Indonesians Tell of Torture, Kidnappings

At least 14 activists have “disappeared” since student demonstrations began in Indonesia nearly three months ago, raising concerns that President Suharto’s regime favors repression more than reform in dealing with the country’s growing political unrest.

Mysterious disappearances have been part of the political landscape here for years, just as they were under dictatorships in Latin America in recent decades. Those in Indonesia bear the imprint of military involvement, but no direct link has ever been proved, partly because the “vanished” who eventually are set free have chosen--for fear of their lives--to remain silent.

Until recently.

Last week, a bespectacled, 30-year-old human rights lawyer, Desmond Mahesa, broke the code of silence and told a packed news conference at the Legal Aid Foundation his harrowing tale of two months in captivity after several men kidnapped him on a Jakarta street corner and bundled him off in their van.

Mahesa described being taken in handcuffs to an unidentified office, a black bag over his head. “They administered electric shocks to my feet and head and kicked and punched me all over my body,” he said. “They immersed my head in a bathtub filled with water.”

His story was similar to one told in April by the only other released activist to go public, Pius Lustrilanang, also 30, who burst into tears as he spoke of his kidnapping and torture, telling a human rights panel, “I thought I was going to die.” He later left for the Netherlands and the United States, where he testified before a congressional subcommittee.

Describing his torture, Pius said, “I was in the hands of professionals.” After two months, his abductors gave him a choice of death or freedom with silence. If he broke the silence, they promised to track him down, no matter how long it took. “We are very patient people,” one of them told Pius.

Of the 14 people known to have been abducted, five remain unaccounted for. The others, such as Pius and Mahesa, were released, with a plane ticket home if they lived outside Jakarta, the capital, and threatened with death if they spoke of their ordeal. Only Pius and Mahesa have defied the warning.

More than 500 activists have been arrested since students started publicly demanding democracy and the end of Suharto’s rule. Most have been released. But it is the “vanishings” that most concern human rights groups--and give the most fuel to the anti-government movement. Riots spawned by anti-Suharto sentiments claimed about 500 lives last week in Jakarta.

Jakarta was quiet Sunday, with 15,000 troops on the streets, and the government announced that banks and stores would reopen today. But despite government assurances that the city was safe, foreigners and ethnic Chinese--the latter a target of the rioting--continued to leave the capital in large numbers, boarding chartered and commercial flights bound for Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand.

Neither Pius nor Mahesa could provide many details of who ordered their abductions or who their captors were. But human rights activists believe that rogue military elements, perhaps in collusion with the police, are responsible, and on Sunday they called on commanders to use restraint in dealing with demonstrators.

“Repressive measures are useless and will only worsen the situation,” said Munir, executive director of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence. (Like many in Indonesia, Munir uses only one name.)

The chief of the armed forces, Gen. Wiranto, has denied any official military involvement in the abductions and is working with the National Commission on Human Rights to establish culpability. But the investigation may prove to be a dilemma for Wiranto, a widely respected four-star general.

If Wiranto fails to resolve the issue, he will be accused of a whitewash; if he finds that clues lead to the military, such as to units commanded by Suharto’s son-in-law, Lt. Gen. Prabowo Soemitro Subianto, the cohesiveness of the armed forces--Indonesia’s most powerful national institution--could unravel.

“Yes, I have confidence in Wiranto getting to the bottom of the missing,” said Clementino Amaral of the National Commission on Human Rights.

It is perhaps ironic that a human rights commission would have confidence in the military chief in an authoritarian country where generals have inordinate power, or that such a commission is allowed to function at all.

But the 25-member commission was established in 1993 and, according to Vice Chairman Marzuki Darusman, operates independently and aggressively without government interference.

During last week’s violence, Jakarta’s TV stations provided nonstop coverage of the anti-Suharto rioting. That, along with the activities of the human rights groups, suggests that forces are at work here over which the government has little control.