Juwono warns against too much freedom

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Education and Culture Juwono Sudarsono said on Wednesday the country had gone too far too fast in its search for political freedom and called for some restrictions to minimize the possibility of bloodshed during the June general election.

Juwono said he had asked the government to ban outdoor rallies and restrict campaigning to indoors in the run-up to the June 7 poll.

"I have asked the home affairs minister (Syarwan Hamid) to consider our recommendations... that campaigning should be limited to closed public buildings and that street rallies should be banned," he told a meeting of the Indonesia-Australia Business Council.

The council invited Juwono to speak on the current social and political events.

People hope the June election and a subsequent presidential election will usher in a new era of democracy and freedom in the nation after 32-years of autocratic, army-backed rule by former president Soeharto.

Pushed by growing demands for political reform, his successor, President B.J. Habibie, promised to hold general and presidential elections in 1999 instead of waiting until 2003, when the nation was next scheduled to go to the polls.

But Juwono said that civil strife in recent months showed that Indonesia still lacked the necessary social and economic foundations for political freedom.

"The pendulum has swung too far in favor of political openness," Juwono said.

Juwono said that the nation was "perhaps moving from the Chinese model of government to the Indian model of democracy".

"(We are moving) from a period when the government was centralized with very firm control exercised through the military, the bureaucracy and one dominant political party, toward one that will be very open, very loose and very unfocused.

"I am of course more pessimistic than my colleagues...because I have seen in the past few months that in that respect I think perhaps we have gone too far too fast.

"The desire for political democracy and openness is juxtaposed with a period of endemic economic deprivation. I think that combination is about the most dangerous possible for political stability."

Juwono said that intermittent violence between ethnic and religious groups was inevitable when a country was in a period of transition, uncertainty and had wide economic disparities.

Juwono also said that he would "persuade" Habibie to reconsider banning students from studying abroad before the age of 18 to prevent their national ties and loyalties from being eroded.

"(But in the 1989 law on national education) I do not see any article that specifically bans students from studying abroad...so based on the letter of the law...my own feeling is that I could perhaps persuade the President to reconsider (the ban)."

Citing a cartoon in Kompas daily, Juwono pointed out that Habibie and one of his sons were both educated in Germany. (byg)