HMI intensifies pressure to eject ABRI from House

HMI intensifies pressure to eject ABRI from House

JAKARTA (JP): The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) must
scrap the Armed Forces' (ABRI) seats in the House of
Representatives (DPR) during its Nov. 10 to Nov. 13 Special
Session, an influential student group said on Tuesday.

The Association of Islamic Students (HMI) also said that ABRI
should be restricted to a role in the Assembly among the
representatives of professional groups, rather than continue with
its current heavy presence in the legislature.

HMI also urged the Assembly to pass a decree ordering an
investigation into political crimes allegedly committed by former
president Soeharto and another dealing with mechanisms to
eradicate corruption, collusion and nepotism from governance.

HMI's acting chairman, Ramdhansyah, and secretary-general
Zulkifli told a news conference here that members of the
association would meet with the MPR's dominant Golkar faction on
Nov. 5 to channel their demands.

Ramdhansyah said HMI would then stage a demonstration
involving an estimated 10,000 people at the House on the
following day to push for its demands to be heeded, adding that
the association would "of course abide by the existing rules".

Law No. 9/1998 on freedom of expression requires demonstration
organizers to notify the police of their intentions three days in
advance. Police said they have received notification of several
planned demonstrations.

Ramdhansyah stated that the MPR would be failing to
accommodate aspirations for reform if it ignored the
association's demands.

Calls for the Assembly to eject the Armed Forces from the DPR
have intensified since Soeharto's downfall. Mounting public
opposition to the military's presence in the House has resulted
from their implication in human rights abuses.

In an attempt to improve its poor public image, the military
recently attempted to "redefine" its role. ABRI then agreed to
cut its allocation of seats in the DPR to 55 from the present
number of 75, the former being 10 percent of the new 550-member
House of Representatives.

Several groups want ABRI out of the DPR once and for all.

On Tuesday a member of the government team drafting the
political laws, scholar Andi Mallarengeng, was quoted by Reuters
as saying that if the House passed a decree drafted by the
People's Consultative Assembly in the Special Session, then it
had no choice but to pass laws in accordance with the decree.

ABRI's representation in the Assembly and the House is touched
upon in the decree on general elections. On Sunday, military
observer Harry Tjan Silalahi argued that ABRI could still
influence politics through the drafting of the State Policy
Guidelines in the Assembly, or through a ministerial post.

Megawati

The MPR, aware of its low political clout and legitimacy, on
Monday invited the chairwoman of the splintered Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI) Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairman of
Nahdlatul Ulama Moslem organization Abdurrahman Wahid and
National Mandate Party (PAN) leader Amien Rais to become Assembly
members. Both Amien and Megawati have rejected the proposition.

"I think the issue is no longer relevant," she said after
meeting Japanese foreign minister Masahiko Komura. PDI executive
Kwik Kian Gie was quoted by Antara as saying the offer to include
Megawati in the societal group representation was "an insult"
because her faction of the PDI is not recognized as a party.

In Semarang, Central Java, Amien said it would be impossible
for him to attend the session. "If I had to fight 1,000 people, I
would surely lose," he said. Another prominent party leader,
Yusril Ihza Mahendra of the Crescent Star Party, said that he
soon intends to resign from his membership in the MPR's societal
group representation because he is now a party chairman. (har/aan)