Gus Dur's friends urge his return to civil movement

JAKARTA (JP): Friends of deposed president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid urged him on Tuesday to leave the presidential palace and return to the civilian movement to guard democracy and freedom of speech.

Journalist Goenawan Mohammad, along with other prodemocracy figures, called on Gus Dur to leave the presidential palace with pride and return to his own home in Ciganjur, South Jakarta.

"Should it be necessary, we will pick him up from the palace and accompany him to his home. Welcome to the civilian movement, Gus. This is where you belong.

"Staying at a palace without effective power is pointless," Goenawan, a founder of Tempo weekly news magazine and a long-time friend of Gus Dur, said during a media conference.

Also at the media conference were former members of the National Mandate Party (PAN) Faisal Basri and Bara Hasibuan, University of Indonesia political observer Eep Syaefulloh Fatah, stage actress and women's activist Ratna Sarumpaet and a number of other activists.

Eep urged new President Megawati Soekarnoputri to avoid the use of force to remove Abdurrahman from the palace, suggesting she take a personal approach as "they used to be brother and sister".

Goenawan added that Megawati should remember that her ascension to the presidency indirectly resulted from the civilian movement in 1998, not from the military's role in politics.

Although he said Megawati's rise to the presidency was filled with legal flaws, Goenawan praised the fact that the process was free of violence, especially on the part of Abdurrahman's supporters.

The former president's supporters remained camped outside the presidential palace on Tuesday, though their number had decreased sharply from about 2,000 on Monday to several dozen. Most of those outside the palace are from East Java, Abdurrahman's political stronghold.

Separately in Yogyakarta, dozens of students from the Network of Anti-New Order People rallied on the campus of Gadjah Mada University.

They voiced concern Megawati's appointment as president would harm the reform movement, since her election was engineered by the remnants of the corrupt New Order regime.

In a statement, the group said the Golkar Party and the Indonesian Military (TNI) would ask Megawati for political concessions and that this would further damage the reform movement.

The students therefore demanded that the Golkar Party be disbanded. "As long as Golkar is left untouched, the reform movement will always be running up against a strong wall. The old players will always use Golkar as their vehicle to stop the movement," the group's coordinator, Tito, said during the rally.

Meanwhile, 64 non-governmental organizations in Yogyakarta called for a snap general election as the best way to resolve the country's political turmoil. They said the recently ended Special Session of the People's Consultative Assembly had been marred by political manipulation and power games.

"The people's sovereignty has been marginalized by the interests of a small group of political elite," Yogyakarta NGO Forum chairman Martinus Ujianto told The Jakarta Post.

The forum blasted the legislators for using the House of Representatives and the Assembly as tools to gain power, while crucial problems such as the conflicts in several provinces went unresolved.

"The House and the Assembly are politically illegitimate. We have to fight for the people's sovereignty by holding a snap election within one year at the most," the forum said in a statement.

The forum also called for amendments to the 1945 Constitution, particularly the addition of articles stipulating a direct presidential election and the elimination of the TNI and the police from the legislature.

In the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar, students from the Communication Network of Makassar Student Bodies declared on Monday night their acceptance of the new President, though they rejected her style of leadership.

The students also sent a message to Megawati urging her to continue the reform agenda and not to become caught up in political horse-trading. (23/27/44/tso/bby)