[asia-apec 55] Boycott Suharto

[Peter Holden]

                CALL FOR BOYCOTT  OF ALL
                INDONESIAN BUSINESSES
                RELATED TO SUHARTO'S FAMILY
                AND CRONIES
                ---------------------------------------------

        GARUDA Indonesian Airline offices in Europe and Australia, are
starting to become targets of protests against the Suharto regime, after
the regime's brutal intervention in Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI), which led to the bloody attack on PDI's
headquarters, on Saturday, July 27, 1996. All pro-democracy activists in
Indonesia do appreciate these campaigns. Unfortunately, it is not enough to
bring this bloody regime down to its knees, and more pressure needs to be
excerted, internationally now, after the domestic movement is facing a
harsh crackdown from the regime.

        The attack on the PDI headquarters, is a blatant replay of the
regime's invasion and consequent occupation of East Timor. Various
similarities can be raised. Firstly, the deliberate efforts to create
divisions within the group to be conquered, by openly favoring one group to
be pitched against the other. In Indonesia we call this "taktik adu ayam
jago", or the cock-fight tactic. Secondly, when it was time to physically
invade and occupy East Timor as well as the PDI headquarters, the regime
used a variety of actors, namely regular troops disguised as civilians,
civilians from the favored side, and then regular military to finish it of.
By appplying this two tactics, the regime could claim that it was an
internal conflict, which "unfortunately" spilled over beyond the confines
of the group to be subdued. This, again "unfortunately", forced the
Indonesian armed forces to interfere, to prevent further blood shed.

        Talking about bloodshed, this is again another similarity between
the invasion and occupation of the PDI headquarters, and the invasion and
occupation of East Timor, since 1975. The regime's intervention did not
prevent more bloodshed, but created even more bloodshed. The casualties in
the so-called 'civil war' between UDT and Fretilin from August till
September 1975, had led to about 2,000 casualties, as admitted by Fretilin
spokepersons themselves on various occasions. The Indonesian invasion and
occupation, on the other hand, has led to between 200,000 and 300,000 lives
lost in East Timor.

        In the case of the PDI conflict between the pro-Megawati and the
pro-Suryadi factions, there had been no casualties at all between the two
groups, prior to the military intervention. Only after the military cracked
down on the pro-Megawati demonstrators near the Gambir train station on
June 20, 1996, victims began to fall. And eventually, on June 27, 1996,
more than one hundred victims have died, according to the liberal Muslim
democrat, Abdurrachman Wahid, or popularly known as "Gus Dur".

        Here we come then to the fourth similarity between the treatment of
East Timor and PDI: in the most well-publicized cases, conflicting numbers
of casualties have emerged. In the Dili massacre on November 12, 1991, the
Suharto regime only admitted as high as fifty casualties, without providing
the list of names of the deceased and their graves. On the other hand, the
East Timorese resistance, under the leadership of Xanana Gusmao, whom at
that time had not yet been caught, managed to obtain a list of 271 names
from the parents of the missing youth, the parishes, and medical staff.

        In the attack on the PDI headquarters, which we can objectively
label as "the second Jakarta massacre" during the New Order, after a
previous massacre of Muslim demonstrators in the Tanjung Priok harbour in
September 1984, the regime only admitted that two people had been killed.
One of these casualties, has even been blamed to the demonstrators, because
this person died when he jumped down from a building burned by the
demonstrators. On the other hand, during the first day of the uprising,
after the attack on the PDI headquarters, people were already talking about
a number of 47 casualties. And a week later, Gus Dur's figure of more than
one hundred dead became the most well-believed figure, based on the
investigations of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and the PDI
officials themselves.

        In terms of the actual operation of the attacks, there are also
some similarities. During the attack on the demonstrating youth in Santa
Cruz, Dili, fire fighters with their water cannons were already present at
the scene, minutes after the shots had been fired, to wash away the blood
from the streets. Similarly, water cannons were very quick to flush the
blood away from the PDI compound, after the specially trained troops had
carried out their bloody job, in this case with clubs, knives, and stones.

        The treatment of journalists by the invading troops was somehow
rather similar in East Timor as during the attacks on the PDI headquarters.
Alan Nairn,  one of the American journalists present at Santa Cruz had
suffered severe concusions from the rifle buts of the Indonesian soldiers.
While during the "Diponegoro massacre" (I call it so, since it happened on
the Diponegoro boulevard in the heart of Jakarta), one Indonesian
journalist, Sukma, had suffered severe injuries when he was repeatedly
beaten by the Indonesian soldiers and police.

        Finally, one of the most important similarity between the two
geographically and politically completely different cases is that there
were similar scapegoats to be butchered in East Timor as in PDI, namely
Communists. One of the rationales of invading and occupying East Timor, is
to protect the Indonesian body from the virus of Communism, which was
claimed to have entered East Timor through the radical nationalist party,
Fretilin. Hence, it was a self-preserving operation, so to speak.

        Likewise, in only two days after the attack on the PDI
headquarters, which triggered a selectively targeted attack by angry mobs
on numerous buildings owned by the government, the military, and some
private companies, the regime had found its scapegoat to blame for the
riots. Who else, if not the most radical wing of the student movement,
which had formed its own political party, the People's Democratic Party, or
PRD according to its Indonesian abreviation (Partai Rakyat Demokratik). And
since most of the PRD leaders had been able to escape the regime's nets by
going underground, the regime had to please itself by arresting a trade
unionist, Dr Muchtar Pakpahan, a labour and constitutional lawyer, who had
just been released after a brief period of inculceration, when he was
wrongly accused of master minding an ethnic riot in Medan, North Sumatra.
He is currently charged with subversion, which under the draconian
Indonesian Anti-Subversion Act, inherited by the regime from its colonial
masters, can carry a life-long sentence.

        Currently, PRD activists all over the country are suffering from a
McCarthyan witch-hunt, so anachronical in this post-Cold War era. Three PRD
activists, Dita Indah Sari, Cun Husain Pontoh, and Sholeh, who were
detained after leading a mass demonstration of workers in Surabaya, East
Java, on July 8, 1996, are already languishing in police cells in Surabaya,
were charges against them are being prepared for inciting public unrest,
which carry a possible sentence of six years imprisonment. Meanwhile, their
27-years colleague, Budiman Sudjatmiko, who had recently been elected in
the party's first congress as their leader, is also charged, in absentia,
with the same sentence as Muchtar Pakpahan, namely subversion.

        Although the pro-democracy movement which has nominated Megawati
Sukarnoputri as its candidate for Indonesia's next president is a quite
wide alliance of different groups (see my posting on Apakabar, in early
July 1996), activists who are actually leaders of the mass organizations
under the PRD umbrella, or only suspected of being PRD activists, have been
targeted by the military and police in Java. Not only the national and
provincial headquarters of PRD has been occupied and seized by the
authorities, but also the houses of the parents of these young activists
have been raided by the military, police, and government-controlled
neighbourhood leaders. In Surabaya, three activists of PRD's student
organisation, SMID, have been detained. in Yogyakarta, apart from
interrogating fourteen student activists, five of them have been tortured
during the interrogation, to force them into admitting that they were PRD
members.

        Meanwhile, in Jakarta, Megawati Sukarnoputri and three ofher
members of the parliament from the PDI, are going to face a similar fate as
the outspoken Muslim politician, Sri Bintang Pamungkas, namely to be
interrogated and possibly charged of being complicit in a conspiracy to
insult, if not also to overthrow, the government. In addition, several
outspoken social activist, such as Ridwan Saidi, a former leader of the
Indonesian Islamic Students Association (HMI), and Permadi SK, an outspoken
Sukarnoist, as well as other persons who had been involved in the campaign
to defend Megawati's legitimate right as PDI chairperson and presidential
candidate, are also enduring tens of grilling interogation hours in the
Jakarta police and Attorney General office.

        Taking all these repressive developments into consideration, I
believe that the political pressure to bring the Suharto's regime to its
senses, that it is time to enable a constitutional transfer of power, the
only thing that Megawati and all her supporters were dreaming of, is not
enough. The political pressure which the US and European nations are
beginning to exert on Jakarta, should be combined with more economic
pressure. Economic pressure on all the overseas Suharto-related businesses
is crucial, since that, among other things, is what the Suharto oligarchy
wants to accumulate, unendedly.

        This economic pressure could be exercised in various ways, which I
will outline as follows:

(1).    Let us continue the pickets in front of the Indonesian airlines,
both Garuda as well as Sempati, since the funds of the public company
Garuda has now been used to finance Suharto's East Timor campaigns, such as
building an unwanted US$ 6 million statue of Christ in Dili, and since
Sempati Airlines is owned by the Indonesian Army and Tommy Suharto, who
made his wealth from exploiting Indonesian clove farmers and now from
robbing  millions of dollars from the Indonesian national coffers by his
duty-free imported Korean cars, rebaptized as the "Timor car" by his
father, an insult to the suffering of the Maubere people;

(2).     Let us declare a consumer boycott of daily consumer products which
are currently monopolized by the Suharto oligarchy, such as the instant
noodles made by the Indofood Group, a member of the Salim Group, owned by
the richest Indonesian businessman, Liem Soei Liong and his relatives,
Sudwikatmono, Suharto's half brother, and two of Suharto's children, Sigit
and Tutut;

(3).    Through another company group, namely the First Pacific Group, the
Salim Group has also penetrated the Australian market, by forming a joint
venture with the Australian real-estate group, FPD Raine & Horne; hence,
specifically to the Australian supporters of the Indonesian pro-democracy
movement, I appeal to campaign for a consumer boycott and picketing of
Raine & Horne branches all over Australia;

(4).    To our friends of the Indonesian pro-democracy movement I also
appeal to campaign for a consumer boycott and picketing of Chesterton
International,  the real estate marketing company which is silently
continuing to market the luxury houses in the Bali Nirwana Resort project
near the sacred Hindu temple in Tanah Lot, Bali, despite the public outrage
against this religious desacration of the Hindu-Bali religion and culture;
the Indonesian owners of this resort, the Bakrie Brothers, have thrived in
their business from their close cooperation with Suharto's children and his
half-brother, Sudwikatmono, and one of Suharto's minister, Tungky
Ariwibowo, who is also a business partner in Tommy Suharto's Sentul racing
circuit;

(5).    Apart from Chesterton International, which is a world-wide company,
a Melbourne-based company, Meinhardt International, which has also grown
into an international company, has been involved in numerous luxurious
tourism projects, which has wasted Indonesian taxpayers money, scarce
farming land, and evict poor farmers from their land. Apart from designing
the Amanusa resort in Bali, which is owned by one of Suharto's sons, Sigit
Harjojudanto, Meinhardt International has also designed the 22,000 hectare
Bintan Beach international resort on the island of Bintan, near Singapore.
While the local farmers have been very poorly paid and raised their
concerns in the national parliament, the Indonesian owner of the resort,
another son of Suharto, Bambang Trihatmojo and the Navy, will enjoy the
benefits of this gigantic tourist project, together with their Singaporean
partners. Hence, let us picket in front of  Mr Bill Meinhardt's office in
Melbourne, and urge him to stop further business deals with the Suharto
kleptocracy;

(6).    Speaking about tourism, no other sector concentrated on one island
is so dominated by the companies owned by the Suharto dynasty, as luxury
tourism in Bali. And it is still expanding, drastically, with the
construction of Tommy Suharto's new 650 Ha Bali Pecatu Graha project, with
multiple star hotels and golf courses, after already owning two Four
Seasons Regent hotels on that island. Hence, supporters of the Indonesian
pro-democracy movement can help to exert some economic pressure on the
Suharto regime, while helping to save Bali's delicate culture and
environment, by boycotting luxury tourism projects in Bali;

(7).    Let us appeal to the public and to private companies to boycott
three brands of car and industrial batteries -- Exide (formerly British),
Century (formerly Australian) and Yuasa (still partly Japanese) --, since
these battery manufacturing and distributing companies are owned by the
Wanandi Brothers, with its main offices in Sydney and Brisbane, as well as
in the UK and Ireland;

(8).    These Wanandi Brothers, whose Gemala Group of companies made their
wealth through their close association with Suharto's private assistants
and Suharto's former military unit, Kostrad, which was the main killing
force during the invasion of East Timor in 1975. Their companies also
obtained their capital by deferring the payments of nearly US$ 26 million
from an Indonesian state bank, Bank Bumi Daya, depriving small Indonesian
businesses from much needed capital. In addition, the Gemala Group has also
exploited its own workers in its US subsidiary, Trailmobile, and has
supported the PDI politician, Suryadi, who unconstitutionally disposed
Megawati Sukarnoputri from her leadership of the party, and cooperated in
the military attack on the PDI headquarters; hence, to the Australian
public I specifally appeal to boycott products from the Australian pharmacy
group, Amcal, which has began a joint-venture with the Gemala Group in
Indonesia;

(9).    A 60% stake in Australia's largest video rental company, Video Ezy
International, has recently been acquired by Berjaya Group from Malaysia.
The shareholders of this group includes Mohkzani Mahathir, son of Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, and Indonesian businessman Johanes Kotjo,
a member of Bambang Trihatmojo's Bimantara Group. Hence, I encourage all
the friends of  the Indonesian pro-democracy movement in Australia, New
Zealand, and Malaysia, to tell the Video Ezy customers, that their money is
helping to enrich the ASEAN clique, which has supported Indonesia's
invasion of East Timor, as well as repress their own dissenters in Malaysia
and Indonesia;

(10).    Finally, I appeal to all the friends of the Indonesian
pro-democracy movement to hold picket lines in front of the branches of the
private banks owned by the Suharto family and their cronies, such as the
Lippo Bank, owned by the Riyadi family, a former banker of the Salim
Group's Bank Central Asia (BCA), where two of the Suharto siblings own 32 %
shares, Bank Central Asia itself, Bank Pacific, owned by the family of
Retired General Ibnu Sutowo, Suharto's best-friend who never had to be
accountable for the US$ 10 billion credit scandal of Indonesia's oil
company, Pertamina.

Other steps could be thought of and taken in due time, based on specific
conditions in each country and in each city, all over the world, where the
Suharto family and their cronies own or operate their businesses. As is
shown by the worldwide Anti-Apartheid campaign, economic sanctions really
make a difference.

All these steps may hopefully help to create some political space for our
friends in Indonesia and East Timor, who have just began to forge an
alliance against the same repressive regime which have colonized both
groups during the last twenty years. This alliance is what the Suharto
regime is afraid of, and that it why the People's Democratic Party (PRD)
and Muchtar Pakpahan, two important political actors, which have publically
defended the East Timorese self-determination right, have been 'chosen' as
the prime suspects of the July 27 riots. Riots, which were only the logical
consequence of decades of repressed political disatisfaction, triggered by
the brutal attack on the PDI headquarters, their short-lived "fortress of
democracy", as short-lived as the Tienanmien student's "Goddess of
Democracy".

So, with that message in mind, I leave it up to you to decide, what to do
to support the Indonesian democratic struggle to end the Suharto oligarchy.
Thank you very much for your support. May God, and the Indonesian people,
reward you for your support, one day.

Your brother in the struggle,

Dr George J. Aditjondro
Indonesian dissident in self-imposed exile
for responses, use fax: (61-49) 677 053
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