dhia_prekasha's posts with tag: abri
| Ben Anderson Soal Pengadilan Soeharto, Seperti Ribut Masalah Selera Noraknya Hitler Warta Berita Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, Edisi: Bahasa Indonesia, Rabu 30 Agustus 2000 31 Agustus 2000 mungkin akan menjadi salah satu hari bersejarah baru bagi Indonesia, karena pada hari itu, paling sedikit seperti diumumkan Pengadilan Negeri Jakarta Selatan Rabu 23 Agustus, dimulai pengadilan mantan Presiden Soeharto. Akhirnya, peradilan Indonesia yang semasa 32 tahun kekuasaan Soeharto terbukti tidak pernah mandiri dari kekuasaan mutlaknya, berani menyeruak tampil dengan wewenang yudikatifnya. Maka inilah kesempatan emas bagi jajaran peradilan Indonesia untuk membuktikan diri mampu menegakkan kedaulatan hukum. Tetapi, tidak semua kalangan menyambut baik pengadilan bersejarah ini. Salah satunya adalah Profesor Benedict Anderson, indonesianis dari Cornell University di Ithaca, Amerika Serikat. Dalam sebuah mingguan ibukota Ben Anderson pernah menulis, "Keributan mempersoalkan perkara korupsi Soeharto dan keluarga (seolah-olah kriminalitas Soeharto hanya sejenis kriminalitas Eddy Tansil) sama gilanya dengan keributan tentang banyaknya gundik Idi Amin, tentang pencolengannya Slobodan Milosevic, atau selera artistik Adolf Hitler yang norak. Bahwa kelas menengah Jakarta dan sebagian besar lapisan intelektual masih sibuk dengan isu duit yang dicolong "Pak Harto" (Duit kite, lo. Mungkin begitu impiannya), itu menunjukkan dengan jelas bahwa mereka belum mampu menghadapi realitas dan sejarah modern bangsa Indonesia secara keseluruhan. Sikap burung unta, yang ngotot "mencemplungkan kepalanya" ke dalam lautan pasir, berbahaya sekali. Seorang intelek wicaksana pernah bersabda: mereka yang tak mau tahu masa lalu dihukum untuk mengulanginya. Mengerikan, bukan?" Nada sinis pada peringatan di atas sebenarnya sulit dipahami kalau harus datang dari seorang yang selama 20 tahun lebih sempat dicekal oleh Soeharto untuk bisa masuk Indonesia. Untuk mengetahui alasan kesinisan ini kami menelpon Profesor Benedict Anderson di kantornya, di Ithaca, bagaimana pendapatnya mengenai dakwaan korupsi terhadap Soeharto itu? Benedict Anderson [BA]: Bagaimana pun saya kira ini paling gampang untuk elit. Jadi masalah korupsi itu masalah, ya, pribadi. Jadi, kalau dia diadili atas tuduhan ini, geng Orde Baru dan sebagian besar dari geng Reformasi akan merasa aman. Tapi kalau tuduhannya berbau politik dan kriminal, tentara bisa groggy, dan banyak orang yang sekarang berkaok sebagai kelompok Reformasi akan terpaksa melihat ke belakang. Karena bagaimanapun landasan era reformasi tetap apa yang terjadi di Indonesia pada tahun 60an. Saya sudah pernah bikin perhitungan, bahwa kalau kita ikutkan orang Timtim, selama Harto berkuasa, paling sedikit 800 ribu manusia Indonesia mati secara tidak normal. Itu suatu kriminalitas yang luar biasa. Tapi kalau itu dijadikan tuduhan terhadap Soeharto, banyak sekali orang lain yang harus terseret. Radio Nederland [RN]: Anda mengatakan sebagai yang "paling gampang" dan "supaya orang lain tidak terseret", jadi seolah-olah orang lain ini tidak korupsi gitu? BA: Bukan, maksudnya kalau masalah yayasan ini, atau yayasan itu menyelewengkan duit, itu yang lain-lain akan merasa sudah aman. Karena ini pasti kasus yang lama. Dan tingkat korupsi pada masa Soeharto begitu tinggi dan begitu meluas, sehingga kalau mulai diadili kasus-kasus korupsi, itu baru bisa selesai mungkin 60 tahun ke depan. RN: Padahal menurut anda kasus-kasus non korupsi, kasus kejahatan politik yang anda bilang itu lebih penting ya ketimbang kasus korupsi? BA: Ya, saya pernah menulis bahwa ribut masalah duit ini, duit itu dicolong sama Soeharto dengan tidak menghiraukan kriminalitas politik, itu seperti ribut masalah selera noraknya Hitler dan tidak menghiraukan pembunuhan massal yang dilakukan oleh Hitler. Jadi ini sangat tidak rasional dan sangat di luar proporsi. RN: Dengan demikian menurut anda semua ini juga masih direkayasa ya, jadi hanya masalah korupsi, tapi bukan masalah kejahatan politiknya gitu. Maksudnya direkayasa itu diarahkan ke sana gitu, ya? BA: Ya, karena kalau masalah pembunuhan yang pernah terjadi, pembunuhan di Aceh, di Irian, di Timtim sampai sekarang enggak pernah dihadapi secara jantan oleh elit Indonesia, apalagi yang sebelumnya. Jadi masalah petrus tahun 83, dan paling penting itu pembunuhan massal tahun 65-66, kan. Di mana Ansornya Gus Dur, di mana Bantengnya Megawati, di mana tentara, di mana banyak sekali orang ikut. Kalau masalah ini dibuka kembali, ya susah untuk mereka. Mereka harus menghadapi masa lalu mereka sendiri. Dan itu mereka enggak mau. RN: Ada semacam sikap selektif gitu ya di kalangan elit politik Indonesia. Karena misalnya kalau kita membandingkan dengan kerusuhan tahun 98, yang mengarah pada lengsernya Eyang Soeharto, orang-orang Tionghoa banyak menjadi korbannya, perempuan-perempuan Tionghoa diperkosa segala macem. Itu kan terjadi semacam histeria massal, kaget semua. Tapi, kenapa kok menurut anda berhenti di situ saja? Orang-orang kok tidak menoleh lebih jauh lagi? BA: Well saya kira mungkin sebagian karena timingnya (saatnya, Red.), karena kriminalitas ini dianggap sebagai kriminalitas terakhir geng Soeharto yang setelah itu jatuh. Jadi mereka begitu happy (gembira, Red.) dengan dilengserkannya Soeharto sehingga apa yang terjadi sebelumnya enggak usah banyak dipikirkan. Tetapi jelas kalau kerusuhan itu diselidiki bener-beneran, ya itu pasti tentara kan menjadi biangnya. Seperti banyak sekali kasus di Indonesia, kan?  Di Timtim itu sampai sekarang belum ada investigasi yang bener-beneran tentang apa yang terjadi. Enggak ada orang yang tanggung jawab atas apa yang terjadi, enggak ada orang yang dihukum karena itu. Apalagi masalah perkosaan terhadap wanita-wanita Tionghoa yang sebagian besar pasti dikerjakan oleh preman-preman anu, yang dekat dengan istana, dan Prabowo, dan sebagainya. Jadi, Soeharto sendiri enggak bisa begitu brutal dan begitu kriminal kalau dia tidak menjadi jenderal di antara sekian banyak jenderal dengan loyalitas angkatan darat di belakangnya. Jadi membongkar apa yang terjadi dulu, itu membongkar noda-noda yang besar sekali dalam image (citra, Red.) dan self respect (harga diri, Red.) angkatan darat. RN: Ya. Di Indonesia ini, para korban Orde Baru, misalnya yang diorganisir oleh Ibu Sulami itu kan mulai aktif, Ben. Bahkan hari-hari ini, Madame Danielle Mitterand, istrinya mendiang Presiden Prancis Francois Mitterand berkunjung ke Indonesia bertemu dengan Ibu Sulami segala. Nah itu ada kan semacam perlawanan atau usaha untuk minta keadilan pada periode itu Ben? BA: Memang ada. Walaupun secara resmi missinya Bu Sulami itu bukan untuk menyeret orang ke pengadilan, tetapi untuk mengetahui berapa banyak orang yang mati, matinya di mana, caranya bagaimana dan sebagainya. Jadi, itu semacam riset daripada semacam interogasi. Dan lama-lama saya kira juga orang-orang bekas Tapol akan buka mulut, akan menulis dan sebagainya. Tapi ini proses yang lama. Dan toh mereka menghadapi realitas bahwa sistem hukum di Indonesia itu kacaunya bukan main, korupnya bukan main. Jadi selama Mahkamah Agung, selama Pengadilan Tinggi dan sebagainya begitu brengsek, mereka juga tidak punya harapan. Pinochet Iya, kenapa Soeharto Enggak? RN: Lalu kalau kita bandingkan dengan Cile gimana Ben? Kan mantan diktator militer Cile ini, Jenderal Augusto Pinochet akhirnya dicabut kekebalan politiknya sebagai senator seumur hidup dan dia bisa diadili. Nampaknya memang di Cile hasrat untuk memperoleh keadilan dengan masa lampau itu lebih besar ya katimbang di Indonesia? BA: Well, ada bedanya juga. Barusan saya ke Peru dan bicara dengan sejarawan-sejarawan Cile yang kebetulan berkunjung ke sana. Mereka sangat anti Pinochet. Terus saya tanya jumlah total korban Pinochet, berapa orang yang dibunuh? Mereka bilang, "Menurut perhitungan kami itu kira-kira 3000 orang." Sedangkan korban tentara di Peru, selama Sendero Luminoso, dari pihak tentara paling sedikit 30 ribu. Tapi enggak ada orang yang omong perkara itu. Jadi jumlahnya di Cile tidak begitu besar, tapi itu menjadi sangat terkenal karena korbannya intelektual-intelektual, orang-orang kelas menengah dan sebagainya. Sedangkan di Peru yang dibunuh itu ya, petani-petani, sebagian besar. Ini masalahnya di Indonesia juga. Korban 65-66 ya tentunya banyak orang kader-kader PKI. Tapi sebagian besar, mungkin 90%, itu orang-orang di pedesaan, di mana orang Jakarta juga enggak perduli. Di mana pun ini masalah siapa yang menjadi korban. Itulah yang penting. Jadi si Pinochet bisa terseret, sebagian karena ia sendiri dengan bodonya pergi ke Inggris di mana dia bisa ditangkap, kan. Kalau dia tetap di Cile saya enggak percaya bahwa dia sampai kehilangan imunitasnya. Saya juga yakin ada semacam deal (kesepakatan, Red.) di belakang layar antara Inggris dengan Cile. Jadi menteri dalam negeri Inggris melepaskan Pinochet supaya tidak diseret ke Spanyol, tetapi saya yakin bahwa diem-diem pemerintah Cile berjanji bahwa dia akan diurusin bener-bener di Cile sendiri. Jadi apa yang terjadi di Inggris memaksa pemerintah Cile untuk bertanggung jawab, karena sebenarnya mereka takutnya bukan main. Bagusnya Soeharto mau diobati di luar negeri, lalu ditangkap. Nah, baru mungkin ada perbaikan. RN: Ya, jadi menurut anda yang ideal adalah memancing Soeharto supaya pergi ke luar negeri ya? BA: Well, ini omong secara kelakar, karena dia sudah tahu sekarang itu resikonya besar, kecuali kalau dia berobat ke Jepang. Kalau di Eropa atau Amerika, susah. RN: Kalau gitu, kembali kepada kasus Cile tadi, nampaknya Indonesia ini lebih mirip dengan Peru di mana banyak yang mati itu adalah penduduk pendesaan dan orang miskin, sehingga kesimpulannya keadilan ini masih milik orang kaya dan orang perkotaan ya? BA: Oh iya, di mana pun. Saya selalu heran dulu waktu nginterview (wawancara, Red.) orang-orang yang pernah menjadi Tapol di Indonesia. Semua mengakui bahwa orang yang paling disiksa, yang paling berat hukumannya justru yang kecil-kecil, anak Pemuda Rakyat, dan sebagainya. Sedangkan tokoh-tokoh besar, seperti Sudisman, yang seharusnya tanggung jawabnya paling besar justru tidak disiksa. Saya kira ada banyak faktor dalam hal ini. Tapi sebagian adalah, bagaimanapun Sudisman masuk lapisan intelektual, lapisan priyayi kecil, dan sebagainya. Ini tidak logis. Jadi justru orang yang tinggi seharusnya dapat hukuman yang paling berat, bukan yang kecil-kecil. Tapi dalam realitasnya justru sebaliknya. Ini bukan hanya di Indonesia yang terjadi demikian. Ini memang sering terjadi di manapun di dunia, aneh. Presiden Punya Premannya RN: Kalau begitu menurut anda adakah keterkaitan antara masa lampau Indonesia ketika Orde Baru tampil ini, dengan kekerasan yang sampai sekarang tidak pernah berhenti ini, di Maluku, kemudian di Aceh. Apakah menurut anda keduanya berkaitan? BA: Saya kira ada. Tetapi kita harus ingat bahwa Revolusi 45 sendiri itu penuh kekerasan. Terus Darul Islam pada tahun 50an itu cukup banyak kekerasan. Kahar Muzakar banyak kekerasannya. Jadi ini bukan 100% baru. Tetapi yang penting, yang terjadi selama Orde Baru adalah sekelas manusia yang merasa diri di atas hukum. Jadi tentara dengan OK dari Soeharto bisa buat apa saja untuk kepentingan negara di mata mereka sendiri. Jadi mereka enggak usah takut diseret ke mana-mana, diadili dan sebagainya. Mereka betul-betul menjadi monster. Mulai di Timtim, terus dari Timtim itu menjalar ke tempat lain. Petrus itu juga satu contoh. Selain itu sistem pengadilan, sistem hukum di Indonesia, itu sudah hopeless (tak bisa diharapkan, Red.). Jadi orang-orang merasa bahwa kalau mereka mau membela diri atau mencari selamat, kalau mau melawan, mereka harus pake cara-cara yang sama. Selain itu terus fenomena premanisme yang pada 10 tahun terakhir ini berkembang dengan sangat cepat, di mana mulai dengan pemerintah, Ali Moertopo dan sebagainya. Lama-lama itu PDI punya premannya, Islam punya premannya, presiden punya premannya. Sering masalah-masalah, seperti di Maluku, sebenarnya mulai di Jakarta. Waktu itu terjadi saingan antara geng Kristen dengan geng Islam perkara tempat judi dan sebagainya di Kota. Orang-orang Ambon Kristen kalah, terus mereka pulang ke Ambon dan mulai balas dendam di sana. Jadi, kultur premanisme, kultur di atas hukum di kalangan tentara, kultur kediktaturan semua ikut menjadi sebab musabab situasi seperti sekarang ini. RN: Kalau begitu akankah ada semacam jalan keluar kalau kita menegakkan apa yang disebut Gus Dur kedaulatan hukum, jadi menaruh semuanya di bawah hukum. Apakah anda setuju kalau itu dianggap sebagai langkah pertama yang paling bisa dikerjakan? BA: Well itu yang paling penting, tetapi justru itu yang paling sulit. Karena kalau lihat korps jaksa, korps polisi, korps hakim itu keroposnya minta ampun. Jadi pembersihan besar-besaran di lembaga-lembaga ini sangat perlu. Tetapi resikonya untuk Gus Dur itu tinggi juga. Marzuki Darusman sudah janji akan membersihkan Kejaksaan Agung, tapi sampai sekarang belum ada tanda-tanda yang jelas bahwa itu sedang dikerjakan. Seharusnya semua anggota Mahkamah Agung dipensiunkan, kalau enggak diadili. Tapi itu juga belum dilaksanakan. So, it's very difficult, ssssuuuulllitttt sekali. Resikonya besar. Tapi kalau enggak dijalankan ini akan tambah parah. RN: Kalau saya boleh berpaling ke negara-negara Asia Tenggara lainnya, ya. Indonesia ini kan bukan satu-satunya negara yang kekerasan itu selalu nampak menonjol. Bagaimana dengan Filipina atau Thailand, menurut anda? BA: Well, Filipina dalam banyak hal mirip. Artinya sistem hukumnya brengseknya bukan main. Korupsinya bukan main. Jadi, kalau punya duit, apa saja tindakan kriminalmu, kamu akan selamat. Dan kekerasan yang besar-besaran terjadi di daerah Selatan antara Kristen dan Islam. Sudah 20 tahun terjadinya. Tetapi di tempat-tempat lain, dengan hampir selesainya gerakan gerilya Komunis, boleh dikatakan bahwa masyarakatnya lebih homogen, jadi 90% Katolik. Kekerasan atas dasar agama memang ada, tetapi daerahnya terbatas. Bagaimanapun dengan jatuhnya Marcos tentara juga lama-lama mundur. Dan memang sampai sekarang tidak pernah ada kediktaturan militer di Filipina. Jadi itu sesuatu perbedaan besar. Marcos itu orang sipil. Kalau di Muangthai situasinya lebih baik. Polisinya sangat dibenci, dan banyak korupsinya. Tetapi selama 15 tahun belakangan ini tentara berangsur-angsur dipinggirkan dari arena politik oleh kelompok kapitalis besar, kelompok raja, kelompok intelektual, dan sebagainya. Tapi harus diakui bahwa kekerasan yang paling terkenal dalam sejarah moderen Muangthai, yaitu pembunuhan massal di Universitas Thammasat pada tahun 76, sampai sekarang tidak pernah diperiksa, tidak ada orang yang diadili, dan sebagainya, walaupun semua orang tahu siapa yang membuatnya. Tetapi elit politik rupanya merasa bahwa kalau masalah ini dibongkar bisa merembet ke mana-mana, itu berbahaya, jadi dipetieskan. Kraton juga ikut main waktu itu. RN: Ya, jadi itu soal militer ya. Tapi bagaimana dengan soal premannya? BA: Well di Muangthai premanisme ada. Tapi civil society (masyarakat sipil, Red.) lebih kuat dan kelas menengah tidak suka sama premanisme. Jadi, itu faktor lokal, bukannya faktor nasional. Di Filipina banyak sekali geng-geng, tetapi semua geng-geng ini juga bersifat lokal. Tidak menentukan politik di tingkat nasional. Kita ambil suatu contoh. Pemuda Pancasila. Walau pun sekarang seperti sudah mau keok, tetapi pada masa jayanya, itu organisasi nasional. Jadi punya cabang di mana-mana, di seluruh Indonesia. Memeras kiri kanan. Di Muangthai atau Filipina, sama sekali nggak ada preman tingkat nasional yang dilindungi oleh pemerintah, seperti itu. Itu agak unik. Jadi peranan gengster-gengster kelas nasional. Gengster di Muangthai dan gengster di Filipina, ya, bersifat lokal. Itu satu perbedaan besar. RN: Dengan demikian di kedua negara ini masalah penegakan hukum ini tidak sebesar di Indonesia ya? BA: Tidak sebesar di Indonesia. Mengganggu Rasa Keadilan Orang Indonesia
RN: Anda juga mengatakan, di Indonesia ini orang tidak berpikir tentang masa lampaunya. Lalu kan orang juga mengerti, kalau masa lampau ini tidak diselesaikan, orang akan dihukum untuk mengulanginya lagi. Anda juga pernah menulis soal ini. Kemungkinan itu tetap ada di Indonesia?
BA: Well, bisa juga. I mean (maksud saya, Red.), kalau umpamanya orang seperti Benny Moerdani ditangkap dan diadili, walaupun mungkin pada akhirnya dia bisa dimaafkan oleh Presiden dengan amnesti, tapi paling sedikit pengadilannya akan membuka, untuk koran dan sebagainya, segala macam kekerasan yang pernah terjadi. Jadi akan menggugah kesadaran orang Indonesia tentang apa yang terjadi pada masa lampau. Orang seperti Benny Moerdani, Harto, biarpun mereka dieksekusi, toh mereka tidak bisa menghidupkan kembali ratusan ribu korban kan. Tapi paling sedikit, dengan pengadilan demikian, negara dan bangsa Indonesia akan terpaksa menghadapi apa yang terjadi dan memikirkan masa lalu mereka sendiri. Jadi, sebagai masalah anu, conscience, kan? RN: Masalah hati nurani, ya? BA: Ya, bahwa orang yang sekuat itu bisa diadili, bisa dipaksa untuk bicara tentang apa yang telah terjadi, biarpun membela diri dan sebagainya, saksi-saksi datang ke depan membeberkan pengalaman mereka, dan sebagainya. Dokumen-dokumen akan dikeluarkan dari arsip-arsip. Ini suatu proses yang bagaimanapun juga penting. Biarpun pada akhirnya mereka enggak dihukum, itu enggak apa-apa. Karena bagaimana pun kedua-duanya akan diambil Tuhan, kan. Kedua-duanya tua dan groggy. Juga dalam kasus Pinochet. Mereka pasti mengira bahwa dia tidak bisa hidup beberapa lama lagi kan. Dia sudah sakit, sudah ada masalah ini, masalah itu. Mungkin juga ada sebagian orang Cile yang mengharapkan bahwa dia cepat-cepat mati supaya enggak diadili. Tapi prinsipnya bahwa dia bisa diadili dan dipaksa untuk memberi semacam tanggung jawab terhadap tindakannya, saya kira untuk kesehatan moral bangsa Cile, itu penting. RN: Sepenting itu juga mengadili Soeharto dengan tuduhan pelanggaran hak-hak asasi manusia bagi kesehatan moral bangsa Indonesia, ya? BA: Iya, karena kalau menghukum preman ini, preman itu padahal Harto masih prei, dan sekaligus mengetahui bahwa kriminal besar masih enak-enak. Itu kan juga mengganggu rasa keadilan orang Indonesia, kan? Saya kasih contoh, bangsanya si Yoris, yang dulu polisi enggak berani tangkap. Seandainya dia ditangkap dan diadili, dia orang kecil sebenarnya. Orang mungkin akan senang sekali kalau dia diadili. Tetapi, bagaimana pun dia cuma pionnya Harto, kan? Jadi orang akan merasa, oh kok Yoris bisa dihukum, tapi bosnya, otaknya, kok enggak, itu enggak fair, kan? Demikian Profesor Benedict Anderson, pakar Indonesia dari Cornell University di Ithaca, Amerika Serikat. Profesor Anderson adalah salah satu penulis Cornell Paper, karya akademis pertama yang meragukan versi Soeharto atas Peristiwa G30S. Sejak itu, Soeharto melarangnya datang ke Indonesia, dan Ben Anderson, begitu panggilan akrabnya, melebarkan sayap. Ia tidak hanya menekuni Indonesia, tetapi juga Filipina dan Muangthai. Kepiawaian Prof. Anderson pada tiga negara itu terlihat pada buku terakhirnya, The Spectre of Comparison, yang menelaah dan membandingkan nasionalisme, budaya dan sejarah Asia Tenggara dan dunia. __._,_.__ |
BENEDICT ANDERSON PETRUS DADI RATU In the early 1930s, Bung Karno [Sukarno] was hauled before a Dutch colonial court on a variety of charges of ‘subversion’. He was perfectly aware that the whole legal process was prearranged by the authorities, and he was in court merely to receive a heavy sentence. Accordingly, rather than wasting his time on defending himself against the charges, he decided to go on the attack by laying bare all aspects of the racist colonial system. Known by its title ‘Indonesia Accuses!’ his defence plea has since become a key historical document for the future of the Indonesian people he loved so well. Roughly forty-five years later, Colonel Abdul Latief was brought before a special military court—after thirteen years in solitary confinement, also on a variety of charges of subversion. Since he, too, was perfectly aware that the whole process was prearranged by the authorities, he followed in Bung Karno’s footsteps by turning his defence plea into a biting attack on the New Order, and especially on the cruelty, cunning and despotism of its creator. It is a great pity that this historic document has had to wait twenty-two years to become available to the Indonesian people whom he, also, loves so well. [1] But who is, and was, Abdul Latief, who in his youth was called Gus Dul? While still a young boy of fifteen, he was conscripted by the Dutch for basic military training in the face of an impending mass assault by the forces of Imperial Japan. However, the colonial authorities quickly surrendered, and Gus Dul was briefly imprisoned by the occupying Japanese. Subsequently, he joined the Seinendan and the Peta in East Java. [2] After the Revolution broke out in 1945, he served continuously on the front lines, at first along the perimeter of Surabaya, and subsequently in Central Java. Towards the end he played a key role in the famous General Assault of March 1, 1949 on Jogjakarta [the revolutionary capital just captured by the Dutch]: directly under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Suharto. After the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Latief led combat units against various rebel forces: the groups of Andi Azis and Kahar Muzakar in South Sulawesi; the separatist Republic of the South Moluccas; the radical Islamic Battalion 426 in Central Java, the Darul Islam in West Java, and finally the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia [CIA-financed and armed rebellion of 1957–58] in West Sumatra. He was a member of the second graduating class of the Staff and Command College (Suharto was a member of the first class). Finally, during the Confrontation with Malaysia, he was assigned the important post of Commander of Brigade 1 in Jakarta, directly under the capital’s Territorial Commander, General Umar Wirahadikusumah. In this capacity he played an important, but not central, role in the September 30th Movement of 1965. From this sketch it is clear that Gus Dul was and is a true-blue combat soldier, with a psychological formation typical of the nationalist freedom-fighters of the Independence Revolution, and an absolute loyalty to its Great Leader. [3] His culture? The many references in his defence speech both to the Koran and to the New Testament indicate a characteristic Javanese syncretism. Standard Marxist phraseology is almost wholly absent. And his accusations? The first is that Suharto, then the Commander of the Army’s Strategic Reserve [Kostrad], was fully briefed beforehand, by Latief himself, on the Council of Generals plotting Sukarno’s overthrow, and on the September 30th Movement’s plans for preventive action. General Umar too was informed through the hierarchies of the Jakarta Garrison and the Jakarta Military Police. This means that Suharto deliberately allowed the September 30th Movement to start its operations, and did not report on it to his superiors, General Nasution and General Yani. [4] By the same token, Suharto was perfectly positioned to take action against the September 30th Movement, once his rivals at the top of the military command structure had been eliminated. Machiavelli would have applauded. We know that Suharto gave two contradictory public accounts of his meeting with Latief late in the night of September 30th at the Army Hospital. Neither one is plausible. To the American journalist Arnold Brackman, Suharto said that Latief had come to the hospital to ‘check’ on him (Suharto’s baby son Tommy was being treated for minor burns from scalding soup). But ‘checking’ on him for what? Suharto did not say. To Der Spiegel Suharto later confided that Latief had come to kill him, but lost his nerve because there were too many people around (as if Gus Dul only then realized that hospitals are very busy places!). The degree of Suharto’s commitment to truth can be gauged from the following facts. By October 4, 1965, a team of forensic doctors had given him directly their detailed autopsies on the bodies of the murdered generals. The autopsies showed that all the victims had been gunned down by military weapons. But two days later, a campaign was initiated in the mass media, by then fully under Kostrad control, to the effect that the generals’ eyes had been gouged out, and their genitals cut off, by members of Gerwani [the Communist Party’s women’s affiliate]. These icy lies were planned to create an anti-communist hysteria in all strata of Indonesian society. Other facts strengthen Latief’s accusation. Almost all the key military participants in the September 30th Movement were, either currently or previously, close subordinates of Suharto: Lieutenant-Colonel Untung, Colonel Latief, and Brigadier-General Supardjo in Jakarta, and Colonel Suherman, Major Usman, and their associates at the Diponegoro Division’s HQ in Semarang. When Untung got married in 1963, Suharto made a special trip to a small Central Javanese village to attend the ceremony. When Suharto’s son Sigit was circumcised, Latief was invited to attend, and when Latief’s son’s turn came, the Suharto family were honoured guests. It is quite plain that these officers, who were not born yesterday, fully believed that Suharto was with them in their endeavour to rescue Sukarno from the conspiracy of the Council of Generals. Such trust is incomprehensible unless Suharto, directly or indirectly, gave his assent to their plans. It is therefore not at all surprising that Latief’s answer to my question, ‘How did you feel on the evening of October 1st?’—Suharto had full control of the capital by late afternoon—was, ‘I felt I had been betrayed.’ Furthermore, Latief’s account explains clearly one of the many mysteries surrounding the September 30th Movement. Why were the two generals who commanded directly all the troops in Jakarta, except for the Presidential Guard—namely Kostrad Commander Suharto and Jakarta Military Territory Commander Umar—not ‘taken care of’ by the September 30th Movement, if its members really intended a coup to overthrow the government, as the Military Prosecutor charged? The reason is that the two men were regarded as friends. A further point is this. We now know that, months before October 1, Ali Murtopo, then Kostrad’s intelligence chief, was pursuing a foreign policy kept secret from both Sukarno and Yani. Exploiting the contacts of former rebels, [5] clandestine connexions were made with the leaderships of two then enemy countries, Malaysia and Singapore, as well as with the United States. At that time Benny Murdani [6] was furthering these connexions from Bangkok, where he was disguised as an employee in the local Garuda [Indonesian National Airline] office. Hence it looks as if Latief is right when he states that Suharto was two-faced, or, perhaps better put, two-fisted. In one fist he held Latief–Untung–Supardjo, and in the other Murtopo–Yoga Sugama [7]–Murdani. The second accusation reverses the charges of the Military Prosecutor that the September 30th Movement intended to overthrow the government and that the Council of Generals was a pack of lies. Latief’s conclusion is that it was precisely Suharto who planned and executed the overthrow of Sukarno; and that a Council of Generals did exist —composed not of Nasution, Yani, et al., but rather of Suharto and his trusted associates, who went on to create a dictatorship based on the Army which lasted for decades thereafter. Here once again, the facts are on Latief’s side. General Pranoto Reksosamudro, appointed by President/Commander-in-Chief Sukarno as acting Army Commander after Yani’s murder, found his appointment rejected by Suharto, and his person soon put under detention. Aidit, Lukman and Nyoto, the three top leaders of the Indonesian Communist Party, then holding ministerial rank in Sukarno’s government, were murdered out of hand. And although President Sukarno did his utmost to prevent it, Suharto and his associates planned and carried out vast massacres in the months of October, November and December 1965. As Latief himself underlines, in March 1966 a ‘silent coup’ took place: military units surrounded the building where a plenary cabinet meeting was taking place, and hours later the President was forced, more or less at gunpoint, to sign the super-murky Supersemar. [8] Suharto immediately cashiered Sukarno’s cabinet and arrested fifteen ministers. Latief’s simple verdict is that it was not the September 30th Movement which was guilty of grave and planned insubordination against the President, ending in his overthrow, but rather the man whom young wags have been calling Mr. TEK. [9] Latief’s third accusation is broader than the others and just as grave. He accuses the New Order authorities of extraordinary, and wholly extra-legal, cruelty. That the Accuser is today still alive, with his wits intact, and his heart full of fire, shows him to be a man of almost miraculous fortitude. During his arrest on October 11, 1965, many key nerves in his right thigh were severed by a bayonet, while his left knee was completely shattered by bullets (in fact, he put up no resistance). In the Military Hospital his entire body was put into a gypsum cast, so that he could only move his head. Yet in this condition, he was still interrogated before being thrust into a tiny, dank and filthy isolation cell where he remained for the following thirteen years. His wounds became gangrenous and emitted the foul smell of carrion. When on one occasion the cast was removed for inspection, hundreds of maggots came crawling out. At the sight, one of the jailers had to run outside to vomit. For two and a half years Latief lay there in his cast before being operated on. He was forcibly given an injection of penicillin, though he told his guards he was violently allergic to it, with the result that he fainted and almost died. Over the years he suffered from haemorrhoids, a hernia, kidney stones, and calcification of the spine. The treatment received by other prisoners, especially the many military men among them, was not very different, and their food was scarce and often rotting. It is no surprise, therefore, that many died in the Salemba Prison, many became paralytics after torture, and still others went mad. In the face of such sadism, perhaps even the Kempeitai [10] would have blanched. And this was merely Salemba—one among the countless prisons in Jakarta and throughout the archipelago, where hundreds of thousands of human beings were held for years without trial. Who was responsible for the construction of this tropical Gulag? History textbooks for Indonesia’s schoolchildren speak of a colonial monster named Captain ‘Turk’ Westerling. They usually give the number of his victims in South Sulawesi in 1946 as forty thousand. It is certain that many more were wounded, many houses were burned down, much property looted and, here and there, women raped. The defence speech of Gus Dul asks the reader to reflect on an ice-cold ‘native’ monster, whose sadism far outstripped that of the infamous Captain. In the massacres of 1965–66, a minimum of six hundred thousand were murdered. If the reported deathbed confession of Sarwo Edhie to Mas Permadi is true, the number may have reached over two million. [11] Between 1977 and 1979, at least two hundred thousand human beings in East Timor died before their time, either killed directly or condemned to planned death through systematic starvation and its accompanying diseases. Amnesty International reckons that seven thousand people were extra-judicially assassinated in the Petrus Affair of 1983. [12] To these victims, we must add those in Aceh, Irian, Lampung, Tanjung Priok and elsewhere. At the most conservative estimate: eight hundred thousand lives, or twenty times the ‘score’ of Westerling. And all these victims, at the time they died, were regarded officially as fellow-nationals of the monster. Latief speaks of other portions of the national tragedy which are also food for thought. For example, the hundreds of thousands of people who spent years in prison, without clear charges against them, and without any due process of law, besides suffering, on a routine basis, excruciating torture. To say nothing of uncountable losses of property to theft and looting, casual, everyday rapes, and social ostracism for years, not only for former prisoners themselves, but for their wives and widows, children, and kinfolk in the widest sense. Latief’s J’accuse was written twenty-two years ago, and many things have happened in his country in the meantime. But it is only now perhaps that it can acquire its greatest importance, if it serves to prick the conscience of the Indonesian people, especially the young. To make a big fuss about the corruption of Suharto and his family, as though his criminality were of the same gravity as Eddy Tansil’s, [13] is like making a big fuss about Idi Amin’s mistresses, Slobodan Miloševic’s peculations, or Adolf Hitler’s kitschy taste in art. That Jakarta’s middle class, and a substantial part of its intelligentsia, still busy themselves with the cash stolen by ‘Father Harto’ (perhaps in their dreams they think of it as ‘our cash’) shows very clearly that they are still unprepared to face the totality of Indonesia’s modern history. This attitude, which is that of the ostrich that plunges its head into the desert sands, is very dangerous. A wise man once said: Those who forget/ignore the past are condemned to repeat it. Terrifying, no? Important as it is, Latief’s defence, composed under exceptional conditions, cannot lift the veil which still shrouds many aspects of the September 30th Movement and its aftermath. Among so many questions, one could raise at least these. Why was Latief himself not executed, when Untung, Supardjo, Air Force Major Suyono, and others had their death sentences carried out? Why were Yani and the other generals killed at all, when the original plan was to bring them, as a group, face-to-face with Sukarno? Why did First Lieutenant Dul Arief of the Presidential Guard, who actually led the attacks on the generals’ homes, subsequently vanish without a trace? How and why did all of Central Java fall into the hands of supporters of the September 30th Movement for a day and a half, while nothing similar occurred in any other province? Why did Colonel Suherman, Major Usman and their associates in Semarang also disappear without a trace? Who really was Syam alias Kamaruzzaman [14]—former official of the Recomba of the Federal State of Pasundan, [15] former member of the anti-communist Indonesian Socialist Party, former intelligence operative for the Greater Jakarta Military Command at the time of the huge smuggling racket run by General Nasution and General Ibnu Sutowo out of Tanjung Priok, as well as former close friend of D. N. Aidit? Was he an army spy in the ranks of the Communists? Or a Communist spy inside the military? Or a spy for a third party? Or all three simultaneously? Was he really executed, or does he live comfortably abroad with a new name and a fat wallet? Latief also cannot give us answers to questions about key aspects of the activities of the September 30th Movement, above all its political stupidities. Lieutenant-Colonel Untung’s radio announcement that starting from October 1st, the highest military rank would be the one he himself held, automatically made enemies of all the generals and colonels in Indonesia, many of whom held command of important combat units. Crazy, surely? Why was the announced list of the members of the so-called Revolutionary Council so confused and implausible? [16] Why did the Movement not announce that it was acting on the orders of President Sukarno (even if this was untrue), but instead dismissed Sukarno’s own cabinet? Why did it not appeal to the masses to crowd into the streets to help safeguard the nation’s head? It passes belief that such experienced and intelligent leaders as Aidit, Nyoto and Sudisman [17] would have made such a string of political blunders. Hence the suspicion naturally arises that this string was deliberately arranged to ensure the Movement’s failure. Announcements of the kind mentioned above merely confused the public, paralysed the masses, and provided easy pretexts for smashing the September 30th Movement itself. In this event, who really set up these bizarre announcements and arranged for their broadcast over national radio? Most of the main actors in, and key witnesses to, the crisis of 1965, have either died or been killed. Those who are still alive have kept their lips tightly sealed, for various motives: for example, Umar Wirahadikusumah, Omar Dhani, Sudharmono, Rewang, M. Panggabean, Benny Murdani, Mrs. Hartini, Mursyid, Yoga Sugama, Andi Yusuf and Kemal Idris. [18] Now that thirty-five years have passed since 1965, would it not be a good thing for the future of the Indonesian nation if these people were required to provide the most detailed accounts of what they did and witnessed, before they go to meet their Maker? According to an old popular saying, the mills of God grind slowly but very fine. The meaning of this adage is that in the end the rice of truth will be separated from the chaff of confusion and lies. In every part of the world, one day or another, long-held classified documents, memoirs in manuscript locked away in cabinets, and diaries gathering dust in the attics of grandchildren will be brought to His mill, and their contents will become known to later generations. With this book of his, ‘shut away’ during twenty-one years of extraordinary suffering, Abdul Latief, with his astonishing strength, has provided an impressive exemplification of the old saying. Who knows, some day his accusations may provide valuable material for the script of that play in the repertoire of the National History Shadow-Theatre which is entitled . . . well, what else could it be?—Petrus Becomes King. In traditional Javanese shadow-theatre, Petruk Dadi Ratu is a rollicking farce in which Petruk, a well-loved clown, briefly becomes King, with predictably hilarious and grotesque consequences. For Petrus, read Killer—see note 12 above. Suharto notoriously saw himself as a new kind of Javanese monarch, thinly disguised as a President of the Republic of Indonesia.
Also available in: Spanish
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The New World Disorder What lay behind the greatest counter-revolutionary massacre of the 20th century, the extermination of the Indonesian Left in 1965? How did the Suharto dictatorship come to power? The extraordinary testimony of a survivor on the bloody mystery at the source of its tyranny.
BENEDICT ANDERSON EXIT SUHARTO Obituary for a Mediocre Tyrant In 1971, the indonesian presidential machine informed the public that Suharto and his wife were planning a mausoleum for themselves on a spur of Mount Lawu, the dormant, 3,000m sacred volcano that lies to the east of the ci-devant royal Javanese city of Surakarta. [1] The site had been carefully chosen, respectfully situated some metres below the early tombs of the Mangkunegaran dynasty—the second most insignificant of the four small Central Java principalities instituted by colonial authority in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Mrs Tien Suharto—by then already quietly mocked as Tientje (Ten Per Cent)—claimed some connection with the little dynasty which had barely survived the revolution of 1945–49. For Suharto, who always insisted that he was of simple peasant stock, but was rumoured to be the illegitimate son of a Chinese tycoon, the site represented a social step up; and a normal one, since hypergamy was common among the army officer corps in the 1940s and after, and families were traditionally uxorilocal. Still, the construction of this expensive, unprecedented mausoleum for the future dead had something creepy about it, since Suharto himself was a healthy 50-year-old at the time.
Click here to open a larger version of this picture in a new window I visited Surakarta in the spring of 1972, after the Suharto government had discovered that I had entered the country by roundabout methods and had informed me that I would be deported. After some negotiations, I was allowed two weeks to wind up my affairs and say farewell to friends. I took to the road with my Vespa and stopped briefly in Surakarta for a meal in the city's pleasant amusement park. In those days, young `white' men on Vespas who could also speak Indonesian fluently were a real curiosity, so my table was quickly surrounded by locals. When the topic of the mausoleum came up, I asked my new acquaintances what they thought of it. After an awkward silence, a skinny, intelligent old man replied, in Javanese: `It's like a Chinese tomb.' Everyone tittered. He had two things in mind: first, that in contrast to Muslim tombs, even those of grandees, which are very simple, Chinese tombs are or were as elaborate and expensive as the socially competitive bereaved could afford. Second, in the post-colony, many Chinese cemeteries had been flattened by bulldozers to make way for `high-end' construction projects by the state and by private realtors, speculators and developers. During the long noontide of the Suharto dictatorship, from the 1970s to the early 90s, three things happened to the mausoleum. It was gradually filled, almost to bursting, with the remains of Tientje's para-aristocratic relations, but none of Suharto's; it was heavily guarded by a unit of the Red Beret paratroopers who had organized the vast massacres of the Left in 1965–66; and it became a tourist attraction, especially for busloads of schoolchildren, so that it was always crowded with village women selling T-shirts, baseball caps, snacks, drinks and plaited bamboo fans. One thing did not happen: even after Tientje joined her relations not long before the Crash of 1997, the mausoleum never became sacred or magically powerful. After I was finally allowed back into the country in 1999, I often went to observe the site. No paratroopers, no busloads of children, only a desperate handful of vendors, a melancholy caretaker and the smell of a decaying building that had already endured a quarter of a century of annual monsoons. It remains to be seen what will happen to the place now that Suharto has finally joined his wife. To paraphrase Walter Abish: how Chinese is it? If the mausoleum marked an early version of Suharto's `death foretold', I caught a later variation in Jakarta a few years ago. I had been interviewing an elderly Javanese Communist, who had once held a high position at the party newspaper Harian Rakjat (People's Daily) and spent many years in Suharto's grim gulag. At the end of the interview, to cheer him up, I asked casually whether he thought Suharto would soon be dead. It worked, but not in the way I expected. With a big smile he said: `Not at all! It will take a long time, and will involve much suffering.' How could he be so sure? He replied that the secret of Suharto's enormous power, vast wealth and remarkable political longevity was that, early in his adult life, a renowned shaman had inserted a number of susuk under the skin in various crucial places. `But the shaman died quite a while ago', he said cheerfully as he went on his way. There is an old belief that such susuk—tiny slivers of pure gold impregnated with magic spells—bring the bearer wealth, power and a long life. But there is a catch: for a man to die peacefully and speedily, the susuk have to be withdrawn, and this can only be done by the shaman who inserted them in the first place. Otherwise death will be a drawn-out agony. i. life and times What sort of man was he? How did he manage to rule his country without much serious opposition for more than three decades? Suharto's start was humble enough. Born in June 1921 in a village near Jogjakarta in Central Java, he joined the Dutch colonial military (knil) at the age of 19; just about the time when the Wehrmacht overran the Netherlands, and Queen Wilhelmina and her cabinet scuttled off to London. The knil, like its sisters in other European colonies, was trained to suppress internal rebellion rather than to combat external enemies, and was organized racially: mostly Dutch and Eurasian officers, and native ncos and foot-soldiers with very limited education. Suharto himself had never finished his private Muslim high school. In less than two years, however, he had risen to the rank of sergeant, as far as it was usually possible to go. At that point, Hirohito's armies invaded the Dutch Indies and the knil surrendered virtually without a fight (except for its small air arm). But in October 1943, when he was just 22, the Japanese military in Java, fearing an Allied assault, formed a small auxiliary military force called the Peta to support a planned guerrilla resistance. [2] Suharto immediately joined this force, and by 1945 had achieved the second highest rank available—company commander. After the Japanese surrender to MacArthur, and the hurried proclamation of Indonesia's independence by the seasoned nationalist politicians Sukarno and Hatta, a national army was established. It was composed of former knil, former Peta and former members of various Japanese-armed youth groups, but with Peta officers in the dominant position. There was, naturally, a huge inflation of ranks: a swarm of generals and colonels with immediate backgrounds as lieutenants and sergeants. Suharto joined the rush and, by the spring of 1946, was a Lieutenant-Colonel. More importantly, he was posted just outside Jogjakarta which became the infant Republic's capital city when the British and Dutch seized Batavia-Jakarta early in 1946. There were not many people in the new Army who had served both the Dutch and Japanese regimes within the space of just six years, but Suharto was one of them, and profited by the experience. In 1946, at the age of 25, he was already a relatively senior military man. It was at this point that he can be said to have started his political career. On the night of June 27, 1946, a group of armed militiamen, attached indirectly to the political `opposition' (a mix of pre-war nationalists, most of whom had collaborated with the Japanese), kidnapped the civilian Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir, charging him with weakness in dealing with the returning Dutch. Sukarno took direct control of the government and demanded Sjahrir's immediate release, which was eventually forthcoming. But the conspirators—backed openly by the Jogjakarta military commander and less openly by the 31-year-old Commander-in-Chief General Sudirman—retired to Suharto's command-post. From there they attempted a coup d'état on July 3 which was, however, easily broken up. The civilians involved went (briefly) to jail, as did the Jogjakarta military commander, but Sudirman made sure that no other officers were affected. Still, the coup might have ended Suharto's military career, and he was very careful thereafter. Rise to power From the autumn of 1945 up to January 1948, the core leadership of the ruling multi-party coalition in Indonesia consisted of a variety of socialists and communists, including some returnees from Holland who had taken part in the anti-Nazi underground. They were not `contaminated' by collaboration with the Japanese, a strong card domestically and internationally. It was also believed that since the first post-liberation government in Holland was led by socialists, there was a chance of a diplomatic route to independence. By 1947, however, the Dutch cabinet had shifted to the right, and in July of that year a large and successful military attack caused the new Republic a considerable loss both of territory and of access to the outside world. The socialists and communists were forced to accept a highly disadvantageous interim agreement in January 1948, and so fell from power, replaced by a coalition of Muslims and `secular (bourgeois and petty aristocratic) nationalists'. Meantime the Cold War was setting in and the left was radicalized all over Southeast Asia, abandoning parliamentary for military means to come (back) to power. In the summer of 1948, a civil war was looming in Indonesia between the left and its various adversaries, with both sides backed by military units and armed militias. Sudirman tried to overcome the crisis by appointing two men to mediate: Wikana, the then Communist civilian governor of Central Java, and Suharto. In 1963 I interviewed Wikana in Jogjakarta, where he had retired after being sidelined by the Party's younger leadership. The gentle elderly man told me that Suharto had been excellent, taken no sides, and done everything he could to prevent warfare between the armed backers of the cabinet and the opposition—to no avail. The civil war (which took place only in Republican-held areas in Java) was brief but bloody, and the left was completely crushed. A good number of the leaders were killed in action or executed after surrendering. After the formal transfer of sovereignty at the end of 1949 the new member of the United Nations faced an enormously difficult situation. The colonial economy had been devastated by wartime Japanese rule and the military struggle with the returning Dutch. The huge popular mobilizations that began against the Japanese and continued during the `revolution' created a large body of people who expected to be rewarded for their sacrifices. But the lightly populated eastern part of the archipelago had been successively occupied after the war first by Australia and then by the Dutch, so that Republican activism there was difficult. Furthermore, the Dutch–Indonesian agreement, supervised by the us, required the Republic to return all pre-war properties of Dutch capitalists. Finally, no political party had even come close to monopolizing the revolutionary upsurge. Hence, a multi-party constitutional democracy came into being, which even permitted the surviving Communists to rebuild their strength. One could also say that there was no alternative, given the country's geography; the military was powerful, but it had no air force and not much in the way of a navy. In this environment Suharto started to make his mark, by a successful amphibious attack on pro-Dutch and other dissidents in Celebes. This in turn led to him being appointed in 1957 (aged 36) the Military Commander of Central Java, a key position in the army hierarchy. Then he made another serious mistake, not so much political (he was very careful) but financial. He and his trusted staff became involved with certain dubious Chinese tycoons in extensive smuggling operations and other businesses. This resulted in his being dismissed by the High Command. (Two of these Chinese friends later became key cronies under the dictatorship.) But armies usually take care of their own, and Suharto was sent off to the staff and command school in Bandung, where he did well, and after that was appointed Commander of the Army Strategic Reserve, planned as the High Command's strike force against provincial dissidents and other `national enemies'. In the early 1960s he commanded the joint operations designed to liberate `West Papua' from residual Dutch colonialism. There was no military victory, since the Americans intervened diplomatically against the Dutch, but Suharto was treated by the press as a kind of national hero. When Sukarno decided, in 1963–64, on a military confrontation with the London-arranged Malaysian Federation, Suharto was named Deputy Commander, and secretly (fearing the growing power of the Communist Party in Java) opened contacts with the `enemy'. By then he was so senior that he was the automatic replacement for the Army Commander General Yani, when the latter was overseas. Meantime, political polarization between right and left was increasing rapidly as hyperinflation embedded a sauve qui peut mentality which persists to this day. It is an indication of Suharto's penchant for secrecy and manoeuvre that he was by then a trusted army leader (his secret contacts with Malaysian intelligence and, indirectly, with the cia were well hidden even from Yani) and an apparent Sukarno loyalist. Feint, massacre, coup The crisis finally exploded on the morning of October 1, 1965, when a small group of mostly middle-ranking army officers kidnapped and later killed six senior generals on the grounds that they were planning Sukarno's overthrow. Most of these disaffected officers had long personal associations with Suharto, and it is virtually certain that they informed him of their plans. They made no attempt to seize him, though he had operational command of all seasoned military units in the capital. Nor did Suharto make the slightest effort to warn Yani and his comrades of what was afoot. Instead he crushed the conspirators with ease and proclaimed that they were tools of the Communist Party. Almost all the military officers involved in what was then called `the coup'—though the actors themselves claimed that they were protecting Sukarno from a military coup steered by the cia—were executed, via death sentences in kangaroo courts, or outside any legality. Only one (barely) survived the dictatorship. Colonel Abdul Latief, who was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, probably avoided execution because of his long and close association with the Suharto family; perhaps Tientje intervened. After enduring 32 years in prison and unimaginable suffering (the wounds he received when arrested were allowed to fester to the point that half his body was riddled with maggots), Latief was released by Suharto's successor, Habibie, but suffered a crippling stroke. When I interviewed him not long before he died, much of what he said was unintelligible. But when I asked him how he felt on the evening of October 1, when Suharto had crushed the `coup', he said, brokenly, but clearly: `I felt betrayed.' With the mass media closed down except for the mouthpieces of the military, the Suharto group published photographs of the decayed bodies of the dead generals and announced that their eyeballs had been gouged out, and their testicles slashed off with razors, by sex-crazed members of the Communists' Women's Organization. (Some years later, by accident, I discovered the text of the doctors' post-mortem, which stated that the generals suffered only wounds from bullets and rifle-butts, with eyes and genitals all intact.) Within a few days all Communist offices in Jakarta had been occupied or destroyed. On October 17, the elite Red Berets arrived in Central Java and began the mass killing of men and women of the left. The same killings started in East Java with the arrival of the paratroopers in mid-November, and in Bali when they landed there in mid-December. [3] In every case, the military enlisted the panicked and murderous help of the `mass organizations' of the Party's many enemies. The strategy of involving large numbers of civilians in the massacres achieved two goals. First it allowed the military to announce, and a good number of foreign reporters to believe, that the citizens had `run amok' on a vast scale. Second, it ensured that there would never be any investigation of the killings, since blood was on too many civilian hands. No one really knows how many people were killed—the figures offered run from half a million to two. On his deathbed, the by-then marginalized General Sarwo Edhie, who led the Red Berets in 1965–66, even said he had been responsible for the death of three million people. [4] Nor does anyone really know how many were imprisoned for years without trial in the grimmest conditions, but certainly the number exceeded half a million. The intelligence apparatus was also cunning enough to enlist the help of a number of captured Communists, some quite senior, who betrayed their comrades and even participated in their torture. By the end of the year, the Party had been completely destroyed—for good, as they say. President Sukarno struggled vainly to stop the killings and rally his supporters, but he no longer had access to the mass media. In early March 1966, paratroopers in mufti surrounded the palace where an emergency cabinet meeting was being held, broke up the meeting and arrested fifteen ministers while Sukarno fled to his `summer palace' in Bogor. On the evening of March 11, three generals visited him there and demanded that he sign a document transferring all executive power to Suharto. Feeling himself at gunpoint Sukarno signed the authorization letter, which gave the General, who had often sworn loyalty to his President, the opportunity to replace him the following year, and keep him under house arrest till his death in 1970. Curiously enough the original of this famous letter has never been seen by the public, and was said to have been lost. Many years later, after Suharto's fall, a young aide of Sukarno who was with him that night told the press that the signed document had carelessly been typed on Army Headquarters stationery. By this time Suharto had achieved full power in `legal terms', but he continued to deepen it in the years immediately following. All state institutions, including the Armed Forces, were massively purged of `Communists', `Communist sympathizers', Sukarnoists and other subversives. No ruler in the archipelago had ever had such a chance to pack the bureaucracy, the legislature, the judiciary and parastatal agencies with supporters, sincere or opportunist. This initial packing was later systematically continued: by the early 1990s, the number of bureaucrats was triple what it had been in 1970. Mindful of the niceties of protocol in the `international community', Suharto did not eliminate the party system altogether. But all the conflicting Muslim parties were forced into a single United Development Party, led by a sly opportunist recruited by Suharto's personal political intelligence agency, financed (modestly) by the regime, and forbidden to use religious symbols when campaigning. The same thing happened to the rest of the tolerated surviving parties, variously Protestant, Catholic and conservative secular nationalist, which were compressed into an Indonesian Democratic Party, also funded by the regime and led by intelligence nominees. The regime had no trouble winning two-thirds majorities in every `election' held till the dictator fell, thanks to a state party (but it was not called a `party') which included all members of the civilian bureaucracy, the military, the police, assorted `technocrats' and mercenary journalists and academics. Development? Suharto's difficulties lay elsewhere. By the end of Sukarno's soi-disant revolutionary regime, Guided Democracy (1959–65), the economy was in ruins, and the rate of inflation staggeringly high. But fortune and Washington were with the General. At a moment when the Vietnam War was `going very badly', and huge numbers of American troops were poised to cross the Pacific, Suharto had completely destroyed the largest Communist Party in the world outside the ussr and China. For this the American political elite was naturally grateful. Furthermore, Indonesia was strategically located and had vast mineral and timber resources; new oil fields were just beginning to be productive. Suharto understood what he had to do: the legal system was promptly revamped to open most of the doors to Western capital that Sukarno had tried to close. The Americans accordingly rounded up the Western Europeans and the Japanese to create the Intergovernmental Group on Indonesia, which for many years thereafter essentially paid for Indonesia's development budget. [5] The formation of opec and the huge rise in oil prices in 1973 gave Suharto riches undreamed of hitherto. In the late 1960s, the government began the systematic destruction of the country's primary forests by favoured cronies and military men, as well as foreign corporations. The main beneficiary of all this was the dictator himself, who is generally thought to have had something like $73 billion in various accounts by the mid-1990s. [6] To say nothing of his greedy children and assorted close relations and cronies. During the 1970s and 80s, Suharto had many admirers in the West for what they saw as his sincere campaign to modernize the Indonesian economy, to promote rapid growth, to institute the Green Revolution in the countryside, to bring rapid population increase to a halt and to expand that `middle class' so commonly believed to be the harbinger of real democracy. These claims are by no means entirely mistaken, but they need to be looked at comparatively, especially if one remembers the vast subsidies pro |
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