BY KERRYN WILLIAMS
JAKARTA — "Since the police first arrived there was an increasing [number] of [militia] members and we predicted that after the police left, they would attack", said Yahgun, a member of the People's Democratic Party and one of the Indonesian participants in the Asia-Pacific People's Solidarity Conference raided by police on June 8. He was right.
After the conference's international participants were carted off to the Jakarta police headquarters, conference organisers sought to immediately evacuate the conference site and to remove everyone's belongings from the rooms.
"Before we had time ... sirens started blaring and the [militia] suddenly burst in, smashing the glass doors. They were blowing whistles and yelling 'destroy communists', and 'catch them, kill them'."
The thugs were members of the right-wing Islamic fundamentalist militia AMK, the Kaaba Young Generation, a wing of the Muslim United Development Party.
The militia then swept through the conference room, wielding swords and other weapons. The police stood behind and watched, refusing to intervene.
According to Yahgun, conference participants recognised some of the militia members as police officers who had changed into the AMK military-style uniforms.
"One police officer from Depok we recognised was at first dressed in civilian clothes when the police initially arrived, claiming to be a local and telling us we had no right to have a discussion here. Then later he appeared in AMK uniform.
"We also know that the area around the Sawangan hotel is not a base of the AMK so they must have been brought in from elsewhere. They arrived at the same time as the police."
The Indonesian conference participants were forced to run in panic through a shattered glass door. "My head was forced through the glass, and when I pulled it back I slashed my finger and neck on the broken glass", Yahgun explained.
People ran in all directions, directed by members of the conference security team to group together so no-one was left alone and then to head to safety.
"We were running from 6pm until 9pm, when we finally reached the main road", said Yahgun. "We had to crawl through the grass so we weren't seen. We went through golf courses, farm areas and villages, and hid in the trees when we needed to rest."
They then managed to regroup with others who had fled in the same direction and they were able to get onto buses to leave the area.
Yahgun, bleeding severely, was taken by taxi to hospital. The following day he underwent surgery to remove the broken glass and repair a severed artery in his neck. He was discharged from hospital after four days.
Yahgun believes it was a deliberate tactic of the police to separate the foreign partipicants from the conference to minimise the international impact of breaking up the conference with militia thugs.
"This shows that there is still no democracy in Indonesia", he said. "The Indonesian elite continues to reproduce racial and religious prejudices so people will attack each other for the political interests of the elite.
"The police are clearly still on the side of the old forces, and they are always suspicious of the democratic movement."
The AMK defended their militia attack on the conference claiming that the discussion was one by leftists aimed at foiling the August special session of the People's Consultative Assembly, at which rightists are seeking to oust President Abdurrahman Wahid.
According to Yahgun, "the militia attacks on the democratic movement don't reflect the real aspirations of the Indonesian people. Members of these groups are paid, and they are fully supported by the miitary. Even their boots and belts are from the military.
"The military use the civilian militia as part of their quest to take over power and legitimise the military's role in politics."