BY MAX LANE
An intense struggle is underway within the Indonesian elite over how to divide up the spoils after the ousting of President Abdurrahman Wahid. On August 3, 12 days after Megawati Sukarnoputri was elected president by the People's Consultative Assembly, it was announced that it would still be another week before she would announce her cabinet.
The coalition of political parties which backed Sukarnoputri and her PDIP — Golkar, the party of former dictator Suharto, and the parties of the right-wing Muslim Central Axis — are insisting on an all-party cabinet.
Amien Rais, the chairperson of one of the largest parties in the Central Axis and the speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, has openly threatened not to cooperate with Sukarnoputri if he does not get his way. Golkar chairperson Akbar Tanjung has also criticised the new president for being too slow and not sufficiently involving his party in deliberations.
Adding pressure to Sukarnoputri has been a spate of bombings in Jakarta — the dominant view in political circles in the capital is that they are the work of military elements keen on ensuring that she agrees to Golkar and Central Axis demands.
Meanwhile, the military has stepped up arrests of democratic activists seen as a threat to its dominance. It appears that there is now a consistent policy of arresting people under the colonial-era Haatzai Artikelen, which makes it an offense punished by a long prison sentence to "spread hatred" against the government.
On July 31, police in Surabaya arrested eight activists who were distributing anti-Golkar and anti-military leaflets, issued by the Council for the Salvation of the People's Sovereignty.
Those arrested included two members of the provincial parliament, Mustawiyanto and M. Rozak, four members of the mass religious organisation Nahdlatul Ulama, Yoni Fatahillah, Hamka Cahyaning, Ahmad Kawakid and Abdul Hadi, and two members of the People's Democratic Party (PRD), Febri Erfinanto and Rudi Akhikoh.
Mustawiyanto and Rozak are the first members of parliament to be arrested on political charges since the 1965 crackdown in Indonesia.
In Bandung, the West Java police have issued an arrest warrant for Natalia Scholastica, the West Java chairperson of the PRD. She is charged with incitement to protest in relation to the Bandung worker protests that occurred in June. Nineteen Bandung-based activists have been held as political prisoners in the city's police headquarters since June 15.
In the same week, authorities in Jakarta also arrested seven police officers in the detectice service, the police academy and human resources area. They had met informally several times to discuss the legality of top police officials' refusal to obey the orders of former president Wahid. They are now being charged under various laws relating to insubordination.
On August 2, the police arrested Faisal Syaifuddin, the chairperson of the Jakarta office of the Aceh Referendum Information Centre (SIRA).
A police spokesperson stated that he was being charged under the "spreading hatred" laws. However, pressed by journalists in Jakarta, he also stated that Syaifuddin was being held because he had hindered investigations into an accidental bomb explosion in an Acehnese student hostel last year.
Mohammed Nazar, the Aceh-based chairperson of SIRA, was arrested last year for organising a demonstration in Aceh and is now serving a sentence of 10 months in prison. Also now in prison is Kautsar, the chairperson of the Acehnese People's Democratic Resistance Front, and nine other of its activists or supporters.
As yet the arrests have not dented the people's resistance. Demonstrations continue to occur daily throughout Indonesia, mostly students in the cities or supporters of Wahid, mainly peasants and workers in the small towns of East Java.
In the East Javanese city of Jember, a Jember People's Congress of about 10,000 delegates rejected the Sukarnoputri government and demanded early elections and the trial of Golkar and military officials. There are plans for similar assemblies in other East Javanese towns, as well as for an East Java-wide assembly in Surabaya.
On August 3, scores of organisations belonging to the People's Struggle Alliance held a demonstration in Merdeka Square in Jakarta on the occasion of the return to Jakarta of Abdurrahman Wahid.
The alliance is demanding early elections and the trial of Golkar and the generals. Among alliance supporters are most of the student activist organisations, the People's Democratic Party, the Indonesian National Front for Workers' Struggles and numerous outspoken pro-democracy intellectuals and academics.
There has even been a string of demonstrations by journalists demanding that President Sukarnoputri not re-establish the Ministry of Information, which was used by Suharto and Habibie to control the press but which was abolished by Wahid.