Seminar on Sukarno to go on

Seminar on Sukarno to go on

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto defended yesterday the
government's plan to hold a controversial seminar on the late
president Sukarno's downfall in 1966.

Soeharto said the seminar aimed to provide Indonesians
with "accurate" information on what happened 30 years ago.

Debate has been raging on the seminar to be held this month.
The President approved the seminar last week.

At the center of the debate is Sukarno's Nawaksara speech
before a special session of the Provisional People's Consultative
Assembly which had questioned his stand on the abortive coup
attempt in 1965, which was blamed on the Indonesian Communist
Party.

The assembly rejected Sukarno's accountability speech, paving
the way for his impeachment from the office he had held since
1945. Soeharto replaced Sukarno as President.

"Nawaksara led to a direct confrontation (pitting Sukarno)
against the people's representatives, so that they decided to
revoke their mandate," Soeharto said while inaugurating a
monument dedicated to the 1966 generation.

Soeharto said the assembly had had a hard time finding a
replacement for Sukarno before finally choosing him. He was then
the acting president because Sukarno had signed a letter
(Supersemar) on March 11, 1966, which gave him the authority to
restore order after the failed coup.

The assembly appointed Soeharto, who played a pivotal role in
putting down the communists, as president in 1968.

In Bali yesterday, Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono said the
seminar would have historical interest and nobody should feel
hurt by it.

The seminar would let Indonesians study their history and
learn from past experiences, Moerdiono said after inaugurating a
water supply project in Tampaksiring, 60 kilometers east of
Denpasar.

"The seminar will improve our political life and state
administration in future," Moerdiono was quoted by Antara as
saying.

Moerdiono warned the people against suspicious interpretations
of the seminar, reiterating that it would not affect the nation's
respect for its founding fathers.

"Both Bung Karno and Bung Hatta have already been named
national heroes, haven't they? Jakarta international airport was
dedicated under their names and we have built statues and tombs
for them," said Moerdiono.

Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed Indonesia's independence
on Aug. 17, 1945.

Importance

Sukarno's eldest daughter, Megawati Soekarnoputri, questioned
yesterday the importance of the seminar, saying that people had
already forgotten her father's speech.

"It was many years ago. Why shouldn't the seminar have been
held in the years soon after the Nawaksara was delivered?" she
told reporters at her home in South Jakarta.

Soetardjo Soerjogoeritno, one of her loyalists, raised the
same question.

"Why should they only bother with Sukarno's accountability
speech? Why don't they try to trace the birth of our state
principles, Pancasila, and the background of the issuance of the
Supersemar instead?" he asked.

The government has claimed it has lost the original copy of
Supersemar. Moerdiono was the last government official to say
that Indonesians should not make an issue of the missing
document.

Yesterday, Arief Budiman, a sociologist and exponent of the
student movement which supported the New Order government in
1966, welcomed the seminar but warned it would open debate on the
New Order's legitimacy.

"We never knew what the speech was all about, because we would
have rejected whatever Sukarno said then," Arief said. He was
among the students who recommended that the assembly reject
Sukarno's speech.

But Arief said the seminar would lead to academic discussions
on Supersemar, which, along with Nawaksara, had given the New
Order its legitimacy to hold the power.

House legislator Maj. Gen. Hari Sabarno of the Armed Forces
supported the plan, but suggested the seminar serve as an
academic, rather than emotion-driven, forum to discuss the
validity of the constitutional mechanism which governs the
presidency.

"There should be no intention to open old wounds, because such
a mechanism could be pursued anytime, no matter who the president
is," Hari said.

House legislator Aisyah Amini of the United Development Party
(PPP) said the planned seminar had come at the right time.

"There have been indications that certain people want to
breach the constitutional mechanism. That's why the seminar
should remind the nation of the phenomenon," said Aisyah, who
chairs House Commission I for political and security affairs.

She was referring to President Soeharto's recent warning that
the government would not hesitate to clobber anyone trying to
replace him unconstitutionally. (imn/amd)