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  • 8/12/2019 Letters_ the Prabowo Question

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    ALSO IN ASIAWEEK

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    APRIL 7, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 13

    Letters: The Prabowo Question

    Your COVER STORY ["I Never Betrayed My Country," March 3] was valuable as it starts a discourse onreopening the old case of the May 1998 riots in Jakarta, which led to Suharto st epping down. Ever since, manymilitary officers have tried to cover up this case. I had hoped many tight-lipped elite military officers would speaksincerely about their role in the riots.

    Your report, however, said nothing revealing as far as the result of the government Joint Fact-Finding Team (TGPF) isconcerned. You and Prabowo Subianto referred to only part of the result. As 1,190 people were killed and businesscenters were burned, people still wonder who was responsible for the riots: they could not have happened on such avast scale without a "mastermind." Jakarta was like a "cremation." Worse, your report was based on a myopicinterviewee and too personalized, which likely diverted readers away from the fact that a fledgling democracyeventually would have no place for the military in politics anyway.

    To consider the nature of the riots an open question is baseless. I'll cite a few of themany examples we gathered. A local security officer (we have his name) from theJatinegara subdistrict-level military command, told us of 20 Kopassus officers who

    ordered rioters to burn down the Bank Central Asia building at Jatinegara, EastJakarta,on May 14, 1998, at around 2.30 p.m. Is it a reliable statement if an officer from militaryHQ, working with the TGPF, dismisses the report, saying that those wearing Kopassusuniforms are not necessarily special forces officers? A taxi driver (his name is with us)said he saw on May 14 five military helicopters hovering low over a business center atCiledug, South Jakarta. A man in one of the helicopters fired warning shots into the air,then shouted clearly that the rioters should not hesitate to loot.

    We found there were strong indications that the military had at least known about theplanned riots. Two shop-owners at the Glodok Plaza in West Jakarta told us that shortlybefore the riots broke out, military officers tried to blackmail the plaza owners for about40 million rupiah [then about $5,000]. They would deploy a troop unit if the ownerswanted the building to remain intact during the violence that eventually destroyed majorbusiness centers in Jakarta's Chinatown.

    Indications of direct military involvement in the regions were clearer. A shop-owner inSimalungun, North Sumatra, testified that a dozen army officers from the 122 RindamBattalion looted his shop of its contents at about 3 a.m. on May 7. A street child inSurakarta, Central Java, confirmed to the team that on May 10 special forces officersordered him and four friends to join a rioting crowd in the town. They were given money.

    Many willing eyewitnesses, mostly ordinary people and including police officers, reportedto us about the involvement of military personnel, particularly Kopassus officers. Thewitnesses talked openly even though intimidation took place throughout the period of theTGPF investigation. We had to protect them as nobody else did.

    This question remains valid: Who was responsible for such highly politicized riots? Or,better, who should have taken charge of the riot situation - lest one be stronglysuspected of masterminding the unrest? Where would we be if we had let ourselves bedrawn into the conflicting statements of the senior military officers? At least we couldhold to what senior military intelligence officer Maj.-Gen. Zaky A. Makarim testified onSept. 2, 1998: that the security command had been transferred from the police to themilitary command under the so-called Great Jakarta Operation Command (Koops Jaya).The Jakarta military commander had direct control. The then-Jakarta police chief Maj.-Gen. Hamami Nata testified on Aug. 28 that the Koops Jaya was effective from the

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    beginning of the general elections in April 1997 until June 1998, when ended the post-general session of the MPR [parliament] that took place in March 1998.

    While there were conflicting reports, Hamami Nata told the team on Aug. 28, 1998, thatthe live bullets fired at students on May 12 were not those of the police, implying that theperpetrators were from superior troops that they knew well. Furthermore, middle-rankingpolice mobile brigade officers came to us saying they knew who burned and gutted thepolice offices during the riots. The police officers said: "They were all trained the sameway in how to burn down structures." In addition, they said, although there were many

    military officers, for example, at Matraman and Salemba streets on May 14, the militarywas in complicity because they did nothing as police offices and cars and businessbuildings were burned and looted.

    The man you base your report on still had official control over the Kostrad and theKopassus officers. You quote him as saying he knew many of his soldiers would dowhatever he said.I. Sandyawan Sumardi, SJ

    Member of Joint Fact-Finding Team (TGPF)

    Jakarta

    "I Never Betrayed My Country" did not dispute the eyewitness accounts contained in theTGPF report or cited in this letter. When our story said the nature of the riots was"open," it clearly left open the possibility that the riots were organized. What our CoverStory questioned is whether the data gathered by the TGPF adequately supported all ofits conclusions.

    Sandyawan's statement that Prabowo, who in May 1998 was Kostrad strategic reservecommander, had official control over Kopassus special forces and Kostrad is factuallyincorrect. By March 1998, Prabowo had relinquished official control over Kopassus,although it is clear that he maintained personal links with its new commander as well asmany of its officers. In May 1998, he did have official authority over Kostrad troops. Butunder the security plan for Jakarta to which Sandyawan refers, operational command of

    all troops on the ground during the riots was in the hands of the Jakarta police chief andthe Jakarta garrison commander.

    This does not eliminate the possibility which Sandyawan suggests: that Prabowo couldhave used his personal links with soldiers for a certain end during the riots. But up to thispoint, we have found no evidence or witnesses to prove that he indeed did so.

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