno and Nixon displayed their statesmanship by taking
reality into consideration, and at the end of the day their
decision showed good and rational judgment. Could we expect this
kind of thing from Gus Dur? It is unlikely that a group of
respected people would try to persuade Gus Dur to give up, since
a similar mission failed in the past. Everything now depends on
him.

Is it possible to hope that, if somehow something has really
clouded Gus Dur's mind, then for one fleeting moment in the next
few days, a sense of reality will flash into his mind? Something
that will move him to make the best decision when the time comes,
something that starts and ends with: "For the sake of the nation,
I hereby decide to step down"?

A leader is judged by history. What kind of track record he
leaves, how history records him or her, depends on his or her
deeds. History shows that a leader without a sense of
rationality, without a sense of reality, can only create
nightmares.

Most would likely want to remember Gus Dur as the nation's
teacher and leader, the guru bangsa.

The writer is a journalist at The Jakarta Post.