More calls to end PKI ostraction<\/p>\n
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Pressure is mounting for the government to scrap all legislation
\nthat discriminates against former members, suspected members or
\nrelatives of the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).<\/p>\n
Noted historians said over the weekend that the communist
\nideology was no longer a threat to this country and thus all such
\nlaws that ostracize or stigmatize people had to be revoked.<\/p>\n
\"It is not right to keep discriminatory rulings for so long;
\nand people have learned that communism does not work here,\"
\nsenior historian Taufik Abdullah told The Jakarta Post on
\nSaturday.<\/p>\n
Another historian Anhar Gonggong expressed a more democratic
\nargument for getting rid of the laws, saying that communism is
\none of the world's ideologies and thus should be accepted as a
\ndifferent path for anyone who chooses to believe in it, including
\nIndonesians.<\/p>\n
\"If we were able to accept differences, there would be no
\npossible conflicts with communism,\" Anhar said over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Calls for the elimination of the laws, which bar anyone with
\nany link to PKI, real or imagined, from taking government jobs or
\nrunning for public office, began after a historic decision by the
\nnewly established Constitutional Court to allow those branded
\nwith the PKI mark to become candidates for legislative bodies.<\/p>\n
However, that decision does not automatically nullify the law,
\nlet alone deal with many others still on the books. In 1999, the
\nlaw banning them from voting was revoked.<\/p>\n
The law on presidential and vice presidential elections, for
\nexample, bans people with alleged PKI links from running for
\neither of those posts. Government Decree No.6\/1976 bans former
\nPKI members from the government bureaucracy as well as military
\nservice.<\/p>\n
Justice and Human Rights Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra
\nemphasized last week that the government had no immediate plan to
\nrevoke the laws or to rehabilitate their names.<\/p>\n
\"Other legislation related to the issue remains in effect. We
\nhave never had any discussion (about revocation of laws),\" said
\nYusril, who is also chairman of the Crescent Star Party (PBB).<\/p>\n
Taufik and Anhar said Saturday that communism was no longer a
\n\"danger\" to the country and so there was no reason for the
\ngovernment to deny political rights to anyone.<\/p>\n
According to Taufik, the people were \"mature enough\" now to
\nknow that communism would not work in this country.<\/p>\n
He also said, however, that repressing former communist
\nmembers would provoke public sympathy for them, which could mean
\nthe spread of communist teachings in the country.<\/p>\n
\"Many young people were lured by the romanticism of socialist
\nteachings, but it will not grow if we do not create such
\nperceptions that we are being unjust to them,\" Taufik said.<\/p>\n
\"Whatever the reason is, discriminating against one group for
\nmore than 30 years is too much, the government should not ignore
\nthat,\" he added.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, imprisoned or
\nbranded enemies of the state in 1966, after they were accused by
\nthe nascent New Order regime of deposing former president Sukarno
\nin a 1965 coup (however, many historians remain deeply divided on
\nthe PKI role).<\/p>\n
The discrimination also targeted the relatives of any PKI
\nsuspects, some of whom were just infants when they lost one or
\nboth parents in the carnage of 1965 to 1967.<\/p>\n
Taufik explained that in the 1950s, the PKI was the third
\nlargest political party in the country, as communism appeared to
\nbe a viable alternative that could fulfill people's aspirations.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the presence of communism in China and the then
\nSoviet Union was so strong that it affected global politics.<\/p>\n
\"Such conditions have gone, as communism has proven
\nunworkable; both China and Russia seem to be more capitalist
\ncountries, so why the worry?\" Taufik said.<\/p>\n
\"At the right time those regulations should be annulled,\"
\nTaufik asserted.<\/p>",
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