To Indonesians who can afford it, reform implies political and economic change. To millions of people flung into poverty since the Crisis began, however, the rallying cry of "Reformasi!" has come to mean permission to do whatever they like – loot, flout the law, overthrow officials. In hard-hit Central Java people are willing to do just about anything to survive. Asiaweek Contributor Dewi Loveard visited the troubled province. Her eyewitness report:
Semarang, Sept. 7
The mid-size commercial city is quiet yet tense. Many shops are closed, and demonstrations are a daily event. The rallies are not about politics; they are about the price of food. As hungry kids press their faces against the taxi windows, my driver, Sukardi, lists a litany of local woes: petty crime, street brawls, beggars who do not ask but demand. One day, he recalls, a bunch of people came by his house and cleaned out the family fish pond. Such tales are endemic now.
At Kebon Jati market, a tearful old lady is arguing with a trader over the price of chili. "Don't accuse me of trying to make too much profit," shouts the trader. "My God, I will only make 200 rupiah out of this chili." A Kian, an ethnic Chinese food merchant who has a stall nearby, confides that he dare not raise his markup beyond 150 rupiah per item. Otherwise his suspicious customers will accuse him of profiteering.
On the outskirts of the city a group of landless people has seized a chunk of vacant property reportedly owned by the Gudang Garam cigarette company. "This is the reform era," says Suwarno, a pioneering occupant. "I needed land." Calmly, he marked off a plot with rope and sticks and built a cabin. Across the street lives the mayor in a stately home. He has suggested that Suwarno move to a piece of state-owned land. But when Suwarno's lawyer mentioned compensation for the move, the mayor dropped the subject. Suwarno isn't budging. Nor are 300 or so other families who have built homes and planted cassava and corn.
Kebumen, Sept. 8
The city has just been hit hard by an anti-Chinese riot. According to local radio, the Chinese owner of an auto parts shop hit or berated a pribumi worker for spilling oil. Officials are assuring people that the worker was only cursed, but a woman running a stall insists the Chinese owners beat him "until he was bleeding." She says the youth ran out of the shop and began weeping on the side of the street. Before long a crowd had gathered; the rock-throwing and looting began. The mob was joined by high school students who were demonstrating against a supposedly embezzling principal. Soon several shops were ablaze. The crowd paid the police no mind because they rarely use live bullets. Besides, they were outnumbered. Today the town is still on edge; arsonists and looters are at work in Chinese districts, and security guards check out passersby with hard stares. Ispot a teenager taking home a bottle of soy sauce, a few cans of corned beef and a small sack of rice. He is not sure if his mother will applaud his food-gathering technique. "But who cares?" he says. "This is reformation, and this is the time to do anything."
Pekalongan, Sept. 9
I'm in batik country, and business is paralyzed. Cotton prices have tripled, raw stocks are way down, and producers are afraid their consignments will be hijacked on the way to the port. The situation is so dire people reportedly are eating rice once every two or three days. Thieving from shops is rampant – and brazen. A woman was caught trying to steal 5 kg of rice from a supermarket. "Arrest me," she told the guards. "But let me take the rice to my children first." Her husband is an idled batik worker. The supermarket owner didn't press charges, fearing a public backlash.
Authorities feel the same way. When the mayor blocked plans to build a school on an old Chinese cemetery, a mob ransacked the graveyard. The grave-robbers divided themselves into groups of three: one to guard the gate, another to dig up the corpses, the third to grab the valuables buried alongside the dead. Coffins and marble grave stones were taken and sold; bones and skulls were scattered around like so much garbage.
The proceeds of the looting were shared around. Jumadi, a man in his late 60s, got hold of a ring taken from one of the corpses. He sold it for a bag of rice. One man traded a tiger statue for a 25-kg sack of the grain. "I don't think I did anything wrong," says Jumadi. "I didn't steal from the graves myself, and anyway, why would anyone try to take their wealth with them when they die?" Another grave-robber puts it this way: "The Chinese got a lot from us when they were alive."
Solo Sept. 10
During May the home of ruling party stalwart Harmoko was burned to the ground here. The city seems half dead. Many shops are closed and small stalls have disappeared. No one is keen to re-open. I stop to get a drink, aware that I'm untidy after three days on the road. The stall owner eyes me with suspicion, but when I pay explains she is careful with people she doesn't know; on several occasions customers have walked off without paying. She says even children taking food to their fathers in the fields are routinely ripped off.
I visit Mudrick Sangidu, a local oppositionist. "These are strange times," he agrees. "For small people, reform means burning things down. If they're unhappy with local leaders, they demand they be replaced immediately." A week ago an unpopular regent in nearby Tegal was forced from office. Now Mudrick is being asked to help push another regent from power. "These people are seen as the extension of Suharto's hand," he explains.
In Central Java the people are emboldened by the discovery that the once-potent troika of government, military and business is prepared to stand by. The poor, the disenfranchised – even high school students – are filling the vacuum. I return to Jakarta and find troops guarding strategic installations in the wake of a new series of student protests. I fear the situation in Indonesia can only get worse before it gets better.
The new disorder
Looting, violence and protests have plagued Indonesia with increasing frequency in the four months since B.J. Habibie replaced Suharto as Indonesia's president. After the leadership change, violent rioting in the cities subsided. But high food prices and a worsening economy have laid bare resentment in the countryside. Some examples:
May 21: Suharto resigns amidst violent unrest; Habibie is sworn in as president. Late May: Public outcries calling for the resignations of six governors in the provinces of West Kalimantan, Riau, West and Central Java, West Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi. The governor of Riau offers to resign and declare his wealth.
June 13: Hundreds of farmers in West Java plant vegetables on a golf course the land for which, they say, was taken from them by force.
June 15: Rioters in three towns in Java run amok following orderly protests against local leaders.
July 13: More than 2,000 people plunder shrimp ponds in both West and East Java. In Central Java, 37 village heads submit their resignations. The next day, trucks carrying onions are hijacked in Central Java on the main toll road outside Jakarta.
July 30: Protestors ransack 16 discotheques and massage parlors in the resort town of Puncak, West Java.
August 8: Over 1,000 looters clean out coffee plantations in East Java. In the same province, peasants overrun land used for coffee and cocoa to plant staple crops.
Aug. 26: People take 150 tons of rice from shops and rice mills in Bondowoso, East Java. On the same day in southern Sumatra, thousands of farmers, housewives and students attack the office of the Lampung governor.
Aug. 31: Riots flare in Aceh after locals throw stones at departing combat troops. Some shops of ethnic Chinese are looted and burned.
Sept: 3: Police in Ngawi, East Java, begin a 6-day battle with looters of teak that will lead to one death and 115 arrests. Sept: 7: A riot breaks out in the Central Java town of Kebumen as mobs attack and plunder shops and food warehouses. The riot apparently started after rumors circulated of an ethnic-Chinese spare-parts shop owner struck an employee. In West Kalimantan, mobs in the provincial capital of Pontianak loot scores of warehouses over a three-day period and grab rice, sugar, cooking oil and instant noodles.
Sept. 9: Habibie is mobbed in Surabaya by protestors demanding lower food prices.
Sept. 13: Hundreds loot chicken farms in East Java and steal 15,000 chickens, six television sets and a van. On the same day elsewhere in the province a mob of hundreds strip a teak plantation of processed lumber.
[Compiled by Metta Dharmasaputra/Jakarta]