• Controversy over Wiranto intensifies - Jakarta Post
• Observers ponder Wiranto's next move - Jakarta Post
• Wahid urged to resign over health - Jakarta Post
• Small Muslim parties to merge - Jakarta Post
• Wiranto pledges to stand firm - Jakarta Post
• Vice- president succession may be revised - South China Morning Post

• Army 'stepping up aid to extremists' - Sydney Morning Herald
• Maluku faces food shortages - South China Morning Post
• Army admits involvement in slayings - The Melbourne Age
• Muslims pelt churches in Java - Agence France-Presse

• Aceh rebel leader denies ceasefire - Associated Presss
• Five dead, police pledge offensive - Agence France-Presse
• Campaigning Aceh MP found dead - Sydney Morning Herald

• Solo women face great struggles - Jakarta Post
• Union rides in on Indonesian wave - Hong Kong Standard

• Will Wahid tackle Timor's terrorists? - The Melbourne Age
• Will Indonesia's generals get away with murder? - Green Left Weekly
• Investigator heaps scorn on 'human rights tourism' - South China Morning Post

• Indonesia Chinese mark Dragon Year - Associated Press
• Congress votes for Riau independence - Jakarta Post
• Jakarta should be left to pursue allegations - Agence France-Presse

• Official says TNI at its lowest point - Jakarta Post

• IMF approves five billion dollars - Business Review
• Donors pledge 4.7 billion - Agence France-Presse
• Indonesia offers high gains to investors - Reuters

Documents show generals organised repression

London -- Secret military documents implicate Indonesia's top generals in a campaign of coercion and repression in East Timor intended to prevent the territory gaining independence, The Independent daily reported here Saturday.

After the Indonesian government agreed to the independence referendum, plots were secretly laid to undo a yes-vote. Soldiers were told to "repress" local inhabitants and army guns were handed out to militias, the paper said.

In one document quoted by the paper, the army chief of staff General Subagyo told forces based in Dili to prepare "policing measures, repressive/coercive measures" and a plan for "evacuation" if the vote went for independence.

The telegram was dated May 5, 1999 -- the day the Indonesian foreign minister signed an agreement at UN headquarters in New York on an independence referendum in the territory.

The Independent said it obtained copies of the documents from workers at the human rights East Timorese Hak Foundation. They found the letters after sneaking into the army's abandoned regional headquarters of the regional army general in the capital Dili.

One Western diplomat told the daily the letters cache was "the missing link." An independent inquiry by an international commission published at the end of January has already said the army was guilty of human rights abuses in the territory.

"It connects the military to the use of repression and coercion and it shows a clear chain of command from close to the very top," the diplomat said.

The frank use of the words "repression" and "evacuation" was surprising, the diplomat added. "Even in their most honest, secret discussions, generals don't often own up to that kind of thinking," he said.

The aid organisation also uncovered a military log book recording the handover of scores of army guns to the local militias. "What surprises me is the sheer quantity," the diplomat told the paper. "We knew that the militia were getting military weapons, but we never knew it was this many," he said.

Plans for forced "evacuation" of the East Timorese should they approve independence were detailed in a police plan, drawn up just before the day of the referendum, August 31.

The plan divides the population into two -- those for and those against independence. It quotes estimates that supporters of autonomy outnumbered those for independence by 517,430 to 367,591. Police were told that if the independence vote won, they would have to "evacuate" 50 percent of autonomy supporters.

After the population voted overwhelmingly for independence, 250,000 East Timorese were moved forcibly out of the territory by local militias and the Indonesian army.

The report appeared as EU officials in Lisbon said those convicted of gross human rights abuses in East Timor by the international commission's report should be judged.

A statement from the EU presidency said: "The international community, working through the United Nations, is responsible for ensuring these violations are investigated and those who perpetuated them judged.

Rebuild now or risk chaos, UN told

Mark Riley, New York -- East Timor risks regressing into social turmoil unless the World Bank releases funds for reconstruction projects, the United Nation's administrator in East Timor has warned.

In a disturbing report to the UN Security Council, Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello said funds were needed to counteract rampant unemployment, which had already fed into a sharply rising crime rate and an increase in gang violence.

About $A45 million has been pledged to East Timor, but delays in issuing instalments had put great pressure on efforts to rebuild the country, he said.

"What I need is money now to provide the East Timorese people the visible, the tangible proof of international concern," Mr Vieira de Mello said. He asked for advance disbursements to allow the UN to begin major public works programs that could provide desperately needed jobs for the East Timorese.

The funds would also help to kick-start the territory's devastated local economy, staggering under the weight of skyrocketing prices and an estimated jobless rate of 80 per cent.

Speaking after addressing the Security Council, Mr Vieira de Mello said there was an urgent need to build a new political dynamic in East Timor that would bring together independence and autonomy groups and reduce the risk of continuing conflict.

"The fact that people campaigned for autonomy or integration is not a crime," he said. "It was one of the two options given to the people of East Timor.

"I think we need to re-engage them into active political dialogue and I will be discussing this further with [the independence leader] Xanana Gusmao when we are both back in Dili."

Allowing pro-autonomy groups a legitimate political presence would help isolate remaining hard-line militia leaders by depriving them of a political base, the UN believed.

Mr Vieira de Mello said an agreement had been reached with the Indonesian police to arrest a leading East Timorese militia leader, Mr Moko Soares, "and his thugs", accused of continuing violence in the enclave of Oecussi.

Indonesian police had agreed to a "joint interrogation" of Mr Soares, but no decision had been made on whether prosecution against him would be pursued through East Timorese or Indonesian courts.

Mr Vieira de Mello's speech prompted the Security Council's first discussion of a UN-sponsored international human rights tribunal, which revealed China's long-expected opposition.

East Timor leadership plans congress

Ted Bardacke -- The umbrella group representing the leadership of East Timor is planning to hold a national congress in August to decide on "major strategic options" for the country, including whether to join the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) or the South Pacific Forum.

The national congress will be an attempt to reach a "national consensus on policy guidelines" for the next five to 10 years before the dissolution of the National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) in preparation for elections in two years' time, Xanana Gusmao, CNRT leader, said.

Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, who is accompanying Mr Gusmao on a six-nation tour of Asia, said the CNRT realised that such a consensus was needed "to provide continuity and stability".

Mr Ramos-Horta said: "One of our main concerns is security, where can it best be guaranteed, by linking ourselves with Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific or with Asean." Although there is no precedent for such a move, Mr Ramos-Horta said they may seek to join both organisations.

Mr Gusmao reiterated that he had no intention of running for president of East Timor, saying it was a promise he made to a group of young boys who were the rump of his guerrilla army in the mid 1980s. "I was fighting for values and ideals, not to become president," said Mr Gusmao.

Mr Ramos-Horta said he and Mr Gusmao would be willing to appear in an Indonesian court as "witnesses for the prosecution" in any trial of military officers for their alleged responsibility for the destruction and killing in East Timor following the territory's vote for independence.

Bodies exhumed from mass graves in Oecussi

Joanna Jolly, Dili -- The United Nations is searching 29 grave sites in an area of the East Timorese enclave of Oecussi where witnesses say 75 people were massacred. Searchers so far have found 10 bodies in an operation that began on Monday and is expected to last a week.

Two Australian forensic experts have joined UN civilian police, the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) and locals in digging up the graves outside Passabe, a town near the border with Indonesian West Timor.

Oecussi saw some of the worst violence carried out by the Indonesian military and pro-Jakarta militias after the the UN- sponsored independence ballot on August 30.

Human rights groups said 80 percent of the population were forced to move from Oecussi to West Timor and have documented 90 confirmed killings in the enclave. The graves are believed to contain villagers from Oecussi who were killed by militiamen on September 9.

According to East Timorese human rights organisation Yayasan Hak, a witness to the massacre alleges 75 people were killed. The witness was among a group of East Timorese who crossed the border to West Timor as violence broke out.

The witness, the only survivor, said the group was called to an evening meeting by Josep Kaet, the head of Imbate village. When they arrived, Mr Kaet began to harass them for supporting independence.

About 150 members from the Sakunar militia arrived and separated the men from the women. The men were further separated into two groups and tied together. According to the witness, they were forced to march 5km into Oecussi as the militia searched for more men as they passed through villages. One man tried to escape and was stabbed in the stomach.

At midnight, the group stopped at a small village and the order was given to begin the massacre. The witness was slashed with a machete in his side, neck and head, but was protected from further attack when another victim fell on top of him.

He said militiamen used machetes and bayonets to kill 75 men, coming back twice to make sure everyone was dead. He fell unconscious from his injuries, but woke up later that night and escaped.

Yayasan Hak official Hilmar Farid said: "This account proves that people weren't killed in fighting, but tied up and systematically massacred. "Now we need a more serious effort to investigate cases, to identify victims and to listen to their stories."

A campaign for an open door for all Timorese

Max Lane -- Jakarta's long war against East Timor may be (officially) over and may now be less of a "foreign policy issue" in formal Australian-Indonesian relations. But justice is still a long way away for the East Timorese; not only for those living in the devastated country itself, but also for those who sought shelter in Australia.

The Australian government still refuses to allow any of the East Timorese refugees, even those who have set down roots in Australia, to stay, and is threatening them with deportation. It seems that Canberra is not content with having supported the occupation of East Timor for so long; it wants to continue its disgraceful conduct.

In response, Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) has issued a call for May 13 to become a national day of action for "Justice for the East Timorese people, Justice for all refugees". The day would involve rallies and public meetings in cities across Australia to spread the message about how the federal government continues to betray the East Timorese people.

ASIET has been campaigning against Australian governments' betrayal of the East Timorese since the group's formation in 1990. It will continue to do so until East Timor achieves formal independence and its people achieve a socially just society.

The bi-partisan policy of the Coalition and Labor parties, both of which developed a "special relationship" with Jakarta at the behest of the Australia-Indonesia Business Council and the Australian Chamber of Manufactures, has cost many East Timorese lives.

Refugees

But the Timorese have not only been the victims of military repression and business greed in their own country. They have also been victims of the Coalition-Labor-One Nation policy of discrimination against refugees. More than 1600 East Timorese refugees fled the violence that escalated in East Timor after the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre and, from the very beginning, these people were subjected to Australian government cruelty.

Refugee Review Tribunal judgements repeatedly determined that the asylum seekers would be subject to persecution if they were returned to East Timor. Yet the Australian government fought at every stage against every decision to allow them to stay here.

Unable to claim that the East Timorese were not genuine refugees, both Coalition and Labor governments claimed that they had the right to live in Portugal and so should move there instead.

Meanwhile, the fate of these 1600 people was left hanging. Many had no access to health care or a decent income. They had to be sustained by the Timorese community in Australia, which is far from wealthy.

The federal government has now given up its attempt to send the East Timorese refugees back to Portugal, but it still wants them out of Australia; they won't be allowed permanent residency here. The government is seeking to have every case involving a refugee from East Timor returned to the Refugee Review Tribunal, precisely at a time when persecution in East Timor has ended and it will be impossible for the East Timorese to be legally classed as "refugees".

The government can't even claim that its harsh attitude to the East Timorese refugees is offset by generosity in aid to East Timor. According to a statement issued by foreign minister Alexander Downer on December 18, the Australian government has committed to spend a total of $75 million in this financial year on emergency, humanitarian, administration and reconstruction aid to East Timor. This is a miserly 7.5% of the $1 billion the government expects to collect from the "Timor Tax" and nowhere near what East Timor needs.

An open door

The government's policy against East Timorese refugees was designed as a show of support for Jakarta. But it was also part of an increasingly hardened attitude against those from the Third World who enter Australia "without permission".

Easy access to Australia for refugees from anywhere in the world -- whether fleeing persecution and war or poverty -- should be a basic form of human solidarity. Yet the Coalition government has introduced laws criminalising all those desperate people fleeing misery and suffering.

ASIET believes that the East Timorese refugees should be allowed to stay if they wish. Any Timorese person should be able to enter Australia for transit to other countries, for visits, for study or for work, without requiring a visa beforehand. They should be issued visas automatically on arrival in Australia, just as New Zealanders have been able to do for many years. And there should be scholarships provided (at least 1000 of them) to East Timorese who wish to study here.

This is the very least that the Australian government can do, after all it has done to help the destruction of East Timor. Combined with repealing all the recent racist and discriminatory laws against refugees, this would also be a first step towards justice for all refugees.

Join with us and support the national day of action on May 13: Justice for the East Timorese people! Justice for all refugees!

[Max Lane is the national chairperson of ASIET.]

UN scorn at Jakarta justice for Timor

Mark Riley, New York -- The head of the United Nations' human rights probe into East Timor has called for a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission to investigate claims of Indonesian-backed atrocities in the territory.

The inquiry head, Ms Sonia Picado, said she had no faith in the ability of a planned Indonesian tribunal to deliver justice to the East Timorese people. She has also conceded there is little prospect of the UN Security Council supporting an international war crimes tribunal.

Instead, Ms Picado said she hoped the Australian Government would take a lead in igniting international pressure for a truth and reconciliation commission as the only acceptable solution.

Ms Picado, the leader of Costa Rica's opposition Social Democrat Party, made the comments in an interview with the Herald on Monday, shortly after her inquiry's report was released at the UN's New York headquarters.

"It seems to me that, no matter how hard the Indonesians try, it is just not feasible for them to create a tribunal out of the blue and bring their own generals to justice," she said. "Justice and reconciliation were the words we heard most often in East Timor, and East Timor deserves not to be forgotten."

Her remarks came as the former Indonesian military chief, General Wiranto, defiantly ignored calls for his resignation in the wake of a government report blaming him and other top officers for last year's terror campaign.

Ms Picado said the truth and reconciliation commission should be based on the South African model, comprising commissioners from East Timor, Indonesia and UN-appointed members, with powers to indict or pardon those accused.

The hearings could either be conducted on the border between East Timor and Indonesian-controlled West Timor, or in Darwin if the commission decided it would be better placed on neutral ground.

Ms Picado said she had discussed the option of the commission in meetings with the Indonesian Defence Minister, Mr Juwono Sudarsono, the Foreign Minister, Mr Alwi Shihab, and the Attorney-General, Mr Marzuki Darusman.

"Their response was quite good -- surprisingly good," she said. "Even the members of their own commission of inquiry into East Timor were in favour of it."

The report of Ms Picado's preliminary human rights inquiry directly accuses the Indonesian Army of orchestrating the "intimidation, terror, killings and other acts of violence" that surrounded the East Timorese self-determination process.

Although not naming those responsible, it accuses Kopassus, the Indonesian Army intelligence were involved in "acts of intimidation and terror".

The report, based on interviews with 170 people in East Timor, details a host of mass killings, rapes and beatings said to have been committed by militia and Indonesian Army members.

It details systematic attempts to destroy evidence that could later implicate Indonesian generals in the carnage, and provides evidence of an orchestrated campaign to forcibly transfer more than 200,000 East Timorese to Indonesian soil in West Timor.

Ms Picado said there were serious flaws in Indonesia's plans to establish its own tribunal. The law underpinning such inquiries did not allow retrospective inquiries, which meant none of the major incidents that occurred before the Indonesian commission of inquiry began on October 8, 1999, could be investigated.

As well, East Timorese people remained scared of the Indonesian authorities and most were reluctant to travel to Jakarta to give evidence to a Government tribunal.

"How can they expect the military courts in Indonesia to bring justice to the people of East Timor?" Ms Picado said.

"You cannot have one-sided justice in human rights cases. The East Timorese deserve compensation -- moral and material compensation -- because their families and their country have been devastated. I think the United Nations has to give that to them. It certainly cannot be provided through an Indonesian tribunal."

Ms Picado said she hoped the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, would recommend to the Security Council the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission.

However, she believed such a recommendation would only come if countries such as Australia were prepared to take the lead in building political momentum for such a move.

Fifth month begins in West Timor camps

Kupang -- Five months after their flight from violence in East Timor, more than 150,000 people are still languishing in West Timorese camps where security is described as "fragile."

The number is about half of those who fled or were forced out of East Timor to the West as militias rampaged throughout the former Portuguese territory following its vote to break away from Indonesia.

"The security has improved in the last couple of months, but we have no illusion, it is very fragile," said Craig Sanders, head of the sub-office of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) in this main city in West Timor.

The volatile situation in the refugee camps was illustrated when two journalists of the British newspaper "The Sunday Telegraph" were attacked and beaten up by pro-Indonesian militia in Noelbaki camp near here on Thursday.

They were rescued after the intervention of a UNHCR team. But the incident has forced the UNHCR to suspend its operations in the camp and pull out its personnel for three days.

"We are skating on very thin ice -- you cannot make a mistake," said Sanders, who has been operating in Kupang since the begining of refugee repatriation efforts in October.

"At the time, what we were doing was extraction. We were literally between the IDPs (internally displaced persons) begging us to take them and the militias threatening us. We are not doing that anymore regularly, but periodically it still happens."

More than 133,000 people have returned to East Timor since the repatriation operation began in October, about 70 percent of them under the supervision of the UNHCR and the rest on their own.

Sanders said the agency believes about 50,000 of the remaining refugees, or about 10,000 families, have no intention to return home and are seeking resettlement in Indonesia. They are mostly members of the military or police, and some civil servants and their families.

Another 50,000, he said, were willing to return as soon as possible but did not because of direct or indirect intimidation by the militias which still control the camps, while an equal number of people were still uncertain and indecisive about whether they wanted to return home.

Like many of his colleagues in Dili, Sanders thinks some refugees had the option to return home and plant corn, the staple food in Timor, but they preferred to wait for the results of the harvest in March. Good weather is expected to bring a bountiful corn harvest.

The leaders of the pro-Indonesia militias, who continue to reject peace offers from the independence movement, have been hindering the return of the refugees.

The move, many said, justified their stand and gave them a bargaining chip to pressure both Jakarta and the international community.

Cancio Carvalho, the head of the Mahidi militias, one of the bloodiest among the more than 13 militia groups that had been active in East Timor, openly threatened in January that he could easily release a horde of his followers in Kupang.

The presence of the tens of thousands of refugees in West Timor, has also posed an additional burden to a region which is already one of the poorest in Indonesia.

Jealousy has also arisen, prompted by the shower of foreign aid and assistance for the refugees while the poor surrounding local population have been ignored. Provocateurs have also been periodically blamed for inciting animosity between the two communities, fanning discord by emphasizing differences.

The sectarian clashes in the Malukus and on Lombok island have already too clearly shown that with a weak or even paralyzed central authority, not much is needed to spark an avalanche of violence in Indonesia.

Integrity, charisma take Gusmao a long way

Xanana Gusmao travelled through six Asian nations last week with his colleague in the East Timorese leadership, Jose Ramos Horta, seeking investment and projecting a desire for new diplomatic relationships.

While in China, Mr Gusmao told Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan that "East Timor places great importance on China's important role in international and regional affairs, and hopes to establish and develop normal relations with China as soon as possible". It is a testament to how far this once hunted guerilla fighter has come that he is now grappling with the highest issues of global politics seemingly without a hiccup.

Mr Gusmao became head of the Revolutionary Front for an Independence East Timor -- Fretilin -- in December 1978. In 1981, he was elected leader of the resistance and commander-in-chief of the Falintil (National Liberation Armed Forces of East Timor). In 1983, Fretilin initiated the first preliminary talks with the occupying armed forces in the liberated areas of the territory under Mr Gusmao's command.

What gives him the aura of leadership is his combination of proven credibility under the gun, with consistent advocacy of national unity within East Timor, and tolerance towards his many enemies.

Mr Gusmao has already met Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and talked of forging new ties between the formerly warring neighbours, a step made remarkable by the years he spent under Indonesian detention.

Mr Gusmao was captured on November 20, 1992, by the Indonesian armed forces and imprisoned in Jakarta, only gaining full freedom late last year.

Despite severe pressure, he managed to denounce from a Jakarta courtroom before being sentenced to life imprisonment Indonesia's rule of East Timor.

The outside world has long been a fan of Mr Gusmao, and his meeting with then-president Nelson Mandela of South Africa in 1997 helped transform him into the "Mandela of East Timor".

He also has an aura of sex appeal for many women observers, ranging from US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to a large group of local journalists.

His conciliatory and intellectual skills will remain much in demand in East Timor, but both Mr Gusmao and Mr Ramos Horta have said they do not want to take on the new country's leadership when UN-supervised local elections take place in a year or two.

At the same time, the National Council of Timorese Resistance, which Mr Gusmao leads, is beginning to fracture along ideological and personal lines.

Mr Gusmao remains more attuned to the demands of the World Bank, the United Nations and the outside world, while some of his colleagues want to maintain the kind of control and political "purity" built up through years of guerilla struggle.

"We read about many other failures, in many other countries, in which heroes of the struggle become the leaders. A new country needs someone of more capability to lead, to govern and to guide," he says.

"True development cannot exist in the absence of real democracy, and the pillar of our independence will be those values which underpin the active and conscious participation of each and every East Timorese."

Timorese seethe at UN

Richard Lloyd Parry, Dili -- The truth is that it had been brewing for weeks, but the trouble really began at the former school building in the ruined city of Dili. People had been arriving since the early hours, and soon thousands of men were patiently queuing in front of the old gymnasium.

They were queuing for work. But by mid-morning it became clear that, for almost all of them, there was no work to be had. The jobs on offer were with the United Nations and, although they were menial enough, the few dollars they would bring in every week amount to the difference between prosperity and destitution.

But then word got round about the condition attached to the jobs: all the applicants -- drivers, security guards or cleaners -- had to speak English. And that was when the stones started to fly.

"I speak Indonesian and Portuguese and Tetum [the local language] -- but how many Timorese speak English?" said Joao da Silva, a 28-year-old driver, who had been queuing for three hours. "They only had to tell us -- it was so stupid."

As the crowd surged forward, the Australian soldiers drove in the opposite direction, and people at the back of the compound were pushed onto the encircling razor wire. Knives were brandished, and one 19-year old soldier was knocked unconscious.

The riot, the Saturday before last, was finally quietened only by the arrival of Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor's former foreign minister in exile. "I did not go around the world for 24 years, raising the issues of the human rights of the people of East Timor, saying the people of East Timor have sense of honour and dignity, of tolerance, to come here and see the people using violence," he said.

But dignity is a luxury in short supply in Dili these days, and the tolerance is wearing thin, too. It is four months since the soldiers of Interfet, the International Force in East Timor, arrived after the two-week rampage of violence which followed the country's vote for independence. The Indonesian military who orchestrated the mayhem have been banished forever. The militias who acted for them are dwindling. In a couple of years, this will become the first new nation of the 21st century. But far from bathing in glory, East Timorese are in a deep depression which threatens to develop into self-destructive rage.

The reasons are visible in every Dili street. In a fortnight, the pro-Jakarta forces destroyed virtually all the little development East Timor had enjoyed under 24 years of Indonesian rule. Entire blocks of the town are burnt out. Apart from the ubiquitous mobile phones brought in by the UN and Interfet, the local phone system is scarcely functioning. "Town after town has been thoroughly destroyed," said Mr Ramos-Horta. "No food, no shelter, businesses destroyed. The only comparison is with Europe after World War Two."

For those who do not speak English, employment opportunities are almost nil, and almost every day since the riot at the school there have been new incidents of civil unrest. Once the streets were calm at night, but now gangs of young men on motorbikes cruise them threateningly. Petty wars have broken out between gangs.

And on Tuesday, Kenyan peace-keepers fired warning shots as 80 men armed with clubs and machetes fought in Dili's main market in a continuing feud between rival vigilante groups.

But more and more, East Timorese agree on the object of their anger -- the same UN officials, Interfet soldiers and international aid workers whose task it is to help them. "We, at last, won in the referendum, but still remain unable to govern ourselves and our country," the new Tetum language paper, Mirror wrote last week in its debut editorial. "The simple reason? We are not given the opportunity to be leaders inour own country."

On paper, everything is in place for rebirth. Untaet, the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor, is here with its leader, the Brazilian diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, who established the UN presence in Kosovo.

Thousands of international organisations are bringing expertise and resources. Most important of all is the 325 million Pounds promised by international donors.

So why has so little reconstruction actually begun? "We need offices, hospitals," said Carlos Belo, East Timor's Catholic bishop who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the country. "We still don't see any schools. People are disillusioned because they want to see their house rebuilt but there are no building materials."

The UN, along with Mr Ramos-Horta and the country's former guerrilla leader, Xanana Gusmao, maintains that the delays and social unrest are sadly inevitable. "Large-scale labour projects involve donors, international organisations like the World Bank, international tenders and millions of dollars," Mr de Mello said."They can't happen overnight."

But the UN is suffering a colossal public relations failure which in four months has squandered its reserves of good will. "Untaet doesn't tell us what it is doing," said Fernando de Araujo, who runs an organisation of former Timorese political prisoners. "We don't know what their programme is, and they ignore ordinary Timorese. You cannot speak English and so you are unemployed! This is East Timor -- Untaet should learn Tetum."

The more sensitive UN officials acknowledge these complaints, and speak of time running out. Having been united for so long in its struggle against Indonesia, the independence movement already appears to be splintering along factional lines -- there are rumours of instigators stirring up social unrest for political reasons. "I'm greatly worried about it," Mr de Mello said. "And I fear that things will get worse before they get better."

East Timor probe faults Wiranto

Jakarta -- The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has implicated former Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Wiranto and four other military and police generals in the violence that swept through East Timor last year, and recommended a formal investigation be held.

The rights body presented Attorney General Marzuki Darusman on Monday with a 16-page executive summary of a four-month investigation by the government-sanctioned Inquiry into Human Rights Abuses (KPP HAM) in East Timor, which detailed the "planned and systematic" violence which occurred following the August 30 ballot.

"The crimes against humanity committed in East Timor occurred entirely, directly or indirectly, because of the failure of the [former] TNI chief to insure security in the implementation of the government's two options," rights body chairman Djoko Soegianto said.

Wiranto was among 33 names which, according to the commission, deserve to be investigated by the Attorney General's Office.

A copy of the inquiry's summary, obtained by The Jakarta Post on Monday, implicated among others -- former East Timor Military Commander Brig. Gen. Tono Suratman, his immediate superior Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, who was former chief of the Udayana Military Command which oversaw East Timor; former East Timor Police chief Brig. Gen. Timbul Silaen and former intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim. Also named was Governor Abilio Soares. "Gen. Wiranto, as TNI chief, should be held accountable," the summary said.

The announcement further clouds Wiranto's future after President Abdurrahman Wahid, before leaving on a 16-day trip abroad, said he signed a decree which, effective on March 31, retires the coordinating minister for political affairs and security from active military duty.

Meanwhile during a stop in Davos, Switzerland, President Abdurrahman Wahid said on Monday he would dismiss Wiranto from his Cabinet post if the general was linked to the mayhem which occurred in East Timor.

"We have to uphold human rights in Indonesia, whatever the course," Abdurrahman told Reuters Television, while attending the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Alpine town.

Asked if this meant he would dismiss Wiranto, the President said: "Oh yes, of course. I will ask him, to use a polite word, ask him to resign." Asked when he would dismiss Wiranto, Abdurrahman replied: "When I return [home]."

After the official announcement of the inquiry at the Attorney General's Office, Marzuki said, "the first action that will be taken by the Attorney General's Office is to immediately set up a coordination team to follow up Komnas HAM's recommendations".

Marzuki added that the recommendations would be studied by his office, which he said was "empowered to continue the investigation and eventually proceed with the legal action necessary to settle the matter ... to indict and to bring the matter to the human rights court that will be established".

The inquiry in its executive summary detailed several major cases which occurred between January 1999 and October 1999.

Among them was the April 6 massacre at Liquica Church in which some 30 people were killed, the September 5 attack on the Dili diocese where 25 were killed and the mass destruction of some 80 percent of the buildings in the town of Mailiana on September 4.

It also noted numerous cases of sexual abuse and torture. Among the most damning accusations was that former Suai subdistrict Military chief Lt. Sugito had allegedly participated in the looting and arson during an attack on a church complex in Suai, which was estimated to have killed at least 50 people.

Sugito was allegedly involved in the removal of 26 bodies which were then secretly buried in East Nusa Tenggara.

"The mass killings took place in churches, police stations and military installations. These acts were carried out using sharp weapons or firearms by militias together with, or supported by, military and police personnel," a separate press statement issued by the rights body said.

The rights body said the inquiry confirmed the strong link between the military and militias, who were blamed for most of the violence in East Timor.

"Most leaders and core members of the militia groups were either members of the civilian security forces or the Army," the inquiry said. The inquiry also said there was proof of efforts to conceal and destroy the evidence.

Despite numerous allegations it unfurled, the rights body said in its press statement that it had "not found crimes of genocide" in its investigation.

KPP HAM was established in October shortly after Jakarta rejected the United Nations plan to launch an inquiry into the East Timor violence.

Chaired by Albert Hasibuan, the commission comprises of Todung Mulya Lubis, Asmara Nababan, H.S. Dillon, Munir, Zoemrotin KS, Nursyahbani Katjasungkana and Koesparmono Irsan.

When asked, the inquiry's secretary Asmara Nababan admitted that there had been "pressure" by certain parties on commission members mostly via telephone calls and mail. "But for Indonesia that's pretty normal isn't it?," he told the Post.

On a visit to East Timor last week, the chief defense lawyer for the TNI generals, Adnan Buyung Nasution, said his clients were ready to face a human rights or war crimes tribunal. But he said he found no evidence of military complicity in the mass destruction and killings.

Meanwhile from Singapore East Timor leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao said Monday he did not want to seek revenge against Wiranto over the violence that erupted in East Timor. Asked for his reaction over the inquiry's recommendations, Xanana told AFP the most important thing was that the truth be established.

"I can't say if I am happy or unhappy. I am not seeking revenge. I know him [Wiranto] and he knows me," he said in a telephone interview in Singapore where he arrived Sunday for a three-day visit. "I just want the truth to be revealed," he said.

Exposed: Indonesia's scorched earth plan

Marian Wilkinson -- Indonesian security forces drew up extensive plans weeks before the United Nations ballot to move 200,000 people from East Timor using thousands of trucks and escort vehicles and marking out road, air and sea routes, Indonesian documents show.

The documents, obtained by the Timorese human rights organisation Yayasan Hak, include a police report dated August 1999 showing that mass evacuations were planned whichever side won the ballot.

While the plans purported to be for the evacuation of foreigners and those who supported the pro-autonomy cause, the massive numbers in the report indicate that forced deportations were inevitable.

But neither the scale of the deportations nor the level of violent destruction that followed the ballot was predicted by Australia's intelligence agencies.

On August 30, just five days before the mass evacuations and widespread violence, a secret Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) report advised the Government that the "form and extent" of the violence in East Timor would remain "predictable at least for the next few weeks".

As a result of this analysis, the intelligence agency put the security "watch condition" on Timor at below the highest crisis level, advising that "the East Timor warning problem remains at Watch Condition 3" -- described as "below those seen in more anarchic conflicts". It concluded that a higher watch condition "could be necessary by October".

Five days after this report, on September 4, the UN announced the ballot result showing that nearly 80 percent of the country had voted for independence. Within hours Indonesian security forces began mass evacuations, including thousands of forced deportations.

This was accompanied by widespread killings and the burning and looting of towns by militias, often in the presence of Indonesian security forces.

But 24 hours before this crisis exploded, the DIO was still unclear about the Indonesian strategy. While the agency was aware of Indonesia's plans to evacuate its supporters if independence won, it was apparently unaware of the mass deportation about to be launched.

On September 3, the DIO reported that "contingency evacuation plans ... encompassing the evacuation of foreigners as well as Indonesian citizens, are being developed", but nowhere did the report suggest that forced deportations were to begin a day later.

The agency did correctly predict a surge in violence, including possible attempts to murder key independence figures and foreigners. But in a "key judgment", its report on September 3 stated that "civil war or widespread disorder is not a foregone conclusion ...".

The DIO analysis was passed to Australia's allies, including the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. By then, armed militias were already erecting roadblocks throughout Dili, terrorising Timorese and driving foreigners from the countryside.

In an extensive interview on the crisis, the Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, acknowledged that the Government did not predict either the mass deportations or the scale of the violence, but he does not believe there was an intelligence failure.

"The evacuation of people in the way they did it surprised me," he told the Herald. "The fact that it happened at all surprised me. And the motive for it to this very day is not entirely obvious."

According to Mr Downer, in the months before the ballot the Government and the intelligence services were bombarded by allegations and documents which were examined and judged for their authenticity.

At the same time, officials were trying to filter out deliberate deception by some senior Indonesian figures, including military commanders.

One Indonesian document widely leaked in July had revealed plans to evacuate its supporters and the destruction of facilities. But this report -- called the Garnadi document after its author -- was rejected as false by the Indonesian Government.

"The Indonesians ran two basic lines," Mr Downer said. "One of them was that the documents could be false ... the second was this was just produced by some low-ranking person and doesn't have the authority of the Indonesian hierarchy."

But other information pointing to the inevitable crisis was available. A report by the UN mission in East Timor shows that on August 17 the UN had "persistent reports" from officials in the western district of Bobonaro that after the ballot roadblocks would be set up, the electricity would be cut, "retribution attacks" against pro-independence people would begin and autonomy supporters would be evacuated to West Timor. Those refusing to go "will be killed".

Yet when the killings and deportations began, the Australian Government was taken by surprise and Mr Downer agreed that its agencies did not warn that the crisis would escalate as dramatically as it did.

"The level of violence came as a surprise to me," he said. "That people were deported [came] as a surprise to me and obviously at the time we were talking to the Indonesians constantly about what was going on and their explanation was these people were being moved out for their own security."

Mr Downer also revealed that Australia and the US had heard reports of "a scorched earth" plan for after the ballot but the Government made a judgment that it was not the most likely outcome.

Mr Downer said: "Let us say you have a spectrum of 0 to 10, 10 just a complete massacre of the population. What happened was about eight ... our expectations were around five. That's an on- balance judgment and it was therefore a little worse that we had expected."

But he believes that despite this, there was no failure by the Government or its agencies because there were contingency plans for all possible outcomes -- including the violence that eventually erupted.

"We were prepared for everything [and] we proved that. We were even prepared for a worse situation than actually occurred; what, for example, we would have done if they started killing people in the United Nations compound, we had contingency plans for that sort of thing." As a result, Mr Downer concluded: "There wasn't a failure on anybody's part."

But while the contingency plans for evacuating Australians and other foreigners, including the UN mission, were extremely effective, it left the Timorese exposed to the militias and the Indonesian security forces until Jakarta agreed to an Interfet force.

In the intervening weeks, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Timorese were slaughtered and the country virtually destroyed.

The Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesman, Mr Laurie Brereton, has long criticised the Government's Timor policy and called for a reassessment, but he has been ignored by the Government.

Now a number of Australian defence academics are joining the calls for a broad inquiry into the Government's Timor policy, including its intelligence analysis.

"There was a failure," the prominent Indonesian specialist Mr Bob Lowry told the Herald. A visiting fellow at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) and a former military attache in Jakarta, Mr Lowry believes the raw material to predict the crisis was available. "What was lacking was an analysis of the situation."

He believes the Government and the intelligence agencies should undertake a critical review of their actions and produce a public report. "I think if the bureaucracy doesn't take this opportunity there is something wrong with the way it operates."

He is joined by a fellow ADFA academic, Dr Peter Bartu, who served on the UN mission in Timor throughout the ballot and saw the crisis develop.

Dr Bartu believes the Government is in denial over the failings of the Timor policy. He says there should be a broad-ranging review of the policy and the crisis management during 1999.

The raw material pointing to the inevitable climax was available, he said, but because many of the sources were East Timorese activists, church organisations or human rights groups, it was discounted.

Significantly, before the final crisis erupted, the DIO analysis of the violence in Timor had proved largely accurate, judged by copies of its reports leaked to the media during 1999.

It sheeted the blame for the violence home to senior Indonesian generals even while the Australian Government took a more diplomatic position publicly.

On September 9, after the crisis erupted, a DIO assessment spelt out what the Australian Government had not said publicly throughout the ballot -- that the TNI (Indonesian military) had used "all necessary force" with "maximum deniability" to retain East Timor as part of Indonesia. And it stated bluntly that "the TNI strategy throughout has been controlled and managed from Jakarta".

But the analysis also persisted in the claim that the evacuation plan, Operation Wira Dharma, was switched to a deportation plan only after the vote when the UN mission "began to buckle".

This, according to Timorese refugees and former TNI soldiers, was a fundamental misjudgment. "The big sweep", as the Timorese called it, was increasingly discussed by even junior officers at least two weeks before the ballot.

A document discovered in the rubble of military headquarters by Yayasan Hak appears to be the original Operation Wira Dharma plan. While it does read as an evacuation plan for autonomy supporters its intelligence plan, significantly, defines all pro-independence political activists as "enemy troops".

In a telling section, it says: "The enemy troops are the community groups of East Timor who are against integration with Indonesia." They are listed as the CNRT (the National Council for Timorese Resistance), the solidarity council of students, and the youth organisation of East Timor.

When the big sweep was launched, many pro-independence Timorese had no choice in their evacuation. Militias, backed by the TNI and police, burnt their homes and destroyed services, leaving them as refugees. Anyone staying behind was deemed to be "an enemy", exposing them to possible death. By then, the UN was under siege in its Dili compound, leaving them with no international protection.
 

Government/politics

Controversy over Wiranto intensifies

Jakarta -- The discourse on whether Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Gen. Wiranto should resign over the East Timor debacle snowballed on Thursday, amid fears about a further plunge of the rupiah resulting from the political tension.

A financial market observer, Theo Toemion, expected the Indonesian currency to break the Rp 8,000 level against the greenback by next week if Wiranto's status remained uncertain.

"President Abdurrahman Wahid's plan to dismiss Wiranto has caused anxiety among dealers who are expecting a strong man to either comply with or resist the President's order," Theo told Antara.

Theo said the fall of rupiah would continue, due to the fact that Abdurrahman, who is on a whirlwind trip to Europe, would not return home until February 13.

After slipping to Rp 7,700 against the US dollar in early Asian trade, its lowest level since mid-October, the rupiah ended at Rp 7,660, down from Rp 7,520 late on Wednesday.

Theo, who is also a House of Representatives legislator representing the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), warned that the country's fate was at stake if the government failed to cope with the stand-off between Abdurrahman and Wiranto.

A caucus of young politicians, meanwhile, hailed on Thursday Abdurrahman's demand for Wiranto's resignation. The group's spokesman, Heri Achmadi of PDI Perjuangan, said all sides, including Wiranto and his supporters, should respect the President's prerogative and his strong commitment to the rule of law.

"We should support Gus Dur's legitimate government and Wiranto is also expected to do the same to calm down the political situation at home," he told a news conference here, referring to the President by his popular name.

Abdurrahman has said he would ask Wiranto to leave the Cabinet following the National Commission on Human Rights' (Komnas HAM) recent recommendation to the government to investigate five generals, including Wiranto, for their alleged involvement in the violence that swept East Timor after the August 30 ballot. Wiranto was the Indonesian Military (TNI) chief when violence and destruction flared up in East Timor last year.

The caucus included House deputy speaker Muhaimin Iskandar, Ali Masjkur Musa of the People's Awakening Party (PKB), Bara Hasibuan of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and Meilono Suwondo from PDI Perjuangan. Muhaimin said Wiranto should be nonactive to allow a fair investigation into the human rights abuses.

"It will be difficult for the Attorney General's Office to conduct an investigation while Wiranto still holds his current post," he said.

"But if Wiranto is found not guilty in court, he should retain his job." Muhaimin said the President's decision was also aimed at preventing an international tribunal to try TNI top brass on charges of human rights abuses.

While both Bara and Ali asserted that the group's stance would be identical to that of their respective parties, Heri said his faction at the House had yet to announce its official stance on the matter. "But, the PDI Perjuangan faction is expected to support the President's decision for the sake off law enforcement," he said.

Meanwhile, Amin Aryoso and Postdam Hutasoit, both PDI Perjuangan legislators, said their faction would entrust the Wiranto affair to the President.

"It depends on the President whether he will fire or ask him to resign. It is the President's prerogative to do so. The most important thing is that the government follows up the commission's report fairly," Postdam said.

Amin said not only Wiranto and the other four generals, but former president B.J. Habibie should be investigated because the ballot proposal came from Habibie.

Separately, criminologist Mulyana W. Kusumah said there was no reason for Wiranto to step down until the Attorney General's Office completed the formal investigation. "Wiranto should be nonactive only if he is declared as suspect," he said on the sidelines of a seminar here.

Political observer Affan Gafar, who also spoke at the seminar, regretted that the President announced his plan to ask Wiranto to resign while abroad.

"The President should have waited until he was at home, as his move has drawn mixed interpretations," Affan said. He also said it was unnecessary for Wiranto to resign until the court proved him guilty.

Observers ponder Wiranto's next move

Emmy Fitri, Jakarta -- Although he is facing imminent retirement, cabinet suspension and censure for alleged human rights abuse, no one doubts that Gen. Wiranto will fight back. The question is what kind of counterattack the four-star general will launch.

On the surface, Wiranto projects a calm, Javanese demure, belying talk that he would resort to such a radical move as a coup. This same reserved and aloof nature also leads some to disregard the talk of a military takeover.

"Wiranto is a true Javanese who reserves his emotions. Don't expect him to show his feelings in public," observer Kastorius Sinaga told The Jakarta Post.

His friends portray a composed Wiranto as a modest and low profile military man, but cynics say he only possesses the "mentality of an adjutant." Kastorius described him as "not a kind of person who dares to take radical actions." His exploits in the past few years suggest that underneath the staid exterior is a man with savvy political skills who is no stranger to the power play.

He has survived the political whirlwinds which swept the country in the last three years with his power relatively intact. Two presidents have fallen by the wayside, and his widely-regarded political parry, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto, has been banished from formal politics.

Wiranto was first noticed when he served as ex-president Soeharto's adjutant from 1989 to 1993. This was his ticket to the top military echelon. From there his influence grew. Well-known for his fatherly leadership, Wiranto was reportedly popular among his soldiers.

In 1993 he was appointed minister of defense/armed forces commander. He also became popular with reform minded advocates in the mid-1990s when he introduced the possibility of military reform.

The contradictions are inescapable. While many now regard him as a wanted man for his alleged responsibility for the violence in East Timor, people forget that in the weeks leading up to Soeharto's fall, Wiranto was the hope of many in helping topple what seemed at the time as Soeharto's impenetrable hegemony.

Even so, minutes after Soeharto's statement, Wiranto stepped up before a nationally televised audience and pledged to faithfully carry out his duty to protect the new president and former president. Many see this as a sign of his continued closeness with Soeharto.

There is further speculation that the combination of Soeharto's money and Wiranto loyalists in the TNI only heightens the prospect of a radical political move.

Wiranto has the means and, given that he has been put in a corner, he now has the motive. Top military brass have brushed off suggestions of a possible takeover, saying that TNI as an institution it is loyal to the government.

It is debatable whether individuals close to Wiranto and dissatisfied with the public bludgeoning of the military's reputation are strong enough to take significant action on its own.

J. Kristiadi of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that Wiranto must realize that his options are limited.

"If he thinks that he will be supported by the whole element in TNI, then he is too confident," he told the Post. "If he wants to, he can fight at the trial," he said referring to the tribunal for East Timor human rights violations.

He pointed out that Wiranto had fallen out of favor with the military elite, particularly Lt. Gen. Agum Gumelar and Lt. Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, for recommending them to the cabinet which effectively ended their military careers.

Kristiadi also said that Wiranto was unlikely to use his non- military links with various Muslim groups as they were too weak to compete with the likes of the 30-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama which ardently backs the President.

Kristiadi was adamant that Wiranto is on the decline, that he is history. Kastorius believes that expecting the military to support Wiranto was too much. "The military is not a political party whose leaders have cult status and die-hard followers," he said. Wiranto's final trump card is his cabinet post, and he seems determined to hang on to it to bargain for his safety.

Despite predictions of Wiranto's demise, some are still adamant that Wiranto wields enough power to throw the nation into chaos.

Sociologist Tamrin Amal Tamagola speculated that the recent unrest in various parts of the country was the work of an invisible hand connected with major political events. He pointed out that violence erupted in Ambon, Ternate and North Halmahera only a day after Wiranto was summoned by KPP HAM for questioning.

Tamrin also claimed there was conjuncture between bloody unrest in the country in the past four years and Wiranto's own exploits. With or without a direct order from Wiranto, the men behind him would work to spread unrest, he warned.

Wahid urged to resign over health

Jakarta -- Criticism against President Abdurrahman 'Gus Dur' Wahid has been relentless since he took office three months ago, but for the first time a political party unabashedly called on him to resign due to his "ailing health."

"If his health seems to take a long time to recover, then it is reasonable for all of us, including the president, vice president, state officials, the political lite, society figures and religious leaders throughout the country to think about a replacement for the president who is physically more capable and suitable," the Islamic Community Party (PUI) said in a statement here on Thursday.

Signed by party chairman Deliar Noer and secretary general Judilherry Justam, the statement said that given the pressing problems "the physical condition of the president cannot be allowed to remain that way." Deliar said the president's physical condition has hampered his duty to handle the problems which urgently need to be solved.

President Abdurrahman's well-known primary physical adversity is his eyesight. However, he also underwent brain surgery two years ago following a stroke.

It is questionable whether PUI's statement will make an impact on the political scene as the party failed to gain a single seat in the House of Representatives and received only 0.25 percent of the total votes in last year's general election.

"The people would thank the president and the government if they would hand the post to a new president before the end of this cabinet's period," Deliar told a news conference.

Small Muslim parties to merge

Jakarta -- Twelve Muslim-based parties which collected only 3 percent of votes among them in last year's general election announced on Tuesday their plan to merge for the next polls in 2004.

No name has been decided for the new party, but leaders of the tiny parties have unanimously nominated former minister of cooperatives, small and medium enterprises, Adi Sasono, as the first chairman, an executive said.

"I think Adi Sasono is the best man to lead the new party," Jumhur Hidayat, secretary general of the People's Sovereignty Party (PDR), which has close ties with Adi, said.

Jumhur said Adi, who served in the government of President B.J. Habibie that ended in October last year, is known as a charismatic figure. Adi's grandfather, Mohammad Roem, was the founding father of Masyumi, a strong Muslim party in times past.

In addition to PDR, the Muslim People's Party (PUI), the United Party (PP), the Abul Yatama Party, the Muslim Awakening Party (PKU), the Masyumi Islamic Party, the Nahdlatul Ummat Party (PNU), the Indonesian Muslim People's Party (PUMI), the Islam Democrat Party, the United Islam Indonesia Party (PSII) and the Indonesian Muslim Awakening Party (KAMI) will make up the new party.

Jumhur suggested that PUI chairman Deliar Noer could chair the new party's supervisory board. Deliar said that he did not object to Adi's nomination. "It's okay. We can discuss it further," he said in a press conference on Tuesday.

He said there had been strong support from the 12 parties to join forces in the 2004 elections. "Some of the party chairmen told me they wanted to dissolve their parties and merge into one party," said Deliar, who is also known as a legal and political expert.

Deliar said the new party would take Islam as a basis, but Jumhur said such a sectarian orientation was not necessary.

Wiranto pledges to stand firm

Jakarta -- Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Gen. Wiranto dismissed on Tuesday calls for his resignation over the East Timor mayhem, saying he was determined to defend himself against charges of wrongdoing.

Speaking to the media after a regular meeting with ministers under his coordination at his office, Wiranto said he wanted to discuss the matter with President Abdurrahman Wahid, who is currently on a European tour until February 13.

Abdurrahman sought Wiranto's exit from his Cabinet while in Davos, Switzerland, attending the World Economic Forum on Monday. Shortly after a meeting with the Indonesian community in London on Tuesday, the President reiterated his plan to dismiss Wiranto.

He said he had called Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono on Tuesday morning and asked him to inform Wiranto. Abdurrahman said he would summon Wiranto as soon as he arrived home.

He said it was in Wiranto's interest to temporarily resign from the Cabinet, noting that it would ease pressure on Wiranto.

"There will be an ad interim minister, it means he will be replaced by other person, then if the court, in its verdict, finds him guilty, he will be removed," the President said.

People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais, who is on a five-day visit to Japan, welcomed Abdurrahman's decision, saying it reflected the government's commitment to human rights and democracy. He said the move was not aimed at disgracing the Indonesian Military (TNI).

Wiranto, who was the TNI commander when East Timor was in the throes of conflict, and four other generals were incriminated on Monday in a report unveiled by the government-sanctioned Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Violations (KPP HAM) in East Timor.

The report, which summed up a four-month investigation into atrocities in the former Indonesian province following the Aug. 30 ballot, recommends that a formal investigation be held.

Wiranto deplored the report, saying it disregarded his efforts to prevent violence. "What we watched [on television] was a vulgar disclosure by individuals and their institutions who were allegedly involved in human rights violations in East Timor," he said.

Wiranto said the commission, in its capacity as an ad hoc body, was assigned to look for information and data on human rights violations and not to reveal certain names of alleged perpetrators.

He said both himself and TNI had made serious efforts to ensure the ballot was a success. Citing an example, he said TNI supported the May 5, 1999 tripartite agreement between Indonesia, UN and Portugal, and the peace agreement between the two warring groups on April 21, 1999. "As a soldier, I am going to continue to fight to reveal the truth," he said.

He said he was also behind the establishment of the Commission for Peace and Stability (KPS), whose members include several noted figures from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas Ham).

"The fact that no UN staff members were killed, for example, served as evidence that TNI was capable of upholding the people's feelings of safety. Isn't this a good performance?" he said.

In a separate conference, defense lawyers for the five generals rejected on Tuesday the report and said they might file a defamation suit on behalf of their clients.

"The TNI officers' legal team strongly protests the announcement and the public disclosure of the names of TNI officers in the report, and the announcement of the findings by Komnas HAM," the lawyers said in a statement read at a news conference.

Asked what action they would take, the defense team leader, prominent lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution, said he and the lawyers were thinking of filing a defamation suit. "That possibility is still being considered as we still need more information about the recommendations," Buyung said.

During the conference, the six lawyers said the report did not "meet the standards of investigation based on the [country's] criminal code." "None of the witnesses' testimonies or evidence detailed in the recommendation supports the accusations leveled against the officers," they said.

Saying that KPP HAM had overstepped its authority, which had been only to determine if human rights abuses had taken place after the ballot in East Timor, the team said it had no right to release the names publicly.

"The disclosure of the names of officers suspected of human rights abuses cannot be justified because it violates universal legal principles applied in all states and based on the rule of law." In an abrupt news conference later on Tuesday, KPP HAM said 33 military and other officials implicated for human rights abuses were not legally suspects.

A member of the commission, Asmara Nababan said KPP HAM was tasked only to "search and find incidents which could be classified as gross human rights violations".

"Therefore, several names mentioned in KPP HAM's findings ... do not fill the qualification as suspects," Asmara said.

The State Minister of Human Rights Affairs, Hasballah M. Saad, said there were two alternatives -- a tribunal and a district court -- to try the TNI generals.

He noted that the human rights court, the bill of which is being deliberated by the House of Representatives, could not be applied to the East Timor case because it would not cover violations in the past.

In a related development, chief of the Wirabuana Military Command Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah said in Makassar on Tuesday that KPP HAM's report would not "rock TNI's boat".

He said the commission's recommendation would not lead to a military coup, mainly because TNI was now committed to law enforcement and the promotion of human rights.

"The dismissal of Pak Wiranto won't draw a strong reaction from TNI. We are sad and concerned with what we've experienced, but this [experience] poses a mirror for us to improve our awareness of the importance of nurturing human rights in the military," Agus said.

In Semarang, Deputy Chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) Dimyati Hartono said KPP HAM should have the courage to summon former president B.J. Habibie over the East Timor debacle.

Dimyati said Habibie had to explain his decision which allowed East Timor to separate from Indonesia. "What happened in East Timor was the result of Habibie's decision," he said.

Vice-president succession may be revised

Reuters in Tokyo -- Indonesia's parliament may revise the nation's constitution to abolish a clause under which the vice- president automatically becomes president if the nation's leader is incapacitated, Speaker Amien Rais was quoted as saying.

In an interview with Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily published on Monday, Mr Rais said that under a draft of the revision already drawn up the assembly would instead vote to choose a new president.

"If members of the People's Consultative Assembly want to revise the clause, it is my role as speaker to put it through the democratic process," he told the newspaper during a visit to Japan.

Mr Rais, a leading Muslim intellectual and pro-reform figure, said the revision would be discussed when the assembly convenes in August.

The speaker gave no specific reason for the proposed revision, but the issue of presidential succession is seen as particularly important at present given the poor health of President Abdurrahman Wahid.

The move could be a blow for the current vice-president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, who has come under fire recently for making little headway in calming a bloody religious conflict in Indonesia's spice islands.

Mr Rais also said Indonesians were disillusioned with the government's failure to implement substantive reforms, and cited moves toward independence in the restive province of Aceh, and in Irian Jaya, as among his top concerns.

"If Aceh becomes independent, Indonesia will no longer exist," Mr Rais said. He said he planned to propose setting up a forum for religious leaders and scholars to discuss the various religious conflicts in Indonesia.
 

Regional conflicts

Army 'stepping up aid to extremists'

Ambon -- The Indonesian military's support of Muslim extremists in Maluku province appears to be growing, partly because of the failure of authorities to identify and prosecute rogue officers, a senior United States diplomat said yesterday.

"[There is] increasing involvement although I don't think that it was planned beforehand," Mr Robert Pollard said, following three days of meetings with government, religious and community leaders in Ambon, the province's strife-torn capital.

"What's really horrifying is the inability of the military to pursue and punish the people responsible," Mr Pollard said. "That's what's really troubling when you consider the country as a whole."

This week, Maluku's armed forces chief, General Max Tamaela, said four soldiers and a police officer were being questioned about their involvement in the massacre of 24 civilians in the village of Haruku, near Ambon city, on January 24.

Witnesses to the attack, which virtually wiped the community of 3,200 people off the map, say three groups of up to 10 soldiers each led a Muslim mob into the Christian village shortly before dawn.

In a letter dated January 29, lawyers representing the Christian synod in Ambon accused the military of failing to investigate the destruction of 28 villages on the island of Seram in the week beginning December 31.

"There is evidence the TNI [Indonesian Armed Forces] were there," said one of the lawyers, Mr Semmy Waileruny, "but so far there has been no investigation." Mr Pollard said there was no hard evidence to support that claim.

Security forces killed a guerilla leader in a raid on a separatist camp in Aceh province, police said yesterday. Mukhtar Molen, separatist army commander in the Bireun subdistrict of North Aceh, had been shot by police on Wednesday in the Alue Bunta area.

In the northern industrial city of Lhokseumawe, grenade explosions rocked three government buildings, and a policeman was injured in another grenade attack on a police station.

Maluku faces food shortages

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- Food shortages are cutting into daily life in the Maluku Islands, as fighting between communities and religious groups continues in the north.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said shortages were growing serious for displaced people in North Maluku.

The programme's Indonesian director, Philip Clarke, who led a fact-finding mission to the province, said: "There are almost 100,000 people in North Maluku who have had no regular supply of food since the fighting broke out in November." His concern was supported by reports from residents who fled Halmahera Island.

Two weeks ago, a woman who left her home in the northern town of Tobelo said: "They will be short of food in Tobelo within days. Even if they had enough for themselves at first, it's not enough for all the refugees."

Another source from Halmahera said government aid had reached only the southern fringe of North Maluku, the largely Muslim areas of Ternate, Tidore and Jailolo.

"There has been no food supply to Tobelo and Kao, and now there are so many Christian refugees coming up from the south, it is getting very bad," the source said.

On most islands, distribution and production systems were disrupted or destroyed as communities divided along religious and ethnic lines.

North Maluku Governor Surasmin said the fighting and flight of refugees, which began in December, had seriously hampered the movement of goods.

"Over the past few months, trade came to a virtual standstill as most of the traders abandoned North Maluku," he said. To compound the problem, pirates are intercepting food supplies for refugees in North Maluku.

Some 1,500 Muslim protesters called for a holy war and stoned a church in Yogyakarta, Java, yesterday, after demanding the Government stop sectarian violence in eastern Indonesia.

Army admits involvement in slayings

Ambon -- Indonesian's top general in the embattled Muluku islands said today that four soldiers were involved in the massacre of 24 Christian civilians on the island of Haruku last week.

General Max Tamaela told Indonesian television in the capital Ambon that yesterday armed forces (TNI) investigators uncovered evidence that soldiers on Haruku assisted several thousand Muslim residents of neighbouring villages in the attack on the main Christian town of the same name. In addition to the four serving members of the army, a police officer is also under suspicion, he said.

"I'm a little bit surprised about his comments, yes," said Reverend Jack Manuputty, a member of a now-defunct Christian- Indonesian reconciliation task force, and part-time resident of Haruku.

"But he has to make a further investigation into who directed them, who was the one who gave the orders. I don't believe they acted on their own initiative. The people there, the victims, deserve to know who was behind the action."

The Indonesian army has been accused on several occasions of siding with Muluku's slim Muslim majority since battles between the two religious groups first began in January 1999.

The predominantly Christian local police force in Ambon has also been charged with playing favourites, of renting guns to Christians in their battles with Muslims along the fire blackened border known as the Gaza Strip, formerly the principal business area, that now marks the divided city of 420,000.

This is the first time, however, that authorities have publicly admitted soldiers have taken part in a specific incident. Haruku village was attacked by mobs of armed men -- by some estimates several thousand -- wearing the distinctive white robes and headbands Muslims have worn in prior incidents during the year- long religious conflict in Muluku, shortly after 5.30am January 24.

Witnesses describe each element of the three-pronged attack being spearheaded by men in camouflage, firing semi-automatic weapons. Others, they say, were wearing battle dress under their white robes.

"A group of soldiers came out of the jungle shooting their guns and crawling along the ground," said Cak Talabassy, who fought alongside a group of roughly 40 local men at a playing field a short distance from the town centre.

"They had organic [manufactured] guns and were firing tack-tack- tack-tack very fast. No one here has those guns except the army." Talabassy and others also reported seeing a naval helicopter sweep low above the beach during the attack.

The battle raged for six hours as several hundred Haruku villagers armed with home-made guns, bows and arrows and slingshots attempted to force back their attackers, who arrived along the lone road into Haruku, from a point in the jungle north-west of the town and in speedboats that ran up onto the beach front where the main body of homes are located.

The last Christians abandoned Haruku at about 11.30, fleeing into the jungle. Eighteen local men and six others from a nearby town died, and roughly 50 others were injured, many suffering serious gunshot wounds.

In addition to the lone church, Haruku's two elementary schools, medical clinic, and 360 homes -- about 80 percent of the residences in the town of 3,100 -- were destroyed. A further 50 homes were badly damaged, water lines severed and large stands of banana plants, a food staple, cut down.

An unknown number of the invaders were killed and injured. However two Haruku residents claimed to have shot men they identified as Indonesian soldiers. When they returned to the scene several hours later, no bodies were found.

Muslims pelt churches in Java

Jakarta -- Indonesian police Sunday fired warning shots to disperse groups of Muslims who pelted churches in the central Java city of Yogyakarta after attending a mass rally to protest violence against Muslims in the Malukus, police and the military said.

"Yes, shots were fired, but in the air, and there was no one injured," said Danar, from Yogyakarta city police. "There was no serious damage or riot, the mobs only pelted the churches with stones and some with firecrackers," he added.

He said some 6,000 people who had attended a mass rally at the Kridosono stadium, organized by a Muslim group to protest the violence against Muslims in the Maluku islands, had broken up into several convoys after the meeting ended around noon.

The crowds pelted at least six churches and one convent before police had dispersed them by 3pm, Danar said.

A soldier at the Yogyakarta military command who only identified himself as Tugimin, said one policemen was injured but he declined to give further details. Tugiman said the damage was limited to broken roof tiles and windows.

The Detikcom online news service said a first sergeant from Brimob, the police's mass control unit, was wounded, slashed with a knife by members of one of the roaming convoys.

Danar said the city was now calm, although the few businesses that had dared to remain open for the day had quickly closed their doors at the first reports of the convoys forming up.

Earlier Sunday, Second Lieutenant Parmin from the Yogyakarta city police said the rally, organized by a Muslim organisation, lasted about three hours and ended around noon.

Some of the participants later went in a convoy to the police headquarters of Sleman district, about eight kilometers from the stadium, he said. Others went in separate convoys crisscrossing the main streets of the city.

The officer said most of the participants were clad in white. The convoy of cars, buses, trucks and motorcycles carrying the participants stretched for more than a kilometre at one point, he added.

An officer at Sleman district declined to give details of the protest there, but said "they had a free speech forum here and the district police chief addressed them."

Detikcom said the protestors, around 800 people, went to the Sleman police station to demand to meet with one of their fellow members who was detained there.

The local police chief allowed the detainee to come out to meet and talk with the crowd but put him back into his cell after 15 minutes, Detikcom said. There were no incidents and the protestors went away peacefully.

A similar rally was held by Muslims in Solo, some 60 kilometres northeast of Yogyakarta, overnight Saturday to Sunday. The rally was attended by some 3,000 Muslims and later dispersed without incident, Detikcom said.

A massive Muslim rally in Mataram, the main city on Lombok island, east of Bali, in mid-January turned violent when the participants went on the rampage, burning at least 11 churches and torching or ransacking scores of other buildings belonging to non-Muslims over three days.

Fears of violence after the rally had forced businesses, especially near the stadium and on the main highways leading to it, to remain closed Sunday.

Concern over sectarian violence had been strong in Yogyakarta since the discovery last week of a home-made bomb in the city's main mosque. Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid on Thursday said he had ordered security forces to find the culprit.
 

Aceh/West Papua

Aceh rebel leader denies ceasefire

Jakarta -- The prospects for peace in troubled Aceh province were unclear Thursday, with a separatist leader denying a report that he had reached a cease-fire agreement with the Indonesian goverment.

President Abdurrahman Wahid said Thursday that Hasan di Tiro, the chief of the rebel Free Aceh Movement, had agreed to end 25 years of fighting that has claimed more than 5,000 lives in the past decade alone, the official Antara news agency reported.

"In Geneva, Hasan [di] Tiro held talks with our ambassador. They reached an agreement to stop the fighting," Antara quoted Wahid as saying while on an official visit to the Netherlands.

Di Tiro led a rebellion in Aceh in the 1970s and later fled to Sweden. Speaking by telephone from his home in the Stockholm suburb of Botyrka, di Tiro called the report a "lie" and said there had been no meeting or cease-fire.

"There is no such thing," his spokesman, Bakhtiar Abdullah, said later. The so-called cease-fire has never been formally signed or agreed upon. The meeting never took place."

Abdullah said the rebels would continue fighting until Aceh gained independence. "We will never stop fighting until our objective to free Aceh from the neocolonialist Indonesian regime of Jakarta is achieved," he said. "They are not only killing our commanders, but they are also still rampaging and terrorizing the innocent helpless Acehnese civilians."

Wahid, who is on a whistlestop European tour, has repeatedly said the bloodshed in Aceh would end by March. He made his latest comments to a group of expatriate Indonesians, many of whom settled in the Netherlands after fleeing the authoritarian regime of former President Suharto.

Since assuming office in October, Wahid has offered to hold a referendum on whether staunchly Muslim Aceh should adopt Islamic law. He has also promised Aceh more self-rule and a greater share of revenue generated from the province's oil and gas reserves.

In the latest national budget, however, Aceh failed to deliver on his pledge of more money and has rejected calls for outright independence.

The prospect of a pause in fighting follows months of growing violence in Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island. On Monday, a senior rebel commander, Abdullah Syafi'ie, said his forces would be willing to honor a cease-fire if Indonesia's military made the same commitment.

But on Wednesday security forces opened fire on rebels in northern Aceh, police said. The region's police chief Lt. Col. Syafei Aksal said his officers and an army unit clashed on Wednesday with rebels in Uteuen Bunta village, 1,100 miles northwest of Jakarta.

He said Cmdr. Mukhtar, who had led a local rebel band, was shot to death. Three troops were injured and about 60 houses burned in the clash.

Also on Wednesday in north Aceh, rebels threw grenades into a local government office and a police station in two separate attacks, police said. No one was seriously injured.

Five dead, police pledge offensive

Banda Aceh -- At least five people were killed in Indonesia's unruly province of Aceh as a police spokesman said Wednesday security forces had launched a new offensive against separatist rebels there.

A soldier and a civilian were killed in armed skirmishes between security forces and suspected members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in the Matangkuli area of North Aceh district Tuesday, local military chief Lieutent Colonel Suyanto said. Suyatno said the civilian was killed by a stray bullet.

Troops torched several houses in the area in a sweep to hunt down guerilla members after the clashes, residents said.

But rebel spokesman Ismail Syahputra claimed 31 members of security forces were killed in the fighting.

"They [soldiers] had come to the area in 17 motorcycles and two trucks. Our troops sprayed the trucks with bullets," Syahputra said.

Meanwhile, Aceh police spokesman Sayed Husaini said security personnel could no longer afford to use defensive measures in the face of intensifying armed attacks by separatist rebels. "Starting February 1, a full offensive has been in force," Husaini told journalists here.

Husaini said the new operation to hunt down rebels involved personnel from the elite mobile brigade police unit and police bomb-defusing squads, adding that soldiers would serve as reinforcements when needed.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, two police were wounded when rebels threw a grenade at their convoy in Pidie district, police Lieutenant Colonel Erry Subagyo said. An unidentified body with gunshot wounds was later found near the area, a local health clinic said.

Meanwhile, in South Aceh district, a village chief was shot dead by an unidentified man while he was at home with his family, and residents also found the body of an NGO activist in the South Aceh subdistrict of Sawang, a local journalist said.

Police spokesman Husaini said at least 460 people have been killed and hundreds others wounded in clashes between security forces and rebels and their supporters since May of last year. The dead included 108 members of the security forces, 241 civilians and 111 rebels, he added.

Police also recorded 335 cases of murder, 66 cases of abduction, 50 ambushes and 200 arson attacks, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the Detik online news service quoted a a legal aid foundation in Aceh as saying 115 people have been tortured, 21 people died in summary kilings, and 33 were arrested arbitrarily in January alone.

"Intimidation and terror have resulted in the people losing their basic rights and conflict areas have spread to [the districts of] Banda Aceh, West Aceh, South Aceh, Central Aceh and Aceh Singkel," foundation activist Rufriadi said.

He said troops from outside the province continued to be deployed in Aceh despite orders by President Abdurrahman Wahid to withdraw all outside troops. "The facts on the ground shows that the president's instruction is a mere rhetoric," he said.

Campaigning Aceh MP found dead

Jakarta -- An Indonesian MP who had campaigned for the prosecution of military officers guilty of rights abuses in troubled Aceh province has been found dead, the official Antara news agency said yesterday.

Mr Nashiruddin Daud, 58, vice-chairman of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into rights abuses in Aceh, was found last Tuesday near a main street in the North Sumatra capital of Medan, Antara said. His body bore severe wounds.

Mr Daud, an Aceh native, might have been abducted while he was on his way to the airport to catch a flight to Jakarta, said Mr Abdullah Saleh, secretary of the Aceh branch of the United Development Party, of which Mr Daud was a member.

In Jakarta, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Akbar Tanjung, said Mr Daud and several other MPs had been on an official visit to Aceh.

"Other members [of the Aceh parliamentary probe team] have returned but he wanted to stay for one day in Medan," Mr Tanjung said. "His death might be related to his role in the Aceh case."

Last November the parliamentary commission summoned former military chiefs and several generals over their role in human rights abuses in Aceh, which has been racked by clashes between troops and separatist rebels.

Popular resentment against the military and central government has prompted calls for a referendum on self-rule in Aceh, a resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's National Police Chief, Lieutenant-General Rusdihardjo, and Navy Chief Admiral Achmad Sutjipto have rejected claims by Aceh separatist rebels that Indonesian Defence Forces (TNI) were responsible for the recent killing of six Marines who were shot while praying at a mosque.

General Rusdihardjo and Admiral Sutjipto, speaking at separate events, were quoted by the Indonesian Observer as saying the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) was responsible for the murders last Monday evening.

GAM officials immediately denied carrying out the killings, saying rifts in TNI were the reason for the violence. But Admiral Sutjipto insisted the separatists had conducted the murders.

An Aceh newspaper reported yesterday that pro-independence guerillas said they would accept a proposed ceasefire if government forces called off their campaign to crush the rebellion.
 

Labour struggle

Solo women face great struggles

Singgir Kartana, Surakarta -- Surakarta, better known as Solo, is famous for its beautiful women, a phenomenon that inspired the late Ismail Marzuki to compose Putri Solo (Girl from Solo).

The Javanese song, which met with great success when it was covered by Waljinah in the 1970s, is filled with adoration for the beauty, cultured mind and refined behavior of a woman from Solo, an attitude much in line with the customs of Javanese nobility. The song also popularized the stereotype that the ethos of hard work and the ability to demonstrate resoluteness and concern were absolutely absent from the women of Solo.

In reality, however, many Solo women face great struggles in their lives. And many of these women can be found doing jobs most people consider suitable only for men, or not suitable at all.

Endang, 30, a mother of two from Karanganyar, Solo regency, is one such woman. Along with dozens of women from her village, Endang earns a living quarrying sand on Matesih hill, not far from her home. Every day she treks up and down the 60-meter hill, covering a length of some 500 meters, to break rocks with a simple tool so she can collect a layer of sand. Every time she goes down the hill, she carries a bag of sand weighing about 50 kilograms.

Her small, firm stature and dark skin reflect the bitter struggles she has faced in life. Although the women quarrying sand generally weigh less than 50 kilograms, barefooted they trudge up and down the hill about 20 times per day. The 60-meter path up the hill is not straight and sloping, but rather is narrow, winding, steep and rocky. In the wet season, this path is slippery, making the bags of sand these women carry feel even heavier than their 50 kilograms.

The women work from 8am to 4pm with an hour of rest during their long day. From morning to afternoon they are soaked in sweat from their toil. To maintain their stamina they drink a lot of water, about three to four liters a day, and during their one-hour break they massage one another, an activity which gives them some entertainment.

On average these women have been doing this work for 15 years. Generally they chose this work because they wanted to remain close to their families, and also because they believed the only requirement for the job was a healthy body.

Endang, the youngest of the women working on the hill, said she continued working when she was eight-months pregnant. "I have been doing this job since I graduated from elementary school. I don't want to work in the city. I cannot leave my children. No one takes care of them, you know. Besides, my husband is in the city working at a construction site," she said.

Compared to the standard wages in their village, Endang and the rest of the women do not earn much. One 50-kg bag of sand is sold for Rp 200. If these women go up and down the hill twenty times in a day, they earn Rp 4,000.

Garbage

There are many other women engaged in similarly difficult work. Some women earn money as scavengers at garbage dumps, while others work as porters at Pasar Legi.

Mojosongo, the largest garbage dump here, was established in 1985 and occupies 30 hectares of land. Every day some 1,500 tons of garbage is dumped at this site: rotten vegetables, paper, plastics, metal goods, leaves and even carcasses. Also, liquid waste from the solid garbage collects here.

It is easy to imagine the putrid smell of this place, and yet the reality is much worse. This smell, a host of flies and mosquitoes, liquid waste which can cause skin irritations and the intense heat all combine to make this site extremely unhealthy, making it impossible to remain at the dump for any length of time.

Nevertheless, a number of women, as well as some men, do spend some time here each day, scavenging through the garbage to make a living.

Tukiyem, 25, a mother of one from Kampung Jatirejo, for example, said she had gotten used to the most distasteful conditions at the dump.

The smell, the liquid waste and the intense heat have never deterred her from picking through the garbage in order to survive. "At first, the smell could make my head swim and my stomach turn, but now it no longer does. Well, of course, I still feel an itch on my feet if they are exposed to the filthy liquid waste. Luckily, a doctor from the local health center comes here once a week and examines us free of charge. This way we are kept from serious illness," she said.

Tukiyem has more scavenging experience than the other five women making their rounds. According to her, she began scavenging in 1985, just after the site was opened. Because she lives nearby, she can do this work full time.

Armed with baskets, thin iron rods with hooked ends, worn-out boots and faded conical hats, these women scavenge through the foul-smelling garbage with great patience, separating valuable items from worthless ones.

Plastic and cardboard are the most sought after by Sarinah, one of Tukiyem's fellow scavengers. "Plastic sells for the most, followed by cardboard. After I collect the items, I take them to a buyer not far from here. Plastic garbage sells for Rp 150 per kilogram while cardboard sells for Rp 100 per kilo. In a day, I can collect some 15 kilograms of plastic garbage and about five kilograms of cardboard," said Sarinah, 40.

Women porters

Just like the women collecting sand or scavenging at the dump, women porters at Pasar Legi lead a similarly difficult life, hauling goods on their backs for short distances. There are some 30 women between the ages of 20 and 40 working as porters at the market.

Sumirah, 32, from Nayu hamlet, North Solo, has worked here for a decade. The elementary school dropout and mother of three says she can carry up to 120 kilos of goods; she weighs less than 50 kilos.

She can do about 10 rounds each day, earning Rp 1,000 every time she carries goods weighing 100 kilos or more. For goods weighing less than 100 kilos, she earns Rp 700. For a day that lasts from 6am to about 4pm Sumirah earns an average of Rp 10,000.

"To be able to carry goods that weigh a lot, the goods must be placed in a slanted position and then our body must be bent. In this way, the weight will be less," she said.

To maintain her strength, Sumirah occasionally drinks traditional herbal medicine. Besides the herbal medicine, Sumirah says that she has sex with her husband almost daily, saying this was her only form of entertainment and also a good way to relieve her fatigue.

Sumirah and the other women porters took this job because they had no other options, yet all of the women hope their children will have brighter futures filled with the opportunities they never had.

Therefore, despite her financial difficulties, Sumirah wants to give her children the best education possible so they can do better with their lives.

Endang, Tukiyem, Sumirah and many others toiling in dispiriting jobs are portraits of "sturdy" and "robust" women. They are simple and modest enough to accept their lot without surrendering to fate. They care nothing for the new millennium, the gender struggle, emancipation and other such things. The biggest gifts are from God and their greatest happiness is having enough to eat today. Tomorrow is another day. These women are strong and sturdy in the real sense of the words.

Union rides in on Indonesian wave

Lo Pui-Kwan -- Indonesian domestic helpers yesterday formed their own union -- the first in Asia -- to fight abuse they say they suffer during their work.

Organisers of the union said Indonesians were the second-largest group of foreign domestic helpers in the territory, after Filipinos.

From only 670 helpers 10 years ago, their number had grown to 41,400 by the end of last year -- an increase of 6,000 percent.

Last year alone, 9,700 Indonesian maids arrived to take up jobs as helpers. That was up 30 percent on 1998, compared with a less than 2 percent growth in the number of arrivals from the Philippines.

"With the dramatic increase in our number has come the corresponding increase in abuse and exploitation we experience from our government, recruitment agencies and employers," organisers of the union said.

"The kind of exploitation we face each day comes in various forms -- threats, physical and sexual abuse, excessive agency fees, underpayment and long working hours."

Most of the Indonesian maids were subjected to "blatant abuse and violations", it was claimed, and the Indonesian government had turned a "blind eye and a deaf ear" to their plight. "Most of us live in fear and never dare to speak out," the organisers said.

Meanwhile, employers and agencies preyed on them, "squeezing the most that they can get from our vulnerable situation". So they decided to form the union "to break our long silence and collectively resist further violations of our human rights".
 

Human rights/law

Will Wahid tackle Timor's terrorists?

Scott Burchill -- The Indonesian Government doesn't have an impressive record of investigating its own crimes in East Timor. And the Australian Government has been equally suspect in its reactions to Jakarta's inquiries.

The Djaelini inquiry, reluctantly established by the Suharto Government to investigate the 1991 Dili massacre, consciously underestimated the number of people killed at the Santa Cruz cemetery in November that year, and resulted in stiffer sentences being handed out to the victims of the shootings than to the military perpetrators.

In his enthusiasm to maintain good relations with Jakarta, Australia's then Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, described the Djaelini Commission as "credible and reasonable", although a more sober report by Amnesty International said the inquiry was "totally lacking in credibility and designed principally to appease international criticism".

It is therefore reasonable to be cautious about the findings of Indonesia's National Commission for Human Rights, released on Monday, which recommends that more than 20 military, police and militia commanders be prosecuted for atrocities committed in East Timor last year. The report, and reactions to it by President Wahid, raise a series of difficult issues and unanswered questions.

The commission found that General Wiranto, who was Defence Minister and head of the armed forces at the time, had "full knowledge" of the terror inflicted on East Timor last September. Because he failed to intervene to stop the killing, looting and forced displacement of the population, the commission recommends that he face charges relating to "omission". In other words, the inquiry found no evidence that Wiranto had planned or orchestrated the violence. He bears only moral responsibility for what happened.

This is incredible in the true sense of the word, and unlikely to satisfy either the East Timorese or those human rights organisations and United Nations officials pushing for the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate crimes against humanity in East Timor. By blaming senior military officers for creating "an atmosphere of impunity ... for the violations of human rights", the commission actually distances them from direct responsibility for the slaughter.

There seems little doubt that Canberra have signals intercepts that clearly implicate a "pro-active" Wiranto in the planning and execution of crimes in East Timor, though it is doubtful that this intelligence would be shared with prosecuting authorities in Jakarta.

The Howard Government knows that this material would be needed to indict Wiranto for crimes against humanity, just as British and United States intelligence was crucial for similar charges to be brought against Serbian President Milosevic for his ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The Howard Government may be happier to pass the information to New York, but it is far from certain that the UN Security Council has the appetite for an international tribunal for East Timor.

Wahid, who surprisingly appointed Wiranto to his first Cabinet, yesterday appeared to pre-empt the result of any prosecution by reportedly indicating that the former armed forces chief would be pardoned if found guilty of the charges brought against him. This follows Wahid's promise to pardon former President Suharto if he is ever found guilty of corruption.

If he has indeed made such a commitment to Wiranto, it is a sign that Wahid is shoring up his support within the military -- but he does so at a cost to both the Indonesian legal process and to international goodwill, which wants Indonesia to have the first crack at bringing those responsible for state terror in East Timor to justice. Crimes on this scale are rarely tried in-house; more frequently they are held in third countries and often at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

But does Indonesia have a judiciary, untainted by corruption and political patronage, that is up to the task? In order to satisfy the international community, the Indonesian President may have to swallow some of his pride and consider the option of inviting international judges to share the benches in the trials to follow. Otherwise the trials will simply lack credibility.

The commission's findings are also embarrassing for the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, who on 7 March last year, when asked whether the Indonesian military was arming and organising the militias, told Channel 9's Sunday program that "if it's happening at all, it certainly isn't something that's been condoned by General Wiranto".

It's always dangerous to be so unequivocal in international diplomacy, particularly when your own intelligence is telling you a different story.

Downer could not have foreseen that an Indonesian human rights inquiry would subsequently expose these remarks, but he has fewer excuses for claiming on 5 September, at the height of the post- ballot slaughter, that he was confident Wiranto was still "trying to do the right thing".

[Scott Burchill lectures in international relations at Deakin University.]

Will Indonesia's generals get away with murder?

On January 31, the investigation by the Indonesian National Commission for Human Rights into atrocities and human rights abuses in East Timor will release its report. It is likely to implicate dozens of high-ranking Indonesian military figures -- including the coordinating minister for political and security affairs and former military chief, General Wiranto -- in the scorched earth policy carried out in 1999 by the Indonesian military and its militias.

But doubts are being raised as to what will happen with the report once it's delivered and whether the generals will ever be brought to justice in Indonesia. The following report, released on January 24, is from TAPOL, a London-based Indonesia human rights campaign group.

When three army generals were publicly grilled in November by members of Indonesia's newly elected parliament about atrocities in Aceh, the whole nation was transfixed by the three-hour spectacle on their television screens. Now, at last, after more than three decades of impunity, men with the blood of many victims on their hands were being called to account.

However, the senior officers have treated the commission with contempt. They have used their appearances before the commission to spin lies, try to refute irrefutable evidence and prolong the commission's proceedings. They have shown that they will do everything in their power to protect themselves from possible prosecution.

In anticipation of the United Nation's own inquiry, the Indonesian government, then under President B.J. Habibie, hastily enacted a presidential decree in lieu of law for the formation of a human rights court. At the same time, the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) set up a commission to investigate violations of human rights (KPP-HAM) with a mandate to investigate abuses committed in the aftermath of the independence ballot in East Timor.

Indonesian governments under Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid have made it clear on numerous occasions that they would not agree to Indonesian army officers being tried before an international court because they see this as an infringement of national sovereignty. Generals who know full well that they could be indicted have made no secret of their fear of suffering the same fate as General Pinochet of Chile or Serbian generals now being tried in The Hague.

Investigation presses ahead

Although there was initial scepticism about the independence and sincerity of the commission, it soon became apparent that KPP-HAM was determined to collect evidence about the role of army officers in the killings in East Timor.

During its first investigations in November, which took the investigation team to East and West Timor, KPP-HAM gathered information and collected eyewitness testimonies about some of the worst atrocities, including the killing of several hundred people at a church in Suai on September 6. In December, KPP-HAM investigators visited East Timor for eight days.

On their return home, they announced that they had found convincing evidence that the operations of the pro-integration militias had taken place with the knowledge of and on the instructions of high-ranking army and police officers, and that Jakarta should be called to account for the criminal acts in East Timor.

The KPP-HAM summoned General Wiranto on December 24 and questioned him for more than three hours. Wiranto later told the press he had agreed to appear before the KPP-HAM because it was an official body set up by the government and because "the matters in hand should be resolved between us as a domestic affair without letting outsiders clean up our household".

He insisted that the TNI (Indonesian army) as an institution "had never issued orders or encouraged the burning of cities, the killing of people or the compulsory evacuation of the population". Three major-generals, Zacky Anwar Makarim and Syafrie Syamsuddin, both intelligence officers, and Adam Damiri, who was commander of the regional military command in Bali, as well as Colonel Timbun Silaen, who was chief of police in East Timor, and Colonel Tono Suratman, the military commander of East Timor, have also appeared before the commission. They used the occasion to attempt to clear their names and refute eyewitness testimony obtained by KPP-HAM investigators in East Timor.

The officers' defence team announced that their main line of defence would be that the human rights violations in the aftermath of the ballot "were a manifestation of society's disappointment with the conduct of the ballot which had been unfair and dishonest".

In an attempt to discredit the activities of the KPP-HAM, top generals have accused it of pursuing an anti-Indonesia agenda, of being funded by money from abroad and of basing its evidence on information from Interfet, a body that has been much maligned in Indonesia for alleged interference in Indonesia's domestic affairs. They are seeking to portray the KPP-HAM as serving foreign interests. Some of its members have even been threatened with physical violence.

Swept under the carpet

The KPP-HAM's investigations are only the beginning of a lengthy process, the subsequent stages of which will be in the hands of prosecutors, who will decide whether those identified by the KPP-HAM can be formally indicted.

As the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association has pointed out, all the painstaking investigations undertaken by the KPP-HAM are in danger of being swept under the carpet if the suspects are brought before a court that is not equipped with the necessary legal provisions. Indonesia has not yet adopted the necessary legislation for the convening of human rights courts empowered to try crimes against humanity (not included under Indonesia's criminal code).

The presidential decree in lieu of law (Perpu 1/1999) enacted in September by Habibie, which provided for the creation of a human rights court, is due to be submitted to parliament for endorsement or rejection. The government will ask the parliament to reject the decree, thus paving the way for a new law on a human rights court.

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. Article 32 of the draft stipulates that "cases of grave human rights violations that were committed prior to the creation of the Human Rights Court shall be handled by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission'(TRC). Nothing is yet known about the terms of reference of the TRC.

Although the TRC, unlike the human rights court, will have retroactive powers, it will be unable to pass such a case on to a human rights court because the latter will lack retroactive powers. The TRC will lack teeth.

The draft law on the human rights court even compares unfavourably with Perpu No 1/1999 on one crucial question. Whereas the Perpu stipulated that violations which occurred prior to the creation of the court could be heard before a normal court, the draft law provides for all such cases to be brought before the truth commission.

Munir, a leading member of the KPP-HAM, has strongly condemned the draft human rights court law for abandoning the principle of retroactivity. He is himself a member of the team that drafted the law.

He told the press that the earlier draft provided for a 15-year period of retroactivity.

The draft was altered in circumstances about which he knows nothing. He sees this as a deliberate attempt by certain circles to make it impossible for any human rights trials to be conducted in Indonesia. "If this principle is abandoned", he said, "everything that the KPP-HAM has been doing will be a total waste of time".

In the absence of a human rights court, the Indonesian judiciary has opted to create special mixed courts in which suspects from the armed forces will be tried before a panel of civilian and military judges. By ensuring the presence of military judges, the army can be safe in the knowledge that their officers will have at least one supporter on the panel.

International tribunal

On January 19, Indonesian foreign minister Alwi Shihab met UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to persuade him that the KPP-HAM "must be given the authority with no interference from any institutions, including the UN" to handle the question of accountability for the crimes committed in East Timor, claiming that "international interference would be counter-productive and would disturb the process". He also told the secretary-general that the Indonesian government would bring those involved in human rights abuses in East Timor to court.

The following day, on a visit to Washington, Alwi Shihab came under strong pressure from US secretary of state Madeleine Albright who said the US "was watching very carefully" as Indonesia investigates abuses in East Timor. The Indonesian foreign minister must have felt the heat, saying that Wahid was "committed to punishing the violators, and if the national commission did not meet international standards, Indonesia will have to accept an international court", adding that this would be "a last resort".

However, there is no reason to believe that the necessary institutional changes will take place in the judiciary to ensure that domestic remedies can successfully secure justice with regard to the killings and devastation that engulfed East Timor in 1999.

The only way forward is for the establishment of an international tribunal.

[From TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign, http:// www.gn.apc.org/tapol.]

Investigator heaps scorn on 'human rights tourism'

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- A leading activist says the plethora of human rights inquiries under way across Indonesia constitute a form of "human rights tourism" and they can still fall prey to clever military propaganda.

The activist, Munir, is conducting investigations under the auspices of the Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence (Kontras). His inquiry is running alongside various others by ad hoc commissions, and the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

Mr Munir dismissed as "not serious" the Komnas HAM inquiry into the causes of the religious war in the Maluku Islands.

"This is just human rights tourism," he said, accusing some members of the inquiry as being too close to the military. We have been investigating Maluku for a year now and it is very complicated. There are too many problems in the Maluku case. Komnas HAM also started investigating Maluku last year but it didn't work, they spent only a few days there," he said.

Problems also beset attempts to bring senior military officers to court over allegations of human rights abuses in the secessionist region of Aceh.

A trial of 18 officers and two civilians for the massacre of at least 60 people, including Tengku Bantaqiah, in July last year, is due to begin on the Acehnese island of Sabang before month's end.

The case will be tried in a new hybrid court, combining military and civilian representatives, instead of in open civilian court, in what human rights advocates see as needless kowtowing to military sensibilities.

"The Aceh people will know it's not clean," said Mr Munir. He dismissed the work of the Independent Commission on Aceh, initiated by former president Bacharuddin Habibie, as amateur and imprecise.

At least, however, the rash of human rights investigations appear in stark contrast to the decades under former president Suharto, when there was neither the political will nor the legal capacity to hold officials to account.
 

News & issues

Indonesia Chinese mark Dragon Year

Geoff Spencer, Jakarta -- They have been terrorized, their houses and businesses wrecked and burned in wave after wave of riots and political upheaval.

But as the Year of the Golden Dragon begins, Indonesia's Chinese minority is feeling uncharacteristically optimistic.

It is thanks in large part to Indonesia's new elected President Abdurrahman Wahid, coincidentally born in the last Golden Dragon year in 1940. Wahid, a Muslim cleric with a Chinese ancestor, has called for religious tolerance and lifted a 1967 ban on public Chinese festivities.

"It will be the first time we will be allowed to celebrate in the streets for more than 30 years," said an ethnic Chinese historian, Ong Hook Ham.

Hundreds of people burned offerings of incense sticks Friday at the 450-year-old Vihara Dharma Bhakti temple, a center of Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations from Saturday through Monday.

In the past, worshippers were permitted only to pray quietly at the Buddhist shrine. But for the first time since the Chinese were blamed for a bloody, but abortive, communist coup in 1965, celebrations such will be held in public this year.

"People are not afraid anymore. They are happy," said temple caretaker Lau Xian Sing, who like many frightened Chinese adopted an Indonesian-sounding name, Solihan, in the 1960s.

Indonesia's Chinese minority makes up only about 3.5 percent of the 210 million population. But their success in business and commerce has generated resentment among many indigenous Indonesians.

Thousands of Chinese were imprisoned or slaughtered with other suspected leftist supporters after the 1965 coup. As former dictator Suharto consolidated his power, he banned the use of Chinese language and forced Chinese families to adopt indigenous names in a campaign of assimilation.

While a few Chinese tycoons built business empires under Suharto's patronage, the majority remained on the edge of Indonesian society, virtually barred from politics, the military and the bureaucracy.

When Indonesians pushed for greater democracy in the late 1990s, Chinese shops and homes were destroyed in rioting. Before and after Suharto stepped down in 1998, Muslim mobs rampaged through towns and villages across the sprawling archipelago. Jakarta's Chinatown was among the hardest hit.

The threat of a backlash persists, prompting leaders to ask revelers not to provoke other Indonesians with their celebrations. Some also fear Wahid, whose overseas visits have included Beijing, might be the target of a coup attempt by hard- line generals.

But for now, department stores are decorated with festive Chinese paraphernalia. Families streamed into traditional markets in Chinatown to stock up on gifts and food. Stalls were brimming with red paper decorations, candles and candies on Friday. "Business is good this year," said Yanto, a shopkeeper.

Congress votes for Riau independence

Jakarta -- The second Riau People's Congress in the provincial capital Pekanbaru concluded on Tuesday with a poll that resulted in a majority vote for independence.

Of 623 ballots cast, 270 were in favor of independence, 199 for autonomy, 146 for the federal option and the remaining eight were abstentions.

The chairman of the four-day congress, Dun Usul, said the results of the event would be presented to the central government and promoted to the public.

"We are pleased that the independence option was agreed upon in a peaceful manner. Our intention was to reach an agreement without violence and bloodshed," Usul, who represented the Riau People's Communication Forum (FKPMR), said.

A total of 2,025 representatives of local government, nongovernmental organizations, universities and tribes attended the event, which was originally scheduled to close on Monday. Only one-third of the participants were allowed to cast a ballot. Acrimonious debate over the vote forced the organizers to extend the congress.

There were three options -- independence, federal state or autonomy -- offered in the vote. "The result is considered legitimate, and we will report this result to the central government through the House of Representatives (DPR)," Usul said as quoted by Antara.

Independence demands were first heard early last year when a group of students declared an independent state in Riau. They also named Tabrani Rab, a cultural figure, the president of an independent Riau.

The congress, the second of its kind, was held in response to the growing debate on the future of the oil-rich province. Various groups have made their demands, including separation from the republic and the establishment of a federated state in Indonesia.

The initial congress, held in 1957, resulted in the people's acceptance to join the unitary state of Indonesia.

In response to the congress' result, spokesman for Riau provincial administration Ruskin Har told The Jakarta Post by phone that the congress was an informal forum to gather public aspirations and "therefore the local administration will respect it." "I don't think the independence vote matters as long as it is aimed at enriching the public discourse. It will be a problem if they [the committee] demand a secession from Indonesia," he said.

Ruskin suggested that the congress organizers explain "what kind of freedom they are searching for. Is it physically free from Indonesia or just mentally free from injustice?" He said separation from Indonesia would bring Riau several difficult issues ranging from economic and political to psychological matters.

Last week, proindependence students attempted to take over the office of American-based oil company PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia in Rumbai, 10 kilometers north of Pekanbaru, protesting what they called unfair revenue sharing from oil exploitation in the province.

It was the second rally staged to demand improvements in revenue sharing after the previous rally in April last year. Riau contributes more than half of Indonesia's daily crude oil production of 1.5 million barrels.

Jakarta should be left to pursue allegations

Sydney -- Indonesia should be left by the international community to pursue allegations of human rights abuses against its military in East Timor, Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday.

Downer also told ABC radio here the Australian government supports Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's handling of the allegations against officers including former military chief, General Wiranto.

Wiranto is among 33 military, police and militia commanders accused by a state-sanctioned human rights inquiry of culpability for "crimes against humanity" over the orchestrated campaign of murder and destruction in East Timor last September.

"The general view of governments, and I think it's an appropriate view, is that the Indonesian system should be given the opportunity to take the process forward first and foremost," he said. "That is the standard that's applied in international law more generally."

Speaking from Davos in Switzerland, Downer said Wahid had clearly indicated to him that his government was serious about bringing the perpetrators to justice. "And obviously in that respect we support the president," he said.

"The details of how he manages the politics of Indonesia, I can assure you, are a matter for him, not us."

Downer also doubted rumours of an impending coup against Wahid following his announcement that he would demand Wiranto's resignation from cabinet.

"There hasn't been any real change in our assessments in the risk of a coup in Indonesia over the last few months, including you know, right up until the moment I am talking to you," Downer said.

"That is that there are all sorts of rumours around in Indonesia about this issue and there have been for quite a long time. But we don't have any information to show that a coup is more likely now than it was, say, a week, a month, three months ago."
 

Arms/armed forces

Official says TNI at its lowest point

Yogyakarta -- The Indonesian Military (TNI) is now in worse shape than at any point in its history, chairman of the Reform Faction at the House of Representatives (DPR) Hatta Rajasa said.

"Never in its history has TNI been as fragile as it is now. TNI must keep its strength. If it is weak everything will be screwed up in the government," he said on Friday, referring to the plan to bring Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Gen. Wiranto and other generals to court for alleged rights violations in East Timor.

In the past two years TNI has been a target of criticism and has been accused of being a political tool of Soeharto's administration. Many have also rejected the military's dual function which made it powerful in the Old Order era.

Hatta said that now the military had been "turned upside down", and damned here and there. "The military's solidity and consolidation is at the lowest level now." However, he said, he was sure that there would not be a coup attempt by the military. "A coup usually takes place where there is an illegitimate government. We have a very legitimate government." "It's, therefore, quite wrong to worry that TNI will stage a coup," he told The Jakarta Post.

Asked about President Abdurrahman Wahid's statement on the secret meeting of some generals on Jl. Lautze, Jakarta, Hatta said: "It's ridiculous for them to plot a coup. People will fight them." Jakarta-based Hatta is in Yogyakarta to chair the Organizing Committee of the National Mandate Party's (PAN) first congress, scheduled to be held from February 10 to February 13.

Hatta is currently being mentioned as the strongest candidate for the National Mandate Party's next secretary-general.

Many have speculated that the President's repeated call for the resignation of Wiranto is a sign of a rift between the two officials and could lead to a coup. Wiranto, who was former commander of the Indonesian Military, was allegedly involved in the violence in East Timor following the August 30, 1999 ballot. A report by the government-sanctioned Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Violations (KPP HAM) in East Timor recommends that a formal investigation be held. It is due to the investigation that Wiranto is required to resign temporarily from the Cabinet.

Hatta said he supported the President, adding that it was the President's prerogative to ask Wiranto to step down. "Wiranto's resignation would easily help the legal process (against him)." "His position as a coordinating minister, after all, could hamper the legal procedure. The President made the call because he did not want any bias occurring during the investigation," he said.

That was why, he said, the commission's recommendation should be taken only as an input. Similar treatment must also be given to the reports made by TNI's Advocacy Team to make it balanced. In this way the Attorney General's Office would be able to handle the case in a proper and fair manner.

"As a consequence, we all have to respect its (the Attorney General's Office) decision, whatever it is," he said.

In a related development, deputy chief of the Supreme Advisory Council (DPA) Cholid Mawardi said also in Yogyakarta he hoped the commission's recommendation was not a political move to eliminate the five generals, including Wiranto, from the political stage.

The government should be able to differentiate between the involvement of military personnel and the involvement of the Indonesian Military as an institution in the East Timor mayhem.

"Don't make the human right investigation a means to blame TNI over the rights violations in East Timor," he said. Cholid was in Yogyakarta in his capacity as a member of the council's political team, led by Mrs. Sulasikin Murpratomo.
 

Economy & investment

IMF approves five billion dollars

Washington -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) threw Indonesia a new financial lifeline on Friday, approving a new three-year loan worth $5 billion to help seal a tentative economic recovery.

An IMF statement said Indonesia, the second of Asia's one-time tiger economies to turn to the fund for help, would receive $ 349 million immediately. Further payments will depend on Indonesia meeting economic targets agreed with the IMF.

"The Indonesian authorities are embarking on a bold and comprehensive programme aimed at restoring growth, entrenching low inflation, reducing the public debt, phasing out the dependence on exceptional financing and normalising relations with private capital markets," said IMF First Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer.

"As confidence improves and risk premia fall, there is room for further declines in interest rates, which remain high in real terms." The IMF funding follows hard on the heels of an international agreement to offer Indonesia some $4.7 billion in bilateral and multilateral loans and grants from other sources, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The new loan replaces a previous IMF credit and makes additional cash available. In return Indonesia is promising further efforts to ensure the problems which brought the economy tumbling down in 1997 do not occur again.

A document outlining policies underpinning the new loan says that Indonesia expects economic growth of 1-2 percent in the current financial year, rising to 3-4 percent in 2000-01 and 5-6 percent in the slightly longer term. Inflation will stay at "low single digits" and reserves will rise.

At the same time the government promised to revive efforts to restructure banks and firms and do more to improve governance, the code word the IMF uses when it talks about top-level corruption.

Donors pledge 4.7 billion

Jakarta -- Indonesia's main aid donors on Wednesday pledged up to 4.7 billion dollars in loans to support the country's 2000 budget but deferred a decision on rescheduling 2.2 billion dollars in debt.

"Indonesian donors committed strong support to the government of Indonesia, pledging to disburse up to 4.7 bln USD for the fiscal year 2000," the World Bank said in a statement at the end of a two-day meeting of the 33-member donor forum, the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI), in Jakarta.

The bank said the largest donor was Japan, which offered 1.56 billion dollars, followed by the World Bank itself with 1.5 billion and the Asian Development Bank with 1.065 billion.

But Indonesian Finance Minister Bambang Sudibyo, asked about an Indonesian request to CGI members to reschedule some 2.2 billion dollars in debt, said: "This matter must be discussed in the second Paris Club" later in the year. The World Bank statement said the next CGI meeting would be in Tokyo in October.

It added: "Donors representing 33 countries and international agencies lauded Indonesia for completing the political transition in a way that has received strong support at home and abroad.

"Donors noted with satisfaction the stabilisation of the economy and early signs of recovery."

The bank added the CGI welcomed an economic recovery programme put forward by the government of President Abdurahman Wahid and contained in a letter of intent to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Indonesian government last month released the letter outlining the programme and a new budget for April-December 2000.

The bank said the government and the donors agreed to speed up corporate and bank restructuring to revitalise the private sector and job creation. They also agreed economic programmes should emphasise poverty alleviation and investment in public education and healthcare. Improvements in "governance" were also considered by all as critical, the World Bank said.

In addition, the statement quoted Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Finance and Industry Kwik Kian Gie as saying: "We stand at the crossroads in the history of Indonesia. "We are determined to create a society that is just and which delivers broad-based economic growth to all people."

The two-day CGI meeting in Jakarta was marked by warnings from both Indonesian officials and the World Bank that Indonesia's path to economic recovery after the battering of the 1997 regional economic crisis was fragile.

Finance Minister Sudibyo told the meeting on its opening day Tuesday that although the economy had stabilised somewhat, there was as yet no solid evidence of firm recovery.

"Of great concern is the fact that investments continued to decline. In fact, most of the decline in economic activity during the crisis was due to this drop in investments," Sudibyo said.

He said rising consumer demand, perhaps filled by improved sentiment or by fiscal spending, "can only be a temporary growth stimulus."

"If investment does not pick up, the productive capacity of our nation may be unable to meet the demand placed on it. The key to resume sustainable economic growth will rely on policies that stimulate investments," he said. He said such an upturn had to be led by the private sector.

Sudibyo added that from recent figures on inflation, interest rates and monetary growth, it would appear macroeconomic stability had been achieved.

"Nonetheless, we are acutely aware that this stability is very fragile," he said, referring to a continued decline in capital goods imports and mounting debt as well as investors' jitters.

Indonesia offers high gains to investors

Jakarta -- The violence and political uncertainty enveloping Indonesia pose serious risks for the economy and investment, but those willing to take their chances could reap huge rewards.

Analysts say there is still plenty of room for stocks prices to move up, even after the index gained 70 percent through 1999, making it Asia's third strongest performer.

Many predict the benchmark composite index could reach 850 points this year, some 34 percent up from its current level of 635. Some individual stocks are expected to do much better, doubling or tripling in value.

It may not look too spectacular compared to last year's gains of 70 percent, so one should dig deeper into the market to be able to pick the right ones.

In addition to higher stock valuations as business and the financial position of companies improves, foreign investors stand to make a foreign exchange gain from the strengthening rupiah.

Some analysts predict the rupiah IDR could go up to 6,500 by year-end, or a ten percent rise from its current levels.

Many Indonesian stocks still trade at sharp discounts to their values before the Asian meltdown hit in mid-1997.

While this partly reflects the risk factor, analysts say many of the prices represent attractive valuations.

They point to a fall in the spread of Sovereign Yankee bonds over 10-year US treasuries to 490 basis points from 1,700.

"The spread basically reflects the degree of country risk," said Rino Effendy, an economist from Danareksa Securities.

The economy has shown some signs of recovery and the government's latest budget is forecasting a return to steady growth, a stronger rupiah, lower interest rates and inflation under control.

Growth is seen at 3.8 percent from April to December, after with an estimated 0.1 percent gross domestic product growth in calendar 1999 and a 13.7 percent contraction in 1998.

The major risk remains political and social, with communal bloodshed racking the country and a fractious military unhappy at seeing its political power eroded by reformist President Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia's first democratically-elected leader.

Analysts warn that separatist movements and religious tensions in several parts of the sprawling archipelago could hamper investment and the return of billions of dollars of private capital which fled the country during the past two years.

In the end this could mean a delay in economic recovery. They also warn the government must maintain cabinet unity and Wahid must keep the military on side and under control.

Wahid and his generals have continually denied speculation of a military coup, but the fear remains at the back of many people's minds and casts a shadow over the political climate.

For those willing to take the risk in return for potentially massive returns, analysts suggest looking at firms selling to the domestic market and -- to a certain extent -- those with significant debts but good business prospects.

These firms will benefit from the expected recovery in demand, lower interest rates and a stronger currency.

Sound blue chips, including cigarette makers, food producers, retailers, pharmaceuticals, telecoms firms and manufacturers are still seen as the safest bets.

But, banking on the improving economic outlook, some analysts also recommend selected stocks in heavy equipment, banking, finance and technology. These stocks, due to their higher risks, are where the strong gains can be expected.

"Also watch for stocks which have successfully completed or are close to completing debt restructuring," said ING Barings Securities' head of Indonesia research Laksono Widodo.

"This would significantly improve a company's financial position so that it would have larger room to grow." The darlings of investors during the economic crisis -- dollar-earning exporters -- are no longer strongly recommended.

"These stocks, despite their sound fundamentals, are not the kind of investment you look for during the recovery period," Widodo added.

During the crisis, exporters were top performers as they enjoyed the extraordinary gains in dollar-based sales despite lower or flat sales volume, reaping the benefits of the rupiah's plunge against the dollar.