Warring parties urged to hold their tongues

JAKARTA (JP): A member of the House of Representatives has urged all disputing parties in the wake of an attack on a building on Jl. Agus Salim, Central Jakarta, to refrain from making statements and actions which could only worsen the situation.

"I hereby call on all parties involved to be patient as the case has been submitted to the court," Sundoro Sjamsuri, a vice chairman of the Golkar faction told representatives of the Kiblat weekly in a hearing yesterday.

The building belongs to the PHI (the Indonesian Haj Pilgrimage foundation).

The editorial office of the Islamic journal is located in the building which also houses several other corporations.

Sundoro said the faction would immediately set up a special team assigned to thoroughly investigate the incident, Antara reported.

This property dispute turned ugly over the weekend when dozens of men, reportedly hired by PT Technodev Inti Utama, a law consultant claiming to represent state-owned Bank Dagang Negara (BDN), attacked the building.

The men, strongly believed to be street thugs and hoodlums, were armed with hammers as they stormed the building. They ransacked the building, smashed down the doors and shattered windows.

The chairman of the Kiblat Publishing Foundation, Purbadi, announced yesterday that the weekly rented the building from the Ya Bunayya Foundation on a 18-year basis which will expire in 2006.

The Ya Bunayya Foundation and Kiblat Publisher Foundation are the joint publishers of Kiblat and another Islamic magazine, Adzan.

But according to Purbadi the PHI had illegally sold the land and the building to BDN, which later gave PT Teknodev the authority to help it vacate the building by force.

The action taken by PT Teknodev, Purbadi added, was based on the instructions of the Mayor of Central Jakarta.

"We strongly oppose the action since we were not informed beforehand of the sale of the building by PHI to the BDN," Purbadi said, "Therefore we decided to take the case to the court to settle the problem."

Purbadi said previously that several Teknodev officials had tried repeatedly to take possession of the building.

He said the other companies currently occupying the building had also sent letters to the Central Jakarta police, asking for protection. (bas)