Max Lane – On October 14, in the Australian parliament Prime Minister John Howard seized on the terrorist incident in Bali last weekend to justify a further strengthening of repressive so-called anti-terrorist laws as well as of the security apparatus in Australia. In this regard, he is no different from scores of government power wielders around the world cynically using the sympathy and solidarity generated among ordinary peoples when they react in horror to the barbarism of such acts of terror as that which occurred in Legian. Civilised people everywhere want an end to these criminal acts and will demand that governments do something.
But are these so-called government leaders really serious? I don't think so, whether in Canberra or Jakarta. When any social evil emerges, such as terrorism of the kind that occurred in Bali, the first step of any serious effort will be to seek out and address the cause of the phenomenon: why is it happening? All such social and political developments, where there is any general pattern or general trend, have causes. Acts of terror do not emerge from no where.
The reality is, however, that all those governments and political forces supporting George W Bush's "war against terror", including the Australian government, show no interest in identifying and eliminating the causes of this social evil. Of course, to know the cause is not to excuse the individual perpetrators, nor to say that no police measures at all should be taken. But in the end, no amount of tightened security will end this trend unless the causes are addressed.
In fact, heightened security that violates civil liberties and is based on such things as racial profiling will only generate further acts of terror.
Fanatical political, religious, or communal groups did of course, not pioneer the use of terror in politics. Terror in politics was pioneered, and thereby legitimised by states. In the case of Indonesia, terror in politics was institutionalised by the Suharto-GOLKAR regime that controlled Indonesia since 1965. Between 1965-67 mass terror was carried out on a scale not repeated until the era of Pol Pot in Cambodia. At least 1 million people were slaughtered, often in public executions. But even after 1968, violence was used to terrorise the population on a periodic basis. Indonesians are very familiar with the history, including incidents such as the Tanjung Priok incident, the Lampung massacres, the "PETRUS" (mysterious shootings) of the 1980s, the kidnapping and disappearances of student activists in the 1990s are just some examples. Since 1998 also, all the major political parties have developed para-military groups, which also use violence and terror to intimidate their rivals.
The Suharto-GOLKAR New Order regime legitmised and spread the use of violence in politics. All Australian governments, including the Howard government, have defended the Suharto-GOLKAR New Order regime and are complicit in this legitimisation of violence. At the same time the Suharto regime was using terror to control politics in Indonesia, John Howard tried to tell the Australian and Indonesian people that Suharto was a "caring and sensitive" leader. Now Howard laments the fact that acts of terror start to hit Australians in Indonesia. The hypocrisy is mind boggling. Howard should have resigned in shame in 1999. His East Timor policy of acquiescing in the military occupation of East Timor while Suharto was in power also laid the basis for the East Timorese people suffering also a wave of horrific terror in 1999. The US government is complicit in the same way.
Indonesian regimes after Suharto, including the Megawati government, bear the same responsibility. There has not been one single prosecution and jailing of any of those government or military officials responsible for the use of terror under Suharto. Suharto himself has not even been charged with violation of human rights. If Suharto and all the officials of the repression apparatus during the Suharto period can get away with terror as a tool of politics, why should anybody be surprised if more and more elements in society think that terror is a justifiable means of doing politics. While Suharto and friends remain free and while major political parties maintain uniformed para-military units, terror, i.e. violence in politics, will continue to be legitimised.
Legitimising terror is not the only form of Western complicity in the causes of terror that we see today. The underlying cause of the spread of non-state terror throughout the world is the deepening social disintegration of so many societies. This is also beginning in Indonesia. As unemployment and poverty increase and uncertainty about the future among 220 million people worsens social solidarity is undermined. A process is beginning of pitting all against all: centre against region (as with Aceh); regions against centre; natural resource rich regions against their neighbouring resource poor areas, such as in the Riau case; ethnic group against ethnic group; religion against religion; kabupaten against kabupaten and so on. This process is a direct result of the socio-economic crisis that has engulfed Indonesian since 1997. Since 1998 this crisis has "stabilised" bit it continues to gradually deepen.
The crisis itself is caused by the plunder of the Indonesian economy, forced open without protection by the International Monetary Fund. Western commercial interests drain the country of wealth and destroy its productive capacity, even in rice and sugar, while the local political, business and military elite looks on, acquiescing and enriching itself. The elite has no solution to the socio-economic crisis, except to beg for more foreign investment, which will never come. In this whole situation, Western governments, including the hypocritical Australian government of John Howard, are fully complicit.
So a vacuum is created in the search for solutions. A real solution is being formulated out of the thinking done by the activist and politicised wing of civil society, but they have not yet won a hearing among the mass of the population. So the conditions have been created for the spread of scapegoat politics and demagogic agitation. This is the situation now in Indonesia, as well as globally. Scapegoat and demagogic politics in a world where the ruling elites and governments have legitimised violence in politics will inevitably foster the spread of non-state terrorism.
On the streets of Jakarta, there are many suggestions as to who the bombers are: Al Qaeda, or some similar group, local or foreign; the US or the CIA, wanting to create a terrorist scare; the Indonesian military or intelligence services; some elite faction wanting to distract attention away from current controversies. There is no evidence yet who carried out the criminal and barbaric act in Legian, Bali. Whoever carried out this act should be identified and held responsible. But so should those responsible causing the underlying causes of this violent world: Suharto, Howard, Bush, the IMF, Megawati and all those who defend the unjust and semi-barbaric system the world now lives under.
[Max Lane is the chairperson of Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific.]