'Military not involved in PDI office takeover'

JAKARTA (JP): The military was not involved in the July 27 takeover of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) headquarters, a witness told a court yesterday.

PDI Secretary-General Buttu R. Hutapea, testifying for labor leader Muchtar Pakpahan at the South Jakarta district court, said that the "dozens of people" who stormed the headquarters were all his men led by Alex Widia Siregar.

"They'd all been told to adopt the persuasive approach," he said, denying allegations that his executive board had sought the help of the military to train his cadres.

Pakpahan's lawyer Bambang Widjojanto said that according to the police dossiers, Hutapea admitted to mobilizing 200 people and not just a "few dozen" to take the party office.

Hutapea replied that he had recruited 200 people but only 20 were involved in the operation to occupy the headquarters from supporters of Megawati Soekarnoputri.

When pressed whether his dossier testimony that his men "clambered the fence into the headquarters yard and pelted stones at the party office" could be considered "persuasive," Hutapea said: "No, it was not."

When Hutapea told the court that he did not know who was inside the headquarters when it was overrun by his men, people in the packed public gallery booed and called him a liar.

He rejected a statement issued by the Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union, an independent labor union led by Pakpahan, following the July 27 incident.

The union statement, titled Chronology of the Involvement of Hoodlums in the Takeover of the PDI Headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro 58, accused Soerjadi, hoodlums and the Armed Forces of forcibly taking over the headquarters controlled by backers of Megawati, who Soerjadi had ousted in a government-sanctioned rebel congress in Medan on June 22.

The statement, which Pakpahan signed, was used to charge the union leader with subversion for allegedly undermining the government.

When asked to confirm the witness' testimony, Pakpahan said: "The testimony is irrelevant to this case, but what the witness said is all a lie because it contradicts what the witness had said in the mass media."

Hutapea admitted to the press that it was he who led the raid on July 27 and not the military nor hoodlums as the National Commission on Human Rights had suggested in its October report.

Sri Bintang

Meanwhile at the Central Jakarta District Court, politician Sri Bintang Pamungkas testified on behalf of Democratic People's Party (PRD) activist Garda Sembiring.

Bintang, who founded the Indonesian Democratic Union Party (PUDI) on May 29, 1996, said that it was PUDI and not PRD which had intended to replace President Soeharto's government.

"My party wants to overturn the government peacefully and legally," Bintang said.

Bintang, a former United Development Party legislator, told the court that PRD had no power to agitate people to topple the government unlawfully.

"They are just a bunch of juveniles. How could they agitate older activists to do that?" he asked.

Garda and Budiman, along with seven other PRD activists, are facing charges of undermining the state ideology Pancasila and attempting to topple the government under the 1963 Subversion Law. They face a maximum penalty of death.

Bintang said he assumed that the PRD activists were copying PUDI when they declared themselves a party a month after PUDI's formation.

"I think PRD is following my bold step in establishing a political party. So, I believe that PUDI's manifesto is better than PRD's. They are only reiterating what my party had voiced before," he said.

"Up to now, I've never been charged with leading an opposition party or having the goal of trying to overthrow the government," said the University of Indonesia lecturer who has nominated himself a candidate in next year's presidential poll. (08/35)