Seminar on 'Nawaksara'

Seminar on 'Nawaksara'

From Jayakarta

On March 31, 1997, the city media published a news item that Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono Isman was planning to hold a seminar on Nawaksara, a speech delivered by Bung Karno in April 1966, as an accountability of his government, which was rejected by the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly.

The seminar would also be attended by Minister of Public Housing Akbar Tandjung, Chairman of the Arief Rahman Hakim Group Djusril Djusman and other 1966 exponents who were against Bung Karno.

It is my hope that the seminar will benefit society and will be constitutional in nature. I also suggest that the seminar be attended by experts of various disciplines such as lawyers, politicians, economists and other relevant scholars, so that they can give an explanation to why Bung Karno's Nawaksara speech was rejected by the Assembly.

What seems clear to me is that, at the time, people intentionally tried to find fault in Bung Karno, and then was placed under house arrest until he died. Was such an action constitutional?

I hope that the seminar will help clarify Bung Karno's activities as President, the father of our nation, the proclaimer of independence, the founder of the state philosophy Pancasila, and the uniting force of the Indonesian people.

MAS SOEBANDI

Jakarta