Government backs reintroduction of security decree
JAKARTA (JP): The government supports the reintroduction of a 1988 People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) decree on preemptive security measures into the legislative body's draft of rulings for next year.
The decree granted the President the authority to take preemptive measures against security disturbances and subversive activities. It was adopted as part of Indonesia's Broad Guidelines of State Policies in 1988, but was dropped from the 1993 guidelines.
Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman said yesterday the government must have legal grounds if it decided to insert the substance of the decree into its drafts of guidelines to be deliberated by MPR next March.
"MPR customarily takes stock of its decrees every five years," he said after meeting with the country's best students and lecturers. "Some decrees need to be maintained, others need to be reviewed or replaced."
Soesilo was commenting on the plan by three political organizations -- the ruling Golkar faction, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) -- to include the substance of the 1988 decree into their drafts of the 1998 state guidelines.
Golkar's election strategist Rully Chairul Azwar was quoted by Kompas daily as saying Tuesday that Golkar was considering reintroducing the 1988 decree into its draft of state guidelines.
PPP and PDI also said they would consider reintroducing the substance of the 1988 decree. But political analyst Arbi Sanit of the University of Indonesia said the motion was a setback to the country's democratization.
If reintroduced, the decree "would give the President a greater authority than what the Kopkamtib had in the past," he told The Jakarta Post.
The now-defunct Kopkamtib (Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order) was believed successful in handling, in the 1970s, major crises that endangered the nation's political stability, security and unity. The body was considered very powerful to the point of causing fear in some people.
"At that time, all security problems could be handled quickly and effectively (by the body)," Armed Forces Chief of Sociopolitical Affairs Lt. Gen. Syarwan Hamid said last September.
Soesilo denied speculation that the motion to reintroduce the decree would eventually lead to a granting of even greater authority to the President.
"Don't jump to any conclusions. Just wait for MPR's general meeting next March," he said.
Arbi believed the campaign to have the decree reintroduced had to do with major politically motivated riots that have hit Indonesia since last year.
One of the worst riots occurred on July 27 last year, following a violent takeover of PDI's headquarters by supporters of a government-backed party faction.
The government accused the little-known Democratic People's Party for inciting the riot, which, according to the National Commission on Human Rights, claimed at least five lives and resulted in the disappearance of 23 people.
The country was also rocked by massive rioting during the May election campaign and general election.
A devastating riot hit the South Kalimantan town of Banjarmasin at the end of the election campaign last May. The riot left 123 people dead, police said. (imn)