“Open wounds”
After half a
century, Indonesia opens a debate about its darkest year
IN LITTLE more than a decade, starting in 1965, Asia
suffered four man-made catastrophes apart from the Vietnam war; altogether they
cost millions of lives. China endured the Cultural Revolution. Bangladesh was
born amid horror and mass slaughter. In Cambodia Pol Pot’s Khmers Rouges
inflicted genocide on their own countrymen. And in Indonesia hundreds of
thousands of suspected communist sympathisers died in 1965-66 as the then
General Suharto consolidated what was to become a 32-year dictatorship. None of
these disasters has been subject to a thorough public accounting, let alone a
truth-and-reconciliation process. Of the four, however, Indonesia’s has been
the least examined at home. Unlike the others, it has remained a taboo topic;
its survivors still suffer censorship, discrimination and persecution.
So a symposium held this week in Jakarta, the capital,
titled “Dissecting the 1965 tragedy”, was remarkable. Human-rights groups,
former army officers, government representatives, victims’ families and
survivors met in a public forum. Opinions on the worth of the exercise varied.
That it happened at all prompted protests from some Islamic groups, seeing,
implausibly, the thin end of a communist-revival wedge. Government spokesmen
questioned the scale of the killings being discussed. Even some of the
activists, who for decades have been urging Indonesia to face up to the
carnage, saw the symposium less as historic breakthrough than as history
rewritten.
How many died that year is unknown. It started with
the murder of six generals in the early hours of October 1st 1965. This was blamed on an alleged coup
attempt by the Indonesian Communist Party, or PKI. Purging the country
of supposed PKI sympathisers meant murdering, by one common guess, 500,000
people. Haris Azhar of Kontras, a charity that campaigns for the rights of the
victims, thinks it was between 1m and 2m, with a far larger number affected in
other ways: by imprisonment, torture, forced labour, rape or exile. The
obscurity is deliberate. Suharto held power until 1998; twice as much time to
bury the truth as to unearth it. But the period is still glossed over in school
history lessons and books about it are banned.
Its shadow falls across islands where millions live
side-by-side with former tormentors or victims. An estimated 40m are still
excluded from government jobs because of their families’ alleged association
with the PKI. Some of the bloodiest massacres happened in Java and Bali, but
violence scarred most of the archipelago. Indonesia, hiding its past, never
learns its lessons. The grim techniques of control that were honed during the
terror were later used with disastrous effect against faraway secessionist
movements: East Timor (now Timor-Leste), Aceh and Papua.
It counts as progress that the symposium drew together
so many people on both sides of the killings—or at least their children. One of
the organisers was Agus Widjojo, an intellectual former general and a son of
one of the six assassinated in 1965. One delegate was the daughter of D.N.
Aidit, leader of the PKI at the time—when only the Soviet Union and China had
larger communist parties. Another was Sukmawati Sukarnoputri, one of the
daughters of Sukarno, Indonesia’s founding president, who was squeezed out of power by Suharto in 1966.
Yet the former army men and the government seemed to
cast doubt on whether there was anything to discuss at all, dismissing the
notion that hundreds of thousands had died. A retired general, Sintong
Panjaitan, said the figure was closer to 80,000. Another former general, Luhut
Panjaitan (no relation), now the government’s security minister, went further:
“I don’t believe the number was more than 1,000; probably fewer.”
Some
activists claimed that the symposium, a worthy idea of academics and NGOs, had
been “hijacked” by the government. Mr Haris of Kontras boycotted it, arguing it was
designed to portray the tragedy as the result of a “social conflict” between
rival groups—ie, ignoring the “dirty hand” of the government and army . Others, however, such as Andreas Harsono,
of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby group, welcomed the symposium as
a “tiny” but important first step. Optimists
hope it will be followed by other meetings round the country and so, at long
last, by a national reckoning. The generals’ estimates of the death
toll may be ludicrously understated, but at least they open the way for a
discussion about the real numbers.
Many hoped that the administration of Joko Widodo, the
president elected in 2014, might be happy to open such a debate. The first
president from outside the old elite, with no military links, he seemed to have
much to gain. But maybe the Islamic groups, the army and others opposed to open
discussion have more political clout, even today, than survivors and victims’
descendants. Mr Luhut ruled out any government apology, and appeared to see
calls for openness as a foreign plot, thundering: “I’ll be damned if this country is controlled by other countries.”
The sound of silence
Perhaps he was thinking of the part played in raising
awareness of the slaughter by two harrowing, prizewinning documentaries (“The
Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence”) by an American film-maker, Joshua
Oppenheimer. But in fact for years the West connived in the silence: America,
Britain and other countries were aware of the massacres. In 1966 Australia’s prime
minister, Harold Holt, seemed pleased that Indonesia had been straightened out,
telling an audience in New York that “with 500,000 to 1m communist sympathisers
knocked off...I think it is safe to assume a reorientation has taken place.” It
is not only inside Indonesia that an examination of the year of living
dangerously raises embarrassing questions about the cold war and its effect on
basic human values. But it is Indonesia that has to live with the consequences,
and Indonesians, above all, who are demanding truth in the hope that one day
justice and reconciliation may follow
Making Indonesia work
“Open up”
The next revolution that Indonesia needs
AN INDONESIAN trade minister, Rachmat Gobel,
once wanted to ban the import of secondhand clothing because, he said, it could
transmit the HIVvirus. He also restricted imports of beef to promote the
dubious goal of self-sufficiency; the result was not rendang in every pot, but
soaring beef prices, butchers’ strikes and protests. Mercifully, Mr Gobel was
shown the door last August, and his replacement, Tom Lembong, seems to believe
that a country’s trade ministry should facilitate rather than impede free trade
.
But Mr Gobel’s views remain all too common in
Indonesia, and Mr Lembong’s all too rare. The world’s fourth-most populous
country is blessed with a natural bounty of coal and oil under ground and,
above it, forests and plantations producing rubber and palm oil. But its huge
potential in other areas is still unrealised (see our special report in this week’s issue). As with many
resource-dependent economies, protectionism and rent-seeking have flourished.
The government shields large domestic players at the expense of consumers. In
2007 Indonesia expanded the number of industries in which foreign investment is
barred or restricted from 83 to 338, making it South-East Asia’s most hostile
country to foreign capital. When commodity prices were high and China was
buying, this model appeared to work reasonably well. Indonesia’s economy grew, and if foreign
companies wanted what was
in Indonesian mines they had to play by Indonesian rules. Now that
commodity prices have plummeted, output is sputtering and Indonesia’s
weaknesses are apparent.
Joko
Widodo, Indonesia’s president (pictured above), who is widely known as Jokowi,
came to power promising reform. He has said a lot of sensible things about
boosting infrastructure, reducing subsidies and attracting foreign investment,
particularly the sort that brings high-value manufacturing and service jobs.
But the kinds of firms that produce these jobs are choosy. If Indonesia does
not create the right conditions, they will not invest, and Jokowi’s promise to
return Indonesia to 7% growth—a tall order at the best of times—will go unkept.
Unfortunately,
his record has fallen short of the reformist rhetoric. He got a few big things
right after taking office, cutting wasteful fuel subsidies and introducing a
one-stop shop for business licensing, which simplified a notoriously Byzantine
process. More recently he has trimmed Indonesia’s negative investment list,
removing barriers to foreign investors in 30 areas of the economy, including
cold storage and warehousing, which should help stabilise food prices and help
fishermen sell their catches.
The other Jokowi
Alas, these reforms have been
countered by other policies that smack of the old protectionism. Even as Jokowi
lowered some restrictions, he increased barriers to foreign investment in 19
other industries. In July he unveiled a law requiring that at least 30% of
components in tablets and smartphones sold in Indonesia should be made in the
country—despite lacking the industrial base to produce them.
This
balance-sheet is not good enough. If Jokowi is to be the man to lead Indonesia
to sustained prosperity, he needs to toughen his reformist mettle—and quickly.
The to-do list is a long one, starting with slashing the negative-investment
list and lifting restrictions on agriculture that keep rice prices high. None
of this will be easy in a country where powerful vested interests have ensured
that protectionism has predominated for decades. But it is not impossible.
Indonesians have shown great bravery in their revolutions for independence and
freedom. Now the economy needs to be unchained.
“A
guide to the Philippines’ history, economy and politics”
THE
Philippines is one of Asia’s two archipelagic states (Indonesia is the other),
comprising more than 7,000 islands dividing the Pacific Ocean from the South
China Sea. Those islands are divided into three broad groups: Luzon, the
largest and northernmost grouping (and name of its main island), home to the
sprawling, beguiling and often infuriating capital city of Manila; Visayas in
the centre, anchored by Cebu, the Philippines’ booming second city; and
Mindanao, home to a sizable Muslim population in the south-west. Mindanao has
long been underdeveloped: average GDP per person in the Autonomous Muslim
Region of Mindanao is less than a fifth that of the wealthy capital and
surrounding area.
Mindanao
has been in the news recently thanks to Rodrigo Duterte, mayor of its biggest
city, Davao, for most of the past 25 years, who is now favourite to win the
country's presidential election on May 9th. Assuming the outgoing president,
Benigno Aquino, leaves as planned on June 10th, he will be the first Philippine
president since Fidel Ramos in 1998 to enter and leave office via orderly
democratic transition. Mr Duterte, who has never held national office and
evinces only passing interest in policy, has ridden a wave of voter discontent.
People are fed up with narrow, cronyist politics dominated by a few prominent
families. They want an outsider to shake and clean things up.
TENSES:
1. 1. This was blamed on an alleged coup attempt by the Indonesian Communist Party, or PKI
Simple Past
2. Who was squeezed out of power by Suharto in 1966 Simple Past
3. Some activists claimed that the symposium, a worthy idea of academics and NGOs, had
been “hijacked” by the government Past Perfect
4. Optimists hope it will be followed by other meetings round the country and so, at long
last, by a national reckoning Simple Future
5. I’ll be damned if this country is controlled by other countries Simple Present
6. if foreign companies wanted what was in Indonesian mines they had to play by
Indonesian rules Simple Present
7. Alas, these reforms have been countered by other policies that smack of the old
protectionism Past Perfect
8. People are fed up with narrow, cronyist politics dominated by a few prominent families.
They want an outsider to shake and clean things up Simple Present
