David Bourchier
Law, Crime and State Authority in Indonesia" in Arief Budiman (ed) State and Civil Society in Indonesia, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 1990 pp.177-212
CRIME, LAW AND STATE AUTHORITY IN INDONESIA David Bourchier Introduction One of the most remarkable episodes in the history of the New Order was the wave of state-sponsored executions of suspected criminals which took place between 1983 and 1985. In this two year period, over five thousand people, none of whom had been tried, lost their lives at the hands of highly-trained hit squads known popularly as Petrus, an acronym of penembak misterius or `mysterious gunmen'. Much has been written about the repression of political dissidents in Indonesia and the military operations against armed opponents of the Indonesian state in such places as Irian Jaya and East Timor. What was unusual about the Petrus campaign is that violence was used not to silence criticism or to defend the Indonesian state from perceived threats to its integrity, but as an instrument of social policy. It was a carefully planned and orchestrated militaryintelligence operation intended, in the words of President Suharto, as "shock therapy" to curb radically the incidence of violent crime.1 I begin this paper with a brief look at the social, historical and political context of criminality in Indonesia and at some of the ways in which the managers of the New Order state have perceived 1
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Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan dan Tindakan Saya (Soeharto: My Thoughts, Words and Deeds), PT Citra Lantoro Gung Persada, Jakarta, 1989 p.364
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and attempted to handle the problem of crime. Drawing mainly on contemporary press reports and other documentary material I go on to examine the killings and try to explain both why they occurred and what they reveal about the character of the Indonesian state. The thrust of my argument is that while the killings were certainly unprecedented, and were attributable to some extent to the peculiar circumstances prevailing in the early 1980s, they can be understood in the context of political and ideological trends which have evolved since the rise of the New Order in 1966. Most significant in this respect are the concentration of power in the security and intelligence wings of the government and the development of a state doctrine which is at once paternalistic and preoccupied with the notion of the preservation of social order and state authority. I conclude by drawing attention to a division within the state between those whose conception of authority is based on armed force and those who favour legal solutions, and suggest that increasing structural pressures for regularisation may force a shift away from the use of violence as a means of social control. Crime and its Setting It is no coincidence that the highest levels of crime in Indonesia are found in its major cities. Uncontrolled rural to urban migration over the past forty years has seriously strained the resources of the principal cities of Java and Sumatra, resulting in severe shortages of living space, clean water and jobs. Crowded squatter settlements have mushroomed in most cities, sometimes housing tens of thousands of poor who seek a living in the informal sector, in prostitution or in petty crime. Because of the rapid rate of population growth in Indonesia, a large proportion of these people are young. The economic downturn in the early 1980s made bad conditions worse for the urban poor. The dramatic fall in government revenues due to the world economic recession and the drop in the price of oil had an immediate effect on the New Order government's ability to maintain its level of spending on development projects, salaries and a range of subsidies. Subsidies on basic food items and fuel were slashed in the 1982 budget, leading to substantial price
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rises. The average retail price of a litre of rice in Jakarta jumped from Rp157 in 1980 to Rp239 in 19822 while a study of wages in the construction industry showed little increase in real wages for most lower level workers between 1979 and 1983.3 The early 1980s were a time of increasing social unrest. In 1980 there had been large scale anti-Chinese riots in cities and towns throughout Central Java which resulted in massive damage to property and heightened racial tension. Cases of industrial unrest were multiplying at a rapid rate. In 1982 there were reported to have been 200 strikes, a sharp increase over the six in 1976.4 While the deteriorating economic conditions had no discernable impact on the overall level of crime in Indonesia,5 the 2
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Jakarta Dalam Angka 1984, Kantor Statistik Propinsi DKI Jakarta, Jakarta, 1985 p.213 Hal Hill `Survey of Recent Developments', Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, vol.20, No.2, August 1984 p.36 Max Lane, `Soeharto's strong-arm man sends in the death squads', National Times, (Sydney) 19-25 August 1983 The following table shows changes in the long term crime rate: Year Total Crimes Crimes per 100,000 1962 325,760 328.05 1966 289,442 286.00 1971 160,741 155.27 1976 178,953 136.36 1978 218,539 154.35 1979 236,997 163.54 1980 256,761 174.16 1981 230,155 170.69 1982 223,768 153.49 Sources: Mulyana Kusumah `Reaksi Sosial Terhadap Kejahatan', unpublished ms, May 1983 pp.2-4; Statistical Yearbook of Indonesia 1985, Biro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 1985 pp.190-193; Almanak Kepolisian Republik Indonesia Tahun 1982-83, Dutarindo, Jakarta, 1982 p.314. These figures are extremely low. According to an Interpol publication (International Crime Statistics 1977-78, Interpol, Paris, 1981) Indonesia in 1978 had the lowest rate of (reported) crime in the
Law, Crime and State Authority in Indonesia
rate of violent crime jumped dramatically in 1981. As Figure 1 shows, robbery with violence (perampokan) rose from 3.55% of total reported crimes in 1980 to to 7.41% in 1981. The rise in violent crime appears to have been a national one, although it was most pronounced in the overcrowded cities of Java and North Sumatra.6 [--- Unable To Translate Graphic ---] Most of the blame for this upsurge in violent crime fell on the shoulders of young urban criminals known, in Java at least, as gali, allegedly an acronym for gabungan anak-anak liar (literally: gangs of wild children). The origin of this term is obscure. Judging by the confusion among criminals over the meaning of the label, it was probably coined by someone other than the galis themselves. It appears to have come into popular usage only in the past twenty years or so in response to a relatively recent phenomenon - the emergence of gangs of urban youths engaged in a range of more or less serious criminal activities including theft, fencing, procuring and extortion.7 Because little has been written about galis, it is difficult to know what binds these gangs together, but most seem to have a defined territory, a charismatic leader (sometimes of Chinese extraction) and a strict code of honour. In some cases members are tattooed with the emblem of the group - a cobra or a dragon for instance. Most gangs are male, but a substantial number of women's gangs, (which are reputed to specialise in smuggling and drugs) are also known to exist.8 The galis occupy an ambiguous position in relation to their fellow kampung dwellers. Some are admired for their physical
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world. Ibid. Urban youth gangs called `crossboys' and `crossgirls' in fact made an appearance in the 1950s, but were more concerned with jeans, leather jackets and motorbikes than with serious crime. A prominent Yogyakarta gali said in an interview that most gali groups started some time in the 1960s. Fokus, 19 May 1983. Other names for galis include preman, jeger and centeng. Hidup, 7 Aug 83 and Fokus, 19 May 1983. As if in imitation of official practice, the women's gangs often consist of the wives of male galis. Their names, however, (e.g. `Flamboyan') suggest that they are a far cry from official women's organisations such as Dharma Wanita (Women's Service).
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prowess, their knowledge of magic or their sexual and financial success.9 Since they usually operate outside their immediate area they are rarely seen as a direct threat to their neighbours. Because of their intimate knowledge of other criminals, they are in fact sometimes called on to look after security in their community. But there are also widespread reports of galis using standover tactics to extort money from kampung residents and prevent them from reporting crimes to the police. How kampung residents perceive the galis appears to depend partly on their socio-economic status. In his study of a Yogyakarta kampung in the late 1970s Patrick Guinness found that in the poorest part of the kampung, occupied by squatters, the jago (as they are referred to) acted as informal community leaders, representing the interests of the residents in conflicts with the authorities. The slightly better off kampung dwellers, however, regarded the same individuals with strong disapproval, both because of their criminality and their often violent and promiscuous lifestyle. Social disapproval of the galis has not prevented them being sought out by those in positions of authority for a number of purposes. Some galis have been employed as bodyguards and as security personnel through organisations such as Satpam (Security Task Force) a semiofficial agency which provides guards for private or government enterprises.10 Others have been used for more sinister ends. There have been many allegations of collaboration between the galis and either military officials, senior political figures or local governments. The usual pattern appears to be that figures in positions of authority offer protection, and sometimes firearms, to the galis in return for a share of the booty from extortion rackets, armed robberies, burglaries and so on.11 The galis have also been used for explicitly political 9
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Patrick Guinness, Harmony and Hierarchy in a Javanese Kampung, ASAA Southeast Asia Publications Series, Oxford University Press, Singapore 1986 p.101. Most of the information in this paragraph comes from this source and discussions with Indonesian students in Australia. Satpam officially cooperates with the police, but is known to consist largely of ex-prisoners and galis. See Tempo, 23 January 1982 David Jenkins, `Angels of Death', Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 September 1983 p.29; Bahtera Abdulkarim in Sinar Harapan, 13 June 1983; Reuters cable Jakarta-Netherlands (No. yji765) 9 May 1983.
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purposes. The PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) and the Nahdatul Ulama (Muslim Scholar's Party) made use of jagos to garner electoral support in the 1950s, as did Golkar in the 1970s and early 1980s.12 It has been claimed that some groups of galis have in fact developed thanks to patronage by Golkar-affiliated organisations.13 The status of the galis as both guardians and predators, as well as their association with political power, locates them firmly in the Javanese `jago tradition'. Jagos, or practitioners of martial arts, have traditionally played an important role in rural Javanese society, acting as both enforcers of the ruler's will and protectors of village property. Rulers relied on them to maintain the allegiance of a relatively sparse population while villagers, often in awe of their fighting skills, spiritual strength and powers of invulnerability, looked to them for a measure of protection against the depredations of their rulers and for physical security from raids launched by rulers of neighbouring districts.14 It was only with the pacification of Java by the Dutch and the centralisation and bureaucratization of colonial control that the term `jago' took on connotations of illegality. The Dutch distrusted the 12
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Ken Ward, The 1971 Election in Indonesia, An East Java Case Study, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, Clayton, 1974 p.171 Fokus, 19 May 1983. The source is Slamet Gaplek, a prominent Yogyakarta gali who was shot dead in mid 1983. Onghokham, `The Inscrutable and the Paranoid: An Investigation into the Brotodiningrat Affair' in Ruth T. McVey (ed.) Southeast Asian Transitions: Approaches Through Social History, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1978 pp.118-19. See also Onghokham, `Gali-gali dan Masyarakat Kita' Tempo, 4 May 1983. The great number of vernacular terms for these figures - including bromocorah, jagabaya and warok (East Java) petut (Central Java) jawarah (Banten) bengseng (Banyumas) lenggaong and bangkrengan (Pemalang) suggests both their ubiquity and their local roots. It may also indicate that we are looking at many different kinds of figures, from criminal thugs to Hobsbawmian `social bandits'. jago, which also means `rooster', seems to be the most widely used term. See Sartono Kartodirdjo and Anton Lucas, `Banditry and Political Change, in Sartono Kartodirdjo, Modern Indonesia: Tradition and Transformation, A Socio-Historical Perspective, Gajah Mada University Press, Yogyakarta, 1984.
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jagos both because of the power they exercised over villagers and because many of them had participated actively in uprisings against the colonial order such as the Java War and the revolt in Banten.15 Nevertheless, jagos continued to perform an invaluable service for the Pangreh Praja, (the indigenous administrative elite) as bodyguards, weri (spies), tribute collectors and go-betweens. "A need developed", Onghokham wrote, "...for brokers not only between the hierarchical levels of the social system but also between legality and criminality, and the jago gradually moved into the penumbra of these overlapping spheres".16 For many years the Dutch were therefore willing to have the Pangreh Praja rely on jagos as a cheap and effective means of maintaining their treasured rust en orde, or `tranquillity and order'. According to Onghokham, virtually all indigenous police organizations in the 19th century consisted of jagos.17 In the early twentieth century, however, as pressure on the colonial state to guarantee a more secure environment for private investment increased, the policing function of jago networks under the control of local Pangreh Praja was largely taken over by professional police forces responsible to the Europeesch Bestuur, the European Civil Service 18. The displacement of the jagos from their traditional role appears to have succeeded only in turning them into outlaws, and probably contributed to the proliferation of `robber bands' in the 15
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See Sartono Kartodirdjo, The Peasants Revolt of Banten in 1888, 'S. Gravenhage, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1966; Onghokham, `The Inscrutable...' op.cit. p.132 and `Gali-Gali...' op. cit. Onghokham, `The Inscrutable...' op.cit. p.133. The ambiguous position of the bromocorah is well illustrated in a short story by Mayon Soetrisno, `Nyai Adipati' in Sarinah, No.25 1983 Onghokham, `Gali-gali..' op. cit. `Village thugs' were also employed in Dutch sugar plantations in the late 1800s in to prevent cane burning. R. E. Elson Javanese Peasants and the Colonial Sugar Industry, Oxford University Press, Singapore, Oxford, New York, 1984 p.84 See Heather Sutherland, Pangreh Praja: Java's indigenous Administrative Corps and its role in the last decades of colonial rule, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Yale University, 1973 pp.127-134
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Javanese countryside from the 1920s until the war.19 Despite the spectacular florescence of `jagoism' during the revolution,20 (which, incidentally, launched several jagos into military and political careers), jagos have never been given the opportunity to re-integrate themselves in a legitimate way into Indonesian society, a fact which Onghokham has argued is responsible for their continued existence, now as galis, on the criminal fringe.21
Crime and the State in the 1980s In April 1982 a cartoon appeared in the newsweekly Tempo depicting a small trembling man clutching a briefcase being threatened by three huge weapons: a pistol, a knife and a sickle dripping with blood, representing Kriminalitas (Criminality) and Kekerasan (Violence). He is screaming, as if into the void, for the police.22 The message was obvious; and it was typical of the mood which prevailed in the print media at the time, both in editorials and letters to the editor. Crime was also a matter of clear concern to the government. Summing up the security situation at the end of 1981, Admiral Sudomo, the commander of Kopkamtib (The Operations Command for the Restoration of Security and Order) concluded that crime and disturbances to the security and order of society were the most pressing issues. This signalled a shift in the priorities of Indonesian security policy away from political subversion towards a greater emphasis, as Sudomo announced in August 1982, on the 19
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Prof Dr P.M. van Wulfften Palthe, Psychological Aspects of the Indonesian Problem, E.J. Brill, Leiden 1959 p.27 On jagos in the revolution see Benedict Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance 1944-1946, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1972; Anton Lucas, The Bamboo Spear Pierces the Payung: the Revolution against the Bureaucratic Elite in North Central Java in 1945, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Australian National University, 1980; Kartodirdjo and Lucas op. cit.; and Anthony Reid, The Indonesian National Revolution 19451950, Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1986 pp.56-57. Onghokham, `Gali-gali...' op. cit. Tempo, 3 April 1982
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consequences of destabilising economic problems, among them the surge in urban crime, crowded cities, poverty, and "too many people" which he said were becoming "a source of danger to the state."23 Underlying much of the discussion on crime in the Indonesian press in the early 1980s was a manifest dissatisfaction, on the part of both the public and the security apparatus, with the performance of the police.24 Armed Forces Commander General Jusuf was particularly persistent in his criticism of police laxity, and harangued them on several occasions for their poor public image.25 Sudomo too publicly exhorted police not to engage in extortion "and especially not to loan arms for criminal purposes".26 One outcome of the perceived failure of the police to protect society adequately was the increasing use of the military in conventional anti-crime operations. In 1981 Kopkamtib carried out Operasi Sapujagad (Operation Clean Sweep) in which houses were searched and illegal weapons confiscated. Early the following year Kopkamtib head Sudomo formed a special team which he referred to as a `Killers Squad' to combat holdups on buses.27 And when the much publicised Operasi Clurit (Operation Sickle) was launched in Jakarta in January 1983 in another attempt to round up sharp weapons and firearms, it was again Kopkamtib which was responsible for its conception, with 23
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New York Times, 5 August 1982, cited in Justus M. van der Kroef, ``Petrus': Patterns of Prophylactic Murder in Indonesia', Asian Survey, Vol XXV No.7 July 1985 p.747 Although the police have been fully integrated into the Armed Forces since 1967, army-police relations have never been smooth. The police were seen as supporters of Sukarno in the period after the 1965 coup and have since seen much of their institutional independence eroded. See Suara Merdeka, 5 November 1981; Kompas, 31 October 1981; and Indonesia Times, 19 December 1981. The only quantitative measure of public dissatisfaction with the police I know of is a survey done by Tempo, (7 July 1984) which found that only 30.3% of respondents said they felt protected while in the proximity of members of the police force and 46.7% said that on-duty police were "often uncouth and brutal". Kompas, 31 October 1981; Indonesian Observer, 9 Nov 1981. Tempo, 3 April 1982; Tempo, 18 June 1983. This squad, according to Sudomo, had previously been used in an operation in 1980 against the `Warman Terror', an alleged Muslim extremist group.
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Jakarta Regional Military Commander Major General Try Sutrisno given operational command.28 A common police response to criticism from both the public and the security apparatus was to blame the legal system. Police officials frequently attacked the courts for being slow to handle cases (an average criminal case at the time took fourteen months to get to the courts) and too lenient with their sentencing.29 The strengthening of the rights of the suspect in the new code of criminal procedure introduced in January 1982 was another source of frustration to police, as it made it more difficult for them to obtain a conviction and meant that cases often had to be shelved by the courts because of insufficient evidence.30 Police also defended themselves by pointing out on many occasions that the weapons used by criminals in robberies were of military (i.e. not police) origin, implying, sometimes directly, collaboration between military men and criminals.31 Indeed, some police are known to have felt impotent to act against galis with powerful political `backing'.32 If there was institutional tension between the police and the army, there was also conflict within the upper echelons of the government over how to deal with the problem of crime. The main schism was between those in favour of a community based approach and those who advocated a `military solution' to crime. The first group, which included Kopkamtib Chief of Staff Lt Gen Widjojo Sudjono, National Police Chief Lt Gen Dr Awaloeddin Djamin and Defence Minister Jusuf argued along the lines that crime was an ordinary manifestation of unemployment, poverty and urban overcrowding and could only be controlled, not eliminated. The most effective way to control crime, they maintained, was through close cooperation between the security apparatus and local communities, 28
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Tempo, 29 Jan 1983. A clurit is a sickle-shaped knife or cleaver traditionally associated with criminals, especially in East Java and Madura. Tempo, 16 October 1982; Sinar Harapan, 1 January 1983. See also Zoher Abdoolcarim, `The Silent War of Indonesia's Death Squads', The Bulletin, 14 February 1984. Sinar Harapan, 1 January 1983 See for instance Ibid. and Tempo, 29 Jan 1983 Jenkins, `Angels...' op. cit. and anecdotal evidence from Central Java.
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an approach best exemplified by Siskamling (Sistim Keamanan Lingkungan Terpadu - Integrated Local Security System) the neighbourhood watch organisation set up by the police in 1980. At the opposite end of the spectrum were Jakarta Chief of Staff of Kopkamtib Brig Gen Eddy N. Nalapraya and Central Java Military Region Commander Lt Gen Ismail who spoke of crime as an issue closely related to national security and political stability. They argued that existing anti-crime strategies had failed and that drastic measures should be taken to fight it.33 It is clear, and not only with hindsight, from whom the hardliners drew their inspiration. As early as August 1981, in his annual State of the Nation address, Suharto expressed particular concern at the rise in the number of violent and sadistic crimes, and called on the security and legal apparatus to put a stop to such acts "once and for all" ("secara tuntas").34 A clue as to how he thought this might be achieved came a few months later, when he proclaimed that criminals who murder cruelly "should be punished in the same way that they treat their victims".35 Addressing a meeting of military leaders in March 1982 he repeated his call for a decisive attack on crime and said that the security apparatus as well as ABRI (the armed forces) should do all they could to make this "as effective as possible".36 Intra-elite conflict over the question of crime management only became obvious, however, after a remarkable speech by General Jusuf. In January 1983, when pressure within the security apparatus for a radical assault on crime appears to have been very strong, Jusuf called on the civilian and military arms of the government "not to treat crime in a way that will further upset the situation... The military must set an example as the protectors of society, not as the opposite... If we only go about bashing this and bashing that and using rough language we will only succeed in offending 33
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See for instance Kompas, 28 August 1981; Tempo, 9 January 1982; Berita Nasional, 24 March 1983 Kompas, 26 August 1981 Pelita, 16 December 1981 See A. Karim Nasution, `Kriminalitas dan Pembangunan, Pencegahan dan Pengendaliannya', Prisma, 5, May 1982 p.25
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people's feelings rather than encouraging them to become better human beings! ...If the state apparatus acts like this towards those who do wrong it will fail in its duty as the pengayom masyarakat (protectors of society)."37 In a pointed message to those, clearly including Suharto, who advocated treating crime with armed force, Jusuf went on to stress the need to think about the causes of crime, and emphasised that criminals could be rehabilitated. Jusuf was well known for his plain speaking and his vigorous efforts to give the armed forces a cleaner, less `political' public image, but not for his opposition to Suharto.38 This impassioned speech, made only nine weeks before his term as Defence Minister was due to expire, appears to have been prompted by Jusuf's genuine fear that Suharto was about to embark on what he saw as a reckless venture. This concern can only have been made more acute by his knowledge that Lt Gen Benny Murdani, Suharto's pugnacious intelligence aide, was first in line for the position of Armed Forces Commander. As it happened, the president replaced not only Jusuf, but most of the other generals around him with a claim to substantial power bases of their own - most notably Home Affairs Minister Gen Amir Machmud, Admiral Sudomo and Suharto's long time confidant and ally, Information Minister Lt Gen Ali Murtopo. Widjojo Sudjono and Awaloeddin Djamin were also on the casualty list, the latter being replaced as Police Chief by Lt Gen Anton Sudjarwo, whose background was with Brimob, the military wing of the police. One of the most important results of the personnel changes, apart from concentrating power more fully in the hands of Suharto, was the ascension of hardened military professionals to the strategic operational and territorial command positions. Celebrated East Timor veterans Maj Gen Yogie Suardi Memet and Maj Gen Soegiarto were given the crucial Kowilhan II (Java/Madura/Bali/Lesser Sunda 37 38
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Sinar Harapan, 21 January 1983 On Jusuf's years as Defence Minister see David Jenkins, Suharto and his Generals, Indonesian Military Politics 1973-1983, Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1984 (especially chapter 6).
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Islands) Command and the Kodam VII (Central Java) Command respectively, while Benny Murdani was given virtually undisputed control over the armed forces, Kopkamtib, and because of his position as head of BAIS (Strategic Intelligence Body), over the entire military intelligence network as well. Murdani's appointment to a position of unprecedented power was widely seen as a move to contain social unrest at a time of growing hardship. He brought with him a reputation for extreme toughness and professionalism, and made it plain from the beginning of his tenure that he saw the main role of the armed forces as being for use against domestic, rather than external enemies. Exactly when the Petrus campaign was hatched is not clear, but it appears to have been incubating for some time. According to one source the blueprint for the campaign was laid out in a paper on crime produced by BAIS or its precursor, Pusintelstrat (Pusat Intelijen Strategis or Strategic Intelligence Centre, also headed by Murdani). This paper was said to have argued that the best way to tackle the problem of urban crime was with shock therapy - the simple elimination of criminals who could not be subdued in any other way.39 Consultations with `students, lecturers, ulama (Muslim elders) and ABRI figures' are reported to have been carried out months in advance,40 and it is even possible that the spate of police shootings of criminals which took place in the Jember-Bondowoso area of East Java in the first half of 1982 was an experimental probe to test public reaction.41 If there had been resistance within the armed forces to the use of military style tactics against criminals before the appointments of early 1983, there was certainly little afterwards. Suharto had won an easy victory. 39
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Confidential interview material (Jakarta May/June 1988) kindly provided to me by Richard Tanter. Reuters cable 9 May 1983 op. cit. See Tempo 21 August 1982. Estimates of the number killed vary from 30 to 250. The man credited with the operation was Head of the East Java Police Region Maj Gen (Police) Pamoedji who became Deputy Head of the Police Force the following year.
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Petrus The Petrus campaign was launched in Yogyakarta in late March 1983 under the code name OPK or Operasi Pemberantasan Kejahatan (Operation Combat Crime). In charge was the commander of the city's army garrison, Lt Col Moch. Hasby, who described the operation as a "war on galis" intended to "rid society of unrest" and to "tidy up Yogya" for the tourists expected to flock to the city for the total solar eclipse the following June.42 How was the campaign carried out? The procedure in Yogyakarta appears to have been that police intelligence supplied the garrison commander (Komandan Kodim) with a list naming hundreds of suspected criminals and ex-prisoners in the region. The garrison then put together a black list and issued a public ultimatum for all galis (without, however, naming names) to "surrender immediately" to the garrison headquarters.43 Those who did, and these numbered several hundred, were required to fill out detailed forms, providing their life history as well as data on all their family members and friends. They were also required to sign statements agreeing to refrain from criminal activities or face "firm action" from the authorities. Each gali was obliged to carry a special card and report to the garrison on a regular basis.44 Those who did not turn up to be registered, or did not keep their appointments with the garrison, were hunted down and killed by squads of military men. I do not intend to go into great detail about the physical facts of the killings. To grasp their dimensions however, it is important to give a brief chronology of events. A little over a month after OPK was launched, Yogie Memet, reportedly under direct orders from Murdani, announced the extension of the operation to other cities of Java and Madura.45 In May the killings began almost simultaneously 42 43 44
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Tempo, 16 April 1983 Kedaulatan Rakyat, 1(?) April 1983 See Kedaulatan Rakyat, 16 April 1983; Tempo, 16 April 1983; Tempo, 25 June 1983. Kompas, 29 April 1983; Tempo, 21 May 1983; See also Zoher Abdoolcarim. op.
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in Jakarta, East Java and West Java.46 The following month bodies started turning up in South Sumatra, North Sumatra and West Kalimantan,47 and by August over thirty victims had been found in East and West Kalimantan.48 There were also killings in Sulawesi,49 but there appear to have been few, if any, reports from other areas of Eastern Indonesia. No official count of victims was ever announced but it has been estimated that up to 600 galis were killed in Yogyakarta alone during the first half of 1983.50 The total number of people killed in Indonesia from March to early December 1983 was estimated by the chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (LBH) Buyung Nasution, to have been about 4000. Other estimates run higher. In February 1984, a Dutch journalist calculated that based on data supplied to him by local police posts, a total of about 8,500 people had been executed in East Java alone by the end of 1983.51 Given that the killings continued for another year after this, and that by Murdani's own admission many killings were not reported,52 it is reasonable to assume that the final figure was in excess of 5000 and possibly as high as 10,000. One of the most striking aspects of the killings was the similarity in the way they were carried out all over Indonesia. Criminals, gang members or ex-prisoners, frequently tattooed and almost always young and male,53 would be met in their houses or in the street by a group of four or five heavily built men. In many cases they would shoot their victim where they found him. More often they would bundle him (or them) into a jeep or Toyota Hardtop and drive
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cit. On the close ties between Yogie Memet and both Murdani and Suharto see Jenkins, Suharto... op. cit. p.26, 27, 136 Kompas, 6 May 1983; Tempo, 18 June 1983; Sinar Harapan, 23 June 1983 Kompas, 25 June 1983; Tempo, 2 July 1983 Tempo, 6 August 1983 `Indonesia - Extrajudicial Executions of Suspected Criminals', Amnesty International Document No. ASA 21/13/83 1983 Letter to the editor in International Herald Tribune, reprinted in Tapol Bulletin, July 1983 p.2 van der Kroef, op. cit. pp.754-755 Berita Harian Gala, (Bandung) 23 June 1983 I have seen only one reference to the killing of a woman. She was found naked and tortured in the Tangerang area west of Jakarta. Hidup, 7 Aug 83
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off into the night. The victim would be taken to a quiet place and shot through the head and chest at close range with .45 or .38 calibre pistols. His corpse would then either be tossed into a river or left in some public place such as outside a cinema, a school or on the footpath of a busy street. Victims frequently had their hands bound, and often bore marks of torture. The following day there would be a short report about the finding of a `mayat bertato', (tattooed corpse) in the local paper, usually accompanied by grisly pictures. But by no means all who were killed were exhibited to the public. According to a police source quoted by Tempo, "those who were not regarded as useful, or whose deaths had to be kept quiet, were disposed of in secret locations which would not be discovered".54 One of these locations was said to be Gua Grubuk, a deep limestone cave fifteen kilometres south of Wonosari, southeast of Yogyakarta. An Amnesty International paper on the killings cites a report claiming that galis were executed and dropped down the cave in large numbers: "Local people have said that during May and June they had been able to witness the slaughters, but from July onwards these killings were only carried out secretly. They also were reported to have said that the killings took place twice a week, on Fridays and Sundays. The gali-gali were brought from Surabaya, Surakarta, Madiun and other towns of Java. One individual claims to have witnessed the dumping of the bodies of about 200 gali-gali from prisons throughout Java on one day in May. Local people have apparently also said that, although they are no longer allowed to witness killings, trucks similar to those previously used to transport gali-gali to the cave, were still seen approaching the cave as late as August."55 The timing, the methods used and the geographical spread of the killings clearly indicate a well planned and centrally coordinated military operation. Local military and police authorities repeatedly stressed the orderly character of the campaign, emphasising the existence of reliable `lists' and assuring people that they had nothing 54 55
. .
Tempo, 6 August 1983 Amnesty International, Ibid. Other reports have mentioned bodies being put in cement containers and sunk or thrown into the sea from helicopters.
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to fear if they were innocent. As Yogyakarta garrison commander Hasby put it, "No one will be shot by mistake". Hasby's immediate superior, head of Resort Military Command 072/Pamungkas Colonel Siswadi, also reassured the public that "All the activities of the OPK are carried out according to orders". Where did the orders come from? As I outlined earlier, there was close cooperation between the military and the police. The indications are that at the highest level, BAIS and the National Police had joint responsibility. At the regional level the Regional Military Commander (in his capacity as Kopkamtib Special Executive - Laksusda) is believed to have worked closely with the Regional Police Head (Kapolda) who, according to one well-informed source, had to give his authorization for every `termination'.56 The actual killing, according to van der Kroef, was at first done by squads of "hastily assembled military police and national police personnel. Later, some of these, after a special training course, in `criminal detection', were reconstituted as permanent special `task forces'. They formally were part of the national police, but in actuality they were temporarily seconded to the army. Preference appears to have been given to members of the paracommando units, usually called Kopassandha (Komando Pasukan Sandhi Yudha)".57 The use of the crack Kopassandha force, which had played a crucial role in Timor and whose commander (until April 1983) Yogie Memet, was one of the most hawkish proponents of the killings, is corroborated by several other sources.58 What Kopassandha, Kopkamtib, the police, the army territorial hierarchy and BAIS had in common was of course Benny Murdani, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and almost certainly the overall coordinator of the campaign.
56
.
57
. .
58
Sinar Harapan, 23 May 1983 and a confidential interview material (Jakarta May/June 1988) provided to me by Richard Tanter. van der Kroef, op. cit. p.748 Jenkins, Suharto...op.cit. p.28; Abdoolcarim op. cit.; Amnesty International Report 1984 p.225 ; Max Lane `Soeharto...' op. cit.
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Petrus and the Public Less thought was given to the packaging of the campaign than to its execution. The public presentation of the killings was characterised by poor coordination and inconsistency until all reporting of them was eventually forbidden in September 1983. In Central Java, where the shootings began, the military authorities had no compunction about admitting full responsibility. Lt Col Hasby, Yogyakarta's Acehnese garrison commander was quite open about the garrison's campaign to "exterminate" (kikis habis) the galis to protect society from crime.59 Outside Central Java it was a different story. Even though Yogie Memet had said that the campaign would be extended to other cities in Java, when this actually happened, in the first week of May, there was a sudden reluctance on the part of the military to discuss the killings. In the absence of an official explanation for the increasing numbers of bullet riddled corpses appearing on the streets of Jakarta, Bandung and other cities, the press coined the terms penembakan gelap (covert shootings) and `Petrus', which was not only an acronym of `mysterious gunmen' but also a deft allusion to Catholicism (Petrus=Peter) and therefore to Murdani, a Roman Catholic.60 When Murdani broke the official silence in the third week of May it was only to muddy the waters. Directly after a meeting with Suharto, Murdani held a press conference at which he confirmed the existence of a national anti-crime operation which he said was being implemented at a local level by Kopkamtib Regional Executives. He was at pains to point out the legality of the campaign, saying that since Indonesia was a negara hukum (a state based on law), members of the security apparatus too were bound by law and could only shoot if they were placed in a critical situation or if a criminal resisted arrest. This much was not new. From the beginning there had been a heavy emphasis in the public accounts on the non-arbitrariness and legality of the shootings. What surprised many people was that Murdani then went on to say that the recent shootings were not the 59 60
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Kedaulatan Rakyat, 7 April 1983; Kedaulatan Rakyat, 15 April 1983 `Matius' (=Matthew), an acronym of mati misterius or `mysterious deaths', was another variation.
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work of the security apparatus but the result of warfare between rival underworld gangs - an explanation which was to be repeated many times by security officials in subsequent months. Journalists who questioned Murdani on the contradictions in his account received only evasive replies such as "If you are innocent you have nothing to fear" or "The cities are now safer"61 Despite the assurances of several military leaders, including Murdani and later Suharto, that there was nothing `mysterious' about the killings, their failure to give official confirmation that Petrus was sponsored by military headquarters bred a degree of uncertainty in society. The most tragic consequence of this was that people who saw themselves as potential victims could claim no protection from the state. As an ex-prisoner lamented "What can we do?... Who are we supposed to go to to say that we have mended our ways..?"62 Another result was interdepartmental confusion. Hospitals and morgues for instance were upset about the expense of post mortums and funerals for the large number of corpses delivered to their doors, but could hardly demand that the government pay. (This problem was reputedly solved when the killers started leaving a banknote in the pocket of the victim to cover funeral costs). The ambiguity which Murdani and others generated was no doubt intentional. For the government to have openly admitted responsibility for the shootings would have been to invite condemnation by domestic and foreign groups concerned with human rights and to undermine the claim of the Indonesian state to be a negara hukum. Yet to have seriously denied all involvement the government would have damaged its credibility by giving the impression that it was helpless to stop the killings. A further reason for the government's you-know-it's-us-sostop-asking-questions attitude was the political capital it stood to gain from supporters of the Petrus campaign. Although it is impossible to accurately quantify the dimensions of support for the killings, it is clear that large sections of urban Indonesian society were either mildly sympathetic to the killings or openly enthusiastic about them. 61 62
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Sinar Harapan, 23 June 1983; Tempo, 28 May 1983 Hidup, 7 August 1983
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A poll of 1500 Jakarta residents carried out in July 1983 by Tempo found that 64.75% agreed with the shootings, `provided the victims were proven guilty'.63 This level of endorsement is confirmed by a wide range of people with whom I spoke in Java in 1983 and by the numerous popular reactions reported in the Indonesian press. By all accounts the killings brought about a sharp decrease in the rate of violent crime,64 which was much appreciated by those most exposed to extortion by criminal gangs - shopkeepers, bus and taxi drivers, petty traders and hawkers. Approval was also widespread among the middle classes, for whom the fear of burglary and violent crime was also very real. Public support for the killings, though, was by no means total. The most consistent and vocal opposition came from a small number of lawyers active in legal aid organisations, who argued from the beginning that the shootings contravened every principle of law. Buyung Nasution was probably the most outspoken, calling on many occasions for the authorities to stop the "planned murder".65 "When people in society take the law into their own hands" he told the press, "we call it anarchy, but when the government apparatus does the same I am just cannot find the words to describe it".66 There was a surprising amount of opposition to the Petrus killings on legal grounds from within the government. According to Tempo, most members of the DPR (People's Representative Council) were against the shootings.67 Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, the secretary of the government's own Golkar faction in parliament and brother of 63 64
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65
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66
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67
Tempo, 6 August 1983. The rate of robberies with violence reported in Jakarta from 1982-1984 fell from 9151 to 3638, about a 60% drop. Jakarta Dalam Angka 1986, Kantor Statistik, Propinsi DKI Jakarta, Jakarta 1986 p.91 See for instance Tempo, 6 August 1983; Kompas, 13 April 1983; Sinar Harapan, 6 May 1983; Expo, 4 July 1983; Tapol Bulletin, July 1983. Other lawyers who spoke out courageously were Yap Thiam Hien, Harjono Tjitrosoebeno, Artidjo Alkostar and Ny. Sumarni Basaruddin Marsigit. Some lawyers, however, such as Supratno Koesoemo, the head of the Semarang LBH, strongly supported the campaign. Sinar Harapan, 23 July 83. Sinar Harapan, 14 May 1983 Tempo, 21 May 1983
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the Foreign Minister, publicly declared his opposition, and said his faction had repeatedly called on the legal apparatus to uphold the law. He maintained that the killings were dangerous in the long term because they created an atmosphere in which law was no longer heeded by the people.68 Another source of heated criticism was the parliamentary Commission III (legal affairs), one of whose members, Golkar lawyer A.A.S. Tambunan argued that "the use of violence against crime could lead the country into the valley of destruction." "History has shown" he said, "how a nation can be drowned in destruction not by war but by its inability to uphold law".69 The general stance of Indonesia's top legal authorities was compliant and compromising, but there are suggestions that they were less than happy with the killings. The Petrus campaign was in a sense a slap in the face to the entire legal apparatus, an accusation that it had failed in its duties. Justice Minister Lt Gen Ali Said at one stage made a point of contradicting Murdani by stating that "Anyone can tell these matters are against the law".70 By about July - four months into the campaign - public backing for the killings began to wane. This happened for a number of reasons. One was an apparent growth of pity for the victims. More and more articles started to appear in the press telling their side of the story and depicting galis as ordinary human beings with ordinary problems and families to care for. Important also were the effects of the terror which spread among marginal elements in Indonesian society. The press reported several stories of prisoners who pleaded not to be released from prison for fear of their lives and of the desperate attempts of young unemployed men to remove their tattoos which they believed marked them as targets for the killers. Probably the most important reason for a fall in public support was a growing perception that the killings were getting out of hand. For every victim there were dozens of others who were affected - family, friends and acquaintances - and as the toll rose it 68 69
70
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Sinar Harapan, 23 July 1983; Tempo, 21 May 1983 Pelita, 21 May 1983, Kompas, 1 June 1983. Commission member Djohan Burhanuddin used a similar argument. Sinar Harapan, 23 May 1983. For mildly critical comments by Attorney General Lt Gen Ismail Saleh, see Kompas, 2 June 1983.
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soon reached the stage where almost every city dweller knew of someone, even if only a neighbour of a friend, who had been shot. Mutilated corpses were becoming a familiar sight and even schoolchildren were said to be growing blasé about them. The sense that the campaign was going beyond acceptable limits was also fuelled by an increasing number of cases in which people were apparently targeted for personal or political reasons and at least one case of mistaken identity, in which a sixteen year old schoolboy was shot dead in Jakarta in May.71 The LBH reported that sympathizers of the Muslim PPP (United Development Party) had been executed in East Java and that former members of the PKI had been killed in Central Java.72 Among those reported to have `disappeared' in the second half of 1983 were two lawyers involved with the defence of peasants and a Semarang journalist.73 The killings also provided an excellent opportunity for extortion and intimidation: there were reports of men demanding money from potential victims, death threats to opposition political figures and in one case a package containing a severed head was sent to the staff of the East Javanese newspaper Suara Indonesia.74 The chairman of the West Java Council of Ulama E.Z. Muttaquien was quoted as saying in August "People felt relieved at first, but this is turning to anxiety... These murders, which are prohibited by religion, can lead to all kinds of things that could be disastrous."75 Similar sentiments were reflected in letters to the editor and cartoons critical of the killings. Whereas cartoonists had tended to tease the police for their lack of action at the beginning of 1983, an example from the middle of the year illustrates the changed mood: In the darkness of the solar eclipse shots ring out and a voice screams "Mercy Pak, I'm not a gali!"76
71 72 73
74 75
76
. . . . . .
Expo, 4 July 1983 Amnesty International, Ibid. Tapol Bulletin, January 1984 citing Sinar Harapan, 6 January 1984 and Tempo, 14 January 1984. See also Tapol Bulletin, September 1983. Amnesty International, Ibid. and Tempo, 26 November 1983 Tempo, 6 August 1983. Other muslim spokesmen, however, justified the killings with reference to religious doctrine and there is no indication that muslims in general saw the killings as `prohibited by religion'. Ibid. Mutiara, 7 June 1983. `Pak' is a term of address for an older man or a male official.
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Much of the public debate about the killings came to centre on the question of whether the galis were really the main problem. Many commentators spoke of crime as stemming from social injustice, unemployment and poverty and argued, like Dr Djamaludin Ancok of Gajah Mada University, that the campaign against the galis was "not getting at the root of the problem, only scratching at the leaves." Others argued that the real problem was the big time corruptors, and that the government would do better to direct its energies to pursuing them rather than the small fish. One Muslim parliamentarian, Drs H.A. Imran Kadir, even suggested that the killers should be used against corruptors, who, he said, "do a lot more damage than the criminals".77 The final source of criticism to the shootings I will mention was the international community. The Vatican and the United States both expressed their concern, as did, it is believed, the governments of West Germany, Canada, Britain and Australia.78 The International Commission of Jurists and Amnesty International also registered strong protests. It was the Dutch Foreign minister van den Broek though, on the occasion of his visit to Indonesia in January 1984, who received most publicity. This was not so much to do with the fact that he raised the issue as because of the conflicting responses of the Indonesian Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja and Murdani. While Mochtar explained the killings in terms of the rising level of crime "now bordering on terrorism", Murdani denied outright the involvement of the security forces and told the Dutch minister to stop interfering in Indonesia's internal affairs.79 The increasingly defensive reaction on the part on the Indonesian government in the face of both domestic and foreign criticism culminated in a ban on reporting of the issue being imposed in August 1983. The killings, however, continued apace. In late April 1984 the LBH charged that the killings were in fact increasing and that `hundreds' had been murdered by death squads since the beginning of the year. Reports indicate that the operation was continued until at least early 1985, although most agree that the 77 78 79
. . .
Sinar Harapan, 26 July 1983 The Bulletin, 14 February 1984 Kompas, 7 January 1984 and Tempo, 14 January 1984
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numbers started dropping off some time in late 1984.80
Interpretations No major political event passes in Indonesia without spawning at least two or three, and often many more, different interpretations of what happened and who was behind it. I have described the Petrus campaign more or less as it was presented to the public - as a response to the upsurge in urban crime. This is, I argue below, essentially what the killings were about, but it is worth looking first at some other explanations which may help to cast light on the actions of the government. Most political interpretations of the Petrus episode revolve around the complex linkages between state authorities and the galis. As I suggested in the first part of this chapter, there is every reason to believe that the tradition of symbiosis between politics and thuggery persists in present day Indonesia. Some Indonesians have suggested to me that one of the main objects of the campaign was to break the nexus between local government authorities and criminal elements in urban centres in several parts of Indonesia. This collusion was said to have become so engrained and pervasive that it was hampering the implementation of government policies and frustrating the control of the central authorities over urban kampung communities. One senior army officer even dexscribed the gali networks as a `government within a government'.81 I have no way of testing this hypothesis, but frustration about collusion between local authorities - especially military officials - and criminals, would help to explain why the government rarely allowed the local security apparatus to control the operations. In almost every case the killings were planned and carried out by a force comprising both local and central military authorities. The only place where this appears not to have happened was Yogyakarta, where the campaign was directed by Lt Col Hasby. Hasby's status as an outsider (he is Acehnese) and the fact that he was appointed to his post in Yogyakarta only months before he launched the campaign may have ruled out the need for central 80 81
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van der Kroef, op. cit., p.755 Jenkins, Angels..' op. cit.
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control. If this theory is correct, the Petrus killings can be seen, at least in part, as an attempt to render the regional administrative apparatus (and especially the military elements within it) more responsive to central control. If organised crime in the provinces was of concern to Suharto, links between senior national figures and galis may have been just as worrying. The most persistent popular theory about the killings is that they were an attempt by Suharto and Murdani to undermine the power of one of the president's longest standing colleagues and advisors, General Ali Murtopo. This theory is as follows: Ali Murtopo, who ran a powerful clandestine intelligence organisation called Opsus, or Special Operations, is known to have maintained a very large network of informers and thugs (read galis) which he used for a range of political purposes. During the Malari riots of 1974, for instance, Murtopo is believed to have used galis as agents provocateurs to turn what was a peaceful demonstration into a violent and destructive riot in order to discredit the then head of Kopkamtib, General Sumitro. The main use to which Murtopo put his so-called `zoo', however, was to engineer Golkar victories at election time. Partly through Golkar affiliated youth associations such as AMPI (Indonesian Development Youth Organisation) and KNPI (National Committee for Indonesian Youth) and perhaps also Angkatan Muda Siliwangi (Siliwangi Youth) Murtopo is believed to have been responsible for mobilising several thousand galis to take part in noisy and often intimidatory Golkar campaigns.82 During the 1982 election campaign, in an attempt to blacken the name of the PPP and prevent them from winning a third victory in Jakarta, Murtopo arranged for hundreds of youths to pose as PPP supporters and disrupt a massive Golkar rally in Lapangan Banteng in central Jakarta. He was more than successful. The youths not only disrupted the rally but set the podium ablaze, destroyed the sound equipment, tore the clothes off Golkar supporters and fought a pitched battle with ABRI detachments and riot police before going on the rampage, smashing shop windows and burning over one hundred motor 82
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Anecdotal evidence. See also Ashadi Siregar, `Setelah Manuver Militer, Perjalanan Kebudayaan' in Din Yati Ar (compiler) Gerhana Bagi Gali, (The Eclipse of the Galis) Pusat Pelayanan Informasi LP3 Yogyakarta, 1983? and Fokus, 19 May 1983
Law, Crime and State Authority in Indonesia
vehicles.83 Murtopo's efforts were not appreciated. Suharto, so the theory goes, was already coming to doubt Murtopo's loyalty and had plans to remove him from his cabinet.84 The Lapangan Banteng riots confirmed to Suharto that Murtopo was at best a liability and at worst a threat. After all, if Murtopo had not orchestrated the destruction then it was clear he had lost control over his supposed network. If, on the other hand, it was all planned in advance, it demonstrated Murtopo's power and the mischief he could create for Suharto if he so wished. Faced with this situation, Suharto did two things. First he manoeuvred Murtopo into a relatively powerless position in the DPA (Supreme Advisory Council) during the cabinet appointments of March 1983. Second he enroled the assistance of Murtopo's protégé cum rival, Murdani, to emasculate Murtopo by launching a direct attack on the most dangerous element of his personal power base, the gali networks. Ali Murtopo's only statement on Petrus was in late July 1983, when he created a stir by being the first senior government official to openly contradict the `gang warfare' account of the killings and point the finger directly at Murdani. Murtopo announced that "after paying close attention to the statements of the...Commander of the Armed Forces [Murdani]," he had come to the conclusion that "the mysterious killings were carried out in accordance with the policy of the Defence Department".85 This was clearly intended to embarrass 83
.
84
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85
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Interview with a participant in the rally. See also Tempo, 27 March 1982; Tempo, 3 April 1982 and `Laporan Pandangan Mata Peristiwa Huru-Hara Kampanye Golkar di Lapangan Banteng - Jakarta', ms dated 18 March 1982 by a group of seven reporters identified by their initials only. Security forces killed at least six people during the melee. Confidential interview material (Jakarta May/June 1988) kindly provided to me by Richard Tanter. Suharto was said to have feared Murtopo's `systematic encirclement approach'. On at least two occasions (the `Newsweek affair' and the `Kartika affair') Murtopo is believed to have supplied information to the media intended to embarrass Suharto. Sinar Pagi, 28 July 83; Sinar Harapan, 28 July 83
David Bourchier
Murdani, and should probably be read as a veiled protest against Petrus, but does not provide firm grounds to argue that Murtopo was the key target of the killings. However much substance there is to the Murtopo theory, questions remain about the partiality with which the death lists were drawn up. Were some groups of criminals especially targeted while others were exempt? Could Petrus have been as much about control of criminal gangs as their eradication? I cannot claim to have answers to these questions, but there is one intriguing story which should be mentioned in this context. Before 1983 several groups of exprisoners ran businesses specialising in such areas as personal security services and debt collection. The largest and most powerful of these, called Prems (Preman Sadar - Reformed Toughs[?]), was decimated and its role taken over by gangs loyal to Yapto Suryosumarno, a prominent youth leader and businessman (and now lawyer). Since Petrus, Yapto has been appointed as chairman of the pro-government Pemuda Pancasila youth group and, more significantly, is reputed to have assumed responsibility for the personal security of President Suharto's family. If it is true that Yapto's gangs now dominate the underworld as well as look after the first family it is tempting to see parallels between the shake-up in the organisation of the gangs precipitated by Petrus and the azas tunggal (sole principle) and wadah tunggal (sole vehicle) initiatives by which the government attempted to enforce political and ideological conformity in the early 1980s. But it would be a mistake to concentrate too much on these `hidden agendas' at the expense of the wider questions of social order and legitimacy. If we want to understand the killings it is crucial to appreciate how the state's military managers conceive their role and the proper relationship between state and society. If there has been a leitmotif in the ideology of the Suharto regime it has been the concept of `order' (ketertiban). Suharto has described stability, order and security `as an object of development itself, namely, to make [people]... feel physically secure and have peace of mind, free from fear of threats from without and from
Law, Crime and State Authority in Indonesia
worrying over disturbance from within'.86 One of the fundamental justifications for the military's takeover of power in 1965 and the New Order's subsequent dismantling of political parties, trade unions and social organisations was the failure of civilians to maintain order in the economic and political spheres. Since that time the military has extended its control deep within society and penetrated all levels of government in the name of maintaining kamtibmas (keamanan dan ketertiban masyarakat, literally `security and orderliness of society'). Underpinning this imposition of what amounts to a military command structure on the state is an elaborate ideological apparatus, the basis of which is the doctrine of dwifungsi (the `dual function' of the armed forces). According to the dominant interpretation of dwifungsi, the military is the only force in society with the proven capacity to perceive and protect the interests of the state. It therefore has not only the right but also the duty to act as guardian of the state and the pengayom or `protector' of an immature and querulous society. One of the risks for a state which relies so heavily on a paternalistic ideology and the rhetoric of order is that any increase in `disorder' reflects directly on its credibility. The New Order state has shown itself to be extraordinarily sensitive to `disturbances' to the social order of all descriptions and has put a great deal of effort, through its surveillance and intelligence apparatus, into nipping potential unrest in the bud. Where the authorities have been unable to prevent public manifestations of unrest or dissent, whether by students, workers, peasants, muslim rioters or retired generals, they have reacted very strongly, either with violence or through the courts, depending on the social status of the perpetrators. The rise in the rate of violent crime in the early 1980s was in a sense a new kind of problem. It arose spontaneously from society and was not politically motivated. Yet it is clear from statements of senior military figures that crime was seen by the New Order leadership to have a immediate bearing not only on national stability but also on the authority of the government.87 The point here is that the government 86
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87
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Jim Schiller, Development Ideology in New Order Indonesia, MA Thesis, Ohio University, 1978 p.21, quoted in Mohtar Mas'oed, `The State Reorganisation of Society under the New Order', Prisma, No.47, September 1989 p.10 See for instance Kompas, 26 August 1981
David Bourchier
saw the high level of crime, or the public's perception of the high level of crime and the failure of the police to deal with it, as a direct challenge to its credibility which demanded a decisive response. As Suharto recalled in his 1989 autobiography, "The peace was disturbed (Ketentraman terganggu). It was as if there was no longer peace in this country. It was as though all there was was fear... We had to apply some treatment, [English in original] take some stern action. What kind of stern action? It had to be with violence. But this violence did not mean just shooting people, pow! pow! just like that. No! But those who tried to resist, like it or not, had to be shot... Some of the corpses were left [in public places] just like that. This was for the purpose of shock therapy, terapi goncangan. This was done so that the general public would understand that there was still someone capable of taking action to tackle the problem of criminality"88 The killings, and the gruesome public spectacle of the corpses, were therefore designed not only to terrorise the galis into submission but also to demonstrate to the rest of the populace the resolve of the government to crush any challenge to its authority. A small incident which took place in Yogyakarta in late 1989 in which a local government official accused some local petty traders of being "the same as gali or PKI"89 illustrates the way in which the killings helped, whether intentionally or otherwise, to reinforce the state's ideological armory and facilitate state control over the populace though fear. The label `gali' is now almost as dangerous as `PKI' and certainly the connotations are more terrifying and clearly etched on the memories of that majority of Indonesians who were too young to have experienced the killings of 1965/66. Why Suharto felt it necessary to resort to such ruthless methods remains puzzling. The killings, after all, came at a time when the country's need for foreign assistance was greater than it had been for many years, due to drastic falls in oil revenues. One answer might be that he simply wanted quick results and used the most direct strategy possible to achieve them. This would be consistent with 88 89
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Soeharto, op. cit. p.364 Editor No.5, 7 Oct 1989, p.38
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what Nordlinger referred to as the tendency of praetorian leaders to attack problems in "a rapid, direct, inflexible and forceful manner", often with little regard for "institutional arrangements and roadblocks".90 The fact that such an interpretation does not sit comfortably with the generally cautious and law abiding face the New Order has tried to present to the outside world may reflect Suharto's growing confidence in his rule and a greater willingness on his part to override institutional constraints. Several commentators have noted a tone of brash self-assertiveness, even imperiousness, in the president's autobiography. As to the particular methods used, Suharto may have been inspired by the success of similar anti-crime campaigns carried out in Indonesia during the Japanese occupation.91 Suharto trained for four months with the Japanese sponsored police force and his first official post during the occupation was as an assistant to the Police Chief of Yogyakarta.92 When Yogyakarta was returned to Republican rule in July 1949, it was Lt Col Suharto, as commander of Brigade X, who was in charge of the military reoccupation of the city. His troops took immediately over from the police the general task of policing the city and made mass arrests not only of those accused of cooperating with the Dutch but also of bandits. What became of these prisoners is not clear, but it is difficult to picture them all being given a hearing in court in the circumstances. Republican military units are reported to have taken `heavy handed' action against bandit gangs at the time.93 There are also parallels between Petrus and some aspects of the post coup killings. One cannot fail to be struck for instance by the similarities in imagery and language employed. In both cases the target group was collectively portrayed as sadistic and biadab (savage, uncivilised) and the killings construed as an attempt to membersihkan or purify society in some way, to remove a cancer. In both cases military authorities used `hot' words such as sikat (wipe 90
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91
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92
93
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Eric Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Government, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1977 p.123 Jenkins, `Angels...' op. cit., p.29; Reuters cable, op. cit. O.G. Roeder, The Smiling General, President Soeharto of Indonesia, Gunung Agung Ltd, Jakarta 1970 (Second edition) p.100. Information kindly supplied by Robert Cribb.
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out), basmi (eliminate) and kikis (exterminate) while victims were euphemistically described as having been diamankan (secured) or ditindak (acted upon). There are also analogies between the mode of operation of the Petrus squads and the killings of leftists. This is true not so much for the immediate aftermath of the coup when the massacres were very widespread but for later episodes such as the mass killing of leftists in the Purwodadi area of Central Java in 1969, well after the New Order had established its rule.94 Most striking in both cases is the highly systematic, almost bureaucratic, way the military went about the killing. The reports of large scale killings of galis at the caves south of Yogyakarta "on Fridays and Sundays" and the claim that the military had a nationwide target of four thousand95 are strongly reminiscent of accounts from Purwodadi which describe a quota system which required that villages deliver seventy five people a night to the military for execution, a figure which was later reduced to seventy five every Saturday night.96 Analyzing the post coup massacres in East Java, Ken Young suggested that one of the factors which made them possible was the successful `dehumanisation' of the victims.97 A similar argument might also be applied to the Petrus killings. Just as communist sympathizers as a collectivity were regarded as having participated vicariously in the `sadistic'98 murder of Indonesia's top generals, `the galis' bore the blame for a relatively small (but well publicised) number of vicious crimes against innocents. Suharto's justification for the killings was framed in these terms: 94
.
95
. .
96
97 98
. .
On the Purwodadi killings see Jopie Lasut `Report from Purwodadi' and Maskun Iskandar `Purwodadi: Area of Death' as well as Robert Cribb's introduction to these pieces in Robert Cribb (ed.) The Indonesian killings of 1965-66: Studies from Java and Bali, (forthcoming Monash Monograph). See also Justus M. van der Kroef, `Indonesian Communism since the 1965 Coup', Pacific Affairs, vol.XLIII, No.1 Spring 1970 pp.51-54 Jenkins `Angels...', op. cit. Maskun Iskandar in Cribb, op. cit. There were also reports of systematic liquidation of communist political prisoners in 1968. See van der Kroef, `Indonesian Communism...', op. cit. pp.51-52 `Local and National Influences in the Violence of 1965', in Cribb, op. cit. The reason for the inverted commas can be found in Benedict Anderson, `How did the Generals Die', Indonesia 43, April 1987
Law, Crime and State Authority in Indonesia
"The actions of criminals ...not only broke the law but exceeded the bounds of humanity. For instance, an old person was robbed of various possessions and then killed. ...Later there was a woman whose valuables were taken and this woman was then raped by the criminal, in front of her husband what's more. That is going too far! Were we supposed to stand by and let such things continue?"99 It is also interesting to note suggestions that the actions of criminals were somehow alien to the Indonesian character. In the public discussion on the causes of the rise of violent crime there was much talk of the influence of outside factors such as sadistic western films, and Suharto in late 1981 was reported to have been "preoccupied with the question of how it was that Indonesians could kill so cruelly and wantonly".100 Similar sentiments were expressed by an ex-police chief who wrote in Kompas that "our nation is well known for its refined spirit and cannot accept behaviour among the youth which is liar (wild). In the Dutch days there was not this kind of crime against other Indonesians... only against the hated Dutch police and between Indonesians and Eurasians"101 Perhaps it was this construction of the `otherness' of criminals, also reflected in the tendency of public officials to use the terms gali, `criminal' and `recidivist' interchangeably, which helped to make the Petrus campaign possible. But we are left with the question of why the Petrus campaign did not meet with more opposition from within society at large. It is easy to say that it was all to do with the manipulation of public sentiment or that people had no choice but to accept it, but I do not think this is adequate. Had the killings been widely seen as an illegitimate and despotic intervention by the state against civil society, Suharto would not have gone out of his way to claim personal credit for them in his autobiography. One major reason for the lack of popular opposition to the killings appears to be that they 99 100 101
. . .
Soeharto, op. cit. p.364 Pelita, 16 December 1981 I.S. Wongsodiredjo (former Regional Police Chief of the Bali and Makassar police districts) in Kompas, 25 May 1983
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had an immediate and tangible effect on the level of street crime. But it is also worth considering the proposition that the killings did not offend the sense of justice prevailing in most parts of Indonesian society. Communal killings of thieves and other miscreants, known as keroyokan or tawur in Java, are common practice in many Indonesian cultures and are still a feature of kampung life in cities as well as villages.102 Although the systematic execution of large numbers of criminals by the state durig the Petrus campaign was far removed from the kind of automatic, communally sanctioned violence of the kampungs, it does not seem to have been perceived very differently. A common attitude I found at the time of the killings was that the galis had `brought it on themselves'. Even among the urban middle classes there were few signs that the killings transgressed any deeply held notions of fair play, although this probably owed more to callous pragmatism than to any commitment to a tradition of retributive justice. Despite the fall in support for the killings discussed above, there were few who sympathised with the arguments of groups such as the LBH in defence of the rights of the victims. Their general indifference to the killings was a striking example of the weak, and some say weakening, sense of social responsibility towards the poor prevailing among the Indonesian middle classes.103 It also revealed, as Daniel Lev has pointed out, the limited and basically self-interested nature of the middle classes' demands for `rule of law'.104
Conclusion
102
.
103
.
104
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Tempo, 16 October 1982 and 16 April 1983. See also Jim Siegel, Solo in the New Order, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1986 p.40. Even small time thieves have been known to be severely beaten or killed by kampung residents. Daniel Lev, Legal Aid in Indonesia, Working Paper No. 44, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, Clayton, 1987 p.29 and Howard Dick, `The Rise of a Middle Class and the Changing Concept of Equity in Indonesia: An Interpretation', Indonesia, No.39, April 1985 Daniel Lev, Ibid. pp.29-30. See also Daniel Lev `Intermediate Classes and Change in Indonesia: Some Initial Reflections' Paper for Conference on the Indonesian Middle Class, Monash University, June 1986 p.24
Law, Crime and State Authority in Indonesia
The Petrus killings can be seen as an attempt by Suharto to assert the authority of the government in the face of rising social unrest and the failure of the police to control a sharply increasing rate of violent crime. They were made possible by the enormous coercive capacity of the Indonesian state which was streamlined in 1983 when reform minded figures such as Jusuf were removed and Murdani was given control over both operational and intelligence wings of the armed forces. In a more general sense, the killings were facilitated by the dominance within the New Order of the security apparatus and ultimately, by the extreme concentration of power in the hands of the president. They demonstrated the ease with which the state is able to sidestep constitutional restraints and deploy extra-legal violence against its people when it chooses to do so. There can be no more fundamental expression, after all, of the despotic power of a state over its citizens than is represented by their selective murder. If the Petrus episode laid bare the weakness of legal and constitutional constraints on state power, it also helped reveal something about attitudes towards law and justice prevailing in Indonesian society. The relatively positive reception of the killings among urban kampung dwellers can be attributed to a social ethos which condones violence against violators of community norms and, implicitly, to a dissatisfaction with formal mechanisms of law enforcement. It also says a lot about the uncertainties and fears which the urban poor are forced to deal with in the course of their daily lives. The readiness of the bulk of the better-off classes to accept the killings reflects a view of poor, crowded urban kampung communities not substantially different to that adopted by the security apparatus: as breeding grounds for crime and unrest. Real disquiet among the middle classes emerged only when `mistakes' started to be made and the killings threatened to get `out of hand'. But it is important that the opposition to the killings not be underestimated. As I have tried to point out in this paper, domestic opposition to the killings did exist, and it was not confined to human rights activists. Many voices of opposition came from within the state itself, from politicians and bureaucrats who saw the killings as essentially destructive to their desire to promote legal certainty in government and a respect for the law and for the legal apparatus in society. Perhaps the most telling cleavage which the Petrus episode
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helped to illuminate was not between the `state' and `civil society' but between those within the state whose concept of authority is ultimately based on the force of arms and those who aspire to a future in which law replaces violence as the most effective means of social control. If the first group is most closely identified with Murdani and the present military elite, the latter comprises sections of Golkar, the legal bureaucracy and perhaps the range of interests represented by the Sudharmono faction in general.105 The increasing sophistication of the Indonesian economy and the growth of the domestic bourgeoisie have both led to demands for greater regularisation of legal procedures. These may or may not lead to more justice for those at the bottom of society, but they are likely to strengthen the hand of those forces within the state opposed to the application of violent solutions to complex social problems.
105
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Sudharmono kept a low profile on the Petrus issue, but it is significant that in the period leading to the 1988 MPR session, his supporters responded to signs charging Sudharmono with being a `protector of communists' with signs of their own saying `Benny Murdani - mysterious killer'. Interview notes (Jakarta May/June 1988) kindly provided to me by Richard Tanter.
