• 600 listed as dead, but actual toll higher - Straits Times
• Situation in West Timor refugee camps 'untenable' - Agence France-Presse
• Peacekeepers come under fire - Sydney Morning Herald
• Australia betrays East Timor refugees - Green Left Weekly
• How the generals got away with murder in East Timor - Green Left Weekly
• Teaching English in East Timor - Green Left Weekly
• Cheers and anger greet Wahid in East Timor - Agence France-Presse
• Former militia members targeted amid the devastation - Australian Associated Press
• Timor ire at coffee tax - Australian Financial Review
• Interfet's exit has militia on warpath - The Australian
• Fine coffee offers sweet smell of trading success - Sydney Morning Herald

• Indonesia's new presidential advisor - Stratfor
• Courting danger - Far Eastern Economic Review
• Amien hits out at foreign advisors - Jakarta Post
• 'Wiranto is finished, with no chance of comeback': Juwono - Straits Times

• Six more bodies found in troubled Aceh - Agence France-Presse
• US urges Aceh negotiated deal - Associated Press
• Warning shots fired to clear streets in Irian Jaya - Agence France-Presse
• West Papuans warn of militia build up - Green Left Weekly
• West Papua: autonomy or independence? - Green Left Weekly
• Police fire shots to disperse mob in Irian Jaya - Reuters
• One shot dead as police open fire in Irian violence - Jakarta Post
• Papuans reject Indonesian rule - Sydney Morning Herald

• Indonesia: Kong Tai workers protest - Green Left Weekly

• State Department report generally accurate - ETAN
• RI signs UN protocol on women's rights - Jakarta Post

• Wiranto denies Yudhoyono proposed coup - Straits Times
• Lawmakers to ask Government to explain fuel price hike - Antara
• Pram: a heart Wahid failed to win - The Melbourne Age
• President, VP get big pay boos - Jakarta Post
• Watchdog demands Suharto's son repay 225 million - Agence France- Presse

• Riau province is 'haze central' with 137 fires - Straits Times
• Fires break out on Sumatra - Associated Presse
• Millions are still starving in Indonesia - Agence France-Presse

• The Bad Bird: Indonesia's army gets a reformer - Stratfor
• Military revamp 'will cut support for Wiranto' - Straits Times
• Press hails military reshuffle, but question motives - Agence France-Presse
• Military reformer's blow to old guard - Sydney Morning Herald
• Wiranto allies replaced with army faithful - South China Morning Post
• Major TNI reshuffle announced - Jakarta Post

Campaign against price subsidy cuts grows

Pip Hinman, Jakarta -- Around 500 members of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) protested outside the Presidential Palace on February 21 to demand that the Indonesian government abandon its plans to cut fuel and electricity subsidies. PRD members travelled to Jakarta from all over the country.

It the first national protest action undertaken by the PRD since July 1, when a protest it organised outside the Electoral Commission was fired upon by the military. This time, despite the menacing presence of 300 palace guards, the protest was peaceful.

All major TV stations gave the action prominent coverage, as did the newspapers the next day. Three of the PRD's central leaders -- party chairperson Budiman Sujatmiko, Petrus H. Harianto and Faisal Reza -- managed to meet in private with Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid to demand the decision to cut subsidies be reviewed.

"The president said the government could not stop the cuts to subsidies on fuel and electricity because if this was done, it would face difficulties in obtaining funds from the International Monetary Fund", Budiman told a press conference afterwards.

Budiman said that the 20% cut to the fuel subsidy and the 35% cut to the electricity subsidy would dramatically worsen the living standards of the majority of people. According to a February 21 PRD statement, the price of petrol will increase by 10% and electricity by 29.5%.

In a new agreement with the IMF for a three-year, US$5 billion loan, which will be delivered in stages according to the success of the Indonesian government's austerity measures, Jakarta has agreed to make big cuts in social spending.

According to a February 4 IMF press release, the three-year program is designed to "reinvigorate bank, corporate and other restructuring policies crucial to sustaining an economic recovery". The IMF and the Indonesian ruling class are dreaming of an annual growth rate of about 4% by 2002, with an inflation target of below 5%. In 1988, real gross domestic product contracted by 14.2% and average inflation was 64.7%. On February 18, the government approved the new law to cut fuel and electricity subsidies. This law, which will come into affect on April 1, will mean that the majority of people will face a big increase in their cost of living because not only will they pay more for fuel and electricity, but the price of all essential items will also increase.

"The government claims this policy will bring economic benefits. However, it is really only concerned to boost the profits of the capitalists as it is aimed at continuing the privatisation of key state industries such as the state electricity company", said Sujatmiko.

The government is trying to look less harsh by only increasing electricity costs for those who use 900 watts or more. "Everyone's cost of living will still rise as companies will pass on the increase in production costs to the consumer, forcing the poor to subsidise the rich."

The PRD leaders pointed out to Wahid that in many Latin American countries where the IMF had applied similar structural adjustment programs (SAPs), the result was an increase in poverty. SAPs are "welfare for the rich", said Sujatmiko.

Wahid told the PRD delegation that they did not need to go to the trouble of organising such actions, and added that his door was always open for them to come and talk. He defended his government's austerity push by arguing that the government would work to reduce the country's dependency on the IMF. He repeated this two days later to a visiting Japanese business delegation.

That same day, however, Wahid put police on "full alert" to quash a rumoured a mass demonstration he said had been planned for that day. Military officials later played down the president's statement, saying that he wanted to reassure the group of visiting investors that he was in charge.

Economic crisis continues

While the so-called "democratic" Wahid government may have enjoyed mass support in its first few months in office, there are signs that this may end. A dramatic rise in the cost of living will deepen the financial and economic crisis which has engulfed Indonesia since the end of 1997.

Millions more people have been forced into poverty by widespread factory closures and layoffs. One international organisation, Helen Keller International, has reported that malnutrition has increased in Indonesia over the last few years and kills an average of 450 children a day. While a tiny portion of the US$5 billion IMF package comes in the form of grants to be used to fight corruption (US$520 million), the cuts to the fuel and electricity subsidies form the central part of the neo-liberal conditions attached to the economic "rescue package".

The IMF is mindful of the widespread protests in Medan and Sumatra in May 1998, sparked by the last fuel price rise of 71%, which led to the downfall of Suharto. It has warned the Indonesian government to "maintain social stability" and to proceed with the austerity drive in stages.

In other unpopular moves, the government is planning to cut the education budget and to raise the taxes on cigarettes and cement. The student and labour movements are organising protest campaigns against these anti-people measures.

On February 13, a small student demonstration organised by the Student Action Front for Reform and Democracy (FAMRED) outside the attorney general's office was attacked by the military. Several students were injured.

Corruption

The PRD has called on the government to halt corruption, nepotism and cronyism, a move which would increase government revenue significantly. Up to 50% of potential tax revenue is not collected by the state.

The PRD is not surprised that the new government is continuing the economic agenda of its predecessors. The government contains many former Suharto-Habibie cronies and a number of unelected military appointees. This is the reason why the military budget has been left untouched in the government's drive to restructure the economy to make Indonesia more attractive for big business investment.

"It is clear that the new government is more interested in boosting the profits of the multinational and Indonesian corporate sector at the expense of the majority of people whose lives are set to become even more difficult", Sujatmiko told Green Left Weekly. He added that the government needed to maintain good relations with the military, which will be needed to quell rising discontent.

Rather than cut subsides on essential items, the PRD has called on the government to cancel the foreign debt, refuse to rescue insolvent banks, nationalise Suharto's and his cronies' assets at home and abroad (Time magazine estimates Suharto's properties are worth US$16 billion), nationalise the military's enterprises, reduce the military budget (which is larger than the education, social welfare, agriculture and forestry budgets), clean up corruption in state-owned enterprises and the bureaucracy, and put corrupt officials on trial.

The PRD has pledged to continue to organise against the subsidy cuts. The party has called on "people to form committees at all levels and in all sectors to reject the increase in fuel and electricity prices, join the mass protest actions on the streets, and form united fronts between democratic organisations such as the students, trade unions, peasant organisations, non-government organisations and political parties".

Pedicab drivers take to streets

In Indonesia, hundreds of drivers of the popular three-wheeled pedicabs took to the streets late last night.

According to reports by the official Antara News Agency, they were rallying against a local government decision banning them many of the streets in Jakarta.

The protests eventually turned violent, injuring two security guards who were trying to restrain the protestors. The demonstrators also set fire to two government vehicles and a private car. Police were eventually deployed to the scene and calm was restored.
 

East Timor

600 listed as dead, but actual toll higher

Dili -- More than 600 people are known to have been killed in East Timor last year , but the actual toll is likely to be higher, the United Nations said yesterday. No cases have yet gone to trial under East Timor's fledgling judicial system.

A total of 627 victims, killed between January and October last year, were the only cases of which the UN civilian police in East Timor were aware, said Mr Rafik Hodzic of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (Untaet). "It is likely to rise," he added. Local human-rights experts do not expect the final death toll to be known until all East Timorese refugees in Indonesian West Timor returned home.

UN police are holding 69 people serious charges, such as murder, rape and arson, said Mr Manoel de Almeida e Silva, of Untaet. The jail was designed for only 55 inmates, but was now being expanded to hold 75, he said. "What I can tell you is that the jail is overcrowded."

The killings occurred when militia, backed by the Indonesian armed forces, conducted a campaign of murder and intimidation in the lead-up to a referendum on East Timor's future, on August 30.

Situation in West Timor refugee camps 'untenable'

Jakarta -- A visiting senior US official Friday called the prevailing situation in camps holding tens of thousands of East Timorese in Indonesian West Timor since September "untenable."

"The situation in West Timor [refugee camps] is untenable," US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering told a press briefing here.

He was referring to the camps across West Timor which still hold some 90,000 East Timorese, out of the more than 250,000 who fled or were forced to flee East Timor during the post-ballot violence in the former Portuguese colony in September.

"We feel it is important that the government takes measures to remove the militia leaders and create a situation allowing East Timorese to choose if they want to go back or stay," Pickering said.

Pro-Indonesian militias, who followed the refugees and displaced persons to West Timor when international forces arrived in East Timor, are in control of the refugee camps, and humanitarian workers have accused them of harassing and intimidating the refugees.

"We want the [Indonesian] central government to take action," added US Ambassador to Indonesia Robert Gelbard, who was speaking at the same press briefing. "We do believe that the governement ought to have the possibility to remove the militias and to prevent them from harassing the population," Gelbard added, also pointing out the "extraordinary level" of foreign aid Jakarta has received from abroad for the refugees in the West. Rights activists and humanitarian workers have also complained of difficult access to the camps.

Pickering, who arrived here on Wednesday, will fly home later Friday. During his stay, Pickering met with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, the chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly, Amien Rais, and several other leading political figures. Commenting on Aceh, an Indonesian province where separatist rebels have been fighting for the past 24 years, Pickering said that he believed any settlement should be reached through dialogue. "We do not believe the problem can be resolved by force, but by dialogue," he said.

However, he also made it clear that Washington was not in favor of Aceh breaking away from Indonesia. "Indonesia's territorial integrity must be preserved," he said.

Calls have been mounting in Aceh for a Timor-style referendum of self-determination for the staunchly Muslim province that is rich in oil and gas. Clashes and violence between the separatist rebels and Indonesian security forces have already left some 250 people dead this year.

Peacekeepers come under fire

Mark Dodd, Dili -- Australian and New Zealand peacekeepers based along East Timor's border with Indonesia have come under sustained fire from suspected militia in the most serious test so far of United Nations military readiness after the departure of Interfet.

The military spokesman for the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), Lieutenant-Colonel Brynjar Nymo, said four incidents involving several hundred rounds being fired, including the targeting of an Australian Army helicopter, had been reported in a 48-hour period to yesterday.

The peacekeeping force believed three of the incidents were "a deliberate and co-ordinated effort", he said. "We are concerned at the fact that apparently groups of militia freely can cross the border without the TNI [Indonesian military] being able to stop this activity. We are concerned that if the TNI cannot take necessary measures the situation may well escalate."

The sudden appearance of modern automatic weapons in the hands of pro-Jakarta militia came only a day after Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid visited Dili, where he gave assurances that militia were being disarmed. Colonel Nymo warned Indonesia that UN peacekeepers operated under a Security Council mandate that allows soldiers to return fire if threatened.

Pro-Jakarta militia are thought to be responsible for the four incidents which occurred on Wednesday and Thursday. "We have had an increased number of reports over the past three or four weeks indicating a larger number of militia being active," Colonel Nymo said. Asked if TNI could have been involved, he said: "I would not go into speculation, but we have no indications that they are."

The first of the incidents occurred at Motamoruk, near the north-coast border town of Batugade, on Wednesday. An Australian observation post near the village of Motamoruk had reported hearing 30 to 40 rounds being fired nearby, Colonel Nymo said.

In the next incident, New Zealand troops at Belulik Leten, near south-western Suai, had received "harassing fire" from a border crossing point.

An hour later an Australian Army border observation post came under fire at Memo, near western Maliana, and on Thursday night an Australian Army Kiowa light observation helicopter was fired at from Indonesia while on a reconnaissance mission near the border. Colonel Nymo said the helicopter was not hit, and there was no return fire in any of the incidents.

Before leaving East Timor last week, the Interfet commander, Major-General Peter Cosgrove, had expressed concern that pro- Jakarta militia would test the capacity and resolve of the UN force that took over from Interfet.

Australia betrays East Timor refugees

Chris Latham -- One hundred and fifty East Timorese refugees refused to leave the East Hills army barracks in Sydney on February 22. The government was determined to remove the refugees from the camp for a "voluntary" flight home on February 22.

Three hundred local Timorese and their supporters facing 100 police blocked the buses bound for the airport. They managed to delay the departures, but the refugees have now been returned to East Timor. These refugees were amongst the last to leave of those who entered Australia after the bloody events in East Timor last year to leave; such betrayals of East Timorese refugees are not new.

`Safe haven'

In response to the terror unleashed in East Timor after the independence ballot on August 30, the Australian government initially agreed to provide sanctuary only for staff from the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor, plus 350 East Timorese staff and their families. On September 8, immigration minister Philip Ruddock announced that an additional 1450 East Timorese would be allowed into Australia under the safe haven legislation.

This legislation, drafted in early 1999 to deal with Kosovar refugees, allows only three-month visas, the holders of which are not allowed to apply for any other form of visa while in Australia.

The "safe havens" are disused military barracks. Individuals are not allowed to leave; if they do they lose access to government services and the minimum government payments of $27 per week per adult and $10 per child.

In December, when the safe haven visas expired, more than 1000 Timorese refugees were returned. Ruddock said on December 6, "The East Timorese were evacuated in September to stay until conditions in East Timor improved ...

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees has provided assurances that it is now safe."

This was described as a "voluntary" return. However, Timorese who opted to remain in Australia would receive no government assistance, had no right to work and constantly faced the threat of deportation.

The government ignored the conditions that refugees were returning to: most buildings, infrastructure and crops destroyed, and mass unemployment. A Fretilin representative in Australia, Naldo Rai, said on February 22, "We have contact with relatives in East Timor who say the conditions are very bad. There is no food, no clothing, no houses."

There are reports that refugees who returned to East Timor earlier were provided with only a blanket and a tarpaulin, without rope to tie the tarpaulin down.

Long-term refugees

Many refugees entered Australia after the Dili massacre in 1991. In 1994, the Australian government argued that because these Timorese had the right to request Portuguese citizenship, they did not require Australia's protection.

In 1998, the Federal Court decided that the Refugee Review Tribunal should reconsider Kon Tji Tay's application for asylum because there was no evidence that Portugal would provide protection. The immigration department conducted an appeal throughout 1999.

In addition to mounting numerous legal challenges to the granting of refugee status, the Australian government has conducted a war of attrition. Without refugee status, the Timorese are not eligible to work or to enter educational institutions. The government has ended asylum seeker assistance payments.

On November 9, the government announced that it would end its appeal, but informed the refugees that, since East Timor is now "safe" to return to, they must reapply for asylum under the new Border Protection Act.

The act states that Australia is no longer required to provide protection if alternative avenues for protection exist, such as dual citizenship or potential dual citizenship (that is, with Portugal). The applications will be dealt with individually, making it a lengthy process that will further exhaust the resources and resolve of refugees who have been in Australia for up to 10 years.

In addition, there are still more than 100,000 East Timorese being forced to stay in camps in West Timor, where they were driven in late 1999. The Australian government has done little to secure their release.

A report in the Bali Post newspaper on February 22 said that at least 700 people had died in the camps in the last six months. The refugees are frequently harassed by militias and the military.

Punishing the victims

In November, the government passed the Border Protection Act, among the harshest legislation dealing with refugees in the world. While whipping up nationalist and racist sentiments about "boat people" and "illegals" to justify these legislative attacks, the government tries to assure us that it is nevertheless humane.

However, the government's treatment of the East Timorese refugees is consistent with its general approach of blaming and punishing the victims of Third World poverty and imperialism.

For decades, Australian governments supported the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia because it gave Australian companies access to Indonesia's natural resources and markets and provided a "stable" environment in which to make profits. Australia gave diplomatic and military support to Indonesia's occupation of East Timor and Australian companies secured access to rich oil and gas fields in the Timor Gap.

But Australian governments weren't just complicit in the deaths of more than 200,000 Timorese since 1975. The Coalition government continued to support Indonesia last year while it displaced more than half of East Timor's population and destroyed most of its economy and infrastructure.

The Australian government rejected evidence of the links between the Indonesian military and the pro-integration militias and in the United Nations, Australian officials argued against the deployment of a non-Indonesian security force during the independence vote.

Now the government is punishing further the victims of its own policy.

For real justice

It should be left to each East Timorese refugee to decide if they want to stay, and much more aid should be made available to rebuild East Timor, thereby giving East Timorese refugees a real choice about returning home.

To assist refugees to return, and to allow visits by East Timorese to Australia, where many will still have relatives and friends, the government should establish a special category of visa, similar to that granted to New Zealand citizens, which allows them to travel freely between the two countries.

To aid development, the government should fund 1000 new scholarships per year for East Timorese to attend Australian higher education institutions.

Massive non-repayable grants and reparations for Australia's support for the war on East Timor should be funded out of a levy on all Australian businesses that have profited from investment in Indonesia and East Timor.

It is vital that the Australian people act now to safeguard the human rights of East Timorese in Australia and East Timor. Resistance is supporting a national day of action on May 13, organised by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, to demand "Justice for East Timor! Justice for all refugees!".

Resistance magazine and Green Left Weekly will keep you informed about the struggle for justice in East Timor and the solidarity campaigns.

How the generals got away with murder in East Timor

James Balowski -- "In a forest west of Dili, Filomena Amaral is about to learn the details of how her husband, a village schoolteacher and church leader, was tortured and killed. Photographs of her husband's shattered bones are needed as evidence in the event that his killers are ever brought to trial.

"The forensic team will piece together the final moments of her husband's life ... but the real evidence concerning his death isn't buried here. It's buried in filing cabinets, government memos and bank records. Buried in the minds of elegant men in suits who incited, approved of and paid for this execution and who, it would appear, are going to get away with murder ..."

So began a Dateline program, aired on SBS television on February 16, in which reporter Mark Davis links the funding of the pro- Jakarta militia directly to the Indonesian state, including the department of foreign affairs and cabinet ministers.

Even more remarkable, the report also establishes that at least A$12 million earmarked for welfare and development was channelled to the militias from the World Bank -- with the World Bank's knowledge and apparent inaction.

According to a number of key witnesses interviewed by Davis, the bagman was Francisco Lopez da Cruz, an employee of Indonesia's foreign affairs department.

Former foreign affairs minister Ali Alatas denied that 9 billion rupiah had been directed to the FPDK, the main militia umbrella group. "No, No. We are not ... involved in internal things", he told Davis.

Davis then asked: "Cisco Lopez da Cruz -- he is part of your department?".

Alatas: "He is, he was. Well, he is still perhaps ... special envoy on East Timor, yes."

Davis: "Lopez da Cruz gave them 9 billion rupiah. He works for your department. He says it came with your authority."

Alatas: "Yes, but that was not for militia. That was for general information perhaps."

Other government departments also gave money to the "socialisation of autonomy" -- the code words for the propaganda campaign and militia activities that Jakarta hoped would ensure victory in the August referendum in East Timor.

"The implications of government departments directly diverting money to militias are enormous", Davis noted. "It exposes ministers to war crimes prosecutions and the state to massive compensation claims."

Joao da Silva, head of East Timor's budget section and someone who had intimate access to all departments in the public service, told Davis he was the officer overseeing the payments to the militias. "All departments must donate -- transmigration, agriculture, forestry -- all must give for the `socialisation of autonomy'."

Last March was a difficult time to be seeking money because it was the end of the financial year and government departments were all broke. From his government office in Dili, the leader of the FPDK cooked up a scheme with the governor of East Timor, Abilio Soares, with the co-operation of ministries in Jakarta, to plunder development and welfare funds. Militia murderers were to be put on the books as charity workers and it would be largely paid for by international donors.

Asked if the money was used for development, Adelino Gutteres, who worked for the head of the FPDK and was in charge of planning and development in Dili, replied: "No money was spent on development after we gave the 3 billion to the militia. There was nothing left to spend. No projects went ahead ... It was all for the militia. The whole 1999 budget was for the militia alone."

The World Bank discovered this fraud in the first month after it began.

According to Ben Fischer in the World Bank's Jakarta office, the bank was aware of the scam and sought assurances from the government that it would end.

"We did all we could short of stopping overall support", Fischer told Davis.

Australian knowledge

Two days before the Dateline program, ABC TV's Four Corners aired a report, "Ties that Bind", that revealed that one of East Timor's most senior militia leaders informed the chief of the Hong Kong office of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service of a plot to wipe out the East Timorese independence movement.

In four meetings in late April in Macau, Tomas Goncalves provided ASIS with extensive details and the names of senior Indonesian military officers behind the plan.

"The order came from the regional commander, Adam Damiri, to the East Timor commander and the special force commander, Yayat Sudrajat: liquidate all the CNRT [National Council for Timorese Resistance], all the pro-independence people, parents, sons, daughters and grandchildren. Commander Sudrajat promised a payment of 200,000 rupiah to anyone wanting to serve in the militia", said Goncalves.

"On March 26, I went to a meeting run by the East Timor governor. He said to kill the priests and nuns because it was they who were defending the people of East Timor", said Goncalves. However, Goncalves drew the line at killing priests and nuns and fled the country on April 18.

As early as November 1998, Lance Taudevin, an aid contractor who had been recruited as an informant for the Australian embassy in Jakarta, was reporting the links between the Indonesian military and the militia.

"I [told the embassy] that ... the whole program is being orchestrated. ABRI [Indonesia's armed forces] is recruiting, it is training, it is supporting, it is providing logistical support to the operations of the militia", Taudevin told Four Corners. However, the embassy advised him to "change his reports ... Just tone it down ... what you report has to fit into the big picture".

On August 20, Taudevin informed the embassy that the much publicised Indonesian troop withdrawals from East Timor were a sham. Australia's Defence Signals Directorate already knew.

A senior intelligence official in Canberra told Four Corners: "On the day of the supposed withdrawal, a number of radio transmissions were picked up from Indonesian naval craft. They were chatting to each other about how the landing craft had just gone around the island and dropped the troops off again."

Quoting a previously unpublished document from last April, Four Corners revealed that the Defence Intelligence Organisation had already reported to Canberra that: "Indonesian military officers are actively supporting pro-Indonesian militants in East Timor. Wiranto has failed to restrain these officers."

This was is stark contrast to Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer's public statements during last year's violence, when he stated: "It certainly isn't official Indonesian government policy, it certainly isn't something that's being condoned by General Wiranto, the head of the armed forces. There may be some rogue elements within the armed forces who are providing arms of one kind or another to pro-integrationists who have been fighting the cause for Indonesia."

May 5 accord

In an article in the August 28 Australian Financial Review, Brian Toohey described how the May 5 agreement signed by Indonesia and the UN to allow the Indonesian military to oversee security during and immediately following the referendum was a direct result of Australian policy.

By February 1999, there was increasing evidence that the Indonesian military were organising, funding and arming the militia. US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs Stanley Roth met with head of the Australian foreign affairs department, Dr Ashton Calvert.

Toohey claims that according to the leaked record of the conversation, Calvert stressed the importance of encouraging the East Timorese to sort out their differences without resorting to the UN.

In April, Downer told parliament that Roth was "grateful" for the insight Calvert had given him about Indonesian resistance to peace keepers. "Only a child", he said, would continue to push for peace keepers in these circumstances.

According to Toohey, US officials said privately that they were not prepared to push for peacekeepers in the face of such determined opposition from an ally so close to the problem. Australia's policy was to rely on the instigators of the violence to maintain the peace, Toohey concluded.

Business as usual

While the international media has given considerable attention to the Dateline story, the Australian media has chosen to largely ignore it.

World Bank president James Wolfensohn has denied the allegations.

Wolfensohn implied that Dateline had taken Fischer's comments out of context and challenged journalists to back up the allegation with evidence.

Mike Carey, Dateline executive producer, told Green Left Weekly: "We stand by our story ... I don't see how we misrepresented [Fischer], we faithfully reported what he said. We have him on screen acknowledging that they knew about the diversion of funds ... More critically, they [the World Bank] do not acknowledge the existence of the former Indonesian government bureaucrats in East Timor whose job it was to pay the militia from the development money, to hand it over to the militia. Adelino, that was his job and he admits it."

The revelations should raise very serious questions about the capacity of the Indonesian government to investigate and put on trial those responsible for the atrocities in East Timor. However, the UN and the Australian government remain unperturbed.

During his visit to Australia on February 21, UN secretary- general Kofi Annan and Australian PM John Howard played down the need for an international war crimes tribunal.

"If [the Indonesian government does] mount a transparent and credible trial, I do not think the UN Security Council will see any need to set up an independent tribunal", Annan said. Howard agreed: "Indonesia deserves a lot of credit and understanding for what she's done on this and I think the process should be allowed to work in Indonesia."

The Dateline and Four Corners programs show that the responsibility for the violence, murders and widespread destruction which inevitably followed the Indonesian military's being put in charge of "security" before and after the August referendum lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the "elegant men in suits" -- not just in Jakarta but right here in Canberra.

Teaching English in East Timor

Jackie Coleman spent January working at the Maubere Cultural Institute (MCI) in Dili, East Timor. Her visit, on behalf of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET), was in response to a request for assistance from the institute. In this article, Coleman describes her stay.

Visiting an agricultural cooperative in the steep hills behind Dili, I realised that a lot of the children, teenagers and adults were already familiar to me from the English classes at the MCI where I had been working for some time. The cooperative president, Santiago Tilman, told me how enthusiastic everyone was about the classes.

When I asked Tilman how the children, some as young as six, got to class, he told me that they had no alternative but to make the 16 kilometre round-trip on foot. Their parents considered learning English so important that the children were excused from helping in the fields.

The MCI was established last October, just one month after the Indonesian army's rampage though East Timor. It is run by young, unpaid, highly motivated Timorese volunteer English teachers.

Many were part way through degrees at Indonesian universities when they returned to East Timor.

The teachers are enthusiastically committed to the MCI's aim of fostering traditional Timorese culture and language as the nation moves toward independence. Timorese culture has survived the imposition of two colonising powers, with their cultures and languages; for hundreds of years, Portugal and, since 1975, Indonesia.

The most widely spoken indigenous language, Tetum, will become one of the new national languages and it appears that one of the colonial languages will become the other official language of independent East Timor.

The MCI aims to eventually foster the development of Tetum as a standardised, written national language. The MCI already provides Tetum classes in villages in the Liquica area, where only local dialects are spoken.

The language of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) is English and it is crucial that the Timorese have a knowledge of that language during its administration. This is the main reason why the MCI has prioritised the teaching of English.

Another reason is that fluency in English is a criterion for gaining what little employment there is, usually with foreign organisations. (I witnessed a spontaneous public expression of frustration and resentment in Dili, when thousands of people lining up to apply for UNTAET jobs discovered that English was an essential criterion.)

The MCI also believes that skill in English will be an important tool in the development of Tetum.

Many of the MCI students, such as 20-year-old Natalino who hopes to study journalism in Australia, also express the desire to be able to speak what they term "an international language" after so many years of imposed cultural isolation from their neighbours in Asia.

Conditions at the MCI are very difficult. Classes take place in an abandoned Indonesian building in the suburb of Balide. One room has no chairs so as many as 60 students receive lessons sitting on the tiled floor.

There is one grammar textbook shared between five teachers and there are no copying facilities. When I was there, two young teachers, Cris and Akara, were trying to repair a photocopier damaged by an Indonesian firebomb.

Nonetheless, there is a tangible sense of hope because the teachers and the hundreds of students know that together they are developing valuable skills which will allow them to actively participate in building a democratic, independent East Timor.

Cheers and anger greet Wahid in East Timor

Dili -- Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid made a historic visit to East Timor Tuesday, braving the wrath of the population over 24 years of repression, to pledge the opening of a new chapter in the two countries' bloodstained history.

The day-long visit got off to a violent start when Portuguese police fired warning shots at an angry mob of youths which surged toward the armor-plated Mercedes carrying Wahid into the city.

But Wahid stuck undaunted to his schedule, adressing a crowd in front of the governor's palace as UN military and police wrestled with protestors in the front line of a 4,000-strong crowd.

Some cheered and some screamed abuse, as the president invited the leaders of the protestors inside the palace for a brief meeting to hear their demands. Protestors called for captured resistance fighters to be located and demanded a trial for Indonesian generals accused of atrocities here.

Wahid later signed a communique with the UN transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET) on building new relations, reparations and borders before signing the foundation stone of Indonesia's first diplomatic mission here.

Wahid, who was a Muslim scholar in his early 30s when Indonesian troops invaded the former Portuguese colony at the cost of thousands dead, also laid a floral wreath at Santa Cruz cemetery, the site of the 1991 massacre of at least 100 civilians by Indonesian forces.

He also commemorated the estimated 20,000 Indonesians who died in East Timor, laying a wreath at a nearby military cemetery before heading for a brief press conference and then to the airport.

After the wreath-laying Wahid apologized to the Timorese people, who lost an estimated 200,000 people in the bloody aftermath of the invasion.

"I would like to apologize for the things that have happened in the past... for the victims, to the families of Santa Cruz, and those friends who are buried here in the military cemetary. "These are the victims of circumstance that we didn't want," he said.

Earlier, addressing the crowd outside the governor's palace, Wahid said both Indonesian and East Timorese had suffered from repression. "Thank God we both know how to put that in our past," he said, to cheers led by resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, before protestors drowned out his words. Gusmao walked among the screaming protestors, trying to calm them down along with fellow independence leader Jose Ramos Horta.

Earlier when the white Indonesian military VIP plane carrying Wahid and his 33-man entourage touched down at Dili's Comoro airport, he was greeted by Gusmao, the head of the East Timor National Resistance Council, who spent years in Indonesian jails.

Also present were UNTAET head Sergio Vieira de Mello and Nobel laureate bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo. Security was massive for the three and a half-hour visit.

A white UN helicopter circled overhead, and Portuguese snipers were stationed on top of roofs in the city, where hundreds of houses have been razed -- the legacy of the Indonesian army- backed militia rampage that followed East Timor's August 30 independence vote.

Former militia members targeted amid the devastation

John Martinkus, Salale -- Indonesian military and New Zealand troops mix freely on the bridge that forms the border here. It is hot, isolated and boring, surrounded by crocodile-infested mangroves. The main problems for the New Zealand troops here are the mosquitoes carrying dengue fever and malaria.

This is Salele, the southernmost crossing point of the East Timorese border with Indonesian-controlled West Timor. It is the entry point for returning East Timorese to the most isolated and devastated part of East Timor that is still struggling under UN administration to restore even the most basic services.

The nearby town of Suai, once the regional centre for an area that contained more than 60,000 people, still has no power, telephones or reliable water supply. At night, the town of more than 27,000 people -- living in burnt out buildings and under blue UN-supplied tarpaulins -- resembles a medieval city, with people sitting in small groups around oil lamps and fires, passing the time.

The people here complain that the UN is not doing enough to improve the situation. "Look at the NGOs -- here they come with their cars and build offices but still we don't get any food," said Adrianno Nascimiento, a local resident and political activist.

The first stage of the emergency food distribution has finished. The World Food Program now says it is targeting those most at risk, such as households with no male head and the refugees who continue to return from the camps across the border in West Timor, where they fled last September.

But some of those returning are former militia members, a situation which brings NGOs into direct conflict with CNRT, the pro-independence East Timorese political party that forms the only local administration.

Robin Taudevin, an organiser for independent aid organisation Timor Aid, said working under such conditions wasn't easy. "To deal with the local communities we have to deal with CNRT," he said. "That way they can mobilise people to assist. But CNRT is a political organisation and down here in the south-west, where there was so much killing and destruction by whole communities that were involved in the militia, we have CNRT sometimes trying to punish certain areas or individuals."

The percentage of refugees returning now who have been involved with the militia is higher here than anywhere else. On Friday, ten of the 93 refugees who crossed at the Salele border post were isolated by UNHCR for their own protection. They had admitted to UNHCR officials in the camps in West Timor that they had been involved with militia and they feared reprisals.

Timor ire at coffee tax

Wilson da Silva, Dili -- An impost on coffee exports in East Timor, among tax measures to be announced by the governing United Nations authority this week, was introduced at the insistence of the International Monetary Fund, despite resistance from the World Bank, UN staff and most Timorese leaders.

East Timor has been a tax-free haven for businesses since the Australian-led Interfet force arrived on September 20, and already more than 200 businesses are operating, most of them Australian or in partnership with Timorese.

The tax measures, passed by the National Consultative Council a 15-member, UN-appointed body dominated by Timorese representatives -- will introduce taxes for the first time since the UN took the territory from Indonesia following an overwhelming vote for independence on August 30.

A duty of 5 percent is to be introduced on all imports into the shattered territory, and additional sales taxes of up to 15 percent on specific goods such as cars, mobile phones and items classed as luxuries, such as perfume.

Other items will carry a sales levy on top of the import duty: alcoholic beverages an additional $US1.50 a litre, cigarettes $US15 a kilo and fuel US5" a litre. "The basic premise is to have tax measures that are very simple to administer because the capacity of East Timor [to administer them] is still very limited," said Mr Luis Mendonca, a senior economist with the IMF. "If you look at these numbers, these tax rates are low by international standards."

Exemptions include goods meant for humanitarian relief or non- profit organisations, goods meant for re-export and anything imported by the UN Administration in East Timor for its own use.

But among the measures is a "presumptive income tax" on coffee exports, the country's premium agricultural export. This last measure, the first and so far only impost on income, met widespread resistance when it was first proposed by the IMF and discussed at a National Consultative Council meeting on February 19. The IMF is the principal adviser to the UN administration on treasury and fiscal matters and drafted the tax regulations.

"It's lunacy and a step backwards," said one economist involved in the discussions. "I can't believe the IMF is proposing a tax on exports and was so adamant about it. The first country of the 21st century will emerge with an outdated and regressive tax that penalises the country's most successful export."

In the NCC debate, the export tax was opposed by Mr Xanana Gusmao, leader of the Timorese pro-independence coalition, the CNRT, and by the majority of NCC members. But it was strongly defended by the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department chief, Mr Luis Valdivieso, and supported by Mr Joao Carrascalao, a Timorese businessman and NCC member with interests in coffee something that surprised observers.

They argued that since almost all of the territory's coffee exports were purchased by the National Co-operative Business Association, a non-profit federation of US co-operatives, and most of this sold to the Starbucks chain of coffee houses, the burden would fall on foreign companies and not on Timorese producers.

The tax regulations were eventually passed by another NCC meeting on Thursday, but will not come into effect until sometime after they are signed this week by the UN Administrator, Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello. The measures are expected to apply from March 1.

East Timor has 17,500 small family-run plantations and 15 primary co-operatives which produce 6,500 tonnes a year of mostly high-grade organic coffee. Producers receive an average of $US1.25 a kilo for unhusked beans.

Some CNRT members have railed against the export tax, and promised to raise it with the leadership, which the UN also relies on for consultation. "This will have a very negative impact on small coffee producers," said Mr Estanislau da Silva, an agronomist who is member of the CNRT agriculture committee.

Interfet's exit has militia on warpath

Michael Ware -- The capture of a militia reconnaissance team inside East Timor just one day after Major-General Peter Cosgrove's departure marks a heightened campaign of militia activity in the wake of the Interfet pullout.

From the time Interfet handed over its last area of operations to the new UN peacekeeping force on February 21, with the formal transition coming into effect two days later, militia activity has been on the rise. UN force commander Lieutenant-General Jaime de Los Santos yesterday told The Australian he could not discount the possibility there were certain "activities that could ignite the militia to test our resolve".

Concerns have been increasing within UN and some military circles over indications of limited militia remobilisation, with last week's attacks on refugees and aid agency staff, as well as the reconnaissance patrol's incursion, the most intense period of militia activity since mid-January.

It was believed the arrest of the last known active militia leader, Moko Soares, who had directed the repeated militia attacks in to the Oecussi enclave, had been the significant step in stemming militia activity. Since the announcement of his arrest on February 9, there had been a lull in militia harassment and forays into East Timor, but that has now come to an end.

General de Los Santos confirmed two men from a militia unit sent across East Timor's western border were captured on February 24 near the village of Saborai. During questioning, the men admitted they had been deployed on a mission to identify possible infiltration routes into East Timor so further militia forces could enter the UN-controlled territory. The men have been charged with espionage offences.

Militia also disrupted a UN High Commissioner for Refugees information campaign on Saturday in the village of Monumuti, in West Timor.

Australian army units in the UN peacekeeping force stationed along the western border have reported that militia "appear to be splitting into groups to attack refugee convoys and aid agency workers. That report follows the stabbing of an International Organisation for Migration doctor by a militia member in the West Timorese regional capital of Atambua on February 21, the day Interfet troops on the border transformed into blue helmet soldiers under the command of the UN.

Indonesian media has also reported a number of militia were detained at the border on Saturday by Indonesian soldiers when they became abusive because of the cancellation of a family reunion day.

General de Los Santos said there was a strong, however false, perception "among some East Timorese that our capabilities may not be the same as Interfet".

But virtually all of the UN troops on the critical western border are the same Australian and New Zealand soldiers who were stationed there as part of the Interfet force.

The renewed militia activity comes as Interfet's border agreement with the Indonesian army is being renegotiated by General de Los Santos.

Fine coffee offers sweet smell of trading success

Mark Dodd, Ermera -- The coffee trees in this prime highland growing area are laden with berries, promising aficianados of arguably the world's finest arabica renewed supplies from East Timor and a welcome flow of cash to its destitute population.

Coffee is at least one industry that looks like recovering quickly from the militia violence which devastated East Timor's towns and villages last year and displaced almost half its population. Seasonal rains have come on time to spur growth.

A grant from the Norwegian Government has put contractors to work repairing roads which will enable farmers and buyers to take the crop down to the capital, Dili.

Production of its highly prized and almost unique organic-grown coffee should reach about 8,000 tonnes this year, earning an estimated $A30 million. The territory's coffee is produced almost entirely by small-holder farmers, employing several thousand people. This makes it the largest industry in a country where 80 percent of the population is out of work.

This year's harvest was looking good, said Mr Sam Filiaci, head of the Dili-based National Co-operative Business Association, the largest coffee buyer and processor in East Timor.

The non-profit organisation was set up with United States aid in 1994 to wrest control of coffee-purchasing and exports from firms linked to the Indonesian military. It promoted the fine arabica quality of 90 percent of East Timor's crop, and the non-use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides, to make it a speciality coffee for clients such as the Starbucks coffee-house chain in the US.

In the militia violence following last year's United Nations-run vote on self-determination, the association suffered losses worth $A3 million. Its head office in Dili was looted and seven houses burnt. Weighing scales, tarpaulins, coffee bags and other equipment worth about $A900,000 was wrecked or stolen. About 600 tonnes of coffee worth $A1.8 million was also looted from warehouses in Dili. "We took a big loss," Mr Filiaci said.

The association now hopes to expand production and add value to the coffee crop before export to increase returns to the farmers. It puts the freshly picked coffee cherry through a "mild-wash" process that adds 30-40 percent to the value of the crop exported as green beans. But many farmers sell their crop to traders who take it to Indonesia for processing, and fail to capture full market potential.

With proper farmer education, tree pruning and a large-scale replanting scheme to replace old trees, Mr Filiaci said he believed East Timor's coffee production could be tripled within five to seven years.
 

Government/politics

Indonesia's new presidential advisor

On February 28, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid appointed an unusual new advisor: former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger has agreed to accept the position "free of charge." Yet he is hardly a disinterested, third-party observer. Kissinger serves on the board of US multinational Freeport-McMoran, which operates one of the world's largest gold and copper mines in Indonesia's Irian Jaya province. The new advisor's first advice? Wahid should respect the contract with Freeport-McMoran.

The government in Jakarta is renegotiating contracts with the foreign giants that mine the rich mineral, oil and gas resources concentrated in Indonesia's restive provinces. President Suharto designed the contracts to funnel money into the pockets of his cronies and to allow companies such as Freeport-McMoran a controlling stake and a lion's share of the profits.

Wahid's overture gives Freeport-McMoran the opportunity to carve out the same degree of influence it enjoyed under Suharto. Wahid may see this as a welcome opportunity; his leadership revolves around cementing friendships with a small circle of elites and then persuading this network to serve his agenda. So far, the strategy has been effective, but this particular deal risks making the president look like a tool of foreign commercial interests. Political opponents -- such as the populist Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) -- may conclude that he is sacrificing the country's welfare to foreign interests.

The Indonesian government has argued for months about the Freeport-McMoran contract. Some elements, including the environment minister and mines and energy minister, are anxious to evaluate possible environmental damage from the mine. They have also questioned whether the company has done enough to improve the quality of life in Irian Jaya, where most of the 2 million inhabitants live in poverty.

Jakarta will likely use these facts to force Freeport-McMoran to give the government a larger stake in the deal than the 9 percent it now controls; the company owns more than 80 percent. PT Indocopper Investama Corp. owns the remaining shares -- but Indocopper itself is 49 percent owned by Freeport and 50.48 percent controlled by an old Suharto ally, Mohammad "Bob" Hasan.

Wahid appears prepared to work with the company. This approach may produce better results than threats. By working directly with Kissinger, Wahid may make some headway in efforts to increase Jakarta's share of the riches. However, the political backlash could be dangerous. Wahid's adversaries could accuse him of selling Indonesia short.

Courting danger

John McBeth, Jakarta -- For both admirers and critics of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, the picture is disturbing: At the presidential palace in Jakarta there are signs of a new "royal court" in the making. Officials converse in Javanese, not the national language Bahasa Indonesia; Wahid himself borrows from mysticism and ancient tracts to plot political strategy; and family and friends are acting as gatekeepers and facilitators, in some cases for businessmen hoping to curry favour.

Some analysts describe it as a form of "benign Suhartoism," a throwback to the disastrous last decade of President Suharto's 32-year rule. Benign or not, the legitimacy and relative stability Wahid has brought to a nation exhausted by two years of economic and social upheaval continues to be overshadowed by leadership shortcomings that create space for would-be cronies. Left unchecked, these could threaten his reputation as a man of principle and democratic ideals.

The concern stems from several factors. These include the roles being played by Wahid's children and a decision to separate the palace from other parts of the administration. At the centre of it all is Wahid's personal manner. His diffident, laissez-faire style may work to disarm rivals, but it shows signs of hurting his government's relationship with the International Monetary Fund and domestic allies. Wahid's willingness to meet with heavily indebted businessmen -- in particular, textile tycoon Marimutu Sinivasan, who owes the government $1 billion -- is fuelling notions that such people receive special protection. In private, some palace officials express serious concern.

Then there's the president's apparent inability to bluntly say "no." Critics say his vagueness and reluctance to confront others encourages businessmen to seek favour and leads investigators to be careful about the businessmen they pursue.

While the president's near-blindness makes him dependent on his inner circle for information and advice, there is an additional dimension: a resurgence in the business activities of the Nahdlatul Ulama -- the Muslim mass organization that still serves as Wahid's power base -- and the resurrection of two business groups that supported Wahid during his 16 years at the NU's helm. By any measure, the task he has in forging a new future for Indonesia and escaping old political ways is formidable. Saddled with a cabinet thrust upon him by the necessities of accommodating widely diverging political interests, he has had a difficult baptism. During the first four months of his presidency, his attention has been consumed by the twin tasks of removing former armed-forces chief Gen. Wiranto from his positions of influence and the need to warn off the retired generals and Muslim radicals Wahid holds responsible for outbreaks of unrest across the country.

In part, this explains the president's lack of progress in fixing the economy and initiating urgent reforms, particularly in the justice system. But further delay could heighten perceptions that the transition is proving unduly long and difficult and, perhaps more worryingly, allow a resurgence of some of the old habits that people thought had died with the Suharto era.

Political scientist Cornelius Luhulima, a long-time acquaintance of Wahid, says a lack of democratic institutions -- and a parliament he appears to have little faith in -- makes it difficult for the president to lead in a conventional sense. But critics point out that by falling back on this traditional Javanese pattern of leadership, which emphasizes the wisdom of the leader, Wahid ensures that everything comes back to him -- just as it did with Suharto. He runs the government in much the same erratic, personalized manner he has used at the Nahdlatul Ulama.

Although Wahid has recovered from last year's serious stroke, some of his wilder statements suggest he often has a loose grip on reality. "He likes people giving him information," says Greg Fealy, an Australian scholar and an expert on the 30 million- strong NU. "But he can have six people giving him sound information and a seventh person telling him something that tickles his fancy -- and that's the one he believes. It's the mystic in him. He wants something that stimulates him." Little wonder that an Indonesian newspaper recently noted in an editorial that Wahid "has been very skilful in solving problems created by himself."

In the first weeks of his presidency, Wahid's aides were drawn into the fight to end what one describes as a "psychological war" against the military's suffocating hold over the palace. Mostly, it was about separating the palace staff from other departments in the State Secretariat, the body that handles the executive's administrative chores. In fact, what has emerged is a throwback to the days of founding President Sukarno, whose fiercely loyal staff proved impervious to outside interference. This separation of the palace from other parts of the administration has become a key worry for those who see in its independence the makings of a new royal court.

Then there are those who surround Wahid, and on whom the near- blind cleric relies. Many of the early skirmishes of his administration were fought by tough-minded Ratih Hardjono, 39. A relative and former journalist, she served as Wahid's personal assistant during general elections last year and in the lead-up to his unexpected presidential coup. More recently, newly promoted State Secretary Bondon Goenawan and Cabinet Secretary Marsilam Simanjuntuk have joined her. The two are former members of Democracy Forum, an activist group Wahid headed in the early 1990s.

Although they have no official positions, Alisa, 27, and Zannuba (or Yenny), 24, two of the president's daughters, serve as his eyes and ears. They read to him, interpret the body language of the people he talks to -- not always accurately, according to one annoyed ambassador -- and act as his gatekeepers. Questions about Wahid's reliance on them and Yenny's role, in particular, surfaced after three of the president's aides were called to a parliamentary hearing to explain, among other things, the source of information he has been receiving.

The president also depends a lot on his brothers. Hasyim Wahid offers advice and acts as a channel for businessmen and other visitors. He also interprets Wahid's dreams, according to insiders. Another brother, Salehudin, is what an acquaintance calls the "family conscience" while a third, Umar, a well-liked pulmonary specialist, serves as the coordinator of the president's medical team. "To keep Gus Dur healthy," Umar has told friends, using Wahid's nickname, "is to keep him busy." Not everyone thinks having the family around the president is so bad. Says Maritime Affairs Minister Sarwono Kusumaatmadja: "If you're blind, what else can you do. I'd rely on my kids and no-one else -- even if they don't have formal positions."

Much of the criticism stems from the fact that unlike the authoritarian Suharto, Wahid wants to encourage his ministers to think and act for themselves. But by not providing his cabinet with either guidance or direction, he has instead created the impression of policy drift and political stagnation. Working in the Wahid government, intones Sarwono, "is like walking on a bed of treacle -- laborious, with hardly any real progress."

Describing a picture of inexperienced ministers unwilling to play at high stakes and groping through a maze of bureaucracy, Sarwono bemoans the shortage of what he calls "movers and shakers" and "predator types." More importantly, he says, the president needs to strengthen macro-management -- "he's got to have someone who can run the government on a day-to-day basis and go after implementation, something like a prime minister."

So what of the future? Political analyst Marcus Mietzner sees little prospect of the situation changing: "Abdurrahman Wahid will be around for some time -- providing biology and tuhan [God] don't intervene." But, he adds, that assumes continuing weakness in the country's political parties and the absence, for now, of a credible alternative.

Gus Dur faces challenge over loan scandal

Jakarta -- A loan scandal involving Indonesia's biggest textile magnate, Marimutu Sinivasan of the Texmaco Group, is turning into a major challenge for President Abdurrahman Wahid's four-month-old government.

Mr Abdurrahman, who came to power pledging to end corruption in the world's fourth most populous country, is faced with having to explain why three months after the scandal -- involving improper loans to the group -- was exposed, it has yet to be resolved.

The case is drawing the attention of the International Monetary Fund, and may threaten the more than US$6 billion a year in international aid that Indonesia is depending on to help fill its deficit. In August last year, the IMF suspended aid for six months when a US$80 million scandal involving PT Bank Bali was exposed.

"It really boils down to how much the IMF can stomach the old ways being retained," said Song Seng Wun, an economist at GK Goh Research Pte Ltd. "Ultimately, the government is dependent on external aid." At the centre of the Texmaco case are loans it got from state-owned PT Bank Negara Indonesia, or BNI, between the end of 1997 and early 1998 with approval from then president Suharto.

The loans broke banking regulations that limit credits to a single customer. Texmaco's Mr Marimutu, a close associate of Suharto, denies any wrongdoing.

In an added twist, the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (Ibra) said this week that BNI has not transferred the loans to the agency as required under an agreement between the government and the IMF.

Indonesia agreed that all bad loans from state banks would be transferred to Ibra, allowing the agency to recover the money or seize assets of the defaulting company.

BNI's refusal to transfer the loans and the sluggishness with which the government is handling the case is raising concern that Texmaco is getting special treatment from the government.

The IMF publicly is taking a neutral stand. "From the beginning we haven't tried to single out special treatment for any case," said John Dodsworth, the IMF's representative for Indonesia. The transfer of Texmaco's loans to Ibra "is likely to happen very shortly", he said.

Granted, the government has taken some steps against Texmaco. Days before the IMF released US$349 million to Indonesia in February, the country closed a Texmaco bank, PT Bank Putera Multikarsa.

The government took over the bank and closed it after it was found to have 80 percent non-performing loans and a capital adequacy ratio -- the ratio between a bank's capital and its risk weighted assets -- of negative 48 percent.

Still, "with things popping up left, right and centre it is difficult for the IMF to close an eye", said the GK Goh economist. The new administration could be moving slowly because of the implications on the economy of the collapse of a large group like Texmaco, analysts said. Texmaco, which employs more than 100,000 people, has the world's third largest polyester maker PT Polysindo as well as machinery manufacturing units and garment and textile factories. The firm turned to the state for help after the government in August 1997 floated the rupiah, sending it diving.

Amien hits out at foreign advisors

Jakarta -- People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais said on Wednesday Indonesia did not need foreign advisors, thus President Abdurrahman Wahid's appointment of several foreign dignitaries in that role was merely a symbolic gesture.

"We don't need Kissinger, Lee Kwan Yew, Goh Chok Tong or Qaddafi," Amien remarked. "If Gus Dur appoints an outsider as an advisor it's merely symbolic.

But if it's a real advisor then we have to reject it because we are a sovereign state," Amien said referring to the President by his popular nickname. President Abdurrahman recently asked former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger to become his advisor. Abdurrahman had earlier also said he appointed Singapore senior minister Lee Kwan Yew as his economic advisor.

Amien charged that such appointments, if taken seriously, would only add to the regiment of presidential advisors. "Maybe at one point we would have [Australian Prime Minister] John Howard as general advisor to inspect security in the Asia Pacific region," he quipped, referring to the much touted "Howard Doctrine" recently condemned by Asian leaders in which the Australian prime minister suggested that his country could take over the role of the United States to "police" the region.

"Then we could possibly have [Chinese] President Jiang Zemin as advisor on Chinese diplomacy. I think this is all just fooling around," he remarked.

When asked for his comments on President Abdurrahman's apology in East Timor on Tuesday, Amien said such a remark should only be considered a diplomatic courtesy. But he warned that if Abdurrahman's statement was an official apology, then the President was going too far.

Amien asserted that people should also recognize that East Timorese themselves were also to blame for the deaths of thousands in the territory. He asserted that East Timorese should also bear much of the responsibility of the events dating back to the time of integration.

'Wiranto is finished, with no chance of comeback': Juwono

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta -- Former military strongman Wiranto is finished politically and is unlikely to ever play a dominant role in politics here, Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono said in an interview.

He said General Wiranto -- suspended this month from the post of Coordinating Security Minister -- did not have the legitimacy to mount a comeback even if the Attorney-General's Office did not press charges against him over the East Timor debacle.

"Technically, he can return to the Cabinet if the government cannot find anything against him," he told The Straits Times. "But ... there is a less-than-50 per cent chance of his returning. In the minds of the public, he is guilty."

A government-sanctioned inquiry implicated Gen Wiranto and 32 military and civilian officials for being responsible for the bloodshed and destruction in East Timor after residents voted in August to separate from Indonesia.

Pressure has been building up since then to prosecute those responsible, and Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman has indicated that he will determine, within two or three weeks, who should stand trial.

Dr Juwono said if the general escaped charges, there would be some concern that Mr Marzuki's office had given in to "pressure from the military. So it will just be convenient for some people to keep him out for good. Unfortunately for Wiranto, he has become a victim of circumstances."

But some of Gen Wiranto's supporters refuse to accept that the man who played a critical role in Indonesia's political transformation after President Suharto resigned is finished, and argue it is wrong to suggest that national opinion is against him.

"The views of the intellectual elite in Jakarta are not reflective of what the silent majority in the country thinks. Increasingly, a lot are beginning to see Pak Wiranto as being oppressed by the President in a plot to consolidate his grip on power," an aide said.

But senior government officials believe that it is difficult for Gen Wiranto to seize the initiative and turn to other sources of power. Dr Juwono said that aside from international pressure, especially from the United States, political players here would see the general as a "liability". Major parties in the ruling coalition would also not accept him, he added.

Gen Wiranto might gravitate towards Islamic-based groups, as he was doing now, but these would also want to keep a distance when they calculate the political risks involved.

Analysts also say that Gen Wiranto could no longer turn to the Indonesian defence forces (TNI) -- whose political influence is waning -- for direct political backing given the emasculation of his power base in the army by President Abdurrahman Wahid.

But some in the military argue that by getting rid of Gen Wiranto and his supporters, Mr Abdurrahman could be undermining his own position over time. Said a key army general: "Not many officers are crying over Wiranto's dismissal and they are not going to step into the fray to champion his cause. But the President's continued intervention in military affairs is breeding resentment. "The Wiranto saga is the tip of the iceberg. We perceive it as a larger attack on all of us."
 

Aceh/West Papua

Six more bodies found in troubled Aceh

Banda Aceh -- Six more bodies have been found at separate locations in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh, as a handgrenade exploded in the office of the North Aceh district chief, injuring four people, police and residents said Friday.

The grenade was tossed into the district chief's office in Lhokseumawe, the main town of North Aceh district on Thursday, North Aceh district police chief Lieutenant Colonel Syafei Aksal said. Aksal said four people were injured in the blast and the assailants, two men who were known to the police, had escaped.

Meanwhile, the body of a security guard of a local state paper factory in North Aceh was found in Muara Batu sub-district late on Thursday while the decomposed bodies of two unidentified men were also found in Blang Mangat sub-district on the same day, residents said.

Aksal confirmed the finding of the three bodies but he said the identities of the victims and the circumstances of their deaths remained unknown.

On Tuesday, villagers in Pegasing, Central Aceh, found the body of an unidentified man on the side of a road in the Burlintang area. On the previous day, the bodies of two men with gaping throat slash wounds were found near a market in Bandar subdistrict.

Central Aceh police district chief, Lieutenant Colonel Misik Natari confirmed the finding of the three bodies in Central Aceh and although their identity remained unknown, all were believed to be civilians.

Although the assailants and the cause death were unknown, residents believed the six men had been killed in violence by security personnel and separatist rebels from the Aceh Merdeka Movement.

US urges Aceh negotiated deal

Slobodan Lekic, Jakarta -- While affirming Indonesia's "territorial integrity," the United States today urged President Abdurrahman Wahid not to use force in quelling a bloody separatist rebellion in the country's north.

Concluding a two-day visit to Jakarta, Thomas R. Pickering, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said the United States supports Indonesia's "territorial integrity and is not in favor of dividing up Indonesia."

But he cautioned against continuing an offensive against rebels in the country's northern Aceh province, which has been wracked by separatist violence. "We don't believe that the problem can be resolved ... by the use of military force," Pickering said. "We believe the problem must be resolved through the process of dialogue, discussions and negotiations."

Pickering also voiced strong support for Indonesia's political and economic reforms. He noted that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had singled out Indonesia as one of four countries making the transition to democracy that deserved special attention and US aid. The three others are Colombia, Nigeria and Ukraine.

While Pickering had praise for the Indonesia's democratic transition, he warned that more violence was unlikely to settle the 25-year-long Aceh conflict, where police said today 13 people were killed in the latest violence.

Lt. Col. Syafei Aksal, a local police chief in Aceh, said four decomposed bodies were found Thursday in North Aceh district. He said all the dead bodies, one of them headless, were beyond recognition. At least 5,000 people have been killed in the province during the past decade.

In West Papua, Indonesia's easternmost province, police fired on dozens of indigenous Papuans attacking a police station, authorities said today. Two Papuans were killed in Thursday's clash.

After the first free elections in 44 years in Indonesia, Wahid took office in October with the aim of reviving the country's moribund economy and reform its corruption-ridden institutions while dealing with multiple separatist and religious conflicts.

He met with President Clinton in Washington in November, and a number of high-level bilateral meetings have followed. Last month, the Clinton administration announced that US aid to Indonesia in 2000 would increase by 66 percent, from $75 million to $125 million.

Warning shots fired to clear streets in Irian Jaya

Jakarta - Warning shots were fired on Thursday as mobs attempted to prevent police from clearing barricades from the streets in a town in Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya, police said.

"They were only warning shots, as many people were preventing members from the Brimob (police mass-control brigade) from clearing the streets of obstacles and makeshift barricades around Oyehee [area] at about noon," a policeman on duty at the Nabire district police office said.

The policeman, who identified himself as Sergeant Wayan, said no one was injured in the incident and that the mobs had again erected obstacles on the streets after the incident.

But the Institute for the Study and Advocacy of Human Rights (Elsham) in Jayapura, the main city of Irian Jaya some 560 kilometres west of Nabire, said that one man was injured in the shooting.

Wellem Manimbara, 32, was shot in the hands and was currently under treatment at the state hospital in Nabire, an Elsham report reaching here said. However the report did not say how serious the injury was and the hospital could not be immediately reached for confirmation.

The incident followed a shooting in Nabire on February 28 which left two demonstrators killed, shot dead by security personnel, Wayan said. Elsham said three people were shot dead in that incident.

On Wednesday, a mob of some 2,000 people, many armed with knives, machetes and bows and arrows, attacked the district police headquarters in Nabire, leaving one of the attackers injured. Some 50 people had attacked a Brimob barracks in Nabire, on Monday and troops opened fire to stop the mobs from entering the compound.

West Papuans warn of militia build up

Jody Betzien, Melbourne -- Two human rights workers from West Papua visited Melbourne last week to draw attention to the training of pro-Indonesian militia and arbitrary killings in the Indonesian province.

Albert Rumbekwan, a lawyer from the Institute for Human Rights Studies and Advocacy, gave an account of shootings at a West Papuan flag raising ceremony in Biak in mid-1998. He said 400 people were arrested and a number were shot. Subsequently, 32 corpses appeared on the Biak beach. Rumbekwan said Indonesian- trained anti-independence "militias" are being formed secretly in every town. Large amounts of weaponry are being illegal imported. He also spoke of the large military presence in West Papua, particularly at the site of the giant, US-owned Freeport gold and copper mine.

Mus Pigai, a West Papuan independence campaigner, described the massive Jakarta-sponsored migration of people from other parts of Indonesia into West Papua and the systematic discrimination against indigenous West Papuans that has led to divisions between "transmigrants" and the local population. The migrants form the basis of the militia.

West Papua has been part of Indonesia since 1969 when the United Nations General Assembly ratified the "Act of Free Choice". In this ballot, just 1025 West Papuans from a population of 1.8 million were allowed to vote on West Papua's status. Rumbekwan said he supported the current investigation by the Dutch government into the rigged ballot.

Rumbekwan said West Papuans want full independence from Indonesia and reject Jakarta's vague offer of "autonomy". Only independence will end the repression, he said. Rumbekwan urged Australian solidarity and other organisations to continue to pressure the Indonesian government to end human rights abuses and to support independence for West Papua.

West Papua: autonomy or independence?

Mark Abberton -- Following the downfall of the Suharto and Habibie governments, the election of the "reform" president, Abdurrahman Wahid, and the withdrawal of Indonesian troops from East Timor, the Indonesian government has been forced to grant some democratic reforms, including offering "special autonomy status" to West Papua (Irian Jaya) and Aceh.

On February 10, thousands of people rallied in Wamena, West Papua, to reject Jakarta's autonomy package, and press for self- determination. On February 15, two busloads of West Papuans greeted United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan when he arrived in Indonesia and demanded an East Timor-style referendum.

The Habibie regime, under pressure to implement "post-Suharto" reforms, introduced two laws to appease independence struggles. On April 21, the House of Representatives approved Law No.

22/1999 on regional autonomy and on April 23, it approved Law No. 25/1999 on intergovernmental fiscal balance. The laws were vague on the responsibilities of the regional and central administrations and reiterated the central government's power to regulate the implementation of the laws.

The four main factions in the House of Representatives -- the United Development Party, the Golkar party, the Indonesian Democratic Party and the armed forces -- endorsed the laws.

Following the events in East Timor last year, the People's Consultative Assembly ruled on October 19 that the newly elected government must grant special autonomy status to Aceh and West Papua.

Wahid announced the "special autonomy status" soon after his election to the presidency and during November and December began the task of selling the package to the "troubled" provinces.

On December 18, a House of Representatives delegation said that no foreign country would recognise an independent West Papua. "Leaders of the foreign countries President Abdurrahman Wahid [had] visited ... threw their weight behind Indonesia in dismissing independence demands", said legislator Astrid Susanto.

According to the Jakarta Post on February 18, the United States does not support any provinces separating from Indonesia. Assistant secretary of state Stanley Roth said the US "does not want to be a party" to dismantling Indonesia because it would have a "devastating" outcome for the region.

US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, speaking to the US House International Relations Committee on February 16, commented that the troubles in West Papua and Aceh were a "major concern".

Radio Australia on December 1 reported that "Australia has called for Aceh and Irian Jaya to remain part of Indonesia" and that foreign minister Alexander Downer had told the National Press Club in Canberra that changing the boundaries of Indonesia would create chaos and be very destabilising for the region.

Wahid and most factions within the Indonesian government are aware that concessions are required to quell support for independence in West Papua. However, they oppose measures that may upset the "unity of the nation". Proposals such as federation have been rejected in favour of negotiations for regional autonomy under the central government's terms.

The Jakarta Post reported on February 17 that cabinet secretary Marsilam Simajuntak said the laws on regional autonomy and fiscal balance would be implemented on April 1. The House of Representatives has supported Wahid's decision in January to change the name of the province from Irian Jaya to West Papua.

The details of the autonomy package remain unclear, and West Papuans remain convinced that they deserve the independence they were deprived of in the rigged 1969 "act of free choice".

Police fire shots to disperse mob in Irian Jaya

Jakarta -- Indonesian police fired warning shots in eastern Irian Jaya province on Wednesday to disperse an angry mob which attacked a police headquarters after the death of a pro- independence student, police said.

Irian Jaya police chief Brig. Gen. S.Y. Wenas said about 1,500 protesters attacked the headquarters in the coastal town of Nabire, some 3,225 kilometers east of Jakarta.

"They were armed with machetes, bows and arrows and police had to fire warning shots into the air," Wenas said from capital Jayapura. He said one person was shot and wounded in the incident.

It was the second violent incident in the town in recent days. On Monday, one student was shot dead during clashes between independence supporters and police. Police denied responsibility. No other information was available. Telephone lines to Nabire, a remote town with poor telephone links, were down on Wednesday.

Resource-rich Irian Jaya, the western half of New Guinea, is a separatist trouble spot where pro-independence fighters are active. Support for independence is strong and widespread and has gained momentum since East Timor's bloody separation from Indonesia last year.

In recent months the flag of the separatist Free Papua Movement has been repeatedly raised in protests across Irian Jaya that have sometimes turned violent.

One shot dead as police open fire in Irian violence

Jayapura -- One man was killed when police opened fire on mobs attacking a Mobile Brigade (Brimob) police headquarters in the easternmost province of Irian Jaya, police said on Tuesday.

Some 50 residents of Nabire, 560 kilometers west of the provincial capital of Jayapura, many armed with arrows, swords and spears, attacked the headquarters late on Monday afternoon, Antara quoted local police chief Lt. Col. Faisal A.N. as saying.

The Institute of Human Rights Studies and Advocacy (IHRSTAD) identified the casualty as Manase Erary, 28, a student at the local Public Administration Institute, who died when Brimob troops opened fire to stop the mobs from entering their compound.

IHRSTAD's executive director, Aloysius Renrawin, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that the latest violence followed a weapons sweep by Brimob troops against the proindependence supporters who were heading home in the Karang Tumaritis district. The group carried the Morning Star rebel flag.

"Manase was shot when he was trying to calm the two warring groups," Aloysius said. Faisal said five men in the crowd, who claimed to be members of the Papua Task Force, were arrested following the attack. He denied, however, that Manase was killed by Brimob troops, saying the autopsy showed the protester was killed by a hunting rifle bullet, which is not used by Brimob.

One Brimob officer also suffered a serious stomach injury after he was hit by an arrow, Faisal said, adding that another protester had been shot in the legs. IHRSTAD activists said six other civilians suffered gunshot wounds in the clash.

Tension continued to grip the small town on Tuesday, with many shops seen closed and people refraining themselves from outdoor activities.

Earlier this month, nine policemen were injured and three residents suffered gunshot wounds when police opened fire during similar attacks on the local state radio station RRI and a police office in Merauke.

In late January an RRI station was also vandalized in the Irian Jaya town of Fakfak, because the station referred to the province as Irian Jaya rather than Papua. President Abdurrahman Wahid recently restored the province's old name of Papua to appease people opposed to the Indonesian-given name of Irian Jaya. The House of Representatives has yet to approve the change.

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

On Saturday 500 people attending the first Papuan Congress renewed the independence demand and rejected the 1969 plebiscite that incorporated the territory into Indonesia.

Papuans reject Indonesian rule

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- Indonesia's fledgling civilian Government has come under renewed pressure from separatists in the far-flung province of Papua as a military crackdown reignites tensions in the staunchly Muslim province of Aceh.

Five hundred people meeting in the Papuan capital of Jayapura voted at the weekend to reject a controversial United Nations- supervised 1969 referendum under which the territory was incorporated into Indonesia.

The vote effectively rejects Indonesia's sovereignty of Papua, which was formerly known as Irian Jaya, but local leaders have told Indonesian journalists their struggle for independence would be fought peacefully.

A new year's eve visit to Jayapura by the Indonesian President, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, was welcomed by Papuan activists who see themselves as closer to Melanesians of the South Pacific than people in other parts of Indonesia, especially the Javanese.

The Indonesian armed forces have reacted brutally to past attempts to raise the Morning Star flag of the West Papuan freedom movement, including slaughtering dozens of people on the island of Biak in July 1998.

Mr Wahid agreed to change the name of the province to appease separatists. But the 59-year-old President has bluntly rejected any suggestion of independence for the province, which has some of the world's largest copper and gold mines.

A communique released by students and community leaders attending what they called the first Papuan Congress demanded independence for the territory because of what it called 38 years of neglect by the government in Jakarta.

The communique questioned the legitimacy of the referendum which saw Papua transferred from the Dutch to the Indonesian Government through the UN. "Only 0.8 percent of the 80,000 eligible voters took part in the so-called popular consultation," it said.

A spokesman for local leaders, Mr Tom Beanal, said the communique would be sent to the UN and the governments of Indonesia, the Netherlands and the United States. No mention was made of Australia, where successive governments have supported Indonesia's rule. The four-day congress agreed to set-up a Papuan presidium council that would meet in April.

At the other end of the Indonesian archipelago, in Aceh, heavily armed police and soldiers have resumed a crackdown on separatists, sweeping through villages and attacking suspected separatists.

The crackdown appears to be in defiance of Mr Wahid, who has refused repeated requests from the military for his government to declare martial law.
 

Labour struggle

Indonesia: Kong Tai workers protest

May Sari, Jakarta -- Having failed to gain satisfaction from their employer or the Indonesian government, thousands workers from PT Kong Tai Indonesia protested outside parliament here on February 21.

The workers are demanding payment of eight months' unpaid wages and retrenchment compensation. The company, which produces Reebok shoes, has only agreed to pay one months' wages. At the parliament, the workers sought a meeting with the House Commission on Human Resources and Religious Issues. The Kong Tai workers' struggle began last September when the company closed down production, sacking 4671 of its workers. The company refused to pay the wages and severance pay owed to the workers because it claimed it had not made any profit after the 1997 economic crisis. Workers' representatives visited the owner, Patrick Tang, a Taiwan citizen based in Hong Kong, but got no response.

Sastro, one of the protesting Kong Tai workers, said it made no sense for the company to claim it had not made profits. "All of a sudden, the company reported that it could not continue production because there were no orders.

Before that, we had to work very hard because the company said we had many orders. I am afraid it was only the company's excuse to close the factory to avoid mounting calls to increase our wages."

Last month, Reebok's management in Indonesia told a press conference that several companies would close and move to other countries in the region, such as Vietnam and Thailand, where labour is cheaper.

Such situations are increasing in Indonesia. Many companies have closed their factories, claiming that workers' demands for increased wages and "political instability" make it difficult for companies to operate.

Dominggus, an official from the independent Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggle (FNPBI), which is backing the Kong Tai workers' struggle, said many members of the union had lost their jobs in this way. "Companies always say that they have not enough orders to maintain production, but we understand that is part of their strategy to get more and more profit. That is how capitalism works in the Asian region."
 

Human rights/law

State Department report generally accurate

The last year of the twentieth century was a transition for both East Timor and Indonesia. East Timor finally exercised its long- denied right to self-determination, and is now becoming an independent nation. Next year, East Timor will merit its own Country Report.

Indonesia firmly broke with the 32-year Suharto dictatorship, holding elections and moving toward a pluralistic democracy.

Yet, as the State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1999 on Indonesia indicates, this progress has come at a tremendous price. Not only have the people of East Timor and Indonesia survived decades of brutal repression and mass slaughter, but their 1999 passage toward freedom was accompanied by widespread killings and many other human rights violations. Although East Timor is now under interim United Nations administration and can look forward to peaceful democracy, many parts of Indonesia continue to suffer at the hands if Indonesia's military.

The State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DHRL) Report released last Friday discusses Indonesia's "significant progress in its transition from a long-entrenched authoritarian regime to a more pluralistic, representative democracy." Yet, the Report appropriately states "Both the TNI (military) and the police committed numerous serious human rights abuses throughout the year."

The East Timor Action Network commends the State Department for producing a generally accurate Country Report, and for including nearly all of the most serious ongoing violations of human rights. We also appreciate the shifts in U.S. policy toward Indonesia over the past two years and encourage the State Department to continue building relationships with Indonesia's civil society and maintaining pressure on the military. It is still far too early for the United States to resume weapons sales, military training or any other ties with Jakarta's military establishment, still not fully under civilian control and still violating the rights of people in Aceh, West Papua and other areas under Indonesian control.

Space does not permit recounting the voluminous information provided by the State Department, and these comments should be read in conjunction with the State Department Report. The following are the major areas relating to East Timor where ETAN believes the Report is lacking:

1. The Report fails to convey the extent to which the Indonesian military and its militias attempted to subvert the U.N. referendum process. Although some militia crimes preceding the May 5 agreement are described, as is the devastation after the results were announced on September 4, the terror and mayhem operation conducted by the militias during the referendum process is largely omitted.

There is no mention, for example, of the systematic attacks on CNRT offices during the two-week August campaign period, which effectively squelched public advocacy by the pro-independence side.
During the week before the vote, militias wrought havoc in towns all across East Timor, killing at least six people in Dili and several in other areas. On August 28 militia entered the Los Palos home of Verissimo Quintas, the 60-year-old traditional chief, and hacked him to death with machetes while Indonesian police stationed close by failed to act. In the enclave of Oecussi, the pre-vote violence was especially severe.
2. The Report is inadequate when discussing human rights cases prior to 1999 in which no new progress was made. Although a few such cases are mentioned (such as the 1991 Dili massacre), the Indonesian military committed literally hundreds of thousands of human rights violations during their 24-year occupation of East Timor. A major deficiency of the current Indonesian and international investigations is that they fail to include violations before 1999. The State Report should point that out, and should report on the (lack of) progress on the many major violations reported by State in previous years.
3. The extent of the post-vote devastation is not conveyed. Although the Report recounts some elements of the post-vote violence by the TNI and the militias, it fails to describe the scale or the systematic nature of the destruction. In less than two weeks, the military, police and militias drove 650,000 out of the East Timorese population of 850,000 from their homes -- either fleeing into the mountains or forced, often at gunpoint, on trucks or ships and taken to West Timor or other parts of Indonesia. Simultaneously, they deliberately destroyed 70% of all buildings and nearly all of East Timor's infrastructure. The legacy of this devastation will affect every aspect of East Timorese society for years, resulting in the denial of shelter, education, food, work (East Timor now has 80% unemployment) and many other basic rights.
4. The Report fails to mention the responsibility of the international community, including the United States. The United Nations Security Council approved the May 5 agreements. For the first time since 1975, the international community legalized the Indonesian military presence in East Timor by giving Jakarta responsibility for security during the referendum process. Yet, as the State Report documents, it was clear at that time that TNI was carrying out a widespread, systematic policy of terror, implemented through paramilitary militias, to prevent the vote or distort its outcome.

The United States made no effort to pressure Indonesia to improve the agreement by making security an international responsibility, and therefore shares culpability for abuses committed as a result of that agreement.

RI signs UN protocol on women's rights

Jakarta -- Indonesia signed the protocol of the United Nations Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (UN-CEDAW) on Monday.

Representing the government of Indonesia was State Minister of the Empowerment of Women Khofifah Indar Parawansa, who signed the protocol along with representatives from 25 other countries at UN Headquarters in New York.

Indonesia became the first Southeast Asian country to sign the protocol, which was declared in December 1979 and legally binding since September 3, 1981, to protect the political, economic and sociocultural rights of women. A total of 165 countries have ratified the convention.

The protocol allows women to report human rights abuses to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The commission can order follow-up actions, including conducting investigations.

"The signing of the protocol shows Indonesia's commitment to human rights because it will allow the UN to investigate in the country if there are reports of human rights abuses of women," Indonesia's representative to the UN Makarim Wibisono told Antara. He said many countries were reluctant to accept international intervention in their cases of rights abuses.

Indonesia has been under scrutiny by the international community for human rights violations following the August self- determination ballot in East Timor. The government has repeatedly rejected the possibility of trying the alleged perpetrators of the mayhem in an international tribunal.
 

News & issues

Wiranto denies Yudhoyono proposed coup

Jakarta -- Suspended Cabinet minister General Wiranto has denied that Lt-General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the military's former chief of territorial affairs, proposed that he should seize power amid the political violence preceding the downfall of former President Suharto.

Gen Wiranto was responding to reports which quoted him as saying that Lt-Gen Yudhoyono, who is now Mines and Energy Minister, suggested in early 1998 that he should launch a coup against Mr Suharto's authoritarian government.

"I never said that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono proposed a coup," the general said on Thursday. "He only asked what I should do as the military commander at the time."

In May 1998, Lt-Gen Yudhoyono was chief of the military's socio- political affairs when riots and protests forced Mr Suharto to step down.

On Wednesday, Gen Wiranto told legislators in Parliament: "Bambang Yudhoyono told me the situation was very critical. "The government had difficulty maintaining its existence. 'Would you like to take over?'" he asked.

But on Thursday, the Indonesian Observer quoted him as saying: "What I said before the House of Representatives Commission was that I never intended to launch a coup, even though it would have been possible, because I knew exactly how risky and fatal that may have been for the nation and country."

He added that a coup would have violated the 1945 Constitution, caused huge numbers of casualties and created an apparently military government in Indonesia. The general was in Parliament on Wednesday testifying to the commission in connection with his alleged involvement in atrocities in East Timor after it voted for independence on August 30.

Lawmakers to ask Government to explain fuel price hike

Jakarta -- The House Commission VIII in charge of mining and energy said it would ask the Mines and Energy Ministry to clarify the position with regard to higher fuel price and electricity tariff.

"Probably the meeting with government, open to public, will be held next week where the government will clarify again plans to raise fuel prices and electricity tariff, as certain non- governmental organisations (NGOs) have expressed opposition to the plan," chairman of Commission VIII fuel and electricity tariff team Pramono Anung said here Wednesday.

The public meeting would give the government the opportunity to explain its position in detail, he said.

Meanwhile, "City Forum" (Forkot), a lobby group, has threatened to occupy the House building together with other members of the public if their demand not to raise fuel price and electricity tariff was not heeded by the government.

In a leaflet distributed to legislators, Forkot said fuel and electricity prices should not be raised as it would have wide impact on the public.

Pram: a heart Wahid failed to win

Jakarta -- Indonesia's best-known writer, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, is a surprise critic of the country's new President, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid. Pramoedya dismisses the President as "part of the elite ... that implemented fascism and ran the country by terror ... everyone became afraid and those who wanted to live had to become a hypocrite".

Chain-smoking kretek cigarettes and blackened after stoking a rubbish fire in the narrow street outside his house in east Jakarta, Pramoedya talks about what he sees as the revolution still to come in Indonesia.

"There will be social unrest," he says. "For example, those farmers whose land was taken away from them have started to rebel. These are the seeds of social revolution ... until now Indonesia has not had a real leader so I cannot imagine what will happen."

Aged 75 and hard of hearing after a soldier, years ago, hit him in the head with a rifle butt, Pramoedya dismisses Mr Wahid's overtures to him, including being one of the first dissenters invited to the palace to meet Indonesia's first democratically elected president. "It was not important to me," he says.

Although both men spent years opposing the military-dominated rule of former President Suharto, Pramoedya says that Mr Wahid is not a break with the elite who have always ruled Indonesia.

Best known for the Buru Tetrology, a series of novels written while he was on the Buru prison island, the slightly stooped but still sprightly Pramoedya says he complained to Mr Wahid about the injustices inflicted on him during Mr Suharto's rule, including the taking of a family house and destruction of eight unpublished scripts. "That's not all ... I lived for my writings and during the New Order [Suharto] era my writings were forbidden," he says.

Mr Wahid asked Pramoedya to write down a list of what he had lost and give it to his protocol people. "I didn't do it. I have lost confidence in Indonesia's elite," he says, pulling hard on another kretek and cupping his ears to hear the questions.

Pramoedya says that Mr Wahid wanted to talk about his writings of a long-ago maritime Indonesia. "He said he had established a maritime ministry," Pramoedya says. "After that he didn't have anything to talk about. It seems he only wanted to embrace all groups."

Pramoedya's words are steely, uncompromising. There is no acknowledgement that Indonesia is going through a difficult transition from dictatorship to democratic rule, the military is being reformed and pushed out of their dominant role in society and Mr Suharto is under a renewed Attorney-General's investigation for corruption.

Asked whether he would go back to Buru, the island where he spent 12 years struggling to survive with thousands of other alleged leftists after being arrested on the night of 13 October 1965, in the shadow of a nationwide purge, Pramoedya shakes his head. "No."

He reaches for his faded book, The Mute's Soliloquy, which includes parts of his clandestine writings and has for years sat on a coffee table in the lounge room of his large timber bungalow. "Here are lists of my friends who were killed or are missing," he says. "Until now no case has been taken to court. I hope there is international concern. These people were unarmed, forced into labor. It was difficult to find food and they were killed."

He recalls the day that guards machinegunned 11 prisoners "just for entertainment." He recalls how he and other prisoners had to grow food not only to feed themselves but their guards.

Pramoedya's knuckles tighten when asked about Mr Wahid's promise to pardon Mr Suharto if he is found guilty by a court. "Suharto must be held responsible for the things he has done ... he should be taken to trial," he says. "Perhaps it should happen in East Timor because that is where there were the latest mass killings."

After his release from Buru in 1979, Pramoedya was banned from receiving visitors and remained under state surveillance. It was not until late last year that he left Indonesia for the first time in 40 years, visiting the United States, Canada and Europe.

Even then he thought he would be arrested at the airport. "I went with many people ... if I was not allowed there would have been big demonstrations," he says.

In 1992 Pramoedya stopped reporting to the East Jakarta military command post, although officers until several years ago still regularly checked up on him, and foreign visitors, especially journalists, still risked getting put on the Suharto regime's notorious immigration black list if they dared call on him.

Now the Pramoedya living room is a magnet for young writers and activists. The old man receives them with cups of steaming Javanese coffee and a wide and relaxed smile, revealing a gap in his teeth.

But visitors now never hear the tap of his typewriter. The man whose writings and books are still being translated and published around the world and have been world best-sellers, pauses and looks to the ground when asked how long it is since he wrote a book. "I can't remember, maybe 1984," he says.

President, VP get big pay boost

Jakarta -- The government and the House of Representatives budget committee agreed on Wednesday to raise the basic salaries of President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri by 78 percent and 120 percent respectively.

This is part of the agreement reached by the two sides on major changes in the April-December 2000 state budget, which is expected to be approved at a plenary House session on Thursday.

According to a budget document leaked to the media, Abdurrahman's basic monthly salary will be increased to Rp 26.7 million (US$3,814) from Rp 15 million at present.

Megawati's basic salary will be raised to Rp 22 million from Rp 10 million, those of the Speakers of the House and People's Consultative Assembly to Rp 14.6 million and Cabinet ministers to Rp 12.6 million from Rp 2.5 million at present.

The basic salaries of legislators and other senior state officials will increase to Rp 8 million from around Rp 2.1 million.

The government and the House budget committee, however, failed to decide on the amounts of allowances and other perks for senior officials which will make up their gross take-home pay.

But based on the current pay structure, the President gets, on top of his monthly basic salary, a family allowance amounting to 14 percent of the basic salary, a senior official allowance amounting to 35 percent of the basic salary and additional perks amounting to a lumpsum of Rp 10 million.

Assuming that the present pay structure remains unchanged, raising Abdurrahman's basic salary to Rp 26.7 million would provide him with a gross take-home pay of Rp 49.77 million, compared to almost Rp 33 million now. Megawati will get almost Rp 40 million.

Based on the same pay system, the increase would give a Cabinet minister a monthly gross take-home pay of 20.5 million, compared to Rp 5.6 million at present. The increase is, however, much less than the fourfold raise originally proposed in January for the President, the fivefold raise for the Vice President and the tenfold rise for Cabinet ministers, which were sharply criticized by legislators and analysts.

"The salary raises are aimed at helping to create a clean administration and prevent corruption," said deputy of the House budget committee Abdullah Zainie on Wednesday.

The government and the House had earlier agreed to raise the salaries of government employees, state police and the military by 30 percent, higher than the initial 20 percent hike proposed by the government in January.

The government has been determined to gradually raise the pay of bureaucrats in a concerted effort to fight rampant corruption in light of building up good governance.

Major changes in the 2000 state budget which have yet to be approved at a plenary House session on Thursday include: Total state spending will increase to Rp 197.03 trillion from Rp 186.07 trillion proposed in the January-version budget draft, particularly to finance a greater amount of subsidies and a larger increase in the salaries of civil servants.

State revenues will rise to Rp 152.90 trillion from Rp 137.70 trillion on the back of higher oil and tax revenue targets. The estimated deficit of the nine-month state budget will decline to Rp 44.13 trillion or 4.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to 5 percent of GDP previously.

The deficit will be primarily financed by foreign loans, privatization proceeds and the sale of assets under the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).

The House is scheduled to approve the state budget on Thursday, although several political parties have hinted that they would oppose the planned 12 percent increase in fuel prices. A number of legislators have opposed any increase in fuel prices amid the current economic hardship.

Unlike over the past 30 years, the House has critically assessed the draft budget over the past month. Fuel and electricity subsidies have been one of the most contentious issues during the debates.

The government earlier proposed an Rp 18.3 trillion fuel subsidy with an assumption that fuel prices would be raised by 20 percent. But after intense debate, the government and the budget committee finally agreed to a 12 percent increase in fuel prices that would result in a total subsidy of Rp 22.46 trillion.

The government also agreed to raise the oil export price assumption in the budget from $18 per barrel to $20 per barrel to allow for greater oil revenue to finance the larger amount of fuel subsidy.

Some legislators had earlier demanded a Rp 24 trillion fuel subsidy so that the fuel price increase would be limited to 10 percent. But others argued that a portion of the greater amount of oil revenue should also be allocated for subsidies on other sectors.

The state budget allocates Rp 8.37 trillion for the subsidy of electricity, food and credit for small-scale businesses. This figure was unchanged from the level proposed earlier.

Several economists have criticized the subsidy for fuel because that amount of large spending would not generate employment. But legislators reasoned that a big increase in the fuel prices might cause massive unrest in the country.

The government and the budget committee also agreed to reduce the interest rate burden of the government bank recapitalization bonds in the 2000 state budget to Rp 38 trillion from Rp 42.36 trillion.

The budget committee demanded that the government delay a further issuance of the recapitalization bonds pending a complete review of the bank recapitalization policy.

The House also urged the government to take strong measures against bad bankers. But finance minister Bambang Sudibyo said the government would not delay the bond issuance as it might affect the whole bank restructuring program. "They're only asking us to make a complete review before issuing new bonds ... There's no delay, it's not a problem," Bambang told reporters.

The government has recapitalized several major private and state banks. The government plans to recapitalize other banks this year by issuing new bonds. The interest cost of the bonds for this year alone was initially estimated at more than Rp 42 trillion.

The macroeconomic assumptions used for the state budget were unchanged. Estimated economic growth (GDP) remains at 3.8 percent, inflation 4.8 percent and the exchange rate of the rupiah against the US dollar at Rp 7,000.

Watchdog demands Suharto's son repay 225 million

Jakarta -- An Indonesian anti-graft watchdog has demanded that the youngest son of former president Suharto return 255 million dollars which it charged he had embezzled through his clove marketing agency, a report said Tuesday.

The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) filed its petition to members of parliament Commission V, which deals with trade and industry affairs, the daily Kompas said.

Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra -- who set up the Suharto-appointed monopoly Clove Trading Board (BPPC) in 1993 -- had to return the money to the poor clove farmers he got it from, ICW coordinator Teten Masduki was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

He said BPPC had collected most of the 225 million dollars during its five-year operation by making the farmers pay back-breaking contributions into three funds.

"Even though BPPC was disbanded in June 30 1998, they are still responsible for returning the 1.9 trillion rupiah to the clove farmers," Masduki said. "The earnings made by BPPC were the source of the farmers' frustation ... and one of them had cut off his own hands because of it," he added.

During the five-year operation, Kompas said the agency was allegedly involved in a wide range of corrupt practices which misallocated the farmers' welfare and profit-sharing funds.

Teten said besides Tommy and his father, several ministers who then served under Suharto should also be held responsible for setting up the BPPC. He named former trade and industry minister Tunky Aribowo, former finance minister J.B. Sumarlin, two former cooperative ministers and current MP Nurdin Halid, who then headed the national village-level cooperatives board.

The head lawyer for the ICW, Iskandar Sonhaji, said Suharto has "abused his power" by issuing the presidential decree which empowered Tommy to set up the agency in 1993. "The implemention and rules stipulated in the presidential decree number 20, and the presidential instruction number one were a form of abuse of power by Suharto and it can be categorized as a criminal act of corruption," he said. The "substance and material" stipulated by the decrees had conflicted with the constitution, Sohaji added.

Cigarette industry executives then said that they were unofficially required to buy their cloves from a company controlled PT Kencana Cengkeh Nasional (KCN), a company controlled by Tommy, to be able to obtain excise stamps. Excise stamps are required on all packages of cigarettes for sale in Indonesia, where most cigarettes are clove-flavored, and industry sources had claimed they were being pressured to deal with KCN to obtain stamps.
 

Environment/health

Riau province is 'haze central' with 137 fires

Marianne Kearney, Pekanbaru -- Just across the Malacca Strait from Singapore, was yesterday enveloped in a blanket of haze as over 100 fires blazed for the third day this week.

Riau province in central Sumatra, which last year had one of the highest recorded number of blazing hot spots, has again become a fire centre.

The Department of Forestry in Pekanbaru said there were 299 hot spots in Sumatra as of yesterday, with almost half -- or 137 -- being located in Riau province.

Visibility was so poor a Garuda flight from Jakarta was forced to divert to Medan for two hours until the haze lifted over Riau's Pekanbaru city. Pilot Captain Prasatyo said it was unsafe to land as visibility was down to 387 m at 8 am; aeroplanes usually require a visibility of 2,600 m to land.

Residents said it was difficult to breathe and the Institute for Forest Protection issued hundreds of masks to schools to prevent children from developing respiratory problems. By afternoon, a thick cloud of haze still covered the city although visibility had improved.

Fires broke out two days ago when 53 hot spots were reported in Riau. A senior forestry official blamed plantation owners and landowners for the outbreak. Said Mr Aries Suwandi: "Most of the fires are started by estate crop owners. Companies are business- orientated and burning is very simple, economic and very fast."

He added that the Forestry Department was convinced it was the plantation owners who created most of Riau's hot spots as satellite maps had pinpointed the fires to areas in Indragiri Hulu, which is devoted mostly to plantations.

Despite Indonesia's new zero-burn policy, large palm-oil and timber firms continue to start fires to clear their land as there were not enough penalties, said Mr Suwandi. Last year, although hundreds of fires were detected in Riau, only three companies were prosecuted.

The Environmental Management Agency is hampered in its attempts to prosecute plantation owners as it must prove that their companies, and not errant farmers, had started the fires. But with only six helicopters to patrol the whole of Indonesia and none for Riau province, it is not surprising that few firms have been taken to court. Even if a company is found to have started a fire -- which must be proven with evidence such as fuel or explosives -- it may only receive a warning and not be fined.

The Department of Forestry says the forestry police have been despatched to douse the fires, but as each district of 600,000 ha has an average of only 20 officials, they can deal with only one fire at a time.

Fires break out on Sumatra

Singapore (AP) -- Fires have broken out on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where land-clearing blazes caused severe pollution in much of Southeast Asia in 1997, officials in Singapore said Thursday.

Such fires have become an annual problem during the region's mid-year dry season. The situation was disastrous in 1997, when thick haze spread to Singapore and parts of Malaysia.

"In the past few days, satellite pictures have shown intermittent hot spots in some parts of Sumatra," a Singapore government statement said. This year's fires are not now causing pollution in Singapore, it said.

The fires appeared to be near cultivated areas in central Sumatra, Singapore Meteorological Service spokesman Wong Teo Suan said. "I doubt it's really wild forest fires. It's probably some sort of human activity," he said.

Singapore monitors Indonesian forest fires by satellite as part of a regional cooperation program. "If the situation gets worse or spreads a little bit, we could get some slight incidence of haze" in Singapore during the monsoon rainy period in July and August, Wong said.

The haze was blamed for health problems and a drop in tourism in Singapore and Malaysia in 1997.

Millions are still starving in Indonesia

Jakarta -- The Indonesian economy may be showing signs of recovery from the financial crisis two years ago. However, still left behind in the turmoil created by that crisis are tens of millions of poor Indonesians.

In fact, the problems are still so severe, that the United Nations has agreed to extend by 18 months an emergency relief programme to deliver food.

Workers are returning to Jakarta's building projects, which had been left vacant since the economic meltdown, but the number of jobless Indonesians, who are unable to support their families, is still alarming. An estimated 17 million people do not have enough to eat.

The residents of Cipinang Besar receive cheap rice subsidised by the United Nations. This is the only way many can afford to feed their families. For some locals, it is so difficult to get food that they cannot even return to their village.

In a shanty town, people are reduced to scavenging, or borrowing from money lenders to sustain their daily lives, because there are just no jobs.

The impact of the food crisis is perhaps worst on the children. They are forced to drop out of school, to buy food for the family. In a makeshift school, there is little prospect of success.

Seventy percent of pupils leave to find work or are too sick to continue. According to the UN, half of all Indonesian children are malnourished.

Said Catherine Bertini, Director, World Food Programme: "Their parents don't have access to food and that means those children can't grow, and then, sometimes then are much more susceptible to disease and then they die." And, despite international efforts, across Indonesia, 450 pre-school children die every day from malnutrition.
 

Arms/armed forces

The Bad Bird: Indonesia's army gets a reformer

Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) Commander Adm. Widodo approved a large-scale reshuffling of the military this week, shifting 74 officers and several top positions. In the most noteworthy transfer, he appointed an outspoken reformer, Lt. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, as the head of the elite Army Strategic Reserve Command, known as Kostrad.

Agus' appointment to the high-profile Kostrad will gauge the degree of remaining resistance within the army to President Abdurrahman Wahid's efforts at reducing the army's traditional grip on Jakarta's political agenda. The army's acceptance of Agus is tantamount to accepting Wahid's program of reform. If Agus fails, the army will be signaling its refusal to accept the supremacy of the civilian government.

Agus represents the most extreme reformist element within the armed forces. He is one of the few officers to have relentlessly and loudly supported Wahid's effort to take the army out of politics.

Despite the president's agenda, many TNI officers still consider political influence to be part and parcel of their sworn oath to guarantee Indonesian unity.

Last year, Agus led a group of generals in a campaign to abolish the army's political role. Shortly after, he was whisked out of his position in Jakarta to a far-off command post in Sulawesi, an island to the northeast of Jakarta. Only weeks ago, Agus drew the ire of Gen. Wiranto and other top generals by calling for Wiranto's resignation for his alleged role in the September violence in East Timor.

Now Agus has returned to Jakarta to head Kostrad. The potential for conflict appears enormous. Traditionalists in the TNI may be reluctant to hand over leadership of the army's most elite force to a young upstart who appears hell-bent on undercutting the power and influence of the military.

His appointment has already created a ripple of discontent. Gen. Wiranto, once Kostrad's chief himself, called Agus a "bad bird," and indirectly questioned whether he was capable of carrying out his office. Even Wahid, who admittedly requested Agus' promotion to a position in Jakarta, seemed hesitant to support his appointment to Kostrad. "I don't know his other abilities, apart from being a thinker," he said. "Whether or not he can lead Kostrad, that's not my business."

Wahid's apparent need to distance himself from the appointment, combined with Wiranto's clear disdain, suggests the inevitable: Bumps remain on the road to the army's removal from politics. Wahid is either concerned that the military may not support the move, or is under Wiranto's influence. But Agus himself will be the true test case. If he is removed from his position, it will be a clear sign of the military's unwillingness to accept its rapidly diminishing its political role.

Military revamp 'will cut support for Wiranto'

Straits Times - March 4, 2000

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta -- The Indonesian armed forces (TNI) plans to reduce the number of its extensive territorial commands in the country in a move that could diminish the military's political role further.

Army chief General Tyasno Sudarto said the plan was in line with the ongoing TNI reforms. But analysts believe the Thursday announcement hinted at a new round of military reshuffles that could see a more extensive weeding out of loyalists of General Wiranto, the former Political and Security Affairs Minister, and opponents of the current regime.

Gen Tyasno, who made the disclosure in an address to military commanders and retired generals, said some provinces -- such as Central Java -- and cities -- like Jakarta -- would see a drop in TNI presence at district and village levels.

But trouble spots in Aceh, Irian Jaya, the Riau province and other remote areas would still maintain the same troop levels, or even see an increase. He said: "The number of military commands is likely to be reduced and the structure will also be evaluated and adjusted in accordance with the present situation."

He noted that the 16 commands, all under the army, had been slammed by the public for the pervasive presence they gave the military, right down to life at village level. TNI critics charge that the territorial structure that gained ascendancy during the 30 years of former President Suharto's rule had allowed the military to dabble in politics and abuse its powers.

Gen Tyasno himself acknowledged that the system was ineffective given the deployment of unprofessional soldiers in the field and the lack of coordination between the government and TNI. "The military has been criticised for taking a security approach instead of a social-welfare approach in handling problems and for siding with the government rather than giving protection to the people," he noted. "We are returning to our original mission of winning the people's hearts."

The army chief did not reveal when the reorganisation would take effect, saying the TNI would leave it up to the government and Parliament.

Political observers suspect his comments were aimed partly at scoring points with President Abdurrahman Wahid in the hope of securing the coveted TNI chief's post. The four-star Javanese general is said to have become one of the strongest allies of the 59-year-old Indonesian leader after dumping Gen Wiranto, who up until last year was his chief patron.

Some analysts believe a deeper reason for calling for a review of the territorial apparatus was that it would give an excuse for another TNI reshuffle. Last week's changes in the military affected the top brass but left the regional commanders relatively unscathed. Sources believe a second and third reshuffle would clean out the TNI of Wiranto loyalists.

Press hails military reshuffle, but question motives

Ahmad Pathoni, Jakarta -- Indonesia's press welcomed the country's wide-ranging military reshuffle here Tuesday, hailing it as an early victory for efforts to assert civilian control over the armed forces.

One newspaper said the changes might be intended to strengthen power of the President Abdurrahman Wahid and his loyalists in the military.

The English-language Jakarta Post said the decision to make changes at the top of the military's leadership had significant implications for Indonesia, given the army's previous key role in domestic affairs.

The military announced Monday it was replacing 74 key officers and commanders in a massive shake-up. President Wahid is widely believed to have driven the reshuffle, consulting closely with the military about the changes.

In the most significant change, outspoken reformist Major General Agus Wirahadikusumah replaced Lieutenant General Jaja Suparman to hold the key post of commander of the army's strategic reserves command (Kostrad).

Suparman was seen as an ally of former armed forces chief General Wiranto, perceived to be trying to hold on to the military's notorious political role.

Wiranto was suspended as security minister by President Abdurrahman Wahid earlier this month after he was held "morally responsible" by a domestic inquiry for last year's violence in East Timor.

The Post said the reshuffle would help to revamp the military after being politicized under previous governments. "Ultimately the goal of the current round of tours of duty must be to strengthen TNI's professionalism, which because of heavy politicization in the past, is sorely lacking," the Post commented in an editorial.

The Republika daily said the reshuffle would serve as the most important yardstick to measure the level of the military's commitment towards reform. "To what extent the military is responsive to popular demands for it to abandon the political arena and to do away with dominant and hegemonic powers associated with the New Order," will be the yardstick, the Muslim- oriented Republika said.

The New Order is the common term used to describe the 32-year rule of former president Suharto, himself an army general, which ended in 1998.

Rumors of a purge against officers close to Wiranto -- dubbed "de-Wiranto-ization" -- had been rife in recent days although they have been denied by the military. "The decision to promote Agus Wirahadikusumah -- a figure known to be at odds with Wiranto, and who has even openly criticized him -- served to justify rumors of a purge in the military," the daily said

But Republika warned of political interests behind the recent changes in the military. "The public will in time learn whether this major reshuffle is for the sake of genuine democracy -- or only for short-term political interest resulting from competition in the TNI (military) and the interest of the power holders to strengthen their grip," Republika said.

The Post also warned of possible procrastination tactics by the military's top officers refusing to bow to demand for the military to quit politics. "Unfortunately ... the promise of scaling back has not been matched by the actions and statements of some of its top officers. Such behavior has raised doubts whether the military is genuine in its retreat, or is simply buying time," the Post said.

Armed forces commander Admiral Widodo Adidsucipto last week said the military was ready to relinquish its 38 unelected seats in Indonesia's parliament by 2004 if the houses so decided.

But he warned that a decision to drop them could lead to the military forming its own political parties. "The absence of the TNI members in the parliament will be the end of the military's long journey in politics which will inevitably leave traces that will take time to erase," Republika commented.

Military reformer's blow to old guard

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- The Indonesian military's most outspoken reformer, Major-General Agus Wirahadikusumah, has been appointed to head his country's main combat force in a further blow to his arch rival, General Wiranto.

The appointment opens the way for the President, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, to reform the widely discredited armed forces, bringing them firmly under civilian control.

Analysts said a reshuffle of 74 military positions announced yesterday is the most important in decades to ease the armed forces out of politics and end its participation in business.

General Wirahadikusumah is among a group of reformers cultivated by the Australian Defence Department since early 1989. He was among a group of three generals brought to Canberra for a series of seminars last February. The others were Lieutenant-General Bambang Yudhoyono, now the Minister for Mines and Energy, and Lieutenant-General Agus Wijaya, who remains a central army figure at the heart of Indonesia's defence headquarters.

The Australian military will be looking to the reformists to put the armed forces back in respectable professional shape so both militaries can resume a full working relationship.

But General Wirahadikusumah's appointment is likely to reignite fears that some elements of the armed forces loyal to General Wiranto, possibly bankrolled by businesspeople linked to the former Soeharto regime, will react by fomenting public unrest.

The reshuffle follows a pledge by the armed forces commander, Admiral Widodo, to a committee of parliament late last week that the military planned to relinquish 38 unelected seats it holds in the 500-member parliament at the next elections.

Admiral Widodo promised the armed forces would remain neutral in the elections scheduled for 2004. The move also follows an announcement by the Defence Minister, Mr Juwono Sudarsono, that he plans to drastically reduce the army's Kopassus special forces, blamed for systematic human rights abuses in East Timor, Aceh and other parts of Indonesia.

General Wirahadikusumah was engaged in a rare public feud with General Wiranto before the former armed forces chief was suspended as Co-ordinating Minister for Political and Security affairs.

A furious General Wiranto accused General Wirahadikusumah of being disloyal for backing Mr Wahid's decision to suspend him pending an attorney-general's investigation into the military's role in East Timor atrocities.

General Wirahadikusumah, 49, was sent from military headquarters in Jakarta to the South Sulawesi military command last year after he repeatedly criticised the armed forces for abuses of power, including their involvement in protection rackets and smuggling.

"The military is acting as a parasite," he was recently quoted as saying. "Who backs and supports the discotheques, brothels and narcotic rings, if not the military and police? Riots have happened everywhere -- even in Jakarta ... Is our territorial supervision so great? It's rotten. For two years now the Indonesian people have been restless. Everybody has been gripped by fear, everyone has been afraid. Don't lie to the people anymore."

Mr Wahid, supreme commander of the armed forces, supports General Wirahadikusumah's belief that the military needs a major overhaul in the wake of 32 years of rule by Soeharto, now himself under investigation for corruption. Under his regime, the military reaped billions of dollars from businesses to villages, which it used to supplement defence budgets. Much of the money was siphoned off by corrupt officers and political cronies.

General Wiranto rose quickly through military ranks under Mr Soeharto and is seen as part of the old guard of officers who for the first time face questioning and possible prosecution over decades of human rights abuses.

From tomorrow, General Wirahadikusumah will take up command of Kostrad, the army's strategic command, replacing Lieutenant- General Djaja Suparman, a close ally of General Wiranto.

General Suparman warned General Wirahadikusumah in December that soldiers would get angry if high-ranking officers like General Wiranto were publicly condemned.

Announcing the reshuffle, the military spokesman, Rear Marshall Graito Usodo, denied the changes were to replace bad officers. "It's for technical reasons and the military's needs," he said.

A political analyst with the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Mr Kristiadi, said the reshuffle would clear the military's bad image and consolidate the power of reforming officers. "It seems the reshuffle has been under the president's control," he said.

Wiranto allies replaced with army faithful

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- President Abdurrahman Wahid moved to consolidate his control of the armed forces yesterday by replacing two allies of recently deposed General Wiranto.

Outspoken reformist Major-General Agus Wirahadikusumah has been rewarded for his loyalty to Mr Wahid with a move up from the South Sulawesi regional command to lead the army's strategic command, Kostrad. He replaces Wiranto ally Djaja Suparman.

Lieutenant-General Djamari Chaniago, a quiet but professional former deputy army chief of staff, has been promoted to the powerful post of chief of general staff to replace Lieutenant- General Suaidi Marasabessy, who was appointed to his job just three months ago. An armed forces spokesman said the appointments were part of a general reshuffle involving 47 senior officers.

The moves were greeted warmly by diplomats and analysts as indicative of Mr Wahid's commitment to banishing the old guard in the armed forces, whose members are under notice that they must quit their political role within five years. "This is certainly a reflection of Wahid's own choices. These are men loyal to him," said a veteran analyst. "I'm not sure if that necessarily directly relates to reform, but we'll see."

General Wirahadikusumah, 49, launched a book last year laying out his vision for reform of the armed forces and has distinguished himself since as a bold exponent of the need for the military to adjust to the rightful dominance of civilian rule, and for General Wiranto to resign.

There had been talk that he could be army chief of staff, but as a major-general his rank is not yet high enough. However, the Kostrad appointment has symbolic resonance -- in addition to the command of almost 30,000 elite troops -- in that former president Suharto was Kostrad chief when he took power in 1965.

A military reshuffle had been expected since Mr Wahid imposed his will on former armed forces chief General Wiranto and forced him out of cabinet two weeks ago in the wake of a human rights report which named General Wiranto and others as responsible for last year's carnage in East Timor.

But securing a clean-up of the military will take more than the shuffling of those at the top. "I'm not at all convinced that the senior generals have any real idea, any true understanding, of exactly what it means to relinquish power," said the military analyst. "This is just a first step."

Among other recent steps was armed forces chief Admiral Widodo Adisutjipto's comment last week that the armed forces were prepared to relinquish their 38 appointed seats in Parliament by the next elections in 2004.

"The admiral's statement shows that the wish of the many political parties as well as the Government is heard by the army of Indonesia," Mr Wahid said, even though Admiral Widodo also pleaded that his institution should retain a presence in the upper house, the People's Consultative Assembly.

Since 1957, the military has followed a "dual function" philosophy which allows it to participate directly in government while maintaining national security. As a result, the armed forces achieved sweeping dominance down to village level during the Suharto era, and maintain a large web of business links and investments which will take longer to unravel.

"It must be admitted that the armed forces have been guilty of a great many digressions," General Wirahadikusumah said recently. "The military is acting as a parasite, no?" he said. "Who backs and supports the discotheques, brothels and narcotics rings, if not the military or police? Just be honest nowadays ... the military has lost the trust of the people."

Major TNI reshuffle announced

Jakarta -- The Indonesian Military (TNI) announced on Monday another major reshuffle that included the promotion of Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, a progressive figure, as the Army Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad) chief.

Starting from March 1, Agus, currently the Wirabuana/Sulawesi military commander, will take over from Lt. Gen. Djadja Suparman, with whom Agus had traded arguments in response to an investigation into Gen. Wiranto, their senior, over his alleged role in East Timor violence.

Another key change of guard in the massive shake-up that involved 74 officers was the replacement of TNI Chief of General Affairs Lt. Gen. Suaidi Marasabessy by Lt. Gen. Djamari Chaniago, who is the Army deputy chief of staff.

Djamari's successor will be Lt. Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, whose present post as chief of TNI's School of Command (Sesko TNI) will be given to Djadja. Suaidi will serve in the TNI Headquarters as a high ranking officer without portfolio.

In the wake of Wiranto's investigation, Djadja said TNI soldiers would react to any attempts to disgrace Wiranto out of loyalty. But Agus retorted, saying TNI soldiers pledged allegiance to the state not their superiors. Brig. Gen. Slamet Kirbiantoro, an expert staff at the TNI Headquarters, was appointed Agus' replacement.

The removal of Suaidi and Djadja, who were closely linked to former TNI chief Wiranto, came only three months after their appointment to their current posts and less than one month after the suspension of Wiranto from his job as the coordinating minister for political and security affairs.

But TNI spokesman Air Rear Marshal Graito Usodo, who announced the reshuffle, denied the speculation of a cleansing of Wiranto's supporters in the armed forces, saying it had gone through a long process. "Such reports were not taken into consideration when the TNI's board for high position [Wanjabti] met to decide the reshuffle," Graito said.

He said the latest reshuffle was conducted for the sake of TNI's organization and dynamism, while some officers affected are waiting for retirement. Graito conceded the replacement of strategic positions in the military was decided after consulting President Abdurrahman Wahid. "The reshuffle in strategic positions must be consulted with the president for the sake of the nation's interests," he said.

Graito said a rift between Wiranto and Agus had been discussed with the President, but the TNI spokesman insisted that Agus' promotion had nothing to do with the issue. "The rift was finished after the two met recently," said Graito.

Following his suspension as Cabinet minister, Wiranto criticized Agus for openly suggesting that he bow to the President's resignation call and join an opposition party. Wiranto said Agus breached the military etiquette of seniority. Djadja said he knew nothing about the reshuffle, but asserted that he was ready to serve whatever post he was bound for.

"As a soldier, I am ready to take my superior's order, as long as it is decided through proper procedure," he said after presiding over a ceremony in Kostrad's Division I Headquarters in Cilodong, Bogor, on Monday.

Graito said TNI Commander Admiral Widodo A.S. signed the decree on the reshuffle about 6am on Monday. The reshuffle included two posts in the defense ministry, 19 in the military headquarters, 18 in the air force, 14 in the army and 21 in the navy.

The shake-up also included the appointment of Brig. Gen. I Putu Sastra W., chief of an intelligence unit at the TNI's Intelligence Agency, as the new chief of the Presidential Security Guard (Paspampres), to replace Maj. Gen. Suwandi.

Maj. Gen. Kivlan Zen, an officer once linked to communal clashes in Maluku, will vacate his position as the coordinator of staff experts of Army Chief of Staff and join Suaidi as TNI officers without portfolio.

In Makassar, Agus, evaded reporters who wanted to interview him about his new post. He told The Jakarta Post in a telephone interview on Monday that his promotion did not surprise him. He admitted having heard the news a few days before. "It is God who decides our fate. It is God who gives me the new job," he said, adding that there was nothing special in his promotion. "I have not yet received official notice from the TNI Headquarters," he said.

Asked about his program as the new Kostrad chief, Agus said, "I don't want to comment on this. I am now still the chief of Wirabuana Military Command." Agus also said there was no need to thank the TNI chief who trusted him to hold the strategic post. Selected list of names in latest TNI's reshuffle

TNI Headquarters: Brig. Gen. Saurip Kadi, Senior official TNI Heaquarters (previous post), Assistant to Army Chief on territoria affairs (new post); Lt. Gen. Suaidy Marasabessy, Chief of TNI's General Affairs, Senior official at TNI Headquaters; Lt. Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, Chief of TNI's School of Command, Army deputy chief; Maj. Gen. Suwandi, Chief of Presidential Security Guard, Senior official at Army Headquarters; Rear Marshal Mudjiono Said, Deputy Chief of TNI School of Command, Air Force Deputy Chief; Brig. Gen. Slamet Kirbiantoro, Expert staff at TNI Headquarters, Chief of Wirabuana Military Command; Brig. Gen. I Putu Sastra W., Commander of Intelligence Unit at Military Strategic Intelligence Agency (Bais), Chief of Presidential Security Guard.

Army: Lt. Gen. Djamari Chaniago, Army Deputy Chief, Chief of TNI's General Affairs; Lt. Gen. Djadja Suparman, Army's Kostrad Chief, Chief of TNI's School of Command; Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, Chief of Wirabuana Military Command, Kostrad chief; Maj. Gen. Kivlan Zen, Coordinator of Army chief's expert staff, Senior official at Army Headquarters; Maj. Gen. Suprapto, Assistant to Army Chief on Territorial Affairs, Assiatant to Army Chief on Personnel Affairs; Col. Romulo Simbolon, Senior official at Army Headquarters, Chief of Staff at Jakarta Military Command.

Navy: Rear Adm. Djaelani, Chief of Jakarta Naval Base, Inspector General at Navy Heaquarters; Commodore J. Ferdinand Manengkei, Chief of the Navy's Combat Troops, Chief of Jakarta Naval Base; Air Force: Vice Marshal I Gede Sudana, Air Force Deputy Chief, Senior official at Airforce Headquarters; Rear Marshal Iskak Karmanto, Inspector General at Airforce Headquarters (new post); Rear Marshal Tatang Kurniadi, Chief of Infrastructure Development, Deputy Chief of TNI's School of Command; Rear Marshal Harry R. Gamdani, Chief of the Eastern Air Defense Territory, Deputy Assistant on Airforce Operation Affairs.