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As protests rage, Indonesia OKs pol
- Subject: As protests rage, Indonesia OKs pol
- From: suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 00:36:00
Subject: As protests rage, Indonesia OKs political reform
As protests rage, Indonesia
OKs political reform
November 13, 1998
Web posted at: 12:14 p.m. EST (1714 GMT)
In this story:
Deadly clashes
Elections due next year
Military to remain in politics
Suharto probe possible
Related stories and sites
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Pressed by bloody protests
raging on the
streets, Indonesia's highest legislative body on Friday
endorsed plans to usher in
a new era of political reform after decades of virtual
one-man rule. A call for
new elections was approved but an effort to remove the
military from politics
was defeated.
The 1,000-member People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) also
named former
President Suharto in a decree demanding the government
investigate corruption
under his 32 years in power.
Thousands of troops and police
protected the
assembly as it ended four days of
debate
among five factions. It passed 11
reform
decrees unanimously, while the
12th and final
decree passed after a rare formal
vote.
Deadly clashes
As the assembly acted in downtown
Jakarta,
violent clashes continued nearby.
Indonesian
troops opened fire on student
protesters who
also fought with pro-government
activists.
Officials said at least nine
people were killed
Friday, bringing the known death
toll to 11 in
a week of protests. It was not
immediately
clear how many of the dead were
students or
pro-government activists. Scores
of others
were wounded.
A solemn-faced President B.J. Habibie
expressed his condolences to the
families of
the dead and injured during a
televised
address, during which he accepted and
praised the results of the MPR
session.
The protesters have been pushing for radical political
reforms.
Elections due next year
The assembly backed a plan to hold parliamentary elections
in either May or
June and to open the ballot to a wide range of new political
parties. But it did not
set a date for the poll.
Habibie has pledged to bring a level of
democracy to the country of 200 million
people.
Assembly members, many of them
holdovers from the authoritarian Suharto
era, hailed the decrees as major reforms,
pointing to their demands for greater
human rights and economic restructuring.
But students and other critics said they
did not represent major democratic change and only
entrenched the power of
the status quo, including Habibie, the military and the
ruling Golkar Party.
Military to remain in politics
The assembly's aim for total consensus stumbled when the
Muslim-oriented
United Development Party (PPP) opposed allowing the powerful
military to
keep its 75 seats in the country's 500-seat Parliament.
The PPP, which backed student demands for the immediate end
to the military's
political involvement, lost the assembly vote. However, the
role of the military,
which long propped up the now discredited Suharto regime,
will gradually be
reduced to 55 seats.
MPR decrees supersede any laws passed by parliament.
Under Suharto, the assembly was infamous for being a rubber
stamp grouping.
Friday's action was the first time in about three decades
that the assembly was
forced to stage a formal vote and failed to reach total
agreement on any issue.
Still, the decree was passed 784 to 123.
Suharto probe possible
After a protracted debate the assembly named Suharto as
among those who
could be investigated in efforts to eradicate corruption in
business and
government.
However, this fell short of
demands by
thousands of protesting
students who
want the former autocrat put on
trial for
enriching himself and his
family during his
32-year rule.
Suharto, 77, was forced to quit
last May
after riots and protests. Since
then he has
protested his innocence.
A government anti-corruption
investigation, rejected by critics as a whitewash, has yet
to uncover any evidence
of wrongdoing by him.
The decree calls on Habibie's government to eradicate and
investigate corruption
by "former state officials, their families or cronies and
private businesses as well
as conglomerates -- including former President Suharto."
It added that such an investigation should take into account
the presumption of
innocence and human rights.
Other assembly-passed reforms include limiting presidential
terms to two
five-year periods, handing greater responsibility to the
provinces, and tackling
corruption and economic disparity.
Jakarta Bureau Chief Maria Ressa, The Associated Press
and Reuters
contributed to this report.
Related stories:
Indonesia troops fire on student protesters - November
12, 1998
Thousands of students march against Indonesian assembly
- November 12,
1998
Violence rocks Jakarta for second straight day -
November 11, 1998
Indonesian assembly convenes; street clashes reported -
November 10,
1998
Related sites:
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
Indonesia Internet Information Center - starting point
for information about
Indonesia
DKI Jakarta - official Web site of the capital city of
the Republic of
Indonesia
Indonesia Times Online - English language daily
AsianNet - Indonesia Home Page
External sites are not
endorsed by CNN Interactive.
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