Hundreds rally as search for activists continues

Hundreds rally as search for activists continues

JAKARTA (JP): Hundreds of people from various groups rallied
outside the compound of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)
to express their disappointment with the results of the Annual
Session, which concluded on Friday.

While most of the protesters came from the National Front for
Indonesian Labors of Struggle (FNPBI), the Democratic People's
Party (PRD), the National Students League for Democracy (LMND)
and the Union of All-Indonesia Social and Political Students
(ILMISPI) criticized the MPR, some 150 farmers from West Java
demanded an inquiry into the status of four activists who remain
missing after being taken by Mobile Brigade police from the
Assembly compound on Monday.

The activists, identified as Anton Sulton, 26, Idham
Kurniawan, 24, Usep Setiawan, 28, and Mohamad Hafiz Asdam, 23,
were staging a hunger strike to demand agrarian reforms when the
police forced them into two ambulances belonging to Kramat Jati
Police Hospital in East Jakarta, witnesses said.

The Coalition of Nongovernmental Organizations (Koalisi Ornop)
condemned the National Police for the incident and demanded an
explanation of the whereabouts of the missing activists.

In its joint statement, the group said MPR leaders should also
be held responsible for the activists' disappearance.

A similar statement was issued by the Agrarian Reform
Consortium (KPA), which demanded security authorities release the
four people and the National Police take action against the
kidnappers.

"We were told by the police that the four men were taken to
Kramat Jati Police hospital. But when we checked, the hospital
staff said there were no patients with those four names. We even
went to Jakarta Hospital but to no avail," Yudi Bahari Oktora, a
KPA executive, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He said the police claimed to have dropped Anton and the
others in front of the General Election Commission (KPU) building
on Jl. Imam Bonjol after being taken from MPR compound.

"We have been combing the area since but there is no sign of
their existence," Yudi said.

In Bandung, dozens of students from the Bandung Indonesian
Youth Front (FIM-B) staged a solidarity protest demanding the
return of the activists.

City Police Chief Insp. Gen. Nurfaizi denied on Friday that
his troops were behind the disappearance of the four activists,
but admitted that some medical police personnel left with them
for the Kramat Jati Hospital by ambulance due to their worsening
condition following the hunger strike.

"But the students insisted they be dropped in front of KPU
building, saying they already felt better. Since our personnel
released them, we know nothing about their whereabouts," said
Nurfaizi as quoted by Munir, an executive of the Committee for
Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).

Munir said Kontras believed the City Police was not behind the
probable kidnapping of the four activists.

"However, they, as law enforcers, are responsible to search
for the missing activists," he said.

Munir asserted the disappearance of the four activists could
be categorized as abduction.

Kontras has tried contacting one of the missing people but to
no avail, according to Munir.

Knowing of the way student activist Andi Arief was abducted in
his hometown of Lampung in 1998, Munir speculated certain
individual security personnel might be behind the kidnapping of
the agrarian reform activists.

"Andi was taken by police personnel then he was picked up by
Army Special Force (Kopassus) soldiers," he said.(25/asa/edt)