East Timor

Wahid bowing to military pressure in avoiding Timor trials

Agence France-Presse - April 12, 2001

Jakarta -- Indonesia's government is delaying setting up a human rights court to try crimes committed in East Timor in 1999 because of military pressure and corruption cases taking precedence, rights activists have charged.

The accusations came as Washington warned that resumption of US military aid to Indonesia, suspended in 1999 over the violence, was contingent on those responsible being prosecuted.

On March 20 the parliament approved the establishment of ad hoc human rights tribunals to try both the East Timor crimes and the shooting by troops of demonstrators in Jakarta's port area in 1984.

It is now up to President Abdurrahman Wahid to issue a decree to actually establish the courts. Parliamentary staff told AFP that the house forwarded their approval to Wahid on March 30. But rights activists said Wednesday there was little sign of a decree being issued any time soon.

"In the body of the government there are still people opposed to the East Timor prosecutions," human rights lawyer Johnson Panjaitan told AFP. "They are still prioritising corruption cases."

Wahid's Cabinet Secretariat said the president had received the parliament's formal notification, and passed it on to Law Minister Baharuddin Lopa. Lopa's department was now in the process of drawing up a blueprint for the courts, Secretariat official Mohammad Rakit told AFP.

"Once that's done it will be sent back to the president. If it is complicated it could take a long time, if it's not difficult it will be done swiftly," he said, without giving a timetable.

Almost 15 months have passed since Indonesia's own Human Rights Commission (Komnas Ham) identified 34 people, including generals and pro-Jakarta militia leaders, as responsible for the wave of killing, rape and destruction that followed East Timor's vote for independence.

State prosecutors officially declared 23 suspects last September, one of whom -- a militia leader -- was killed days later near Indonesia's border with East Timor. More than six months on, no charges have been laid and there have been no arrests.

"If this was a high priority the government could have issued a decree within one week of parliament's approval," Komnas Ham secretary-general, Asmara Nababan, told AFP. "Obviously it has not been given priority. Resistance to it is quite strong, from groups like the military," he said.

Said Panjaitan: "The majority [of those in the government] are not willing for those responsible for the violence in East Timor to be immediately tried.

"They are the followers of the old regime who are still in power, especially in the military," he said, pointing to figures like chief politics and security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former top general. "He and his friends, like the Kostrad [strategic army reserve] chief Ryamizard Ryacudu and army chief Endriartono Sutarto."

Panjaitan suggested that Wahid, locked in a battle with MPs bent on ousting him from power, was reluctant to stand up to the military by going ahead with the creation of the East Timor courts. "He's already standing over them in regards to Aceh," he said, referring to Wahid's efforts to stave off a planned military operation to crush separatists in the north-western oil-rich province.

"If he pushes them further on East Timor, he knows he'll have not just the parliament against him but the military as well." Wahid has managed to convince the United Nations not to conduct a threatened international war crimes tribunal on the East Timor crimes, by guaranteeing Indonesia could pursue prosecutions itself.

International patience has already been tested by the omission of former armed forces chief General Wiranto and other senior generals from the final list of suspects, despite their naming by Komnas Ham.

Pro-Jakarta militia gangs, backed by the Indonesian military, led an orgy of violence and destruction in the months surrounding the August 30 ballot, killing at least 600 people, razing towns to the ground, and forcing some 250,000 people across the border into West Timor.

Australia, Timor to resume Timor Gap Treaty talks in May

Dow Jones Newswires - April 11, 2001

Canberra -- Australia and East Timor representatives are scheduled to resume negotiations in May on a new treaty covering the share of economic benefits from petroleum production in the so-called Timor Gap area, a spokesman for Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Wednesday.

"There was some suggestion that the talks had stalled or collapsed," Downer's spokesman said in an interview. "We have an agreement to hold a further round of talks early next month." The spokesman was commenting after talks last week in Melbourne failed to secure agreement on the critical issue in the talks: the location of the boundary between the two nations, which could determine the share of royalties from energy production in the area.

The comments also follow a hard-hitting speech Monday to an Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association annual meeting in Hobart by Peter Galbraith, the cabinet member for political affairs and the Timor Sea in East Timor's transitional government.

Galbraith said without a treaty based on international law, East Timorese are prepared to wait patiently for their rights and risk losing important markets.

"I would like to stand before you and declare the Timor Sea is open for business," Galbraith told the conference. "Unfortunately at the moment I am unable to do this. I can't say when it will be open for business." Sharing the benefits of energy production in the 75,000 square-kilometers area was covered by the 1989 Timor Gap Treaty between Australia and Indonesia.

But this lapsed when Indonesia formally withdrew after East Timor's August 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia.

Its terms were continued under a temporary memorandum of understanding between Australia and the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor and East Timorese representatives, which oversee East Timor's transition to full independence, possibly later this year or early next. This temporary MOU will lapse on independence.

Boundary issue critical

At stake in the negotiations are hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from royalties from oil and gas production in the area. And before any such disbursement, investments of billions of dollars in a range of offshore and onshore projects must take place.

Downer's spokesman said Australia remains committed to a successful outcome on a new Timor Gap agreement. "Obviously there are some complex and difficult issues that still need to be sorted through," he said. "With goodwill on both sides we're hopeful that a new treaty will be achieved. The key to that is there being goodwill and compromise on both sides." The major issue is the boundary.

East Timor wants the boundary located at the midway point between the two countries. Australia wants the boundary to remain at the edge of its continental shelf, which places it close to the East Timor south coast.

The vast bulk of energy production in the area will be on the East Timor side of any midway boundary point. Both sides claim international law supports their position.

"The current boundaries are pretty much supported in international law, so we haven't had a great deal to say about moving the boundaries, but we have been focusing on a lot of the other technical issues and also of course there's the issue of sharing of revenue," Downer's spokesman said.

"The boundaries issue isn't one we have been promoting," he said. The continental shelf is "supportable and we've not been seeking to change the boundary," he said.

Galbraith said East Timor knows Australia has difficulty resolving sovereignty in the Timor Sea. But East Timorese negotiators can't return with a a treaty "that would give East Timor less economic benefit than that which it is entitled under international law," he said.

Timor trials seen compromised

Washington Post - April 11, 2001

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Jakarta -- The 22 people suspected by the Indonesian government of orchestrating the wave of violence after East Timor voted for independence could escape conviction for crimes against humanity because the attorney general's office has missed a legal deadline for bringing the cases to trial, according to several Indonesian legal specialists and Western diplomats.

The failure to meet the deadline raises the possibility that nobody in Indonesia will be held accountable for the rampage by the military and government-supported militias in 1999 that left hundreds of people dead and resulted in the destruction of more than 85 percent of the buildings in the territory.

In a related case that also has troubled diplomats and activists, prosecutors recently dropped manslaughter charges against three militiamen accused of participating in the killings of three international aid workers on the Indonesian half of Timor island in September. Although the militiamen admitted to stabbing the aid workers, prosecutors have requested that the three, along with three other suspects, be charged with the lesser crime of "mob violence" and be given prison sentences of no more than three years.

"This is a disgrace," said one senior Western diplomat here. "It is a despicable whitewash." Western diplomats and officials with the United Nations, which is administering East Timor until elections are held later this year, contend that Indonesia has become increasingly uncooperative in addressing issues of justice concerning East Timor. UN investigators have been unable to question the 22 suspects despite Indonesian promises to cooperate on legal issues.

Indonesian police also have not arrested any members of a mob that attempted to blow up a car belonging to East Timor's diplomatic representative in front of the national parliament building in Jakarta, even though pictures of the mob have been published in newspapers and the group was led by a popular local singer.

In an effort to fend off an international tribunal to address the East Timor violence, the Indonesian government has repeatedly promised that it would investigate and prosecute soldiers and civilians suspected of crimes. If prosecutors do not obtain convictions, though, human rights activists and diplomats, who already have criticized prosecutors for not naming senior army generals and militia leaders as suspects, said they plan to renew calls for an international tribunal -- a potentially serious embarrassment for Indonesia.

Indonesian officials said they are ready to charge 12 of the 22 suspects, but the legal experts and diplomats believe that judges will throw out those cases because the attorney general's office has not commenced prosecutions within a legally mandated 310-day window after beginning the investigations.

"It is very likely these cases will be dismissed," said Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, a law professor at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta.

Prosecutors, she said, "have exceeded the time limits in the law ... and now they have a big problem." Under a human rights law enacted last fall, the attorney general's office has 240 days to investigate cases of genocide or crimes against humanity. The office then has 70 days to begin prosecutions. The 70-day period, legal experts said, expired on February 23.

Attorney General Marzuki Darusman denied in an interview today that prosecutions would be affected by the delay, saying the worries of diplomats and legal specialists were based on "a complete misperception." Before any charges are filed in connection with the Timor violence, a special ad hoc human rights court must be formed. The creation of such a court was not approved by the parliament until last month, and the legislation still has not been signed by President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Marzuki argued that the 70-day clock does not begin until the special court is formed and charges are filed. "We are wholly on track here," he said. "At the moment the ad hoc court is established, we will immediately submit the files." The legal experts and diplomats have accused Marzuki and other Indonesian political leaders, including Wahid, of failing to push the parliament to approve creation of the court before the deadline. "It's very clear to us they're setting up a system that has a very high chance of falling apart on its own legs for procedural and evidentiary reasons," said one diplomat.

"This is not a mistake. We believe it is clearly designed. They do not want convictions." A UN official in Jakarta said the Indonesian government, despite its previous promises, now "no longer has the political will to see these people in jail." Although Wahid has said he is committed to bringing perpetrators of the Timor violence to justice, he has encountered stiff opposition from the military, which fears that several senior officers could be implicated. Some political analysts contend that Wahid, who is facing an impeachment process in parliament, has quietly given in to the military in exchange for an agreement they will not actively support the effort to remove him from office.

"He's lost his political capital to bargain with the military," said Jusuf Wanandi, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.

Western diplomats and UN officials are particularly galled by the decision to downgrade the manslaughter charges in the killings of the three international aid workers, who were from the United States, Croatia and Ethiopia. The three, who worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, were stabbed repeatedly by a group of militiamen who had surrounded the UN compound in the town of Atambua. After the killings, the mob burned the bodies so badly that it took UN officials a week to identify the remains.

Three of the six suspects admitted to police that they participated in the stabbing. Nevertheless, prosecutors told the judge hearing the case that they were dropping the manslaughter charges because they did not have enough evidence.

Marzuki argued that under Indonesian law, participation in mob violence qualifies only as assault and battery. Legal experts have disputed that contention, arguing there is ample evidence in the case to support manslaughter charges.

UN officials and diplomats who have been following the trial said prosecutors failed to gather and present basic evidence. They did not request a copy of the autopsy report from the United Nations and failed to interview other UN workers who were in the compound in Atambua. "The prosecution seems to have done the absolute minimum they could do without doing nothing," a UN official said.

Conspiracy by generals led to Timor killings: UN

Sydney Morning Herald - April 12, 2001 (abridged)

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- The United Nations will face renewed pressure to set up an East Timor war crimes tribunal after receiving a report alleging a conspiracy among Indonesian generals was behind 1999's wave of killings and destruction.

The report, by a special UN-appointed investigator, Mr James Dunn, came as human rights activists and diplomats in Jakarta said yesterday that they believed 22 people named as orchestrating the violence might escape prosecution in Indonesia because of a legal loophole.

Mr Dunn's report contradicts claims by Indonesia's top military officers, including the former armed forces chief General Wiranto, that the violence was a spontaneous reaction by pro- Jakarta Timorese to the UN-administered ballot in which voters rejected Indonesian rule.

Mr Dunn, a former Australian consul in East Timor, told the ABC: "I've made a very firm statement that what happened in East Timor was not a spontaneous response by Timorese who wanted to stay with Indonesia; it was a virtual conspiracy led by a number of Indonesian generals."

The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, warned last year that the UN would consider setting up an international tribunal if Jakarta failed to prosecute key East Timor culprits. The Indonesian Government is certain to refuse to co-operate with any prosecutions outside the jurisdiction of its own courts.

In the days after the August 1999 ballot an unknown number of East Timorese were slaughtered and buildings and other infrastructure were destroyed as pro-Jakarta forces abandoned the province.

Mr Dunn's report, which has not been made public, is believed to name several high-ranking generals in Jakarta who are not among the 22 people named as suspects by the Indonesian Attorney- General.

The most senior officer among the official suspects is Major- General Adam Damiri, the then Bali-based military commander of East Timor.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the 22 official suspects could escape conviction because the Attorney-General's office had missed a deadline for bringing the cases to trial.

East Timor refugees dying from diarrhoea: aid group

Agence France-Presse - April 9, 2001

Jakarta -- East Timorese refugees are dying from a rapidly spreading diarrhoea epidemic in fetid camps in Indonesian-ruled West Timor, a Catholic aid group said Monday.

"We found a boy and an old lady dead in Tuapukan camp last week. In the last week of March we found five refugees dead from the epidemic -- teenagers and adults," Father Edi Mulyono, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, told AFP by phone from the West Timor capital Kupang.

"Another six teenagers are being treated in the local health center right now," he added.

Diarrhoea and vomiting was spreading rapidly through the Tuapukan camp, on the eastern outskirts of Kupang, the priest said. Another 10 refugees had died in March in the nearby Noelbagi camp, some from diarrhoea and some from old age, he said.

"People are still dying," Mulyono said. "It's the rainy season, the camps are muddy, sanitation is poor, there's no running water, and malnutrition is rife.

"Since all the foreign aid workers left, there is no-one looking after them any more. Babies are born tiny and undersized, because their mothers are so undernourished."

All foreign aid workers fled West Timor after three UN refugee workers were killed in their office in the border town of Atambua by an anti-independence East Timorese militia mob in early September. Foreign aid workers have never been able to count the exact number of refugees. Estimates range betweem 50,000 and 100,000.

The refugees are the remnants of some 250,000 to 300,000 East Timorese who were forced over the border by pro-Jakarta militia in the wake of East Timor's vote for independence in 1999.

Local Indonesian authorities have been supplying rice sporadically to the camps. Refugees have also been battling mud to try to cultivate their own vegetables.

In desperation in mid-March, camp coordinators approached West Timor authorities to ask for more rice rations. "They hadn't received any rice since January. After they asked, the government distributed some rice on March 20," Mulyono said.

Cash-strapped authorities in West Timor, part of one of Indonesia's poorest provinces, have complained that they are too under-funded to keep feeding the refugees, citing the desperate conditions of their own people.

Mulyono said the Jesuit Refugee Service had no statistics on recent deaths, but considered the number was higher than merely of those they had witnessed. "The camps are enormous. We can't cover the whole of them," he said.

The Jesuits' 22 aid workers run primary schools and playgroups near the Tuapukan camp, give food to children, run a correspondence service between the camps and East Timor, and help register those who wish to return home.

A delegation of UN officials from East Timor, including UN High Commissioner for Refugees and International Organisation for Migration (IOM) representatives, are in West Timor this week to bring information to the refugees and encourage them to return home.

Led by the UN East Timor administration's chief of staff, N. Parameswaran, the team is carrying videos and pamphlets about conditions in East Timor, and bringing Easter messages from the territory's two senior bishops, urging the refugees to return.

Mulyono said many of the refugees were able to distinguish between anti-independence militia propaganda about East Timor and genuine information.

"However a lot of them feel there are no guarantees for their security if they return, because they had a different opinion [to those who voted for independence], or they took part in crimes," he said. "They feel threatened, they're scared there'll be new conflicts and that they'll be forced to flee back here again."

Veteran pro-independence leader to head Timor assembly

Associated Press - April 9, 2001 (slightly abridged)

Dili -- Manuel Carrascalao, a veteran of East Timor's 24-year struggle for freedom, was elected to head the territory's transitional legislature following last month's surprise resignation of independence leader Xanana Gusmao.

He was named speaker of the National Council after rival candidate, Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos Horta, withdrew from the ballot.

"Manuel Carrascalao is a fighter and a very courageous man," said Ramos Horta, who acts as East Timor's unofficial foreign minister. "During the most difficult period in this country's history, he stood up against the [Indonesian] occupation."

The 36-member council is wholly appointed by the territory's UN administration and is regarded as a dress rehearsal body for eventual East Timorese self-rule. It has no direct powers, but debates and comments on regulations drafted by the United Nations, which is administering the territory during preparations for independence.

The council is to be dissolved in June ahead of August elections for a new body that will draw up a national constitution to be in place before full independence is granted and a head of state is chosen, probably early next year.

Militiamen killed Carrascalao's son during an attack on his home in Dili on April 17, 1999.

No really does mean no: Gusmao

The Australian - April 6, 2001

Stephen Romei, New York -- At the risk of exposing himself to political parody, Xanana Gusmao has a simple message for the international community: Read my lips, I will not run for the presidency of East Timor.

"I have stated again, again and again, and here once more, that I will not run for president," the independence leader said during a visit to New York's Columbia University yesterday.

Asked if there were any circumstances under which he might change his mind before 2002, when East Timor's first elections are scheduled, he said: "No."

Mr Gusmao, who resigned last week as head of East Timor's transitional government, said the fledging nation, and its backers in the West, must learn to value democracy above personality. "From the beginning of the struggle, I always put the national interest first. The international community must help East Timor, not Xanana East Timor," he said.

"Our nation, our people, have to believe in the democratic institutions and values, not in the personalities. If they depend on just one or two people, they will find it difficult." Mr Gusmao, 54, said he would back Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos Horta for both his old job as head of East Timor's National Council and as the nation's first president.

Asked if Mr Ramos Horta was not also a "personality", Mr Gusmao said: "We do not need him in terms of the Nobel prize, we need him as an expert in foreign affairs. The president has to play an important role in the dialogue with the donor countries, just to keep alive the [independence] process."

The National Council, which is working with the UN on East Timor's transition to independence, this week postponed until April 9 a debate on who should replace Mr Gusmao.

Mr Gusmao, who is in the US on a private visit, stressed that rebuilding basic social services, such as education and healthcare, was East Timor's overriding priority.

"We have to solve all of these problems before thinking about being a model of justice for the world," he said when asked about the possibility of establishing a war crimes tribunal.

Labour struggle

Government calls for labor unions' independence

Jakarta Post - April 14, 2001

Jakarta -- Referring to the ILO convention on freedom of association, the government called on labor unions on Friday to operate independently and promote harmony between workers and employers to help repair the political and economic climate.

Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Al-Hilal Hamdi said that with the International Labor Union convention ratified in 1998, trade unions must be able to operate independently.

"Labor unions should no longer depend on foreign aid but on their own members' dues and donations for their activities. This is very important to avoid foreign interference in their internal matters," he said in a written speech read by the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration's director of industrial relations, Mardjono, in the opening ceremony of the Confederation of Independent Labor Unions (GSBI) here.

So far, almost all 43 labor unions depend on foreign assistance in financing their activities.

The minister also said that the government and security authorities should no longer interfere in the internal matters of unions, especially in labor disputes, as regulated by a 1999 ministerial decree.

He, however, said that despite the International Labor Organization convention, trade unions and workers must stick to the law in fighting for their interests and seeking solutions to labor disputes.

"Despite freedom of association, workers are not free to exercise all actions, especially violence, in fighting for their interests. Trade unions should be able to play a role in promoting democratic and legal procedures in representing workers," he said.

He said neither labor unions nor workers were prohibited from striking, but such an action should be the last resort if negotiations with employers failed and both sides were deadlocked. "Labor strikes, especially violent ones, certainly benefit no side," he said.

Meanwhile, labor activists accused the authorities of using repressive actions in handling labor strikes, saying such a policy was similar to the way the former New Order regime repressed labor unions and intervened in labor disputes.

Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI) chairman Muchtar Pakpahan regretted the deployment "by security authorities of hoodlums to handle PT Kadera's striking workers" in East Jakarta last month, leaving one worker dead and three others seriously injured.

"The Kadera incident is clear evidence that authorities are still using repressive means in restoring order and security. In the past, security apparatus were deployed in the front row to face striking workers; now they use hoodlums," he said.

Ariest Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the Information Center for Social Issues and Legal Counseling (Sisbikum), slammed President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid's administration for failing to improve the labor conditions in the reform era. "Gus Dur has done nothing for workers over the last one and a half years," he said.

Suspect admits payoff for Kadera attack

Jakarta Post - April 14, 2001

Jakarta -- A suspect has reportedly confessed to having received Rp 27 million (US$2,700) in return for orchestrating the recent attack on striking workers of car upholstery producer PT Kadera AR Indonesia (KAI).

Outgoing Jakarta Police chief of detectives Sr. Comr. Harry Montolalu said on Thursday that one of the six suspects in the attack, which left a worker dead, had admitted to police detectives that he received Rp 27 million from another suspect, currently at large, to orchestrate the attack.

"The suspect who made the confession is Sugiono. He told us that the money was given to him by a man, whose initials are K.O., to use force to break up the striking workers," Harry told reporters on Thursday.

The attack took place on February 29 at the company's plant in the Pulogadung industrial estate in East Jakarta, and claimed the life of Kimun Effendi.

Harry said that Sugiono was the only one of the six suspects who had been detained, as the police had collected enough evidence against him.

"We cannot detain the other five suspects as we lack evidence," Harry said. He identified the five suspects only as Ismail, Husen, Haribertus, Madrowi and Arif.

Kimun died from shrapnel wounds resulting from the explosion of a homemade bomb during the attack, which was perpetrated by hundreds of men, some of whom were armed with sharp weapons.

East Jakarta Police detectives have found a link between an Army officer and a Serang councillor -- reportedly the parties behind the attack -- and the deputy general manager of PT Kadera, Amrin Gobel. Sources said the link had been traced through several calls made by Amrin on his mobile phone.

They added that the Army officer was the same "K.O." who allegedly paid Sugiono Rp 27 million to arrange the attack. "The police will soon request an official permit from the West Java administration in order to question the Serang councillor. Once we get the permit, we'll waste no time in questioning him," East Jakarta Police chief of detectives Comr. Agus Irianto said. Amrin was questioned by East Jakarta Police detectives last week.

Agus had earlier said that the police believed that the attackers were hoodlums hired by a member of PT Kadera's management.

600 steel factory workers rally demanding annual leave

Detik - April 10, 2001

Budi Sugiharto/FW & HY, Sidoarjo -- Around 600 workers of PT Prima Aloi Steel, a company producing wheel rims, at Sidoarjo, East Java staged a peaceful rally at Sidorajo Municipality Legislative Council, Tuesday, asking the councillors to facilitate talks with their employer regarding annual leave and recreation funds.

According to the head of All-Indonesia Workers Union (SPSI) of PT Prima Aloi Steel, Syamsul Anan, the demonstrators have two demands. First, they demand recreation of Rp 12 million per year. Secondly, the workers demand two months annual leave for those who have been with the company for six years and three months for those who have worked twelve years.

In relation to the first demand, the company has only agreed to provide Rp 3 million per year and the second demand is still being negotiated.

This is the fourth time workers have voiced their demands, Syamsul said, the company had previously agreed to the first two demands of, Rp 100,000 child allowance and shoes for all workers. "There are two demands that have not been granted. Therefore, we ask the councillors to pay attention to our demands," deplored Syamsul.

Syamsul pointed out, that the demands were very significant. "The workers need `refreshing' with their families and not be working all the time," said Syamsul adding that this was the fourth rally staged by the workers. However, it was the first time , they staged it at the council office.

Aceh/West Papua

Human rights defenders slain in cold blood

Tapol Bulletin - Number 161 March/April 2001

Peace agreements come and go but on the ground nothing ever changes in Aceh. The death toll has continued to rise, even following a mid-January accord for a one-month moratorium on violence. Volunteers working for a group to assist victims of torture were murdered in cold blood, in a deliberate move to curb the activities of human rights defenders.

On average these days, there are at least three killings a day in Aceh, but it was the murder in cold blood of three volunteers working for RATA (Rehabilitation Action for Torture Victims in Aceh) that deeply shocked public opinion and resulted in a condemnation by the European Union and the UN.

RATA was inaugurated in Banda Aceh in September 1998 by the governor of Aceh and the Danish ambassador, and is led by a former political prisoner, Drs Nurdin Abdulrahman. It is sponsored and largely financed by the Danish Government and is a member of the Copenhagen-based International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. Its volunteers work away from the spotlight, sending teams to provide counselling to victims and escorting victims to hospital when medical treatment is required.

As this cold-blooded murder shows, the Indonesian security forces regard the work of humanitarian workers and human rights defenders as dangerous because they are witnesses to what is happening on the ground.

A well-planned attack The team that set out from Lhokseumawe in a vehicle clearly marked with the RATA insignia on 6 December to take patients in Tanah Pasir, North Aceh to a local medical centre consisted of three men and a woman, Idris bin Yusuf (27), Bachtiar bin Usman Daud (23), Nazaruddin bin Abdul Gani (22) and Ernita binti Wahab (23). The sole survivor, Nazaruddin, was able to tell the world what happened to his colleagues. He gave his testimony four days later, after going into hiding.

Soon after the RATA team had escorted some patients to a medical centre in North Aceh, their vehicle was halted by three cars. A well-known cuak -- army informer -- named Ampson Thayeb who seemed to be in charge, ordered the volunteers out of their car. All the men in the three cars were heavily armed; some were cuak and the others were almost certainly soldiers not in uniform. The volunteers were questioned at gunpoint and stripped of their wallets and ID cards. They were asked about their RATA activities and accused of being pro-GAM, because they were operating in a GAM area.

Nazaruddin and Bachtiar were ordered into one car, while Ernita and Idris were forced into the other cars. When the convoy stopped again, the volunteers were ordered out, told to take off their shoes and beaten. When they fell to the ground, shots were fired close to their feet. One of the abductors who was apparently a soldier was filming everything with a video camera.

A family in a house nearby who had watched the team being maltreated was ordered into one of the cars. The convoy then drove off again, and stopped several times at local koramil (military command posts) to chat with the soldiers. When Thayeb asked an officer, "Should we finish them off here?" he was told to go and do it somewhere else.

The convoy then approached a village where a bomb had just exploded; plenty of people were still milling around. The men in the convoy opened fire. As the people scattered, the kidnappers seized a man named Rusli and order him into one of the cars. The convoy drove off again and later stopped in front of a school in Kandang. The volunteers together with Rusli were ordered out and told to "confess if you want to survive". Their hands were bound behind their backs. As one of the men thrust a gun into Ernita's mouth, she pleaded with them not to kill her. After driving off again, they were ordered out. Ernita and Idris were stood in front of a house. As the camera continue to whirr, the two were kicked to the ground and shot dead in the head, each with a single bullet.

Meanwhile Nazaruddin had managed to loosen the cord binding his hands and tried to do the same for Bachtiar. But as the men turned on them, he fled, escaping a volley of shots as he plunged through a nearby field, dressed only in his underpants. As he fled, he heard another two shots which killed Bachtiar and Rusli. Later that evening, he was taken in by a family in a village.

The following day, the bullet-riddled bodies of Ernita, Idris, Bachtiar and Rusli were discovered near an empty house in Alue Liem, Bland Mangat sub-district, North Aceh by the Red Cross and taken away for identification and burial. Following the atrocity, RATA teams stopped their activities for two weeks but then resumed their work, except the team in Lhokseumawe which now has no vehicle.

Koneksitas court could be convened

A month after the atrocity, the National Human Rights Commission, Komnas HAM, announced that it would set up a special investigation commission known as a KPP HAM, under the terms of the law on Ad Hoc Human Rights Courts enacted by Parliament in November 2000. This should lead to the establishment of an ad hoc human rights court which would deal with the atrocity as a crime against humanity. If this actually happens, it will set an important precedent in Indonesian legal history, as the first case heard under the Human Rights Court Law.

However, efforts are afoot to prevent this from happening. The details of the atrocity, which were made public within days by Nazaruddin, the sole survivor of the atrocity, also named some of the perpetrators, making it incumbent on the police in Aceh to make arrests and start investigating the case. Among those who are now under arrest are Ampon Thayib and three others, all civilians. Leading the investigations is Chief Commissioner of Police, Drs Manahan Daulay who told human rights activists that there were eight suspects. He refused to identify the other four apart from saying that they were from the security forces, "though not from the police". He said that the investigation team was a joint koneksitas team including military investigators which means that the suspects will be indicted before a koneksitas court.

This move has been roundly condemned by local human rights activists because such a court, in effect a military court, would not treat the atrocity as a crime against humanity and would deal only with the direct perpetrators, while those who ordered the kidnap and assassination operation would remain untouched.

In a joint statement, the head of RATA, Drs Nurdin AR, and Iqbal Farabi, head of the Komnas HAM office in Banda Aceh, said: "This case must not be taken to a koneksitas court. The RATA killing was clearly a crime against humanity, a grave, systematic and comprehensive crime, not just an incident. There are strong indications that this was a state-instigated crime with the deliberate aim of obstructing the work of humanitarian workers." Investigations must expose the more senior military officers who were in overall command of those who perpetrated the crime. "This can only be done in a human rights court," Iqbal said.

By moving fast to set up koneksitas procedures, no doubt acting under pressure from the military, the police clearly want to pre-empt Komnas HAM intentions. A koneksitas trial would make it impossible to set up a human rights court subsequently because the principle of double jeopardy would foreclose the chances of holding a re-trial.

The toll rises steadily

The RATA killings occurred in a month when, according to one of Aceh's leading human rights' monitors, the number of victims has continued to rise. Kontras-Aceh, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, announced in early January that they had been able to verify 184 cases of killings, disappearances, torture and arrests in December. They stressed that this was not the complete story by any means, only cases where they had been able identify the victims, the perpetrators and the locations. Their local monitors were frequently obstructed in their work by the authorities.

Their records included 88 deaths of which 35 were clearly the work of the security forces while 53 persons had been killed by unknown assailants. The killings were scattered right across Aceh. In North Aceh, there were 23 deaths, in Bireuen 21, in South Aceh 16 and in East Aceh 13. Altogether, according to Kontras-Aceh records, twenty people were still missing.

Kontras-Aceh coordinator, Aguswandi, told the press that it was imperative for the Indonesian authorities to reverse their present policy of violence; he insisted that they should accept responsibility for the escalating number of victims. (Serambi Aceh, 4 January 2001)

Petrus killings abound

One of striking features of the current spate of killings is that in many cases, corpses are left lying on the road. On one occasion in mid December, local people discovered five bodies lying side by side.

The director of Cordova, an NGO that focuses on social analysis and human rights, told a Jakarta daily: "Today, we see a new type of violence in the style of mysterious murders [petrus] such as those committed during the Suharto years which were [on that occasion] applied on suspected criminals. Suddenly now in Aceh we have bodies placed deliberately in public places." This made it difficult to believe the government when it says the violation of rights here can be stopped.

Interviewed by The Jakarta Post, Otto Syamsuddin Ishak said, "... since June, we've been seeing more petrus cases in which the victims are mostly civilians." Ishak is a member of the joint monitoring team for security modalities that works within the framework of the Joint Understanding for a Humanitarian Pause to monitor violations of the accord between the Indonesian government and the armed movement, GAM.

Asked which of the two sides were responsible for most of the violations, he said: "Maybe both parties are guilty of violating the Pause ... but both parties must be open to a transparent and comprehensive examination of rights violations." This could be undertaken, he said, by an international NGO like Amnesty International or by the UN. (Jakarta Post, 18 December 2000)

Army steps up repression in Aceh

Green Left Weekly - April 11, 2001

Pip Hinman -- The Indonesian government's "limited" military operation, currently underway, is not just against the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), but against the majority of Acehnese who want an end to the violence and a referendum on self-determination.

While the Indonesian military, the TNI, is tight-lipped about the timing and nature of its latest operation, repression and intimidation hasn't ever stopped, not even during the "ceasefire" periods.

The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid is now planning to send an extra three battalions (of 650 soldiers each) to the province, to bolster the tens of thousands of police and military already there. The pretext is the March 13 shutdown of ExxonMobil's refineries in the region -- the huge US-based oil multinational claims sabotage by GAM is preventing it from operating.

The new TNI operation is aimed at wiping out GAM, something the regime of former dictator Suharto failed to do. To give the TNI freer rein, the Wahid government has branded GAM a "separatist" organisation, thereby allowing the TNI to launch its offensives without the need to gain the approval of civilian authorities.

But the TNI faces three big obstacles in Aceh: the well-armed and organised GAM fighters themselves, who control most of the northern part of the province and have a base of support in rural areas; the urban civil democratic movements, who are becoming more organised in pressing their demand for the military to leave and for self-determination; and the non-government organisations and human rights groups, who are stepping up their campaigns for the same demands.

The murders on March 29 of three members of the Henry Dunant Center, a peace monitoring team, has highlighted the TNI's real aim -- to crush any form of resistance to its plans. The Support Committee for Human Rights in Aceh (SCHRA), which includes 31 international, Indonesian and Achenese NGOs, says the TNI is not simply guarding ExxonMobil installations, but sweeping surrounding villages and causing a new exodus of displaced people.

Acehnese student groups looking after displaced persons also report that security forces are harassing them and blocking access to many of the refugee camps.

On March 27-28, some 1000 supporters of the Aceh Referendum Information Centre (SIRA) protested outside the United Nations office and the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta, calling for international support for a referendum and for the military to leave Aceh.

According to Syadiah Marhaban, a spokesperson for SIRA, the protest was also aimed at pressuring the Dutch government, the former colonial power in the area, to take responsibility for its "unfinished problem".

The more conservative wing of the pro-referendum movement believes the Dutch betrayed the Acehnese people in 1949 by agreeing to the formation of Indonesia. The majority of Acehnese were enthusiastic supporters of the anti-colonial revolution against the Dutch.

New security plans for ExxonMobil gas field

Jakarta Post - April 12, 2001

Jakarta -- Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said on Wednesday that soldiers currently stationed at the ExxonMobil gas field in Aceh would be redeployed to perimeter duty to encourage the US-based firm to resume operations. Purnomo claimed that the removal of the soldiers was at the request of ExxonMobil.

"Currently soldiers are located inside the gas clusters. To make the ExxonMobil employees feel comfortable about resuming work, the troops must be placed outside the clusters," Purnomo said.

"The soldiers, however, must secure the compound from any disturbance while the employees perform their duties," the minister told reporters after a meeting to discuss the suspension of ExxonMobil's operations in Aceh.

Senior government and military officials attended the meeting. However, no ExxonMobil officials were present.

Those attending the meeting at the Ministry of Defense included Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Adm. Widodo A.S., TNI Chief of General Affairs Lt. Gen. Djamari Chaniago, deputy minister for political, social and security affairs in charge of security affairs Ilyas Yusuf and state oil and gas company president Pertamina Baihaki Hakim.

ExxonMobil last month suspended operations in Aceh over security concerns. The decision forced other major companies in the area, such as PT Arun NGL Co., to follow suit.

The TNI has dispatched three battalions to guard ExxonMobil's gas fields. An Army cavalry unit has also been dispatched to guard security posts, gas installation sites and clusters of state gas company PT Arun NGL Co.

Purnomo said ExxonMobil had asked the government to secure its facilities, both in and outside of the clusters, including a 30- kilometer gas pipeline in North Aceh.

"Securing the pipeline is very important since it connects the gas fields in Lhoksukon to Arun's refinery, fertilizer producing company Asia Fertilizer and to paper producing company Kraft Papers," Purnomo pointed out.

Purnomo also said ExxonMobil had called on the government to ensure the security of employees, including their daily commute to the compound and their residences.

After examining the requests set forth by ExxonMobil, Purnomo said the government felt "there will be no [need for] reinforcements".

Despite these conditions no date has yet been set for the resumption of operations, since "it will totally depend on developments there".

"In the near future, the government will establish joint posts with the TNI, National Police, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and other related ministries to monitor the fields and prepare anything required for when the firm resumes operation," Purnomo said.

"I also explained to the TNI chief that incidents and security disturbances in the area would affect production activities at ExxonMobil," Purnomo said.

When asked about the TNI chief's response, Purnomo said: "Pak Widodo responded positively and admitted that the ExxonMobil case has impacted Indonesian foreign affairs."

However, a series of attacks by alleged Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels continued to rock the industrial regency of North Aceh.

"The latest blitz took place at police and military subdistrict offices in Jeunib on Tuesday," spokesman for the police's Cinta Meunasah II Operation, Adj. Sr. Comr. Sad Harunantyo, said in a report made available to The Jakarta Post. The rebels reportedly used mortars to attack the two posts at about 6 a.m. on Tuesday. No casualties were reported.

At about 11 p.m. on Tuesday, another attack occurred at the Peusangan Military subdistrict office in North Aceh. "The attackers missed as they fired from across the river, and the mortar exploded behind the Peusangan Military dormitory. Security officers chased the assailants, but to no avail," the officer said.

Jayapura's university threatens closure over student protests

Jakarta Post - April 11, 2001

Jakarta -- Rector of the Jayapura Institute of Science and Technology (ISTJ) Tuesday threatened to close down the school following student protests demanding his resignation.

Rector Moh. Ali Kastella said the school might be closed if students continued their protests and threat to kill the lecturers.

According to Kastella, the students began their protests on November 27 last year, demanding that he resign and also relinquish his post at Irian Jaya's Regional Environmental Impact Management Agency.

The students also accused him of embezzling scholarship funds and that his magisterial degree in technology management was faked, Kastella said as quoted by Antara.

He said the Irian Jaya's Inspectorate had investigated the charges but had found any proof of embezzlement. He also said his magisterial degree was authentic and had been verified by the Directorate General of Higher and Middle Learning and, therector of the Surabaya Institute of Technology.

"If they continue making all that noises without having any proof, all campus activities will be halted," Kastella said, adding that the protesting students would have to face thousands of students and their parents who did not join their protest. ISTJ has 2,800 students studying at its six departments.

On Tuesday around 50 students rallied at the governor's office to renew their demand for Kastella's resignation. The students were joined in by the secretary of the students senate, Engelbert Toto and two former lecturers, Pieter Baltimuri and Dorus Wakum,Antara said.

The two lecturers were among the three lecturers fired by the Bhineka Tunggal Ika Foundation which runs the institute. The third lecturer was Yusuf Saba. The three were charged of committing acts of anarchy in campus during their tenure. The university has also suspended 22 students for involvement in the rallies.

Unknown culprits block Meulaboh to Banda Aceh roads

Jakarta Post - April 9, 2001

Banda Aceh -- Land transportation from Banda Aceh capital of Aceh province to Meulaboh in West Aceh has been interrupted over the last three days as unknown parties placed felled trees along the roads of the province's south and west coastal areas.

A number of motorcyclists from West Aceh's Teunom and Krueng Sabee villages said in Banda Aceh that as of Sunday morning there were still felled trees, including coconut trees, placed along the road which prevented buses and cars from passing.

Police said a similar barricade was also placed by unknown parties on roads connecting Banda Aceh and Medan, the capital of neighboring North Sumatra province last week.

"But the barricade has been cleared so the roads connecting the two provinces have returned to normal," spokesman for the police's Cinta Meunasah II Operation Adj. Sr. Comr. Sad Harunantyo said on Sunday.

As of Sunday afternoon, security personnel had cleared some of the trees along the Meulaboh-Banda Aceh route.

"We still have to finish clearing the trees from Krueng Sabee village to Meulaboh or around 100 kilometers more," a source at the West Aceh police told The Jakarta Post. It is expected that all trees would be lifted from the roads by Monday morning.

Due to the blockade, some bus companies in Banda Aceh have decided to temporarily halt their operations. "All bus crews [serving the routes] are forced to rest," an owner of a bus company, who requested anonymity, said. "We will start selling our [bus] tickets again if all trees have been cleared from the roads and the security situation allows us to operate," he added.

Meanwhile, local Serambi Indonesia daily reported that several patients of the Cut Nyak Dhien General Hospital in Meulaboh, who were to undergo further medical treatment in Banda Aceh, have failed to reach the provincial capital.

In a related development, a convoy of military personnel was attacked by an unknown group in Jaya district, West Aceh. A soldier was injured in the incident. There were scant details on the incident which took place in the area along the blockaded roads.

Separately, the Commission for Missing People and Victims of Violence (Kontras) claimed that around 211 people in Aceh had become victims of violence in March.

Coordinator of Kontras' Aceh branch, Bustami Arifin, told Antara on Sunday that out of the 211 victims, 81 were killed, 28 people were still missing, 68 people have been tortured, and 34 others have been arrested arbitrarily.

"These figures are not real. We believe that the number of victims is much higher," Bustami said, adding that Kontras faced difficulties in monitoring violence in all parts of Aceh. He noted that the figures were based on reports from Kontras' volunteers in 13 regencies in Aceh.

Kontras reported that out of the 81 people killed in March, 34 people were killed in East Aceh regency, 15 people in North Aceh, 11 in Aceh Besar, nine in South Aceh, six in Pidie, three in Central Aceh and another three in West Aceh.

Out of the 28 missing people, nine were from Aceh Besar, eight from East Aceh, five from Pidie, four from North Aceh, one from Bireun and one from South Aceh.

Of the 68 people who suffered torture, 18 were from East Aceh, 18 from North Aceh, 11 from South Aceh, 10 from Pidie, 10 from West Aceh, and one from Aceh Besar.

Following a dark trail of destruction and death

Straits Times - April 9, 2001

Enrique Soriano -- The bleak panorama that unfolds on the drive from Lhokseumawe, the main town in North Aceh, to Medan is punctuated only by the dozens of armed checkpoints manned by the Indonesian army and the police.

But even the checkpoints thin out before the town of Idi Rayeuk. Or what's left of it. All the shops are boarded up and the houses are empty; many of them razed to the ground.

The trail of destruction stretches from the town of Idi to Langsa, about 40 km away. Except for piles of blackened debris that mark the places where houses have been, little evidence exists to show that people once lived here.

Further down the road from Idi, a father and his son scavenge through the debris of a cluster of burnt houses. Words written on a wall with charred wood and paint say that seven people have been killed in the cluster.

Some of the villagers, emboldened by the thought that their story may reach elsewhere in the world, offer to show what the troops did to their houses and point to the bullet holes in the wooden walls.

On March 24, at around 10 am, eight trucks carrying Indonesian army and police troops stopped and "started to shoot everywhere", the villagers recount in tones, rising from quiet whispers to heated indignation.

The soldiers rounded up seven men, which they picked at random, and then gathered the villagers in front of a provision shop. They burnt the shop, shot six of the men and threw their bodies and the last one, who was still alive, into the burning shop.

Nearing Langsa, the scene changes as if crossing over a line to normalcy. Some shops are open and children play in the fields. An old lady sweeps leaves into a burning pile. Coffee shops were filled with smiling men.

But underneath this, no one wants to talk about their neighbouring town. "Oh, something happened there, but we are not exactly sure what," said one. "Some accident. We don't know what happened there," added another, his eyes cast to the ground.

Elite power struggle

Indonesia simmers as leaders play at politics

Sydney Morning Herald - April 14, 2001

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- A wayang kulit, or shadow puppet, called Kumbakarna sits behind President Abdurrahman Wahid's desk in his Jakarta palace.

Mr Wahid has joked it depicts perfectly a member of the Muslim organisation that gives him his strongest support, the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Kumbakarna's job is to pray and sleep, but if the country is threatened he will fight to the death.

But with the Wahid Government paralysed by a bitter leadership battle among the political elite and the country careering towards economic and social chaos, the joke has become serious. At stake is the country's fragile transition from corrupt dictatorship to one of the world's largest democracies.

One increasingly likely scenario is that tens of thousands of Mr Wahid's NU supporters will soon take to the streets, provoking bloodshed the security forces will be unable to stop from spreading throughout the archipelago.

Analysts say that unless the leadership vacuum can be quickly filled, the economy could be plunged into an even more serious crisis than the meltdown of 1997-98, prompting a desperate population to take the law into their own hands.

Mr Jusuf Wanandi, an analyst at the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said MPs and other political leaders were being irresponsible, thinking only of how to bring down Mr Wahid.

"Nobody among them thinks about the interests of the nation as a whole," he said, adding that the situation was so desperate, "a high sense of urgency is now needed among the political elite".

Many commentators, diplomats and parts of the Indonesian media have started calling for the elite to compromise.

They are backing a meeting between Mr Wahid, Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri and political powerbrokers Mr Akbar Tanjung, of Golkar, the former ruling party, and Dr Amien Rais, the Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, the top legislature. In an editorial this week the Jakarta Post said: "The lack of effective government in Indonesia these past few months has pushed Indonesia further to the brink of destruction ... the leaders should work out a compromise that is truly in the interests of the country."

Mr Wahid is desperate. His latest strategy is to jail people plotting his downfall, many of whom are allegedly corrupt cronies of former President Soeharto.

But his fate lies largely with Ms Megawati, who, in the style of ancient Javanese royalty, refuses to say whether she would support Mr Wahid's impeachment or whether she wants to be president. Only a vice-president can replace a president mid- term.

Ms Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle holds the most seats in parliament. Their votes would be needed for a successful impeachment.

Ms Megawati is deeply unhappy with Mr Wahid's erratic leadership and personal criticisms of her, although she and he are old friends. Her silence has added to the crisis.

A special session of the assembly, where Mr Wahid could be impeached, cannot be convened until late July or August, at the earliest. But as regional and local conflicts break out from Aceh to Irian Jaya, and the economy free falls, the country cannot wait until then for the leadership impasse to be resolved.

Ms Megawati's aides said she was worried that if she was seen to be involved in Mr Wahid's downfall she would provoke his supporters' ire. She does not want to be blamed if bloodshed erupts.

To become president she would have to compromise with Mr Tanjung and Dr Rais, who turned on her when she ran for president in 1999 and who are now leading the charge to unseat Mr Wahid.

Ms Megawati fears that if she takes office before the scheduled elections in 2004 they would do the same to her. But analysts say that for the sake of the nation Ms Megawati should push for a political compromise.

[On April 14, Agence France-Presse reported that national assembly chairperson Amien Rais said Abdurrahman Wahid was not sincere in his offer to hold talks with his foremost critics who are trying to oust him. Rais was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying: "I agree with the offer, but what's the agenda? I don't think he's serious ... I think it's just an empty political commodity" - James Balowski.]

Indonesia's president-in-waiting keeps them guessing

Christian Science Monitor - April 12, 2001

Ilene R. Prusher, Jakarta -- When aides would go on tour with Indonesian Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, they used to try to get her to act like a politician -- or at least, a celebrity.

But campaigning and politicking do not come naturally to this daughter of Indonesia's founding father. And at a time when the country seems to be convulsing in crisis, critics say they wish the real Megawati would please speak up. "If she's a good politician, this is the time to show leadership. But she doesn't say anything," says Salim Said, a political and social analyst.

As President Abdurrahman Wahid faces possible impeachment and demonstrators demanding his dismissal, all eyes are shifting to the vice president. Is she, as some view her, terse and careful? Or slow and inarticulate? A hardworking woman, or simply the heiress to a political dynasty? Opinion remains divided on what kind of leader Megawati would be.

Mr. Wahid's opposition suggested last week a power-sharing agreement that would increase Megawati's daily duties and reduce Wahid's role to that of figurehead. But she remains muted on aspirations for the presidency. Supporters say Megawati is taking the prudent route on a journey that has been littered with betrayals by false friends.

"She will check and check again, and then study the problem some more, because she doesn't give her trust easily," says Mr. Djarot. The two had a parting of ways, but Djarot, a member of parliament in Megawati's Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which is leading the call for Wahid to step down, would still prefer to see her replace Wahid.

In a nation whose inhabitants are about 95 percent Muslim, leading Islamists once rejected Megawati as a potential leader. A woman is not allowed to rule a nation, and she once prayed at a Hindu temple in Bali, showing that she was not a true Muslim, they said.

Last year, however, Megawati made the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and also went on an umrah, an off-season pilgrimage.

Now, "what is important politically is that no one can question her 'Muslimness'," says Azyumardi Azri, rector of the State Institute for Islamic Studies. "The main problem now is that lack of decisiveness of Megawati herself."

But to her admirers, Megawati's reluctance to throw her hat in the ring -- at least officially -- derives from a Javanese sensibility of not seeming too aggressive. "No one accuses her of being power hungry," says Subagio Anam, a senior politician and family friend.

Mr. Anam says that even as a girl, Megawati, one of Sukarno's eight children, had the most charisma. "She was a very interesting person, in the way she spoke." More than a quarter of a century later, when Megawati won a seat in parliament, she was skeptical about her chances of being taken seriously. "She was very shy," adds Anam, "and she said to her friends, including me, 'I cannot be a leader [of the country] because I am a woman.' " Anam says he and others pushed her to accept a position as party chairwoman. Now, says Anam, Megawati doesn't shun leadership, but she prefers to wait to be drafted to it. "In the past 1-1/2 years ... she has improved a lot in her problem with convincing people."

But Muchtar Bochari, another respected party elder who once was close to Megawati, says her performance -- and tendency to wait for what she feels is due her -- is disappointing. "We tried to make her realize that she cannot always hold her party together ... by virtue of being Sukarno's daughter."

Mr. Bochari says over the years he has found her lacking managerial skills. "I began to doubt her ability to govern ... Her capability will depend on who surrounds her."

Housewife, or politician?

The Indonesian intelligentsia paint her as a housewife who isn't really up to the challenges of running an enormous and troubled archipelago. Her risumi lists no political activity between 1965, when she was an activist in the student movement, and 1987, when she entered the house of representatives.

Her harshest critics point to the fact that she never completed college, while supporters say that she left university because of a family crisis -- when her father was toppled by Suharto.

Other family tragedies awaited her. Her husband, a pilot, disappeared in 1971, leaving her with two small children. She later married Tawfik Kiemas, whose rags-to-riches story gives critics ammunition to cry corruption.

When Megawati gained more prominence, Suharto only bolstered her popularity by dismissing her from her party's leadership in 1996. Subsequent riots led to student protests that eventually toppled Suharto in 1998.

Wahid, a man Megawati once considered an ally and friend, seems to have grown equally suspicious of the woman whom followers began to consider a sort of "mother of the nation." He was appointed president by parliament in 1999, although Megawati's party had gained the most votes. That loss makes many say that she's not adept at political intrigue. But her defenders say Indonesia needs someone who can unite them, not a rocket scientist.

"A leader does not have to be smart," says Abe Komaruddin, a politician in the Golkar party, who led the parliamentary drive last year to begin questioning Wahid for alleged corruption. "The mark of a good leader is one who understands the people he or she is leading, and not asking the people to understand the leader, as Wahid does."

Military's role

Although the military has vowed to extract itself from politics, it could arguably give this country's most important political endorsement. And the fact that generals appear to lean toward Megawati is being used by both camps.

Wahid's people are spreading the word that if Megawati becomes president, she will become a puppet of the military, a "pushover," in the words of one Western diplomat here, possibly leading to a return to martial law.

Her supporters say that only Megawati will give a freer hand to the military to take a tough stance against militant secessionist groups around the country. Wahid and his autonomy proposals, they argue, will allow the country to disintegrate into chaos.

Hari Sabarno, the head of the 38-seat military faction in parliament, says that the armed forces will try to stay neutral, but there's a preference for Megawati if only for purely pragmatic reasons.

Wahid, who is virtually blind, cannot read their reports, and coupled with his sometimes erratic behavior, has been difficult to reach. "It doesn't matter who we interact with," says Sabarno, "but in reality it's easier to interact with Megawati because she can see the reports."

Fears grow of clashes between Muslim rivals

Sydney Morning Herald - April 12, 2001

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- Fears are growing of violent clashes between Indonesia's two big Muslim organisations as tens of thousands of supporters of President Abdurrahman Wahid prepare to fight to defend him.

Mr Syafei Maarif, chairman of the 15 million-member Muhammadiyah, has warned of anarchy unless the embattled Mr Wahid acts to head off attacks by his supporters in the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).

"It seems to me that the President and NU leaders are not trying hard enough to anticipate their supporters' acts. That's really worrying to me," Mr Syafei said.

"We must anticipate the possible escalation of tensions ignited by NU supporters ... we are still trying to hold back our emotions." Members of the NU, which Mr Wahid led for 16 years, have already staged sporadic attacks on Muhammadiyah supporters in their East Java strongholds.

The attacks followed fierce criticisms of Mr Wahid and plotting to unseat him by a former Muhammadiyah leader, Dr Amien Rais, now Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, the top legislature. Most Muhammadiyah members live in cities and towns and practise what is often called modern Islam. Most NU members live in villages and pursue a more traditional Islam.

NU leaders say 20,000 of their supporters have signed pledges declaring they are prepared to mount a holy war and die to protect Mr Wahid from his enemies.

At least one NU cleric has issued a religious edict authorising the "spilling" of Dr Rais's blood. In the East Java town of Banyuwangi, Mr Wahid's supporters have painted red crosses on the homes of about 50 Muhammadiyah members, reviving memories of the mid-1960s, when red house markings signalled death for inhabitants during purges of members of the Indonesian communist party.

Speaking in Jakarta, Mr Syafei said he had asked the military and police to be ready for the arrival of swarms of NU supporters in Jakarta before parliament resumes on April 30.

During the session MPs will consider issuing a second censure motion against Mr Wahid, a crucial step towards his possible impeachment over erratic leadership and two corruption scandals.

NU leaders in Surabaya, the country's second-biggest city, say they expect hundreds of thousands of their supporters to travel from East Java to Jakarta to attend a pro-Wahid prayer meeting before parliament's resumption later this month. One NU offshoot, the Truth Defender Front, is reported to be training hundreds of members in combat at a camp in Banyuwangi.

"If the elite causes Gus Dur's downfall, we will defend the country and the nation," the group's leader, Mr Wiro Sugiman, said, using Mr Wahid's nickname.

The national police chief, General Surojo Bimantoro, said this week that security forces were ready to deal with possible attacks by Mr Wahid's supporters.

Political parties demanding his resignation also fear they will become targets of fanatical supporters of Mr Wahid, especially Golkar, the party that kept the former dictator Soeharto in power for 32 years.

Golkar's East Java headquarters in Surabaya were attacked and burned to the ground during a pro-Wahid rally attended by more than 50,000 people in February.

Since then Golkar's chief, Mr Akbar Tanjung, has watered down his public criticisms of Mr Wahid and backed away from pushing for an early convening of parliament, where many MPs had planned to oust him. Mr Wahid has repeatedly denied that people joining so-called suicide squads linked with the NU are his supporters.

But he insists he can do nothing to stop them coming to Jakarta, and has provided some who have already arrived with food.

Ginandjar's arrest is to threaten Golkar

Detik - April 10, 2001

Hestiana Dharmastuti/FW & HY, Jakarta -- The People's Democratic Party (PRD) says the arrest of former minister of mines and energy, Ginandjar Kartasasmita for fraud by the Attorney General office, was seen as a means to threaten the Golkar party and political concession of the erratic President Abdurrahman `Gus Dur' Wahid. The fact is not all corrupters from the old New Order era have been brought before a tribunal, in fact some have been given protection.

"Ginandjar's arrest was nothing more than an effort to threaten Golkar, to make them willing to compromise to settle the political crisis within the elite ruling level, not to finalise a reform agenda" Budiman Sudjatmiko, chairman of PRD told journalists at the PRD office, Jl.Tebet Barat Dalam no.8, South Jakarta, Tuesday.

Budiman suggested, it is a threat to Gus Dur's political enemies to end their political manoeuvring and get and back to the negotiation table.

"If Ginandjar was the only one arrested, it proves it to be nothing more than political bluff. If Gus Dur arrested other New Order conies such as Habibie, Baramuli and Harmoko [former minister of information] who only seek their own safety," said Budiman.

Nonetheless, PRD considers there is nothing wrong with the political compromise and the party respects the arrest. However, said Budiman, the compromise has made a legal case turn into political case and power sharing issues.

"Therefore, the Gus Dur-Mega administration should be bold and clean the executive and judicative bodies, bureaucracy and state-owned companies from Golkar people," said Budiman whose parties has been a staunch opponent to Golkar, the former ruling party during Suharto's iron fisted rule.

Budiman also advises that all laws from the New Order should be changed, while at the same time proposes the establishment of a people's court from regional to central government.

Mega-shift in balance of power, Megawati happy to bide her time

South China Morning Post - April 11, 2001

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- In the style of ancient Javanese royalty, Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri is refusing to say whether she would like to be president, while watching power come to her.

The day after a nameless aide claimed Ms Megawati had set three conditions for taking over from President Abdurrahman Wahid, other political aides denied the claims. Regardless of the rumours, Ms Megawati's office has become a magnet for anyone seeking approval for their ideas, or support.

"Everyone visits her, from bupatis [district regents] to generals and business people. They visit her instead of President Wahid," said Marcus Mietzner, a political analyst. "Power is already moving to Mega."

The other sign of Ms Megawati's growing prominence in daily governance is her body language, analysts say. They note her actions at an air force anniversary on Monday where she mingled with the crowd and talked to armed forces chief Admiral Widodo Adisucipto while Mr Wahid dozed in a chair. As if by chance, she demonstrated without formal statement that she has the capabilities of eyesight and networking, which Mr Wahid lacks.

When Mr Wahid delivered a reply to Parliament's censure of him recently, Ms Megawati sat beside him but looked in the other direction and refused his offer of a sweet. An aide in her office admitted the moves were deliberate.

During Mr Wahid's recent absence from the country, when communal fighting broke out in Central Kalimantan and floods hit West Java, Ms Megawati again demonstrated the way she wanted to move forward.

She visited Banten, worst hit by floods, and engaged in practical discussions with local leaders, giving instructions on how to avoid flooding in the future. In Central Kalimantan, she wept with refugees. By contrast, Mr Wahid's later trip to Central Kalimantan provoked indigenous Dayaks into more violence, which left five people dead.

"She's demonstrating her view of what the state-society relationship should be like," Mr Mietzner said. "When she becomes president, people know ... she will listen, she will keep her word. Things will calm down."

But before this can happen, Ms Megawati has to decide whether to accept the backing of former enemies in Parliament to take the presidency. She is known to be deeply worried that the forces gathering behind impeachment moves against Mr Wahid in her favour can just as easily be turned against her.

A source close to Ms Megawati said this is where some realpolitik is at work: Ms Megawati has authorised the construction of poskos, or command posts, of her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) across the country, and is reportedly planning a mass demonstration of her supporters in Mr Wahid's home province of East Java.

The event is planned for April 28, before the April 30 hearing in Parliament which legislators say will be used to issue a second reprimand against Mr Wahid, a move one step away from declaring him unfit for office.

Significantly, Ms Megawati has refused to be drawn into a suggested "reconciliation meeting" with Mr Wahid and parliamentary leaders.

"She will not attend the reconciliation talks proposed by President Wahid if they are only about political bargaining instead of solving the political crisis which is the country's main problem," said Pramono Anung, deputy secretary-general of the PDI-P.

Key party offers support for Megawati

Reuters - April 10, 2001

Jakarta -- Indonesia's second-largest party in parliament said on Tuesday it would support Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri if she were to take over from the embattled incumbent and serve out his term.

Such backing from Golkar would put a majority of MPs behind Ms Megawati should she replace President Abdurrahman Wahid, whose term as the troubled country's first democratically-elected leader ends in 2004.

Ms Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) holds the largest block of seats in parliament and together with Golkar could command a majority.

"The condition is that the government must be responsive to criticism by the parliament. If the government works within this then there would be no problem [for Ms Megawati] until 2004," Golkar party chairman Akbar Tandjung said.

Ms Tandjung, who is also parliamentary speaker, did not openly call for Mr Wahid to step down or for Ms Megawati to take over. But he indicated his party would back reported conditions set by Ms Megawati to rule the giant archipelago, which has lurched from crisis to crisis in recent years.

Ms Megawati, who has so far been guarded on her own ambitions, set the conditions during talks with political leaders working to topple Mr Wahid, the Media Indonesia daily said, quoting an unnamed source close to the vice-president.

These include guarantees she won't be challenged before her term ends. The source said she was also demanding the vice-presidency be left vacant and that annual sessions of the top legislature, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) -- which has the power to sack and appoint presidents -- be abandoned.

"Regarding the necessity of the vice-presidency, it can be discussed in the MPR session ... and Golkar also questions [the need] for the annual MPR session," Mr Tandjung said.

Calls for the near-blind Mr Wahid to resign have increased since parliament censured him in February over two graft scandals. Mr Wahid has rejected the censure as "baseless".

Mr Wahid and several other political leaders last week rejected a suggestion that one way out of the mounting political crisis would be to change the constitution to allow Ms Megawati to run government and turn his job into a largely ceremonial role.

Fears are growing that as the political temperature rises, Mr Wahid's sometimes fanatical supporters could turn violent. Thousands have already joined suicide squads vowing to fight to the death in Mr Wahid's defence.

Parliament is due to meet at the end of April to consider its response to Wahid's reply to the censure. A second formal reprimand, which could pave the way for an impeachment hearing by the top legislature, is considered almost inevitable.

Megawati poised to move against `brother' Wahid

Sydney Morning Herald - April 10, 2001

Lindsay Jakarta -- After months of indecision amid a damaging power struggle in Jakarta, Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri has finally set conditions for taking over from the besieged President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Sources in her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle say Ms Megawati has come around to the view that she must move against Mr Wahid, a long-time friend with whom she has fallen out, to save the country from collapse.

Leading members of the party are so confident of her taking office soon that they have prepared a draft presidential acceptance speech in which she would ask all political parties to work together until elections scheduled for 2004.

But Ms Megawati, fearing that the politicians who elected Mr Wahid president in October 1999 only to turn against him could do the same to her, wants them to agree that she would not be challenged before 2004, party sources say.

Ms Megawati wants MPs to abandon the annual session of the People's Consultative Assembly, the top parliament, which has the power to sack and appoint presidents.

Party sources say she also wants to leave vacant the position of vice-president when she takes office and instead give greater power to ministers in her cabinet.

Analysts say Ms Megawati's aides are confident they will be able to negotiate acceptance of the conditions with the political parties that have abandoned their support for Mr Wahid, the country's first democratically elected leader.

The only significant party continuing to support Mr Wahid is his National Awakening Party, which holds just 11 per cent of seats in the parliament. The armed forces are also strongly backing Ms Megawati for the presidency.

Sources said that during a recent meeting with Ms Megawati, the chief of the army, General Endriartono Sutarto, urged her to be more aggressive and move faster against Mr Wahid. "Who do you love more, Wahid or the country?" General Sutarto asked her.

A source close to Ms Megawati said she had been deeply hurt by Mr Wahid's erratic behaviour as president, including perceived personal criticisms of her. She recently blindfolded herself for two hours and sat listening to classical music to try to better understand Mr Wahid, who is clinically blind.

For years Ms Megawati has referred to Mr Wahid as her brother, and Mr Wahid has called Ms Megawati his sister. She still insists on serving him breakfast each Wednesday morning at her home.

Sources say Ms Megawati is so troubled by having to move against Mr Wahid that she cried for two hours after she approved in February her party's support for a censure motion against him over two corruption scandals.

Ms Megawati remains adamant that any move against Mr Wahid must be done in accordance with the country's 1945 Constitution, which stipulates that only a vice-president can take over from the president mid-term.

Ms Megawati has approved a mass rally by her supporters on April 28 in Surabaya, the country's second-biggest city, where Mr Wahid is also popular. Observers say there may be clashes between Ms Megawati's supporters and Mr Wahid's supporters, many of whom have vowed to die in the fight to protect his presidency.

The planned rally is two days before MPs are expected to give their verdict in parliament on Mr Wahid's response last month to a parliamentary censure.

Analysts say Mr Wahid's best chance of avoiding impeachment is for him to negotiate a compromise during talks with the country's most powerful politicians, including Ms Megawati.

Hero worship

Asiaweek - April 13, 2001

Warren Caragata and Amy Chew,Jakarta -- Kasmiran is a motorcyle taxi driver from Gresik, an industrial town in East Java -- Gus Dur country. Recently, he made the 650 km journey to Jakarta to show his support for his compatriot, otherwise known as President Abdurrahman Wahid. Kasmiran is angry not only because his hero's rivals are trying to force Wahid from power, but because he believes the moves are being orchestrated by Golkar, the party of the ousted dictator Suharto. Kasmiran's conflict with that organization began when he was 10 years old. "A Golkar official wanted to throw me to the police for tearing down their party's poster," he said during a recent march outside parliament. "I was so scared." To Kasmiran, Golkar's possible return to power is a nightmare that must be stopped. "The people will again be oppressed," he worries.

The demonstrators for and against Wahid who have shaken Jakarta in the past few months have mostly been university students. In a country where 40% of children aged 16 to 18 drop out of school, that's a pretty narrow band of society. Indonesia's poor -- workers and farmers -- have not yet taken to the streets in large numbers, or even taken sides in the battle that began when parliament initiated the impeachment process against Wahid in February. "They feel it doesn't affect them," says Budiman Sudjatmiko, leader of the People's Democratic Party, Indonesia's only labor party.

With one exception: Gus Dur's mostly rural loyalists from East Java. They have been pouring into Jakarta, making it easier to tell anti- and pro-Wahid protests apart -- call it cellphone toters versus sandal wearers. And that is raising fears that political rivalry could turn into class and religious conflict.

The potential for violence was already evident in pro-Wahid protests that have taken place in East Java, heartland of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama, which claims 40 million largely rural followers. Wahid ran the group for 15 years before stepping down to assume the presidency. Incensed at attempts to unseat their prince, NU supporters burned offices belonging to Golkar and the party of Amien Rais, speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the country's highest parliamentary body which has the power to impeach the president. NU leaders threaten to bring "one or two million people to Jakarta" to defend the president, even while noting the dangers of such a move.

The conflict between Wahid and Rais illustrates another element in the mix -- a religious divide. While Wahid and Rais are both Muslims, they represent very different strains of Islam. Before becoming a full-time politician, Rais ran the country's second- largest Islamic group, Muhammadiyah. Its members are generally urban and well-educated. NU members generally are neither. Rais's supporters are considered "modernist" and religiously conservative, compared to the relatively tolerant tradition of rural Islam that Wahid represents. "Modernists and traditionalists are like oil and water," says NU deputy secretary-general Masduki Baidlawi. "It is not possible for the two to come together." Any engagement could only be explosive.

"If parliament is used as a Trojan horse for the New Order [Suharto's regime], there will be a challenge from the street," says People's Democrat Budiman. So far there have been only minor clashes between Wahid supporters and demonstrators who want him to step down. But as the impeachment proceeds, many worry that the clashes could rip the country apart. Golkar leader Akbar Tanjung highlights the fears in arguing for a compromise: "There will be widespread violence if we overthrow [Wahid]."

Wahid himself shows little inclination to step back from battle. In an hour-long speech to parliament answering a February censure motion over two financial scandals, the president went on the offensive, saying his accusers have no legal standing and insisting he never benefited personally. MPs from all parties except Wahid's small caucus say they would probably proceed with a second censure motion at the end of April.

Wahid then would have the right to respond within 30 days. If parliament rejects Wahid's second reply, it can call for a special session of the MPR to impeach him and promote Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri to the top job.

As head of PDI-P, the largest party in parliament, Megawati's position is crucial -- but unclear. Her top deputy Arifin Panigoro says a second censure is likely, and senior advisers are among Wahid's most vehement critics. But while Megawati has unleashed her attackers, she has not yet thrown away the leash. And she has not called her loyalists onto the streets. During the 1999 elections, Megawati had the most grassroots support. When she was outmaneuvered for the presidency, even though PDI-P won the most parliamentary seats, demonstrations by her supporters were among the biggest and most unruly.

Today, with the presidency seemingly within her grasp again, Megawati's party remains divided on whether to push her old friend Wahid from power.

Sources close to the vice president say that she has reservations about the unpredictable consequences of impeachment. Her biggest worry is that the political feud will eventually be settled in the streets, that people like Kasmiran -- his friends and his enemies -- will decide Indonesia's fate. That would be a struggle with no winners.

Megawati sets terms for presidential run: paper

South China Morning Post - Apirl 9, 2001

Reuters in Jakarta -- Indonesia's Megawati Sukarnoputri has set three conditions for running to replace embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid, including guarantees she won't be challenged before her term ends, a newspaper said on Monday.

Vice-President Megawati, who has so far been guarded on her own ambitions, set the conditions during talks with political leaders working to topple Mr Wahid, the Media Indonesia daily quoted an unnamed source close to the vice-president saying.

She is also demanding the vice-presidency be left vacant and that annual sessions of the top legislature -- which has the power to sack and appoint presidents -- be abandoned.

The source said leading politicians, who were not named, had agreed to two of the conditions. "But regarding the issue that vice-presidency should be left vacant, it's tough. No one can guarantee that," he said.

Calls for the near-blind president to resign have increased since parliament censured him in February over two graft scandals. Mr Wahid has rejected the censure as "baseless".

Mr Wahid and several other political leaders last week rejected a suggestion that one way out of the mounting political crisis would be to change the constitution to allow Ms Megawati to run government and turn his job into a largely ceremonial role.

Fears are growing that as the political temperature rises, Mr Wahid's sometimes fanatical supporters could turn violent.

Parliament is due to meet at the end of April to consider its response to Mr Wahid's reply to the censure. A second formal reprimand, which could pave the way for an impeachment hearing by the top legislature, is considered almost inevitable.

But the source said Ms Megawati and her Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P) would even back away from the second censure if she did not win agreement that she could rule without a deputy if she replaces Mr Wahid. "From the very beginning, Megawati doesn't want any vice-president," the source said.

Mr Wahid last week proposed peace talks with Ms Megawati and the heads of both legislatures to strike a compromise to end the political tensions crippling government and driving the stock market and rupiah to two-year lows.

Government/politics

Gus Dur gives fiery speech at Air Force anniversary

Jakarta Post - April 10, 2001

Jakarta -- President Abdurrahman Wahid said on Monday that the Indonesian Military (TNI) must remain vigilant and refuse to succumb to the tribulations faced as a result of the embargoes it is facing.

"We should not be conquered by such intimidation. Neither should we become dependent on other countries," Abdurrahman said at the commemoration of the Air Force's 55th anniversary celebrations at Halim Perdanakusuma Airbase in East Jakarta.

"We are a big country with the fourth biggest population in the world. We manifest greatness when we uphold our independence," Abdurrahman said in a fiery speech.

Present at the ceremony were, among others, First Lady Shinta Nuriyah Wahid, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputeri, former Air Force chief Omar Dhani, the TNI chief Adm. Widodo AS, Army Chief Gen. Endriartono Soetarto and Navy Chief Adm. Indroko Sastrowiryono.

Abdurrahman further praised the Air Force after it successfully performed an aerobatics show with eight jet fighters comprising of three different types of aircraft -- two F-16 Fighting Falcons, five Hawk MK-53s and a Hawk-100. Even the force "must engage in cannibalism of the jet's spare parts," the President remarked.

Indonesia faced an arms embargo following the violence which swept East Timor in 1999. While sanctions have slowly eased, there are still major restrictions on various spare parts of combat aircraft and other military hardware.

Abdurrahman also said that the government plans to develop an air force base in Biak, Irian Jaya to guard the country's western wing. "We currently only have Iswahjudi Airbase [in Madiun, East Java] as our major air base to guard the country's integrity. The air base, however, can only oversee the western part of Indonesia," the President remarked.

Air Force chief Marshall Hanafie Asnan said there was already an airbase Manahua in Biak. However, it severely lacks personnel and key weaponry, such as radars and jet fighters. "The eastern side of Indonesia are strategic areas with rich natural resources. We must guard it," Hanafie said.

Regional/communal conflicts

Deadly conflict in Central Kalimantan

Tapol Bulletin - Number 161 March/April 2001

An explosion of violence in Kalimantan in late February shook the entire province of Central Kalimantan. Thousands of Dayaks, armed with machetes and home-made spears, hunted down migrants from the island of Madura, killing at random and destroying entire villages. The violence, prompted by years of unresolved social conflicts, destroyed hundreds of homes and decapitated bodies were strewn along the roadside. Two years earlier, a similar eruption shook West Kalimantan.

This time the violence erupted in Sampit, the largest timber port in Indonesia. Sampit is a typical, red-necked frontier town where relations between the local population and newcomers have long been tense. As with conflicts elsewhere in Indonesia, it started with a rather trivial dispute about the dismissal of two government officials. On the night of 17 February, a Dayak house was reportedly burned down. As word spread that Madurese were responsible, a gang of Dayak youths attacked a Madurese neigbourhood. In less than two weeks, the Dayaks had killed 469 people though observers believe that at least 1,000 Madurese lives were lost and 30,000 were forced to leave Central Kalimantan.

Jakarta's tardy response

When the violence erupted, President Wahid was just about to leave for the Middle East on a tour that would take him to several Arab countries and to Mecca for the haj. He ignored pleas to cancel the trip. As for Vice-President Megawati, it was nearly two weeks before she made a visit to the stricken region, heavily protected by 15 companies of special police and 4,000 troops. By then, the violence had subsided sufficiently for her to make a 30-minute visit to a refugee camp in Sampit. By then, calm had been restored because most of the Madurese had sought sanctuary in camps or left for Java.

Other districts in the province refused to receive the Madurese, fearing that violence would follow. The local authorities in Barito Utara, the location of Suharto's disastrous one-million hectare swamp rice project, started recording the ethnic origin of settlers and transmigrants; all Madurese were instructed to leave by 2 March. The Madurese had become victims of ethnic cleansing.

When he did return home, President Wahid made a brief visit to Central Kalimantan which led to another trail of violence. The moment he left Sampit, an incident happened in which riot police and Dayak protestors were killed and a protest gathering in Palangkaraya was fired on by troops killing at least five people Recent experience has shown that the government takes great pride in organising ceremonies or visits of ministers, but when it comes to resolving conflicts or even maintaining law and order, the security forces have a record of utter failure, combined with deliberate neglect.

Central Kalimantan, a place of extremes

Central Kalimantan is in every sense a place of extremes, where poverty, hardship and the struggle for survival is harsh. The latest bout of violence exemplifies these problems. The local economy depends on timber and plantations. The district of Kotawaringin Timur, of which Sampit is the capital, covers about 5 million hectares, nearly all of which was forest thirty years ago. Now only 2.7 million hectares is designated "forest land". The rest has been turned into agricultural land, plantations, settlements or unproductive scrub and grassland. Only 0.5 million hectares is classified as "protected forest" and local people are prohibited by law from using this to make a living. Over 1 million hectares of the remaining forest is due to be converted to estate crops. Illegal logging is rife and the forests will be commercially logged out within ten years. The Dayaks have little to show for the forests they have lost and most now live below the official poverty line.

A thriving port town, Sampit is the centre of the legal and illegal timber industry and the trading and administrative centre of the province. Almost all these activities are dominated by outsiders. Sampit has the air of a booming frontier town but for all its apparent wealth, its infrastructure is poor; electricity supply is intermittent and there is a lack of clean drinking water. The only asphalt road, running from Palangkaraya to Pangkalanbun, is in a state of disrepair, due to the heavy traffic of logging trucks. Sampit's "get rich quick" atmosphere attracts migrants. Corruption is widespread. The local police who used to levy a 10% tax on tourists are now said to be soliciting levies from refugees desperate to leave Kalimantan.

Ongoing conflict

Violent confrontations between the indigenous Dayak and Madurese settlers in Kalimantan have erupted for decades. They occurred under Sukarno and intensified during the Suharto era, reaching a new level of horror under Wahid's government. Kotawaringin Timur suffered a bout of violence last December, in the village of Kareng Pangi, subdistrict Katingan Hilir, some 200 km from Sampit. A minor dispute about a gambling centre led to a full- scale attack on the Madurese. Many homes and vehicles were destroyed or torched.

In late 1996/early 1997, violence between these two communities caused at least 600 deaths. The conflict, now referred to as the Sanggau Ledo (a Madurese settlement) Tragedy, was widely reported in the national and international press. The Economist of 15 February 1997 reported that "driving inland from the west coast of Kalimantan is like entering a war zone". Three years later, 40,000 Madurese refugees were still living in wretched conditions in "temporary" camps in West Kalimantan's provincial capital, Pontianak.

In March 1999, while waves of violence were rippling across Maluku and West Java, West Kalimantan also had its share of trouble in Sambas. On that occasion, Malays joined forces with the Dayaks to target the Madurese. The district of Sambas has a population of 800,000, of which about eight per cent were Madurese. The official death toll was 200 but observers believe that many more people died.

In all the conflicts up until 1999, Madurese vigilante groups fought fierce battles against the locals but in the latest bloodbath, the Madurese were defenceless victims and entire families were butchered by rampaging indigenous Dayaks.

The worst incident occurred when several hundred Madurese who had taken refuge in the forest were persuaded by local officials to be trucked down to the harbour, under police protection. A Dayak mob got wind of the evacuation, diverted the trucks to a field and persuaded the police and officials to hand over the human cargo. The police fled, and in less than an hour, 118 Madurese had been slain.

Resolving conflicts, military style

The social, political, cultural and economic roots of the conflict have remained unresolved. Typically, the killings stop once the newcomers have been driven out. A well-publicised peace ceremony of government officials and prominent leaders of the two communities is held. Military chiefs recruit a few elders to sign a peace accord, accompanied by some photogenic rituals and everyone goes home, satisfied with a good day's work. A peace monument erected after the 1979 conflict was symbolically demolished in the 1997 violence. Impunity has been total, and none of the killers have been brought to justice.

One new factor that has become very evident in the post-Suharto period is the shameful inability of the security forces to deal with unrest. During the New Order, the military relied on the prevailing fear among the population to keep the lid on discontent. But nowadays the discredited image of both TNI (the armed forces) and POLRI (the police force) and the absence of the rule of law has meant that there are no law enforcement agencies capable of protecting citizens.

The ineptitude of the security apparatus in dealing with the unrest in Central Kalimantan is a measure of the sheer scale of the problems Indonesia is facing. Thirty thousand troops are now stationed in Aceh, about fourteen battalions are tied up controlling the security situation in Maluku, an unknown number of troops are stationed in West Papua and tens of thousands of troops are being kept ready to cope with street demonstrations across Java.

Moreover, the decision to shift responsibility for law and order from the army to POLRI has created its own problems. The police lack the capacity to deal with emergency situations like the violence in Central Kalimantan. Harrowing stories from Madurese survivors confirmed the ineffectiveness of the police. The Madurese were told to discard their weapons but when a huge force of Dayak vigilantes arrived, the police stood by and did nothing to halt the atrocities. Corruption is rife within the army and the police and is often a source of conflict between the two forces. Police officers profiteered from the fleeing Madurese by buying up their household goods cheaply. Another racket, demanding transport money from fleeing Madurese as they boarded marine ships created a conflict between TNI and POLRI.

The failure of policing during the Central Kalimantan tragedy has been used by army top brass to press for the army to resume responsibility for internal security; they have even asked parliament to introduce "transitional" legislation to formalise this shift.

Dayaks and Madurese, both marginalised

Central Kalimantan is the poorest of the three provinces into which Indonesia's part of Borneo is divided. In all parts of Kalimantan, the Dayaks and Madurese are competing for scarce economic resources, so much of which has been plundered by Jakarta.

Dayak is the generic name for at least 50 linguistically-related groups all over the island of Borneo, including the northern part which belongs to Malaysia. The Dayaks have widely divergent social structures and value systems and are the most marginalised group on the island. Exploitation of Kalimantan's rich natural resources, its forests and minerals, has sidelined the Dayaks. Mining companies, logging companies, state and private plantations, have all joined the scramble. The labour force has been brought in from elsewhere, often Madurese, while the informal business sector, including public transport companies, are all in the hands of non-Dayaks. The Dayaks are not able to make a living from agro-forestry or small-scale logging once the logging companies have stripped all the valuable timber, especially once plantation companies move in to clear up the mess. The commercial loggers and oil palm estates which replace them prefer to use migrant labour rather than employ Dayaks.

The Madurese migrants originate from the small island of Madura off the north-east coast of Java. A shortage of arable land has forced Madurese to migrate and many have gone to Kalimantan. This has been going on since the sixties so they are now into the third generation. They were born in Kalimantan and have never lived, or perhaps even visited, their island of origin. Strictly speaking, the Madurese are not the mercantile class because most of the lucrative business enterprises are in the hands of Chinese or Malay traders. Some Madurese have emerged as small traders in the cities but their role is marginal.

As is often the case elsewhere in the world, marginalised communities have a lot in common with each other but their conflicting positions on the lowest rung of the ladder all too often set them on a collision course. The Dayaks have an animist tradition but many have been converted to Christianity while Madurese cling to their Muslim beliefs. The transmigration programmes and subsequent waves of migrants which brought many Madurese to Kalimantan have created pockets of Madurese settlements, making it virtually impossible to create a multi- ethnic community enjoying social interaction.

Development Suharto-style

The Dayaks, the customary landowners, became the victim of pembangunan, Suharto-style development schemes. Powerful business interests in Jakarta and the West were showered with lucrative concessions. The Dayaks were systematically robbed of their land and resource rights and had no recourse to legal action to defend their rights since, under Indonesian law, forests belong to the state.

Tropical rainforest was turned into plywood, veneers and sawn timber for export in the name of development. Large timber companies made substantial profits and moved on to invest in plantations, banking and real estate, becoming giant conglomerates. The natural wealth of Kalimantan flowed through the hands of Suharto's family and their business cronies and helped to fuel Indonesia's economic boom which lasted until the mid 1990s.

Much has changed in Indonesia since the Asian economic collapse, the fall of Suharto and a new democratically elected government, but the model of economic wealth driven by the ruthless exploitation of natural resources remains intact. Under new regional autonomy legislation, districts must raise sufficient income from their natural resources to finance public services, support the bureaucracy, cream off some profit for the local elite and send revenues to Jakarta.

The international community has supported this. The IMF's "economic rescue package" promotes exports of timber, minerals and plantation crops such as palm oil to balance Indonesia's financial books. This includes paying off international creditors who were so keen to lend during the Suharto years. The World Bank funded Indonesia's transmigration programme for years and, with the Asian Development Bank, supported an estate crop system which depends on transmigrant labour.

Headhunters or a culture of violence

The mobs of angry local youths who can be seen in widely distributed photographs bearing severed heads on spears are being portrayed as Dayak warriors, head hunters or savages. While they are the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing, they are themselves victims of the destruction of their ethnic identity.

"Development" has eroded traditional lifestyles and undermined the authority of community leaders and offered young indigenous people little in return. The majority have had only a few years of primary education, due to the lack of schools and inability to pay school fees. They are ill-equipped to compete with migrants and can only expect poorly-paid manual work and casual employment.

Barbaric methods like severing heads on a mass scale are alien to Dayak traditions. These are methods frequently used in war situations as a tool to spread fear and terror among the population. The mass raping of women falls under the same category. Severing heads became part of the political scene in Indonesia in 1965, with the birth of the New Order. The severed heads of alleged communists in East Java in 1965 were often impaled as a warning to others. The Indonesian military employed this headhunting method frequently in East Timor. In 1999 an attack against alleged sorcerers in East Java, a Middle Age witch hunt, also engaged in headhunting. Decapitation is part of the culture of violence, nothing else.

Two killed in latest clash in South Sulawesi

Jakarta Post - April 14, 2001

Sinjai, South Sulawesi -- Two people were killed on Wednesday night when armed thugs clashed with members of Forbes, a public- initiated group combating crime, in Biroro village, East Sinjai district, Sinjai regency, South Sulawesi.

The incident occurred when about 50 crooks and thugs from the district, armed with guns and sharp weapons, attacked the Forbes headquarters, which is also the residence of the group's chairman, Zainuddin.

Neighbors, including several members of Forbes, rushed to help Zainuddin. During the fray two Forbes members were killed, though Zainuddin survived the attack.

The clash ended when the police arrived. But Forbes coordinator Yahya Abdullah alleged the police were slow to move in to halt the attack.

He claimed some officers backed gambling spots and alcohol distribution networks, which have become profitable sources of income for local thugs.

"When the incident began, I called the police but they didn't do anything. Then I called the local military chief and told him to contact the police," Yahya said. Yahya said he believed the attack was in retaliation for Forbes' raids on illegal nightspots in the area.

The village was still tense on Friday afternoon. Police have stationed two platoons of officers in the village to prevent any further violence. The two people killed in the attack were identified as Umar, 35, and Ambo, 40.

Umar, a junior high school teacher, died of gunshot wounds, while Ambo died of slash wounds. Biroro is about 310 kilometers east of the provincial capital Makassar.

Police clash with Dayak protesters, one killed

Jakarta Post - April 10, 2001

Sampit -- The East Kotawaringin regency capital of Sampit turned into a battlefield again on Monday afternoon as police clashed with hundreds of Dayak protesters who demanded total withdrawal of Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) troops from the area.

A teacher, identified as Fandy was killed in the incident from a gunshot wound to the head, and another resident, identified as Johan, survived serious gunshot wounds. Witnesses said the victims were passersby who were hit by stray bullets from the police aimed at the protesters.

The Monday protest was staged at around 11 a.m. outside the Sampit sports stadium on Jl. D.I. Panjaitan, which has been used by Brimob personnel as their temporary headquarters.

The some 300 protesters then marched to the local legislative council building and later to the office of the Sampit Regent. Dissatisfied with the response of officials at both places, the protesters then moved to the East Kotawaringin Police headquarters.

At the police headquarters, they reported the torture and violence allegedly committed by police personnel against local Dayaks, especially after the incident on Friday when three Brimob officers were killed.

Tension rose as the protesters refused to listen to the officers who were trying to negotiate their demands. They even threatened to pursue any Brimob officers and behead them if they left their headquarters. The angry protesters then marched back to the sports stadium and yelled at the Brimob personnel.

In an attempt to disperse the mass and to prevent them from approaching the headquarters, the police opened fire. Some witnesses, however, said the shots were fired not only in the air but also at the protesters. In Sampit, there are a total of 100 personnel of the elite police force. They were deployed from the force's Kelapa Dua and Kedunghalang headquarters, in Jakarta and Bogor, respectively.

Sources said that Dayaks planned to stage a retaliatory attack later that night. Many feared that if they proceed with the attack, bloodshed would be unavoidable.

Sampit has suffered an onslaught of violent attacks on Madurese migrants by the Dayaks. More than 300 people were killed in the outbreak of violence which erupted late February. Meanwhile, thousands of others have been forced to leave the town.

Nine killed in Borneo clash as police try to seize weapons

Reuters - April 8, 2001

Jakarta -- Three policemen and six locals were killed in a clash during a police sweep for weapons in Indonesian Borneo, national Police Chief Surojo Bimantoro told reporters on Saturday.

The fighting broke out after police attempted to confiscate weapons from locals who were on alert one month after nearly 500 people were killed in savage ethnic clashes between indigenous Dayaks and migrants from the island of Madura, officials said.

Bimantoro told reporters the three policemen had been stabbed to death and that locals had fired homemade guns at them. He did not say how the locals were killed or if they were ethnic Dayaks.

Rampaging Dayak gangs beheaded many of their victims and ripped out their hearts in a gruesome reminder of the country's volatility. About 50,000 people, mostly Madurese, fled Borneo last month as a result of the slaughter.

"I have received a call from the local police ... and they said the situation is under control and there is no more unrest," Bimantoro told reporters, adding 16 people had been arrested.

Bimantoro said the local police chief planned to meet prominent community leaders on Saturday night to seek a solution to the problem.

He added that on Friday an additional 300 to 400 policemen were transferred into the area as reinforcements. "Our forces [in the area] are sufficient according to our judgement, however, yesterday we already sent two companies of police from Bali," he said.

The Jakarta Post daily reported on Saturday at least two people died after fresh communal fighting in a remote district in the troubled province of Central Sulawesi. In another part of the province, 300 armed attackers stormed a police post and two were reportedly shot dead, the paper said.

Human rights/law

Suharto-style trials back in fashion

Tapol Bulletin - Number 161 March/April 2001

Less than three years after the fall of Suharto amid calls for "reformasi", there are serious signs that the democratically- elected government of Abdurrahman Wahid is slipping back into the bad, repressive ways of the Suharto dictatorship. In West Papua and Aceh, people who exercised their right to peaceful protest are facing charges that criminalise legitimate political protest. TAPOL has again called for these repressive laws to be repealed. Already under the transitional government of B.J Habibie, in power from May 1998 till October 1999, the authorities responded to strong pressure to release all political prisoners throughout Indonesia, including the many dozens held in Aceh and West Papua. The releases were completed soon after Abdurrahman Wahid took office on 20 October 1999 and it was hoped that forthwith, no one would fall victim to charges under the anti-subversion law or the politically motivated articles in the Criminal Code known as the "hate-sowing" articles.

However, these articles were not repealed and still worse, when the Habibie government decided in April 1999 to repeal the much- hated and widely-criticised draconian Anti-Subversion Law, far from expunging from the statute books the most damaging, politically-motivated articles of that law, it incorporated them into the Criminal Code. So we now have an additional six articles, Articles 107a-107f which were lifted from the anti- subversion law. These articles codify "crimes" of a purely political nature such as "endangering the Pancasila" and "promoting the spread of Marxism-Leninism".

In a letter to the new Minister of Justice and Human rights, Dr Baharuddin Lopa, on 1 March 2001, TAPOL called for the repeal of all these articles on the grounds that they "should have no place in a state based on democratic principles".

Article 154 of the Criminal Code states that anyone who expresses "feelings of hostility, hatred or contempt for the Indonesian Government", shall face a penalty of up to seven years. Article 154a states that "anyone who besmirches the national flag and symbols of the state of the Republic of Indonesia" shall face a maximum penalty of up to four years".

Article 155 states that "anyone who makes public, displays or hangs out writings or pictures in public places that contain feelings of hostility, hatred or contempt for the Indonesian Government for the purposes to making them known to the public" shall be liable to a maximum penalty of four and a half years.

Article 160 states that anyone who "in a public place, verbally or in writing, incites others to commit a crime, to use violence towards public officials or incites persons not to comply with laws or official instructions issued on the basis of the law" shall be liable to a penalty of up to six years.

"Hate-sowing" in Aceh

Muhammad Nazar has chaired SIRA, the Centre of Information for a Referendum in Aceh, since its establishment in 1999. The organisation is dedicated to a peaceful struggle for a referendum on the status of Aceh and its future relationship with Indonesia. SIRA's first major action was to organise a mass rally in Banda Aceh calling for a referendum in November 1999 attended by around a million people who had travelled from all parts of Aceh. The security forces made no attempt to prevent the rally and security was left to members of SIRA. The event passed off peacefully.

In August 2000, SIRA called on people not to raise the Indonesian national flag to mark the national day on 17 August but asked them instead to raise the flag of the United Nations. The SIRA office was raided in the run-up to that event and UN flags were confiscated.

In November, SIRA called on people to come to Banda Aceh to attend another pro-referendum rally on the first anniversary of the pro-referendum rally in 1999. However, this time round, security forces were out in force in all parts of Aceh, setting up road blocks and using armed violence to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from reaching Banda Aceh. Dozens of people were killed; Kontras-Aceh (Commission for the Disappeared and the Victims of Violence) was able to identify more than three dozen deaths but acknowledges that the death toll was probably far higher.

The rally went ahead as planned but hundreds of thousands of people were prevented from attending. By this time, Nazar had been summoned for questioning by the police regarding the raising of the UN flag in August and was arrested on 20 November after being interrogated for a whole day. It was later announced that he would face charges under the "hate-sowing articles" and he was transferred from police custody to prison, to await trial. Although according to the procedural code, the trial should be held in the place where the alleged "crime" was committed, a decision was issued by the then Justice Minister that the trial would take place in Medan, apparently on the grounds that there were not sufficient judges to hear the case in Banda Aceh. The decision was strongly condemned by his team of lawyers, his family and his associates in SIRA who warned against transferring him to Medan where Acehnese activists have been kidnapped and assassinated, most recently Jafar Siddiq Hamzah who disappeared in Medan last August and whose body was found three weeks later.

The Nazar trial formally opened in Medan on 21 February but the defendant did not appear at the courthouse and the trial was adjourned. Shortly beforehand, Justice and Human Rights Minister Yusril Irzha Mahendra had been dismissed by President Wahid and was replaced by Baharuddin Lopa, who was secretary-general of Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission during its first years of existence. The new minister had made a last-minute intervention, rescinding his predecessor's decision and decided that the trial should be held in the district court in Banda Aceh.

In a letter to Justice Minister Baharuddin Lopa welcoming the switch in venue, TAPOL said: "... we believe that there is no justification for the trial of Nazar Muhammad to proceed. The defendant is being indicted for the peaceful exercise of his right to express views about the situation in Aceh. It is deplorable that he will face charges under articles 154, 155 and 160, the notorious "hate-spreading" articles of Indonesia's Criminal Code. We would urge you to exercise your authority to press the Attorney General's office to drop the charges and order the unconditional release of the prisoner." The trial was resumed in Banda Aceh on 8 March with a heavy security presence to keep hundreds of supporters at bay.

"Hate-sowing" in West Papua

On 5 February this year, five local members in Wamena of the Papuan Presidium Council went on trial at the Wamena district court. They were arrested on 13 December last year, two months after the Wamena Tragedy and have been accused of "masterminding" the violence in Wamena on 6-7 October. The four men and one woman are: Rev. Obed Komba, Rev. Yudas Meage, Yafet Yelemaken, Murjono Murib, and Amelia Yigibalom.

Although all the evidence suggests that they had tried to calm down the angry crowds and halt the violence, they have been charged under the three "hate-sowing" articles, as well as under Article 106 which prescribes a maximum life sentence for attempting to commit "separatism" and under Article 110 which prescribes a sentence of up to six years for "conspiring to commit separatism". On 10 March, they were sentenced to between four and four and a half years.

Seventeen men also went on trial in Wamena for their alleged part in the violence on 6-7 October. Sixteen of the men, who are alleged to be members of the Papua Taskforce (Satgas Papua), faced charges under Article 214 which makes it an offence to use "violence or threats of violence towards a state official" in collusion with two or more persons, punishable by up to seven years. They also face charges for the illegal use or possession of firearms under an emergency law of 1951. The sixteen are: Yohakim Huby, Frans Huby, Heri Kosay, Hendrik Siep, Agus Sorabut, Jakson Itlay, Edi Marian, Timatus Kogoya, Pilius Wenda, Les Wenda, Atinus Wenda, Teri Wenda, Isak Wenda, Elius Wenda, Yoel Wenda and Yules Wenda.

The seventeenth man on trial is Sudirman Pagawak who is charged with "inciting" others to disobey a government order or break the law under Article 160 of the Criminal Code. On 10 March, the 17 men were found guilty and given sentences of between one year and nine months and three and a half years.

It goes without saying that the police authorities who ordered and/or took part in the operation to lower the West Papuan flag in violation of an agreement that had been reached three days earlier with the Papuan Presidum Council and caused the deaths of thirteen West Papuans are not facing any charges. Nor are the members of Brimob who violently attacked defenceless prisoners in their cells, while they were awaiting trial.

International observers denied entry

A request by the Australian branch of the International Commission of Jurists to send an observer team to attend the trials in Wamena was turned down by the Indonesian authorities. The mission was to have been headed by Justice Elizabeth Evatt. The ICJ's Australian branch has frequently sent observer missions to attend political trials in Indonesia but this is the first time ever that an observer mission has been rejected.

Amnesty condemns the trials

Amnesty International has strongly condemned the use of the "hate-sowing" articles in Aceh and West Papua. In a statement issued on 7 February 2001 in which it announced that the five Papua Presidium Council members in Wamena and Muhammad Nazar in Aceh had been granted recognition as prisoners of conscience, the organisation said: "In Aceh and Papua, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the current government and that of President Suharto. Agents of the state are resorting to the same tactics of intimidating, imprisoning, torturing and killing those suspected of opposing Jakarta's rule."

Five Presidium leaders await trial

The crackdown on the pro-independence movement in West Papua took yet another turn with the arrest of five senior members of the Papuan Presidium Council. Four of the leaders, Theys Eluay (Presidium chairman), Taha Al Hamid (Presidium secretary- general), John Mambor and Don Flassy were taken into police custody the day before 1 December 2001, the day on which the Presidium planned to hold events to mark the anniversary of the day in 1961 when the Dutch colonial authorities agreed to recognise the West Papuan flag and anthem and said they would make preparations for West Papuan independence.

Four days later a fifth Presidium Council leader, the Rev. Herman Awom, was also taken into custody. All five men still remain in custody but, as far as is known, no formal charges have been laid although it is believed that they will be charged under Article 106 for "rebellion" or "separatism". In December, they were transferred from police custody to Abepura prison.

Following their arrest, Gus Dur, as President Wahid is popularly known, several times called for their release but he was ignored. The deep disagreement between the president and his senior officers was aired very publicly with Gus Dur even lamenting the fact that top ministers and the national police chief had held a meeting and turned down his call for the men's release. (Jakarta Post, 9 December 2000) This is not the first time these men have been arrested to "await trial" but the cases against them fizzled out and no charges were laid. Sources close to the Presidium Council told TAPOL last year that this was because Gus Dur had ordered their release. It is a sign of the weakening position of Gus Dur and the major switch in Jakarta's policy towards West Papua that such orders from the president no longer hold sway.

Peaceful demo is now `treasonable'

Meanwhile in Jakarta, hundreds of West Papuan students held a demonstration on 1 December in support of calls for independence. The demonstration was organised by the National Front of West Papuan Student (in Exile), and students came from universities throughout Java. They made their way to the Dutch and US embassies and to the UNDP office in Jakarta to present petitions about their demands. They expressed full support for the Second Papuan Congress in Jayapura last June and called for the withdrawal of extra troops which were sent to West Papua in the months leading up to 1 December.

Towards midday they were assaulted by Brimob forces who laid into them with batons, tear gas and firearms. The students were forced to scatter when tear gas was fired. Two demonstrators were hit by rubber bullets fired by the police, one in the head, the other in the shoulder. Seven of the demonstrators were taken into custody. Three were released on the following day after being forced to reverse their support for the demands contained in the petitions.

The other four who refused to make any concessions about their views, went on trial in Jakarta on 15 March after having been subjected to constant racist abuse and humiliation by their captors, combined with a failure to treat serious medical conditions. The four students are: Laun Wenda, Yosep Wenda, Hans Gobay, and Mathius Rumbrapuk. They have all been adopted by Amnesty International as prisoners of conscience. After being held in police custody for two months, they were transferred to Salemba Prison, Jakarta on 31 January.

Mathius Rumbrapuk is suffering from a serious injury to his right leg as the result of being trampled on by one of the police officers during the demonstration. Yosep Wenda suffered a blow in the head from the police which has impaired the hearing in his right ear. In late February, Rubrapuk was taken to St Carolus Hospital for a check-up where doctors diagnosed him as suffering from severe depression, needing psychiatric treatment in addition to treatment for his leg wound.

The charges they are facing are very grave: "rebellion" and "separatism" under article 106 of the Criminal Code for which the maximum penalty is life, and charges under the "hate-sowing" articles. Why should people who took part in a peaceful demonstration be treated with such severity? For the answer, we should recall how effective East Timorese students studying in Indonesia were in alerting the diplomatic community in Jakarta and the wider international community about the situation in their country. West Papuan students in Indonesia are now being warned against indulging in such activities on behalf of their people.

Ex-minister accuses attorney general of unlawful arrest

Agence France-Presse - April 10, 2001

Jakarta -- A former Indonesian economics minister under ex- president Suharto on Tuesday took the attorney general's office to court for his alleged unlawful arrest and an illegal probe.

Lawyers of Ginanjar Kartasasmita, 60, who served in several cabinet posts under both Suharto and his successor B.J. Habibie, read out their pre-trial complaints to the South Jakarta court.

Kartasasmita's arrest on Friday, while he was in hospital, was unlawful as it was based on unlawful questioning, they said. "The questioning of Ginanjar Kartasasmita is unlawful and runs against the law because the authority to do so is held by the investigating team of the connectivity court at the central level," they said.

Also, as an active member of the military, Kartasasmita could only be arrested by a superior, the lawyers said.

Lawyers for the attorney general's office brushed aside the accusations as baseless or unwarranted. "The issue of questioning and the issue of detention while under hospital treatment are both matters not covered by the scope of a pre-trial case," they said.

They argued that the detention was legal as it was made under an arrest warrant issued by the deputy attorney general for special crimes dated March 23. The court session was suspended and was due to resume later Tuesday.

Prosecutors arrested Kartasasmita, a retired air force marshal, at Pertamina hospital in South Jakarta on suspicion of corruption linked to projects while he was the mines and energy minister. The arrest warrant was valid for 20 days and can be extended for another 30 days if warranted.

Kartasasmita has insisted he was innocent and said the arrest was politically motivated. Kartasasmita, now a deputy speaker of the national assembly, has been named a suspect in a case in the early 1990s involving PT Ustraindo Petro Gas, a company owned by one of Suharto's sons, Bambang Trihatmojo, and the state oil and gas monopoly, Pertamina. The scandal caused 24.8 million dollars in losses to the state, prosecutors said.

Investigators have said that while Kartasasmita was minister for mines and energy, Pertamina paid the costs of oil development incurred by Ustraindo in four oil fields, although the contracts required the company to cover them. The state lost 18 million dollars.

They also claimed that the terms of the government-company production sharing contract were changed in the company's favour, causing additional losses to the state.

Kartasasmita is credited with negotiating a massive 46-billion- dollar bailout with the IMF after Suharto's fall in 1998 when the Indonesian economy collapsed under the Asian financial crisis.

JSX bomb trial commences

Jakarta Post - April 10, 2001

Jakarta -- The trial of last year's bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) building, which claimed 10 lives, began on Monday at the South Jakarta District Court.

While many had suspected that political motives were behind the bombing, prosecutor Endang Rachwan told the court that Tengku Ismuhadi Jafar, 30, the owner of Krung Baro auto repair shop in Ciganjur, South Jakarta, and his employee, Nuryadin alias Nadin, 29, bombed the building on September 13, 2000, "to increase the dollar rate" against the rupiah.

Before exploding the bomb, Jafar had bought dollars worth Rp 176 million, the prosecutor said. At that time, the selling rate for dollars was less than 9,000, while today it is almost Rp 11,000.

The two defendants were accused of violating Article 1 paragraph 1 of Emergency Law No. 12/1951 for possessing and using ammunition or explosive material. The crime carries a maximum penalty of death and a minimum 20-year jail term.

The two defendants allegedly committed the crimes along with Ibrahim Amd, who escaped from jail in February; a member of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) Chief Corp. Ibrahim Hasan and member of the Army's Special Force (Kopassus) Chief Sgt. Irwan, who will be tried separately; as well as Sayed Mustofa, Tengku Rayang Rayang and Zulkifli, who are still at large, according to the indictment.

The defendants had appointed a team of 10 lawyers from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI), including Luhut Pangaribuan, who is also President Abdurrahman Wahid's lawyer.

The prosecutor said that the defendants met on September 8, 2000, to make a plan to blow up the JSX building on Jl. Sudirman, Central Jakarta.

"In the meeting, it was discussed that the building would be bombed on September 13, 2000, one day before former president Soeharto was scheduled to stand trial, so that people would suspect that the bombers were Soeharto's people," the prosecutor said.

The bomb assembled by Irwan and Ibrahim was made of 49 TNT bars and was put into the trunk of a Toyota Mark II, the prosecutor said.

On the designated day, at about 1 p.m. Irwan drove the car to the JSX building and called Jafar that he was on the way. Jafar and Ibrahim, who had expected their call, immediately went to BNI 46 bank in Pasar Minggu to withdraw cash amounting to Rp 175 million, and then exchanged it into dollars at the Bank Central Asia in Cilandak.

Meanwhile Irwan parked the car at the basement of JSX, set the timer, and then left for Plaza Senayan, where Jafar and Ibrahim were waiting. The bomb exploded at 3:20 p.m., killing 10 people, injuring 46 others, damaging 179 cars, and destroying parts of the building.

The incident was among a series of bombings which shocked the country last year, including the explosions at the Malaysian and Philippine embassies in Jakarta, and the Christmas bombings in the capital and several other towns. All incidents remain a mystery.

In the JSX building bombing, the police once connected the case with the separatist Free Aceh Movement as most suspects were Acehnese. Prosecutor Rachwan, however, mentioned nothing about the separatist movement.

Defendant Nuryadin said after the trial, presided over by judge Rusmandani Ahmad that the whole thing was construed by investigators. The trial will resume next Monday.

Meanwhile, the second session on Monday, in which Ibrahim and Irwan were supposed to be tried, was adjourned for a week as Irwan and the suspects' lawyers did not show up.

According to prosecutor Soejitno, Irwan refused to attend the trial because the situation in Cipinang Penitentiary has not been normal since last month's riot.

"We just found out about his refusal, so we were unable to anticipate it," he said, adding that they will force Irwan to attend the trial next week if he still refuses. Irwan's lawyer, Jonson Panjaitan, said he had not received the summons.

Former comfort woman continues quest for justice

Jakarta Post - April 8, 2001

Kusrini, Yogyakarta -- Steadfast and unyielding in the face of ordeals -- these are the two qualities one can find in Mardiyem, a former jugun ianfu, or comfort woman, a euphemism for a sex slave during the Japanese occupation.

Along with fellow former comfort women in Indonesia, she is fighting for their fate. In 1993, Momoye, as she is known endearingly to her friends meaning "flower", made headlines the world over because of the demand that she made on the Japanese.

Along with the Legal Aid Institute in Yogyakarta, which acts as her legal proxy, she has been fighting for the fate of Indonesian comfort women, most of whom live in pitiable misery and abject poverty.

With tears in her eyes, as she tries to control her emotion, and constantly puffing on a cigarette, Mak Ingun, which is how she is called at home, talks about what she has gone through in her life.

"I am in fact very ashamed and on the brink of despair as my struggle since 1993 for the Indonesian comfort women has yet to achieve any results. However, I am able to remain steadfast and refuse to back down from my struggle when I remember how many fellow comfort women are leading a miserable life. Some of them are blind or physically handicapped and others live in poverty as they no longer have anybody," she said, tears still welling up in her eyes.

It is her great hope that the former comfort women will have a better life. The Japanese government must ask for forgiveness for what the Japanese soldiers did in the past.

"Former comfort women have a terrible plight. Apart from undergoing mental suffering, many of them are now handicapped because they had been tortured by the Japanese soldiers whose beastly desires they had to satiate. The most effective medicine for us former comfort women, is an apology from the Japanese government. I have allowed myself to be exposed and bear all the consequent shame but why is it that my effort is yet to be fruitful?"

Today energetic Mak Ingun lives alone in Suryo Tarunan, Ngampilan, Yogyakarta. Although she has one child from her marriage to Amingun, she never wants to trouble her child. She busies herself every day in various activities at the office of the Legal Aid Institute Yogyakarta or visits her former fellow comfort women or, even, participates in activities with fellow villagers.

In her 3m-by-10m house, she lives alone. When morning comes, there is not much that she can do. After the dawn prayer, she cleans the house and the yard. She looks after her plants, most of them orchids, which fill her yard. She does not cook as she simply goes to the nearby food stall and eats there. "Well, I live alone, you know," she says, chuckling.

Twice or three times a week she spends the day at the office of the Legal Aid Institute of Yogyakarta. Then she takes part in arisan (tontine) and Koran verse reading, an activity which she believes would be an asset for her in the hereafter and helps to kill time.

Aged over 70, she still visits her former fellow comfort women, at least once a month. She gets around by bus.

When twilight comes and night falls, she feels lonely. The night feels too long as she has no friends to keep her company.

"I have neither a television nor radio receiver. I sold them both to survive. Yes, I still have a small old radio. I live on the soldier's pension of my husband, which is just enough to keep body and soul together. At night, I go straight to sleep. To dispel unnecessary nagging thoughts, especially memories of the gloomy past, I will chant a prayer until I fall asleep."

News & issues

City to eradicate hoodlums through major operation

Jakarta Post - April 14, 2001

Jakarta -- The city administration will launch an open-ended operation against some 1,300 hoodlums, locally known as preman, in the city's five mayoralties starting from Monday, Governor Sutiyoso said on Thursday.

"We have identified the hoodlums, including the places where they hang out," Sutiyoso told reporters after a coordinating meeting at City Hall.

Final preparations for the operation against the thugs were discussed at the meeting, which was also attended by Jakarta Military Commander Maj. Gen. Bibit Waluyo, Deputy Jakarta Police chief Brig. Gen. Makbul Padmanagara and Head of the Jakarta Prosecutors' Office Basrief Arief.

Sutiyoso said that not all of the hoodlums would be punished, citing that many would be monitored and possibly given jobs. But, he said any thugs found violating the law such as extorting money or assaulting people, would be punished. "The operation will begin at more or less the same time in the five mayoralties," he stated.

A city official said the administration, with the help of the police, had identified at least 19 leaders of the thugs who would be punished severely, citing the shoot-on-site order issued to police in respect of any of them trying to resist arrest.

The 19 bosses are believed to frequent 12 public places, including the Senen, Tanah Abang and Pasar Baru markets in Central Jakarta; the Kebayoran Lama and Blok M markets in South Jakarta; Tanjung Priok bus terminal in North Jakarta; Glodok market in West Jakarta; and Jatinegara market in East Jakarta.

Sutiyoso said the operation against the thugs would involve local residents, who would be deployed at several security posts, currently under construction in the markets and other business centers. "Some selected local residents will be involved in the operation," he said.

He stressed that the operations would be conducted regularly until there were no more thugs operating in the markets and other public places.

Outgoing Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Mulyono Sulaiman said last week that some 800 police officers would be deployed as part of the operation. They would be assisted by at least 1,900 civilian police auxiliaries (Banpol) employed by the city administration.

Sulaiman said the officers would not hesitate to act resolutely against the hoodlums, including shooting them if necessary.

Sutiyoso said not all of the officers would be deployed everyday during the operation. "We'll reduce the number of assigned officers if the activities of the thugs also decrease due to the operation," he said.

The governor has declared a war on the preman following brawls between Madurese people and native Jakarta (Betawi) people in the Kebayoran Lama and Tanah Abang markets last month, which claimed two lives.

Experts and activists, however, doubted the effectiveness of such an operation targeted at the hoodlums, saying that certain groups still used the hoodlums to protect their interests.

"Such an operation will be effective for a certain period of time. But in the future, they will emerge again as the root of the problem is poverty," criminologist Adrianus Meliala of the University of Indonesia said. Human rights activist Azaz Tigor Nainggolan said such operations could create communal clashes between migrants and local people.

Tigor, who has been fighting for the rights of street vendors in South Jakarta, said the administration was believed to have hired hoodlums to serve its own interests in the past. "Some preman in Jatinegara market are allowed to take levies from the vendors. They then pay the money over to the police, the mayoralty and the military," he said.

Police to hunt for weapons ahead of House session

Jakarta Post - April 14, 2001

Jakarta -- The Jakarta Police announced on Thursday they would take proactive measures to prevent violence in the streets when the House of Representatives meets on April 30 to discuss a second memorandum of censure against President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Jakarta Police deputy chief Brig. Gen. Makbul Padmanagara said some 7,600 officers would be deployed throughout the capital to sweep for weapons.

After meeting with Governor Sutiyoso at City Hall, Makbul said the main target of the operation would be people from outside the capital. "We will not target the people, but their sharp weapons," he added. He said officers would be deployed to many of the capital's entry points, such as railway stations and harbors.

Thousands of people from East Java have pledged to travel to the capital to support the embattled President, who could be handed a second memorandum of censure for his alleged role in two financial scandals.

A wave of demonstrations by supporters and critics of Abdurrahman rolled through the city prior to the House's first censure of the President on February 1.

Governor Sutiyoso said on Thursday the weapons searches would not only target people from East Java, which is Abdurrahman's stronghold, but also Jakarta residents. "The operation is meant to ensure there is not repeat of the May 1998 riots," Sutiyoso said.

Sutiyoso also said he had asked his East Java, Central Java and West Java counterparts to urge Abdurrahman's supporters not to travel to Jakarta.

Meanwhile, there were a number of small demonstrations in the capital on Thursday. More than 20 students from the Student Union of Indonesian Administration Association gathered in front of the Supreme Court on Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara in Central Jakarta. The demonstrators urged the court to dissolve the Golkar Party for its past crimes, and demanded that former president Soeharto and his cronies be put on trial.

The students spray painted graffiti on the front gate of the court and delivered speeches before dispersing at about 3 p.m., after handing a written statement to a representative of the court.

Earlier in the day, dozens of Acehnese activists gathered at the United States Embassy on Jl. Merdeka Selatan, also in Central Jakarta. The members of the Antiviolence Youth and Student Front demanded the US government mediate in the Aceh conflict.

The activists also urged the Free Aceh Movement and Indonesian security forces to "hold their fire". The demonstration proceeded peacefully under the watchful eyes of a number of police officers.

And members of the Bolaang Mongondow Potential Assessment Forum rallied in front of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Regional Autonomy to protest the shooting of seven people on Monday. The seven were shot when police moved in to end a demonstration against the election of Marlina Moha Siahaan as the regent of Bolaang Mongondow, North Sulawesi.

The group also demanded Minister of Home Affairs and Regional Autonomy Surjadi Soedirdja annul the election, though they did not say why they opposed the election of Marlina.

Loan to help Indonesia's poor cancelled

BBC News - April 13, 2001

The World Bank has cancelled a three-hundred million dollar loan to help Indonesia's poor. The bank said the Indonesian authorities had failed to meet all the conditions for the loan, which included carrying out public consultations to decide how the money should be spent.

A first payment of three-hundred million dollars to help the poor was released at the beginning of last year. The International Monetary Fund is now considering whether to go ahead with another multi-million dollar loan to Indonesia amid concerns that the country's government isn't pushing ahead with economic reforms.

Director of LBH Medan shot with arrow

Tempo - April 12, 2001

Jakarta -- At about 10.20am this morning, the Director of the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) in Medan, Irham Buana Nasution, was shot with an arrow while he was parking his car in the backyard of his office. The arrow was a 15 cm piece of iron, which stuck five cm into his leg.

At first, he didn't realize that he had been shot. Staff immediately brought him to Malahayati Hospital in Medan, where he was treated in the emergency ward.

Meanwhile, one of the Irham's relatives, Abdul Haris Nasution, told Tempo at the hospital that Irham recognized the perpetrator. After shooting Irham, his assailant got away by motor cycle followed by a car containing five passengers.

Some of the staff at LBH Medan said that the incident is related to Irham's recent statement about corruption practices in North Sumatra. "Irham Buana suggested that corruption emergency status should be imposed in North Sumatra," said Maya Manurung at the hospital.

At the time of reporting, Irham was still being treated in the hospital's emergency ward, where he was accompanied by reporters and security officials.

Anti-communist group urges to dissolve PRD

Detik - April 12, 2001

Khairul Ikhwan/HD & HY, Medan -- Around 5,000 people from the Anti-Communist Front Across Indonesia (Faksi) staged a rally at Benteng field, Medan, north Sumatra, Thursday. In the rally, attended by North Sumatra governor T Rizal Nurdin, they demanded the People's Democratic Party (PRD) be dissolved because it has legalised Marxism and Leninism in Indonesia.

They started their rally at 11am local time. They packed a Benteng field located on Jl Imam Bonjol, Medan, north Sumatra. They names the rally "Student Youth and Pupil Rally" coming from 42 youth organisations (OKP) such as Communication Forum of Indonesian Veterans' Children (FKPPI), Pancasila Youth including the Al-Washilyah Students Association (Himmah).

In their rally which ran until 12.15pm, they read their declaration containing seven demands to face those groups who, whether openly or in secret, want to have Marxism and Leninism legalised in Indonesia.

They also called for people not to be affected by the communist movement, and call for the government to resolve the economic crisis, and urge the government, security offices and law enforcers to dissolve the PRD and ban the political party.

In this rally, they also brought several banners. One banner read: "Dissolve PRD and its Cronies" and "No Place for Communists in Indonesia". This rally also commemorate 35 years of Indonesia Youth and Pupils Action Union '66 (KAPPI).

Stallholders forced to pay protection money to gangs

Straits Times - April 10, 2001

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta -- Mr Andi runs a small stall selling Muslim caps on the edge of one of Jakarta's most notorious markets, Tanah Abang. Every stallholder around him is forced to pay protection money to various preman gangs, who visit their stalls on a regular basis.

The gangs also fight for control of the markets, he said. At least two major gangs operate in the Tanah Abang area: a Betawi gang and a rival group formed by the Madurese.

The Betawi gang was far stronger and turf wars often led to deaths. "A body is dumped in the river down there at least every month," he said, pointing to the back of the market. Last week, two men were killed in a market brawl near here.

During the day, shop owners sell perfume, prayer mats and Muslim caps. At night, the district becomes a parade ground for prostitutes.

In the more upmarket area of Block M, Mr Agus, who sells pirated video-CDs, also complained of having to pay off competing gangs.

Gang members patrol the markets before moving over to the karaoke clubs, which are usually fronts for bars with prostitutes, he said.

Environment/health

World Bank warns Indonesia's richest habitats gone by 2010

Kyodo News - April 13, 2001

Jakarta -- The World Bank has warned that Indonesia's richest natural habitats could be completely obliterated by 2010 if significant measures are not taken to deal with the widespread degradation of the country's natural resources.

"Despite the dramatic increase in attention to biodiversity at the national level and among international donors over the past 10 years, natural habitats continue to be at risk throughout the country," the World Bank said in its most recent environmental report on Indonesia.

"The richest habitats, especially lowland forests outside protected areas, are likely to be completely cleared in Sumatra by 2005 and Kalimantan by 2010," according to the report, which is titled "Environment and Natural Resource Management in a Time of Transition."

The report, which was posted this week on the World Bank Web site, said areas rich in resources have been devastated by huge forest fires, made worse by indiscriminate clear-cutting, that frequently flare up in the country. The fires have caused forest loss rates in the chain of islands that are unprecedented in number and geographic scope, it said.

The latest forest-cover maps published by the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture show that at least 1.7 million hectares of forested areas were destroyed annually from 1985 to 1997, significantly more than earlier estimates of 0.6 million to 1.3 million hectares a year.

A presidential decree issued by former President Suharto that gave mining activities priority over all other land uses is another factor behind the environmental deterioration, the report said.

Indonesia experienced a mining boom in 1990s, bringing unprecedented prosperity to a small sector of the population. The boom, however, also resulted in hundreds or thousands of hectares at each mine site being "bombarded," increasing the chance of costly accidents, exacerbating flooding, and contaminating rivers with pollutants that can take centuries to biodegrade.

The bank also determined that the 1997-1998 Asian economic crisis was another contributing factor to the chaotic deforestation.

The 80% drop in the value of the Indonesian rupiah by early 1998 resulted in the collapse of industrial sector, leading policy- makers and households alike to turn back to their traditional economic base -- natural resources -- to survive. The result has been widespread exploitation.

The plunder of the country's already compromised resources was exacerbated by the central government's virtual loss of control over regional affairs following the fall of Suharto's 32-year regime in May 1998. "A system of virtually no control emerged, leading to an upward spiral of illegal logging and mining," the report said.

The introduction of the decentralization law, which reduced the control of the central government and shifted more power to regions, has created both risks and opportunities, according to the bank.

"It offers an opportunity to move toward more local participation in resource allocation decisions, greater accountability by regional governments, a refocusing of central agencies on policy and oversight, and, ultimately, more efficient and more sustainable use of natural resources," it said.

"However, decentralization also carries a substantial risk of accelerating environmental degradation in the near term, which could block realization of its long-term benefit," it added.

"The formidable combination of factors behind this risk include the lingering economic crisis, political uncertainty, local natural resource agencies that have historically lacked authority and funds, official corruption and a partial breakdown of law and order."

To overcome the myriad of problems, the World Bank urges that environmental safeguards, including monitoring systems, be strengthened to ensure the sustainability of the country's economic recovery.

"Regions, not the center, are the critical nexus where natural resource utilization and governance issues will intersect in the post-Suharto era," it said.

Significant public and private expenditure on mitigating and preventive measures is also required, though it is possible to improve natural resource management at minimal cost through education, said the bank.

Arms/armed forces

Wahid blasts US arms embargo, vows to get arms elsewhere

Associated Press - April 9, 2001

Jakarta -- President Abdurrahman Wahid blasted the United States Monday for its embargo on weapons sales to Indonesia and said the military would procure arms elsewhere to deal with the multiple crises threatening the country's unity.

"We should not give in to intimidation by anybody," Wahid said after attending the commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Indonesian Air Force. "We don't need to depend on one country," Wahid said. "We have to be able to carry out diversification of aircraft to defend our nation."

The Clinton administration froze military ties and weapons sales in the aftermath of a rampage by the Indonesian army in East Timor in 1999 when hundreds of people were killed and much of the territory devastated.

Indonesia's military brass said the ban had hampered its ability to deal with escalating separatist rebellions in Aceh and Irian Jaya provinces, a sectarian conflict in the Maluku islands, and intercommunal violence on Borneo island in which 500 people died in February.

Wahid's comments came just minutes after military commander Adm. Widodo Adisutjipto warned that a "multidimensional crisis" is threatening the unity of the sprawling Southeast Asian archipelago.

The United States has traditionally been Indonesia's main weapons supplier, and annual arms sales peaked at over $400 million in the early 1990s.

As well as facing rising communal violence and separatist conflicts, Indonesia is currently battling a crippling economic downturn and budgetary deficit blowout. Wahid did not say how his cash-strapped administration would be able to fund arms purchases.

Defense Minister Mohammad Mahfud said last month that Indonesia was trying to procure military equipment from nations whose governments did not object to its human rights record.

He said only two of the 26 US-built Hercules C-130 transports were airworthy during the bloodshed in Borneo because of a shortage of spare parts. This prevented the air force from flying in army and police reinforcements.

Washington has rejected Jakarta's criticism saying that the ban on spare parts sales was relaxed last year to allow the air force and navy -- which were not blamed for the bloodshed in Timor or other human rights abuses -- to purchase non-lethal equipment.

As if to illustrate the problems caused by the embargo, an air force aerobatic team comprising three different types of jets aircraft mounted a display of precision flying techniques during the ceremony held at a base outside Jakarta.

Air Marshall Hanafie Asnan said the 8-plane team -- consisting of two F-16 Fighting Falcons, five Hawk MK53 attack jets and a single Hawk-100 two-seat trainer and known as Jupiter Blue -- was unique in the world because other air forces used only a single type in their aerobatic squadrons.

Although the Hawks are produced in Britain, they use US-made communications and navigational equipment.

"We just witnessed, how the F-16s have been cannibalized from one squadron, leaving only two aircraft that can fly," Wahid said. "And those Hawks, those beautiful planes, are also facing a shortage of spare parts."

International solidarity

`Suffering continues' in Indonesia

Green Left Weekly - April 11, 2001

John Gauci Sydney -- On April 6, 140 people gathered in the Resistance Centre to hear speakers discuss the political crisis in Indonesia. The event was organised by Action in Solidarity

with Indonesia and East Timor. "In May 1998, Indonesian dictator Suharto was forced out but the tremendous suffering continues", said Max Lane, ASIET national chairperson told the meeting.

"The state apparatus is being used against the people of Aceh, West Papua and the Indonesian people themselves. The instruments of global capital are waging an all out attack on the Indonesian people through the policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank policy", Lane said.

Lane explained that these attacks are taking place on three fronts. Firstly, the forcing of the Indonesian government into further debt. Secondly, through trade "liberalisation", which "is causing disaster in Indonesia by ending restrictions on the import of things like rice and sugar". Farmers cannot afford to grow rice because of cheaper imports from the USA and Canada. The third attack is the privatisation of state-owned companies and the pricing of basic services so that they are unaffordable for the majority of people.

"What has made these attacks even worse is that they come on top of a 30 year dictatorship. The economic planning carried out by Suharto is better described as a planned rip-off", Lane said. "Education was wrecked during the Suharto period, and the process

of scientific inquiry smashed. The ideology permeating all sectors of society was one of self-enrichment in its most barbaric form. The rule of law was subordinated to maximise the elite's ability to enrich themselves."

Lane pointed out that there have been two responses from the elite to these attacks by the Western financial institutions. "The elite's main response is a desperate attempt to ensure that the government complies with IMF requests. Many of the elite say IMF requests are not being carried out rapidly enough. The second is to try to stave off mass revolt. Fuel price increases were restricted because of the government's fear of the masses' response if it fully implemented them."

The crisis has created an increasing loyalty to traditional leaders and a new rise in nationalism among the masses, such as in West Papua and Aceh. There is also an increase in the organisation of the labour movement and a growing opposition to Suharto's Golkar party and the remnants of the Suharto regime.

"The People's Democratic Party are demanding that the parliament be disbanded and new elections held. Building a mass movement to carry this out won't be easy. Establishing a people's power movement is essential to counter the right-wing forces", Lane said.

George Aditjondro, a lecturer at Newcastle University, also spoke. He told the meeting that "two opposing forces exist in Indonesia. Those opposing Wahid and those supporting Wahid. The real struggle is not to topple Wahid but for total reform. Suharto's three pillars of power remain intact. These are Golkar, the military and the Suharto oligarchy -- the 25 families that have siphoned off enormous wealth."

Aditjondro explained that "there is a multi-party competition for assets. They are building their war chests for campaigns. The anti-Wahid forces' real agenda is to create more space to seize assets. West Papua is a battleground to divide spoils amongst the major parties. Megawati's Sukarnoputri's party is competing for 6 million hectares of timber formerly controlled by Suharto." Both Lane and Aditjondro agreed that solidarity is needed in Australia for the Indonesia's democratic movement. The solidarity movement pressure needs to continue to campaign to force the Australian government to end its military ties with Indonesia.

International relations

US makes clear conditions to resume military ties

Indonesian Observer - April 12, 2001

Jakarta -- The US government, under President Bush has shown a renewed willingness to open the access for military equipment and military training to Indonesia as long as the Indonesian government commits to setting up and executing the trials in a professional manner, for those officers and leaders involved in murder, rape, torture, arson and gross human rights abuses in East Timor.

The Indonesian government has also been urged to pave the way for the repatriation of East Timorese refugees from Indonesias territory of West Timor, part of NTT province, to their homeland in East Timor.

In its press release, the US government admitted it was pressured to terminate most of the military service and equipment for Indonesia in 1999. The restriction was part of the limitation imposed on Indonesia by the liberal Clinton administration in the US government which is typically more cooperative with the International community, which called for sanctions after the East Timor slaughter.

The restriction was prompted by the massacre, looting and destruction that took place in September 1999 in East Timor which was orchestrated and planned months in advance by the highest ranking members of the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI), including General Wiranto and deposed Lt. General Prabowo.

Other Indonesian military groups, POLRI specifically, who was given the mandate by the UN to provide security, were uncooperative and unprofessional at best and actually participated in the violence and looting in some cases.

The US hopes there will be a positive and concrete response from the Indonesian government so that the two countries can re- establish military relations, US Ambassador Robert S. Gelbard said in the release. Which might possibly be diplomatic-eze for; we want the world to forget about human rights and law, so we can all re-start the business of making lots of money by buying and selling weapons to each other.

In 1999, the US Congress ratified a law especially designed to curb the access by the Indonesian government for military equipment and training. It also mentions the conditions that Indonesia must meet or exceed to re-establish the military relations.

The restriction -- called the Leahy Amendment -- requires Indonesia to show commitment by cooperating with the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) in the probe and trial of military leaders responsible for human rights abuses in East Timor.

If the Indonesian government can not meet the requirements, the US government, by law is not able to provide military equipment and training for Indonesia, he added.

In September last year, the US partially lifted its restriction on the purchase of spare parts for non-lethal military items such as the air transport plane, the Hercules C-130. The Hercules C- 130 aircraft has become important in the distribution of food supplies throughout the Indonesian archipelago.

Quickly after attending the commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Air Force, President Abdurrahman Wahid criticized the US for its embargo on weapons sales to Indonesia.

But what Wahid did not understand is that in the US there are laws, and Congress passed a law banning sales to Indonesia until certain conditions were met, so no amount of criticism or public opinion can actually change the laws by the US congress on this issue.

The bigger question may be; why does Wahid actually not know what the conditions are, and does the US have such poor communication with him that the embassy needs to tell him via the mass media just what the conditions are? Wahid then went on to urge military officials to procure arms elsewhere to deal with a threat to the countrys unity.

We should not give in to intimidation by anyone. We dont need to depend on one country. We have to be able to carry out the diversification of aircraft to defend our nation, he said.

Economy & investment

Black market aggravating crisis, ex-minister warns

Jakarta Post - April 14, 2001

Jakarta -- Black market activities over the past three years have contributed to the worsening of the economic crisis, former manpower minister Bomer Pasaribu said.

Bomer urged all parties to pay serious attention as the black market has grown robustly over the last three years.

He contended that awareness toward black market activities should be given equal priority as the focus on improving economic fundamentals, for the effects were almost equally as debilitating.

"Corruption, smuggling, illegal logging, narcotics and trade in bogus academic titles are just five of 12 illegal activities which are growing robustly in the reform era," he said here on Thursday.

The other seven were collusive and nepotistic practices, piracy in Indonesian waters, prostitution, the distribution of pornographic CDs and VCDs, bribery of the judiciary, money politics and gambling.

Bomer, also chairman of the Center for Labor and Development Studies (CLDS), said besides paying no taxes, these illicit businesses had affected the labor market and employment.

He said further that based on secondary data collected by CLDS, the prevalent black market was related to the continuing legal and political uncertainty, ineffective state institutions, especially the government and the legislature, and security instability.

"The black market during the New Order era reached only around 4 percent [of domestic economic activity] because strict law and order were maintained," he said, while estimating that currently the black market accounts for over one-third of domestic economic activity.

Bomer pointed out that the absence of stiff legal sanctions against corruptors had contributed to the rise of corruption to alarming levels.

"It isn't unexpected that several international institutions have ranked Indonesia second on the list of the most corrupt countries in the world," he said.

Bomer quipped that the government should build more prisons before applying a reversal of the burden of proof within the legal system. "If the new investigation system is enforced, half of the law enforcers could be jailed because of their alleged involvement."

Bomer further noted that according to data from the forestry and marine resources ministries, the government lost US$8.9 billion due to illegal logging and $12 billion from illegal fishing in 1999.

He further charged that Indonesia was now ranked fourth in the list of narcotics supplier countries in Asia and 10th in the world. "We can imagine the debilitating impact of the narcotics trade within the country over the next three decades if our younger generation consumes narcotics," he said.

He warned that Indonesia might be on the verge of losing a generation due to a combination of a weak education system caused by conflicts in numerous regions, the large number of refugees and the narcotics trade.

On the trade in phony academic titles, Bomer remarked that a doctorate could easily be obtained at a cost of between Rp 10 million to Rp 15 million.

"Numerous local and international educational institutions that have no official permit from the government are intensively offering various academic titles through media advertisements," he said.

There is an allegation that the practice has become so prolific that recently an academic institution also offered a fast-track PhD to Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri and Tresna Dermawan, chairman of the supervisory board of private universities in West Java.

Ronny R. Nitibhaskara, chairman of the supervisory board of private universities in Jakarta, conceded recently that numerous educational institutions had offered business management diplomas, masters and PhD programs without official permits from the relevant authorities.

IMF optimistic that discussions will run smoothly

Asia Pulse - April 12, 2001

Jakarta -- The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) director for the Asia-Pacific, Anoop Singh, is optimistic that the Fund's meeting with the Indonesian government to discuss the Letter of Intent (LOI) will run smoothly. "We have conducted good meetings," he told the press yesterday.

Singh is in Jakarta with the IMF team to review the implementation of the Indonesian government's economic reform program, and discuss the follow-up to the LOI assessment with Indonesia's economic team, led by Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Rizal Ramli on Wednesday.

The mission is also expected to pave the way for the disbursement of a US$400 million loan which has been suspended since last year.

The tranche is part of the US$5 billion loan pledged to the present administration, due to signs that the government's commitment to some important economic reforms is wavering, including the delay in the sale of government-owned shares in publicly-listed Bank Central Asia (BCA) and Bank Niaga.

Also at the meeting were Finance Minister Priyadi Praptosuhardjo, Cooperatives Minister Zarkasih Nur, Manpower and Transmigration Minister Al Hilal Hamdi, and Mines and Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro. Singh said the meeting is routine, similar to those in previous reviews.

Meanwhile, according to head of Indonesia's negotiating team, Dipo Alam, the IMF team will be here for two weeks. He said that during the first week, the team meeting will focus on the macro- economic budget and the fiscal budget, including the monetary problems of the central bank Bank Indonesia (BI), the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) and the privatization of state companies.

He noted that the government has asked that the discussion focus more on the LOI's basic agreement, which is the financial policy for economic recovery. The state budget deficit will be discussed in detail with the Finance Ministry, he added.

On Tuesday, Priyadi said the government is optimistic that the long-awaited meeting with the IMF mission to review its economic recovery program would run smoothly.

"I do not foresee any obstacle because we have fulfilled all the requirements agreed upon in the LOI with the IMF signed September 7 last year," he said.

Indonesia will not reach targeted growth rate for 2001: BI

Asia Pulse - April 12, 2001

Jakarta -- Indonesia is unlikely to reach its targeted 4.5 percent to 5 percent economic growth rate in 2001 on account of lower-than-expected economic activity and investment, deputy governor of Bank Indonesia Achjar Iljas predicted here Wednesday.

"Judging from current trends in economic activity and investment, the country's economy will grow at a rate of less than the 4.5 percent -- 5 percent projected at the beginning of the year," Iljas said.

He said the slower-than-projected growth would be caused by a number of factors, such as slow world economic growth, low oil prices, and the continuing suspension of natural gas production activities of ExxonMobil in Aceh.

"If the stoppage of gas production by ExxonMobil continues until the end of 2001, state finances are likely to come under heavy pressure as the shutdown will significantly reduce the state's income from the oil and gas sector," he said.

The country's economic performance in 2001 would be much better if the government was able to overcome its current big problems such as maintaining domestic socio-political and security stability and restoring its relations with the IMF.

"If the government is able to overcome security and political instability and an agreement can be reached with the IMF we may have better hopes for a speedy revival of economic activities," he said.

Achjar also said the country's inflation rate over the next three months would continue to climb. This was discernible from inflationary trends prevailing during the first three months of this year, developments in the rupiah's exchange rate and the government's pricing and income boosting policies, he said.

He said conditions would be helped if the government could stabilize its relations with the IMF. "Smooth relations with the IMF will increase our capapability to bring about foreign exchange sterilization," he said.

He said good relations with IMF would also ensure the availability of foreign exchange needed to service the country's foreign debt which would total US$800 million over the next nine months.

Jakarta deal curbs bank freedom

Straits Times - April 11, 2001

Robert Go, Jakarta -- Indonesia's Parliament and government are close to splitting control of the Central Bank and unravelling the bank's politically independent status, a move that is set to bring a head-on collision with the International Monetary Fund.

Well-placed sources, both within and outside of government, told The Straits Times that parliament and the administration have privately resolved their dispute over control of Bank Indonesia.

Legislators would also force the resignations of Bank Indonesia's current leadership once they finish revamping the country's central bank laws.

But the IMF, whose team landed in Jakarta on Tuesday to review the future of its stalled US$5 billion loan programme with Indonesia, has repeatedly warned that central bank independence is a crucial factor for future loans.

Analyst Umar Juoro, director of the Centre for Information and Development Studies, said: "Both parliament and the government are paying lip service to the idea of central bank independence." Concerns over the government's intentions regarding the Central Bank was one of the factors cited by the IMF for suspending a US$400 million installment to Jakarta last December.

And according to Mr Vasuki Shastry, an IMF spokesman in Washington, the fund's experts who begin talks with Indonesia's economic team today will still focus on how the government plans to resolve the central bank standoff.

Deputy Coordinating Economic Minister Dipo Alam told Satunet Online News yesterday that provisions forbidding interference in the banks operations had to be removed before parliament could revamp the laws to ensure better performance from the bank.

Indonesia desperately needs a good review from the visiting IMF team and a favourable decision from the IMF. On its own, each IMF loan installment of around US$400 million has little impact on the government's strapped coffers.

Indonesia's 2001 budget deficit is projected to reach over US$7 billion, its total sovereign debt extends to over US$134 billion, and servicing those debts will cost the country some US$8 billion, or around 31 per cent of government expenditure, this year.

Nonetheless, an IMF approval would trigger various debt- rescheduling deals Jakarta has signed with its creditors, as well as help revive the confidence of potential lenders and foreign investors in the country.

The process is far from over, but it appears that the government is gunning for control of Bank Indonesia, despite IMF warnings that it will not tolerate such a situation, said Mr Umar.