Ex-Bakin chief grilled over July 27 incident

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)