Unrest continues amid peace efforts before poll campaigns
JAKARTA (JP): Violent incidents continued up to a day before the start of the official campaign season, amid peace efforts in which political parties featured in street parades in a number of cities.
In Pekalongan, Central Java, 14 homes were burned down and at least 11 were injured early Tuesday in a clash involving thousands of people identified as supporters of the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP).
By late afternoon the districts of Buaran and Medono, where the clashes took place, remained under tight security. Shops along the main road were closed. The injured were still receiving medical treatment, mostly for wounds from stone pelting.
The clash occurred after party functions in the districts.
Police and military authorities regretted the incident, given repeated peace pacts between Muslim-oriented parties, including the two parties involved in the incident.
"Why did they bother to make the pact?" Wijaya Kusuma military commander Col. M.Noer Muis said in Purwokerto. The clash between the two parties was the eighth in the last month, he said. Police said three people have been questioned and one was arrested for carrying sharp weapons.
Noer said the incident in which one car was set on fire began after a lecture by a PKB member. He had mocked members of the largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama who had not joined the party founded by NU executives, including the influential chairman Abdurrahman Wahid.
A number of different parties, including the PKB, have been established by NU members. Noer said the speech was overheard by NU members who were PPP supporters. From across the road they had shouted back taunts and stones were thrown toward the podium.
Security personnel managed to prevent trouble but violence erupted in the evening until after midnight.
In Jakarta, hundreds of demonstrators representing various student groups, naming themselves the Committee of Civilians Against Soehartoists, held a rally on Tuesday from the Hotel Indonesia roundabout to Jl. Merdeka Barat near the Merdeka Palace. They demanded Golkar disperse and that former president Soeharto be put on trial. Security personnel stopped them at the Indosat building.
Two Golkar flags and some Golkar T-shirts were set on fire.
Members said the government of President B.J. Habibie, a Golkar executive, had failed to settle several cases of violence across the country.
Earlier, at 11 a.m., 30 members of a group called Human Rights Support for Indonesia placed posters condemning violence around the Farmer's Statue in Central Jakarta.
Spokesman Jimmy said the group would set up first aid centers for victims of violence during campaigns and the elections.
From Denpasar, Bali,Antara reported looting and vandalizing of two stalls and three cars late Sunday and on Monday morning in Badung regency. The fracas involved supporters of Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan). The cause was unknown.
On Friday night in Selayar regency, 250 kilometers from Ujungpandang, a poll watch volunteer, Andi Satria, was stabbed in the hand, reportedly by an acquaintance with whom he had never before had trouble with.
Coordinator of the regional chapter of the Independent Election Monitoring Committee, Zulfinas Indra, said he believed the stabbing, which has been reported to police, was the work of those upset by the presence of the poll watch body.
Peace efforts on Tuesday included parades by political parties in Jayapura, Irian Jaya, and in Yogyakarta.
In Jayapura, where only 25 of 48 parties are represented, the parade was also an attempt to make the parties familiar to potential voters in the sparsely populated province.
Just over one million votes were counted from Irian Jaya in the 1997 election.
Residents here are principally familiar with PDI Perjuangan and the Golkar Party, the only one with offices down to the village level.
More "sympathetic parades" are scheduled for Wednesday.
In Yogyakarta, some 100,000 residents flocked onto the famed Jl. Malioboro to see the parade of political parties.
Various performances by parties and a drum band of junior high students kept the crowd entertained. Several parties had supporters on pedicabs distributing flags and leaflets of their parties. Some people taunted Golkar members as they passed by in the parade.
In Yogyakarta, in a bid to protect reporters from possible harm, chapters of the Alliance of Independent Journalists and the Association of Legal Aid and Human Rights (PBHI) issued on Tuesday identity cards to members.
Last week in Ujungpandang media expert A.Muis said "mass hysteria" in campaigns would render journalists vulnerable to harm. (har/23/44/34/30/anr/27/swa)