Birth of PCPP natural: Sarwono

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said yesterday that the establishment of the Association of Intellectuals for Pancasila Development (PCPP) was a natural manifestation of public demand for wider social- political participation.

"The educated community in Indonesia is growing. It's growing horizontally, so more and more people are demanding participation," he told journalists after meeting with President Soeharto here yesterday.

PCPP, founded in July by staff lecturers of Jenderal Soedirman University in Purwokerto, Central Java, has since received wide support from intellectuals looking for such a forum but one that is not based on religion.

Many political analysts see PCPP as a counter to the growing strength and influence of the Association of Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI), which is chaired by State Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie. A number of cabinet ministers are also members of ICMI.

Sarwono dismissed the notion that one organization is designed to challenge another.

"Looking at the conditions in our society, what is needed most is an association which unites all forces, not to oppose the ones in existence, but to create a layer which can bridge the ones already there," he said.

The minister indicated that the president also gave his support for the establishment of PCPP since it was part of the people's legal right to form an organization.

He added that as society grows there will always be an expanding tendency to form new organizations.

On Wednesday evening Sarwono hosted a gathering of PCPP members at his home in South Jakarta where he called on PCPP members to reconsider the usage of the word "intellectual" and expressed his reluctance to head up the new association.

"I told them to find a young person who is energetic and is really interested in the future of this. People like me have one foot in the past," he said.

Sarwono further remarked that "I am not an intellectual, if they care to use that term."

Though he did not directly object to the use of the term "intellectual," Sarwono suggested they carefully weigh the implications of using such a term and decide whether or not to maintain it at the upcoming congress in November.

He reasoned that the term intellectual is usually given by someone else and not self-applicable. (mds)