Pakpahan, Budiman trials starts

JAKARTA (JP): The first sessions of trials charging 10 activists with subversion against the state went smoothly yesterday, but raised eyebrows for failing to refer to previous allegations that the activists had masterminded the July 27 riots.

Despite the presence of hundreds of military and police, no strict security measures were applied when Budiman Sudjatmiko, leader of the now outlawed Democratic People's Party (PRD), his eight colleagues and prominent labor unionist Muchtar Pakpahan were tried simultaneously in two different district courts yesterday.

Budiman, Garda Sembiring, Suroso, Ignatius Pranowo and Yakobus Eko Kurniawan were tried in the Central Jakarta District Court, while the trials of Muchtar, Petrus Hariyanto, Ken Budha Kusumandaru, Victor da Costa and I Putut Arintoko proceeded 15 kilometers away at the South Jakarta District Court.

Prosecutors read the defendants similar accusations of "having committed a series of activities in the past two years which could either upset, digress or undermine the state ideology of Pancasila."

Under Indonesia's colonial-legacy Subversion Law, the charge carries a maximum penalty of death.

A throng of activists, diplomats from Canada, the United States, and Australia, an official from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, plain clothes officers and curious people packed the courtrooms during the hearings which received full media coverage.

Budiman, 26, stole the limelight during the hearings held in Central Jakarta. Wearing a white shirt, a fresh looking Budiman listened calmly to prosecutor Mohammad Salim in the trial presided over by Judge Syoffinan Sumantri, which lasted more than an hour.

Salim unveiled evidence ranging from Budiman and his friends' failure to specify the Pancasila as the PRD's ideology, their involvement in several labor demonstrations, and other activities in quest of the abolition of the 1985 laws on politics and the Armed Forces' socio-political function known as dwi fungsi.

No riot link

The prosecutor, however, said nothing about Budiman or his friends direct involvement in the July 27 riots. Nor did Salim mention a word about "communism," the banned ideology previously pinned on the PRD by the authorities.

The riots broke out on Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta, following the forced take-over of the Indonesian Democratic Party's headquarters there. At least four people died, 23 are still missing and 124 were injured in the riots.

Soon after the riots, the authorities accused Budiman and his friends of being behind the unrest.

"On July 27 the defendant and other PRD activists were among the masses involved in the riots around Jalan Diponegoro," was all that Salim said about Budiman and his colleagues' role in the unrest.

Budiman and his friends were arrested in August.

Budiman told Judge Syoffinan, who had to repeat the question three times, that he did not understand the charge.

"I understand the language (of the charges) but I don't understand the substance," Budiman said after a brief explanation of the charges from his defense lawyers.

One of the lawyers, Luhut Pangaribuan, said his client did nothing wrong other than express his ideas, an act that is lawful in the light of the 1945 Constitution.

"He did not conduct an armed rebellion, the trial is likely to seek justification, not the truth," he said.

At South Jakarta District Court, prosecutor R. Moekiat accused Pakpahan of making a number of subversive and anti-government statements, such as "a people power revolution will prevail if a constitutional reform fails."

Moekiat also said that 43-year-old Pakpahan, leader of the unrecognized Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union (SBSI), has spread hatred against the government in a book he wrote and in other statements made between August 1995 and July 27, 1996.

The indictment said subversive remarks were also made during a speech at a Portuguese university in February and during an interview with Dutch television NOVA in July this year at his home.

"The defendant made his remarks which he knew or should have known could overturn, damage or undermine the authority of the state and its legal apparatus," Moekiat told the court.

The indictment quoted an incriminating statement released by SBSI on July 1996, signed by Pakpahan, protesting the government's meddling with PDI's internal affairs by engineering a rebel party congress a month earlier in Medan, North Sumatra.

Another Pakpahan statement which directly connected him with the July 27 riots was an SBSI release on the chronology of the riots. The document accused the military and government-backed PDI chairman Soerjadi of using hoodlums to take over the PDI headquarters.

All the trials will resume next Thursday. (08/amd)