PPP's Ismail Hasan warns of infiltration
JAKARTA (JP): United Development Party (PPP) chief Ismail Hasan Metareum told supporters yesterday to beware of "infiltrators" intending to blot the party's image.
"If you see a stranger wearing PPP attributes but doing bad things, catch and hand over him or her to police," he said while addressing a rally in Malang, East Java.
Ismail's speech came amid heightening political tension as the campaign passed into the third week. PPP rallies, which have drawn unexpectedly large crowds, have been marred with violence.
In several provinces, the PPP's supporters have clashed with Golkar's. People believed to be PPP supporters rampaged in the Central Java town of Temanggung yesterday, attacking government and military offices as well as churches.
PPP rallies in Jakarta yesterday were also marred with violence. Several cars were vandalized and a police officer was mobbed.
President Soeharto ordered election organizers Monday to tell party officials to control their supporters.
Ismail said the PPP could not stop non-supporters joining its rallies because the basic idea of campaigning was to attract the public.
The PPP was a peace-loving party and therefore abhorred violence, he said. Mob violence could be triggered by people wanting to see the election fail.
Malang's streets were jammed yesterday as countless PPP supporters formed motorcades.
PPP rallies in Java were heavily guarded after the Armed Forces Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung's promise to take harsh action against recalcitrant campaigners and supporters.
In the Central Java towns of Demak and Kendal, security precautions were so meticulous that PPP supporters complained that they were stopped and interrogated before reaching rally venues.
In Bogor, troops were deployed as thousands of people roamed the streets in and around the town.
"It's like a war is ensuing," a bus passenger said.
Huge street rallies also happened in Yogyakarta, where campaigners Fauzi A.R. and Sukri Fadholi exploited last year's murder of Bernas daily reporter, Fuad Muhammad Syafrudin, and the 1993 killing of East Java labor activist Marsinah.
Fuad Muhammad Syafrudin, who died in hospital on Jan. 16, is believed to have been murdered because of his scathing reports on corruption in the Bantul administration.
Marsinah's badly mutilated body was found in May 1993, a few days after she had organized a workers' strike at the PT Catur Putra Surya watch factory in Sidoarjo.
A man will soon be tried for Udin's murder, but Marsinah's case remains unsettled after nine defendants were acquitted of all charges by the Supreme Court in 1995.
The PPP Yogyakarta branch will file a Rp 3.9 million (US$1,600) lawsuit today against an attack by Golkar supporters on two of its offices on April 30. The PPP is also demanding that Golkar publicly apologize for the attack.
While the PPP Yogyakarta branch was working on its lawsuit yesterday afternoon, a PPP command post in Mantrijeron subdistrict was attacked by 30 masked men. PPP official Suprianto, who had been on duty there, was beaten with a crowbar, eyewitnesses said.
Elsewhere in Yogyakarta, a member of the PPP security task force was beaten by military personnel who suspected him of unruly campaigning.
PPP rallies in Java were colored again yesterday with banners and pictures portraying a party alliance with the deposed Indonesian Democratic Party's (PDI) leader, Megawati Soekarnoputri.
Similar banners and pictures were on show in Yogyakarta and Pasuruan, East Java. Many Megawati loyalists, wearing red T- shirts and carrying banners in support of the Megawati-PPP alliance, joined convoys jamming the main streets of the two cities.
In Jakarta, the PPP executive board began appealing for people to become its scrutineers for ballot counting on May 29.
Zain Badjeber, a PPP deputy chief, said that the monitoring body was established out of concern about reported widespread poll rigging in the past but couldn't be legally processed due to the lack of witnesses. (amd/bsr/38/23/24/nur/imn/har)