Indonesians Wary as Leader Supports Bill for Martial Law

On the front page of Indonesia’s largest newspaper Thursday was a photo of a student demonstrator being kicked and stomped on the head by four police officers.

Inside the pages of Kompas, the Jakarta daily, was an account of another demonstrator shot twice in the back by police dispersing a protest against army-backed militias rampaging in East Timor.

As the world awaits the arrival as early as this weekend of an Australian-led peacekeeping force in the ravaged territory, many Indonesians are equally concerned about what pro-democracy forces see as a grave human rights threat: a proposed national security law that would give Indonesian President B.J. Habibie greater authority to declare martial law, crack down on government critics and muzzle the media.

The beleaguered Habibie, who came to power 16 months ago with promises of political and economic reforms, is facing dissent at home and criticism abroad. Some observers here say he is pressing to give security forces more power and whipping up animosity toward foreigners, particularly Australians, in an attempt to ward off his mounting political woes.

Indonesians on both the right and left charge that he botched the handling of East Timor’s referendum last month on independence, triggering the violence that will bring peacekeepers to the territory. He faces accusations that a key presidential aide siphoned funds from the nationalized Bank of Bali for the ruling Golkar party’s political war chest. And there is growing opposition to the proposed state security law, which is expected to pass in parliament next week.

“Habibie cannot get the reforms going, so he incites hatred toward Australia,” Indonesian political analyst Wimar Witoelar said. “The more hatred toward outsiders, the less energy there is to think about our real enemies, which are the government and the military.”

The frayed relations between Indonesia and Australia unraveled further Thursday, when Indonesia announced that it was terminating a little-used 1995 treaty that called for enhanced security cooperation between the two nations.

“From an Indonesian security perspective, the treaty is not very important,” said Kusnanto Anggoro of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta. “The treaty has more symbolic meaning than practical benefits to either side.”

Moreover, Indonesian army leaders said Thursday that they intend to pull their troops out of East Timor as soon as it is practical to do so--in part so that Indonesia will not be blamed for the casualties they are warning peacekeepers to expect.

Small demonstrations against the Australian-led peacekeepers have erupted in Jakarta and other regions in recent days, including flag-burning and an attack on an Australian compound. About 600 people, offspring of the Indonesian army veterans who invaded East Timor in 1975, marched to the U.N. mission here Thursday demanding that Habibie step down and that the government exhume and repatriate the bodies of soldiers who died subduing the independence-minded territory.

That protest was tolerated, but the demonstration staged Wednesday in front of the U.N. mission against the military violence in East Timor and Aceh, another independence-seeking region, was aggressively dispersed. In addition to the protester who was shot, two others were injured as baton-wielding police chased the fleeing demonstrators through a nearby department store, according to witnesses and media reports.

“It’s outrageous,” said a U.N. official. “I heard gunfire, a dozen rounds of gunfire here in front of the office. They were carrying signs saying, ‘Stop the genocide in Aceh.’ There were 40 of them and about 400 policemen. They had no chance.”

A separate march by protesters against the security bill was broken up by police Wednesday. At least 19 protesters were detained, including Goenawan Mohammed, a founder of Tempo, a leading pro-democracy publication. Mohammed was later released.

The authorities have been emphatic in putting down demonstrations by the students and civic groups against the security bill, which would allow the president to declare a state of emergency in troubled territories and impose martial law without consulting with parliament. The security apparatus would be given wide powers against dissent, including authority to detain people without charge, ban demonstrations, restrict print and electronic media, and take over mail and telecommunications services.

“The planned bill is against every value of human rights and clearly against reform,” said Asep Mohammed Ridwan, a law student leading a protest against the bill in the central Java city of Semarang, the Jakarta Post reported. “If the bill is endorsed, the military will have the justification to intimidate, torture, arrest and even kill.”

Activists and commentators say the law could strengthen the hand of the military this fall when parliament will convene to decide whether to ratify the Aug. 30 vote for independence in East Timor and to choose the next Indonesian president.

“It is very much an impediment to the democratic process,” Witoelar said. “The military was seen at the conception of the republic as a force to protect Indonesia from outside forces. Now it is used to protect the government from the citizens.”