As rioting and looting spreads to more provincial towns in Indonesia, there is a growing danger that these outbreaks may be transformed into anti-Chinese riots.

During the last 30 years, social and economic frustration amongst Indonesia's poor has regularly flared into riots. Almost inevitably, the main street of provincial towns would be burned down and shops looted.

Chinese-Indonesian shopkeepers, whose premises dominate these streets, have suffered most in these outbreaks, even where there has not been a conscious or specific targeting of Chinese people. During many riots, the graffiti and chants of the rioters have been aimed at the government or the rich in general, not the Chinese.

At the same time, however, relations between Chinese Indonesians and non-Chinese Indonesians have been strained for a long time (see accompanying above).

The situation began to worsen in 1997. The worst instance of planned attacks on the Chinese community occurred during the May 13-14 riots.

In some locations in Jakarta, certain Chinese-owned businesses and houses were marked beforehand. Organised groups of men attacked and burned these places, often with people still inside. The brutality extended to the organised gang rape and murder of Chinese-Indonesian women.

The need by the New Order ruling class for scapegoats has intensified, especially as the economic crisis has deepened this year.

Regime officials began a thinly veiled attack on Chinese big business in January, with speeches referring to "rats" who have taken their money overseas just when the country is in crisis.

This was followed by a speech by the head of the KOPASSUS commando forces, General Prabowo, on January 14 at a meeting of conservative Moslems. He blamed the economic crisis on a political conspiracy organised by big capitalists who "henchmen operated from overseas".

Associated with these attacks was the increasingly frequent refrain that Chinese controlled 70% of the Indonesian economy.

This is a ridiculous claim given the overwhelming dominance of transnational capital and the business operations of the Suharto family and other Indonesian families. But it has gained some currency because of the prominence of several large Chinese-owned business conglomerates, and because Chinese-owned shops in provincial towns are very common.

The Habibie regime is now trying to take advantage of the current disruption of the Chinese-owned provincial wholesale and retail sector, the distribution system for many commodities. Under the guise of promoting cooperatives, the government is providing all kinds of facilities to non-Chinese capital to take over the distribution of many commodities.

This is causing even greater havoc. Many of the newly appointed distributors are hoarding products to force up prices and make a quick profit.

Far right

While the regime confers legitimacy on the attacks on Chinese, even more sinister forces have become better organised.

The first group to carry out political activities clearly aimed at the Chinese and Christian minorities, as well as attacking the left, was the ultra-right Moslem group Committee for International Solidarity for World Islam (KISDI).

KISDI is the "international solidarity" wing of the Dewan Dakwah Indonesia (Indonesian Preaching Council). The Dewan Dakwah is the most conservative Moslem grouping in Indonesia and claims continuity with the 1950s anti-Communist Moslem political party, Masyumi. Sections of Masyumi were implicated in an ultra-right military mutiny launched in Sumatra and Sulawesi in 1957 and backed by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Until May, KISDI had worked closely with Prabowo. KISDI forces tried to give credibility to Prabowo's claim of a political conspiracy by targeting the Catholic Chinese businessman Sofyan Wanandi. In February, protest actions were organised outside the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which was closely linked to Sofyan Wanandi.

Meanwhile, Prabowo's security operatives attempted to link Sofyan Wanandi with the People's Democratic Party (PRD), issuing statements that Sofyan Wanandi was financing the PRD. This was a bizarre claim as CSIS is a right-wing institution which has regularly issued its own warnings against the PRD as a "dangerous left-wing" force.

The Dewan Dakwah's publications are full of attacks on three targets: the Chinese, with thinly veiled attacks on "unpatriotic business" and calls for more assistance to indigenous business; "Christianisation"; and communism, including attacks on the PRD. These are also the major themes in Dewan Dakwah sermons and speeches in the network of mosques and prayer houses that it controls.

Key figures from KISDI have now joined with other extremist Moslem organisations to form a new ultra-right political party, the Crescent and Star Party (PBB).

The PBB competes with two other parties in claiming a continuity with the old Masyumi. One is a small new party, New Masyumi, which has little real support. The second is the National Mandate Party (PAN), headed Amien Rais.

Rais initiated negotiations with KISDI figures about joining the PBB, indicating his willingness to accommodate to the PBB's racialist politics. The negotiations broke down when PBB leaders refused to agree to work with more moderate Moslem leaders.

Since Prabowo's downfall, the PBB has cut its links with him. However, Prabowo retains links with other ultra-right gangs, often organised through martial arts groups. It is these groups which opposition forces in Jakarta believe Prabowo used, along with soldiers, in the attacks on Chinese during the May riots.

Prabowo's intervention was intended to direct the mass frustration at collapsing living conditions into hatred of the Chinese rather than into challenges to the regime itself. The danger is that the PBB-style forces, and Prabowo and his gangs will try the same thing as the situation worsens. The Habibie regime's thinly veiled attacks on the Chinese only makes this more likely.

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