Why was Kunio barred?

Why was Kunio barred?

Once again a foreign scholar has been barred from entering
Indonesia. Yoshihara Kunio, a historian who teaches at Kyoto
University's Southeast Asian Studies Center but who is better
known as the author of The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in Southeast
Asia, was denied entry at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International
Airport on Sunday for reasons that have thus far remained
unclarified.

An executive of the Jakarta office of Kyoto University told
this newspaper on Tuesday that the Japanese scholar, while on a
tour of the region, intended to meet friends in Indonesia and was
scheduled to arrive on Sunday. Apparently, Kunio did arrive here
as scheduled, but was told by airport immigration officials he
could not enter the country. No specific reasons were given.

Had it been a year earlier, though, one could have easily
understood the government's aversion to allowing Kunio into the
country. His aforementioned book on ersatz (false) capitalism
angered president Soeharto's New Order government almost as soon
as it came out in 1988. A translated version of the book was
banned and Kunio was barred from entering Indonesia.

All of which was understandable enough at the time. After all,
Ersatz Capitalism dealt with the phenomenal rise of big
businesses in Southeast Asia (and many other developing
countries) -- not on the strength of their inherent skills or
resources, but through collaboration with the ruling elites.
Since this was one of the most sensitive of issues at that time,
the Attorney General's Office ruled that the book undermined
president Soeharto's credibility and had to be banned.

Of course, since then, and especially after the fall of
Soeharto in May last year, there are no longer any secrets about
how "cronies" of the old regime acquired their business
privileges and their wealth. The issue is freely reported in
newspapers and discussed in public on an almost daily basis. The
current government under President B.J. Habibie has publicly
promised to earnestly look into the alleged wrongdoings committed
by his fallen predecessor, particularly where corrupt, collusive
or nepotistic practices are suspected.

These facts alone would make it hard to understand the
government's reasoning in denying Kunio entry. It must, however,
be added that Kunio's book on ersatz capitalism was an academic
work and should be acknowledged as such. The Soeharto regime's
angry reaction to the work in fact constituted an indirect
acknowledgement of the soundness of Kunio's arguments.

Furthermore, the government's refusal to grant Kunio entry is
odd, to say the least, considering that scholars and observers
who have long been known to be critical of Soeharto's New Order
government, such as American political observers Daniel Lev and
Benedict Anderson, have not only been allowed into the country,
but to attend public seminars, give lectures and deliver
scientific papers.

All this considered, one is left to wonder what exactly the
reason was behind the government's denying Prof. Kunio entry into
the country. It could of course be a simple instance of
bureaucratic deficiency. In that case, the government, and the
immigration department in particular, would be well advised to
improve its management and update its files. It is believed that,
at present, immigration files still contain some 500 names of
people who are barred from entering Indonesia. But while denying
entry to people whose presence would pose a real danger to either
the country or to the public is certainly legitimate, barring the
wrong people could not only harm Indonesia's image as an emerging
democracy, but actually harm the public's interest by denying
people their right to be informed and educated.

The other possibility -- that the government still regards
anyone who is (or was) critical as dangerous to the country -- is
even less palatable since it only helps to show that all the
official assurances about reform are just so much poppycock.
Fortunately, this is likely to be the lesser possibility. Still,
the authorities would do well to educate the entire bureaucracy
under their control to make real and immediate adjustments to the
demands of this new era of reform.