So, unless you completely tuned out of Indonesian political news after last Wednesday’s Jakarta election (and who could blame you), you probably heard about the highly controversial article by veteran journalist Allan Nairn which was released by The Intercept last week.
The lengthy article, titled “Trump’s Indonesian Allies In Bed With Isis-backed Militia Seeking To Oust Elected President”, goes into great detail regarding a supposed plot by former and current members of the military as well as various elites to use the protests against Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama as a means to overthrow President Joko Widodo’s government (this interview with Nairn also provides a detailed overview of his accusations)
One of the elites allegedly involved in the coup plot is Hary Tanoesoedibjo (often shortened to Tanoe), owner of MNC Group and numerous media and property interests throughout Indonesia, including the planned construction of two five-star resort projects in partnership with the Trump Hotel Collection, which is of course owned by US President Donald Trump’s Trump Organization.
In broad strokes, Nairn’s article describes the anti-Ahok movement as being built up by the plotters as a pretext for initiating a takeover of Jokowi’s government, with the ultimate aim being to get a mass of protesters at one of the anti-Ahok rallies to occupy the parliament building, forcing the military to take command of the government to restore order.
Nairn’s evidence includes on-the-record quotes with retired general Kivlan Zein and leaders of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), as well as numerous unnamed sources and intelligence documents. It also implicates such senior figures as Gerindra Head Prabowo Subianto, Tommy Suharto and Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, the current armed forces commander, as being part of the treason plot.
The article describes Hary Tanoe as one of the coup movement’s top supporters “through direct aid and by means of his TV stations”.
Nairn’s article was immediately declared a hoax by the military and a spokesman said that the armed forces would be reporting local news outlet Tirto.id (which published a translated version of the article) to the police. However, General Gatot Nurmantyo soon after announced that the military would not, in fact, go through with the police report, saying, “Why bother arguing with a crazy person? If you win they’ll say you’re crazy and if you lose they’ll say you’re crazy,” as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
But it looks like that is not the end of the legal fallout over the controversial article. Hary Tanoe’s lawyer, Cris Taufik, said yesterday that they would be reporting Nairn and Tirto.id to law enforcement for defamation over the article’s accusations.
“In Allan’s writing, there are no facts. These are serious allegations. The news portal also has as much responsibility as the author,” Cris said as quoted by Sindonews.
Both the Intercept and Tirto.id have said that they stand by Nairn’s reporting, which both organizations say they have independently fact-checked.
Besides the parties implicated by the article, various Indonesia observers and analysts have also lambasted the article, especially for the tenous connection it attempts to draw between Trump, ISIS and the Indonesian political movement.
https://twitter.com/liamgammon/status/854562511869272064
The Nairn story is not just nonsense, it is also long, stream of consciousness nonsense. Does the Intercept lack editors?
— Aaron Connelly (@ConnellyAL) April 19, 2017
Still, many consider Nairn to be a well-respected journalist. He has reported on Indonesia extensively and, in 1991, he witnessed the massacre committed by Indonesian troops in Dili, East Timor, getting injured in the process. For his reporting, he has won the the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award, the George Polk Award and the James Aronson Award.
In 2014, he released an interview with General A.M. Hendropriyono, a powerful figure in the Indonesian military and a former advisor to President Jokowi, in which the general supposedly admitted to having “command responsibility” in the assassination of the Munir Said Thalib, one of Indonesia’s leading human rights activists. However, the interview did not lead to Hendropriyono or anybody else being held directly responsible for Munir’s murder, which remains unsolved.
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