-----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht----- Von: KdP Net <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> An: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Datum: Montag, 15. M�rz 1999 22:00 Betreff: [kdpnet-en] TORONTO STAR: Indonesia's Year of Living Chaotically >Kabar dari PIJAR > > >Toronto Star >Sunday, March 14, 1999 > >*Indonesia's Year of Living Chaotically > >Suharto's hand is seen behind the ethnic clashes and mob violence that >threaten to shatter a reeling nation > >By Martin Regg Cohn >Toronto Star Asia Bureau > > >JAKARTA - WHEN POLICE caught Ahmad yanking the side mirror off a luxury car, >they followed standard procedure: they shot the 25-year-old on sight. > >For the price of a car part that fetches 50,000 Rupiah in local pawn shops - >about $1 - Ahmad paid with his life. > >Fear and firepower have taken over the streets of Jakarta. If police don't >shoot first, vigilante mobs finish the job for them on any given day of the >week. > >Indonesia has been on the brink of social chaos and political collapse ever >since the currency crisis invaded Southeast Asia's biggest country a year >ago. >A moribund economy is dragging millions into poverty and despair, turning >Indonesia into a breeding ground for incitement and anarchy. > >A relentless cycle of violence threatens to unravel this archipelago of >17,000 >islands along ethnic fault lines. > >More than 200 people have died so far this year in Ambon, capital of Maluku >province; East Timor is on the brink of civil war as locals and outsiders >clash over a push for independence; and the resource-rich provinces of Irian >Jaya to the east, and Aceh to the northwest, are hotbeds of separatist >sentiment after years of military repression. > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >`Indonesia is now on the brink of a social revolution. And if it really does >happen, it would be a truly massive national tragedy' - Abdurrahman Wahid >influential Muslim leader >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Now, as Asia begins a slow economic recovery, Indonesia remains paralyzed - >the sick man of Southeast Asia. > >``The picture is dark,'' says Ben Fisher, the World Bank's deputy chief for >Indonesia. > >``It could get darker, not just because of the financial crisis, but because >of the crisis of confidence,'' Fisher adds gloomily from his office tower >overlooking a graveyard of stalled construction cranes dotting Jakarta's >skyline. ``It's a question of political stability and social stability.'' > >Yet at its moment of greatest weakness, Indonesia is gambling on a bold >experiment of electoral shock therapy. After months of student street >protests >demanding reformasi - the Indonesian watchword for reform - the country goes >to the polls in barely 11 weeks. > >It would be the first free vote after 32 years of dictatorship under >President >Suharto, who fell from power last May. If the elections go ahead as >scheduled, >and the country holds together, Indonesia's newly minted democracy would >emerge as the world's third-largest. > >Yet many worry the campaign's quiet start is merely the calm before the >collapse, a prelude to a military coup. > >During his decades in power, Suharto mastered the deadly art of stoking >ethnic >tensions, then bottling them up with his military machine when it suited his >political purposes. > >Now, political analysts see Suharto's hidden hand in recent ethnic clashes, >citing evidence that outside provocateurs instigated mob violence. > >Yet, even with the alleged incitement that diplomats and politicians have >come >to suspect behind every flare-up, no one doubts the increased volatility in >the air. The army is no longer as feared as it once was, and people who feel >contempt for corrupt politicians and incompetent police are taking the law >into their own hands. > >Mob violence, ethnic clashes and street crime are rampant. Against that >backdrop, Indonesia's leaders are looking over their shoulders. > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >The day after police shot Ahmad dead, thieves stole a side mirror from the >official Volvo sedan used by State Empowerment Minister Tanri Abeng. With no >one immune from the crime, not even from behind a limousine window, >parliamentarians strongly endorsed the shoot-on-sight policy for the >security >forces last month. > >But the social and economic conditions that drive Indonesia's crime wave are >not so easily legislated out of existence. > >Side-mirror thieves like Ahmad bring their loot to the Taman Puring market. >Winding through its grimy alleys, choking on the stale air, they walk past >the >shelves of steering wheels and headlights until they reach the stalls >stocking >parts for BMWs, Volvos and Mercedes. > >``They need the money because they're so poor,'' explains Agus, 25, a >merchant >who deals mostly in side mirrors. ``If they had any other choice, they >wouldn't steal. But in this economic crisis, they must steal the mirrors or >go >hungry.'' > >In Indonesia, one of the world's most corrupt countries, stealing is a way >of >life - and death. But whether the criminal lives or dies often depends on >whether he was a pauper or a president. > >Indonesia's blatant double standard, the contrast between privilege and >poverty, is a national obsession because of Suharto's bitter legacy. > >>From behind the walls of his residential compound in Jakarta's posh Menteng >neighbourhood, Suharto spends his days meeting political allies and mulling >over the probes into official corruption during his reign. It is a world >away >from the buying and selling in the pawn shops, or the stealing and killing >on >the streets. > >Here, hundreds of troops perch on tanks and armoured personnel carriers, >patrolling barbed-wire fences and roadblocks. > >They are not pursuing criminals, but protecting one. > >A bitter debate has broken out over how hard to push the former president, >and >how much to shield him. > >Indonesian newspapers recently published leaked transcripts of a telephone >conversation between the attorney-general and Indonesia's new president, B. >J. >Habibie, discussing how to spare Suharto further embarrassment. > >They are treading softly because the former president still has the power to >wreak havoc. Many believe Suharto loyalists, anxious to protect their power >and wealth, have engineered vicious sectarian clashes pitting Indonesia's >majority Muslims against their Christian and ethnic Chinese fellow citizens. > >The violence is still simmering in Ambon, and even a senior presidential >adviser says she believes the clashes have been orchestrated. > >``I find it hard to believe that it could happen spontaneously,'' says Dewi >Fortuna Anwar, an assistant minister of state in Habibie's office. > >Similar clashes have hopscotched across the archipelago: lootings and >assaults >on Ethnic Chinese in the Western island of Sumatra; church burnings in >Jakarta; clashes in East Timor; and retaliatory torchings of mosques in >Kupang, West Timor. > >Tom Therik, rector of the Christian University of Kupang, watched late last >year as rival mobs of youth set fire to churches and Muslim shops, often at >the instigation of muscular strangers trucked into town. Telephone lines >were >cut, electricity was blacked out, and roadblocks were erected in quick >succession, pointing to a hidden hand. > >``We have to think of one mastermind behind this,'' Therik says in an >interview on his university campus. ``Any spark can easily become a fire.'' > >In Eastern Java, hundreds of Muslim scholars have been slain by mysterious >assassins whom villagers have dubbed ``Ninjas'' because of their killing >prowess. > >Abdurrahman Wahid, head of the Nahdlatul Ulama organization whose members >are >being assassinated in Java, believes the violence in both Ambon and Java is >part of a deliberate strategy of incitement. > >He says Muslim militants in the army are distracting people from Suharto's >crimes, and hoping to destabilize Indonesia enough to justify military >intervention. > >``It's a conscious effort to antagonize Christians and Muslims, because they >(army plotters) want to control the government,'' the influential Islamic >leader says. ``The only way to keep power is by turning the population into >an >angry mob.'' > >Abdurrahman believes social chaos could claim millions of lives in the >coming >months if the provocations continue, and went public with his warning last >month. > >``Indonesia is now on the brink of a social revolution,'' he said. ''And if >a >social revolution really does happen, it would be a truly massive national >tragedy.'' > >If the explosion does not come from a resurgence of ethnic violence, it >could >be triggered by the economic convulsions throwing so many Indonesians into >poverty. > >The massive devaluation of Indonesia's currency in the past year has pushed >per capita income down to about $600, compared with $1,500 in 1997. > >Before the economic crisis struck, about 20 million people, roughly 10 per >cent of Indonesia's population of 200 million, were living below the poverty >line. Last year, that figure jumped to 80 million people, according to the >government, and this year, officials announced that 130 million are living >in >poverty. > >The World Bank recently challenged those figures, saying the government had >failed to take into account the way people adapt to poverty - by returning >to >their villages, working longer hours, doing odd jobs, and making do with >less. >It said only about 14 per cent of Indonesians were now living in poverty. > >Many private economists are skeptical of the official government figures, >which are easily skewed by the massive currency fluctuations of recent >months. >Yet in such a densely populated country, even slight statistical shifts can >translate into millions of people tumbling back into the underclasses. > >Despite the lively statistical debate, you don't need to be a trained >economist to gauge the growing misery among Indonesians at the Wholesale >Rice >Market in Jakarta's Cipinang district. Every day at 6 a.m., hundreds of old >women and young children crowd into the delivery bays to sweep the pavement, >or clamber on to empty trucks seeking fallen grains of rice. > >Hastimah, 50, says food shortages last month brought her to the market. With >a >modified garbage can, she sifts the filth from the rice, then takes it home >to >boil off the remaining dirt, which rises to the top of her pot. > >``I don't like doing this because the rice is of poor quality,'' she says, >clutching a bright orange sarong. ``We know we shouldn't be doing this >because >it's dirty, but we have no choice.'' > >Nearby, 10-year-old Rini Wahyu stoops below the wheel of a truck to pick >grains off the asphalt pavement. Her father works as a golf caddy, and when >the rich hunker down in an economic crisis, tips go down, too. > >``Sometimes I try to catch the rice in my hands before it falls off the >truck,'' she explains with childish innocence. ``It's much better than >picking >it up off the ground.'' > >If the wholesale rice market is a metaphor for despondency, a new rice >warehouse across town, opened last year by World Vision Canada, is a beacon >of >hope for residents of the Kalibaru neighbourhood. Built near Pizza Hut and >McDonald's signs attesting to Northern Jakarta's erstwhile affluence, the >new >warehouse meets the needs of nearly 4,000 families that have fallen on hard >times. > >Funded by the Canadian International Development Agency and the United >Nations, the $1.5 million project started late last year to help Jakarta's >``new poor'' - people who had been rising up the economic ladder, until the >economic crisis pulled it out from under their feet. Factory workers, >fishermen, and dock workers have been forced to sell their televisions and >radios, downsizing their households to cope with the new hardship. > >Before rice distributions began, aid workers found some children suffering >from malnutrition comparable to what they had seen in African countries. >Now, >in exchange for working on community projects - latrines, drainage canals, >and >other local needs - each family gets three kilograms of rice a day. > >``You've got to be kind of down and out to come in and work for just rice,'' >says World Vision relief adviser Al Dwyer. ``These people are used to >working, >and they're going to pull themselves out.'' > >Still, it's a hard slog. In Kalibaru, 47,000 poor people live within 2.7 >square kilometres, and 10 families share every latrine. One out of three >families is consistently short of food. > >Suhaimi, 36, lugs pails of dirt every day from the local mosque to a nearby >drainage project. Before the food-for-work project, her eight children were >going hungry on one meal a day, and the money she had to spend on rice >didn't >leave enough for their school tuition fees. > >``The children went without vegetables or soya,'' Suhaimi says, clutching >the >hand of her 4-year-old son Adie. ``We had to sell our jewelry and clothes, >and >borrow money from friends. I don't want my children to go without food, and >I'm ashamed when they cry because they're hungry every few days.'' > >Economists say Kalibaru's plight illustrates Indonesia's most pressing >challenge. Despite initial estimates of massive impoverishment on a >nationwide >scale, it is these pockets of urban poverty that need immediate help. > >Targeted aid such as the Canadian project is helping these people cope. But >there are few other success stories that economists can point to. > >The banking sector, plundered by Suharto cronies who were granted sweetheart >deals, is bankrupt, thwarting any hopes for a broad-based recovery. Recent >delays in closing dozens of insolvent banks have further eroded confidence. > >Indonesia's economy shrank by a devastating 15 per cent in 1998, and output >is >expected to drop another 4 per cent this year. > >``I see only further agony for the economy, which keeps contracting,'' says >economist Thee Kian Wie, of the Centre for Development Studies. ``But the >economic recovery now depends on political solutions.'' > >Wie is not optimistic. Other Asian countries blessed with resilient >democracies have bounced back, while Indonesia's festering ethnic and social >tensions, and layers of corruption, have blocked any recovery. > >By its own admission, Habibie's transitional government feels powerless to >lead the way. > >``Recovery is not really within the means of the present government,'' >presidential aide Dewi Fortuna Anwar says. ``What we have to do is prevent >the >economy from really going down.'' > >Anwar's candid assessment is echoed by influential television commentator >Wimar Witoelar, who says his biggest regret is that protesters didn't push >harder to topple Habibie last year when, as vice-president, he succeeded >Suharto. > >He laments that the national economy is on autopilot, because Habibie is >perpetuating the cronyism and corruption. Yet Indonesians are no longer >burdened by Suharto's suffocating regime, which makes him optimistic that >they >will one day dig themselves out of their economic black hole, and emerge >from >their political rut. > >``Nothing could be worse than the Suharto years, especially the last few >years,'' he says. > >``I don't think we are a destroyed nation. Not yet.'' > >PHOTO: FEAR AND FIREPOWER: Indonesian soldiers block students from marching >on >parliament building Thursday to demand transitional government and lower >food >prices. > >
