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)