Wiranto to hold dialog with students next week
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto is to hold a dialog with representatives of 17 universities from various cities here on April 4.
Djusril Djusan, chairman of the Ikbla ARH student leaders organization, said here yesterday that an invitation had been sent to each university for two of their representatives to attend the meeting.
He said the dialog was organized by a joint committee involving the Eksponen 66 youth organization, ABRI Headquarters, Ikbla ARH, several ministries and political observers.
Among those invited are the University of Indonesia, the Jakarta Teachers Training Institute, the University of Diponegoro in Semarang, the Bandung Institute of Technology and Padjadjaran University in Bandung, the University of Gadjah Mada and University of Islamic Indonesia in Yogyakarta, Sebelas Maret University in Solo and Airlangga University in Surabaya.
"The students are expected to be prepared with matters and concepts to be discussed," he said, as quoted by Antara.
Many ministers, including Minister of Finance Fuad Bawazier and State Minister of the Empowerment of State Industries Tanri Abeng, are expected to participate in the dialog.
"All participants will form a round-table conference to discuss the concepts brought by the students," he said.
President
Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Feisal Tanjung dismissed yesterday a demand by several student leaders to hold dialogs directly with President Soeharto, citing state protocol as the reason why it could not happen.
Minister of Education and Culture Wiranto Arismunandar also said such an idea was impossible.
"It will certainly be impractical for the President to hold dialogs with students from one university and then another," he told reporters in his office yesterday.
Wiranto balked when asked whether the President would be willing to receive a small group representing students. "It depends on the President himself," he said without elaborating.
But Noer Iskandar al-Barsany, deputy chairman of the lawmaking body of Moslem group Nadhlatul Ulama, considered such a dialog a very practical proposal.
"It would be quite ethical for the President to hold a dialog because he is there because of the people and for the people," he said.
He warned, however, that students should be well prepared and present practical and well-thought out concepts if they wished to enter into such a dialog.
Rally
At a student rally at Driyarkara Philosophy Institute here yesterday, noted observer Franz Magnis Suseno urged the government to take note of the students' desire for economic and political reform.
He called for expediency and firm action in resolving the crisis that has tormented the whole population.
More than 100 students and several institute lecturers participated in the rally.
Mudji Sutrisno, a lecturer attending the rally, called for a return to a more faithful form of democracy.
"Indonesia should go back to the embryonic roots where democracy is applied consistently and the supremacy of the law is respected," he said.
Students protests have occurred in cities across the country, with participants demanding the government lowers the rising prices of basic commodities and carries out political and economic reforms to end the crisis.
On-campus rallies also took place in Central Java yesterday.
About 250 students from the Veteran Industrial Technology Academy and the state-run Diponegoro University held free-speech forums on their campuses in Semarang.
They also urged the government to quickly take bold action to resolve the monetary turmoil.
In Salatiga, about 100 students from the state-run Islamic Institute held a gathering which included speeches about the crisis, poetry reading and mass prayers.
In Purwokerto, hundreds of students at Soedirman University gathered to decry what they described as the degradation of state officials' morality. (rms/har/09/45)