No Telkom staff involved in phone tap: Nasution

No Telkom staff involved in phone tap: Nasution

BANDUNG (JP): President of state-owned telecommunications
company PT Telkom Asman Akhir Nasution insisted there was little
possibility Telkom officials were involved in the reported taping
of a phone conversation between President B.J. Habibie and
Attorney General A.M. Ghalib.

He said here on Sunday that the phone tap, if there was one,
must have occurred outside of the main telephone station, which
was guarded by Telkom officials at all times.

"For certain state installations, such as the
telecommunications network for the President, the main
distribution frame facility within the central station is kept in
a special room guarded by intelligence officers," he said. "They
have the key. Even I, the president of the company, cannot
enter."

"The facility is guarded 24-hours a day, so there is small
possibility that the tap was there," he said.

In the telephone network, up to 20 numbers are grouped in one
distribution point box. From this facility, the network continues
on to a bigger cable house -- which may consist of up to 2,400
numbers. From this second point, primary cables go to a central
exchange station regulated by a main distribution frame.

Meanwhile, experts differed on whether Panji Masyarakat weekly
violated journalistic ethics by publishing the transcript of the
purported conversation between Habibie and Ghalib, where the two
discussed the investigation into former president Soeharto.

Veteran journalist Atmakusumah Astraatmadja said the weekly
was only carrying out an investigative report, while his
colleague, Mochtar Lubis, said the weekly was wrong to run the
story without confirmation from Habibie or Ghalib.

"Panji did not violate the Journalistic Codes of Ethic," said
Atmakusumah, who is the director of the Dr. Soetomo Press
Institute.

"The press is here to educate the public about affairs they
should know about, and it is entrusted with the task of always
presenting something new," Atmakusumah was quoted by Antara as
saying.

He said the purported conversation contained information the
public had a right to know about.

However, Mochtar said on Friday, "Journalists must know the
limit, the extent to which they can or cannot go to publish
information. Particularly if it concerns the state's interests."

The journalists should have first confirmed the recorded
conversation was authentic, and if the two men involved were
ready to be exposed, Mochtar stated.

Also on Saturday, renowned press observer Ashadi Siregar from
Gadjah Mada University warned the press of being manipulated by
parties wishing to achieve their own political ends.

"Most of the time, the press is dancing to other people's
tunes... and the press has often fallen victim itself in the
end," he told The Jakarta Post by phone from Yogyakarta.

Asked if Panji's journalists should protect their news
sources, Ashadi said, "Yes, if they were sure they had not fallen
into any (political) engineering behind the leakage of the
information."

Atmakusumah, however, expressed concern over the possibility
that the weekly would be pressured into revealing its source.

"That would be damaging for the Indonesian press and for the
campaign to accelerate investigate reporting," he said.

Uni Zulfiani Lubis, the acting chief editor of Panji, was
questioned by police last week but refused to the reveal the
source of the recording.

Mochtar said the journalists could be brought to court and
charged with divulging classified information.

Legal expert Andi Muis said in Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi,
both Habibie and Ghalib could file either criminal or civil
charges against the weekly if it continued to refuse to reveal
its source.

However, the weekly is only doing what is known as the
international journalistic practice of investigative reporting,
he acknowledged.

He pointed out that Indonesia did not have a law on the
publication of stories derived from phone taps.

Minister of Justice Muladi said last Thursday the taping of
any phone conversation was against 1964's telecommunications Law
No. 5 and the 1982 Nairobi Convention, which categorized such
actions as crimes.

The person responsible for such a violation may be sentenced
to up to five years in jail, he said. (43/27/29/01/aan/gis)