Seminar on Sukarno delayed
Seminar on Sukarno delayed
JAKARTA (JP): After a week of polemics, the government decided
yesterday to postpone a controversial seminar on a speech by the
late president Sukarno until after the May 29 election.
Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono Isman told
reporters after a meeting with House of Representatives Speaker
Wahono that the seminar's organizers would have to wait until
after the political climate had cooled.
"We think it will be inappropriate to hold the seminar this
month as originally planned because everybody will be preoccupied
with the election. We are afraid that participants will not dare
to speak their minds," Hayono said.
Wahono was the first to consult Hayono on the seminar. Hayono
said he would seek more advise from figures of the 1945 and 1966
generations, including former Provisional People's Consultative
Assembly chief Gen. (ret.) Abdul Haris Nasution and Sukarno's
relatives.
Nasution chaired the special session of the assembly which
turned down Sukarno's accountability speech, titled Nawaksara
(nine points), in June 1966. Sukarno gave the speech in response
to questions in the assembly on his stance on the failed coup
attempt in 1965 which was blamed on the now outlawed Indonesian
Communist Party.
Hayono said that President Soeharto, who has repeatedly denied
that he clinched to power in the disguised coup against Soekarno,
had approved the seminar last week.
The organizers expected that Minister/State Secretary
Moerdiono would open the three-day seminar.
Hayono said that Wahono suggested yesterday that organizers be
careful that the seminar does not disgrace Sukarno or hurt
people's feeling.
"We never intend to dishonor our founding fathers, on the
contrary we have to be brave enough to uncover the dark spots in
our history," Hayono said.
The postponement would give organizers enough time to revise
seminar topics so that they would not humiliate Sukarno, Hayono
said.
Privileges
"We will talk about how to maintain our constitution which
does not give certain people privileges before the law. The
seminar is expected to remind future presidents not to repeat
past mistakes," said Hayono.
He said the seminar would also discuss the March 11, 1966,
letter in which Sukarno authorized Soeharto to restore order. The
letter and Sukarno's impeachment could not be separated, he said.
A special hearing of the provisional assembly named Soeharto
as a temporary replacement for Sukarno in 1967. A year later the
assembly appointed Soeharto as the rightful president.
Yesterday, Nasution also suggested postponing the seminar
until after the May 29 general election.
"It should be postponed as we (the nation) are now busy
preparing for the general elections and other important state
affairs," he said at his home in Menteng, Central Jakarta.
Political observer Juwono Sudarsono was of the same opinion
yesterday, arguing that the seminar would spark controversy if it
was held before May 29.
"It can be predicted that the seminar would turn out to be a
prolonged dispute between those supporting the seminar and those
opposed to it," he said.
Juwono said proper representation would be needed to make the
seminar a success.
But he objected to the idea of inviting foreign experts on
Indonesian affairs to the seminar, saying that their presence was
not needed.
Nasution, the country's most senior military official, said
the seminar had to be open and transparent.
"People, who were directly involved in the Assembly's session
with the late president Sukarno, should be invited as active
participants in the seminar," he said.
"The younger generation must know the truth on what happened
during and surrounding the special assembly session," he added.
(imn/amd)