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.