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)