A question of priority

By pushing the revised bill on freedom of expression into the national legislative agenda this week, the government could not have made it clearer that this is, in its view, a priority for deliberation. This is despite the fact that the House of Representatives (DPR) is already working under a tight deadline to deliberate several bills that are considered part of the national reform agenda.

They include the three political bills that are expected to provide the legal framework for the nation's new political system, and ones on anticorruption, antimonopoly and business competition. Enactment of these new laws could restore stability and put the nation back on the path to recovery. In short, the sooner they are enacted, the better for the country.

It is debatable whether regulating freedom of expression "fits the bill" of our pressing agenda. One cannot see the urgency of legislation that seeks to regulate freedom of expression in the present reform context.

The bill would ostensibly regulate street demonstrations to ensure that they are peaceful and do not become uncontrollable. The government has revised the bill from its first version following widespread criticism that it would curtail people's democratic rights to express their opinions. The new version limits the number of protesters to 100 before police permission is required for the gathering. The government has dropped a clause that required the media to obtain a police permit to report on any demonstration.

Despite this accommodation, one still feels uneasy about the real intention in pushing the bill forward. The government argues that various demonstrations in recent months have turned into riots that cost lives and material damage. These riots, it claims, have undermined people's confidence, particularly among the business community, and thus impeded efforts at recovery. While it is true that some demonstrations turned rowdy, they were the exceptions rather than the rule. More than anything else, the riots reflected the failure of the security apparatus in their crowd-handling methods, just as it did during the breakdown of law and order in Jakarta in mid-May.

The government's insistence that the House give swift passage to the bill on freedom of expression can only be seen as a desperate attempt by the government of President B.J. Habibie to consolidate its grip on power. Most of the demonstrations outside the DPR building these past few weeks have been peaceful although their goal -- for Habibie to step down in the name of true reform -- would hardly give a peace of mind to the President and his supporters. The protests are no threat to the nation's political and economic stability, but they are a real threat to the current regime. Habibie has lost no time in trying to curtail the very same forces that brought about the downfall of his predecessor Soeharto and, in grand irony, put him where he is now. One would have expected an appreciative nod of thanks for the opportunity rather than an all-out effort to silence the protesters.

The government's line that demonstrations are regulated in even the most democratic countries misses the point that the system in Indonesia is far from democratic. The massive protests since the beginning of the year show a complete breakdown in the country's channels of political communications, and the inability of the existing political institutions to effectively reflect and act on people's aspirations.

The change of guard from Soeharto to Habibie has not made these institutions efficient and effective. Far from it, they remain the products of the old regime with their entrenched feudalistic and repressive cultures and habits, including the dogged mind-set to preserve the power status quo at all costs. To curtail demonstrations now would deprive people of their last channel to communicate their wishes. It would shut the lid on the newfound freedom to speak out and only serve to bottle up people's frustrations. When the lid blows, as it did in May, the fallout will be devastating.

The most sensible and befitting action for the House in serving the people is an outright rejection of deliberating the bill on freedom of expression. It is only a priority for Habibie's agenda; it is not in the name of national reform and certainly goes against the very spirit of reform itself. This will be a litmus test for the House members who proclaim that they have truly adopted the tenets of reform.