• Wahid's coming clash - Far Eastern Economic Review
• The battle intensifies - Asiaweek
• Wahid forces generals to leave military - South China Morning Post

• Generals stir communal unrest - Green Left Weekly
• Students protest in Riau - Associated Press
• Eyewitnesses provide evidence of murders - Christian Science Monitor
• Protesters and police clash on Bintan - Reuters
• Economy the greatest casualty of riots - Sydney Morning Herald
• Scores arrested in Jakarta - BBC News

• State radio halts broadcast after riot - Agence France-Presse
• West Papuans occupy embassy in Jakarta - Green Left Weekly
• Calls for cease fire in Aceh - CNN Asia News
• Plans for congress on Aceh gather pace - Agence France-Presse
• Nine killed in Aceh ahead of visit - Agence France-Presse

• Union condemns politicians' pay increase - Green Left Weekly

• New laws 'could stop trials of military' - Sydney Morning Herald

• Jakarta puts out welcome mat for exiles - Jakarta Post
• PDI-P supporters urged to defend unity - Agence France-Presse
• Indonesia blames many for violence - Associated Press
• Wahid comes in from the cold - Australian Financial Review
• Jakarta, Canberra to start mending fences - Agence France-Presse

• Indonesian forests in aid trade-off - Australian Financial Review
• "Corruption at root of illegal logging" - Agence France-Presse
• Two environmentalists attacked - Associated Press

• 'I don't see a coup scenario': Wirahadikusuma - Time Magazine
• Interview with General Agum Gumelar - Time Magazine

• UP to 4.7 billion needed for budget - Agence France-Presse
• World Bank approval for government - The Melbourne Age

UN recommends further investigation, tribunal

United Nations -- UN investigators have recommended that the United Nations establish an international human rights tribunal to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in East Timor, the BBC and people familiar with the investigators' report said on Saturday.

According to the sources, the tribunal should however, be somewhat distinct from the United Nations' two other tribunals in that it should have participation from Indonesia and East Timor and be seated in both places and not a third country, such as The Hague.

The human rights experts said the UN should first conduct further investigations into the wave of violence that tore through the territory before and after its August 30 vote for independence to determine who was responsible, the BBC and the sources said.

According to a source, reading from the investigators' report, "The United Nations should establish an international human rights tribunal consisting of judges appointed by the United Nations, preferably with the participation of members from East Timor and Indonesia.

"The tribunal would sit in Indonesia, East Timor, and any other relevant territory to receive the complaints and to try and sentence those accused by the independent investigation body of serious violations in fundamental human rights and international humanitarian law which took place in East Timor since January 1999 regardless of the nationality of the individual or where that person was when the violations were committed," the report said, according to the source. It was not immediately clear, however, if the tribunal would be established.

Indonesia immediately rejected the recommendation, saying it was under no legal obligation to accept the recommendations of the UN inquiry, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported.

The UN Commission of Inquiry issued the report after visiting East Timor and Indonesia late last year to conduct preliminary investigations into allegations.

The quest for justice

The findings of both UN and Indonesian human rights investigations into the atrocities in East Timor are soon to be made public. Marian Wilkinson reports on the evidence so far.

The stench of death went straight to the back of the throat and instinctively the young woman put a cloth to her mouth. The Interfet soldier shook his head. It's worse, apparently, to try to smother the smell. A razor wire barricade and 20 odd Interfet troops held back scores of Timorese from the strip of grass leading down to the beach.

Just beyond, five empty graves lay open to a heavy sky. The exhumation was well under way. A high sheet of blue tarpaulin was strung around some poles shielding three men in army camouflage and rubber gloves from the crowd. But on the other side of the tarp, their makeshift mortuary was completely exposed. The pathologist held up a pair of rotting trousers, carefully examining the garment for holes. On the groundsheet sat a small, neat pile of bones with a skull. Beyond these sad remains, lay the next 11 graves where the diggers were still at work.

In the sweltering afternoon heat, a British police officer in a crisp white shirt, one of the United Nations civilian investigators, was already giving a briefing on the rudimentary examination.

"They are able to tell us of stab wounds, puncture holes in clothing, skull trauma, bone trauma," Detective Sergeant Steve Minhinett reported, "so they can give us fairly accurately the cause of death."

Within minutes word came from behind the tarpaulin; the first three victims had died from multiple gunshot and stab wounds.

"This will take our number through 100 in the Liquica region - that's 100 bodies," said Minhinett. "And we still have a considerable number after this."

An intense American woman in civilian clothes stepped forward. A long-time gutsy human rights activist, Sidney Jones now directs the human rights division for the UN's transitional authority in East Timor. She pointed to the empty graves. "The five bodies up here in front were buried as a result of killings on April 6 in the church compound of Pastor Rafael dos Santos. The second group of bodies are 11 over here," she turned to the beach. "These were people killed in an attack on April 17 in Dili.

"We want to find out the cause of death and whether people can identify the victims and match up physical evidence with witness testimony which we now have.

"These bodies," Jones says emphatically, "make much of the evidence amassed so far so much more credible."

On this remote beach an hour west of Dili, Jones is attempting to corroborate allegations of horrific crimes, acts that may finally be classified as war crimes committed by Indonesian-backed militias, by officers of the Indonesian army, the TNI, and by Indonesian-led police in the bloody lead-up to East Timor's independence last September.

Just how many Timorese died in the crisis and by whose order is now a matter of intense debate at UN headquarters in New York, and in Jakarta and Canberra.

Before Christmas, the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, attempted to revise earlier wild estimates of tens of thousands slaughtered with a more sober figure in the hundreds. But already, Canberra's revisionism is proving a little premature.

Here on the north Timor coast, the methodical work of counting the dead continues. So, too, does the investigation of who is responsible.

"One thing is certain," says Jones. "The number of reports of people being killed and the number of reported grave sites are steadily increasing. As people are becoming more confident about coming forward and reporting, the number of cases is going up."

She insists it is far too early to give an accurate death toll, but adds: "If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000. That's based on very shaky data at this stage and people are going to have to accept that it's going to be a very long, slow, laborious process before we have an accurate count."

But Jones and others caution the toll could go even higher. There are still tens of thousands of East Timorese unaccounted for since September. While these figures are now believed to be the result of statistical errors, even Interfet's Major-General Peter Cosgrove says the numbers still give him some disquiet.

One thing is clear, says Jones, the known body count, about 220, is no guide to the number of victims. She knows of nearly 500 alleged killings still waiting to be investigated. The UN's transitional administration (UNTAET) is trying to determine whether these cases overlap with the several hundred cases already filed by Interfet troops or with hundreds of others the UN's civilian police investigators are working on. The figures are confounding.

But some patterns are emerging in the killings. Certain regions of East Timor, like Liquica, were hit hard. Local pro- independence figures, members of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), were specifically targeted. Churches and priests who shielded pro-independence supporters were attacked. In many cases, TNI soldiers and police are being identified by witnesses as present at the mass killings. And, tellingly, bodies were often removed and attempts made to cover up the death toll. These patterns will be critical in determining whether a war crimes tribunal will ever be established.

Inside the razor wire barricade on the beach at Liquica is one witness who can testify to this pattern, Santiago de Santos Cencela. The bright green thongs on his feet starkly contrast with his sombre face. A few metres away, his brother Raoul is being exhumed.

Santiago's eyes flit over to the makeshift mortuary as he talks about the day he saw his brother shot dead by militia in Dili at the house of the prominent independence figure Manuel Carrascalao.

With scores of other pro-independence supporters, Santiago was sheltering at the Carrascalao home after fleeing militia attacks in the Liquica district. Hiding in the toilet he watched about 100 Thorn militia lay siege to the house. He could see TNI soldiers and police with the militia before he saw his brother shot.

The attack was reportedly ordered by Eurico Guterres, commander of the Dili militia and a vicious young criminal trained and funded by the TNI. He is now sheltering in Indonesia.

At least 12 unarmed civilians died in the attack, including Santiago's brother and Carrascalao's adopted son. The corpses were removed on trucks while Santiago, with the living, was taken to the police station. There, he recalls, he was told to sign a statement saying only one person died in the brutal attack. He refused and was held for three days.

Later, he traced the bodies of many of the victims to the mortuary and tracked them back to the Liquica district.

As he watches the UN police on the beach lay out body bags for his brother and the others, Santiago appears both depressed and gratified.

"For a long time, without the UN, we could not prove a massacre," he explains. Now he wants justice. A local militia man has been arrested in Dili, but Santiago wants the Indonesian army held accountable for his brother's murder.

"It is really important for the Timorese to show to the world that Indonesia did something very wrong here."

Inside the razor wire more Timorese are waiting. They hope to identify relatives from another massacre that took place 10 kilometres down the road from here at the church compound in Liquica. UN police are investigating the deaths of some 60 refugees, many pro-independence supporters, who were slaughtered when they sought shelter in Pastor Rafael's church.

Shot and hacked by members of the notorious Red and White Iron militia, the dead were taken away by truck, their relatives left to search for their remains.

Since Interfet's arrival, scores of rotting corpses have been discovered on the shores of a nearby lake and now on this beach.

"Unfortunately," says one UN police officer, "it's impossible to say whether they have come from the church because there are so many other reported incidents of murder in the area."

The investigation into the Liquica church massacre is significant because many eye witnesses put Indonesian military (TNI) and police at the scene.

But Sidney Jones believes proving a case against TNI officers in the massacre will be difficult.

"Certainly there is lots of testimony of the TNI giving orders from behind the militias to advance on the people inside the pastor's compound. And there is some testimony suggesting there were planning meetings before hand. But as far as I know, I'm not sure there are prosecutable cases against individual perpetrators." That is, "where they have actually tried individual cases of TNI names and identifiable murders inside the pastor's compound".

Establishing this proof is critical to the case for a future war crimes tribunal. From these junior officers, investigators need to trace the chain of command upwards to General Wiranto and his senior officers, who even today claim ignorance of the crimes committed in East Timor.

At least one UN investigator believes Western intelligence information will be essential to prove the case against senior Indonesian generals. And some classified material does exist.

Two days after the Liquica massacre, Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation, in a secret report, blamed the Indonesian military (then still called ABRI) for failing to prevent the massacre.

"It is known that ABRI had fired tear gas into the church and apparently did not intervene when the pro-independence activists were attacked ... BRIMOB [Indonesian Police] were allegedly standing behind the attackers at the church and firing into the air ... ABRI is culpable whether it actively took part in the violence, or simply let it occur."

Whether the intelligence material is sufficiently direct in the Liquica case is debatable. Far more contentious for the Australian Government is what its intelligence services knew about the Indonesian military planning for the mass deportation, destruction and killings that took place after the UN sponsored ballot on August 30.

In the two weeks after the vote, massacres on the scale of Liquica occurred across East Timor. More than 200,000 people were transported to Indonesian West Timor, many forcibly, thousands of homes and businesses were looted and burned to the ground and major infrastructure destroyed. Under any definition, these were all war crimes. Proving a chain of command between the militias who led the rampage and the TNI high command is the central question for any tribunal.

Jones makes one telling point. As Dili burned and militias put the UN mission under siege, Wiranto declared martial law throughout East Timor on September 7. Saying he had full confidence in his forces to stabilise the situation, he stalled the push for an international peacekeeping force to occupy the territory.

But 24 hours later, two of the most chilling massacres of the crisis were carried out, with apparent TNI complicity. One is only now coming to light, a mass killing in the far western enclave of Oecussi, just a few hundred metres from the West Timor border.

In UNTAET's Dili headquarters, Superintendent Martin Davies peers over the top of his steel-rimmed glasses at the computer screen. The middle-aged British policeman with a greying beard taps quietly, scutinising the Oecussi figures as the air-conditioner blasts away the midday heat. He discourages note-taking from the large map of Timor behind him dotted with cases. It's totally unreliable, he warns.

Davies, the UN's police chief, had just returned from the mass grave site in Oecussi. Although there were rumours about the site for weeks, it was mid-December before a witness could direct the UN to the area outside a town called Passabe. The site is cut off by impassable roads and is only accessible by walking track. A 30-degree slope obscures it. "It's impossible to know how many victims are buried there," says Davies. "Figures are being bandied about that there may be 52 to 54 bodies there." But he cautions that much of the site is underground. "There are human bones and remains exposed on the surface at the moment that would give an indication there may be 10 or 12, but until the site's actually excavated we can't say," he says.

The first allegations -- "something massive has occurred" -- surfaced back in October. Local CNRT people have given police a long list of names, but it will may be weeks before any bodies can be identified. But Davies is in no doubt there was mass murder at the site.

The same day as these killings, when Wiranto's troops were supposedly enforcing martial law, another massacre was under way in the mountain town of Maliana. An estimated 50 people were slaughtered in the police headquarters in a district then controlled by the TNI's top ally in the pro-autonomy forces, the militia boss Joao Tavares.

The witness statements, critically, put militia, police and TNI officers present at the killings, which took place inside the police station compound and in the grounds. The victims included pro-independence activists and refugees from surrounding towns.

There are also allegations that some TNI officers had lists of names. Jones is not sure about this evidence. "There were clearly a couple of people that were targets, more well-known pro- independence figures," she explains. "But it also sounds as though it was a fairly mass killing.

"The problem is it took place in different rooms in the police station so you don't have anybody that can attest to seeing everybody killed. The testimonies we have are either from people who helped remove the bodies from the police station, or in some cases there are people who saw individuals murdered but they were taken away from the rest of the crowd."

Impeding the investigators once again is the disappearance of the victims. "We haven't found any bodies, that's the problem," Davies explains. "We've got witnesses there, and there's a figure of 53 been put on it but again ..." He shrugs. Some villagers have put the figure at 100. This pattern of cover-up points to planning and organisation which needed the complicity of TNI at a senior level.

Among East Timorese there is no debate that Wiranto and his senior commanders must be held accountable. Last May, when the UN ballot was agreed, Indonesia resisted calls for international peacekeepers coming to East Timor, insisting they would be solely responsible for security inside the territory. Now there is mounting evidence that from the time former President Habibie first proposed the ballot in January, the top commanders of the TNI worked covertly with the militias to defeat independence through violence and intimidation.

In a rambling compound, way back from the Dili waterfront, a team of East Timorese human rights investigators from the Yayasan Hak Foundation examines case studies and documents, piecing together fragmentary corroboration of the covert strategy by militias and the TNI .

The foundation's own headquarters was trashed and burned during the Dili siege and much of its work was lost. But under the guidance of a respected lawyer, Aniceto Guterres, the foundation is rebuilding its files.

Even with limited evidence, Guterres is adamant Wiranto and his commanders were ultimately responsible. "General Wiranto is involved because there is a military doctrine that says soldiers in the field have to follow orders from above. If what happened here from January to September happened without his knowledge, it meant that all these soldiers deserted from his army, it means 20,000 deserted from the army. That's impossible, The fact is General Wiranto knew."

This view has won some support from an independent Indonesian commission of inquiry into the atrocities now winding up in Jakarta.

The inquiry has targeted Wiranto's senior commanders, specifically the man who oversaw the Timor operation from Bali, Major-General Adam Damiri, and the TNI commander in Dili, Brigadier-General Tono Suratman -- promoted from the rank of colonel after the crisis. The Indonesian inquiry has accused the generals of collusion in the atrocities, but the generals are strenuously denying the claims and mounting a rigorous defence.

Central to the Jakarta inquiry is evidence that the militia operations were secretly organised and funded with the assistance of senior figures in Indonesian military intelligence and the special forces, Kopassus. Indonesian reports allege these senior intelligence officers included Major-General Zacky Anwar, the one-time head of the Indonesian military intelligence service who served as the TNI's military liaison with the UN's mission during the ballot. Another was Major-General Syafrie Syamsuddin.

This analysis is also shared by Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation, DIO. A September 9 paper on the TNI policy stated bluntly: "TNI embarked on a finely judged and carefully orchestrated strategy to retain East Timor as part of Indonesia. All necessary force was to be employed with maximum deniability ... The TNI strategy throughout has been controlled and managed from Jakarta ..."

While the TNI generals maintain their denials today, in the ruined city of Dili, two former key insiders say they have first-hand knowledge of the secret operation.

Sitting in the backyard of his brother's house, Tomas Gonsalves lights his cigarette and begins his story. Just a year ago, Gonsalves was a leading pro-Indonesian figure in Dili, a veteran who had fought with the Indonesian special forces in 1975 at Balibo where the five Australian journalists were killed. Now his weatherbeaten face tells a story of betrayal and disillusionment.

He recalls the day in late 1998 when he met Major-General Adam Damiri and Colonel Tono Suratman at the military headquarters in Dili for his first high-level meeting about the militias. Joining them, Gonsalves says, was Yayat Sudrajat, the head of the SGI, the feared intelligence task force attached to Kopassus.

The Indonesians discussed the rumoured referendum in East Timor along with secret plans to step up the training and arming of pro-Indonesia militia. Soon after, Gonsalves claims, the SGI was distributing weapons to militias throughout East Timor and he was pressured to organise the operation in his own town, the coffee growing region of Emera.

Some weeks later in March, he recalls, the SGI boss arrived in Emera with three pick-up trucks loaded with weapons for Gonsalves to distribute. Two days later he was called to a meeting with the pro-Indonesian Governor of Timor, Abilio Soares. That meeting, he says, was chilling. After discussing the security needs of the pro-autonomy front, Gonsalves claims the Governor told him that "in the near future there will be an operation throughout East Timor". As part of that operation, he claims, they were told to "kill all CNRT leaders, their families, even their grandchildren. If they sought shelter in the churches, even the Bishop's compound, we were told to kill them all, even the priests or the bishops."

Despite being shaken by this meeting, Gonsalves nevertheless agreed. But soon after a serious rift emerged between the pro- Indonesian leaders who supported autonomy in the ballot. Some were baulking over the level of violence envisaged for the campaign.

In early April, Gonsalves and other pro-autonomy leaders were summoned to Jakarta for a meeting with a senior general from Wiranto's headquarters.

According to Gonsalves's version of this meeting, Major-General Kiki Syanakhri impressed on them the need to go ahead with the militias. The TNI, said the general, "was getting weaker and the only way for the pro-autonomy forces to defend themselves is by organising the militia. If there are any sons of Timorese who wanted to fight for the red and white flag they would support them with guns and money."

Gonsalves also claims Syanakhri wanted him to take over the leadership of the militia, but the movement was split. Fearing for his own future, Gonsalves left Jakarta and went into exile in Macau.

Corroboration for Gonsalves's story comes from another insider who has recently returned to Dili. Rui Lopes, like his friend, is a former veteran of the 1975 war and fought alongside Kopassus.

The years have been kinder to Lopes. Muscle-bound and fit, he wears a gold chain with his singlet. Trucks roar into his workshop as he recounts how in late 1998, Damiri flew him to Bali to induce him to work for the pro-autonomy cause. At first, says Lopez, they wanted him to draw defectors from the independence ranks, but soon they stepped up arming and training militias. Lopes, like Gonsalves, is certain the weapons were distributed by Indonesian intelligence.

"The weapons came from [Col] Tono Suratman, he gave the green light," he says. "The SGI handed out the weapons. The Indonesians knew it was impossible to convince people to vote for autonomy, even if there was a lot of money from the central government," he explains bluntly. "By creating the militias they wanted to make them scared to vote for us."

Lopes says he had direct dealings with Major-General Zacky Anwar, the officer long rumoured to be a key figure in organising the militias. Describing Anwar as once "his good friend", Lopes claims the general organised for Damiri and the chief of military intelligence to give him 10 million rupiah to induce him to run the militias.

Lopes went to the Jakarta meeting with Gonsalves that April and confirms the split in the pro-Indonesian ranks. But when Gonsalves fled, Lopes returned to Dili, gathering information and passing it through intermediaries to CNRT. He distanced himself from the militia killings, but kept his contacts with senior Indonesian generals.

In August, when it was clear the independence cause was surging, Lopes claims Anwar advised him to set up a home base in Indonesian West Timor because they would need to launch a guerilla war to hold the territory. "The Indonesian army had its hands and legs tied in front of the international community," he recalls the general telling him. "If autonomy was rejected they would prepare for a guerilla war in [the western towns of] Atambau, Balibo and Suai."

The testimony of these two insiders is extremely significant, but on its own not enough for a case against the generals, Jones warns.

The key question is whether any of these meetings and plans can be tied to individual deaths. "My own feeling is that you do what you can with low-ranking TNI soldiers, bring those cases forward," Jones advises. "I don't think you can start with the top and work down. I don't think you're going to get evidence that will stand up in court until you have some of these specific cases with much lower ranking officers actually prosecuted and brought out in the open."

One such case now under intense scrutiny is the horrific massacre in the western coastal town of Suai. On September 6, as Australia and the world stumbled to respond to the Timor crisis, 100 unarmed Timorese civilians, maybe more, were slaughtered in the Suai church compound in a militia attack. Again, TNI and police were present. Among those killed was a prominent Timorese priest, Father Hilario Modeira, along with two of his colleagues. For both UN and Indonesian investigators, much is at stake in the case.

In a ransacked building in the mountains, a safe distance from the terrifying memories of Suai, a young boy sits in a white plastic chair, his feet just touching the floor. Until last September, Toto lived down in Suai with his cousin, Father Hilario, supported by the priest's generosity. As Father Hilario's brother waits outside, Toto says he wants to talk about the day "Papa Saint" died.

It was about two in the afternoon, the boy recalls, when he first heard the shooting. All day, Father Hilario had tried to telephone the police and army headquarters but no-one would answer. One person he could reach was Bishop Belo up in Dili. He told his priest to pray.

Toto describes how people began running everywhere as the shooting went on and on. He hid in Father Francisco's bedroom, he said. He wanted to see Father Hilario on the veranda, but others hiding with him warned him to stay down. Then he heard a shot and Father Hilario fell. "He lay down on the veranda saying please, please, help me, and called out Father Cico's name," Toto says. "Then he died."

When the killings were over, the boy and six others huddled in the bedroom until the compound was set on fire. Men began searching the house so they fanned the smoke to screen themselves. When it was quiet, the frightened survivors made their escape. "I had to walk over the dead bodies," the boy says. "I think there were a lot of people but I didn't count them."

Down in UN police headquarters in Dili, Sergeant Sue King is drawing a rough diagram of the Suai compound, trying to explain why the killing went on for four hours. The militia, it seems, were searching the compound. The killing, she believes, was "on and off -- there are a lot of places to look for people". She indicates hiding places.

For several weeks, King, a young Australian Federal Police officer from Sydney, has been piecing together evidence on the Suai massacre. In the months before the ballot, the church compound was a refuge for thousands of pro-independence supporters who had been driven from their homes by militias. Father Hilario's courage in sheltering the refugees, and that of his colleagues, Father Francisco Soares and Father Tarcisius Dewanto, brought the attention of US senators and the international media, but it infuriated the local TNI commander and the militia.

On September 4, when the UN announced the overwhelming vote for independence, the priests knew they were sitting targets. Fearing the worst, Father Hilario urged thousands of refugees to leave the compound, but some were too frightened to go.

From witness statements, Sergeant King now thinks about 400 unarmed people were left in the compound when the militia surrounded them. Her best estimate, she says, is that some 100 people were slaughtered. Others put the figure higher.

The wet season hasn't helped her inquiries. "Interfet didn't investigate till much later and with the rain, that crime scene was severely contaminated." But what evidence remained spoke clearly of a massacre -- blood stains and a pile of empty cartridge shells.

"There was evidence of gunfire to the walls, all from semi- automatic rifles," she says. A dozen burnt corpses also remained, but, as with other massacre sites, most of the bodies had been removed by truck.

It was the Indonesian human rights inquiry that announced the discovery of Father Hilario's body last November. Three graves were found 20 kilometres from Suai, on the Indonesian side of the border, that held the remains of the priests and 23 unidentified victims. The Indonesian forensic pathologist listed the cause of death as shooting in the case of Father Hilario and Father Tarcisius. Father Francisco had died when his throat was slashed. All three priests were buried in a single grave.

The find was a major breakthrough for the Indonesian inquiry, the first victims discovered on Indonesian soil. The discovery boosted the credibility of the Indonesian inquiry into the atrocities, but East Timorese human rights activists and the UN's Jones remain sceptical. They fundamentally doubt whether any Jakarta inquiry will lead to high-level convictions.

They point out that the Indonesian inquiry is a fact-finding exercise with no power to prosecute. Jones is convinced the Wahid Government supported it to forestall an international tribunal and believes that is still the Government's thinking.

"If they were able to show that they were achieving anything substantial this would effectively constitute the domestic remedy which would make any international prosecutions superfluous," she claims.

The UN human rights panel on the Timor atrocities has recently completed its investigation. It was specifically advised to co- operate with Jakarta's inquiry. Its report is now with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is expected to release it soon.

Jones, who has not been shown the report, says the recommendations range from an international court with Timorese and Indonesian judges, to "border courts" set up under Indonesian law and Indonesian judges with some international participation.

But she is dubious about the ultimate success of any high-level Indonesian prosecutions.

Despite the undoubted courage and determination of the current Indonesian human rights inquiry, the Indonesian court system is another matter. "I'm not frankly sure about whether any court in Indonesian will succeed ... in bringing people to justice," she says, "or whether you can get completely impartial judges in a legal system which, even given the democratic changes, is marked by a huge degree of corruption, politicisation and lack of professionalism."

While most local observers agree that militia members should be tried in East Timorese courts, the prosecution of the Indonesian command remains the issue at stake. For the thousands of East Timorese who lost relatives, friends, their homes, jobs, businesses and their political future, the Indonesian commanders must stand trial.

Sitting in a ransacked office in his home town, Father Hilario's brother, Louis, presses his hands to his face. As he fights back tears, he demands justice for his family. His father and two brothers were killed under Indonesian occupation. His job is gone, his friends in this town are dead, the local woman who worked for the UN mission was raped and murdered, hundreds of lives destroyed. He calms his weeping by lighting a cigarette.

The Indonesian army must be held responsible, he believes. He is prepared to wait for a war crimes tribunal, but it must come. "It is not a problem if we have to wait one or two years, but we want justice in the end," he says. "It will break the hearts of the Timorese if there is no justice."

TNI the 'probable killers'

Darwin -- A Dutch journalist shot dead in East Timor was probably killed by Indonesian troops, an Australian coroner said yesterday.

Northern Territory coroner Mr Greg Cavanagh was handing down his findings from an investigation into the killing of Mr Sander Robert Thoenes, 30, whose mutilated body was found in the East Timorese capital Dili on September 22.

Mr Thoenes had been shot in the back, probably after he fell off a motorbike, Mr Cavanagh found.

"I find that on all of the evidence available thus far, it is probable that a member or members of the 745 battalion of the TNI [Indonesian army] shot the deceased," he said in his written findings.

However, because witnesses had not been made fully available for examination, he was unable to completely discount the possibility that the killers were people dressed as TNI.

The coroner conducted the inquiry because Mr Thoenes's body was flown to Darwin the day he was found.

An autopsy conducted on September 24 in Darwin found Mr Thoenes had been mutilated. His left ear had been amputated and there were cuts on his face. Such mutilations were typical of East Timorese who made up the Indonesian army's 745 battalion, Mr Cavanagh was told.

Mr Thoenes's driver, Mr Florinda Da Conceiro Araujo, told the investigation he turned his motorcycle to leave after six armed people in TNI uniforms signalled them to stop. The motorbike fell and Mr Araujo fled the scene as the six began shooting.

Militia decide whether to go home

Kupang -- The real losers in East Timor's tumultuous transition to independence from Indonesia, the pro-Jakarta militias and their supporters, met at a rundown hotel here Wednesday to decide what to do now.

The main decision they face, said Basilio Araujo at the launch of the three-day meeting in the Wisma Timau, is whether to try to stay in Indonesia, try to win an agreement to go back as Indonesian citizens, or return home as East Timorese.

The some 200 delegates to the congress in Indonesian-controlled West Timor, are from four groups -- The Allianca (Aliense in Indonesian) which groups former top Indonesian party officials, the FPDK (Front for Justice and Democracy) an umbrella pro- Indonesia group, the BRTT (East Timorese People's Front) and its militia wing, the PPI (Pro-Integration Fighters).

They hope to make a joint decision on which way to go during the three-day meeting to end on Saturday.

But Araujo, and some Allianca members speaking on condition of anonymity, told an AFP reporter that the decision would not be easy, or unanimous.

The local West Timorese population is resentful of the some 110,000 East Timorese here, and weary of the gun-toting militia.

Some former civil servants are getting their Indonesian pensions here, and others have got their kids into school. But there are no jobs, even for West Timorese.

On the East Timor side of the border, the militia -- whose wave of terror after the August 30 independence vote devastated the territory -- are afraid of a hostile reception at best and counter-terror at worst if they return.

The compromise option of negotiating a return with some kind of special status and Indonesian passports, is not expected to find sympathy with the UN transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), or the Indonesian government.

UNTAET chief Sergio de Mello has suggested that leaders of the groups make reconnaisance trips to East Timor -- so that they can separate fact from rumor -- and return to consult with their people in the camps.

He has also suggested that UNTAET could try to negotiate the opening of an office in Kupang, to help those who want to go back, or communicate with those who are there.

Another topic at the Wisma Timau meeting will be whether the group should send a representative to take up the SPDK's vacant seat on the National Consulative Council -- a quasi-parliament in the East Timor capital of Dili with whom de Mello consults on all decisions by the UNTAET.

They have not taken up the seat so far because on September 5, the day after the results of the UN-conducted vote in East Timor were announced, the SPDK announced that it rejected the almost 4-1 pro-independence vote.

Foreign sources here connected with international aid agencies said that over the four months since hundreds of thousands of East Timorese fled or were pushed across the border into camps mainly controlled by the militia, the Indonesian military appear to have been withdrawing their support for the East Timorese militia they once controlled and paid.

The West Timor Administration announced earlier in the month that Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid would attend the opening ceremony.

But the highest Indonesian official present at the ceremony, chaired by Armindo Soares Mariano and marked with the tearful singing of East Timorese songs, was West Timor governor Piet Tallo.

Resentment mounts against UN

Linda Tenenbaum -- Four months after the Australian-led military occupation of East Timor, the United Nations is establishing a colonial-style administration in the former Indonesian territory. Already, its callous indifference to the plight of the local population is fuelling growing resentment. While hundreds of millions of dollars have been pledged in aid by the major countries, ordinary East Timorese face an ongoing social disaster.

Unemployment stands at 80 percent, and people in many towns and villages are living on the edge of starvation. "We don't know whether it's a lack of transport or a matter of the distribution system. What's certain is that there's not enough food," said Bishop Basilio de Nascimento, one of the territory's Catholic bishops.

Houses, shops, markets and other necessary facilities remain blackened, roofless shells, with no building materials due to arrive for at least several more weeks.

Many of the estimated 165,000 "displaced persons" living in the squalid, disease infested camps in Indonesian-controlled West Timor after fleeing for their lives last August, have calculated that they are better off where they are. This is despite the fact that some 500 people, mostly children, have died from malaria, respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses and other contagious diseases in the refugee camps. According to UNICEF, about one- third of refugee children are malnourished. Nevertheless, the people "believe East Timor is too destroyed, they cannot live there," said a UN refugee co-ordinator, Frederique Adlung, last week.

Meanwhile the thousands of personnel-UN, aid, media, diplomatic- who have been flown in to "save" the East Timorese and participate in the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) are enjoying the best the UN can offer. "At one of Dili's two new floating hotels last week, it was standing room only at the upper deck bar," reported Washington Post journalist Keith Richburg earlier this month.

"Relief workers, UN officials, foreign peacekeeping troops and journalists stood shoulder-to-shoulder, swapping stories and exchanging mobile phone numbers as cold beer flowed, music blared and the cook behind the counter had trouble keeping up with the cheeseburger orders.

"Outside, the capital's main waterfront road was jammed with new vehicles-Landcruisers, Jeeps, minivans, rental cars-most of them with license plates from Darwin, in Australia's Northern Territory. They plied past block after block of burned-out shells of buildings, although the street is dotted with colorful new restaurants, hotels and bars." One of these is the "Dili Lodge Hotel" set up in a former Indonesian Army barracks as a joint venture between Darwin-based businessmen and "pro-independence leader" Manual Carrascalao. In December the owners were threatened with eviction by UNTAET because of alleged links to organised prostitution. But the business, which includes car hire and a shop, is still there and, like others servicing the growing UN and aid community, doing a brisk trade.

In a stark demonstration of the social relations that prevail, hundreds of families survive by foraging every day through Dili's rubbish tip for the UN's discarded food and clothing.

Various commentators and aid agencies are beginning to express growing concerns about UNTAET and its unabashed lack of interest in the urgent needs of the East Timorese.

Sandra Vieira, the head of Portugal's non-governmental aid organisations, complained in December that the Australian-led INTERFET peacekeeping force was giving precedence to transporting mail and music for Australian troops over medicines and other humanitarian materials.

"It's incomprehensible," Vieira told Portugal's Lusa News. "INTERFET appears to have forgotten that the territory continues to live in an emergency situation." In his Washington Post article Richburg quotes Rogerio dos Santos, deputy director of the Roman Catholic Charity Caritas, who says he still has no telephone or fax to organise rice shipments. "Something is wrong," he surmises. "There are many dark businesses now in East Timor ... It is not a priority for me-hotels, big cars. The priority for me is that people need food and reconstruction for their houses." Veteran relief workers, comments Richburg, think the "Cambodia problem" is already occurring-namely the multibillion-dollar aid effort in that impoverished South-East Asian country which, eight years on, has seen no improvement whatsoever in the living standards of average Cambodians.

Lusa News last week reported the observations of another Portuguese official, Mario Almeida, who participated in a four- day "fact-finding mission" in East Timor. Almeida said he was "shocked" by the lack of support that UNTAET was providing to local institutions, and "appalled" by the fact that UN bodies had taken over all the public and private buildings still standing.

Last Tuesday the Irish Times pointed out that "twelve weeks after the UN Security Council established UNTAET, the only significant reconstruction has been to official buildings." The article quotes an unnamed INTERFET officer saying: "The UN is looking like it cannot get off its backside." Referring to the 9,500- strong UNTAET force that will replace INTERFET at the end of February he remarked: "they're coming ... to fight a war that's finished. What we need are roads for heavy machinery, but where are the bridging materials?" Two Australian doctors, working at the border crossing between West and East Timor, have accused the UN of treating returning refugees "like cattle". Mark Forman told Australian journalist Paul Toohey that the 150 to 750 refugees crossing the border each day are "quickly processed by six or seven staff working out of five air-conditioned UN Land-Rovers.

"They are put in a bare, rutted paddock with a few crude structures covered by tarpaulins. There is little in the way of a welcome for people who are obviously traumatised and extremely unwell, " he said. "There's money in Dili, so I expected at the border there would be some proper form of shelter and at least a cold drink." Forman and his wife added that it had been left to aid agencies to provide doctors, because the UN provided none.

Continuing deprivation, combined with the obvious chasm between the lifestyle of UN personnel and that of the rest of the population, are fuelling growing social tensions.

"People are everywhere," writes Toohey, "milling, talking and, most of all, doing absolutely nothing at all. The sheer numbers may intimidate foreigners as they find themselves driving timidly among hundreds of idle people, who no longer smile indebtedly or wave at every Westerner's car." "At night, large gangs of young men wander Dili's streets, not necessarily looking for trouble but, by appearances not afraid of finding it either. `You can see it in their eyes,' said one Darwin worker. `They smile to your face and wave but if you turn and look around after you've driven past, then you see what they really think of you.'" Two months ago, the first open conflict erupted when 70 locals in the eastern town of Lospalos, employed by a Portuguese aid agency to work in its hospital, demanded wages instead of food-for-work. INTERFET soldiers were brought in to disperse the angry workers after they began threatening their employers.

Last Saturday a violent confrontation broke out when several thousand unemployed workers and youth were forced to wait for hours at a Dili gymnasium behind barbed-wire barricades to submit job applications.

The UN had distributed 9,000 application forms during the week for just 1,900 jobs. People began queuing in the early hours of the morning for what the UN described as "not the real interview." By early afternoon a near riot had broken out, with the crowd jeering and throwing rocks at the INTERFET soldiers called in to push the East Timorese outside the gates.

Lining up openly with INTERFET, the vice-president of the National Resistance Council of East Timor (CNRT, Jose Ramos Horta, turned up to quell the anger. Speaking later to the media, he attacked the unemployed workers, saying he was "ashamed" by what had occurred.

Even the lucky few who do eventually get jobs will only be paid a fraction of what UNTAET's "expatriate" personnel earn.

The deputy head of the UN's civilian administration in Kosovo, Tom Koenigs, recently cautioned UNTAET officials against "overpaying" local staff.

At a briefing in New York he warned UNTAET that it should learn the lessons of Kosovo. "If they hire drivers and interpreters at three times the sustainable level, they will never come down to a normal level," he told a news conference following the briefing. He said that the 50,000 NATO-led troops, 2,000 UN staff and 3,000 international agency workers in Kosovo earned "good pay and are able to spend quite a lot of money" on rent or restaurants, and that was fine. "But we can create certain fences," he said, calculating that a "sustainable" wage for a local would be around 10 times less.

The UN has already confirmed that it will provide even fewer jobs in East Timor than existed under the former Indonesian regime. This follows a recommendation from the World Bank that UNTAET implement a number of belt-tightening measures, including a cut in the number of civil servants from 28,000 to just 12,000.

UNTAET's role over the past two months is simply a continuation of the UN's ongoing policy in East Timor, from the referendum in August-held with full knowledge that the Indonesian-backed militia would run amok-to its military intervention in September and the creation of UNTAET in December. Far from being motivated by humanitarian concerns, the UN has functioned as the clearing house for Portugal, Australia and other imperialist nations keen to establish a firm military and financial foothold in this strategically significant oil- and gas-rich territory.

Getting a taste of Western food

Dario Agnote -- With a pack of Australian-made apricot jam and some bread she picked up from a heap of thrash, Margarita Pereira, a skinny 8-year-old, and her eight siblings hurry back home.

For the first time, Pereira said she and her brothers and sisters will be able to taste the dark-colored sandwich spread.

"I don't know exactly what this is, but I think it's delicious," she said in Tetun, the language commonly used in this tiny territory of about 800,000 people.

The Pereira's are among the 100 or so East Timorese who troop daily to a dumpsite to rummage through a huge garbage heap where the UN peacekeeping force dump its trash, an Australian peacekeeper told Kyodo News.

"At least 40 to 50 children clamber onto the [UN garbage] truck. It's really dangerous," the soldier said. The Pereira's grass hut is a stone's throw away from the dumpsite in the Liquica district village, about 8 kilometers west of East Timor's seaside capital Dili.

Anita Quintaon, a 30-year-old mother, said she comes to the dumpsite to scavenge anything -- jam, Reader's Digest magazines, empty soda cans, empty plastic water bottles, paper plates and even wilted vegetables.

"At least we get to eat delicious food," she said, proudly brandishing five packs of raspberry and apricot jam she had just collected.

It appears the UN peacekeepers are providing some East Timorese not only hope for a new life, but also a chance to taste expensive Western food, although unintentionally.

While the territory's public markets have resumed normal operations, selling rice, fish, meat, vegetables and canned goods, food supplies remain a problem for many unemployed East Timorese.

A kilogram of fish, for instance, used to cost only 1,750 Indonesian rupiah before the September turmoil, residents say. Now, it costs about 3,500 rupiah. Before a kilogram of rice cost 1,800 to 2,000 rupiah, now it costs 3,000 to 3,500 rupiah.

Many residents cannot afford the higher prices of basic commodities. "People have no money to buy food," said Chief Inspector Noli Romana, a Filipino civilian police assigned to Baucau, East Timor's second largest city.

Romana said farm produce was also severely affected by the long drought that hit East Timor last year. "There is also a need to greatly improve the backward farming methods that most of the people here still do," he said.

Dili streets still bear the scars of destruction caused by pro- Indonesian militiamen and soldiers who went on a rampage after East Timorese overwhelmingly voted August 30 last year to become independent of Indonesia.

But East Timor is slowly showing signs of pulling out of its violent past. Independence leader Jose Ramos-Horta expressed optimism the food problem now besetting the territory will soon be solved.

"In another month or two, a lot of public-sector offices and shops will be reopened ... economic activity [will again] take place," Ramos-Horta said. Farmers will start harvesting corn in March, he said. "So a lot of the food problem will be alleviated."

Xanana Gusmao, president of the National Council of the Timorese Resistance, said in an interview humanitarian agencies are indeed encountering problems in distributing food supplies, especially to remote villages.

Relief agency officials said security problems in some areas are hampering the distribution of food supplies to far-flung villages. Assistance programs have also been paralyzed due to poor access, they said.

"But we are trying to get help from other agencies or solidarity groups to help us close the holes that exist in this distribution," Gusmao said.

"We are asking countries for more emergency [assistance], to help us by sending [farm] tools so the people can start producing more and more and more," he said.

Gusmao added the East Timorese badly need more tractors and more seeds. "Our strategy is to allow our people to stand on their own feet in the food issue in the year 2001."

Four injured in Dili gang riots

Associated Press in Dili -- Gangs of youths wielding machetes and clubs rioted on Tuesday in Dili's main marketplace, seriously injuring at least four people, eyewitnesses said.

Heavily armed foreign peacekeeping troops quickly moved into the market to stop the fighting, which broke out early in the morning between two gangs of local youths. A short time later foreign peacekeepers and civilian police were guarding about 30 young men sitting in the street, some still holding knives.

Witnesses said up to 80 people were involved in the fighting. Authorities confiscated the weapons, which were piled in the back of at least one police vehicle.

Troops from the international peacekeeping force in East Timor were conducting a house-to-house search of an area around the market, in central Dili.

Witnesses said they heard two shots fired. It was not known if any of those injured were shot. Ambulances took at least four people away from the scene. Witnesses said one man had serious head injuries.

The riot was believed to be the result of escalating tension between rival groups in Dili and a perceived lack of policing of petty crime.

One gang member, Ajuro, said the territory's fledgling government, known as the CNRT, was not doing enough to protect people in the market. "Every day there are problems in the market and we are not getting any protection from the CNRT," he said

Violence among civilians in Dili has been rising recently, as the United Nations settles into its transitional administration of the territory after the withdrawal of Indonesian military rule last year.

US dollar adopted as official tender

Dili -- East Timor will adopt the US dollar as its official currency under United Nations rule, a senior member of the National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) told Reuters on Monday.

The decision has angered the CNRT, the main political organisation representing the Timorese, which lobbied strongly for the Portuguese escudo.

"We believe the national currency should be an affirmation of independence and sovereignty," said the CNRT source, who declined to be named. "Having the US dollar as legal tender will make our dream of adopting the escudo just a dream."

Mr Luis Valdivieso, the head of the International Monetary Fund office in East Timor, said that if the country started with the dollar, it could stay with it and avoid any potential problems associated with the escudo's absorption into the euro.

"East Timor does not want to have to move from the rupiah to the escudo and subsequently to the euro," he said. "I think the main consideration has been one of pragmatic consideration given the fact that it is urgent now to receive the payments on execution of the budget."

The escudo has great sentimental value for East Timorese who lived under Portuguese rule, but an IMF official said recently that although the escudo was a part of the euro, with all the advantages of stability that that entails, most of the territory's trade is currently done in US dollars.

Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, shortly after Lisbon cut loose its colony, but Portugal's opposition to Indonesia's often brutal rule won it the respect of many Timorese.

The currency decision was reached by the 15-member National Consultative Council (NCC), a body established by the UN in December to involve East Timorese in decisions that affect the future of the country.

East Timor is currently being run by the United Nations as an interim authority prior to independence, as promised in the August ballot which overwhelmingly opted to split from Indonesia.

Horta points finger at the military

John Martinkus, Dili -- The Nobel Peace laureate Mr Jose Ramos Horta has blamed the Indonesian military for the militia border incursions that have seen Australian troops under fire in the past week.

Mr Ramos-Horta on Saturday dismissed Australian military claims that the attacks on Australian troops based in the isolated enclave of Oecussi were the work of one rogue militia leader, Moko Soares.

"These incursions are part of a wider strategy by the highest level in the Indonesian military to destabilise East Timor," he said. "Oecussi is only the first step. If Interfet does not take swift action these attacks will only become more frequent."

Mr Ramos Horta said the militias were waiting until the handover of security from the Australian-led Interfet force to the United Nations peacekeeping force under the transitional authority before widening their attacks.

The handover, due at the end of next month, will have worrying implications for the 40,000 East Timorese in the enclave, separated from East Timor by 60 kilometres of Indonesian- controlled West Timorese territory.

Under UNTAET the enclave will be controlled by one battalion of about 500 Jordanian troops. Jordanians are immensely unpopular in East Timor because of the close relationship between the former Indonesian special forces chief, General Prabowo, and the King of Jordan.

An East Timorese human rights worker, Mr Joaquim Fonseca, said: "When the situation in Jakarta was tense after Soeharto resigned and the investigators into corruption were getting close to Prabowo, he went to Jordan. The King is a friend of his; they went to military college together." Mr Jose Ramos-Horta agreed that "everyone knows the relationship between Prabowo and the King of Jordan. The UN made the decision without consulting us," he said.

The East Timorese have good reason to be afraid of anyone linked to General Prabowo. In the early 1990s, as special forces (Kopassus) commander, he organised the formation of three paramilitary units that were responsible for an escalation of the terror campaign against villages they suspected of harbouring Falintil pro-independence guerillas.

The units staged gruesome attacks as they withdrew from Los Palos in September, as Interfet landed in Dili.

Mr Ramos Horta said that sending Jordanian troops with links to the Indonesian special forces to guard Oecussi was "like sending wolves to guard the chickens".

"I raised this issue with them [the UN] one month ago. I found it totally inconceivable the UN would send the Jordanians to such a sensitive area. We hope nothing goes wrong. The UN could face very serious credibility problems with the East Timorese," Mr Ramos Horta said.
 

Government/politics

Wahid's coming clash

Nayan Chanda, John McBeth and Dan Murphy, Jakarta -- President Abdurrahman Wahid likes a good pun. So when General Electric's vice-president and senior counsel, Michael Gadbaw, led a US business delegation to Jakarta's colonial-era presidential palace the other day, he found Indonesia's leader ready with a corny crack.

"I like the General you represent better than the generals I have to deal with," he told Gadbaw. The businessmen roared with laughter. Not so some of the top brass of the Indonesian armed forces.

Little wonder. Three months into his still-shaky presidency, Wahid is close to confronting his nemesis, Coordinating Minister for Defence and Security Gen. Wiranto. It's a risky gamble that aides appear to be counting on to establish the president's authority, break open the logjam blocking necessary reforms and allow him to concentrate on solving religious and ethnic strife across the country.

In an exclusive interview, Wahid told the Review that if Gen. Wiranto is implicated by Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights, which is investigating abuses against civilians in East Timor, the general will be asked to resign.

"I will call him and say I heard about this report and the conclusions that you are implicated," he said. "Because of this, it is better to save the institution, the Indonesian Armed Forces, so then you have to resign ... If he refuses, then he will go to the court."

Commission member H.S. Dillon says that when the report is released in the next few days, it will implicate Wiranto, among other generals, in the scorched-earth rampage that followed East Timor's vote for independence last August 30.

"The documents we have demonstrate the army was aware of what was going to happen," he says. "We have created the momentum with our investigation and there is nothing we can backtrack from. For us, it's truth, justice and reconciliation. Someone has to be held accountable."

That's not just a political demand. Lack of accountability is the fundamental flaw in the economy and is at the heart of the new agreement Wahid signed with the International Monetary Fund in mid-January.

Addressing it will be crucial in convincing decision-makers at firms like GE to do more than just exchange pleasantries with the president. Without investments from abroad, the Wahid administration can't hope to restructure corporate Indonesia's $70 billion foreign debt and sell assets controlled by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, or Ibra. The impression that Wahid doesn't have a firm handle on his government is standing in the way of billions of dollars in potential foreign investment. The removal of Wiranto could help correct this, particularly if, as expected, it convinces some of his political opponents to back off. The key test is over Indonesia's largest car maker, Astra International. The sale of Ibra's 40% stake in Astra to investors such as Newbridge Capital and Gilbert Global Equity Partners of the United States has been blocked by company leaders with military connections. Pushing the sale through will be a key test for Ibra and Wahid.

It could also help improve Indonesia's investment climate, which was tarnished by Standard Chartered's aborted effort to buy the scandal-ridden Bank Bali in December, viewed by potential investors as an example of how entrenched interests continue to undercut deals.

In another instance, the Wahid administration showed its apparent impotence by failing to react when the local government of Sulawesi ignored an appeal by the minister of mining and threatened to close a $200 million gold mine operated by Newmont Mining of the US Observers believe the investment climate could improve with the emergence of a take-charge president.

But commitments made in the new IMF agreement, which paves the way for $5 billion in IMF aid over the next three years, are identical to the commitments made, but never fully carried out, by former Presidents Suharto and Habibie.

Will Wahid demonstrate the political will his predecessors lacked? "On economic policy, the new government didn't have any choices," says Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who heads Wahid's council of economic advisers. "The challenge is taking action -- real, tangible action."

But Wahid's showdown with the military has been getting in the way. In the three months since he took office, Wahid has been engaged in what his aides call "psychological war" with the military, whittling away at the generals' grip on the levers of power. Mostly, the battle has been about separating the palace staff from the five other departments that make up the State Secretariat, the 3,000-strong body that handles the executive's administrative chores.

The most important accomplishment may have been the December 1 edict depriving the president's four adjutants of the right to monitor Wahid's visitors and outgoing correspondence. The number of senior military officers in the president's office has been pared down to 15 from 35, with three generals among the 20 officers who got their marching orders. Yet staffers say the pressure from the military, though more subtle, is still there.

Asked to assess the president's performance, a tribal independence leader from Irian Jaya, a leading ethnic-Chinese businessman and a Muslim member of Wahid's circle of economic advisers had the same answer: They can't get him to spare the time to hear their concerns. "Gus Dur [Wahid's nickname] is so concerned about his political survival that it's taking up all of his energy and drawing attention away from economic policy," the economic adviser complains.

Wahid's allies appeal for time after 30 years of corrupt and authoritarian rule. "It's like a dinner. You have to wash the dishes before you can cook the meal," Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab, a presidential confidant, told a delegation of US congressional aides on January 18.

After Gen. Wiranto is dealt with, a bigger clean-up could be in the offing. Wahid looks set to dump a number of ministers, foisted on him as the price of the support that brought him the presidency, exchanging them for a more traditional cabinet of loyalists.

The reason is clear. Cabinet ministers have fought pitched battles over key appointments. One glaring example: the continuing struggle for control of the state banking system between Finance Minister Bambang Sudibyo, who is close to Muslim politicians, and State Enterprises Minister Laksamana Sukardi, an adviser to Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri. At the moment, there is much confusion over which minister Wahid favours.

Wahid's dismissal of Gen. Wiranto would at least symbolize the political end of Suharto's New Order regime -- something that wasn't accomplished when the long-time leader was brought down in May 1998 after three decades in power. In a January 14 warning that shocked the military and illustrated what is at stake, US Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke declared Washington's sympathy for Indonesia's reform efforts, "because what we are watching is a great drama, a struggle between the forces of democracy and reform and the forces of backward-looking corruption and militarism."

With Muslim interests tugging on one flank and the military on the other, Wahid has come to seem indispensable in international eyes. When the World Bank, the US, Japan and other major donors meet in early February to coordinate aid to Indonesia, diplomats say it's almost certain they will pledge the $4.5 billion Jakarta is counting on to fill its Year 2000 budget deficit. An IMF official says $2 billion more of existing debt is likely to be rescheduled this year. The president's new agreement with the IMF was seen as a victory, as was a positive market reaction to his austere and realistic budget.

Meanwhile, the country's economically vital, predominantly Christian ethnic-Chinese business community, historically a target of mob violence in Indonesia, is also rallying around the president. The Chinese are alarmed by the high-stakes romance between legislative assembly chairman Amien Rais and a politically active Muslim coalition aligned against Wahid, while they see Megawati as a lightning rod for Muslim concerns. Wahid is seen as the only hope of striking a peaceful balance.

"If Wahid doesn't hang on, I'll be on the first plane out of the country," says a prominent ethnic-Chinese businessman who has begun to move some of his family's assets back onshore following anti-Chinese riots two years ago.

Meanwhile, a belief has grown among officials and observers that much of the violence in the country -- from North Maluku, Ambon and Lombok in the east to tiny Bintan Island and Aceh in the west -- is either partly or wholly due to manipulation and incitement by elements of the Suharto-era military machine, loosely linked Islamic militants and vested business interests, all aimed at sowing doubts about Wahid's ability to rule. The military has strongly denied the allegations. Privately, palace officials say an end to the separatist bloodshed in Aceh and the Muslim- Christian violence in the eastern Moluccan islands -- the two thorniest tasks facing the new government -- is vital to Indonesia's economic recovery.

"You can't do much about the economy until the problem with the military is solved," says a senior Western diplomat. But the removal of Gen. Wiranto carries the risk of a backlash from an entrenched military worried about losing its place in the sun. That's why Wahid says he can only move gradually. But in doing so, he has suffered the embarrassment of seeing the military take weeks to follow his orders to sack spokesman Maj.-Gen. Sudradjat, a Wiranto ally who, among other things, openly challenged the president's right to intervene in military affairs.

President Wahid's strategy of chipping away at Gen. Wiranto's position has been backed by an impressive array of foreign friends, from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and President Bill Clinton to the European Union and international financial institutions. "He's lost momentum," says a retired economics minister. "But he does hold some aces -- legitimacy and international support."

There is also acute awareness that too much foreign interference could be used to stoke ever-present nationalism. Ambassador Holbrooke told the Review his warning to the military that its efforts to obstruct the domestic investigation into the army's role in the East Timor violence would take international pressure to a "higher point" was first cleared with Indonesian officials. "Holbrooke is trying to help Gus Dur to cut the army down to size," says a senior Asean diplomat who watches Indonesia. Still, while there is little chance of a coup, he and other analysts warn that Wahid should be careful not to push the army. "The president still needs them," the Asean diplomat says. "The army is a major political force no matter how discredited it may now be in Indonesia." That's a view shared even by Indonesia's Muslims. Says Nasir Tamara, spokesman of the United Development Party: "If the armed forces doesn't function, then we'll have a mafia running the country."

Western military analysts say that in removing Gen. Wiranto, Wahid may also need to weed out at least three of Wiranto's allies. But they believe a backlash can be avoided.

"A vast majority of the officers are careerists, interested only in pay and promotion," says a Western officer with long experience in Indonesia. "Most would change their beliefs in order to achieve these sort of things." That could prove decisive -- if Wahid chooses to act.

While Wahid's Islamic opponents are small in number and the president enjoys the support of the country's influential newspapers, his frail health and hands-off style of governance has led many people to see him as another transitional leader. For all its risks, decisive action now would help dispel that notion and make Wahid someone to be reckoned with.

The battle intensifies

Sangwon Suh and Dewi Loveard, Jakarta -- Would the person who is really in charge of Indonesia please stand up? With rumors of a military coup swirling around in Jakarta, Muslim-Christian violence exploding in the outer regions and Islamists calling for a holy war, a casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that the situation in Indonesia is spinning out of control. Amid the tensions and the unrest, President Abdurrahman Wahid has been a picture of calm confidence, acting as if he is firmly in charge -- and he may well be. But it is also apparent that he is locked in an intense political battle to secure his presidency.

Wahid has plenty of rivals who would shed few tears at his downfall. Foremost among them is Gen. Wiranto, formerly the armed-forces chief, now the coordinating minister for politics and security. The military, especially the army, has been upset at the gradual loss of influence under Wahid's presidency. Not improving the generals' mood is the government-sanctioned probe into the military's involvement in human-rights abuses in East Timor last year.

Another hostile group is the Islamists. Angry at the killings of fellow Muslims in the Malukus' religious violence, which has now spread to South Sulawesi and Lombok, the militants have been staging protests to call for the blood of Christians and denounce what they see as government inaction.

Even Amien Rais, chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly and leader of the "Center Axis" of Muslim parties, has openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the leadership of the man he helped to power.

Given the opposition to Wahid, how real is threat of a coup? Brig.-Gen. Nono Sampurno, a special adviser to Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, claims that there is indeed a top-level conspiracy in progress. According to insiders, the military is trying to stage a "creeping" coup: Wiranto's game plan, they say, is to create so much trouble around the country that the people lose faith in Wahid and support a motion of no-confidence against his government. Army elements are suspected of being behind the religious unrest in the Malukus; sources also say the military is cooperating with the Muslim parties to put further pressure on Wahid.

The wily tactician that he is, Wahid has not been sitting idle while his enemies conspire. He has sternly promised "harsh action" against any coup attempt and proceeded to minimize all possible threats to his position. On January 13, he ordered the reshuffle of key posts within the armed forces. The move was widely seen as an attempt to curb the influence of the army, traditionally the most powerful branch of the military. Most notable was the replacement of armed-forces spokesman Maj.-Gen. Sudrajat by an air-force marshal.

Sudrajat had been an outspoken critic of Wahid, often stepping beyond his role as military spokesman. "He was acting as if he were the spokesman of the coordinating minister [Wiranto]," says military analyst M.T. Arifin of Diponegoro University. Sudrajat was stoic about his termination. "As an officer, I have to accept every assignment that is given to me," he told Asiaweek.

Wahid also shook up the business sphere, replacing the chairman of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency and revamping the management of the state-owned oil-and-gas giant Pertamina.

These changes, while not directly linked to the political maneuvering, conveyed the same message: Wahid would push ahead with his reformist agenda and brook no opposition (which is precisely the argument of his critics, who accuse him of being as autocratic as Suharto was).

Wahid got a little moral support from friends overseas. The US warned against any coup attempt, while Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong arrived in Jakarta with a business delegation and unveiled a multimillion-dollar plan to boost investments in Indonesia. The goodwill visit, says a Singapore diplomat, was to make clear that the island-state did not want to see more chaos in Indonesia. "If Indonesia breaks up, it will directly affect Singapore," he says.

Despite talk that Wiranto himself would be removed in a cabinet shakeup, Wahid has insisted that a reshuffle is not in the cards. Still, Wiranto's position may not be secure. The official Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations in East Timor is due to release its report next month. There may be very little in it to implicate the top generals in last year's violence. But this would not necessarily stop reformists or human-rights groups -- or Wahid -- from using it as a pretext to bring Wiranto down. Just as the military plots, so too does Wahid, and the maneuvering continues.

Wahid forces generals to leave military

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- President Abdurrahman Wahid has found a way to secure the retirement from the military of generals he appointed to his cabinet.

But critics say General Wiranto, now Co-ordinating Minister for Politics and Security, may yet evade prosecution over allegations of human rights abuses while he was armed forces chief.

Mr Wahid signed a decree to require the retirement of the generals holding ministerial positions in civilian government.

The step is a subtle loyalty test for the generals just when rumours of the army old guard's mounting frustration with Mr Wahid's unwieldy democracy have sparked warnings against any coup attempts.

"This letter was signed on Sunday. When it takes effect depends on Gus Dur [President Wahid] himself as the highest commander of the armed forces," a senior military officer said.

The decree also covers the retirement from the armed forces of Mines and Energy Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Transport Minister Agum Gumelar and Administrative Reform Minister Freddy Numberi.

Friends of General Wiranto confirmed that the decree to end his military career had been signed, thereby weakening his support base in any ensuing power struggle between the civilian Government and the military old guard.

"Actually, it was Wiranto who did it," said one, who explained that each officer would be pensionable in the month of their birthday this year.

"I don't see any resentment from Wiranto," the friend said. "It's his own policy anyway, to retire from the military. Only the timing is inopportune."

This is a reference to the investigation into General Wiranto's responsibility for the participation of his troops and their Timorese allies in an orgy of destruction in East Timor after it voted for independence on August 30.

"There is talk about how Wiranto could find himself getting pardoned," reported a military source.

Others say the draft of a law intended to create a human rights court is more likely to get General Wiranto off the hook.

"A draft law shortly to be submitted to Indonesia's Parliament on the creation of a human rights court has been deliberately framed so as to protect Indonesian generals from being brought to justice for the horrific crimes against humanity committed during the last few months of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor," the British human rights group Tapol agreed in a statement.

"It is drafted in such a way as to make it impossible for all grave human rights violations committed in East Timor to be taken to such a court because it will not be retroactive," said Tapol's director Carmel Budiardjo.

Article 32 of the draft law stipulates that "cases of grave human rights violations that were created prior to the creation of the Human Rights Court shall be handled by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission", but nothing is known about such a commission or its likely terms of reference.
 

Regional conflicts

Generals stir communal unrest

Max Lane -- The commander-in-chief of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI), Admiral Widodo, has met President Abdurrahman Wahid to assure him that the TNI is not planning a coup. Other key generals have given the same assurances in the wake of strong statements from the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, warning of dire consequences for Indonesia if the TNI were to seize power.

Talk of a coup has developed since November when the head of the TNI Information Centre, General Sudrajat, stated that the president was not Supreme Commander of the TNI and that he could not interfere in military affairs. Sudrajat was sacked by Wahid on January 18, although the sacking does not yet seem to have taken effect.

Speculation has also been fuelled by Wahid's refusal to take action to hinder the National Human Rights Commission's investigation into human rights violations in East Timor. Sudrajat and the most conservative Muslim organisations have attacked or called for the abolition of the commission.

Meanwhile, Wahid issued an ambiguous statement expressing full confidence in General Wiranto, the former head of the TNI, except if he is found guilty of anything, in which case Wahid would expect Wiranto to resign from the government.

At the same time as the coup rumours began, communal strife in Ambon flared again, followed by Muslim-Christian clashes in other parts of the Moloccas. The strife has spread to the island of Lombok.

Speculation has become rife that agent-provocateurs associated with the Wiranto faction of the TNI have been stirring up social tensions sharpened by a new wave of traders moving into the mainly Christian-inhabited Moloccas from the Muslim south Sulawesi islands.

One theory is that the unrest is being stirred up to discredit General Agus Wirahadikusumah, the regional military commander for eastern Indonesia, including the Moloccas. Wirahadikusumah has been the strongest advocate of the "de-politicisation" of the TNI and has been in direct contradiction to Wiranto.

Factional struggle

The wealthy and powerful cliques that dominated Indonesian society under former dictator Suharto are still refusing to give up their hold on Indonesian politics. Having lost control of the government and the parliament, their last bastion of power is inside the armed forces. The Suharto clique ruled through the military and in turn bestowed upon them political and material privileges. Other factions of Indonesia's business and social elite were under the thumb of the Suharto clique and the coterie of top generals who were in day-to-day control of the political manipulation and repression under Suharto.

The non-Suharto factions of the elite were able to ride to power on the coat-tails of the student and mass movement that toppled Suharto. While these factions, represented by Wahid, Amien Rais and Megawati Sukarnoputri, have gained control of the parliament and government, the TNI remains outside of their control.

The tensions between some generals in the TNI and the government, and even among the generals themselves, result from disagreements over the question of whether the civilian government can control the TNI. The Wiranto-Sudrajat faction opposes the president's power to "interfere" in the military, while Wirahadikusumah appears to be aligning himself with the government.

As social discontent seethes throughout Indonesia, the need for an effective instrument of repression will become stronger. At the moment, the TNI is an ineffective instrument as it is politically isolated and publicly discredited, domestically and internationally.

A new, "clean", legitimate and "non-political" TNI is urgently needed before the next mass explosion.

Such a major image clean-up may even require the discarding of old personnel.

Social explosions

More than 40 years of arbitrary rule by the military-backed Suharto regime has left Indonesian society with no rule of law. Political, monetary and military muscle determined everything under Suharto. The courts were a plaything of the regime and all judges and magistrates were appointed under the seal of the president. The police force was integrated into the armed forces.

After the economic crisis hit Indonesia in 1997, the impoverished urban and rural poor looted supermarkets, granaries, prawn ponds and shops to obtain food or objects that they could sell for money to buy food.

As social tensions increased, many figures in the elite -- from Suharto to Wahid -- scapegoated ethnic Chinese and Christians. As this scapegoating took hold, physical attacks started on these groups, climaxing in the anti-Chinese pogroms of May 1998. By 1999, direct action by angry and impoverished youths against members of ethnic and religious groups had become a regular feature of social life.

The deep anger, fuelled by extreme poverty, economic uncertainty and anger at arbitrary rule, that engulfed the vast majority of people in 1997 and 1998 merged with a political culture of violent actions. Where this sentiment was influenced and led by the organised left, it was channelled into peaceful but militant protest actions. Elsewhere, riots, looting and attacks on scapegoated minorities spread -- including to Ambon, the Moluccas and Lombok.

In Aceh, the same anger and the desire to be free of poverty and arbitrary rule, has been channelled into the mobilisations and armed struggle for an independent state.

The most reactionary elements in the Indonesian elite and military may very well be hoping that the violent social explosions continue -- and may even be stirring them up -- so that a desperate civilian elite will turn to them to suppress the unrest.

Studentsprotest in Riau

Jakarta -- Hundreds of students staged a noisy protest outside the office of the Caltex oil company in Riau, one of the country's richest provinces, the company said on Thursday.

PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia spokesman Poedyo Oetomo said that protesters were demanding a three-day suspension of oil production and urging Caltex employees to stage a walkout.

He said the students had taken offence to a comment Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid had made last month following calls for the province to secede from Indonesia.

President Abdurrahman was quoted as saying that "Riau is nothing" and would not be able to survive as an independent country.

The demonstrators threw rocks at security personnel, damaging a parked car outside the main entrance of the company compound in a suburb of Pekanbaru, the province capital.

In April last year, thousands of students attacked a nearby Caltex housing complex, demanding that the company give 10 percent of its earnings to the province, instead of paying it to Jakarta.

The President offered in November to return to Riau 75 percent of its oil revenues, but in this year's budget, only 15 percent was slated to revert to the province.

Riau, opposite Singapore, is an industrial region that also has significant oil and natural gas deposits.

Eyewitnesses provide evidence of murders

Cameron W. Barr, Ambon -- On the morning of December 23, a group of Muslims murdered scores of Christians, including women and children, at a plywood factory on the Indonesian island of Buru, according to three Christian employees who offer credible evidence of having survived the attack. Christians and Muslims in Indonesia's Maluku islands have been fighting for more than a year, mainly in clashes that have killed hundreds of militants from both sides.

But reports by Islamic aid groups of recent massacres of Muslims on the northern island of Halmahera and the details now emerging about events on Buru island suggest that violence is increasingly being used against defenseless people.

The level of brutality -- in the Malukus and other parts of Indonesia -- taxes analysts. "It is difficult to explain why Indonesians are becoming so easy to run amok," says Azyumardi Azra, rector of an Islamic college in Jakarta, the capital. Amid economic crisis, a transition from dictatorship to democracy, and the threat of regions breaking away, he says, "people have lost belief in government ... in law enforcement -- probably they have just lost the belief in their leaders." Yoke Pauno, a factory worker who has taken refuge in Ambon, the Maluku provincial capital, says she saw armed Muslims ask a woman holding a baby if she was obed or achan, the local slang for Christian and Muslim, respectively. The woman answered " 'obed,' " Ms. Pauno says.

"Then a man hit her on the right shoulder with a long knife. The baby was also killed." Although word of the Buru killings has been circulating in Ambon for several weeks, the matter has received scant coverage in the Indonesian media. This article is the first account to appear internationally.

Msgr. Petrus Mandagi, the Roman Catholic bishop in the Malukus, says he believes the killings in Buru constitute the worst single instance of anti-Christian violence in the region so far. But during a visit to Jakarta last week, Monsignor Mandagi says he was unable to persuade the country's media to cover the killings. "They just expose what happened in Halmahera; to me this is unproportional," he says.

Some Indonesian newspapers and television networks have aggressively covered the killings of Muslims, more often portraying Christians as aggressors rather than victims. Independent observers say both sides are responsible for violence and have suffered its consequences.

Military and government officials blame lopsided coverage for inciting further killings, and some militant Muslims have vowed a nationwide campaign of revenge against Christians if the government is unable to stop the violence in the Malukus. Nearly 90 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people call themselves Muslims; Christians make up about 8 percent of the population.

Police say more than 100 people may have been killed at the factory, Waenibe Wood Industry, Inc. Maj. Jekriel Philips, the Maluku police spokesman, says authorities have not visited the site because of a broken bridge and Muslim roadblocks. A "large amount of force" will be needed to enter the factory, he says.

Vulnerable evidence

But accounts from the three Christian employees suggest it is important that authorities act quickly. Pauno and two others say bodies were buried on the factory premises, which are on Buru island's north coast, and that the killers quickly began to remove evidence of the crime.

"Definitely the evidence will disappear," concedes Major Philips, but adds that "the people who did [the killing] will be arrested, since we have good information from eyewitnesses." He says he himself lost a relative in the attack.

Although they could not be independently verified, the accounts of Pauno and two other factory employees -- whom the police consider eyewitnesses -- appear reliable.

In detailed, independent interviews, Pauno and the two other employees provided internally consistent accounts of the events of December 22 to 24. Their names appear on company employee rolls. Other factory workers interviewed in Ambon, also Christians, assert that the massacre occurred and that the three hid in a building where the worst of the killing took place.

Several boat owners in Ambon city, a day's sail from Waenibe, would not take reporters to the scene. Attempts to contact factory officials by radio -- the only possibility -- from the company's office in Ambon were also unsuccessful. Workers there say they are aware of the reports of killings but would not comment further.

An account of the massacre illustrates two themes common to much of the violence that has happened in the Malukus since last January. One is the apparent inability or unwillingness of security forces to intervene in some cases. The other is the sudden and inexplicable nature of the violence, which may be more a result of provocation than long-standing grievances.

The tension began in the late morning of December 22, says Ignatius Balubun, who worked in the logistics section of the factory office.

Security officers resolved a fight between a Christian and Muslim, but the Christian returned to his village angry. Police spokesman Philips says Christians then burned at least one Muslim house, which in turn angered local Muslims.

In the early afternoon, Muslims wearing white headbands and wielding swords entered the factory premises to search for Christians, says Agus Lekatompessy, a 13-year veteran of the factory. He left his foreman's post to check on his family and found his anxious wife and three boys on their way to find him.

The following events were related by Mr. Balubun, Mr. Lekatompessy, and Pauno. By midafternoon they and nearly 50 others, almost all Christians, had taken refuge in a managers' dormitory on the advice of factory officials. A handful of police and soldiers gave the two-story facility the appearance of safety.

The factory's security chief, Abduljalal Salampessy, told the refugees they would be taken to safety, but when a red dump truck arrived at 3am on December 23, the rescue of the Christians was called off. Only a half-dozen foreign workers were taken away, presumably to safety.

Lekatompessy says the atmosphere in the managers' dormitory was "stress, panic, and praying." Muslims outside were throwing rocks at the building.

To evade this hostility, a group of 26 men, women, and children -- including Balubun, Lekatompessy, and Pauno -- went to a room on the second floor of the dormitory. In a hot, darkened storage room, they waited.

Under siege

Sometime after dawn -- the accounts of Balubun and Lekatompessy, who say they were wearing watches, differ slightly on the time -- six shots were fired. Those on the second floor thought police or military might be taking action against the crowd outside. Instead, the killing began.

They could hear the sound of metal striking the cement floor, children crying, older people asking for mercy -- and shouts of Allahu Akbar -- God is great. Then there were some sounds of the removal of bodies and urgings to move them quickly. Then silence.

At midmorning, the assailants returned, demanding that the men on the second floor come down. They promised that women and children would be spared. The men began opening the ceiling in the storage room, revealing a hiding space.

Pauno left the room with the women and children. Hanging back, she saw two women and three children being killed at the bottom of the stairs.

She turned around and climbed into the ceiling with Balubun, Lekatompessy, and four others.

Peering through a crack in the ceiling, they could see through the window of the storage room. Balubun says he saw Muslims dragging two bodies away. They heard someone refer to "a hole with 38 bodies" and the sound of heavy equipment, which they assumed was digging mass graves.

In the middle of the afternoon on December 23, Lekatompessy and three of the men decided to escape. As they passed through the first floor, he says, he could see blood on the floor and the walls. The furniture was disordered. Lekatompessy and one of the others escaped the factory premises. But he says he saw one of the other three being killed by the Muslims who pursued them.

Balubun and Pauno waited until early morning of December 24 to make their escape. By hiding in log piles, they avoided the Muslims on the property. "Death was right in front of us," Pauno says.

Police spokesman Philips says as many as 50 people may have been killed in the dormitory, as well as a similar number elsewhere on factory premises. Given the approximate 16-hour delay between the herding of the Christians into the dormitory and the killing, he admits that it may have been an intentional, systematic act. But, he notes, the initial burning of the Muslim houses was done by Christians. No one can explain why an act of arson would have precipitated such a terrible vengeance.

The three Christian workers say the factory was not a place of religious animosity. Sure, says Lekatompessy, there were fights over soccer, but in those days Muslims and Christians played on mixed teams.

Protesters and police clash on Bintan

Singapore -- Thirteen people were injured when Indonesian police and military joined forces early on Sunday to disperse demonstrators at a resort on the Indonesian island of Bintan, the resort operator said.

But the operator, Singapore-based SembCorp Industries, said there was no disturbance at the resort and all six hotels there continued to operate as usual. Protests over land-rights claims by villagers have been going on in Bintan for the past week.

SembCorp managing director and deputy chief executive officer, Tay Siew Choon, said: "It is regrettable that force had to be used to disperse the demonstrators.

"This past week has been a harrowing time for all of us who have a stake in Bintan -- both the villagers as well as the investors," added Mr Tay in a statement.

Sembcorp did not say how many people were involved in the latest protest and Bintan police were not immediately available for comment.

The SembCorp statement said the injured were initially treated at the resort's medical centre and subsequently taken to Tanjong Pinang town on another part of the island.

Four protesters who were seriously hurt were earlier evacuated by speedboat to Tanjong Pinang for treatment, it said.

SembCorp, which also operates Bintan Industrial Estate, said the industrial park had been free from protesters since Wednesday.

Economy the greatest casualty of riots

Louise Williams, Mataram -- The lobby of Lombok's expansive Senggigi Beach Hotel is bristling with machine guns. The verdant tropical gardens beyond are dotted with soldiers and idle staff, their Hawaiian-print uniforms still neatly pressed. The white sand beach, the resort's swimming pools, the rows of deck chairs all lie empty. The front-desk manager explains politely and apologetically: "Right now we are experiencing nil occupancy, there are no deliveries so we have only the staff canteen with a little food, but we are secure, the hotel is safe."

Across the road, Rolando's disco lies in ruins, one of the scores of targets of last week's religious riots which have devastated Indonesia's "little Bali", two hours by boat to the east of the country's most famous resort island. Right along this picturesque strip of Lombok's coast, the five-star resorts are locked down.

That the Senggigi Beach Hotel is willing to share what food is left is due to the manager's generosity and discretion. His competitors to the north and south are closed to all.

Hotel worker Rudi, aimlessly skimming the empty pool for leaves, says: "I was yelling at them [the mobs] please do not burn down the hotel, then the hotel will be gone and we will have no jobs."

At the Capuccino Bar up the road, a young man who calls himself Harry says his coffee shop is open, but unfortunately without any coffee.

The espresso machine, he says, was "evacuated" to his village in the hills when the tourists fled. "It is hard to find a good Italian espresso machine on Lombok.

That is my asset, so I cannot take the risk of bringing it out," he says, gesturing towards the lush, green hills. "Now what will we do -- we cannot make money here any more, how can we live?"

On the sand, the beach hawkers are desperate, thrusting strings of pearls, sarongs, T-shirts, and handicrafts in the air, shoving each other out of the way. The price is anything you want to pay -- the sale is for today's food, so local pearls are being offered for $A10 a string.

"I was crying when I saw the riots. We have no other jobs -- didn't they understand that the Christians owned the shops that we needed?" says Andy, begging for any sale.

For Indonesia, the impact of the mob violence in the streets of one of its main tourist destinations goes way beyond the actual destruction -- the churches, the shops and the houses of the Christian minority burned by Muslim mobs.

The image of thousands of Western tourists fleeing hotels belonging to chains as familiar as Holiday Inn and Sheraton gives Indonesia's serious security problems an international focus, which could damage tourism and foreign investment further in a nation already crippled by a protracted economic crisis.

In many ways Lombok is the same, sad story of violence which has rocked the nation for the past two years. Angry mobs vent their frustrations by burning and looting, destroying their own local economies.

The battle lines are religious, but the underlying tensions are economic. In Lombok, the locals say, it was the poor, young unemployed from the dry, harsh central and eastern regions who set fire to the capital, not the relatively prosperous employed in the tourism industry.

"Lombok is an internationally recognised resort area, so whatever happens here will be seen on television all over the world, directly reflecting a bad image about Indonesia's safety and security," says Wiwin, resident manager at the Senggigi Beach.

"Tourism makes up 40 percent of the income for this island alone. Beyond that, we may have people deciding to avoid Indonesia altogether, which would impact Bali as well.

"To be honest the tourist industry here was just not prepared -- we were not ready to evacuate staff and tourists, we did not have stockpiles of essential goods." His own hotel secured a Garuda Airlines 737 to airlift all guests and the Christian staff to to Bali. Like many hotels, the Senggigi Beach had food for four days only.

It has almost run out. Petrol, too, is scarce because the trucks are not willing to deliver. Yesterday, the staff canteen had only tofu and rice on offer.

The Christians were still leaving Lombok under military guard this weekend, and many said they would not be coming back in the short term.

With shoot-to-kill orders and extra troops deployed, locals say essential services can be resumed within two to three weeks.

But the damage to yet another community, now divided by religion and anger, cannot be repaired so quickly, nor can the damage to one of Indonesia's essential industries.

Everyone here agrees the riots were started by outsiders, who were provoked by politicians bent on undermining the civilian government in Jakarta.

In October last year on Lombok, Muslim mobs burned an Australian flag in protest over Australian military intervention in East Timor.

"That was automatically 28 percent of our market gone," says one hotel manager. "We were just recovering from that. What I am worried about is that this will be the last straw, after Timor, with Ambon still raging, people will just say let's avoid Indonesia for the next five years."

Scores arrested in Jakarta

Richard Galpin, Jakarta -- Police in the Indonesian capital Jakarta have detained more than 100 men, some of them armed, as they tried to enter the city from the Moluccan Islands and West Timor.

A police spokesman said they suspected the men were planning to stir up trouble in the capital in the wake of the sectarian violence which has already spread from the Moluccan Islands to Lombok.

The men arrived in two separate boats at Jakarta's main port on Friday. Thirteen were from the Moluccan Islands and 100 from East Timor but currently living in the western half of the island, where many of the former army-backed militias are based.

According to the authorities some were carrying what were described as sharp weapons.

Dozens of police and troops had been deployed at the port just before the boats docked and all the suspects were detained for questioning, though most were later released.

The police said they suspected they had come to Jakarta to stir up violence similar to what has been witnessed in several parts of the country in recent weeks.

Hundreds have been killed in fighting between Christians and Muslims in the Moluccan Islands and more recently the Christian community on the island of Lombok has come under attack.

There have been many allegations that this sectarian violence has been organised by those opposed to the new democratic government of President Abdurraham Wahid, in an attempt to undermine his administration.

The police in Jakarta have now been put on a heightened state of alert as fears mount that the unrest could spread to the capital.
 

Aceh/West Papua

State radio halts broadcast after riot

Jakarta -- State-run Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI) went off the air in the Irian Jaya town of Fakfak on Saturday after its office was ransacked in rioting the previous day, a staff member said.

"For the time being, RRI in Fakfak will not broadcast, in line with a directive issued by the director," an RRI employee said by telephone.

The employee, who identified himself only as Ridwan, said he did not know when broadcasts would resume but added that as long as there were no security guarantees, it would stay off the air.

The RRI office was attacked on Friday by hundreds of people who also laid waste the local offices of the state shipping company PT Pelni, police said.

"The offices of the RRI and Pelni, including at the port, were damaged in the riot yesterday [Friday] but technically, they can still operate," Sergeant Sarmun of the Fakfak police said.

"The city has been calm and there was no report of violence or large gatherings of people," Sarmun said, adding shops were open for business.

He declined to say what had sparked the rioting in town on Friday. The Detikcom online news service gave three different versions of the incident that sparked the rioting.

One version had it that some people from the Moluccan island of Seram were manhandled shortly after arrival by boat at the port of Fakfak by a private Irianese militia members checking the identity of newcomers.

Another said the attack on the RRI office followed leaflets calling for people not to apply for government jobs because no Irianese should work for a government other than their own in an independent Irian Jaya.

Yet another version said the RRI was attacked because it still used the term Irian Jaya and not Papua as had been agreed by Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid while visiting the province on New Year's day.

The new name of the province is yet to be adopted by the legislature. Sarmun said no one had been arrested so far.

Calls for an independent West Papua state in Irian Jaya have been on the rise since the fall of president Suharto in May 1998.

Suharto's successor B.J. Habibie had been vague about the independence demand in Irian Jaya while Wahid, who took over in October, has flatly rejected any attempt at Irian Jaya breaking away.

West Papuans occupy embassy in Jakarta

Tim Murphy -- Students from West Papua occupied the Dutch embassy in Jakarta on January 17. They are demanding that Holland fulfil its promises to help West Papua achieve independence from Indonesia.

West Papua is occupied illegally by Indonesia, having been annexed in 1962. Before then it was the last territory in the Dutch East Indies. The annexation was "endorsed" by a bogus referendum in 1969, in which 1000 West Papuans were lined up at gunpoint by the Indonesian army and forced to vote yes.

Since the referendum, thousands of West Papuans have been murdered and tortured. Many more have been deprived of their land and livelihoods by social engineering programs organised by the Indonesian government and supported by the World Bank. Their resources have been seized by transnational corporations such as the mining giant Rio Tinto.

The Students Alliance of West Papua (AMP) represents West Papuan students worldwide. It is demanding that the results of the bogus referendum be revoked and that the United Nations oversee the handover to an independent government.

They occupied the Dutch embassy because, last November, the Dutch foreign minister said that the West Papua issue is "unfinished business." The Dutch ambassador has promised that the issue will be re-examined.

Calls for cease fire in Aceh

Banda Aceh -- A new separatist group acting as an umbrella organization for several pro-independence movements in Aceh province is demanding both the military and the Free Aceh rebels agree to a cease-fire.

"Forces from both sides have to put down their guns and go back to their headquarters," Aguswandi, spokesman for the group called Team 21 and a student leader seeking an independence referendum for Aceh, said Thursday.

Meanwhile, thousands of people staged peaceful protests in several Indonesian cities to express their frustration over the government's failure to end widespread violence.

More than 1,000 students in Banda Aceh demanded an end to bloodshed that has plagued the province for months. They appealed to both security forces and pro-independence guerrillas to stop fighting.

"We call on Indonesia's military and the police as well as the Free Aceh Movement fighters to return to humanity and end the armed conflicts," Safwan Idris, dean of a Muslim teacher training institute, told reporters.

The formation of Team 21 was announced Wednesday. It acts as an umbrella group for various local organizations, the Muslim Taliban and student bodies seeking a referendum.

A top military commander in Aceh, about 1,750 kilometers northwest of Jakarta, said Indonesian forces had declared a cease-fire, but were still attacked by rebel forces. However, he welcomed the group's call.

"We did that six months ago. But the Free Aceh Movement still attacks the military. And for the past six months, the military had still held back from attacking them," Col. Syarifudin Tippe said.

Hundreds have been killed in Aceh in recent months, and there have been almost daily reports of bodies found. Estimates place the toll at 5,000 during the past decade. The military is widely hated by Aceh's residents after years of alleged human rights abuses.

Police killed three suspected separatists -- two during a police sweep against pro-independence rebels -- Wednesday in western Aceh province, police chief Lt. Col. Syafei Aksal said.

Also Wednesday, an activist said a motorcyclist was shot to death, and that police claimed the man was a member of the Free Aceh Movement.

Indonesian authorities have reportedly launched an anti-rebel campaign in recent weeks to try to destroy the insurgents' camps and capture their leaders.

Seven people were killed and several others wounded in Aceh on Tuesday during clashes between separatists and security forces hours after Wahid participated in a peace ceremony and predicted an end to the region's unrest.

Plans for congress on Aceh gather pace

Banda Aceh -- Preparations for a planned consultative congress on the future of the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh are nearing completion, participants said Monday on the eve of a visit by President Abdurrahman Wahid to the region.

"There has already been a lot of progress," said Amin Aziz, an academic who has been active in preparing the congress.

The planned conference, expected to take place early next month, is intended to bring together representatives of all sections of society in the oil-rich northern province.

But it remains unclear whether the rebels of the Aceh merdeka (Free Aceh) Movement (GAM) will take part. GAM is fighting for an independent Islamic state in Aceh.

Wahid, who is expected to visit Sabang in Aceh on Tuesday for talks with community leaders, has so far ruled out a vote on independence for the province.

He has however pledged enhanced autonomy and a referendum on whether Sharia, or Islamic law, is introduced. On Sunday he expressed confidence that a political settlement could be reached in the province by March.

Tuesday's talks are to be held at Sabang -- located on tiny Weh island off the northern tip of Sumatra -- because of security concerns, officials said.

The Indonesian President's trip to Aceh will not include a visit to the province's capital, Banda Aceh, where protest rallies have been planned.

Aziz said that almost all the various groups planning to take part in the consultative congress had selected representatives to take part in a preparatory committee.

Student groups will agree on theirs at a youth and student congress scheduled for early February, he said.

A series of meetings, dialogues and informal gatherings have been held in Banda Aceh in the past week to prepare for the congress, he added.

The preparatory commitee will include nine members representing intellectuals, politicians, religious leaders, traditional Muslim scholars and non-governmental organisations, said Ahmad Farhan Hamid, who is also involved in preparations for the congress. Hamid said that another nine seats at the committee will be for representatives of students.

A staunchly Muslim and resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra, Aceh has been wracked by clashes between Indonesian troops and GAM rebels and their supporters.

As well as talking to Acehnese leaders, Wahid is due Tuesday to inaugurate the special trade zone of Sabang and the region's participation in a growth zone area that also includes Malaysia and Singapore.

Nine killed in Aceh ahead of visit

Jakarta -- Nine people were killed in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh, days ahead of a planned trip by President Abdurrahman Wahid to try to stem violence amid a rising clamour for a referendum on self-rule.

A policeman and three suspected separatists were killed on Saturday in two skirmishes there, Aceh police spokesman Lt- Colonel Sayed Husaini told the official Antara news agency on Sunday.

The policeman was killed and another wounded in an ambush by suspected members of the Free Aceh Movement in the Idi Rayeuk area, Lt-Col Sayed said.

"Security forces failed to arrest members of the armed civilian gang because shortly after the ambush they quickly melted into the bush," he said.

The three separatists were killed in a gunfight earlier on Saturday following a pre-dawn ambush by rebels on police and soldiers conducting a patrol in the village of Alur Teh, the spokesman said.
 

Labour struggle

Union condemns politicians' pay increase

Indonesia's militant trade union, the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggle (FNPBI), on January 20 condemned the minister of finance Bambang Sudibyo's proposal to increase the salaries of senior politicians. The increases are contained in the plan for the national budget being discussed by parliament.

The increases have been backed by Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle. At present, politicians' basic monthly pay ranges from 2.3 million rupiah for governors and 5.6 million rupiah for ministers, up to 33 million rupiah for the president. Politicians enjoy a range of allowances on top of these salaries.

"Meanwhile, we watch millions of Indonesian workers suffer as they receive wages of only 7500 rupiah a day, or less. Worse, many small peasants still live under the poverty line", the FNPBI statement said.

It continued, "The workers work hard, only to enrich a few employers. The workers have to pay taxes to the government and it is these taxes that pay the salaries and provide the facilities needed by the apparatus."

The FNPBI said that the proposed national budget deficit for 2000 would be covered by the International Monetary Fund. In return for this "grant", the government will cut subsidies on fuel and electricity. "In the end, it will make people suffer ... This is contrary to what government has to do to improve social welfare. The government should prioritise maintaining these subsidies above increasing politicians' salaries", the FNPBI said.

The union is demanding a minimum 100% wage increase for workers and state employees, an end to subsidy cuts for basic commodities, an end to all sackings, the reduction of the work week to 32 hours and an end to the military's continuing role in Indonesia's political system.

On January 20, 50 FNPBI members protested outside parliament in support of these demands.
 

Human rights/law

New laws 'could stop trials of military'

Karen Polglaze, Jakarta -- New Indonesian laws could prevent the trial of military officers accused of orchestrating violence in East Timor that left hundreds dead and whole towns razed, an international rights body has warned.

The London-based Indonesian rights activist TAPOL warned that draft laws setting up a new human rights court in Indonesia might mean the generals and other high-ranking officers accused of abuses could not be properly tried.

Rights bodies fear that Indonesia will sidestep an international tribunal through this new domestic legal process that would actually be powerless to effectively punish those who violated rights in the past.

"The Government's draft law for the creation of a human rights court is drafted in such a way as to make it impossible for all the grave human rights violations committed in East Timor, as well as numerous crimes against humanity committed in Aceh since 1989, to be taken to such a court because it will not be retroactive," TAPOL said in a report.

The organisation called for the court to have retrospective powers that went back at least 15 years.

Violations committed before the yet-to-be established court was set up would be sent to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which, as yet, had no terms of reference, TAPOL said.

Even if the commission found the most serious violations of human rights, it could not refer cases to the court because that body lacked retrospective powers.

TAPOL's director, Carmel Budiarjo, noted in a statement that the new laws would render useless a four-month long investigation into links between the Indonesian military (TNI) and the violence that engulfed East Timor before and after the August 30 independence ballot.

Indonesia has actively campaigned to prevent an international tribunal, preferring to deal with its problems at home, and yesterday won the support from the visiting Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, for time to show its seriousness.

"We would look first to Indonesia's domestic processes to ensure that those responsible for violence and human rights abuses be brought to justice," he said.

The most senior officer facing Timor allegations, former TNI chief General Wiranto, who is now a senior minister in Mr Wahid's Government, has once again stressed that he simply carried out government policy in East Timor.

"All I did in East Timor didn't deviate from the principles of the policies set by the Government," General Wiranto said in an interview by Gatra magazine.

Accusations of war crimes and other rights violations in East Timor were exaggerated and Indonesia's diplomats were fighting to ensure no officers faced an international tribunal, he said. "We are not willing to be accused of dong things we did not do, such as a crimes like those that happened in Vietnam, Bosnia and so on, that [were] planned and institutionalised," he said.

"We did not violate human rights like in Somalia and Rwanda either, that took tens of thousands of victims. Conversely, all the TNI policies were aimed at creating peace and preventing various human rights violation in East Timor."
 

News & issues

Jakarta puts out welcome mat for exiles

Linawati Sidarto, Amsterdam -- Another New Order taboo crumbled last week: Indonesian political exiles could now opt to regain their lost citizenship.

At the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague on January 17, Minister of Law and Legislation Yusril Ihza Mahendra met with over 100 Indonesians who have lived in exile since the country's political turmoil in September 1965.

Yusril's message to the graying crowd, some shedding tears of joy, was that the government wants to turn over a "new leaf" and plans to remove the hurdles which for the last three decades made it difficult for many of them to visit their homeland.

While many attending the event reside in the Netherlands, some came especially from France, Germany and Scandinavia.

"Imagine, for so many of us this was the first time since 1965 that we attended a function at an official Indonesian venue," said Ibrahim Isa, a government official under founding president Sukarno's rule. He jokingly added that previous visits to the embassy had been to "demonstrate, which took place on the other side of the gates".

However, questions and doubts lurk beyond the afterglow, as the exiles ponder the past and what may, or may not, happen in the future. Many here have welcomed the gesture from President Abdurrahman Wahid's new government.

"This is quite a miracle, a very significant breakthrough," said Nico Schulte Nordholt, an Indonesia specialist at Twente University in the Netherlands. "The fact that this gesture was made within 100 days of President Wahid's rule shows this has been given a very high priority." Isa, 69, dubbed the January 17 meeting "historic".

An Indonesian representative to the Organization of Asian-African Peoples Solidarity in Cairo beginning in 1960, Isa was in Jakarta for a planned conference in early October 1965.

"It didn't take long to see that there was some serious trouble, as people started disappearing left and right, either detained or killed," he recalled.

The coup attempt on September 30, 1965, when a number of key generals were abducted and murdered, was soon blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). What followed was a bloodbath in which some estimates say over a million people branded communists were either killed or arrested.

Although Isa managed to swiftly return to Cairo, the writing on the wall was clear when in January 1966 he spoke out at an international conference in Havana about "the truth" surrounding the recent tragedy in Indonesia.

He was quickly denounced as a traitor in Indonesian papers. Via Beijing, Isa and his family eventually settled in the Netherlands, the country with the most Indonesian political exiles in Europe.

"We have fought long and hard for our rights, and while we still have a ways to go, last week was a step in the right direction," he said.

Skeptical Others are less enthusiastic about the development. "Many more [exiles] didn't attend last week's meeting," said Warjo, 69, who attended Beijing's Normal University in 1964 on a scholarship from the Indonesia-China Friendship Foundation.

Some estimates put the number of Indonesian political exiles in Europe to be as high as 500, although Isa said it's "probably somewhat less than that." Many of them have not returned since the 1960s.

It's difficult to gauge how many absentees chose to stay away, like Warjo, and how many simply did not know about the event.

"I was only aware of the event after I saw it on the news," said Go Gien Tjwan, who was one of the top people at the news agency Antara "until I was dishonorably discharged" not long after September 1965.

At that time Go was also vice chairman of Baperki, one of the many mass organizations branded illegal in Indonesia in the wake of September 1965. The youth organization Pemuda Rakyat, of which Warjo was a member, suffered a similar fate.

Warjo sees the gesture from the new government as "merely a concession", and still too vague to feel happy about because "many of the New Order's military and civilian officials are still in power".

In 1966 Warjo was called to the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing and asked to choose allegiance between Sukarno and Soeharto. "The officials said: 'If you choose Soeharto, you can freely return home. If you don't, you won't be given a passport, you won't be able to go home'," Warjo recalled, a fate shared by many Indonesian students and officials residing abroad at the time.

He questioned whether in the future identification documents would not still bear special codes which branded the bearer as a social pariah.

During Soeharto's rule, codes were put on the IDs of former political prisoners, which often barred them and their families from many basic rights, either in securing permits to obtaining certain jobs.

One element of the January 17 meeting struck the wrong chord, even among enthusiasts. Yusril said that those desiring to regain Indonesian citizenship only needed to fill in forms and pledge their allegiance to Indonesia in front of Indonesian ambassadors in their respective countries.

Isa pointed out that he, like the other exiles, was always true to Indonesia, and that the New Order government "has violated our rights" through ways like refusing requests for new passports, or denying entry to Indonesia.

Of premier importance, all agree, is an investigation into what really happened during September 1965 and its aftermath, and who should be held responsible.

Almost everyone detained shortly after September 1965 never saw any arrest warrants, nor went through any court process before being jailed.

One of them was Sitor Situmorang, one of Indonesia's most important poets, who was arrested in January 1967 and spent the next eight years in Jakarta's Salemba Prison.

"I have never been formally accused of anything, let alone convicted. Light has to be shed on my case, and those of many, many others. Sweeping legal reform should be done," said Sitor, who now resides in the Netherlands.

He underlined the importance, for example, of clarifying what mistakes Sukarno committed, pointing out that many of his followers were among those arrested.

"If Sukarno really made mistakes, then show them, prove it. As long as no efforts toward such an investigation are made, we will remain stuck with false accusations and, hence, mistaken arrests of so many people." Even more important than reconciling with exiles abroad, he added, is clearing the names of the ex- political prisoners, and their families', many of whom have suffered daily persecution due to their alleged link with the September 1965 events.

Go Gien Tjwan stressed that without rectifying and clarifying historical facts, any kind of reconciliatory gesture would ring hollow.

"And this must include bringing Soeharto to court for all that he did to the victims of his New Order regime. People keep talking about retrieving the money he allegedly stole from the country, but this is so much more important." Many exiles are taking a wait-and-see attitude, after Yusril said the government would announce next month which concrete legal steps it would take to further the reconciliation steps.

The skeptics question how far-reaching these steps would go to abolish existing laws and regulations -- which ban all left-wing organizations and communist thoughts -- such as the Provisional's People's Consultative Assembly Decree no 25/1967.

Isa worried that some forces in Indonesia would try to stall the efforts of the President, pointing out that recently some legislators voiced displeasure over leniency toward anyone with alleged communist links.

He said that for Indonesia to become a truly democratic country which respects the law and basic human rights, discriminatory regulations must all be scrapped. Looking back, the exiles' list of woes is long, including rejection by their relatives.

Isa recalled that when he first came back to Indonesia in 1994, with a Dutch passport, some members of his family refused to see him. "And yet, how can I blame them? They were persecuted because they were related to me," he said.

The most painful, many agree, was being labeled a traitor by the government of a country they love so dearly. "I have fought for my country, and took part in the independence struggle. I will always be very proud of that," said Warjo, who as a teenager fought the Dutch colonists in the 1940s.

PDI-P supporters urged to defend unity

Jakarta -- President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Thursday called on supporters of her party to work to assure that Indonesia remains united.

"Whatever happens, this country should never be allowed to break up. There should be no [region] breaking away, and we should remain united," Wahid told some 80,000 supporters of the Indonesian Democracy Party-Struggle (PDIP). They were gathered at the Senayan main sport stadium to mark the party's 27th birthday.

Wahid said that both he and his vice president, pledged to do "all our best" to preserve the legacy of their forebears.

Megawati, who chairs the PDIP, also called on party members and supporters to be prepared to safeguard the unity and cohesion of the nation.

"In this period of prolonged crisis, I am instructing all members of the PDI wherever they are, to sympathisants of the PDI wherever they are, to always safeguard the integrity of the state and the nation," Megawati said.

But she also reminded her supporters that PDIP's way of struggling was "anti-violence" and called on them to hold firmly to the principle of non-violence.

Intermittent rain showered the venue, but failed to dampen the enthusiasm of those present, many of whom had been waiting for six hours.

The ceremony appeared to be geared to extolling the need for religious and ethnic harmony as well as unity.

Erected on the large podium were huge scale models of houses of worship -- two churches, a mosque, and a Hindhu and Buddhist temple. Religious leaders representing Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Hindus and Buddhists each led a prayer for the welfare of the nation.

The first performance was a traditional dance from Aceh, a rich province in the western end of the archipelago where separatism has been on the rise.

It was followed by a song from the Malukus, where a year of Muslim-Christian clashes have left some 1,800 people killed and hundreds of thousands refugees.

A party pledge, which called for national unity and cohesion, was read in turn by a woman from Aceh and a man from Irian Jaya (Papua), another region where independence sentiments are running high.

Present were Armed Forces Chief Admiral Widodo, senior security minister General Wiranto, police chief Lieutenant General Rusdiharjo and House Speaker Akbar Tanjung.

Audi Tambunan, the head of the PDIP's organizing committee, told reporters that some 10,000 party members and supporters had been enlisted to help 1,200 police with security at the event.

Indonesia blames many for violence

Slobodan Lekic, Sabang -- Indonesia's president on Tuesday accused disgruntled army generals and radical Muslims of provoking violence that threatens his fledgling democratic government and the unity of the sprawling Southeast Asian nation.

President Abdurrahman Wahid refused to identify the provocateurs in his speech to reporters after leading a peace mission to the troubled northwestern province of Aceh.

"I cannot divulge their names because we still have to [get] proof," he said. "Those Muslim militants, those generals who are not satisfied, would like to rule forever."

In a blunt warning, he said some supporters of his 3-month-old ruling coalition were threatening to kill troublemakers if the violence persists. "People have already [told] me that they will take the lives of so-and-so," he said.

The president also said the army should not defend members of the security forces accused of human rights abuses.

A key feature of his visit was a peacemaking ritual involving Muslim students protesters and police in Sabang, an island in the Indian ocean off the northern tip of Sumatra.

An Islamic clergyman sprayed water and rice over the bowed heads of the rival groups as Wahid stood by and a choir chanted verses from the Koran.

"This traditional ceremony is a very big thing, it means that society is now at peace with the security forces," Wahid said. "It shows that things can be settled in an amicable way."

Like many Acehnese, the students have demanded an independent Islamic state. The group strongly backs rebels who have been fighting government forces in a war that has claimed some 5,000 people in the past 10 years.

The rebels stayed away from the ceremony. So did army troops blamed for most of the human rights violations.

Wahid said 145 rebels have surrendered to security forces in south Aceh on Sunday. He said he expects the insurgency to ebb as army commanders responsible for rights abuses are brought to justice.

Wahid comes in from the cold

Tim Dodd, Jakarta -- In a significant thawing of the relationship with Indonesia, President Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday withdrew his travel boycott on Australia and said he would like to make an official visit.

President Wahid's request came in a meeting with Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Alexander Downer, in Jakarta yesterday, which was the highest-level contact between the two governments since the Australian-led Interfet military force landed in East Timor in September last year.

President Wahid's visit, expected to occur within the next few months, would be the first to Australia by an Indonesian president in over 25 years, redressing a gross imbalance in top- level visits between the two countries.

The prospect of a visit by the Indonesian leader is highly positive for the Australian Government following the snubs delivered by President Wahid last year when he left Australia off a busy travel agenda that included all Indonesia's significant neighbours, economic partners and aid donors.

After meeting both President Wahid and the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Alwi Shihab, Mr Downer said he was "very optimistic about the way the relationship is moving ahead". "We've been through a difficult period. We want now to look to the future and rebuild the relationship in a constructive way," he said.

"President Wahid made it clear that he would like to visit Australia. In terms of the timing of such a visit, that is something that the two sides would have to sit down and work out." At yesterday's meeting at Jakarta's Merdeka Palace, President Wahid also offered to co-operate with Australia in dealing with people-smuggling rackets bringing illegal immigrants from the Middle East to Australia via Indonesia.

"The President said that he thought we should work together in solving that problem that we should put together a plan of action for how we are going to do that," Mr Downer said after the meeting.

The Indonesian President also invited the Minister for Immigration, Mr Phillip Ruddock, to visit Indonesia to discuss the people-smuggling issue with Indonesian officials.

After his meeting with Mr Downer, Mr Shihab was measured about the progress made. He said that although the talks had been "productive and constructive", it was too early to say relations had been restored.

"We are still in the process of going forward, restoring relations. There are still misunderstandings that need to be discussed," he said. He also said Indonesia would like to see more investment from Australia.

Mr Downer said yesterday's talks did not dwell on East Timor, the matter that caused the rift between the two countries. "It's fair to say that neither side thinks there's much point in getting into a debate about the history of it now," he said.

But Mr Downer and President Wahid did discuss the violence breaking out across Indonesia and Mr Downer also offered strong support for Indonesia's democratic reforms. He said he told President Wahid that "we wanted him to be able to resolve the problems which he has internally, and in different parts of Indonesia, as soon as possible".

Mr Downer did not meet Vice-President Megawati Soekarnoputri who was visiting the province of Maluku yesterday in a bid to end the violence in which at least another 25 people died at the weekend.

The meeting suggests a significant thawing in the relationship between Australia and Indonesia, which was derailed by the East Timor crisis.

Last November, President Wahid famously accused Australia of a childish attitude towards Indonesia. "Is Australia going to stop its childish behaviour towards Indonesia? If not, then I will not go there," he said.

He also refused to co-operate with Australia to stop illegal immigrants. "It's up to the Australian Government to stop them at the borders. Don't blame the Indonesians for that, that's my view," he said in November.

Jakarta, Canberra to start mending fences

Jakarta -- Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said here Monday that Jakarta and Canberra have agreed to look to the future and start rebuilding their relationship, dragged to an all-time low over the East Timor crisis.

"Australia and Indonesia ... want now to look to the future and rebuild the relationship in a constructive way," Downer told a brief press conference after meeting with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Downer also indicated the two countries had got off to a good start saying Wahid had made it clear he would like to visit Australia, but the timing had yet to be worked out by both sides.

"The president and I agreed that what we need to do is look to the future. We didn't dwell on what happened last year," he said.

At the height of the Timor crisis in September, angry street demonstrations were staged in both countries and Indonesia unilaterally canceled a mutual security treaty.

Downer also said some progress had been made in his talks with Wahid over the problem of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan using Indonesia as a jump-off point to enter Australia.

The two sides had agreed to work together on the problem, which has seen more than 3,000 illegals entering northern Australia from Indonesia in the past six months, he said.

On the investment side, Downer added he had been encouraged by "some signs of more corporate interest" in a meeting with Australian businessmen.

He also said he and Indonesia's new Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab had agreed to stay "in close contact by telephone" in the coming months.

Shihab, speaking after a separate meeting with Downer, said time was needed for trust and understanding to be restored between the two countries.

"The meeting indicates a good relationship between the two countries. You know we're trying to heal the rift, to cure the wound, but it takes time," Shihab told journalists after 45- minutes of talks with Downer.

Though the spirit of reconciliation and neighborliness were already evident in both camps "trust and understanding" were need to start the healing process, he cautioned.

Downer is the first Australian minister to visit the Wahid government. Canberra was at the forefront of efforts to arrange the deployment of an international force in East Timor to stop a wave of killing and destruction by Indonesian army-backed militia.

The government of then-president B.J. Habibie approved the dispatch of the Australian-led forces, but the Australian embassy in Jakarta was targeted daily by snipers, demonstrators and fire bombers.

The two countries are also treading carefully around the issue of who should investigate and possibly try six Indonesian generals implicated in the post-ballot violence in East Timor.

Commenting on the issue of a possible international tribunal for the six Shihab said he was tasked "to prevent an international tribunal."

Downer, at his press conference said Canberra's position was "consistent with the UN Security Council resolution -- we would look first at Indonesia's domestic process, and the Indonesian government made it clear today they are determined to do that.

Indonesia has set up its own commission of inquiry, handled by a special team drawn from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), and Downer said Australia had provided some pertinent material requested by the Indonesian commission.

The six impliacted generals are former military chief Wiranto, intelligence's Zacky Anwar Makarim, former East Timor police chief Timbul Silaen, former East Timor military commander Tono Suratman and his immediate superior based in Bali, Adam Damiri, and operational chief, Syafrie Syamsuddin.

Indonesia has objected to the setting up of a UN inquiry or war crimes tribunal on 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.

More than 250,000 East Timorese fled the militia violence, or were forcibly deported, after an August 30 vote in which close to 80 percent of the electorate in the former Portuguese colony chose independence from Indonesia.
 

Environment/health

Indonesian forests in aid trade- off

Tim Dodd, Jakarta -- Indonesia's tropical forests are responsible for one of the country's largest export sectors -- wood, pulp and paper products worth $7.5 billion in 1998.

But the abundant forests which produce this money-spinner are fast disappearing under pressure from illegal clearing and short-sighted resource management.

Each year for the past 13 years an estimated 16,000 square kilometres of forest, on average, has been lost. In 10 to 15 years the still-vast tracts on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan could be whittled away to nothing.

In crisis-torn Indonesia the fate of the forests is secondary to the urgent issues of preserving political stability, rescuing the banking system and alleviating poverty. But the situation is so worrying to the country's major aid providers that they have put the issue on the table for the meeting this week of the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI), which will fork out the $7billion needed to fund the budget deficit in the 2000 fiscal year.

The donors 20 countries including Australia and international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have lifted forestry management to the level of other key issues they want Indonesia to address, such as improving corporate governance and developing the rule of law.

"It [forestry] is on the agenda as a specific item at the CGI. That is unusual," said Mr Tom Walton, the World Bank's resident forestry expert in Jakarta.

The meeting will probably see Indonesia agree to measures it can carry out relatively easily, such as better law enforcement against illegal loggers and more co-ordination between government agencies responsible for forest management.

Apart from the international pressure, the Indonesian Government has ample motive to stop the rape of the forests. Most of the logging is illegal, and this costs the Government $800 million in lost tax revenue each year.

Figures produced by the Tropical Forest Management Program a joint Indonesian-British program funded by Britain show that 75 million cubic metres of wood have been harvested a year in recent years. But the Forestry Ministry has, on average, issued permits for only 25 million cubic metres each year.

The forest fires of 1997 and 1998, which cast a pall over South- East Asia, alone destroyed at least 50,000 square kilometres of forest. Many of the fires were set by plantation companies which wanted to grow crops, such as palm oil, on the land. They got off scot-free.

Indonesia's wood industry comprising sawn timber, plywood, pulp and paper is far too large to be sustained in the long term without a radical change in forest management which shifts the emphasis on sustainability.

The industry has grown exponentially in the past few years due to massive investment. In the past 13 years $12 billion has been poured into pulp and paper, according to Mr Agus Purnomo, executive director of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Jakarta.

Now the industry is a victim of the economic crisis, not because it is unprofitable far from it but because the big conglomerates which invested in wood and paper were overextended. They went belly up when the crisis hit and were unable to repay their loans.

Many of these companies are now controlled by the Indonesia Bank Restructuring Agency, the government body which took over the assets of the failed banks and has the job of selling them to help fund the $130 billion bank rescue plan.

The agency has a dilemma in which it must choose between selling the logging companies which rely on illegal and unsustainable practices at their market value, or submitting to environmentalist demands to cut back the industry and forgo valuable cash which must then be borrowed.

The point of decision between environmental management and economic exigency will soon be reached.

"Corruption at root of illegal logging"

Jakarta -- Indonesia's illegal logging industry is backed by high-level corruption, an international environmental group charged here on Wednesday, as the World Bank said the country's commercial forests could be exhausted within 10-15 years.

"The government has to deal with the corruption and collusion that is behind the [illegal] logging" in national parks, Mr Dave Currey of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) told reporters after addressing a World Bank-sponsored forestry seminar.

The British and US-based non-governmental organisation made its allegation after presenting a report on illegal logging at the Tanjung Puting national forest, Central Kalimantan, to a group of Indonesia's major aid donors.

Faith Doherty of the EIA, and Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto of its Indonesian partner Telapak, said they were attacked on Saturday by workers at a sawmill in Pangkalan Bun town at the entrance of the forest about 900km north-east of Jakarta.

The pair were detained by local police for several hours, but later "rescued" by the Indonesian military and other environmentalists.

The mill, PT Tanjung Lingga, is owned by Indonesian MP Abdul Rasyid and sits at the entrance of the reserve, a diminishing tropical rain forest filled with rare animal and plant species, including many of the country's s protected orangutans.

The World Bank estimates Indonesia's tropical rain forests are disappearing by some 1.5 million hectares a year.

At the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) meeting, the World Bank delivered a paper saying that Indonesia's commercial forests could be exhausted in less than two decades if rampant illegal logging and clearing, weak law enforcement and other poor industry practices were not stopped.

"It is feared that, at the present rate, the commercially valuable forest resources will be exhausted within 10 to 15 years," said the paper, which was distributed at a World Bank- sponsored conference.

Two environmentalists attacked

Jakarta -- Two environmentalists, including a British activist, were attacked and beaten by loggers in a national park in central Indonesia, a UK-based environmental group said Sunday.

The Environmental Investigation Agency said one of its members, Faith Doherty, and an Indonesian activist were set upon by angry villagers in Kalimantan while investigating illegal logging in the Tanjung Puting National Park.

The park is one of the last known sanctuaries of the orangutan and other endangered species. Illegal logging has reduced the primate's natural habitat and it threatening its survival.

In a statement Sunday, the group's director Dave Currey said the two activists were detained by police for several hours before being flown out of the region. Immediate attempts to reach police and other government officials in the region were unsuccessful.
 

Arms/armed forces

'I don't see a coup scenario': Wirahadikusuma

Maj.-General Agus Wirahadikusuma, a leading reformer in Indonesia's military, spoke with Time reporter Jason Tedjasukmana on January 17 about President Abdurrahman Wahid's relationship with the army and rumors of a possible coup Time: How would you characterize the army's relationship with President Wahid?

Agus: We have been in a militaristic culture for more than three decades, so leaders in the TNI [Indonesia's military] have to change their styles and habits in accordance with a civilian government. We didn't have problems in the past under a five-star general. President Gus Dur [Wahid's nickname] needs time to persuade the TNI to make changes in line with the current culture and environment. Gus Dur is a religious leader and as president he has had to change his leadership style to accommodate so many groups. But he should be stronger. People still see him cracking a lot of jokes.

Time: How strong is resistance to change in the military?

Agus: I believe most soldiers want to see a change in the TNI's role and function. The problem is the pace. The progress of change in Indonesia has been very rapid -- by the day, even by the hour. But key positions in the military are still dominated by President Suharto's close circle. Because of these relationships the military's leadership is in crisis, and many of the most professional and qualified soldiers -- who don't have these relationships -- have had a hard time advancing their careers. Moral relations with the old authority make it difficult to react.

Time: How should President Wahid deal with elements resisting change?

Agus: Give them time frames to solve problems, and if they fail they should retire. Gus Dur has a mandate from the people, and he should use it.

Time: Do you agree with the changes he has made and the direction he is taking the military?

Agus: Yes, because the TNI is moving too slowly and not seriously enough in coping with problems nationwide. Just look at Aceh, West Kalimantan, Ciamis, Banyuwangi, Pasaruan, Ambon, Irian Jaya.

Time: How difficult will it be to dismantle the military's current structure, stretching from the cities down into the smallest of villages?

Agus: The territorial structure has long been the essence of the military in detecting problems and monitoring in the field. It is used as an intelligence tool. Under the old regime, it was used to control and balance the power of the PKI [the former Indonesian Communist Party], which used villages as its basis to gain control. Suharto used the structure to support Golkar and to influence the election process. But territorial management broke down sometimes. In Aceh, the Special Forces should be held responsible for mishandling the operation. Kopassus used Aceh as an intelligence operation without permission from Pangdam.

Time: Does the military have enough resources to do its job properly?

Agus: If we talk about military businesses, we are talking about budget shortages. They are to cope with and improve the soldiers' welfare.

Time: Do you think US military training is important for Indonesian soldiers?

Agus: My experience overseas helped shape my views to see things from a macro and international perspective. Some people may look at me as a threat because of my different background and because I have seven years left in the military. But I have a strong commitment to the future.

Time: Who should be held responsible for human rights violations in East Timor?

Agus: The top leaders in the military must be responsible. They say there was no scorched earth policy, but we can see what has happened. As leaders we have to say to the people, "We're responsible," and then ask to be forgiven.

Time: How nervous is the top brass about the threat of an international human rights tribunal?

Agus: Very nervous. For a long time we never thought Timor would create this kind of attention.

Time: Can more troops and military threats put an end to provincial unrest?

Agus: The separatist problem cannot be solved by military force. We need to increase communication and interaction. But they just send more troops.

Time: Is it possible for TNI to remain neutral in times of conflict?

Agus: External groups have always tried to create relationships with top leaders of the TNI, which attracts political players because it is a dominating power. This has created conflicts of interest and therefore TNI should not be involved in politics.

During the previous government, ABRI [the military's former acronym] and the government were one and ABRI used it to get forestry concessions and other business facilities. When dealing with ethnic and religious conflicts, TNI must be neutral and cannot take sides. The TNI are not the soldiers of the NU or Muhammadiyah [Indonesia's two largest Muslim groups]. Their obligation is to protect all Indonesian people.

Time: Is the military feeling demoralized?

Agus: During the old regime it was normal to get involved and use violence, perhaps a legacy of the Dutch and Japanese. But this culture is not in sync with a growing consciousness of human rights.

Time: How real are the recent rumors of a possible coup d'itat? Agus: I don't see a coup scenario. That opinion was created after changes were made in the military and misconstrued. The people would never support a coup.

Time: Is the TNI part of the problem or solution?

Agus: Both. It is a problem if the leadership does not adapt to current demands of the reform process. It is part of the solution because the TNI can play an important role in helping the government cope with crises.

Interview with General Agum Gumelar

Transport Minister Agum Gumelar, an active three-star general, is one of the Indonesian military's leading intellectuals and a strong candidate for the post of armed forces chief.

He spoke with Time correspondent David Liebhold and reporter Zamira Loebis in his Jakarta office January 19. The following is an expanded excerpt from the interview:

Time: Will there be a military coup?

Agum: It would be very stupid of the armed forces to do that, especially at a time when the people's trust in us is at its lowest ebb. It can always happen that there are some members of the military who are not satisfied with the current situation. But that's not a coup, that's insubordination. If it occurs, I'll be the first one to counter it.

Time: So you can rule out a military coup.

Agum: Yes, you can rule out a military coup.

Time: Many people believe that unrest in Aceh, Ambon and elsewhere is at least partly the work of politically motivated provocateurs.

Agum: Since the fall of Suharto, there has been an expectation among the people that Indonesia would be better, that everything that took place in the past -- mistakes, injustices -- would be solved in the spirit of reform. That hope has not become reality. Instead, various components of the ilite began maneuvering in pursuit of their own interests. These maneuverings inevitably made the different political parties collide with one another.

This produced sparks. Meanwhile, the burden on the people is very heavy because of the economic crisis. It was easy for the sparks to inflame the people, and that's what has been happening. After the election, all political conflicts should be considered over and done with, and we must concentrate on rebuilding the whole nation.

However, there are still political struggles taking place, there is still a polarization of interests. There are still a lot of time bombs left by the old regime.

Look at Ambon, for example. The Ambon conflict has been going on for a year, while the government of Gus Dur [President Abdurrahman Wahid's nickname] is only two months old. Take Aceh. Many promises were made -- to build a new railway system, and so on -- but we don't have any money.

The upheavals now are not unrelated to the dynamics of politics which did not meet people's expectations. In such a situation, TNI [the military] has to maintain itself as a solid force. At the same time TNI has been verbally abused, cursed, scorned and jeered at. There are two kinds of people who keep barking at TNI. The first are those who scorn TNI because they love TNI and they don't want TNI to be bad as it was during Suharto's era, when it did a lot of things outside its own domain. They realize that TNI is one of the most important components of the nation, a component that can defend the nation, where you can place your hopes.

People in the second group, deep in their heart, hate TNI very much. They have revenge in mind.

Remember what happened in 1965? Who killed the PKI? It was TNI, wasn't it? Remember, PKI at that time was the biggest communist party in the world outside of the communist countries. That means those old members had children and grandchildren, who, remembering their parents and grandparents, hated TNI for what it did to them. They are vengeful, and they use the momentum of "reformasi" to destroy TNI.

In TNI itself, there are two kinds of members: The first is bigger. Because they've been criticized and jeered at, they ask themselves why and look for an answer and tell themselves "it's no wonder that we've been cursed." After being criticized they realize that it's true that TNI made a lot of mistakes in the past. They were the New Order's bulldozers, watchdogs. They were defenders of the regime, not of the people. A lot of TNI officers saw that they had made so many mistakes in the past. And as a result, they are committed to a goal of putting TNI back on track, the way people expect them to.

The second group, however, view those who criticize TNI as their enemies and think that they have to prepare forces to face them.

Time: Can they be called TNI's right wing?

Agum: I don't think I'm prepared to say that. Maybe. I don't know. What the majority of the people want is simply a safe, orderly, peaceful, prosperous life.

When I say "the majority," it implies that there is still the "minority" who want the opposite. Ideally, TNI should take the former's side and stern action against the latter. This can be done without abusing human rights, by staying within the law.

The most dangerous enemy of the nation for the sake of democracy now is unlimited euphoria. Reformasi has been interpreted as "anything goes" -- in the name of religion, for instance.

Time: But are provocateurs deliberately fomenting unrest?

Agum: It is very likely that there are provocateurs. They have fertile ground here. There are so many areas that are easy to ignite. Ambon is not the only place. Yes, I think everything's possible.

Time: Military intelligence is supposed to be very good, but is it possible that unrest could happen without anyone knowing of it in advance?

Agum: We do have a vast intelligence network here, but its professionalism is not as high as you think it is. It's true that they're good in some parts, but in others they are very weak. Every time we send troops, NGOs will scream that we are wrong. We are in a very, very problematic position.

Time: What about the law that military officers should retire if they take civilian positions? Agum: It's not my will to be a member of this cabinet. For me, it's an order. As a military man, I just said, "Yes, Sir!"

Time: Isn't it strange that at the highest level the law is broken?

Agum: (shrug) Maybe.

Time: Does the navy's Admiral Widodo, chief of the armed forces, lack control of the army?

Agum: That's not true. In TNI, whether we are from the navy, army or the air force, we obey the same regulations. We obey whoever is the leader, regardless of what force he is from. Maybe the problem is that we have a territorial system. All territorial areas -- we have nine of them -- are headed by the army, all nine of them are headed by army officers.

Time: You mentioned promises made by the previous government and that there's no money now to keep those promises. TNI now has to fight in Ambon, Irian Jaya, etc. -- is it difficult to do so? Agum: Very difficult, but still possible under one condition. It has to maintain itself as a solid force, meaning: professional, integrated physically and visionary. The most important thing is that a solid TNI is a TNI that loves the people and is loved by the people.

Time: Should the Indonesian military relinquish its role in politics, giving up its so-called dual function [dwifungsi]? Agum: Who brought Indonesia to independence in 1945? The answer is: the whole Indonesian people, including ABRI [an old acronym for the Indonesian military plus the police]. After we gained independence, we agreed to have one country: NKRI [Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia]. After that, we decided what we'd like to achieve, so we agreed on our national goals. Meaning that after we became independent, we have to work together to achieve our national goals. When we said "we" I meant all of the nation's components, which means that TNI also has the responsibility to guarantee that the national goals are achieved -- this what is meant by its "social and political role." Social and political force doesn't necessarily mean using arms. Dwifungsi was abused by Suharto, who put military officers in the positions of governor, district chief, village head, etc. The essence of dwifungsi is that the armed forces share responsibility for achieving national goals. We have to bring the people to a full understanding of this. But at the moment, if we even mention the word, people boo at us. So we'll have to do it slowly.

Time: Should military officers be put on trial for human rights abuses?

Agum: If there is strong proof supported by legal facts, why not? When I was in South Sulawesi, I found out that my men ganged up to attack two students.

The same day I took stern action against them. I put them in a cell 14 times in 24 hours; when they came out, I sent them to a battlefield: it was East Timor at that time. I didn't want my men to be cocky in front of weaklings. If they want to be cocky, they can do it in the battlefield. If a law is broken by a soldier -- whether he is a general or from the lower ranks -- if there is authentic proof, then why not? We have to be consistent.
 

Economy & investment

UP to 4.7 billion needed for budget

Jakarta -- The Indonesian government faces an uphill task to stay on the road to recovery this year and will need loans of between 4.2 billion dollars and 4.7 billion dollars from its main donors to finance the 2000 budget, the World Bank said Friday.

In a report prepared for a meeting of the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI), the country's largest donor group, here next week the bank said there were "strong reasons to guard against undue optimism" for Indonesian recovery.

Jakarta, still struggling to emerge from the 1997 financial crisis, is also seeking to reschedule 2.2 billion in foreign debt, the report said.

Short-listing the problems bedevilling the government, it named the main hurdles as record levels of government debt, ongoing sectarian violence and deep structural faults and plummetting investment, all of which were casting "a dark shadow over the country."

Government debt it said had "exploded" from 23 percent of Gross Domestic Product before the crisis in March of 1997 to about 90 percent of GDP three years later.

On the plus side it said the country at long last had a popular government with a strong political mandate, macro-economic indicators were stable and oil prices strong.

"Inflation has been virtually eliminated, the rupiah has traded within a narrow range, domestic interest rates have fallen to pre-crisis levels and the risk premium on Indonesian yankee bonds continues to decline," it said.

Recovery so far had been fuelled by "resilient private consumers" at the top end of society, but "consumers cannot fuel recovery for ever," it warned, saying that hopes of a non-oil export-led recovery had been dashed.

At the heart of Jakarta's problems, still, it said, was the restructuring of both the collapsed banking system and mountains of corporate debt. While there had been slow progress on the first, progress in corporate debt had been "glacial," it said.

"The bottom line is ... that the economy is recovering gradually and tentatively through its own internal recuperative powers. For this to be sustained, will be difficult but not impossible."

At a minimum, the report warned, "peace must prevail, sectarian violence cease and political stability remain assured" before foreign investors have the confidence to return.

In a chilling description of how millions of the crisis-affected had avoided falling below the absolute poverty line, it said families had cut down on the amount and quality of their food, three percent had pulled their children out of school and others had relied on pawn shops and borrowing.

But 19.34 percent of the population lived in absolute poverty, it said, and half of Indonesia's households have a 50-50 chance of not being able to stay above it.

The bank said the government of President Abdurrahman Wahid had been caught between a rock and a hard place in drawing up the 2000 budget, with its five percent deficit.

Any larger deficit, it said, would have meant "an unacceptably large increment in government debt" while a smaller deficit would have put contractionary pressures on the economy.

The amount the Indonesian government was asking from the group, it said was enough to finance half of the deficit -- or 4.2 to 4.7 billion dollars, with the rest to be financed through taxes.

The 18-page bank report ended with strong warnings to the government against embarking on "ad hoc" decentralization to defuse growing regional demands for a greater share of the economic pie without careful advance planning.

"Managed badly," it said, decentralization could "hurt the poor, squander resources and bring fiscal instability."

World Bank approval for government

Jakarta -- The World Bank today gave its seal of approval to the new government of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid for its handling of economic affairs during its first 100 days in power.

"This government has been in power exactly 100 days today," the bank's country director Mark Baird told a briefing ahead of the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) donors' meeting next Tuesday.

"During that time they have not only demonstrated a willingness to tackle issues like Bank Bali but they've put in place a letter of intent and they have submitted to parliament ... a conservative budget, I would say a balanced and realistic budget as well," Baird said. "That's not bad for 100 days."

Responding to criticism that no-one has yet been jailed for the politically-explosive Bank Bali case, or for another scandal involving the Texmaco Group, Baird said such issues will be handled eventually.

"What you're saying is that's not enough and we agree," Baird said. "That's the agenda that's laid out for the future and this government has to implement that agenda in a much more, in some ways difficult, political environment than in the past. "So yes, it's going to be tough going. But I would still argue that what they have done to date is certainly worthy of support.

In a paper distributed at the briefing, the World Bank stressed the importance of judicial reform, saying corruption has cost Indonesia 2 percent in annual economic growth since the 1960s.

"It [corruption] adds to the cost of doing business," the paper said. "It eats into the very moral fibre of society. And at a more material level, since donors increasingly base their allocations on the quality of governance in recipient countries, it could actually lead to a smaller external financing envelope."