Pip Hinman – Indonesia's most prominent left-wing political party, the People's Democratic Party (PRD), has filed a 5.5 billion rupiah (US$617,000) lawsuit against Suharto over the ailing former dictator's role in the July 27, 1996 attack on the offices of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), for which the PRD was falsely blamed.
The suit, filed in the Central Jakarta District Court on July 5, is one part of the party's campaign to pressure President Abdurrahman Wahid to investigate the 1996 assault, widely believed to have been orchestrated by Suharto in a failed bid to halt the growing popularity of PDI leader Megawati Sukarnoputri.
PRD chairperson Budiman Sujatmiko told the Jakarta Post that the regime "declared us masterminds of the July 27, 1996 violence. They chased us, tortured us, raided our PRD branches and seized important party documents".
The PRD had only formally launched itself as a political party six days before.
On July 28, 1996, General Syarwan Hamid, as head of socio-political affairs for the armed forces, announced that he had evidence that the rioting on July 27 had been organised by the PRD, which he also accused of attempting to revive communism, a banned ideology.
The coordinating minister for politics and security at the time, General Susilo Sudarman, stated, "The unrest ... was manipulated by a third party, the People's Democratic Party". Another general, Sutiyoso, told the press, "The armed forces will go after all the members of the PRD. We are not on the defensive here, we are on the offensive. The anti-subversion law will be used against them."
The military ordered the arrest of all PRD members and members of its affiliated organisations. By October that year, some 35 PRD members were detained and 13 were sentenced to long jail terms. Sujatmiko was jailed for 13 years for subversion in 1997, but was released in 1999.
Other PRD activists were abducted by members of the elite Kopassus force.
Some were severely tortured and at least four, including well-known people's poet Wiji Thukul, are still missing, presumed dead.
Max Lane, the chairperson of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET), told Green Left Weekly that the regime focussed its repression on the PRD out of fear of the emergence of a well-organised, mass, worker-based radical democratic movement. "The PRD had been building a movement outside the formal system set up by the dictatorship, defying the limits set by Suharto", he explained.
The lawsuit names as defendants 12 former armed forces officials, including former army chief Feisal Tanjung and Suharto's justice minister Utoyo Usman and information minister Harmoko.