Remember the 'Red Dragon'

Exactly six years ago, on July 27, 1996, the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) masterminded an attack, code named the Red Dragon Operation, on the headquarters of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) at Jl. Diponegoro 58, Central Jakarta. The incident left five people dead, 149 injured and 23 missing. In the riot in the aftermath of the attack, 56 building were burned down and 197 cars were torched. Total material losses were estimated at over Rp 100 billion.

The attack was typical of what an aging and worried authoritarian regime would do against any force that dared to defy it. Back in 1996, the government considered the Megawati camp that challenged the government-backed Soerjadi faction as dangerous. A three-week freedom forum, with anyone welcomed to make a speech at the party's headquarters, reportedly angered president Soeharto to the extent that he ordered it to be stopped immediately.

Thus ABRI chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung and other top military brass, including then Jakarta Military commander Maj. Gen. Sutiyoso, organized a task force comprising hired thugs, police and soldiers, all disguised as Soerjadi supporters who stormed the headquarters that was being defended by Megawati supporters.

Later the government used an old but useful tactic to find someone on whom to blame the incident: so-called communists. Therefore the small, leftist and newly established Democratic People's Party (PRD) was held responsible and its leaders were purged and arrested. They were accused of treason, and were eventually tried and put behind bars for years.

After six years, even though Soeharto has been dethroned, many of his accomplices are still in power. This is the very reason why the legal process to bring the guilty party to justice has not been completed, since they have managed to slow down the process. Sutiyoso, the incumbent Jakarta governor, has been implicated in the attack.

Apparently six years is not sufficient time to heal the wounds inflicted by the incident. Not only for the more than 100 PDI supporters and PRD leaders who were victimized and jailed, or for the families who lost their loved ones either through death or disappearance, but for the millions of Indonesians who want to see justice done.

They understandably felt betrayed when President Megawati Soekarnoputri endorsed the reelection of Sutiyoso as governor. Obviously, seeing Sutiyoso still in power would remind them of the pain of their old wounds, the smell of the burned PDI headquarters and the decay of our reform movement.

It would be a betrayal of our conscience if we let the legal process vanish into thin air.