President rebukes careless media

JAKARTA (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid reiterated on Wednesday his full commitment to a free press, but rebuked some media for abusing the country's new freedom.

"We need freedom, but freedom should go hand in hand with the ability to use it wisely," Abdurrahman said in his address to 100 Southeast Asian journalists at Bina Graha presidential office.

Abdurrahman's speech marked the opening of a conference on freedom of the press held to commemorate World Press Freedom Day which falls on May 3.

He said that "in the past months, we, Indonesia, have developed a trend of investigating everything and spending our energy on so many activities unnecessarily while forgetting the essential things (that need) to be monitored."

Abdurrahman said that developing professionalism and ethics must be carried out by the press themselves.

"The government has no right to decide what is good and what is good not for the press ... it is up to the press to make those decisions," Gus Dur, as the President is popularly called, said.

"That's why it is understandable why we abolished the information ministry despite protests against the decision," he added.

Gus Dur abolished the ministry days after he was elected in October saying that the decision was part of the government's effort to streamline and create a clean bureaucracy.

In the past, the ministry became one of the institutions most feared by journalists and media.

Scores of newspapers and magazines were closed and hundreds of journalists and others employed in the media lost their jobs for not toeing the government line.

The publication of reports or articles the authorities deemed disruptive, rebellious or subversive -- and thus "harmful to the nation" -- was a virtual death sentence for media.

A system of mandatory licensing, which has also been abolished by the new government, further added to the ministry's power and opened opportunities for corruption, collusion and nepotism. (byg)