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)