The Timor Man (2 page)

Nathan Seda Jakarta — January 1965

  

Lightning cracked yet again, signalling there would be no break in the tropical storm. The city began to choke as rain fell incessantly creating chaos with the traffic. Trucks, buses and cars remained stuck where they had broken down under the deluge, their electrical systems saturated and rendered useless. Scores of drivers waded through the deep and filthy flows which threatened to carry the abandoned cars over the roads into the flooded canals.

The downpour continued throughout the day, threatening to close the capital, as most major roads became small rivers feeding shallow lakes which had suddenly appeared where once there had been parks and fields.

The air was thick with the musty damp smell of the rain. Humidity rose to unbearable levels.

The more congested intersections would remain blocked for hours as children played in waist-deep ponds covering the Capital's pot-holed protocol roads. Electricity flow would have ceased almost immediately rain had commenced. Without power there would be no water — the irony of being without adequate water while rain flooded the city was not lost on the Capital's inhabitants.

The transition from Dutch colonial rule to Independence had thrust the archipelago's one hundred and fifty million people into a political and economic quagmire peppered by religious rivalry and diverse cultural differences.

Soekarno's brilliant use of rhetoric, and support provided by the military, enabled him to take the helm of the world's fifth most populous country, a land rich in unexploited natural resources.

The national philosophy, the
Panca Sila
, provided for five basic principles around which the people were expected to build their way of life. This philosophy eased the racial and religious tensions which otherwise might have caused civil war. Although the country had the world's largest Moslem population, political power was determined more by ethnic rather than religious considerations. Leaders from Java, the most heavily populated island, controlled the country's numerous and politically unstable provincial centres.

The sky remained ominously dark. Lightning flashed again, striking the unfinished skeleton of the Wisma Nusantara building overlooking the British Embassy.
Jalan Thamrin
, Jakarta's main protocol avenue, ceased to function.

Canal water flowed along the footpaths bringing with it unmentionable sewage and the occasional dead animal. Since seasonal maintenance was invariably neglected the
kali
, or drains, could never handle the sudden downpours. Putrid garbage and human effluent flowed into the streets and through the houses. Pedestrian traffic disappeared as the footpaths became increasingly inundated.

Houses built along the avenues adjacent to these canals always suffered the fierce odours from these sewage streams.
Jonguses
waited apprehensively as the rivers of foul waste threatened their masters'residences. Instructions were given to female servants, the
babus
, to stand-by to clean up after the occasional vehicle which passed immediately in front of a residence, throwing small waves into the well kept yards, creating havoc.

Most resident foreigners were members of the Diplomatic Corps. Their houses were grand old Dutch designed mansions built during the colonial times to provide for the numerous Dutch colonists. Now they were occupied by career men and women, many enjoying their first posting overseas.

Expatriates, generally speaking, were provided with vehicles. Transport was expensive and car smuggling was practised in many of the Third World Embassies to compensate for the poorly paid civil servants'meagre incomes. Drivers ferried their masters to and fro, enjoying considerable privilege within the domestic ranks of the expatriate household. The wet season was, however, when these drivers suffered most abuse.

Rain brought floods. Flooded streets caused the
tuan
's car to stop.
Tuan
would be late for work, or even worse, late for a cocktail function. The ‘mister' would then be angry and would surely blame his woes for the day on the driver. It seemed that no one appreciated the rain.

The traffic police disappeared. What could they do? The locals were clever enough to stay indoors and the foreigners, the
orang asing
, were always a problem demanding assistance waving their diplomatic passports whenever their vehicles came to an abrupt halt in the flooded streets. Just four or five stranded vehicles around the Hotel Indonesia circle could create hours of chaos.

Traffic congestion was further exacerbated by the 100,000
becak
drivers who pedalled their iron three-wheelers everywhere, demanding equal access through the bedlam of traffic. These wiry-legged men were definitely a force to be reckoned with, should one be so unfortunate as to become involved in an accident or any other altercation with them. Theirs was, in fact, the most sensible form of transportation during heavy rain periods as the passenger was reasonably protected from the elements. There were, however, exceptions.

This year's
Idulfitri
contributed to Jakarta's unpleasant appearance. The remnants of that week's festivities floated along the inundated roads. Many who had returned to their villages for the
Ramadhan
feast would soon drift listlessly back to their offices satisfied that their religious and social obligations had been acquitted in accordance with tradition and the Moslem faith.

Idulfitri
followed the Moslem month of fasting. Each morning, prior to daybreak, those participating would consume their last food and water until sunset. Initially, most Moslems would follow the dictates of the fast. Many would not have the strength to continue for the entire month and those who felt despondent for not being resilient enough to meet the rigid demands as determined by the holy Koran were not, in general, castigated for their weakness or inability to adhere to the religious rites.

Ramadhan
was a time of restraint and abstinence.

Idulfitri
was a time of celebration.

It was just unfortunate that this year, the holidays following the breaking of the final fasting period had to coincide with the rain. Most accepted the situation philosophically; the festival advanced by two weeks each year and eventually the holidays would fall during the dry season.

Not far from the central business district stood the splendid obelisk representing Indonesia's freedom from Dutch rule. Positioned in the centre of a large square,
Lapangan Merdeka
, the column could be seen from most points within the city proper. Surrounding the
Merdeka
square were government offices and the Indonesian Department of Defence, HANKAM. The United States Embassy, adjacent to the Republic's military headquarters, enjoyed the benefits of the prominent address, but not the excessive attention it often attracted.

The HANKAM building in itself was a relatively insignificant structure considering its importance. Built by the Dutch, it was a white walled terra-cotta roofed building which reached only to the customary three levels. The Dutch did not enjoy the benefits of lifts and air-conditioning, so consequently they designed their structures so that, having struggled up the stairs to the third floor, they could enjoy the occasional breeze which compensated for the climb.

Louvred windows allowed soft breezes to whisper through the buildings, cooling the self-appointed colonial masters. Security was, at best, cursory. Military police stood as sentries at the main gate checking visitors as they entered in their stately limousines.

The main structure housed two hundred staff, most of whom had very little to do but wander through the deteriorating corridors. Mildew was evident everywhere and leaking water pipes left patterns of moist blotches identifying the piping's irregular path through the maze of brick and cement walls. Cables hung precariously in the air held only by rusting supports. Wires bared to the copper hung threateningly from their two-holed sockets, the inadequate power rarely surging to more than half of its determined voltage. Power variation damaged equipment even more quickly than the tropical heat with its soaking humidity.

Not that power was such a problem, as it rarely worked anyway since the Soviets ceased their financial support three years before. The entire building boasted only three direct dial telephone numbers and the switchboard had virtually no capacity for improvement.

In the rear courtyard, more than twenty Soviet-style Jeeps, Armed Personnel Carriers and trucks stood abandoned and overgrown by grass. Generally speaking, the armed forces were in financial disarray.

A Banyan tree dwarfed the left wing of the complex. Children played in the branches, oblivious to the significance of their surroundings. Not fifty metres from the corner, a long row of two-storey shops and dwellings housed an array of squatters.

A group of Germans had recently acquired a lease to open their own club and construction was under way. This in itself attracted a number of curious spectators, as only occasional building or renovation had taken place during the past years and to see foreigners who were not Soviets actually doing something was quite unusual.

A group of workers waited for their pay, squatting on their haunches beside the remnants of what had been several cubic metres of river sand before the days work had begun.

Another day of drudgery was coming to a close.

 

A solitary figure sat motionless, staring moodily across the square through a rain-blurred window from the third level of the HANKAM building.

His office was the typical bleak high-ceilinged room. The walls, stained by the smoke of belching buses and powerful aromatic
kretek
cigarettes, showed evidence of years of neglect. The discoloured ceilings were now a combination of moss-green and moist brown. Surplus ships paint sloshed over earlier leakage stains did little to camouflage the decay. Overhead fans struggled to cut a leading edge through the polluted air, their blades blackened by the endless movement through the heavy, sticky atmosphere.

Photographs hung untidily on the wall adjacent to the military green painted door. General Sarwo Eddie, the hero of the liberation of
Irian Barat
, stood in his typical arrogant style. His picture was placed to the right of the President while Dr Soebandrio sat knowingly in an armchair, holding a pipe, on the left of the Great Leader of the Revolution, placed there obviously by some clerk with a sense of humour considering the good doctor's role in delivering his country to Communism. The office was furnished simply with a desk and two chairs.

The man at the window wore an army uniform. The insignia on his shoulder identified him as an intelligence colonel. His dark, almost aquiline features indicated his ethic origins as being somewhere within the Eastern Nusantara group of islands. He was tall for an Indonesian and his face was completely unlined by the worries of his profession.

To the casual observer, the colonel may have appeared to be mesmerised by the activity in the foreign legation's grounds, the apparent object of his scrutiny. The United States Embassy was not, however, what was distracting him from the unread folders of military documents spread casually across his desk in this third level office.

A roll of thunder interrupted his thoughts, obliging him to acknowledge the unattended, indeed relatively mundane, matters before him.

He sighed. He was bored. Bored with the weather and the overcrowded city that lay sprawled out before him.

Colonel Seda pondered the problems associated with the rain, turned in his chair and returned to his partial view of the outside world. He ran his hand slowly through the curly hair which would soon require attention, his fingers finding a small crusty patch on the hairline to scratch. He examined the small white specks of dry skin under the nicotine stained fingernail. Disgusted with the find, he wiped his hand quickly against his thigh. It was always the little things that caused the most annoyance, he thought.

His driver had not, as yet, returned from Bandung. There was a very real possibility his transport would break down, should the incompetent idiot assigned to him from the motor pool attempt to bring the antiquated vehicle through the flooded streets. Again he sighed. His quarters would be leaking. Every roof in the country leaked. ‘
Sialan
— Damn,'he thought. The country was deteriorating at an alarming rate. Inflation had eaten his salary away to the point where it was practically valueless. At least the monthly rice rations kept everyone going. It was difficult to secure a position where a little extra income could be earned. He should have joined the police force, he mused. Without exception, police, because of their close access to the public, could always extract those little extras whenever they wished. At any time they could just stop any car with a Chinese passenger and squeeze him for a little cash.

Although a minority group, the Indonesian Chinese had a very real stranglehold on the Indonesian economy and were easy targets for extortion. Nobody cared when a Chinese was roughed up a little for they had not integrated with the indigenous races and often manipulated commodity prices to the point where many
pribumi
people starved. Wherever they settled, the world's oldest trading race eventually became embroiled in some form of racial violence and Indonesia was no exception. The Chinese were despised. They controlled the flow of all agricultural products and other basic necessities. They had their own schools. They controlled the shops.