ABRI supports Habibie, rejects presidium

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)