Armed Forces has new spokesman

JAKARTA (JP): The Armed Forces (ABRI) installed Brig. Gen. Abdul Wahab Mokodongan yesterday as the Military Information Center's chief.

Wahab, 49, replaces Brig. Gen. Slamet Supriadi, who has been made Deputy Assistant of Intelligence Affairs to the Armed Forces Chief of General Affairs.

Wahab, who was in the same class as Supriadi at the Military Academy, told journalists they could call him 24 hours a day and gave them his handphone number.

"We need close relations between ABRI and the press because the public deserve to know any kind of information," he said.

Supriadi, who had been ABRI's spokesman for only five months, also promised to remain close to the press even though his new position required him to "keep my mouth shut".

Wahab was chief of the Army's information affairs unit for three years before being appointed secretary to the Army Spokesman in 1995. He held this secretarial position for almost two years.

Wahab, a 1971 military academy graduate, is from Kotamobagu subdistrict, in North Sulawesi.

He started his military career as a platoon chief in the Irian Jaya Regional Military Command's Infantry Battalion in 1972.

He spent ten years in Irian Jaya before being transferred to West Java where he spent eight years.

He was made a lecturer at the Army's Staff and Command School in 1990 where he taught for two years before leading the Army's information affairs unit.

Besides studying at the military academy, Wahab studied military strategies and policies at the Armed Forces Staff and Command School and the National Resilience Institute. (imn)