Jakarta – The armed forces headquarters (Mabes ABRI) has begun putting pressure on the Indonesian press. During a meeting of military heads in Cilangkap, last June 3, it was concluded that the mass media, especially those who covered the general elections were considered to have criticized the government. Because of this, the result of the meeting lead by armed forces chief, Feisal Tanjung, was that action must be taken against the media.
According to a SiaR source, president Suharto was very annoyed with press reports, included those who should be on his side and ordered Tanjung to "secure" the media. Tanjung did this and made up a media black list of those who must be acted against. Republika was also included on the list. This daily, owned by the Association of Muslim Intellectuals (Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia, ICMI), a pro-Suharto Islamic intellectual organisation, has already sacked its editor, Parni Hardi.
Other papers which will have action taken against them because they "criticized the government of the New Order" are Merdeka and Media Indonesia. Merdeka, which strongly defended Megawati Seokarnoputri, will have to sack its public director, Margiono, from the nationalist newspaper, Jawa Pos. Margiono, as well as being the public director of Merdeka, is also the chief editor of the weekly magazine D&R [Detective and romantic]. Media Indonesia, a daily owned by Surya Paloh and Bambang Trihatmodjo will sack Bambang Harymurti, ex-representative of Tempo [which was banned in June 1994] in New Your from his position as executive editor.
The result of the Cilangkap meeting, according to the Director General of the Department of Information, Subrata, the mass media were warned not to report United Development Party (PPP) claims about the elections. The mass media was also asked to stop reporting PPP protests about the running of the elections, or the rejection of the election results by the party which has said that if there were no fraud, they would obtain 200 seats.
The daily Kompas, which obtained leaked information from the meeting, immediately modified its articles. Furthermore, the largest national newspaper has just been presented with a "proposal" from elite army corp Kopassus, that they would begin being involved in the [media] business, owning secret "shares" in the paper owned by Jakob Oetama [Kompas]. A Major from Kopassus told Kompas there would be no need to pay a "tribute" to the information minister, Harmoko [who has now been replaced by General Hartono] and State Secretary, Moerdiono because both of these senior ministers would no longer be used.
The requst from Kopassus, commanded by Major-General Prabowo, has worried Kompas journalists. A senior Kompas journalist told SiaR that Kompas would be destroyed if Kopassus did take secret shares and it would influence the energy and enthusiasm of its journalist. Jakob Oetama himself is already concerned. He has to face the anger of Bob Hasan, timber tycoon and close confident of Suharto because of a Tabloid Kontan article.
D&R, in the face of pressure from the military quickly began to sensor itself. The Wednesday June 5 edition, was not published although it had already been printed. The editor of D&R had to change the cover which had a picture of a polling station official looking at an invalidated ballot paper. It was not just the picture, but the title which read "Criticising the Elections" also had to be changed along with the lead story about election fraud.
D&R's actions were quite controversial recalling that advertisements for that edition of D&R along with a picture of the cover before it was change had already be placed in a number of other daily newspapers.
[Translated by James Balowski]