Monday, 15/12/2008 12:47 WIB
PBR Ready to Support Prabowo as Presidential Candidate
Ronald Tanamas - detikNews
Jakarta - Partai Bintang Reformasi (PBR – Star reform Party) is now looking and seeking out who is the appropriate presidential candidiate for it to support in its coming convention. Up until this time the candidate that is acceptable to the PBR convention is Razil Ramli, but it is not impossible that the target may change to Prabowo Soebijanto.
"Our party’s basic mission is the same as Prabowo’s mission. It is quite possible we could support Prabowo as long as he joins and is in accord with the “central axis”,” PBR chairperson Bursa Zarnubi told detikcom, Monday (15/12/2008)
Bursa stated that his party is currently in political communication with the Gerindra Party created by Prabowo. According to Bursa, the struggle for the aspirations of the poor people in the agricultural and fishing sectors is a power of attraction possessed by Prabowo.
"I am ready to carry out political communication with Prabowo," says Bursa.(ron/irw)
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Translated by Max Lane
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NOTES:
For those following my commentaries on Indonesian movement politics, they will be aware that the Star Reformation Party (PBR), is the party which former Left activists Dita Sari and the PAPERNAS/PRD members supporting her have joined.
"Central Axis" ("Poros Tengah") was an alliance of centre-right religious (Islamic) parties formed in the previous parliament. It was active in campaigning against the government of Abdurrahman Wahid. On December 11, Din Syamsuddin, chairperson of the Muhammidiyah Organisation, proposed a Central Axis Volume II, proposing that all Islamic parties unite again. He did not give any specific platform. However all these parties in parliament have very consistently voted for pro-neoliberal economic policies as well for conservative social laws, such as the recent Anti_Pornography Bill, which includes clauses proscribing various forms of public dress and behaviour for women.
Rizal Ramli is an economist and businessman who served in the Abdurrahman Wahid cabinet. He is a nationalist critic of current economic policies. He supports what he calls a “transformational political leadership” model. I have seen him explain this model on television interviews in Indonesia presenting Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohammed as good political models.
Prabowo Soebijanto is a former general in the Indonesian army during the Suharto period. He is also Soeharto’s son-in-law. Below is the profile taken from Masters of Terror: Indonesia's Military and Violence in East Timor in 1999. by Hamish McDonald, Desmond Ball, James Dunn, Gerry van Klinken, David Bourchier, Douglas Kammen, and Richard Tanter, Publisher: Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University (Canberra Paper #145), 2002
LtGen (ret) Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo
Former commander, Kopassus and Kostrad
Retired LtGen Prabowo is not a suspect in the 1999 violence in East Timor. He is mentioned here only as background, because so many of the suspects were connected with him earlier in their careers.
Although a major influence on Indonesian counter-insurgency tactics in East Timor beginning in 1989/90, he was out of the country throughout 1999. Having been dismissed from his Kostrad command in May 1998, and from the military entirely in August 1998, Prabowo had no TNI position in 1999. Instead he was in self-imposed exile in Jordan, doing business with his wealthy brother. The many rumours, all of them unproven, that he was still in Indonesia anyway, and directing clandestine operations in East Timor, indicate the power he once held.
Among the many 1999 militia leaders who were Prabowo's proteges were Eurico Guterres, Lafaek Saburai, Martinho Fernandes, and Joni Marquez. Governor Abilio Soares owed his career largely to Prabowo's support. Many of the soldiers (especially in Kopassus) who directed the militias in 1999 had been Prabowo's subordinates at some stage. Among them were: MajGen Adam Damiri, MajGen Mahidin Simbolon, BrigGen Amirul Isnaeni, Col Gerhan Lentara, and LtCol Wioyotomo Nugroho. Others had been his colleagues: Gen Subagyo H S, MajGen Zacky Anwar Makarim, MajGen Sjafrie Syamsuddin, MajGen Kiki Syahnakri, LtGen Johny Lumintang, and Col Pramono Edhie Wibowo.
Background
Prabowo was born on 17 October 1951 in Jakarta, the son of noted economist (and dissident politician) Professor Sumitro Djojohadikusumo. While his father was on the run for supporting a failed regional revolt in 1957, Prabowo grew up in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Britain. He graduated from the military academy in 1974.
In 1976 he went to East Timor as part of Tim Nanggala X, a special forces unit that belonged to Kopassandha, later called Kopassus. He undertook anti-terrorist training in the US (Fort Bragg, 1980; Fort Benning, 1985), and in West Germany (GSG-9, about 1981), scoring 'top graduate' each time. In 1983 he married the daughter of President Suharto, Siti Hediati Harijadi (Titiek). In 1983, sent to East Timor as a major in charge of Kopassus Detachment 81 (D81), he established the Tim Alfa militia in Lospalos. He was involved in the Kraras massacre of September 1983.[1] In 1988-89 he was in East Timor again, in command of the Kostrad combat Battalion 328. He turned it into such a highly trained unit that it was chosen as the best battalion in East Timor.[2]
After eight years in Kostrad he returned to Kopassus in 1993 as commander of its Group 3, a special forces training unit in Batujajar, West Java, that also played a role training militia leaders. He rose to Deputy Commander of Kopassus in 1994-95, and to Kopassus Commander in 1995-98. In March 1998 he was moved back to Kostrad, becoming Kostrad Commander.
However, with Suharto gone his fortunes quickly declined. He was exposed as having organised the kidnapping of anti-Suharto activists early in 1998, and was finally dismissed from the armed forces in August 1998 after an internal inquiry (DKP).