ABRI supports Habibie, rejects presidium
JAKARTA (JP): The Armed Forces (ABRI) headquarters again announced its support for President B.J. Habibie's administration, saying a presidium was not constitutional.
Armed Forces Chief of Territorial Affairs, Lt. Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, on Monday rejected proposals from various opposition groups, including students, for an immediate end to Habibie's government and the establishment of a presidium to replace the current government.
"There is no constitutional ground for the establishment of a presidium to replace President Habibie's administration," he said after addressing a seminar on national resilience held by the National Resilience Institute (Lemhannas).
Calling the proposal unrealistic, he said it would be difficult for a presidium to work. "How could they make decisions or issue policies as there is no such regulation for it?"
"Who will sit in the presidium? Who will the presidium members represent? And who will recognize its validity?" he added, while citing the fact that there were no regulations to address these questions.
A petition launched by a group of 20 political activists and government critics on Nov. 12, ended with the questioning of 17 of the signatories, including former Chief of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command Lt. Gen. (ret) Achmad Kemal Idris, former Jakarta Governor Marine Lt. Gen. (ret) Ali Sadikin and Sukmawati, the younger sister of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the leader of a faction of the splintered Indonesian Democratic Party.
Separately, Lemhannas governor Lt. Gen. Agum Gumelar said that violence involving either the public, students or security personnel "could no longer be tolerated".
It remains a fact, he said, "that our ABRI members still like shooting the people, that our students still like staging violent demonstrations and that our people can easily be provoked to commit violence."
"However, we have to end such attitudes and altogether restore the political and economic situation," he told reporters after the session.
Agum said that the institute would initiate a national dialog, involving leading figures from all elements of society, before the end of next month.
"Hopefully, those invited figures will not reject our invitation because the dialog is meant to seek solutions to all our national problems," he said, declining to mention who the invitees would be.
Susilo, commenting on the Nov. 12 and Nov. 13 student demonstrations which ended in 16 lives being lost during clashes between the students and authorities, blamed a lack of "political communication" between the government and the public.
"If dialog or sharing opinions and ideas could have been applied in our political life, such violent demonstrations would not have happened," he told the seminar participants.
Susilo also agreed with the much-debated proposal for the revision of the 1945 Constitution.
"I agree that the 1945 Constitution should be equipped with more detailed regulations," he said at the seminar.
"Because such a vague Constitution will lead to multi- interpretations," he added, citing the controversial Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution on presidential and vice presidential term limits.
The Article stipulates that a president and a vice president hold a five-year term of office and can be re-elected, but does not describe any term limits for the offices.
However, Susilo said that while the nation is in a crisis it was not the appropriate time to make changes to the Constitution.
"Changes in the 1945 Constitution will only create new problems," he said, but did not elaborate what those problems would be. (imn)