NATIONAL security adviser Norberto Gonzales
must be green with envy.
Members of an anti-communist group yesterday
surrounded the venue of the launching of Indonesia’s first
Leftist party since the return of democracy to that country,
forcing organizers to evacuate foreign observers, including
former UP President Francisco Nemenzo.
Many of the participants in the launching of
Partai Persatuan Pembebasan Rakyat Nasional (Papernas) or the
National Liberation Party of Unity were trapped at the
conference venue in the resort town of Kaliurang at the
outskirts of Jogjakarta city on Java island, organizers said.
Sonny Melencio, a member of the national
council of the Laban ng Masa Coalition of which Nemenzo is
chairman, said the police and militiamen stood idly by as
members of the anti-communist group harassed and intimidated
participants in the conference which was scheduled to end
Sunday.
Gonzales has been proposing that Leftist
party-list groups be stripped of their Comelec accreditation and
be banned from participating in elections.
Melencio said Nemenzo was among five
foreigners scheduled to address the conference.
Because of the threats from the
anti-communist group, organizers asked the foreign guests to
wind up their speeches and spirited them out from the venue.
"Papernas is an initiative borne out of
collaboration and unity of a number of progressive groups…The
new party aims to bring together a wide array of grassroots
movements in Indonesia against the onslaught of neo-liberal
program of the government and religious fundamentalism,"
Melencio said.
"Laban ng Masa condemns the ongoing harassment by the
Indonesian police and local militias as it appeals to human
rights groups and the progressive community in the Asian region
to protest the ongoing siege of the Papernas congress and the
threat to life and security of the more than a hundred
participants trapped inside the venue," he added. – Reinir
Padua
