Govt drops plan of impeachment seminar

Govt drops plan of impeachment seminar

JAKARTA (JP): After months of debate, the government dropped
yesterday its controversial plan to hold a seminar on the 1966
impeachment of first president Sukarno.

State Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono Isman, who
had initiated the plan, canceled the seminar which would have
discussed the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly's
rejection of Sukarno's accountability speech.

Hayono said several parties had advised him to cancel the
seminar. He announced the cancellation after meeting President
Soeharto at the Bina Graha presidential office.

"When you study it thoroughly, there is no need to hold a
special seminar," Hayono quoted Soeharto as saying.

Sukarno, in his Nawaksara speech to an emergency session of
the provisional consultative assembly in June 1966, defended his
administration and failed, contrary to most expectations, to
condemn the now-banned Indonesian Communist Party for its botched
coup attempt in September 1965.

Hayono announced the seminar in March, creating controversy
with some saying that it would only open old wounds.

Hayono said later that he would run a seminar at the end of
this month to discuss whether there should be a seminar on the
Nawaksara speech.

Yesterday, Hayono blamed press sensationalism for the
controversy over the seminar.

"Press reports on the seminar had become a seminar in
themselves," Hayono said.

Those who had strongly opposed the plan included Manai
Sophian, a Sukarno admirer. He said the seminar would only be
worthwhile if organizers let people speak freely.

Gen. (ret) Abdul Haris Nasution, who in 1966 chaired the
session of the consultative assembly, had supported the idea but
suggested that Hayono consider its timing.

Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono had defended the seminar,
but said it should not be held until after next March's
presidential election.

Armed Forces chief spokesman Brig. Gen. Slamet Supriadi had
said the military supported the seminar to inform the public
about what really happened during and after the session.

Hayono said in April that the seminar would also cover the
March 11, 1966, decree (Supersemar), in which Sukarno authorized
Soeharto to restore order in the country, because the letter and
Sukarno's impeachment could not be separated.

A special hearing of the consultative assembly named Soeharto
as a temporary replacement for Sukarno in 1967. A year later the
assembly appointed Soeharto, then an Army lieutenant general, as
president.

"From a national, historical point of view, Nawaksara is only
a part of a series of events around the birth of the New Order,"
Hayono quoted Soeharto as saying yesterday. (06)