Page 103 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

88 Chapter 5

knives and sharpened sticks—stood ready to confront student demonstrators, signal-
ing that the military had no intention of letting students force their demands.
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As tensions grew with the approach of the special parliamentary session, so did the
possibility that the standoff between students and state would end in an extrasystemic
transfer of power, with a coup more likely than a people’s presidium. As the session
started, journalists found themselves covering a situation similar to that of the previous
May, which had ended in a takeover of parliament and a change of regime. This time,
however, there was little support beyond student circles for repeating this earlier tri-
umph. The media’s challenge, once crackdowns on demonstrations began, was finding
a way to support both the students and the parliamentary session they were opposing.

Media Tightrope
In the end, most news outlets supported the students as the nation’s conscience
while dismissing their demand for an impartial process as impractical. This stance
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was grounded in a logic that became prevalent in the following months, as concern for
survival of the process increasingly trumped concern for its fairness.
The first defining moment in this balancing act was the media’s response to a
declaration by four reform leaders on the session’s first day, November 10. When the
session opened with none of the country’s main opposition leaders present, a student
coalition representing over sixty Jakarta-area campuses made a last-ditch attempt to
redirect events. After hours of negotiation, the group convinced the four leaders—
Megawati Sukarnoputri, Amien Rais, Abdurrahman Wahid, and the sultan of Yogya-
karta, Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X—to meet at Wahid’s house in Ciganjur, South
Jakarta. Students hoped to persuade them to establish a long-sought reform council,
though all four were reluctant participants in this student-led convocation. Instead of
supporting a transitional government, the “Ciganjur Four” issued a declaration listing
moderate demands, including a shorter gap between the general and presidential elec-
tions and a six-year phase-out of the military’s presence in parliament.
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The declaration, the Ciganjur Agreement, fell far short of students’ expectations.
But its timely appearance at the session’s start gave news outlets a middle road, allow-
ing them to critique the session without supporting the students’ call for an extra -
constitutional transfer of power. Neither ignoring the declaration and affirming the
status quo, nor treating it as a betrayal of the students’ demand for reform, most media
showcased the Ciganjur Agreement as a monumental event—a tangible advance in
the reform movement’s agenda.
This coverage did not challenge the parliamentary session’s legitimacy but did
intensify pressure on legislators to meet reformers’ more modest demands. Sig-
nificantly, the session’s final decrees reflected all but one of the recommendations.
The students, nevertheless, were disappointed. They continued to reject the session
and escalate protests, still pressuring the Ciganjur Four to proclaim themselves the
nation’s interim leaders.

Covering the Crackdown
Despite the Ciganjur Agreement, the media’s dilemma continued. Arising from
the decision to support both the students and the session they rejected, this predica-
ment was compounded by growing security brutality against students and journalists.
As events unfolded, media coverage of the standoff between students and the military
went through four distinct shifts in interpretation.