Moerdiono dashes hopes of national reconciliation

Moerdiono dashes hopes of national reconciliation

JAKARTA (JP): Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono yesterday
dashed all hopes for a reconciliation between President Soeharto
and some of his staunchest critics as urged by some of the
country's elder statesmen.

Moerdiono said reconciliation was only necessary when the
nation was in a crisis and on the verge of disintegrating.

"I don't see those elements at this moment," Moerdiono told
reporters, stressing that this opinion was based on what he
perceived to be the President's way of thinking.

The most imperative call for a reconciliation came last
weekend from Gen. (ret.) Abdul Haris Nasution, Indonesia's most
senior living military figure, who said that such a move would be
timely as Indonesia marks its 50th independence anniversary.

Nasution was most critical of the government policy of
ostracizing its critics. He recalled that such a policy did not
exist in the early years of Indonesia's independence, although
the nation's leaders were divergent in their opinions.

Other senior statesmen have made similar appeals and Soeharto
gave some encouraging signs last month when he agreed to release
three aging political prisoners, convicted for the 1965 abortive
coup blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party.

Some have also urged the President to make peace with all
political prisoners as well as his staunchest critics grouped in
the Petisi 50 organization of former government and military
officials. Former Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin, the de facto
leader of Petisi 50, has said that he was still waiting to be
invited to the presidential palace.

Moerdiono, who sees himself as a close aide to Soeharto, said
a meeting between the President and national figures who held
different views could have some constitutional implications,
especially since it would give the appearance that national
issues were being settled behind closed doors.

He underlined that the Constitution and the political system
already provide mechanisms for settling disputes and for making
the President accountable for all his actions.

"Now these people are suggesting that the President and these
national figures meet to settle their differences, but let me ask
you, is this democratic? Is this method in conformity with the
principle of sovereignty in the hands of the people?"

Moerdiono stressed, however, that Soeharto listens to the
critics, pointing out that many public figures write directly to
the President to voice their criticisms.

Supreme Advisory Council chairman Sudomo on a separate
occasion rejected the calls for a reconciliation between the
President and his critics in the Petisi 50.

"What's there to reconcile?" he asked. "The matter between the
President and the Petisi 50 has already been resolved through the
DPR (House of Representatives)."

He also contended that national reconciliation could only
occur between two big political parties who have been at odds.

Sudomo, as chief of the now defunct powerful internal security
agency Kopkamtib in the early 1980s, was responsible for much of
the clamp-down against the Petisi 50 members, including a ban on
members' overseas travel. (emb)