Chaos in East Timor

The government of Indonesia - which has for decades violently suppressed East Timor's struggle for independence - has said that it "respects and accepts" the choice of the people of East Timor, but Indonesian police and military are doing nothing to stop the violence, and are undoubtedly arming the militias. In many areas, the military is said to be openly co-ordinating the militias.

The Australian government is leading calls for international intervention, echoed by UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.

The independence movement had been confident of victory. But in the run-up to the vote, pro-Indonesian militias, tacitly supported by the Indonesian government, went on a campaign of terror. East Timorese leaders called for a UN force to intervene. "At this stage," said Jose Ramos Horta on 28 August, "a peacekeeping force is the only way to save the whole process and to save lives." On the same day, the Australian Financial Review declared flatly: "It is now clear that the Indonesian security forces have deliberately destroyed the chances of a free and fair independence ballot."

Indonesia is one of the world's biggest and most diverse countries, with 200 million people and dozens of ethnic and linguistic groups. For 30-odd years, until the fall of Suharto in May 1998, it was held together by an all-stifling military regime.

East Timor was a Portuguese colony for centuries, while Indonesia was "the Dutch East Indies". In 1975, Portuguese colonial rule in East Timor shattered, following the fall of the Caetano dictatorship in Portugal and victories for the independence movements in Portugal's African colonies. Given the green light by the USA and Australia, Indonesia seized the territory and kept control by massive repression.

Aceh is also rebelling against rule from Jakarta. Aceh, unlike East Timor, was part of the "Dutch East Indies", its northernmost tip, but discontent with Indonesian rule has been boosted by the way that almost all the revenue from rich oil and gas reserves in Aceh has been funnelled to Jakarta, leaving the Acehnese in poverty. Over the last 10 years, military repression has increased. On 4-5 August, the province was brought to a halt by a two-day protest general strike.

Indonesia's regime is now "Suhartoism without Suharto". There is much larger scope for independent working class organisation and democratic organisation than there was under Suharto, but the same officials run the state machine, the same generals run the army, Suharto's former deputy B. J. Habibie is president, the army continues to police daily life, and the same mass poverty continues, sharpened by Indonesia's catastrophic economic slump since 1997.

In the country's first elections since the fall of the dictatorship, held on 7 June, Megawati Sukarnoputri's PDI-Struggle won 24 million votes, while Golkar, the political party of the old military dictatorship, got 13 million. On the arithmetic, Megawati should be elected president by the People's Consultative Assembly when it meets in November. The exact outcome is not so certain, since the old Golkar machine may yet be able to keep B. J. Habibie as president with the help of minor parties and the army's guaranteed vote in the Assembly.

According to Max Lane in Green Left Weekly of 18 August: "If the Habibie group insists on an all-out push for the presidency, an explosion of political unrest is almost certain." For exactly that reason, big capital's "dream ticket" would probably be an alliance between Megawati and army chief Wiranto. Megawati has already told Business Week magazine: "The first priority is how to get the people to believe in their government... And then, after that, give the IMF a chance to solve the problems of the people of Indonesia". She is wooing the military. She has accepted a continuing "dual role" for the military - as an army and as a political and policing force - for the near future. And she defends Indonesia's claim to rule East Timor.

In Green Left Weekly of 25 August, Max Lane reported from a recent visit to Jakarta. "All over Jakarta, you could see small actions of one kind or another. Two hundred or more becak (pedi-cab) drivers drove down the main street to protest against harassment by city officials. In another place, 80 factory workers marched behind a banner demanding union rights.

"There were tents set up by students from campuses in West Timor protesting against the lack of facilities and repression there. A group of Megawati Sukarnoputri supporters marched down a main street with a 'She is My President' banner... Families of students shot in May 1998 rallied outside the UN offices demanding international support for the trial of the 'brains' behind the shootings. Several groups... protested in solidarity with the people of Aceh. More demonstrations demanded the trial of Suharto. On August 18, the TV showed 40 to 50 people with home loans occupying a bank to protest against the high interest rates..."

Apart from the relatively clear-cut secessionist movements in East Timor and Aceh, Indonesian politics is reviving slowly and patchily after the annihilating repression of Suharto. It is unsurprising that a bourgeois politician like Megawati should dominate mass politics at this stage, but remarkable that she should be able to do with so meagre an investment in commitments to or even rhetoric about change.

Indonesia's economy has changed dramatically since the 1980s, with a substantial growth of industry, and by 1997 fully 86 million of the country's 200 million people were wage-workers, 40 million of them in industry and services. But the workers' movement is still weak.

Nineteen independent trade union organisations have now emerged where once the government-controlled SPSI had a legal monopoly. Some of them have established an alliance, the FSU, to work together on common goals. The biggest independent union centre, the SBSI, claims 800 branches. According to Indonesian socialists, however, most unions still limit themselves to issues of wages and conditions - difficult enough in a drastic industrial slump - and lack confidence to take up broader political questions. In the June elections five socialist or workers' parties won about 200,000 votes between them.

Without a workers' movement strong enough to take a lead on the burning issues of democracy, there is a danger that the break-up of the old order will recruit forces for Islamic fundamentalism and communalism. Activists elsewhere should do all we can to help the Indonesian socialists gain strength and confidence, and to win freedom for political prisoners like PRD leader Budiman Sudjatmiko.