Richard Lloyd Parry – When she first came to world attention seven years ago, Megawati Sukarnoputri was hailed as a heroine. Stubborn, matronly and majestic, the leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party won admirers across the world for her peaceful struggle against the dictatorship of President Suharto.
As the daughter of Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, at home she was revered almost as royalty. As a brave female democracy leader she was compared to Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma and Cory Aquino of the Philippines. And when she was finally elected President in 2001, three years after the fall of Suharto, it seemed like the sweetest kind of justice.
How much has changed since. From being an icon of democratic struggle in South-East Asia, President Megawati has come to be regarded by many of her compatriots as scarcely better than the dictator against whom she struggled.
In Jakarta, corrupt businessmen and cronies of the old regime continue to wield power, untouched by the weak courts. In the rebel province of Aceh, Indonesian soldiers fight a war as bloody and brutal as the one pursued by Suharto in East Timor. And all over the country, peaceful opponents of the Government are being locked up for no more than defacing Mrs Megawati's photograph.
There is widespread disillusion among the student demonstrators who drove Suharto from power in 1998. "Reform has failed," read one of the banners at a demonstration marking the fifth anniversary of Suharto's demise in May. "Revolution is the answer."
Two of the world's most respected human rights organisations published simultaneous reports yesterday describing the dismal record of Mrs Megawati's Government. "Moves towards greater political freedoms are being undermined by the prosecution and imprisonment of peaceful political, labour, independence and other activists," Brad Adams, of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said. "With less than one year to go before Indonesia's first direct presidential elections, to be locking up individuals who criticise the Government is an alarming development for the electoral process."
According to the reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Mrs Megawati's Government has locked up 39 people for peaceful political activities. Several of these have been in the provinces of Aceh and Papua, where peaceful civilian groups, as well as armed guerrillas, are campaigning for independence. Four trade union activists in Borneo got six-month sentences after organising peaceful protests against low wages. But the most extraordinary are the convictions under Dutch colonial era laws against "insulting the President". portraits of Mrs Megawati and Hamzah Haz, her Vice-President, last year in Jakarta; in January, two men demonstrating against rising fuel prices burned similar photographs in the city of Yogyakarta. They were all jailed for up to three years.
More disturbing, however, are renewed reports of unpunished brutality by the TNI, the Indonesian armed forces. Hopes that Mrs Megawati would exercise a moderating influence are dying in the face of continuing carnage in Aceh. "There is a total atmosphere of impunity where soldiers think they can get away with murder," Charmain Mohamed, of Human Rights Watch, said. "Because effectively they can."