Democratic struggle

Dita Sari among winners of Magsaysay awards

Reuters - July 30, 2001 (abridged)

Manila -- A Chinese agricultural scientist and agovernment official are among the seven winners of the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Awards for excellence, the award foundation said on Monday.

The international awards are given annually by the Philippines- based foundation in honour of the late President Ramon Magsaysay, who died in anair crash in 1957. Winners each receive a gold medallion and a cash prize of $50,000.

Included in the list for `emergent leadership' was Dita Indah Sari of Indonesia and Oung Chanthol of Cambodia for being "at the forefront of the struggle against labour abuses and anti-women crimes, respectively."

Democracy activists hospitalised by fire-bombing

Green Left Weekly - August 1, 2001

Pip Hinman -- At 4am on July 22, a tent occupied by hunger strikers in the Sumatran town of Lampung was doused with petrol and set alight by thugs, suspected to be military personnel in plain clothes.

Two of the hunger strikers -- GPK (Popular Youth Movement) member Ardiansyah and JAKER cultural network member Sigit -- were hospitalised with severe burns to their bodies. Another two hunger strikers -- Ipul from the leftist People's Democratic Party (PRD) and Agus from JAKER -- were also burned on the hands and legs.

The hunger strike was part of a campaign organised by the FAOB, a broad pro-democracy coalition, against the return to power by the forces of Suharto's New Order dictatorship. The FAOB comprises 16 Lampung-based organisations including the PRD, GPK, JAKER, the local Catholic (PMKRI) and Protestant (GMKI) student organisations, and the National Student League for Democracy (LMND).

The main demands of the FAOB include the call for early elections, judicial prosecution of the leaders of Suharto's Golkar party, the reinstatement of government price subsidies on fuel and basic goods, confiscation of the assets of New Order cronies and repudiation of Indonesia's foreign debt.

The firebombing of the FAOB hunger strikers' tent is part of the escalation of violent attacks upon those groups at the forefront of resisting the comeback to power of the Suharto era crony capitalist-military establishment. Nineteen members of the PRD are now in jail in Bandung. Fifteen members of the Acehnese People's Democratic Resistance Front (FPDRA) and other democratic organisations were arrested in Banda Aceh two weeks ago. There have also been attacks by armed right-wing militia groups on the offices of several different activist organisations associated with the PRD.

East Timor

Dili Court flouts women's rights in releasing suspect

Tapol Press release - July 29, 2001

Tapol today expressed dismay at a controversial decision on Wednesday by the Dili District Court to release Dr Sergio Lobo -- a surgeon at the Dili Hospital and candidate in the forthcoming constituent assembly elections on 30 August -- from detention in Becora prison and to place him under house detention until his forthcoming trial, while allowing him to go to the hospital each day to practise as usual.

Dr Lobo is facing charges relating to serious assaults on his wife and a local nun, but one of the reasons for his release was that the 'cultural situation of East Timor allows a man to control the actions of his wife'. The Court was apparently concerned that Dr Lobo's wife had taken a job in a hotel without his consent and it was this which led to the assault on her.

Tapol fully respects Dr Lobo's right to the presumption of innocence, his right to a fair trial, and his right not to be subject to arbitrary detention. Tapol does not take a view on whether the facts of the case are as alleged, but is extremely concerned that the Dili court failed to observe international human rights standards in deciding that the cultural domination of men over women in East Timor was a proper ground in law for releasing Dr Lobo.

Dr Lobo was indicted in February 2001 in relation to allegations of serious assaults on his wife and a nun at a convent where his wife was seeking refuge. He was not detained at the time, but on 8 July 2001 again allegedly attacked his wife and was ordered to be detained by the investigating judge. Dr Lobo allegedly has a long history of assaulting his wife during their 15 years of marriage. On several occasions she has required medical treatment and has said she has feared for her life.

The investigating judge gave as his reasons for detaining Dr Lobo the need to protect the victim and the risk that the accused might leave the country. That decision was made in accordance with provisions of East Timor's criminal procedure code and would appear to have been entirely reasonable in the circumstances.

In allowing the accused's appeal against his pre-trial detention, the Panel of the Dili District Court decided to release him from prison and ordered substitute restrictive measures of house detention and weekly reporting to the court. They gave as their reasons Dr Lobo's work at the Dili Hospital, his children's right to be with their father and the cultural situation of East Timor where, according to the Court, a man has the right to control the actions of his wife.

In view of the serious nature of the charges against Dr Lobo and the apparent danger which his restricted liberty poses to his wife, the first two reasons given for his release do not appear to be reasonable grounds for the District Court's decision. The third reason should not have been considered at all. Tapol is dismayed that the Court relied on East Timor's male-dominated culture as a reason for its decision. This is a flagrant violation of the right of the accused's wife to equality before the law and to the equal protection of the law without discrimination.

In granting the appeal, the court is sending out a message that appears to condone domestic violence, which is known to be fairly widespread in East Timor. Such practices should be firmly condemned, not tolerated.

The decision could also involve infringements of the right of Dr Lobo's wife to security of the person and of international standards which require the judicial process to ensure the safety of victims of crime.

Furthermore, it means that East Timor's judicial system is failing to eliminate discrimination against women in accordance with the requirements of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Convention specifically provides that States shall take all appropriate measures 'to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women'. The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women says that States should not invoke any custom or tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligation with respect to the elimination of violence against women.

UNTAET Regulation 1/1999 stipulates that all East Timorese public officials in performing their duties must observe internationally recognised human rights standards such as those mentioned above.

Tapol believes that this case also raises questions about the independence and impartiality of the presiding judges and in particular the question as to whether their decision was influenced by Dr Lobo's prominent position in East Timorese society.

All agree: Father knows best he doesn't want to be president

Asiaweek - August 10, 2001

Warren Caragata, Dili -- The big UN Land Rover that carries Xanana Gusmao and his bodyguards from event to event should have a bumper sticker that says "I'd rather be doing practically anything else." Anyone who doubts that's the case should watch him when he has a camera in his hands. At one recent event, where Gusmao was the main speaker of the evening -- even though he no longer has any official public role -- his speech was delayed as he took pictures on the way to the podium. In an interview in his makeshift office at the veteran's association -- he stresses he is only a member -- Gusmao, 55, says he would rather be a photographer and journalist than a politician, but smiles sadly that there is no time for personal wants and wishes.

It seems strange that a former guerrilla fighter may not only be the people's choice as national leader but also is the one man who might convince investors that East Timor will be a good place to do business. International donors praise Gusmao's moderation and the critical role he still plays in bringing the Timorese together. "There is one unifying leader -- Gusmao," one diplomat insists. Gusmao's views are decidedly moderate on both economics and politics. He says the Timorese government should concentrate its energies on education, health care and infrastructure. That alone, he says, "will be a big task for the state." The rest, the business of building an economy, should be left to the private sector. Foreign investors will be welcome, he says, but he leaves open the sensitive issue of whether foreign firms will be able to buy land. That's a matter to be settled by the incoming parliament, he believes.

Unfortunately, the man who led the resistance to Indonesian rule has said repeatedly that he does not want to be president. When asked again, he deflects the question, saying the real issue is not his role but whether the August 30 vote to choose an assembly that will draw up East Timor's constitution shows the budding country's political maturity and readiness to create "a free and tolerant society." But the people of East Timor are unlikely to take "No" for an answer from their most popular nonpolitician when it comes time to elect a president next year. Says Pedro Fernando Goncalvo, who fought with Gusmao in the jungles against Indonesian troops: "He has to be president. He's the man who has suffered for all the people."

And Gusmao cannot take his mind off the suffering of his people. One risk is that expectations of immediate prosperity now that the Indonesians have gone cannot be met. Gusmao says he tries to dampen hopes. "I am always reminding people of the difficulties of the first years of independence." It will take five to 10 years even to start cutting East Timor's dependence on foreign aid. Government, he says, shouldn't make promises, but instead work to make gradual improvements in people's lives. The biggest improvement in Gusmao's life would be if the Timorese accept his desire to retreat from public life. But photography will have to wait for the man destined to be president.

Something from nothing

Asiaweek - August 10, 2001

Warren Caragata, Dili -- It's the road from nowhere, but it's surprisingly busy. Mafalda Florindo and Isabella Antonine walk along it, smiling betel-stained grins as they talk about cloth they had just bought for a good price. A little farther, Alicin Soares, a rice grower, maneuvers his truck along the dusty track. His vehicle is filled with people, some of them smoking, and five jerricans of gasoline.

Later Antonio Serrano arrives in a van filled with Coke and Fanta, 50 cases in all, to be sold at a tidy profit of $1 a case. He does the trip every day.

"Nowhere" has a name: Lesu Tunubibi. It's not on any map, but it does exist, a few hundred meters from checkpoints where United Nations and Indonesian soldiers patrol respective sides of the river that separates East Timor and Indonesia. The border has been closed since East Timor voted two years ago for independence. But there's a steady stream of people going back and forth, bringing money to Indonesia and goods back to East Timor. Mattresses, cooking oil, detergent, you name it.

Lesu Tunubibi is one of three black markets operating on the Indonesian side of the 120-km border. It's open from 4am to 3pm, and it's the worst-kept secret in East Timor. "You can't stop it. It's too extensive," says Lt. Col. Jeff Sengelman, commander of the Australian unit patroling this section of the border, watching for members of pro-Jakarta militias who might try to slip in along with cases of soap. Besides, in this desperately poor place, trying to rebuild after militias burned much of it to the ground after the 1999 autonomy vote, smuggling is not just a crime -- it's a vital economic sector. Says Sengelman: "People are trying to make a living and there's not a lot of alternative sources of income for them."

As the former Indonesian province prepares for an election on August 30 that will set the stage for formal independence within the next year or so, the problems it faces are not only the political issues one would expect in a new state, matters of constitutions and electoral systems. More pressing are the fundamental economic questions of how to rebuild an economy virtually from scratch in one of the poorest places on earth. Laws for basic business needs like buying and selling land must be passed. The largely rural population must be educated. And investors must somehow be attracted. Says Michael Francino, a Canadian who serves as East Timor's finance minister under an arrangement with the International Monetary Fund: "No one's ever tried to create a country overnight."

Timorese officials also privately express concerns that Megawati Sukarnoputri's new government in Jakarta will take a harder line toward its former 27th province. The new president is strongly nationalistic. One of her closest military advisers, retired Gen. Theo Syafei, was a commander in East Timor for many years. Few expect Jakarta to try to regain control; it has enough problems elsewhere. "They now accept the reality," says Dili's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta. But UN Secretary-General Koffi Annan last week cited the continued activity of militias in Indonesian West Timor, and suggested that UN troops and police remain in East Timor after independence.

The August 30 vote is for an 88-seat assembly that will formulate a constitution and an exact timetable for independence, which will end the trusteeship by the UN Transitional Administration headed by Sergio Vieira de Mello and staffed by more than 1,000 international civil servants.

Independence will most likely come next year. But if East Timorese were united in wanting Indonesia out, unity in the absence of an enemy has been difficult to maintain. Xanana Gusmao, the charismatic guerrilla leader pegged as the most likely future president, may be the only one who can keep the Timorese together -- and he does not want the job. Sixteen parties covering the spectrum of ideologies are vying for voter attention. One even advocates reintegration with Indonesia.

But if East Timor has politics in abundance, what it doesn't have is money. This year, out of a $305 million budget, it raised only $25 million from taxes and fees. The rest came from foreign donors. Portugal, East Timor's colonial ruler until 1975, put up $51 million last year, says the aid coordinator of the Portuguese mission in Dili, Antonio Perez-Metelo. The World Bank administers a $170 million trust fund used to rebuild schools, hospitals and other infrastructure destroyed in the post-referendum violence.

Then there's the $700 million a year for 8,000 peacekeeping troops, and other UN costs. "East Timor is right now the biggest recipient of international assistance per capita on Planet Earth," says Perez-Metelo.

How long donors will keep spending is a big question. Says one Western diplomat: "Sooner or later the novelty will wear off." That day has not yet come. But Perez-Metelo notes that donors are being generous because East Timor is relatively stable. Should political debates provoke widespread violence, all bets are off. Says Perez-Metelo: "The message is: If you start killing each other, it's over."

The flood of aid money and well-paid UN staff has transformed Dili, or parts of it. With high rates of malaria and dengue, it is still that "highly pestilential place" that author Joseph Conrad visited a century ago. But it is also a town where so- called "internationals" can sip a cappuccino at an outdoor restaurant, or treat friends to a $13-a-plate Sunday brunch at a floating hotel in the harbor.

It's a bubble economy, and Pedro Soares is a bubble boy. The 14- year-old sells papers outside the blue-awninged City Cafe, making about $2 a day, double what many Timorese farmers make. The UN photocopying and printing budget is about $2 million a year. That's not much, but it equals two days worth of production from the entire economy. Says Mari Alkatiri, the economics minister in the outgoing government: "This is a completely distorted economy in Dili."

The bubble makes people like Pedro happy. But not others. Last year the Cooperativa Cafe Timor hired more than 300 women to pick defective beans from its coffee, says David Boyce, an official with the US Agency for International Development, which funds the cooperative. This year, inflated wages are pricing local labor out of the market. Rates are now about $3.50 a day -- double the minimum wage in Jakarta -- compared with a dollar a day in 1999. The cooperative, which buys about 20% of East Timor's all-organic coffee crop, has bought a $10,000 vibrating table that picks out the bad beans. As a result, it will hire only about half as many sorters, and the workers complain that their wages still don't keep up with price rises. A few weeks ago, workers at CCT's drying fields on Dili's outskirts went on strike demanding a second shift. "It's an international company and the wages are not good," says Ajitao, one of the strikers.

Landmark Trading is a supermarket in Dili that feels all the good and bad of the bubble. Gary Loh and his family arrived from Singapore and set up shop a year ago, investing almost $100,000. Most of its custom comes from UN international staff. Given that dependence, Loh says he hopes the UN will abandon plans to cut its civil service staff by about half by year-end. But, in virtually the same breath, Loh complains that high wages hurt the business. Labor costs are higher than in China or Vietnam, he says, and productivity is low so that "we use a lot of manpower to do little." Sarah Cliffe, who heads the World Bank mission in Dili, says the combination of high wages and low skills make East Timor uncompetitive for labor-intensive industries.

In the rural areas, where 85% of the population lives, things are very different. Joseph Alfonsius and his wife Grajella live on a salty and seasonally parched coastal plain west of Dili in a small thatched hut with a floor of carefully swept dirt. In the rainy season, Alfonsius grows corn and vegetables on the family's 2-hectare farm plot in the hills a kilometer away.

In the dry, he grows a few vegetables in a dusty garden near the house. He owns a pig and a few chickens. Wood from the palm-like Pandamus trees used to construct his hut provides the only cash income. He cuts and splits the branches and sells bundles for about 50 cents each. In a year, he makes about $50, less than the daily expense allowance for a UN staffer.

East Timor's hope for economic transformation lies in the waters of the Timor Sea between the island and Australia. Natural gas should begin to flow in 2004. The Bayu-Undan field being developed by Phillips Petroleum will produce what for the tiny territory will be a veritable bonanza. A new treaty agreed in principle July 5 with Canberra will give Dili 90% of the royalties, or as much as $4 billion over 20 years. A row over what level of tax Phillips would have to pay is now threatening to delay the project. But once it comes on line, says de Mello, "there will be enough revenue to bring prosperity to East Timor."

But the Timorese leadership realizes only too well that natural gas proceeds could be a curse. The gas will come ashore in Australia but any operations that may be set up in East Timor will bring in a new crop of foreigners and keep wages up. As has happened in other countries, resource wealth could also blind the government to other economic activities, especially unglamorous ones like farming. It could entice politicians to put money in show projects or big government buildings. There's also the risk of corruption. When oil or gas runs out, says the World Bank's Cliffe, "many countries end up poorer."

The gas money's not even in the bank yet, but Francino says some budget choices already made are worrying. There is a debate about the costs of providing electricity, which is principally a subsidy for people in Dili as electrical power in the villages is uncertain or nonexistent. Higher rates will hurt the poor but Francino notes that the subsidy is now as large as the total health budget. Then there's the university debate. The tiny country has one, set up by Jakarta, but critics argue the money would be better spent on primary schools to combat illiteracy. Already-planned spending plus a slowdown in donor financing could mean that when the revenues from Bayu-Undan arrive, they will already be spoken for.

De Mello acknowledges the UN has made mistakes. The world body had never actually governed a territory before and "the early days were pretty messy." Complicating the task, most of East Timor's professionals and civil servants had been Indonesians; almost all of them left when the army did. But de Mello says critics should remember the smoldering wreckage that was East Timor less than two years ago. "The most important thing for business is stability," he says, and the country has that now.

The past two years have been dreadful but also a time of hope. At a rally for national unity ahead of the elections, Enrique Cortereal, 49, watches with his wife Maria and three-year-old daughter Maria, who's all dressed up in her best red-and-white striped frock, her long dark hair swept up in a bun. "I'm sure she'll have a good future," Cortereal says as he shifts his gaze to his daughter. Hopes for a better tomorrow rarely come true in this part of the world. But in the next few months, the East Timorese will get to make their own choices about the path they want to follow. The country's fate will be in their hands. For Maria's sake, they'll have to get it right.

West Timor commander orders military to shoot armed civilians

BBC Worldwide Monitoring - August 3, 2001

[Source: Kompas Cyber Media web site, Jakarta, Auguse 3]

Denpasar -- If civilians refuse to surrender their weapons as ordered by security personnel, the military will not hesitate to shoot them. This statement was made by IX/Udayana Military Area Commander Maj-Gen Willem T da Costa on Thursday in Denpasar.

Da Costa claimed he has already made requests to NTT East Nusa Tenggara Governor Piet Tallo to publicize warnings that no civilian in West Timor was permitted to have any standard or homemade weapons. "The people are also prohibited from carrying grenades. Initially we will ask nicely for the weapons but if there is any resistance we will shoot," he said.

In anticipation of possible violence leading up to East Timor's August elections, da Costa admits there has been no increase in troop deployment to the area. At the moment there are two battalions (726 and 131 Infantry Battalions) on the border in Atambua and a task force of 450 in Oecussi.

"The forthcoming election process is still underway and the nation has not been formed. We still need this number of troops to guard against the possibility that the elections will be disrupted. These disruptions could come from East Timor itself or from extremists on our side," he added. "We are on alert and have stepped up patrols along the 147 km border," said da Costa...

East Timor pushes controversial plan to adopt Portuguese language

Deutsche Presse-Agentur - August 2, 2001

East Timor's transitional government on Thursday moved forward with a controversial plan to adopt Portuguese as the country's official language by announcing it would recruit 723 Portuguese language teachers.

The education division of the department of social affairs said it would be recruiting the teachers for primary, junior and secondary schools nationwide from August 3 until August 11.

The plan is widely controversial, especially among many of the country's students, who were educated in Indonesia and are fluent in that language. English is also rapidly increasing in popularity among young East Timorese who see it as a prerequisite for a well-paid job with the UN mission administering the territory and foreign companies now setting up businesses. In addition, many Timorese in the countryside only speak Tetum, the primary local dialect.

However, senior leaders including independence fighter Xanana Gusmao have strongly supported adopting Portuguese, the language of their former colonisers, saying it gives East Timor a cultural identity.

East Timor is preparing for full statehood later this year, beginning with the selection of a constituent assembly on August 30, which will then become its first-ever parliament.

UN cuts East Timor force

Financial Times - August 3, 2001

The United Nations is to reduce its presence in East Timor in spite of Security Council members' reservations about the new administration in Jakarta.

"We are very concerned that political instability in Jakarta has weakened efforts to initiate the establishment of an ad hoc tribunal for the prosecution of serious crimes committed in East Timor," said Alistair Harrison, speaking as the UK's chargi d'affaires,at last week's open meeting of the Security Council on East Timor.

"We very much hope that the recent change in Indonesia's political leadership will result in greater progress on this front. We call on the new Indonesian government to fulfil its obligations to make early progress in this area."

In a closed meeting ahead of the open debate, ambassadors were even more critical of Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia's new president, and cautioned against giving the impression that the UN will leave East Timor to manage on its own any time soon. "The last thing we want to do at the moment is send a signal to the Indonesians that all is well and the UN is stepping back," said one western diplomat.

The US and France have been especially active in pushing the UN for an exit strategy for the 8,000-member peacekeeping force. "For the US and France, it's about general UN mandates and budgets and not having inflated operations that last for ever," the diplomat said.

David Malone, president of the International Peace Academy, said: "Scope for creative funding for UN peacekeeping is very limited. This is not the World Bank's responsibility or that of bilateral donors. This really is a core UN function."

Kofi Annan, the United Nations' secretary-general, said in a report that UN battalions stationed in central and eastern regions could be reduced as long as the security situation remained stable. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN's administrator for East Timor, said the reductions could come before East Timor's independence. Both men said that the UN's pullout would be gradual and that the organisation would continue to play a role in East Timor after independence.

The exact date of East Timor's independence is under debate. Mari Alkatiri, head of the leading party, Fretilin, says this should occur on November 28, the date Fretilin declared independence in 1975 before the former Portuguese colony was overrun by Indonesia. But he said the precise date would be a matter for East Timor's constituent assembly, a de facto parliament to be formed after elections on August 30, to decide.

Mr de Mello argued that independence should be delayed until the spring of next year. The constituent assembly needed time to formulate a constitution.

Human rights groups have been especially critical of Mrs Megawti's lack of willingness to crack down on Indonesian militia leaders. Eurico Guterres, who is wanted by the UN for war crimes, joined Mrs Megawati's party in 1999 after fleeing East Timor. He now serves as the head of the party's paramilitary branch in Jakarta.

Nevertheless, Jose Ramos Horta, the foreign affaires minister in East Timor's transitional government, said he hoped Mrs Megawati would resist the influence of Indonesia's hardline military factions.

[Carola Hoyos in New York and Joe Leahy in Dili]

Phillips pulls plug on Timor pipeline

Sydney Morning Herald - August 1, 2001

Mark Dodd, Dili -- In a surprise move, American company Phillips Petroleum and its joint venture partners have deferred indefinitely plans to build a $1.5 billion Timor Sea to Darwin natural gas pipeline.

In a letter sent to United Nations Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan on July 26, Phillips cited "critical legal and fiscal issues" as the reason for the deferment.

The decision comes as partners in the project remain at odds with the East Timor Administration over the effective rate of corporate tax which would apply to the project. The corporate tax rate in East Timor is well over 40 per cent, compared with 30 per cent in Australia.

Phillips and its North-West Shelf partner Woodside remain locked in talks with the East Timor Administration on this issue, although little progress has been made to date.

Phillips' move occurs against the backdrop of intense jockeying between backers of the East Timor Sea gas pipeline project and plans to pipe gas from Papua New Guinea to Australia. The PNG project lost its early momentum because of concerns about civil unrest, as backers of the East Timor Sea projects gained the upper hand by winning a key contract with BHP Billiton's Yabulu nickel plant near Townsville, in northern Queensland.

In its letter to the UN, Phillips said: "Participants in the Bayu Undan project have unanimously decided to defer indefinitely investment in the sub-sea pipeline proposed to transport gas from the Timor field to Darwin. The deferral reflects the need to resolve certain critical legal and fiscal issues arising from the Timor Sea arrangement."

After a year of difficult and often acrimonious negotiations between a joint UN/East Timorese team and officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a memorandum of understanding on shared oil and gas revenue from the Timor Sea was finally signed in Dili on July 5.

Under the terms of the landmark agreement, East Timor would receive 90 per cent of revenue from a so-called joint petroleum development area worth $7 billion over 20 years. The Northern Territory stood to benefit from the construction of a massive underwater pipeline to carry gas from the Timor Sea field to Darwin.

According to Phillips, which is the biggest private stakeholder in the Timor Sea, oil reserves in the development area total about 30 million barrels and natural gas reserves about 175 million barrels. They are estimated to be worth a total of $21.3 billion.

A deal to renegotiate proceeds from the oil and gas rich Timor Sea became necessary after East Timor voted to end 24 years of Indonesian rule following a violent UN-brokered referendum on August 30, 1999.

Analysts in Dili said that with East Timor now in the home stretch to full independence, it was likely that Phillips wanted to sort out its problems with a new sovereign East Timorese government and not the UN transitional administration.

The letter from Phillips suggests that the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) had been dragging its heels in sorting out a proper tax and investment regime for the oil companies. However, according to one senior UN official, Australia bears some of the blame for the latest problems because Foreign Minister Mr Downer announced as late as June 28 that current production sharing contracts would be retained.

"We [UNTAET] thought there would be a whole new fiscal regime. But Downer announced the old contracts would have to continue," said one UN official, who asked not to be named.

The official, who was a member of the UN negotiating team, said UNTAET was ready to co-operate with the oil companies in a bid to resolve the latest problems. "We remain available to meet with the companies to nail down any outstanding issues. We are still waiting for them to get back to us," the official said.

UN Security Council extends UNTAET mandate till early 2002

Suara Timor Lorosae - August 1, 2001

The United Nations Security Council yesterday decided to extend the presence of UNTAET in Timor Lorosae till early 2002. However, Indonesia warned that the extension of UNTAET's mandate must not have any hidden agenda that could affect Jakarta.

Before the 15-member Security Council made the decision, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented his report outling the main achievements of UNTAET and the reasons why the mission's mandate needed to be extended.

Indonesia's Ambassador to the UN, Makmur Widodo, made an interjection. He said in connection to the aid given to Timor Lorosae, Indonesia had two points of view under the new administration of Megawati Sukarnoputri.

He said the two points supported the extension of UNTAET's mandate, which was intended to help the people of Timor Lorosae and the country on its path to full independence.

However the Indonesian ambassador said in all negotiations with Timor Lorosae, Indonesia will always adhere to "defending its territorial integrity and national security". "Therefore if there are other interests detrimental to Indonesia, Jakarta will reject the extension of UNTAET's mandate," said Makmur.

At the Security Council session, several countries urged President Megawati to honor Indonesia's commitment to recognizing Timor Lorosae's existence.

Coffee prices fall sharply, Timor Lorosae farmers protest

Suara Timor Lorosae - August 1, 2001

About 19,800 coffee farmers in Timor Lorosae have to swallow the bitter pill because of sharp falls in worldwide coffee prices. On 10 May the price of export quality coffee fetched US$0.6855 on the world markets. On 27 July, however, the price fell to US$0.5130.

"Every week the price falls sharply on the American market in New York. The price fluctuations affect us badly in Timor Lorosae because our coffee is sold on the American market," said Sisto Moniz Piedade, the Operational Director of Cooperative Cafi Timor (CCT) in Lecidere, Dili.

CCT is affiliated with the NCBA (National Cooperative Business Association) which markets Timor Lorosae coffee on the New York markets.

Before Timor Lorosae separated from Indonesia, Timor Lorosae coffee farmers were free to sell their coffee at Atambua (in West Timor) at satisfactory prices. That choice, however, is now not available.

Farmers now can only sell their coffee to CCT or two other industries -- Asinco and Delta Cafi. "The prices currently offered at these places are really low," said Sisto.

Indeed, the issue of falling coffee prices has been taken up by all the 16 political parties in the election campaign for the 30 August election.

Leader of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) Mario Viegas Carrascalao said a kilogram of Timor coffee was sold at Aus$30 in Australia and 100 grams of the same coffee fetched US$1 in Portugal. "So I'm really baffled on why we are getting so low prices locally?" he asked.

Mixed responses to Megawati

Green Left Weekly - August 1, 2001

Jon Land -- As campaigning for the Constituent Assembly elections slowly gathers momentum across East Timor, the installation of Megawati Sukarnoputri as Indonesia's new president has drawn a mixed response from East Timor's political leaders and human rights groups.

A joint statement from Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta, issued while attending the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministerial meeting in Hanoi welcomed Megawati's appointment, calling for the continuation of "the process of dialogue towards normalising relations and building the foundations of a solid and long lasting friendship".

Commenting on Abdurahman Wahid's reluctance to be removed as president, Horta said that he should depart "with moderation and dignity" and not call on his followers to go on to the streets in opposition to the verdict.

Other East Timorese, however, are concerned that the change in Indonesian president will not see an improvement in Jakarta's relations with East Timor. As vice-president, Megawati consistently refused to meet with delegations visiting Jakarta from the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, including those which involved Gusmao, Horta and other prominent East Timorese leaders.

Equally worrying is Megawati's close association with the Indonesian military and her links to the pro-Jakarta East Timorese militia groups still operating in refugee camps across the Indonesian province of West Timor.

Aniceto Guterres, director of Yayasan Hak, one East Timor's main legal aid and human rights organisation, told Associated Press on July 24 he believed Megawati would protect those in the Indonesian military responsible for gross human rights abuses in East Timor.

There are concerns that there will be a cessation in the limited moves within the Indonesian legal system to investigate and bring to trial military officers for human rights crimes conducted in East Timor in 1999. "I am now pessimistic those in the military [who are] responsible will be brought to justice", stated prominent human rights lawyer Aderito de Jesus Soares.

Indonesian military orders crackdown on Timor militia

Agence France Presse - August 1, 2001

An Indonesian military commander has ordered his troops to arrest East Timorese militiamen who are still operating from refugee camps in neighbouring West Timor, the official Antara news agency said Wednesday.

"There's no excuse for the refugees who create trouble. I order the local military commander to arrest them [because] maybe police have too much work to do to handle them," Major General William da Costa was quoted by Antara as saying.

Da Costa heads the Bali-based military command which oversees security in Indonesian West Timor. He urged refugees who possessed arms to hand them over to the security authorities and said soldiers would be allowed to shoot militiamen if they engaged in violence.

The militiamen and more than 100,000 other East Timorese have been living in refugee camps in West Timor since East Timor's vote for independence from Indonesia in September 1999.

"Should anything happen, I will be responsible for it. I have conveyed this time and again to the leaders of East Timorese refugees," the general said.

United Nations peacekeepers in East Timor, which is now under UN supervision in its transition to full independence, and pro- Indonesian East Timorese militiamen have clashed several times since the vote.

In the latest armed skirmish on the border between East and West Timor last week, peacekeepers killed an Indonesian army sergeant who crossed the frontier armed but without wearing his uniform. The UN said the sergeant fired at one of its patrols.

Electorate totals more than 400,000: Dili official

Lusa - July 30, 2001

Ongoing corrections to preliminary voters lists in East Timor have included an additional 18,000 names and will bring the total electorate for August 30 constituent assembly elections to more than 400,000, electoral commission official Carlos Valenzuela said Monday.

He told reporters in Dili that more than 233,000 East Timorese had consulted the preliminary lists since their posting for verification and correction.

The Independent Electoral Commission had earlier acknowledged "systematic" errors in preparing the preliminary lists, based on a recent territory-wide civil registration campaign.

Valenzuela said that 250 voting centers, with about 790 ballot boxes, would be used in the upcoming election, about 25 percent more than during East Timor's August 1999 independence plebiscite.

UN officials dismiss Amnesty's critical report as `exaggeration'

Lusa - July 30, 2001

UN transition administration officials acknowledged Monday that issues of justice and human rights in East Timor remain a problem but dismissed a negative Amnesty International report as "exaggerated".

Several UNTAET officials, contacted by Lusa in Dili, classed the AI report released Friday as "vague" and "partially ambiguous", saying it almost appeared to be "a request for employment" by the prestigious rights group.

Among other findings, the lengthy AI report said that justice and human rights were not yet guaranteed in the territory, appealing to the UN to rectify errors and assure compliance with internationally recognized norms.

Addressing one of AI's concerns, Gita Welch, justice minister in the transitional cabinet, downplayed the significance of "political interference" in the judicial process.

"I don't think there's much basis for saying this", Welch, a Mozambican, told Lusa. "What's important is knowing to what point prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers respond or not to such pressures". Portuguese judge Luis Antero, Welch's aide, said the AI report was premature.

"We are setting up a [justice] system, and one can't expect perfection in one year. Of importance is the creation of conditions so the system may consolidate in the future", Antero said.

Aceh/West Papua

Sixth rebel peace negotiator arrested in Aceh

Agence France Presse - August 4, 2001

Banda Aceh -- Indonesian police said Saturday they had arrested a sixth rebel peace negotiator in the restive province of Aceh amid an intensifying anti-guerrilla crackdown by security forces.

Sofyan Ibrahim Tiba, a member of the separatist Free Aceh Movementwho was involved in talks with Indonesian officials, is accused of subversion and faces life imprisonment, Aceh police spokesman Commissioner Sudarsono told

Police arrested Tiba at his home, five kilometers north of this provincial capital, at 10:30pm Friday. "The arrest was based on the results of the questioning of the five GAM negotiators we arrested on July 20," Sudarsono said.

Tiba sat on a joint GAM-Jakarta security monitoring committee set up under the auspices of Switzerland's Henry Dunant Center as part of a ceasefire agreement, dubbed a "Humanitarian Pause", in May 2000.

Indonesia unilaterally decided to suspend the committee and to dissolve a parallel committee overseeing humanitarian affairs, after the failure of renewed peace talks in Geneva in early July.

Tiba was suspected of carrying out subversive activities and fomenting hatred against the Indonesian government, Sudarsono said. "Police questioned him straight after his arrest and detained him at provincial police headquarters," he added.

Tiba's family said he was resting in his bedroom when three carloads of police turned up at their home. "We heard knocks at the door and got scared and turned out the lights. They kept knocking so we opened the door, and several policemen came in asking for my father," said one of Tiba's sons, who asked to accompany his father to the police station. "They let me come. We were taken to the local [elite police] Brimob base," he told AFP. However, police ordered him to go home when they began questioning his father. The five negotiators arrested in July are still in detention at Aceh's police headquarters.

Indonesian security forces have been stepping up efforts to crush the rebels since April when then president Abdurrahman Wahid gave the green light for escalated military operations. The crackdown on the peace negotiators began as the national parliament in Jakarta, supported by the police and military, accelerated moves to impeach Wahid and replace him with his deputy, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Wahid was dismissed and Megawati, an avowed nationalist who is considered an ally of the military, installed on July 23. The GAM rebels have expressed fears that the new government will take even harsher action as Megawati, the daughter of founding president Sukarno, seeks to maintain Indonesia's territorial integrity.

In the first half of this year alone more than 1,000 people have been killed in Aceh, in what observers say is the highest killing rate in more than two decades of fighting between GAM and government troops. The GAM has been fighting to turn Aceh, a province rich in oil and gas on the northwestern tip of Indonesia, into an independent Muslim state since the 1970s.

Indonesian forces kill 10 alleged separatist rebels in Aceh

Agence France Presse - August 3, 2001

Jakarta -- Indonesian security forces have shot dead 10 suspected separatist rebels in various clashes in the flashpoint province of Aceh, the army and police said Friday.

Three members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were killed early Friday when a force of 30 soldiers raided their hideout in the village of Siyong, said military spokesman Edi Sulistiadie. Siyong is 15 kilometers east of the provincial capital Banda Aceh. The troops also seized two rifles, he said.

An 18-year-old man was killed when he and another man tried to drive their motorcycle through a police checkpoint in Aceh Besar district late Thursday, the state Antara news agency quoted a police spokesman as saying. The victim was believed to be a GAM member. The other man escaped on the motorbike. GAM officials were not immediately available for comment.

Also on Thursday six rebels were killed in a military raid on a GAM base in the Timang Gajah district of Central Aceh, said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Firdaus.

Police and troops have said they would increase patrols in anticipation of rebel attacks before the 56th anniversary of Indonesia's independence on August 17.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Aceh, a resource-rich province on the northwestern tip of Sumatra island, in the first half of this year. After a series of failed peace talks last year, Jakarta in April sent more troops into the province to try to crush the rebel movement.

Aceh rebels warn Indonesia on peace talks

Reuters - August 1, 2001

Will Hardie, Stockholm -- Rebels from Indonesia's restive Aceh province warned new president Megawati Sukarnoputri on Wednesday that she must rein in her military and release jailed rebel officials or jeopardise peace talks.

A senior rebel official told Reuters he did not believe the removal of Sukarnoputri's predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid, would calm tensions in the resource-rich but bloody zone.

"Who has been appointed president doesn't matter for us. The aim of the people of Aceh is getting independence. That is all," Aceh Health Minister-in-exile Zaini Abdullah said in Stockholm, where the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has its headquarters.

Sukarnoputri took office after Indonesia's national assembly fired Wahid for incompetence last week. "In fact there has been no change at all. Especially the situation on the ground in Aceh, which is more killing and violence," Abdullah said.

Indonesia sent 1,500 troops to Aceh last month to reinforce about 30,000 police and soldiers already there. Abdullah said they had burned more than 100 homes in Aceh last week: "There is just more and more killing, raping and burning." On July 20 Indonesian police arrested six key Acehnese figures for inciting rebellion, including GAM spokesman Amni Marzuki and chief peace negotiator Nashiruddin Ahmad.

Abdullah said a new round of peace talks scheduled for Geneva in September would not go ahead unless they were freed: "They have no right to arrest those people because they are negotiators. If they do not release them, there is no chance of making more talks."

GAM has made a formal protest via a Swiss-based advocacy group which has brokered several recent rounds of talks. The last negotiations at the start of July produced no more than an accord to meet again in September.

The rebels have been fighting for decades for independence for the province on the northwestern tip of Sumatra island. Aceh accounts for a fifth of Indonesia's oil and gas exports and is an important prop for its creaking economy.

To appease deep-seated resentment, Jakarta has moved to give Aceh a greater share of its own wealth. Parliament passed a bill last month granting Aceh more power over its own affairs, which must still be approved and implemented by the new government.

Abdullah said the bill was not enough, and the rebels would never compromise on their demand for full independence. "Which way we go depends on the situation. It may be via a referendum, or we may take it directly," he said.

Although a ceasefire is in place, it has failed to prevent regular bloodshed. Human rights activists say the violence seems to emanate from both rebels and militias backed by the army.

Five dead in Indonesia's restive Aceh

Agence France Presse - August 1, 2001

Banda Aceh -- Five people -- four suspected rebels and an Indonesian soldier -- have been killed in the restive province of Aceh, police and the military said Wednesday.

Private Muhammad Amin was shot Wednesday morning by unidentified gunmen in Lampisang village, some ten kilometers south of Banda Aceh, military spokesman Major Edi Sulistiadie, told AFP. Amin, who was shot in the head and face, died in hospital of blood loss.

Also on Wednesday three guerrillas of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were killed in a gunfight with the police anti- bomb squad in Aceh Besar, about 10 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, police Commissioner Sudarsono said.

He said an exchange of gunfire started when five GAM members ambushed a patrol by the police bomb squad, adding that two other attackers managed to flee although one of them was hit. Police seized two guns and a grenade laucher from the rebels, he said.

Another guerrilla was killed Tuesday in a gunfight in a village in Idi Rayeuk area in East Aceh district, said district military detachment commander Major Rogan. He identified the victim as 29-year-old Husin Basyah and said he was a member of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Local GAM spokesman Ishak Daud said Basyah was a civilian who had been shot because he tried to run away after he saw the troops enter the village during a search for the rebel group. Daud said seven soldiers had been killed in the skirmish. Aceh military operations spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Firdaus (eds: one name), denied this.

Firdaus said troops would also step up patrols in anticipation of rebel attacks before the 56th anniversary of Indonesia's independence on August 17.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Aceh, a resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island, in the first half of this year. After a series of failed peace talks last year, Jakarta in April sent more troops into the province to try to crush the rebel movement.

Land disputes/peasant struggle

140 million farmers and not enough rice

InterPress News Service - August 1, 2001

Kanis Dursin, Bekasi -- Indonesia is the biggest rice importer in Asia. This is sadly ironic, because almost 70 percent of the country's 213 million people are farmers.

There is a long list of reasons, or excuses, for the sorry state of affairs, with the biggest one being that the domestic prices, set by the government, are simply too low to encourage rice farming on any kind of a large scale.

"Growing rice is no longer profitable for Indonesian farmers because the prices of locally produced rice are too low," says Riza Tjahjadi, coordinator of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Indonesia. "The farmers, especially those on [the main island of] Java, have no incentives to produce more rice," says Hideo Imai, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Jakarta.

There are, of course, many other factors involved, and a multitude of looming problems the new government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri will have to tackle.

The government sets the floor prices of rice, taking into account the prices of fertilizer, seeds, labor and profits for farmers. To ensure that the commodity is not sold below the floor prices, the government sets aside funds for the National Bureau of Logistics (BULOG) to buy rice from farmers at floor prices. But very often, BULOG buys rice long before the harvest season because it fears that farmers will not be able to harvest enough rice. Often, by the time harvest season comes, the agency no longer has money to buy rice from farmers -- or its stocks are full.

For their part, farmers, who habitually borrow working capital from usurers are often in a hurry to sell their produce to middlemen, albeit at much cheaper prices.

Last year, for example, the government set the floor prices of unhusked rice at 1,020 rupiah (9 US cents) per kilogram, but many farmers in rice-producing regions such as Central Java and East Java provinces sold their rice between 700 and 800 rupiah per kilogram as BULOG could no longer absorb their rice.

The government has earmarked 6.6 trillion rupiah to buy up to 2.5 million tons of unhusked rice from farmers this year in order to prop up rice prices to 1,500 rupiah per kilogram, but the market prices of unhusked rice now hover between 800 rupiah and 900 rupiah per kilogram.

The prices of domestic rice have also been dampened by the liberalization of the rice trade, introduced in 1998 as part of economic reforms carried out in order to receive massive financial bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Over the years, the poor stimulus for rice production has eaten into Indonesia's earlier achievement of self-sufficiency in rice.

Like most Asian countries, rice is Indonesia's staple food. Indonesia has around 7-8 million hectares of rice fields, but most of them are small scale, cultivated in traditional ways and use low-yield rice varieties. Only 30 percent of farmers are known to use high-yield rice varieties. Likewise, because the prices of rice are very low, most farmers produce only enough to get by on.

"All is for family consumption," says Syamsuddin, a 62-year-old migrant farmer who tills a hectare of rice field he borrowed from a respected Muslim religious leader. Much as he wants to, Syamsuddin, a father of 18 children from four wives, cannot afford to plant rice twice a year because he does not have enough money to buy fertilizer, seeds and hire workers.

The government provides fertilizer at subsidized prices and low- interest loans for farmers, but complicated bureaucracy and corruption have effectively prevented farmers from having access to and benefitting from those schemes. "I have been trying to acquire low-interest credits from the government, but I simply could not get one as there are too many requirements that most farmers like me could not meet," says Syamsuddin.

So far, the government has succeeded in expanding rice fields, especially outside Java. But because of lack of irrigation and poor soil conditions in those places, national rice production remains flat. The government aims to have around 10 million hectares of rice fields in 2003 in order to achieve self- sufficiency in rice.

Some of the irrigated rice fields have also been converted into other non-agricultural uses, such as golf courses. In April, Megawati expressed concern over the decreasing number of rice fields in many farming areas in the country, especially in Karawang and Bekasi, both in West Java, due to conversion into golf courses that number some 250 around the country. "Even the colonists never touched those areas that are the main source of rice for the country. We are even worse than they were, because we turn productive land to golf courses," Megawati said.

The conversion of fertile and irrigated rice fields on Java further exacerbates problems in rice production and puts in question the food security programs of Indonesia, which already suffers perennial rice shortages and continues to import rice from neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, China, Pakistan, India and Australia.

Indonesia is expected to produce 50.18 million tons of rice in 2001, down from 51.8 million tons in 2000. This year's total domestic demand for rice is estimated to reach 52 million tons.

Indonesia imported about 1.2 million tons of rice worth US$279 million from January to October 2000, down the previous year. Indeed, at the height of the economic crisis in 1998, it imported 5.8 million tons of rice. More than half of rice imported in 1998 was in the form of grants from friendly countries on an emergency basis.

The country achieved self-sufficiency in rice during the Suharto regime in 1984, but resumed importing rice in 1986 due to low domestic rice output.

The Association of Indonesian Farmers (HKTI) has repeatedly urged the government to ban rice imports or at least impose high tariffs on imported rice in order to prop up domestic rice prices and encourage farmers to grow more. But even Cabinet ministers cannot reach agreement on the issue. The agriculture ministry's proposal to ban, or at least impose high tariffs on imported rice, has met strong resistance from the ministry of trade and industry, which argues that such a move runs against the spirit of trade liberalization. Currently, the government imposes a 30 percent tariff on imported rice.

The country's inability to meet domestic rice demand raises concerns about its ability to reduce hunger in line with the World Food Summit's target of a reduction by half in 2015 and its readiness to implement the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) in 2002, when member countries have to reduce tariffs for agricultural products to a maximum of 5 percent. Being a member of the so-called Cairns Group of agricultural nations, Indonesia is also expected to liberalize the rice trade by 2003 and reducing import tariffs for rice set at zero percent.

"The truth is Indonesia has no clear policy on food security, making it difficult for international donors to help the country achieve rice self-sufficiency," Imai says.

At the very least, the changes in officials responsible for food issues have not helped in efforts to address food insecurity. Under former president Abdurrahman Wahid the agriculture minister has been changed several times since October 1999, with each minister introducing different policies.

"First of all, the government has to decide on whether food security and rice self-sufficiency are on its list of priorities or not, and then we will analyze how to achieve the ultimate goal," Imai says.

"Indonesian farmers are very clever and have potential. What they need is a little working capital," says Imai, adding that FAO is now more concerned with small food security projects.

Under the sun's scorching heat one Sunday afternoon, Muazim shoos away birds pecking at his rice, ready to be harvested in the coming weeks.

"I have to keep a watchful eye on my paddy field because birds always come in flocks to eat the rice," says the 75-year-old farmer as he walks about his 20-by-30 meter field in Bekasi, a bustling town in the outskirts of Jakarta, in West Java.

The rice field does not belong to Muazim, but to a migrant from North Sumatra province who bought the farm to build a house. The rice field's owner is living in Jakarta and allowed Muazim to look after his piece of land, which is situated within a housing complex. Muazim plants rice twice a year, harvesting around 250 kilograms of unhusked rice every season, barely enough to support his family. To augment the family's income, Muazim's wife, 65- year-old Mimi, works as a traditional masseuse and part-time cook.

Muazim had his own rice field before, but sold it to a middle- upper class housing developer and distributed the money to his nine children. Now living with his wife and five unmarried children, Muazim depends very much on his "borrowed" rice field, which he has been tilling since 1985. "I don't know what will happen if the owner takes the land back," he says.

Muazim epitomizes most Indonesian farmers, especially those on Java island, who sell their irrigated rice fields to migrants, investors or housing complex developers, as rice prices remain low. Java produces up to 60 percent of the country's total rice output. Official data from the Central Bureau of Statistics show that between 40,000 and 50,000 hectares of rice fields on Java island alone are converted into non-agricultural purposes every year. Paddy fields in Java are mostly irrigated and fertile, producing up to seven tons per hectare, compared to two to three tons outside Java.

Elite power struggle

Indonesia's Wahid back home, celebrating 61st birthday

Agence France Presse - August 4, 2001 (abridged)

Jakarta -- Deposed Indonesian president Aburrahman Wahid turned 61 Saturday, 12 days after a humiliating impeachment by the national assembly cut short his tumultuous 21-month rule. Aides said Wahid was celebrating at home with family and friends over a meal of 'nasi tumpeng,' a traditional saffron rice cake used for birthdays in Indonesia.

"Mr Alwi Shihab [caretaker foreign minister] is here, relatives and some friends who know it's his birthday, about a dozen so far," Adhi Massardi, one of Wahid's spokesmen as president, told AFP.

It was the first day Wahid had woken up in his private residence in south Jakarta's Ciganjur area since his ouster and replacement by his deputy, Megawati Sukarnoputri, on July 23.

Wahid initially refused to leave the presidential palace, protesting that his dismissal by Indonesia's parliament was unconstitutional. He gave in three days later, citing his daughters' and doctors' fears that his rising blood pressure could bring on a third stroke, and travelled to the United States for medical tests.

Returning home Friday with a clean bill of health from doctors at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital, Wahid received several emotional welcomes as he vowed to keep fighting for democracy. Some 70 devotees greeted him at Jakarta's airport with flowers and Muslim prayer songs, hundreds were waiting at his Ciganjur home, and hundreds more supporters welcomed him with a rally and speeches at the city's independnece proclamation monument.

Late Friday thousands of loyalists flocked to the revered Muslim leader's home for an all-night recital of the Koran. "There were two to three thousand people here," Massardi said.

Wahid has pledged to lead a 'moral movement' from his Ciganjur home to uphold democracy and fight human rights violations. Stepping out of the airport's VIP terminal Friday, Wahid implored those who felt that democracy was not working or that human rights had been violated to "report to me."

My foes will pay the price, warns defiant Abdurrahman

Associated Press - August 4, 2001 (abridged)

Jakarta -- Ousted president Abdurrahman Wahid returned to Indonesia yesterday after medical tests in the United States, insisting those who pushed him from power last month would eventually face the consequences of breaching the nation's Constitution.

Despite hopes by his supporters that a large crowd would be on hand, only a small number of well-wishers and relatives gathered to welcome the frail, nearly blind former leader at Jakarta's international airport. About 50 security guards from his Islamic organisation stood watch.

"Those who have violated the Constitution must come face to face with the people," said Mr Abdurrahman. The former president plans to reinvent himself as a human-rights campaigner and will set up a foundation at his home in south Jakarta to monitor rights abuses and attacks on democracy. After his arrival, he prayed with 200 supporters at a mosque next to his home.

Megawati's first battle: Security woes

Straits Times - August 4, 2001

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- Two fatal bombings, the assassination of a top judge and a jail breakout -- all took place within the first 10 days of Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri's presidency. Security, or the lack of it, is the burning issue in the country, which has been going through a period of turbulent political transition for three years.

Yet the National Police has barely come out of a critical leadership crisis that has left its image in tatters. How President Megawati will bring a semblance of order to the country is now the big question.

Former police chief Kusparmono Irsan said Ms Megawati should start by consolidating the police force and "get rid of internal friction". And she seems to be doing just that.

Yesterday, in what analysts said was an attempt to ensure the police force is under one command, she reinstated as police chief General Suroyo Bimantoro, who had been sacked recently by deposed president Abdurrahman Wahid.

Gen Chaerudin Ismail, whom Mr Abdurrahman had appointed as acting police chief to support his plan to declare martial law if he was impeached for incompetence and corruption, was removed. Both Gen Bimantoro and Gen Chaerudin have their supporters, and this has resulted in a split within the National Police.

Indeed, the police do not have the luxury of time for politicking, judging by the huge number of unresolved cases, including a series of bomb blasts since last year that have increased in frequency over the past month.

Wednesday's explosion at a busy shopping mall in Central Jakarta happened just a day after a blast at a church in Semarang, Central Java. And a day before Ms Megawati was elected President, 70 people were injured during explosions at two churches.

The public seems to have little hope that the police will ever get to the bottom of the cases. The bombing suspects arrested so far are seen as mere pawns while the real masterminds remain scot-free.

A top officer admitted the police "can't solve the bombing cases without the help of the intelligence body". And that is what they are doing, he said. But when asked whether the ongoing investigations have helped them identify the so-called "rogue elements behind the political bombings", the officer said: "We have no evidence to prove anything so far." As one in charge of security, the police's track record has been poor.

In Aceh, trigger-happy Mobile Brigade troops have either been shooting at civilians or getting killed by separatist rebels.

There has been talk that under the upcoming Cabinet, the police force will be returned to the Home and Defence Ministry as in the administration of former president Suharto. If this happens, the police force will no longer report directly to the President. This plan has received negative responses from police personnel, who feared such a move would make the police force less independent.

But the most crucial task for the Indonesian police now is to change public perception that its officers are corrupt, care little for public service and are slow to react to crime reports.

Indeed, most residents in the capital say it is more effective and cheaper to pay local thugs to maintain security. Said Mr Kusparmono: "Police have a tough job to prove themselves, right now whatever they do it always looks bad."

Cabinet power struggle persists

Jakarta Post - August 4, 2001

Jakarta -- Political parties have submitted their candidates for the new Cabinet but the lineup will not be announced until next Thursday, largely due to a power struggle within Megawati's own party.

Three of the country's largest parties, the Golkar Party, the United Development Party (PPP) and the National Mandate Party (PAN), all confirmed on Friday that they had presented their candidates to President Megawati Soekarnoputri for consideration.

Golkar submitted 10 names, PPP three and PAN two. PPP nominated Bachtiar Chamsyah, Alimarwan Hanan and Sugiharto, while PAN submitted Hatta Radjasa and former finance minister Bambang Sudibyo. Golkar, however, would not disclose the names of its candidates.

Megawati and Vice President Hamzah Haz held a private meeting at the Bogor Presidential Palace on Friday to finalize the Cabinet lineup. No statement was issued following the meeting.

Hamzah, after attending his party's executive meeting later on Friday, said that the Cabinet's structure was almost certain to remain the same as the current one. "There won't be much change. We are only going to revive the ministry of social affairs," Hamzah said.

The Vice President also denied rumors that the Indonesian Military (TNI), which played a pivotal role in removing former president Abdurrahman Wahid and propelling Megawati to power, had asked for eight seats in the Cabinet.

He added that special attention would be paid to the economic team and "we will only use people who have the respect of the market". He said that the Cabinet lineup would be announced on Thursday and sworn in on Friday.

The delay in naming the Cabinet has made the financial markets nervous and raised concern that the President may be struggling to accommodate diverse political allies.

Golkar Party chairman Akbar Tandjung urged the President to make the decision on the lineup and announce it as soon as possible to dispel speculation. "I really expect the President to announce the Cabinet lineup soon or the government will loose the momentum and market confidence achieved following the appointment of the new national leadership," Akbar said.

Another Golkar executive said the squabbling among political parties for key positions in the Cabinet had concluded, as they had basically agreed that they would let Megawati decide the lineup based on names they had submitted.

The problem now lies within Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), according to Syamsul Muarif, chairman of the Golkar Party faction at the House of Representatives.

He said Megawati was now facing conflicting demands from her own members. "As you know there are many factions in the party and her [vice presidential] secretary may have been expressing different views concerning the Cabinet," he told The Jakarta Post.

Outgoing vice presidential secretary Bambang Kesowo was often said to be one of Megawati's strong influences and is said to have urged the President to include more professionals in the Cabinet. "From what I have heard, there has also been strong pressure from Soetjipto, Sophan Sophiaan, Arifin Panigoro, Theo Syafei and her husband Taufik Kiemas. These five figures strive for more influence over her," Syamsul added.

Soetjipto is currently the party's secretary general, Sophan is chairman of the party's faction at the People's Consultative Assembly, Arifin is chairman of the party's faction at the House and Maj Gen (ret) Theo Syafei is a party deputy chairman. "So, there is no elaborate political bargaining among the parties because, during the political leaders' meeting on Thursday, they hardly discussed the posts or the candidates. It was to their advantage," he remarked.

A PDI Perjuangan executive, who requested anonymity, confirmed with the Post that a power struggle among party executives had stalled the Cabinet announcement. "Yes, there is a power struggle inside the party. We only hope that Ibu Mega will not be influenced by this struggle when appointing the Cabinet," the executive said.

Balancing act

Asiaweek - August 10, 2001

Warren Caragata, Jakarta -- On a day when most business executives in Jakarta were chasing rumors about the possible shape of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's cabinet, investment banker Tim Gray was past caring. Let others worry whether her government will prove any more stable than that of her impeached predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid. Gray is leaving town. "The type of deals I do, the movement of capital into this market, those sources of capital have dried up," he says. After more than 10 years in Jakarta, he left his job as president of Development Capital, a privately held investment bank, and headed to Dubai. It's a departure with regrets, says the American-born banker. But even with Megawati as president, there's no sense staying.

"They've dug themselves a deep hole. To dig themselves out is going to take years." Megawati, eldest daughter of Indonesia's founding president Sukarno, will soon return to the palace where she grew up a lively little girl. It's been more than 35 years since a Sukarno has lived in the stately mansion, but Megawati will not be reliving any memories of cosseted palace life. Instead of play, there will only be duty, and the burden of implacable problems ranging from separatism to economic malaise. Many are left over from the fall of the Suharto dictatorship three years ago, many are new ones created or worsened by the erratic 21-month rule of her predecessor.

Wahid's sacking by restive legislators and the blatant military support for his ouster have added new challenges. No wonder Amien Rais, chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly that impeached Wahid two weeks ago, says a meeting this week with the country's third president in as many years found Megawati in a serious mood. "She understands that her work is almost beyond anyone's capacities," Rais told Asiaweek.

Rais himself may be one of Megawati's main challenges. He, as chairman of the assembly, and Akbar Tanjung, as speaker of parliament, took what used to be rubber stamps under Suharto and turned them into power centers that first stymied and then brought down a president. (Parliament is the day-to-day legislature. The assembly, which includes all members of parliament plus other society and military representatives, elects the president.) One reason Megawati refrained for so long from publicly supporting Wahid's ouster was the fear that Rais and Tanjung could take her down in her turn. "They won't stop," a senior member of her Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P by its Indonesian initials) said a few weeks ago.

No one is talking that way now amid talks to set up the new government, but Indonesia could face renewed instability once Megawati's honeymoon ends.

The omens so far are mixed, threatening not so much opposition to Megawati but more squabbling. While the assembly voted unanimously to oust Wahid and elect Megawati, it quarreled for two days over who should be the new vice president. It finally chose Hamzah Haz, who represents a coalition of Islamic parties. Ironically, he was one of the leaders of the successful effort in 1999 to deny Megawati the presidency and hand it to Wahid -- an effort masterminded by Rais. Running against Haz was Tanjung as leader of the Golkar party. Megawati instructed her caucus to support Haz because she feared the optics of an alliance with Golkar, which used to be Suharto's main political support group and is still distrusted by many Indonesians.

Tanjung took his defeat gracefully. The next step is to choose the cabinet. The outcome of that could turn squabbling into serious opposition.

But Megawati may enjoy a longer than expected honeymoon. That's because after six months of political infighting over Wahid's fate, the country simply will not accept any more shenanigans. "Everyone is fed up," says Jusuf Wanandi, senior fellow at Jakarta's Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Even Rais and Tanjung have to recognize this is the last chance." Wanandi says it's the last gasp because, without stability, the economy will simply collapse on itself.

Analyst Umar Juoro says the real danger is that the army might lose patience if there's more political bloodletting. "If she doesn't survive, it will encourage the military to move in," he warns. Lt.-Gen. Agus Widjoyo, the head of the military's territorial bureau -- in effect its political department -- says simply: "There should be a national commitment to realize that the remaining three years until the next election should be used to help bring the country out of its crisis."

Ultimately, Megawati's biggest advantage may be that she is more careful in her handling of potential allies than Wahid, who came to power as head of a minority partner in a coalition and started governing as if he had a majority. Coalition partners were tossed from cabinet: Haz within a few months, Laksamana Sukardi, one of Megawati's top advisers, soon after that.

Of course no one is going to give Megawati a free ride. But in addition to cabinet seats, what the parties want from her is what everyone else does: a government that works. Success, and the support that goes with it, is in her hands, says Fuad Bawazier, financial Eminence grise of Rais' Central Axis coalition of Islamic parties. "Megawati is driving the bus and I am only a passenger. Why ask me for a guarantee?"

That's a view shared by Sukardi, Megawati's economics guru. "There won't be any support that is perpetual," he said. "It depends on our performance." So far, Megawati has had some beginner's luck. The transition from Wahid was peaceful. The rupiah has bounced. Bond rating agency Standard & Poor's raised its outlook for Indonesia to stable from negative. And, for the time being, everybody is saying, at least in public, that they want Megawati to succeed. Rais, famously ambitious for the presidency, says he wouldn't mind if Megawati did so well that she became a sure thing in the next election in 2004. "I am a realistic politician. I would voluntarily go back to Yogyakarta [where he was a university professor]."

To send Rais back to Yogya, Megawati will first have to come to terms with the economic mess that prompted Tim Gray to pack his bags. The last few months were a disaster. "There was just uncertainty -- who was at the helm?" says industrialist Aburizal Bakrie, head of the Indonesian chamber of commerce. "How can we live with that situation?" The first priority, Bakrie says, is to bring investors back, and that means rebuilding confidence. An early bellwether will be whether there's a quick agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which has delayed a $400-million aid payment due last year because of Wahid's failure to move ahead with promised economic reforms.

How reformist is Megawati?

Critics say she is too close to the military, that Wahid was the best hope of fighting corruption and keeping the generals at bay. As one Wahid minister puts it: "It's the return of the tanks." The night before the impeachment vote, the army sent tanks to the presidential precinct -- with guns pointed at the palace. Officers then refused to implement Wahid's decree to dissolve parliament.

Standing with parliament may have won the soldiers some friends, but Megawati's enemies will remember the tanks. The military may also try to exact a price for its support, which could include demands for fewer restraints in the fight against separatism and protection from prosecution for human rights abuses. But, says former defense minister Juwono Sudarsono: "She will have to be careful about reinforcing this image of being over-reliant on the military." If Megawati gives the soldiers a free hand in Aceh, says Wanandi, "her credibility is finished." Megawati got a taste for what lies ahead in her first few days on the job.

The judge who convicted Suharto's son Tommy of graft and was preparing to try generals accused of human rights abuses in East Timor was assassinated on a Jakarta street. A bomb blasted a police headquarters in Sulawesi, where communal violence simmers. Seven alleged guerrillas were killed by security forces in Aceh. As she moves into the palace where she once played childhood games, Megawati may be wondering what she's got herself into.

[With additional reporting by Amy Chew and Simon Montlake/Jakarta.]

Haggling stalls Cabinet making

Jakarta Post - August 3, 2001

Jakarta -- The much-awaited Cabinet line-up will not be unveiled until next week, accentuating apparent horse trading among major political parties for key positions and leaving the financial markets bearish.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri met major party leaders at her residence in Central Jakarta on Thursday morning, but they apparently failed to agree on the line-up, prompting the delay in its announcement until next week.

The delay has apparently battered the financial market. The rupiah slid a bit to close at Rp 9,640 against the US dollar on the spot market from Rp 9,630 on Wednesday, while share prices on the Jakarta Stock Exchange dropped by 1.5 percent, with the composite index falling to 436.41 points from 443.19.

Those attending Thursday's breakfast meeting said that the announcement, initially slated for Friday or Saturday, would be postponed until Thursday at the latest, but none of them give any reason as to why it should be delayed.

When elected two weeks ago, Megawati promised to name her Cabinet within days, and the delay has sparked speculation that squabbling among political parties has worsened. Participants at the meeting, however, denied that there was a rift among the coalition of parties supporting Megawati's presidency.

Golkar Party Chairman Akbar Tandjung said after the meeting that the delay would provide sufficient time for each political party to select carefully their candidates and for the President to consider the best ones for the Cabinet. "The main point is we support the new government," Akbar remarked.

Akbar, also Speaker of the House of Representatives, however, indicated his discontent with the delay, saying that Golkar had suggested that Megawati announce the line-up this weekend, but still the President decided to delay it "for unclear reasons."

The chairman of the National Mandate Party, Amien Rais, said the delay simply reflected Megawati's "slow but sure" style.

Meanwhile, caretaker minister of justice and human rights Mahfud MD said that he heard Megawati was angered during the meeting as political parties squabbled over a post in the Cabinet. The political parties, according to Mahfud, demanded to be accommodated proportionally in the Cabinet in accordance with their role in ousting Abdurrahman Wahid and propelling Megawati to the presidency. If political parties continue their squabbling, Mahfud warned, Megawati might turn to the Indonesian Military (TNI), that played a crucial role in her ascension to power, to fill key positions.

The treasurer of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), Noviantika Nasution, confirmed that the delay was due to "difficult conflicts of interest" among the parties and among PDI Perjuangan executives. "Megawati is being very careful to balance the proportion between candidates from political parties and professionals," Noviantika told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Amien Rais, also Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, asked Megawati not to be trapped by the assumption that politicians are not professional in their approach, or that professionals are necessarily politically independent.

"Do not assume that professionals do not have political interests and that political parties do not have technocrats," he said. He said further that some of the meeting participants hoped that a number of ministers in the previous Cabinet would be included in the new one.

However, he suggested that the "old faces", which may be included in the new Cabinet, should be professional, hardworking and capable of performing well. "If there are several old faces it will be OK, but it will create furor if there are too many old faces in the Cabinet. New faces, new platform; that would be better," Amien said after the meeting.

Also present at the meeting were United Development Party (PPP) Chairman Hamzah Haz, who is also the Vice President, Justice and Unity Party (PKP) Chairman Eddy Sudrajat, dismissed National Awakening Party (PKB) chairman Matori Abdul Djalil, Crescent Star Party (PBB) chairman Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Justice Party (PK) President Hidayat Nur Wahid, and Assembly deputy speaker from the TNI/National Police faction Hari Sabarno.

Justice Party President Hidayat Nur Wahid underlined that the new Cabinet should be in the hands of people with integrity, honesty and professionalism; so each party should consider that in nominating the candidates.

"Inside the meeting we agreed that we are going to use the current structure, with the addition of the ministry of social affairs and there will be no ministry of information," Hidayat told journalists after the meeting.

Megawati becomes President

Green Left Weekly - August 1, 2001

Max Lane -- In October 1999, when Megawati Sukarnoputri won the consolation prize of being elected Abdurrahman Wahid's vice- president, tens of thousands of her supporters paraded around the streets of Jakarta celebrating. There is no doubt that had she at the time won first prize -- the presidency itself -- hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of people would have mobilised on the streets.

This time Megawati has won first prize. Supported by a coalition of the party of the former dictatorship, Golkar, the right-wing Muslim Central Axis parties and the military, Sukarnoputri is now president.

But there has not been one report of even a single group of Megawati supporters mobilising on the streets in celebration: no trucks driving around Jakarta full of the red flags of her party, no marches, no rallies, nothing. That's not to say, however, that there haven't been any celebrations.

The members of the People's Constituent Assembly themselves were ebullient at their removal of Wahid and the consequent end of any chance of serious investigations into past cases of corruption.

A special party was organised for the "armed forces clan" at the officers' club at one of the main Jakarta air force bases. Serving and retired generals, admirals and air-vice marshals were all there. Retired general and one of Suharto's former vice- presidents, Try Sutrisno, expressed satisfaction and confidence in the new president.

And the bigwigs and aspiring cronies of Sukarnoputri's party, the PDIP, all held their own celebrations at the home of Sukarnoputri and her businessperson-MP husband, Taufik Kiemas.

Reports from activists around Indonesia point to an atmosphere of overwhelming suspicion of the new regime among the masses. The new regime is a regime of the parliament, and the parliament has become the symbol of horse trading, of manoeuvre and of cover-up.

Just prior to the session which ousted Wahid, for example, a special parliamentary committee voted that the shootings of students in May 1998 were not gross violations of human rights and therefore did not warrant trial before a special human rights court.

The pseudo-English term "money politics" has now entered the Indonesian language. And the image of a "money politics" parliament has only been hardened by media reports that all 700- plus of the members of the Peoples Consultative Assembly were put up at the five-star Hotel Mulia during the session that ousted President Abdurrahman Wahid and installed Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Apprehension hangs over the whole country. For some sectors the suspicion has manifested itself already in protests against any presence of the military and Golkar in the government and calls for the disbandment of Golkar and new elections.

There have already been several different demonstrations of hundreds of students in Jakarta as well as demonstrations in Yogyakarta, Bali, Lampung, Malang, Surabaya and several more towns. In many towns in East Java, such as Pasuruan, Probolinggo, Jember and others, the local religious teachers who had previously mobilised support for Wahid also attempted protests and demonstrations, sometimes under pressure from their mass base.

Outside of Jakarta, these protests have all been met with violent repression. In Lampung, South Sumatra, a hunger strike vigil was attacked with fire bombs, burning some activists from the People's Democratic Party (PRD) who are still in hospital.

In Bali, militia attacked another protest. In Malang, demonstrators clashed with police outside the local police station. In Pasuruan, East Java, more than 90 members of the Nahdlatul Ulama have been arrested and the local religious teachers harassed. In one district, Tongas Probolinggo, the military has banned all prayer meetings.

The bubbling over of active suspicion had already begun even before the election of Sukarnoputri, with a series of demonstrations of her own PDIP members, one of around 7000 people, demanding she cleanse her party of Golkar and military elements.

The new clique at the centre of power, the core leadership of the PDIP, is also keenly aware of the atmosphere of suspicion.

PDIP support ensured that the election for vice-president was won by Hamzah Haz, the chairperson of the Muslim United Development Party (PPP). With the combined votes of the PDIP and the Muslim Central Axis, Haz defeated the other main contender, Golkar chairperson Akbar Tanjung.

After the election, PDIP spokesperson Sophan Sophian explained that the PDIP thought that Haz would "attract the least opposition". A Golkar vice-president, said Sophian, would mean immediate demonstrations by the students. An open alliance with Golkar or the military at the very peak of the government would only confirm what everybody already suspects.

The PDIP's decision to support Haz above Tanjung may also be the first move by aspiring PDIP tycoons like Taufik Kiemas and Arifin Ponorogo (the PDIP parliamentary chairperson) to wrest control of the large business conglomerates from the old Golkar cronies.

Although Wahid was elected into the presidency with the votes of Golkar and the Central Axis as well as those of his own party, he was very much the preferred candidate of Indonesia's liberal middle class.

Wahid's last hours saw a stream of liberal figures go in and out of the palace, all wringing their hands as to how save his presidency and stave off the comeback of military influence.

A coalition of 75 non-government organisations, including high- profile institutions such as the Legal Aid Institute and the environment group WAHLI, issued a statement strongly attacking parliament and calling for new elections. Coming just hours before the MPR was to meet to oust Wahid, it was a useless measure.

It was Wahid's own fear of mass action that prevented him from making any serious advances, even in terms of his own liberal agenda, or ultimately of protecting his presidency. Again and again he worked to keep his own supporters off the street, a clear symbol of the Indonesian middle class's anaemic commitment to even liberal parliamentary democracy.

The last days of Wahid, however, saw considerable agreement develop within the democratic movement over key demands for the coming period, specifically new elections organised by an administration without the presence of Golkar.

The PRD, the coalition of 75 NGOs, Megawati's sister Rachmawati and her new organisation National Forum, student groups, the radical sections of the PDIP's mass base and the student wing of the Nadhlatul Ulama have all agreed on such a call. In addition, they all also back putting Golkar on trial for political and economic crimes during the Suharto period.

Differences still exist, however, on economic policy as well as on methods of struggle, that is, for or against mass protest. Nevertheless, the emergence of this consensus within the democratic movement is one bright spot of the last 12 months of struggle.

The puppet president

Far Eastern Economic Review - August 2, 2001

John McBeth and Dini Djalal, Jakarta -- Sadly for Indonesia, the dramatic events of July 23 that saw Abdurrahman Wahid sacked as president and Megawati Sukarnoputri installed in his place may be only one of many more upheavals attending Indonesia's progress towards a stable and more representative government. Indeed, whether the new president can serve out her term, until 2004, remains an open question. Any Indonesian leader would be vulnerable in such a climate of political and economic instability.

Megawati's people are banking on an immediate boost from the fact that the new president is less erratic than her predecessor. "You don't have to be a genius to conclude that she will be a better president," says close aide Laksamana Sukardi, a likely senior cabinet appointee.

"Mega is a normal person! She respects due process of law, that's important." However, the new president's advisers are already signalling that normality does not guarantee miracles. "A lot of people these days, they yell about reform but they don't realize that reform is a bitter, lengthy and painful process," says Sukardi.

Here lies the bigger fear: that after two years of messy, often volatile political transition, the pendulum has swung back in favour of conservative forces and that Megawati is beholden to them. That would mean that reform will slow down, corruption could go unpunished and unchecked, and business confidence will be hard to restore. During a visit to Washington in May, Megawati's husband, politician and businessman Taufik Kiemas, left officials open-mouthed by trying to persuade them that corporate restructuring wasn't a priority.

Nevertheless, the markets initially welcomed the change. Wahid's removal saw the rupiah strengthen from 11,300 to around 9,900 to the US dollar -- evidence of how much the financial community has been looking forward to a new beginning. But sentiment could change just as sharply if Megawati is unable to seed her economic team with technocrats. Equally crucial over the longer term is whether she can strike a better accord with an often rambunctious parliament, whose new powers and muscle-flexing has changed the whole nature of Indonesia's political landscape. Wahid alienated parliament early on by calling it a "kindergarten," and the aloof, 54-year-old Megawati may run into similar difficulties, given the way the relationship between the once all-powerful executive and the former rubber-stamp legislature has been redefined since President Suharto fell from power in 1998. What has emerged is a system that is both presidential and parliamentary, requiring a leader who can not only build consensus but also work within the policies laid down by the assembly.

In a country with an electoral system that serves the interests of the elite, rather than the vast majority of Indonesia's 210 million population, a plethora of old-guard politicians and bureaucrats have survived from Suharto's New Order era and now appear well placed to reappear in Megawati's administration. Wahid "may have had a point when he said Megawati is a prisoner of the New Order types still in government," says Juwono Sudarsono, a former defence minister and respected academic.

Indeed, early signals are that despite good intentions, those who expect this government to hold corrupt members of the old regime accountable may be disappointed. "Those tainted must be willing to be prosecuted by the attorney-general," declares Sukardi. But he qualifies that by saying the objective should be to purge bad habits, not necessarily bad people. "In my experience, I begin with high standards, but I may end up being more tolerant. We should not be against people of the past but against their behaviour."

Megawati is also beholden to the military, which abandoned Wahid and supported his impeachment. Her nationalist sentiments and her inclination to take firmer action against separatist rebels make her a more reliable patron of conservative political forces, and there are fears that this will keep the military in the forefront of political life. Significantly, during the course of the impeachment session, every time it was the army's turn to vote, civilian legislators applauded loudly and shouted praises.

Indeed, the pivotal role played by military leaders in the latest crisis was simply further evidence of how they have quietly been allowed to fill the power vacuum left by Suharto's demise. Last August, a new assembly decree extended military representation in parliament until 2009, five years longer than had earlier been agreed.

Says Juwono: "It was a reaffirmation of the belief that the backsliding in party-building and in strengthening civil society was a reflection of weak leadership."

Megawati's big political advantage is that she has more support than Wahid ever had in parliament. Her Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle, or PDI-P, commands 35% of the lower house, compared with the 10% held by Wahid's National Awakening Party. But while she won't have to depend on so many coalition partners to muster a majority, she will still need the support of some of the major parties. She is also said to be considering the formation of a parliamentary liaison office to keep the lines of communication open.

Megawati has steered clear of the media and rarely spoken in public, so it is hard to judge what sort of leader she will be. "She always uses her father as a role model," says Subagyo Anam, a veteran party insider, describing a presidency that will be careful to avoid tarnishing the Sukarno image. "She lives very much in his shadow." This could mean less emphasis on regional autonomy and more on maintaining unity -- a scenario that worries those observing an upsurge in military activity in Aceh and Irian Jaya.

Wanted: A credible team

Everyone recognizes the importance of a credible economic team in what Megawati hopes will be a new, slimmed-down cabinet. Adviser Frans Seda, a former finance minister under Suharto, has been responsible for her closer contacts with respected economists like Emil Salim and Wijoyo Nitisastro, which Juwono believes has made her much more aware of the need for Indonesia to plug into the global marketplace. Says Sukardi: "The first thing we have to do is create positive sentiment."

But there are already signs of the political infighting that dogged Wahid's ability to form a cohesive cabinet. PDI-P officials point to brewing competition between party parliamentary leader Arifin Panigoro and former Economic Coordinating Minister Kwik Kian Gie over who will influence cabinet appointments. There is also concern about how Taufik Kiemas, Megawati's husband, will make his presence felt in the coming days, possibly over the choice of economic portfolios. Then there is the inherent distrust that exists between the PDI-P and Golkar, the two main parties in the legislature.

Still, these were days for politicians to catch their breath after the swift end to what had been a long, drawn-out process. Wahid had finally brought things to a head on July 22 with his threat to freeze the 700-seat people's assembly, suspend the former ruling Golkar party and stage new elections. But with the impeachment process already under way, the military and the police openly defied the post-midnight declaration and threw a protective cordon around the assembly.

All it required was for Supreme Court Chief Justice Bagir Manan to declare Wahid's decree unconstitutional and for the assembly to decide overwhelmingly to reject it. Barely 16 hours after Wahid's final desperate act, all 591 assembly members present in the chamber voted to end his 19-month presidency and install Vice-President Megawati.

Wearing a traditional kebaya, Indonesia's fifth president dwelled in her acceptance speech on the importance of professionalism, discipline and togetherness. And in what appeared to be a plea to Wahid to accept the outcome gracefully, Megawati told the assembly: "In my opinion, respect for the people's wishes and acceptance of what has been decided are the rules of the game -- the basic principle that is the pillar of democracy."

Oddly, the vice-president had spent the previous night watching a cartoon movie in a suburban Kuningan theatre, while the man she once called her brother and friend fought vainly for his political life -- with Megawati's estranged sister, Rachmawati, by his side.

Although unprecedented in Indonesia's modern political history, the run-up to impeachment had been so protracted that there was little trouble from Wahid's Muslim supporters, many of whom had long been resigned to his fate.

The morning after told the story. Two armoured cars and a mound of congratulatory floral tributes stood outside Megawati's private home in the leafy downtown suburb of Menteng. At the presidential palace, there were only barbed-wire barricades. Insiders say Wahid abandoned plans to hold out in the white- stucco palace, and his family began preparations to leave, after his wheelchair-bound wife, someone who doesn't normally give political advice, reminded him: "If you do that, you won't be able to give people moral leadership."

A messy legacy

Yet for all the concerns about staying within the bounds of the constitution, this was a messy transfer of power that may come back to haunt the political establishment. For all his defiant posturing, Wahid never had the authority to freeze the people's assembly. The constitution says so. And linking his own survival to that of the nation hardly met any of the criteria needed to take such a drastic step as declaring a state of emergency. Indeed, minutes after the 1 a.m. announcement, civil-rights lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution described the decree as an act of sedition and called for Wahid's arrest. "He is grabbing power," he said. "He is violating the law." US-based Human Rights Watch agreed.

But assembly chairman Amien Rais and the same political leaders who had shunned Megawati and handed the presidency to Wahid in October 1999 were overreaching as well. Standing rules require two months' notice before a special session to receive a president's accountability speech. The assembly fell short by a week because it was spurred into premature action by Wahid's decision to swear in a caretaker police chief.

Apparently relishing his role as chief prosecutor, Rais always seemed to be acting prematurely in his haste to get rid of Wahid, the bitter rival he had helped to power in October 1999 because Megawati -- at least at that moment in history -- wasn't acceptable to Muslim parties.

On July 21, Rais formally called on the president to deliver his accountability speech long before the assembly had even approved of such a move.

What really set Wahid off was Rais' comment on July 22 that Indonesia would have a new president as early as the following morning. In a bold stroke, marines and troops from the Army Strategic Reserves were deployed in the square across from the palace, guns pointing towards the complex. But the pleas of Political Coordinating Minister Agum Gumelar and military leaders failed to sway Wahid from issuing the decree. "What has happened today," Wahid declared, "has killed the culture of dialogue."

Relations between Wahid and his generals had soured as far back as February, when he sought their support for a state of emergency to save his presidency. Juwono believes the crucial point came on July 20 when the president moved to replace police chief Surojo Bimantoro, an unlikely catalyst for the dramatic events that followed. "That was the straw that broke the camel's back," Juwono says, "because it threatened a split in the police that could have been replicated in the military."

The torch passes

Time Magazine - August 6, 2001

Tim McGirk, Jakarta -- When the scorpion tanks clattered to a halt outside the Istana Merdeka palace in Jakarta, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was relieved. "Maybe they're here to protect the palace," he remarked. But when his daughter pointed out that the tanks had swiveled their guns toward the white, colonnaded executive residence, aiming straight at his presidential balcony, Wahid knew he had lost his game of brinkmanship: the powerful Indonesian security forces had switched loyalties to his Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

For a while last week, Indonesia had an embarrassment of Presidents. Even after Wahid was impeached and the People's Consultative Assembly gave Megawati his post, the irascible and nearly blind Muslim cleric held on. He insisted that his ouster was illegal and refused to leave the palace. "They can turn off the water and electricity, but they're not going to get me out of here," he told his wheelchair-bound wife, Sinta Nuriyah. But Megawati already had the presidential "No. 1" license plate screwed onto her black Mercedes limousine. "That's fine, dear," sighed Wahid's wife, long accustomed to his combativeness. "But the people are going to be looking to you for leadership. What then?" Wahid relented. In fact, after 21 months in office, during which Wahid pushed through some bold, liberal initiatives he oversaw the devolution of power from the capital to the regions and gave new freedoms to minority religions the 60-year-old leader was not only politically defeated but seriously ill. On July 22, his physician diagnosed a level of hypertension that could bring on a third and possibly fatal stroke. So Wahid finally agreed to leave the palace and spend eight days at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland for medical treatment. On Thursday, the family hurriedly packed their belongings, including one of the self-help audiotapes Wahid had been listening to: When Things Fall Apart.

Wahid's tragicomic demise only briefly concealed the fact that Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, is in real danger of falling to pieces, as it has been since the 1998 fall of the autocratic Suharto, who ruled the country with an iron fist for 32 years. During Wahid's 21 months, everything got worse. And as the center collapses, ancient tribal and religious feuds are being revived across the archipelago of 13,000 islands; 3,500 died in the violence last year. Unemployment stands at 40% while corruption and economic bungling have kept foreign investment at "sub-zero," as one diplomat in Jakarta puts it. Wahid's blindness, along with his bumbling stubbornness, kept him from seeing the full extent of Indonesia's breakdown. Most worrying of all, many observers in the capital doubt that Megawati, whose main political asset is her heritage her father was Sukarno, founding President of independent Indonesia has the will or smarts to make the hard decisions now needed. Though the country's paramount legislative body passed Wahid's impeachment, invoking incredibly vague provisions of the nation's constitution, the support of the army was key to Megawati's taking power. The question now: Will she be a hostage to the generals and their vision of how to solve Indonesia's pyramid of problems?

A moderate and a reformer, Wahid came into office with high expectations. He was Indonesia's first democratically elected President, and as leader of the 40 million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), a Muslim socio religious group, he had a history of holding his own against strong-man Suharto, a unique distinction in Indonesia. But his tragic character flaws or neriness and a sense of infallibility soon became apparent. His Cabinet was run like a bus terminal: a total of 22 ministers came and went from the time he assumed office in October 1999. He refused to come to terms with the new spirit of democracy in the capital: the constitution is vague about whether the President or the parliament holds more power, but Wahid never compromised with his legislative rivals and he suffered the consequences. When two financial scandals erupted last year, though minor by the high standard of Indonesian graft, legislators squawked, and he ignored them. Behind the scenes, the powerful military organization forged by Suharto, a former general, despised his initiatives to dismantle unitary rule and give autonomy to local governments, fearing it would lead to a breakup of the country. Some of his Muslim supporters were alienated by his more tolerant views of minority religions.

Wahid's haughtiness was almost inevitable considering his background: born into a family of Muslim religious leaders, he inherited his status as a wali, or holy man. Recalls one childhood friend: "Even as a kid, elderly people would come up and kiss his hand because he was the son of a kyai." But his exalted religious status left him dangerously uninformed about his eroding support in Jakarta and throughout the nation. Blinded completely by a stroke in 1998, he could no longer read a newspaper or a government report. He shunned advisers and retreated into the supernatural world of omens and spirits. One minister complained that he would often change his mind after consulting these spirits.

To Wahid's credit, his departure may not have been dignified but it was peaceful. Before the dEnouement, Indonesia was veering dangerously toward civil war, with the army and police ranks divided over whom to support in the crisis. As the final impeachment hearing drew near, Wahid warned that tens of thousands of his followers might storm Jakarta. But the fanatics stayed away, even the Ready to Die Forces, a group of firebrands in war paint who in April gave showy demonstrations of kung fu kicks and self-mutilation and vowed to martyr themselves defending Wahid. His adversaries jeer at Wahid's failure to conjure up mass protests, understandable in a capital where slum gangs print up rent-a-mob rate cards ($2 buys you a supporter for three hours; banner waving and chants cost extra). But Wahid's advisers say he ordered his supporters to stay home in order to avoid a massacre by the 40,000 soldiers and police guarding Jakarta during the showdown.

The question now is whether Megawati can do a whole lot better than the predecessor she once referred to as her "brother." She has stronger backing in parliament, where her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) is the largest faction. The military likes her; they share a common abhorrence of the separatist fever sweeping through Aceh and Irian Jaya provinces. Plenty of charisma still clings to the Sukarno family name, and Megawati's Buddha-like silence and inscrutability have proven useful in the past: for years, she stolidly withstood a steady fire of intimidation by Suharto, who feared she would emerge as an opposition figure.

But is she up to this daunting job? Megawati's critics say her preference for public silence masks a dim intellect. She has no clear ideology other than a few garbled echoes of her father's nationalism, and a dislike for regional autonomy. ("You can move her around like a piece of furniture," one ex-Cabinet minister scoffed.) On Sunday night, when Wahid tried to save himself from the impeachment vote by declaring a state of emergency and ordering parliament to dissolve, Megawati astounded even her most fervent supporters by spending the day at a grandchild's birthday party and then watching the cartoon movie Shrek. On her second day in office, when she might have been giving speeches or working the assembly, she popped up at a fashion show at a swanky Jakarta hotel. So what, growls her husband, businessman Taufik Kiemas. "If Wahid can become President and can lead the country with only 9% of the vote and no sight," he says, "why not Megawati?" (The reference is to Wahid's adroit ascension to the presidency in 1999 with control of only a fraction of the seats in the People's Consultative Assembly by rallying anti-Megawati legislators.)

Wahid's last gambit came on Sunday night, when he made one final try to impose his will on the military he constitutionally controls. He summoned Security Minister Agum Gumelar and Armed Forces Chief Admiral Widodo Adisucipto to the palace and sought their help implementing a state of emergency. Had it worked, this move would have blocked the assembly and staved off the impeachment. The two men refused. After a "screaming match," say palace insiders, the visitors stormed off and Wahid declared the state of emergency anyway, hastening his own downfall. That action was blatantly unconstitutional and Wahid probably guessed it would fail; the move's fecklessness became apparent when the generals sent the tanks to surround the presidential palace. Says one Western diplomat: "They hated Wahid for trying to reform the military. They wanted to see him go."

Without the military Megawati might not be President, but its support comes at a price. Army leaders are insisting that the new President allow them to take on separatists in Aceh and Irian Jaya. During the months-long political standoff in Jakarta, they began preparations.

Security forces moved three additional battalions into the oil- and gas-rich province of Aceh, bringing their strength up to a total of nearly 40,000 soldiers. They are already burning villages and kidnapping suspected collaborators of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Often, these missing Acehnese turn up on the side of the road, shot dead after torture. "The military is using brute force to eliminate everything in its path including civilians," says another Western diplomat. Police commandos even rounded up Acehnese autonomy negotiators recently and are keeping them incommunicado despite Wahid's promises that they would be left alone.

For all Wahid's many flaws, he did try to improve the military's record on human rights abuses. Megawati probably won't even do that, according to human rights groups. Says Faisal Ridha, an Acehnese spokesman for the Aceh Center for Referendum (SIRA): "Megawati is a guarantee that repression in Aceh will continue, if not increase." Diplomats say that the military, still angry over the 1999 secession of Indonesia's former East Timor province, is also planning to sabotage the Aug. 30 elections in the fledgling state.

Beholden to the security forces, Megawati is also unlikely to weed out crooked officers. An estimated 75% of the military's cash comes from "non-budgetary sources," as local economists euphemistically say, income sources that include logging in Indonesia's vanishing rain forests, extortion and prostitution. Jakarta's notorious red-light district was shut down last December, not out of puritanical zeal but because the army and police quarreled over sharing the booty.

According to the weekly Tempo magazine, one retiring Jakarta police chief recently gave his officers 22 imported cars and 17 motorcycles, worth more than the police department's operating budget. Wahid tried to pension off the worst offenders and replace them with more idealistic middle-ranking officers. Under Megawati, those reforms will likely stop.

The military will be unable to help Megawati where it matters most: the economy. Her first test comes when the President fills the financial posts within her Cabinet. A college dropout, Megawati has shown no knack for the economic side of governance. One ex-minister recalled spending a night synthesizing a complicated briefing to two pages for her. "She couldn't even get through the first few paragraphs," he laments. "Then she asked if there were any new projects being inaugurated where she could cut the ribbon." He pauses, then adds, "I think she'd rather be Queen than President."

If ever a country was in need of some brilliant technocrats it's today's Indonesia. The country owes $140 billion in foreign debt -- an amount as large as its yearly GDP -- inflation is nearing double-digits and the rupiah is one of the weakest currencies in the region. Says Anggito Abimanyu, an economics professor at Jakarta's Gadjah Mada University: "What we need now is stability and continuous policy."

Most worrying to foreign investors is that Megawati may give top finance posts to her husband's cronies, stepping up the already towering level of corruption in business. Foreign energy, manufacturing and telecommunications companies have walked away from Indonesia in recent months, many angered by a constant demand for bribes. One Canadian insurance executive was jailed under false charges last October, and he soon found out why: a senior police officer came to his cell ordering him to hand over his company's shares in a local firm. Sometimes local officials find novel approaches to circumvent Westerners' squeamishness over paying bribes.

A European executive was spotted recently at an exclusive Jakarta golf course playing with top government officials. His pockets were stuffed with deutschmarks and he was placing absurd, high- stakes bets predicting he'd shoot a hole-in-one, for example which he deliberately lost.

Megawati may also find her Cabinet troublesome, starting with her newly elected replacement as Vice President: Hamzah Haz. A conservative Muslim who leads the third-largest political grouping, the United Development Party, Haz, 61, opposed Megawati's candidacy in 1999 on the grounds that a woman should not be President of the world's most populous Muslim country. Megawati's party only controls one-third of the seats in the legislature, and now it's payback time for her ascension to the presidency. The other parties that supported her against Wahid, such as Suharto's Golkar, are clamoring for powerful Cabinet posts. If Megawati fails to oblige, they may start to rip into her as they did with Wahid.

It's unlikely she could do a worse job of warming up to the politicians than her predecessor did. "He burps and farts, and he tells bad jokes," says Wahid's Australian biographer Greg Barton, who admires the former President nonetheless. "And he also has a reckless streak. When he's frustrated, he verbalizes it." In the past four months, Wahid went through four Justice Ministers and as many attorneys general. With no boss, the junior bureaucrats seldom came to the office. In the upper floors of the Justice Ministry building, there was no activity, nothing but the stale smoke of clove cigarettes in the corridors a fairly accurate metaphor for life in the capital in the waning days of the Wahid era.

Meanwhile, in the far-flung islands of the nation, Indonesians are thumbing their noses at Jakarta and at the institutions that claim to run the land. Squatters invade mines and plantations, nobody pays taxes, smuggling is rife and murders go unpunished. Dayak tribesmen in central Kalimantan still keep the heads of their Madurese victims from last February's ethnic riots as trophies of magic power. Indonesia now has more than 1.2 million refugees from ethnic conflict and no government service to care for them. Says sociologist Paulus Wirutomo from the University of Indonesia in Jakarta: "There's a hidden hate being kept alive in our culture. We have to get rid of this." Wahid tried but he couldn't calm this hostility. The main question about Megawati: Will she even try?

Challenged Megawati, happy military

Asia Times - July 27, 2001

Just 48 hours after banding together to oust Abdurrahman Wahid from the country's presidency on charges of "incompetence" (a most extraordinary article of impeachment) and install Megawati Sukarnoputri as his successor, Indonesian lawmakers' unanimity disappeared and it took a once again fractious People's Consultative Assembly two days and three rounds of voting to elect the leader of the Muslim-based United Development Party (PPP), Hamzah Haz, as vice president.

But if such fractious haggling bodes ill for the ability of Indonesia's new government to rule effectively and with competence, new president Megawati's untested -- by many counts, sorely lacking -- administrative and policy-making skills may prove an even larger challenge. At the same time, her close ties to the military, whose refusal to follow ex-president Wahid's orders brought her to power and whose links to the forces of the old New Order regime of former president Suharto persist, put her government's willingness and ability to pursue economic and political reform into serious doubt.

On June 8, 1999, Peter Mares of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation conducted an interview with Mochtar Buchori, a senior official of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Struggle Party (PDI-P).

It contains these passages: "Mares: How close are the links between the PDI-P and the armed forces? Buchori: I do not know because it is a very, very secretive situation. Only people very close to Megawati know the situation. But the fact that Theo Syafei is there I think is also a contributing factor.

Mares: Perhaps you can explain for our audience who Theo Syafei is? Buchori: Well, Theo Syafei is a retired major-general of the army and at one time he was regional military commander of the eastern part of Indonesia, operating from Denpasar, and also responsible for the situation in East Timor."

And in an October 1998 interview with the Australian newspaper, Buchori had this to say about Megawati's competency: "I wish she was 10 percent as smart as her father, as educated as her father, then everything would be all right. But she is not even 10 percent of her father."

Asked how effective a Megawati presidency would be, he replied: "It depends on the staff who support her. That is why our job is to prop up Megawati. As long as she is willing to listen and to learn, that's okay. She does not understand many things too well." Mind you, that's not one of Megawati's sworn enemies talking. Buchori is one of her closest advisers.

What endears Megawati to the armed forces (TNI) is not that occasionally she dons military fatigues, visits an army camp and rides on heavy equipment. It's two inherently contradictory things: One, that she is her father's daughter and like the founding president who put national unity above all else and to that end, in an ethnically and religiously diverse nation, pursued a secular political creed, is expected to do the same. Two, that -- more pronounced reform sentiment among many of her followers notwithstanding -- she is not a radical political or economic reformer and will not challenge the TNI's role and prerogatives.

The inherent contradiction here, of course, is that without in- depth reform of Indonesia's moribund economy and corrupt businesses, without concessions to regional autonomy (the "federalism" Sukarno abhorred), and without reining in of the powers of active-duty and retired soldiers to act as exploiting warlords in the provinces, neither national unity nor ethnic and religious harmony can be preserved. With the installing of Megawati, the TNI generals may have won a battle; with the policies they want and expect her to pursue they will lose the war and the nation.

There are strong indications that military efforts to the effect of ousting Wahid took definite shape late last year when armed forces commander Admiral Widodo Adi Sudjipto and territorial affairs chief Lieutenant-General Agus Widjoyo began to lead calls for a re-examination of Wahid's tolerance towards restive regions, arguing for emergency status in order to quell rebellion. When Wahid did not comply, his fate was sealed. On the other hand, Megawati who in 1998 had opposed independence for East Timor, will have seemed a fine vehicle for the generals' policies -- not in the least because of her anti-Suharto reform credentials. The generals have learnt that open New Order allegiance no longer flies.

The ouster of Wahid was a silent coup. The consequences remain to be seen. A brief period of relative calm may settle over Indonesia. It will prove deceptive.

Gus Dur's party on the ropes after his exit

Straits Times - July 30, 2001

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- The fate of Indonesia's Nation Awakening Party (PKB) looks increasingly uncertain as internal politicking threatens to divide it and its iconic founder Abdurrahman Wahid quits the political scene.

Analysts agree that without deposed president Mr Abdurrahman to draw in voters, the party may have little appeal left for its constituents.

Many PKB members also belong to the Nahdlatul Ulama, the 40- million strong Muslim group that Mr Abdurrahman led for 15 years.

"PKB needs a major reform as a political party. It has always relied on the figure of Gus Dur and it does not have a clear and strong political platform," said Mr Johannes Kristiadi of the Centre for Strategic International Studies. PKB holds 10 per cent of the seats in Parliament.

Party executives have said that Mr Abdurrahman, who is the chairman of the PKB's advisory council, was considering resigning from the party. The deposed president says he wants to concentrate on moral and human-rights issues upon his return from a trip -- ostensibly for medical treatment -- to the United States.

When the PKB failed to stop the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) from removing Mr Abdurrahman during an impeachment session last week, it decided to withdraw from Parliament and the Assembly.

Even while the impeachment was in progress there were signs of disunity within the PKB. Despite the party's decision to boycott the assembly's special session, PKB chairman Matori Abdul Djalil did attend in his role as one of the MPR's deputy chairmen. As a result, he was removed from the party and later replaced by outgoing Cabinet minister Alwi Shihab.

Last Friday, the party also dismissed one of the members of the board of executives, Abdul Cholik Achmad, for his support of the result of the special session. It is also planning to question two other members for similar reasons.

A source within the PKB went so far as to say the party was being "rocked by those trying to divide us". He said members were being lured by promises of positions and wealth to stray from the party line. But the source believed the majority had not been affected by these blandishments.

Secretary General Muhaimin Iskandar said on Saturday the party would reconsider its decision to suspend PKB factions in both Parliament and the MPR during a congress to be held from August 4 to 6.

He was responding to MPR Speaker Amien Rais' calls for the party to rejoin the assembly. "We hope that our friends from PKB could support us in our efforts to amend the Constitution and redraft our country's principles," Mr Amien said at the end of Thursday's special session.

Mr Kristiadi said PKB was doing itself harm by not accepting the result of the special session and withdrawing from the Parliament. "They are just making themselves the butt of jokes because the public, the international community all have accepted the impeachment," he said.

With friends like Haz, Megawati doesn't need enemies

Asia Times - July 28, 2001

Kanis Dursin, Jakarta -- The unreserved support of new President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) for the vice presidential bid of Hamzah Haz, chairperson of the Muslim-based United Development Party (PPP), came as a surprise to many.

The PPP, one of the political parties belonging to the so-called Axis Group, humiliated Megawati, whose PDI-P won the 1999 general elections with 153 legislators in the House of Representatives (DPR), in the presidential election later that year by blocking her bid on the ground of her gender. "Being an Islamic political party, PPP cannot support a woman to become president," Haz used to say then.

Now, however, Haz has become vice president because of the votes of PDI-P, which has a total of 185 members in the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the country's highest legislative body that elects and/or removes a president and/or vice president. In the third and final round of the vice presidential election on July 26, Megawati personally instructed PDI-P legislators to vote for Haz. And as it turned out, the votes of PDI-P made Haz's vice presidential dream come true. Haz garnered a total of 340 of 610 votes up for grab, compared to 237 votes for Akbar Tandjung of Golkar, Hamzah Haz's toughest rival.

Being the president of a country where almost 90 percent of its 213 million population adheres to Islam, Megawati is faced with a harsh reality: She must cooperate with her enemies or lose the presidency. As expected, Megawati has chosen to embrace her enemies rather than take revenge.

The decision to support Haz's vice presidential bid was a matter of political survival for Megawati and her party. Although her ascent to the presidency was supported by virtually all factions in the MPR, her legitimacy was still considered weak as many Muslim groups cannot accept a woman president. Had she not decided to support Haz, her presidency would have come under constant attack by Muslim groups, severely undermining her government.

The legitimacy and increased acceptance by Muslim groups which Haz's election brings to Megawati is extremely important if she wants to run for the post in the 2004 presidential election. Had Megawati and her PDI-P supported Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung or former coordinating minister for politics, social and security affairs Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono, her administration would look like a neo-New Order one, with the consequence of being an easy target for protests by students and pro-democracy activists.

"This is the most rational choice that PDI-P can make. Had we supported Golkar, pro-democracy activists and students would name the administration as the neo-New Order," PDI-P Deputy Secretary-General Pramono Anung said after Haz's election.

The Megawati-Haz duet, however, is expected to face a tough challenge in the DPR as Golkar, and probably former president Abdurrahman Wahid's National Awakening Party (PKB), have vowed to take a critical stance against the new government. Golkar has 120 legislators in the DPR, and a Megawati-Tandjung duet would have created a solid government as it would bring together 273 legislators, more than half the DPR's 500 members. PDI-P legislators were worried, however, that Tandjung's presence in the government would weaken Megawati's position.

By throwing her support behind Haz, Megawati also dispelled an opinion widely-held among Muslim groups that a nationalist like herself cannot get along with a "fundamentalist" Muslim like Haz, who has constantly rejected a woman president and called for the adoption of Syariah Islam (Islamic law) in Indonesia. According to PDI-P legislator Soetardjo Soerjogoeritno, to secure the vice presidential post Haz agreed not to bring up the gender and Syariah issues.

Haz's election is expected to minimize the damage caused by the removal of Wahid by MPR members on July 23. Haz is a member of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), a Muslim organization closely associated with Wahid. Being an NU member, Haz has close relationships with influential NU ulemas (religious leaders), whom Wahid consulted before his downfall.

However, the election of Haz also confirms suggestions that politicians in the MPR and DPR were more interested in grabbing power from Wahid and distributing it among themselves, rather than creating a clean and accountable government. Virtually all parties that plotted to overthrow Wahid now hold key positions both in the executive and legislative branches. PDI-P's Megawati becomes president, PPP's Haz vice president, while PAN's Amien Rais and Golkar's Akbar Tandjung still keep their previous positions as MPR and DPR speakers respectively. The same parties are now busy scrambling for Cabinet posts. Megawati has hinted that there will be 34 ministerial posts, compared to Wahid's 27. Ministries that Wahid scrapped earlier are to be revived in order to accommodate the demands of the parties for Cabinet posts.

The parties now have the positions, but have no common ground on how to lift the country out of its current crisis.

But still, Megawati's post is not secure. A fatwa -- religious teaching - rejecting a woman president has not been revoked. The fatwa was issued by Muslim leaders weeks before the 1999 presidential election, and the Muslim-based political parties, including PPP, that called for the fatwa have no plans to invalidate it. Megawati will always have to count on her "enemies" to preserve her presidency until 2004.

Human rights/law

Play on missing people

Jakarta Post - August 4, 2001

Jakarta -- A play highlighting human rights issues will be staged at Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center in Central Jakarta to mark the International Week of Disappeared Persons which falls on August 30.

Jointly held by the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and Indonesian Arts Association (PSI), the play will be performed for three consecutive nights, from August 6 to August 8.

Titled Mengapa Kau Culik Anak Kami (Why Are You Kidnapping Our Children), the play is the work of Seno Gumira Ajidarma and will feature actors Niniek L. Karim and Landung Simatupang along with former abduction victim Nezar Patria as guest star.

Activist Nezar was among 25 people abducted by unidentified men beginning in April 1997. He was kidnapped by four men in March, 1998 along with another activist, Aan, from the apartment they shared. Nezar was found weeks later in Jakarta police detention.

"The play is intended to build solidarity among relatives of the victims and members of community coming from various professions and backgrounds, while at the same time, providing support for the association of missing persons' relatives who are still fighting to locate the whereabouts of their loved ones", a press release stated.

Funds raised from staging the play will be distributed to the victims' families.

Failure of anti-Golkar suit raises fears of New Order resurgence

South China Morning Post - August 1, 2001

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- A lawsuit seeking to dissolve former president Suharto's political party, Golkar, was thrown out by the Supreme Court yesterday. The move comes amid growing fears that President Megawati Sukarnoputri's tenure will see a resurgence of groups and individuals linked to Suharto's New Order regime.

Efforts by pro-democracy activists to ban Golkar were supported by Ms Megawati's predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid, as part of his attempts to threaten opponents into dropping impeachment moves. Golkar was accused of fraud in the 1999 elections, raising money beyond legal limits and illegally siphoning of millions of dollars from an insolvent bank and the state-run food agency.

Judges trying the class-action suit said there was inadequate evidence the party had breached the limit on election campaign funds. "The judges were not trying to find the truth. This is not an honest trial. Suharto's people are still in charge of Indonesia," said Sri Bintang Pamungkas, a political prisoner during Suharto's era and one of the plaintiffs.

Outside the Supreme Court, police fired tear-gas to break up pro and anti-Golkar protesters who clashed briefly when party chairman Akbar Tandjung left the building.

The claim that a revival of the New Order is under way has exercised analysts and reformists in the wake of Ms Megawati's rise to power, which some diplomats maintain was constitutionally dubious. The armed forces and the police both disobeyed orders from their commander-in-chief, Mr Wahid, to support Ms Megawati's takeover. Far from being chastised for insubordination, they were applauded for their intervention, the observers noted.

In contrast to Mr Wahid's efforts to weaken the military, Ms Megawati is seen as more amenable to a larger role for the armed forces, especially given her desire to quash unrest in separatist provinces with military help.

The way Ms Megawati rose to power offers more doubt about her reformist credentials, analysts argue. They note a loose alliance of figures aligned to New Order -- such as the parliamentary faction leader of her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, Arifin Panigoro, and the People's Consultative Assembly deputy chairman, Ginandjar Kartasasmita -- were key to her parliamentary support.

Leading members of Ms Megawati's personal staff also have links to the old regime, such as her spokesman Bambang Kesowo, a New Order bureaucrat.

However, the few people in the political elite with the necessary skills to run offices and implement policy are perforce from the New Order. Suharto either co-opted or eliminated the best and brightest of a generation.

Ms Megawati remains an elusive political actor and may yet surprise observers by being more stubborn than expected towards the military and a long line of greedy politicians.

One sign of independence on her part may be the delay in naming a cabinet, one source suggested. The assumption implicit in the blanket support she received from parliament last week was that she would have to pay back the favour through the distribution of cabinet posts.

That assumption is undergoing revision in some quarters as the days stretch out with no cabinet in sight. No announcement is expected before the weekend at the earliest.

One of Ms Megawati's closest aides said she did not now want to appoint a coalition cabinet and preferred to pick her own people. If true, this might indicate her strength of mind -- and also raise fears about the cabinet's stability.

News & issues

Cipinang prison: From chicken farms to drugs

Jakarta Post - August 4, 2001

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- People who like to eat out at KFC would never have imagined that it had something to do with Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta.

It's not that the franchiser of this famous American fast food chain is involved in any crime. The prison has a chicken farm and its products are sent to KFC, thanks to Ricardo Gelael, commissioner and executive of PT Goro Batara Sakti and a business associate of former president Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra.

Gelael and Tommy, who is currently a fugitive, were sentenced by the Supreme Court last year to 18 months in jail for their role in a land exchange deal scandal between PT Goro and State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

Gelael has reportedly spent some 1 billion rupiah to develop the farm, which now has some 5,000 chickens, according to Tengku Ismuhadi, a suspect in the bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange building.

Ismuhadi told The Jakarta Post who visited his cell on Friday that Gelael also helps distribute the chickens, which are sold at Rp 8,000 to Rp 8,500 per kilogram. "Some of the chickens are sent to the KFC outlets located at Gelael Supermarkets belonging to Ricardo," Ismuhadi said.

Ismuhadi said an inmates association called Kawabi, led by Budi -- a member of the Golkar Party's youth wing Pemuda Pancasila and also serving a jail sentence for premeditated murder, along with the prison guards, work together to develop the farm.

The project, however, has resulted in social envy among other inmates and penitentiary employees who are not involved in the business. Early this year, the employees staged a demonstration before the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights over the special treatment received by some rich inmates, especially Gelael, as they are allowed to have cell phones and televisions in their cells.

They also complained about their poor salary and demanded better conditions and benefits. Ministry data shows that the employees receive a monthly salary of between Rp 700,000 to Rp 900,000, excluding allowances of between Rp 35,000 and Rp 75,000.

Chicken is not the only commodity in the penitentiary, as some inmates also raise goldfish and sell it at Rp 8,000 per kilogram. Even Ismuhadi, along with another six inmates in his cell, has goldfish.

Ismuhadi's cellmate, Sayuti, said that many inmates also owned cell phones and even rented them. He declined to reveal the price, but earlier reports said that a cell phone was rented for Rp 2,500 per 30 seconds.

Sayuti said his cell phone, along with dozens of others belonging to other inmates, was confiscated by police in a recent raid. He said the police might misuse the cell phones as the inmates did not sign any dossier that could be used as evidence that their belongings were confiscated.

Besides raising and selling chicken and fish and renting cell phones, there is porn VCD rental business at the Cipinang Penitentiary. However, this is not as serious as the drug transactions in the prison, that reportedly could amount to Rp 20 million (US$2,000) per day.

Both Ismuhadi and Sayuti, a former drug dealer, claimed to know nothing about the business, saying that "we are no longer dealing with them [the drug dealers] as they conduct their business clandestinely here."

The issue came to surface when the new Cipinang Penitentiary chief warden Ngusman said that most of the criminals dealing with drugs were sent to the penitentiary and recreated a "drug dealer syndicate" there.

"I can say that the narcotics business here has become such 'a syndicate' that no one can touch them. In many cases, I admit that the prison guards might be involved due to two reasons: they have a low income or they are frightened," Ngusman told caretaker Minister of Justice and Human Rights Mahfud MD on Friday, as the Minister joined the Friday prayers in the prison building.

Spokesman for the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights R.A. Tjapah told the Post in an interview on Thursday that inmates usually obtain the drugs from their friends or families who visit them.

"The guards cannot detect them as they hide the drugs in the heels of their shoes, or in their underwear. Should they hide it in the meals they bring for the inmates, we can detect it as procedures require us to inspect food brought in from outside the jail," Tjapah said.

He also said that sometimes the visitors hid sharp weapons in their sandals, which were then swapped with the inmates' sandals. "If the state cannot increase the number of personnel, I guess they must provide us with a metal detector," Tjapah said.

Cipinang Penitentiary was built to accommodate only 1,700 inmates, but it currently houses some 2,300 inmates. It has 160 guards, who work in four shifts round the clock. Brawls among inmates often occur and there are also cases of escapes.

In response to such concerns, Mahfud said that he would leave a note for the new Minister of Justice and Human Rights to establish a new penitentiary to especially house drug criminals. "I think, establishing one more jail is necessary as I have also been informed that this place is overcrowded," Mahfud, who is also caretaker Minister of Defense, said.

Five wounded as bomb blast hits Jakarta mall

Reuters - August 2, 2001

Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta -- A bomb blast ripped through the ground floor of a busy shopping centre in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Wednesday evening, injuring at least five people, police and witnesses said.

The explosion hit the shopping complex in the central Senen district at around 8pm as commuters were making last-minute purchases before heading home, blowing out windows and sending clouds of thick smoke into the air.

"This bomb is a terrorist act. It's aim is pretty clear, it is to create excessive fear among society," Jakarta governor Sutiyoso told reporters, adding that no one had been killed. "This is not a stand-alone action, it is part of a syndicated act." It was unclear who was behind the attack, he said.

There have been several unsolved bomb attacks in Indonesia in recent months amid political tension that climaxed in the ousting of the country's first democratically-elected leader, Abdurrahman Wahid, by the top legislature last week.

Thick smoke covered the multi-storey shopping complex after Wednesday's blast, which was heard 1.5 km away.

Hundreds of bystanders milled about as ambulances rushed the injured to hospital. Police said one person had been hurt seriously but gave no details. "There was one big explosion that was very loud. A pile of smoke came from the area," said Anisya, who runs a fried chicken stall across from the mall. "It was like a tremor," she told Reuters.

Police closed the shopping centre and evacuated the building. The bomb squad also arrived not long after the blast.

Indonesia has been battered by violence and political instability since former President Suharto stepped down in disgrace more than three years ago. Indonesians hope the appointment of new President Megawati Sukarnoputri last week will finally usher in some stability.

Report details US role in Sukarno's toppling

Straits Times - July 30, 2001

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- American officials are trying to recall a published history of how the United States supported anti-communist moves that brought former president Suharto to power and left as many as one million Indonesians dead.

But historians in Indonesia are unfazed by details that have emerged from the account -- a State Department publication mistakenly released before internal and CIA screening.

Jakarta newspapers carried front-page stories yesterday about the US efforts at damage control, but noted the idea of covert US engagement in Indonesia in the mid-1960s is nothing new.

"It happened in the past. We are now looking forward. History is only there to be learned from," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Sulaiman Abdulmanan, adding he was confident there would be no "disturbances" in Indonesia's relationship with the US.

The timing of the report adds to Washington's embarrassment. The documents record how the US backed moves against the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as part of efforts to depose then-president Sukarno, who was disliked for his alleged communist leanings and his strongly anti-Western foreign policy. Sukarno's daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri, became Indonesia's fifth president last week.

Efforts to recall the controversial records have only served to focus attention on their content, which has long been obscured by former dictator Suharto's policy of rewriting the past.

Only recently have Indonesians been allowed to speak freely about events in the 1960s. Officially, they have been told that communists mounted a coup on September 30, 1965, which heroic military officers and civilians put down. The PKI was banned, relations with China severed and bloody purges carried out against alleged communists.

Other independent versions suggest the coup or at least its murderous aftermath could have been masterminded by those who benefited most, namely Suharto and his friends.

That he had friends abroad is not surprising, but now there is proof in the form of a memo from US ambassador Marshall Green, on December 2, 1965.

This recommended payment of 50 million rupiah (then worth about US$1.1 million) to a leader of the Kap-Gestapu, an army-inspired but civilian-staffed group which, the memo said, "is still carrying the burden of current repressive efforts targeted against PKI, particularly in central Java".

Harold Crouch, head of Jakarta's International Crisis Group office and author of The Army and Politics in Indonesia, said: "I didn't know for sure that the US gave money, but it's the sort of thing most people would have assumed took place."

The report confirms that the US provided anti-communist leaders such as Suharto with a list of leading members of the PKI who were subsequently killed. An aerogram sent on August 10, 1966, by ambassador Green said the list prepared by the embassy "is apparently being used by Indonesian security authorities who seem to lack even the simplest overt information on PKI leadership at this time".

Such stories of a CIA hit-list are also not new, however, having circulated regularly in recent years.

Arms/armed forces

Jakarta anticipates renewed US military ties

Stratfor Update - July 27, 2001

International reactions to Megawati Sukarnoputri becoming Indonesia's new president on July 23 were swift but measured.

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations expressed cautious support while US President George W Bush quickly said he looked forward to working with Megawati. And US Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterated Washington's concern that Indonesia not degenerate into violence during the transition of power from former president Abdurrahman Wahid.

Despite the obvious role the Indonesian military played in the change in regimes, Washington will accelerate plans to re- establish suspended ties with Indonesia's armed forces. The US government views the military's resurgent political role as a necessary evil to ensure the more important goal of stability in Southeast Asia's most populous nation.

During much of former president Suharto's 32-year tenure, Washington and Jakarta kept close military ties. For the United States and its Asian allies, the benefits of a stable Indonesia ruled by the staunchly anti-communist Suharto far outweighed concerns about his military regime's numerous human rights violations. But when pro-Indonesian militants violently rocked East Timor's independence referendum in 1999, Washington suspended ties with the Indonesian armed forces, which were blamed for training and controlling the militants. Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm Craig Quigley said, "We just don't think that it's appropriate given the circumstances, that that [military-to-military] relationship continue at this point." Several factors contributed to the US government's change in posture.

First, the post-Cold War changes in the international system left Washington with little justification for supporting autocratic military regimes -- even if they were anti-communist. Second, Washington was in the midst of a shifting pattern of foreign diplomacy, where the lack of threats to the United States meant human rights interests could play a greater role in policy decisions.

The Indonesian military has changed little since the Pentagon severed ties. In fact, it has reasserted its influence and power in Jakarta rather than acquiesce to civilian authority. Washington, however, has also reassessed its position and those of its allies in Asia. Most of the region is still struggling after the 1997 financial crisis, and China is expanding its regional military and political influence -- a source of concern for Australia and Japan as well as the United States. Facing this new equation, Washington again views Indonesia as a vital ally, one whose stability must be ensured to protect US access to its critical shipping lanes.

The Bush administration has already floated the idea of rebuilding ties with Jakarta's military. James A Kelley, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, told a congressional international relations committee in June that Indonesia was a high priority for the new administration, and Washington would "do whatever [it] can to help [Indonesia] succeed".

At the same time, reports began to circulate in the US media that the administration was trying to find ways to persuade Congress to allow the resumption of ties.

Indonesian military officials are apparently well aware of Washington's interest in rebuilding relations. Lieutenant-General Agus Widjojo, the Indonesian military's territorial affairs chief, said on July 12 that the new US administration would be more "benign" toward Indonesia because Washington "will see Indonesia as the most strategic country in the region", according to The Jakarta Post. Widjojo, who was speaking at a conference in Jakarta with the president of the US-Indonesia Society, added that an unstable Indonesia would destabilize the entire region, "which will eventually burden the US's efforts to achieve its national interests" in Asia.

US Ambassador to Indonesia Robert S Gelbard also made comments at the conference that bolstered the military leaders' confidence that Washington has changed its attitude toward them. Gelbard, while defending Washington's support of democratic change around the world, said, "Each nation must determine the most appropriate democratic system, consistent with its culture and values, as well as universally recognized rights." This was a tacit nod to a military role in Indonesia's new government.

The Bush administration still has several hurdles in Congress before it can re-establish close ties. But both Washington and Jakarta are convinced that these links are necessary for their respective interests. The military is considered the political power broker in Indonesia, and in the latest crisis helped quicken Wahid's demise by refusing to support his presidential decree suspending parliament.

Indonesian military leaders see renewed US ties as offering the potential for much-needed financial assistance, as well as lending legitimacy to the military's increased internal security and political roles. With the unproven Megawati at the helm, a strengthened Indonesian military has more power to exert influence and control over the government.