I think we’re all ready to leave 2022
From cooking oil scandal, to fashion party poopers, to police controversies, 2022 had been nothing but eventful
Hi folks, 2022 is officially behind us and what a year it has been, amirite?
There’s an ongoing war in Europe causing prices of fuel to hike and some commodities, like the all precious cooking oil, to be scarce. We also had a group of teens from the suburbs occupying a section of one of Jakarta’s busiest streets. We have a few cops on trial for the murder of another cop, and the ratification of a controversial criminal code which curbs free speech and encroaches into what is supposed to be our private lives.
It has been a colorful year to say the least and here are our picks for stories that define 2022.
Kanjuruhan Tragedy
Three months on from the Kanjuruhan tragedy in which 135 people were killed, the case hasn’t come any closer to its conclusion. The nature of their deaths had become a battle between the justice-seeking public and the police force at the center of the tragedy.
At the end of a football match in Malang on October 1st between the home team and Surabaya at the Kanjuruhan Stadium in which Surabaya won 3-2, a couple of pitch invaders triggered a mass descent of spectators from the stands, many angry at the result, others just joining the masses. While local and provincial police were stationed as stadium security due to the violent history of the match, no visiting spectator was present at the game. The entire audience had been home supporters.
Despite FIFA rules not allowing tear gas at football matches, the police not only carried but shot multiple tear gas canisters towards the stands in an effort to disperse the crowd. The spectators at the stands scrambled to escape the stadium in the resulting panic, but many were crushed as the gates were apparently locked from the outside, preventing them from leaving. Former matchday organizing chief Abdul Haris blames the always convenient “oknum” without naming or suggesting who they might be.
The Independent Fact Finding Team tasked to investigate the tragedy found that the use of tear gas led to the stampede which killed spectators, many of whom were children. The head of the team, Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law, and Human Rights, Mahmud MD was firm in his statement that while people were killed or injured by the crowd crush, it is undeniable that it would not have happened if not for the use of tear gas. This finding is supported by the National Human Rights Commission.
Police have so far denied accusations that the victims were killed by exposure to tear gas. The wording of their statement suggests that they were trying to deflect their use of tear gas as a catalyst for the incident even as they admitted that some of the canisters had expired in 2021.
On New Years Eve, the National Chief of Police, General Listyo Sigit Prabowo, denied that the incident can be attributed to murder or even premeditated murder, as suggested by several survivors. He said they will get to the bottom of the case and have named six suspects, five of whom have been referred to the prosecutor’s office.
What’s Cooking Doc?
It’s hard to imagine that the world’s biggest palm oil producing country could be facing a shortage of cooking oil but that was exactly what happened early this year as people queued for hours and engaged in a tussle to get their hands on the precious commodity.
Experts said the main culprit was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The two countries are among the biggest producers of sunflower oil and supplies had been disrupted since tension in the former Soviet states began to rise. Then there’s also the failed soybean harvest in South America.
All of this led cooking oil manufacturers around the globe to look for alternatives and Indonesian palm oil exporters happily obliged. Prices of cooking oil in Indonesia began to rise as a result of the shift towards more exports as opposed to domestic supply and when the government finally put a price cap in February, the commodity disappeared from the shelves almost overnight.
People had to queue for hours to get their hands on state-distributed cooking oil at the capped price. Waiting times were so long, the crowd so packed, there were reports of people dying during the queue.
The cap only lasted a month before it was revoked in March and suddenly, out of nowhere, domestic supply of cooking oil was back in markets across the country but along with it were inflated prices which in some cases were up to 200% of the original price.
Then Trade Minister Muhammad Lutfi said there were mafiosos behind the scarcity, adding that the police was then building a case against these hoarders. Police did look into it and found that one of Lutfi’s men in the Ministry of Trade was in on it all along. Meanwhile, prices came back down.
Lutfi was sacked in June and replaced by PAN politician Zulkifli Hasan, the guy Harrison Ford once scolded when he was Forestry and Environment Minister.
The Fashion District that Wasn’t
Some time in July, a fashion phenomenon suddenly exploded in the middle of Jakarta’s business district. Bored teens from the outskirts of the city, who have by then been allowed back to school, began to flock to the Dukuh Atas area, north of the Ciliwung River.
The practicality and affordability of the Commuter train line connecting Central Jakarta and its outer suburbs had given the teens easy access to the newly upgraded neighborhood.
It was initially just a place to hang out and meet friends new and old. But with so many teens flocking to Dukuh Atas with their Sunday best, someone had the idea of staging an amateur fashion show at a pedestrian crossing there. And so the “Citayam Fashion Week” was born, although it is a misnomer since not all hailed from the suburb of Citayam and it became a phenomenon that lasted way more than a week.
The whole scene became an internet sensation, turning its patrons into somewhat of a celebrity. The famed TokyoFashion Twitter account even noticed the trend. Dukuh Atas had the potential to be the Indonesian answer to Harajuku, where people can express themselves freely, walking around in whatever look they felt comfortable in, if it weren’t for some party poopers.
It spawned an alternative to the SCBD abbreviation, which originally stands for Sudirman Central Business District. Sudirman, Citayam, Bojonggede, Depok, quickly rose to fame, which refer to the areas easily accessible by commuter trains outside of Jakarta, where many of the teens hailed from.
The scene became so famed that real celebrities and models began coming to Dukuh Atas, taking the spotlight away from the true stars of the scene. Top politicians and foreign dignitaries were also seen walking across the makeshift catwalk capitalizing on the trend.
One celebrity even tried to trademark “Citayam Fashion Week” even though he didn’t coin the term or start the trend. Thankfully, this celebrity backed down after wide public backlash.
The biggest party pooper of all was of course the authorities, who saw the scene as nothing more than cause for crippling congestion and disturbing the many businesses and offices in the area.
And so the scene faded into obscurity in mere weeks,, becoming no more than faint memories of a brief period where the youth of this generation could just go out, chill, express themselves and meet like minded people from all over the city and beyond, in a free and accessible public space.
Dancing the Sambo Saga
News of a cop killing another cop is not exactly rare in Indonesia. But news of a cop murdered inside a police general’s house that was only made public three days later, was sure to raise some suspicions.
Hours after the murder, before the case was finally announced by the police force, the owner of the house, two star general Ferdy Sambo filed two police reports against the slain cop, who was already dead at the time and had no way of telling his side of the story.
The slain cop, Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat was accused by Sambo of trying to rape Sambo’s wife Putri Candrawathi and later tried to kill the supposed shooter, junior officer Second Bhayangkara Richard Eliezer. South Jakarta’s police chief immediately came to Sambo’s house in the early hours the following morning to personally receive Sambo’s police complaint.
The cops also prevented Yosua’s family from seeing the body. There were bruises and injuries suggesting the slain cop was tortured. There’s also the case of how many shots were fired with autopsy reports going from 7 bullet wounds on Yosua’s body to 5.
With so much public attention towards the case, the police force had no choice but to thoroughly investigate the case. What they found was a web of false police reports, evidence tampering, and intimidation towards the witnesses. 34 police officers were either fired or demoted, including Sambo himself and a number of high ranking police officials around him.
Sambo was fired from the police force but challenged his dismissal through a lawsuit against the President and the police force, before retracting it just before New Year’s Eve.
Sambo, his wife, and several of his aides have been on trial for months but he appeared to be sticking to his gun that Yosua had tried to rape his wife, although he no longer denied that he had any involvement in his death.
It’s hard to tell what exactly transpired at Sambo’s house because all the witnesses were people who worked for him. We’ll just have to wait for 2023 to reveal what truly happened to the poor police brigadier.
The New Criminal Code is More than a Bali Bonk Ban
After an effort lasting nearly six decades, Indonesia finally has its own homegrown criminal code (KUHP). The country had been using a code that was brought over by the Dutch under Napoleon’s rule and lightly revised over time. That’s more than 100 years of using a colonial era criminal code. Ironically, the new KUHP has been criticized as returning the country to the colonial era.
Long before the draft legislation was finally ratified, multiple rights groups, student groups, and human rights lawyers had warned the public that the draft should not be ratified until multiple problematic articles were amended or removed entirely.
However, three years on from when the government initially intended to ratify it, nothing substantial had been changed to address those concerns. The government pressed on and passed the legislation, saying that anyone opposed can make a formal challenge to the Constitutional Court, which is actually a contentious claim, because in October the DPR was allowed to unconstitutionally remove a DPR-nominated Constitutional Court judge who often struck down laws passed by the parliament.
A United Nations’ representative in Indonesia was summoned by the government after the local office published a strongly worded criticism of several articles in the new KUHP said to violate privacy, human rights, and press freedom and stated that the new law goes against Indonesia’s international obligations as a member of the UN.
Despite the threats to press and personal freedom, the part that made the news worldwide was the one about criminalisation of non marital sex. It even made it to The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
The blowback from international coverage had pushed Bali’s Governor to clarify the law and assure tourists that they will not be affected by what Australians have called the Bali Bonk Ban because only immediate family members can file a criminal report to the police objecting to non marital sexual relations. But if they get it on with a local though …
So Long 2022
2022 was nothing if not eventful, with so many crazy and exciting stories that came out of it: a comedian got slapped by a movie star at the Oscars, a shaman stole the show at Indonesia’s first MotoGP race, we finally got our own Sexual Violence Eradication Law, and a bar and nightclub chain shut down and ultimately changed its name over a stupidly insensitive marketing promo.
We also had cases of acute kidney injuries among children, caused by industrial grade chemicals being used as solvent in cough syrups, sparking outrage and distrust towards how medicines are manufactured and monitored in Indonesia.
So what to expect next year? The PPKM was lifted this week and came at a time when other countries are seeing a rise in the number of Covid cases. Will this result in a fourth wave? We hope not… especially given that they just closed much of the Kemayoran Athletes’ Village, the main Covid hospital and isolation facility. Hopefully 2023 will be the year when we can finally declare the pandemic to be over.
At least we now have a home grown Covid-19 vaccine which will ease the pressure of having to purchase foreign vaccines. Given what is currently happening in China, however, we should hope that the local vaccine is far more effective than the Chinese ones against newer strains, or can be updated to handle them.
The 2024 election year is also nearing, so we can expect some political news making the headlines. Who will be the presidential nominees? Will it be the horse loving retired general hoping that third time’s the charm? Will we see a surprise move by a former president nominating a popular cadre over her unpopular daughter? Will we get to see the masters of instagrammable pubic infrastructures vying for the top job?
Will the General Elections Commission and Constitutional Court come to their senses and not entertain the idea of returning to the New Order era voting mechanism? We have a whole year to find out.
Happy 2023!