Indonesia travel guide

In 1950, Indonesia was an economic shambles and in political chaos. Initially, there was an attempt to create a political system based on the western European model of parliamentary democracy. By 1952 the futility of expecting a relatively painless progression to this democratic ideal was becoming obvious, despite the holding of a parliamentary general election in 1955 with a voter turnout of over 90%. Conflicts between Communists, radical Muslims, traditional Muslims, regional groups and minorities led to a series of coups, rebel governments and violent confrontations. Indonesia was unravelling and in the middle of 1959, President Sukarno cancelled the provisional constitution and introduced his period of Guided Democracy.

This period of relative political stability rested on an alliance between the army, the Communist PKI, and Sukarno himself. It was characterized by extreme economic nationalism, with assets controlled by Dutch, British and Indian companies and individuals being expropriated. The Konfrontasi with the Dutch over the ‘recovery’ of West Irian from 1960 to 1962, and with Malaysia over Borneo beginning in 1963, forced Sukarno to rely on Soviet arms shipments, and Indonesia moved increasingly into the Soviet sphere of influence. Cracks between the odd alliance of PKI and the army widened, and even Sukarno’s popular support and force of character could not stop the dam from bursting. On 1 October 1965, six senior generals were assassinated by a group of middle-ranking officers, thus ending the period of Guided Democracy. MC Ricklefs writes: “... on that night the balance of hostile forces which underlay guided democracy came to an end. Many observers have seen tragedy in the period, especially in the tragedy of Sukarno, the man who outlived his time and used his popular support to maintain a regime of extravagant corruption and hypocrisy.”

The coup was defeated by the quick-thinking of General Suharto whose forces overcame those of the coup’s leaders. However, it undermined both Sukarno and the PKI as both were linked with the plot – the former by allowing the PKI to gain such influence, and the latter by allegedly master-minding the coup. Most Indonesians, although not all western academics. It led to massacres on a huge scale as bands of youths set about exterminating those who were thought to be PKI supporters. This was supported, implicitly, by the army and there were news reports of ‘streams choked with bodies’. The reaction was most extreme in Java and Bali, but there were murders across the archipelago. The number killed is not certain; estimates vary from 100,000 to 1,000,000 and the true figure probably lies somewhere between the two (500,000 is widely quoted). In Bali alone some scholars believe that 80,000 people died – around 5% of the population. The difficulty is that the body count kept by the military is widely regarded as a gross under-estimate. Oei Tjoe Tat, a cabinet minister under Sukarno, was sent on a fact-finding mission to discover the scale of the massacres. He calculated that by January 1966 500,000 people had died. The military’s figure at that time was 80,000. As it was an anti-Communist purge, and as China had been blamed for fermenting the coup, many of those killed were Chinese who were felt, by their mere ethnicity, to have leftist-inclinations and Communist sympathies. Few doubt that the majority were innocent traders and middlemen, whose economic success and ethnic origin made them scapegoats. Islamic clerics and members of youth groups seem to have been particularly instrumental in singling out people for extermination. While these uncontrolled massacres were occurring, power was transferred to General Suharto (although he was not elected president until 1968). This marked the shift from what has become known as the Old Order, to the New Order.

When Suharto took power in 1965 he had to deal with an economy in disarray. There was hyper-inflation, virtually no inward investment and declining productivity. To put the economy back on the rails, he turned to a group of US-trained economists who became known as the Berkeley Mafia. They recommended economic reform, the return of expropriated assets, and a more welcoming political and economic climate for foreign investment. In terms of international relations, Suharto abandoned the policy of support for China and the Soviet Union and moved towards the western fold. Diplomatic relations with China were severed (and only renewed in 1990), and the policy of confrontation against Malaysia brought to an end.

In September 1945, the first units of the British Army landed at Jakarta to re-impose Dutch rule. They arrived to find an Indonesian administration already in operation. Confrontation was inevitable. Young Indonesians responded by joining the revolutionary struggle, which became known as the Pemuda Movement (pemuda means youth). This reached its height between 1945 and mid-1946, and brought together young men and women of all classes, binding them together in a common cause. The older nationalists found themselves marginalized in this increasingly violent and fanatical response. Men like Sukarno and Hatta adopted a policy of diplomasi – negotiating with the Dutch. The supporters of the Pemuda Movement embraced perjuangan – the armed struggle. Not only the Dutch, but also minorities like the Chinese, Eurasians and Ambonese, suffered from atrocities at the hands of the Pemuda supporters. The climax of the Pemuda Movement came in November 1945 with the battle for Surabaya.

The beginning of the 20th century marks a turning point in Indonesian history. As Raden Kartini, a young educated Javanese woman, wrote in a letter dated 12 January 1900: “Oh, it is splendid just to live in this age; the transition of the old into the new!”. It was in 1899 that the Dutch lawyer C Th van Deventer published a ground-breaking paper entitled Een eereschuld or ‘A debt of honour’. This article argued that having exploited the East Indies for so long, and having extracted so much wealth from the colony, it was time for the Dutch government to restructure their policies and focus instead on improving conditions for Indonesians. In 1901, the Ethical Policy – as it became known – was officially embraced. Van Deventer was commissioned to propose ways to further such a policy and suggested a formulation of ‘education, irrigation and emigration’. The Ethical Policy represented a remarkable change in perspective, but scholars point out that it was very much a creation of the European mind and made little sense in Indonesian terms.

The Indonesian economy was also changing in character. The diffusion of the cash economy through the islands and the growing importance of export crops like rubber and coffee, and minerals such as tin and oil, were transforming the country. Christianity, too, became a powerful force for change, particularly in the islands beyond Muslim Java. There was large-scale conversion in central and North Sulawesi, Flores, among the Batak of Sumatra, in Kalimantan, and Timor. In response to the inroads that Christianity was making in the Outer Islands, Islam in Java became more orthodox and reformist. The ‘corrupt’ abangan, who adhered to what has become known as the ‘Javanese religion’ – a mixture of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and animist beliefs – were gradually displaced by the stricter santris.

At about the same time, there was an influx of trekkers, or Dutch expatriates, who came to the East Indies with their wives and Dutch cultural perspectives, with the intention of going ‘home’ after completing their contracts. They overwhelmed the older group of blijvers or ‘stayers’, and there emerged a more racist European culture, one that denigrated Indische culture and extolled the life-style of the Dutch. The Chinese community, like the Dutch, was also divided into two groups: the older immigrants or peranakan who had assimilated into Indies culture, and the more recent totok arrivals who zealously maintained their culture, clinging to their Chinese roots.

So, the opening years of the 20th century presented a series of paradoxes. On the one hand, Dutch policy was more sensitive to the needs of the ‘natives’; yet many Dutch were becoming less understanding of Indonesian culture and more bigoted. At the same time, while the Chinese and Dutch communities were drawing apart from the native Indonesians and into distinct communities based upon Chinese and European cultural norms, so the economy was becoming increasingly integrated and international. Perhaps inevitably, tensions arose, and these began to mould the social and political landscape of confrontation between the colonialists and the natives.

A number of political parties and pressure groups emerged from this maelstrom of forces. In 1912, a Eurasian – one of those who found himself ostracized from European- colonial culture – EFE Douwes Dekker founded the Indies Party. This was a revolutionary grouping with the slogan ‘the Indies for those who make their home there’. In the same year, a batik merchant from Surakarta established the Sarekat Islam or ‘Islamic Union’, which quickly became a mass organization under the leadership of the charismatic orator HOS Cokroaminoto. Seven years later it had over 2,000,000 members. In 1914, a small group of totok Dutch immigrants founded the Indies Social-Democratic Association in Semarang. Finally, in 1920, the Perserikatan Komunis di India (PKI) or the Indies Communist Party was established.

In 1919, the Dutch colonial authorities decided to clamp down on all dissent. The flexibility that had characterized Dutch policy until then was abandoned in favour of an increasingly tough approach. But despite the rounding-up of large numbers of subversives, and the demise of the PKI and emasculation of the Sarekat Islam, it was at this time that the notion of ‘Indonesia’ first emerged. In July 1927, Sukarno founded the Partai Nasional Indonesia or PNI. In October 1928, a Congress of Indonesian Youth coined the phrase ‘one nation – Indonesia, one people – Indonesian, one language – Indonesian’. At the same congress the Indonesian flag was designed and the Indonesian national anthem sung for the first time – Indonesia Raya. As John Smail writes in the book In Search of Southeast Asia:

“The idea of Indonesia spread so easily, once launched, that it seemed to later historians as if it had always existed, if not actually explicitly then inchoate in the hearts of the people. But it was, in fact, a new creation, the product of a great and difficult leap of the imagination. The idea of Indonesia required the denial of the political meaning of the societies into which the first Indonesians had been born”.

Although the Japanese occupation lasted less than four years, it fundamentally altered the forces driving the country towards independence. Prior to 1942, the Dutch faced no real challenge to their authority; after 1945, it was only a question of time before independence. The stunning victory of the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies destroyed the image of colonial invincibility, undermined the prestige of the Dutch among many Indonesians, and – when the Dutch returned to power after 1945 – created an entirely new psychological relationship between rulers and ruled.

But the Japanese were not liberators. Their intention of creating a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere did not include offering Indonesians independence. They wished to control Indonesia for their own interests. The Japanese did give a certain latitude to nationalist politicians in Java, but only as a means of mobilizing Indonesian support for their war effort. Sukarno and Muhammad Hatta were flown to Tokyo in November 1943 and decorated by Emperor Hirohito. For the Dutch and their allies, the war meant incarceration. There were 170,000 internees, including 60,000 women and children. About a quarter died in captivity.

One particularly sordid side of the occupation which has come to light in recent years is the role of ‘comfort women’. This euphemism should be more accurately translated as ‘sex slaves’ – women who were forced to satisfy the needs of Japanese soldiers to aid the war effort. For years the Japanese government denied such comfort stations existed, but documents unearthed in Japan have indicated beyond doubt that they were very much part of the war infrastructure. Much of the attention has focused upon comfort women from Korea, China and the Philippines, but there were also stations in Indonesia. These women, so long cowed and humiliated into silence, are now talking about their experiences to force the Japanese government to accept responsibility. Dutch-Australian Jan Ruff is one of these brave women. A young girl living in Java before the war, she was interned in Camp Ambarawa with her mother and two sisters. In February 1944 she was taken, along with nine other girls, to a brothel in Semarang for the sexual pleasure of Japanese officers. In her testimony at a public meeting in Tokyo in December 1992 she recounted: “During that time [at the brothel] the Japanese had abused me and humiliated me. They had ruined my young life. They had stripped me of everything, my self-esteem, my dignity, my freedom, my possessions, my family.” Belatedly, the Japanese government offered its ‘sincere apologies and remorse’ in August 1993, 48 years afterwards. The fact that the apology came on the last day of the Liberal Democratic Party’s government detracted from the honesty of the remarks. Many still feel that Japanese leaders find it difficult to be sincere about events almost half a century old.

It has long been said that Indonesia is one of the world’s most unlikely countries, a patchwork of cultures and languages pieced together by little more than the industriousness of the Dutch. In early 1999 President BJ Habibie, as a sop to the international community, surprisingly offered the people of East Timor a referendum on independence. The UN was called in to supervise the vote on 30 August but, against UN advice and pleading, he refused even a small international peacekeeping force. The vote itself proceeded smoothly and with little intimidation. On 4 September the results of the vote were announced: 78.5% of a turnout of well over 90% chose independence. It seems, and this might seem incredible to anyone who has followed the East Timor story, that the Indonesian military were expecting to ‘win’ the vote and were piqued that the population were so patently ungrateful for all their hard work. So, with the announcement of the results, mayhem broke out. Militias, formed, encouraged, armed and orchestrated by the Indonesian military, murdered, raped and terrorized the population of the tiny province. Tens of thousands fled to the hills and into neighbouring West Timor. (On 13 September one UN official suggested that just 200,000 out of East Timor’s 800,000 population were still living in their homes.) Dili was virtually razed to the ground. The UN compound was besieged. Only the most intense international pressure, and vociferously negative international press coverage, forced Habibie to allow the UN to authorize an Australian-led force to enter the province.

The reluctance of the military to allow East Timor’s independence can be linked to two key factors. First, between the annexation of East Timor in 1975 and the referendum of 1999, the army lost perhaps as many as 20,000 men trying to quell the independence movement there. To give up was to admit that it was all a waste of time and blood. And second, and much more importantly, there was the fear that East Timor’s independence might herald the break-up of Indonesia. Aceh and Irian Jaya were the most obvious provinces that could break away. Legally speaking, there is a clear difference between East Timor and anywhere else in Indonesia. East Timor’s annexation by Indonesia was never recognized by the UN. (UN maps always indicated the territory as a separate country.) But the fear was that this nuance would be lost on people with desires for independence.

The 7500-strong Australian-led UN force landed in Dili in late September 1999 and control of the territory passed from the Indonesians to the UN. Alongside the Aussie troops, there were British Gurkhas, New Zealanders, and even contingents from the region, including Thai and Malaysian troops. (Asean came out of the crisis poorly, yet again showing an inability to act in a timely and forceful manner.) Even as UNIFET (the UN International Force for East Timor) strengthened its hold on Dili, the withdrawal of Indonesian troops destroyed the town they had called their own for nearly 25 years. As one soldier told The Economist: “We built this place up. Now we’ve torn it all down again” (02.10.99). During October, UNIFET extended its control east and west from Dili as far as the border with West Timor where the militias were holed up. Rumours of a militia build-up and possible major incursion did not materialize, although there were some firefights between UNIFET and militia gangs. At the end of October Xanana Gusmao, jailed for 20 years by Indonesia and the most likely person to become East Timor’s first president, returned home. Before leaving Australia he said: “We will start from zero to reconstruct not only our country, but ourselves as human beings” (The Economist, 16.10.99).

A complication – and another reason why the Indonesian army were so reluctant to give up their hold on this dry and poverty-stricken land – was the decision taken by the UN on 27 September 1999 to investigate human rights abuses in the province. And they were right to be worried. When the UN and Indonesian reports were published at the beginning of 2000, six generals were mentioned by name, including General Wiranto .

It was not just East Timor and Aceh that were wracked by violence. Indeed, the spread of unrest to other areas of the country seemed to bear out the army’s fears: that taking the lid off more than three decades of top-down control would lead to an upsurge of violence right across the country. Conspiracy theories abounded as to which interested party was seeding this violence. Some believed that much of the unrest was being orchestrated by the military – anxious to prove that without their control the country would disintegrate. Influential individuals from the Suharto era might have been trying to destabilize the country in order to regain power. As criminologist Yohanes Sutoyo explained to Dini Djalal of the Far Eastern Economic Review: “The New Order [of former President Suharto] taught us that the only way to solve a problem is with violence”, adding, “It is difficult to undo this” (FEER 13.07.2000). At the beginning of 2000, communal violence in the Spice Islands of Maluku escalated and by mid-year an estimated 3000 people had been killed. In Central Sulawesi, murderous groups were killing villagers. In central Kalimantan deadly clashes broke out between indigenous Dayaks and migrants from Madura Island, who came as part of the Suharto government’s transmigrasi programme. Bali and Lombok were also the scenes of unprecedented violence at the beginning of 2000, some of it aimed at the Chinese community, many of whom are Christians. In Jakarta, and in some other cities on Java, vigilante groups have taken it upon themselves to mete out retribution on small time criminals. Reports of people stealing bicycles being lynched, beaten, doused with kerosene and set alight were common during 2000. The police, in such cases, stood by, powerless to intervene.

Indonesia’s acceptance into the international fold has been hampered for years by numerous small and large stumbling blocks. The ‘occupation’ of East Timor, government policy in Irian Jaya, corruption, the nature of the political system, the failure to respect labour rights, and the human and environmental impacts of the transmigration programme, to name just a few. Just when Indonesia is on the verge of expunging the stain on its credibility, one or more of these issues jumps out and progress is stymied.

There can be no doubt that the major stumbling block was East Timor. Even before the tragic events which followed the vote for independence in mid-1999, East Timor was a thorn in Indonesia’s attempts to punch its weight. (For a country of over 200,000,000 people, the fourth most populous on earth, it has a remarkably low international profile.) Nationalist sentiment was stoked by the presence of UN forces in East Timor (widely seen to be Australian forces in East Timor), and Indonesia’s failure to come to terms with its misguided imperialist spree raised the stakes still further. At the end of September 1999, US Secretary of Defence William Cohen warned that Indonesia could face ‘political isolation’ and ‘economic consequences’ if it did not control its military.

Large chinks began forming in the armour of Wahid’s popular support. In 2001, as he pushed for further reconciliation with separatists in Papua and Aceh, martial law was imposed in Maluku as fighting between Christians and Muslims intensified. It was discovered that the government ordered the military to block all members of Laskar Jihad (an Islamist group made up of Muslims from across the archipelago) from travelling to Maluku to fight. Not only did the military fail to do this, it soon became clear that Laskar Jihad was being funded by the Indonesian military. Things got worse for Wahid when he became embroiled in two huge financial scandals involving large sums of money that went missing from the State Logistics Agency (the money – US$4 million – was found with Wahid’s masseur) and from a donation given by the Sultan of Brunei.

After legalising the use of Chinese characters and making Chinese New Year a national holiday in January 2001, Wahid declared at a meeting of university rectors that if Indonesia fell into a state of anarchy, he would be forced to consider dissolving the DPR (House of Representatives), a remark that won him few friends. At a special convening of the DPR a memorandum was signed against Wahid. A second would force a Special Session in which the impeachment and removal of a president would be a legal action. The writing was on the wall for the President and in April as his NU (Nahdlatul Ulama – Wahid’s Islamic group) offered to fight to the end in support of their president, it seemed as though the nation was again slipping into grave civil strife. A second memorandum against Wahid was written after he sacked two members of his own cabinet as dissidents. Wahid was growing desperate and demanded that Susilo Bambang Yudhyono (then Minister for Security) call a state of emergency, a request which was refused. The date of MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly) session for the impeachment of Wahid was hurried forward and the Indonesian army rallied against the president, flooding Jakarta with troops and aiming their tanks at the presidential palace. The MPR declared the end of Wahid’s term as president, which he initially refused to accept, before finally conceding and slipping off to the USA for medical reasons.

In July 2001 Megawati Soekarno-Putri took over the reigns of power. She was seen to take a very passive role, enjoying her status as a daughter of the cult figure and founding father of Indonesia, Soekarno. It was noted by critics that she seemed more interested in developing her hobbies of gardening and watching cartoons than intervening in government business. Three years after she had taken power, elections were called and although the economic situation had improved slightly, rates of poverty and unemployment remained high. It was during her reign that terrorists struck foreign targets Bali and Jakarta, prompting falling confidence from foreign investors and once again thrusting Indonesia into the international headlines for all the wrong reasons. Megawati lost the election to Susilo Bambang Yudhyono (SBY), and quietly left the palace.

Yudhyono was thrust into the deep end as two months after he had won the election Indonesia was devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami off Aceh. This blow was followed by the earthquake in Bantul, several more along the coast of West Sumatra, the eruption of Gunung Merapi and another deadly tsunami off Pangandaran. This series of natural disasters put an immense strain on the country and its leadership. This was only exaggerated by the 2005 suicide attacks in Bali. Yudhyono promised to track down the perpetrators with his forces managing to track down and kill Dr Azahari, one of the ringleaders of the attack, in Malang. However, the other key player in the attacks, Noordin M Top, remains at large. After years of legal wrangling,the three Bali bombers, Imam Samudra, Mukhlas and Amrozi were executed by firing squad in November 2008 in Central Java. Their bodies were flown by helicopter to their homes in Java where they received emotional burials suggesting that there are at least a few who agree with their deeds. In July 2008 the finding of a large weapons cache, arrest of Islamist militants in southern Sumatra and the uncovering of a plot to bomb a café in Bukittinggi suggests that the threat of terrorist attacks is still very much alive.

Twice in 2005, Yudhyono had to increase fuel prices, cutting subsidies and undermining much of the good work he had done to address the poverty issue. Fuel prices were again hiked up by 30% in 2008, causing large civil disturbances in cities across the nation.

President Abdurrahman Wahid, better known as Gus (a term of respect) Dur (from his name), did not have an easy task when he assumed the presidency at the end of 1999.

Gus Dur was renowned for his cunning and wily ways – and his fondness for obtuseness. When he was leader of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim organization, he was one of President Suharto’s very few critics. And he was also able to present himself as a moderate Muslim: one who would protect the interests of Indonesia’s non-Muslim population while remaining a respected Muslim cleric, leader and thinker. In January 2000 he travelled to Saudi Arabia to court the Arab world and then flew to Davos in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Here he met with Prime Minister Barak of Israel and George Soros. He explained: “We need investments and, you know, the Jewish community everywhere are very active in the commercial side …” (FEER 10.02.2000). His critics said he undermined Indonesia’s stability and economic recovery by his impulsiveness; he frequently made statements without consulting his cabinet (as happened when he said, while on an overseas trip, that General Wiranto should resign) and people also complained of his readiness to blame conspirators for the country’s problems. His supporters believed he was a great master who disarmed his opponents by his seeming foolishness, before bringing them down. With few political cards to play, once many in his coalition government turned against him, his defenders believed that speaking out was his only weapon. Without the backing of a fully functioning bureaucracy, or the military power used by his predecessor, his force of personality and ability to bluff were the only tools at his disposal.

His greatest victory, or so it seemed at the time, was to sideline the army and emasculate its leadership as a political force. This also showed him at his wily best. Initially, Wahid included General Wiranto, the army’s powerful chief of staff, in his cabinet, but not, significantly, as defence minister. Instead he appointed him as security minister. This helped to separate the General from his power base. Then the president said that he would sack anyone implicated in human rights abuses in East Timor. Reports commissioned by the Indonesian government and by the UN into just this issue were released on 31 January 2000. Moreover, both came to the same conclusion: that members of the Indonesian army had assisted the militias in East Timor to murder, rape and pillage. More to the point, the Indonesian report mentioned six generals by name, including General Wiranto. The president was abroad at the time but in an interview said he thought that Wiranto should resign. Instead the General pointedly turned up at a cabinet meeting. However, having initially said that the General could stay, he changed his mind once more and sacked the general from his post as security minister (although he remained an ‘inactive’ member of the cabinet). Cut off from the army and in a government post with no significance, General Wiranto was successfully trapped in a no man’s land of Gus Dur’s making.

But Wahid did not just get rid of Wiranto. He appointed a civilian as minister of defence and promoted officers in the navy and airforce to influential positions, thus downgrading the traditionally highly dominant army. This culminated in a major reshuffle at the end of February 2000. Furthermore, Wahid insisted that military men in the cabinet had to resign from their military posts before taking up their political appointments.

While Gus Dur sidelined the army, he didn’t counted on the public taking up arms to deal with the problems of the nation (probably orcestrated from above – possibly by factions of the army). At the beginning of 2000, as Muslim-Christian violence in Maluku escalated, radical Muslims in Java began to prepare for a jihad (holy war) in this far-flung province. White-robed warriors in their thousands, some wielding swords, congregated in Jakarta to make their feelings clear – and then began to train for battle. Despite Gus Dur’s attempts to stop them leaving for Maluku, they began to arrive in the region by the end of May 2000. As the year wore on it became increasingly clear that Wahid’s victory over the generals was a pyrrhic one. Infuriated by the president’s actions, the army began to undermine his leadership. In particular, a series of bombings in Jakarta would seem to involve the army, or groups in the army. By the end of 2000 the army seemed to be clawing back power.

During the course of 2000, many people who initially welcomed Wahid's accession to the presidency became increasingly disenchanted with his leadership – and with his methods. In an attempt to address this mounting criticism, he proposed far-reaching changes to the management of state affairs. In effect he proposed a more equal, four-way sharing of power between his marginalized Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, two new 'Coordinating' ministers, and himself. The two coordinating ministers were later announced as being Sulsilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired general, and Rizal Ramli. Significantly, neither of these two men had prior links with any political party. Under this system Wahid would become, in effect, Indonesia's face to the wider world: a sort of roving ambassador for the country. Wahid claimed in the speech that he was ceding 'duties and not authority', but the distinction was a fine one.

Wahid's proposed changes were tacit acceptance on his part that he had lost his way. It sometimes seemed, in the months leading up to the August 2000 meeting, that Wahid lacked the clarity of mind to address key issues, and especially those of an economic flavour. His woolly pronouncements and tendency to prevaricate exasperated many businessmen and foreign investors.

On 7 June 1999, Indonesians enjoyed their first truly democratic elections since 1955. Despite dire predictions to the contrary, they were largely peaceful. About 112 million votes were cast – 90% of eligible voters – at 250,000 polling stations around the country. A total of 48 parties contested the poll, 45 of them new, and Megawati Sukarnoputri’s Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) won the largest share of the vote, attracting 34% of the total. In second place came Golkar with 22%. This was a surprise to some foreign observers, given the bad press Golkar had received, but reflected the party’s links with the bureaucracy and a strong showing in the Outer Islands where ‘reformasi’ had had less of an impact. The three other parties to attract significant numbers of votes were the National Awakening Party (12%), the National Mandate Party (7%) and the United Development Party (10%).

Indonesia’s first taste of democracy since 1955 has led to profound changes in the character of both politics and politicians. In the past, MPs had no constituency as such and so were rarely bothered about the need to represent real people. They merely had to make sure they pleased the party bosses. Members of the new parliament, however, not only have responsibilities to their electorates, but are also likely to be much more outspoken. Because presidents will now have term limits (Suharto was in power for 32 years), this will confer greater power on parliament. As Dan Murphy said in mid-1999 and before the presidential elections, “the next president … will confront populist and legislative challenges like no one has faced since Megawati’s father and Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, dispensed with democracy 40 years ago” (FEER, 19.8.99).

Under former President Suharto, Golkar was, in effect, the state’s own party. All state employees were automatically members of Golkar, and during election campaigns the state controlled the activities of other parties. Not surprisingly, therefore, Golkar was able consistently to win over 60% of the votes cast in parliamentary elections, and controlled the Parliament (DPR) and the People’s Consultative Assembly. Even before Suharto’s resignation in 1998, there was the enduring sense that the tide of history was running against Golkar. The provinces where Golkar did least well were in the country’s heartland – like Jakarta and East Java. It was here, in Java, that Indonesia’s middle classes and ‘new rich’ were beginning to clamour for more of a say in how the country was run, and by whom. With Golkar’s loss of the elections of 1999 to the PDI-P, the party has come to accept a new and less central role in the country. In the past all bureaucrats were automatically members of Golkar and were expected to support and represent Golkar. This is no longer the case.

But despite the fact that the PDI-P won the 1999 parliamentary elections, there were commentators who did not think that Megawati, the party’s leader, would become president. Prior to the East Timor debacle, some feared that BJ Habibie would ally himself with one or two other parties and use Golkar to gain the presidency against the run of votes. That assumption was shattered when it became clear that the people of East Timor would vote for independence. But Habibie’s mistake was not that he failed to control the army and the militias, but that he was foolish enough to offer the East Timorese a referendum on independence in the first place.

In October 1999 the People’s Consultative Assembly voted for Indonesia’s new president – and it was a cliffhanger. Indonesians could watch – another first for the country – democracy in progress as their representatives lodged their preferences. It was a close contest between Megawati Sukarnoputri, the people’s favourite, and the respected Abdurrahman Wahid, an almost blind cleric and leader of the country’s largest Muslim association, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and a master of the politics of appeasement; a quality which in the President of such a diverse nation can stymie progress and blunt his effectiveness. As it turned out, Wahid won by 373 votes to 313 as he garnered the support of Golkar members and many of those linked to Muslim parties. Initially, Megawati’s vociferous and easily agitated supporters rioted when they realized that their leader had been, as they saw it, robbed of her democratic entitlement. Wisely, Wahid asked Megawati to be his vice-president and she asked her supporters to calm down and return home. The election of Wahid and Megawati was, arguably, the best combination that could have been hoped for in the circumstances. It allied a moderate with a populist, and it kept army commander-in-chief General Wiranto out of the two leadership spots (although he was asked to join the cabinet). Wahid’s cabinet, announced a few days after the election, showed a desire to calm tensions and promote pragmatic leadership. Significantly, he included two Chinese in his cabinet (one, the critical finance minister), as well as one politician from Aceh and another from West Papua – the two provinces with the greatest secessionist inclinations. On his election to the presidency, four critical questions faced Indonesia’s new president. First, how to mend the economy; second, how to keep the country from disintegrating; third, how to promote reconciliation between the different racial and religious groups; and fourth, how to invent a role for the army appropriate for a democratic country entering the 21st century.

Indonesia has changed in other ways – although these changes could be reversed should the move towards democratization begin to falter. For a start, the judiciary and the press are increasingly independent. During the last few years of the Suharto era, hesitant steps towards greater press freedom were often followed by a crackdown on publications deemed to have crossed some ill-defined line in the sand. The independence of the judiciary was, if anything, an even more vexed issue. Political opponents of Suharto and his cronies could not expect a fair trial, and foreign businessmen found using the courts to extract payments from errant Indonesian businessmen and companies a waste of time. In 1997 a clerk at the Supreme Court was heard explaining to a litigant how Indonesia’s legal system worked: “If you give us 50 million rupiah but your opponent gives us more, then the case will be won by your opponent” (quoted in The Economist, 2000). This approach to legal contests may have the advantage of simplicity, but it hardly instilled a great deal of confidence that a case would be judged on its merits.

It has always been recognized that a critical ingredient – indeed a central element – in Indonesian political life is the army. For many years the army has been viewed as the only group in the country (beyond Golkar) with the necessary cohesion and unity of purpose to influence political events at a broad level. This wider role was enshrined in the constitutional principle of dwifungsi, or dual function, which gave the army the right to engage in politics and administration, as well as defend the nation from external aggressors and internal insurrection. (This was amply illustrated in the army response to events in East Timor.) According to political scientist Harold Crouch, around two-thirds of army personnel were, under this system, assigned to territorial rather than combat duties. As such they engaged in such things as “overseeing the activities of political parties and non-governmental organizations, intervening in land disputes, [and] dealing with striking workers or demonstrating students...”. In the countryside the army was seen as a stabilizing force and the guarantor of ethnic and religious peace. The army has traditionally regarded itself as the protector of the nation, and more particularly the protector of ordinary Indonesians against potentially venal civilian politicians and their business associates. The key role that the military played in Indonesia’s independence movement – after the civilian revolutionary government had capitulated to the returning Dutch after the end of the Second World War – gave it further credibility to speak not just for itself, but also for the country as a whole.

(B211) are available at Indonesian embassies and consulates around the world (a ticket out of the country, 2 photos and a completed visa form is necessary). Costs vary. They can be extended giving a total stay of 6 months (must be extended at an immigration office in Indonesia each month after the initial 60-day visa has expired; take it to the office 4 days before expiry). To extend the visa in Indonesia, a fee of US$25 is levied and a sponsor letter from a local person is needed. Many hotels and travel agencies in Bali offer a visa extension service for around US$100. To obtain a 60-day visitor visa in Singapore, a 1-way ticket from Batam to Singapore is adequate: purchase from the ferry centre at Harbourfront in Singapore.

It is crucial to check this information before travelling as the visa situation in Indonesia is extremely volatile. Travellers who overstay their visa will be fined US$20 a day. Long-term overstayers can expect a fine and jail sentence. See http://www.indonesianembassy.org.uk for more information.

All visitors to Indonesia must possess passports valid for at least 6 months from their date of arrival in Indonesia, and they should have proof of onward travel. It is not uncommon for immigration officers to ask to see a ticket out of the country. (A Batam–Singapore ferry ticket or cheap Medan–Penang air ticket will suffice).

Java

Java is Indonesia’s political, economic and cultural heartland. With 60% of the country’s population, the capital Jakarta, and the great bulk of Indonesia’s industrial muscle, Java is the critical piece in the Indonesian jigsaw. It was here that many of the early, pre-colonial empires and kingdoms were based – reflected in monuments like Borobudur and Prambanan, and in many smaller temples. Cities like Yogyakarta and Solo remain vibrant artistic and cultural centres, while Bogor and Bandung show more clearly the hand of the relatively short-lived Dutch presence. The latter, particularly, is renowned for its art deco architecture. Jakarta, as Indonesia’s capital, has the most restaurants, the largest museums, and the widest array of shopping, but it is not a particularly enticing city.

Road transport in Indonesia has improved greatly in recent years, and main roads on most of the islands are generally in reasonably good condition. In many areas main roads may be impassable during the rainy season and after severe storms.

Most Indonesians get around by bus. The network is vast and although it is not always quick or comfortable, buses are the cheapest way to travel. There are a range of bus alternatives from Bis ekonomi (dirt cheap, cramped but a good way to mingle with Indonesians), to Bis VIP (icy cold, fully reclinable seats with plenty of space). Visitors are most likely to find themselves on fairly comfy Bis Malam, air-conditioned buses that plough the roads of the archipelago each night and deposit red-eyed passengers at their desination just before dawn just in time for morning prayers.

Avoid the seats at the front, which are the most dangerous if there is a crash. Roads are often windy and rough, and buses are badly sprung (or totally un-sprung). Despite harrowingly fast speeds at times, do not expect to average much more than 40 kph except on the best highways. Overnight buses are usually faster and recommended for longer journeys. However, air-conditioned overnighters can be very cold and a sarong or blanket is useful.

Tickets can be obtained from bus company offices or through travel agents; shop around for the best fare – bargaining is possible. It is sensible to book a day or so ahead for longer journeys. During Ramadan and at Lebaran, all forms of public transport are packed