Ex-Bakin chief grilled over July 27 incident

JAKARTA (JP): Former chief of the State Intelligence Coordinating Board (Bakin) Moetojib denied on Tuesday that a ministerial meeting which had been held on July 1996 had planned a violent takeover of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) headquarters two days later.

"The mood of the meeting never reflected that an attack was being planned on the headquarters," Moetojib said echoing a line of former military and government officials who had also been questioned in the past two weeks over the same attack.

Moetojib was speaking to reporters after being grilled for about five hours by a joint military/police team over the incident.

As reported earlier, a ministerial coordination meeting on politics and security affairs was held two days before the bloody attack which concluded that the ongoing free speech forum at the headquarters should be stopped since it had disturbed public order.

However, Moetojib said that the forum was intended to be stopped through persuasion.

The free speech forum was being held at the headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta, on a daily basis by followers of the party's chairperson, now incumbent Vice President, Megawati Soekarnoputri.

The forum was stopped when a mob, backed by elements from the then Armed Forces (ABRI), violently attacked the headquarters on July 27 that year.

The action, which involved supporters of a PDI splinter group, led by Soerjadi, left five dead -- according to the official record -- with 23 others reportedly still missing and triggered massive unrest in Central Jakarta.

When being asked by reporters about who had been responsible for the attack, Moetajib said, "Ask (the then) chief of the Jakarta Military Command and (the then) Jakarta Police chief about that."

Lt. Gen. (ret) Sutiyoso, currently the Jakarta Governor, and Insp. Gen. Hamami Nata were chief of the Jakarta Military Command and Jakarta Police chief respectively when the incident occurred.

"You know that the chain of command is vertical, not horizontal," Moetajib said.

However, Moetajib refused to confirm whether the direction to attack the headquarters had come from then Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) chief Gen. (ret) Feisal Tanjung. (jaw)