Try terms Tanjung Priok incident an 'accident'

Try terms Tanjung Priok incident an 'accident'

JAKARTA (JP): Gen. (ret) Try Sutrisno said on Saturday the
1984 Tanjung Priok incident, in which troops opened fire on a
mass demonstration at close range, was not a massacre but an
unexpected accident.

"There was never any slaughter. It was an accident that we
never expected to happen," said the former vice president who
was, at the time of the incident, the Jakarta military chief.

Try said he was willing to take responsibility for the
incident in which, according to survivors, hundreds of people
were killed.

He, however, stood by the official figure that 18 people were
killed and 53 injured. "It's not true it (the number of
casualties) reached hundreds," he said.

He was quoted by Antara as saying that he was "ready" to be
questioned by the police or a fact-finding team recently set up
by the House of Representatives to look into the incident.

Try's statement came only hours before thousands of people,
including relatives and survivors, gathered for the 14th
anniversary of the military crackdown on demonstrators in Tanjung
Priok, North Jakarta.

Packing the yard of the Al Husna Mosque on Jl. Enggano,
Tanjung Priok, on Saturday, they demanded that those allegedly
involved in the bloody incident be brought to justice.

Besides Try, they aimed at personalities like Gen. (ret) L.B.
(Benny) Moerdani and then Lt. Col. A.R. Butar Butar. At the time,
Benny was Armed Forces (ABRI) chief while Butar Butar was the
North Jakarta district military chief.

"The ABRI leadership, in this case General Wiranto, must have
the courage to initiate an investigation into the case, either in
cooperation with the government or with an independent team,"
Syarifin Maloko urged in a statement, Antara reported.

Maloko is the chairman of Sontak, a national solidarity group
for victims of the Tanjung Priok incident.

The commemoration was attended by thousands, including
survivors and sympathizers from the West Java towns of Cirebon,
Cianjur and Banten. Also addressing the gathering were Moslem
politicians Amien Rais and Yusril Ihza Mahendra.

There have been increasing public calls for the
reinvestigation of cases of military abuses that have so far been
shrouded in mystery.

Yusril said: "There are still many mysteries shrouding
incidents during the New Order era, among them are the Priok
case, the Santa Cruz case (when the military opened fire at
mourners in a cemetery in the East Timor capital of Dili in
1991), and the kidnappings (of political activists)."

"Whoever was involved in the Tanjung Priok incident must face
the law, because our country is a country of law," he said.

Amien concurred, saying the lapse of time should not be a
reason not to reinvestigate the case. Even the genocide committed
against Jews by Nazi Germany 53 years ago could still be
reinvestigated, he said.

"The demand is just natural," Amien said. (aan)