The innocent suffer when the rallies turn violence

The innocent suffer when the rallies turn violence

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Fear and annoyance mingled in the man's voice
as he described the horror of getting caught among thousands of
rowdy political party supporters in a street rally here.

"They took over the streets, they made us yell their party
slogans or wave their hand signal, and beat us if we failed to
comply."

In Jakarta, a woman gazed sadly at her car vandalized by
supporters. They had smashed the windows with iron bars.

Another resident swept up shards of glass from outside her
home after supporters in the same rally attacked her house and
those of her neighbors. Her sadness was compounded by reports the
vandals were residents of the neighborhood adjacent to hers.

"The two neighborhoods have long supported different parties,"
a bystander confirmed.

A taxi driver in Jakarta rolled down his window and gave the
party signal at the urging of the mob.

"They told me to yell, so I did it," he said. "They told me to
wave their party's hand signal, I did it. And then they demanded
that I give them my money. But I refused, and they banged on my
cab."

Violence and traffic accidents involving convoys of supporters
have marked the 1997 election campaign -- at least 49 deaths have
been attributed to campaign-related traffic accidents. Several
observers said the trend toward brutal street campaigning was
more pronounced in Yogyakarta and some Central and East Java
cities.

Even before the campaign began, the three election contestants
of the Moslem-based United Development Party (PPP), Golkar and
the Christian-nationalist Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) had
spouted vague justifications on why the street rallies, which are
officially banned, should go on. Anniversaries, national holidays
or even the burial of a party member were reason enough for the
supporters, most of them youths, to take to the streets.

"This is a campaign, man," a youth hollered to justify his
reckless antic of yelling and swaying to and fro atop a bus roof.

This is not how everybody sees it. According to Riswandha
Imawan, a political observer at Gadjah Mada University in
Yogyakarta, the motorcades are not part of the campaign but
nothing more than an excuse for revelry.

"Speeding, running red lights, breaking traffic rules,
brutality, and other acts that violate the ethics of community
life -- they see those things as justified for the sake of
defending the party's cause," Riswandha said.

"I doubt that those involved in the convoys are real
supporters of the party in question," he continued. "We see the
same faces joining rallies of different parties."

He also noted how the supporters only descend into brutality
once they join a rally. "When those same persons ride on a
motorbike without any party symbols, they again become law
abiding people," he said. "They don't attack other people or
force other motorists to the roadside in order to give them right
of way."

Economy

Riswandha used social-economic theories instead of political
ones to determine the reasons for the supporters' behavior. He
listed limited access to education, negative experiences with
rigid bureaucracy and unemployment among causal factors.

"Youths of the lower social-economic classes become brutal
during the rallies because of the social and economic pressure
they face in daily life," he said. "They let off steam and vent
their discontent over social economic pressure by behaving
brutally."

He believed discontent had brewed among the youths over the
past five years, reaching its boiling point today. "Once they
found the means to vent their disappointment, they did it to the
maximum."

He said campaign rallies served as a forum of protest. "Behind
the party symbols, they feel safe to express their discontent
because they won't be held personally responsible, no matter what
they do."

Riswandha said responsibility for the adverse fallout from the
rallies should to a certain extent be shared by the supporters
and the party leaders.

He also said symbols of the state become the target of public
discontent during the rallies. "It's no wonder that campaign
participants also vented their discontent at representations of
powers, such as police officers."

"There's a reciprocal relationship between the variables of
social-economic dissatisfaction with the arrogance of the
powerholders, which then incites the youths to be brutal," he
said.

Explosive

The three political parties have straddled the fence on the
issue of street rallies. Social psychologist Darmanto Jatman of
the Diponegoro University believes the party leaders have in fact
intentionally "cultivated" the youths' potential to "explode".

He accused the parties of inconsistency. "On the one hand,
they agreed not to hold motorcades, but on the other, the party
leaders allowed the youths to wear party symbols and go on the
streets."

"Those youths have become mere political tools of the
parties," Darmanto said.

For the youths, speeding on motorbikes or clinging atop the
roofs of trucks and buses in a devil-may-care manner gain peer
approval. "They feel like they're some kind of heroes. They are
helping something, someone."

It's no wonder that the young people's support for PDI and PPP
during the 1992 election was extraordinary. They saw the two
minority parties as needing help," he said.

This attitude then fomented into aggressiveness toward
anything that smacked of the ruling Golkar or the bureaucracy, he
said.

Darmanto did not believe that participation in the street
rallies was a sign of idealistic support toward the political
parties. "No, they just want to be heroes, and this wish is used
well by the parties in question."

He warned the supporters may one day learn their trust in the
party leadership was misguided. "If something untoward happens to
the youths, it's possible that the party leaders will just turn
the other way and claim the youths are not really party members."
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