Sutiyoso: a suspect turned city governor

Raymond Toruan The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Sutiyoso has an impressive track record.

He was Jakarta Military Commander in 1996 when the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro 58 was attacked by military and police forces of then-president Soeharto's authoritarian administration.

The attack was a culmination of events that began with Megawati Soekarnoputri, who was elected as PDI chairman at a party congress in the East Java capital of Surabaya in 1993, but who was then ousted by a government-backed party congress in the North Sumatra capital of Medan in early 1996. A veteran politician by the name of Soerjadi won the party election and formally replace Megawati, as engineered by the government.

Megawati's supporters refused to recognize Soerjadi as chairman and used the party's headquarters as their own political base. It soon became a very popular meeting place, and a symbol of growing opposition against the Soeharto's New Order regime.

Soeharto's patience snapped.

On July 27, 1996, hundreds of supporters of Soerjadi, conveniently backed by police and military personnel, brutally attacked the PDI headquarters. The headquarters, where some 300 Megawati supporters happened to be present at the time, was destroyed in a few hours. Many people were killed and many others went missing, most of whose fates and whereabouts remain unknown, even today. More than one hundred PDI supporters were arrested and detained for months without due legal process. The attackers, however, were not apprehended.

According to Military Police Commander Maj. Gen. Sulaiman A.B., Sutiyoso was a suspect in the July 27 incident, even though his name did not appear on a formal list of suspects issued by the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office.

Having slipped through the cracks, Sutiyoso was awarded one year later with the governorship of Jakarta for a five-year period (1997-2002). Soeharto needed a strong Jakarta governor to secure the presidency in the general elections of 1998.

While Soeharto fell from power in the events of May 1998, Sutiyoso maintained his position, even as violent riots devastated many parts of Jakarta and left many people dead, raped and missing.

He continued to survive through the short presidency of B.J. Habibie accompanied by more bloodthirsty riots and many more killings. The streets in the Indonesian capital were filled with dangers, while public facilities were allowed to deteriorate through sheer neglect. He also survived the succeeding and similarly short government of Abdurrahman Wahid, while places of worship within greater Jakarta became targets of bombings.

On July 23, 2001, Megawati was elected President of the republic and the victims of the July 26, 1996, incident were optimistic that justice would finally be delivered after nearly six years. To their great disappointment, however, their ideal president seemingly had many more pressing issues on her list of priorities. The victims were not going to be vindicated.

Sadly enough, this fact did not come as a surprise. The shortage of funds, rising unemployment, increased poverty among the populace and other social and economic disorders that had ensued since the economic crisis in 1997 were reasons enough for Megawati to put aside the specific interests of her former, loyal supporters.

Truly, Megawati had her hands full with a host of criminal cases targeting members of the political elite. Hutomo Mandala Putra, or Tommy, as the youngest son of former president Soeharto is known, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the murder of a Supreme Court justice after more than a year in "protected" hiding. He was later sentenced to prison and is currently serving out his sentence. The Central Bank Governor, Sjahril Sabirin, was sentenced to a ridiculously short term for corruption of the BLBI (Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support Facility), but was then freed without bail, pending his appeal to a higher court. The Speaker of the House, Akbar Tanjung, was prosecuted on charges of misusing the Bulog (State Logistics Agency) fund, and similarly sentenced to a ridiculously short term, and was also let free pending an appeal.

All of these utterly appalling events in the country helped Governor Sutiyoso to stay out of the spotlight, away from the not-so-watchful eyes of the media, and he managed to escape public scrutiny up to the last months of his first term.

Earlier this year, two huge environmental disasters befell Jakartans while the governor was busy counting the eggs of opportunity left in his basket before his term expired in October, 2002. Neither were natural disasters, and experts had warned of their occurrence long in advance so that appropriate preventative measures could be taken.

It had long been predicted that major flooding would hit the city in early 2002, five years after the major disaster in 1996, and many experts had delivered their warnings towards the end of 2001.

The inept city administration, however, took them lightly. Flood control projects were not carried out properly, city planning was poorly managed, and no clear guidelines were issued as to what should be done once the flooding started.

The flooding began during the third week of January after several days of heavy rains, which swamped the capital for about three weeks and left at least 380,000 people, out of a population of over 10 million, homeless. However, humanitarian efforts to help the flood victims immediately after the disaster did not come from the city administration, and even after a few days of swampy Jakarta, the city administration still failed to address the problems seriously. It goes without saying that the floods caused tremendous economic losses. In his defense, Sutiyoso conveniently blamed Mother Nature!

Pointing his finger thus, he escaped having to explain why, for many years, his profligate administration had kept disbursing lucrative building permits for locations which were not supposed to be developed; why 813.63 hectares of Jakarta coastal wetland and mangrove stands had disappeared; why the canals in Jakarta had been left untended for long periods of time; why almost 60 percent of flood control projects in 2001 were not carried out even though funds had been allocated; and why there was a complete lack of a cohesive strategy to manage the 13 rivers flowing through Jakarta.

In tandem with the flooding, came the garbage dump fiasco. Jakarta produces at least 25,000 cubic meters of garbage every day, and most of it is disposed at Bantar Gebang which is located outside Jakarta. The major of Bekasi, who has authority over the area, closed the site on Dec. 5 last year due to environmental damages. As a result, garbage piled up haphazardly in many parts of the city, spreading its putrescent smell in all directions, not to mention endangering public health. In combating this problem, Sutiyoso fired the chief and the deputy of the City Sanitation Agency, and paid billions of rupiah in compensation to Bekasi mayoralty.

When the governor submitted his performance report on the 2001 City Budget near the end of May, somehow he managed not to mention his administration's failure in preventing the massive losses caused by the floods, and the gross mismanagement of the city's garbage. His pampered 85-member City Council at first publicly faked disappointment at his accountability, but eventually accepted his report.

Jakarta is constitutionally unique compared to all the other provinces of Indonesia. While all other provinces share their political sovereignty among three equally powerful centers of constitutional authority -- the province, the district and the village -- such political power sharing does not exist in Jakarta. With the absence of political power at the district and village levels in Jakarta, this capital-city-cum-province is the least democratic of all Indonesian provinces. The governor of Jakarta is not elected by, nor is he accountable to, the people of the city/province. All he needs to do is to accommodate the interests of the majority of City Council.

This explains Sutiyoso's "success" in his "accountability speech" for the City 2001 Budget in May and his following "accountability speech" in July, which marked the end of his term as governor.

It does not matter if he failed to lead the city during his five-year term; if he was unable to uphold order and security in the city; if he tolerated armed civilian militia groups; if he had no interest at all in serving the needs of Jakartans by improving transportation and other public services; nor if he failed to implement and uphold sustainable development practices in this chaotic city. Public outcry does not count in Jakarta.

What matters is how Sutiyoso correlates with City Council and the people in power in this republic.

Still, it is not impossible to imagine his name listed in the Guinness Book of World Records someday -- as the first governor of Jakarta to survive four consecutive presidencies.

What a record!