Government abolished anti-Chinese rules
JAKARTA (JP): President B.J. Habibie issued on Wednesday an instruction to lift an almost three-decade ban on the use and teaching of the Mandarin language and the discriminative citizenship requirement for Indonesians of Chinese origin.
In the presidential decree No. 4 dated May 5, the President ordered ministers, heads of state agencies, governors, mayors and regents to follow up his earlier instruction barring government agencies and officials from discriminating against Indonesians based on their origins.
The President said his new instruction was a follow-up of previous presidential instructions No. 56 issued in July 1996, and decree No. 26 issued last September.
In the new instruction, he ordered the officials "based on presidential decree No. 26, 1998, to immediately review all regulations which ban or restrict Mandarin courses".
Noted lawyer Frans Hendra Winarta, a Chinese-Indonesian, praised Habibie's decision as a breakthrough in eliminating discriminative regulations against Indonesian citizens.
"Anyone must be allowed to study Chinese, but I do not agree with the reestablishment of exclusive Chinese schools as in the 1960s," Frans told The Jakarta Post.
In moves to assimilate Chinese-Indonesians, Chinese schools were banned, as was the use and teaching of Mandarin, the main Chinese language.
Observers have said the targeting of Chinese in recent riots show that such policies were not effective.
A new organization of Chinese-Indonesians set up on April 10, the Chinese-Indonesian Association, said it aims for "natural" assimilation, to enable full participation of Chinese-Indonesians in the country.
The 1996 rule issued by former president Soeharto on citizenship rendered invalid the special requirement for citizenship documents (SKBRI), which in practice discriminated against the ethnic Chinese.
Frans said continuing necessity for the SKBRI document showed that the issuance of a regulation or a law did not automatically stop discriminative practices. He said one reason the practice continued was the cost of the document.
"Up to the present, the requirement for a SKBRI still exists. I heard it costs Rp 5 million to get a document," said the lawyer.
"Who would want to lose such a gold mine?"
Issuance of the documents involves the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Justice.
Habibie has ordered Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Gen. Feisal Tanjung to coordinate the implementation of his instruction.
In last September's decree, the President ordered all government officials to administer equal treatment and services to all Indonesian citizens "and to remove discrimination in any form, nature or level, to all Indonesian citizens, be it based on tribal, religious, racial affiliations or origins".
Palace officials said on Friday Habibie issued the additional order because the implementation of his previous order had not been fully realized by government officials. They said many organizations, including the Embassy of the People's Republic of China here, had already obtained a copy of the decree.
"They said they have been waiting for this decision since last year," said the official. (prb)