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ASIET Net News 13 – March 29-April 4, 1999
| Democratic struggle |
[The following is a speech written by jailed chairperson of the People's Democratic Party (PRD), Budiman Sudjatmiko which was read at the "Grand Launch" of the PRD on March 21 in Jakarta.]
Comrades in struggle, leaders and members of the PRD,
"I can see clearly, though not completely, so that the darkness will slowly but surely clear away" - Cornel Simanjuntak
I have quoted this verse from our composer of songs of struggle, Cornel Simanjuntak, because this poem accurately depicted the situation of the struggle of the Indonesian nation at the beginning of its independence. It depicts clearly a period of transition, from the darkness of colonial occupation towards the light of freedom. This was a period pregnant with hopes for a new state of freedom, yet at the same time confronted the Indonesian nation with challenges and uncertainties. This is the situation I detect again as we enter what is now referred to as the era of "reformasi".
Even though I am behind bars, I can still see the reality unfolding outside the prison walls.
A transition period
I prefer to call this period now, a transition period. At least this term is closer to reality than some rhetorical term that entraps us in overblown illusions. Like many periods of transition in other countries, both in the past and in contemporary times, the period of transition that we are now experiencing is characterised by an uncertain and dark climate. Everything is possible, both for the better or for the worse. But if we make sure we are properly prepared, then there will be more opportunities for the better.
And what makes me most happy is that our party has proved that it is a legitimate child born in the womb of this period of transition. During this whole period we have experienced defeats, both large and small, and also victories, large and small. And if we review the victories we have won and also look to the victories of the future, we will realise humbly that these were all victories won through the efforts of the Indonesian people. A peoples' victory, democracy spearheaded by the university students, who in most difficult times, risked their lives in the streets all across this archipelago until Suharto was forced out in May, 1998. Let us bow our heads in respect and honour for those martyrs of who have lost their lives.
We have shown, despite all the limitations that we have faced, that the Peoples Democratic Party has been able to survive intact. From the time we were established in May 1994 as the Peoples Democratic Association through to our foundation as a party on April 15, 1996, we have faced not a little testing. Struggle and repression, struggle and repression, struggle and repression ... that has been the life rhythm of our organisation since it was born. Struggle and repression, that is the story of the Indonesian peoples' journey. The Peoples Democratic Party has adopted as its fundamental outlook of struggle, "Popular Social Democracy".
Our party has rooted itself in the struggle of the democratic movement against the New Order dictatorship. This was a struggle, unfolding in the first half of the 1990s, gathering together the potential to struggle of university students, workers, farmers and cultural workers. Our intimate connection with this struggle contrasted our party completely with the other political parties and the political methods that were officially recognised by the New Order regime. When the PRD openly declared itself on July 22, 1996, it saw itself as a part of the pro-democracy movement, differing therefore from the conservative parties which had supported the New Order.
More especially, the Peoples Democratic Party itself was the product of a process of crystallisation which stemmed from the democratic struggle. The founders of the party was comprised of activists who were firmly convinced that the struggle to win democracy must take the form of mass struggle, especially that of the workers, urban poor, ordinary people and students. We waged an open fight against to the New Order. We never tried to hide our vision, program or strategy. Since the beginning, the PRD opened itself up as an instrument of struggle and a school of politics for the people. And because of that, the PRD has never been a part of any conspiracy or rumour-mongering that has become such an unhealthy part of the New Order world of politics.
Since its establishment, our party has been committed to building a democratic movement that was disciplined and organised, gathering together the cadres of a pro-democracy mass struggle and uniting them with a clear vision and program. We cannot allow the struggle for democracy to unfold with no vision or program, where the loyalty and militancy of its members is blind and does not educate.
The PRD too does not wish to be simply part of the decorations at a fiesta of reformasi euphoria.
These were the fundamental principles upon which the PRD was established in 1996. It was these principles that meant we did need to wait for others to open up the "democratic space" and then hurriedly fill up that space once it was opened. No. Once again: no! The PRD remains convinced that these principles were correct. Of course, we understand too that there is always mutual interaction between the theory and practice of struggle. So it should be no surprise to us see how our collective understanding of these fundamental principles has brought us to the concept of "reformasi total" and "transformasi" whose programmatic content has been adopted by many people as the program for transition to democracy today. If we reread today the founding manifesto of the PRD that was proclaimed on July 22, 1996, we will see that much of its program has been accepted as the joint program of struggle for this period: repeal the package of five repressive political laws; abolish the dual function of the armed forces; the establishment of a democratic coalition government; a popular multiparty political system; an independent electoral commission made up of representatives of political parties; a referendum for East Timor; the opening up of a dialogue with the informal leaders of West Papua and Aceh; putting Suharto and his cronies on trial for their political and economic crimes; and so on.
The PRD as a `Peoples Struggle Party'
When we founded the PRD in 1996, we were convinced that democratic movement was on the rise. Many different organisations, community non-government organisations, and action committees were mushrooming everywhere. The growth of these organisations reflected many different aspirations and interests, including those of workers, students and farmers, as well as those fighting for the emancipation of women and the protection of the environment. From among a section of these activists came the idea that the struggle be waged in a more organised fashion. We knew then that the PRD could not be designed as parties generally were designed. The PRD was born in the midst of the stagnation of the New Order political system. So much power was concentrated in the hands of the Suharto regime, that the whole political arena was in its grip. It was a public secret that the process of domestication of the existing parties and organisations was happening all the time. This was totally exposed each time a party tried to attempt some form of internal consolidation. This phenomenon could never be avoided because from the start the three parties, namely Golkar, the United Development Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party, were political instruments of the New Order dictatorship. The PRD was founded as antithesis to this kind of political design. From the beginning the PRD declared itself as a party of opposition based outside the parliament. The PRD adopted this position very deliberately because there was no space inside the New Order parliament for democracy or change. And, in turn, it was because of this stance that the PRD became the target of repression during the last phase of the New Order. This was a no surprise as the PRD had indeed prepared a program to develop an organised opposition movement against the New Order.
This opposition movement was directed towards the formation of a popular multiparty democracy as an alternative to the New Order political system, which in its essence was anti-democratic. In fact it was a system whereby a political oligarchy served the interests of a tiny civilian and military elite. And this political oligarchy also organised the protection of these groups' economic interests. So political oppression went arm in arm with economic exploitation. The people were oppressed both materially and spiritually.
The Suharto dictatorship has been forced out. Our party played its role in laying the foundations for that struggle. Nobody therefore has any justification for violating the rights of the PRD to exist as a legitimate party. As a party that can be accepted by the Indonesian people. We fully realise too that the struggle is not finished. We fully realise that this current period of transition must still pass through very difficult twists and turns, must climb many difficult inclines. So when the PRD returned to consolidating itself as a party that operated in the open, namely when we formed the Committee to Form the Legalisation of the PRD (KEPAL-PRD), we began to struggle to open the space to further expand our organisation. This was a period of transition for our party also. Never before had our cadres and networks been so spread out through so many parts of the country. The resilience and the commitment to struggle of our cadre during the difficult period of repression now became the propellant for the organisational work of the future. We have always been clear on what our political work is. From the time of the proclamation of our party, through the period of repression and now with the open proclamation of the party again, the political work of the PRD has always been to work among the masses, to organise the masses.
Our tradition of mass organisation has also always meant organising political education as well. Without political education the masses are only ever the political playthings of the political elite. At the same time if this political education is not accompanied by an expansion of the mass support base of the party, then the party will become nothing more than association of intellectuals in their ivory tower.
Opposed to militarism
But even these two things are not enough. Expansion of the mass base and political education are not enough. The energy for struggle by the masses must also be encouraged. They must be a real actor in the process of total reformasi and transformation. This is especially the case during this transition period when there are so many groups wanting to subvert the process to further their own narrow interests. The most dangerous development is the effort of some groups to restore the New Order status quo. There are those groups who think they can win a victory for themselves with concessions or political capitulations to the position of the armed forces. We firmly reject all such opportunism.
The political history of the New Order has taught us that one weakness of our politicians is their dependence on the military. It is this dependence which has often been the source of their vacillation and halfheartedness in efforts to develop a democratic political system. And the first step in any democratic political system is to acknowledge civilian supremacy over the military. If we cannot win this minimum base line then we have not even reached the lowest level of any kind of democracy. In order to effectively oppose this trend, the Peoples Democratic Party appeals to all democratic forces to put forward in their campaign programs the demand for the abolition of the dual function of the armed forces. This is the minimum program of the transition period. To the extent we wish to push this transition period in the direction of solid and genuine multiparty democracy, the abolition of the dual function of the armed forces should be a common policy of the parties.
We must remember that there is always danger when a political force becomes armed or when an armed force enters politics. The people have already paid far too high a price during their 30 years of life under militarism. We have endured the bitter hardship of repression, both that which has befallen the whole people as well as than which has befallen our party in particular. We still remember how the struggle for total reformasi has taken many lives whose value cannot be measured. This came about due to the use of militaristic methods in defence of the interests of a ruling clique. We have truly been put to the test by these various acts of repression. A number of leaders of the PRD (including the general chairperson and the secretary- general) are still behind bars. At the beginning of 1998, ten PRD leaders outside of prison were kidnapped. The fate and whereabouts of three of these are still unknown. The corpse of one was discovered in Madiun.
Why am I going through all this? Not because I am calling upon people to circle the wagons. No! I just want to remind us all that we have gone through hard times together, hard times that all of the people have suffered. We must remember that our efforts to win democracy and social justice are an integral part of the struggle of the Indonesian people. Only in that sense do we have the right to state that since the founding of the PRD through to the present time and into the future the PRD has been a PARTY OF POPULAR STRUGGLE! I say this as a reminder to us all of the need for our faithfulness to the mandate of the people's suffering.
Reformasi and transformation based on popular power
The PRD has, from the beginning, declared itself a party of struggle committed to the organisation of all potential support for resistance against the New Order dictatorship. Our aim and target has been to establish a popular multiparty political system. The intention has been to empower the people in the political, economic and social spheres. This was all clearly stated in the PRD Manifesto. We want an end to the political life that we all experienced under the New Order, namely a political life dominated by a tiny political elite. In a popular multiparty system, the people must be the determining factor. How can that be achieved? We have shown the answer through action. We established a party as an independent vehicle for the people. We have demanded that the political system be opened up to allow for the widest possible participation of the people. There must be freedom of organisation and freedom for political parties. And the course of political developments in our country has confirmed the correctness and appropriateness of this program.
And today also, thanks to the struggle of the people that was pioneered by the students, the people have seized their freedom, although not in full, or ideally. because there is still the heritage and the remnants of the apparatus of the New Order and the dual function of the armed forces.
Now parties are sprouting like mushrooms in the rainy season. That is a consequence of democracy. Only the conservatives try to block this. We cannot step backwards. That would just mean never ending conflict. The PRD will stand in the front ranks of all those who fight anti-democratic actions. The PRD is for total reformasi. And that means the PRD will continue the struggle for genuine democracy, popular multiparty democracy. Popular democracy not only means providing the opportunity for the people to voice their aspirations but also stresses the need for partisanship in support of the aspiration of the workers, labourers, peasants and other elements of the working class. As a pro-democratic force, the PRD will continue the struggle for a more ideal form of democracy, a form where popular control is continually strengthened. We will struggle to strengthen the parliament, so that the executive will not be able to act arbitrarily in the implementation of policy, In fact, the PRD proposes the institution of the parliamentary [as distinct from presidential, Ed.] form of government.
We believed this will be supported by the people. But total reformasi will not guarantee justice to the people if we ourselves do not also give attention to this aspect. By justice here, we mean the provision of equal opportunities to all the people to realise their material and spiritual potentials. Democracy must be accompanied by social justice. This is the basic principle of the struggle philosophy of our party: Popular Social Democracy.
Popular social democracy is a form of war against exploitation of human beings by others, either in the form of capital's exploitation of labour or the exploitation that arises from patriarchal domination. We can only achieve this aim through democratic forms of struggle, which requires a system of popular multiparty democracy. So we do not only need just [political] reformasi but also a struggle to establish more just social relations. We will call for a social transformation in the life of the Indonesian society, so that there is no longer a concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite. We will not accept a situation where the freedom provided under democracy only benefits the forces of capital in dominating every aspect of the mental and material life of the people.
We often hear some people tying the struggle for democracy to the demand for globalisation. And this is usually accompanied by the call for international capital to be able to enter this country freely as it wishes. The PRD is not anti foreign capital, but the PRD will oppose any flow of capital into the country that is not subject to the control of the Indonesian people. We have seen during the last 32 years how this freedom for foreign capital has caused suffering for the people. Furthermore the uncontrolled expansion of foreign capital into the country has also resulted in the massive exploitation of natural resources and has caused great damage to the environment.
Our struggle for democracy has not been in the service of the global markets. Our struggle has been for the spiritual empowerment of the people so that in the end the people themselves will control all the material resources in their world, all the resources in the womb of their homeland.
If total reformasi must lead to the institution of popular multiparty democracy, then these changes in the social relations constitute a popular social-democratic economic system. When the PRD speaks of popular social-democracy do not imagine, as the old regime slandered us, that we are talking about communism of the kind found in Eastern Europe, China or the former Soviet Union. We are among the most fervent critics of state repression no matter under what ideological banner. An ideology that is rooted among the people must be able to break all shackles that limit, repress, marginalise and keep humankind backward; and this must be able to be done justly, honestly, ethically, peacefully, in a modern manner and with tolerance. Ideological difference is a part of the mosaic of civilian society that must be protected by all ideologies. So popular social-democracy is not just an ideology for the PRD, but also is something which imposes the task of protecting pluralism and the rights of other groups, no matter how marginal.
Popular social democracy is a form of democratic socialism where pluralism is defended and where economic forms are strived for which further the public interest and improve the social and cultural activities of society.
Popular social-democracy can only be achieved democratically. It needs a society where the free development of each individual is the precondition for the free development of all. For the PRD, the building of popular social-democratic society requires a struggle against the exploitation of human beings by human beings, patriarchal repression and which fights the destruction of the environment done in the pursuit of economic growth. For the PRD, popular social-democracy is the struggle to sustain and to develop human culture, to defend human rights, and to build a just society where humankind's economic activities are organised in a democratic, civilised and ethical manner. For the PRD, popular social-democracy is a system of values where freedom and independence, equality and solidarity, human emancipation, social justice, environmental protection and peace represent an inseparable unity.
So the PRD rejects the neo-liberal economics that stands behind globalisation. Neo-liberal economics turns Indonesia in no more than an object of exploitation, of our natural resources and cheap labour. The people have suffered enough! The people's misery has gone on too long! Now is the time for the people to establish their sovereignty in politics, economics and culture. Now is the time for the people to determine their own destiny and the future of Indonesia. There can be no more delay.
Why is the PRD participating in the elections?
The echoes of calls for reformasi still reverberate, tears still stream from our eyes, the memories of the blood spilled by our martyrs are still with us, yet already we are faced with the bitter reality that the democratic space that was won by the students with the support of the people is being subverted. The people's demands that the government be cleansed of remnants of the old order and that the dual function of the armed forces be abolished have not been met.
Yet on the other hand we witness the new enthusiasm in society for politics. The emergence of new parties, with new names, symbols and programs, is a sign that the people have long awaited the moment where it will be they that will determine the future of their country. Furthermore, as a result of popular pressure, there will be general elections in 1999. Yet again the people face another bitter reality, the new laws on general elections is still not democratic. The clearest evidence of this is that the armed forces is given 38 unelected seats in the parliament. The law also still provides for representation of the government in the General Elections Commission. These are clear obstacles to the implementation of free and fair elections. The PRD will not stop in its struggle to change these laws.
Of course then the question arises: why did the PRD finally decide to participate in these elections? As I have indicated above, the participation of the PRD in these elections is not without reservations. We cannot deny the fact that these elections are channeling the peoples expectations towards the idea that reformasi can only be completed through these elections. This is the way that the people are understanding this question.
But, of course, we will not let the people's illusions remain at that level. At the same time, the PRD cannot allow these coming elections, where there is a popular consciousness for participation, to be monopolised by programs aiming at deceiving the people. We cannot allow this political arena to be monopolised by programs offering only illusions and a sense of euphoria.
PRD decided to descend into this arena, but not primarily in the chase for the maximum number of votes. The PRD decided to dive into this work not just as an electoral machine, but as a way to politically educate the masses, to raise their consciousness. So the PRD will not just be trying to shepherd people into voting for the PRD, but rather, trying to win the masses to the idea that the process of total reformasi and social transformation must be completed. To deliver these messages, the PRD must be in the midst of the masses, speaking directly to them, openly! We must not isolate ourselves from the people, as was our commitment from the time we formed the Peoples Democratic Association. This is the holy mandate that must be kept to by a party that calls itself a party of people's struggle.
We are a party with the humility to learn from experience and reality. Our experience has taught is that the struggle for democracy is not a freeway.
It is full of twists and turns and all sorts of inclines. As a party we will always be called to face new challenges in new arenas of struggle. The people will become the grand judge of the correctness of our program, strategy and visions. Every leader and member of the PRD must be able to explain our program to the people, in a language that the people can absorb, and, in the end, with a spirit that will move the people into struggle with the PRD.
And our experience also tells us that we cannot be too optimistic that these coming elections will be free and fair. One of the main reasons is the continuing resilience of the bureaucratic machinery inherited from the New Order. The fact that this machinery is still intact is of grave concern.
This machinery has had decades of experience to develop its skills in manipulating the votes of the people, either through vote buying -- now known as "money politics" -- or through intimidation. The PRD remains of the view that a precondition for a free and fair election is a transitional government free of any remnants of the old regime. We have never wavered from this view. We will try to bring to the people the view that free and fair elections will never be achieved until we severe those historical shackles.
As an organisation of popular struggle, the cadre and supporters of the PRD will be the representatives of the PRD in the midst of the masses. You will be the front-line soldiers. What you do will have a big influence of the reputation of our party among the masses. Because we have long been recognised by the masses as a party of struggle, do not be surprised if the people demand dedication and sacrifice from you that they do not demand of other parties. I am not meaning here to praise the work of our party in an exaggerated manner. We here in prison often receive reports of how enthusiastic the people respond when a PRD flag is hoisted outside the home of a PRD cadre in their kampung. Cadre often report how local people explain that they have long awaited for the PRD to be able to exist openly. They, the people, have developed their own way of analysing the PRD. They know the PRD not from the unfair version presented by the regime or by our opponents. No! The people recognise and love the PRD precisely because of the suffering they have experienced under the New Order.
So the cadre of the PRD must guard the reputation of the PRD as a party of struggle always at the forefront among the masses. We know we still suffer from many limitations, including that of limited finances. So we are not a party that can win support by distributing money, T-shirts or flags. We must win support through the ability of our cadre to explain our politics to the people. There are many things that we can talk to them about.
Party cadres working among the peasants must be able to explain the PRD's program in relation to agriculture: the issue of land ownership, the social role of land as a means of production; the question of a just management of the irrigation system; the land reform law and so on. For cadre working among the workers, you must be able to explain the nature of the relationship between workers and bosses, about freedom to organise, about the wages system that the PRD is struggling for -- about the nature of the capitalist system which has been exploiting them all this time and about the need for a modern and democratic transformation of society. For those working among the students, you must be able to explain to these young cadre the reasons for the PRD participating in the elections and that the PRD sides with them completely in the struggle for total reformasi. For the PRD cadre amidst the intellectuals -- those working for women's emancipation and in the environment movement -- you must be able to explain and convince them of our program and strategy and that we have a long term perspective for the struggle and that we are not just interested in immediate gains. To all the PRD cadre, throughout Indonesia, tell the people that they have suffered enough, they have been in poverty for long enough, that they have experienced enough oppression. Now is the time for the people to rise up, daring and conscious, with organisation and leadership.
In this phase of the struggle, the Peoples Democratic Party must consolidate itself. It must equip itself with the program needed to bring it close to the people. And our people are a people who are suffering. They await our presence in their midst. From this moment unfurl the party's flag in the fields, the plantations, in the factories, the overpopulated slums and villages, in the students quarters, and so on. Call upon them to join our triumphant party making every members' home a centre for the party's activities. Turn the activist posts of the PRD into centres of political education. Distribute our publications so that they can communicate our activities throughout the country.
That is the only way that the people will grow closer, and closer still to the PRD.
The struggle to expand the PRD must go hand in hand with the struggle to raise the political consciousness of the people. This has been the tradition of our party since it was formed in 1994. We must continue this tradition.
We have faith that the people will be able to assess our commitment to them. The people will decide for themselves if the program of struggle and the strategy of a party is true and correct, so that they should join.
In a period such as this, it can be very dangerous if a party only offers illusions and a sense of euphoria. The uncertainties of this period of transition may last a long time. This can result in many different possibilities. The PRD must explain this.
Popularise the slogans of the PRD as a source of enthusiasm and spirit for the people. Call upon the people to stand up and struggle with the PRD in confronting these elections, and onwards after that.
Good luck with your work, good luck with your struggle.
Cipinang Prison, Jakarta 21 March, 1999 Central Leadership, Peoples Democratic Party.
[Translated by Max Lane, ASIET National Coordinator]
Trisakti students injured in clash with troops
Two of the wounded students were women. The university security officer, Riswadi, was assigned to help supervise the students' protest.
Riswadi and one of the injured students, identified as Bambang Lukmanul Hakim, were hastily returned to the university campus in Grogol, West Jakarta. The other eight students were taken to three hospitals by the university students' medical team.
Students Didi, Nadia Mulyawati, and Nara Pindo Hapsari were admitted to Pertamina Hospital in Kebayoran Baru South Jakarta, while four others, Andre, Fikri, Daniel, and Rizki, were treated at Budi Kemulyaan Hospital in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta. The other injured student, Ihsan Sibarani, was sent to Cipto Mangunkusurno General Hospital in Central Jakarta.
A student spokesman said Andre and Fikri were still in comas. Didi suffered serious injuries to his mouth, right shoulder and head.
Nadia told The Jakarta Post at Pertamina Hospital she was beaten with rattan sticks by four riot officers when she was trying to run away. "The soldiers hit Didi as he was trying to protect me by using his body. He even told the police to stop beating a woman, she said.
Nadia the chairwoman of the university's Dentistry Students Senate suffered a wound to the back of her head. Her white Muslim scarf was partly soaked in blood.
Her colleague, Nara, had a fractured right shoulder and a bruised left leg. "A riot officer beat me as I tried to get in a Metromini bus," she said.
The noisy street rally demanding that the Armed Forces (ABRI) immediately reveal the instigators of a recent series of fatal shootings here was attended by about 300 Trisakti students, most of them wearing their blue university jackets.
Filling several minibuses, the students arrived at Monas park, in the vicinity of the ministry, at about 11.30am. They immediately urged the troops, who were already on alert, to let them approach the Ministry of Defense and Security building.
The troops blocked their way in front of the Indosat building, asking the students to walk through the Monas area instead of marching along Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat to avoid creating a traffic jam. The students were then led by military personnel to the area of Monas park in front of the ministry, where they were confronted with a police blockade.
The situation became tense when riot officers warned students not to break the police line. The clash between student protesters and security officers erupted a few minutes later when a man, with no university uniform, threw a rattan stick at a group of troops.
Three soldiers rushed at this man and hit him several times on his head and back. The unidentified man was then apparently taken to a nearby police station.
As this happened, the other security personnel charged the demonstrators, apparently hitting anyone within reach of their sticks. The Trisakti students sprinted to the end of Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan, where their buses were parked. The troops followed the students and continued to beat them.
The windows on one of the buses were broken by two enraged riot officers. A sedan parked nearby also had its front and back windows broken.
The situation stabilized again after Central Jakarta Police chief Lt. Col. Iman Haryatna and Jakarta Military Police commander Col. Hendardji arrived. After an hour of negotiations, Iman allowed the students to hold their protest in front of the ministry, as they had fulfilled the requirement to notify police of the rally.
The students returned to the site to continue their demonstration, asking ABRI to uncover the powers behind the May 12, 1998 and Nov 13, 1998 fatal shootings of a number of students. The students also demanded that ABRI Commander Gen. Wiranto take responsibility for the military killings in Aceh Tanjung Priok, East Timor and other places.
Some student representatives, led by Gunawan, tried to meet Wiranto, but a defense ministry official said Wiranto was not in the building.
Students clash with police in Sumatra
Some 300 students teachers protested at the West Sumatra governor's office and clashed with police after they attempted to take the governor's chair from his office. The students oppose caretaker governor, Major General Dunija.
Police charged the student crowd and beat them with batons. At least 46 protestors were arrested and seven others were rushed to hospitals. Six were detained in hospital.
West Sumatra Police Chief Colonel Dasrul Lamsudin told journalists that force had been used because the students had tried to steal the governor's chair.
On Saturday, police, citing the absence of a permit to hold a demonstration, charged into a group of some 20 students protestors and arrested most of them.
The students picketed the local parliament as the caretaker governor was sworn in. Seventeen of the 46 students arrested Tuesday had been among those arrested on Saturday. The students rejected the new appointment as there had been no local consultation.
Muchlim Ibrahim resigned as governor on March 13 after President B.J Habibie and the minister of home affairs appointed a new deputy governor without his approval.
Palu -- The People's Democratic Party (PRD) has said that for the PRD, the 1999 election campaign is not just about getting votes. What was more important for the PRD was to providing political education to the people to increase their political consciousness.
"The PRD wants to increase the people's consciousness to an understanding that the task is one of total reform and social transition", said PRD chairperson, Budiman Sudjatmiko, in a written speech to the Sulteng regional and city leadership committees on Sunday, March 21.
The speech, written by Budiman from the Cipinang jail in Jakarta, was read by the secretary of PRD Sulteng, M. Maskur, before young 200 PRD cadres and sympathisers.
Budiman said that he was not very optimistic that the election would be honest and fair considering the strength of the bureaucratic machine inherited from New Order regime. The bureaucratic and political machine of the New Order is still intact, something which is of great concern [he said].
"They have been tested over scores of years in manipulating the people's vote. Manipulation of a subtle character, through bribery and what is now known popularly by the term money politics, as well as more direct means of pressure [to force people to vote for a particular party]. We are convinced that an election which is truly honest and fair can only be organised by a transitional government which has been cleansed of elements of the New Order", he said.
According to Budiman, the principle being struggled for by the PRD is a People's Social Democracy, that is an attempt to fight against the exploitation of humanity by humanity.
"To reach this goal we will achieve it by democratic means, which can only be created out through a system of a people's multiparty democracy. Because of this what is required is not just a kind of reformasi but also struggling for just social relationships. We must continue to demand a social transformation in the lives of the Indonesian people so that there is no longer a concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of people", said Budiman.
Also on Sunday, the chairperson of the West Java regional leadership of the PRD, Bimbin Firman, who was accompanied by his secretary in Bandung, Gandi R. Setyadi, said that a system of parliamentary democracy was an means to prevent the emergence of unlimited presidential powers. [He said] it is natural that such a system be reconsidered after 32 years since the emergence of the Suharto dictatorship which took advantage of the presidential system.
[Translated by James Balowski]
| East Timor |
Sydney -- Australia will contribute to a UN peacekeeping force in East Timor if a peaceful transition in the province could not be realized otherwise, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Wednesday.
For the first time, Downer confirmed Australia was prepared to contribute to a UN peacekeeping force, but only if it came with clearly defined objectives and an assessment of the risks involved to Australian personnel.
Addressing a press club luncheon, Downer said, "We hope that East Timor's transition can be handled in such a way that peacekeeping forces are simply not required. But if that does not eventuate, and if the United Nations makes the call ... Australia will respond."
Downer rejected claims by East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao that Indonesia was arming pro-Indonesian paramilitary troops. Downer said he accepted personal assurances from Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas that this was not Indonesia's policy.
Xanana says, "There is no longer a doubt in our minds that ABRI (the Indonesian armed forces) is actively promoting a situation of heightened tension in order to thwart our efforts toward reconciliation, and to ensure that the conditions necessary for a free and fair consultation to take place do not exist in the territory."
Xanana made the comment in a letter to Australian Ambassador to Indonesia John McCarthy, which was released Wednesday.
Jakarta -- East Timorese rebel leader Xanana Gusmao said Wednesday that a broad autonomy package offered by Indonesia to the troubled territory carried the message -- integration or civil war.
"The message we get from Indonesia is: it's better to choose autonomy to avoid bloodshed," Gusmao said in a statement to a seminar on autonomy for the former Portuguese colony here Wednesday.
Gusmao, who is under house arrest here, accused the Indonesian armed forces of preparing pro-integration East Timorese to wage war against their pro-independence compatriots by giving them arms.
"The [Indonesian] military's argument that it can't let go of East Timor because many lives have been lost there is weak and misleading. It wasn't us who invited ABRI to invade East Timor inhumanly," Gusmao said.
He praised Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, who he said wanted a democratic consultation. But he said armed forces chief Wiranto "does not care at all about 23 years of bloodshed."
Jakarta -- East Timor's detained rebel chief Wednesday accused the Indonesian military of conspiring to undermine a planned vote on autonomy in the Indonesian-controlled territory.
Indonesia has been arming civilian militias in East Timor to create chaos that will sabotage the vote, which is expected in July, guerrilla leader Jose Alexandre Gusmao said.
"The terror, intimidation and murder to which the people are already being subjected will be intensified," Gusmao said in a statement. He urged the United Nations to establish a presence in East Timor to ensure peace.
In a reversal of an old policy, Indonesian officials have said they would let go of East Timor if its people reject the autonomy proposal. But many separatists suspect that Indonesia, which invaded the territory in 1975 and annexed it a year later, is not sincere.
This year, tensions have grown in the territory and there have been more clashes between supporters and opponents of independence. Fighting between separatist guerrillas and Indonesian soldiers dwindled years ago.
Gusmao, who is being held under house arrest, has become a key player in negotiations to solve the conflict in his homeland. Indonesia and Portugal have held talks at UN headquarters in New York, and East Timorese factions have met in Jakarta and Dili, the capital of East Timor.
In an appeal to the international community, Gusmao said: "If strong and effective pressure is not brought to bear on Indonesia to immediately disarm the civilian militias, the people of East Timor are liable to lose their patience."
Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas has repeatedly denied accusations that his government wants to disrupt the autonomy vote. He has acknowledged that civilians have received training from the military, but only as participants in a nationwide program to bolster the police force.
Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- Hopes of a peaceful United Nations- supervised vote to decide East Timor's future are fading amid escalating tension among rival Timorese activists and an attack on Indonesia's armed forces commander, General Wiranto, by the resistance leader, Xanana Gusmao.
Diplomats and analysts in Jakarta now fear that East Timor could quickly descend into chaos and further violence unless the UN acts quickly to send peacekeepers.
But Mr Mario Carrascalao, a former governor of East Timor with strong links to the Indonesian Government, told the Herald last night that Jakarta had no intention of allowing international peacekeepers to supervise the vote.
"I don't think the Indonesians will agree to international peacekeepers ... that is my information," he said. "They propose that ABRI [the Indonesian military] will be in the villages when the vote is taken."
Indonesia's President, Dr B.J. Habibie, has promised independence if East Timorese reject an offer of widespread autonomy in a vote it insists should be held in July.
Delivering his strongest attack since the announcement, Xanana appealed to the international community to hold General Wiranto accountable for "murders and violence" perpetrated by the armed forces in Timor, predicting a military strategy to tighten control over the territory's 800,000 people to force them to opt for autonomy.
Xanana, now under house arrest in Jakarta, told the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva that the "terror, intimidation and murder to which the people are already being subjected will be intensified.
"I find myself compelled to inform the international community that if strong and effective pressure is not brought to bear on Indonesia to immediately disarm the civilian militias, the people of East Timor are liable to lose their patience and, in the bloodbath that would ensue, the only humanitarian assistance required will be to help bury our dead," he said.
A senior official of Indonesia's Foreign Ministry, Mr Dino Patti Djalal, defended General Wiranto, saying Indonesia's changed policy towards East Timor was not that of the armed forces commander or the military but the Indonesian Government, which was acting with humility and sincerity.
Mr Djalal said there were two sides to the violence in East Timor, where people are getting killed almost every day. He said if Xanana was committed to peace he should order his guerillas to return a cache of high-powered weapons they stole after raiding an Indonesian military post, killing three soldiers, last year.
Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, has repeatedly denied accusations that his Government wants to disrupt the autonomy vote but has acknowledged that civilians have received training from the military in a nationwide program to bolster the security forces.
While a senior UN official, Mr Francesc Vendrell, said in Australia this week that the UN would need a presence in East Timor soon to begin preparations for a July autonomy ballot, military experts say it would be almost impossible to put international troops or police into East Timor's 404 villages with only months' notice.
Peter Cole-Adams reports from Canberra: For the first time, a local Indonesian radio station, Radio Andyta in the troubled Sumatran province of Aceh, broadcast live yesterday a Radio Australia Indonesian-language news service.
The ABC's managing director, Mr Brian Johns, described the station's decision to take the daily Bahasa Indonesian program as "a tremendous breakthrough" and a testament to Radio Australia's credibility in Indonesia.
Until now, the Radio Australia program has only been widely available, via short wave, in provinces such as Ambon, East Timor and West Irian in the eastern part of Indonesia.
Lewa Pardomuan, Jakarta -- Portugual's envoy to Indonesia on Wednesday urged the United Nations to help secure peace in the troubled province of East Timor in the run-up to a vote on autonomy likely later this year.
"We should not fool ourselves ... almost every day we hear of people being killed -- and we are not talking about warfare between the guerrillas and the military, we are talking about civilians," diplomat Ana Gomes told a conference.
Tensions in the former Portugese colony of 800,000 people have escalated since Jakarta abruptly announced in January it may grant independence if its offer of wide-ranging autonomy was rejected.
Indonesia and Portugal agreed this month to let the impoverished territory choose between autonomy and independence in a UN- organised ballot after the Indonesian election on June 7.
"The UN presence is very important to deter violence ... it is very important to start a disarmament process," said Gomes.
"We don't believe that it is inevitable (to see) violence, bloodshed and chaos in East Timor. We believe the people East Timor are tired of war, they want peace."
She said a ballot would be impossible if tensions were high. "The situation is extremely serious. [The ballot] ... will be impossible because at this moment people will not feel free to vote."
Pro-Indonesia militias, which resistance leaders say have been armed by Jakarta, clash frequently with anti-Indonesian groups, sparking fears of bloody civil war. The military has denied arming loyalists.
Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed the eastern half of Timor island the next year in a move not recognised by the United Nations.
The United Nations said on Tuesday it would need a presence in East Timor soon to prepare for the vote and pro-independence East Timorese leaders and foreign governments have urged a UN operation to help ease tensions and prepare for possible independence.
Gomes said a UN presence was also important to protect Indonesian citizens in East Timor during the ballot.
"In my view, the UN will come to install an atmosphere that will allow people to [vote] freely. Portugal believes that anyone should be entitled to defend his views. If the people chose autonomy, of course the situation is very clear that the territory will be integrated into Indonesia."
Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- Pro-independence Timorese leaders plan to seize millions of dollars' worth of properties in East Timor acquired by the family of disgraced former president Soeharto during Indonesia's 23-year rule of the former Portuguese colony.
The properties include part-ownership of a textile factory in the East Timorese capital of Dili, as well as hundreds of hectares of land that Timorese leaders believe were acquired illegally by several of Mr Soeharto's children, who built up a massive corporate empire throughout Indonesia while their father was in power.
Mr David Ximenes, a leading member of the National Council for Timorese Resistance, a group that expects to take a leading role in an independent East Timorese government, yesterday said from Dili that properties acquired illegally after Indonesia's 1975 invasion would be given back to the people of East Timor.
Asked about properties owned by the Soeharto family, he said: "Land such as this will almost certainly go back to the administration of an East Timor government, back to the people to whom it belongs."
The Indonesian Government led by Dr B.J. Habibie, which took power after Mr Soeharto was forced to resign amid bloodshed last May, has promised that East Timor could break away from Indonesia as early as next January if the Timorese reject an offer of widespread autonomy for the territory which the Soeharto regime annexed in 1976.
Anti-Indonesian leaders are confident the Timorese will reject the autonomy in a vote expected to be taken by August.
A former Soeharto-appointed governor of East Timor, Mr Mario Carrascalao, told the Herald that intermediaries acting for Mr Soeharto's daughter, Mrs Siti Hardijanti Rukmana, known as Tutut, cheated an old Timorese landowner when they wanted to obtain land on Dili's outskirts to build hotels in the late 1980s. Mr Carrascalao said the man, who he thinks is now dead, was given 70 million rupiah ($14,000) for the land at Comoro, but had been promised 10 times more. "I don't know whether Tutut was aware the man never got what was promised or whether the intermediaries were responsible," he said. Mr Carrascalao, who was governor at the time, said the intermediaries were members of Indonesia's security forces. Government sources in Dili say they believe Soeharto family members, including the former president's youngest son, Mr Hutomo Mandala Putra, have extensive holdings in East Timor, but most of the holdings were acquired by intermediaries and proving they were acquired illegally would be difficult.
Pro-independence leader Xanana Gusmao has said in interviews in Jakarta, where he is under house arrest, that legitimately acquired foreign-owned land would be protected in an independent East Timor. Pro-independence leaders in Dili also stressed that land properly acquired by foreigners, including Indonesians, would be protected under the laws of an independent East Timor.
Many Timorese living overseas, including Australia, own properties in East Timor. They will be given the opportunity to vote on the autonomy offer that was agreed earlier this month in United Nations-sponsored talks between Portugal and Indonesia. The Habibie Government has been under pressure to seize assets accumulated by the Soeharto family, whose fortune has been estimated to be as much as $US40 billion ($63 billion).
While a probe by the Attorney-General's office in Jakarta has so far failed to name Mr Soeharto even as a corruption suspect, authorities last week sealed off a seven-storey building owned by a company controlled by Mr Mandala Putra, claiming it was constructed illegally in a conservation zone while Mr Soeharto was in power. Mr Mandala Putra is due to stand trial on charges relating to the building next week.
Karen Polglaze, Dili -- Bony arms raise gnarled hands in a shaky Mexican wave as the call to salute rings out across the buckled, weed-infested square of the village of Maubara.
About 250 men, some old and bent from years of subsistence farming, many young and angry after growing up in a region plagued by warfare, present their home-made guns, bows and arrows, spears and machetes as they are inducted into the troops of Besi Merah Putih.
Besi Merah Putih is one of around a dozen pro-integration paramilitary groups that have sprung up in troubled East Timor in the two months since the Indonesian government announced it might allow the province to secede.
Dressed in their usual garb of sarongs and thongs -- or jeans and t-shirts for the younger members -- this band of fighters hardly seem to live up to the strength of their name: Red and White Iron (a reference to colours of the Indonesian flag).
But from a distance their matte-black wooden arrow-shooters look like the real guns their leaders admit to having and using, and their existence has added a new layer of fear to the lives of the tens of thousands of people who live in fragile palm hut villages scattered across the territory.
Paramilitary groups like Besi Merah Putih have claimed responsibility for attacks on villages that have left scores of people dead and injured and have forced hundreds of people to flee to the safety of churches and houses outside their districts.
Although the highways around Maubara, about 50km west of Dili, are now free of the road blocks used by the paramilitary groups to terrorise the hundreds of people flocking to the town's relative refuge, people are still too scared to return home.
Despite their appearance as a rag-tag force, these alternative armies have some powerful backers. The Indonesian military (ABRI) officers have admitted arming the paramilitary groups to carry on their fight.
ABRI usually keeps a tight control on the population in an effort to defeat the Falintil armed resistance that has been fighting the military since the Indonesian invasion of 1975.
But at the Maubara Besi Merah Putih induction, ABRI officers and police could be seen watching benignly as the district regent, Lioneto Martins, inspected the troops of what amounts to an alternative military, an unthinkable creation anywhere else in the archipelago.
"We must live or die for the red and white [Indonesian flag]," Lioneto told the troops. "Many people died in the civil war. Now we want peace, not a civil war."
The creation of the paramilitaries has fuelled fears that civil war will erupt should Indonesia pull out of East Timor in the same way that former colonial power Portugal did in 1975. But those fears were a myth spread by Indonesia to justify its harsh military regime, according to the resistance movement.
National Council of the Timorese Resistance (CNRT) spokesman David Ximenes told AAP that it was only since the paramilitary groups were formed that new conflicts erupted across the half- island.
"Indonesia always claimed that if you let East Timor be free, East Timor will come up with a new civil war," said Ximenes who was imprisoned for his political beliefs by the Suharto regime and freed by the retired general's successor, President BJ Habibie. "But actually, Indonesia is the protagonist."
Many in East Timor share that opinion, but no-one has an explanation as to why Indonesia, which seems to have washed its hands of the troublesome province, would bother trying to recreate the situation it used as an excuse to invade the territory in the first place.
Most settle on face-saving on the government's part, or believe that it is ABRI acting on its own to exact revenge for the lives lost in the ultimately hopeless Timor conflict, Ximenes said.
Ximenes is counting on the UN to send peacekeepers to enforce a peace that does not yet exist. He believes the force will be sent should the Indonesian military pull out.
For now it seems the shadowy paramilitary groups such as Besi Merah Putih are the more pressing problem. They too must lay down their weapons if some kind of peace is to be brought to an emerging independent or autonomous East Timor. But for ordinary people it matters little who's carrying the guns. The bullets kill all the same.
Canberra -- The federal opposition has backed East Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmao's call for pro-integrationist militias to be disarmed urgently.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton today supported Mr Gusmao's view that a democratic process would be jeopardised if these militia groups remained armed in the lead up to a ballot on independence.
"What is required is a clear Australian position to put real pressure on Indonesia to move without delay to disarm the pro- integrationist militias and accept a United Nations peacekeeping presence to ensure that the East Timorese are able to determine their future free from violence and intimidation," Mr Brereton said in a statement.
"The Howard government's persistent refusal to do this runs a very serious risk that the situation on the ground in East Timor will deteriorate further with potentially grave humanitarian consequences."
Mr Gusmao said the Indonesian military was still arming the militia and must withdraw from the former Portuguese colony.
"It [disarmament] is very urgent because it is to avoid more bloodshed in East Timor because the militia groups are intimidating and killing civilians and it has to be stopped," Mr Gusmao told SBS television yesterday. "Without disarmament of the militia groups I think there would not be any process of consultation in East Timor."
Mr Brereton said plans to hold a ballot may prove dangerous without a process of disarmament verified by an effective UN peace-keeping force.
Karen Polglaze, Jakarta -- A local government authority in East Timor has begun a compulsory survey of all public servants to find out if they support independence for the troubled province, observers said.
The regent of Bobonaro, Guilherme Dos Santos, issued the instruction on March 24 requiring all employees in the town of Maliana to fill in a form stating their views.
The move would be interpreted as intimidating by most public servants, according to observers. "Now they're trying to make everyone support integration," said one refugee aid worker, who asked not to be identified.
The instruction, posted to heads of state institutions, sub- district chiefs and village heads, said it aimed to find out which of the options presented by the national government of President BJ Habibie was supported by public servants.
Although the instruction says each civil servant can choose an option without pressure or force, the survey is not anonymous with each employee required to give their name and number and each statement to be signed by the employee's superior.
The instruction reminds public servants of all relevant laws, including those annexing East Timor, those related to the employment of public servants in the province and new laws recently passed by the national parliament requiring public servants who are members of political parties to resign their jobs. "With the issuance of two options by the central government in an effort to solve the political problems of East Timor, it is necessary to make an inventory of civil servants in Bobonaro District to find out which of the two options they support," said a copy of the instruction obtained by AAP.
The document does not explain
why the regent needs to know whether people support independence or integration.
| June 7 elections |
Abu Shams -- The battle for votes in the upcoming Indonesian national elections is already on and it exposes rivalries among the existing Islamic political parties in the country. Among such Islamic parties is the United Development Party, whose leaders have chosen the Kabah which all Muslims face in prayer, as the new party symbol. This party symbol became the slogan of a giant rally of supporters numbering about 40,000 held at a stadium. At this large rally, the image of Islamic solidarity appeared to suffer a setback. Party stalwarts exhorted the crowd to shun the major rival in the June elections: the National Awakening Party, championed by politician Abdurrahman Wahid. These party leaders directed their criticisms against Wahid and also against Habib Idrus, another cleric.
The feverish rhetoric at the big rally was a sign of the rising political temperature in Indonesia's Muslim heartland. With three months until landmark national elections, political parties are now said to be locked in a battle for the soul-and the vote-of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's Muslim organisation. To draw grassroots NU members away from its leader Wahid and his National Awakening Party-or PKB-the United Development Party has been reportedly deploying powerful Islamic imagery that was kept under wraps during the Suharto era. The PKB is also reportedly countering with its organisational muscle.
This rivalry is said to be stirring the deeply sensitive instinct of Islamic identity, causing a bitter division among local Muslim communities, sparking occasional violence. Aside from the threat of mounting unrest, the grassroots acrimony is said to provide a severe test of political leadership for President B.J. Habibie and the NU's Wahid. According to observers, both must live up to their "moderate" Muslim credentials by laying the ground work for a political campaigntat serves as a lesson in democracy, not hatred. At the same time, as pointed out by observers, they face the temptation of plunging into the fray to help the parties that may be the vehicle for their presidential bids.
Many analysts have predicted that Habibie may latch on to the United Development Party, known as PPP, as a vehicle for a second term if his own party, Golkar is wiped out at the polls. "Habibie is very close to PPP. He always keeps the door open," said Nasir Tamara, a founder of the Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals, who now handles media relations for the PPP.
According to analysts, while the PPP and PKB slug it out for the hearts and minds of Muslims, they are far from monopolising the political scene. Long-time opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri and leading reformist Amien Rais also have far-flung party networks and broad support. Both Megawati's Indonesian Democratic party and Amien's national Mandate Party have more definitively carved out their constituencies: Megawati appeals to the disaffected underclass while Amien's party attracts relatively more educated urbane voters. But only the PPP and PKB are likely to draw support of the 35-million strong NU. The PPP leadership expects to see the party as one of the first five contestants, and thus play a vital role in the national political scene. "Of the 147 registered political parties, 30 say they are inspired by Muslim principles.
The PPP began its political journey with the Ka'bah symbol, only to switch to a less powerful image, a star, at the behest of the Suharto regime. Likewise, the party was forced to relinquish its "basic principles" of Islam after the regime decreed that all parties must be based on the state ideology, Pancasila, which recognises five religions. In a national congress last year, party leaders swiftly agreed to return to Islam as their basic principle and the Ka'bah as their symbol.
Just as the PPP decided to place the NU at the helm and reassert its Muslim identity, it ran smack up against the charismatic personality of Wahid and his newly formed PKB. Other NU leaders and long-time rivals of Wahid have formed other small parties, but none represent the same threat to the PPP's survival. To beat the challenge, the PPP is reportedly aiming straight at what it perceives to be the PKB's achilles heel: that the new party's "basic principle" is not Islam, but the five principles of Pancasila. The goal is not only to woo Muslim voters, but persuade influential clerics to come on board. With them comes the loyalty of thousands of traditional Islamic boarding-school students.
Naturally, PKB leaders have their own methods of mobilising the NU flock. Their message: A good NU member will vote for the PKB and remain loyal to Wahid. They heap scorn on NU members who choose otherwise. On each side, Muslims reportedly bristle indignantly that the rival party is branding them "infidels". Many PKB members are also outraged by the personal attacks on Wahid, whom they revere even though they don't always understand him.
Jakarta -- A planned meeting of Indonesia's ruling Golkar party in East Java was cancelled after supporters of another party trashed the venue and ambushed the participants as they made their way there, a report said Saturday.
The Golkar meeting between party cadres and supporters was scheduled to be held at the Wasesa sports stadium in Purbalingga, East Java, on Friday and was to be attended by Golkar chairman and state secretary Akbar Tanjung.
But the Kompas daily said hundreds of people, most wearing symbols of the Indonesian Democracy Party for Struggle (PDI- Struggle) of leading opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri, attacked Tanjung's convoy as it travelled to the stadium.
The vehicles were pelted with stones and a pick-up truck carrying party security was overturned and torched by the mob, the daily said. Tanjung's car and several others had their windows smashed in the attack.
Mobs also stormed the stadium, wrecking a podium and tents erected there, and forced Golkar supporters trapped in the building to take off their party T-shirts, the daily said.
"I regret and I am concerned by the incident. Golkar will send a protest letter to the Electoral Committee and the Electoral Supervisory Board," Tanjung was quoted by Kompas as saying after he was safely taken to the local Golkar branch office.
An executive of the PDI-Struggle chapter in Purbalingga, Sukarjo, said the party did not need to apologize because it had not organised the incident, Kompas said.
Golkar and PDI are two of the top contenders in the June 7 general elections, the first since the fall in May 1998 of former president Suharto who is the main patron of Golkar. A total of 48 parties will take part in the polls.
Christopher Torchia, Jakarta -- Foreign investment will probably flow back into Indonesia's shattered economy if parliamentary elections on June 7 are conducted without any major disruption, former US President Jimmy Carter said Thursday.
Carter, who plans to act as an election observer, described the poll in Indonesia as the most significant in 1999.
The Southeast Asian nation of 210 million people and more than 13,000 islands has embarked on a transition to democracy and its political welfare is seen as crucial to stability in the region.
"As far as the size of your nation, its influence throughout this region, a successful election is perhaps the most important democratic decision in the world" this year, Carter said told a reporter at a news conference.
A host of international observers and institutions, including the Atlanta-based Carter Center, is expected to monitor what the government promises will be the fairest election since the 1950s.
During the authoritarian rule of President Suharto, who was ousted last year, elections were carefully controlled by the ruling Golkar party to ensure that it emerged the victor.
The parliamentary poll comes at an uncertain time in Indonesia, where civil unrest has broken out in a number of regions, leaving hundreds of people dead. The roots of the violence lie in economic hardship as well as ethnic, religious and political conflicts.
Carter, who met President B.J. Habibie, military chief Gen. Wiranto, election officials and student leaders on Thursday, said a smooth election would boost Indonesia's crisis-ridden economy by attracting investors who are awaiting political developments.
"I don't think there's any doubt that the results of the election will have a major impact on the economy," said Carter, who observed elections in Nigeria last month.
After leaving office in 1981, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, formed The Carter Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization created to promote peace and fight disease in neighborhoods and nations around the world.
Surabaya -- The supporters of other political parties have continued to vandalise the Golkar party's flags, banners, stickers, and signs. Most of the Golkar signs mounted in the streets were pulled apart by crowds, many wearing the colours of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI-Struggle), when mass meetings of that party were being held.
Golkar flags and banners have been ripped down, dumped in the streets and gutters, and even burned. Similar incidents have occurred in almost every district of East Java. "Although our party has suffered, we have asked our cadres and supporters not to take revenge by doing the same thing. We must control ourselves and not be baited by anarchic acts," said Soetomo, the East Java Golkar Party chairman, yesterday [28th March]...
However, if the target of this vandalism were Golkar offices, naturally the cadres would not simply stand by. Golkar has already prepared 10,000 special troops to act as the party's strike force and protect it from external threats.
Soetomo has also asked Golkar officials to stick to the rule of law and report the continuing acts of vandalism to the security forces. Several Golkar sub-district branches have already resorted to legal measures, including Surabaya, Sidoarjo, Ponorogo, and Jember.
Jakarta -- The Indonesian Electoral Commission has issued a definitive schedule for the June 7 election process, documents showed Tuesday.
In a ruling issued by the 53-member commission, voter registration for the polls, the first since the fall of former president Suharto, will be held from April 5 to May 4 and the final list of voters issued on May 13.
Unlike in past elections under Suharto, besides being visited by elections officials for registration at home, voters will also be able to register themselves at appointed centres.
The campaign period will last 16 days starting May 20, to be followed by a two-day rest period before voting day on June 7.
The decision on the number of legislators in each district, province and at the national level, based on their respective populations, will be decided on April 3 and 4. The registration of candidates for the legislature at all levels will be held from April 5 to 27. The final list of candidates will be issued between May 22 and June 1.
The commission said the results of the elections would be listed between June 28 and July 8, and the nomination of the winners and their notification between July 12 and July 21.
The new members of the legislature at the national, provincial and district levels as well as the members of the highest legislative body, the People's Consulative Assembly (MPR), will be sworn in between July 26 and October 1.
The new MPR will convene in October to pick a new president and vice president to serve the five-year term to start on January 1, 2000.
Jakarta -- Some 100 Indonesian students on Tuesday marched to the Elections Commission headquarters here to demand the disbanding of the ruling Golkar party ahead of the pivotal June 7 election.
The Student Action Forum for Reform and Democracy (Famred) chanted "disband Golkar" as their advance was blocked near the office by some 40 anti-riot police and troops.
"All the crisis that has happened is the act of Golkar, all the cheating and pressure placed on the Election Committee are also the works of Golkar," a Famred release distributed during the protest said.
It also accused the party of "money politics" and intimidation. "Reject the participation of Golkar in the elections," the students said.
The police arrested the students after they protested for some 40 minutes, hauling them on board two trucks to the Jakarta police headquarters. Police said the students had not notified the police over their plan to hold the public protest, as required by law since 1998.
"Golkar: a latent danger of the New Order," read a poster, referring to the period of Suharto's New Order government.
The protest came a day after the Supreme Court said that the Election Commission had no authority to ban ministers from campaigning in the 1999 elections. It said the decision rested on the president. The ruling greatly benefitted Golkar which counts all but three of its ministers as its cadres.
With the strong support from the armed forces and the civil service, Golkar had swept every election held under the 32 year rule of Suharto.
President B.J. Habibie has so far only barred five ministers and top officials from campaigning and made it known that all other ministers would be allowed to lobby for support during the elections.
Those affected were Development Supervision Coordinating Minister Hartarto Sastrosunarto, Coordinating Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry Ginanjar Kartasasmita, Attorney General Andi Ghalib, Defence Minister General Wiranto and Home Affairs Minister Syarwan Hamid.
Jenny Grant, Jakarta -- The court ruling allowing ministers to campaign will undermine public confidence in a fair poll and could threaten the smooth running of the election, analysts said.
The court's instruction has not only undermined the power of the fledgling Electoral Commission but has revealed President Habibie's desire to intervene in the independence of the voting process.
Mohamad Hikam, of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, said the court instruction would rattle the public's fragile faith that the elections would be fair and free.
"There will be tremendous pressure on the Government because it means Habibie is doing exactly what Suharto did," Mr Hikam said. "He is trying to use the court to prevent a real democracy." He said if ministers insisted on campaigning there could be violent demonstrations by students and workers.
University student Rini said: "We can no longer accept them up on the travelling stage singing and dancing and telling us how much they care about our welfare."
The Election Commission says it will stick to its guns. "It is only a legal opinion from the Supreme Court, not a binding decision. The ministers should still be banned," commission member Agus Miftach said.
But in his ruling, Supreme Court Chief Justice Sarwata said the President had the final word on whether his ministers joined campaigning. All indications are Mr Habibie is under too much pressure from party officials to back down.
Golkar sources say the party is prepared to withdraw support for him as presidential candidate if he buckles on this issue. Analysts predict a showdown between the President's office and the commission. Several commission members say they will resign if Mr Habibie pursues his ministerial push.
Christine T. Tjandraningsih, Jakarta -- An Indonesian committee passed a code of conduct Monday for the general election campaign, set from May 19 to June 4, that includes the ban of street rallies and the disqualification of parties from the June 7 election if they abuse the rules.
Under the code of conduct, political parties are not allowed to gather more campaign participants than a site can comfortably accommodate or to "hold rallies, both on foot or by vehicle, on the streets and roads that would disturb the socioeconomic daily activities of people."
The campaigns, it said, should be conducted in the form of indoor dialogue or monologue, either through a limited meeting or through radio and television broadcasts. The parties, however, are allowed to spread circulating letters, brochures, pamphlets, pictures, films or slides to public.
"Rallies will only be ineffective," Adi Andojo Soetjipto, who represents the government in the committee, said. "Rioting could even foil the poll."
Syamsahril, chairman of the Indonesian Muslim Awakening Party, which will contest the election along with other 47 parties, told Kyodo News each party must be held responsible for violations and clashes involving their supporters during the campaign, which is considered the most likely period for clashes and riots.
"If clashes happen, the concerned parties will be considered to have failed in curbing their supporters," he said.
"The National Police, which will be in charge of security during the campaign, is expected to be strict against any violations of campaign rules," Jacob Tobing, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle, was quoted by the Jakarta Post daily as saying.
"We should learn from bad experiences from general elections in the past," Tobing added.
In the past few weeks, supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle, chaired by Megawati Sukarnoputri, the eldest daughter of the late President Sukarno, have been involved in a number of clashes with supporters of other parties.
The 1997 elections also barred campaigning at open sites, but problems arose during transportation of supporters to and from campaigning gatherings.
Sanctions will be imposed on campaign violations, according to the code of conduct, ranging from written warnings to disqualification as the maximum penalty against parties breaching campaign rules.
"The disqualification of the concerned party from contesting the general election will be imposed if a problem in the campaign has happened and leaders of the party's central executive board are identified as ignoring or defaming the rules in organizing the campaign," it said.
The code of conduct also bars campaigners and supporters from debating basic ideology and the 1945 Constitution, attacking individuals, religion, ethnicity, race or other parties, inciting violence, carrying guns, threatening violence, inciting supporters to commit subversion or damaging party banners and flags at permitted sites.
Party officials in Central Java have said hundreds of banners and flags have been damaged by supporters of other parties in the past several weeks.
Jenny Grant, Jakarta -- Indonesia's ruling Golkar party could threaten the credibility of June's general election if it resorts to vote-buying, the nation's top electoral official warned yesterday.
Rudini, the chairman of the General Election Commission, said Golkar was ready to "play dirty" by buying votes and forcing the private sector to donate campaign funds.
"Golkar needs 1.2 trillion rupiah [HK$1.1 billion] to win the general election. They are using their ministers to press entrepreneurs for that," said the retired general.
Logging companies were being warned their permits would be cancelled if they did not contribute to Golkar funds, Mr Rudini said.
"Many ministers use their influence over industries and entrepreneurs who have to build a relationship with them or their department," said the former home affairs minister. Mr Rudini said other threats to the vote's credibility included handing out rice to the poor, bribing governors to deliver the votes of the people over whom they ruled and suggesting these officials would not get a second term in office if Golkar did not get the votes.
Mr Rudini said he had received information that members of the Indonesian Wood Paneling Association (Apkindo) had already been asked to donate US$3 million towards Golkar's campaign.
Apkindo executive Tjipto Wignyoprayitno denied his organisation was under pressure from Golkar and said Apkindo was merely handing out basic goods for the poor.
If Golkar's money politicking succeeded in winning the party a large share of the votes, Mr Rudini said other parties would reject the outcome of the poll. "That means the election would fail and there could be chaos," he said.
A dispute has already flared between the election commission and the Government that threatens to undermine the power of the three-week-old body.
President Bacharuddin Habibie has challenged the commission's decision that ministers and other government officials will not be allowed to campaign for the June 7 elections. The Supreme Court is to rule on the challenge shortly.
Mr Rudini said Golkar leaders had threatened not to nominate Mr Habibie for president if he did not agree to let most ministers campaign.
The election commission's
chief warned that if the Supreme Court decided in the Government's favour,
there could be renewed demonstrations and civil unrest that could put Mr
Habibie's political future in jeopardy.
| Political/Economic crisis |
Jakarta -- Religious clashes in the Southeast Maluku town of Tual have claimed at least 11 and injured 50, police and hospital sources said Friday.
Head of the Tual General Hospital, Nona Notanubun, told Antara that a priest, Butje Hehanussa, and his two sons, Hensen Hehanussa and Dani, were killed as a result of machete attacks on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Sherby Bugis, Gani Tamher and Tete Renhoran died from arrow wounds, Donatustelio Warubun from spear wounds and Jacob Beay from bullet wounds, the news agency said.
It also said at least one person, Harold Joice Noya, was still missing, after the conflict -- the latest to rock the province after over a week of calm -- erupted on Wednesday. The agency on Friday, quoting sources at Southeast Maluku police and Tual hospital, reported 11 had died in the two-day clash.
Second Lt. Ferry Latue told The Jakarta Post by phone from the police command post in Tual, some 540 kilometers southeast of the provincial capital of Ambon, that violence continued at dawn in the Christian area of Kampung Baru on Thursday.
"The clashes carried on sporadically and the situation is only returning to calm this afternoon," Ferry said, adding that about 50 people were injured.
A local government official, who requested anonymity, said both Muslims and Christians started the renewed violence on Jl. Karel Sasuit Tubun early Thursday.
"Muslims and Christians armed with machetes, arrows and Molotov cocktails were attacking each other. Security personnel then fired warning shots to disperse [them] ... then opened fire on the crowd," he said.
He claimed many people sustained injuries from bullet wounds. "Security personnel chased the crowd down alleys and into residents' houses." Scores of residents fled their homes to nearby military facilities on Thursday, he said.
Meanwhile observance of Good Friday passed peacefully in Ambon and other areas. Some worshipers were seen in tears while security personnel continued to monitor the situation.
But in Tual, Antara reported only a few attended mass as most were still at the refugee center of the Air Force base in Langgur. There were also fears of additional violence. The agency reported that at least 40 houses were set on fire on Wednesday and Thursday.
Residents told the news agency the clashes erupted before dawn on Wednesday when Christians from Taar village attacked a neigh- boring Muslim community in Wearhir village.
The reason for the outbreak of violence remained unclear, but locals said tensions were sparked after the discovery of a piece of graffiti defaming Islam in Wearhir on Sunday. Residents blamed the violence on instigators who fled violence in Ambon earlier in the month.
Since mid-January, bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians in Ambon and several other islands in Maluku province have left almost 200 people dead and has caused wide-spread destruction.
Maluku Military chief Col. Karel Ralahalu, and Maluku Police chief Col. Bugis Saman remained in Tual on Thursday to calm residents. Two members from the special military task force, Col. Nono Sampono and Col. Cornelis Patty, also visited the town.
Armed Forces (ABRI) chief Gen. Wiranto sent 19 locally-born officers to the province last month to quell weeks of violence between Muslims and Christians.
Antara reported that one company of troops was dispatched from Ambon on Wednesday to reinforce about 100 local security personnel. Karel told the news agency on Wednesday that security personnel would take harsh measures against rioters in Tual.
"Anybody who tries to incite trouble will be crippled so that they will not worsen the situation." He said security forces would try to separate the warring parties by marking boundaries between them.
Jakarta -- Tension remained high throughout villages in the eastern Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara on Wednesday after clashes between residents that left at least five people dead, police and news reports said.
Jakarta's leading Kompas daily reported that clashes between residents of Dalo village and nearby Lao village of Ruteng district on the island of Flores, broke out over the weekend until Tuesday afternoon. The situation was under control but hundreds of residents, mostly women and children, were fleeing their homes for safety, the report said.
A team of 20 police officers dispatched to the strife-hit area to overcome the clashes, a police official in the provincial capital of Kupang said. The clashes were triggered by a long dispute over custom lands in the village area, which are claimed by rival residents.
Jakarta -- A senior minister and the national police chief arrived in Indonesian Borneo Tuesday as calm returned after days of grisly ethnic violence that left over 200 dead and displaced more than 28,000 people.
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare and Poverty Eradication, Haryono Suyono, and National Police Chief General Rusmanhadi arrived in West Kalimantan Tuesday, a provincial official said.
Suyono visited a refugee holding centre in the provincial capital Pontianak before leaving for the Sambas district where ethnic violence against Madurese settlers raged for nearly two weeks.
"General Rusmanhadi is in town to take part in a 'security safari' in Pontianak," an officer at the West Kalimantan police information office said in Pontianak.
The police chief, together with local officials, is to meet with ethnic group leaders there in a bid to defuse tensions in the city.
A fact finding team of 10 members of the national House of Representatives was also expected to arrive in Pontianak on Tuesday, information ministry official Solichin said.
"Thank God, the region is now calm and under control, we have not received reports of violence in the last three days," Solichin said.
An official at the refugee coordination centre in Pontianak said 28,227 Madurese settlers had been displaced by the violence and were being housed in holding centres.
Two members of the National Commission on Human Rights were Monday visiting Singkawang, the main town in the Sambas district, to meet with local leaders and seek out the root of the violence in an effort to prevent it flaring up again.
Pontianak police chief Lieutenant Colonel M. Daulay was quoted by the Kompas daily as saying that security authorities in West Kalimantan were taking no chances of violence breaking out in Pontianak.
"We will not take any risk. Whoever attempts to start an unrest will be hit," Daulay said. He said 12-member teams of soldiers and police would patrol 26 "critical spots" across the capital and surrounding areas and two armoured vehicles had been deployed in the city's north.
Jakarta -- The death toll from nearly two weeks of ethnic violence in Borneo rose to about 260 when new attacks on villages killed at least 15 people and dozens of refugees died of injuries or illnesses, newspapers reported Saturday.
Most of the victims have been members of the Madurese ethnic minority in West Borneo, whose homes and villages have been set on fire by local Dayaks and Malays.
In the latest outbreak of violence, about 180 Madurese homes were set on fire Friday in Sijangkung, a town in Sambas regency, the Media Indonesia newspaper reported Saturday. About 15 people were killed, and no Indonesian soldiers were seen in the area.
The evening daily Suara Pembaruan reported that at least 41 Madurese refugees who fled to Pontianak city from the hardest-hit areas have died in hospitals there in the past week.
The 56 new deaths brought to about 260 the total number of people killed since the ethnic clashes began in West Borneo two weeks ago, said H.M. Torisz, chief of the provincial health office.
He also warned that the more than 25,000 refugees in the city could suffer diarrhea unless more drinking water is made available in the stadium and buildings that are sheltering them.
At least 278 refugees are hospitalized and 2,705 already being treated as outpatients, he said.
The violence pits Dayaks and Malays against immigrants from Madura island in East Java. The Madurese are resented by the indigenous people for farmland and jobs they now control.
The military has sent in about 3,000 police and soldiers to the region, but they are outnumbered by the Dayak and Malay warriors, who have been using spears, swords and homemade guns in their attacks on many Madurese villages.
Indonesia's experiment in population control has left a bloody legacy, reports John Aglionby in Pontianak
Sarni Kemal was wearing everything he owns when the headhunters came -- a ripped shirt, a pair of grubby jeans and his underpants. When they came, he fled with his wife and eight children into a forest.
He knew what the approach of hundreds of Dayak and Malay headhunters meant for his village in the Sambas district of West Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. In similar attacks over the previous four days, such mobs had brutally murdered all migrants from the island of Madura.
Sarni -- who is Madurese -- hid with 200 villagers for five hours until they were rescued by Indonesian soldiers.
"If the soldiers had not come when they did, we would definitely have been killed because the rabble, having stolen our belongings and burnt our houses, were looking for us," he said without emotion.
Timah, his elder brother, was not so lucky. "I heard a couple of days ago he was caught, decapitated and dismembered," Sarni said.
Some 185 people have suffered a similar fate in the past 10 days in Sambas, the most north-westerly district in the Indonesian half of the island, according to official statistics.
Some refugees say the death toll is much higher. "There are so many headless bodies in the jungle where people tried to hide, the real total will never be known," Sarni's neighbour, Marsan, said.
Now, Sarni and his family are facing a new horror: the squalor, filth and disease of a makeshift refugee camp in Pontianak, the provincial capital 120 miles south of Sambas.
When he and 1,100 other refugees arrived in the city last Friday morning, they were dumped on the pitch at the city's main football stadium. With 5,000 refugees already in the stands and 3,000 more overflowing out of the nearby sports hall, they had no protection from the blistering heat.
No one is under any illusion that this will be a short crisis. "The Madurese are hated here," explained one official who asked not to be named. "For decades, the early settlers co-existed with the Dayaks and Malays. But once the transmigrants arrived that all changed."
Transmigration was devised by Indonesia's former dictator, Thojib Suharto, to relieve the pressure on the densely populated islands of Java, Bali and Madura. People were enticed to move to areas such as Kalimantan by offers of land, cattle and homes. "Social jealousy grew rapidly," the official said. "It was exacerbated by the Madurese's short temper, which came over as arrogance and superiority." As a result there have been nine flare-ups since 1979.
In the stadium, Satuki, a volunteer worker, said of Sarni and the 1,100 Madurese who arrived with him: "We shouldn't really have accepted them because we're already over capacity. They arrived at four in the morning so we had no alternative. But they're going to have to find somewhere else to go."
But Dr Haji Torisz, the head of Pontianak's public health office, said: "Our biggest problem is that we just don't have any more large places." Large wall charts at the refugee co-ordination centre show there are 16,700 refugees in ten locations in and around Pontianak and another 11,500 on the way.
Reeling from Indonesia's 20-month economic crisis, the local government has little money to spare for the refugees. "We can only allocate 2,000 rupiah per refugee per day," Torisz said. "That is enough for two meals, of rice, a bit of vegetable and occasionally some dried fish."
The International Committee of the Red Cross is providing food supplements to under-fives and breast-feeding mothers. But people's hunger is all too apparent.
Adults sit around morosely, and there is a constant cacophony of starving babies wailing to their mothers. There is an average of one lavatory per 150 refugees and most people are washing in polluted canals. Sickness is starting to become common.
"We're getting at least 350 new cases a day," Torisz said. "Most are diarrhoea, asthma, respiratory tract infections and stomach complaints." Two babies died last Thursday; they were the first but are not expected to be the last.
"Our problem now is what to do with the refugees," said Abang Djaspari, head of the co-ordination centre. "The choices are very limited."
Some refugees want to return to their homes around Sambas. But they are unlikely to survive long if they do. Their burnt-out homes barely had time to cool before Dayaks and Malays were rooting around in the rubble for whatever was worth salvaging.
"If the Madurese come back, there's no way we can guarantee their safety," said Habid Afandi as he tied up timbers from a destroyed Madurese mosque in Jirak, about 100 miles north of Pontianak. "We're going to use these to build a chicken house and a kennel," he said, pointing to the wood.
Habid said that if the Madurese did not return, he and his friends would harvest their paddy fields and sell the rice. "It would be stupid to let it go to waste," he said.
Sending the refugees back to Madura is also out of the question, Djaspari said. "They would find it very hard to make a living and it would only make things worse for the people already there." Instead, he plans to give them 7,500 acres of state land in a different part of the province and take over their land in Sambas.
However, the scheme is not proving easy to implement. Last week, a local newspaper mentioned one of the sites being considered and within hours 80 locals were demonstrating. "Madurese Out!" and "Madurese are not welcome here" read the placards.
All that Sarni and the many
like him can look forward to is months and months in a refugee camp. "In
1997, the refugee crisis lasted four months," Torisz said. "And then we
only had 5,000 to deal with. With 26,000 on our hands, there is no knowing
how long it will last."
| Aceh/West Papua |
Sander Thoenes, Wamena -- If people here are wary of the Army, they have a reason to be. In Irian Jaya, Indonesia's easternmost province, thousands have died during three decades of a small but persistent antigovernment guerrilla war.
So when Army troops last week chased away the pedicab drivers and took up positions, a tremor moved across Wamena's marketplace.
But on this day, much to the amusement of the salespeople and their customers, the soldiers set to work with brooms and shovels, cleaning up the market.
This public relations effort has so far been the military's only answer to the challenge put to them by Irian Jaya, the western half of the huge island of New Guinea. Delegates to a dialogue earlier this year surprised President B.J. Habibie by demanding independence and threatening to boycott upcoming elections if he failed to agree by April 1. And the people here know the soldiers could shoot again.
Last year, dozens of Papuans were killed in several towns after they raised the West Papua flag in place of the Indonesian red- and-white flag. Many are still in jail on sedition charges that could carry the death penalty.
But Mr. Habibie and his military commander, General Wiranto, have so far been careful not to spark another spate of violence in a country already torn by communal fighting.
Deep-seated resentment
The clean up in the Wamena bazzar also shows, however, that Indonesia's government hasn't grasped that it will take more than a broom to sweep away the resentment it created with its military brutality, heavily centralized rule, and exploitation of natural resources that left little wealth for the local population.
The Papua people, who are mostly Christian and ethnically distinct from the Muslim Malays who dominate in Indonesia, feel particularly discriminated against. In Wamena, for instance, ethnic Malays and Chinese run the shops, hotels, market, and the taxis. This has left hundreds of young Irian Jayans, educated in Indonesian schools and no longer content to stay on the farm, unemployed and frustrated.
"We got poor and they got rich," is the simple summary of Tom Beanal, a tribal leader who gained fame for lobbying against Freeport McMoRan, a controversial mining company from New Orleans that exploits the giant Grasberg gold and copper mine. "We were never happy inside Indonesia," Mr. Beanal adds.
Across the archipelago, ethnic groups are raising demands for more autonomy for their provinces or even secession. Failure to respond quickly and adequately to such challenges could cost Jakarta control over much of Indonesia's territory, leading to a breakup much like that of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia.
So far Habibie has only inspired more calls for secession by offering to grant independence to East Timor, although he has tried to treat that province as a separate case since it has been occupied only since 1975 and never belonged to the Dutch colony that became Indonesia. Last week the president visited Aceh, an oil-rich province, to apologize for human rights abuses by the military and mitigate demands for independence. But his visit only rallied protesters.
"After East Timor it will be Irian's turn to be freed," says Zainudin Fenetiruma, an Irian student. "And then Aceh, and then the rest."
That is by no means assured. While East Timor may be allowed to secede, Irian Jaya may well be the test case for the limits of Indonesia's new flexibility. If East Timor is an impoverished half of an arid little island that the country can do without, Irian Jaya is 22 percent of Indonesia's territory and home to valuable oil and gold resources.
Clear preference for independence
Interviews in the provincial capital of Jayapura and across the Baliem Valley failed to yield one ethnic Papuan who wanted to stay an Indonesian citizen. "Everybody here wants independence," says Yunus Boerdam, a school administrator. "We just wait for President Habibie's answer."
Mr. Boerdam may be waiting in vain. Habibie, overwhelmed by nearly a year of ethnic and religious violence, economic crisis, and upcoming elections, has ignored the deadline set by the Papuans. The centrally appointed governor has refused to meet pro-independence activists, promising instead to get a larger share of the region's revenues into the provincial coffers. And Jakarta is considering more power-sharing with its far-flung regions.
For many Papuans that's far from enough. But few of the pro- independence leaders have a clear idea of what to do if they are ignored. A June election boycott would be embarrassing but not fatal for Jakarta, as the ethnic Papuans only number about 1.5 million in a country of 210 million. The Papuans have appealed to the United Nations to mediate, but the UN recognizes Indonesia's claim on the territory.
Many in Irian Jaya fear that activists could turn violent if their demands are left unanswered, providing the military with an excuse to crack down.
"The ball has been kicked and now you need a strategy to make sure you make the goal," says Willie Mandowen, a linguistics professor at Cendrawasih University in Jayapura, who has tried to mediate between pro-independence activists and the government. "Otherwise the audience may come down to the field and start fighting."
Agus Rumansara, the local director for the World Wildlife Fund, says his people stand a better chance of improving their lot by participating in the elections and supporting parties that favor turning Indonesia's unitary state into a federation. Many Papua intellectuals interviewed by the Monitor believe a federation would be an acceptable compromise. But others object, saying that there is too little public support.
"This year our task is to campaign for international recognition," says Isak Windesi, one of 10 activists who were jailed and now stand trial for raising the West Papua flag last July. "We also need to unite our people first. Otherwise it will be too easy for the Indonesians to divide and rule again."
Boerdam, sitting in his office in the town of Korima, is more optimistic, pointing at the weakness of the current Indonesian government. "It may take a long time," he concedes. "But a German who passed by the other day told us that the Berlin Wall looked very strong too. Yet it collapsed in a matter of hours."
Jakarta -- An angry mob vandalized seven shop-houses in the eastern Indonesian province of Irian Jaya following the death of a college teacher in police custody, a report said Monday.
More than hundred people went on a rampage in Abepura in the district of Paniai after the death of Obet Bade, 41, on Sunday at the local police station, the Antara news agency said. Warning shots were fired to disperse the rioters who damaged seven shops in the disturbance, Antara said.
Abepura Police Chief First
Lieutenant Leonard Sihite said Bade had been taken to the police post by
two soldiers because he was drunk. He died at the police station after
being refused admittance to a hospital by staff members, Sihite said. Sihite
said an investigation would be launched immediately, Antara reported.
| Human Rights/Law |
Jakarta -- The Indonesian government has proposed scrapping its draconian subversion law and including new articles in the criminal code to cover crimes against the state, reports said Thursday.
Justice Minister Muladi told the house of representatives the new articles would accommodate elements of the 36-year-old subversion law which were still relevant, the Jakarta Post daily said.
The Indonesian Criminal Code currently has no articles relating to crimes covered by the subversion law -- namely, endangering the state ideology, spreading Marxism-Leninism and acts of sabotage of state or military installations or the distribution of basic essentials.
"By integrating elements of the 1963 [subversion] law into the criminal code, it should altogether mean that the effective procedural code is the Criminal Code Procedures," Muladi said.
The subversion law, which carries a maximum penalty of death, was widely used under the government of former president Suharto to clamp down on dissent and budding unrest.
Human rights and legal activists have repeatedly called for the law to be repealed. Since Suharto stepped down last May, the government has begun comprehesive reforms of the country's economy, judiciary and political landscape.
"A perennial criticism of the subversion law regards its procedures, that it breaches the criminal code procedures," Muladi said. Under the subversion law, suspects could be detained for a year while the criminal code restricts the period for questioning to 60 days.
The proposed changeds will now go to the House of Representatives for debate.
Thomas Wagner, Jakarta -- Ever since President Suharto resigned last year during widespread rioting, his successor, B.J. Habibie, has impressed many Indonesians by lifting some of the authoritarian restrictions that they had lived under for decades.
The breakthroughs are one reason that many people were surprised recently when a Japanese scholar was refused permission to enter Indonesia at Jakarta's international airport.
Media soon reported that Yoshihara Kunio's name is on a "blacklist" of 30 banned foreigners that the Suharto regime put together years ago and that Habibie's government still enforces at the request of Indonesia's powerful military.
Kunio's crime? He published a book in 1988 called "The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in Southeast Asia," which Suharto banned, saying it undermined his credibility.
Since Suharto left office, scores of political prisoners have been freed, dozens of new opposition parties have been formed, the public can now demonstrate peacefully without fearing arrest and newspapers can criticize the government without being shut down.
On June 7, Habibie's party will compete in an election freer than any Suharto would have tolerated. And 23 years after Indonesian forces annexed East Timor, the island is being promised a referendum that could set the stage for independence.
But that leaves the question of why Habibie would continue to enforce the list now that Suharto is out of power.
"The fact that Habibie continues to do this shows how close he remains to Suharto's inability to tolerate opposition. In fact, we wonder: Is Habibie really committed to democracy or only trying to win votes ahead of the election?" asked Frans Winarta, a human rights lawyer.
The list didn't surprise people familiar with Suharto's style of leadership.
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists described him in 1998 as one of its 10 worst offenders against freedom of speech, along with the premiers of China, Nigeria, Myanmar, Cuba and Belarus.
The blacklist is known to contain the names of activists, other scholars and reporters who had visited East Timor or otherwise displeased the Suharto government.
A Western official in Jakarta who is familiar with the blacklist said it is probably only one of several still in effect. And Indonesian media recently quoted immigration sources as saying that more than 200 foreigners are barred from Indonesia at the request of the military for national security reasons.
Brig. Gen. Sudradjat, the deputy spokesman of Indonesia's armed forces, defended the blacklist of the 30 foreigners.
"That list is not an obstacle to the government's democratic reforms. These are people who condemned or sharply criticized Indonesia in one-sided accounts, without considering our authority or sovereignty," he said.
The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy, has said that not only have women been raped by military personnel in East Timor, Aceh and Irian Jaya, but that in some cases victims were sent photographs of their own rape. Although he would not say that the rape was part of a deliberate policy, it was used "quite extensively as means of intimidation and torture".
Text of report by Radio Australia on 25th March
Presenter Peter Mares: The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women says rape has been used extensively as a weapon of intimidation and torture in East Timor, and in other areas of conflict in Indonesia. Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy says during the Suharto era, military personnel often raped women in East Timor, Aceh and Irian Jaya and she has confirmed the mass rape of women from Jakarta's minority Chinese community during last year's May riots. Women's groups documented 168 rapes in Jakarta last May, but police and military authorities repeatedly denied the reports on the basis that no- one came forward to press charges. According to Dr Coomaraswamy, this is because the victims are being warned off with death threats.
Coomaraswamy: I met some of the victims, and also people who were witnesses of the rapes. And we also saw some video footage which gives me a sense that impunity reigned during that time, where the armed forces were just looking on and not trying to stop the situation at all. And since many of the victims are getting death threats, they are not reporting the cases.
Mares: According to your report, in some cases they have also been sent photographs of their own rape.
A: They have been sent photographs, yes. They are receiving racial death threats, very racist, anonymous letters, anonymous phone calls. And a lot of them are extremely vulgar in language and racialist in content.
Q: Your report didn't just focus on events in Jakarta in May last year. You also looked at events in East Timor, Aceh and Irian Jaya. What did you find there?
A: We found that in the Suharto era, pre-May 1998, we found that rape and sexual violence were used quite extensively as means of intimidation and torture. We met with many victims, from all of these areas. Many of them carried the wounds with them, so it was first-hand reporting.
Q: And you say rape was used as a form of intimidation by the armed forces?
A: By sections of the armed forces, yes. We do not know whether it was part of the plan. I don't think so, but it was used, as we say. When you have impunity these things happen.
Q: So you wouldn't say it was a deliberate policy from the top?
A: I don't think so, no. We won't be able to say that clearly, but it did happen that in many cases rape was used as intimidation.
Q: And nothing was done about it.
A: Nothing was done about it and therefore impunity reigned.
Q: What are you recommending that the Indonesian authorities do to tackle the situation if the women are, obviously, too afraid to come forward?
A: We are recommending the setting up of a witness protection programme to allow witnesses the right to bring cases against the court [as heard]. We are recommending training and sensitization of the criminal justice process in Indonesia. And what we suggest is that there be some process of truth and reconciliation in Indonesia with regard to certain issues, and that they stop denying constantly that these things take place, rather that they accept that these things may have taken place and try to deal with the victims and give them some form of compensation.
Q: Did you see any evidence during your fact-finding mission to Indonesia that the authorities are in fact willing to admit that this violence against women actually took place?
A: At the political level, we found a very open government that was very willing to listen to the recommendations. And even with regard to some of the military and police officers, some of them were very responsive. But there were others who were not. I think within Indonesia there is this debate going on in every institution between those who are very pro-reform and pro- acknowledging human rights abuses and those that one may call a part of a denial culture. So that debate within all institutions exists, I think.
Vaudine England, Jakarta -- The release of 10 political prisoners after 33 years in jail said little about any government commitment to political freedom, historians and other former political detainees said yesterday.
The 10, jailed for their part in the alleged communist coup attempt of 1965, were freed late on Thursday.
"I'm glad for them of course," said Yoesoef Isak, editor of dissident Pramoedya Ananta Toer's still-banned books. But frankly speaking, in this case it's only the Government which takes benefit from the releases." Among those released were Abdul Latief, 72, a former army colonel, Boengkoes, 72, a former chief sergeant, Marsudi bin Marzuki, 72, a former sergeant, and Asep Suryaman, 73.
All the men had been sentenced to death for their perceived roles in the alleged coup attempt. Only Mr Latief had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment a few years ago.
Observers agreed with Justice Minister Muladi's statement that the men were too old and infirm to cause any trouble to the Government, and many are surprised it took so long for them to be freed.
At the same time, several younger pro-democracy activists are languishing in jail for exercising their right to freedom of speech during former president Suharto's rule. Demands for their release have so far been fended off by Mr Habibie's ministers.
And prisoners released over the years have yet to have full civil rights granted them, and are thus remaining unable to travel, to join any organisation or to reclaim their former homes.
Mr Muladi said the releases were meant to speed national reconciliation. But this appears unlikely until an honest look is taken at the events of 1965 and 1966 which propelled Mr Suharto to the presidency.
Any account of the alleged coup and its aftermath is peppered with "if" and "maybe", as most of the protagonists are dead through both judicial and extra-judicial killings.
The version promulgated by Mr Suharto's New Order government was that the Indonesian Communist Party tried to take over the government of founding president Sukarno, and the military, which Mr Suharto took charge of at the time, saved the nation from communism. Others have it that Mr Suharto himself organised the murder of six generals and then took control.
"That's the real problem,
examining what really happened 33 years ago," said Mr Isak. "We talk so
much of democracy, but we still do not live in a democratic society if
we can't say 'I'm a communist', or 'I'm anti-communist'."
| News & Issues |
Lisbon -- East Timor resistance spokesman Jose Ramos Horta has announced his support for the NATO military intervention in Yugoslavia and blamed the current situation on the intransigence of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
"When all diplomatic efforts, dialog and other means of pressure such as economic sanctions, are unable to change the behavior of a tyrant, then the use of force becomes inevitable", Ramos Horta stated in a text released Wednesday.
The 1996 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate adds that the NATO operation is "one of the few moments since the Second World War that a Western military alliance has decided to fight for a small nation for reasons that are merely humanitarian".
Tokyo -- A Japanese contractor allegedly paid at least 40 million yen (340,000 dollars) in kickbacks to cronies of former Indonesian president Suharto and related ministries to get a railway contract, a report said Thursday.
Tekken Corp. paid the money between 1988 and 1990 to the Udinda firm that acted as the Japanese firm's mediator in attempts to get the Jakarta railway deal, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
Former Tekken officials said they were told kickbacks to Suharto associates and high-ranking officials would be needed to win the contract, the daily said.
An Udinda official told the Yomiuri Shimbun that the company gave 80 percent of the kickbacks to Indonesia's state secretariat, national development and planning agency, transport ministry and others.
"I believe part of kickbacks to the state secretariat was diverted to Suharto's associates," the Udinda official was quoted as saying.
Although Tekken claimed the payment was for mediation fees, Tokyo regional tax authorities determined it was used to gain favor in the award of contracts.
Tekken won contracts valued at 4.63 billion yen in connection with the railway construction between 1988 and 1990. The construction, although being awarded by the Indonesian government, was funded by Japan's official development assistance, the daily said.
It is believed Japanese companies routinely provided kickbacks to Suharto cronies in connection with official development assistance projects, it said.
Previously, Japanese companies found to have given payments to foreign government officials could not be punished under domestic law.
However, after the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development ratified a treaty to prevent bribes
to public servants in foreign countries, the government has revised the
Unfair Competition Prevention Law to enable prosecution.
| Environment/Health |
Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta -- Around half of Indonesia's children aged under five suffer from malnutrition as economic crisis plunges families into poverty, a UNICEF official said. The figure, based on UNICEF research and experience in the field, represents around 11.5 million children.
"It has become a national disaster," Stephen Woodhouse, head of the United Nations Children's Fund for Indonesia and Malaysia, told Reuters in a recent interview. "Up to half of Indonesian children under five are malnourished and half of them are babies under two."
UNICEF has not yet officially updated figures on malnutrition since its last update before the crisis in mid-1997, when around 750 children were said to be dying daily in Indonesia, at least 60 percent of them from malnutrition. But it says its experience in the field since then shows the situation has worsened dramatically.
As the country struggles to recover from its worst economic crisis in decades, triggered by a collapse in the value of the rupiah currency, customers' buying power has also plunged.
"Now a lot of people cannot afford to buy basic essentials to feed their babies and children," he added. "Public health facilities have also deteriorated."
Many deaths are directly attributable to malnourishment while others stem from related problems like diarrhoea, Woodhouse said.
"The rate of malnutrition among pre-school age children in Indonesia is the second worst in Southeast Asia," he said, adding the worst was in Cambodia.
There are around 23 million children aged under five in Indonesia, including eight million under two, he said.
Woodhouse said that even before the crisis unfolded, about 35 percent of pre-school children were mildly malnourished. Many cases stemmed from lack of nutritional knowledge. "A lot of families had misconceptions about treating the babies which led to mild malnutrition," he said.
Indonesia's economic crisis broke out in mid-1997 followed by riots and unrest as prices of basic necessities soared. Millions of Indonesians have been forced into abject poverty.
Areas prone to malnutrition now include big cities and rural areas in Java, the Indonesian archipelago's most populous island, Woodhouse said. Previously they were confined to the eastern part of the country where the soil was not as fertile, he said.
Reports of deaths due to malnutrition have been on the rise in recent months from various areas.
"The urban poor suffer the most because they have no resources of land to plant vegetables and other source of important vitamins," Woodhouse said.
"The future of Indonesia
lies in these children," Woodhouse said. "If there is no serious effort
to overcome [the problem] then Indonesia's crisis would be prolonged."
| Arms/Armed forces |
Jakarta -- The Indonesian military relinquished command of the police force Thursday as part of a government push to reform the armed forces, which have been tainted by charges of corruption and human rights abuses.
At a ceremony at his headquarters, military chief Gen. Wiranto said the move would make the police more independent in line with Indonesia's efforts to shed the authoritarian legacy of former President Suharto.
The overhaul of the 187,000-member police is expected to take two years, and some officers may be reluctant to give up old methods. On Wednesday, police clashed with student activists in Jakarta during an anti-government protest. At least nine demonstrators were injured. "We hope the police will change in their attitude and behavior, based on their function and role as the protector of the people," Wiranto told 1,000 police and soldiers in brown and green uniforms.
A military official handed the police flag to an official from the defense ministry, which will take over command of the police. Critics complained the transfer of power was cosmetic because Wiranto is defense minister and will therefore remain head of the police.
"As long as they are still under the control of [the defense ministry], the move has no significance," said Hendardi, chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Association, a human rights group.
J.E. Sahetapy, an attorney and expert on criminal law, said the separation should be swifter and that the police should be placed under the command of President B.J. Habibie.
The police force, which has received military training since Suharto rose to power in the 1960s, has long been accused of graft and other abuses. Since the downfall of Suharto in May, outnumbered police have often stood by during chronic rioting that has hit many areas in the Southeast Asian nation of 210 million people.
The police are expected to play a major role in efforts to maintain security during political campaigning ahead of parliamentary elections June 7.
Canberra -- Defence Minister John Moore today defended the holding of joint military exercises with Indonesia's armed forces (ABRI following allegations about military operations within Indonesia.
This month the US-based Human Rights Watch added their voice to concerns about the actions of the military forces, saying troops sent to quell violence in rioting in Ambon only added to the trouble by using lead bullets rather than non-lethal crowd control methods.
Mr Moore today told Network Seven that Australia did not plan to resume joint operations with Indonesia's security services operation and was only taking part in exercises with ABRI.
"The actions in terms of the exercises taking place at the present moment are with ABRI themselves. What we suspended were operations with ... their security services operation," Mr Moore said.
"We did that back in October last year and there are no plans at the moment to re-invigorate those.
"We think that ABRI is a very important part of the whole Indonesian nation and that our training with them can help Indonesian troops in understanding the role of democracy in the armed forces."
After a three day meeting in Indonesia this month between the ABRI and Australian high commands, a senior Indonesian military officer foreshadowed the possibility the two forces could work together on East Timor.
But Mr Moore emphasised Australia was unlikely to become involved in any force which required direct military action, for example to disarm pro-integrationist forces. "It's very unlikely that we would be involved in a force that would be peace enforcers; it would be more likely that we would be involved in a United Nations effort where we would be peace keepers," he said.
"I think if we went in there and it turns into a very unstable situation in East Timor as peace enforcers you would come away with some losses."
Mr Moore also downplayed a role in Indonesia or East Timor for the new second battalion just created in Darwin as a rapid response unit.
"The only way in which we would actively be putting those in would be in a joint operation in a peacekeeping sense which would probably be run by the United Nations or maybe a collection of friendly nations associated with this area or some request from the Indonesians themseleves," he said.
"We don't anticipate at this
present moment any move into those areas under the present circumstances."
| Economy and investment |
Jakarta -- Standard and Poor's hurriedly restored Indonesia's long-term foreign currency sovereign rating Wednesday, just a day after a downgrade by the US agency sparked an angry central bank rejoinder.
Performing a rare about-face, the New York-based credit assessor said it had "reset" the rating from "Selective Default" back up to "Triple-C-Plus."
Standard and Poor's said the move "reflects Indonesia's closure of a distressed rescheduling of 210 million dollars worth of principal on the rated 310 million dollar loan."
On Tuesday the agency had said the rescheduling of the 310 million dollar loan disbursed in 1994 by a syndicate of 70 banks, now led by Japan's Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd., had qualified it for the selective default rating.
But Wednesday it said all 70 of the affected creditor banks "have, via powers of attorney, signed the rescheduling amendment, which now supercedes the original indenture and is enshrined in law."
"Therefore Indonesia's sovereign default is cured, removing an obstacle to the rescheduling of 4.2 billion dollars of principal-repayment obligations to Paris Club bilateral creditors due between August 6, 1998 and March 31, 2001."
The central Bank Indonesia, in its sharp protest against the earlier downgrade, said late Tuesday: "The government of Indonesia has never defaulted on its commercial bank loans or bonds."
The selective default rating applies when a country has selectively defaulted on an issue or class of obligations but will continue to make timely payments on its other obligations.
The Triple-C rating denotes a situation in which a country is "currently vulnerable to non-payment" and is dependent on favourable economic conditions to repay debt.
Takahira Ogawa, Standard and Poor's director of sovereign ratings in Singapore, explained the hasty backtrack by saying that on Tuesday the agency was aware of an agreement signed between Indonesia and its creditors late Monday but did not have all the details.
"S and P restored the ratings Wednesday because all the syndicate members had signed ... the rescheduled agreement," he told AFP. "The restructuring of the debt clears the risk on the progress of rescheduling based on the prescribed agreement," he said.
The agency on Wednesday also affirmed its Triple-C-Plus senior unsecured ratings on Indonesia's 400 million dollar Yankee bond due August 2006 and its 26 million dollar Euro floating-rate note due February 2001. The outlook is now "stable," it said.
The outlook reflected "the restoration of monetary discipline, the stabilization of the country's near-term international liquidity position and efforts to restructure and recapitalise the banking system."
"The central bank has halted the hemorrhaging of liquidity support to the domestic banking system, regaining control over its balance sheet, and thereby prevented a slide into hyperinflation," it said.
But on the flipside it cautioned that the ratings were constrained by a "devastated corporate sector" and "ongoing political uncertainties."
Up to 40 percent of the 62 billion dollars year-end 1998 non-bank private sector external debt stock may be in interest and/or principal arrears, "mirroring equally widespread private sector local currency defaults."
"With corporate restructuring still embryonic ... working-capital bottlenecks will continue to delay real economy recovery," it said.
On the political front a planned four-month period between parliamentary and presidential elections this year "augurs a policy hiatus, and could be followed by a new administration with a weaker commitment to honoring sovereign debt obligations."
Indonesia's credit ratings have been savaged since the country plunged into an economic crisis in mid-1997 when its currency collapsed in the Asian contagion.
Michael Richardson, Jakarta -- Indonesia's badly battered economy appears to be stabilizing and could return to growth before the year is out, according to officials and analysts who have been tracking it.
Their cautious reassessment came as Standard & Poor's Corp., the US-based credit-rating concern, said Wednesday that the outlook for Indonesia's foreign and local currency debt was now stable.
It said this was so even though Indonesia's corporate sector had been "devastated" by the collapse of the rupiah as financial turmoil spread from Thailand to other parts of East Asia in 1997 and 1998.
The report, on the day before Indonesia starts its new budget year, followed several recent promising developments -- including major surgery to restore the heavily indebted banking system to health and an agreement with foreign banks that allows local banks more time to repay their loans.
It attributed the improvement to moves by the Indonesian central bank, backed by the International Monetary Fund, to restore monetary discipline, stabilize the rupiah, and reduce inflation from almost 70 percent in 1998 to an expected average of about 25 percent in 1999.
Indonesian financial markets were closed Wednesday for the end of the fiscal year. But the dollar was quoted at 8,745 rupiah at the close of trading on Tuesday -- almost exactly the same level as a year earlier. The dollar brought only 2,400 rupiah before the East Asian financial crisis struck in July 1997.
Hit by that crisis, Indonesia's economy shrank by 13 percent in 1998-99. But Dono Iskandar Djojosubroto, managing director of Bank Indonesia, the central bank, said Tuesday that the package of foreign relief loans together with economic reforms being implemented by the government "will provide the basis for a sustained recovery of the economy beginning later this year."
The International Monetary Fund's first deputy managing director, Stanley Fischer, said last week that an upturn in economic activity in Indonesia could start in the second half of 1999, although he cautioned that considerable risks still lay ahead.
He made his comments as he announced that the IMF was releasing $460 million to Indonesia and would increase its loan total by a further $1 billion to $12.3 billion. He said that corporate restructuring needed to be implemented more forcefully and bankruptcy laws made consistent with international practice.
Mr. Fischer added that the recently announced program to restructure the Indonesian banking system would also need to be "carried decisively forward within the next two months."
The Indonesian government announced in March that it would close down 38 domestic private banks, nationalize seven, inject money into nine and let 73 relatively healthy banks continue operations.
It promised to complete the recapitalization process for the nine banks by June 30. But some analysts are concerned that a new audit of the banks for the year to March 1999 will reveal a much worse bad-debt situation than the previous audit for the year to March 1998.
As a result, some of the major bank shareholders may be unable or unwilling to pay their agreed share of 20 percent of the recapitalization.
Standard & Poor's said Wednesday that the restructuring program would give the government control of 80 percent of the domestic banking system, while recapitalization would cost about 35 percent of Indonesia's 1998 gross domestic product.
"With corporate restructuring still embryonic, bank restructuring alone will not restore credit flows to the private sector, and working capital bottlenecks will continue to delay real economic recovery," S&P said.
Reflecting the concerns of many investors and economists in Indonesia, it said that upcoming elections might lead to policy paralysis, another balance of payments crisis, and debt defaults.
In a recent assessment, the World Bank said it expected the Indonesian economy to contract by 1 percent in 1999-2000 before expanding 3 percent the following year as a revived agricultural sector, which provides many of the country's exports, helped fuel a recovery.