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PRD nominates missing for parliament

Source
South China Morning Post - April 20, 1999

Jenny Grant, Jakarta – The People's Democratic Party has nominated three missing people to run as parliamentary candidates for the June general election.

Announcing the move yesterday, party chairman Budiman Sudjatmiko described the men – Petrus Bima Anugerah, Herman Hendrawan and Suyat – as three of its best cadres.

The three young students have not been seen since they were allegedly kidnapped by special military agents as part of a covert operation to silence opposition activists in the twilight of former president Suharto's rule.

Speaking inside Jakarta's Cipinang prison, where he has served two years of a 13-year term for subversion, the 29-year-old Sudjatmiko, who has just finished a one-week hunger strike to press for a free and fair election, said the party's nominations were serious.

"By doing this, we will warn the Government that they have kidnapped some of our best members," he said. "They were really our leading cadres and we miss not having them to work for the elections."

Mr Anugerah, a 25-year-old philosophy student, has not been seen since March last year. Mr Hendrawan, a political science student at Surabaya's Airlangga University, disappeared on March 12 last year after giving a news conference at the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation office. Suyat was kidnapped by five uniformed soldiers from a friend's house in the village of Kalijambe in Central Java a month earlier.

The People's Democratic Party has also illegally nominated a number of its jailed members, including Sudjatmiko, as parliamentary candidates. By law, prisoners lose their right to vote and run for the legislature.

The only Indonesian political leader to ever run a party from jail, Sudjatmiko has no telephone or typewriter. Twice a week he attends a committee which is organising the party's election campaign. He denies he is frustrated by the process.

"We hope to win at least five per cent. We will be relying on students, former nationalist figures and ex-political prisoners to vote for us," Sudjatmiko said.

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