Researchers reject draft security bill

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's top researchers join the chorus in rejecting the draft bill on state security saying that it will be used to give much larger power to the President than it was during the Soeharto era.

"The bill offers a justification to the state to use violence which is detrimental for the nascent civil society and a justification to the Indonesian Military to dominate the political life of the nation even more than during the Soeharto era, as well as a legitimacy to take over power," Mochtar Pabottingi said in a press conference here Friday.

Mochtar attacked the rationale behind the drafting of the bill. He said it was Habibie's administration, as an extension of the New Order, which had first rendered grave damage on the country, and that it was now this very administration that wanted to rescue it from its deterioration.

"The government has no right to issue the bill because it has abused the emergency policy for decades even under non-emergency conditions," said the head of Research and Development Center for Politics and Area Studies at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

He also read out a statement rejecting the bill signed by 50 LIPI researchers including himself.

He added that efforts to save the country from its sorry state can no longer be executed by those involved in the government.

LIPI, therefore, urged an end to deliberations on the bill at the House of Representatives and invited all supporters of the reform forces to oppose the bill, Mochtar said.

LIPI also called for discontinuation of deliberations of other bills in the House because the result of the June 7 elections had been endorsed.

Muladi has said the law stressed human rights, regarding the right of security of people affected by, among other things, demonstrations. The law requires police notification for demonstrations.

The bill is a refinement of previous law on state security.

Mochtar said the implementation of the law, once the bill is passed, would be tantamount to robbing the sovereignty of the people.

Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, a senior LIPI researcher, said the bill would give the President unlimited power by stipulating that President declares emergency after consulting the Council for Security and Legal System (DPKSH) and the Council for National Defense and Security (Wanhankamnas).

These are two institutions founded by the military and presided over by the President himself.

"It's a big lie if Wiranto said that the bill ratification will limit the President's power and that it will secure political reform and human rights protection," he said.

Mochtar said the bill was drafted to reaffirm policy and practices of the military in the political domain by giving excessive power to suppress opposition groups,

He said that it would initiate absolute and unlimited power to the President and military commander by leaving out people's aspiration in the process.

The bill, he said, is seen as an obstruction to political reform and is a new weapon for the military to ensure a continuing monitoring of the people as the state's enemy.

Its substances are in contradiction to the Pancasila state ideology, he said, as well as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

The bill seeks to perpetuate a distorted view that the Indonesian Military is the only institution which is the most loyal to the state and the Constitution and that it is an "exclusive group" and "first class citizens", he said.

On the other hand, the people are seen as "second class citizens" who are the source of all social maladies like riots, disintegration and conflict, he said. (06)