The state losing control over 'preman' (2)

This is the second of two articles on protected crime by Dr Tim Lindsey, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Asian Law Centre at the University of Melbourne.

MELBOURNE, Australia (JP): In order to transform the power derived from its violence into wealth, the New Order consciously created a parallel "secret" state to ensure elite access to illegal or extra-legal rents; and it was through this system that business and administration were really carried out.

The degree of this bureaucratic system of "secret" corruption and state-managed violence was exposed by the extraordinary evidence given by a local manpower ministry official at the murder trial of labor activist Marsinah.

He testified that, despite the existence of a formal industrial relations system, labor disputes in the Sidoarjo region where Marsinah had worked were in fact conducted through a secret network of government, military and employer representatives known as the Sidoarjo Intelligence System.

Run by the local office of the ministry of manpower, its purpose was to coordinate the exchange of favors between military and employers to ensure intimidation of workers. Identical networks existed throughout the nation, he added.

The New Order state was thus a standover operation offering protection (against "wild street youth" or communists, for example) and meting out punishment in the form of brutality, as with Marsinah, who was killed in May 1993. This is also the case with the August 1996 murder of the journalist Fuad M. Syafruddin.

This was not simply an example of a powerful, centralist state committed to economic development, whatever the cost. On the contrary, the New Order state's quest for illegal rents for the elite often took place even if it impeded development, as evidenced by the Timor national car fiasco or the Busang/Bre-X goldmine scandal.

Development occurred not principally for ideological reasons or in response to the market but rather at elite direction to fund Soeharto's corrupt "franchise" system.

Again, this tradition of the state as the ultimate illicit rent-seeker can be traced back to the revolution. The anti- colonial forces -- whether the republican government, its armed forces or the civilian defense groups (lasykar) militias and bandit forces -- required funds to continue their opposition to the Dutch. This funding frequently came from raising rents on trading within areas under Indonesian control.

It was here that the roots of the New Order business-military alliance began -- through such alliances as military commander Soeharto's financial arrangements with Sudomo Salim.

These corrupt alliances have existed for as long as the Indonesian state, but really began to flourish after the military-backed killings of 1965-1966 removed any substantial political opposition to the military.

The romantic integralistic state envisaged by the 1945 Constitution was thus fragile from the start.

All that was needed to facilitate its transformation into a preman state was the Constitution's imagined "benevolent father" to be substituted by a wicked stepfather: Soeharto.

The prevalence of private or state-sanctioned brutality understandably leads to a common perception that every aspect of the entire state system is unremittingly criminal.

This manifests in the common attitude of absolute cynicism towards any form of authority; an assumption of the worst in any assessment of government actions; the proliferation of widely accepted conspiracy theories; and an expectation of violence as the state's response to any crisis.

In late November last year, for example this lack of faith in the legal system led to the death of Sugeng Riyanto in Magelang, Central Java, when a riot broke out after a judge sentenced an alleged murderer to death.

The crowd was not protesting against the sentence -- they were angry because they were not permitted to see the execution take place on the spot and thus assumed that the judge was bribed to help the prisoner escape. The continuing Tommy Soeharto sage doubtless fed their anger.

The expectation of corruption becomes a vicious circle. Police -- who know that everyone believes they routinely steal confiscated goods or take protection money -- have little incentive not to do so. Likewise, if civilians believe that the state lies and is implicated in violence and crime, then why shouldn't they do the same?

There is, of course, justification for many of the conspiracy theories implicating the state and former elite in corruption and violence. Like the "formless organizations" of the New Order, however, the new bogeyman -- the Soeharto family or their close associates -- are imagined to be behind absolutely everything that goes wrong.

The almost paranoid fear of illegal semi-secret activities against citizens by the state has moved beyond reason to become a pervasive expectation.

The protests and demands of reformasi initially forced the state apparatus to act against some of the preman, but this appears to have been short-lived. The preman are back again.

However, the increasing poverty brought on by the economic crisis has brought with it a backlash and a growth in anti-preman vigilantism. The weakening of state control and the loss of direction among the military since Soeharto's fall have both diminished control over the "masses" and weakened protection for preman.

Attacks on preman have increased markedly over the last year in Jakarta. There are no official figures, but Indonesian newspapers are full of reports every day, and Jakarta's Cipto Mangunkusomo hospital recently even set up a special unit to handle vigilante casualties.

Unraveling the New Order system of violence and corruption -- which dates back not to 1966 but to 1957, when Sukarno suspended democratic processes -- is not something that can be done quickly or easily. Abdurrahman Wahid's government is an amalgam of competing interests, many of them committed to the old system.

The President thus has only limited ability to control the state apparatus and can offer little guarantee of the proper functioning of the legal system.

He has almost no ability to effectively prevent or punish violence or corruption through legal or political measures, as the continuing freedom of Tommy Soeharto and his father demonstrate.

There can be little hope of any roll-back of the sophisticated preman system built by Tommy's father, Indonesia's "Godfather".