Megawati to pull the reins on regional autonomy

By Amy Chew in Jakarta

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri is expected to take a tougher stance toward Aceh and Irian Jaya with the appointment of a top general to head the powerful home affairs ministry which oversees the country's provinces.

Her predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid, had sought to ease tensions in the two rebellious provinces by promising greater autonomy, but analysts say Megawati looks set to either slow or reverse the process after she picked Lieutenant-General Hari Sabarno, over civilian candidates, as her minister of home affairs.

Sabarno is the 11th consecutive home affairs minister to be drawn from the military. Military officers have held the post since the mid-sixties when former President Suharto came to power.

"It has never been led by a civiliian. The old paradigm of the home affairs is a means to control the regional government. It's a machine for centralistic government and that seems likely to continue although Pak Hari is a nice person," said Andi Mallarangeng, an analyst from the Institute of Government Studies.

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An affable, popular and open-minded officer, Sabarno was a deputy speaker at the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the country's highest law-making body, prior to his appointment.

Refusing to comment on the concerns over whether he would take a hardline stance toward the provinces, Sabarno said:"Wait, it would be proven later whether I am a democratic or an authorotarian."

The promise of greater autonomy for all provinces is contained in the regional autonomy law which took effect on January 1 this year, but its implementation has yet to be completed.

The law gives provinces greater control over their wealth and more political rights as part of the drive to sooth tension in an attempt to keep the nation from tearing apart.

Pessimism

Many are pessimistic however over the law's future after the failure of Megawati to place the ministry under civilian control, the exclusion of decentralisation from the cabinet's list of priorities and the dropping of the name "regional autonomy" from its previous name of Ministry of Home Affairs and Regional Autonomy.

"The dropping of the name regional autonomy could be the government has low priority on regional autonomy or might be reversing regional autonomy. I am hoping it is not the case," Mallarangeng said.

Megawati is believed to hold the view that giving too much autonomy to the provinces would lead to disintegration.

"No matter who becomes minister of home affairs, civilian or military, she (Megawati) basically wants to slow down. She gets wrong advice from her inner circle ... (that) regional autonomy is dangerous to national integration," said former regional autonomy minister Ryaas Rasyid.

"Regional autonomy is one of the solutions to the national disintegration threat. If you do the implementation right, you will save the country because it is a matter of local people's dignity..to make people get access to the decision-making process," .

"There is nothing wrong with regional autonomy, it is the implementation that might go wrong," Ryaas added.

Outside forces

Last week, a senior military source said that any hardening toward Aceh and Irian Jaya was more likely to come from retired generals from Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDIP) than from the president herself.

Mallarangeng warned that backtracking on decentralisation would intensify tensions in the resource-rich provinces of Aceh and Irian Jaya which have turned restive after years of seeing their wealth siphoned off to Jakarta while receiving little in return.

"Recentralisation would lead to disintegration. The local people don't have any say in their own affairs, no control in bringing injustices to be redressed and that's why the Acenese and Papuans are rebelling," said Mallarangeng.