Officers linked to Sukarno admirers
JAKARTA (JP): Armed Forces (ABRI) spokesman Brig. Gen. A. Wahab Mokodongan said yesterday that a group of people recently arrested for participating in illegal military exercises were followers of the late president Sukarno.
Wahab told a press conference yesterday that the group, arrested last week in the East Java town of Malang, had been influenced by Arief Kusno Saputro who claimed to be the reincarnation of Sukarno (not Imam Mahdi Prawironegoro as reported previously). Arief was among those arrested.
Wahab said Arief named the group, consisting of 61 people, "Tenth Division" and offered them military training in order to prepare them to "safeguard Sukarno and to secure the general assembly of the People's Consultative Assembly" next March.
The group, which included three Armed Forces deserters, are being detained at the Malang Police precinct, Wahab said.
"However, there is no indication of subversion so far," he added.
Wahab said the three ABRI members involved were Lt. Col. Kunandar of the Artillery Training Center in Cimahi, West Java; Sgt. Maj. Suripto, a logistic staff official of the Army Strategic Reserves Command's (Kostrad) Second Division; and First Sgt. Ekpriadi of the Navy headquarters' Data Center.
Wahab said there were six other ABRI members involved in the illegal training, but they were still at large.
Wahab said Megawati Soekarnoputri, Sukarno's eldest daughter and the ousted leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), was not involved in the group's activities.
No foreign countries had been involved, Wahab said, adding, however, that a Singaporean by the name of Ahmad Sulaeman had acted as the financial backer of the group's activities.
"Arief persuaded Sulaeman to give him Rp 600 million (US$200,166) to finance the establishment of the 'Tenth Division'," Wahab said.
Sulaeman agreed to provide the money after Arief guaranteed immediate repayment when the group's own money, which Arief claimed to be in a bank in Switzerland, could be withdrawn.
Earlier, East Java Police claimed that a Malaysian, identified only as Salim, acted as a broker for the group to find foreign donors willing to finance its activities. He is still at large. (imn)