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ASIET Net News 14 – April 5-11, 1999
East Timor| East Timor |
Karen Polglaze, Dili -- Behind a drooping curtain in a poorly-lit clinic in rural East Timor, a technician armed with a microscope and a belief in the World Health Organisation (WHO) is fighting to save lives.
Indonesia has one of the highest rates of infection for tuberculosis in the world, and its 27th province, East Timor, has the top rate in the country, medical experts say.
Figures are hard to come by in these days of dwindling doctor numbers, but an American doctor working at a Catholic clinic in Dili says 30 per cent of his patients are infected and 50 of the hundreds he sees every week have active infectious TB.
Tuberculosis is the most obvious of many health problems which beset this half-island, and with funds from ruling Indonesia drying up ahead of a mid-year ballot that is expected to lead to independence, health issues are increasingly under the spotlight.
East Timor leads the nation in some horrifying health statistics. Its infant mortality rate was 70.12 per 1,000 live births in 1997, according to figures from the Indonesian Ministry of Health.
That's 85 per cent higher than the 1997 national rate of 41 deaths per 1,000 live births -- and almost 14 times as much as the 1997 infant mortality rate in Australia of 5.3 per 1,000 live births.
Maternal mortality is also high -- 373 deaths for every 100,000 live births nationally in 1995 according to health ministry figures obtained through a survey of 12 hospitals in the more prosperous west of Indonesia.
In rural East Timor where hospitals are in short supply, the figures would be certainly be significantly higher.
UNICEF area representative for Indonesia and Malaysia Stephen Woodhouse said his organisation was very worried that infant and maternal mortality rates would increase in East Timor in the short term. "I'm very concerned, I think that this will be a big problem," Woodhouse said.
In the weeks following Indonesia's announcement that it might release the province if the East Timorese reject an offer of wide-ranging autonomy, there has been an exodus of skilled workers, including doctors, who fear an independent East Timor would not welcome them.
Rural health centres, although often poorly equipped and with an uncertain supply of medications, have suffered severely. "Only about half -- 53 per cent -- have got doctors now," Woodhouse said.
Increasing levels of violence as both sides of the political debate seek to consolidate their positions ahead of the ballot have also impeded health care, worsening an already precarious situation.
"People who need health care are afraid to go to health centres," Woodhouse said. "Health workers are afraid to go to villages. That's a huge issue, access to health care."
Tuberculosis is the number one killer disease in East Timor, according to Dr Nelson Martins, one of a small handful of indigenous East Timorese qualified to practise medicine.
Indonesian health officials have estimated that each person with active TB can infect 10 other people a year and in East Timor, where sections of the frightened population regularly flee violence and seek refuge in crowded churches and homes, the circumstances are ideal for the potentially fatal disease to rip through large groups of people.
The uncertain situation also impacts heavily on treatment regimes. While technicians can often diagnose the disease with only a microscope, the most effective treatment recommended by the WHO requires continuing observation for six months and courses of antibiotics which must not be interrupted. If people are on the move, they stop going to the clinic for their antibiotics.
Supply of medication for all sorts of treatments is also a problem in East Timor. Requisitions often take months to fill or simply never arrive, and a thriving black market among officials means that those medications which are most highly prized are often only available for those with lots of cash, according to spokesman for the CARE organisation in Dili, Antonio Da Conceicao
When supplies do filter through to local clinics, there is often not enough to complete treatment regimes. "Sometimes they just give another medicine that is not related to the disease because they want to sell the right medicine to make money," Antonio said. "Every day there are clinics where they have little medicine but there are hundreds of people waiting."
For about a year there has been no surgeon available in the public system in East Timor. There is a military surgeon, but many people are either too afraid to seek help from the military -- especially when they need surgery for bullet wounds -- or they cannot afford his fee.
Australia recently offered to send in a surgical team, but that was rejected by Indonesia, a situation that has also applied in the past when humanitarian organisations have sought permission to bring in doctors, Dr Martins said. Malaria is another severe problem as are diarrhoea and upper respiratory tract infections.
Medication and correct, timely treatment could go a long way towards alleviating these health problems without too much investment in infrastructure, but the most important question is whether the many organisations offering to help out will be given permission to go in soon enough to stop preventable deaths or whether they will have to wait until a political solution is secured. "We don't care about the political situation, people here need help," Dr Martins said.
Dili -- At least one person was killed and another seriously injured after a clash between hundreds of members of pro- independence and anti-independence groups in East Timor, police and local residents said Saturday.
"The clash occurred this morning in Ermera," Lt. Col. Herry Gultom, the Ermera police chief, told Kyodo News by telephone from the town, about 35 kilometers southwest of the East Timor capital of Dili.
Gultom refused to say whether there were casualties during the clash, but a Catholic priest in the district said at least one person died and another was seriously injured and being treated at the Dili General Hospital.
Meanwhile, anti-independence groups in the former Portuguese colony held their second gathering "to consolidate power and strength" in the town of Viqueque, about 200 km east of Dili, involving about 2,000 people, their spokesman in Jakarta, Domingos Policarpo, told Kyodo News.
The first rally took place Thursday in the town of Maliana, about 140 km west of Dili. Another gathering is scheduled for Sunday in the town of Zumalai, about 150 km south of the East Timor capital.
The Saturday gathering was held in response to a call Monday by jailed East Timor rebel leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao for pro-independence supporters to "protect themselves" from attacks by armed pro-Indonesia militias or the Indonesian armed forces.
United Nations - A senior UN official warned Friday amid escalating violence in East Timor that peace in the former Portuguese colony was a "prerequisite" for a UN-organized ballot.
"Clearly it's not possible to hold these consultations in an atmosphere charged with fighting, that has to stop," UN special representative Jamsheed Marker told reporters here after holding talks with leading East Timor resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta.
"And that's a prerequisite. It's something that we've told all sides, and in particular the Indonesian government, and they're aware of that," Marker said. Marker said that he was concerned about the pre-poll violence, but not surprised.
Marker, who on Friday also met with the Portuguese and Indonesian ambassadors to the United Nations, said there was "no turning back" in the process that is expected to lead to East Timor independence by the end of the year.
He said that Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas had assured him on Wednesday that Indonesia hoped to bring a finalized draft autonomy package to talks here with Portugal on April 21.
Jakarta -- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said here Friday threats to their security had prevented them from helping the victims of the Liquisa massacre in East Timor.
In an ICRC statement issued here, the body said it was prepared to return to Liquisa to assess humanitarian needs in the area only if the security of its staff was guaranteed. The ICRC had earlier been invited to investigate Tuesday's incident by the Indonesian Defence Ministry.
"Even though the ICRC is not an investigation body, it will try to accede the area in order to assess the humanitarian needs if the necessary security for its personnel can be guaranteed," the statement said.
The statement also revealed the ICRC had warned authorities in Dili of a "potential explosive situation" in Liquisa on Monday, the day before the massacre.
Referring to Tuesday's massacre, in which the military says only five were killed but rights bodies say anywhere between 22 and 52 East Timorese refugees were killed in a church compound, the statement said joint ICRC-Indonesian Red Cross teams had been in the Liquisa area at the time.
On Monday the ICRC teams had been assisting "internally displaced persons ... fleeing violence in the area", when they too had to evacuate as heavy shooting broke out.
That afternoon the situation in Liquisa was tense, with the streets deserted and "a large number of people" taking refuge in a church, it said, adding that the ICRC delegate had informed authorities in Dili of the "potential explosive situation." An attempt by the ICRC to reach Liquisa on Tuesday was thwarted by the "tense situation and the hostile environment", as reports started to emerge of "a number of persons killed and wounded in incidents including the church", the statement said.
In a third attempt to reach Liquisa on Wednesday, the ICRC delegate was able to meet the local police commander, but was unable to do anything more because of "security threats", it said.
A Red Cross ambulance was forced to return to the main city of Dili without being able to evacuate any of the seriously wounded, 20 of whom managed to make it to Dili on their own, it said.
The statement did not specify the nature of the threats, or who had made them, but it said the ICRC was "extremely worried about the reports on the high number of victims, killed or wounded, many displaced persons and families without news of their next of kin."
Vaudine England, Jakarta -- Reports of the Liquica massacre in East Timor are beginning to overshadow resistance leader Xanana Gusmao's controversial statements earlier this week -- which is just as well for the resistance leader's diplomatic standing.
Few international observers dispute Gusmao's claim that aggression -- by the Indonesian army or its paramilitary groups -- is continuing in East Timor.
But many were shocked at his apparent reversion from reconciliation leader to guerilla fighter when he issued a call to arms on Monday.
The Co-ordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, General Feisal Tanjung, said Gusmao had gone overboard and hinted at the possibility of returning him to prison.
"If necessary, we'll move him to Nusa Kambangan," a high-level security prison on a small island off the southern coast of central Java, he said.
Western diplomats said if Gusmao hoped to secure a United Nations presence in East Timor by such tactics, he was making a fundamental error.
The Indonesian Government would have to agree to a UN force arriving in Dili, and by resorting to aggressive language Gusmao was seen to be relinquishing the moral high ground to Jakarta's benefit. "I think the Indonesians were laughing at the beginning of the week -- but that was before Liquica," said one source.
Confirmation of the atrocity will strengthen concern about East Timor, helped also by Gusmao's clarification of his statement. "I did not say that we were ready for a war, but I call on the people to prepare themselves -- do not die like an animal," he said on Wednesday.
A Western diplomatic source said: "We are all welcoming his clarification, and that will lead to warmer reactions from Western capitals. But at the same time, you reap what you sow."
The source said Gusmao's enemies, the pro-integrationist forces on the ground in East Timor, had now called for mass mobilisations of their own supporters, raising the prospect of more conflict.
The Indonesian Government is thought to be pleased at any excuse for further delays of the UN-brokered negotiations for a peaceful solution for East Timor in New York.
Jakarta is still working on its proposal for comprehensive autonomy for East Timor, concerned partly about how much money is involved and partly about setting any precedent for other parts of Indonesia.
"Xanana has given the opportunity to others now to stall or skew the talks in New York," said an international analyst.
Angela Tresnasari, Jakarta -- Indonesia on Friday threatened to put East Timor guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao back in jail unless he retracted a call to arms within a week.
Justice Minister Muladi delivered the ultimatum four days after Gusmao, now under house arrest in Jakarta, called for an insurrection against Indonesian rule in his restive homeland.
"If he does not want to do that we will review his position, meaning we will return him to Cipinang jail or another place," Muladi told reporters after meeting President B.J. Habibie.
Asked if there was a limit to how long Gusmao would have, Muladi replied: "Yes, I think in one week from now." He said the retraction should be firm, preferably in writing.
Gusmao, captured and jailed in 1992 for leading an armed rebellion aimed at securing independence from Indonesia, was transferred only two months ago to house arrest in the hope he could help negotiate a peaceful end to the East Timor crisis.
But on Monday, with Indonesia set to allow the Timorese to vote on their future in July, Gusmao urged insurrection, citing a campaign of terror by Indonesian troops and loyalist militias.
He has since denied he was declaring war, but pro-Jakarta militias in East Timor are treating it as such and say they are consolidating forces in case of a bloody showdown with separatists.
Hostilities between pro-Jakarta forces and the popular pro- independence movement have intensified since Indonesia agreed in February to allow East Timorese to decide in a UN ballot whether they wanted to split from Indonesian rule.
Timorese human rights and community groups accused Jakarta on Friday of systematically terrorising civilians in the former Portuguese colony, which was invaded by Indonesia in 1975.
An umbrella organisation representing the disparate groups told Indonesia's rights watchdog that anti-independence militias backed by Jakarta were gearing up for war.
The Lorosae Timorese Solidarity Forum (FORTILOS) cited what it called a massacre of civilians in a church and priest's house outside East Timor's capital, Dili, on Tuesday.
"The Liquisa massacre was part of series of terror carried out by armed forces militia groups in East Timor after President B.J. Habibie offered a wide range of autonomy to East Timor," said FORTILOS chairman Ita Fatia Nadia.
East Timor's spiritual leader, Bishop Carlos Belo, said after visiting Liquisa, 30 km west of Dili, this week that 25 people had died in the attack by pro-Jakarta forces.
There are conflicting accounts of the incident, with death tolls ranging from five to 57. The government has not commented directly, though it says it will investigate.
Australia's ambassador to Indonesia, John McCarthy, told Reuters Television on Friday an Australian team had been sent to East Timor to investigate the Liquisa incident.
He stressed that the exact role or otherwise of Indonesian armed forces needed to be determined. "It is certainly a very serious incident," he said.
FORTILOS told the National Human Rights Commission the incident was part of pattern of violence. It said that in January and February alone there were 62 cases of violence by pro-Jakarta forces in East Timor in which 19 people were killed. Another seven were still missing, it said.
The FORTILOS report blamed the killings on the military, police and armed civilians. "The militias threaten to trigger war if the pro-independence group win in the ballot," Nadia said.
Some 20 pro-independence East Timorese protested in front of the commission's building after the FORTILOS meeting, demanding an end to the terror and Gusmao's release. Mostly students, they held banners reading: "We don't need terror and bullets" and "Patria ou Morte!" (Motherland or Death).
East Timor's military commander, Colonel Tono Suratman, on Friday denied troops were involved in the violence in Liquisa.
It is hard to see how worse bloodshed can be avoided without much stronger international pressure on Jakarta to pull its troops into line, writes Brian Toohey.
Alexander Downer could be excused for wondering whatever happened to the famed special relationship between the Australian military and the Indonesian military now that it is needed.
As Foreign Minister, Downer has the unenviable job of helping bring about something resembling a peaceful act of self- determination in East Timor. The biggest barrier he faces is the Indonesian military's defiance of President Habibie's desire that they should stop arming paramilitary groups currently terrorising East Timorese who favour independence.
Ideally, Downer should be able to play a trump card inherited from the Keating era. Relying on a process dubbed "Velcro diplomacy", he should be able to ask senior members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to have a word in the ear of their opposite numbers in Indonesia, and the militia would be disarmed.
Velcro diplomacy has been hailed as one of the great successes of the Keating Government's policy of building closer ties with the Indonesian military (ABRI), particularly its Special Forces (Kopassus). The basic idea entailed Australian soldiers establishing close personal relations with their Indonesian counterparts.
One of the alleged benefits was that Australia would be able to exercise much greater influence over ABRI's behaviour. The claim was never really tested during the Keating era because there was no serious disagreement with ABRI's role of suppressing dissent on behalf of the former dictator, President Soeharto.
But this has changed since John Howard took over as Australian Prime Minister, and Habibie became Indonesian President. Both governments are officially committed to a ballot in which the East Timorese will indirectly vote on whether they want to become an autonomous part of Indonesia. If they reject autonomy -- which most observers expect to be the clear outcome of a genuinely free choice -- Habibie has said they can have independence.
Downer accepts that Habibie wants a peaceful outcome. But he has complained that "rogue elements" in the military are refusing to go along with Habibie's wishes. However, it is now plain that the top levels of the Indonesian military are making no real effort to get Kopassus units to obey orders and stop funding and arming the anti-independence paramilitary groups in East Timor.
As recently as Tuesday, at least 25 unarmed villagers were massacred in Liquica by members of the Red and White Iron paramilitary group with the support of Indonesian soldiers.
The massacre was basically no different to the atrocities that have brought the wrath of NATO down on the heads of Serbian paramilitary groups in Kosovo. Yet the special lines of communication supposedly established as a result of the ADF's venture into Velcro diplomacy have obviously proved worthless in terms of stopping similar atrocities in East Timor.
No-one is suggesting that there be a NATO-style response in which downtown Jakarta is repeatedly bombed. But Downer is likely to find little public sympathy if he stands by and lets the situation deteriorate further. Yet it is hard to see how worse bloodshed can be avoided without much stronger international pressure on Jakarta to pull its troops into line.
At present, the July ballot is supposed to take place under ABRI's supervision. UN observers will be given no separate protection. Unless all sides agree to lay down their arms before the ballot -- and ABRI steps away from its current policy of intimidation -- the chances of a genuine act of self- determination look slim.
Downer's problem is that a rigged ballot will not end the determined resistance to Indonesia's brutal occupation of East Timor. This resistance has never really wavered since the 1975 invasion. Armed action only ceased with the promise of a genuine act of self-determination. If that promise is snatched away by Kopassus's terror campaign, a new level of violent resistance is likely.
According to Labor's shadow Foreign Minister, Laurie Brereton, who is due to arrive in Jakarta on Tuesday, the most productive response at this stage would be to help organise a peacekeeping force to ensure a relatively clean ballot in July. The difficulty is how to get the necessary agreement on all sides before there is a peace to be kept.
A US Assistant Secretary of State, Stanley Roth, is also due in the Indonesian capital to reportedly hammer home a "hard message" on the need for an end to the bloodshed in East Timor. On Friday, a State Department spokesperson said that the US supported an "enhanced international presence" in East Timor. Australia will clearly be expected to be part of that presence -- most likely with peacekeeping troops.
One of Downer's predecessors as Foreign Minister, Bill Hayden, warned on Friday that this would result in "numerous body bags" coming back to Australia.
Senior members of the ADF believe that Hayden underestimates just how well Australian troops are trained and equipped. Australian peacekeepers in Somalia in 1991 persuaded local militia to disarm, without suffering any casualties themselves. Accordingly, the ADF is confident that it would not have a lot of trouble convincing ill-trained militia groups in East Timor that shooting unarmed civilians is a lot easier than killing members of a well-armed international peacekeeping force.
Contrary to some impressions, the ADF is not reluctant to participate in a peacekeeping force. Nor are some senior policy makers in the Defence Department, who now see a peaceful transition to East Timorese independence as removing a crucial impediment to good long-term relations between Australia and Indonesia.
This is essentially the same view as Defence unsuccessfully put to the Whitlam Government before the 1975 invasion. Defence was subsequently persuaded during the Keating era that Velcro diplomacy based on warm personal ties between ABRI and the ADF would bolster the relationship -- so long as no-one criticised the invasion.
Now there seems to be a return to the view that diplomacy is better left to diplomats -- that Indonesian generals who won't listen to their own President are unlikely to take much notice of the same message delivered by an Australian general with whom they once shared a beer in the officers' mess in Darwin. All of which puts the ball firmly in Downer's court.
Voters in Western countries are not baulking at tough action to prevent massacres in Kosovo. There is no reason to expect they will be happy to tolerate similar massacres occurring in East Timor because countries on the diplomatic front-line, such as Australia, can't apply enough pressure to make Indonesia's military forces stop imitating their Serbian counterparts.
Tommy Ardiansyah, Dili -- Pro-Jakarta militias rallied in East Timor on Thursday, calling pro-independence leader Xanana Gusmao's call for popular insurrection an offer of war.
The meeting in Maliana, the militias' headquarters, came two days after an alleged massacre blamed on pro-Jakarta forces in which the territory's spiritual leader Bishop Carlos Belo said 25 people died.
Militia spokesman Basilio Araujo said 15,000 people attended the meeting, including 2,000 armed fighters. No independent confirmation of the numbers was available.
The town is the headquarters of all pro-Jakarta militias in the disputed territory, and is near the border with West Timor, 65 km southwest of Dili.
Militiamen vowed to fight on in Indonesia's name even if the Indonesian armed forces (ABRI) withdrew from the bloodied territory, Araujo said.
"We are ready to ask the Indonesian military to leave us and let the world know that we are still capable of defending the red and white flag in East Timor," militia commander Eurico Guterres was quoted saying at the rally.
In an earlier statement, the headquarters said it was the first of several to "reorganise and consolidate the strength and power, preparing all steps and measures to undertake to face the offer of war put forward by Xanana."
Gusmao denied on Wednesday that his call to arms constituted a declaration of war. His pro-independence Falintil forces would help ordinary East Timorese defend themselves, he said from house arrest.
On Thursday, Belo said recent killings gave legitimacy to Gusmao's call to arms but stopped short of giving it his full backing. In an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio, Belo said he had visited Liquisa, the site of Tuesday's reported massacre.
"I continue to work for peace and reconciliation, but if you don't like Xanana saying these things, you can see the situation ... on the ground," Belo said.
Pro-independence forces earlier said 45 people died on Tuesday in an attack on a church in Liquisa, 30 km west of Dili. Indonesia's military denied such reports.
In Lisbon overnight, Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio blamed the attack on Indonesia and called for the United Nations to send a force to the former Portuguese colony ahead of a vote scheduled for July on independence or autonomy.
"The Indonesian authorities must be seen as responsible before the international community for the wave of violence by armed militias against civilians," Sampaio said, saying he had discussed the issue with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Indonesian Justice Minister Muladi was quoted in the Media Indonesia daily newspaper on Thursday as saying Gusmao could be returned to jail after his call for an insurrection.
Jakarta -- Six East Timorese activists holed up in the Austrian embassy in Jakarta since September 1997 left the diplomatic premises on Tuesday, according to former FRETILIN president Abilio Araujo.
Araujo, who nowadays regards himself as the leader of East Timor's so-called "Third Way" between the established Timorese resistance movement and pro-Indonesian forces, is currently in Jakarta for talks with Indonesian government officials.
The group of six East Timorese activitsts comprised the secretary-general of the Timorese Socialist Party (PST), Avelino da Silva, his wife, two chidren and two other activists.
The Indonesian authorities had accused the Da Silva and his wife of being members of an organisation known as "Black Brigade," which allegedly planned bomb attacks on civilians in Indonesia.
Liquica -- The church was no sanctuary. Neither was the priest's house, where for all their scrubbing, nuns had yet to wash away all the blood on Thursday.
Two days after pro-Indonesian militiamen invaded a church complex in East Timor, shooting and cutting down villagers, the massacre site was abandoned save for a few grazing goats and half a dozen nuns.
But witness accounts Thursday made vivid the scenes of slaughter at the compound in Liquica, where religious leaders say at least 25 people died and dozens were wounded.
Survivors' tales also implicated the hundreds of Indonesian police and soldiers who were there. Rather than trying to stop the carnage, the police allegedly participated in the hunt. Military commanders have denied the accusation.
The violence started shortly before noon Tuesday, when hundreds of civilian fighters who want Indonesia to keep control of East Timor swarmed into Liquica, attacking villagers suspected of being pro-independence activists.
They quickly converged outside the church, where up to 2,000 people, including children and the elderly, had sought shelter, according to parish priest Rafael dos Santos.
"Get out of the church!" shouted the members of Red and White Iron, a militia group that separatist activists say has received weapons and training from the Indonesian military.
Inside, terrified women were reluctant. "We didn't want to leave because we thought the men who were left behind would be killed," said 27-year-old Emilita Mendes, who has been hiding in a Liquica house since the massacre.
Soon, tension exploded into mayhem. As security forces stood by, Mendes and other witnesses said, militiamen ran into the church grounds and slashed at victims who scrambled to get away. Gunshots boomed as the injured screamed.
Antonio dos Santos, a 22-year-old church worker, escaped unharmed. A militiaman who had often attended Mass recognized him and told his buddies: "This is my friend. Don't do anything to him."
The Catholic priest, Rafael dos Santos, said God saved him. A fighter tried to shoot him, but the faulty gun only delivered a click. Frustrated, the assailant picked up a rock and hurled it at the priest, who is no relation to Antonio.
By this time, many villagers had fled from the church to the priest's house. According to Rafael dos Santos, police fired shots and lobbed tear gas grenades at his home and militiamen with clubs pounded those who stumbled out teary-eyed.
One of them was Francisco de Jesus, a 25-year-old electrician whose head was covered with bloody gauze Thursday as he recovered in a clinic in Dili, East Timor's capital, 18 miles east of Liquica. He escaped because a policeman who knew him ushered him to safety. Many witnesses said security forces also shot and beat victims at the church, which sits just 100 yards from a military office.
East Timor's military chief, Col. Tono Suratman, promised to investigate the reports but insisted soldiers had been trying to separate the two sides. Earlier this week, he said, troops killed two separatists who shot at them.
The military, which invaded East Timor in 1975, has long been accused of human rights abuses in its efforts to wipe out pro- independence rebels.
Indonesia reversed its policy of sovereignty over the former Portuguese colony earlier this year, and has said it will let go of the territory if its people turn down an autonomy offer.
However, escalating violence between supporters and opponents of independence threatens to undermine a vote on the autonomy proposal, planned for July. Separatists suspect Indonesia is trying to sabotage the vote by arming civilian militias.
On Thursday, about 2,000 militiamen, some accused of taking part in Tuesday's massacre, rallied at Maliana, a town 70 miles west of Liquica.
Brandishing swords, iron bars and other homemade weapons, they vowed to step up their fight against separatists. "We have to be ready whenever the attack comes," militia commander Joao da Silva Tavares told the gathering. "Prepare yourselves."
Even though nuns have been scrubbing hard in dos Santos' house, dried blood still spatters the floors, walls and the side of a jeep outside. Broken glass is everywhere. Bullet holes pepper the ceiling where attackers fired at people hidden in the attic.
Witnesses said men with swords gutted two people, including a chief from the nearby village of Dato, in the bathroom. There is also blood and clumps of matted hair on a wall of the church and several long tracks of blood on the ground.
East Timor's spiritual leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Bishop Carlos Belo, said the military had told him 25 people were killed.
A Dili-based human rights group, Yayasan Hak, estimated from witness accounts that 52 people were killed, their bodies dumped at sea or in a nearby lake. Another group, Solidamor, released a list of 42 dead. Among them were 23 children, including 11 girls aged between 1 and 14.
Dili -- Nobel peace laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo accused Indonesian-backed militia on Wednesday of massacring more than 25 people in East Timor outside a church.
Belo was speaking at a press conference with Father Rafael Dos Santos who described how refugees sheltering in his church and home at Liquisa, 30 kilometers west of the Timorese capital Dili, were hacked down with machetes. Dos Santos said Indonesian mobile brigade police stood behind the militia during the attack, and fired into the air.
When the attack began "people ran for cover wherever they could," he said. Some ran into his house and some into the church before being forced out when troops fired teargas into the buildings.
"When they came out of the church, their eyes streaming, they were mown down, hacked to death with machetes, by the Besi Merah Putih (Red and White Iron militia)," he said.
Portugal's envoy to Indonesia Ana Gomes called for an international inquiry in the massacre after meeting jailed East Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmao in his house prison in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Belo travelled to Liquisa earlier Wednesday to visit the site of the attack with Indonesia's East Timor military commander Colonel Tono Suratman.
"I have a paper from the military commander that there were 25 bodies inside the priest's house," he said, "but according to other witnesses outside around the church there were other bodies. I don't know exactly how many."
Belo had been quoted by the Portugese news agency Lusa on Tuesday as saying he had first been informed by the Indonesian military of the deaths of 40 people in the church and five in the priest's house. Indonesian military spokesman Major General Syamsul Maarif said however that only five civilians were killed during the violence.
"Firstly I am sad, for what happened in Liquisa ... secondly I am ashamed to be a citizen of the [Indonesian] republic. It has taken us back to the middle ages," Belo said.
"This is a tragedy, a killing just like what happened in Santa Cruz in 1991," he said, referring to the massacre of pro- independence demonstrators in the East Timor capital Dili which left 50 dead according to an official toll and more than 100 according to other reports.
He said President B.J. Habibie should set up a special military council to probe the massacre. Belo also said the Liquisa massacre was "proof that Xanana is right" -- alluding to a call by Xanana Gusmao on Monday for his people to take up arms against pro-Indonesian militias.
Portugese envoy Ana Gomes called for an international investigation in a press conference at Gusmao's detention house.
"We feel an international investigation would be necessary to establish what happened in Liquisa," Gomes said. "We don't know exactly what happened. We do not know if four, 20, 40 or how many were killed. We want to clarify indeed what had happened."
The envoy also reiterated calls for an international presence in East Timor. "An international presence is absolutely necessary in East Timor to calm the tension and to deter the violence, from whoever is intending to launch it," Gomes said. "This time in Liquisa, there were no observers. Nobody knows what happened yet," she said.
Pierre Gerber, from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Jakarta, said: "The ICRC could not proceed to Liquisa because of concerns for the security of its delegates."
Gusmao, through his lawyer, on Tuesday also called for a UN peace keeping force in East Timor to disarm the civilian population and halt the violence in the former Portuguese colony which Jakarta annexed in 1976.
But Indonesian Armed Forces chief General Wiranto Wednesday rejected the call, insisting that problems in East Timor were "the internal concerns of the Republic of Indonesia".
In New York Tuesday the United Nations also rejected the calls for a peacekeeping force, but expressed concern over the violence in East Timor.
Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- In a dramatic escalation of violence in East Timor, the jailed resistance leader Jose "Xanana" Gusmao called on his supporters yesterday to take up arms and fight Indonesian-backed militia groups.
The call followed an attack by hundreds of the militia on Mr Gusmao's supporters in East Timor early yesterday in which 17 people were reported killed and scores injured.
Until now Mr Gusmao, a former guerilla leader under house arrest in Jakarta, has ordered his supporters to act with restraint ahead of a promised vote in July to decide East Timor's future.
Mr Gusmao's lawyer, Mr Johnson Panjaitan, said last night that Mr Gusmao decided to make the call to fight after hearing of the attack. Mr Panjaitan said Mr Gusmao had been told the Indonesian military was sweeping through the streets of Dili, picking up pro-independence supporters. A human rights activist confirmed the attack and said Dili was tense.
Seventeen people had been killed during a day of violence in East Timor, the pro-independence National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) said, blaming several groups of paramilitary forces and the Indonesian military (ABRI) for attacks in Liquica and Maubara, 20 kilometres and 40 kilometres respectively west of Dili, the capital. Dozens of injured people were being taken for treatment in Dili and hundreds were trying to leave the area.
A militia group backed by ABRI had launched the attack in Maubara, according to CNRT's Dili secretariat spokesman, Mr Jose Reis.
The senior CNRT spokesman, Mr David Ximenes, said later the killings had moved to Liquica. "Seventeen have been killed," he said. "There is no number for the injured -- there are so many." Mr Ximenes told Australian Associated Press that refugees, which some reports suggest number in the hundreds, were being stopped on the road by the paramilitary groups.
The attack comes after a spate of new threats against the pro-independence alliance which has sent scores of its members into hiding across the province.
Reports of the latest deaths filtered through to Dili just as the two bishops -- Bishop Carlos Belo and Bishop Basilio Nasciamento -- were due to meet leaders of the pro-integration movement to see if they were willing to participate in another round of reconciliation talks. Tension has increased over the past few days and refugees have been returning to some churches in outlying regions, where earlier this year they sought shelter from attacksby the paramilitary groups.
The killings in Maubara were attributed by CNRT to the Besi Merah Putih (Red and White Iron) militia group.
Mr Reis said many CNRT members and leaders in the East Timorese towns of Dili, Viqueque and Maliana were hiding because "there are rumours that ABRI wants to capture them".
"There are also threats that they will be tortured and killed," he said. "ABRI goes from house to house in the night to find CNRT members. It wants to get them because the CNRT tried to bolster people's spirits over independence." The church at Suai, about 100 kilometres south-west of Dili, is once again home to more than 1,000 refugees who have fled their homes following renewed threats of violence from a local paramilitary group called Mahidi.
United Nations -- The United Nations on Tuesday issued a new appeal to the East Timorese and Indonesia not to derail political talks but rejected a call for a UN peacekeeping force to stop violence.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was "seriously concerned by continuing reports from East Timor of an escalation of violence," his spokesman Fred Eckhard said in a statement.
"He emphasizes his commitment to the continuation of the diplomatic process towards the settlement of the East Timor question and urges the parties not to allow the process to be jeopardized by increasing armed conflict," Eckhard said.
Eckhard added that "a high degree of political maturity and statesmanship is required at this time so that the opportunity now on the table can be seized." Annan issued a first statement expressing concern about the upsurge in violence on Monday.
UN officials said Annan was aware of a call from jailed pro- independence leader Xanana Gusmao, who issued a statement Monday calling on his followers to take up arms in self-defence following the reported deaths of 17 East Timorese.
However they also noted that Gusmao had not issued the call personally, but via his lawyer Johnson Panjaitan. On Tuesday Johnson told a news conference that Gusmao was calling for a UN peacekeeping force.
The call was swiftly rejected by Jakarta and Eckhard told AFP that "there is no proposal for a peacekeeping force to be considered at this time."
The latest developments came as Portugal and Indonesia are preparing for a new round of talks at the United Nations that is expected to reach agreement on a draft autonomy package for the former Portuguese colony.
If rejected, as expected, in a UN-organized vote by the East Timorese, Indonesia has said that the territory which it annexed in 1976 will be allowed to gain independence.
A UN assessment team, which was dispatched to prepare for the UN-sponsored poll, is due back in New York next week to report back to Annan's personal representative for East Timor, Jamsheed Marker.
Jakarta -- Indonesia's Foreign Minister Ali Alatas on Tuesday accused pro-independence East Timorese of a disinformation campaign to portray Jakarta as destroying moves to peacefully resolve the territory's future.
His remarks came a day after rebel leader Xanana Gusmao, angered by growing pro-Jakarta violence, told East Timorese to take up arms again against Indonesian rule in the former Portuguese colony, abruptly abandoning his ceasefire.
"I hope that his statement was made in a burst of emotionalism and that maybe when cooler heads prevail in the following days he will see that it is not helpful at all," Alatas said.
"It really endangers the whole process in which we are all engaged and in which we all have a vital interest," he told reporters.
"We really regret that even after we have shown so much goodwill ... whereas Portugal has not moved one inch, whereas our detractors have not moved one inch, still we are pictured as if we are the ones destroying the possibilities for a peaceful solution," Alatas said. "These are all disinformations," Alatas added. "What else can be expected from Indonesia?"
He said Gusmao, who is under house arrest in Jakarta, was repeating information from unreliable sources. Alatas denied an account of an incident in East Timor's Liquisa district on Monday, which said 17 people were killed by pro-Jakarta forces.
He suggested that pro-independence groups were getting worried that a planned vote by East Timorese on broad autonomy, scheduled for July, would not produce the result they wanted.
Negotiations resume between Portugal and Indonesia in New York later this month focusing on the question of allowing East Timorese to choose their own future. Jakarta has said that if East Timorese chose to reject proposed autonomy, it would consider independence for the territory.
Jakarta -- The following information reached the office of the CNRT President, Xanana Gusmco at 9.30pm (Jakarta time):
Further reports specify that a forty Indonesian soldier roadblock has been set up on the road from Dili to Liquica and that a battalion of Indonesian military forces disembarked today in Dili at 2pm (Dili time) from navy ship 504. All communications systems have been cut off in the Liquica area.
Yesterday, Xanana Gusmco reminded the world that the people of East Timor can no longer be expected to passively await death. They have the right to self-defence. As the Commander in Chief of FALINTIL, Xanana Gusmco asked FALINTIL to resume the mission they have been carrying out for the past twenty three years: to defend the people of East Timor from the murderous military occupation of their homeland.
Today, Xanana Gusmco called for the immediate deployment of a UN peace mission in the territory as proof of the international community's commitment to contribute to and implement a peaceful solution in East Timor.
As Xanana Gusmco was making this appeal today, and as world leaders were reacting to his statement of yesterday, the armed civilian militias and the Indonesian military assaulted the only place where the East Timorese population could feel safe and could be defended. They violated a sanctuary where unarmed civilians had taken refuge.
Unfortunately it has taken the loss of yet another 45 innocent lives for the world to note that Xanana Gusmco did not make a call for the People of East Timor to take up arms to take offensive action, but rather to defend themselves and resort to their own means to survive such barbarous and cowardly murders.
"I authorised the people to act against their attackers, not in the spirit of wanton violence and callous disregard for human life which motivates ABRI, but in pure self-defence," said Xanana Gusmco.
Washington -- The State Department on Monday called "dangerous and troubling" news that detained East Timorese rebel leader Xanana Gusmao now favors a return to armed struggle.
Spokesman James Rubin also voiced US concern about continuing violence in the former Portuguese territory.
"We are unable to confirm at this point these reported statements," Rubin said, referring to a statement Monday by Gusmao's lawyer that he had ordered East Timorese to resume their resistance war against Indonesian troops.
"We will be seeking clarification of his views, which if reported correctly, we would urge him to reconsider. If true, this would be a dangerous and troubling development," Rubin said.
Gusmao gave the order to resume armed struggle after learning that pro-Indonesian militia had killed 17 East Timorese people, his lawyer said.
"Xanana has ordered the independence guerrillas and all the people to take up arms against the Indonesian armed forces and the paramilitary groups that have carried out murders of East Timorese," lawyer Johnson Pangaitan quoted a statement issued by Gusmao as saying.
The lawyer told AFP that Gusmao had relayed the order to his followers in East Timor at 4.00pm, when he had learned that two people had been killed and seven injured in an attack by Indonesian-backed militia in East Timor.
"But since then he learned that 17 people had been killed in the attack" Monday on Mauboke in the Liquisa district west of the East Timorese capital of Dili, Johnson said.
Attempts by journalists to reach Gusmao himself by phone at his Jakarta suburban detention house were met with the news that his telephone had been "temporarily disconnected." Johnson said the guerrilla leader felt he had been "lied to" by the Indonesian military, and accused the international community of "passivity" in trusting the Indonesian military more than the people of East Timor.
The declaration was an abrupt reversal for Gusmao, who has recently called on his guerrilla fighters to show restraint and not to react against provocation by the militia or the army.
Jakarta -- Pro-Indonesia militiamen and troops killed at least 17 people, wounding dozens more, in an attack Monday on an East Timorese village near Liquiga, a resistance spokesman told Lusa.
David Ximenes, a representative of the National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT), said fresh news reaching Dili brought word the attack had caused many more casualties than first reported. Casualty figures could continue rising, he added.
He said militiamen and troops were "firing indiscriminantly" on civilians in the village of Mauboke, who only had knives for their defense.
Ximenes urged the international community "to pressure" the United Nations "to come to East Timor" to quell escalating violence between pro- and anti-independence supporters.
The streets of Dili, he added, were filled with armed militamen who were threatening CNRT officials and pro- independence supporters.
UN representative suggests East Timor security zones
Australian Associated Press - April 4, 1999 (abridged)
Karen Polglaze, Jakarta -- A United Nations representative has suggested creating security zones in East Timor as a senior aid worker warned that people working with refugees were being targeted and their lives threatened.
As political positions harden in the lead-up to a mid-year UN-supervised ballot on the future of the disputed territory, the level of violence has increased.
Jailed East Timorse resistance leader Jose Xanana Gusmao warned of a bloodbath if pro-integrationist militias were not disarmed and said the UN police force he previously advocated would no longer be able to cope with the situation and that a full-fledged peacekeeping force will be needed.
Refugees fleeing violence and seeking shelter in churches and safe house now numbered about 7,000 across the province, a senior aid worker visiting Dili said.
"The problem we have is how to get humanitarian aid to these people who have no home, no food and no shelter," the aid worker said.
"At present, the [Catholic] church is filling the gap, but everybody who is identified as being somebody who is trying to help is being targeted. Anybody who is trying to assist them, including nuns, is being threatened."
The aid worker, who did not wish to be identified, joined the increasingly loud calls for a UN peacekeeping force to be sent into East Timor as soon as possible.
UNICEF area representative for Indonesia and Malaysia Stephen Woodhouse said there were serious concerns over access to health care, especially now that many doctors had been among the thousands of Indonesians who had left the province fearing further violence.
A UN humanitarian mission was due to assess the situation in the territory to compile a report for a meeting between senior officials of Indonesia and former colonial power Portugal to take place in New York on April 13 under the auspices of the UN.
"We need to agree on standard operating procedures, corridors of access and zones of security as soon as possible," Woodhouse told AAP.
"Facilities and trained staff are worse in East Timor than anywhere else in Indonesia. But the big issue here is the security issue."
Dili -- The calling back of thousands of East Timorese students currently pursuing studies in various cities throughout Indonesia has been deplored. Students would be better off concentrating on their studies. Not all students supported either independence or integration for the territory.
Joao Bosco, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) faction in the East Timor Regional DPR (People's Representative Council) said this yesterday. "The students should only work for their own individual interests. This could disturb the peace. Practical political education for the community is already part of the UN programme," he said.
A number of students who had newly disembarked from said that they had been "ordered" to come home by Xanana Gusmao. [sentence as received] They said that they had received the call to return from rectors of their institutions, after the rectors had received a letter from Gusmao.
The students said that they would be taking a three-month vacation starting in April, with the special task of offering political education to the East Timorese community. All East Timorese students were expected to be in Dili by 3rd April...
For the past couple of months, we have received daily information pointing to a deterioration of the situation in East Timor.
Today, we received new information that civilian militias backed up by ABRI opened fire this morning on the population in Mauboke (Maubara, Liquica district, west of Dili), killing four and seriously injuring at least seven others.
In an interview given in Dili, on 3 April 1999, General Damiri, Commander of the Udayana Regional Military Command, revealed that there exists no political will on the part of the Indonesian government to resolve the East Timor problem.
The arrogance of ABRI is once more demonstrated by General Damiri who, through his declarations in Dili, has caused the situation to deteriorate in East Timor, and we anticipate a heightening of the climate of war. We know that Jakarta's strategy is to encourage the East Timorese to kill one other in order to justify ABRI's continued presence in the territory.
Right from the time of the Indonesian student demonstrations which led to Suharto's resignation up to the more recent waves of violence in Indonesia, we have consistently affirmed that we do not intend to take advantage of the situation of chaos in Indonesia in order to force our own political ends.
For a long time we have made it known that we wish to assist Indonesia (and more recently also the brutal Indonesian armed forces) to save face.
However, since October 1998, ABRI has been supplying weapons to civilian militias with the intention of intimidating and arming the population. We have been making regular appeals to the international community to pressure Jakarta to dismantle and disarm the militias which, initially, it was intended would only operate in the western part of the territory. As has been the case for the past 23 years, the international community continues to deposit more trust in ABRI than it does in the Timorese people, and therefore our appeals have been met only with disbelief.
With this attitude of passivity on the part of the international community, the Indonesian government feels sufficiently confident of its ability to go on arming more groups all over the territory and to intensify the campaign of violence, to the point of murdering the population to then blame the Resistance (a practice long used by ABRI, not only in East Timor, but also in Indonesia).
Our political good-will and our commitment to Peace have been perceived as our weakest point and because we have been trying to uphold this position, the international community seems not to feel the necessity to contribute to a peaceful solution in East Timor.
Today, we receive many promises of aid and co-operation for a future independent East Timor, when what we need is unequivocal and immediate support to put an end to bloodshed and violence in the territory.
We have fought alone these past 23 years, not only against a despotic and murderous regime, but also against the complete indifference of the international community. We have been trying to maintain control over the situation with repeated appeals to the population and to the FALINTIL to maintain an active engagement in the peace and reconciliation process.
However, I must remind the international community that since the beginning of the ruthless Indonesian invasion and the criminal military annexation of the Maubere nation, we, the East Timorese, have been conscious of the need to rely on our own means and to employ our own forms of struggle.
Since Jakata's offer on January 27th, we, the East Timorese, have continued to believe that independence would not come on a silver platter. And we will resume our ways of fighting to free our homeland.
The dissatisfaction, the rage and desperation of our people demand of me loyalty and firmness. I know that the East Timorese people will suffer another bloodbath, but I also know that we have no other alternative because it is our homeland and the right to it is ours. And we are prepared to make all the necessary sacrifices.
We assume full responsibility for all that might take place and we will not ask for the international community's compassion.
Our political stance has always been one of respect for the socio-political situation in Indonesia, but Jakarta's murderous generals force us to violate our compromise. And all that happens in Indonesia as a result of the intensification of the war in East Timor will not be our responsibility.
I sent a letter today to foreign Embassies in Jakarta to inform them about the current situation. I now wish to inform the international community that the situation has reached an intolerable limit in East Timor. Therefore, I am compelled to authorise the FALINTIL guerrillas to undertake all necessary action in defence of the population of East Timor against the unprovoked and murderous attacks of armed civilian groups and ABRI. In response to the numerous appeals from the People of East Timor, I also authorise the population to undertake a general popular insurrection against the armed militia groups who have been killing the population with impunity under the indifferent eye of the international community.
Homeland or death! To resist is to win! The struggle continues without respite!
Xanana Gusmao, President
of CNRT, Salemba, 5 April 1999
| June 7 election |
Jakarta -- Several Indonesian political prisoners, including pro-democracy activist Budiman Sujatmiko, have gone on hunger strike to press their demand for a just and fair election in June, a report said Wednesday.
The prisoners belong to the People's Democratic Party (PRD) which was outlawed under president Suharto. They have refused offers of a pardon from Suharto's successor B.J. Habibie.
The fast at Jakarta's Cipinang jail started Tuesday, according to a party statement quoted by Antara news agency. It was signed by Sujatmiko, the party president, and its secretary general Petrus Hariyanto.
It was not immediately possible to confirm whether the hunger strike had started or how many had taken part in the action. Five members of the PRD are still serving jail sentences at Cipinang and one elsewhere.
The statement said the strike was to "raise the consciousness of all sides" that a free, democratic, honest and just election can only be held after certain requirements were met.
Among those were the ending of the military's role in politics, the freeing of political parties to pick their own ideology and the banning of money politics.
The PRD was banned by the Suharto government which cited its leftist tendencies and its alleged role in a riot here in July 1997. The Habibie government lifted the ban in August last year and it has been cleared to contest the polls.
Under a drive to free political prisoners as part of promised wide-ranging reforms, the government has also freed scores of prisoners including four of the 10 jailed PRD members.
Sujatmiko, who was sentenced to 13 years in 1997 for his alleged involvement in the riot, and five other PRD member have rejected a pardon. They say the Suharto government and not themselves were guilty of a crime.
Jakarta -- Dozens of Indonesian students Wednesday picketed the headquarters of the newly-formed General Election Commission and declared they would boycott the June 7 general elections, the first since the fall of Suharto. A small contingent of police stood by as the 50 students, grouped under the Joint Forum, yelled and shouted abuse at the military and demanded an end to the role of the armed forces in politics, which they blamed for the country's present shortcomings.
They said their no-vote decision was taken partly because of the ethnic and sectarian violence plaguing the country but mainly because they felt the polls would only preserve the status quo.
They accused members of the election commission of seeking to enrich themselves and said the armed forces were reluctant to halt the communal violence because they were unwilling to abandon their much-criticized political role.
Each of the commission's 53 members is entitled to a car and newspaper reports have said they have demanded a monthly salary of 10 million rupiah (around 1,200 dollars).
Suharto's handpicked successor President B.J. Habibie has pledged that the elections, to be contested by 48 parties, will be free and fair.
Students, who were in the forefront of the struggle to topple Suharto, have become divided on the issue of the elections. Some favor a boycott and others have committed themselves to making the polls a success.
Registration opened countrywide Monday for some 125 million voters eligible to elect a new house of representatives.
Jakarta -- Indonesian police have arrested more than 100 people in West Kalimantan province on suspicion of arson and planning attacks on Madurese settlers, officials said Wednesday.
"Most were arrested when they were attacking houses, but some were arrested when they held meetings to plan an attack or when making ready their weapons," Major Tumino Hadi of Sambas district police told AFP. Hadi said those detained included indigeneous Dayak tribesmen, Malays and ethnic Chinese.
At least six houses belonging to Madurese settlers were torched late Tuesday in a village some 40 kilometres south of Singkawang, the main district town, said the major.
"The rioting has been contained and everything is under control now," added. He said it was business as usual in Singkawang. "The people here have learned to live with it and they don't care anymore," Hadi said.
Violence pitting Madurese against Malays and Dayak tribesmen in Sambas erupted last month, and has since left more than 200 people dead and a trail of destruction of Madurese property.
Some 29,000 Madurese settlers have fled Sambas under military protection. Massacres, torchings, decapitations and ritual canibalism were widespread in March as armed Dayaks and Malays roamed the Sambas countryside hunting settlers.
There have been at least eight major outbreaks of violence between Dayaks and Madurese since 1968. Battles in 1998 left some 300 dead according to official figures while independent tallies spoke of up to 4,000 dead.
Ethnic and religious violence has increased in various flashpoints in Indonesia in recent months.
The other main trouble spot has been the Maluku, where there have been Moslem-Christian clashes since mid January that have left more than 250 people dead.
Southeast Maluku, where at least 55 people were killed in a week of fighting up to Monday, was reported calm Wednesday. But Maluku police spokesman Major Philip Jekriel said in Ambon, the provincial capital, that 28 people had been killed in Southeast Maluku this week.
Seventeen people were killed and 44 seriously injured in Tual and Kei Kecil sub-districts on Monday while 10 were killed and 12 seriously wounded in Elat on the neighbouring island of Kei Besar the same day, Jekriel said.
On Tuesday, clashes following an attack on a Christian village by Moslems from rival villages in Kei Besar left one man killed, he added. Around 300 houses were burned or damaged and seven public buildings, including a church and a mosques, torched.
The Jakarta Post daily quoted Aka Roroa, a member of the riot monitoring post at the Al Huria mosque in Tual, as saying four people were killed and 17 others were injured in Tual on Tuesday after police opened fire on Moslems attempting to attack a Christian neighbourhood.
Roroa said the four dead were buried at the mosque. Police have threatened to shoot on sight rioters.
Surabaya -- Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung has warned of reprisals after ruling-party supporters were attacked for the second time in two days.
Dozens of trucks carrying Golkar supporters from Probolonggo to a political rally on Sunday were stopped at a toll gate and harassed by supporters wearing red-coloured clothing of the Indonesian Democratic Party-Perjuangan (PDI-Struggle), it was reported yesterday. Witnesses said there were brief skirmishes between Golkar supporters and their assailants but police were quick to quell the clashes. There were no reports of injury.
Mr Tandjung warned on Sunday that the ruling party would not remain passive if the attacks continued. Visibly upset by the incident, he said at the rally that Golkar had asked the local security authorities to ensure safe passage for the supporters.
"They could not do much. They even told our supporters to go home," he said, adding that the attacks showed some political parties were not ready for democracy.
He told about 80,000 supporters who made it to the stadium that Golkar would not resort to force and would pursue the matter through legal channels. "It's not that we're afraid. We love peace. Golkar loves unity. But if this continues, we shall rise. We shall rise against evil forces," he said.
On Friday, Golkar supporters were pelted, also by people in PDI-Struggle outfits, as they tried to attend a party rally in the Central Java town of Purbalingga.
Mr Tandjung said: "Golkar will not stand for this inhumane treatment. In Purbalingga, the car I was in was pelted. My adjutant was injured. The women were told to remove their Golkar shirts."
PDI-Struggle officials have denied their supporters were responsible for the attacks on Golkar members. During her recent visit to Singapore, party chief Megawati Sukarnoputri rejected accusations that her party members were rowdy and lacking in discipline.
Mr Tandjung spent the long Easter weekend on the campaign trail for "political education" for Golkar. His entourage included fellow Cabinet members Theo Sambuaga and Hayono Suyono, Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare. It was not clear whether this breached the electoral code of conduct.
The General Elections Commission ruled last week that parties cannot enlist the services of current Cabinet ministers in their campaign.
Jakarta -- The registration of millions of voters for Indonesia's crucial June 7 elections got off to a sluggish start here Monday with few registrants and many areas awaiting delivery of registration papers.
Poll officials announced Sunday voter registration for the polls, the first since the fall of former president Suharto, would begin Monday morning at schools and and government offices nationwide.
For most of the country's estimated 125 million eligible voters it is the first registration, as previous elections have relied simply on house calls by election officials.
In Jakarta's Menteng district area Monday, there was no evidence of voters registering. Most people said they would wait for officials to come to their houses to register.
In the city's Rawamangun area, more than one neighbourhood office said no forms had been delivered.
"This morning members of parties had a preparation meeting here, but then they left and none of them has returned," said a neighborhood security guard in a post which will be used as a registration office. He said the forms should have arrived there at two o'clock, but had not. Registration lasts for one week.
In a second neighbourhood office where registration was underway, only a few housewives turned up, and officials said they hoped more would arrive after finishing work.
"Since morning we have registered 45 people," said Susilo, an official of the registration office in Utan Kayu neighborhood in East Jakarta.
He said several posts were not yet ready, and in the preparatory stage. In the North Sumatra main city of Medan, neighbourhood officials were quoted by the Suara Pembaruan evening daily as saying they still did not know how registration should be conducted.
"We are still studying the procedure. The neighbourhood chief is having a meeting to discuss the matter," Suyadi, a local government official, was quoted as saying by the daily.
Meanwhile the Japanese government on Monday pledged some 31 million dollars through the UN Development Program (UNDP) as technical and financial assistance for the polls.
The UNDP said in a statement that a memorandum of understanding was signed at its Jakarta office and came on top of some 80 million dollars already pledged from 16 other donor countries.
According to UNDP Jakarta represntative Ravi Rajan, the amount is the largest single contribution received by the UNDP, and constitutes over a third of all funds from international donors.
Rajan said the Japanese fund will be used in part for special undeletable ink, modern technology equipment required for the tabulating and reporting of election results, and poll-worker training.
The UNDP, under an agreement with the Indonesian government, is coordinating donations from foreign countries for the polls for the elections, which are slated to be followed in November with the selection of a new president.
Last week the UN body handed over the first 600,000 dollars of aid to an independent monitoring group to set up secretariats in 20 of Indonesia's 27 provinces.
President B.J. Habibie has
pledged that the elections, to be contested by 48 parties, will be the
free and fair. During the 32 years of Suharto's rule, his Golkar party,
backed by the army and the civil service, swept every poll and subsequently
rubber stamped him for seven consecutive five-year terms.
| Political/economic crisis |
Jakarta -- Thirteen people were killed when Indonesian troops and police opened fire to fend off a mass attack by rioters in troubled West Kalimantan province, a report said Thursday.
Singkawang, the main town of the Sambas district, remained tense Thursday, a day after thousands of ethnic Malays and Dayaks entered the town and clashed with security forces blocking their attempt to free 100 people detained earlier in the week.
"It is still tense like yesterday and all our force are deployed to safeguard the city," Second Sergeant Tarkadi of the district military post in Singkawang said Thursday.
He said groups of civilians, some armed, were still gathering at various points, especially the northern outskirts of Singkawang.
The reported death toll of 13 for Wednesday could not be immediately confirmed by officials. A television report put the number of deaths at 12 and a Dayak source put the death toll at four. "There's no exact figure yet. We're still collecting data," Second Sergeant Tarkasim of Singkawang district police told AFP.
A fight broke out at the Abdul Azis state hospital as several armed Madurese settlers attempted to enter the hospital where more than half of the 100 patients there were Dayaks and Malays under treatment for injuries in Wednesday's clash.
"Several Madurese youths were trying to force their way into the hospital carrying weapons but they didn't succeed as a policeman on duty stood firm and assisted by family members of patients fought off the men until reinforcements arrived," said Sudarto, a private security guard at the hospital.
Sudarto said two men were arrested and taken to the police post while several others fled. None of the some 100 patients in the hospital or their visitors were harmed, he said.
The Dayak source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP at least four died Wednesday after being shot by soldiers while 20 others were injured in clashes. The source also said more were shot and injured near a high school and at a bus station in Singkawang.
The private Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV) television station reported that 12 people were killed in the clash. SCTV also said thousands of people attended the funeral of the victims Thursday, shouting and condemning the military, while Singkawang was besieged by thousands of people, still demanding the release of the 100 people in police detention. Security personnel formed barricades to prevent the mob from entering the town, it said.
On Wednesday, people armed with makeshift weapons arrived from neighbouring districts on board a convoy of trucks, pickups and motorcycles, to demand the release of 100 people detained by police following two days of violence in Singkawang.
District police chief Lieutenant Colonel M. Nurdin was hit in the hand by a poisoned arrow Wednesday, Second Sergeant Sumantri of the district police said, but the officer was back on duty Thursday. Police and riot troops arrested 46 people during the half-hour clash, Suara Karya newspaper reported said.
Ambon -- An angry mob beheaded two people as the death toll mounted in Indonesia's far eastern Moluccas, residents and officials said on Friday.
The two were attacked on Thursday after they had disembarked from a ship at Tual, the main town on Kai Besar island, a local journalist who saw the bodies said.
On Friday military officials found 12 more bodies from previous clashes in a village on Kai Besar, about 3,300 km east of Jakarta. "We promise to remove them soon," said Colonel Karel Ralahalu, military commander of the province.
There were also unconfirmed reports of one death on Friday in Masohi town in the central Moluccas' Seram island, residents said.
A military official in Ambon, the province's main city, told Reuters that the head of a special military team, Major-General Suaidy Marabessy, was on his way to Masohi.
Jakarta -- At least three people were killed and 100 houses torched in pockets of Indonesian violence reported Saturday.
On the island province of Maluku two people were killed and three injured when a mob of Christians attacked a Moslem settlement, Sergeant Major Yuleini told AFP by phone.
Reports reaching the provincial capital of Ambon said one of the victims was beheaded in the Friday clash, a local journalist said.
In East Nusatenggara province in West Timor, one person was killed and 100 houses torched in a communal clash, the Indonesian Observer daily said.
A district police official told AFP by phone that the cause of Thursday's fighting between residents of two villages was not known and police were investigating it.
"We have heard of a death. But I can't say anything until my men return from there. Communication is very difficult and we don't have adequate facilities," Major Petrus Kalumbang said.
Kalumbang said 35 police and eight army personnel had been sent to the scene, a remote area 60 kilometers from the main town in Manggarai district, and they had managed to quell the rioting.
The Maluku islands, and East Kalimantan province in Indonesian Borneo have been rocked by communal and sectarian violence in the past two months, leaving more than 400 people killed and a trail of destruction.
More than 100 people have been killed in sectarian violence in the Southeast Maluku district in the past week. The carnage has also forced tens of thousands of people -- mainly migrant Madurese settlers in East Kalimantan, and Moslem settlers from Sulawesi island in the Maluku islands -- to flee the areas.
Jakarta -- Thousands of people attacked the homes of Madurese settlers and a police post in a new outbreak of ethnic unrest in troubled West Kalimantan province in Indonesian Borneo, residents and reports said Tuesday.
"After yesterday's burnings and attacks, residents are now worried and schools have remained closed, as have banks and shops," Priest Silitonga of the Batak Protestant church in Singkawang, the main city of the Sambas district in West Kalimantan said.
Silitonga said thousands of people attacked and burned the houses of Madurese settlers on the northern outskirts of the town on Monday, but there were no reports of human casualties.
The mobs, mostly from neighbouring towns and villages also attacked houses inside Singakawang and a local district police post and gunshots could be heard, he said.
Initial violence Monday was repulsed by security forces who fired warning shots and arrested 20 attackers, the Suara Karya daily said.
Warning shots were again fired when the attackers regrouped later in the day and attempted to storm the local district police office to free the 20. A further 38 people were arrested, the daily said. "I have not heard of any violence or heard gunshots far this morning," Silitonga said Tuesday.
The police and the military declined comment, refering queries to the military headquarters in Pontianak, the main town of the province some 145 kilometres south.
Violence pitting Madurese against Malays and indigenous Dayak tribesmen in Sambas erupted last month leaving around 200 people dead and a trail of destruction of Madurese properties and farmlands. It also forced some 29,000 Madurese settlers to flee Sambas under military protection.
Massacres, torchings, decapitation and mutilations as well as ritual canibalism of Madurese were widespread in March as crudely armed Dayaks and Malays roamed the Sambas countryside hunting down the settlers.
The Dayaks and the Madurese have been involved in at least eight major outbreaks of ethnic violence since 1968. The last clash in 1998 left some 300 dead according to official figures while independent tallies spoke of up to 4,000 dead.
Meanwhile, ethnic violence was also reported to have broken out in the Riau province in Sumatra where clashes between migrant Bugis from Sulawesi island and local ethnic Chinese left one person dead on Sunday, the Media Indonesia daily said.
The victim, a sergeant of the local sub-district military post, was stabbed while trying to halt the clash, the daily said.
The Riau violence followed an attack by a mob of 50 Buginese on a shop owned by an ethnic Chinese in Tanjungbatu. The ethnic Chinese family had on Saturday reported the son of a Buginese family for extorting money from their son.
Jakarta -- Twenty charred bodies were found Monday in homes set on fire during new Moslem-Christian unrest in the Maluku islands, taking the death toll to 55, a report said.
The official Antara news agency quoted witnesses as saying the bodies were those of people who had been trapped in their burning homes in Larat, a mainly Moslem village on Larat island, last Friday and Saturday.
The violence in Larat followed several days of Moslem- Christian violence in the main district town of Tual, some 190 kilometres to the northwest. On Friday, violence also spread to Elat on Kei Besar island some 30 kilometres east of Tual.
The Surya Citra televisi private station, quoting official sources, said the violence in Southeast Maluku had left 35 people dead and scores of injured before the discovery of the bodies. The violence in Larat had also left over 100 houses burned.
The Maluku islands have been
ravaged by sectarian violence since Moslem-Christian clashes started in
the provincial capital of Ambon on January 19. Over 255 people have been
killed and scores injured amid massive destruction in several of the Maluku
islands. Antara said the newly-found bodies have been buried.
| Labour issues |
Jakarta -- About 2,000 workers in Indonesia's two largest cities demonstrated on Thursday to demand higher severance payments from firms struggling with a crippling economic crisis.
Shouting "Money! Money!," about 1,000 workers ranging from former security guards to bank managers gathered outside the office of the National Planning Board in central Jakarta to demand higher severance payments.
The protests are the latest in a series after last month's closure of 38 insolvent banks as part of a programme to restructure the sector, hard hit by the economic crisis.
In Surabaya, 675 km east of Jakarta, about 350 workers of the food giant PT Indofood Sukses Makmur burned used tyres and staged a sit-in outside the company's factory.
Another 400 workers at lightbulb company PT Sinar Chiyoda Indonesia staged a protest in the city's industrial complex. Another 300 workers of bottle maker PT Umbra Prasia protested in an upmarket Surabaya suburb where the company's manager lives.
Dozens of security forces
were on hand at all locations but there was no violence. Industrial city
Surabaya has been a hotbed of worker protests where employees have staged
frequent demonstrations to demand higher wages.
| Human rights/law |
Padang -- Two Indonesian communists walked free from their prison here Thursday after serving 33 years there for their alleged involvement in the 1965 coup blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
Sri Suharjo, 71 and Buyung Kenek, 59, were officially released from the Muara jail in a brief ceremony attended by the local head of the justice office and the families of the released political prisoners.
They were among the 10 ageing political prisoners sentenced to death or life imprisonment more than 30 years ago for their alleged part in the 1965 coup, but pardoned by the government of B.J. Habibie in March.
Suharjo was the former secretary of the Riau province central committee of the PKI and was on death row. Kenek, a member of the Padang-Pariaman chapter of the PKI-affiliated People's Youth Organisation, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
On March 24, the government announced that 10 political prisoners linked to the PKI and the 1965 coup were freed under an amnesty that was given as part of the Habibie government's drive for wide-ranging reforms.
They included former colonel Abdul Latief, 73, accused of taking part in the murder of six generals during the 1965 coup. He was at first sentenced to death but the sentence was later commuted to life.
The abortive 1965 coup catapaulted then lieutenant general Suharto to the fore. In 1966 Suharto banned the PKI, then the world's second largest communist party after China's, and all communist teachings.
Official figures show that at least half a million people were killed and 700,000 more jailed in the aftermath of the coup. Hundreds of thousands of so-called "C-category" prisoners, the lightest category, were released from the prison island of Buru in the Moluccas in 1979.
Jakarta -- After 34 years of negligence, Indonesia ratified on Tuesday the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
In a plenary session here, the House of Representatives unanimously endorsed the bill on the ratification of the convention for President B.J. Habibie to sign into a I new law.
The ratification requires the government to, among other things, scrap all its racial discriminatory policies, which mostly target Indonesian Chinese rather than descents of other migrant groups.
To follow up on its implementation, Minister of Justice Muladi said a team would soon be assigned to evaluate all laws that might be affected by the ratification.
Thc team will comprise representatives of the justice ministry, foreign affairs ministry, Attorney General's Office, National Police, National Commission on Human Rights, NGOs and experts from universities, according to Muladi.
Laws to be evaluated by the team are the criminal laws, civil laws and administrative laws. Muladi said all existing laws that went against the ratified convention would be abolished and new ones would be made accordingly.
"[Thus] the law [on the convention ratification] needs to be spelled out through several other laws," he said in his statement welcoming the ratification. "So, it's not an exaggeration to say that here we state that the government is ready and remains committed to accountably enforce the [new] law," he added.
In his statement, Muladi highlighted how the House had critically made a "reservation" -- as allowed by Article 20 of the convention -- in its ratification of Article 22.
The latter article regulates settlement of disputes on the convention's interpretation and implementation through the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Muladi said the stance was taken simply because Indonesia has not yet recognized ICJ's "compulsory jurisdiction" .
Also in his statement, Muladi said that besides being binding to the government, thc ratification also would bind all members of the public to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.
"It [the new law] upholds our positive law which, among other things, is accentuated in the Criminal Code's Article 156, 156a," he said. The articles threaten anyone publicly spreading "enmity, hatred, derogatory remarks" against any Indonesian ethnic group with five years imprisonment.
All four factions of the House -- the United Development Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party, Golkar and the Armed Forces -- shared a common view on the criminal nature of all forms of racial discrimination in the country.
Chinese-Indonesians have repeatedly complained about rampant discriminatory practices that systematically treat them as second-class citizens. Their identity cards (KTP) bear special codes, and careers in the military and bureaucracy are virtually closed to them.
The House factions were all united in hoping that the ratification would lay the foundation for promotion of equality for all.
Jakarta -- A military court on Tuesday handed jail sentences to 11 members of Indonesia's elite special Kopassus force found guilty of kidnapping nine pro-democracy activists in a trial sharply criticised by human rights activists.
Judge Lieutenant Colonel Susanto found the 11 guilty as charged of kidnapping the activists during the last months of president Suharto's rule, before he resigned in May 1998.
Susanto sentenced the defendants to between a year and 22 months in prison less time served. Most of the defendants have been detained since mid-July, 1998.
"The defendants had conspired to deprive nine people of their rights ... by picking them up. The way they picked them up was by kidnapping and detaining them. That action was not within their authority," Susanto said.
During the court martial, derided by human rights activists as a "farce" and a "face-saving exercise" by the military to protect senior officers, the prosecution had asked for sentences of between 15 and 26 months.
Susanto handed the most senior officer charged, Major Bambang Kristiono, a 22-month sentence and fired him from the military. Four captains were also sentenced dismissed and the rest, including three captains, were sentenced but allowed to stay in the military.
Kristiono and all the captains immediately said they would appeal while the others said they wanted time to think it over. "I highly respect the judge's decision, however with the additional verdict [of dismissal] ... we, some of Kopassus' finest officers, have to appeal," said Kristiono, speaking on behalf of those dismissed.
One of the victims, Pius Lustrilanang, said the trial was disappointing because it failed to shed light on the actions behind the kidnappings.
"From the beginning I have rejected this trial because it has not investigated the involvement of Prabowo, Syafrie Syamsuddin, Feisal Tanjung and even Suharto himself, those most responsible for the kidnappings," he told AFP.
Lieutenant General Prabowo Subianto, a son-in-law of Suharto, was head of Kopassus when the abduction took place, Major General Syafrie Syamsuddin headed the Jakarta military command while the current Coordinating Minister of Political and Security General Feisal Tanjung was military chief. "The ones tried now are only the operators of the kidnapping, so it is inadequate," he said.
Head of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation Bambang Wijoyanto said the court martial had only been held to protect the greater interest of the Kopassus force.
"The trial has not accomodated the sense of justice of the kidnap victims and families of those who are still missing," Wijoyanto told AFP. [It] was used more as instrument to protect the military and state violence."
Only nine of the 23 activists kidnapped in the last months of the Suharto regime have resurfaced. One was later found dead and the 13 others are still missing.
Lustrilanang said another shortcoming of the trial was the absence of torture charges despite the detailed accounts of such treatment from most of the nine victims who survived.
None of the 11 military men were questioned over the kidnappings of the other activists. "This trial was merely a political play carried out to appease the public demand, both domestic and international," he said.
Lustrilanang was pessimistic
that justice would ever be done under the government of Suharto's hand-picked
successor President B.J. Habibie, and called for a special commission to
track down the missing activists.
| News & issues |
Jakarta -- Indonesia's ethnic Chinese on Saturday formally established a mass organisation to promote awareness of their rights and obligations as Indonesians. The Chinese Indonesian Association (INTI) described itself as nationalist in character.
Ethnic Chinese make up only a small percentage of Indonesia's 200 million people, but dominate its economy. Their perceived wealth is widely resented by other Indonesians and they have been the target of mob attacks.
"INTI seeks to mobilise the potentials of Chinese Indonesians for the sake of the joint undertaking to rebuild the Indonesian nation," the group said in a statement. INTI said membership was not limited to people of Chinese ancestry.
Jakarta -- To pass the clean governance bill without giving substantial authority to an independent body to implement the power controls would be a pointless and abortive attempt to uproot corruption according to the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW).
The chairman of ICW, Teten Masduki, said on Friday the bill should provide for the establishment of a permanent independent commission with the authority to investigate and prosecute public authorities though to be abusing their power.
He suggested that members of such a commission be appointed by and be responsible to the House of Representatives, not the president, to ensure their independence.
"If the members of the commission are appointed by the president, the commission will not be independent," he told reporters on the sidelines of a special hearing on the bill with the House's United Development Party faction.
He said the current bill, which is still being debated by the House and is expected to be approved before the June 7 general election, stipulates that the commission must report to the president and its authority is limited to making recommendations.
"There are concerns among government officials that if the commission is given greater authority, it will interfere in the power of the government," Teten said.
He said that giving complete authority to the commission was necessary, as, he explained, rampant corruption during the reign of former president Soeharto was facilitated with presidential decrees and government regulations, making such actions difficult to pin down as illegal.
Soeharto's family and associates are widely thought to have amassed their enormous fortunes through corruption, collusion and nepotism permitted during Soeharto's 32 years in power. The public has demanded that Soeharto and his allies be brought to trial for crimes of corruption.
Presidential hopeful Amien Rais, head of the popular National Mandate Party (PAN), criticized President B.J. Habibie on Thursdav for being too slow in dealing with the alleged corruption of his mentor and former leader. He demanded that Soeharto be immediately brought to court for trial.
Teten said Habibie would not dare to bring the corrupt officials of the Soeharto regime to trial, despite his widely trumpeted anti corruption campaigns.
"His intention by proposing and amending various laws is just to prevent corruption in the future," he said. "He is applying two-faced politics."
Teten said the new bill on clean governance would be effective in fighting corruption if it required government officials to provide proof that their wealth was acquired lawfully.
"This principle of reverse authentication is very important because the Attorney General's Office has so far claimed it has no evidence to support the corruption charges against officials," he said.
However, Teten explained that officials could always hide away their ill-gotten wealth with sophisticated money laundering techniques, thus avoiding the necessity of proving the origin of their fortunes.
He said one way to prevent this was to require all financial institutions to report transactions above a certain amount. The government is now drafting the financial transaction report bill to thwart money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes.
Peter Hartcher -- Indonesia's former president, Mr Soeharto, has deliberately helped provoke recent violence and bloodshed as a political tactic, one of Indonesia's key Islamic leaders has alleged.
The presidential candidate Dr Amien Rais said he suspected Mr Soeharto of destabilising parts of Indonesia as a way of delaying or disrupting the national election due on June 7.
And he claimed that Mr Soeharto and the ruling Golkar party were using large sums of money to neutralise political opponents and to bribe voters.
Dr Amien said that parts of the Army seemed to be working with Mr Soeharto, and he has called for the resignation of the commander of the armed forces and the former Soeharto adjutant, General Wiranto.
"Most probably Soeharto is involved in destabilising the political situation and trying to delay the election. I believe he is involved in the destabilisation in Ambon, but I cannot prove it," he told The Australian Financial Review. "Part of the Army is working with him, but not the whole army."
More than 200 people have died in clashes between Muslims and Christians on the island of Ambon in recent months.
"If the authorities really wanted to arrest the provocateurs, it's not difficult at all. Ambon is a small town; it's easy to find out who the provocateurs are."
Across the archipelago, violence and mass unrest have broken out with increased frequency since Soeharto resigned on May 2 last year amid economic crisis.
More than 1,000 people have died. Fresh violence between Muslims and Christians on the eastern islands broke out over the Easter weekend, with an estimated 54 people killed.
"Soeharto is defending himself, defending the economic imperium of his children," said Dr Amien, who emerged as the leader of the reform movement in the final years of Mr Soeharto's rule.
He chaired the 28 million-member moderate Islamic group Muhammadiyah until stepping aside to campaign for the presidency. He is regarded as one of the three leading contenders.
There has been a great deal of speculation in Indonesia about who might be provoking or masterminding the unrest, and much has centred on Mr Soeharto. Dr Amien Rais is, however, the first national figure to implicate him on the record.
Dr Amien said in an interview at his home city of Yogjakarta on the island of Java that Mr Soeharto faced the likelihood of a trial under a reformist government.
"He still has a lot of networks, a lot of allies and friends in the armed forces and the bureaucracy; a lot of people believe their fate depends on him and if he collapses, if he goes on trial, there will be lot more political and economic fallout.
"We have to hit him, again and again, harder and more often, until we deliver the coup de grace, and then we can begin to build a democratic Indonesia.
"The status quo forces will do anything to delay or disrupt the election. They are afraid of the election."
When Mr Soeharto resigned, he transferred power to his deputy, Professor B.J. Habibie, who continues to lead the ruling party created by Mr Soeharto's New Order regime, Golkar.
The Habibie administration has guaranteed the physical safety of Mr Soeharto and has refused to convene an independent inquiry into alleged corruption by the former president. Dr Amien has said publicly that one of Mr Soeharto's daughters phoned him last November with an offer of multiple pay-offs of 11 billion rupiah each -- about $2 million -- in an apparent effort to blunt his campaign against Mr Soeharto and his family.
The US Assistant Secretary of State for Asia and the Pacific, Mr Stanley Roth, told the American Senate last month that continuing violence threatened the forthcoming elections, the freest since 1955.
"The armed forces' inability to quell this violence, and the lack of accountability for past actions, have all but destroyed the notion of ABRI [the armed forces] as the protector of the people," Mr Roth said.
"Unless this violence can be brought under control, Indonesia's ability to carry out free and fair elections will be put at risk. More fundamentally, the violence threatens the very fabric of Indonesia's multi-ethnic society." Dr Amien Rais said: "I do not believe that the army as an institution wants to postpone the election. There is only one alternative to the election, and that is chaos. I don't think the army could have a consensus to disrupt the election because the consequences would be very deep, and the army would not be able to overcome such chaos. So I do not think it is in ABRI's interests."
However, Dr Amien said that the commander of ABRI and concurrently Minister for Defence, General Wiranto, "does not represent the interests of the amed forces; he represents the interests of the Soeharto family".
"I think that Soeharto will want to try to engineer Wiranto as Golkar's candidate for the presidency," Dr Amien said. Golkar has so far nominated five possible candidates for the presidency, including the current President, B.J.Habibie, and General Wiranto. "Wiranto worked as Soeharto's adjutant, he has taken very good care of Soeharto and his family right up to this very day, and I hear that one of Wiranto's children is soon to marry into the Soeharto family. I think Soeharto trusts him completely. I think Wiranto cannot distinguish between his loyalty to Soeharto and his loyalty to the people."
Mr Soeharto has threatened to sue Dr Amien and other critics for their persistent claims that he is guilty of economic crimes, political crimes and crimes against humanity during his 32-year rule.
A Soeharto lawyer, Mr Muhammad Assegaf, said: "Soeharto is sick of being defamed by these people. He feels his good name is being dragged through the mud, and that the only thing left to do is to sue them."
Jakarta -- The trials of an Indonesian official and a businessman charged with corruption linked to a land exchange scheme involving a son of former president Suharto opened Monday.
Two separate panels of judges at the South Jakarta district court began the trial of Beddu Amang, 62, former head of the National Logistic Agency (BULOG), and Ricardo Gelael, 39, president of PT Goro Batara Sakti. Both have been linked to the youngest son of former president Suharto, "Tommy" Hutomo Mandala Putra.
The two defendants were each accused of violating a 1971 corruption law by "trying to enrich themselve while directly or indirectly causing losses to the state finances or economy." State attorney officials said last month the charges against Amang, Gelael and Suharto's son carry a maximum jail sentence of 20 years.
In the main court, packed with more than 70 people, prosecutor Suharjono said that Amang, Gelael and Hutomo caused the state to lose 95.4 billion rupiah (627,906 dollars) in a land exchange deal between 1995 and 1998.
Prosecutor D. Munthe, in the smaller courtroom where Gelael was tried, accused the defendant of the same charge. Indonesian authorities have said Hutomo will be tried separately but have yet to set a date.
Gelael and Hutomo made a deal with Amang in which PT Goro in cooperation with Hotomo's PT Sekar Artha Sentosa, would take over 50 hectares of BULOG land in a prime commercial area in return for 125 hectares of land also in Jakarta.
The deal allowed Goro, 40 percent-owned by Hutomo and Ricardo Gelael, to build a retail centre on the BULOG land in an affluent residential area.
But Goro failed to keep its
side of the bargain. Gelael and Tommy also failed to repay a 20 billion
rupiah (2.3 million dollars) debt to Bank Bukopin, resulting in the bank
cashing a 23 billion rupiah Bulog deposit used as a collateral. The trial
resumes next week.
| Environment/Health |
Bangkok -- Indonesia is suffering severe food shortages and growing malnutrition brought on by rising social unrest and a deep economic crisis, the United Nations said in a report.
In a new report issued here, a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Program (WFP) mission called for more international food aid despite predicting a good rice harvest.
"The food supply situation continues to be affected by poor security and an escalation in civil unrest," it said, adding that there were wide variations in supply and prices across the strife-torn country.
"There are indications that markets are failing, as traders are reluctant to hold stocks or transport large consignments due to security concerns," the report said.
The economic crisis and large movements of people out of cities had eroded the livelihoods of much of the population, greatly increasing their vulnerability to food insecurity. "Food prices have risen sharply while purchasing power has fallen dramatically," the report added.
"The primary target for food assistance to the country should be children under five and expectant and lactating mothers in urban areas." The report said there was evidence of growing nutritional deficiencies among at-risk groups.
"It is recommended that international assistance be provided in support of local manufacture of wheat-based products such as noodles and blended foods." It said the prospects for rice production in 1999 appeared promising, with paddy production officially predicted at 48.6 million tonnes and planting set to begin in May.
"Aided by favourable rainfall and attractive produce prices, the main harvest is likely to be good." The solution to long-term food security in Indonesia lies in economic recovery, the report said.
"Although national and international measures are being taken to stimulate such recovery, the benefits are unlikely to be felt in the short term," it added.
"The government faces a tremendous
challenge in ensuring greater food security to its population, especially
the growing numbers of vulnerable poor people."
| Economy and investment |
Jakarta -- Indonesia yesterday reported a collapse in foreign investment approvals, a heavy economic blow blamed on fears of growing violence in the run-up to elections.
Investment Minister Hamzah Haz said foreign investment approvals between Jan 1 and March 15 had dropped 90 per cent to US$560 million from US$5.1 billion in the same period last year.
The figures come as Indonesians register to vote in their first democratic election in more than 40 years in June, and as religious and ethnic violence flares across the archipelago.
Market analysts said the sharp fall in new foreign investment is unlikely to be reversed until after the election -- and only if the campaign goes peacefully. Campaigning for the vote starts in May and many analysts see a peaceful ballot as the key to economic reform and confidence.
"It is the turning point," said Mr Laksono Widodo, head of research for ING Baring Securities Indonesia. "If it runs smoothly with no violence and trouble, then there would be an increase in the level of foreign investment in Indonesia as well as a return of capital..."
Others are not as sure. "Indonesia still has massive risks," said Mr Ferry Yosiahartoyo, head of research from Vickers Ballas Tamara Securities.
"Everything is very uncertain. It is hard to predict what's going to happen in the next few months, let alone in the long run. Therefore, it is quite understandable to see the massive drop."
Indonesia is grappling with its worst economic crisis in over 30 years amid instability following the forced resignation of disgraced president Suharto in May.
The crisis began in mid-1997 with a massive fall in the rupiah's value, triggering deep recession. The rupiah now trades around 8,700 to the US dollar -- about 70 per cent of its value in July 1997. Analysts said the massive drop is inevitable.
Yesterday, Indonesian central bank governor Syahril Sabirin tried to play down the investment figures, saying that three months' data does not tell much, and that foreign investment figures "have always fluctuated".
But University Indonesia economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati said uncertainty runs so high most investors perceive it as a permanent factor, disrupting long-term investment commitments.
"Some investors perceive the current uncertainty in Indonesia as something that is no longer temporary. Therefore, they have chosen to hold back any decision until fter the election," she said.
She added: "A peaceful election that promises stability would break the uncertainty stigma in Indonesia. Unfortunately, signs of trouble have not calmed down. So, no one really is going to put money into Indonesia at the moment."