Jakarta – Former Army Strategic Reserves Command (green berets) Chief of Staff (Kaskostrad) Kivlan Zen claims that the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) is trying to rebuild its forces in order to reestablish a presence in Indonesia.
PKI sympathisers are planning to hold a mass meeting at the Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium (SUGBK) in Senayan, Jakarta on Wednesday September 30 where they will join a concert by the popular Indonesian rock band Slank.
Zen received this information through an SMS message on his cell phone last week. The message was in the form of a call to all former PKI sympathisers to gather on September 30 at the SUGBK to take part in the Slank concert.
The message also appealed to sympathisers to wear red T-shirts with pictures of the hammer-and-sickle or a red flag on them.
“There has been an appeal to former PKI [members] and followers of the PKI’s ideas to gather at the Slank concert on September 30. I’ve already checked this on the ground. The [plan] to hitch a ride [on the concert] really exists”, said Zen in Jakarta on Saturday September 26.
Social media has been enlivened by a poster with the words “30 September Movement, Slank Two Finger Salute Concert, dispose the DPR [House of Representatives] Because They’re Incapable of Running the Country”.
According to Zen this is an attempt by PKI sympathisers to hitch a ride on the Slank concert. Even though the band made famous by the song Too Sweet has denied the claim, Zen says that PKI sympathisers will still gather at the concert.
Zen explained that the PKI sympathisers will gather at the SUGBK then head to the DPR building to call for DPR members to resign and the dissolution of the DPR.
“If it goes ahead they will demand that the DPR be dissolved. Because the DPR will prevent [President] Joko Widodo from making an apology to PKI sympathisers and revoke the Tap MPRS Number 25 1966”, he said.
The Tap MPRS or Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly Decree Number XXV/1966 formally legitimises a ban on the PKI and the spread of communism in Indonesia.
Meanwhile if President Widodo apologies to former PKI members then the sympathisers of the party symbolised by the hammer-and-sickle will regard this as meaning that they are no longer a banned party and can reestablish a presence in Indonesia.
[Translated by James Balowski for the Indoleft News Service. The original title of the report was Kivlan Zein: PKI Dompleng Konser Slank untuk Kumpulkan Simpatisan.]
