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." (38)