Maintain the decree on communism: MUI
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) called on the government and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) to uphold the 34-year-old ban of communist teaching.
The council's chairman, Amidhan, said the public discourse on whether to revoke the decree should stop because it has sparked confusion among Muslims, who make up some 80 percent of the country's 210 million population.
"Communist associations should be banned in Indonesia because they promote atheism. MUI will never compromise with anything linked to communism or Marxism," he said in a press conference on Thursday.
The Provisional MPR, the highest law making body, issued a decree slapping a ban on communism in its special session in 1966. The decree remains in effect.
Indonesia declared war on communism after an abortive coup attempt that was blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party in 1965.
But more than three decades later, in an interview with the state-run channel TVRI, President Abdurrahman Wahid said he welcomed attempts to reopen the coup case.
Abdurrahman himself has repeatedly apologized for the involvement of followers of Nahdlatul Ulama -- a Muslim organization he himself led for 15 years before being elected president last October -- for their participation in the bloodshed.
Amidhan said the government and the Assembly should take strict measures against all sides which have organized public discussions on communism on the grounds that they have created confusion among the Muslim people.
He pointed out that the now unlawful communist party was behind the split of Muslim organizations and parties in the 1950s and 1960s.
Undecided
Meanwhile, the Bishop Council of Indonesia (KWI) and the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI) have yet to issue their official stand on the problem, saying that talks on communism do not top their list of priorities.
Father Notobudyo, KWI's executive secretary, said Indonesian bishops have not yet joined in the debate and do not intend to.
Rev. Soelarso Sopater, PGI Chairman, concurred with this, saying the matter was not included in the agenda of its grand synod in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, which is still underway.
According to his own views on the matter, the government should leave the issue to the people and let them decide on whether to revoke the anticommunism decree or not.
"Even if it is abolished, the communist party will not become established in Indonesia if the people reject it," he said. Citing as an example, he stated that Italy, France and the Netherlands were tolerant of the communist party but that it never really developed into a powerful political movement because it failed to win support from the citizens of those countries.
In a related development, around 50 youths from the Forum for Reform Enforcement staged a demonstration at the Home Ministry compound, demanding the president to discharge Indonesian Banking Restructuring Agency (BPPN) Chief Cacuk Sudarijanto because the latter's father, Mulyono Datu Siswanto, was involved in PKI's Sept. 30, 1965 abortive coup.
"We protest Cacuk's appointment because we have accurate data telling us that his father was linked to the banned communist party and involved in the abortive coup," said a demonstrator.
The National Defender Movement (GPK) said Cacuk should resign because IBRA managing state assets worth trillions of rupiah could not be led by an official linked to the communist party.
"We do not fear a communist revival, but do believe that BPPN should be free of its influence," GPK Chairman Hamdan said. (rms)