Thu, 31 Aug 1995

A dawn of freedom

The government's plan to free the public from the obligatory police permit for gatherings looks like a 50th anniversary present for the populace. But the truth is deeper than that. The government's positive gesture, which was announced on Tuesday after a limited cabinet meeting chaired by Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman, heralds an increase in respect for the people.

By abolishing the rule, the government is actually returning a right the Dutch colonial administration seized from Indonesians. It ends the no less ugly and rigid situation Indonesian law enforcers perpetuated.

Once the new policy is implemented at the end of this year, the painful experience of being deprived of the Constitutional right to gather and express views will be a thing of the past. No longer will Indonesians have to face police wielding the power to defend the antiquated law. No longer will the much-trumpeted stability-first campaign, in which success and bombast are simultaneously sung, be upheld by an unconstitutional law.

In the effort to deny the people's constitutional rights, the officers have pulled Indonesians towards their most self- destructive and self-defeating worst. The law enforcers succeeded in making the organizing committees of scientific seminars and cultural performances succumb to an arbitrary colonial law which is nothing but a manifestation of constitutional lawlessness.

The tragic irony is that the Indonesian police's actions mimic the colonial officers' effort to stop gatherings of Indonesian nationalists on charges of pushing the public toward independence.

The implementation of the controversial law not only confused many people inside and outside the administration, but was also based on disrespect for the country's citizens. The too principled and strong-minded officers have always worked on the rationale of presumption of guilt until proven innocent in court, instead of the long-respected principle of presumption of innocence.

Their acts have killed the people's creativity. The pain silently endured by our educated elite has resulted in public distrust of the government's sincerity toward its democratization campaign.

By turning this dark page of our history, in which democratic values collided head-on with the arrogance of power, the government has apparently concluded it is not wise to pride itself as being the source of this backward society. Evidently, the authorities have finally heard the people's lament of good virtues lost and the dirge that conditions are still far from what their leaders promised in 1945.

The government, especially Minister Soesilo, must also have grasped that the world has changed significantly and Indonesia will be left behind if it remains unmoved by the increasing demands for basic rights. Their realization will surely lift this nation's reputation in the international community.

The new horizon in the domain of political openness will allow Indonesians to grasp for broader freedoms.

The bitter experience of the gathering permit affair also illustrates that the government still has much work to do to foster public relations. Many civil servants seem to be in need of a crash course on sensitivity towards the public's concerns. This reality is woeful for a nation that just celebrated 50 years of freedom from colonial control.