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Seuth East Asian St"dies, Vol. 16, Ne. 4, March 1979

Notes

Indonesia: After the Student Revolt

Justus ]vl. san der KRoEF*

``Can lndonesia Remain C]alm For Capitalisrn?" a columnist in the U.S.' leading financial daily asked three "･eeks after the Peop]e's Consultative Cengress

* Departmcnt of'Political Science, University of Bt'idgeport, Connectlcut, U.S,A. 1) Barry Newman in 7)Ve JVtilt Strett Jbrirnat, April 15, 1976. 2) Agencc France Presge despateh, Iljakurta, rVfay 26, l978 (Foreign Bruadcast Intbrmation Service, hereaft(-r FBIS, )v'tay 26, 197B). ･

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committed antagonisms and eventually helped shape small extremist Muslim movements

to the violent overthrow of Suharto's regirne, repoi'ted to The new ban on unauthorized meetings especially reflected what was ``hardening" ot' bc thc government's policy against bands of alleged Muslim extremists an lslamic state and who the socalled Komando ,1thad (``Holy War Command") who seek to East havc beeri engaged in various acts of terrorism ranging frem Northern Sumatra thc new ban was also since tsCarch, I977, Whatever its justification, however, its interpreted as part of the Suharto regime's continuing confrontation of the PPP and PPP's deputy secretary had allies. On April 12, 1978, Mahbub Junaidi, the general, `[criminal seized been arrested on charges of subversion'' by Kopkamtib agents, who also home. At the same time thatJunaidi was appre- a quantity ofdocuinents in･Junaidi's One was lsmait hended, two other prominent Muslim activists werc arrested, Prol'essor concurrently law Suny, rector (i.e. president) ot' Muhammidiyah University, and pro- been arrested and released in professor at the . Suny had twice "sub- previous months because of critical comments on government corruption and on arrestecl versive" Army generals made during lectures to his students. The other person indepen- was Sutomo, better known as Bung Tomo, a prominent figure in Indonesia's

who also has frequently voiced criticism of the Suhar'to regime. dence struggle, FI'echno- 'I"hen, at the Institutcof on rLtay 31, 1978, an unidentified lecturer ot"and had been logy was arrestcd; it was known only that he had been a beard meniber active in the afiairs of the Institute's campus inosque. Ts･vo days eariier Information pt-linister , on the basis of a report to .the cabinet by Defense and Security Ministcr General Muharrimad Jusuf, had declared that security conclitions in Indonesia "nevertheless from all were good, but requiring vigilance quarters,"3) in no way . The Iatter phrase was widely taken io mean that Suharto's re-election itvieMred as subversive. augured a modcrating ol' the government's campaign against those received on ]Vrarch 31, 1978, little more than a ":eek after Suharto had the Alreadv ' MPR's ncw mandate, Kopkamtib chiet' Admiral Sudomo had announccd that authorities in various of the were holding 300 persons, including more than 200 studcnts, parts "Canti-government thc months.4) country, on charges of activities'' during previous three All or most of the 100 or so non-students arrested, and at least 50 to 60 of the detained however, students, would be put on tt'ia], SudomQ said. Sudomo was ctuick to add, that the time had now come to restore good relations between students and government. "af'ter `[are The students, all,'' according to Sudomo, our own childrcn who have been led astray.'' And in subsequent days the Admiral was at pains te stres$ that the.iudicial ``revenge" action planned against the students was not a matter of for their often voci- "a in months but was ferous public criticism of Suharto and the governTiient previous matter ol' upholding the law." A possible connection between pt(uslirn political opponents o{' Suharto and the student dissidents continued to bc intimated by the government in the days and weeks

3) despatch, Iljakarta, May 29, 1978. 4) .ALgenc'e France Presse despatch, Piakarta, Marcrh 81, 197S {FBIS, April 3, }978).

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after Suharto7sthird term inauguration, For example, on May 8, Sudomo was reported to have ``confirmed" to the press that the recently arrested Professor Suny, Sutomo, and Mahbub I]ljunaidi, "links had with pelitical activities of college students."5) And in the investigationin early April of an alleged arson and bombing plot by some 40 [`Islamic members of the Youth Group" (Gabungan Pemudd klam-GPI> in Eljakarta simi- "links" Iar with restive WestJava university students were reportedly uncovered. As was to be feared,however, the persistent tension belween the Suharto regime and the Muslim community foliowing the President's new mandate ceuld readily lend itself to exploitation by in either provocateurs camp. On the night of April 14, a plastic bomb exploded in the Istiqlalrnosque, in the heart of D,, The expiosion, which fortunately only wounded one of the faithfu1 inside the mosque, and caused some minor damage, came at almost the same time that the government announced the arrest of yet another prominent Muslim political figure, the sixty-seven-year-old eqafruddin Prawiranegara, former defense and tbreign mini$ter, and later a leader of the one-time "Inclonesian secessionist Revolutionary Government" (Pemerintah Rapttbtik Revolvsioner indbnesia-PRRI) in WN'estSumatra during the late nineteen-fifties. eqafruddin, an im- leader portant in the now banned and dissoived Muslim party Mas.jumi, had been ar- rested because of allegedly ttnti-government comments made in recent religious,lec- tures, He was released again on May 2 without any .iudicial action having been taken against thus him, illustrating again what Suharto critics consider to be the regirne's typical pattern of haraspment oC' its opponents, i.e. arrest (or frequent re-arrest, as in the case of Professor Suny) and detention fbr days and semetimes weeks, without clear specification of charges and evidence, and, then, a release, often accompanied by a "undesirable" warning tp avoid conduct. Public bombings have been rare, thus far, in independent Indoncsia's history. While Ibjakarta police eventua]ly blamed the GPI for the Istiqial Mosque incident, clear evidence oi' this has not been established. Taken in the context of the, indeed pro- "Komatido ven, terrorist depredations of adherents, and of' cenflict .lihad" generally between Muslim leaders and the Suharto regimc, however, the Istiqlal bombing marked a disquieting escalation ol' tensions at the very start of Suharto's new Presidential term. There isnot enly no sign that the government sees wisdom in attempting to calm down its conflict with the Muslim community, but, on the contrary there are other in- "preventive dications that the government's measures" policy is not del'using antagonism toward it. Already onJanuary 2n, 1978, and during three days fbllowing, in the midst of the student campaign that urged Suharto net to seek a thircl Presidential term, the

government had ordered the banning of seven major newspapers because ot' their ex-

tensive reporting on the mounting opposition to Suharto's intended re-election. It was

perhaps the rnost extensive press ban since the end of`January, 1974. 0n that occasion,

similarly in the wake ot' student unrest over the Suharto regime's alliance with fbreign bigbusiness,over alleged abuses of pnwer by the military, and over rising prices, fbur ma- jor dailies and several periodicals had been banned. As customary, the January, 1978 's} Antari-d'Egi;Kt'Eh,ibj{ka'-;t'a'l"Sdays,ig7s･

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to the authorities press ban also lasted about two weeks, and, upon giving undertakings that the>T would exercise self restfaint in future reporting on sensitive issues, editors top ranking military were allowed to resurnc publication. But reaction, even among critic:al of the and business supporters of the Suharto regime, had been quite, if quietly, irnpressions in iniportantAvn- .January, 197a press ba", not lcast because oft'eared adverse nt sorne $!2 ericari and West !'luropean circics xvhence the governni ¢ has been deriving blllion in loMg terni financ;ial stabilization credits during thc past decade. Not",ithstanding this reaction, and evcn with Suharto securely re-elected, the regime's `Cpreventive" ho"'ever. example, al- press supervision campaign has continued, For socalled though government spokesmc:n themselves in recent months had referred to the "Free Acheh Movement," ]ed by Hasan Tiro, a shadowl,, underground, strongly Mu-

slim, anti-Suharto organization, reportedly seeking autonomy if not independence tbr independence the North Sumatra province of Acheh (on a basis somewhat similar to the "Moro Front" sought by the Muslim secessionist rnovement of the National Liberation in the Southern Philippines), press references to this rnevement as such rather abruptly werc declared unlawfu1. Latc in March, 1978, M/ra.opada, a leading dail}, in Medan, "Free "final North Sumatra, was given a warning" by Kopkamtib not {o refer to the Acheh Movement" in its columns again, but instead, if reference had to be made at all "the lo the movement to call it insteacl : lawless gang of Hasan Tiro." Perhaps revealing thr the thinking of Indonesia's security officials, a Kopkamtib spokesman explained ``Free on Tiro's that to use the term Acheh Movement" could convey a legitimacy group that rnig,1]t furthcr its subversion, MeanN･vhile, Indonesia's iiew Infbrmation pt{inister, Gerieral Ali Murtopo, appointed after Suhartois re-election to a third Presiclential term, "not declared in an April, 1978 intervic"r that he was a defender of the firce press," "is in any case not in Indonesia whese society, in Murtepo's vies", not strong enough,'' Suharto's ncw Vice-President, Adam Malik, one of lndonesia's leading political figures, 'the been fbrced to close assertecl to san]e interviewer that the government had recently "wrong ``they "Dv{aking" down newspapers because made the wrong ncws."6) thc to Suharto's news" specifically meant printing reports on the student movement opposed

re-elcction. When Suliarto first came to power in I966, lbllowing the turmoil of the attcmpted to eust President coup on September 30, the ycar before, and the subsequent canipaign attempt) hc Sukarno Cwidely suspectcd of having known and tacitly condoned the coup Ksatrij,a of integ- was generally perceived as a quiet, quintessentially Javanese (knight) ``New rity. The major policy thrust ofSuharto's Order" (Orde Bar" or Orba) regime- i.e. maximizing Indonesia's economic rehabilitation and development, also with the aid of ibreign credit and capital investment circles which would be persuaded that domes- - tic Indonesian political stab"ity would be preserved, by force if necessary capitalized flamboyant on the image ofthis gentle, fatherly integrity, a contrast to the Sukarno. `[preventive" Supporters of Orba, in Indonesia and abroad, portrayed the contvels exercised by the new regime over politics"nedia, education and other phases of public

6) Hcnry Kamm {n 7Vte Mw YeTk TVmes, Apvil 23, 1978.

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life, as ultimately b¢ ing justified, because the nation's needecl economic rehabilitatien "trustworthy effort was now in the hands of and quite decent technocrats trying to do a diMcultjob," as one Indonesian academic colleague put it to this writer about a decade ago, ln time, however, even Suharto himseif did not escape the corruption and misman- agement which have tarnis}ied Orba'sescutcheon. In the early nineteen-seventies alleged business dealings of Mme, Suharto, particularly in connection with the development ``Beautiful ol' a Disneyland-like tourist prqject in Qjakarta, called Indonesia in Minia- ture," had caused a outcry public and vociferous student protests which eventually halted the project. Rumors about the preferred tveatment being accorded the Pre- sident's relatives and friends in various business dealings persisted, however, and on F'e.lt September 21, I976, Suharto compellecl to make the fir$t ofseveral public statements denying that he had promoted lucrative ventures ibr members of his family. Still, these denials only seemed to widen pubJic suspicion, and among student opponents of the regime they spurred doubts about the desirability ef Suharto continuing in ofice after 1978. On January 26, 1978, Suharto again publicly denied that he had enriched him- self while in odice, or that he and his wife had engaged in corrupt practices. He now did admit, however, that he controlled some 13.7 billion Rupiah (about $75 million) as "T'hese head of various fbundations. are indeed huge surns of money, but they are not mine," Suharto added. But new questions arese whether Suharto should, as Pre- bident, be in fact in a position to c;ontrol such large foundation monies. A few days earliev, Mme, Suharto was identified by a sworn witness in a I]ljakarta court proceed- ing, to have been involved in a multi-million dollar smuggling case in l976, and no persuasive denial has been forthcoming.7) In the aftermath of Suharto's election to a third Presidential term underground publications circulating in nyakarta have continued to raise new questions about Su- harto's wealth ancl its origins (including a recent a]leged deposit of$350 million in a Shngapore bank), while thc President's step-brother, Probosutedjo, in an apologia for Suharto, only managed to raise new doubts as to how he, Probosutedjo, acquired his near monopoiistic control over the nation's trade in cloves.8) Today what is fact and what isfancy about Suharto's wealth is no longer the issue; the issue is, rather, the per- sistent cloud of rumor, suspicion and innuendo itself that surrounds the President and his family and the existence of which erodes the credibility of Suharto's continued leadership. A disquieting polarization of attitudes about the regirne is being hardened by the problem ofSuharto's credibility. For example, f'rom the utterances of the spokesmen of the armed forcesfaction in the MPR and in the Indonesian parliarnent one now gauges a mood ofdefensiveness, hypersensitive to any real or unintended slur on Suharto as one "own." ofthe Army's Suc.h a mood ofsupport through thick and thin fbund expression

7) 7he Straits Times (Singapore),January4, 1978. 8) fiidenesian IVlews Selections (Sydney), May, 1978, pp. 3-4.

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in the demand by General Surono, armed ibrces deputy staff chief and mi]itary faction spokesman in the MPR who, shortly before Suharto's re-electien to a third Presidential "emergency rlihis, term, called for an expansion ofthe President's powers," Surono said, "certain was essential in order to conibat elernentsi' who were attempting to disrupt the leadership oE' governrnent programs. Surono's subsequent explanation appcared to justify even breader emergency powers for Suharto than the latter already, possessed, on the grounds that with such added authority he coulcl movc even more quickJ>, and de- cisively against his opponents. It was the PPP in particular which not only railed against Surono's proposal but against Suharto's emergency powers generally. During much of March, 1978, the confrentation between the President's army supporters and his ptluslim critics over just this issuc seemed to hinge increasingly on the question of' C`emergency" Suharto's personal worth to justify additional new authority, In the end, a compromise ol' sorts was reached. Extra emergency powers were not granted the President. Rather, the same old emergency powers which Suharto had received in 1966 when he took over fi-om Sukarno were continued in fbrce by MPR decision. Thc continuance of thcse old powers, according to the MPR, was still nec- ``unity,'' essary Jorder in order that the President would be able to preserve the nation's ancl in L`other to {brestall a "recurrence of the communist coup" or 1965 and subversive threats,''9)

'I]o ``subversive" Orba's critics, however, thc argument that dangers continue to threaten has worn thin. The significance ofthe student upsurge of 1977-78 was that the

``subversion]' credibility of' Suharto persona]ly, and that of his c:onscious regime as the guarantor of the nation's econorrric development have sustained serious and, probably, irreparable blows, and it would be a mistake to consider the current lull in student pro- test as a sign that the opposition has been cewed. The dynarnics of the l977-78 student

revolt have not been eliminated, and so they are like]y to be {'e.lt again in the coming

months of Suharto;s third Presidential term. The 1977-78 student upsurge, though previous manit'cstations ef serious student unrest, c,g, the riots in D.iakarta en January 15, 1974, on the occasion ofJapanese pre- mier 's visit, seeming]y have created an aimost permanent substratum of easily erupting student revolt in Indonesia, had its more immediate and particular origins in the pt{ay 2, 1977 Indonesian general elections. In these elections, the Govern-

``Functional ment's Colkar (1hom Cotongan KarvFa or Groups"') party, though it retained its absolute parliamentary ma.jority, did a good deal worse than expected, losing four '1ihe seats compared to thc 1971 elections. significant gainer had been the PPP which

won five additionai seats and significantly scored a clear victery over Celkar in mctro- politan D.iakarta, perhaps the most sophisticated political area of thc country. "iell sub- stantiated allegations of intimidation and physicai abuse of PPP supporters and candi- dates by . activists, the disappearanc¢ and sudden reappearance of thousands of ballots in East ,Java (where the PPP is strong) and which wcre cventually ruled to be in Gotkar's f'avor, and various other malversations raised serious questions about the

9) Agence Fr'ance Pressa dcspatch, D.]'akavta, ts'Inrch 22, 1978 CFBIS, March 23, 197ES), 630

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honesty of the eiection results. In a number of provinces, e.g, in Acheh, North Suma- tra, the PPP was the absolute winner, while in others, such as in Kalimantan and the Lesser Sunda Islands, Gotkar won by far fewer votes than had been anticipated. Clearly, the elec{ions showed that the Suharto government's popularity, as reflected in Colkar's showing, was beginning to wane. And so, inevitably, as attcntion now came to focus on the election of the forthceming meeting of the MPR in March, 1978, a body constitutionally chargecl with electing the President and Vice President of lndonesia, the notion that Suharto should step down began acquiring the kind of a fo)lowing which, befbr'e the election, it could not have

gotten. By .June, 1977, Indonesian university students began urging the election as President of the popular, outgoing Governer of I).jakarta, Ali Sadikin. As worried ``culture military commanders meanwhile criticizecl students for their of opposition," a top constitutional scholar, the previously mentioned Professor Ismail Suny, eharged that since most of the mernbers oth the MPR are appointcd by the goyernment, the MPR's election ofa President (still expected to be Suharto) could not bf: c:,)nsidered democratic.iO) In subsequent weeks, though Sadikin attempted to remove hiniself quietly from the center ofcontroversy by refusing to run for the Presidency,students launched an increa-

singly more vociferous campaign against Suharto's re-election. Importantly, they won sympathy, not only from the PPP and other Muslim epposition groups, but also from a cautious press, and from a number of highranking rnilitary, among them Lieutenant General H.R, Dharsono, the Secretary General ot' ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and frorn the nation's senior and perhaps rnost prestigious soldier, re- tired General A.H. Nasution, Former Defense Minister and fbrmer Armed Forces com-

mander. The thrust of the students' attack (and that of their allies in the PPP, the press, the rnilitary and in some of the intellectual community as well) went into the di- rection not just of whether Suharto should serve yet another, third Presidential term (viewed as an undesirable constitutional precedent 1ry many) but went toward the de- velopment failures of his re.cr. ime, i.e. the $1O billion indebtedness scandal of Indonesia's

huge oil conglomerate Pertamina, the allegations of huge bribcs ol' senior Indenesian

olHcials by major fbreign corporations like Lockheed, Hughes Aircraft, and the Ford Motor C:ompany,ii) the malversations in the operations of thc government's rice distri- bution program as administered by its National Logistics Board (BULOG), and the spectacular corruption in government supervised credit services (in early October, l977

a banker and a real estate tycoon were discovered to have been able to obtain frauclulently

no less than 15 billion Rupiah in loans). All this, while the rnass of Indonesians has

been struggling to get a]ong on an average per capita ineotnc c',f$128 in 1973, one of the lowest in the region (Malaysia's was $330, the Philippines' $272 that same year), and when in fact, according to Pro{-essor Surnitro D.io.iEohadikusumo, Inclonesia's leading

economist, the poorest 40 percent sector of the. Indoneslan pepu)ation now accounts ibr

10) 71lte Straits 7Vmes (S{ngaperc),June 29 andJuly 1, 1977, 11) 7he 2Vletv York Times,January 25, 1977 andJune 4, l978; 71he PVlall Street Journal, November 17, 1975.

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only about l5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.i2} The maldistribution in income and other benefits of the Orba era has seemed to lndo- nesian students and other critics harldy to justify the political authoritarianism and the "don't rock the boat" national security obsessions ot' the Suharto regime. On January l6, ]978, the Student Council oC the Institutc e{' Technology in Bandung, XNest Java, issued a "White Book,'' whlch succinctly summarized the case against Su}iar{o, and took the regime to task for a number' ot' policy failures ratiging frorn the per`sistent social in- justices in the economy and the prepondcrant position of Chinese and ihreign capital interests in business life, to the lack ei' a meaningt'ul role ibr parliament, the NtPR, and ``dialogues'' the political parties. }]' arlier, in various with cabinet ministers on various campuses, students had harped on numerous instances of bribery, illegal levies (i.e. "protection money") and other abuses of power by military and other public ofHcials. The core of truth in such students' chavges was, in fact, confirmed by the government's ``Operasi own anti-corruption campaign (called Tertib" or Opstib, for short> Iaunched ``Sadikin inJuly, l977 as thestudents' for President'' campaigngotunder way. Opstib, which has continued until the present as an earllest of Suharto's intentions during his third Presidential term, has seen the arrest of scores of oMcials and military, mestly

"fees" for charging illegal from a gullible, bureaucracy-ridden public. In one notable case, a government prosecutor was arrested in September, l977 fbr illegally collecting ene million Rupiah from a defendant whom the prosecutor, had charged with a criminal eflense in a land transaction dispute.i3) As fbr the ineflbctiveness of partiament, the latter's leaders have in efllect agreed with the students on that score. When on September 9, 1977, the parliament dissolved itself at the end of its term, the Speaker, Dr. Idham Chalid, admitted publicly that par- ]iament had not exercised its right to question the government on a number of policy issues as it should have, and he aclded that he was aware that the Indonesian public "extremely had become critical ancl disappointed'' with thc House's performance. Even during the meeting of the pt{PR which elected Suharto to his third Presidential tern], a niovement was growing among the deputies that the traditional principle of concensus in their decision making be abandoned and that, hencefbrth, decisions bc reached on the -a basis ofmajority vote prospect likely to be tried in thc corning year in the new par- liament.

Oficially, however, the Suharto regime has rernained wholly unwilling to make 'cven any significant gesture of conciliation to the students or to establish some formal machinery that could be applied to possible future strains. Hence, today, with cam- In the more puses quiet again, fbr the moment, the stage is set for new confrontations. than a decade long history of the Suharto regime, each period of student dissent, par- ticularly since the early seventies, has been more vehement than its predcessor, In the '

"lndoncsia IL) }bjcijohaclikusurno, Towat'd the Year 2000,7' Ekenomi (km Kettttn.oan lndonesia (lbja- "Through karta), September, 1975. Also cited in "'il]atd A, Hanna, A GIass Gloomily." Atnerican iv'ol, Universities Fietd Stof Roports, SoutheasL Asia Series, 24. No, 5. 1976, pp, L)-3. 13) 77te hTdonesict Times (Iljakarta}, St-pte!nbe]' 22, 1977.

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1977-rvIarch, 1978 were ,July, period,the studcnt rnarchcs and demonstrations bigger, more frequent and widespread (e.g. campuses as distant as Medan, North Sumatra, and Makassar, Su;awesi, t,)ecamc invnlved), and often mere provocative, Unsurprisingly, thc government's reaction to them also was sharpcr and more uncompromising. Already by the close ol'November, I977, a worried Suharto svas warning that unless "i'eelin.cr. "democratic" "legal s ot'dissatisfaction" would be expressed in and ways,'' there "chaos svould be and split" in the countr}r. At the sarne time it was becoming evident that sorne Army units were being aflltcted by the student demonstrations, and, partic- ularly in the Army's crack Siliwangi Division in West Java, some oMcers began ex- pressing operi sympathy with the students, Pamphlets started circulating in the Di- vision urging its personnel tD stage a revoit against Suharto. The daily Berita Yttcha, meuthpiece of the Indonesian Army. warned critics of the govemments to cease their attacks, contending that the Comrnunists would exploit any situation to their own

benefit.i4) C]early Army corrimanders were becoming alarmed. In mid-December,

twenty-five senior armed tbrces commanders, after mceting with Defense Minister

"crush" Maraden Panggabean, issued a statement warning that they would any ``subversive" tendency in the country or any attempt to prevent the fbrthcoming MPR from discharging its responsibilities. The latter warning seemed ambiguous: some

observers saw it as a veiled warning that the armed ibrc¢ s leaders would not tolerate the MPR's election ot' someone other than Suharte as President. Within days the armed forces commanders' warning had cost thern a remonstrance by their most prestigious colleague, retired General A.H. Nasution, who asserted pub- "I ]icly: cannot agree with the military action against thestudents. In fact the students

have noble ideas which will become a reality one day .,. or maybe tomorrow." This

rebuke by NasutiQn, who is known to have friends in the PPP and other Muslim quar- "first'' ---an ters, was an astonishing in Indonesian poiiticai history indication that top Army leaders were publicly split in their support for Suharto. Nasution was not alone, "first," and the anti-Suharto movement soon was to see yet another namely a direct effect on Indonesia's foreign aflLtirs by the President's critics. For onJanuary 24, 1978, the Indonesian government decided to remove the former Siliwangi Divisien Commander, Lieutenant General H.R. Dharsone, fromhis post asSecretary General ofASEAN. The reason was that Dharsono, in a West,Java campus speech, had charged that the gap be- tween rich and poor wa$ widening in Indonesia, and in the same address the popular general had accentuated other favorite themes of student critics of the regime. The

decision to remove Dharsono necessitated hurried and embarrassing dip]omatic missions

by Indoncsia to other ASEAN capita]s to explain and,iustify his dismissal, even as Foreign

)vlinistry spokesmen kept insisting that Dharsono would not bc removed, C]leariy, as the ASEAN's Secretary General's oMce was still in the process of being organized (it had been established ibrmally only at the February, 1976 ASEAN summit conferen ¢ e at

Denpasar, Bali), the whole episede did the {ledgling regional erganization little good, In rctrespect, thc Suharto reginie today has reason to be plcased that, ominous]y 'iil'rr'ti'e'r',/t'a''}'udha (J}v'akartn). Nc,vetnber L), 1977 (als- FBiS, Noveniber 13, IP77),

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threatening as thc student led revolt sometimes seemed, in the end it lackecl a suthciently broad base to topple thc srovernment. At first, however, a serious confrontation scemed to loom ever larger. During the first wceks ol' 197g Army units began clashing more

frequently with irate sLudents, various carnpuses were surrounded by armored carriers,

``occupied" and sometimes ihrmaliy or informally by the military, newspapers were being

banned, and Def'ense Minister Panggabean had announced that caches o{' illegal weap-

ons had been discovered at Pacljajaran University and at the Institute ofScience (IKIP) in Bandung, West Java. Early in February, the Ibjakarta military command com- C`exercise'' ``testing menced a three day in the capital aimed at the alertness of military

units." It was apparcnt that army leaders were ready ihr a fight, but the show of fbrce

merely seemed to heighten the pubiic tension and the atmosphere of tbreboding, SignifL jcant was the appeal of Parliamcnt Speaker (and soon to bc Vice President) Adam ``certain "stop [Ccould Malik to generals,'' asking them to talking politics" as this lead to more trouble among the population.'' Affalik said this a few clays after Lieutenant General , Commander of KOSTRAD (the Arrny's Strategic Reserve) had

told a meeting ef students that the authoritics had f'diled to understand the aspirations

[`by of young people and that thc activities of students had been prempted the bad political and social situation in the country," By this time, some 200 students alone were under arrest for recent demonstratiens.

Rumors were rit'e that several students had died in detention centers under brutal Army

treatment and in fighting with troops. Government spokesmen alternatc:ly thrcw new

fuel on the fire (as, e.g. I]ljakarta Police ahiefKodrat Samadikun did "rith his order on March I, 1978, that private citizens turn in all their firearms within a week, and while "upset" military spokesmen kcpt threatening dire consequences for any ene atternpting to

the MPR meeting), or attempted te calm down tempers (e.g. President Suharto's repeated

assurances that recently announced restrictions on student activities were not reall>,

"to designed to curb academic freedom but rather insure it of its proper place.':). Yet, though students might keep on protesting Suharto's re-election and urging ``democratic the MPR to do its duty,'' though the PPP grudgingly, and only at the last moment, formally agreed to support Suharto in the MPR fbr a third term and, meanwhile, kept the political pot boiling by refusing to agree to a government attempt to win greater recognition fbr the various indigeneus mystical beliefs and sects (kapert- J'ay'aan> in the country's religious ]ife, though the Association of Indonesian Lawyers (Peradin) issued a ihrmal demand on February 24, that the government releasc the ar- "restore -- rested students, stop interfering with the press, and democratic life" though all these and similar developments kept up the pressure on Suharto and his regime, in

the end thc Qpposition buckled. Neither students, nor PPP leadcrs, nor Army, nor other

critics were prepared to go out on the streets in a flnal showdown of I'orce and risk a bloodbath. In the MPR the Gotkar party and government appointed majority clearly

had the needed votes to re-elect Suharto. And by thc iniddie of March it was equally

evident that thc hard core of the armed fbrces would not be swayed, even by the crit-

icism ot' respected colleague$ like Generals Idris or Nasution.

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Indeed, not even the perhaps most serious blow to Suharto's prestige which he had to sustain before his tbrmal rc-election by the MPR. was enough to topplc him. This

was the ref'usal, which came during a March 1 I, l978 cabinet session, of Suharto's Vice

President, the respected Hamengku Buwono, Sultan of Djok.iakarta, to let himself bc

nominated as Suharto's running mate fbr another term. The Sultan's refusal, osten- ``reasons sibly tbr of health,'' was widely rumored to have been causcrd by his distaste

for the rcgime's high handed tactics against its dissenters. Adarn Malik, Parliament Speaker and former Foreign Minister, an astute and adaptable politician, took the Sultan's "unan- place, Although Suharto's re-election by the MPR on March 22 formally was imous and unopposed," only 842 ofthe 920 MPR members were in their seats at the

MPR plenary session that elected Suharto and Malik, The large number of absences on a ceremoniously as important occasion as this signified the scepe of persistent dissent. President Suharto begins his third term with the reiativc confidence that the op- position that aligned itself against him lacks all eflbctive internal cohesion. The liberal or even leftist oriented campus rebels who constituted much of the vanguard of the

anti-Suharto campaign have little in common with Mus]im traditionalists in and out

of thc PPP comrnitted to the triumph of Islamic law. Morcover, taken as a whole, the student dissident groups themselves show important fissures, some bcing mcre extensions of the oJcler Muslim organizations that merged into the PPP, others having primarily secular nationalist and!or vaguely social dcrnocratic leanings. Next to Golkar (the government party), and the PPP there is only one party, the small Democratic Indonesia Party (Partai Demokrasi btdonesia-PDI), which in the elections of 1977 won about 8.6 % Ct･:', ol' the popular vote (l.41 less than in the 1971 poll) and 29 seats. Composed of Christian conl'essional interests and the old, largely Java oriented, National Indonesian Party, the PDI supporters, historically fearfu1 of' Islami(; political power, during the

anti-Suharto student campaign showed no inclination to tbrm a more solid opposition

'I'hus, front with others. in the aftcrmath of the 1977-78 anti-Suharto movement,

nothing has become clearer than that changes in Orba's leadership will have to b ¢ made through pressures from within the ranks of the top military-business establishment that undergird$ the regime, It was the uncertainty as to just what their allies stood for, as much as the quixotic lack of organization at thc critical mornents of confrontation, and an unwillingness to drive a clash to the point of bloodshed, that caused thc Indonesian

student revolt in the end te sputter and fai].

"I'oday, ``con- carnpus dissidents pledge themselves to new tactical departures, e.g, structive criticism" ef the government, and, like their fe11ow student rebels in Thailand ``among three years ago, to a campaign of winning support the people" by performing

vo]unteer villagc construction and farming labor. Meanwhile, scores of the less scrious

oflt]ndcrs among thc student demonstrators are being relc:ased. The new Minister of

C:normalization,'; Education, Dr. Daud .Jusutl has announced a phased, carnpus process, "teach including re-activation of university student councils and seminars whic:h will

studcnts how to usc the tools of analysis in discussing soc{al life,'' Students will not be

`"han)per'7 `'f'rorri barrccl ('roin t,heir politlcal activities so long as thcsc d(.i not studcnts ''63s

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gtigt1･Y7ill')lt 16ts4+J

attending to their studies,"iS) These ibrmulations have alrcady aroused new student criticism. But, fresh froin its MPR mandate, Orba's leadership is not likely to be im- pressed, In Suharto's new cabinet and in the public administrative secter, the deminant `"minister role of the military is as conspicuous as befbre. Of the three principal coor- dinators" in the new cabinet two are generals, and suah a prominent figure in the rnili- tary and intelligence field as General Ali Murtopo now holds the In{brmation Ministry.

Suharto confidant, General Daniatme, a for!ner Kopkamtib staff chief, has become Speaker of Parliament, Admiral Sudonio, previously chief of staff (or No. 2) in Kop- kamtib now assumes the top post of this security agency (taking over the No. 1 position from President Suharto himself), while simultaneously 1)ecoming deputy commander ot'

the Indonesian Armed Forces.

"National Speaking at the cledication of a Press Monument'' in Solo, Central ,Java, t`exercis;ng President Suharto, on February 9, 1978, had already declared that freedorn

for freedom's sake is a luxury we cannot aflbrd,'' On April 24, l978, in addressing

oMcials of the Religious Affairs Ministry, Suharto warned all Indonesian M.uslims that his government, in future, might have to prohibit certain religious leaders from preach- ``unfavorablc" ing in public or to give sermons, in order to prevent an situation from emerging in a particular area. The reason fbr this announcement clearly was cennected with the gevernment's continuing fear of tlie political implications of religious pro-

nouncements by Muslim ieaders. But in the orthedox Muslim community, especially, Suharto's statement was seen as but another anti-Muslim attack. Also judging by the announcement that unauthorized meetings ot' rnore than five persons are forbidden, and by the arrests efJunaidi, Suny, et al., noted above, it is evident that Indonesia's Pre$ident

sees the MPR]s mandate ef a third term in oMce for him as essentially a confirrnation ot'

"don't Orba's rock the boat" philosophy, even as the old problems of maldlstribution of wealth, corruption and misrnanagement which fue]ed thc opposition against the Pre- sident's regime are Iikely to persist. Suharto's re-election has clearly plcased ancl produced new signs ot' aid from his regime's powerfu1 fbreign supporters. The Inter-Governmental Group of Indonesia (IGGI), an international aid consortium of mainly advanced Western powers and banks that has been pumping billiens of dollars in development aid and credit into Indonesia for morc than a decade, agreed on May 24, 1978 to grant Indonesia yet another $2.5 billion to finance various development projects. U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale, visiting in ]]ljakarta made it a point on May 6, l978, to meet and discuss civil rights

`Cnon-offlcial problems in Indonesia with a number of reportedly Indenesians.'' But a clearer indication of the American position, perhaps, was the Indonesian government's May 9, 1978, announcement, in the wake ol' the Mondalc visit, that Washington had ofl}ered I)jakarta the wherewithal for a modern armament l'actory, producing M-l6 automatic rifles, and also to provide a squadren ofA-4 Skyhawkjet fighters ln addition

to the already approved request for a squadron of F-5E Tigerjets.

15) lh indenesia 71mes,June !, l978,

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Amidst such gestures of tbreign confidenee, however, seerningly intractable problerns remain such as the petisistent corruption (the success'/of the government's anti-corruption campaign should not be judged by the number of otlicials eaught, but t'roin its value as "a deterrcnt," a Home Ministrv spokesman said in mid-rvlay), and the slowing ricc production and maldistribution (on thc East Indonesian island of Flores, in April, more "because than 50 persons clied local olficials could not dec{de what levy the ricc trucks should be payin.or"),i6) Bccaus6 6t' the depre'clati6n of the U.S. doHar, the real value of Inclonesian experts in the past three years, th()ugh rising in dollar numbers has actually decreased by some i9 percent, and production oC existing oil fields Cc.g. Claltex' rvIinas field in Sumatra) is swil'tly running out and no new llelds have been opened, partly be- cause Suharto's recent unilateral increases in production sharing returns has discouraged companics from exploring. New ease studies reveal the serious polarizations of wealth ``many'' "pcasants, in the vi}lagc society, svherc high school graduates seek to l)ecome.

rubber tappers and s･v'oodcutters'' for Nvant of' employment opportunities co]nmensuratc with their trainirig, as mctanxsrhile thi'ee million a year are added to thc nation's total population o{- l38 million.i7) Although, in consequttn(;e largely of fbreign clamoring, thousancls ot' political pris- oners, held because of suspected compllcity in the 1965 coup, are finally being released, it says something about the pressures on the Suharto regime today that ibrmer President Sukarno is about to be oencially rehabilitated and that the Suharto government is con- sidering bestewing the titlc pahtawqn nasionat (national hero) upon him.iS) Matters appear te have reached a point lbr this regime that a uew offi.cial encomium for Sukarno has become a desirable gesturc to make, Son}ewhat over a decade ago, when the Su- harto regime began, jt sought' to put as much distance as possible between itself and the then publicly disgraced Sukarrio, Neither the elections of 1977, nor the MPR's conferral in 1978 ofa third Presidential term on the incumbent Suharto, can be taken as

meaningful indications of domestic stability in Indonesia in the foreseeable future.

16) ibid., May ]7, 1978, and 7)lte Etonomist (London), May 27, 1978. t7> See e,g. A. Hat'ts-Broekhuis and H, Palte-Gooszen, Demagra.fische AsPekten van Armeede in eett JL!vaatts Do,1,, D,LY. Instituut, Rljksuniversiteit Utrecht, l977), and D. Hendyana, .lbmbidan, (Geogtafisch `tYouth I'robletns:,Job aTid Education," 7)ee Indonesla 7Vtnes, Februury 10, ]978. IBI tSntara despa,tch, IEljakarta, )vtay 22, 1978 (FBIS, tstay 23, 1978), 637

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