Soldiers of conscience

Their assault on the central nervous system of Habibie's Reform Order, the Attorney General's Office and its temporary occupation has caught security guards, as well as observers without a cause like myself, by surprise. In a moral sense it constitutes a strategic gain by the reform movement started by students, who I prefer to call "soldiers of conscience".

The daring maneuver has bared the fact that the present regime finds itself trapped between its secret loyalty to its predecessor government and promises given halfheartedly for total reform to the student forces and their sympathizers.

It is hard to see how the present rulers or the "prisoners of conscience" -- granted we are talking about normal people, not a slew of politicians -- and that conscience still serves as their guiding star in life. These soldiers of conscience's strategy includes a march to the residence of the former "emperor" himself, evidently with the purpose of capturing the former "grand man". If their aim was to have a dialog, something which Soeharto indicated he would oblige them with, why should they be barred from doing so?

It is hard to imagine how the trapped leaders, again in the moral sense, could come out of the political maze unscratched. The call for a national dialog, with the aim to put an end to the political impasse and social confusion and thus hopefully pave the way toward economic recovery and international confidence, should be welcomed if it involved the soldiers of conscience and, inevitably, the new emerging and ousted party leaders.

Such a national dialog should lead to the removal of other stumbling blocks, like the existence of two factions of the Indonesian Democratic Party. Also the makar (conspiracy to topple the government) charges against Kemal Idris and Ali Sadikin and group must be retracted. A big hurdle that should be removed is the very ambitious manner in which the functional group (Golkar) wishes to win the next general election at any cost instead of acting just as "facilitator". The National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman, Amien Rais, rightly does not want to see the post of Golkar chairperson held by the state secretary, with access to state funds and other resources.

Perhaps it was very unfortunate that President Habibie cleverly side-stepped the opportunity to sanction his legitimacy as president by the recent People's Consultative Assembly (MPR). Now his position as head of state appears not to have been endorsed even by the old MPR and thus remains a point of contention. After all, he was chosen by the "king" and is the product of the king's favor and upbringing with a reformist tint.

Inexplicably, he is now more repressive and less democratic in dealing with the situation. Perhaps, as a prisoner of conscience, he has heeded the "warning" by Soeharto's son Tommy. He said his father could not be considered to be solely responsible for bringing about the present crisis. "Father had his advisors, Any wrong doing was known to this group."

The capture of the big fish would surely lead to the netting of other fish now still swimming freely or having changed color.

Instead of hunting for his hidden treasures, the big fish would better be asked to sign a written statement allowing the public to get all his wealth if found any time in the future. Other efforts should be to prove his guilt of abusing his power for economic gain. What is still needed is not an independent team (with accountability to whom?) but a special tribunal to deal with a special case of a former president. My guess is, however, there are still a number of chickens in the way.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta