The army is being wrongly blamed for the disappearance of opposition figures, a senior officer tells Asia Editor David Jenkins in Jakarta.
The mystery surrounding the disappearance of a nearly a dozen Indonesian student and opposition figures took a new twist yesterday as a senior official claimed that "radical activists" were ordering the abduction of their own associates or simply lying low in an attempt to win international sympathy and besmirch the name of the armed forces.
"I do not have any hesitation in believing that the victims may have been victimised by their own gang," said Lieutenant-General Z.A. Maulani, a senior government adviser.
In an interview with the Herald, General Maulani said, "They need martyrs desperately. If not from ABRI [the armed forces], then from their own hands.
"They have been trying to create martyrs, but until now in vain. These "disappeared persons' are mostly diehard activists, not the moderates. They haven't disappeared at all.
"I assume they pretend to disappear to make it look like they were kidnapped by the security elements. When I ask the intelligence people about this, they feel they have been framed. The situation doesn't help ABRI."
General Maulani's claims are likely to be be greeted with scepticism, both in Indonesia and abroad. Although no-one has produced hard evidence of army involvement in the disappearances, it is widely believed in Jakarta that the army – or elements of the army – are involved.
Some of Indonesia's "disappeared" – the word has chilling echoes of Latin America – have reportedly been plucked off the street by strongly built men wearing plain clothes and carrying guns.
One former student activist, Hendrix, who disappeared nearly two years ago, said this week that he was given electric shock treatment, burnt with cigarettes and beaten after being picked up at a bus stop by four burly men.
Indonesia, reeling from its worst economic crisis in 30 years, has come under intense international pressure following the reported disappearance of student and political activists. The Government, recognising the harm that is being done to its reputation at a time when it is seeking massive financial support from the world community, now appears to have gone into damage control mode. According to General Maulani, who retired from the army after serving as military commander of Kalimantan in 1988-91, a Machiavellian minority in the student ranks had been hoping the armed forces would open fire on demonstrators, giving the anti-Soeharto student movement a tailor-made martyr. That, he said, would make it easier for radical students to pursue their objective of bringing down the Government.
However, the radicals had been frustrated at the restraint shown by the army, he said, and were now resorting to other means to discredit the military.
Asked about the reported disappearance of Haryanto Taslam, an adviser to the opposition leader Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, General Maulani said he would like Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission to look into that case and other alleged disappearances.
"I don't think ABRI would detain people," he said. "ABRI has decided to support the democratisation process and to establish the rule of law... You can't stop a movement by kidnapping one or two people. It only escalates the problem."
ABRI was looking into the issue of the disappeared "very seriously because it affects our credibility".
"The radical students want a martyr and are very much influenced by the idea of people's power, which is based on liberation theology."
The radical student activists, he said, had hoped for "external political pressure against the Government, especially by the IMF" but had been disappointed. At the same time, "they have failed to establish a bridge between the elite and the masses".
Speaking about allegations that the army had been associated with torture and kidnapping, he said: "I don't deny these kind of things happened in the past. But we have learnt from our mistakes and ABRI is determined not to repeat its mistakes."
ABRI had changed. The military did not torture people or kidnap them.
"...even in Timtim [East Timor], ABRI doesn't behave like that anymore. The things that were done have damaged our credibility. We are professionals."
That said, the claim that ABRI was behind the disappearances would be difficult to refute. "It will be very difficult to convince people that we didn't do it," he said. Diplomats express serious reservations about claims that ABRI has had no involvement in the latest disappearances. They add, however, that the army is not responsible for all disappearances.
"The more legitimate view is that not everyone alleged to have disappeared has been picked up by the Government," one analyst said. "Quite a number have gone into hiding because they are afraid. But to say they are doing this to discredit the Government is going a bit far."
The United States Government has made a number of high-level representations to Indonesia over the "disappeared" issue, as have European Union nations. The Australian Defence Minister, Mr McLachlan, raised the matter in Jakarta this week with General Wiranto, the Defence Minister and Commander of the Armed Forces.