People's Democratic Party (Indonesia)

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Partai Rakyat Demokratik (PRD) or People's Democratic Party is a democratic socialist party in Indonesia. The party is, in size, relatively small and minor, but its role is very vital to the recent political history of Indonesia. The PRD is currently the main party of the Indonesian left. Although often wrongly interpreted as Communist, but the party's movement was a non-violence movement.

Its six basic standards are:

The history of the party was pretty short but was full of struggles. The party was established by early 1996 by young intellectuals. It was a unification of several university students organizations and NGOs, including SMID ("Solidaritas Mahasiswa Indonesia untuk Demokrasi" - Solidarity of Indonesian University Students for Democracy). its first leader was young activist Budiman Sujatmiko - whose, according to some sources, was acting more as the celebrity or the front leader, not the true brain. Many of its members were college students and young activists. The party's main ideology was democratic socialist. Since its establishment, the party had showed a very opposing stance against the Indonesian government, which by the time strongly-controlled by the militaristic regime of New Order led by its powerful authoritarian and corrupt President Suharto. The party's first blow was the July 22nd 1996 Manifesto. The Manifesto was a vocal critics to the poor political condition and social-economic gap that occurred in the country. It also began to be actively advocating and organizing protests and demonstrations in many towns and cities at Java. Its basic masses were mainly village peasants, which connected to the party with one of its sub-organization, the STN (Serikat Tani Nasional) - National Peasants Union.

Since 1996, it began to be considered as threat by the paranoid government and began to get assaulted physically. The party was wrongly accused by the authority as Communist and therefore, it was considered to be subversive, to be the enemy of the state. The most famous incident was the July 27th Incident. The Incident's background was leadership dualism within the PDI or the Indonesian Democratic Party - the grassroots level supported Megawati, but the high-ranked officials supported Soeharto's stooge in the party, Soerjadi. Meanwhile, PRD was an ally to Megawati's PDI, and its headquarters was joining headquarters of Megawati's PDI at Diponegoro Street, Jakarta. PRD activists often arranged free discussion and debate in the area. where an unknown armed mob attacked the party's headquarters. Thus, the location became the base camp for the opponents of both Soerjadi's PDI and Soeharto's regime. And on July 27th 1996, 5 days after the Manifesto declaration, a group of unknown armed mob attacked the location which resulted 4 deaths (certainly from the PRD's side) and tens were injured. By the same year, the party members began to receive terrors from the government's police and maybe even the military. Some of the members were arrested improperly, imprisoned without trial, abducted, and physically and mentally assaulted and abused. Shortly after the Incident, 4 PRD's members, including leader Budiman Sujatmiko, were arrested and imprisoned. One of these, a village artist named Widji Thukul, who was an activist in Jakker (People's Culture Network - PRD's onderbow), was purportedly abducted by Kopassus (Special Commando Army - Indonesian commando elite units) led by Prabowo Subianto. He was missing eversince, and yet his kidnapper was still free.

The party made the government got more mad as its leader, Budiman Sujatmiko, met up with Timor Leste pro-independence figure Xanana Gusmão and declared the party's support in the independence of East Timor.

By the end of 1997 and early 1998, the party's role in the Reformation and the soft-depose of President Suharto was vital. The party was one of the front in the young intellectuals' national movement to demand the political changes and the resignation of Suharto. The reformation wave factually created chaos, plunders, murders, pillagings, and rapings as it was also seized by many opportunistic sides and peoples for their own interests, including the military, racialist movements, and the right-wingers. But by May 1998, the condition began to be stabilized after its climax, and the President agreed to step down.

After the Reformation, the party still actively criticizing the government's policies and actively arranging protests, demonstrations, and sometimes even election-boycotts. Its mass also still often got in confrontation with the authority as the authority considered the party to be anarchist. It was now led by labor activist Dita Indah Sari as Budiman Sujatmiko continued his study.

The PRD is closely associated with the Socialist Alliance in Australia and with various national liberation groups in Asia and the Pacific Islands.

Sources:

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