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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

THE GOON PATROL

How a military ploy backfired


Indonesia Confrontation and Crisis

Black Friday Jakarta burns again

Assembly Caught between Suharto and a hard place

THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO keep the peace, but they ended up in the thick of the violence. For the four-day MPR session, the military deployed civilian guards - known as pam swakarsa (literally "self-security") - whose ostensible role was to protect the Assembly building and direct traffic. Recruited from the outskirts of the capital and beyond, these militiamen acted under the banner of a radical Muslim, pro-government movement called the Muslim Forum to Uphold the Constitution and Justice (Furkon). It claimed the men were simply volunteers expressing their support for President Habibie. "We are only accommodating the political aspirations of these people," says Furkon official Nujamuddin Ramly.

Most Jakartans saw it differently. To them, the civilian guards were rabble-rousing thugs hired by Muslim extremists to do the military's dirty work - namely, intimidating students and other protesters. During the MPR session, truckloads of pam swakarsa vigilantes patrolled the city in an undisguised show of force. Brandishing sharpened bamboo sticks, they played Islamic music, shouted insults and threw rocks at students. A member of the Nahdlatul Ulama Muslim organization insists the vigilantes do not reflect the views of ordinary Indonesian Muslims. His message to the radicals: "Don't create confusion in the Islamic community."

Some of the militiamen were apparently unaware of what they were getting into. Pamungkas Eggie Prabowo, a 17-year-old student, says he was promised 10,000 rupiah (about $1.30), plus food each day, to settle a dispute between Muslims. Heru, an unemployed high-school graduate, was looking for a job when he came across a man distributing free lunches. Those who accepted the food were asked to join pam swakarsa. Recruits were given green headbands and bamboo staves, and were ordered to stop demonstrators from marching to parliament. "If I knew I was recruited to do this, I would have refused and stayed hungry," says Heru.

Whatever the personal motives of individual vigilantes, their presence inflamed the emotions of ordinary citizens, who saw them as symbols of all the autocratic excesses of the old order. Confrontation broke out on Nov. 10 when spear-wielding civilian guards provocatively camped out at the Proclamation Monument, where students were supposed to gather for their protest. Local residents, who decided that their neighborhood was no place for these goons, hurled stones and verbal abuse at the vigilantes. One woman even asked her son: "Do you want me to get my kitchen knife to make it easier to run through them?"

Furkon head Komaruddin Rachmat admits it was a mistake to hand out bamboo staves - which he insists were supposed to serve as flagpoles - but he defends the movement as a whole: "Imagine what would have happened if we had not been here. The students would have taken over parliament." Perhaps so, but the end result might be that more oil has been added to the fire.

- Reported by Dewi Loveard/Jakarta


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