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ASIET Net News 19 – May 10-16, 1999
East Timor| Democratic struggle |
Jakarta -- Thousands of students Wednesday peacefully marked the first anniversary of the shooting of their peers which triggered days of rioting and helped pressure former president Suharto to resign, as security was tightened in the capital in anticipation of street demonstrations.
Groups of soldiers and police were deployed along the main avenues expected to be used by student protesters, witnesses said.
At the main parking lot of the private Trisakti University, a series of events to mark the shooting anniversary was begun early Monday with the hoisting of the Indonesian flag at half mast. Flags were also flown at half mast in several campuses in Jakarta, the MS Tri private radio station said.
Security personnel shot into student protesters from Trisakti near their campus in west Jakarta on May 12, 1998, killing four students and injuring several others.
The shooting sparked widespread mass rioting in the capital that lasted for days, leaving more than 1,000 dead and massive destruction.
The unrest added to mounting public pressure on the government that finally led to the resignation of former president Suharto after 32 years in power.
Student groups from several universities have said they would take to the streets Wednesday to mark the Trisakti shootings despite a demand by Jakarta military commander, Major General Jaja Suparman, for the students to call off their plan.
"We are all heading to Trisakti first and from there we will hold a protest to the parliament," said Firman, an activist of the City Forum (Forkot) student group.
By noon, about 3,000 students, mostly Trisakti students in their blue jackets, had massed at the Trisakti compound. They witnessed a ceremony to cover the main building, on which steps two of the four victims had died, with a black cloth, and the laying of wreaths there.
The parents of the four victims also laid the corner stones for a planned monument to the incident to be erected at the parking lot of the university.
At noon, a group of some 150 students, carrying flower wreaths and the national flag, began to march on a tollway from the campus towards the parliament complex some four kilometres south.
But their advance was halted by a platoon of anti-riot police at the Tomang overpass at a main intersections some 1.5 kilometres from the campus.
A police officer told the demonstrators that the permit sought by the organisators of the ceremony at Trisakti from the police made no mention of a march.
Jakarta police chief Major General Nugroho Jayusman has warned that security authorities will ban mass rallies by students in the period leading to the June 7 elections, including on Wednesday, "to allow a peaceful atmosphere" in the Indonesian capital.
Students have said that street demonstrations were the most effective ways to press the military to conduct a thorough probe into the shooting. Students and rights activists have said that the authorities have not been serious in probing the incident.
An Indonesian military tribunal in August jailed two non- commissioned policemen for violating orders during the shooting 10 to four months jail.
But the trial, which began in June, shed no light on who the killers were as the two defendants were only guilty of disobeying orders and failing to prevent their subordinates from firing on the students.
The defence had also argued that only rubber bullets were issued to the defendants' subordinates not live ammunition.
Military officials have said
that 18 soldiers, including nine officers will face courts martial over
their involvement in the shooting but only the two non-commissioned police
officers have been tried so far.
| East Timor |
Catholic leaders march on day of peace in East Timorese capital. Residents of East Timor's capital Dili witnessed a rare display of peace today ... as hundreds of Catholic nuns, priests and Nobel Laureate, Bishop Carlos Belo marched through the city. Starting at the Dili Cathedral, the procession wended its way through the streets that have been the scene of so much violence this year -- with pro-Jakarta paramilitary attacking supporters of independence from Indonesia. This week four people were killed by paramilitary raiding several homes and city districts. Freelance journalist Jenny Grant spoke to Di Martin as the procession went by.
Jenny Grant: It's an amazing scene down here in Dili, around 600 priests, nuns and novices are walking in two lines through the streets of Dili. They're swinging their rosaries, there are praying it's a very silent protest against the violence here in the last few weeks. And the Bishop is very upset with that violence. This is a march against the violence that has been going on by the paramilitary. Residents here who are looking on to the march say it's the best thing they could, this very silent protest from the church.
Q: And where is the march going?
Jenny: The march starting at the Cathedral and now they are marching through some of the back suburbs down towards Becora and then back to Bishop Belo's house. It will end the statue there at his home.
Q: So some of the areas where some of these violence has been seeing?
Jenny: Although they are not making a particular to actually go past areas of violence but they certainly would be passing some of the areas that had been attacked.
Q: Now are ordinary people joining in?
Jenny: No ordinary people are allowed, this is just for the priests and the nuns. There is group of around 100 people behind the march. Bishop Belo is walking at the very back of the march with rosary beads but the area is actually cordoned off by church officials. This is just purely for religious orders.
Q: Are people coming out of the houses and actually watching the procession is it creating much interest.
Jenny: Yes, people have lined the roads, very quietly everyone is watching is astonishing that this is going on after such a violent week in Dili.
Q: Because are these marches actually safe? There have been open attacks on church, church properties people sheltering in church grounds.
Jenny: Well Bishop Belo tried to keep this march very quite. We only really found out about late last night and we were not allowed to tell anyone, so I think he was very concerned about security. Ah, behind the march we have some police, we have a police truck guarding the march with about six police just going by me now. So the Bishop has made some security efforts.
Q: The question is will those police actually protect the march if there is any trouble, because of course the Bishop convoy was attacked, the convoy that you were part of just last month.
Jenny: I think this is a very special march, and I would very surprised if anyone try to break it up. If they did it would certainly be the worst thing the paramilitary could do.
Q: What kind of effect do you think is going to have an effect do you think is going to have on the resident of Dili some of whom have been living in such fear
Jenny: It's already having a very calming effect on residents, one man I Spoke said this is the best the church could do, that after such a violent week, there is calm, there is quite -- this is exactly what the residents need.
Jakarta -- Clashes broke out between local army battalion and a special Indonesian force in the East Timor town of Baucau, a rights group said Friday.
The day of fighting Thursday, including shooting, broke out after an incident involving members of the local battalion and the Kopassus unit at Baucau bus terminal in Kotabaru, Riu Fiana of the Foundation of Human Rights and Justice said from Dili, the East Timor capital.
"We have received reports from residents there that at least two Kopassus members were seriously injured but we have not been able to confirm the report," Fiana said.
He said the local chapter of his organisation reported that the incident followed a check by some militia-backed Kopassus members on passengers of a bus that had just arrived from Los Palos on the eastern tip of East Timor.
Several members of the local 745 battalion intervened when the Kopassus members roughed up passengers. Members of the Los Palos-based 745 battalion later attacked the Kopassus headquarters near the terminal and shots were heard until late in the evening, Fiana said.
The city was calm early, a church source there said. Police and army spokesmen in Dili could not be immediately reached for comment.
Brian Woodley, Dili -- East Timor's main pro-Indonesian group, which claims to run the militias behind a campaign of terror across the province, demanded yesterday the UN-sponsored referendum on August 8 be abandoned.
The call came after Indonesian President B.J. Habibie announced the formation of a team of ministers to oversee the UN-monitored poll in East Timor.
Basilio Dias Araujo, a spokesman for the FPDK, said the ballot was unnecessary as "we're the ones who live here and we know the feeling of the people".
"We do not want to have the ballot," he said. "We don't want it to occur."
Mr Araujo's comments suggest the militia rampages of recent weeks, including the murders and looting in the capital on Sunday and Monday during the visits of a UN assessment team and Australian diplomats, were aimed at forcing the UN to abandon the poll because of a lack of security.
However, Indonesian Justice Minister Muladi said Co-ordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Feisal Tanjung had been appointed to ensure the recent referendum agreement reached between Indonesia and Portugal in New York was honoured.
The ministerial team includes Mr Muladi, Defence Minister and armed forces chief General Wiranto and Foreign Minister Ali Alatas.
Mr Muladi said the membership showed that the Government was determined to ensure the success of the polls.
In Dili, UN police chief Om Rathor was vague on key details of the East Timor mission when interviewed on Tuesday. He said the deployment of UN police would take "at least one month" to begin and a final decision on whether they would be armed had not been made.
Mr Araujo said a UN presence was unnecessary because unlike Kosovo, where hundreds died daily, "here we have one or two or maybe five" killings per day.
"In the United States they have 25 students shot in one day and they don't send a UN peacekeeping force in there," he said. Mr Araujo blamed the violence in Dili on "provocative acts" by the pro-independence side.
He claimed Sunday's militia assault on the municipal market and surrounding areas came after two militiamen were stabbed in the market.
This contrasted with claims by Eurico Guterres, the leader of the militia involved, that the provocation involved a militiaman being struck on the head at a militia post.
The results of Monday's violence were still evident yesterday. But communities in Santa Cruz, targeted because the militias were seeking particular activists and because the suburb is considered a bastion of pro-independence sentiment, were slowly returning to normal life.
But hundreds of people who fled their properties were still hiding in the bush.
The FPDK is also lobbying Indonesian authorities to deport the handful of expatriate doctors working at Dili's Motael Clinic, claiming they do not have appropriate visas. Motael is one of three hospitals in Dili, but is favoured by pro-independence casualties.
Yesterday two immigration officials seized the passport of doctor Dan Murphy, an American who has worked at Motael for six months and admits overstaying his tourist visa. A decision on his status is expected to be made on Saturday.
Dili -- As a consequence of continuing clashes between pro- independence and pro-integration groups, the Dili-based Suara Timor Timur has again been forced to cease publication.
The decision was taken following a threat from the Red and White Steel pro-TNI militia, led by Manuel de Sousa, who is a member of the Liquica local assembly representing the PDI group. The paper was previously forced to cease publication when its editorial office was attacked and severely damaged [on 17 April] by the Halilintar militia which is led by Joao Tavares, former district head of Bobonaro. Back in 1975, Tavares was the man who guided the troops under the command of Yunus Yosfiah when they killed the five TV journalists in Balibo. The Halilintar militia destroyed all the newspaper's computers and threatened to kill several of its journalists.
STT resumed publication on 5 May but less than a week later, it decided to cease publication again because pro-integration militias threatened to attack its premises again if it did not stop appearing.
The police told the paper that they were unable to guarantee the newspaper's safety and asked all its staff and journalists to leave the premises. The paper's proprietors decided, under the circumstances, to cease publication and to give its staff indefinite leave.
To the East Timorese people, the members of the CNRT To all those in a position of leadership, in Dili, especially Youth of Loriko Aswain.
The recent signature of the May agreement is an important victory for our Resistance against the Indonesian military occupation of these last 23 years. In the meantime, I am asking you all not to assume, I repeat, not to assume that we have already won and that everything is now unfolding to our advantage.
The agreement signed on May 5th only recognises the East Timorese people's right to self-determination, which is to say that it is up to the people of East Timor to chose the future they have been aspiring to and fighting for.
We are coming out of a phase of renewed difficulties and suffering. The process leading to the consultation will be a difficult one. Many problems will have to be resolved before August 8th.
The RDTL group has just taken to the streets to demonstrate. Initiatives of this type only show lack of discipline, of political vision as well as a misperception of the current situation, a situation causing the population more suffering and forcing our leaders into hiding.
Those who think that demonstrating is a show of courage are mistaken. Demonstrating now is provoking and inciting the militias to continue to kill the population. This only shows that RDTL is not thinking of the interests of the population of Dili. RDTL and other groups are providing the militias with a pretext to keep killing the people. They are making a big mistake. Mistakes questioning discipline and organisation within the Resistance. Mistakes that show how each group is only pursuing its own interests and not thinking of the suffering of the people.
I am aware that the youths are trying to mobilise the population of Dili for a massive demonstration, this only shows that these youths are deprived of any sense of responsibility, in Indonesian "tidak bertanggung jawab". Who is left to cry when the population is killed? Who looks after the wounded?
I wish to remind everyone that the presence of the UN in East Timor does not mean that victory is on our side. The task of the UN is to organise the consultation of the people on August 8th. We thus must all contribute to this process, follow the orientations of the UN team. To this end, I reiterate my appeal to all to remain calm. I reiterate my appeal to the youths of Dili to obey orders and demand that they act responsibly and with discipline. Without discipline, we will be weak, and as long as we do not demand discipline from ourselves, we are in no position to demand it of others. We must always bear this in mind.
Unity in our thoughts! Discipline in our action!
President of the CNRT, Kay Rala Xanana Gusmco Commander of FALINTIL
Canberra -- The Australian government will open a consulate- general office in East Timor in order to monitor the changes occurring in the Indonesian province.
AusAID, the government's aid body, will also open an office in Dili, according to an Australian government statement Tuesday.
The move follows the signing May 5 of an agreement by Indonesia, the United Nations and Portugal, the former colonial power in East Timor, clearing the way for a vote on autonomy in the province.
The Australian government will provide A$26.8 million over four years to set up operations in East Timor, according to the new Australian budget for the year ending June 30, 2000.
Australia, a close neighbor of Indonesia, could be involved in the future in an "administrative" role in East Timor's transition, the government noted.
The AusAID office will provide "substantial assistance" to an autonomous or independent East Timor, the government said. It hasn't yet decided on the level of the aid.
Australia is the largest bilateral donor to East Timor, providing A$7 million in 1998-99, the government said. It has also pledged A$20 million to the UN consultation process planned for August 1999 to help with the transition.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will also establish a policy liaison office in Lisbon to maintain a dialogue with Portugal as the transition is carried out.
Australia's total overseas development aid for 1999-00 will be A$1.5 billion, a A$22 million increase from 1998-99, maintaining the level of aid in real terms, the government said.
Mark Dodd, Dili -- The guns of the East Timorese armed resistance would remain silent despite desperate attempts to provoke them by pro-Indonesian militias and their Indonesian army allies, a senior pro-independence official said yesterday. "We believe the United Nations should stop the militias because if Falintil reacts [to militia provocation] the situation in East Timor will become much worse -- it could explode," said Mr Venceslau Germano Pinto, a senior official of the pro-independence umbrella group, CNRT (National Council for Timorese Resistance).
But he said a desire for peace was preventing Falintil, the armed wing of the main independence movement in East Timor, from becoming actively involved in the territory.
"We want this war stopped. Falintil are obeying orders from their commander -- Xanana. [He] wants to create a peaceful situation in East Timor, and all the commanders agree with Xanana."
In a clandestine interview with the Herald, Mr Pinto said he was delivering a message from independence leader Xanana Gusmao to supporters and CNRT officials in hiding in Dili, telling them to stay calm and resist provocation from pro-integration militias. At least three people died and eight were wounded during attacks launched by pro-Indonesian armed groups against suspected independence supporters here on Monday.
On August 8, East Timorese are due to vote in a UN-organised ballot to decide whether the territory should accept a widespread autonomy package and stay under Indonesian control or opt for independence.
In New York, a UN official said late on Monday that all UN staff to be deployed in preparation for the vote should be in place by mid June.
The 600 international UN staff would include 400 voter registration and polling officials, 15 to 18 political and civilian advisers, and various logistics, communications, information and other staff. There would be a further undetermined number of civilian police.
The precise number would be determined on the advice of a police advance team due back from East Timor next Monday. A chief of mission, expected to be named shortly, should be in East Timor by about May 20.
Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, has said that failure to stop continued violence in East Timor could lead to pressure from Portugal and other Western countries to deploy a UN military-backed peacekeeping force.
"What is important is that we show to the world, especially to the UN, that we can uphold security and order," Mr Alatas said after a meeting with President B.J Habibie at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta on Monday.
Tim Dodd, Dili -- Dr Kevin Baker has a simple rule of thumb for determining who is on which side in East Timor's civil strife.
If a man weighs less than 45 kilograms, then he is probably in favour of independence. If he weighs much more, he probably wants the province to stay with Indonesia.
Dr Baker, a volunteer from Sydney, works in the Catholic-run St Antonio Motael clinic, the only place in Dili that provides proper health care. He is one of only two doctors -- the other is a volunteer from the US -- who keep the clinic operational.
His weigh-in rule reflects the economic issues that underlie the conflict over independence.
The leaders of the pro-Indonesia political lobby are those who are doing very well from Indonesian rule, either through their businesses or from powerful political positions, and it shows in their physical well-being.
When Dr Baker recently went on a militia-protected trip to Liquisa, 30 kilometres from Dili, to see one of the pro-Indonesia rallies that the militia are organising throughout the province, he was struck by the many generously proportioned men, men quite unlike those of the 45kg average weight who come to his clinic.
The standard of health in the province is abysmally low. The most recent mortality statistics quoted by Dr Baker attributed 15 per cent of deaths to malaria, 15 per cent to tuberculosis and 12 per cent to gastroenteritis.
Yesterday morning at the Motael clinic, a crowd of people lined up for treatment. Dr Baker said that during the morning he saw "five or six full-blown new cases of tuberculosis" and described people with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, like the consumptives not seen in Western countries since the last century.
In the afternoon, he planned to operate on a man wounded by the militia in a Dili suburb on Monday shot through the leg and the scrotum. Another man had a knife wound in the back, also a victim of one of the militia sweeps through Dili.
But Dr Baker is also treating a member of the pro-Indonesian militia a man with a bullet wound in the abdomen.
Motael is the clinic of choice for Dili's population. The patients there yesterday did not want to go to the government hospital, which has been affected by a shortage of doctors and a lack of basic resources. "They have no medicine," said an old man coming through the gate.
A senior army officer told The Australian Financial Review that the military hospital in Dili also treated civilians but this was denied by people waiting at the clinic.
A major problem is that many Indonesian professionals, including doctors, have fled the province this year in anticipation of trouble.
Outside of Dili, where large sections of the province are no-go areas because of militia threats, medical treatment is probably almost non-existent, but Western observers are unable to check for themselves.
Dr Baker and his colleague, Dr Dan Murphy, hope that with the arrival in coming weeks of the UN group to run the August 8 independence ballot, more Western doctors will be able to come to the province.
Volunteers, including a number from the French group Medicin Sans Frontieres, are ready, but Indonesian regulations have made it difficult to obtain legal work visas.
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili -- Threats and attacks by pro-Jakarta militias are preventing aid agencies from sending tonnes of urgently needed rice and other supplies to thousands of villagers outside the East Timor capital.
Militiamen are also posing as refugees and demanding rice from the Catholic aid agency, Caritas, in Dili. After menacing Caritas staff for the food that is supposed to feed starving displaced people, the militiamen take it back to their own paramilitary command posts, Mr Estanislau Martins, a spokesman for Caritas, said today.
Mr Martins said threats to kill agency staff and the hijacking of a truck carrying 300 tonnes of rice that was being taken to Oecussi, about 100 kilometres west of Dili, several weeks ago had stopped supplies reaching thousands of people suffering starvation after drought ruined annual crops.
"Many people are in desperate need but we can do nothing for them at the moment," Mr Martins said. "I don't know when we will be able to resume sending supplies."
After hijacking the truck, beating the driver and stealing the rice, the militiamen at Liquica, 40 kilometres west of Dili, demanded the agency pay several hundred dollars to get the truck back.
Mr Martins said his life was threatened by militiamen who regarded displaced people as independence supporters and wanted to deprive them of food.
"They tell us don't move around ... they say if we do they will kill us," he said. Mr Martins sleeps in a different house each night.
Caritas is supplying 11,000 people displaced by violence and intimidation who are living in makeshift accommodation in Dili.
Hundreds of people queue to be fed each day at the agency's storage centre in Dili and teams take supplies to towns and suburbs.
But Mr Martins said an estimated 14,000 refugees in the Liquica district and 12,000 others at a refugee camp at the mountain region of Hatolia were not getting supplies they urgently need. "These people are living in horrible conditions," Mr Martins said. "Women and children are basically living on the ground with no basic necessities."
Attacks by pro-Jakarta militiamen on Sunday and Monday forced thousands of Dili residents to flee their homes.
Sydney -- The Indonesian military is not abiding by its promise to stay neutral in the run up the the August ballot in which 800,000 East Timorese will vote whether to accept limited autonomy or become a free country, Australian officials said Saturday.
Australian ambassador John McCarthy, currently on a four-day fact-finding mission in the former Portuguese colony that Indonesian troops invaded in 1975, said the evidence showed the military were far from impartial.
"I have seen evidence that could lead one along the lines of that sort of conclusion," McCarthy told ABC Radio in a telephone interview from Dili.
McCarthy, in the company of 30 heavily armed Indonesian soldiers, became the first diplomat to enter the town of Liquica, a stronghold of the anti-independence militia that have the support of the Indonesian armed forces. Foreign journalists have been prevented from entering Liquica -- as have aid workers.
McCarthy was in Liquica to investigate claims that Indonesian troops are herding East Timorese into a makeshift refugee camp and forcing them to pledge allegiance to Jakarta in contravention of a promise made last month to be even-handed in the run up to the vote on August 8.
The Australian envoy stressed the importance of a free and fair ballot on the autonomy package signed by Indonesia and Portugal at the United Nations in New York last week.
"It is very important that Indonesia and the international community recognise the importance of this process," McCarthy said.
Indonesian troops invaded East Timor in 1965 to put down a civil war and have ruled the territory ever since in defiance of UN resolutions.
The International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies have been denied entry to the Liquica camp 40 kilometres west of the capital Dili where tens of thousands of East Timorese are living in appalling conditions.
Pro-independence activists who have escaped from the camp allege that inmates are obliged to sing the Indonesian national anthem each day, salute the Indonesian flag and wear red and white, the flag's colours.
The Liquica camp was set up last month after pro-integration militias attacked a church in the town killing up to 60 people who had sought refuge there from the violence that has spread across the dirt-poor province. No action was taken against the perpetrators of the attack on the Catholic church. The Indonesian military say the camp is to house villagers fleeing factional fighting.
Estanislau Martins, the head of a Catholic aid organisation in Dili, said he had been denied permission to send supplies to the camp. "They [the pro-Indonesia militias] are sweeping the outlying villages and bringing the people to centres so they can make sure they vote the right way," he was quoted as saying.
The advance guard of a 1,000-strong UN contingent is expected in East Timor within the next 10 days. Australia, which has promised to fund half the cost of the UN operation, has committed around 50 police to the force of around 250 civilian police who will act as advisers to local police.
The UN-flagged force, to be in place mid-June, will be allowed to bear side arms. Police from Australia, the US, Japan, Britain, Germany and the Philippines will constitute the force.
McCarthy said an Australian consulate -- the first foreign legation in the territory -- will be set up in Dili in about four weeks.
Dili -- New violence flared between pro- and anti-Indonesia factions in the East Timor capital Sunday, with shots fired and attacks on foreign journalists.
As dusk fell in town, gunfire had left at least one man dead and another wounded, and small fires of tyres and wood were burning in the middle of downtown streets.
A man, identified as Eugenio Antonio Fatima, 26, was brought already dead, shot in the head, from the Kuluhun area near the municipal market, a nurse at the church Motael hospital said.
It was unclear who had shot him, but another man, Jose Augusto el Pinto, 31, was recovering after surgery at the same hospital after he was brought in earlier Sunday, wounded in the stomach by a gunshot fired by the pro-Indonesian Aitarak (Thorn) militia at the market.
Anicetto Guterres, who heads the local rights watchdog, the Foundation for Human Rights and Justice said earlier Sunday that a man was wounded at the market but was taken away by his attackers to an unknown destination.
A group of men, some brandishing handguns, chased a car carrying seven journalists, as it approached the main market.
Shots were fired and armed plainclothes police had to protect the car and rush the journalists to a nearby police station.
Shots continued to be fired as the reporters -- two from French media, three from Portuguese media and two for international photo agencies, were taken inside the police post. The journalists were later taken to a hotel in a police prisoners' van.
Earlier, a group of Australian journalists was pelted with rocks by pro-Indonesia supporters, one of whom was waving a pistol, when they arrived at the same market. At least one of them, a woman, was hit by a rock.
Police fired warning shots into the air to disperse the attacking crowd, they said. Several trucks disgorged more than 100 members of a special police unit not far from the market, while hundreds of curious onlookers gathered nearby.
Witnesses said pro-Indonesian supporters, had lit fires with car tyres and small piles of wood in the middle of their streets to ward off pro-Indonesian militias.
"I asked the police how close could I go and their response was pretty straightforward, a lot of the town was barricaded off," Australian ambassador to Jakarta John McCarthy, who arrived here Saturday, told AFP.
Indonesia and Portugal agreed at the United Nations on Wednesday to send an estimated 300-strong UN civilian police force to East Timor to help ensure a peaceful vote in three months' time.
Indonesian officials have said the first contingent was due to arrive here Monday, but McCarthy said police would not start arriving until the last week of June, and in small contingents.
But the pro-independence supporters in the streets, and students at the university here, all said they believed news reports the police would arrive Monday.
Tension between supporters and opponents of independence have risen since Jakarta in January announced it could let East Timor go if the people there rejected autonomy.
Pro-independence activist Leandro Isaac, sheltering at the police headquarters following violence in Dili last month, was battling against police plans to move him to Liquisa, a pro-independence stronghold some 50 kilometers west of here.
Liquisa was the scene of bloody massacre last month when the feared Besi Merah Putih (Red and White Iron) pro-Jakarta militia hacked to death at least 25 refugees at a churchyard there.
Dan Murphy, an American volunteer doctor running a clinic here, is incensed by the lack of access to Liquisa, currently home to an estimated 1,500 refugees.
"Don't tell me the refugees are staying there voluntarily," he fumed. "They used to come in and out of Dili all the time. Where are they?" Few militia were seen in the area Sunday morning and journalists were able to travel there freely.
The UN civilian police contingent is expected to advise the Indonesian police and determine whether the security situation will allow the 800,000 people of East Timor to proceed with the scheduled August 8 vote.
East Timorese will choose between autonomy under Indonesian rule or outright separation, capping a tortuous 24 years for the former Portuguese colony since it was invaded by Indonesia in 1975.
Early on Sunday, Dili Bishop Carlos Ximenes Felipe Belo told a morning mass at his residence the UN police were on the way. "You have a choice. Vote according to your conscience," he urged followers.
Following the ouster of Indonesia's President Suharto last year, the new government agreed to give the people of East Timor -- which was illegally seized by Indonesia a quarter-century ago -- the chance to vote for independence. But as veteran journalist Allan Nairn reports, the powerful Indonesian military and its militias in Timor are engaged in a ruthless effort to intimidate the Timorese population.
According to the number-two commander of East Timor's notorious newly formed militias, the Indonesian armed forces (TNI-ABRI) have made a secret "accord" with the militias authorizing them to assassinate members of local independence groups. Herminio da Costa, chief of staff of the thirteen Timorese militias, says the accord has been in effect since late January. He says it authorizes his men to "attack homes, interrogate and kill members of the CNRT [the National Council of Timorese Resistance, the nonpartisan pro-independence umbrella group] and Fretilin [a left leaning pro-independence party]," as long as the militias refrains from common crimes like "car theft and stealing food." Speaking in a lengthy series of phone interviews from militia headquarters in occupied Dili, da Costa described how his men had executed unarmed "enemies of the people" but said that these killings had been carried out with prior clearance from TNI-ABRI.
Da Costa said he was disclosing the existence of the accord for the first time publicly in order to illustrate his claim that the militias are, in fact, independent. Reacting testily to questions about Jakarta's role in launching the militias, da Costa denied that he and his men were operating with impunity. "We can be arrested at any time like any ordinary Timorese," he said. When asked exactly what he meant by that, da Costa said that the Timor police and army command, with formal approval from Jakarta, had worked out with his men a series of ground rules for mayhem in occupied Timor that, in effect, grant the militias an official -- but conditional -- license to kill.
Da Costa spoke warmly of the Indonesian army now occupying East Timor, an army that has caused the deaths of one-third of the original population. The army guarantees his local business holdings (he claims the militias are self-financing), and he has long served it openly as an informant and collaborator. He praised General Wiranto -- now the TNI-ABRI national commander and Indonesia's Defense Minister, who once served in Timor -- as a "very good friend"; he said the same of Gen. Zacky Makarim, who now oversees Timor policy. But he complained that since the independence vote for Timor was announced in January (the vote is now set for August 8, under a UN agreement), the army has been under pressure to provide protection for its longtime enemies. Da Costa says the accord was in part a solution to this political problem and in part a means of addressing the fact that "unauthorized violence" by the militias was at times causing headaches for the army and their sub-unit, the police.
Da Costa portrays the militias as an autonomous player in this deal. He says, contrary to much evidence, that the army gives them only "moral support." Even if that were true, it would not change the nature of the accord: the army and the militias in January worked out a division of labor. "Now the ABRI was `protecting' the Fretilin," da Costa explained, "and we were the ones who were assaulting Fretilin and CNRT homes." He argued strenuously that this license came at a price. The law was laid down to them, da Costa said: no stealing, no mugging, no rackets. In the event of such actions, "we can be arrested and disarmed." He added, "But if we kill CNRT or Fretilin members, no, there is no problem." Consistent with da Costa's claims, none of the militiamen have been arrested for political murders (one foreign diplomat estimates a toll of 100 victims in the past month) -- though it is also the case that they have openly continued their common-crime spree.
Da Costa says that the accord was worked out in Dili with the police chief, Col.Timbul Silaen, and the army command staff and that Timor army chief, Col. Tono Suratman, "gave permission to do assaults on houses but not without his authorization and knowledge." The same applies to interrogations [of independence supporters]. Col. Suratman did not respond to messages left at his home asking for comment. Col. Silean could not be reached.
Shortly before the first high-profile militia massacre, in Liquisa on April 6, da Costa was sworn in as militia chief of staff in a public ceremony by Gen. Adam Damiri, the TNI-ABRI commander for the region that includes East Timor. Following Liquisa, on April 17, after open threats to "invade" Dili and "wipe out" and "clean up" all vestiges of independence support, the militias staged a public ceremony in front of the Dili government palace, overseen by the occupation governor and attended by General Makarim and at least three other senior officers.
There followed an open militia rampage through the deserted streets of Dili -- with police and army standing aside, cheering and giving high-fives -- that left the houses of key independence leaders sacked and burned, an estimated twenty dead and several dozen missing.
When I asked da Costa about Liquisa, Dili and militia executions generally, he said that all these killings fell under the terms of the January accord. "We don't have authorization to kill every day," he explained, "only when we are assaulted" -- though the assaults apparently need not be physical. He claimed that the Liquisa killings arose from physical attacks on militia members by pro-independence youth instigated by the CNRT and Fretilin. (The militias do not attempt to engage the armed Falintil guerrillas, the resistance force that has fought in the mountains since Indonesia invaded in 1975, and that has, according to US officials, been in a "stand-down" posture in recent months.) But he does not dispute the fact that his forces assaulted the Liquisa church and rectory, a horrific attack that left blood and pieces of scalp on the walls and dozens hacked to death.
Da Costa's point is that the Liquisa victims had it coming politically. Yayasan Hak, the Timor human rights and legal group, says the victims were refugees. They have published the names of fifty-seven dead, many of them women and children; some survivors say many more died. Da Costa claims that local "people asked us to kill them [the victims]. For us it wasn't a disaster. For the people of Liquisa it was a liberation." He adds that in Liquisa the militias asked the TNI-ABRI for backup -- and got it from the BRIMOB, a unit specializing in crowd control. As BRIMOB lobbed in tear gas and gunshots, the militia machete-men waded in. Da Costa says "We assaulted the church and the rectory as Fretilin command posts. Those who died were not simple people. They were activists, CNRT members ... If we kill them, they say they died as people. But no, they died as Fretilin."
Manuelito Carrascalao was the 16-year-old son of Manuel Carrascalao, a CNRT political leader. He died in the Dili rampage when militias attacked his father's house, murdering him and more than a dozen of the refugees sheltering there. Survivors were taken away and have reportedly been put in a concentration camp. For da Costa, Manuelito's death was consistent with the militias' mission. Manuel Carrascalao, he said, is "an enemy of the people." When the militias arrived, they found that Manuel was not home (he had left moments before to seek help from Colonel Suratman, who had brushed him off). The execution of Manuelito was "punishment for his father's activism," according to da Costa. "If he hadn't been the son of Manuel, he wouldn't have died."
As this is being written, reports have come in of another Dili rampage, with at least three reported deaths. No arrests have been made.
On May 5 Indonesia signed a UN deal in which the government pledged to stay neutral in the Timor vote and to enforce the law impartially. But speaking on May 11, da Costa said that as far as the militias knew, their accord with TNI-ABRI "remains in force." The license to kill still holds.
[Allan Nairn was banned
from Indonesia and East Timor as a "threat to national security," after
he survived the Dili massacre of 1991. Arrested and deported last year
and threatened with six years in prison, he recently re-entered Indonesia
without the army's permission. This is the first of a series of articles.
This is an advanced uncorrected proof.]
| June 7 election |
Jakarta -- Following the military's revelation that at least 10 people were killed in recent clashes among party supporters, leaders of the 48 political parties contesting the June 7 general election agreed on Tuesday to stop all precampaign activities.
The agreement was reached at about the same time the media was reporting three people were killed in a clash allegedly involving supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and Golkar Party in Buleleng on the southern tip of Bali.
Party leaders agreed to halt "precampaign activities", which often included boisterous rallies, during a meeting here on Tuesday with the General Elections Commission (KPU), the National Elections Committee (PPI), Minister of Home Affairs Syarwan Hamid and Minister of Defense and Security/Indonesian Military Commander Gen. Wiranto. Also attending the meeting were National Police chief Gen. Roesmanhadi and members of the Elections Supervisory Committee and the Independent Elections Monitoring Committee.
Wiranto said that since March more than 50 people were seriously injured in 33 party clashes, while dozens of houses were damaged and hundreds of vehicles set on fire.
"There will be more victims if the precampaign activities are not stopped," he said.
Absent from the meeting were leaders of a number of major parties, including Golkar Party chairman Akbar Tandjung, PDI Perjuangan chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri, National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman Amien Rais, United Development Party (PPP) chairman Hamzah Haz and National Awakening Party chairman Matori Abdul Djalil. They were represented by party executives.
KPU chairman Rudini said after the meeting the agreement became effective immediately after it was signed by all the party leaders.
"With this agreement, all precampaign activities, including party gatherings and visits to regions by party leaders, are prohibited," he said.
He said party leaders also agreed not to "misuse" Koranic verses during the election campaign and promised to help educate the public about electoral rules.
PPI chairman Jacob Tobing said party leaders and the KPU agreed to authorize the Elections Supervisory Committee to enforce the agreement and sanction parties which violated the agreement and the electoral code of conduct.
"The Elections Supervisory Committee will start working as of today to monitor ... premature campaign activities and other violations," he said. Wiranto expressed hope the monitoring would prevent further clashes among party supporters.
"The police will enforce the criminal code against individuals involved in clashes among party supporters while the Elections Supervisory Committee will enforce the 1999 law on general elections and the electoral code of conduct, sanctioning parties whose supporters are involved in violence," he said.
He also urged political parties to take measures to reduce the potential for unrest during the campaign period, scheduled for May 19 to June 4.
Wiranto said it would be impossible for the nation to hold a free and fair general election if the situation was not secure, adding that existing military and police personnel were not enough to guarantee security during the elections.
"How can we make the elections free and fair if the people are afraid of violence, feel terrorized and intimidated," he asked.
He said the police would set up joint command posts with political parties to deal with violence and promised "speedy trials" would be held to process violations committed by parties and their supporters.
Roesmanhadi said some 127,000 police officers and 600,000 members of the civilian militia (Kamra) and the civilian defense (Hansip) would be deployed to maintain security during the elections.
Bali
Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Nasser Amir, chief of the Buleleng Police in Bali, told The Jakarta Post by phone: "Three people were killed (on Monday) from slash wounds suffered during the fighting in Ingsakan village."
Nasser said the police were questioning 13 people over the incident and three platoons of security personnel had been deployed to the area.
He said supporters of Golkar Party and PDI Perjuangan might have been involved in the clash.
"The supporters of those parties live side by side in the village. They are neighbors, so for the time being it could be thought that they might have been involved in the clash," Nasser said.
Two cars and five motorcycles were burned during the brawl, which erupted after a neighborhood security post in this village in the northern subdistrict of Banjar was pelted with stones, he said.
People from the villages of Pedawa, Sidatapa, Banjar and Cempaga, all in the Banjar subdistrict, were involved in brawls in December last year which left nine people dead and dozens of houses damaged. The clashes involved supporters of Golkar and PDI Perjuangan.
Sander Thoenes, Jakarta -- Indonesia's opposition party has yet to reveal its party programme for next month's general election but the supporters of Megawati Sukarnoputri have indicated that they favour restrictions on foreign investors and free trade.
In a magazine survey of the five parties that are expected to dominate the polls on June 7, the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDIP) of Ms Megawati was the most consistently in favour of limiting access to foreign investors, introducing capital controls and boosting the role of government in the economy.
If it beats the Golkar party, which dominates the parliament, as well as a host of Moslem parties and nationalist rivals, it could reverse some of the economic reforms that the current government has agreed with the International Monetary Fund, such as trade liberalisation and privatisation. The questionnaire, published in Warta Ekonomi, a respected weekly, is all the more relevant as the party has yet to state its programme and runs mainly on Ms Megawati's appeal as the daughter of former President Sukarno and critic of former President Suharto.
Leaders of PDIP, like all major parties in a country where communism is banned, say they favour capitalism, foreign investment and a free market. When asked for specifics, however, the party agreed it wanted to restrict foreign access to mining, forestry, banking and a host of other sectors. PDIP also favoured a fixed exchange rate with capital controls, protection of domestic industries and opposed divestment of government shares in utilities.
But economic analysts predicted that Ms Megawati would be unable to stray far from the economic reforms prescribed by the IMF and the World Bank because Indonesia will remain dependent on their funds to balance the budget for at least another year. And although its blood-red flags dominate the streets of most Indonesian cities, its dominance in parliament is far from guaranteed.
The government yesterday indicated it might not have much time left for privatisation, however, in announcing that it was about to sell up to 10 per cent of Indosat, its international call operator, to fund managers rather than keep searching for a suitable strategic investor. The sale, following a divestment of 9.62 per cent of domestic telephone utility Telkom last week, could take place this week.
Analysts noted that the Telkom sale carried a slight discount to the going share price while Cemex, the Mexican cement company, paid a hefty premium last year for a minor stake in a state cement mill.
Andreas Harsono, Jakarta -- It is still more than six months until Indonesia will choose a new president, but the most likely candidates are already out in force in a display of public politicking that hasn't been seen for a generation.
Many foreign diplomats and political observers believed that President B.J. Habibie is starting with some strong advantages -- especially his right as president to appoint delegates to the People's Consultative Assembly, which elects the president and vice president by consensus for five-year terms -- that may easily make him the winner in the November election.
But Habibie will still face tough competition, ranging from long-time opposition politician and front-runner, Megawati Sukarnoputri, to Muslim leader Amien Rais of the National Mandate Party.
"It is quite likely Golkar will nominate Habibie; they are left with little choice," said political analyst Wimar Witoelar, who hosts a television talk show.
Megawati has topped the competition in many different public polls, proving that she is more popular than Habibie, who has been badly hurt by the leak of a taped telephone conversation about the investigation of former President Suhartto's allegedly ill-gotten wealth.
The red-and-black banners, posters and pedestrian shelters of Megawati's party dot many Indonesian cities, omsetime in unusual places ranging from a slum area in that capital, Jakarta, to a hamlet in the remote area of Gunung Kidul in central Java.
She is seen as likely to get the votes of near-fanatical supporters of her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle plus traditional Muslim voters and retired military officers.
Megawati is a part of a three-sided coalition which includes Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid of the 35-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Muslim group, and Sultan Hamengku Buwono X of the Yogyakarta aristocracy.
The Jakarta-based Merdeka daily reported in February that the three figures have agreed to support one to each other. Initially, the paper said, the arrangement was that Wahid would run for president. But if the nearly-blind Wahid cannot make the run, as is considered likely, Megawati would replace him. And if Megawati cannot run, both of them will support the Sultan to be the president. the paper said.
Meanwhile, former military chief Edi Sudradjat has also emerged as a candidate of the Justice and Unity Party, which groups former military officers and bureaucrats who hail from the "red and white" (after the Indonesian flag) school of nationalists.
But the influential Amien Rais, a key figure in the nationwide protests that overthrew Suharto after 32 years in power a year ago, made an predicted earlier this month that Habibie would win easily the November contest.
"I calculate that Habibie has 313 of the approximately 470 votes needed to become president," Rais said.
Amien explained that to elect a person to the presidency, two thirds, or 467, of the votes of the 700-strong People's Consultative Assembly's (MPR) votes are needed.
According to the recently-passed election laws, the MPR includes all members of the 500-member House of Representatives (DPR), of which 38 were appointed military officers (only 462 of the House members are elected legislators).
The remaining 200 MPR delegations include 135 regional delegates from provincial representative councils as well as 65 members from a variety of professional associations.
"There will be 135 votes from the regional delegates chosen by the provincial-level people's representative councils. With money politics, lobbying and manipulation, these will go into Habibie's pocket," said Amien.
Theoretically, Habibie could appoint 65 professionals who are in favor of voting for him. As a practical matter, Habibie will easily control 200 votes. "Add to this the armed forces gratis seats, another 38," Amien explained.
"Now, if Golkar were to win 15 percent of the vote, then they would get 75 votes. This then adds up to 313 votes, so Habibie only needs a further 80 votes," he calculated.
For that reason, Amien continued, a coalition between parties who want change is needed to defeat those supporting the status quo and a return of Suharto's New Order regime.
Amien has tried his best to build a coalition with the Megawati camp. But it is a public secret here that Wahid, a long-time foe of Amien, who used to head Indonesia's second largest Muslim group, the Muhammadiyah, does not like the idea.
If that remains the case, it is not impossible that the coalition's leadership would end up in the hands of Nurcholish Madjid, another noted Muslim thinker of the Paramadina University in Jakarta.
Jakarta -- Indonesia's ruling Golkar party agreed early Friday to nominate President B.J. Habibie as its sole candidate for the next presidency to be decided in November, the official Antara news agency said.
Habibie, 62, was vice president when former president Suharto stepped down amid widespread protests last year, and named him as his successor.
Antara said chapter leaders, the central executive committee of Golkar and leaders of affiliated organisations, decided in a meeting in the early hours of Friday to nominate Habibie as the party's candidate.
Four other contenders -- Golkar chairman and former state secretary Akbar Tanjung, top economic minister Ginanjar Kartasasmita, military chief and Defence Minister General Wiranto, and the governor of Yogyakarta, Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, were endorsed as Golkar candidates for the vice presidency.
"The heads of the provincial chapters and representatives of the mass organisations ... agreed that Habibie becomes the presidential candidate and the other four as vice presidential candidates," Tanjung told journalists after the meeting ended at around 3:00 am.
The meeting was attended by the leaders of the 27 provincial chapters and representatives of 36 affiliated organisations.
Tanjung said 20 provincial chapters and five of the affiliated organisations wanted Habibie as the sole presidential candidate for the party. The others either abstaned or were split among the other contenders, he said.
The decision to nominate Habibie as sole candidate was reached after 90 minutes of lobbying by the participants which started at midnight.
Golkar vice chairman Marzuki Darusman was Thursday quoted by the press as saying that opposition within the party to nominating Habibie as a sole candidate was linked to dissatisfaction with the slow pace of a corruption probe into Suharto.
Darusman said public attention would focus on Golkar's sole candidate and that therefore "everything that the candidate does will have an impact on Golkar as a whole."
Golkar had in the past always endorsed a single candidate for the presidency: Suharto.
As Suharto's main political vehicle, Golkar swept all six elections since 1971. It is now trying to revamp its image ahead of Indonesia's first elections since the former leader's resignation in May, 1998.
With less than four weeks left to the June 7 general election, signs are growing that the polls -- the most crucial this country has held in its 54-year existence -- will not quite be as free and fair as the government promised they would be.
True, with the organization of the elections, from the initial preparations to the casting and counting of the votes, entirely entrusted to an independent general elections commission, there is the assurance the June 7 vote will at least be far more open and democratic than the six previous elections held under Soeharto's dictatorial New Order regime. It is the old die-hard New Order habit of employing subterfuge, however, which is promising to derail the commission's good work.
The most flagrant offense of the principles of honesty and transparency which are the prerequisites of a free and fair general election is the reported misuse of the social safety net fund, which is money loaned to Indonesia by the World Bank to help the poorest of the poor survive the economic crisis. Cases of misuse of the fund by certain political parties have been discovered by independent poll monitoring bodies in several areas across the country, including in East and West Nusa Tenggara.
Perhaps a little less morally objectionable but still a gross violation of fair play is the handing out of huge sums of money for the purpose of winning votes. Chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council and prominent Golkar party official A.A. Baramuli, for example, has openly acknowledged giving money, though in a private capacity, to Golkar leaders and members in Sulawesi "as personal contributions to help those people meet their personal needs". While the veracity of Baramuli's excuse is open to argument, the question remains why he finds it expedient to demonstrate his benevolence at rallies organized by Golkar -- not to mention the question of where all that money comes from.
Suspicions that public money was mismanaged to benefit certain political parties in some of the more remote areas of Indonesia were further raised last week by chairman of the National Development Planning Board Boediono's admission that some Rp 8 trillion of the Rp 17.9 trillion social safety net fund had been "misappropriated". A later statement that the "misappropriated" money actually was used to finance labor-intensive projects failed to allay suspicions.
In yet another case, reports -- which have not been denied -- that "money politics" at Golkar's plenary board meeting this past weekend played a role in turning the mood in favor of Habibie's nomination as the party's sole presidential candidate do not help reassure a public already skeptical of the party's ethics.
There have been other transgressions which threaten the credibility of the upcoming general election. Golkar leaflets have been found in Indonesian Red Cross food packages for victims of the recent ethnic unrest in West Kalimantan. District and subdistrict officials -- who the government has assured will remain impartial -- have attempted to persuade residents of their district to vote for Golkar. Government loans are said to have been promised to cooperatives in certain regions -- but only to those cooperatives which join the People's Sovereignty Party (PDR).
With all the talk about a credible representative government being an absolute necessity for overcoming the economic crisis, it appears that a free and fair general election still remains no more than a slogan for all too many Indonesians, including those in positions of leadership. All political parties, but ruling Golkar in particular, bear the responsibility of eradicating the public impression that a free and fair general election is an impossible dream for this country.
Continuing to commit transgressions will not only damage the credibility of the upcoming general election, but, unless these offenses are immediately stopped, the public might perceive even an honest Golkar victory as having been achieved through manipulation. What damage that would do to the nation can only be imagined.
Many Indonesians, both in the Christian minority and the Moslem majority, are uncomfortable with the sudden prominence of Islam in politics. Sander Thoenes reports on disquiet over exploitation of religion in the election campaign
A sea of green flags, decorated with yellow crescent moons, stars and images of the Kaaba, the religious heart of Mecca, could trick a newcomer into thinking that an Islamic revolution is at hand in Indonesia. The reality is far more banal: Islam is becoming a marketing gimmick.
After 32 years of authoritarian rule which banned communism and frowned on anything but its own amorphous ideology, at least a third of Indonesia's new political parties can think of little else but Islam to appeal to an electorate of 128m that is more than 80 per cent Moslem.
"There are no substantial differences," says Ahmad Syafi'i Ma'arif, acting chairman of Muhammadiyah, one of the two largest Moslem organisations. "They all want to be leaders. They did not look at the Islamic doctrine before they entered politics. Political calculations are more important to them."
Instead of a sudden swing to fundamentalism, the high number of Moslem parties cropping up in Indonesia also reflects the diversity of religious practice in the largest Moslem nation in the world.
Some cater to traditional Moslems, others to nominal Moslems in Java who mix their Islamic beliefs with Hindu and animist notions, and yet others appeal to the more educated, modernist Moslems in cities and universities.
"We all have our niche markets," said Nur Mahmudi Ismail, president of the Justice party, considered a dark horse in the general election on June 7.
Its niche market is earnest young students in search of a guiding principle, and those in the middle class who feel alienated by the years of secular rule by former President Suharto, which is now often associated with corruption and lawlessness.
"We introduce ethics and morality into politics," says Mr Ismail. "We want to teach citizens to understand their role in building this society, to become honest, to become disciplined."
One symbol of this effort is the soft-drink cooler in the party headquarters in Jakarta. It is unlocked, relying instead on a Koranic verse to admonish members to pay for each bottle they take out. "If you pay the exact amount you already did justice," a sign reads. "Do justice, since justice is closer to piety."
The Justice party calls for a role in government for the ulemas, the lslamic scholars, removal of western-style laws that conflict with Indonesian culture and for censorship of western arts entering the country.
Mr Ismail believes gay activists should be jailed and defends laws that allow parents to block a daughter's wedding but not a son's. The party office has separate waiting areas for female and male visitors.
"Whoever accepts a woman as leader will not be successful," reads a diary distributed as campaign gifts by the Justice party, and: "If the Moslems are united we can face the others together."
Many Indonesians, both in the Christian minority and the Moslem majority, are uncomfortable with the sudden prominence of Islam in politics.
Some fear it will only divide the nation at a time when economic and political chaos has sparked religious and ethnic riots, and the country's two most prominent Moslem leaders both opted for founding secular parties.
"Religiously this country is very tolerant," says Mr Ma'arif. "But once politics enters religion it is very dangerous. They should be very careful when quoting the Koranic verses -- it can divide the Moslem community."
But the drinks on sale in the Justice party cooler are American cola and root beer. Its founding members teamed up through the internet while studying in the US and Australia. Women make up more than half of the rapidly growing party rank and file. Like most Moslem parties in Indonesia, the Justice party goes out of its way to prove it is moderate, tolerant and open-minded.
"No Moslem can suffice with relying on lessons from Islam and ignoring other lessons," its leaflet reads. "Justice should be done towards anyone regardless of race, skin colour or religion."
While some blame the recent wave of clashes between Christians and Moslems on the revival of religious politics, Mr lsmail insists it is the moral vacuum that is to blame. "The main reason is a lack of understanding of religion," he says. "Islam does not teach that everything of others is bad."
None of the parties advocates replacing secular law with the Sharia, or Islamic law, although Mr Ismail and others concede they would prefer to introduce at least some of it to the Indonesian legal system, which was drafted largely by the Dutch colonial government that ruled Indonesia until 1949.
"We must transfer the values of the Koran into the law," said Anwar Haryono, founder of the Crescent Moon and Star party, shortly before his death late last year. "But those values can be acceptable to everybody. Not like in Saudi Arabia but more like Malaysia."
Jakarta -- Indonesia's ruling party Golkar may be barred from campaigning for the June 7 elections after charges that it had used money from an aid programme for its own political gains, a newspaper reported on Monday.
Media Indonesia quoted an official from the election supervisory committee as saying it had received reports that Golkar and another political party, the People's Sovereign Party (PDR), had misused funds from the social safety net.
"If it is proven, then we will sanction them ... The sanction is a prohibition from campaigning during the campaigning period," Ramlan Surbakti, was quoted as saying.
But he added the parties would still be allowed to take part in elections to the 500-member parliament -- the first democratic ballot in Indonesia in decades.
Surbakti said the committee did not have the power to disqualify parties from the elections.
A third major party, the Moslem-backed United Development Party (PPP) could also be banned from campaigning after allegations of bribery.
The social safety net programme is aimed at helping Indonesia's poor as the country grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades. The scheme is financed through loans from international donors such as the World Bank.
Golkar, the unbeaten political vehicle of former President Suharto, has been battling to distance itself from the disgraced leader since he resigned in May 1998.
Jakarta -- Party functions held by the ruling Golkar across Java over the weekend were met with hostile receptions, and at one site led to an emergency rescue of chairman Akbar Tandjung.
A helicopter flew Akbar and his wife from Jember to the neighboring East Java town of Lumajang on Sunday, after Golkar supporters were ambushed by opposition parties.
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and National Awakening Party (PKB) supporters were identified as the attackers, Antara reported.
Akbar fled as soon as he finished his address to party cadres in a field in Karangrejo, Sumbersari district.
Golkar followers were about to disperse when the attackers -- some of whom were armed with sharp weapons -- arrived. Some Golkar civilian militia were allegedly beaten and dozens of Golkar cadres were forced to take their party uniforms off, the news agency reported.
Police said they received complaints from 50 Golkar supporters, who said they were forced to remove their uniforms on the outskirts of Jember, which leads to Banyuwangi, the eastern tip of Java.
Earlier in the day, the attackers allegedly sought Akbar on their way to Karangrejo. However, security authorities warned the chairman of the possibility of danger and suggested he move from a bus, which also carried a group of journalists, to a Toyota Kijang van. No arrests were reported following the attacks.
Akbar canceled his visit to the Central Java town of Klaten on Saturday, following objections from local leaders of PDI Perjuangan, PKB and the National Mandate Party (PAN). In a joint statement, they said they were worried about clashes involving their supporters and Golkar rivals.
Officials from Golkar's branch in Klaten denied that the joint statement had caused Akbar to call off his meeting with 1,000 farmers and fishermen from across the province in the town. The gathering went ahead, despite Akbar's absence.
Participants at the function were allegedly assaulted on their way home. A group of villagers pelted trucks and buses carrying Golkar supporters with stones, but no serious clashes were reported.
Another attack on Golkar supporters was reported in Semarang on Sunday, when a group of people wearing PDI Perjuangan attributes vandalized the party office on Jl. Veteran. Three people were injured in the incident.
In Bandung, a joint rally held by thousands of PDI Perjuangan, PKB and PAN supporters on Sunday caused massive traffic jams across the city. Participants shouted their common opposition against Golkar and the status quo.
In Jepara, Central Java, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) leader Abdurrahman Wahid guaranteed on Sunday that no clash would flare up again in the province among supporters of parties claiming to represent the NU.
"The clash here recently was just a minor disruption to the PKB. I guarantee such an incident won't happen again," he told a media briefing before addressing an estimated 20,000 people in Jepara Square in a celebration to mark the Hijriah Islamic New Year and the town's 450th anniversary.
Abdurrahman, better known as Gus Dur, was referring to a clash between United Development Party (PPP) and PKB supporters last month, in which four people died and scores were injured. Abdurrahman called for restraint, citing the party's motto of "defending the truth and sincerity".
During the gathering, a boy named Yanto climbed onto the stage to extend an apology to Abdurrahman, because his father was suffering a mental illness after slandering the NU's charismatic leader.
Abdurrahman shook the boy's hand and told him he hoped his father would make a speedy recovery. Abdurrahman also said he would take two-months leave from NU, starting from the first day of official campaigning on May 19.
Meanwhile, Jepara Police chief Lt. Col. Monang Manullang told The Jakarta Post eight men had been named suspects in the latest clash between PPP and PKB supporters. "Four of them are alleged provocateurs and the other four are charged with assault," he said.
Monang also identified five Jepara districts prone to unrest: Kedung, Pecangan, Melonggo, Mayong and Bangsri.
In a related development, PAN chairman Amien Rais told party supporters in Purwokerto, also in Central Java, on Sunday to avoid conflicts with followers of rival parties. "We are all friends, except for Golkar. Just forget Golkar, it's too painful to remember what it did in the past," he said.
In Jombang, East Java, President B.J. Habibie called for fair play in the June 7 polls, urging political parties to be prepared to take defeat graciously.
"All sides should accept
the parties that win the elections," he said in the centennial commemoration
of the Tebuireng Pesantren (Islamic boarding school) on Saturday.
| Political/economic crisis |
Jakarta -- Fresh violence broke out in the eastern Indonesian islands of Maluku as villagers from three villages clashed on the weekend, leaving 14 houses burned, a report said here Monday.
Maluku province spokesman Major Philipe Jekriel said the clashes broke out on Saturday and Sunday in Ambon, the Antara news agency said.
"So far, there is no report of casualties and the security personnel are now in control of the situation while six suspects have been arrested and are being questioned," Maluku military commander, Colonel Karel Ralahalu was also quoted by Antara as having said.
Jekriel said that the violence had begun with a dispute between students of a highschool in Ambon, the capital of the Maluku province, on Friday. The police in Ambon could not be immediately be reached for comment.
Ambon and several other islands
in Maluku have been hit by months of violence between members of the Moslem
and Christian communities there that have left close to 300 people dead
and massive destructions.
| Aceh/West Papua |
Lhokseumawe -- Five grenade blasts Tuesday rocked the headquarters of the air defence battalion in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province but there were no casualties, the military said.
The early morning attack on the base in this major city in Sumatra island came a week after soldiers, including some from the base, opened fire at civilians leaving at least 41 civilians dead.
"The attack happened at 12.30am but no one was injured," a resident source told AFP.
The Indonesian military accused rebels from the Hasan Tiro separatist group of launching grenades and firing shots at the headquarters, the Antara state news agency said.
"Using a grenade launcher, the Hasan Tiro group fired at five targets," Antara quoted a military statement as saying. The military classified the damage as minor and said the attackers fled after the attack. One person was arrested on Monday for behaving suspiciously around the base, Antara said.
A team from the National Commission on Human Rights and military leaders made a visit to the base in Pulau Rungkom village later on Tuesday.
It had been the destination of a mass protest by thousands of villagers on May 3 but the crowd met with soldiers before reaching it. The shooting started shortly afterwards.
The people were trying to protest violence by soldiers from the base at a nearby village on the previous day.
"I could hear the loud blasts last night, and the origin of the sound came from where the artilerry base is, but am not sure myself," a resident whose home lies some three kilometers away from the base told AFP by phone.
"I was shocked but did not dare go out," he said, adding that life resumed as normal in downtown Lhokseumawe Tuesday.
Many staunchly-Moslem Acehnese deeply resent the military after 10 years of harsh operations in the province designed to try to wipe out the separatist Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh) movement.
Aceh Merdeka has been fighting for an Islamic state in the province, at the northern tip of Sumatra island, since the mid 1970s. There have been rising calls for a self-determination referendum in recent months.
The Deputy Head of the Provincial Government in Aceh, Yusri Hadjerat (who belongs to the ABRI faction in local government) told students and the people to "kill" the provocateurs who have been causing unrest. "If you meet with a provocateur, whether they belong to GAM or to the military or whoever they may be, they must be killed," emphasised Yusri in Banda Aceh on Tuesday 11/5.
The order to kill was given in reply to Alfian, a Farmidia Aceh activist, who was protesting outside the government building along with hundreds of other students, who asked: "Are students permitted to kill provocateurs?" According to Yusri, an number of actions taken by provocateurs is increasingly unsettling. It has already reached anarchic levels he said, and conditions in Aceh are now unstable.
Moreover, said Yusri, it is unbelievable that the provocateurs have attacked school buildings, which are places where the people of Aceh improve their potential. "I have come to the conclusion that such methods are the work of the PKI. People who want to implement communist ideology. It is thus extremely important that everyone be very alert," said this Colonel.
Communists, continued Yusri, can permeate anywhere or anyone, and the security forces are no exception. "Don't think that there are no communists in the security forces. The main point is that whoever carries out such actions, in such a way, are communists," said Yusri to Waspada.
He reminded religious leaders, local leaders and the government to unite to face the threat of communism. "Act openly, as a devoutly religious person who has pancasila as part of their personal philosophy, and if there is a problem, it must be sorted out legally," said Yusri.
He said that the PPRM (special military police force) who have been sent to Aceh must apprehend the provocateurs. He emphasised that the people and the provocateurs must be differenciated between. This was necessary in order to prevent the fall of any more innocent victims. "The people of Aceh have already suffered greatly, and so that is why we order the people to kill the provocateurs. But they must be killed in accordance with the law," said Yusri.
Farmidia demanded in a statement read out by Efendi Hasan at the demonstration, that the military withdraw all non-organic troops from the region. "Thus far, all the provocation has been carried out by members of the armed forces, in Idi Cut as well as in Lhokseumawe and other places," said Farmidia co-ordinator.
According to Farmidia, the unrest and massacres which have taken place in Aceh will not occur again unless Wiranto gives the order. It is said that the people of Aceh are in agreement that Wiranto is responsible for the unrest and massacres in Aceh. Aside from rejecting the PPRM presence, and other troops, Farmidia demanded that Iskandar Muda District Command should not be re-established in Aceh.
Farmidia reminded the people not to succumb to the provocation by the military or other provocateurs, and that they should behave in an Islamic way. Farmidia added that students in Aceh had been consistent in their demand for a referendum in Aceh.
Vaudine England, Lhokseumawe -- The day after special services were held in mosques around Aceh to commemorate the dead from Monday's massacre, four Hercules aircraft brought more than 400 special police officers to Lhokseumawe in Aceh province.
A local leader of the independence movement, Ismail Sahputra, said he was not afraid of the new arrivals, even though he is accused by the military of being a provocateur who helped cause Monday's tragedy.
"Maybe there will be no election in Aceh", he said, "but these troops are here to push people to accept an election. Very simply, these troops are here to kill Acehnese."
For the Mobile Brigade convoy -- armed with riot shields, sticks, guns and crates of ammunition -- their first sight of Aceh was a sign just outside the airport welcoming them to "Aceh, country of referendum".
This is a reference to the popular Acehnese desire for a referendum on independence, instead of the national election set for June. In place of election symbols and party flags, north Aceh boasts signs and flags of the separatist Aceh Merdeka movement.
Most people outside the bureaucracy in north Aceh say they are not interested in the forthcoming election, a view the head of the National Election Commission Rudini must have heard on his quick trip to the province on Thursday when he said the election here could be delayed.
Military commander for the area, Colonel Johnny Wahab, insists the election must go ahead. "Aceh is part of Indonesia", he said, adding that he believed the separatists numbered just 50 active personnel and many sympathisers.
Mr Ismail surrounded by local villagers sporting the Aceh independence flag on caps and badges, puts the situation differently.
He claims the existence of a National Liberation Army numbering more than 10,000 active members. "We have guerillas in the towns -- the Indonesians don't know the faces of our men," he said. "We can easily hide, and many others are in the mountains."
Despite this force, Mr Ismail says he was not responsible for provoking Monday's shooting and that he had told people in the area not to gather because it was dangerous.
The Aceh Merdeka's titular head, Hasan de Tiro, is based in Sweden, but that does not stop his name from resonating in Lhokseumawe.
At a small mosque at the bus terminal here on Thursday night, as religious songs were sung for the estimated 63 victims of Monday's massacre, one high school student said: "Yes, I want independence. All of us here want independence. Many Acehnese are waiting for Hasan de Tiro to come back."
A bus driver, passing coffee and coke to fellow mourners, said: "We want no election here, only referendum." And a driver who followed the newly arrived security forces to their base last night said to them with a bitter laugh: "Selamat Datang", or "welcome".
K. Basrie, Banda Aceh -- Victims and witnesses of the May 3 shooting at Krueng Geukueh in North Aceh asserted over the weekend that the military has lied to the world about the incident, in which at least 41 people, including children and women, were killed.
Seven victims being treated in the intensive care unit at Zainoel Abidin Hospital in Banda Aceh, their relatives and witnesses, including local reporters, told The Jakarta Post here on Saturday that the military's version stating that it fired in self-defense after being attacked by Free Aceh rebels was nothing but a lie.
Sopyan, 25, of Alue Garot whose kidney was perforated by a bullet, said: "In the name of Allah, we were not there to attack anyone, but to protect our area and all our neighbors from any possible attack by the military."
According to the victims and witnesses, some 5,000 people from different villages in Dewantara district formed a human barricade at the KKA crossroads on Monday against the possibility of a military attack. They also asked the head of the district and local military officials to help settle a dispute between the villagers and members of the nearby 001 Rudal Air Defense Artillery (Arhanud).
"While some of the villagers were still discussing the matter with personnel from the 113 Infantry Battalion, I saw two Arhanud trucks heavily packed with the unit's uniformed personnel, speeding from behind the Army battalion and blindly firing their guns in our direction," recalled Nurdin M. Sabil, 35, of Lancang Barat, who sustained a critical gunshot wound to the back.
Nurdin and other victims and eyewitnesses said the dispute began on the evening of April 29 when local villagers held a mass gathering on the Free Aceh movement at Cot Meurong field, which is located near a mosque.
"During the gathering, an Arhanud trooper was spotted by the villagers holding a walkie-talkie and standing near the podium. The sergeant, identified as Editya Warman, was then questioned by the people and later asked to leave the site," Masykur T. Randista, a local reporter, said.
Muzakkir A. Thaleb of Bluka Tebai village, who was shot in the left thigh, added that a group of Arhanud members rushed to the area on the next day and forcibly demanded villagers hand over their colleague, who they said was abducted by villagers.
"I saw with my own eyes how my neighbors were slapped by the Arhanud personnel when the villagers said they knew nothing about the abduction or told them that their fellow soldier had already been freed. "Some of them even had the barrel of the soldiers' guns put into their mouths," Muzakkir added.
The military sweeps ended on May 1 after Dewantara district chief ordered the Arhanud members to stop their search. "Unfortunately, on the next day a number of angry soldiers went to the villages at night for the same mission, triggering the people's anger," added a local resident, who refused to be named.
Fearing an incident with the military in which lives would be lost, the people informed residents of nearby villages about their problem and asked for backup.
"I received the message on Monday morning. I then rushed to sharpen my machete and together with scores of my neighbors got into a truck prepared by a senior resident in my village," recalled Sopyan of Alue Garot, located about 17 kilometers from the KKA crossroads.
Nurdin of Lancang Barat, added: "We then gathered at the KKA crossroads beginning at 8am, urging the district chief and the local military commander to once again remind the Arhanud personnel not to break their promise", of not starting trouble.
According to reporter Masykur, the district chief was still talking with officials from the 113 infantry battalion when the Arhanud trucks filled with soldiers arrived from the back of the battalion units and fired their guns continuously into the crowd.
"I saw a girl hiding inside a concrete house shot dead by a bullet going straight through the concrete wall," he said.
Similar to Masykur, the critically wounded victims at the hospital said the soldiers fired into the crowd for at least half an hour. Many of the victims were shot while lying facedown on the asphalt road.
"They're so brutal. They blindly fired their guns at any civilian without any warning," said Saridin, in his 30s, who was shot in the right cheek. Deceit
Lilawangsa Regional Military Headquarters Commander Col. Johnny Wahab said earlier that the protesting crowd opened fire first and troops returned fire in self-defense. The local military also claimed villagers planned to take over a nearby missile warehouse.
Many of the witnesses and the victims insisted that the military's version was merely a lie. "Why were there no fatalities on the military's side? What about the killing of the children?" asked another reporter.
The victims' statements were strongly supported by the findings of in-depth inquiries by local members of the Commission of Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), a Jakarta- based non-governmental organization.
Kontras chairman Munir told the Post in Banda Aceh: "If the villagers really wanted to take over the missile warehouse, why did locals leave the storehouse alone and instead join the crowd at the KKA crossroads?"
Scores of villagers were also seriously injured in the May 3 incident at Kreung Geukeuh, 15 kilometers west of the North Aceh capital of Lhokseumawe.
However, none of the critically wounded victims at the hospital regret what it cost them to protect their villages. "What for? It's better for me to die this way rather than to be killed by soldiers from Java without any resistance. I'm proud to die a martyr's death," said Sopyan.
Muzakkir added: "All of us here have had grim nightmares for years. It's not easy to throw away the traumatic killing of tens of thousands of Acehnese by the military. So, it's better for us to die in this way."
He was referring to a notorious decade of military operations to quell a separatist movement in the province. The military operations began in 1989 and were only halted last August. Thousands of Acehnese are believed to have died due to the military operations.
Many believe the military shootings have ensured that tensions will be high in the province ahead of the June 7 general election. "Most residents even don't care about the elections," said sociologist Tamrin Amal Tomagola of the University of Indonesia.
On Friday, a battalion of
450 riot troops were dispatched from Jakarta and will be stationed in and
around Lhokseumawe.
| Labour issues |
Terry Cook -- An appeal for support from striking Indonesian garment workers employed by the Japanese-owned Berbek sweater manufacturing company in Sidoarjo, East Java, reveals the sweatshop conditions under which they are forced to work.
"Workers are regularly intimidated, fired without proper procedures, sexually harassed, and punished without due reason," the appeal states. "Wages and bonuses do not meet workers basic needs and are often used as tools of punishment." The workers are paid only US$19 a month.
As one form of punishment, the management assigns workers to the Manual Machines Section (MMS) where very old and worn-out machinery increases the physical and mental strain of working.
Once in this section workers are not allowed to talk or even turn their heads. An 80-watt lamp, that emits considerable heat, is placed just 20 inches above their heads. Workers complain of continuous headaches, severe leg and back pain, and stiffness in their arms and other parts of their bodies. The conditions have caused some women workers to menstruate twice in one month.
Last December nine workers were relocated to the MMS after they challenged being arbitrarily dismissed. In an attempt to force them to resign they were given excessive workloads, which required them to work almost non-stop. Of 20 workers previously sent to the MMS, 12 eventually resigned.
On March 31 this year the workers went on strike to protest these conditions and served a 10-point log of claims on the company. These include, a 50 percent wage increase, the immediate closure of the MMS, procedures to allow women to take menstruation leave, the end of all arbitrary dismissals and transfers, and the payment of a transportation allowance.
When the company refused and would not even negotiate the claims, the workers sent a delegation to the local union office but received no support. Instead local union branch officials sent a letter to the company sanctioning the suspension of 42 workers without paying redundancy entitlements. Other workers active in the strike have since been transferred out of their normal sections to the MMS.
Berbek was established in
1990 and is owned by the Japanese firm, Impian Busana and Endless. It employs
400 workers, 375 female and 25 male, producing knitted sweaters for brand
names such as Pincponc, Elle Alle, Queens Gate, Cynthia White and Stravin.
| Human rights/law |
Jakarta -- Scores of farmers were arrested and 11 were missing from villages in Indonesia's West Java province after a protest over a land dispute, a rights group said Friday.
Relatives of the missing farmers in the Agrabinta sub-district said the men disappeared after a protest on April 30, a member of the Legal Aid Council (LBH) in the province's main city of Bandung said.
"Wives, mothers and in-laws came here for help to find out where their relatives were," Suherman Iskandar of the Bandung LBH told AFP by phone.
"These women are afraid to go to the police and report their relative's disappearances, after what happened in their villages," Suherman added.
Some family members of the 85 men arrested by police said they had to pay local officials to have their relatives released.
"A woman said she had to pay 150,000 rupiah (about 19 dollars) for her husband's release. And another said she had to pay up if she did not want her husband arrested," Suherman said. Police have released all but seven men.
The farmers were protesting against a private plantation company they claim had taken over their land. Kompas daily reported that extortion linked to the takeover ranged as high as 800,000 rupiah.
Farmers have begun speaking out over land rights after the fall last year of president Suharto, whose regime cracked down harshly on public protests.
Jakarta -- Activists have deplored the government's recent rejection of a United Nations (UN) report on violence against women in Indonesia, on the grounds that its content was akin to viewpoints held by non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
"The report is too NGO-like," said human rights activist Saparinah Sadli, quoting on Friday remarks made by the Indonesian delegation to the 55th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in March.
During the session, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (SR-VAW) Radhika Coomaraswamy presented results of her visit between Nov. 20 and Dec. 4 last year, when she compiled reports of violence against women that took place last May 13 and May 14.
Saparinah, the chairwoman of the National Commission on Violence Against Women, said the report "sketches a very clear picture of the forms of violence experienced by women in Aceh, Irian Jaya, East Timor and Jakarta.
"The Indonesian government delegates in the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) rejected the report, arguing its content is based on prejudice, using anonymous individual cases, and that the findings were unsubstantial and could not be verified," Saparinah said in a joint statement with the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and the Women's Solidarity group.
Saparinah said "the government considered Coomaraswamy insincere and disrespectful of the government. The negative reaction of the Indonesian government is ironic and counterproductive."
She said Coomaraswamy's findings "have not only made clear the problem of violence against women in Indonesia, but also give recommendations on how to overcome problems in the field of human rights".
Coomaraswamy obtained her data from sources which included Cabinet ministers, the local government in the East Timor capital of Dili, the police and military apparatus, the National Commission on Violence against Women, NGOs and from victims' testimonies.
"SR-VAW concludes that before May 1998 rape was used as a form of intimidation and torture by certain elements within the military.
"And after May 1998 the government has shown political will to end violence against women, but cases of violence and rape still continue until this very moment," Saparinah quoted Coomaraswamy's report as saying.
Coomaraswamy said in the report that "it is clear the May riots were followed by mass rapes, although it is difficult to state a clear number of victims".
The government-sponsored joint fact-finding team reported last November that at least 52 women were sexually assaulted, most of them Chinese- Indonesians.
"During the riots, the military was not alert, and even tended not to intervene to stop the violence," the report said, adding that the victims "have been threatened in order to shut them up".
Coomaraswamy said none of the victims of sexual assault, with whom she spoke during her investigation, had filed charges.
The victims had received death threats and anonymous letters warning them against filing charges. They had also received photographs of their own rapes, accompanied by a warning that the pictures would be widely distributed if the women dared to speak up, Coomaraswamy added.
She has called on the authorities at the highest level in Indonesia to introduce a witness protection program, and have those who allegedly issued the threats brought to court.
"Otherwise the legitimate
process of politics and governance will always be subverted by shadowy
forces who rule civil society through the use of terror," Coomaraswamy
said in the report.
| News & issues |
Kafil Yamin, Bandung -- Asih is only in her 40s, but she is already a grandmother four times over. She married at 12 and had three children by the time she turned 15. When she was 27, she saw her eldest daughter, Atikah, get married. Atikah was all of 14.
According to the Ministry of Population and Coordinating Body for Family Planning, the average marrying age in Indonesia is 23 years for women and 27 for men. But in many rural villages and towns across the country, the figures are far lower, especially for girls.
One result is that generations upon generations of rural Indonesian women have been deprived of the chance to seek higher education, or to choose lives outside of childbearing and housework.
Often, this has also led to a vicious cycle of poverty, since young couples, often both from poor families, are too ill- prepared for work other than the most menial of jobs.
"Parents cannot afford to send their children to higher schools," says Hasan, village head of Cicirug in West Java, where 2,500 families, including those of Asih and her two young married daughters, live.
"They cannot even keep them for very long," he says. "They encourage their daughters to marry once they complete their basic education. When a girl gets married, her parents feel they've been relieved of a burden."
But economics is not the only factor behind this practice. Dr. Kusnaka Adimihardja, director of the Indonesian Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge at Padjadjaran University, notes that there is a Prophet's decree that says, "Have your children married as soon as they are eligible."
At the same time, Kusnaka notes that there is also a local saying that goes, "No matter how far a woman goes, she will end up in the kitchen."
"So parents think, why should they send their daughters to higher schools?" says Kusnaka, explaining how village residents tend to think. "Someday men will take them. And just like their mothers, they will serve their husbands, spend most of their time in the kitchen. Giving them higher education is wasteful."
Indeed, early marriage has become so common that even girls from well-off families are doing it, although still a few years later than their poorer counterparts. The richer young brides range from 15 to 18 years old while the poor ones get married between 12 to 14 years.
"Girls feel inferior if they have not been married after 15," says Cicirug village chief Hasan. "People think they are not attractive to men. It is a shameful taint on families."
"Better-off families suffer this inferiority worse," he adds, arguing that the richer families are more conscious of what people think.
Nana Suryana, an official of the Gununghalu district administration, says the government has not been remiss in trying to convince rural young women to continue their studies and postpone marriage. He points to the nine-year compulsory basic education that is free as one of the government's efforts to discourage early marriages.
Students, however, are often made to pay other fees that their teachers say go to books, cooperatives and student-parent unions. Nana himself also admits that the Gununghalu district office has failed to build new schools to accommodate the growing number of students.
To many villagers, government officials are all talk and no action. Comments Enung Rustinah, a 28-year-old Cicirug homemaker: "They told us to [refrain from early] marriages. They told us to send our children to higher education. But they don't give us jobs. They don't give our children free education."
Bandung State Islamic Institute senior lecturer Yaya Suryana says one solution to the problem is for the government to cobble together an economic action plan. "In many places," he says, "children are a burden. They won't be if families have enough resources to raise them."
He also says there should be a review of the traditional views of religious doctrines. "The Prophet's saying has been mistakenly perceived because he also called on his followers not to leave their descendants behind in poor and weak conditions," argues Yaya. "It means that if [early] marriage brings about poverty and weaknesses, it should be avoided," he explains.
But Yaya thinks any intense campaign on the negative effects of early marriages would be best carried out by non-government organisations. This is because, he says, there is already public resistance to government appeals.
Meanwhile, demographers have noticed that more and more of those who marry early are getting divorced. Observers attribute the new trend to the immaturity of the young couples combined with the hardships brought about by the recession that is currently pummelling Indonesia.
"Men who feel they are no longer capable of feeding their family properly will leave their wives," says Hasan. "In return, wives will be more and more unhappy with their 'incapable' husbands."
In some villages like Cicirug, the situation has resulted in many young women getting married and divorced several times, and having children with each man they marry. "You may see small- sized families here, with two children each," says Nana, "but the wives and husbands may have [other] children."
He says that these days,
the young women in Cicirug may have already gotten married four times by
the time they turned 20. Nana says a woman often has two children during
each marriage. "So when a woman enters her fourth marriage, " he adds,
"she would already have had six children, and another two will soon follow."
| Environment/Health |
Clashes between local residents, staff and members of the security forces have resulted in at least six deaths and hundreds of injuries at the Indorayon pulp and rayon mill in North Sumatra. As a result of the unrest, President Habibie has been forced to order a temporary shut-down of the factory at Porsea.
The latest violent incidents occurred in mid-March when local people threw stones at trucks bringing logs into the mill site. Members of the police's anti-riot corps, Brimob, accompanying the trucks fired warning shots to disperse the crowd.
The day before, the mutilated bodies of two local men were discovered in the Asahan River, near the mill. Another was found the next day. Two of the victims were Indorayon workers. No news has emerged on the identity of the killers, but some local people suspect the security forces of carrying out the murders to provoke more conflict in the community.
People living near the mill site have suffered much over the ten years since the mill was built, from the effects of pollution, deforestation and land-grabbing. Controlled by the well-connected Tanoto family, the company flouted environmental regulations with impunity during the Suharto era. Legal action, demonstrations and deputations to government agencies failed to stop the pollution or improve the lot of local people.
Since the resignation of Suharto, the community has demanded that the promises of reformasi be put into action. Public pressure has forced the company to suspend operations at the mill for months. But their successes have been answered by more violence as the company, with police protection has attempted to enforce continued production.
Shut-down
On March 19, came Habibie's decision to order yet another temporary halt to operations at the mill. According to one report, Habibie has given an organisation called Yayasan Pencinta Danau Toba (YPDT, Friends of Lake Toba Foundation) the task of drawing up terms of reference of a new environmental impact study of the mill within two weeks. After this the government would decide whether or not to hire international consultants to conduct it. The result of the new study would then enable the government to decide whether to close down permanently or relocate the mill, or whether to allow it to continue at the Porsea site. Other reports differ as to what exactly Habibie's instructions were, with some saying that YPDT will carry out the study, not just the terms of reference.
It is highly doubtful that these measures will satisfy the local community who want the plant closed down for good. They do not accept the need for an impact study when the effects of the mill have been obvious to them for many years. "We have learned about the hazards such as bad odor, lung infections, skin defects and birth defects, while we have enjoyed nothing from the company in the way of contributions to local social programmes" said a member of a local anti-pollution group in a Jakarta Post report. The Asahan river, downstream of the mill, has been badly affected by the mill too. A local fisherman said "the water has become dark and brown ... No more fish are found in the river and villagers living along the river can no longer drink the river water because of the pollution." Local people say that fumes belched out by the mill corrode the corrugated iron roofs and water sources used for irrigating local farmers' fields have dried up as result of deforestation.
A press statement issued by the North Sumatran chapter of the environmental NGO WALHI, welcomed the temporary closure but said it had come too late to prevent loss of life on both sides of the conflict. Such incidents, it said, would not easily be forgotten by the community. WALHI also asked why YPDT had been given the job of drawing up the terms of reference when it was a shareholder in Indorayon. North Sumatra governor, Rizal Nurdin is the Foundation's chairman. WALHI fears that YPDT, which local people know nothing of, will be used to legitimise Indorayon's presence.
Moreover, independent audits have been promised before. Last year the plant was forced to shut down for more than four months due to public protests. In October, after negotiations involving the government, the company and some members of the community, an agreement was reached to re-open the plant (with police protection) so that its operations could be subjected to a 'total' independent audit, paid for by the government. The general public would be urged to supply the audit team with information, according to the agreement and the company was to be permitted to resume operations 2 to 4 weeks before the audit. (According to the company, the plant needed to be operational for at least three months, before it could be audited properly.)
During protests against this decision at least two people were killed and hundreds more were injured. Houses belonging to pro- Indorayon people were burned down or damaged and six logging trucks were destroyed.
By the New Year, there was still no news of the audit and local people began to see it as a trick to keep them quiet while operations at the mill went on as normal. The mill was continuing to belch out its foul-smelling fumes and river-polluting sludge.
There have been more, serious incidences of violence at the mill, resulting in the detention and alleged torture of a number of local people. In November villagers rioted in Porsea with hundreds of people burning workers houses, destroying logging trucks, shops, cafes, and houses belonging to government officials. At least four people were shot by Brimob anti-riot police; one, a twenty year old student, fatally. The unrest led to the arrest of dozens of people. By mid-January 8 of these people had been released but were not allowed to leave the town of Porsea. Two of them were reported to be school pupils. Witnesses reported that some of those held had been tortured and that detainees were usually taken to the mill before going to the police station. "Here they are beaten up by people including PT IIU staff." (SiaR 13/1/99) There were also violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces in the provincial capital of Medan and the town of Tarutung.
A chemical spill from an Indorayon truck in December did not help ease any tension. The accident happened in the early hours of December 30th near the village of Parpatulaan, about 10 km from the mill-site. The truck came off the road, emptying its load of chemicals into rice fields irrigated by the river Aek Mandosi. Fish kills resulted and compensation was paid by the company, which local fish farmers claim is far from adequate.
In December, thousands of local people tried to occupy the mill site following the shooting of a youth who was retrieving a volleyball from the road when an Indorayon truck was passing. The security personnel escorting the truck apparently thought he was about to attack the truck. During the protests which followed, another four people were shot by Brimob and fourteen others were detained. The police used rubber bullets and tear gas to break up the occupation attempt.
On January 9th local protesters blockaded the road used by trucks bringing logs to the mill near Balige village. They were protesting against a shooting incident involving the security forces accompanying the logging trucks to the pulp plant. The road was closed for 10 hours by obstacles including burning tyres. A local person told the SiaR news service that since the violence in November the level of security had been stepped up from one police guard per truck to one pick-up full of police for each truck.
By January 25th the local legislature or DPRD had lost patience with the company. At a meeting with Indorayon representatives Maratua Simanjuntak, a member of the local parliament, accused the company of breaking its agreement with the government. She said the people of Porsea and Balige were quite justified in feeling angry and cheated since the plant had restarted operations before the audit team had even been agreed.
On January 30th, around five thousand people, led by Christian and Muslim clerics, walked 5 km along the Trans-Sumatran highway and blocked the road leading to the mill site, singing Batak songs and shouting "close Indorayon!" In Porsea tens of thousands of residents took to the streets to demand the closure of the plant. The following week there was a similar mass protest supported by high school and university students.
There has been protest in the capital too. In February dozens of Batak professionals living in Jakarta, members of Bona Pasogit Forum, held a protest outside the headquarters of the Raja Garuda Mas Group, owners of Indorayon, in Jakarta. They said the mill should be shut down immediately because it was a disaster for local people.
Along with the protests, the violence and intimidation by the security forces continued. A chronology by WALHI North Sumatra describes how all the adult men were forced to flee their homes when army and police teams raided three villages in March.
Divided opinion
Indorayon was Indonesia's first big environmental cause cilhbre when, in 1988 WALHI took the company to court on pollution charges. The case was unsuccessful, but served to bring the problems of industrial pollution into the public arena and established the right of NGOs to take court action against a company and members of the government.
Eleven years on, the issue is dividing opinion within the government. Many, like head of the country's investment co- ordinating body Hamzah Haz, fear that closing the Indorayon mill will put off potential foreign investors and worsen an investment climate already reeling from the impact of the economic crisis and post-Suharto political uncertainties. This point was used by the company to persuade the government to reopen the mill in October. In a letter to Habibie and North Sumatra governor Rizal Nurdin, Indorayon warned of the "negative impact" on investor confidence in Indonesia. The same month, to the consternation of Indorayon, Environment Minister Panangian Siregar announced that the mill should be relocated. In December he said the government had no choice but to close it down altogether. "Indorayon has caused damage, destruction and loss to the local community. What does foreign exchange mean and employment for thousands mean if the factory hurts millions of people?" (Asiaweek 8/11/98)
Employment
The company has also defended its position by emphasising the employment benefits it brings to this rural community. Around 6,000 people work for the company plus a further 2,000 full-time contractors. According to company deputy general manager and factory manager Rusman, around 60% of the staff are Batak. The company also claims that 90% of workers come from local communities (presumably including other ethnic groups.)
In October around two thousand Indorayon workers staged a sit-in at the North Sumatra Governor's office in Medan, demanding that their jobs be protected.
This signalled the direction the conflict would take in later months, dividing the community into pro-and anti-Indorayon camps. According to local resident J. Gurning, the company has eroded local Batak culture and has caused division in the community, even within families. What is termed "horizontal" conflict, where communities are turned against each other, is becoming increasingly prevalent in many parts of the country. Here, as in other conflicts, the hand of the security forces in instigating unrest is suspected.
But, whatever the acrimony between the two sides, the fact remains that Indorayon itself is the root cause of the recent violence in North Sumatra. If it had not blighted the local environment and brought so much suffering to local communities, the violence would not have happened. At the same time, the failure of the Indonesian government to protect its people is also central. The main development imperative under Suharto was to make more money for the Jakarta-based elite. As with many other industrial projects in Sumatra and on other resource rich islands, almost all of the government revenues flowed to Jakarta. According to Rusman, a paltry Rp 1 billion (around US $100,000) is paid to the local government while Rp 54 billion ($5.4 million) goes to the central government. How far this will change under new legislation which purports to enhance regional control over resources, remains to be seen. The company is both defiant and conciliatory in its response to the protests. It points to its modern waste treatment facilities and provisions for the local community which include jobs, "skills training" and a school accommodating 1,000 pupils in the town of Porsea. In a tacit admission of past failure, Rusman says Indorayon will make substantial changes and fix any damage. But his promises to recruit more local employees, increase contributions to local development programmes, and carry out reforestation around Lake Toba to ensure water supplies may not be enough to convince a people who have developed a deep-seated mistrust of anything the company says.
APRIL to spin off Indorayon
In January shareholders of Indorayon's Singapore-based parent company, Asia Pacific Resource International Holdings Ltd (APRIL) voted to divest its 62% stake in the company to give Indorayon "more flexibility in its day-to-day operations" and to separate APRIL's pulp and paper operations from Indorayon's viscose business. Company press releases did not mention whether or not any damage to APRIL's international reputation caused by the protests, was a factor in the decision. APRIL has close connections with Finnish paper company UPM Kymmene. European NGOs have been very critical of UPM Kymmene for its share swap deal with APRIL due to the poor social and environmental record of Indorayon and its sister mill, Riau Andalan. (See DTE 38 and FoE Finland's website: www.maanystavat.fi/april. There may also be financial considerations: the company says it lost around US $20 million a month during the shut-down last year and its debt now totals US $360 million. But Indorayon's finance director David Pile insists that a permanent closure of the plant would make no sense. "Even with current high interest rates and low pulp prices, this business makes money."
Indorayon will remain under
the control of the Tanoto family (51%) who hold a controlling stake in
APRIL. The company is traded on the Jakarta and Surabaya stock exchanges
while APRIL is listed on the New York stock exchange. Apart from the Tanotos,
shares in Indorayon are held by the investing public, co- operatives and
several foreign (including Finnish) financial institutions. Indorayon also
owns a rayon plant in Finland.
| Arms/Armed forces |
Philip Shenon, Washington -- The Clinton administration has decided to offer riot-control training to the Indonesian police in preparation for next month's national elections despite concerns from human rights groups over the abysmal human rights record of the police there, administration officials say.
Under the plan, they said, a team of American police commanders will be sent to Indonesia within the next several days to offer training to their Indonesian counterparts in how to deal with crowd control and riots, and how to improve relations between the police and news organizations and opposition political parties.
The training program was recommended by an American government inspection team that recently traveled in Indonesia and found in a report that the program "could well reduce violence" during and after the election by offering techniques to deal peacefully with crowds of anti-government demonstrators.
Officials said that the size of the American team and its composition had not been decided but that it was unlikely to number more than a dozen. The program, they said, has been approved enthusiastically by the Indonesian government.
The training program, which is being organized principally by the State Department and the Justice Department, has drawn a mixed reception from human rights groups.
Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch Asia, said that his group would tentatively support the program in hopes that it might prevent the sort of police violence seen during anti-government riots last year in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.
But he offered a warning: "If Indonesian police officers trained by the US end up mishandling crowd-control situations, there could be a real backlash, especially from Congress. On the other hand, it may be worth taking that risk if the level of official violence can be reduced."
Administration officials insisted that the program was a modest one, that only a relative handful of the police commanders of Jakarta would receive the American training, and that Indonesian human rights groups would help prepare the curriculum.
But they acknowledged that the United States could face harsh criticism if any of the police commanders who receive the American training or officers under their control are later found to have been involved in violence against protesters or other human rights abuses.
The Defense Department has been repeatedly criticized by human rights groups and members of Congress for a similar cooperative program with the Indonesian military, which has long been accused of human rights abuses, including the murder and torture of Indonesian dissidents.
An estimated 1,200 people, most in Jakarta, died during a spasm of anti-government riots last year that culminated in the resignation of President Suharto after 32 years in power. Most of the deaths were blamed on the police or soldiers.
Suharto's successor, B.J. Habibie, has organized new national elections to be held on June 7, and Indonesian officials and diplomats in Jakarta fear that large political rallies in the period before the election could dissolve into riots.
Earlier this spring, the Justice Department and State Department sent a team of inspectors to Indonesia to determine whether American police training might help control street violence in Jakarta and elsewhere in that vast archipelago nation. The team members included a private human rights lawyer and a deputy sheriff of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department.
The report shows that the team agreed that the training could be of value both before and after the election.
"Even if the training begins only in May, the police could receive sufficient training before the June 7 elections to be better able to keep demonstrations from escalating to serious violence," it said.
"Training ASAP could well reduce violence during the period following the elections, when there is expected to be considerable political violence initiated by political parties -- or their thugs -- that are dissatisfied with the election results," it said.
The investigators said that if the police were able to control crowds peacefully, it might end the threat that Indonesian military troops would step in, as has happened in the past. Until last month, the police were formally part of the Indonesian armed forces. On April 1, they were given nominal independence, although they still remain under the control of the Defense Ministry.
The report also called for
nongovernment organizations, including human rights groups, to be involved
in preparing the curriculum and in the training course itself.
| Miscellaneous |
Golkar deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman talks to Yang Razali Kassim about the many politically volatile issues facing Indonesia today
Q: The spate of violence in Indonesia has taken a baffling turn. The brutalities are now not only between ethnic but also religious, even tribal, groups. How does one make sense of all this?
A: It's the theory of accumulated grievances at work. Apart from that, you have perspectives suggesting an external factor behind all these, as the primary cause of the initial disruptions. But I don't really go for conspiracy theories. It's best to explain in terms of the local situations.
Q: What conspiracy theories?
A: The conspiracy theories are played up to point to groups associated with former president Suharto. These are normally expressed by the government and also by people like Abdurrahman Wahid (a presidential contender), for example.
The government uses such terms as "provocateurs" and "third party elements" being behind all these troubles. But "third party" is now a code word for people associated with the former regime.
The local factors would be the general socio-economic conditions that have made life much more difficult. A situation of hyper- sensitivity has been created towards the slightest aggravation or provocation. It's part of the general economic decline. It touches on the already existing tensions among ethnic, religious groups. The tensions have developed over the years, but the local communities were not able to resolve them during the Suharto era.
At the time, these tensions were categorised as SARA (tribal, religious, ethnic and inter-group relations). But the policy was to stay away from these problems and let the central government resolve them. This has, however, weakened the capacity of the local government to resolve them. It's always the central government. So, the moment Mr Suharto is not in the picture, and the central government is not seen to be in charge, these things flare up.
Q: Are you saying that Suharto failed to resolve the SARA issues?
A: That's right. Suharto swept them under the carpet. They were frozen, and directed to a certain point, instead of being taken to a higher stage of inter-ethnic and inter-religious understanding. It has been a hands-off policy with no clear direction.
Now that Pandora's box has been opened, you can't really close it. However, it can be eased the moment we have a strong, legitimate government which can take charge and exert authority. That can only come up after the elections. Even then, it's not a guarantee.
Q: The military could have asserted its role as a peacekeeper . But the military has seemingly failed to do so. ABRI is seen to be weak, General Wiranto notwithstanding. How do you explain that?
A: Two factors: The armed forces is at its low point in terms of public regard because of its human rights record. Second, the armed forces, or the leadership of the armed forces, can't exceed the political leadership, which is already weak. The moment they (the military) do that, they create a dualism; the armed forces is seen as assertive and effective while the president is seen as less so.
So the only way to get the armed forces motivated is if we have a strong political president, under whom the army is able to discharge its normal responsibility without creating this imbalance. Because the moment Wiranto becomes more visible, more national and more popular, he risks being dismissed by Mr Habibie.
Q: But shouldn't Gen Wiranto transcend that narrow political self-consideration for the sake of a higher calling, of keeping the peace and law and order, which is well within his powers?
A: Yes, that's an anomaly. He has to live with that. The armed forces is completely immobilised, not that there is less dedication. It's a problem of lack of space for action. So I certainly would be able to criticise the slowness of the armed forces in taking action, of not being up to meet its duties.
But having said that, you still have to pose the question: Why is there no action being taken? Because these are the people, the leadership of the armed forces, the very group identified as a reform group in the armed forces. So I don't have the slightest doubt of their patriotism, professionalism. But the fact that they are not able to take action indicates a much deeper problem than a picture of being derelict.
Q: Is there a problem of cohesion between the president and the commander-in-chief, between President Habibie and Gen Wiranto?
A: The impression is that they are close. There's been pressure on Mr Habibie to replace Wiranto -- from the ICMI (Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals) group, but Mr Habibie stood his ground ... It doesn't make sense to replace the chief of the armed forces every time there is social disruption. You might have to replace him every month.
Q: Some people suggest that Gen Wiranto's problem is one of indecision. Is that a fair assessment, from Golkar's experience?
A: I don't think so. There's a clear policy of balancing out, there's a clear pattern. It does come out as suggesting that Wiranto is indecisive, but one has to see this in the broader context of the balancing between the new government, and it's clear that he is maintaining his relationship with Mr Suharto...
I would suppose that any action taken within these parameters -- for example, not taking action against Prabowo (Gen Prabowo, former chief of the Army Strategic Command and Mr Suharto's son- in-law) -- has nothing to do with not having determination. But if he did pursue this, it would have led to very serious consequences or revelations of the multiple roles of Mr Suharto and Dr Habibie in the last months of the New Order.
Q: What multiple roles?
A: It's more than just the people who are formally in charge; it's the context of the involvement of Mr Suharto, at least in terms of his knowledge of what Prabowo was involved in -- the student abductions, the May riots. You'll open Pandora's box.
Q: Why is Gen Wiranto still keeping a line with Suharto? Wouldn't that raise suspicions about his intentions?
A: It would. But it goes to show that Mr Suharto is still a factor to contend with. There are senior generals, retired ones, who are still linked to Suharto, emotionally at least. People like Benny Murdani (the former military strongman), Try Sutrisno (former vice-president), Edi Sudrajat (former defence minister), and some lesser generals. If Mr Suharto is put on the stand, it will be the whole institution of the armed forces that will be in judgement. That is something that they will not accept, which they cannot contemplate. They may not be directly supportive of Suharto, but they realise that if the handling of the Suharto problem gets out of hand, the consequences will be unpredictable, very serious.
It could end up with the armed forces being immediately pushed out of politics. That's something that would be unrealistic. Because the armed forces is an interest group, not just an instrument of state. It has its business group, social structure, political interests. You can't visualise the armed forces voluntarily giving up its vested position. It has invested too much in politics. It's more than just a normal army.
Q: Benny Murdani is still a player in all this?
A: No, he's not. But when it comes to fundamental issues, they close ranks. Edi, Try, Harsudiono Hartas (former chief of socio- political affairs), Theo Syafie (former regional commander, who has now joined Megawati's party). That's the core. Plus a number of other retired officers -- junior to these people but still very vocal and visible -- with Benny and the group. Plus Bambang Triantoro (former chief of socio-political affairs) and Maj-Gen Sunarso (the retired China expert and one-time head of the intelligence body, Bakin).
These people have superb networks. It's not easy to imagine them to be passive. Their whole reputation is on the line, their whole life's worth is at stake, the whole justification of dual function (ABRI's doctrine of doubling up military with civilian functions) is at stake.
Q: From the emerging leadership being thrown up by the presidential contest, what kind of changes can we expect in the way Indonesia is run?
A: Looking at the next round of nominations, the choice after five years would give a much clearer picture of the situation.
You see, if there's going to be fundamental changes in national politics, it wouldn't be symbolised by the existing five candidates now. Any fundamental changes now can't come from Golkar. The organisation is still dominated by the old groupings, associated with the past, although we have a few good people.
So it's impossible to build a new power base on Golkar to launch a complete renewal, immediately. I would be uncomfortable with that -- with having to build up a support base upon the existing organisation, the people within Golkar.
Q: You see fundamental changes possible only from outside Golkar, not from Golkar itself? Being a Golkar deputy chairman, is this not a heretical statement to make?
A: That's not new as far as it comes from me. There were a few occasions for Golkar to reinvent itself, but these were missed. By this I mean repositioning itself; reformulating its position with the cabinet. So ministers continue to be an extension of the presidential powers. They are not representing Golkar, but continue the format of being administrative extensions of the presidency. It was this independent repositioning that would have appealed to the public.
Secondly, we missed also the chance to apologise genuinely for the organisation's involvement in the past which led to the crisis. It was half-hearted. That didn't go down well with the public. These missed chances have diluted the trust in a reinvented Golkar.
Q: What you are saying sounds like what Adi Sasono has been calling for.
A: Adi has a more specific agenda. He was never associated with Golkar. He is a newcomer (in Golkar) while some of us have been in Golkar for 30 years. He was enlisted because he is a minister close to Habibie, because of his ICMI connections. So he may have a view of Golkar. I'm still trying to save what is salvageable. He has completely written off Golkar.
Q: You had your fair share of brushes with Suharto when he wa s the all-powerful president. How did you end up clashing with him?
A: It was made out that there was a fundamental difference between myself and President Suharto. Many of us in Parliament at that time felt that it was time for Golkar to come into its own, become a "real thing" rather than just a superficial set-up, being just an electoral machine.
There was a real need to look into the future, beyond Suharto. If President Suharto were to step down and Golkar was not ready, it would disappear together with Suharto. So there was a real need to build up a system. I was part of that grouping (pushing for change) to make the party independent of Mr Suharto.
The grouping included Kharis Suhud (MPR Speaker), Wahono (then Golkar chairman) and Sarwono Kusumaatmadja (then Golkar secretary-general). We were in that sense like a reformist group, but not behaving politically. Even that was already [seen] as a deviation from the line.
This has been borne out now. Golkar is experiencing the effects of withdrawal, being attacked from all sides because of an image problem. If we had done this [change] 10 years ago, we would have survived better. Akbar Tanjung was not in that group, but he was not against us. He was an ally within the establishment, but not somebody expected to come out too visibly in support of the reformist friends.
I was then put on a list in a way that would have prevented me from being re-elected into the DPR (Parliament) in 1992. So I was effectively sidelined. I was proposed for re-election by Wahono but President Suharto vetoed it.
Q: But when did your battle with President Suharto actually begin?
A: I was seen as running for the presidency. In early 1992, there was a publication, MATRA, sister of Tempo, which quoted me as saying that it was "natural for any politician to aspire to the highest political office, the presidency, as it was natural for any academic to aspire to be a professor, a soldier a general". That was misconstrued as breaking a taboo.
The presidency was off limits. The presidency was Mr Suharto. Period. So that [statement] might have been seen as a new rallying point against Suharto. It worried some that this would capture the imagination of the students and the Opposition. Nobody with aspirations for the presidency had made such a statement. I did. But I didn't have any aspirations for the presidency. The atmosphere was so stifling.
Q: It seems that you are now playing quite a major role in Golkar.
A: I realise that I was brought into Golkar from outside as an element of novelty, perhaps contrasting with the old people there -- the "holdovers". That's much one can do in that kind of political ecology in terms of renewal.
I joined primarily because of my friendship with Akbar Tanjung. Otherwise I wouldn't have joined. This relationship went back 30 years to our student days and in KNPI (the youth movement). He was chair and I was deputy chairman.
Q: You are somewhat like a Golkar in-house critic?
A: I suppose so. I could be seen as such ... I don't see myself as being overly critical. Under different circumstances, that would be considered normal. But my normal criticisms are seen as dissent.
Jakarta -- President B.J. Habibie reiterated on Thursday his warning of a communist threat, Marhaenism and socialism -- which some people dub "Komas".
In a meeting with a group of youths at Merdeka Palace, Habibie said the ideologies remained a threat to the nation, according to State Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Agung Laksono.
Marhaenism was coined by the late founding president, Sukarno. Derived from the name of a poor farmer, Marhaen, Sukarno used the name to describe his thoughts on a range of ideologies. The expression bears emotional connotations for supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), whose leader is Sukarno's daughter Megawati Soekarnoputri, and several other parties which call themselves Marhaen.
"But it does not mean ... that Marhaenism has become communism, or that it has been infiltrated, but we need to remain alert," Agung quoted the President as telling members of Trikora Youth.
On Monday, Habibie warned of a "Komas" threat, saying its proponents continued a campaign to topple the government. "We do not want to accuse [anti-government campaigners] of becoming communists, but they might have been [influenced] through Marhaenism," said the minister.
Six groups of university student organizations, including the Indonesian Muslim Student Association in Purwokerto, Central Java, sent a letter to Habibie, condemning his statement.
Golkar Party Deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman said Habibie's unclear political commitments, including his recent statement about the possible reawakening of communism, Marhaenism and socialism, would adversely affect his chance of becoming Golkar's presidential candidate from 1999 to 2004.
"Golkar's leadership meeting will take Habibie's unclear political commitment into consideration when it discusses his nomination as the party's presidential candidate," Marzuki said.
Golkar has put Habibie among the top five preferred presidential candidates. The other nominees are Minister of Defense and Security/Indonesian Military chief Gen. Wiranto, Minister/State Secretary Akbar Tandjung, Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X and Coordinating Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry Ginandjar Kartasasmita.
Marzuki has for sometime been expressing an opposing stance on the matter from Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung. While Akbar insists Habibie is the party's strongest candidate, Marzuki clearly favors Wiranto.
Marzuki acknowledged Habibie has not appeared serious in his investigation into former president Soeharto's alleged corrupt, collusive and nepotistic practices during his 32-year rule.
"Habibie has conducted an incomplete investigation into Soeharto and his fortune and this has disappointed the people," Marzuki said. He said Habibie's recent warning of a communist threat and Marhaenism and socialism had drawn negative reactions from the public.
"This statement and the public's reactions may be not a problem for Habibie himself, but it will be important input for Golkar in rejecting his candidacy. To me, Habibie has a pleasant personality, but I cannot accept everything he says and talks about."
Marzuki said Golkar's central board would hold a plenary session Friday (today) to decide whether the leadership meeting would be held before or after the elections.
The leadership meeting will decide on only one of the five nominees as the party's presidential candidate.
Jakarta -- Indonesian President B.J. Habibie said on Monday he was appointing Justice Minister Muladi to the powerful post of state secretary after the resignation of Akbar Tandjung, the chairman of the ruling Golkar party.
"The state secretary's post will be taken over by Minister of Justice Muladi because he knows a lot about the law," Habibie told reporters.
Culture and Tourism Minister Marzuki Usman would take over as investment minister after the resignation of Hamzah Haz, Habibie said. Haz is the chairman of the Moslem-oriented United Development Party (PPP)
Muladi and Usman would retain their existing portfolios in addition to their new duties, the president said. Both Tandjung and Haz had already tendered their resignations, Habibie said.
The resignations came after the General Election Commission (KPU) reiterated on Friday that it would ban ministers from campaigning for the June 7 election.
The issue has become a sore point with the dozens of new parties which have sprung up since former President Suharto was forced from office last May.
Golkar and the PPP are two of only three parties which were allowed to contest elections under Suharto. Every one of those elections was won by Golkar, which Suharto used as his own political vehicle.