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ASIET NetNews Number 34 - September 7-13, 1998
East TimorStudents demonstrate at palace Irian Jaya protestors scuffle with police Students demand Suharto goes on trial Riot police scuffle with 4,000 in Surabaya Five injured as students protest Habibie
Political/economic crisisTimor factions reconcile Over 3,000 new troops in East Timor East Timorese set up new organisation
Human rights/lawOne dead as police search for pillagers ABRI to be 'firm' in facing protests Indonesian looters turn to onion fields Hundreds raid state-owned fish pondl Mobs slash teak trees, wreck police cars Looting of stores, warehouses continues Student riots rip into Indonesia economy Radicals threaten new bloodbath Last-ditch effort to sell debt plan Death threatened for disrupting food At least 74 arrested in renewed Java riots A generation's future goes begging Thousands Riot in Central Java
News & issuesNumber of rapes probably far lower Government urged to stop denying rapes
Arms/armed forcesInvestigators decide to get tough Suharto threats detailed in APEC memos Suharto denies allegations of wealth
Police to be freed from ABRI control
| Democratic struggle |
Jakarta -- About 1,000 student demonstrators staged a noisy but peaceful rally near the Presidential Palace on Thursday, demanding President B.J. Habibie's government lower staple food prices and try former president Soeharto.
The protesters were from 25 universities in the greater Jakarta area grouped in the Communication Forum of Jakarta's Student Senate (FKSMJ). Assembling in the northern part of the National Monument (Monas) Square in Central Jakarta, the students began the protest at about II a.m. They chanted: "People will win" and "Hungry, hungry, hungry". Banner messages included: "People don't need political parties, people need food" and "Mr. Habibie, people are dying".
A force of at least 1,000 personnel from the military, police and marines were abruptly dispatched to the scene to prevent the protesters from crossing Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara toward the palace. Armed with shields and rattan sticks, the troops formed a human barricade on the street median to block the students opposite the Supreme Court building, which is adjacent to the palace compound.
Habibie's office is located in the compound and he remained inside during the rally. Traffic was detoured from part of Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara, causing massive congestion in the area for hours.
Dominated by a free speech forum, the rally ended at about 2:30 p.m. A 10-minute downpour had failed to disperse the crowd. A spokesman for the group, Ahmad Alawi, said Habibie had proven incapable of solving the economic crisis after more than 100 days in office. "Habibie cannot lead this nation. Look, the prices of staple food are continually increasing. People are facing starvation." Alawi would not state whether the students had intended to reach the palace compound, only saying: "We just want to deliver speeches here." Central Jakarta Police chief Lt. Col. Imam Haryatna, who was on the scene, said security officers would only tolerate the protesters remaining in the Monas area, but would be prepared to "face" them if they insisted on moving closer to the palace. "They should know the area is off-limits to any demonstrations as we have state symbols around here." The past week has recorded a resurgence in student demonstrations since Soeharto resigned from the presidency on May 21. Another group of about 1,000 students broke down the gates to the House of Representatives compound on Monday. Five students were injured, including two who sustained serious injuries, when security personnel forcibly evicted them early the next morning.
The students staged the rally on Thursday despite an appeal by Armed Forces Chief Gen. Wiranto. On Tuesday, he asked students to cease street protests because they could detract from the people's growing sense of security and deplete international confidence in the country. Shortly after security personnel rounded up the students to disperse on Thursday, about 50 students identifying themselves from the Student Movement for Reform (Geram) held another rally in front of the Supreme Court building, demanding that Chief Justice Sarwata resign. The students were quickly involved in tense negotiations with police officers.
Similar demands for reductions in staple food prices and Habibie's resignation were echoed by students in the Central Java capital of Semarang. At least 500 students of the Soegiyopranoto Catholic University rallied at the provincial council office, urging the government to form an independent committee to monitor the price and distribution of basic commodities. The students continued the protest by marching around the city and invited passersby to join in. In the East Java capital of Surabaya, the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) strongly protested the military treatment of students who staged a protest when Habibie visited the city on Wednesday. At least 25 people, including journalists, were injured in the clash and four of them testified before the foundation on Thursday. Foundation member Ma'ruf said a report on the military's use of violence had already been submitted to the Armed Forces.
Jakarta -- Student and youth protestors from Indonesia's remote Irian Jaya province scuffled with police during a demonstration at the military headquarters here Friday, leaving at least one injured.
Some 40 members of the Front of People Concerned for Papua carrying posters and banners, protested in front of the military headquarters in Central Jakarta before police pushed them away.
A scuffle took place as the baton-wielding police attempted to move the demonstrators away from the front of the headquarters and one protestor was injured by kicks to the head and stomach, witnesses said. The injured man, identified as Clause Oscar Wamafma, a 25-year-old student from a university in Bandung, West Java, was taken to a nearby hospital, witnesses said.
"The suffering of the people of Papua cannot be compensated for by mere autonomy," said one banner carried by the protestors. Others read: "Freedom is not an alternative, it is the only choice," and "Halt the engineering of the aspiration of the people of Papua."
In a statement distributed during the protest, the front urged the government and the military to listen to the people of Irian Jaya, and called for a halt to any attempt to stamp out the cultural identity of its people. It also demanded that the military should account for killings in Irian Jaya and a comprehensive probe of every cases of killing by Indonesian troops should be conducted there. The statement further called for the court martial of local military leaders over deaths during peaceful protests in Irian Jaya earlier this year.
The protestors left the headquarters for the nearby US embassy to convey their statement and report the injury, before marching down a main thouroughfare under the guard of several police and soldiers to their own headquarters in the city's Tanah Abang district.
Jakarta -- Some 100 students demonstrated outside the attorney general's office here Wednesday demanding that ousted Indonesian president Suharto answer allegations in court of amassing billions while in power.
The students also called for the resignation of Attorney General Andi Ghalib, who is in charge of a government inquiry into the wealth allegations. "We are here to demand that Suharto be brought to court and his wealth probed thoroughly," one of the protestors, 20-year-old Pipin said.
"Probe Suharto's Wealth," "Probe the General's Money Abroad" and "Ghalib -- Suharto's 'New Order' Crony," read signs carried by the students who blocked traffic outside the office. The attorney general in the afternoon allowed 10 student representatives to enter the office but the result of the meeting was not immediately known.
Suharto appeared on television Sunday to deny allegations carried by the US magazine Forbes that he had accumulated four billion dollars during his 32-year rule which ended in May. In the telecast the ageing ex-president also challenged anyone to find "one cent" of his personal money in foreign bank accounts.
Ghalib said after the broadcast the government probe was continuing but he believed Suharto. "Political conspiracy between the attorney general and the government must be eradicated," said 22-year-old law student Endra. "He did it (the television broadcast) to make himself look innocent and to gain the public's sympathy.
"But I don't think it's working because the people already feel cheated by him," said Jaya, 20, in a protest guarded only by about a dozen local police who were mainly managing the traffic.
An association of street musicians held a rally in another part of the town to demand that prices be cut and that security authorities return 14 activists missing since earlier this year.
Some 85 guitar-carrying street musicians from the Forum for Reformative Art demonstrated at a roundabout in central Jakarta, singing songs amid the passing traffic as about 30 soldiers remained on standby.
The forum in a statement called for a full inquiry into the abduction of activists, a halt to the policy of abduction and violence, lower prices and freedom of expression for artists. "The main thing that we want is that the 14 missing activisits be returned, dead or alive, and that Prabowo be taken to the military tribunal," said Mohamad Yamin, 27, the field coordinator of the forum.
Surabaya -- Riot police scuffled with protesters and fired warning shots Wednesday when about 4,000 students staged one of the biggest protests so far against Indonesia's president over skyrocketing food prices.
Students from several universities and supporters of prominent opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri gathered near the office of the governor of East Java where President B.J. Habibie was staying during a visit to Indonesia's second largest city, Surabaya.
The protesters were split into two groups by hundreds of security personnel in riot gear. Armored vehicles were also stationed nearby. Witnesses said riot police fired two or three shots into the air to disperse a protesting crowd in one city street. The demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans and waved red and white Indonesian flags. "We don't want Habibie. We want lower food prices," read one banner. The protest was one of the biggest so far against Habibie, who came to power in May after riots and protests forced authoritarian President Suharto to resign. The president on Wednesday left the governor's office after several hours and boarded a jet to Jakarta. He earlier canceled a planned visit to a new sports complex in a neighboring town because of disturbances along a highway.
Hundreds of troops and riot police were deployed across Surabaya, 650 kilometers east of Jakarta, after students said they would stage a big march against Habibie. Despite the large security presence, the number of protesters continued to grow through the morning. Some witnesses said members of the crowd had thrown rocks at passing vehicles.
Habibie called on Indonesians to remain calm and to support the government in its bid to fix massive economic problems.
Jakarta -- At least five people were injured early Tuesday as Indonesian riot police beat student protestors who were demanding that President B.J. Habibie step down and hand over power to a transitional authority. The riot police, using tear gas, chased the 250 protestors out of the parliament compound, hours after they had arrived there for an overnight vigil.
Protestors from the Forum Kota, which groups students from greater Jakarta universities, had planned to camp inside the complex and expected more students to relieve them Tuesday, an AFP reporter said.
Some 100 anti-riot personnel used rattan sticks on the students who had gathered some 15 metres (yards) inside the sprawling compound of the national parliament, and pushed them with their shields, an AFP reporter said. A tear gas cannister was thrown into the crowd of protestors sparking panic.
Five students were injured as they were pushed back, some with bleeding leg and hand wounds as they tripped on the main entrance's steel gate that had fallen down. The five were rushed by ambulance to the private Atmajaya university hospital, their friends said. Three of the protestors fell and were carried away by fellow students across the empty three-lane road in front of the parliament that had been blocked by the security since noon Monday. The students fought back, pelting the police with anything they could get hold of, including stones and empty plastic bottles.
Police and military troops armed with automatic weapons and tear gas, who outnumbered the students, had earlier settled down, apparently for the night, within yards (metres) of the protestors but between them and the parliament building. "I don't know, it seems like we and the students are just trying to see who can outlast the other here," Lieutenant Colonel Said Aquil from Jakarta police said.
Some 1,000 of the Forum Kota students were locked in an hours- long battle of wills with the security forces composed of hundreds of police and armed soldiers around the entrance to the parliament. It was the most determined show of force by students in Jakarta since thousands from the same group staged a sit-in at parliament which helped pressure president Suharto to resign on May 21.
After dusk Monday, the students had managed to advance some 15 meters (about 160 feet) into the compound after pushing the long, low sliding steel gate which barred the entrance until it crashed to the ground. "Reject Habibie and his government," said one poster amid the red and white national flags waved by the protestors. Another read "Immediately Form a People's Committee of Indonesia."
At one point in the afternoon the AFP reporter saw the soldiers at the back of the police layer loading their weapons. Aqil said the soldiers were only equipped with blanks.
Several busloads of students had Monday relieved their colleagues as the standoff remained deadlocked, and the soldiers and the police also saw some rotation and fresh arrivals.
The head of the Jakarta Police, Major General Nugroho Jayusman, made a brief appearance at the site to check security arrangements but he did not meet with the students.
Several large student banners also demanded "Lower the prices" with protestors also yelling for cuts in the prices of essential goods. One student, clad in a black robe with the words "Hungry, Hungry" in bright green letters, moved among protestors shouting: "The people are hungry."
"Babies need milk, not parties," another large poster said referring to the soaring price of infant formula and the number of political parties that have sprung up since Habibie came to power. The price of milk and other essentials including rice, have shot up to unheard of heights since the financial crisis hit the country last year, while wages have remained fixed and thousands are laid off every week.
[On September 8, Reuters reported that at least two of the students were stabbed with bayonets and five taken to hospital after inhaling tear gas - James Balowski.]
| East Timor |
For the first time in 23 years, all of East Timor's major political parties have come together to discuss a reconciliation proposal. Amid tight security, members representing East Timor's warring factions met as part of a two-day "reconciliation dialogue" organised by the territory's two Catholic bishops: Nobel laureate Carlos Belo of the Dili diocese and Basillio Nascimento of the Baucau diocese.
About 50 delegates, representing most of the groupings in East Timor -- Fretilin, UDT, Apodeti and Kota -- met in the old Catholic seminary in Dare, 8km south of the capital Dili.
The group hopes to reach agreement on the divisive issue of accepting the new Indonesian Government's recent offer to grant a special autonomy for East Timor or press for a referendum for self-determination. "We believe the solution lies with the East Timorese through a common vision and perception about the future of the province," Bishop Belo was quoted as having told the meeting. The result of the talks, delivered yesterday, will be conveyed to Jakarta, Lisbon and the UN Secretary-General.
Members representing each group were allowed to address the meeting for five minutes. By the end of the first session, it appeared clear that the majority favoured a referendum. Only three members spoke in favour of autonomy.
Political leaders from all sides claimed the talks yesterday as historic, being the first time they have engaged in official dialogue together since the brief civil war in August 1975 between UDT and Fretilin, just prior to the Indonesian invasion of the former Portuguese colony in December of the same year. That action has never been recognised by the international community.
However, Fretilin representative David Ximenes expressed reservations that 23 years of political separation could be resolved in two days. "The meeting today is historic, but it must be remembered we are handicapped by our history, and today we are not discussing substantial problems (political differences)," he said.
The site for the talks was also significant. Situated in the hills overlooking Dili, the Dare seminary is a traditional retreat for East Timorese fleeing trouble in Dili. Organisers also feared that to hold the meetings in Dili would invite demonstrations from students. But hundreds of students held a peaceful protest outside anyway. "We come here to witness this historic day," said Januario Soares, a 24-year-old student at the University of East Timor.
[On September 11 Agence France Presse reported that hundreds of students demonstrated peacefully at the provincial parliament in Dili on September 10 demanding the release of more East Timorese political prisoners, including Gusmao - James Balowski.]
Jailed East Timorese Resistance leader Xanana Gusmao said today that claims made by Indonesia of a large troop reduction in East Timor are false. He said 3,500 new Indonesian troops have been brought in the troubled territory, secretly, to replace the ones that left last month. The Resistance leader added that human rights abuses in the former Portuguese enclave continued unabated.
In a paper written for the conference entitled "Indonesia after Suharto", organised by the New Zealand Asia Institute of the University of Auckland, Xanana -- the president of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) -- said there was still fighting in his country, East Timor, alongside repression and torture.
"The people have no peace -- of body, far less of spirit. Not an inch of ground has been yielded by the Indonesians, not a single tangible concession," said Xanana in his paper read by East Timorese Virgilio Guterres da Silva to the Auckland conference.
In August journalists were flown to the East Timor capital, Dili, at Indonesian government expense to watch and film, what Jakarta claimed as, 1,000 Indonesian troops boarding ships to return home to Indonesia. On the day of the withdrawal, however, the number to leave had dropped to 396. Later Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas announced this was the beginning of a large troop reduction program.
"This is a false claim which is completely in line with similar false claims that have been made by Indonesia since 1980. The truth is this. Since the filming of this thousand strong troop withdrawal, a total of 3,500 troops have taken their place.
"No cameramen were invited to watch their arrival, for they landed at secret army jetties at Viqueque, Com and Carabelo, near Vemasse," said Xanana.
Xanana is serving a 20-year jail sentence in Jakarta's Cipinang Prison for conspiring against the Indonesian state. His paper for the Auckland conference was distributed internationally by the Darwin-based East Timor International Support Center.
Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975 and annexed the territory a year later in a move never recognised by the United Nations. Over 200,000 East Timorese, mostly civilians, women and children, lost their lives in the months following the December 7, 1975 invasion.
Jakarta has said it was only willing to free Xanana, 52, as part of an acceptable solution in East Timor. It has also offered to grant autonomy to the troubled territory in return for international recognition of Indonesian sovereignty. Xanana has insisted Indonesia must allow self-determination referendum in East Timor.
"There can be no genuine solution to the East Timor problem without a referendum. We demand this right of ours -- a right denied to us for 23 years and ignored by the world -- and we demand it vigorously. We will not be put off with compromises such as autonomy," said Xanana in his conference paper.
"If Indonesia does withdraw, as they are legally obliged to, then a referendum is in fact unnecessary. But let us hold a referendum, in order to show the world and particularly the Indonesians the strength of our unity, and the intensity of our desire to be East Timorese," added the CNRT president.
In a separate paper also read by Virgilio Guterres, on behalf of ETISC, it was put to the Auckland conference that autonomy, as a pre-referendum interim stage, was open to manipulation by Indonesia.
"There has been talk by people of varying persuasions about the possibility of implementing an interim period of autonomy lasting two or five or ten years, as a forerunner to a referendum. "Such a period of years would hand to Indonesia an opportunity to use its considerable power to influence the people of East Timor to vote at the referendum in favour of a continuing association with Indonesia, whilst those who favour ultimate independence do not have the same power to sway opinions," said the ETISC paper. ETISC also called for more parties, namely the various organs of the United Nations and Australia, US and the European Union, to be involved in the negotiating process for a referendum.
"If a referendum is the starting point for the negotiating process, the end point should be equally definable. For 23 years the East Timor issue has involved primarily Portugal, Indonesia and the East Timorese.
"However, others such as several organs of the United Nations -- General Assembly, Security Council, and the Commission of Human Rights -- as well as entities, such as Australia, the United States and the European Union, have also exercised a vital interest and involvement. For this reason it would be wrong to regard the settlement of this issue as one which involved only Indonesia and Portugal."
[On September 12 the state news agency Antara said that ABRI has denied that it replaced the combat troops it had withdrawn from East Timor. In a statement ABRI said it had only sent a very small number of military personnel involved in medical and morale-building tasks, to support non-combat troops in the province - James Balowski.]
Dili -- Five former political parties in the troubled territory of East Timor Wednesday announced the formation of a new national organisation and named jailed rebel leader Xanana Gusmao to head it.
A communique circulated here announced the establishment of the National Council of Resistance of the People of East Timor by the five parties that existed in the former Portuguese colony before Indonesia annexed it in 1976. The founders also "appointed Xanana Gusmao as chairman," the statement said.
The founding parties were the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), the Timorese Popular Democratic Association (Apodeti), Sons of the Mountain Warriors (KOTA) and the Labour Party (Partido Trabalhista.)
The new council demanded an immediate referendum on self- determination, calling it the best solution that would lead to a just, peaceful and internationally acceptable settlement. The new council also "rejects the autonomy for East Timor as offered by the United Nations and Indonesia," the communique said. Gusmao too, in statements smuggled out of prison and in interviews, has insisted that Indonesia must allow self- determination through a referendum in East Timor. Jakarta has rejected the proposal, arguing that it could lead to civil war. "Xanana Gusmao holds the key to the problem of East Timor," the council said.
It demanded that Jakarta immediately release Gusmao and involve him in dialogue between various East Timorese factions here and abroad under the auspices of the UN secretary general.
Gusmao, in a paper read out at a conference organised by the New Zealand Asia institute of the University of Auckland this year, reiterated his calls for a referendum, a press release from the Darwin-based East Timor International Support Centre said.
"There can be no genuine solution to the East Timor problem without a referendum. We demand this right of ours -- a right denied to us for 23 years and ignored by the world -- and we demand it vigorously. We will not be put off with compromises such as autonomy, " Gusmao said in the paper. "Let us hold a referendum, in order to show the world and particularly the Indonesians, the strength of our unity and the intensity of our desire to be East Timorese," he added.
| Political/economic crisis |
Jakarta -- A four-day operation by Indonesian police to crack down on teak-wood looting in central Java has left one dead, several injured and forced hundreds of villagers to flee their homes, sources said Friday.
"The police operation has caused fear and panic among the villagers. The security apparatus cracked down too hard," the head of a Yogyakarta-based legal aid institute Suparman Marzuki told AFP by telephone Friday.
The felling of the valuable wood is restricted in Indonesia and police launched the 600-man "Bina Wana Semeru" search operation in several East Javan villages between September 3 and 6 following mounting cases of mobs pillaging teak forests in the surrounding area. "Troops not only arrested people who were caught red-handed stealing teak wood, but also seized people on the streets, when they were eating in foodstalls or working in the fields," Marzuki said. One villager, identified as 50-year- old Manut died, apparently while in police custody, and his family was not notified until two hours before the police buried him without soliciting a post mortem examination, Marzuki said. "I am not justifying looting because people do steal, and some of the clashes did take place when police caught the teak-fellers red-handed," Marzuki said, referring to an attack by hundreds of teak-fellers on three car loads of intelligence operatives who caught them looting. "But an arrest must be made with a solid proof of a criminal action. This operation is like burning a barn to kill a mouse," Marzuki said, adding that one of the scores of people injured by police for resisting arrest was a 15-year-old boy hit by a rubber bullet.
Forest Ranger administrator Pudjo Siswohadi on Wednesday said that the pillagers were mostly village youngsters, who were paid around 70,000-to-100,000 rupiah (five to eight dollars), or 25 times a day laborer's wage, for each tree felled.
The state Antara news agency reported Madiun Regional Police Chief Colonel Sugiri as saying that 82 of the 115 people arrested during the operation had been released for lack of evidence. Antara said that so far police had confiscated 600 cubic meters of teak worth 1.5 billion rupiah (some 85,000 dollars), some stacked in houses and some buried in fields.
Meanwhile Marzuki said that the hundreds of residents who fled their villages were still hesitant to return home after the troops, including the members of the local mobile brigade, combat infantry and Air Force special forces, were pulled out on September 9. "At least four villages are still deserted. Ironically, robbers took advantage of the situation and looted their homes," Marzuki added.
Jakarta -- Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces (ABRI) Commander Gen. Wiranto warned on Friday the military would take repressive measures against street demonstrations which foment public disorder.
"This is our stance... of course with an apology to all, again with apologies... and also in reference to the people's wishes, ABRI will not hesitate to take firm actions against any street demonstrations which disturb the peace," he told reporters after addressing a House of Representatives (DPR) plenary session discussing a draft for a government decree in lieu of a law on freedom of expression.
"ABRI is not willing to see how a few people jeopardize the interests of more than 200 million Indonesians, who all expect prosperity and security, development, as well as justice."
Wiranto declined to elaborate on the nature of the repressive actions designated by the Armed Forces headquarters. "You (reporters) should just wait for my firm actions," he said.
Wiranto said ABRI's authority to conduct repressive actions was guaranteed in the government decree. The House will decide whether to deliberate or drop the decree in lieu of the law. "The decree is not in the interests of the government and ABRI, but for the sake of the people's consolidation and reform movement," Wiranto said.
He said he heard some protesters were paid to take to the streets. "I heard that a protester is paid Rp 25,000 (US$2.1) for a demonstration. With Rp I million, 40 protesters will appear." "How many protesters will appear with a Rp 100 million fund? It's such a shame to disturb the country's stability for the sake of only Rp 100 million." Separately on Friday, former vice president Try Sutrisno appealed to the students to quit their street demonstrations. "Security disturbances will only inflict losses on people," he said, citing financial market reactions to the demonstrations.
Addressing journalists after attending a meeting of the Armed Forces Big Family (KBA), he called on the nation to remain calm in facing the prolonged economic crisis and unfavorable political situation. "We have to stay together and respond to the challenges. And no one should provoke anyone else to commit violence and looting," said Try, current chairman of the Armed Forces Veterans Association (PEPABRI).
Student demonstrations continued on Friday with about 300 students of state-run Jenderal Soedirman University in Purwokerto, Central Java, having their say. Another rally was held in Semarang, where about 400 students protested the scarcity of rice and its skyrocketing price.
As with previous demonstrations in other Indonesian cities, the students demanded that Habibie step down. "Habibie's administration is no different from Soeharto's regime. He has been involved in corrupt, collusive and nepotistic practices since he was the state minister of research and technology," one of the protesters said. "It's no use giving him the opportunity (to lead) anymore."
Jakarta -- About 1,500 people looted four hectares (9.8 acres) of ready-to harvest onion fields in the densely-populated island of Java, reports said here Saturday.
The mob descended on the onion fields that straddled two districts, Losari Timor in Central Java and Cirebon in West Java, on Friday afternoon, the Kompas daily said. The fields had been due for harvest on Saturday.
"We initially only wanted to take one kilogram that we can sell for 9,000 rupiah (75 cents) so that we can buy rice," Kompas quoted one of the looters as saying. One kilogram of low quality rice now costs about 3,000 rupiah.
The looting was halted after police arrived in the area. The owner of the onion field estimated his losses at about 300 million rupiah (25,316 dollars.)
The soaring prices of essentials has sparked looting of rice mills, shops, rice fields and even rice trucks by mobs in several areas. In the East Java district of Malang, mobs attacked a warehouse owned by an ethnic Chinese businessman early Friday and carried away about 70 tonnes of rice and 30 tonnes of flour.
The warehouse, usually used to store sugar cane, had already been sealed by police because the businessman was suspected of hoarding 240 tonnes of rice, 45 tonnes of sugar and 77 tonnes of flour.
The villagers were angered at the businessman for having stocked the commodity over the past month despite shortages and high prices in the local market, Kompas said. The looted commodities were all that was left after police had begun to move the seized stock.
Officials and economists have blamed speculators, hoarders and smugglers for contributing to the shortage and high prices of essentials despite government assurances of adequate stocks. No arrest were made in either of Friday's incidents, police said.
Jakarta -- Hundreds of people raided a state-owned fish pond in West Javan city of Karawang on Tuesday and got away with 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of newly-harvested prawns worth some 2,500 dollars, reports said Wednesday. Some 500 people were involved in the two-hour raid on the pond, owned by the central government's state secretariat Tuesday.
But police had only managed to arrest 22 people, eight of them small children, the Suara Pembaruan evening daily said. The newspaper quoted police as saying some of those arrested said they wanted to sell the prawns. Others said that because of spiralling food prices in recent months they had been able to eat only twice a day. The owners had harvested the the shrimp only hours before the raid adding that police were on guard there Wednesday.
Surabaya -- Hundreds of people slashed teak trees at the Parengan forest and wrecked three police cars in Tuban district, west of here Tuesday, following the arrest of 149 men suspected of stealing teak logs.
The mobs, armed with Molotov cocktails, timber saws, short machetes and wooden sticks, attacked the police cars which were patrolling the teak forest, deputy chief of the Bojonegoro district police, Lt Col Rahardjo, told ANTARA Wednesday. No one was hurt in the incident but tens of people living in Tuban fled their homes.
Some 66 people have been arrested over the attack and 333 M3 teak logs, 3 Molotov cocktails, and a number of timber saws and short machetes have been confiscated, Rahardjo said.
Teak plantations, with a history of more than a hundred years in this country, are currently managed by state-owned companies that inherited them from Dutch companies.
Meanwhile head of Tanggulangin village, Wanoto, said tens of people fled for Central Java and Jakarta, fearing they would be arrested for keeping teak logs without proper documents. "(After the change in government), many people here joined the looting of timber, something which they never did during the previous administration," Wanoto said.
He said the houses were left unlocked, enabling the police to retrieve the stolen logs which they kept in their houses or buried in their yards.
Jakarta -- Mobs looted warehouses and stores of rice, sugar and instant noodles for the third straight day Wednesday in the Indonesian provincial capital of Pontianak, sources and press reports said. "The looting is continuing, this time in downtown Pontianak in the central market area," a staff member at the police information office told AFP by telephone. "Two rice stores were looted this morning by people pretending to be customers," the owner of Budi Karya food shop in the central market said.
The shop owner said a group of people waited until the two stores -- Apin and Ayau -- were crowded. "They then complained about the high price and started looting, provoking others to join in," he said. "Some 100 people ended up pillaging the rice in the store for about two hours until the police managed to stop them."
The official said nine people were being questioned over Wednesday's incident, the latest of in mounting cases of food pillaging in the Pontianak area and the country. Scores of warehouses and shops storing rice, sugar, cooking oil and instant noodles in Pontianak area have been ransacked by looters since Monday. The Kompas daily estimated that some 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes of rice, 1,500 tonnes of sugar, 500 kilograms of cooking oil had been looted.
Chandra Wijaya, owner of a basic goods stores named "Sanmaru" told Kompas he had lost some one billion rupiah (some 80,000 dollars) after pillagers cleaned out 60 tonnes of rice, 5,000 cartons of instant noodles and 50 drums of cooking oil from his store. "Those were essential good supplies for Kapuas Hulu," Wijaya said, referring to a district some 600 kilometres from Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan which borders Malaysia.
Sumitro from the city's social and politics department said the looting was scattered over several locations but seemed to have been instigated. "There must be mass mobilization because it would be impossible for those looters to move so quickly otherwise," Sumitro told AFP.
He said it appeared the instigators had alerted people of cheap government rice sales, when in fact there was none. "These hungry and disappointed people could easily turned to looters," he added.
The three consecutive days of looting have almost paralyzed the daily economy in Pontianak with many shops closing until security is restored. Pontianak lies on a road connecting the city and Kuching in neighbouring Malaysia, which is a well known smuggling route.
In the district of Bondowoso in East Java in August, scores of rice mills were attacked. In central Java farmers have said gangs working at night harvested whole rice fields before the farmers could do it themselves. In North Sumatra capital Medan looters boarded supply trucks waiting to enter toll roads and made off with sacks of rice, Media Indonesia said Wednesday.
Nick Edwards, Jakarta -- Mounting social unrest in Indonesia has scared more skittish capital out of the crippled economy, felling the rupiah and dashing faint hopes of recovery.
The currency was making a strong comeback against the US dollar, offering a glimmer of economic hope, when clashes between security forces and students demanding the ouster of President B.J. Habibie spooked foreign investors, financial analysts said.
The clashes, in the early hours of Tuesday, sent the rupiah into a nosedive to as low as 12,300 to the dollar, from Monday's close of 10,800. The plunge shredded investor confidence.
"I think foreigners are taking a look at what's been going on here in the last day or so and saying 'forget about it'," Tom Inglis, head of research with ING Barings Securities in Jakarta, told Reuters. "With the situation like it is, I don't think we'll see any big foreign investors coming back in," said Distri Damayanti, an economist with Citibank.
"People onshore and offshore are looking at this political instability and are unnerved by it. They see more potential for political instability than economic recovery," she added.
Hopes had been building that the long-awaited recovery of the rupiah -- the springboard for economic recovery -- had begun and would help entice foreign investors back into Indonesia. But social tension has also been building because of spiralling prices, food shortages and the real prospect that two thirds of Indonesia's 200 million-strong population could be living below the poverty line by the end of 1999.
Fears of instability sent the rupiah through the 12,000 barrier to the dollar early on Wednesday, reversing gains of as much as 29 percent against the greenback since July. Analysts last week were talking of a test of the 10,000 level to the dollar -- the official government and IMF target for the year's end -- but on Wednesday were looking to 13,000 instead.
The return of the rupiah to a stable and sustainable rate is crucial for Indonesian firms that face crushing foreign debts of US$80 billion and domestic interest rates of about 70 percent. Rates will not fall until the rupiah stabilises. Hundreds of firms face the spectre of liquidation under a new bankruptcy law, the Jakarta stock exchange is about half its July 1997 level and analysts likened share trading to gambling. "Even at 10,000 to the dollar, most Indonesian companies are facing bankruptcy, but at least they would be better there than at 12,000," one local analyst said.
Others said hopes for economic recovery worsened with every outbreak of violence. "As social tension escalates, it is very difficult to have successful economic restructuring because attention is diverted to talking about political issues, not economic ones," Citibank's Distri said.
"These protests confirm the view that fundamentals have not changed and are unlikely to in the near future," said Jimmy Koh, an economist with markets consultancy I.D.E.A. in Singapore.
"Banking and corporate restructuring is extremely slow, INDRA (the Indonesian Debt Restructuring Agency) is not working and the economy remains in a fragile condition," he said. "Those that had been considering coming back have turned away again. It would be a brave man who invests in Indonesia today," said ING Barings' Inglis.
David Jenkins, Jakarta -- Indonesia seems poised on the brink of another major crisis -- one that is already triggering fears of renewed bloodletting.
At 1.30am yesterday, 1,000 armed riot police and soldiers lined up outside the Parliament building in Jakarta in ranks 10 deep, ready for a confrontation with radical student activists from an umbrella grouping calling itself Forum Kota.
Earlier in the day, the students, who are bent on bringing down the 110-day-old Government of President B.J. Habibie, had overturned the steel gates of the nation's Parliament and taken up positions just inside the grounds. They were now hurling rocks, bottles and abuse at those who sought to dislodge them as street vendors moved between the two groups, selling soft drinks and cigarettes.
In the event, the students were driven off by the riot police and Marines, who outnumbered them three to one. But Forum Kota says this is just the beginning and that bigger and more disruptive demonstrations will follow. "We are not going to stop until change takes place," Eli Dahlan, a student activist, said yesterday. In Surabaya, the nation's second-largest city, students plan to hold demonstrations when Dr Habibie visits today.
The new burst of student activism is a matter of grave concern to the Habibie Government, which is struggling to cope with the nation's worst economic crisis in more than 30 years. "This is a very nasty development," Lieutenant-General Zen Maulani, Dr Habibie's chief of staff, told the Herald yesterday.
"It's very sad. I don't know [exactly what will happen]. But there will be fighting and bloodshed, not between the anti- Habibie students and the troops but between the anti-Habibie and the pro-Habibie activists." Asked if the Government could stop pro-Habibie students from going to the Parliament, General Maulani said: "We can't and we must not stop them because the demand [of Forum Kota] is for President Habibie to stand down.
"And Forum Kota plans to occupy Parliament without a time limit. The Parliament is one of the symbols of our national sovereignty. So the Muslim students could not accept that these vandals represent the whole of the Indonesian people."
Forum Kota, which has played an increasingly disruptive role since early this year, draws its support not from students at Indonesia's big and prestigious government-run universities, who played a key role in the May 21 downfall of former President Soeharto, but from smaller private-run institutions.
According to General Maulani, Forum Kota mobilised scores of newly enrolled university students for the demonstrations outside the Parliament. "They told them this is one part of their political education," he said.
The Habibie Government argues that Forum Kota enjoys the clandestine backing of some prominent retired army officers in the so-called Barisan Nasional, or National Front, which is equally keen to bring Habibie down. "I see a coalition of convenience between the socialists, the leftists, the nationalists and the former rightist generals who, 30 years ago, crushed the fathers of these young people," General Maulani said. "So it is not, repeat not, a coalition of ideologues or a coalition of interests. It is only a coalition of convenience."
Although some analysts would argue that the Habibie Government is just as ready as its predecessor to apply sometimes inappropriate labels to its opponents, many Indonesians are prepared to believe that retired army officers are supporting Forum Kota. The man whose name is most frequently mentioned in this context is Lieutenant-General Kemal Idris, chairman of the Barisan Nasional.
According to Goenawan Mohamad, an editor and activist, the Barisan Nasional hopes to topple Habibie and forge a coalition between opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri and one or other of two retired generals, Edi Sudradjat or Try Sutrisno. "It seems Habibie is getting more complacent and maybe this sort of demo is useful as a gadfly," Goenawan said. "But the danger is that this scheme will trigger more unrest."
Jakarta -- Faced with deadlock in getting embattled Indonesian debtors and banks to agree on debt restructuring, the government Wednesday made a last-ditch attempt to get both sides talking.
But analysts and bankers were skeptical about whether the plan -- dubbed the Jakarta Initiative -- will work. "The positive thing is that the government is definitely easing the way for constructive conversations to occur," said one foreign banker whose bank has substantial exposure in Indonesia. "But, at the end of the day, the government still isn't putting any money on the table, it's only trying to facilitate the process, but you don't need the government to do that, banks and companies are quite capable of doing that themselves."
Struggling with the apparent failure of the much-touted Frankfurt agreement, signed June 4 between Indonesian debtors and their international lenders, the government -- and its international advisers -- were under pressure to do something. The Frankfurt agreement -- which led to the establishment of the Indonesian Debt Restructuring Agency in August, was supposed to pave the way for restructuring some $80 billion in private sector debt.
Indra offers a voluntary program to debt-laden companies under which their obligations will be extended by eight years and under which they will receive access to dollars at a locked-in rate. In return, they must resume making loan payments, which almost all Indonesian companies have ceased doing.
The weak level of the rupiah against the US dollar, however, has prompted many to question the merits of entering the agreement at all. No company has joined the agency yet, and some have sought to renegotiate their obligations bilaterally first before tying into Indra.
Many companies are clearly doing nothing, however. "I haven't found one corporate or banker that has given in, they are all having a big standoff," said Agnes Safford, a corporate finance consultant in Jakarta.
The government says this is leading to a liquidity crunch as banks aren't extending new credit until debtors agree to restructure debt, or head to the newly established bankruptcy court. Hence the Jakarta Initiative. "This is Frankfurt Agreement Mark II," said Song Sen Wun, economist at G.K. Goh Securities in Singapore. "It (the original Frankfurt Agreement) hasn't worked before because the government wasn't able to take a role in it. As long as it continues to stay out of the framework, nothing has changed and it won't work again."
The government doesn't agree, arguing that by outlining how to go about restructuring debt -- and getting some perks and special breaks in the process -- companies will at least come to the negotiating table. "The purpose of the initiative is if companies can be restructured, they can get interim financing to restart operations," said Radius Prawiro, Indonesian head of corporate debt restructuring. "If they resume operations, they start paying tax and more money will go into the government coffers."
Indeed, the Jakarta Initiative offers companies the possibility of revaluing their fixed assets to include items such as land and buildings, as well as removing tax disincentives and time restrictions. It also suggests the companies could secure new credit, urging creditors to extend "critical working capital," to finance company's operations while the debt talks are going on.
But banks say this is simply unrealistic. "I don't know any creditor who's going to subordinate their claims to new finance and certainly not until they have some sort of proof that the owner wants to keep the company and is willing to inject some of his own money," the foreign banker said. "Otherwise that's just ridiculous." Bankers also note that very few Indonesian companies are in any sort of position now to revalue their assets upwards.
What the new initiative may succeed in doing, analysts say, is help convince Indonesian debtors that their businesses are operationally defunct and they can't do business with third parties until they sort out the debt issue. "Why would you buy Indofood if they haven't struck a deal with their bankers?" said Safford, referring to the noodle maker arm of the giant Salim Group which is reportedly on the for sale list. Indofood has some $1.02 billion in foreign debt.
The government is clearly hoping its latest initiative will do just that. Bankers say the plan is hardly targeted at them in particular, noting that banks generally don't need guidelines on how to restructure debt.
The aims of the government are to stimulate the economy and get companies to start implementing drastic restructuring measures to begin to climb out the crisis. To do that banks need to extend credit. As a precursor to that companies need to reach agreement to restructure themselves and their debt.
"After a while when everyone suffers, people begin to look for solutions," said Richard Gitlin of New York-based consultancy Hebb & Gitlin -- who is advising the government on the plan. Shoji Nishimoto, director of programs for East Asia at the Asian Development Bank, concurs. "At least it's something if the debtor and creditor sit down and reach agreement on a framework," he told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview. "Then they have common rules of the game."
Crucial to that game however, is banks agreeing to write off some of the loans to their Indonesian debtors, although bankers say this will happen as long as they can recover part of the credit. If the Jakarta Initiative succeeds in hauling companies in to talk, then those writeoffs will appear more quickly, bankers say. "If you can get local companies to understand this, maybe we can start to have real conversations," said the foreign banker. "At the end of the day, that's what it comes down to."
Jakarta -- Anyone caught disrupting Indonesian government moves to beat food shortages could face execution, Justice Minister Muladi warned Tuesday as anger mounted over price hikes and the scarcity of vital supplies.
"The government will act sternly against anyone trying to disrupt the provision of food and clothing for the people," Muladi told reporters. Muladi did not specify who the threat was directed at but economists have blamed speculators and rising corruption for shortages which have sparked rioting in several areas.
"The government is giving a great deal of attention to meeting the demand of the people," Muladi said. "There is a law No. 5, 1959, which says that anyone who tries to hinder government efforts to provide food and clothes to the people could face death." "I think it is important for us to think about implementing this."
Muladi's statement came amid mounting anger against food shortages and soaring prices of staple goods and hours after police clashed with students demanding the resignation of President B.J Habibe. There is also growing resentment at speculators active in the food market and mismanagement of the country's rice stocks.
Muladi was speaking after the opening of the third annual Asia- Pacific Forum on Human Rights Issues, said that the law, passed when Indonesia was campaigning to win the former Dutch colony of Western New Guinea was still valid.
As well as demanding the resignation of Habibie, the students in the largest show of force since the new government came to power in May, called for immediate cuts in food prices which have soared wildly since the country was hit by its worst economic crisis in years last year. Muladi said the government had only been in power for three months, and it was facing complex problems that needed time to solve.
Jakarta -- Police detained at least 74 people after a second day of rioting in Central Java in which scores of ethnic Chinese- owned stores and cars were torched or damaged Tuesday, Antara news agency reported. Thirty-two high-school students were among those held for questioning after rioting and looting in the town of Kebumen.
Captain Umbaryanto of the security forces in Kebumen told AFP that attacks on buildings "are still going on here and there, and we are moving from place to place to control the situation." He added: "There was also some looting today."
Antara said troops used tear gas to disperse mobs which grouped along Kebumen's main roads. Smoke and fire were still rising from burned buildings on Tuesday morning, the Suara Pembaruan evening newspaper said. Umbaryanto had earlier said the situation had been brought under control after outside troop reinforcements were called in, but he declined to give details.
Antara said 74 shops and warehouses were torched and looted and the mobs also set alight 15 trucks, nine public minibuses, five motorcycles and a steamroller. "Firefighting efforts were hindered because of the limited number of fire engines," the head of the district, Amin Sudibyo told Suara Pembaruan. He said the town only had two operating fire engines.
The head of the military command overseeing security in Central Java, Major General Tyasno Sudarto visited Kebumen on Monday and was quoted by Suara Pembaruan as having put the military in several nearby towns on top alert.
An employee of the state electricity firm PLN in Kebumen said power was shut down for more than six hours on Monday and local police said it had no been restored by midday Tuesday.
The daily Media Indonesia quoted Sudarto as saying: "We will investigate the rioting thoroughly, but an interim report points to the assumption that the riot was started by a misunderstanding between the 'Rejo Agung' shop owner and his employee."
Reports said the owner of an auto spare-parts shop beat up his 20-year-old employee after he spilled a can of lubricant and that onlookers attacked the shop and started burning tires in the street. Rioting soon spread to other parts of the town.
Kevin Sullivan, Jakarta -- Eleven-year-old Ipan, a cheerful little beggar in a buzz cut and a dirty T-shirt, knocks on car windows and sings and pleads for money with his 4-year-old sister, Tuti, holding tight to his side in her fading flowered dress. He bangs on his homemade tambourine -- a stick with a nail driven through a bunch of jangling bottle caps -- and sings to people who mainly ignore him from behind smoked glass windows.
Ipan is part of an army of ragamuffins who fan out when the light turns red at the intersection between the chic Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the gleaming Deutsche Bank tower. It is a scene repeated all over this city of 8 million people every hour of every day. Even after midnight, children knock on car windows; some of these children are too tiny to see over the car door.
Until two months ago, Ipan spent his days in school, learning to read and write and count more than spare change. But his parents, who have lost their jobs, can no longer afford the school fees, so Ipan has joined the growing throng of child street hustlers. Like children around Indonesia, he has seen his world transformed in a matter of weeks: Once on the cusp of stepping out of the slums, he and millions of others now face desperate lives of extreme poverty and malnutrition.
They are the faces of an Asian generation on the verge of being lost. Misery is a difficult thing to measure, but Asia's economic crisis has been cruelest to children. Visits to dumps and slums, villages and cities, homes and workplaces across the region in the past six months paint a bleak portrait of the impact of Asia's economic crisis on its youth, and therefore, on its future.
In Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea, fast-growing economies had meant that millions of poor people enjoyed better living standards, cleaner and safer places to live and work, more and better education, freedom from disease and longer lives. Now Asia's poor, many of whom were just taking their first steps out of poverty, are tumbling back into conditions they thought they had left behind forever.
The situation is worst in Indonesia, a vast nation that has suffered economic catastrophe, violent political upheaval and its most severe drought in a century -- all at the same time. But many of the problems being seen in Indonesia -- hunger and malnutrition, rising dropout rates, increasing child labor, crime and prostitution, family disintegration -- also are increasing in Thailand, South Korea and other Asian nations.
Malnutrition in Indonesia is rising fast as families can no longer afford rice, sugar, flour, vegetables and cooking oil, which have doubled in price. Stephen J. Woodhouse, head of UNICEF's office in Indonesia, said the first cases of marasmus, the severe emaciation seen in the worst African famines, are beginning to show up among children in remote villages of Java, the main Indonesian island. Some estimate that infant mortality in Indonesia could jump by 30 percent, after being reduced by two-thirds in the last 25 years.
Many pregnant women can no longer afford proper prenatal care and nutrition. Child immunization had been nearly universal in Indonesia, but now common vaccinations for measles, mumps, rubella and other childhood diseases are too costly for poor families. Contraceptives, anti-diarrhea medicines and common antibiotics also have become prohibitively expensive and hard to find in many areas. Hospitals and rural health care clinics are starting to reuse syringes, increasing the risk for spreading AIDS. Tuberculosis is a growing problem.
Millions of Asian children already have dropped out of school this year; millions more are on the verge of leaving the classroom for the workplace in the coming months. Asia had greatly reduced child labor in the past decade, but that progress is unraveling as young children are now working long, hot, dangerous hours in glass factories, garment sweat shops and cement plants. Others are turning to street begging and prostitution. Families are marrying off their daughters at increasingly young ages so they have fewer mouths to feed. And some families who believe they can no longer afford to raise their children are leaving them at orphanages.
"We could easily lose a whole generation of kids who are being pulled out of school and put to work; it's almost impossible to recover from," said Scott Guggenheim, the World Bank's poverty coordinator for Indonesia, who just finished a four-year stay in the country. "A whole generation of expectations has vanished."
South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, in a written comment for this story, said he feels "deep sorrow" that Asian children are suffering even more because of the financial crisis. "Economic progress built with the thin, weak hands of children can never be the future of Asia," Kim said. "Forcing children to discontinue their education and making them enter the dangerous labor market robs us of our future."
In Jakarta, a half-dozen small children sit before a television that flickers in the darkness; chickens peck in the garbage pile behind them. Eight lanes of traffic scream along a Jakarta street on the concrete bridge over their heads. But it is quiet here in the damp crawl space beneath the bridge, where nine families live in a warren of wooden rooms they have built on the banks of the filthy Ciliwung River.
Most of these families pick garbage for a living. With prices rising and people being more cautious about what they throw away, people here are having more and more trouble making enough money to buy food.
But now they are getting help from private social workers who bring packages of rice, sugar, soy sauce and soap. In the markets, they would sell for almost $1.50, but they are offered to these poor people for about 25 cents.
"These children are malnourished, and their brains are suffering irreversible damage," says Christine Burns, a volunteer who helps deliver the food. "I feel sorry for the Indonesian people, but now just feeling sorry is not enough."
Mariah, 40, picks up a package of food from Burns and walks back to her dark little room with four toddlers following her in a line like so many ducklings. "For people like us," she says, bouncing the small plastic bag of food on one knee and a skinny infant on the other, "the most important thing is our stomachs."
Health officials say that growing malnutrition is threatening the mental and physical development of millions of Asian children. In South Korea, the government has provided $8 million to feed children who can no longer afford to take decent lunches to school. Hunger is spreading through some areas of rural Thailand.
The Indonesian government estimates that by year's end, 100 million people, almost half the nation's population, won't be able to afford adequate food -- which it defines as at least 2,100 calories a day per person -- and other basic necessities.
As malnutrition increases and prices soar, programs to provide food to Indonesia's hungry are drawing thousands of people, so many that army troops carrying automatic weapons are used to keep food lines orderly. Anemia, diarrhea and respiratory ailments are becoming more common in rural Indonesia, especially among very young children, because of bad nutrition. "It's extremely difficult to reverse damage done to brain growth because of malnutrition in the first two years of life," said Woodhouse, of UNICEF.
At the same time, Indonesia's health care system is collapsing. A system of 250,000 local health and welfare centers, or posyandu, are no longer working well because many of the million-plus volunteers have had to go to work to feed their own families. Larger public health clinics have doubled their fees recently. Middle-class people who used to visit private doctors now are coming to the clinics, and poor people are being forced to turn to primitive herbal remedies that are often useless, Woodhouse said. In some cases, one official said, antibiotics for respiratory ailments are being replaced by "a glass of water with a spell cast over it."
In Seoul, Kim Min Ah, an apple-cheeked 12-year-old with big warm eyes, hugs her little sister close as they sit cross-legged on the shiny linoleum floor of the Sang Lok orphanage. They giggle at their baby brother's scratchy little voice as he sings a song called "Rainbow," bouncing in the lap of the orphanage director they all call "Dad."
The children's father ran off and left them with their mother earlier this year. But when South Korea's economic crisis hit hard, the coffee shop where she worked went bankrupt. Broke and desperate, she took a job at a restaurant far from Seoul, placing her children -- Min Ah; her sister, Min Ji, 8; and brother Tae Jung, 6 -- indefinitely at the orphanage.
Now they sleep eight to a room with other children, including almost 20 new faces in the past six months. The girls' room is cheery with stuffed animals and flowers, and bright-colored laundry hanging on a rack. Outside, brothers, age 11 and 8, ride a seesaw. Their mother abandoned them when their father lost his job. The father tried to keep and care for them, but he brought them here when the pressure of single parenthood and driving a taxi at night drove him to thoughts of suicide. Min Ah takes care of her sweet-faced siblings: "Since I'm the big sister, I tell my sister and brother to dress and get to school on time," she says.
She also tries to help the time pass faster: "My mother said, 'I'm coming back in a few years to take you out of here, so please wait.' "
"Economic orphans" are the most extreme cases, but they illustrate how harsh economics are breaking up families. The family has long been the backbone of Asian society, but it is now cracking under the financial stress. Thousands of kids are being sent away from their parents, brothers and sisters as they ride out the crisis with better-off relatives and friends -- and in the worst cases, strangers. It hurts, but families are trying to give their children the best chance to thrive.
When there is no family, there are churches, mosques and the government. South Korea has passed a law allowing families who can no longer afford to care for their children to leave them at state-run orphanages, free of charge. There are no firm statistics, but Sang Lok officials alone have received more than 200 calls from parents looking for help. Mosques in largely Muslim Indonesia have been taking in increasing numbers of children.
"This economic crisis has emptied many people's pockets, and also their hearts," said Lim Joon Kyung of the Seoul Counseling Center, which has been swamped with requests for orphanage placements.
The entire region is facing increasing problems with abandoned children. Saini, 15, came last month to the St. Vincentius orphanage in the village of Pringsewu on Sumatra, the Indonesian island just west of Jakarta. She is the daughter of a farmer who could no longer make ends meet for his wife and eight children.
The Catholic nuns who run the home say the krismon -- short for the krisis ekonomi, as the economic crisis is called in Indonesian -- which came on top of the severe drought, has pressured families to do what they never thought they could -- give up their children.
"I like it here," Saini said, smiling. But asked about her family, she burst instantly into big, rolling tears. It has been weeks since she has seen them. It takes a full day to get to her family home, and neither she nor they can afford the bus fare anymore. Saini apologized, wiping the tears away with the starched white sleeve of her school uniform. "If I remember them, I am sad."
"It's a hard decision for the parents, but if the children stayed at home they would have to drop out of school," said Sister Kristiana, a tiny Catholic nun who helps run the orphanage. "It is more important to have an education and a future, and that is why they are here."
Even with the backing of the Catholic Church, St. Vincentius is having a hard time raising the money it needs to survive, Sister Kristiana said. "It is possible that we will have to close," she said. "If we do, what will happen to the children?"
Both of Ipan's parents are blind. Every day, his father goes begging for work, while Ipan guides his mother, Susiningsih, 40, on the bus into the center of Jakarta's financial district. There, not far from a Planet Hollywood restaurant, she sits cross-legged on a pedestrian overpass and begs eight hours every day. Her 2-year-old child, malnourished and shockingly thin, lies in her dirty lap, suckling on her breast without a sound. A cup in front of her contains the donations she has received in the last eight hours: three 1,000-rupiah notes, less than 25 cents. Nearby, her 16-year-old daughter begs with her own baby feeding at her breast. Her cup is empty.
Susiningsih says her family no longer eats cooked food because she can't afford it, and because she had to sell her pots and pans to earn cash.
"I don't know who to blame, but since I was little this is the first time I've had to do something like this," she says. "The first time I sat here, I was really ashamed. But I will not let my family die starving."
The next day, Susiningsih was arrested for begging. She and her two young daughters, as well as her older daughter and her infant, were taken to a jail -- which police describe as a rehabilitation center -- where they were put in a communal cell with about 40 other women and babies.
There are no blankets, no toys and virtually no sound except babies crying. The women sit and stare and hang laundry on the bars, waiting to get back to the streets to beg again.
"We didn't do anything wrong; we didn't steal," Susiningsih tells a visitor. As she speaks, Tuti, 4, presses her face against the bars, staring out and crying softly.
When the afterburners of Asia's "miracle" rise to wealth were still firing, there were high hopes for the children's future. But as more and more drop out of school and go to work, those hopes are fading.
South Korea, the richest of the countries in crisis, plans to spend about $80 million this year to cover school fees to keep a quarter-million students from dropping out.
Indonesian officials say 2.7 million children may drop out this year. Education and Culture Minister Juwono Sudarsono said only 54 percent of the nation's children are now in school, down from 78 percent last year. He said he has pushed school registration deadlines back from July to this month to allow parents who can't afford fees more time to raise them. He said that in more rural areas, he has also eased requirements that children wear uniforms to school, to spare families that expense. At the Xavier School in the village of Kalirejo on Sumatra, only 50 of the expected 120 junior high school students showed up when classes began in July. Most of the students, age 12 or 13, have gone to work on their parents' farms, as household helpers in more prosperous homes, or in the dangerous business of crushing stones for road construction. The village's corn, rice and other crops have been devastated by drought, and the financial crisis has sent the cost of a kilogram of rice -- 2.2 pounds -- from 9 cents to about 16 cents -- a difference most families here can't pay.
In Bangkok, Jantha Siriprang cast her eyes downward, a look of embarrassment and regret on her face when asked about her two children. She doesn't want them to have to work, but she has no choice. She lost her job carrying cement at a construction site when the baht, the Thai currency, collapsed and the construction industry dried up. And now the little money she makes selling candy and cigarettes on the street is not enough to pay the children's bus fare to school -- let alone their school fees.
So for now, her son, Num Siriprang, 12, is still in school but washes dishes in a restaurant for four hours every night for wages paid mainly in food. "It's very difficult now," his mother said. "I don't have any money. If I can find jobs for them, I'll take them both out of school."
Increasing numbers of young dropouts are turning to crime. Courts across the region report increases in juvenile robberies, theft and violent assaults, as children do whatever it takes to feed themselves.
The Geneva-based International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency, released a study in August concluding that the sex industry in Asia, particularly child prostitution, is far larger than governments admit -- with revenues of up to $3.3 billion a year in Indonesia -- and that the economic crisis is driving more children into the flesh trade.
The author of the study, Lin Lean Lim, said in an interview that strong laws against child prostitution in Thailand and Indonesia may stem the increase somewhat. But she said many families suddenly facing poverty will see their children as their only commodity, selling them into prostitution or domestic work that is essentially slavery. Her study says that in some rural areas of Thailand, the going price for a 12-year-old girl is $800 to $1,600, and vanloads of sex-industry recruiters drive to villages to buy girls on sixth-grade graduation day. "When it comes to economic factors, parents will still argue that at least their children are earning an income, and that argument is going to become stronger in circumstances where everyone is suffering," said Lim, who also said devalued Asian currencies may make child "sex tours" an "even cheaper thrill for customers from other regions.
"We have worked so hard for so long to get ahead, not just economically, but socially," said Lim, who is Malaysian. "We were beginning to feel a sense of pride about where we'd gotten. Now the really sad part is that we're seeing poverty again in a way we'd almost forgotten."
Jakarta -- Thousands of protesters rampaged through a central Java town Monday, burning and looting Chinese-owned shops and cars, while at least 2,000 students in the capital tore down the gates of Indonesia's parliament.
Police said mobs burned nine shops and damaged many others in Kebumen, about 220 miles southeast of Jakarta. There were no reports of injuries. One man was arrested, police said.
The Kebumen unrest was the latest in a string of riots around Indonesia over the last two weeks, including some in the northern province of Aceh that were triggered by anti-military sentiment. Two people died. In Kebumen, hundreds of people remained on the streets as night fell after dozens of police and troops tried to restore order. In some places, mobs piled goods out in the street and set them ablaze.
Security forces blocked roads into the town, said one resident who identified himself as Achmad. Many Indonesians use only one name. He said by telephone that trouble broke out after a fight between a local man and an ethnic Chinese shopkeeper.
[In a separate report, Associated Press said that a resident told them by telephone that trouble broke out after a fight between a local man and an ethnic-Chinese shopkeeper - James Balowski.]
| Human rights/law |
Jenny Grant, Jakarta -- The number of reported rapes of ethnic Chinese women that occurred during the May riots could drop significantly because of a problem with the way human rights groups collected data, a new report says. "The number of verifiable cases from mid-May was expected to drop below the 130 originally reported, perhaps even substantially below," said a report from the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
The Volunteer Team for Humanity headed by Catholic priest Father Sandyawan Sumardi said that in July 168 women were raped during the riots, with 130 of those cases in Jakarta.
But Human Rights Watch says there may have been confusion over the cases. "There was so much horror over initial reports and concern about protecting victims that the documentation process was somewhat chaotic, with key details missing or the source not clarified," said the nine-page report.
Some of the reported rapes were not clearly connected to the May events. "In other cases it was clear that a passer-by had seen a woman crying uncontrollably, but not at all clear that the woman in question had been raped," the report said.
Accounts gathered by different bodies may have also compounded the figures. "At the time the report was issued, accounts were coming in from many different sources, with several bodies compiling their own data and providing it to the team," the report said.
The Joint Fact Finding team set up by the Government is now working to cross-check figures and rape cases. A source close to the team says only six rapes have so far been cross-checked and verified. "Many of the victims have already fled abroad and most of the checking was done through doctors," said the source.
Team member Father Sandyawan said the 19-member group was using a "comprehensive approach" to verify the rapes which have caused international outrage.
Jakarta -- An international rights body Tuesday called on the Indonesian government to stop trying to discredit reports of gang rapes of ethnic Chinese women during May riots here, saying they were scaring off potential witnesses.
"Instead they should work to create a climate where victims of sexual violence might be more willing to come forward," the New York-based Human Rights Watch said. It also called on the government of President B.J. Habibie, who has himself cast doubt on the reports, to invite the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women to visit Indonesia to explore the issue. Indonesian rights groups, in reports which have triggered angry anti-Indonesian demonstrations by ethnic Chinese from New York to Beijing, have said that some 168 women were raped, of which 20 had died, some at the hands of their attackers and some by suicide. "If it was difficult to persuade victims, their families and their doctors to come forward before, it is going to be almost impossible now," Human Rights Watch Asia director Sidney Jones said.
Rights Watch noted the top Indonesian military officials who had cast doubts on the reports had cited the fact that no one had reported the rapes to the local police, and that they could find no evidence. But it said ethnic Chinese women would be unlikely to go to the police given "a long history in Indonesia of police extortion of ethnic Chinese and widespread belief that security forces were involved in the May violence."
The report, released here Tuesday to coincide with the opening of the Third Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, conceded however there "might be problems" with initial data collected. As a result the number of victims would probably drop, perhaps even substantially, below the figures initially reported.
But the key issue, it said, was "not numbers but how and why the violence occured and how it can be prevented in the future," though rights groups should exercise "more than usual caution" in ensuring the credibility of their sources.
The report, entitled "The damaging debate on rapes of ethnic Chinese women" said the women who had been raped on May 13 and 14 when mobs rampaged through the predominantly Chinese business section of Jakarta and other cities were now traumatized.
"Advocates say the women in question are traumatized by the rapes themselves and subsequent intimidation, and, in some cases, have fled the country," it said. And while witnesses to actual rapes may have been difficult to produce so far, it said, "witnesses to public stripping of women have not, and the degrading, humiliating, terrifying nature of this act and the fear it has engendered among these women and their families needs far more attention."
It also said those trying to document the rape cases had been "subjected to a barrage of threats and intimidation ranging from telephoned threats to their children to placement of a grenade outside the Jakarta Social Institute."
Within Indonesia, it said, the rape or no-rape issue had pitted "top military officers who challenge the validity of the rape accounts", against Indonesian rights advocates and leading members of the ethnic Chinese community, who claim the assaults on women were "widespread, systematic and organized."
"Human Rights Watch believes that the more the debate focuses on whether or not the rapes occured, the less likely it is that serious investigations will be pursued to establish the extent of, and the reasons behind, the attacks on ethnic Chinese," it concluded.
| News & issues |
Jay Solomon and Jeremy Wagstaff, Jakarta -- An inquisition against some of the Suharto era's most renowned cronies is gathering steam. The question that continues to be asked, however, is can it be controlled?
During the past two weeks, Indonesia's attorney general's office has initiated a get-tough policy against key business associates of former President Suharto. Businessmen such as Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, Mr. Suharto's longtime golfing buddy, and Sudwikatmono, the former leader's cousin, have been questioned over allegations that they diverted emergency government funds lent to ailing banks they controlled in a bid to keep them afloat late last year as the rupiah plummeted. The millions of US dollars lent by these banks to companies controlled by the same owners contributed to the collapse of the banks; the shaky financial system, in turn, has exacerbated the nation's economic crisis.
Investigators are now focusing on Mr. Suharto's family itself. Over the weekend, Jakarta police said Bambang Trihatmodjo, the former leader's middle son, and his colleagues at PT Bank Andromeda will likely be questioned on charges of exceeding intergroup lending limits. Mr. Suharto, who has kept a low profile since he resigned in May, took to the offensive on Sunday, denying in a taped television message that he took money from charitable foundations that he headed.
The apparent willingness of Mr. Suharto's handpicked successor, President B.J. Habibie, to go after his mentor and his family is a sign, not just of the intense public pressure on the president to act, but that the "gloves are off" between Mr. Habibie and Mr. Suharto, says a close aide to the president.
'This thing is political'
Skepticism remains. Comments Monday by Indonesia's attorney general that he believed Mr. Suharto's defense was interpreted by some critics as a sign that legal proceedings will only go halfway. In addition, say political analysts, the high number of Suharto ministers in the current government could serve to damp calls for criminal proceedings against those associated with the former regime.
Others fear that the whole process could spiral into a vengeful backlash against anyone connected with Mr. Suharto. Many of Mr. Suharto's associates say they believe they're the targets of political retribution. "This thing is political," says Peter Gontha, a close associate of Mr. Bambang, who says he expects to be called in for questioning soon. "I don't know what the whole thing is all about," he adds.
Some still hold out hope, however. The belief is that greater accountability and monitoring will follow, although few believe that "the culture of corruption in Indonesia can be changed," says a Jakarta-based diplomat.
As a way out of the problem, Mr. Hasan and Mr. Sudwikatmono have offered to pay back the money extended by the central bank. Mr. Hasan has agreed to repay some six trillion rupiah ($557.5 million) in loans made to his shuttered PT Bank Umum Nasional, while Mr. Sudwikatmono has agreed to repay one trillion rupiah. Both men say they will offer up assets to cover the bill by a Sept. 21 deadline set by the central bank.
'These men should go to jail'
For many Indonesians, this isn't enough. Fears that criminal acts may be overlooked are fueling calls for greater accountability. "If it looks like embezzlement, it smells like embezzlement, it's embezzlement," says a Jakarta- based financial analyst, who adds, "These men should go to jail." Protests outside Bank Indonesia and other government offices in recent weeks have continued to target Mr. Hasan and members of Mr. Suharto's family.
Mr. Hasan admitted last week he used central-bank funds to help finance a paper company he controls. But he defended their use as "constructive," saying the company earned some $10 million in foreign exchange each month. Mr. Sudwikatmono, meanwhile, told reporters that one of the directors of his PT Bank Surya, Bambang Sutrisno, was responsible for loan management. He said Mr. Sutrisno had been missing since October.
Political pressures building within Indonesia are prompting other business associates of the Suharto family, such as Mr. Gontha, to defend their pasts. "Am I a crony? Yes, of course, for 14 years," he says, adding, "But what kind of crony? There are lots of cronies in the US ... We are relatively the same." He alleges that a movement is underfoot to purge anyone with links to the Suharto government, regardless of their record. "That I'm being connected to Suharto is a different issue," he says, from whether or not he engaged in illegal practices. "I didn't take money out of the company, I didn't steal. I don't do mark-ups. And I don't take working capital out of the company," he adds.
Mr. Gontha and others fear that Mr. Habibie might fuel a backlash against the old regime as a means to distance himself from Mr. Suharto and secure his own rule. Student protesters again gathered outside the nation's parliament on Tuesday to demand Mr. Habibie's resignation and to attack his close ties to Mr. Suharto. On Monday, roughly 2,000 massed, which set off a violent response from security personnel and left at least two students seriously injured. "The Habibie government is being pushed by this mass movement" to move against Mr. Suharto, says Arbi Sanit, a political scientist from the University of Indonesia.
Probosutedjo, Mr. Suharto's half-brother, meanwhile, echoed these comments as well. In a Monday interview in the daily Media Indonesia, he said: "If things get worse, they'll easily put all of the blame on the Suharto government. The fact, however, is that the current government consists of the same people as the old."
Rick Ouston and Ian Mulgrew -- Internal government and RCMP correspondence covering the visit to Vancouver last year of then-Indonesian president Suharto show the RCMP were concerned about the threat of violence from his bodyguards and the federal government was intent on ensuring he was not embarrassed by protesters.
Suharto's visit, part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit of world leaders, resulted in the arrests of dozens of protesters at the University of B.C., many of whom claimed their rights were violated by RCMP officers using excessive force. Police have also been criticized for removing signs and placards from protesters.
RCMP Staff Sergeant Peter Montague, who was in charge of security for the Indonesian delegation, said Tuesday he was "taken aback" and "shocked" his memoranda and other sensitive government documents detailing security arrangements for Suharto's visit have fallen into the hands of the media.
"Where the hell did he get those documents?" Montague asked after Reform MP John Reynolds distributed edited versions of the private correspondence, which was obtained by CBC News.
The contents of the documents raise the possibility that the threat posed by armed Indonesian bodyguards and a desire to please Suharto may have motivated a more aggressive police response to the protests than normal.
"[Indonesian] Ambassador Parwoto asked us what would happen to one of their FSOs [foreign security officers] if he pulled his gun and shot someone during the visit," Montague acknowledged writing in one memo. "They were told categorically that such a situation would not be tolerated and to keep their guns out of sight."
RCMP officers may have pepper-sprayed unruly demonstrators with alacrity at the UBC gathering of the leaders for fear they would breach the security cordon and alarm the bodyguards surrounding Suharto.
"That would probably be the main reason our members weren't charged with anything, because they took what action, the only appropriate action they could take knowing what the threat level was," Montague said. "I know we had some legitimate concerns, some very legitimate concerns, with respect to the possible actions by the foreign security agents from Indonesia and that was discussed at length with all of our APEC team."
Hearings of the RCMP public complaints commission are set to begin Sept. 14 into complaints by protesters that they were beaten and suffered the effects of pepper spray while engaging in a protest against Suharto and his nation's occupation of East Timor.
But Reynolds, the MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast, said Tuesday the documents he obtained from CBC News indicate a stronger probe is needed into the affair. "Nothing less than a full independent judicial inquiry into events leading up to the violation of freedom of speech and the manner the protesters were manhandled is acceptable," Reynolds said. "I call on the government to appoint a retired judge of national stature to investigate this unacceptable cover-up and this violation of a basic Canadian right."
Notes of a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and Indonesian Prime Minister Ali Alatas July 30, 1997, show the pair talked about a campaign of "wanted posters" featuring Suharto that had popped up across Canada.
"The minister apologized for the poster campaign. It was outrageous and excessive," an internal department of foreign affairs and international trade memo quoted Axworthy as saying. Alatas responded: "If it caused concern to the Canadian government because agitation of these groups could not be controlled and the dignity of the president was sullied, the president would rather not come to Canada."
The handwritten notes of RCMP Superintendent Wayne May state that it was a "specific wish" of Prime Minister Jean Chretien "that this is a retreat and leaders should not be distracted by demos, etc."
Briefing notes for a meeting between Chretien and the Indonesian ambassador last September included the message that "Canada will be taking particular care to ensure the President's stay is a pleasant and rewarding one. His personal security is assured, and steps will be taken to preserve his comfort."
An Oct. 3 letter from Chretien to Suharto states: "I have directed my officials to spare no effort to ensure that appropriate security and other arrangements are made for your stay in Canada as our guest."
And when protesters erected a tent city at an APEC meeting site, RCMP Inspector Perry Edwards gave RCMP Superintendent Trevor Thompson a note saying: "Trevor T... :P.M. 'wants the tenters out.'"
Chretien, in Montreal to attend a book-launching by a former Quebec TV personality, denied there had been any interference. "The police have to do their job," Chretien said, denying that he had any personal role in instructing police.
Once the conference was finished, the Canadian embassy in Jakarta received a note from Indonesia's Chief of Protocol Ambassador Dadang Sukandar: "My President was very pleased," the ambassador wrote. "Canada had promised to ensure safety and comfort and you lived up to your word completely."
Jakarta -- Indonesia's fallen president Suharto went on television late Sunday to deny allegations that he had accumulated a fortune worth billions of dollars during his 32 years in power.
"The fact is I don't have one cent... the rumors are not true," Suharto said in a rambling speech on Televisi Pendidikan Indonesia (TPI), which is part-owned by one of his daughters. Since he stepped down, Suharto has faced a growing clamor here to answer a Forbes magazine estimate, released in June, that he was worth four billion dollars. "If anyone has proof," he said, they should bring it forward.
It was the second time since stepping down under mounting popular pressure May 21 that the veteran 77-year-old leader had appeared on television. The first time was on July 30 when he handed over three hospitals and 5.6 million dollars from the foundations that built them to the state as an act of goodwill.
On Tuesday of last week the government of Suharto's successor, President B.J. Habibie, said a probe had shown that funds in charitable foundations linked to Suharto were misused and diverted to private firms.
Development Supervision Minister Hartarto Sastrosunarto said the probe launched two months ago by the Attorney General's office and a professional audit team showed signs of abuses of funds in the five largest foundations. "Based on investigation ... there were indications that the use of the foundations' funds was not according to the foundations' charter," Hartarto said.
Attorney General Muhammad Andi Ghalib said that much of the funds were diverted by improper lending to private firms. But Hartarto said the government considered, based on the charters of the five foundations, that the funds could not be considered the private property of Suharto.
[On September 7, AFP reported that the Attorney General said he believed former president Suharto's public denial that he had accumulated a fortune while in power. "He is a former president, how come you would not believe a statement from Suharto?" Andi Muhamad Ghalib told journalists - James Balowski.]
| Arms/armed forces |
David Jenkins, Jakarta -- In an attempt to rebuild the prestige of an institution which is coming under mounting public attack, the leaders of the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) have decided to cut the national police force free of military control and reintroduce conventional police uniforms and rank systems, according to well-placed sources in Jakarta.
The decision, which is expected to be unveiled on October 5, Armed Forces Day, will be accompanied by a move to "domesticate" ABRI by reducing the clout of the Chief of Staff for Social- Political Affairs (Kassospol), who exercised extensive political influence during the New Order regime of former President Soeharto.
Under the new system, greater emphasis will be placed on the Indonesian army's unique "territorial" structure, a parallel military bureaucracy which extends down to village level and is said to be designed to ensure that ABRI has "the hearts, minds and sympathy" of the people in case of external attack.
The general in charge of social-political affairs will, in future, come under a new and more powerful Chief of Staff for Territorial Affairs (Kaster), although whether this will lead to a significant reduction in the army's political influence remains to be seen.
The changes stem from a recognition by senior officers that ABRI's prestige has taken a massive pounding in recent weeks, with one revelation after another about ABRI involvement in human rights abuses, including murder and torture.
"We have to put back the dignity of ABRI and restore confidence in the institution," a senior member of the Habibie Government told the Herald. "So some tangible things must be done. This is a new-broom approach, a complete overhaul. "We will reform not just the organisation but the spirit and the doctrine."
According to this source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the ABRI restructuring was necessary "because social-political affairs deal more with power, with politics". Under the current system, the army assigns 75 military officers to sit in the 1,000-strong Indonesian Parliament and has at times placed as many as 20,000 officers and men in the civilian bureaucracy, as ministers, department heads, judges and ambassadors.
Under the new system, which will need Parliament's approval, the police force will abolish military-style ranks such as captain, colonel and major. Instead, there will be constables, inspectors and a police commissioner.
Police promotions will no longer be subject to vetting by army generals and the police force will have its own budget. The late President Sukarno brought the national police into the defence force structure in 1960, later playing his four service chiefs off against one another. His successor, former president Soeharto, put the police firmly under army control in 1969, ostensibly to reduce inter-service rivalry.
The police force is expected to welcome the new arrangements, which have been advocated from time to time by prominent retired officers. But it is unlikely that the ABRI restructuring will, on its own, satisfy the public demand for thorough-going change.
Although a succession of Australian foreign ministers have liked to claim otherwise, it is now abundantly clear that army human rights abuses in places like East Timor were not simply isolated incidents by one of two officers acting outside the chain of command but part of a systematic pattern of repression, in Aceh, in Lampung, in Java, in East Timor and in Irian Jaya.
Those calling for reform in Indonesia want to see heads roll. So far, only two heads have rolled, those of the last two Kopassus chiefs.