Magsaysay choice a touchy issue

Magsaysay choice a touchy issue

By Hermawan Sulistyo

JAKARTA (JP): Last month Pramoedya Ananta Toer was awarded the
1995 Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative
Communication Arts. For many, this is not a surprise at all.
Despite all the difficulties, Pram is a prolific writer. Some
prominent members of European literati indeed had tried to
nominate him as a Nobel Prize candidate.

Yet, the decision made by the board of the Ramon Magsaysay
Award Foundation has far-reaching political implications, both
for Indonesia and the Philippines, and especially for President
Ramos. To the Indonesian government, Pram is one of the most
unwanted surviving ex-prisoners-of-conscience. Therefore, the
decision creates a dilemma for Ramos. He is supposed to hand over
the US$50,000 prize in a ceremony in Manila on Aug. 31. There is
little chance that the Indonesian government will allow Pram to
go to Manila. If a travel ban is imposed, Ramos will probably be
compelled to make his official stance known during the ceremony.

Apparently, Ramos will have to pay this "political price".
Morihiko Hiramatsu, another 1995 Magsaysay laureate is Ramos'
close friend. Ramos was even said to have told Morihiko himself
about his selection by the foundation. In contrast, the
foundation has put him in an uneasy position with the selection
of Pram.

Firstly, although the foundation is a private organization, it
bears the name of the most respected president of the
Philippines. The award-giving ceremony is always presided over by
the president of the Philippines. The absence of a laureate due
to a neighbor's diverging political stance would make the
situation awkward.

Secondly, former president Ramon Magsaysay was known for his
successful campaign against the communists -- the Huk Balahap --
in the Philippines. Before his tragic death in an airplane
accident, he successfully launched a land reform campaign to
counter communist insurgency, using techniques similar to those
applied by the Left. The Magsaysay award winners, so far, have
always been associated with the Right. Mochtar Lubis, a laureate
in 1958 in the same category as Pramoedya now, was a one-time
supporter of the Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI) and a well-
known foe of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Pramoedya was
a prominent leader of Lekra, the "cultural arm" of the PKI.
Allegedly, Mochtar Lubis is not too happy with the Magsaysay
Foundation's selection this time.

The problem, however, runs far deeper than it appears on the
surface. Pram is one of 1.4 million ex-prisoners-of-conscience
and others associated with the PKI who are registered with the
Ministry of Home Affairs. All of these people have marks on their
ID cards (KTP), either OT (organisasi terlarang, prohibited
organization) or ET (eks tahanan politik, ex-political detainee).
It means that in almost every aspect of life they are prone to
encountering social and political barriers.

The number of above mentioned surviving victims of the old
political rifts and conflicts can be expanded still more by the
addition of close relatives and former associates with communist
links. It is widely known that if one is not "politically clean",
which means that one is in no way associated with the PKI or
G-30-S coup, then one's door to a career in the public sector is
closed forever. This system was set up by Presidential Decree
No.300, promulgated in 1968. On June 27, 1982 the government
introduced a new version of the screening system, known
officially as skrining mental ideologis (ideology-oriented
screening). The latest system, introduced by Presidential Decree
No. 16 in 1990 and still used at present, is known as litsus,
which is short for penelitian khusus (special investigation), and
is an improvement and humanization of the older methods.

This screening is primarily intended to check that someone is
"ideologically clean". The system uses structured questionnaires
and in many cases also interviews, designed to expose any leftist
"smell". The litsus version is much more sophisticated than the
two earlier methods of screening. In theory, the ultimate goal is
ideological, to separate remnants of the "Old Order" elements
from the "New Order" proponents. In practice, however, this often
becomes a deadly political weapon. Anyone found "environmentally
unclean" is in effect a politically or socially dead person.

Assuming that the average Indonesian family consists of five
members, it means that between 10 and 50 million Indonesians will
not be categorized as politically clean. It is assumed that the
bersih (clean) requirement will apply through to the third-
generation of the "unclean" person's offspring. This means that
between 30 million and 150 million people will be affected.

The younger generation of Indonesians at present has to live
with a black-and-white picture of the G-30S events. There are
the good people on the one side and the bad ones on the other.
Under such a concept, it is hard to expect that young Indonesians
will have a less hostile attitude toward the "unclean" people,
many of whom are their own peers and friends. An official refusal
to allow Pramoedya to go to Manila will signal that Indonesians
will still have to wait and learn how to heal the wounds which
history has inflicted upon them.

The writer is an observer of social and political affairs
based in Jakarta.