Team blames officers for shooting

Team blames officers for shooting

JAKARTA (JP): An independent fact-finding team probing the
Sept. 24 incident when shots were fired into a crowd of
protesters said on Monday security personnel were responsible for
the fatal shooting.

The team, consisting of activists, lawyers and university
employees, demanded officials from the Indonesian Military, the
National Police and the government be held accountable for the
Friday shooting, which claimed the lives of at least four people,
including a university student.

"There's a significant correlation between (the incident) and
the TNI and police being trained by their superiors to use
violence in dealing with protesters," team chairman Hermawan
Sulistyo, who is also a political scientist with the National
Institute of Sciences, said.

"No information or evidence, including of another car
following the military trucks passing the scene of the shooting,
could be found which would lead to the conclusion that the
shootings were committed by parties other than security
personnel," he said.

Team member M. Rifki Moena said: "People in the (alleged) van
would not dare fire at the people massed along Jl. Sudirman
because there were also security personnel at the scene."

Hermawan said two convoys of between seven and eight trucks
carrying security personnel passed along the street some 10
minutes apart, adding that the shooting which took University of
Indonesia student Yap Yun Hap's life took place as the first
convoy passed.

Minutes before this shooting, a number of people -- reportedly
in a Kijang minivan -- fired shots at the Australian Embassy on
Jl. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta, some three kilometers away from
the shooting on Jl. Sudirman.

Hermawan also said his team would continue its investigation
to uncover the facts behind the deaths of Salim, Fadly and Denny
Yulian, who were shot dead at different location on Jl. Sudirman
on Friday evening.

The team includes Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation chairman
Bambang Widjoyanto, Committee for Missing Persons and Victims of
Violence coordinator Munir, the head of Trisakti University's
Research Institution, Dadan Umar Daihani, and University of
Indonesia sociologist Tamrin Amal Tomagola.

Hermawan said his team urged the government to appoint
independent parties to probe the shooting to ensure the results
of the investigation were impartial.

If the government fails to bring the responsible parties to
court, the team will seek assistance from the International Court
of Justice to settle the case, he said.

Jakarta Police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman said on
Saturday the shots were fired randomly from a Kijang van which
was following the security personnel trucks on Jl. Sudirman.

The two-star general also said the victim was killed by a
rubber bullet.

However, doctors at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital
reportedly said Yun Hap, who was sitting near a bus stop between
Plaza Sentral and Atma Jaya University with scores of people was
killed by a live bullet from a .22 caliber firearm fired from a
distance.

Hermawan said the police's version of the shooting was
unlikely because the convoys of military trucks passing on the
street at the time of the shooting were going the wrong way down
the street.

"No private car dared drive on the street with such traffic
coming in the opposite direction, except vehicles belonging to
security personnel," he said at the Jakarta Design Center in
Slipi, Central Jakarta. (asa/ylt)