By Warren Doull
The book Menangani Konflik di Indonesia (Handling Conflict in Indonesia) was
published in 2013. It contains insights into numerous conflicts and the way
human rights were handled by the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission in
the early post-Suharto years. The book’s author is Dr Bambang W. Soeharto, M.Si,
a former official of the Indonesian National Human Rights
Commission.
A westerner might assume that much of the Indonesian
National Human Rights Commission’s work would be similar to that of Amnesty
International or the UN’s OHCHR - exposing human rights abuses. A westerner
might also think that ‘Handling Conflict‘ would include seeking justice for victims
of abuse. However, after just a few chapters of the book, the reader is left wondering
whether the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission, or at least Dr Bambang W.
Soeharto, has prioritised a certain kind of peace-building ahead of exposing
human rights abuses.
Some of the conflict hotspots included in
the book are East Timor, the Moluccas, Central Sulawesi and Kalimantan.
East
Timor
A whole chapter is devoted to ‘Post
Referendum Conflict in East Timor’. Dr Soeharto explains that prior to the August
1999 referendum, the Indonesian security forces commander had believed the
referendum results would favour Indonesia, though he pointedly notes it was
unclear upon what reasons or reports this belief was based. Unlike some other
Indonesian officials, Dr Soeharto does not question the accuracy of the
referendum results, which showed only 21.5 % voting to remain part of
Indonesia.
So far, this seems consistent with the
western version of events. However, he then describes the post-referendum
situation as one of ‘quarreling and conflict’ between pro-integration and
pro-independence supporters. Dr Soeharto does not mention that the ‘quarreling
and conflict’ in East Timor in September 1999 had results that were one-sided
and extreme: of the six biggest massacres of September 1999 (in Dili, Suai, Maliana,
Passabe, Maquelab, and Lautem), all were commited by armed pro-integration
groups against unarmed pro-independence supporters. The representation of
one-sided massacres as ‘quarrelling and conflict’ echoes western history
textbooks referring to ‘quarrelling and conflict’ as indigenous tribes right
around the world were set upon by more lethally armed colonials.
Dr Soeharto’s creative even-handedness
continues. He describes how a group of pro-independence supporters at Dili
harbour on 4 Sept 2013 (ie. probably trying to evacuate) had a ‘quarrel’ with
pro-integration supporters and fled to a nearby Catholic diocesan building.
This had ‘angered’ the pro-integration
supporters, who subsequently burned down the building. The following day,
another diocesan compound in Dili was attacked by pro-integration supporters,
who bashed many people taking refuge there, burned several buildings down and
murdered 15 unarmed pro-independence supporters. Dr Soeharto even tries to
describe this murderous event in a detached way, referring to it as a ‘violent
incident’ in which ‘many people died’. This unwillingness to identify killers
and victims echoes current American references to ‘collateral damage’ from
their own murderous attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The reader is beginning to realise, as the
book title suggests - that the author is concerned with handling conflict,
perhaps in a uniquely Indonesian sense, rather than with justice. He notes with
pride that ‘establishment of the KKP HAM (the Truth and Friendship Commission)
was able to water down the calls of some countries for an International
Criminal Tribunal for East Timor’. The Truth and Friendship Commission emerged
as a political compromise, with a mandate only to find the truth about human
rights violations in East Timor but not to recommend punishments. The writer
acknowledges the Truth and Friendship Commission therefore could not find
justice for human rights victims. Justice, he seems to suggest in the next
paragraph, was being subverted to something that was more important in a
democracy: political stability!
Dr Soeharto explains that East Timorese
leaders Jose Ramos Horta and Mari Alkitiri had opposed the Truth and Friendship
Commission as a whitewash. But these elites had lived overseas during the
Indonesian integration years so, the author says, Xanana Gusmao had wider
support from the Timorese public. And
Xanana was in favour of the Truth and Friendship Commission.
The
Indonesian National Human Rights Commission
The reader gradually starts to wonder about
the author’s role with the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission. If the author
is not particularly interested in ensuring justice for victims, could this also
be said about the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission?
Dr Soeharto’s job seems, from the stories
in the book, to have been more about political trouble-shooting. His book
reveals that among the dignitaries attending the book’s launch in 2013 were no
fewer than three former heads of the Indonesian armed forces: Try Sutrisno, Djoko
Santoso and Wiranto. Moreover, the writer in 2013 served a brief period as a
senior official in Wiranto’s political party, Hanura. This association suggests
Dr Soeharto had no qualms about being associated with former heads of the
Indonesian armed forces and they had no qualms about his approach to human
rights.
The
Moluccas
The book has a chapter on conflict in the
Moluccas. This chapter includes an observation that peace-building solutions
must be bottom up. They must be found by understanding local context and
listening to locally proposed solutions.
This is indeed mainstream peace-building
theory, however it may have been useful for the writer to acknowledge that there
are many simmering local tensions in the world, including in Indonesia, that
only erupt into violent conflict after being manipulated by external parties. He
could have noted that such externally manipulated conflict is well documented
in the case of East Timor, where ‘pro-integration militias’ were organised and
funded by Indonesian military elements to conduct looting and murder in 1999. Similarly,
external elements are suspected of inciting violence in other conflicts such as
the Jakarta riots of May 1998 and the Ambon ‘sectarian conflict’ of 1999-2002. Dr
Soeharto could have mentioned that resolving such conflicts could be dealt with
promptly if links to external organisers and financiers could be cut. But he
doesn’t.
Central
Sulawesi
This chapter includes an interesting
analysis of terrorism in post-Suharto Indonesia. Dr Soeharto says terrorists
perceive their group to be in competition with followers of another belief
system.
This competition becomes clearer when he draws
on the thoughts of Asad Said Ali, who is a former Deputy Head of Indonesia’s
Intelligence Service and now a senior official in one of Indonesia’s main two
Muslim movements. Ali viewed
‘Neoliberalisme’ and ‘Social Democratic reform’ as a foreign ideology that was
limiting the Indonesian government’s control over the Indonesian economy and
mass media, and was also weakening the influence of religious and traditional
values on Indonesian society. This same ideology, Ali apparently argued, was
promoting decentralisation and the subsequent rise of parochial rather than
national interests. This view is not explored in detail but it does explain the
suspicion with which many Indonesians viewed the socio-political changes occurring
around them.
The author goes on to mention Samuel
Huntington’s The Clash of Civilisations
and the Remaking of the World Order, which similarly identifies competing
ideologies. In Huntington’s interpretation, the competing ideologies have a religious
base. Dr Soeharto seems to argue that this interpretation is more relevant to
the Central Sulawesi context, where religious tensions have existed since Dutch
colonial times.
Presumably Dr Soeharto’s visits to Central
Sulawesi were as a member of the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission.
But the focus of the chapter again suggests that the writer’s work in Central
Sulawesi was less about identifying human rights abuses and more about building
peace.
Kalimantan
Two chapters are devoted to ethnic conflict
between Dayaks and Madurese in Kalimantan in 1997-2001. When reading of the Madurese
offending the feelings of Dayaks and subsequently having their heads cut off, a
westerner might expect conflict resolution to involve identifying perpetrators.
Instead, Dr Soeharto talks in detail about his efforts to get the two parties
into peace talks so they could live in harmony once again, rather than what
they did to lay the groundwork for criminal proceedings and better law
enforcement to protect human rights.
In the province of Central Kalimantan
alone, Dr Soeharto notes 419 people had been murdered, 1,304 houses destroyed
and 88,164 people forcibly displaced. Though he doesn’t say it directly, the
overwhelming majority of victims were Madurese.
Dr Soeharto is not focused on the victims. I
recall photos from this conflict showing the corpses of beheaded children
littering the streets, yet this indiscriminate violence is only hinted at through
such references as ‘Dayaks who couldn’t control their emotions because of
previous incidents chased and killed Madurese” and a video the author saw ‘of
Madurese being massacred by a Melayu group’. The
writer is preoccupied with ending the conflict ahead of seeking justice for
victims of human rights abuses.
Conclusions
In fairness, Dr Soeharto does identify a
solution - stricter law enforcement - to this and other conflicts. Moreover, he
identifies specific human rights violations, like the killing of four civilians
by police trying to disperse demonstrators in Palangkaraya on 8 March 2001.
However, on the whole, the book on ‘handling conflict’ seems far more concerned
with political trouble-shooting than upholding human rights.
Perhaps imposing justice in an Indonesian
context is not as easy as in a western context, and likely to lead to more
trouble. In Indonesia’s fragile new democracy, the risks of protests spiralling
into violence are higher. Perhaps, in some cases and in some periods, the most
urgent priority is political trouble-shooting.
Certainly, Indonesia’s post-independence
history is full of examples of mass crimes that have gone unpunished, including
the annihilation of communists (and many others labelled ‘communists’ just for
convenience), the killing of 15-25% of the East Timorese population in the
1975-1999 period, and the killing of pro-democracy activists in Jakarta in the
1990s.
But then again, many crimes committed by
western governments or their proxies in recent years have also gone unpunished,
like the fire-bombing of many thousands of peasants in Vietnam and execution of
thousands of democracy activists across Latin America. Indeed Western
governments, by taking action against human rights abuses committed by some
governments and not by others, could be accused of using human rights as a
political tool.
In 2014, the Indonesian National Human
Rights Commission is certainly more focused on seeking justice but the slow
progress in prosecuting cases leads us to question whether more powerful bodies
in the Indonesian Government might still be stuck in the old paradigm of
focusing more on political trouble-shooting than seeking justice. In Indonesia,
‘discussing’ human rights is a post-Suharto concept. ‘Enforcing’ human rights
is still a foreign concept.
Warren Doull is a writer and ex-UNTAET staff member
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