ABRI to punish violent members
ABRI to punish violent members
JAKARTA (JP): Four Army members will be court-martialled and
144 other personnel from various military units may also be
arraigned for undue violence when dealing with student-led
protests over a week ago during the Special Session of the
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the Armed Forces (ABRI)
announced on Sunday.
ABRI spokesman Maj. Gen. Syamsul Ma'arif said the four Army
members would be tried for beating up journalists in an incident
on Jl. Imam Bonjol in Central Jakarta on Nov. 12, while the
others would be tried for the shooting spree at the Semanggi
cloverleaf, also in Central Jakarta, on Nov. 13. The 144 men
opened fire at protesters without receiving orders from their
superiors, he said.
Twelve officers have also been "disciplined" for failing to
control their subordinates during the time of unrest which earned
ABRI the public's wrath, he said.
Also in relation to the bloody incident that has come to be
known as Black Friday, 19 more soldiers have received
disciplinary sanctions for beating up protesters, he added.
"Discipline sanctions (against ABRI members) range from heavy
sanctions, light ones, to reprimands," Syamsul told journalists
after announcing ABRI's measures at its headquarters here.
He revealed that 65 weapons had been examined by ballistics
experts from the Army's Weaponry Industry (Pindad) in Bandung,
West Java. No results are available yet.
In a news conference earlier, Minister of Defense and
Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto claimed that ABRI
had done its work "in line with the Constitution" during the Nov.
10 through Nov. 13 MPR session.
"However, we haven't ruled out (the possibility) that there
may have been members of the apparatus who were over-defensive
and who acted beyond normal procedure," he said.
Wiranto vowed that ABRI would take firm action against those
who were guilty, including members of the military.
"We've admitted that (there were undisciplined officers), we
have investigated and will punish those who are guilty," he said.
In the Imam Bonjol incident, nine ABRI members were injured --
three seriously -- when a Safari Volkswagen driven by student
Anas Allamudi smashed into a barricade of soldiers. Three
photographers were beaten up when trying to take pictures of the
incident.
In the Black Friday tragedy, security personnel open fire upon
protesting students in front of the Atma Jaya University. That
day, Syamsul said, five people were killed.
Fifteen people died during the MPR session, and one more --
student Engkus Kusnaedi of Atma Jaya University -- died on
Sunday.
Syamsul said that ABRI had retrieved from one of the victims
"fragments of hard objects" alleged to be from a 5.56-millimeter
live bullet -- whose origin was still being studied by the Army
laboratory in Bandung.
The bullet was not ABRI's, he said.
Syamsul said ABRI had found the bullet had exploded into three
pieces inside the victim's body.
Two of the three fragments passed through the victim's body
while one piece remained, he said.
"This is unusual... ABRI's ammunition usually doesn't break
up like that... we are investigating this," Syamsul said.
He did not rule out the possibility that snipers had been
present and used such bullets.
Also when asked, he denied there had been a split within ABRI
and that the Black Friday incident was contrived by a party
within ABRI to get rid of Wiranto.
"There's no such thing," he said.
Earlier, Wiranto spoke of "a certain radical group with small
real supporters but with a huge obsession for power" within
society -- which he did not name -- who opposed the MPR session
and used student demonstrations to reach its political goals.
According to Wiranto, the radical group had "very cruelly" pit
ABRI against students and the people -- an attempt which Wiranto
believed was to provoke ABRI's use of repressive measures.
"To a certain level, their efforts did provoke apparatus
emotions... but not all victims were caused by clashes with the
apparatus," Wiranto said. (aan)