IBRAHIM ISA'S - SELECTED INDONESIAN NEWS AND VIEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OLD SOLDIERS DISCUSS NATION WITH OFFICIALS ELECTIONS PROVIDE CHANCE FOR EX- ACEH REBELS NO STREET RALLIES, PLEASE ATTORNEY GENERAL OFFICE TO FILE REVIEW ON MUNIR'S VERDICT CHINA WILL NOT RULE ASIA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OLD SOLDIERS DISCUSS NATION WITH OFFICIALS National News - January 17, 2007 Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Retired generals met with top government officials here Tuesday to discuss the national situation after calls for action over poverty, natural disasters, corruption and transportation accidents. Former vice president Try Sutrisno, former Army chief Tyasno Sudarto and former State Intelligence Coordinating Agency head Sudibyo attended the meeting, along with current Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Widodo A.S. and State Intelligence Agency chief Syamsir Siregar, all of whom are retired generals. None were willing to discuss the details of the meeting, although Sudarto said that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had asked the Retired Servicemen's Communication Forum to arrange the meeting. Minister Widodo said the meeting was held in an attempt to improve communication between the government and the former servicemen and to hear what action they believed they government needed to take to improve conditions in the country. He denied that it had been held in response to Monday's rally in front of the State Palace calling for the President to step down. "No, the meeting did not discuss the demand for the revocation of the people's mandate. We discussed many state issues," Widodo said, but did not elaborate. The rally was led by a leader of the 1974 Malari protest, Hariman Siregar, who said that the people could revoke the mandate they gave to Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla in the 2004 presidential election. A number of retired generals have been actively involved in a series of discourses criticizing the performance of the Yudhoyono administration, with Try Sutrisno taking a leading role in the movement. Try and other state figures, including Amien Rais and former presidents Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid and Megawati Soekarnoputri, have frequently expressed their concern over the situation in the country. They have called on the nation to get back to the original script of the 1945 Constitution, uphold the state ideology of Pancasila and maintain the unitary state of Indonesia. Several retired generals have chosen to join political parties and pursue careers in politics. After two years in power, Yudhoyono has been criticized for his failure to meet his 2004 election promises. Concluding its congress in Denpasar, Bali, last week, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) criticized Yudhoyono's government, pointing to legal uncertainty, high corruption levels in the bureaucracy and the worsening poverty and unemployment problems. PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri said the President was too busy building his image. Speaking to the media after the gathering, Tyasno said the retired generals were deeply concerned over the increasing rates of poverty and unemployment, the continuing natural disasters as well as sea and air accidents. "The government should feed the people, generate new jobs and provide safe transportation in compensation for the taxes they have paid," he said.
ELECTIONS PROVIDE CHANCE FOR EX ACEH REBELS . . . National News - January 17, 2007 Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh Jamil Umar of Pidie regency is happy with the outcome of Aceh's regional elections, which saw independents win big at the expense of figures from established political parties. "Frankly speaking, I hoped Free Aceh Movement (GAM) members would win in the polls so that Aceh would change," he said enthusiastically. Jamil is good at picking winners. He voted for the successful pair of Irwandi Yusuf and Muhammad Nazar -- two former GAM leaders -- in the gubernatorial poll and supported the winning GAM-backed Pidie regency candidates of Mirza and Nazir during the elections last Dec. 11. The retired school teacher said he chose the GAM-backed candidates because he distrusted most of the aspirants nominated by mainstream political parties. "I'd voted for candidates from the established parties for years, and life kept getting more difficult," Jamil said with a wry grin. Candidates from the major parties frequently manipulated people to get into power and often made lavish promises before the elections, which they conveniently forgot about later, he said. The GAM-backed candidates, meanwhile, were fresh faces who had new ideas, he said. Last year, Aceh became the first and only province to allow independent candidates to run for political office; a change mandated by the Helsinki peace agreement signed by the government and GAM in August 2005. When the votes for the Dec. 11 polls were counted, GAM-backed independents outperformed their rivals from the established parties, becoming the single largest successful political affiliation in the province, winning six of Aceh's 19 regencies, and two of its four municipalities. Despite their relative political inexperience and a widely publicized split within the movement before the polls, GAM candidates secured convincing wins in the six regencies of Pidie, East Aceh, North Aceh, Aceh Jaya, Bireun and Sabang, all former strongholds of the rebel movement. But GAM's success in the polls has also stoked fears that the former rebel movement will capitalize on its new political power and renew campaigning for an independent Aceh, charges that GAM leaders have repeatedly denied. Whatever happens in the future, the head of Aceh's Independent Election Monitoring Committee, Muhammad Jaffar, believes the polls were an unqualified success, rating them at a "9 out of 10". "Why not a 10? Because there were still a number of problems, such as the demand for repeat elections by some candidates in Central Aceh," Jaffar said. The sudden requirement for eligible voters to apply for voter cards just days before the polls also caused some irritation among voters, he said. "However, the main thing is that people were very eager to participate in the elections." With voter turnout high, the political parties won most of their support in the cities, where immigrant populations were at their highest, he said. Despite the split between rural and urban areas, there were no violent reactions in places where GAM candidates did not win, he said. "It seems that the people of Aceh wish for a lasting peace, judging from the restraint they have shown in the polls." But whether they are GAM independents or from political parties, Jaffar says the officials elected in 2006 will have their work cut out for them, with tsunami-reconstruction work, post-conflict reintegration and poverty eradication just some of the pressing items they must deal with. "It's time to give GAM the chance to administer Aceh ... If it turns out that they do not deliver, then we'll choose other leaders." --- NO STREET RALLIES -- PLEASE Opinion and Editorial - January 17, 2007 Criticism has been widely accepted as part of a process toward betterment. Nobody argues, either, that opposition helps democracy to mature. That was hopefully in the minds of the past leaders who have put the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the defensive. These senior figures, including former military top brass and government officials, have moved from gathering to gathering, with constant media exposure, expressing their disenchantment with how the government is being run. The flurry of disasters that struck the country at the beginning of the year, killing hundreds of people, have provided the critics with more ammunition, as well as a justification to blame government for all the predicaments facing the country. None of the critics will accept that they might have contributed to the problems by not doing enough to address the matters when they were in power. However, when the verbal attacks turned into a demand for President Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla to resign, as voiced by protesters who gathered outside the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Monday, there is no way to condone it. The nation decided to entrust the two to lead the country in the 2004 presidential election, which the world hailed as the most democratic election in Indonesian history. Any effort to seize their mandate is a betrayal of the national consensus and of democracy itself. That only a few hundreds turned up for Jakarta's first anti-government rally of the year speaks a lot about the lack of popular support for the cause. Even the self-styled opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle condemned the rally for violating democratic principles. It is regrettable, therefore, when the protesters, who called the rally a "Second Malari", a reference to a violent anti-government student demonstration back in 1974, said more rallies would follow. True, mass rallies led to the fall of long-time ruler Soeharto in 1998 and revived democracy, which Soeharto had stifled during his three decades in office. But mass mobilizations are often reduced to a show of force by organizations or groups pursuing their own political interests. Such rallies are prone to violence, as seen by the numerous clashes between supporters of rival political parties or politicians that have taken place over the years. Many people resort to demonstrations because they no longer have the opportunity to convey their aspirations through dialog or other conventional means. But this was not the case when the protesters on Monday urged Yudhoyono to step down or else a mass movement would unseat him. The democracy that has flourished in the country over the past eight years offers a lot of forums for critics to make their voices heard. Seminars, the media -- both print and electronic -- and public debates are more practical and effective than the so-called street parliament. It's unlikely to expect the process of communication, in which both parties take and give, speak and listen, to take place during a rally, particularly if it involves thousands of people gathered outdoors. With democratic mechanisms already in place, it is up to the House of Representatives and political parties to articulate people's aspirations and their criticisms of the government. Lawmakers bear the responsibility for voicing the people's anguish and exerting their power to push the government to make changes in the interests of the public. As for those who want the President to step down, just wait until the elections in 2009, when people will decide whether to give him another five years in office or dump him. The more Yudhoyono refuses to listen to the people, the better the chance he won't be reelected, as past experience has taught. --- ATTORNEY GENERAL OFFICE TO FILE REVIEW ON MUNIR'S VERDICT JAKARTA (JP): The Attorney General Office said Thursday it would file a review against the Supreme Court verdict that acquitted Garuda pilot Pollycarpus from an alleged murder charge on human right activist Munir Said Thalib. The Attorney General Office spokesman Salman Maryadi was quoted by Elshinta radio station as saying that his office would set up a team to examine the Supreme Court verdict, which was issued on Oct.3, 2006. "We have a strong basis to file a review against the Supreme Court verdict on Munir's case," he said. Munir was misteriously dead on Sept. 4, 2004 due to stomach problem during his flight with Garuda from Jakarta to Amsterdam. It was later found that a fatal dose of arsenic poison has killed Munir, which led to the theory of conspiracy behind Munir's death. Pollycarpus was sentenced to two years in prison but for falsifying documents.(***)
