Calls for disbandment of KNPI widespread

Calls for disbandment of KNPI widespread

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Agung
Laksono has been urged to disband the state-sponsored youth
organization, KNPI.

Antara reported from Bandarlampung, Lampung, on Thursday that
in a discussion in North Lampung, the minister told participants
that on all his trips around the country people had made the same
demand.

The organization has been widely criticized as being merely
one of several political machines of the Golkar political
grouping.

In the discussion at a youth center in Kotabumi, 100
kilometers north of Bandarlampung, the regency's KNPI secretary,
Muhajirin, asked the minister of KNPI's fate.

Then, three youths who said they were from Muslim groups,
including the Muhammadiyah, stated they might be "the first" who
would agree to an end of KNPI.

"You wouldn't be the first," Agung replied. "Maybe you're the
1,000th." He went on to describe criticisms raised in his visits
and his answers to them.

He said among the critics were those who said KNPI, as a
product of the New Order regime, no longer suited the spirit of
reform.

So far, he quoted critics as saying, KNPI had only been the
tool of those in power at the national and local level.

Agung said other suggestions were that there was no need to
disband KNPI; it only needed to be reformed and restructured.

Agung added that yet other views were that it was only KNPI's
leaders which needed to be replaced.

He added that he would not intervene in whatever the
organization decided.

"We'll leave it to the youth to settle things for themselves,"
he said. (anr)