Socialist Action /October 1999
Military Shoots Protesters in Streets of Jakarta
By GERRY FOLEY
The Indonesian government and military have suffered their third major
defeat in the last two years at the hands of student protesters with broad
support among the population of the country's main city, Jakarta.
The fighting in Jakarta Sept. 23-24 revived the image of a country gripped
by a revolutionary crisis, The New York Times noted Sept. 26. "The
nation's currency, the rupiah, lost nearly 5 percent of its value during
the two days of riots."
Once again, the army spilled blood in the streets of the Indonesian capital.
At least six persons were killed in the clashes, most of them gunned down
indiscriminately by repressive forces.
The military's ruthless murder of student protesters, added to the shame
it brought on itself by its complicity in mass pogroms against the people
of East Timor, has further discredited the army leaders, in particular General
Wiranto, who in reality has been "the second face of the government"
since the resignation of the long-serving dictator, Suharto, in May 1998.
The regime's first defeat was when the students forced Suharto's resignation.
The second was in November 1998, when the students and their allies in the
poor neighborhoods defeated the goon squads organized by the military and
right-wing Muslims in an attempt to suppress protests against the continuation
of the dictatorship's parliament .
The third defeat came this Sept. 24, when Indonesian president Habibie
agreed to postpone adoption of the new security law passed days before by
a parliament dominated by Golkar, the party of the discredited military
dictatorship that called itself "The New Order" ("Ordu Baru").
The suspended law gives the military commanders the right to proclaim
martial law whenever they see fit. It is an obvious attempt to maintain
the essence of the military dictatorship within a supposedly democratized
system.
The Italian left daily Il Manifesto reported Sept. 24 that one of the
banners in the demonstrations said, "If this bill is approved, the
democracy that we fought for is dead. The military can take control of the
country at any moment."
Habibie decided to retreat after days of clashes between thousands of
determined students and an unleashed military. The symbolic martyr of the
demonstrations was a young student at the University of Indonesia, Hap,
an ethnic Chinese to judge by his name.
The student was killed when an army convoy opened fire indiscriminately
on a crowd of students near a hospital. A 10-year-old boy was also killed
in the barrage. The military was subsequently forced to issue an official
apology for the incident.
East Timor violence condemned
A joint statement by 30 organizations supporting the protests linked
the military's rampage in Jakarta with its involvement in pogroms against
the people of East Timor following the Aug. 4 referendum in which almost
80 percent of the East Timorese population voted for independence:
"Such acts of violence have not only further diminished the prestige
of the Indonesian armed forces, which was already lowered by their inability
to maintain order in East Timor, but it has lowered the prestige of the
nation in the eyes of the world."
This statement was signed by the All-Indonesian Workers Union, the Catholic
Students Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia, the Tanjungpriok section
of the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle, the Independent Journalists'
Alliance, and the People's Democratic Party (PRD), among others, as well
as by all the student action committees in Jakarta.
This declaration indicates how closely the fight against national oppression
in Indonesia is connected with the revolutionary process sweeping the entire
archipelago. The People's Democratic Party, the largest political group
that has emerged from the revolutionary students, which is also the dominant
political force in the All-Indonesian Workers Union, has been a consistent
defender of the Timorese people's struggle.
The so-called moderate opposition, the Islamic parties and Megawati Sukarnoputri's
Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle have subscribed to Indonesian bourgeois
nationalism, which denies the right of any people in the archipelago to
self-determination.
They are trying to make a deal with the military to restabilize capitalist
rule in Indonesia. In this respect, the overwhelming vote for independence
in East Timor was a defeat for them. And this political defeat was deepened
by the international scandal created by the involvement of the Indonesian
army and militias in a campaign of mass revenge against the Timorese people.
The problem is that the PRD, apparently under the pressure of the desperation
of its Timorese allies, supported the intervention of the imperialist United
Nations-represented mainly by the regional imperialist power, Australia-in
East Timor in the name of rescuing the Timorese people from genocide at
the hands of the Indonesian military and paramilitaries. [See editorial,
page 19.]
By doing so, the PRD helped forge a weapon that will soon be used against
the Timorese independence forces and perhaps even against itself and the
Indonesian masses. After all, if the UN can be trusted to "maintain
peace" in East Timor, why not elsewhere in Indonesia when the government
loses control of the situation?
However, in the first place, the UN did not intervene militarily in East
Timor until the Indonesian forces had more or less accomplished the maximum
of which they were capable in disabling the Timorese nation.
Secondly, the UN forces went in proclaiming that they were going to disarm
the Timorese forces, as well as the Indonesians. That means that the occupiers
intend to shape the Timorese administration themselves through a combination
of intimidation and corruption to split the only force that has really defended
the Timorese people, the national liberation armed forces, Falintil.
The imperialist countries, including Australia, which was the only one
to recognize the incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia, have no interest
in destroying the reactionary forces in East Timor. They have used them
in the past and they will use them again to defend their interests. Il Manifesto
reported Sept. 24 that the militia members are being released within a day
of being arrested.
On the other hand, the imperialist intervention is being used by bourgeois
nationalists in Indonesia to try to whip up a nationalist and Islamic frenzy
against foreign unbelievers and their agents, the mainly Catholic Timorese
people (most of whom only turned to the Catholic church in reaction against
the Indonesian occupation).
The Indonesian press is making a great deal of some acts of violence
against militia members by the Australian forces. Such actions, of course,
are virtually inevitable given the stresses of a war situation, the evidence
of the militias' outrages, and the propaganda by which the imperialists
and their military commanders are justifying the intervention. But the way
that they are being used by rightists in Indonesia is another perverse effect
of the UN intervention.
Islamic groups play contradictory role
The statement of the 30 organizations quoted above also condemns the
Indonesian government's attempts to use right-wing Islamic groups against
the demonstrators. In November 1998, the right-wing militias that attacked
the students were also mobilized in the name of Islam. That ploy failed
then and it seems to have failed again in the recent protests.
Right-wing Islam has been the main ideological cover of reactionary forces
in Indonesia since the anti-communist massacres of 1965, which were largely
carried out by Islamic groups. But the Islamic forces found themselves cheated
by the New Order, which brutally suppressed Islamic fundamentalist uprisings.
At present, one of the movements for national self-determination is in
Aceh, a strongly Islamic area of Sumatra. The Islamic parties have been
obliged to demonstrate varying degrees of sympathy for it. This is another
factor that has complicated the attempts of the Indonesian regime to exploit
Islamic identification for its purposes.
Nonetheless, one of the decisive battles of the Indonesian revolution
is to prevent the government from using Islam as an effective rallying ground
for reaction.
Once again, the student protesters won in the Sept. 23-24 demonstrations
because they spearheaded the discontent of the poor masses in Jakarta, just
as they did in May and November 1998.
The country's largest circulation newspaper, Kompas, gave a moving account
of the popular support for the students in its Sept. 26 issue. It reported
that all sorts of people, from construction workers to stock market clerks,
were spontaneously raising money for the students surrounded at Atma Jaya
University.
Even housewives were smuggling in supplies through the back streets (literally,
the "mouse streets," "jalan-jalan tikus"), "not
an easy task," as Kompas noted. It quoted one of the housewives as
saying, "I am afraid, but I have to help the students."
It is this mass support that grips the regime with fear. The student
demonstrations, although militant and widespread, have not in themselves
been all that large. The Indonesian press has referred only to "thousands,"
not tens of thousands.
But this ongoing, seething discontent, polarized by the radical students,
seems to point to a new stage in the crisis of capitalist rule in Indonesia
and new hope for the nationalities oppressed by the Indonesian state, including
the Timorese.
The only power that can offer genuine protection and support for the
oppressed peoples of the Indonesian archipelago are the aroused masses of
the industrial population centers on the main islands.
Unless the Indonesian people overthrow capitalism and break from imperialist
control, there is little chance for real self-determination for such nations
as the Timorese.
Socialist Action /October 1999 |