ASIET Net News 50 - December 20-26, 1999

Jakarta -- Former Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto on Friday told a human rights commission there had been no plan or policy for either a genocide or crimes against humanity in East Timor.

"There was no planning process or policy to do things that can be classified as genocide or crimes against humanity," Wiranto told journalists after answering questions from the state-backed Commission of Human Rights Abuses in East Timor (KPP HAM).

Wiranto said the institution of the Indonesian armed forces "has never issued the order, even more so to encourage, the burning of cities, the killing of people or to force evacuations." KPP HAM has summoned Wiranto, as well as five other generals and several top pro-Indonesia militia leaders to answer questions over their "knowledge and involvement" in the September mayhem that followed the announcement of the pro-independence ballot in East Timor.

The militias, which the United Nations, the KPP HAM and other observers have said were backed by elements of the Indonesian army, devastated the territory and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.

Wiranto was accompanied by three lawyers and former justice minister Muladi, who coordinates the defence team for the armed forces over East Timor. "This is not an arena where a suspect is interrogated," he said of the nearly three hours of questioning.

"This is a process of giving information to the KPP HAM, to deflect accusations by several sides that there were war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in East Timor." Wiranto, coordinating minister for security and political affairs in the cabinet of President Abdurrahman Wahid, was military commander during the violence in East Timor.

He was questioned by KPP HAM members Todung Mulya Lubis, Nursyahbani Kacasungkana, Munir and Asmara Nababan, commission chairman Albert Hasibuan said.

Nababan said the information obtained from Wiranto "has answered our questions." But he added the general's statements would be cross-checked with those from other military officers.

KPP HAM member Kusparmono Irsan said the commission's qestionning of military officers has so far yielded little. "Our investigation is stagnating, we are not moving forward or backward," Irsan said after questioning a former intelligence head of a district military command in East Timor earlier Friday. The body also questioned a former military commander before Wiranto.

Indonesia has objected to the setting up of a UN rights inquiry into the East Timor violence, saying it is capable of investigating allegations of atrocities and human rights abuses itself, and that it will not be bound by the UN findings.

The UN panel is to report to Secretary General Kofi Annan before December 31 to enable him to decide on the follow up, including whether an international war crimes tribunal is needed.

Double blow for rights efforts

Agence France-Presse - December 24, 1999

Jakarta -- Efforts to bring to justice those behind the violence in East Timor received a double blow this week with the former armed forces chief rebuffing a domestic inquiry and the government again rejecting an international tribunal.

General Wiranto, the former armed forces chief, failed to appear on Wednesday before the Commission of Investigation into Rights Abuses in East Timor, formed by the National Commission on Human Rights.

Wiranto, now coordinating minister for political security affairs, is one of six senior army officers summoned by the commission investigating rights abuses during the orgy of violence by troops and army-backed pro-Jakarta militias that followed East Timor's August 30 vote for independence.

Adnan Buyung Nasution, chief lawyer for the generals, said Wiranto was ready to appear before the commission but at a later date. "My clients and I will always be ready to fulfill [the] summons anytime," he said.

President Abdurrahman Wahid, meanwhile, again ruled out cooperation with a UN-backed probe, saying Jakarta is capable of investigating the violence which left hundreds dead, hundreds of thousands homeless and the former Portuguese colony in ruins.

Wahid said Wednesday any trial of Indonesian generals over the post-ballot violence in East Timor should be done in Indonesia because "it is related to the sovereignty of the nation." A UN investigative team that visited East Timor last month is due to hand over the results of its fact-finding mission to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan before December 31.

Annan, on the basis of the report, will decide whether to recommend the creation of an international war crimes tribunal for East Timor.

The document, according to diplomats familiar with the dossier, is a stinging indictment of the Indonesian armed forces and recommends that an international trial be held if the authorities here fail to organize one of their own.

Several members of the domestic commission have said publicly that they have come up with "indications and proof" of the involvement of the army in massacres and destruction in East Timor.

The statements have been met with a furious reaction from the army with one general, Djaja Suparman, the commander of strategic forces, saying his troops would react angrily if their leaders were "humiliated." The commission, which enjoys the support of President Wahid and counts several leading Indonesian human rights campaigners among its members, has nevertheless forged ahead with its investigation.

In a recent editorial, The Jakarta Post noted the difficulties facing the commission but said it must stand its ground.

"Considering that all previous major investigations involving power abuses in this country met the same fate, these outcomes do not come as any suprise," the newspaper said.

"Given the international dimensions of the inquiry into the violence in East Timor however, one wonders whether the nation can afford to continue pussyfooting around on the issue, without risking another international outcry."

Investigators dig for victim

Agence France-Presse - December 23, 1999

Railako -- There was not much left of body number 258, but a team of UN civilian police officers and soldiers from the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) set out Thursday to find as much as they could.

An unsettling marker told them where to look. A black shirt hung by its outstretched sleeves from some vines, above a small pile of rocks on a mound of earth about 30 minutes' drive southwest of the capital Dili.

A soiled pair of trousers with a belt still looped in them rested on the stones in plain view of motorists passing on this road to Ermera.

Tomas Castanon and Friedrich Prax, two police officers from the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, had discovered the burial site as they drove along the windy mountain road enveloped by thick vegetation.

Prax is a veteran of the first UN mission here, which supervised the August 30 ballot when East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia. Now Prax has returned to help investigate the many murders linked to an Indonesian-backed campaign of terror ahead of and after the vote.

On Thursday, Prax and Castanon went back to the burial site with a three-man team from the investigation section of Interfet's Military Police Company.

As a sign of respect for the dead, local residents had placed a banana, a mango, a bottle of water and some money on the stones.

Staff Sergeant Byron Hall videotaped the scene. The investigators cut down the black shirt and stretched it out on a white plastic bag they had unzipped and laid out on the ground.

Wearing rubber gloves, Hall lifted up the tattered trousers. In the pocket he found a blue headband espousing the pro-Indonesia autonomy option from the August 30 ballot. Militias, backed by the Indonesian armed forces, forced people to wear pro-autonomy headbands and other paraphernalia.

Hall laid out the pants and the headband on the white bag and then explained his findings to the video camera now operated by Corporal Wayne Fee.

The shirt bore the words "heavy metal" and was decorated with pictures of skulls beneath a small hole about the width of a man's finger. "Doesn't appear to be any staining around the hole," Hall told the camera.

He turned back to the mound of dirt and began to move away the stones. Ants crawled in the soil around a thick piece of yellowed bone about 30 centimetres long.

Sergeant Alan Cooper, a military policeman from the Royal Australian Air Force, unzipped another white bag and placed the single bone in the middle of it.

Cooper took still photographs and Fee continued filming as Hall gently dug with a shovel into the mound of dirt where the bone had rested.

After sifting through a few shovelfuls, they decided there was nothing else in that spot. "It's just a mound but you've got to have a look anyway," Hall said.

Prax climbed a short distance down the slope and found a discarded Indonesian army ration can. Castanon and Hall descended another 10 metres through the bush.

"We're going to need the camera down here," Hall called. "There's another bone here in a bag," he said before emerging with the pieces in his hand.

They laid them out on the white bag as well -- three ribs, a lower jaw with most of the teeth missing, a tooth, and another piece of bone that looked like it came from a yellowed, broken bowl.

Fee recorded them all in a small notebook. Then they measured the distance of the small grave from the edge of the road, and the distance down the slope which stretched out toward the sea far to the north.

"You have any indications concerning the identity?" Prax asked Hall. There was nothing, but Prax was optimistic. "This shirt, everybody has seen. It should be possible to find out the identity." "Do you want a body number for this?" Hall asked the policeman. "258."

More than 119,000 have returned

Agence France-Presse - December 21, 1999

Geneva -- More than 119,000 East Timorese have now returned to the territory -- most of them from Indonesian West Timor, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said here Tuesday. With the exception of three minor incidents since Friday, UNHCR staff had also reported an easing of conditions in some militia-controlled camps in West Timor, spokesman Paul Stromberg said.

"UNHCR staff say that the situation, the atmosphere in the camps is improving, and they are now able to move around some of the more notorious militia-controlled camps without armed escorts," Stromberg told reporters. In one incident Sunday at the Tuapukan camp, UNHCR staff arrived to show an information video on the situation in East Timor to refugees and were blocked, but not harmed, by an unarmed group, who also chased away the audience, he said.

Stromberg said UNHCR was continuing negotiations with the Indonesian authorities to reinforce security in the camps, emphasising the need for an overall improvement in the environment rather than just bodyguards for aid workers.

Repatriation convoys to East Timor will be put on hold from Thursday for four days over Christmas, and from December 31 until January 2.

Most of the 119,582 people who have returned to East Timor have done so under the repatriation programme of the UNHCR and International Organisation for Migration (IOM), launched October 8.

Grenade wounds seven in border area

Agence France-Presse - December 22, 1999 (abridged)

Dili -- Seven people were wounded after a suspected member of a pro-Indonesian militia threw a hand grenade in the border area between East and West Timor, a spokesman for the international peace force here said.

Colonel Mark Kelly said that the grenade blast took place in Indonesian-controlled West Timor across the border from the East Timorese border village of Nemo on Monday.

Kelly said people in a market got involved in an argument. People there identified one of the persons involved in the dispute as being a suspected members of the militia.

"As people started to chase this individual further into West Timor, to facilitiate his escape, he threw a grenade. The grenate exploded and wounded seven cilvilians" Kelly said. The wounded were brought back to East Timor by other civilians, Kelly said.

He said that several UN military observers witnessed the attack and so did "some TNI (Indonesian armed forces) who came to the area as the dispute started to build." Kelly said that the Indonesian soldiers fired two shots into the air to disperse the crowd after the handgrenade had been thrown.

After the victims had been brought across the border, they received assistance from the international peacekeeping troops. Three of the victims were treated briefly in Maliana before they were released the same day while four of the victims were flown to Dili, the main town in East Timor, later the same day.

Kelly could not give details about the four victims but said that they only suffered from "minor wounds." The head of the multinational peacekeeping forces, major General Peter Cosgrove has written to Indonesia military commanders expressing concern at the security situation in the border area.

West Timor refugees living in fear

Australian Associated Press - December 22, 1999

Canberra -- More than 100,000 refugees in West Timor were trapped in makeshift camps and living in a state of constant fear under the rule of the militia groups that destroyed East Timor, an Amnesty International report said today.

The report was based on information collected by an Amnesty International team that returned recently from the region. It found many refugees were unable to return to East Timor, where the Australian-led Interfet troops had helped restore security following post-independence poll violence.

"Refugees in West Timor remain virtual prisoners in some camps," it said. "Their lives are still ruled by the militia groups that destroyed East Timor." "The Indonesian government's failure to completely disband and disarm the militias operating in the camps continues to undermine the prospects for the safe and voluntary repatriation of the remaining refugees in West Timor. " The report found the refugees lived in a state of constant fear and were often intimidated, harassed, extorted and in some cases sexually assaulted and killed.

Many were being discouraged from returning to East Timor by false stories of famine and women being raped by Interfet troops. "Given the general climate of fear, degradation and misinformation, it is no wonder that the flow of refugees across the border between West and East Timor has slowed down to a trickle in the last few weeks," the report said.

Humanitarian conditions in the camps were also deteriorating as the wet season set in, the report said. Poor shelter and sanitation had resulted in the spread of diseases such as chronic diarrhoea and tuberculosis.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees said 32 children and three adults had died in the Tua Pukan camp between November 22 and December 1. The report urged the international community to step up pressure on Indonesia to disband and disarm the militias.

Troops search new grave site

Washington Post - December 22, 1999

Keith B. Richburg, Dili -- Australian troops in East Timor are examining a newly discovered grave site in the Oe-Cussi enclave that may contain the remains of as many as 50 victims of last September's bloody rampage by Indonesian army troops and allied militias, which followed the territory's overwhelming vote to secede from Indonesia.

The head of the intervention force today predicted the final death toll from the violence would likely be in "the lower hundreds," not the thousands as initially feared.

Peacekeepers said that 14 bodies had been found at the Oe-Cussi site, and the painstaking work was continuing today. Exhumations are difficult now because East Timor -- Oe-Cussi is on the island's northern coast -- is in the midst of the rainy season, and it is feared that crucial evidence could be washed away if there is a rain storm.

The exhumations are crucial to UN investigators and an Indonesian human rights team who are trying to build a case for possible criminal charges against top Indonesian army officials. The former armed forces commander, Gen. Wiranto, who is now a top minister in the cabinet of President Abdurrahman Wahid, has been named as a suspect.

UN and military officials said nearly 200 bodies have been recovered, scattered over 100 locations. Another 200 sites have been identified as possibly containing victims' remains, but they have not yet been exhumed.

In addition, Australian navy divers were dredging a small lake at Maubara town, about seven miles west of Liquica, where victims of an April 6 attack on the town's Roman Catholic church are believed to have been dumped. The divers have recovered the remains of about a dozen people. More than 60 people were slain in the attack.

The list of known and potential grave sites has already given Australian military officials and UN investigators a broad understanding of the scale of the violence that engulfed this territory in the week after nearly 80 percent of its people voted on August 30 to become a new nation. The violence continued until September 20 when the Australian-led multinational force landed.

"Cobbling it all together, we're talking hundreds of cases," Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, the commander of the intervention force, said in an interview. "But not thousands. And it's in the lower hundreds."

Wiranto, speaking before the Indonesian parliament in September, said the number killed in East Timor after the referendum results were announced was "roughly in the nineties," and he accused the foreign media of exaggerating the scale of the violence.

One unanswered question is whether bodies were taken to sea and dumped, as has been repeatedly reported by East Timorese villagers and refugees who reported seeing people loaded onto ships, and the ships returning empty. But like all such accounts, it cannot be independently confirmed. "It's one of those tragic tales where, who can say?" Cosgrove said.

Making a link between the growing number of bodies and the actual involvement, or complicity, of Indonesian army officials in the atrocities will not be easy, officials said. In some cases, witnesses have reported seeing killings, but the bodies have not been recovered. And in those cases where bodies have been exhumed, often there are no witnesses linking the slayings with individuals or with specific army or militia units.

In two cases, Australian military officials and investigators believe they have sufficient evidence to bring charges: a church massacre in the town of Suai, from which 26 bodies were found and a number of witnesses have emerged, and the murder of two nuns and three priest-trainees in Los Palos, where Cosgrove said the culprits have confessed and are in custody.

Cosgrove and Western diplomats said there is also a mountain of evidence and specific suspects linked to the slaying of Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes. Thoenes, who worked for the Financial Times and the Christian Science Monitor, was killed by uniformed soldiers at a roadblock in the Becora section of Dili on the second day of the intervention. However, a Dutch investigator has not been allowed to interview the suspects.

Guterres pledges not to disband group

Reuters - December 20, 1999 (abridged)

Kupang -- A pro-Jakarta East Timor militia chief accused the Indonesian government on Friday of abandoning its own supporters, but said he would not disband his group, which is accused of terror in the territory.

"If the Indonesian government believes we have tarnished its image in the international circles, then why did it recognise the militias in East Timor?" Eurico Guterres, leader of the feared Aitarak (Thorn) militia, told reporters in the West Timor capital of Kupang.

"If Indonesia is not happy with the pro-integration group, we will ask for political asylum," he said.

Guterres said he was against last week's decision by Joao da Silva Tavares, head of the main pro-Jakarta Command of the Pro- Integration Struggle, to disband the militia and urge them to return to East Timor. Technically, Tavares is Guterres' boss.

"I was wondering why Tavares disbanded the militia just like that. I will do my best ... that the militia won't be disbanded. I just don't know what my mistakes are," said Guterres.

Guterres was a key figure in the pro-Jakarta militia movement, and Aitarak, which was based in the East Timor capital of Dili, has been accused of widespread involvement in a campaign of terror before and after the August independence vote.

Most of the militias are still camped in a number of towns near the border dividing the island of Timor.

Guterres told the SCTV television network on Thursday the militias denied responsibility for the violence in East Timor after the vote and blamed then-president B.J. Habibie for allowing the ballot to go ahead.

He said the violence which killed hundreds of people and left the territory in ruins was a spontaneous action by people unhappy with the ballot and its result -- almost 80 percent in favour of ending Jakarta's often brutal 23-year rule.

Militias power is fading

Agence France-Presse - December 19, 1999

Atambua -- One week after the commander of pro-Indonesian militias ordered his forces to disband, militias remain present here but their power is fading, aid workers say.

"I think the militia are facing an identity crisis about their future, whether or not the government of Indonesia will continue to support them. So the cohesiveness of this group has become weaker," Quang Bui, senior protection officer for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told AFP here on Saturday.

Father Benjamin Joseph Bria, Catholic vicar-general for Atambua, said he's noticed a change over the past week. "The last two months were very dangerous but now I think it's getting better and the militia are already cooling down," said Bria.

As co-ordinator for the church's refugee relief committee, he said he has seen for himself the improvement in the security situation throughout Atambua and the region.

This bustling small city and the surrounding area along the northern border with East Timor still host up to 50,000 East Timorese refugees, the UNHCR said.

Until two or three weeks ago militias were still seen occasionally carrying homemade guns in the camps, Bria said. That doesn't happen anymore, he said, because the Indonesian security forces have cracked down on weapons possession. "The militia are quite disappointed now," said Bria.

Journalists travelling in Atambua about 10 days ago saw two militiamen with homemade gun stuffed down their shirts on the western edge of the city. On Saturday, the only guns visible were toys in the hands of children playing on city streets.

Bui said that three weeks ago his staff still needed protection from Indonesian security forces to enter the Haliwen refugee camp, which has more than 4,000 residents. "This camp is hard- core, controlled by militia," said Bui, whose staff have been stoned by people in the camp.

On Saturday, Bui felt safe enough to drive alone with two journalists into Haliwen. There were no threats, just loud words from a pro-Indonesian drunk who thought Bui had come to forcibly take him to East Timor.

The camp is a collection of large plywood and thatch huts spread across a sports field. Red and white Indonesian flags fly in front of all the dirt-floor huts.

Men worked sawing and hammering together dozens of wooden bed frames which they said they were paid Rp 10,000 each by the police to assemble.

"In East Timor there's no income," said one man wearing a black T-shirt bearing the name of the Aitarak militia from Dili, East Timor. "I am a member" of Aitarak the man smiled, and proudly pointed to the red and white Indonesian logo on the left breast of his T-shirt.

But there are supposed to be no more militias, he is told. "Here we are all refugees. We don't know militias. We don't know army," the man said.

Bria said that at a smaller camp near the bishop's compound "there are many militias inside." Refugees in an adjoining camp agreed but when AFP and another journalist visited the camp in a former school, a man claimed the militias had dispersed.

"There are no more militias here. In East Timor there are," said Fabianus Jehaman. He said he was a school teacher originally from Flores but had lived in East Timor for 10 years.

"Indonesia is better," said another man who walked up to the group carrying a metre-long stick. "Go home. Go home," he called with a funny smile as the journalists left.

Physical threats are no longer the primary way in which refugees are prevented from going home, Bui said. Now, he said, the deterrent is misinformation spread about the situation in East Timor.

Many of the remaining refugees are militias and their families, who live alongside other refugees who fear them and who still want to go back to East Timor, Bria said. There is still fear, Bui said, but the militias have lost some of their power to determine whether people go home or not.

Government/politics

Wahid unexpectedly backs army

Vancouver Sun - December 20, 1999

Jonathan Manthorpe -- The evidence is building that Indonesia `s new, reformist president, Abdurrahman Wahid, is prepared to shield the country's repressive military from its past misdeeds and cater to its rampant nationalism in order to preserve the fledgling democracy.

In the six weeks since the popular Muslim cleric unexpectedly became Indonesia's first freely-selected president in over 40 years, Wahid's statements and policies show a marked shift towards favouring the military.

Wahid, who is better known by his affectionate nickname, Gus Dur, seems willing to brave deeply-felt popular demands for an accounting of past human rights abuses as well as for open and accountable central and regional administrations.

He appears to have calculated that keeping the support of the military is crucial to the survival of his government, at least through its first, tentative months.

His main acknowledgement of popular demands for reform has been to threaten to fire allegedly corrupt ministers in his philosophically and politically ungainly government coalition. There are also moves to re-open the shelved investigation into charges of corruption and cronyism against former dictator president Suharto.

The trail of Wahid's revised views from his first days as president may also describe a learning curve as he comes to grips with the reality of administering the world's fourth-most- populous country with 210 million people of 250 ethnic groups living on an archipelago of 16,500 islands.

But some observers in Jakarta see more cunning than fumbling in Wahid's manoeuvres. They see him playing off the diverse political interests in the government against each other in order to strengthen his own position.

There is no doubt Wahid can hope to achieve little without the backing of the army which for generations has played a key political role and regards itself as the last sanctuary of national integrity.

At worst, the generals might invoke their perceived duty to preserve the state and take power, as they have done in the past.

Wahid's trimming recognizes that a country like Indonesia cannot make an overnight transition from a military dictatorship to an elected civilian government. Time, patience and diplomacy will be required to embed civilian rule and keep the soldiers in their barracks.

There are two key issues on which Wahid and his government have moved rapidly and radically towards the views of the generals.

The first is on how to deal with the overwhelmingly separatist sentiments of the 4.1 million people of the northern province of Aceh.

The second is how high up the chain of military command to look for culprits in the killings and other human rights abuses committed by the army during the over 30 years of dictatorship by former president Suharto, who resigned in May last year.

Within hours of being selected president at the beginning of October Wahid said he saw no reason why Aceh should not have a referendum on independence, as happened in August in East Timor. That territory, illegally occupied by Indonesia in 1975, opted to separate.

When Wahid first offered Aceh a referendum he seemed convinced its people would vote to stay with Indonesia if offered a high degree of autonomy.

A rally in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, at the beginning of November by about a million people demanding an independence referendum raised alarm signals in Jakarta.

It also brought warnings that Acehnese independence would fuel separatist sentiments in other unhappy provinces, like the southern Irian Jaya, and goad sectarian violence in Ambon in the Spice Islands.

In the weeks since Wahid has back-peddled furiously from his first statement. This comes after not only disquiet expressed by the military, but also firm backing for keeping a unitary state from vice-president Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, Wahid's main coalition ally.

Wahid now says he will allow Aceh, a staunchly Muslim province, to hold a referendum on whether or not to introduce Islamic law, a move he thinks will buy off the highly influential religious leaders. But a plebiscite on independence, he says, is out of the question.

"Any attempt to separate Aceh from Indonesia is an act that cannot be tolerated," he told a parliamentary committee this week. "Aceh is part of our domain." Wahid warned that "repressive efforts" might be necessary to quell the separatist movements in Aceh and Irian Jaya. With this Wahid is almost echoing the new head of the armed forces, Admiral Widodo, who like many Indonesians only has one name.

The military, he told a gathering of senior officers on Thursday, "will uphold and maintain the union and sovereignty of Indonesia". Widodo is prepared to rapidly deploy significant reinforcements in Aceh if the security situation deteriorates further.

Even so, Wahid has so far resisted demands by the military to declare martial law in Aceh, where most of the central government's administration no longer functions and the separatists' guerrilla army, the Free Aceh Movement, controls about 70 per cent of the territory.

This has not stopped the army killing people, mostly unarmed civilians, and adding to the body count of about 4,000 people over the last 10 years.

The repression in Aceh and the brutal rampage by army-backed militias after the independence vote in East Timor are at the heart of demands that senior officers be brought to account for human rights abuses.

Here again Wahid's government seems to have concluded it is not ready to confront the military by putting generals in the dock.

Two independent Indonesian human rights commissions have looked at the army's record in East Timor and Aceh.

The full reports are still being studied by the government, but the investigators appear to have concluded there is enough evidence to say the systematic abuse of human rights in both territories was on the orders of generals in Jakarta.

The report into military repression in Aceh says atrocities were carried out "under the knowledge of the headquarters in Jakarta". It adds that some of the actions "were reported back to Jakarta with some of the military officers being rewarded with rank promotions". One such promotion was given an officer for killing a woman and her two children, suspected of being Acehnese separatists.

The inquiry into the rampages in East Timor has reportedly come to the conclusion that the pro-Jakarta militias were not inspired simply by loyalty to the central government, but were purposefully directed by the army in their rampages of killing and burning.

In both Aceh and East Timor there is more than a suggestion that the trail leads to General Wiranto, the former head of the armed forces, who was a key figure in the downfall of former president Suharto and who is now Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security.

"I believe Wiranto could be charged with omission or failure to take action [to stop the violence]," said Albert Nasibuan, head of the investigating team. This is a more than difficult situation for president Wahid, who has freely admitted that his selection to the top office by the country's electoral college came in part from a political deal for Wiranto's support.

Indonesia's first civilian defence minister, Juwono Sudarsono, has, however, more or less ruled out the prosecution of senior officers.

"We are willing to accept there was misuse of power," Sudarsono said on Wednesday. "But you cannot go into the higher ranks, much less question their legitimacy." "In the formal sense, the policies were legitimized through parliament and [former president] Suharto." "If we start disregarding that there would be no end to it. We cannot win through democratic absolutism." Sudarsono said Indonesia is at the beginning of a process of removing the military from politics and making it subservient to the government. The new government must move carefully but purposefully.

"If we don't put substance into the notion of civilian supremacy, then sooner or later the military will return in full force," he said.

And, just because there is now a civilian government it doesn't mean "the system has turned democratic overnight -- it's not that simple," Sudarsono said.

Regional conflicts

`At least' 43 die in religious clashes

South China Morning Post - December 23, 1999

Reuters in Jakarta -- At least 43 people have been killed in bloody gang battles between Christians and Muslims in Indonesia's troubled Spice Islands, ignoring presidential pleas for peace.

More than 170 homes, churches and other buildings had been torched during the bloodshed on Buru island and hundreds of villagers had fled to the police headquarters, officials said.

The situation remained tense as military and police reinforcements headed to the area, the official Antara news agency said on Thursday.

Wednesday's fighting is the latest in a wave of communal bloodshed that has killed 700 hundred poeple across the famed spice islands in Indonesia's far east since it erupted in January.

Newspaper reports quoted one resident, identified by the single name of Salampessy, as saying no police or troops intervened to stop the carnage. There were no further details.

The violence came two weeks after President Abdurrahman Wahid visited the province and called for reconciliation and religious tolerance.

Buru was the site of a penal colony set up in the late 1960's to house thousands of prisoners accused of being communists by the Suharto regime.

The colony was disbanded many years later, but some prisoners and their families opted to remain.

Aceh/West Papua

Police to launch offensive

Agence France-Presse - December 21, 1999 (abridged)

Jakarta -- Indonesian police are to go on the offensive against separatist rebels in the troubled province of Aceh following an increase in attacks on security forces in the province.

"We will not yield to armed civilians in Aceh. They will be dealt with sternly," national police chief General Rusmanhadi told the Media Indonesia daily.

He said security personnel could no longer offord to use defensive and tactics in the face of rebels' mounting, often fatal, attacks on them.

"We need to increase [our presence] and at the same time change the pattern of operations," he said without elaborating.

The police chief said any offensive by security personnel would certainly trigger more attacks by rebels. "But that's all right. We will deal with them for the good and peace of the Aceh people and the territory," he said.

The separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for an independent Aceh since 1976, claimed Monday to have killed 10 police and soldiers over the past week.

The victims included three members of the elite police mobile brigade unit who were killed in an ambush by the rebels on Sunday in West Aceh.

Idea of independent Irian Jaya dismissed

Jakarta Post - December 20, 1999

Jayapura -- A House of Representatives delegation said here on Saturday no foreign country would recognize an independent Irian Jaya.

"Leaders of the foreign countries President Abdurrahman Wahid visited recently threw their weight behind Indonesia in dismissing independence demands here," House legislator Astrid Susanto told local government officials on Saturday. "This sort of demand is against international law".

The delegation includes members of House Commission I for defense and military and Commission II for law and home affairs. They are on a three-day, fact-finding visit to the country's easternmost province following intensifying calls for independence in the territory.

Separatist activity peaked when Irianese in several regencies raised the West Papua Morning Star flag on December 1, defying the warnings of local administrations and security authorities. Jayapura prosecutors are demanding five people arrested for raising the separatist flag be sentenced to between 10 months and one year imprisonment.

A delegation from the Irian Jaya provincial legislature met with leaders of the House and the People's Consultative Assembly in Jakarta last week to demand independence for the territory.

They called for international mediation under the auspices of the United Nations to solve problems in Irian Jaya and for the name of the province to be changed to West Papua. They also demanded an investigation into human rights violations committed in the province.

Astrid, from the Love the Nation Democratic Party (PDKB) faction, said the international community did not want to see a partitioning in Indonesia for fear it would pose a threat to regional stability.

President Abdurrahman in his first month in office has visited over a dozen countries and received both written and verbal support for the maintenance of Indonesia's territorial integrity.

He claimed that his extended trips abroad was part of an effort to show provinces who wanted to break free that they would get the backing of the international community.

Irian Jaya Deputy Governor Abraham Octavianus Atururi said the increasing demand in the province for separation from Indonesia should be taken seriously by the central government.

He said a dialog involving the international community could be helpful in solving problems in the province.

The House delegation backed the Irianese demand that the province be renamed West Papua and its capital Jayapura be called Port Numbay.

"Any changes to the names are not consequential to us. We will support it if the people want to change the names," said Yasril Ananta Burhanudin, who chairs House Commission I.

Asked about past human rights abuses in Irian Jaya, Yasril said the House would investigate the allegations. "Human rights violations have become our focus and we will recommend stern measures against whoever is guilty of them, regardless of whether they are civilians or in the military," he said.

In a related development, hundreds of students from the Forum of Communication for Students from Central Mountainous Areas staged a sit-in at the gubernatorial office. The students demanded security personnel stop torturing civilians in Puncak Jaya, Paniai, Jayawijaya and Mimika.

Protest leader Diaz Qwiyangge said the government should also investigate the killing of civilians who participated in the raising of the separatist flag on December 1.

"We call on the governor, the military commander, the provincial police chief and the speaker of the provincial legislature to listen to our concerns about human rights violations in the province," he said.

The demonstrators also demanded copper and gold mining company PT Freeport Indonesia, which operates in Timika, be held responsible for human rights violations near its area of operations.

"The multinational company has indirectly helped security personnel commit atrocities against civilians around its operational site," said Diaz.

Labour struggle

Teachers cry foul play over poor pay

Indonesian Observer - December 21, 1999

Jakarta -- Teachers at elementary and junior high schools in remote areas of Central Sulawesi province say they are so badly paid they cannot afford staple foods amid these tough economic times.

The teachers say they have never received any benefits from a presidential decree issued several years ago, which stated that school staff in remote regions would receive a special allowance.

"All teachers in remote areas are yet to receive the special allowance, although they need it very much to support their teaching activities," Central Sulawesi Education Department head Indra Bangsawan Wumbu said yesterday.

He was speaking after a meeting with the House of Representatives Commission VI in the provincial capital of Palu.

Wumbu said the government of former president Soeharto had issued the presidential decree stating that teachers based in remote areas would receive a special allowance. But the teachers in Central Sulawesi haven't seen jack. "I don't know why the decree is not implemented in this region," said Wumbu.

He said many teachers can hardly afford to pay for transport and food, because the economic crisis has greatly diminished the purchasing power of their salaries. Wumbu urged the visiting legislators to help Central Sulawesi's school teachers get a salary increase. He pointed out that the quality of education would increase if teachers were better paid.

Wumbu also complained about the lack of teachers at many schools in the province, and criticized the central government's role in determining the numbers of teachers at state schools.

"Frankly speaking, all levels of education in Central Sulawesi are lacking a sufficient number of teachers, but unfortunately the central government always approves only a few of the many teachers we have proposed," he said.

The meeting between the provincial education officials and legislators was also attended by hundreds of junior and senior high schools principals.

Nike subcontractor workers go on rampage

Agence France-Presse - December 23, 1999

Jakarta -- Around 8,000 workers at two Indonesian factories producing Nike shoes went on a violent rampage in protest at dragging negotiations over bonuses, a report said Thursday.

The workers from the PT Astra's Shoe Industry Division in Tanggerang, west of Jakarta, on Wednesday vandalized seven vehicles inside the factory compound and smashed factory windows with stones.

"We want larger holiday bonuses and the 10 percent tax imposed on the bonuses to be cancelled," an employee was quoted by the Jakarta Post daily as saying. Holiday bonuses of one month salary are usually given every year prior to the Christian Christmas and Muslim Eid-al-Fitr holidays.

The demonstrators also demanded the democratic election of a new labour union leader for the workers of the company. "The current union caretakers are not able to voice our aspirations. We also want the company's chief of staff to resign bercause he has failed to carry out his job properly," one of the employees said.

An official at the Indonesian manpower ministry was monitoring the negotiations between the company owners and the workers.

Human rights/law

Generals, lawyers face off on Timor abuses

InterPress Service - December 20, 1999

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta -- An independent Indonesian commission, which has made surprising headway investigating human rights abuses committed during East Timor's post-ballot violence, has come under fire from the high-ranking generals it has named as being connected with the violence.

Still, the Indonesian team of lawyers has vowed to press on with their investigation.

They have been receiving threats from a senior military commander who says Indonesian soldiers would be so humiliated they might run amok, if their generals were called to give evidence in a public trial.

"If that happens, I pity the ordinary people. The people who are wrong are the ones that are discrediting TNI (the Indonesian acronym for its armed forces)," said General Jaja Suparman, who commands the elite Kostrad forces and a close friend of the former armed forces head, Gen Wiranto.

Whilst the UN special investigation into the human rights abuses has been hindered by the Indonesian government, the Indonesian commission has received support from the new president, Abdurrahman Wahid, and is considered more likely to proceed with a human rights trial.

In a surprising twist, Wahid said that he would ask for the resignation of General Wiranto, who headed the armed forces during the violence in Timor after its August 30 vote for independence, if he is found guilty by the court.

The commission has come under strong criticism from the military over the last few days, because it has indirectly accused senior Indonesian generals, including Wiranto, of either supporting or directly organising the militias post-ballot rampage which destroyed East Timor.

Wiranto has denied any links with the violence, calling the commission members accusations "groundless".

This week Munir, an investigator with the Indonesian team, announced that it had uncovered new evidence clearly showing the links between the military, the government and the militias.

For instance, Munir said that every provincial mayor was linked to the militias and that they had documents which showed the militias asking for help from the military.

Munir rejected the military's criticism of their investigation, arguing the case could set legal precedent and could potentially "reform the Indonesian law and restructure it so that it can have an impact on human rights cases in Aceh, as well as other cases".

Meanwhile, the UN Commission investigating human rights abuses has called for the continuation of the investigation, saying it also has evidence proving the military's involvement in the post ballot-violence which critics say included systematic terror and targeting women for sexual abuse.

The UN team will make a recommendation to the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, at the end of this week.

The UN team, which left Jakarta last week, has not received the same support as its Indonesian counterpart from the Indonesian government. Even Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab rejected the inquiry, saying it would be shame Indonesia if its generals were hauled before an international inquiry.

As a result the UN commission was refused access to West Timor, where much of the evidence, such as the bodies of pro- independence supporters, was reported to have been taken.

Many of the military-backed militia leaders now live in West Timor and commission leader Sonia Picado says they were disappointed that the Indonesian government was not more cooperative.

Still, they were able to share evidence with their Indonesian counterparts. The Indonesian team for example found a mass grave in West Timor, where 26 people who were victims of a massacre in the Catholic church at Suai had been buried.

They have been far more successful than the UN team in interviewing members of the Indonesian military who were ordered to participate in the violence, and high-ranking members of the militia.

However, Picado said their team was still able to gather a lot of evidence in East Timor. She says that Interfet, the previous UN team in Timor, had been able to provide them with good evidence illustrating the military's involvement with the militias.

Picado also said that new witnesses who had seen various incidences or mass killings were coming forward everyday in East Timor.

The UN team also had to battle substantial red tape before it was finally sent to East Timor to begin its investigation. It was almost two months after the UN officially approved a war crimes investigation, before the team arrived in East Timor. By that time, much of the evidence had either disappeared or eroded due to heavy rains.

However, diplomatic commentators are not confident members of the UN Security Council will approve a war crimes tribunal, and therefore place more hope in the Indonesian team to deliver justice.

Munir and commission leader Albert Hasibuan say they are committed to trying the people ultimately responsible for the systematic violence but admit that bringing their orchestrators of the violence to the courts will be more difficult.

"This week I still thought the trial would run fairly but I don't know what will happen next week after the statements from the military," said Munir of the commission's position.

Another problem is witness intimidation. Munir admitted that the military who are bringing key militia witnesses to Jakarta in the next week, might try to intimidate the witnesses. "Yes, the military and the militias have consolidated," he said.

However, Hasibuan believes that if Wiranto's knowledge of the violence could be proven, he could he tried for failure to prevent the violence.

Yet even if the evidence is solid, the outcome may still be a political decision and generals are summoned before the trial and found guilty of orchestrating the post-ballot violence may not be punished.

"It depends on the political position of the government. Maybe the government will give amnesty to the generals after the trial. But the important thing is that the trial is held, not the results," Hasibuan said.

The other question is whether the team has access to Australian intelligence material, which could provide more vital hard evidence showing the extent of the Indonesian military's involvement.

Rights lawyer heads defence of generals

South China Morning Post - December 18, 1999

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- The man who was a role model to Indonesia's new generation of human rights lawyers is now defending the country's top generals, adding to growing controversy over investigations into the military's role in wiping out East Timor.

Adnan Buyung Nasution, with his shock of white hair and pioneering record as protector of the little people, is leading a 27-man team appointed by former armed forces chief General Wiranto to defend him and five fellow officers from human rights charges.

"He is a patriot," said a lawyer familiar with Dr Nasution's work. "He has a history of civil rights work and activism, and now, well, has he sold out? He could rationalise this by saying this is what lawyers do, but, what can I say, he's turned a corner. He's gone too far." Dr Nasution was a founding member of Indonesia's Legal Aid Institute (LBH), the country's first organisation to speak up for human rights in a series of pivotal cases against the former Suharto regime.

He was the symbol of opposition to Suharto's perversion of the legal system, and defended student demonstrators after the Malari Riots of 1974 and the similarly suppressed student movement of 1978.

"All the cases were about the people versus the military, so I don't understand now why he defends the military," said Hendardi, a former colleague of Dr Nasution's at LBH who now runs his own Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association.

"Maybe he doesn't have moral politics," Mr Hendardi said. "He always taught us, when we were in LBH, that we must defend the people, but now, I think he is confused about the meaning of human rights.

"He said the military has human rights, but he is totally wrong. Human rights is for the people, for individuals, not for institutions." Indonesia's top generals stand accused of perpetrating the militia rampage through East Timor which destroyed the new-born country, tortured and killed unknown numbers of people, and forced 300,000 East Timorese into militia-run refugee camps.

Amid worldwide condemnation of Indonesian military action in East Timor, a special team (KPP-Ham) was formed to investigate the generals. It has impressed many with its bold anti-army statements and its discovery of corpses from a military-backed massacre at Suai, East Timor, hidden across the border in Indonesian West Timor.

KPP-Ham is now under attack from lawyers acting for the generals, led by Dr Nasution, in what the Jakarta Post described as a typical pattern in which human rights cases were "disparaged, diverted, and ultimately slowed down, to the current dim prospect of ever uncovering the truth of the matter in court".

Dr Nasution was unrepentant, insisting that he was working for the generals in his position as a professional advocate.

Lawyers representing generals suspected of human rights abuses in East Timor sought yesterday to enter the territory, but had been told to wait and try again next week, United Nations officials in Dili said.

News & issues

Crime and violence in Jakarta

Jakarta Post - December 24, 1999

Yogita Tahil Ramani, Jakarta -- Violence in the capital has known no boundaries this year. With vicious murders, countless armed robberies, bomb blasts and gruesome street justice, the year 1999 can be safely declared a year of crime.

It kicked off with a blast, the first of many, when a strong bomb extensively damaged the vacant three-story Ramayana department store and shattered windows and billboards of nearby shops on Jl. H. Agus Salim in Central Jakarta just two days into 1999.

Ten days later, hundreds of Jeungjing villagers in the Cisoka district of Tangerang, west of the city, ran amok and pelted stones at the house of the village head, Tatang Supriatna. Villagers claimed that Tatang refused to distribute cheap rice supplied by the government for impoverished villagers.

A mosque caretaker was found dead on January 16, at the Al-Jihad Grand Mosque compound on Jl. H. Juanda in Ciputat, South Jakarta. The case was linked to robbery after a charity box kept by the victim, believed to have contained Rp 150,000 (US$20), was found empty.

On January 23, Endang Kusnadi, 34, a resident of Jl. Parkit in Kampung Sawah, Ciputat, was found dead and naked, with his left foot and right arm missing. Endang was robbed of his clothes and a wallet containing Rp 180,000.

January ended with the arrest of the suspected mastermind of the blast which damaged Ramayana department store. Police identified the alleged mastermind as Rosalina, 50, a director at a real estate agency. According to officers, the blast was one of Rosalina's tactics to terrorize landowners into selling their land.

Separately, customs and excise officials at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport declared they had foiled 24 smuggling attempts during the whole month of January.

The confiscated evidence included 115 weapons, 1,884 pornographic video compact discs, 4.25 kilograms of heroin, two kilograms of shabu-shabu (crystal methamphetamine), two yellow-crested cockatoos, 4,684 Viagra pills and Rp 5.27 billion in cash.

Ethnic clash

On the third day of February, a dispute between a pickpocket and the crew of a public bus in the crowded Kampung Rambutan bus terminal in East Jakarta erupted into a heated ethnic clash, leaving at least one man dead and several others injured.

The capital saw its second bomb blast a week later when dozens of shoppers were startled by an explosion in the parking lot of Kelapa Gading shopping center in North Jakarta.

The next day, a man was mobbed and burned alive by dozens of people in Cibening village, Bekasi, after he was apparently caught attempting to steal a bike from a parking lot.

On Valentine's Day, seven robbers broke into an Ades mineral water distribution office in Tanjung Barat, South Jakarta, and make away with a safe after killing a security guard and wounding two others on the early Saturday morning.

Two days later on February 16, four armed men stunned passersby on Jl. Haji Agus Salim in Central Jakarta by staging a daylight robbery at a money changer. Police quoted executives of PT Anugerah Adiarta money changer as saying that the robbers managed to grab Rp 500 million in cash from employee Patmo.

On February 21, a young pregnant woman was shot in the abdomen by a city police detective, who mistakenly thought she was a drug supplier. Jakarta Police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djadjoesman and two senior policemen hastily visited the 23-year-old victim, Sandra Agustini, and asked her relatives for forgiveness.

March dawned with abhorrent revelations that 60 junior high school students from SMP 49 and SMP 68 in South Jakarta had received obscene and threatening phone calls late in February, in which callers ordered them to mutilate their genitals.

"They ordered me to drink insecticide and to give myself electric shocks. I didn't. But I did everything else she [the caller] asked me to do, including sticking a needle in the skin of my penis, tying rubber bands around my penis and putting glue on my penis," Amir [not his real name], one of the victims, said.

March also saw the shooting of at least four alleged robbers and one suspected drug dealer.

April was a significant month for crime, sudden death and murder. It began with the deaths of nine supporters of Semarang PSIS soccer team from Central Java when they were crushed by a train. Another fan was electrocuted on a train roof only hours before his team took the field on April 2 in a match here.

A dog

In Bogor, south of here, police on April 6 arrested Pono, 36, for allegedly mercilessly killing businessman Didi Sasmita, 59, and wife Susanti, 51, a month earlier because he was upset at Didi for calling him a dog.

A week later, police in South Jakarta arrested a jobless man for allegedly killing his five-year-old nephew and a housemaid in a bungled robbery at his sister's house in Jagakarsa.

In the following days, the capital was rocked by two blasts and dozens of bomb hoaxes.

The first exploded at the three-story Hayam Wuruk Plaza in West Jakarta on April 15, shattering the windows of at least four shops on the plaza's ground floor and panicking shoppers.

About 10 minutes after the explosion, an attempted armed robbery occurred at a branch of Bank Central Asia (BCA), about 500 meters from the scene on Jl. Hayam Wuruk. Police insisted the incidents were unrelated.

In the late afternoon of April 19, a powerful blast rocked the ground floor of the Istiqlal Grand Mosque, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, in the heart of the capital, injuring at least four people performing the late afternoon prayer.

Dozens of office windows of several Muslim-based organizations, including the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), were shattered. The explosion, which occurred at 3.20pm, also cracked the walls of the 38-year-old mosque.

On the following day, a bomb hoax was received at the Jakarta Cathedral, located opposite the mosque, while mobs attacked churches in Ujungpandang (now Makassar), South Sulawesi, in response to the Istiqlal blast.

Police captured the main suspects, including Surya Setiawan, alias Wawan, in May. He was sentenced to 38 months in prison in October. Until now, Wawan has been jailed at the city police detention cells.

On May 2, customs and excise officials at Soekarno-Hatta airport succeeded in foiling an attempt to smuggle Rp 2.68 billion in cash.

On the eighth of the month, a housewife was severely injured after she was splashed with hydrochloric acid by two alleged robbers who broke into her house in Tambun subdistrict, Bekasi.

A 29-year-old civilian guard at Anyar market in Tangerang mayoralty was found dead with 13 stab wounds in several parts of his body on the morning of May 23 by traders at the market.

The growing number of people killed and burned by people taking the law into their own hands this year also shocked Jakartans.

By the fifth month of 1999, 65 people had been killed, mostly by local residents who said they caught the suspected thieves red-handed. Twenty of the victims were killed in January, 11 in February, 16 in March and five in May.

Since the killings involved too many local people, police could only record the cases and were not able to take any suspects to court.

Obscenity

Some businesspeople took advantage of the winds of change sweeping the country following the tremendous demand for reformasi total (total reform) by publishing erotic pictures on tabloid covers. It, however, became a headache for the police.

Starting from June, police began questioning a number of actresses and models, such as Sarah Azhari and Sophia Latjuba, for what the police termed "daring poses" in certain tabloids and magazines.

In the same month, Jakarta was stunned with the arrest of Hendra Rahardja, one of Indonesia's most wanted white-collar criminal suspects, by the Australian Federal Police in early June.

July was a month of grisly murders, robberies and rape. It began when the corpse of an unidentified woman covered with a bedsheet was found by Curug villagers in Legok, Tangerang, on July 4.

Based on evidence found at the scene, police believe the woman was raped before being killed, and that the rape occurred a few minutes before her body was found.

Probably one of the most grisly murders of this year was that of Sumarsana, an employee of plastic household products manufacturer PT Lion Star, whose dismembered body parts were found at two separate locations in western Jakarta on July 12.

The discovery of his head, two legs and two arms was reported at 1pm by residents on Jl. Arjuna, near the Kebun Jeruk toll road entrance in West Jakarta.

About half an hour earlier, locals in the Cikupa district of Tangerang, about 30 minutes from where the other body parts were discovered, found a human torso.

The murder remains a mystery, despite the questioning of several witnesses, including two of Sumarsana's male acquaintances, described in Sumarsana's diary as "intimate friends".

Also on July 12, a gang of six car thieves stole a 47-year-old woman's car and left her naked on the side of the Jelambar highway in West Jakarta. The victim, housewife Julia of Tomang Raya, also in West Jakarta, suffered a bruised back and head as a result of a severe beating.

On July 30, parents of 12-year-old Bambang Arie Prasetyo, who was kidnapped in November last year, identified a dismembered body found in Bogor in late July as their son.

While the month of August saw shootings of thieves and mob justice, it also saw the disclosure of the Asabri multibillion insurance fraud. National Police detectives investigated the alleged Rp 410 billion (US$55.4 million) insurance fraud at the military and police insurer which reportedly involved three generals and a businessman.

Then National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Togar M. Sianipar said the investigation of malfeasance at Asabri was focused on the suspected role of a two-star general and the businessman. Togar refused to fully identify the suspects, but said the businessman was HL and the two-star general was Maj. Gen. Sub.

Two rape cases that remain unsolved included the rape of a four- year-old girl by two young males in Cakung, East Jakarta, and that of a 20-year-old mentally disabled woman in Cilincing, North Jakarta, by teenagers.

Antiforeigner

In September, antiforeigner sentiments marked a series of demonstrations which took place across the capital following the East Timor dispute.

Among the popular venues of protests were the Australian Embassy on Jl. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta and the United Nations office on Jl. M.H. Thamrin in Central Jakarta.

On September 10, three cult members in Sukmajaya village, Bojong Gede district, in Depok were beaten to death and two others severely wounded by fellow cultists enraged after September 9 doomsday prediction proved untrue.

The incident took place at the house of Saiman Koto, who, according to cult members and villagers, was the local leader of the cult, which believed the world would end at 9am on September 9.

One of the year's biggest heists was probably the September robbery at the state Perum Pegadaian pawnshop on Jl. Wijaya in South Jakarta. Company executives claimed the losses reached Rp 8 billion. It comprised mostly gold and diamonds pawned by over 3,000 customers. The robbers included the pawnshop's security guard.

On September 23, five of seven notorious armed robbers were killed in a shootout with South Jakarta Police detectives in Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta. The other two died on their way to the hospital.

On the next day, the nation was once again overcome with emotion when security personnel fatally shot 22-year-old student Yap Yun Hap of the University of Indonesia during a street protest against the state security bill on the city's main thoroughfare of Jl. Sudirman.

The third-year student of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the School of Technology was one of six people shot dead during the street protest.

The month ended with the capital and several other big cities witnessing a wave of street protests ahead of the General Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which began on October 1.

On October 20, at least two strong blasts shocked thousands of angry supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), who were not far from the MPR compound shortly after their party's chairwoman, Megawati Soekarnoputri, was defeated in the presidential election by the only other candidate, Abdurrahman Wahid.

Police said the number of injured reached at least 30 people. Some suffered serious burns.

The first blast took place at 11.30am. at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta, about the same time that the 700 legislators were preparing to cast their votes for the country's new president. At least four people were injured, including two members of the PDI Perjuangan security task force.

At about 4pm, when the announcement that Megawati had lost the race had been relayed and disappointed PDI Perjuangan supporters were heading toward the People's Consultative Assembly to protest Megawati's defeat, another bomb exploded.

The blast came from an unoccupied jeep stationary in the middle of the crowd in front of the Jakarta Hilton Convention Center, about 1.2 kilometers from the MPR.

The driver of the jeep later said that shortly before the deadly blast, a man in the crowd had handed the occupants of the jeep a bag, saying that it contained bottled mineral water.

Crazy soldiers

The very next day, Jakarta Hospital on Jl. Sudirman was turned into a war zone, when some 50 frustrated soldiers stormed into the hospital searching for suspected militant students hiding on the premises.

The armed security personnel rushed into the hospital's four- story administration building, broke the windows and doors and fired several gas canisters into the basement, leaving stunned patients, night-shift nurses, doctors and other hospital staff members in terror. The attack of the military personnel sparked public anger.

Later, National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Erald Dotulong tried to explain the soldiers' behavior by saying they had just returned from chaotic East Timor.

At the end of October, approximately 40 soldiers, some wearing uniforms and armed with -- among other things -- batons, bayonets and tear gas canisters, angrily stormed Senen market in Central Jakarta.

Three laborers at the market were seriously wounded in the evening attack and were treated at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital. Later, city military command spokesman Lt. Col. D.J. Nachrowi said six soldiers had been detained in relation to the attack on Senen Market in Central Jakarta. "They are from the Army's Land Transportation Battalion, which is under supervision of the Army's Directorate for Supply and Land Transportation," he said.

On November 7, 46-year-old Taiwanese national Yu Lai Ho, a non- English- speaking tourist in Jakarta, lost her left hand in a savage robbery in West Jakarta. The robber cut off her hand to steal her gold bangle and a 1.5- carat diamond ring.

On November 12, six men stole a safe containing diamond and gold jewelry worth Rp 1 billion and Rp 8 million in cash in a daring robbery at a residence which also served as a hair salon on Jl. Pejaten Mas, Jatipadang, Pasar Minggu. The robbers were arrested exactly a month later, on December 12.

On November 24, the partial remains of a woman were found near Kota Railway Station in West Jakarta by commuters and railway personnel. Forensic expert Zulhasmar Syamsu disclosed that the remains consisted of the lower abdomen and legs, a small part of the backbone and internal organs including the uterus, intestines, kidneys, spleen and liver. The woman had been murdered.

At Soekarno-Hatta Airport, customs and excise officials foiled a smuggling attempt to ship Rp 2.09 billion in Rp 50,000 notes to Singapore.

On November 28 in Tangerang, locals were horrified by the grim report that four siblings, aged between 12 and 21 years old, had allegedly killed their 45-year-old mother and 17-year-old sister at the family's home in Cipondoh. Police are still investigating the case after the suspects made confusing statements.

Tension gripped the mountainous resort area of Cipanas in Puncak, Bogor, in late November and lasted until early December, with widespread rumors of mobs gathering to attack nightspots there following a mass gathering which declared war on vice.

Barbed-wire barricades were erected at several premises and housing complexes. Some residents also armed themselves with sharp weapons in preparation to fight off mobs.

Arts center

On Sunday, December 5, four buildings behind the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center (Planetarium TIM) in Central Jakarta were vandalized by hundreds of Cikini residents, who suspected the places had been used by the occupants for drug transactions.

Three days afterward, hundreds of Kosambi district residents ran amok and burned 28 dimly lit kiosks which they believed had been used as prostitution dens in Sungai Tahang, Selembaran Jati village. A similar incident took place in Parung, Bogor, almost at the same time.

December also recorded a new trend of street crime here in which gang members armed themselves with axes to force motorists to hand over their mobile phones.

At least two incidents were recorded in the first two weeks of the month. No fatalities have been recorded so far, but one of the gangs smashed a windshield with an ax after his demand was rejected by the driver of the car.

On November 11, two Gegana bomb squad members from the National Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) were fatally beaten and set on fire by at least 500 local residents from Karang Sambung Nagasari village, Serang, in Bekasi. Eyewitness said the two officers initially attempted to take away motorcycles from two ojek drivers by brandishing their guns.

Hopefully, the December 15 barbaric attack on the Christian-owned Doulos complex in Cipayung, East Jakarta, will be this year's last mob attack in the metropolis.

Police have arrested nine suspects in the arson attack but are trying to discover the motive of the incident, in which one was killed and dozens injured. The complex, housing a school of theology and drug and psychiatric rehabilitation centers, was totally destroyed.

Insane people rounded up, sent to asylum

Indonesia Observer - December 22, 1999

Jakarta -- The Jakarta city administration has rounded up about 2,000 insane people from the streets over the past week and is now holding them at Panti Laras Asylum in Cipayung, East Jakarta.

They are currently undergoing mental health tests, and the more intelligent of them will receive training in cooking, carpentry and sewing, in the hope that one day they will become independent.

Those who have identity cards can be claimed by their families and taken home, as long as the relatives solemnly promise to treat them humanely. The relatives must also pledge to keep the insane people at home, to prevent them from roaming the streets and disturbing city residents.

Deputy Jakarta Governor Djailani yesterday said the city administration was worried about the presence of mad people on the streets, as several had been run over and killed this year.

He said the asylum has classes where mentally ill men are taught carpentry skills and insane women learn how to cook. Psychiatrists from the University of Indonesia will regularly check the inmates' mental health and decide whether any of them have recovered sufficiently to be released.

Djailani said it's high time for greater public awareness of Jakarta's mentally ill. "We need to pay more attention to them, especially during Ramadhan," he said. The asylum is funded by the city administration.

The number of insane people in Jakarta has reportedly increased since the onset of the economic crisis in July 1997.

From school to the streets

InterPress Service - December 22, 1999

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta -- Rahadi winds in and out of the buses pulling into Pulo Gading, one of Jakarta's main bus stations. As soon as the buses are emptied of passengers, he jumps on and starts sweeping and mopping the rubbish-strewn floor and seats.

If he works eight hours a day he is paid 15,000 rupiah or about two US dollars a day. Some of this money must go to pay his "preman" or standover man, and rest will buy him two meals a day, with some change for cigarettes.

When 15-year-old Rahadi first left his village in Central Java, nearly two years ago, he thought he was coming to the city of riches. Although he might be surrounded by plush high rise buildings, he has realised it is not so easy to make money in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital.

Only once has he taken money home to his family. "The longer I stay in Jakarta the more I realise living in Jakarta is not easy," he says.

Rahadi, who dropped out of senior high school as he could not afford to pay the fees, is one of a growing army of children and adolescents who have dropped out of school and taken to the streets of Indonesia's major cities in an attempt to survive.

Many of them, like Rahadi and his friends have arrived from poorer parts of Indonesia, where it is becoming increasingly difficult for farming families to survive or find any other way of making money.

Since the economic crisis began two years ago, 30% of lower high school children have dropped out of school and an unknown number of children have dropped out of primary school.

Although the only official study to date says that in 12 of Indonesia's major cities, there are around 40,000 child street workers, the number of working children is probably closer to 5.5 million -- the same number that have left school. The United Nations Children's Fund says almost 40% of young children (under two years old) are suffering from malnutrition.

Perched on the narrow concrete dividing strip just off a major Jakarta intersection, skinny Despi belts out "The Cry of Step Children', a well-known local-style "dangdut" song, to the accompaniment of her battered ghetto blaster.

Fourteen-year-old Despi first began singing with her friends because she thought it was exciting to do "karaoke" on the streets. Prior to this, she sold newspapers for a few months, but that was a lot hotter and dirtier.

Only in her second year of junior high school Despi had to dropped out to earn about 20 rupiah (2.60 dollars) a day to help support her three younger brothers and sisters.

Although she's aware of "preman" hanging around her favourite busking sites, the biggest danger for her and her friends are private security guards and police. Twice she has been picked up by the police for illegal busking and was imprisoned for two weeks in a children's detention centre. These detention centres are supposed to be for the children's rehabilitation, but they operate more like remand centres demanding large sums to release the children.

Despi's parents couldn't afford to pay the 100,000 rupiah fee (13 dollars) equal to more than her week's wage, and so was detained for two weeks.

Stephen Woodhouse, the Asia director for UNICEF, agrees that the police are often the major hazard for child workers. "The police are their real enemies. They are always harassing the children for money," he said.

However, the local "preman" also appear to control many of the buskers and beggars. One of the dangers of the "preman" and other adults hanging around these places is also sexual exploitation. For buskers who live with their family, such as Despi, it is not so risky, but it is far more so for those on the streets.

Rahadi says "preman" or other men often come to the bus station at night and try to sodomise the boys. Usually, they band together to warn each other of the dangers. But many younger kids who are innocent to the workings of the bus station are preyed upon when they first stay there.

Rahadi's protection is his boss, who lets him stay at his house with some of the other bus station kids or a drop in house, known as a "rumah singga".

Funded by international agencies and local non-government groups, the "rumah singga" are places where the children can socialise, eat well and have participate in a street kids' school.

Rahadi who was introduced to the drop-in centre by an older friend considers himself lucky to have found such a place. "Because here we feel we have parents", he says, adding that he thinks he too would become a "preman" if he lived only on the streets.

Now, he is taking a course in mechanics and hopes to one day give up cleaning buses and find work in a mechanic's workshop.

Last political prisoners freed

Agence France-Presse - December 23, 1999

Jakarta -- The Indonesian government Thursday released 105 political prisoners, the last still held in the country's jails, Minister of Law and Legislation Yusril Ihza Mahendra said.

"There are practically no more political prisoners and detainees," Mahendra told journalists at the presidential office after announcing the releases.

"But if there are families who know that their relatives are not yet free please come to the ministry of law and legislation," he said, adding some people might still be held in military detention centres. He said the prisoners and detainees would all be freed by Friday at the latest.

The government on December 10 released 91 political prisoners, mostly East Timorese, in the first release of political detainees under the new government of President Abdurrahman Wahid. Wahid was elected the nation's fourth head of state in October.

A total of 72 prisoners were freed under a presidential amnesty which cancelled all legal punishement for a criminal deed. The 33 others were freed after the president cancelled all charges against them.

Mahendra said most of the prisoners freed on Thursday were those convicted for separatist activities in the easternmost Irian Jaya province.

According to a list of the freed prisoners attached to the presidential decree dated Thursday, 61 of them were political prisoners linked to separatism in Irian Jaya.

The Free Papua Movement has been fighting for a free state in Irian Jaya since 1961 and calls for independence have mounted following the fall of former Indonesian president Suharto in May 1998.

Most were jailed in towns in Irian Jaya but a few had been serving in jails in other Indonesian towns, such as Eliezer Awom, 48, who is serving a life sentence for separatism in a jail in Surabaya, East Java.

Also among those released were 15 political prisoners from East Timor, which voted to sever links with Jakarta in August, several from the strongly Muslim province of Aceh where separatism has also been on the rise and some prisoners dubbed Muslim radicals, the minister said.

President Abdurrahman Wahid had also decided to grant "special sentence reductions" to prisoners to mark the religious holidays of Christmas and Muslim Eid-al-Fitr, he added.

"This is a breakthrough of the present government. Now a prisoner can get two sentence reductions in a year," he said. Traditionally the government only grants mass sentence cuts to prisoners every August 17 to mark the country's declaration of independence.

He said some 3,800, or 10 percent of the 38,000 prisoners in the country's jails, will be freed by having their sentences cut early next year.

Mahendra said the present government will not jail those dissenting with the government's opinion unless they commit criminal acts.

`Conspiracy at root of religious strife'

South China Morning Post - December 22, 1999

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- The political elite is using religion to incite conflicts to suit its own ends, according to Indonesia's Religious Affairs Minister Tolchah Hasan.

He said incidents such as last week's burning of a Christian compound might be part of a wider pattern, loosely described as "bringing Ambon to Jakarta".

Fighting between Muslims and Christians on Ambon has killed almost 1,000 people this year, with many blaming the violence on "outside forces" or "provocateurs".

"The Government wants this Ramadan fasting month, Christmas and the Hindu Galungan [January 5] to become the right moment to contemplate and to introspect for the sake of brotherhood among the religious communities," Mr Tolchah said. "The Ambon violence is the best example of political conspiracy in which religion has been misused, while common people have been victimised." Eleven people have been killed and 24 injured in Ambon in three days.

In Jakarta, one person was killed and a dozen injured during the well-organised destruction of a Christian complex, Wisma Doulos, which housed a drug rehabilitation centre and a divinity school.

Last month another "throng of unidentified men", as local reports put it, set fire to a church in Depok, South Jakarta.

In both incidents, officials sought to downplay the religious aspect of the attacks, yet in each case comments by leaders of the small but bold Front for Protectors of Islam implied their group's involvement.

This is the same group which last week occupied Jakarta city administration offices for a day and succeeded in forcing Governor Sutiyoso to reverse an earlier decision and rule that all nightspots, restaurants and entertainment places must be closed for Ramadan.

Meanwhile, at least two large prostitution complexes have been closed by authorities recently, and a small brothel was attacked by residents in Tangerang.

Some of these incidents are straightforward business quarrels that are carried out under the guise of Ramadan-inspired purity, but the attacks on religious properties appear to be part of a different pattern.

Former minister named in corruption case

Jakarta Post - December 20, 1999

Jakarta -- The Central Kalimantan prosecutor's office said on Saturday it had enough evidence to name former public works minister Radinal Moochtar a suspect in a corruption case.

The case is linked to an unsuccessful government project to develop one million hectares of unproductive peat land into rice fields and a housing complex in 1996.

Head of the office, Irawady Joenus, was quoted by Antara as saying that preliminary investigations have found a number of alleged instances of misuse of funds in the megaproject.

Irawady said witnesses had revealed the value of the Rp 2 trillion project was marked up. "They said that the actual cost of building a floodgate was between Rp 400 million and Rp 500 million, but the value had been swelled to between Rp 2.5 billion and Rp 5 billion," Irawady was quoted as saying.

He said that six more people, including a number of government officials, were also likely to be named as suspects in the investigation. "All suspects will stand trial in Kapuas district court," he said, without specifying when.

Radinal, who served for two five-year terms under the government of former president Soeharto, was questioned by provincial prosecutors earlier this month.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) filed a lawsuit in August against the government of Soeharto's successor B.J. Habibie over the project.

Walhi said the peat land project had caused a "large-scale environmental and social disaster in one single place". He said the peat bog project, implemented by a 1996 presidential decree issued by Soeharto, was ill-conceived. It also represented a significant abuse of power by Soeharto, Walhi added.

Soeharto resigned in May last year, just two months after the People's Consultative Assembly had unanimously reelected him. The Habibie government stopped the peat land conversion scheme in June this year.

The project turned out to be one of the worst ecological disasters of the 20th century, Walhi said. He added that the project was implemented without good planning and was rife with corruption and nepotism.

The Central Jakarta district court rejected the lawsuit recently, saying it had no authority to handle legal proceedings against the case.

State Minister of Transmigration Al Hilal Hamdi unveiled last week that only 32,000 hectares of peat land bore fruits.

Economy & investment

30 percent import duties on rice next year

Agence France-Presse - December 24, 1999

Jakarta -- The Indonesian government will impose import duties of 30 percent on rice and 25 percent on sugar from January 1, reports said Friday.

Trade and Industry Minister Jusuf Kalla said the imposition of the new tax followed the strengthening of the rupiah currency and weaker international prices for the two commodities, the Kompas daily reported. Both commodities currently incur no import duties. Kalla said the new import duties had been included in a letter of intent to be sent by the government to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month.

The letter will contain the macro and micro economic target for next year and is required under the terms of the IMF's 46-billion-dollar bailout package for Jakarta.

Kalla said the prices of rice in Indonesia was 2,400 rupiah (about 33 cents) per kilogram compared to 1,500 rupiah abroad, and that the new import duty will reduce the price gap. He said the government will also lift restrictions on the type of rice or sugar that could be imported.

Indonesia has been self sufficient in rice production since 1985, but it has begun to import again in recent years to accommodate jolts in demand and holes in production cycles.