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How ex-generals wage war on democracy
There have been almost no political issues in Indonesia’s modern history that didn’t involve some members of the Army elite.
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Protestors throw rocks at antiriot police in Petamburan, Central Jakarta. (JP/Jerry Adiguna)
T
he weeks-long protests and defiant attitude of defeated presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, followed by rioting in Jakarta on May 21 and 22, have opened a new dimension in Indonesian politics.
No less than half a dozen retired generals, many of them prominent during the last years of president Soeharto’s New Order, were reportedly involved in the protests against the authorities.
Prabowo had lost his bid for the presidency, but he made it clear he would not go down without a fight.
All ex-commanders of the Army’s elite Special Forces (Kopassus), which Prabowo once led, were reportedly to join the rally of his supporters on May 22, but following the Army chief’s intervention, a number of former Kopassus commanders suddenly got together to demonstrate their unity.
The leading armed services personnel had thus been kept unaware of and taken by surprise by Prabowo’s call for their former colleagues to demonstrate their support for him.
Responding to Prabowo’s challenge just one day before the rioting started on May 21, a number of former Kopassus commanders who are loyal to the authorities took an unprecedented step to firmly declare unity, insisting that they wouldn’t participate in any unconstitutional acts — thus denying that Prabowo’s claim about the outcome of the presidential election is legitimate.
Yet it took two days before Prabowo himself, on the afternoon of May 22, called on his supporters to obey lawful security agents, even as authorities said eight persons had died as a result of the rioting.
