Reform Is Distant Hope For Struggling Indonesia
Nation beset by political, economic problems
Indonesia, July 5, 2000 -- It is the fourth most-populous nation on Earth, the third-biggest democracy, home to the largest number of Muslims, a land of 17,000 islands strewn amid seas through which pass two-fifths of the world's shipping. Yes, Indonesia stands tall when it comes to geopolitical distinctions.
But two years after its longtime strongman, Gen. Suharto, resigned under fire, the country is adrift and lacking a compass as it tries to chart its way toward unprecedented political and economic reform.
While there is near unanimity on what needs to be done, the list of tasks is disturbingly long:
- Revitalizing the economy, which absorbed the heaviest punishment of the 1997-98 Asian crisis.
- Ensuring that the disgraced military never again muscles its way into political control.
- Re-establishing the rule of law and purging the courts of judges on the take.
- Restoring order to provinces racked by religious and separatist conflicts, and curbing vigilantism in urban areas.
- Decentralizing federal power and curbing economic exploitation so that restive areas can function more autonomously.
- Rebuilding the nearly bankrupt banking sector (at an estimated cost of up to half the Gross Domestic Product).
- Perhaps most important, dealing a death blow to KKN, the Indonesian acronym for ``corruption, collusion and nepotism.''
All this is being attempted nearly from scratch. Suharto's authoritarianism resulted in the gutting of government institutions, shackling of the press and repression of dissent, while massive thievery by his cronies and family members left this nation of 216 million a low-tech laggard in Southeast Asia's economy and a pariah to foreign investors.
President Abdurrahman Wahid, the nearly blind secularist Muslim leader who is supposed to be leading the reform effort, has been erratic and inscrutable since assuming office in October, and the long knives are being sharpened by the traditionally dominant Javanese elite in advance of an August gathering of Indonesia's highest political body at which Wahid stands to be sharply reprimanded, at the least.
``We are hopeless, really,'' Teten Masduki, the country's leading anti- corruption crusader, recently told a group of visiting American newspaper editors.
Building Hope
But the work of Masduki's Indonesian Corruption Watch and the bewildering assortment of nongovernmental organizations that have sprung up since Suharto's demise is building hope for civil society. The NGOs are operating in an unusual atmosphere, stepping into the void left by the paralysis of government institutions and feeding their findings to Indonesia's newly free press corps and to the foreign donor organizations that provide most of their financial support.
Masduki reckons that 20 percent of Indonesia's GDP is siphoned off by corruption and that wages could be doubled if graft were eliminated. The cases his group has documented range from the suspected pocketing of $1 billion by executives of the national airline Garuda in a leasing scheme, to the bribes solicited by Supreme Court staffers ``as soon as you enter the parking lot,'' to the routine payoffs that will expedite the processing of a driver's license or a hookup to the electricity grid.
Indonesian Corruption Watch, which builds its cases with great care to avoid being sued, has submitted 22 to beleaguered Attorney General Marzuki Darusman and the police -- with no results so far.
Said Masduki, ``We are using social sanctions, since the law doesn't work.''
The man trying to make the law work -- Marzuki -- is in fact one of the most credible members of Wahid's team. But the 55-year-old former top human rights official has an incredibly full plate of high-profile cases -- and reportedly considers only five of his nearly 70 prosecutors to be honest and competent.
It seems fair to say that the immediate future of reform in Indonesia rests on Marzuki's desk. At the top of the pile is the Suharto matter; the attorney general says he has ``a very strong case'' and is preparing to charge the ailing former dictator with abuse of power stemming from decrees he issued that benefited foundations he controlled. Though Marzuki and Wahid insist that Suharto eventually must face trial, this may be a pressure tactic intended to compel Suharto's family to return a sizable chunk of the billions they allegedly raked off during his 32-year rule.
Marzuki also must move soon in cases involving human rights violations by the previously untouchable military in East Timor and the rebellious provinces of Aceh and Irian Jaya (West Papua). The allegations are so numerous (and Indonesia's legal system so weak and compromised) that Marzuki is looking at ``the South African model'' -- a truth and reconciliation commission offering amnesty for those willing to make a clean breast of things.
Washington Wants Results
The East Timor case is especially sensitive since it could snare Gen. Wiranto, the former armed forces commander who is believed to have played a role in the fomenting of last fall's bloody violence following the territory's vote for independence. U.S. Ambassador Robert Gelbard has made clear that Washington expects results, since it backed an Indonesian solution over the formation of an international tribunal.
In addition, Marzuki is beset by such headaches as separating the understaffed, underpaid police force from the military (command-and- control woes have had fatal consequences in the riot-torn Malukus archipelago); a scandal surrounding the illegal transfer of $80 million from Bank Bali to a private firm linked to the former ruling party (Marzuki has detained the governor of the central bank); and some troubling matters involving Wahid himself -- including the president's failure to declare or fully account for a donation from the Sultan of Brunei and a multimillion-dollar transfer from the State Logistics Agency to Wahid's masseur.
It is open season on Wahid these days. In a surreal interview with the American editors, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono belittled his boss for ``not providing effective leadership'' and added that ``90 percent of his decisions are based on what he hears from his immediate surroundings.'' The UC Berkeley-educated Juwono also suggested that warring Muslims and Christians in the Malukus be allowed to fight themselves to exhaustion ``until the idea of firm governance is accepted again.''
Serious sniping also has emanated from Amien Rais, head of the People's Consultative Assembly or MPR (the body that will review Wahid's performance next month), and a longtime Wahid rival. Rais helped build the public crescendo that led to Suharto's resignation and orchestrated Wahid's acceptance as a compromise presidential choice, but he increasingly strikes observers as a bad actor in a tawdry play who hopes the final scene will feature his own ascension to the top post.
While Rais still speaks earnestly of reform, sitting at his right hand in the MPR leadership is Ginandjar Kartasasmita, a former Suharto minister of mines whose cozy and ethically suspect relationship with the New Orleans-based resource giant Freeport-McMoRan was the subject of a Wall Street Journal expose in 1998. Ginandjar too now mouths the rhetoric of change.
Talk of Makeover
Rais brags that the August showdown will result in a ``total, frontal makeover'' of the government and adds that if Wahid ``doesn't perform in the future, we'll move to impeachment.''
Analysts say that is the last thing Indonesia needs, and they agree that Wahid is still the best of an undistinguished bunch -- far more preferable than Megawati Sukarnoputri, his vacuous vice president.
Wahid, in fact, seems to have a firm grasp of Indonesia's problems (with the exception of the economy) and is hampered mainly by his cryptic personality and low-key articulation of goals -- perhaps appropriate for a floundering nation that has suffered through an excess of authoritarianism. In the eyes of many, Wahid's commitment to democracy makes him a positive role model for the Islamic world.
Weak Currency
But U.S. diplomats and businesspeople fear that political reform will count for little if the economy does not rebound faster. Uncertainty about the government's stability has cost the rupiah 25 percent of its value since January, and the Jakarta stock exchange index has dropped 29 percent. Exports and consumer spending are up for the year, but it is a long climb back for a nation whose growth rate for 1998 was a stunning minus 13.7 percent.
The Asian crisis did little lasting damage to two bedrock sectors -- agriculture and low-end manufacturing, which managed to absorb several million urban workers who lost their jobs in the crash. But foreign investors are staying on the sidelines until the bank restructuring agency makes significant progress in liquidating the assets of failed banks and businesses; it has so far unloaded a mere 4 percent.
Indonesia has an 85 percent literacy rate but a poor track record in developing high technology. Blame falls on Suharto for not recognizing the trend and for allowing his friends to loot the government and economy of money that could have helped Indonesia become a player.
Paying the price are ordinary Indonesians. Jakarta's carbon monoxide-choked, fetid streets are lined with humble people struggling to eke out a living through the sale of snacks, clove-cured kretek cigarettes, hubcaps, used appliances, what have you. Business in department stores is so slim that visitors are quickly swooped down upon by multiple salespeople.
In the Jakarta slum known as Bungur, community leader Muhammad Syafii says conditions were better under Suharto. Law enforcement here is largely left to the people themselves, who bang on lampposts to rouse their neighbors when a crime has been committed. A chase ensues -- and sometimes ends with the lynching of the perpetrator.
The government's imprint is barely perceptible: donated rice to the very poor and a free clinic for kids under 5 only. Syafii says officials show up ``for ceremonies only.''
``Corruption is a culture in Indonesia, and very hard to get rid of,'' Syafii said, adding that Wahid has done nothing to break the cycle.
But he agrees that the country lacks any other credible leaders. As the afternoon rain fell softly on the unpaved street outside his home, Syafii said resignedly: ``We're just little people. We just follow.''