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The new dis-order government

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Sydney Morning Herald - February 21, 1998

David Jenkins – As Indonesian street demonstrations go, it may not have seemed much to write home about. A couple of dozen young men, some with their baseball caps worn backwards, milling about under the tamarind trees, shouting abuse at the occupants of a nearby office block and holding up placards painted on white, pink and pale blue cardboard.

This, however, was no ordinary rally. The demonstrators were from Muslim youth organisations and the message on their posters was enough to send a chill up the spine of Indonesia's small but increasingly vulnerable ethnic Chinese community.

"CSIS, go to hell!" said one placard, carefully lettered in English and referring to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Jakarta think-tank headed by a group of formerly well-connected Chinese Catholic intellectuals.

"CSIS – Parasite", said another. "Sofjan Wanandi – pengkhianat [traitor]," said a third, zeroing in on a powerful ethnic Chinese businessman who is said to have moved assets offshore in the current economic crisis.

As Indonesia prepares for the March 11 re-election of President Soeharto and the nation braces for further food riots, the political mood has turned ugly.

In recent weeks, racial vilification, usually kept strictly in check, has come into play, apparently with a nod from those in high office, threatening the nation's fragile ethnic harmony.

President Soeharto, 76, has the votes sewn up in the 1,000-strong People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and is set to be returned unopposed for a seventh consecutive five-year term.

But the fight has been on in earnest for the presidential succession – and with it the power and the spoils that will accrue to the man who will find himself running the world's fourth most populous nation should the President die or become incapacitated.

Many Indonesians would have been happy to have the incumbent Vice-President, General Try Sutrisno, serve a second five-year term.

Try, they reason, may not be an Indonesian Einstein or especially dynamic. But he is well enough liked, acceptable in army and civilian circles, acceptable to most Muslims and to Christians, acceptable to pribumi (indigenous) Indonesians and to the ethnic Chinese (non-pri) community and acceptable internationally. As time passed, however, it became apparent that Soeharto wasn't simply flying kites when he indicated that he wanted the controversial Research and Technology Minister, Dr B.J. Habibie, 61, to be his vice-president. Soeharto, a proud and stubborn man, has not forgotten that Try was foisted on him by the Armed Forces (ABRI) in 1993, when the then Defence Minister, General Benny Moerdani, was a formidable presence in Indonesian politics.

Besides, Soeharto has always had a soft spot for Habibie, whom he has known since 1950, when Habibie was a clever and precocious 13-year-old in Ujung Pandang (Makassar).

This week, after some resistance, the 75-strong ABRI group in the MPR came out in support of Habibie's nomination as vice-president, joining the other four factions in the assembly and making his election a foregone conclusion.

The prospect of an economic nationalist such as Habibie stepping into the presidential shoes is one that fills many Indonesians – and many foreigners - with dismay.

No-one doubts that the voluble and excitable research minister is able enough in his own field; he studied aeronautical engineering in West Germany and ended up as director of technology at Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm.

But his grandiose plans for an Indonesian aerospace industry have cost the country billions and his grasp of economics has been brought into question. The man who gave the aircraft industry the Habibie Factor, the Habibie Theorem and the Habibie Method has come up with an interest rate reduction strategy called zig-zag economics.

Nor is that all. Habibie has been a central player in an Islamic revival movement that has disturbed many of the nation's minority groups, especially the Christians and the ethnic Chinese.

A civilian with no independent power base, Habibie would come under intense pressure from Indonesia's generals were Soeharto to disappear from the scene. He owes his position to Soeharto, just as the mercurial Dr Subandrio, Indonesia's pre-1965 foreign minister, owed his position to President Sukarno.

Nevertheless, it has suited one or two in the army whose prospects would be dim under a Try presidency to throw their weight behind the research minister, at least for the time being.

The anti-Wanandi demonstration needs to be seen in that light. The aim was to establish a link between Try Sutrisno, Benny Moerdani, Sofjan Wanandi and the ethnic Chinese in an effort to undermine Try.

That goal was easily achieved. The Indonesian media – especially Islamic publications such as Ummat and Republika – devoted page after page to the demonstrations, reminding readers that Try had been linked to bloody crackdowns on Muslims in Jakarta and southern Sumatra in the 1980s and that CSIS was set up by generals known for their deep-seated hostility towards political Islam.

They suggested that Moerdani, who hangs his hat at CSIS, is the dalang (puppeteer) behind Try. They raked over claims that CSIS and its patrons were associated with the 1973 unified national Marriage Bill, which was seen as anti-Islam.

They drew a link between CSIS and the destructive anti-Japanese and anti-government riots that rocked Jakarta in 1974. They implied that army intelligence officers intent on demonising Islam – not Muslim extremists – were behind the highjacking of a Garuda DC-9 in 1980.

One way or another, the anti-CSIS, anti-Moerdani, anti-Try moves proved deeply satisfying to Muslims who had been sidelined during the early years of the Soeharto presidency but who are now enjoying their time in the sun.

They did not please General Wiranto, 50, the well-regarded leader of Indonesia's new generation of military officers and a man who this week moved up from his job as Army Chief of Staff to become Commander of the 475,000-strong Armed Forces.

Far from it. Appalled by the demonstration outside CSIS, Wiranto is said to have telephoned the police chief and urged him to secure both the building and its occupants. He made a point of reminding the nation that it was essential to avoid so-called SARA issues – Indonesian shorthand for anything which might trigger an upsurge in inter-ethnic, inter-religious, inter-class or "inter-group" hostility.

Lieutenant General Prabowo Subianto, the fast-rising son-in-law of Soeharto, has now added his voice to that chorus, saying yesterday that the army does not discriminate between indigenous and non-indigenous Indonesians. He made the comment as Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, said it believed that senior government and military officials had fuelled anti-Chinese sentiment.

For Indonesia, these are dangerous days and bound to become still more dangerous, not least for the ethnic Chinese. The Chinese account for barely 3 per cent of Indonesia's population of 204 million. But they control about 70 per cent of all private commercial, financial and industrial activity.

This generates resentment. Riots have broken out in any number of cities in recent years and although each has been sparked by a particular incident most have ended up with rioters venting their fury on Chinese and/or Christian targets.

In some cases, the army appears to have stood back and allowed the riots to run on, a common enough practice in earlier years but one which has generally been frowned on during the New Order. The reasons for this are not clear. It may be that some officers fear they could be brought to book for human rights abuses if they open fire on rioters. It may be that some units have been outnumbered and in no position to use force. It may be that there has been some sympathy for the rioters.

In the midst of all this, Sofjan Wanandi was called in for questioning. According to the army, police investigators had "evidence" that Mr Wanandi was prepared to provide financial backing to a "communist-inspired" group which is being linked to a bomb explosion in a Jakarta apartment.

This was a curious claim. Sofjan Wanandi (Liem Bian Khoen) has impeccable New Order credentials. A Catholic who played a prominent role in the anti-communist and anti-Sukarno student movement in the mid-1960s, he became a key adviser to the late Major General Sudjono Humardhani, the elfin Javanese ystic-cum-financier who was one of Soeharto's closest aides.

Later, Sofjan built his Gemala Group into one of Indonesia's most powerful conglomerates. Gemala has 25 joint ventures with foreign companies, including Century Yuasa Batteries in Australia.

While Sofjan worked alongside Sudjono Humardhani, his older brother, Jusuf Wanandi (Liem Bian Kie), became the right-hand man of Lieutenant General Ali Moertopo, Soeharto's key political advisor during the first decade of the New Order. Jusuf Wanandi is one of the most visible leaders of CSIS, which was established by Moertopo and Humardhani when they were at the height of their power in 1971.

In Indonesia, where political manoeuvres are so often carried on behind a screen, no-one really believed that Wanandi was involved in a bomb plot.

Nor did the army pursue that line during the interrogation process. It concentrated instead on the vice-presidential issue and Wanandi's claim, perhaps articulated too vigorously, that if Habibie were to become vice-president, the Rupiah would plunge to a disastrous 20,000 to the US dollar.

It goes without saying that the targeting of prominent ethnic Chinese business leaders is extremely dangerous. It is also potentially counter-productive and self-defeating. Indonesia, having put the wind up foreign investors, is further eroding the confidence of domestic Chinese capital, an essential element in the nation's eventual economic rehabilitation.

Indonesia's Chinese are once again highly vulnerable, in fear of their lives and property. Singapore is said to be getting ready to repel boarders. Australian officials are looking at worst-case scenarios involving the arrival of boat people and overstaying "tourists".

Nor does it help that Habibie's ascendancy may have eased the pressure on men such as Wanandi. "They have let the genie out of the bottle," said an analyst whose concern about the "flow-on" effect has increased with each new report of mobs laying waste to Chinese shops and warehouses. "You only need to hint at these things and the effect can be extreme."

What disturbs many people is the evident high-level support for this approach.

President Soeharto, who in recent years has gone out of his way to court the Islamic community, has sailed close to the wind on this issue, talking about attacks on the rupiah and of the need to crack down on speculators. Ominously, he has used the phrase "we Muslims". Few people can remember a time when the President has spoken in these "us against them" terms and his remarks have been widely interpreted as a tilt at the ethnic Chinese.

Why is this happening? Many believe the authorities are seeking to scapegoat an unpopular minority to deflect blame for the nation's economic collapse.

Others suggest the president may is stepping up his campaign to put the squeeze on the wealthy Chinese conglomerates, which have proved unwilling to meet new unofficial imposts. Some think he may be ready to sever his links with most – but by no means all – of the Chinese tycoons.

According to an Indonesian editor, Soeharto may resent the fact that the Chinese no longer seem to know their place.

"They don't behave like a good concubine," the editor said. "They would like to be the first wife. They don't know they are concubines. "Farewell my Concubine!' That will be the heading."

Concubines or not, Indonesia's big Chinese entrepreneurs will no doubt survive the current troubles, perhaps, in the worst case, after a temporary absence abroad.

The worry is that millions of ordinary Chinese will have to ride out the increasingly dangerous rage of pribumi Indonesians, the long-suffering wong cilik (little people) who, like the sans-culottes of 1789, can't see that the nations problems were not created by the owner of the corner store.

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