Land, Rural Social Movements and Democratisation in Indonesia1

Some suggest that rural protest in Indonesia was effectively silenced for decades because of violent repression during President Suharto’s regime (1967-1998). It has also been argued that urban leadership was needed to drive movements for rural democracy, and that even more democratisation in rural areas occurred along with the general transition to democracy in Indonesia, particularly after 1998. This paper argues that evidence from rural areas shows that this view is wrong. Support from urban-based students and activists was important, but it was built on continued protest and organisation around land issues. Land issues, and particularly the control over forests and other lands classed as belonging to the state, were a focus of rural mobilisation and resistance during the period of the New Order (1965-98). This research shows that different forms of mobilisation occurred in two areas of Indonesia- West Java and Bengkulu- where various rural protests began in the mid 1980s and continue today. These movements were transformed effectively into two new, strong, peasant political forces: the Pasundan Peasant Union (SPP, Serikat Petani Pasundan) and the Bengkulu Peasant Union (STaB, Serikat Tani Bengkulu).3 Democratisation and social movements in Indonesia The contributions of rural social movements to rural democratisation were emphasised in a collection of studies edited by Fox (1990). He proposed that specific attention be given to the importance of rural social movements in the process of democratisation, because “many discussions of regime transition tend to concentrate on political elites and national political institutions, focusing secondarily on urban social movements and rarely at all on rural social movements ” (Fox 1990: 3). Rural democratisation, here, is