Repression not a solution to demonstrations

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.