To the President

From Forum Keadilan

I initially had my doubts about your capability to serve as a pilot for some 210 million Indonesians. Today, my doubts have degenerated into great worry about the leadership role you are playing.

Mr. President, while one of the president's tasks is to give peace of mind to his people, as I see it you (maybe the only one ever) are leaving your people perplexed with all the confusing statements.

Mr. President, in my way of seeing the situation, you have, most of the time, occupied your people and most government officials with major discussions on controversial trains of thought rather than mobilizing them to overcome this protracted crisis. Ludicrously, in responding to your controversial comments, your staff members always argue that your statements are merely ordinary ones but that the community failed to digest them properly. Or, they will say that your ideas are way ahead of the people.

It is here, Mr. President, that we have the tragedy. If the statements made by your staff members are correct, why have you recruited such people with such naivete? I use the word naivete because from their statements the inevitable conclusion is that you are the brightest and most knowledgeable person in the country, while the people are a bunch of idiots.

Take the issue on the revocation of Provisional Consultative Assembly Decree (MPRS) No. XXV/1968, for example. If it is your desire that relatives of people suspected of being involved in the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) should enjoy equal treatment and rights as citizens, why is it that this decree must be repealed?

To the best of my memory, when Soeharto and B.J. Habibie were still president efforts were made to remove the discrimination. Feisal Tanjung, for example, instructed the removal of the ET code (indicating a former political detainee) from identity cards. I think it is merely for you to improve on this policy without having to revoke the decree on the banning of the PKI and the propagation of Marxism-Leninism in Indonesia.

Mr. President, if in your opinion it is the right of every citizen to opt for communism and the like as their ideology, it follows that you will let heretical religious sects and teachings develop in Indonesia. Is this really what you are after? Or, you simply wish to catch the people's attention with your statements so that they will have no chance to evaluate your performance. Finally, Mr. President, why make so much fuss about this?

S. HUSNUM

Batam island