Students to maintain opposition role
JAKARTA (JP): University students vowed to continue with their street demonstrations in the absence of any opposition political parties to control the newly established government.
"No political parties have declared that they truly want to be the opposition," Bachtiar Firdaus, chairman of the Executive Student Body of the University of Indonesia (BEM-UI), told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
He welcomed the newly elected Abdurrahman Wahid-Megawati Soekarnoputri team, saying that they truly represent the Indonesia people.
But he suggested that a strong opposition was needed to pressure the ruling collective government to always uphold democratic principles and the supremacy of the law and the people.
"It is disturbing. There should be opposition camps which can critically apply pressure on the new government so that it will never become like the regime we had in the past, the New Order.
"We will therefore declare ourselves to be an opposition force in the country," Bactiar said.
The elected president and vice president both have broad-based support from the grassroots and the political elite; a strong composition which could lead to an oligarchic government.
Abdurrahman is chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Muslim organization in the country, with 30 million members. While Megawati is the chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), a party which garnered the most votes (approximately 35 million) in the June 2 general election.
Bachtiar said the students would closely observe the government's activities and policies, and continue to pressure the government so that "it will not betray the reform movement that the whole nation has agreed to participate in".
No more mistakes
Another student activist, identified only as Mixil, shared Bachtiar's opinion, saying that students should not repeat the mistakes of the 1966 Student Movement (Angkatan 66) which failed to control the former president Soeharto's regime.
"The Angkatan 1966 students failed to control Soeharto during the critical 1966-1970 period.
"It was too late for them to put pressure on him (Soeharto) because Soeharto's position became stronger after 1971, as he had since then turned out to be a dictator," said Mixil, an activist of Forum Kota (City Forum), a loose alliance of 30 Jakarta private university student organizations.
Student activists of the Angkatan 66 helped the Army topple the Old Order regime under first president Sukarno and promote Army leader, the then Maj. Gen. Soeharto, to prominence in 1966. Soeharto was inaugurated as president replacing Sukarno in a Special session of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS), led by Army Gen. (ret) Abdul Harris Nasution.
Several Angkatan 1966 leaders were then absorbed into Soeharto's Cabinet line up, including the new House of Representatives (DPR) Speaker Akbar Tandjung and former state minister of public housing Cosmas Batubara.
Mixil said students would return to the streets if the new government ignored the people's will.
"We respect Gus Dur (Abdurrahman Wahid) and Mega (Megawati Sukarnoputri). But if they make mistakes -- such as establishing a new Cabinet which still accommodates elements of the New Order -- we will stage protests on the streets," said Mixil.
Anton, a Forbes (Collective Forum) student activist, suggested however that street protests against the State leadership team would only trigger clashes between supporters of both Abdurrahman and Megawati.
"Gus Dur has broad support from the Islamic community, while Mega is strongly backed by nationalists.
"If we stage street protests, we'll probably have to deal with supporters of both," he said.
But Bachtiar disagreed saying that students should eliminate such fundamentalist sentiments form their movement.
"Once the government makes a mistake, we should stage protests regardless of ideology or religion," Bachtiar said.(asa)