Military announces the arrest of two other PRD activists

JAKARTA (JP): Police in Malang, East Java, have arrested two more activists of the Democratic People's Party (PRD), a tiny leftist group the government blames for inciting the July 27 riot in Jakarta.

Chief of the East Java military command Maj. Gen. Imam Utomo said yesterday that M. Rizal and Wisnu Ranta Hadi, both aged 20, were arrested in their lodging house on Thursday evening.

The two men, students at Malang's Muhammadiyah Teachers Training College, are believed to be leaders of the Malang branch of PRD, which the military has likened to the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party.

"They will be released if there is a lack of evidence to charge them with inciting the riots in Jakarta," Imam told journalists in Surabaya yesterday.

Thursday's arrests brings the number of student activists arrested in East Java to seven. All are members of organizations affiliated to PRD.

Imam said the military is still hunting 30 more PRD and Student Solidarity for Democracy (SMID) activists from Jakarta it believes are hiding in East Java.

Among the 30 are 20 students the authorities temporarily detained when the activists led a major labor demonstration in Surabaya on July 8, Imam said.

The Surabaya police are still holding three activists affiliated to PRD arrested during the July 8 labor protest. They are Coen Husain Pontoh, Dita Indah Sari and M. Sholeh.

The authorities have threatened to charge them with subversion, the most serious offense in the country; it carries a maximum penalty of death.

The suspects' lawyer Trimoelja D. Soerjadi said the authorities' decision to proceed with the subversion charges lacks strong legal argument, as investigations are still ongoing.

Imam also denied reports that the East Java authorities have planned to expand their target in the ongoing crackdown on government critics to include 17 East Java journalists.

"The rumors are baseless. Journalists are friends to us ... except if they become PRD activists," he said.

Meanwhile, SMID chairman Andi Arif said in a press statement that he and his fellow activists will turn themselves in provided the government retracts its accusations that he is "communist" and "incited the July 27 riot".

He said that the accusations are groundless and that he did not receive any orders from the PRD to do anything in the run up to the July 27 incident.

In its first congress, in 1994, he said, SMID adopted the state ideology Pancasila as its guiding principle but it transformed the foundation in 1996 into a popular socialist body, which its activists considered more concrete.

Popular socialism, he argued, was the opposite of communism because it is adopted by liberal welfare states.

According to Arif, SMID had only between 20 and 30 members in Jakarta and on July 27, as the organization had its own activity in Yogyakarta on the same day.

Arif, who finished his studies in sociopolitical science at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University last year, vowed to continue the struggle through underground activities and face the "worst possibility."

He said he was in his home town in Lampung, southern Sumatra, on July 27 and found his boarding house room in Yogyakarta had been raided while he was away.

Chief of the Lampung military regiment Col. A. Sanusi said yesterday that Andi Arif was still hiding in Lampung but he had not decided whether to arrest him.

"He (Andi Arif) is still hiding here. He has not gone anywhere," he was quoted by Antara as saying. "We hope we can catch him very soon."

Sanusi guaranteed that all exit points have been closely watched and there is no way the activist will be able to flee Lampung, let alone go abroad.

The authorities in Lampung have registered 30 people they suspect are PRD supporters. They, too, are being closely watched to make sure they do not leave Lampung, Sanusi said.

Separately, the Association of Yogyakarta Students assailed several human rights and political activists whom it says are outspoken only in "time of peace but tightlipped in time of crisis."

In its press statement, it gave credit to activists like Abdurrahman Wahid, H.J.C. Princen, Sri Bintang Pamungkas, Baharuddin Lopa, Hendardi, Arbi Sanit and R.O. Tambunan for their consistent stand over the way the authorities handled the July 27 affair and its aftermath.

But the students said they have not heard anything from other, usually outspoken, human rights and democracy campaigners such as Ali Sadikin, Adnan Buyung Nasution and Todung Mulya Lubis. (team)