TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Allan Nairn knows Jakarta well, having visited the capital city for the first time in 1991. Subsequently, he traveled regularly to East Timor and to Aceh, to cover the conflicts in the two areas. He's back again, this time shocking the public with the contents of his blog www.allanairn.org, an off-the-record interview with Prabowo Subianto, the former commander of the TNI's Kopassus (Special Forces) who is now running for the presidency. In a conversation which took place on July 2, 2001, in Jakarta, Prabowo was reported to have scorned the late President Abdurrahman Wahid as a blind president and that Indonesia was not ready to be a democratic state.
For years, Nairn, 58, was a target of TNI's operations. On November 12, 1991, he and his colleague Amy Goodman were in Santa Cruz, Dili, East Timor, and witnessed the massacre committed by Indonesian troops. Nairn and Goodman tried to prevent the shooting of civilians but failed. In the process, Nairn was hit with the butt of an M16 rifle, causing a damaged throat and vertigo for the next 10 days. For all his journalistic achievements, Nairn won the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award, the George Polk Award and the James Aronson Award.
Nairn visited the Tempo office last week for a special interview. He is in Indonesia to prepare a report on human rights violations in the country. Excerpts:
What approach did you use to get an interview with Prabowo in 2001?
I spoke to a member of his staff and he agreed to a meeting. The reason I approached him was to talk about some recent murders I was investigating.
What killing?
No, I'd rather not say because I'm still working on it.
What did you ask him?
I had prepared a list of more than 130 questions, the vast majority of them relating to the murders. He said he knew about them but that he did not have any inside information about them, which disappointed me. But he did give me some useful background information about the structure of the intelligence and so on. I got the impression while we were talking that he enjoyed talking shop with an adversary, with someone who understood his career, knew the facts, he enjoyed that kind of thing. So we ended having these long discussions about many topics, one of the big ones was his work with the US.
What was Prabowo's view about the US?
He was disappointed, bitter and emotional about it (the visa ban), after speaking about his work for the United States. I agreed with him. The Americans were hypocritical in the way they dealt with him. Yes, Prabowo was a criminal but he did his killings with (American) weapons, money and political support.
How did Prabowo respond to your questions?
His manner of speaking was very calm, very matter of fact. But in an unpredictable way, sometimes he would suddenly get emotional, angry, like when he spoke about the US, democracy, fascism and Gus Dur. Sometimes he would get up and walk around the room quickly, and he would raise his voice, speaking very loudly.
Did he explain about the abduction of the activists?
He would not talk about the kidnapping of the Jakarta activists or about the massacres.
Why do you think some Indonesians will vote for Prabowo?
It's clear the vast majority had no information on what Prabowo has done. And this is the fault of the Indonesian press, which has failed to let the public know of the relevant facts. One survey indicated the majority of people are unaware of the facts even when Prabowo got a lot of publicity.
You broke the journalistic code of ethics when you exposed Prabowo's off-the-record comments.
This is a very serious matter and I gave it a lot of thought. I had to make a choice and there was going to be harm no matter what I did. There was going to be bad consequence no matter what I did. On the one hand I would be breaking the promise of anonymity I gave to Prabowo, or on the other hand I would be suppressing information that might be useful to rakyat Indonesia. I had to make this public because first Prabowo might become president, and second Prabowo is the single worst violator of human rights in recent Indonesian history. (*)
Read the full interview in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine
