Bureaucrats' role key to end discrimination

Bureaucrats' role key to end discrimination

JAKARTA (JP): A legal expert welcomes the recently issued
presidential decree which aims at eradicating discrimination
against people of Chinese descent, but notes that its success
will largely depend on bureaucrats' political will.

"It's the bureaucrats with low morality who have taken
advantage of legal procedures to make things more difficult for
the ethnic Chinese," Harry Tjan Silalahi told The Jakarta Post
yesterday.

The decree dated July 9 waived the requirement for the wife
and children of naturalized citizens to obtain a court document
stating their Indonesian nationality.

With Presidential Decree no. 56/1996, Indonesian citizenship
becomes automatic. They will no longer be required to produce the
court document, known as SBKRI, for administrative matters.

The requirement, based on a 1968 regulation, has been regarded
as discriminatory by people of Chinese descent, particularly
because obtaining an SBKRI is costly and complicated.

The ruling follows another decree issued in August last year
which simplified naturalization and made it free of charge to the
hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese who had been stateless
since 1969, when Indonesia cut diplomatic ties with China. The
two countries reinstated ties in 1990.

According to Harry, an executive and advisory member of the
Bakom-PKB, a government-sponsored agency for promoting social
integration between ethnic groups and indigenous people, the
issuance of the decree is a very important step in eliminating
administrative discrimination. He noted, however, that there is
nothing particularly new in the decree.

"The government wants to show that at least they are trying to
do something about the protracted problem," Harry said.

Just before leaving for the Olympics in Atlanta, badminton
champion Susi Susanti told the Post that it took her seven years
before she finally obtained her Indonesian nationality last May.

"If it was not for the Badminton Association of Indonesia, I
wouldn't have gotten it," she said, adding that her younger
sister has been fighting for citizenship for eight years.

There is still a remaining illness in the business field,
Harry pointed out. "A few successful businessmen, who are in
collusion with many government officials, have created resentment
among the majority of those who are unsuccessful," he said.

A long-time resident of the Gunung Sahari subdistrict in
Jakarta described one type of discrimination she faces in her
community. She said that donations for community events are fixed
by the community leaders on the basis of residents' ethnicity.

"I have to pay more than others," the resident, who requested
anonymity, told the Post. (yan/14)