House urged to drop state security bill
House urged to drop state security bill
JAKARTA (JP): Observers urged the House of Representatives on Thursday to drop a controversial bill on state security, citing loopholes for power and rights abuses they found in the document.
Clementino dos Reis Amaral of the National Commission on Human Rights said the bill, submitted to the House in May by the Ministry of Defense, was against reform and democracy. He was speaking at a seminar, which also featured Amien Aryoso and Usep Ranawidjaja of the Rectors Forum.
He said the House would meet opposition from all quarters if it continued to deliberate the bill. He cited the bill's most controversial point was the stipulation which granted the President and military leadership full authority to enforce a state of emergency without consulting legislative bodies.
"The bill also allows the executive and the military, when facing crucial situations, to take illegal action, to recruit individuals for military duty, to gag the media and to isolate blacklisted individuals," he said, adding that the bill gave the executive ruler supremacy above the law.
Criticism poured in on the bill, including from a number of legislators, law practitioners, the rights body and mass organizations concerned with human rights and democracy in the country.
The government and military defended the bill, saying it was similar to security acts in other countries, including the United States, Britain and Japan.
The House gave a positive response to the criticism and said it was open to suggestions on how to introduce changes to the bill.
Amien said the bill was worse than the 1959 law on implementation of a state of emergency and the other one enforced by the Dutch colonial government. "According to the two previous laws, a state of emergency which was formerly known as staat van oorlog een beleg ("state of war and siege") must be declared by the authorities after consultation with the House of Representatives," he said at the seminar.
He said the bill should also make clear when a state of civilian emergency, military emergency or war emergency should be declared. The distinction was needed so current and next governments would be prevented from enforcing the bill on situations such as labor strikes, student brawls and the present tension in Aceh and Maluku.
Amien and Amaral agreed that not only did the current House have no legitimacy, but it did not even have enough time to process a strategic document before the next House was to be sworn in.
"The bill should be dropped because it was made by President B.J. Habibie's government, which is really a continuation of former president Soeharto's repressive regime," Usep said.
He said that many laws, including ones made by Habibie's transitional government, should be amended by the next government because they were against the democracy and reform movement.
Violence
Separately, military observer Hasnan Habib said on Thursday Indonesia never witnessed one truly peaceful day that encompassed the whole country since Independence Day on Aug. 17, 1945.
"It did not happen even during the New Order regime which was proud because it established peace and stability in the country," Hasnan said. He was speaking at a book launch hosted by the Center for Study on Humanitarian Law at the Trisakti University in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to commemorate the anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Convention on Humanitarian Law.
Titled Traditional Laws of War in Indonesia, the book is a popular version of a study by the center on traditional humanitarian laws in Indonesia.
"The study shows that laws of war have existed in Indonesia since early times and... were in line with modern humanitarian laws," said Toni Pfanner, the head of the Regional Delegation of ICRC.
Hasnan cited various unrests in Indonesia since 1945, including the ongoing violence in Aceh where military operations took place for more than a decade.
Military intervention in Aceh was excessive and it looked like the Indonesian Military did not understand humanitarian law, Hasnan said. "They only know one principle, to kill or be killed," he said.
"This has given us the reputation as a nation of savages and cannibals," he said, referring to further violence in West Kalimantan, Maluku and East Timor.
In a related development, a group of human rights activists established on Thursday an independent team for the reinvestigation of cases of rights violations which were frozen by the government.
Senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad cited the case of slain labor activist Marsinah as among one of the first to be handled by the team called Jejak. The next would probably be those in Aceh "where torture, killing and violence are committed in the name of the Republic of Indonesia," he said.
Members of the board of founders include Arief Budiman, Ariel Heryanto, Aristides Katoppo, Nurcholis Madjid and Emil Salim. (05/10/rms)