History casts ominous shadow on Indonesia's future

By RICHARD LLOYD PARRY

JAKARTA - A pair of motorcycle-riding assassins have shot dead a Supreme Court judge who had imprisoned cronies of Indonesia's former dictator, Suharto. The killing was an ominous beginning for the new President, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, aged 61, had presided over trials involving two of the most notorious figures of Suharto's "New Order" regime.

He sentenced the ex-President's son, Hutomo "Tommy" Suharto, last September for a multimillion-dollar land swindle. He also gave a six-year sentence for corruption to Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, a close friend and former minister of Suharto who made millions from logging concessions he was awarded by the dictator.

Hasan is serving his time, but Tommy has been on the run since last November when he was to have been taken into custody. Rumours suggest he is still in the capital, but the family of the 79-year-old Suharto, who still lives quietly in central Jakarta, insist they have had no contact with him.

Tommy Suharto is something of a bogeyman in Jakarta. Despite the absence of any firm evidence, many Indonesians hold him responsible for a series of mysterious explosions in Jakarta over the past two years.

Many people will also blame him for Thursday's assassination. Police said two motorbike riders forced Kartasasmita's car to the roadside in a Jakarta suburb near his home. One of them shot him several times through the window.

Drive-by assassinations are almost unknown in Indonesia, where few people except members of the armed forces have access to firearms. The killing will increase fears that the forces of the corrupt New Order are taking advantage of Megawati's election to make a comeback.

The outgoing President, Abdurrahman Wahid, who was humiliatingly impeached on Monday, claimed that the presidency was now under the control of the military.

"You can see corruption will return," he said, before he took a flight to America where he will have medical tests. "They are now dividing the spoils - Indonesia will be looted. There will be no law and human rights will be [undermined]."

Megawati is under intense political pressure as she tries to balance the conflicting interests of the different parties that supported Wahid's impeachment.

Her own Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P) is a broad and divided grouping of democrats, nationalists and business associates of her husband, Taufiq Kiemas. But she is also indebted to the Muslim parties and to Golkar, the party of Suharto.

Megawati doesn't look like an authoritarian militarist.

A broad and matronly woman of 54 with an aversion to public speaking, she has been known to weep at reports of fighting and violence.

But many liberal Indonesians believe that the new President is an instinctive conservative whose commitment to justice and democracy is secondary to her belief in a strong and united Indonesia.

They believe that, in the absence of firm convictions of her own, she is being used by figures from the Suharto regime to further their own interests.

"She's simply not bright enough to understand the problems we face, and I don't believe in her management capabilities," says Arbi Sanit, a politics professor at the University of Indonesia and a member of a group of Indonesian non-government organisations that oppose her presidency.

"If Megawati is a locomotive, it is being driven by the forces of the New Order."

Feature: Indonesia

CIA World Factbook: Indonesia (with map)

Dept. of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia

Antara news agency

Indonesian Observer

The Jakarta Post

UN Transitional Administration in E Timor

East Timor Action Network