Reform on national agenda

A momentous concept has been communicated by the Armed Forces (ABRI) leadership. ABRI, according to its chief commander Gen. Wiranto, perceives that the calls for reform vocalized by the students has been accepted by all of the nation's components as part of the national agenda. The need for reform has become a national consensus. This endorsement could aptly be seen as a victory for the students.

Obviously, ABRI did not act capriciously in declaring that the present cries for reform have come to represent a call of all the nation's constituents. It means that if we all recognize the motto vox populi vox Dei -- the voice of the people is the voice of God -- what the nation now wants is an elemental change in the management of the state, or what is popularly referred to as reform. ABRI has been quite correct, intelligent and straightforward to say that reform is a national desire.

However, now that this point of victory is reached, what is to be done? No less than giving the formal agencies of authority in this country the chance to carry out this reform agenda. The House of Representatives, the sociopolitical organizations and the government should be given the chance to bring about the reforms. The public, including the students, exercise control.

A reform program cannot succeed if the institutions of the formal authority are not given a chance to carry it out. This means that for the sake of reformation, the campus demonstrations which are now beginning to threaten the nation's dignity as well as its reemergence from the current crisis, must be ended.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta