Attorney General to summon 'problematic' NGO activists

JAKARTA (JP): The Attorney General's Office will begin summoning 32 "problematic" non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for questioning next week.

Chief of the Attorney General's Intelligence Department Gatot Hendrasto announced yesterday that each of the NGOs must be represented by its three top brass: director, deputy director and secretary-general.

Gatot called the planned questioning "dialogs".

"The meetings will serve as dialogs between us, no more than that," Gatot said. The NGOs will be questioned separately.

Gatot refused to disclose the names of the targeted NGOs but indicated the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi), known to be critical of many government policies including the planned construction of nuclear power plants, would be one of them.

Sutoyo N.K., Director General of Social and Political Affairs of the Ministry of Home Affairs, whose office oversees the registration of mass organizations, said last month the Foundation of the Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI), the National Brotherhood Foundation (YKPK), the Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union (SBSI), the New Masyumi Moslem Organization, the New Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI) and the Pemuda Marhaen youth organization, are some of the NGOs to be questioned.

Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman announced last month that the government would take action against certain NGOs for failing to specify the Pancasila as their ideology and for engaging in illegal activities.

The 32 represent a minority of the about 8,000 Indonesian NGOs, Soesilo said.

Some NGOs have rejected claims that they must stipulate state- ideology Pancasila as their ideology, saying they are not mass organizations and therefore not subject to the same law.

The debates ended with Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M. recently insisting that the 1985 law on mass organizations applied to all NGOs.

The law stipulates that the guiding principle of NGOs, and mass organizations, must be the state ideology Pancasila.

When asked about possible penalties to be imposed on the NGOs, Gatot said the issue has not been discussed yet.

"It is too early to talk about punitive measures before knowing what kind of violations they have committed," he said.

Gatot, who was attending a seminar jointly held by the National Commission on Human Rights and the Raoul Wellenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law from Sweden, said it would take some time to determine whether an NGO had broken its statutes or not.

"Talking to 96 people must take a long time," he said. (amd)