Confusion reins over arrest plan

Confusion reins over arrest plan

JAKARTA (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid and a top aide gave
conflicting statements on Monday about the move to arrest or
question legislators believed to have been responsible for many
of Indonesia's current political troubles.

Cabinet Secretary Marsilam Simanjuntak told a media briefing
that the President's permission given to the police was to
question rather than to arrest members of the House of
Representatives and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

While refusing to give any names or their specific crimes,
Marsilam said their number was not more than 10, and that they
were wanted for questioning as "witnesses" in a number of ongoing
police investigations.

"I cannot disclose their names, but, there were fewer than 10
letters signed by the President in the last four to five weeks,"
he said, adding that "Some of them have already been questioned
by the police or the attorney general's office".

Hours later and several hundred kilometers away, the President
still talked in the same vein as he has done throughout the
weekend, saying the permission was for their arrest.

Speaking at a public dialog in the North Sumatra city of
Medan, Gus Dur, as the President is popularly called, went on
further setting a deadline for the National Police to make the
arrests.

"I give the police until July 15 to arrest the provocateurs,"
he said. The National Police as of July 1 came directly under the
President's command and not under the Indonesian Military.

Abdurrahman said police were under specific orders not to
release them until the People's Consultative Assembly's annual
meeting in August.

He said he did not want to take any risk of tolerating anti-
government movements ahead of such an important political event.
"The provocateurs would continue their activities to disturb the
MPR meeting," he said.

"Trust me, the police already have their names. Arresting them
is only a matter of time," he said when asked why he still
refused to disclose their identities.

With names conspicuously missing from these explanations,
speculations have centered on Ginandjar Kartasasmita and Fuad
Bawazier, two MPR members who served in the cabinet of former
president Soeharto.

Both men have denied any wrongdoing and said they were victims
of a vicious slander campaign.

The government's campaign to round up the "provocateurs" came
after repeated official statements blaming the supporters of
Soeharto for instigating the sectarian clashes in Maluku and
other violent conflicts in the country.

They have also noted that sectarian clashes tend to erupt in
Maluku or the Central Sulawesi regency of Poso each time the
government clamped down hard on the former president, who has
been under investigation for corruption.

Following the government's declaration of a state of emergency
in Maluku, critics said the government's efforts to resolve the
Maluku conflict would be fruitless unless it clamped down hard on
the provocateurs, including the financial backers, in Jakarta.

By law, a presidential approval is required for the police to
question any member of the House or the Assembly.

Marsilam denied the accusations that the President had ordered
the investigation in revenge of the House's decision last week to
summon him for questioning regarding his decision to fire two of
his Cabinet members in April.

"The President needs to deny these suspicions and accusations
that the investigation was triggered by revenge over the House's
use of its interpellation right," Marsilam said.

"The President said there was no link between the
investigation and the interpellation right," he said.

The President has agreed to appear before the House on July
10, he added.

Attorney General Marzuki Darusman added to the confusion on
Monday by disclosing that his office also plans to summon some
legislators, along with politicians, business people and
activists, in connection with the corruption investigation
against Soeharto.

The list includes executives who managed the multibillion
dollar fund in Soeharto's charity foundations, Marzuki said.

He stressed however that this corruption had nothing to do
with the President's weekend revelation of the plan to "summon" a
number of legislators in connection with the riots.
(byg/prb/bby)