On 25 October Prabowo Subianto registered his candidacy for Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election. This declaration itself carried little surprise. The former general’s presidential ambitions were an open secret; having tried twice and failed in 2014 and 2019, it was clear to anyone who knows a little about Indonesian politics that he would try for the third time in 2024.

While Prabowo declaring his presidential aspiration might have been a non-story, what drew more public interest, and scrutiny, was the announcement that Gibran Rakabuming, president Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) oldest son, would be Prabowo’s vice-presidential candidate.

By giving “permission”—some would say advocating for—his son to run alongside Prabowo, Jokowi has done something that no Indonesian presidents before him had done: he put his child explicitly on a path to the highest elected office in the country. The notoriously corrupt and nepotistic Soeharto gave his children sweet business deals. But the closest his children ever been to a state position was when he appointed one of his daughters, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, as a minister in his last cabinet in 1998.

Megawati Soekarnoputri and her late husband Taufik Kiemas had always been said to have high hopes for their daughter, Puan Maharani, to become vice president or even president. But to date they have never put her on a presidential ticket. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), too, had similarly high ambitions for the political future of his eldest son, Agus. But voters seem to disagree with a father’s glowing hope for his son: Agus was eliminated in the first round of the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, and his low electability ratings have never put him within striking distance of a presidential ticket.

Much has been written about this Prabowo–Gibran declaration from the perspective of political dynasticism,  or about how this political manoeuvre has upset even Jokowi’s inner circle and placed him in opposition to his own party, PDI-P and its matriarch Megawati. These are all important and interesting perspectives. But I am interested in something different: not only in Jokowi’s goals and strategies, but more importantly in factors that may hinder or facilitate the attainment of these goals.

Jokowi’s end game

I attribute two end goals to Jokowi’s many political manoeuvres, from co-opting the Constitutional Court, until recently under the leadership of a chief justice who was his brother in-law, to having his son positioned as Prabowo’s running mate.

First, Jokowi is interested in ensuring the security of his political and economic legacies. He will want the new capital city of Nusantara to continue, the “omnibus” Law on Job Creation to stay as the law of the land, for infrastructure development to expand, and for the resource nationalism and downstreaming (hilirisasi) paradigm to thrive, among others.

Second, Jokowi is interested in maintaining some level of political clout. This cannot be separated from the first goal. In a party system where parties do not have distinct and consistent platforms, a leader’s policies often can be advanced and preserved only through personalistic appeals.

But it also goes beyond the first set of policy goals sketched above. The integrity and capacity of the judiciary and the broader criminal justice system have always been a work-in-progress in Indonesia. Maintaining political clout after leaving office means reducing the likelihood of the justice system being turned against one’s self and one’s family—whether unjustifiably as part of a political vendetta, justifiably because a crime one did while in office, or a combination of both.

These two goals intentionally underplay the dynastic component of Jokowi’s manoeuvres. Political dynasticism is unhealthy for democratic life, but it is likely just a means to an end. To some, a political dynasty is a means to ensure their descendants have access to wealth and power. To others, it is a means to ensure that their visions of the society will be implemented. Still, to some others, it is a means to get around the challenge of a low-trust environment: turning to family networks becomes a reasonable strategy when you cannot trust your political allies to act in your interests.

Why Prabowo could be a miscalculation

In attaching his son to Prabowo’s ticket, Jokowi obviously sees it as the most feasible way to achieve his political goals. He likely believes that Prabowo, if winning the election, will secure his policy legacy. He also believes that having his son in the second highest office in the country will maintain, if not expand, the family’s political clout and shield it from political and legal witch-hunts.

Beliefs can turn into reality. But beliefs can also be a miscalculation. There are three reasons why placing his political future in Prabowo might be a serious miscalculation for Jokowi.

The first reason is that even if Prabowo wins the election Jokowi will not have an electoral vehicle, in the form of a party, that he can control to influence policymaking in the parliament (DPR). By supporting Prabowo, Jokowi practically abandoned the party that made him a household name, PDI-P. It is perhaps true that Jokowi was never in control of PDI-P anyway because of Megawati’s role as the party’s matron. But, for better or worse, PDI Perjuangan stood by Jokowi’s side in all of his signature policies―the new capital, the omnibus law, the revisions to the anti-corruption law, the new criminal code, to name a few.

As the political scientist E. E. Schattschneider noted, “[m]odern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties.” Jokowi will not be able to influence what is happening and discussed in parliament unless he has a party that he controls. No matter how popular Jokowi is among voters, those DPR members will listen to and obey only their party leaders.

The second reason is that Prabowo is a military figure still popular in the army. As a president, he will have the guns and the troops under his sway—both formally due to his position and informally due to his lasting military influence. It is not at all clear how Jokowi thinks he can persuade a military man to do his bidding once he is outside the circle of power.

To make matters more challenging, Jokowi himself has all but assured the military’s growing influence in Indonesian politics by expanding the opportunities for military officers to hold civilian office. For Jokowi to think that Prabowo the president would be the same man as Prabowo the defence minister would be at best naïve and at worst delusional. One does not simply instruct the men controlling the guns what to do, especially if one no longer has the authority to do so.

Third, with no political vehicle and lacking access to coercive force, Jokowi would have to rely on grassroots movements to stay relevant. Yet, Jokowi is again lacking here. Jokowi is not Abdurrahman Wahid, who commanded tens of thousands of loyal followers in Nahdlatul Ulama. He has voters, but not necessarily the militant supporters one can bring to street demonstrations and put pressure on the government. It remains to be seen whether his supporter networks such as ProJo will stay loyal after he no longer has patronage to distribute.

These are reasons why backing Prabowo could be seen a miscalculation. But it is not my point to argue that it is: backing Prabowo is still a calculated move, albeit a high risk one. One can easily observe at least two scenarios where this calculated risk would yield a high return.

When Prabowo pays off

Just to address the elephant in the room, the first scenario is concerned with the fact that Prabowo is no longer young. If he wins the election he would be sworn into office on 20 October, 2024 at the age of 73, just four years shy of the age of Soeharto when he was forced to step down by student protests. Should Prabowo at some point no longer have the capacity to execute the duties of the presidency, Gibran would have to step up and none of the above challenges regarding the limits on Jokowi’s post-presidential power would matter anymore.

The second scenario is if Jokowi, through some manoeuvres, manages to take control of one of the major parties during a Prabowo presidency. This would give him a political vehicle to influence policymaking and an actual mass base to mould and persuade Prabowo’s administration.

The appointment of Jokowi’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep, as chairperson of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) is a move in that direction. But PSI is too small to be effectual. To influence policymaking, Jokowi needs a bigger party. Golkar is an appealing target. It has no ideological platform and no abiding attachment to individual leaders. It is simply attracted to power and whoever wields it. A senior Golkar figure put it bluntly that “Golkar has no talent for being in opposition, because it was born to be in power and manage the government.”

The fact that Jokowi has planted favours among influential Golkar figures by having them as ministers, and that Jokowi’s long-time ally and confidante Luhut Pandjaitan is the chair of the party’s advisory board, could help with such a takeover. In the Golkar party congress scheduled for 2024, Jokowi could support a leadership ticket amicable to his agenda, or he could simply put forward his family to fill in key positions at Golkar, as rumours about Gibran and his son-in-law (and incumbent mayor of Medan) Bobby Nasution leaving PDI-P and joining Golkar seem to suggest.

Another appealing takeover target is perhaps rather surprising: PDI-P. Sooner or later Megawati, 76 years old, has to pass the leadership baton to someone. Puan Maharani is an obvious choice due to her Soekarno ancestry. But many inside the party might want to modernise it and lead it in a different direction. Soekarno and ties with Soekarno would still be important, but as a symbol and ideological compass more than an automatic admission ticket to the leadership position.

Should such an opening happen, Jokowi would be in a position to take advantage of it. It would be a marriage of convenience: Jokowi would have a political vehicle to continue his influence even after leaving office, and PDI-P would have a popular vote getter who is their cadre, though perhaps in the eyes of many in the party, a once-disgraced one.

Conclusion

Jokowi has placed his eggs in the Prabowo basket. But it is unlikely that he will just pray that the basket is good. Jokowi knows that if he could turn his back against the party that had been his home for 20 years, there is no reason why Prabowo could not do the same to him once in power.

He will have to take further steps to protect his investment in Prabowo, whether by institutionalising his volunteer networks or, more likely, by ensuring control of and continuing support from one of the major parties. Only through these steps can Jokowi ensure that his support for Prabowo will not end up as a miscalculation.

The post Jokowi’s post-election game plan appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

On 25 October Prabowo Subianto registered his candidacy for Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election. This declaration itself carried little surprise. The former general’s presidential ambitions were an open secret; having tried twice and failed in 2014 and 2019, it was clear to anyone who knows a little about Indonesian politics that he would try for the third time in 2024.

While Prabowo declaring his presidential aspiration might have been a non-story, what drew more public interest, and scrutiny, was the announcement that Gibran Rakabuming, president Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) oldest son, would be Prabowo’s vice-presidential candidate.

By giving “permission”—some would say advocating for—his son to run alongside Prabowo, Jokowi has done something that no Indonesian presidents before him had done: he put his child explicitly on a path to the highest elected office in the country. The notoriously corrupt and nepotistic Soeharto gave his children sweet business deals. But the closest his children ever been to a state position was when he appointed one of his daughters, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, as a minister in his last cabinet in 1998.

Megawati Soekarnoputri and her late husband Taufik Kiemas had always been said to have high hopes for their daughter, Puan Maharani, to become vice president or even president. But to date they have never put her on a presidential ticket. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), too, had similarly high ambitions for the political future of his eldest son, Agus. But voters seem to disagree with a father’s glowing hope for his son: Agus was eliminated in the first round of the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, and his low electability ratings have never put him within striking distance of a presidential ticket.

Much has been written about this Prabowo–Gibran declaration from the perspective of political dynasticism,  or about how this political manoeuvre has upset even Jokowi’s inner circle and placed him in opposition to his own party, PDI-P and its matriarch Megawati. These are all important and interesting perspectives. But I am interested in something different: not only in Jokowi’s goals and strategies, but more importantly in factors that may hinder or facilitate the attainment of these goals.

Jokowi’s end game

I attribute two end goals to Jokowi’s many political manoeuvres, from co-opting the Constitutional Court, until recently under the leadership of a chief justice who was his brother in-law, to having his son positioned as Prabowo’s running mate.

First, Jokowi is interested in ensuring the security of his political and economic legacies. He will want the new capital city of Nusantara to continue, the “omnibus” Law on Job Creation to stay as the law of the land, for infrastructure development to expand, and for the resource nationalism and downstreaming (hilirisasi) paradigm to thrive, among others.

Second, Jokowi is interested in maintaining some level of political clout. This cannot be separated from the first goal. In a party system where parties do not have distinct and consistent platforms, a leader’s policies often can be advanced and preserved only through personalistic appeals.

But it also goes beyond the first set of policy goals sketched above. The integrity and capacity of the judiciary and the broader criminal justice system have always been a work-in-progress in Indonesia. Maintaining political clout after leaving office means reducing the likelihood of the justice system being turned against one’s self and one’s family—whether unjustifiably as part of a political vendetta, justifiably because a crime one did while in office, or a combination of both.

These two goals intentionally underplay the dynastic component of Jokowi’s manoeuvres. Political dynasticism is unhealthy for democratic life, but it is likely just a means to an end. To some, a political dynasty is a means to ensure their descendants have access to wealth and power. To others, it is a means to ensure that their visions of the society will be implemented. Still, to some others, it is a means to get around the challenge of a low-trust environment: turning to family networks becomes a reasonable strategy when you cannot trust your political allies to act in your interests.

Why Prabowo could be a miscalculation

In attaching his son to Prabowo’s ticket, Jokowi obviously sees it as the most feasible way to achieve his political goals. He likely believes that Prabowo, if winning the election, will secure his policy legacy. He also believes that having his son in the second highest office in the country will maintain, if not expand, the family’s political clout and shield it from political and legal witch-hunts.

Beliefs can turn into reality. But beliefs can also be a miscalculation. There are three reasons why placing his political future in Prabowo might be a serious miscalculation for Jokowi.

The first reason is that even if Prabowo wins the election Jokowi will not have an electoral vehicle, in the form of a party, that he can control to influence policymaking in the parliament (DPR). By supporting Prabowo, Jokowi practically abandoned the party that made him a household name, PDI-P. It is perhaps true that Jokowi was never in control of PDI-P anyway because of Megawati’s role as the party’s matron. But, for better or worse, PDI Perjuangan stood by Jokowi’s side in all of his signature policies―the new capital, the omnibus law, the revisions to the anti-corruption law, the new criminal code, to name a few.

As the political scientist E. E. Schattschneider noted, “[m]odern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties.” Jokowi will not be able to influence what is happening and discussed in parliament unless he has a party that he controls. No matter how popular Jokowi is among voters, those DPR members will listen to and obey only their party leaders.

The second reason is that Prabowo is a military figure still popular in the army. As a president, he will have the guns and the troops under his sway—both formally due to his position and informally due to his lasting military influence. It is not at all clear how Jokowi thinks he can persuade a military man to do his bidding once he is outside the circle of power.

To make matters more challenging, Jokowi himself has all but assured the military’s growing influence in Indonesian politics by expanding the opportunities for military officers to hold civilian office. For Jokowi to think that Prabowo the president would be the same man as Prabowo the defence minister would be at best naïve and at worst delusional. One does not simply instruct the men controlling the guns what to do, especially if one no longer has the authority to do so.

Third, with no political vehicle and lacking access to coercive force, Jokowi would have to rely on grassroots movements to stay relevant. Yet, Jokowi is again lacking here. Jokowi is not Abdurrahman Wahid, who commanded tens of thousands of loyal followers in Nahdlatul Ulama. He has voters, but not necessarily the militant supporters one can bring to street demonstrations and put pressure on the government. It remains to be seen whether his supporter networks such as ProJo will stay loyal after he no longer has patronage to distribute.

These are reasons why backing Prabowo could be seen a miscalculation. But it is not my point to argue that it is: backing Prabowo is still a calculated move, albeit a high risk one. One can easily observe at least two scenarios where this calculated risk would yield a high return.

When Prabowo pays off

Just to address the elephant in the room, the first scenario is concerned with the fact that Prabowo is no longer young. If he wins the election he would be sworn into office on 20 October, 2024 at the age of 73, just four years shy of the age of Soeharto when he was forced to step down by student protests. Should Prabowo at some point no longer have the capacity to execute the duties of the presidency, Gibran would have to step up and none of the above challenges regarding the limits on Jokowi’s post-presidential power would matter anymore.

The second scenario is if Jokowi, through some manoeuvres, manages to take control of one of the major parties during a Prabowo presidency. This would give him a political vehicle to influence policymaking and an actual mass base to mould and persuade Prabowo’s administration.

The appointment of Jokowi’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep, as chairperson of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) is a move in that direction. But PSI is too small to be effectual. To influence policymaking, Jokowi needs a bigger party. Golkar is an appealing target. It has no ideological platform and no abiding attachment to individual leaders. It is simply attracted to power and whoever wields it. A senior Golkar figure put it bluntly that “Golkar has no talent for being in opposition, because it was born to be in power and manage the government.”

The fact that Jokowi has planted favours among influential Golkar figures by having them as ministers, and that Jokowi’s long-time ally and confidante Luhut Pandjaitan is the chair of the party’s advisory board, could help with such a takeover. In the Golkar party congress scheduled for 2024, Jokowi could support a leadership ticket amicable to his agenda, or he could simply put forward his family to fill in key positions at Golkar, as rumours about Gibran and his son-in-law (and incumbent mayor of Medan) Bobby Nasution leaving PDI-P and joining Golkar seem to suggest.

Another appealing takeover target is perhaps rather surprising: PDI-P. Sooner or later Megawati, 76 years old, has to pass the leadership baton to someone. Puan Maharani is an obvious choice due to her Soekarno ancestry. But many inside the party might want to modernise it and lead it in a different direction. Soekarno and ties with Soekarno would still be important, but as a symbol and ideological compass more than an automatic admission ticket to the leadership position.

Should such an opening happen, Jokowi would be in a position to take advantage of it. It would be a marriage of convenience: Jokowi would have a political vehicle to continue his influence even after leaving office, and PDI-P would have a popular vote getter who is their cadre, though perhaps in the eyes of many in the party, a once-disgraced one.

Conclusion

Jokowi has placed his eggs in the Prabowo basket. But it is unlikely that he will just pray that the basket is good. Jokowi knows that if he could turn his back against the party that had been his home for 20 years, there is no reason why Prabowo could not do the same to him once in power.

He will have to take further steps to protect his investment in Prabowo, whether by institutionalising his volunteer networks or, more likely, by ensuring control of and continuing support from one of the major parties. Only through these steps can Jokowi ensure that his support for Prabowo will not end up as a miscalculation.

The post Jokowi’s post-election game plan appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

On 16 March 2023, a panel of judges decided the outcome of the trial of the five defendants in the Kanjuruhan tear gas case. They were sentenced lightly: two were sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison, one was sentenced to a year, and two were acquitted. Many Indonesians believed that from the beginning, the legal process did not really uncover the extent of wrongdoing in the Kanjuruhan case, and that the legal process was intended to fail on revealing the truth and protecting the perpetrators of crimes in the tragedy. This outcome is considered part of a defective trial process.

A person or group who becomes a victim of a criminal offence experiences a double burden when the system cannot deliver restitution. In addition to being materially harmed, they also experience further victimisation due to systematic rejection by the criminal justice system.  This rejection occurs because there is a view that the victim’s position has been taken over by the state, and this makes the victim’s efforts in fighting for their rights limited. The victim as the one who suffers as a result of a violation of criminal law is limited to providing testimony as a victim and/or witness.

As a result, victims often feel dissatisfied with the charges filed by the Public Prosecutor (known in Indonesia as Jaksa Pidana Umum or JPU) or the judge’s decision because it is considered not in accordance with victims’ values of justice. This occurs as a result of the criminal court system being used to prosecute perpetrators of criminal acts—which are classified as acts against the state—rather than to serve the interests of victims of those criminal acts. The nature of this system means that victims of criminal offences must bear the consequences of legal crimes independently, without intervention from the state.

Restitution

The importance of restitution to provide protection to victims has been stated in Articles 8-11 and 12–13 of the United Nations’ 1985 Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power. Several articles in this declaration state that the perpetrator of the crime or other responsible parties must provide restitution to the victim or their family, including compensation for damaged or lost property, compensation for the recovery of suffering, and other victim rights.

If restitution is not fulfilled by the perpetrator or other stakeholders, then the state should take over in providing compensation to the victim. There are important points in the 1985 declaration regarding the provision of restitution, where the government as the competent authority should review practices, policies and laws to consider restitution as a legal option available in criminal cases, in addition to other criminal sanctions. Inclusion of restitution as an additional punishment can make it easier for judges to pay more attention to the plight of victims.

This movement in turn has resulted in greater awareness of the needs of victims in the criminal justice system. Victims of crime are often ignored in the criminal justice system, even though they should be provided with support, information and assistance by the courts. In this context, restitution is a small part of the effort to fulfil victims’ rights. Through restitution, criminals are held accountable for the losses suffered by the victims of their crimes.

Victim and witness protection regulation

In Indonesia’s 2014 Law on Victim and Witness Protection, restitution is defined as compensation provided to victims or their families by the perpetrator or a third party (Article 1 Section 11), while compensation is defined as a substitute for losses provided by the state because the perpetrator is unable to provide full compensation for which he is responsible to the victim or his family (Article 1 Section 10)..

According to Article 7a Section 1 of the 2014 law, victims of criminal offences are entitled to restitution in the form of: compensation for loss of wealth or income; compensation for losses incurred due to suffering directly related to the criminal offense; and/or reimbursement of medical and/or psychological treatment costs. For victims of serious human rights violations and victims of terrorism, in addition to being entitled to restitution, they are also entitled to compensation that can be submitted through the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK). Based on the articles above, restitution applications can be submitted through LPSK both before or after a court decision that has obtained permanent legal force.

In the context of restitution, the provision of restitution to victims of criminal acts is contained in Articles 98 to 101 of the 2014 law, which regulate the possibility of merging compensation cases. Article 98 states that if an act that forms the basis of an indictment in a criminal case heard by a district court causes harm to another person, the presiding judge may decide to merge the compensation claim case with the criminal case. Such a request can only be made at the latest before the public prosecutor files criminal charges. In the absence of the public prosecutor, the request shall be made no later than before the judge pronounces a verdict.

The merger of compensation cases as stipulated in Indonesia’s Criminal Procedure Code is in accordance with the principle of balance, which is not only concerned with the rights of the perpetrator, but also the protection of the rights of the victim as another related party. One of the objectives of this merger is the achievement of the principle of simple, fast and low-cost justice.

Although it reflects the protection of victims, the provision for the merger of cases outlined above has weaknesses. These weaknesses include: that it depends on a single main criminal case; that compensation is only for material losses; that the submission is no later than before the prosecution; that the legal remedy depends on the main case; and that if the criminal case is not appealed, the compensation claim cannot also be appealed. With these weaknesses, the incorporation of compensation cases into criminal prosecutions that Indonesia’s Law on Victim and Witness Protection is not fully oriented towards the protection of victims—for example in cases at the district court level where a defendant is sentenced to punishment, but their victims’ compensation claim is not granted.

If the victim seeks full compensation, then they must continue to go through the civil process because the incorporation of their compensation claim in the criminal case is only limited to the amount of material losses they have suffered as a direct consequence of the criminal activity in question.

According to Fauzy Marasabessy, the provision in Article 7a that limits compensation claims to dealing with only material losses is actually a contradiction of the contents of Article 101 which reads “the provisions of the rules of civil procedure law apply to compensation claims”. Thus, there should be no need for restrictions on the type of loss—because under the provisions of Indonesian civil law, both material and immaterial damages can be the basis of compensation claims.

Restitution for Kanjuruhan Victims

Indonesia’s Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) conducted an assessment of the restitution to which victims of Kanjuruhan are entitled and submitted it to the court trying the five perpetrators of the Kanjuruhan for crimes of causing death or injury due to negligence. LPSK assessed that 42 kanjuruhan victims who applied to it for financial restitution were collectively entitled to financial damages of Rp8.85 billion (A$895,000).

LPSK sent a letter to the East Java Prosecutor’s Office about the restitution value on 22 February 2023. However, because the letter arrived late, the the restitution request was not cited in the prosecutor’s indictment.

According to information provided in an interview with LPSK with some the authors, the number of applicants for LPSK protection for the Kanjuruhan tragedy amounted to 65 out of 782 people, including 23 people protected as witnesses and 42 victims who applied for restitution. The percentage level of witnesses and victims protected by the state through LPSK is only 8% of the total estimated number of victims.

Number of Restitution Victims Requested by LPSK

No.	Status	Kanjuruhan Casualties	Victims for whom restitution is requested
1.	Death	135 people	35 people
2.	Wounded	647 people	7 people
Total korban		782 people	42 people

Submission of restitution for children of Kanjuruhan victims

No.	Child Status	Number of child victims	Victim’s child submitted for restitution
1.	Death	44 children	7 children
2.	Wounded	201 children	3 children
Total child casualties		245 children	10 children

Ineffective legal framework

Indonesia’s Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 of 2022, governing the procedures for resolving applications and providing restitution and compensation to victims of criminal acts, requires victims to actively demand restitution rights from the perpetrators of criminal acts through applications to LPSK. This procedure ultimately has a weakness: namely the absence of legal certainty for victims, which burdens victims mentally and materially.

Regulations related to the fulfillment of victims’ rights also do not distinguish between adult and child victims. In fact, as many as one third of the victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy were children, totalling 245 victims, consisting of 44 children who died, 9 who were seriously injured and 192 who received minor injuries.

In the context of criminal law regulation towards victims of crime, two basic models of regulation are recognised, namely The procedural rights model and the services model. The first model is given to the possibility of the victim to play an active role in the judicial process, so that the victim is given the right to conduct criminal prosecution such as the right to be heard and presented at the trial, the right to be consulted by prison authorities before the offender is given conditional release, and the right to make peace, including assisting the public prosecutor in their work in the justice system.

In the service model, it is necessary to emphasize the creation of standard standards for the guidance of victims, for example in the context of notification to victims and/or prosecutors in the course of the case, providing compensation, and so on. In fact, during the trial of the Kanjuruhan case from 20 January– to 16 February 2023, the involvement and interest of the families of victims and victim witnesses was minimal. The court banned direct media coverage and electronic broadcasts and transferred the trial process to the Surabaya District Court instead of holding it in Malang.

Compensation can only be pursued through prosecution or appeal files or using a civil trial mechanism, namely a hearing on a request for restitution determination. An alternative solution that can be taken quickly is to submit an application to the Surabaya District Court through a restitution determination application hearing, with a format like a civil lawsuit. However, the East Java Prosecutor’s Office considers it impossible to impose restitution for only some of the defendants.

In the relevant 2022 Supreme Court Regulation that details how compensation claims can be mounted as part of criminal cases, the weakness also lies in the absence of coercive elements for ordinary criminal offence, as in the Kanjuruhan tragedy. The Attorney General, civil or military prosecutor may confiscate assets and impose substitute imprisonment to fulfill restitution payments limited to criminal offenses of human trafficking and terrorism (Article 30 Section 11). Meanwhile, in ordinary criminal offence, the A–G or prosecutor is limited to giving instructions to the perpetrators of criminal acts and/or third parties to carry out the provision of restitution no later than 14 days from the date the order is received (Article 30 Section 9). The East Java Attorney General’s Office did not provide alternative options when the restitution burden cannot be paid by the criminal offender. In other words, in Indonesian law, the form of restitution does not accommodate state assistance in fulfilling victims’ rights or state intervention in assisting criminal offenders to fulfill restitution. In the context of the Kanjuruhan tragedy, only 42 victims applied for restitution and there were 93 other victims plus other injured victims who did not take this option.

It is undeniable that the only thing the victims of the tragedy can do after the verdict of the five Kanjuruhan defendants is announced is to apply for restitution for the losses they endured through LPSK, as an institution that has the mandate and role to provide protection and other rights to witnesses and/or victims. But the existing legal framework has not concretely accommodated the full rights of victims of the Kanjuruhan Tragedy. This has resulted in disappointment from victims as a result of legal conditions that do not have a victim’s perspective in mind.

The state’s obligation to provide compensation is predicated on the failure of law enforcement to eliminate or prevent crime. Compensation is based on fairness and social solidarity, and begins from the reality that other sources of compensation have proven inadequate to fully compensate victims. In providing benefits to society at large, the application of compensation through compensation is more suitable where the state takes responsibility and empathises with its society because it is considered to have failed to protect and anticipate a criminal act can occur. The provision of restitution or compensation puts more emphasis on the restorative justice approach given to each individual victim of crime from the perpetrator who provides protection for each victim.

The anger of the supporters of those impacted by the Kanjuruhan disaster—expressed through the slogan “Usut Tuntas” (investigate thoroughly)—has become a basis of hope for efforts to seek justice for victims. Along the way, several groups of supporters and the community have carried out struggles by demanding that law enforcement officials prosecute suspects. This includes urging the state to find the true facts about the motive and reality of the incident. However, their demands currently seem to have reached a deadlock. There is no positive will from the government (including law enforcement officials) to reveal the true facts while providing justice for victims.

The collective awareness of a legal process that does not favour their interests has been strongly embedded in the minds of victims, even though the families of victims still demand justice in the process of legal settlement in court. Three demands were made in a 10 November 2022 declaration, namely: demanding to arrest and prosecute all actors behind the Kanjuruhan tragedy and all executors in the field; making the Kanjuruhan tragedy a human rights violation; demanding compensation for all losses suffered by victims and families of victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy through compensation and restitution. Progress on all three still lies far from the values of justice for victims. Looking at the judicial process so far, solving cases from a victim’s perspective is still like looking for a needle in a haystack, difficult to achieve.

The post Justice after Kanjuruhan: the law vs justice appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

1 October 2022 was the last day for Margaretha, a 17-year-old victim of Kanjuruhan football stadium disaster in Malang, East Java. Margaretha was lying lifeless when her family found her in the hospital that night, clutching a bag, and with her identity documents still intact.

Margaretha’s mother was psychologically traumatised after the tragedy, always blaming herself, and remembering what had happened to her daughter. If she could have forbidden her daughter not to watch the match that day, then it is possible that her daughter would still be safe.

The family of another victim, Okto, was offered psychological assistance from one of the universities in Malang. The family did not take it, because they thought that it would mean Okto’s mother would continue to remember her son’s death. Before leaving for the stadium, Okto borrowed his father’s shoes. The family found Okto lifeless, wearing a white jumper, with his father’s shoes left on. Okto’s body was found at Wava Husada Kepanjen Hospital without any identity documents. His wallet and mobile phone had disappeared.

Their suffering exemplifies the psychological effects felt by the families of the victims in the year after the tragedy, in which 135 people were killed after police fired tear gas on crowds after a pitch invasion.

The trauma of survivors and families feeling the heavy loss of family members has been compounded by intimidation by authorities.

These traumas for the victims’ families have been compounded by their experiences of intimidation by outsiders beginning shortly after the tragedy occurred. Some of the alleged threats and intimidation directed at witnesses and victims’ families are quite diverse, ranging from illegal searches and confiscation of evidence by investigators, intimidation of medical personnel, surveillance and threatening behaviour towards victims’ parents by unknown persons suspected to be police, to intimidation for expressing opinions in the Kanjuruhan trial decision.

One survivor, Devi, felt the deep loss of losing his two daughters to the Kanjuruhan tragedy. In the midst of the autopsy process, Devi’s emotional outburst was so strong witnessing the death of his daughters and this deep sorrow also prompted him to declare that “this tragedy is a massacre” on the part of the police. This psychological pressure was not only experienced by Devi, whose story was reported in Vice News, but also by the families of other victims whose stories were not covered by the media, some of whom also experienced psychological intimidation by the authorities.

One of these families is Maria’s., where field observations have shown that this family not only felt a deep loss for the departure of their family members, but they also felt non-physical intimidation from security personnel after the Kanjuruhan tragedy. In the case of Maria’s family, they expressed their feelings of loss when they learned that Maria (the third of the five children) was taken from her son by the tragedy. The family found it difficult to explain to their son about their mother’s true condition.

When Maria died, her son (aged one year) did not leave the house for almost two months. Until his hands were like scratching, changing skin like that. Then crying for his mama. Yesterday, his body was hot for one week, crying for his mama. Then I said mama he said he was looking for money, looking for work….ooh how come he forgot (crying). (Interview with Maria’s family, 16 May 2023)

Lost lives, lost livelihoods

The Kanjuruhan tragedy on 1 2022 hast left a painful imprint for its victims. A year after the tragedy, the loss of life for the families of those killed and injured by tear gas is not the only impact. The families of the victims continue to experience long-term psychological, social, and economic consequences.

Numerous kinds of government and non-governmental aid have been distributed to the victims. However, the nature of this assistance is still partial and spontaneous as a form of responsibility to the survivors. In addition, the aid distributed has not been able to answer the long-term needs of those who survived, so a sense of justice to them has not been present in handling the aftermath of this tragedy. A series of interviews conducted by Malang Corruption Watch with 20 families of those killed in the Kanjuruhan disaster, conducted over a two week period in May 2023, shows that many families’ socio-economic conditions have changed drastically. In many cases, the person on whom the family relies for income is now gone. Based on information from the victim’s family who was left behind by the victim in the tragedy explained:

So far, my husband has been the backbone of the family. With his death, now I have to struggle harder. Until now, I have not been able to find a permanent job, only as a housemaid to fulfill the family’s needs” (Interview with victim’s wife, Dimas, 16 May 2023).

One of our interviews reveals that one victim’s wife was forced to become the female head of the household to support her only daughter. The wife was forced to make important decisions in the household by herself. Their lives are increasingly isolated.

Almost all of the victims’ families have something in common, namely a high potential for social vulnerability. This condition makes it more difficult for them to face life both socially and economically.

One of the victims in Malang’s Tajinan sub-district had just started a motorcycle and carpet washing business for three months before his death at Kanjuruhan stadium. While managing the business, he was financially independent and able to break even, with enough profit for his daily needs after graduating from Vocational High School (SMK). However, after the tragedy, there was no effort to compensate the loss of income according to the income of the victims’ families. In fact, just for the procurement of a machine or work tool, Suyono (the victim’s father) had to ask a state institution. The machine was not an initiative of the state officials who were also part of the litigants in the Kanjuruhan tragedy.

In addition to the uncertainty around income compensation, the certainty of access in the form of legal fees or expenses incurred by victims as part of their participation in the trial of five individuals, including three police officers, implicated in the disaster. There is almost no ease of access victims’ families at the trial. One of the victims’ families in Malang Regency was even encouraged by some unscrupulous state officials to “not exaggerate the problem”, with the implication that there was no guarantee of transportation to attend the trial in Surabaya.

Tali Asih: inadequate assistance to victims

Victims have rights to assistance and compensation, including ensuring free medical treatment and trauma healing for victims and their families. Victims’ rights are regulated in legislation, specifically in Indonesia’s 2014 Law on Witness and Victim Protection (Undang-Undang No 31 Tahun 2014 tentang Perlindungan Saksi dan Korban), which regulates the rights of witnesses and victims to claim protection from the state; these rights are considered part of human rights. The government or the private sector should not just provide compensation, but should handle events and fulfil rights from a victim’s perspective.

Assistance is carried out in the form of giving money, goods, or services, to individuals, families, groups and/or communities to protect them from social risks. The assistance distributed is not merely a substitute for the loss of a loved one’s life, but proof of attention as well as friendship from various parties to the victim’s family.

In this case, various kinds of aid have been distributed to the victims, both monetary and non-monetary. However, the majority of the aid distributed has been in the form of monetary aid, which a diverse array of stakeholders have provided to the families of the Kanjuruhan victims. It can’t be denied that the distribution of cash assistance is the quickest way to fulfill their responsibility to help the families of the victims. However, it has yet to address the needs of the victims’ families—especially long-term needs such as education and careers—nor does it provide full justice for the victims’ families.

In general, there were two parties that have provided assistance to the families of the Kanjuruhan victims. The first is the government. At first glance, almost all levels of government participated in this mission, from the central government to local governments. At the central government level, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) are the most dominant stakeholders in providing assistance. In an interview with Malang Corruption Watch, Suyono, a father of one Kanjuruhan victim, mentioned the assistance he received from the Ministry of Social Affairs in the form of compensation of Rp10 million to each of the victim’s families, although he also stated that the assistance was also unevenly distributed to all of the victims’ families.

Meanwhile, the majority of assistance from LPSK has come in the form of psychological assistance and trauma recovery services for victims’ families. This assistance was received by almost every victim’s family. However, not all of the victims’ families accepted the assistance, either because they did not need it or because they were afraid that accessing such services would exacerbate their trauma.

At the local government level, the East Java provincial government under the leadership of Governor Khofifah Indah Parawansa, alongside the Malang City and Malang District governments have become central channels for providing assistance to the families of Kanjuruhan victims. Some data obtained as part of Malang Corruption Watch’s interviews shows that many families were given assistance by Khofifah’s provincial government, mostly in the form of cash and business capital assistance. The cash assistance provided ranged from Rp5–10 million for each victim family, while business capital assistance was provided in the form of money, machine tools, and jobs.

Second, assistance was voluntarily provided to victim families by non-governmental parties as a form of their concern for this tragedy. This has included political parties, for instance, Golkar Party, where Malang Regency Leadership Council of Golkar Party (DPC Kabupaten Malang) provided education assistance to the family of one victim, Caca, amounting to Rp10 million per month and the assistance was intended to finance her siblings who were still in school. This assistance, was paid from the internal finances of the DPC Golkar, will last for two years until Caca’s siblings have graduated from school.

Aside from assistance from political parties, private educational institutions such as kindergartens also provided education assistance for the family members of the victims who were still in school. The family of Ningsih, another victim, for example, received education assistance for her younger brother who is still in kindergarten to be extended until he graduated from kindergarten.

Table 1: Summary of the types of assistance received by the families of the victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy

No	Types of Help	Helper		Number (families of beneficiary victims)
		Government agencies	Non-Government
1.	Cash			20
2.	Groceries			20
3.	Funeral expenses			2
4.	Education			7
5.	Work aids			1
6.	Psychological rehabilitation			9
7.	Population administration relief			2
8.	Health/medicine			1
9.	Tax relief			1
10.	SIM free			1

All these forms of assistance are certainly not enough to make up for the loss of life of the victim for their families. However, due to the voluntary nature of the assistance, the families of the victims accepted it openly. The assistance they receive does not guarantee the fulfillment of long-term needs, that should be safeguarded by the state.

From our interviews, it can be concluded that the types of assistance received were not well planned. Victims’ families’ descriptions of the forms of assistance also vary from one another. There are no standardised mechanisms that can ensure that the various forms of assistance are distributed fairly and transparently to the survivors and victims’ families.

As a result, miscoordination in the field the distribution of assistance to survivors is often apparent, and a lot of assistance was assembled immediately after the tragedy, without being able to be utilised for further long-term needs. In addition to the problem of miscoordination, the provision of this assistance also experiences limitations in the aspect of reach, and makes the existing assistance feel that it does not meet recipients’ shifting needs.

Justice beyond aid

Providing material assistance to those impacted by the Kanjuruhan disaster in this way is not very effective in delivering an element of justice to them. If the process of providing assistance is not done properly, there will be various conflicts caused by unfair decision-making. The fulfillment of victims’ needs will be achieved if there is a coherence in the work of a coordinated distribution system that can consider the characteristics of the individual needs of victims.

Indonesia’s Law No. 11/2009 on Social Welfare (Article 1, section 9) states that social protection is all efforts directed at preventing and dealing with risks from social shocks and vulnerabilities. The shocks and vulnerabilities in question are conditions that occur abruptly, as a result of social, economic, or political crises, disasters, and natural phenomena. Thus, the Ministry of Social Affairs is responsible for formulating policies and programs for the implementation of social welfare and the provision of social assistance.

However, due to the limited resources owned by the Ministry of Social Affairs in providing direct assistance, crowdfunding method has become an alternative to recover Kanjuruhan victims by raising funds from the community.

If we look at the practice of fundraising for victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy, so far the parties who have channeled aid have directly met the victims or through organisers at the Aremania football team’s supporter club. The victims are in a vulnerable position not only in terms of facing the criminal justice system, but also economically, socially and politically. In addition, many of them currently lack long-term social and economic security because the majority of aid was distributed shortly after the Kanjuruhan tragedy took place.

Policy-wise, the aid distribution system requires coordination from multiple actors who are competent in distributing aid. It is necessary to analsze the burden borne by victims based on the criteria of economic capacity, the number of family members, and the scale of the economic impact of the disaster on them. Fulfillment of victims’ welfare rights is not only about monetary assistance, but there needs to be a clear calculation in measuring losses to victims. Thus, it should consider more vital aspects such as age, income, actual conditions, and the years left before reaching the national life expectancy. If we take the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ compensation system as an example, the calculation of compensation can even reach a very specific amount with a formula that includes the age of the victim, the national life expectancy at the time of death, and the income earned before death.

This compensation, in turn, needs to be jointly fought for by the entire community to ensure the establishment of justice for Kanjuruhan victims from a legal perspective. Thus, the struggle agenda to demand usut tuntas—thorough investigation—as the slogan of the Kanjuruhan tragedy demands collective awareness. This demand should not come from a particular group, but as a manifestation of a struggle that is in line with the will of the victims.

This means that all processes of defending victims must be based on the victims’ perspective. The victims’ perspective means that all forms of voices issued to the public regarding the Kanjuruhan issue comes from the victims. Understanding the true demands of the victims is what is so important to be pursued immediately. After the tragedy, various impacts have been experienced by the victims, but as our interviews have highlighted, they did receive various kinds of assistance from both the government and the community.

However, can anyone measure the price of losing a life? Of course, learning to listen to the voices of the victims is very important for the government to do immediately.

The post Justice after Kanjuruhan: lost Lives, lost livelihoods appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

1 October 2022 was the last day for Margaretha, a 17-year-old victim of Kanjuruhan football stadium disaster in Malang, East Java. Margaretha was lying lifeless when her family found her in the hospital that night, clutching a bag, and with her identity documents still intact.

Margaretha’s mother was psychologically traumatised after the tragedy, always blaming herself, and remembering what had happened to her daughter. If she could have forbidden her daughter not to watch the match that day, then it is possible that her daughter would still be safe.

The family of another victim, Okto, was offered psychological assistance from one of the universities in Malang. The family did not take it, because they thought that it would mean Okto’s mother would continue to remember her son’s death. Before leaving for the stadium, Okto borrowed his father’s shoes. The family found Okto lifeless, wearing a white jumper, with his father’s shoes left on. Okto’s body was found at Wava Husada Kepanjen Hospital without any identity documents. His wallet and mobile phone had disappeared.

Their suffering exemplifies the psychological effects felt by the families of the victims in the year after the tragedy, in which 135 people were killed after police fired tear gas on crowds after a pitch invasion.

The trauma of survivors and families feeling the heavy loss of family members has been compounded by intimidation by authorities.

These traumas for the victims’ families have been compounded by their experiences of intimidation by outsiders beginning shortly after the tragedy occurred. Some of the alleged threats and intimidation directed at witnesses and victims’ families are quite diverse, ranging from illegal searches and confiscation of evidence by investigators, intimidation of medical personnel, surveillance and threatening behaviour towards victims’ parents by unknown persons suspected to be police, to intimidation for expressing opinions in the Kanjuruhan trial decision.

One survivor, Devi, felt the deep loss of losing his two daughters to the Kanjuruhan tragedy. In the midst of the autopsy process, Devi’s emotional outburst was so strong witnessing the death of his daughters and this deep sorrow also prompted him to declare that “this tragedy is a massacre” on the part of the police. This psychological pressure was not only experienced by Devi, whose story was reported in Vice News, but also by the families of other victims whose stories were not covered by the media, some of whom also experienced psychological intimidation by the authorities.

One of these families is Maria’s., where field observations have shown that this family not only felt a deep loss for the departure of their family members, but they also felt non-physical intimidation from security personnel after the Kanjuruhan tragedy. In the case of Maria’s family, they expressed their feelings of loss when they learned that Maria (the third of the five children) was taken from her son by the tragedy. The family found it difficult to explain to their son about their mother’s true condition.

When Maria died, her son (aged one year) did not leave the house for almost two months. Until his hands were like scratching, changing skin like that. Then crying for his mama. Yesterday, his body was hot for one week, crying for his mama. Then I said mama he said he was looking for money, looking for work….ooh how come he forgot (crying). (Interview with Maria’s family, 16 May 2023)

Lost lives, lost livelihoods

The Kanjuruhan tragedy on 1 2022 hast left a painful imprint for its victims. A year after the tragedy, the loss of life for the families of those killed and injured by tear gas is not the only impact. The families of the victims continue to experience long-term psychological, social, and economic consequences.

Numerous kinds of government and non-governmental aid have been distributed to the victims. However, the nature of this assistance is still partial and spontaneous as a form of responsibility to the survivors. In addition, the aid distributed has not been able to answer the long-term needs of those who survived, so a sense of justice to them has not been present in handling the aftermath of this tragedy. A series of interviews conducted by Malang Corruption Watch with 20 families of those killed in the Kanjuruhan disaster, conducted over a two week period in May 2023, shows that many families’ socio-economic conditions have changed drastically. In many cases, the person on whom the family relies for income is now gone. Based on information from the victim’s family who was left behind by the victim in the tragedy explained:

So far, my husband has been the backbone of the family. With his death, now I have to struggle harder. Until now, I have not been able to find a permanent job, only as a housemaid to fulfill the family’s needs” (Interview with victim’s wife, Dimas, 16 May 2023).

One of our interviews reveals that one victim’s wife was forced to become the female head of the household to support her only daughter. The wife was forced to make important decisions in the household by herself. Their lives are increasingly isolated.

Almost all of the victims’ families have something in common, namely a high potential for social vulnerability. This condition makes it more difficult for them to face life both socially and economically.

One of the victims in Malang’s Tajinan sub-district had just started a motorcycle and carpet washing business for three months before his death at Kanjuruhan stadium. While managing the business, he was financially independent and able to break even, with enough profit for his daily needs after graduating from Vocational High School (SMK). However, after the tragedy, there was no effort to compensate the loss of income according to the income of the victims’ families. In fact, just for the procurement of a machine or work tool, Suyono (the victim’s father) had to ask a state institution. The machine was not an initiative of the state officials who were also part of the litigants in the Kanjuruhan tragedy.

In addition to the uncertainty around income compensation, the certainty of access in the form of legal fees or expenses incurred by victims as part of their participation in the trial of five individuals, including three police officers, implicated in the disaster. There is almost no ease of access victims’ families at the trial. One of the victims’ families in Malang Regency was even encouraged by some unscrupulous state officials to “not exaggerate the problem”, with the implication that there was no guarantee of transportation to attend the trial in Surabaya.

Tali Asih: inadequate assistance to victims

Victims have rights to assistance and compensation, including ensuring free medical treatment and trauma healing for victims and their families. Victims’ rights are regulated in legislation, specifically in Indonesia’s 2014 Law on Witness and Victim Protection (Undang-Undang No 31 Tahun 2014 tentang Perlindungan Saksi dan Korban), which regulates the rights of witnesses and victims to claim protection from the state; these rights are considered part of human rights. The government or the private sector should not just provide compensation, but should handle events and fulfil rights from a victim’s perspective.

Assistance is carried out in the form of giving money, goods, or services, to individuals, families, groups and/or communities to protect them from social risks. The assistance distributed is not merely a substitute for the loss of a loved one’s life, but proof of attention as well as friendship from various parties to the victim’s family.

In this case, various kinds of aid have been distributed to the victims, both monetary and non-monetary. However, the majority of the aid distributed has been in the form of monetary aid, which a diverse array of stakeholders have provided to the families of the Kanjuruhan victims. It can’t be denied that the distribution of cash assistance is the quickest way to fulfill their responsibility to help the families of the victims. However, it has yet to address the needs of the victims’ families—especially long-term needs such as education and careers—nor does it provide full justice for the victims’ families.

In general, there were two parties that have provided assistance to the families of the Kanjuruhan victims. The first is the government. At first glance, almost all levels of government participated in this mission, from the central government to local governments. At the central government level, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) are the most dominant stakeholders in providing assistance. In an interview with Malang Corruption Watch, Suyono, a father of one Kanjuruhan victim, mentioned the assistance he received from the Ministry of Social Affairs in the form of compensation of Rp10 million to each of the victim’s families, although he also stated that the assistance was also unevenly distributed to all of the victims’ families.

Meanwhile, the majority of assistance from LPSK has come in the form of psychological assistance and trauma recovery services for victims’ families. This assistance was received by almost every victim’s family. However, not all of the victims’ families accepted the assistance, either because they did not need it or because they were afraid that accessing such services would exacerbate their trauma.

At the local government level, the East Java provincial government under the leadership of Governor Khofifah Indah Parawansa, alongside the Malang City and Malang District governments have become central channels for providing assistance to the families of Kanjuruhan victims. Some data obtained as part of Malang Corruption Watch’s interviews shows that many families were given assistance by Khofifah’s provincial government, mostly in the form of cash and business capital assistance. The cash assistance provided ranged from Rp5–10 million for each victim family, while business capital assistance was provided in the form of money, machine tools, and jobs.

Second, assistance was voluntarily provided to victim families by non-governmental parties as a form of their concern for this tragedy. This has included political parties, for instance, Golkar Party, where Malang Regency Leadership Council of Golkar Party (DPC Kabupaten Malang) provided education assistance to the family of one victim, Caca, amounting to Rp10 million per month and the assistance was intended to finance her siblings who were still in school. This assistance, was paid from the internal finances of the DPC Golkar, will last for two years until Caca’s siblings have graduated from school.

Aside from assistance from political parties, private educational institutions such as kindergartens also provided education assistance for the family members of the victims who were still in school. The family of Ningsih, another victim, for example, received education assistance for her younger brother who is still in kindergarten to be extended until he graduated from kindergarten.

Table 1: Summary of the types of assistance received by the families of the victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy

No	Types of Help	Helper		Number (families of beneficiary victims)
		Government agencies	Non-Government
1.	Cash			20
2.	Groceries			20
3.	Funeral expenses			2
4.	Education			7
5.	Work aids			1
6.	Psychological rehabilitation			9
7.	Population administration relief			2
8.	Health/medicine			1
9.	Tax relief			1
10.	SIM free			1

All these forms of assistance are certainly not enough to make up for the loss of life of the victim for their families. However, due to the voluntary nature of the assistance, the families of the victims accepted it openly. The assistance they receive does not guarantee the fulfillment of long-term needs, that should be safeguarded by the state.

From our interviews, it can be concluded that the types of assistance received were not well planned. Victims’ families’ descriptions of the forms of assistance also vary from one another. There are no standardised mechanisms that can ensure that the various forms of assistance are distributed fairly and transparently to the survivors and victims’ families.

As a result, miscoordination in the field the distribution of assistance to survivors is often apparent, and a lot of assistance was assembled immediately after the tragedy, without being able to be utilised for further long-term needs. In addition to the problem of miscoordination, the provision of this assistance also experiences limitations in the aspect of reach, and makes the existing assistance feel that it does not meet recipients’ shifting needs.

Justice beyond aid

Providing material assistance to those impacted by the Kanjuruhan disaster in this way is not very effective in delivering an element of justice to them. If the process of providing assistance is not done properly, there will be various conflicts caused by unfair decision-making. The fulfillment of victims’ needs will be achieved if there is a coherence in the work of a coordinated distribution system that can consider the characteristics of the individual needs of victims.

Indonesia’s Law No. 11/2009 on Social Welfare (Article 1, section 9) states that social protection is all efforts directed at preventing and dealing with risks from social shocks and vulnerabilities. The shocks and vulnerabilities in question are conditions that occur abruptly, as a result of social, economic, or political crises, disasters, and natural phenomena. Thus, the Ministry of Social Affairs is responsible for formulating policies and programs for the implementation of social welfare and the provision of social assistance.

However, due to the limited resources owned by the Ministry of Social Affairs in providing direct assistance, crowdfunding method has become an alternative to recover Kanjuruhan victims by raising funds from the community.

If we look at the practice of fundraising for victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy, so far the parties who have channeled aid have directly met the victims or through organisers at the Aremania football team’s supporter club. The victims are in a vulnerable position not only in terms of facing the criminal justice system, but also economically, socially and politically. In addition, many of them currently lack long-term social and economic security because the majority of aid was distributed shortly after the Kanjuruhan tragedy took place.

Policy-wise, the aid distribution system requires coordination from multiple actors who are competent in distributing aid. It is necessary to analsze the burden borne by victims based on the criteria of economic capacity, the number of family members, and the scale of the economic impact of the disaster on them. Fulfillment of victims’ welfare rights is not only about monetary assistance, but there needs to be a clear calculation in measuring losses to victims. Thus, it should consider more vital aspects such as age, income, actual conditions, and the years left before reaching the national life expectancy. If we take the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ compensation system as an example, the calculation of compensation can even reach a very specific amount with a formula that includes the age of the victim, the national life expectancy at the time of death, and the income earned before death.

This compensation, in turn, needs to be jointly fought for by the entire community to ensure the establishment of justice for Kanjuruhan victims from a legal perspective. Thus, the struggle agenda to demand usut tuntas—thorough investigation—as the slogan of the Kanjuruhan tragedy demands collective awareness. This demand should not come from a particular group, but as a manifestation of a struggle that is in line with the will of the victims.

This means that all processes of defending victims must be based on the victims’ perspective. The victims’ perspective means that all forms of voices issued to the public regarding the Kanjuruhan issue comes from the victims. Understanding the true demands of the victims is what is so important to be pursued immediately. After the tragedy, various impacts have been experienced by the victims, but as our interviews have highlighted, they did receive various kinds of assistance from both the government and the community.

However, can anyone measure the price of losing a life? Of course, learning to listen to the voices of the victims is very important for the government to do immediately.

The post Justice after Kanjuruhan: lost Lives, lost livelihoods appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

Given the heterogeneity, tonnage and toxicity of modern waste, a convincing argument could be made for waste as the inscription of the Anthropocene. Even though it is both organic and inorganic waste that contribute to the transition to this new planetary epoch—in which human activity has become the dominant force shaping Earth’s climate and ecosystem—it is the chemical composition, durability and omnipresence of plastics that make some scholars designate our age as the Plasticene.

Considering that Indonesia is ranked as the world’s second-biggest marine plastic polluter, one might refer to this large archipelagic country as plastipelago. Indeed, a comparable designation was made by Dandhy Dwi Laksono and Rahung Nasution for their documentary film Pulau Plastik (“Plastic Island”) that explores the magnitude of plastic pollution in Indonesia.

However, the postulated age of the Plasticene should denote not only our plastic footprint and its impact on both people and the environment, but also the pliability of contemporary waste management regimes, where waste can be seen as both a problem and an opportunity. What this ambiguity shows is that our modern waste is not only difficult to handle, but also difficult to define. This is especially so in Indonesia, where more than half of the country’s population is still without access to basic waste collection services, and where the government of President Joko Widodo is promoting the economic value of waste as part of a wider effort to address the country’s waste crisis.

With Indonesia standing at a critical juncture of a waste crisis, one should welcome the fact that in 2017, the Indonesian government has adopted the universally popular anti-waste strategy known as the “circular economy” as the new paradigm for its national policy on the management of solid waste. Known as Indonesia Clean from Waste (ICFW), the aim of this policy is to reduce by 30% the total annual production of waste by 2025, and to handle the remaining 70% according to environmentally friendly and effective technologies.

In the province of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), where I conducted my doctoral field research on the island of Sumbawa, the government of Governor Zulkieflimansyah has translated this policy into an implementing regulation at the provincial level under the flagship name of NTB Zero Waste. Here, the term “zero waste” is used to communicate the goal of waste prevention, while the notion of circular economy refers to specific mechanisms through which to achieve that objective.

Unlike the current linear economic model of “take–make–dispose”, the circular economy recognises that natural resources are finite and aims to eliminate waste by keeping materials in circulation for as long as possible, through strategies such as reusing, recycling and responsible manufacture. This said, the circular economy can play an important role both in making waste management systems more resilient and in strengthening national self-sufficiency by lowering of the import demand of virgin and secondary materials.

In Indonesia alone, this could mean reducing the amount of waste going to landfills and increasing the quality and quantity of locally sourced plastics as “feedstock” for recycling and thus reducing the country’s dependence on waste imports. While waste imports to Indonesia are small compared to the total production of waste in the country, they too have a negative impact on Indonesia’s environment and society. Overall, the aim of the circular economy is to close loops of resource flows by galvanising people and industries into “durable” entities able to turn waste into a resource.

This ambition can be seen in the words of Siti Nurbaya Bakar, the Minister of Environment and Forestry (MoEF), who in 2021 said that now is the time “to manage waste in ways that can make a real contribution to economic growth”. This was echoed by the Vice-Governor of NTB, Sitti Rohmi Djalilah, who argued that waste cannot be seen as a problem; instead, it has to be managed as a blessing. There is, of course, an inherent incongruity in this statement, for “blessing”, by definition, does not have to be managed. Here, by drawing on data from my doctoral thesis, I trace the development of the ICFW policy through the policy’s processes of problem definition to solution design so as to identify some of the key challenges and (limits) of this naïve and hasty rebranding of waste as resource.

Problem definition

Broadly speaking, public policies are enacted following the problematisation of an issue. Often expressed in the form of a crisis, an issue is something that can be defined as unwanted outcomes of an action (or lack thereof) that affect a certain group of people. However, crisis is not merely a moment of panic but also an opportunity for reflection in the sense of a critical moment that can lead to social change.

There are two distinct, yet interrelated crises that led to the enactment of the ICFW policy. The first refers to the actual crisis of waste that is manifested most viscerally in the country’s clogged up rivers, filthy beaches, toxic air and overflowing landfills. For illustration, the material evidence of such crisis can also be found in more obscure places, such as local abattoirs—where it is common for Indonesian meat merchants to find plastic discards in animal entrails.

While these plastics will not be consumed by humans, which is why they have been put aside following their discovery, the toxins and chemicals that are associated with these materials can undoubtedly enter our food chain through a process known as “trophic transfer”. There are multiple reasons why finding plastics in the stomachs of beef cattle is anything but uncommon for abattoir workers in Indonesia. Given the lack of available grasslands caused by changes in land function, some cattle herders in Indonesia use landfills as “pastures” for their livestock. By doing so they help to reduce the amount of food waste in Indonesian landfills, for there is little incentive to valorise organic waste in Indonesia, due to the country’s fertiliser subsidy policy.

In this context, this animal infrastructure is sustained insofar as it helps to sustain human livelihood and reduce the pressures put on landfills due to increased food consumption. However, animals do get sick as their digestive systems become clogged up with plastics. Due to high rates of littering along riverbanks and roadsides, it is common nowadays to also find plastic discards in the entrails of cows that feed on grasslands. Perhaps the most littered (and landfilled) items in Indonesia, single-use plastic bags are used excessively not only in traditional markets and modern retails in urban centres, but also by vendors and their customers in more remote rural areas.

The second crisis refers to the crisis of reputation that was sparked by a study conducted by a group of scientists led by Jenna R. Jambeck from the University of Georgia (USA) that gave Indonesia the stigmatising label of the world’s second-biggest contributor to marine plastic pollution, after China. At first, the government of Indonesia tried to dispute this study by proposing to make its own research on the matter of marine plastic pollution. Such protestation was, according to Dr Dirhamsyah—the Director of Research Centre for Oceanography at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)—a matter of Indonesia’s reputation.

Nevertheless, a detailed examination of a range of government and academic publications shows clearly the influence that Jambeck’s study had on the enactment of the ICFW policy. With the need to clean the nation not only from its waste, but also from the stain on its reputation, the architects of the ICFW policy relied on the characterisation of waste as a major problem. Hence, it is no surprise that in Indonesia, like elsewhere in the world, waste is often represented as a monster.

This evocation can be seen, for example, in Riyana Rizki’s online fairy tale Raksasa Sampah di Kerajaan Lolontar (Garbage Monster in Lolontar Kingdom). In this short story, the Queen of Lolontar is shocked as she witnesses her people running away from a giant creature made from littered garbage. With an heirloom sword in her hand, the Queen runs towards the garbage monster and slays it with a single slash. “This is the result of your littering”, the Queen says to her people as a cloud of thick black smoke escapes from the monster’s body. Shaken by the experience and ashamed of their habits, the people of Lolontar promise not to litter again.

Here, as in Indonesia, the problem of waste is attributed, in large part, to littering behaviour. However, this failure to keep discards within the technopolitical domain of manageable waste should be understood as having an array of causal factors. These include the country’s shift to a consumption-oriented economy and the resulting changes in consumption practices from biodegradable to plastic materials, as well as the failure to meet these transformations with necessary developments in waste management infrastructure and environmental education.

Another reason why this tale is interesting is because it chooses a female leader to confront both the monster and the immoral actions of the populace. This reflects quite nicely on the fact that women in Indonesia are the key agents of kebersihan (cleanliness). This gendered division of labour in waste management can be seen not only in the brushing, sweeping, dusting and washing activities of Indonesian women across different cultural groups, but also in the relevant positions of authority that are occupied by female leaders.

Take, for example, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, the Minister of Environment and Forestry and Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, the Director General of Waste and Toxic Waste Management at the MoEF. In terms of Indonesia’s bureaucratic structures, these two women are the most senior figures responsible for addressing the country’s waste problem by promoting the circular economy, including its ambition to create entrepreneurially-minded individuals who would recognise and take advantage of the economic value of waste. Within such discourse, waste is no longer represented as a problem. Instead, it is seen as an opportunity or a resource.

Solution design

The most important instrument of the ICFW policy through which to encourage citizens to participate in the circular economy is the waste bank program. Waste banks (bank sampah) are private or semi-private waste collection facilities where people can exchange different recyclables for money or services. At present, there are around 8,000 waste banks in the country, mainly on the highly populated island of Java that is also home to the majority of recycling companies in Indonesia.

As part of the enactment of the ICFW policy, the national government has instructed local governments to help establish at least 31,000 new units across the whole of Indonesia by 2025. One key objective behind the desired proliferation of waste banks is to encourage people to separate their waste—a practice that has previously been done exclusively by the highly stigmatised informal waste pickers (pemulung) who collect recyclables at landfills and kerbsides, and then sell their stock to waste collectors (pengepul) further up the supply chain. In terms of the circular economy, separating products and materials at the end of their life cycle is a crucial action for an optimised recycling, for it reduces leakage and contamination.

While waste banks can increase public participation and awareness and make waste management systems in Indonesia more resilient, their proliferation across the country is relatively slow and their impact on recycling rates is moderate when compared to the contribution made by those working in the informal sector. In 2021, Siti Nurbaya Bakar claimed that waste management was one of the few businesses sectors in Indonesia that continued to grow during the pandemic. However, it was also claimed, by her Ministry, that waste banks reported a significant drop in revenue during this crisis, mainly because of social distancing measures. This means that the reason why the waste management sector proved resilient during the pandemic is mostly because of the informal waste workers, especially pemulung, who continued to retrieve recyclables from landfills during the health crisis. It is important to note that some people have joined the informal sector and become pemulung precisely because of the pandemic and the related lack of social security and job opportunities.

Even though the informal waste sector forms a vital part of the entities involved in waste management in Indonesia, its contribution to the system has long been unrecognised and uncompensated. Such devaluation stems from the historical association of informal activities with poverty and criminality. For example, during the authoritarian New Order regime (1966–1998), scavenging for waste was made into an illegal activity because it conflicted with modern policies of land-use and town planning. In today’s Indonesia, it is not uncommon to see signs in front of urban neighbourhoods and complexes that read, Pemulung Dilarang Masuk (No Scavengers).

The fact that the ICFW initiative makes no consideration for this informal infrastructure, suggests that the policy may not only seek to make Indonesia clean from waste, but also clean from the informal waste sector. This can be seen, for example, in the policy’s strategic plan to establish number of parental waste banks that would be equipped with waste processing technologies (i.e. press and waste shredding machines) needed to process plastics before they could be sold to the recycling companies. This enables waste bank operators to sell plastics within the waste bank family instead of having to go to informal waste collectors who have historically been adept at preparing plastics for recycling. By seeking to circumvent pengepul and by reducing the amount of waste otherwise available to pemulung, the waste bank program is illustrative of how the circular economy and the related commodification and formalisation of waste can lead to the “gentrification of reuse”.

Unlike the informal waste sector, waste banks are seen by policymakers as having the potential to nurture environmental and entrepreneurial values among the populace. Hence, besides helping to raise awareness through waste separation, waste banks also serve as places of experimentation where waste bank operators (and their customers) are encouraged to upcycle some of the collected materials into new products, such as grocery baskets, plant pots, handbags, or even paving blocks or bricks, all made, to varying degrees, from plastic waste.

These upcycled products are often referred to using the prefix “eco”—hence eco-bricks, eco-paving, eco-fashion and the like. As once noted by Anies Baswedan, the former governor of Jakarta, the terms ecology and economics can actually go hand in hand, because they have same prefix—oikos, or household. While waste banks provide opportunity for waste valorisation, it is the Indonesian household where the initial sorting of waste has to take place. Given that women’s main field of activity in Indonesia has historically been inside the house, this role is often fulfilled by the ibu rumah tangga (housewife).

Though most prevalent within the waste bank family, these upcycling principles are being promoted across the wider society, including in formal schooling and rural development programs. There is a lot of enthusiasm around this plastic rush among certain segments of Indonesian society, especially the young. However, turning plastic waste into new and shiny products, such as the paving block seen above, is rarely done with the use of environmentally friendly and effective technologies. Instead, people rely on makeshift devices whereby plastic is melted into a tar that is then moulded into blocks. The heating process relies on the open burning of plastic waste—a practice that takes no consideration for the emission of toxic gases and ash into the air and soil, respectively. Common in rural Indonesia where there is a limited access to basic waste collection services, open incineration of (mixed) wastes is a significant source of pollution. The open burning of plastics is particularly problematic as it is linked with an increased risk of cardiorespiratory and neurological disorders, as well as with toxic contamination of the soil and groundwater. The act of turning plastic waste into paving blocks produces adverse human health and environmental effects. However, these effects are rarely acknowledged by the advocates of these practices.

Not all of the upcycling projects that are currently being propagated and practiced in Indonesia as part of the circular economy aspiration rely on the open incineration of plastics. One such example are grocery baskets and handbags that women and children in Indonesia are encouraged to make out of plastic sachets used previously as packaging for food, cosmetic, medicinal and toiletry products. From my observation, these and other upcycling projects often fail, or they end up serving different—often symbolic/ceremonial—functions.

In most cases, it is both the ecological and economic goals that are not realised. Being difficult to valorise, these products regularly end up being discarded. Because they are produced with mixed materials—not only plastic waste, but also new materials, such as tapes, strings, wires, glue and the like—they are unrecyclable. It could be said that making these products increases rather than reduces consumption and waste. In general, these entrepreneurial projects have the capacity to place responsibility for waste in the hands of consumers, rather than producers. This discursive endorsing of creativity has the potential to engender real effects, such as when certain practices and values regarding waste reduction (i.e. extended producer responsibility, and reductions in material throughput and consumption) are valued less than others.

This alchemic-like ambition to turn discarded plastics into new objects can also be seen at the hands of government agencies. One such example, is the efforts of the Indonesian Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (MoPWH) to incorporate discarded single-use plastics into road tar for building national roads in the country. According to Danis Sumadilaga, the head of the Agency for Research and Development at the MoPWH, mixing plastic waste with asphalt will result in stronger and more stable roads.

While it is certainly better to have wild plastic discards sequestered inside a road, rather than scattered in the environment or buried deep inside animals’ entrails, this development undoubtedly erects a speed bump on the road towards the nationwide ban on single-use plastics. In other words, mixing single-use plastics with asphalt makes plastic appear as unproblematic. To return to the concept of Plasticene, the plastic road is representative of both the human alteration—the plastification—of the environment, and the blind assumption that the circular economy can coalesce economic growth with sustainability.

I would urge policymakers in Indonesia to recognise and acknowledge that waste is indeed a serious problem. Reframing waste as only an economic resource does not convey the urgent need for waste management and waste reduction, nor does it call for greater responsibility among all segments of the populace. What the examples presented here show is that turning plastic discards into new products of economic value is anything but easy. Instead, such efforts often lead to pollution and obstruct meaningful actions aimed at waste prevention.

Ensuring that all people have access to basic waste collection services, not only those living in urban areas, would be more effective in reducing waste pollution than encouraging groups and individuals to take advantage of the economic value of waste. This would require the modernisation of existing landfills—the majority of which are mere open dumpsites—and the development of new landfills in the country.

This proposition might not be popular in the discourse on circular economy. However, without effective and integrated systems designed to capture and handle waste, waste will inevitably put more pressure on both people and the environment. Such developments should include efforts to incorporate informal waste workers into formal waste management systems. As the case with pemulung showed, policymakers in Indonesia need to take seriously the issue of social justice and equity in the circular economy-inspired transformations.

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