A COUNTRY IN DESPAIR VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE 186 KEES VAN DIJK A COUNTRY IN DESPAIR Indonesia between 1997 and 2000 Second printing 2002 KITLV Press Leiden Published by: KITLV Press Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology) P.O.Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands First printing 2001 Cover photo: D&R Cover: Marque's grafische ontwerpen, Leiden ISBN 90 6718 160 9 © 2002 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the Netherlands Contents Preface vii I Towards the election of May 1997 1 II Violent campaigns 27 III Towards an economic and political crisis, 1997 51 IV The economic crisis 71 V Towards an economic and political crisis, January-March 1998 111 VI The general session of the People's Congress 137 VII Mounting tension 161 VIII Soeharto's resignation 185 IX Skeletons in the cupboard 217 X Investigating recent sins 235 XI KKN 255 XII Soeharto's wealth 273 XIII Searching for a new political system 289 XIV Political strife 323 XV Mysterious killings 359 XVI Communal violence 379 XVII Struggling along 399 XVIII Between hope and despair 431 XIX The first months of the Abdurrahman Wahid administration 469 XX Abdurrahman Wahid loses support 493 / Epilogue Contents VI Appendices A Main parties and organizations 535 B Indonesian cabinets between 1993 and 2000 539 C Military officers holding key positions in the cabinet since the 1980s 552 D Some key military fimctions since the 1980 553 E Governors, military commanders and chiefs of police of Jakarta, 1996-2000 560 F List of suspects in the violence in East Timor in 1999 named by the office of the attorney-general 561 G Glossary 563 H Abbreviations and acronyms 566 Bibliography 581 General index 591 Index of Indonesian geographical names 607 Index of personal names 611 Preface It must have been in June or July of 1998 that I ran into Harry Poeze, director of KITLV Press, in the corridor and we discussed the idea of writing this book. The original intention was to concentrate on the events leading up to Soeharto's fall. What happened after May 1998, though, proved to be at least as interesting. Consequently this book describes political developments in Indonesia up to the middle of December 2000. Political realities brought to the fore the area of tension between the high hopes cherished in 1998 to trans¬ form Indonesia into a genuine democracy and the problems encountered in effectuating political and economic reforms. Within days after Soeharto's fall it also became clear that opinions differed greatly about the nature of the changes needed and that some political leaders did not hesitate to mobilize their supporters to accomplish their aims. Students, whose demonstrations had been instrumental in bringing about the downfall of Soeharto, continued to be a force to reckon with. Many of them had completely different ideas about what the 'reform era' should look like than the political inner circle, how divided the latter may have been amongst themselves. The ideal of establishing a political system different from that of Soeharto's New Order not only gave rise to a plethora of revelations about crimes committed by the Armed Forces during the New Order, implicating almost all senior army offi¬ cers. The removal of tight military control also allowed for local popular movements against local authorities and local firms and estates accused of power abuses in the past, and unfortunately also for rampant violence. Separatist movements gained in strength, and radical Islamic opinions which had been silenced during the New Order could be vented freely. The career of a number of Indonesian key politicians came to an end when Soeharto was forced to resign. Many still play a role in present-day politics. The same can be said of the leading officers of the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces, especially the army, had to relinquish much of their hold over poli¬ tics. Nevertheless, retired and active army generals remain important players in Indonesian politics. In the economic sphere it also proved difficult to erad¬ icate the influence of those who became immensely rich during the New Order. The political changes of 1998 meant that much information was dis- viii Preface closed about economic mismanagement and corruption and collusion com¬ mitted by leading businessmen, in particular by Soeharto's children and some of the closest friends of the Soeharto family. The Asian economic crisis had brought many businessmen to the brink of economic ruin. Even before May 1998 measures had to be taken to save the banking sector from collapse and to solve the problem of enormous debts businessmen had accumulated in Indonesia and abroad. After May 1998 the restructuring of the economy was stepped up. The economic reforms gave rise to the same criticism as the steps which had been taken to accomplish political reforms. New corruption scandals erupted, and the suspicion was vented that rich businessmen still had too much influence to tackle the problems effectively, or were saved from prosecution because without their contribution and managerial skills the Indonesian economy would be in even worse shape. Prefaces of books about Indonesia are not complete without a note on orthog¬ raphy. In the rare case that persons and organizations are mentioned from before 1972, they are referred to in the spelling of the period these organiza¬ tions or persons were active in. Words and names derived from Arabic or Sanskrit are rendered in the way they are spelled in Indonesia. By far the greatest problems are presented by personal names. When the preference of the person in question is known, his or her name is spelled in this way. In other cases the spelling is chosen which seems to be most widespread. Prefaces of books are also not complete without a word of thanks. So many people helped me that it is impossible to thank them all. Three excep¬ tions have to be made: the staff of KITLV Press; the KITLV representative in Jakarta, Jaap Erkelens, who was the 'source' of much of my literature, and Rosemary Robson, who corrected my English and saw to it that I could pres¬ ent a presentable manuscript to KITLV Press.