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)