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)