Sutiyoso: a suspect turned city governor

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!