Transparency and truthfulness

Several years ago there was a scandal in the United States known as the Iran-Nicaragua scandal, wherein the States supplied weapons to Iran and used the money earned to assist Nicaraguan rebels. Both acts violated prevailing laws, and the Reagan administration was answerable to Congress.

It was Lt. Col. Oliver North who was regarded as the man responsible for the scandal, and of course his superior Gen. Poindexter. But the buck stopped there (Gen. Poindexter) despite Congress' suspicion that president Reagan was in some way involved in the scandal. "No, the buck stopped here," said Gen. Poindexter. So president Reagan was spared the disaster.

Now, back to Indonesia where so many atrocities and violations have occurred without any indication of who was supposed to have masterminded them. People are worried that the ongoing investigation into the atrocities will ultimately result in "the buck stops here".

What I understood from the Iran-Nicaragua scandal is that the term "the buck stops here" was meant to protect the then president Reagan. The American people seemed finally to accept it. However, it is quite different from the incidents in Indonesian in which many people were victimized for the sake of maintaining the authoritarian Soeharto regime. Not delving into the whole story would not be fair to the whole nation, especially the victims and their families who have been traumatized for a long time. These atrocities could only be possible in a rotten system designed to maintain tyrannical power. If we all honestly long for total reform we must uproot the decades-long rotten system. Otherwise we will be trapped again in the same system where there is no transparency, no honesty, no truthfulness nor courage on the part of the people to say the truth. All of us want to play it safe. Wrongdoings were conveniently reduced to a crime done by a certain individual, or better still a matter of administrative or procedural error, or a wrongly interpreted order.

These kinds of excuses only lead people to think that the truth is being concealed, a matter contradictory to Pancasila ideals. Why don't we honestly reveal the truth concerning, for example, the Tanjung Priok, Lampung, Aceh, Irian Jaya, East Timor, Haur Koneng and Marsinah affairs. Not to mention the Udin murder, July 27 affairs and the shooting of Trisakti students, abductions and torture of activists, etc.

H.W. PIENANDORO

Bogor, West Java