'Pakpahan never uttered antigovt statements'
JAKARTA (JP): A prosecution witness told the court trying labor leader Muchtar Pakpahan yesterday that he had not heard Pakpahan utter any antigovernment statements between August 1995 and July 1996.
The witness, Tohap Simanungkalit, told the South Jakarta District Court, he never heard any of the statements alleged by Prosecutor R. Moekiat.
When Pakpahan questioned Tohap, he asked whether the latter had ever heard him make the statement "Soeharto has lied too much."
Tohap said: "I never heard you make the statement."
Tohap, a deputy chairman of the Pakpahan-led Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union (SBSI), gave the same reply when Pakpahan asked him about other alleged antigovernment statements.
Pakpahan is accused of subversion, punishable by death, for allegedly making subversive statements between August 1995 and July 1996.
According to the indictment, Pakpahan's alleged statements include: "... (I refuse) to nominate Soeharto for 1998", "... Soeharto's administration has turned upside down the country's rule of law", "... (I) do not agree with the Armed Forces' dual function", and "revoke the five political laws."
Tohap, the only witness to testify yesterday, was questioned by the court for almost four hours.
He told the court that Pakpahan's statements in an SBSI newsletter dated July 27 had never been released, as Pakpahan had requested.
The SBSI letter signed by Pakpahan, titled The 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 of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), controlled by supporters of Megawati Soekarnoputri, who Soerjadi had ousted in a government- sanctioned rebel congress in Medan on June 22.
Tohap told the court: "The letter was considered 'not to exist' after the SBSI central board refused to issue it."
Pakpahan was seemingly surprised by Tohap's testimony, saying: "I only knew of the situation just now. I thought the letter had been sent to the mass media," he told the court.
'Labor politics'
The trial, presided over by Judge Djazuli P. Sudibyo, resumed after 13 days off for the Idul Fitri holiday.
Responding to Prosecutor R. Moekiat's question on SBSI activities, Tohap said SBSI was a labor organization involved in "labor politics".
"But, as an independent and democratic labor union, we set our sights on politics and defending laborers' rights. We are neither structurally nor by organization connected with any political party in Indonesia," he said.
"Labor unions which do not step into labor politics are not labor unions at all, for they serve only their masters," Tohap said.
Pakpahan was accompanied yesterday by only one member of his seven-lawyer team, M. Luthfie Hakim, who again jousted with Djazuli.
The judge said "lawyers always protest", in response to Luthfie's protest that the judge had "repeated questions" which he said "wasted time", a move defended by the prosecutor.
Djazuli adjourned the trial until this Thursday because one of the three judges, Marsel Buchari, fell sick. He told the prosecutor to call on Tohap to reappear in court then. (08)