U.S., international uniond demand Pakpahan's release

U.S., international uniond demand Pakpahan's release

WASHINGTON (AFP): U.S. and international labor union leaders
led a raucous demonstration outside Indonesia's embassy
Wednesday, demanding the release of a jailed Indonesian labor
leader charged with subversion.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the demonstration kicks
off an international campaign to free Muchtar Pakpahan, chief of
the unofficial Indonesian Prosperous Trade Union (SBSI).

Pakpahan is facing execution under subversion charges. His
case, and Indonesia's crackdown last year on dissent, have
sparked harsh international criticism, including from the United
States and the European Union.

"The American labor movement is united with the international
labor movement," Sweeney told the crowd of about 200 labor and
civil and human rights activists.

"We will not rest until they stop harassing and firing men and
women for trying to organize unions, free and independent of
government control ... We will not rest until they free M.P.,"
calling the labor leader by his initials.

Pakpahan is "one of the most remarkable leaders of our time,"
said the chief of the American Federation of Labor and Congress
of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). The national labor union
has launched a campaign seeking the release of Pakpahan and other
labor activists in Indonesia.

The demonstrators, chanting "Free M.P.!" and "Justice Now!,"
marched up and down the sidewalk in front of the stately building
on the capital's Embassy Row. Several figures could be seen
watching from inside its curtained windows.

The drum banging and whistleblowing stopped for speeches by
Sweeney, Bill Jordan, general secretary of the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), and Marcello
Malentacchi, general secretary of the International Metalworkers
Federation and chairman of the International Trade Secretariat
(ITS) General Secretariats.

The demonstration came as the ITS General Secretariats held
its annual meeting this week for the first time in Washington, an
AFL-CIO spokeswoman said.

The ICFTU represents free labor organizations on all five
continents, with a total membership of 124 million. The ITS
groups national unions concerned with a particular trade,
profession or industry. The AFL-CIO was formed in a 1955 merger
of the United States' two largest labor unions.

The ICFTU's Jordan said he had visited Pakpahan in his cell a
few weeks ago and told him that labor activists around the world
"are going to go on fighting until the Indonesian government
releases him." "He was emotional," the British leader said.

Jordan blasted the Indonesian government as a "regime that
sets its laws to favor multinationals at the expense of its own
people."

He said he, Sweeney and Malentacchi were presenting Indonesian
Ambassador Arifin Siregar with a message that there is no
evidence that Pakpahan is guilty of inciting rioting.

Instead, he asserted, an Indonesian commission clearly
indicated the government itself incited it.

Pakpahan was jailed in 1995 for allegedly organizing a labor
demonstration in Medan, North Sumatra, that degenerated into
anti-ethnic Chinese rioting in 1994.

Sweeney met with Pakpahan in July 1996, before the SBSI leader
was jailed, to express the support of American workers for the
struggle of independent unions in Indonesia.

The Indonesian government only recognizes one trade union, the
state-sponsored Federation of All Indonesian Workers' Union. It
considers all others illegal and has backed a harassment campaign
against independent trade unionists.