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Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?

Asiaweek Time Asia Now Asiaweek story

A NATION SAVAGED

Indonesia must move to reconcile with its Chinese


"I SAW SOME PEOPLE among the crowd stopping a car. They dragged out two girls, ripped off their shirts and raped them. The girls tried to fight back, but it was useless." These and many other detailed, eyewitness accounts now emerging make it impossible to deny that organized gang-rapes of ethnic-Chinese women and children were a grisly subplot to the riots that engulfed Jakarta and other parts of Indonesia on May 13-15, just before Suharto resigned as president. The example cited comes from a detailed report compiled in late July by the Indonesian human rights group, Volunteers Team for Humanity. It makes for chilling reading. Last week, the United Nations Development Fund for Women maintained that the rapes, at least 168, had been planned to terrorize the Chinese community.

Like the delayed action of a time bomb, the episode of violence is becoming more than just a human tragedy. It is fast turning into an international issue that could hurt Indonesia's chances of extricating itself from the depths of economic depression. Taiwan Foreign Minister Jason Hu has lodged a formal complaint with Jakarta's chief representative in Taipei. China, too, has issued a statement of "deep concern." Its foreign minister said his government would be "watching to see" if the perpetrators were found and duly punished. The move was unusual because Beijing had long been mindful of Jakarta's acute sensitivity to any Chinese interference in Indonesia's internal affairs, especially concerning Chinese Indonesians. But public anger over the brutalization has boiled over in Taiwan and in Hong Kong, where information circulates freely and people are at liberty to vent their feelings. As in the case of the Japanese-held Diaoyu islands, the emotional engagement of ordinary citizens is running higher than that of their governments.

Only now is a clearer picture emerging of the traumatic events of May, when trained goons, recruited and organized by shadowy agitators, sought out Chinese women to attack. Indeed, well into June, Jakarta officially denied that any assaults had occurred. It wasn't until July 15 that President B.J. Habibie issued an apology of sorts: "After hearing the reports, I expressed my deepest regrets at the violence which runs counter to the nation's cultural values." But three days later, he told The Washington Post: "If the Chinese [who fled abroad] don't come back because they don't trust their own country and society, I can't force them . . . Their place will be taken by others." Yet in an interview last week with the Asian Wall Street Journal, the president insisted he had "full sympathy" with the Chinese and urged them to "come home."

Regrettably, too many other powerful figures in Indonesia, including members of Habibie's new cabinet, seem similarly ambivalent toward the Chinese minority. Some would not be unhappy if a few of the business conglomerates built up by ethnic Chinese and dominating the economy, were to crumble so that well-placed pribumi, or indigenous Indonesians, might pick up the pieces. That is precisely the wrong attitude to display at this critical time. With the economy in a free fall, Indonesia more than ever needs the skills and wealth of its Chinese citizens, not to mention their extensive networks and business ties throughout the region and the world. Nor is now the moment to be antagonizing longtime friends and trade partners, such as Taiwan, which has enthusiastically invested in Indonesia. Indeed, fears of worsening ethnic tensions would prompt all investors to stay clear of the country.

Belatedly, Jakarta has formed a commission to investigate the rapes and riots. The body has three months in which to complete the task of identifying the individuals and groups responsible for the mayhem and bringing them to justice. Its 18 members include officials as well as several appointed from non-government organizations and from the National Committee on Human Rights. But the presence of military figures, as well as the absence of a single ethnic Chinese, have cast doubts on the panel's credibility. The commission will have to overcome such skepticism to prove itself. The people responsible for the crimes must be plausibly identified and appropriately punished. Until that happens, Indonesia's deep ethnic wounds cannot begin to heal. Its economic rehabilitation will also be retarded.

But it would be too easy to say, once the perpetrators have been punished, everything will be all right. The rapes have been aptly described as a kind of "collective failure" of the nation. The investigation would fall short if it did not spark a deeper soul-searching about how the crimes could have happened, and what can be done to make Indonesia a place where pribumi and Chinese are able to feel a lot more comfortable with each other. Each group, clearly, needs to rethink its traditional attitudes toward the other. Perhaps some inspiration can be found in Malaysia, where race riots in 1969 produced policies and compromises that ushered in three decades of relative peace and harmony among ethnic groups. The core of any civil society is civility. That is why the violence against the Chinese strikes not just at one group, but at the very heart of Indonesia as a civilized nation.


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