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)