More calls to end PKI ostraction
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Pressure is mounting for the government to scrap all legislation that discriminates against former members, suspected members or relatives of the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
Noted historians said over the weekend that the communist ideology was no longer a threat to this country and thus all such laws that ostracize or stigmatize people had to be revoked.
"It is not right to keep discriminatory rulings for so long; and people have learned that communism does not work here," senior historian Taufik Abdullah told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
Another historian Anhar Gonggong expressed a more democratic argument for getting rid of the laws, saying that communism is one of the world's ideologies and thus should be accepted as a different path for anyone who chooses to believe in it, including Indonesians.
"If we were able to accept differences, there would be no possible conflicts with communism," Anhar said over the weekend.
Calls for the elimination of the laws, which bar anyone with any link to PKI, real or imagined, from taking government jobs or running for public office, began after a historic decision by the newly established Constitutional Court to allow those branded with the PKI mark to become candidates for legislative bodies.
However, that decision does not automatically nullify the law, let alone deal with many others still on the books. In 1999, the law banning them from voting was revoked.
The law on presidential and vice presidential elections, for example, bans people with alleged PKI links from running for either of those posts. Government Decree No.6/1976 bans former PKI members from the government bureaucracy as well as military service.
Justice and Human Rights Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra emphasized last week that the government had no immediate plan to revoke the laws or to rehabilitate their names.
"Other legislation related to the issue remains in effect. We have never had any discussion (about revocation of laws)," said Yusril, who is also chairman of the Crescent Star Party (PBB).
Taufik and Anhar said Saturday that communism was no longer a "danger" to the country and so there was no reason for the government to deny political rights to anyone.
According to Taufik, the people were "mature enough" now to know that communism would not work in this country.
He also said, however, that repressing former communist members would provoke public sympathy for them, which could mean the spread of communist teachings in the country.
"Many young people were lured by the romanticism of socialist teachings, but it will not grow if we do not create such perceptions that we are being unjust to them," Taufik said.
"Whatever the reason is, discriminating against one group for more than 30 years is too much, the government should not ignore that," he added.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, imprisoned or branded enemies of the state in 1966, after they were accused by the nascent New Order regime of deposing former president Sukarno in a 1965 coup (however, many historians remain deeply divided on the PKI role).
The discrimination also targeted the relatives of any PKI suspects, some of whom were just infants when they lost one or both parents in the carnage of 1965 to 1967.
Taufik explained that in the 1950s, the PKI was the third largest political party in the country, as communism appeared to be a viable alternative that could fulfill people's aspirations.
Furthermore, the presence of communism in China and the then Soviet Union was so strong that it affected global politics.
"Such conditions have gone, as communism has proven unworkable; both China and Russia seem to be more capitalist countries, so why the worry?" Taufik said.
"At the right time those regulations should be annulled," Taufik asserted.