'Military not involved in PDI office takeover'

'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)