Moerdiono for more openness

Moerdiono for more openness

JAKARTA (JP): Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono, while defending the record of President Soeharto's New Order government, agreed yesterday that the time has come for Indonesia to adopt a more open political system.

Any political system must be dynamic and open to change in accordance with the demands of the situation and the conditions of the time, Moerdiono said in a seminar to review the performance of the New Order government.

"It is a fact that the global political trend demands greater political openness and greater respect for human rights. These clearly must be taken into consideration," he said at the seminar organized by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

"We already have laid the basis for a more open political format that also gives more respect to human rights," he said, referring to the 1993-98 State Policy Guidelines endorsed by the People's Consultative Assembly last year.

During the ensuing discussion, Moerdiono said he was concerned that the political openness now being pursued by the government had been misinterpreted by some people.

The government, he said, is advocating transparency, which is not the same as being completely open.

The main difficulty in the move towards greater openness is in ensuring that it does not lead to anarchy, he said, stressing that all parties must treat the issue with responsibility.

Moerdiono was the last speaker of the two-day LIPI seminar that was held in memory of the late Alfian, a political thinker who analyzed the New Order administration extensively during his lifetime.

The phrase New Order describes the successive administrations of President Soeharto, who has ruled the nation since 1966. The period between independence in 1945 and 1965 under president Sukarno is described as the Old Order.

Moerdiono said it was during the New Order era that the country for the first time managed to establish the frame of reference upon which the political system is built. This is based on Pancasila, the state ideology, and the Constitution.

During Sukarno's time the nation went from one upheaval to another as it experienced various political systems which were alien to Indonesia.

'Dual-function'

Moerdiono posed the question whether he thought the political format of the New Order government has been successful and whether it was consistent with the 1945 Constitution. "Without doubt, I will answer yes," he said.

The minister also said that some of the credit, but not all, for the political concepts developed during the New Order should go to the Armed Forces (ABRI) for playing its political role through its "Dual-Function" doctrine in defense and politics.

"It cannot be denied that these concepts had military connotations," said Moerdiono, a retired Army lieutenant general who has spent most of his public career in civilian clothes.

He said ABRI would be the first to acknowledge that it is only a part of the national power, and that it sees its task as helping to develop the other potentials. "Through this point of view, it is natural that the military is directly or indirectly concerned with the national development."

Moerdiono said the military never claimed all the credit for the achievements of the New Order. "A phenomenon which will be politically interesting to analyze is that despite its major political role, ABRI's budget is one of the smallest. It is even more interesting that ABRI's leadership have calmly accepted this."

The military's dominant role in politics has been questioned by some scholars and politicians lately.

Harold Crouch of the Australian National University in his presentation at the seminar on Tuesday said that he believed the majority of ABRI officers want to retain their political role, but they differ on the extent of ABRI's involvement. (par)