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.