Officers should be wary of press reports: Wiranto

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto has warned against the abuse of press freedom and told his officers to avoid being influenced indiscriminately by what is reported in the media.

Addressing almost 500 middle-ranking officers at the School of Command for Police Officers in Lembang, West Java, Wiranto said that the press had an enormous influence over forming public opinion.

"But, this should not apply to officers," he added, as quoted by Antara on Monday.

Wiranto's statement was the second veiled warning the authorities have delivered to the press in recent weeks.

Last week, when presenting the draft 1999/2000 state budget to a House of Representatives plenary session, President B. J. Habibie said that the abuse of press freedom had reached an alarming level.

He said that greater freedom won for the press by the reform movement had resulted in a proliferation of exaggerated and imbalanced news reports which were confusing and had the potential to cause public unrest.

Three hundred new publications have registered at the Ministry of Information since Minister Mohammad Yunus eased licensing requirements in June last year.

Wiranto said that all servicemen, especially those in the middle and higher ranks, should have the insight to understand developments in society for themselves.

Separately in a dialog on the press and political parties, the head of the Association of Newspaper Publishers (SPS) Leo Batubara predicted that the government would clamp down on the press in the years shortly after 2000.

Leo said there were signs that the government would issue regulations to restrict the press and bring them into greater compliance with the government in the near future.

He drew analogy between the present situation and a period of greater press freedom between 1945 and 1957, when the country had newly won its independence; and from 1967 to 1974, in the early days of the New Order regime.

"There will be a period when the press comes under greater pressure again," Leo said.

In 1974, 14 publications were banned following what has come to be known as the Malari incident, then in 1994, critical reporting suffered a further blow when Tempo, DeTik and Editor weeklies were all closed down by the government.

In the dialog organized by Antara, representatives of several political parties said that largely uncritical reporting of the previous government led it into complacency and contributed to the current crisis.

"The Indonesian press was not courageous enough to criticize Soeharto and his cronies," said Wimanjaya Liotohe, chairman of the Indonesian Prima Party (PPI).

Wimanjaya is the author of Primadosa, a book which discusses the wrongdoings of the past government and has only recently been removed from the list of banned publications.

Party executives also urged the press to pay more attention to minority parties set up in the aftermath of Soeharto's resignation last May.

A few said they even had difficulties in placing advertisements of their parties in the media; while the popular faction of the splintered Indonesian Democratic Party under Megawati Soekarnoputri had its advertisement published in newspapers.

Jawa Pos chief editor Dahlan Iskan suggested that one way of ensuring press independence would be to ban journalists from holding executive positions with political parties. (rms/29)