[ETAN-key] Indonesia's Dark Forces Confront Its President

[John M Miller]

The Age (Melbourne)

January 22, 2010

Opinion

Indonesia's Dark Forces Confront Its President

by Damien Kingsbury

When Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang 
Yudhoyono was elected for a second term last 
July, little would he have realised then that the 
forces of corrupt authoritarianism that he had 
successfully begun to curb would come back to 
destabilise his presidency. As Yudhoyono enters 
2010, his immediate concern is calls for his 
impeachment by significant elements of a restive 
legislature, backed by the ever-malignant Indonesian military (TNI).

Yudhoyono was initially elected in 2004 promising 
reform. He was relatively successful, launching a 
major anti-corruption campaign, pushing the TNI 
to divest its business interests, trying to clean 
up the judiciary and getting the economy back on track.

Yudhoyono was perhaps most successful with the 
economy, returning it to solid growth, if still 
struggling to get ahead of the combined effects 
of population growth and (reducing) inflation. 
Indonesia's long-standing program to remove the 
military from politics took tentative steps, even 
if senior officers continued to act in ways 
unwanted in more conventional democracies.

The real problem with the TNI, however, is that 
it has been very reluctant to divest itself of 
its business interests. The TNI also refuses to 
acknowledge the well-documented existence of its 
illegal business activities, including extortion 
and protection rackets, smuggling, gambling, 
prostitution and drug running, which remain at 
least twice as profitable as its more 
conventional business activities such as mining, 
construction, property, transport, logging and fishing.

The issue with these TNI "businesses" is 
two-fold. They corrupt a still important and 
deeply influential state institution which, just 
coincidentally, is heavily armed. And, by having 
an independent source of income, the TNI can 
ensure that it is only ever, at best, partially 
accountable to the elected government to which it is nominally loyal.

With the TNI at the heart of Indonesia's 
corruption, the subservient police and judiciary 
remain deeply susceptible to corruption 
themselves. A judicial outcome is usually more a 
product of bribery than rule of law.

The influence of the TNI was also seen in the 
recent, if largely unsuccessful, banning of the 
movie Balibo. This movie portrayed the TNI in an 
accurate if unflattering light. However, the ban 
backfired, and the publicity given the film has 
only increased its underground circulation in DVD format.

The influence of the TNI is also still seen in 
West Papua, where raising the Morning Star flag 
means jail, or worse. West Papua remains the 
TNI's last bastion of power and easy money, and 
it has no intention of voluntarily giving up its 
lucrative protection rackets, extortion, illegal 
mining and logging, and gambling and 
prostitution, which characterise this region.

More recently, following an investigation by the 
state Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and 
the Attorney-General's office into judicial and 
police corruption, the police attempted to frame 
and then charge senior KPK officers and threaten 
the Attorney-General's office. Yudhoyono has not 
intervened in this mess ­ essentially to control 
an out-of-control police ­ because he is already 
embroiled in allegations that he, too, is corrupt.

The major allegation against Yudhoyono is that he 
has protected his Vice-President and former 
central bank governor Boediono, who is alleged to 
have provided loans to a failed bank and which 
subsequently went missing. The claim is that the 
missing money was used to fund Yudhoyono's 2009 
election campaign, even though no evidence has 
been provided to support this allegation.

Given the lack of substance behind the 
allegation, it is unlikely to result in the 
presidential impeachment that some legislators 
have called for. However, dealing with this 
matter, and the dispute between the police and the KPK, has done two things.

The first is that Yudhoyono's ambitious program 
for further reform in the first 100 days of his 
second term of office was completely derailed. In 
short, he has achieved nothing of substance. It 
was no doubt the intention of the groups behind 
these issues to slow down or stop the reform process for their own gain.

The second is that by creating these issues, in 
effect, out of nothing, it shows that malignant 
forces within Indonesia still have the capacity 
to dictate the course of political, economic and 
judicial events in ways that bear no resemblance 
to democratic process, much less good government.

There is a view among some "democratic fatalists" 
that democracy is universally aspired to and, 
once achieved, is self-sustaining. Both assumptions are wrong.

Accountable, transparent representative 
government runs contrary to many entrenched 
interests, not least those that have much to 
financially lose from such a system, and much to 
gain from undermining it. In Indonesia, such 
entrenched interests include business figures 
able to buy political, judicial and military 
influence, corrupt politicians and, not least, 
the self-serving and self-enriching interests of the TNI.

President Yudhoyono started his tenure as a 
reformer in Indonesia's corrupt, 
post-authoritarian environment in almost 
text-book style. He came from a military 
background, courted powerful figures and 
introduced graduated, sometimes almost 
imperceptible but stable reform. The Indonesian 
public loved it, and last year voted Yudhoyono back in a landslide.

However, in his second and hence final term in 
office, Yudhoyono wants to leave a more 
substantial reformist mark on Indonesian 
politics. He is to be applauded for wanting to do so.

The question will be, however, whether he will be 
able to, or if Indonesia's dark forces again take 
control of the fate of the often hapless people of that vast archipelago.

Professor Damien Kingsbury holds a personal chair 
in the School of International and Political Studies at Deakin University.

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John M. Miller, National Coordinator
East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN)
PO Box 21873, Brooklyn, NY 11202-1873 USA
Phone: +1-718-596-7668  Mobile phone: +1-917-690-4391
Email john at etan.org Skype: john.m.miller

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Winners: John Rumbiak Human Rights Defender Award for 2009

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