Soeharto's promise of openness gets warm welcome

JAKARTA (JP): Political observers welcomed President Soeharto's year end promise to encourage openness and democracy in 1997, but suggested the public wait and see whether words would turn into deeds.

Arbi Sanit from the University of Indonesia's School of Social and Political Sciences and M. Sobary of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences separately agreed that openness had become a global demand.

"Demand for openness is unavoidable in this globalization era," Arbi said.

President Soeharto raised the idea of political openness he initiated six years ago to a new high in Tuesday's year-end speech. While promising to encourage openness and democratization, he also reiterated his warning against any abuses of democratic rights.

Though welcoming the promise, Arbi also interpreted Soeharto's remark as a rap over the knuckles for his assistants.

"The President saw the importance of reminding people of this issue after learning that his assistants had rigidly reacted against the social changes which followed the previous campaign for political openness," Arbi said yesterday.

Arbi said the government looked unprepared to cope with the consequences when the issue of political openness was raised more than six years ago.

"Compared to previous cabinets, many busy government representatives are not mature enough and tend to react excessively when confronted with demands from the grassroots," Arbi said.

He did not elaborate, but said the former academic ban imposed on him by the military was a good example.

"Rather than giving a counter idea (to my ideas), the military rigidly applied a security approach and barred even a seminar," he said.

Soeharto's speech, therefore, should be a lesson for ministers either completing their service or lining up for the next cabinet, said Arbi.

"Each minister should creatively respond to the demand for openness," he said. He suggested that, for instance, Minister of Information do away with the policy of publication licensing with which revocation effectively bans a publication. He also suggested Minister of Home Affairs needs to get rid of restrictive regulations on mass organizations.

"There is always hope, I believe, because openness is unavoidable in this global era," he added.

Mohammad Sobary was more cautious about whether talk about political openness would turn into action.

"It will take us a long time, let's say 20 years, to build an open political system because it is a matter of state of mind," Sobary said yesterday.

He said he was skeptical about the government's willingness to accommodate demands for openness from the grassroots after having been in power for a long time.

"Accommodating such demands would be tantamount to sleeping with the enemy," an outspoken Sobary said.

Sobary, whose columns appear regularly in some publications including the leading daily Kompas, said it was possible that promising openness was a ploy to attract people's sympathy, now that the general election was fast approaching.

Many say the general election, scheduled for May 29, will be critical to Indonesia's survival in the new millennium.

The government is in need of sympathy from the politically sated public, Sobary said.

He argued that true political openness would come from no-one but the people themselves. "Political openness is not a gift; it is the fruit of never-ending hard work by the people," Sobary said.

He dismissed the role of external influence in the nation's quest for openness.

"Globalization is coming fast but it contributes little to political development within a nation. The external push factor can do nothing in an established political system," he said. (amd)