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ASIET NetNews Number 32 - August 24-30, 1998
East TimorStudents demand end to military's dual role Students demand Habibie step down Student protest demands Suharto trial
Political/economic crisisHow the Balibo murders were covered up
Labour issuesThousands attack provincial parliament Mobs loot rice mills, foodstores in Java Bulog damaged by sacking Political unrest hits stocks
Human rights/lawSectoral unions break from FSBSI Police beat up labour protesters
News & issuesThe prisoner releases so far Grandmother relives the horrors of Aceh Acehnese refugees in Malaysian detention
Arms/armed forcesMay riots were organized: Jakarta governor Panel to probe atrocities under Suharto Habibie's piecemeal approach riles critics Clashes erupt at PDI congress US House speaker blasts World Bank
Prabowo: a reversal of fortunes Ousting protects fellow generals More heads to roll in military
| Democratic struggle |
Student demos were once more in the focus of the public during the last three days. This time they voiced dissatisfaction over rice prices, stopped military trucks recruted to transport rice and demanded abolishment of the Armed Forces' (ABRI) dual role. Different from the student actions in the period January - May 1998, this time the scene presented a view of predominantly new students.
Friday's student demonstration were joined by hundreds of students of STIESIA and UPN in Surabaya. Clad in their university jackets, and led by senior students, they moved seperately from their campus in the Ngagel and Rungkut region.
Students of STIESIA moved first to the East Java Dolog Office, creating a traffic jam in the neighborhood of Jl. Ahmad Yani. In their dialogue with the Head of Dolog, Ir. Andy Chairudin, the students blamed the agency for failing to lower rice prices. They also disapproved the use of military trucks in the market operations of Dolog. They demanded the use of privately owned trucks to lessen the military role and provide wider opportunities to the public.
In Jakarta, about 300 students of the Indonesian Christian University (UKI) demonstrated on Jalan Mayjen Sutoyo, in front of their campus. This action was also held by new students, under supervision of many seniors they were trained to scream and yell reformation songs. Beside this, they demanded the establishment of the Indonesian People Committee and immediate action of government to lower the prices of basic essentials.
A public forum was held around 13.30 which went smoothly until 15.00. The public dialogue was watched by several Policemen who were coping with the traffic which, at some time, came to a standstill in front of the UKI campus.
Meanwhile, around 100 people of the Lembaga Musyawarah Adat Masyarakat Irian Jaya (Traditional Conscensus of Irian Jaya People) Jakarta, demonstrated at the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta. They demanded a review of the polling system (Pepera) of 1969 which was opposed to the oneman voting system. They rejected Foreign Minister Ali Alatas' statement which held that Irian Jaya's integration process into the Republic, had been done in a transparent way.
They were later received by the Informations Director of the Foreign Ministry, Ghaffar Fadil and the Director American Affairs, Samudro Sriwidjaja, because the Foreign Affairs Minister, Ali Alatas, was not available. Both officials promised to convey the aspirations of the Irian Jaya people to the Foreign Minister. The demonstrating crowd dispersed of their own accord in an orderly way.
Young people of the Antiterrorist Student Forum of the Technical Faculty Muhammadiyah University in Jakarta, opposed and denounced the recent bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan by the USA. They opined that these acts were held only to diverse world attention from Bill Clinton's sexual scandal. Their protests succeeded in that, three demonstrators were received by the embassy staff.
Jakarta -- Some 150 university students from campuses throughout greater Jakarta took to the streets Tuesday to demand price cuts and the resignation of Indonesian President B.J. Habibie, witnesses said.
The students, from the same group that staged non-stop sit-in demonstrations to push for the ousting of president Suharto in May, waved national flags and brandished placards reading: "Dismiss the Habibie cabinet and form an Indonesian people's committee." Other placards read "Bring down prices" and "Form a committee to lower prices."
Some 100 police and a few soldiers, some of them armed, watched the demonstration on a traffic island in front of the Hotel Indonesia but did not intervene.
One student said the government should concentrate on improving agriculture and other basic sectors rather than going into high technology. "Let us not try to compete with other countries in the technology area, let us just concentrate on the basic economics of agriculture," a private Atmajaya University student who identified himself only as Mang, 20, said.
Cars slowed down to watch the demonstrators, about a third of whom were ethnic Chinese students. Some drivers blew their horns to express support while others raised their thumbs or waved to the students. "Long-live students," an enthusiastic motorist shouted.
The demonstrators later marched down a main avenue to return to their campuses, taking up one lane of the Imam Bonjol avenue. "Topple Habibie, topple Habibie," the students chanted as they marched under the watchful eyes of some 30 police on motorcycles and on foot carrying rattan sticks. More police were posted at points along the road. Two truckloads of police had earlier arrived to reinforce security there but did not intervene.
The demand for a people's committee to replace the government until elections can be held was aired by the students' forum after Suharto stepped down on May 21, naming Habibie to replace him. Habibie has pledged elections in 1999 for a new People's Consultative Assembly which would pave the way for it to chose a new president and vice-president.
Surabaya -- About 2,000 students demonstrated in Indonesia's second largest city Surabaya on Sunday, demanding that former President Suharto be brought to trial for the country's economic crisis.
"The situation in Indonesia is getting worse. We don't have any rice, oil or sugar," said Sutrisno, a student activist of the Surabaya Teaching Institute which organized the protest. The demonstration is the first large-scale student protest in Surabaya since the ousting of Suharto.
The students said the former president was responsible for the country's current economic crisis and had to account for his failures. Waving banners, the students yelled "Hang Suharto, Hang Prabowo." Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto is the son-in-law of Suharto.
The students also called for Suharto and Prabowo to be held responsible for the kidnappings of student activists which took place from the end of last year up to the end of May. Prabowo is currently being investigated by a special military board for his alleged involvement in the kidnappings of student and political activists. The military board is expected to announce its findings on Monday.
Students said another demonstration would be held on Monday by the students of Airlangga University.
| East Timor |
Nearly 23 years after five Australian-based journalists were killed in East Timor, the International Commission of Jurists has found that doubts remain that Canberra is telling all it knows about the incident. In a special investigation, Foreign Editor Hamish McDonald uncovers some of the facts surrounding their deaths and traces a cover-up that continues to this day.
One morning towards mid-October in 1975, a white Holden bearing the CD-18 numberplates that marked it as an Australian Embassy vehicle pulled off from the bustle of food and motor-tyre repair stalls on Jalan Tanah Abang IV into the driveway of a discreetly modern three-storey building.
In Jakarta's steamy heat two crisply dressed diplomats stepped from the air-conditioned car to the coolness of the lobby, and after a smiling welcome from the reception headed with a familiar step for the lift.
Upstairs in an office decorated with carved teak and elaborate Balinese paintings, the embassy's number-two official, Malcolm Dan, and its political section head, counsellor Allan Taylor, sat in armchairs facing two Indonesians in batik shirts, Harry Tjan Silalahi and Yusuf Wanandi.
The two Australians were to be given inside information of a detail, importance and timeliness that, had it come from a spy or decoded signal, would have been regarded as the intelligence coup of a lifetime. But what followed was one of the great bungles of Australian diplomatic history.
The building in which these four men met housed a private academic institution, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and the two Indonesians held no official position with the Indonesian Government or military.
But as with many aspects of the New Order political system then solidifying under President Soeharto, the outfit known as CSIS or "Tanah Abang" had much more clout than it pretended. Under the patronage of top intelligence chiefs, the CSIS had become a key player in Indonesia's second track of diplomacy.
As the four men sat around the coffee table in Tjan's office, Dan and Taylor were told that three days later, on the morning of October 16, 1975, some 3,200 Indonesian soldiers, mostly commandos of the elite special forces (then known as RPKAD, now Kopassus), would attack across the land border of East Timor, then legally a Portuguese territory, in three places. The aim would be to roll back the pro-independence Fretilin forces that had predominated in the short civil war which had started two months earlier.
This would be the invasion the Indonesians had been planning for nearly a year, and on which Dan and Taylor had been given regular briefings by CSIS. The two Australians were told the exact details, down to the unmarked Portuguese-style uniforms the Indonesian troops would be wearing to maintain "deniability" and the fiction that only pro-Indonesian local irregulars were involved. A force of about 800 troops would concentrate on the area of Balibo, a village around an old Portuguese fort overlooking the north coast region near the border, and nearby Maliana, opening the approach to Dili along the road from the west.
The news was cabled by Ambassador Richard Woolcott to the Department of Foreign Affairs that same day, October 13. Canberra had almost three days to prepare for what would inevitably be a controversial development for Australian public opinion to accept. It had two clear days to make all efforts to get Australian citizens out of the path of danger.
Revelation that this prior knowledge existed is the first clear evidence that the Department of Foreign Affairs has been concealing vital information on the murder of five television journalists in Balibo from the Australian public, Parliament and the bereaved families for more than 23 years to protect its pro- Indonesian policies.
The irony is that this extended cover-up has actually served to poison Australia-Indonesia relations ever since.
On October 9, Gary Cunningham, Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, a news team from Channel 7 in Melbourne, had flown from Darwin into Dili, the capital of East Timor. They were followed the next day by Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie from Channel 9 in Sydney. Both teams headed out of Dili towards the border. In the pre-dawn hours of October 16, the five reached Balibo -- in the direct line of attack.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra knew, at least by early on October 17, there were Australian journalists "outside Dili". It did not specifically know that these five were in Balibo, but might have expected the border was of most news interest.
Nothing was attempted to warn them directly. Nor was the Australian Embassy in Jakarta asked to intercede with its high- level Indonesian contacts to seek an urgent modification of the attack plans. Nothing was said or done to protect the five journalists.
It was, as one senior Australian official at the time admits, one of the most serious breakdowns ever to have taken place in our diplomacy. "The whole operation collapsed from there," the official says. "Everything collapsed, because of the failure to pick up that one bit of information."
It was a failure that nearly everyone involved has tried to paper over ever since. The connection that resulted in the Australian Embassy's astonishingly detailed advance reportage of Indonesian moves in Timor was built up in the latter months of 1974.
Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's talks with President Soeharto in central Java in September 1974 concerned the future of East Timor, in question after the military coup in Lisbon five months earlier. Soeharto left thinking tepo seliru (in Javanese, mutual understanding) had been reached that the territory's integration with Indonesia was Canberra's preferred option. Subject to formal adherence to self-determination and avoidance of force, Australian policies would support that outcome.
As he had earlier with Irian Jaya, Soeharto gave the running of Indonesia's Timor campaign to long-time adviser Lieutenant General Ali Murtopo, deputy chief of the intelligence agency BAKIN, on the political side and to armed forces intelligence chief Major General Benny Murdani on the military side.
The elements of this now well-known campaign included promotion of local supporters, intelligence surveys, propaganda through a radio station in Indonesian Timor and newspapers run by Murtopo's people, exploratory contacts with key Portuguese and Timorese figures -- and preparations for military intervention. The CSIS was the focus of diplomatic contacts, with its information supplied by both Murtopo and Murdani.
Within the Australian Embassy, Dan and Taylor took up the contacts with CSIS, which increased to daily contact once conflict broke out in August 1975. Ambassador Woolcott usually held the top-level meetings, including those with Murdani.
As 1975 wore on, the closeness of the contacts and the astonishing insights they brought caused unease in some quarters of Canberra. Whitlam saw foreign policy as his forte and had made unassertive West Australian Senator Don Willesee his Foreign Minister. Alan Renouf, who as Ambassador in Paris had set up Whitlam's ground-breaking trip to China, was made Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, but soon lost Whitlam's trust.
Both found themselves out of the loop on Indonesia and Timor. Whitlam made Timor policy unilaterally, without reference to Cabinet or its subcommittee on foreign affairs and defence, as far as Renouf is aware.
Willesee was angered by Woolcott's practice of lobbying policies and perceptions directly to editors and other media figures. "I complained bitterly to Renouf, who rebuked Woolcott for doing that," says Geoff Briot, then Willesee's press secretary.
As well as Whitlam's office, the inner loop on Timor included Woolcott and his senior embassy staff, the department's first assistant secretary in charge of the South-East Asia division, Graham Feakes, and several other department officers such as Geoffrey Forrester, the Javanese and Indonesian linguist who acted as Whitlam's translator in his Soeharto meetings.
A file in the department's records shows that Willesee expressed deep concern about the nature of the information being obtained from Tjan at the CSIS and from Murdani. With so much detail, apparently accurate, Australia could be compromised, Willesee pointed out. Australia would be seen as a party to an invasion of Timor.
"CSIS was seen as an easy window into Indonesian thinking," Briot confirms. "What worried me was it was too easy. They were only telling us what they wanted us to know."
In a written reply to his minister, Feakes argued that the department was conscious of dangers, but that it was a two-way street. The contacts gave the embassy the opportunity to put views by Australia urging the non-use of force and self- determination, to influence Indonesian policy-makers, and to learn what the Indonesians were planning. It was often the main source of information.
When the attack came against Balibo on October 16, Australia's Defence Signals Directorate was monitoring the radio messages by the units involved. At some stage that day, DSD picked up a message from the officer running the attack that the bodies of white men had been found in Balibo and that all traces of them had been obliterated.
It was not until well into the following working day, Friday October 17, that a report from the Defence Department on the intercept was circulated around a tight circle in Canberra indoctrinated into the world of signals intelligence. It was also seen by the most senior officials in the Jakarta embassy.
But as late as that morning, the October 13 warning from the Jakarta embassy and the awareness of Australian TV crews operating in Timor was not setting off any urgent alarms. On October 17, department secretary Renouf sent a submission to Foreign Minister Willesee: the department was aware of Australian journalists in Dili "and some outside Dili", as well as several Australian aid workers in Timor. The department would "have to consider next week whether evacuation plans need to be implemented". By that stage, the five journalists had been dead for 24 hours.
The reaction in the embassy was one of dismay, followed by a quick move to pass blame. The diplomatic cables exchanged between Jakarta and Canberra were widely copied and passed around the department, and one official recalls them in some detail. He remembers Jakarta saying in a cable to Canberra on October 18: "The news of the death of the five Australian journalists in Balibo came as a great shock to us all in the mission. But it has to be said that they took their lives in their own hands in exposing themselves in the frontline of the attack. It was foolhardy and unnecessary, and the blame must rest with them and their employers...
"The mission has reported over a long period the plans of Indonesia to take East Timor by force, and more recently, the specific plans of the invasion. It must be assumed that Australian nationals were warned by Canberra presumably of the dangers of travel in Timor at this time, and in particular that special briefings were given to the management of the media organisations."
Renouf exploded when he received this. "I wish to know by return telegram who in the mission sent this telegram," he messaged back.
Woolcott replied: "You know that we have all been under considerable pressure over an extensive period of time. I had to leave for a tour of the Java provinces the day after news of the tragic deaths of the journalists. In my absence Malcolm Dan sent the telegram that was intended only to make the point that reports on the impending Indonesian attack on Timor had been known well before the invasion and that the journalists would clearly have been forewarned of the dangers."
Renouf was already taking steps to check on that aspect, ordering the assistant secretary in charge of the department's executive branch (a secretariat to the department head), Geoffrey Miller, to see what warnings had been given.
In a submission to the Foreign Minister on October 20, Miller reported that the Department of Civil Aviation issued an instruction that all personnel boarding civilian flights from Darwin to Timor had to be warned of the dangers. The Channel 7 crew had left Darwin on October 9, the Channel 9 team the next day. The pilots of both flights had received the official warning. But the three who left on October 9 did not receive the warning. The flight on October 10 had left without proper authorisation, and so the two journalists did not receive the warning, though the pilot had when he received some earlier papers on the flight.
For two or three days, Willesee agonised over the knowledge that the journalists were in all probability dead, while family and colleagues of the five pressed inquiries.
"After all, most of his own kids had gone into journalism," says former press secretary Briot, now a senior official in the NSW Ombudsman's Office. "He really was aggrieved by the fact that we knew through the DSD intercepts that they had been killed."
Defence officials wanted to keep their intelligence methods secret. "At that time he [Willesee] was under intense pressure from the department not to reveal that knowledge," says another Willesee staffer, then diplomat, Alan Oxley. "The argument at that time was that if he did, he would have revealed the existence of intelligence gathering. Since then that convention has gone by the board. About three years later Malcolm Fraser broke that convention and we've been much less coy about it."
Despite the worries, the television station managements were discreetly notified over the weekend, and they in turn notified some family members. By the Monday, October 20, reports indicating the deaths also came out in the Jakarta press, passed on by the Australian Embassy, which allowed Canberra to cite an open source for what it already knew.
The department never conducted a further review of its failure to put all its information together and attempt to save the lives of two Australian citizens and three others resident in Australia working for Australian companies.
Woolcott later alluded to the key October 13 cable (published in the Herald of October 14, 1995) saying it included specific advice to warn any Australians in the Balibo area to get out. Yet Gough Whitlam, in his recent book Abiding Interests, states: "I am advised that I should not yet reveal why we did not know of the incursion across the border to Balibo and why we were able immediately afterwards to learn that five men had been killed."
Could they have been saved? Many people in the department point to the difficult logistics of getting an authoritative message out to the journalists in time. "Communications were poor," says Briot. "Just how you would have warned, or have got a warning to them is difficult to say." As to the lack of formal warning, Oxley asks: "Even if they had got one, would it have stopped them?"
But it is conceivable that direct and early advice to the Channel 7 and 9 managements might have resulted in telexes to Dili ordering the teams back, telexes which might have been carried to them in time. Such orders even could have been conveyed through Radio Australia, which all reporters covering Timor would have monitored.
But the other recourse would have been to tell the embassy in Jakarta, which would have resulted in an immediate approach by Woolcott to General Murdani, or even to Soeharto himself, to seek urgent steps to protect the five from the Indonesian attack.
From then on, the department's efforts to investigate the Balibo deaths were limited by two concerns: on one side to hide the signals intelligence from the Indonesians, on the other to hide the secret information given by the CSIS from the Australian public.
Political turmoil in Canberra, resulting from the dismissal of the Whitlam Government on November 11, 1975, freed the department of close political supervision for a significant period.
For the first attempt to find out more details in Timor itself, the Jakarta embassy sent third secretary Richard Johnson, to Kupang, in Indonesian Timor. Though a fluent Indonesian speaker, he was stonewalled and returned to Jakarta with little more than the standard line. Neither did a more senior officer, political first secretary Peter Rodgers, who joined him in Kupang, bring any better results.
The crowning example of selective disclosure of this period was the embassy's mission into East Timor from April 28 to May 10 in 1976, which visited Balibo twice. Including Johnson and the embassy's consular section head, David Rutter, it was led by Allan Taylor, the political counsellor who had been one of the two embassy officers given the advance briefing by the CSIS on the Balibo attack.
By that stage the embassy was also aware, through intelligence contacts in Jakarta itself, of the identity of the Indonesian officers involved in the Balibo attack, including that of the officer on the ground, a young RPKAD captain named Mohommed Yunus Yosfiah, who ironically became Indonesia's Information Minister earlier this year.
Not a word of this knowledge was contained in the Taylor mission's report, which was advised to Parliament on June 2, 1976, by the new Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock, and placed in the Parliamentary Library soon after.
The reason for this appears to be the mission's terms of reference contained in the preamble that "the team based its findings on the information obtained during its two visits to Balibo" meaning it would be an extremely limited exercise barring a major mistake by the Indonesians orchestrating the witnesses seen by the Australians.
Unsurprisingly, Peacock was only able to tell Parliament: "I regret that it is still not possible to come to firm and final conclusions as to the circumstances and manner of the deaths of the newsmen."
But perhaps the shabbiest exercise of all in the department's handling of the Balibo case was the funeral for the five journalists. On November 12, 1975, the head of the intelligence agency BAKIN, Lieutenant General Yoga Sugama, called in Ambassador Woolcott and handed over four shoe boxes of charred bone fragments said to be the remains of the journalists, along with some camera equipment, notes and personal effects, including Greg Shackleton's diary.
In a submission late in November to Peacock, the department's South-East Asia division head Feakes warned of public support for the bones to be returned to Australia for laboratory testing. (The Jakarta embassy's doctor, Henry Will, had been able to state only that the remains "appeared to be human".)
The department "must not favour this" because it could lead to an "anti-Indonesian campaign" and cause "public outrage", Feakes urged.
Feakes attached a draft of a letter for Peacock to send to the next of kin, advising them of the deaths and extending the Government's condolences. One government official at the time recalls Peacock returning the draft, demanding it be rewritten in less bureaucratic language and with more compassion.
The letters arrived around the time the remains were buried in a Jakarta cemetery, in a single coffin, in a ceremony attended by several embassy staff and their spouses and resident journalists.
Some of the relatives had agreed with the Jakarta burial anyway. "When I heard the bodies had been burned I said I didn't want the remains back to Australia, and made that known to Foreign Affairs," says Gary Cunningham's father, Jim. "It would have been too harrowing."
But others say they were hustled and misled into agreeing. Greg Shackleton's widow, Shirley, remembers the call from the department: "I was told "If you want to bring the remains back it would cost a lot and you would have to pay'. I didn't think they were the remains anyway, and said do what you like."
Brian Peters' sister, Maureen Tolfree, had been in Australia making inquiries and was on her way back to Britain just before the funeral, on a flight that stopped in Jakarta. She made an impromptu decision to get off in Jakarta to see if she could collect Peters's remains to take back for burial. On arrival, she was taken to a small office at the airport and kept until a British Embassy officer arrived. He advised her to get back on the plane, which she did.
A former fiancee of one of the journalists, who has asked not to be named, remembers as "quite cold" the person who rang from the department. "Foreign Affairs conned each family by saying the other families did not want the remains brought back," she says. Adding to her anger, she learned only in 1994 that two letters written by her fiance were in the effects handed back by the Indonesians.
The Government's handling of the Sherman Inquiry in 1995-96 has disappointed many interested parties. Notably, that although Sherman said his work was "preliminary" Foreign Minister Alexander Downer soon after ruled out the value of any further inquiry outside Indonesia.
Some Timorese exiles, too, had questioned the selection of Tom Sherman, a career government lawyer previously chairman of the National Crime Authority, arguing that while there was no question of his integrity, it allowed a perception that the inquiry was not completely independent of the Government.
Sherman interpreted the charter given by Evans -- to inquire into "the circumstances surrounding the deaths" -- in a narrow sense, excluding all questions about the department's conduct.
Most puzzling of all, he made no attempt to contact any of the department's officers working on Timor in 1974-76. Former ambassador Woolcott made a written submission to the inquiry, on his own initiative. Some of the other officers are now dead (Graham Feakes and Michael Curtin) but the others -- including Allan Taylor (now heading the Australian Secret Intelligence Service), Malcolm Dan and Alan Renouf -- are still around.
The department denies any instruction to clam up. "Mr Sherman was free to contact any individual, either in Australia or abroad, whom he considered to have relevant information on the deaths of the journalists," it said in a written reply signed by Colin Heseltine, the Maritime South-East Asia Branch head.
"The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not, at any stage, instruct any individual not to come forward to Mr Sherman. Nor did the department attempt to exert any influence over individuals with whom Mr Sherman initiated contact in order to obtain evidence."
Nor does Sherman appear to have tapped the voluminous cable traffic between the Jakarta embassy and Canberra around the time of the Balibo attack, though the department says he had "unfettered access" to all its records and files, and routinely requested information from them.
Sherman does say that shortly before closing his inquiry, he asked for and was given access to intelligence material relating to Balibo, which he perused in one day and reported not to have any material "of sufficient evidentiary value" to warrant inclusion in the report, or cast doubt on any of its conclusions.
According to senior sources close to the department, this focus entirely misses the point. Canberra's best knowledge about Indonesia's Timor campaign in 1975 was not a result of intelligence work, but the tainted fruit of the connection built up by the Jakarta embassy with the Indonesians running that campaign. It was inside knowledge.
The sources also warn that it cannot be assumed that all will be revealed in seven years, when the files are opened under the 30- year rule. For one thing, the department has already withheld hundreds of pages of documents relating to Indonesia from records up to 1967 already opened.
But the sources also claim that the Timor records, occupying some nine metres of shelf space, are not secure and are open to interference. Documents are being lost, and it is not unknown for fabricated notes and advice to be slipped into files to enhance reputations.
In particular, the department's copy of the record of Whitlam's meeting with Soeharto in September 1974 is said to be missing from the DFAT archives.
The department's Heseltine says he "was not aware of the precise location of the document to which you refer. There are a number of historical documents that are currently being examined by this department with a view to their archiving and long-term storage. The document to which you referred may well be amongst them."
The department was also unable to locate immediately the October 13 cable from Woolcott warning of danger on the Timor border, though it had found a reference to this cable in a subsequent cable.
Bruce Haigh, who ran the department's Indonesia desk in 1984- 86, recalls that two files of key documents on Timor and Indonesia, including photographs of Balibo, were withheld from the DFAT registry and kept in a safe in his section.
"I said I didn't want to hang onto it any more, that no files should be kept like that," said Haigh, who is now a farmer. "It was illegal, I thought, to hold files like that. They should be in the registry, or they shouldn't exist at all, one of the two. They probably don't exist any more."
| Political/economic crisis |
Jakarta -- Some 5,000 people angered by MPs' failure to heed their charges that gubernatorial elections were rigged stoned a local parliament building in eastern Indonesia, a report said Friday.
The attack by the mob, which converged on the parliament in scores of trucks Thursday, forced the MPs to flee the building in Mataram on the island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara province, the Suara Karya daily said. It also left four security personnel injured.
Suara Karya said the crowds first occupied the two-storey parliament building for four hours before pelting it with rocks and damaging it. MPs meeting inside preparing for the installment of the new governor on August 31 fled the building along with some 1,000 employees of the neighbouring gubernatorial office.
The mob pulled down the fences around the governor's office and damaged large flower pots and guard posts there, the daily said. Five trucks of police and soldiers deployed on site were also stoned, leaving four injured, the daily said.
The mob had been protesting against the election of a new provincial governor, which they said had been rigged to allow the government-backed candidate, a non-native of the province, to win. The gubernatorial election earlier in the month gave victory to Harun Al-Rasyid, with the two native candidates trailing far behind.
The protestors, including students, non-governmental activists, politicians and lawyers, said the MPs had failed to honor their promise to accommodate the aspirations of the local community in making their choice. They demanded fresh elections and warned of further violence should their demand be turned down. "If not (held again), the government should not blame us if we launch bigger actions," two of the protest leaders were quoted as saying.
The demonstrators left after negotiations with the local military chief, who promised to convey their demand to the local administration. Shops in the town closed down as the demonstrators marched through the streets on their way home, the daily added.
Under the Indonesian system, the local parliament has to propose three candidates for approval by the central government before one of them can be elected as provincial governor for a five-year term. The mayhem in Mataram came two days after citizens of the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta, which holds autonomous status, spontaneously declared the local sultan their governor in defiance of the three-candidate rule.
Jakarta -- Security forces fired warning shots to fend off crowds Thursday on the third day of mass looting of rice mills and stores in the densely-populated Indonesian province of East Java, police and military there said.
"We have dispatched police units to Tamanan, towards the east, where mobs are reported to be still attacking rice mills today," the head of the Bondowoso city police, Lieutenant Colonel Suyitno Darmo told AFP by telephone. He said soldiers from the local district command were also dispatched there but declined to provide further details.
A staff member at the office of the police chief of the Besuki area that encompasses Bondowoso said 47 people arrested during the looting were under police questioning.
The head of the Bondowoso military district, Lieutenant Colonel Sutadji declined to confirm the report of further looting on Thursday saying "the situation now is under control and we are doing our best to prevent the recurrence of such actions." "There has been no casualty so far as we have only fired warning shots into the air to disperse the large crowds from attacking further mills and stores," he told AFP by telephone.
He said separate mobs had attacked and looted three rice mills on Tuesday and four others on the following day. The mobs on Wednesday also began to attack foodstores and looted three of them. Widespread looting and attacks on stores, plantations and rice mills have taken place in various areas in East Java in the past months as the Indonesian economic crisis bites deeper.
The prices of basic commodities, including rice which is the main staple food of the nation, have soared, with the Kompas daily saying that in Bondowoso, the price of one kilogram of rice had now reached up to 4,000 rupiah (36 cents) or about the daily wage of a farm hand.
Grainne Mccarthy and Kate Linebaugh, Jakarta -- Just when Indonesia's Badan Urusan Logistik Nasional (Bulog) was being praised for operating multi-million dollar open tenders for the purchase of food commodities, the government fired its chairman in a move which could send the agency back to its corrupt ways, according to traders.
The government replaced Beddu Amang -- long-time Bulog insider and its chairman for the past three years -- with trade and industry minister Rahardi Ramelan. Beddu said he would be retained as an "expert" in the office of Senior Economics Minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita. Rahardi will be backed up by food minister AM Saefuddin and cooperatives minister Adi Sasono.
The government didn't explain the move, although sources in Jakarta say Beddu's ouster came partly because he is perceived as being linked with the corrupt Bulog of the past, but more likely because his moves to open up food purchases to international tender stepped on the wrong ministerial toes.
Traders also said failed negotiations over a 400,000 metric ton portion of Indonesia's purchase of Thai rice, were indirectly linked with Beddu's removal. "Frankly, Beddu for all his unpopularity in the past, wasn't the right guy for Bulog, but in the last month he has done some great things," said one rice trader in Jakarta. "As far as the trade is concerned, we're not happy about his replacement. Before you know it, (Bulog) may go back to the old style."
H.S. Dillon, Jakarta-based executive director of the Center for Agricultural Policy Studies, agreed. "The major problem now, I fear, with what they are doing is that the trade will construe this government has no clear policy," he said. "This is going backwards."
Long associated with corruption, Bulog was often held up as the prime example of all that was bad about Indonesia under former president Suharto. It was widely criticized for awarding lucrative import and distribution rights to Suharto's associates -- in particular the Salim Group of ethnic-Chinese billionaire tycoon Liem Sioe Liong.
Under the International Monetary Fund's bail-out package in January, Bulog's monopoly on the import and distribution of essential goods was removed. But under the most recent revision in June, the IMF and the government admitted that Bulog still controlled much of the trade, and that opening it up to the private sector was more difficult than anticipated.
Bulog's short-lifeline drove the government's decision, according to minister Adi. "Bulog's role will be reduced over time as an open market system becomes more effective," he told reporters, noting the agency will be consolidated under the trade ministry. Recently the agency, under Beddu's leadership, has undergone massive reforms, holding international open tenders for the purchases of sugar, wheat and soybeans. Such tenders were unheard of under former president Suharto.
Commodities sources in Jakarta say this very policy has irked some government officials, keen to direct the buy tenders into Indonesian hands. The sources say this very policy will damage the trade. "One thing about Bulog people is they might be corrupt, but they know the market; now Rahardi wants to run this so he can give contracts to his own people," one person close to Bulog said. Rahardi didn't comment on the decision, or take questions from reporters.
Another rice trader said some members of the cabinet were eager to channel rice imports through a favored Indonesian businessman. "(The businessman) is trying to take the place Salim had in the past saying 'Salim milked the system for so long, let us have something as well'," the trader said.
Another knowledgeable agricultural expert, who didn't want to be named, agreed. "It's very much a part of that," he said. "We know that Suharto was deciding on who would be the importers and all that, Beddu was trying to have a situation where they didn't have to buy from Indonesian importers."
Having worked with the agency for some 25 years, Beddu clearly benefited from the old way of doing business. He made light of his removal from Bulog Wednesday, saying a rice tender -- originally set for Wednesday -- had been postponed due to high international market prices and not due to the fact that he was to lose his position.
In any case, whatever behind the scenes political wrangling may be going on, the Bulog development comes at a time when Indonesia least needs an upheaval in its food distribution channels. Although the government has insisted it only needs to import 3.1 million tons of rice this year to meet the shortfall in domestic supply, traders and analysts say this is far too optimistic. Many say the country will have to import closer to 4.5 million tons.
Despite the fact that this year's rice crop looked promising -- particularly compared with last year's -- traders said output is extremely low. And rice prices are rising domestically. As Indonesia grapples with its worst economic crisis in 30 years, increases in prices for essential commodities -- particularly rice -- are highly sensitive.
Jakarta -- Stocks slipped Wednesday, as early gains by some state-owned companies eased on concern of the country's political situation. The Jakarta Stock Exchange composite index eased 6.216, or 1.7%, to 360.927. Volume stood at 160 million shares valued at 249 billion rupiah. Decliners outnumbered advancers, 60 to 31, with 88 stocks unchanged and 109 others untraded.
Police fired tear gas for a second consecutive day Wednesday when stone-throwing protesters tried to break up a political party congress in Palau, Sulawesi. At least one person was injured. On Tuesday, seventeen people were injured after supporters of the ousted leader of the Indonesian minority Democratic Party, Megawati Sukarnoputri, clashed with security officers.
Meanwhile, mild buying on the back of an early rise in shares of state-owned companies eased as investors switched their equities to funds which offer high interest rates. Bank Indonesia Certificate's, or SBI, average interest rate Wednesday was set at 70.44%. At close, the dollar was trading at 11,062.5 rupiah, compared with late Tuesday at 11,100 rupiah.
Market leader Telekomunikasi Indonesia, which accounts for 17% of the market capitalization, dropped 10%, or 275 rupiah, to 2,500 rupiah and international call operator Indosat lost 325 rupiah to 8,600 rupiah.
[On August 22 Associated Press reported that a small bomb, discovered in Indonesia's tallest building, had been diffused by police. The building houses some operations of the central bank, a social club for Americans and the offices of about 100 local and foreign companies - James Balowski.]
| Labour issues |
Jakarta -- Trade unions in all industrial sectors broke ranks and withdrew from the Federation of All Indonesian Workers Union (FSPSI) yesterday in a bid to topple the federation's central executive board.
Officials representing the 13 sectoral trade unions said in a joint declaration they were withdrawing their membership from the labor federation, and formed a new 13-member presidium to prepare an extraordinary congress.
"The new presidium is given ful1 authority to undertake the federation's functions until an extraordinary congress is held to elect a new executive board," said the declaration read by Ali Samioen, chairman of the tourism trade union.
He said the sectoral trade unions launched the coup as they had long been disappointed with the federation's executive board. They believe it has failed to advance workers' aspirations.
Ali noted the extreme disappointment and sense of betrayal at the executive board when it endorsed the controversial government decision not to raise the monthly regional minimum wages in April.
Such an endorsement was given despite the fact that the sectoral trade unions had initially agreed to push for a 15 percent increase. "What do we have the federation for if it won't fight for our aspirations? They (the central executive board) have made many mistakes causing a great loss to workers," he argued.
Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris, who received the declaration from trade union executives at his office yesterday afternoon, said the government had to comply with the newly ratified International Labor Convention No. 87 on freedom of association and, therefore, could not interfere in FSPSI's internal affairs. "The government is consistent in enforcing the ILO convention and the labor law and respects the trade unions' freedom and independence," he said.
FSPSI Chairman Datuk Bagindo condemned the coup against his executive board and called it a rebellion. He claimed that it was engineered by a third party to tarnish FSPSI's image at home and abroad.
He contended that the federation's executive board would go ahead with its leadership congress scheduled for Aug. 31 to elect its new executives. "If the sectoral trade unions are dissatisfied with the federation's executives, they should change them by electing new ones at the congress," he remarked.
Jakarta -- Indonesian police beat up protesting textile workers here Tuesday to prevent them from marching to the International Labour Organization (ILO) office in the city's business district, a witness said.
Several of the laid-off factory workers were injured when around 50 mobile brigade police waded into the crowd of 250, lashing them with rattan sticks, an AFP reporter said. The demonstrators had just emerged from the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) in Central Jakarta to march to the ILO office.
The workers then retreated into the LBH parking lot, the reporter said, adding some of those injured in the clash were taken inside the building. The number of the injured was not immediately known.
Two additional mobile brigade trucks arrived on the scene not long after with the earlier 50 already guarding outside the office. The Indonesian textile industry is among the worst-hit in the current economic crisis, which has cost millions of jobs.
| Human rights/law |
On June 4, 1998, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued an appeal for release of political prisoners in Indonesia and East Timor, following President Soeharto's resignation and the lifting of some political controls. Since then, the government has released several dozen prisoners, dropped charges against some detainees whose trials were pending, and "rehabilitated" others who had served sentences under the previous administration. Many of these releases took place in connection with August 17, Indonesia's independence day, which is traditionally a time when releases and remissions are announced. The released prisoners include three elderly men involved with the Indonesian Communist Party in the 1960s; several prisoners accused of links to armed nationalist movements in Aceh, Irian Jaya, and East Timor; and others accused of various political offenses.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch welcome the releases; however, both organizations urge the Indonesian Government to ensure that there is a comprehensive release program for all those detained for their peaceful political activities and for the automatic review of convictions against all political prisoners.
I. Independence day releases
The following people were released in accordance with Presidential Decree No.42/G/1998, issued by President Habibie on August 15, 1998.
Agustiana Suryana was serving an eight-year prison sentence in Ciamis, West Java after being found guilty of subversion in relation to a major riot in the town of Tasikmalaya in December 1996. A community activist, Agustiana was believed to have been arrested on the basis of his peaceful activities.
Mimih Khaeruman bin KBA Maksum Iskandar, who was not in custody, was convicted in absentia to ten years' imprisonment for his alleged role in the Tasikmalaya disturbances of December 1996.
Mohamad Arif (alias Arief Kusno Saputro and Imam Mahdi Prawironegoro), the leader of a messianic movement in East Java revering Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, was jailed in Malang Prison, East Java in 1997. The group was referred to as Divisi 10. All of its members were serving their sentences in Malang, East Java and 31 of them were released last month. Mohamad Arif was the last member of the group to be released.
PKI Prisoners
Manan Effendi, 80, was arrested on October 9, 1965 in Balikpapan, Kalimantan, was sentenced to death in 1967, and had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment in 1982. Since 1987, he had been serving his sentence in Kalisosok Prison, Surabaya. A former editor of a local newspaper, he was the vice chairman of a branch of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) in East Kalimantan. He is confined to a wheelchair as a result of two strokes in 1997.
Alexander Warouw, 81, was involved with a Kalimantan branch of a trade union linked to the PKI. Arrested in October 1965, he was tried for subversion. In 1967 he was sentenced to life imprisonment and was detained at Balikpapan Prison in Kalimantan. He is believed to suffer from diabetes. Warouw was born in Menado, North Sulawesi.
Pudjo Prasetyo, 72, was a shipbuilder and a trade unionist who joined the PKI. He was arrested in 1967 in Central Java, held for twelve years and then tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1979. He had been serving his sentence in Kedungpani Prison, Semarang. For the last thirteen years, he has suffered from Parkinson's Disease which has severely affected his physical mobility. He is confined to a wheelchair.
Acehnese prisoners
Abdullah SH bin TM Daud, 33, sentenced to four years' imprisonment for his role in allegedly using money from the sale of marijuana to buy a vehicle for the use of the armed secessionist group, Aceh Merdeka, the Free Aceh Movement. He was arrested in July 1996, tried in Banda Aceh under the Anti- subversion Law and sentenced in December 1997.
Ruslin Usman bin Usman, 27, was also tried under the Anti- subversion Law for his alleged involvement with Aceh Merdeka as a driver. He was tried in Banda Aceh and sentenced in December 1997 to a prison term of three years and six months.
M Yusuf bin M Yoned, 31, was arrested in July 1996 and tried in Banda Aceh for subversion. He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and detained in Banda Aceh. The accusation against him was that he was involved with, and provided assistance to, Aceh Merdeka, and was involved in an Aceh Merdeka-linked murder.
M Yusuf bin Makmud, 32, was tried on subversion charges for his alleged involvement with Aceh Merdeka and received a sentence of four and a half years on February 11, 1998. He was imprisoned in Lhokseumawe. He was accused in particular of obtaining food for Aceh Merdeka, being an accomplice to a bank robbery for the organization, and receiving stolen money.
Mustamir bin Saleh, 18, was imprisoned in Lhokseumawe. He was arrested in February 1997 and tried for his alleged involvement with Aceh Merdeka, including the storage of weapons. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment.
Asnawi bin Hasballah, 29, was arrested in March 1997 by Indonesia's Special Forces Command, Kopassus, and was tried in Lhokseumawe for subversion. Accused of being a member of Aceh Merdeka and involvement in assisting the movement to obtain weapons, he was sentenced in 1998 to six years and six months in jail. He was jailed in Lhokseumawe Prison. Faisal bin Abdullah, 27, was arrested by the military in February 1997 and tried in Lhokseumawe for subversion. He was sentenced to seven years and six months' imprisonment in February 1998 after being found guilty of involvement with Aceh Merdeka and receiving stolen money for use by Aceh Merdeka. He was imprisoned in Lhokseumawe Prison. Hasan bin Hamid, 40, was arrested by military intelligence officers in February 1997 and tried in Lhokseumawe for subversion. He was sentenced to four years and six months in prison in February 1998 after he was found guilty of being a member of Aceh Merdeka, seeking funds for the movement, and receiving stolen money for the movement's use. He was also detained in Lhokseumawe Prison.
Nurhayati Hasani [f], around 49, was arrested in 1994 and was serving a six-year sentence in the women's prison in Medan. Along with her husband, M Amin bin Samidan (alias Amin Panga), she was convicted of subversion in 1995 after being found guilty of involvement with Aceh Merdeka. It is believed, however, that she and her husband were imprisoned because they provided medical treatment to a member of the armed resistance who lived in their village.
Irian Jaya prisoners
Drs Jacob Rumbiak, a former employee at the office of the Governor of Irian Jaya, was sentenced to seventeen years' imprisonment in 1990 following the arrest of forty people in 1989 and 1990 who were accused of planning demonstrations in support of "West Melanesian" independence. He was serving his sentence in Cipinang Prison in Jakarta and is believed to have been released on August 20. There are as yet unconfirmed reports that four other Irian Jaya prisoners, tried in connection with the same peaceful demonstrations and imprisoned in Kalisosok Prison in Surabaya, also may have been released.
Hendrikus Kowil, Kasimirius Iwop and Benediktus Kuawamba, all from Woropko, Merauke, Irian Jaya were released from detention in Abepura Prison in Irian Jaya. They were serving seven-year prison sentences following their conviction in May 1996 under Article 340 of the Indonesian Criminal Code for alleged involvement in an attack on a military convoy between the villages of Upkim and Ikcan in Merauke in October 1995. One soldier was apparently killed in the attack. Three other men were tried in relation to the same incident, two of whom are still serving prison terms in Abepura Prison. All were said to have been tortured.
East Timorese
Pedro da Luz, Freitas Morreira and Marcelino Fraga had all been detained in Baucau Detention Centre. It is not clear if they had been tried.
Manuel da Silva, detained in Ermera Detention Centre, was arrested for spreading leaflets insulting the Indonesian President on the anniversary of the 1991 Dili Massacre, on 12 November 1997.
Alexio F Correia, (or Alexio Cortereal) was arrested in September 1997 and detained in Ermera Detention Centre. He was accused along with his father of hiding guns in his house. He was believed to have been tried under Article 106 of the Indonesian Criminal Code and sentenced to either two or five years' imprisonment.
Akau da Costa (alias Macau Metan) was detained in prison in Dili. He had been arrested on a previous occasion for allegedly throwing a stone, and was most recently in custody for allegedly attending a clandestine meeting to discuss "sabotage" of the May 1997 parliamentary elections.
Gasfar da Silva, or Gaspar da Silva, who was not in custody, was granted abolution. He was arrested in November 1997 and was accused of being a member of the clandestine movement. He was thought to have been detained in Becora Prison in Dili and a trial had begun. It is not clear when he was released from custody or what stage the court proceedings were at when he was released.
Bobby Xavier Luis Pereira, also not in custody, was granted abolution. He had been facing charges under Articles 338, 106 and 108 of the Indonesian Criminal Code and had been detained in police custody in Dili.
David Dias Ximenes, not in custody and granted "abolution," was released on June 6 after his trial was dismissed because of insufficient evidence. He was alleged to have masterminded an attack on the headquarters of Brimob (Police Mobile Brigade) in Dili in May 1997
Salvador da Silva, also not in custody, was granted abolution. He was believed to have been sentenced to three years' imprisonment under Article 187 of the Indonesian Criminal Code for his involvement in disturbances in Baucau in June 1996. He had been serving his prison sentence in Kalisosok Prison in Surabaya, and it is not known when he was released.
II. Releases prior to Independence Day
Abdullah bin Sarmili and Syarifudin bin Murdali had both been sentenced to prison terms of one year in January 1998 under Article 137 of the Criminal Code for distributing pamphlets which were critical of the president. They were believed to have been detained in Tangerang Detention Center.
Aberson Marle Sihaloho was a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) who supported ousted party leader Megawati Sukarnoputri. Aberson was convicted of insulting the head of state in July 1997 and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. He remained at liberty pending an appeal against his conviction. Ahmad Taufik and Eko Maryadi, two members of the Independent Journalists' Alliance (AJI) had been released conditionally from prison in July 1997. The two men are no longer required to report to the authorities and the authorities have stated that they will no longer be under surveillance.
Andi Syahputra was released on May 28, 1998. A printer who was arrested in October 1996 for his involvement in printing the underground magazine, Suara Independen (Independent Voice), he was sentenced to two years and eight months' imprisonment for "insulting the president." Asep Ilyas FM bin KH Yusuf Sidiq and Abdul Muis bin Ma'ruf, both of whom were in custody in Tasikmalaya, West Java, were convicted following a major riot in Tasikmalaya in December 1996.
Coky Yahya Runasi Tahal Guntur Aritonang was released in a presidential amnesty on June 10, 1998. He had been sentenced to two years and six months' imprisonment in July 1995 for "insulting the president" through the distribution of "illegal" pamphlets on various university campuses.
Muchtar Pakpahan, head of the independent Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI), was released in May 1998. He had been serving a four-year prison sentence for incitement in relation to riots in Medan, North Sumatra in 1994 and was on trial for subversion and for spreading hatred against the government in relation to the July 1996 riots in Jakarta. All charges against him have been dropped.
Nuku Soleiman was released on May 28, 1998. An activist with the organization Pijar, he was serving a five-year prison sentence for "insulting the president" in connection with a demonstration against the lottery in December 1993.
Rachmad Buchori was on trial under Article 134 of the Criminal Code. Rachmad was the secretary for the author of a banned book strongly critical of the New Order. He was accused of defamation in connection with the contents of the book.
Slamet Bibit and Faud Chafidin were arrested in April 1996 and were sentenced to two-year prison terms for exposing election irregularities during the 1992 general election.
Sri Bintang Pamungkas was released on May 25, 1998. A former parliamentarian and founder of the United Development Party (PUDI), he was on trial for subversion in connection with the establishment of PUDI. He had also been sentenced to two years and ten months for "insulting the president" in relation to a speech which he made in Germany in 1995. All charges against him have been dropped
Sukarnoist movement prisoners
Thirty-one people, including three women, who were members of a group known as Divisi 10 were arrested and tried in 1997 after the authorities claimed to have uncovered a messianic movement in East Java revering Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. All were serving their sentences in Malang, East Java. Five members of the Indonesian Armed Forces, at least three of whom are known to have been jailed for their involvement with Divisi 10, were released from military custody in Surabaya. They had been jailed for desertion.
People's Democratic Party (PRD)
Four members of the PRD and its affiliated organizations who were arrested and tried for subversion in the aftermath of the government-backed raid on the headquarters of the PDI (Indonesian Democratic Party) in July 1996 have been released. Wilson bin Nurtiyas, who received a five-year jail sentence in June 1997, and Ken Budha Kusumandaru, who received a four year jail sentence in April 1997, were both released on 27 July from Cipinang Prison in Jakarta. Coen Husein Pontoh, who was tried with Dita Indah Sari and received a three and a half year jail sentence, and Mohamad Sholeh who received a four year sentence, were both released on July 25 from Kalisosok Prison in Surabaya.
East Timorese
Antonio Gusmco Freitas, who was serving a one year and seven month prison sentence, Jose Gomes, who had a four year and six month sentence, and Luis Pereira, who was serving a two year and three month sentence, were all released following a presidential amnesty announced on June 10, 1998. All three men had been arrested and convicted in connection with disturbances in Baucau on June 10 and 11, 1996.
Bernadino Simoes, Domingos da Silva, Francisco de Jesus [also known as Francisco de Deus], Juvenal dos Santos, Paulo Silva Carvelho, Paulo Soares, Silverio Ximenes, and Vincente M da Cruz have been released and the charges against them dropped in the presidential amnesty of June 10, 1998. All eight men had been arrested and were being tried in connection with disturbances at the University of East Timor (Untim), Dili on 14 November 1997.
Cancio Antonio, Bendito Amaral, Hermenegildo da Costa, and Thomas Agusto Coreia, all of whom were serving one-year prison sentences, were released in the presidential amnesty of June 10, 1998. All four men had been arrested in connection with a demonstration at the Mahkota Hotel in Dili on March 23, 1997.
Domingos da Silva, Fernao Malta Lebre, Ivo Miranda, and Joaquim Santana were released following a decision by the Semarang District Court of June 1, 1998 to drop the charges against them. All four were arrested in Semarang, Central Java in September 1997 and accused of being involved in a bomb-manufacturing operation in Semarang.
Another eight East Timorese detainees, arrested during March and April 1998 for alleged involvement in the resistance, are also reported to have had charges against them dropped and been released. There names are, Albertino Goncalves Soares da Costa, Alfredo Amaral, Basilio Mendonca Freitas, Bernardo dos Santos, Elias de Araujo, Joco dos Santos, Marcal Amaral Magno Guterres, and Mario Ximenes Reis.
III. Release prior to change in government
One Acehnese prisoner whom Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported as being detained in their June 4 report was Drs. Adnan Beuransyah, a journalist with the daily newspaper Serambi Indonesia. He had in fact just been released at the time.
Louise Williams, Pidie -- "Did they hurt you, Mama?" the old woman's children and grandchildren asked, when she was dumped back in her rice farming village by soldiers from Indonesia's elite special forces. "No," she lied, staying silent, painfully edging her thin, battered body around her tiny home, her flowing Muslim clothes concealing her injuries, her head bent down against the tears.
Sixty-year-old Jumpa Amin had been held for more than two months in what locals called the Rumah Geudong, or big house, once owned by a petty royal from the days when the Sultanate of Aceh, in northern Sumatra, held sway over much of the region's trade. Everyone knew what happened at the big house -- how their friends and neighbours were tortured, raped, humiliated and murdered by brutal men who boasted of their cruelty and swung their car-keys on gruesome trophies of dried flesh, carved off their victims.
"I was told to say we ate three delicious meals a day and were treated well, otherwise I would be taken again and never come back," Jumpa recalls, fighting back tears.
The slight grandmother was never the soldiers' target. But when her husband heard he was wanted by the special forces, Kopassus, he ran, so they took her instead. She walked out of her home without any extra clothes, expecting to be back by nightfall. Her husband was just an old rice farmer, nothing more, she thought.
When the first soldier threw a cup of burning coffee in her face, demanding to know where her husband was hiding, she told them she didn't know.
When the young men and local informers stripped off her clothes and clipped electrodes on her nipples and ears, in front of all the other prisoners, she passed out. Four times she was given electric shocks this way. The soldiers accused her over and over again of giving goats to rebels fighting for an independent Aceh.
Then, suddenly she is angry, banging her fist down on the bare wooden table, tears streaming. "They kept on saying, "Where are you guns?' But I haven't even seen any guns. I was slapped and kicked until I couldn't feel anything any more. My clothes were soaked with blood. "I just thought if I died in that place my family wouldn't even be allowed to see my body."
Around Jumpa, a huddle of village women are now crying too, as much because of their own terrible stories as the story that is being told.
Last weekend, the Indonesian Human Rights Commission began the first official investigation into almost a decade of horror in the cool green rice farming villages and dense rainforests of Aceh, the northernmost province of Sumatra.
Since 1989, when the region was declared a military operation zone and thousands of troops were deployed by the then Soeharto Government against a straggly band of independence fighters, terrible stories of summary executions, dumped bodies, public rapes and scalpings have trickled out. The province was closed to the media, the allegations dismissed by the Indonesian Government, the local people taught to fear even their neighbours.
After the Soeharto Government fell, the Rumah Geudong remained filled with prisoners, including Jumpa. But when the tide began to turn against the military and pressure built for a resolution of decades of human rights abuses, the house was closed and the local informers fled. The Armed Forces chief, General Wiranto, recently apologised to the people of Aceh and ordered the first of the troops out. Only then did the people begin to talk.
After three days of digging at sites of mass graves, the commission concluded that the shattered skulls and remains of blindfolds and bindings were evidence of massacres in Aceh. The provisional findings of the first days of the investigation listed 782 documented killings, 368 cases of torture, 168 missing people and 102 reported rapes. Local human rights organisations say there are thousands buried in the mass graves, and thousands more cases not yet reported.
Privately, international humanitarian agencies say they fear for those who were still being held in military camps before the rights commission arrived. The camps were empty, and the prisoners remain missing, feared dead. In Pidie alone, 589 people have been listed as missing by the Legal Aid Foundation this week.
The commission's secretary-general, Baharuddin Lopa, said: "It is clear there was a massacre in Aceh. I don't want to hear any government official pretend the widespread killing of civilians during the operations in Aceh never happened."
Rosmawati, mother of a missing adult son, says: "Wiranto says sorry. We do not accept that. We are tortured, raped and killed and only get an apology. What good will that bring to us? We want these men brought to trial. "Look at us, look at what has happened here. Our families are destroyed, our husbands and sons gone. How will our children grow up with all this trauma?"
But the problem for the Habibie Government is just how far the military can be pushed. Aceh is not an isolated case of a few bad soldiers, it was a long-term military operation. The regional commander in the early 1990s, when the worst abuses occurred, was General Syarwan Hamid. He is now the Home Affairs Minister.
"To try to contain this investigation will be very difficult," said a diplomat who has visited the province. "The military is now fighting to save its image and some very senior people were involved in Aceh."
The province' history is one of jealously guarded independence and local pride. The maritime power of the Dutch East Indies Company broke Aceh's control of the pepper trade in the late 1800s,but it took the soldiers of the Dutch colonial administration another year of fighting, which cost thousands of lives, before the Dutch flag could be raised over the capital.
Even then, the Dutch never truly conquered Aceh, and in the jungle a "holy war" raged between the Muslim Acehnese guerillas and the Christian Dutch. In the anti-colonial struggle, Aceh became an important base for Indonesian freedom fighters. But after independence was won, the Acehnese people felt cheated, their province coming under the control of the politically and economically powerful Javanese they had helped to defeat the Dutch.
Aceh is one of the richest provinces in Indonesia, but its natural gas, timber, rubber, palm oil and coffee were channelled through Jakarta under the Soeharto Government, and little of the profits were ploughed back into Aceh. Resentment simmered as the biggest houses and the best jobs were handed to outsiders while the locals remained poor.
In the late 1980s, the Indonesian Government claimed the jungles of Aceh concealed 1,000 guerilla fighters from a movement called Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh), which was supposedly armed by Libya.
Locals say some guns did arrive, but diplomats believe the rebels were perhaps only 500 strong, a force diminished to perhaps a handful under the crushing weight of nine years of military control. The Aceh Merdeka disappeared but the fear remained. Informers who failed to report "suspects" were threatened with violence, and communities turned on themselves.
"It is clear there was a very excessive deployment of troops," the diplomat said. "There was a brutal campaign of fear without respect for due process. There are signs of the killing fields in Aceh." In three days of traveling through Aceh, there were many stories of pain and fear, but little talk of independence.
At a university in Banda Aceh, the capital, a group of academics sits debating the future. Aceh, they say, is not like the predominantly Christian provinces of East Timor and Irian Jaya, which have been fighting for independence against the central Government. The crushing of Aceh Merdeka, says sociologist Otto Syamsuddin, was "like killing a mosquito with a cannon".
A colleague, Achmad Humum Hamid, asked for volunteers to go door-to-door across the province and finally seek the truth. More than 17,000 people volunteered. "We are hoping for an Indonesian court to hear these cases. If we Indonesians want to come clean and advance into the next century and rebuild this nation, we have to address this in a systematic way."
[The following translation of a letter from an Acehnese refugee in a Malaysian gaol which was passed on to Tapol by the Acheh/Sumatra National Liberation Front office in Sweden.]
Firstly we would like to apologise to our seniors if there is any fault in this letter. We would briefly like to remind you that it has been four months that we have been detained in this solitary-confinement at the Bukit Aman Police headquarters. We are not well because we are forced to sleep on bare cement floor wearing only our underwear all the time. We were given only a handful of rice in this confinement where no light can penetrate through.
All the 27 of us are still yet to recover from the wounds and beatings when they arrested us on April 10, whereby during the process some of us suffered broken ribs, fractured arms and bleeding heads.
When we were first brought to this solitary confinement, we were tortured and interrogated every day and night. They beat us like wild animlas. In fact, at one time they even stuffed our genitals with a barbecue stick (like matchsticks). This is our second letter that we have sent you through our contact-man, the ..... .... who brought you this letter. We hope that you would keep this secret. Please reply through him and send us some supplies together with the latest information about our struggle, and also some money. Thank you.
On behalf of the 27 Achenese refugees, Hasanuddin Yunus.
[The accompanying letter from the ASNLF explains that these men escaped from Linggeng Detention Centre during the forcible repatriation by the Malaysian government on 25 March this year, but were re-captured by the Malaysian police and jailed in solitary confinement at the Bukit Aman Police headquarters until today - Tapol.]
| News & issues |
Jakarta -- The savage riots that swept Indonesia in mid-May before the fall of ex-president Suharto were organized by professional agitators, Jakarta's governor was Friday quoted as saying. "They were organized," Governor Sutiyoso was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying in a two-hour hearing at the Justice Ministry with a government-sponsored fact-finding team.
The inquiry is delving into the May 13-14 riots, which triggered a panicky exodus of tens of thousands of foreigners and ethnic- Chinese from Indonesia. Although the governor did not say who he thought the organizers were, he told the commission there appeared to be "operators in control of the riots."
Commission member Bambang Widjojanto, of the Legal Aid Institute, was quoted as telling local reporters after the hearing that the team had so far identified a pattern of agitation that would have required skill to organize. He quoted Sutiyoso as saying: "It is easy for people to burn a car. But not all people can burn down a high-rise building."
A number of shopping malls were torched in the riots which left whole city blocks of Jakarta razed, most of them dominated by businesses owned by ethnic-Chinese. Human rights groups have quoted witnesses as saying that many known thugs were among the instigators of violence in various cities across Indonesia.
The groups also said that more than 1,000 people, many of them looters caught in the fires, died in the two days of looting and arson. Non-governmental rights groups further allege there were 168 rapes of ethnic- Chinese women. Twenty of the victims killed themselves or were murdered, they charge.
Military officers investigating the rape allegations, which have triggered a series of protests against Indonesian missions abroad, have said that so far they have been unable to find concrete proof.
Sutiyoso was the second government official to testify before the inquiry, which was set up last month and comprises representatives of the government, the business community and rights groups including the National Commission on Human Rights. The first was Jakarta Military Commander Sjafrie Syamsuddin.
Widjojanto said that both Sjamsuddin and Sutiyoso had recognized that the nation's wealth disparity had contributed to the riots. Indonesia's ethnic-Chinese, though only constituting about 3.5 percent of the population, have a disproportionate hold on the economy.
Foreign Minister Ali Alatas earlier this week urged those abroad protesting against the treatment of ethnic-Chinese during the riots to await the outcome of the inquiry's probe.
[On August 24 Associated Press quoted Lt. Gen. Moetojib, chief of state intelligence, as saying investigations by his agents had found no evidence of widespread rapes of Chinese women. "No one can provide evidence that the incidents occurred in the middle of May", Moetojib said after meeting with President Habibie. In a separate report in the South China Morning Post on August 25, he claimed that reports of rapes, circulating on the Internet, had been fabricated which "...were spread for political purposes to defame Indonesia in the international arena and to disintegrate national unity" - James Balowski.]
Yang Razali Kassim -- Possibly the first organised move to probe into a range of alleged atrocities under the New Order regime of former president Suharto got underway this week with the launch of an independent investigative commission in Jakarta. Initiated by Abdurrahman Wahid, the head of one of Indonesia's most influential Muslim organisations, the commission will probe alleged brutalities in Aceh, Tanjung Priok, Lampung, East Timor and Irian Jaya, as well as allegations of human rights abuses against ethnic Chinese women. Called the Independent Commission on Truth and National Reconciliation (ICTR), or Kinkonas by its Indonesian acronym, its long-term goal is national reconciliation.
A commission spokesman told BT that this was needed following the traumatic upheaval in May which brought down Mr Suharto and his New Order government but which has left Indonesians disturbed by alleged brutalities against civilians under the old regime. The spokesman said the commission would work with religious leaders to establish the truth behind the atrocities. It will also work with other bodies that have been set up to investigate abuses, such as the National Commission on Human Rights.
Mr Abdurrahman, who is going blind as a result of a stroke recently, is the head of the Muslim movement, Nahdatul Ulama (NU). He is also the brains behind a new political party, the National Awakening Party, a group which aims to dislodge the ruling Golkar party in the coming general elections, the first in the post-Suharto era.
Mr Abdurrahman is currently the president of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP), which he is roping in to back the commission's mission. Members of the commission have yet to be named but Mr Abdurrahman is expected to be its chairman. "The international character of the commission is crucial to guarantee its objectivity, independence, reliance and credibility," said a statement made available here.
While the immediate target of the commission's probes appears to be the abductions of activists and alleged rapes of ethnic Chinese women, it is significant that its scope extends to areas like Aceh, Tanjung Priok, Lampung, East Timor and Irian Jaya.
The Indonesian media has been abuzz in recent days with reports of the atrocities committed by the military in Aceh during a period of emergency rule to crack down on a separatist movement. Villagers and human rights groups claim to have uncovered mass graves and cases of rapes against local women. Like Aceh, East Timor and Irian Jaya have also been troubled by separatist tendencies, which the military has been putting down with tough action.
But the listing of the Tanjung Priok and Lampung cases in the ICTR's register is noteworthy because hundreds of Muslims had been reported killed or missing in the 1980s without satisfactory accounting by the government of Mr Suharto. Muslim groups have held demonstrations, demanding probes into the Tanjung Priok riots and calling for action to be taken against military commanders of that period, such as General Benny Murdani and General Try Sutrisno.
Kafil Yamin, Jakarta -- August 17 this year was the first day of freedom in 32 years for Pujo Prasetyo, jailed for his involvement in the abortive communist- inspired coup of 1965.
But in a sense, freedom for the 79-year-old Pujo came too late. On the day marking the 53rd anniversary of Indonesia's independence on Aug 17, he left prison in a wheelchair -- aged, weak and paralysed. Reporters chasing him at the prison gate could hardly make out what Pujo was saying, when asked about his experiences in prison.
Pujo was among the 27 political prisoners who were granted clemency from President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie this week, the latest of several batches of detainees freed since Suharto stepped down in May. So far, Habibie has freed at least 73 political prisoners. For that, he has scored political points. But like his piecemeal releases of prisoners, his actions on human rights issues are selective and have yet to be consistently proven, sceptics say.
Reformists say Habibie has to be judged also by how he deals with issues like the military's accountability for past abuses and repression and disappearances of opposition activists. People are looking to see how he deals with inquiries into May violence that led to the deaths of 1,200 people and the rapes of more than 150 ethnic Chinese women at the height of the riots.
The 62-year-old Habibie has vowed to abide by human rights standards, to regain international confidence for Indonesia and prove a "democratic resurgence" in the country. In his State of the Nation address before the House of Representatives on Aug 15, he apologised for atrocities committed by security forces in dealing with separatist movements and democracy activism in the past.
"We are all concerned at the violations committed against the dignity of citizens," Habibie said. "In all sincerity to uphold and respect human rights, I hereby extend our apology to the people, especially to the families of the victims."
Recently, the government restarted negotiations on East Timor and pulled out troops from there and Aceh in northern Sumatra, where rebels have been fighting for an independent Islamic state over the past decade. But these have not been enough to bring back confidence in the Indonesian government.
"Serious investigations into old practices of rights abuse will cultivate public confidence," Marzuki Darusman of the National Commission on Human Rights said in an interview. "We see the release of political prisoners. We hear the encouraging statements. But we see various rights violations are still going on," said Munir, head of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence or Kontras.
Munir pointed out that the president issued a recent ruling on anti-street rallies and takes a discriminatory stance toward releasing political prisoners. "He is just trying to win the people's support for political gain," he told IPS. Likewise, critics also question Habibie's pushing of a bill regulating freedom of expression and a proposal to license working journalists.
And recently, Munir said, his commission found 28 corpses along the Biak coast. Kontas says they are victims of the military shooting that occurred after a student rally on July 20 in Jayapura, the capital of Irian Jaya, a province home to a separatist movement. The rally went peacefully until an undercover military agent provoked the crowd, giving security forces reason to disperse the protests, activists say.
In Aceh, Kontras said it found 60 people missing and 40 women raped only within the January-May period. The London-based Amnesty International reported that between 1989 -- when Aceh was declared a military operation zone -- and 1992, some 2,000 people including local civilian supporters of the Free Aceh Movement, were killed in the military operations.
Acehnese Teuku Ayah was an eyewitness to killings carried out by military troops, many of which occurred in the late eighties and early nineties. "My knees trembled when I saw hundreds of corpses piled up in a hole in front of me, like dead rats. Just before I fully recovered my composure, an officer ordered me and my companions to bury the bodies and level the ground over the mass grave," he recalled.
Such cases occurred before Habibie's time. But many want to see him prove his will to bring past perpetrators to justice -- which would require Habibie to dig up abuses committed during the regime of his personal and political mentor, Suharto.
For instance, human rights activists want a probe into the violence that followed the forced takeover by pro-government camps of the headquarters of the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party on Jul 27, 1996. Party leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia's founding president Sukarno, had been seen as a challenger to Suharto.
Despite a recommendation by the National Commission on Human Rights for an inquiry, the case remains on hold. "The government has not yet shown positive response to this matter, whereas this is a serious rights violation," Darusman said.
Likewise, he says legal measures alone are not enough to settle the July 27 incident. "It should be dealt with by a thorough political solution. The government should promise that it will not interfere internal affairs of any political organisation in the future," Darusman said.
Habibie's critics add they are not heartened by recent clues to the president's priorities, such as awarding national medals to his relatives on Independence Day. That day, Habibie conferred the country's highest honour, the Bintang Republik Indonesia medal, on his wife Hasri Ainun Besari. His brother, Junus Effendi Habibie, got the second highest medal, the Mahaputra.
"His decision to confer meritorious services star on his wife and brother has undermined what little credibility he has in the public eye, for it clearly smacks of nepotism," the English- language daily "Jakarta Post" said the following day. But others say Habibie has already confounded critics for surviving three months in office.
Despite doubts about his ability and the economy's free fall, William Liddle, political science professor at Ohio University, said: "I think Habibie is stronger now and more likely to stay in power."
Jakarta -- Violent clashes erupted at an Indonesian Democracy Party (PDI) congress in Central Sulawesi Tuesday when hundreds of supporters from a rival party faction pelted rocks at the venue, witnesses said.
Police used teargas to fend off some 500 loyalists of ousted PDI leader Megawati Sukarnoputri who tried to force their way into Asrama Haji Hall in Palu city, where the congress is scheduled to begin. "I saw four policemen hit and injured by rocks hurled by Megawati supporters," a local reporter at Palu said.
The Palu congress is being held by the so-called Suryadi faction of the PDI, which took over the party leadership in 1996 in a government-engineered maneuver. The Suryadi faction has massed 1,500 of their own security men to guard the congress, but television late Monday showed hundreds of red-shirted supporters of the popular Megawati faction flooding the venue.
Atlanta -- US House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Thursday criticized the World Bank for letting money go to waste in Indonesia, after an internal report said that bank funds may have been siphoned off by government officials.
"It's a double waste. First of all, it's a waste of honest taxpayers' money to allow it to be used," the Georgia Republican told business leaders in Atlanta. "But second, when you have a system where every fifth dollar goes for corruption, you are propping up the very people who are sickening the society."
The internal World Bank report, which was prepared in August 1997 by bank staff in Jakarta but not made public until this week, said Indonesian officials may have pocketed or diverted more than one-fifth of World Bank development funds sent to the country. But the World Bank said its own staff had "not been implicated in any form of misconduct," and that bank procedures had been tightened since the year-old memorandum was written, to prevent loans from being misused.
In response to the report, Indonesia's top economics minister, Ginandjar Kartasasmita, told reporters in Jakarta that the government would take action against corruption.
The World Bank has loaned Indonesia more than $24 billion since 1967, with credits designed to reduce poverty, build a functioning infrastructure and speed economic growth. Last year, the World Bank pledged $4.5 billion to support a $43 billion Indonesia rescue package led by the International Monetary Fund after Asia's financial crisis took hold.
"The challenge in Indonesia is not money, it's corruption," Gingrich said. The World Bank announced in July that it had hired outside auditors to investigate possible embezzlement and kickbacks involving its own officials.
Worried by these reports, the US Senate Appropriations Committee voted to hold back US funding for the World Bank until congressional experts reviewed allegations of corruption in bank lending operations.
| Arms/armed forces |
Andreas Harsono, Jakarta -- On May 21, several hours after Indonesian strongman Suharto announced in a nationally-broadcast speech that he would step down from his 33-year authoritarian rule, Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto was relieved of his command of strategic forces in Jakarta.
Jakarta was shocked. Prabowo, who is Suharto's son-in-law, was immediately sent off to run a military College in Bandung, a hill town about a three-hour drive from Jakarta. Rumors in Jakarta said that Prabowo was furious and insisted on meeting with the newly-installed President B.J. Habibie and military commander General Wiranto; Habibie was installed in a safe house for his protection.
The angry general failed to meet Habibie, or even to enter the presidential palace. But his removal has indeed shocked the entire political and military Establishment here. Military spokesmen announced Prabowo's reassignment as a "regular tour of duty," but nobody believed it.
It is widely known here that Prabowo and Wiranto are old rivals. The four-star Wiranto represented a faction that wanted to see a cleaner, more professional military. The three-star Prabowo, on the other hand, is a "traditional" Indonesian officer who never hides his fondness for and involvement in politics.
Prabowo is closely associated with a collection of Islamic organizations dedicated to a Muslim-first ideology. He helped to create a think tank for young Islamic activists, and he's given support to groups whose rhetoric revolves around an aggrieved sense of Muslim chauvinism and a deep racial hatred of Chinese- Indonesians.
Several days after the dismissal, Jakarta still buzzed with rumors that Prabowo, who used to head the elite Kopassus special forces command, was involved in provoking massive riots in mid- May that killed more than 1,200 people. Prabowo, the peristent rumors say, was also allegedly involved in the burning of many Chinese-owned buildings and mass gang rape of Chinese- Indonesian women.
But while no available evidence ties him to that violence, many friends and journalists who talked with Prabowo say they have come away stunned after listening to his anti-Chinese remarks. One British journalist tells of having a three-hour interview with Prabowo during which the general talked about an "overseas Chinese conspiracy" which is trying to bring down Indonesia's economy. Prabowo said he would like "to evict the un- nationalistic Chinese" from Indonesia, the journalist noted.
"I believe in genetics. Intelligence depends on race," Prabowo once said. Which race would Prabowo put on top? "Yellow people," he answers. "It's just like Jews in Europe or the Parsis in India. We resent the Chinese because we know they outperform us," the general said.
"The Muslims have an inferiority complex and feel like they don't even own their own country. The fact that three percent of the population owns 70 percent of the economy is the main problem of Indonesia. We have to talk about it, and I'm trying to create a dialogue about this," he said in a clear reference to the Chinese minority whose businesses control most retail business in the country.
Others charged that Prabowo only used the issue to save the notoriously corrupt Suhartos. He had allegedlly instructed his Kopassus soldiers to kidnap human rights workers and activists in an apparent bid to weaken the opposition. Human rights groups have documented 23 cases of activists kidnapped this year, nine of whom have returned with gruesome accounts of being tortured for weeks. Fourteen others are still missing.
Indeed, many Indonesians wonder. How could a well-trained officer like Prabowo commit such a disgraceful acts? "It really hurts me to know that the Kopassus had been used to kidnap and to torture our very own people," said Lt. Gen. Agum Gumelar, a Wiranto colleague who used to head the elite command.
Prabowo is the scion of a blue-blooded family that the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review once called the "Kennedys of Indonesia." His father is Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, the godfather of Indonesia's technocrats and the only person to be a cabinet minister under both Sukarno and Suharto.
Prabowo's brother is tycoon Hashim Djojohadikusumo, who heads the widely-diversified Tirtamas group. Prabowo's brother-in-law is Sudradjat Djiwandono, the former central-bank governor. Prabowo himself is married to Suharto's middle daughter, Siti Hediati.
Even his relatives were surprised to learn of his alleged wrongdoing. His parents were reportedly "shocked" on learning that Prabowo had lied to them and is directly involved in kidnappings in which the activists were subject to electric shock torture, beaten and isolated in an underground cells.
Prabowo himself, however, remained calm and even gave a five-hour interview to American journalist Margaret Scott before being questioned by a military council in early August. "They put me down in the gutter," Prabowo reportedly said.
Public pressures and the fall of Suharto have prompted the military to set up a military council to question Prabowo and two other Kopassus officers. The proceedings are closed to the public. But it is very likely that the three will end up in a military tribunal. "They must be held responsible for their attitude and action which obviously violated the officer's code of honor and damaged the image of the armed forces," General Wiranto said.
Western military sources said Wiranto decided to drag Prabowo before the council to boost the military's credibility, preserve his own position and solidify his support. "It is not clear whether Prabowo is the Antichrist who orchestrated everything. There may be a tendency to use the council by senior figures to offload their own sins on him," a foreign military attachi said.
Another general said that Prabowo was not really prepared to run such a difficult command, having risen quickly through the ranks while Suharto was in power. He always became the first among his classmates to reach higher position allegedlly because of his father-in-law., and the youngest general in Indonesian history.
Among the army elite circle, Prabowo is simply defined as a "sick person." Top soldiers say he has a "split personality" and never really tested his own abilitis. But he always got what he wanted, they say, most probably because of his father-in-law. Ironically, now that Suharto is gone, Prabowo has just had his first opportunity to show who he really is. Perhaps, it is too late.
Jenny Grant -- The discharging of the once powerful son-in-law of former president Suharto from the military should protect other senior figures from the abduction scandal.
Diplomats and military analysts said the retirement of Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto was a way of containing damaging evidence that would have emerged from an open military court. "He has a lot of mud to fling around and he may have done that in an open military court," said a diplomat.
That mud may have stuck to Mr Suharto, former armed forces chief General Feisal Tanjung, now Minister for Politics and Security, and former army chief General Hartono. General Tanjung denies any knowledge of the abductions. The now reclusive Mr Suharto has remained silent on the scandal which heaped disgrace upon his son-in-law and his beloved military.
It is almost impossible such high-ranking men would not have known about the kidnappings. News of the missing activists was widely reported in February, yet no senior government or military figures moved to probe the Latin American-style disappearances until July. "I am afraid the honourable discharge is not to protect Prabowo, but to protect other senior people," said military analyst Salim Said.
Mr Said said the fact that the military denied any knowledge of 12 activists still missing clearly pointed to the involvement of other military units. In his Monday announcement, General Wiranto stressed that a military court for General Prabowo and the two other offending officers was an "option" reserved further down the track.
History, however, has a strange way of repeating itself in Indonesia. In 1992, the military discharged Lieutenant-General Sintong Panjaitan for commanding the troops which massacred about 200 people in Dili the year before. General Panjaitan came quietly back into the fold later on, and is now a senior security adviser to President Bacharuddin Habibie.
Pundits said the lame administrative sanction against General Prabowo would spark a backlash in Indonesia and stir up foreign human rights groups. "There will be an outcry if Prabowo is not brought to a military court. Everyone wants this case investigated fairly and openly. This smacks of a cover-up," said a Western diplomat.
Military sources said former Special Forces intelligence chief Colonel Chairawan would be brought before a military court to provide a scapegoat.
Andrew Marshall, Jakarta -- If Indonesia's military believes it can appease public anger over mounting evidence of past atrocities by casting out its most hated figure, it is mistaken, analysts said on Monday.
Armed forces chief General Wiranto announced earlier in the day that Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of former president Suharto, had been sacked after a military investigation found him directly responsible for the abduction and torture of political activists.
But as evidence continues to emerge of army involvement in torture, rape and mass killings, the dismissal of Prabowo will not be enough to restore Indonesia's shaken confidence in its military, analysts said. "I'm afraid that dismissing Prabowo will not be enough," said political analyst and military historian Salim Said. "People will believe Prabowo is simply being made a scapegoat if the military stops here, without going further and responding to the demands of the people that all of these past brutalities should be uncovered."
A human rights team investigating reports of army atrocities during a nine-year crackdown against a separatist insurgency in the province of Aceh unearthed scores of bones at the weekend at sites believed to be mass graves for hundreds of army victims.
Wiranto also admitted last week that troops were "involved" in the riots that ravaged Jakarta in mid-May, in which almost 1,200 people died, and more than 150 ethnic Chinese women were raped, say human rights groups.
The revelations further stained the image of a military already tarnished by its involvement in the kidnappings of anto-Suharto activists over the past year and by the fatal shooting of four student protesters in May. Analysts say making Prabowo a scapegoat for past army abuses will not satisfy Indonesia's public and a thorough investigation into alleged atrocities will be difficult to avoid.
A diplomatic source close to the military said many serving and former senior officers would heave a deep sigh of relief that the investigation into army kidnappings had ended with the sacking of Prabowo and would not be taken further. But like Said, he said the firing of Prabowo was unlikely to be sufficient to stem public anger. "A lot of people may find it's not enough when you're talking of kidnaps, murder and torture," he said.
Few Indonesians doubt Prabowo had a hand in many past army atrocities. Until March he was commander of the feared Kopassus elite special forces, which is the focus of allegations of human rights abuses in the troubled provinces of Aceh in north Sumatra and East Timor.
Scores of Acehnese testified to Indonesia's official National Commission on Human Rights at the weekend that Kopassus troops had been responsible for abductions, rapes, torture and killings in the province until May this year, when Suharto resigned amid a crippling economic downturn and mass protests against his rule.
Wiranto has already acknowledged that Kopassus soldiers abducted and tortured more than 20 anti-Suharto activists. Human rights groups say 14 are still missing. But although Prabowo's dismissal will be welcomed, pressure for a full investigation of the military will not abate and more high-ranking heads are likely to roll, analysts said.
"The army must reveal more. Who was responsible for the brutality in Aceh? Where are the missing activists? The families of victims want to know what has happened to them, or where their graves are," Said said. "The army has investigated Prabowo, but they must also dare to do that to other officers who are responsible for brutality."
Revelations of abuses come as the army struggles to maintain its traditional "dual function" which gives it a significant role in Indonesia's politics. Many opposition figures want to see the army removed from politics and stripped of the quota of seats it commands in Indonesia's legislative bodies. The skeletons being uncovered in the army's cupboard gives such critics further ammunition.
But Said says that despite the army's battering in recent months it remains well-entrenched enough to resist any attempt to remove it from Indonesian politics. "The roots of the army's political involvement are very deep," he said. "Everybody involved in politics in this country knows that real political power lies with the military."
"The brutalities uncovered will be used as a bargaining chip by those who want the army's role reduced. But I don't think they will succeed in confining the army to the barracks, because the Indonesian army has never been confined to the barracks. They have been in politics from the beginning."