BY MAX LANE
JAKARTA As the Indonesian economy sinks into even deeper crisis, a major social and political crisis has begun to unfold. This crisis began with the September 11 re-election by the Jakarta provincial parliament of retired general Sutiyoso as Jakarta governor.
Sutiyoso, held responsible by the rank and file membership of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) for the murderous attack on the PDI's national office in July 1996, was re-elected with the strong, public support of Megawati herself. Tens of thousands of angry PDIP members blockaded the parliament forcing MPs to use armoured cars and helicopters to enter the parliamentary compound.
Since then a wide range of NGOs and other community organisations have begun legal proceedings against Sutiyoso's re-election after some MPs admitted taking bribes for votes.
Almost the whole media, reflecting public sentiment in Jakarta, condemned the re-election. The Jakarta parliament is now held in total public disrepute.
Indeed, it is becoming a more and more evident reality that the parliaments elected in 2001, both national and provincial, are now totally out of synch with the development of public opinion.
The Sutiyoso incident was quickly followed by a blow to the credibility of the national parliament. The chairperson of the House of Representatives (DPR), Akbar Tanjung, was convicted on September 4 of involvement in the theft of US$4.5 million from the National Logistics Board. Despite the conviction and a sentence of three years, Tanjung was allowed to remain outside jail while he appealed a rare privilege even in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, the majority of the members of the national parliament are supporting him continuing as DPR chairperson. When 72 members of the parliament signed a letter demanding his jailing and submitted it to the parliament, Tanjung used his position to block the letter from being read in the parliament.
The parliament's overall prestige sank further when Amien Rais, the chairperson of the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR), the higher super-parliament comprising all DPR members and representatives of the provinces and occupational groups, also defended Tanjung's decision not to resign from his position.
The sense of slowly building crisis has now also made it into the editorial pages of the major newspapers. Kompas is the prestige newspaper of the political and economic elite. On September 25 it published an editorial entitled "Let's not give an impression we don't know what to do". The editorial listed crises in the economy, business management, politics and the legal system, plus massive unemployment, deteriorating working conditions, the abandonment by the government of the workers deported from Malaysia, failing water supply and the recent total electrical blackout of the whole of Jakarta as symptoms of a total social breakdown.
The editorial noted: "Every day there are demonstrations and strikes. Apart from the issue of the [post-Suharto] euphoria, these strikes and protests are an indication that our brothers and sisters feel [they] face problems. They are crying out for solidarity and for others to help find a solution."
Reflecting the collapse in credibility of the parliament and the government, the editorial also stated: "There is another disappointment. The negligence, social contempt, the mistakes and heedlessness that shows that the power elite couldn't care less, couldn't give a damn. Those in power today are no different from those we overthrew yesterday. All of this, especially everything to do with employment and work, the cost of daily items, corruption and collusion dried up and shrivels our hearts."
The Kompas editorial, however, offered no solutions of its own apart from appealing to everybody's good intentions.
Like much other breast beating by elite institutions in recent days, the Kompas editorial was a response to the wave of worker and peasant demonstrations that began two weeks ago.
Tens of thousands of workers from sugar plantations and sugar mills launched a coordinated strike and protest action throughout the island of Java on September 10. The workers were protesting the anarchic dumping of imported raw and processed sugar onto the Indonesian market following the implementation of new policies mandated by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The strike took place in the towns of Sidoarjo, Malang, Kediri, Jember, Magetan, Pasuruan, Nganjuk, Ngawi, Mojokerto, Madiun, Bondowoso, Tulungagung, Pasuruan, Situbondo, Jombang, Probolinggo, Cirebon, Klaten, Yogyakarta and also in the provincial capitals of Central Java and East Java provinces Semarang and Surabya respectively. It is the first large-scale coordinated labour action in Indonesia for decades.
The workers, organised by the Forum Solidaritas Serikat Pekerja dan Serikat Buruh Pabrik Gula Seluruh Indonesia (All-Indonesia Solidarity Forum of Sugar and Sugar Mill Workers Union), are threatening to shut down all sugar mills if the government does not change its policies.
Following imposition of WTO and IMF policies, the import tariff on sugar was dramatically reduced. As a result, imported sugar can sell on the market for between 2400 to 2650 rupiah per kilogram. This has forced down the price of local sugar to around Rp2650 per kilogram. However, production costs for local sugar are around Rp3100-3200, so that farmers must bear a loss of Rp550 per kilogram.
On September 24, another round of sugar worker demonstrations took place, organised by a broad range of sugar worker and peasant support organisations.
The Jakarta protest actions were the first joint worker-peasant demonstrations since the military coup which brought General Suharto to power in 1965. Thousands of workers attempted to push down the gates to the national parliament compound. After being sprayed by two police water cannon, the workers were allowed to enter the compound, where they were addressed by Dita Sari, the chairperson of the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggles (FNPBI).
Soon after, hundreds of farmers from the Peoples Front for Agrarian Renewal (FRPA) joined the demonstration. Hundreds of students also joined the demonstration.
The Jakarta protest was also addressed by Saiful Bahari, the secretary-general of Bina Desa, a peasant-oriented community organisation, and Erphan Faryadi, from the Agrarian Renewal Consortium, an NGO coalition. Bahari was reported as calling for agrarian reform as well as repudiation of the country's foreign debt.
There is no end in sight to either the deepening crisis or more social unrest. According to the State Investment Coordinating Agency, investment figures are continuing their plunge downwards. Investment during the first eight months of 2002 fell by US$2.25 billion, or almost 40% compared with the same period in 2001.
Indonesia is also the only country reported by the United Nations Conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to have suffered capital flight every year since 1998. In 2001, $3.2 billion left the country, almost the same figure as the $3.55 billion of new investment planned, though not yet realised, for 2002.
The collapse in productive investment in the cities is being matched by the upheaval in the rural sector caused by the unregulated importation of sugar and rice. Also looming on the horizon is the deadline for the payment by the government of billions of dollars of debt to many of Indonesia's dysfunctional banks.
[Max Lane is the national chairperson of the Australia-based Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) campaign group.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 2, 2002.
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