Bill Guerin, Jakarta – The legendary Tempo magazine, which began life in March 1971 by copying Time's style and format, is a national institution in Indonesia. Pithy satire and outrageous caricatures and cartoons have spiced up hard-hitting investigative reporting on topical issues, and made Tempo the darling of the middle class.
Banned twice in its three decades of existence, Tempo has been dealt many a rough hand but, unlike the past oppression by various administrations, it is now under attack from a different class of enemy.
Tempo this week stands accused of slander and character assassination after a report in its March 3 edition that implied a link between high-profile businessman Tomy Winata's plan to renovate the Tanah Abang textile market in Central Jakarta and the recent fire that destroyed it on February 19.
Tempo said Winata, an ethnic-Chinese tycoon, stood to gain from the fire that destroyed the market. The magazine cited an architecture contractor as claiming that Winata had made a proposal for a business center project worth Rp53 billion (US$5.9 million) on the land where the market stood.
Winata, the magazine said, had proposed the renovation project to the Jakarta city authorities three months prior to the fire.
The writer said the proposal raised suspicions that the market, the biggest of its kind in Southeast Asia, had been intentionally burned down. Losses have been estimated at Rp8 billion but Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso has said the fire was accidental. Sutiyoso has since condemned the intimidation of Tempo as anarchy and denied ever having received a such a proposal. Winata, 45, strongly denied to Tempo that he had made a proposal.
However, around noon on Saturday some 200 demonstrators, from the Artha Graha Group and the Indonesian Young Bulls (BMI), a youth organization within President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, descended on Tempo's office and tried to force their way in despite the presence of a cordon of anti-riot police.
This was a day after Tempo had received a written complaint and the parties had agreed to a dialogue or legal recourse to settle the matter. Representatives of the protesters were eventually allowed to meet the writer of the article after threatening to burn the premises down.
The level of violence and intimidation was clearly aimed at stopping Tempo in its tracks. The protesters who made it inside argued loudly with editors and reporters, demanding that they reveal their source.
A statement from editor Ahmad Taufik circulating in press circles describes a level of verbal and physical assault akin to terror and a hands off attitude by senior policemen. Even at Jakarta police headquarters representatives of "Tomy's men" continued with a torrent of abuse against Tempo's chief editor Bambang Harimurti.
Harimurti and leaders of the protesters had been invited "back to the station" by police who feared further violence. Several protesters allegedly beat Bambang and editor Taufik as they waited for a meeting with the protesters.
Winata and his lawyer Desmond Mahesa have accused Tempo of character assassination and demanded that the weekly admit it made a mistake by calling the tycoon a "big scavenger" in the article. They want Tempo to publish an apology in several national newspapers and to show evidence over its allegations that Winarto had made such a proposal.
Mahesa admitted most of the protesters work as security guards at the Artha Graha Group and that his client knows them. One of the protesters, identified as Hamid al Hamid, said they were making the protest because "we live on Pak Tomy's money".
A statement by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) said the attack on Tempo was a setback to press freedom and freedom of information as stipulated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights as well as the Law on National Press that says, "in conducting their profession, journalists have legal protection".
AJI asked the police to protect the Tempo journalists from threats and intimidation by hired thugs, and denounced the practice of hiring groups of thugs to intimidate others into settling disputes. On the same day the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM) held a meeting with a number of journalists over violence against the press.
The 1999 press law threatens those who prevent journalists from disseminating information to the public with a maximum two-year jail sentence or Rp500 million fine but police, though present during the attack on Tempo's office and staff, have made it clear they will only investigate if Tempo files a complaint.
"The incident occurred under their [police] noses. They must not allow it," the Indonesia Legal Aid and Human Rights Association said in a statement.
Late Tuesday National Police Chief General Da'i Bachtiar finally ordered an investigation into the incident. "The police have begun to enforce the law" regarding the attack, Da'i said after a meeting with scores of public figures who demanded strong measures against those involved in the attack.
Ahmad Syafii Maarif, chairman of the second-largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, human-rights lawyers Todung Mulya Lubis and Luhut M Pangaribuan, legislator Dwi Ria Latifa, rights activist Hendardi, and former finance minister Mar'ie Muhammad all joined in the chorus of protest at police HQ.
Todung said during the meeting with Da'i that although Tempo might have made a mistake in its report, violence is not the answer.
Instead of attacking the press, people could "choose from exercising their right to respond to the article, settling out of court, suing the media or even boycotting it," said Todung, citing the recent settlement of the dispute between the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the Washington Post newspaper over a report on the military's alleged involvement in an attack on Freeport employees last year. The Post later clarified the report, admitting to having no real evidence to back up its story.
The Indonesian Press and Broadcasting Community (MPPI) said violence against the press and journalists posed a threat to press freedom. They called on the press community to unite in opposing all acts of violence and threats, and not to allow these acts to go uncontested legally.
The incident has created shockwaves and a level of public concern rarely seen though such abuses by preman (thugs) are commonplace. The failure of the police to stop the violence has spooked the press community, who fear unchecked mob rule against the media is the highest danger faced by media under attack on many fronts.
When Tempo was shut down by the Suharto regime in 1994, the ban was denounced worldwide as an assault on press freedom. This frenzy of activity and support for the new Tempo shows that the media industry sees the incident as an attack against the profession as a whole, though it is just the latest in a long line of assaults against journalists.
In 2002 no fewer than 70 cases of intimidation and violence against the Indonesian press were reported to the police, though there was little action taken. Police themselves frequently assault journalists and just as often support those who intimidate the press.
Violence and intimidation ensue when statements they deem as unfair or inaccurate offend individuals. Weak law enforcement and the ease with which police can be persuaded to turn a blind eye has encouraged those of a violent nature to fight the pen with the sword.
On the other hand, the Indonesian media need self-discipline and a professional code of ethics, which would go some way to encouraging respect for their profession. Rampant corruption by way of "envelope journalism" is widespread and feeds the perception that good or bad publicity, ie press, can be bought or sold just like a commodity.
Tempo's biggest headache will be the demand to identify its source. In an interview aired on El Shinta radio station, Winata said "with the article Tempo created a killing machine that might mobilize all of the victims of the Tanah Abang market fire to take revenge against me". He added, significantly, that Tempo must publish and identify the source of its information.
Given the propensity to settle grievances by violence and instant street justice he had a point, except that this is no ordinary victim of slander and certainly not likely to be set about by aggrieved "little people".
Winata is a major co-shareholder of the Artha Graha Group together with the powerful military conglomerate, Yayasan Kartika Eka Paksi. He is also a close friend and alleged financier of Yorris Raweyai, executive chairman of the pro-Suharto paramilitary organization, Pemuda Pancasila.
Anecdotal evidence has it that Winata was the go-between for the the feared Kopassus forces and a group of Chinese-Indonesian conglomerate leaders. Funds raised by Winata were alleged to have been used for anti-Chinese operations by Kopassus on May 13-15, 1998.
At the time the ethnic-Chinese tycoons were reported to be enraged at Winata's fundraising for activities that caused the deaths of fellow Chinese and the rape of Chinese women.
Artha Graha has accused Tempo of "character assassination" and "journalistic hoodlumism" in a tit-for-tat-style press release, after the widespread condemnation of Saturday's incident.
Tempo senior editor Fikri Jufri said the magazine would not bow to the mob's demands, despite the attack.
"They can destroy our assets but not our idealism. There is only one word for such an action, 'fight!'" he said, adding that Tempo would settle the case in court. Tempo will run a "correction" in its next edition, which will go to print on Saturday.
The Tempo incident may revive, in some circles, the charge that Indonesia media have abused their freedom from decades of self-censorship by engaging in reckless journalism and irresponsible reporting. Other battle fronts await.
A week earlier the chief editor of Jakarta-based Rakyat Merdeka daily Karim Paputungan went on trial accused of defaming convicted felon and Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR) Akbar Tanjung. Karim could be jailed for 16 months for publishing a front-page caricature featuring a shirtless, sweating and "sad" looking Tanjung, on January 8, 2002.
Rakyat Merdeka has a circulation of some 100,000 copies and courts sensationalism. Fonda Lapod, the paper's "artistic manager", rejected his first attempt, which showed a rope around Tanjung's neck and settled on the one that has caused all the fuss. Lapod's caricature used an image of a homosexual having a bath and superimposed the Golkar leader's head. Lapod said: "If I had used a Superman costume or a figurehead of Rambo perhaps the response would have been different."
Tempo also offended Tanjung by publishing a front-page caricature of him with a long Pinocchio nose, but oddly enough this was not taken to court.
Freedom of expression and speech are far from being pillars of democracy in Indonesia and media professionalism is vital to fight those who would impose control over such freedoms.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri said last month on National Press Day that she would like the community to join her in taking a critical attitude against the press for doing their job arbitrarily, irresponsibly and unprofessionally. It would be too costly, the president said, if just because of the irresponsible attitude of a small part of the press community, the entire national press would be tainted.
Megawati had earlier accused the press of being "unbalanced" in reporting the public reaction against the government's decision to hike the prices of basic utilities at the start of the year.
Tempo positions itself as being part of a never-ending struggle. This credo will be put to test in the coming weeks as the publication faces not an authoritarian regime and legislature that fought out in the open but powerful sections of the elite who have been stung by the written word.
The collective intolerance of press freedom by hoodlums, the government and certain top politicians represents the biggest challenge for the media.
Once again Tempo will need to carry the baton of a free Indonesian press still trying to make its mark in a society waiting for real democracy and freedom of speech.