Ethnicity explosive issue, rights campaigner warns<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Ethnicity, religion and ideology remain
\nexplosive issues that Indonesia should seek to diffuse, a
\nprominent human rights campaigner warns.<\/p>\n
Such issues have the potential to trigger conflicts that may
\nundermine the nation's integrity, Adnan Buyung Nasution told a
\nseminar here on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Indonesia is home to about 185 million people, comprising more
\nthan 300 ethnic groups who speak some 200 languages. The
\ngovernment recognizes five religions: Islam, Christianity,
\nHinduism, Buddhism and mysticism.<\/p>\n
Citing an example of ethnic tension, Buyung pointed to the
\nrecent labor demonstrations in the North Sumatra capital of
\nMedan, which escalated into an anti-Chinese riot in which a
\nbusinessman of Chinese descent was killed.<\/p>\n
The seminar organized by the Association of Indonesian
\nCatholic Students (PMKRI) was in commemoration of the historical
\n1959 Presidential Decree.<\/p>\n
With the decree, the late President Sukarno dissolved the
\nConstituent Assembly, whose 500 members had been elected by the
\npeople in the 1955 general election. The decree also ordered a
\nreturn to the 1945 Constitution from the federal constitution
\nwhich had been in use for several years.<\/p>\n
Buyung warned that Indonesia will face a national
\ndisintegration problem like the former Yugoslavia if the
\npotential conflicts were not handled properly.<\/p>\n
"What we have to do now is exchange views among Moslems and
\nnon-Moslems, Chinese and non-Chinese and discuss what we should
\ndo about this nation-state," said Buyung, who is also the
\nchairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI).<\/p>\n
According to Buyung, Indonesia, as the world's biggest Moslem
\ncountry, has not yet done enough to solve the national problem
\nafter the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, an event which
\nmany political analysts consider to be the turning point of the
\nyoung Indonesia's democratic life.<\/p>\n
Buyung said that months before the decree was issued,
\nIndonesian politicians had nearly completed a draft of a new
\nconstitution which was expected to be more accommodating to the
\nvarious interests.<\/p>\n
"The draft was 90 percent finished at the end of 1958 when the
\nassembly went into a recess," said Buyung, who completed his
\ndoctoral thesis about the assembly in 1992 at Rijk University in
\nUtrecht, the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
He said that then Premier Djuanda's administration as well as
\nthe Army, however, disliked the draft constitution and proposed
\nthe assembly abort it and return to the 1945 Constitution.<\/p>\n
Another speaker, Hardi, the then vice prime minister, however,
\nsaid that the assembly had failed to formulate the new
\nconstitution because the Moslem-based parties and their opponents
\nwere involved in a heated debate about the nature of the
\nIndonesian state.<\/p>\n
Islamic basis<\/p>\n
The debate centered on "whether or not Indonesia should adopt
\nan Islamic basis," he said, adding that the ruling Indonesian
\nDemocratic Party (PNI) later joined the chorus and suggested
\nSukarno issue the decree to return to the 1945 Constitution.<\/p>\n
Buyung rejected the "classic" explanation of Hardi, saying
\nthat the assembly was in recess and about to continue the
\ndiscussion when the presidential decree was being issued.<\/p>\n
Buyung quoted Sukarno as saying that Sukarno had hoped the
\nassembly could successfully draft the new constitution because
\nthe people of Indonesia had never written a constitution
\nthemselves.<\/p>\n
"It's not fair. It was the army which felt uneasy about the
\ndebate, arresting some members of the assembly to create the
\nimage that the assembly was incapable," he said.<\/p>\n
In a bid to challenge mainstream historians, Buyung said that
\nthe army loves the 1945 Constitution because it gives them more
\npower and tolerates a lower standard of human rights.<\/p>\n
He said that dissolving the assembly had even stopped the
\nconstitutional dialog among Moslems and non-Moslems as well as
\nother opposition parties about the very nature of the Indonesian
\nnation-state. (09)<\/p>",
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