While replenishing scubadiving bottles, and the others, some ten days ago at a small resort in the South China Sea, we heard that Suharto had resigned. On the boat the only bubbles in storage were beer bubbles, so we had a can of beer.

Without a paper at hand just some ideas for a discussion on Wednesdaynight. A feedback would be lovely.

Whenever we talked about SouthEast Asia I declared : Take the money and run. These countries, though I love the people dearly for very personal reasons, are ruled by oligarchies, even if rather free elections are held every four or five years. Their economic boomings the last ten years was for me just a Southsea bubble as comic as Noel Coward's comedy if it were not a tragedy for the populations.

32 years of a regime which with difficulty some described as enlighted despotic.

It started with a bloodbath of 7 generals in the night of 31 September/1 October 1965, all senior to Suharto (!), followed in 65/66 by the extermination of one million souls throughout the country accused of being leftwing or communist, said Time Magazine, not the most radical weekly I know.

It ended with 4 students shot by law and order forces two weeks ago and a 500 deaths, mostly burned within the looted malls set on fire purposely. By whom? For whom and why? Will there be any change? Will there be no more collusion, nepotism, corruption if President Habibie has joint ventures with the Suharto children?

Why in May 1998 and not ten years later or before? The fundamental changes Indonesia needs are the same it needed in the past. Why then the West got along with Suharto till now, for such a long time : 32 years? Why have there to be political changes, one is even talking about democratisation, in 1998? Was democracy not an option for Indonesia in 1988 or 1978 or 1968? Or was the money then too good for creating headaches as demanding for democracy and sound economics!? Anyway, a can of worms for sure. Were the looting people in search of a change of power or tempted by a taste of hi-fi? The protests since the economic-financial tempest were those of hungry people and those, angry they lost their job (some 8 million in an economy were small jobs and two/three jobs were the rule, not the exception).

One point to be raised was the attitude of China in the event of progroms against the overseas Chinese. Nowadays Mother China lets go its overseas brethren, too many to feed on its own soil and the rich overseas Chinese already invested in mainland China through HongKong and/or Taiwan and/or Singapore whatever funds they would have invested anyway. The same as Switserland, why take in the Jews if you already have their money? The tragic part is that most overseas Chinese see themselves as Chinese first. Without a China that accepts them. Or their bankaccount first, Chinese culture second and a good passport to start with? In Indonesia we talk about a maximum of 3% of a total of 200 million (=6 million), in Malaysia of 40% of 20 million (=8million). On a total of 1.3 billion mainland Chinese. Zero point One percent!!! Since when did Chinese leaders calculate the numbers of losses of Chinese? And we don't discuss who is ethnic overseas Chinese and who is not. After how many generations in a country does one loose one's origins? Never? After two or three? By marriage.....?

Suharto gone, what will happen? With the present crew no revolution for sure. No radical change either. Habibie can not rule without the army, the only existing backbone in the country. Which part of the army? The one which got rich and mighty under Suharto? The ousting of his son in law Prabowo has more to do with the strategic position of the latter than with his family ties, though these are no more fashionable in Jakarta. Can he rule without the Moslims? And what if he does rule with Islam support? Which one will be choosen, Muhammadiyah under Amien Rais or Nahdatul Ulama under Wahid? Is the first really more center and less fundamentalistic than the second? I doubt it. Both are conservatoir in my eyes. It is not because we want change that these currents are offering it, they will create their own change, eventually.

The Indonesian army, that is marine, airforce, police and army together, is a modern force, even if some of its arms are outdated. Its coherence, though certainly not monolitic, its vision of the Indonesian society is modern. It stands for a secular society. In the past it fought succesfully army rebellions of Islamic signature in West Java, in West Sumatra and South Sulawesi. No officer, nor soldier gets promoted if he has more than one wife, though Islam permits four. I am not talking about mistresses of course. The army officers wife associations are very powerful, and very actif in the social and economic welfare of its rank and file. The officers are well educated, and the most brilliant, and well connected (?) get their finishing touch abroad : USA, Australia...The army elite wants to be part and is indeed part of the modern (neo) liberal exchange patterns. It moulded for that reason in the beginning of the Fifties the ideology of dwi fungsi, the dual function : the military one and the civil one. The reason behind it was the nationalisation of the Dutch entreprises in 1952, followed by the British and American, when the unions, considered left wing or in Communist hands, wanted to take them over. The army did before the Communist Party could. This enabled the government of Indonesia's first President Sukarno - very often no first names in this country - to quiet the opposition in the army by giving unhappy generals and colonels the CEO places vacated by the ousted expats. The army thus created its own income by running companies, from the national petroleum company Pertamina to a simple village mill. Do I hear a question about possible corruption? Appalling such a thought! Handy for the army expenses when the economy goes down the drain under Sukarno and inflation is around 500% a year. You see, Sukarno is not my type either, a populist nationalistic mouthpiece, who will go into history as the creator of the independance of Indonesia in 45, the organiser of the First Non Aligned Conference in Bandung in 1955 with Nehru, N'Krumah, Chou En Lai (sic!) and, yes, the surviving weathercock Sihanouk of Cambodia, and as a ladykiller with flair and taste. The army still has this dual function enabling it to intervene into civil society as it is part of that society through its economic interests. Very clever thinking. Immediately after the October 65 Coup which untill now never was completely cleared up : a communist one? Then why all the Communist leaders throughout the country were unarmed? An interarmy strife gone out of hand? Sukarno's last try to put the army back into the barracks? Or, a develish shadowplay set up by those who profited from it? After the 65 Coup the army directly ruled the country : no opposition, no Islamic interference whatsoever and some 100 000 political prionners freed in the early years of the eighties.

Gen Ali Murtopo, a very close ally of Suharto, created in 65/66 a Youth movement to topple Sukarno, the same movement which ultimately, oh irony of history helped to force Suharto to step down. No student movement could have occupied the Parliament building without (secret but efficient) approval of (a part) of the army.

Youth movements have been very important in Indonesia. The independence was declared by Sukarno and Hatta under an enormous pressure from the Pemuda, the Youth, free during the void interregnum between the capitulation of Japan and the return of the Dutch. Also in a rural society being transformed into an industrial, mostly unemployed youths without modern education wander around looking for a job. In Java they are hired by different (rural) leaders for e.g. keeping order during rallies, or defend the leader against his opponents, who had other wandering youths. Sometimes the youths wondered who was right, and then the questionnable leader really was in difficulty. Ali Murtopo used this phenomena, infiltration it is called in spystories I believe. Since then the official Youth movement (Pemuda pancasila, pancasila is the official ideology) has been employed by the army for its own ends. In order to discredit opponents, outside and inside the amry, Ali Murtopo asked this Youth movement to be anarchistic and to create unrest for a short period under the banners of his opponents. That has not ceased with his death in 1984, on the contrary!!! How many students were students we never know. Be assured the different army Secret Services knew who were not, as they were on their payrolls.

Suharto and his family and his croonies profited, but not the whole army did. Discontent, strife, opposition came into the open some ten years ago. Suharto's answer was a rapprochement with Islamic forces. Thus the struggle became politic and ideologic, where it was a mere "ote-toi de la que je m'y mette", or "you have had your share, let me get one too". A sort of looting the economy of a country on a general scale, not just by smashing shopwindows and fleeing with a TV set, earphones and rollerskates. In Jakarta rollerskates.... On one side the strict pancasila army, on the other the more Islamic current.

The present President Habibie created some years ago the Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals, yes David they think that is no contradiction in terms. I do but that is another question. The present Minister of Interior, gen Syarwan Hamid, was responsible for the bloody closing of the office of the PDI headed by Sukarno's daughter Megawati. She has some clout, her party has none on the moment.

Will Pancasila remain the State ideology (Belief in a Supreme being, social justice, cooperation, nationalism, democracy) or will Islam take over? That is a question the West should carefully ponder and accordingly to its answer build up its politics of support and funds. Through the army, and some NGO's, not through the parties like PDI (secular) or PPP (Muslim), let alone the Golkar, the army invention of a political parliamentarian branch to which all civil servants had to adhere in order to survive, and to which all villages had to belong in order to get a school, or a bridge, or a mill... And let Libya and Saoudi Arabia take care of the Muslims.

The peaceful change of power, come on, only 500 and something deaths during this uproar, and conveniently we forgot those of the beginning of this year and those last year, as in my place of birth Banjarmasin, in May 1997, when hundreds of plunderers were burned to death while looting a shopping mall, closed off and put to fire. Same scenario as just some two weeks ago in Jakarta. Stroke of luck for the police, the thieves were punished without intervention nor trial. Or was it not a mere chance... The peaceful change of power is extremely rare in Javanese history. Since the political intervention of the Dutch from the second half of the 18th Century on the successions of sultans were more or less regulated, though in 1830 the Dutch had to intervene against Diponogoro - now a national hero - who was not happy that his brother, cousin, uncle, or nephew, I don't know anymore, became the Sultan, who consequently asked the Dutch for help. Look at the bloody change of power in Indonesia in 65/66.

The present change, untill now, has been a change where foreign intervention has worked. I am sure, but that is a guess, that Suharto during the G 15 in Egypt, was put under pressure, that IMF/Worldbank put heavy pressure, as did Washington and the others, even ASEAN wanted Indonesia to bite the bullett at last so that they could take the necessary economic measures too.

With the Marcos (mis)fortune as an exemple, Suharto must have negociated a safe conduct for him and his family (and his croonies?). Their personal fortune remains theirs. If not, part of the army will rebel against the then acting government. How far have been the assurances from the West to uphold this safeguard I don't know, but I guess it worked 'cause Suharto accepted to step down, peacefully. He could have gone to civil war if no such guarantee was given and I am not sure he would have lost, the army might have swung around in an attempt to fight civilian (i.e. Muslim an secular alike) interference in their affairs.

This shows once again the power of the USA Agencies called IMF and Worldbank, to which we all through our taxes contribute. We know that every IMF intervention makes the poor poorer and the rich richer while it wipes out the emerging middle class, vide Mexico, Egypt... Everytime there are demonstrations or worse. Mexico is a success story for those who had money, but ask the Chiappa what they think about the drastic economic measures. The same in Indonesia, the rise of petrol, thus busfares etc, really hit the fan and we know what followed. The price was lowered, but some segments of the elite already had decided that Suharto had to go. If, I have a dream too, the IMF would firstly consider every day life, the transition would be less dramatic for the poor. Now they are manipulatable for the benefit of a part of the elite. Ruthless capitalism, as it is in the Third World, is marxian in every sense, it destroys the existing society, awakens the workers and by asking too much too soon it digs its own grave, h.l. the revival of Muslim intervention in politics, as in Iran after the fall of the Shah whose human rights record was one of the worst in modern history. Religious answers to modern civil problems have always been those of a mystic past twisting the present and endangering the future. But recognising this would imply that gouverner c'est prevoir and that politicians think, quod non.

The West asks for an change because an ungoing Suharto regime would impedement its interest in the country and in the region, it fears for civil war, revolution? Unthinkable. The IMF/Worldbank saving plan looks too nice not to be implemented. Sorry for the people who will suffer. In any case the Indonesian people have no choice : bite the bullet or get hit by one.

Voila, from your reporter in KL who knows that tomorrow everything might change, the army seems to have lost the initiative, but the civil side is too divided to impose its views, if it has any common ones! The West wants law and order, thus the IMF/Worldbank is pushing that way.

e-mail Robert AARSSE

A letter to Wednesday Night friends

Kuala Lumpur December 10, 1997