PPP chief wants probe of controversial book

JAKARTA (JP): The United Development Party (PPP) says it supports the government's plan to investigate a newly published book which argues that the late former president Sukarno was not involved in the 1965 coup attempt.

The book, Kehormatan bagi yang Berhak (Honor for the One who Deserves It), can undermine the New Order government under President Soeharto, PPP chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum said yesterday.

Written by Manai Sophiaan, a columnist and a former ambassador to Moscow during the Sukarno administration, the book presents accounts different from the official version about the tragic event.

"I hope the Chief Justice exerts his authority to investigate the book and take the necessary precautions because certain parts of the book can undermine the New Order government," Ismail Hasan told journalists.

The Attorney General's office, which has the authority to ban books, usually waits until a book has been circulated first before taking any action.

Ismail Hasan said he was concerned about the escalating debate about Sukarno's stand on the Sept. 30, 1965 abortive coup attempt by the defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

Rejection of Sukarno's account of leadership in 1967 by the then Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) suggested that the late president lost his mandate because "there was something wrong" with the way he handled the abortive coup, he said. "There was something politically unacceptable about his leadership."

Ismail Hasan criticized Manai's allegation made in an interview with a local magazine that anti-Sukarno student demonstrations in the mid-1960s were sponsored by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

He said the allegation hurts the activists' feelings because the students took to the street on their own account to demand disbandment of PKI. "The allegation shows (Manai's) disgust of the New Order's emergence and represents attempts to twist history," he said. (pan)