The euphoria at the departure of Indonesia's President Suharto knew no bounds last month. Suddenly the man who came to power over 30 years ago on the back of one of the most repressive coups ever was forced out of office. With him went his hated family, including his son in law who was forced to resign as an army general. Suharto represented everything that the mass of Indonesians had come to hate: his corruption was legendary, his military repression matched only by a complete contempt for any democracy, as witnessed by his own rigged re-election earlier this year.
It is not clear at what point this respected friend and ally of the western powers became in their eyes a corrupt dictator who had to be overthrown. But we can be sure that the western rulers became convinced of the need for him to go only when they saw the power and feeling of the mass protests against Suharto. The mass demonstrations by students, their occupation of the parliament building, and perhaps most dramatically the rioting which shook the capital, Jakarta, and many other cities, destroying many buildings, led many, including the IMF team, to flee the country.
The power of protest was the force which finally ended Suharto. It was this which led the majority of the west's rulers to urge Suharto to go, even though those same rulers, including Britain, have up till now been supporting him and supplying him with arms arms which were used in the recent repression against the demonstrators.
But while Clinton, Blair and the rest saw the protests as a wake up call that Suharto had outlived his usefulness for them, it is clear that they hope his replacement will operate business as usual. They want continuity and stability above all. In their search for this, democracy comes very much second place, and they are willing to back more military repression if they feel it will make Indonesia safe for their business and political interests once again.
BJ Habibie, the country's new president, personifies this aim. He is totally part of the old regime, and was one of those closest to Suharto. Most of the ministers who served in the old government are also in the new one. One of the first acts of the Habibie government was to send the military in to end the student occupation of parliament by military force. At the same time, he has been forced to offer some reforms, to release some political prisoners and to promise elections. However, he and his backers are clearly hoping that this internal reorganisation at the top of society will be sufficient to stem the protests.
In this, they are unlikely to be successful. Already, as we report elsewhere, many students and workers have made it clear that they regard the Habibie regime as simply a continuation of the Suharto one. At the same time, there are question marks over the nature of the movement and the direction in which it will now go. The movement's immediate demand has been fulfilled, but the level of discontent and criticism which remains is high. This can only be exacerbated by the terrible economic and social conditions in which the country finds itself (see below).
Price rises forced through at the behest of the IMF were in part the trigger for demonstrations and riots. The tiny number of reforms from above will do nothing to touch these fundamental problems. Indeed, the only solutions favoured by Indonesia's rulers, the IMF and the western powers will involve at some point more of the same. In such a situation the movement will polarise between those who want minimal reforms, and those who have a much greater stake in more fundamental economic and social change. The students' movement has presaged this, but it will need other social forces notably the working class to move to centre stage if these changes are to be achieved.
So far this element has not been present in an organised or coherent way. Instead the emphasis has been on the idea of people's power. The main figureheads for opposition have been Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the former president deposed in 1966 (although her standing seems to have waned as the movement has increased), and the Muslim leader Amien Rais, who called off the proposed million strong protest just before Suharto went. He is also prepared to use anti-Chinese rhetoric if it suits him.
It is clear that much of the middle class opposition, like Rais, fears that the movement from below will spin out of control and become a threat to property and social order, as it was during the riots. It would rather restrict its demands and activities than see this happen. These elements underline the weaknesses of people's power. The movement tends to build up around issues which supposedly unite everyone apart from a tiny oligarchy; the real class divisions which exist within the movement are either ignored or minimised, and the demands of workers and of the poor are subordinated to those of the leaders of the movement. Because the movement does not have organised workers at its core, its very size and seemingly universal character can suddenly dissipate.
It is then open to various of the leaders to try to head the movement off into simply accepting a change of government or personnel rather than winning real change. This was the eventual outcome of people's power in the Philippines, for example.
The stakes are very high in Indonesia. It has become the basket case of the so called tiger cub economies. The economic success of the region has turned into its opposite and has been sufficient to threaten the whole basis of the old rule in that country. It has also struck terror into the hearts of the rulers elsewhere in the region, and in the west. But if the movement is to go beyond its initial aims, it has to confront the vested interests which dominate Indonesia, and the priorities of the capitalist system which have already brought so much misery to its inhabitants.
That means confronting the power of the state machine, the army and the police, who are still very much in control of the country and who as we have already seen are prepared to use brute force against democratic protest. It also means confronting the power of capital in the workplaces, where workers are also at their strongest, and building a movement for change with workers at its central organising core.