Asia Times (atimes.com), November 6, 2001
Indonesia dragged down by vested interests
By Ken Ntalarana
JAKARTA - When President Megawati Sukarnoputri issued a warning on October 28,
and repeated it two days later, that Indonesia could become the Balkans of the East,
people thought immediately of the troubled provinces of Aceh and Irian Jaya where
there have long been battles for separation from the Unitary State of Indonesia, or
Maluku province, where religious conflict has claimed close to 10,000 lives since
1999.
But clearly the president was not only talking about these regions, or even West
Kalimantan, where ethnic conflict has displaced tens of thousands of people, but also
of another 32 provinces and more than 300 ethnic groups that are increasingly intent
of declaring independence, thanks to the hasty implementation of the regional
autonomy policy.
Regional autonomy, which was officially introduced on January 1, 2001, as part of
government efforts to placate regions demanding independence from Jakarta, has
brought nothing but encouragement for regencies to be "inward looking", placing
regional interests above national interests, leading to violent and bloody conflicts.
Regional autonomy as a concept is clearly an effective means of fending off
secessionist movements in Indonesia, but its hasty implementation, without adequate
preparation on the part of regencies, has aggravated ethnic and religious differences
and conflicts, which, if not handled properly, could push the country to bankruptcy
and disintegration.
Just recently, the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration, Jacob Nuwa Wea,
complained that some regencies and provinces had issued guidelines for recruiting
new civil servants, which according to him, discriminate against minority ethnic and
religious groups in any given regency or province. The guidelines also favor
"indigenous people applicants" over job seekers coming from other regencies,
regardless of their education and professional qualifications. Some regencies have
also introduced dubious "fees" charged to workers and civil servants coming from
other regencies or religious groups.
This violates Indonesia's Labor Law No. 14/1969, which bans discrimination in the
work place, and the International Labor Organization convention against discrimination
in the work place, which the government signed in 1999.
The danger of such a policy is that minority groups, either ethnic and/or religious, will
always be discriminated against and marginalized, or will be "forced to flee" to
regencies where their ethnic or religious groups are stronger than other groups. In the
end, Indonesia will become heavily compartmentalized along religious and ethnic
lines. In this situation, religious and ethnic conflicts can easily flare up, threatening
the country's very existence.
"I am worried about the indigenous people issue. Ethnic egoism and even religious
sentiment have been exploited in the implementation of regional autonomy," Megawati
told Indonesian regents during a meeting in Jakarta recently. "I am sure all of us are
aware of the new tendency which threatens the country's existence," she added.
Yet, it is not impossible that this discrimination against minority groups finds its roots
in the long-held "consensus" at the national level that the Indonesian president must
come from Java.
There seems to a common perception among regencies that with the implementation
of regional autonomy, all resources within their territorial boundaries belong to them
and they should be used for the welfare of the regencies' "indigenous population".
In conflict-torn provinces such as Maluku, West Kalimantan, Aceh and Irian Jaya, for
example, local indigenous people (as opposed to migrants from other regencies) have
demanded that migrants return to their regions of origin. In Irian Jaya and Aceh,
migrants are often considered as colonizers and easy targets of anger and
disappointment.
Just two weeks ago, the Megawati administration had to put on hold the privatization
of a state-owned cement company, PT Semen Gresik, which has subsidiaries in
Padang, West Sumatra and Makassar, South Sulawesi, after residents in the two
cities protested against the move. The residents argued that the two assets belonged
to local administrations and should be used for the welfare of local people. The foiled
privatization would have given the government at least US$550 million in fresh cash
badly needed to finance the country's 2001 budget, which is envisaged to suffer a
deficit of at least 3.7 percent of gross domestic product.
Clearly, the implementation of regional autonomy has eroded regencies' sense of
nationalism. Rather than strengthening national unity, regional autonomy has worked
to generate regional fanaticism.
Megawati's warnings that the country will disintegrate if it cannot resolve religious and
ethnic conflicts show the enormity of the problem. Megawati, who took over the
national leadership after members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) fired
former president Abdurrahman Wahid for incompetence in July, was seen as the only
person who could hold the country together.
Now, with the threat of disintegration a very real one, the concern is that she has not
come up with any initiatives or strategies to prevent Indonesia from becoming the
Balkans of the East.
©2001 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd. All rights
|
