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ASIET Net News 27 – July 5-11, 1999
East Timor| Democratic struggle |
Budi Sugiharto, Surabaya -- Around 200 Surabaya students from a number of tendencies demonstrated in the center of Surabaya on Friday, July 2. Before the demonstration they held a "long march" from the University of Airlingga (Unair). They moved off after Friday prayers at around 1pm. From Unair the students marched toward the Radio Republic Indonesia (RRI) building to demand that their statement be read [out on the radio] and after making a deal it was promised that their demands would be read on the Surabaya RRI radio program, Info Prima -- which broadcast them at 4pm. The demonstration, which continued until 3pm, included students from the Catholic Students Organisation, the People's Democratic Party, the Independent Election Monitoring Group, the Legal Aid Institute, the Independent Journalists Association, Sanggar Suroboyo and others.
From the RRI building they marched to the Jalan Pemuda intersection and claimed traffic signs to hang banners, one of which read: "The Bloody Indonesian Police Anniversary!". Other banners were also hung up, around 15 different kinds. The main theme was protesting the violence carried out by security forces at the General Election Commission (KPU) on July 1.
After hanging up the banners they finished with another protest. The traffic was blocked because there were so many students. The main things they voiced was condemning the actions of security forces in the Bloody KPU Incident, that the perpetrators of the violence be brought to justice and the abolition of the dual role of the armed forces.
As well as reading statements and giving a number of speeches, they also sang that the "people united cannot be defeated" and there were shouts of "revolution". A Free East Timor flag also appeared.
There was no clashes at all during the action even though the students shouted: "police [the original term was aparat, usually translated as security forces or troops - JB], where are your weapons, shoot me in the chest". But the shouts did not provoke the police as there were only around ten officers there and they were [only] traffic police who were [trying to] sort out the traffic jam.
[Translated by James Balowski,
ASIET Publications and Information Officer.]
| East Timor |
David Jenkins -- It is Sunday afternoon in Jakarta and a colleague of Xanana Gusmao is sitting in a deserted hotel lounge discussing political developments in East Timor.
As she outlines the hopes and plans of the pro-independence movement, a solidly built Indonesian in jeans and a checked shirt appears out of nowhere and slips onto a couch beside us.
He remains silent but manages, in his silence, to convey an air of surliness and faint menace.
The man is a stranger but his actions are so brazen that I assume, incorrectly, that he must be a friend of my guest. She assumes he is a friend of mine. After an exchange of glances we realise our mistake and ask what he wants.
"I am waiting for someone," he announces in an offhand way, making no attempt to sound convincing. "Every other seat is empty," I point out. "Perhaps you would like to wait in one of them."
"Is this a secret conversation?" he demands. "No," says my guest, "it is a private conversation."
The man grunts and moves away. When I return to my room everything has been rearranged, the first time in six weeks that anyone in the hotel has felt the need to tidy up my piles of papers and notebooks.
The behaviour of the man in jeans falls within a pattern of intimidation much favoured by the Indonesian intel apparatus, an agency of government with an unsavoury reputation and a habit of doing pretty much as it pleases.
Fourteen months into the era of "reformasi", Indonesia's army and civilian intel operatives are as active as ever -- burly, surly and dangerous to know, especially when it comes to East Timor. They are the eyes and ears of an army that has singularly failed in its efforts to subdue that long-suffering territory but which is damned if it is going to see East Timor withdraw from the republic. And never, as the army sees it, have the intel men been more necessary. Indonesia's President, Dr B.J. Habibie, has agreed to a UN- supervised ballot at which the people of East Timor will be given the opportunity late next month to vote for either independence or some kind of autonomy within Indonesia.
Senior army officers, infuriated at this gesture by their civilian commander-in-chief and having no confidence that the East Timorese will vote to stay with a nation that has treated them so brutally, are working to have the vote called off or, if that is not possible, to ensure that it goes the right way.
To this end, the army has been providing training and logistics backing for a crop of pro-Indonesian militia groups which sprang up mysteriously after Dr Habibie announced his decision to call a vote.
The militias are made up largely of the flotsam and jetsam of East Timorese society -- poorly educated men who in many cases have been press-ganged into service at the behest of the army.
At first, these groups concentrated on their East Timorese opponents. Recently, they have turned their attention to the UN itself, wrecking a UN office in Maliana, attacking an aid convoy which included two UN vehicles.
Indonesia has said it deplores and is "seriously concerned" over the attack on the convoy, which took place in the Liquica district west of Dili.
But, as in the past, Indonesian Army and police officers always seem to be standing by, arms folded. No-one has any doubt these days that the militia gangs are backed by the Indonesian Army (TNI).
And the body which has the job of managing the militias, many observers believe, is Kopassus, the crack special forces unit which had been training regularly with US and Australian forces until their behaviour became too much of an embarrassment for their foreign friends -- first Washington and then, some years later, Canberra.
Kopassus has had an unbroken connection with East Timor stretching back nearly a quarter of a century. It was Kopassus (then known as Kopassandha) which conducted the clandestine 1975 cross-border operations that were designed to sow fear and discord in the Portuguese colony, creating the very unrest that Indonesia would later use as a justification for intervention.
In the years after December 1975, when Kopassus spearheaded the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, red beret troops were never far from the action.
They led special operations against Fretilin guerillas. They ran their own intelligence unit, suborning East Timorese with money and preferment, "turning" Fretilin captives in much the same way the Dutch "turned" Indonesian independence fighters in the 1945- 49 war of independence, offering them rewards, threatening their families.
It was Kopassus which ran black operations in East Timor. It was Kopassus which trained the East Timorese "Ninja" gangs which brought terror to the streets of Dili and other towns.
Today, Kopassus is as active as ever in East Timor. The military officer with immediate responsibility for the province is Colonel Tono Suratman, a Kopassus officer who heads the local Korem (military district) command.
The chief of staff of Kodam IX, the Bali-based Udayana military region, which has command over East Timor, is Brigadier General Mahidin Simbolon, a Kopassus officer with many years' experience in East Timor, where he is widely feared.
Major-General Zacky Anwar, the former chief of BIA, the armed forces intelligence body, is a Kopassus man who has been appointed, to the surprise of many, as liaison officer to the UN.
Another officer at the centre of the present East Timor operation is Lieutenant-Colonel Wioyotomo Nugroho, the Kopassus intelligence chief. "This guy [Nugroho] has been setting it up," says a source in Jakarta. "Zacky Anwar is the point man for the whole thing."
Many of these army officers attended courses in the US under the now-suspended International Military Education and Training program.
And the tactics being pursued in East Timor, some analysts claim, bear a more than passing resemblance to those pursued during the CIA's Phoenix program in South Vietnam, which involved the targeting and murder of Viet Cong leaders.
They also have more than a little in common, these sources maintain, with the tactics employed by the Contras, the CIA- backed rebels who fought during the 1980s to overthrow the Marxist-oriented Sandinista Government of Nicaragua.
"In East Timor," notes a well-placed source in Jakarta, "they are not simply going after the most radical pro-independence people but going after the moderates, the people who have influence in their community.
"It's psy-war. You remove not only your opponents but the people who provide leadership in that community. It's Phoenix.
"In [one of the early attacks in] Viqueque they targeted an aide to the bupati [regent], a member of the DPRD [local parliament] and an engineer. There were four missing and two dead." In short, says this source, the aim is to "terrorise everyone" -- the NGOs, the [Red Cross], the UN, the journalists."
During their campaign the militias have been most active in Dili and in the five kabupaten (districts) in the western part of the territory.
If those regions were to come out in favour of Indonesia while the remaining regions opted for independence, one diplomat suggests, it would set the stage for partition, creating an unviable territory in the east of East Timor and defeating the consultation process. "If they go with the partition argument," says this source, "then everything collapses."
Having acknowledged that it served as the often brutal enforcer of the Soeharto Government, the TNI is claiming to have turned over a new leaf. Its behaviour suggests otherwise.
Jakarta -- Pro-independence Timorese leaders Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta met Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto here Monday to discuss the precarious security situation in East Timor ahead of a vote on self-determination.
The hour-long meeting in Wiranto's office came a day after a pro-Indonesian militia attacked a civilian aid convoy in the troubled territory, drawing sharp protests from the United Nations mission (UNAMET) charged with conducting the vote.
An agreement that both sides lay down their weapons had been one of the important topics discussed, Wiranto said after the meeting in his Jakarta office.
"To secure the UNAMET personnel, there are no problems with the Indonesian side. We are with them in carrying out the polls. The insecurity ... depends on the two of them, the anti-integration and the pro-integration [sides]," he said. "I said to Xanana Gusmao: 'Do you want safety ... then immediately relinquish all arms."
Neither of the two sides in East Timor has so far agreed to lay down their arms, apart from a token handover in April by pro- integration militia.
But Wiranto said it must be done soon and gave assurances that the Indonesian police would remain neutral. "There should be no worry that the military and the police will act neutrally, perhaps [we can] change a 20-year-old attitude where the Falintil [the armed wing of the independence movement] and our army continue to be involved in some kind of fight."
Gusmao, the head of the National Resistence Council for East Timor (CNRT), who is serving a 20-year jail term on charges of armed insurrection, said the "Falintil will work hard to help in the agreement on June 18 to create a peaceful and stable climate in East Timor."
"I can say that we came out of the meeting with a faith, a faith that all parties will work together to solve the problem of East Timor," said Gusmao who was released from his jail house for the meeting.
"The most important thing is that there's a willingness from all parties to reduce [the violence] and create a more peaceful situation," he added.
Ramos Horta, the Nobel laureate Timorese independence crusader who was granted a visa to Indonesia for the first time in 23 years to attend talks between the warring factions, told reporters he was satisfied with the meeting with Wiranto, but that it was up to him to control the pro-Indonesian militia.
"I'm satisfied, We're satisfied with the assurances by the minister that TNI (the armed forces) will live up to their responsibilities under the New York agreement to provide security for the ... UNAMET and so on," he said.
Ramos Horta was refering to the agreement reached by Portugal and Indonesia in May under which the unarmed UN mission will conduct the vote on autonomy or independence, and the Indonesian police will be responsible for security.
"Of course we discussed the issue of credibility of the TNI that is at stake because of the actions of the [pro-Indonesia] militia. The militia actions in East Timor are in contrast to the minister of defence's position.
"It's up to the defence minister to make sure the acts of the militia end, so that the words of the military leader can be trusted," he added.
Asked about a report that Australia was prepared to send 2,500 troops to East Timor to bail out UNAMET if the situation deteriorated drastically, Wiranto said "That is between Australia and the UN."
Australian defence minister John Moore was quoted as saying that Australia would only act if requested by the United Nations and with the knowledge of the Indonesian government if the need for an evacuation arose.
Jakarta -- The chief of the UN Mission in East Timor asked the Indonesian armed forces on Wednesday to rein in pro-Indonesian militia before a planned vote on self-determination there next month.
"I have asked ... for actions to be taken to ensure that pro- integration militias are no longer able to operate in a way that is threatening to our personnel and to others," Ian Martin said after an hour-long meeting with armed forces chief General Wiranto at his headquarters here.
UNAMET teams in three outposts have been pulled back because of militia harassment and a militia attacked a humanitarian aid convoy Sunday.
Martin said he had called on Wiranto to take "a number of measures" including action against "those known to be responsible for attacks in the districts of Maliana and Liquisa.
"He [Wiranto] again expressed very strongly his personal commitment to ensuring the success of the consultation process and he made the point that it depends also on the political leadership of the East Timorese," he said.
In earlier statements Martin said the militia attacks had a "disturbing pattern" and the lack of Indonesian police action to halt the convoy attack was "inexcusable."
Martin also "categorically" denied suggestions that UNAMET personnel in the convoy had carried or fired weapons. "Our civilian police have extensively interviewed not only our own personnel but the NGO workers and others in the convoy and were quite sure that the only shots that were fired were fired from the Besi Merah Putih militias," he said.
In the East Timor capital of Dili UNAMET spokesman Hiro Ueki said Indonesian police had alleged that shots were fired from a UNAMET vehicle during Sunday's militia attack in Liquisa. Police also alleged that members of the Falintil -- the armed wing of the East Timorese pro-independence movement -- were in the convoy, and that a gun was seen pointing from inside one of the cars, which was found later in a police search of the vehicle.
Deputy military spokesman Brigadier General Sudrajat told reporters after the Martin-Wiranto meeting that a fresh batch of 1,200 police personnel would be sent to East Timor along with vehicles. He did not give a date but said a similar number of army troops would be pulled out from the territory.
Ueki said one UN car was repeatedly hit with sticks, machetes and rocks. Its rear windshield and side windows were smashed and the passengers were attacked by the militia.
"Within minutes of arrival at the Liquisa police station, the UNAMET officer who was driving the car handed to the police a homemade pistol which had been dropped into the car by one of the attackers who was on the outside of the car," Ueki said. "The gun was not found during a search of the vehicle by police officers, it was handed to the police by the UNAMET officer voluntarily."
East Timor police chief Colonel Timbul Silaen on Monday quoted reports as saying police in Liquisa, 30 kilometres west of Dili, had confiscated a gun from a UNAMET official in the convoy.
Silaen was also quoted by the Antara state news agency as saying a witness had said he had been shot at by someone inside a UNAMET vehicle.
A driver was seriously injured and six people are missing after the attack on the truck convoy returning to Dili after delivering aid to a refugee-filled village.
The attack has raised concerns at the United Nations of a further delay a UN-organized poll on the future of the Indonesian-ruled territory.
UN chief Kofi Annan will determine on July 13 whether security conditions permit the poll to go ahead in August, two weeks later than originally planned.
Martin was also due to meet Foreign Minister Ali Alatas later Wednesday, Ueki said. But a foreign ministry source said Alatas would be busy addressing a parliamentary session and since Martin's visit was focused on security issues, there was no need for the two to meet.
In next month's ballot East Timorese will be asked whether they want the former Portuguese territory, annexed by Jakarta in 1976, to remain part of Indonesia or to become independent.
The situation of internally displaced people (IDP's) in East Timor is worsening by the day. They must face intimidation, terror; their houses are burned; health conditions are very poor with a high mortality rate due to disease and lack of adequate food.
Since the announcement of the two options by President Habibie many militia groups have been formed in East Timor. This has led to intimidation by militia in order to force a certain political outcome, causing tens of thousands of displaced. These IDP's can be found in Raimate, Sare, Kecamatan Hatolia, Kabupaten Ermera; in Kampung Faulara Desa Leotola, Kec. Liquica, Kecamatan Maubara; in Kecamatan Atabae and in Suai. These IDP's face systematic terror, intimidation, rape, which is aimed to force them to follow a certain political interest.
Responding to this situation, a number of NGOs in Dili made the initiative to conduct a joint delivery of humanitarian aid to overcome the problem of access due to security threats which have been experienced up to this point. On July 2, this joint mission was carried out, bringing with us 25 tons of rice, cooking utensils, medicines, salt, sugar, to be distributed to IDP's in Sare, and in Faulara, respectively 3800 and 3000 IDP's in the two locations.
UNAMET and UNHCR came with the NGO mission to conduct their own independent assessment and observe the distribution. UNHCR and UNAMET also assisted in the coordination with local authorities. Before the departure of the Humanitarian Mission coordination with the local government was conducted (see chronology). However, in our journey home, the Humanitarian Mission was attacked by Besi Merah Putih militia, causing a number of NGO workers to be hurt.
Until now, an IDP who came with us, Jose Manus Marcal, 70 years, for medical treatment in Dili is still unknown. After the attack of the Humanitarian Mission, there are now allegations by Police and others that firearms were seen in a UNAMET vehicle. This is part of the manipulation of facts which is conducted to discredit our Humanitarian Mission.
Since the Humanitarian mission has left Sare and Faulara, we have had no access to the IDP's. We are concerned that their situation will worsen due to food shortages, lack of medical care and lack of security. The IDP's are concerned for their safety as they have received threats of an attack if they accept aid.
Looking at the situation of IDP's and the violent acts conducted by Besi Merah Putuh militia, the Humanitarian Mission states the following:
Dili, July 6 - Yayasan HAK, Yayasan ETADeP, Caritas Dili, Yayasan Kasimo, Posko for Emergency Aid for IDP's, Timor Aid. Edited slightly for readability - James Balowski.
With the rise of militia activity in a number of regencies in the last eight months has led to an increase in violence perpetrated against the general population. Many have become victims of killings, detention, rape, torture, looting, losing their homes and their entire possesions when their houses are burned by militia. Because of these violent acts conducted by the militia, and supported by TNI ( many TNI members have been seen posing as militia), many people are forced to leave their homes to seek a safety.
This humanitarian mission was a cooperation between local NGOs in Dili, including Posko for Emergency Aid to IDP's (Posko Dili), ETADEP, CARITAS, Timor Aid, Yayasan Kasimo, Biahula, and Volunteers for Humanity from Jakarta. The mission brought more than 25 tons of food, including rice, oil, sugar, salt, milk, as well as non-food items such as mats, plastic sheets, cooking utensils and secondhand clothing.
Because of the problem of security and lack of access, the local NGOs cooperated with UNHCR who agreed to discuss the mission with the Indonesian authorities. UNAMET and UNHCR came along with this NGO humanitarian mission to conduct their own independent assesment of the IDP situation.
Thursday, July 1
Morning: UNHCR and UNAMET humanitarian officer met with representatives of Lorosae to discuss police escort for the humanitarian mission. The police agreed, and asked for a confirmation later on in the day. Evening: The police declined to provide an escort.
Friday, July 2
Morning: UNHCR had an audience with the Governer to inform him of this mission. Noon: The humanitarian mission, which was 55 NGO workers, left for Sare.
Saturday, July 3
In Sare, the humanitarian mission found 3800 internally displaced people (IDP's) from 7 villages of Maubara sub-district: Vatuboro, Guico, Lisadila, Fatuboo, Maubaralisa, Babeknia, and Guguleur. The IDP's, who ran from attacks in their villages since February 1999, were in very poor condition. Many of the IDP's suffered from disease and malnourishment, associated with poor living conditions. According to the IDP's, at least 70 people have died from disease since February, and 5 have been killed by militia. The latest killing occurred on April 18th, when an IDP by the name of Silvanu (35 years) was killed when he attempted to go back to his village to get cassava from his garden for his family. The IDP's are living in the homes of the local people, building makeshift shacks or sharing simple accommodation and meagre resources. From one village, we received a list of 23 names of women who have been raped by militia. During our drive to Sare, we passed the villages of Guico and Lisadila where every single house was burned to the ground. The extremely poor condition of the IDP's reflect the isolation, continued terror experienced by the IDP's, exacerbated by the lack of access of humanitarian aid to this area.
From Etadep's base camp in Sare, the humanitarian mission was able to distribute 20 tons of rice to approximately 3800 IDP's and 1000 local community members. The medical team opened a day clinic which provided care and medicine for IDP's needing health care. Our monitoring team combed the area to assess the IDP situation and identify needs.
The hired trucks returned to Dili (approximately 8 am). They were met by police near Fatubou. On the way the passed two Toyota Kijang with militia, as well as SGI and military who shout out harrassments. Trucks stopped at the Liquisa Polres (police station). Two trucks were made to take Brimob members to Loidahar. When in Loidahar, BMP militia arrived and hit the two drivers. Brimob police did not do anything. The trucks were allowed to return to Dili after the attempts to summon the director of Etadep was unsuccessful.
In Sare, the humanitarian mission cut short its plans, responding to these signs of a security problems. We had discovered another group of 3000 IDP's in Faulara and decided to provide minimal assistance on our way back to Dili. The mission took back 10 IDP's who needed medical attention in Dili, at the recommendation of the medical team. The IDP's brought family members. In total, we had 55 NGO workers and 22 IDP's on this trip back to Dili.
Sunday, July 4
Our convoy of 8 vehicles left for Faulara at 9 am after completing distribution and home visits in Sare. In Faulara we provided 3 tons of rice, other food and non-food items.. The medical team opened a clinic and provided care for more than 100 patients.
The IDP's had heard that if they received aid they would be attacked on Tuesday by militia. UNAMET arranged a police escort with Polda in Dili who informed us that a police escort will be sent from the Liquisa police at 11.00.
By 1.45 pm the police escort had not arrived, the convoy decided to leave at 2 pm.
Approximately 3 pm, the convoy arrived in Loes, Desa Vatuboro, Kec.Maubara. Coincidentally, we passed a UNAMET carrying 2 MLO (Military Liason Officer). They agreed to escort us to Liquisa.
Between Maubara and Morai, our convoy stopped briefly to speak to the Carmalite nuns from Maubara who were passing us. At that time, a yellow truck filled with armed militia passed us, heading towards Maubara and Loes. Where we stopped, there were two men on a parked motorbike drinking beer. They shouted at us "BMP members have been killed. If you want war, let's fight." We did not respond to those calls and continued our journery home.
Approximately 4 am in Liquica Town, as we passed the house of the regent and turned right (heading South) the convoy stopped in front of the Kodim (military command) in Liquisa. The UNAMET humanitarian officer walked out of his car to talk to the MLO officers at the back of the convoy who were leaving us in Liquisa. Because of the truckful of militia which passed our convoy was heading to the direction of Maubara, the humanitarian officer was requesting that a UNAMET visit to the IDP's site was conducted there the following day. The discussion took a few minutes in order to draw a map to the location.
Because the road was at an angle, and we were blocking traffic, the convoy moved further up the road, turning left and parked in front of the KUD Kutulau (cooperative) before the Liquica cemetery. Members of our mission got off our vehicles, to buy bottled water, cigarrettes. Some of us were still in the vehicles, others standing on the road, or sitting on the stoops of the stores.
A blue minibus from the direction of the Koramil (South) filled with armed militia. The militia were waving their weapons and screaming "Kill, kill" at members of the humanitarian mission.
Indonesian police and intellegence members at the location watched this happening, without reacting.
Members of the humanitarian mission were pursued by militia with guns, knifes, and machetes. UNAMET personnel attempted to intervene, to protect the NGO workers from the attacks of the militia. Gunshots were fired.
Members of the humanitarian mission scrambled into some of our vehicles, and the UNAMET vehicle. We were pursued by the milita, who also hung onto the UNAMET car, smashed the windows. At one point a traditional gun was pointed into the car. One of our members saw a traditional gun dropped into the car in the fracas.
62 out of our contingent of 77 escaped to the Kapolres in Liquica. At the Kapolres, humanitarian mission members were treated roughly by some members of the the police as if we were the accused.
A traditional gun was found in the floor of the UNAMET car. This gun was given to the Liquisa police for evidence.
UNAMET personnel being evacuated from Liquisa joined us at the Kapolres.
After a while, the 10 members were brought from the Kapolsek. Those who were held at the Kapolsek were intimidated and interrogated.
After negotiations between UNAMET police and local police, we were allowed to leave with the UNAMET convoy to the Dili Kapolda where we would be questioned. We were short five NGO workers and one refugee.
We arrived late night in Dili. After negotiations between Kapolda and UNAMET, the humanitarian mission was allowed to leave Polda together with UNAMET personnel.
Monday, July 5 1999
The five NGO workers still missing returned separately by bus from Liquisa in the morning after hiding overnight. Still unaccounted for is a 70 year old diplaced man, Jose Manos da Silva Marcal, who had come with us from Sare for medical treatment in Dili.
Peter Hartcher and Tim Dodd -- Australia and the US have intelligence that proves that the high command of the Indonesian army and a group of Indonesian Cabinet ministers are complicit in the violence racking East Timor.
Officials said the intelligence confirms beyond doubt that some of the most powerful elements in the Indonesian Government are determined to covertly sabotage the President's policy of offering independence to the East Timorese. Officials declined to discuss the nature of the intelligence, which was secret but variously described it as "solid" and "very good".
These rogue ministers and officers have been providing top-level support and protection for the pro-Indonesia militias in East Timor.
These are the gangs of thugs that have been intimidating and murdering independence supporters with impunity and have now started attacking the UN personnel in East Timor to supervise next month's ballot.
Their tactics, which already have forced one postponement of the ballot, yesterday threw the process into new crisis.
A UN official in New York yesterday warned that unless security conditions improved in the next few days then "we would have to postpone [the ballot] at the very least".
"We are determined to do it. We very much want to do it. But we can only do it if security conditions exist," said Mr Alvaro de Soto, the UN assistant secretary general for the Asia-Pacific region.
If the ballot is to proceed as planned on August 21 or 22, registration of voters must begin by next Tuesday. But violence has meant UN personnel are not yet in position throughout the territory.
And the pro-Indonesia militias announced a new disruptive tactic yesterday by threatening to boycott the ballot.
A spokesman for the Forum for Unity, Democracy and Justice, an umbrella group for the pro-Indonesia militias and other political groups opposing independence, said that the UN mission in East Timor (UNAMET) was "caught up in [pro-independence] Fretilin's political game".
"We may ask our supporters not to co-operate in the ballot," said the spokesman, Mr Basilio Araujo. "We demand that the UN go back to their legal duties under the New York agreement." The head of the UN mission in East Timor, Mr Ian Martin, yesterday met the commander of the armed forces, General Wiranto, to express concern about the continuing violence in the territory.
And while General Wiranto has repeatedly denied any army support for the militias, the intelligence available to Australia and the US shows his headquarters has been closely involved in their activities. His personal involvement, however, cannot be absolutely confirmed, officials said.
The UN's relations with the Indonesian army deteriorated further yesterday. An army spokesman contradicted Mr Martin's account of Sunday's attack by militia groups on a UN humanitarian convoy giving aid to refugees near Liquisa, 30 kilometres from the capital of Dili.
The spokesman, Brigadier General Sudrajat, backed the version of events told by the militia. He told AFP yesterday shots had been fired from the UN convoy during the attack by militiamen, in which a convoy driver was shot and seriously injured.
However, Mr Martin denied that any shots had been fired from the convoy or that UNAMET personnel were carrying weapons.
Mr Martin said that on seven separate occasions in recent weeks UN personnel had been either attacked or directly threatened by pro-Indonesian militia groups. He also gave a further assurance that UNAMET, which is organising the ballot, would continue to play a neutral role.
Western observers in East Timor are in no doubt that there is active support for the militias from the highest levels of the military and the police. Until April this year, the police were part of the armed forces.
Apart from the hard intelligence, there is strong circumstantial evidence that the co-operation is backed at a high level. After months of diplomatic pressure for the army to rein in local commanders who encourage troops and police to help the militia, the co-operation continues. Local and regional commmanders have retained their posts.
Since the UNAMET began preparations for the ballot last month, the senior army officer on the ground has been Major-General Zaky Anwar Makarim who was, until last year, the head of military intelligence.
The ballot timetable is also threatened by the up to 45,000 displaced people in East Timor, most of them driven from their homes through fear of the pro-Indonesian militia and many living in militia-controlled camps. In the current conditions, a ballot would not be credible as these people could not vote freely.
The Indonesian Government has condemned an attack by pro-Jakarta militias on a United Nations-escorted aid convoy in East Timor, and has promised to investigate the incident.
The head of the UN in East Timor, Ian Martin, accused the Indonesian authorities of an inexcusable lack of action to control the militias. He said the attack could jeopardise next month's referendum on the territory's future.
Three people were injured and six are missing after the militias opened fire on the aid convoy in the town of Liquisa on Sunday. A UN car was badly damaged and a UN helicopter was attacked as it tried to evacuate the aid workers. The UN has now withdrawn its staff from the town.
The convoy, organised by a local human rights group, had just distributed supplies of food and medicine to displaced people living around the town when it was targeted by militiamen armed with guns and machetes.
It was the third attack on the UN in the past week by the pro- Jakarta paramilitaries. On Tuesday, the UN office in the town of Maliana was badly damaged and there have been numerous threats against UN personnel.
Indonesia has promised to guarantee security in East Timor in the build-up to next month's planned referendum on the territory's future.
But Mr Martin told the BBC that it was looking increasingly impossible for a "positive security assessment" to be made ahead of the vote. "Our safety is something that we have to assess. We have put security restrictions on our staff. Clearly there are questions about how we can go about the work that we are supposed to be doing," he said.
"At the moment we are still seeing militia operating in a number of places with impunity. The secretary general [of the United Nations] has to make an assessment of the security conditions in 10 days time. It's impossible to see how that will be a positive assessment."
Indonesian military personnel have been accused of giving covert support to the militias which have been holding the inhabitants of Liquisa under virtual armed seige since they attacked the town in April, killing a number of civilians. Local residents complain of regular threats and harassment to dissuade them from voting for independence.
In Jakarta, the Foreign Minister Ali Alatas has said Indonesia will withdraw from East Timor within a matter of months if the referendum does result in a vote for independence.
Speaking after a meeting with East Timorese pro-independence leaders, Mr Alatas said East Timor would immediately revert to being a Portuguese-administered territory if its people rejected Indonesia's offer of autonomy. Indonesia would only stay for as long as it took to withdraw its troops and officials.
The pro-independence delegation, led by the resistance leader, Xanana Gusmao, and the exiled Nobel Laureate, Jose Ramos-Horta, paid tribute to the new policy. But many points of difference remain.
The pro-independence delegation is proposing a transitional government in which pro-Jakarta Timorese, the United Nations and Indonesia could be involved for up to three years after the vote.
It also wants Mr Gusmao released from house arrest so he can campaign in East Timor before next month's referendum.
Mr Alatas said he could give no assurances that this would happen. While he expressed interest in the proposal for a three year transitional administration, he ruled out long-term Indonesian involvement in the territory.
The foreign minister repeated
earlier promises to guarantee security in East Timor but said it was unrealistic
to expect the Indonesian military to be impartial after 23 years of fighting
in the territory. He also accused the United Nations mission there of favouring
the pro-independence movement.
| June 7 election |
Keith B. Richburg, Jakarta -- Following her apparent victory in democratic elections last month, Megawati Sukarnoputri has declared that the Indonesian people have given her the mandate to lead the country.
Mrs. Megawati also said, in a rare interview published Thursday, that she expected the armed forces commander, General Wiranto, to follow "the people's leaning" and back her bid for the presidency.
"The people have given me the mandate to fulfill their wish for me to lead the country toward a new Indonesia with a new spirit, mentality, and views," she told Tajuk, an bimonthly Indonesian magazine. Mrs. Megawati had maintained a low profile since the elections.
Asked about criticism by Islamic clerics who say a woman should not lead the country, she said: "If the people have ever had any doubts, then the truth is out now with the election result."
Her political enemies have been devising new scenarios, concocting new schemes, and coming up with often bizarre mathematical formulations to block her path to the presidency.
Indonesians voted on June 7 for 462 seats in the 700-member electoral college that will choose the country's next president later this year. Although Mrs. Megawati's party is the clear winner of the elections, with at least 35 percent of the popular vote, she still lacks a majority.
The current ruling party, Golkar, unaccustomed to losing and unwilling to admit defeat, is trying to cobble together a coalition with smaller Islamic parties and appointed members, hoping to keep its incumbent, B.J. Habibie, in power.
According to the still-unfinished vote count, Golkar is in distant second place, with just over 20 percent of the vote. Mrs. Megawati's People's Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, has won nearly twice as many votes as Golkar. With about 60 percent of the vote counted, Mrs. Megawati's party had 23.68 million votes, compared with 12.67 million for Golkar.
A Western diplomat in Jakarta said Thursday that while it was mathematically possible to block Mrs. Megawati's presidential bid, he believed it unlikely. "I find it difficult to believe she can be denied power," he said. "And I find it difficult to see anything arising that can exclude her from power."
There had been speculation that Mrs. Megawati might be persuaded to accept a lesser job, like vice president or speaker of Parliament. But this diplomat said Mrs. Megawati, in their private conversations, only expressed interest in the presidency, saying: "The people have spoken."
In the interview, she rejected the idea of leading a multiparty coalition government, saying such an arrangement would only work in a parliamentary system, and could cause the government to collapse if one party in the coalition withdrew its support.
She said she intended to ask for support from all political parties that are "pro-reform, pro-democracy, and anti-status quo." The term "status quo" here usually refers to Golkar and the holdovers from the regime of former President Suharto.
Vaudine England, Jakarta -- Exactly one month after Indonesia's groundbreaking general election, just 59 per cent of votes have been counted in Jakarta.
And one reason for the delay is money. "Some of the provincial offices are holding the National Election Commission [KPU] to ransom," an election expert said. "Some provincial committees are saying, in effect, no results if no more money".
The situation was described by one source as "the usual extortion", implying that some provincial-level electoral officers are simply trying to earn more from this process of vote compilation, checking and transmission that is going on longer than expected.
The potential for this impasse arises from the many layers of bureaucracy involved in the vote tabulation process.
All votes in the June 7 poll have been counted at district level and sent to provincial centres, which are then supposed to transmit the checked results to Jakarta. So far, valid results have been received from 13 of the country's 27 provinces.
Allegations of procedural violations and alleged mistakes are being investigated at provincial level, before final tallies are sent to Jakarta. At the same time, some provincial election officers apparently feel the KPU should be honouring their work further, with extra payments.
The KPU has all the relevant funding available and much of it has been disbursed, but representatives of smaller political parties in provincial election committees are "making a nuisance of themselves", according to one source.
Each new vote tally from Jakarta reinforces the lead of Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, with about 36 per cent of votes cast, with the ruling Golkar party in second place with just over 19 per cent. Some political groups are also seeking an excuse in the vote-tally hold-ups for a delay in forming the next parliament, and even a delay in choice of a president.
Oka Mahendra, an election official, said the PPI (the Elections Committee) had sent representatives to some regional counts to try to resolve the disputes. But he added: "If the provincial committees cannot resolve their problems, then they will be brought to the PPI for settlement. We cannot afford to wait for too long".
The country's most influential Islamic leader threw his support yesterday behind opposition leader Ms Megawati's presidential bid, in an apparent attempt to sway the debate over whether a woman can possibly lead the world's largest Muslim nation.
Abdurrahman Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur, is a prominent figure in Indonesian politics and a longtime political ally of Ms Megawati. But until yesterday he had refused to endorse her presidential candidacy.
Jakarta -- Muslim clerics and students stepped up their opposition on Friday to Megawati Soekarnoputri's presidential candidacy, citing Islamic law and saying she was not capable of leading the country.
At least 52 influential ulemas affiliated with the National Awakening Party (PKB) -- which is widely known to be an ally of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) -- declared their rejection of Megawati as president in Surabaya, East Java. "It would be against Islamic laws ... We therefore call on PKB leaders not to coalesce with PDI Perjuangan, and to join forces instead with Muslim-based parties," the ulemas said in their statement.
K.H. Abdul Rachman Hussein Assegaff, head of Pesantren (Muslim boarding school) Ihya al Sunnah, said the ulemas reached their decision after two days of deliberation. He cited PDI Perjuangan's "betrayal of Muslims by naming non-Muslims for 93 percent of all their legislative candidates".
The ulemas planned to submit their position to Nahdlatul Ulama chairman and founder of PKB Abdurrahman Wahid. They also chided fellow ulemas in Rembang, Central Java, who said last week they could accept Megawati as president if the people wanted her.
Earlier, some 50 ulemas from Madura, many of whom are affiliated to United Development Party (PPP), which has said it wants a male, Muslim president, declared their rejection of Megawati, saying she did not have the ability to lead the nation.
In a related development, ten senior ulemas from Nahdlatul Ulama held a private meeting on the issue of a woman president. They planned to announce their stance on the matter on July 10.
Meanwhile, around 100 students of the Muslim University of Indonesia (UMI) took to the streets to voice their opposition to Megawati becoming president. They claimed to represent 5,000 Muslim students, and said they were continuing a protest staged by hundreds of students from the Teachers' Training Institute.
The UMI students burned tires and distributed leaflets calling on Muslims to hold on to their religious teachings. Student leader Andi Akram in a speech called on Megawati to back down from her intention to run in the presidential elections.
"She does not have the capability and integrity to be Indonesia's fourth president," Andi said. "This nation must be led by someone from the majority religious group. Megawati does not represent [Muslims]."
Another student leader, Agussalim, said that if Megawati became president, she might revive her father Sukarno's teaching of "Nasakom" -- his attempt to merge nationalism, religion and communism. Muslims at the time fought violently against the attempt.
South Sulawesi is incumbent President B.J. Habibie's birthplace and a Golkar stronghold, as shown in the June 7 polls. In the provincial capital of Ujungpandang, political expert Kausar Bailusy and Golkar chapter leader Ambo Enre Abdullah lashed out at some Golkar executives in Jakarta who stated their intentions to reconsider Habibie's nomination.
The stance "was a denial of the people's sovereignty", Bailusy said, pointing out that it was precisely Habibie's nomination that won Golkar the majority of the vote in 15 provinces outside Java.
Meanwhile, student Agussalim also criticized a group of Megawati supporters in East Java, who earlier this week declared their support for her by collecting thumb prints in blood. "Why did they do such a thing? If necessary, we too can spill some blood," he said.
Agussalim vowed to continue with the protest until Megawati "realizes this country is mainly dominated by Muslims and that she must not let herself be manipulated by people around her."
Meanwhile, in Rembang, noted ulema K.H. Cholil Bisri was quoted by Antara as calling on Megawati supporters to stop displaying their support by collecting the bloody thumb prints, saying the act could raise the potential for conflict.
"We can see how some Muslims strongly reject a woman president, so if such a display of support continues, then it may lead to tension and division," he said.
Bisri was in the National Ulema Forum which declared its support for a woman president, and he is also a respected ulema of Nahdlatul Ulama.
He called on the political elite to help create a calm and peaceful atmosphere by not making statements that could lead to social tension. "I am really worried. There must be a way to avert something worse from occurring," he said. "Let us just trust the members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) to choose our next president," he said.
In Semarang, the capital of Central Java, some 1,000 women activists from 25 non-governmental organizations marched in a protest against what they called "intimidation of women". They were referring particularly to the opposition to Megawati's bid for presidency.
They took their protest to the office of the provincial legislature on Jl. Pahlawan, where they voiced their criticism of the remarks of State Minister of Food and Horticulture A.M. Saefuddin opposing Megawati's presidency.
"His statement was an insult to not only Megawati as a presidential candidate, but also women in general, who actually have the right to power and politics," the activists said in their statement.
"Politicians seem to have
negated the existence of women, using them only as a political commodity
because of their significant presence, namely 57 percent of all voters,"
coordinator Ari Pradanawati said.
| Aceh/West Papua |
4,000 people fleeing from villages in the sub-district Tangse, Pidie. who were on their way to the mosque in Beureuneun yesterday Friday, were obstrcuted along the way by troops and forced to halt their exodus, staying instead in a mosque in Tangse. Some 14,000 villagers from the sub-district have already fled their villages; this exodus could result in the sub-district being completely emptied of people.
The local army commander told journalists that their aim was to persuade the villagers not to leave which would mean abandoning coffee plantations and rice-fields just at harvest time.
Activists in the locality said the exodus from Tangse began early yesterday morning with people leaving in whatever vehicles they could find, but troops in command posts along the way stopped the vehicles and told them to return home. In some places their belongings were searched as well. But the people were determined to continue their flight, continuing their journey on foot to reach their chosen destination.
It was a very dramatic scene with thousands of elderly people, women and children clogging the roads under the blazing sun, determined to go to the Beubeuneun mosque saying that they would only feel safe when they were there.
One local army commander denied that they had been forced to go on foot because of the army, saying that there was a shortage of transport. But the villagers said that they had decided to avoid army posts along the roads and take alternative routes, going through plantations instead.
The refugess said they were leaving their villages for fear that there would be a war. The army commander claimed however that certain parties had incited the people to leave.
Tgk Razali who is coordinating arrangements for refugees in Beureuneun said that the main mosque there is now absolutely full of people and newcomers are being accommodated in another mosque nearby.
He said that it was likely that all villagers in Tangse would abandon their villagers in the very near future; at present only nine villagers were still inhabited. More than fifty percent of the inhabitants of the sub-district have already left, he said. 'Tangse is likely to be completely empty very soon,' he said.
Meanwhile in North Aceh, the Polytechnic Campus about 5 kms from the centre of Lhokseumawe is now filled with about 7,000 people from nearby villages.
From West Aceh, it has been reported that 7,000 villagers from villages in Teunom sub-distrct have returned home after the local army command promised to withdraw their troops from Desa Bland Rame to the local Koramil (miltary command).
[A report from a cooalition of human rights NGOs says that at least ten refugees have died in Pidie district from the beginning of June up to 10 July. Dozens of women have given birth and the supply of medicines is getting very low. It is estimated that there are now 45,000 refugees in the district, following the arrival of 4,000 more people in Trienggadeng, Pidie - James Balowski.]
Jakarta -- Anxiety prevailed in the North Aceh district of Matangkuli, near Lhokseumawe, on Tuesday following an overnight gunfight involving security authorities and armed separatist rebels.
Antara reported that a woman, identified as Mursyidah, 33, suffered gunshot wounds to her thigh and abdomen and is now receiving intensive medical care at a private hospital in North Aceh's capital of Lhokseumawe. It was not known who shot the woman.
Special riot troops sent from Jakarta are pursuing the armed group, who shot dead a civilian security force member (Kamra) on Monday. The group also injured another Kamra member and an officer of the mobile brigade.
Kamra member M. Yusuf was killed by a group of men who shot him from a jeep near Geudong market in Samudera district, 15 kilometers east of Lhokseumawe, at noon. Hours later another armed gang shot Kamra member Abdul Muthaleb and Second Sgt. Frans, who was on duty at Matangkuli Police Station. Earlier on Monday the rebel group burned down an elementary school in Sidomulyo subdistrict, also in North Aceh.
Commander of the riot troops Col. Ridhwan Karim said his soldiers were conducting searches of residences in their hunt for the rebels. "We are searching houses suspected of harboring the group members, but have checked ourselves from physically hurting their occupants," Ridhwan said.
He said his squad set on fire an electronics service center after nobody answered their calls. The soldiers found the building was empty.
On Tuesday, Ridhwan, Aceh Police chief Col. Bahrumsyah and chief of the Lilawangsa Military Command Col. Syafnil Amren visited Muthaleb and Frans who are being treated at Lhokseumawe Military Hospital. Ridhwan denied that security authorities failed to anticipate the attacks. "They are now at large, but I believe we will capture them as soon as possible. We have lost our patience now," a visibly upset Ridhwan said.
"If strict measures are not implemented, they may one day kill school students in the way they shot teachers in Pidie."
Pidie, North Aceh and East Aceh are the most volatile territories in the province, in which a longtime separatist rebel movement increased its activities in the past year.
More than 100 people, including 41 civilians, have been killed in Aceh since May. The mounting violence has forced about 21,000 people in the Pidie district of Tangse to seek refuge in neighboring areas, as well as East Aceh and North Aceh. They are among thousands who fled their troubled villages.
Suara Pembaruan afternoon daily reported on Tuesday that 30,000 refugees have flocked to the Pidie capital.
[On July 8, the Indonesian Observer reported that three more civilians were found dead on July 7, bringing the total number of deaths in Aceh this week to eight. The three victims were from the town of Jeumpa and according to police all three had wounds to the neck. Local villagers claim that they were linked to the security forces. On July 4, Agence France Presse reported that an Indonesian army sergeant who was abducted by a gang of unidentified armed men on July 4, was found dead the following day in North Aceh - James Balowski.]
Sigli -- Some 25,000 people have fled their homes in Pidie district up to Sunday, 4 July and sub-district Tangse is almost entirely deserted. Thousands more villagers have fled a number of villages in sub-distrct Bandar Baru because they no longer feel safe in their homes.
The people fleeing from villages in Tangse are staying in two mosques in sub-distrct Mutiara while those fleeing from Bandar Baru are staying in a third mosque. Others are staying with relatives.
An estimated 15,000 people are staying in Abu Beureuh Mosque and Meunasah BAro Barat Jaman Beureunuen while 7,000 are staying in Teupin Raya Mosque.
A coordinator handling the influx of refugees told Serambi that many people were also staying in neighbourhoods in the vicinity of the mosques because the mosques were unable to take them all in.
One villager who is among another three thousand refugees from six villages in Bandar Baru told the newspaper that they had fled their villages after security forces entered their villages.
Facilities for the refugees are very inadqaute, in particular there is a lack of clean water for drinking and washing.
One observer, Tgk Razali said that if the exodus continued, Tangse sub-distrct would be totally deserted in two days time. There were people left in only four of the 27 villages in the sub-district, he said.
The refugees had fled, leaving behind unattended their cattle and sheep, as well as rice-fields and coffee bushes ready for harvesting. If all this goes to waste, the villagers will sustain losses of hundreds of millions of rupiah, destroying their livelihoods, he said.
Jakarta -- Minister of Defense and Security/Indonesian Military Commander Gen. Wiranto says an investigation into rights abuses from the 10-year-long military operation in Aceh is unnecessary, warning it would open the floodgates for similar grievances left over from the New Order regime.
Despite President B.J. Habibie's pledge to the Acehnese to resolve allegations of abuses in the province during the operation from 1989 to 1998, Wiranto told legislators on Friday that an independent team would only examine grievances from after May 1998 when president Soeharto quit power.
"It was the consensus of the government and the National Commission of Human Rights that the team's subjects of investigation would only be rights violation cases that occurred over the last year," Wiranto said.
He spoke at a hearing of House of Representatives' Commission I on defense and security, law and foreign affairs.
Acehnese leaders have said mounting calls for a referendum to determine whether Acehnese want to remain part of Indonesia stems from the government's failure to settle injustices committed during the military operation.
During his visit to Aceh capital's Banda Aceh in March, Habibie promised to investigate alleged abuses during the period, and said the perpetrators would be brought to trial.
Wiranto argued there should be a clear demarcation "between the New Order era and the reform era". He said it would be "unfair" to investigate abuses in which only civilians were killed under the New Order when numerous servicemen also lost their lives in the same period.
"Technically, it would be quite difficult to prove the alleged killings and seek those involved... The Aceh case would be a bad precedent for other regions, including Lampung and the Tanjungpriok cases. Will we be able to handle all the cases thoroughly and fairly while the nation is still facing many serious problems?"
He was referring to a military crackdown against activists in Lampung in South Sumatra in the late 1980s and the killing of Muslims in Tanjungpriok, North Jakarta, in 1984.
Minister of Justice Muladi said in May that the President had agreed to set up an independent committee to investigate human rights violations in Aceh.
Chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights Marzuki Darusman later denied Wiranto's statement that the investigation would be limited to abuses reported after May 1998.
"We will soon clarify this matter with Wiranto," Marzuki told The Jakarta Post on Friday. Marzuki said the rights commission proposed that alleged abuses committed in the past year should be investigated first, but "there is no limitation whatsoever in the (proposed) investigation".
The commission said at least 781 people were killed during the operation, with thousands of others also suffering abuses.
The planned independent team will report to the President and consist of rights activists, legal practitioners, police and members of the military. Wiranto said the team would be announced soon.
In the hearing led by commission chairwoman Aisyah Amini, several legislators supported the scope of the investigation covering abuses during the entire military operation.
Last year, the national rights body excavated several mass graves containing more than 700 skeletons of Acehnese believed to have been killed during the military operation. The military speculated that the remains could have dated back to the Acehnese fight against Dutch colonists in the 19th century.
Wiranto said that from May through July 1, separatist groups committed 45 assaults, 45 acts of arson, eight abductions and two robberies in numerous areas in which 98 were killed and 176 others injured.
Rebels killed 29 soldiers and police and 69 civilians. They burned 373 houses, 13 government offices, 14 school buildings and 11 cars, he said.
Eight rebels were killed, four others injured and 22 others arrested. He said the military also seized three guns and arrested four provocateurs.
Wiranto denied the military was behind the presence of unidentified gunmen who have frequently intimidated and terrorized residents in Aceh. He said the Indonesian Military and the National Police limited their operations to trying to suppress the separatist Free Aceh Movement.
Jakarta -- Riots in Indonesia's Irian Jaya province have left one man dead and one wounded, while rebels abducted six forestry officials in separatist unrest, reports and residents said Tuesday.
One man was killed when mobs rampaged in the town of Sorong in the west, resident Rahayu said, while a group of armed separatists abducted the officials in Arso sub-district near the border with Papua New Guinea on Monday.
The rampage in Sorong broke out after police forcefully took down a separatist flag hoisted by some 50 pro-independence supporters at a park near the district police and military offices.
"Mobs went on a rampage in downtown Sorong ... pelting houses with stones and erecting roadblocks," Rahayu, from one of the churches in Sorong, said by telephone. One man died after being attacked after his motorcycle was stopped at a roadblock, the Suara Karya daily said.
The state Antara news agency said police opened fire, wounding one separatist in the neck, when the group resisted efforts to haul down the flag.
Rahayu said shops which hastily closed down during the riot had reopened Tuesday and public transport was back on the streets.
A staff member at the state hospital in Sorong, Komaru, said the dead man was settler from outside Irian Jaya.
"A man was beaten to death by a crowd and his body was brought here and after an autopsy, it was immediately taken home by his family," said Komaru.
The Suara Karya said 19 people had been arrested in Sorong, two of them women, but police in the town could not immediately be reached for comment.
In Arso subdistrict, suspected members of the Papua Merdeka (Free Papua) movement abducted six employees of the district forestry office on a survey, the Suara Karya said.
The survey involved 13 people. Two escaped and reported the kidnapping to the police while the whereabouts of the other five were unknown, the daily said quoting a source at the Irian Jaya military command headquarters.
A spokeswoman at the Irian Jaya police headquarters told AFP by telephone from Jayapura, the main city in the province that there were reports of 17 people being abducted in Arso, but she had no details. Officials at the Irian Jaya military information office could not be reached for comment.
In a separate incident at Wamena, in the mountain range of central Irian Jaya, hundreds of people went on a rampage on Sunday, damaging 20 shops at the Nayak market and six cars, the Suara Karya said.
The rioters had been on their way to the district police station to demand the release of six men arrested during an anti-gambling raid, the daily said.
Police fired warning shots to disperse the crowd and the six men were released after they signed a statement pledging not to gamble again.
The Papua Merdeka movement has been fighting for the independent state of West Papua since the former Dutch Western Guinea became Indonesian territory in 1963. The United Nations accorded its recognition of Indonesian sovereingty there in 1969.
Jakarta -- Indonesian police arrested 19 separatists and shot and injured one of them Monday after they hoisted their flag in front of a district parliament building in Irian Jaya province, a report said.
The state Antara news agency said police opened fire, wounding one separatist in the neck, when the group resisted efforts to haul down the flag in the district of Sorong.
The separatist flag, hoisted at 5am local time, had flown for one hour before police tried to pull it down and faced resistance from the separatists, Antara said. Antara said before the incident the rebels had reportedly killed a man for allegedly refusing to join the flag-raising protest.
District police in Sorong declined to confirm the shooting or the alleged killing, but said the incident occurred in front of the the city hall, not the local parliament building as reported by Antara.
The Free Papua Movement has been fighting for an independent Melanesian state, West Papua, since the former Dutch colony of West New Guinea became an Indonesian province in 1963. The United Nations recognized Indonesian sovereignty over Irian Jaya in 1969.
Separatist calls have been on the rise in Irian Jaya since the iron-fisted rule of former Indonesian president Suharto ended in May after a series of bloody street protests.
The last incident of a separatist flag raising was reported from the capital of Jayapura on July 1. Some 200 people were reportedly involved in that incident.
[On July 7, AFP reported
that police had arrested a woman suspected of organising the flag raising
protest. Yacomina Isir, the head of the Irian Jaya students' association,
was arrested on while paying a homage to a dead relative in the town of
Sorong. Police claim that she was "...unable to deny her involvement in
separatist flag-hoisting" - James Balowski.]
| Labour struggle |
Jakarta -- Thousands of bank employees and bus drivers staged separate demonstrations in Jakarta yesterday, demanding greater rights for workers.
Several thousand employees of state-owned Bank BTN protested outside their head office on Jalan Gadjah Madah, Central Jakarta, calling for the resignation of the bank's director, Tito Sulaksono, as he plans to lay-off more than 1,280 staff in the near future.
The demonstration was spearheaded by BTN Trade Union (SP) and attracted droves of supporters. Secretary of BTN Trade Union, Satya Wijayantara, said the mass lay-offs are part of an efficiency drive to make the bank healthier and more competitive. However, the plan was never discussed with the bank's staff, he added.
Wijayantara said that when staff asked the director why he had not discussed the plan with them, Sulaksono replied it was his prerogative and there was no need to hold any talks.
"And when we asked him about severance pay, he just said the compensation is also the prerogative of the director and any discussions with the Trade Union would be a waste of time," Wijayantara told reporters.
The mass dismissals are scheduled to take place in September, but the staff still don't know who will be sacked, let alone what sort of redundancy package will be on offer.
Therefore, the employees want Finance Minister Bambang Subianto to replace the "arrogant" Sulaksono with a new director.
"Besides that, we also want the board of directors of Bank BTN to give us better social facilities, and we hope that any future discussions will not include Tito Sulaksono," said Wijayantara, speaking on behalf of the protesters. The "social funds" wanted by the staff include allowances for housing, medical expenses and transport.
The demonstrators displayed posters and banners, with slogans such as "We have been able to topple the dictator Soeharto, now let's get the director of Bank BTN", "Remove the arrogant director", and "BTN suffers from big losses but the director is sleeping".
As the demonstration concluded in the afternoon, the staff all signed a large piece of fabric measuring 1 by 15 meters, urging the finance minister and bank's board of directors to sack Sulaksono.
Across town in East Jakarta, about 1,000 bus conductors and drivers, staged a protest outside the office of state-owned bus company PPD on Jalan Halim Perdana Kusuma, demanding they be paid the minimum wage.
Earlier this year, the minimum wage in Jakarta was Rp198,500 (US$30) for 26 working days per month. In April, the minimum wage was raised by almost 20% to Rp231,000 (US$34), but the PPD employees are still receiving the old salary level. With overtime, the minimum wage should amount to about Rp300,000 (US$45). That's an amount the bus drivers and conductors can only dream of.
Coordinator of the protest, Darwin T.B., said that if the service provided by drivers and conductors doesn't satisfy passengers, it's because their salaries are so low.
He said the workers are struggling to survive amid the prolonged economic crisis, so they are more worried about their own plight than the comfort and convenience of passengers.
PPD's board of directors on Saturday had agreed to increase the wages of their employees by 30%, but the drivers and conductors said that's still not enough to live on.
"We need an increase of up to 110% not 30%, because if we agree to the decision of the board of directors, those of us who are earning about Rp200,000 [US$30] per month will get nothing above Rp260,000 [US$38] per month," said Darwin.
The drivers and conductors said that if PPD's board of directors doesn't fulfill their demands, they will continue their strike. The strike caused chaos for Jakarta's commuters, with many left stranded, unable to get to work.
PPD has a fleet of thousands of public buses, mostly longer- bodied vehicles managed by the Patas bus group.
[On July 8 the Indonesian
Observer reported that the PPD management had given in and will award workers
a 120 percent wage in crease in two stages starting from July 1. The directors
also promised to fulfill the workers' request for a guaranteed pension
scheme - James Balowski.]
| News & issues |
Since May last year, there have been constant calls for a thorough investigation into the wealth of former Indonesian President Suharto and the corruption, collusion and nepotism that characterised his thirty two year rule.
There are also calls, though less prominently reported, for an investigation into Suharto's alleged crimes against humanity, particularly the 1965 massacres that accompanied his rise to power, massacres in which as many as half a million people were killed.
On this edition of Asia Pacific, we bring you a special feature on the work of Ibu Sulami, an Indonesian woman who spent almost twenty years in jail during the Suharto era -- and who is now determined to see justice done for the victims of 1965.
Sulami: I knew that people were being arrested in Jakarta. I was on the run at the time, just moving from house to house so I did not see very much of the killings with my own eyes. But sometimes I would be staying somewhere and I could hear someone being arrested in the house next door and it was a very frightening time. And I did hear alot of stories coming in from the provinces and it has become an obsession of mine ever since really, to find out whether these stories were all true and to bring it out into the open.
Mares: Ibu Sulami is 74 years old and lives in a simple house in Tanggerang, an industrial city in West Java, that runs into the urban sprawl of Jakarta. She looks frail, but her memory is sharp and Ibu Sulami has summoned the energy to delve into the most sensitive period in Indonesian history. She has begun systematically investigating the mass killings of late 1965 and early 1966 -- killings that loomed large through the Suharto years, even though they were hardly ever discussed. The massacres were an ever present warning of the danger of dissent; the lurking terror that helped ensure obedience to Suharto's New Order regime. Even today, many Indonesians would rather forget that the killings ever took place. But Ibu Sulami is driven by a desire to seek justice for the victims of massacres -- particularly for women whose husbands just disappeared, never to return.
Sulami: In 1994 I went to the provinces and talked to the families of a lot of the victims, a lot of the wives especially and they were often waiting still for their husbands to come back. A lot of them have never re-married since that time and they are very anxious to know what happened to their husbands. They wonder, if their husbands are still alive, why have they never come back? Are they in jail or were they killed? And if so who killed them and where are they buried? That sort of knowledge is very important to them.
Mares: On the night of September 30th 1965, there was an attempted coup in Jakarta. Six top Generals were murdered by more junior officers, who then went on to capture radio and telecommunications facilities and declare a revolutionary council. But their coup was short-lived -- 44 year old major- general Suharto, commander of the Strategic Reserve or Kostrad -- mustered loyal troops to his side and quickly crushed the rebellion. Suharto then gradually sidelined, and eventually replaced, Indonesia's founding President Sukarno.
The coup of September 30th was blamed on the Indonesian communist party, the PKI -- and a ruthless military-backed crackdown on the party and its sympathisers followed. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed; hundreds of thousands more were arrested. At the time, Ibu Sulami was the General Secretary of Gerwani -- the Indonesian Women's Movement -- which had been established in 1950 to fight for equal rights.
Ibu Sulami: I grew up in a village and you know there were so many cases of discrimination between men and women. I joined Gerwani in 1951 because it was fighting for equal rights for women. I was very attracted to Gerwani because I felt it was working to elevate the dignity of women and overcome the inequality and the discrimination against women at the time.
Mares: You say you were concerned about discrimination between men and women -- can you give me an example of the things that worried you?
Ibu Sulami: It was really in the area of education that the discrimination was most felt. Boys at that stage could continue with their education as far as their means allowed, but for girls, as long as they could read and right [sic], well that was it. Like me for example. My older brother was able to go to higher education, but my younger sister and I were only able to go to primary school.
Mares: Gerwani established kindergartens and ran courses in midwifery and literacy. The organisation also campaigned for equal rights in marriage and for stronger rape laws. By 1961 Gerwani claimed nine million members and had become increasingly close to the communist party -- although the organisation was never formally affiliated with the PKI.
After the coup attempt of September 30th 1965, Gerwani became a key target of Suharto's crackdown on the left. Lies were spread through newspaper and radio reports; they said that Gerwani members had castrated the murdered generals, gouged their eyes out and then danced naked before the chairman of the communist party. I asked Ibu Sulami what she remembered of the night of September thirtieth 1965 and the days that followed.
Ibu Sulami: On that night, I was together with friends at the Gerwani headquarters. And at first nothing happened at all. Then the next morning someone came in and told us about the killing of the six generals and the events at Lubang Buwaya, the so-called Crocodile Hole, where their bodies were allegedly dumped. I was really shocked and surprised, because at the time I was in the middle of organising the fifth congress of Gerwani with lots of delegates gathering in Jakarta.
Nothing happened on the first day, nor the next day or the day after that, but then on the fourth day the Gerwani office was confronted by a group of military who demanded that Gerwani surrender with their weapons -- but in truth there were no weapons in the office anyway.
All we had were bamboo musical instruments called anklung. We had lots of them because we were preparing to celebrate the Gerwani's anniversary and we had ready about 500 anklung for people to play in the streets.
The military suggested to the people that the Gerwani office was stacked with huge stores of money, sugar, rice and other things. So the people looted the place, but there was nothing there, just a little bit of food, nothing at all. And the crowd outside were all screaming, there's no money, there's no food, we were being lied to.
Mares: Were there a lot of people outside?
Ibu Sulami: Yes there were lots of people outside and I was afraid to go home. I went from the office to a friend's place where I could spend the night, but I could not take anything with me. And I had to change the place I slept every night, never sleeping in the same place two nights in a row. And I lived like that, as a hunted person, for one and a half years.
Mares: Were you in Jakarta the whole time?
Ibu Sulami: Yes, I was in Jakarta the whole time and when I was arrested it was in Jakarta too. For a while in Jakarta, before I was arrested I was a member of a legitimate organisation a legal organisation, called "Supporters of the Command of President Sukarno". So I was promoting that organisation in Jakarta but after I was arrested that came to an end. Eventually I was arrested during Operation Vampire carried out by the Jakarta military command
Mares: How were you treated when you were arrested?
Ibu Sulami: It was really terrible. I was beaten for about ten days and they kept on interrogating us during that time. I was asked questions again and again and I did not want to answer. They asked whether Gerwani was involved in the killings of the generals. But Gerwani had nothing to do with it, so I kept my silence.
They were also asking whether I knew someone called Sam, who was one of the figures involved in the coup and who was a friend of the leader of the communist party, Brother Aidit. But I'd never met the man, I didn't know him at all so I just couldn't answer the question. They kept beating me up. They'd wake me up at 1 o'clock in the morning to destabilise me, to put my nerves on edge so that I would answer their questions. Many other women were also treated like that.
A lot of the women who were arrested at the time were fourteen, fifteen and sixteen and they weren't even members of Gerwani because under Gerwani's rules you had to be at least seventeen or married to become a member. So there was a lot of mistreatment of people and people were being accused of all sorts of things and I was being told to confess again and again and again, but I didn't.
Mares: What did they want you to confess to?
Ibu Sulami: They wanted me to confess to being the head of Gerwani at the time when the Generals were killed on September 30th 1965 so that they could identify Gerwani as the main organisation behind those killings, but I continually refused to confess to that. There were a lot of confessions from the younger women who were arrested which were then used to put the blame on Gerwani. But nine years later those women retracted their confessions. They said their records of interrogation were false, because they had been tortured and forced to confess. The interrogations eventually got so ferocious that the women were stripped and it was absolutely inhuman what was happening to them at that time.
Mares: What happened to those young women who were arrested with you at the same time, the fourteen and fifteen-year-old girls?
Ibu Sulami: The young girls who were arrested at the time were really very badly treated, they were beaten almost to death in the Guntur military police headquarters in Jakarta. Then there were prostitutes who were forced into saying that these young women had been recruited by Gerwarni to provide sexual services to the 200 or 400 troops who were supporting the coup attempt. But this was a false story put out by Suharto who was trying to discredit these women and Gerwani. It wasn't like that
Mares: Most of the Gerwani women arrested after the events of September 1965 were jailed until 1979. Ibu Sulami remained behind bars another seven years. She spent eight years in jail before she was even brought to trial -- then in 1975, she was finally prosecuted and found guilty of slander. Ibu Sulami was released in 1986 and given two years off her sentence, but only on the condition that she report each month to the attorney General's office. So what were her conditions like in prison?
Ibu Sulami: The treatment was awful for the first years while I was in military detention. Later Amnesty International and the Red Cross took up my case and I was then given a blanket and a mattress and conditions got a bit better. But it was still pretty terrible. Prison authorities discriminated against us compared to ordinary criminals. We were given worse food than ordinary criminals; like as if it was tempe or soya bean cake, then we just got boiled tempe, while the other prisoners would get meat and better quality food. It was a deliberate policy to lock us up with ordinary criminals -- and I personally shared a cell with ordinary criminals virtually the whole time I was in prison. The idea was to prevent us from communicating with other political prisoners, but this did have a positive side because the ordinary inmates were willing to share their food with us and so we never starved.
The criminal prisoners quite liked us, the political prisoners. A lot of them had problems, for example if they still had an appeal process to go through, then they tended to see us as being able to advise them even though we weren't in fact lawyers. And because we weren't allowed to watch TV like the others, there were times when the three criminal prisoners with whom I shared my cell would be a bit naughty. They would call out and feign sickness so that the cell door would be opened and we would be allowed out to go and watch television. But they would keep a look out for the military guards and if they came there would be a signal, like tapping a bottle for example, so we would all rush back into the cell before we got discovered.
Mares: What did you do to occupy yourself for those twenty years in prison?
Ibu Sulami: When I was under military detention, as an ordinary person I really felt tempted to give up hope sometimes. But I was convinced that I should hang on. What happened was that the other inmates, the criminal prisoners would help us by smuggling me pencils and paper in the evening so that I could write during the night and then in the very early morning they would take them back again and hide them for me in case my cell was searched. And so I was able to keep my brain occupied. During the time I was there I put together a novel, a novella, a collection of short stories and some poems as well and since coming out I've been writing about my prison experiences. They are in the process of being published at the moment..
Mares: Since her release from jail in 1986 Ibu Sulami has slowly begun to investigate the mass killings of 1965 -- researching the locations of mass graves and making lists of the names of people killed, the names of people arrested and jailed, the names of people sacked from the jobs or disadvantaged in other ways for decades because of their links, or suspected links to the banned Indonesian communist party.
Ibu Sulami has set up a foundation to carry out the work, staffed mostly by bereaved relatives of the victims of 1965 -- and even though Suharto is no longer President, the work remains extremely sensitive, difficult and dangerous. The Indonesian military has no interest in seeing its past crimes uncovered -- neither do civilians who were involved in the blood-letting. Even Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission is reluctant to get involved -- it is investigating many other massacres and abuses from the Suharto period -- but has shied away from cooperating with Ibu Sulami's investigation into the events of 1965. Nevertheless, she continues, undeterred:
Ibu Sulami: We actually started doing a lot of this work before the fall of Suharto, but in a secretive way, a conspiratorial way. We visited a lot of areas, nineteen distrcits in fact, mainly in East and Central Java to look for graves
And we actually found a lot of evidence. It was not just the bones we found, but a lot of eye-witnesses who could talk in detail about the killings that took place in their own villages.
We actually went to a lot of the burial grounds, which were often quite difficult to reach, but we were helped a lot by people who lived near by, who were quite happy to show us where these burial grounds were. They weren't afraid even though Suharto had not yet been toppled from power.
Mares: Some people in Indonesia would argue that this matter is too difficult, that it is now 35 years and to investigate these matters only brings up bad memories, and creates more conflict in society and that it is better just to let these matters be and to try to forget that terrible time in Indonesia's past. What would you say to people who argue that way?
Ibu Sulami: We are determined that we are not going to start raking things over, but the fact remains that so many people were killed and people responsible must be made accountable for that. It is very easy for people who have not suffered a loss to say these matters should be left alone, but for the people who were involved and who suffered the loss of loved ones, they are continually having nightmares and are worrying about what happened. So I think it is very important for them for this matter is continually talked about. There needs to be a lesson for people also. The killing of just one person is already a crime. So how much more terrible is it when more than one person is killed. The murder of hundreds of thousands of people must be talked about and accounted for.
The resolution of this matter is like a struggle for civilisation, to ensure that things like this will not recur in the future. The past is the past but these matters must be resolved for coming generations, for posterity. It's in no one's interest to keep it covered up any longer. There's been a lot of enthusiasm, we've been getting a lot of support from people in the provinces for our efforts and we've been receiving a lot of reports from people who've been gathering information.
Our main aim really is to make people responsible for what happened and if necessary to bring them to trial before an international court of justice.
In discussion of the investigations into former President Suharto this issue has been touched on, but those responsible have said that their job is to deal with the issues of corruption, collusion and nepotism issues and so they say that it would be unethical for them to deal with other matters or to delve into the killings of 1965.
Mares: And what about compensation -- is that an issue?
Ibu Sulami: No there are hundreds of thousands of victims and so it is really unrealistic to focus on the compensation issue, that is way down our list. The main issue is really just to find those responsible and make them accountable. And of course the first priority must be to fully restore the rights of all those people who were denied jobs or education or other opportunities because of their alleged links to the communist party.
Mares: When you say you want people to take responsibility, how high or how low do you intend to go with that because the killings were carried out at such a mass level that there could be almost as many killers as victims out there
Ibu Sulami: There was virtually no killing at all before the middle of October 1965, when the special forces under the command of Sarwo Edi entered the villages. Then the killings started and for whatever reason, they wanted to take revenge or whatever, they unleasched [sic] a huge wave of violence against the victims. The military were the catalyst.
There certainly were social conflicts in some areas, where for example there were conflicts over land, but ultimately people would not have dared to take it into their own hands, to commit such acts of violence against their opponents until the military led the way. During the period of 1965 to 1966 there was still a lot of conflict at a high level, Suharto was head of the military but he was not President and he was not acting under the orders of President Sukarno.
He was ursurping President Sukarno's authority and so there was still a struggle going on at the top level of society. The killing of the communists should be seen in that light and it is up to people to really gather that evidence to prove this, because I am sure that the evidence is there in the military archives and so on. It is a matter of uncovering it.
The true story of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people linked to the Indonesian Communist Party has remained buried since 1965. Now with the fall from power of President Soeharto, Indonesians are beginning to confront their own holocaust, writes Louise Williams.
One by one he shook the hands of his friends and tried to imagine they were leaving for a family picnic as they were escorted out by the guards to face the firing squad. And then, he was the only one left.
On death row in Jakarta's miserable, maximum security Cipinang jail, he waited, believing vehemently in his own innocence, but mentally surrendering to his fate as a pawn in the bloodiest political power play in Indonesia's modern history; in fact, one of the darkest chapters in the history of the 20th century anywhere in the world.
Former Sergeant Major Bungkus was a member of Indonesia's elite presidential guard when, on the afternoon of September 30, 1965, he attended a briefing given by his immediate superior, Lieutenant Dul Arief, at the so-called "crocodile hole", a well at the main air force base in Jakarta.
At the briefing, Bungus and other NCOs were told that seven of the nation's most senior army officers had set up a "Dewan Jenderal", or Council of Generals, and were planning to stage a coup against President Sukarno.
The men of the presidential guard were ordered to bring in the seven generals, either dead or alive. The mission was to be carried out that night. Dul Arief divided his force into seven teams, with Bungkus ordered to seize Major General M.T. Harjono, a key assistant to the Army Minister, General Achmad Yani, whose name was also on the death list.
By early the next day, seven corpses had been dumped down the crocodile hole, their bodies horribly mutilated or merely peppered with bullets, depending on what version of the story you choose to believe.
Unfortunately for Bungkus, the plan went horribly awry. The squad sent to the home of the Indonesian Defence Minister, General A.H. Nasution, botched the job. Nasution escaped. In the confusion his young adjutant was taken away.
And for reasons that remain unclear, no-one was sent to the home of General Soeharto, the commander of the Army Strategic Reserve. On a day of bloodshed and confusion, Soeharto launched a counter coup, retaking Jakarta. Bunkus and another army plotter, the left-leaning Colonel Abdul Latief, were arrested. They were tried and sentenced to death.
"I knew I was being used for someone else's agenda, but at first I didn't know who to blame," says Bungkus. "I knew I was going to die, because the trial was a simple process. My defence was very good, I was merely following orders, but there was nothing we could do because the accusation was coming from the top."
Now, 34 years later, Bungkus and Latief are the only two surviving key players in the alleged coup of 1965, a defining moment of modern Indonesian history.
In March this year, the two men were released from jail and thrown back into their forgotten villages, to live out the last days of their elderly lives in a nation they no longer recognise.
But the knowledge they carry with them may change how history is viewed in Indonesia, and raise very disturbing questions over who could have prevented the deaths of more than half a million people which followed the failed putsch.
Officially, the "coup" attempt was engineered by the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). Within hours of the generals' deaths, the official version runs, Soeharto was saving Indonesia from a "red threat".
The army crackdown on the PKI led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of alleged communist sympathisers. Many were lynched, mutilated and decapitated. Others were tried by kangaroo courts. By 1967, Soeharto had replaced Sukarno as president.
Doubts have arisen, however, about the official version. Latief insists that he reported the "coup plot" to Soeharto days before the killings. Why, if that were the case, did Soeharto take no action?
The answer, says Latief, is that it suited Soeharto to have the arrests go ahead. That way, rival officers were killed and the PKI was left to shoulder the blame, paving the way for the party and the entire leftist movement to be literally "cut out" of Indonesian society.
Bungkus, an NCO and thus a junior player, insists that the officers from whom he took his fateful orders were not linked to the PKI. He thinks, as do many foreign scholars, that the "coup" was an internal military power struggle, carefully engineered by Soeharto to destroy the Indonesian Left.
In the meantime, the purge of the PKI has become the subject of extensive forensic work. PKI survivors, many now well into their 70s, have been conducting a clandestine research project to document the horrors of 1965 and 1966, and to uncover the mass graves of which Indonesians fear to speak. Numerous grave sites have been identified around central and east Java, and written testimonies are being prepared.
While there is new pressure, since Soeharto's fall, to establish who was responsible for the bloodbath, many former Soeharto loyalists want the aged political prisoners silenced.
Jakarta's National Commission on Human Rights has refused, officially, to open the hornet's nest with an official investigation of 1965, probably because too many people associated with Soeharto's rise remain in power. Privately, its members are not discouraging independent research which may uncover a new version of history.
From 1984 until last year, all Indonesian TV stations had to show a "documentary" version of the 1965 coup every year, perpetuating the myth of the "evil" communists and the heroism of Soeharto as the nation's saviour. Former PKI prisoners and their families were social lepers.
This is no longer so acceptable. At a recent conference of history teachers in Jakarta, prominent historian Taufik Abdullah lamented the highly politicised official history taught in all Indonesian schools.
Bungkus is an old man, but his trim, fit frame still carries the pride of an elite military man. He was merely following orders, he says, when he and his men burst into the bedroom of Harjono. In the dark, he says, his men opened fire. When they switched on the lights the general lay slumped on the floor, mortally wounded.
"Straight after the action our whole group was arrested. I didn't understand what was going on but after we were interrogated I knew we were being accused of being rebels," he says.
The interrogation, within the terrible, damp confines of the old Dutch Cipinang prison, he says "was very tight". That is all he will say about the strenuous torture and beatings of PKI prisoners, especially the military officers.
His family believed he was dead, he says. His fears for their safety was so great that he didn't even dare try to contact them to tell them he was still alive, in case they got caught up in the bloodbath that was sweeping across Java.
"As soon as the PKI was accused of being behind the coup, we knew we would be hit," says another former political prisoner, whose association with the PKI was indirect. "I fled by bus through East Java and when we came to the town of Porong, there were two decapitated corpses, a couple, strung up in a banana tree, with a child below crying to be breastfed.
"They had the words PKI written across them in blood. No-one even dared to look directly at the bodies, no-one even dared to help the child in case they would be next."
The rural roads, he says, were swarming with men in black, armed with harvesting knives. Much of the killing was not carried out by the army. The soldiers just sat back and let the deep social divisions play themselves out. In many cases members of Ansor, the youth wing of the Nahdlatul Ulama (Muslim Scholars' League), ran the lynchings. In others landowners, angered over PKI- formented peasant uprisings, took their chance at revenge.
This man has compiled a list of mass graves. One, he gestures, lies under a housing project on the outskirts of Surabaya, a suburb haunted by the ghosts of history. Others lie deep in the plantations where locals remember the smell of rotting bodies so foul that even the dogs did not go near.
His fear, he explains, has ebbed only slightly since Soeharto's fall. In the past he wouldn't have even dared schedule the meeting, but still he is too frightened to allow us to publish his name.
Bungkus is also scared: "I have to limit myself. I have given some interviews before and you know what I said. It is up to me to correct history, or is it up to the historians?"
He will not mention the name "Soeharto", and clearly he is now scared, following threats made against former PKI prisoners in the local press following their release.
There is much misery and much happiness on death row, Bungkus laments. All his men went to court one by one, 130 in all. All the platoon commanders, including Bungkus, were sentenced to death.
"I was ready to take my turn. Many of the men were not afraid, they were soldiers, so they lived their last days just like every other day and came to shake our hands to say goodbye."
But the letter confirming Bungkus's sentence was lost, so he just waited and waited. When it was retrieved from somewhere within the bureaucracy, 17 years had passed, Indonesia was in the international spotlight, and some of the appetite for PKI executions had been blunted by the new economic miracle.
"But the sentence was still pending, so I prayed, I appealed and lost, I was told several times the sentence would be carried out. During the day I could just make handicrafts to occupy my time.
Beside him languished former Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Latief, who is now 73. "Pak Harto [Soeharto] knew for sure that on September 30, the seven generals were to be brought to Bung Karno [Sukarno]," Latief said on his release.
"The plan to arrest the generals was related to the existence of a [secret] 'Council of Generals' which was first revealed through the leaking of a British Embassy document which said the council was to supervise Sukarno's policies.
"The document, a letter from the British Ambassador, Sir Andrew Gilchirst, also revealed the British were working with the CIA."
At that time the political climate was "very hot" and Sukarno was occupying a very delicate position between the armed forces and Muslims on the political right and the PKI on the left. He had launched the policy of "Konfrontasi" against Malaysia and had sent soldiers to Kalimantan to back up his threats.
The PKI supported the campaign and asked the Government for weapons to arm its worker and peasant members.
At 2am on September 29, 1965, a meeting was held at Latief's house where a group of military officers, later accused of being influenced by the PKI, decided they should take the members of the Council of Generals before Sukarno.
"I went to see Soeharto to tell him of the plan when he was at the military hospital where his son, Tommy, had just been born. He nodded," said Latief. (Tommy had actually been born earlier and had been brought in sick).
In his ghosted autobiography, Soeharto claims there was no mention of "the taking" of the generals and that Latief had come to kill him, but did not have the heart to go through with it.
"Now, I am wondering, who really did this coup?" asked Latief. "Was it me? Was it Soeharto? I reported it to him as the commander, and he took no action. I think it is clear Pak Harto used the opportunity of the arrest of the generals to blame the PKI and reach power."
Latief has not publicly commented any further and is now ill. He is frequently in hospital and is being protected from any further media requests by his family.
But why were the generals killed, instead of just being arrested? This question has not been adequately addressed.
Bungkus and his wife don't want to be photographed. But, the neighbours are all pushing up against the front porch, anyway, forever denying them the anonymity they crave.
"When Soeharto fell it was just like being blind and being able to see again, or drowning and being able to breathe, but we are still in a political transition, there are still people loyal to Soeharto," he says.
"When I came home I felt proud that I was still alive, I was so emotional seeing my family, and proud that they had coped. But, all my friends are dead, and now I don't know where I should go and what I should do," he says, his eyes watering.
Sander Thoenes, Jakarta -- Former President Suharto yesterday filed a multi-billion dollar libel suit against Time magazine in a case that highlights the new government's failure to pursue corruption charges against him.
Mr Suharto's lawyer would not disclose the exact sum demanded by Mr Suharto over the article, which printed lists of claimed Suharto family assets abroad worth billions of dollars. Mr Suharto denies holding any foreign assets or bank accounts.
The report, relished and regurgitated by Indonesian newspapers, has been a strong weapon of opponents to President B.J. Habibie, who runs for re-election later this year but has failed to pursue a wave of corruption allegations against Mr Suharto and his former ministers. Even the government party, Golkar, has said it will not support his candidacy unless he pursues his former mentor in court.
"There is no political will in the government," said Teten Masduki, head of Indonesia Corruption Watch, an organisation which has published investigations about alleged fraud by Mr Suharto and other officials. "The government always says 'we don't have enough proof'."
Mr Habibie has suspended but refused to sack Andi Ghalib, his attorney general. Mr Ghalib's office has questioned Mr Suharto and his siblings but only brought two minor cases against two of his sons to court. It made a show of dragging Mr Suharto's youngest son, Hutomo Mandala Putra, into court for allegations of fraud in a minor land swap but the case has dragged on for months.
Prosecutors made more progress pursuing two politically active business executives who were singled out by Mr Habibie for criticising him, even though their corruption charges focus only on a failure to pay debts.
A court yesterday dropped the case against Arifin Panigoro, an oil magnate who supports opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, conceding that it had no authority to prosecute him.
State companies such as Pertamina, the oil and gas monopoly, have cut off the Suharto family from profitable licences and monopolies.
Sempati Airlines, partly owned by Mr Hutomo, was declared bankrupt yesterday but that was at the company's request, while dozens of other family businesses have been left alone in spite of failure to pay billions of dollars to state banks, tax offices and private creditors.
Jakarta -- In a bid to cast off their image as ruthless supporters of the authoritarian New Order regime of ex-president Soeharto, police have begun to don new uniforms and are now conducting charity programs to help the poor.
In conjunction with the 53rd anniversary of the National Police, the Jakarta Police is providing medical assistance to impoverished people.
Working with members of the National Police, students and social workers, the Jakarta force yesterday inspected the health of poor people in Cilincing, North Jakarta.
As the economic crisis celebrates its second birthday this month, many sick people cannot afford to seek medical treatment at hospitals.
National Police Inspector General Major General M. Nurdin said the charitable activities will continue today, with police scheduled to treat 4,500 families suffering from dental illnesses and eye diseases. Ailing individuals who are seriously wounded will be sent to public health centers, he added.
The charitable activities were planned three months ago and are being supported by 250 nurses and doctors, 350 medicine students from various universities in Jakarta, the Walubi Buddhist Foundation, and concerned city residents.
Police also instructed the poor about family planning and the reason for using condoms to prevent the birth of unwanted children.
The social workers and police also helped needy locals to obtain ID cards, birth certificates, and land certificates, all free of charge, as the activities were aimed at improving the image of the police.
"We intend to make people believe we are helpful to them," said Major General Nurdin. Apart from the charitable activities, he said police are also trying to boost their image by replacing their regular brown uniforms with new light green outfits, to make them look less cruel.
If police no longer appear cruel, people will be more courageous to ask them for help, he said. "The personnel have been wearing the new uniforms since the 53rd anniversary [of the National Police] on July 1," said Nurdin.
Walubi Chairwoman Hartati Murdaya said it's important that well- off people should help those who are suffering from various diseases but have no money for medical treatment. "We are concerned about the people here who still live below the poverty line," she said.
Jakarta -- An unidentified group yesterday attacked an office of the Democratic People's Party (PRD), following last week's shooting of PRD activists by security officials.
The PRD branch office in Utan Kayu, East Jakarta, was stoned by people inside a car. Windows of the office were smashed, as was the windscreen of a car parked outside. "They pelted stones without getting out off their vehicle. Then they drove away," said a press statement from the PRD's Information Division. Nearby residents said about seven persons were involved in the stoning of the PRD office.
Yesterday's attack was the latest act of terror against the small "radical" party headed by Budiman Sudjatmiko, who is still serving a jail term he received in 1997 for protesting against the rule of former president Soeharto.
Bigger attacks took place on Thursday when PRD activists staged a demonstration outside General Election Commission (KPU) building to demand the ruling Golkar Party be disqualified from the June 7 parliamentary election.
One PRD activist said unidentified people made lists of those present at the bloody demonstration. He fears those on the list will be subjected to threats.
`Missing' activists found
In a related development, about 40 PRD activists who went "missing" after Thursday's violent protest, have been found unharmed.
PRD official Aan Rusdyanto yesterday his 40 fellow activists had directly returned to their homes after the demonstration. "They did not report to PRD headquarters after the protest," he was quoted as saying by private television network SCTV.
The whereabouts of the 40 activists had been unknown for 24 hours after they violently clashed with police on Thursday. Rusdyanto said his office knew of their whereabouts on Saturday evening.
He said another four PRD activists are still being detained at Jakarta Police headquarters following the violence. The four detainees have rejected charges by police, that they had been carrying sharp weapons, such as arrows, during the demonstration, he added.
Healing activists
Meanwhile, Mandiri Online reported the condition of PRD activists who were injured in Thursday's clash is improving. Dhyta Caturrani, a sociology student from Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University (UGM), is able to speak.
The condition of activist Aris Jefri, who is also hospitalized at St Carolus, is improving. The PRD announced that almost all activists who took part in Thursday's demonstration have returned to their homes.
[According to ASIET activists in Jakarta, Dhyta's condition has in fact deteriorated and as on July 7, she was finding it difficult to speak, can no longer sit up and is vomiting up her food. Although the exact reason for this is unclear, it is suspected that she may be suffering internal injuries from the massive beating she received after being shot in the back - James Balowski.]
Tangerang -- Jailed labor activist Dita Indah Sari of the Democratic People's Party (PRD) left the women's penitentiary here on Monday after spending two years in prison.
The release of Dita, 25, who was sentenced in July 1997 to five years imprisonment under the controversial 1963 Subversion Law, was part of an amnesty granted by President B.J. Habibie in presidential decree number 68 issued on July 2, 1999.
A few steps outside the prison, Dita announced: "My freedom is not the mercy of the government, but a pure political measure." According to her, Habibie's administration was facing mounting criticism from the public, and her release was simply part of the government's efforts to increase its popularity.
Dita, also chairwoman of the Center for Indonesian Workers Struggle, was arrested along with other labor activists in July 1996 for organizing two rallies involving some 10,000 workers from 10 factories in the Tandes industrial estate in southern Surabaya, East Java.
The rallies, which called for the minimum wage in Surabaya to be raised from Rp 5,200 to Rp 7,000 per day, ended violently after the military moved in to disperse protesters.
Dita was given a five-year sentence by the Surabaya District Court in 1997 and was soon transferred to the capital. She was found guilty of attempting to subvert the state and topple the government through her activities in Jakarta, Surabaya and other cities.
Dita left the penitentiary on Monday at 12:30pm, accompanied by her father Adjidar Ascha and colleagues from local and international non-governmental organizations.
The fifth of six children, Dita is the only member of her family who became involved in politics. Her mother passed away in Jakarta while Dita was being held in prison in Surabaya, and she was not allowed to attend her mother's funeral. "I want to go to my mother's grave," she said about her plans.
She said she would then concentrate her energies on the labor struggle, adding that she had already established a national labor front which was the seed for an Indonesian labor organization (*).
"This [national labor front] is a transitional organization prior to the establishment of a national labor organization," she said.
Leaving the penitentiary in a Honda Civic sedan, Dita headed to Menteng Pulo cemetery in Central Jakarta. Her release caught many off guard because the government had given no prior signals of a possible amnesty for her.
Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris visited Dita last Monday and held a closed-door meeting with her, but did not say anything about the possibility of her being released. Dita quoted Fahmi as saying at the time that the idea of releasing her sparked arguments among government officials.
Dita said it was most likely the Indonesian Military which did not want to see her freed. "If I'm released, they fear fresh labor rallies which, they think, would threaten national stability," she said last week.
Dita said her freedom was a gift from God. She also thanked the endless support of her fellow labor activists.
Dita also urged Habibie to release imprisoned activist Budiman Sudjatmiko and East Timorese proindependence leader Alexander "Xanana" Gusmao.
* [Between May 14 and 16, delegates from militant worker committees from several cities met in Bandung and voted to form a new national workers' organisation, the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggles (FNPBI) with Dita was elected general chairperson - James Balowski.]
Sigit Widodo, Jakarta -- Dita Indah Sari, chairperson of the Indonesian Centre for Labour Struggle (PPBI) -- which is affiliated to the People's Democratic Party (PRD) -- was released from the Tangerang Women's Prison on Monday, July 5. Upon being released, Dita went pay a visit to her mother's grave, Nonya Lili Fernandes.
While giving paying her respects [to her mother] at the Kramat Pulo grave yard in Jakarta at around 1pm [Dita's mother died while she was in prison and the authorities refused to allow her to attend the funeral - JB], she was accompanied by her PRD colleges. Along with Dita's father, Ajidaraska, they were present when she was released from the Tangerang prison. Dita and the PRD plan to hold a press conference at the offices of the Central Leadership Committee of the PRD located on Jalan Basuki Rachmad at 4pm.
"I came to pay my respects to my mother because she died when I was still in jail as a result to being discarded by the New Order regime", she said while accompanied by her Indonesian Legal Aid Institute lawyer, Apong Herlina and college, Coen Husein Pontoh. Dita was jailed at the Tangerang Women's Prison because along with her colleges Husein and Mohamad Soleh, she organised a worker demonstration in Tandes, Surabaya, in July 1996.
After leaving [the prison], Dita held a special telephone interview with Detikcom.
Detik: Previously you rejected [an offer to be released], why now did you accept release?
Dita: Before it was a question of being granted clemency [which came with the condition that Dita would agree not be involved in any political activity until the year 2002 - JB], if I accepted that it mean that I was [admitting that I was] guilty [under Indonesian law accepting clemency means acknowledging guilt for a crime - JB]. Now [my release has been granted] without conditions, [I have been] granted amnesty.
Detik: Why were you alone released, what about the other [PRD political prisoners]?
Dita: That's what is strange, why are the other friends in Cipinang prison, Budiman, Suroso, Petrus, Anom, Garda Sembiring, Pratowo, still in jail. It shows that the new regime releases us after there is pressure. This is not a change [in the character of the regime, we are] just a political "commodity" because we are released in installments.
Detik: What is your reaction to your release?
Dita: I am happy yeah, because I can be active [again] in struggle with my friends. But remember, this cannot be separated from [the issue of treating us as] political commodities because their aim was to lift government popularity.
Detik: What are your plans after being released?
Dita: I will return to being active in struggling for the working class. We will strengthen the labour unions, not just [in relation to] economic demands, but also politically. Because at the moment most worker organisations which are formed are conscious only of economic demands. For us it is economic and political consciousness.
Detik: Couldn't this have been done from within jail?
Dita: It could, but it's limited. Certainly communication with my friends while in jail was still possible, through letters and with those who could visit, but it was still limited, now it will be freer.
Detik: Your reaction to the Bloody KPU Incident?
Dita: Yeah well. Now there is a new regime but [still with the same] old thinking... ha... ha.
Detik: What is the future for the PRD and PPBI?
Dita: From the results of the election we are conscious that you can't just rely on building middle class and student forces, but we must begin to broaden our basis in all sectors [of society].
Detik: What about the results of the election in which [votes for the PRD] did not reach two percent, is the PRD ready to be disbanded?
Dita: The parliamentary movement is not the only way to struggle for democracy and reformasi. That can also be done outside parliament. [But] we will continue to put pressure on those who are in the parliament.
Detik: So it's not the end of the world?
Dita: We did not think that the PRD would get any seats in the election, but it's not the end of the world. We believe that this election was a valuable lesson on how to mobilise the masses, and how we can organise PRD members in the context of an election.
PRD representative in the KPU threatened by telephone
Detikcom - July 5, 1999
Sigit Widodo, Jakarta -- The People's Democratic Party (PRD) representative on the General Election Commission (KPU), Hendri Kuok, has constantly been terrorised following the Bloody KPU Incident on Thursday, July 1. This was related in press release from the Central Leadership Committee of the PRD on Monday, July 5.
According to the press release, several hours after the shooting of PRD demonstrators in front of the KPU building, Hendri began receiving repeated phone threats. The threats have continued since then and are tainted with racism [Hendri is ethnic Chinese - JB].
The press release also denied [allegations of] Hendri's involvement in the PRD action on Thursday. [It said that] Hendri's role in the action was not as a demonstrator but rather in the capacity of a KPU member. It was also denied that Hendri had called on the demonstrators to clash with police. According to the press release there was also an intervention by KPU security which appeared [to be from] the Habibie government not to give permission for PRD members to enter the KPU building.
Because of the continued terror, Hendri admitted to Detikcom that since the Bloody KPU Incident he was afraid to return home. "Yeah, at most [I go home] to get [a clean] shirt", said Hendri. Hendri said that is still able to stay at a friends house in Bekasi.
Only as of today has Hendri been able to again be present at the KPU since the Bloody KPU Incident. He did not appear to be disturbed by the telephone threats. Does it disrupt his work as a member of the KPU? "Yeah, slightly", said Hendri, smiling.
[Translated by James Balowski]
Yogyakarta -- The office of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) in Yogyakarta, came under attack on Saturday evening (3/7) 23.30, by an unidentified group of people who were armed with machetes. Aside from damaging the office, the attackers also wounded a PRD activist, Endik, on his arm and left hip.
Yogyakarta PRD Chairman, Haris Rusli Motti informed the press, Sunday, Endik sitting with PRD activists in the guest room saw a gang setting fire to something under the jackfruit tree in front of the party's office. All of a sudden, one of them threw a molotov bomb in the direction of the sitting room. Not much later one of the unidentified men, wielding a machete in his hand, ran and broke into the PRD office.
Yogyakarta Chief Detectives Directorate, Lt. Colonel Yotje Mende, told Kompas that the PRD party never reported an incident or disaster. This also applied to the recent assault on the PRD office. Despite this, Yotje has to handle the case and pursue his search for those who are responsible for the damage.
"We'll go on with the search and we will investigate the case immediately," Yotje Mende said yesterday.
According to Haris Rusli Motti, at the time of the unexpected assault, Endik and his friends panicked and screamed, "We're being attacked by our own people..." Upon hearing their screams, Endik's friends, Iwan, Anggit, Himawan, Haris, Tanto, made for the back door and went into hiding in the bathroom.
However, Endik who closed the escaping line, got slashed by one of the unknown men. Endik managed to escape the office and shook off his persecutor. Realising that he lost his prey, the man with the machete returned to the office and started to break up everything. After this act, the machete man and his gang quickly vanished.
The ensuing pandemonium among the party management and PRD activists, drew surrounding neighbors to the site, upon which the raiding men fled.
The leased office on Jalan Jatimulyo, Kricak, in Tegalrejo Yogyakarta, suffered a burnt carpet, a sitting room splashed with a mixture of kerosene and gasoline and plastic bottles converted to molotov bombs.
Sandals and shoes were also burnt in the melee while the glass windows in the sitting room were splintered into fragments. Haris did not know exactly how many men there were. But, neighbors who witnessed the incident said that around eight men on two motorbikes arrived at the office site. Two men drove a Honda GL Pro, two others drove a Suzuki Shogun. The Honda driver was in civilian clothes, he was wearing a closed helmet and held a handy talky in his hands.
In Jakarta meanwhile, the PRD office in East Jakarta on Jalan Utan Kayu got damaged under a stoning siege by unidentified men on Sunday about 03.00. Windows and the rooftiles of the office which had been guarded by Uda, the canteen watchman, were damaged when it rained stones and wooden pieces on it. Apart from that, a white kijang van parked in front of the office was also damaged in the raid.
PRD Division Staff member, Budi Susyanto admitted that he had not reported the brutal act to police. "We planned to report the incident Monday to the Metro Jaya District Police," he said.
The office came under repeated assaults from the unknown gang. He added, several PRD offices in various places were frequently terrorised.
"The terrorists demanded that we stop our disqualification campaigns against the Golkar party on account of deceit and money politics practising," Budi said.
Police Chief, General Roesmanhadi said in Pandaan, East Java, the PRD demonstrations in front of KPU building last week had all the likes of provocation against security troops. Evidence in the form of a barbed wire flagpole, arrows and acid were there.
This cannot be justified. "They might have had plans to provoke the security troops into a fight," Roesmanhadi said Sunday.
Medan -- Police here defended on Thursday the use of severe measures against alleged looters in Dua Puluh Baru village last week in an incident in which a woman was killed.
Personnel complied with procedures in handling the unrest in Binjai regency, chief of the North Sumatra Police Brig. Gen. Sutiyono said after a ceremony to celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the National Police.
The woman was killed when police opened fire on hundreds of villagers, some of them children, who took over a shrimp farm belonging to Hasan last Thursday. The local branch of the Legal Aid Institute has filed a protest concerning the police's measures.
"We did not mean to kill anybody. We just tried to restore order, but it was impossible for us to only blow a whistle if they chose to turn a deaf ear on our remarks," Sutiyono said.
He denied the woman died from a gunshot wound. "She fell down after being shot in the leg, and the fleeing mob trampled her to death," he said.
Police said the villagers were angered after Hasan refused to meet their demand for a share of the shrimp harvest. Residents living around a farm usually receive a part of the harvest in a ceremony locally called turles.
Several police officers were injured in the unrest, the largest incident since about 5,000 students and workers took to the streets over a land dispute here in May. In March, two bodies were found following a demonstration to protest environmental damage blamed on pulp producer PT Indorayon Utama near Lake Toba.
Sutiyono accused the villagers of criminal acts through their use of force. He also regretted the use of women and children as human shields in the clash. However, he faulted Hasan for failing to comply with local tradition.
Semarang -- A military court here sentenced on Friday former Bantul regent Army Col. Sri Roso Sudarmo to nine months imprisonment after finding him guilty of bribing a foundation chaired by former president Soeharto in 1996 to ensure his reelection as regent.
Reading out the verdict, presiding judge Col. Yamini said the defendant had tarnished the reputation of the Indonesian Military. "[The bribery] has created the impression that money, rather than achievement, is the main reason why a person is elected regent," the judge said.
Sri Roso said he would appeal the decision. The sentence was one month lighter than military prosecutor Pangruruk had sought. Sri Roso will maintain his military rank.
Sri Roso asked Soeharto's brother R. Noto Soewito to tell the then president he would donate Rp 1 billion (US$142,000) to the Dharmais Foundation if Soeharto approved his reelection as Bantul regent. He was reelected in 1996 although local legislators initially rejected his renomination.
In June 1998, one month after Soeharto resigned as president, Sri Roso was removed from his position. The Bantul legislative council unanimously agreed to dismiss him after he admitted offering bribes to ensure his reelection.
The council also urged the attorney general and the police to reopen their investigation into the murder of Yogyakarta-based journalist Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin, also know as Udin. Sri Roso has been implicated in the August 16, 1996, murder of Udin.
The journalist -- known for his critical reporting on the policies of Sri Roso -- died of wounds resulting from torture. His murder remains unsolved. Police initially built a case against advertising agency employee Dwi Sumaji. After rejecting the case several times, the public prosecutor's office eventually agreed to file charges against Dwi.
The case was later thrown out of court after it transpired the police had insufficient evidence to bring Dwi to trial. The court turned down the prosecutor's charge that Dwi killed Udin because the victim had an affair with his wife.
In the recent general election, Dwi was nominated by a minor party as a legislative candidate for Bantul. The party, however, garnered few votes in the regency.
Meanwhile, Yogyakarta's Legal Aid Institute urged Pangruruk to build a case linking Sri Roso to the murder of Udin. "It is relevant because it was Udin who first uncovered the Dharmais scandal," institute chairman Budi Hartono said.
Budi also criticized the court's verdict, saying Sri Roso should have been given a life sentence for bribing a foundation chaired by the president. "This corruption case is very easy to prove, and therefore we had hoped the prosecutor would demand a more severe punishment for the defendant," Budi said.