Riots investigation team will meet Officers Honor Council
Riots investigation team will meet Officers Honor Council
JAKARTA (JP): The government-sponsored team investigating the
May riots is to meet the military Officers Honor Council (DKP) to
confirm its belief there were links between the unrest and the
abductions of political activists and the shooting dead of four
Trisakti University students.
The team's chairman, leading human rights campaigner Marzuki
Darusman, said on Thursday that during the meeting with Minister
of Defense and Security/Armed Forces (ABRI) Commander Gen.
Wiranto on Monday, the team was given the "go ahead" to meet the
council.
"It is our perspective that the riots are linked to some
previous conditions.
"These conditions were shaped by the shooting at Trisakti, but
were also affected by a series of violent acts against activists
and students and abductions of them," Marzuki told reporters
after meeting House of Representatives Commission I for defense
and security, foreign affairs, information and politics.
Marzuki, however, said the meeting would involve the team's
subcommittee on testimony led by rights campaigner Bambang W.
Soeharto, at a "later date".
When pressed further whether the plan to meet the council was
related to the speculation that former Army's Special Force
(Kopassus) chief Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto was behind the
riots, Marzuki said the meeting might "shed light on the overall
pattern".
He spoke of efforts to reach certain conclusions from studying
the chronology of the abductions, shootings and the riots, but
"we need to know the overall pattern of how ... these events fit
into an overall picture."
ABRI honorably discharged Prabowo in August and removed two
senior Kopassus officers from active duty for their involvement
in the abductions and torture of political activists.
The decision was issued on the recommendation of the seven-
member Officers Honor Council.
"It is a matter of accessing ... the proceedings (of the
council's investigation) that we feel ... if necessary we might
have to look into the discussion within the DKP.
"The ABRI commander has assured us that we can have direct
access to the members of the DKP and they will be prepared to
(provide) information to the fact-finding team," said Marzuki,
who is also deputy chairman of the National Commission on Human
Rights.
He also said the 18-member team did not rule out the
possibility that the military might have been involved in the
riots, during which security was allegedly nonexistent.
"We are looking very closely into that possibility and into a
variety of possibilities of links, but we cannot make any firm
conclusion at this moment," Marzuki said.
Marzuki also said the team still could not disclose any firm
figure on the number of sexual assaults and rapes that reportedly
took place during the riots, because it was still conducting its
investigation.
"It will be irresponsible (to come out with figures now) ...
and therefore we can only come out with the firm statement that
we have found that there is a very strong basis or evidence that
sexual assaults and also rapes occurred during the riots," added
Marzuki.
Marzuki reiterated the team was scheduled to announce the
final report on its investigation next month.
Doubts about the occurrence of sexual assaults and rapes
during the riots resurfaced on Thursday when House members
criticized the team for failing to come up with hard evidence.
A non-governmental organization claimed on Thursday that it
had hard evidence that the sexual assaults and rapes did occur
during the riots.
Ester Indahyani Jusuf Lubis, the chairwoman of Solidaritas
Nusa Bangsa, told a seminar that the organization had met with a
doctor who treated seven victims of sexual assaults during the
riots.
She said the doctor had secured their medical records,
including pictures of the mutilated genitals.
A source close to the organization told The Jakarta Post that
it intended to report the evidence to the rights body on Monday.
Activists, including those from the Volunteers for Humanity
led by Catholic priest Sandyawan Sumardi, have said that 168
women and children were raped or sexually assaulted during the
riots, 20 of whom have reportedly died or since committed
suicide.
Jakarta Military Command chief of staff Brig. Gen. Sudi
Silalahi was questioned by the team at the former's office on
Thursday.
Sudi confirmed the riots were apparently instigated by groups
of people in an organized manner but did not identify the
mastermind.
Sudi was the seventh active or former government official the
team had examined.
The others include former Jakarta military chief Maj. Gen.
Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin and Prabowo. (byg/01/ivy)