Sutiyoso welcomes new probe into Priok riot

JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta Military Commander Maj. Gen. Sutiyoso says efforts by certain parties to reinvestigate the 12-year-old bloody Tanjung Priok riot are welcome.

"The accident has long been buried. However, people are welcome to reinvestigate it," he was quoted by Antara as saying yesterday. He responded to questions on certain parties who want to re-probe the incident in which there was uncertainty on the numbers of deaths it claimed.

The Sept. 12, 1984 tragic incident took place when Gen. (ret) Try Sutrisno (now Vice President) was the Jakarta military commander and Gen. (ret) L.B. Moerdani was the ABRI chief.

Initial reports on the riot put the number of deaths at nine, but later the figure changed to 18.

Sutiyoso said that those dissatisfied with the official findings on the number of casualties of the Tanjung Priok riot could approach the military command or the National Commission on Human Rights any time.

He said that after talking to new students of the Universitas Nasional in South Jakarta yesterday. He briefed the students about the chronology of this year's July 27 riot on Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta.

Sutiyoso guaranteed that the number of people killed in July's riot was not 74, as one rumor has it. "I have no heart to tell a lie about that," he said. The military says only four were killed during the July 27 fracas.

On Thursday, around 200 people gathered at the Al-A'raaf Mosque in Tanjung Priok to mark the 12th anniversary of the bloody 1984 incident.

Koranic readings were held by the attendants, including wives and children of those still missing from the incident. (sur).