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ASIET Net News 12 – March 22-28, 1999
East Timor| Democratic struggle |
Jakarta -- Hundreds of Indonesian bank employees who lost their jobs when the government shut down 38 banks this month staged a protest march through central Jakarta Tuesday demanding increased severance pay.
Some on foot and some in cars, the protestors headed slowly down Sudirman Avenue stowards the central Bank Indonesia (BI) complex shouting "Hang [BI governor Syarhil] Sabirin."
The 1,000 protestors, from among some 25,000 laid off when the government axed the 38 ailing banks on March 13, also waved placards slamming the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).
"IBRA pays a fortune for consultants and peanuts for laid off workers," read one poster carried by the marchers, who were organized by the "Indonesian Moslem Brotherhood" group, witnesses said.
The employees, joined by laid-off executives, on Sunday had threatened to take to the streets if their demand for 10 months' severence pay, instead of the two months offered by IBRA, was turned down.
The jobless bank employees had until the weekend confined their protests to good-humored mass sit-ins at their respective banks in downtown Jakarta, playing cards, picnicking and even dancing in the lobbies. A first small demonstration was held Monday at the central bank.
Jakarta -- Indonesian troops opened fire to disperse a crowd protesting the acquittal of an MP charged with embezzling 12 million dollars, injuring one student, reports said Tuesday.
Around 200 students outside the courthouse in Ujung Pandang on Monday pelted stones after Nurdin Halid, an MP for the ruling Golkar Party, was acquitted, the Jakarta Post said.
Nurdin had been on trial on charges of embezzling 12 million dollars from farmers' compulsory deposits at a local cooperative in South Sulawesi province, of which Ujung Pandang is the capital.
Presiding judge Suwito said prosecutors had failed to prove the charges against Nurdin, and ordered the return some 880,000 dollars of farmers' money in the cooperative which had been confiscated as evidence.
"The court will also restore the defendant's rights and good name," the Post quoted Suwito as saying.
The students, shouting that the trial had been a farce, marched through the streets, smashed the window of a car owned by the co-op and stoned the cooperatives building.
The injured student was treated for a bullet wound to the hand, the Post said, adding that troops patrolled the main streets of the city late Monday.
Sigit Widodo, Jakarta -- Although being campaigned against by the New Order regime for two years, the People's Democratic Party (PRD) is determined participate in the coming June elections. This was seen at the "Grand Launch" of the PRD at the Wisma Trisula Perwari Building in Menteng, Central Jakarta on Sunday.
The four hour itinerary began at 10am and the 20x10 metre meeting room was filled with hundreds of PRD cadre. A 5x3 metre banner with the party's flag was hung on the wall. On the right side there was a picture of the chairperson of the PRD, Budiman Sudjatmiko and on the left the words: "Together with the PRD toward the Multi-Party People's Elections".
The Grand Launching began with a speech from the head of the Central Leadership Committee of the PRD (KPP-PRD), Faisol Riza and was followed by the reading of a speech from Budiman, who is still in Cipinang prison.
In his speech, Faisol said that this year would be very important in the history of the PRD's struggle. After years of "extra-parliamentary" struggle, the PRD is now combining the two arenas of struggle: the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary. Because of this, Faisol said that PRD members must remember that with the decision to participate in the June elections it would give birth to [many] new tasks.
According to Faisol however, the PRD would continue to use mass actions as their method of struggle and the PRD's parliamentary struggle would function to support continued mass actions.
In Budiman's speech he explained that the PRD would continue to adhere to the principle of a People's Social Democracy.
According to Budiman, the mobilisation of the masses by the PRD is not done without education. "We always include political education in the organisation [of the masses]", said Budiman. He said that the two must be combined and that without political education the masses become an object of the political activities of the elite. On the other had if political education is not followed by the broadening of the mass basis of support, the party will become no more than an association of intellectuals.
PRD member, Rudi Lontoh, said that one of the tasks of the PRD's participation in the elections is to show the people that the elections are not just and fair. According to Rudi a just an fair election must be carried out by a transitional government. As well as this the other conditions which must exist are the abolition of the dual functions of the armed forces and the existence of democratic electoral laws. The PRD are apparently placing themselves as Indonesia's Socialist Party.
Scores of greetings of support arrived from socialist parties and organisations around the world.
Support came from the Resistance Socialist Youth Organisation of Australia, the Socialist Party of the Netherlands, the Socialis Arbeid Partei of the Netherlands, the Malaysian People's Party, the Labour Party of Pakistan, the German Democratic Socialist Party, the Philippines Socialist Party of Labour, the New Zealand Alliance and a number of other organistions. Support also came from the National Sandinista Youth Front, Nicaragua.
A representative of the Democratic Party of Australia, Samuel King, also gave greetings and called on all oppressed people to struggle against global capitalism.
Those attending from Indonesia included a representative of traditional leaders in Lampung, Tuan Daud, a leader from the West Papua people's struggle, Jacob Rumba and a representative of the East Timor Socialist Party, Chris Boca. Chris said that a victory for the PRD was a victory for the Maubere people and the suffering of the PRD was the suffering of the Maubere people.
The PRD clearly supports full independence from Indonesia for East Timor and reject an election being held in East Timor. According to the PRD what has to be held in East Timor is a referendum under the auspices of the United Nations.
At the height of the proceedings was the symbolic inauguration of six new PRD members: Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Dr. Dede Utomo, worker representative Gimin, student representative Ismail, high-school representative Suparlan and Beni Sumarji.
Two of these who attracted most attention were Pramoedya and Dede. Pramoedya is known as a former member of the People's Cultural Institute (Lekra), a mass organisation affiliated to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Because of this Pramoedya was jailed without trial for many years. Dede is a gay rights activist [the original term used was "homosexual activist" - JB] and head of Gaya Nusantara and the Indonesian Gay-Lesbian Network.
Both of them have had similar experiences to the PRD; they are symbols of groups which have been marginality and pushed aside by the New Order social system.
Translated by James Balowski]
| East Timor |
Karen Polglaze, Dili -- East Timor's armed resistance force Falintil for the first time overnight engaged in a shoot-out with a pro-integration paramilitary force, a Catholic source said today.
The three hour shoot-out was the result of a surprise attack by the Halilintar paramilitary group on a secret meeting of Falintil guerrillas, the source said.
The Halilintar numbered at least 50 personnel armed with guns. A few thousand others armed with traditional weapons such as bows and arrow and knives were operating in the region, the source said.
The shoot-out follows a series of violent events in the area around Maliana, west of the capital, Dili, which have left four people dead, including two children, and four others injured.
The source said that the pro-integration paramilitary was being passed information by an ABRI (Indonesian military) intelligence unit known as SGI.
"The SGI -- they are the ones who are aware of the situation on the ground and keep under observation all the activities of Falintil," the source said.
"They then passed this information to the military and to the militias." near Maliana, after an incident where a man accused of helping to transport Falintil members to the mountains was on Monday night taken from his house by a group of fully-armed ABRI officers who beat him and took him to the local military command post, the source said. The man, Jose Andrade Lecruz, has not been seen since.
Catholic relief organisation Caritas today sent 300 kilograms of US-grown rice and some medical supplies to Lahomea to help the local polyclinic cope with the influx of refugees.
Canberra -- A cabinet minister from the Whitlam government today apologised to the people of East Timor for the Australia's inaction over the Indonesian invasion of the former Portuguese colony.
Doug Everingham, health minister in the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975, said he was ashamed to have belonged to a cabinet which refused to protest against the Indonesian invasion.
"I apologise to the East Timorese people," Mr Everingham said in a letter published in The Australian newspaper. "I am ashamed to have belonged to the first of a series of Australian cabinets which failed to protest while our prime minister, unlike the world community, recognised the takeover of East Timor."
His comments come after opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton openly criticised the Whitlam government's handling of the East Timor issue, sparking heated debate within the ALP.
Mr Everingham later said the policy of accepting the annexation of East Timor damaged Australia's long-term interests, but was designed to help secure access to the rich Timor Gap oil fields.
"The reason why successive governments and not just the Whitlam government, have recognised Indonesia and East Timor is to get hold of the oil for big oil companies in the Timor Gap," he told ABC radio.
"And now the same sort of thing has been happening in Papua New Guinea and Bougainville and it's a matter of the whole world going pretty mad on defending so-called national interests which really are big money interests.
"In the long term, anything that rides over human rights, particularly the rights of people that help and save a lot of Australian lives in World War II, is going to damage Australia's long-term interests and it's already done that."
Sydney -- East Timorese independence leader, Xanana Gusmao, today called for urgent United Nations intervention to stop Indonesian army and militia atrocities against innocent East Timorese civilians, and to prevent an old guard clique at the highest levels of Indonesian government from undermining the UN- brokered self-determination deal for East Timor.
In a message circulated to East Timorese groups around the world via the internet, Mr Gusmao, still under house arrest in Jakarta, urged all East Timorese everywhere to unite behind his call for an armed United Nations peacekeeping force to move into East Timor as a matter of urgency. "It is the only way to stop an escalation of the violence and the killing of defenceless civilians," Mr Gusmao said.
The world President of UDT (Timorese Democratic Union), Joao Carrascalao, immediately threw his weight behind Mr Gusmao's call. Speaking in Sydney, he pledged the support of UDT members both in East Timor and overseas. Mr Gusmao is President of the unifying political grouping, Timorese Council for Resistance (CNRT), and Commander in Chief of Falintil, the pro-independence fighters. In his message he told supporters that:
* Two groups, Klibur and the FPDK, which were purporting to promote dialogue in East Timor were fronts for Indonesian interests attempting to undermine the act of self-determination Indonesia had agreed to at the UN.
Mr Gusmao, who has already committed Falintil to a unilateral ceasefire to prevent an internecine war in East Timor, proposed that an armed United Nations force move in, the Indonesian army withdraw in full, and that East Timorese groups be disarmed and dismantled under UN auspices, simultaneously with the Indonesian withdrawal.
"Unless the militias are immediately disarmed and dismantled, the peace process, reconciliation and diplomatic negotiations on the future of East Timor cannot be effective or long lasting," Mr Gusmao said. He also called for the establishment of a committee for peace and stability immediately to liaise with the United Nations and give confidence to East Timorese about their future.
Mr Gusmao said his information was that right now, the Klibur group, backed by the East Timorese puppet governor, Abilio Soares, is spending 16-billion rupiahs to support the pro- Indonesian militias which are torturing and murdering East Timorese to force people to support the pro-integrationist side.
This money was transferred to them by the Foreign Ministry. In addition, a further 100-billion rupiahs has been added to the East Timor budget for Governor Soares and the army to spend on preventing East Timor gaining independence.
Mr Gusmao warned East Timorese against Klibur and the Forum for Democracy and Justice in East Timor (FPDK). He said Klibur was formed in February by Gil Alves, Basilio Araujo and Ma'Hodo.
He said while both groups were claiming to represent ordinary East Timorese and wishing to promote dialogue between the pro- integrationist and pro-indendence camps, he saw them as Indonesian front organizations. Both were arguing against United Nations intervention in East Timor. Both had attempted to gain his support and he had rejected them, Mr Gusmao said. Mr Carrascalao said in Sydney today that UDT would fully support Mr Gusmao.
"We have been calling all along for armed United Nations peacekeepers to prevent bloodshed in East Timor. Some people have pooh-poohed us. Now Xanana Gusmao is calling for armed peacekeepers. We hope and pray the UN and interested governments will take notice of him," Mr Carrascalao said. "As one who has been intimately involved in every round of the United Nations negotiations, I know exactly what was agreed to, and the spirit of that agreement.
"It is clear that the corrupt Soeharto clique in Jakarta still has enormous power. It includes Ali Alatas, the Foreign Minister, and a lot of top people in the army. It is using East Timor to try to topple President Habibie and to protect the corrupt power bases and bank accounts of its members.
"I will be appealing personally to the Australian and Portuguese Governments and to the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, for action on Mr Gusmao's call.
"If something is not done urgently -- God help East Timor. Everyone who does not act will have blood on their hands."
Lisbon -- The chief international spokesman for the East Timorese resistance charged Tuesday that former Indonesian President Suharto, a military commander and the foreign ministry were secretly funding much of the recent violence in the territory.
Jose Ramos Horta, a Nobel Peace laureate, told a Portuguese parliamentary commission that Suharto, "who has a lot of money," was primarily responsible for the current "destabilization campaign" carried out by anti-independence militias.
He said funding for the paramilitary groups was being channeled through the military commander of the Bali region, Gen. Simbolon, of which East Timor is a part.
Gen. Simbolon was "the person directly involved in the manipulation, and delivery of money and arms" to the militias, Ramos Horta said.
He also accused the Indonesian foreign ministry of having "given money" to the militias, citing a recent meeting at a Dili hotel between Indonesian diplomat Joao Tavares and paramilitary chiefs.
Dili -- Three people were killed Friday after Indonesian soldiers opened fire while trying to catch a suspected killer in East Timor, police said.
Bacau district police chief Major S.C. Marpaung said the soldiers were chasing a suspected murderer, identified as Faria, when they opened fire in Gariwai village in Baucua district.
He said Faria and two passers-by, identified as Ildefonso, 30, and Estefania, a 40-year-old woman, died on the scene. Their bodies were later taken to Bacau hospital.
Faria was travelling on public transport when the patrolling soldiers spotted and chased him. He then got off the minivan and ran away, prompting the soldiers to shoot at him, police said.
Jakarta -- The office of CNRT President Xanana Gusmao received information today that a group of about 20 armed and masked men raided the Maliubu hamlet -- "suco" of Ritabou, "posto" of Maliana -- on the evening of Friday 19 March.
The masked men arrived by "Kijang" at 6:30 pm and opened fire on civilians gathered in the hamlet. Pedro Assamali (30 years old), Domingos Manomau (25), Joao Ruben Barros (11) and Fonseca Gomes (11) were killed. Narciso dos Santos (19), Esminia Imaculada (13), Carlito da Cunha dos Santos (30), Mateus Afonso de Jesus (28) and Lucia da Cunha dos Santos, aged 17 were wounded.
Witnesses reported that the operation lasted about 30 minutes and that some of the masked men wore Indonesian military uniforms. The injured victims were initially taken to the Maliana hospital and later transferred to the parish polyclinic of Maliana. Two of them are in a critical condition. 17 houses were looted (money, personal belongings and a recorder were stolen) and 2 of them seriously damaged.
The Halilintar militia group based in Maliana under the leadership of Joao Tavares is believed to be responsible for these murders in a joint operation with the Indonesian military and SGI.
The local Indonesian authorities are not reacting and word has just reached Mr. Gusmao's office that the Indonesian military in East Timor are trying to put the blame on FALINTIL guerrillas. Mr. Gusmao calls for a full and speedy investigation of these cold-blooded murders. He deeply regrets that at a moment when both the East Timorese people and the international community are undertaking efforts to attain peace and reconciliation, SGI sponsored militia groups and the Indonesian military should continue to intimidate and terrorize the population.
Further information on the situation in Maliana as of March 21:
Jenny Grant, Jakarta -- In a sign that Indonesia does not want the international community tampering with its sovereignty over East Timor, Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said his Government refused to have any permanent United Nations presence in the territory until next month.
Mr Alatas told a meeting of the Indonesian Council on World Affairs yesterday that Jakarta had no plans to withdraw troops from the territory.
At the same time, a five-member team from the UN flew to East Timor to survey how it would run a direct ballot scheduled for July on special autonomy.
Mr Alatas said a permanent UN presence in East Timor could cause unrest. "If the presence of the UN is forced at this stage it will cause problems, for example certain groups may hold rallies to attract the UN's attention," Mr Alatas told the meeting of 500 foreign diplomats and retired Foreign Ministry officials.
Analysts said Jakarta had begun its campaign to sell the special autonomy option at yesterday's think-tank seminar. If East Timorese reject the package, the National Assembly will vote on giving East Timor immediate independence.
Mr Alatas said there would be a two-month "socialisation" period once the special autonomy package was unveiled in New York next month to convince East Timorese that autonomy was the best option.
"We will do it through every means available, through the press, radio, through the holding of seminars and group meetings," he said.
Mr Alatas said it was up to the UN to ensure a safe and fair ballot because the international community had pushed for the direct vote. "If there is any suspicion about the vote, then the UN should be ashamed," Mr Alatas said. "The UN should ensure that there will be no suspicion in the ballot."
UN official Horacio Boneo, en route to East Timor, said his team would meet both political sides to assess the balloting process.
East Timor's main pro-independence movement accused a pro- Jakarta militia of killing four civilians in a joint operation with the Indonesian military during the weekend. The military accused pro-independence Falintil forces of carrying out the attack.
Sydney -- Indonesia has rejected Australia's offer of a surgical team for East Timor, despite evidence of a looming health crisis in the province, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday.
He told reporters an Australian aid team had found there was not a single public surgeon in East Timor and its health system was at risk of collapse if the exodus of doctors was not stemmed.
It also found evidence that 5,000 people had been forced to flee their homes by fighting and Australia would spend about 500,000 dollars (315,000 US) providing humanitarian assistance for them.
But Downer said an Australian aid mission has found no evidence of a large scale humanitarian crisis after six days of extensive meetings right across East Timor.
He ordered the assessment by Australia's overseas aid agency, AusAID, amid recent claims that food and other essential supplies were being withheld from the former Portuguese colony seized by Indonesia in 1976.
The AusAID report, released Tuesday, said: "The current situation regarding essential supplies in East Timor cannot be described as a humanitarian crisis.
"Aggregate food supplies in East Timor now appear to be adequate to cover the immediate food requirements."
The report found the health system was at risk of collapse if the exodus of doctors from East Timor was not stemmed and replacement doctors provided.
"Towards the end of 1998, we understand that there were 109 doctors in the government system," it said. "Now there are 81 doctors remaining. There has been no public surgeon for nearly one year."
Downer said Australia's offer to send a civilian surgical team to East Timor had been rejected by Indonesia, which instead promised to take action to deal with the crisis.
"If the Indonesians feel they can do it themselves, then that is a preferable outcome," he said. "As long as it's addressed then that's really our concern, not whether we address it or whether we don't."
He said Australia would spend about 500,000 dollars (315,000 US) providing humanitarian assistance for 5,000 people forced to flee their homes by fighting on East Timor.
But Downer said this was
only a start and Australia stood ready to provide food, medicines and medical
personnel at short notice should they be required.
| June 7 elections |
Jakarta -- Indonesia's election commission on Wednesday said it would bar government ministers from campaigning for June's parliamentary election, a day after the government announced that most of them could.
"Parties are not allowed to have a minister or any government officials -- including a village's head -- in their campaign for the election," said General Election Commission chief Rudini.
"There will be sanctions on those parties which violate the regulations," he told reporters without elaborating.
On Tuesday State Secretary Akbar Tandjung said most ministers could campaign for the poll. President B.J. Habibie had decided only five senior ministers would be barred, Tandjung said.
Most ministers belong to the Golkar party which held power for decades under disgraced former President Suharto. Other parties fear Golkar will gain an unfair advantage.
Golkar, which Suharto adopted as his own political vehicle, won every election in Indonesia during his 32-year rule.
Commission head Rudini said his body could draw up rules forbidding parties from using ministers in their campaign trail.
He was speaking on the sidelines of one of a series of meetings at which rules for the June 7 vote are being finalised.
Election rules and regulations are due to be completed on April 1. The vote is the first since Suharto quit last May and is intended to give Indonesia a more democratic future.
Under Suharto, only three parties were allowed to contest elections. But 48 are approved to take part in the June vote.
Jakarta -- One man was killed and 15 injured in a clash between supporters of rival parties campaigning for the June elections in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, a report said Monday.
The man, identified as Eko Prabowo, died on the way to a hospital after Sunday's clash between supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-S) and the United Development Party (PPP), the Jakarta Post said.
Police were quoted by the Post as saying the combattants used crude weapons in the clash in which one person lost his ear and another had his hand chopped off.
Residents, who tried to intervene and stop the fighting, were themselves attacked, and police were outnumbered by the brawling supporters, the Post said.
The PDI-S and the PPP are among the larger of the 48 parties contesting the planned June 7 elections, the first since the fall of president Suharto, under whose rule the number of parties was confined to three.
Sporadic campaigning has started, although the official campaign period does not start until May 18.
Amy Chew, Jakarta -- Indonesia's spiralling violence, fuelled by a brutal economic recession and religious and ethnic tension, threatens to derail the country's first democratic election in more than 40 years.
Politicians and analysts said that if the violence is not brought under control by the time campaigning starts in late May, there was a possibility of the June 7 general election being delayed or cancelled.
"This is a concern of not just my party but also other political parties and many pro-reform groups," Faisal Basri, secretary-general of the National Mandate Party (PAN) told Reuters.
PAN, headed by popular Moslem leader Amien Rais, is expected to take a substantial chunk of the votes in June, which will be only the second democratic elections in Indonesia's history.
Basri said even if the election was not delayed, continued violence would disrupt campaigning.
"The people are scared of the military and psychologically, their sheer presence [to counter the violence] will scare them without the soldiers having to do or say anything," he said.
The elections mark a political watershed in Indonesia which has recently emerged from 32 years under the autocratic rule of then President Suharto, who was ousted last May amid economic and political crisis.
Investors have largely shunned Indonesia, waiting to see if the June election would bring in a period of stability to the world's fourth most populous nation. Any delay would be certain to further damage Indonesia's hopes of economic and political recovery.
"Elections can be delayed if the situation is not stable. But there is still time to resolve this. The time limit for this is May 20," said Indria Samego, a political analyst of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), referring to the date on which election campaigns will start.
The country's stricken economy has sent millions into abject poverty, spawning unrest across much of the archipelago, killing hundreds, possibly thousands.
This year more than 200 people have been killed in fighting between Christians and Moslems in the spice island of Ambon. And in the past week over a 100 more have died in ethnic clashes in the Indonesian part of Borneo.
There have been accusations that much of the violence has been orchestrated and some have pointed to supporters of former President Suharto.
Munir of the Legal Aid Institute said that as long as the violence does not spread to the main island of Java and its giant neighbour Sumatra, the impact of the current unrest should not be enough to derail the elections.
"What happens in Java and Sumatra is the decisive factor in deciding whether the election proceeds or not, as 70 percent of the voters live on these two islands," he said.
Vikram Khanna, Singapore -- Indonesian political leader Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday said his party, the National Awakening Party (PKB), is open to forming a coalition with the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) led by Megawati Sukarnoputri, as well as with Muslim leader Amien Rais and other democratic parties, to form a government in Indonesia after the general elections in June.
The chairman of the Nahdatul Ulama movement, which has more than 40 million followers, Mr Wahid is tipped to be one of the front-runners in the elections, scheduled for June 7. Many political analysts reckon that a coalition between his party and Ms Megawati's could prove a formidable combination.
Mr Wahid, also known as "Gus Dur", was speaking to some 400 people at a lecture organised by the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS). He then spoke to the media on a range of issues.
On economic policy, Mr Wahid maintained that he is not in favour of the concept of the "people's economy" which is being championed by the present government. "The people don't believe in that," he said.
Referring to the cooperative movement, the centrepiece of the people's economy, he pointed out: "To give credit without collateral is not economics. It's purely politics."
He said his own economic policies will be conducive to the "profit motive", adding that he would welcome foreign investment.
At the same time, he seemed to suggest a less open economic system. "We want to have an economy oriented more to the use of our own resources. We should produce domestically whatever we can. Only what we need, we will get from outside." He also said that policies would be designed to benefit the majority of Indonesians, who live in rural areas -- for instance, through higher prices to farmers for their products. "By raising farmers' incomes, the rest of the economy will be pulled up."
Mr Wahid said he would support Kwik Kian Gie, a key adviser to Ms Megawati's party, as coordinating minister for the economy and Finance Minister Bambang Subianto as minister for the treasury. He would also appoint Chinese and Christians to the cabinet, and would make East Timor rebel leader Xanana Gusmao foreign minister.
He also expressed confidence that the June elections would be free and fair, indicating that there is wide support for this from not only the international community but also the Indonesian armed forces and all political parties -- including the ruling Golkar party.
Mr Wahid, who has strong secular credentials despite his Islamic background, said he is open to forming a coalition with the PDI. Although Ms Megawati has indicated that her party would not form any coalition, Mr Wahid pointed out that this is applicable only before the polls, but after that, she might change her view.
He said he is not concerned about the possibility of votes being split between his own party and the PDI. "There is no conflict between PDI and PKB," he said. "If PKB wins, PDI will respect that, and if PDI wins, PKB will respect that. We will not cancel each other out."
He also ruled out a military coup despite the rising violence in the country. "If [army chief] Wiranto wants to grab power, he can do so, but it would be impossible for him to keep it."
Speaking of the violence, Mr Wahid said he would be able to stop the unrest in Ambon, Sambas and other areas "within about a month".
He indicated he will be visiting Ambon soon with other political and religious leaders to settle the strife there. "The masses in Ambon don't have leadership. As soon as we give them leadership, they will go with us."
He suggested that there is no cause for alarm about the current insurgencies in Indonesia and said the majority of people in the troubled areas do not want independence, except in East Timor.
But even there, independence is unlikely because an independent Timor may not be economically viable and would be dependent on external assistance.
The PKB leader said he would give "full autonomy" to Indonesia's provinces, including allowing them to hold their own elections for governors and district heads.
On possible candidates for the presidency, Mr Wahid suggested that he would ideally prefer someone other than himself. "I am respected by the people," he said. "If I become president, people won't come to my house any more. But if I have to carry out a task, I will do it."
Among other candidates for the presidency, he mentioned the Sultan of Jogjakarta. As for Ms Megawati, "she can become the vice-president. Or she can be the chairman of Parliament".
With regard to Mr Suharto, Mr Wahid indicated that followers of the former president had a hand in some of the violence in Indonesia. He also said that Mr Suharto "should be taken to court" to be tried for past abuses.
"I know that by going to court, we will not achieve anything because Suharto is clever," he said. "[And] if the court cannot solve the problem, the NPR [parliament] will take up the issue. Suharto will then be tried socio-politically rather than legally."
At the IDSS lecture was its director, SR Nathan. Replying to questions from the Singapore and foreign media on the lecture series -- which has thus far seen speakers from the political opposition -- he said the IDSS thought it important to hear Golkar's views as well.
Both Golkar general chairman Akbar Tandjung, who is also state secretary, and deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman were invited, said Mr Nathan, but Mr Akbar could not visit due to pressing engagements. Mr Marzuki, who will be in Singapore next week for an Institute of South-east Asian Studies seminar, is willing to also speak to the IDSS next month.
Mr Nathan has also written
to Indonesian President BJ Habibie "to seek his assistance to nominate
a speaker to give another perspective to this series of lectures". The
most recent speakers on Indonesia have been Ms Megawati and Amien Rais.
| Political/Economic crisis |
Andi Jatmiko, Simpang Monterado -- Indonesian soldiers fired shots in the air Tuesday to scare off fighters armed with spears, swords and homemade guns who tried to attack another ethnic group on Borneo island.
Hundreds of ethnic Dayak men demanded that the troops hand over terrified Madura immigrants who have been the target of a week of slaughter. At least 200 people have died in an Indonesian region of western Borneo.
Soldiers with automatic rifles fired volleys of gunshots to disperse the mobs in the village of Simpang Monterado, and drove off in a convoy of trucks with a dozen immigrants from the island of Madura who sheltered underneath a tarpaulin.
There were no reports of injuries. Troops detained some Dayak fighters, but released them after confiscating their weapons.
Immigrants from Madura are resented by indigenous people, who view them as troublemakers who have taken away land and jobs. Thousands of Madurese have fled their homes and are staying in government compounds and sports stadiums.
The Indonesian military presence in the troubled region is slight, even though C-130 transport planes ferried hundreds of troops Tuesday to Pontianak, a nearby provincial capital.
Soldiers are outnumbered and have no control in dozens of villages where indigenous Dayak and Malay men patrol on motorcycles and on trucks.
With the reinforcements, there are now about 3,000 troops in Sambas district, where 900,000 people live, 10 percent of them Madurese.
The violence has been marked by ritual savagery: In some areas, gangs of fighters had set Madurese homes on fire and then paraded through the streets carrying the heads of their decapitated victims.
Reporters traveling near Simpang Monterado on Tuesday saw three heads lying in a road. Nearby were two bodies whose livers and hearts had been cut out. No soldiers or police were in sight.
On Monday night, at least one man was injured when soldiers fired shots to clear the road of mobs who tried to block trucks carrying refugees to safety from Singkawang.
An editorial in Tuesday's Jakarta Post said the latest outbreaks of communal violence in Indonesia could jeopardize the country's chances of holding a national election in June. Many see the vote as a potential breakthrough in the country's moves toward democracy after the resignation of authoritarian President Suharto last year.
Recently, about 200 people were killed during weeks of clashes between Muslims and Christians in Ambon island in eastern Indonesia. Fighting also has flared between rival groups in East Timor since the government offered to hold a referendum on the territory's future.
David Watts, Singkawang -- Indonesia has sent in 1,000 armed police officers to try to stamp out ethnic violence between Madurese migrants and locals yesterday before it spreads further in this province in Borneo.
With the death toll at about 200, thousands of Dayaks and Malays were reported last night to be surrounding an area where 4,000 Madurese remain trapped, awaiting evacuation by two companies of troops on board helicopters. In one incident yesterday, soldiers with automatic rifles fired volleys to disperse mobs before rescuing a dozen Madurese who were sheltering under tarpaulins.
Three human heads were later seen on the road with two bodies near by, their hearts and livers cut out. The official Antara news agency said that the military would take charge of the area in an attempt to restore order.
Another 2,000 Madurese were awaiting evacuation at the airbase in Singkawang while two teams of soldiers and police evacuated 400 people from Belitung in the Semalantan sub-district.
Reports persisted among distraught families of pockets of people stranded at the mercy of the Malays and Dayaks, who have been rampaging across the area armed with machetes, spears and old rifles, burning homes of fleeing Madurese settlers. So far the burnt houses and pathetic remnants left by a trail of refugees are confined to the lush western seaboard, but there are fears that it could spread if the Government cannot bring it under control soon.
As dusk fell last night, regional experts said they feared that the Madurese might have hidden in a rainforest a few miles inland and be waiting to take revenge. Their women and children, meanwhile, are packing the regional capital, Pontianak, after fleeing in cars, boats and army lorries.
Every available public building has been taken over and, with more arriving all the time, the total has topped 13,000. A large batch arrived overnight in the city's port on an American-built destroyer of the Indonesian Navy that was packed to the gunwales with refugees fleeing from the north.
The road north out of Pontianak to Singkawang shows signs of those who escaped south by more conventional means. Scraps of clothing lie on the narrow road. Here and there, young men carry the long, curved-blade parangs used by farmers clearing land but which are also a devastating weapon.
More than 2,000 Madurese have taken refuge in the Pontianak sports stadium while others are staying in warehouses and with families. They say they are too frightened to return home and many have little to return to.
It is hard to see how the Government can create the confidence necessary for them to return without taking the risk of involving the Armed Forces in direct confrontation with either group. Since the army is disliked by both sides, there is the potential for a bloodbath. Nonetheless, the army was last night moving machineguns and automatic rifles into the main hotel in Singkawang.
The unrest in Kalimantan is different from the recent clashes in the Moluccas, the Spice Islands, and East Timor, where the land area involved and the issues have been confined. In Kalimantan, it could engulf one of the largest land masses in the archipelago, posing a dilemma for the army in trying to bring the ethnic violence under control. All the clashes, including worker demonstrations about economic conditions, are expected to worsen as the June 7 general election draws near -- the first free election for 45 years.
The following are excerpts from a Human Rights Watch Asia Report: Communal Violence in West Kalimantan (40 pages), released in December 1997, compiled by Jayo.]
The term "Dayak" is a collective and often confusing term for hundreds of groups on Borneo related to one another by language and culture. Most of the Dayak in West Kalimantan are sedentary swidden (slash-and-burn) cultivators who produce rice but continue to derive a substantial part of their livelihood from forest products, including tree crops such as durian (a fruit), rubber and resin.
Fruit crops are often grown within community forest reserves (tanah adat) in which village cemeteries are also located. Rubber trees, one of the most important year-round sources of income for farmers, are grown in plots managed by individual households. Much of the community forest reserves and garden plots, however, are on what the government considers to be state land, available for commercial use. The government has never recognised traditional Dayak land tenure in its own system of land registration.
More timber concessions have been granted in West Kalimantan than in any other province. The pattern is often the same. The logging company will find a corrupt local official or gullible group of villagers to sign away large chunks of land, signs will go up banning local farmers from trying to harvest fruit or tap rubber in the area, often the trees in question will be cut down, the farmers will protest, and the local government will accuse them of "obstructing development." No benefits whatsoever will accrue to the dispossessed Dayaks.
Ethnic balance
With a population variously estimated at 3.5 to 4.1 million, West Kalimantan is the most highly populated of Kalimantan's four provinces, though at twenty persons per square kilometre, its population density is a third of South Kalimantan's. Figures on its ethnic breakdown are difficult to obtain. Military reports from 1979 and 1980 say the indigenous Dayaks, mostly in the more sparsely populated interior, made up 41 percent of the population; the ethnically similar but Muslim and largely coastal Malays made up 34 percent; Chinese, concentrated especially in coastal towns like Singkawang but found in small numbers in all built-up areas, made up 14 percent; Javanese, largely in government and government*sponsored transmigration areas, made up 3 percent; Buginese from South Sulawesi 5 percent; and Madurese, living mostly in coastal areas and to a lesser extent also in the interior, made up 2.5 percent.
In the provincial capital of Pontianak, which today has a population estimated at 400,000, Dayaks constituted only 1.4 percent of the population in 1980, as compared with 13 percent for the Madurese and 40 percent for the Malays.
Transmigration, both government-sponsored and spontaneous, has tipped the population balance against the indigenous Malays and Dayaks since then. By 1980, about 1.4 percent of the province's population consisted of transmigrants. By 1985 the proportion was up to 6 percent, unevenly distributed. In Sanggau Ledo, where the violence broke out, a full 15 percent of the population was settlers by 1980, and the proportion is likely to have risen since. By 1984, the percentage of transmigrants going to West Kalimantan as opposed to other provinces had risen from 14.6 to over 25 percent. In 1994, an estimated 6,000 families, or about 25,000 persons, migrated to West Kalimantan.
Madurese
While most transmigrants who arrived in government programs were Javanese, the Madurese were more likely to come on their own. Most Madurese in urban areas work in cheap transport (river crossing ferries, pedicabs), and as coolies, stevedores or day laborers. In the countryside most are small-time wetland rice farmers. The Madurese, in other words, are mostly poor, but they are not so obviously the dispossessed, having acquired, not lost land in their new home.
Violence between Dayak and Madurese has occurred several times in in West Kalimantan -- eight times in the last two decades. Each clash, according to Dayak sources, was triggered by a Madurese stabbing a Dayak to death. The Madurese invariably appear as the losers in these clashes. The clashes described here are by far the largest thus far.
One Dayak grievance heard repeatedly was that Dayaks have been politically marginalised since the 1960s. Many Dayaks were eliminated from government administration for their alleged leftism after Suharto's "New Order" came to power in early 1966. Today only one of the province's six districts, the most remote, is headed by a Dayak.
Other informants spoke of Dayak economic marginalisation. Exploitation of the forests has gone further in West Kalimantan than anywhere else. "Dayaks can only listen to the sound of chainsaws", was the way one Dayak informant put it.
Pontianak - Over 10,000 Madurese from Sambas regency have poured into this city and surrounding areas to escape the violence with local Malays and Dayaks. The exodus continued on Tuesday, while over 13,000 people in the Pemangkat coastal sub- district of Sambas were waiting to be evacuated.
Many of the refugees entering the provincial capital were accommodated in the Pangsuma sports stadium (around 5,000 refugees) and a haj dormitory (around 3,200 refugees). Hundreds more were sheltering in nearby military barracks.
Over 1.400 others were staying in the Wajo area in Siantan subdistrict, some 20 kilometers north of here. Antara reported that about 1,500 more were stranded in a military air base in the inland sub-district of Sanggau Ledo.
Six Hercules military aircraft took off from the Halim Perdanakusuma air base in Jakarta, carrying a 745 security reinforcement troops, on the orders of Armed Forces Chief of General Affairs Lt. Gen. Sugiono. There are over 2,000 police and military personnel already posted in the regency of 800,000 people.
"Your first task is to stop the riots, then to crack down on those who break the law," Sugiono told members from the police's Mobile Brigade unit, the Army's Strategic Reserves Command, the Marines and the Air Force's Special Force.
Expecting health hazards to occur following the massive flow of refugees in West Kalimantan, Minister of Health Faried A. Moeloek said on Tuesday he had sent medical supplies and workers to the province. No fatal clashes were reported on Tuesday.
But AP reported from Simpang Monterado village in Sanggau Ledo on Tuesday that warning shots were fired to stop hundreds of armed Dayaks from attacking Madurese.
The angry Dayaks, carrying spears, swords and homemade guns, demanded that the security authorities hand over the terrified Madurese.
Soldiers with automatic rifles fired volleys of gunshots to disperse the mob, and drove off in a convoy of trucks with a dozen Madurese sheltering beneath a tarpaulin. There were no reports of injuries. Some Dayal~ fighters were stopped, but released after being disarmed.
No update on Latalities was available from pontianak authorities, but an Official at the Sambas administration in Singkawang said more bodies had been found, bringing the estimated death toll to 180.
"Not all of these are Madurese. Some are Malays," office spokesman I. Libertus Ahie, who is also a respected Dayak leader in the regency, said.
He took the chance to clarify media reports that recent West Kalimantan's camage was due to a conflict between Madurese and Dayaks.
"This is purely Madurese versus Malays. Dayaks are involved only as individuals not as a whole ... they are the Dayaks who are married to Malays and joined the battles simply out of solidarity with their Malay relatives," Libertus said.
In West Kalimantan Madurese make up 2 percent of the total population of four million. Before the massive evacuation, they comprised eight percent of the Sambas population of 800,000.
Libertus also warned security personnel against repressing villagers, saying negotiations with Malay and Dayak elders were beginning to bear fruit.
He suggested all Madurese leave the regency "until we restore order here". Otherwise, he said, the carnage would continue.
Libertus lashed out at Jakarta politicians, mentioning Abdurrahman Wahid, who said former president Soeharto's followers were behind the unrest, and observers who said social jealousy provoked the Malays to attack Madurese.
"No, it was simply because of their long-resented behavior," he said. They failed to adapt to the local culture, Libertus said.
Meanwhile, from the East Java capital of Surabaya on Tuesday, two respected Madurese figures -- Naruddin A. Rahman and Fuad Amin Imron -- urged President B.J. Habibie and ABRI Commander Gen. Wiranto to protect the Madurese.
"The government and ABRI must investigate the case thoroughly. I call on all Madurese in East Java not to be agitated (to retaliate)," Imron said.
The escalating violence in Ambon and Sulawesi since the fall of Soeharto has led to communities torn apart, with neighbour killing neighbour. Louise Williams reports. AT first Ali was surprised and confused when he saw the faces of his old friends among the mob sweeping down on his suburb, swinging their machetes and lobbing Molotov cocktails into the modest wooden cottages to burn him and his neighbours out.
Then he was terrified, and gathered up his Muslim family and ran, abandoning a lifetime of friendship with his Christian neighbours with only the clothes on his back.
"It was our old friends, our good friends," he says, shaking his head, on the porch of a small mosque where he is camping in the riot-wracked Indonesian city of Ambon. The streets outside are virtually deserted, except for patrolling troops. Entire blocks of shops have been burnt to the ground and the rest of the commercial district lies silent and shuttered.
After three months of street warfare between Christian and Muslim gangs, Ambon is under military control. The local television station is still broadcasting the news against the old, idyllic backdrop of the white sand beaches and swaying palm trees of this beautiful, remote tropical island.
But the message from the local military command is harsh: no more than three people may gather on the street, mosques and churches will be raided for weapons and those who want to keep the battle going will be shot dead.
Already at least 200 people have died in Ambon, hundreds have been injured and tens of thousands have fled. This week the military was dividing up the city: some roads for Christian- driven buses, some roads for the Muslims.
In Ujung Pandang, on neighbouring Sulawesi, where many of the Muslims from Ambon have sought shelter, angry mobs of Islamic students marched at the weekend on a Christian meeting hall and hurled Molotov cocktails through the windows in revenge for Ambon. The Catholic cathedral stood ringed by troops following a similar attack last week.
In West Kalimantan, another terrible ethnic battle was raging along the narrow rural roads which wind up the coastal flats towards the Malaysian border. The victors paraded the heads of their victims through the town and the outnumbered troops did little more than man roadblocks to try to prevent those armed with long, sharp harvesting knives from passing.
In majority Catholic East Timor, thousands of migrant Muslims were boarding boats to get out, just as thousands did in West Timor last year when the Muslim minority was burnt out of town.
The spectre of neighbour killing neighbour in multi-racial, multi-ethnic Indonesia is perhaps the most frightening development since the fall of the Soeharto regime.
"More than any other communal incident that has taken place around Indonesia, the civil war in Ambon has ripped apart the notion of Indonesia as a tolerant society of all faiths," wrote Sidney Jones, an Indonesia specialist and director of the US- based Human Rights Watch, in a recent report.
"The situation is very delicate," said moderate Muslim leader Mr Abdurrham Wahid, who heads the 40 million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama.
"We tolerated a very big gap between different ethnic and religious groups, an economic gap, a cultural gap and an education gap, so there is rivalry and competition which can be used to entice people to rebel." But for Mr Wahid, the explosion of violence is not just an expression of the gap between the haves and the have-nots, the locals and the outsiders, but a deliberate and monstrous manipulation of the uneducated and poor for political gain before the June 7 national elections, the first democratic polls since 1955.
Riots are being provoked by the old guard, those who lost their power and privilege with the fall of the Soeharto regime in May last year, and those determined to prevent the elections from going ahead, he says.
"The central Government is weak, the military is demoralised, that is correct. But, there is a deliberate political campaign to destabilise the nation. If the riots in Ambon are brought under control then they will move elsewhere, like in Kalimantan. According to my intelligence there are four target locations on Java alone," he says.
So delicate is the balance between Indonesia's majority Muslims and the myriad minority ethnic and religious communities that disputes and political campaigns based on race or religion were taboo under the Soeharto government. The Soeharto regime maintained stability with military repression.
Prominent sociologist Mr Loekman Sustrisno often likened Indonesian society to a "pressure cooker", with all the tensions and grievances building for more than three decades beneath the lid.
Under Soeharto, the government followed a controversial program of transmigration. The main island of Java, with its strong Muslim identity, was seriously overcrowded and so millions were assisted to migrate to the "empty" outer islands to the east and north. According to official statistics, about 9 million people have been moved off Java, Bali, Madura and several smaller islands nearby since 1950, and with their descendants total about 15 million people - 8 per cent of the population.
In many cases the indigenous people of the outer islands were tribal people, converted to Christianity under Dutch colonialism. But they maintained simple, shifting agricultural lifestyles. Many indigenous people were unable to compete with the better educated, more worldly Muslim migrants who took control of trade and much of the land.
In West Kalimantan, one of the most isolated people on earth, the Dayak "head hunting" tribes of the towering Borneo rainforests, were dragged out of the jungle and left on the edges of the scruffy rural towns as the forests were felled and two- hectare lots given away to Muslim settlers.
To the Dayaks the land was life and belonged to all, every tree and every rock harbouring a spirit to respect. Their lifestyle of shifting cultivation which gave every hectare of land 10 years to regrow was challenged by the bulldozers and government policies to permanently settle the "primitive people".
Those who came to build the first roads to let the transmigrants in were the hot-tempered, staunchly Muslim people of the harsh, dry island of Madura, just east of Java. It was the heads of Maduranese that the Dayaks sought when they returned to head-hunting two years ago for the first time since the turn of the century, and it was Maduranese heads that were paraded at the weekend. To the Dayak, to take the head of an enemy is to take and gain his strength.
In Ambon much of the migration was voluntary. As the Indonesian economy grew steadily, new opportunities were opening up. The Bugis, Buton and Makassar ethnic groups of Sulawesi, all staunchly Muslim and traditionally mobile seafarers, moved to Ambon and other Christian majority cities such as Dili in East Timor and Kupang in West Timor, where they grabbed a large slice of trade.
In the religious and ethnic complexities of modern Indonesia the potential for disputes lies within virtually every local community. Now the lid is off, and the expanding economy has collapsed, leaving the mobs to squabble over the shrinking cake. In the 10 months since the President, Dr B.J. Habibie, came to power, 180 police stations have been burnt down, at least five trains are reportedly attacked each day by frustrated mobs, schoolchildren as young as 12 fight pitched battles on the streets of Jakarta and Muslims have lynched Christians, and Christians have lynched Muslims.
It is difficult to exaggerate the danger of ethnic and religious violence spreading. "If the violence in Ambon does not stop, other regions will burn. If you do not follow our orders we will shoot you," said the military's televised message to the 330,000 residents of the city.
There are terrible stories on both sides and truth is mingling with myths. Both sides stand accused of slicing babies from the bellies of mothers, of chopping off their victims' limbs in battle, of hanging innocent young women in trees, of tying their neighbours up in sacks and dropping them into the magnificent harbour. Some of the stories are true.
"I don't know how it became a religious war," says Mrs Frida Mataheru, sitting on a church pew in her pyjamas. "I heard that it was only meant to scare the BBM (Bugis, Buton, Makassar) people away from here." Like all the other Christians who tell the tale, she and her neighbours ran from marauding, armed Muslim gangs, and now their homes have gone and all their possessions, too.
At the small mosque by the port, the crowd is getting agitated as, one by one, the people tell their own terrible stories of marauding Christians.
The Ambonese, the indigenous Christian people, are "orang bodoh" -- stupid people -- one woman ventures. The Christian Ambonese, they say, just want to do easy office jobs, get drunk and have parties. They are lazy and stupid, say the Muslims who once claimed to be their good neighbours.
And, so the story is out, the eager newcomers versus the calm, slow cycle of life on a remote tropical island.
But what really tipped the scales in Ambon, says Human Rights Commissioner Mr Marzuki Darusman, was the appointment of a Muslim governor and vice-governor two years ago, under the Soeharto regime's efforts to Islamicise the bureaucracy to reflect Indonesia's status as a majority Muslim nation.
"The Muslim groups are mostly in trade and transport and this meant the local Ambonese were marginalised because the migrants were more cohesive and had certain socio-economic skills. So the Ambonese were trying to hold out in the bureaucracy and then the central Government put Muslims in control, so they lost again." In the local hospital two young men, with the yellow skin of the ill, are nursing wounds after being shot by the miltitary. The room stinks of disinfectant, sweat and the sour breath of the sick.
"If the military leave it will start up again for sure. I am ready to fight for my religion. The Christians think Ambon belongs to them and they want to get rid of the Muslims because they control the economy, but we work harder and we are more advanced," says 21-year-old Suhardi.
"In the end Ambon must be one or the other -- Christian or Muslim. We can't have both religions any more," he says of his port town, once the capital of the magnificent Spice Islands, a meeting place for traders of all races and religions.
Jakarta -- Indonesia's current economic crisis has led to widespread malnutrition amongst many pregnant women and children, a study conducted by the Helen Keller Indonesia foundation concluded yesterday.
According to the non-governmental organization's report, the social conditions in Jakarta are twice as bad as conditions in Bangladesh.
Coordinator for the United Nations Development Plan (UNDP), Stephen J. Woodhouse, confirmed the results of the study and pointed out at a press conference in Jakarta yesterday, that medical health problems caused by a deficiency in vitamin-A was twice as serious in Jakarta, than in rural areas of Bangladesh.
Social activists, also present during the event, included the head of the Helen Keller Foundation for Southeast Asia, Marthen W. Bloom, and Nafsiah Mboi from Indonesia, who has worked extensively on empowerment programs for low-income families here.
Woodhouse said that the rising levels of child malnutrition in the last two years was having a devastating effect on Indonesia's youth, especially those below the age of three years.
The impact the poor diet will have on the children's later life, Woodhouse explained, would be low intelligence quotient standard as almost 90% of a healthy human's brain cells are formed in the first two years; a development that relies on a balanced diet. "The children will become the slow-learners, and highly susceptible to disease and even death."
In order to help those families suffering from the debilitating economic crisis he said, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef) had begun a Food Complementary Fast Response Program, that is set to re-vitalize Comprehensive Health Service Posts (Posyandu).
"We have bought 9 million packs of Vitadele baby food at Rp4,000 per pack, and we intend to sell them to the needy at Rp500 each. We plan to do this by distributing them to all of the Posyandus in Jakarta. That's 11,000 Posyandus in 2,500 villages throughout Indonesia," he said.
He explained that the program would help Jakartan children as well as 375,000 others in Indonesia. "Unicef is also trying to find private sector, city administration and central government support for this program."
In the meantime, W. Bloom explained how he had been witness to families pawning their property each day just to scrape enough money together to buy food.
He then went on to call on the governor to give offer the needy better access to the Social Safety Net Program (JPS), as well as the Empowerment Fund for Overcoming the Impact of the Economic Crisis (PDM-DKE).
Woodhouse blasted the JPS for seriously deviating from its original aims of helping poor families in Jakarta.
The JPS program, he said, needed to be based on empowering people to help themselves and not simply as a way of providing free medical treatment at the hospitals.
In carrying out an effective program he explained, NGOs needed to be involved so that their input could be considered and an effective plan for poverty relief could be initiated.
The Secretary General at the Department of Health, E. Sutarto, said that even in providing health care, the JPS program intended for the needy, was too bureaucratic. The funds on offer are only disbursed after a long waiting period, rendering the effort virtually useless for seriously ill claimants.
He concluded that the bureaucratic data required could be the root of the problem in local hospitals.
Jamie Mackie, Hong Kong -- The ethnic violence that has flared up over the last two months on the island of Ambon, 2,000 kilometers east of Jakarta, has been horrifyingly brutal and intractable. The clashes have claimed the lives of around 200 people, and Indonesia's formidable security forces have been unable to stop the killing. It would be a mistake, however, to see the violence in Ambon as typical of other religious and ethnic tensions elsewhere in Indonesia.
Since the overthrow of President Suharto last May, Indonesia has been in a state of intense political mobilization leading up to the national elections in June. Not surprisingly, a number of groups across Indonesia are exploiting the old "primordial ties" of ethnicity, religion, language and kinship for political purposes. However, the political and socio-cultural dynamics behind these tensions are often fundamentally different.
The violence in Ambon, and last week's brutal attacks by the indigenous Dayak (mostly animist or Christian) tribesmen against predominately Muslim Madurese settlers in West Kalimantan, for example, should be regarded as very different in character from the ethnic and religious tensions observable in other parts of the country, particularly those involving Chinese-Indonesians in the major cities. To lump them together as if all "religious conflicts" or "racial antagonisms" are basically the same is a gross oversimplification. The intensity of violent outbreaks of rioting and of the antagonisms behind them vary considerably from one part of Indonesia to another -- as do the all- important countervailing forces dampening them.
That said, the outbreaks of ethnic violence in Ambon, West Kalimantan and Indonesia's major cities certainly have common elements. The victimized groups often include relatively recent settlers who are perceived as threatening by the original inhabitants. In West Kalimantan and Ambon, for example, the recent settlers happen to be Muslims. These Muslim settlers are in the minority (an unusual situation in predominately Muslim Indonesia), hence vulnerable to attack if law and order breaks down at a time of great hardship.
The violence against the settlers lends itself readily to television reporting, providing images which seize attention but rarely are accompanied by deeper analysis. This can easily create a misleading impression that Indonesia is a seething cauldron of racial hatreds. The prospect of an independent East Timor and secessionist demands in Irian Jaya, Aceh and elsewhere also conjure up alarming parallels with Bosnia or the breakup of the Soviet Union. But the reality is very different.
While there are abundant grounds for concern about the possibility of ethnic and religious conflict in the run-up to the national elections in June, in fact there have been surprisingly few such outbreaks over the last few months. Even the total number of deaths from all the rioting and goon-squad killings during the turbulent first eight months after the change of government last May is considerably less than commonly imagined; it has been estimated at less than 600 by one well-placed Indonesian observer.
There is always a danger that tensions between rival groups might flare up into fights, rioting and looting, which can easily take on a highly combustible anti-Chinese aspect and flicker across the country. But the major party leaders are highly aware of that, as are the security authorities. They know they must try to restrain their more hot-headed followers in present circumstances, since any breakdown in law and order could have disastrously unpredictable results, which could also be electorally counter-productive for them.
The conflict in Ambon is not about whether the island should or should not be a part of Indonesia. According to Peter Mares of Radio Australia, who has covered Indonesia extensively for many years, what we are witnessing in Ambon is "a conflict between people who have lived side-by-side for centuries, people who share largely the same ethnicity, the same culture and tradition, and who are divided only by their religious beliefs." Yet a trivial incident on January 19, the Muslim holy day of Idul Fitri, involving a Christian bus driver and a Muslim who sought money from him, erupted into a clash of communal violence that has torn apart that society and the social harmony that once prevailed there.
Ambon, like West Kalimantan, is one of the few places in Indonesia where Christians (mainly Protestants) are in the majority, albeit now an increasingly narrow one. The Ambonese were Christianized in the 19th century when the Dutch colonial army recruited large numbers of the local population and provided access to missionary schools and a Christian education. Ambonese Muslims, on the other hand, are relative newcomers to the area. The conflict in Ambon is not a case where "Muslim fanaticism" -- that hoary Western fantasy and cliche -- is at the heart of the problem, but one where the Muslims have been very much on the defensive and are now fleeing in large numbers on any ships available.
The violence in Ambon cannot be attributed to any one underlying cause. Christians and Muslims have been living in close proximity and reasonable harmony for a long time, well over a century in the case of Muslim immigrants from Buton island and many decades in that of the (Muslim) Bugis and Makassar people from southern Sulawesi. But the latter have been arriving in increasing numbers in recent years and have taken over many of the island's more desirable informal-sector jobs, such as market-stall holders, pedicab drivers and laborers, which are the lower rungs on the ladder toward economic advancement.
During the boom years, Muslim immigrants posed no great problem. But resentment against them mounted when the economic crisis of 1997-98 began to hurt local communities. More seriously, senior jobs in the government service, which previously were dominated by the better-educated Christian elite of Ambon, have been taken over by Muslims, causing much anxiety among the Christian community. So a tinder box of resentments has been building up, while some of the traditional intercommunal bridging mechanisms which helped to maintain religious and ethnic harmony in the past have been eroding.
But that alone might not have been enough to provoke violence on the scale seen in Ambon since January had it not been for a serious clash between Muslims and Ambonese Christians in Jakarta last November in which a number of the latter were killed. According to a survey conducted by Sidney Jones of Asia-Watch New York, who recently visited Ambon, last November's violence against Ambonese led to a sharp build-up of tensions on the island. It was then, says Mr. Jones, that Ambonese Christians and Muslims began strengthening their communications networks through their churches and mosques in anticipation of any repetition of such outbreaks locally.
The Indonesian army has sent additional troops to Ambon, but they face a difficult task in convincing the local population that they will be even-handed in maintaining order under such volatile circumstances. Ultimately it must be the Ambonese people who restore peace, but that will not be easy. The greatest danger is that localized fighting will trigger a chain reaction of further ethnic or religious violence in other parts of the country. Viewing attacks on Muslims as solely religious in nature, extremists in other parts of the country may begin calling for revenge against Christians.
Fortunately, payback attacks on Christians in Jakarta, which many had feared soon after the Idul Fitri violence in Ambon, have not occurred. But with so much highly combustible tinder scattered around Indonesia, sparks of any kind could lead to an explosive situation.
James Mackie is professor emeritus at the Australian National University and a visiting professor at the Melbourne Business School.]
John McBeth in Jakarta and Dini Djalal in Ambon -- Ambon has long been a tragedy waiting to happen. Ever since Indonesia became independent 50 years ago, a tradition of nonviolence, known as pela gandong, had kept a tenuous peace between Muslims and Christians. But beneath the veneer of religious tranquillity, migration from other parts of Indonesia had changed the demographic balance and awakened centuries-old enmities. The Moluccan island was ready to explode -- and in mid-January it did.
Ironically, though, the spark may have been lit weeks before and 2,400 kilometres away in Ketapang, a crime-ridden nightclub district in the northern part of Jakarta.
On November 22, bloody religious riots in Ketapang claimed at least 14 lives. Moving to quell the unrest, Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso, a two-star general, ordered the removal of more than 200 suspected troublemakers -- mostly Christians from Ambon. Three weeks later, in mid-December, they were shipped back to their birthplace in eastern Indonesia.
Tragically, police intelligence sources now say, Sutiyoso's well-intentioned move to reduce tensions in his own bailiwick may have inadvertently triggered the time bomb in Ambon. "The governor thought it would solve the problem," says a police intelligence officer in Jakarta who's familiar with events surrounding the deportation. "But he didn't realize what the consequences would be. The Ambonese who were sent back provoked trouble in what had been peaceful neighbourhoods." (After agreeing to an interview, Sutiyoso later said he was too busy to meet.)
By official counts, at least 180 people have been killed in Ambon since a January 19 street brawl between a Christian bus driver and a Muslim passenger escalated into some of the worst religious bloodshed in Indonesian history. Privately, police say the death toll could be over 1,000 -- matching that of ethnic violence between Dayaks and Madurese in West Kalimantan in 1995.
Not only does the level of polarization in Ambon defy solution, but the violence there is stoking religious tensions in the bigger population centres of Java and Sulawesi. Thousands of people, most of them Muslims who had settled in Ambon, are returning to Sulawesi to escape the violence, raising fears that the trouble could next spread there.
Indeed, Ambon's crisis has major implications for communal relations across Indonesia, says Sidney Jones, director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch and an Indonesia specialist. In the Muslim community, she says, some preachers and politicians see in Ambon evidence that Islam is under siege by a Christian minority resentful of its declining influence. For their part, Indonesian Christians regard the bloodletting as another sign of their crumbling position in a Muslim-majority state.
That disturbing mix could feed into the campaign for the June general election. Many of the 48 political parties are relying on Islamic imagery to attract voters, in a way that was never allowed under former President Suharto. "I feel very pessimistic about relations between the two communities," says Father Jan van de Made, 62, who spent 30 years in the Moluccan islands before moving to Jakarta. "There's a lot of irresponsible talk which is firing up the people to dangerous levels."
Efforts by Muslim and Christian leaders to heal the widening religious rift have so far had little impact, largely because Islam has no central authority in Indonesia. Despite their genuine goodwill, Muslim figures such as Abdurrahman Wahid and Amien Rais have been powerless to prevent individual ulemas (Islamic preachers), as well as politicians and student groups, from calling for a holy war against Christians, who make up only 11 million of Indonesia's 203 million people.
Long-time observers agree that Ambon was never the haven of religious harmony portrayed by the government. When Indonesia won independence from the Dutch in 1949, Christian separatists in Ambon sought to break away from the new republic, forming their own Republic of the South Moluccas. In doing so, they left a legacy of bitterness by burning several Muslim villages -- the same villages that have figured prominently in the current conflict.
The post-independence years saw an influx of devoutly Muslim migrants, mostly ethnic Butonese, Bugis and Makassarese from the island of Sulawesi. Aggressive and business-savvy, the Bugis took over Ambon's commercial life, and over time the new settlers ate away at Christian dominance. When an Ambonese Muslim became governor of the island in the early 1990s, Christians began to fear that their traditional place in the civil service and the police was also under threat.
Father van de Made recalls that his years in Ambon were punctuated by periods of high tension between Christians and Muslims, mostly over interreligious marriages and village boundary disputes. But he says that thanks to pela gandong -- an unwritten creed of nonviolence, imported from the neighbouring islands of Haruku, Saparua and Nusa Laut -- they never came to blows.
Others question whether pela gandong ever really worked during times of crisis. Today, it clearly is not -- and it's difficult to imagine how peace will be restored. In often panicky scenes at Ambon's ports, more than 75,000 Bugis have flooded back to Sulawesi to avoid clashes between Ambonese Christian and Muslim mobs wielding spears and machetes. The fighting persists despite the presence of 6,000 police and troops. "It will take a generation before it can be solved because the atmosphere is now so poisonous," says Marcus Mietzner, a scholar at Australian National University who has studied the origins of the Ambon conflict. "They will have to separate the two groups as they did in Bosnia, otherwise it will be a mess."
Father van de Made, who saw his parish church in Jakarta vandalized during the Ketapang riots, doubts whether even that will work in Ambon. "In practical everyday life, you can't segregate people in such a small place. And sending them back to their home islands isn't really an option either. Frankly, I just can't see any solution."
Mietzner blames the rapid deterioration of the situation in Ambon on the erosion of central authority and, in particular, the failure of the armed forces to act more promptly. "When there were problems in 1994-95," he recalls, "the military would go in, take the troublemakers out by the truckload and give them a course in discipline. This time it didn't happen." In other trouble spots, the military has often allowed riots to run their course, then moved in when the momentum faltered. If that was the strategy in Ambon, it failed miserably.
Jones of Human Rights Watch and others say one of the worst mistakes was the early decision to send in an Army Strategic Reserve (Kostrad) battalion from Ujung Pandang, the capital of South Sulawesi. Given its origins in that strongly Muslim province, Christians were quickly convinced the unit was there to support the Muslims -- and there is evidence it did just that. On the other side of the coin, however, the Christians who dominate the local police and army territorial units appear likewise to have sided with their religious brethren.
Indonesia's armed-forces commander, Gen. Wiranto, has since fired the Ambon police chief, a Javanese, and ordered the withdrawal of the Sulawesi troops. In addition to two other battalions and a 1,100-strong riot-intervention force already in Ambon, he has recently deployed a further 3,000 troops from the Surabaya-based 1st Marine Brigade and two Kostrad battalions from East and Central Java. Wiranto has also sent 18 of the army's top Ambonese officers to the island to shore up morale.
"We're exhausted," sighs a soldier at Ahuru, a recently razed village now divided into Muslim and Christian sectors. The troops, a mixture of Ambonese Christians and Javanese Muslims, stand in the narrow buffer zone, where stray poison-tipped arrows sometimes land. They watch houses burn in the valley beneath the village and keep a wary eye on gangs armed with spears and sickles.
Ahuru and other battlegrounds have become the source of legend. Stories abound of disembowelled pregnant women and mutilated priests, revving up fear and resentment and swelling the ranks of thousands of refugees already sheltering in mosques, churches and army posts. At the Al-Fatah mosque, a sanctuary for 300 terrified and homeless people, Muslim leader Mohamad Jusuf Ely talks of forgiveness, but in the same breath mutters: "I pray every day that those who burned my house will be punished."
Ely says Muslims in Java and Sumatra call him daily. At first they offered food and financial aid. Now they're promising "warriors" as well. With radical Muslims intensifying their protests over the central government's failure to control the situation, a South Jakarta mosque recently called on Muslims to sign up for jihad, or holy war. "Our brothers are being killed. Of course we're serious," says Eggi Sudjana, the hardline leader of the 600,000-strong Muslim Workers' Brotherhood Union.
Remarks like this are setting Indonesia's Christian minority on edge and eroding attendance at Van de Made's Catholic church -- still under repair after a mob used wooden pews and a pile of Bibles in an attempt to set it alight in November. Not all Muslims think alike on the issue, however. "Sudjana just makes Islam look worse," says Mohamad Hikam, a researcher at the Indonesia Institute of Social Sciences. Hikam believes that Sudjana, a firebrand unionist and one-time ally of Prabowo Subianto, the now-disgraced commander of Indonesia's special forces, is seizing on the Ambon riots to win votes in the coming elections.
Many Indonesians blame the Ambon tragedy on a wider political conspiracy. "People were calling us from Java and Sumatra and saying there will be war," says Father Martin Liang of Ambon's Silo Protestant church. Indeed, across the bay from the provincial capital, the Muslim hamlet of Waylete was razed by Christians days before the riots began, fuelling tensions in the city. In neighbouring Hative Besar, also destroyed, the village's only Christian was warned there would be trouble and escaped in time.
Ambon Governor Saleh Latuconsina sees these incidents as evidence that provocateurs are behind the violence. "They want the trouble to spread to other areas," he says. (A Muslim aristocrat, Latuconsina took up his post last June, shortly after Suharto's resignation. Ambonese Christians argue that by appointing him to replace another member of his extended family, Jakarta was affirming its policy of sidelining Christians and keeping them out of local-government jobs.)
The riots in Ambon have strengthened the widely held conviction that the communal clashes erupting around the country are the work of either Suharto and his family and supporters, or disgruntled officers loyal to Lt.-Gen. Prabowo. All of these parties have denied the charges. But even Lt.-Gen. Bambang Yudhoyono, chief of staff for territorial affairs, has lent some credence to the idea of a plot. "Aside from local problems, it seems there is a network at the national level which is trying to create a chaotic situation," he told Tempo, a local newsweekly, in early March.
Muslim leader Wahid, who heads the Nahdlatul Ulama, an organization with 30 million members, has indirectly laid the blame for the Ambon riots on two men: Yorrys Raweyai, the Irianese-Chinese leader of a thugs-for-hire group called Pemuda Pancasila, and Maj.-Gen. Kivlan Zein, who was removed from his post as Kostrad chief of staff last year because of his close connections to Prabowo.
But in the absence of proof, Wahid's penchant for name games and other verbal antics is bringing his credibility into question. Kivlan, a rightist Muslim officer with links to Sudjana, the militant unionist, and other radical Islamic groups, recently confronted Wahid at his South Jakarta home, later dismissing him as a "verbal terrorist." And while police summoned Yorrys for questioning in the early days of the Ambon riots, they don't appear to have taken their investigation any further.
Some of the finger-pointing is understandable. Police sources say many of the thugs deported after the Ketapang riots came from three Ambonese gangs -- two Christian and one mostly Muslim -- operating in northern and western Jakarta.
Significantly, the gang members also serve as foot soldiers for Pemuda Pancasila, which has close ties to the police and special forces. Indeed, three ex-special forces soldiers were among the 180 people arrested at the time of the Ketapang riots. Two other figures are said by police sources to be prominent in Jakarta's crime-infested northern suburbs: Yapto Soelistyo Soeryosoemarno, another leading Pemuda Pancasila figure, and Hercules, an East Timorese who's described as having "one arm, one eye and no heart." Both are said to have long-established military connections.
Allegations that Suharto's supporters are behind the Ambon bloodshed and other outbreaks of unrest stem largely from the fact that Yorrys and Yapto, in particular, have been close to the former president's family. Pemuda Pancasila, a rag-tag militia who often sport orange and black fatigues, was frequently used by Suharto's regime when strong-arm tactics were called for -- as in a 1996 attack on offices of the Indonesian Democratic Party, aimed at dislodging supporters of opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri. Jones of Human Rights Watch also draws ties between the leaders of the Ambonese gangs and Suharto family members.
Western intelligence specialists say many so-called black operations require surprisingly little planning if the right ingredients are in place. But the lack of any solid evidence so far makes it difficult to prove there's a conspiracy aimed at, for example, disrupting the June parliamentary elections.
But whether the violence in Ambon was premeditated or spontaneous, it reached the proportions it did only because the situation there was already explosive, says Jones. She writes in a lengthy mid-March report: "More than any other communal incident that has taken place around Indonesia, the civil war in Ambon has ripped apart the notion of Indonesia as a society tolerant of all faiths."
Christine T. Tjandraningsih -- The ongoing economic crisis that has plagued Indonesia since the middle of 1997 has left children hungry in the country, with at least 610 reported to have died in recent months from malnutrition, international organizations said Tuesday.
"UNICEF is extremely concerned about the deteriorating nutritional situation affecting ... infants and very young children," Stephen Woodhouse, resident staff member of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told a press conference.
Woodhouse said the 610 is the "reported figure, so in reality, there must be more. For every child who dies due to severe malnutrition, there are nine who die due to the mild or moderate unseen forms," he added.
Martin Bloem, director of the Hellen Keller International for Southeast Asia, said the economic crisis in Indonesia has resulted in lower intakes of animal products and a decrease in health services, increasing cases of malnutrition and diarrhea.
These, in turn, have led to more deaths of children under five, he said. "You will lose one generation if you can't act," Bloem said.
UNICEF also expressed concern about the root causes of the worsening nutritional situation. "Of particular danger is the steady reduction in savings and sale of assets ... which clearly represents a 'coping mechanism' for the numerous families whose income has declined," Woodhouse said.
"Poor people who now make up a very substantial proportion of Indonesia's total population are selling assets and spending savings in order to buy necessities," he said.
A study conducted by the Helen Keller International shows that Indonesian households without savings have increased 10 to 15% in every social group from mid-1997 levels.
The two international organizations shared the view that urban areas throughout the country and the island of Java as a whole are the worst affected by the crisis.
To help cope with the situation,
UNICEF plans to sell 9 million packages of red rice at highly-subsidized
prices through 11,000 integrated health and service posts in 2,500 villages.
| Aceh/West Papua |
Desmond Wrightm, Banda Aceh -- Indonesia's president on Friday apologised to the restive province of Aceh for years of human rights abuses, as thousands of protesters demanding self-rule clashed with police and soldiers.
Hospitals said 111 people were injured, eight seriously, in clashes between protesters and security forces. Three people had been shot.
"I deliver an apology for what has been done by the security forces, by accident or deliberately, to all the people of Aceh," President B.J. Habibie said during Friday prayers.
"Especially the excesses that occurred," he added to polite applause from a crowd of 6,000 inside and outside the main mosque in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.
Indonesia's military led mass human rights abuses during a nine-year crackdown on separatists in the staunchly Moslem region at the northern tip of Sumatra island.
While Habibie spoke, protesters carrying placards and wearing headbands pushed against a security cordon some 50 metres from the Baiturahman mosque. "Through a referendum our problem will be solved," one banner read.
In response to a question whether Aceh could have a referendum, Habibie replied: "Let parliament decide." Police fired warning shots and used tear gas to control the crowd ahead of Habibie's arrival in Banda Aceh, some 1,700 km northwest of Jakarta.
The crowd dispersed but gathered again after Habibie left, prompting security forces to fire more warning shots and tear gas. Calm had returned by evening.
Habibie called on Aceh to work with the rest of Indonesia to solve the country's problems and not to support separatism.
Indonesia recently agreed at the United Nations to allow another trouble spot, the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, to have a direct ballot to decide its own future.
"We don't want a future in a cage. We want a better future," Habibie said. "Don't use this reform era to support unhelpful things such as separatist movements, because it is a betrayal of our heroes who died for independence.
"Don't listen to rumours and calls for disintegration because if we do listen it will be a disaster." Promises for development programmes for the resource-rich province were greeted with groans. There is widespread resentment that Aceh's oil and gas wealth is siphoned off by Jakarta.
This week, Habibie ordered the release of 40 Acehnese political prisoners, some convicted of belonging to the separatist Free Aceh Movement, amid calls for him to cancel the visit.
Once a thorn in the side of Dutch colonial rulers, the province of around 3.5 million people flared up again in the late 1980s when the separatist movement resurfaced after being dormant for more than a decade.
Since the downfall of autocratic former president Suharto 10 months ago, demands for independence have grown in Aceh.
"We want them to choose what they want -- autonomy, a federal country or independence," said Islammudin, a protest organiser.
The demands have been echoed in other parts of the giant archipelago, where a crushing economic recession has sparked some of the most savage unrest in Indonesia's history.
Jakarta -- Hundreds of Indonesian youth rallied outside the United Nations office in Jakarta on Monday demanding independence for the troubled Aceh province, witnesses said.
The noisy demonstration by 200 members of Student Solidarity for Aceh comes five days ahead of a visit to the separatist- plagued province by Indonesian President B.J. Habibie.
The protestors, who spilled onto the streets of Jakarta's main Thamrin business district, shouted that the province could no longer accept human rights and economic abuses from the central government.
"Referendum is the best choice for Aceh," read one poster. "Long live Hasan Tiro," another read. Tiro is the leader of the Free Aceh movement to establish a independent Islamic state, now living in exile in Sweden.
The Indonesian military has come under sharp criticism for human rights violations, including murders and rape, in Aceh during its recently ended 10 years of virtual military rule.
"Aceh has been colonized by its fellow countrymen for dozens of years," one protester said. "Aceh contributes 10 trillion rupiah (1.1 billion dollars) each year to the central government and yet the people remain poor," the student added.
Around 20 fully armed anti-riot troops watched the students from across the boulevard but made no move to break up the demonstration.
Jakarta -- Scores of Indonesians from 54 of the archipelago's different ethnic groups, many in native costume, rallied at the national parliament here Monday to demand more control of their lands and respect for their birthright.
The ethnic groups, united under a name they adopted at a landmark week-long conference -- The Alliance of the Indigenous People of the Archipelago -- said they had been "marginalized," "colonized" and their lands and natural wealth taken over by the central government.
The group was at first blocked at the locked back gate of parliament and surrounded by 50 anti-riot troops before nine of their representatives were let in.
"We have been colonialized for the past 30 years and yet it is so difficult for us to meet with the government," screamed one participant at the troops who surrounded them.
"It is so easy for the government to steal from the provinces," he said referring to long-standing grievances over the wealth from mines and oil fields, forests and fisheries on their lands going to the central government.
The group had earlier said they wanted to present MPs with a declaration which they issued late Sunday.
In the manifesto the group said that long before Indonesia was declared a nation state (in 1945), the indigenous people had developed their "own systems of organization" and that the state "must respect the sovereignty of the indigenous people."
Because of the diversity, there is "no place for a uniform state policy" it said.
At the conference, held in a Jakarta hotel, the group which included Papuans from Irian Jaya and Dayaks from Indonesian Borneo, said some 200 ethnic groups had been "systematically victimized in the name of economic development."
The group also said they wanted the question of indigenous rights to figure in general elections June 7, the first since the fall of former president Suharto.
Some of the representatives have warned that separatist movements would flourish if the government did not listen to their grievances.
Jakarta -- Two Indonesian soldiers believed to have been abducted by separatists in the troubled province of Aceh have been found dead following the arrest of one of the alleged killers, a report said Tuesday.
The bodies of the two soldiers, identified as Major Edianto Abbas and Second Sergeant Syarifuddin, were found in a single grave on Monday in the Muara Dua sub district, North Aceh, the Kompas daily said.
They were still wearing the same military fatigues they had been wearing when they disappeared on December 28, the daily said.
The killing of several soldiers and the abduction of the two officers sparked a massive military operation to free those abducted and to capture members of the rebel movements. The operation has left scores killed and wounded.
The bodies were found following the arrest of an alleged leader of the separatist movement, identified as Sulaiman, who admitted to his questioners later that he had taken part in the killing of the two soldiers whom they had abducted.
The Antara news agency said Sulaiman also revealed the location of the grave where the two officers were buried.
Sulaiman, whom the military claim is the regional commander of the Free Aceh Movement, was arrested with an M-16 gun, 140 bullets and a list of persons to be killed, Antara said.
He was shot in the leg as he resisted arrest while his car was stopping at a local petrol station, Antara said.
The two soldiers were abducted after being ambushed by the rebel group while traveling with several other off-duty soldiers. Seven soldiers in the group were killed on the spot.
Meanwhile, North Aceh military chief Colonel Johnny Wahab has called on the people to hand over their weapons to the military, the agency said.
The Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh) movement, led by Hasan Tiro, who is now in exile in Sweden, has been fighting for an independent Islamic state in Aceh since the 1970s and its activities surged in the late 1980s.
Thousands of students from a number of universities took part in a demonstration outside the local assembly building in Banda Aceh denouncing President Habibie's visit to Aceh and calling for a referendum. They arrived at the assembly in convoys of vehicles.
The size of the demonstration swelled as many passers-by joined in the protest. The student demonstration was seen as a "show of force", to challenge the show of force mounted on the previous by the security forces who parading through the city on army vehicles in preparation for the president's visit (which is due on 26 March).
Students who addressed the demonstration stressed that Habibie was not welcome because his visit would not help resolve the problems confronted by the people of Aceh.
Syarifuddin, chair of the student senate of IAIN Ar-Raniry, also called on people not to attend Friday prayers at the Baiturrahman Mosque where Habibie will attend Friday prayers and hold a dialogue with the community. The students were urged to attend an alternative Friday prayer meeting at the Unsyiah campus followed by a sermon on holding a referendum.
Should any student take part in the dialogue with Habibie, it should be clearly understood that this person does not represent Acehnese students.
Another speaker said it was sacrilege for the president to use the mosque for political theatricals to advance his own election prospects.
One of the president's close advisers has admitted that Habibie is well aware that he will be confronted by student actions when he visits Aceh.
Meanwhile in Medan, dozens of students representing many colleges and universities have joined in setting up a Student Front in Support of a Referendum in Aceh. In a statement issued on 23 March, the Front described the problems confronting Aceh as being a compound of economic, legal, social and cultural issues. The conduct of the armed forces towards the people of Aceh which has resulted in a huge number of casualties inevitably led to a surge of support for independence among all sections of the population.
The Front also says that the issues confronting North Sumatra are different. It says that the provincial governor should immediately declare a transition and transform all state companies in the province into regional companies. If these demands are not met, it may well mean that North Sumatra will seek its freedom.
The students said that they
would conduct further actions in the future in which a much larger number
of students will participate.
| Human Rights/Law |
Jakarta -- Indonesia will release 10 ageing political prisoners, including ex-Colonel Abdul Latief, all sentenced to death more than 30 years ago for alleged involvement in the 1965 coup, Justice Minister Muladi said Wednesday.
Muladi said the release was "intended to speed up the process of national reconciliation, which requires legal efforts, by giving amnesty to prisoners who are serving sentences.
"They are released because they have shown good conduct and because of other humanitarian considerations, such as their ages and deteriorating health conditions." he said.
"One of the reasons for their release is that during their detention they have shown good conduct," Muladi said after meeting President B.J. Habibie.
Latief, 73, was accused of taking part in the murder of six generals during the coup, which was blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). He was at first sentenced to death but the penalty was later commuted to life imprisonment.
In an interview with AFP in Jakarta's Cipinang jail last year, Latief claimed that ex-president Suharto, who rose to power in the aftermath of the coup had some foreknowledge of what was going to happen.
Immediately after the coup, Suharto banned the PKI, then the world's second largest communist party after China, and all communist teachings.
A subsequent purge of suspected communists and their supporters left 500,000 dead by official admission and millions imprisoned.
Suharto rose to power the same year after sidelining the then president Sukarno and assumed the presidency in 1968.
"He had already agreed [with the plan to round up the generals] and if he had already agreed he should have informed the Pangab (the then-armed forces commander General Ahmad Yani who was one of those killed)," Latief said.
Asked why he had taken part in the murder of the generals, Latief replied: "I followed orders because of the military code and not because I was a communist."
Muladi said the 10 would all have to pledge their allegiance to the state ideology Pancasila and the constitution by signing a loyalty pledge.
The oldest of those to be released was born in 1923 while the youngest is 52 years old. Latief suffered a stroke in 1997 and several of the others on the release list are understood to be bed-ridden.
The nine others to be freed were named as ex-Master Sergeant Bungkus, Sergeant Major Marsudi bin Marzuki, Asep Suryaman, Natanael Marsudi, Sri Suharjo, Isnanto, Buyung Ketek, Markus Giroth and Sijo.
Geneva -- Chinese women raped during last year's disturbances in Indonesia have been threatened in order to shut them up, a United Nations investigator reported Wednesday.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, special reporter to the UN human rights commission, said she was convinced despite police denials that there were mass rapes including gang rapes during the riots.
The Indonesian army had only rarely intervened against violence towards the Chinese minority, she said.
None of the 85 victims of sexual assault including 52 rape cases, with whom the special reporter spoke during an investigation in Indonesia, had filed charges, she said in her report on violence against women submitted Wednesday to the UN human rights panel's annual session here.
The victims had received death threats and anonymous letters warning them against filing charges. They had also received photographs of their own rapes, accompanied by a warning that the pictures would be widely distributed if the women dared to speak up, Coomaraswamy added.
The reporter called on the authorities at the highest level in Indonesia to introduce a witness protection programme, and have those who had allegedly issued the threats brought to book.
"Otherwise the legitimate process of politics and governance will always be subverted by shadowy forces who rule civil society through the use of terror," Mrs Coomaraswamy insisted.
She described how certain officials in Indonesia had made light of the threatening letters even although 17-year-old Ita Martadinata Haryonu, daughter of a women's rights activist, had been brutally murdered at her home in Djakarta after receiving death threats and anonymous letters.
The reporter said she had been unable to establish exactly how many women had been raped during the violence in Indonesia which culminated in the resignation of President Suharto.
"The Chinese community appears to be terrorised by the events," she added. According to the non-governmental organisation Volunteers for Humanitarian Causes, 1,190 were killed in Djakarta and 168 women were the victims of gang rapes.
Jakarta - President B.J. Habibie has granted amnesty to 42 political prisoners accused of subversion. Two of them were involved in the Candi Borobudur bombing case, Hasbi Abdullah and Husein Ali Al Habsyi, and the other 40 people in subversion cases in Aceh.
The Minister of Justice, Muladi, told the press that in two days ten political prisoners involved in the G30S/PKI (1) affair would be given amnesty by the government. However the government was unable to give amnesty to People's Democratic Party (PRD) activists. "I think for the moment, not the PRD. Those who were offered freedom rejected it. This caused problems", explained the Minister (2).
The eight PRD members who are still behind bars are Budiman Sudjatmiko, Garda Sembiring, Ign Damianus Pranowo, J Eko Kurniawan, Suroso, Petrus Haryanto, IGAA Astika (Cipinang Prison), and Dita Indah Sari (Tangerang Women's Prison).
There are ten G30S/PKI who are being held in prisons in Cipinang, Gunungsari, Padang, Pamekasan and Medan. Most of them are around 70 years old and ill. They are Abdul Latief (72), Bungkus (72), N Marsudi (75), Asep Suryaman (74), Markus Girot (77), Sido (75), Buyung Ketek (73), Sri Soehardjo (76), Soma Soerjabrata (76) and Isnanto (78).
Some time ago 180 people were released followed by these 42, leaving 20 still in jail. Muladi did not say if all political prisoners would be granted amnesty. According to Muladi, forty of those released were involved in the Free Aceh Movement.
With regard to the amnesty for the 40 Acehenese prisoners, Muladi said it had no relationship with President Habibie's plans to visit Aceh on March 26. "The decision to go to Aceh was made mid last month while these releases was proposed to months ago. Certainly we will let them out before Pak Habibie departs. Some while [he is] in Aceh. I think that an atmosphere of reconciliation, a conducive atmosphere needs to be created so that Pak Habibie [is no seen to be all] empty talk. However if you want to [suggest there is] a link, it's up to you", said Muladi.
He also said that the releases were not linked to international pressure. "We have never [released political prisoners because of] international pressure. This is the process of reform, an interaction of the international and the internal. But what is important is the political will to respond to national issues", explained Muladi.
Muladi raised the issue of the armed forces repeatedly making it difficult to release political prisoners. But said it would not be possible for them to released without agreement from the armed forces headquarters. "So the chief of the armed forces and his officers agree with these releases. Don't view the armed forces as a blockage. They could not possibly be released with out the agreement of the armed forces headquarters, the Supreme Court and the Public Prosecutor. This was a joint decision", he said.
Translator's notes:
| News & Issues |
Jakarta -- A son of former Indonesian president Suharto will stand trial next month for his suspected involvement in a multi- million dollar land scam, reports said Wednesday.
The dossier on Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, Suharto's youngest son, was handed to the South Jakarta district court Tuesday by a public prosecutor, the state Antara news agency said.
"I think a trial for this case will be held in early April because we have to appoint members of the judge first," head of South Jakarta court J.A. Situru was quoted as saying Tuesday. The court will also try other suspects in the case -- former chairman of the National Logistics Agency, Beddu Amang, and businessman Ricardo Gelael, a close business associate and car racing partner of Hutomo.
The trial is expected to hear 46 witnesses, including three Suharto-era ministers, the Republika daily said.
Fachmi, the prosecutor who handed over Hutomo's dossier to the court, was quoted by Antara as saying that he and the two other suspects would be accused of corruption that caused the state to suffer losses, a charge that carries a maximum jail sentence of 20 years.
Hutomo was officially declared a suspect and questioned in November over the scam, revolving around a 1997 real estate swap deal involving Bulog and a private company, Goro.
The deal allowed Goro, 40 percent-owned by Hutomo and Ricardo Gelael, to build a retail centre on a large Bulog tract of land in an affluent residential area in North Jakarta.
But Goro failed to keep its side of the bargain by giving some 63 hectares of land to the logistics agency, which resulted in an estimated loss of 52.5 billion rupiah (seven million dollars) to Bulog. Officials have said the trial of Amang and Gelael would open on April 5.
Raissa Robles in Manila and Vaudine England in Jakarta -- About 600 Indonesian rebels have just finished training at a Muslim separatist camp in the southern Philippines, the Philippine military claimed yesterday.
Extremist Muslims have been rumoured by some Indonesian observers to be behind religious unrest which has erupted throughout the Indonesian archipelago since the downfall of former president Suharto last May.
The military chief of Philippine Muslim rebel group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Al Haj Murad, branded the leaked three-page military intelligence report "all lies and lies".
But claims of a connection between radical Muslim groups in Indonesia and their counterparts in the Philippines did not surprise experienced observers in Jakarta yesterday.
The leaked military intelligence report claimed "the military training is allegedly in preparation for their planned declaration of holy war or 'jihad' against the Indonesian Government, which they deem to be veering away from pure Islamic practices".
It identified the group as the underground Indonesian Islamic Liberation Front, headed by Muhammad Salib Sulayman.
Members of the group recently completed four months of guerilla warfare training inside the main separatist base, Camp Abubakar, in central Mindanao, it added. The whereabouts of the rebels was not made clear.
The military had raised an alarm over the proliferation of undocumented Indonesians on the southern island of Mindanao, which it estimated at more than 6,000. But the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation in Davao City had managed to count only 161.
Murad said his group had not trained any Indonesian fighters. "They have their own struggle," he said. "We are fighting our own fight, although we have one thing in common, that is to establish a real independent Islamic state."
A group with a similar name to that of the reported group has been discussed in military circles in Indonesia, but "only at the level of rumour", one source in Jakarta said yesterday. Few others have heard of the group mentioned as undergoing training in the southern Philippines.
But no one was surprised
that such an armed group might exist. "There have been several reports
of arms making their way from there to here, from Mindanao to Indonesia,"
a separate source said.
| Economy and investment |
Jakarta -- Indonesia's struggling privatization program suffered another setback Monday, when the government said it won't complete three key sales this fiscal year.
The State Enterprises Ministry said in a statement the sale of a stake in PT Indonesia Satellite Corp., gold and nickel miner PT Aneka Tambang and the management contract for Jakarta's Soekarno Hatta International Airport have been put off to the next fiscal year, starting April 1.
The ministry said it expects the sale of the strategic stake in the international call operator Indosat to be completed in July this year. More time is needed, the ministry said, to draw up a clear regulatory framework for the telecommunications sector.
In addition, the Ministry of Communications will issue new telecommunications licenses to both PT Telkom, the domestic call carrier, and Indosat. Details of the new licenses will be available once the blueprint is finished.
The sale of Aneka Tambang will be delayed to August. The ministry said the government is in the process of modifying the privatization structure in line with the continuing corporate restructuring of Aneka Tambang.
As for the privatization of the Jakarta airport manager Angkasa Pura II, the government has deferred the final bid deadline to April 20, from March 26, to clarify regulatory issues.
The government expects to strike a deal "as soon as a definitive agreement has been reached" on the Jakarta International Container Terminal of PT Pelabuhan Indonesia II (Pelindo II). Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. is the preferred bidder in the deal.
The government said discussions with the preferred bidder for Terminal Peti Kemas Surabaya of PT Pelabuhan Indonesia III should begin shortly.
So far the government only has raised about $380 million in its privatization drive to raise $1 billion by the end of March.
It sold a 14% stake in cement maker PT Semen Gresik to Mexico's Cemex SA for $121 million and a 10.2% stake in PT Indofood Sukses Makmur for $59 million and will get possibly $200 million for the container port Pelindo II.