Rights body finds flaws in party office takeover

JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights continued yesterday with their effort to investigate possible human rights violations committed during the forced takeover of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) headquarters recently.

Four commission members visited the headquarters and found "irregularities" which they said should be investigated further. For instance, they detected a sharp acid smell and found newly applied putty in the damaged rooms.

"The way the headquarters was ransacked and the acid smell indicated an irregular condition. We'll collect all these facts, analyze them and incorporate them into our report," commission secretary-general Baharuddin Lopa said yesterday.

Accompanied by Soegiri, Clementino Dos Reis Amaral and Albert Hasibuan, Lopa also visited some of the buildings that were damaged and burned during the July 27 rioting, which erupted following the takeover.

One of the lingering problems left from the rioting that the government blamed on the Democratic People's Party, was the question of missing people and those still detained at police detention centers.

There have been varying accounts on the number of people missing, with the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation putting the figure at 22. The legal aid office had earlier lamented that access to hospitals was blocked, which prevented them from verifying reports about people reportedly injured or killed during the rioting.

Sandyawan Sumardi of a non-governmental organization, the Jakarta Social Institute, told The Jakarta Post that the search has been extremely difficult.

"Though we told officers the places where victims would be logically placed and that we were working with the National Commission on Human Rights, we still don't receive any assistance," he said.

Three agencies -- the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, the Jakarta Social Institute and the National Commission on Human Rights -- have formed a fact finding committee.

Besides, "Many people don't dare report a family member as missing because they have been threatened and spied on," Sandyawan alleged.

Meanwhile, Mangara Siahaan, a member of the ousted PDI executive board under Megawati Soekarnoputri, was upbeat about the detained persons at the city police detention center.

"Experience has shown that detained people will be released soon," he assured worried people crowding the entrance of the city police detention center in search of their missing relatives.

He said PDI's latest figures on its missing members was 50 people.

The detention center is currently holding at least 240 persons, around half of which are those rounded up during the July 27 riots. Officers said that although the detention center can hold up to 300 persons, the visitors' area was too small to hold the unusually large number of visitors.

While waiting for his turn to visit the detainees, Mangara tried to answer questions from their worried relatives. Theresia, asking about her younger brother Hendriko from the PDI East Jakarta branch, was told that since he had a PDI membership card, he would likely be soon released.

"Remain convinced that your brother is not a thief or a criminal," Mangara said.

"I will also be questioned by the police," he said, adding that officially unrecognized party chairwoman Megawati will also come for questioning today and try to visit the detainees. (imn/14/anr/swe)