Despite growing suspicions over the motives for the re-opening of the July 27 tragedy in the midst of the presidential campaign, the momentum is growing for a final accounting of what happened in the 1996 assault on the headquarters of Megawati's Sukarnoputri's former Democratic Party of Indonesia (PDI).
A statement by the lawyer of former Jakarta military commander and now Governor Sutiyoso indicates the direction the probe is likely to take.
After a visit to National Police headquarters on Thursday, Victor W. Nadapdap declared that the bloody takeover of the headquarters at Jl. Diponegoro was conducted under direct instruction from former President Suharto.
Nadapdap reinforced earlier testimony by Sutiyoso himself to police in 2001 that, in the meeting at Suharto's residence on 19 July 1996, Suharto had instructed Sutiyoso to empty the PDI headquarters. The order was given as part of a scheme to cripple Megawati as a serious contender to Suharto in the run-up to the 1997 general election.
"Sutiyoso was given a direct order by Suharto at Jl. Cendana on 19 July 1996. The meeting was attended by several ministers and high-ranking government officials. Suharto said this case must be resolved," said Nadapdap.
"The Cendana meeting was also attended by the Chief of the Social-Political Department of the Armed Forces, Syarwan Hamid, Armed Forces Commander Faisal Tanjung, the National Police Chief and the Jakarta Police Chief," he said.
Sutiyoso said in 2001 that as soon as Suharto gave the order to clear the PDI headquarters, which had been occupied by an activist group that held a speech forum at the building for a number of weeks, Sutiyoso sent a message about the plan to Megawati through veteran PDI politician Sabam Sirait.
Complicating the picture is the implication that the planned attack was used by conspiring generals as the momentum for destabilizing Suharto.
A close aide of Megawati at that period told Laksamana.Net that the conspirators planned to sacrifice Megawati as part of their plan to weaken Suharto's hold, but they erred by involving Sutiyoso in the plan.
Sutiyoso's testimony makes it clear that the involvement of Armed Forces Commander Tanjung and Social-Political chief Syarwan Hamid means that this was a very high-level game, with Sutiyoso a far more junior player.
It also suggests that both Tanjung and Syarwan Hamid should be included on the list of suspects released by the joint investigating team consisting of officials from the military, police and Attorney General's Office (AGO).
The first dossier of suspects, to be announced on Monday, will implicate several members of the anti-Megawati faction within PDI, including former chairman Suryadi, Alex Widya Siregar, Buttu R. Hutapea, Harsokiregar, Buttu R. Hutapea, Harsok and 12 witnesses.
A second dossier will implicate former Jakarta Military commander Sutiyoso, late Jakarta Police Chief Hamaminata, Brig. Gen. Abu Bakar, Brig. Gen. Indra Warsito, Col. Haryanto and Jakarta Garrison chief Col. Tritamtomo. The former chief of of the Military Intelligence Body (BIA) Maj. Gen. Syamsir Siregar and his deputy Maj. Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim are also included on the list of suspects.
The inclusion of the two former BIA officials is a significant development given the strategic role played by the agency as the leading intelligence body in charge of Suharto's political agenda.
BIA took prominence among the intelligence agencies when Suharto instructed Armed Forces Chief Benny Murdani to create a counter-balance to the State Intelligence Coordination Body (BAKIN), which was seen to have developed a degree of independence from Suharto and his military clique.
Presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was then Chief of Staff of the Jakarta Military Command, is vulnerable as the subordinate of Sutiyoso.
Sutiyoso's counsel has ruled out the involvement of Yudhoyono in the incident. "The evacuation of PDI's headquarters had nothing to do with Yudhoyono as the Chief of Staff of the Jakarta Military Command. He had no authority in this, but everything was the responsibility of the Jakarta Military Commander," said Nadapdap.
Eros Djarot, Megawati's political advisor during the crucial days before the July tragedy, holds a different opinion concerning the involvement of Yudhoyono. "All military officers, including Yudhoyono who at the time was in charge as the Chief of Staff of Jakarta Military Command, must be held responsible," he declared.
"At the least Yudhoyono should be held morally responsible and honestly explain to the public what did happen at the time. It is totally impossible that as Chief of Staff Yudhoyono did not know of the preparations for the July bloody takeover of Megawati's party headquarters."
Djarot has tied his political ambitions to the camp of Amien Rais, and his comments must therefore be weighed along with the other political motivations to find out who was behind the bloody attack, in which at least five people died.
Testimony given by Sutiyoso and former Armed Forces Chief of Staff Suyono suggests that the incident was largely triggered by rivalry among the generals around Suharto.
When the Suharto regime collapsed in May 1998, the generals started to blame each other. Suyono, in his testimony in 2001, said then Army Chief of Staff R. Hartono had written to the Armed Forces Commander, with a copy to Syarwan Hamid, urging the use of military measures to take back the PDI headquarters.
Hartono immediately denied Suyono's accusation. Immediately after the July tragedy, Suyono had on a number of occasions claimed that Hartono was responsible for the affair.
The strongest testimony came from Sutiyoso. His account of the meeting at Jl. Cendana makes it clear that the top generals had two aims in mind: the overthrow of Suharto and the destruction of Megwati's image by painting her as a dangerous radical who would allow the re-emergence of communism.
Eye-witnesses of the events immediately following the assault on the PDI headquarters say that, after its initial charge against the large mass of protestors gathered around the area, the military and police established a very distant cordon around the area. Within the confines of its cordon, the enraged mob was allowed to sack and burn at will. Suyono, asked by one foreign correspondent why there was no action to stem the rioting until the following morning, insisted that troops were in place, despite the clear evidence that they had left the mob to have its will.
On the night following the headquarters assault, the military started to move into position, but continued to sit by and watch as remnants of the mob continued their orgy of destruction. It was only the following morning that troops were deployed to stem the violence. On the main focus of the rioting, Jl. Salemba Raya, Marines were positioned to politely urge people off the street.
Back in the kampung behind the major thoroughfare, Jakarta military command troops displayed a far less friendly aspect to the still enraged populace, who erected South American-style barricades to keep the military out.
Presumably, if the theory that the generals wanted to destabilize Suharto, they had engineered the situation precisely to enrage the poor, who had begun to see Megawati's PDI as a hope for an end to the harsh rule of Suharto.
The brutality of the charge against the protestors at noon following the assault on the headquarters was guaranteed to create anger. Troops and police who had stood for hours facing waves of rock-throwing protestors were allowed to take their revenge on the crowd, lashing out blindly and anyone in their way, including children in their school uniforms and women wearing jilbab.
Many of those who fell in the angry charge were middle class bystanders who had only come to watch and were provoked into joining the mob on the streets or even to comment on the events meant that the steam slowly ebbed from the rioters on the streets and denied the generals' hopes that she would play into their hands by adopting a radical stance.
The generals at least succeeded in one of their objectives: the sight of a large area of Jakarta enveloped in a pall of smoke at the peak of the nation's economic boom made many question Suharto's ability to stay in power, and the assault on the PDI headquarters created a lasting symbol of Suharto's ugly power that was to dog him until he was forced to resign two years later.
The generals failed in their other objective. Instead of portraying Megawati as a radical, she emerged as a cautious, skilful player who preferred recourse to the law rather than the streets as she continued to challenge Suharto's leadership of the nation.
Now, in pushing for a new probe into what happened in July 1996, she has reminded the nation of her travails under Suharto, and taken a solid swipe at the generals opposing her in the race for the presidency.