Wiranto reticent of resignation call

Wiranto reticent of resignation call

JAKARTA (JP): Coordinating Minister for Political and Security
Affairs Gen. Wiranto maintained on Friday his refusal to bow to
President Abdurrahman Wahid's request to resign, saying he would
wait until the President returned from his extended trip abroad.

Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono told a brief media
conference at his office that he relayed Abdurrahman's message
that Wiranto should resign following his implication in the
violence that ravaged East Timor after a self-determination
ballot there resulted in the territory's independence.

"I relayed on Thursday morning a request from the President
who asked Pak Wiranto to resign. So I have fulfilled the
President's instruction.

"There was no response ... we have agreed to wait for the
President," Juwono, a civilian who leads a ministry that has
traditionally gone to the military, said.

"Let us be patient and wait until the President returns on
Feb. 13," Juwono said without elaborating.

Juwono, who recently suffered a light stroke, said: "We are
waiting for the legal process conducted by the Attorney General's
Office which is expected to carry out the investigation
peacefully and without speculation."

There was no question and answer session following Juwono's
statements.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Alwi Shihab, who is accompanying
Abdurrahman during his overseas trip, denied in Bonn on Friday
reports that his superior had dismissed Wiranto.

"The President never dismissed Pak Wiranto, but asked him to
resign," Alwi said, stressing the different nuance between the
two words.

Abdurrahman, popularly known as Gus Dur, asked Wiranto to quit
the Cabinet while on his visit to Davos in Switzerland for the
World Economic Forum on Monday. The request followed the
government-sanction inquiry into human rights abuse in East Timor
last year, which blamed Wiranto and four other senior generals.

Wiranto was the Indonesian Military (TNI) chief when the
destruction and violence swept the former Portuguese colony.

The U.N. inquiry on the East Timor violence recommended an
international tribunal for the TNI top brass, but the U.N.
Secretary-General opted to allow Indonesia to settle the issue
domestically.

The attorney general will decide whether to prosecute or not
within three months.

Earlier this month Abdurrahman signed Wiranto's retirement as
a military officer as a consequence of his admission into the
Cabinet. The decree will take effect on March 31, cutting short
Wiranto's military career by two years.

Stock prices and the Indonesian rupiah, which had gone into a
tailspin for three straight days on coup fears in the wake of a
possible showdown between Abdurrahman and Wiranto, bounced back
on the no-coup assurance on Friday.

At closing on Friday, the Jakarta Stock Exchange composite
index was up 20.688 points or 3.4 percent at 634.998 and the
rupiah strengthened to 7,460-7,480 to the U.S. dollar from 7,500-
7,530 at noon.

Economist Rizal Ramli echoed an earlier opinion that the
stand-off between Wiranto and Abdurrahman was the source of the
jittery rupiah. He therefore suggested a "political cooling-off"
to prevent a further slump in the currency.

"I believe President Gus Dur is able to ease the tension, so
that there is no need for the central bank to raise the interest
rate," Rizal said in a seminar to assess Abdurrahman's 100-day-
old government.

Calls for Wiranto to resign continued, with political observer
Hermawan Sulistyo suggesting the former TNI chief to emulate his
senior, the late Gen. Soemitro, who resigned after failing to
stop a turbulent anti-Japan student demonstration in 1974.

"I think Wiranto has to take a clear stance, a move which
retired or active military officers await," Hermawan said in a
seminar.

He said in the absence of East Timor violence, Wiranto should
have stepped down because of his failure to maintain security and
order during his term of office as TNI chief.

Meanwhile, dozens of demonstrators rallied at the human rights
commission office on Jl. Latuharhary in Central Jakarta on
Friday, demanding that the inquiry team into East Timor violence
be dissolved for its "defiance to national interests".

The demonstrators, under the Alliance of Muslim Community
Movements (AGMI) and the National Struggle Party (Perpanas),
threatened to set the commission office on fire, but no violence
broke out in the rally. (rms/prb)