By M. Bandung in Jakarta
and Max Lane
One hundred students, workers and farmers crowded into the offices of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) on May 2 for the launch of Indonesia's first campaigning democratic organisation, the People's Democratic Union (PRD).
As well as the 100 or so delegates to the founding congress, held April 30-May 1, prominent oppositionists were also present to give greetings. These included Adnan Buyung Nasution, the director of LBH; Dede Triawan from the environmental peak organisation WAHLI; Mochtar Pakpahan, head of the recently formed independent trade union SBSI and currently awaiting trial on political charges; and Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the renowned novelist. Local and foreign press were also present.
Pramoedya was reported to have told some of the young PRD activists that they were more courageous than the youth of his generation. According to Pramoedya, the generation of activists from 1945 confronted an armed repressive force with arms, whereas the youth of the current period are taking up the struggle unarmed.
The PRD is based on a network of local student, worker and farmer groups based in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Solo, Semarang and Surabaya in Java, Medan in Sumatra and Menado in Sulawesi. This is the first attempt to form these groups into a national organisation.
The launch was used by the newly elected chairperson, Sugeng Bahagijo, to present the demands of the new organisation, set out in a founding declaration. The reading of the declaration was accompanied by loud shouts of "Long live democracy" and "Long live the workers".
The declaration calls for democratisation of Indonesian society and a return to civilian rule. The PRD demands free elections based on the district system to directly elect people for the presidency, the legislature and judiciary for a maximum of two terms.
The PRD calls for restoration of the right to form political parties and mass organisations besides those chosen by the government, and the right to hold public rallies, demonstrations and other political activities. It also calls for the restoration of freedom of speech and a free press.
Representatives of PRD emphasised the role of the workers movement in the struggle for democracy. "A central pillar of the Indonesian democratic movement was the rise of the workers movement in the 1990s. It would be a mistake to struggle for democracy without the working class at the head of the struggle", one activist said. "History shows that it is the workers movement that is the effective catalyst and safeguard for democracy."
PRD has made two particularly bold demands in the Indonesian context. First, the declaration calls for the restoration of civil rights to the tens of thousands of leftist and nationalist former political prisoners arrested in 1965. These people still have lost their right to work in many areas, to write and to travel; they must carry special ID cards. Second, PRD has taken a strong stand on East Timor, calling for peaceful resolution and no military intervention, and recognising the human and democratic rights of the East Timorese nation.
The end of monopoly practices and collusion between businesses and the authorities, the application of a progressive tax on the country's giant business conglomerates, free education for the poor and an end to the enforcing of cultural conformity are also among the demands of the declaration.
Elected to the board of the new organisation are Sugeng Bahagijo (a philosophy student from Gajah Mada University, UGM) as general chairperson, secretary general Tumpas Sitorus (from the Institute of Science and Technology), head of the advocacy department Juli Eko Nugroho (from the Islamic University of Indonesia, UII), head of research and development Aris Arief Mundayat (a literature lecturer from UGM), head of the department for organisational development and cooperation Benu Hidayat (from Diponegoro University, Undip), head of the financial Department (from the economics faculty at UII), and head of the cultural department, poet Wiji Thukul.
The founding of the PRD comes in the midst of a range of disturbing developments for the Suharto regime. Medan and Jakarta are still tense following six days of rioting by 20,000 young workers in Medan, who were demanding wage rises and the right to organise freely. This followed an earlier strike of 13,000 workers in Solo in February. More strikes have taken place in recent weeks in Central Java.
A recent scandal over the misappropriation of tens of millions of dollars by a Jakarta businessman sponsored by a retired admiral and former minister has also rocked the political scene.
Meanwhile, nationwide attention and criticism are drawn to revelations about the use of torture to force defendants in a murder trial to confess to the murder of a woman worker leader, Marsinah, which everyone believes was committed by the military.
Officials have responded quickly to the founding of PRD. The minister for political and security affairs, Soesilo Soedarman, was quoted in Kompas as saying that if the PRD disobeys and continues to engage in political activity, the government will take a firm stance. By law, only the three "social-political organisations" approved by the government are allowed to be active in politics.
The director general of the Department of Social and Political Affairs, Soetoyo, told journalists, "PRD is not allowed to engage in political activity, and it should not if it doesn't want to come up against the relevant [state] agency. So, [they] shouldn't play around in this matter."n