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ASIET NetNews Number 15 - April 27-May 3, 1998
East TimorStudents continue protests Clashes spread to Islamic State Institute Bloody clashes highlight student actions Indonesian students on rampage in Medan Indonesian students freed after protest Students accuse police of brutality Indonesian students fight police Indonesian police said to detain 40 students Student protests continue
Political/economic crisisEast Timor resistance elect jailed guerrilla
Labour issuesUS urges Suharto to show restraint IMF aid to Indonesia expected to resume Soeharto: no reform for five years Political system aggravates financial crisis
Human rights/lawJobless jumps to 13.5 million in April
Organized group behind abductions Andi Arief willing to unveil his experiences Pius likely detained at state code building Activist too frightened to tell of torture Jakarta activist tells of torture ABRI to sue media for libel Account of torture sets off shock waves Two disappear in Aceh US group denounces disappearances US urges Indonesia to probe abductions
| Democratic struggle |
Jakarta -- Waves of student protests critical of the government and demanding sweeping reforms were unrelenting yesterday, with clashes between students and security officers erupting on several campuses.
There was no respite in the persistent cries for the lowering of prices of basic commodities and an insistence that the government be held accountable for the economic doldrums enfolding the country.
In Jakarta, four police officers were treated for head wounds when a shower of stones was hurled by about 400 students protesting at the Syarif Hidayatullah Institute for Islamic Studies on the southern outskirts of the city.
The violence unfolded when students failed to break through a police blockade preventing them from taking their protest onto the streets. They vented their frustration by throwing stones at the police. No arrests were made, however.
City police spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said police deplored the incident and pleaded that it should be the last of such violence to happen in the capital.
Meanwhile, two other institutions, the Institute for Computer Management (STIMIK) and Tarumanegara University, according to Antara, were able to hold minor demonstrations which eventually moved onto the streets.
Students at STIMIK held a free-speech forum which heard from notable speakers including former Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin.
In the North Sumatra capital of Medan, the situation was relatively calm yesterday after the previous day in which students from Sumatra Utara University clashed with security officers.
A puff of black smoke was seen, however, as about two dozen students from Ksatria Academy of Information and Computers set fire to tires during a rally on their campus.
Long banners spread around the campus carried their statements: Reformasi Oke. Kau Perasi? Tidak Layau! (Reforms Yes. You Manipulate Us? Of course not!), ABRI=Mahasiswa=Rakyat Sama- Sama Susah (Armed Forces=Students=People Suffering Together), and Oh Tuhan, Tolong Dengar Aspirasi Kami (Oh God, Please Listen to Our Aspirations).
In a related development yesterday, the local chapter of the Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI) lodged a strong protest over the beating of an Antara journalist covering Wednesday's protest at the Sumatra Utara University campus.
Munawar Mundaling, 30, was allegedly beaten up by plainclothes officers despite having shown them his official press badge.
In the East Java capital of Surabaya, more than 2,000 students from several universities staged a free-speech forum and a theatrical performance on the campus of the Surabaya Teachers Training Institute (IKIP Surabaya).
The free-speech forum featured an English professor, Djoko Marhaen, who asked the students to continue their protests and keep demanding reforms in every sector of state life.
The event was witnessed by hundreds of security personnel who watched from behind a fence.
Reform fever also caught on at several campuses in which protests are a rarity.
In Yogyakarta, about 1,500 students of the military-managed Pembangunan Nasional University called on the government to faithfully implement the 1945 Constitution.
Rector Prof. Tarwotjo and deputy rector in charge of student affairs, Brig. Gen. (ret) Helmizan, were both present at the demonstration.
In Semarang, Central Java, 3,000 students from various universities gathered on the grounds of the Diponegoro University campus.
The protest also drew the attention of hundreds of nearby residents who came to watch the demonstration, where students demanded the government be held accountable for the economic predicament.
A minor clash occurred when police officers, backed by troops and several military armored vehicles, forced back students who tried to make their way to the streets. In the West Java capital of Bandung, similar student demonstrations took place in at least seven universities here--the Sunan Gunung Djati Islamic Institute, the Mandala Technical College, the Textile Technology Institute, and YPKP Economic College (STIE YPKP), and the Bandung Institute of Technology.
An estimated 1,000 students of the Bandung Institute of Technology were able to march on the street, peacefully attempting to take their protest to the nearby Padjadjaran University.
But they were later stopped by police and troops who had set up a blockade at strategic street points leading to the Padjadjaran campus. No violence was reported as they dispersed.
In Surakarta, Central Java, student activists held a free- speech forum at the Muhammadiyah Surakarta University campus calling for lower prices and immediate reforms.
The early morning rally spontaneously traveled onto the streets but security forces standing guard were lenient. They allowed them to march peacefully along the Solo-Semarang roadway.
Police officers were kept busy attempting to ease the traffic congestion caused by the rally.
Jakarta -- A clash between the security apparatus and students staging actions of concern has now occurred at the Syarif hidayatullah Islamic Religion State Institute, Jakarta, on Thursday (30/4). More than one thousand students from various higher education institutes in the Jakarta-Bogor-Tangerang-Bekasi area who had gathered there, tried to go on the streets to demand that the government soon carry out comprehensive political and economic reformation.
Traffic on the Juanda road, Ciputat, was paralyzed for an hour because the road was blocked by security. Hundreds of security members formed a barricade along the campus when the students tried to get out of the campus. The pushing and shoving between the students and security members lasted a while accompanied by stone-throwing at the security personnel. Three security agents were injured. Students who were able to get out of the campus formed small groups of 25 to 100 persons. Each group staged orations on the road-side. Nearing noon, the students inside the campus simultaneously gathered outside the campus and formed a long column heading towards the mosque on the opposite side of the road.
The students delayed their dispersal when a police helicopter flew low towards the demo location and issued reminders for the students to cease their action. The action stopped when the security apparatus withdrew and heavy rain showered the area.
In Medan, the situation on the North Sumatra University (USU) campus, which the day before was swamped by rioting, on Thursday gradually returned to normal. The roads around the campus could again be used by the public as usual. No uniformed personnel were seen on guard. Similarly, the students were no longer staging actions of concern.
The head of the university, Prof dr Chairuddin P Lubis DTM SpAK said that with the lectures holiday the students could cool and calm down. Hopefully the students were capable of thinking clearly and conveying their aspirations in a way that would not disturb the community around the campus. Let the students convey their aspirations, but in an orderly and polite manner.
The university head took the time to visit a student being treated in the Elisabeth hospital. He and a fellow student fell from their motorbikes after a collision, the friend died as a result.
In Bandung, students of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) succeeded in marching some 500 meters along the Ir Juanda road. A clash occurred when security personnel tried to drive the crowd back to Ganesha road. As a result, traffic on Ir Junda road was completely stopped for a while and two students who were injured were rushed to the St Borromeus hospital. Besides the ITB, several other higher education institutes staged demonstrations. Besides demanding reformation, they also condemned the abduction of activists.
In Jember, hundreds of students of the Muhammadiyah University staged a mock funeral procession mourning the "Voice of the People" to the Jember Regional Parliament Building about one kilometer away.
In Semarang, a student action of concern again took place at the Diponegoro University. This time about a thousand students were able to get out of campus, but only to the boulevard connecting the campus with the protocol road. Gathered around the Diponegoro statue they conveyed their demands for reformation and lowering of prices.
In Padang, thousands of students of various higher education institutes staged a grand rally on the campus of the Andalas University. They again urged the government to carry out reformation soon in all fields.
Thousands of students from various universities held a grand rally on the IKIP Negeri Ketintang campus in Surabaya, and tried to break through the barricade of security personnel at the main gate, to get on the street. But this was unsuccessful.
In Ujungpandang, during the last few weeks, the hall of the second floor of the South Sulawesi regional parliament has become a free forum "stage" for the students. On Thursday about 1,000 students of the Paulus Indonesian Christian University (UKIP) came to the regional parliament building to stage an action of concern. They came using three buses, three open trucks, hundreds of motorbikes and dozens of private cars, from the UKIP campus some eight kilometers distant. The group was escorted by security. On the parliament grounds they staged a free forum, castigating the parliament's role which had not yet reacted to the protracted crisis.
In Solo, the Grand Student Family of the Muhammadiyah University of some 500 members staged a demonstration outside the campus. They intended a long march of some 7 kilometers to Solo. But this intention was thwarted by the police.
Jakarta - Dozens of higher education institutes in the area of Jabotabek (Jakarta-Bogor-Tangerang-Bekasi) simultaneously staged actions of concern which were highlighted by clashes with the security apparatus at various campuses on Saturday (2/5). Bloody clashes occurred at the Institute of Teaching and Pedagogy (IKIP), Rawamangun, East Jakarta, where six students were hit by rubber bullets, 33 persons seriously injured, causing part of them to be rushed to the Persahabatan hospital, and dozens of others suffering light injuries. This does not include students who became victims at other campuses.
The information chief of the Jakarta Metropolitan Police, Lt. Col. Drs Edward Aritonang who was contacted on Saturday afternoon, said that on the side of the police 28 persons were injured as a result of clashes at various campuses in Jabotabek. From that number, 11 have to be treated at the Kramatjati Police Hospital and the Gatot Soebroto Hospital. At the IKIP and Yasri, 11 police members were injured.
Aritonang added that in the IKIP incident, the police did not fire real bullets. He said that when pushing and shoving with the students took place, an iron fence collapsed causing a number of student to become wounded.
In Medan, North Sumatra, the student actions of concern grew into riots highlighted by damage to and throwing of objects at buildings. A Nissan minibus was burned, and a Timor car and Mitsubishi pick-up had their windows destroyed.
The deputy chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), commenting on the spreading clashes between students and security with casualties occurring, said that the apprehension of many circles that it would come to violent action between the apparatus and the students, had now been proven to be warranted.
Marzuki admitted that the incidents at the IKIP Rawamangun and in Medan were a heavy blow to the Human Rights advancement program of the Komnas HAM. Violence is a grave threat of Human Rights violations occurring, from whatever source. He only wanted to remind that violence is no solution, and no one-sided advantage.
Wounded by shots
Six students were injured by shots in the clash at IKIP Jakarta. One was wounded seriously in the stomach area. One student was wounded by a bayonet.
Besides the casualties among the students, a photo reporter from Majalah Sinar was wounded on the head. Security also grabbed a camera from a foreign reporter from the Financial Times who was recording the event.
The incident was completely unexpected. The action of concern which was participated in by some 2,000 students, initially was only highlighted by some pushing between the security and the students. But around 13.30 local time an aqua bottle and stones were thrown from outside the group of students.
At that moment a security agent let off a shot in the air, simultaneously followed by tear gas and volleys of rubber bullets into the air and at the students. The rain of bullets which lasted ten minutes caused the students and onlookers to run head over heels. But they could not enter the campus because all gates were closed tightly, until the fence was brought down. Part of them gained safety by climbing the fence, but hundreds of others went into the two meters deep gutter.
An atmosphere of sorrow covered the IKIP Jakarta campus when the injured students were brought into the campus. First aid to them was somewhat tardy because numerous casualties had not been anticipated. Dozens of students were busy compressing swollen eyes and wiping their faces and bodies to clean off the remnants of the tear gas.
Central Jakarta
At the campus of ABA-ABI Matraman, some 500 students from Universitas Indonesia, Universitas Kristen Indonesia, Universitas Moestopo and ABA-ABI were hit by tear gas. Four students were injured in a physical clash with police. Dozens of students who succeeded in exiting from the ABA-ABI campus joined about a hundred students from Attahiriyah and the Jakarta Technology Higher Institute on the green strip of Matraman Raya road. Mobile Brigade police dispersed them with tracking hounds and canes, driving the students off to the Matraman I road.
The action of concern at the UI Salemba campus which was attended by some 2,000 participants, lasted some six hours under tight surveillance by hundreds of completely armed security personnel. Nearing noon, various troops of students from a number of campuses such as the Jakarta Arts Institute, the Malang Students Association, came in turn to the UI Salemba campus on foot.
No incidents occurred here, although there was some mutual pushing at the campus gate between the students and the security apparatus. A number of UI students wanted to come and get their colleagues who were on the ABA-ABI campus. Bu the security did not allow them to go on foot. Some mutual shoving followed. Finally agreement was reached that the students would be taken by vehicles provided by the official personnel.
The action which was filled with oration and various art programs also put on stage the UI teacher Prof Dr Selo Soemardjan, who in his speech affirmed that his side supported the student action demanding reformation in politics, economics and law. He got loud acclaim when he said he believed that the student action was not being exploited, and that they should continue their struggle.
Hundreds of students from the Universitas Yarsi, the Industrial Management Higher Institute and the Universitas Muhammadiyah carried out a joint action on the Yarsi campus in the Cempaka Putih area. The student mass which initially carried out its action on the slow lane of the Letjen Soeprapto road, was finally driven back onto the campus. Three police members were injured by thrown stones in a clash with students.
South Jakarta
In front of the Lebak Bulus terminal, around 12.00 local time, thousands of students from Universitas Muhammadiyah (UMJ), IAIN Syarif Hidayatullah and the PTIQ carried out a long march of two kilometers towards the UMJ campus on the Ciputat main road, in an orderly manner without security escort. But when they reached the BATAN Building, security finally escorted them towards the UMJ campus. Here, the action continued. There was a clash with the security, because the students were prevented from leaving the campus. To dampen the action, the police fired off tear gas.
Thousands of students from the Social and Political Sciences Institute (IISIP) and the Universitas Nasional, carried out a long march of one kilometer from the Universitas Pancasila campus to the IISIP campus under escort of the security apparatus. This action found sympathy on the part o the public and high school pupils on the road, sometimes by giving the students drinks in plastic containers.
At the Universitas Attahiriyah, about one hundred students went on the streets after teaching recital to women in the campus mosque. The police were first misled because they left the campus one by one and regrouped outside. After some negotiation with the police they were allowed to march, but only by the side-streets around the campus.
At the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) campus in Baranangsiang, Permadi SH gave a one hour speech before thousands of students. Previously, students from four private higher institutes in Bogor had gathered in the campus of Universitas Djuanda, Ciawai, and then long-marched to the IPB Baranangsiang campus. This large group was blocked by security in the Tajur area before entering Bogor City, and was then put on buses to be taken to the IPB campus.
In Medan
In Medan, students at the Universitas HKBP Nommensen ran amuck and wrecked the glass-walled car showroom of PT TDK. One car was burned, two others had their windows broken.
Besides this, the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Perintis Kemerdekaan road, directly facing the university, was stoned, causing all its glass walls to be reduced to smithereens. Similar damage was suffered by buildings close to Nommensen, such as hotel Sahid Jaya, Bank Internasional Indonesia, and a number of shops.
Information gathered by Kompas in the field says that the wrecking and burning occurred around 10.30 local time Employees at the showroom had just started work, when suddenly a number of people came and stoned the glass surfaces of the three floor building. A car inside was dragged out and burned in the middle of the road. The personnel on duty could not put out the fire which spread rapidly. The situation was only brought under control by hundreds of security personnel around 15.00 local time.
Students of the North Sumatra Universitas Muhammadiyah, Universitas Islam, Universitas Sisingamangaradja XII and IAIN also went on the streets. They demanded that reformation be carried out soon without having to wait for the year 2003. The action at these three universities could be kept manageable, because the leadership of the Regional Parliament and the Armed Forces were willing to go into the street and have direct dialogue with the students.
Raju Gopalakrishnan, Medan -- Indonesian students protesting against the rule of President Suharto battled security forces for more than six hours in Medan Wednesday, torching a police motorcycle and hurling stones at troops. But the security forces, backed by two armored cars firing repeated rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets, managed to keep the belligerent students of the University of North Sumatra on the outskirts of Medan at bay.
Protests centered on the sprawling campus of the university have grown increasingly violent over the past 10 days. University authorities announced Wednesday they would shut down the campus until May 7 to cool tensions.
About 100 students from the University of Nommensen in the center of Medan also held a violent protest, burning tires and snarling traffic for hours. They dispersed after police fired tear gas, the witnesses said.
There were protests elsewhere in the vast country of 200 million people, with scuffles reported in Jakarta and the west Java city of Bandung, but no reports of serious injuries.
In Jakarta, a lawyer reported that one anti-Suharto student activist had fled the country because he feared for his safety.
Lawyer Hendardi said the activist, Pius Lustrilanang, had gone to the Netherlands after his release by abductors who had tortured him. Lustrilanang told a news conference Monday before his flight abroad that the armed forces bore responsibility for his abduction.
At the University of North Sumatra, some 4,000 students gathered at the main campus gate around noon local time and shouted slogans against Suharto, who has ruled Indonesia since 1966, accusing him of responsibility for Indonesia's economic crisis. Several hundred hurled stones at a traffic policeman manning a nearby intersection. After the officer ran, the students set his motorcycle on fire, sending black plumes of smoke into the air as the gas tank exploded.
The students milled outside the gate for about 30 minutes before police and troop reinforcements arrived with the two armored cars. The security forces then fired repeated rounds of tear gas to push the students back into the tree-lined campus but made no move to enter themselves.
The standoff continue until late in the evening, with some students making regular forays to hurl stones at the troops and the armored cars.
Some were overcome by tear gas and were carried back into the campus by their colleagues, where others had lit fires of twigs and leaves believing the smoke would mitigate its effect.
Reuters Television cameraman Des Wright saw the students throw two gasoline bombs at the armored cars, but they did not appear to be damaged.
Witnesses said residents of the suburbs around the campus also hurled stones at the security forces and retreated after troops fired rubber bullets. There was no immediate word of injuries.
Many students brought tables and chairs from their classrooms to block the entrance to the campus for fear that troops would enter.
At other restive campuses in the city, students said they were attempting to keep their protests peaceful, although they were determined to maintain the anti-Suharto campaign.
"We hope the military will join us in bringing down the king," said Duman Wau, a student leader at the St. Thomas Catholic University. "We are not doing this for ourselves. We are doing it for the military also ...we are doing it for the entire country."
Medan, a commodities trading town on Sumatra, has been torn by campus protests against Suharto for more than two weeks. Protests have been held regularly since February on Indonesia's main island of Java and in other areas.
The target is the 76-year-old Suharto, whom the protesters blame for a crisis in which the rupiah has plummeted 70 percent against the dollar since July. Unemployment and inflation have soared.
The protests began just before Suharto was re-elected to a seventh five-year term by a body he largely hand-picked.
Raju Gopalakrishnan, Medan -- Indonesian authorities released 13 students Tuesday after detaining them over one of the most intense protests yet against President Suharto.
University of North Sumatra rector Chairuddin Lubis said police handed the students over to him and as far as he knew they were the only ones detained after a major demonstration in the town of Medan Monday.
Another 20 to 25 people detained after the protest, which riot police and soldiers ended with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon spraying water dyed yellow, were not students, Chairuddin said. He did not know who they were, he added.
Police and army spokesman were not immediately available for comment.
The students were detained after troops lifted a blockade of the campus, allowing some 5,000 students to leave, in the early hours of Tuesday. They had blocked the exits to the campus after driving students back into it after a two-hour confrontation.
Monday, there were demonstrations at four campuses in Medan, which, for the moment, has become the focus of attention of protests around the country demanding that Suharto go.
Chairuddin said all the Medan rectors would meet on Wednesday to decide what to do about protests which security forces have tolerated as long as they remain on campus. They have cracked down on students trying to demonstrate in the streets.
Medan was calm Tuesday, a national holiday, but students planned to meet to chart their next step in a campaign for reform and the ouster of Suharto, who is 76.
Protests, sparked by Indonesia's worst economic crisis in three decades, began just before Suharto was re-elected in March to a seventh five-year term by a body he largely hand-picked.
The prime call at almost all the demonstrations has been for political and economic reform and for Suharto to step down to accept responsibility for a devastating economic crisis in which Indonesia's rupiah has lost some 70 percent of its value against the US dollar.
Medan -- Five Indonesian students were taken away by what student leaders said were plain clothes security officials and two others were injured in escalating protests demanding President Suharto quit, witnesses said on Sunday.
The five were attending a campus meeting on Saturday in the north Sumatra city of Medan after a demonstration during which one student was injured by a rubber bullet and another by police batons, when the unidentified men took them away, the witnesses said.
"They were beaten by several men inside campus before they were taken away," one witness said.
The Students Association of the University of North Sumatra -- one of many campuses around the country where students have been demonstrating for political and economic reform -- issued a statement demanding that security forces release the five.
It also blamed police for the violence at the demonstration as some 500 of them pushed protesters back into the campus as they tried to take to the streets. The statement, issued on Sunday, also demanded an apology for the police action.
Witnesses said police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and used cane batons against students, who threw stones at them. They said one student was hit in the back by a rubber bullet and the other suffered head wounds from police batons. "I saw myself that police shot one of them and he was bleeding in the back. The other had head injuries from being hit by police canes," said one witness, who asked not to be named. Police in Medan were not immediately available for comment.
Earlier in the week, Medan students hurled Molotov cocktails at police in a serious escalation of protests on campuses around Indonesia that began in February.
The Jakarta Post said on Sunday a student had been shot in the hand during Friday's protest and quoted Medan police as saying they were investigating the incident. "We are still investigating who the shooter was. Shooting is not allowed at all in facing student demonstrations," it quoted a police spokesman as saying.
Protesters at two campuses in the city on Saturday were demanding police return two other students, missing after being beaten by police in an earlier protest, the newspaper said.
Most protests have been peaceful and police and security forces have tolerated them as long as the demonstrators remain on campus. But, increasingly, students around Indonesia appear ready to challenge the authorities by trying to take their protests on to the streets. In Jakarta on Saturday, police detained about 40 students for several hours after preventing some 500 protesters leaving the campus of the Ibnu Chaldun University.
There were other demonstrations and student meetings around Indonesia on Saturday. They were largely peaceful, according to media reports.
[The April 26 AFX-ASIA news service also reported that some 1,500 students from Jambi University tried to march on the local parliament and join students from another university. According to the Indonesian daily Kompas, police fired rubber bullets into the crowd, with one student fainting in the resulting stampede and another suffering a bullet wound. Neither required hospital treatment - James Balowski.]
Irwan Firdaus, Jakarta -- Police with clubs and riot shields battled rock-throwing student protesters on a campus in eastern Indonesia today. It was the second violent demonstration against President Suharto in as many days.
At least 10 students were injured in the fight in Mataram, capital of the island of Lombok, medical workers said. Lombok lies next to the resort island of Bali and like it is a popular destination for foreign tourists.
For weeks, students have staged daily protests for democratic and financial reform amid the worst economic crisis of Suharto's three-decade reign. The crisis, brought on by currency turmoil, has sent prices and unemployment soaring.
More demonstrations are turning violent as protesters, emboldened by their growing numbers, try to push their way off the campuses in defiance of a military ban on street rallies.
That was the case at Mataram University, where more than 1,000 students tried to march to the local government building to press their demands.
Fighting broke out after police blocked the marchers, said Chaerudin, a campus security guard, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. He said police fired warning shots -- it was not clear whether they were blanks or live ammunition.
In another protest, near Jakarta, 1,500 students from several universities demonstrated peacefully against the government.
Their key demand was the resignation of Suharto, a former army general who has been in power since the 1960s and retains firm control of the government and the military.
"We won't ever get tired of demanding that Suharto quit," said Syaiful, an engineering student at the demonstration at the Bogor Agriculture Institute, 25 miles south of the capital.
On Friday, students threw a dozen gasoline bombs at police in Medan, 1,250 miles northwest of Jakarta. Police fired back tear gas.
Jakarta -- Indonesian police detained about 40 students during an anti-government protest at a university in Jakarta on Saturday, local journalists reported.
The 40 were taken into custody when police blocked about 500 students from taking their protest outside the campus of the Ibnu Chaldun University in East Jakarta.
The Jakarta Post said on Saturday that students in the north Sumatran regional capital of Medan earlier this week had hurled molotov cocktails and stones at police, who retaliated with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Demonstrations were reported from several other centres on Friday but there were no immediate accounts of other street protests on Saturday outside Jakarta.
Eyewitnesses said the Ibnu Chaldun University students were still being held several hours after the protest but it was not known if any had been charged.
The Jakarta Post said one student was shot and seriously injured by the police during the Medan demonstration on Wednesday.
It said two other students were missing following the clash in which police prevented about 1,000 students at St Thomas Catholic University from leaving their campus. "This was the most violent demonstration here in the last few months," it quoted a student as saying.
Thousands of students from various universities were reported to have marched peacefully through the streets of the South Sulawesi island capital of Ujung Pandang after Friday Moslem prayers.
The province's military commander, Major-General Agum Gumelar, was the only security chief to allow street marches. "Although their activity has not abated, their demonstrations have remained tolerable, secure and under control," the official Antara news agency quoted him as saying. "Their demands to lower prices and to alleviate corruption and collusion is an aspiration shared by all people."
The Jakarta Post said about 20,000 Moslem students were joined by housewives and labourers in a peaceful demonstration at Gadjah Mada University in the ancient city of Yogyakarta, a hotbed of anti-government protest.
Peaceful gatherings were reported in Indonesia's second city of Surabaya in East Java, Bandung and Manado in North Sulawesi.
Jakarta -- University students here and in many other cities plugged on with their demands for an end to the economic crisis and comprehensive reforms in more demonstrations yesterday.
At least two incidents of violence were reported after rallying students attempted to leave their campuses and clashed with security personnel. These occurred in Medan, provincial capital of North Sumatra, and Denpasar, the capital of tourist resort island Bali.
In Denpasar, at least 12 students were injured in a clash with security personnel. Also injured was the head of the Bali Legal Aid Institute, Soni Qodri.
The melee broke out when about 1,000 students demonstrating near the entrance of state-run Udayana University were blocked by police officers as they tried to march onto the streets.
The two groups became embroiled in a stone-throwing altercation. Police subsequently released tear gas.
"Both parties were to blame for this incident. But which should be blamed more, I can't tell. But I hope students won't repeat this again," said Udayana rector Sukardika when he visited the injured in Sanglah Hospital.
In Medan, at least three people were injured when hundreds of students from several universities who had gathered at the Medan Institute of Technology clashed with the police.
Students resorted to throwing stones at the officers when they failed to break through the cordon.
In Semarang at least three students suffered minor injuries after they were beaten with rattan sticks after trying to pierce the police blockade. The students numbered about 2,000.
In Jakarta, an estimated 1,000 students managed to force their way out of the Indonesian Christian University in Cawang, East Jakarta, and onto the street, causing traffic congestion in the busy area.
They shouted demands for reform and for President Soeharto to step aside as they set out to march to the Borobudur University campus on Jl. Kali Malang Raya. They returned to their campus following negotiations with security officers, who arrived some time after the demonstration began. No violence was reported.
In the West Java capital of Bandung, protesting students at the Bandung Institute of Technology appeared to have changed their approach to voicing the people's aspiration for reforms yesterday
Unlike previous protests, the students staged their demonstration near the university entrance but kept their distance from watchful security officers ringing the campus.
A special stage equipped with a set of musical instruments and an extensive sound-system set was erected on Jl. Ganesha inside the university compound. They named the area "public space", and invited members of the surrounding community to join their demonstration.
Dozens of housewives took them up on the offer, listening to fiery speeches by student activists.
"This is an alternative way to pressure the government for our demands, namely taking control of Jl. Ganesha," said Widi Aswidi, a student leader.
Widi also said the university's schools of electronic engineering and physics were currently working to establish a special FM radio transmitter to air messages for reforms.
The station, on frequency FM 108.95, would be named Radio Suara Perubahan (Radio of the Voice of Change), the activist said.
The students plan to air special "provocation" programs during two hours in the morning and two in the evening.
Other demonstrations occurred peacefully yesterday in the East Java capital of Surabaya, Yogyakarta, and South Sulawesi's capital of Ujung Pandang.
On the campus of Perbanas Banking Institute in Surabaya hundreds of students, some in tears, listened to a speech by a 60-year-old man who identified himself as Soewignjo.
"Frankly, I did not even finish my elementary school. I don't know what reform means. But I hope students will not be afraid to always voice people's aspirations. People outnumber the military. March on, don't stop, don't retreat," he shouted to the applauding students.
Hundreds of students from other universities joined a free speech forum held later at the institute, and returned to their respective campuses on foot.
Police did not stop them from walking together on the streets.
"They are just walking back to their campuses, that's okay. Students cannot be treated harshly," East Surabaya Police Precinct Chief Lt. Col. Oegroseno, who was at the scene, said.
| East Timor |
Richard Waddington, Lisbon -- East Timor's traditionally fractious resistance movements have united to elect jailed guerrilla chief Xanana Gusmao as leader of a new single front against Indonesian rule of the Pacific territory.
At a historic four-day convention that ended in the early hours of Monday, the resistance also chose a political committee and drew up a draft charter for the eventual independence of the former Portuguese colony.
"It is without doubt an extraordinary step in the story of the East Timor resistance," said Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos- Horta.
Ramos-Horta was elected one of two vice-presidents of the political commission of the newly formed National Council for the Timorese Resistance, the umbrella organisation that will group all the various East Timorese factions.
Ramos-Horta, who in 1996 was awarded the Nobel prize along with the Roman Catholic bishop of Dili, Carlos Belo, became the Council's senior official outside the territory.
Gusmao has been in jail in Jakarta since 1992. A second vice- president was also elected to the committee, but his name was kept secret as he is still living and active within the Jakarta- held territory.
The meeting of about 200 delegates at a hotel at Peniche, a port town just north of Lisbon, marked the first time that major resistance groups had agreed to a single political formation.
Portugal, which is still regarded by the United Nations as the territory's administering power, has often said that lack of unity amongst the resistance groups has hampered the finding of a diplomatic solution.
"We are (now) going to speak with one voice. Let Indonesia hear, hear the voice of the people of Timor who are at one in asking for self-determination and independence," said Jose Luis Guterres, a leader of one of the principal East Timorese factions, Fretilin.
Lisbon backs the resistance groups' demand for a referendum in which the East Timorese would be allowed to decide their future.
But Jakarta rejects any such vote, saying that the East Timorese at the time welcomed becoming part of Indonesia.
| Political/economic crisis |
Paul Blustein -- The Clinton administration, worried that political upheaval in Indonesia could wreck the country's international economic rescue, is warning the government of President Suharto to show restraint in dealing with student demonstrations and other forms of dissent.
But administration officials said that despite mounting criticism of the Suharto regime's human rights practices, they are not threatening to cut off Indonesia's $43 billion bailout led by the International Monetary Fund. Depriving the country of desperately needed cash, they argue, would only deepen its economic crisis and increase the chances of social turmoil and bloodshed.
The IMF is expected to approve another $1 billion installment for Indonesia on Monday. Administration and IMF officials said that last-minute negotiations are continuing but that Indonesian authorities, after balking for months, appear to be complying with IMF demands for economic reforms, including the dismantling of monopolies run by the president's relatives and cronies.
Behind the flurry of maneuvers lies the administration's anxiety about keeping the situation in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, from spinning out of control.
Indonesia's financial condition remains extremely fragile, with its currency deeply depressed, inflation soaring and joblessness spreading. An outbreak of social chaos in Indonesia could spook investors in neighboring countries and cause the Asian financial crisis to worsen, US and IMF officials fear. Moreover, the Indonesian archipelago straddles major shipping lanes, and civil strife there could disrupt global commerce.
At the same time, administration officials are worried about the reaction in Congress if the United States is seen to be propping up a regime that is cracking down on student protesters and allegedly abducting and torturing its critics. Brutal repression of dissent could make it politically difficult for Western nations to support the continuation of the IMF bailout and could complicate the administration's effort to win congressional approval of an increase in funding for the IMF.
Accordingly, "we have been very proactive" in admonishing the Indonesians to respect human rights and especially to avoid "unfortunate accidents," a senior State Department official said, adding that Australia and several European governments have echoed the US view.
Three weeks ago, Indonesian ambassador Dorodjatun Kuntoro- Jakti was summoned to a meeting with John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for human rights, and Stanley Roth, assistant secretary of state for East Asia, "to express concern about the human rights situation and press for police restraint against the student demonstrators," the official said. Roth made similar points to Indonesian officials during a visit to Jakarta in mid-April, and US ambassador Stapleton Roy has also been "pressing for the need to investigate the reported disappearance of some of the student leaders," the official said. "In fact, some [dissidents] have since surfaced, we believe as a result of Roy's pressing."
The specter of violent student-police confrontations has already dealt a blow to Indonesia's prospects for recovery. The country's key stock index, which has been falling most of the week, dropped another 2.5 percent yesterday amid investor unease over spreading social unrest.
Against that backdrop, the flow of bailout funds from the IMF is expected to resume Monday. Having twice suspended the rescue in response to Indonesia's failure to fulfill its promises of economic reform, the board of the 182-nation fund is planning to dole out its loans to Jakarta monthly instead of quarterly, thereby keeping a closer watch over the government's reform efforts than it does with most borrowing countries.
US officials said the new Indonesian cabinet has made impressive progress in halting an explosion in the money supply that was undermining investor confidence.
The rescue's fate appeared in doubt this week because of an apparent attempt by Indonesian authorities to protect a monopoly on cloves, controlled by Suharto's son Tommy, that Jakarta had promised to eliminate. The monopoly, though legally shut down, had opened under a new guise, arousing anger in Washington about yet another example of Indonesian resistance to ending the country's "crony capitalism."
But Stanley Fischer, the IMF's deputy managing director, said yesterday, "We believe the clove problem is being dealt with." Other IMF officials cited a statement on Wednesday in which cabinet ministers formally promised to allow free trade for clove growers, traders and companies that use them. In that statement, Finance Minister Fuad Bawazier vowed there would be no requirements for cigarette makers, which use cloves as flavoring, to buy cloves from any particular source.
The IMF is cutting Indonesia some slack on its promise to allow free trade in another product, palm oil, because the oil is heavily used by poor Indonesians for cooking and ending government control over its sale would likely send the price skyrocketing, IMF officials said. A sharp price hike in such a staple could spark rioting, they said.
By David E. Sanger and Nicholas D. Kristof
Washington -- The United States is preparing to back a $1 billion payment in international emergency aid to Indonesia on Monday, despite evidence that President Suharto's family and friends are continuing to undermine efforts to break up the multi-billion dollar monopolies they control.
On Thursday, Treasury officials acknowledged that Indonesia has failed to meet some of the most important conditions that were imposed by the International Monetary Fund in return for a $40 billion bailout package. Nonetheless, they said, the United States expects to vote in favor of a gradual resumption of aid when the monetary fund's board meets next week.
Late last winter, after delivering $3 billion to Indonesia, the fund stopped all further payments until the country began to meet the stringent bailout requirements. On Thursday, officials said that they wanted to encourage Indonesia for making a number of painful changes in the last two weeks, particularly raising interest rates and halting lending by the central bank -- changes that the country had resisted adopting. The Clinton administration now says those steps satisfy its previous demands that Indonesia make "adequate progress" toward meeting the IMF conditions.
But for all of the monetary fund's optimistic declarations of progress -- some of which are clearly designed to entice investors back to Indonesia -- the fund has so far failed to achieve its most difficult goal -- to dismantle the most egregious examples of "crony capitalism," and break up the monopolies that have built the multi-billion dollar empire of Suharto.
While Indonesia has agreed to dismantle two enormous monopolies in cloves and palm oil, both Indonesians and foreign executives in Jakarta say that the monopolies now thrive in different forms.
Within the administration and on Capitol Hill, the decision to send more aid to Indonesia is enormously sensitive and politically risky.
The White House has been trying unsuccessfully to persuade Congress to contribute another $18 billion to the IMF -- a plea President Clinton repeated Thursday at his news conference -- at a time when many lawmakers have complained that the monetary fund's strategies are misguided and that it is propping up a corrupt and repressive regime in Indonesia. Moreover, the fund will resume payments just as human rights abuses in Indonesia are escalating.
So far, the administration has declined to say whether it would link its vote at the IMF to Indonesia's handling of the mounting protests. Testifying before Congress in early March, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said "it seems to me that you do have to have compliance" with the monetary fund's stringent conditions, which include the breakup of the monopolies, before Indonesia can begin to draw on a $40 billion bailout package that the United States helped design.
In interviews Thursday, however, administration officials said they were favoring sending Indonesia some of the money to encourage it to accelerate its reforms. The fund has agreed to dole the money out in billion-dollar installments, keeping month-to-month pressure on Suharto. A similar strategy was used last year, with mixed results, to force economic changes in Russia.
On Thursday both American and monetary fund officials argued that Suharto's government has, for the first time, fulfilled several of the most easily measurable pledges, including restoring discipline to the nation's central bank. The bank's wild lending spree earlier this year -- a desperate effort to keep Indonesia's financial institutions and major businesses from collapse -- fueled runaway inflation and sent international investors fleeing.
Since signing the third agreement with the fund two weeks ago, Indonesian officials have also begun to negotiate with international creditors who lent $70 billion to Indonesian businesses, almost all of which have stopped paying their bills. Slowly, Suharto's government has begun restructuring a collapsed banking system, though it has yet to close many banks linked to the Suharto family and its circle of powerful friends.
The fund's top official in Indonesia, Prabhakar Narvekar, said earlier this week in Jakarta that the country's compliance with the agreement has been "good enough." Thursday, speaking in Washington, the fund's No. 2 official, Stanley Fischer, said Thursday that the fund planned to give money only after making "monthy checkups on the execution of the program."
"We have new monitoring and enforcement measures in place," he said, adding that while "there have been difficulties, we believe the problems will be taken care of."
Still, David Lipton, undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said Thursday that "we are concerned about the Indonesians' capacity and determination to follow through on their agreements. That is why the IMF is dispersing $1 billion at a time." He said the United States would not make a final decision to favor the resumption of aid until Indonesia and the fund resolve some outstanding differences over the weekend.
While the United States commands enormous influence over the fund, its 18 percent share of voting power on the board is not sufficient to veto the IMF's decisions about turning aid on and off.
In Jakarta this week, Indonesian and foreign business executives said that Indonesia has backtracked on promises to break up two key monopolies that have enormous impact in the economic life of the world's fourth-most-populous nation.
The monopoly in cloves was controlled by Suharto's youngest son, Hutomo Mandala Putra. The industry employs 2 million Indonesians, but the monopoly was widely regarded as a disaster, lowering prices for producers while charging above-market rates to the buyers -- and somehow losing money in the process. It received more than $300 million in loans from state-controlled banks.
Since Feb. 1, at the fund's insistence, farmers were supposed to be free to sell cloves to anyone they wanted. In practice, however, the government appears to be forcing the large cigarette companies to continue buying from the old clove monopolists. A mid-level worker at a large cigarette company said that unless they purchase cloves from the monopoly, they cannot receive the special stickers needed to sell their cigarettes. The IMF also insisted that Indonesia end a ban on exports of palm oil, widely used for cooking. The ban was used by the government to keep prices low in hopes of forestalling further food riots. But the export ban also aids one of Suharto's closest associates, Liem Sioe Liong, who has huge interests in food processing that requires vast quantities of the now inexpensive palm oil.
Business analysts in Indonesia say that companies have been privately warned against exporting palm oil. In a country like Indonesia, officials control so many levers of power that it would be easy for them to punish or even ruin a disobedient business.
The government is denying that there is any unofficial ban on palm oil exports or on free trade in cloves. Trade and Industry Minister Mohamad Hasan, who is nicknamed the "plywood king" for his control over an informal nationwide plywood monopoly, said his ministry is "committed" to the IMF accord.
The government's finance minister, Ginandjar Kartasasmita, told journalists in Jakarta Thursday that "there is no longer a member of the family that is running a monopoly." "Put it on the record," he said. "Watch us."
Louise Williams, Jakarta -- In a clear warning to Indonesia's growing opposition, President Soeharto has insisted there will be no political reform for at least five years and indicated his government will crack down on attempts to disrupt national stability.
Mr Soeharto met representatives of the country's three legal political parties and MPs yesterday in what observers described as a rare "crisis meeting" as Indonesia faces growing student demonstrations and economic hardship.
Police and troops in the northern Sumatran city of Medan battled about 500 students yesterday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets after being pelted with petrol bombs and rocks by demonstrators demanding political and economic reform.
Thousands of students also rallied in the major urban centres on the island of Java, and on university campuses in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Surabaya, but no clashes with police were reported.
The Home Affairs Minister, Mr Hartono, quoted Mr Soeharto as saying: "If there is any intention for political reform, it should be prepared for the year 2003 after the present Government finishes its term.
"If the people want changes, they should make good preparations for the next general elections."
In a signal to security forces, Mr Soeharto said: "Any attempts to disrupt the interests of national development and stability should be countered."
Indonesia's armed forces are facing daily demonstrations by thousands of students and have come under increasing criticism since the disappearance and reported torture of anti-government activists involved in organising protests.
The Soeharto Government pledged to set up a fact-finding team to investigate claims that political activists were kidnapped and tortured after the Indonesian Human Rights Commission concluded that the Government's critics did not voluntarily disappear but were abducted by a well-organised group.
The commission stopped short of blaming the powerful armed forces for the disappearance of at least 14 activists since February, but said in a statement: "There is now a growing perception among the public that there is a possibility the State security apparatus is involved.
"These forced disappearances are terrible violations of human rights. "They caused suffering on the part of the victims and their families, spread fear among the society and tarnished the image of the nation."
The commission called on the armed forces and the Government to launch a national investigation immediately and to rehabilitate and compensate the victims.
Of the 14 originally listed as disappeared, nine have returned home, but five remain missing.
One of the activists, Mr Pius Lustilanang, gave evidence to the commission this week, describing a central interrogation centre where torture was being used against the Government's opponents.
He said he had been threatened with execution if he spoke of the events of the two months he was missing, and has since flown to the Netherlands.
Tokyo -- US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the lack of public participation in Indonesia's government aggravated the effect of the Asian financial crisis.
"We do not fully understand the causes of the financial crisis," Albright said.
"Not every country that was hard hit is authoritarian, not every country that escaped is a democracy," Albright said in a speech at Sophia University here.
"And yet in democracies like Thailand and South Korea, newly- elected governments have been able to work with a clean slate, in a climate of openness and with the legitimacy to call for shared crisis," she said.
"Indonesia has had a harder time, at least in part because it lacks similar public participation in decision-making."
| Labour issues |
Jakarta -- Unemployment in Indonesia jumped to 13.5 million on April 24 from 8.8 million in March, according to the latest figures from the Manpower Department, the Republika newspaper reported on Monday.
"The number of unemployed will continue to rise if the economic crisis does not end soon," the paper quoted Endang Sulistyaningsih, head of planning at the Manpower Department, as saying.
She said it would be difficult to overcome the problem because the number of unemployed had risen drastically.
Indonesia is facing its worst economic crisis in decades which led to the country seeking a bail-out package worth over $40 billion led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). REUTERS
[Economic analysts have said unemployment figures given by the Indonesian government understate the extent of the problem since only companies which lay off more than nine workers in a day have to report the figures. They have also said underemployment in could be in the region of 50 percent of a total workforce of 90 million - James Balowski.]
| Human rights/law |
Jakarta -- The National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has come to the conclusion after observations that the persons who were reported missing, were caught and led away by force. They did not disappear of their own choice. Abductions are a serious violation of human rights. Komnas HAM has drawn the conclusion that an organized group were responsible for the abductions. Strong suspicions have also arisen among the public that it might not be impossible if elements of security forces were involved in these acts.
An official statement about the abductions will be delivered by by the Deputy Chairman II of Komnas HAM, Marzuki Darusman who will be flanked by Komnas HAM Deputy Chairman I, Miriam Budiardjo, members Albert Hasibuan, HR Djoko Soegianto, Soegiri, Clementino Dos Reis Amaral, BN Marbunn, on Thursday (30/4) at the office of the organization in Jakarta. The statement will be signed by Miriamm Budihardjo and Secretary General Baharuddin Lopa.
Komnas' conclusion has been based on their own observations, several reports made by the victims' family relations and third parties from the public.
Unmoved
According to Komnas, the basic attitude of government and the armed forces (ABRI), that of the Indonesian Police in particular, has momentarily not awakened public faith who do not seem convinced of their political responsibility and the law nor do they understand the gravity of the ongoing matter as no real action necessary to pacify the public seemed to have been taken.
"The abductions caused suffering to the victims and their families, they caused fear among the public and have downgraded the nation's image. In fact, the abductions were a violation of rights and liberty, it is a total diversion from the norms and civil political order. Therefore, Komnas HAM strongly disapproves these acts," stressed Marzuki.
Recommendation
HAM's efforts to restore the victims' rights and to nullify fear of the general public, the organization is suggesting four recommendations.
First, government and the armed forces should be taking clearly coordinated steps to study genuinely and seriously incoming reports which are related to the abductions and solve these cases once and for all. This, according to Komnas' view would eradicate public suspicions of ABRI. Further, it might be necessary to take legal action against the abductors. A National Investigation Commission (KPN) could be formed on account of this.
Second, Komnas would make an appeal to government to rehabilitate and compensate victims to restore their faith in humanity.
Third, Komnas will repeatedly make recommendations to government and the Legislative Council (DPR) to ratify the Convention of Anti Torture Acts or other cruel acts of Inhuman Nature that is degrading to Mankind.
Fourth, an appeal to the public will be made to voluntarily disclose information and their views about the incidents to Komnas HAM. Informations may be forwarded in a confidential way, or be made in public.
Appreciation
In their official statement Komnas HAM disclosed their appreciation for the Defense Minister/Commander of the Armed Forces' confirmation that there is no policy or instructions to abduct persons. The armed forces (ABRI) will be joining in the search for still missing persons. "This statement will be underscored with providing protection to those who have returned and have made a report about their disappearance," said Marzuki.
Albert Hasibuan explained that Komnas, before coming to their conclusions, has gathered informations and dispatched letters to those who were abducted and returned. Komnas is prepared to call on them if these people are not reachable by mail. One of these was Pius Lustrilanang.
"The total number of missing persons differ from day to day. On some days we receive a report that 14 persons have gone missing, the next day there are 10, after that we got information of persons returning. Hence we were not able to come up with a fixed number. Like three days ago we got a report that 20 have disappeared, which was followed by another that some of them have returned. Such reports made it impossible for Komnas HAM to come up with a fixed number," Amaral added.
Jakarta -- Andi Arief (27), Chairman of the Indonesian Students Solidarity for Democracy stated his preparedness to relate to the Military Police, where he all this time had been until he finally "stranded" and was declared detainee at the Police HQ last 17 April. He was also willing to tell what he experienced and who "fetched" him, so that he was stated "disappeared" since 28 March 1998. "With the note, if the Military Police asks this," said Munir from the Executive Commission for lost persons and victims of Violence (Kontras) at the office of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute of Jakarta, Friday (25/4).
At that occasion Munir also clarified, that Friday (24/4) evening Andi Arief was transferred from the RI Police HQ to the Capital of Jakarta Police. Saturday yesterday Andi Arief could meet his family at the Property Unit room of the Detective Directorate of the Capital of Jakarta police.
"Andi Arief also knows about the three other "lost" persons, namely Herman Hendrawan, Faisol Riza and Rahardjo Waluyo Djati," said Munir while adding, Andi Arief is eager to be investigated by the military police, because his information can help in looking for the three mentioned persons.
About the transfer to the Capital of Jakarta police, this is according to Munir on request of Arief and Kontras. There are two reasons. First, at the RI Police HQ Andi Arief feels lonely because the place for detainees is empty. Second, his investigation is performed by the Metropole Jakarta Police so that it will be more practical if Andi Arief is transferred to the Metropole Jakarta police.
The RI Police HQ said in a statement that Andi Arief was detained since 29 March 1998. The instruction for his arrest has already been sent to his family. But the letter was never received by his family. On 5 April his family even reported about Andi Arief's "disappearance" to the Legal Aid Institute and the police in Lampung. The Lampung police said not to know anything about Andy Arief.
"The Head of the Indonesian police himself even stated to know nothing about Andi Arief's disappearance," said Munir. He added that it seemed that the police intended to lead the case of Andi Arief's "disappearance" to an administrative error, a faulty procedure in the arrest.
Munir added that Kontras would not question the wrong procedure of the arrest, but the problem of "taking the freedom of a person". Therefore we will not give a prior judgement to the police, because then the problem will be finished with the police statement that the instruction for Arief's arrest was already sent to his family but that they had not received it. That can remove the case of Andi Arief's kidnapping," said Munir. Until this moment, said Munir, the police had not yet clarified to Andi Arief the reason for his arrest. "But we don't see it as a very important factor, what is more important is that Andi Arief's arrest is illegal according to law. According to the criminal code, Andi Arief must first be released. If they indeed want to arest him, it must later legally be done," he said.
Munit is convinced that the police actually knows the whereabouts of Herman, Faisol and Rahardjo. "Because when during the investigation he acted as witness for Agus Priono - suspect of the bomb explosion in Tanah Tinggi - the police did not ask about Agus, but even asked whether Andi Arief knew Herman, Faisol and Rahardjo," he related while adding that till this time Arief was never interrogated as suspect in the bomb explosion case of Tanah Tinggi, Central Jakarta.
Meanwhile Andi Arief's father, HM Arief Makhya, who was met by the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) said that the family fully authorized the handling of their youngest son's case to LBH Lampung and YLBHI Jakarta. Andi's parents will coming Wednesday 29/4 go to the military police.
Mystery contiunes to envelop kidnapers and the location at which pro-democracy activist, Pius Lustrilanang, was detained and tortured.
However, SiaR has received information from sources at the Armed Forces Headquarters Wednesday, 29 April 98, mentioning that the state code agency building in the Ragunan area of Pasar Minggu (outskirts of Jakarta) was borrowed by the Armed Forces Intelligence Agency (BIA), to "interrogate" pro-democracy activists.
According to this source, the BIA would have been able to make use of the State Code Institute (Lembaga Sandi Negara, signal intelligence) building because the two agencies have had a "special" cooperative relationship.
Said the source, the Armed Forces Intelligence Agency (BIA), had already borrowed the building in the past to interrogate pro-democracy activists. One of those who had been locked up and interrogated in that building was the Chair of the People's Democratic Party (PRD). Budiman Sudjatmiko and also his friends, after they had been kidnaped from the house of Benny Sumardi in the Bekasi area in connection with the 27 July l996 affair.
"The abduction of activists by BIA agents is an inconstitutional act which even violates the Indonesian Armed Forces Headquarters chain of command. This might have been a special assignment ordered by a strong man in this country, but it by-passes the Armed Forces Commander in Chief line of command," the source stated.
He then reinforced his argument by delineating the physical details of the building in comparison with the testimony of Pius, Andi Arief and Desmon J.
Mahesa released in the mass media recently. "From their testimony, it is clear that the physical details match the building of the State Code Agency," he said. One of the features identified by the activists is the airconditioned room in which they were locked up--a type of cell--equipped with camera monitors. Pius estimated there were six cells filled by pro- democracy activists who had been declared missing.
Another clue was the fact that Pius would hear the sound of airplanes flying at particular hours over the building where he and his friends were detained. "It is true that airplanes fly over the TB Simatupang ring-road and Ragunan as they turn towards Halim just before landing there," the SiaR source said.
Also at particular times, Pius heard the reveille trumpets of an Armed Forces unit. Within a radius of several hundred meters of the State Code building, an Army Engineer unit is quartered.
In his statement to the National Committee on Human Rights, on the afternoon of Monday, 27 April, Pius, who was abducted 4 February as he was leaving the Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital in Jakarta , said he was kidnaped by 4 men driving a Corolla Twin Cam car. His eyes were covered by a black cloth but he estimated that the trip took between 45-60 minutes before they arrived at the building where he was subsequently detained. It is estimated that the toll-road Pius mentioned is the TB Simatupang ring-road before the left turn in the direction of Ragunan.
"The location is shaded by a dense thicket of trees. It is exactly like the atmosphere in Bogor, where Pius and his friends thought they were detained," said the source.
According to the testimony of Pius and Andi Arif, in that place there were also other activists who had been declared missing, amongst them, Haryanto Taslam (Deputy Secretary General of the Megawati PDI), Desmon J. Mahesa (Chair, Nusantara Legal Aid Foundation, Jakarta), Herman Hendrawan, Faisal Reza, and Waluyo Yati (KNPD), and two Megawati PDI activists from north Jakarta, Yani Afri and Sonny, who had been missing since the general elections campaigns at the end of April l997.
It is not yet entirely clear where the kidnaped activists were hidden by their abductors. But several parties have indicated that the kidnappers are the security forces. "They work independently. They are under the command of Army intelligence, so that Armed Forces leadership know nothing about this. So, it is now the task of the Armed Forces to find them. They should not simply give excuses, like Pak Rudini," said a political observer to SiaR.
A number of activists and lawyers in Jakarta are planning a demonstration in front of the secret building which they suspect is where activists have been detained and tortured. "They are now busy mapping out and noting several suspicious places. When the time is right, they will invite members of the National Committee on Human Rights and the International Red Cross" said a SiaR source.
Don Greenlees, Jakarta -- On Sunday March 8, Haryanto Taslam joined the list of Indonesian political activists to go suddenly missing. Soon before he disappeared he received a telephone call at his home in East Jakarta and told his wife, Ani Agustina, he was going out.
About 6.30pm, 44-year-old Mr Taslam, an ally of ousted Indonesian Democratic Party leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, got into his Mitsubishi Lancer and drove off. Nothing was heard from him until April 17 when, just as suddenly, he turned up in Surabaya, East Java.
What happened to Mr Taslam, and others like him, in the weeks he was missing only began to emerge this week when another activist said he had been taken to a detention centre where political troublemakers were routinely tortured.
On Thursday, Mr Taslam was supposed to add his own account of life in detention, at an Jakarta press conference. Instead, flanked by members of the National Commission on Human Rights, he refused to comment on his experiences.
"The fact is, I am unable to provide a long explanation, although I am aware that many people are waiting for my honest and open statement," he said. "But regardless of whether or not I should talk, this is a moral problem faced by our country if we are to find out what has really happened to those who are missing."
Mr Taslam's reticence was met with loud protests from the Indonesian media. They jeered and some shouted "coward" and "liar". He smiled and tried to retain his composure. "I don't want to be a hero... I have a moral obligation to those with a similar fate to mine whose whereabouts are still unclear," he responded. Nine activists, including Mr Taslam, have reappeared recently, but it seems they are still not free. The fear of reprisals has meant only one, Pius Lustrilanang, has spoken out, and he left for The Netherlands after a press conference.
From his testimony, it is believed several activists have been held together and tortures. Mr Lustrilanang claimed he was blindfolded and handcuffed, beaten, given electric shocks and submerged in water.
Before activists were released, they were warned they would be killed if they revealed what had happened. At least five are still missing.
The story has embarrassed Indonesian authorities, struggling to stay on top of the country's economic crisis and in desperate need of foreign friends. The human rights commission and foreign governments are maintaining pressure on the Indonesian Government to find those missing, identify those accused of illegal detentions and bring them to justice.
Military commanders have consistently denied any official sanction or knowledge of such practices. Despite these denials, the detentions appear to be the work of a possibly rogue element of the military.
Indonesian armed forces chief Wiranto said the military had "no policies to kidnap specific individuals" and was assisting in trying to locate those who are still missing. Others, such as the military's socio-political affairs chief Bambang Yudhoyono, have promised to ensure the well-being of returned activists.
Leopold Sudaryono, a lawyer from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence who is representing Mr Taslam, said strong written guarantees from the police or military were needed to overcome the reluctance of activists to go public and corroborate Mr Lustrilanang's account. "Taslam has three children and he is worried about his family's security," Mr Sudaryono said. "He has said he is not fully free."
Louise Williams, Jakarta -- A secret interrogation centre where torture is used against political opponents of the Soeharto regime was revealed today to the Indonesian Human Rights Commission.
A political activist, Mr Pius Lustrilanang, wept as he told the commission about the centre, where he said he was held for almost two months after being seized in February. He also named four other missing political activists held at the centre at the same time in six windowless, air-conditioned cells monitored by video cameras.
Indonesia's military and police have repeatedly denied involvement in a series of mysterious "disappearances" of opposition activists, but Mr Lustrilanang's claim of a centralised facility will make it more difficult to blame criminals for the abductions or claim the activists have gone into hiding.
Mr Lustrilanang, 29, said he was tortured with electric shocks and had his head held in a tank of water after being kidnapped by masked men in Jakarta in early February. He had been working as secretary-general of Siaga, a loose opposition coalition of supporters of the Muslim critic Mr Amien Rais and the pro- democracy figurehead Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri.
"I talk today at the risk of death," Mr Lustrilanang told the commission, which was opened to journalists this morning. "I know the risk is not small. I ask for the support of society, because it will encourage other witnesses to speak out."
He said his abductors had threatened execution if he revealed details of the two months he was missing. He was released by masked men earlier this month on to a flight to his home town of Palembang, on the island of Sumatra.
He said he was told to say he had been "in hiding" of his own free will during a security crackdown on opposition figures that has seen at least 300 arrested this year as demonstrations against the Soeharto Government escalate. Mr Lustrilanang said he was blindfolded or his interrogators were masked at all times, making them impossible to identify. He kept track of the day and time only because a radio was kept on very loud 21 hours a day in the windowless centre.
"I was driven around for about an hour after I was kidnapped," he said, "and in the centre, I could hear propeller planes, not jets -- so it could have been near a military airfield."
He said he was detained with a Megawati supporter, Haryanto Taslam, a legal aid lawyer, Desmond Mahesa, and student leaders Waluyo Djati, Faisol Reza and two others. Taslam and Mahesa reappeared earlier this month, but the student leaders remain missing.
A Human Rights Commission member, Sjamsoeddin, said the commission had guaranteed Mr Pius's safety and would seek a similar guarantee from the police.
The Indonesian Human Rights Commission was established by the Soeharto Government, but has since proved independent in pursuing human rights cases.
"These detentions are illegal," Sjamsoeddin said. "If it goes on like this we won't be a country based on law. If we are based on law it is clear we don't have any kidnappings. So we call on the police to use the legal procedure if they think someone has a case to answer."
He said the threats made against Mr Lustrilanang contravened the right to live in freedom from fear.
A hman rights lawyer, Hendardi, who attended this morning's meeting said: "We stress that this is the responsibility of the state to provide us with answers. By not doing so they are acting with impunity. "We urge the police to solve the issue, so it is clear whether the kidnappers are criminals or the police themselves." The Human Rights Commission lists 12 people missing since the beginning of this year, when demonstrations over worsening economic conditions and the Soeharto Government's iron grip on power escalated. Those who have recently returned have previously remained silent.
Jakarta -- The Indonesian armed forces (ABRI) plans to sue Indonesian media, which suggested that the military was behind the disappearances of anti-Suharto activists, the official Antara news agency reported yesterday. "The ABRI high command has all the time been watching and taking note of those media that have tried to identify ABRI as the party behind the disappearances," it quoted spokesman Brigadier-General Abdul Wahab Mokodongan as saying.
He said the military "will sue several Indonesian publications that have made it appear as if ABRI was behind the recent disappearances".
About 15 anti-government activists have been reported missing since mid-February.
Some have resurfaced and one, Mr Pius Lustrilanang, has spoken out, saying the military should take responsibility for his ordeal. Mr Lustrilanang, who fled to the Netherlands on Monday, alleged that he was abducted, tortured, and threatened with death if he spoke out.
A second activist, Mr Haryanto Taslam, who was scheduled to tell his story yesterday, left a press conference saying he did not want to be a hero. The National Human Rights Commission had called a press conference for Mr Haryanto. He turned up but then told more than 100 local and foreign reporters: "I can't give you any explanation. I don't want to be a hero."
Before leaving abruptly, the supporter of ousted Indonesian Democratic Party leader Megawati Soekarnoputri added: "We have to empathise with the other missing persons. "I don't want this kind of thing to happen again." Explained Human Rights Commissioner Albert Hasibuan: "He is in traumatic fear."
The military has denied responsibility for any of the disappearances, which began after campus protests first flared up in February against President Suharto. ABRI chief General Wiranto said there had been no instructions within the military to make people disappear, the Kompas daily reported. He said that ABRI had "no policies to kidnap specific individuals" and that the military, concerned about the disappearances, had assisted recently in the search for several missing activists.
Brig-Gen Mokodongan also told local reporters on Wednesday that the military was not responsible for the safety of activists who resurfaced. "We do not want to fall into the trap set by people who want to discredit ABRI and who say that if something happens to them, ABRI should be held responsible," he said.
By Margot Cohen with John McBeth in Jakarta
The offer was on the table: silence or death. A petrified Pius Lustrilanang did not hesitate. He promised to keep his mouth shut about his two months in captivity in a detention centre outside Jakarta, and his kidnappers rewarded him with a plane ticket home to south Sumatra.
But three weeks later, on April 27, the 30-year-old political activist was back at an airport -- this time, clutching a ticket to Amsterdam and a visa arranged by the Dutch embassy. Refuge abroad seemed imperative for Pius after his harrowing testimony earlier that day in Jakarta before Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights.
As the television cameras rolled, Pius had grimly intoned a tale of electric shocks, sleep deprivation and water torture, and of fellow prisoners languishing in six windowless cells. In offering him freedom, Pius's masked persecutors had allegedly told him they would track him down if he ever broke his silence, whether it took two days or two decades. "We are patient people," they said.
Riveting though it was, Pius's unprecedented public testimony failed to clear the mystery surrounding his disappearance: Who abducted him, as well as 11 other activists gone missing between February and March? Where was the detention centre so close to Jakarta that Pius spoke about? Was the military involved? Was his kidnapping new evidence of splits in the armed forces? And, perhaps most importantly, how could the government prevent further disappearances?
The hunt for answers has heightened as other missing activists resurface and recount stories of abduction at gunpoint. Even though the culprits remain unidentified, Pius's ordeal -- and his testimony -- will likely breathe more fire into the increasingly vigorous anti-government student protests countrywide.
Underneath the clamour, however, is growing appreciation for human-rights advocacy. In recent weeks, diplomats and visiting foreign officials quietly raised the issue of the vanishing activists with Indonesia's armed-forces commander, Gen. Wiranto, and a range of cabinet ministers. Local and foreign media kept up a constant drumbeat. Worried relatives flocked to the human- rights commission.
Then, in early April, not long before a United Nations hearing in Geneva on human rights in Indonesia, some of the missing activists began to resurface. "The pressure from outside was strong enough to force the re-emergence of these people," concludes Ifdal Kasim, an activist.
Four people still remain unaccounted for, however. Two are student leaders who vanished recently from Jakarta and Sragen in Central Java, and two are loyalists of opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri. Family members of the Megawati loyalists -- missing since May 1997 -- have fresh hope that both are alive. In his testimony, Pius said the two had been detained in adjacent cells. There is no such relief for the relatives of more than a dozen others still missing since the violent assault on Megawati's party headquarters in central Jakarta in July 1996.
Attention is now focused on the military's alleged role in the abductions -- and the possible complicity of the police. In one case, police officials remained silent about who had delivered a missing activist into their custody. Two days before Pius's hearing, Lt.-Gen. Bambang Yudhoyono, armed-forces chief of political and social affairs, reiterated that Wiranto had given no orders to arrest or detain activists.
Most independent observers are prepared to give Wiranto and the reform-minded Bambang the benefit of the doubt. So is the human-rights commission. "I am confident that this is not a policy coming from above," says commissioner Samsudin, a retired major-general who sat on the panel hearing Pius's disturbing saga.
Even so, that's unlikely to convince many people about Jakarta's harder line on political dissent. "It doesn't matter what they say, no one is going to believe that this isn't an organized operation," says one Western military observer. "The feeling is going to be that if the leadership didn't know, then they should have known."
Analysts say the abductions might have been the work of either rogue elements within the military or an extremist group that enjoys its support. Hariadi Darmawan, a retired brigadier-general who has joined forces with the swelling student movement, says the tactics are reminiscent of the covert intelligence operations of years past, and blames them on an "over-eagerness" to suppress dissent. "In every armed forces, there are always psychopaths," he says. "The higher officials usually don't know."
Pius told the human-rights commission that his interrogators wanted to learn more about the activities of Megawati, as well as the outlawed People's Democratic Party, accused of masterminding a recent bomb blast. They also wanted to know about Pius's initiatives as secretary-general of Siaga, a non-governmental organization formed to gather support for Megawati and Islamic leader Amien Rais. A "wrong" answer brought electric jolts to his hands and feet. At one session, interrogators repeatedly forced his head and shoulders under water. Pius's widely publicized testimony brought no immediate reaction from the military's top brass. But Wiranto might eventually feel a formal investigation of the recent abductions is necessary -- if only to reinforce that under his leadership such practices are a thing of the past.
There are fears that both Cut Sari and M Hasyim, who have recently "disappeared", are being held in secret military custody in Aceh province and that their safety could be at grave risk.
Cut Sari -- whose full name may be Cut Sariwati Mahmud -- has not been seen since her arrest from her home in Dayah Lampoh Awe village, Simpang Tiga Sub-district in Pidie, Aceh, on 12 April 1998. Attempts by her family to trace her in several major military detention facilities, including a Detention Centre of the Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus) called Rumoh Gedong in Glumpang Tiga, and Rancung Detention Centre in Lhokseumawe, have so far failed. She is believed to have been arrested for her alleged links to Acehnese secessionists.
M. Hasyim was abducted from his home in Tumpok Teungoh, Banda Sakti, Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, on 27 March by four men. The men apparently claimed that they were police from Police Resort in North Aceh and that they needed him to come to the police station to see a relative there who had been in a traffic accident. There has been no news of his whereabouts since.
It is believed that M. Hasyim's family have reported his "disappearance" to the police in North Aceh but that they have denied he is in their custody. There are fears that he is being held in secret military custody. The reason for M. Hasyim's arrest is not clear.
Jakarta - A leading US human rights group on Tuesday denounced a series of disappearances of student activists demanding that President Suharto quit.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement sent to Reuters that senior army and police officers may have lied when they denied knowledge of missing students who later turned out to have been in their custody.
The alternative was that a secret military or paramilitary unit was operating without the knowledge of top-ranking officers, it said.
"Either way, the disappearances reflect badly on the Indonesian government," it said, calling on the authorities to find and prosecute those responsible.
"It is clear that the abductors of the disappeared political activists systematically and repeatedly violated Indonesian law," Sidney Jones, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, said in the statement.
"How can the government expect students or anyone else to respect the law or the authority of the state when state security forces themselves engage in such flagrant human rights violations."
At least 14 student activists have been reported missing since anti-Suharto protests began in February, just before he was re- elected to a seventh five-year term by a body he largely handpicked.
On Tuesday, the Legal Aid Foundation said three student activists reported missing since March 12 had been freed.
The students, Faisol Reza, Herman Hendrawan and Raharjo Waluyo Jati, all aged 24, were freed on Sunday, Foundation official Munir told Reuters.
"I received a telephone call on Saturday night from someone who did not identify himself that the students will be released on Sunday," he said.
"I then called the homes of Reza and Hendrawan on Sunday morning and found that it was true," Munir added.
Munir said the duo would not tell him who had picked them up or where they had been held, but did say that Jati had also been released. Munir said he had not been able to contact Jati.
Reza and Jati are student activists at Gadjah Mada University in Yogjakarta while Hendrawan is at Airlangga University in Surabaya, both cities on Indonesia's main island of Java.
On Monday, Pius Lustrilanang, 30, a student activist who disappeared on February 3 and subsequently resurfaced on April 4, told a news conference he had been kidnapped, beaten and subjected to electric shocks.
Pius said the powerful armed forces should take responsibility for his detention. Army chief General Wiranto has said no senior officer has ordered any abductions.
The student protesters blame Suharto for Indonesia's worst economic crisis in decades.
Security have forces tolerated demonstrations on campus, but have cracked down on students who have tried to take their protests to the streets, using tear gas, rubber bullets and canes. There have been no reports of death or serious injury.
Washington -- The United States said Tuesday the reported abduction and torture of an opposition activist in Indonesia was disturbing, and urged the Jakarta government to mount a full investigation.
"It's a disturbing story," State Department spokesman James Foley said of the case of Pius Lustrilanang, a 30-year-old student activist.
Pius, who disappeared Feb. 3 and resurfaced April 4, told a news conference Monday he had been kidnapped, beaten and subjected to electric shocks. He said the armed forces should take responsibility, but Army chief Gen. Wiranto has said that no senior officer had ordered any abductions.
"The United States government deplores the practice of torture and the practice of disappearances," Foley told a news briefing.
"We call on the government of Indonesia to conduct a full investigation into these serious allegations made by this individual."
Foley said Washington was also deeply concerned about the numerous other cases of people, many of them opposition activists, who allegedly have disappeared in recent months.
"We have raised this issue at high levels with the government of Indonesia and will continue to pursue the matter until the cases are resolved," he said, adding that anyone involved in abductions or torture should be held accountable.
At least 14 student activists have been reported missing since protests began in February against President Suharto, just before he was re-elected to a seventh five-year term by a body he largely hand-picked.
The student protesters blame Suharto for Indonesia's worst economic crisis in decades.
Earlier Tuesday in Tokyo, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Indonesia's lack of democracy was hurting its economic recovery.