Witnessing the violent face of Indonesia

Witnessing the violent face of Indonesia

Thang D. Nguyen, Jakarta

As 2004 came to an end, Western intelligence forces issued a
warning of a potential terrorist attack at a Hilton hotel in
Indonesia during the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

Fortunately, no terrorist attacks happened. Unfortunately,
however, a killing took place at Jakarta's Hotel Hilton on New
Year's Eve.

The suspect of the killing is tycoon Adiguna Sutowo, who shot
a bartender at Hilton's Fluid Club named Yohannes Haerudy Natong,
better known as Rudy -- dead after the bartender told him that
his female companion's credit card had been rejected.

The police arrested Adiguna after the shooting, and he remains
in custody while an investigation takes place.

Meanwhile, Rudy's death went almost unnoticed. For the most
part, it was overshadowed by the news of the tsunami that hit
Indonesia and several other Asian countries on Boxing Day.

But the killing of Rudy has not been covered well by the
Indonesian media because the suspect is a member of Jakarta's
elite. After all, Adiguna is the brother of Pontjo Sutowo, the
owner of the Jakarta Hilton, and the son of the late Ibnu Sutowo,
a former president of state oil and gas company Pertamina.

In other words, the Indonesian media has been burned because
of its coverage of scandals involving Indonesia's elite.

For instance, last year, Bambang Harymurti, the chief editor
of the weekly news magazine Tempo, was found guilty of libel
against tycoon Tommy Winata, one of Indonesia's most powerful
businessmen.

Violence serves not only the Indonesian business world. In
fact, the culture of violence in Indonesia has started among, and
remains with, Indonesian political elite, namely, top members of
the Indonesian military (TNI).

Examples are aplenty. In the Soeharto years, the TNI served
him well as a handy tool to silence the Indonesian media, non-
governmental organizations and student activists.

At the same time, it has committed atrocities and human rights
violations in pre-independence East Timor and other parts of
Indonesia.

Today, violence remains a strong part of TNI culture. A case
in point is the recent beating of antigraft activist Farid Faqih
by Indonesian soldiers in Banda Aceh, the area worst hit by the
tsunami. The soldiers' alleged grounds for the beating was that
Farid, who is the coordinator of the Government Watch (GOWA), had
stolen two truckloads of aid supplies donated by the military
wives' association (Dharma Pertiwi).

Did Farid deserve the beating? No. Whatever the cause of his
act, Farid should have been handed over to the Indonesian police
for investigation. Whatever their crimes may be, suspects, or
criminals for that matter, are human beings and should,
therefore, be treated with dignity and humanity. And what if
Farid took the aid supplies to give to tsunami victims? Or did he
get beaten up because he is an anticorruption activist?

Likewise, Rudy did not deserve to die just because his
customer's credit card did not work. For one thing, it happens
all the time that, either because of billing problems or
over-the-limit issues, credit cards are rejected.

Furthermore, Rudy was just doing his job. In other words, the
bartender did not insult Adiguna by telling him that his
companion's credit card had been rejected.

But worst of all, Rudy died just a few weeks before his
wedding. A 25-year-old college student, Rudy had taken on extra
work as a bartender to save up for the happiest day of his life.

It will not happen now, and nothing can bring him back to his
fiance, family, and friends. They can only hope that justice will
be done.

"[Adiguna] has taken the life of the child [Rudy]. It's vital
that he must be punished as severely and appropriately as
possible," said Frumens da Gomez, Rudy's uncle.

And what about the murder of human rights activist Munir, who
was poisoned with arsenic on Sept. 7 last year on a Garuda flight
to the Netherlands? It has been five months since President
Susilo Bambang ordered an investigation into Munir's death. Alas,
nothing has been found thus far.

Together, Munir's murder, Rudy's death and Farid's beating
remind us that violence remains strong in Indonesian society;
that injustice is what the poor and the weak get; and that
activists who make Indonesia a better place are in constant
danger.

As President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has just celebrated his
100th day in office, his people wish him well in the months to
come. He cannot go wrong by focusing on such priorities as Aceh's
tsunami recovery, the economy, fighting corruption,
infrastructures and education.

He would be wise, however, to make sure that justice is served
in the cases of Munir, Rudy, and Farid. If not, these cases may
harm his presidency.

Most importantly, if justice is not served in these cases,
they will damage Indonesia's international image as a young,
promising democracy.

Mr. President, progress awaits you. So does justice.

The writer is a Jakarta-based columnist. His new book is The
Indonesian Dream: Unity, Diversity, and Democracy in Times of
Distrust.