Atul: Forgotten martyrs of reform

Atul: Forgotten martyrs of reform

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung

The sun was directly overhead when thousands of students from
colleges in Lampung staged a rally in protest against the draft
law on the State of Emergency (RUU PKB) on Sept. 28, 1998.

Traffic on Jl. Zainal Abidin Pagar Alam and Jl. Teuku Umar
jammed up for miles as the mass of youth faced off against
military and police troops in front of the Kedaton Military
Command in Bandarlampung.

Suddenly, rocks and plastic bottles were hurled in the
direction of the troops. The students slowly advanced toward the
fence of the command office. The fence collapsed. Then they
stoned the sign outside the office. The calls from the students,
demanding president B.J. Habibie's government postpone the
enactment of the draft law, was responded to by warning shots
fired into the air. This threat quickly became an attack as
soldiers bludgeoned students with their rifle butts. The crowd
fled to the campus grounds of the Bandarlampung University (UBL)
nearby.

The sun was a little lower later when a soldier's rifle butt
smashed into the head of a young woman in a jilbab (Muslim
head scarf) who had been taking pictures during the event,
cracking her skull like an eggshell. Saidatul Fitria, 19, fell to
the ground. She screamed in pain before falling unconscious. Her
friends rushed her to the Abdul Moeloek General Hospital in
Bandarlampung.

Atul, as she was fondly called, was a campus reporter at the
Teknokra Lampung University (Unila). On that day, she was
assigned by her editor to cover the protest. It was to be her
last assignment. Five days later, she died in hospital after
never emerging from a coma.

Another student from UBL, Yusuf Rizal, was shot dead by troops
in the incident. Rizal died after a bullet pierced his heart.

Students and lecturers in Lampung later formed a team to push
for an investigation into the killings. However, demands from
students and pro-democracy elements, including the Commission for
Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), for the
government to probe the Sept. 28, 1998, tragedy in Lampung have
so far fallen on deaf ears.

It has already been seven years since Atul's death. Like the
Semanggi and Trisakti cases, the death of the two students in
Lampung is still unclear. The government had established a
special task force to probe the Semanggi and Trisakti cases and
had brought several security personnel to court, but not for the
cases of Atul and Rizal.

Tired of waiting for her killing to be resolved, Atul's
parents who are farmers, finally accepted her death. They no
longer hold out any hope that the soldier who killed their
daughter will be brought to trial.

Atul is still remembered as a student activist and journalist
in her campus, who died a martyr for the fight against the excess
powers of the state. Students in Lampung still call out her name
during rallies.

Her memory also continues to be an inspiration for student
activists to get involved in campus journalism. Fellow students
at Teknokra loved her for her captivating smile and friendliness,
and she will always be remembered as a courageous reporter.

Former chief editor of the Teknokra, Juwendra Ardiansyah, said
it was he who had given her the assignment to cover the clash
between students and security forces in front of the UBL campus.

"She was a brave girl. We can only continue to condemn the
incident. I feel very sad whenever I recall that day, especially
when we had the chance to speak to her before she died," he said.

A law lecturer at the Unila, Wahyu Sasongko, who headed a team
advocating for the investigation of the Atul and Rizal killings,
said that his office had time and again urged the government to
form a task force to resolve the cases. Neither had the regional
administration nor the military shown any interest in helping to
find the perpetrators, Wahyu said.

Preliminary police investigations at the time found no
evidence or witnesses who would come forward about the killings,
which observers say showed the lack of seriousness of the police
in investigating the case. The advocating team had also requested
assistance from the Legal Aid Institute and Kontras.

"If they say the Trisakti and Semanggi tragedies are obscure
thus far, then the Sept. 28 tragedy in Lampung is more obscure,
despite the fact that two students were clearly killed," Wahyu
said.