Wiranto quits Cabinet

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, MAY 16. The former Chief of the Indonesian military forces (TNI), Gen. Wiranto, today resigned from the Cabinet of the President, Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid. Gen. Wiranto, who recently retired from the TNI, had earlier been ``suspended'' as the Senior Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security Affairs.

Today's development is a sequel to the interrogation of Gen. Wiranto by the Attorney General's Office in Jakarta in regard to allegations that he was responsible for the post-referendum carnage in East Timor last year by his acts of omission and commission. Gen. Wiranto's reasoning for his resignation was that he did not want to be seen as an obstacle to the investigation of the East Timor crisis by staying on in the Cabinet, even if only as a decommissioned Minister.

The political irony is that Gen. Wiranto, who had refused to budge from his Cabinet post when Mr. Wahid repeatedly called for his resignation, has now chosen the same course at time not chosen by the President. This appeared to have suited both the President and Gen. Wiranto if only because Mr. Wahid had by now defanged the former TNI chief by first suspending him from the Cabinet and later ensuring that he bowled out of the Army as well. However, there is more to the timing of Gen. Wiranto's resignation than meets the eye. He has resigned soon after the ``historic'' accord on Aceh.

The accord between Jakarta and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) on what was described as a ``humanitarian pause'' has been hailed by the U.S. Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright, as she received the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Mr. Alwi Shihab.

Ms. Albright called for a transformation of the ``pause'' into a permanent arrangement for truce and peace. Mr. Alwi indicated that the accord could serve as first step towards a resolution of the problem of separatist violence and the military counter- action alleged to be violative of the human rights of the people of the province.

International attention has zeroed in on Aceh and the suspicions of the TNI's involvement of a negative kind there following signs of a stabilisaiton of the situation in East Timor. Gen. Wiranto's resignation could also be seen as an action designed to give the Wahid administration a free hand to investigate the role of the TNI in Aceh. On a separate front, the former Indonesian President, Gen. Suharto, has once again been interrogated at his Jakarta home by the Attorney General's Office.

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Section  : International
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