Repression not a solution to demonstrations
By Mulyana W. Kusumah
JAKARTA (JP): Rallies denouncing certain government policies have been increasingly in vogue in the last few months. During the month of May alone, we witnessed various kinds of demonstrations.
Last month, 200 public transportation drivers in Tangerang went on strike at the local House of Representatives to demand that the government repair the Legok road.
Still in Tangerang, more than 3,000 workers from four companies staged a demonstration to question the implementation of minimum regional wage that was, in their opinion, inconsistent with government regulations.
A number of labor activists from the Pusat Perjuangan Buruh Indonesia (Center of Indonesian Labor Movement) were arrested by when they read out their demands for the implementation of the regional minimum wage of Rp 7,000 a day throughout Indonesia.
A group calling themselves Masyarakat Hukum Indonesia (Indonesian Legal Society) and led by young attorney Waskito Adiwibowo, paid a visit to the Supreme Court. They demanded that the Court do its best to maintain the supremacy of the law to ensure a free and independent court.
In May the rallies intensified. The National Commission on Human Rights received six East Timorese students who lived in Bandung. They complained that they had been accused of preparing to stage a rally during the visit of the UN secretary-general. Later, Sri Bintang Pamungkas, an outspoken House member who was sacked recently, inquired at the Attorney General's office about being ban from traveling abroad because of his alleged involvement in an anti Indonesian-government rally in Germany.
There was a mass rally of thousands of people at the U.S. Embassy over the U.S. government's veto on the Palestinian Resolution and a number of minor rallies in May, including a student activist from the Indonesian Students Solidarity for Democracy who went on a hunger-strike for days to express his protest the detainment of student and labor activists.
Last year, there were almost 1,200 labor strikes throughout Indonesia. We also saw more people coming to the House of Representatives and city councils to pour in their grievances. The Golkar faction recorded an increase in the number of land- related complaints from 189 in 1993 to 215 in 1994.
The Central Java military recorded in 1994 that throughout the province and Yogyakarta, there were 82 incidents of student demonstrations, 76 incidents of labor strikes and demonstrations, and four incidents of conflicts between followers of the same religion.
Staging a rally at the sites where the problem occurs, in front of government offices and Houses of Representatives seems to be the favorite places to express people's feeling and opinions about certain socio-political events.
Dismissing these demonstrations as mere efforts to create political instability, to be regulated or repressive in the name of criminal justice, is tantamount to a blatant denial of today's political reality.
Regulation for self-expression should be placed in the context of the manifestation of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom to gather and to express one's opinion. Therefore, the more appropriate place for the regulation is a law or an act that governs political participation.
Such a regulation cannot possibly be separated from the efforts to improve the existing political mechanism and the widening of access to political openness. Should the proposed regulation on demonstrations ever be intended to provide the formulas to determine criminal sanctions, it will become totally redundant as these formulas are already in the Criminal Law (KUHP).
Resorting to repressive actions, as well as calling a demonstration a crime, is not constitutional, since demonstrating is a legitimate expression of non-institutionalized political participation. Moreover, for groups of workers, farmers or other societal groups, demonstrating is a legal way of defending their livelihood, and protecting or demanding their basic rights.
As a legal move, regulation or repression cannot possibly be accomplished without neglecting the reform strategy of the national law characterized by modern law, namely, by constructing the required institutional design for a democratic and constitutional state.
In this context, Indonesian law should provide the framework for a formal organizational structure that will enable political institutions to work smoothly.
It should also nurture "normative accountability" in the process of political decision making, including the improvement of the capacity for conflict resolution.
The writer is a lecturer on sociology at University of Indonesia and Executive Director at the Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), Jakarta.