By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Aug 2 1996 (IPS)

Expressing growing U.S. concern with recent civil unrest in Indonesia, Secretary of State Warren Christopher has called for “an orderly transition of power” in the world’s fourth most populous nation.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Christopher, who returned from a trip for the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta last week, said Washington “will be encouraging a transition (in Indonesia) that expresses the popular will.”

“At the present time, I think there’s a strong interest in seeing an orderly transition of power there that will recognise the pluralism that should exist in a country of that magnitude and importance,” Christopher said here Thursday.

Administration and independent analysts say it is the first time they could recall a senior U.S. official endorsing a change in the government ruled over by President Suharto for the past 30 years. Suharto is expected to run for re-election in the 1998 elections.

“It’s a very strong political message,” said Sidney Jones, a veteran Indonesia-watcher and head of the New York-based human rights group, Human Rights Watch/Asia. “I think there really is increasing worry that Suharto is old and vulnerable, and there isn’t anyone around to replace him.”

Christopher’s remarks came several days after the most serious anti-government rioting in more than two decades. The rioting followed the forcible eviction by police of supporters of opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri from the headquarters of her Indonesian Democracy Party (PDI).

Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, had become a rallying point for a broad coalition of opposition forces since she was ousted as the PDI’s leader in a party convention orchestrated by the government in late June. After she refused to recognise the results of the convention, her followers occupied the PDI headquarters in Jakarta until they were forcibly removed last Saturday night.

That assault set off the rioting in which banks and other businesses reputedly owned by close associates of the Suharto family and ethnic Chinese were reported to have been selectively attacked.

“The government didn’t expect the opposition it got in the streets,” said Prof. Dan Lev, an Indonesia expert at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Things have quieted down, but everyone in the government is aware of how much anger there is, and no one knows what to do about it.”

Since the violence, in which at least three people were killed, the authorities have reportedly rounded up dozens of opposition figures. The most immediate targets are activists of a more left- wing party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which the government has accused of masterminding the violence.

But others have also been swept up in the dragnet, according to reports received here. Muchtar Pakpahan, chairman of the unofficial Indonesian Prosperous Workers Union, was arrested earlier this week, and Ridwan Saidi, head of a coalition of 30 non- governmental organisations (NGOs), has reportedly been called in for questioning.

“The effort now appears to be to decapitate various groups and go after anybody who is associated with the PDP and with group associated with Megawati,” Jones said Thursday. “There will be a lot of arrests over the next month or so.”

The State Department was unusually critical of the government’s expulsion of the PDI activists. On Monday, spokesman Nicholas Burns said Washington was “seriously disturbed by the use of violence” to end the occupation. “We’re deeply concerned by the apparent violation” of the rights to freedom of speech, association and peaceful assembly he told reporters.

U.S. media comment has also been highly critical of Jakarta. Most accounts of the rioting have mocked the government’s charges that the PDP was behind the violence, asserting instead that the violence was precipitated by the government’s panic over the rapid coalescing of the opposition around Megawati and popular anger against the regime’s corruption and what the influential national daily, ‘Journal of Commerce’ called “increased frustration over a widening gap between rich and poor.”

Indeed, U.S. media coverage of the Indonesian economy — which continues to be held up as a model by the World Bank — has turned increasingly negative in recent months.

In March, for example, the New York Times ran a feature story entitled ‘An Indonesian Asset Is Also a Liability: Low Wages Woo Foreign Business, But the Price is Worker Poverty.’ A month later, the Times ran a longer story focusing directly on the Suharto family: Corrupt Leaders in Indonesia Threaten Its Future,’ ran a headline. The Times warned Thursday that “the Suharto regime must now choose between its own perpetuation in power and an orderly political transition.”

The influential Business Week also ran a story recently entitled ‘Suharto’s Grip is Loosening: Who Will Come Next?’ in which it suggested that the president had become more protective of his children’s business interests than the country’s healthy economic development.

The opinion of international investors will count for more than Christopher’s own views as events unfold in Indonesia, according to Lev, who noted that President Bill Clinton’s flip-flops on human rights abuses in China had undermined his credibility with Jakarta.

“The key is, what impact this will have on investment,” said Lev. “The whole point of the regime has been to offer stability, which obviously it can’t guarantee anymore.”

Christopher’s words could still have an important impact, according to Jones, however. “It may serve as a warning to people close to Suharto that they should be much more upfront than they have been so far about making a decision about (Suharto’s) succession.”

Lev also sees signs of more dissension within the government and the army. “A lot of people in the government are shutting up — obviously an indication that they don’t like what’s happening,” he noted. “This is end-of-regime stuff, and it has the feel of 1964. Everyone knows this can’t go on.”

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