Archival. Footage of Susilo Bambang Yudoyono and Wiranto singing Singing
Maher: Old soldiers, its said, never die. In Indonesia, they just croon away.Retired generals Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Wiranto are now locked in battle.
The weapons of choice, verbal dexterity and matinee idol looks are.
After all, this presidential campaign has a beauty contest designed to soften the rock-hard edges of their military pasts.
Political advertising banners in streets Music
Trying to untangle the knot that is Indonesian politics is an exasperating task.It twists and turns in on itself in a way that leaves not only we foreigners bamboozled but the locals as well. This has been the countrys first ever direct and democratic presidential poll. Yet two of the leading contenders have been military men. Wiranto and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono having been doing their best to portray themselves as born-again democrats. But have the leopards really changed their spots, or are their generals stars still firmly rusted on beneath their new civilian coats?
Wide shoot of building burning Music
Indonesians protesting in streets 1998.
In the month of May, the world watched as Soehartos new order regime teetered, then crashed to earth. Thirty-two long years of military dictatorship had come to an end, swept away in a torrent of popular discontent. Wiranto and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono were among the regimes leading lights.
Wiranto and SBY in street with admirers In 2004 Wiranto has been the presidential candidate for Soehartos old party Golkar. SBY, as his rival is known, has surrounded himself with former Golkar and military men.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: I think leadership matters.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: And I do believe with my experience when I had been in the military will help me in performing my tasks in running the government.
Wiranto: Some people have the misconception that all military personnel embrace the concept of militarism. However, not all military figures are anti-democracy. They think that military personnel are anti-democracy because they are authoritarian. I think thats a great misconception.
Smita Notosusanto: They will return the dominant role of the military in politics because they can.
Maher: Pro-democracy activists like Smita Notosusanto despair at the political pass Indonesia has come to. Six years on from Suhartos fall they see the military regaining political ground, as President Megawatti Sukarnoputri mangles the economy and struggles to maintain national stability.
Smita Notosusanto: They would like to dominate the political process.
Smita Notosusanto: And I think the Indonesian people also are not used to the idea that there is a separate function and the government and the military should be under civilian supremacy. That concept is completely alien to most Indonesians.
Wanda Hamidah with husband and daughter In a Jakarta suburb Wanda Hamidah sings nursery rhymes to her little girl.
Archival. Footage of Wanda Hamidah protesting Six years ago, Wanda was out on the streets of the capital singing more strident songs. A student at the University of Trisakti, she was at the forefront of a demonstration which changed the course of her countrys history.
Wanda Hamidah: For the first time, Indonesians can vote directly for the president not just for the party. None of this would have happened if there hadnt been any reformation or the deaths of the four Trisakti students.
Maher: On May the 12th, 1998, Wanda and her fellow students filed out of their campus to belatedly join nation-wide anti-Soeharto protests.
More a cradle of conservatism than peoples power, Trisakti was an unlikely landmark for a revolution.Within hours, restraint exploded into a rampage as troops moved in to clear the road.With nowhere to escape bystanders cowered on the footpath helpless in the face of the savage onslaught.
The crack of gunshot echoed across Trisaktis concrete forecourt. According to some eyewitnesses, military snipers with infrared scopes led the shooting spree.
Archival. Footage of student at protest Male student: The students are not guilty. These people, the green people, they are the guilty one.
Archival. Footage of dead students in hospital When it was finally over, four students lay dead.
Archival. Footage of wounded protestors A line had now been crossed. Most thought Soeharto and his regime could never be forgiven.
Wanda Hamidah: We are still very, very angry especially when we think about how this case has yet to be resolved. We are very depressed. We are very frustrated.
Traditional Indonesian dancers at political meet
Maher: That two leading generals from Soehartos regime have been frontrunners in the presidential elections has only heightened Wandas frustration.
Wanda Hamidah: Thats what is so disappointing to me, because we know that on May 12 Wiranto was the Commander of the Armed Forces and in charge in Jakarta.
Wanda Hamidah: That broke our hearts. I dont understand. It doesnt make sense at all.
Mantiri Maher: This man is in no doubt about why a large number of Indonesians want to cast their votes for two former generals.
A decade ago Herman Bernhard Leopold Mantiri was chief of the militarys general staff. A soldiers soldier, both Wiranto and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono served under him in East Timor.
Herman MantiriSuper: Herman MantiriFormer General
Mantiri: These two guys are quite brilliant. They have their brains. But to compare them, one to each other Wiranto is more firm but SBY is not so firm because hes not a field officer.
SBY descending from aircraft Indonesia is very vulnerable to bad things, you know. We are not yet established and we can influence people too easy to do very bad things, so there still must be strong leaders.
Maher: And some very prominent civilian leaders appear to have acquiesced with Mantiris view.
Wirantos running mate is Salahuddin Wahid, the younger brother of Abdurrahman Wahid, widely seen as the most democratic of the countrys post-Soeharto presidents.
Salahuddin Wahid: Are you a hundred per cent happy with this coalition?Salahuddin Wahid: I think its not a question of happy or not
Wiranto CDs and paraphernalia we have to face the reality and we decide to have Wiranto as partner.
Maher: Strange as it may seem it was Salahuddin who lead the human rights commission inquiry into the still unresolved and unpunished deaths of the Trisatki four.
Salahuddin Wahid: We think there was a gross violation of human rights so weve already submitted the report to the Attorney-Generals office but there was no decision there.
Maher: So the politicians play around while the families continue to suffer?
Salahuddin Wahid: Yeah, thats right. Thats the fact. Its very -- its very -- its a tragedy I think.
Maher: And no more so than for the victims families.
These were the lamentable scenes at the morgue the night of the Trisakti killings.
The family of Elang Mulyana one of the four dead was inconsolable in its grief.
As Muslim prayers were chanted, Elangs cousin Yayuk stroked his body as if trying to massage life back into it.
Yayuk Safriti: If I close my eyes Elang come to me and smile
Yayuk Safriti and sometime I hear Oh Yayuk, I'm hurt, I'm hurt.
Maher: Six years on, Yayuk and Elangs mother Hiratetty are regular visitors to his gravesite. Only now they have two graves to visit. Elangs father died suddenly last year.
Yayuk: Elangs father wasnt sick. He was healthy. He just got stress. He really miss Elang and thats why he die.
Maher: So he died of a broken heart then?
Yayuk: Exactly, he died because of broken heart.
Hiratetty: I blame the military, because it was the military who killed them but I still dont know who it was.
Susilo Bambang YudhoyonoSuper: Susilo Bambang YudhoyonoPresidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: I do believe that someone has to take responsibility over all incidents at that time.
Maher: Do you think Wiranto should be held responsible?
SBY: I think I have to say that people who have to command responsibility has to take the responsibility.
Maher: On numerous occasions during the presidential campaign, SBY has subtly pointed the finger of blame at his rival and brother general
An indicted war criminal, Wiranto is more vulnerable than the seemingly Teflon-coated Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
But Wiranto has hit back in a series of TV commercials They were designed to prove that at the time of Soehartos fall he refused to snatch the presidency and that SBY his junior was standing right behind him.
Maher: But there are those like the general turned preacher, Herman Mantiri, who say Wiranto has nothing to explain, either to his compatriots or to those in the west who say he wouldnt be welcomed in their capitals.
Mantiri: If America dont want to ask him to come as the president, America need also not to come even we can say to the Americans you close your embassy you go, you go to hell!
Maher: If you become president would you give an undertaking that you will resolve the Trisakti issue once and for all that justice will be delivered to the families of those who died at Trisakti?
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: Well I have to push all legal issues to be dealt with properly, not only the Trisakti incident.
Wanda Hamidah: So far the government has not, or does not, acknowledge them as heroes even though without them there would have been no reformation in Indonesia there would have been no changes whatsoever in Indonesia.
Wanda Hamidah: And maybe without those four heroes who died for us there would be no democracy no new parties.Maher: For Wanda and the others who marched that Mayday, its a painful irony that Indonesias first democratic presidential election has allowed military men back into the political fray
Credits Reporter: Michael Maher
Camera: David Anderson
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Research: Ake Prihantari and Ari Wuryantama
Producer: Ian Altschwager
Maher: Old soldiers, its said, never die. In Indonesia, they just croon away.Retired generals Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Wiranto are now locked in battle.
The weapons of choice, verbal dexterity and matinee idol looks are.
After all, this presidential campaign has a beauty contest designed to soften the rock-hard edges of their military pasts.
Political advertising banners in streets Music
Trying to untangle the knot that is Indonesian politics is an exasperating task.It twists and turns in on itself in a way that leaves not only we foreigners bamboozled but the locals as well. This has been the countrys first ever direct and democratic presidential poll. Yet two of the leading contenders have been military men. Wiranto and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono having been doing their best to portray themselves as born-again democrats. But have the leopards really changed their spots, or are their generals stars still firmly rusted on beneath their new civilian coats?
Wide shoot of building burning Music
Indonesians protesting in streets 1998.
In the month of May, the world watched as Soehartos new order regime teetered, then crashed to earth. Thirty-two long years of military dictatorship had come to an end, swept away in a torrent of popular discontent. Wiranto and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono were among the regimes leading lights.
Wiranto and SBY in street with admirers In 2004 Wiranto has been the presidential candidate for Soehartos old party Golkar. SBY, as his rival is known, has surrounded himself with former Golkar and military men.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: I think leadership matters.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: And I do believe with my experience when I had been in the military will help me in performing my tasks in running the government.
Wiranto: Some people have the misconception that all military personnel embrace the concept of militarism. However, not all military figures are anti-democracy. They think that military personnel are anti-democracy because they are authoritarian. I think thats a great misconception.
Smita Notosusanto: They will return the dominant role of the military in politics because they can.
Maher: Pro-democracy activists like Smita Notosusanto despair at the political pass Indonesia has come to. Six years on from Suhartos fall they see the military regaining political ground, as President Megawatti Sukarnoputri mangles the economy and struggles to maintain national stability.
Smita Notosusanto: They would like to dominate the political process.
Smita Notosusanto: And I think the Indonesian people also are not used to the idea that there is a separate function and the government and the military should be under civilian supremacy. That concept is completely alien to most Indonesians.
Wanda Hamidah with husband and daughter In a Jakarta suburb Wanda Hamidah sings nursery rhymes to her little girl.
Archival. Footage of Wanda Hamidah protesting Six years ago, Wanda was out on the streets of the capital singing more strident songs. A student at the University of Trisakti, she was at the forefront of a demonstration which changed the course of her countrys history.
Wanda Hamidah: For the first time, Indonesians can vote directly for the president not just for the party. None of this would have happened if there hadnt been any reformation or the deaths of the four Trisakti students.
Maher: On May the 12th, 1998, Wanda and her fellow students filed out of their campus to belatedly join nation-wide anti-Soeharto protests.
More a cradle of conservatism than peoples power, Trisakti was an unlikely landmark for a revolution.Within hours, restraint exploded into a rampage as troops moved in to clear the road.With nowhere to escape bystanders cowered on the footpath helpless in the face of the savage onslaught.
The crack of gunshot echoed across Trisaktis concrete forecourt. According to some eyewitnesses, military snipers with infrared scopes led the shooting spree.
Archival. Footage of student at protest Male student: The students are not guilty. These people, the green people, they are the guilty one.
Archival. Footage of dead students in hospital When it was finally over, four students lay dead.
Archival. Footage of wounded protestors A line had now been crossed. Most thought Soeharto and his regime could never be forgiven.
Wanda Hamidah: We are still very, very angry especially when we think about how this case has yet to be resolved. We are very depressed. We are very frustrated.
Traditional Indonesian dancers at political meet
Maher: That two leading generals from Soehartos regime have been frontrunners in the presidential elections has only heightened Wandas frustration.
Wanda Hamidah: Thats what is so disappointing to me, because we know that on May 12 Wiranto was the Commander of the Armed Forces and in charge in Jakarta.
Wanda Hamidah: That broke our hearts. I dont understand. It doesnt make sense at all.
Mantiri Maher: This man is in no doubt about why a large number of Indonesians want to cast their votes for two former generals.
A decade ago Herman Bernhard Leopold Mantiri was chief of the militarys general staff. A soldiers soldier, both Wiranto and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono served under him in East Timor.
Herman MantiriSuper: Herman MantiriFormer General
Mantiri: These two guys are quite brilliant. They have their brains. But to compare them, one to each other Wiranto is more firm but SBY is not so firm because hes not a field officer.
SBY descending from aircraft Indonesia is very vulnerable to bad things, you know. We are not yet established and we can influence people too easy to do very bad things, so there still must be strong leaders.
Maher: And some very prominent civilian leaders appear to have acquiesced with Mantiris view.
Wirantos running mate is Salahuddin Wahid, the younger brother of Abdurrahman Wahid, widely seen as the most democratic of the countrys post-Soeharto presidents.
Salahuddin Wahid: Are you a hundred per cent happy with this coalition?Salahuddin Wahid: I think its not a question of happy or not
Wiranto CDs and paraphernalia we have to face the reality and we decide to have Wiranto as partner.
Maher: Strange as it may seem it was Salahuddin who lead the human rights commission inquiry into the still unresolved and unpunished deaths of the Trisatki four.
Salahuddin Wahid: We think there was a gross violation of human rights so weve already submitted the report to the Attorney-Generals office but there was no decision there.
Maher: So the politicians play around while the families continue to suffer?
Salahuddin Wahid: Yeah, thats right. Thats the fact. Its very -- its very -- its a tragedy I think.
Maher: And no more so than for the victims families.
These were the lamentable scenes at the morgue the night of the Trisakti killings.
The family of Elang Mulyana one of the four dead was inconsolable in its grief.
As Muslim prayers were chanted, Elangs cousin Yayuk stroked his body as if trying to massage life back into it.
Yayuk Safriti: If I close my eyes Elang come to me and smile
Yayuk Safriti and sometime I hear Oh Yayuk, I'm hurt, I'm hurt.
Maher: Six years on, Yayuk and Elangs mother Hiratetty are regular visitors to his gravesite. Only now they have two graves to visit. Elangs father died suddenly last year.
Yayuk: Elangs father wasnt sick. He was healthy. He just got stress. He really miss Elang and thats why he die.
Maher: So he died of a broken heart then?
Yayuk: Exactly, he died because of broken heart.
Hiratetty: I blame the military, because it was the military who killed them but I still dont know who it was.
Susilo Bambang YudhoyonoSuper: Susilo Bambang YudhoyonoPresidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: I do believe that someone has to take responsibility over all incidents at that time.
Maher: Do you think Wiranto should be held responsible?
SBY: I think I have to say that people who have to command responsibility has to take the responsibility.
Maher: On numerous occasions during the presidential campaign, SBY has subtly pointed the finger of blame at his rival and brother general
An indicted war criminal, Wiranto is more vulnerable than the seemingly Teflon-coated Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
But Wiranto has hit back in a series of TV commercials They were designed to prove that at the time of Soehartos fall he refused to snatch the presidency and that SBY his junior was standing right behind him.
Maher: But there are those like the general turned preacher, Herman Mantiri, who say Wiranto has nothing to explain, either to his compatriots or to those in the west who say he wouldnt be welcomed in their capitals.
Mantiri: If America dont want to ask him to come as the president, America need also not to come even we can say to the Americans you close your embassy you go, you go to hell!
Maher: If you become president would you give an undertaking that you will resolve the Trisakti issue once and for all that justice will be delivered to the families of those who died at Trisakti?
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: Well I have to push all legal issues to be dealt with properly, not only the Trisakti incident.
Wanda Hamidah: So far the government has not, or does not, acknowledge them as heroes even though without them there would have been no reformation in Indonesia there would have been no changes whatsoever in Indonesia.
Wanda Hamidah: And maybe without those four heroes who died for us there would be no democracy no new parties.Maher: For Wanda and the others who marched that Mayday, its a painful irony that Indonesias first democratic presidential election has allowed military men back into the political fray
Credits Reporter: Michael Maher
Camera: David Anderson
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Research: Ake Prihantari and Ari Wuryantama
Producer: Ian Altschwager