•  Witness says up to 200 massacred
•  Peacekeepers kill at least 3 militia
•  Indonesia says it fired first in clash
•  Militiamen sneak return to East Timor
•  Deported return with tales of terror
•  Hundreds of militia roam Timor: Interfet
•  Elite forces scouted island from April
•  Australia opens talks over Timor oil
•  UN sees no evidence of mass murder
•  Gusmao promises western-style democracy
•  Members of TNI pledge to join militia
•  We accept the risk and costs Gusmao says
•  Interfet, Jakarta harden their positions
•  Policeman believes UN betrayed Timorese
•  Indonesians `purge' militia

•  Megawati supporters return to streets
•  Dark horse candidate gains support
•  Whoever is president will answer to Wiranto
•  Unreal atmosphere envelops parliament
•  Wiranto accepts VP nomination: report
•  Thousands back Megawati candidacy
•  Do they have something up their sleeve?
•  Golkar says Megawati spurned advances
•  Megawati in secret deal with Golkar

•  Troops on full alert in Irian Jaya
•  The hidden agony of Aceh
•  MPs call for broad autonomy for Aceh
•  Gunmen kill three policemen in Aceh

•  Regulation issued on human rights tribunal

•  Up to ten killed in Ambon
•  Suharto's son cleared over graft charges
•  Australia embassy in Jakarta attacked
•  Outrage over dismissal of Suharto probes
•  Jakarta's media fan flames of hatred

Riots rage as Habibie poll chances falter

Agencies in Jakarta -- President Bacharuddin Habibie's election bid appeared to falter yesterday as demonstrators launched another day of violent protest and opposition lawmakers condemned a speech that defended his troubled 16-month tenure.

With five days to go before the People's Consultative Assembly is to pick a new president, parliamentary factions took turns giving their views on Mr Habibie's record.

About 5,000 protesters threw rocks and petrol bombs at riot police and blocked Jakarta's main avenue with commandeered buses and makeshift barricades for much of the day.

Security personnel stormed Atmajaya University, using tear-gas to flush out protesters before beating them. Some fired warning shots.

Rocks, bottles and other debris littered roads near the parliament building. Ambulance officers said more than 20 people were injured. Police said about 70 people had been injured since clashes began on Thursday.

"We reject Habibie. He has corrupted the country. We will fight him until he is tried in court," said one protester.

Mr Habibie made an impassioned plea on Thursday night to the 700-member assembly, asking it to return him to office on Wednesday.

In a nationally televised debate last night, speakers from parliamentary factions took turns commenting bluntly on Mr Habibie's handling of the economy, political system, East Timor and separatist tensions as he listened and took notes.

His speech was formally rejected by the largest faction, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, led by presidential rival Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Party lawmaker Julvan Lindan said Mr Habibie had "shamelessly" claimed credit for reforms pushed through by the students and the people.

Muhaimin Iskandar, of the National Awakening Party, said Mr Habibie's handling of East Timor had resulted in "tragedies ... exodus, acts of killing, scorched earth and the possibility of a civil war".

Mr Habibie's own Golkar Party questioned why he had ever offered East Timor self-determination and why the investigation into former president Suharto's alleged corruption had stopped, tackled him on the Bank Bali bribery scandal and attacked the weak upholding of human rights.

"One of the roots of the problems that have triggered the social crisis and the crisis of confidence is that the supremacy of the law ... has yet to be upheld," the Golkar representative, Priyo Budi Santoso, said. If legislators reject the President's speech, he will have little choice but to withdraw his nomination for the presidency.

Although he has been president since May 1998, Mr Habibie has never been elected as the head of state. He took over from Mr Suharto, his one-time mentor, who was driven from power by the same student groups that are now back on the streets of Jakarta.

Violence after speech fails to sway critics

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- Indonesian police and armed forces last night fired tear gas and rubber bullets in clashes with thousands of people protesting against President B.J. Habibie after a speech defending his 16-month rule failed to appease opposition parties.

The most violent confrontation occurred when a rampaging crowd burnt buses and motorbikes on a major road leading to the parliament.

Student leaders have vowed to continue protesting until Dr Habibie abandoned his bid for re-election. The street clashes followed the President's make-or-break three-hour speech on Thursday night and underscored fears of deepening unrest if the country's People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) returns him to power next week.

In a wide-ranging accountability speech, Dr Habibie claimed he had put Indonesia on the path to political and economic reform. He took credit for stabilising the country's battered economy and initiating democratic reforms to dismantle the authoritarian system that kept the former president Soeharto in power for 32 years.

But at least three major political parties said yesterday they would reject the speech in a likely vote over the weekend.

Analysts say formal rejection of the speech in the 700-member MPR would amount to a vote of no confidence in Dr Habibie and could end his bid for re-election.

Dr Habibie has refused repeated calls to stand down and appears determined to press ahead with his bid against two other presidential contenders, Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose party won the June parliamentary election, and the conservative Muslim leader, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid.

Ms Megawati said: "Personally ... I see that the President's accountability speech should be rejected." Mr Matori Adbul Djalil, the chairman of Mr Wahid's National Awakening Party, said: "What was presented is the furthest away from reality."

Mr Amien Rais, the MPR Speaker and head of the reformist National Mandate Party, described the speech as full of red marks, likening it to a school report.

But he said credit should be given to Dr Habibie in areas of freedom of expression, the release of political prisoners and the birth of the multi-party system. Newspaper editorials said Dr Habibie should go and urged MPs to take notice of the escalating street protests.

Dr Habibie attempted to justify his controversial handling of East Timor and pleaded for the MPR to ratify the ballot result without setting conditions on the territory's independence.

Clashes as Habibie flayed in parliament

Jakarta -- Indonesian President B.J. Habibie came under scathing criticism at the national assembly Friday as his bid for a new mandate triggered a second day of violent protests in the capital.

With five days to go before the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) was to pick a new president, parliamentary factions took turns declaring their views on Habibie's past record after security forces drove protesters from the area.

The exercise, part of an indirect presidential election process, came a day after the former vice president delivered a speech defending his performance after 17 months leading the world's fourth most populous nation.

Habibie, a 63-year-old engineer, was catapulted to power following the May 1998 resignation of veteran ruler Suharto, his political benefactor.

On national television late Friday, speakers from parliamentary factions took turns commenting bluntly on Habibie's handling of the economy, political system, East Timor and separatist tensions as he listened and took notes from a red- upholstered armchair.

Earlier Friday, anti-riot personnel employed tear gas and clubs to beat back rock-throwing protestors in avenues and alleys near parliament ahead of the evening visit by Habibie.

The angry crowd that numbered some 1,000 in the morning gradually swelled to between 2,000 and 5,000, according to various estimates, by late afternoon.

At least three security personnel and scores of students and civilians were injured in the violence. Shortly before dusk, thick moving columns of anti-riot troops, firing teargas on their way, had finally cleared the area of demonstrators.

Inside parliament itself, political factions in the 700-member assembly spent the day deliberating their own verdicts on Habibie before their representatives took turns speaking in his presence.

Under Indonesia's unique political system, a rejection could undermine Habibie's chances when the MPR selects the president Wednesday. In the assembly late into the night, Habibie took notes as the factions took him to task for his policies.

Said Muhaimin Iskandar of the National Awakening Party of Habibie's East Timor policies: "The president has never had initial consultation with the highest assembly ... never consulted with the people of East Timor." He said the policy had resulted in "tragedies ... exodus, acts of killings, scorched earth and the possibility of a civil war."

Julvan Lindan of Megawati's PDIP faction lambasted him mercilessly, saying Habibie had "shamelessly" claimed credit for reforms pushed through by the students and the people. "PDIP states that it rejects the speech of accountability of President B.J. Habibie," he said.

The crucial response by Habibie's own Golkar party, read by Priyo Budi Santoso, was muted and seen by some as fence- straddling. "The presence of the president [at the session] ...proves that the spirit of reforms has entered the state's highest institution," Santoso said.

But he queried Habibie on crucial issues, including the Bank Bali scandal, Habibie's decision to offer the independence option to East Timor, his decision to halt a graft inquiry on former president Suharto and on the weak upholding of human rights.

"The Golkar Party faction is of the opinion that the [Bank Bali] case is basically only one of the complex problems related to the implementation of the bank recapitalisation and restructuring agenda."

"One of the roots of the problems that have triggered the social crisis and the crisis of confidence is that the supremacy of the law ... has yet to be upheld," the Golkar representative said. "A crisis of confidence on the law ... and contempt for human rights continues to be felt by the people," he said.

Students protest, taxi drivers strike

Jakarta -- Thousands of students and taxi drivers were in an uproar yesterday over the dropping of the Soeharto probe and later staged a rally demanding the government continue its probe into the case.

The demonstration was centered on the Surabaya House of Representatives [DPRD] building in Jalan Indrapura. Hundreds of students who had arrived there earlier in the day were later joined by others from the National Students' Association for Democracy and the Surabaya Front.

"We demand the government bring Soeharto and his cronies to court, soon, drop military's dual function, cancel the Security Bill and reject Habibie's accountability speech before the People's Consultative Assembly [MPR]," said Andri Arianto, the secretary general of the students' association and the co- ordinator of the demonstration. Thousands later marched on the DPRD building and took part in the protest.

In the meantime, more than 200 drivers from Srikandi Taxis, drove toward the area and took part in the protest.

After assembling there for the entire day, the drivers later dispersed. The drivers were protesting over their low income.

Following a meeting with DPRD members, representative from the Department of Manpower and the Organization of Land Transport, a new agreement was made in which better facilities were offered.
 

East Timor

Witness says up to 200 massacred

Suai -- Indonesian soldiers and pro-Jakarta militia slaughtered as many as 200 people in a church compound in this town in southwestern East Timor in September, an eyewitness claimed Saturday.

Eliesu Gusmao said a mob arrived at around 2pm on September 6 and he hid in a corner of the church compound. He said he heard the militia commander shout "Shoot, shoot, shoot" at which point the massacre, rumors of which have floated around for weeks, unfolded.

An AFP photographer who visited the scene Saturday saw piles of crushed and burned skeletal remains behind the church, which was almost totally razed. Only the concrete facade and church bell remained.

The collapsed roof of the church lay in ashes. Pieces of burned clothing littered the ground outside. By an iron bedstead there were bigger bones. Local residents had placed red bougainvillia flowers on the piles of crushed skeletons.

The walls and floor of a half-finished cathedral, about 100 meters away but within the compound, were splattered with old bloodstains. Bullet holes riddled the walls and spent cartidges littered the floor. There were two burned out jeeps and one burned out tractor in the compound.

Gusmao, whose wife and daughter were still missing, said women and children screamed at the gunmen to stop, but they took no notice. He identified the militia leader giving the order as Icidio Manek, leader of the Laksaur militia group.

Some of the militia hacked people with machetes, he said. One of those hacked to death was a Roman Catholic priest from Indonesia's Java island, he said. He said the militia had taken most of the bodies away.

In the East Timorese capital of Dili, International Force for East Timor (Interfet) spokesman Colonel Mark Kelly said troops were in the Suai area Saturday, but he had no confirmation of the apparent massacre. "I can't confirm that but we will follow it up. All reports like this will be thoroughly investigated," he said.

Suai, 110 kilometers southwest of Dili, was the target of frequent militia attacks even before the August 30 independence vote in East Timor. The territory voted to reject an offer of autonomy from Indonesia and opted for full independence 23 years after Jakarta annexed the territory.

The first militia violence in the Suai region began as early as January when the Indonesian government announced it could let go of East Timor if the autonomy offer was rejected.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has created a five-member team to investigate human rights abuses in East Timor, led by Costa Rican jurist and MP Sonia Picado.

The other members include two Asian representatives -- the former chief of justice of India, A.M. Ahmadi, and the deputy chief justice of Papua New Guinea, Mari Kapa. Also included are Nigeria's former minister of women's affairs, Judith Sefi Attah, and former German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser- Schnarrenberger.

Robinson told a news conference in Geneva on Friday that the commission could recommend the setting up of an international tribunal, similar to those set up for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

"It will certainly be in the power of the commission to make recommendations for a tribunal or any other appropiate response when they have assembled the relevant evidence," she said.

Peacekeepers kill at least 3 militia

Dili -- Peacekeepers battled with anti-independence attackers on East Timor for more than an hour Saturday, killing three of the militiamen and wounding three others, peacekeeping officials said.

It was the Australian-led force's bloodiest clash since it was deployed on the embattled Indonesian island September 20 to stop a rampage by Indonesian forces and their militant allies after the territory voted for independence.

No one in the international force was injured in the fighting near Marko, a village about 10 miles from Indonesian-controlled West Timor, said peacekeeping spokesman Col. Mark Kelly.

"The engagement ... resulted in approximately three militia killed in action and three militia reported as wounded," said Kelly, who is also the chief of state of the multinational force.

He said a reconnaissance patrol of about half a dozen peacekeepers was attacked at 7am by a group of about 20 militiamen. After a battle of between 60 and 90 minutes, a rapid reaction peacekeeping force flew to the area by helicopter and evacuated the foreign patrol.

Militia leaders who fled to West Timor with their followers when the peacekeepers arrived in East Timor have repeatedly threatened to launch a guerrilla war against the foreign forces.

The majority of Indonesian soldiers who had controlled East Timor for 24 years have returned to their country since the independence vote on August 30 and the mayhem that followed.

The peacekeepers forces, who number about 8,000, have taken control of Dili, the burned out capital of East Timor, are now deploying to most other cities in the territory.

They also are boosting their presence along the border with West Timor, where a clash last week with militants and Indonesian soldiers and policeman standing nearby led Jakarta to accuse the peacekeepers of violating Indonesia's sovereignty.

Indonesia says it fired first in clash

Dili -- The head of the multinational force in East Timor, Major General Peter Cosgrove said Thursday that Indonesia had admitted its forces fired the first shots in a border clash last weekend.

Cosgrove told reporters here that the head of Indonesia's police in Dili, Brigadier J.T. Sitorus had given him the results of a preliminary Indonesian investigation into the incident.

"It is acknowledged that the first shot was fired by TNI/Polri [the armed forces and police], they say not by a militia member," he said.

But Cosgrove said Indonesia was still claiming that Interfet troops crossed over the border from East to West Timor, triggering the incident. "We say that the force was short of the marked East Timor boundary."

Interfet initially said the first shots in the firefight on Sunday were fired by militia members who were in the company of the police and the military.

Cosgrove said that in the heat of the moment his troops "had the impression that those that were firing at them were not in full TNI or full Polri uniforms."

He said he could not confirm the death of an Indonesian policeman in the firing, but said he could accept that happened if Indonesian officials told him so.

The shooting near the border village of Motaain was the first involving troops of the UN-sanctioned International force in East Timor (Interfet) and the Indonesian armed forces. The first Interfet troops arrived in East Timor on September 20.

Militiamen sneak return to East Timor

Andi Jatmiko, Liquica -- Dozens of anti-independence militiamen who fled East Timor are secretly returning with plans to launch a guerrilla campaign against the international peacekeepers charged with keeping them out.

The Associated Press accompanied a militia leader and his armed followers through the mountainous interior of the half- island territory this week. The Australian-led multinational force has clashed with, and killed, several militiamen in the past week.

"We are East Timorese. Why are [the peacekeepers] trying to keep me out of East Timor?" militia leader Eurico Guterres asked Tuesday. "This is the place where I was born. I will fight to be in my own land, my own place." The peacekeepers were deployed on September 20 after the Indonesian army and its militia allies unleashed a wave of killings following an overwhelming vote for independence by East Timor's 850,000 people in a UN-sponsored referendum.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas urged Indonesia's parliament on Wednesday to approve East Timor's independence, saying the country could face economic sanctions if the legislators delay their decision.

The United Nations has urged the militias to disarm and to help rebuild an independent East Timor. However, guerrilla leaders like Guterres have ignored the appeal.

This week, he traveled from a militia stronghold on the border of Indonesian-controlled West Timor to a village in Liquica, about 30 miles west of Dili, East Timor's capital, where the peacekeeping force is based.

There, he inspected a group of about 150 militiamen, who he said had slipped into East Timor last week. Most had M16s, AK/47s and other automatic weapons; others carried homemade arms. All wore uniforms of Indonesia's military, which is accused of covertly supporting them.

"We are going to send more militias in soon. Maybe then we will fight," Guterres said as his men gathered in a secluded bamboo grove. He and his Aitarak militia are accused by independence activists of several bloody attacks, which the United Nations plans to investigate.

Hundreds of militiamen retreated into West Timor ahead of the arriving peacekeepers, and Guterres said they are now returning.

"I want to tell the world that the militias are not still just on the border, like the media says," he said. "We are back in East Timor and behind [the peacekeepers'] lines." Despite the militia presence, a company of Australian mechanized infantry rolled into Liquica on Wednesday in their M113 armored personnel carriers.

"We're going to stay here permanently," said Capt. Jeremy Gillman-Wells, the Australian commander of the newly established garrison.

He said he planned to go into the hills overlooking the coastal town and appeal to an estimated 30,000 displaced people to return to Liquica and surrounding villages.

Doctors Without Borders, an international relief agency, was planning to set up a clinic in the destroyed town, once used by the Portuguese as the seat of their colonial government. Other humanitarian organizations were planning to mount a large rice distribution drive in the town on the weekend.

"The people up in the hills won't come down until they see that security has been re-established," Gillman-Wells said.

Another militia leader, Cancio Lopes de Carvalho, was spotted 60 miles southwest of Dili. Carvalho said he leads 400 fighters in camps near Suai, not far from the border, and others would be arriving soon despite a buildup of peacekeepers in the area.

On Wednesday, 344 Australian troops landed on beaches near Suai to reinforce a garrison of 139 New Zealand soldiers. Across the border in West Timor, about 100 militiamen conducted drills armed with sticks.

"We will give them automatic weapons later but not today. We are training them how to live and fight in the jungle," said their instructor, who identified himself as Abilardio.

On Wednesday, Australian Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, the peacekeepers' commander, applauded the progress his troops have made so far. "A vast part of this country is relatively secure and vastly more secure than it was before we arrived," he said.

Deported return with tales of terror

Joanna Jolly, Dili -- By 9am the crowd outside the stadium in East Timor's capital Dili has already begun to swell in anticipation of the arrival of the day's first refugees being flown back from Indonesian West Timor.

Half an hour later three trucks carrying about 60 refugees pull up. Australian soldiers hold back families straining to find relatives, and in the heated atmosphere many of the returning refugees begin to cry.

The man at my side is John Vincente, a pro-independence youth leader from Maliana who himself has just returned from West Timor.

He writes down the names of 10 colleagues murdered by the militia and Indonesian army during the worst of the violence.

He says he was lucky, escaping their fate because after being taken to West Timor he was saved by the courage and generosity of Indonesian priests.

"It was very difficult for me because the militia and the military had my name and my photo," he says. "I was in Atambua for two days where young men are being killed at night by militia and intelligence soldiers. But I made it to Kupang where I felt safe because I was protected in the parish of a local priest."

Such stories are increasingly being heard, now that an estimated 260,000 East Timorese forcibly deported to West Timor by the militia and Indonesian military are being returned by the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR.

Pedro, who was too afraid to give his full name, used to run a guesthouse in Dili popular with foreigners. He was forced to flee during the shooting and burning that followed the announcement of the result of the August 30 UN-organised ballot on independence.

As he and his family joined many others seeking protection at the local military base, they passed dead bodies on the road.

Pedro stayed outside the base for two nights before moving again, this time to police headquarters, where he was told to find a car to take him to the West Timorese town of Atambua.

"But there were no vehicles, and we were too afraid to go even 500 metres from the police station," he said. Instead he and other East Timorese were flown by the Indonesian military to the West Timorese capital of Kupang.

When he arrived, the military took his group of 150 refugees to a camp 18 miles from the centre of town. But Pedro persuaded the commanders to return him to Kupang to the shelter of a Catholic organisation that had links in East Timor.

His previous activities in East Timor meant he was a target for the militias, but he was saved twice by a priest, who ordered militias out of the compound.

"I cannot praise that priest enough," he said. "We knew that if we left the compound the militia would get us. When my wife and children went out to buy food they told me the militia were stopping men on the streets, blindfolding them and tying their hands behind their backs before they took them away in their cars."

Pedro says it was not just the church sheltering East Timorese. "The ordinary people in West Timor are sick of the militia. They don't like the way they behave ... All around Kupang in every house, people are taking in East Timorese."

Pedro, however, learnt that many refugees had not been lucky. His wife returned from shopping trips with information of camps where the women were too afraid to talk after the men had been taken at night by militias.

He fears for those in Atambua, where the UNHCR is still negotiating for safe access to some 200 refugee camps.

Pedro believes that refugees will be made to pay for each militiaman killed in East Timor by Interfet troops. He said: "When the militia return from these attacks, they are very angry and they will take it out on those people."

Hundreds of militia roam Timor: Interfet

Andrew Marshall, Dili -- Hundreds of anti-independence militiamen are still active in East Timor and the border is not yet secure against more entering, the head of the UN-mandated multinational force said on Friday.

"My estimate would be militia active in hundreds," force commander Major-General Peter Cosgrove told a news conference. "This notion of an impermeable border or an Interfet that can somehow magically overnight guarantee foolproof security is one that I think we can only wish for."

Cosgrove said he was extremely doubtful about reports feared militia leader Eurico Guterres had visited the town of Liquica, just west of Dili, with a band of armed militiamen.

Earlier, Australian radio said he had changed his position after dismissing the reports on Thursday. "I can tell you now that it is extremely unlikely that Eurico Guterres or any of his militia were in Liquica at the time that was reported," he said. "I happen to know from other sources where Guterres was, and he wasn't in Liquica."

Cosgrove would not say where Guterres was. Guterres leads the Aitarak (Thorn) militia which had been based in Dili and ransacked the city after East Timor's overwhelming vote for independence in a UN-supervised ballot on August 30.

He labelled reports Guterres had travelled to Liquica "a fairly crass propaganda attempt which is working like a charm". But he conceded there had been militia activity near Liquica. Thousands of militiamen are believed to be gathered near the border in West Timor.

The multinational force which arrived in the East Timor last month after Jakarta's failure to stem the violence has fanned out across the territory, but reports of militia activity persist, even in heavily-guarded Dili. Cosgrove said he was checking reports of shooting in Dili overnight.

He said 400 Australian and British troops had been despatched to "beef up our presence in the western regencies", and a major contingent of Thai troops was expected to arrive in East Timor's second largest city, Baucau, on Saturday.

Elite forces scouted island from April

Ian Hunter, London -- Australian special forces and navy divers were scouting the terrain of East Timor and Indonesian forces deployments inside the territory months before the actual landing of United Nations-approved peacemakers last month, a senior Australian defence source has revealed. Members of the elite Perth-based Special Air Services Regiment and the Royal Australian Navy's Clearance Diving Team (CDT) have been operating clandestinely on the island since early this year.

The sole task of the two elite units was reconnaissance in preparation for a large Australian Defence Force (ADF) deployment.

The SAS's principal subjects have been infrastructure in and around Dili, Indonesian ground force operations in the hinterland and movements of military traffic across the West Timor frontier. CDT divers scoured Dili harbour and nearby anchorages for anti- shipping mines, explosives and traps. They also surveyed nearby sites in case an amphibious landing became necessary. From the shore they scouted for Indonesian military (TNI) and militia obstacles and deployments.

The two units train together off the coast near Perth. While the SAS, whose strength is put at "over 500" by the Defence Department, stayed at Swanbourne for the Gulf War, the CDT performed Timor-style work in Kuwait during that conflict. Their orders did not authorise offensive strikes, interdiction or sabotage. Deployed by submarine and extracted by helicopter, they were inserted when the Prime Minister put the Darwin-based 1 Brigade on 28-day standby in April.

Although the helicopter flights were made at extremely low level to avoid detection by radar, the TNI did make it known in June that it was aware of unauthorised intrusions, though it suspected the flights involved covert weapons shipments to independence fighters.

On June 9, the Indonesian armed forces commander, General Wiranto, ordered increased naval and air surveillance off the East Timor coast after five helicopter flights were reported in May and June.

The then East Timor military commander, Colonel Tono Suratman, said there had been two helicopter landings in the area of Larinkuten, near Viqueque, of a large helicopter similar to the French-designed Puma. At the same time as the helicopter landings were reported, a vessel with a helicopter landing pad had also been sighted off East Timor's coast, he said. The description fits with the Seahawk helicopters operated from RAN frigates.

The covert operations before the creation of the Interfet force are classified secret and will remain so under the Federal Cabinet's 30-year rule.

A senior ADF special forces and intelligence officer recently said the small force was observing Indonesian military activity as a necessary precursor to full-scale deployment. The same tactics were used by the British SAS during the 1982 Falklands and 1990-91 Gulf wars.

In July the same officer was saying that the official outlook was that the ADF would deploy shortly and that ensuing peacekeeping and United Nations stabilisation plans would be similar to those effected in Cambodia in 1991. At that time, he said that ADF headquarters in Canberra expected the eventual UN- sponsored intervention force to be small and include only a minimal armed security force. ADF planning did not anticipate an Australian component as large as 4,500 personnel.

The SAS and CDT cells transmitted constant reports on TNI and militia activities to ADF headquarters and the ultra-secret Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), also in Canberra. Only 20 or so people, including the Prime Minister, were allowed access to these reports and attached assessments. Most members of Cabinet have not seen them. The job of the DSD has been to analyse the reports and conclude whether the recent atrocities were a sustained policy of terror or a violent reaction to impending independence.

The SAS cells, comprising no more than five troopers, would never have been in a position to intervene. Such operations would have required the support of the SAS's Sabre Squadron, which has not seen action since the Vietnam War.

In armed contact with the TNI and militia, the general observations, technical descriptions and assessments of TNI capabilities in Timor have been invaluable.

Major-General Peter Cosgrove, the Interfet leader, inadvertently referred to the ongoing reconnaissance recently when he said he was interested to read reports of what the TNI and militia groups were doing in remote and border areas. The covert surveillance gave the ADF the most comprehensive intelligence survey of the Indonesian military and paramilitary activity as the East Timor situation deteriorated mid-year. This has been uncomfortable knowledge in one respect. United States agencies have complained to the Australian Ambassador, Mr Andrew Peacock, about being denied access to Australian reports because they were known to be much more detailed than anything Washington had.

Mr Peacock declined to forward the reports because the names and operational deployment details would be compromised.

The US has its navy and the CIA watching the zone. Los Angeles class submarines are capable of positioning pods called Ivy Bells on underwater communication links. After a month or two they are retrieved and then decoded.

They are believed to have been listening to TNI traffic for as long as the SAS has been on the island.

Australia opens talks over Timor oil

Sydney -- Australia has begun talks with East Timorese leaders over the Timor Gap treaty under which Australia and Indonesia share oil revenue from the Timor Sea, officials said Wednesday.

The oil-rich Timor Gap lies off Timor's south coast in what is expected to be the newly independent East Timor's territorial waters and could provide the impoverished nation with its most important revenue source.

Reports from Jakarta said Indonesia had frozen the Timor Gap treaty because of a serious downturn in relations between the two countries over East Timor.

An Australian-led international peacekeeping force is trying to restore stability in the territory ravaged by an Indonesian- backed terror campaign since it opted for independence in its August 30 ballot.

Australia's leading of the force and its criticism of human rights abuses in the territory have prompted fierce accusations of betrayal in Indonesia. Canberra was the only industrialised country to recognise Indonesia's annexation of East Timor in 1976.

The official Indonesian news agency Antara quoted Indonesian Navy chief Admiral Achmad Sutjipto as saying naval operations with Australia to monitor the waters of the Timor Gap had been suspended.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra had been implementing a transition strategy for the oil treaty through talks with the United Nations and East Timorese representatives.

Downer told parliament on Tuesday that a senior East Timorese independence official had confirmed East Timor's desire to move forward on future treaty arrangements.

Resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, who is staying in Australia prior to his return within weeks to East Timor, told a business audience on Monday that oil would be among his country's major exports.

Downer said: "We see this as consistent with an early and smooth transition providing a solid basis for continued long term investment in the Timor Gap.

"We are happy with the way the discussions are proceeding. We do think that the Indonesian government will be very cooperative in the process of the transition and equally all the signs are very positive."

The Indonesian government said on September 7 that it was fully prepared to cancel the treaty signed in 1989 with Australia over oil and gas extraction rights in the sea between Timor and Australia.

"That treaty was between the government of Indonesia and Australia, but because East Timor will in the future no longer be Indonesian territory, for legal reasons, that treaty can no longer be implemented," Mines and Energy Minister Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said.

The area in the Timor Sea covered by the treaty is believed to hold hydrocarbon reserves worth some eight billion US dollars but only around 1.1 million dollars worth of oil and gas was exploited last year, industry sources said.

UN sees no evidence of mass murder

Dili -- The United Nations said Wednesday it had uncovered no evidence to support allegations that pro-Jakarta militia engaged in mass murder in East Timor.

"We've heard horrendous stories for which so far there's not a shred of evidence," Michel Barton, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) in Dili told Reuters.

"There's no evidence so far of very large massacres. There have been murders. There have been terrible things that have happened here ... But we don't believe that people in their thousands have been killed andtheir bodies buried or thrown in the sea. If this had been the case we would have found evidence of this by now and none has been found."

Miltia groups rampaged through East Timor last month, destroying virtually every city, town and hamlet after the population voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence in a UN-supervised referendum.

About 400,000 of East Timor's 890,000 people remain unaccounted for. Aid officials say some are dead but the vast majority remain in hiding in the hills, awaiting assurances that it's safe to return to their homes.

A UN-mandated international military force, known as Interfet, continued its deployment among the western regencies of East Timor Wednesday with an air mobile operation in the Bobinaru region.

Interfet troops have been pouring into those areas along the border with West Timor for the past week, hoping to stamp out the last militia activity and secure the region for badly needed humanitarian assistance.

The United States began resupplying Interfet troops in the east around Los Palos Wednesday using CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters based on the USS Belleau Wood, which is anchored in waters just off the capital, Dili. Washington has limited US. involvement here primarily to logistics, communications and intelligence support.

The UN force and Indonesian military officials are still sorting through conflicting versions of a shoot-out involving their forces in the hamlet of Motaain straddling the border between East and West Timor last Sunday.

An Interfet spokesman said Wednesday the multinational force commander, Australian Major General Peter Cosgrove, would respond favorably to any constructive suggestions by Indonesian armed forces commander General Wiranto on how to avoid future clashes along the border.

"Commander [of] Interfet is open to any suggestions from General Wiranto," said Colonel Mark Kelly. "He respects General Wiranto. He certainly respects solutions and options that he has presented. We will have to look at those closely."

Kelly said media reports that the Indonesian army was disarming militia forces in West Timor, if true, also would be welcome.

Gusmao promises western-style democracy

Melbourne -- Independent East Timor will be a western-style democracy with open institutions and a diversified economy driven by exports of coffee, oil, gas and tourism, the man likely to be its first leader has promised.

It will be dependent on international trade -- not aid -- and will provide incentives to encourage the growth of its private sector while offering selective intervention to ensure efficiency and equity. It will not harbour grudges for past injustices and will do its utmost to foster warm relations with Indonesia, resistance leader Xanana Gusmao told a fund-raising dinner here late Monday.

A renegotiation of the Timor Gap treaty by which Australia and Indonesia share oil and gas production off the coast of Timor was implied but not stated in a speech in which Gusmao outlined his blueprint for a dream fulfilled -- the free Republic of Timor Loro Sa'e, as he called it.

Some business and trade union guests at the 160 dollar (105 US) a plate dinner said they were surprised by the grasp of up-to-date economics -- complete with catchphrases -- demonstrated by the diminutive figure speaking in halting, heavily accented English.

After all, he had just emerged from six years in prison or detention after 16 years fighting Indonesian soldiers in the jungles and mountains of East Timor. But he has also been a poet, artist, army corporal and civil servant in the Portuguese colonial administration.

With the help of the international community, Gusmao vowed, "a free and independent East Timor will soon be born from the ashes of our devastated and destroyed homeland."

But although it desperately needed aid and assistance in the short term, it would "not allow the shaping of a culture of dependency on international aid and assistance," he said.

"East Timor will engage in international trade through exports of coffee, oil and gas, and tourism as well as importing goods and services from overseas.

"Nevertheless, we will place emphasis on developing the agricultural sector together with small and medium industries as the engine of economic growth."

With the aim of attracting foreign investment, East Timor would also develop technical, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation on bilateral and multilateral levels and with different countries and international institutions.

Gusmao, president of East Timor's CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance), said his people who had returned to the homes from which they were driven by pro-Indonesian militia last month after an August ballot demanding independence, would require the tools and resources to rebuild the framework of a civil society.

"They will need to re-establish government and non-government organisations and institutions to take charge of physical, social and psychological repair, reconstruction, reconciliation and re- integration."

The CNRT, he said, would build an effective administration with a minimum number of people but it would deliver the basic services the country needs. It would give priority to building democratic institutions and an open and accountable economy.

"The democratic system that we are envisioning is the one that allows a genuine representation where all democratic elements, such as the press and non-government organisations, also have a substantial voice in the decision-making process," he said.

He promised it would also be diligent "in promoting total transparency within the apparatuses and organisations of power and, in the management and accountability of funds provided by international aid to civic and social organisations."

This would ensure that "from the first moment we can firmly combat corruption and all temptation to debase the objectives of sustainable development."

Members of TNI pledge to join militia

Five hundred members of TNI battalions who are East Timorese met last Wednesday to pledge their loyalty to the pro-integration struggle by joining the PPI, the Force to Struggle for Integration, in a ceremony attended by Udayana military commander, Major-General Adam Damiri.

"I naturally welcome your dedication," said Adam, "but not as members of the TNI."

Adam Damiri's comment gave encouragement to many soldiers to join the pro-integration struggle. Moved by the spontaneity of their feelings, Adam told each of the soldiers as he greeted them one by one that those who wished to retire from the army and return to East Timor should do so. "There's plenty of fertile land there," he said.

There is a clear trend for members of battalions 744 and 745 to join forces with the PPI. The threat of warfare posed by Interfet which is now hunting down the pro-integration militia has not dimmed their determination. "We are ready to die," one of them told GAMMA.

They complained that the international community was ignoring the wishes of the 20 per cent of East Timorese to remain a part of Indonesia. The number would certainly have been greater, had Unamet not rigged the ballot, they said.

Another senior TNI officer who was on hand to encourage the TNI soldiers was Major-General Endriantono Sutarto, Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations at the Armed Forces. He said the members of the two battalions 744 and 745 were welcome to discard their uniforms. It was their right, he said, to take on other work, including becoming members of the militia. He said he did not know how many TNI members and police were opting to join the militia. He said that since the announcement of the result of the ballot, many TNI members had asked to be allowed to join forces with the PPI. But he also admitted that some had chosen to join forces with the pro-independence group.

He denied claims that the TNI had armed the militia. He said he was inclined to encourage them to pursue a political struggle rather than a physical struggle after having fought against Falintil for years. If they opted for a physical struggle, this could destabilise things in East Timor. But speaking as a TNI officer, it was not for him to forbid them from doing so.

According to PPI commander Joao Tavaras, 6,000 former members of the TNI and 600 members of the police force have now joined the PPI, having discarded their TNI uniforms. These former TNI and police members would become the spearhead of the guerilla movement against Falintil and were ready to take up arms against Interfet, he said. Besides these former soldiers, he said that people were volunteering to join the PPI from other parts of Indonesia.

He said that the PPI now had a force of 59,500 men, most of whom are concentrated in NTT. Some 12,000 of us, he said, are intending to return to Atabe, Bobonaro. "If Falintil tries to prevent us, we will give a fitting response." He said that the remainder would slip back into all the thirteen districts of East Timor.

We accept the risk and costs Gusmao says

Melbourne -- The East Timorese people were prepared to accept the risk of armed struggle against Indonesia and now accept the high cost of their freedom, resistance leader Xanana Gusmao said Monday.

Gusmao also told reporters here that he hoped to return to East Timor from Australia as soon as possible to set up an interim administration to work with the United Nations during the transition to full independence.

"We know that we have a very, very difficult future," he said. "We know that we will start from zero to reconstruct not only our contry but also ourselves as people, as human beings."

Speaking in halting English but carefully choosing his words, the man who spent seven years in Indonesian prisons before his release last month, said the East Timorese resistance movement had always known there would be violence following the August 30 ballot.

But it had never anticipated how destructive and devastating it would be. "Before the ballot I believed that my people would very easily forget and forgive everything in the past, but the last weeks caused a very big trauma in my people," he said.

"It is why the year of 2000 will be a very very difficult time, a very very difficult attempt to heal everything, not only the basic infrastructure but essentially the spirit of our people, now traumatised by the destruction and by the violence.

"We are aware of a very, very difficult task ... We are aware of our destiny, our fate of being a poor, small, defenceless people." But he added: "We feel every reason to defend our freedom, a right to live as a human being, as a people."

Asked if the cost of East Timorese freedom and independence was too high in terms of death and destruction, he said the East Timorese had accepted the risk and now accepted the cost.

"We accepted the risk at the beginning of our struggle, known that we fought alone against the indifference of the international community, against economic interests, against everybody."

Gusmao will deliver a major speech later Monday to an audience expected to top 10,000, including the vast majority of the estimated 8,000 East Timorese exiles living here. He is also being given a reception at the Victorian state parliament and a welcome at the town hall.

Interfet, Jakarta harden their positions

Dili -- Australia and Indonesia Monday traded accusations over a border clash between the multinational forces in East Timor and Indonesian troops, as Australia called for urgent top-level talks to defuse the row.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said he would lodge a complaint with the United Nations, while Interfet commander Major General Peter Cosgrove flatly denied his men crossed into Indonesian territory.

"Even if it was an accident, because of the differences in maps, I think it was rather strange because Interfet is equipped with equipment said to be very sophisticated. How come they can make such a mistake?" Alatas said.

"We will protest it, of course. But Indonesia's stand is that we deeply regret it," he said as Indonesian MPs protested and demonstrators hurled rocks at the Australian embassy.

Ruling Golkar party MP Slamet Effendy Yusuf said: "If there are foreign forces that violate our sovereign territory, we should just shoot them."

Cosgrove said Jakarta knew his men had not crossed into West Timor, and said he had lodged a strong protest with local Indonesian military commanders.

The Indonesian military said Sunday night an Interfet patrol "trespassed" into Indonesian-ruled West Timor and shot dead one policeman and wounded another.

"I have protested in the strongest terms to local Indonesian army authorities," Cosgrove told Australia's ABC television in Dili.

"We have very accurate maps, and we also use a global positioning system device ... We know to within a few meters where we are.

"Quite plainly we were in East Timor. The Indonesian authorities know that, and no doubt the people that fired the shots also know that."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard told parliament in Canberra his government regarded the incident in the most serious terms and said he was seeking urgent discussions with Jakarta.

"Interfet personnel believe the incident took place in East Timor," Howard said. "It shows that some elements in TNI [the Indonesian military] may be disregarding the terms of the UN Security Council resolution 1264 and continuing to support militia groups."

Interfet spokesman Colonel Mark Kelly said the group that first fired on the Australian troops near the border town of Motaain were "wearing T-shirts and dressed in militia garb."

But he said the men were accompanied by units of the Indonesian police and armed forces. Details surrounding the incident were "still fuzzy."

Kelly also said talks between Cosgrove and Indonesian officers in Dili Sunday had agreed the incident "was well and truly inside East Timor." The Indonesian command statement admitted the border demarcation was vague.

Kelly denied Interfet troops were acting provocatively by approaching the collection of hamlets known as Motaain. "We have a mandate to take up to the border, firing weapons is not a good way of warning people that you are getting near a border."

He also said Cosgrove had ordered units operating along the border to take extra precautions after the incident, the first involving the two sides since Interfet arrived on September 20 to halt militia violence triggered by East Timor's August 30 vote to break away from Indonesia.

Meanwhile Xanana Gusmao, the former guerrilla commander tipped to become East Timor's first national leader, told reporters in Australia he thought the Indonesian military provoked the incident.

"They want to see how much the Australian troops are ready to fight." Gusmao also said he hoped to return home soon and set up an interim administration. "We know that we have a very, very difficult future," he said.

Kelly said Monday Interfet troops in southwest East Timor detained and questioned 80 people. The detentions came after reports of militia activity in Hatuvo and Cassa. All 80 were released when they were found to be unarmed, he said.

He said Interfet forces were continuing to deploy in the area as a part of the new "Westfor" command which will see a total of 3,000 troops in the volatile western area.

In the West Timor capital of Kupang, a battalion of hardened Kostrad (strategic reserve) soldiers, some 600 men, were seen disembarking from military planes from Ujung Pandang. One of the officers told reporters the men did not know where their assignment was and they were awaiting orders.

Australian Defence Minister John Moore said Monday nations involved in the peacekeeping operation would hold ministerial talks next month.

Policeman believes UN betrayed Timorese

Paula Doran -- Paul Morris has just served his fourth, and probably his last mission with the United Nations. He says the humanitarian organisation betrayed the trust of the East Timorese and did not treat its local staff properly.

The Canberra-based federal policeman was the team leader in the first contingent of 15 international police to land in East Timor on 21 June in the lead-up to the 30 August ballot.

The Detective Senior Constable recalls being struck by the fear in the eyes of the East Timorese, and the slow, difficult task of gaining their confidence on behalf of the UN. He says that trust was betrayed. "I was very angry for weeks, and still am about what happened and what was allowed to happen when UNAMET left. The fact that UNAMET did leave, and the way we left.

"We'd [made a] promise to the people of East Timor, giving people faith and hope, and confidence to vote. That was all part of what we told them, that we, particularly the civilian police would not leave."

On 30 August at 9am, the first of the polling sites in Mr Morris' area of Ermera, south-west of Dili, was attacked by militia. Local UN staff were evacuated to the police station for protection and the polling site was temporarily closed.

"Two hours later they went back and continued the vote. The amazing thing was, while they were gone the militia came in. And with the Indonesian army and Indonesian police involved in it as well, [they] shot into the air and shot into the ground and the people just sat on the ground. Didn't move. Gutsy stuff. Really brave people.

"They knew that day was the only day they were going to have to vote and let the world know what they wanted and under those conditions they didn't run away, they stayed, they sat there, and they waited and they waited and when the polling station reopened they continued to vote."

Later that day, a local UN worker was stabbed at a polling station. Mr Morris said the UN did not send medical aid or a helicopter from Dili, which was seven minutes' flight time away. The man died an hour-and-a-half later.

Mr Morris is dumbfounded as to why the UN reported that voting had taken place without incident on 30 August, when polling sites and ballot workers throughout Ermera were under constant militia attack.

"I don't know whether they did that to get all the ballots in and get them counted. I don't know why they did that press release [which said] everything went off without a hitch, when it hadn't. They knew it hadn't," he said.

For a night after the ballot, Mr Morris and his men were all that stood between 200 locals -- including UN workers holed up in the UN headquarters -- and weapon-touting, rifle-shooting militia.

"All it was, was basically telling them, `Well, you're going to have to kill us first, to get to them'. That annoyed them as well, I think. They'd lived a life of intimidating people. Not saying that we weren't scared.

You'd be stupid if you weren't scared. I was at the stage where I was just downright angry, and the other boys were the same, so there was no way they were going to get to our local staff or anyone else."

The police later led a convoy evacuating UN staff and villagers to Dili. They made world news for the feat, before they returned to the rampaging militias in Gleno.

Indonesians `purge' militia

Paul Daley -- Australian intelligence agencies have new evidence that Indonesian military officials are systematically covering up their East Timor atrocities, with a program to intimidate and kill pro-integration militiamen who carried out much of the carnage.

Defence and diplomatic sources have told The Age that Australia has received detailed signals intelligence about the Indonesian military's plans to cover its tracks before a proposed United Nations human rights investigations.

Senior Federal Government figures have been made aware of the evidence, which has been analysed by other intelligence agencies after collection by Australia's Defence Signals Directorate, the sources said. The intelligence is believed to detail conversations between senior Indonesian Army (TNI) figures in Bali, West Timor and possibly Jakarta about silencing senior and middle-ranking militiamen who may be persuaded to assist the UN with inquiries.

The intercepted conversations add to a growing body of evidence that senior TNI figures were arming and organising the militias before encouraging them to kill pro-independence supporters after the 30 August East Timor autonomy vote.

"The [intelligence] indicates a very deep concern by senior people in TNI about the possibility of war crimes and human rights inquiries, and shows that they will go to great lengths -- any length -- to cover their tracks ahead of such inquiries," a source told The Age. "The information is on the lines that if any militia guys show signs of splitting from the [TNI] program ... or show signs of talking to UN investigators, then the militia members will be taken out, liquidated ... There are suggestions that deaths have already occurred there [in West Timor]."

The sources said Australian intelligence agencies also had photographs and other satellite imagery showing large numbers of East Timorese refugees being killed at sea.

"There are images of Indonesian boats leaving port filled with people and arriving at another port ... with hardly anybody on board," a source said. "There are more specific images which ... show people, believed to be East Timorese, being dumped at sea."

The Defence Minister, Mr John Moore, yesterday refused to discuss the material, telling The Age: "I can't comment on intelligence." A spokeswoman for the Foreign Minister, Mr Alexander Downer, also declined to comment.

The existence of the material could heighten pressure on the Government to disclose information held by Australian intelligence agencies to the UN's commission of inquiry into human rights abuses in East Timor.

While Australia co-sponsored the UN resolution calling for the inquiry and expressed willingness to cooperate, the Government has not yet specified what form its assistance will take.

On Friday the Australian branch of Amnesty International wrote to the Prime Minister urging the Government to demonstrate its "commitment to justice" by supplying the commission with "all intelligence and other information" about violations of human rights in East Timor.

Australia's relationship with Indonesia could be further strained if the Government agrees to provide the UN with its intelligence about Indonesian military abuses.
 

Presidential succession

Megawati supporters return to streets

Jakarta -- Supporters of opposition presidential hopeful Megawati Sukarnoputri returned to the streets on Saturday to press the national assembly to pick her as the new head of state.

Some 500 supporters of the chairwoman of the Indonesian Democracy Party-Struggle (PDIP) clad mostly in the party's trademark red, kept circling a roundabout in central Jakarta, singing and chanting slogans.

"Megawati or revolution," they yelled, interspersed with calls to "take Wiranto and Habibie to court," referring to incumbent President B.J. Habibie and armed forces chief General Wiranto.

Both have been accused, mostly by students protestors, of trying to scuttle reforms to preserve conditions prevalent during the era of former president Suharto, Habibie's mentor.

"Mega [Megawati] for President," said one of the banners carried by the protestors while others said "Democracy not manipulation," and "Who else is the elected president if not Mega?"

The PDIP won the June parliamentary elections, the first since Suharto's fall in May of last year, with 34.7 percent of the vote.

Dozens of people carried a huge red banner with the picture of a bull, the symbol of the PDIP that harks back to the populist National Party of Indonesia of Megawati's father, founding president Sukarno.

The rally was festive. Military police and traffic police confined themselves to keeping the traffic moving, as scores of police and soldiers relaxed on the sides of the roundabout.

Despite calls from officials for people not to take to the streets in support of presidential candidates, rallies have been held daily.

In Yogyakarta, central Java, thousands of Megawati supporters rallied at the Kridosono stadium, the Suara Pembaruan evening daily said.

Megawati supporters say that as the winner of the June elections she had the right to the presidency. "Surveys prove that Megawati is the presidential choice from Sabang to Merauke," said a long banner, referring to two towns at each extremities of the country.

Megawati is pitted against Habibie and Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid for the presidency to be decided by the national assembly on Wednesday.

Dark horse candidate gains support

Jakarta -- Respected Indonesian academic Nurcholis Majid, considered by many as a dark horse presidential candidate, is recieving growing support from the country's Muslim parties to compete with the three declared nominees, a party official said Saturday.

Zarkasih Nur of the Central Axis -- a grouping of six Muslim parties -- said Majid had by the weekend been assured of 64 of the 70 votes needed from members of the the national assembly to run for the nation's top post, the Bisnis Indonesia daily said.

Majid, 60, who holds a doctorate degree from the University of Chicago, is seen by most as a political neutral. He has not publicly declared himself and has been avowedly reluctant to plunge into politics.

Nur, an executive with the dominant United Development Party (PPP) said he was confident Majid "will receive constant support, not just reaching 70 votes but until the voice of majority."

"This is not the voice of the PPP but on behalf of the Central Axis. We will remain solid," he said.

The three declared canidates in the race for the presidency, to be decided on Wednesday, are incumbent President B.J. Habibie, popular opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri and Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, a populist Muslim leader.

Whoever is president will answer to Wiranto

Michael Shari, Singapore -- For a while, Megawati Sukarnoputri had the edge in the race for Indonesia's presidency. Her party had won the highest percentage of the popular vote in the June elections, and she enjoyed the apparent backing of the military. So the betting was that when legislators voted for a President on October 20, Megawati would walk away with the crown.

But now all bets are off. Instead, the odds of a strong presidency emerging from the chaos decline every day. Megawati could still end up as the next President. But so could current President B.J. Habibie -- or blind Muslim cleric Abdurrahman Wahid, who leads a coalition of seven Islamic parties. And none of them seems to have the stature needed to lead Indonesia's unruly People's Consultative Assembly and so push through needed reforms. None of them can stem the influence of the military. And to secure backing, all these candidates may capitalize on the rise in nationalism. That, in turn, could scare off badly needed foreign investment.

The biggest surprise is that Habibie, though wounded by a banking scandal and the disaster in East Timor, is staging a comeback. If he wins, the consequences could be explosive. Habibie, who took over after Suharto stepped down in May, 1998, is opposed by the thousands of pro-democracy students on campuses around Java. This group turned out heavily on June 7 to vote for Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party. If a Habibie victory sparks student violence, the ultimate winner could be Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Wiranto, who could justify a stepped-up role for the military.

Megawati herself unwittingly resuscitated Habibie's chances. First, she snubbed an offer by the head of the ruling Golkar party to shift the party's support to her from Habibie. And she now refuses to work with Wahid, who has said his supporters oppose the idea of a woman president. Megawati's quarrels ended an earlier effort to forge links between her party, Golkar, and Wahid's group. "If she has a strategy, it's confusing," says Jusuf Wanandi, director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.

Megawati's only hope now may be to patch things up with Wahid. Meanwhile, Golkar insiders say Habibie is gaining ground by promising the assembly, which is heavy with Suharto-era figures and 56 army generals, five more years of generous kickbacks. Habibie's office did not answer requests to discuss the allegation.

As the confusion grows, so does General Wiranto's power. In mid-July, Wiranto secured the support of his regional commanders to become a powerful vice-president to a figurehead President -- who at that time was expected to be Megawati. Now, Golkar officials say Wiranto has agreed to run for vice-president on Habibie's ticket.

"Wiranto is presumably looking for a weak President, and at this point Habibie looks like the best candidate," says Harold Crouch, an Indonesia expert at Australian National University. Wiranto dined with Habibie at the presidential palace on October 13.

With Wiranto's influence on the rise, and with new political camps asserting themselves in the assembly, power already is draining away from the presidency. "It has reached the point where it doesn't really matter who the President is anymore," says Bruce Gale, Singapore-based regional manager of the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. Indonesia's experiment with democracy is certainly not over. But its long- term health remains very much in question.

Unreal atmosphere envelops parliament

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- A growing sense of unreality has taken root in Indonesia's presidential contest in the wake of President Bacharuddin Habibie's speech.

A well-connected source said senior military advisers to opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri and military intelligence personnel had held meetings on Thursday to allow, if not provoke, wider unrest that would help create a political shake-out. "And then those men and her men started to jump into the field," said a source.

One theory is that armed forces chief General Wiranto, now put forward as Mr Habibie's running mate, is anxious to depart from the President's script and is not averse to the rumoured arrival in Jakarta of tens of thousands of agitators from around Java.

Recent history has shown that engineered unrest cannot always be controlled by the forces that set it in train. If this next week provides more apparent flashbacks to the killing of students in May last year which triggered riots that brought down ex- president Suharto, the risks to a peaceful transition of power are great.

Meanwhile, the presidential contest remains unresolved. There is no precedent for the rejection of a president's accountability speech and so no firm rules for what impact this would have on Mr Habibie's re-election bid.

Mr Habibie is a stubborn politician who is reputedly ready to buy support. He is more adept at the numbers game than his main opponent Ms Megawati, giving him still a chance of victory. But such a win would not resolve Indonesia's political transition, only prolong it with greater risks of unrest.

"No one knows who's going to be president," said a senior observer at parliament who spoke to several deputies. "Some ambassadors had their cars stopped, stones thrown at them, and were asked by youths which country they were from -- presumably looking for Australians," said one Western diplomat who attended Mr Habibie's speech in the heavily guarded parliament.

In a startling break with tradition, the President was interrupted both before and during his speech by the leader of Ms Megawati's faction in parliament, Ir Sutjipto, who decried the violence of the students outside.

People's Consultative Assembly chairman Amien Rais made a point of inviting some students into the assembly hall. He interrupted Mr Habibie to say so.

Wiranto accepts VP nomination: report

Jakarta -- Indonesian Armed-Forces Commander General Wiranto accepted the nomination by President B.J. Habibie as his running mate for the October 20 presidential election, a local newspaper reported Thursday.

"I have said from the beginning that for a soldier, dedication to the nation knows no time and space," the daily Kompas quoted Wiranto as saying. "It means if there is a call to duty from the people and the government, we will try to perform our duty the best that we can," he added.

Wiranto was quoted as expressing his gratitude toward the ruling Golkar party, which named him as one of its vice president candidates.

The Golkar party named Wiranto as one of four candidates for vice president. However, the ruling party gave Habibie the final say as to who his running mate would be.

Habibie's choice of Wiranto has rattled Indonesian capital and currency markets as the military is now expected to cast their 38 votes in the parliament for Habibie. The possibility of the incumbent Habibie staying in power is raising fears of violence following the election.

Later Thursday, Habibie is scheduled to deliver the so-called "accountability" speech. He is expected to address the crisis in East Timor, the Bank Bali scandal and the dropped investigation of former President Suharto as well as the country's political and economic reforms. The reaction of the members of the country's highest legislative body, or the MPR, to Habibie's speech after being in power for 512 days is crucial to his chances of being re-elected.

[On October 16, the South China Morning Post reported Wiranto as saying that the military should have a political role because political parties tended to overlook the national interest as they fought over their narrower concerns. Quoted in the Straits Times he said "The majority of politicians are too self-centred," citing as an example that it took the military to initiate a meeting of all party leaders to encourage all sides to agree not to take their political battles to the streets - James Balowski.]

Thousands back Megawati candidacy

Jakarta -- Some 2,000 supporters of Indonesian opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri swamped a major roundabout in central Jakarta on Wednesday to back her bid to become the country's fourth president.

The supporters were from different groups that began pouring into the roundabout from various directions around noon.

Most chanted "Megawati or Revolution" -- a yell that has become increasingly heard in the past few days as supporters of the daughter of Indonesia's founding president Sukarno take to the streets to air their support for Megawati's presidential bid.

The roundabout, lined with hotels, including one were MPs are staying during the current national assembly convention, was packed by ralliers and traffic was reduced to a snail's pace. The ralliers scattered to nearby buildings during a sudden downpour but returned to the roundabout after the rain stopped.

The protestors, who carried portraits of Megawati, then proceeded to the south on a main thoroughfare, yelling pro- Megawati slogans on the way and singing songs derisive of incumbent President B.J. Habibie, one of Megawati's main rivals for the next presidency.

Megawati is one of three candidates in Indonesia's presidential race, which winds up on October 20 when the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) elects the new head of state.

She is running against Habibie and Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid the chairman of the country's largest Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama.

The rallies to support Megawati took place as the country's security leaders and politicians called on the people to refrain from large mass rallies in support of a presidential candidate. They aired concerns that such demonstrations of support could turn violent if two separate groups met.

Police chief General Rusmanhadi on Wednesday appealed to the main contenders to urge their supporters to go home. "To those who are planning to disturb the MPR session, please, cancel your plans," Rusmanhadi said.

"For those planning to come to Jakarta, don't force yourself to come. Let the MPR members voice your aspirations. And to those who are in Jakarta please, go home. I also call on the academics and politicians not to make inflammatory statements."

The police chief said he was preparing 41,513 security personnel to guard the MPR during the plenary session which will elect the president. "This number will be enough to secure the MPR session," Rusmanhadi told a press conference.

Rusmanhadi said there were indications party supporters were flowing into Jakarta from outlying areas such as Central Java and East Java to support their favored presidential candidate. "All we can do is to encourage them not to create a chaotic situation in the capital," Rusmanhadi said.

He said police are already stationed in strategic locations around the city including the central business district, offices, shopping malls and department stores.

He said a clash had nearly occurred at the same roundabout on Tuesday between a rally of supporters of Habibie and those of Megawati.

Do they have something up their sleeve?

Susan Sim, Jakarta -- Indonesia's two leading presidential candidates -- Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri and Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, also known as Gus Dur -- continued to confound political pundits here with an apparent show of their solidarity last Friday when they travelled together to East Java to visit the graves of their fathers.

The two -- one, the most popular opposition figure and the other, the leader of the largest Muslim group -- first prayed at the Blitar grave of Ms Megawati's father, founding President Sukarno, before heading for Mr Abdurrahman's hometown, Jombang, where his father and grandfather are buried.

The joint appearance, just two days after Mr Abdurrahman emerged as Ms Megawati's strongest challenger for the October 20 presidential contest, set off speculation that his bid was merely a ploy to boost her chances against incumbent President B.J. Habibie, widely seen as a bad risk.

The friendship between the two had early on seen their parties locked in a power-sharing alliance, with Mr Abdurrahman also functioning as a bridge between her more secular base and the larger Muslim community suspicious that she was more receptive towards Christians.

But Ms Megawati's continued disinterest in cutting deals with other parties had created a vacuum which allowed leaders of the smaller Muslim parties to form their own alliance to block her, attracting even reform leaders like Dr Amien Rais who is her ally, but on paper.

Is Mr Abdurrahman taking advantage of that Central Axis group, now a fairly formidable voting bloc almost on par with Ms Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party-Perjuangan (PDI-P), to propel himself into the hot seat?

Or is he neutralising its impact by pretending to be its best hope for political supremacy, the aim being to make sure it does not turn to Dr Habibie in frustration? Both he and Ms Megawati are not telling.

She is clearly not behaving like a politician in distress, unlike Dr Habibie, who continues to court one and all frenetically, sometimes with success. Her close aides would only say that her sole aim was to win the presidency as mandated by her party, and that she was prepared to share power with other players. Her Cabinet, for instance, is likely to include only four or five card-carrying PDI-P members.

Have the other posts been promised to other parties in return for support? Golkar leaders seem to think they have secured the vice-presidency for their chief, Mr Akbar Tandjung, who cannot talk openly about it without risking an open rebellion within his party ranks since he is supposed to be committed to helping Dr Habibie win.

Aides of Ms Megawati, who helped arrange some of the secret talks, would only say that "everybody is in the basket" although the smaller Muslim parties had shut their doors on her.

"The deals are done," said one aide, adding cryptically: "But everybody is still playing games." The semi-blind Mr Abdurrahman was not a real threat to Ms Megawati's claim on the presidency, he said.

"I don't think that people are being realistic enough to make very serious considerations about his health. He can't read, write or walk without help."

Privately, a number of political analysts have been worried that the two strokes Mr Abdurrahman suffered in the last year have affected his mental faculties. "But he is the only person available" to Muslim leaders eager to ensure that their community was no longer marginalised politically like in the Suharto years, said analyst Salim Said.

"This is what you get in a country where people were not allowed to play politics for a long time. You have to squeeze the field to come up with Megawati." And even then, she was not playing the game like normal politicians, he said, behaving either like a novice or exuding over-confidence.

An unknown factor too features prominently in the political make-up of both Ms Megawati and Mr Abdurrahman -- a belief in the mystical.

Insiders say both decided on their own political trajectories after receiving blessings from their dead fathers in visions. Their joint pilgrimage on Friday would either have convinced them to pursue their present paths or might lead to more surprises in an already bewildering game.

Golkar says Megawati spurned advances

Amy Chew, Jakarta -- Indonesia's former ruling Golkar party said on Monday it had approached presidential frontrunner Megawati Sukarnoputri about possible cooperation but had been rebuffed.

Party leader Akbar Tandjung was speaking as Golkar began a two-day meeting to consider unpopular President B.J. Habibie's candidacy for an October 20 presidential vote. Opposition leader Megawati is the favourite, but needs support from other groups to win.

Tandjung, recently elected as parliament speaker, did not clarify exactly how far the offer of cooperation went. Megawati's party is the largest group in the 700-member People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which elects the president, with 153 seats. Golkar is the next biggest with 120 seats.

"Our offer was not responded to positively, directly or well," said Tandjung. "We needed to approach other political parties to work together so that the MPR session could proceed according to the schedule and not be a prolonged session."

The two-day meeting at a Jakarta hotel opened amid protests by more than 200 Habibie supporters at attempts to revoke his candidacy.

A reformist faction within Golkar wants to ditch the unpopular Habibie, who later this week has to account for his actions during his brief presidency to the country's top legislature. If the speech is rejected, it effectively ends Habibie's bid for reelection.

But the leader of that faction acknowledged on Monday that Habibie's nomination would probably be retained. "It will be reviewed but the consensus will be that most probably his nomination will be retained," party deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman said.

Golkar members from the Javanese city of Yogyakarta were lobbying for Habibie's candidacy to be revoked over his handling of the East Timor crisis and the pending loss of the former Portuguese colony.

"We want the nomination of Habibie to be reviewed because of letting go of East Timor. We cannot tolerate that," said Gandung Pardiman, secretary of the Yogyakarta party chapter. "We can understand the other problems. I hope the review will be done rationally and objectively."

Habibie is under massive pressure over East Timor, after a referendum he permitted produced a resounding rejection of Indonesian rule. It sparked mass bloodshed by pro-Jakarta forces and foreign intervention backed by the United Nations in East Timor, which has upset many Indonesians.

A major banking scandal has also implicated members of his inner circle and prompted the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to suspend badly-needed loans.

Megawati in secret deal with Golkar

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- Indonesia's opposition leader, Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, has struck a secret deal to secure the presidency that would split the Golkar party of the floundering incumbent, Dr B.J. Habibie.

Under the deal Golkar's chairman, Mr Akbar Tandjung, would serve as Ms Megawati's vice-president with a "full mandate to run everything" in return for supporting her presidential bid next week.

A source close to Ms Megawati yesterday confirmed the deal had been struck two weeks ago at a meeting at which more than 75 Golkar MPs promised in signed statements they were prepared to desert Dr Habibie at the last minute.

Ms Megawati's presidency would be largely symbolic, with immense power remaining with Golkar, the party that backed the disgraced former president Soeharto for 32 years.

Golkar this week re-endorsed Dr Habibie as its candidate when the 700-seat People's Consultative Assembly, or MPR, meets next Wednesday to choose the next president.

But party delegates also gave Mr Tandjung or other members of Golkar's board the authority to dump the unpopular Dr Habibie and nominate another candidate if the MPR votes to reject an accountability speech he was due to make last night. The speech will be debated by MPs today and tomorrow.

Ms Megawati's party, which won the June parliamentary election, and the party of the third presidential contender, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, have already said they expect to reject the speech, the last hurdle in Dr Habibie's faltering re-election bid.

Dr Habibie's credibility has been badly damaged by a banking scandal, East Timor, and failure to prosecute Soeharto over graft during his 32-year rule.

A Jakarta court yesterday also acquitted Soeharto's youngest son, "Tommy" Mandala Putra, of all charges in a corruption trial relating to a land deal.

Dr Habibie's speech was expected to highlight economic achievements during his 512 days as President, including success in boosting the rupiah's exchange rate, bringing down inflation and interest rates, opening rice procurement, passing a banking law and scrapping some monopolies.

Mr Tandjung, 54, is an experienced political operator, having served for 10 years in successive Soeharto cabinets. A recent convert to democratisation and one of the key reformists in Golkar, Mr Tandjung was last week elected to the powerful post of parliamentary speaker.

Analysts say many Golkar MPs might back a Megawati-Tandjung ticket rather than risk losing power altogether. But they add Dr Habibie's ability to attract votes should not be underestimated, as he is believed to have access to millions of dollars to bribe MPs.

Dr Habibie has already nominated as his running mate the head of the armed forces, General Wiranto, who controls a crucial 38 military-appointed seats. General Wiranto would be deeply unhappy about Ms Megawati winning the presidency without a political role for the armed forces leadership.

Yesterday demonstrators demanding Dr Habibie step down clashed with security forces near parliament.
 

Aceh/West Papua

Troops on full alert in Irian Jaya

Jakarta -- The Indonesian military has issued a "full alert" security status in Jayapura, the capital of Indonesia's remote eastern Irian Jaya province, as it enters third day Saturday of massive protests over the government's decision to split the province in three.

Thousands of students and civilians there have occupied the governor's office since Thursday, though no clashes have been reported, an officer with the Irian Jaya military command said.

"It is now on full alert ... and joint personnel from the military command and the 751 [Army] battalion have been deployed," second sergeant Riswan told AFP by phone. "The city is tense, thank God there are no clashes yet but all of us have not been home in two days," he added.

The government, through a presidential decree issued earlier this year, split the huge province of Irian Jaya, which constitutes half of the island of New Guinea, into three provinces -- East Irian Jaya, Central Irian Jaya and West Irian Jaya.

Jakarta said the move was needed to better administer the huge province, while many Irianese charged it was designed to tighten Jakarta's control over them. It also appointed three new governors on Tuesday.

Similar demonstrations involving a total of 1,200 protesters also took place Thursday in the Biak and Nabire regencies of Irian Jaya, the Jakarta Post reported.

The hidden agony of Aceh

Pravit Rojanaphruk -- Suharto may be gone but respect for human rights and freedom of speech is still a long way off in the country he ruled with an iron fist for 32 years. A shameful chapter in history near its end as East Timor inches toward independence. But Indonesia's military and police still continue to commit, or turn a blind eye to, murder, rape, torture and arson in other parts of this vast archipelago.

However, since Suharto's fall in May last year more and more people are daring to speak out about the atrocities being perpetrated by the state.

Ahmad Human Hamid is a sociology lecturer at Syiah University in Banda Aceh, the capital of the "special territory" of Aceh. With a total area of 55,392 square kilometres, and a population (in 1980) of just over 2.6 million, Aceh lies in the far north of the island of Sumatra.

"We weren't brave enough to speak out before now," says Ahmad. For the past year Ahmad in his role as vice coordinator of Care Human Rights Forum has been confronting the aftermath of more than three decades of brutal repression in his home province. Ahmad recalls how while attempting to document cases of torture he approached a village elder in Aceh. The old man looked at him quizzically and asked, "What kind of torture do you want to collect?" Ahmad was stunned. In Aceh, torture has apparently become a highly specialised "discipline". In 1989 martial law was imposed in Aceh and the province declare a "military operational zone" (Daerah Operasi Militer). According to statistics compiled by Forum Peduli Hak Asasi Manusia, at least 1,321 people have been killed in the province since then. During the same period 1,958 people went missing, 597 houses burnt down; there were 128 reported cases of rape and 3,430 of torture.

Ahmad suspects that these figures grossly underestimate the real picture. Victims and their relatives are often too afraid of reprisals to come forward, he said. And since Aceh is a largely mountainous region, the difficulty of the terrain also hampers the collection of accurate data.

Debra Yatim is a leading feminist and founder of women's group Selendanglila. Half Acehnese herself, she is well aware that East Timor is not the only place in her country where people's rights are regularly abused.

"You name any human rights violations, Aceh has it. If anybody wants to research human rights violation, Aceh would be a perfect place to go."

Aceh has a long history of resisting outsiders. It was here, in the late 13th century that Islam gained its first foothold in the archipelago when the ruling elite of Achin (as it was then known) embraced the faith. Achin was an important port in the lucrative spice trade and grew into a powerful trading state. It reached the height of its power during the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607-36) whose influence extended throughout Sumatra and across the straits to the Malay Peninsula.

Achin was the only part of the archipelago excluded from the Dutch sphere of influence after the signing of the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824. The Dutch sent an expeditionary force to conquer Aceh in 1873 and although they claimed victory in 1904, the colonial war continued right up to 1945 when the Dutch East Indies gained independence and became known as Indonesia. In that 72-year period it is estimated that 70,000 Acehnese and 37,500 Dutch soldiers were killed.

Although granted "special territory" status in 1953, the people of Aceh felt betrayed by the Sukarno government which had promised them autonomy if they agreed to join the new republic. When the local ruler was refused permission to introduce Islamic law, there was an uprising, train tracks were ripped up and Jakarta sent the military in. Some 4,000 Acehnese lost their lives in this rebellion which continued until 1962. Thousands more were killed by mobs during the anti-communist pogrom which followed the suppression by a rightist general named Suharto in 1965.

A separatist movement took up arms against Jakarta in 1976 and sporadic violence continued until 1984. Renewed fighting broke out in 1989 and Suharto sent in the troops again and imposed martial law.

According to Debra, Aceh played such an instrumental role in the struggle for independence back in the 1940s that Jakarta considers the province too important to the national "pysche" to allow it to secede from the republic. Nor does she believe that Jakarta will willingly give up control of the vast deposits of oil and liquified gas discovered in Aceh in the '70s and early '80s.

Today, people like Ahmad and Debra are still trying to explain to themselves how the world and otherwise decent Indonesian citizens could have ignored the situation in Aceh for so long.

"A military operational zone was in place," says Debra. "For 32 years, the Indonesian military has being creating a country within a country and violating every aspect of human rights. To go there we [Indonesians] had to ask for permission. Diplomats couldn't get permission at all. Researchers were allowed in only for three days at a time and had to be escorted by local officials."

Ahmad recalls the response that one courageous local journalist got when he asked a politician about reports of missing Acehnese.

"The answer was: 'Well, the Acehnese like to go to Malaysia. Or who knows, maybe they just drowned themselves in the river!' This was such an insult! But then Suharto strictly controlled the press.

No journalist would have been able to dig up a story, let alone write about it. You didn't need to read a lot of newspapers in those days because they were all the same."

The most recent tragedy documented was the massacre of 39 civilians by military personnel on July 23 in Beutong Ateuh, West Aceh. In that incident religious leader Tengku Bantakiak, members of his family and some of his students were murdered and their bodies thrown down an old well. "In the name of the state, a group of individuals has been freely violating people's rights," he says. "It's very close to the idea of ethnic cleansing. And who are the real victims? The victims are the women and children. It's about the destruction of the very fabric of our society. Who has the heart to see an infant hung upside down and its mother not allowed to feed it for hours and hours until finally the child dies?"

Adds Debra: "They rape any single women that they can find. Two or three villages are full of illegitimate children with Javanese features."

Ahmad says that after decades of state-approved violence, the social network in Aceh has completely broken down. "Individuals who provide assistance to a victim's family are immediately assumed to be supporters of the separatist movement. So a victim's family is completely abandoned and left to suffer.

Victims' wives and children are labelled as traitors and this seal [stigma] will remain with them for the rest of their lives." Earlier this year Debra went to Aceh and asked to visit a refugee camp. "They refused me point blank," she says, angrily.

To Debra's dismay, many Indonesians with whom she has tried to discuss Aceh just shrug dismissively and say, "Oh, it's not my problem."

She concedes, however, that the vast majority of her compatriots still do not know what is happening in Aceh. What's more, she says, the Acehnese have been portrayed by the Indonesian media as Islamic fundamentalists similar to those in Iran or Libya, or as rebels who have no respect for security and order.

"The discourse has been put in place and it's hard to get away from," she says. "At the same time, the Javanese are portrayed as being more civilised than the rest of Indonesians; they are supposed to speaks more gently, with more refinement. And two presidents [Sukarno and Suharto] happened to be Javanese."

Since independence there has been an all-out attempt to "Javanise" the whole of Indonesia, Debra says. And too often in her country, nationalism means conformity. She says the rallying call of "one culture one language" was useful in uniting people of diverse religions and cultures in a common struggle against Dutch colonial rule. But faith in that political slogan is fast waning, she says, and not just in Aceh, but in Irian Jaya, Ambon and elsewhere.

After the fall of Suharto, many ordinary Indonesians suddenly began to feel that they could voice their opinions again but with the the military still very influential and the cultural climate little changed, Debra says she honestly doesn't know where Indonesians are heading.

"People may eventually say: I want my identity back. I want to secede. I don't want to be part of this experiment anymore."

Ahmad thinks it may still be possible for Aceh and other regions to remain part of Indonesia but for that to happen some sort of "truth commission" needs to be set up so that those responsible for the atrocities can be put on trial and their victims properly compensated for the anguish they have suffered.

Earlier this year, Ahmad got the opportunity to pay a visit on President Habibie. There he was politely told that the president would only accept responsibility for events which had occurred during his term of office.

"It's the same way that a child protects his parent," says Ahmad, referring to the fact that Habibie is perceived by many as Suharto's protege.

He says Habibie is urging people to forgive and forget. "But how can we forgive?" Ahmad asks. "How can we forget when men have been dragged out of their houses and killed in front of their families and the killers are still walking around scot free."

Ahmad warns that more and more violence can be expected in the years ahead if attitudes and government policies do not change.

But Debra seems to think that the outcome is a forgone conclusion. "We think secession is the only alternative," she says, firmly. "Getting away from Javanese-Indonesian imperialism is the only way."

MPs call for broad autonomy for Aceh

Jakarta -- Thirty MPs from Indonesia's Aceh province Wednesday urged the nation's highest legislative body to give the troubled region a broad-based autonomy along the lines proposed for East Timor.

The 35 members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) met with leaders of a working group preparing MPR decrees and an amendment to the constitution to go before the plenary session later this week.

"There is a need for a political settlement of the Aceh case," the group said in a statement handed to the chairman of the working committee. It said that such a political settlement could be contained in a contitutional amendment and through MPR decrees.

The group proposed broad autonomy for Aceh that would relinquish all power to the provincial authorities except for foreign affairs, external defence and monetary and fiscal policies.

The group did not give further details on the scheme which appeared similar to the broad autonomy package offered by Jakarta to East Timor. That offer was rejected in favor of independence from Indonesia in a UN ballot in East Timor in August. A Timor- type autonomy for Aceh was proposed in detail by a group of Aceh intellectuals, academics and politicians last month.

The MPs also urged the MPR to task the new government to "earnestly and honestly assure justice against violators of human rights in Aceh during or after" the decade of anti-rebel military operations which only ended last year.

Gunmen kill three policemen in Aceh

Jakarta -- Gunmen shot dead two policemen in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh on Tuesday while another was killed the previous day, reports said.

A group of unidentified men shot the two policemen, both first sergeants, as they were riding a motorcycle in Tiro, Pidie district around 9am, Aceh police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Amrin Karim was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying.

"The likelihood is that the two police members were shot from close range and it is believed that the two victims died on the spot," Karim said.

The two were on their way home after night duty at the Tiro police post. They were shot just five kilometres from the post. Karim said security forces were searching the area for the attackers.

He said that on Monday, another policeman, a second sergeant, was also shot dead by gunmen in Lhoksukon in the neighbouring district of North Aceh.

The victim was killed by two people on a passing motorcycle after he had brought his pregnant wife to a primary school where she was teaching, he added.

The two incidents were the latest to hit the troubled province of Aceh where the Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh) movement has been fighting for a free Islamic state since the mid 1970s.

Pidie and North Aceh, along with East Aceh, are the three districts in Aceh where most of the violence between separatists and Indonesian soldiers and police have taken place.

The districts had borne the brunt of military violence during a harsh decade of anti-rebel operations there that was only ended last year. More than 260 people have been killed in Aceh since May.
 

Human rights/law

Regulation issued on human rights tribunal

Jakarta -- The Indonesian government announced on Monday it has issued a regulation on the establishment of a human rights tribunal which would also cover alleged atrocities committed in East Timor.

The regulation, dated October 8 and signed by President B.J. Habibie and State Secretary Muladi but only made public Monday, said the formation of the tribunal was intended "to uphold human dignity and to give individuals protection, legal certainty and security."

Indonesian human rights commission (Komnas HAM) chairman Marzuki Darusman said Friday Indonesian troops guilty of human rights abuses in East Timor would be tried in the tribunal and not by a military court.

It catagorized human rights violations as partial or full genocide, arbitrary and extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and displacement, slavery, systematic discrimination and torture, including by the authorities.

"The human rights tribunals are special courts on violations of human rights that are formed within the environment of general courts of justice," the decree said.

They will be based in main cities or at district capitals. But initially, a single special court will be formed at the Central Jakarta district court. This court's jurisdiction will cover the entire territory of Indonesia, the decree said.

The penalties the human rights court is entitled to mete out would range from two years in jail to the death penalty. It also allowed victims of the violations, or their heirs, to claim compensation through court.

Investigation and the formulation of the charges would be the responsibility of a team formed by and coordinated by the attorney general. But the investigation should be initiated after preliminary evidence is gathered by Komnas HAM.

The attorney general's office team will be given three months, extendable for another three months, to seek evidence of human rights violations. If there is still no sufficient evidence, the case will be dropped and can only be reopened if new evidence is found.

In his statement Friday Darusman said an independent commission on human rights violations in East Timor would be set up to collect evidence of military abuses in the territory which voted for independence from Jakarta in August.

The decision came after the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on September 27 voted in favor of establishing an international inquiry into alleged human rights atrocities in East Timor.

Indonesia, which invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed it the following year, had rejected the resolution and said the government would not cooperate with the international inquiry, arguing it would conduct its own investigation.
 

News & issues

Up to ten killed in Ambon

Jakarta -- A policeman and at least two, and up to nine, civilians were killed in renewed sectarian clashes in Ambon, the capital of the troubled eastern Indonesian province of Maluku, police and a report said Saturday.

Maluku military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Iwa Budiman said one policeman and two civilians were killed in Friday's clash between Christians and Muslims in the Suli and Trial areas, 20 kilometers east of the city.

Sergeant Ferry Somael "died from a bullet wound in the head ... and based on information received here, two residents were also killed in the skirmish," Budiman told AFP by phone.

The Antara state news agency said the officer was shot while trying to mediate between the two groups and had died while being rushed to hospital.

But the Sinar Pagi daily, quoting its own journalist on site, said one policeman and nine civilians were killed during the eight-hour clash.

Budiman said on Saturday morning the situation in Ambon was "calm and the city is safe." He said Muslim residents controlled most of the city's harbor areas while Christians dominated districts in downtown Ambon.

Suharto's son cleared over graft charges

Jakarta -- A court yesterday found the youngest son of former president Suharto innocent of two corruption charges involving a shady land deal after a six-month trial.

Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, 37, was the first member of Indonesia's former first family to be prosecuted for graft.

A three-judge panel handed down the not-guilty verdict as large anti-government and anti-corruption demonstrations erupted across the capital.

"The charges made by the prosecution cannot be proved," said presiding Judge Soenarto. Judge Soenarto said the case involved a business deal covered by civil not criminal law.

Mr Hutomo, who dozed off as the lengthy ruling was being read, smiled but said nothing when the verdict was announced to the cheers of about 200 supporters who crammed the South Jakarta District Court room or waited outside.

Prosecutors had argued Mr Hutomo enriched himself and engineered a loss for the Indonesian state of about US$10.8 million (HK$84.24 million) through a 1995 land-swap deal involving one of his companies and a state food agency, in violation of an anti-corruption law enacted by his father in 1971. "We are planning to file an appeal," said state prosecutor Fachmai.

The verdict is bound to have major political ramifications. It was delivered as police were firing tear-gas at thousands of students and other protesters demonstrating near Parliament against the Government and its apparent unwillingness to crack down on alleged corruption by the Suharto family.

Mr Hutomo's verdict also came six days before Indonesia's highest legislative body is to choose the country's next president.

During Mr Hutomo's trial, prosecutors alleged that his company, PT Goro Batara Sakti, and the state food agency, Bulog, struck an illegal land-swap deal in 1995. Under the agreement, Goro built a shopping mall on land in north Jakarta that it had acquired from Bulog.

But Goro failed to live up to its part of the bargain and did not give Bulog another block of land elsewhere in Jakarta in return. Mr Hutomo later sold his stake in Goro without paying Bulog back.

Australia embassy in Jakarta attacked

Jakarta -- Hundreds of protestors Wednesday demonstrated at the Australian embassy here Wednesday, hurling abuse, tomatoes and stones at the premises over the perceived arrogance of Australian troops in East Timor.

The first protestors, around 100 men from North Jakarta, some wearing t-shirts of the Aitarak East Timorese militia, carried a huge Indonesian flag and hurled insults at the Australian government and military.

Some 100 policemen in riot gear and members of the police auxiliary force stood passively between the protestors and the embassy's fence.

The first group left only to be replaced by some 200 students from the private Jayabaya university who besides yelling anti- Australian slogans also pelted the embassy building with tomatoes and stones.

The police guard did not budge. The second batch only stayed briefly and gave way to a third group who arrived aboard several buses. The new arrivals, from the Borodubur private university in East Jakarta, burned an Australian flag in front of the embassy.

They carried two large banners. On read "The MPR has to react strongly" refering to the national assembly and the alleged incursion into Indonesian West Timor by Australian-led multinational troops from East Timor at the weekend during which Jakarta says one Indonesian policeman died. The other, in English said "Aussie, never disturb our sovereignty."

The protestors also carried posters labelling Australian Prime Minister John Howard a "coward" and demanding the withdrawal of Australian soldiers from the Internation Force for East Timor.

They were the latest anti-Australian demonstrations at the embassy which has seen almost daily protests including flag burnings in the past weeks.

The embassy was once pelted with fuel bombs while unidentified gunmen have shot three times at the mission in the past month. The Australian International School in Jakarta was attacked last week with fuel bombs hurled by unknown men.

Protests have also been held at Australian consulates in several other towns, forcing the closure of two of them, and on Tuesday mobs surrounded the consulate in Medan, North Sumatra.

Anti-Australian sentiment has been on the rise following Canberra's sharply critical stance on Indonesia's handling of the post-ballot violence in East Timor and its pressure to push for an international peacekeeping force there.

Outrage over dismissal of Suharto probes

Vaudine England, Jakarta and Switzerland -- Two probes into allegations former president Suharto amassed ill-gotten wealth have been dropped due to lack of evidence, the Government said yesterday amid howls of protest. Prosecutors abandoned corruption investigations relating to two charitable foundations chaired by former president Suharto, acting Attorney-General Ismujoko said after meeting President Bacharuddin Habibie.

"The Attorney-General's Office has decided to halt the investigations because of weak evidence regarding indications of abuse of funds," he said.

There has been no clear indication about probes relating to five other foundations he chaired and a presidential decree he issued on a national-car project launched by his youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, except that the investigations continue.

The failed probes related to the Dharmais Foundation and the Supersemar Foundation, both chaired by Mr Suharto while he was president. He had been accused of misusing donations lent to the foundations by state banks.

The decision to drop the investigations has already provoked outrage in Parliament, to which Mr Habibie must justify this and other acts of Mr Suharto's rule on Thursday.

"From the complicated process of investigations, hollow reasoning and now with the dropping of the probe ... it is clear all this is just a mockery," said Kwik Kian Gie, a deputy chairman of the opposition Indonesian Democracy Party of Struggle.

Matori Abdul Jalil, deputy chairman of the lower house who also chairs the National Awakening Party said the decision had evaporated whatever confidence the people had in Mr Habibie and his Government.

Even the head of the military faction in Parliament, Hari Sabarno, said that although it was the Government's right to make the decision, claims of a lack of evidence were feeble excuses given Mr Suharto's free use of decrees to cover his tracks.

In Berne yesterday, the Swiss Public Prosecutor's office said a request from Indonesia for help with an investigation into any assets hidden in Switzerland by Suharto would be re-assessed.

Dominique Reymond, the office's spokesman, said the Foreign Ministry would contact the Jakarta Government. "There is a new situation now which we must assess in co-operation with the Foreign Ministry," Mr Reymond said.

The Swiss Public Prosecutor's office is now waiting for news from the Indonesian Government on the remaining probes.

The decision is unlikely to please the former president, now confined to his central Jakarta home after a stroke that has left him unable to speak or move his right side.

Sources close to Mr Suharto said his own desire was to be prosecuted and proven innocent, to assure his place in history unsullied by unanswered allegations.

The public perception, expressed in the local press and by the student movement, is that Mr Suharto is guilty of enriching himself and his family at the expense of the nation and should be brought to justice.

Mr Habibie's administration, however, has been unwilling to force the issue, fearing the reaction of Suharto allies, who would probably level corruption allegations at a large number of people currently in power if push came to shove. The political implications for Mr Habibie are not healthy.

Yesterday's revelation had been delayed several times. Prosecution of Mr Suharto is one of three issues -- the others being the Bank Bali scandal and the loss of East Timor -- for which Mr Habibie will be called to account in his critical address to Parliament on Thursday.

Jakarta's media fan flames of hatred

Yenni Kwok -- As Australian-led troops struggle to restore order and peace to East Timor, another battlefront is raging in Jakarta as local media fuel the fires of contempt among Indonesians for anything Australian.

While every newspaper outside Indonesia reported last Thursday that Australian troops had killed two pro-Jakarta militiamen in East Timor, the country's leading daily, Kompas, ran its story under the headline "Australian troops admit killing two Timorese residents".

The story was plucked from the state news agency, Antara. It claimed Australian troops shot into a group of returning refugees.

Three days after the foreign troops arrived in the ravaged territory, Antara reported that the troops had burned a militiaman to death. The next week, an English-language daily, the Indonesian Observer, said the troops tore down an Indonesian flag in Liquica, west of the East Timorese capital, Dili.

The evening newspaper Terbit ran a picture of charred bodies found in a burned-out truck in Dili with the caption saying they were set alight by the Australian troops. Foreign media reported that the bodies were victims of militia terror.

"It is a misinformation campaign," said Colonel Duncan Lewis, of the Australian Department of Defence. "We deny emphatically that those atrocities had been carried out."

Lukas Luwarso, chairman of Jakarta-based Alliance of Independent Journalists, said the Indonesian press voluntarily whipped up nationalist sentiment.

"Another reason is the low level of professionalism among Indonesian journalists," he said. "They tend to swallow whatever information they get."

There have also been reports that peacekeepers have discriminated against Indonesian reporters, asking them for IDs or conducting body searches, while foreign reporters are exempted. Colonel Lewis insisted his troops did not discriminate against any journalists.