The state losing control over 'preman' (2)

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".