Fate of civil servants

At last someone said something which cleared the clouded sky. The statement by Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono is like a soothing breeze in a hot dry season.

The fate of civil servants has become clear. They are just citizens like any other people in Indonesia, and have the same political rights and obligations.

I cannot understand how such a high-ranking person like Waskito Reksosoedirdjo could make such a blunt, incorrect statement curtailing the basic right of a citizen. It became worse when he followed up his statement with threats.

The higher your position on the social and political ladder, the more careful you should be in your statements. You should act maturely and wisely because the higher you are; the more eyes there are watching you. The Dutch have a nice proverb for this, i.e. Hoge bomen vangen veel wind (literally: high trees catch more wind). You can easily catch the real meaning.

Mr. Soeprapto, one of the founding fathers of the Indonesian Civil Servants Corps, tried to explain the real situation but, being very cautious, he in fact managed to say nothing.

I read in Merdeka of Sept. 26, 1995 that the minister of education also made a similar statement to Waskito's. All these statements coming from high-ranking officials added to the confusion.

Now that everything has become clear and the confusion is over, I hope peace and calmness will descend once more upon the political arena of Indonesia. We can once again concentrate on the prevailing urgent matters.

With the official statement made by the minister/state secretary, the political parties are happy again.

SOEGIH HARTO

Jakarta