More calls to end PKI ostraction
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law banning them from voting was revoked.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.