Police 'didn't use live ammunition at Trisakti'
Police 'didn't use live ammunition at Trisakti'
JAKARTA (JP): The mystery of who fired the fatal shots in the
May 12 death of four Trisakti University students slowly began to
unfold yesterday when the National Commission on Human Rights
said police did not use live ammunition.
"The commission has obtained strong indications that the
police... did not use live ammunition," commission member Djoko
Soegianto told journalists here yesterday.
A statement read by the commission's secretary-general,
Baharuddin Lopa, said the commission also suspected that a number
of people had remained missing since the incident.
The commission, however, failed to elaborate on either of its
findings.
It was not reluctant to point out that several witnesses to
the incident had been threatened and now refused to give
testimony, originally slated for Tuesday.
"They were threatened by unidentified people forbidding them
to give testimony to anyone," the statement said.
The commission, therefore, urged the special military
investigating team to the Trisakti incident to guarantee the
students' safety.
The threats are clearly hampering the investigation and
impeding the search for the truth behind the shootings, it said
adding that with their testimony further light could be shed on
who exactly fired the fatal shots against the students and how
the whole incident transpired into the tragedy that it did.
Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen.
Wiranto said on May 15 that the special military team set up to
investigate the shootings found that security forces had used
live ammunition.
Wiranto revealed Monday that 14 Armed Forces personnel had
been implicated in the shootings. But he refused to reveal their
identities, adding only that "a few members from another unit"
were also found to have taken "non-procedural and undisciplined
action" during the incident.
Four demonstrators were killed when shots were fired as
students from Trisakti University held a pro-reform demonstration
in front of their campus. Both police and military personnel were
assigned to handle the demonstration.
The incident triggered widespread riots and looting in Jakarta
leaving some 500 dead and causing over Rp 2.5 trillion in
material losses.
Besides the death of four students, the commission said three
others -- economics students Ferro Prasetya and Tammu Abraham
Alexander Bulo and geology student Sofyan Rahman -- were
seriously wounded and remained in the hospital.
A crisis team set up by Djuanda University said nine students
remained missing following a bloody clash between students and
security forces at the university campus in Bogor, West Java, on
May 9.
A report from the team submitted to the commission Saturday
said three students were still being detained following the
clash.
The incident resulted in the death of a police officer who was
killed after repeated blows to the head. (byg)