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.