KIPP chairman summoned over subversion case

JAKARTA (JP): Senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad who also heads the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP) has been summoned by the authorities for questioning as a witness in a subversion case.

Reuter yesterday quoted Goenawan as saying that he had been summoned on Tuesday by officials of the Attorney General's Office.

"I'm ready to answer the summons. But because I must give a speech at a seminar of the American Publishers Association in Puncak (in West Java) I have asked that it be postponed. It's up to them when," Goenawan said.

He said he was called as a witness in the case against Budiman Sudjatmiko, the chairman of a small youth organization called the Democratic People's Party (PRD), and his colleagues. The government has branded the group as leftist.

Goenawan is former editor-in-chief of Tempo magazine which was banned by the government in 1994. He chairs the KIPP, which was established last March by critics of the government in order to monitor the general elections next year. The unrecognized organization claims that past elections were marred by cheating.

Budiman is among 10 PRD members detained in mid-August, who are now facing subversion charges which carry the maximum penalty of death. The group was blamed for the July 27 riots which killed several people and injured more than 140.

According to the news agency, Goenawan's summons brings the number of KIPP leaders called in for questioning by the authorities in the wake of the riots to at least eight.

In a related development, the chairman of the Yogyakarta branch of the Indonesian Students' Solidarity for Democracy (SMID), an affiliate of PRD, was reportedly taken away by two armed-men on Saturday evening.

Yul Amrozi, a student of Arabic literature at Gadjah Mada University, was taking a walk with his girlfriend near his campus when he realized he was being followed by two men riding on a motorcycle. One of the men said his name was Sutarto. He then grabbed the student's arm and put a gun to his forehead.

Witnessed by many people, the student, who is known as Oji, resisted. The man fired a shot into the air. Oji's girlfriend fled as Oji was taken away by the men.

Wahyudin, the student's uncle, was visited yesterday morning by two men in civilian clothing who claimed to be officers from the local military district. The two said Oji had been detained and told Wahyudin to follow their car, which had a Semarang license plates, to the Yogyakarta garrison on Jl. Sangaji.

Wahyudin became separated from the two men. When he finally arrived at the garrison, he was told that Oji was not being held there.

A sentry at a police post on the Gadjah Mada University campus told Wahyudin that just before his nephew had been taken away, three men in civilian clothing, claiming to be officers from the 0734 Yogyakarta military district, stopped by. One of the men said his name was Sutarto.

Officials at the military district reportedly told Wahyudin that Sutarto was only a logistics official who could not possibly have made an arrest. The Yogyakarta police could not be reached for confirmation of the report.

Communists

Meanwhile, in Surabaya, influential Moslem leader Amien Rais said that the activists of PRD "cannot yet be called communists". The chairman of the 28-million-strong Muhammadiyah organization conceded, however, that its Political Manifesto, a document which is considered to constitute the statutes of the organization, was indeed "inspired by Marxism-Leninism".

He also voiced his opposition to the use of the subversion law against the activists. "Those activists were interested (in Marxism-Leninism) because they didn't really understand it, they didn't view it critically," he said.

"Don't use the law which carries the death penalty," he said. "They should be punished in a way which will educate them." (15/30/swe)