Soeharto's promise of openness gets warm welcome

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)