Case closed on Priok riot: Gen. Feisal
JAKARTA (JP): Armed Forces (ABRI) Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung has flatly rejected demands to reopen the investigation into a bloody riot in Jakarta's Tanjung Priok district 12 years ago.
"That case is closed, and will never be reopened. There will not be another investigation," Feisal was quoted by Antara as saying on Saturday.
Rather than reviving the past, people should look to the future, or even better, work for the future of this nation, Feisal said while witnessing the climax of a massive military exercise in the Natuna Islands, Riau.
The National Commission on Human Rights has received many requests from public figures, Moslem organizations and relatives of the victims of the riot to launch a new investigation into the Sept. 12, 1984 incident.
They said the official account, particularly the number of casualties given by the government, was far from satisfactory.
According to the official version, troops opened fire on the machete-wielding protesters who rampaged after hearing fiery anti-government sermons at a mosque in the rundown Tanjung Priok district in North Jakarta.
The ABRI chief at the time, Gen. L.B. Moerdani, initially said eight people were killed in the incident. A month later, he revised the figure to 18. Moerdani later became a defense minister before retiring from public office in 1993.
The National Commission on Human Rights, which was established in 1993, said that because of its tight agenda, it could only discuss the requests for a new investigation in December.
Minister of Defense and Security (Gen.) Edi Sudradjat, who was also in Natuna on Saturday, did not rule out the possibility of reopening the investigation, but said a new investigation would be difficult.
"It happened so long ago. What else can you investigate, and what do you expect to find? You should ask what is the relevance of an investigation for something that has been (officially) closed."
On Thursday, women and children, who said their husbands or fathers went missing in the Sept. 12, 1984 riot, gathered to mark the 12th anniversary of the incident at a mosque in Tanjung Priok.
Arief Biki, whose brother Amir Biki, a preacher, was slain on that fateful night, said he had gathered documents to give to the human rights commission to help a new investigation.
The demands for a new investigation came after the commission released its bold report on the bloody riots in Central Jakarta last July.
The commission said five people were killed and 74 people went missing in the riots. The government said that four died in the riots, but has not referred to any missing people.
Timing
In Surabaya, Amien Rais -- a respected Moslem leader who called for a new investigation into the Tanjung Priok riot -- said Saturday he was hopeful the National Commission on Human Rights would agree to investigate the incident.
He agreed that a new investigation was untimely because of heightened political tension over the approaching election.
Amien, the chairman of the educational Muhammadiyah organization, said that relatives of the victims should pursue their demands with political discretion but also with a sense of justice.
"The related parties should agree on the right timing of an investigation," said Amien, also an expert on Middle East affairs at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta.
He called on the victims' relatives to forward their demands politely so that the government would not feel cornered, because their well-intentioned proposal would then become counter- productive. (emb/pan)