TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
National scene: PKS balks at granting Soeharto hero title
Not a hero: Human rights victims of the 1965 tragedy as part of the rights group Forum 65 participate in a hearing with representatives of the Social Affairs Ministry in Jakarta on Thursday
Change Size
N
span class="inline inline-center">Not a hero: Human rights victims of the 1965 tragedy as part of the rights group Forum 65 participate in a hearing with representatives of the Social Affairs Ministry in Jakarta on Thursday. In the meeting, Forum 65 opposed of the idea to give the late former president Soeharto a national hero title.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the biggest Islamic party in Indonesia, says a plan to bestow the country’s longest-serving president, Soeharto, with the title of national hero, needed to be studied.
Even though the PKS supported the idea in 2008, the party’s secretary-general, Mustafa Kamal, said the legislature had to review the plan.
“It could be done by House of Representatives Commission VIII as a partner of the Social Affairs Ministry because that ministry issues the title,” Mustafa said as quoted by kompas.com on Thursday.
When asked why the party nominated Soeharto as a national hero in 2008, he said that it was not the party’s decision, but merely a decision made by one of its members.
Soeharto has been nominated by the Golkar Party, his regime’s main supporter, to receive the prestigious title three times since 2010, but to no avail because of growing opposition from activists, citing records of his role in a number of human rights abuses during his time as president.
This year, he is among four people under consideration by the Social Affairs Ministry to receive the prestigious title.
