Laurencius Simanjuntak – Experienced US journalist Allan Nairn has spoken up over accusations by the Prabowo Subianto camp that the Indonesian military (TNI) once wanted to arrest him because he entered Indonesia illegally on seven occasions.
Nairn, a journalist who was arrested by the regime of former President Suharto when covering [the 1991 Dili massacre] in East Timor has in fact issued a counter challenge.
“I’m currently in Indonesia, so if the TNI want to arrest me, they can”, said Nairn as quoted from his blog http://www.allannairn.org/ by merdeka.com on Thursday June 26.
Nairn said that if Prabowo wants him arrested for writing about him, “I ask him (Prabowo) to say so himself”. The statement that the TNI had in the past wanted to arrest Nairn was made by the Prabowo-Hatta election campaign team media and communication director Budi Purnomo Karjodihardjo.
With regard to accusations that Nairn is working with the US, the journalist who has received a number of awards believes that this is amusing.
“Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am an opponent of the US and US corporate interests”, he wrote. “One of my main criticism against the US is that over the last 40 years they have exploited and murdered the poor throughout the world, including in Indonesia”, said Nairn.
Moreover, said Nairn, he has called for every US president that is still alive to be tried and jailed for sponsoring forces that kill civilians.
One of the many US-backed forces that kills civilians is the TNI, and General Prabowo was the US’s closest protege in the TNI (Prabowo described himself to me as the Americans’ darling)”, said Nairn.
Because of this therefore, Nairn has issued three challenges to the general who is now running as the next president of Indonesia.
“General Prabowo, will you join me in calling for the US president to be put on trial”, said Nairn of his first challenge.
Second, continued Nairn, on US exploitation of Indonesia and the issue of mining contracts, “General Prabowo, will you join me in calling call for the expulsion of Freeport McMoRan from Indonesia?”.
Nairn insists that his writing on Prabowo is accurate. “If the general denies this, I invite him to face me in the Indonesian courts by filing charges of defamation against me”. (ren)
[Translated by James Balowski for the Indoleft News Service.]
Source: http://www.merdeka.com/peristiwa/ngaku-di-indonesia-allan-nairn-ajukan-3-tantangan-ke-prabowo.html
