In the Time of Madness

This is a fascinating and scary book. The author is a reporter for The Independent (then later The Times), who spent a a lot of time in the late 90's in Indonesia reporting on fall of President Suharto, and the violence which followed the independence referendum in East Timor – the period the book is named for - the time of madness.

He writes well, no shortage of pace and action, but to me this doesn't read as dramatized either. The book is split into three parts.

Borneo 1997-1999
I saw my sixth and seventh heads on Tuesday afternoon in a Dayak village an hour's drive from the town. They were visible form a few hundred yards away, standing on oil drums on either side of the road, with a crown of about two hundred people milling around them. Most of the onlookers were men, but there were young women and children there too. ‘What do you want to do?' said the man who was accompanying us, a Dayak leader in his fifties. I said I wanted to have a look. P71/72.

You might think this is a historic work, discussing the headhunters of Borneo. Unusually, it is not. This was the experience of the journalist author in 1999. Where the Madurese people who had been relocated & resettled from their own island of Madura due to its poor agricultural capacity. They are a people described by the other people as resentful, arrogant, hot-tempered, and prone to violence and distrust towards strangers. The native Dayak people especially, but also the Malay & Chinese find them hard to live with.

In 1997, and again in 1999 small events of violence by the Madurese led to massive flare ups and vengeful murders of the Madurese. These violet attacks were accompanied by ritualistic beheadings, and although initially very hard to prove, the removal and eating of hearts, and even cannibalistic eating or corpses. In 1997, the flare up was only the Dayak people, but in 1999 it was the Malay.

The man dismounted, kicked out the stand on his bike and sat on it facing us. A cameraman and two photographers took up position in front of him; he brandished the ear like a medal, and held it still so they could focus their lenses. He wore a yellow headband daubed with paint, and there was blood on the sleeve of his jacket and on the blade of the sword. There were fine beads of sweat on his lip, and he was shouting into the cameras in a barking, staccato manner...“We don't care about your race. We don't care about your religion. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Dayak, Melayu, Chinese or Buginese – all of them are welcome. We just don't want Madurese. All the Madurese must leave. “ P67

When the author visited in 1997, he was present after the trouble had finished. There was disbelief in his reporting and the frequent question was ‘did you see it, the beheading?' which he did not, in person, although it was described by many witnesses. In 1999, he was there during the trouble. This is a pretty disturbing read. Taken at face value, it is an event that has been hushed up, underreported (or not at all), and unrecognised. The official line is that there was some racial clashes and a small number of people were killed – some 200. The real figures are more likely to be in the thousands.

Java 1998

I am going to struggle here to explain this section. It left me a little more confused than Borneo. This section discusses the lead up to, the process during, and the after effects of the resignation of President Suharto. The story is a mixture of violence, confusion, conspiracy theories (which can't really be proved or disproved), and the cultural effects after the resignation.

As I read another section on political murders, and disappearing people it strikes me how the population of Indonesia being so massive that it actually acts against the amount of information the rest of the world gets about this violence and these disappearances. By that I mean, this book talks about people disappearing in their thousands, and my recollection of the period is that there might have been some media coverage, but certainly little real international outrage or demands for explanation. For example the earthquakes in Christchurch, where I live, killed only 185 people (thankfully ‘only' 185, and there was a lot of good luck in the time the earthquake struck) and the international media coverage was phenomenal. When Indonesia deals with their 250 million population it is and to think a thousand people are not big enough news.

East Timor 1998-99

East Timor is half of an island, a Portuguese outpost until they were given independence in 1975, when they were promptly annexed by Indonesia, who already controlled the west of the island (nine days they waited!). The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN) maintained initially a political, but soon a guerilla presence, continually challenging the Indonesian occupiers. While never able to complete with one of the world's largest armies on an even basis, they were able to maintain a constant nuisance factor, while supported in secret by the vast majority of the East Timorese people.

Despite some international pressure, little changed over the long period 1975 until 1998, when Suharto resigned and was replaced by Habibie, who somewhat out of the blue suggested that if the East Timorese didn't want autonomous rule (which had been offered), they could have independence. This surprised all of his advisors, the military and most Indonesians, and there is some speculation as to why he did this.

The UN became involved in a referendum (although to save Indonesian face it was not allowed to be referred to as such, but as a ‘popular vote'). The announcement of this triggered an appalling choreographed campaign of violence and intimidation by armed pro-Indonesian militias, armed, organised and incited by the Indonesian military, and ignored by the Indonesian police. The UN in its typical toothless capacity was unable to do anything to prevent this, but did run a referendum and announce the results. The inevitable victory for independence was met by a military supported campaign of violence and murder, where they attempted to purge East Timor of its inhabitants rather than accept the defeat and depart. The foreign journalists and then the UN withdrew, returning some short time later, when the UN managed to agree to provide (armed) peacekeepers (primarily military from Australia, New Zealand, and 22 other countries in due course).

The author was present for much of the crucial times in 1998 & 99 and returned again in 2001. He tells the story first hand, is certainly in harms way at times, and sees some unpleasant sights. He explains the situation much better than my summary above.

A disturbing, but excellent book. 5 stars.