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)