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)