Unrest continues amid peace efforts before poll campaigns

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)