'Tempo' set to hit streets again today

JAKARTA (JP): With a cover story on the mass rapes during May's rioting, newsweekly magazine Tempo will be back on newsstands on Tuesday, four years after Soeharto's government revoked its license.

Chief editor Goenawan Mohamad said the magazine would remain critical of the government but did not bear any feelings of vengeance about the past.

"The journalism we develop is based on the spirit not to monopolize the truth. We realize that the truth also exists in other places which we possibly do not like," Goenawan said during the relaunching of the magazine at the Ceramics Museum in West Jakarta on Sunday.

With an initial working capital of about Rp 5 billion (US$545,000), the newsweekly is published by PT Arsa Raya Perdana. It is run by experienced journalists, most of whom who had worked for the magazine before its closure.

Goenawan said he would retain his position for one year at the most, after which he would be replaced by Bambang Harymurti, former executive editor of Media Indonesia daily.

Former deputy editor Fikri Jufri is now general manager, and Zulkifly Lubis replaced Eric Samola as business manager.

Tempo lost its license not long after it reported the purchase of 30 secondhand warships from Germany in its June 1994 edition. The purchasing was led by then state minister of research and technology B.J. Habibie.

Then minister of finance Mar'ie Muhammad had slashed Habibie's funding request from $1.1 billion to $482 million, saying Habibie's figure was too high.

Then minister of information Harmoko, now speaker of the House of Representatives, refused to issue a new license to the magazine.

Only five months after the banning, the Ministry of Information granted a new license to PT Era Media Indonesia to publish the weekly Gatra. Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, one of former president Soeharto's closest cronies, controls 35.75 percent of the company's shares.

Along with Tempo, the government also simultaneously banned weekly magazine Editor and DeTIK tabloid.

The former subsequently became Tiras, which has disappeared from the market during the last few months. DeTIK recently reappeared under the title DeTAK. (25/prb)