Offer to delay bill fails to quiet critics

Offer to delay bill fails to quiet critics

JAKARTA (JP): "Not good enough!" was the general reaction of
politicians and rights campaigners over the government's decision
to postpone, rather than scrap, the state security bill.

They further decried the reason given for postponing the
enactment of bill -- to allow time for information on it to be
disseminated and better understood by the public -- as an insult
to the people who were well aware of the bill's implications.

Sri Bintang Pamungkas, chairman of the Indonesian Democratic
Union Party (PUDI), said there should be no compromise on the
bill's rejection.

"The students, with their movement, should continue their
struggle," said Sri Bintang was in Purwokerto, Central Java, over
the weekend.

"They are the only ones who can save us from the arbitrary
conduct of the government and the military".

While the protests had died down by Sunday following the
announcement that ratification of the bill would be postponed,
the resonance of discontent prevailed.

National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman Amien Rais remarked that
the government did the right thing in delaying the bill. "In fact
it should be canceled altogether."

"If it doesn't, people will start questioning 'What is it
really up to?'" Amien said here on Saturday.

Critics argue that the bill could give unchecked power to the
president and the military.

Two prominent legal organizations -- the Indonesian Legal Aid
and Human Rights Association (PBHI) along with the Foundation of
the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) -- both launched
scathing attacks on the government.

"The postponement reflects the stubbornness of and lack of
consciousness by the government, which continues, without any
sensitivity, to blame the people," PBHI said in a statement
signed by its director, Hendardi.

"The Indonesian people do not need nor did they demand a
postponement of the bill, rather they simply have no need for a
bill which was formulated under mistaken and erroneous
assumptions.

"The argument given to delay the bill, that the people do not
understand it yet, is a phony excuse to force its will," PBHI
said.

The YLBHI sneered at the government's reasoning for postponing
the bill. "It is an insult to the intelligence and aptitude of
the people.

"The problem is in the unfair substance of the bill, not the
dissemination," read the statement signed by YLBHI chairman
Bambang Widjojanto and secretary Dadang Trisasongko.

They added that despite the postponement, "there was no
guarantee that next week or in the next couple of days the bill
would not be forcefully ratified and implemented by Habibie".

Meanwhile in Bandung, West Java, Minister/State Secretary
Muladi defended the government's move to present the bill to the
House and denied suggestions that it was part of a grand
political scheme to garner power.

"What you should ask is why the Special Session of the
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) in November 1998 decreed
that the government should make such a bill... If the government
didn't draft the bill it would have had to be accountable,"
Muladi remarked. (30/43/45)