Pemuda Pancasila wants to improve image

JAKARTA (JP): The nationalist youth organization Pemuda Pancasila (PP) is trying to polish its image and is asking the public to stop thinking of it as a group of hoodlums.

The chief of the organization's Jambi branch, Edy Sitanggang, said "such an impression should be discarded".

"PP does not discount the possibility that some of its members do tolerate a roughneck system, but the number is relatively small," Edy was quoted by Antara as saying.

He was speaking Saturday at a PP regional meeting in Jambi.

Edy said there was a widely held perception that the organization often used roughneck tactics.

But he said these were merely public misperceptions.

He said vandalism was against the organizations' principles of defending the New Order and contributing to national development.

Edy said PP would scrutinize its membership more closely and that the organization had never recommended its members look for work in places of ill-repute or work as bouncers.

PP is one of the many youth organizations affiliated with the dominant Golkar.

Some of the organization's members have been jailed for being their involvement in several fracases.

In April, more than two dozen PP members were detained after they attacked five billiard houses in West Jakarta.

They said their actions were part of their contribution to eliminate gambling. The members carried out the attacks wearing the organization's black-and-red military style uniform.

But the PP's executive reportedly did not condone the attack and dismissed the leader of the attack from the organization. (mds)