Police to summon four 'missing' agrarian activists

JAKARTA (JP): City Police will soon summon for questioning four activists in a bid to learn the truth about their whereabouts since the Annual Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), an officer said on Tuesday.

Chief of City Police's criminal investigation for general crimes, Asst. Supt. Tito Karnavian, told reporters that the questioning of the four activists, who returned to their homes on Sunday, hopefully would take place at City Police Headquarters on Friday.

The four men would be questioned as witnesses, he said.

"The letters of summons will be delivered by couriers on Thursday to their respective addresses.

We will investigate to determine whether they were really abducted or not," Tito said.

The four agrarian activists - Anton Sulton, 26, Idham Kurniawan, 24, Usep Setiawan, 28, and Muhammad Hafiz Asdam, 23 - are reported to be staying with their families in West Java.

Usep and Idham stay in the West Java capital of Bandung, Anton in Cianjur and Hafiz in Tangerang.

The activists were on a hunger strike at the MPR building demanding agrarian reforms when they were assisted by medical police personnel into an ambulance at about 7.30 p.m. on their first day of the strike on Aug. 14.

Since they conceded that they were ill, the medical personnel initially intended to drive them to the police hospital Soekanto in East Jakarta.

But on their way to the hospital, the four told police they were better and asked the officers to drop them in front of the General Election Commission on Jl. Imam Bonjol, Central Jakarta.

A senior executive of the Committee for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) Munir said the men then walked from there and had dinner at Plaza Indonesia shopping center.

Next, they walked through Jl. Kebon Kacang area where they were abducted by six men.

Munir told a press conference on Sunday that the activists indicated that one of their abductors had pointed a gun at them and forced them to get into a Toyota Kijang van.

The activists returned home safely on Sunday after two weeks in the hands of the kidnappers, confined at several separate places in Central Java.

Kontras announced on Tuesday that the four were about to publicly testify at its secretariat in the afternoon. But the schedule testimony was postponed after three of them refused to appear.

"Only Anton was ready to testify. The others said they refused to speak today.

Perhaps they will be ready in coming days," said Gianmoko, a Kontras executive.

According to Gianmoko, the four men are currently staying at a safe place somewhere in Jakarta under the supervision of a psychiatrist.

Gianmoko's remarks apparently did not change the police plan to send letters summoning the four even though they might have mailed the letters to the wrong addresses.

"We'll let Kontras know about our plan to summon them," officer Tito said.

Tito also refused to accept arguments from Kontras coordinator Munawarman, who suggested the questioning be held sometime next week, saying that the men have yet to fully recover from the mental trauma of their ordeal.

The police, Tito said, needed their testimonies soon and it should take place at the Jakarta Police Headquarters for safety reasons.

"The police want the case to be completed soon so that it won't create a prolonged polemic with the public," he said.

Moreover, police headquarters has adequate gadgets for such questioning, from recorders to lie detectors, Tito said.

On Monday, Sr. Supt. Saleh Saaf, a spokesman from the National Police Headquarters, disclosed that police detectives already possessed recorded conversations between the four activists and someone who was giving them orders.

But Saleh refused to explain further.

On Tuesday, Saleh conjectured there was a ploy behind the incident.

In another related development, Coordinating Minister for Political, Social, and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said, "I have ordered the police to conduct an objective and factual investigation before initiating further legal processes."

"The government will give special attention to the case," he said. (asa/dja)