Habibie predicts lasting stability

JAKARTA (JP): Chairman of the influential Association of Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI) B.J. Habibie yesterday appeased concerns about the possibility of political instability when President Soeharto is no longer in power.

Habibie, a close confidant of President Soeharto, told journalists covering the opening of an annual ICMI meeting here that there was no need to worry about how national development and politics would fare once Soeharto and the 1945 generation of current leaders are no longer in power.

"No reason to think about what it would be like after Soeharto..is no longer here," said Habibie, also the State Minister of Research and Technology.

Habibie said he needed to explain there would be sustainable development and political stability in order to convince investors to continue their ventures in Indonesia.

"There's only so much money in this world. Investors would be only too willing to invest in places with guaranteed security," he said.

The annual ICMI meeting will last through to tomorrow and is attended by some 300 leading members of the organization's branches from across the country and abroad.

In another part of his explanation, Habibie said ICMI, established in 1990 and steadily growing in political stature, aims to build the nation's human resources and improve people's welfare. He said most of the about 27 million people still living below the poverty line are Moslems.

"ICMI has declared war against poverty and ignorance," he said, adding that it is the mandate of Islam to improve people's lives.

He rejected suggestions that ICMI, with its current political clout, is striving to advance only Moslems at the expense of other religious groups. "That is not the teaching of Islam," he said.

He also denied speculations that ICMI was trying to "Islamize" the country and its existing system. "The growing number of Moslems should not be considered a threat to people of other faiths because Islam teaches its followers to be tolerant of other people," he said.

Politics

A number of prominent scholars addressed the meeting yesterday, including Nurcholish Madjid and director of ICMI think-tank the Center for Information and Development Studies (CIDES) Adi Sasono.

Nurcholish said the emergence of prominent Moslem intellectuals over the past two decades has indeed brought changes to the country's political constellation.

Nurcholish said Moslems are now at the threshold of entering the top of the political power pyramid, and compared the situation to the past when Islamic communities were made to stand on the sidelines.

"Those who feel threatened by the development dislike ICMI, and say things such as 'Islamization' (of politics)," he said.

He reminded those present that ICMI was established to group intellectuals. If in its course the association turned out to have political influence, it was because some members had been recruited into the bureaucracy.

Adi Sasono later admitted that no group has the same access to decision makers in Indonesia as ICMI.

"It's why ICMI has been accused of having been coopted, of being power-greedy. But this is really a question of capabilities, without which people would not be able to 'enter'," he said.

He said Indonesia will soon have to weather increasing world attention on issues such as environmental preservation, human rights protection and democratization.

He accused developed countries of employing "social clauses" for their own economic interests. (03/swe)