Rumors on Soeharto deplored

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas deplored yesterday unfounded rumors fanned by foreign media that President Soeharto was ill, and said they were "engineered".

After meeting the President, Alatas told reporters that Soeharto's busy schedule and long list of daily meetings proved his health.

"Today he received many guests," Alatas said.

Yesterday, the President met Alatas, Minister of Industry and Trade Tunky Ariwibowo, Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono, West Kalimantan Governor Aspar Aswin and a delegation of university rectors.

Rumors that Soeharto, 75, had suffered a stroke began Tuesday and gained momentum when foreign media linked Wednesday's cancellation of a monthly cabinet meeting to his health.

Alatas said the meeting was postponed because several ministers had not returned from out of town. "Clearly, everything was made up. It was engineered," he said.

The rumors grew despite the President's public appearances, including receiving the Indonesian National Youth Committee's leaders on Tuesday and making a speech Monday in Jakarta.

Alatas blasted foreign media for producing inaccurate reports on the President's health. "The national press should help counter these negative and speculative reports."

The news mildly rattled financial markets in Jakarta yesterday.

Rumors on the president's supposedly deteriorating health have emerged several times in the past six months.

When he suddenly went to Germany for a checkup in July, the Jakarta Stock Exchange dived and the rupiah dropped slightly. But when doctors at the heart clinic in Bad Oeynhausen pronounced Soeharto was healthy for a man of his age, the markets rebounded.

Soeharto's wellbeing was the talk of the town this week following his statement on Tuesday that people calling for his renomination for a seventh five-year term in office in 1998 should consider his age.

Leaders of Golkar, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) said yesterday they would consider his statement when their organizations discussed the nomination of presidential candidates.

All three groups said earlier they were planning to nominate Soeharto during the People's Consultative Assembly's meeting next March.

"The PPP will take Soeharto's statement into consideration," PPP chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum said.

PDI chairman Soerjadi made a similar pledge, but added: "I do not see any indication that Soeharto will step down and refuse to be renominated."

Golkar chairman Harmoko said Soeharto's statement was not mere rhetoric: "It shows his honesty, as well as his wisdom that people should really consider his age before renominating him." (imn/mds)