Priok witnesses tell of abuse during detention

Priok witnesses tell of abuse during detention

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Two witnesses in the Tanjung Priok trials told the ad hoc rights
tribunal on Wednesday of mistreatment by military personnel
during detention following the bloody incident in 1984, when
dozens of protesters were killed by security forces.

"I was ordered to strip to my underwear, I was then told to
roll around in a gravel pit, and was kicked repeatedly by
soldiers surrounding me," Syaeful Hadi said on Wednesday.

Syaeful was one of the two witnesses testifying during the
trial of defendant Maj. Gen. (ret) Rudolph Butar-Butar, who was
then a lieutenant colonel in charge of the Tanjung Priok district
military command in North Jakarta.

Another witness, Lili Adriansyah, told how he was beaten by
soldiers of the same command, and how his hands were tied so
tight that they suffered from a lack of blood circulation.

"They tied my thumbs and wrists together, with plastic rope,"
Lili said, gesturing to the panel of judges.

Lili's hands were finally untied when he was transferred to
the National Military Police headquarters on Jl. Sultan Agung,
Central Jakarta, for registration and interrogation, but it was
too late.

His hands later developed gangrene and had to be amputated.

The bloody Tanjung Priok shooting incident began on the night
of Sept. 12, 1984, after a series of events which culminated in a
crowd of Muslim protesters outside the Tanjung Priok police
station getting shot at random by a group of soldiers from
Platoon III of the Army Air Defense Battalion deployed to guard a
nearby district military command compound.

The crowd was demanding the release of four of their
colleagues detained at the compound for having allegedly burned a
soldier's motorcycle.

The soldier himself had previously angered the local residents
for having allegedly desecrated a small mosque in the area which
he suspected of displaying anti-Soeharto posters.

Butar-Butar is accused of having failed to prevent the killing
spree, the mistreatment of civilians during and after the
incident and failure to hand over those involved, when in fact he
had full authority to do so.

He is the 13th -- out of a total of 14 military personnel --
to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity for the
incident, facing a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum
penalty of death if convicted according to Law No.26/2000 on
human rights.

The series of Tanjung Priok trials is the second human rights
tribunal in Indonesia after the trials on East Timor, where 18
military and police personnel as well as civilians leaders were
brought to court for their roles in human rights abuses before,
during, and after the 1999 United-Nations-sponsored referendum.

Lili, a traveling medicine vendor, was arrested simply because
his car broke down near the scene of the incident and patrolling
soldiers found what appeared to be a sharp object in his car, so
they accused him of being involved with the crowd of protesters.

After a month at the National Military Police headquarters,
Lili was then transferred to the military detention center in
Cimanggis, Bogor regency, West Java for about two and a half
months. He was never formally charged.

Lili was finally released but was ordered to sign an agreement
not to press legal charges against the military regarding his
detention.

Syaeful, on the other hand, was arrested for being among the
crowd of protesters prior to the incident.

And like Lili, Syaeful was then transferred to the military
police headquarters for five days, and then the military
detention center in Cimanggis for more than two months -- without
charges -- before finally being released.

Responding to the testimonies from the two witnesses, Butar-
Butar questioned the relevance of Syaeful's testimony, because he
was actually detained at a Central Jakarta district military
compound, not the one he was in charge of. Butar-Butar, however,
made no comment about Lili's testimony.

The trial was adjourned until Nov. 19 when the panel of judges
will hear more testimony from other witnesses.