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)