Indonesia searching for direction The Australian Stephen FitzpatrickJakarta | May 19 2008
IT probably took a defence minister uttering it for the heresy to be convincingbut here it is: 10 years into the reform process that put him in the top jobIndonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono might be too nice a guy to keep the wolves from the door.
"SBY (the genial leader's much-used nickname) is probably the most honest and decent president I've served under - and I've served under five presidents - but the problem is now whether decency is enough to run a country" suggested the urbane political scientist Juwono Sudarsonotasked with reforming the military machine responsible for enforcing the 32-year reign of the late dictator General Suharto.
"I think at some point as the leader of a countryyou have to be ruthless."
Ruthlessthat islike Suharto.
The straight-shooting Sudarsono - whoit should be made clearis a loyal and effective lieutenant to the much-decorated retired general who appointed him and who now is manoeuvring himself towards the 2009 general elections - is not the only one criticising the slow pace of reform coming out of the national parliament building in SenayanSouth Jakarta.
A decade after the dream-like and ersatz people power revolution that ended Suharto's reignIndonesia still has no adequately robust mechanism of civilian ruleSudarsono argues.
Ten years ago this weekthousands of protesting studentsgathered under the banner of "reformasi"occupied the seat of government in Senayan.
Four of their number had died in a hail of gunfire days earlier and vast numbers of Chinese Indonesians had been terrorisedraped and had their businesses and homes destroyed by curiously enraged mobs.
Jakarta was ablazea massiveand largely secretpower struggle involving the generals and the tip of Indonesian society engorged by the illicit gains of Suharto's extraordinary crony capitalismwas in full roar.
Finally bowing to the pressureSuharto executed what he describedin almost mystical Javanese termsas an act of lengser keprabon: not resigningexactlybut simply ceasing to rule.
It was an abdication: suitablysince the old man saw himself as the kind of king around whom ancient kingdoms were founded.
Ten years onand the lack of progress in creating an effective civilian replacement for Suharto's divide-and-rule government could theoretically presage a new military resurgence - butSudarsono jokedthere was probably little fear of thatsince the meticulous crafting of consensus in the People's Consultative Assembly on the hill at Senayan was already being done by a general.
But as the world food crisis ratchets up the pressure on the vast mass of Indonesia's more than 230 million peopleand as Yudhoyono prepares to announce a massive reduction in government fuel subsidies in an attempt to reel in a massive budget blowoutquestions are being asked about how reform-minded his administration really is.
US historian Benedict Andersonthe godfather of modern Indonesian studiesfamously banished by Suharto for adroitly questioning the founding myths of the strongman's rulewrote in a scathing obituary that "cynics joke that there used to be one big Suhartonow there are hundreds of little ones".
Certainly the idea of bringing to justice anyone responsible for plundering the nation's natural resourcesfor the perpetration of gross human rights violations during Suharto's rule and since - or for gutting the country's economy for the benefit of a handful of cronies whose power dates back to the superstitious tyrant's iron grip on affairs - is largely a foreign one.
Sudarsono claims the country is losing up to $US16 billion ($16.8billion) annually through the smuggling of Indonesia's forestfisheries and other natural resources.
And it's not only Yudhoyono to blame for all of that.
The three presidents between Suharto and Yudhoyono - the lightweight windbag BJ Habibiethe ponderous and inscrutable Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid and the do-nothing housewife Megawati Sukarnoputri - left no legacy of reformthe petulant casting aside of East Timor on Habibie's watch in 1999 notwithstanding.
Anderson believes Yudhoyono's re-election at polls next year to be "not very likely"since he has "largely succumbed to the logic of cartelisation: passivitysystematic incorporation of any possible parliamentary oppositionand catholic division of the emoluments in his gift".
Anderson has long been a bitter critic of the leadership in the land he first began to love as an undergraduate butlike Sudarsono'shis words resonate among the current crop of student leaders.
Governance in Indonesia is "just garbage outgarbage in"said Muhammad RodliGeneral Secretary of the Indonesian Muslim Students Movementexplaining that poor parliamentary performance was due to a lack of recruitment of party members holding firm the interests of national development.
And as the country pauses on Wednesday to remember Suharto's momentous loosening of the reinsmany will utter the standard Indonesian truism thatin all kinds of waysthe past was a more certain time.
"Looking backone can understand why some people long for the days of certainty (under Suharto)" Sudarsono admits.
"Insteadwhat we have now is noisymessy and pesky - all three of those at once."
