Writer Pramoedya eligible for travel abroad: Oetojo

Writer Pramoedya eligible for travel abroad: Oetojo

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman assured
yesterday that the government has not banned writer Pramoedya
Ananta Toer from traveling to Manila to accept his Magsaysay
award later this month.

Oetojo said that the prolific "leftist" writer is free to
travel abroad because so far there has been no requests from any
government agencies for immigration authorities to bar him.

"The Directorate General of Immigration has not received any
requests or orders from authorized institutions to issue travel
bans on Pramoedya until today," he told reporters.

Meanwhile, Pramoedya's wife Maemunah said yesterday that she
would leave for Manila to represent her husband in receiving the
prestigious award.

"I have formally been invited by the (Magsaysay) Foundation to
leave for Manila on Aug. 29," she told The Jakarta Post by phone
last night.

She said that she and her husband applied for passports a week
ago but only her passport application had been approved by the
Directorate General of Immigration, while her husband's had not.

"I knew that I obtained the passport only on Tuesday," she
said.

According to the immigration laws, requests to bar someone
from traveling abroad should come only from either the minister
of justice, the minister of finance, the attorney general or
chief of the Armed Forces.

Pramoedya was an activist of Lekra, a cultural group linked to
the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party blamed for the 1965
bloody abortive coup. He was imprisoned at the Salemba detention
center in Jakarta from 1965 to 1969 and later sent to Buru island
in Maluku for a 10-year sentence of hard labor until 1979.

Pramoedya has been named by the Magsaysay Foundation as one of
this year's recipients of an award. He won the award for his
contribution to journalism, literature, and creative
communication arts.

The other recipients are Morihiro Hiramatsu of Japan for
Government Service, Asma Jahangir of Pakistan for Public Service,
and Ho Ming-Teh of Taiwan for Community Leadership.

The Magsaysay Foundation's decision to present the award to
Pramoedya was met with mixed reactions from Indonesian
intellectuals. Last week, 26 intellectuals criticized the
foundation, arguing that in the past Pramoedya suppressed freedom
of expression.

The foundation, named after a famous Philippine president,
however insisted on continuing with its plan to present the 70-
year-old Pramoedya with the award at the end of this month.

"Current attacks on Pramoedya bear little moral weight in
light of the penalties already imposed upon him as well as a
change in world attitudes toward communism accompanying the end
of the Cold War," the foundation said.

The foundation also rejected the calls of Mochtar Lubis, the
first Indonesian recipient of the same award category, and his
colleagues.(imn)