It has been reported that a National Dialogue will take place on Friday, 16 January. According to a report in Suara Pembaruan on 12 January, the meeting will be attended among others by Megawati Sukarnoputri, chair of the PDI, and Amien Rais who chairs the mass Muslim organisation Muhammadyah (both of whom have called recently for Suharto to step down and have stated their intention to make a bid for the presidency.) Others who will attend are the retired general, Rudini, whose last position in government was as Interior Minister in 1988 - 1993 (and who in retirement has made some trenchant criticisms of the situation) and the present Social and Political Affairs Chief of Staff of the armed force, Lt Gen Yunus Yosfiah (He will be remembered by East Timor activists as the man responsible for the Balibo killings. His appointment to the present post was made against the wishes of Suharto so he is clearly not a Suharto loyalist.) The well-known Catholic activist priest, Romo Mangunwijaya, has expressed enthusiasm about the meeting.

The initiator of this National Dialogue is Adi Sasono, at present secretary-general of ICMI, who has survived several attempts by Suharto to have him removed. Sasono is also director of the ICMI think-tank, CIDES, and it is in this capacity that he is convening the meeting on Friday.

Explaining the reasons for holding the event, Sasono said there were no pretentions about replacing the function of Parliament or the MPR (due to meet in March and re-appoint Suharto). However, democratic processes cannot be left to an official body that meets only once in five years. The many riots during 1997 might never have occurred if the official bodies had been functioning properly.

'We need to enhance our sense of solidarity by means of dialogue between leaders which can push forward the constitutional process so as to be able to solve the grave crisis now engulfing the country.'

Those who think we can leave it to Parliament clearly dont realise just how serious the crisis now is, he said. Efforts by the government and Pparliament over the past six months have failed to solve anything; indeed, the situation has only continued to deteriorate.

[This appears to be a serious attempt to break the mould of Indonesia's paralysed political system. It will be interesting to see who else turns up at this meeting - Tapol.]