East Timor and the crisis of the Indonesian intelligence state

This article begins by asking how it was that Indonesia was able to sustain its illegal invasion of East Timer for almost a quarter of a century; and how Suharto was able to rule Indonesia for more than three decades without domestic legitimacy and relying on massive state violence toward the Indone sian citizenry; The argument concentrates on the political-economic charact eristics of the Indonesian rentier-militarist state, which alone made Suhar to's rule viable, and outlines the connections between the erosion of those characteristics and the fall of Suharto and collapse of Jakarta's rule in East Timer. The article next sketches the role of Indonesian intelligence o rganizations and special forces in the last phase of Indonesia's occupation of East Timer; it then outlines the role of surveillance and terror in New Order Indonesia, and introduces the institutions that make up the Indonesi an intelligence state. Finally, it concludes by briefly discussing the poss ible future of the Indonesian intelligence state under the Wahid administra tion.