Southeast Asia analyst discusses escalating clash between protestors and authorities in Indonesia

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Protests continue across the Indonesian capital where a ride share driver died when caught up in the clashes between police and the protesters.

Transcript

00:00Hi Fazia, thank you for having me on. To answer your first question, the housing allowance

00:09that you're referring to was announced by Indonesian parliament last week and it was

00:13set at 50 million rupiah per month which is around 4,700 Australian dollars and I think

00:21if you look at the housing allowance itself it's relatively uncontentious because like

00:26in Australia a lot of politicians in Indonesia also have to move to the capital in order to

00:31take up their positions but where things have become contentious is the actual amount of that

00:37allowance. So at 4,700 dollars a month which I think is pretty generous even by Australian standards

00:45but if you compare that to Indonesian standards where the minimum monthly wage in Jakarta is

00:50actually 500 Australian dollars this amount felt highly inappropriate to many people in

00:57Indonesia and what this did was actually lead to further discussions about exactly how much

01:03politicians are getting paid and some politicians came out trying to be transparent and said that

01:10their take-home pay was around $9,400 a month but really this didn't help them at all because it's

01:17still so much higher than what your average Indonesian is earning and so I think what you see in the

01:22protests is actually a really sharp reaction to this sense of inequality that people have seen through

01:29that particular announcement and other things that have happened in the government and questions about

01:33whether politicians are actually genuinely representing the interests of the people that they're supposed to

01:38be representing or are they just there for their own self-interest. Yeah it's just not a good look is it for

01:44the Prabowo government given that there have been cuts to education health and as well as the public works as

01:51well and the rising cost of living. Indeed. And what's been the reaction then from the government to these protests?

02:01Yeah so the earlier public reactions from the government I would say were pretty tone deaf so

02:10so this was before everything that happened a few nights ago but the early responses were basically MPs

02:18making public statements that the protests were unconstructive that people should really find other ways to

02:24air their grievances and to communicate with politicians but there was really this air of

02:30dismissive myths I would say about the protests and and this was really exemplified by one particular

02:36statement that a parliamentarian made that called the protesters the stupidest people on earth and this

02:43was filmed and of course it went viral and it did absolutely nothing to india politicians to the Indonesian public

02:50um but coming back to um the case that you mentioned earlier I think um it it's important to to really

02:58take a look at the police retaliation that has happened um in response to the protests there has been use of

03:04tear gas there has been use of water cannons and the really tragic death that occurred on on Thursday night

03:10um has really uh further emboldened and outraged people who were already protesting about things that they were

03:19unhappy about so in addition to the things that they were already um you know protesting about you

03:26now add police brutality to that and criticisms about the government's response which which have really

03:32escalated um the the protests um quite a bit I'm presuming that this latest death of this uh civilian this

03:41rideshare driver will just fuel the protesters anger even more do you see a point when the government

03:49perhaps will roll back the police action and perhaps enter into some sort of negotiations

03:55with the demonstrations or do you see that's not a case that will actually happen in indonesia

04:02hmm well I think that um firstly I just want to go back to to the rideshare driver himself

04:08Afan Kuniawan who was a 21 year old um really tragic death and his uh the incident was actually filmed by multiple people

04:17people that there's really confronting uh video online maybe even on international media as well which

04:25shows these police um hitting Afan and then continuing to drive on not stopping to help him

04:31not getting out of the car and I think that that has really um intensified the anti-police sentiment um

04:39that you know the police are not that well liked I would say in indonesia anyway but um the fact that

04:46this has happened has really uh angered people and we even saw that with protests yesterday on friday

04:54where a large group of rideshare drivers actually took to the streets um partially in protest but also to

05:02to commemorate the death of their colleague and uh his funeral was yesterday too so it was a really somber

05:08moment for a lot of people in indonesia and I think that the government's response to this um over the

05:14last 24 hours has been really centered on this particular tragedy um so we've seen president

05:21proper subianto come out we've seen the uh the leader of the house poor maharani come out with um public video

05:28statements offering the condolences and um you know also vowing to do better we've also seen an

05:37apology from the chief of police for for what occurred but I don't think that any of this has done

05:43much to alleviate um the anger towards the police over this particular event and there have been calls

05:49for the military to actually take over in terms of um overseeing the protests into the future

05:56um I'm not 100% sure if that will actually happen but but those discussions are um are being had

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