BY JOANNE KUNIANSKY
SYDNEY, Australia - On December 4, the Indonesian military regime of General Suharto filed subversion charges, which carry the maximum penalty of death, against 13 activists detained following antigovernment riots that rocked Jakarta on July 27.

The subversion trials of ten of the thirteen began on December 12 in two courtrooms - one in Central Jakarta and one in South Jakarta.

The riots were sparked by a government-organized attack on the Jakarta headquarters of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), which was being occupied by hundreds of supporters of bourgeois opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri. They were protesting her replacement, in June, as chairperson of the PDI in a rump election. In the July 27 assault, at least five people were killed and 23 others are still "missing."

Those charged with subversion include Muchtar Pakpahan, leader of the Indonesian Prosperous Labour Union (SBSI) and 12 leaders and members of the People's Democratic Party (PRD). Budiman Sujatmiko, the 29-year-old chairman of the PRD, and 22-year-old Dita Sari, president of the Indonesia Centre for Labour Struggles (PPBI), a union affiliated to the PRD, were among those arrested.

The subversion charges were filed two weeks after Indonesia's Supreme Court reimposed a four-year jail term on Muchtar Pakpahan. Pakpahan was jailed in 1994 on charges of inciting mass labor unrest after strikes shook the city of Medan. He was freed last December after the Supreme Court found there was insufficient evidence for his conviction. The subversion law allows 12 months detention without trial at any undisclosed location. Pakpahan was arrested once again in August following the July riots.

Dita Sari and two other members of the PPBI were jailed in the city of Surabaya in early July for their role in huge street protests there. The demonstrations ended in attacks on workers and students who were demanding an increase in the minimum wage and more democratic rights in Indonesia.

The other PRD leaders were detained in August when the regime announced a crackdown on the PRD accusing the organization of "masterminding" the July riots and of being communists plotting to overthrow the Suharto government. Muchtar Pakpahan and Dita Sari are leaders of independent unions that are illegal in Indonesia, as is the PRD.

On November 28, Indonesian judges released all 124 PDI supporters of Megawati Sukarnoputri who spent four months in prison following the July protests on lesser charges of refusing to obey orders by the security forces to disperse. The PDI is one of two legal political parties outside of President Suharto's ruling Golkar party.

In October, the National Human Rights Commission of Indonesia ruled that Government interference in the PDI's internal affairs provoked the July unrest, not pro democracy activists.  
 
 
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