Stop screening film on 1965 coup: LBH

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The Legal Aid Office here has urged Minister of Information Muhammad Yunus to stop requiring television stations to screen the film G-30 S/PKI on the September 1965 attempted coup before the facts concerning the event were clarified.

The LBH said in a recent statement that so far there were indications that the film, which all television stations are required to screen on the evening of Sept. 30 each year, "was laden with political engineering to favor the Soeharto regime".

The film, directed by Arifin C. Noer and produced in 1982, has been praised for its convincing portrayal of characters, including Amoroso Katamsi as the then Maj. Gen. Soeharto and writer Umar Kayam as first president Sukarno. Many viewers have complained about the length of the film, which runs for 271 minutes, and that there are no other options on TV when it is screened.

But the government's version of the coup attempt by the now- outlawed Indonesian Communist Party has been questioned in some circles, such as by academics.

The film has been shown each year since 1984 to commemorate Pancasila Sanctity Day on Oct. 1, when the coup was aborted. The commemoration refers to the considered common faith in the ideology which defeated communist forces.

LBH director A. Budi Hartono said the event was closely linked to the issuance of the Supersemar, the executive order signed on March 11, 1966. The document supposedly empowered Maj. Gen. Soeharto to take all necessary steps to restore peace and order following the bloodshed and demonstrations against the government after the attempted coup. The whereabouts of the original document is unknown.

LBH Yogyakarta is the legal counselor of a former bodyguard of first president Sukarno who recently spurred a fresh debate on the Supersemar. The ex-bodyguard at the Bogor Presidential Palace, Soekardjo Wilardjito, has retracted his statement in which he claimed three generals who presented the document to Sukarno were brandishing pistols at the time. He has backtracked and said the generals were only gripping their guns.

Budi said because his client's version differed from the government's version, it should serve as an important source to reconstruct both the attempted coup and the Supersemar document.

"Only after that, a new film could be made," Budi said.

Soekardjo was jailed for 12 years without trial for involvement in the Communist Party, he said. (23/44)