Megawati told to shut down her headquarters

JAKARTA (JP): East Jakarta mayor Lt. Col. Sudarsono ordered the ousted chief of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), Megawati Soekarnoputri, to shut down her new party headquarters or "face the consequences".

In a letter, dated Monday, Sudarsono gave Megawati three days to close down her PDI headquarters in Condet, which he said was in a residential zone which was not for offices.

The letter was addressed to Megawati and her secretary general Alexander Litaay. A copy of the letter was made available to The Jakarta Post.

"If you fail to comply with this order within the set period... the East Jakarta mayoralty will forcibly shut it (the headquarters) down and you will have to bear all the consequences," Sudarsono wrote.

Megawati opened the office on Sept. 9. She leased the office, a large house, from businessman Erwin Pardede, who is said to be a member of the ruling Golkar party.

On July 27, Megawati lost the official PDI headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta, to Soerjadi who lead the breakaway party members who deposed her as PDI chief in a government- sanctioned rebel congress in Medan in June. Megawati has refused to recognize the congress.

The July 27 raid on the headquarters triggered the worst riots in Jakarta in 20 years. According to National Commission on Human Rights, five people were killed in the riots. At least 120 people are to be tried in connection with the riots.

The badly damaged Central Jakarta party headquarters is now under police control. The new PDI chairman, Soerjadi, uses his home in the state housing complex in South Jakarta as his headquarters. So far there have been no reports on whether the city government has objected to Soerjadi's home-made headquarters.

The mayor's order against Megawati came less than a week after National Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dibyo Widodo and Armed Forces Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung warned that the authorities would forcibly close the office down.

The officers maintained that Megawati is no longer the legitimate PDI leader and that her headquarters is illegal.

Litaay said his camp would discuss the mayor's ultimatum today.

But he questioned the authorities claim that Condet is an exclusively residential area. "We know a lot of offices and factories there," he told The Post.

He said there is something fishy behind the government's action. "The very building we are hiring was used as an office and nobody questioned it."

Separately, Sudarsono told reporters that Megawati's headquarters was the only residential house being used as an office in Condet.

"Megawati ignored the warning issued by the Condet subdistrict government and therefore I had to step in," he said.

The mayor's action received prompt support from M. Aman, a city councilor in charge of administrative affairs.

"The city administration should also act against all other houses which are used as offices," he said. (pan/anr/imn)