The decision by Indonesian police to detain local and foreign participants at a human rights and labor rights seminar on the outskirts of Jakarta has further tarnished the nations international image. Last Fridays raid was seen as a return to the tactics of ex-president Suhartos regime, which routinely used police and thugs-for-hire groups to repress pro-democracy activities. But this time around, the order to break up a peaceful seminar did not come from the government.
Indonesias notoriously corrupt (and lowly paid) police have often failed to uphold the law. They have been unable or unwilling to unmask or arrest the perpetrators behind the 1998-99 killings of student activists. A string of high-profile cases from the 1990s, such as the murders of labor rights activist Marsinah and outspoken journalist Udin, have never been solved, presumably due to the alleged involvement of powerful politicians and the military. Most embarrassingly, police have been unable to capture Suhartos youngest son, Hutomo Tommy Mandala Putra, who should be serving a jail sentence for corruption.
Despite their shortcomings, police are capable of regularly detaining civilians and extorting money from them for the offense of not being able to produce an identity card. Foreigners pulled over represent an even greater catch for police, as larger sums of money can generally be extorted from them if they do not have their documents. As for visa violations, the are also usually taken care of by paying a bribe.
But police were not looking to extort money from the 32 foreigners and 8 Indonesians who were detained on Friday (June 8, 2001). The detainees had been among 120 people attending the Asia-Pacific Labor Solidarity Conference at the Sawangan Golf Inn in Depok, West Java. The event, subtitled The People's Struggle Against Neoliberalism and Militarism in Asia-Pacific, was organized by Indonesian pro-democracy groups, some affiliated to the left-wing Peoples Democratic Party
(PRD). In the final years of the Suharto regime, PRD was one of the governments favorite scapegoats for riots that were believed to have been engineered by elements of the military. PRD leaders were arrested, jailed for subversion and the party was banned. Although it is now legitimate and participated in the June 1999 general election (with poor results), PRD is still often referred to as communist in propaganda that has not changed since the days of president Suharto. The only difference now is that the government of reformist President Abdurrahman Wahid is not slurring the PRD. Instead, the party is being targeted by certain groups and elements of the elite that want to see an end to genuine political reform and an end to Wahids government. The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), which has informal links to generals opposed to Wahid, has been claiming PRD is responsible for a resurgence of communism in Indonesia and threatens that members of the party deserve to be beheaded. Other groups containing alleged thugs (preman) with connections to Suharto cronies have also been attacking the party. Some police officials and Golkar Party members claim PRD was responsible for recent acts of violence that occurred in response to parliaments efforts to impeach Wahid. Although there is little hard evidence to prove such allegations against the party, PRD is strongly opposed to the remnants of the Suharto regime attempting to stage a political comeback.
Golkar chairman Akbar Tanjung on February 11 implied he wanted the government to consider banning PRD. "We will ask Justice and Human Rights Minister Baharuddin Lopa and Home Affairs Surjadi Soedirdja to soon review PRD ... Whether it is still consistent or not with the nation's goals If PRD's purpose and principles are no longer relevant to the country, then PRD's existence must be questioned," said Tanjung, who is also House of Representatives speaker.
Jakarta Police chief Inspector General Sofjan Jacob has been more blunt in his criticism of the small party. On May 29 he said forces led by PRD chairman Budiman Sudjatmiko had been trying to provoke conflict between civilians and the security forces. He warned that Budiman would be arrested if any unrest erupted. Sure enough, Budiman was among those taken in by police and questioned last Friday, even though there had been no violence.
Considering the security authorities dislike of PRD, it comes as little surprise that police decided to take action against the 32 foreigners who were regarded as being sympathetic to the party's aims. Witnesses said dozens of armed police stormed the seminar venue without warning. One officer then announced through a loudhailer that the meeting was suspended and the participants would have to leave. They were taken to a police building, most traveling on the back of a police truck, and had their passports confiscated.
None of the foreigners were badly treated, but a statement released by PRD said police had used a civilian militia group the Kabah Youth Force (AMK) to beat and injure the Asia-Pacific conference participants with swords. Participants confirmed that sword-wielding thugs had been brought in to attack several of the Indonesian activists after the foreigners were taken away. Police have not officially responded to the allegations of assault. The Indonesian detainees have since been released, but reports say that four left-wingers were hospitalized as a result of the attack, one critically, while several other activists went missing.
The foreigners were released on Saturday and immigration authorities on Monday decided they could return to their home countries. Eighteen of the detained foreigners were from Australia. The others included two Belgians, a Pakistani, an American, a New Zealander, a Thai, a Canadian, a Briton, a French citizen, a German, a Dutch citizen and a Japanese national. Police had detained them for visa abuse, although immigration officials said that only the Pakistani man had violated the terms of his tourist visa by attending the seminar. The others had all been traveling on short-stay visas.
People coming to Indonesia for holidays, conferences or business meetings are entitled to short-stay visas on arrival. The police can only summon the organizers of the seminar for questioning, not necessarily question the foreigners," Gani, an official at the Directorate General for Immigration, was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post. He said if the foreigners really had violated the immigration law, they should not have been released on Saturday, but ought to have been sent to the Immigration Office.
Gani on Monday said the foreigners would not be prevented from re-entering Indonesia and could attend similar seminars in the future. He said Farooq Tariq, secretary general of Pakistan's Labor Party, would be deported because he had been attending the conference while on a tourist visa.
Two Australians, Pip Hinman (48) and her daughter Zoey (4), had been allowed to return to Sydney on Saturday on humanitarian grounds as they had been the only mother and child among the detainees. Police had initially said the other foreigners could be deported or charged with misusing their visas, and faced five-year jail terms or fines of Rp25 million (US$2,230) if convicted of immigration violations. The only law cited by police was the 1992 Immigration Law, under which they could be deported or barred from entering Indonesia for a certain period of time.
Several Indonesian legal experts have condemned the action taken by police. Chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI), Hendardi, said police had violated democratic principles. Lawyer Apong Herlina described the raid and detentions as bizarre. She pointed out that many seminars are now held in Indonesia and participated in by foreigners. Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, chairman of the Institute for Human Rights Research and Advocacy, said the raid was a clear violation of the freedom of assembly and police had directly breached the Universal Human Rights Declaration.
Meanwhile in Bangkok, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development said the raid indicates that democracy in Indonesia is under threat. Among the better known foreign detainees were: New Zealand politician Marie Leadbeater, an Auckland city councilor; New South Wales University academic Helen Jarvis and her husband Allen Myers; Thai academic Ji Ungphakorn, a lecturer in political science at Chulalongkorn University, and Asia-Pacific Institute chairman Max Lane.
Lane, a former diplomat, is no stranger to controversy in Indonesia. He is best known as a translator and contributor to Australia-based publications such as Inside Indonesia and Green Left Weekly. He served as second secretary at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta until recalled in 1981 because of his translations of the banned books of acclaimed Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer. He has also translated works by outspoken poet W.S. Rendra.
Currently Lane is chairman of a group called Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET). On April 9, 2001, he spoke at a seminar in Sydney about the democracy movement and the impact of neo-liberal economic policy. Speaking at the same event was George Adjitjondro, the self-exiled lecturer who tracked down the ill-gotten wealth of the Suharto clan.
Lane was critical of the Indonesian political elite and Western lending institutions. The state apparatus is being used against the people of Aceh, West Papua [Irian Jaya] and the Indonesian people themselves. The instruments of global capital are waging an all out attack on the Indonesian people through the policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank policy, he told the Sydney seminar.
He said the IMF and World Bank were forcing the Indonesian government into further debt, while trade liberalization is causing disaster in Indonesia by ending restrictions on the import of things like rice and sugar, as farmers cannot afford to compete with cheap imports from the US and Canada. He also said privatization of state-owned companies had led to the pricing of basic services at levels that most Indonesians could not afford.
What has made these attacks even worse is that they come on top of a 30 year dictatorship. The economic planning carried out by Suharto is better described as a planned rip-off, Lane was quoted as saying by Green Left Weekly. Education was wrecked during the Suharto period, and the process of scientific inquiry smashed. The ideology permeating all sectors of society was one of self-enrichment in its most barbaric form. The rule of law was subordinated to maximize the elite's ability to enrich themselves.
He pointed out that PRD has been demanding that parliament be disbanded and new elections held. Building a mass movement to carry this out won't be easy. Establishing a people's power movement is essential to counter the right-wing forces, he added.
Sources say PRD is far too small and lacks the organizational strength and unity required to mount a serious challenge to the elite. Despite the party's minor size, authorities are obviously irked by its strong pro-democracy creed and are doing their best to make people afraid to be associated with PRD.
Illegal meetings?
Authorities did not only crack down on PRD meetings and gatherings of labor rights groups during the final years of the Suharto regime. The most notorious incident came on March 10, 1998, when Suharto was unanimously re-elected by the venerable Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) to lead the nation for a seventh consecutive five-year term. On that date, renowned playwright and actress Ratna Sarumpaet and eight other people were arrested for attempting to hold a peaceful pro-democracy gathering in North Jakarta.
The others arrested were: freelance journalist Ging Ginanjar, human rights lawyer Alexius Suria Tjahaja Tomu, Ratnas daughter Fathom Saulina, Indonesian Humanitarian Association (MIK) director Bonar Tigor Naipospos (also a former prisoner of conscience), human rights activist Nandang Wirakusumah, actor and rights activist Joel Thatcher, artist Aspar Paturusi, and journalist Adi Hermawan.
Fathom was later released, but the others were charged under a 1963 law with holding a political gathering without a police permit. On May 20, the day before Suharto resigned after deadly mass riots, the activists were found guilty, given a 70-day sentence and then released as they had already spent that amount of time in detention. Once the reform era got into full swing following the resignation of Suharto, few people would have thought that security forces would still be allowed to get away with bursting into pro-democracy gatherings. Whats most worrying about Fridays raid is that police allegedly used the anti-communist Kabah Youth Force (AMK) to attack PRD members and supporters.
Many Indonesians believe foreigners should not come to Indonesia to meddle in the nations internal affairs. Indonesia has enough problems to deal with now without foreigners coming here to say what should be done, said Ahmad, an office worker. That may be so. Australian authorities would probably not react too fondly if a bunch of tourists came out from the Middle East and then held inflammatory meetings in Canberra to complain about conditions at detention centers for illegal immigrants in Western Australia.
But some analysts say Indonesia-Australia relations should not be the main issue stemming from the incident at Sawangan. The key concern is that police seemingly at their own initiative (or that of shadowy forces) broke up a peaceful meeting and apparently used a proxy force to do the dirty work of attacking and intimidating local pro-democracy activists. Until the security forces get the nations priorities in order and cease using third parties for violence, the reform movement has a long way to go.