•  Gunmen aim to intimidate press
•  Australia ready to rescue foreigners
•  Thousands go hungry as mayor blocks aid
•  Dili violence threatens independence vote
•  Transcript of live report from Dili
•  Militias out in force as last rally cancelled
•  Pessimism grows ahead of East Timor vote
•  US threatens Indonesia over Timor violence
•  Island of fear and faith
•  Indonesia will fight if UN peace force sent
•  Photographer says saw police protester
•  `Dirty-tricks' general recalled`
•  The trouble with trusting Indonesia
•  Jakarta tells world to mind own business
•  Indonesia slammed over militia violence
•  Independence supporters take to streets
•  Xanana outlines East Timor program
•  Jakarta officials set to reject poll
•  UN bars Indonesian groups as observers
•  America rules out troops for Timor ballot
•  Jakarta loyalists warn of new Timor war
•  Militias trying to scare Timorese from voting
•  Australia warns Alatas over security
•  Scent of a normal life so close
•  Pro-Indonesia group urges on-the-spot vote
•  Australian army primes for Timor
•  Timor militias massing for war, US told

•  Up to 12 dead in fresh clashes in Ambon
•  Moslems rally over violence in Ambon, Aceh

•  Indonesian ministers visit troubled Aceh
•  Students demand UK account for operation
•  Australia's role in Irian Jaya exposed
•  Police, rebels blame each other for killing
•  Violence in Aceh claims 11 lives
•  Emergency rule threat

•  Who watches the watchers
•  Former President Suharto leaves hospital

•  New fires destroy huge swathe of forest
•  Illegal logging devastating 'protected' parks

Police arrest students protesting at palace

Jakarta -- Indonesian security personnel in the capital on Monday arrested at least nine students who had attempted to protest at the palace against clinging Suharto-era politicians and political and economic practices.

The students, from the Mercu Buana private university in West Jakarta, stepped down from public buses with a flaming flag of the ruling Golkar party and marched towards the front of the Merdeka Palace but were intercepted by police and soliders guarding the area, an AFP photographer said.

A leaflet distributed by the students called for an end to all corrupt political and economic practices prevalent under the 32 years of former president Suharto and the eradication of "criminals" of Suharto's New Order era who still clung to power.

The students were brought to nearby police vehicles where they were questioned, the photographer said.

The state palace is one of the "strategic locations" where public demonstrations are off limits, according to a law governing public protests.

The ruling Golkar is currently under criticism following allegations that it had benefited from an 80 million dollar commission taken by a party deputy treasurer in the Bank Bali interbank debt scandal.

The Bank Bali case has already led to split within the party's ranks opposing those wanting a transparency in the case and those saying that the Bank Bali case did not involve the party.
 

East Timor

Gunmen aim to intimidate press

Joanna Jolly, Dili -- It was after the thousands opposed to independence had paraded through Dili that a hard-core of several hundred militiamen showed the true colours of the pro-integration campaign.

With the main convoy of trucks and buses crammed with Indonesian flag-wavers out of town and on the road to Liquica, the gunmen, in their black shirts bearing the Aitarak militia insignia, marched through the streets shooting wildly in the air.

Streets in the town centre emptied before them as they descended on the main resistance headquarters. In a road beside the office, a South Korean cameraman filmed the militia members shooting their home-made guns.

The militia turned on him, but police intervened and he was unharmed. So, too, was a female colleague who got out of a car to help him. She had a gun forced into her back before police also hurried her away. Both were ordered to shelter behind a truck.

I was among three other journalists told to join them. After a moment of calm, about 150 militiamen marched towards the truck shouting.

Most were armed, some with Kalashnikov AK-47 automatic rifles, Portuguese pistols and sawn-off shotguns while others had knives. Some wore army fatigues, others the red beret of the Indonesian Kopassus special forces. Among them was Aitarak leader Eurico Gutierres, in army fatigues and a beret, brandishing an AK-47. Shouting "kill them all" they came for the truck. Three of us sheltered inside the cabin.

One of the two outside had a knife pulled on him. A policeman yanked back his attacker. The militiamen now shouted "kill all Australian journalists" and tried to kick the two journalists. Police pushed the two into the cabin and told us all to keep our heads down as the fighters rocked the vehicle.

When, after about 10 minutes, they moved away, guns blazing in the air, police radioed for a car but, after a few minutes, escorted us instead to the Hotel Dili.

Other journalists there had been shot at and chased by machete- wielding militiamen across the hotel compound into the main building. The firing lasted more than an hour, they said, until police formed a cordon to keep the gunmen at a distance. In the hills behind, smoke rose from several large fires.

The militias' action could only have been deliberate -- and intended, perhaps, to intimidate foreign reporters into getting out of town before Monday's vote.

Australia ready to rescue foreigners

Peter Cole-Adams -- Australia put military units on standby yesterday to evacuate about 200 Australians, and other foreign nationals, from East Timor after Monday's vote on the future of the province.

The Defence Minister, Mr Moore, and the Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, told their Indonesian counterparts, General Wiranto and Mr Ali Alatas, about the decision in advance.

Mr Moore described it as a "necessary and prudent step" in view of heightened tensions, violence and intimidation in the lead-up to Monday's ballot.

Neither Mr Moore nor the Chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Christopher Barrie, would go into detail, but they confirmed that military elements in Darwin, Townsville and elsewhere were involved in the planning for a possible evacuation and had been put on increased readiness for possible deployment.

Military analysts suggest the fast catamaran, HMAS Jervis Bay, or Australia's fleet of Hercules aircraft would be required, and that the parachute regiment or the Perth-based Special Air Service might be needed -- in addition to combat-ready troops based in Darwin and Townsville -- to secure embarkation points.

But Mr Moore said last night that Australia would send troops only in conjunction with the United Nations and with the approval of Indonesia. "But we stand ready, and [are] making plans, to evacuate Australians if the position deteriorates," he added.

The Australians include observers, civilian police and military liaison officers attached to the UN mission, as well as aid workers and journalists.

Meanwhile, Australia and the United States intensified diplomatic pressure on Jakarta to bring the pro-autonomy militias under control.

The US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, Mr Stanley Roth, said in Canberra that a successful resolution of the East Timor problem could give Indonesia a special claim for international help to restructure its economy.

But he warned there would be negative consequences if the independence-or-autonomy ballot and its aftermath were marred by a security breakdown. "It won't be business as usual ...," he told the National Press Club. "They [the Indonesians] will pay a price if this is not managed well."

Mr Downer said he had told Mr Alatas that it was "absolutely critical" to stop militia violence, that any threat of death or injury against Australians in East Timor was completely unacceptable, and that the consequences of harm to any Australian would be "very serious indeed".

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Brereton was on his way to Dili yesterday as a member of Australia's 10-member observer mission for Monday's ballot.

He said more than 438,000 people had shown courage in registering to vote but would be going to the polls against the backdrop of months of violence and intimidation.

Thousands go hungry as mayor blocks aid

Mark Dodd -- Something is rotten in the regency of Suai. About 3,000 East Timorese refugees are living in unsanitary conditions, without adequate food, water or medicine, crammed into the grounds of an unfinished church under grass roof humpies and plastic sheeting.

They are in fear of their lives because outside the grounds are the Laksaur militia who, helped by local army personnel, drove the refugees from their homes in a deadly pogrom of house burnings, murder and intimidation earlier this year.

The local bupati (mayor) says the refugees, many of whom are women with infants, support independence and are undeserving of humanitarian aid. He cut off their water supply last week and refused access for a relief convoy from Dili.

There is no food shortage in Suai. On Wednesday morning, a crowd of about 2,000 people showed up for a rally in town although their motivation had less to do with singing patriotic Indonesian jingles than it did with a promise of five kilograms of free rice, T-shirts and baseball caps.

Outside the church surly faced militiamen walk down the street carrying machetes. Police stand by, watching. Machetes are a traditional weapon, not illegal they say.

Shortly after 8am, two yellow dump trucks arrive at the rally and start unloading sacks of rice. Among the militia helpers, is a uniformed Indonesian police officer standing atop one of the trucks, heaving bags of rice into a sea of outstretched hands. The local priest in Suai, Father Hilario, has taken responsibility for the plight of the refugees, a thankless task which has incurred the militia's wrath, and a death threat.

"The situation now is bad," he said. "There is no food and no medicine. They have come here because of the militias who have been terrorising the local people." He described the refugees' health as "very bad". They had access to only one water point once the mains supply was restored late on Saturday following United States diplomatic pressure, he said.

"I think the reason they [local authorities] cut off the water was the bupati," Father Hilario said. "He said it was an accident, but he is angry at the people. The refugees don't want to go outside because the militia are still there. The majority of the people are pro-independence." The priest estimated more than 400 people had been murdered by the militia and their army allies in and around Suai since January -- a figure not disputed by the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET). Most of the refugees were registered to vote in Monday's referendum but he was extremely worried about their safety after polling day.

Continuing militia violence and intimidation remains a serious threat to the success of Monday's vote.

But 8,000 Indonesian police charged with maintaining law and order over the ballot period are reluctant to put themselves on a collision course with their army colleagues, although there have been some exceptions.

Suai, in the south-west corner of East Timor, and neighbouring Maliana are two recurring sites of militia violence.

UN officials and aid workersclaim militiamen were responsible for a grenade attack last Thursday. A fragmentation grenade was tossed into the church grounds but did not explode among the refugees camped there.

The office of the National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) has closed in Suai due to fears of violence, its staff moving in with the refugees. "Now we are afraid and pray to God to help us. There are many rumours that after the vote they [militia] will do something," Father Hilario said.

One 25-year-old man, called Bento, said he and his family fled from Zumulai to escape militia violence a month ago. He now lives in the church grounds with his parents, a brother and two sisters after fleeing the family home. "We were intimidated by [militia groups] Laksaur and Mahidi. That is why we fled into the forest.

We were beaten, our houses were burnt, many of us were tortured. I saw one of my friends tortured. They [militia] tore out his fingernails and stubbed cigarette butts on his hands," he said.

Asked why the militia did this, he replied: "Because we will not accept autonomy." Two other refugees, Elizabeth dos Reido, 22 and Paulo Augustin, 30 recounted similar stories.

"One day the Laksaur captured two people in our village, Fatulaura," Ms dos Reido said. "One was killed. Most of the people left the village after that incident."

Dili violence threatens independence vote

Tim Dodd, Dili -- United Nation officials are considering whether Monday's referendum for independence on East Timor can go ahead after pro-Indonesia militia groups fought pitched battles with independence supporters in Dili's streets yesterday afternoon, leaving at least three people dead.

Shots echoed around Dili for 30 minutes as militiamen smashed the offices of the main independence organisation, the National Council of Timorese Resistance and sent truckloads of armed men into Becoro, a suburb of Dili which strongly supports independence.

The worst of the violence erupted after a pro-Indonesian rally attended by several thousand people, where Mr Eurico Guterres, the leader of the local militia group, Aitarak, urged his followers, who included armed militiamen, to go to Becoro, an independence neighbourhood.

Mr Guterres had earlier threatened to push for East Timor to be partitioned if the independence side wins Monday's ballot. Pro- Indonesian feeling is much stronger in the western section of East Timor.

Last night, UN officials were conferring with the Indonesian authorities and diplomats on whether the referendum can proceed, given the poor security.

After talks with both sides, the UN mission, which is running the referendum, has decided to cancel today's campaigning by the independence side in case it sparks more violence.

Indonesian police, who have been heavily criticised for not acting to stop trouble, did intervene yesterday by firing shots into the air. They also protected at least one group of foreigners who were caught in the middle of the violence. However, the police are likely to be criticised for shooting dead one man, claimed to be a provocateur, as he ran.

The fighting in Dili yesterday contrasted with Wednesday's huge, peaceful rally by 10,000 or more independence supporters, when whole families came out to support separation from Indonesia.

Yesterday's rally by pro-Indonesia campaigners, who support remaining part of Indonesia under the autonomy package offered by President B.J. Habibie, was less than half as large and was dominated by young men rather than families.

They cruised the streets packed into more than 100 trucks and buses decorated with the red and white Indonesian national colours, then rallied at a soccer field.

Yesterday's fighting began in Becora when militia entered the area and, according to locals, threw rocks at a picture of the independence leader, Mr Xanana Gusmao.

Away from Timor, Indonesian marines shot dead five people and wounded scores of others yesterday when they confronted a Muslim mob in a fresh wave of sectarian violence in Maluku province, a military officer and witnesses said.

Lieutenant-Colonel Ivsan Art, commander of a marine battalion sent to reinforce the local police, said his men opened fire to prevent the mob from breaking into a Christian neighbourhood in the provincial capital Ambon, 2,300 kilometres east of Jakarta.

Transcript of live report from Dili

Mark Colvin: We begin the programme tonight in Dili, capital of East Timor, where there's been a major and ominous development involving a shoot-out involving pro-autonomy militias and pro- independence supporters. Our correspondent, Mark Bowling, was in the middle of it and he's just endured a fairly dangerous situation getting out of it. Mark joins me on the satellite phone now. Mark where exactly are you and how did you get to safety, to start off with?

Mark Bowling: Mark, we are down near the Dili waterfront after running the gauntlet of a militia gang. They fired at our driver. He drove very courageously through the militia gang as they aimed pipe guns at him.

They threw rocks at the car, they smashed the windows in the car. My radio Australia colleague was hit in the elbow. He has now tourniqued his elbow up. It's not bleeding extensively but we are ... we are now safe and out of that situation.

But I think it's suffice to say that the streets of Dili now are a battlefield between the pro-Jakarta militias and youths who are mainly pro-independence youths.

Mark Colvin: Do you mean your colleague was hit by a bullet or a rock?

Mark Bowling: He was hit by a flying rock as they tried to stop our vehicle. One of the rocks smashed the window, came through and hit him on the elbow.

Mark Colvin: So tell us what built up to this incident?

Mark Bowling: Well there was a stand-off between pro-Jakarta militias and the pro-independence youths.

They were separated by about a hundred metres with a motorbike which had been set on light. The only thing separating them the pro-Jakarta militias opened fire, first with pipe guns, later with automatic weapons, and rather than run away the pro- independence youths ran forward with sticks and stones and tried to fight back.

So it became a very explosive situation. We understand that that whole fight between the two groups started with the burning of a house which belonged to a pro-independence supporter.

Mark Colvin: You were an eye-witness right in the middle of this, and you're telling me that the ones who were armed with guns, pipe guns, automatic weapons -- they were the pro-autonomy militias. The pro-Jakarta forces. And are you saying that the pro-independence forces were not armed in that way at all?

Mark Bowling: That's correct. It was the pro-Jakarta militias who had both crude weapons made out of pipes and cobbled together pieces of wood, but also we heard ... we heard automatic firing outcoming from their direction as well. Facing off with them were the pro-independence youths who were simply -- and I can say that because we were amongst them -- armed with sticks and stones.

Mark Colvin: Now clearly this represents a major betrayal of the promises by the pro-autonomy militias that they had and would disarm. It also is presumably a major breach of UN regulations in that they were holding a pro-autonomy march and rally in Dili and there were armed people there. How serious an incident is this, given that we're only a few days now from the poll itself?

Mark Bowling: Well, it's extremely serious especially when the UN and other officials have been saying that Dili is calm and under control, and that the areas to worry about, the main hot-spots in East Timor, are towns along the border area between East Timor and West Timor. They have pointed out these towns as being Maliana and Sawai and so forth, but this afternoon we've seen that the calm has broken in Dili itself.

It all started with a large pro-integration, that is pro-Jakarta rally through the streets and that ended with a large gathering in a football field and after that it's obvious to say that the pro-Jakarta militiamen have taken to the streets, looked at places to burn and people to shoot at.

Mark Colvin; And the obvious question ... the other obvious question, I suppose, is where were the police?

Mark Bowling: Well, the police did arrive at the scene that we were discussing before, the stand-off between the two groups, but very very late. They came in and tried to get the pro- independence youths to move away. They were met by shouts and screams and told to get away themselves. They were unable to control that group and therefore unable to control the situation.

Mark Colvin: Mark Bowling, thank you very much indeed for that. Stay safe and look after your RA colleague.

Mark Bowling: Thank you, Mark.

Militias out in force as last rally cancelled

Militiamen strutted the capital's streets yesterday, a day after going on a deadly rampage, as a final rally in the campaign for next week's vote fell victim to the violence.

Armed police were on guard, but there was no sign of a planned joint rally by supporters and opponents of independence on the last day of official campaigning for Monday's autonomy ballot.

Amid international condemnation of the Indonesian police, residents in the Kuluhun neighbourhood placed rocks and leaves on a road to mark the spot where two independence supporters died on Thursday.

The pair were among six killed as pro-Indonesian militiamen, pressing for acceptance of the autonomy package in Monday's vote, fought running battles with independence supporters.

Indonesian police for the most part were unable to prevent Thursday's violence, and in many cases stood by and allowed pro- Jakarta militia members, several of whom were carrying automatic weapons, to fire on groups of independence supporters.

There were unconfirmed but credible eyewitness reports that police killed one independence supporter with a shot in the back after he demanded they arrest rampaging pro-Jakarta militiamen.

At a news conference yesterday, Indonesia's Ambassador-at-Large for East Timor, Francisco Lopes da Cruz, accused independence supporters of starting the violence by stoning a pro-autonomy rally.

On the streets of Dili, tension remained high yesterday. Local staff fled the office of the UN refugee agency, leaving only one expatriate to guard the premises. Militia fired shots near a Unamet office, wounding two.

Several Dili-based human rights groups told of continuing violence in the pro-independence suburbs of Kuluhun and adjacent Becora.

Many people were fleeing those neighbourhoods for the mountains or escaping to join family and friends in safer parts of Dili.

One woman resident of Becora, who asked not to be named, told human rights workers that the Aitarak militia had threatened to steal her voter registration card and rape her if she voted in the ballot.

Men armed with arrows and machetes patrolled the side of the road, defending Kuluhun against any fresh militia violence. One youth had a homemade gun. "There is an Aitarak company behind the church with automatic weapons," a youth said.

Some shops were open and public transport was running in central Dili as the two-week campaign came to an end. But most streets were quiet.

East Timor's all-party Committee for Peace and Justice met yesterday with representatives of the militias, including Aitarak militia chief Eurico Guterres.

But no pro-independence representatives were at the meeting, which came amid international calls for Indonesia to do more to curb the militias.

Pessimism grows ahead of East Timor vote

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili -- Australia's senior observers have given a gloomy assessment of Monday's historic ballot on the future of East Timor, but said there was no alternative but to press ahead.

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Laurie Brereton, said a "huge question mark" hangs over the referendum in which 450,000 registered voters will be asked to choose between autonomy within Indonesia or independence.

"The die has been cast now and it is very well cast," Mr Brereton said. "As each of us knows, the [Indonesian] responsibility for security has not been met. We live in hope it will be met in the next two days. But today it is tragedy heaped on tragedy."

The former Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tim Fischer, said the United Nations-organised poll had to go ahead. "East Timorese registered to vote against all odds, so don't write off the process yet. What other alternative is there?"

In Dili, most shops were closed and the streets virtually deserted as Jakarta faced mounting international pressure over the continuing violence which left at least four people dead last night.

In New York, the UN condemned the violence and extended until November 30 the mandate of the UN Mission in East Timor.

In Washington, President Clinton warned Indonesia that its relations with the United States would be seriously damaged if there was mass violence during the referendum process.

And in Australia, preparations were continuing for a possible military evacuation of as many as 2000 foreigners, including 200 Australians.

In the latest attacks in and around the town of Maliana, Indonesian police are reported to have stood by and watched as pro-Jakarta militias burnt houses and attacked people. Since the militias provoked a fresh wave of violence in Dili on Thursday, many residents of the capital and the other main towns have stayed indoors, raising concern they will be too frightened to vote. Jakarta has undertaken to allow independence for the former Portuguese colony after 23 years of Indonesian rule if its autonomy package is rejected.

US threatens Indonesia over Timor violence

Washington -- US President Bill Clinton has warned the president of Indonesia that relations with the US will be seriously damaged -- including an implicit threat to curtail international aid -- if there is mass violence during next week's referendum on self- rule in East Timor, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing senior administration officials. The US effectively has veto power over international loans to Indonesia. Administration officials declined to reveal the exact wording of the president's warning in a letter sent this week, but one senior official told the New York Times the threat of curtailing international loans and other aid through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank wasn't stated directly in the letter.

"But it's implicit," he said. Another senior official said: "It's a very tough letter."

Officials told the New York Times that Clinton's letter to President B.J. Habibie was intended to put him on notice that he will be held responsible if the Indonesian military fails to crack down on the anti-independence militias that have been responsible for several recent killings in East Timor.

The Indonesian government has been promised nearly $50 billion in loans from the IMF to deal with the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis, which has crippled the economy of the vast archipelago nation.

A three-member congressional delegation that just returned from East Timor said that mass violence was a strong possibility next week, especially given the close ties between the well armed anti-independence militias and the Indonesian military and police.

"My worst fears are coming true," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who led the delegation last week and who supports the immediate use of peacekeeping troops there, possibly including Americans. "I predicted this.

The civilian forces, the Indonesian police, are not going to stop these thugs. They're openly associating with them."

Harkin told The New York Times that if there is widespread violence next week, he would push the administration to punish Indonesia under a 1977 law requiring the US to vote against World Bank loans for countries that systematically violate human rights.

"It's important to underline the fact that the Indonesian government itself has placed its credibility on the line here," spokesman James Foley told the New York Times. "The responsibility for maintaining law and order is East Timor is very much the responsibility of the Indonesian authorities."

Island of fear and faith

The battle for the hearts and minds -- and votes -- of the East Timorese people will not lose its passion, writes Hamish McDonald from Dili, even after Monday's referendum.

Just after 6am, the camp of palm-leaf huts is barely astir. Smoke from fires drifts in the soft light across the looming walls of a half-built cathedral shrouded in bamboo scaffolds. A few figures, sarongs around their shoulders, survey the bare expanse of the churchyard to its iron-paling fence.

Yet the ramshackle old church is already full, men on the right, women on the left. Voices soar in sweet island harmonies. The white-clad priest intones the prayers in Tetum language, and 300 sets of knees go down on the bare concrete floor and 300 sets of palms are put together under 300 chins.

Father Domingos Soares begins his sermon, and there is silence broken only by coughing. On Monday comes a duty of voting which everyone has to accept with full responsibility, before their own conscience, their people, and before God, to choose what they think best for East Timor. We have suffered and waited a long time, he says. Now is the moment for us to speak.

Later, when the sun is burning hot, there is another gathering across the straggling township. Motorbikes rasp through the streets, pillion passengers waving red and white Indonesian flags, followed by dump-trucks and mini-buses crammed with young people.

In an open field where they all stop, police are blowing whistles. A burly young man takes the mike in front of a large speaker system and tries to lead everyone in a song that repeats the word "Otonomi" (autonomy). But the crowd is distracted: it mobs a truck from which a uniformed police sergeant is tossing T-shirts, caps and lettered headbands to a sea of raised hands. Across the field, a small crowd of housewives sit around a truck loaded with rice sacks.

These are the final days of campaigning before Monday's vote on the territory's future, a vote to stay with Indonesia with the promise of wider autonomy, or leave it -- to strike out as South-East Asia's newest and perhaps most bizarrely configured nation.

The choice is quite sharply defined in the two cultures vying for the hearts and minds of this embattled town, Suai, in the far south-west corner of East Timor.

In the church compound are about 2,500 people identified as supporters of independence. Mostly not sophisticated people: men with beards and sun-darkened skin, women with betel-nut stained mouths, people who use the "Bon Dias" of the old Portuguese days, and raise the hand of a stranger to their lips.

They include Elisa du Redo, 22, who walked in from the outlying village of Fatuloro with her husband and their four young children two months ago after armed men drove everyone from their homes. Or Paulo Augustim, 36, who fled Taroman in May, after the same group came looking for enemies and shot one in front of the entire village.

Running that day's pro-autonomy meeting is the same armed group, a pro-Indonesian militia called Laksaur. It is said to be mild compared with the Mahidi, another militia largely responsible for the deaths of the 400 or so independence sympathisers the church estimates have been killed in the Suai-Same region since January.

The Laksaur operates from an annexe to the local traffic police office and its rally has every facility the government of surrounding Covalima regency can provide. Many of the attendees are younger than 17, the voting age for the United Nations- supervised ballot, suggesting local schoolchildren have been rounded up. The free T-shirts and caps, the rations of rice at one-third the market price -- both are evidence of powerful backing.

By contrast, Elisa, Paulo and their fellow "internally displaced persons" -- get nothing but harassment. Their rations come from private charity, chiefly CARE, Caritas and Yayasan Hak (Rights Foundation). Last week, the Laksaur prowled around one night, shooting guns in the air and throwing rocks. The bupati (head of the regency) turned off the water supply to the church, and only put it back on four days later when two American senators came and complained.

A week before campaigning was officially over, the Suai branch of the pro-independence movement, the National Committee of Timorese Resistance, or CNRT, closed its office in the town and moved into the church grounds, because of intimidation. It stopped holding rallies because people seen attending were later visited at home and threatened by militias. This week the house of an independence sympathiser was burnt. The bupati has just stopped the rice ration of one civil servant whose husband supports the CNRT.

Indonesian police, responsible for security of the UN plebiscite, lounge around near the Suai market, where pedlars lay out wizened vegetables and tiny eggs. "The police will disperse militias," says one of Suai's group of the 1,400 foreign observers monitoring the poll across Timor. "But they won't follow up complaints, and they won't step on the military's toes."

Like other church leaders and independent analysts, this observer has heard stories of special military groups -- formed of serving or former members of the feared Kopassus or Special Forces unit which took a leading role in the brutal conquest of East Timor from 1974 onwards -- leading the Laksaur and Mahidi in terror raids out of nearby West Timor.

Nothing can be confirmed but the fears are real and held by educated, informed people. And while much has changed in West Timor, some things haven't. Kupang, a wild mixing pot of the archipelago's ethnic groups, has luxury hotels and supermarkets, and a newspaper, Pos Kupang, that has taken political reform to heart and gives its readers an unrelenting diet of corruption and power-struggle stories.

But up the long twisting road out through the dry mountainous landscape, the island is closer to its violent, feudal past. Many of the dwellings are still thatch-roofed huts and people walk the roads barefooted, with machetes swinging at their belts. It is a land of feuds, of cattle raids, of fierce wars between warriors swinging cutlasses made of sharpened car springs. "They have high blood pressure," says a Balinese policeman in Atambua, the main town near the border. "Arguments shift easily to blows."

Early last week, Atambua was full of militia leaders from across the border-tough middle-aged men in black T-shirts, fatigue trousers, and military-style vests. They filled the central Intan Hotel, and ate a huge meal at the town's best restaurant, guarded by police. The deputy police chief of Nusa Tenggara Timur province (which includes West Timor) was also in town, and the next morning the panglima (regional military commander) arrived.

Since the Portuguese and Dutch set up rival empires more than 300 years ago, contending powers have never found any shortage of local recruits to fight and oppress fellow Timorese. "There is no other source of money in these villagers," says an observer. "If someone puts you on the payroll and gives you rice to turn up, you do it."

On Thursday, the militias came back to the capital, Dili. From mid-morning the town filled with hundreds of motorcycles and dozens of seized trucks and buses and other vehicles -- even a fire engine. Late in the sultry, clouded day, clashes happened with watching independence supporters. Quickly the eastern sector of the town became a battleground, weapons were produced and fired, the CNRT headquarters wrecked. Gunshot victims trickled into the few clinics run by religious orders. Between three and 11 people were killed. No arrests were made by police, who themselves shot one of the victims -- a young man trying to run away from militias.

An attempt to derail the vote, or just another case of "high blood pressure"? Most analysts here, including the United Nations Assistance Mission on East Timor (UNAMET), think something like the latter. Had the militias tried to seriously disrupt the vote, Dili would have been in flames and a lot more blood would have been running in the streets before the Indonesian garrison turned out.

So on Monday, it appears, the vote will go ahead. The Timorese will have to face down the ranks of militias who will prowl the streets of towns like Suai, and put their trust in the few UNAMET officials, unarmed foreign police and military liaison officers, plus the volunteer observers, a courageous group staying in isolated, uncomfortable posts for the past three weeks. Some will have to make the risky journey back from refugee camps like the Suai church ground to the villages where they are registered. The vote will be a battle between faith and fear.

Faith of people like Elisa du Rado and Paulo Augustim at Suai, who know little about the shape of an independent East Timor but are clear about what they want. "We don't know about these things because we are just small people," says Augustim, when asked what kind of government he expected. "But we don't like the Indonesians because they have their five principles [the state ideology of Pancasila] but their attitude is completely different."

And fear of militia leaders, like Eurico Guterres, leader of the Aitarak militia group active around Dili and Liquica, who openly threatens to seal off East Timor from outside contact after the vote and turn it into a "sea of flames".

It will also be a battle of magical beliefs. On the militia side the elaborate oath ceremonies with drinks of animal blood and liquor, and the planting of Indonesian flags in front of almost every household.

On the independence side, a sense of traditional lulik, or sacred duty, going back beyond the time when Dominican friars planted Christianity at Lifau in 1556, layered by membership of a church that has stayed with the people through all their hard times and, under Nobel laureate Bishop Carlos Belo, has put their rights before the world.

These mostly illiterate people will have to mark a ballot paper asking two quite complicated questions. But the observers have been impressed at the way 450,000 or so have registered, turning up with the required documentation even in remote locations. They know that the vote is the main test, but that many others will follow.

Father Hilario, the head priest in Suai, believes that Timorese will keep faith. Even the militias, he thinks. "They do what they are doing to save themselves," he says. "But in their hearts it does not correspond with what they feel."

And after the vote? "We are very afraid, and we pray to God to help us," Father Hilario says. "There are many rumours that after the vote they [the militias] will do something, that they will attack."

Watching a pro-autonomy rally, an observer makes the same point. "They know who to kill," he says. "If these people start to die, the international community will have a terrible responsibility. We will all get on a plane after the poll and leave. The polling staff will also leave. There will be just the UN police and military staff. The people here are very fearful."

Indonesia will fight if UN peace force sent

Lisbon -- The Indonesian army will fight to the last soldier if a UN peacekeeping force is sent to East Timor without Jakarta's approval, a senior Indonesian diplomat told the Portuguese news agency Lusa on Friday.

Nughrobo Wisnumurti, head of his country's delegation to triparite talks here between Indonesia, Portugal and the United Nations, was quoted as saying that "we will never submit to international pressure nor allow foreign soldiers in East Timor as long as this territory is Indonesian."

Wisnumurti said the United Nations "cannot send a [peacekeeping force] without an agreement" but that if it did, "we would send troops." His country, he said, "was not Kosovo."

Wisnumurti said that, regardless of the outcome of Monday's vote, Indonesia had sufficient resources to guarantee public order in East Timor. If there was conflict after the vote, Indonesia would have no need to increase its forces in the territory, he said.

He also predicted that Monday's outcome would be 50:50 between integrationists and independence-seekers.

Photographer says saw police protester

Lisbon -- A photographer with US magazine Time said on Friday he had witnessed Indonesian police shoot dead a 25-year-old unarmed protester in the head during clashes in East Timor ahead of Monday's ballot on independence.

The American photographer told Portugal's TSF radio that he had photographed the killing in the East Timor capital Dili on Thursday. He said the picture would be published by Time on Monday.

"The police shot him and turned around and walked away," said the photographer, whom TSF said had asked that his name not be revealed for security reasons.

"The police were chasing a presumed supporter of independence who wore an emblem in support of [East Timor resistance leader] Xanana [Gusmao] on his hat. He [the youth] had obviously been involved in the clashes," he added.

"They [police] ran up right close to him, maybe within two metres, and shot him in the back of the head. He died immediately," the photographer said.

He said the police involved in the incident, between eight and 10, walked away immediately. The photographer said he did not know why the police had picked out this youth.

`Dirty-tricks' general recalled

Mark Dodd, Dili -- Under intense diplomatic pressure, Jakarta has recalled from Dili a senior intelligence officer alleged to be a key figure behind militia activity in East Timor.

A foreign diplomat said the decision to recall Major-General Zacky Anwar had been made by the Indonesian Defence Minister, General Wiranto. General Anwar, a career intelligence officer serving as senior military liaison to the UN mission, is widely believed to be a dirty-tricks specialist involved in the campaign against independence. He left Dili on Monday.

In related developments, two senior military officers in command of district posts in strife-torn Suai and Maliana have been reassigned, the diplomat said.

General Anwar is expected to be replaced by the head of Kopassus (Special Forces Command), a close colleague of General Wiranto. Indonesian military sources in Dili declined to confirm or deny the developments.

The decision was taken before yesterday's bloody street clashes between rival supporters of the independence and autonomy proposals that left at least five killed, more than 12 people injured and property destroyed.

"Our thoughts are this -- Wiranto is on line to try and stop this violence. He's got all this international pressure and he wants to be [Indonesia's] next vice-president," the diplomat said.

In a similar surprise move last week Special Forces Colonel Tono Suratman was replaced by Colonel Mohamed Noer Muis as East Timor's military commander. The head of the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), Ian Martin, told a packed news conference today that he believed there was a new willingness in Jakarta to act against militia violence to ensure a successful referendum.

"I believe that at the highest level of the Indonesian Government there is a wish to see the popular consultation completed peacefully," he said. "At the same time that is not translating into the conduct of Indonesian security forces on the ground."

Overnight the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, attacked Indonesia for its failure to prevent widespread militia violence on the streets of Dili.

Yesterday's violence, centred in the pro-independence suburbs of Kuluhun and Becora, was believed to have been instigated by pro- Jakarta militia on the last day of political campaigning for a referendum on East Timor's future political status scheduled for Monday. "The Secretary-General is appalled at the widespread violence in Dili. He demands the Indonesian authorities take immediate steps to restore and maintain law and order," a statement said.

Mr Annan called on Indonesian authorities to arrest those responsible for planning and carrying out yesterday's mayhem and reaffirmed the determination of the UNAMET to press ahead and hold the historic ballot.

Human rights officials in Dili reported scores of residents fleeing Kuluhun and Becora overnight to escape militia retribution, although calm was restored on the streets on Friday. After receiving militia threats, the local staff of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) fled on Friday leaving the Dili office manned by one expatriate.

Mr Martin said today with polling only three days away, Indonesian police had repeatedly failed to uphold their obligation to ensure security. The small UN mission in East Timor is unarmed and has no peace-enforcement role, relying on pressure from the international community to force Jakarta to stick to the terms of the agreement it signed in New York last May.

"I can only hope that Indonesia's very keen awareness that the eyes of the world are on East Timor will finally have that effect," Mr Martin said.

"Clearly there was not adequate security in Dili yesterday just as there has not been adequate security in Maliana, Viqueque and other places in recent days.

That's why these statements make clear that the Indonesians have a responsibility to do more than is being done to ensure security," he said.

The trouble with trusting Indonesia

Brian Toohey -- Australian policy makers have fought long and hard to get the international community to trust Indonesia's security forces to prevent a bloodbath in East Timor. So it is little wonder that the Defence Minister, John Moore, claimed he was merely taking a "routine precaution" when he announced on Thursday that Australian forces were being put on alert to evacuate people from East Timor.

The only trouble was that the rest of Moore's statement highlighted how Australian policy is in ruins. Far from the security situation improving in East Timor as envisaged by Australian policy, Moore admitted: "There is a real risk that the violence could become more widespread in the lead-up to [Monday's] ballot and thereafter."

It is now clear that the Indonesian security forces have deliberately destroyed the chances of a free and fair independence ballot in East Timor on Monday. Unfortunately, it is also clear that, thanks mainly to Australian diplomacy, it is much too late to put any alternative policy in place if the same security forces prove they can't be trusted to prevent a bloodbath after the ballot.

The Indonesian military has never given any sign it wants to end its brutal occupation of East Timor, which began with the 1975 invasion. The signs certainly did not improve when it started organising, funding, training and arming anti-independence militia groups last October.

Given this backdrop, it is not surprising that the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Stanley Roth, has described Australia's opposition to a UN peace-keeping force in East Timor as "defeatist".

Roth's blunt expression of his disappointment occurred during talks in February with the head of the Australian Foreign Affairs department, Dr Ashton Calvert. Roth had asked Australia to help build support for a peace-keeping force to prevent bloodshed while the East Timorese moved towards an act of self- determination.

But Calvert was adamant that "adept diplomacy" would ensure this was unnecessary. (This was not Calvert's first diplomatic foray involving Indonesia. As an adviser to the former Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, he helped bring about the ignominious 1995 Security Treaty with the Soeharto regime.)

According to the leaked record of the February conversation, Calvert stressed the importance of encouraging the East Timorese to sort out their differences without resort to the UN. Given one side was being armed and incited by the Indonesian military to kill the other side, Calvert seemed a little short of practical suggestions on how this encouragement might be conveyed.

After all, the Australian policy of relying on the instigators of the violence to maintain the peace would scarcely seem a convincing way to build trust.

Calvert's performance was further distinguished by his bizarre observation that the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Ali Alatas, was more of a problem than the head of the military, General Wiranto. As is now plain, the Indonesian military, under Wiranto's command, is responsible for much of the violence that will prevent a free and fair ballot on Monday.

Yet the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, seems immensely pleased with the policy urged upon the US by his departmental head. Downer told Parliament earlier this month that Roth was "grateful" for the insight Calvert had given him about Indonesian resistance to peace keepers; "only a child", he said, would continue to push for peace keepers in these circumstances.

Downer also boasted that Australia had taken a leading role in formulating international policy on East Timor.

Unfortunately, Downer is correct: US officials say privately that they were not prepared to push for peace keepers in the teeth of such determined opposition from an ally so close to the problem.

No-one claims that getting UN support for a peace-keeping force would have been simple. But due largely to Australia's opposition, the effort was not even made. As a result, Alatas signed an agreement with the UN on May 5 which left the responsibility for ensuring a free and fair ballot to Indonesia. Alatas specifically agreed that it was essential that the Indonesian security forces stay "absolutely neutral".

There is now a mountain of evidence -- especially from Australian intelligence sources -- that this has not occurred. Instead, Indonesian forces have masterminded a terror campaign.

The violence has become so bad that most outside observers, including journalists, now look like being evacuated from East Timor within a couple of days of the ballot.

No-one knows for sure if the bloodbath repeatedly promised by the militias will ensue. But the evacuation of potentially damning witnesses will scarcely act as a deterrent.

The prospect of a bloodbath prompted the head of the US military command in the Pacific, Admiral Blair, to meet the commander of Australian Theatre forces, Air Vice Marshall Treloar, in Honolulu in June. They discussed contingency plans to dispatch 15,000 US troops to East Timor to stop militia violence and facilitate an evacuation.

Treloar agreed to pass on a request for US forces to transit through Darwin. In an extraordinary display of confidence, Australian officials did not bother to pass this on to either Moore or Downer. Instead, they rejected the request out of hand -- thus reassuring the militia that they were in no danger of being disarmed by a well-equipped US force.

Australian policy makers were aghast at the proposal, which they saw as guaranteeing that the Indonesian military would go to war with the US.

The idea is fanciful. The US Pacific Command was not planning to fight the Indonesian military but to take over the job the latter was failing to do on behalf of the UN in a territory that had just voted for independence.

General Wiranto may be brutal and untrustworthy, but he is not mad. He is well aware that the US military could destroy his entire command and control structure if he starts a war.

Except, of course, against the East Timorese. In that case, he knows he can rely on Australian policy makers to stay the US hand.

Meanwhile, the Australian military is getting ready for the next in its ongoing series of friendly exercises with the Indonesian military, imaginatively codenamed Kakadu, Cassowary, Rajawali Ausindo, Elang Ausindo, Albatross Ausindo, Trisetia and New Horizon.

Jakarta tells world to mind own business

Craig Skehan -- The Indonesian Government has hit back at foreign critics of the upsurge in violence in East Timor, arguing it does not need outside pressure over its handing of Monday's ballot on self-determination in the territory.

The Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, expressed regret over yesterday's violence, but he rejected calls for international peacekeepers to be sent to the territory.

And a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the fighting in Dili was "not major" and that Jakarta did not need foreign advice on how to maintain security in East Timor before the ballot.

The spokesman was commenting on a statement by the Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, that the world was watching events in East Timor and that Indonesia's reputation depended on the outcome of the vote. Mr Howard said he would be contacting the Indonesian President, Dr B.J. Habibie, over the weekend to press Australia's concerns.

But a senior Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Sulaiman Abdulmanan, told The Age: "We don't need international pressure. We have already decided ourselves to solve this problem."

He said Indonesian authorities were working resolutely to implement the terms of an agreement with the United Nations for conducting the ballot.

Mr Sulaiman rejected a call by the imprisoned pro-independence leader Jose "Xanana" Gusmao for the dispatch of armed UN peacekeepers to East Timor as a result of yesterday's clashes.

"Nothing has changed and I think our position has already been made very clear on a peacekeeping force," Mr Sulaiman said. "There were some clashes yesterday, but in the history of East Timor they were not major. Do you think there could be a peacekeeping force brought in now? Do you think there is time? I don't think so. The situation is not as bad as many other part of the world."

Mr Sulaiman called for greater balance in media reporting on East Timor and for journalists not to exaggerate the level of violence. "It is not only the integration side [causing problems], it is the pro-independence groups as well making provocations," he said.

Mr Alatas said he was confident that order would be restored in Dili. "We regret the incidents of yesterday," he told Reuters. Mr Alatas said that Mr Gusmao's planned release on 15 September was contingent on the result of Monday's ballot being known several days earlier.

Indonesia slammed over militia violence

Dili -- The United Nations on Friday led international condemnation of Indonesia's handling of militia violence in East Timor as an exiled separatist leader called for a UN peacekeeping force.

The United Nations demanded that Indonesia crack down on armed anti-independence militias trying to disrupt Monday's vote on East Timor's future.

And the head of the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), Ian Martin, slammed Indonesian police handling of the militia rampage Thursday which left five dead.

The violence forced the cancelation of a joint rally by opponents and supporters of independence on the final day of the vote campaign on Friday.

"All that was witnessed by UNAMET suggests that it was the militias carrying guns, weapons and that once again heavily armed police failed to intervene when that militia violence was carried out in front of them," Martin told foreign journalists.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer urged Indonesia to take action to maintain security in the lead-up to the ballot, in which East Timorese will vote on an offer of broad autonomy.

"The behaviour of a bunch of thugs on the streets of Dili or in other towns of East Timor should not stop the people of East Timor being able to exercise democratically their own wishes and to determine their own future," he said.

Exiled independence campaigner Jose Ramos-Horta urged Australia and the United States to take tougher action against Indonesia and said the deployment of an international peacekeeping force was imperative.

"At this stage the conditions require a peacekeeping force because it is the only way to save the whole process and to save lives," the Nobel Peace Prize winner told AFP in Sydney.

Indonesia would only act if it received serious warnings from Australia and the United States that they were prepared to intervene militarily, he said.

The United States welcomed a pledge Thursday by Jakarta to release jailed separatist leader Xanana Gusmao in mid-September, but called on Indonesia to do more.

"Indonesia must create an environment free of intimidation in which to hold the vote and, furthermore, reassure all parties that it will accept and uphold the decision of the people of East Timor," State Department spokesman James Foley said.

Martin said the head of UNAMET's civilian police contingent, Alan Mills, had spoken with East Timor police chief Colonel Timbul Silaen about the "deplorable" violence. Silaen denied accusations that police had done nothing. "It is not like that," he told the private SCTV television channel, claiming a deployment of four companies across Dili had prevented worse loss of life.

But Martin added: "Clearly there was not adequate security in Dili yesterday just as there has not been adequate security in Maliana and Viqueque and other places in recent days."

Indonesian police, who are in charge of security for the historic vote, had occasionally taken action but "almost never by arresting those responsible or seizing their weapons," he said.

Independence supporters take to streets

Convinced they will win a historic UN-supervised referendum by a landslide next week, up to 10,000 jubilant supporters of independence for East Timor defied threats by rivals and choked the streets of Dili on Wednesday.

It was the most impressive display of the separatist movement's popular strength to date and far outmatched earlier and more subdued rallies by anti-independence campaigners.

"We are sure 90 percent of East Timor's people will vote for independence," said Manuel Carrascalao, a longtime pro- independence politician.

Wednesday's crowd turned out despite what activists say is a campaign of violence and intimidation against civilians and UN staff by militia groups accused of trying to derail the ballot so they can stay part of Indonesia.

Riot police broke up a brief clash between pro and anti- independence groups after both sides threw rocks. One man was injured before officers closed off a street adjacent to a militia building.

Overall, however, the rally was peaceful. Hundreds of people rode on trucks, buses and motorcycles in a noisy and smokey parade along Dili's coconut palm-lined and ramshackle streets.

"Today is a golden day for us, ahead is freedom and independence," said Zoana Victor, a 38-year-old resistance supporter who was jailed by Indonesia in the 1970s.

Many waved the blue, green, and white independence flags that were banned until recently. Others carried portraits of jailed rebel leader "Xanana" Gusmao.

The celebration was marred by a traffic accident in which three people died. Three others were injured in the collision between a truck and a car in the motorcade.

Members of Indonesia's armed forces, accused for decades of human rights abuses in their quest to crush separatist guerillas, watched passively as the raucous procession moved slowly by their barracks. A police helicopter hovered overhead.

Earlier, thousands rallied outside the seafront headquarters of the Council for Timorese National Resistance. They sang and danced, and chanted "Long live East Timor", and "Long live Xanana".

Xanana outlines East Timor program

Jakarta -- Jailed East Timor resistance leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao promised on Wednesday to offer amnesty to his political opponents if East Timorese voted for independence on the August 30 ballot.

"This act of generosity transcends our emotions, heals wounds and elevates the soul of our people. I wholeheartedly appeal for an immediate end to violence," he said in a press conference at his detention house in Central Jakarta.

The press conference was conducted in three languages in succession: Portuguese, English and Indonesian. More than 50 local and foreign journalists attended.

In his first comprehensive program proposal for an independent East Timor to be renamed Timor Lorosae, Xanana said he would immediately hold negotiations with the Indonesian government to define the status of East Timorese civil servants, maintain the rupiah currency and protect the rights of Indonesians who decided to live and work in East Timor.

Xanana said if the vote favored proindependence, a transitional government would set up a five-year development plan starting from the year 2000.

Xanana shied away from the issue of disarmament despite the continuing violence that rocked the former Portuguese colony.

Five days before the ballot only a few symbolic gestures of arms surrender have been carried out by the prointegration militia. The proindependence militia, Falintil, has said it would not give up its arms to the Indonesian Military.

In his eight-page statement covering at least 15 points, Xanana called for the East Timorese to reconcile their differences and uphold national unity. He declared a fight against illiteracy and promised empowerment of the society as well as a self-sufficient economy based on a market economy with selective intervention from the state. He declared that solidarity with the Portuguese people is unbreakable.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported from Vatican City that Pope John Paul on Wednesday called for reconciliation in East Timor and for an end to recent violence in Ambon, Maluku.

Speaking at his weekly general audience, the pontiff said he hoped the people of East Timor would be moved by "a sincere desire to work for reconciliation and contribute to healing the painful wounds of the past".

Jakarta officials set to reject poll

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili -- Indonesia's top officials in East Timor are preparing to reject the outcome of Monday's ballot on the territory's future, claiming the way the United Nations will count the votes is flawed.

Mr F.Lopes Da Cruz, Jakarta's ambassador-at-large for East Timor, said today the UN's plans to transport the votes to a central location in the capital, Dili, were not democratic or transparent.

"There is definitely a possibility to reject the ballot," said Mr Da Cruz, a long-term campaigner against East Timor separating from Indonesia.

As UN officials, diplomats and independent analysts predict a win for independence supporters, Mr Da Cruz stepped up the pressure on the UN to agree to count the votes at 200 polling centres across the territory.

"If you try to bring the ballot boxes to Dili, by road or helicopter, anything could happen to them on the way," he said. "It is not fair. If they are counted at the polling booth there will be many people who will be able to see what is happening."

Mr Da Cruz is the second senior Indonesian official to criticise the counting system, despite the UN's blunt rejection of any review.

After Mr Dino Patti Djalal, the spokesman for Indonesia's taskforce in Dili, last week demanded the UN provide a breakdown of how various districts voted, the UN's spokesman, Mr David Wimhurst, insisted: "There will be no change." The stand was confirmed today by another UN spokesman in Dili, Mr Hiro Ueki.

UN officials said UN civilian police would escort the votes to Dili. They said the priority was to ensure voters could be satisfied that no reprisals would be taken against them, whichever way they voted. "The vote must be secret," a UN official said. "There will be no compromise on this point."

But Mr Da Cruz said the security of the vote was more important than possible reprisals afterwards. "The Indonesian police are responsible for protecting people from reprisals," he said.

The controversy over the count comes amid renewed criticism of Indonesia for its refusal or inability to stop the intimidation of voters ahead of the ballot that gives 450,000 East Timorese a choice between autonomy and independence.

In New York the UN Security Council issued a statement voicing "strong concern at the continuing campaign of intimidation and violence in East Timor". It deplored "recent acts of violence and intimidation against UN staff".

Pro-Jakarta militias have been responsible for most of the intimidation and violence leading up to the vote, according to human rights groups.

The biggest group of independent observers in East Timor today joined a growing number of countries and groups calling for international troops, preferably armed, to be sent to the territory to maintain security after the ballot.

The International Federation for East Timor -- Observer Project, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, accused the Indonesian military of undermining the ballot to such an extent that it threw into question the legitimacy of the vote. It called on the Indonesian police to disarm and disband all militia and paramilitary groups.

UN bars Indonesian groups as observers

Jeremy Wagstaff, Dili -- The United Nations mission in East Timor has refused applications by 24 Indonesian government-linked youth groups to send observers to this month's referendum on the future of East Timor, in a move likely to deepen a rift between the UN team and Jakarta.

The UN East Timor mission, UNAMET, is concerned that the youth groups -- some of them regarded by many Indonesians as either creations of the government or linked to the criminal underworld -- will disrupt the August 30 ballot. The groups deny links to organized crime.

"Their intentions in coming to East Timor at this time are at best unclear and, in the light of their political track record, it seems likely that their presence could prove disruptive," a UN official said.

Functional proxies' for Jakarta

UNAMET's chief electoral officer, Jeff Fischer, refused the request Saturday in a meeting with the head of the Indonesian delegation, Djamaris Suleman, saying that the groups were "functional proxies" for Indonesia. An appeal to the UN electoral commission by Mr. Suleman was turned down later the same day. The move comes in the final week of campaigning by East Timorese for and against an offer of greater autonomy under the territory's existing ruler, Indonesia. If voters reject the offer, East Timor would effectively be declaring independence. Despite noisy and sometimes aggressive cam paigning by pro-Indonesian supporters, many observers expect East Timorese to opt for an end to Jakarta's 24-year old rule.

Fears that the groups aren't merely independent observers may have some justification. Members of the youth groups themselves say officials of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, which oversees all official youth social organizations, encouraged them to send observers.

"The main purpose of the team is to monitor the process and to give support to those people who are pro-autonomy," said Hoedaifah, the cultural chief of one group, Pemuda Pancasila, or Pancasila Youth. An assistant to the minister of youth and sports confirmed that ministry officials planned to accompany the youths.

Links denied officially

Indonesia denied any links to the move. "They are paying for themselves and are coming here on their initiative," said Dino Djalal, spokesman for the Indonesian delegation overseeing the referendum.

It wasn't clear whether the youths were East Timorese and how many were already in East Timor. Most of them are likely to arrive on a cruise ship due to dock in Dili on Tuesday, said Robby Rawis, chief of the local chapter of another of the groups, Pemuda Panca Marga, or the youth wing of army veterans. He said some 38 groups would send as many as 10 representatives each. Other people aware of the plan said the observers would number no more than 100.

It wouldn't be the first time such groups have been used by the Indonesian government as an unofficial tool. Several of the groups that have applied to send observers have been accused by local and international human-rights groups of intimidating government opponents, including political parties, nongovernment groups and the media. Since the fall of President Suharto in May 1998, however, most such groups have either lain dormant or sought more respectable roles. Some Pemuda Pancasila leaders, for example, abandoned their longstanding support for the former ruling Golkar party at national elections held in June. Combustible mix

The overt presence of such groups would add to an already combustible mix. Indonesian officials and pro-autonomy leaders accuse UNAMET of favoring the pro-independence movement. In the past few days, a UNAMET vehicle was torched and another stoned, and a UN building attacked. UN officials accuse Jakarta of organizing, arming or encouraging pro-Indonesian militias and have twice delayed the ballot because of security concerns.

Indonesian officials said the presence of Indonesian observers would help balance out what they said was a bias in favor of pro-independence observers allowed to register. "There's a perception that there are too many foreign observers," Mr. Djalal said. "This is a free game."

The rejection of accreditation is the first since UNAMET began work several months ago. The youths would be barred from polling sites, from the official counting and won't be allowed to file official procedural complaints.

[Special correspondent Rin Hindryati in Jakarta contributed to this article.]

America rules out troops for Timor ballot

Gay Alcorn, Washington -- The Clinton administration said today that, on a practical level, it was too late for an armed United Nations peacekeeping force to enter East Timor before Monday's historic ballot, but said nothing about the possibility of a force immediately after the vote.

The administration is under pressure from influential members of Congress with strong interests in human rights in East Timor to push for a peacekeeping force, rather than rely on Indonesian authorities to maintain the peace. There are UN civilian police and military liaison officers in the territory, but not an armed multinational force.

A State Department spokesman, Mr James Foley, said: "We don't believe that the dispatch of armed UN peacekeepers before 30August is possible at this point."

Mr Foley was responding to calls from a senior Democrat Senator, Mr Tom Harkin, who last week led a Congressional delegation to East Timor, for President Clinton to recommend to the UN "that they get some peacekeeping forces down here in a hurry".

Mr Foley said that the administration had been concerned very much about the security situation in East Timor in past months. "We want the vote to be a free and fair vote, an honest reflection of the will of the people of East Timor," he said.

"In a more fundamental sense, we believe this is the responsibility of the Government of Indonesia, and we don't want to take that responsibility away from them," he added.

Senator Harkin was a co-sponsor of an amendment passed in the US Senate in June which is expected to become law next month. The amendment raised the prospect of withholding aid money to Indonesia if it fails to control pro-Government militia groups responsible for widespread violence in East Timor.

Although the UN is developing plans for a force, it would not be in place until at least four months after the ballot, which many observers believe will be too late to avoid violence.

The assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Mr Stanley Roth, is due in Australia this week. As the administration's most senior policy adviser on Asia, Mr Roth is considered influential with President Clinton and committed to a smooth transition in East Timor.

Earlier this year, Mr Roth met the head of Australia's Foreign Affairs Department, Dr Ashton Calvert, when, according to a record of the meeting, Mr Roth said Australia's aversion to a peacekeeping force was defeatist. Both governments have denied any policy rift over East Timor.

Jakarta loyalists warn of new Timor war

Tim Johnston, Dili -- A leading opponent of East Timorese independence said on Tuesday that a narrow loss in next Monday's ballot on the future status of the troubled territory would lead to a renewed guerrilla war.

The warning came as Indonesia's military warned that militants on both sides were out to provoke violence in the troubled territory.

Tito Baptista, chairman of the United Front for East Timor Autonomy, said opponents of independence would be prepared to wage a guerrilla war if 40 percent of voters chose autonomy and 60 percent chose independence.

"If we lose 40 percent it is enough to fight a hundred years more. We will live as guerrillas in the mountains," said Baptista. UNIF is an umbrella organisation that groups all the main parties opposed to East Timor's secession from Indonesia.

In Jakarta, the military's new chief spokesman said there were provocateurs on both sides trying to stir up trouble. "We don't want it and want to discourage such violence," Brigadier-General Sudrajat said.

Baptista, speaking on the fringes of a pro-Jakarta rally of some 3,000 people, said that mistakes had been made in the past, but promised that they would be rectified under autonomy.

"During the 20 years of integration we have a lot of mistakes: corruption, nepotism, violation of human rights, we know it. But under autonomy we will amend everything that was bad over the last 23 years," he said.

He accused the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), which is organising the $53 million vote, of partiality towards independence.

"We know that UNAMET is not impartial, but first of all we will see the result," he said. The United Nations has blamed armed pro-Indonesia militias for most of the violence that has killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands in the past eight months.

A local human rights group criticised the United Nations on Tuesday for doing too little to stop the violence.

"UNAMET obviously recognises the problem of the violence but has not done anything to respond to it, much less prevent it from occurring," human rights group Yayasan HAK said in a statement.

Yayasan HAK said the Indonesian police, who are responsible for security, had failed to fulfil their duty. "It appears to us that there is no reason to continue the ballot in this kind of situation," Yayasan HAK said.

A leader of the pro-independence National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) said that the insecure environment in East Timor had severely limited their ability to campaign.

"It has had a tremendous impact on our campaign in some areas," said David Ximenes. In some areas most CNRT activists were in hiding, he added. But he said that he did not want the vote, which has already been delayed twice, to be further postponed.

Militias trying to scare Timorese from voting

The recent surge of violence in East Timor is part of a deliberate pattern to scare voters away from participating in the August 30 referendum on the territory's future status, the United Nations said on Monday.

"The pattern is to try and intimidate people away from voting either by direct threats of physical violence now or by threatening dire consequences after the vote," UN spokesman David Wimhurst said in Dili.

Over the past two weeks there had been an increase in attacks on supporters of independence by armed militias seeking to maintain East Timor's status as part of Indonesia, he said.

The violence was limiting the ability of the pro-independence National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) to campaign for the vote, Mr Wimhurst said.

"The level playing field in terms of campaigning has not been successfully established in the sense that the CNRT are in many areas not able to campaign openly, so that is a matter of concern."

He said that the United Nations was also concerned that people were being driven away from the places where they had registered to vote.

The United Nations is organising the ballot, but Indonesia is responsible forensuring security. The vote has already been delayed twice because of unrest and logistical problems.

"It seems that there is an effort being made to intimidate local people ... to move refugees out, and the concern of all these people who have been intimidated is how they are going to vote if they have been forced away from their homes," he said.

Several incidents over the weekend involved threats and violence against staff of the UN Mission in East Timor.

An Australian civilian police adviser needed six stitches on Saturday after he was hit on the head by a rock thrown into a restaurant in the militia stronghold of Suai, 95 kilometres south of Dili, Mr Wimhurst said. In the town of Same, 50 km south of Dili, several of the UN's electoral officers had to be evacuated to the police station after their house was attacked on Saturday.

Australia warns Alatas over security

Peter Cole-Adams -- The Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Downer, telephoned his Indonesian counterpart, Mr Ali Alatas, last night to repeat Australia's concern over security breakdowns in East Timor.

Mr Downer said he emphasised the importance of next week's independence-or-autonomy ballot being free and fair. If it was a debacle, which he did not expect, it would cause international problems for Indonesia.

Mr Downer told ABC television he believed the Indonesian police and military had the ability to provide security for the ballot. "Whether they do remains to be seen," he said. "But there is no excuse for them not being able to secure the situation in East Timor after the ballot. Indonesia must understand the eyes of the world are on it, and [on] the behaviour of the police, military and militias."

He said security had improved in some parts of East Timor but there were still problems in the west of the territory and a potential for trouble in other parts. Mr Downer will meet the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, Mr Stanley Roth, in Canberra for talks centred on East Timor tomorrow. Mr Roth will address the National Press Club on Thursday.

The Australian Government will hope and expect that Mr Roth will put to rest suggestions that differences remain between Washington and Canberra over East Timor. Mr Downer was embarrassed earlier this month by the leak of a record of a conversation between Mr Roth and the Secretary of the Foreign Affairs and Trade Department, Dr Ashton Calvert, last February.

In it, Mr Roth was quoted as saying he believed a full-scale peacekeeping operation would be necessary in the territory. The US and Australia have since emphasised there are no policy disagreements, but the question of sending in armed UN peacekeepers was raised again last weekend by US Senator Tom Harkin during a visit to the territory.

Scent of a normal life so close

Mark Dodd -- After 24 years of fighting for independence, a senior commander of one of the world's most enduring guerilla groups says he is considering what once seemed unthinkable -- a return to a normal life cut short when Indonesian troops stormed ashore in East Timor in 1975.

On the 24th anniversary of Falintil's independence struggle, Taur Matan Ruak, 43, the movement's deputy commander, believes peace in East Timor is a real possibility.

"What I miss most is peace," he said. "I hope it returns quickly so I can return to my family and friends. I'm dreaming of that day -- we're all hoping it will be a reality."

Asked what he would do, the former Dili lorry driver said: "I'd abandon military life and work for the people affected by war -- the widows, orphans and maimed." At the weekend, Falintil invited a select group of journalists and supporters to their camp in a remote corner of East Timor's south-west to celebrate the anniversary. Security was tight, and the identity of Timorese visitors thoroughly checked.

The security was needed. Yesterday, 30 suspected pro-autonomy infiltrators had been apprehended, several were badly beaten and only the intervention of senior Falintil officers prevented what could have been a lynching. They remain in custody.

Festivities started on Thursday and the campsite, complete with concert stage, communal kitchens and thatch-roof barracks, looked more like a 1970s Sunbury rock concert than a military camp. However, the presence of hundreds of armed guerillas among the estimated 7,000 civilians could not be ignored.

In the 10 years following the invasion, although vastly outnumbered in terms of personnel and equipment, Falintil carried the armed struggle against the Indonesian armed forces, quickly earning a reputation for aggressive tactics resulting in early victories. Under the leadership of Mr Xanana Gusmao, the independence movement has focused more on diplomacy than confrontation, but it continued small-scale operations against isolated army outposts, individuals and Indonesian officials.

Recalling the years of struggle, Mr Ruak dismissed the threat posed by pro-Jakarta militias. He branded them cowards, and as puppets of Indonesia who only attacked helpless, unarmed civilians. Asked if the recent change of Indonesian military commanders in East Timor signalled a more conciliatory approach by the military to the political crisis, he quoted a Portuguese saying: "The s--- changes but the flies are all the same."

All but a handful of Falintil have registered to vote and, unsurprisingly, Mr Ruak reckons on a convincing independence victory at the ballot. "So the Indonesian Government does not feel embarrassed, I will give them 30 per cent and 70 per cent for us," he said with a smile.

On Friday, about 400 fighters wearing an assortment of coloured berets and dressed in a mish-mash of uniforms, either bought locally or captured from the Indonesian military, assembled on parade to mark the 24th anniversary.

The highlight of the ceremony was a message broadcast via a satellite telephone link from Mr Gusmao, Falintil's supreme commander, under house arrest in Jakarta, where he is serving a 20-year prison sentence for inciting rebellion.

A hush fell over the crowd of 5,000 as the 20-minute speech was broadcast over a battery of loudspeakers on the hot and dusty river-flat parade ground.

"Today we are going to prepare for the popular consultation [referendum] on August 30," he said. "The crowing of the rooster has been heard and that is a sign of our independence." The crowd erupted into applause. "Viva Timor Leste -- Viva Xanana -- Viva Falintil," they roared.

Pro-Indonesia group urges on-the-spot vote

Jakarta -- A pro-Indonesia group has called on the United Nations to count the votes at next week's self-determination ballot at the stations where they are cast, the state Antara news agency said Sunday.

"People will not have a chance to see the counting process transparently if the vote counting is centered in Dili," Antara quoted a spokesman for the Forum of Unity, Democracy and Justice (FPDK) as saying.

The UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) has repeatedly announced that the August 30 ballot will be secret, to avert possible reprisals, and that for the same reason the votes will be counted centrally.

Basilio Araujo, the spokesman for the FPDK, which groups several pro-Indonesia fronts including the army-backed militia, argued the centralized system was "undemocratic."

Araujo also warned the central count by UNAMET could become "a reason for either or both of the two conflicting groups in East Timor to reject the outcome of the ballot."

Australian army primes for Timor

Jill Jolliffe, Darwin -- Almost exactly 24 years ago, Darwin was put to the test when thousands of traumatised East Timorese refugees fleeing civil war landed from every imaginable type of vessel, only eight months after Cyclone Tracy had almost wiped the city from the face of the earth.

This time city officials are taking no chances -- a week before the United Nations-sponsored poll in East Timor, the Northern Territory Chief Minister, Mr Denis Burke, is following the situation closely. A few kilometres out of town the army's 2800- strong First Brigade, the vanguard of Australia's rapid deployment force, is engaged in constant exercises to enhance its intervention readiness -- it has been on 28-day alert since June. The navy's HMAS Jervis Bay, a high-speed catamaran that can move 500 soldiers at a time, lies at wait in Darwin harbor. It can reach Dili in about 14 hours and has two crews so it can run a continuous troop shuttle if necessary.

"With this wave slicer we could deploy all of the First Brigade and its equipment there within three days," Mr Burke observed, although like most politicians and military personnel here his official line is that there will be no need for that. They are tight-lipped about possible Australian intervention if things go wrong in East Timor, especially after the controversy this month over an alleged rift between United States and Australian policy makers.

The reality, however, belies the claim that all is well. In the bush outside Darwin, the First Brigade is engaged in Operation Predator's Chariot, which involves an imaginary island called Legais somewhere north of Papua New Guinea. It has been invaded by its traditional enemies, the Musorians and the Kamarians, and the brigade has intervened with American forces to restore its sovereignty.

As M113 armored personnel carriers speed through the bush behind him towards some imaginary enemy target, the brigade's media man, Captain John Liston, described the context of the unit's activities. It first began moving its forces from Sydney to the Top End in 1992, after a debate in defence circles in the late 1980s about the vulnerability of Australia's north coast. There are now 2100 First Brigade personnel here of the total complement of 2800, and by March 2000 the entire force will be concentrated around Darwin.

Today's army is very different from that of 1975 -- it is a high-tech army, and the First Brigade is on the cutting edge of change. The fight for Legais is largely conducted with computers. The current exercise is in command-post procedures, on the principle that the the commanders' battle-readiness must be tested as well as that of the soldiers. In various encampments under camouflage netting, men and women are hunched over laptop computers, giving orders that are then distributed through the radio system. This mock battle is described as a "mid-intensity conventional conflict", whereas a previous exercise was in peace-keeping.

Captain Liston said that even in an army as sophisticated as this, soldiers only obey politicians. If they were sent to East Timor, it would be without debate, he said, but like everybody else in authority in Darwin, he denied this was on the cards. "Sure, guys read the papers, they know what's going on in the region, but as far as any specific scenario, we're not preparing anything." On the Jervis Bay, there is a similar state of preparation. Its two captains say the catamaran can be ready for sea on four to 24 hours' notice.

One other military institution that is ready and active is the Defence Signals installation at nearby Shoal Bay, remembered as the interception centre that overheard the Indonesian battle orders given when five Australian-based journalists were killed in the East Timorese town of Balibo on 16 October 1975. "It can pick up the conversations in the Timor Governor's office," one Darwin insider commented.

Mr Burke does not fear a worst-case scenario in East Timor. "I think that, if anything, the situation is improving," he said. "There was a lot of fear and concern. It seems the vote will definitely be for independence and you might get a large-scale emigration of integration supporters into West Timor." But otherwise, he says, "things look pretty good", especially after last week's handover of weapons by pro-Indonesian militias.

The East Timorese in Darwin are not so sure. For Mr Alfredo Borges Ferreira, of the National Council of Timorese Resistance, East Timor's ruling resistance body, the tumult of Darwin 1975 is still a vivid memory. His life is more settled and prosperous now and he hopes he will be able to serve an independent East Timor in the coming period, but he is pessimistic.

"I don't trust the Indonesians," he said. "I think they are preparing something for [election] day or the day before. I believe we will have an around 75 per cent majority ... I don't think they will allow the results to go ahead -- they're the same pack of wolves."

His colleague, Mr Roberto de Araujo, regional secretary of the UDT party, shares his view, believing that the Indonesian army will intervene rather than allow independence to go ahead. Darwin's military preparedness is all very well, these two men consider, but if a crisis erupts, by the time the Jervis Bay reaches Timor many lives may have been lost and the situation may have broken down irretrievably, as it did in '75.

Timor militias massing for war, US told

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili Armed militias massing in East Timor near the western border plan to go to war to stop the territory they hold becoming independent, United Nations officials have warned.

The officials told visiting US politicians in the town of Maliana at the weekend that the ballot to decide East Timor's future, scheduled for next Monday, should be called off in the militia- dominated district because "too many people will die".

After the confidential briefing, Senator Tom Harkin told reporters in the capital, Dili, that he would make an urgent call to President Clinton asking him to support the sending of armed UN peacekeeping troops to the former Portuguese territory.

"As one of the UN officials said, this could be a bloodbath down here," Senator Harkin said before flying to Jakarta to meet President Habibie.

The call for peacekeepers comes ahead of a visit to Canberra this week by the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, Mr Stanley Roth.

In February, Mr Roth told the head of Australia's Foreign Affairs Department, Dr Ashton Calvert, that he believed a full-scale peacekeeping operation would be necessary in East Timor.

Senator Harkin said there was strong evidence that Indonesia's military had worked with militia groups to sabotage the vote. "I am going to recommend to the President [Clinton] that he recommends to the Security Council that they get some peacekeeping forces down here in a hurry."

Meanwhile, UN sources said senior Indonesian military officers in Dili were making secret contingency plans to evacuate 50,000 civilians from areas near the border with West Timor.

The plans indicate that Indonesia's police and army will allow the militias they have armed and trained to seize control of large areas of the militias' heartland either before or after the ballot.

The delegation of three MPs led by Senator Harkin was shocked to hear how the militias were terrorising independence supporters and taking away voter registration cards.

Led by Mr Joao Tavares, a 68-year-old warlord with close links to Indonesia's armed forces, the militias had access to sophisticated weapons, they were told. Mr Tavares told the Herald last week that "if I want war, there will be war".

UN officials told the senators that civilians were being kidnapped from their homes and not seen again. One of the latest victims had had his head and arms chopped off.

The officials outlined to the senators preparations by the militias to go to war, including moving their relatives across the border to the town of Atambua. They said hundreds of independence supporters expecting violence were fleeing to forests and the mountains.

One Australian assigned to the UN contingent in Maliana said the situation was a "powderkeg". He and other UN officials in Maliana were ready to leave in a convoy for West Timor.

In Suai, a port on Timor's south coast, the US delegation saw 2,500 mostly pro-independence supporters being held as virtual hostages in a church compound.

Senator Harkin told the people: "We're going to be asking our Government and the United Nations to be providing some peacekeeping forces here. From what we've seen it's necessary to have somebody here to stop the intimidation."

The Indonesian Government has refused to consider allowing armed international peacekeepers to be sent to East Timor for the ballot, in which 450,000 people will get a choice between broad autonomy within Indonesia or independence.
 

Political/economic crisis

Up to 12 dead in fresh clashes in Ambon

Jakarta -- Fresh Moslem-Christian clashes in Indonesia's spice Moluccas islands have left up to 12 people dead, scores injured and several churches torched, sources and reports said Tuesday.

A member of the Church Advocacy team in Maluku's provincial capital of Ambon said about people nine died when Moslem mobs attacked nine churches in Seram island, in Central Maluku on Wednesday last week.

Other reports said up to 12 people were killed in religious violence over the weekend. "Moslem mobs attacked six Christian hamlets simultaneously on Wednesday," Simon Noya of the Church Advocacy team told AFP by phone.

Churches were torched in the six hamlets, including five Protestant churches, two Roman Catholic and one Advent, he said.

Central Maluku district police chief Lieutenant Colonel Benny Vonbulow said as many as 12 people were killed and 40 injured during clashes in West Seram over the weekend, the Kompas daily reported.

News of the violence in the island province of Maluku only reached Ambon late on Monday as the area where it had occured is not covered by telephone network.

Vonbulow said police dispatched two companies of the elite police mobile brigade from Ambon to overcome the situation in West Seram.

Ambon and other islands in Maluku, known as the Spice Islands, were hit by months of Moslem-Christian violence at the start of the year which left more than 300 dead, drove tens of thousands to other provinces and caused widespread destruction.

Noya said the violence in West Seram was most intense Wednesday although it continued sporadically until Sunday. He said the attack took place some 100 kilometers north of Ambon in the hamlets of Kawa, Loki, Wailisa, Seaputty, Olas and in the main town of Piru.

Moslems attacked and torched all homes and churches in the Christian hamlets, killing seven people in Wailisa on Wednesday and injuring five people in Loki.

The mob attacked another Ariate Christian hamlet on two separate days, Thursday and Sunday, leaving one person dead and 13 others injured.

Police failed to reach Ariate on Thursday after mobs set up roadblocks and fired shots at the reinformcements sent in from Salahutu sub-district town of Masohi, Noya said.

"It's not clear whether the ones who shot at the police were some of the villagers or other security officers who had been partial in their defense," he added.

Following the attack some of the refugees who had been hiding in Ariate left for Piru. "We don't know exactly how many had fled and stayed," he added.

On Sunday some of the Christian residents in Ariate retaliated and attacked the Laala Moslem hamlet and torched some homes. The number of casualties and damage could not be immediately ascertained.

Meanwhile, troubles flared anew on Saturday when Moslem mobs torched shops in the city's Mardika area, Noya said, adding that security had shot four rioters.

A separate clash between residents and security members broke out late on Monday in the city's Air Salobar area of Pohon Mangga leaving two marine troops injured, Kompas said.

Maluku military information office's chief Lieutenant Colonel Iwa Kusuma confirmed the clash on Monday but could not elaborate on the number of casualties.

Police reports showed that the death toll in the Moslem-Christian violence in Maluku from July 24 to August 16 stood at 105, with the number of injured at over 400.

One soldier was among those killed and 35 others were among the injured. "The number [of casualties] could grow bigger with the recent clashes. We're still waiting for updates," Iwa said.

Moslems rally over violence in Ambon, Aceh

Jakarta -- Some 2,000 Indonesian Moslems held a mass prayer here Sunday calling for an end to mounting violence in two of the country's major trouble spots -- Ambon and the western province of Aceh.

Separately, thousands more Moslem youths from the Front for the Defence of Islam roared through the city's main thoroughfares on motorcycles, calling for unity among the country's Moslem majority, witnesses said.

Another group of motorcyclists, the Ka'aba Youth, also took to the streets of the capital in support of President B.J. Habibie.

The crowd at the Jakarta Al-Azhar Mosque chanted "God is Great" and waved placards reading "Stop the Violence" and "Beware of Foreign Interference in Aceh."

The Indonesian Association of Islamic Boarding Schools (BKSPP), the organizer of the mosque rally, demanded that security forces protect Moslems in Ambon, the scene of months of Moslem-Christian violence.

"Violence against Moslems in Ambon is motivated by the spirit of the Crusade and is a result of a conspiracy," the group said in the statement. It said fighting against "evil conspiracies" constituted a holy war or "jihad." The group also attributed the continuing violence in Ambon and Aceh to the government's inability to protect the people.

BKSPP also urged the military and separatist rebels who have been fighting for an independent Islamic state in Aceh since the 1970's to stop the violence and hold a dialogue.
 

Aceh/West Papua

Indonesian ministers visit troubled Aceh

Jakarta -- Protests greeted a visit Saturday to the restive Aceh province by a delegation of Indonesian ministers and senior officials bringing aid for refugees fleeing violence between troops and Moslem rebels.

In the latest attack, four gunmen shot dead a soldier in Pidie district on Friday.

The seven ministers were scheduled to hand over finance for several development projects in Aceh as well as aid for the province's growing number of refugees, said an Aceh government spokesman, Wid.

"They will also hold dialogue with public and religious leaders and district and provincial officials at the governor's office" in the local capital Banda Aceh, Wid added.

He said the team was discussing how to improve the central government's efforts to boost security and living standards in Aceh, an Islamic stronghold where harsh anti-rebel operations by the military have caused deep resentment.

The delegation was headed by Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Haryono Suyono and included 16 senior officials, Wid said. But the aid pledge failed to impress some 300 protestors, mostly students, who demonstrated at the parliament building more than a kilometre from the governor's office.

They demanded that the military face justice for innocent victims of the anti-separatist campaign. Many of the protestors wore headbands carrying the word "Referendum" as they demanded self- determination in line with that being offered to East Timor, television pictures showed.

Activist Shalahuddin Alfata said the ministers' visit would have little impact since they were not meeting any members of the banned GAM.

"The GAM is not being involved in the dialogue. Even though we do not recognize them as an organisation, in reality they are there," said Alfata, chairman of the Aceh People's Forum for Struggle and Justice.

He told the SCTV television station the government needed to talk to the GAM to halt the violence before moving onto other issues, and called for outside mediation.

"If the government of Indonesia is serious in trying to resolve the problems in Aceh openly and transparently, then invite the United States as a mediator," he said. The US should be involved because it had sizeable investments in gas-rich Aceh, he added.

This is the second visit by a group of ministers to Aceh since President B.J. Habibie came to Banda Aceh for a day in May and pledged to investigate military abuses and improve social conditions. Amran Zamzani, who heads the independent investigation promised by Habibie, said Friday nobody should interfere in its probe into military violence against Acehnese.

"We do not want to be like other teams. If we're not going to be of any use, then it would be better if we just disbanded ourselves," Amran said.

Students demand UK account for operation

Jakarta -- Scores of students in the easternmost Indonesian province of Irian Jaya have protested over the alleged involvement of British elite troops in a violent hostage-rescue operation in 1996, a report said Friday.

Some 150 students rallied outside the parliament building in the provincial capital Jayapura on Thursday to demand Britain account for its role in allegedly sending Special Air Service troops to rescue 11 hostages who were being held by Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebels, the Jakarta Post said.

They also demanded an explanation from Pretoria over the role of Executive Outcomes, a group of South African mercenaries which has a base in England, the newspaper said.

"The two countries should be held responsible for killing Indonesians in the operation," student leader Aplin Yarangga was quoted as saying.

A team of soldiers from the SAS and Executive Outcomes led the raid to free foreign and Indonesian scientists who had been held captive for months by OPM guerrillas in the jungles of central Irian Jaya.

The captives, part of a team conducting a biological study of the 2.2 million hectare Lorentz reserve in the mountainous region, included four Britons, a German and a Dutchman. They were all freed unharmed, but rebels killed two Indonesian scientists during the operation. Witnesses said 16 foreign troops led the successful rescue bid but left at least 12 villagers dead.

Human-rights and church activists said an anti-rebel crackdown by Indonesian troops ensued "in which many Irianese were massacred, raped, tortured and dispossessed," the Jakarta Post reported.

The students also demanded the International Court of Justice investigate the role of former president Suharto and former military chief general Feisal Tanjung, who is now coordinating minister for political and security affairs.

They also cited Prabowo Subianto, a former lieutenant general in the Indonesian army's elite Kopassus unit and a son-in-law of Suharto, who was in charge of the operation.

The OPM has been fighting for an independent Melanesian state in the former Dutch territory of Western New Guinea since it became the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya in 1964.

Australia's role in Irian Jaya exposed

Antony Balmain -- As East Timor prepares to vote in a United Nations ballot to decide its future, documents show Australia played an active and secret role to ensure Irian Jaya became a part of Indonesia in another UN-supervised vote -- the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969.

The secret government files show Australia colluded with Dutch, United States and UN officials to rubber-stamp the Indonesian takeover of Irian Jaya, or West Papua, the western half of New Guinea island.

The documents show an uncanny similarity between Australia's response to events in West Papua and our later reaction to the Indonesian takeover of East Timor in 1975. While Australian diplomats were well-aware of Indonesian repression in the territory, they advocated that Australia stand back and say little.

They also show that Australia obstructed efforts by West Papua leaders to travel to New York to put the case for independence to the UN.

The diplomatic cables, intelligence documents and government reports are contained in 13 Department of Territories files due for release in January 2000. They were released early by the Department of Foreign Affairs to SBS television's Dateline program.

One secret US Government document given to Australia before the self-determination process started in July 1969 shows UN officials believed almost all West Papuans supported independence.

The document, prepared by the US embassy in Jakarta, said: "Personal political views of the UN team are ... 95 percent of Irianese support the independence movement and that the Act of Free Choice is a mockery."

In the act, 1025 West Papuans, selected by Indonesia, voted on behalf of the entire population of some 800,000. The vote took place over three weeks, ending on 4 August 1969.

The process fulfilled a 1962 agreement initiated by the US to avert war between Indonesia and the Netherlands, Indonesia's former colonial ruler. The rest of what had been the Dutch East Indies became independent in 1949, but the Netherlands had originally wanted West Papua to become a separate Melanesian nation.

A clear indication that the Netherlands and Australia knew there would not be a fair vote is contained in one top-secret report, written by a Dutch intelligence officer and distributed to Australia and Indonesia.

Dated 27 June 1969, the document said: "The Act of Free Choice cannot be carried out honestly according to Western ideas. The `electors' will also be appointed by the Indonesians. But finding enough Papuans willing to act as `electors' for the Indonesians may turn out to be quite a problem. So there will be no free choice by the people."

The documents show Australia, at the request of Indonesia, arrested and prevented two pro-independence West Papuan leaders from travelling to the UN, just weeks before the vote.

Willem Zonggonao, 26, and Clemens Runawery, 27, were detained when they crossed into then-Australian administered New Guinea, carrying testimonies from West Papuan leaders calling for independence and for the UN to abandon the Act of Free Choice.

"Because we refused to sign the paperwork, they put us in jail," Mr Zonggonao, previously a member of the Indonesian West Irian Assembly, said in a recent interview from Port Moresby.

"Then ASIO (the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) interviewed us and we were ... flown to Manus Island." Scores of West Papuan refugees were sent to Manus Island, 300 kilometres north-east of New Guinea, to ensure they did not engage in political activity.

Mr Zonggonao said the West Papuans chosen to participate were "indoctrinated by military officers and told if they didn't vote for Indonesia they would have their tongues cut out".

The Australian ambassador to Indonesia at the time, Mr Gordon Jockel, witnessed the Act of Free Choice in Irian Jaya and in one cable wrote: "In the two or three days we had in Biak and Djajapura, it was easy to see the mass of the Papuans there are sullen and discontented."

In a cable to Canberra on 22 July 1969, Mr Jockel acknowledged the Act of Free Choice had "had many bad effects". Jakarta was engaged in indoctrination and, "with their traumatic fear of separatism, it has led them into repression which has in turn increased the spread of anti-Indonesian sentiment".

The documents show Australia maintained a secret military and intelligence relationship with Indonesia, aimed at eliminating armed pro-independence dissent.

The documents show Australian military officers collected evidence of Indonesian atrocities, including rapes, beatings, lootings and torching of villages.

One report, dated 29 August 1969, stated: "Our previous information on rapes committed by Indonesian soldiers has been confirmed in a number of cases. The Bobol and Tamus people are quite definite on this score and ... in particular one girl from Bobol ... was raped by a number of soldiers when she was 11, several years later again, and again when she was 16 and then married."

Despite these abuses, the files showed Australia played a leading role in a campaign to ensure the Act of Free Choice was accepted without debate at the UN General Assembly in November 1969.

Indonesia, backed by Australia and the Netherlands, lobbied countries including Malta and several West African nations to not question the legitimacy of the self-determination process. A September cable from Sir Patrick Shaw, the Australian ambassador to the UN, shows Dutch and UN officials hoped there would be no debate in the General Assembly about the vote.

While many West Papuan leaders were calling for a new act of self-determination, the UN Secretary General, Mr U Thant, ultimately ratified the wish of the Irian Jayans "to remain with Indonesia".Antony Balmain is an SBS journalist based in Melbourne.

Police, rebels blame each other for killing

Jakarta -- Police yesterday beefed up security at the US$2.5 billion Arun LNG refinery following reports of arson over the weekend, and have blamed rebels for a new round of killings in the restive Aceh province.

A policemen was kidnapped and six civilians were killed in three separate incidents in North Aceh. Meanwhile, the body of Corp. [Police] Ali Rahman Siregar was found Saturday on a roadside in Nisam district, AP reported Aceh police chief Col. Bachrumsyah Kasman as saying from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh. Siregar was abducted on Friday as he rode a motorcycle home from work.

Kasman said four civilians were found dead in a pit near Beuream. All had their necks slashed. Another two people were shot to death by unidentified gunmen in Batee Geulungkuh. Kasman blamed the pro-independence Free Aceh Movement for the seven deaths.

Hundreds of people have been killed this year in fighting between troops and rebels who want to set up an independent Islamic state in the oil and gas-rich region, about 2,000 kilometers northwest of Jakarta. Security forces and rebels have accused one another of causing the deaths of civilians.

Meanwhile, Reuters quoted witnesses as saying anti-riot soldiers were continuing to patrol the area despite an earlier pledge by Indonesian Military [TNI] Commander General Wiranto that they would be withdrawn from villages.

"They were still patrolling the villages, entering houses and kitchens belonging to the public. And they were even searching the forests," one witness said, adding the situation was tense. Aceh was under an often savage military rule for nine years in which at least 2,000 people -- mostly civilians -- were killed.

In a related development, Mandiri Online reported that fire broke out on Friday in Arun, the world's largest LNG refinery located in Aceh's industrial city of Lhokseumawe.

Security forces blamed the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) for the arson, while GAM blamed the military, saying it needed to justify its heavy presence in the territory.

Violence in Aceh claims 11 lives

Jakarta -- Continued violence between separatists and the military has claimed 11 lives in the past two days in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh, sources and reports said Saturday.

Residents of North Aceh's Jeumpa district town of Bireun found the bodies of four unidentified people on Saturday outside a government district office, Iskandar Muda Legal Aid director Yacob Hamzah told AFP by telephone from Lhokseumawe.

"All four died of slash wounds that almost severed their heads. Their identities are unknown," he said.

Another man died early Friday when members of Free Aceh separatist movement (GAM) attacked a group of around 30 government troops as they travelled to the city of Lhokseumawe in northern Aceh, a rights worker said.

"A GAM member was killed and two troops were injured," Hamzah said.

He added that 10 armed GAM members in four cars had blocked the troops' path at Bayin village and started shooting. The dead man was identified as Nurdin, 22.

The troops were returning to their barracks on orders from Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto (eds: one name), who has promised to pull 1,200 crack riot troops -- widely blamed for fuelling unrest in Aceh -- back to their bases.

Meanwhile, another volunteer at Iskandar Muda said a resident of North Aceh's Samalanga district, Abdullah bin Ahmad, 30, was found dead on Friday two days after being taken in by the military.

"Abullah had been taken in during a military sweep. He was shot dead after he had been tortured," the volunteer said, requesting anonymity.

North Aceh residents had also found the bodies of three other civilians who were kidnapped by an unidentified group, Hamzah said.

"They were found, also with their heads nearly severed on Friday. Only one of them could be identified," he said.

Separately a police officer, from the North Aceh district of Dewantara, was found murdered on Friday night, a security member there said.

"A police officer was found dead last night in the Nisam district at 21:00. He had been stabbed to death," a security officer who prefered anonymity in Dewantara's main town of Krueng Geukeuh said.

Meanwhile an unidentified marksman in South Aceh district village of Ujung Padang Rasian killed an innocent passerby with two shots in the chest.

"The marksman is unknown and the victim was a farmer identified as Alim, 24," a duty officer at the main Tapak Tuan town, who identified himself only as Sudiro, said.

Hamzah said tens of thousands of refugees were heading home from makeshift camps after Wiranto's pledge.

He estimated that around 50,000 in the district of Pidie were returning home, but added those in Samalanga sub-district had remained in their camps "because there are still a lot of military in the woods".

Since May, some 140,000 people have fled their villages fearing violence from soldiers and separatist rebels, packing mosques and refugee centers in several Acehnese towns.

Crack Indonesian riot troops have been blamed for fuelling the violence that spiralled in Aceh after the military shot dead 41 civilians during a protest in Lhokseumawe on May 3. Separatist clash kills one, residents find four kidnap victims in Aceh

Emergency rule threat

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- While international attention is focused on the forthcoming ballot in East Timor, the Indonesian armed forces chief has threatened to impose emergency rule in Aceh. At the same time, President Bacharuddin Habibie's promise of an independent commission to investigate military abuses in Aceh was proving as hollow as his earlier pledge that no more blood would be shed, said a prospective member of the commission.

The source said Mr Habibie's offer of a true accounting of recent military massacres was not serious, as he was personally approached to fund the commission out of his private savings and commission meetings were taking weeks to arrange.

Thousands of refugees were returning to their homes yesterday after armed forces chief General Wiranto promised to withdraw riot troops, state sources said.

The general, after a fleeting visit to Aceh this week, has demonstrated the iron hand in a velvet glove approach.

He first said 1,200 joint military and riot police troops would be withdrawn -- at least from residential areas -- then said if security conditions did not improve he would impose emergency rule.

Yesterday he offered separatist rebels a general amnesty if they disarmed and ended guerilla activities. He promised "to train those eligible fighters to become members of the local military".

In the latest clash, one suspected rebel died when 20 separatists attacked soldiers in North Aceh yesterday.

More than 200 people have been killed in Aceh since May, helping to transform what was a minority separatist movement into a popular cause. "[Jakarta's] approach shows they have learned nothing from their failure in East Timor," said another member of the investigatory commission.

Recent visitors to the separatist fighters in Aceh said the Free Aceh Movement intended to step up rebel actions. Caught between the military and the separatists, many Acehnese civilians have fled and now more than 100,000 are in growing camps of internally displaced people.

General Wiranto has said the separatists must stop attacking government buildings and civilians, stop kidnapping and killing troops and disrupting economic activities and public transport, and they must surrender their weapons and stop flying the separatist flag. If not, the army would implement emergency rule, General Wiranto said.
 

News & issues

World Bank threatens Indonesia

Jakarta -- The World Bank is threatening to halt funding for Indonesia if it doesn't swiftly conclude an investigation into a banking scandal involving the ruling Golkar Party.

"If this case is not resolved early and satisfactorily, it is difficult for us to provide budget support to the government of Indonesia," Mark Baird, the World Bank's director for Indonesia, said Tuesday. Last year, the World Bank provided about $1.6 billion to Indonesia.

The scandal broke last month after an audit into Bank Bali found its directors had used government bailout money to pay a $80 million fee to a debt collection company controlled by a senior official of the Golkar Party.

The disclosure has sparked an uproar in Indonesia, unsettled financial markets and threatened its economic recovery. It has also led to calls for senior officials -- including the finance minister and central bank governor -- to resign.

The money, which has since been returned, was disbursed by the central bank as part of a government guarantee program. It was supposed to compensate Bank Bali for funds owed it by a bank that closed. But the funds were then transferred from Bank Bali to a firm controlled by Golkar's deputy treasurer.

Opponents of Golkar allege the money was to be used to bankroll President B.J. Habibie's campaign to retain the presidency.

Habibie's main rival in the presidential race is Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose party won the largest share of seats in parliamentary election in June, Indonesia's first free ballot in 44 years.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund called for an audit of the central bank. The IMF is leading a $43 billion program to bail out Indonesia's moribund economy.

On Tuesday, central bank deputy governor Achjar Iljas confirmed that an international firm will be allowed to audit Bank Indonesia.

The World Bank's vice president for East Asia, Jean-Michel Severino, also urged the government to swiftly look into the affair.

"It is clear that the Bank Bali case has major macroeconomic and microeconomic implications," Severino said in Jakarta. "I imagine that the World Bank can't carry on its activities unchanged if the issue isn't satisfactorily resolved." The World Bank says Indonesia needs to fully disclose the findings of its investigation and punish any wrongdoers.

Who watches the watchers

Eric Ellis, Singapore -- Every time Christovita Wiloto sits down at his computer, the 30-year-old banker is reminded of how tough his job is. His screensaver depicts hungry sharks circling their prey -- a wry metaphor for the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency.

Until recently, IBRA was a rare fish in Indonesia, an institution seemingly free of corruption and symbolic of a new, more professional Indonesian way of doing business.

Its team of savvy young lawyers and bankers was re-shaping the country's shattered economy with a patriotic probity that won admiration at home and abroad. "We pride ourselves on our integrity," Wiloto says. "If we don't have integrity and the confidence of the people, then what do we have?"

That question took on a poignant significance last week following embarrassing revelations of a backroom deal that smacked of the crony culture IBRA aims to cleanse. IBRA deputy chairman Pande Lubis was suspended from duties after being accused of helping siphon funds from an institution under his care, PT Bank Bali. The money -- some $77 million -- ended up at PT Era Giat Prima, a company controlled by a senior official in the ruling Golkar party. The 59-year-old Lubis, an associate of senior Golkar officials, including President B.J. Habibie, allegedly arranged a cash transfer from Bank Bali, a bank under IBRA's care, to another stricken bank via "intermediaries."

That middlemen should even be present in an everyday interbank transaction was strange enough. But when a Jakarta banking analyst, Pradjoto, revealed that a huge "commission" for the transfer was paid to a company linked to Setya Novanto, Golkar's deputy treasurer, the implication was clear -- IBRA funds may have financed Golkar's recent parliamentary election campaign. The party insists it is innocent. "It was a pure business deal which Golkar has nothing to do with," says party chairman Akbar Tanjung. "We are ready to be investigated." The disclosures unsettled international investors, who had hoped that IBRA would lead Indonesia's economic renaissance. The rupiah lost 12% of its value last week, the Jakarta stock market half that.

Meanwhile, work inside IBRA has been paralyzed by a series of investigations into the affair. IBRA's apparent stumble gives ammunition to unscrupulous businessmen whose cosy cartels were threatened by the agency's previous work. It's also a sad reminder for Indonesians of how hard it is to rid corruption from their country's rotten corporate culture.

This isn't how things were meant to be. After it was set up in early 1998 as a condition of a $42 billion International Monetary Fund bailout, IBRA earned the respect of many skeptics as proof that real change was underway. The IMF was pleased, too, calling IBRA's job -- to get bankrupt Indonesian banks back on their feet -- a "life and death matter" for the economy.

If it were a company, IBRA would easily be Indonesia's biggest. It controls $85 billion in assets -- 20% of the country's GDP -- and not just banks, but also holdings pledged for bad loans: major stakes in businesses like Indofood, the world's largest noodle manufacturer, carmakers, hotels and property -- even Suharto friend Bob Hasan's private plane. And it's all for sale, with the pressure to raise funds intensifying as Indonesia's next budget draws nearer.

IBRA has an Indonesians-first divestment policy though few buyers at home, which would make it a happy hunting ground for foreigners -- if they could trust the system. But not many foreign deals have been concluded -- one of the biggest so far is Standard Chartered Bank's conditional purchase of a stake in Bank Bali in April. Foreign investors complain IBRA doesn't move fast enough, while some Indonesians accuse the agency of selling national treasures.

Still, the agency seemed to be getting some good work done. On August 2, IBRA's 18 months of hard work paid off with the national debut of Bank Mandiri, a superbank of 530 branches hewn from four failures. Mandiri's snazzy outlets might look like Scandinavian furniture stores, but its real achievement is less visible: only one director of the four original banks sits on Mandiri's board.

Ironically, it was a new transparency in the system that unearthed the scandal. Standard Chartered's auditors were poring over Bank Bali's books when they discovered the $77 million hole. IBRA deputy chairman Arwin Rasyid admits the agency faces "huge pressure from influential politicians. With the wealth and assets we're holding, no wonder many parties try eagerly to take advantage." The sharks on Christovita Wiloto's screensaver are real. Arwin says the Bank Bali affair "is an acid test of IBRA's professionalism." But in an Indonesia desperate for change, there's a lot more at stake than reputations.

Former President Suharto leaves hospital

Jakarta -- Former President Soeharto left hospital yesterday after five days of treatment for intestinal bleeding as his lawyer brushed aside rumors his client is seeking treatment abroad.

"What I can see is that Pak Harto is fit, medically fit, you can ask the doctors. I have heard Pak Harto has no plans to go to Singapore or Japan for treatment," lawyer Juan Felix Tampubolon told reporters.

Indonesia's former strongman was rushed to Pertamina Hospital last Saturday after being diagnosed with intestinal bleeding. Last month he was treated at the same hospital for 10 days after suffering a mild stroke. His doctors said the bleeding has nothing to do with the stroke.

"Medically speaking, he can go home anytime, and [in fact] doctors have permitted him to return home," Dr Ibrahim Ginting, head of the the former president's medical team, told reporters.

Looking pale and worn out, the 78 year-old Soeharto managed a smile and a wave at the hordes of curious journalists as he stood up from a wheelchair to get into a waiting car driven by his second son Bambang Trihatmodjo. Eldest daughter Siti "Tutut" Hardiyanti Rukmana was also in the car.

When asked about overseas treatment for the ex-president, Ginting said: "The [Soeharto] family did not mention the possibility of taking him abroad."

Ginting said Pak Harto needs to be disciplined about his diet. A doctor and several nurses will take care of the former leader at a private clinic situated in his Menteng, Central Jakarta home.

Indonesia's second president, Soeharto, was forced down in May last year after 32 years in power, and is currently facing a corruption investigation.

The government, meanwhile, has offered a political settlement to resolve his case and is set to review the probe next week on health reasons.

The Attorney-General's Office, which has so far failed to find indication of corruption, early this week presented a "legal display" of progress of the probe to Coordinating Minister of Development Supervision and State Administrative Reform Hartarto Suryosunario and State Secretary/Justice Minister Muladi.

Muladi said President BJ Habibie will decide on the status of the probe when he receives a report on the probe next week.

In its May edition, TIME magazine claimed that the former president and his family have assets totaling US$15 billion and that he transferred cash amounting to US$9 billion from a Swiss account to an Austrian bank moments after his downfall. The former strongman, meanwhile, has denied any wrongdoing.

Tampubolon said "psychological torture," a consequence of the extremely slow moving legal process has contributed to his client's condition. Uncertainties over Soeharto's legal status are proof of a violatin of human rights, the lawyer added.
 

Environment/Health

New fires destroy huge swathe of forest

Jakarta -- Fires which have resumed in Indonesia's Sumatra and Kalimantan regions have ravaged at least 5,561 hectares of forest and scrub in the past month, a report said Saturday.

The National Environmental Impact Management Agency said fires in Sumatra's Riau province alone had caused losses of 8.9 billion rupiah (1.2 million dollars) since July, the Antara news agency reported.

The widespread burning, blamed on smallholding farmers and plantation owners, has revived fears of haze blanketing neighbouring countries in a repetition of a regional environmental disaster two years ago.

The agency defined the cost estimate from the Riau fires in terms of lost income from the forestry sector and the need for funds to replace trees.

It excluded in its estimate economic losses caused by poor visibility sparked by the haze and increased costs for the resulting health care.

It said that smoke from the fires had caused a rise in the incidence of respiratory illnesses and disruption of school education.

Riau authorities last month called for the closure of schools especially at nursery and primary levels, saying that youngsters were most vulnerable to the effects of the smog. They have also called on schools to refrain from conducting outdoor activities for their older pupils.

Forest fires have reappeared in the lower half of Sumatra island and several parts of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo island, since June.

But occasional rain has stopped the haze from reaching the levels it hit in 1997, when huge forest and ground fires during a prolonged drought destroyed more than 10 million hectares of Indonesian forest.

The meteorology office here said that in the past week visibility in Riau and other southern Sumatran provinces had been good owing to heavy rainfall.

In 1997 and early 1998, the smoke haze covered a wide swathe of skies over Indonesia and neighbouring countries, causing massive economic losses along with serious health problems and visibility hazards to ships and planes.

On Thursday a meeting in Singapore of environment ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations pressed Indonesia to take urgent action to prevent a renewal of the 1997 crisis. The meeting was brought forward from October because of the urgency of the potential problem.

The ministers urged Indonesia to quickly implement the necessary by-laws and regulations to enforce the "zero-burning" policy imposed by the government of President B.J. Habibie earlier this year. Indonesian officials have cited a lack of funds and personnel for their failure to enforce the policy.

Illegal logging devastating 'protected' parks

Jakarta -- Logging and forest fires are destroying rainforests and the wildlife they support, government authorities and environmentalists warned yesterday.

Uncontrolled forest fires -- mostly lit illegally to clear logged forest areas for palm oil plantations -- are again raging through Borneo and Sumatra, while a blanket of smoke is covering villages and towns on the islands. The fires were mostly lit by plantation companies taking advantage of a three-month drought, the state- run Antara news agency said.

Local authorities feared a repeat of the huge rainforest fires of recent years, in which "millions of hectares of tropical forest were destroyed" on Borneo and Sumatra, Antara said.

Environmental groups warned in Jakarta that large-scale illegal logging in two Indonesian national parks seriously threatened the survival of orang-utans, one of the world's most endangered species.

The Environmental Investigation Agency, based in London and Washington, and Telapak Indonesia said illegal logging was rampant in the Gunung Leuser National Park in North Sumatra and the Tanjung Puting National Park in central Kalimantan.

"I have witnessed scenes of appalling devastation in both of these so-called protected parks. The logging is totally out of control," said agency director Dave Currey. "The Government of Indonesia must act against the timber barons directing this destruction before these vital areas and their wildlife are lost."

The Gunung Leuser National Park in northern Sumatra covers 2.5 million hectares, from the Indian Ocean to the hills along the Straits of Malacca, and has mountains 3,000 metres high.

Unlike orang-utans elsewhere, the ginger-haired primates in the park's Suaq Balimbing region live in structured social groups and make and use tools, the agency said. Yet activists had "witnessed loggers with chainsaws operating in the Suaq Balimbing research area".

The Tanjung Puting National Park on Borneo -- where an orang-utan research programme was set up in the early 1970s -- was also under great threat from illegal logging. "We are calling for the Indonesian Government to clamp down immediately on the illegal logging," the groups said.

"We are also calling for the international community to use their power within Indonesia to try to get the Government to act.

"If we don't see this happening soon, both Tanjung Puting National Park and Gunung Leuser National Park will no longer be worth protecting and some of these species, especially orang- utans, may be lost forever."