The Fifth Season (40 page)

As for revoking existing contracts which, for years, had provided foreign oil and gas companies with their fair share of Indonesia's riches, it had happened before and Winarko supported the wisdom of this move.

The surplus billions which had previously benefited the foreign contractors should be redirected and used to feed Indonesia's starving population.

There was really no other choice. The IMF and World Bank funds had shrunk to impossible levels. His country needed the currency generated from the massive deposits of gas and oil found throughout the resource rich archipelago.

President Hababli thanked his guests, then signaled his aides that he wished to depart. He bowed stiffly, then hurried away before Winarko had the opportunity to speak with him. Upon his departure, many of the stunned guests followed, some anxious to contact their own foreign ministries regarding the surprise announcements, whilst others raced away to phone their stockbrokers in faraway capitals, with orders to dump the relevant resource stocks.

Within hours of the announcements, Western governments condemned Hababli's seizing of oil, gas, and other resource-joint ventures.

In Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, lights remained bright in cabinet ministers' offices as they too investigated the possibility of following Indonesia's bold precedent, eager for the bonus billions which might flow through their hands. In Melbourne, an indignant chairman of Australia's largest oil-producer swore at the Prime Minister when he was told that the navy would not be sent into the Timor Shelf joint production zone to protect Australian interests, as he feared a confrontation with the giant, Moslem neighbor.

And, as lights in those nations which had vested interests in Indonesia's lucrative oil and gas contracts continued to burn deep into the night, in the distant provincial capitals of Surabaya and Bandung, Abdul Muis and General Praboyo considered their options. In totally unrelated incidents, both men hurriedly revised their plans to seize power, advancing these as a direct result of Hababli's untimely announcements.

* * * *

Haji Abdul Muis wasted little time consolidating his control over all of East Java, and had already penetrated well into the loosely-held central provinces as well. Moslem-inspired vigilante attacks raged throughout Java as the call for an Islamic state grew in intensity, whipped up by village zealots who seized this opportunity to settle old scores and ensconce themselves as religious leaders at the
kampung
level.

The military appeared powerless to prevent the radical and militant Moslem crusaders from not only destroying property across the island, but also the wholesale slaughter of non-Moslems as they fled for their lives.

In Central Java, where Christians, Buddhists and Moslems had lived in relative peace, side by side for centuries, neighbor suddenly set upon neighbor, brother upon brother the slaughter continued until the bloody scenes were reminiscent of General Sarwo Eddie's murderous campaign of 1965, when his soldiers slaughtered tens of thousands in their anti-Communist, cleansing campaign.

While Muis' butchers ran amok annihilating Javanese and Chinese Christians alike, a massive wave of refugees commenced to build and move
en masse
towards the small coastal ports where they hoped to escape, by ship. Many of the island's twenty million non-Moslems fled in terror, most carrying gold and heirlooms which they hoped to trade for safe passage. Fishing villages were suddenly inundated along the entire south Java coastline as the exodus continued.

They sailed to the closer islands first, their numbers swamping communities in Southern Sumatra, Madura, and into the western parts of Bali as the never-ending flow of refugees continued. Then, as those communities choked under the sudden influx of their traditional enemies, they reacted angrily to the Javanese presence, driving most back onto their vessels under threat of death.

Indonesia's small, coastal-fishing fleet owners were overwhelmed by the staggering fees they could charge for passage to Australia. The weather-beaten and under-powered wooden boats were dangerously overcrowded, many capsizing even before getting under way. One by one, fishing communities gathered their boats together to form floating villages to meet the incredible demand.

In most instances, the flotillas were guided by seamen who had previous experience sailing across the dangerous Indian Ocean to Australia.

There, coastal patrols regularly seized Indonesian poachers and burned their ships before flying the illegal visitors back to their homeland.

Familiar with the dangerous seas which lay between the two countries, they would now become navigators, guiding the rickety ships to the southern continent. As these flotillas set out to sea with their precious human cargoes, hordes of refugees remained behind lining the shores, anxiously awaiting their turn to leave.

When the first waves landed along the northern Australian coastline, more than one hundred thousand illegal immigrants stepped ashore on the barren, hostile land. Alarmed that they were unable to prevent such numbers from flooding ashore, the Australian forces were immediately mobilized to prepare detention centers, stretching from Port Hedland, across to Darwin. Urgent requests for tents, bedding, food, generators and desalinization plants were slowly filled, many hundreds dying from existing conditions before the temporary accommodations could be erected.

Within six weeks there were fifteen such camps containing more than three hundred thousand hungry, desperate and greatly disillusioned refugees, horrified with Australia's stark and inhospitable Outback conditions.

Their hopes shattered, and faced with certain death should they return, the asylum-seekers simply settled down in the camps and waited obe-diently to be processed by the local immigration authorities. For some weeks, there was a lull. Then, as word spread that others had succeeded in entering Australia and had been permitted to remain, another wave of refugees arrived, swamping the Western Australian coastline from Broome to Carnarvon.

In that one fortnight, the State's population rose by more than fifteen percent, while the local inhabitants looked on in dismay, cursing the Federal Government for its archaic gun laws which had left them unarmed.

Canberra appealed to Jakarta to assist in preventing the massive migration, but these requests fell on deaf ears as the Indonesian military struggled to diffuse the threat of civil war. In consequence, the Australian Defence Forces went to full readiness, anticipating the worst. Orions were sent to assist monitor the country's two hundred miles limit. Two squad-rons of F-111's and F/A-18's were repositioned to Scherger in Northern Queensland and Learmonth in North-Western Australia, whilst Darwin and Tindal Air Force Bases saw an immediate influx of Hercules transports ferrying personnel and equipment from southern bases.

In the Indonesian capital, the President refused to recognize that his country had ruptured; that the Republic was rapidly dismantling before his very eyes. All international carriers refused to land in Indonesia, the small number of tourists in destinations such as Bali were stranded, dependent on irregular charter flights for their repatriation. Anticipating the worst, Indonesia's neighbors went on full alert. The British Government sent its navy to East Malaysia and Brunei, while the American Seventh Fleet sailed through Indonesia's waters in full combat readiness.

Confused by his inaction and apparent support for Hababli, a number of senior
ABRI
officers called upon General Winarko, the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, to resign. When he refused, a major split occurred and this, coupled with Abdul Muis' unilateral declaration in Surabaya, threw Java into civil war. Spasmodic fighting broke out between rival army factions, causing most military commanders to review their own positions in relation to their country's desperate cry for help and their own vested interests.

In Jakarta, General Winarko's worst fears were realized when he discovered that the
Kopassus
Special Forces headquarters at Cijantung, just outside the city's limits, had been abandoned with intelligence sources reporting that the commander had moved 22 Battalion and the other detachments to Bandung.

He had no doubt that the other three battalions would fall in behind their commander and silently cursed himself for his error in promoting one of the
Kopassus
officers to command the Special Forces. The knowledge that he had lost the now ten thousand strong force weighed heavily, as these were highly skilled and experienced soldiers, veterans of the East Timor and West Irian campaigns.

He moved quickly to shore up his position, replacing the
Kostrad
Strategic Reserve's commander with his own adjutant just to be certain.

Winarko believed that the key to success lay with his control over the capital.
Kostrad's
two well equipped divisions would, he expected, ensure this result. The Bogor-based 1st Infantry Division had moved back into the city and he was confident that he could count on their commander's loyalty. The airborne brigade he had positioned in Sulawesi would remain there, just in case. The other would remain on standby.

And so the cycle continued. By the end of the following week, the lines had been clearly drawn. Of the ten major commands, or
Kodams,
General Winarko had secured the loyalty of only four. Of the others, two of the commanders had lost control in Sumatra, and Bali, while his major concerns revolved around what was happening in the mountain city of Bandung, home to
Kodam III.

He had been particularly saddened to learn that fighting had broken out within the command structure, his close friend Major General Sjam-sudin reported killed in skirmishes between a quick-reaction battalion and two of the commander's cavalry support units.

General Winarko firmly believed that without the Bandung command, he could lose the capital. It was only when he discovered that the two infantry battalions stationed just south of the city had withdrawn, pulling back over the mountains to join up with the rest of their
Kodam
that he realized their strategy. But with the death of his friend, who would lead this most important command?

Winarko's answer came with news of an assault against the heavily-fortified Central Java Command in Semarang. He then knew he had erred in not having General Praboyo destroyed when the opportunity was at hand. Reports indicated that Praboyo had assumed control over most of Central Java, from Bandung down to the port city of Semarang and across the mountains to Jogyakarta, Solo and Surakarta. Winarko sent an emis-sary to Surabaya where Abdul Muis' powerful
Mufti Muharam
followers had joined forces with the East Java Command, but his officer had been executed the Haji's succinct response immediately understood by all.

Now, with three separate and very powerful entities, all vying for control over the densely populated island, he had no choice but to take control of the Presidency. Surrounded by conflict, President L.B. Hababli willingly stepped down, surrendering power to the Javanese General, Winarko.

* * * *

The vessel had arrived hours before schedule, taking the Indonesians by surprise.

‘You're early,' Muis stated, shaking the other man's hand warmly.

‘We had fair winds,' Osama bin Ladam responded, metaphorically. He had survived a number of assassination attempts, due to the unpredict-ability of his itineraries. For bin Ladam, changing routes and timings, even at the last moment, was standard procedure. He refused to place his life entirely in the hands of others, deliberately altering his arrival in Surabaya as a precautionary measure against the possibility that word of his visit might have come to his enemies' attention. His eyes dropped to the mobile phone on the seat between them.

‘I trust that is switched off?' he asked, aware that the phone's whereabouts could be easily tracked. Muis nodded but picked the instrument up just to make sure.

They drove in silence, covering the distance to Abdul Muis' rural retreat in under two hours. They passed through parched, arid countryside, crossing rivers and now neglected, dusty volcanic plains. The endless line of poverty-stricken Javanese tramped the worn, broken edges of the macadam a blur in their vision, as they continued, heedless of these conditions on their way.

Burnt-out villages, evidence of the two years of ethnic and religious violence, flashed past the car's smoked-glass windows unnoticed. Emaciated children, cast aside by desperate and starving families, lay alongside the once prosperous highway neglected their bellies filled only with hope and destined to die.

They continued their journey. A village school came into view and, with a cursory glance, Muis was satisfied that his edicts had been obeyed, for he could see the girls wore the mandatory white shawls. Veils would soon follow. Women and girls throughout the country would learn to fear the consequences of not complying with Islamic law.

The road narrowed, erosion having taken its toll, and slow-moving bullock carts groaned forward, cautiously, causing the Mercedes to slow to a crawl. Muis' driver immediately displayed his impatience, holding his hand on the horn until the road cleared. Ahead, the traffic had come to a grinding halt to permit oncoming vehicles to cross the now-single lane, bomb-damaged, concrete bridge. Trucks, buses, carts, and motorbikes poured off the remaining bridge, partially destroyed by Winarko's and Praboyo's air-strikes.

On their side of the river, Muis observed craters had been covered with thatched bamboo sheets and used as shelter by itinerants. Beggars, many with missing limbs appeared, their filthy, ragged bodies repugnant to those inside the air-conditioned car. For these scenes had become all too familiar to the powerful men, their vision of a greater Moslem world to be achieved for their own purposes, at any cost.

Osama bin Ladam had been obliged to slink away from his Afghanistan mountain lair built, ironically, by American-sponsored anti-Soviet guerrillas, at a time when the mountain tribesmen were still considered U.S. allies.