Success
Story
In
Sumatra, Meanwhile, autonomy is working
By
JASON TEDJASUKMANA Payakumbuh
Harmaini,
headman of the village of Padang Japang, is a political dinosaur.
The calendar in his office is a year old and his pen and paper
supply ran out weeks back. But the 63-year-old shows up everyday
in a freshly-pressed safari suit, does some retirement planning
and is actually eager to welcome his imminent replacement,
a village chief elected in a whole new way. "I'm relieved,"
he says, "that we'll finally be going back to a system that
truly suits our community."
Jakarta is voluntarily loosening its control of Indonesia's 361 regions, and that
may be a factor in last week's gruesome troubles on Borneo. But in at least one
part of the country, West Sumatra, decentralization is raising hopes of a more
comfortable-and long-term-relationship with the central government.
"Decentralization should be about taking power away from the government and
handing it back to the people," says Alis Marajo, the head of Lima Puluh Kota
district. "That's what we're doing in West Sumatra."
Former President Suharto believed in firm central control of the entire, far-flung
archipelago. On Jan. 1, new legislation came into effect reversing his legacy.
Jakarta controls foreign affairs, monetary policy and external defense, but all
other government functions, including taxation, will be handled by locals. The
autonomy experiment is less than three months old, and each province is
different. Kalimantan, for example, has major problems with migrant
communities, which have yet to surface in Sumatra.
For the 6 million inhabitants of West Sumatra, this means a return to a
traditional system known as nagari (Sanskrit for country). The province's 3,612
villages, as carved up by Suharto, have been merged into 543 nagari areas.
Election of nagari officials is already underway and should be completed this
year.
This promises real representation and much more. Under nagari, disputes over
land, water, theft, inheritance and livestock will be dealt with swiftly by a local
council, unlike the thousands of cases that each year sink in the quagmire of
Indonesia's Western-style legal system. "Of the dozens of cases I've handled
recently, only three will have to go to court," says Evianto Datumbi, head of a
local customary legal committee. "With nagari, you have to settle or else the two
parties can never bring up another case."
West Sumatrans hope their success could lead to the resurrection of traditional
systems that once existed in Aceh, the Maluku Islands, Bali and other places. "The
key is not orders," says Anwar Zainal Abidin, a respected elder and former
government official. "Things get done because of a collective spirit."
In the lush rice fields and farmlands of West Sumatra the experiment is looking
extremely bright. Seventy-year-old Masrun, from the town of Sungai
Kamuyang, tends to cassava, cloves and ginger. In 1968, the 130-hectare plot
where he farms was transferred from local nagari leaders to a private company
in a deal locals say was unfair. Masrun went from being a modest stakeholder to a
day laborer earning, until recently, 15 a day. Several months ago, the revived
nagari council decided to take back the land, and the private firm agreed to give
it up. Masrun, with a toothless smile, says he's now free to sell whatever he
harvests, and he's earning 10 times more than before. "Going back to nagari
means going back to our roots and putting everything back in its rightful place."
If autonomy brings a fraction of the justice Masrun has received, Indonesia may
just yet hold together as a nation.
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March 12, 2001 | No.
10
COVER
STORIES
Butchery
In Borneo
Indigenous Dayaks go
on an anti-immigrant rampage, killing more than 500 ethnic Madurese and
forcing thousands to flee. Is Indonesia spinning out of control?a
spinning out of control?
Killing Field:
A massacre of innocents
West Sumatra:
Here's one place autonomy might succeed
THE
ARTS
EXHIBITIONS:
Almost a decade in the building, the new National Museum of Australia
deploys the latest technology to bring the past alive
CINEMA:
The comic pratfalls of Walk the Talk
PEOPLE TO WATCH:
Australian Labor M.P. Mark Latham
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