Churches admit mistakes over Soeharto
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian churches on Thursday admitted to having played a part in maintaining Soeharto's oppressive New Order regime and vowed never to repeat the same mistake.
Church leaders also pledged to become more actively involved in the build up to the June 7 general election.
In a statement issued at the end of a three-day seminar on the church's role in educating voters, delegates from 60 churches across the country said they would play a more active part in providing the public with a political education.
The seminar was organized by the Percik Foundation from Salatiga in Central Java, the Indonesian Catholic Community Forum, the Central Java Christian Church and the Asia Foundation.
Organizer Tukiman Taruno and Pradjarta Dirjosanjoto from the Percik Foundation said church leaders agreed that a political education was an important aspect of democratization.
They said voters should be educated in an adequate, planned and proactive manner in order to make the election a success.
"The church intends to play an active role in the education process," Tukiman said, giving no further details.
"A political education is considered to be good if it is provided in a rational manner, if it does not encourage sentimentalism, if it respects other people's opinions...and if it encompasses realistic measures (that should be taken) to bring about greater democracy," he said.
In a related development in Surabaya on Friday, a group of intellectuals led by legal expert J.E. Sahetappy established a new center for the study of democracy and human rights.
Sahetappy said the center, the Indonesian Forum for Human Rights and Democracy, was established out of concern that violence legitimized by the state would continue for the foreseeable future, fueled by vested political interests and an ignorance of the basic principles of democracy.
Sahetappy, who is a professor of law at Airlangga University, said unrest in various parts of the country demonstrated that human rights were being disregarded. He said that 60 percent of the reported cases of unrest in East Java stemmed from human rights violations and land disputes.
"The center will cooperate with the relevant institutions and work to empower and defend those whose rights are violated.
"We are looking to help uphold human rights and democracy in order to establish an ideal civil society," Sahetappy said.
"We will provide legal services an advice to both poll monitors and those whose rights have been violated," he added.
He said the forum followed up on a proposal aired during discussions with Nahdlatul Ulama chairman Abdurrahman Wahid during his recent "open house" program in Jakarta. (har/nur)