Indonesia/East Timor News Digest No 6

May Sari, Jakarta -- Thousands protested against the meeting of the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) -- which includes 30 donor countries and is chaired by the World Bank -- on February 1. The meeting considered the Indonesian government's progress in imposing austerity, the condition for granting Jakarta's requests for further loans and "donations".

The protest was organised by the Anti-Debt Coalition (KAU), which includes trade unions, religious organisations and groups representing women, peasants and the urban poor. Some protesters who travelled from Sumatra had been forced off their land by agribusiness and manufacturing plants.

The protesters demanded that all previous debts be abolished and that new loans be refused. Opposition was expressed to the IMF's foreign debt bailout and the transformation of private debt into public debt.

The coalition argues that the Indonesian people are not responsible for repaying the debt because they were never involved in deciding to take the loans and have not benefited from them. As one member of the radical trade union, the National Front for Indonesian Labour Struggle (FNPBI), said: "When did I ask the CGI to give me money? I never did, but they ask me to pay it. How can I? I work day and night but only get Rp7000 a day."

The Indonesian government and the international financial institutions say that "donations" are the only solution to the economic crisis. But Surya Tjandra, a lawyer from the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, pointed out that around 30% of the money loaned to the Indonesian regime has been stolen by corrupt politicians and high officials, passing the debt burden on to the workers and poor.

A day before the protest, a seminar involving around 1000 people explored how the debt problem impacts on labour rights, the environment, women, corruption, poverty and human rights. The conclusions of the seminar were summarised as a statement that was given to CGI delegates.

After agreeing to meet a KAU delegation, CGI members and Indonesian government representatives failed to show up. Only the vice-president of the World Bank, Benjamin Fischer, attended. The KAU members refused to talk to him.

East Timor

East Timor replaces Indonesia in Gap treaty

Agence France-Presse - February 11, 2000

Dili -- The UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) has been appointed to replace Indonesia as Australia's new partner for oil and gas mining in the Timor Gap which lies between the two countries, a spokesman said here Friday.

"Yesterday [Thursday UNTAET chief] Sergio Viera de Mello and Australian consul James Bakley signed a memo of understanding," UNTAET spokesman Manoel de Almedia e Silva told journalists here. "We agreed to continue the terms of the treaty signed in 1989" with Indonesia, he said.

The text of a press release issued in the Australian capital, Canberra said the amendment was efective February 11. According to the statement, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said East Timorese independence figures had been consulted on the treaty ammendment.

"These arrangements are important to politically convince investors already making investments in the context of the Timor Gap Cooperation Zone," he said.

In talks in Jakarta last week, Downer said the Indonesian government had agreed that, following the separation of East Timor from Indonesia, the zone included in the present Timor Gap Treaty was outside Indonesia's territorial jurisdiction.

"This also means that the Timor Gap Treaty signed by Indonesia and Australia became null and void the moment the Indonesian government officially handed over East Timor to the United Nations," Downer said. Indonesia and Australia signed in 1989 a cooperation on offshore oil and gas mining in the Timor Sea.

Commanders have to be answerable for atrocities

Sydney Morning Herald - February 12, 2000

James Dunn -- It seems the Wahid Government has won its fight to ensure General Wiranto and the five other accused generals will face an Indonesian court or tribunal -- not one constituted by the UN. The present setting in Jakarta is hardly encouraging, and doesn't deserve the endorsements coming from the US, Europe and Australia.

The sincerity of President Wahid is not in doubt, but his control over the factors that will come into play during the trial process is still much in question. His reform program is at risk of being slowed because of Indonesia's growing instability, a condition certain to be exploited by the military friends of the generals facing trial. A truly just outcome to the trials is asking too much of the new regime.

Wahid's own pronouncement that he will pardon Wiranto is unfortunate. The command factor is central to war crimes trials, and if Wiranto is let off, what kind of sentences can be handed down to generals like Zacky Anwar Makarim and Adam Damiri, the field commanders? And what then will happen to militia killers such as Cancio and Guterres, who were arguably pawns in a carefully planned strategy of the military?

And while the Indonesian tribunal is likely to focus on events in Timor last year, what happened then was merely the tip of the ugly iceberg that was former president Soeharto's New Order. The atrocities committed since the invasion of Dili in December 1975 cannot be ignored. Not only were the field commanders never taken to task: most were promoted.

A stint in Timor was an essential field experience ingredient for aspiring members of the general staff -- Wiranto had two terms there. Former vice-president Try Sutriso spent a posting in Timor. Yunus Yosfiah, who served as information minister in the Habibie interim government, was a unit commander in Timor in 1976 and in 1978 when tens of thousands of Timorese fell victim of the Indonesian onslaught against opponents of integration.

One general who has been directly accused of involvement in such operations is Adolf Rahala Rajagukguk, until recently Indonesian Ambassador to India. Major Warsito, whose troops killed dozens of Timorese in Dili in December 1975, some of them in public executions, rose to the rank of general and commanded Kostrad (Strategic Forces) before retiring as a provincial governor.

Prabowo Subianto, now in exile in Jordan, won the reputation of a ruthless Timor commander. There is also the shadowy intelligence officer, Colonel J.F. Sinaga, an alleged torturer. No inquiry of crimes against humanity will be complete without an investigation of the military's gruesome past in East Timor. Major atrocities include mass killings at Lakmaras, near Bobonaro, in 1976, where, according to witnesses, more than 1,000 Timorese in a refugee encampment were killed by rampaging troops.

Large-scale killings were also reported at Aileu, Liquica and Maubara in the late 1970s. Other cases needing investigation include the Creras massacre of 1983, where more than 200 Timorese were reported killed, and the Santa Cruz massacre of November 1991, which claimed more than 250 lives. We need to find out about these atrocities and why they occurred.

Now that East Timor is accessible to investigators it should be possible to assemble a factual account of human rights violations, which would support moves to bring the commanders concerned before an inquiry.

The historical perspective cannot be ignored in the trials of those who commanded troops in Timor last year. The fact that Anwar Makarim, Damiri and others were only apparently following an unchecked tradition may present an Indonesian court with a dilemma. The best solution in these circumstances would be a two-pronged approach.

Indonesia could concentrate on establishing a wide-ranging truth and reconciliation inquiry, with the primary aim of bringing out the truth of the military's exploits in East Timor and elsewhere. A second tribunal could be established to deal specifically with those indicted as a result of the Indonesian Human Rights Commission report.

It may not be too late to persuade President Wahid to rethink his position on setting up a tribunal, and agree to one staffed jointly by judges from Indonesia and the United Nations.

[James Dunn is a former consul to Portuguese East Timor and author of East Timor: A People Betrayed.]

Australian police outraged at training for Jakarta

Canberra Times - February 11, 2000

Peter Clack -- The Australian Government sent a police delegation to train the Indonesian Police Force in Jakarta while Australian Federal Police officers were on duty in East Timor in September, it has been confirmed.

The AFP was unable to comment in detail this week about a report of a delegation of 10 Australian state and federal officers to Jakarta led by an AFP agent. AFP sources say the delegation went to Jakarta from September 6-10 to provide technical advice to Indonesian police about a computerised data system. At the time, the AFP already had one specialist agent based in Jakarta, who was seconded to work with Indonesian police intelligence.

In another incident in August, a group of five Indonesian police had visited Melbourne on an undisclosed mission, where they were the guests of the AFP. AFP officers were directed to meet the Indonesians at the airport, take them to hotels and " show them hospitality".

A detachment of about 50 AFP officers were in East Timor when violence flared after the announcement of the independence vote on September 3. Many Australian police were evacuated but a small group stayed at the besieged United Nations compound in Dili with about 2000 East Timorese civilians.

Disgruntled AFP officers who have returned from East Timor say they are outraged by the support and assistance given by Australia to Jakarta while they were being " shot at" by pro- Indonesian forces. "The blokes are outraged by this, to show consideration to those people who were shooting at us," one officer said. "There are a number of disgruntled police." The officer said a delegation of 10 people had gone to "the law- enforcement establishment" in Jakarta to assess the training needs of the Indonesian police and offer assistance.

"By the time the delegation arrived in Jakarta, there was an open, undeniable effect that the Indonesian police were having in East Timor. They had joined the militia and Indonesian military in hostile gunfire and attacks on the UN compound and convoys, which included members of the AFP. Why did it go ahead?" A spokeswoman for the AFP said a police delegation, including state police, had gone to Jakarta in September but that the information had been made public at the time.

Abridged KPP HAM's East Timor report

Tapol - February 8, 2000

[The following is a translation by the British based human rights organisation, Tapol, of the concluding paragraphs of Chapter IV of the Executive Summary entitled "Conclusions and Recommendations" of the Report of the Commission of Investigation of Human Rights Violations in East Timor, KPP HAM. These are the final three paragraphs of its Conclusions, followed by its Recommendations.]

73. The involvement of civilian and military authorities including the police, in collaboration with the pro-integration militias in these crimes against humanity, represents an abuse of power and authority which resulted in the institutional involvement both of military as well as civilian authorities.The evidence shows that the following (incomplete) list of officials from the civilian and military authorities including the police are believed to have been involved:

Governor of East Timor: Abilio Soares
District Chief of Dili: Dominggos Soares
District Chief of Covalima: Kolonel Herman Sediono
District Chief of Liquica: Leoneto Martins
District Chief of Bobonaro: Guilherme dos Santos
District Chief of Lospalos: Edmundo Conceicao E.Silva
Command of Korem 164 Wira Dharma Dili: Brig-General FX. Tono Suratman
Commander of Korem 164 Wira Dharma Dili: Colonel M. Nur Muis
Chief of Police for East Timor: Brigjen Pol. Timbul Silaen
District Military Commander of Suai (Covalima): First Lieutenant Sugito
Chief of Intelligence of District Military Command Bobonaro (Maliana): First Lieutenant Sutrisno
District Military Commander Bobonaro: Lieutenant-Colonel Burhanuddin Siagian
District Military Command Los Palos: Lieutenant-Colonel Sudrajat
Commander of Battalion 744-Dili: Infantry Major Yakraman Yagus
Commander of Battalion 745-Los Palos: Infantry Major Jacob Sarosa
Member of Battalion 744- Dili: Private Luis
Commander of Company B-Battalion 744: Captain Tatang
Officer of Kopassus/SGI BKO Korem Dili: Lieutenant-Colonel Yayat Sudrajat
Staff officer at District Military Command Liquisa: First Lieutenant Yacob and Serda
Commander of the IX Udayana Regional Military Command: Major-General TNI Adam Damiri
Security Adviser of the Task Force P3TT: Major-General Zacky Makarim
Commander of Aitarak Militia: Eurico Gutterres
Commander of Laksaur Militia: Olivio Moruk
Company commander of Laksaur: Martinus
Member of Laksaur Militia: Manek
Commander of Tim Alfa Militia: Joni Marquez
Members of Tim Alfa Militia: Joao da Costa, Manuel da Costa, Amilio da Costa
Commander of Red and White Iron Militia: Manuel Sousa
Commander of Halilintar Militia: Joao Tavares

The names of other persons directly or indirectly involved are included in the full report.

74. The range of crimes against humanity occurred in East Timor, directly or indirectly, because of the failure of the commander in chief of TNI (Indonesian armed forces) to safeguard security for the implementation of the two options announced by the government. The fact that the police were structurally still under the command of the Minister of Defence at the time helped to undermine the ability of the police to perform their security tasks as laid down in the New York agreement. TNI General Wiranto, as the commander in chief of the TNI, must be held responsible for this.

75. While not in any way diminishing the rights of the persons under investigation to obtain the best possible legal assistance, the KPP HAM notes that, with the exception of the militia, all those who were investigated are getting legal assistance from the Human Rights Advocacy Team for TNI Officers, regardless of the possible conflict of interest this may entail between the parties. The likelihood of conflict of interest is particularly great between TNI officers, police officers, the former Minister Coordinator for Political and Security Affairs and the former Foreign Minister. This fact could, directly or indirectly, affect the speed with which investigations can proceed to collect facts in order to seek material evidence, and could obstruct the upholding of law and justice.

Recommendations

Based on the aforementioned conclusions, the KPP HAM makes the following recommendations:

76. To ask the Attorney General to investigate persons thought to have been involved in grave violations of human rights, in particular, but not confined to, those individuals named in the above conclusion.

77. To ask the Government to draw up a protocol in order to gain access to all the new facts and evidence regarding the violation of human rights in East Timor that are being unearthed by UNTAET and other international bodies.

78. To ask the DPR (Parliament) and the Government to establish a Human Rights Court that has the authority to try human rights violations and crimes against humanity based upon national and international law (Human Rights and Humanitarian Law). This Human Rights Court must have the powers to try human rights violations that were committed in the past, including those that were committed in East Timor.

79. To ask the Government to ratify without delay all those international human rights instruments that are important for upholding human rights in Indonesia, including, but not confined to, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the First Optional Protocol.

80. To ask the Government to give a guarantee of safety for all witnesses and victims.

81. To ask the Government to make every effort to provide just rehabilitation and compensation for the victims and their families.

82. To ask the Government to state categorically that every act of gender-based violence is a violation of human rights. In addition, the Government is under obligation to provide the necessary services (psychiatric and psychological) and other forms of compensation for the victims.

83. To call upon the National Human Rights Commission -- for the sake of truth, justice and in the interests of history -- to undertake a comprehensive investigation of all the human rights violations that have occurred in East Timor since 1975. The results of these investigations should become an official human rights document.

84. To urge the Government to undertake a repositioning, redefinition and reactualisation of the TNI so that it becomes a institution whose purpose is to defend the country in a democratic state that upholds the principles of human rights. In order to achieve this, the additional functions of the TNI must be abolished, in particular the territorial function which has until now obstructed and disturbed the proper functioning of the police and civilian governance.

85. To call upon the Government to guarantee the upholding of the law, security and order for the general public. For this to be done, there must be a strict separation between the Indonesian Police Force and the TNI. In addition, measures need to be taken to strengthen and empower the police force by promoting professionalism and the demilitarisation of the police.

86. To urge the Government and the DPR to establish by law an institution for the purpose of collecting state intelligence, so as to ensure that state intelligence is conducted solely in the interests of public and state security, thereby ensuring that it does not become a means for violating human rights.

87. To urge the Government and the Supreme Court to ensure that all legal processes regarding crimes against humanity -- whoever the perpetrators may be, including members of the TNI -- shall be freely and independently conducted without interference from any quarter.

88. To ask the Government to facilitate and remove all obstacles or pressures obstructing the refugees who want to return to their place of origin. In this connection, to ask UNTAET to provide legal safeguards and security to these persons on their return to East Timor.

Jakarta, 31 January 2000

Soares sanctioned murder: militia chief

Sydney Morning Herald - February 11, 2000

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- A pro-Jakarta militia commander has testified that East Timor's former governor, Mr Abilio Soares, told him early last year that all supporters of independence for the territory, including priests and nuns, should be "killed if necessary".

In confidential testimony before an independent Indonesian human rights inquiry, the commander testified that Mr Soares said "those who want independence are communists and should be killed".

According to the newspaper Media Indonesia, the commander, who was not named, also told of meetings between militia leaders and the former Bali-based Indonesian military regional commander in charge of East Timor, Major-General Adam Damiri, at which anti- independence leaders were promised funding and weapons to crush the independence movement. "Militias were free; [if] they wanted to burn, capture or kill it was up to them," the commander was quoted as saying.

Asked if Indonesian soldiers were with the militia when they conducted operations, the commander replied: "A lot. Militias were on the front but those in back were ... elite force."

After hearing from the commander and other witnesses, National Human Rights Commission investigators recommended last week that the Attorney-General pursue Mr Soares, General Damiri and 31 others for atrocities in East Timor before and after last year's independence ballot.

One of the accused, General Wiranto, the former Indonesian military commander, has refused repeated requests from President Abdurrahman Wahid that he resign as Security Minister pending the Attorney-General's investigation, intensifying fears of an army rebellion against the Government.

A former military commander and vice-president, General Try Sutrisno, warned that unless the attacks on the military ended there would be a strong reaction. But he indicated he did not believe the military would mount a coup to oust Mr Wahid, 59, who has been trying to implement sweeping military reforms since taking office in October. Five army generals named by the human rights team have received promotions since ending their involvement in East Timor and are still on active duty.

The commission investigators are coming under increasing pressure over their 2,000-page report on the East Timor atrocities that left hundreds dead and almost all the territory's homes and infrastructure destroyed, and forced several hundred thousand people into refugee camps in Indonesian-controlled West Timor.

The latest attack on the investigators' credibility came from representatives of Parliament's defence and information committee as MPs questioned them over their easy access to East Timor.

The official Antara news agency reported that the committee blamed the human rights team for a discriminatory inquiry that "targeted only the Indonesian military" and said it had "failed to investigate the human rights abuses, including torture and rape" committed by foreign personnel deployed in East Timor under the Australian-led Interfet.

Media Indonesia yesterday published sensational claims of human rights abuses by "Australia's Interfet" and East Timor pro- independence supporters. It quoted a militia commander, Filomeno Antonio Brito, as alleging Interfet tortured eight of his men at Dili's port on September 22 last year. The claims included that Interfet soldiers witnessed torture by independence supporters in Bobonaro on September 26.

Jakarta must hold trials: Horta

Agence France-Presse - February 10, 2000

Kuala Lumpur -- Indonesia should put on trial those responsible for militia atrocities in East Timor to avoid an international war crimes tribunal, visiting East Timorese independence leader Jose Ramos-Horta said.

"The Indonesian national investigation into human rights abuses in East Timor has produced what would amount to an indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity," he told a public meeting in the Malaysian capital.

Asked whether those charged in connection with violence that erupted after the territory's vote for independence should be brought before an international tribunal or an Indonesian court, Ramos-Horta said: "We await the next step by the attorney general. We are waiting confidently.

"If the Indonesian republic is strong enough to bring to trial those responsible, those identified in their own report, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and justice is served, then there is no need for an international tribunal.

"We want justice, we don't want revenge, we don't want embarrassment for Indonesia," he told the meeting which ended early Wednesday. "So we hope the courage, the steps taken so far by President [Abdurrahman] Wahid and Indonesia as a country will continue. It will spare Indonesia further embarrassment."

Unlike in earlier stops on his Asian tour to seek aid for the territory, Ramos-Horta avoided mentioning former military chief General Wiranto by name. Last week Ramos-Horta and fellow independence leader Xanana Gusmao said Wiranto was directly responsible for the destruction and violence in East Timor.

Wiranto, who has been implicated by two independent reports in human rights violations, has refused Wahid's repeated demands to resign from the cabinet. Wahid has vowed to pardon the general if he is convicted of rights abuses.

Ramos-Horta said Wahid would be "received as a statesman and friend of East Timor" when he visited the territory this month to open Indonesia's first diplomatic mission.

At the meeting, held to launch a Malaysian-East Timor friendship society, he also praised Asian governments for persuading Indonesia to accept a United Nations force to halt the military- backed militia killings.

He said South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung had spoken to Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Chinese President Jiang Zemin. They took a joint stand in advising Jakarta to accept a peace force and were supported by all Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries, Ramos-Horta said.

"If ASEAN had not joined forces with Korea, China and Japan and the US and Europe, those in Indonesia who did not want to accept the democratic decision of East Timor would have had their way. They would have said it is the West, it is the Europeans against us Asians."

Gusmao thanked Malaysians who supported the independence struggle. "We know it's difficult to rebuild everything in East Timor, but with the same courage and injection of love and help from countries like Malaysia who believed that we will live again, we might achieve." The pair are on the last day of a visit to Malaysia.

Jakarta's gift angers leader

Sydney Morning Herald - February 10, 2000

Mark Dodd, Dili -- A senior East Timorese politician has threatened to resign from a decision-making body in protest over the arrival this week of an Indonesian air force plane delivering humanitarian aid to the devastated territory.

However political analysts and diplomats believe the real motive behind Mr Joao Carrascalao's threat to resign from the National Consultative Commission is a behind-the-scenes power play within the ranks of East Timor's increasingly fragile political umbrella group, the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT).

Mr Carrascalao, the nominal head of the UDT (Timorese Democratic Union), threatened on Tuesday to resign from the NCC, a joint United Nations-all party contact group comprising the UN, rival East Timorese political factions and the Catholic Church.

A long-time Australian resident and outspoken critic of the Indonesian military, Mr Carrascalao slammed a decision to allow the arrival on Monday of an Indonesian Air Force plane in Dili, a gift endorsed by President Abdurrahman Wahid, who plans to visit East Timor later this month.

In doing so Mr Carrascalao placed himself in direct opposition to East Timor's independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao, who heads the CNRT and who had earlier requested the aircraft's arrival be delayed so he could welcome the Indonesian gift. Another senior CNRT official, Nobel laureate Mr Jose Ramos Horta, had also welcomed the offer of Indonesian humanitarian aid.

The Indonesian gift, organised by an interfaith church group and two Dili-based non-government organisations, was described by the UN transitional authority (UNTAET) spokesman, Mr Manuel de Almeida e Silva, as a "very important gesture of goodwill" in advance of President Wahid's arrival on February 24. UNTAET tried unsucessfully to contact Indonesian Government officials on Sunday but was told it was too late to prevent the aircraft's departure.

Mr Almeida e Silva said yesterday he had not yet received a formal letter of resignation from Mr Carrascalao but confirmed his threat to resign. CNRT and diplomatic sources said that a subsequent attempt by Mr Carrascalao to stage an organised demonstration at the airport failed and the plane landed without incident.

"On the eve of the Wahid visit this is a hugely important gesture from Indonesia -- both Xanana and Ramos Horta have said that," a senior Western diplomat said. "The essential element to all this is that Wahid is a good friend of Xanana and Ramos Horta -- he's known them for years. They have full confidence in him. In fact they don't have a better friend in the world," he said, asking to remain anonymous.

"Joao has reacted badly to the military aircraft. His whole objection was based on the possibility of a popular protest. My own assessment is he's jockeying for a political position and he's frustrated at what he sees as Xanana getting all the limelight."

Organising East Timor's working people

Green Left Weekly - February 9, 2000

Nick Fredman, Dili -- Floating in this burned-out city's harbour is the bizarre structure of the Hotel Olympia. A large squat vessel that was formerly housing for oil rig workers, it has been towed to East Timor and refurbished to service the new market of well-heeled United Nations and aid agency bureaucrats and business people.

Guarded by UN police and separated from the remains of Dili by a gangway enclosed in an iron cage, it seems to symbolise the current priorities in the reconstruction of East Timor.

Feelings of liberation and optimism, and of generosity and friendship towards those who have come to genuinely help, are palpable among the people of Dili. However, despite having rid themselves of the brutal Indonesian occupation and won the ability to organise more or less freely, the working people of East Timor are facing massive challenges.

East Timorese organisations are sidelined in a National Consultative Council, with all real power held by the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET).

The jobs that are available, with the UN, aid organisations and a few new businesses, are poorly paid and available only to those with English skills.

More goods are becoming available through markets and street stalls, but prices have been driven up by the presence of well- paid western bureaucrats and soldiers. Despite the desperate need for housing and the availability of many people eager to work, virtually no rebuilding has occurred.

The struggle

The East Timorese working people are forming a range of new organisations that can continue the struggle for national liberation, democracy and social justice. At the forefront of many of these efforts is the Socialist Party of Timor (PST).

Formed in the early to mid-1990s by East Timorese workers and students living in Indonesia, many of whom radicalised after coming into contact with Indonesian left-wing organisations such as the People's Democratic Party, the PST has organised openly in East Timor since 1998 and is attracting increasing attention and support.

"We now have around 1000 members, mainly young people", Akara Lenn, the party's education director told Green Left Weekly. "There's a lack of experience, so education is very important. However older activists, some involved with Fretilin since the 1970s, are also joining the party".

The PST sees the working class as the key social force in the struggle for justice.

The party necessarily takes a long view, as the working class was totally dispersed and the economy destroyed in the violence following the August referendum ballot.

Organising workers

With the gradual re-emergence of a labour market, the PST is taking the first steps to organise workers, by establishing the Socialist Workers Alliance of Timor (AOST) as an affiliate of the party. The AOST, along with other workers, organised a protest on January 5 outside the UNTAET office, demanding a reduction in prices, increased wages, and priority for East Timorese in employment. The UN administration has promised to "investigate" their demands.

I attended a meeting of the AOST and talked to Rui Lorenco, organiser for the group. AOST so far involves workers at Care Australia, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNTAET.

Basic questions were raised, such as how to secure better job security -- the UNHCR has dismissed demands for better pay with the arrogant view it could dismiss recalcitrant workers and easily find replacements among the many unemployed.

AOST has found hesitation among many workers to the ideas of independent class organisation, says Lorenco, due to the Indonesian regime's incessant propaganda about communism and socialism, and the emphasis in the liberation struggle on national unity. But the realities of life on the job, such as the UNHCR's attitude, were making the need for organisation more obvious, and the presence of 600-800 people at the January 5 demonstration was a big step forward.

As organisations of workers develop, the AOST may become part of broader union structures, says Lorenco. "It's important that unions are part of the creation of democratic space in East Timor, and part of a social transformation in the interests of workers", he said.

The AOST is also opposed to discrimination in employment due to language.

Language is an increasingly political question in East Timor, said Lorenco, with more conservative forces such as the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) favouring the use of Portuguese and the left arguing for a transition to the use of the indigenous language, Tetum.

To help the educational needs of working people the PST is also involved in setting up the Maubere Cultural Institute (ICM), which plans to teach Tetum but is initially concentrating on English classes as the most important immediate need. Two thousand people have already attended these classes.

Farmers

The PST is also helping to set up a number of farmers' cooperatives, both to help with small and landless farmers' immediate needs and to facilitate their organisation as a class.

I visited the Lakabou cooperative in the hills above Dili, set up in November and now one of five operating in the district, where projects are most advanced.

Forty-five families are involved in Lakabou, where corn is grown.

Single cooperatives have so far been established to grow rice at Manatutu and Liquica, and one also in the major coffee growing area of Ermera. The cooperatives have so far been established by the voluntary merger of small farmers' land, and are divided into family plots.

The hills on which Lakabou is perched are lushly green, though their steepness would make cultivation hard work. Cooperative members organise meetings after each workday, and weekly political discussions on topics such as the need for land reform.

At Lakabou these discussions are organised by Santiago Tilman, the PST organiser for the area, and a former Fretilin member who was involved in forming cooperatives in the area in 1975 before the Indonesian invasion.

"Fretilin believed in `land for the Maubere' and advocated this, at least in policy", Tilman told Green Left Weekly. "However, unlike Fretilin, the PST is clearly socialist, anti-capitalist as well as anti-colonialist, adding `equality' to the Fretilin slogan of `unity, action and progress'".

The cooperatives are initially concerned with providing subsistence for members, as well as political education and experience in collective organisation. They also plan to market their products through the Maubere Cooperative Foundation (KOPERMAR) to help farmers become economically independent.

Land reform will become an important issue, with much of the best land monopolised by the big landowners. Members of this class are often descendants of the most powerful Portuguese colonialists, such as Joao Carrascalao, a leader of the UDT, who owns large plantations of coffee in Ermera and Liquica and coconut trees in Bacau.

Women's burden

The position of women in East Timorese society is greatly affected by the prevalence of traditional family structures, and the distortions produced by centuries of oppressive colonial rule, followed by the Indonesian military occupiers who regularly used rape and forced sterilisation as means of terror and control.

With the lack of work and high prices, and the need to care for often large families, the double burden for women in East Timor is particularly onerous. The Association of Socialist Women of Timor (ASMT) is committed to ensuring that women's liberation is part of the struggle for change.

The ASMT also plans to involve women in cooperatives, which will make and market traditional textiles, provide much needed employment and economic independence and will also be centres for political discussion and the formulation of issues.

Washing the blood from their hands

Green Left Weekly - February 9, 2000

Editorial -- "I think any comment [beyond "understanding and sympathy"] is really intruding a little into the internal affairs of another country", Prime Minister John Howard opined on the outcome of the Indonesian and United Nations investigations into crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999.

Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer are echoing the line of the United States government, that the Indonesian state should conduct the investigation and prosecutions itself.

These imperialist governments win no marks for consistency: although the Indonesian state invaded, occupied and conducted a genocidal policy against another country, East Timor, for nearly 25 years, Indonesia is to be trusted to bring the war criminals to justice; yet when Cambodia's Khmer Rouge were being charged for human rights crimes conducted against their own people, the imperialists harassed the government to allow international involvement in the trials.

Indonesia's judiciary is hardly impartial. It is still largely made up of Suharto-era appointees and if special courts are established to hear the human rights violations charges, they may include military judges. Of course, there are no guarantees of justice from an international court either. That depends on the interests of such a court's sponsors. But the fact that both the Indonesian and Australian ruling elites oppose an international court is a sign that this would be a better option, at least for keeping the door open for the East Timorese people's struggle for justice.

The head of the UN investigation team, faced with official opposition to its recommendation for an international court, has now suggested an international "truth and reconciliation" commission instead. But this is unlikely to achieve justice for the East Timorese.

The experiences with such a commission in post-apartheid South Africa show that human rights abusers have mostly protected themselves through silence, or through gaining immunity as a condition for testifying.

The February 3 Australian Financial Review published an article by a former official in George Bush's administration in the US which hypocritically argued that "nations -- especially emerging democracies -- must confront the realities of their own histories" as a pathway to maturity. This is unlikely to occur in Indonesia until the rule of Indonesia's elite (including Suharto and his cronies, and the military leaders) is replaced with the rule of Indonesia's people. A people's inquiry would lead to quite different results from those on offer from the Indonesian courts.

The Sydney Morning Herald has maintained its (very belated) criticism of Australian government policy on East Timor that began just before the August independence ballot. On January 31, a front page feature noted that Australia's contingency plans "left the Timorese exposed to the militia and the Indonesian security forces".

However, the SMH accuses the government only of poor analysis. By way of excuses, the article states that Defence Intelligence Organisation reports failed to predict the terror upsurge in September and quotes Downer claiming that he was "surprised" by the level of violence in East Timor. To top this off, in a separate article in the same issue, the SMH offers up a paean to Major General Peter Cosgrove which aims to show that, in the end, the Australian state managed to get things right.

The real issue, however, is not the Australian government's incompetence, but its complicity in the horrors perpetrated in East Timor. The government supported the Indonesian regime's attempts to keep East Timor annexed -- by defending the Indonesian government's claim to be ensuring "security" in East Timor, for example.

This policy became a major problem for the Australian government only when masses of Australians, in solidarity with the East Timorese people, rejected it.

By supporting the Indonesian government's sole right to prosecute the crimes committed in East Timor, the Australian government is expressing the hope of the Australian capitalist class that as little as possible of the truth about its responsibility for what happened in East Timor will emerge. Australia's rulers are still trying to wash the blood of the East Timorese from their hands.

Generals may still get away with murder

Green Left Weekly - February 9, 2000

Jonathan Singer -- The Indonesian and United Nations human rights commissions have released their reports on the massive human rights violations that occurred in East Timor in 1999. The reports, released on January 31 and February 1 respectively, found the Indonesian military (the TNI) had been involved in systematic terror involving killings, rapes, property destruction and the forcible displacement of people.

The UN report found that these crimes against humanity "would not have been possible without the active involvement of the Indonesian army, and the knowledge and approval of the top military command ... Ultimately the Indonesian army was responsible." The Indonesian report, based on a more limited number of incidents, also heavily criticised the military and found that the Indonesian military chief at the time, General Wiranto, and other senior commanding officers were responsible -- but only for knowing of the situation and not acting to halt it. The Indonesian report did, however, attempt to name those responsible and recommended the preparation of prosecution cases against as many as 40 officers, including Wiranto.

The Indonesian government, backed by the United States and Australian governments, has strongly opposed calls for an international war crimes tribunal, claiming that the government can conduct the necessary prosecutions itself. As a result, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has not supported the UN report's recommendation for such a tribunal.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid has called on Wiranto, who is the security minister in his government, to resign. Wiranto has resisted this call and attended a cabinet meeting on February 2 without being confronted.

Muhammad Ma'ruf, the editor of Pembebasan, the newspaper of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) in Indonesia, talked to Green Left Weekly immediately after the Indonesian report was released about what action is needed to bring the war criminals to justice.

The most significant thing about the Indonesian human rights commission's report, Ma'ruf said, is that it shows "the human rights violations in East Timor were planned, prepared, organised and systematically done by military officials, commanders in local areas and the civil bureaucracy, the governor [of East Timor] Abilio Soares, the heads of regencies [the districts] and the leaders of the military, Wiranto and other top officials. This evidence proves it was state policy."

State policy

The names of those to be brought to trial have been divided by the commission into three groups according to their responsibility, Ma'ruf said. But, he argued, the inquiry's finding is contradictory in that Wiranto and others responsible for national defence policy are said to be culpable only because they failed to halt the killings.

This excludes them from direct or supervisory responsibility.

"Wiranto was the chief commander of the army which planned and organised the systematic violation of human rights, which was part of the government's political policy. It would be wrong for Wiranto to be brought to trial simply for not being able to handle the situation."

Ma'ruf said that bringing the perpetrators to trial "will cause more conflict within the regime". The pressure will be on Wahid to force Wiranto to resign, and then to try him, because Wahid needs to show the people, and overseas governments, that the Indonesian government is clean.

"Wahid is being pressed by the international community -- Amnesty International, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the central imperialist countries like the US and Australia, which want Indonesia more stable for investments -- to bring them to trial."

Ma'ruf also noted, however, that Wahid has rejected the proposal for an international court and supported the generals being tried in Indonesia. "Wahid's government is a compromise, which has made some concessions to the military, Golkar [the former ruling party] and other forces, like those related to Suharto. He is defending this coalition government."

Wahid has to show the world his seriousness, Ma'ruf said. But "these are human rights crimes, not just common crimes. These must be brought to international trials.

"The commission said the human rights violations were systematically organised, but rejects that this was genocide. This is contradictory."

24 years not investigated

Ma'ruf criticised the commission for failing to connect the events of 1999 to the violence of the 25 years of occupation. "The report is not comprehensive; the human rights violations that happened during and after the referendum are part of the policy of all [Indonesian] governments over the 25 years of occupation. Suharto and Habibie, who continued in the most part Suharto's policy, should be investigated, as well as some generals, like Benny Murdani, the first chief commander, who organised the annexation of East Timor, and the other chief commanders before Wiranto."

What the Indonesian army did in East Timor in 1999, Ma'ruf said, "isn't separate from the annexation policy since 1975. In 1975, more people were killed than after the 1999 referendum -- more than 250,000 died, one-third of the East Timorese people. There has to be justice. This needs to be investigated."

Ma'ruf, though, welcomed the commission's report. "The commission is a positive thing. It opens the way to investigation of all of the human rights violations in East Timor.

"Now, investigations must be broadened, not only with regard to East Timor, but also other parts of Indonesia, such as West Papua and the 1965 massacre [when Sukarno was deposed in a military coup]. A group of people have formed an independent commission to do this, the Foundation for Investigation of the Victims of the 1965 Killings."

Popular response

Ma'ruf said the dual function -- political and military -- of the TNI, which constrains the development of democratic political life in Indonesia, will be increasingly questioned, even though neither Wahid nor the human rights commission have connected the human rights violations to this dual function. "The democratic movement in Indonesia will be more confident and more determined to demand an end to the dual function. We have more proof to show to the people.

"Some people, and the government, when there are human rights violations, say these are individual actions, not policy. The human rights violations, according to the commission, were done systematically by the military and the bureaucracy. That is part of the dual function of the military, not individual actions", Ma'ruf argued. Ma'ruf was concerned that Indonesia's attorney- general, responsible for investigating and arresting those named, has not arrested them. "If they are not arrested, they can go abroad or hide evidence. It is important to press the Indonesian government to capture Wiranto and bring him to trial, not only before a national court, but before an international court. Without pressure, the Wahid government may shut down the investigation.

"The PRD has started to campaign for arrests and for the generals and human rights violators to be brought before an international court. We will do this in alliance with other groups, like the Commission against Violence and Kidnapping. We will propose they join actions and campaign to bring these killers to international courts."

Armed wing of the struggle must now win the peace

Sydney Morning Herald - February 9, 2000

Tom Fawthrop, Aileu -- In the mountains south of Dili, UN military observers have noticed new, younger faces arriving in the Aileu cantonment of the East Timorese national liberation army, Falintil. After 24 years of fighting the Indonesian army, East Timor is now free. The independence struggle is over.

The old generation of war-weary fighters, who have fought in the mountains ever since 1975, have returned to their families. But Commander Lere, the deputy chief of staff, makes it plain Falintil will not be disbanded. "Our aim is to continue to serve the people," he said. "Older people are giving way to younger people. We are restructuring our forces. Yes, we are recruiting young people. Older people are leaving but many young people want to join Falintil."

As Falintil seeks to redefine its mission -- seeking greater participation in the defence of the territory in co-ordination with UN peacekeepers, and building a new army -- some UN officials are concerned the transformation may conflict with the UN's mandate, which includes the recruitment and training of a professional army after the "demobilisation of all irregular forces".

Brigadier-General Rezaquil Haider, the UN chief of military observers in East Timor, said it was too early to take decisions about a future army. "The Falintil army is very different from a conventional army. These kind of changes cannot be achieved overnight."

The New Zealand Defence Minister, Mr Mark Burton, who recently visited East Timor, held talks with the Falintil chief of staff, Commander Taur Matan Ruak, in Aileu and was impressed by the commander's commitment to nation-building.

Falintil sees this month's handover by Interfet of all peace- keeping operations to the UN as a chance to press its claims for an active role in national security and policing.

"I am concerned about infiltration from the [Indonesian-backed] militias, and it is better if Falintil is working with UN peacekeepers to prevent this," Commander Lere said. "Falintil is very capable to do this work. We know the people, the population. We can support UNTAET in providing security. We will propose that we have a policing role and we must also be allowed to carry our arms, as we did during the last 24 years."

A senior UN military observer said a bigger role for Falintil could be negotiated. Under the present Interfet mandate, Falintil cannot carry arms outside their cantonment zone so some defacto regular status would be required.

Until now, Falintil has accepted a largely passive role, although some guerilla units have provided Interfet with intelligence on militia activities along the border with West Timor.

Whether East Timor will have an army or just a small presidential guard is an open question. At one time, the independence leader, Mr Xanana Gusmao, advocated no standing army at all, but militia threats along the border and the vulnerability of the Oecussi enclave have convinced him "we have to assure our people we are ready if necessary to defend our country".

A UN military expert from New Zealand said he did not oppose Falintil's recruitment drive. "If they are taking young unemployed people off the street and giving them some discipline and training, that is something positive," he said.

Indonesian army 'supervised' Timor killing frenzy

Sydney Morning Herald - February 8, 2000

Mark Dodd, Dili -- Victims in what could have been East Timor's worst massacre last year were registered by Indonesian officials before being hacked to death, according to UN officials.

The killings, in the Oecussi enclave which is almost surrounded by Indonesian territory, were supervised by Indonesian troops and police, officials said. The remains of up to 45 people killed in Oecussi on 8 September were exhumed at the weekend and taken to a morgue in Dili where they were blessed by a Catholic priest.

UN officials said those selected for execution were first registered by Indonesian officials before being marched, hands bound, a short distance to where they were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a militia death squad.

The head of the UN human rights office in Dili, Ms Sidney Jones, said 36 bodies had been exhumed, along with nine sets of incomplete remains, from shallow graves on a sandy river bank marking the border with Indonesian West Timor. At least two other bodies were unable to be recovered because they lay in quicksand, while another eight are buried on the Indonesian side of the border.

Those killed were first forced into West Timor, were officials took their names. "There was some form of registration process. They were taken into a government building and forced to register their names," Ms Jones said.

Evidence indicated the victims were mostly men taken on 8 September from villages near Passabe identified by Indonesian authorities as pro-independence strongholds.

According to accounts from the pro-independence CNRT group, between 52 and 56 men were marched across the border into West Timor for registration. Their hands were then bound with palm twine and they were marched a short distance back into East Timor where they were killed, Ms Jones said.

"It is the worst massacre of the post-referendum violence that we know of. We don't know exactly how many died at Liquica and Suai [other alleged massacre sites]. This one, we know exactly," she said. Ms Jones said there were survivors of the massacre but she refused to say how many. A number of victims were "very young" and the identity of the perpetrators was also known, she said.

UN officials said the executions were supervised by Indonesian soldiers and police. According to UN and East Timorese human rights officials, some 1000 men, women and children were murdered after the 30 August ballot on self-determination.

The remains of the Oecussi victims were blessed at Dili morgue in a ceremony designed to reassure the Timorese working there. "It's always difficult when you are dealing with death and we'll be dealing with death in large numbers," said Ms Jones.

"Show compassion for the East Timorese in this time of sorrow. We ask this, Oh Christ our Lord," said Father Edmundo Barreta, before he entered the darkened freezer holding the bodies. He sprinkled holy water on the bodies, each individually wrapped in blue plastic sheeting.

The commander of InterFET forces, Major-General Peter Cosgrove, said an arrest warrant had been issued against pro-Jakarta militia leader Laurantinio "Moko" Soares for the Oecussi killings. He said Indonesian officers yesterday assured InterFET they were eager to produce "Moko" Soares for a joint investigation.

General Cosgrove announced he would formally hand over military authority to UN peacekeepers on 23 February before leaving for Darwin.

Conclusive proof TNI planned reign of terror

The Independent - February 7, 2000

Richard Lloyd Parry -- On the day that the crucial find was made, early in October last year, it was already much too late for East Timor. Its towns and cities, including the capital, Dili, were in ruins. The local militias who had carried out most of the dirty work had fled the country.

But the organisation that armed and supported them, the Indonesian armed forces (TNI), was still present -- a few hundred soldiers, preparing for their final withdrawal and burning their headquarters behind them.

It was in this sinister atmosphere that a small team of human- rights workers sneaked into a one-storey building off Dili's main port road. Until a few weeks before, it had been the offices of the adjutant general of the regional commander and inside was a chaotic scene -- room after room stripped of furniture and fittings, and littered with hundreds of thousands of papers, the detritus of 24 years of Indonesian rule.

"There were kids playing on them, and shouting, 'The Indos have gone! The Indos have gone!'," said one of the workers, from the East Timorese Hak (Human Rights) Foundation. It was weeks before they realised the importance of what they had found -- a treasury of information on the campaign of genocide and deportation which followed East Timor's vote for independence.

The documents, obtained by The Independent in Dili, and analysed in Jakarta by Indonesian investigators and Western diplomatic sources, provide evidence of what has long been suspected, but never proved -- that, for months before the referendum on East Timor's independence in August, it was being systematically undermined by Indonesia's top generals.

They first tried to pervert it, by using military resources to buy off Timorese voters. And they gave guns to the opponents of independence -- the local militias, and the pro-Indonesia appointees in the local government. But, from the start they were anticipating their defeat at the polls, and hatching an alternative plan -- the forcible deportation of hundreds of thousands of East Timorese, with the use of what a senior Indonesian general referred to as "repressive/coercive" measures.

When the result of the referendum -- a 78.5 percent vote for independence -- was announced in early September, the plan went into effect. Within two weeks, unknown numbers of Timorese had been killed, more than one-quarter of them had been herded into Indonesia, and virtually every town had been laid waste.

The documents implicate officers at every level, from the head of the Dili traffic police, who worked out the minute details of the deportation plan, to General Subagyo Hadi Siswoyo, the army chief of staff. "It's the missing link," said one Western diplomat, after The Independent showed him the documents. "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 most important document dates from the very day that the referendum was born. On 5 May 1999, the foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal, the territory's former colonial ruler, reached a formal agreement at the United Nations in New York.

The planned referendum asked the East Timorese to accept or reject so-called "special autonomy" proposed by Jakarta, which allowed for limited self-government under continued Indonesian rule. The UN's responsibilities would be strictly limited to the conduct of the poll -- all security would be the responsibility of the Indonesian security forces.

Hours before the signing of the agreement in New York, the army in Jakarta was already plotting its undoing. The Independent has obtained a telegram, sent on 5 May by General Subagyo, and signed on his behalf by his deputy, Major-General Johny Lumintang. The letter is addressed to Colonel Tono Suratman, the military commander in Dili, and copied to senior military figures. Its contents are damning.

The crucial order reads: "Prepare a security plan to prevent civil war that includes preventive action (create conditions), policing measures, repressive/coercive measures and a plan to move to the rear/evacuate if the second option [independence] is chosen."

The striking part of the order is the preparation for "evacuation" -- and the frank instruction to use repression. "That is very strong language," said one Western diplomat. "Even in their most honest, secret discussions, generals don't often own up to that kind of thinking."

The meaning of the phrase "preventive action (create conditions)" is suggested by another cable found in the adjutant general's office, dated 6 July. It is a request from a Bali-based brigadier-general, Mahidin Simbolon, for a naval vessel, the Jenis Frost, to be dispatched to East Timor and is addressed to the TNI chief, General Wiranto. The cargo was not to be munitions, but rice; its purpose political. "During the referendum process," General Simbolon said, "there are 35 NGOs [non-governmental organisations] ... who give food assistance to the people. This can affect the result of the referendum which is why the local government has to provide food assistance to the people as soon as possible."

The New York agreement banned any use of government resources to influence the referendum. But rice was the most harmless of the TNI's contributions to the anti-independence campaign. In the military headquarters in the town of Vikeke, the researchers from the Hak Foundation found a log book detailing the weapons distributed to the local Wanra militia and pro-Jakarta leaders.

The first page alone lists scores of guns given to the militia. "What surprises me is the sheer quantity," said the Western diplomat. "We knew that the militia were getting military weapons, but we never knew it was this many.

The Indonesian attitude to the referendum, as a war to be won or lost, is illustrated in a document dated July 1999, and drafted by an officer of the Dili-based Wira Dharma command, Lieutenant- Colonel Soedjarwo.

The 13 pages outline "Operational Plan Wira Dharma '99", nothing less than a battle plan. One section describes the "Enemy Forces" -- not only the guerrillas of the resistance movement, Falintil, but civilians, including unarmed student groups and political organisations.

By mid-summer, it was clear that hopes of winning the referendum were waning, and the generals were doing everything in their power to buy and coerce the population.

In August, the Dili police department produced a volume called Operation Remember Lorosae II, after the local word for Timor. This includes a meticulous plan to evacuate hundreds of thousands of Timorese after the referendum. It contains charts breaking down the population into regions and into two groups -- for and against Indonesian rule. In keeping with the TNI's deluded assumptions, it estimates that supporters of autonomy outnumber those for independence by 517,430 to 367,591. Starting with these numbers it presents two plans, based on the outcome of the vote.

In each, it proposes an evacuation of 50 percent of those who supported the losing side. Within a month, the plan was put into precise action. The table estimates the number of vehicles needed to transport the "evacuees" from each region. In the case of a win for independence, the number earmarked for "evacuation" is 258,710 people -- almost exactly the 250,000 estimated to have been forcibly displaced after the vote.

Government/politics

Interview with General Wiranto

Straits Times - February 9, 2000

General Wiranto wanted to explain to the people of Singapore what the real situation was in Indonesia, he told The Straits Times' Indonesia Correspondent Susan Sim.

"Help me to give information to Singaporeans. I want to secure the situation, to show that it's still cool in Indonesia," the general, who is Coordinating Minister for Security and Political Affairs, said when he agreed to an exclusive interview one week after being charged with responsibility for crimes against humanity by the Investigative Commission on Violence in East Timor (KPP-HAM).

As usual, he looked composed, but was at times pained at being branded a "barbarian" in American and European media broadcasts. They made him "very sad", he said.

Eager to prove that he was a peacemaker, not an abuser in the traumatised former Indonesian province, he showed her, during the interview at his official residence in Jakarta on Monday night, a specially-prepared video CD, dubbed in English, of a speech he gave to the pro-Indonesia and pro-independence factions after bringing them together in a peace pact.

Securing the consent of independence leader Xanana Gusmao, then in jail in Jakarta, took much patience. He had to wait till 2.30am on the eve of the signing ceremony in Dili for a fax from Jakarta so he could show the Fretilin their leader's signature, he recalled. "Trust me, I have always tried to create peace in all of Indonesia," he said.

But other than making clear he was not resigning because he was innocent of the charges now levied against him, he did not want to be drawn into revealing what he planned to do when President Abdurrahman Wahid returned from his European and Asian trip on Sunday.

"I don't want to talk about the case now. Wait for the President to come back to Jakarta and I'll discuss the current situation with him. Ask me next week."

Nor was he inclined to talk about his relations with President Abdurrahman and the latter's accusations that he and his supporters were fomenting unrest in the country.

Exasperated at having to affirm constantly his loyalty to the Constitution and the President, he said his track record should make it clear that he was not interested in seizing power by force. All that constant rumour-mongering -- he would never get any work done if he had to answer and clarify every piece of speculative gossip, he said. The full transcript of the interview follows:

Q: You are now widely blamed for the destruction of East Timor. How do you feel?

A: The National Human Rights Commission blamed me for everything that happened in East Timor. They accused me and several other generals of being involved in genocide in East Timor. Per definition, genocide means a deliberate and systematic action to eradicate certain ethnic or racial group.

It's a standard word used by Jewish people around the world against Hilter. Yes, Hilter murdered Jewish people in Europe systematically through gas chambers and concentration camps. We did not have that kind of policy or activity in East Timor. Therefore, the accusation is baseless.

I never ordered my soldiers to kill our countrymen in East Timor. Remember that during that transition period, East Timor was still under Indonesian authority. It means that the East Timor people were also Indonesians.

Can you image that a person in charge of the Armed Forces would give an order to his troops to kill his own countrymen systematically? It never crossed my mind. Of course, I am very disappointed when the KPP-HAM accused me of doing such things.

Q: What were the contingency plans, your orders? Were they obeyed by troops on the ground?

A: Prior to the referendum, there was fierce fighting between various factions in East Timor, especially between the pro- independence group and the pro-integration factions. I had put all efforts to effect reconciliation between those groups and eventually they agreed to sign a peace accord in Dili before Bishop Belo and Bishop Nascimento, the spiritual leaders of East Timor, in April 1999.

The referendum itself was conducted in a fair manner. Only the pro-independence group was involved in the preparation of the referendum while the pro-integration faction was left out. When the pro-integration protested to the Unamet, they did not get a fair response. Then all of a sudden, the Unamet decided to announce the results much earlier than the expected schedule.

That generated angry reactions from the pro-integration group. They were in despair. Unfortunately nobody takes into consideration that kind of atmosphere during the transition period.

Contingency plans? No, we did not have any contingency plans. But we did have certain plans concerning the necessary action that must be taken on security matters. The principal objective of our plans was to protect all Unamet personnel and foreigners in that area if something wrong occurred. That was our main priority.

Secondly, we had to prevent bloodshed between varying factions in East Timor. Thirdly, the preparation of the necessary means and instruments for those who left their home because of chaos, and finally, to protect all refugees in the areas that had been prepared.

We did not have any plan concerning the killings and destruction of East Timor. I gave orders to all my troops to comply with rules and regulations concerning the referendum and to respect people. I ordered them to support fully the process of referendum and to make it successful.

All these documents are available at my office. I have nothing to hide and I have already explained to the KPP-HAM, but they did not want to listen. I firmly believe that their actions are highly politically motivated against the TNI and myself.

Q: Whose idea was it to create the militias? Why?

A: You should keep in mind that the so-called militia already existed before I was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

The militia was established long before, within the context of our doctrine in which the community can be mobilised and will mobilise itself when they have to defend the country. This is what we call the doctrine of Hankamrata.

The militia exists not only in East Timor but throughout the country. In fact, I offered the pro-independence group that they be involved, but they turned me down. In Java, we call this kamra. The militia has been established since the late 70s to protect remote villages against insurgencies. So, there is nothing new here.

Q: Did you think it was impossible for the East Timorese to want independence from Indonesia?

A: It is our position to respect all kinds of aspirations among the people of East Timor. There, the referendum was conducted and we do respect its results.

Q: You appeared shocked when you visited Dili with the UN ambassadors on September 11. What was going through your mind when you saw the devastation? Was that when you realised that your troops could not handle the militias on their own and that you had to allow the UN forces to come in?

A: I was very disappointed and felt awful when I saw what had happened after the announcement of the result of the referendum. The devastation was the result of the fighting between groups, not a unilateral action conducted by the pro-integration group. You must be aware that both groups had their own weapons and their own troops.

The TNI ordered them to give the weapons to the authorities but they did not want to. I ordered the TNI to take necessary actions. That's why we declared martial law in East Timor.

The burning was also a spontaneous action conducted by some people because their houses had been marked by certain groups to be taken over when the people from Java and other parts of the country left East Timor.

The decision to allow UN forces in could not be made by the Panglima TNI (Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian Defence Force) alone. It must be made by the President and the President must consult with the legislature. Therefore, it was not my own decision.

I want to make it clear that we did not reject the multi-national forces in East Timor, but the atmosphere was not conducive to let them come in because there was a very anti-foreigners feeling among the pro-integration people. They had already made a firm decision to kill all foreigners in their homeland.

Therefore, I preferred to wait until the situation calmed down before letting the multi-national forces in. That was our position at that time.

Q: How did you feel when Interfet troops landed in East Timor? Was there regret, a sense of shame for the TNI?

A: The East Timor people had already made their decision and we must respect it fully. The TNI must respect and obey political decisions made by the government. This is not a matter of winner and loser for the TNI, but to comply with rules and regulations.

Since it was the transition period in which the Indonesian government no longer had the authority in that area, and therefore the Interfet took over. The TNI had done everything as required by the country.

I have done my duty for my country and I have performed to the best I could, and I am very proud of it. I have to make it clear that the Indonesian society and the TNI fully respect the aspirations of East Timor people as I mentioned earlier.

Q: Observers, however, find it hard to believe that the TNI could not control a ragtag group of East Timorese, that therefore they were merely proxies for the TNI. What is your response to that?

A: I think that's an ex-post facto analysis, and I do believe that observers only got one-sided information which was not necessarily true.

Do you believe that only the pro-integration group did the killings and burnings? Do you believe that only the pro- integration group has the weapons? How about those who joined the Fretilin?

A: Nobody took any close look at the activities of the pro- independence group and I think that's very unfair. Observers only believe the information they want to have and they got it from the pro-independence group. They did not want to listen to the pro-integration group and the TNI. And if that is the case, what else can I do?

Q: You were Pangab, Commander-in-Chief of the TNI. Shouldn't the buck stop at the top? Shouldn't you take responsibility regardless of whether East Timor's destruction happened because your soldiers were carrying out the orders of renegade officers or they and others disobeyed your direct orders?

A: As Pangab, I have fulfilled my duty to my country and I have done my job to the best of my ability. I was able to command those rival groups who were fighting each other to sign a peace accord before the two bishops in Dili.

I ordered my troops to support fully the implementation of the referendum and respect its result. Then we declared martial law. Can you imagine how many people would be killed if martial law had not been declared?

I would like to categorically deny that there is such a thing as renegade officers within the TNI. All officers have conducted their duty as expected. They have done their job to the best of their ability. They have performed their duty in accordance with the standard procedure of the TNI.

In a situation within which there was a war between factions in East Timor, do you expect the TNI to take sides? Of course not.

Shouldn't the buck stop at the top? Do you believe that if a civil servant in a certain province commits a crime, the governor must be legally responsible for that kind of crime? Certainly not.

Do you believe that if one state attorney commits crimes or takes bribes, the Attorney-General must also be legally responsible for the unlawful behaviour of his personnel?

The TNI has its standard procedure of responsibility. If a soldier commits unlawful activity, the commander up to the second tier must also be responsible, such as the platoon and company commander.

When one of the US officers in Vietnam during the Vietnam War killed a number of innocent villagers -- the My Lai incident -- I don't think the Commander-in-Chief of US troops in Vietnam, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were asked to be legally responsible. I will fully support putting a soldier on trial if there is evidence he has committed crimes in East Timor.

Q: Even your own defence counsel, former Justice Minister Muladi, has suggested that it might be better for you to resign from the Cabinet. Will you do so, or consider doing so?

A: Mr Muladi told me that he was misquoted by the press and he has already clarified it. Am I considering resigning from the Cabinet? In this country, if a person resigns from office, it can be interpreted as an admission of guilt, and admission of wrongdoing. I have performed my duty for my country to the best of my ability. I have never committed any kind of unlawful activity, and I am proud of my record.

Q: The last time I interviewed you (in October 1999), you were confident that you would not be indicted by any international tribunal for crimes against humanity. Are you still as confident?

A: Of course I am still confident. I did not commit any kind of crime. I never gave orders to the soldiers to kill people. In fact I asked them to fully support the conduct of the referendum. I never gave orders to my soldiers to burn houses and public facilities in East Timor. There is not a single evidence against me.

In fact if the independent commission (KPP-HAM) had a clear mind, they would not have come to that kind of conclusion. The problem is that they have a predisposition against the TNI. This is not only against me but also against the TNI as an institution.

Those members of the KPP-HAM had been known from the very beginning to be very anti-TNI. What did I do in East Timor? I have done the best I could for the implementation of the referendum in that area, and we fully support the results. Therefore, I firmly believe that they cannot find a single evidence against me concerning unlawful activity. That's it.

Q: Let's talk about coups. There were suspicions that you were prepared to move against Dr Habibie because of disagreements over the East Timor policy. His aides even said at that time that you wanted him to give you a "Supersemar" (mandate to assume full control). Is any of this true?

A: This country is full of rumours and we are preoccupied by it because we have to deal with those rumours. Those rumours were baseless. Those who think about coups do not understand the TNI, they just have wishful thinking.

I believe that they just want to discredit the TNI. The TNI is very loyal to the country and the President. He is the supreme commander of the TNI, and therefore the TNI must be loyal to its supreme commander. If there is any disagreement between the President and the TNI, we have our method of solving the disagreement, not through coups.

Q: You've said you could have seized control of the government at least twice in the last two years. What were these two occasions and why didn't you?

A: The first occasion was during the critical period from May 18-20, 1999. The country was really in chaos. The second time was during the Sidang Istimewa (special session) of the MPR from Nov 10-13, 1998. Again, the country was in a very delicate situation. Jakarta was in the darkest time because people went crazy.

General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (then chief of social-political affairs in the TNI, now the Mines Minister) asked whether the TNI has any plan to take over the country or seize power through a coup.

That was the first occasion. I firmly said no way. We, the TNI, must support the transfer of power through constitutional ways. The Constitution stipulates that if the President is not able to perform his duties permanently or if the President is incapacitated, then the Vice-President will take over the leadership of the country. The TNI firmly held this kind of position and therefore after Dr Habibie took the oath of office of the President, the TNI fully supported his leadership. No, it never crossed my mind to seize power.

During the Sidang Istimewa of the MPR in November 1998, the situation was very critical because the angry mob was very close to the MPR building at Senayan. The TNI firmly took its position to maintain law and order so that the Sidang Istimewa could be conducted peacefully.

Again, it never crossed my mind, the idea of conducting a coup. Those who think the TNI will seize power will be very disappointed because they are completely wrong.

Q: Do you have any regrets not accepting the Supersemar former President Suharto offered you?

A: No, not at all. The TNI has very strong commitment towards democracy and democratisation of this country. The TNI did not want to create a precedent of transferring power through an unconstitutional mechanism. The TNI can be a front-runner when it comes to democracy. That's our commitment.

Q: What about now? Why do you think there is constant speculation about coup attempts and even warnings from the United States?

A: As I mentioned earlier, the speculation about coup attempts is baseless and made by those who do not comprehend at all the TNI. I suspect their motivation is to discredit the TNI by creating that kind of speculation. Even though I'm no longer within the leadership of the TNI, I do believe that the TNI does not have its own political agenda except to be fully committed to the reform movement in order to be able to establish a clean, good and responsible government.

When I was Pangab, the TNI took initiative in creating what we called internal reforms, and the repositioning of our dual function doctrine. I do believe that Admiral Widodo (current Pangab) still has that kind of commitment for the sake of establishing a democratic political system.

Q: You have been instrumental in ensuring stability in the transition from one president to another, from Suharto to Habibie, and now to the current government. Yet you're in this position now, accused of all sorts of things. What message do you think it sends to the TNI officers?

A: It should be evident to people that the TNI takes my stand in terms of Indonesian reforms and the internal reform of the TNI. I did not do anything to make any problems for my nation. The evidence is there that the TNI respects and secures the Constitution.

There are three instances that make my position evident. The first was when Suharto stepped down and Habibie was appointed President. I escorted him and secured the process without bloodshed. I had a letter of authority from Suharto to do anything to save my nation. I could have given my recommendation to the President to impose martial law at that time. But I didn't.

And during the Sidang Istimewa of the MPR in November 1998, when thousands wanted to take over the DPR, it was very easy to let them into the building. They announce a coup and I counter-coup. But I didn't do it. Instead, on my orders, the police and military prevented a takeover of the building. I got heavily criticised for doing this because there were victims not only among the people but among my police too.

Third piece of evidence -- I resigned from the vice-presidential election last year. The situation was not good because many people in the streets were ready to riot. I didn't want the presidential or vice-presidential election to be filled with bloodshed. So I chose to resign from the race. I would like to give my people the conviction that the TNI would like to be consistent in upholding the Constitution.

Q: How does it feel to retire from the military after 33 years of being a TNI officer?

A: Retirement is a fact of life and I am ready to cope with it. I believe that every officer would be prepared for it. But I really regret that everything has been politicised, including my retirement. There was speculation whether the Chief of Staff of the army will propose to the President my retirement, whether the President will sign a letter for my retirement. I think the atmosphere is not good when the country is always preoccupied with the issue whether I am going to retire or not.

I have served my country for more than 30 years. I have engaged in various kinds of military operations, and I do believe that I have performed my duties for the country wholeheartedly. I am very proud of it and no one will take it away from me. And most of all, I was involved in helping the country deal with crises and prepared our motherland to enter the era of democratisation.

Of course, I would like to retire in a normal situation, but it is also a fact that I must retire in a situation in which I have to answer a number of questions concerning East Timor which I believe are highly politically motivated.

Q: What are your future plans?

A: My future plans? Right now I do not have any future plans, to tell you the truth. It is too early to contemplate my future political activity. I do have a number of obligations especially in social affairs. I am still a chairman of the Indonesian Bridge Association and other sports organisations. I think I will continue my role in social organisations. General Douglas MacArthur once said eloquently that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away". All soldiers will keep this in mind.

Wahid tempted to give into interventionist tradition

Australian Financial Review - February 9, 2000

Tim Dodd -- The management of one of Indonesia's largest and most promising companies was ousted yesterday at an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders in Jakarta.

Rini Soewandi, the young and dynamic chief executive of the country's largest car maker, Astra International, is looking for another job today even though she engineered the company's recovery from the 1997-99 economic crisis, during which Indonesian vehicle sales fell from more than 400,000 to about 50,000 a year.

As a business achiever, Soewandi is right up there. But yesterday's coup at Astra had little to do with her management skills. She fell victim to the power struggle between the President, Abdurrahman Wahid, and the man who is emerging as his chief opponent, Muslim leader Amien Rais.

The new divide in Indonesian politics appears strange at first. Wasn't Rais the president's main ally in the election last October? Yes, he was. The two did a deal which ambushed Megawati Soekarnoputri and installed Rais as Chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly and elevated Wahid, the outsider, to the presidency.

Superficially, the two have common ground. Both are former Muslim leaders, and each headed one of Indonesia's two largest Muslim organisations. Wahid was the chief of the Nahdlatul Ulama, a 30 million-strong body with a power base in rural Java, where Islam mingles with traditional Hindu and mystic beliefs in a mix unique to Indonesia. Rais headed Muhammadiyah, a smaller group whose predominantly urban and more middle-class following is much stricter in its Islamic belief.

But the groups, while both Muslim, are as unlike as Catholics and Protestants and, like the Pope and Billy Graham, they don't get on. Wahid and Rais also have a personal history of antagonism and, not surprisingly, their political marriage of convenience has not lasted. Both have reverted to their political roots.

Wahid is backed by his National Awakening Party, which is rooted in the Nahdlatul Ulama organisation, as well as the nation's largest political group, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle headed by Vice-President Megawati. His group has a secular outlook with strong links to the Christian and Chinese communities.

Rais is backed by a wide coalition of so-called modernist Muslim parties, whose followers are generally richer, better educated and more literal followers of the Koran than the traditional Muslims of Wahid's Nahdlatul Ulama. This so-called "Central Axis" draws support from Muslims concerned about Chinese domination of the economy. It is also a focus of discontent for those concerned about Indonesian assets being sold to foreigners at fire sale prices to pay for the country's bank bailout.

A key financial and political backer of the Central Axis is Fuad Bawazier, finance minister in Soeharto's last cabinet, who still has close links to the Soeharto family. Bawazier played a key role in bringing Rais and Wahid together back in July and in building support for Wahid's presidential bid.

But the Central Axis did not win many of the plumb positions in the new government. The Finance Minister, Bambang Sudibyo, is a Central Axis man, but this is the only key job held by the group. Bawazier himself missed out on a place on Wahid's National Economics Council.

Within Astra, this wider political struggle is being fought on a smaller scale. Astra's Soewandi-led management is closely linked to the Central Axis, and Soewandi herself is friend of Bawazier's.

Waiting in the wings are the Soeryadjayas, the Chinese family which founded Astra but lost it in 1992 when its banking group crashed. The meeting which sacked Soewandi yesterday replaced her with a Soeryadjaya cousin, Theodore Rachmat, a former Astra chief executive.

The Soeryadjayas, who have close links to Wahid, would like to regain control of Astra. A 45 percent stake in the company worth about $800 million will soon be put on the market by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) the body which has picked up the assets of the failed banks and has to sell them to help fund Indonesia's $130 billion bank bailout.

The Soeryadjaya's are tied to one of the consortia seeking to buy the 45 percent stake. Edwin Soeryadjaya, son of Astra founder William Soeryadjaya, is advising US firms Gilbert Global Equity and Newbridge Capital in their bid. Until recently IBRA, under a Wahid-appointee, Cacuk Sudarijanto, was giving the Gilbert- Newbridge bid a clear run. But it had to let other bidders into the auction after a strong campaign led by Soewandi who refused to let Gilbert-Newbridge advisers see Astra's books.

Astra is just one skirmish in the battle developing between Wahid and the Central Axis. But it is important because of the way it has been played by the Wahid administration. Will political interference in IBRA's sales program, which could be worth $20 billion, become the norm?

Wahid must be tempted by this opportunity to consolidate his support by ensuring that Indonesia's key businesses are controlled by his friends. Time will tell whether or not he succumbs.

Unlike the Soeharto years, there is an effective opposition led by Rais. And once a year during Wahid's five-year term the People's Consultative Assembly which elected him will review his performance. It can even sack him. The assembly, chaired by Rais, meets in August. Expect a fascinating sitting.

Washington on Wahid

Asiaweek -- February 11, 2000

In his test of wills with the Indonesian military, President Abdurrahman Wahid has received much foreign support, particularly from Washington. On January 31 at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, he met with Stanley Roth, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific. Roth then spoke with Asiaweek Editor Ann M. Morrison and Senior Correspondent Alejandro Reyes. Excerpts of the interview:

What can you say about the report on the violence in East Timor last August, which has just been released in Jakarta?

[Wahid] has said consistently that anyone indicted would be asked to leave the cabinet -- would be fired, in other words. What happened today [in Jakarta] is not an indictment. It's a report concluding that 40 individuals, including Gen. Wiranto and five other generals, should be brought before the attorney- general for further investigation.

There is the theoretical option that the attorney-general decides there is not enough evidence to prosecute ... [If offenders are pardoned,] will that be viewed as pulling punches?

The point we have made consistently is that the Indonesians should see the process all the way through.

How well is Wahid handling ethnic strife?

Sectarian violence obviously is a huge humanitarian tragedy. It also has implications for economic recovery. It undermines the government by projecting the image that they are not in charge, not only undermining them internationally but encouraging people within to think maybe they can take over.

Now, the Malukus aren't going anywhere. It's not like there's a free Malukus movement. And in places like Lombok and Bintan Island one has to believe this was not spontaneous violence but instigated. There is probably a lot of serious tension in Indonesia based not just on economic hardship, but on transmigration policies of the past 30 years, plus traditional ethnic rivalries. It doesn't take much provocation to set it off. I don't think one should assume that that is going to lead to the dissolution of the state. The challenge, though, is to respond quickly and effectively to get these areas under control.

Are fears that ethnic strife may spill over to the neighbors exaggerated?

Hugely. First of all, you have a president who's got an entire lifetime record devoted to tolerance. Megawati as well. Second, over the last two years, it has been possible to insulate many problems of Indonesia from the rest of the region. You've seen remarkable recovery in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia.

How can other nations support Wahid?

There's a vast array of things [starting] from trying to help them revive the economy. From us, that's less in terms of huge bilateral assistance, [but more in] technical assistance, institution building; also working with the World Bank, the IMF, the ADB to make sure they do get the aid. They're in a good moment because the IMF is going to resume disbursements.

Second, this is a country where there are very few institutions. It was Suharto Inc. for 30-plus years, so you have no tradition of democratic governance. The press went from completely repressed to yellow journalism where anything can be printed. They have weak civil society. The court system is a mess.

The police need to be separated from the military and professionalized. The military is in need of reform. Almost without exception whatever institution you look at needs to be strengthened. That's one challenge for the outside world to try to systematically help them with.

What about Aceh?

The government has created the sense that negotiation is possible. Two or three months ago, the common wisdom was that Aceh was going to blow. By January, it hadn't happened. Instead, what we see is a remarkable phenomenon of the Acehnese attempting to organize themselves with what is called the All-Aceh Congress to see if they can get enough of a unified position to negotiate with the government. That's a hopeful moment. It could fall apart. They could get into negotiations and not succeed. And there is a very high level of violence in Aceh; a lot of victims have been civilians. But overall there seems to be a real effort to see if a negotiated outcome is possible.

Have Wahid's trips helped by eroding foreign support for Aceh's independence?

That's a piece of it, but it's also that he and his minister of state for human rights have really talked to the Acehnese and reached out and created a sense amongst most Acehnese that a deal is possible. So it's both: you marginalize or eliminate external support and you work on the internal side. That's something we are keeping our eye on. Can they get through this window of opportunity before it closes?

Are we looking at a federal system?

If you eliminate the word itself, which is deeply neuralgic in Indonesia, there seems to be a growing consensus that there has to be a change in the relationship of power between the center and the other islands. There has always been this dilemma that Java is population-heavy and resource-poor and the other islands are the reverse, so you have resources flowing to the center.

The country can't exist if you completely reverse that. At the same time, there are all kinds of possibilities for redistribution, local government. The sense is this will happen. I've heard [Wahid] say many times that it won't be federalism, but it will be federalism.

How is he holding up?

He's enjoying the job. He's much less frail. He's not an old man; he's 59. He really seems to thrive on the challenge and joy of the job.

He's had two strokes.

But this is no doddering old man. This is a fully compos mentis individual.

But how effective a leader is Wahid? Some have noted his flip- flops.

I haven't detected any trace of ignorance. I've never asked about something and he didn't know what I was talking about. Put it this way: I have much more confidence in his grasp of information than in Ronald Reagan's when he was president. Don't judge the guy in 100 days. There is a huge transition from an opposition figure and head of a religious organization to president of a country, particularly a country that has to have a democratic transition.

In other democracies you have cabinet shakedowns after periods of time, presidents reversing their positions from their campaigns or learning how to deal with the press. But so far, this president has got an IMF agreement, World Bank disbursements, successful trips to the US and many other countries. He helped to attract investment, foreign aid, support for the territorial integrity of the country. [He achieved] progress on human rights, release of all political prisoners, negotiating progress on Aceh. For all the problems of the Malukus, the fact that Aceh is not settled, and residual issues on [East] Timor, it's not a bad start.

Feisal Tunjung vehemently denies Gus Dur kill plot

Jakarta Post - February 8, 2000

Jakarta -- Former Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. (ret.) Feisal Tanjung on Monday vehemently denied being part of an alleged plan to "eliminate" President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

"With all due respect to the president who is now abroad, I personally never ordered it. Institutionally, the TNI never ordered it," said Feisal, accompanied by former chief of TNI general affairs Lt. Gen. Tarub, during a news conference here.

Feisal was responding to Abdurrahman's statement in Rome on Sunday that back in 1997, Gen. Wiranto, then commander of the Army Strategic Reserves Command, warned Abdurrahman that he had been told by Feisal of orders to eliminate him. According to Abdurrahman, when Wiranto verified the order, former President Soeharto denied having any knowledge of it.

Abdurrahman's assertions on Sunday came as he was vouching for Wiranto's credibility despite rumors of a showdown between the two. The President has said that Wiranto should resign as coordinating minister of political affairs and security following allegations of his involvement in the violence in East Timor.

Appearing relaxed and smiling, Feisal claimed he had done no such thing as he was close with Abdurrahman especially since they had gone on haj together. He also claimed to be close to Megawati's husband, Taufik Kiemas. Feisal said he contacted Wiranto after reading the President's statement. "Pak Wiranto said it wasn't true," Feisal said.

When asked point blank whether the President was lying, Feisal diplomatically retorted: "I just said that it [the statement] wasn't right. You [reporters] are the ones saying it." Feisal said he was not considering any defamation suit in reaction to the allegations. He refused to comment when asked whether the move was aimed at defaming TNI. "I'm no longer a military officer. But I respect Gus Dur as a legitimate president who has been democratically elected," he said referring to the President by his popular name.

Feisal said he had asked Wiranto to join him in the news conference, but the minister declined saying that he was already too much in the news. Tarub, accompanying Feisal, also pledged that no plan ever existed. "I swear, we never conducted it," he said as he raised his right hand.

Separately, House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung vouched for Feisal. "I was a minister at that time. I never heard about it," said Akbar who was State Secretary during that period.

Just hours after Feisal's denial, Abdurrahman, arriving in Brussels, fired a salvo at the retired general. "I'm sticking to my version," he said. "I received this information not only from Wiranto but also from other sources."

Abdurrahman then launched a stinging attack on Feisal which seemed to accuse him of being behind the July 27, 1996, attack on the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) headquarters chaired by Megawati. "Pak Feisal can say what he wants, but everybody knows who ordered the attack on the PDI headquarters," he told journalists.

Regional conflicts

In Maluku, religious war bodes chaos

New York Times - February 9, 2000

Seth Mydans, Ambon -- The most frightening sound is the wild banging of stones on metal light poles, a ringing crescendo of panic that begins nobody-knows-where and spreads in moments around this violent, broken seaside town.

It is an early warning system that there is trouble again in Ambon -- or that once again someone has gone mad with fear, terrified by the wind in the palm trees or by the barking of dogs or simply by the silence of the empty streets.

"It's frightening but also it's crazy," said Umelto Labetubun, 25, an architecture student. "Everyone grabs rocks and starts banging, even old men. Everyone is running from their houses looking for a safer place. You call your friend on the other side of town and he's hearing it too."

In their separate neighborhoods, segregated by fear, Muslims and Christians hear the sound and run for their swords and spears and guns and homemade bombs. By the end of the day, somebody will surely be dead.

In the last 12 months as many as 2,000 people have been killed in what has become an unstoppable surge of religious warfare here in the islands of Maluku Province, the lovely archipelago once known as the Spice Islands.

This is Indonesia's nightmare: freed from the controlling grip of its former dictator, society descends into chaos as religious and social hatreds boil to the surface, beyond the reach of the central government or security forces.

The fear is that the violence in places like Ambon will spread. Already there are copycat clashes in the resort island of Lombok, attacks on churches in Jogjakarta and rallies in the capital, Jakarta, where tens of thousands of people, enraged by exaggerated accounts, shout their readiness to die in a Muslim holy war.

In Indonesia, still reeling from the carnage in East Timor, chaos is a political tool, and most outbreaks of violence seem to have been either set off or fueled by provocateurs.

Most people interviewed here in Ambon are convinced that someone -- political schemers, disaffected soldiers, religious extremists, corrupt business interests, perhaps all of these -- has provoked their war and is determined to keep it alive.

"This is a political game, to create a conflict in a small area," said a Roman Catholic social worker, the Rev. Jack Manuputty. "Both of us, Muslims and Christians, are in a trap. The question is who set the trap for us." Whenever the violence dies down, he said, there always seems to be a new incident, a new provocation, and more mosques and churches and villages are burned.

As if in a confessional, the general heading a regional command near here, Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, told reporters in January: "All the violence happening in our country is part of a political game being played by our political elite in the central government. And whether we realize it or not, we have been forced to become provocateurs to destroy our national unity."

The future course of the country may be decided by a struggle between the new democratizing impulse of President Abdurrahman Wahid and the forces of chaos that seek an advantage in provoking the religious, social and separatist tensions that have now risen dangerously to the surface across Indonesia.

For 32 years under Suharto, the former president, sheer force was used to repress these differences in a vast nation of 13,000 islands that is still roiled by primitive hatreds. Society lost its ability to confront and resolve its differences in a peaceful way.

"Under Suharto we went too long without a fire," said one Christian resident of Ambon. "If there had been even a little flame we could have put it out and learned from the experience. We don't know how to solve problems now."

In this Indonesian nightmare, the small city of Ambon, once home to 350,000 people, has torn itself apart, with Muslims and Christians retreating into guarded enclaves served by separate hospitals, schools, banks, markets, harbors and government services.

Separating the enclaves are burned-out no man's lands patrolled by soldiers and sometimes also infested by snipers. "If a Muslim crosses to the Christian area and they know he is a Muslim they will kill him," said Renaldo Gultom, a Muslim who distributes food to refugees. "It's the same for Christians crossing. That's why we are all frightened."

People who return to Ambon from trips divide themselves by religion at the airport and head for their different enclaves. They take separate speedboats across the choppy bay into town, avoiding the airport road that passes dangerously through both Muslim and Christian villages.

Reporters for rival newspapers, once close colleagues, now meet only occasionally at events like a recent visit of the president. "When we see them, we tell them, 'Hey, why don't you get some correct information?"' said Grace Pelupessy, a 24-year-old reporter for the Christian newspaper Siwalima. Yes, she said, she once had plenty of Muslim friends. "I don't talk to them any more," she said.

Mr. Suharto's legacy can be seen in the abuses of a brutal, corrupt and poorly trained military that has operated for decades in powerful local fiefs. Many local commanders reported directly to the president, only loosely answering to the chain of command.

Now, in defense of their power and economic interests, and perhaps in the service of destructive political forces in Jakarta, they are seen by people here as a cause rather than a solution of the violence. As in in East Timor last year, some soldiers appear to have taken sides. Firefights have been reported between soldiers who support the Muslims and elements of the police who support the Christians.

The new military commander here, an outsider to the region, conceded in January that some of his men had been involved in raids on Christian villages. But he said nothing about taking any action against them.

If Ambon is a template for possible chaos in Indonesia, the actions of the central government are not encouraging. Both President Wahid and Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri have paid recent visits to Ambon. They pleaded for peace, then left to attend to other matters. Their visits seem to have had absolutely no effect on the violence.

The president's supporters offer a curious defense: helplessness. The problems in Ambon, they say, are too complex and deep-rooted to be addressed in the short term in any effective way.

The complex roots of Ambon's warfare -- like the roots of many of Indonesia's conflicts -- go back to precolonial times, more than 400 years ago, when the Dutch, the British and the Portuguese competed for the region's rich trade in nutmeg and cloves.

They brought Christianity where Arab traders earlier brought Islam. The Spice Islands became the most Christian of Indonesia's regions, about equally divided between the faiths. In the 1970's, an influx of Muslim traders began to tip the balance of the religious communities here, bringing new frictions that were easy to exploit.

The violence that has spread through the islands in the last year, driving 100,000 or more people from their homes, had a strangely specific origin: a traffic dispute on January 19, 1999, in which a Muslim minibus driver argued with a Christian passenger.

Seemingly within moments, according to one witness, a Dutch linguist, columns of smoke rose from at least three widely separated places as people began to burn buildings. "All these fires and smoke started at the same time, so it was clearly orchestrated," said the linguist, Albert C. Remijsen. "Now a year has passed and the logic of fighting is accepted by everyone: men guarding at night, people making weapons, everybody being determined to stick it out. Religion is not just religion here. It is a thing of social identity. The Christians do not want to give in and the Muslims do not want to give in."

Ambon today is hostage to rumors and false reports. Unverified and exaggerated accounts are repeated in the national press, fueling passions around this nation of 210 million, where nearly 90 percent of the people are Muslim.

Few people here have any understanding of healthy political or social competition. For some, democracy means chaos and killing. "You have to be careful in Ambon because there is so much democracy here," said Ali Bintubaso, a Muslim construction worker. "People say they want justice for everything. It is all the problem of democracy." In Ambon, both sides insist that they fight only in self-defense.

Asked about well-documented Christian attacks on Muslim villages, Ambon's most prominent Protestant leader, the Rev. Sammy P. Titaley, said: "Nah, that's just people reacting. People are very, very angry and so they burn Muslim houses."

When a government official asked him what could be done to end the violence, he said, "I told him, 'Better you ask the Muslims.'" Even if the fighting were to stop today, the hatreds and brutality that have taken root over the last year may take generations to heal.

"Everyone has become hard," said Mr. Labetubun, the architecture student. "Even girls don't play with dolls any more; they play with guns. In the future, when we have disputes, we will solve them with guns. All of us in Ambon have experience now in defending ourselves in a hard way. Even me, I am sorry to say, I can tell you now, that's the sound of an M-16, that's the sound of an AK-47."

Not long ago, aid groups tried to foster peace by paying for a television commercial that showed two boys, a Christian named Robert and a Muslim named Hassan. "Why are the grown-ups doing this?" the boys ask each other. "Why can't we be friends again?" But instead of taking the message to heart, fighters on both sides have adopted the names as symbols of hatred. Muslims now arm themselves against the Roberts and Christians go hunting for Hassans to kill.

In a city flooded with hate, the Rev. Agus Ulahayanan, a leading Roman Catholic priest, said he now struggled with the most difficult of questions: "Is God still there?" "People have become hopeless and they don't want to listen to any kind of preaching any more," he said. "What does it mean to tell them to love their enemies when people are trying to kill them and burn down their homes? They say, 'Ah, all of that is just lies.' Even my own sister demonstrates against me. They say, 'Lies! It is not relevant!' My sister says the same thing. After her house was burned down she joined a demonstration in front of my church."

Sitting in a dim hotel lobby, with the 10pm curfew approaching, Father Agus spoke of the despair that seems to have driven so many people into religious warfare, beyond the reach of any real religion. "No one can stop them any more," he said. "A boy goes and burns down a house and he comes to me and says proudly, 'I burned down a house.' And already for him the burden is lifted from the frustration and depression. There is nothing left for me to say to him."

Militia sell weapons to arm Ambon religious conflict

Australian Associated Press - February 8, 2000

John Martinkus, Kupang -- Exiled pro-Indonesian East Timorese militiamen are making ends meet by selling their military- supplied weapons to embattled Christians from the riot-torn island of Ambon.

Ambonese Christians say they have been travelling to West Timor to buy handguns and M-16s from pro-Jakarta militia to protect themselves against Muslims. More than 3,000 people have been killed in a year of violence between Muslims and Christians on Ambon.

According to one Christian Ambonese in Kupang, Pauli M, weapons originally obtained from the Indonesian army were easy to find but were getting more expensive. "Last July I paid fifteen million rupiah (3,300) for three M-16's," he said. "Now on this trip it depends on the people here -- maybe ten million (2,200) per piece."

Pauli, 30, said East Timorese militiamen now in exile in West Timor after last year's pro-independence vote would do anything for money. "We know that the militia ... have more than 3,000 weapons. That's why we come here. We target them," he said.

One former militia member in Kupang told how he had collected many guns when militiamen were ordered to disarm last December. He handed a fraction of those to the police and kept the rest in his Kupang house, from where he sold them mostly to Ambonese Christians. The guns are smuggled by boat back to Ambon through an Indonesian naval blockade.

Pauli said the guns were necessary for self-defence on Ambon, where the Indonesian army was regarded as backing the island's Muslims. "In the beginning of the fighting in January last year we knew that TNI (army) were not neutral and we knew that our parangs (machetes) were not enough.

"Some of us went to Dili and some went to Jakarta. Jakarta is the best but the security is very tight. Here is more expensive but it is easier to get the weapons back to Ambon," he said.

Pauli said his newly purchased weapons would be rushed to Christian posts around Ambon for use by snipers against the Muslims and their army supporters. He would return to Ambon by a different route.

He said Christian fighters had fewer than 100 automatic weapons. "We realise we don't have much ammunition or weapons but until I die I will never give up. I will fight forever for my religion."

Army responsible for Maluku riots: Tamrin

Jakarta Post - February 8, 2000

Jakarta -- The continuing conflict in Maluku falls into line with the Army's struggle to protect its political and economic interests following the end of the New Order regime, a member of reconciliatory team in the territory says.

Tamrin Amal Tomagola, who is also a sociologist from the University of Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post recently, that the settlement of the year-long fighting in Maluku and North Maluku provinces could be settled, to some extent, if the government could take a full control over the armed forces. "Maluku unrest is a combination of dispute among local political elites and a conflict pitting the Army against the pro-democratic movement," he said.

The renewed clashes in Ambon, Ternate and Halmahera, which exploded only two days after Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Gen. Wiranto were summoned and questioned by the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations (KPP HAM) in East Timor on December 24 last year, underlined the close link of rioting in Maluku with the Army's moves for survival, according to Tamrin.

"It's suspicious that when Wiranto was summoned on December 24, unrest erupted on December 26 in three different areas of Ambon, Ternate and Halmahera all at once," he said. Wiranto was former Army chief of staff and head of Indonesian Military (TNI).

Tamrin, a native of Halmahera, warned of a domino effect that would destroy the eastern part of Indonesia if the Maluku violence remained unabated.

To support his hypothesis, he said his review of unrest that has rocked the country over the last four years revealed that 80 percent of the riots occurred in provinces where military commands were absent, including Maluku. "The Army needs to maintain its territorial grip now that it faces mounting pressures to leave their sociopolitical role," he said.

The government reduced military commands to only 10 in the early 1980s, when the Army was led by Rudini. During the 32-year reign of former president Soeharto, the Army received privileges to build a vast business empire nationwide, according to Tamrin. The Army's business was supported by the New Order's civilian bureaucracy.

In the wake of the reform era, the Army was put under pressure to pull out of its non-military practices, including business and politics, he said. "Every time Soeharto and the Army are troubled, riots erupt. There is an obvious correlation between the two things," he said.

Specters of violence have jolted Ambon and North Maluku the past year, claiming thousands of lives. The conflict initially hit Ambon on January 19, 1999. Many speculated that it was a continuation of bloodshed in Ketapang, Central Jakarta in which 18 Ambonese were killed.

Tamrin said that even if the Army did not fuel the unrest, its intelligence officers might have known of the potential conflict when it could have been prevented. "They twist a national dispute into local conflicts and tell the people that they are sectarian matters," he said.

The Army seeks to benefit from the prolonged conflict between people of different sectarian groups in a bid to strengthen its territorial grip. "Because of riots, they can justify sending more troops. Now there are 16 battalions in Central Maluku and six in North Maluku. The more troops the more reason to upgrade an area's military status," he said. The Pattimura Military Command in Maluku was reinstated last year.

Tamrin said all data on the involvement of army personnel had been collected and had been submitted to President Abdurrahman Wahid, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Amien Rais and speaker of the House of Representative (DPR) Akbar Tandjung.

Chinese homes in Bali marked for "looting and burning"

Agence France-Presse - February 6, 2000

Jakarta -- The ethnic-Chinese community on the Indonesian island of Bali was urged to remain calm on Sunday after their homes were marked by unknown people trying to destabilise the tourist paradise, police and a report said.

Dozens of homes in the provincial capital of Denpasar were daubed on Friday -- the eve of the Lunar New Year -- with painted red and green crosses, Bali police spokesman Lt-Colonel Y. Suyatmo told AFP.

"The markings are supposed to mean that they have been targetted to be looted and burned ... but we are taking this threat seriously and have urged the Chinese community to remain calm but cautious," Lt-Col Suyatmo said by telephone.

The marking of the houses took place as ethnic Chinese began celebrating the Lunar New Year in Indonesia's main cities for the first time since the lifing of a 33-year-long Suharto-era ban on public celebration of Chinese festivals.

Most of the Chinese homes marked by the symbols were located in three predominantly-Chinese residential areas, he said. Lt-Col Suyatmo said the acts of intimidation "were committed by a group of people who are trying to stir up riots in Bali".

He said social harmony among ethnic groups in Bali was "very sound", but that the island had recently received "a large number of fleeing refugees from [disturbances in] other provinces". Regional military commander Maj-General Kiki Syahnakri was quoted by the Jakarta Post as appealing to both Balinese and Chinese Indonesians there "to be calm and not easily provoked by any kind of terrorisation or rumors".

The newspaper reported an anonymous letter had been circulating stating that red crosses meant the building would be burned, while green crosses indicated the property would be looted.

Maj-Gen Kiki said he had "instructed his subordinates to find those spreading the terror" so that they could be arrested, identified and questioned. He added that the provocative signs were also found on some non-Chinese owned buildings.

Ethnic-Chinese, though estimated at some 3.5 percent of the country's 210 million people, hold a disproportionate amount of Indonesia's wealth, and most are still recovering from the massive May riots which hit the cities of Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Medan in May of 1998. Similar painted signs were seen on some houses in Jakarta in 1998.

Last month anti-Christian rioting broke out in Lombok, the island next to Bali which is beginning to make its mark as an international tourist destination, sending hundreds of Christians fleeing to Bali.

Aceh/West Papua

15 civilians, one policeman die in Aceh

South China Morning Post - February 10, 2000

Associated Press -- Sixteen people were killed and eight injured in several clashes between rebels and government troops in Aceh province, the authorities said on Thursday.

Four suspected insurgents were killed in a gun battle in North Aceh on Wednesday, said local military chief Lieutenant Colonel Suyatno. Four of his soldiers were wounded by a grenade thrown by one of the rebels, he added.

"They were members of GAM, because we confiscated four guns from them," Colonel Suyatno said, referring to the separatisst Free Aceh Movement. However, rebel spokesman Ismail Syahputra claimed the victims were peasants working on a plantation. He also said several soldiers were killed in the clash.

Also in North Aceh, two civilians were found dead on Wednesday after being kidnapped by unidentified gunmen, police chief Lieutenant Colonel Syafei Aksal said. Colonel Aksal said a police officer wounded in a grenade attack last month died in hospital on Wednesday.

In neighboring Pidie regency, villagers found three unidentified burned bodies, said local police chief Lieutenant Colonel Endang Emiqail Bagus.

Meanwhile, Pidie military chief Lieutenant Colonel Iskandar said his troops shot dead two guerilla rebels in a gunfight on Wednesday.

In South Aceh, villagers found two unidentified bodies and brought them to a local hospital, a physician at the local hospital said. Two other bodies were found in East Aceh and Bireuem. Wednesday's killings, brought the death toll in this week's violence to at least 30.

Key Aceh rights abuse suspect feared kidnapped

Agence France-Presse - February 8, 2000

Jakarta -- An outspoken human rights group said Tuesday that it feared a key suspect in a case of mass murder in West Aceh may have been kidnapped to prevent an upcoming trial of the case.

Coordinator of the Commission on Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Munir, said he feared Army Lieutenant Colonel Sujono could have been abducted.

Sujono, who has been missing for at least a week, is one of 20 military men and civilians scheduled to stand trial this month for allegedly shooting down 56 Acehnese in West Aceh.

"There is a big possibility that he [Sujono] might have been kidnapped in order to eliminate the link with his commanding officers," Munir told AFP.

The trial is to start before the end of February, of 20 people accused of lining up and shooting dead an Islamic boarding school teacher, his wife and students -- in all 56 people -- in Beutong Ateuh in West Aceh. The local military command at the time described the incident as an "exchange of fire" and said the teacher, Tengku Bantaqiah, was allied to the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Sujono had been the intelligence assistant with the Lilawangsa regional military command in Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, which also oversees the western Aceh district.

Attorney General Marzuki Darusman was quoted by the Jakarta Post daily Tuesday as saying Sujono was named as suspect on Monday, and that his whereabouts were "still being investigated by the Indonesian military (TNI)." Darusman told the newspaper Sujono had been in Jakarta "when he was being investigated, but when he was summoned, he disappeared."

Munir said Kontras had unsuccesfully tried to confirm Sujono's whereabouts with his family. "Several sources in the military told us that the possibility of a Lieutenant Colonel deserting is too remote ... and his neighbors said [Sujono] has not been seen in three weeks," he said.

Munir said it was unclear whether Sujono had ever been held in military detention, adding TNI chief Admiral Widodo Adisucipto must explaine Sujono's whereabouts "as part of the TNI's commitment to uphold human rights." Until late Monday Sujono was referred to by Darusman and the military as a "key witness" and not a suspect in the killings.

Bringing human rights violators to trial has been a major demand of the GAM which has been fighting for an independent Islamic sultanate since the mid-1970s. A decade of harsh military operations against the GAM, which ended only in 1998, and the syphoning off of the province's resources, has fuelled resentment against Jakarta.

Vanishing witness delays death trial

Sydney Morning Herald - February 8, 2000

Jakarta -- The planned trial of 20 men, 18 of them military personnel, accused of shooting down 56 Acehnese in cold blood last July has been postponed because a key witness has gone missing, press reports said yesterday.

The Jakarta Post quoted the Human Rights Minister, Mr Hasballah Saad, as saying the missing witness was a "military officer" of the Medan-based Bukit Barisan military command, but he refused to identify him by name. "It has been delayed due to the disappearance of the key witness," Mr Saad was quoted as saying during a visit to south-east Sulawesi at the weekend.

The trial had been scheduled to start before the end of the month to try the 20 accused of lining up and shooting dead an Islamic boarding-school teacher and his wife and students -- in all 56 people -- on July 23 last year. The local military command at the time described the incident as an "exchange of fire" and said the teacher, Tengku Bantaqiah, was allied to the separatist Free Aceh Movement.

The identities of the suspects who had been scheduled to go on trial before a joint civilian-military tribunal in the offshore island of Sabang have been kept a secret so far.

The announcement that the witness was missing came after the discovery last week of the body of Nashirruddin Daud, 58, an outspoken MP who was a member of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into human rights abuses in Aceh, a staunchly Islamic and resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

Armed group attacks, sets fire to airport in Aceh

Jakarta Post - February 7, 2000

Banda Aceh -- An armed gang attacked and set fire to the terminal of Malikussaleh Airport, which serves the economically strategic Arun gasfields, about 45 kilometers west of Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, on Saturday night.

No fatalities were reported in the incident, which took place about 9pm local time. "Witnesses said five people started the fire, three of whom were carrying rifles," North Aceh Police chief Lt. Col.

Syafei Aksal said on Sunday morning. Only unarmed security guards were present at the airport at the time of the incident, Syafei added. Aksal said the five were dressed in military fatigues, adding that the attack was suspected to be the work of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Two fire engines from nearby gas company PT Arun came to extinguish the fire but not before it gutted the departure terminal. "The radar and all navigational equipment were saved but we don't know for sure whether the airport will resume operation," Syafei said, adding that security has been tightened around the compound to avoid further disputes. Initial estimates of losses reach Rp 50 million.

The Malikussaleh Airport is a special air base located at the Pintoe Weu village, Muara Batu district. It is jointly managed by state oil company Pertamina and PT Arun. The Arun gasfields are a major supplier of liquefied natural gas to countries like Japan and South Korea.

The 1,800-meter-long and 30-meter-wide runway is used to serve two regular flights, usually by Fokker-27 or DSA-7 airplanes, to the North Sumatra provincial capital of Medan each day. Sources at the airport said on Sunday flights would be temporarily halted until further notice.

Shootout

Meanwhile in the latest clash between GAM rebels and security forces, at least six gunfights were recorded in various locations in the restive province during the weekend. A total of three alleged rebels were reportedly killed.

A joint operation of Marines, Army and police forces raided a suspected GAM base in Glee Panton Kulat village in Meurudu, Pidie, early on Sunday, killing the three rebels. They were identified as M. Isa Usman, 40, Munir Ismail, 18 and Husaini, 28.

The engagement was part of the Sadar Rencong III operation which was launched last week. The raid, which involved about 50 soldiers and police officers, began at about 5.30am.

No exchange of fire occurred in the first two raids. During the third raid, a 30-minute gunfight ensued. Three suspected rebels and four local residents were hurt in the attack. The three suspected rebels wounded were identified as M Nasir, Tarwirmi and Ikhwan. All are said to be villagers of Pasie Lembang, Kluet Selatan subdistrict. The four civilians were Muslim, 50, Abu Duren, 42, Muhammad, 15, and Mawardi, 15, were hit by stray bullets and rushed to Dr. Yulidin Away Hospital.

After the raid several home-made rifles, 120 AK-47 bullets, 22 CIS bullets, two radios and machetes, and five motorcycles were confiscated.

Meanwhile in Pasi Lembang village, South Kluet district on Saturday, 10 suspected rebels were arrested when police raided three separatist bases.

Aceh remains gripped by sporadic clashes between security forces and rebels despite claims by the government that it was close to resolving the issue through negotiations.

News & issues

Police detain Australian labor consultant

Agence France-Presse - February 11, 2000

Jakarta -- Indonesian police have detained an Australian labor consultant for questioning over his alleged participation in street protests here, the Jakarta Post said Friday.

Roger Anthony Smith, of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, was being quizzed by intelligence police for violating existing immigration regulations by taking part in labor rallies and collecting data on Indonesian laborers, the Post said.

"He'll be charged under Article 20 of Law No. 9/1992 on immigration regulations," Colonel Saleh Saaf of the police information office was quoted as saying.

Saaf said Smith was supposed to be working as a consultant with the health division of the All Indonesian Labor Union (SPSI). "Instead he participated in meetings that discuss labor union activities, in board meetings that tell of union problems with businesses here and also found time to monitor labor rallies," Saaf added.

Four other Australian nationals had also been "held for questioning" over the Smith case, he said. Australian embassy officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.ave of Oecussi. He has been implicated in a reign of militia terror inside Oecussi including the massacre of up to 60 people in post-referendum violence last September.

"We know the cross-border incursions were people acting under Moko's instructions -- that's accepted by all involved and all those parties that investigated it," General Cosgrove said.

He said a heavily armed group of Indonesian soldiers had surrounded Soares' house in Indonesian West Timor. Soares had some weapons and ammunition at the house, in breach of Indonesian law.

"Now he is available for further investigation in relation to the raft of charges and allegations made by Interfet and the UN Civil Police," General Cosgrove said. The UN Civpol are expected to formally request access to question Soares.

"Certainly he is an Indonesian citizen and one who was arrested in Indonesia and one whose crimes occurred while Oecussi was under Indonesian administration. How those factors pan out in a legal sense, I'm not sure, but ... he is now off the street," the general said.

Expressing gratitude to General Syahnakri and his newly appointed area commander in West Timor, Lieutenant-Colonel Pontoh, for their decisive action, General Cosgrove said there was ample evidence that Soares had previously held some kind of sway over the Indonesian military. "That's not the case here," he said.

United Nations police officers patrolling in East Timor, including Australians, will be issued with sidearms from today following an increase in violence in the territory.

Carlos Lima, commissioner of the multinational civilian police force (Civpol) ordered the officers be issued with guns "following security concerns raised by Civpol officers after the recent violent incidents", a UN official attached to the transitional administration in East Timor (UNTAET) said. By the end of this month, 80 Australian State and Federal Police officers will be serving with Civpol in Timor.

What about Suharto's crimes?

Green Left Weekly - February 9, 2000

While world attention is focused on the crimes committed by Indonesia's military in East Timor last year, former Indonesian president Suharto is living in peace and comfort, still not charged for the countless crimes against humanity he ordered during his 33-year dictatorship.

1965-66: More than 1 million communists and left-wing sympathisers were massacred and hundreds of thousands interned without trial after Suharto and the military seized power in October 1965.

January 15, 1974: Scores were killed and more than 200 arrested during riots in Jakarta following massive student demonstrations against corruption and military abuse.

October 16, 1975: Five Australian and one British journalist reporting on Indonesian preparations to invade East Timor were murdered by Kopassandah (secret warfare) troops in Balibo, East Timor.

December 7, 1975: More than 200,000 East Timorese -- almost one third of the population -- were killed during and after Indonesia invaded East Timor as a result of military activity and starvation. Hundreds more East Timorese independence activists were arrested, tortured and murdered during Jakarta's 24-year occupation.

September 12, 1984: As many as 63 people were killed and more than 100 injured when troops fired on peaceful demonstrators in the port district of Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta.

1983: An estimated 10,000 petty-criminals were murdered during "mysterious shootings" (the Petrus campaign) in Jakarta and other major cities in Java and Sumatra. In his 1989 autobiography, Suharto confirmed he had authorised the killings saying that it was done "for the purpose of shock therapy".

February 7, 1989: As many as 100 people were killed when troops surrounded a village in Lampung, South Sumatra, opened fire and set fire to homes. The government claimed the villagers were members of a "deviant" Muslim sect and that troops were "defending themselves".

November 12, 1991: At least 270 died during the Santa Cruz massacre in Dili, capital of East Timor. Independence movement reports assert that as many as 200 more were later rounded up and killed in the days after the massacre.

July 1993: Two Muslim scholars were shot dead and a number of others badly wounded when police attacked another alleged "religious sect" in Haur Koneng, West Java.

September 1993: Four people were killed by troops in Nipah, on the Island of Madura, as they were demonstrating against land being cleared for a dam project.

May 8, 1993: three days after leading a strike in Surabaya, East Java, Marsinah, a woman activist, was found dead in a remote hut. Tortured and raped before being killed, there was extensive circumstantial evidence that she had been kidnapped and killed by the military.

April 30, 1994: a woman worker activist in Bandung, Titie Sugiarti, was found dead at the factory where she worked. Evidence suggested she was killed by the military.

March 11, 1994: Rusli, a worker activist, was found dead in Medan, North Sumatra, two days after leading a strike. Witnesses saw him being pursued and clubbed by security personnel during the strike on March 9.

October 27, 1994: Budi Santosa Surbakti, an activist with the Legal Aid Institute in Bandung, West Java, died under mysterious circumstances while investigating a case against local police.

1994: another wave of the Petrus campaign occurred in Jakarta, this time far more blatantly with uniformed officers carrying out the shootings. Over 100 people were shot dead or wounded.

July 27, 1996: Paid thugs backed by the military attacked and destroyed the offices the pro-Megawati Sukarnoputri Indonesian Democratic Party in Jakarta, resulting in the death of as many as 50 people. Popular outrage at the attack sparked several days of mass rioting and violent clashes with police. The regime blamed the People's Democratic Party for the unrest and its members were hunted down and arrested.

August 1996: A journalist with the Yogyakarta-based newspaper Bernas, Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin (better known as Udin), died under mysterious circumstances. He was investigating a corruption case involving the regent of Bantul, Central Java, Colonel Sri Rosa Sudarmo.

January-May 1998: As many as 23 activists were kidnapped by the army's special force, Kopassus, then headed by Suharto's son-in- law, Lieutenant General Prabowo. Many of the nine who "resurfaced" said they had been tortured. One was found dead and 13 remain missing.

May 12, 1998: Security personnel shot into student protesters from the Trisakti University near their campus in West Jakarta, killing four students and injuring several.

May 13-15, 1998: In Jakarta, as many as 2000 people died during riots orchestrated by the military. Many of the victims were Chinese Indonesians targeted by organised gangs to deflect anger away from the regime during in the last days before Suharto was forced to resign. Hundreds of Chinese women were raped and a number killed.

Between 1980 and 1992, as many as 2000 were killed and hundreds more tried and jailed, accused of being members of the Free Aceh Movement in Indonesia's most northern province of Aceh. Hundreds pro-independence activists have been arrested, tortured or killed by the Indonesian military in West Papua since it became part of Indonesia in 1969.

In its 1992 country report, the US State Department concluded that "torture and mistreatment of criminal suspects, detainees, and prisoners are common, and the legal protections are violated by the government".

Aside from those detained in 1965-66, Amnesty International reports that at least 358 prisoners of conscience were detained by security forces during Suharto's rule.

[Compiled by James Balowski, Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor's publications and information officer.]

Jakarta drug addict population soars 400%

Agence France-Presse - February 8, 2000

Jakarta -- The number of known hard drug addicts in Jakarta has soared by at least 400 percent in the past three years, and the real increase could be much larger, a newspaper report said on Tuesday.

The Indonesian Observer quoted Health Minister Achmad Suyudi as saying records of drugs patients treated at three state hospitals showed an increase from 1,779 in 1996 to 8,170 in 1999.

"The figure is small because those who are treated at private hospitals and rehabilitation centres here are not counted," Mr Achmad said. "Also, if drug addicts who remain at home without being detected are included, the figure could well be alarming."

The Observer quoted University of Indonesia psychiatrist Professor Dadang Hawari as saying that drug addicts in Jakarta could number "more than 200,000", many of them school-age children and university students.

Police say Indonesia has become a favourite transit point for foreign cartels shipping heroin and other drugs from Thailand and Pakistan to Canada and Europe.

Arms/armed forces

TNI plans to add personnel, weapons

Jakarta Post - February 11, 2000

Jakarta -- The Indonesian Military (TNI) unveiled on Thursday a plan to enhance its arsenal and manpower reserves in a bid to address the escalating threats of security disturbances and social unrest in the country.

Speaking in a hearing with the House of Representatives Commission I on defense and security, TNI chief Admiral Widodo A.S. said the program would focus on personnel recruitment and weaponry purchase, costing the government no less than Rp 178 billion (US$24 million) in the upcoming fiscal year which starts in April. "If the House fails to approve the proposal, it is certain that TNI will lack preparedness capability," Widodo told the House legislators.

Last month, the government proposed to the House a more than 10 percent increase in overall defense and security expenditures, setting the budget at Rp 10.1 trillion for the 2000 fiscal year between April and December. The budget was set at Rp 12.2 trillion in the previous fiscal year which covered 12 months. President Abdurrahman said the increase for defense, as well as the education and social welfare sectors, was needed "for the sake of stability".

Widodo said on Thursday that TNI had allocated Rp 63 billion to recruit 11,500 army soldiers -- it will need to fill the shoes of some 32,000 troops who will have their ranks promoted at the end of the year. The recruitment expenditure makes up nearly 56.7 percent of the total budget for the army.

The Navy has also disclosed a long-term plan to build its troops to 70,000 within five years, in accordance with its goal of expanding the Marines force.

TNI will also release its personnel who are due to retire or who, through government service, are required to leave the military. "We will sincerely comply with growing sentiment that we take a back seat in sociopolitical affairs and concentrate our efforts on improved professionalism," he said. TNI has some 250,000 personnel in three forces.

Also included in this year's military budget are the purchase of two warships of Parchim class which will cost the government Rp 30 billion. The Air Force has also requested Rp 34 billion to modify seven F-16 combat planes. "We expect to increase the competence and skills of the Navy and Air Force personnel in their daily operations," he said without elaboration.

The last major project proposed in the next fiscal year is weaponry and ammunition inventory, which is expected to cost Rp 51.6 billion. At least 6,230 weapons and six million bullets of various calibers will be bought to fulfill the need for standard weapons, according to the TNI chief. Widodo admitted that TNI found it difficult to buy spare parts for its major defense system due to an embargo imposed by the United States in connection with alleged human rights violations here. "We keep looking for breakthroughs and alternative arms producers, including China, to meet the minimum standards for defense equipment," Widodo said. In the future, TNI may develop a domestic arms industry in order to decrease the country's dependence on foreign weapons suppliers.

Widodo said the proposed military build-up would be aimed at supporting the government's efforts to quell the ongoing unrest, restore peace and create conditions conducive to dialog and reconciliation.

Accompanying Widodo in the hearing were Army chief of staff Gen. Tyasno Sudarto, Navy chief of staff Admiral Achmad Soetjipto, Air Force Commander Marshal Hanafie Hasnan, TNI Deputy Chief Gen. Fachrul Razi and TNI Chief of General Affairs Lt. Gen. Suaidi Marasabessy.

The bell tolls for Indonesia's army

Sydney Morning Herald - February 7, 2000

Andrew McNaughtan -- The truth is out -- officially. A year ago, when the Indonesian military's covert campaign to hold East Timor through coercion was taking shape, it was almost unimaginable that an Indonesian inquiry would ever have the power and the will to publish its damning report about what happened in East Timor.

Yet it has, despite a year of denials and obfuscation from the Indonesian authorities, military and other parties, including the Australian Government. In the circumstances, the forthrightness and courage of the Indonesian commission is as commendable as President Abdurrahman Wahid's willingness to confront the issue.

It is also encouraging that the UN commission of inquiry also held the military as responsible -- even though it is hard to imagine that it could have reached any other conclusion. But this also raises a number of questions, such as who will be brought to trial and by whom should they be tried?

President Wahid says that he sees the issue as involving individual culprits within the TNI rather than an institutional TNI responsibility. Yet what occurred was clearly State sponsored (the TNI, under dwifungsi, has a formal role in determining State policy) and was not the work of individuals or unruly rogue elements.

The East Timorese people were not adequately protected by the international community and the UN. In their moment of need, they were abandoned as one UN post after another was withdrawn and the people were left in the clutches of their murderous enemies. In September, as had been widely predicted, the Indonesian military and their militias sacked East Timor, looting and burning towns and villages across the country. Hundreds and probably thousands were murdered at this time. We may never have reliable numbers because the TNI cleaned up crime scenes and disposed of much of the evidence.

If this was the work of individuals or rogues, where is the evidence that any sections or individuals within the TNI opposed what happened? Already President Wahid may be signalling a convenient political accommodation with the TNI. And then we hear from President Wahid that General Wiranto should be tried but pardoned if found guilty.

The Indonesian legal system has not previously been known to be either independent or effective and any proposed trial would occur against the background of a high-stakes political game to determine Indonesia's future. In these circumstances there is a risk that the whole matter will become a political football within the context of Indonesian domestic politics and justice will not be served.

The crimes committed in East Timor are an international issue, whether the world likes it or not. The issue is really the responsibility of the UN and the international community. After all, the fact that Indonesia's forced military annexation was contrary to the UN Charter, and therefore denying Indonesia sovereignty, was the essential issue all along.

The ballot took place as a result of an agreement between Portugal and Indonesia under the auspices of the UN. The UNAMET mission was an international mission to allow belatedly the East Timorese people their self-determination. The international nature of the issue was confirmed by the circumstances of the vote for independence.

The UN and the international community failed to put in place adequate safeguards and then abandoned the East Timorese to their living hell when things got rough. They now have a major obligation to see that justice is done.

If the international community and in particular the UN and UN Security Council do not provide strong support for effective trials they will be signalling that they are impotent to act or are not interested in their obligations.

It would signal that they are not concerned about crimes against humanity committed under their noses and directed against people whom they should have protected. If they are unwilling to back strong action they ultimately undermine the credibility of international justice.

Of course, it is said that international, particularly Western, pressure will only give the TNI a nationalist xenophobic card to play in their struggle to maintain influence within Indonesia and avoid prosecution. It is said that this approach could strengthen the TNI and ultimately be detrimental to peace and democracy throughout the archipelago. A resurgence of the TNI would be contrary to the interests of East Timor. It is also said that an international war crimes tribunal would be blocked by China and Russia's veto on the UN Security Council.

Perhaps in the broader context it is best to defer to the admirable determination being shown by President Wahid and the progressive democratic forces who intend to transform Indonesia. It would be a clear sign of fundamental change and progress within Indonesia if President Wahid's Government could successfully bring to trial and then punish members of its own military -- men who have until now enjoyed almost complete impunity.

It must be remembered, however, that the outcome must satisfy international standards and especially give East Timorese victims a sense that justice has been done. The world should be prepared to give Indonesia's fledgling democracy full backing and support to deal with this. But if the political pressures and realities in Indonesia are such that the outcome is not internationally credible, the international community must be ready and willing to step in.

Australia should assist a democratic transition in Indonesia (and break with its tradition of supporting the Indonesian armed forces) by making available all relevant intelligence from signals intercepts and other sources to any legitimate court proceedings, whether Indonesian-based or international.

It would certainly be a significant and historic outcome -- and one tinged with irony -- if an Indonesian inquiry into the crimes of the TNI in East Timor ultimately became a catalyst for the development of a more free, just and democratic Indonesia.

[Dr Andrew McNaughtan is convener of the Australia East Timor Association in NSW and spokesperson for the East Timor International Support Centre (ETISC) in Darwin.]

Economy & investment

Indonesia agency ousts Astra CEO

Reuters - February 8, 2000

Soraya Permatasari, Jakarta -- The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) on Tuesday won its battle to oust the head of auto conglomerate Astra International, moving a step closer to the crucial sale of its 45 percent stake in the firm.

Investors at an extraordinary meeting called by IBRA to remove respected chief executive Rini Soewandi and finance director Dorys Herlambang said the reshuffle had been approved by 78.45 percent of shareholders represented at the meeting.

IBRA has put its stake in the automaker, Indonesia's largest, up for sale to help the government meet the hefty cost of bank recapitalisation in the current fiscal year to end-March. Failure to sell the stake in time would further disrupt the country's finances. IBRA's efforts to push through the sale are also seen by foreign investors as a test case of its ability to act decisively and get deals done.

Theodore Rachmat, who has been chief executive of the company before, was chosen to replace Soewandi. "Rachmat has to help the government's targets, including selling the 45 percent stake in Astra which is de facto controlled by the government," IBRA chief Cacuk Sudarijanto told reporters on the sidelines of a parliamentary hearing. "He is not new in Astra, he has the experience," Sudarijanto said, when asked why IBRA proposed Rachmat as Astra's new chief.

Stake sale delayed amid acrimony

IBRA announced last month that an investor group led by Gilbert Global Equity Partners (GGEP) and Newbridge Capital had been chosen as the preferred bidder for its stake with an offer of 3,750 rupiah per share.

But negotiations with Astra's management turned increasingly acrimonious. Astra refused to answer hundreds of detailed questions from GGEP/Newbridge, saying the information requested was sensitive and could be used by competitors. The investor group accused Astra of withholding information and blocking due diligence, and said Astra's actions could scare off other foreign investors.

Meanwhile, other bidders emerged for the stake. IBRA last week threw bidding open, removing the preferred status of GGEP/Newbridge. IBRA says it has received five bids, including a bid of 4,000 rupiah per share by France-based Lazard Freres & Co and its advisers, Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia. Analysts say a change of Astra's management should speed IBRA's efforts to sell the stake. Rachmat is expected to be cooperative in expediting the sale. IBRA hopes to announce the winning bidder on March 25.

Analysts said the change of management would not mark a major change of direction in Astra's strategy. The company's shares ended morning trade up 100 rupiah or 2.6 percent at 3,925 rupiah. But Soewandi may not be ready to give up the fight. She is well regarded by the market, considered one of Indonesia's most able managers and is politically well-connected. If she chooses to fight, she could drum up significant political support, analysts say.

But with IBRA's new chairman Cacuk enjoying the personal backing of President Abdurrahman Wahid, the agency will be better able to withstand the conflicting political pressures it faces.

Stake sale a test case

IBRA's success in selling the Astra stake, one of the jewels in its portfolio, is seen as a crucial test of its ability to speed up asset sales and push deals through in the face of opposition from vested interests and some political groups.

The agency is Indonesia's most powerful economic entity. It controls some 600 trillion rupiah ($80 billion) in equity and debt and is central to the most fundamental objectives facing Indonesia -- rebuilding the banking sector, restructuring the country's massive debt burden and attracting investors.

The agency styles itself as a "one stop shop" for foreign investors -- it controls assets in almost every sector of the economy and aims to sell them off over coming years.

But last year's acrimonious scrapping of agreements between IBRA and Standard Chartered, which had been selected to manage and invest in Bank Bali, raised question marks about the agency's credibility. If the Astra sale, too, is botched, analysts say few investors will want to come shopping at IBRA.

Stalled deal

Far Eastern Economic Review - February 10, 2000

Dan Murphy, Jakarta -- Car maker Astra International has long been among Indonesia's best-regarded companies, one that the son of its founder calls a "cash machine." Its lock on the domestic car industry has allowed it to weather three devaluations of the rupiah, attacks on its showrooms by angry mobs and acrimonious takeover battles. Though it lost nearly 2 trillion rupiah ($200 million) in 1998 when the country was deep in recession, Astra returned to profitability last year.

Driving it back into the black was chief executive Rini Soewandi, among the country's most admired managers. So why does the Indonesian government want to fire her?

The answer is a tale of a powerful family that founded and lost Astra and is seeking to get a foot back in the door; of foreign investors seeking valuable Indonesian corporate properties at fire-sale prices; and of an ambitious block of Muslim politicians. Most of all, the battle over Astra pits the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, or Ibra, which holds assets valued at $60 billion, including a controlling 40% of Astra, against political factions intent on buttressing their own power at the expense of President Abdurrahman Wahid and getting more of a say in how those assets are disposed of. They generally tend to be more protectionist.

Reviving the banks

Ibra's hoard consists of assets seized from the owners of Indonesia's failed banks. It now needs to sell them to help the government cover the $80 billion cost of rebuilding the banking system -- something the International Monetary Fund says is the crucial first step in Indonesia's economic recovery.

But the political jockeying around Astra has already killed off a $500 million bid for the company made by Gilbert Global Equity and Newbridge Capital -- though the two US investment firms remain in the game.

While other investors have raised their hands, for the moment Ibra has no other formal offer on the table for Astra and the agency now concedes it's unlikely to meet its target of selling assets valued at $2.5 billion to help plug a far larger gap in the government budget for the year to March 31. It's currently $1 billion short.

"This has enormous implications for Ibra and its future deals with investors," says David Chang, head of research at Trimegah Securities in Jakarta. "There's no way this process can be completed quickly now, and this is going to damage Ibra's ability to sell any of its assets."

Selling Astra soon "is still possible, but it's going to be very tight," says Arwin Rasyid, the senior Ibra official working on the aborted Astra sale. "There are some things that are beyond our control, like the political and economic climate." Rasyid says "vested interests" are standing in the way of a sale.

One Of Ibra's biggest critics

The latest turmoil has further undermined Ibra's ability to do deals with foreign investors. Ibra's first attempt at a big sell-off, the $120 million sale of the insolvent Bank Bali to Britain's Standard Chartered Bank, also fell through -- the deal collapsed late last year in the face of a revolt by Bank Bali management and a nationalist backlash.

Ibra and the forces arrayed against it are set to collide again at a February 8 Astra shareholders' meeting called by the agency. Ibra wants the shareholders to fire Astra CEO Soewandi because of what it alleges was her effort to foil the sale to Gilbert and Newbridge -- which indicated they were likely to replace her when they took over. The agency says Soewandi denied the firms access to company documents and financial records that they wanted to inspect for due-diligence purposes.

A block of powerful Indonesians has lined up to defend Soewandi, saying Ibra cut too sweet a deal with the Gilbert-Newbridge group. "Ibra talks about good governance but they don't practise it," says Fuad Bawazier, the last finance minister of the fallen Suharto government, who has emerged as one of Ibra's biggest critics -- and Soewandi's most powerful ally.

The Indonesian press, which played a role in the failure of Ibra's sale of Bank Bali, also has been sympathetic to Soewandi. Some politicians, meanwhile, have suggested that parliament should prevent the shareholder vote; others are lobbying Astra's minority shareholders to vote against removing Soewandi. The outcome is "too close to call," says an Ibra official.

How did this impasse come about? In December, Ibra gave preferred bidding status for its 40% stake in Astra to Newbridge and Gilbert. Edwin Soeryadjaya, youngest son of Astra founder William Soeryadjaya, has been advising the American investors in exchange for a small piece of equity and another shot at managing his father's company, lost in 1992 because of debts at a family investment. Edwin Soeryadjaya, who originally hired Soewandi, has made no secret of his intent to remove her if he gets back in the driver's seat at Astra.

The agreement with Ibra gave the Americans exclusive rights to conduct due diligence for a 35-day period and the right to match any new bid that topped their $500 million offer. But Soewandi denied them access, and when the exclusivity period expired on January 31, Ibra chose not to extend it. Now the agency is back to square one. "We have to begin a new bidding process," says Ibra official Imelda Arismundar.

Three other investor groups have sent letters to Ibra expressing their interest, though no formal bids have been made. They are Lazard Freres & Co., the French investment bank; JG Summit Holdings, controlled by Filipino investor John Gokongwei; and Bhakti Investama, an Indonesian investment company with links to American investor George Soros's Quantum Fund.

In a letter to President Wahid seen by the Review, an ally of the Lazard group said its bid would proceed only if Soewandi was kept on as Astra CEO. But Ibra officials say they are still committed to replacing Soewandi, pointing out that most investors will want to conduct due diligence. Lazard officials in Singapore and JG Summit officials in Manila didn't return calls seeking comment. A Bhakti official confirmed the company's interest but declined to provide details.

Continuing the pursuit

Newbridge and Gilbert, meanwhile, intend to continue their pursuit of Astra, a person involved in the foiled transaction says. Soewandi declined to be interviewed for this article. But in letters to Astra shareholders, she has defended her actions as being in the best interests of the company. She contends the US investors wouldn't sign a confidentiality agreement and should be forced to disclose their plans for Astra before being allowed in. "The confidentiality agreement is important for Astra to protect itself against any confidential material being used against it," she wrote in a January letter to shareholders. Ibra officials counter that the terms of the confidentiality agreement are so restrictive that no potential investor would sign it.

But Astra's best interests appear to have been lost among the host of other issues in the failed deal, ranging from a simple clash of personalities to differing political agendas. The Soeryadjayas, ethnic-Chinese and Protestant, have close links to President Wahid and his broad nationalist coalition. Soewandi, arguably Indonesia's most powerful Muslim chief executive, is close to a Muslim politicial coalition that's proving to be one of President Wahid's biggest political challenges.

The legislators are backing Soewandi against the president and Cacuk Sudarijanto, Wahid's handpicked choice to run Ibra, as a means of buttressing their own power in parliament to push their agenda. Generally speaking, these legislators want Indonesia's Islamic majority to play a bigger role in the economy than it traditionally has. That has often been interpreted as threatening Indonesia's often-embattled, wealthier ethnic-Chinese minority.

"The way you have to look at this is as a turf battle over key economic institutions between the nationalist [led by Wahid] and the Islamic [led by Bawazier] parties," says James Van Zorge, senior partner at Van Zorge Heffernan Associates, a political advisory company in Jakarta. "There's nothing sinister about it, but it's a real risk to economic policy because it induces deadlock."

Bawazier, a friend of Soewandi, says his only interest is in reforming Ibra, an agency he had a hand in creating under former President Suharto. Bawazier, a politician without a party of his own, helped cobble together and fund the "central axis" of Muslim parties that now controls a third of the votes in parliament. He hosts weekly meetings of the group's leadership in his office.

Suspicions of outside agendas

Though Bawazier says he's not opposed to the idea of selling Astra to foreigners and is supportive of the three other potential bids, he and leaders close to him, including Amien Rais, speaker of the upper house of parliament, have traditionally been suspicious of outside agendas. In a January interview with the Suara Rakyat newspaper, Bawazier complained that Indonesia was a "guinea pig" for foreign governments and the IMF to test how much pressure they could put on a country.

Sometimes forgotten in all the turmoil is Astra itself, a diverse agglomeration of activities and 100,000 employees that does far more than build cars. Astra makes tractors, mines coal, operates a palm-oil plantation, and has investments in the telephone network in Sumatra, a plywood factory and a bank. It's already backed by foreign partners such as Toyota Motor of Japan and has the deepest corps of middle management in Indonesia.

William Soeryadjaya founded the company in 1958 to trade in agricultural commodities. He expanded through partnerships with foreign companies looking for access to the Indonesian market, developing a reputation for integrity and avoiding the circle of cronies around then President Suharto. By the late 1980s Astra, with $2 billion in annual sales, credit lines with the world's major banks and a sterling reputation, was in a class by itself.

The company's troubles began with William Soeryadjaya's oldest son, Edward, who had founded Bank Summa in 1989 with the stated intention of dominating Indonesian banking. The bank's lending soared, much of it going to property companies Edward controlled. At the same time, he cemented the family's ties to a Muslim leader, the moderate Abdurrahman Wahid, now Indonesia's president. In 1990, he signed an agreement to set up 60 rural banks with Wahid's Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Islamic organization in the world.

But by 1991 Edward's banking empire had begun to unravel. His father tapped into Astra's substantial credit lines to bail out the bank, pledging the family's Astra shares as collateral against Bank Summa's swelling debts. In late 1992, the government seized and liquidated Bank Summa, marking the first official bank collapse in Indonesian history. The loan collateral was seized, taking the Soeryadjayas' stake in Astra to zero from more than 74% at the end of the 1980s. Forty percent of that stake ended up in the hands of a group of Suharto associates led by Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, who managed a Suharto investment company called Nusamba.

Climb to the top

Soewandi, who had been hired by William's younger son Edwin in 1989 to help run Astra's finance department, began her climb to the top. She won Hasan's confidence by helping to manage some of his personal investments.

Astra, meanwhile, continued to rack up profits and plaudits. But that changed abruptly in 1997 with the rupiah's devaluation, which made Astra's nearly $2 billion in foreign-currency debt unpayable because its revenue was all in the sharply devalued Indonesian currency. For almost two years Soewandi worked full- time on restructuring the debt, and in mid-1999 Astra became the first major Indonesian company to sign a debt deal since the financial crunch began in 1997.

It was an achievement for which she won a good deal of praise, though critics have noted that the deal commits Astra to a strict repayment schedule that will force it to sell noncore assets in coming years if profits aren't high enough. And Trimegah Securities' Chang notes that Astra still needs to be driven by its products, not by its finances. "Rini's a finance person, she's not an automotive person," he says. "Astra is what it is today because of the vision of its founding shareholders, not because of some manager's ability to improve cash flow."

Yet while Astra's future looks assured -- analysts expect the company to report profit of 800 billion rupiah ($110 million) for 1999, compared to a net loss of almost 2 trillion rupiah in 1998 -- the future of Ibra's efforts to pull Indonesia out of its economic malaise is less certain.

None of this will surprise Astra CEO Soewandi, who briefly served with the agency before taking the car firm's top job. When she quit Ibra in May 1998, she complained that it was prey to "too much political interference." That has proved all too true.