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)