More than 50 Indonesian activists disappeared
By James Balowski
According to an April 14 report released at a media conference by the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (LBH), 50 Indonesian pro-democracy activists have disappeared since January.
Early this month, the foundation put the number at 12. It upgraded the figure after compiling reports from its regional offices which document statements from the families of the disappeared. The chairperson of the foundation, Bambang Widjojanto, said the announcement had been delayed until the reports could be checked. "We have assumed that the majority of the reports are true, so the definitive number of people who have disappeared has reached 50 all together", he said.
Despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence to the contrary, the regime of President Suharto is continuing to deny involvement in the disappearances. In cases where abductions have been witnessed, the perpetrators are described invariably as well built with short cropped hair. In some cases they have carried side-arms.
Relatives of the disappeared present at the media conference said they were disappointed with statements made by the minister of political and security affairs, Faisal Tanjung, and the head of the armed forces public relations department, Brigadier-General Wahab Mokodongan. Tanjung has questioned the families' stories, saying, "perhaps the people who have disappeared are drinking coffee at a cafe and chatting". Mokodongan has stated, "perhaps the people who are said to have disappeared are wandering around in the jungle".
In a new twist, the military are now claiming that "radical activists" are ordering the abduction of their own associates, or that the disappeared are going into hiding in an attempt to win international sympathy and besmirch the name of the armed forces. The April 18 Sydney Morning Herald quoted a senior government adviser, General Z. A. Maulani, as saying, "they need martyrs desperately. If not from ABRI [the armed forces], then from their own hands."
On April 14, the independent news service SiaR noted an announcement by the Mangunkusumo Hospital in Jakarta that, in the last two weeks, 165 unidentified bodies had been found in Jakarta and the satellite cities of Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi. Dumped alongside railroad tracks, most of the bodies had been tortured and suffering gunshot or stab wounds.
The Association of Independent Journalists reported on April 17 that Haryanto Taslam, the deputy secretary general of the pro- Megawati Indonesian Democratic Party, who disappeared on February 9, had returned home. Desmond Mahesa, director of LBH Nusantara, and Pius Lustrilanang, secretary-general of the People's Democratic Alliance, who also disappeared in early February, have also reappeared. All three have refused to talk publicly about their absence, but Lustrilanang and Mahesa have indicated to human rights lawyers that their absence was not "voluntary".