Date: 21 - 27 May, 1998
Issue No.378
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line Date: 21 - 27 May, 1998 Issue No.378 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Lessons from Indonesia
The representatives of the fifteen nations who met in Cairo last week watched on television, and probably heard from President Suharto himself, the details of the events that led to the social and economic crisis in Indonesia. Suharto was forced to cut short his visit to Egypt and fly home immediately to address the explosive situation. The turmoil in Indonesia is an aftershock of the economic and financial collapse that has hit Asia so hard.
The bloodshed in Indonesia, the burning and looting of shops and the violence that claimed scores of lives: these were the results of both external factors, related to the collapse of the stock markets in Asia, and domestic policies. Mistakes committed by the regime cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. The Malaysian prime minister's cry of conspiracy theory is not sufficiently substantiated. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. President Suharto replaced President Sukarno in the aftermath of domestic turmoil and bloody massacres staged against the Chinese minority some 32 years ago. Brought to power by the army, he was widely praised by the West for restoring stability and promoting economic development in Indonesia. The "miracle" lasted for three decades. This support did not wane immediately: the International Monetary Fund even came to his rescue in the most recent crisis in a bid to save his regime. The fundamental problem, and the major stumbling block for the endeavours of most developing countries, remains how to achieve the delicate balance between economic development and political reform. The regime in Indonesia remained in the iron grip of the president, who in turn derives his support from the military. The regime made no allowance for the development of political life in Indonesia: it failed to encourage the emergence of a multi-party system and the free exercise of democracy as a means of acceding to power. Suharto allowed only the emergence of an elite made up of his sons and their cronies in high officialdom and big business. They formed power centres and took control of major projects, investments, banks and companies. One of the IMF's conditions was the dismantling of these power centres and the purging of corruption and nepotism. Once Indonesia had been helped out of its financial crisis by the IMF, Suharto braced himself to protect the interests of his family, thus guaranteeing the loss of whatever popular support and national backing remained. He sought to force new burdens on his people to remedy the devastating economic crisis. The hitches in the price of fuel and certain basic commodities unleashed an outburst of fury against the president and his family. These accumulated errors, compounded by corruption, mismanagement and dictatorial government, led to a state of chaos which the president had little time to address. On his return to Jakarta, Suharto endeavoured to restore law and order to the capital, and to clamp down on riots and violence against the Chinese minority, by turning to the army in an eerie echo of the incidents which heralded the downfall of his predecessor. How far can measures designed to calm or repress popular anger succeed in rescuing this huge country from a dark fate? Has the time come for genuine political reform in Indonesia? Or will the army be called in once again to restore order to the streets of Jakarta? |