UI lecturers urge DPR to back reform movement
UI lecturers urge DPR to back reform movement
JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives (DPR) should
immediately respond to demands for total reform, a group of 250
University of Indonesia (UI) professors and lecturers has said.
The academicians held a dialog and filed a petition with the
Armed Forces (ABRI) DPR faction yesterday, suggesting measures in
response to student calls for immediate and thorough reform.
"The House is now racing with time to decide necessary
measures for reform," said senior economist Emil Salim, who led a
delegation of 50 academicians presenting a petition signed by 250
lecturers.
"The longer the House takes to decide, the worse the economic
crisis will become," he added.
Emil's entourage included noted human rights lawyer Todung
Mulya Lubis, economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati, political science
professor Miriam Budiardjo and philosopher Tuty Heradi Noerhadi.
Emil, former state minister of environment and population,
said the House should exercise its rarely used right of
legislative initiative and its right to interpolate government
officials.
"Only through the exercise of the House's rights of initiative
can the people's aspirations be actively responded to," he said,
adding that "otherwise, the House's image is at stake".
He called on House members to fight for their freedom of
expression while performing their legislative duties.
"They have to fight for the revocation of the House's internal
rules which enables the House to recall members," he said.
The petition included calls for urgent and thorough reform on
the country's general election system, the improvement of the
House and the Supreme Court and an improved system for political
parties.
Similar calls for reform came from students of the Association
of Islamic Students (HMI) and leaders of student senates from 30
Muhammadiyah Moslem universities nationwide.
A group of 20 HMI students also met with the House's Golkar
faction, demanding the dominant faction initiate political reform
by a review of the five political laws.
The academicians were received by Golkar legislators Syamsul
Mu'arif, Slamet Effendy Yusuf, Andi Mattalatta and Rambe
Kamarulzaman.
The Muhammadiyah student leaders met with House Commission VII
for education, religion, sport and youth affairs, demanding the
House take the initiative in calling for an extraordinary session
of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).
The students delivered their petition before commission
chairman Zarkasih Nur and a dozen commission members.
Two prominent House factions -- Golkar and the Armed Forces --
have so far shunned the possibility of holding an extraordinary
session of the People's Consultative Assembly.
The United Development Party (PPP) faction and the Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI) faction have signaled that an
extraordinary Assembly session was constitutionally possible if
deemed needed.
The 1,000-strong Assembly reelected President Soeharto for a
seventh consecutive five-year term in March.
Support for the student reform movement also came from the
Petisi 50 group of government critics.
"We believe in the genuineness of the students' aspirations,"
the group chairman, Ali Sadikin, said while addressing guests of
the group's 18th anniversary celebration yesterday.
"Even in the darkness and the uncertainty of their post-
graduate future, they still fight for the fate of the nation," he
added.
Ali, a former Jakarta governor, called on the Armed Forces
under Gen. Wiranto's leadership to positively respond to the
student movement.
He praised Wiranto's leadership, which he said had brought a
new atmosphere to ABRI's security approach.
Ali urged President Soeharto to initiate political reform by
taking the crucial first step.
"It's better to be late (than never) for the President to take
the initiative for reform," he said, adding that the President
should have initiated such steps last year. (imn)