• Militia chiefs say problems won't go away - Straits Times
• Foreign powers accused by Indonesia - Associated Press
• Pro-Jakarta Militias wait out UN in East Timor - Far Eastern Economic Review
• UN police race time to lay Balibo charges - Sydney Morning Herald
• East Timor: The secret that never was - Sydney Morning Herald
• Militia crisis raises the stakes - Green Left Weekly
• Timor papers reveal Australia's dark secret - ABC Radio
• Book reveals Australia's part in 1975 Timor invasion - ABC Radio
• Wife of killed journalist unconvinced by book's findings - ABC Radio
• The untold story of the Balibo five - The Melbourne Age
• Politics of betrayal - Sydney Morning Herald
• Canberra given notice of Balibo attack - Sydney Morning Herald
• Secret papers confirm East Timor cover-up - Sydney Morning Herald

• 'Troubles only a hurdle on hard road to reform' - South China Morning Post
• No proof blasts linked to army, say police - Straits Times
• Cheers greet order for arrest - Straits Times
• Wahid's tough stance 'reshapes political map' - South China Morning Post
• Jakarta's shame - Far Eastern Economic Review
• Picking capitalist symbols as targets - Straits Times
• Mayhem strikes at Wahid's legitimacy - South China Morning Post
• New Order agents 'might be behind bomb blasts' - Jakarta Post
• Armed forces trying to subvert Wahid, claims report - Sydney Morning Herald

• Tension grips Pasaman after day of unrest - Jakarta Post

• Academic shot dead - South China Morning Post
• Aceh violence costs hundreds of lives - Jakarta Post
• Seven killed as violence escalates in Aceh - Agence France-Presse
• UN a must in Aceh, insist rebels - South China Morning Post

• Indonesian traders call for more security - Agence France-Presse
• West Java workers demand pay rise and national council - Detik
• 'Becak' drivers attack East Jakarta mayoralty office - Jakarta Post
• Minister OKs union involvement in politics - Jakarta Post

• Wiranto ordered counterfeit notes to fund militia - Australian Financial Review
• 'It was Soeharto's order': Sutiyoso - Jakarta Post

• Youths protest at US consulate over Timor 'pressure' - Agence France-Presse
• Riau's village heads sell fake marriage certs - Straits Times
• Youths call on government to ban luxury car imports - Jakarta Post
• Taxis occupy house of representatives - Detik
• Suharto children ignored advice not to abuse position

• Indorayon must close for good - Detik
• Freeport violated government regulation: Minister Sonny - Jakarta Post
• `Lake Maninjau protests are groundless' - Indonesian Observer

• Military retains resources to make come back: Report - Jakarta Post
• Impunity for Indonesian military - Christian Science Monitor

• Indonesia new 5-year development plan more strategic - AFX-Asia
• Indonesians shop while investors stay home - Reuters

Tear gas grenades fired at anti-Suharto protestors

Jakarta -- Indonesian police fired tear gas cannisters here Thursday to try to block hundreds of anti-Suharto student protestors from marching on the residence of the former strongman, witnesses said. No one was injured in the barrage of cannisters, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

Some 250 mobile brigade police were stretched across a main boulevard near Suharto's residence, blocking the students, who called themselves the "Universal Indonesian Front" from advancing, he said. The students began to push forward, some threw stones and molotov cocktails, when the police let loose with the tear gas, he said.

The incident, just before dusk, came after Suharto, 79, failed to show up for the second hearing of his trial on corruption charges, pleading ill-health.

[On the same day, Detik reported that a number of Forkot student demonstrators who threw molotov cocktails and rocks at police were arrested. It also said that a number of student and worker organisations staged protests at the Attorney General's office. Detik said they were disappointed at the failure of Marzuki Darusman to present Suharto at the trial - James Balowski.]

PRD livens up Suharto's trial

Rizal Maslan/Hendra, Jakarta -- The People's Democratic Party (PRD) staged a rally following the second hearing of former president Suharto today, not far from the trial venue. Calling themselves the "Anti-New Order" people, they accused of Suharto of being responsible for economic, political and humanitarian crimes, and demanded that he be put on trial.

The PRD believe that the second hearing, like the first, was not serious, as it was certain that he would not attend. "Even Gus Dur makes excuses for Suharto's crimes, " said the protestor furiously. He continued, saying that the trial was a sham, and that Suharto's part in the 1965-66 massacre, which costs hundreds of thousands of innocent people their lives, and his role in Tanjung Priok and Aceh, was not going to be investigated.

[In a separate article, Detik reported that the PRD also held a "happening-art" demonstration at the Department of Agriculture where the trial is being held calling for "Suharto to be Caged" - James Balowski.]

16 years after massacre: Tanjung Priok commemorations

Yogi Arief Nugraha/BI & GB, Jakarta -- Sixteen years after the massacre of Muslim protesters in the Tanjung Priok port area of Jakarta, families of the victims and their supporters continue to be highly critical of efforts to bring the military perpetrators to justice.

Tuesday afternoon, students from the House of Islam University commemorated the tragedy by holding a grand assembly and prayer session involving students, the families of the murdered and disappeared, their supporters and local residents.

The mourners gathered at the Al-Husna mosque and heard several invited speakers including Ustadz Abdul Qadir Jaelani, a leader of the National Awakening Party (PKB) nominally headed by President Abdurrahman Wahid, AM Fatwa, from the Crescent Star Party and also a survivor of the tragedy, and leader of the Muslim Students Association, Fachrudin.

The Tanjung Priok incident is one of the current government's hottest potatoes. There was widespread public rejection of the findings of a recent report compiled by the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM). The report stated that the military opened fire after being attacked by protesters and that 33 people were killed. Critics claim the findings were the result of a deal arranged between the government, Komnas HAM and the military to protect the guilty and sideline the issue. The issue, however, refuses to go away. and plan to will commemorates the unfortunate event by burning effigies of generals allegedly responsible orchestrated the tragedy.

Some of those generals displays are including LB Moerdani and Try Soetrisno. The 16th years commemoration of the event known as the Tanjung Priok tragedy has been conducted by families and local residence of the suburbs.

Benny Biki, a relative of one of the victims, told Detik that past and current authorities were blocking the investigations, the release of information to the public and that several figures were attempting to stop the exhumation of bodies currently being carried out by a team from Komnas HAM and experts from the University of Indonesia.

He singled out Benny Moerdani, then Commander of the Armed Forces, and Try Soetrisno, then Vice President and military man. "I've heard that both Moerdani and Soetrisno continue to hinder attempts to exhume the sites," he said referring to Cibubur and Condet in Pondok Rangon, East Jakarta were bodies are currently being exhumed.

Investigators have called both Soetrisno and Moerdani, as well as other high ranking military officers and civilians in relation to the case, but have yet to name any as suspects, let alone prosecute. In his appearance, a very sick-looking Moerdani claimed 18 died and 53 were injured. The commemorations on the 16th anniversary of the event ended with the burning of effigies Moedani and Soetrisno.
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East Timor

Militia chiefs say problems won't go away

Jakarta -- The Indonesian government's plan to resettle pro- Jakarta militias and more than 100,000 refugees on an island just 60 km north of East Timor has been rejected by several leaders of the group, who argue that the move would not solve their problems.

Pro-integration leader Francisco Soares was quoted by the Indonesian Observer newspaper and the Antara news agency as saying that as far as the pro-Jakarta groups were concerned, "reinstating the Red-and-White Indonesian flag over East Timor is the essence of their struggle".

The Indonesian government offered to resettle the pro-Jakarta militias and other refugees on the island of Wetar during a meeting on Thursday between Coordinating Minister for Political, Social and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and militia leaders in Denpasar, Bali.

According to Mr Soares, who hails from Bobonaro, East Timor, the proposed resettlement would only take the East Timorese refugees further away from their goal of getting back their homeland.

"Some East Timorese might agree with the Indonesian government's plan. But the majority, including me, would find it difficult to accept. There would emerge many problems if we were concentrated on an island," the Indonesian Observer yesterday quoted him saying.

Another pro-Jakarta leader, Mr Francisco Amaral da Silva, said that the problem could not be resolved by resettling the refugees on an island. "We are here in West Timor not because we have lost remembrance of our fatherland. We are here fighting to take East Timor back into the fold of Indonesia," Mr da Silva said.

Mr Antonio Mendosa of the Timor Fighters Brotherhood (UNTAS) shared the view that a lack of transparency in the process of trying to settle differences between the East Timorese who voted for independence and those who still seek integration with Indonesia was causing the problems.

"Until the United Nations becomes transparent, the process of reconciliation among East Timorese will never bring about a favourable result," he said.

But a legislator Chris Boro Tokan said Jakarta was forced to come up with the resettlement plan following the killing of three UN humanitarian workers in Atambua, West Timor. "I see the offer as a move to overcome the deadlock in international politics in the wake of the Atan incident," he said.

The Atambua incident occurred when thousands of East Timorese refugees, led by pro-Jakarta militia gangs, attacked the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Foreign powers accused by Indonesia

Jakarta -- Indonesia's defense minister has accused foreign powers of inciting rioters to murder three UN aid workers in West Timor last week, media reports said Friday, ostensibly to stop East Timor from returning to Indonesian rule.

"So they provoked this riot. They throw stones and then hide ... so that the world would once again blame Indonesia," Mahfud M.D. said, according to The Indonesian Observer.

The United Nations and many foreign governments have condemned the slayings and blamed militia groups opposed to East Timor's independence from Indonesia.

However, Mahfud claimed "a certain country" had fomented the violence. Although he refused to name it, in the past Indonesia has accused Australia of trouble-making in Timor. Australia took the lead role in peacekeeping in East Timor after it was devastated by militia gangs last year.

"We suspect and have preliminary evidence that there were international intelligence operating in Atambua in a bid to stop East Timorese [refugees] from reintegrating with Indonesia," he said, referring to the West Timor town where the aid workers were killed. It was the deadliest attack on UN workers in the history of the world body.

Mahfud was a little-known professor at an Islamic university before President Abdurrahman Wahid appointed him defense minister during a Cabinet reshuffle last month.

On Friday, a Defense Ministry statement said that the "East Timorese people are already thinking about reintegrating with Indonesia" because of the failure of the United Nations to form a government, a year after East Timorese voted to separate from Indonesia.

Mahfud said that those nations that backed last year's UN- sponsored independence referendum in East Timor, "feel embarrassed for [their] failure to develop East Timor." The August 30 1999 ballot, in which four-fifths of East Timor's voters opted for independence, ended Indonesia's brutal 24-year military occupation.

Sections of the Indonesian army and paramilitary groups reacted to the vote by going on a rampage, killing hundreds of civilians and devastating much of East Timor.

Hundreds of thousands of people fled in terror, many of them to the Indonesian western half of Timor island. The United Nations, which has taken over administration of East Timor during its transition to full independence, has managed to repatriate about half of the 250,000 people from West Timor.

But the return of the others has been blocked by the militia groups. The UN Security Council has ordered Indonesia to disarm and disband the militia gangs, which are said to be operating in the refugee camps with the covert support of hardline elements in the Indonesian army.

After meeting Indonesia's security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the tourist island of Bali, East Timor's UN administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello said Friday he was skeptical that Indonesian security forces would disband the militias in West Timor. Yudhoyono failed to convince him that Indonesia was serious about cracking down on the gangs, he said.

Pro-Jakarta Militias wait out UN in East Timor

Bertil Lintner, Maliana -- An Australian soldier holds his finger tightly on the trigger of his automatic rifle, watching with his unit for movement in the brush across the stream that separates East and West Timor. The threat is real.

Two UN soldiers, a New Zealander and a Nepalese, have been killed since late July by pro-Indonesian East Timorese militiamen who have managed to sneak across what has become one of the most heavily defended borders in Southeast Asia.

Lt.-Col. Brynjar Nymo, the Norwegian spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Dili, says that as many as 150 militiamen in eight to 10 groups, each of five to 30 men, have managed to cross the 170-kilometre border from West Timor over the past few months.

Maj. David Thomae of the 6 Royal Australian Regiment in Maliana -- a town that was almost completely destroyed in violence last year -- calls these groups "a completely new type of militia. Last year, they were armed with pipe guns and machetes. Now they carry automatic rifles and hand grenades."

Few people in the border areas doubt the militias are receiving support from the Indonesian military and powerful politicians in Jakarta. Most militia members appear to have had some training in basic guerrilla warfare.

Local villagers are scared. Maria Soares, a young woman in the hilltop border town of Bobonaro, says people "don't dare to go to their fields in the hills, so we are short of food."

Nymo says the numerous refugee camps in West Timor are "the power base of the militias," and their claim to legitimacy is based on the population they control there.

Since last week's murders forced the pullout of UN aid workers from the refugee camps, border security has been tightened, with more Indonesian troops in West Timor, but the remote hills of East Timor's western region are no less tense.

East Timor has been divided into three sectors for peacekeeping purposes: West, with 2,200 men from Australia and New Zealand, with smaller contingents from Fiji, Nepal and Ireland; Central, with 1,026 men from Portugal and a company of Kenyan troops; and East, with 1,636 men from Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea.

The most important sector is, of course, Sector West, nearest the border: Some peacekeepers complain that because the Portuguese in Sector Central do very little patrolling, militias are safe once they have managed to cross Sector West. One 30-man militia group, the largest known, managed to reach Same in Sector Central.

Maj. Thomae says militia activity near the border has increased markedly over the past few months. "We patrol the area constantly," he says, "and our aim is to isolate the militias in their mountain hide-outs, to restrict their movements."

The UN wants to prevent the militias from reaching the local population. It seems to be working. On a recent UN mission on September 1, Australian troops had surrounded rebels hiding out on a mountaintop above Maliana. In order to avoid a raid and possible casualties, troops dropped leaflets by helicopter, urging the group to surrender.

The aim of the militias, UN spokesmen say, appears to be to "wait out the UN," which is supposed to pull out after next year's elections. The people of East Timor see that as an invitation to disaster. As Efren de Guzman, a Filipino Jesuit priest in Maliana, says: "The UN should not leave. When the peacekeepers leave, how can the local people defend themselves?"

East Timor does have its own defence force: the remaining elements of Falintil, the armed wing of pro-independence group Fretilin. And Falintil's commanders may have a unique insight into the tactics of the militiamen. By using the East Timor mountains as a base for ambushes, the militias are copying Falintil's guerrilla tactics during its struggle against the Indonesians.

Domingos Pacheco, a farmer in Bobonaro, says that "we have no security, and the UN's peacekeeping force doesn't know the terrain here. They need help from the Falintil to find the militias' hide-outs."

But under the UN's present mandate, interaction with Falantil is limited. Falintil keeps one liaison officer at the UN peacekeeping-force headquarters in Dili, and three in each of the three sectors. Local commanders in the field also seem to be in favor of more active Falintil participation in tracking down the militias.

Falintil participation is a very delicate issue, especially if Falintil fighters and UN forces start to work together in the border area. Indonesia would consider that a provocation, and could step up support for the militias. Force spokesman Nymo says the first step might be to assign Falintil liaison officers at the company level, not just the sector level.

In fact, the UN presence may have weakened Falantil. When the first international peacekeeping force, Interfet, arrived in September last year, it was under instructions to disarm "all armed factions," including Falintil. After Falintil refused, a compromise was reached, and the force's remaining 1,500 men were put in a cantonment in the small town of Aileu in the hills south of Dili. There they are allowed to retain their guns, but must leave them in the camp when they travel.

Many Falintil troops have been reposted to their local areas or given leave to return to their families, according to a recent study prepared by the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London.

A year of cantonment has demoralized the group. "Falintil finds itself marginalized," the King's College report says. The remarkable discipline the fighters showed last year is gone, and members of the group have resorted to smuggling, theft and extortion, according to the report.

It is also difficult today to determine who is Falintil and who is not. Several influential Falantil commanders have left Aileu, guns in hand, and taken up residence in the Baucau area in a group that calls itself the Sagrada Familia, or Sacred Family.

Falantil will need support to establish itself as a proper defense force when the UN departs. But the UN cannot provide any training to Falintil, says Nymo. For Falintil to become a proper force, either the mandate will have to change, or Falintil will have to reach bilateral agreements with the defence forces of individual countries.

Even if the UN's mandate isn't extended, East Timor would need bilateral defence agreements with countries such as Australia. Defence analysts in Canberra say Australia has to be prepared for a long stay in East Timor.

On September 1, the situation remained tense. UN armoured personnel carriers moved closer to the mountain above Maliana where the militiamen were ensconced, and Black Hawk helicopters ferried supplies. And nervous residents, watching the operation, begged the peacekeepers not to leave East Timor.

UN police race time to lay Balibo charges

Mark Dodd, Dili -- United Nations police in East Timor have opened a formal investigation into the 1975 killing of five Australian-based journalists at Balibo and say they may lay charges within the next month.

The UN civilian police spokesman, Assistant Commissioner Antero Lopes, said yesterday the investigators were in a battle against time to beat a 25-year statute of limitations that applies to the case, which falls under Portuguese law. The police had until October 15 this year to produce evidence that could result in the issuing of criminal indictments, he said.

The UN police official said the five newsmen Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, Britons Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters, and New Zealander Gary Cunningham were in the East Timor village of Balibo when it was attacked by Indonesian troops.

"The journalists, as you know, were killed under questionable circumstances during this invasion." Although Indonesians are unlikely to surrender or be turned over to the UN by their government, even laying charges will be explosive, as several of the officers known to have taken part in in the Balibo attack later rose to high positions.

The attack leader, Yunus Yosfiah, rose to lieutenant-general and was Information Minister in the 1998-99 Habibie Government. Another officer, Lieutenant-General Sutiyoso, is now Governor of Jakarta; Major-General Slamet Kirbiantoro is Jakarta Military Region commander; and Major-General Kuntara is Indonesia's ambassador in Beijing.

Two months ago, several key witnesses gave new testimony to UN investigators, Commissioner Lopes said. "They are reliable sources and facts they have reported are sustainable, and they have been checked," he said. "There was a reconstitution of the [crime] scene based on their statements. These statements are very important and it's likely they are true.

"Anyway, the witnesses interviewed have produced very interesting comments. Their statements have been very important if not for a valid trial then to clarify what happened." He said a multinational police team, including Australian investigators, had been working on the case for two months.

Details on the killings had been sought from the Indonesian police through the Civil Liaison Office in Kupang in West Timor, though their information was of little value. It was unlikely Indonesian witnesses living outside East Timor would be sought for the investigation.

However, Indonesian witnesses could be summonsed to help out in the investigation. "If necessary there are international laws applicable to this kind of situation and they could be enforced," he said.

Charges could be laid at the end of the investigation. "Yes, it is possible to conduct an investigation which we are doing and yes, it is possible to charge people for that."

East Timor: The secret that never was

Alan Ramsey -- It was never a secret. If you were around at the time with your eyes and your brain open, you'll remember. If you weren't or didn't, then go back and look at the headlines. They weren't all about the political hysteria of sending the Whitlam Government to the stake. East Timor was big news, too.

In the end, though, for most of us, Kerr's coup was bigger than Soeharto's and the repercussions more immediately relevant. Even the deaths of those five newsmen far off in some unpronounceable place came and went at the time as a sidebar to the death of the Whitlam Government.

But what happened in Timor was never a secret. So when Malcolm Fraser poked his head up the other day and suggested he might have been kept in the dark about what Indonesia had really been up to in East Timor in late 1975, and how complicit Australia had been by default, you had to wonder whose leg he was trying to pull.

Yet when ABC television's Tim Lester asked Fraser four days ago if he had been briefed, as caretaker PM after November 11, 1975, on Australia's warning by its diplomats in Jakarta of the coming Indonesian invasion, he replied: "It's 25 years ago, and there's that caveat on it. But I very strongly believe I would have remembered such a material fact. I do not believe I was briefed. I believe it was a very serious omission." Q: "Had you been properly briefed on that prior warning, might it ultimately have changed the Fraser Government's long-term policy on the question of Indonesia and East Timor's integration?" Fraser: "That's a real possibility."

Politicians can be so shameless. At least Gough Whitlam, to date, hasn't tried to pretend, not that he might have forgotten but that he "would have remembered". Or twaddle that, 25 years in retrospect, it was a "real possibility" that there "might" have been a different government attitude if he had been "properly briefed". Whitlam has remained silent. He has much to stay silent about, of course.

But Fraser, too, could well have shut up. At least until he had refreshed that memory that might or might not be working, by reading this week's release of 800-plus pages of official Australian documents on the 1974-1976 period of the East Timor tragedy.

You will have noticed that Andrew Peacock, Fraser's foreign minister at the time, hasn't rushed into print. He, too, figures prominently in some of the documents, just as he did in the events of the period. But like Whitlam, it seems, Peacock is likely making sure that, whatever he might say, it won't just look like some smarmy self-serving excuse.

John Howard stayed silent for just 24 hours. Then, in an Adelaide radio interview on Wednesday with Jeremy Cordeaux, Peacock's son-in-law, the Prime Minister tried to be wholly statesmanlike but gave in to the temptation of both shafting Malcolm and preening over Paul Keating's political corpse.

Was he surprised Fraser had said he wasn't told of intelligence reports about Indonesia's invasion plans? No, Howard said, "but I don't pretend to speak for Mr Fraser". Maybe, said Cordeaux, but "he's always giving you advice, and I thought ..?" Howard took the proffered bait. "I don't normally repay the compliment. I tend not to make too many comments on the remarks of former prime ministers. I think it's a good idea to sort of keep one's counsel occasionally in these things." Of course.

Having put Mister Fraser, an outspoken pain on Aboriginal issues, in his place, the Prime Minister continued, loftily: "Look, we released these documents in good faith. They speak for themselves. We're not making any judgments about the actions of the Whitlam government or the Fraser government. We will be held accountable about our own actions, and our own actions in relation to East Timor have been wholly honourable and decent." Indubitably.

Then, expansively: "But the world is different now to 25 years ago. One has to make an allowance for that. People viewed things differently. I think it's important to always remember the context in which things have occurred." Indeed.

"And the action we took in relation to East Timor was very different from what would have happened if the Keating Government, for example, had remained in office. I have no doubt Australia's response to East Timor would have been totally different if Mr Keating and Mr Beazley had been running the country a year ago. But I can talk with some feeling and authority about that because they were events directly within my control." Fraser, Keating, Beazley.

Rarely does a politician get the chance to so effectively verbal three irritants in the same breath. Thank you, Jeremy Cordeaux. Thank you for plopping up such a wondrous donkey drop. And what did Labor say? Beazley tried to pretend that, like Manuel, he knew nothing. He was nowhere to be seen when the documents were released on Tuesday. And the next day, up in Brisbane, he shied from reporters' questions like a startled duck. He had not had a chance to read them, he claimed lamely. "I don't expect I will for another week or so." Yet despite, presumably, knowing nothing about what they said, and thus being unable to comment on the Whitlam Government's documented complicity, Beazley found it no problem to criticise the Howard Government's non-release of all the relevant documents of the period.

"If you take [the release] to de jure recognition [in late 1976 of Indonesia's incorporation of East Timor], you involve decisions of a Liberal government. There's been a partial revelation, [but] there seems not to have been a willingness to go that far, which would be necessary to produce the complete Timor story from the Australian point of view. Now, as I said, having said that, I've not had a chance to read the documents, so for me to comment on what they mean would be a bit invidious, really." It would certainly be embarrassing.

Laurie Brereton, Beazley's foreign affairs spokesman and the man who, in Opposition, finally got rid of the Whitlam/Hawke/Hayden/Keating/Evans whining policy of appeasement of Soeharto, was no more forthcoming in his initial reaction on Tuesday. But by yesterday, in a Herald article written by his adviser, Philip Dorling, a former diplomat, Brereton was candidly acknowledging Labor's long record of appeasement and the pure pragmatism of its blind eye to East Timor's misery.

Unfortunately, he also acknowledged: "First, our foreign policy should always be firmly grounded in the values Australians hold dear. Second, we should be aware of the risks associated with foreign policy formulation by narrow, exclusive and often elitist circles." Unfortunately, that is, because neither of these professed fundamentals came within a bull's roar of what actually happened when the Keating Government, of which Brereton was a senior member, negotiated, in great secrecy and without reference to Parliament, its 1995 defence treaty with the Soeharto regime.

Yet it was Alexander Downer, paradoxically the most ill-suited Foreign Minister since Billy McMahon, who best put in context what happened to East Timor and why. In a speech written by his department, the very same professionals blamed for the 1975 policy, Downer said in Sydney on March 1 last year: "... successive Australian governments endorsed Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor because Australia did not want to see the balkanisation of Indonesia with the granting of independence fanning separatist sentiment elsewhere.

"The Portuguese left East Timor in a state of civil war with little prospect of stability, and there were concerns that an independent East Timor would be economically weak and susceptible to interests inimical to Australia's and Indonesia's interests. Let me say I believe those considerations to be totally understandable ... In those circumstances, the acquiescence of the Whitlam government, followed by the Fraser and Hawke governments, to Indonesia's integration plans was not unremarkable ..."

Neither Howard nor Brereton explains East Timor policy any more in such terms. The fall of Soeharto, like the fall of the Berlin Wall, allows the politicians to equate national interest with national values. Morality in foreign policy is now underwitten by taxpayers, even if they don't know it.

The world has changed. Only old politicians like Whitlam, Fraser, Peacock and Keating are left to explain themselves. But to plead ignorance is the least plausible excuse of all.

Consider this. On January 16, 1976, just two months after Kerr sacked Whitlam and Fraser became prime minister, endorsed by voters a month later, Bruce Juddery, a foreign policy writer with The Canberra Times, wrote a front-page story based on the leak of a long assessment to the new government of East Timor policy.

The author of the advice was Dick Woolcott, Australia's ambassador to Jakarta at the time, later head of Foreign Affairs under the Hawke government. Woolcott figures prominently in the East Timor file released this week. So does the very document Juddery quoted 24 years ago. Woolcott was quoted as telling Fraser: "The Government is confronted by a choice between a moral stance, based on condemnation of Indonesia ... and a pragmatic and realistic acceptance of the longer-term inevitability. It is a choice between what might be described as Wilsonian idealism and Kissingerian realism. The former is more proper and principled but the longer-term national interest may well be served by the latter. We do not think we can have it both ways."

Woolcott endorsed pragmatism. So had Whitlam. So did Fraser and, later, Hawke and Keating. It was all out there, in public, 24 years ago. It was never a secret how Australia rolled over to "realism".

In the files of the Parliamentary Library is a transcript of a talk given at the Australian National University in Canberra almost a quarter of a century ago. The date was March 18, 1976. The Whitlam Government was four months dead. The Fraser Government was four months new. Indonesia's brutal military takeover of East Timor had begun amid the political upheaval of Australia moving from one to the other.

Several people spoke at the ANU seminar that day. One was Gregory Clark, a former young Foreign Affairs officer who'd resigned in 1965 after the Menzies Government committed Australian troops to "save" South Vietnam. He later became a distinguished foreign correspondent in Tokyo and in 1975 was a policy consultant to the Whitlam Government.

When Clark was introduced that day, the seminar audience was told he would "focus on what the Australian Government did wrong" in East Timor policy. Clark began: "What the Australian Government did wrong? Well, it wasn't the Australian Government. It was Gough Whitlam.

"I think Peter Hastings, who is here today, probably knows more about this than I do, because he was actually in Jogjakarta at the time, in September 1974, [for a meeting between Whitlam and Indonesia's President Soeharto] and his dispatches reporting Whitlam's attitude, the conversations with Soeharto, over Timor were dead accurate. They bore a remarkable similarity, a coincidence of accurate detail to the official reports, put it that way.

It was an excellent piece of journalism. "Whitlam is not a cruel man, but he genuinely had this obsession about the stupidity of creating small nation states. This of course parallels his political views about the future of Australian federalism. So Whitlam told the Indonesians that if they could incorporate East Timor, it would be healthier both for Indonesia and Australia.

"At this stage, nobody really imagined the East Timorese would fight for their independence. Everyone felt it would be done neatly, smoothly, a repeat of the West Irian exercise [when Indonesia subsumed Dutch West New Guinea in the early 1960s]. The Indonesians were working up a plan basically for the takeover by subversion of Timor. The plan reached Canberra through intelligence channels.

"It was seen, studied, at quite a high level of the Australian Government, and basically approved. That approval was given, again personally, by Whitlam to Soeharto in Townsville in the meeting they had in March of 1975. From then on it was simply a matter of time before the Indonesian juggernaut got into action.

"What to me was particularly upsetting was the behaviour of the Australian Government in September/October 1975, in that crucial two months period when it was clear Fretilin [the independence movement] was in control in East Timor, when Australia could have exerted pressure to prevent Indonesia's invasion. Instead we did the exact reverse.

"Fretilin made a series of appeals to the United Nations, to its powerful decolonisation committee. If the appeals had been properly handled and referred on to the General Assembly, to full membership of the UN, it is extremely likely Indonesia would have realised the extent of Third World opinion against invasion and would have been deterred.

"Australia smugly, almost joyously, co-operated with Indonesian officials at the UN to make sure those appeals were not debated, that they were shelved. Towards the end, Don Willesee, Whitlam's Foreign Minister, was definitely getting concerned about the implications. Even, I think, a section in the department was opposed. It was basically a Whitlam policy.

"To me what happened is worse in some ways than Vietnam." So no, it was no secret. Australia's complicity in Indonesia's annexation of East Timor, either by design or dissembling acquiescence, was on the public record at least as far back as March 1976. That complicity was widely asserted at the time. It was just as strenuously denied, always.

Twenty-four years later and the official records confirm Clark and Hastings were right. So were others. What muffled their voices was bare-faced political mendacity. The greater melancholy is we no longer seem outraged that our governments all governments lie shamelessly when it suits.

Militia crisis raises the stakes

Jon Land -- The brutal murder on September 6 of three United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) staff by pro-Jakarta militia thugs at Atambua marks a dangerous turning point for 120,000 East Timorese refugees languishing in camps around West Timor.

The UNHCR, International Office for Migration, World Food Program and all other international aid agencies have been forced to indefinitely suspend their operations and pull out of West Timor. With their withdrawal, the militias have won one of their main goals: the UN's departure from the refugee camps and West Timor altogether.

A UNHCR representative evacuated from Kupang, Jake Moreland, warned that the stranded refugees face a wave of militia violence. Moreland told SBS news on September 7, "We are disturbed by the reports of a large movement of militias from Atambua towards Kupang".

Moreland added, "The outlook for the East Timorese refugees, to be frank, is bleak. UNHCR, along with our partners, has been providing food to 160,000 recipients. In addition to that, we have been providing medical services, community services and helping those refugees who want to return home ... we will no longer be able to provide these services."

World leaders gathered at the UN's Millennium Summit in New York appealed for the Indonesian government to deal with the militia crisis, yet the UN has for several weeks been expecting some sort of attack by militia gangs.

Just hours before the incident at the UNHCR office in Atambua, UN authorities knew that a large mob of militia was mobilising in and around Atambua and had already destroyed 70 homes near the border town of Betun.

The militia have became more active and hostile across West Timor following clashes with UN soldiers earlier this year. They have targeted mainly aid workers and refugees, causing a steady decline in repatriation of refugees since April.

During August they held rowdy protests of several thousand people outside the West Timor provincial parliament and the UNHCR office in Kupang.

Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's announcement that his government will send in two more Indonesian armed forces (TNI) battalions to counter the militia does not bode well. Wahid has made similar announcements in the past but there has been no improvement in the situation in West Timor.

No militia gangs have been disbanded or disarmed by the TNI or the Indonesian police; there have merely been some token arrests and stage-managed weapon hand-overs to appease international critics.

In a media conference on September 7, Indonesia's security minister, retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, did not rule out that the TNI in West Timor is politically directing the militia.

The terror campaign by the militia gangs raises doubts about Wahid's ability to control the TNI and whether the militia leaders and Indonesian officers responsible for the atrocities committed last year in East Timor will be brought to justice under the Indonesian legal system. This has provoked renewed calls for the creation of an international war crimes tribunal.

The attack on the UNHCR office in Atambua was sparked by the death of militia leader Olivio Mendosa Moruk, who was murdered on September 5 by unknown assailants in the town of Betun. Moruk, a leader of the Laksaur militia, is a suspect named by the Indonesian attorney-general's department in connection with an incident in East Timor last year.

When the list of 19 suspects was made public on August 31, it did not include top level army generals like Wiranto or Zacky Anwar Makarim, who are considered to have played a major role in the way events unfolded in East Timor last year. Nor did it include three key militia leaders now living in West Timor: Eurico Guterres, his former "commander" Joao Tavares and Cancio Lopez da Carvalho.

Guterres, who was in Atambua on the day the UNHCR staff were murdered, maintains his status as protected terrorist thug through the Aitarak militia and his connections with the TNI and Indonesian vice-president Megawati Sukarnoputri. Tavares, who received patronage from the Indonesian military when he was a landholder in East Timor, has bought parcels of land in West Timor and warned of "contamination" of East Timor by the "white skins".

The list of suspects presented by the attorney-general's office received a mixed response from East Timorese. National Council of Timorese Resistance/National Congress leader Xanana Gusmao said it was "an act of courage worthy of applause" and that the Indonesian justice system must be "given time". His diplomatic comments contrasted starkly with the view of many East Timorese, who greeted the announcement of the suspects with anger and disbelief.

Bishop Carlos Belo commented, "The announced list is very incomplete ... for me the most important thing are the people who have suffered, from Los Palos to Oecussi. When they all receive compensation, and all those who committed crimes are tried, then justice will be complete. This is just a third of what is expected."

On September 8, Gusmao, along with fellow CNRT/NC leader Jose Ramos Horta, issued a statement calling on the Security Council to establish an international war crimes tribunal. "Only a tribunal will send a clear signal to the criminal elements who desroyed East Timor and continue to terrorise refugees, international staff and others, that the world does not tolerate their impunity", it said.

Avelino da Silva, general secretary of the Socialist Party of Timor, told Green Left Weekly that there needs to be greater international support for an international war crimes tribunal. "We appeal for a solidarity campaign demanding that all the criminals be put on trial", he said.

This sentiment was also expressed in the September 5 Timor Post by East Timorese human rights activists Aderito Soares and Aniceto Guterres, who commented that the list proves that the military still holds much power in Indonesia. The Timor Post's September 2 editorial demanded an international war crimes tribunal if Indonesia continues to protect the war criminals.

Indonesia's Legal Aid and Human Rights Association is highly critical of the government's investigations. "This list shows that the legal process has in fact become a tool for those most responsible to avoid prosecution." Respected human rights lawyer Johnson Panjaitan added that the investigative team has been "deeply influenced" by military and police chiefs. "They [the investigators] didn't have the courage to name people who should take most responsibility, like the top armed forces commanders."

The governments that have signalled the most support for the dubious investigations undertaken by the Wahid government are those leading the way in renewing and strengthening ties with the Indonesian military: the United States, Australia and Britain.

The representatives of these governments have argued that Indonesia needs to be given a chance to bring those responsible for human rights abuses in East Timor to account under Indonesian law, rather than through an international war crimes tribunal. They pressured UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to support the Indonesian government's investigations, ignoring the evidence and conclusions of the UN's investigative team that was in East Timor at the end of last year.

These states share responsibility for the crisis in West Timor. Their moves to normalise relations with the TNI undermine not only the process of compensation and justice for the East Timorese, but also progressive forces within Indonesia campaigning for real democracy and human rights.

National secretary for Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, Pip Hinman, told Green Left Weekly, "The situation in West Timor demonstrates that Wahid has little control over the military. All military aid and ties with the Indonesian military must cease. The Howard government and leaders of other Western nations must provide all the resources at their disposal to bring home the East Timorese refugees."

Timor papers reveal Australia's dark secret

Kerry O'Brien: First, the Timor papers, released today, which finally confirm after a quarter of a century of suspicion that Australia was warned in advance of Indonesia's brutal invasion of East Timor in 1975 and condoned it. The hundreds of Foreign Affairs documents reveal a private relationship of great closeness and candour between Indonesia's Suharto regime and Australia's Whitlam Government leading up to the invasion in October '75.

It shows effective Australian support and even encouragement in advance for Indonesia to absorb East Timor. It also reveals that Australia had three days notice advance of the time and place of the Indonesian attack in which five Australian newsmen were killed at Balibo. Up to 200,000 East Timorese are estimated to have died during the 25 years of Indonesian occupation that followed.

Political editor Tim Lester reports on the new evidence of Australia's part in the East Timor tragedy.

Tim Lester: A mission driven by a sense of good, by outrage at atrocities against innocent people. Yes, but there was a sense of guilt as well.

When it led last year's operation to restore peace and allow independence in East Timor, Australia went in as a nation with a chequered record here. A generation earlier, it had been given prior knowledge of an Indonesian invasion and occupation, only then coming to an end. Documents released today, suggest far from trying to stop it, Australia encouraged it. James Dunn, former Australian consul to East Timor: As many as 20,000 people died. Now, of course, many of them, most probably, from disease or starvation.

Tim Lester: This afternoon, former Australian consul in Dili James Dunn began ploughing through almost 500 key Foreign Affairs documents on what was called Portuguese Timor in the mid-70s. In 1974, he recommended Parliament support self-determination for East Timor, arguing its people would never willingly join Indonesia.

James Dunn: Not because the Timorese hated the Indonesians, they just had a different historical experience.

Tim Lester: It wasn't going to happen?

James Dunn: It wasn't going to happen. It wouldn't have been contemplated by them.

Tim Lester: But was by Indonesia. Jakarta wanted to swallow the half island territory with Australia's blessing. The Foreign Affairs documents suggest the Indonesians outflanked Australian diplomats and ministers to get that blessing.

Hamish Mcdonald, 'Sydney Morning Herald': It was enthralling. I really sat up all night at one stage reading it, I just couldn't put this down.

Tim Lester: Journalist and author on East Timor Hamish McDonald says the documents show Indonesia compromised Australia by briefing our Jakarta-based diplomats on Indonesian plans beginning almost a year and a half before the attack.

July 1974, a departmental letter headed "Top Secret -- Indonesian Clandestine Operation in Portuguese Timor" details recommendations to President Suharto of an operation to ensure that the territory would opt for incorporation into Indonesia.

Hamish McDonald: I think they were testing us to see what we would accept and the fact is we didn't protest at it. Except for some minor tut-tuts and be carefuls.

Tim Lester: So the briefings continued. 2.5 weeks before Indonesia's fateful attack on Balibo, Australia's Jakarta embassy tells Canberra there's to be a significant escalation of Indonesian involvement in Portuguese Timor, involving 3,800 Indonesian soldiers.

Three days before what was effectively Indonesia's invasion, the Australians have even a broad battle plan. The main thrust of the operation would begin late on 15 October, it would be through Balibo, Maliana and Atsbae. That's right, Balibo.

The Timorese town etched in Australian history as a murder site for five Australian newsmen. Now we know their Government knew three days beforehand that Balibo was in the eye of the storm.

Hamish McDonald: From the following night, Tuesday the 14th, Greg Shackleton's reports from the border were being broadcast on Channel Seven stations here in Canberra and in Melbourne. I find it disgraceful that no-one put what they must have seen on the TV screens together with what they were reading and didn't come up with the thought that these guys were right in the path of danger.

Shirley Shackleton: It wouldn't be very hard to imagine that a group of blood hungry warmongers coming over the border finding five people in a town that's deserted, they would be in a certain amount of danger, especially since a great deal of secrecy surrounded these crossings.

Tim Lester: For 25 years, she's looked for answers on the death of husband and Seven news reporter, Greg Shackleton.

James Dunn: A terrible mistake. I think the worst, perhaps the worst failure in the history of Australian diplomacy because of its consequences. The five newsmen in Balibo, they were the first casualties. But in a sense they were the tip of the iceberg. Even that incident showed the Indonesian military they were on track and they could get away with it because no formal protest was ever lodged with Indonesia.

Richard Woolcott, former Australian ambassador to Jakarta: The Australian Embassy had no knowledge that there was any Australian journalists or any Australians in the Balibo area at that time.

Tim Lester: Currently travelling in Hong Kong, Richard Woolcott was Australia's ambassador in Jakarta at the time. If the embassy didn't have prior knowledge that the newsmen were in deep trouble, there have since been claims Australian intelligence did, having monitored the Indonesian military, at least inferring they'd killed the journalists thought to be at Balibo.

Hamish McDonald: We have got accounts from a number of senior and well placed former intelligence officials who cited this document and there are clues to its existence in the second Sherman report, which have not been followed up.

Alexander Downer, Foreign Affairs Minister: People can make their own judgments about whether there was a completely different story in the intelligence, but all I can say to you is that that's hardly likely to the case, is it? Because if intelligence was telling the Australian departments at that time a certain story, that would be reflected in the documents that were produced and of course it is.

Shirley Shackleton: Well, if they say they're going to release all the documents, they should release all the documents and not withhold some of them because you know, even an incurious person would say, "What are they holding back, what's in there?" I can't imagine what's in there. But it must be something pretty shocking.

Tim Lester: But the revelations from these documents, in particular the fact that Australia was briefed all the way by Indonesia, is now having an impact on the key figures from that time. For example, Malcolm Fraser.

When was he told that Indonesia had fed Australia its pre- invasion plans? As Opposition Leader or only when he became PM? No. He says he was briefed today by the first journalist to call him.

Tim Lester: Were you as Opposition Leader briefed on the prior warning that Australia was given?

Malcolm Fraser, PM, 1975-1983: No, I wasn't.

Tim Lester: Were you then briefed when you came as caretaker PM on the fact that Australia had been prewarned?

Malcolm Fraser: It's 25 years ago and there's that caveat on it. But I very strongly believe I would have remembered such a material fact. I do not believe I was briefed. I believe it was a very serious omission.

Richard Woolcott: Officials do not make policy, they advise. Governments make policy and certainly strong prime ministers like Whitlam and Fraser, who were the prime ministers during the period covered by the documents, they're not the sort of people who take uncritically the views of officials. Officials advise, governments decide.

Tim Lester: Not in this case, at least not according to Malcolm Fraser. The former PM says a message he authorised reassuring President Suharto on the East Timor question, and now published, would never have been sent had he known the cosy diplomatic relationship with Jakarta.

Malcolm Fraser: There was great pressure, I think deriving from the ambassador, for a message to be sent.

Tim Lester: Had you been properly briefed as caretaker PM on that prior warning, might it ultimately have changed the Fraser Government's long-term policy on the question of Indonesia and East Timor's integration?

Malcolm Fraser: That's a real possibility.

Richard Woolcott: I think the embassy did a very professional job in what it was supposed to do. It provided the Government with the information it needed on which to base its policy decisions and the idea that because we did our job so well that we might have been in some way complicit I think is nonsense. Australia couldn't possibly have stopped Indonesia from incorporating East Timor once a cabinet decision had been taken to do that in Indonesia.

Tim Lester: The full irony of East Timor for Australia came with the events of last year. Virtually everything our diplomats and government ministers had struggled to avoid a generation earlier came to pass anyway. Australian troops in the territory, bloodshed, relations with Indonesia soured -- in that sense, events in East Timor ultimately confirmed the failure of Australia's handling of Indonesia in the mid-'70s.

Kerry O'Brien: We approached former PM Gough Whitlam, his foreign minister, former senator Don Willessee, and former defence minister Bill Morrison for this story. All declined to be interviewed. Labor's current Shadow spokesman, Laurie Brereton, was unavailable for comment.

Book reveals Australia's part in 1975 Timor invasion

Compere: We begin by going back almost exactly a quarter of a century to the momentous spring of 1975, the time leading up to the two most contentious and divisive issues of recent Australian political history. In domestic affairs the dismissal, and in foreign policy the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Both centred on the commanding figure of one man, Gough Whitlam, and while most of the ashes have been well and truly raked over when it comes to his sacking by Sir John Kerr, it's only now that we can hear more of the inside story of what happened between Gough Whitlam and Indonesia's President Suharto.

The facts emerge from 484 secret papers that the Federal Government released this afternoon. They are the documents that built an Australian foreign policy disaster. Before we hear the details, lets cast our minds back to 1975.

Unidentified: At this moment there are over 30,000 [indistinct] and paratroops and marines in East Timor. This information has been independently confirmed by Australian intelligence officials. It is totally untrue that the [indistinct] forces have been withdrawn from the territory of the democratic republic of East Timor.

Reporter: There's been no attack today, but the 60-man Fretilin garrison is pulling back to Maliana. They've been told that Indonesian soldiers are heading this way up the road from Batugade.

Reporter: And on 2 December 1975, Indonesian invaded East Timor, 24 hours after President Ford and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had left Jakarta.

Greg Shackleton: Something happened here last night that moved us very deeply. We were brought to this tiny native village from Maliana because we were told that Maliana was not safe at night. We were the target of a barrage of questioning from men who know they may die tomorrow and cannot understand why the rest of the world does not care. 'Why,' they ask, 'are the Indonesians invading us?' 'Why,' they ask, "are the Australians not helping us? When the Japanese did invade us, they did help us.' That's all they want, for the United Nations to care about what is happening here. The emotion here last night was so strong that we, all three of us, felt we should be able to reach out into the warm night air and touch it. Greg Shackleton at an unnamed village which we'll remember forever in Portuguese Timor.

Compere: That poignant question, why about Australia's role, has haunted our foreign policy ever since, and the papers Alexander Downer released today show how Australia's policies and actions evolved on East Timor from 1974 to 1976. They're a record of how Australia became so enmeshed in Jakarta's thinking that Canberra could say nothing about it's intimate knowledge of the secret invasion of East Timor in 1975. And they show how Australia had three days advance notice of the time and place of the attack which killed five Australian journalists at Balibo, including Greg Shackleton, whose voice that was a moment ago.

From Canberra, Graeme Dobell reports on the 885 page book called Australia and the Indonesian Incorporation of Portuguese Timor, 1974 to 1976.

Graeme Dobell: Here is the detailed official script of how Australia marched into a foreign policy trauma that lasted 25 years. The documents show an Australia so close to Jakarta's thinking that it's unable to protest even privately on the eve of the secret invasion of Timor. One key moment is in September 1974 when the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, meets Indonesia's president Suharto in Jog, Jakarta.

The official record of the leader's conversation shows Mr Whitlam's priorities, first that East Timor should become part of Indonesia, second, that this should happen in accordance with the expressed wishes of the Timorese.

But the actual import of that message to Jakarta was put more bluntly a few weeks later in a minute sent to the head of Australia's Foreign Affairs Department. Gough Whitlam says that the act of Timorese self-determination is to be little more than a gesture to Australian public opinion. Here is the passage directly quoting Mr Whitlam's words.

"I am in favour of incorporation, but obeisance has to be made to self-determination. I want it incorporated, but I do not want this done in a way which will create argument in Australia, which would make people more critical of Indonesia." And Jakarta understood what it had been told by the prime minister. In October 1974, one of Suharto's top generals, Ali Matopo, tells an Australian diplomat that until Mr Whitlam's visit the month before, Jakarta had been undecided about Timor. But he says Mr Whitlam's support for the idea of incorporation into Indonesia had helped them crystallise their own thinking and they were now firmly convinced.

Later that month Australia's Ambassador in Jakarta reports the view that Indonesian policy has hardened, and the determination to take over East Timor has developed an almost irresistible momentum. Senior Indonesian officials start talking to Australia's diplomats in Jakarta about taking military action, and in the months that follow, Australia's diplomats are given all the details. By September 1975, the embassy is cabling Canberra with the details of Suharto's approval of a significant escalation.

Three-thousand-eight-hundred Indonesian soldiers are to be sent into East Timor, and by October 13, 1975 the embassy reports that the invasion will start on the night of October 15. The main thrust would be through Balibo, and Indonesia wanted to take the capital, Dili, by mid-November. The invasion does go as secretly promised, and the five Australian journalists in Balibo are killed on the morning of October 16, three days after Canberra was given the details.

Launching the documents, the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer.

Alexander Downer: During these hostilities in October 1975, five Australia-based journalists tragically lost their lives. Theories abound about how the journalists were killed and whether their deaths could have been prevented. There's a full selection of documents on this matter published in this volume, including some suggested earlier to be missing. The selection here is full enough to allow readers to judge for themselves the worth of different theories.

This selection can also act as a guide to the departmental files to be released later by the National Archives. I myself pass no judgments on the documents, other than to state that the Department of Foreign Affairs had no information beforehand of any intention to kill the journalists, although it did have prior knowledge of the planned invasion.

Graeme Dobell: One of the long-time critics of Australia's Timor policy, Jim Dunn, a former consul in Dili, says the documents show how Australia was deeply compromised by the information it was being given by Jakarta.

Jim Dunn: We were in a position of some complicity. We were getting these quite confidential briefings, but it seemed to be on the basis that we wouldn't pass -- do anything much about this information, so really it meant that the government of the time, or at least its officials, were being well briefed on what was happening and indeed what was about to happen. But we were placed in a position where they couldn't really do anything about it.

Graeme Dobell: And did that policy mean that Canberra wasn't mentally ready to do anything about the invasion going through Balibo and making that connection about the danger to any Australians that might be there?

Jim Dunn: I think it did, because I think if we look at the reports about that time, there is no recognition in the cable, in the cables that are available in that book, of the extent of the military operation conducted by the Indonesians against Balibo on 16 October, 1975, because that was really a major -- it was actually a major invasion of East Timor.

Graeme Dobell: One of the journalists who's written about Timor over three decades is the foreign editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Hamish McDonald, co-author of the new book Death in Balibo, Lies in Canberra. And he says Australia's diplomats were so well briefed, they became almost helpless.

Hamish McDonald: I think Australia made it very plain that they would be happy if Timor was incorporated with Indonesia and that they were not expecting it to be played by the best of rules in any case. Whether they stepped over the line, I don't know. They certainly did what an embassy should do, which is get the best possible access and the best possible information...

Graeme Dobell: Absolutely rolled gold information, in fact.

Hamish Mcdonald: It was unprecedented inside information for a country that -- from a country that was planning a covert intervention. It's hard to think of a case where a non-ally has divulged as much as this to Canberra or to any other major western country, but it compromised us, and the Indonesians knew it would compromise us. And the cables point out the Foreign Affairs Department realised we were being compromised, and yet the lure of this inside information was too much, and we kept ourselves in that loop, knowing how inhibiting it would be for us on -- in any protest later on.

Graeme Dobell: Australia's ambassador in Jakarta in 1975 was Richard Woolcott. He says the release of the documents will help kill off conspiracy theories and give a firmer basis to debate about Timor. Mr Woolcott told the 7.30 Report that his embassy was not too close to the Jakarta regime but was doing its professional duty.

Richard Woolcott: One of the principal objectives of an embassy is to report to the Australian Government as accurately and as fully as it can on the evolution of policies of that government to which it's accredited, so that the Australian Government is then in a position to make policy decisions. Now, I think that the Australian Embassy team in 1975-76 was highly professional. Even some books have recently referred to the 'astonishing insights' was the phrase, I think, of our reporting. So I think the Embassy did a very professional job in what it was supposed to do. It provided the government with the information it needed on which to base its policy decisions.

And the idea that because we did our job so well that we might have been in some way complicit I think is nonsense. I mean, the Australian Government continuously reminded the Indonesians at all levels, from the president down, of the desirability of an act of self-determination and what would happen if force was used.

Compere: Richard Woolcott was Australia's ambassador to Jakarta in 1975. Our reporter on the Timor papers was Graeme Dobell in Canberra.

Wife of killed journalist unconvinced by book's findings

Compere: Well, supporters of East Timor have long interpreted Australia's actions as a betrayal on the broad international stage of an entire people, but there's also that narrower focus of betrayal of our own people, especially the five young men from Channel 9 and Channel 7 who died at Balibo. Scratchily down the years comes that last report by Seven's Greg Shackleton as Indonesian troops advanced down the road towards them.

Greg Shackleton: There's been no attack today, but the 60-man Fretilin garrison is pulling back to Maliana. They've been told that Indonesian soldiers are heading this way up the road from Batugade. At any rate, we look like being the last people left in the town, and we'll make a decision very shortly on whether we too should pull back.

In the meantime, we've daubed our house with the word "Australia" in red, and the Australian flag in the house where we spent the night. We're hoping it will afford us some protection.

Compere: It was a forlorn hope. Soon Shackleton and his four Australian colleagues were dead, victims of the Indonesian invasion. For 25 years, Greg Shackleton's widow, Shirley, has been insisting that the Australian Government did know more than it was letting on. You might think she'd see today's release of the documents as a complete vindication, but instead Shirley Shackleton sees them as a farce. She told Mark Willacy that key cables relating to the death of the Balibo five have been left out.

Shirley Shackleton: It's just another part of the bizarre and horrible story where you end up saying, "What do they think -- who do they think they're fooling?"

Mark Willacy: So it sheds no light about the death of your husband or his colleagues?

Shirley Shackleton: Nothing.

Mark Willacy: Obviously the documents show that Australia did have three days notice of the invasion, it knew when and where the attack would begin, that the main thrust would be through Balibo.

Shirley Shackleton: Yes.

Mark Willacy: What does that tell you about, I suppose, the feeling at the time and the fact that there were journalists in the field?

Shirley Shackleton: We're supposed to be Indonesia's best friend. It would have been perfectly reasonable for Whitlam to have told Woolcott to approach the Indonesians and say, "Make certain that the journalists at Balibo are not hurt or harmed in any way." That's what Woolcott was for. That was not an unreasonable expectation. The Government consistently does these stupid shopfront things, of saying, 'here, we're releasing all these documents.' Then at the last minute they change their minds, and there's not really much to be found, I'm told. As I say, I haven't read them, I can't claim that without seeing them.

Mark Willacy: It is an 885 page book. What other documents do you think are out there that should have been included, in your opinion?

Shirley Shackleton: Well, this is what Hamish McDonald said in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning. At the last minute insistence of defence officials, even the slightest reference to intelligence sources, such as intercepts of Indonesian military radio signals were deleted from the text of the published cables officials. So he's got people telling him what's really going on, and you just wonder at the gall of continuing to spend taxpayers' money on these pretend, you know, investigations whilst family refusing -- see, I happen to believe things should be done in court. This is a matter of murder.

Mark Willacy: The Minister, Alexander Downer, says the only documents that were left out were left out because the editors of the book said they were not of sufficient interest.

Shirley Shackleton: [Laughing] I'm sorry, I can't take that seriously. Why not leave them there and let us decide what's interesting and what is not. It's not his place to withhold information, surely. Researchers need access to everything. It's time it was done, and I'm calling again for a full judicial inquiry. I think it's absolutely time for the Australian Government to stop this farce at once and do the only practical and moral thing, and that is have a full judicial inquiry into the murders at Balibo.

Compere: Shirley Shackleton whose husband, Greg, was one of the Balibo five killed during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. She was talking to Mark Willacy.

The untold story of the Balibo five

Tom Hayland -- The depressing saga of Australian efforts to establish the fate of the five Australia-based TV reporters killed in Balibo illustrates the bind that Australian diplomats had created for themselves.

They knew Indonesian forces carried out the attack on Balibo and had been warned by Harry Tjan, the director of the quasi-academic think tank that was their key source of information on Indonesia's intentions towards Portuguese Timor. But they wouldn't say so publicly, for fear of cutting off their source and jeopardising relations with Jakarta.

On October 13, 1975, Tjan told the Australian embassy in Jakarta that Indonesian forces were finally about to enter the territory. The main thrust would begin on October 15, through Balibo and Maliana/Atsabe. President Suharto had insisted "no Indonesian flag" be used, giving Jakarta the cloak of deniability.

Portuguese Timor's ordeal was about to enter a new and terrible phase. The five journalists had little more than two days to live. In Canberra on October 15, Timor dominated Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's discussions with visiting Malaysian Prime Minister Abdul Razak. Whitlam complained of biased Australian media reporting. The trouble was the reporters had easy access to Dili and Baucau, he said, but didn't go to the border areas, so they gave a one-sided picture. The five reporters, now in Balibo on the border, had only hours to live.

On the morning of October 16, Indonesian troops disguised as Timorese anti-Fretilin forces attacked Balibo. The five reporters were killed.

In the documents released yesterday, the first reference to the journalists' fate is a transcript of an ABC news item on October 17, reporting the journalists were missing. The transcript was sent to the embassy in Jakarta, requesting urgent inquiries. So began extraordinary efforts by Australian diplomats to establish what happened to the journalists, which at times bordered on farcical charade.

As well as not wanting to jeopardise their Indonesian sources, the diplomats wouldn't compromise more secret sources. It is known Australian intelligence agencies that intercepted Indonesian radio traffic were aware of the deaths on October 16, and that the Federal Government was informed that night. All references to intelligence material have been expunged from the documents.

On October 17, when Gerald Stone of Channel Nine rang the embassy asking if it had more information on the journalists, he was told nothing more was available.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry and Tjan both told the embassy that any information on Balibo would have to come from anti- Fretilin forces, in line with the fiction that Jakarta was not involved in the Balibo operation. "We said we understood this completely," the embassy said in a cable on October 17.

The following day ambassador Richard Woolcott cabled Canberra: "As you will know [half a line of intelligence material is expunged] it now appears likely that at least four and possible all five of the Australian journalists were killed in the fighting in and around Balibo." If true, this was a "sad and dreadful development".

The cable made no other reference to remorse for the journalists or their families. Rather, Woolcott was concerned about the risk of "serious consequences" if Australian public opinion was inflamed "if it appears that Australian casualties are the result of Indonesian intervention".

The cable went on to shift blame for the reporters' fate, pointing the finger at Canberra's responsibility to alert Australians to the dangers of the border area. Woolcott's cable prompted a stinging response from Foreign Affairs head Alan Renouf, who replied personally, complaining about the "tone and language", which was "quite inappropriate and is resented here".

On October 19, Woolcott had a frosty encounter with Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik, who was angry and dismissive. Any information on the journalists would have to come from anti- Fretilin forces, not Indonesia, and he raised the question of whether the journalists had worn Fretilin uniforms.

In the following weeks, Australian diplomats engaged in a fruitless and humiliating series of representations with Jakarta officials, seeking some confirmation on the fate of the journalists that could satisfy distraught families and an increasing alarmed Australian public.

On October 20, Tjan told the embassy that four bodies had been found at Balibo. The embassy passed on the information to Canberra but, because of the source, warned it should not be used in any public statements.

Daily the embassy contacted the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, which daily held out hopes for information. "Each day we are disappointed," the embassy reported on October 23.

The embassy suspected information on the "missing" journalists could be produced at the "drop of a hat", but said "influential elements", apparently the BAKIN intelligence agency, "are clearly preventing us from receiving it". Eleven days after the reporters' deaths, a BAKIN officer told the embassy they were dead, but this could not be publicly released as it would imply Indonesian involvement in the Balibo attack.

Final confirmation of their deaths, if not how they died, came on November 12, when Woolcott met Lieutenant-General Yoga Sugama, head of BAKIN, who handed over four boxes of remains. The embassy doctor "confirmed to the best of his knowledge they were human remains".

Politics of betrayal

Just-released Foreign Affairs documents show how Australia encouraged Indonesia to grab East Timor by its own early complicity in plans for the takeover, writes Hamish McDonald.

A little more than two months after Portuguese army officers ousted Lisbon's doddery fascist regime on April 25, 1974, Australia's ambassador in Jakarta, Robert Furlonger, sent a breathless dispatch to Canberra. His first secretary, Jan Arriens, had just been told that plans would soon be submitted to President Soeharto for a "clandestine operation" in Portuguese Timor to ensure it opted for incorporation into Indonesia.

The information had come from Harry Tjan Silalahi, a leading figure in the Soeharto regime's shadowy Special Operations group, known as Opsus. Tjan said the idea had occurred to him after talking to Peter Wilenski, the principal private secretary to the then Australian prime minister, Gough Whitlam.

"Tjan's extreme frankness indicates the Indonesians are confident we would favour an independent Portuguese Timor as little as they do," Furlonger wrote on July 3, 1974, adding that Tjan seemed to have gained this impression from Wilenski.

Opsus, formed around Soeharto's most trusted intelligence adviser, Lieutenant-General Ali Murtopo, had secretly negotiated with the British to undercut previous president Sukarno's "confrontation" with Malaysia, helped orchestrate the bloody backlash against the Indonesian Communist Party after the 1965 coup, manipulated a pro-Indonesian decision in Western New Guinea's "act of free choice" in 1969, and engineered a pro- regime outcome in Soeharto's first elections in 1971.

But Furlonger ended his dispatch with a worrying thought: "We are, in effect, being consulted. They clearly expect a response from our side: a failure to do so will be taken ... as tacit agreement."

And so began one of the busiest crises in Australian diplomacy, resulting in Canberra's biggest foreign policy blunder: effectively encouraging the military takeover of a small neighbouring territory, involving perhaps 100,000 unnatural deaths in its population of about 650,000. And all for a result that had to be unwound 25 years later with a perhaps indefinite commitment of Australian troops, and a "blowback" into West Timor that may yet undermine Indonesia's fragile democracy and unity.

Initially Canberra was keeping its options open. Graham Feakes, head of the South Asia division in Foreign Affairs, wrote back to Furlonger on July 26, 1974, noting that Australia could not be associated with Indonesian covert action, and suggesting that Jakarta be reminded Australia was publicly committed to self- determination for Portuguese Timor.

Furlonger wrote on July 30 to ask if Canberra was now "more neutral" about the result of a Timor plebiscite, where previously it had preferred union with Indonesia. "Could the Prime Minister not say that he shares the assessment that it would be in the interests of the region that Portuguese Timor unite with Indonesia? He could ... qualify this by saying that ... self- determination cannot be ignored ..."

However, Furlonger was worried Soeharto might refer to "covert activities" at a coming meeting with Whitlam in September, in which case Whitlam "would have no option but to say 'no', as he could never be on the record as having even tacitly acquiesced ..."

Furlonger said he would send Arriens back to Tjan, to make sure this was understood, and that Australia was not pledging to take a diplomatic initiative while the Indonesians "did the dirty work". But he also noted that Opsus was well prepared for its covert campaign, and that time could be short before Portugal pulled out.

The department, headed by career diplomat Alan Renouf and reporting to the foreign minister, Don Willesee, was not yet sold on the embassy's preference.

In its brief for Whitlam before the meeting, it mentioned that Opsus was planning a "covert political operation" to persuade the East Timorese to accept absorption into Indonesia. Tjan had been asked to advise Soeharto not to start the operation before Whitlam's visit.

The department advised Whitlam to tell Soeharto that Australia noted Indonesia's "strategic concerns" about Portuguese Timor allowing in hostile outside powers. But the brief stressed Australia's commitment to self-determination and its belief that an imposed solution would ultimately be destabilising.

Combined with the official record of what Whitlam said to Soeharto in the September 1974 meetings in Central Java, this supports Renouf's later assertion that Whitlam dumped this advice, and leaned strongly to the Jakarta embassy line.

Whitlam told Soeharto that Portuguese Timor was "too small to be independent" and its independence would be "unwelcome" to Indonesia, Australia and regional countries because it would invite attention from outside the region. The record goes on: "The Prime Minister noted that, for the domestic audience in Australia, incorporation into Indonesia should appear to be a natural process arising from the wishes of its people." There was no mention of covert action.

Whitlam later made his position much clearer to Richard Woolcott, a deputy secretary in Foreign Affairs, who relayed it in a minute to Renouf on September 24. "I am in favour of incorporation but obeisance has to be made to self-determination," Woolcott quoted Whitlam as saying.

The Indonesians seemed confident Whitlam was on side. By October 1974, Ali Murtopo's key staff members, Harry Tjan Silalahi and Yusuf Wanandi (then referred to in embassy cable traffic by his former name, Lim Bian Kie), were blunt in their discussions with embassy officials at their Jakarta base, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

On October 16, Furlonger reported Lim's belief that Portuguese and United Nations activity would lead to a referendum in Portuguese Timor towards the middle of 1976 -- time enough for Indonesia to do all it could to influence the situation. By 1976, Indonesia would be able to gauge the likely outcome of a plebiscite.

"If it was clear that the territory would not vote for incorporation into Indonesia, Lim said that the use of force could not be ruled out," Furlonger reported, noting that Tjan had agreed. "He spoke of the possibility of fomenting disorder in Portuguese Timor and of the Indonesian forces stepping in to salvage the situation at the request of certain sections of the population."

Furlonger had said this would put Australia in a difficult position, and asked if Indonesia could not live with an independent East Timor and aim to turn it into a "satellite" state. "Lim indicated that the latter was not a real alternative for the Indonesians."

Over the following months, the embassy advised consistently that Soeharto would not be diverted from the aim of incorporation, that Indonesian attitudes were "hardening", that the Opsus covert campaign was well under way and that the Indonesian armed forces were preparing for the contingency of intervention.

The department inserted periodic cautions about self- determination but overall tried to maintain what division head Feakes called a position of "studied detachment" on Portuguese Timor, limiting contact with the emerging Timorese political parties (in particular, disparaging Fretilin's Jose Ramos Horta) and holding off reopening Australia's consulate in Dili.

In February 1975, the then defence minister, Lance Barnard, put his department's objection to the Jakarta embassy's insistence that Indonesia could not be persuaded to live with an independent East Timor, even with Jakarta and Canberra jointly providing heavy political and economic support for the tiny state.

In reply, the South-East Asia branch head in Foreign Affairs, Lance Joseph, indicated he was swayed by this line. He pointed out that Jakarta did not need to think in pre-emptive terms: if, later, Jakarta's nightmare of a hostile Marxist regime did emerge, it could "take out Portuguese Timor at any time". But this policy was never seriously attempted, and Canberra never pulled up the Indonesians on their covert operation.

Woolcott arrived in Jakarta as ambassador in March 1975 with immense policy clout, having served as a deputy secretary in Foreign Affairs and having travelled with Whitlam on most of his foreign trips.

The record of Whitlam's second meeting with Soeharto in Townsville in April that year shows Whitlam barely giving self- determination a mention and bagging his domestic critics on the Timor issue. Crucially, he told Soeharto that Australia's Timor policy would be guided by the principle that relations with Indonesia were paramount.

After Townsville, Woolcott directly challenged his minister, Don Willesee, on differences between his approach to Portuguese Timor and Whitlam's. In a letter to Willesee on April 17, Woolcott pointed out that the foreign minister tended to place the emphasis on a proper act of self-determination, and noted that if this resulted in incorporation into Indonesia, Willesee would "accept" it. But in Townsville, Whitlam believed the logic of the situation was that East Timor should join Indonesia and Australia would "welcome" it. Whitlam believed that continued public emphasis on self-determination would increase the pressures for independence.

Another example of the way policy was drifting from self- determination is in a letter South-East Asia branch head Joseph wrote on June 30 to the Jakarta embassy's No 2, Malcolm Dan, who had said the Indonesians were unhappy with the Australian record of the Townsville talks.

What the Indonesians had been shown, said Joseph, was most likely "the sanitised version ... For presentational purposes, it was felt important in the sanitised version to highlight Australia's commitment to self-determination in a way which is not reflected in the exhaustive record".

The crisis in Timor intensified over 1975, with the territory's two biggest parties, Fretilin and UDT, entering and then breaking a coalition, and Portugal increasingly disposed to speedy decolonisation.

Australia's embassy in Jakarta said on July 10 that a "final policy decision" had been taken by Indonesia to incorporate East Timor one way or another. On July 21, Malcolm Dan stressed Tjan's unrivalled connections to key Indonesian officials running Timor operations, including Ali Murtopo, and the military intelligence chief, Major-General Benny Murdani.

From the department, Joseph said he did not disagree "but we do sometimes get the impression here that Harry [Tjan] is being deliberately outrageous." In a separate note, Feakes said Australia had to react to what Tjan had said in case it looked like it was acquiescing. "The historical record would have looked bad," Feakes told his superiors.

To this point, Australia had been turning a blind eye to the Opsus campaign of political subversion. On August 10, 1975, however, the conservative UDT staged a coup in Dili, claiming to be preventing a takeover by the "communist" Fretilin and Portuguese sympathisers. The embassy quoted "very delicate sources" suggesting Indonesian intelligence agents were colluding with UDT (much later borne out by both UDT and Indonesian accounts).

The Fretilin counterattack created chaos in Dili, and drove the UDT westwards to the Indonesian border. The issue of immediate intervention by Indonesia was a live one, possibly even at Lisbon's request. On August 26, Whitlam told the Indonesian ambassador, Major-General Her Tasning, that Canberra would not seek to "exercise a veto" on Indonesia responding to such a request, and that all assurances given in Townsville still stood.

But Soeharto did not authorise intervention then, when the world might have excused it, because his spiritual guru, Lieutenant- General Sujono Humardani, had had a vision that East Timor would "fall" into Indonesia's lap. Instead, Soeharto authorised covert military support for the UDT remnants and the small pro- Indonesian party, Apodeti, as the embassy outlined in early September.

As the covert military campaign proceeded, leading to the large- scale attack on Balibo and Maliana on October 15-16 in which five Australian-based TV newsmen were killed, the embassy was given advance warning, which was passed on to Canberra promptly.

In Foreign Affairs, some senior officials had doubts about where this was taking Australia. "The Indonesians have, shrewdly, compromised us by making sure that we know their plans for covert intervention in some detail," wrote Geoffrey Miller, head of the executive branch, on September 12. As Australia had not given a green light to overt intervention the previous month, Miller asked if could it still not urge Indonesia to consider a Fretilin-controlled East Timor less of a problem than imposing another solution.

Miller's warning, ignored higher up, might well have seemed justified by the runaround the Jakarta embassy got when trying to confirm the Balibo deaths, and the petulant response by Indonesian officials to the protests and trade union bans in Australia over the all-too-obvious "covert" campaign.

But even after Balibo, when Tjan and others reduced the flow of information to the embassy, the cost of complicity did not seem too high. As was already known from leaked cables, Woolcott had successfully argued against foreign minister Willesee expressing knowledge of Indonesian military intervention in his October 30 statement to Parliament.

The cables show the Jakarta embassy getting a series of warnings from the Indonesian Defence Ministry and Opsus in the week before the December 7, 1975, attack on Dili, which allowed the evacuation of Australian nationals.

Woolcott had tried in previous days to get the caretaker Fraser Government (which had replaced Whitlam's after the November 11 dismissal) to accept that the issue would now be settled initially by force. On December 3, he reminded Feakes that, according to Tjan and Lim of Opsus, the new foreign minister, Andrew Peacock, had told them in September that a Liberal government would "not criticise" an Indonesian intervention that was supported by other South-East Asian nations, but simply bag Whitlam for "inaction".

The ambassador leavened this Indonesian blackmail with some flattery: if it was a choice between Indonesia and Fretilin, "as a political realist with racing connections, I imagine Mr Peacock will not be interested in putting his [Australia's] money on a 50 to 1 outsider in a two-horse race".

But when Australia did try to have it both ways, by voting in a UN committee for a resolution calling for Indonesia to withdraw, the reaction was predictable. (This was even though the Australian ambassador at the UN, Ralph Harry, said that during the committee debate "our immediate diplomatic problem and task has been to do what we can to reduce the pressure on the Indonesians").

The vote was called "disastrous" by Tjan of Opsus, and a "double-cross" by General Murdani. Much later, Tjan even claimed to the Jakarta embassy's political counsellor, Allan Taylor, that Australia had "planted the idea" that East Timor should be part of Indonesia.

The rest of the story in this selection is a scramble, driven strongly by Woolcott's advice, to get back on side with Soeharto's Indonesia. The alternative of strongly contesting Indonesia's fears of an independent state in East Timor was never seriously put at the highest level.

While the embassy was adamant Soeharto could not be swayed, many cables show him in a much weaker position in 1974-76 than in later years: beset by health problems, the crisis in the state oil company Pertamina, and internal criticism of his regime.

What would have happened if Whitlam had followed his Foreign Affairs Department's advice in September 1974 -- and stuck to the principles on which it was based -- will remain one of the great conjectures in Australian diplomatic history.

Canberra given notice of Balibo attack

No check was made to see if any Australians were in the area before Indonesia's attack, Foreign Affairs documents show. Hamish McDonald reports.

As Indonesian covert soldiers moved into position for the October 1975 attack on Balibo that was to kill five Australian-based newsmen, Australia's ambassador in Jakarta, Mr Richard Woolcott, was having a "long and very frank discussion" with the Indonesian general in charge of the operation, Benny Murdani.

The account of this meeting, on the evening of October 15 and following General Murdani's return the previous day from a week in the Indonesian-held village of Batugade preparing the attack, makes disturbing reading.

Apart from reinforcing the case that Canberra's diplomacy had become thoroughly compromised, it shows that had Mr Woolcott been aware the journalists were in the line of attack, he could have intervened with General Murdani at the 11th hour to seek their protection.

But there is no evidence in the documents released yesterday that Mr Woolcott and his embassy, or the Department of Foreign Affairs back in Canberra thought Australians might be in the border region of Timor near Balibo.

The Jakarta embassy told Canberra on October 13 that the attack would start on October 15 [it was launched about 11pm local time with long distance mortar fire], and that Balibo would be the first target. This was brought to Foreign Minister Don Willesee's attention on October 14.

But Foreign Affairs did not appear to make any effort to find out the location of Australian journalists and aid workers in Portuguese Timor, and warn them to stay out of the danger zone. The head of Foreign Affairs, Alan Renouf, reacted angrily when Mr Woolcott cabled on October 18 that he assumed the department had "firmly discouraged" Australians from visiting East Timor "including the border area".

He pointed out that the embassy had reported the hostility in anti-Fretilin circles towards Australians, and that on October 13 the embassy had reported a warning that the UDT party would "probably kill [the Australian aid activist Michael] Darby if he fell into their hands". (The cable with this warning is not included in the volume of selected documents, Australia and the Indonesian Incorporation of Portuguese Timor, 1974-1976.)

The embassy had advised much earlier, on September 30, that key intelligence sources said President Soeharto had authorised increased assistance to the anti-Fretilin forces in Timor, and that up to 3,800 soldiers from Java would be gradually inserted into Portuguese Timor.

As the volume does not include intelligence material, we still do not know whether other agencies had put this advance notice together with the reports from the border by Greg Shackleton that were appearing on Channel 7 in Canberra and Melbourne (where all the intelligence agencies were then based).

The volume sheds no light on the question of Defence Signals Directorate interceptions of Indonesian radio messages before the attack that might show the Indonesians were aware of foreign journalists being in Balibo and that they were targeted to eliminate witnesses.

However, it does inferentially show that soon after the attack on October 16, DSD heard the Indonesians say that the bodies of four white men had been found in Balibo.

Officials said yesterday the Foreign Affairs historians who compiled the volume were shown this intercept, and the only other Balibo intercept DSD claims to have in its records, reporting that the bodies had been burned later the same day.

(In our book, Death in Balibo, Lies in Canberra, the Australian National University intelligence expert Desmond Ball and I report several former officials as saying that DSD did make an intercept several hours before the attack showing the newsmen would be targeted. We concluded this intercept had been withheld from normal distribution in Canberra).

That the October 16 intercept referred to only four bodies provides some excuse for the reluctance of Canberra to use it to confirm the deaths to the bereaved families: it was possible that one journalist, not known who, was still alive.

Even on November 6, the embassy official sent to investigate in Kupang, West Timor, Richard Johnson, reported information that the fifth journalist was being held captive in the Oecussi enclave. Mr Johnson said yesterday this came from an Indonesian journalist in Kupang, and was never corroborated.

The volume confirms that the Foreign Affairs mission to East Timor in April-May 1976 to investigate the Balibo deaths, led by the then political counsellor in the Jakarta embassy (and present head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service), Allan Taylor, was a stage-managed affair. The Taylor team sent two reports to Canberra, one for public consumption, the other a backgrounder for the department.

The public document, presented by then foreign minister Andrew Peacock to Parliament, included accounts by Timorese anti- Fretilin leaders that only UDT and Apodeti partisans had been involved in the attack, and that the journalists had died in a hail of gunfire and their remains identified only much later.

The report said this account had "a certain plausibility" although Mr Taylor would have known from all his contacts with Indonesian operatives and access to intelligence material that in many respects the accounts were fictitious.

The second report includes the Indonesian Army's choreography of the visit, and mentions that Mr Taylor had lunch in Dili with General Murdani and Colonel Dading Kalbuadi, who had been the operational commander of the Balibo attacking forces and had gone into Balibo within an hour of the journalists' deaths.

There is no record that Mr Taylor asked Colonel Dading any embarrassing questions. He does report General Murdani as saying the presence of Indonesian troops was being concealed from the Australian mission (Jakarta then insisted there were only "volunteers" in East Timor). General Murdani told Mr Taylor: "You have seen the official side, this is the unofficial side."

Secret papers confirm East Timor cover-up

Hamish Mcdonald -- Australian diplomatic cables released yesterday covering Indonesia's takeover of East Timor in 1974-76 show officials caught in a web of deceit and moral compromise that led to a foreign policy disaster. Revelations in hundreds of pages of until now secret documents include:

Foreign Affairs officials "sanitised" the official record of talks on East Timor in 1975 between the then prime minister, Mr Gough Whitlam, and Indonesia's president Soeharto.

Australia was told of Indonesia's planned invasion of East Timor three days before the attack on Balibo that killed five Australian-based newsmen;

The night of Indonesia's invasion, Australia's Ambassador in Jakarta, Mr Richard Woolcott, had "a long and very frank discussion" with the Indonesian general in charge of the operation, Benny Murdani.

One of the most damning revelations is the evidence that Australia's official diplomatic records on East Timor were sanitised.

In April 1975 a senior Foreign Affairs official, Lance Joseph, sought to explain to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta why Canberra's official record did not reflect accurately talks just held in Townsville between Mr Whitlam and Soeharto, following complaints from the Indonesians.

What Indonesia had been shown, the official wrote, was the sanitised version of the record. "For presentational purposes it was felt important in the sanitised version to highlight Australia's commitment to [East Timor's] self-determination in a way which is not reflected in the exhaustive record."

The documents' release by the Foreign Affairs historical unit chronicles one of the most intense periods of Australian diplomacy and reignites the debate over East Timor, with former senior diplomats and politicians moving yesterday to defend their reputations.

The released documents show Canberra doing what the then ambassador Woolcott called "having its cake and eating it" -- backing Indonesia's aim of incorporating Portuguese Timor, yet supporting the right of the territory to self-determination.

Mr Woolcott told the Herald Australia had warned against the use of force, and rejected the notion of being "compromised" by being told too much by the Indonesians.

"Could you imagine the criticism that would have fallen on the government and the embassy if the embassy had not been well informed about Indonesia's intentions in 1974 and 1975?" he said, referring to recent events in Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

The former prime minister Mr Malcolm Fraser, who succeeded Mr Whitlam, said yesterday that he was not told of intelligence reports about Indonesia's plans to invade East Timor when he became Australia's caretaker leader in 1975. "I didn't know the Australian government had that information," he told AAP. "The Department of Foreign Affairs did not brief me to that effect when I became prime minister or caretaker prime minister."

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Downer, supported the act of "transparency" in opening the records six years ahead of the normal 30-year rule, and refused to pass judgment on the Whitlam government, knowing that the documents are damning enough.

The Opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Laurie Brereton, said the release "bears the taint of political partisanship" as it did not extend to 1979, showing the Fraser government's knowledge of atrocities after the invasion, and its decisions to recognise Indonesian sovereignty.

Significant intelligence assessments on the invasion remain classified. However, Mr Downer said they would not tell a different story.

On the killing of the newsmen, Mr Downer said this was covered by a full selection of documents. They showed "Foreign Affairs had no information beforehand of any intention to kill the journalists, although it did have prior knowledge of the planned invasion".
 

Government/politics

'Troubles only a hurdle on hard road to reform'

Vaudine England -- On the surface, Indonesia appears to be spiralling out of control, with the killing of United Nations workers in West Timor 10 days ago, a bomb in central Jakarta three days ago and a presidency assailed by critics both at home and abroad.

But anyone thinking President Abdurrahman Wahid is about to lose his job, or the fractured state of Indonesia is about to fall apart, should think again, say some of Indonesia's top commentators.

"The new cabinet has only just started its job, and it is off to a flying start," publisher and political analyst Aristides Katoppo said. "And it is disturbing that people are trying to disrupt the democratic process. But I think the Government is coping. What else can [Wahid] do? We are dealing with terrorists, and even the mighty United States has them.

"Here it is just forces who do not wish there to be a recovery, or who are trying to disturb the process of reform. Of course, the situation is in a way fragile. But I think there is much more resilience among Indonesians than you think. This won't bring the Government down. Maybe it is more than just a glitch, but I think the country is robust enough to absorb this pinprick," said Mr Katoppo, referring to the bomb which left 15 people dead in the basement of the Jakarta Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

"These things are not adding up to a crisis, these are just symptomatic," Mr Katoppo added. "If you are running a fever, then you may well come out in a few rashes. But I believe the fever is coming down."

In this context, the fever Indonesia is sweating out is the process of changing a political system from the military-backed centralism of former president Suharto to the open, tolerant and reformist democracy which President Wahid and his supportive intelligentsia want to see.

Other Indonesians are less sanguine, with men who helped design the electoral system which achieved an open parliamentary election last June such as Andi Mallarangeng saying the latest outrages threaten the future of democracy in the country.

Political scientist Syamsuddin Haris said at a recent seminar that old habits of bribery and corruption, seen throughout provincial administrations despite some changes in Jakarta, had helped encourage a general desire to see law and order return, even if that had to be under an authoritarian administration.

But contrary to the experience of some of Indonesia's neighbouring countries, there is no talk of a coup d'etat, unless the word "coup" is redefined to mean the long-term, geographically disperse provocation of violence by mysterious armed groups which has been under way here since 1998.

Despite the crisis, Indonesian MPs are reportedly at one another's throats over plans by 90 of them to spend millions of dollars on a 29-country world trip to visit overseas compatriots. The two main parties in the People's Consultative Assembly, the Golkar and the Indonesian Democracy Party of Struggle, were boycotting the jaunt and had urged the 90 not to waste the country's money, the Jakarta Post reported yesterday. A similar trip by a group of MPs to 29 countries earlier this year cost the assembly 25 billion rupiah (HK$7.5 million).

No proof blasts linked to army, say police

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- The Indonesian police said yesterday they were having difficulties finding proof to link the series of bomb attacks in the capital in the past three months to groups that some government officials suggest are related to the army.

A top source in the national police headquarters said the police had not been able to substantiate the role of Indonesian military (TNI) elements in the bombings, the most recent of which occurred on Wednesday. But he admitted that all the four incidents in the past months were related and done by "highly skilful people" to cripple the economy and further destabilise the country.

"Is the military involved in the bombing? Yes and no," the source told The Straits Times. "After narrowing the list of those who could be behind the bombings, we have our suspicions. But we don't have the proof and without it, we cannot touch the TNI headquarters. These are still assumptions that must be checked, and this will include scrutinising the TNI, but it will be difficult because the TNI is a closed institution."

The government has implied that some rogue military elements might be behind the campaign of terror to undermine its legitimacy, and that there have been efforts to block the police investigations.

"The government feels that clearly there have been obstacles in the sense that police investigations had been discontinued when they were about to conclude that the military apparatus might be involved -- they are beyond the reach of the police," Attorney- General Marzuki Darusman said on Thursday. "TNI chief has been authorised to break through this barrier and to resolve the problem institutionally," he said.

Yesterday, Mr Marzuki told The Straits Times that he was airing public suspicions of military involvement to prod the police into expediting its probe. "If it is not the case that police investigations are held up because of military obstruction, then the police should come up with a public denial and get on with investigations in a different direction. I am willing to retract my statements if it is not the case that the military is obstructing them," he said.

Police have yet to name any suspects. In a recent interview, former Defence Minster Juwono Sudarsono linked the bombings and the spate of violence across the country to the "residual financial power" of Suharto and his former TNI commander General Wiranto, who was sacked by President Abdurrahman Wahid early this year.

"The liquidity of their power is more than the formal logistics of the military," he said, adding, that the group also benefited from the ineffective leadership of TNI chief Admiral Widodo.

Cheers greet order for arrest

Robert Go, Jakarta -- President Abdurrahman Wahid was greeted with cheers yesterday when he disclosed the order to arrest a member of the Suharto clan in connection with Wednesday's bomb blast at the Jakarta Stock Exchange building. The response underscores the distrust and hatred many Indonesians harbour towards the former First Family.

Mr Abdurrahman told an afternoon prayer gathering confidently that Mr Hutomo "Tommy" Mandalaputra, Suharto's youngest son, would be arrested despite what he himself termed as lack of incriminating evidence.

Indeed, the line-up of suspects in the aftermath of recent Jakarta bombings have invariably included those close to Suharto, who was driven from power in 1998 after 32 years of autocratic rule.

Circumstantial evidence does point in the direction of the business cronies or the military officers who allegedly benefited during the past three decades from their connections to Suharto, and therefore would want to sabotage the government's case.

Bomb blasts have accompanied each major stage of the government's corruption probe against the former ruler, disturbing public peace and shaking confidence in the country's economic and political stability.

Police spokesmen have reported that the explosive used in the stock exchange complex was similar to that which blew up Philippines Ambassador Leonides Caday's car on August 1.

Investigations into the explosion at the Attorney- General's office on July 4, which occurred a mere few hours after government prosecutors interrogated Mr Hutomo over his alleged involvement in a business scam, also revealed that the terrorists used components produced by the military's material factory and warehouse.

More damaging to Mr Hutomo personally was the sniper attack that sent workers at parliament scurrying for cover when he made his April appearance in the complex to answer probing questions from MPs. But all of this was simply inferential evidence, which in other countries that claimed to be democratic, would not lead to actual arrest.

Perhaps a poll taken last year can explain why people were so quick to think that Mr Hutomo, and the rest of the Suharto family, would be capable of dastardly actions that harm or kill innocent bystanders or the poor.

Asked which of Mr Suharto's six children was most deserving of being dragged to court and jailed, 58 per cent of Indonesians listed Mr Hutomo's name. Like his brothers and sisters, he also amassed wealth during his father's turn at the helm, operating lucrative business monopolies and receiving favourable terms for numerous projects.

The opinion survey, which was commissioned by a group of 15 major publications, also indicated that most Indonesians judged him to be the most arrogant and flamboyant member of the family.

Despite the shared perception that all of the family and their cronies used unfair and illegal business practices, the people apparently also felt that Mr Hutomo ran his companies less "normally", and was generally more corrupt than the others. That the 38-year-old often flaunted his "untouchable" status as the former president's favoured son openly also irked the masses.

But a businessman with ties to the Suharto family and the criminal underworld told The Straits Times yesterday: "Public opinion has been against Tommy for a long while, but the fact shows that he is simply a survivor even when people focus on him. "The government should not draw conclusions like this. They should see that it is too risky for Tommy to go around planting bombs."

Wahid's tough stance 'reshapes political map'

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- The announcement of an arrest order for Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra by an embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid may have redrawn the political map, at least for a day.

But analysts and diplomats trying to make sense of the move against ex-president Suharto's youngest son suggested there may be more symbolism than content in Mr Wahid's apparently off-the- cuff remark.

"It's a bit suspicious," said one Western diplomat. "If there was evidence against Tommy, why have the police not already arrested him? This could be a another case of Wahid talking loosely, and undermining the very institutions, such as the judiciary, which he's supposed to be supporting."

Mr Hutomo himself could still get away. Police spokesmen gave out conflicting messages as to whether they had actually received a formal arrest order, and if there was legal room for them to act. His detention might also provoke more violence rather than bring an immediate end to terror attacks like Wednesday's bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange, in which 15 people were killed.

But the arrest order does signal that Mr Wahid, weakened by continuing violence, does not intend to take the rough stuff lying down. "It shows he's got balls after all," said a Western diplomat. "I can't think of a better way to say it. We're relieved something's happening to stop the rot."

The President's latest woes began last week with the opening of the United Nations Millennium Summit and the announcement that four UN aid workers, three of them foreign, had been killed in Atambua, West Timor, an area nominally under the Government's control.

Since his return to Jakarta on Monday, he has been uncharacteristically silent, despite almost daily emergency ministerial meetings chaired by Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Commentators were already wondering by mid-week to what extent the President was being sidelined by events, and by the Vice-President and his Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Then came the bomb at the Jakarta Stock Exchange on Wednesday, a strike at the symbolic heart of the economy. The next day, Suharto once again refused to answer a summons to court to hear corruption charges, continuing a cycle of apparent impunity which has deeply frustrated many Indonesians.

Even Mr Wahid's call for the police and Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman to find the bombers without fear or favour failed to reassure the public, given the police's dismal failure to arrest anyone for a series of bomb attacks and communal killings in recent months. Now Mr Wahid has unashamedly played to the gallery. But this would not be the first time a bold statement by the President later took on unexpected meaning, or was revealed to lack any.

Most ordinary Indonesians blame the Suharto family for widespread corruption, and blame "dark forces" aligned to the Suharto siblings for the recent attacks. Few will care whether evidence exists to firmly charge and convict Mr Hutomo for anything, and gleeful surprise was obvious among ordinary people questioned.

Foreign opinion remains divided about whether to give Mr Wahid full marks in a battle of perception at home, when international outrage at the militia murders of UN staffers in West Timor remains high.

The implication behind the arrest of Mr Hutomo is that the Government believes he is somehow involved in the bomb attacks, and particularly in the disaster at the Stock Exchange.

Why might Mr Hutomo have felt motivated to sponsor such attacks? "It's a lot of spite and revenge," said an ordinary Indonesian, who believes that the spoiled children of the new order and their military or business cronies still have trouble accepting that the good old days are over.

If Mr Wahid has indeed taken the battle into the enemy camp, he is announcing a new phase in the country's political transition. But he is still a long way from victory.

Jakarta's shame

John McBeth, Jakarta and Michael Vatikiotis, Washington -- It was a humiliating moment for Abdurrahman Wahid. At the United Nations' Millennium Summit in New York, the Indonesian president stood with 154 other world leaders as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked for a minute's silence in memory of the Puerto Rican, Ethiopian and Croatian aid workers butchered in a September 6 attack on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees compound in the small West Timor town of Atambua.

With the eyes of the world focused on Indonesia's failure to deal with its side of the Timor problem, Wahid's response has been to blame the international community for not providing enough assistance -- or simply to try to redirect attention.

Following the attacks, Wahid was subjected to a litany of outrage from Annan, US President Bill Clinton and other leaders. In a testy meeting with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in which Albright berated Wahid for his failure to control the militias responsible for the killings, he responded by reminding her he had been swamped with pleas to help resolve international conflicts from the Middle East to Kashmir. He made the same boast in a gathering the next day at Columbia University in New York, where he received an award for his "lifetime contribution to humanity."

A human-rights official in New York says that though Wahid handled the criticism well, "you didn't get the sense he really knows what's going on" in West Timor.

Barely 48 hours after Wahid arrived in New York, machete-wielding militiamen hacked to death the three UN workers, burning their bodies in the street as seemingly outnumbered soldiers and policemen looked on. The next day, eight people were killed in fighting between local villagers and militiamen outside the Betun refugee camp, south of Atambua. As the worst case of violence between locals and militiamen so far, that incident was yet another sign of rising social tensions across West Timor.

For months now, UN peacekeepers have warned that the Indonesian government's failure to assert its authority has put the province of West Timor in increasing danger of falling under militia control. Annan and US and European leaders have pressed Jakarta for much of this year to rein in the militias; at the summit, the UN Security Council called on Indonesia to immediately disarm and disband them. But a Western military officer who toured the West Timor border region a fortnight before the Atambua attack told the Review: "The Indonesians just haven't provided the resources the problem needs. There doesn't seem to be the will to do anything."

Says a Jakarta-based ambassador: "We just can't understand why the government is allowing one of its own provinces to be subverted." Wahid's weak civilian government, a yawning leadership gap in the Indonesian armed forces, and support for the militias from active and retired military figures are all blamed for Jakarta's failure to impose effective control.

The mayhem was sparked by the September 5 slaying of militia leader Olivio Moruk, who was decapitated and castrated in Betun just a week after Indonesian prosecutors named him as one of 19 people suspected of human-rights abuses in East Timor. Indonesian officials claim he was the victim of a local dispute, but the timing suggested other motives: He was killed exactly one year after his militiamen allegedly slaughtered 200 independence supporters in a church in Suai, on East Timor's southwest coast. Was it revenge or were some of his former military backers enforcing a code of silence?

Only last month, Indonesian Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab said he needed three to six months to close the camps and put a lid on the problem. Since then, little has changed. Two Indonesian infantry battalions are strung out along the 170-kilometre border trying to prevent 200 hard-core militiamen crossing into East Timor. The security forces have done nothing, however, about the militias' control of the refugee camps or their intimidating acts in other parts of the province, including Kupang, the West Timor capital.

Little wonder, perhaps. Eurico Guterres, the leader of the Aitarak militia, which was blamed for some of the worst atrocities in East Timor after the UN-supervised vote on independence last year, now heads the West Timor paramilitary youth wing of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle, headed by Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Two months ago, Guterres was seen dining with disgraced former special-forces commander Lt.-Gen. Prabowo Subianto in Kupang, suggesting continued military collusion with his militia. Western intelligence agents have seen Prabowo in Kupang three times this year, most recently on August 31.

Megawati, a fervent nationalist, sided with the military over the East Timor issue. She also enjoys good relations with former armed-forces commander Gen. Wiranto, who may yet face trial for failing to stop the militia rampage in East Timor last year that left more than 1,000 people dead.

In a poignant example of just how much Jakarta has lost control in West Timor, regional commander Maj.-Gen. Kiki Syahnakri dispensed with time-consuming clearances and gave the go-ahead for three armed New Zealand helicopters carrying special-forces troops to evacuate 55 UN and other aid workers trapped in Atambua hours after the militia attack. Given the strained relations between Indonesia and the UN authority in East Timor, this was an extraordinary move.

In New York, Wahid asserted the murders were committed to embarrass him, and ordered troop reinforcements into West Timor "to help control the situation." But he expressed no regret over Indonesia's failure to act against the more than 2,000 militiamen in West Timor, and said it would take money from the international community to resettle them in other parts of Indonesia.

New Coordinating Minister for Security and Political Affairs Bambang Yudhoyono, who in a recent published interview did not mention West Timor as being among his priorities, has since promised to restore security and order. He didn't say what he would do about the militiamen, all of whom were originally armed and trained by the Indonesian military. By mid-week, Jakarta was moving at least three army battalions of up to 800 men each into the province.

Now that UN agencies are refusing to return until the militias are removed, aid workers worry about the spectre of famine and the possibility of refugees going on the rampage in search of food. UN officials estimate that 60,000-70,000 refugees would return to East Timor if they were permitted to do so by the militias.

The rest of the refugees include 2,600 former East Timorese soldiers, 8,000 ex-civil servants and their families who would lose their Indonesian pensions if they returned, and others who have been won over by militia propaganda, which teaches camp residents that UN workers will rape female returnees and use the men as forced labour. Senior UN military sources in Dili told the Review that militia recruitment in the camps has in fact accelerated in the past two months.

Picking capitalist symbols as targets

Susan Sim, Jakarta -- As strategies go, there is a certain sick brilliance in the targeting choices of whoever is behind the bombing campaign being waged here.

Take the Jakarta Stock Exchange Building. It houses not just the bourse and major stock companies -- in other words the very fat cats whose selfish market speculation helped keep the economy in the emergency ward -- but also the World Bank, an institution which only on Monday threatened to cut the external aid lifeline if Indonesia did not bring order in some remote part of the country, namely West Timor.

Would anyone here weep if these denizens were forced to scurry into the streets and have their fancy cars destroyed in huge balls of fire? Of course, no one of consequence should die, or there will be hell to pay.

Or take the bomb explosion outside the home of the Philippines Ambassador six weeks earlier, mere houses away from the Vice- President's official residence. It was an attack on what one presidential aide calls "the street of complacency", the property lots of the local moneyed class, whose huge pseudo-Georgian mansions most ordinary Indonesians enter only through the servant's entrance.

But why the Philippine envoy? Two words: plausible deniability. With Abu Sayyaf terrorists already holding the world in thrall with their hostage-taking saga in Jolo, the Indonesian government would not be able to resist the temptation to blame them too. And continue its lethargic investigative approach, leaving the real saboteurs more room to continue honing their peculiar expertise.

With the JSX bomb explosion, the saboteurs are now making clear they are the only terrorists in town; the signature on that car bomb appears to be similar to the one which injured the Filipino envoy, the Indonesian police now has no choice but to acknowledge.

Some senior officials would go further to concede publicly what everyone here has assumed from the beginning, that rogue military elements are conducting a campaign of terror.

Note Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman's latest remarks: "I think there are elements connected to the military establishment who make these incidents possible, rogue elements of course. Those bombings could only have been executed by experts."

And the instant reference to the shadowy hand of Suharto supporters, a by-now accepted codeword for retired generals with more slush funds than most regional military command budgets: "There is a perception that anytime the government raises the pressure on Mr Suharto or any of his cronies, then these things happen in Jakarta or in the regions."

Their alleged involvement is frightening even the police, hence the lethargy. Of course, there is also much institutional rivalry between the police as the new guardians of order, and the army, whose top brass know that if internal security can be maintained without their involvement, then retribution for their past iron glove approach will not be far off.

For today's reformist generals, even if they have not much love for Mr Suharto, there is a free rider benefit for them from the terror campaign.

Sooner or later, the civilian government, under pressure from the rich who do not like the prospect of being blown up, will be forced to invite them to partake of internal security enforcement again, if mainly to cleanse its own ranks.

And here the brains behind the terror campaign show their slickness: by targeting the symbols of fat-cat capitalism, they invite no populist backlash from the people. True, the victims have largely been members of the underclass -- drivers, street vendors, security guards -- but the numbers are too small to arouse much outcry.

And in a curious way, the Abdurrahman government seems to be tapping into this public nonchalance, displaying a remarkable lack of urgency in dealing with the bombings beyond the standard "we will take all measures to enhance security" statements.

Their insouciance is somewhat incredulous in face of universal expectations, elsewhere, which demands that a government takes seriously any terrorist attack on its stock exchange. What other tests can one devise for government leadership other than its management of a crisis?

But of course, it has to be able to recognise a crisis first. Failure to do so creates suspicion that it lives in some alternate political universe not quite accessible to the rest of the world, where investors too reside.

Mayhem strikes at Wahid's legitimacy

Vaudine England -- Whoever is behind the killings and bomb attacks in the country, brought dramatically to the centre of economic life in Jakarta, has succeeded brilliantly -- if such was their plan -- in weakening President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Failure by the president to stem the violence and balance international demands for reforms against local desires for stability places the long-term tenure of his Government in jeopardy.

Adding to the depression is the growing realisation among Indonesians and foreigners alike of just how intractable the problem of alleged Suharto-inspired violence is. Whereas a year ago many hoped a democratic transition led by a reformist intellectual might help matters, recent events suggest the issues of violence, corruption and lack of law remain deeply threatening to the state of Indonesia.

"The whole situation undermines [Wahid's] legitimacy. It shows the President is not in control," analyst Andi Mallarangeng said. "The situation is showing that it is very difficult for the President. He has to be clear about what to do. He needs to do something to show that the military is under his control."

Contrary to the needed show of strength is the mood conveyed by presidential palace sources. "There is a feeling that it just can't go on," said one insider when asked if there was any palpable sense of crisis at the top. "The cabinet did feel the pressure on the West Timor killings; they are worried about the money."

Mr Wahid plans to go ahead with his September 24 trip to South America -- the latest in dozens of visits abroad. Some on his staff worry about Mr Wahid's predilection for dabbling in overseas issues -- such as Middle East peace, or the repression of Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi -- when faced with trouble at home. "I can't imagine what he can do," said a presidential staffer, when asked if Mr Wahid could regain the initiative and prevent further destabilisation.

More frightening was the claim by one source that Mr Wahid was unaware of the killings of four UN workers in West Timor on September 6 until Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the Millennium Summit with a two-minute silence for the victims.

"Wahid needs to order the police and the military to do his bidding," Mr Mallarangeng said. "I think he is making too many compromises; he has been too accommodating towards the military. He could sack commanders, he could sack top generals. He has to stop the militias [blamed for the West Timor attack], he has to go after the bombers. But nothing has been done.

For once, he has to catch the perpetrators, and if it's linked to certain groups, so what? He must follow through on that and the people must see that an extra effort is being made."

New Order agents 'might be behind bomb blasts'

Jakarta -- The government pledged on Thursday to get to the bottom of a series of bomb attacks here and was cautiously suggesting that remnants of the New Order regime or wayward military personnel might be behind the senseless acts.

Attorney General Marzuki Darusman told reporters after a biweekly Cabinet meeting that President Abdurrahman Wahid has instructed the Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Adm. Widodo A.S. to help police in investigating the cases as the government felt that the military had been uncooperative.

"The government feels that clearly there have been obstacles in the sense that police investigations [over a series of bomb blasts] had been discontinued when they were about to conclude that the [military] apparatus might be involved ... they are beyond the reach of the police," Marzuki said.

"We know the source of the problem and those who have been hampering the investigations. The TNI chief has been authorized to break through this (barrier) and to resolve the problem, institutionally," he added. However, Marzuki stopped short of declaring that military personnel were behind the bomb attacks.

Later in the day, Cabinet Secretary Marsilam Simanjuntak quoted the President as saying that those responsible for the blasts would be prosecuted and that "nobody is above the law". Coordinating Minister for the Economy Rizal Ramli described the bombing as a "barbaric act" which was aimed at sabotaging the country's economic recovery.

Separately, one of Soeharto's lawyers, Juan Felix Tampubolon, said on Thursday: "I'm confident that my client [Soeharto] was not behind this [bombing]. Anyone can point the finger at my client, but if the police were to think on the same lines as them I don't think it's wise." "The police must get hold of the bombers first." Another of Soeharto's lawyers, Muhammad Assegaf, said there are rumors that certain parties were taking advantage of Soeharto's trial to conduct terrorist acts and "put the blame on Pak Harto." "Anybody can say anything. Even in Caday's [Philippine Ambassador] case, they were saying that the Cendana [Soeharto's residence] family was behind it," Assegaf said.

The US government condemned the bombing and called upon the perpetrators of this act of terrorism "to cease their unspeakably cruel acts." "If asked, we stand ready to assist the Indonesian government in trying to solve this crime," the US embassy said in a statement made available to the Post.

Jakartans were horrified on Wednesday when a powerful blast rocked the 34-story Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) building in the busy Central Business District which is in the heart of the capital, in the afternoon. The blast killed at least 10 people and injured over 30 others. But police kept insisting that 15 men died in the blast even though they failed to produce the bodies.

"Ten dead bodies were found in the smoke-filled underground parking lot later in the night while the other five died at the Pertamina Hospital, after receiving emergency treatment, shortly after the explosion," Jakarta Police spokesman Supt. Nur Usman said on Thursday.

A senior officer at the National Police Forensic Laboratory (Puslabfor) said the blast was caused by a bomb containing over one kilogram of TNT, the highly flammable toxic compound trinitrotoluene. Another forensic officer, Supt. Marsudi, said the bomb was placed at the rear of a car. The car was split into two by the blast. The rear side of the car he said, was completely damaged, while the front part was blown six meters away.

The explosion left a hole, 60 centimeters in diameter, in the floor of the P2 parking lot where the car was believed to have been parked. Another one-square-meter hole was found in the floor of the P1 parking lot, which is one level above. By Thursday evening, police said that at least 81 cars, mostly sedans, had been completely damaged by the explosion. Some 110 other vehicles were partly damaged. Nur said the building, except for the parking lots, is now safe. A joint forensic team is still working among the debris, looking for more possible clues.

The Capital Market Supervisory Agency chief, Herwidayatmo, said the loss suffered by JSX in the blast was not so much in material terms as it was on its image because the stock exchange portrays the country's economic state. Chief commissioner of JSX, Erry Riyana Hardjapamekas, said the stock exchange had lost administration fees worth some Rp 300 billion (US$33.3 million).

Separately, PT. Procon Indah, which manages the JSX building refused to disclose their estimated loss, saying that the insurance company is still calculating the damage. The company's staffer Carrey Alam said the management has decided to close the building until Monday due to the serious damage to its sewer system, forcing the JSX to suspend its trading on Thursday and Friday.

Police spokesman Nur Usman said his office has questioned five witnesses over the incident, namely, Darmus, a retired military officer; Kusnadi and Haryadi, both entrepreneurs; Oding Supriyadi, a security officer of Danamon Bank; and Sahat Siahaan, a JSX driver. "The witnesses said that about 15 minutes before the blast, a Toyota Kijang was seen being parked and the driver then left the building immediately," Nur said.

On Thursday, at least two offices in the Central Business District received bomb threats, that turned out to be hoaxes.

Armed forces trying to subvert Wahid, claims report

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- It had been a disastrous few days for Kiki Syahnakri, the Indonesian military officer in-charge of West Timor. He may even lose his job over last week's murder of United Nations staff in the border town of Atambua.

As reports of more attacks on villagers continued to reach his temporary base in the provincial capital, Kupang, Major-General Syahankri's temper erupted. Asked about the killings, he snapped: "The deaths of villagers has nothing to do with me ... ask me about national security and I can answer."

In theory, Indonesia's armed forces have seen a drastic decline in their influence since the 1998 downfall of the Soeharto dictatorship. They have formally abandoned their dwifungsi, or dual function, doctrine that kept them the most dominant force in all aspects of Indonesian society for the 32 years of Soeharto's rule. This doctrine legitimised the role of the military in civilian affairs as well the defence of the country.

But when President Abdurrahman Wahid demanded answers and action in response to international outrage over the UN killings he turned first to the military, which continues to exert enormous influence. There is strong suspicion its special forces were behind the UN killings, which humiliated Mr Wahid while he was attending a UN peace summit in New York.

A just-released report by the International Crisis Group, headed by former foreign minister Mr Gareth Evans, says military officers -- either on their own initiative or on instructions from higher levels in the military hierarchy -- have engaged in activities that seem designed to undermine Mr Wahid's government.

"There are some indications of military resistance to government policy, especially in regions experiencing disturbed security conditions, such as Aceh, Maluku, West Timor and Papua (formerly Irian Jaya)," the report says. "Although not proven, it is widely believed in political circles -- including at the highest levels of government -- that some retired officers continue to influence serving officers to carry out activities, including the aggravation of social conflict, to undermine the stability of civilian government," it adds.

The report says the military is still strongly represented in the state and military intelligence agencies, which continue to focus on domestic political and social affairs. "The military, through business enterprises and other means, raises funds to cover about 75 per cent of its expenditures. These fundraising activities are generally not subject to public scrutiny: military commanders have access to large sums of money that could be used to finance future political manoeuvres."

The Brussels-based group recommends that foreign countries maintain the threat of sanctions and embargoes on Indonesia to discourage military coups. But the group says it is not possible for the military to regain control of the government in the near future. "It is far too fragmented to act cohesively. It lacks confidence in its capacity to provide answers to Indonesia's manifold challenges. And, most importantly, its leaders know that any attempt to restore its political power would almost certainly trigger massive demonstrations throughout the country which could easily turn into riots."

One of the main authors of the report is Australian Dr Harold Crouch, an expert on Indonesia's armed forces, who is the International Crisis Group's Indonesia representative.

The report's release comes as many countries review their policies towards Indonesia amid fears of a breakdown in the military's chain of command and concern it is still applying political pressure on Mr Wahid's government for non-democratic means.

"Although the military no longer plays a decisive role in the government, its withdrawal from participation in day-to-day politics has proceeded at an uneven pace and is not yet complete," the report says. The group's recommendations include dismantling, or at least drastically reforming, the army's territorial structure to reduce the capacity of the military to interfere in regional politics.
 

Regional conflicts

Tension grips Pasaman after day of unrest

Padang -- Tension gripped Pasaman regency, located some 150 kilometers southwest of here, on Monday following an overnight riot involving thousands of locals in the Airgadang Simpang plantation area. Thousands of locals stormed the plantation at 10am on Sunday, demanding a share of the land.

The police arrived at the plantation on Sunday night and attempted to disperse the crowd. Eighteen people were injured in the incident, eight from gunshot wounds. Many more fled into the surrounding woods. Thirty-six vehicles were also vandalized in the incident.

"The officers were trying to disperse the angry crowd, but they wouldn't listen. We had no choice but to fire warning shots and throw tear gas," Pasaman Police Asst. Supt. Azwir Nasution said on Monday. The eight shot were identified as M. Nur, Masril, Buyung Aluih, Zainul, Minur, Dawar, Sofyan and Jumadin.

Police officers have been stationed to guard the plantation, which belongs to PT Anam Koto. As of Monday, some 500 people were reportedly still hiding in the woods hoping to escape arrest.

Earlier reports said that Malaysia-based PT Anam Koto had promised to give the locals 2,000 hectares of the plantation's land but had failed to honor its promise. The promise was made in front of then regent Taufik Martha on July 19 last year.

Tired of empty promises, the locals staged a protest, which later turned violent. "We hope that people will stop taking violent measures and not be so easily provoked. We can discuss the matter with the company. "We don't need another riot," said the incumbent Pasaman regent, Baharuddin.

Sunday's protest was the second this year. The first protest was staged last month, when police officers managed to disperse the protesters with tear gas.
 

Aceh/West Papua

Academic shot dead

Associated Press in Banda Aceh -- The head of an Islamic university in the restive Aceh province was shot to death on Saturday, police said.

Superintendent Sayed Husaini said two unidentified men shot Safwan Idris, 51, in the neck at his home on the campus of the State Institute of Islamic Studies on the outskirts of provincial capital, Banda Aceh. He died later at a nearby hospital.

His murder brings to at least 120 the number of people killed in Aceh since a truce was struck between separatist guerillas and the Indonesian troops on June 2.

Ayah Muni, a commander of the rebel Free Aceh Movement, accused the military of murdering Safwan, who he said was a respected Muslim scholar and a defender of the rights of the Acehnese people.

Aceh violence costs hundreds of lives

Banda Aceh -- Violence in restive Aceh province in the last year cost over Rp 42,8 billion (US$5.1 million) in material losses, the province's governor Ramli Ridwan said on Friday.

Citing official 1999/2000 data, Ramli also said that 444 people, including civilians, police and military officers, were killed. Another 335 people were injured, while 96 remain missing. At least 359 houses, 146 schools and 135 offices were razed.

The inventory of damage and deaths was included in the governor's accountability speech to the plenerary session of the provincial council. Ramli said that the situation in Aceh was still of concern because killings, kidnappings and intimidation were continuing while law enforcement agencies were not performing well.

"Those who violate the law throughout the territory seem untouchable by the law enforcement apparatus," he said. "Such conditions are aggravated by the fact that law enforcement officers cannot protect themselves optimally," he added.

Meanwhile, Aceh Besar Police chief Supt. Sayed Hoesainy pledged on Friday to step up security patrols to curb attacks on government and police installations by separatist guerrillas. He was speaking after revealing that the two-story City Public Works office on Jl. Pemancar, in Setui village, was hit by an arson attack in the early hours of Friday.

"We will not let the campaign of terror continue. We will intensify our patrols," he said. No fatalities were reported, but he said that material losses could amount to hundreds of millions of rupiah. Sayed said two security officers were tied up by six rebels while they set the main room and the second story of the building alight.

The incident is the latest in a series of attacks on provincial administration offices. On Thursday, a bomb rocked the building housing the Environmental Impact Management Agency and the National Land Agency. A bomb also exploded in the City Council compound on Tuesday.

In a separate development, secretary of the provincial development board Nasiruddin Usda was murdered late Thursday night by three unidentified men in front of his house in Langsa, East Aceh. Nasirudin ran a video game entertainment center, was deputy chief of the local Pancasila Youth movement and also running for Langsa mayor. Police are still investigating the killing. They have yet to determine whether it was politically motivated or due to business rivalries.

Meanwhile North Aceh Police chief Supt. Abadan Bangko said two armed rebels riding a motorcycle attacked Kutamakmur Police station, killing an on-duty officer. The attackers fired several rounds at the station as they whizzed by on the bike.

Abadan also said that a police patrol in Sawang district shot dead on Thursday three armed rebels who it believed were planting bombs in the streets of Lhok Meurbo village. However, North Aceh separatist commander Abu Sofyan claimed that the three dead men were not rebels. But he conceded that they were shot because they were suspected to be planting a bomb.

Seven killed as violence escalates in Aceh

Banda Aceh -- Seven people, including two soldiers were killed in the latest violence in the restive Indonesian province of Aceh, residents and police said Wednesday.

The victims died in three districts just days ahead of a meeting between government representatives and Aceh rebel forces in Geneva on Saturday to decide on whether to extend a three-month truce.

On Wednesday at least eight trucks of Indonesian soldiers searched the Lhoksukon subdistrict in North Aceh after rebels attacked a patrol in the area Tuesday, killing two soldiers, residents there said. "There has been no armed contact so far, but the population in Lhoksukon is scared," a resident told AFP, declining to give his name.

Tuesday's attack was directed against troops assigned to guard facilities of the Exxon Mobil oil and gas company, who were escorting a convoy of heavy machinery and three minibuses carrying company employees to a company work site.

The truck carrying the soldiers was hit by men armed with a grenade launcher and automatic rifles including M-16s and AK47s, in Simpang Brandang Tuesday, North Aceh military commander Lieutenant Colonel Suyatno said. Two soldiers were killed and two others were injured, Suyatno said.

The rebel commander for the North Aceh area, Abu Sofyan Daud, said the attack was launched after the military failed to respond to their call to halt operations in villages to search for rebels and their supporters.

Armed clashes between government and rebel forces were also reported Tuesday in Simpang Alue in Matangkuli subdistrict and in Paya Bili, Muara Dua subistrict, Daud said.

In the Syamtalira Arun subdistrict of North Aceh, an unidentified man shot dead the leader of the Muslim United Development Party faction at the district parliament, Teungku Ilyas Ibrahim, at his home late on Tuesday," a local journalist told AFP. Three shots were fired at Ibrahim when he answered the door, the journalist said.

In Kutamakmur subdistrict, villagers in Blang Abeuk found two decomposed bodies believed to be victims of violence, North Aceh district police chief Superintendent Abadan Bangko said. Residents in Sarah Mane in the neighbouring district of Pidie on Tuesday also found the bodies of two men with gunshot wounds.

In Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh, a group of men threw a bomb into the house of the Aceh deputy police chief Teuku Ashikin, in the Simpang Tiga area some two hours before midnight, Aceh Besar district police chief Superintendent Sayed Husaini said. But the home-made bomb broke only window panes at the back of the house and there were no casualties, Husaini said.

Jakarta and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for an Islamic state in Aceh since 1976, signed a truce in May in a bid to stop escalating violence in the oil-rich province. The truce, dubbed a "humanitarian pause", expired on September 2 but has been temporarily extended to September 16.

Separatism in Aceh has been fuelled by deep resentment over 10 years of harsh military operations to wipe out the GAM, and over the syphoning off by Jakarta of the province's rich natural resources. Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has said his government will not tolerate independence in Aceh, but would grant it broad autonomy before the end of the year.

UN a must in Aceh, insist rebels

Chris McCall -- Aceh's rebels urged UN intervention in the troubled Indonesian province yesterday following the killing of 107 people there in the past 10 days.

The surge in violence began after a three-month truce was temporarily renewed on September 2. The two sides are to meet this month to discuss a more formal extension, but it is widely feared the talks will fail, sparking a broader conflict.

Among those killed recently were a provincial legislator, a local councillor and two soldiers. According to Care Human Rights Forum, Aceh's leading human rights pressure group, three-quarters of the dead were civilians.

A rebel representative on a joint security committee set up under the truce blamed Indonesian forces. Amni bin Ahmad Marzuki said Jakarta had broken the provisions of the truce by arresting rebels and mounting sweep searches for rebel bases. "They are still doing offensive operations. We ask them to stop this," said Mr Amni. "If indeed Indonesia wants to solve the Aceh problem, it must be solved by the United Nations."

The meeting to discuss formally renewing the truce with the Free Aceh Movement had been scheduled for this weekend but was put back a week after Indonesian Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab said Jakarta would insist on pre-conditions.

"What the Government means by that is offering broad autonomy to Aceh. I think Free Aceh is very disappointed," said Saifuddin Bantasyam, chief of Care Human Rights Forum.

Jakarta has already proposed broad autonomy in a bid to redress past rights abuses, but the offer is regarded as too little, too late by many Acehnese. There is popular support instead for an East Timor-style referendum on independence.

Most independent analysts believe the result would be rejection of Indonesian rule, as in East Timor. Jakarta has firmly ruled out both a referendum and foreign intervention. Indonesia's security forces have vowed to prevent the Sumatran province breaking away, at any cost.
 

Labour struggle

Indonesian traders call for more security

Jakarta -- Some 100 stock traders and executives staged a demonstration in front of the bomb-hit Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) building yesterday, demanding that the government step up security at crucial economic institutions, witnesses said.

"We urge the government to step up security at key economic institutions such as the Jakarta Stock Exchange, Bank Indonesia and others," a spokesman for the demonstrators said. "JSX is an important economic and political institution."

The spokesman said Wednesday's bombing of the exchange, in which dozens of people died, was an "inhuman and barbaric action", and called on the authorities to investigate the attack thoroughly.

West Java workers demand pay rise and national council

MMI Ahyani/Swastika & GB, Bandung -- Around 2,000 factory workers in West Java staged a rally at the Governor's office demanding a pay rise and the establishment of a National Workers Council.

The protesters blocked the main entrance of the Governor's office in Bandung, the capital of West Java, Friday. Friday's rally is a continuation of a similar action staged on Thursday.

In their previous rally, the workers demanded the Regional Minimum Payment (UMR) for the West Java area be made equal with UMR for the Jakarta area, which is higher according to a policy formulated by the government several months ago. To be precise, they demanded the minimum wage for West Java be raised from Rp 280,000 (US$ 32.50) to Rp 344.257 (US$ 39.90) per month.

Besides their wage demands, the workers also demand the establishment of a National Workers Council. "Government policies regulated by the Ministry of Manpower or any other workers unions legalised by the government are not sufficient," a rallying worker said. The workers urged their representatives to be actively involved in the formation of an independent National Workers Council.

The rally disrupted activities at the Governor's office as the crowd blanketed the grounds and blocked the main entrance. Employees and visitors could not get in and out of the office.

The workers at the rally represented several workers' unions and company-based labour organisations from municipalities across West Java province. Several groups came on their company buses, such as PT Unitex from Bogor and PT Fujitex from Bandung, notably foreign owned companies. Several representatives were received by government officials.

'Becak' drivers attack East Jakarta mayoralty office

Jakarta -- Led members of the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), a non- governmental organization, a group of some 400 people claiming to be becak (pedicab) drivers in the East Jakarta area attacked the local mayoralty office on Wednesday morning.

No fatalities were reported but at least one Hansip (civilian security guard) was injured in the attack. The attackers also broke down the front gate of the office on Jl. Sentra Primer Baru.

Head of the mayoralty's sociopolitical affairs office Sahuri Syarief told journalists that policemen had to throw tear gas canisters to stop the mob from further damaging the office. "When they finally stopped pelting stones at us, we rushed our Hansip, Supandi, to the nearby clinic for treatment to an injury to his forehead. He was hit by stones," Sahuri added. The pedicab drivers gathered in front of the office at about 10am, demanding Mayor Andi Mappaganty revoke his letter of announcement which stated the mayoralty would continue to conduct raids on pedicab drivers.

Most of the attackers said they used their becak to serve passengers in the Pulogadung and Cakung areas. "This is the second time they have come and asked us to revoke the announcement, which is in line with City Bylaw No. 11/1998 which prohibits pedicabs from operating in the capital. "Off course, we cannot meet their demand," Sahuri said.

The mayoralty set September 15 as the deadline for all pedicab drivers to bring their vehicles to the mayoralty office to be purchased at Rp 250,000 (US$29). Since the August 23 announcement, the mayoralty has succeeded in collecting dozens of pedicabs and has assured over 50 drivers it will sent them back to their respective hometowns at the mayoralty's expense.

"I understand that the [Central Jakarta] court made a decision on July 31 [in the lawsuit between Governor Sutiyoso and pedicab drivers] in their favor, but the city administration has appealed so we cannot go against any rules by continuing our raids," Sahuri said.

The police managed to disperse the crowd at 11.45am. Coordinator of the protesters Eddy Suheidi, from UPC, along with 25 people representing the pedicab drivers, held a meeting with Sahuri afterward. "In the meeting, we failed to reach any agreement as we both insisted on maintaining our stances," Sahuri added.

He believed the attack did not merely come from the pedicab drivers but had been provoked by "a third party". "This is because of the presence of a third party that provoked the pedicab drivers. I believe if it was truly from them, they would not attack our office," Sahuri said. When asked to name the provocateurs, Sahuri said: "We all know who the coordinator of the movement is."

Minister OKs union involvement in politics

Jakarta -- Labor unions are allowed to be involved in practical politics in their efforts to fight for workers' political and economic interests, Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Al- Hilal Hamdi said on Tuesday.

"All labor unions, and even associations of three-wheeled becak (pedicab) drivers, are free to be involved in politics," he told The Jakarta Post here on Tuesday.

Al-Hilal's statement goes against the position taken by the director general for industrial relations and labor standards, Syaufii Samsyuddin, who recently rejected the registration of the National Front of Indonesian Workers' Struggle (FNBI), led by labor activist Dita Indah Sari.

Syaufii said labor unions were barred from being involved in practical politics because it was against the law. "According to the law, labor unions must be free from political, religious and gender interests; and they are allowed only to provide legal and labor protection to improve workers' socioeconomic welfare," he said.

Syaufii said his office declined to register FNBI as a labor union as it functioned as a political vehicle to fight for workers' political and economic interests.

He conceded that workers and labor activists were free to be involved in practical politics and were allowed to unionize, and that the government did not have the authority to dissolve labor unions even when they violated the law.
 

Human rights/law

Wiranto ordered counterfeit notes to fund militia

Tim Dodd, Jakarta -- Indonesia's former armed forces commander, General Wiranto, ordered the printing of counterfeit money to fund East Timorese militia groups before last year's referendum, according to evidence given to an Indonesian court.

Ismail Putra, a retired army colonel who is charged with counterfeiting 19.2 billion rupiah ($4 million), told the Central Jakarta District Court on Tuesday that he was asked to arrange the printing of the money by the then head of the army's intelligence agency, the BIA, General Tyasno Sudarto.

He said General Sudarto told him that General Wiranto, then army chief and Defence Minister, had given the BIA the task of printing the money. It was the first time Ismail has implicated General Wiranto, who was not named in preliminary hearings or in evidence Ismail gave to police.

Ismail admits he arranged for the money to be printed but says he believed the operation was legitimate. According to the Jakarta Post, Ismail said he was told by General Sudarto that the money was to "finance the activities of the pro-integration East Timorese militia during the referendum in August last year".

"General Tyasno Sudarto told me that Bank Indonesia [the central bank] had given the army the serial numbers to print the money and that it was for the good of the army and the nation," Ismail told the court. General Sudarto, who is now army chief-of-staff, denies involvement in the case.

Earlier Ismail said that in July 1999 General Sudarto originally asked for 200 billion rupiah in 50,000 rupiah notes. But the first batch of 19.2 billion rupiah, printed in September, proved to be 80 per cent defective and an angry General Sudarto ordered the poor-quality counterfeits to be destroyed.

However, others working for Ismail objected and demanded a share of the notes. The scam was detected by the police in November when some of the clearly counterfeit notes appeared in circulation. Nine others, along with Ismail, face charges.

'It was Soeharto's order': Sutiyoso

Jakarta -- Governor Sutiyoso, a retired three-star Army general, admitted on Monday that military personnel were assigned to take over the PDI headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta, on July, 27, 1996 after then president Soeharto had implicitly ordered some senior military and police officers to stop the free speech forum which was being staged at the building.

"Based on it [the order], ABRI [former Indonesian Armed Forces] officers then took the initiative to act in accordance with their respective responsibilities," Sutiyoso told reporters after being questioned for seven hours at National Military Police headquarters by a joint military-police investigation team.

Sutiyoso was Jakarta Military chief at the time when "supporters" of the PDI (Indonesian Democratic Party) splinter group led by Soerjadi forcefully took over the party's headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro from supporters of then PDI leader Megawati Soekarnoputri. Supporters of Megawati, now the country's Vice President, repeatedly delivered highly charged speeches at the compound, protesting against the government which they accused of attempting to destroy the Megawati-led PDI.

The violent attack, believed to have been backed by military and police personnel, left at least five dead with 23 others reportedly still missing. However, many have claimed that these figures are actually much higher. The incident triggered massive unrest in Central Jakarta.

Sutiyoso's remarks may be said to be the first admission ever publicly made by those questioned over the attack which clearly states the roles played by the military, police and Soeharto.

The governor said Soeharto gave an implicit order to retake the PDI headquarters during a meeting at Soeharto's residence on Jl. Cendana. The meeting, Sutiyoso said, was attended by former Indonesian Military chief Gen. (ret) Feisal Tanjung, former Army Chief of Staff Gen. (ret) Hartono, former ABRI Chief of General Affairs Soeyono, former Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Hamami Nata, and Sutiyoso himself in his capacity as Jakarta Military chief.

During the meeting, he said, Soeharto claimed that the free speech forum being staged at the PDI headquarters was creating unrest among the people. "[The order] came from above," Sutiyoso said.

Military personnel, he said, were assigned "only to help" the police stop the free speech forum and not to forcibly take over the headquarters. "But if there were some personnel who acted wrongly according to the law [during the assignment], morally I'll take the responsibility [for their mistakes]," he said.

Sutiyoso, however, did not specify how many military personnel were deployed during the operation. He added that besides the City Military Command, ABRI's Sociopolitical Affairs bureau and the Armed Forces Intelligence Agency were also involved in the effort to 'secure' the PDI headquarters.
 

News & issues

Youths protest at US consulate over Timor 'pressure'

Jakarta -- Some 150 youths protested at the US consulate in the second city of Surabaya against Washington's criticism over the killings of UN aid workers in West Timor, news reports said Saturday. The protestors pulled down the consulate flag and burned it, and threw stones at the building during the Friday protest in the capital of East Java, the reports said.

The youths, from the so-called Youth Alliance for Democracy and Baladhika Karya youth groups, accuse the United States of "pressuring Indonesia" over last week's killings in West Timor.

On Wednesday, militiamen attacked the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in the border town of Atmabua and hacked to death three UNHCR workers, as Indonesian police allegedly stood by.

The Surabaya-based daily Jawa Pos said the protestors jumped over the consulate's steel gate and pulled down the flag before setting it on fire. A Surabaya police officer told AFP on Saturday "no damage was suffered by the US consulate."

The rally came two days prior to a two-day working visit here by US Defense Secretary William Cohen on Sunday. In Manila on Friday, Cohen said Indonesia must take strong action to restrain militias and make the military accountable.

Cohen said he would "remind the president [Wahid] and especially the military that they need to take strong action to curb the militias in West Timor, that the situation that has been unfolding in recent days and months is not acceptable."

A Surabaya-based journalist told AFP the Baladhika Karya was "known here to have strong ties with the Indonesian armed forces (TNI)." He said the group waved posters reading: "Don't blame TNI for Atambua" and "US and UN are responsible for Atambua case." Protestors from the same group held a similar rally outside UN headquarters in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Indonesia is under intense international pressure to disarm the militias following the murders of the UNHCR workers. In a resolution adopted last Friday, the UN Security Council condemned the killings as "outrageous and contemptible."

Indonesia has said a search for an overall solution to the problems at the border must involve the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, which is overseeing the territory's transition to full independence from Jakarta, and the pro- independence National Council for East Timorese Resistance.

Riau's village heads sell fake marriage certs

Jakarta -- Corrupt village heads in Indonesia's Riau province are reportedly making a fortune selling falsified marriage certificates to men who wish to take second wives. Although the country's 1975 marriage law permits Muslim men to take up to four wives, polygamy is generally not common.

Civil servants, in particular, are forbidden from having additional wives -- although the government disclosed on Tuesday that it was considering lifting the ban.

The Indonesian Observer newspaper and Antara national news agency yesterday quoted Mr Asyari Nur, head of the Riau Religious Affairs Department, as saying that many civil servants in the province have been paying bribes to village heads in order to obtain falsified marriage certificates.

While the Religious Affairs Department is aware of the practice, it has been unable to put a stop to the illegal marriages, he said. "The problem is related to the administrative systems of village heads, as they can easily issue any documents relating to marital status," he said.

"But we have detected that many of those documents are illegal, because their serial numbers are not registered at the Religious Department's Marriage Office, and they have not been signed by Marriage Office personnel. The problem is that it's a big job to go from one house to another to check the validity of those documents."

Mr Asyari said officers from his department have nevertheless made several random checks and discovered many illegal marriages. "Some documents have their serial numbers registered with the Marriage Office, but they are illegal if the two figures do not match. In other cases, both figures match, but the signatures of the officials are false."

A legitimate marriage certificate costs only 35,000 rupiah (S$7), but a false one costs up to three million rupiah. The Riau Religious Affairs Department is working with the police to crack down on illegal marriages. On Tuesday, Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Tolchah Hasan said the government may lift a ban on polygamy by civil servants if that was their wish.

Youths call on government to ban luxury car imports

Jakarta -- Dozens of people calling themselves the Anti-Luxury Cars Movement (GAMM), staged a rally at the Jakarta Convention Center on Jl. Gatot Subroto, South Jakarta, on Monday demanding the government ban the import of luxury cars.

The rally was held as hundreds of visitors inside the convention center were gleefully attending Auto Expo 2000, the largest automotive exhibition in the country, organized by the Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries (Gaikindo). Imported luxury cars is the main feature being highlighted in the expo.

"The government has no sense of crisis at all!" shouted one of the protesters. "While millions of people are starving, the jobless multiplying and children are out of school, they lift the ban on luxury cars! What were they thinking?" The protesters then brought a mock model of a car with the words "luxury car" written on it. They then poured gasoline on it and set it ablaze. "Today we only burned a model. Tomorrow don't blame us if we burn the real ones!" one of the protesters warned.

Several visitors, curious about the commotion, approached the gate to see the rally. After seeing the protest, they went back into the building and grinned.

The protesters also urged the people not to buy luxury cars. "You government officials, businessmen, conglomerates and other rich people, show your tolerance to the people who are now suffering from the economic crisis. Do not buy luxury cars!" another protester said.

In February, former minister of industry and trade Yusuf Kalla issued a decree imposing a ban on the import of luxury vehicles which seats fewer than 10 people in an attempt to reduce social envy. However, the ban which later also applied to imported automobiles which have engine capacities of 4,000 cc and above or price tags of more than US$40,000, was revoked on June 2 by the new Minister of Industry and Trade Luhut Pandjaitan.

"The government is mocking starving people with their policy," leader of the movement MS. Jihad said. "Luxury cars now roaming the streets will only spark social envy ... So don't blame them if, in the future, they burn these luxury cars!" another protester said.

The protesters were mostly students from the Islamic Students Association (HMI) and various nongovernmental organizations such as Humanika. Several protesters then approached the entrance gate, which had been locked by security personnel shortly before they arrived, to the exhibition compound. Among the popular and completely built-up (CBU) imported cars was a BMW Z8 sports car, on sale for about Rp 2 billion (US$250,000). The car was featured in the latest James Bond film. The protest ended peacefully about half-an-hour later.

It is the country's first auto expo to display a wide range of CBU vehicles. The week-long exhibition, jointly opened last Wednesday by Minister of Industry and Trade Luhut Panjaitan and Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications Agum Gumelar, is slated to be closed on Tuesday.

Taxis occupy house of representatives

Yogi Arief Nugraha/Swastika & AP, Jakarta -- After ransacking the Organization of Land Transportation Owners (Organda) office in South Jakarta, thousands of taxi drivers from the Citra taxi company moved to the House of Representatives building on Jl. Gatot Subroto, today.

The taxi fleet entered the grounds of the House ground one by one without pause. They were protesting an article published in Warta Kota and Kompas on 9 September 2000, quoting the First Chairman of the Taxi Unit within Organda for Jakarta area, Priyatmedi, who said that the Citra taxi company was born of corruption, collusion and nepotism, during the regime of former president Suharto.

Priyatmedi said that the Citra taxi was a result of the sale of a CN 235 aircraft, made by the Indonesian National Aircraft Industry. This, he said, was the reason why Citra did not raise its tariff when others taxi companies did on 1 September 2000.

The Citra drivers demanded a meeting with the chairman of the House to express their disagreement with the taxi price hike. Five taxis carried banners and placards declaring the drivers' protest. They also demanded that Organda be disbanded.

Suharto children ignored advice not to abuse position

Singapore -- Former Indonesian president Suharto's children ignored advice to not abuse their position for financial and business gain, according to excerpts of Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs published Sunday.

The children's behaviour in the end contributed to their father's downfall, he said. Singapore's elder statesman however said that compared to the late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, he would not classify Suharto as a crook.

Lee revealed he met two Suharto daughters at the height of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998 to drive home the gravity Indonesia's problems highlighted by the tailspin of the rupiah currency. "Alarmed at the rapid decline of the value of the rupiah, I told our ambassador to Jakarta to ask Tutut if she could meet me in Singapore to convey my views to her father," he said in the excerpts published in the Sunday Times.

The meeting with Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana (Tutut) took place on Christmas day in 1997 with the presence of Singapore Prime Miniser Goh Chok Tong. "I strongly urged her and her siblings to understand that international fund managers in Jakarta had focused on the economic privileges the president's children were enjoying," Lee said. "During this period of crisis, it was best if they withdrew completely from the market and did not engage in any new projects."

Lee said he asked Tutut "point blank" whether she could get the message understood by her siblings. "She answered with equal frankness that she could not," said Lee, whose second volume of memoirs titled "From Third World to First: The Singapore Story" is to be launched here on Friday. The book is a sequel to the controversial first volume published earlier.

Lee said he persisted, sending Tutut the daily market reports on Indonesia from Singapore-based analysts. "To judge from the actions of the Suharto children, it had no effect on them."

Lee said he met another Suharto daughter, Siti Hediati Prabowo, in January 1998, who he said came to Singapore with her father's knowledge to raise US dollar bonds.

In the end, Lee said, Suharto's problems, which included a failing health, "had been compounded by the increasing intrusion of his children into all lucrative contracts and monopolies." Lee however explained the context in which the former Indonesian strongman indulged his children.

He said Suharto saw himself as a "mega sultan of a mega country" and as such believed that his children were entitled to such privileges as those accorded to the royalty of Solo in Central Java where his wife is a minor princess.
 

Environment/health

Indorayon must close for good

Khairul Ikhwan D/Fitri & GB, Medan -- Efendy Panjaitan, North Sumatra Executive Director of the Indonesian Forum on Environment, known as Walhi, said they, environmental activists and the local community continued to oppose the reopening of the infamous PT Inti Indorayon Utama (PT IIU) pulp and paper factory.

Speaking with Detik in Medan, Thursday evening, Efendy said there were numerous reasons why the factory should not operate and that these far outweighed short term profitability considerations. "We demand PT IIU to be properly close down, not only temporarily," Efendy said. He said that reopening the pulp and paper factory located in Sosor Ladang, Porsea subdistrict, Toba Samosir, North Sumatra, would incite fresh tension and social conflict.

Effendy said conditions for local people had improved markedly PT IIU was closed down. Better rice crops and fishing were recorded and communal tensions have been decreasing. Air quality had also improved and the people felt they could at last breath fresh air.

He also strongly disagreed that the factory was only experiencing technical problems, such as a limited capacity in handling waste. The factory and environment could not coexist, the factory endangered the environment and surrounding ecosystem which would be felt for generations.

The issue of discharging PT IIU 7000 employees could not be compared to the long term impact of the factory's operation. "All this time, Indorayon has had a very bad impact," Efendy explained.

PT IIU has been the focus of local protests from the surrounding community backed by environmental activists since its establishment in 1986. It has had a serious impact on the environment and thus on the productivity of small scale industries and the health of locals. However, the local community is also split, a portion of locals- particularly workers at the plant- support its reopening. The clash finally erupted in June 2000 and claimed one life.

During Habibie's short tenure as president, activists and the community finally succeeded in persuading the government to close down the factory. However, it did not last long. The government is currently considering lifting the ban on PT IIU which has rekindled community and NGO protests. Each year PT IIU clears raw timber from 70.800 ha. It holds Forest Concession Rights to 269.000 ha.

Freeport violated government regulation: Minister Sonny

Jakarta -- State Minister of the Environment Sonny Keraf announced mining firm PT Freeport Indonesia misled the public in recent advertisements by not revealing the full results of its environmental audit.

The audit was conducted by independent international environmental engineering firm Montgomery Watson last year, and Freeport printed the results of the audit in numerous publications on January 20 this year. However, the company only printed those results which were favorable to the company, which operates in Grasberg, Irian Jaya, Sonny said during a media conference in his office here on Thursday.

The "negative issues", the minister said, were not published, so the people, who have the right to know the truth, received misleading information about the company. "It [the ad] was not in line with the complete report of the audit results and the realities in the field," he said.

According to Sonny, Freeport has the right to conduct voluntarily environmental audits, but they do not have the right to mislead the public. "Whoever they choose to do the audit is no problem. But once they decide to publish the result, the information must be true," he said. He said his office, through a joint verification team, would "verify" the matter and "discuss" it with Freeport.

When asked to comment, Freeport's senior corporate communications manager, Siddharta Moersjid, said on Friday: "We're examining the case right now." Sonny's office said at least 10 points in the advertisement published by Freeport needed verifying. These include a statement that all of Freeport's activities in Irian Jaya meet national and international mining standards.

This statement contradicts findings made by the Environmental Impact Management Agency earlier this year, the minister said. According to this earlier report, the liquid tailing waste discharged in Aghawagon River and Wanagon River at Freeport's mining site have exceeded industry standards.

The Total Suspended Solid value in the river has reached more than 400 milligrams per liter. As a comparison, allowable mining discharge in the United States is 30 milligrams per liter, the state minister's office said. The findings also showed Freeport violated Government Regulation No. 18/1999 by not conducting waste characteristic tests.

Several recommendations from Montgomery Watson to improve Freeport's environmental management system also were not revealed in the advertisement. Montgomery Watson recommended Freeport conduct a comprehensive groundwater study and monitoring, and increase biological monitoring of estuaries downstream of the tailings deposit area to gauge the impact upon mollusks. The company also suggested Freeport modify and update its mining closure plan for the entire project area, including the tailings deposit area.

Freeport, an affiliate of New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, has long been accused of environmental degradation around its mining site in Irian Jaya.

A deputy of environmental management at the Office of the State Minister of the Environment, Masnellyanti Hilman, said on Thursday the ministry expected Freeport to submit a report verifying the matter, as well as an environment management and monitoring plan.

"They have promised to send it to us in several weeks," she said. According to Masnellyanti, the state minister has asked the company to re-review its waste management system. "We asked them to manage the mining acid water from the overburden as it is a dangerous and toxic," she said, But Masnellyanti insisted her office had no plan to take the company to the court. "But I'm afraid that if they ignore the verification and do not manage the waste properly, we will hand out administrative sanctions."

`Lake Maninjau protests are groundless'

Jakarta -- Claims by protestors that Maninjau Water Electric Power Plant (PLTA) in West Sumatra has polluted Lake Maninjau and damaged fishery cultivation at the lake, are groundless, say local officials. Protestors are seeking closure of the plant.

"What we need to do here is undertake a new and comprehensive examination of the [alleged] water pollution and environmental damage. To simply close down Maninjau PLTA, which has been in operation since 1980, will not solve the problem, and will mean we will not have electricity in this region," Regional Environment Coordinator in West Sumatra, Edi Dasril, was quoted as saying by Antara in Padang yesterday.

"I am sure a good feasibility study was carried out prior to the construction of this power plant. Any effort to dismantle it now will only mean a big loss for our region," he said.

While protestors claim demand for water by the Maninjau PLTA has seen depletion of water supplies at the lake, Dasril said that the decrease in water levels is a result of uncontrollable and illegal forest destruction.

"For example, if in the last decade we had rain forest at Tanjung Raya, Pelembayan, and Bukit Batu at Agam Regency, all we have now is barren land. The log-cutters have cut the down trees and sold them to foreign countries. And with no more forest to help preserve the rain water for the lake, it now directly flows into the sea," he said.

Following protests by locals seeking closure of the plant, a team headed by engineer, Edison Munaf, has been established to carry out an environmental audit, and to establish the reasons behind the environmental pollution which has taken place.

More than Rp200 million has been allocated to the environmental audit. Munaf said he hoped the audit would be completed within six months. He added that no matter what the outcome of the audit was, to close the plant would spell a big loss for the region. "We need simple things here: better efforts by police to arrest the illegal loggers and put them all in jail," he said.

In answer to questions about increased pollution levels in Lake Maninjau, Munaf said the plant is practically pollution-free because no oil or other pollutant agents were thrown into the lake.

He stressed that illegal loggers are to blame for the pollution, because they dump solid waste into the rivers and tributaries that flow into the lake. If police are successful in their attempts to arrest those responsible for the illegal logging, they will solve two problems: forest destruction and pollution of the lake.
 

Arms/armed forces

Military retains resources to make come back: Report

Jakarta -- Despite its waning political influence, the military -- especially the Army -- retains several "political resources" which could enable it to come back in the future, an international policy research group warned in a recent report.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a 26-page report titled Indonesia: Keeping the Military Under Control that those resources were the Army's relatively intact territorial structure, significant control over domestic political intelligence and access to substantial sources of funds that were not subject to external scrutiny.

ICG said that through its territorial structure, the Army maintains the military units in every province, district and subdistrict throughout the country. "This provides it with the means to influence political developments at every level of the government," the report, which was released early this month, said.

Indonesian Military (TNI) comprises Army, Navy and Air Force, with personnel numbering around 500,000. The Army is predominant.

The report said that during the three-decade rule of former president Soeharto, territorial troops were used "to break strikes, remove villagers from their land, crush student protests and, every five years, ensure overwhelming Golkar victories in general elections".

"As long as this territorial structure remains in place, the Army leadership will have at their disposal an instrument that has been used in the past to further the military's political objectives and could be used again," it said.

It added that the Army's strong representation in state and military intelligence agencies was also significant as they continued to focus on domestic political and social affairs. "The intelligence agencies undoubtedly made a crucial contribution to the durability of the New Order regime. They were used during the Soeharto era to repress political opposition," the report said, referring to the State Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Bakin) and the Strategic Intelligence Agency (Bais), previously known as the Armed Forces Intelligence Agency (BIA).

It said that "the culture of Bais in the past was far from democratic, with military intelligence officers prominent among those who were alleged to have been involved in human rights abuses".

ICG said it was also widely believed in "Jakarta elite circles" that officers associated with Bais were among those who may be stirring up ethnic and other violence as a means to destabilize civilian government". "As long as the intelligence agencies remain dominated by military officers whose values and attitudes were shaped during the Soeharto era, the democratization process will remain vulnerable to the kind of black operations that they have commonly sponsored in the past," it said.

Last but not least, ICG said, access to finances is a crucial political resource military officers continue to have. It said that as long as the state budget supplies only 25 percent to 30 percent of the required funds, military units will continue to seek funding from other sources. "This opens up the possibility that military commanders can gain access to large sums of money that could be used to finance political operations," the ICG report said.

ICG therefore said that it was necessary for the government to ensure that "non-budgetary funds are properly supervised by an agency outside the military itself", such as the State Audit Agency (BPK).

ICG was quick to note in the report, however, that despite these political resources, "it is not possible for the military to regain control of the government in the near future". "It is too far fragmented to act cohesively; it lacks confidence in its capacity to provide answers to Indonesia's manifold challenges; and most importantly, its leaders know that any attempt to restore its political power would almost certainly trigger massive demonstrations throughout the country, which could easily turn into riots -- which they are unsure, in turn, of their capacity to handle," ICG said.

It concluded that strong and effective civilian institutions were the best guarantee against the return of the military. "If civilian government is successful, the military is not likely to challenge civilian authority," it said.

Founded five years ago, the ICG is a private, multinational organization committed to strengthening the international community to anticipate and understand conflicts as well as working at preventing and containing them. The full report on the Indonesian Military, as well as two earlier ones on the political crisis in Indonesia and the Maluku conflict, are available from ICG's website: www.crisisweb.org ICG board members include former Indian prime minister Inder Gujral, former Israeli prime minister and 1994 Nobel laureate Shimon Peres, renowned businessman George Soros and Indonesian lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis. The organization currently operates field projects in nine crisis-affected countries worldwide: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Algeria, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia.

Impunity for Indonesian military

Dan Murphy -- The notion that Indonesia's civilian leaders do not really control their armed forces has swiftly evolved from frightening suspicion into undisputed fact.

Pushing the balance of world opinion over the edge were the brutal killings in West Timor last week by militiamen armed and financed by the Indonesian military. Three United Nations aid workers and a score of East Timorese were hacked to death in two days of violence along the West Timor border.

Nearby Indonesian soldiers simply leaned on their rifles and watched, witnesses say. The killings came after a month of escalating tension on the border and within the refugee camps that the militias control.

Before the murders, the UN and many foreign governments had repeatedly demanded that Indonesia act to clear the militias from the camps and restore order. "We must face facts," Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN, said before the Security Council passed a resolution Friday warning Indonesia to disarm the militias. "The Indonesian military, or to be more precise, elements within the Indonesian military, are directly or indirectly responsible for these outrages."

That the US and other major allies of Indonesia are explicitly and publicly taking it to task is a measure of growing disillusionment -- not only with the military's failure to reform, but with President Abdurrahman Wahid himself. World leaders are now struggling to refashion their relationship with the world's fourth-most-populous country to reflect the fact that Mr. Wahid seems reluctant to take action against his own military. They are also beginning to question whether Indonesia can be trusted to pursue prosecutions for the atrocities in East Timor one year ago.

In the short term, these sentiments will strengthen the military hard-liners' hand. Millions of Indonesians viewed the liberation of East Timor as a national humiliation engineered by foreign powers, and would consider a tribunal a threat to national sovereignty -- one reason UN workers were targeted last week in the first place.

The immediate consequence of the killings was the withdrawal of all international humanitarian organizations from West Timor, putting the 120,000 refugees in the border camps at risk. The refugees were herded across the border by the pro-Jakarta militias after East Timor's independence vote last year, and have been virtual hostages since.

Though Indonesia's military is too divided internally to carry out a coup, confrontation could leave the president politically weakened. There is a mounting body of evidence that parts of the military have sown instability in West Timor and elsewhere to send a message to the president to back off. That message seems to be getting through.

"The government seems to feel it's enough to admit they don't control the military, but are otherwise reluctant to press the issue," says a Western diplomat. "Wahid is avoiding confrontation with the military, because he's afraid of diminishing his own power by issuing orders that aren't obeyed." Says H.S. Dillon, a member of Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights, "Gus Dur [Wahid's popular nickname] has principles, but he's a politician first. What he wants most of all is to stay in power, and he's not willing to do anything to jeopardize that."

While events in Timor have riveted attention because of the foreign victims, the scenario has grown all too familiar. In the Maluku provinces, where Christians and Muslims have been fighting for more than a year, soldiers have stood aside to allow massacres of civilians by mobs, and sometimes participated.

In Irian Jaya, referred to as Papua by its own people, an independence movement is growing. Security personnel have shot citizens for raising independence flags, despite Wahid's promise to Papuan politicians that peaceful political demonstrations would be tolerated.

Diplomats say Wahid has typically deflected criticism by saying the military is out of control, passing the buck by proclaiming his own weakness. The military, for its part, denies it has a problem taking orders from the country's new civilian leadership. "Don't say the military has a problem as an institution," military spokesman Graito Husodo said in a recent interview. "There are sometimes discipline problems, but this is a case of individuals." While there are clearly bad officers that are fomenting violence, most are simply apathetic, which creates enormous space for the bad apples to both make mischief and to hide.

For outsiders, it's difficult to understand just what the military gets out of encouraging violence. But internally, it has its own logic. On the national level, instability emphasizes the need for the military to play an active political role and to be given a free hand to act as it sees fit in the provinces.

On the local level, violence creates business opportunities. Roughly 75 percent of the military's activities are paid for by its own side businesses, many of which are little more than protection rackets.

Domestically, the military does not catch as much of the blame as it does abroad. Yasril Ananta, chairman of Indonesia's parliamentary commission on foreign relations, has said that he couldn't rule out a "foreign conspiracy" to kill the UN workers to make Indonesia look bad. And rather than view the deaths as a blow to national pride, many feel the country is being unfairly castigated.

"Our international friends demand us to do this and that, but they don't give us the necessary tools to operate," Wahid complained in a speech last week in New York, where he attended the UN's Millennium Summit. "Maybe now our international friends will be ready to bear the cost of resettling the pro-integration forces to other places, to allow them to live outside of Timor," he told an audience at Columbia University.

When Wahid came to power last October as Indonesia's first civilian president, there were high hopes that he would establish civilian supremacy over the military for the first time. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hailed Indonesia as one of the world's key emerging democracies, and international donors pledged billions of dollars to support his government.

The tragedy in East Timor appeared to provide the perfect opportunity to rein in the military. There is overwhelming evidence of military involvement in murder and torture after the territory's referendum -- and enormous international pressure to bring officers and the pro-integration militia they trained, armed, and funded to justice.

But when the government officially announced 19 suspects in last year's violence, a number of senior officers and militia leaders, whom the government's own human rights commission has implicated in the killings, were omitted. Many of the officers that rights activists say were instigators have since received promotions. Eurico Guterres, the leader of the Aitarak militia that murdered dozens in and around East Timor's capital of Dili, has been named the head of the youth wing of Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri's political party.
 

Economy & investment

Indonesia new 5-year development plan more strategic

Jakarta -- Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Rizal Ramli said Indonesia's five-year National Development Programs plan will adopt a more strategic and selective approach to reflect the current changing environment.

"Unlike the previous ones, [the current five-year programs plan] adopts a more strategic approach and focuses only on priority issues that need prompt action," Ramli told members of parliament before submitting a bill on the five-year plan to the lower house of parliament, the People's Representative Council (DPR).

Ramli said in a crisis situation such as the country finds itself at present, development will have to focus on pressing fundamental issues, as opposed to the previous developmental approach that was more comprehensive and sector-oriented.

Ramli said the current plan has five major objectives: -- to develop a democratic political system and maintain national unity -- to uphold the supremacy of the law and clean governance -- to accelerate economic recovery and strengthen the basis for sustainable and just development -- to improve people's welfare and cultural resilience, and -- to promote regional development.

On the first objective, Ramli said the program includes measures to decrease the military's political role, including steps to reform the military institution.

On the third objective, he said macroeconomic stability, completion of bank restructuring and corporate debt restructuring will be focused on to accelerate economic recovery.

Indonesians shop while investors stay home

Jonathan Thatcher, Jakarta -- It could be the pre-crisis boom days. Jakarta's marbled shopping malls are packed and the road to weekend villas in the mountains south of the capital is thick with the fumes of new cars.

But economists say the consumer-backed recovery of Indonesia's broken economy is more wobbly than some of the bouncier government forecasts suggest and promises no quick lift to the tens of millions living near the poverty line.

And while some see a few buds of recovery elsewhere, bringing them to bloom will take a combination of luck and good policy, neither abundantly evident in Indonesia's recent history.

The latest government forecast for gross domestic product next year is for up to five percent growth. That compares to just under 4% this year, almost nothing last year and a contraction in 1998 of some 14%.

It is axiomatic among economists that Indonesia cannot return to the high growth years before the economic crisis erupted in 1997 until it has restructured an almost destroyed banking sector and billions in corporate debts. Nor will investors dip their toes back into Indonesia's waters until the political scene looks less stormy.

None of these factors look like being resolved for some time and a recent Reuters poll showed Asian fund managers rated the Jakarta stock market among their least favorite destinations in the region for the next 12 months.

Consumption leads the way In the meantime, Indonesia's modest growth has been based more on consumption, which may be quickly undermined by inflation. "Incomes are not really on the rise. This [spending] is a realization of postponed expenditure and a shifting of deposits into fixed assets. It will come to an end because of inflation," said Vickers Ballast research head in Jakarta, Ferry Yosia Hartoyo.

The purchasing, he said, is driven more by easier credit from banks and relatively low interest rates than any new-found real wealth, he added. "They'll get 4% [GDP growth] next year if they are lucky ... that's not a lot. I doubt they could get a lot more out of this economy without a major breakthrough in the corporate and banking sectors," one international economist said.

The government is in no position to give the economy any boost. About two-thirds of its budgeted revenues next year will evaporate in domestic and foreign debt payments.

No respite for the poor

The international economist said the real impact for most of Indonesia's 200 million people -- at least half of whom live not far from the poverty line -- is that their per capita GDP has slumped 20% since the country's worst economic crisis in over a generation erupted in 1997. The economist estimated at the current growth rate it would take Indonesians eight to nine years to get back to where they were before the crisis.

Inflation is already beginning to perk up. Imminent increases in fuel prices and public transport fares and the end year Moslem fasting month -- which despite its name is usually a time of large household purchases -- are certain to push prices higher.

The government says inflation could hit 8% next year -- modest compared to its peak of almost 80% in 1998 -- but enough, say analysts, to discourage spending when the recovery remains so fragile. Hartoyo of Vickers Ballast predicted the consumption cycle would peak in the middle of next year.

Recovery signs?

But others see green shoots of recovery coming from elsewhere. The government pins some of its hopes on exports, booming at record levels of more than US$5 billion a month since the middle of the year. Economists say that a key to sustaining that will be whether Indonesia can successfully lure in the additional investment to boost export capacity to meet the expected surge in demand. Leading economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati said consumption growth had created a sense of optimism and money was being invested, albeit not yet in large amounts.

She saw what she called impressive growth in some manufacturing areas such as food and vehicles which could feed into other areas such as construction and services. But the supply side is proving to be a bottleneck because of the banking and debt problems.

Banks are under pressure to get their capital adequacy ratios higher next year to reassure foreign investors and international aid agencies of their soundness. However, that risks making them too prudent as lenders in a country where most economic activity depends on direct bank loans, she said.

The government too has to move quickly to make policy changes and maintain confidence by ensuring that efforts to restructure the banking sector really do take root otherwise the money to finance a deeper recovery will not be there.

"If not the recovery won't be maintained ... this is a crucial few months, The ingredients for recovery are there," she said. "Many business people are at the stage now of deciding whether this recovery is solid or not."