Indonesia is facing not just an economic crisis but also a growing human rights crisis. In a statement released today in Bonn, Germany, the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID), composed of more than 100 Indonesian and non-Indonesian NGOs, issued a call for "urgent reform of the Indonesian political system," declaring that "Indonesia is facing a major turning point in its history." It said that without a loosening of political controls, economic recovery was at risk. It pointed out that "protection of the three basic freedoms of expression, association and assembly is key...For the last thirty years, no political development has taken place. Not only are truly independent political parties banned, but anyone who tries to bring people together for a meeting to work toward democratic goals can face intimidation, harassment, or these days, disappearance."
The most tangible symptom, but by no means the only symptom, of the crisis is the series of tense confrontations taking place daily between students and police and military troops on campuses across the country. Before Indonesia's parliament re-appointed President Soeharto to a seventh five-year term in early March, significant protest activity was taking place on about a dozen campuses. Today, the protests are taking place on over 80 campuses, with students from hundreds of institutions joining the protests. On many days, major protests take place on ten or more campuses simultaneously. Students are calling for Soeharto to step down, imposition of more aggressive price controls on basic commodities, and an end to corruption, nepotism and economic collusion. Many of the student groups are also demanding more representative institutions, respect for citizen autonomy, and guarantees for basic rights.
The student protest movement has become a nationwide political force in Indonesia because other political outlets are closed. Even as calls for reform mounted in the run-up to the March parliamentary session, however, the government was stepping-up its use of repressive laws and intimidation of political opponents. By mid-February, efforts to bring together prominent opposition figures in a united front to challenge the leadership fell apart. When the parliament met in early March, electing Soeharto to another 5-year term without a dissenting vote and rejecting all proposals for reform, the center of political activity shifted to the student movement.
To date, the government has used repression, threats and promises of reform in an effort to contain the protests. It has tried to contain the movement by force, banning public marches by students nationwide and stationing hundreds of riot police and troops at campuses across the country. The security presence at campus gates has become a magnet for the protesters' anger and, increasingly, a flashpoint for violence. Far from containing the movement, the government's response appears if anything to have pushed toward increased violence, as witnessed by the sharp increase in both the number of violent confrontations and the level of violence since late April. Some students are now using Molotov bombs as well as stones, and security forces increasingly responding to the protests with rubber bullets, and apparently, at times, live ammunition. There have been at least thirty major clashes between students and security forces since mid-March, and dozens of less serious skirmishes. According to Indonesian news reports, over 800 students and at least 100 security personnel have been injured in the clashes, and at least 100 of the injuries have been treated at hospitals, many with serious facial and head wounds.
The government has also tried to deter the protests through fear. It has threatened to expel students who engage in political activity on campus, has issued ominous warnings that the protests have been infiltrated by communists, and has repeatedly stated that military forces will take "repressive" action against protesters who leave campus grounds. There is also evidence that the forced abduction and subsequent "disappearance" of over a dozen of prominent opposition organizers since early February was the work of military or para-military forces, though some of them have surfaced in recent days. Student leaders have responded by ignoring the warnings, and by suggesting that the abductions are proof either of the government's lack of respect for law or its loss of control of its own personnel.
Earlier this month, the government began to work through the legislature to implement some of the reforms sought by student protesters and opposition leaders, including removal of some of the barriers to political competition that currently constrain Indonesia's two recognized opposition parties. Because President Soeharto has just been re-elected, however, election law reform, even if enacted, will not take effect until elections scheduled for 2002. The government has also indicated that it will consider reform of Indonesia's vaguely worded anti-subversion law, one of several powerful tools the government has used to silence peaceful political dissent. The government has not made a broader commitment to implementing protections for citizens' basic freedoms. It has not suggested that it will replace a spate of other laws, regulations and decrees that severely constrain freedom of expression, association and assembly, and has not offered to release political prisoners currently being held under such laws.
Human Rights Watch/Asia believes that at least some of the recent violence might have been avoided through principled implementation of respect for basic freedoms. Immediate implementation of protections for citizens' basic civil and political rights must be an essential part of efforts to diffuse the crisis without an eruption of even more significant violence. Human Rights Watch fully endorses the call for such protections made today by the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID). The statement calls on the international community for "help in lifting the restrictions that inhibit political development, so that we can work openly, freely, and without fear of repression, to build the political institutions necessary to construct a real democracy."
The most pressing need in Indonesia today is implementation of a principled distinction between citizens' exercise of basic rights, which must be protected, and acts of violence, which should be punished to the full extent of the law, in accordance with internationally recognized standards of criminal justice, no matter who is the perpetrator of that violence. Human rights law requires that the government respect students' right to freedom of assembly, including their right to hold public protest marches. The U.S. government, and other key donors, should continue to speak out on behalf of those rights.
