Two generals to sue media for slander

Two generals to sue media for slander

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Two active Army Generals are filing lawsuits against a number of
local, national, and even international media for defamation,
claiming what they call libelous news reporting.

Gen. Endriartono Sutarto and Lt. Gen. Djadja Suparman vowed
Friday to bring to court several media establishments for
suggesting that they were behind a number of crimes in the
country.

Four-star Army Gen. Endriartono, who is also the Indonesian
military (TNI) chief, told the press here on Friday that he would
soon file a lawsuit against U.S.-based The Washington Post for
reporting in its Nov. 2 edition that he ordered the bloody August
ambush on two buses near the PT Freeport mining company in Papua.
At least three persons, including two Americans, were killed and
dozens other injured in the attack TNI blamed on a poorly-
organized secessionist movement.

Endriartono said the American newspaper had published a lie as
he had never planned nor discussed the ambush against Freeport
employees.

"I will file a law suit and ask for US$1 billion as
compensation from the newspaper. If I win, I will donate the
money to victims of the ambush," Endriartono said.

He said he has yet to decide when and where to register the
case, in Indonesia or in the United States, saying that he was
still trying to find out who had provided such slanderous
information.

Endriartono also said that he had summoned both the U.S. and
Australian ambassadors in Indonesia to ask for clarification
about the report, and learned that they too did not know from
where the intelligence information quoted by the newspaper came.

Three-star Army Gen. Djaja, on the other hand, is planning to
sue up to ten local and national media establishments over
reports suggesting that he was behind the Oct. 12 Bali bomb
blasts that killed approximately 190 people and injured over 300
others, mostly foreigners. He, however, mentioned only two media
outfits -- Denpasar-based Radar Bali, and Surabaya-based Jawa
Pos.

Djaja said he was still gathering data on several regional
newspapers that had implicated him in the Bali bombing case.

"I am serious about my lawsuit. It will also be a lesson for
unprofessional newspapers," said Djadja, who is also commander of
the Bandung-based Military Staff and Commander School.

Djadja, who is former commander of the Army's Strategic
Reserve Command (Kostrad), said that the reports of some regional
newspapers were often full of libel.

A few local and national newspapers reported in mid-October
that police investigators were looking into possible involvement
of two generals -- one still on active military duty, and the
other a retired police officer -- in the Bali bomb blasts,
considered the worst terrorist attacks after the Sept. 11 attacks
in Washington D.C. and New York City.

Earlier, former TNI chief and former Coordinating Minister for
Political and Security Affairs Gen. (ret.) Wiranto sued Jawa Pos
daily for publishing a statement by University of Indonesia
sociologist Thamrin Amal Tomagola that Wiranto, along with two
other Army generals, were masterminding the religious conflict in
Ambon which has killed over 5,000 people since January 1999.

Wiranto, however, won the case, with the Cibinong State Court
ordering Jawa Pos and Tomagola to apologize and to pay a fine
totaling Rp 50 million.

In a separate case, former president Soeharto, also a retired
Army general, filed a lawsuit against Time magazine for alleging
that the Soeharto family had transferred billions of US dollars
to a secret offshore bank account. Soeharto, however, lost the
case.