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)