Students continue hunger strike to protest graft case

Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Cirebon, West Java

At least eight anticorruption activists continued their hunger strike on Tuesday to put pressure on the Cirebon Prosecutor's Office to thoroughly investigate a high-profile corruption case involving councillors and senior officials.

The strike began on March 16 involving 12 students. Seven other activists got involved in the protest outside the prosecutor's office, after students from Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya arrived to give them support.

However, 11 of the 19 striking students were forced to stop the protest by Tuesday due to their deteriorating health condition.

Two of the collapsed strikers -- Suci Kurniati and Sholahudin Umar -- had to be rushed to Gunung Jati General hospital, Cirebon, for intensive care as they had been in and out of consciousness, while nine others had been sent home despite being very weak.

"Most of those who were forced to stop their hunger strike were suffering severe dehydration, stomach problems or vomiting," protest coordinator Agung Supirno said.

He said fellow students and sympathizers covered the costs of medical care and other necessities for those hospitalized.

"However, the hospital has provided free rooms for most of them. We will just pay the cost of medicine," Agung added.

The strike, being staged by activists from the Coalition of Cirebon Youths and Students (KPMC), was to protest a corruption case by members of the local legislative council.

Prosecutors have officially declared all 30 councillors, along with deputy Cirebon mayor Agus Alwafier and former city mayor Lesmana Suriaatmadja who served in office from 1998 to 2003 as suspects.

The suspects are charged with misusing hundreds of millions of rupiah from the city's budget in 2001.

Cirebon Prosecutor's Office head Suraini Dahlan has said the council members were named suspects as they were directly involved in approving the 2001 budget, which he said was in violation of the prevailing regulations.

Suraini said the money paid out for the councillors' expenses exceeded the maximum amount permitted by Government Regulation No. 110/2002.

"The allowances paid to Cirebon council members reached up to Rp 997 million (US$120,000.00) in 2001, while under Government Regulation No. 110, the maximum amount must not exceed Rp 400 million. We will also investigate whether the allocation of Rp 400 million was determined in accordance with the regulations," she added.

Suraini said prosecutors had begun questioning the council's leaders one by one and would question the deputy mayor as he was then the council's deputy speaker, who approved the budget in 2001.

She promised to press ahead with investigating the corruption scandal, locally dubbed "Budget-gate".

Council speaker Suryana and his deputy Sunaryo HW had been summoned by the prosecutors.

Sunaryo complied with the summons and was questioned for several hours, but Suryana failed to turn up as he had to preside over a plenary session to hear an accountability statement from Cirebon Mayor Subardi.

Former mayor Lesmana Suriaatmadja had previously been questioned in August of last year.