Police to summon four 'missing' agrarian activists

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)