PDIP Urges Government to Reopen Investigation into Kudatuli Case

PDIP Secretary-General Hasto Kristiyanto has urged the government to reopen a judicial investigation and a connectivity trial to uncover the mastermind behind the Kudatuli incident. He made the statement during a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the attack on the PDIP Central Executive Board office on 27 July 1996, known as the Kudatuli incident, on Sunday (26/7).

“Resolve the 27 July 1996 case along with other gross human rights violations. The judicial investigation and connectivity trial must be held again,” he said. Hasto stressed that to this day, the state still owes the public the truth about the mastermind of the Kudatuli incident, which resulted in fatalities.

“Who designed this murder of democracy? Where are the missing victims and who is responsible? No matter how bitter the past events, the state must answer,” he stated. Hasto emphasised that the demand to uncover the case was not solely based on PDIP’s desire for revenge. He mentioned that PDIP Chairperson Megawati Soekarnoputri conveyed that this is a moral obligation of a Pancasila state towards its citizens.

“This Kudatuli wound is not the wound of PDI, it is the wound of the Republic of Indonesia, together with all the wounds caused by oppressive power in the past, and we learn from history so that this must not happen again, brothers and sisters,” he said. Furthermore, he believes that the Kudatuli incident was a starting point that spurred the 1998 Reform movement.

“The blood on Diponegoro Street, together with the blood on Trisakti campus and Semanggi 1 and 2, all flowed from the same wound, namely a regime that felt it could do anything to its own people,” he explained. “We must continue to carry the agenda that we once shouldered together and which remains unfinished to this day: the rule of law that is just and impartial,” he added.