Sian Powell, Banda Aceh – Courted by the Western press, feted by prominent Indonesian intellectuals and religious leaders, and idolised by crowds of villagers and farmers, it seems Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono can do no wrong.
Indonesia's favourite presidential candidate flew into the blood-soaked province of Aceh yesterday to garner support for his bid for the top job.
As chief security minister, Yudhoyono last year launched the military operation to crush the separatist rebels in Aceh, a show of force that has killed about 2000 people so far – mostly civilians, according to the activists.
Yet few blame the smiling politician. Yudhoyono tried hard to keep a shaky ceasefire going, but when it failed he became Jakarta's linchpin for the Aceh crackdown.
Yesterday's visit was his first free of the trappings of security minister or army general. Wearing a peci, or Indonesian Islamic hat, the former soldier concentrated more on the religious nature of his visit, addressing clerics and praying in one of the most beautiful mosques in the world. Yet dozens of paramilitary police in bullet-proof vests served as a reminder that the brutal crackdown begun by Yudhoyono last May continues.
An apparently gentle intellectual with an impassive expression, Yudhoyono is widely seen as a soldierly type with deep reserves of inner strength. Perceived as a leader who can match wits with diplomats, he speaks impeccable English and usually wears immaculate suits.
Unlike one of his chief rivals, the former armed forces chief Wiranto, there are no documented atrocities looming out of a dark military past to haunt his candidacy. Unlike his other chief rival, President Megawati Sukarnoputri, there isn't a long list of dubious appointments and missed chances or a stagnant economy that has left half the nation living below the poverty line.
Yudhoyono appears to be not only the preferred candidate of most Western nations but reputable polls suggest he is also Indonesia's favourite presidential aspirant – with at least 40 per cent of the electorate giving him the nod.
He roared out of the blocks earlier this year when his campaign officially started and he hasn't looked back since. Yet many question the ease with which SBY, as he is popularly known, slipped into the lead and assumed the mantle of statesman-candidate.
He was a New Order general, a commander in the time of brutal military crackdowns, one of the strongarm dictator Suharto's hand-picked soldiers. When East Timor was writhing under the Indonesian military, Yudhoyono commanded Battalion 744 in Dili for nearly three years, from 1984 to 1986. In an authorised mini-biography, he says he learned about human rights in East Timor and prevented his troops from executing a guerilla commander on the spot.
This was such a novel departure from the norm, according to the biography, that no less a military authority than Zacky Anwar Makarim (a name notorious in the annals of East Timor) flew in from Bali to congratulate him on starting a noble tradition of taking prisoners.
A rising star in the army ranks, by the early 1990s Yudhoyono was one of president Suharto's chosen few, partly to counter-act jealousy of Suharto's soldier son-in-law Prabowo. By the late '90s, Yudhoyono was chief-of-staff in the Jakarta command and in charge at the time of the July 27, 1996, raid on the headquarters of Megawati's Democratic Party of Indonesia headquarters.
The bloody ruckus left at least five dead and 23 missing. Many believe the order for the attack came directly from Suharto, who was concerned about the burgeoning popularity of Megawati. Indonesian police this year accelerated their investigation into the tragedy, recently handing several dossiers to the prosecutor's office. But to the surprise of many, SBY's name is not among the suspects.
"For July 27, as the chief-of-staff, I think he certainly must have known about the plans to attack the PDI offices," says human rights activist Munir. "He was the one responsible for operations."
These days Yudhoyono tries to distance himself from his military past. At a recent conference he took issue with a question from the floor in which he was referred to as a military man. He had left the army five years ago, he pointed out firmly. But as Indonesia's chief security minister until earlier this year, when he was forced out by Megawati, he wielded extraordinary power over the armed forces and has to take a lot of responsibility for the military crackdown in Aceh.
Jun Honna, a democratisation expert at the University of Indonesia and an academic who has researched widely on the evolution of the Indonesian military, says he has never heard Yudhoyono's name connected with specific brutality. Yet Honna is concerned by the presence of a circle of conservative generals around Yudhoyono's campaign.
"They see an opportunity with him," he says. "If SBY becomes president and if he wants to implement military reform, he will face resistance from these generals, especially if he can't resist them now."
Honna points out that Yudhoyono's Democrat Party website once featured a promise on military reform – but it was the work of a hacker rather than party policy-makers. This was explained to army chief Ryamizard Ryacudu when he rang to inquire. Anyway, Honna says, international pressure for military reform in Indonesian got shunted after September11, 2001, when the West decided combating terrorism had sidelined the problems of military brutality and impunity.
Human rights activists are concerned about Indonesia's choices in the July 5 direct presidential election. The three frontrunners are two New Order generals and a self-described beauty who has had protesters imprisoned for stamping on her posters. Widely seen as the best of the bunch, Yudhoyono usually makes all the right noises about the importance of democracy, the crucial battle with terrorism, the need to crush corruption, maintain the rule of law and encourage foreign investment. Occasionally, though, he sounds a sour note.
"Democracy, human rights, concern for the environment and other concepts promoted by Western countries are all good, but they cannot become absolute goals because pursuing them as such will not be good for the country," he was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara in January, when he was still the nation's security tsar.
Dita Indah Sari, a labour organiser and activist, doesn't like the smell of khaki that hangs about Wiranto and Yudhoyono. Like the students in a recent spate of anti-military demonstrations, she believes that if either of them became president, it would signify a setback for Indonesia's infant democracy.
"They are people with a problem, their track records have problems, both politically and in reality," she says. "They are from the military, which finished democracy in this country for 32 years." She worries that the contest between the generals and Megawati has become a contest between military and civilian rule, and says Yudhoyono and Wiranto have both capitalised on the perceived failure of civilian administrations since 1999.
The candidacy of the generals is not good for Indonesia, Sari adds. "It means two things; first, it strengthens the legitimacy of the military in politics in Indonesia," she says. "And, second, it strengthens the assumption that conflicts can be resolved only if the military joins in."
Although the Indonesian military has been instructed not to vote in the forthcoming election, there are signs many soldiers have plumped for SBY and instructed their families to vote for him.
There is a huge military complex in Brawijaya, in East Java, and Honna says it was a Democrat Party stronghold in the April general election, with most military families lining up behind Yudhoyono's party. He has seen village military leaders campaigning for Yudhoyono in East Java.
Their support certainly doesn't stem from the former general's brilliance as a military commander. "I don't think there is a single operation which has been successfully handled by SBY," Honna says, pointing out that the inter-religious strife in Ambon and Poso was largely settled in 2002 by Yusuf Kalla, once a Megawati minister and now Yudhoyono's running mate.
The earlier flare-up in West Kalimantan was handled at a local level, and most analysts agree the ongoing Aceh operation has failed, with 2000 dead, not a single senior commander captured and the separatist rebels still fighting back.
Veteran human rights activist Munir, executive director of Imparsial – Indonesian Human Rights Watch – says that regardless of military prowess, Yudhoyono was an integral part of the Suharto military fortress.
He remembers the former general saying in 1997 that there was no need to replace Suharto's New Order regime; that there was nothing wrong with the New Order. A main concern, he says, lies with the righting of past wrongs. "The legal system in Indonesia means the president is in a very strong position to decide whether atrocities from the past should be heard in a human rights court or not," he says. A president who was a leading light in the regime may not want the spotlight shone on the dark places of the New Order, and that goes for Wiranto as well, Munir adds.
Sari says Indonesia should take care to look beyond Yudhoyono's impressive facade. "What appears is the image of SBY as cool, quick to smile, soft, polite, a good singer, oppressed by Taufik Kiemas, Megawati's husband, but that's just talk. That's fake. What is real is martial law and July 27. That's the real thing."