Sutiyoso welcomes new probe into Priok riot

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).