Democratic struggle

Anti-book burning rally at police headquarters

Tempo - May 15, 2001

Jakarta -- About 100 demonstrators from the Freedom of Speech and Thought Alliance (AKBB) held a rally at Police Headquarters today. The action was held to fight the threat of the Anti Communist Alliance (AAK), which has been burning 'communist' books.

The demonstrators attempted to meet police Chief Gen. Pol. Surojo Bimantoro and police spokesperson Ir. Gen. Didi Widayati, but the two officers were not at the office. The demonstrators demanded that the government and House of Representative (DPR) allow the intellectual life of the Indonesian nation to develop by preserving freedom of information.

They demanded that police take action against any violations that threaten people's security and asked people involved with book burning to stop their activities. They also asked publishers and writers not to be afraid to write, to publish or to sell such books.

One of the demonstrators, Frans Magnis Suseno, said that the practice of burning books is without reason. The threat of book 'sweepings' hampers people in obtaining information about various ways of thinking. Whilst his books were also burned, the German- born pastor said he was involved in the rally because it is important for the nation. According to Frans, a book is an intellectual expression that deserves an intellectual response. Another demonstrator, journalist Goenawan Mohamad, demanded that police support the banning of book sweeping. He expected police to guard bookstores. Goenawan firmly stated that book-burning is anti-democratic and anti intellectual.

One of the coordinators, Ratna Sarumpaet, considered that the statement made by the Jakarta Police Chief is ambivalent. The police chief said that he would not take action against the sweepings, but warned bookstores not to display books deemed to be communist. "Seemingly, the police do not understand what we are fighting for," she said.

Book-burning raids spark backlash

South China Morning Post - May 18, 2001

Vaudine England -- Days before a threatened sweep by radical Islamic groups against book stores alleged to be selling communist books, support for freedom of expression is gaining momentum in Indonesia.

President Abdurrahman Wahid has publicly joined demands by intellectuals and others for an end to threats to trash bookstores and burn books. He called for the perpetrators to be punished. "The President wants to make clear to the public that the subject he has discussed with [police chief General Surojo] Bimantoro, mainly concerning the book raids, must be stopped at once," said presidential spokesman Wimar Witoelar.

He said the Government was keen to see the distribution of all serious books in Indonesia, and believed that none should be discriminated against. "This means that those involved in the illegal destruction of books and bookstores, as well as threats to shop owners and authors, must be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law," said Mr Wimar, who himself is the author of Toward the Party of Ordinary People, a politically dubious work in some extremist's eyes.

A coalition of minority Islamic groups has already burned books about communism, Marxism and Leninism, and says it will purge the capital of such tracts in a sweep on Sunday, Indonesia's National Awakening Day.

"Such sweeps are unjustifiable," says Minister of Justice and Human Rights Baharuddin Lopa, and some publishing groups have followed suit. "Those who disapprove of certain publications should file lawsuits against the relevant publishers, instead of launching self-styled operations," said the Indonesian Publishers' Association chairman, Arsenal Harahap. "Such actions worry us as well as the general public," said Firdaus Umar, chairman of the Indonesian Bookstores Association.

A newly formed Alliance for Freedom to Think and Speak gained support from some parliamentarians this week. House Deputy Speaker Muhaimin Iskandar said the planned removal of leftist books was an anarchic action that ought to be stopped. Hundreds of students, joined by moderate Muslim groups, the scholar Franz Magnis Suseno and feminist Ratna Sarumpaet have been demonstrating against the resurgence of anti-communist hysteria. Learned works about communism by the anti-totalitarian thinker Suseno were among those targeted by the book-burners. Mob attacks on bookstores have occurred since April and are organised by recently formed anti-communist groups. These appear to be funded by the Golkar party and backed by military figures who want to show that a return to firm law and order is needed after the country's chaotic experiment with democracy.

Mr Wahid stresses that he has already ordered police chief Bimantoro to investigate the outrages. "But this new public order is aimed to highlight the Government's stance on how evil and embarrassing for Indonesia this destruction of intellectual literature is," he said.

Indonesia: PRD takes Suharto to court

Green Left Weekly - May 16, 2001

Max Lane -- While efforts by the state to mount a lawsuit against Indonesia's former dictator collapsed ignominiously last year, the PRD has succeeded in taking Suharto and 12 other generals to court for the unlawful arrest of its members in 1996. This is the only lawsuit now before a court in Indonesia which is exposing the human rights abuses of Suharto and his generals.

The lawsuit was mounted last July by the Partai Rakyat Demokratik (the People's Democratic Party, PRD) before the central Jakarta district court.

The PRD is suing Suharto and 12 other generals for the unlawful arrest of its members in the aftermath of the attack by soldiers and pro-regime thugs on the head office of the PDI, (the Indonesian Democratic Party) in central Jakarta in July 1996.

Despite challenges by the legal team of the accused, urging the court to refuse to allow the lawsuit to proceed, the court decided in late November to let the case go ahead and further hearings have taken place since.

The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid has failed as yet to prepare any case against Suharto for his crimes against humanity. In 2000, charges of corruption were laid against the former dictator but even these collapsed when the court was persuaded by a team of doctors that he was not fit to stand trial.

As for charges against members of the Suharto family, his son Tommy was charged with corruption, found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison but disappeared before the police had got around to arresting him and is still in hiding. Only one of Suharto's cronies, timber tycoon Bob Hassan, is now behind bars, serving a six-year sentence for malpractices with reforestation funds.

The PRD lawsuit is therefore unique as a serious effort to put Suharto on trial for human rights abuses. It is the first attempt from within civil society to hold Suharto to account for human rights violations and sets a precedent for future efforts to deal with the grave crimes of the dictator during his 32-year dictatorial regime.

The lawsuit takes as its starting point the violent onslaught in July 1996 against the head office in Jakarta of the PDI which was then controlled by the party's democratically elected leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri. Many people were killed during the attack.

In order to legitimise the attack, the PRD, which was openly supportive of Sukarnoputri, was chosen as the scapegoat because the regime feared that the party could upset Suharto's plans to be elected for a seventh term. A campaign of vilification against the PRD was launched, and it was accused of being the reincarnation of the PKI, the Indonesian Communist Party.

The lawsuit describes the actions of the security forces in arresting and terrorising members of the PRD in Jakarta, Bogor (West Java), Semarang, Ungaran, Solo and Yogyakarta (Central Java), Gresik, Wonokromo, Surabaya, Malang, Mojokerto and Blitar (East Java) and names 58 PRD activists who were arrested during August and September 1996. It describes the stage-managed trials of 13 PRD leaders who received heavy sentences, after being charged under the anti-subversion law.

Besides Suharto, those being sued include General Feisal Tanjung who was then commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Lieutenant- General Syarwan Hamid who was the military head of social and political affairs, Major-General Syamsir Siregar who was head of BIA, the armed forces intelligence agency, Lieutenant-General Dibyo Widodo who was Indonesia's chief of police, Major-General Zacky Anwar Makarim, a director of BIA, Major-General Sutiyoso who was Jakarta military commander (he is now the governor of Jakarta), as well as the minister of justice, the attorney general and the minister of the interior.

The lawsuit is seeking a decision by the court to order the return of confiscated PRD property and documents which were seized unlawfully. The PRD makes a claim for compensation of 516 million rupiah, along with punitive damages of five billion rupiahs, about US$500,000.

Speaking after the first hearing of the case in August, PRD chairperson Budiman Sudjatmiko said: "We want to say that no-one who has committed crimes in the past can escape the law".

Witnesses called by the plaintiffs include several members of the PRD, a member of the PDI and the father of the PRD chairperson.

Sandra Fertasari is a member of the PDI who was a witness to the attack on the head office. She told the court that members of the security forces did indeed take part in the assault; she herself saw that before taking part, they took off their uniforms and put on T-shirts to conceal their true identity. She was later taken into police custody where she was sexually harassed.

Father Sandyawan, a Jesuit priest who gave several PRD leaders sanctuary when they were being sought by the army, told the court about the "shoot-to-kill" order for activists issued by the Jakarta military commander, Major-Gencral Sutiyoso, and the allegation by General Syarwan Hamid that the PRD was a communist organisation.

Father Sandyawan, who then headed the Jakarta Social Institute, was a member of a team which conducted an investigation into the attack on the PDI office.

Budiman's father, H Wartono Karya Utomo, told the court that he and his family had been subjected to terror and intimidation by members of the security forces while his son was being hounded.

His home in Bogor was raided by the army and he himself was accused of being a member of the outlawed PKI, which was a complete fabrication. This allegation led to his being sacked from his job at the Goodyear factory.

Protesters besiege Ginandjar's house

Indonesian Observer - May 17, 2001

Jakarta -- Nearly 1,000 protesters yesterday staged a demonstration at the house of Ginandjar Kartasasmita a former minister declared a suspect in a corruption case who was released from the Attorney Generals Office (AGO) after the court ruled that the detention was illegal.

The protesters consisted of several anti-corruption groups who came to Ginandjars house at the state officials compound on Jl. Widya Chandra, South Jakarta, in dozens of buses. The protesters slammed Ginandjar, urging the authorities to arrest him again.

Ginandjar was accused of being involved in corruption in a technical assistance contract between the state-run oil company Pertamina and PT Ustraindo Petro Gas (PT UPG) during his tenure as mining and energy minister in the early 1990s.

Ginandjar held key positions, both during the administration of former President Soeharto and his successor B.J. Habibie. In the Habibie administration, he held the position of chief economics minister.

The protest, which took place was under tight police watch, proceded peacefully. Three trucks full of anti-riot police from the Jakarta Metropolitan Police Headquarters were sent to Ginandjars house. He is now a deputy speaker of the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR), the couuntrys highest legislative body.

The protesters called themselves as the Anti-Corruption People Movement (GERAK) and consisted of several groups, namely the Islamic Students Family, Action Committee of Students, Youth Alliance from Sukabumi in West Java, Bogor Peoples Alliance, Purwakarta Peoples Forum, and Youth Movement.

It was reported previously that Ginandjar had met secretly with Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri after he was released from the AGO jail. The meeting was confirmed by Ginandjar lawyer Muchyar Yara,who said that the meeting was held last Saturday. Yes, Mr. Ginandjar was received by Mrs. Megawati for quite a long time, he said. He denied that during the meeting Ginandjar sought help from the vice president to resolve his case.

Student rally turns violent, two injured and three missing

Jakarta Post - May 15, 2001

Jakarta -- A rally by students demanding the dissolution of the former ruling Golkar Party turned violent on Monday when demonstrators clashed with police in front of the Ministry of Defense, leaving two students injured and three others missing.

The violence continued when the police chased the demonstrators, riding in minibuses, to Jl. Kyai Tapa in West Jakarta, according to student activist Masinton of the Indonesian Fighters Youth Forum (FPPI).

The students took shelter on the nearby campus of the College of Management and Computer Science. The demonstrators, helped by locals, then proceeded to search for vehicles belonging to the military and police, burning one police motorcycle.

West Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Iwan N. Ismet confirmed the destroyed motorcycle belonged to the West Jakarta Police, which deployed six motorcycle officers to Jl. Kyai Tapa.

"The students attacked one military officer who was walking on the street. The police fired tear gas to stop the action," Iwan told The Jakarta Post and Metro TV at his office.

"The students who were on the campus then ran out and attacked the police. One of the six motorcycle officers fell and the students burned his motorcycle," Iwan said.

A crowd of about 3,000 people gathered at the scene, creating a massive traffic jam and making the situation more chaotic, according to the officer.

To restore order and disperse the crowd, two companies of police officers, including 80 personnel from the West Jakarta Police, were deployed to the scene. By 6:30 p.m. the situation had returned to normal. Iwan said no arrests were made, but he vowed to investigate the incident to discover who was responsible for the attacks on the officers.

The demonstration began peacefully when hundreds of students in 15 minibuses arrived in front of the House of Representatives in Central Jakarta at about noon.

The demonstrators came from FPPI, the Jakarta Student Association, the City Front (Forkot), the Trisakti Student Action Forum and the Pancasila Student Movement for Reform.

The students demanded the dissolution of the Golkar Party and the establishment of a tribunal for Indonesian generals suspected of committing human rights violations. The students left the House for the Ministry of Defense at about 2:30 p.m.

The demonstrators, barred from entering the ministry, held a free speech forum on the street in front of the ministry. As the students were preparing to depart, two trucks transporting police officers passed the scene. "We became involved in a war of words. The police got angry and started hitting the windows of our busses, injuring two students," Masinton said.

He identified the injured students as Andi Baylo and Rizal, both students of Trisakti University. They were taken to Pertamina General Hospital in Cempaka Putih, East Jakarta, for treatment.

When the police fired tear gas, the students got onto the minibuses and fled along Jl. Harmony to Jl. Roxy and then to Jl. Kyai Tapa, with the police pursuing them.

"We were angry so, with the help of locals who sympathized with us, we started to search for military and police vehicles passing along the street," Masinton said, admitting that the students were responsible for burning the police motorcycle.

Masinton said three students went missing in the melee. He identified the three as Agung of Satyanegara University and Nabil and Doly of Trisakti University.

Suharto is gone, but where are the reforms?

Straits Times - May 14, 2001

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta -- Three years after the shooting of four student protesters from the elite Trisakti University which sparked days of rioting and led to the downfall of ex-President Suharto, the course of Indonesian reform history remains unchanged.

General Wiranto's promise to find out who was responsible for the May 12, 1998 shooting of the students, and to bring at least one military officer to court, is still unfulfilled even after two parliamentary probes.

Fellow Trisakti students such as Mr Usman said the student leaders of the reform movement had been sacrificed in vain. "There have been no significant changes in Indonesia if we look at the student demands at that time," he said. Mr Usman is now campaigning for a legal inquiry into the shootings.

He cites a long list of reasons: the failure of the new government to remove the military's role from politics, last year's amendment to the Constitution which effectively grants immunity for past human rights abuses and the almost total failure to prosecute former President Suharto and his cronies for numerous cases of corruption.

However, relatives of the slain students say the deaths sparked the first steps towards reforms. "It gave a space for total reform, for the reform of the executive and legislative organisations," Mr Subaneng Rustriantono, the uncle of slain student Hendriawan Sie, said.

But, as many students admit, the achievements of the student movement have been modest since those heady days of 1998 -- mainly because the students' definition of reformasi was too vague or too varied.

"We thought before that once Suharto stepped down everything would be better. Now there's a lot of small Suhartos and we know that we have to get rid of not just him but the system," Mr Pranowo Adi, a University of Indonesia student, said.

Both Mr Pranowo and Mr Usman said the student movement was losing its role as a moral force. "We have no common enemies now. Some student elements are very different, some want Gus Dur to resign but others are not pro or contra," says Mr Usman.

As Mr Ed Aspinall, an Australian academic who studies student movements, pointed out, such movements around the world are generally temporary and sporadic and do not last more than one or two years. After that, students just move on, he said.

But Mr Billy Indriaysiah, a former student activist who became involved in election education, argued that the student movement had simply diversified and moved on. It was looking at other ways of changing the political landscape, he said.

He added that students who had joined non-government election monitoring groups had organised a massive education campaign across Indonesia. But these kind of campaigns only bring about gradual changes and not spectacular ones.

Students like him who have joined other non-governmental groups are now focusing on educating people about the role of the Consultative Assembly and the Parliament, the Constitution amendment and land reform.

Mr Supardian from Sylva, a student group at West Kalimantan's main university, said issues such as the trial of Mr Suharto no longer interested him. Instead, he and his fellow student activists try to draw attention to local issues, especially corruption. Sylva has gained a reputation as one of the most effective and dynamic student groups in Kalimantan, through its fight against the timber industry.

Hundreds rally to mark Indonesia student slayings

Reuters - May 14, 2001

Jakarta -- Hundreds of Indonesian students rallied in the streets of the capital on Saturday to mark the third anniversary of the slaying of four students that triggered rioting which helped topple former strongman Suharto.

There were no immediate reports of trouble. Students clashed violently with police during last year's anniversary and there are fears of more trouble this year.

The May 12, 1998, deaths of four students -- which many blame on the army -- triggered widespread rioting that killed more than 1,200 and helped lead to Suharto's downfall nine days later, ending three decades of military-backed rule.

East Timor

Military skeptical that 95% Timorese to become Indonesian

Indonesian Observer - May 19, 2001

Jakarta -- An Indonesian military leader yesterday in Kupang, West Nusa Tenggara (NTT), expressed doubt that 95% of the East Timorese refugees in East Nusa Tenggara would opt to stay.

I dont believe that 95% of the East Timorese refugees will opt to stay in Indonesia, said Major General Willem T da Costa, commander of the Bali-based Udayana regional military command which oversees NTT province.

Da Costa was commenting on a statement made by Filomeno de Jesus Hornay, a former militiaman and now head of the newly-formed group, the Union of Timor Aswain, a brotherhood of East Timorese in exile.

Filomeno predicted that 95% of the 50,000 remaining East Timorese refugees would opt to remain here as Indonesian citizens when the registration is held on June 6, 2001. According to Filomeno, the refugees would prefer to stay in Indonesia rather than be treated inhumanely if they return to East Timor, where he believes the security situation has not improved after two years under the United Nations supervision.

Filomeno has not been back to East Timor since he and his fellow militiamen were run off by the Australian army in September 1999, and does not in any way officially represent the refugees, East Timor, the UN or Indonesia.

How did he come to that conclusion? Has he carried out some kind of survey in the refugee camps? He should not have babbled. I dont like it, da Costa said. The military commander asserted that the prediction might be a form of provocation to pressure the refugees into making their option during the registration.

During the one-day registration, the refugees will be given only two options to choose from: return to East Timor, or stay in Indonesia as Indonesian citizens.

Da Costa pointed out that anyone trying to intimidate the refugees in making their choice would be dealt with firmly by the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI). We (in TNI) are not going to tolerate anyone trying to obstruct the proper implementation of the registration, he said.

On the occasion, da Costa also accused the East Timorese elite of only discussing among them the interests of their political groups, but never paying any attention to the plight of East Timorese living in the refugee camps. Yet, they have always spoken on behalf of the refugees. In reality, have they ever helped feed the refugees? They speak and speak, but only about their group interests, he lashed out.

The parties are preparing for the election that will facilitate full independence for the territory, as the worlds newest nation, which was previously occupied by Portugal and later Indonesia.

The refugee issue has become a major international headache for Indonesia. A lot of pressure from governments, human rights groups, international donors and the UN has been applied at various times on the Indonesian government and military to handle the situation in a professional manner.

Many UN and human rights experts who have worked with the refugees accuse the military-backed militia of intimidating the refugees and oppressing them and controlling the camps.

The refugees themselves at one time numbered as many as 250,000 most of whom were forced at gunpoint to leave their homeland. Roughly 200,000 have returned over the last 18 months assisted by the UNHCR. UNHCRs work has been seriously hampered since September 2000, when 3 of its members were murdered while working with the refugees, and the subsequent evacuation of all staff. The six murderers were convicted earlier this month in a Jakarta court, and received sentences of between 10 and 20 months in jail.

Indonesia agrees to pay pensions to former Timor public servants

Sydney Morning Herald - May 19, 2001 (abridged)

Mark Dodd, Dili -- In a breakthrough for relations between East Timor and its former ruler, Jakarta has finally agreed to settle the issue of pension payments to East Timorese who worked for the Indonesian government during its 24-year occupation.

The United Nations mission in East Timor yesterday said the key compromise was reached during bilateral talks held between senior Indonesian government officials and their counterparts from the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) on Bali last Wednesday.

In a briefing to journalists, deputy director of UNTAET's political affairs department, Mr Andrew Whitley, described the meeting as one of the most productive held so far with Jakarta.

He said Indonesia had also formally invited UNTAET to join with 33 other international observers to monitor the June 6 census of refugees in Indonesian-controlled West Timor, when refugees will be asked whether they want to stay in Indonesia or return home to East Timor.

Mr Whitley said that so far Indonesia had agreed to pay 772 former public servants out of a list of 3,400 provided by UNTAET. "We believe there is a strong case for Indonesia to accept the majority of names we have submitted," he said.

Jakarta suspended pension payments to its former public servants after the bloodshed that followed the UN-organised referendum for self-determination held on August 30, 1999.

Rupiahs must be changed for American dollars

Timor Post - May 17, 2001

The withdrawal of Indonesian rupiahs from Timor Lorosae was a good step because it would prevent confusion in currency usage in the country. But UNTAET and the government of Indonesia must immediately convert rupiahs circulating in the country to US dollars.

This was stated yesterday by Avelino Coelho, the National Council member from the Timor Socialiast Party (PST). According to Avelino, the Transitional Administration must explain to the people the withdrawal of rupiahs from circulation.

He also added that banks in the country must be able to convert the rupiahs into US dollars. "If banks in Dili do the conversion, people will be making their way there to sell their rupiahs," he said.

Hope for Timor Gap agreement

Financial Times (London) - May 17, 2001

Virginia Marsh and Tom Mccawley -- Australia and East Timor are edging towards agreement on a critical new treaty to govern the Timor Gap, paving the way for development of the substantial gas deposits in the resource-rich waters that divide the two neighbours. Speedy conclusion of the treaty is vital for East Timor -- which in late 1999 voted to secede from Indonesia -- because revenues from the developments will provide the impoverished new state with its main source of income.

Based on exploration to date, the Timor Gap fields contain 500m barrels of oil equivalent, worth some US Dollars 17bn (Pounds 12bn) at today's prices.

East Timor has a budget this year of US Dollars 60m, is entirely reliant on foreign aid and is being run by a United Nations-led transition government (Untaet) ahead of elections for a national assembly due later this year.

Negotiations on a new treaty began eight months ago and there has been concern among oil companies working in the region over delays in reaching agreement. But Peter Galbraith, Untaet minister for political affairs and East Timor's chief negotiator in the talks, said in an interview yesterday there had been "substantial progress" in the negotiations.

Australian officials added that further talks were due to take place in Dili, the East Timorese capital, next week.

After initially proposing to split revenues on a 60:40 basis, Australia is now believed to be offering the state an 85 per cent share. East Timor, however, is holding out for 90 per cent.

"If we had applied international law, we would have won 100 per cent of the revenues," said Mari Alkatiri, a senior East Timorese official involved in the talks. "We are negotiating to maintain a good relationship."

Australia has been under pressure to give East Timor a far greater share of the revenues to help the former Portuguese colony become a viable, independent state.

Depending on the outcome of the negotiations -- which also cover sea boundaries -- Untaet expects the fields to generate USDollars 100m-USDollars 500m in annual revenues a year, transforming East Timor's economic prospects.

Gross domestic product in the territory is about USDollars 250 per capita with most of its population living on subsistence farming. The two sides are under pressure to agree a framework for the treaty by early July to enable development of Bayu-Undan, the first field, to proceed.

Phillips Petroleum, the US group that operates the field where production is set to begin in late 2003, has a July deadline to give the go-ahead for construction of a 500km pipeline to Darwin. It also needs to finalise cornerstone supply contracts in the coming three months, including a deal worth up to ADollars 7bn (Pounds 2.6bn) to supply liquefied natural gas from the Timor Sea to El Paso, the US energy group, mainly for use in California.

"This is not a new deadline. It was known nine months ago," said Jim Godlove, the company's Darwin area manager. "The entire set of gas export contracts could be jeopardised [if the treaty is not agreed in time]."

See no evil

SBS Dateline - May 16, 2001

Mark Davis -- In September 1999, the Australian Army stepped into the carnage of East Timor as the lead contributor in the international force INTERFET. Supposedly, they were there to contain the militias and the fearsome militias proved remarkably easy to contain, Displaying none of their previous bravery, bravado or organisational skills.

The Australian soldiers had no doubt about who their real enemy was, even if it was never publicly stated. Military intelligence officer Captain Andrew Plunkett arrived with the first battalion to secure Dili. When he landed at the Dili wharf, the Indonesian Army the TNI, were still rampaging throughout the city, still forcing Timorese onto boats headed for Indonesia.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: In the initial week or so, it was just a ghost town and the few people that were here were pretty well terrified of the militia and the TNI that still remained here.

Initially, he was one of a team of intelligence officers investigating the killings in Dili and plotting the movements of the retreating Indonesian Army. Then, the absence of civilians in Dili wasn't surprising. What was, was the absence of the dead. Given the extent of the carnage and destruction, there were relatively few bodies found.

As INTERFET began to secure the country, the media began commenting upon the absence of large numbers of corpses that perhaps mass killings hadn't occurred, perhaps sending in troops was an overreaction. Some even suggested that TNI was due an apology.

Perhaps more than any other officer in East Timor, Captain Plunkett knows where the bodies went, how fastidiously the TNI cleaned up behind themselves, and how that information was withheld from the public and the international community. An act which assisted Indonesian figures evading justice and Plunkett doesn't want to wait 20 years for the truth to come out.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: The whole thing was designed with maximum deniability. You know, bodies disposed of out at sea, not in land-locked graves, you know. Dumping them in billabongs to decay, dropping them down wells and covering over the wells. The whole thing ... It was the mistakes that led us to some of the bigger killings like down in Oecussi, where they thought they were probably in West Timor.

After securing Dili, Captain Plunkett and his unit deployed further west, where he was in charge of intelligence and investigations in two of the most devastated districts in East Timor. Andrew Plunkett's unit uncovered more bodies than any other group in the country. He investigated hundreds of killings and found about 80 corpses, some simply shot, most of them hacked, mutilated and tortured.

Based on eyewitness accounts, forensic evidence he gathered and the full utilisation of intelligence assets at his disposal, Captain Plunkett maintains that the bodies he found are a mere fraction of those killed in his area. The evidence also reveals the direct hand of Indonesian forces in the killings and in body disposal. Critical information that never became public because Plunkett maintains he and others were ordered to suppress it.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: We were actually told from our chain of command to go soft on the massacres, and soft on body disposal by the Indonesian military. So, yeah, there was some pretty upset people in the headquarters, where basically they're told to go quiet, in effect as well, soft on what had happened around here. It was explained to me afterwards, but it didn't sit well with me at all while we were here in Maliana, or for the remaining three months that we were in East Timor.

Did such a message come from the Australian Government, or from your department?

No.

Reading the graffiti on the walls was depressing enough, but in this room here along with the burnt out furniture in the corner, were the remains of a child's bones. Here at the Maliana Police Station, there were hundreds of witnesses to the massacre of 47 independence supporters by militias and Indonesian forces. Witnesses to the bodies being loaded onto trucks and driven away to be dumped at sea.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: We found numerous sites where they'd gunned them down.

Forensic evidence pointing to the massacre and the involvement of the military. But only one killing here was added to the official death toll -- a small child found buried in the rubble. There was clear evidence indicating that a large massacre had occurred. Eight bodies were found in the fields around Maliana, with evidence of more. Plunkett and his unit knew that at least 59 people had been killed in and around the police station, but only nine of them were reported to the media, without further comment. As Australian INTERFET forces fanned out into the villages behind Maliana, dozens more executions were unveiled. Again, with eyewitnesses and supporting forensic evidence. But because the bodies were removed by their killers, no comments were made either by Australian or UN spokespeople about the deaths themselves, or the body disposal. Today, UN investigators privately acknowledge what Plunkett has claimed -- that up to 300 people were killed around Maliana. The public record acknowledged only nine of them -- a massive understatement that had a key impact on international judgments then and now.

Captain Andrew Plunkett (speaking to villagers): Does he know anyone that was here in October/November 1999?

Captain Plunkett has returned to East Timor to retrace the evidence that he and his troops gathered almost two years ago, evidence he believes is still gathering dust in Australia.

Captain Andrew Plunkett (Sitting in a cafi, speaking with Cornelio): We found burnt bodies, bodies dumped out at sea.

Cornelio: He kill at the moment. My brother.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: And what was the Indonesian military doing during this killing?

Cornelio: They instruct to the militias, or part of them ... I mean TNI, or Indonesian Army -- most of them are doing that.

Plunkett now fears that his work and that of his unit earned the trust given to them by brave informants has been abused, that the public account of the evidence he gathered has been grossly understated, both in the number killed and the depth of involvement of Indonesian forces.

Captain Andrew Plunkett (speaking to Cornelio): It was just a clear police-military operation -- the killing?

Cornelio: They, most of them, they were directly killing the people, not others.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: And organised it?

Cornelio: They are the protagonists.

The key details of his investigation were, under orders, never made public.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: I want to make quite clear -- it wasn't from General Cosgrove and it wasn't from the military mission here that decided that policy. We had a Department of Department of Foreign Affairs rep in Dili and we were getting political advice directly from Canberra, and not necessarily from politicians, but certainly from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

After a month in Maliana, Plunkett's battalion 3RAR, was shifted to secure the Oecussi district. Oecussi was the last area in East Timor to be liberated and the people came forward to Plunkett with eyewitness accounts and evidence of atrocities. They claimed that suspected independence supporters had been rounded up and shackled by Indonesian police and soldiers who then called in the militias to hack them to death. This man was lucky enough to escape.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: It was like a carbon copy of Maliana, but instead of the bodies being disposed of out at sea and us not being able to reclaim them, we had them all in a mass grave.

The grave, containing 52 bodies, was found in a disputed border region which the retreating TNI believed to be on the Indonesian side. Fortunately for Plunkett, it was just inside East Timor and it was discovered on the very eve of a ministerial media visit. Australian Defence Minister John Moore was scheduled to meet the troops in Oecussi just prior to Christmas, with a camera crew in tow. Plunkett's job was to provide a briefing to Moore and the assembled media -- a normally mundane affair -- but this time Captain Plunkett livened up events.

In an address that would later earn him a rebuke, he gave in great detail a frank description of the deaths.

Captain Andrew Plunkett (footage from briefing): We've got reports up to 52 buried right here. They rounded them up, put them on the back of a truck and they murdered them, according to witnesses, down here and along the road. The people responsible for murdering them and burying them made a mistake, in that they probably thought they were in West Timor, because of the closeness of the location.

The attempted flight to the border to bury the bodies confirmed other information that he'd received, that more dead would be found on the Indonesian side of the border, successfully hidden across the dividing line. The implication was clear and uncomfortable.

John Moore, Australian Defence Minister: They're not confirmed at this point.

Reporter: But if they are confirmed?

John Moore: There's no doubt about it, that what's happened here in East Timor and on the enclave is reprehensible. There's no doubt about that. But this is a matter for the United Nations.

From the very beginning, the message to Australian troops in East Timor was clear. The first words of the first page of their East Timor Handbook spelt it out.

"Our defence relationship with Indonesia is our most important in the region and a key element in Australia's approach to regional defence engagement." And it was a message further reinforced during their mission.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: Halfway through the operation here in Maliana, around October-November, things had changed strategically. There was a new Government, a new Wahid Government and the position was ... in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was "We don't want our long-term relationship with Indonesian affected by a war crimes tribunal." That was how it was explained to me back in Australia. "Cause I was still pretty pissed off by the whole bloody, ah, by the whole thing."

The final months of 1999 were critical ones, informing international opinion on how to respond to Indonesian atrocities in East Timor. The cumulative effect of Australian and UN silence on the full extent of the carnage and the direct involvement of the Indonesian forces took the steam out of the call for an international war crimes tribunal.

(At a forest exhumation): What's your estimate of the number of graves like this that there will be in Liquica?

UN Civpol Official: I know probably how many graves there are in Liquica, but under the UN sanction, I'm afraid I'm not allowed to tell you that.

By commenting only on information relating to retrieved bodies, INTERFET and the UN administration sustained the belief that only a few hundred were killed, when it's more likely to be closer to 2000 and climbing. In this state of disinformation, the UN agreed that any prosecution of Indonesian rogue elements would be left to the Indonesian Government, assisted by a UN investigation team in East Timor -- a farce which continues to this day.

At the same time as the face-saving deal was being struck with Indonesia, the known death toll was rising daily. But the Timorese were convinced by the UN that justice would soon follow. Their faith and their restraint was remarkable.

This woman, (crying as she watches), at the end of 1999, is about to discover how her husband, the local schoolteacher, was killed. Remarkably, the commander of the militia unit who captured him on the orders of the TNI dragged him into this forest and then at the very least, stood by as he was hacked to death, is in this crowd watching the exhumation. The dead man's uncle, the local leader of the independence group CNRT, knows that the man is here.

Uncle of dead schoolteacher (Translation): Some of them have come back and are sorry. Others are in hiding.

But he's been persuaded by the UN police to say and do nothing. International justice has now arrived to take over.

Uncle of dead schoolteacher (translation): We at the CNRT can do nothing. The international police, CIVPOL, are the ones who can take action. They are the ones who can ask the questions. The international community will investigate.

These people have been duped. Legal retribution is no closer than it was when Indonesia left here nearly two years ago. It's still unlikely that any prosecutions within Indonesia will proceed and even less likely that there'll be any convictions. The UN investigation unit in East Timor is reportedly in disarray and still struggling to find evidence. And the political will to push for an international war crimes tribunal has largely evaporated. But no-one has yet told these children that dead fathers are best forgotten.

When you say you were advised to go soft on the information you were gathering, did that also involve going soft on the investigation itself, on gathering information on TNI involvement?

Captain Andrew Plunkett: No, it didn't.

So this information was gathered?

Captain Andrew Plunkett: It was gathered.

So is Australia holding information today that could lead to the conviction of Indonesian Army figures?

Captain Andrew Plunkett: Definitely.

And is that being handed over as far as you're aware?

Captain Andrew Plunkett: Not at the moment, no.

Alexander Downer, Foreign Minister: The Attorney-General of Indonesia Marzuki Darusman was very enthusiastic about following up on those things and we indeed did have some conversations with the Indonesians about the violence that had taken place and what we knew about it.

Australia hasn't exactly been vocal in calling for international war tribunals or any forms of prosecution of military figures. It's been silent on this, largely.

Alexander Downer: Well, you can ask, again, is this ... I mean how immoral do you think I am? I mean, how bad do you think I am? Do you honestly think I wouldn't want people who had committed acts of violence, who had killed people, who'd burnt their houses -- brought to justice? You think I'm so bad? I mean, how dumb is that?

Have you provided the intelligence gathered by Australia that could be used to implicate Indonesian military figures and police figures, have you provided that to the relevant UN authorities?

Alexander Downer: We have provided a good deal of information to the UN authorities and to the Indonesians.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: At the same time, we discovered a lot of documentation, maps, files, talking about the organisational structure of the militia and the TNI here in Dili.

Australian INTERFET troops seized container loads of documents from military and militia bases. Anything that wasn't destroyed quite rightly was collected, but then it was shipped back to Australia. Sources within both the UN and the Australian military claim that some -- but not all of those documents -- have since been surrendered.

So what happened to those documents and those maps?

Captain Andrew Plunkett: They were exploded further back up the chain, but there's no reason why they can't be declassified now and handed over in order for investigations to go on now.

And the story of the documents that were never collected is revealing in itself. Government offices in Dili like the Finance Department shown here were a goldmine of information charting the ceaseless flow of money from ministers in Jakarta to murderers in East Timor. Records that the UN administration piled up and burnt, or simply left to rot away. Records that were at odds with the diplomatic nicety that the Indonesian Government was not involved in the mayhem.

Apparently, justice has now arrived in East Timor. The militia trials have begun. A series of simple murder trials, disinterested in the command structure or the systematic nature of the carnage. Cases directly involving rogue elements of the Indonesian Army and police will be dealt with in Indonesia some day. And to prove that justice is blind, one of the first trials is not of a militiaman, but of a man accused of killing one of them, seven years jail for him, and a young wife left to fend for herself, while ministers, generals and their henchmen face neither prosecution, nor public exposure.

In the case of the massacre of 59 people in and around the Maliana Police Station, just one man faces a charge of one murder. Whether the UN has the will to prosecute this case fully up the chain of command is one issue. But if it had the will, Captain Plunkett knows that Australian intelligence has the information that could solve this and other cases.

Captain Andrew Plunkett: Half the problem the UN's got here is knowing what to ask for. The low-level pawns, the militia, they'll get tried in Dili. Falintil will get tried in Dili for killing militia, but none of the TNI, who organised it all, they'll all walk free. They will never see the inside of a jail.

Captain Plunkett and his team interviewed hundreds of witnesses and captured militiamen who revealed the Indonesian command structure. He claims that some -- but not all of this information -- went to the UN. Plunkett had at his disposal intelligence assets and equipment that a UN investigation team could only dream of, but much of the information he gathered was withheld from the UN.

In particular, intelligence on Indonesian police and army officers, information which corroborated witness statements as to the command structure and the location of particular officers at specific times. Since the interview with Alexander Downer concerning these matters, his office has announced it will now provide some Australian signals intelligence to UN investigators. But it's yet to be seen whether it contains the full spectrum which Des Ball from the Centre for Strategic and Defence Studies suggests would have been intercepted by Australia.

Professor Des Ball, Centre for Strategic and Defence Studies: They would have monitored 100% of Indonesian radio traffic, that's field radio within East Timor, as well as the radio communications from various headquarters and levels of command, back to Bali and also back to Jakarta. They would have monitored all satellite telephone communications and all mobile telephone communications.

This would indeed make it an open and shut case, I would assume?

Professor Des Ball: I have no doubt that against many of the individuals who were responsible for giving some of the nastiest orders, that there would be transcripts of the giving of those orders held by DSD, yes.

With a tiny nation, a fragile border and a still dangerous neighbour in Indonesia, Xanana Gusmao has been largely silent on the question of war crimes. But his constant message of reconciliation has won him few friends in East Timor. While he talks of the future, patience is running out on the failed promise that the international community would pursue the injustices of the recent past.

Politics in East Timor are now seriously fracturing, Gusmao facing unprecedented criticism, and on this day, an attempt on his life. There will be no fairybook ending to East Timor's long struggle for independence. For a traumatised people, it will be a Herculean task to move forward while their dead haven't even been acknowledged, let alone avenged.

CNRT/CN to be dissolved in early June

Timor Post - May 16, 2001

The Concelho Nacional da Recistencia Timorense/Congresso Nasional (CNRT/CN) will be dissolved in early June 2001. Ex-members of CNRT will then form the Resistance Veterans Foundation. An extra-ordinary conference will be held between 28-29 May to pave the way for the CNRT dissolution.

According to Armando da Costa, the coordinator of committee overseeing the CNRT dissolution, talks had been held with CNRT President Xanana Gusmao on 9 May. "The extra-ordinary conference will be attended by all CNRT divisions from all districts," he said.

Armando also said the CNRT Vice President Mario Carrascalao was no longer active in the organization and was, instead, concentrating on his own political party " the Social Democratic Party of Timor (PSD).

The planned dissolution of CNRT/CN has attracted comment from Dili Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo. According to Bishop Belo it was advisable for CNRT to remain till a new government is in place after the general election. "CNRT has always been the face of unity for the country. Let CNRT hand over power to the new government once it is elected in by the people," added Bishop Belo.

East Timor's scourge serves time on his patio

New York Times - May 16, 2001

Seth Mydans, Jakarta -- A strange red banner hangs over the gate of one of the middle-class villas on a quiet street in central Jakarta: "Am I really a criminal for defending the red and white? -- E. Guterres." Inside, near a red-and-white Indonesian flag, a group of workmen is building a waterfall and fishpond. Eurico Guterres himself, lounging on the patio, looks on without expression, as he does at most things.

Mr. Guterres, 27, has received a slap on the wrist and he is ostentatiously suffering. The most prominent of the militia leaders who ravaged East Timor when it voted for independence from Indonesia in 1999, he is counting out the final days of a six-month term under house arrest. "Basically, I did what I was asked to," he said bitterly. "But I am at fault. I am to blame, even though I did nothing wrong." Indeed, according to almost every analyst, he is very much to blame.

"This guy is really bad news," said Sidney Jones, Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "He is singlehandedly responsible for a lot of the worst crimes that took place in East Timor. He's responsible both for directly organizing people to commit savage acts and for being the vehicle through which funds and probably arms were channeled to the militias more generally." The light sentence he received on a tangential weapons charge only serves to underscore the failure of the Indonesian courts to bring the brutalizers of East Timor to justice.

On the other hand, Mr. Guterres may have some reason to feel aggrieved. No one else -- none of the other East Timorese militia leaders, none of the Indonesian officers who commanded them -- has had to serve even a day in detention.

Many other suspects have been identified, and their abuses documented, by human rights groups and official investigators in both Indonesia and East Timor. They include both East Timorese gangsters and Indonesian military, police and civilian officials. As time passes, the possibility has grown stronger that none of them will ever be tried or punished.

"What you've got is such chaos and confusion and incompetence in the justice system on the one hand," Ms. Jones said, "and such determination on the part of the people that don't want to see prosecutions at all, that we are never going to see justice for East Timor."

Former Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono, in an interview, had little to say in defense of Indonesian justice. "The court system is in a shambles," he said. In addition, President Abdurrahman Wahid is too engrossed in his own problems of political survival to push the issue and too dependent on political support from the military to challenge it. In April Mr. Wahid signed a decree setting a time limit on prosecutions that could close the door on future trials for many accused of wrongdoing, including Mr. Guterres.

The broad picture of their crimes is well documented. The Timorese militias were organized, supplied and commanded by the Indonesian military in an attempt to derail the vote for independence, which was conducted by the United Nations. When East Timor voted, by nearly 80 percent, to break from 24 years of Indonesian rule, the militias were unleashed on a punitive campaign of destruction.

More than 1,000 people were killed, about 70 percent of East Timor's buildings were destroyed and more than one-fourth of the population of 800,000 was forced into militia-controlled camps in the Indonesian territory of West Timor.

An estimated 50,000 people remain in those camps today and militia fighters continue to cross the border into East Timor, attacking United Nations peacekeepers and civilians.

Desperate to avert the creation of an international tribunal, Indonesia promised to conduct its own trials. The government formally agreed to share information with the new East Timorese administration and to provide witnesses and defendants for separate trials there.

So far, both East Timorese and United Nations officials say, none of those promises have been kept. "It's been a farce all along," said one United Nations official in Jakarta, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's been deeply disappointing, but I guess not surprising, given the political climate here."

As in East Timor in 1999, when Indonesia vowed to maintain security as it unleashed the militias, officials here have employed promises and delaying tactics to keep the United Nations at bay. "They have been experts at pretending to walk one step forward and in fact walking two steps backward," the United Nations official said. "It's like moonwalking -- like Michael Jackson looks like he's walking forward but in fact he's walking backward."

No matter how exasperated United Nations officials may be, experts say the politics of their own organization makes it unlikely that a special international tribunal -- like those trying cases from Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia -- will be created for East Timor.

"They've been playing for time and they've won," said a Western diplomat. "They've been playing the world for a fool and they've won." Last week, in a high-profile case involving violence in the West Timor camps, a Jakarta court sentenced six militia members to terms of no more than 20 months for the murders of three United Nations workers last September.

This case apparently proceeded, unlike others, because the victims were foreign United Nations employees. But the Indonesian prosecutors did not seem to have their hearts in the case, declining to charge the men with murder or manslaughter even though some of them admitted to stabbing the victims.

"The sentences make a mockery of the international community's insistence that justice be done in this horrific case," the United Nations high commissioner for refugees said in a statement.

Mockery, of course, can be in the eye of the beholder. Mr. Guterres said house arrest had offered him the creative space to record an album of patriotic songs, the first of which he titled, "East Timor's Tragedy." He declined to sing for an interviewer, but he offered a little speech describing the contents of the song. The tragedy of East Timor, as he portrayed it, boils down to the persecution of Eurico Guterres.

Same blind eyes turned on Timor

Australian Financial Review - May 14, 2001

Scott Burchill -- Given advance notice that the street bully is about to beat up your neighbour, three courses of action are open to you. The first is to try to dissuade the bully from his violent intent. The second is to warn your neighbour so that he can make preparations to defend himself or flee. The third is to do nothing, sit back and watch the attack.

Last week, Captain Andrew Plunkett claimed the Australian Government failed to act on intelligence that could have prevented the massacre of 47 civilians at a police station in Maliana in September 1999. If his claims are true, it will be the second time in 24 years that Canberra chose option three in its dealings with the people of East Timor.

We know from Des Ball and Hamish McDonald's book Death in Balibo -- and from the evidence of the officials themselves -- that senior Australian diplomats in Jakarta were given detailed, advanced briefings of how, when and where Indonesia would formally invade East Timor in 1975. In other words, Australian officials had prior knowledge of Indonesia's intention to commit a crime of aggression. At a terrible cost, this information was withheld from the East Timorese and from Australian nationals reporting from the territory at the time.

This week's claims that both East Timorese and Australian civilian police working for the UN were not told of the known dangers in remaining in Maliana after the announcement of the independence ballot result therefore have a strong sense of dij'au about them and are worthy of a serious investigation.

Too often in its dealings with Indonesia and East Timor, Australia's foreign policy establishment has chosen the least morally defensible course of action.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, responded: "I have never heard of such an allegation before and I don't think I have ever heard of any Australian government, including the present Government, refusing to pass on information that might have otherwise helped save people's lives."

This response poses two disturbing questions. Is he so ignorant of Australia's recent diplomatic history, or does he think the public suffers from collective amnesia?

Of equivalent concern is Plunkett's assertion that Australian sources had accurately reported on Indonesian plans to kill independence supporters in Maliana, but that their reports were "pushed up the chain of command, hosed down and political- wordsmithed by the Asia division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)."

Although it is often claimed that diplomacy is not a domain where normal ethical standards apply, officials gathering and disseminating information, setting policy and advising locals about public safety cannot temporarily suspend their moral agency. They remain responsible for the anticipated consequences of their actions or decision not to act, regardless of whether their field is domestic or international politics.

If true, Captain Plunkett's allegations again confirm the reputation of some recidivists within DFAT as Jakarta's most loyal allies in its brutal occupation of East Timor.

[Scott Burchill is a lecturer in international relations at Deakin University in Victoria.]

Fear of violence hangs over East Timor elections

Reuters - May 16, 2001

Jonathan Thatcher, Balibo -- Maria Maia, her mouth stained scarlet from the juice of the betel nuts she chews, bursts out laughing as she fingers her just-printed photograph on the registration form.

"Most are attracted by their picture. They are all enjoying it," says Bukari M'Bye Gaye, a Gambian member of the huge UN operation steering East Timor to independence after centuries of indifferent or brutal foreign rule.

Nearby, about two dozen other East Timorese watch a video explaining how to register for an all-important August 30 election.

But as the territory approaches August 30, the second anniversary of its overwhelming vote to shake off 23 years of Indonesian rule, many diplomats and locals are worried.

"The potential for violence is there. It worries me that there are people intent on disrupting these elections," deputy speaker of the National Council Milena Pires told Reuters.

Election in August

The council will be disbanded and replaced by an elected constituent assembly which will write a constitution, establish a proper parliament and prepare the way for a presidential election and independence possibly early next year.

"The people themselves are the best guard against a repeat of 1975 or 1999. I don't think the violence would be widespread," she added.

East Timor collapsed into civil war in 1975 after centuries of Portuguese rule abruptly ended, prompting Indonesia to invade and begin an often savage 23-year reign that was never internationally recognised.

That came to an equally abrupt end in 1999 when most East Timorese voted for independence, triggering a revenge campaign of destruction by pro-Jakarta gangs that left the impoverished territory in complete ruin and forced most of the 800,000 population to flee their homes. The current registration of every man, woman and child in East Timor is the first step towards the August election.

Memory erased

"We know nothing. The memory was erased. [When we arrived in 1999] we were starting from below zero," the head of the UN administration, Sergio Vieira de Mello, told Reuters in the capital, Dili, where the signs of the 1999 mob violence are still very visible.

Equally visible are the dollar-salaried UN staff whose almost $100 daily allowance is close to a third of the annual per capita income of East Timorese, for whom unemployment is commonplace. It is that huge economic divide, say some residents, that is in part to blame for the signs of increasing unrest, some of it focused against foreigners and particularly women.

De Mello conceded some of the criticism against his administration for being too slow was justified but said that in terms of other large urban areas the violence was negligible. "The only true answer will be employment and economic development, not police," he said, adding that those trying to sabotage the August vote were only a tiny minority.

Diplomats and locals say the worry is that unemployed and disillusioned youths will be an easy target for those seeking mobs to disrupt polling. "As the election nears there are so many groups that want to disturb it," says David Ximenes, who heads security for the National Council for East Timorese Resistance (CNRT), an umbrella group of pro-independence organisations.

"There are so many people now in Dili. There are no jobs ... Indonesia never set up a dialogue culture but a culture of violence. So it's not only [the lack of] jobs.

Militia lurk across border

Across the porous border with Indonesian West Timor, thousands of pro-Jakarta militia fighters linger in sordid refugee camps, their future unclear but their hearts set on stopping the homeland from becoming independent.

At the other extreme of the political spectrum is the RDTL, an acronym for the Democratic Republic of East Timor, proclaimed by the Fretilin party in 1975, days before Indonesia invaded. It has emerged as a major irritant for the UN and the main pro- independence grouping, the CNRT, which it refuses to join.

The UN's de Mello said the world body would remain fully committed to East Timor even after independence -- which he predicted could be in the first quarter of next year -- and would not leave the tiny territory in the lurch.

But he urged political parties -- only three have so far registered, including Fretilin which hopes to sweep up most of the votes -- to state their policies so voters have some idea of what they are picking. "This is the first test of their [political groups'] democratic commitment and if they fail this test this may be their last ... they know they owe it to their own people," de Mello said.

Whether East Timorese completely understand the process is less clear. "It is fun," beamed 18-year old Julius de Santos, as he waited his turn in Balibo to register and have his photograph taken.

But he looked puzzled when told the first vote would be for a constituent assembly which would decide on a presidential election. "No, it's to choose the president," he said, making it quite clear he would vote for independence hero Xanana Gusmao, who insists he will not run.

[On May 14 the Lusa news agency reported that UDT presidnt, Joao Carrascalao, has repeated calls for a postponement of the constituent assembly ballot, arguing that the Timorese were not yet ready for elections. "We think it's too early to hold elections on August 30. Conditions have not yet been created", he said. Carrascalao added "The democratic process requires an informed and conscious vote and the people of Timor have not been adequately informed of what a constitution is or how to participate in free elections, with various options and problems" - James Balowski.]

Don't use university campus for politics second: Bishop Belo

Suara Timor Lorosae - May 14, 2001

The leader of the Catholic Church in Dili, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo urged academics at the National University of Timor Lorosae to use the campus grounds solely for the pursuit of higher edcuation and not for political activities.

"Use the university campus to increase the knowledge of students so that they become quality intellectuals," said Bishop Belo.

Bishop Belo also reminded students not to use the National University for political activism as how they used, during the time of the Indonesians, the University of Timur Timor.

"Don't use the university as a place to transform poltical ideologies. Use the campus to increase your knowledge and create good human beings for the development of the country," added Bishop Belo.

Yayasan Hak discussion: `We must awaken the people'

Timor Post - May 14, 2001

Participants at a weekend discussion seminar, organized by the human rights NGO Yayasan Hak, expressed their frustration at UNTAET. Many said they did not understand the Transitional Administration's work-plan and added the people were confused about the 30 August election and the civic education program.

Yaysan HAK activist Nuhgroho said UNTAET's civic education program was a bit too late. He said the program should have been implemented in October 1999.

"Now we have a situation where USAid and UNDP are copying the civic education program -- trying to implement it like the time before the Indonesian general elections [after the fall of Suharto]," said Nuhgroho.

The Yayasan Hak activist also hit out at the reconciliation program. "The reconciliation program is aimed at militia leaders so that the refugees would be able to return soon to take part in the 30 August election. But the militia leaders themselves are taking the upper hand. What should be done is to give them a deadline. If the militia leaders fail to return by 30 August, then the door of reconciliation will be closed," added Nuhgroho.

Aderito de Jesus, director of the Sahe Institute of Liberation hit out at local NGOs for not forwarding proposals to international NGOs for funding to carry out civic education programs.

"Many local NGOs are reluctant to ask for funds to carry out civic education -- so that they can be better equipped to educate the people on democracy. The UNTAET-led civic education program tends to make the people docile. They [UNTAET] are more interested in the elections being peaceful and where the UN is able to tell the world that it [the Transitional Administration] was a success," said Aderito.

The Sahe Director also criticized political parties saying they lacked a proper political program. "At this moment there isn't a single political party that is talking about bringing back the thousands of refugees across the border with West Timor. These refugees have a right to vote at the 30 August election," said Aderito. "All I can see is that political parties are more concerned about symbols, than the people," he said in an obvious swipe at Fretilin.

Girl, 15, rescued from sex slavery

Sydney Morning Herald - May 14, 2001

Mark Dodd, Dili -- The plight of a 15-year-old East Timorese girl kept as a sex slave for more than 18 months in a militia- controlled refugee camp in Indonesian West Timor has highlighted the vulnerability of refugee children separated from their parents during political violence in 1999, the United Nations said at the weekend.

The girl, whose name cannot be released, was rescued this month from a camp near Kupang in West Timor after being confined by a Timorese couple who subjected her to repeated torture, beatings and sexual abuse. She has since been reunited with her parents.

The names of the couple and the camp where they lived have been suppressed because it could endanger a small group of people working to rescue other victims of similar violence.

Ms Bjorg Fredrikson, a Norwegian Community Services officer working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Dili, described the girl's ordeal to the Herald.

Ms Fredrikson, who is helping the girl during her recovery, said the girl was only 13 years old when she was separated from her parents and forced to join the exodus of East Timorese across the border during the height of political violence in September 1999.

It was shortly after her arrival in the militia-controlled refugee camps in West Timor that a cycle of child abuse began that was to last more than 18 months.

"The husband and wife went to bed and then asked her to participate. She said no and started to cry. She said they would kill her. That's when they had sex with her for the first time," Ms Fredrikson said, adding that the man's wife was a willing participant. The girl said she was frequently beaten and continually warned she would be killed if she informed anyone about her treatment.

"In this situation she was obviously held as a sex slave for the amusement of the couple," Ms Fredrikson said. "She did not have anybody she could talk to. She had no confidence in anyone. She's just a little kid -- just 15 years old. She has a child's body." The girl's case has similarities with that of another East Timorese teenager, 16-year-old Juliana dos Santos, who was abducted in Suai in September 1999 by a leader of the Laksaur militia, Igidio Mnanek, as a "war prize".

UNHCR estimates as many as 500 children without parents are exposed daily to the threat of violence and sexual abuse while living in the militia-controlled camps.

UN humanitarian agencies closed down operations in West Timor after a militia mob stormed the UNHCR compound in the border town of Atambua last September, murdering three international staff.

Altogether 1,200 East Timorese children were reported to be scattered across Indonesia living in schools and boarding houses, including one small group who were being held in a mosque and had been forced to adopt Muslim names, Ms Fredrikson said.

In West Timor's lawless refugee camps, Indonesian authorities are unwilling or incapable of exerting control over the leaders of the pro-Indonesian militia gangs, most of whom are sought for war crimes committed in East Timor.

UN pushes dollar in East Timor

Associated Press - May 11, 2001

Joanna Jolly, Dili -- The head of the UN Central Payments Office, which manages the territory's tiny and shattered economy, told reporters that the world body was taking legal steps and launching an educational campaign urging East Timorese to embrace US greenbacks and coins as the sole legal tender.

Fernando DePeralto said the program is meant to "address the implementation of the dollarization more fully" and bring more stability to the economy, though he said it could cause some inflation.

The United Nations has governed the territory since a 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia, which occupied East Timor in 1975. More than 80 percent of the region was destroyed and hundreds of people were killed by retreating Indonesian troops and allied militias.

The territory will remain under UN administration until elections for an 88-member constituent assembly in August. The assembly is expected to become East Timor's first elected parliament when independence is made formal next year.

The UN administration introduced official use of the US dollar in January 2000. A dozen countries and territories around the world already use the US dollar, including El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala and Panama.

However, despite the UN decision, the Indonesian rupiah and Australian dollar have remained in widespread circulation in East Timor.

Although the United Nations pays its staff in US dollars, many Australian-run businesses prefer to price goods in the Australian currency. And many East Timorese continue to use rupiah to buy cheap Indonesian goods.

The UN also will ban unlicensed money changers, who illegally bring in rupiah to exchange for US dollars, then smuggle them back into Indonesia for a profit.

The push to enforce the use of US dollars is likely to anger the some 400 moneychangers who work on the streets of Dili. "Young people change money because they don't have real jobs. If the UN wants us to stop, they have to give us a salary," said John da Silva, a currency dealer.

Grieving families fight for justice

South China Morning Post - May 14, 2001

Chris McCall, Dili -- Fed up with Indonesia's feeble attempts at administering justice to accused war criminals, the families of East Timor's dead are getting together to do it their way.

In the back streets of Dili, in a house patched up with corrugated iron, lives Jacinto Alves Correia. Two days after the 1999 referendum on independence, and before the result was even announced, his younger brother was killed by militiamen. The body has never been found.

Now 29 and working with the United Nations administration, Mr Correia has been elected head of the new Association of Families of Victims and Missing Persons. The aim is to collect enough data on rights abuses to push for trials by an international court.

"In my view a solution in Indonesia is quite difficult," said Mr Correia. "There is no will to handle the problem. So we will send it to the United Nations, to satisfy the small people. The United Nations as a world body has the right to solve the problem."

Even if Indonesia prosecutes and convicts the suspects it has named, there is no guarantee they will get heavy sentences. Two weeks ago a court in Jakarta gave six men jail sentences of under two years for their roles in the murders of three international UN staff in West Timor, prompting international outrage.

A special Indonesian tribunal on East Timor will only prosecute crimes committed after the August 30 referendum. Many bloody incidents occurred before it. In April, dozens were massacred in the town of Liquica and militiamen staged a bloody attack on the home of leading pro-independence figure Manuel Carrascalao in Dili. There were also attacks around Ermera, which, like Liquica, was hostile to Indonesian rule.

It is in Ermera and Liquica that the association is concentrating its work, along with Dili and a third pro-independence bastion, Manatuto. These areas were repeatedly targeted by Indonesian forces during Jakarta's 25-year occupation of the former Portuguese colony.

The association has opened offices in these areas to organise the families into one effective pressure group. It is concentrating on events in 1999, although it is under pressure from ordinary Timorese to widen this and include all the years of the Indonesian occupation.

The group's formation reflects a general cynicism in East Timor about Indonesia's efforts to deal with the issue. After the referendum, officials of the newly formed East Timor Human Rights Commission were prepared to give the new administration in Jakarta a chance to solve the problem. They now regard its tardiness with cynicism.

"I do not believe it. I am not convinced," said Vicente da Costa, a senior commission staff member. "It is the same regime. It is the same Government."

Jakarta has drawn up a list of just 23 suspects, excluding military leaders such as the then armed forces chief-of-staff General Wiranto. Feared militia chief Eurico Guterres recently received six months for inciting violence in West Timor, but was not charged over the 1999 violence. In Indonesia he is widely seen as a hero. Ironically, Guterres was involved in a recent church-sponsored bid at reconciliation. Yet it was almost certainly his Aitarak militia which killed Mr Correia's brother.

Mr Correia's father died of illness while sheltering from Indonesian forces in the hills in the 1970s. The brothers were adopted by a family friend in Dili. There, the youngest became known as an independence activist. He was killed in the early hours of September 1, 1999. The rest of the family had fled to the hills after the ballot. He was sleeping alone in the house when the militiamen came. None of the 17 Aitarak members who lived in the area have yet returned.

"We want justice," said Mr Correia. "The criminals must be tried. I am sure there are ways for the victims' families to apply pressure so the militias and the military are arrested and tried before an international court. Now the hope of the victims' families is the international community."

They face an uphill task. The outside world is distinctly lukewarm about an international war crimes tribunal for East Timor for fear of upsetting or further destabilising Indonesia. Even East Timor's leaders are concerned about triggering new interference from their neighbour. Yet for the ordinary Timorese, the issue remains very simple. "Indonesian courts are not right," said Mr Correia.

Labour struggle

Minister delays labor law due to fear of rallies

Jakarta Post - May 17, 2001

Jakarta -- Under the threat of massive labor rallies, Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Al-Hilal Hamdi decided on Wednesday to delay for 14-days the implementation of a ministerial decree annulling severance pay and service fees to retired or dismissed workers.

The decision to delay Decree No. 78/2001 was reached after the first of what labor unions had promised to be a string of labor rallies and strikes. About 3,000 demonstrators from the All- Indonesia Workers Union Federation (FSPSI) started camping in front of the minister's office on Jl. Gatot Subroto, South Jakarta in the morning. Traffic jams became unavoidable as the demonstrators refused to leave before meeting the minister who was initially unavailable.

While waiting they lowered the national flag to show their anguish over the decree. "We want the minister to revoke the decree and we want it now," Serang-chapter FSPSI member Syafrudin said, as quoted by Antara during Tuesday's rally.

Later in the afternoon, representatives of the demonstrators, headed by FSPSI chairman Jacob Nua, succeeded in meeting Al- Hilal. The minister said during the meeting that he would delay its implementation and use the two-week grace period to review the decree.

The new decree is a revision of Ministerial Decree No. 150/2000 which stipulated a generous payout upon an employee parting with the company, either through retirement or dismissal.

The 2000 decree received objections from employers which prompted the ministry to revise it, though its revision has subsequently come under fire from labor unions who have charged the office of buckling under the pressure of investors.

The revisions included a clause annulling the requirement of employers to provide severance pay and service fees to workers who either resign or are sacked for committing major violations. The workers will only be provided with compensation money.

Meanwhile, workers enrolled in pension fund programs will not receive service payment, but only severance and compensation pay.

The initial decree, issued by Al-Hilal's predecessor Bomer Pasaribu, stipulated that compensation consisted of basic annual leave, along with financial support for transport, health and housing facilities. Workers can receive severance and service payment, the amount of which would be adjusted according to their working duration.

Separately in Malang, East Java, the FSPSI branch in the regency revealed further plans for a strike. Its chairman, Rendra Kresna, told journalists that they will commence a three-day strike on Monday.

He argued that companies in the area are not beset with financial troubles and can pay their workers in accordance to the latest decree, saying the requirement to give such payments is only proper. "I don't understand why the government revised the decree. Al-Hilal is acting like a business minister and not a minister representing the country's employees," he said.

Fate of Shangri-La employees decided by labor committee

Jakarta Post - May 14, 2001

Jakarta -- The management of Shangri-La Hotel has accepted the decision of the government-sanctioned Central Committee for the Settlement of Labor Disputes which granted its request to lay off 248 of the hotel's striking employees.

The number added to the 303 employees who finally resigned last month after staging a strike over improvement in welfare in December last year.

Shangri-La senior manager Wastu Widanto said on Saturday the 248 employees will receive separation pay as stipulated in the Minister of Manpower decree No. 150/2000 on workers dismissal and separation pay.

He said that the workers will receive a dismissal bonus, which also includes a sum received according to their length of service and medical benefits plus their salary for January. "Each former employee may take home between Rp 8 million and Rp 15 million on average, depending on their period of service," he told The Jakarta Post.

Wastu believed that the labor dispute committee's decision, which was issued on Thursday, had settled the prolonged dispute. "With this decision, we are confident that the labor issue that began over three months ago is finally settled. We can now fully focus on the future." However, the dismissed employees rejected the committee's decision, saying they would ask the Jakarta Administrative Court to annul the decision since it only benefits the hotel management, but not the employees.

Chairman of the hotel's independent labor union Halilintar Nurdin said the dispute could not be settled by the committee since it was a criminal case so it should be brought to court. "The hotel management charged us with violating the law and violating our contracts. Such accusations must be proven before a court," he added.

The dispute revolved around the employees' demand for better salaries and welfare facilities. The workers claimed they were paid only Rp 280,000, far below the Rp 384,000 official minimum wage. According to Wastu, the monthly salary of the resigned and dismissed employees was more than Rp 482,000.

Workers occupied the hotel on December 22, forcing the hotel to close for about three months, the closure of which had caused some US$8.59 million in financial losses.

Instead of meeting workers' demands, the management dismissed 420 members and executives of the labor union. Some accepted it, but many others rejected what they claimed was a one-sided decision of the hotel management. The hotel resumed operations on March 17.

Aceh/West Papua

25 Irian Jaya officers implicated in rights abuses

Jakarta Post - May 18, 2001

Jakarta -- The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Thursday submitted to the Attorney General's Office the names of 25 Irian Jaya police officers who were allegedly responsible for physically abusing and torturing civilians following a mob attack on a police station last year

Head of the investigating team Albert Hasibuan refused to name the suspects in compliance with Law No. 26/2000 on human rights tribunals, but he alleged that the 25 officers were responsible for the arrest and torture of more than 90 Irianese residents and students. "This case constitutes a gross violation of human rights and should be prosecuted under the rights' tribunal law rather than under the Criminal Code," he said.

The alleged violations claimed the lives of three students -- two died in the Jayapura police station while one was shot dead during his arrest. Two other victims had suffered permanent physical injuries as a result of the police action, he told a media briefing at the Attorney General's Office.

The inquiry grouped the alleged perpetrators of the violations into three categories: those who directly conducted the arrests and abused the prisoners, those who were responsible for the operation, and those who were responsible for order and security in Jayapura.

The first category involved 21 police officers and members of the police's elite brigade mobile. The other four suspects were high-ranking police officers in Irian Jaya who should be held responsible for the incident as they were in command, the inquiry's executive summary stated.

The inquiry started its work on February 5 and completed it on May 5 after questioning 51 victims, 29 police officers and 10 mobile brigade personnel involved in the case.

During the visit to the Attorney General's Office, Hasibuan was accompanied by other commission executives, including chairman Djoko Soegianto, vice chairman Saparinah Sadli and secretary- general Asmara Nababan, together with the secretary of the Irian Jaya inquiry, Sriyana. The group was received by Attorney General Marzuki Darusman, the office's chief human rights' investigator M.A. Rachman and his secretary Umar Bawazier.

The case took place in the early hours of December 7, following a mob attack on Abepura police station which killed a policeman and badly injured three others. A shop in front of the police station was also set ablaze and a security guard was found slashed to death two kilometers from the police station.

Police believed that the mob were Wamena residents who had come down from the mountainous areas of the Baliem valley in central Irian Jaya. The police then launched a search for those involved in the attack in three student dormitories and three residential complexes mostly occupied by people from Wamena, according to the inquiry.

Those arrested during the police operation were detained for a night without a warrant and all of them were released the next day as the police failed to find any evidence of their involvement in the attack.

Hasibuan assumed that the attack was related to the police's lowering of the Morning Star, the Papuan separatist flag, on December 1 after it had been hoisted to commemorate what the Irianese claim is their independence day.

The inquiry also uncovered two documents on a special police operation to curb the separatist movement which depicted a systematic and well-organized campaign of human rights abuse, with victims being tortured because of their religion and race, and some being sexually assaulted.

Two people killed, 30 homes and shops torched in Aceh

Jakarta Post - May 17, 2001

Banda Aceh -- Clashes on Tuesday between Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist rebels and security forces in the restive province of Aceh have left two civilians dead and 30 houses and shops damaged by fire, police and residents said on Wednesday.

The ambush of a security patrol by armed rebels in Meukek subdistrict in South Aceh on Tuesday resulted in the deaths of two civilians and left one police officer wounded, South Aceh deputy police chief Adj. Comr. Agus Mandarwanto said.

The two fatalities, including a female school teacher, were struck by stray bullets, residents said. They told local journalists that 30 houses and shops were set on fire during a police hunt for the attackers.

Officer Agus, however, denied that the fires were the handiwork of police and blamed it on GAM. "The [security] personnel did not light the fires. The fires broke out after the personnel had left the area," Agus said.

A second ambush took place in the South Aceh district of Sawang as the patrol was trying to take the injured policeman to the general hospital in the regency town of Tapaktuan, the officer said. There were no casualties reported in the incident.

A local GAM spokesman, Ayah Manggeng, claimed responsibility for the attacks but denied setting fire to the buildings.

More than 100 houses and shops were torched last weekend after security forces conducted a search in Samalanga subdistrict, Bireun district, following a clash with rebels in the area.

Separately, the Police's Cinta Meunasah II operation deputy spokesman Comr. Sudarsono said rebels ambushed a police patrol in Pidie regency on Tuesday, killing two officers. Second Brig. Jailani, 34, and First Brig. Zulkifli, 32, were killed during a rebel ambush at Banda Dua Police subprecinct in Pidie, while another officer, Chief Brig. Indra Rahmat, was injured.

GAM, which has been fighting Aceh's independence since 1976, was officially banned in March by the government, which had sent 1,100 fresh troops to the province. More than 400 people have been killed in Aceh this year.

Aceh slayings show neutrality can be fatal

Straits Times - May 16, 2001

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta -- Last week's assassination of Aceh's former vice-governor illustrates just how dangerous taking a neutral stance is in Aceh these days.

The recent killing of Mr Teuku Djohan, along with the slaying of Mr Safwan Idris, the rector of the Islamic University late last year, has surprised even hardened observers of Aceh because they say these figures were not taking sides at all. Mr Teuku was shot at point-blank range just as he left Banda Aceh's main mosque on Thursday night.

"He was a good man, just like Safwan Idris. Even though he was TNI, he was neutral," Mr Maimul Fidar from the Non-Government Coalition said. TNI refers to the Indonesian Defence Forces.

But it is precisely this neutrality that makes their positions so precarious, diplomats say. Taking the middle ground makes public figures vulnerable to attack and intimidation from both the military and the independence rebels.

The killings, along with the beating up of three local journalists by the military at the weekend, prove that not only is it dangerous to openly advocate a political solution to the conflict, but even trying to accurately report on the violence can invite trouble too.

On Saturday, the editor of Media Kutaraja was beaten up by the military while he was reporting on a military operation, and in another district, soldiers beat two journalists in front of a mosque and took their equipment. More high-profile non-government activists, who have been assisting victims of the violence, say Saturday's slaying of the former vice-governor is particularly chilling -- because if well-respected people such as a former governor can be publicly shot, then nobody is safe. Non- government activists say it is now too dangerous for them to venture outside the capital of Banda Aceh.

The violence and fear of intimidation from both sides was polarising the political debates about Aceh's future, Mr Maimul said. "People are not brave enough to speak about autonomy as an option because they are afraid they will be at war with those who don't like autonomy. The only Acehnese who speak out... are those in Jakarta," he said.

In the villages, expressing doubts about independence is even more dangerous, according to diplomats. "You don't criticise GAM ... if they want to get you, they'll get you," said one diplomat.

Police raid activists' office

Agence France-Presse - May 16, 2001

Jakarta -- Indonesian police have ransacked a Jakarta office of an Acehnese group linked to a fatal explosion here as the military picked up an Acehnese man suspected of manufacturing weapons for a rebel movement.

Police took a computer and a telephone from the office of the Information Centre for Aceh's Referendum (SIRA) in the raid on Monday night, said Mr Faisal Saifuddin, the Jakarta-branch SIRA chairman. Mr Faisal said police raided the house at 11 pm after the group's activists had left the building.

SIRA is a student-based organisation campaigning for a referendum on self-determination in resource-rich Aceh province, where Muslim separatists are fighting for an independent state. "This is part of a plan to destroy SIRA. We have no connection to the bombing," Mr Faisal said.

A bomb exploded on Thursday afternoon in a small house for Acehnese students in a residential area of south Jakarta, killing three people, injuring two others and causing heavy damage to the house.

Police have said they were investigating whether the blast was linked to SIRA and another non-governmental group called Solidamor.

On Monday, the military arrested 46-year-old Acehnese Tengku Saleh on suspicion of manufacturing weapons for the Free Aceh (GAM) separatist group, said Lieutenant Jailana of the Wirabraja regional military command.

Three pistols and two rifles were confiscated from the house during a raid, Lt Jailana said, adding the arrested man had confessed to repairing GAM's weapons.

Papuan independence leader defiant in court

South China Morning Post - May 15, 2001

Agence France-Presse in Jayapura -- The subversion trials of five high-profile independence leaders from the remote Indonesian province of Irian Jaya opened yesterday amid tight security.

The charismatic head of the pro-independence Papua Presidium, Theys Eluay, was the first to stand before three judges. He remained defiant despite facing life imprisonment. Asked by the clerk to state his nationality, Eluay said: "Papuan." Asked again what country he belonged to, he replied: "The country of Papua." Papua is the local name for Irian Jaya, a former Dutch colony integrated into Indonesia in 1969 by a UN referendum that independence leaders consider flawed and unrepresentative.

Dressed in a maroon blazer carrying a picture of Christ and purple checked trousers, Eluay appeared in the small white-walled courtroom in Abepura, an outer suburb of the provincial capital, Jayapura.

Prosecutors read 18 pages of charges against Eluay, even quoting from speeches he made in 1999 and citing events leading up to the Papua Congress he helped organise last year, which ended with a demand that Jakarta recognise the province's sovereignty.

Critics have dubbed the trial a political exercise by Jakarta, and Eluay urged supporters who flocked to his house on Sunday to remember that "it is the Papuan people who will be on trial tomorrow, not us five". Several hundred supporters, including traditional dancers in feathered headdress decorated with the banned separatist Morning Star flag, gathered outside the courthouse as the defendants stepped out, singing hymns and praying.

Police frisked those entering the court complex, confiscating Morning Star flags, while other police conducted weapons checks around the city.

After the hearing, Eluay said he would travel to Jakarta tomorrow for a check-up at the hospital where he underwent prostate surgery earlier this year.

Facing the same charge but in a separate hearing was Eluay's fellow Presidium member, Don Flassy. Their trials were adjourned until next Monday. The trials of three other defendants were adjourned for two weeks.

The five defendants were arrested in the days after the anniversary of an unrecognised declaration of independence on December 1 last year. The freedom movement in Irian Jaya picked up momentum last year after New Year pledges by Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to change the province's name to West Papua and promote dialogue. But Jakarta reversed Mr Wahid's liberal approach and enforced an often brutal crackdown on independence advocates.

Brimob combs villages to track down Syafe'i

Jakarta Post - May 14, 2001

Banda Aceh -- Mobile Brigade Police (Brimob) personnel have been combing villages in Pidie regency, Aceh, over the past two days, in what is suspected to be a mission to track down the Free Aceh Movement's (GAM) war commander, Tengku Abdullah Syafe'i.

A police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the two-day operation in the villages of Cot Tunong, Paya Rauf, and Lambaru. The officer also disclosed that, as of Sunday afternoon, there were no clues on the whereabouts of Syafe'i.

"One of the target villages is the place where Bondan Gunawan met Abdullah Syafe'i last year," the officer said, referring to the former secretary of government supervision who met with Syafe'i to deliver messages from President Abdurrahman Wahid. The source said that Brimob personnel, however, were pulled back to their headquarters.

Syafe'i had made several public appearances, met journalists and gave interviews. The police and the military, however, have never been successful in tracing his whereabouts.

On Saturday, local residents found six bodies in separate locations at the villages of Paya Rauf, Lambaru and Ujung Rimba. Villagers, with the help of members of human rights groups, the local Red-Cross Organization (PMI) and officials from nearby hospitals, evacuated the bodies who all died from gunshot wounds.

The head of state-run Sigli Hospital, Fuad Arsyad, identified the six bodies as Ramli Salam, 30; Amirudin Asan, 20; M. Adam Mat Jalil, 27; Ismail Usman, 40; Harun Hanafie, 45; and Syafei Gade, 40. According to Fuad, there were no postmortem examinations performed on the victims as families insisted that the bodies be buried immediately.

Separately, GAM spokesman Abu Razak said that during the security forces' operation in Pidie, police personnel set ablaze two houses belonging to local residents. "The houses had been abandoned by their owners, and were mistaken as GAM headquarters," Razak said on Sunday.

He also alleged that police were behind the killing of six residents, contending that the six victims were all civilians and not members of the rebel group.

Trial provides new twist for man of many contradictions

South China Morning Post - May 14, 2001

Vaudine England -- Theys Eluay is a loud man, in both his wardrobe and choice of political rhetoric. As a self-styled leader of the independence movement among Papuans in Irian Jaya, his career takes a new turn with his trial on subversion charges today.

His co-defendants are four other members of the Papua Presidium: Don Flassy, John Mabor, Reverend Herman Awom and Thaha Al-Hamid. But Eluay stands out, not least for his nominal leadership role. Whereas his colleagues might be called intellectuals, churchmen or activists, he is far harder to categorise.

Since his birth on November 12, 1937, into the leadership of the Sentani tribe, his career has been marked by massive contradictions. He was one of 1,000 chosen tribal elders who signed the "Act of Free Choice" in 1969 to make Irian Jaya an Indonesian province. It is that Act which is now the target of his and other Papuans' ire.

Eluay used to be a member of the provincial parliament for former president Suharto's Golkar Party. In November 1998, he announced that he was going to resign and would start a West Papuan Party, which has yet to materialise.

His support for Papuan independence has seen him periodically arrested and detained. Now he faces charges of subversion for leading the flag-raising ceremonies and independence calls of last December 1, which helped spark a broader military crackdown on the separatists.

Since then, however, the contradictions have been multiplying, and in some quarters, the scepticism about what are his true motives and goals has increased. While his presidium colleagues languished in a Jayapura jail until March, Eluay was flown to Jakarta in January for treatment of prostate cancer.

He managed to bring with him a large entourage of family and friends, who stayed in Jakarta hotels. He received guests and treatment, including three operations, at a Christian hospital.

But President Abdurrahman Wahid, who leads the Government that says Eluay is a traitor, has already promised to pardon his "good friend" if the subversion charges are proven. Controversially, he also gave US$10,600 for last year's People's Congress, which set up the pro-independence presidium under Eluay's leadership. Mr Wahid then went further by choosing to pay Eluay's medical and hotel bills.

Eluay claims thousands of supporters will be at the courthouse today to demonstrate their continuing belief in him. He had demanded the trial be held in the Hague, the Netherlands, and says he might flee to the former colonial power if the Indonesian prosecutors "make things difficult".

"If I am convicted and sentenced, I will overcome and I will win," he said. "I've never committed subversion. I've never fought the Government." A final note of contradiction comes from a spokesman for Eluay, who said he would return to Jakarta on Tuesday for another medical check-up.

Elite power struggle

Megawati keeps them guessing on when she'll stage grab for power

Sydney Morning Herald - May 19, 2001

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta -- Taufik Kiemas, the wealthy businessman husband of Megawati Sukarnoputri, sent a recent message to Abdurrahman Wahid at the presidential palace in Jakarta: "What would it take for you to resign?" Despite Mr Wahid's political isolation amid a bitter power struggle with MPs, he ignored the message, which some near him interpreted as the offer of a bribe.

The breakdown of good relations between Mr Wahid and the Vice- President, friends most of their lives, is now painfully obvious. She wants power, sooner if not later. He is desperate to remain leader of the world's fourth most populous nation.

Analysts in Jakarta say that with Mr Wahid's executive authority irreversibly undermined, his only chance of remaining president until elections scheduled for 2004 is to do a deal with Ms Megawati.

But the daughter of Indonesia's first president, and leader of the country's largest political party, is fuelling political uncertainty by keeping everybody guessing about her immediate intentions.

Seven ministers loyal to Mr Wahid have offered her a deal that would see her run the Government while Mr Wahid takes a more ceremonial role, handling matters such as international relations, national ideology and religion.

One of the ministers who took the offer to Ms Megawati said she reacted indecisively. "Is it correct for me to accept this?" she said. "As Vice-President, I can do it. But as party chair, I cannot give any guarantee to the President." Ms Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) is bitterly divided over whether she should agree to the deal.

"Gus Dur's [Wahid's] time is up. We will reject a solution on these lines," said Meilono Soewondo, a member of a faction pushing for Mr Wahid's impeachment at a special sitting of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the parliament.

Yet asked soon after the offer was made if he was prepared to give Ms Megawati more power, Mr Wahid became angry. "What more power? I have given everything to her except two things," he said. "An agreement was reached a long time ago that the Vice- President would preside over Cabinet meetings, take care of the technical matters of the Government and I would supervise the basic outline of Cabinet policies and the appointment of state officials." With few political friends left, Mr Wahid has become increasingly unpredictable.

In response to a second parliamentary censure last month he threatened to impose martial law and dissolve parliament. He may have had no intention of doing so, seeking only to frighten rivals, but the military's response showed how weak his presidency is.

The army chief, General Endriartono Sutarto, said: "We told [Mr Wahid] that the nation is nearly in a state of collapse and does not need yet another burden. Therefore we have advised him not to issue such an order." Most observers praised the military's stand.

Scenarios that might end the crisis, analysts say, include a Cabinet reshuffle, dissolving parliament and calling a general election, impeachment or forced resignation for Mr Wahid, or power-sharing with Ms Megawati.

Most of Jakarta's political elite, including those close to Mr Wahid, agree the crisis is too serious to be prolonged.

Under the 1945 Constitution, only a vice-president can replace the president between elections, and moves to impeach Mr Wahid would not succeed without the support of PDI-P in the MPR.

But sources close to Ms Megawati say that while she keenly wants to be president she is reluctant to take the job amid acrimony. Mr Wahid, meanwhile, is turning up the heat on her.

Muhaimin Iskandar, an executive of his National Awakening Party, said this week Ms Megawati should resign and position herself as an outsider if she wanted a clean fight with Mr Wahid. "Ms Mega is still an insider, so as long as she is still the Vice- President she should not be complaining about the performance of the government," he said.

One issue that has divided Mr Wahid and Ms Megawati has been how to handle separatist movements in Aceh. Mr Wahid argued that crushing the rebels in a military offensive would further alienate the Acehnese. Last month he reluctantly signed a decree authorising an offensive that has resulted in the deaths of scores of people. Ms Megawati, a fierce nationalist, had sided with hardline sections of the military to push for sending more troops and staging a crackdown.

The two are also at odds over independence groups in Irian Jaya (West Papua). Ms Megawati has spoken privately of resigning over the Government's incompetence. That would send shock waves through the country, complicating the crisis and perhaps prompting millions of her supporters to take to the streets.

The next critical date in this drama is May 30, when MPs are scheduled to respond to Mr Wahid's reply on the second parliamentary censure. MPs will have to decide whether to vote for convening the MPR, where Mr Wahid can be asked to account for his behaviour and face possible impeachment.

Many observers say impeachment seems inevitable, but nothing is certain in the opaque world of Indonesian politics. After saying for months there was no alternative to Mr Wahid's dismissal, the influential Muslim leader and parliamentary Speaker, Amien Rais, appears to have changed his mind.

Setback for Megawati as Wahid digs in

South China Morning Post - May 18, 2001

Vaudine England -- Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri may be readying herself to assume the presidency, but she faces daunting obstacles before she can be sure of taking power.

First is the wiliness of her opponent, President Abdurrahman Wahid. He amazed observers and cheered financial markets two days ago when he appeared to accept the likelihood of his impeachment. A day later he was back to more usual form, asserting the all- important proviso that any moves against him were acceptable except those which were unconstitutional.

"We can make any kind of political concession as long as it does not go against the constitution. As soon as there is a violation of the constitution, as a nation we must be courageous and take action to prevent the erosion of the constitution," he said.

Mr Wahid's staff confirmed that "violation" could be taken to mean the President's possible impeachment, as well as the proposal for him to delegate executive authority. Mr Wahid has never wavered from his view that Parliament's efforts to depose him, on the basis of a committee decision that he might be involved in corruption, are illegal.

He says the courts must decide on his guilt first and claims Indonesia's 1945 constitution gives Parliament no right to sanction him anyway. He also this week threatened to start an immediate re-election campaign if he was impeached and admits he has considered closing Parliament down, perhaps with military help if necessary.

Although many saw Mr Wahid's earlier comment about his own probable impeachment as indicating new-found humility and acceptance of possible eviction from office, his words now appear to indicate the opposite. Far from admitting defeat in his long- running battle to keep his job, Mr Wahid seems to think even impeachment cannot touch him.

Meanwhile, his National Awakening Party suggested that it would be more elegant if Ms Megawati formally positioned herself as an "outsider" in the run-up to a possible impeachment hearing against the President. "If Mbak [Sister] Mega wants to challenge the President, she should quit the vice-presidency first," said party secretary-general Muhaimin Iskandar. "Mbak is still an insider, so as long as she is still the Vice-President, she should not be complaining about the performance of the Government," said Mr Muhaimin, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.

As Ms Megawati waits in the wings, with aides implying a growing readiness on her part to pursue impeachment, she also faces rearguard action from her own family. She and her siblings have long had a solemn pact not to enter politics in order to avoid besmirching the name of their father, the country's founding president Sukarno.

But Ms Megawati broke that pact when she entered national politics, and now that her accession to the presidency appears closer, her family is crying foul. Her sister Rachmawati Sukarnoputri, considered the more astute politician in the family, suggested last week that Ms Megawati quit in the same way her predecessor Mohammad Hatta did in 1956 when he felt he could not co-operate with their father, president Sukarno. A more estranged sister, Sukmawati, recently attended a prayer rally in favour of Mr Wahid.

More disturbing for the many Indonesians who wish for a mythical hero -- or heroine -- to appear and magically solve the nation's problems, Ms Megawati also scores low marks in some quarters with regard to how successfully she could lead the administration. "A secularist like Wahid, she would face many of the same political and religious pressures, and would probably be even more reluctant to restructure the military," the International Institute for Strategic Studies, based in London, said this week. "It is also hard to discern palpable differences between Megawati and Wahid on economic policy, though some of her advisers are resolute reformers. And she is likely to be less inclined to negotiate with separatists in Aceh, Irian Jaya and elsewhere."

Megawati expected not to fare better after Wahid

Reuters - May 16, 2001

London -- A respected think-tank says Indonesian Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri will replace President Abdurrahman Wahid by legal means this year but will be little more successful in stabilising the sprawling country.

In its annual Strategic Survey, published on Wednesday, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Megawati had aligned herself with the military establishment in her declared bid to replace Jakarta's first democratically elected president, who faces parliamentary censure over financial scandal.

"The authority vacuum in Indonesia in the face of its continuing troubles has deprived ASEAN of a locus of leadership and has diminished its international standing," the IISS said.

It described the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as being in a state of institutional torpor and political debility, enfeebled by its inclusion of non-democratic countries such as Myanmar and by its adherence to a cardinal rule of non- interference in the internal affairs of member states.

Parliamentary chiefs are debating a possible impeachment of Wahid, a near-blind Muslim cleric who has struggled for 19 months to hold the nation of 200 million together amid an economic crisis that led to the overthrow of veteran dictator Suharto in 1998. "The burning national question for the near term is not whether Wahid will go, but when and how," the IISS said.

It said he might step down through ill health or be overthrown by a popular revolt as Philippines President Joseph Estrada was. But the most likely scenario was that parliament would impeach him during the summer and Megawati would take over.

"A secularist like Wahid, she would face many of the same political and religious pressures, and would probably be even more reluctant to restructure the military," the IISS said.

"It is also hard to discern palpable differences between Megawati and Wahid on economic policy, though some of her advisers are resolute reformers. And she is likely to be less inclined to negotiate with separatists in Aceh, Irian Jaya and elsewhere." The London-based institute said Megawati might be more effective in running the bureaucracy and more responsive to parliament, "but it is difficult to see how her promotion to the presidency would translate into quick improvements in Indonesia's stability".

The report highlighted the rise of piracy in the Malacca Straits which it said was a by-product of the weakening of the Indonesian state through economic crisis, ethnic and religious strife.

It accused political opponents linked to the former Suharto regime of flouting presidential authority and deliberately fomenting sectarian violence.

The IISS said the military hierarchy had shown increasing reluctance to accept the elected president's authority, appointing some senior armed forces commanders without his sanction.

The survey said election losses suffered by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir Mohammed had demonstrated the shaky underpinnings of what it called his long-entrenched, autocratic government and a weakening ability to contain ethnic strife.

"Along with the other difficulties, an upsurge in Islamic militancy in Indonesia, the Philippines and, to an extent, Malaysia, has reinforced the appearance of instability in these countries," it concluded.

US watching `troubles' in Jakarta: Powell

Agence France-Presse - May 16, 2001 (slightly abridged)

Washington -- The United States is carefully watching President Abdurrahman Wahid's battle against impeachment in "troubled" Indonesia, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday.

He also told a Senate committee that the US had cautioned Jakarta against infringing on human rights when its security forces tackled separatism.

"It is a very troubled nation. We're waiting to see what happens in the capital and the leadership of the country," he told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations.

"We're following the situation closely ... We will be encouraging them to use democratic processes to figure out where they want to go in the future with respect to their leadership. We recognise the importance of that very, very large country and the important role especially that it plays in the region.

"We have cautioned the government that in their effort to keep the country together and not let it fly apart into its many potential constituent parts they have to be very sensitive to how they use their military force." He added that Jakarta must "make sure that whatever has to be done to retain the cohesiveness of the country is done in a way that does not violate human rights and is not repressive or an abuse of force".

Megawati mouthpiece turns up volume

South China Morning Post - May 15, 2001

Vaudine England -- With two weeks left before Parliament decides on possible impeachment moves against President Abdurrahman Wahid, the decibel level of the politicking in Jakarta is increasing.

But along with the added noise, the opportunity for distorted messages increases, as bargaining between politicians and the wily but beleaguered Mr Wahid continues over whether he should be deposed, resign, or can still make a deal to stay in office. The President's absence from yet another foreign trip -- this time to Thailand for a day -- opened the field yesterday for fresh hints about the state of negotiations.

Leading the pack was his likely successor, Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri. She was reported to have said that moves to impeach Mr Wahid were "unstoppable", but whether she was stating the obvious or attempting to pressure him into giving her more concessions was unclear.

"The process of the special session cannot be stopped," Nadjamuddin Ramly, chairman of the Muslim Muhammadiyah organisation's youth wing, quoted Ms Megawati as saying after a meeting. "She said that all of the nation's problems should be discussed at the special session," Mr Ramly added.

His comments indicate Ms Megawati, who heads the nation's biggest parliamentary party, will not block attempts to hold a special session in August, or sooner, of the top legislature to consider Mr Wahid's impeachment.

Ms Megawati has used the device of speaking through Mr Ramly before, when she indicated a couple of months ago that her support for Mr Wahid was for his constitutional role as the nation's President, and not for him personally. Mr Ramly's Muhammadiyah organisation is a traditional rival of Mr Wahid's Nahdlatul Ulama group and as such is a barbed messenger service to her boss.

Ms Megawati has been consistent in two things throughout the almost year-long process of calling Mr Wahid to account for alleged corruption and ineffective rule: her delivery of elusive statements, and her desire to take power only if it comes to her in a constitutional way.

Ms Megawati automatically takes over if Mr Wahid is impeached over two financial scandals that have already triggered two parliamentary censures. Typically, she was unavailable last night to confirm the reported remarks.

At the same time, the pro-impeachment hardliners within her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), who may take comfort from her latest remarks, are pursuing talks this week among major party faction heads in parliament about "the nation's problems".

However, organisers of these talks say they do not intend to discuss "the second memorandum [of censure against Mr Wahid] or the possibility of a special session", according to PDI-P parliamentary leader Heri Achmadi. The second censure memorandum allows the lower house of Parliament, at a meeting on May 30, to refer impeachment efforts to the upper house.

Mr Wahid's hopes for keeping his job rest on the room left for a deal between party bosses before then. The most significant indicator that this possibility remains open were comments last week by Golkar party boss and Speaker of the lower house Akbar Tandjung. He said a new power-sharing deal involving a delegation of duties to Ms Megawati should be pursued to keep the elected president as titular head and avoid a descent into violence that could tear Indonesia apart.

Ms Megawati, meanwhile, has appointments in Bali on Saturday and Malang on Sunday, involving visits to political heartlands of her own and of Mr Wahid respectively.

Greater power-sharing between Mr Wahid and Ms Megawati has been mooted by several political figures as a compromise solution to avoid the tumult of impeachment, but Mr Wahid and several opposition parties continue to reject it. As with any public bargaining, the final outcome will not be known for another few weeks.

Regional/communal conflicts

Borneo district to let refugees return

Agence France-Presse - May 19, 2001

Jakarta -- Social and religious leaders in a district of the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan have agreed to the conditional return of Madurese refugees who fled weeks of bloodshed in February. "We mostly agreed that the Madurese can return, but we also set conditions," said Mr Gusti Abdul Hamid, spokesman for the "people's deliberation" meeting. Advertisement He said each of the 10 sub-districts was represented by at least 15 people at the two-day meeting.

They spelled out three conditions for the return of the Madurese to the region, which borders the hardest-hit district of Kotawaringin Timur where Dayak tribesmen killed more than 500 people during the February bloodletting, beheading many and burning their homes.

The first is that no Madurese can hold office in village, sub- district or district administrations. Secondly, the Madurese Association in the district should be disbanded and, thirdly, the returning Madurese should adjust to local customs and culture, not impose their own.

"Only one sub-district, Arut Utara, refused the return of the Madurese settlers," Mr Abdul Hamid said. He said resentment against the Madurese in Arut Utara was so deep that it was difficult for the local population to accept their return.

The aggressive nature of the Madurese settlers and their domination of the local economy has been blamed by many as the source of discord with the Dayaks.

News & issues

Solidamor chief questioned

Jakarta Post - May 19, 2001

Jakarta - City Police detectives questioned a coordinator of the Solidarity for Peace in East Timor (Solidamor), a non- governmental organization, on Friday, in connection with last week's Guntur bombing, which claimed at least three lives.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos said that police questioned him as a witness in the bombing, and stressed that his relationship with Faisal Syaifuddin, coordinator of the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA), was of a routine nature.

"Once Faisal used my office for a group meeting ... as non- governmental organizations, we help one another, but that is it," Bonar told reporters at the city police station.

He added that he had never met Diana, reportedly a SIRA activist and a suspect at large, at any SIRA meeting. "I do not know whom she is, and have never met her," Bonar said.

Meanwhile, police detectives said that Faisal would be questioned on Monday as a suspect in the bombing.

Naval patrols to cut flow of arms to Aceh

Straits Times - May 19, 2001

Jakarta -- The Indonesian navy has launched a special operation to cut off the distribution of guns and munitions from Thailand to the separatist movement in Aceh. Five warships were dispatched for the operation, and the navy will also check all ships travelling in waters around Aceh.

Indonesian navy chief Admiral Indroko, who confirmed the operation, said he had ordered the commander of the nation's western fleet to prevent the distribution of guns to Aceh, the Indonesian Observer reported. He said after the signing of a memorandum of understanding on a joint exercise with the US Marines in Jakarta on Thursday that he could not comment on progress.

The commander of the western fleet, First Admiral Putu Ardana, said: "We have prepared five warships for this operation. We have also checked all ships travelling around the waters in Aceh. But we have yet to confiscate any guns." In a related development, security forces in the province have been issued "rules of engagement" cards in an effort to prove Jakarta is serious about avoiding human-rights abuses.

Recession-hit Indonesians ditch rice for instant noodles

Straits Times - May 19, 2001

Robert Go, Jakarta -- Recession-hit, lower-income Indonesians are turning to instant noodles instead of rice as a key source of nourishment, sending sales soaring.

Giant food-producer Indofood sold a staggering 2.4 billion noodle packets and earned 1.3 trillion rupiah (S$230 million) in the first three months of this year. This was a 7-per-cent sales and 16-per-cent earnings increase, compared to the same period last year.

"Noodles take three minutes to make and are cheap. More people now eat noodles instead of rice," said street hawker Edy Rosadi. A plate of plain rice costs 2,000 rupiah at the many food stalls that dot Jakarta's streets, but the addition of vegetables or meat to the meal doubles that price.

On the other hand, packets of noodles sell for about 1,000 rupiah each at these same stalls, and hawkers offer bowls complete with seasoning and vegetables or meatballs, for between 1,500 and 2,500 rupiah.

For lower-income Indonesians in the capital and other urban centres, many of whom now work longer hours to make ends meet, noodles have become a convenient and more economical option to rice.

For nearly 90 per cent of the working population, salaries have not kept up with the increase in the price of rice, eggs, oil, flour and other staple goods over the last four years.

Said courier Diat Hadi, who earns between 15,000 rupiah and 20,000 rupiah a day: "Why go home to eat? Noodles are cheaper, tastes good and are nutritious enough." He has a meal of instant noodles twice a day -- sometimes three times -- but varies the flavourings to avoid getting bored. "Sometimes fried noodles, other times curry-flavoured noodles, depending on my mood," he said.

Indofood, which is controlled by the Salim Group, said that it had made it a point to stay responsive to customers' needs. It had kept instant-noodle prices low despite higher production costs arising from the rupiah's exchange rate against the US dollar, it said.

Much of the wheat that goes towards noodle manufacturing is imported, as is the case with the material used for packaging the product. Ms Eva Riyanti Hutapea, Indofood's chief executive, said the company "adjusted" the selling price of Indofood's products in February this year, but has not made changes since then.

Economist Sri Adiningsih, of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said that lower-income Indonesians would continue to adjust their purchasing, eating and other patterns to fit with prevailing economic conditions.

"There are many more people selling street food these days compared to three or four years ago. More people are being forced into that kind of work, but more importantly, demand for noodles and other cheap food items is rising," she said.

A major effect of Indonesia's on-going economic crisis, according to Ms Sri and other analysts, is that the poor -- a growing group by most accounts -- would have to continue adopting cheaper options and lower their living standards.

Protesters cut power in Sulawesi

Straits Times - May 19, 2001

Jakarta -- Thousands of protesters in Indonesia's Sulawesi province forced a two-hour cut in electricity and telephone services to oppose a visit by Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid.

A campus building was also burnt to the ground during a brawl among hundreds of students of the electrical and civil engineering faculties of the Makassar State University (UNM) on Wednesday and Thursday, officials said.

Demonstrators, many of them students, made their way on motorcycles and in cars to the power station in the provincial capital, Kendari. They forced workers to cut the power supply for two hours.

They turned next to the telecommunications office, where they coerced operators to cut long-distance and international telephone connections.

However, security forces managed to keep the protesters hundreds of metres from the Kendari airport as Mr Abdurrahman arrived on Thursday. The peak of the fighting occurred that day when the Parangtambung campus of UNM's engineering department was gutted by a fire, which started in the early afternoon and took about two hours to put out.

The clash left at least 23 students wounded -- two of them in critical condition -- after opposing camps used papporo-assembled guns, machetes and crossbows.

According to the university authorities, the brawl was a result of internal disputes among the students. Police said they would take over supervision of the campus until the case was solved.

36 thugs shot in crackdown by Jakarta police

Straits Times - May 19, 2001

Jakarta -- Police in Jakarta have shot dead 36 thugs and nabbed 682 others across the city in a month-long anti-hoodlum campaign, an official has said. The city administration has also arrested 20,946 public order offenders in the capital during the same period.

Deputy governor Abdul Khafi said on Wednesday that most of the thugs not proven guilty of committing crimes had been released, while some others were still awaiting for their cases to be dealt with by police. He said that among the 682 thugs arrested, 88 had been detained by West Jakarta police. Four of them had been released for lack of evidence.

He said West Jakarta police had shot dead two thugs. South Jakarta police had shot dead seven thugs and arrested 135 others, of whom 67 were released for lack of evidence, he said. Police in Central Jakarta shot dead three thugs and detained 83 others, of whom 40 have been released.

They also shot two other thugs, who are currently receiving treatment in hospital. North Jakarta police shot dead one person and arrested 59 others, of whom 10 have been released, while Jakarta police shot dead 23 thugs and arrested 277 others.

The 20,946 public order offenders arrested include beggars, pickpockets, street vendors, street singers, prostitutes, transvestites, street children and homeless people. Street vendors ranked first, with 7,791 people.

Mr Kahfi said many of those arrested had been sent to the city's social rehabilitation centre in Kedoya, West Jakarta. Children were sent to their parents and prostitutes were sent to a rehabilitation centre in Cipayung, East Java, while some others were sent to their hometowns. About 100 homeless people are to be sent to Sumatra to farm or work on plantations.

Supreme Court examines calls to disband Golkar

Assocated Press - May 19, 2001 (abridged)

Jakarta -- Indonesia's Supreme Court will examine demands that the Golkar party of former president Suharto be disbanded because of corruption and vote-rigging, the new Chief Justice announced yesterday.

Mr Bagir Manan said he had already set up a panel to examine whether Golkar -- which is the second largest party in Parliament and is leading the charge against President Abdurrahman Wahid -- should be disbanded.

"We have to respond to demands coming from society," he said. "We have begun discussions on the matter." However, he said, the Supreme Court would stick to the principle of "presumption of innocence" in observing all legal cases, including the one on Golkar. "A judge cannot declare one as guilty, unless he or she has enough and valid evidence," Mr Bagir said.

A number of organisations, including the Democratic People's Party, have been demanding that Golkar be dissolved over its past links with the New Order regime.

Mr Bagir was swore in as the country's new Chief Justice yesterday.

Demands for the dissolution of Golkar have risen since national elections in 1999, the first free vote in four decades. Many smaller parties and anti-corruption groups have accused it of violating election laws, rigging the ballot and buying votes.

Golkar was set up by the military in 1964. It was then used as a political vehicle by Suharto, a five-star army general who took power a year later to rule for 32 years. He was forced from office in May 1998 amid a violent student uprising. However, the party survived by declaring itself to be the "New Golkar", free from his influence. It won 24 per cent of the vote in 1999.

Jakarta's poor resigned to a life of poverty

Straits Times - May 14, 2001

Robert Go, Jakarta -- Iced coconut juice seller Budiman, 43, set down his 30-kg gear wearily and fanned himself with a folded tabloid newspaper that occasionally also serves as his sun- shield.

"I only care about getting home with enough money to eat and to buy coconuts for tomorrow," he said as he stood cloaked by exhaust fumes and dust at one of Jakarta's busiest intersections. He makes 20,000 rupiah on a good day, just enough to keep him going for the next day.

The poor have borne the brunt of Indonesia's continuing economic slump. Those who have been poor for a long time are getting poorer.

"We need a whole new paradigm for dealing with this problem," said chairman H.S. Dillon of the newly-formed BKPK poverty task force. "We need to generate meaningful employment and streams of revenue that will enable poor households to improve themselves." Recent data from national statistics agency BPS, as well as several poverty-focused NGOs, project further gloom.

The average Indonesian now spends 65 per cent of his daily income on food alone, up from 55 per cent in 1996. Total daily expenditure for over 90 per cent of the population is less than 10,000 rupiah per person.

BPS claims unemployment stands at between 6.5 and 7 per cent. But analysts have put the number of jobless and underemployed at 40 per cent of the working-age population of roughly 90 million.

"The longer that this lasts, the more difficult it will be to tackle the long-term effects of poverty on the next generation," said Mr Raden Pardede of the Danareksa Research Institute.

Government inefficiency and corruption are part of the problem. The World Bank and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, two major supporters of poverty-alleviation programmes in Indonesia, separately withdrew a combined US$600 million in social-safety-net loans in March and April.

Government officials, including Coordinating Economic Minister Rizal Ramli, have admitted that misappropriation of funds and poor implementation of programmes contributed to the lenders' decision.

Economist Sri Adiningsih of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta said: "The government has too many preoccupations, like politics, to deal effectively with poverty and other economic issues." The real impact of poverty, according to her and other analysts, is that people are getting used to lower standards of living.

"Secondary needs such as education, health care and nutrition suffer. Their first concern is to avoid hunger. It does not matter how they do it, or with what," she said.

In the meantime, Mr Budiman and his friends spend their time at that intersection watching BMWs, Opels and Mercedes-Benzes crawl through the congested traffic. "It's the same story for everyone here. Why complain?" he asked.

Arms/armed forces

Golkar wants TNI taking back their power

Detik - May 16, 2001

Nuriddin Lazuardi/HD, Jakarta -- A political observer Kusnanto Anggoro from Central Strategy for International Studies (CSIS) believes that several political parties which attended the meeting within the House's factions in Indonesia Hotel has an interest to take back the military power into the politcal arena. It said that Golkar, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) and Central Axis are considered highly motivated to put their interest for military comeback. Kusnanto revealed this when contacted by Detik, Wednesday.

"At this present, Golkar, PDIP and Central axis have an interest to take back the military power and activate their roles within the political arena," he said in regards to the Minister of Defense Mahfud MD statement saying that several political parties have do moves in approaching the Indonesian military to power. Furthermore, Kusnanto regretted several political elites' wishes to take back the military power to play active role in the political arena.

The military itself once said to have steadily inched their way back into position though still becoming one of the political power which needs be considered. "Though they said to to have steadily inched their way back into position, TNI has still significant power in the political arena," Kusnanto said.

In regards to the statement that military has started to change in their support to the government is verified by Kusnanto. For him, the TNI's attitudes toward Gus Dur has changed. "TNI disappoints with Gus Dur in due to using his preference policy in the appointment of Army Chief of Staff (KSAD)," he explained calling the President by his popular nickname. It must be the appointment of KSAD is part of the TNI's internal organisatio, Kusnanto added.

In regards to TNI's presence in the meeting within the political parties in HI, Kusnanto sees that TNI would not take clear position. "They would remain to follow the parliament's wish," he said. According to Kusnanto, at present TNI have tended to take side at the Vice President, Megawati. TNI's support toward Gus Dur have not strong as it was. "Support to Megawati is the accumulation of TNI's disappointment over Gus Dur's steps which oftenly intervernes the TNI's internal affairs," he explained.

Cutting closer to the bone

Far Eastern Economic Review - May 24, 2001

John McBeth, Jakarta -- The Indonesian military is in a sorry state at a bad time. Many of its aircraft can't take to the skies, most of its ships are stuck in port and spare parts and technical assistance are hard to find. Poor logistics and maintenance only add to the catalogue of problems.

When George W. Bush won the United States presidency, many Indonesian generals thought it would only be a short time before Washington lifted its embargo on the sale of US military spare parts and got their relationship back on track.

Not any more. What they failed to take into account was the influence of Congress, which severed military links with Indonesia over the 1999 sacking of East Timor and still doesn't think Jakarta has done enough to atone for its sins.

The embargo highlights a serious problem -- one lost in the cheering for the military's partial retreat from politics. The paucity of spare parts and dwindling budgets that eat into operations and training have sharply reduced the military's abilities. This raises questions about the effectiveness of the military in fighting separatists.

Externally, while Indonesia may not have foreign enemies, the draining of military power comes at a time when tensions between the US and China threaten to re-ignite their rivalry in the South China Sea. Former Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono estimates the navy is only at 30% readiness, unable to afford to put most of its frigates and destroyers to sea.

Air force commander Air Chief Marshal Hanafie Asnan paints an equally grim picture, with pilots failing to log minimum flying hours and the air-defence system incapable of dealing with what he indicates have been increasing air intrusions by "developed countries."

For all these problems, the US embargo has proved to be a convenient weapon in a popular Indonesian pastime: shifting the blame. Defence Minister Muhammad Mahfud and other senior officials claim a shortage of spare parts for US-built C-130 transport aircraft has hampered their ability to respond across the archipelago.

But annoyed at being made a scapegoat for local shortcomings, US officials say Jakarta knew C-130 parts had been exempted from the embargo as far back as May last year; US Ambassador Robert Gelbard was just unable to arrange a meeting with Asnan until September to make it official. The reason for the delay: Gelbard's feud with Sudarsono -- fuelled partly by the Defence Ministry's refusal to give clearance for domestic flights by US embassy aircraft.

To counter the problem of spare parts and technical help, Indonesia has shopped around for other suppliers. Israel, for example, has talked to Jakarta about refurbishing the 24 C-130s, only eight of which are believed to be operational. Western military sources say that poor record may have less to do with the US embargo and more to do with poor maintenance and logistics.

But external credit restrictions imposed by the Finance Ministry and counter-trade deals with countries such as Russia and South Korea underline that the military's $1.5 billion annual budget only pays for the bare essentials. Ex-minister Sudarsono says 70% of the defence budget is for maintaining equipment, including replacing engines in 12 former East German navy corvettes, and there is a 10-year moratorium on buying major capital equipment.

This year the military and police are only authorized to borrow $150 million, with the air force's share down from $85 million to $50 million. The Finance Ministry pays a small part while Indonesia's weak economy and poor credit rating mean that few vendors or banks are willing to lend the balance. What can be done?

Under the so-called Leahy Amendment, Washington won't resume arms sales and military training until Jakarta cooperates in the investigation and prosecution of military officers and militia leaders responsible for human-rights abuses in East Timor and Indonesia. But despite the establishment of a human-rights tribunal, the Indonesians are still dragging their feet in ways that suggest the military is having an undue influence on events.

Any hope that Congress may back down first on the amendment looks misplaced. Colombia University scholar John Bresnan told a recent security seminar: "American interest in human rights is not so much a hallmark of political policy as it is of a generation. It will be difficult to remove a piece of legislation like the Leahy Amendment." The situation would be made worse should evidence of more human-rights abuses emerge. In fact, lifting the embargo wouldn't do much to help the military overcome funding problems, but diplomats say it would allow US technical teams to offer assistance.

In the meantime, it has been 19 months since the Indonesians last received spare parts for their 10 front-line F-16 fighters and their two other types of US-built combat aircraft -- a depleted squadron of Israel-supplied A-4 Skyhawk attack jets and about a dozen vintage F-5 interceptors. The A-4s are near the end of their useful lives and there are similar doubts about how long the F-5s will be in service. The air force acknowledges less than half the F-16s can get in the air at the best of times. How even that happens is a bit of a puzzle.

When Lockheed Martin Corp. left because of the 1999 embargo, maintenance supervisors thought the entire fleet would be grounded in six months. But engineers from the Netherlands-based Daedalus Aviation Services took over and some F-16s still fly -- albeit with questions about brake pads and ejection-seat cartridges and rumours of covert spare-parts deals with Jordan and Israel.

That leaves the British Aerospace Hawk as the air force's combat backbone. But despite London lifting its arms embargo in January last year, diplomats say defence sales to Indonesia are considered on a case-by-case basis to ensure that equipment is not used for internal repression. The Foreign Office is currently sitting on a shipment of Hawk spare parts, apparently because of fears that the jets may be used against separatist guerillas in Aceh province.

Only about half of the air force's 36 Hawks are operational. Many of those at three air bases in Java, Sumatra and Kalimantan will soon need an extensive overhaul. Indonesia recently sold six Hawk 53s back to their makers at British Aerospace for $US 26 million ($37 million) of credit -- presumably to pay for spare parts and other logistics equipment.

Meanwhile, the US embargo has complicated a $60 million deal for South Korea to supply 23 KT-1 training aircraft to Indonesia -- as well as army trucks and a hospital ship. Washington has warned Seoul that seven key US-made components on the trainers need special dispensation. Indonesia recently secured approval to use US parts in eight locally made CN-235 cargo aircraft that it hopes to start delivering to South Korea at the end of this year. A large part of the $140 million for the aircraft has already been paid.

Other recent arms purchases are mostly barter deals for palm oil and other commodities. They include orders for Russian-built Mi- 17 helicopters, and reported deliveries of Russian 105-millimetre artillery and Russian, Slovakian and Ukrainian armoured personnel carriers.

The Indonesian police are buying 5,000 Russian rifles, in addition to 4,000 last year. The helicopter deal will complicate logistics for the armed forces, which largely rely on US equipment. It is the first time that Indonesia has bought aircraft from the former Soviet bloc since the 1960s when the air force used mostly Russian hardware. The way that Jakarta's relations with the United States are going, those days could even return.

Military to keep out of politics, say top TNI brass

Jakarta Post - May 17, 2001

Jakarta -- Top Indonesian Military (TNI) brass have again warned that they would reject any top level reshuffle in the military command if it was geared toward particular political purposes, such as forming political alliances.

Udayana Military Commander Maj. Gen. Willem da Costa warned that the Army would not object to a replacement of the Army command if it was part of a routine tour of duty. He said the Army did not wish to see a new commander who would be politically oriented.

Antara reported that Willem's statement in Denpasar, Bali, on Tuesday came during a briefing with journalists to answer questions amid mounting rumors that President Abdurrahman Wahid would replace Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto with another general who held political links with the President.

Willem's remarks further underlines the Army's position of rejecting a political appointee amid the political impasse between the President, Vice President and the House of Representatives.

The affirmations indicate the position taken by senior Army officers following a meeting of regional military commanders from throughout the country and senior ranking Army officers who gathered in Bandung, West Java, on Monday night.

While claiming that the political impasse was not specifically discussed during the Bandung meeting, Willem said military commanders were of the understanding that the military should not repeat the mistake of being caught up in the political battlefield. He said the generals would reject a commander who tended to be more concerned with politics than state defense.

He added that there was also a determined consensus to prevent the military from being used as a political tool by any group. He said the meeting agreed that military officers who wished to delve into practical politics should leave the service. "In other words, there should be no active military members involved in practical politics." Nevertheless, Willem also pointed out that the Army would respect the President's authority in making such appointments.

The role of the military, particularly the Army, remains an important factor as politicians tussle amid the presidential crisis. Endriartono asserted on Monday that the Army would not support a declaration of a national state of emergency that would give leeway for the President to issue a decree to dissolve the House.

Army Strategic Reserves Command Chief Lt. Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu also said the Army would reject political appointees in their ranks. Both officers were also present during the meeting in Bandung.

147 deserters arrested ahead of Irian mission

Indonesian Observer - May 16, 2001

Jakarta -- At least 147 military personnel from Wirabuana Military Command in Sulawesi have been arrested by the local military police when they were trying to flee from their post in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi province.

Satunet.com portal news reported from Makassar, South Sulawesi province, yesterday that the 147 military personnel had been detained at the provincial South Sulawesi military headquarters in Pakatto. It was reported that Wirabuana military police arrested them when they arrived at Bajoe harbor, Bone district, South Sulawesi, from Kendari with a commercial ship last Friday.

The deserters were among hundreds of other soldiers from Wirabuana military command who recently took part in a military exercise in Kendari prior to their departure to Irian Jaya for the ongoing warfare against the separatists in the restive province. It was reported that they left their post without permission from their commander.

Wirabuana military command (Kodam VII Wirabuana) is responsible for the security situation in Sulawesi Island which consists of four provinces: North, Central, South, and Southeast Sulawesi provinces.

After the arrest, local military police seemed to be trying to cover up the desertion case but finally Wirabuana Police Military Commander Colonel CPM Bambang Wahyudi yesterday confirmed the incident to the press. The news is absolutely correct, but we need to say that this is the internal business of the Wirabuana military command, he said in Makassar.

Meanwhile, the local military command spokesman who wished to remain anonymous said that he had no knowledge about the arrest of the cowardly soldiers who were apparently trying to go home to Java. I just heard the information. I will check it later, he said shortly.

Based on information from an officer at the military command, the 147 deserters come from various military units like airborne, cavalry, combat troops, and artillery. They deserted their post because they are afraid to fight against the Papuans, the officer claimed.

He said that before they left their units illegally, they asked for a holiday from their commander at the beginning of May, but he refused it. In the previous period of military drills in Kendari, at least 105 military personnel got permission from their commander to take a leave for two weeks and they had to return to their post on time.

According to information reported earlier by military sources, next month, hundreds of soldiers from Wirabuana military command, including the 147 deserters will be sent to Irian Jaya for a special operation to fight against the separatist rebels in the province.

Tens of thousands of military personnel have been deployed in several restive provinces like Aceh, Irian Jaya, Kalimantan, and Maluku in order to fight against and subdue local people in the regions and to assist the police to maintain some semblance of security.

International relations

Human rights to be key in Labor government relations

Australian Associated Pess - May 16, 2001

Catharine Munro, Jakarta -- Human rights, not military ties, would be the key to a new relationship with Indonesia under a Labor government, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton said today.

"I do believe that human rights advancement will be a key element of the future relationship, that will be a big priority," Mr Brereton told Australian journalists during a three-day visit to Jakarta. The relationship between Australia and Indonesia, if Labor won power at the next federal election, would be "difficult" and "tough" but "extremely important", he said.

Mr Brereton called on Indonesia to bring to justice suspects of human rights abuses. Indonesia is yet to establish a human rights tribunal for the violence surrounding East Timor's vote for independence in 1999, despite having named a list of suspects which includes military and police officers.

Indonesia has promised its own tribunal in order to avoid an international tribunal being established by the United Nations.

But Mr Brereton refused to call for a time limit to be imposed on Jakarta for the setting up of its own tribunal, saying the government was facing a myriad of internal problems. "I don't think it's possible to put a time frame of days or weeks and months to a country that is as involved as this country with as many difficulties," Mr Brereton said.

He said the UN Security Council appeared reluctant to establish an international tribunal on East Timor. "Only Indonesia at the end of the day can fix this problem, it seems to me," he said. "All the more reason for us to be pressing for Indonesia to be making a bigger effort to be developing its judicial system, which itself is in a substantial transition, and to see these matters pursued."

Mr Brereton also called for human rights offenders in the troubled provinces of Irian Jaya in the east and Aceh in the north-west to be brought to justice.

Foreshadowing a "new" relationship under a Labor government, he ruled out the training of Indonesia's special forces, known as Kopassus, by the Australian military as was done before relations between Canberra and Jakarta deteriorated over East Timor's independence vote.

"When I say a new relationship I would like one that is not as focused as the past relationship was on military ties," said Mr Brereton. "I don't think it served us all that well at the end of the day. I think it led to false expectations by the Indonesia military, which added to their bitterness in the aftermath of the East Timor peacekeeping mission undertaken by Australia.

"I would like the new relationship to be one with less emphasis on military ties. I certainly don't rule them out, they can play an important role, but I don't want this great focus to be overwhelmingly on the military relationship."

He said military ties could focus on "having the Indonesian military understand international codes of behaviour, for a start". "But training Kopassus as we have in the past would not be the approach that I would favour."

The opposition spokesman also called for reciprocal visits between leaders of the two countries. Since coming to power in October 1999, President Abdurrahman Wahid has cancelled a string of planned visits to Australia. He has cited domestic opposition because of Australia's role in establishing peace in East Timor by leading a military force there in September 1999.

Mr Brereton also raised the possibility for a broadly-based leadership dialogue between Australia and Indonesia that included members of academia, the media, business and the bureaucracy, similar to the Australia-US leadership dialogue. "I have been raising in my talks this week the potential for such a broadly- based dialogue to be established in the period after the forthcoming Australian elections," Mr Brereton said.

Economy & investment

Indonesian businessmen look abroad

Straits Times - May 17, 2001

Robert Go, Jakarta -- Frustrated with the lack of recovery and stability at home, many Indonesian businessmen are scouting for opportunities and investing abroad just when the country needs all the capital it can get. They described other countries such as Thailand, Vietnam or Malaysia as better for investments.

The jumping-abroad trend could spark a nationalistic backlash, including racially charged reactions against the ethnic Chinese, who are believed to still control up to 90 per cent of Indonesia's economy. But some businessmen, including several non-Chinese, shrugged off these concerns and described their actions as "purely motivated by business".

Said an exporter of furniture and wood products: "This has nothing to do with nationalism or patriotism. If I don't put my money to work, I risk losing to my competitors." He has already started negotiations with Thai partners to start construction before the end of the year.

A textile-industry businessman added: "The socio-political problems are severe enough to overshadow the positive angles, including cheap labour, that is available here." Ironically, many of these businessmen began probing for opportunities abroad during meetings with foreigners who were invited to Jakarta by government officials anxious to drum up capital inflow to the country.

Mr Harun Hajadi, managing director of real-estate developer Ciputra, said domestic business sentiment went from good to bad during the past year. "Many domestic investors were quite ready to make additional investments in Indonesia last year, and foreign investors would have followed suit," he said. "After this year, however, no one thinks optimistically about Indonesia. It's understandable why some look outside for better opportunities."

Mr Zulian Siregar, who owns several garment factories and boutique outlets throughout the country, echoed the developer and said: "About one year ago, many people thought hard and creatively about how to make investments at home. They are getting more desperate, and are starting to look at Asean countries as options. Some have scaled down domestic operations to prepare."

The manufacturing and export sectors, including textiles, furniture, wood products, and chemicals, will be hurt the most if more businesses relocate abroad. "It doesn't matter where goods are made. Raw materials can be imported anywhere and as long as there is a good local work force, everything is set to go," said Mr Zulian.

Mr Harun, who is of Chinese descent, said: "All things being equal, Indonesians prefer to stay home. We know this market already and don't have to start from scratch. "But things are not looking so good these days."

He pointed out, however, that some businesses still invest at home, although with a slightly different strategy from the past. "We choose our investment targets more carefully and perhaps go to higher-growth areas outside of Java Island, like Pekanbaru or Medan in Sumatra, and Menado in Sulawesi," he said.

Jakarta needs $52 billion to avoid power crisis

Straits Times - May 17, 2001

Jakarta -- Indonesia needs around US$28.45 billion in new investment over the next 10 years to stave off a power crisis which has begun to hit some parts of the country.

Based on the national electricity general plan, the country's power sector is already at a critical stage, said mines and energy director-general for electricity, Mr Luluk Sumiarso.

A lack of state funding, and the government's decision to delay the construction of new power plants by independent power producers following the economic crisis, have forced the government to rely heavily on the private sector to secure the country's power supply.

Speaking at a seminar on the power industry, he added: "Concern about a potential electricity crisis in the near future is reasonable, since the sector has not been able to make adequate new investment in supply capacity to meet growing demand." New investments are now desperately needed to add to power supply by 24,549 megawatts and new transmission networks of 11,648 km in the next 10 years, said Mr Luluk.

Power demand in the Java-Bali region, for example, could outstrip supply by the year 2003. To prevent this crisis in Java-Bali and other regions, the government hopes to have invested around US$3.73 billion in new power plants and transmission networks by 2003.

For this year alone, the government expects investment of US$2.34 billion, of which US$2 billion is for new power plants, and US$340 million for power transmission networks, said Mr Luluk.

But investors are deterred by Indonesia's high country risk, weak legal certainties and rampant corruption practices, he pointed out. Mr Luluk said that due to the lack of funding, the government had relied on the private sector to secure the country's power supply.

Reforms essential, investors tell Mega

Straits Times - May 16, 2001

Robert Go, Batam -- Foreign investors yesterday signalled to the Indonesian government that they wanted a more concrete reform process in place before they could become confident about increasing investments in the country.

Their comments followed a speech by Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who pledged a quick resolution to the political crisis and assured them that Jakarta would be more business- friendly. Advertisement "It serves our own interests that we should be able to find a way out as soon as possible from this uncertainty-laden situation," she said.

"If today I were able to solve the various problems facing us, and to make available other means required for tranquility and smooth flow of business activities, I would certainly make them available."

Several foreign businessmen attending the Confederation of Asia Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry meetings in Batam welcomed her optimism. But they suggested that clear reforms and extended stability would be better for enticing investors back to Indonesia.

Mr DH Pai Panandikar, president of the RPG Foundation, an Indian energy sector business group worth US$2 billion, said: "Megawati's speech failed to bring out a clear picture of how the government intends to deal with the crisis. The present government still doesn't seem to have a good approach to reforms."

Ms Sabariah Sulaiman, honorary secretary of the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce & Industry, agreed. "She showed lots of confidence and seems to be capable of leadership, but we expected more assurances about the future business climate," she said.

"Indonesia doesn't have to clean the entire house, but some reforms are in order." Mr Suhaimi Salleh, chief executive of the SSA Consulting Group in Singapore, argued that despite several improvements in Indonesia's economy during the past year, the process of restoring confidence would take years. "People are still fearful of investing here because of the political climate and lack of progress on reforms," he said.

Indonesia received US$33.8 billion in foreign direct investment in 1997, but only US$10.9 billion in 1999. This rose to US$15.4 billion last year. But figures for the first quarter of this year -- only US$3 billion -- already projected a slowing down from last year's positive trend.