Violence likely to continue in 1999

Violence likely to continue in 1999

JAKARTA (JP): Violence is likely to continue during the year
as the nation has not proved itself able to tolerate and accept
political differences, observers said on Friday.

The views were raised in a discussion at the Jakarta Legal Aid
Office and in a presentation of political predictions by a team
of lecturers at the University of Indonesia.

The team of political scientists at UI said intolerance was
inherited from the New Order government of the fallen president
Soeharto.

"All political instruments were used to create uniformity in
society," said the team from the university's social and
political sciences department.

The team said that the New Order regime had spent much time
using violence as an instrument to create stability and boost the
economy.

It added that violence would also persist since authorities
still use force to approach various problems in society.

It also said that the current trend of mobilizing a great
number of people to achieve personal or group interests would
also create the potential for violence.

Mobilization of the masses during the campaign period in the
coming election on June 7 would also be prone to violence.

Economic hardship and power struggles among the political
elites would also potentially incite violence in the coming
months.

Meanwhile, political scientist Muhammad A.S. Hikam said that
violence could be prevented if the nation's pro-reform leaders
were willing to establish a political consensus.

"But, it seems to be difficult since the idea for a national
dialog, proposed by a number of leaders, has always been
torpedoed by another group of people," Hikam told a discussion at
the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute on Friday.

The idea for a dialog -- gathering leaders inside and
outside the government -- was first aired by the chairman of the
National Defense Institute, Lt. Gen. Agum Gumelar.

The call was taken up by Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid, who
warned last month that without such a dialog the country could be
dragged into "a social revolution."

The call had been welcomed by both the military and
legislators. But President B.J. Habibie ruled it out and set up a
Security and Law Enforcement Council last month to handle
responses to the crisis.

The president said rather than a dialog, the focus should be
on constitutional means, such as the legislature, and improving
them if necessary.

But the UI team said it was ABRI that could be "a source of
social revolution" if it chose to take sides in this year's
elections, which would lead it the elections to fail.

In such chaos, they said, "ABRI would take over power by
declaring the country to be in a sate of emergency and we would
return to a quasi-autocratic condition, or worse." (edt/byg)