Democratic struggle

Hundreds protest planned fuel, electricity price rises

Agence France Presse - January 7, 2002

Jakarta -- Hundreds of Indonesian activists rallied outside the presidential palace Monday to protest plans to raise fuel and electricity prices.

The protestors, mostly from the left-leaning Democratic People's Party, said the rises would only further impoverish the poor, Antara news agency reported.

"Reject the hike in fuel prices and electricity and telephone rates," read a huge banner.

Jakarta police spokesman Senior Commissioner Anton Bachrul Alam said police would tolerate rallies as long as they were held peacefully.

The government has yet to decide a date for the increase in fuel prices, earlier planned for January 1 but delayed.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro has said the rise would be implemented as soon as possible because further delays would only add to the costs to be borne by the government.

There have been reports that kerosene, used widely for cooking by the poor, is being withheld by distributors from the market pending the announcement of the rise, causing shortages and soaring prices. Alam said police were investigating the reports.

Officials have said cheaper domestic fuel prices, thanks to subsidies, have prompted the smuggling of fuel to other countries where it is sold at much higher prices.

The International Monetary Fund, which has been coordinating a five-billion-dollar aid package, has urged the government to reduce its huge bill for subsidies on fuel.

East Timor

Portugal negotiating to take command of peacekeeping force

Lusa - January 11, 2002

Lisbon is negotiating with the United Nations over the possibility of taking over command of the UN peacekeeping force in East Timor, it was announced Friday by Portuguese Defense Minister Rui Pena.

"We can really hold this ambition which is justified by us being the country contributing the second largest number of personnel to this peace force. But this is a very complex negotiation and we are taking the first steps", Pena explained to Lusa in Dili at the beginning of a three-day visit to the southeast Asian territory.

Rui Pena was speaking after a meeting with the commander of the East Timor Defense Force (FDTL), Brig. Gen. Taur Matan Ruak. The Portuguese minister said that existing relations between the armed forces of the two countries were another factor in favor of Lisbon assuming command of the force. He also referred to the "empathy" that had been created between Portuguese peacekeepers and the Timorese. The FDTL commander, for his part, told Lusa that Portugal`s heading of a UN force would be a "very positive" decision.

"All this is now being discussed, but for me, if it happens it is advantageous for us, facilitating the relationship and contact", said the Brigadier General.

Rui Pena, together with UN chief administrator Sergio Vieira de Melo, will also attend Saturday`s formal delivery of two patrol launches, donated by Portugal to the FDTL.

The naval section of the defense force, comprising 50 personnel, will be inaugurated at the same time. Portugal has been responsible for the training of this unit, which will be completed by May and at a total cost to Lisbon of about euros 2.5 million.

UN denies Timor mission is white-dominated

Agence France Presse - January 12, 2002

United Nations -- Rejecting "implicit suggestions of racism," the United Nations on Friday denied an accusation made by one of its officials that the peacekeeping mission in East Timor was dominated by white Westerners.

The charge was made by N. Parameswaran, a Malaysian who resigned this week as chief of staff of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

Parameswaran's resignation -- three days before the end of his contract -- was reported by the New Straits Times of Malaysia in an article published Thursday under the headline "The White Rajah".

Writing to the editor of the New Straits Times, Shashi Tharoor, interim head of the UN's department of public information, said the report was "as inaccurate as it is offensive".

It "makes the accusation that the UN mission lacks equitable geographical distribution among its staff," Tharoor wrote, adding that "there are implicit suggestions of racism." In his letter, released here, Tharoor noted that 22 percent of the international staff of UNTAET were from Europe, 21 percent from the Americas, 21 percent from Asia, 19 percent from Africa and 17 percent from elsewhere.

"One may well wish the proportion of Asians to be higher, and in more senior positions," Tharoor wrote, but the mission was going through "a drastic downsizing" and it was difficult to maintain geographical balance.

UNTAET was set up in October 1999 after local militiamen laid waste to East Timor, which had voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence from Indonesia in a referendum organised by the UN. The mission's military force is to be halved and its civilian staff cut by 75 percent before the territory achieves independence on May 20 this year.

Tharoor noted that until Parameswaran's resignation, the four most senior officials in UNTAET were a Brazilian, a New Zealander, a Malaysian and a Thai -- the military commander. "That hardly suggests Western dominance," he wrote.

On Thursday, East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta criticised Parameswaran, saying: "I do not believe that it is proper for UN officials, or diplomats, to engage in mud slinging in public".

Romas-Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner, said many people had devoted months to making UNTAET "a considerable success" including Parameswaran and other non-whites.

"I do not think that it is fair to say that this is a white- dominated mission," he said in a statement.

Bishop Belo adds voice to election calls

Lusa - January 11, 2002

East Timor`s religious leader, Catholic Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, called Friday for the holding of legislative elections for the first post-independence Timorese parliament, instead of the planned transition of the Constituent Assembly into this body.

"Personally, I have always shown preference for legislative elections ... after the Constituent Assembly is dissolved, and holding new elections. Here they are talking about transformation, but for me this is a little strange", Bishop Belo told Lusa.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate acknowledged that there were two strands of opinion on the subject and that the situation in Timor was far from being ideal. However, he said the assembly members should make the decision, but with "sincere, gradual debate with strong arguments on both sides".

The question of whether to hold, or not to hold fresh elections for the parliament has caused some controversy in Timor in recent months. A new political movement has recently emerged which is against the merging of the current assembly into the post- independence parliament.

The Group for the Defense of Democracy, Peace and Stability in East Timor (GDDPE) is led by Manuel Carrascalao, ex-president of Timor`s first transition parliament, the National Council.

According to its leaders, the new group has emerged from within civil society and includes some opposition members, including MPs from the PSD, PD and PST.

The GDDPE sent a petition to UN Secretary Kofi Annan -- so far only signed by 15 people -- asking for "the simultaneous holding of presidential and legislative elections" by May 20, before independence, or "legislative elections soon after independence, preferably on August 30, 2002".

Chief Minister of the Constituent Assembly, Mari Alkatiri, told Lusa last week that those seeking elections before independence, on May 20, were trying to create fresh political crises in the territory.

"Opting for new elections is wanting openly to cause crises. If they argue that not having fresh elections could create crises, demanding them goes against the majority and this is what can cause crises".

Alkatiri also pointed out that the decision to transform the Constituent Assembly into the national parliament was initially taken by the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNTR), at a time when Fretilin had already left that body.

"It is they who now turn against what they themselves defined and we who accept. We know why because they are dreaming of better results than at the last elections", said Alkatiri.

Over 30 indictments handed down for serious crimes, UN reports

UN News Service - January 9, 2002

East Timor's General Prosecutor has issued more than 30 indictments in cases involving major incidents of mass killings and forced deportation, according to the latest figures released by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

Through its Serious Crimes Unit, the Office of the General Prosecutor is investigating and prosecuting crimes against humanity -- including individual offences of murder, rape, torture and other offences -- committed in the territory between 1 January and 25 October 1999, UNTAET said today in Dili.

So far, 33 indictments on serious crimes cases -- 11 of which are crimes against humanity cases -- have been issued concerning 83 alleged perpetrators. Twenty-one persons have already been tried and convicted.

Meanwhile, a senior Norwegian law enforcement official, Siri Frigaard, has taken over as the head of the Unit at a time when special consideration is being given to refugee returns, including former militia members who are suspected of committing acts of violence in 1999, UNTAET said. The Unit has recently reorganized itself so that prosecutors lead their investigations in the districts in order to address requests for investigations from local communities.

Mrs. Frigaard, who has taken leave from her position as Director for the Regional Public Prosecutor's Office of Oslo, will also fill the post of Deputy General Prosecutor for Serious Crimes. She previously served as special legal adviser to the General Prosecutor of Albania and has represented Norway in the Baltic Sea Cooperation concerning international legal aid.

Param 'right to quit UN post'

Straits Times - January 10, 2002

Cheah Chor Sooi, Koh Lay Chin and Shamini Darshni, Kuala Lumpur -- Prominent personalities today came out in support of Datuk N. Parameswaran's decision to quit as chief of staff of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor over racism in the international body.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the explanation of the Malaysian diplomat, who cited racism as one of the reasons he quit, seemed to be justified.

However, Dr Mahathir said he would need to get more details about Parameswaran's decision to resign from the mission he has been heading since January 17, 2000.

When asked by reporters at the Home Ministry's Hari Raya reception at the KDN Complex in Putrajaya whether racism was inherent in various UN missions worldwide, the Prime Minister said: "I don't know yet ... I have to find out".

Parameswaran tendered his resignation through a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Dec 21 last year. His resignation which will take effect on January 13 is just eight days before the expiry of his contract.

The diplomat had said the staffing composition of his mission had failed to live up to the UN's cherished principle of equitable geographical distribution.

"Untaet has become very much a white mission, an Eastern mission with a Western face. With my resignation, there will effectively be no high-level Asian civilian representation in this mission," he said.

Prof Datuk Khoo Kay Kim, former head of Universiti Malaya's history department, said the very fact that Parameswaran took such a drastic step showed that something was wrong in Untaet.

"I know him well. At one time, he was my student. He's not the kind of person to make impulsive decisions so the situation must have been bad." He said it was common knowledge among academic circles that "subtle discrimination" happened in many organisations but in Parameswaran's case it must have been "blatant".

"We have never been very comfortable about the United States' stronghold in the UN, but when we sometimes hear about things that go on in the UN, it might not seem so unbelievable.

"This time around, we have someone inside there telling us his first hand experience, so we should take him seriously," he said.

On whether Malaysia should make a formal protest, he said: "It's up to the Government. Sometimes, we don't understand the niceties of international relations so it's best to leave it to them".

International Movement for a Just World president Prof Dr Chandra Muzaffar said the allegations made by Parameswaran should not be ignored.

"There should be a thorough investigation. The allegations of how Parameswaran's authority was undermined by his UN subordinates and the UN authority in East Timor is a serious one," he said.

Former United Nations General Assembly president Tan Sri Razali Ismail said he did not want to comment extensively about the matter as he did not know the full details.

"I do not know what's going on in East Timor, and while I don't disagree with Param I think you cannot make judgments on the UN as a whole, based on what might be happening there," he said.

On the possibility of the UN or Untaet practising racism or a "white policy", he said passing judgment on the UN would be akin to the parable of "blind men and the elephant".

"You can look at the tail, trunk or leg on its own but every aspect is different and may not reflect on the reality or whole situation," he said.

Head of a prominent think-tank, who did not want to be named, said he was not surprised that Parameswaran was angry, but he was surprised Malaysia had agreed to second him to Untaet in the first place.

"Actually, I'm also not shocked by the allegations as the Anglo Saxons think of themselves as the most righteous people around and that they can save the world. They think their way is the right way and that others' are not," he said.

As far back as January 8, 2001, a report in the Sydney Morning Herald quoted a Dili-based aid worker as saying the UN mission in East Timor was a "continuing failure" and faced "eventual extinction".

Denis Dragovic spoke of an occasion where he dined with three Dili district administration officers.

"Soon the all-too-frequent conversational contest began -- who can denigrate the East Timorese people the most. The comments echoed what I imagine dinner table conversation might have sounded 100 years ago in Australia.

"Of the East Timorese they said -- they have an IQ of a dog, well, at least I can train my dog, they don't need electricity because they don't read or wash," he said.

He added that there were very few East Timorese in top district jobs even after a directive requiring UN staff to have them as counterparts for all district administration positions.

"It's no wonder the process of handing over the reins to the Timorese has stalled, considering the attitudes rampant among UN staff. "For every dollar spent by Untaet on direct assistance to the East Timorese, 10 more are being spent on running its own overheads."

UN diplomat cites racism as he quits

South China Morning Post - January 10, 2002

Vaudine England -- The chief of staff for the United Nations mission in East Timor has resigned, citing management failures and racism as reasons for his departure.

When Nagalingam Parameswaran leaves the capital, Dili, this week there will be no senior manager at the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (Untaet) from a Southeast Asian country.

In his resignation letter, Mr Parameswaran said Untaet "has become very much a 'white' mission, an Eastern mission with a Western face".

But UN sources said that while he may have a point about his origins working against him, the underlying reasons for his departure were more to do with debate over fundamental UN policy and office politics.

Mr Parameswaran, a Malaysian diplomat, has worked hard during his time in Dili on a key plank of UN policy -- the bringing back to East Timor of the tens of thousands of refugees held by militia bosses in neighbouring Indonesian West Timor.

He has been the only senior figure capable of speaking to the Indonesians in their language and has managed ties with militia leaders such as Nemecio de Carvallho, who has been brought back successfully to East Timor.

But opponents within the UN, especially its Serious Crimes Unit, have accused Mr Parameswaran of "making too many deals" with the Indonesians, or of concentrating too much on the reconciliation aspect of the returns policy and not enough on justice against the militia bosses.

"He was disliked for his work with the militias from the beginning, and then his approaches began to bear fruit and other people started to encroach on his area," a UN source said.

In his resignation letter, Mr Parameswaran names the deputy to the Untaet chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello, as "often excluding" him from key decisions.

The respected New Zealander Dennis McNamara was brought in as Untaet deputy last year, partly to improve the Serious Crimes Unit's performance.

Debate on the justice versus reconciliation issue infects the whole question of East Timor's survival as an independent nation surrounded by Indonesia, the former invading power. Mr Parameswaran's claims of racism are more controversial.

"If you go by the number count of white versus brown in the senior levels of Untaet, then Param is quite right," a senior Western diplomat at Untaet said.

"Param's point is that with his departure there will be no senior Asean figure at Untaet and he's right. My question is whether that was intentional and I don't think it was.

"I will say though that it is a shame that the UN didn't make more effort to hire people who can speak Indonesian and Tetum [the East Timorese language].

"Untaet was anti-Indonesian from the beginning and only realised the importance of close ties to Jakarta too late."

Government confirms first three cases of HIV/AIDS

Lusa -- December 27, 2001

East Timor's health ministry Thursday formally confirmed the territory's first cases of HIV/AIDS infection.

In a statement, the ministry said three members of an unidentified family had been found with the HIV virus and were receiving "assistance and help. "It is estimated that the family contracted the virus in the last three to four years", the ministry said.

A report obtained by Lusa in Dili in July 2000 indicated the existence of at least two cases of HIV/AIDS and called for an "immediate policy of education and consciousness raising", including the provision of condoms in the predominantly Catholic territory.

That report underlined that "conditions" existed for the spread of the global pandemic in East Timor, including increases in prostitution and drug abuse, and traditional "cultural pressures" limiting the public discussion of the problem.

Call for legislative elections aimed to 'provoke crises'

Lusa - January 3, 2002

East Timor's chief minister, Mari Alkatiri, Thursday denounced an unexpected call for legislative elections as an attempt by opposition forces to provoke a political crisis.

"Opting for new elections is openly to want to provoke crises", Alkatiri said, referring to a demand made earlier Thursday in Dili by a newly founded group opposing the planned transformation of the recently elected constituent assembly into the territory's future parliament.

"If they argue that not holding new elections would provoke crises, demanding them is to move against the majority and that is where crises can be created", Alkatiri said.

It was "strange", he added, that the new group was headed by Manuel Carrascalao, who served as president of the interim legislature that approved the form and timetable of East Timor's transition to independence, slated for May 20.

Alkatiri charged that Carrascalao and other opposition figures linked to the call for new elections were simply acting out of disappointment over the results of last August's constituent assembly vote.

In that election, the territory's first free balloting, the chief minister's Fretilin party won an overwhelming majority in the assembly.

Carrascalao's movement, calling itself Group for the Defense of Democracy, Peace and Stability in East Timor (GDDPE), made its first public appearance at a Dili news conference Thursday. The group said it had written to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking that legislative elections be held together with planned presidential balloting before independence or immediately after the UN-administered territory gains full sovereignty.

UN urges soft line on Timor refugees

Canberra Times - December 28, 2001

East Timorese asylum seekers might find it hard to settle back in their homeland even though it was technically safe to return, the United Nations refugee agency said yesterday.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock dismissed requests from refugee lawyers that 1600 East Timorese asylum seekers, some who arrived eight years ago, be issued special visas to stay in Australia.

Refugee lawyer Liz Biok said earlier this week that the East Timorese asylum seekers, some who arrived eight years ago, deserved special consideration. Mr Ruddock said refugee places in Australia's humanitarian programs were scarce and should not be allocated to those whose homeland was now safe and secure.

"What I can say is that Australia has put an enormous amount of effort as part of the international community to secure for the people of East Timor a country in which East Timorese can live with safety and build for the future," Mr Ruddock told ABC radio.

"It is not unreasonable when it is safe and secure for people who may be found not to be refugees and have no other compelling compassionate circumstances associated with their claims, to go home."

He said while most asylum applications from East Timorese had been rejected, people were welcome to appeal.

But the UN High Commission for Refugees said the Government should show some compassion and make allowances for individual circumstances.

UNHCR worker Jake Morland said East Timor was relatively safe, but some people would still have difficulties returning because of links to the former Indonesian administration or the amount of time spent away.

"I think for the majority the situation is safe to return, however it all depends on individual cases for some, the situation is not yet right and it may never be right for return," he said in Dili. "Even non-refugees would understand that eight years is certainly a very long time; you've put down new roots, you have children born in these new countries, they are educated there. It would be difficult for anyone to then think of uprooting again."

Mr Morland said most of the 70,000 East Timorese refugees in Indonesia wanted to go back, but governments had to show understanding to those who wanted to stay in their adopted homelands. "These people aren't objects, these people are individuals with their own stories, their own histories and they need to be dealt with with consideration," he said.

The Federal Government this week suspended refugee claims of Afghan asylum seekers after the demise of the Taliban regime, raising concerns it might do the same for the East Timorese.

UNHCR spokeswoman Ellen Hansen said it was too early for the Government to make a decision on Afghanistan. "We think it's premature to change assessments," she said.

"We're monitoring the situation and we will be bringing out new guidelines in the near future."

Unified Timor independence group uncovered: military

Lusa - January 2, 2002

Indonesian military authorities have said they have discovered evidence of a new movement aiming to achieve independence for the whole of Timor island, according to an article in an Indonesian newspaper.

The "State of Timor" movement has begun gathering support in some parts of Indonesian West Timor in recent months, leading some military commanders to concede that the group`s supporters favor the unification of the Indonesian half of the island with East Timor, according to the report.

The military commander of the Indonesian region of Wirasakti, Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, is cited by the Jakarta Post as saying that the group has recently opposed the stationing of an Indonesian army battalion on the border with East Timor.

"Investigations carried out reveal that this group has other ambitions, not simply rejecting the military presence along the frontier. This group knows that the deployment of the battalion will result in a curtailment of its activities ... which aim to achieve an autonomous state of Timor", Col. Moesanip told the Jakarta Post.

The members of the group have still not been identified by Indonesian authorities, but the Colonel said it was believed they included some East Timorese, still in West Timor, and some residents of the northern half of Indonesian Timor.

The group could talk about a state of Timor but it would not become a reality. If it was declared, the rebels would build their own camps and then have to confront the Indonesian military, Col. Moesanip added.

Indonesia turns off supply tap for East Timor refugees

Agence France Presse - January 3, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesian authorities have ceased providing food and cash for tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees stuck in squalid camps in West Timor, an official said Wednesday.

"We have stopped giving out assistance as of January 1," West Timor deputy governor Yohannes Pake Pani told AFP by phone from the capital Kupang.

"The aid was stopped under the direction of chief social welfare minister Yusuf Kalla. We are no longer receiving any assistance from above, no goods, no rice, no money etcetera," Pani said, referring to the central government in Jakarta.

Local authorities in West Timor, and a handful of local aid workers, have been left in charge of looking after the refugees since western aid agencies fled the province in the wake of the brutal murders of three United Nations refugee workers in September 2000.

"In fact it's the UN who should providing assistance to these refugees. How can we keep looking after them?" Pani said.

East Nusa Tenggara which covers West Timor is ranked as one of the poorest of Indonesia's 30 provinces.

The refugees are the remnants of the quarter million or more East Timorese who fled or were forced from their homeland following the overwhelming vote for independence in a United Nations- sponsored plebiscite on August 30, 1999.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says some 180,000 have since returned to East Timor. No agency has been able to conduct an independent count of the remaining refugees but UN and East Timorese officials estimate around 70,000 remain.

Pani disputed reported comments by West Timor police earlier in the week that the refugees had been given a deadline of January 1 to start vacating the camps.

"We're only stopping aid provisions. The camps are still open. We'd be perceived as completely inhumane if we closed them down," the deputy governor said.

The government has a plan in place to resettle the refugees within Indonesia or help repatriate them to East Timor, he said. "We're just waiting for them to decide. The plans are there, but we don't know how many people are going to choose what."

Once the refugees leave the camps to go home or settle elsewhere in Indonesia, "then we'll close the camps down. But not before. We're using no force or pressure whatsoever," Pani said.

Indonesian military to cooperate in trials over East Timor

Agence France Presse - January 3, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesia's military said Thursday it would cooperate with a special human rights court set up to try top commanders and militiamen accused of crimes in East Timor in 1999.

"We support it as long as it is in line with our laws," said armed forces spokesman Air Vice Marshall Graito Usodo. He said the men would be provided with defense lawyers for the proceedings.

The Supreme Court said on Wednesday that trials for 19 suspects were expected to begin by the middle of January in Jakarta.

The trials are expected to test the strength of the ties between President Megawati Sukarnoputri and the army, which backed her takeover of power from former head of state Abdurrahman Wahid six months ago.

Hundreds of people were killed and about 250,000 others fled their homes in a three-week rampage by the Indonesian army and its militia proxies after East Timor voted to secede from Indonesia in August, 1999. The violence ended when international peacekeepers arrived.

The United Nations accepted Jakarta's pledge that it would conduct its own inquiry and prosecute those responsible for crimes surrounding the independence vote. It did so despite recommendations that an international war crimes tribunal akin to those for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda was needed for East Timor.

"Its a tricky point," said Andi Malarangeng, a prominent analyst and former government policy adviser. "Megawati needs the military's support in these turbulent times, but international pressure and local non-governmental groups are behind the ad hoc trial."

He said it was the first time that high-ranking officers had agreed to be tried in a civilian court. Among those accused are Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri -- who was regional military in East Timor at the time of the violence.

Analysts say they don't expect Megawati's administration to vigorously prosecute top officers to avoid losing the support of the military brass.

She has come under fire recently from human rights and other non-governmental groups and from top parliamentary leaders for doing little to combat endemic corruption and revive the moribund economy.

"There will be a middle line taken. There will be some action but it won't go as far international expectations," Malarangeng predicted.

Supreme court names judges for East Timor trials

Associated Press - January 2, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesia's Supreme Court has assigned 17 judges to preside over the trials of Indonesian soldiers and militiamen accused of human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999, a news report said Thursday.

The trials of 19 suspects, including several military commanders, are expected to begin by the middle of January, said Supreme Court chief Bagir Manan, Media Indonesia reported. "I have already agreed on the appointment [of the judges]," said Manan.

Hundreds of people were killed and about 250,000 others fled their homes in a three-week rampage by the Indonesian army and its militia proxies after East Timor voted to secede from Indonesia in August, 1999. The violence ended when international peacekeepers arrived. In response to intense international pressure, Jakarta agreed 10 months ago to set up special human rights court.

Foreign rights activists have called on the UN to establish an international tribunal -- similar to the ones for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda -- to try those responsible.

Critics allege that Indonesia's powerful military will prevent any of its men from being punished by the county's corrupt legal system.

Refugee status for East Timorese abolished, safety 'guaranteed'

Media Indonesia - January 3, 2002

Jakarta -- The safety of refugees is still guaranteed: Even though the government has abolished refugee status for the refugees from East Timor with effect from 31 December 2001, Commander IX/Udayana Military Area Command Maj-Gen Willem da Costa, stated that he would still guarantee their safety.

"They do not have refugee status. However, a guarantee of their safety has been given", he said on Wednesday 2 January. After farewelling President Megawati Soekarnoputri on her journey back to Jakarta on Tuesday (1 January), the two-star general told journalists that there were currently hundreds of thousands of refugees from East Timor in the East Nusa Tenggara region. "There are still many living here, however we do not have any accurate data, because the figures vary from one agency to another. But in principle, they are still being made to feel safe", he said.

According to him, every day there are refugees returning to East Timor. "Moreover, since the Indonesian government had given them a final payment of 700,000 rupiah and IX/Udayana Military Area Command had also donated seeds to plant, many refugees were interested in returning to East Timor".

Sluggish train of justice moves some only to tears

Sydney Morning Herald - January 5, 2002

Jill Jolliffe, Dili -- With the militia leader Eurico Guterres due to be charged with crimes against humanity next week, United Nations officials in East Timor are hopeful that 2002 may represent a new phase in the prosecution of human rights violators.

It could not be a worse year than 2001 in the justice areas of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

Although foundations seemed to have been solidly laid to prosecute those responsible for the horrific human rights violations of 1999, there was mounting criticism of the serious crimes investigation unit, and there were accusations of political deals struck with militia leaders in talks at the East Timor border.

After more than two years in East Timor, the UN has completed only one case of crimes against humanity -- in early December, 10 Timorese were given sentences of four to 33 years for their roles in massacres in the Los Palos district. An Indonesian lieutenant involved walked free. Other indictments have been filed but not yet heard.

In March, the UN asked a legal expert, Mary Fisk, to conduct an inquiry into the running of the serious crimes unit. Valued investigators were quitting in disgust over inaction, lack of resources and poor leadership. Her secret report was said to be scathing, but action was slow to follow.

It was not until the appointment in August of Dennis McNamara as deputy administrator of UNTAET (second to the Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello) that changes began, with the New Zealander given a special brief to reorganise the justice section.

McNamara admits there was a serious problem. "Mary Fisk wrote a lot of things that people were aware of," he observed. "The criticisms of the serious crimes unit were widespread, to the point where it needed to be seriously addressed."

The former chief prosecutor, Mohamad Othman, a Tanzanian who had led prosecutions involving the Rwandan genocide, was in the firing line. He was accused of putting the brakes on prosecutions and, with UNTAET's Malaysian chief of staff, Nagalingam Parameswaran, of striking deals with militia leaders during regular forays to the border.

But Othman has argued from the beginning that lessons needed to be learned from the Rwandan experience, where thousands of people had been held for excessive periods while they awaited trial. Prosecutions might be slow in Timor, he said, but they would be more thorough, just and effective if cases were ready for trial before arrests were made.

In his view, the UN had starved East Timor of funds. "The East Timorese have been short-changed," he alleged. "For example, I asked for funding to have access to witnesses outside East Timor, but the allocation was $US30,000, compared to $US500,000 in the cases of Rwanda and former Yugoslavia. It's a piggy-bank mentality."

Negotiations with militia leaders were a separate question. Soldiers at the border are angry about a ban on arresting militia leaders coming across for talks with prosecutors, including the brothers Cancio and Nemesio Carvalho, wanted for atrocities committed in the central highlands. They negotiated terms for trial against promises to bring home hundreds of the refugees captive in West Timor since 1999 and to name Indonesian perpetrators.

McNamara takes a conservative position on the time frame for prosecutions and on the talks with militia leaders. He points out that prosecutions for crimes against humanity necessarily take time because they must be meticulous, and may involve hundreds of witnesses.

On the militiamen, he draws a comparison with Cambodia, where he worked with Vieira de Mello on bringing 370,000 refugees home. "We dealt with the Khmer Rouge then in order to get the population back to Cambodia, and we had to. I think you have to deal with the militia leaders here in order to get the innocent captive refugee population back to East Timor. There's no choice."

International prosecutors and investigators are limited by a 1999 UN resolution restricting prosecutions to the "scorched earth" period of Indonesian withdrawal, between January 1 and September 20 (although there is a legal loophole that allows them to investigate "historical crimes", including the 1975 killings of the Balibo Five, the 1983 Kraras massacre and the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre).

They are even more seriously restricted by the refusal of the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in January 2000 to endorse a recommendation by a human rights investigator, Sonia Picardo, for an international tribunal for East Timor. Instead, Annan recommended to the Security Council that Indonesia be given the chance to try its own transgressors, a decision strongly supported by Australia.

Two years on, there are no signs this will happen, although Jakarta recently said a special court will try senior officers in the coming period.

There is a provision in the 1999 Security Council resolution for an international court to be set up if Indonesia fails to conduct trials. If indictments pile up and non co-operation continues, pressure for such a court will mount.

Return of Mahidi militia chief canceled for 'technical reasons'

Lusa - January 8, 2002

A former leading anti-idependence militia leader has canceled his planned return to East Timor. Cancio Lopes de Carvalho told the UN transition administration Monday he had canceled the trip for "technical reasons".

A spokesman in the UN administration told Lusa that Lopes de Carvalho had also informed them that his homecoming to the territory would be postponed "for an unspecified period".

Senior East Timorese and United Nations administration officials had been preparing earlier Monday in Dili to welcome home Lopes de Carvalho in one of the most dramatic steps yet taken at reconciliation with former backers of Indonesian rule.

Officials had announced at the weekend that the Mahidi militia chief would return from Indonesian West Timor Tuesday morning at Salele, where he was to have been met by independence leader Xanana Gusmao and UN transition administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello, among others.

Lopes de Carvalho had said he was ready to face charges of crimes against humanity and to cooperate in providing evidence against Indonesian security forces in the wave of violence that shattered East Timor at the time of its UN-sponsored independence plebiscite in 1999.

Court sources in Dili said that witnesses have accused Lopes de Carvalho and his Mahidi paramilitaries of atrocities, especially in the area of Ainaro, south of the territory's capital.

East Timorese and Indonesian officials had hoped that Lopes de Carvalho's high-profile return would encourage tens of thousands of refugees remaining in West Timor to follow suit.

Jakarta has given the refugees, estimated by relief agencies at about 70,000, an ultimatum to either return to East Timor or face resettlement to other parts of Indonesia. The UN High Commission for Refugees said that by last month nearly 193,000 had returned home.

Aceh/Pest Papua

ExxonMobil accused of involvement in 'brutal military campaign'

Agence France Presse - January 11, 2002

Banda Aceh -- Separatist rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province on Friday accused US-based energy giant ExxonMobil Indonesia of providing funds and facilities to soldiers to wage "a brutal military campaign" in Aceh.

"Facts tell us that EMOI [ExxonMobil Oil Inc.] facilities have turned into a military base as well as torture camps and killing chambers," Free Aceh Movement spokesman Sofyan Daud said in a statement.

Daud charged that ExxonMobil pays three million rupiah (294 dollars) per low-ranking military personnel a month apart from other lump sums.

"Summary killings, harassment of innocent civilians, arson of civilian facilities, rapes, disappearences ... have been all perpetrated by the 'EMOI army'," the statement said.

ExxonMobil Indonesia spokeswoman Julia Tumengkol denied the allegations "We are disturbed by any suggestions that ExxonMobil or its affiliate companies are in any way involved in alleged human rights abuses by security forces in Aceh," Tumengkol told AFP.

"ExxonMobil condemns the violations of human rights in any form and categorically denies these allegations," she said.

The company's gasfield in Aceh on Sumatgra island is guarded by the Indonesian military.

ExxonMobil shut down its operations for four months in Aceh last year and evacuated foreign staff, blaming rebel attacks for worsening security which included arson and kidnapping.

The closure cost Indonesia about 100 million dollars a month in lost liquefied natural gas exports to Japan and South Korea.

Last month unidentified gunmen killed an Indonesian employee contracted by the company. The military blamed separatist rebels.

Accusations that ExxonMobil is indirectly involved in military human rights violations in Aceh have been made by human rights groups in the past.

The Free Aceh Movement has been fighting for an independent Islamic state since 1976 and an estimated 10,000 people have been killed since then.

More than 1,700 people died last year and 67 have been killed since the start of 2002.

12 people killed in Aceh's latest bout of violence

Jakarta Post - January 11, 2002

Banda Aceh -- At least 12 people, including a soldier, were killed in the latest outbreak of violence in restive Aceh province from Wednesday to Thursday, official and humanitarian activists said.

Seven male bodies bearing gunshot wounds were found lying on roadsides to the east of Sigli town, some 120 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, on Thursday morning, the coordinator for Coalition- Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) on Human Rights in Sigli, Muharizal Hasan, said.

Six of the bodies were found in Unoe village, Glumpang Tiga district, while another body was found in neighboring Tanjung Usi village, Mutiara district, some seven kilometers away from Unoe village.

Muharizal quoted Unoe villagers as saying that gunshots were heard at around 5 a.m. on Thursday from a house that was known to be a hideout for Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist rebels. The residents said that dozens of police and soldiers raided the house, and that they found the six bodies at dawn.

Pidie Military District chief Maj. Taufik Rusnandar told the media in Sigli on Thursday that a joint military and police force had launched a raid on a rebel base in Unoe village, Glumpang Tiga district, and that an armed skirmish was unavoidable. The officer said that a soldier was wounded in the raid and that several weapons, including an AK-47, were seized from the rebels.

In East Aceh, a military unit was involved in a gun battle with alleged GAM rebels in Alue Siwah village, Nurussalam district, some 350 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, on Wednesday night.

"Four GAM rebels were shot dead in the incident and two rifles, an M-16 and a Simpson, were seized from the assailants," Army spokesman Maj. Zaenal Mutaqin said in Lhokseumawe on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, a soldier, Pvt. Wiyoto, 31, was shot and killed after a rebel ambush in Simpang Dua village, Kuta Makmur, North Aceh. Another soldier, Pvt. M. Ali Sabana, and acivilian, Sutrisno, sustained gunshot wounds during the attack.

A GAM spokesman in North Aceh, Tengku Jamaika, claimed responsibility for the attack, but claimed that none of the rebels had been injured.u

12 people killed in Aceh's latest bout of violence

Jakarta Post - January 11, 2002

Banda Aceh -- At least 12 people, including a soldier, were killed in the latest outbreak of violence in restive Aceh province from Wednesday to Thursday, official and humanitarian activists said.

Seven male bodies bearing gunshot wounds were found lying on roadsides to the east of Sigli town, some 120 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, on Thursday morning, the coordinator for Coalition- Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) on Human Rights in Sigli, Muharizal Hasan, said.

Six of the bodies were found in Unoe village, Glumpang Tiga district, while another body was found in neighboring Tanjung Usi village, Mutiara district, some seven kilometers away from Unoe village.

Muharizal quoted Unoe villagers as saying that gunshots were heard at around 5 a.m. on Thursday from a house that was known to be a hideout for Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist rebels. The residents said that dozens of police and soldiers raided the house, and that they found the six bodies at dawn.

Pidie Military District chief Maj. Taufik Rusnandar told the media in Sigli on Thursday that a joint military and police force had launched a raid on a rebel base in Unoe village, Glumpang Tiga district, and that an armed skirmish was unavoidable. The officer said that a soldier was wounded in the raid and that several weapons, including an AK-47, were seized from the rebels.

In East Aceh, a military unit was involved in a gun battle with alleged GAM rebels in Alue Siwah village, Nurussalam district, some 350 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, on Wednesday night.

"Four GAM rebels were shot dead in the incident and two rifles, an M-16 and a Simpson, were seized from the assailants," Army spokesman Maj. Zaenal Mutaqin said in Lhokseumawe on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, a soldier, Pvt. Wiyoto, 31, was shot and killed after a rebel ambush in Simpang Dua village, Kuta Makmur, North Aceh. Another soldier, Pvt. M. Ali Sabana, and acivilian, Sutrisno, sustained gunshot wounds during the attack.

A GAM spokesman in North Aceh, Tengku Jamaika, claimed responsibility for the attack, but claimed that none of the rebels had been injured.

Separate military command for Aceh

Straits Times - January 11, 2002

Jakarta -- The military is establishing a separate command in Aceh to spearhead the war against the rebel Free Aceh Movement, a move which means that soldiers in the province will no longer be accountable to headquarters in Jakarta.

Human rights activists have denounced the move, saying the action will increase military atrocities.

But Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono defended the imminent separate command after a Cabinet meeting yesterday.

"The armed separatist movement in Aceh has deeply threatened our territorial integrity and sovereignty," he said. "Setting up the command can guarantee the effectiveness of efforts to stop separatism." He also said President Megawati Sukarnoputri's administration would extend an order to the military to crush the 26-year-long rebellion which left at least 1,400 people -- mostly civilians -- dead last year.

Mr Susilo said the government would give the rebels one last chance to negotiate a ceasefire, but he ruled out talks about independence for the province of four million people on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

There was no immediate reaction from the insurgents. However, it appeared unlikely that they would favour another round of peace talks as previous efforts had collapsed due to attacks by the security forces.

"We strongly oppose the new military command as it will go against peace efforts made by local and international rights campaigners," said Mr Rufriadi, the chairman of the Legal Aid Institute in Aceh. "This will only create more violence and more and more civilians will become victims."

International human rights activists have accused the army of committing widespread abuses in Aceh, including running death squads which target civilians opposed to Indonesian rule.

In the latest bloodshed, troops attacked a rebel base camp in East Aceh on Wednesday, killing four insurgents, said military spokesman Major Zaenal Mutaqin. Soldiers killed another rebel fighter in a separate incident in the north-east of the province, he said. Meanwhile, a bomb exploded as a military truck was passing along a road in northern Aceh, killing one soldier and injuring two, said Major Zaenal. A rebel spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast.

Family of three massacred in Aceh: report

Agence France Presse -- December 27, 2001

Banda Aceh -- A family of three shot dead by unidentified gunmen were the latest victims of violence in Indonesia's Aceh province where at least eight others were killed in past days, reports said Thursday.

Islamic school leader, Tengku Abdullah Mahmud, his wife and their 10-month-old son were killed by the armed men who raided the school in Timang Gajah, Central Aceh, early Tuesday, the Waspada daily reported. Police said they were not aware of the killings.

An unidentified witness told the daily that a group of armed men in two pick-up trucks arrived at Mahmud's school at midnight and minutes later he heard shots fired. The attackers hauled the bodies of Mahmud and his wife into one of the trucks, leaving the baby, who later died of his wounds, as well as several unharmed students, the witness said.

In another incident, soldiers killed two rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) on Wednesday in a gunfight in the Hagu Kunyet village in Pidie district, said local military commander Lieutenant Colonel Supartodi.

Separately, Aceh military spokesman Major Zainal Muttaqin said soldiers shot dead four guerillas in separate clashes in West Aceh on Tuesday.

Two men were found also dead with gunshot wounds on Tuesday and Wednesday in separate locations in Bireun district, local aid workers said.

GAM rebels countered that troops had killed seven civilians on Tuesday and Wednesday but the reports could not be immediately confirmed by the military.

A GAM spokesman, Abu Juana, accused troops of killing three civilians, including a teenage boy in the Cot Kuta area of West Aceh on Wednesday after six officers were killed by rebels.

Another rebel spokesman, Abrar Muda, said security forces shot dead four civilians during a search for separatists in the Seunobok Keuranji village in South Aceh on Tuesday.

Aceh, a resource-rich region on the northern tip of Sumatra island, has seen daily violence between rebels and security forces.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in Aceh since GAM began to fight for an independent Muslim state in 1976. Some 1,700 were killed this year alone, rights groups said.

Separatism has been fuelled by years of human rights abuses by the military and the central government's draining of the region's oil and gas wealth.

Eight killed in Indonesia's restive Aceh province

Agence France Presse - January 7, 2002 (abridged)

Banda Aceh -- At least eight more people including two suspected separatist rebels have been killed in Indonesia's restive province of Aceh in recent days, the military and humanitarian workers said Monday.

Soldiers shot dead two suspected rebels in a clash at Bukit Hagu in North Aceh late Saturday evening, said an Aceh military spokesman, Major Zaenal Muttaqin. He said troops seized one AK-47 rifle and one homemade bomb.

A spokesman for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Sofyan Dawod, denied any rebel was killed and said the victims might have been civilians.

Muttaqin said gunmen shot dead a civilian at Kuala Simpang in East Aceh on Saturday. He said rebels torched a bus at Simpang Ulim in East Aceh on Sunday after ordering the passengers to get out but no one was hurt in that incident.

Local humanitarian activists said the bodies of three people, two of them with gunshot wounds, were found separately in North Aceh on Saturday and Sunday.

A civilian was killed by unidentified gunmen at Kuala Simpang on Saturday, a humanitarian worker said. The victim was separate from the one reported by the military in the same district. The body of a man was found beside the main highway at Kejuruan Muda in East Aceh, on Saturday, the humanitarian worker added.

West Papua

Irian Jaya province officially renamed Papua

Sydney Morning Herald - January 8, 2002

Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya was officially renamed Papua yesterday as part of an autonomy package aimed at reducing support for independence.

A sign reading "The Gubernatorial Office of Papua Province" was unveiled by Governor Yacobus Salossa in a ceremony attended by military and civilian officials, the official Antara news agency said. In his address, Salossa urged the public to use the name Papua from now on.

The autonomy law took effect in Papua, on the western half of New Guinea island, on January 1. Jakarta passed the law last year in an effort to appease widespread agitation for independence after almost four decades of harsh military-enforced rule.

Besides the name change, new laws allow Papua to keep up to 80 per cent of revenues from its rich natural resources and permit the adoption of a provincial flag in addition to the national flag.

Independence demands have been fanned by Jakarta's perceived exploitation of Papua's resources and decades of abuses by the security forces, in the form of arbitrary killings, detention and torture.

Pro-independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay was murdered in November after leaving a military-hosted ceremony. In an interview with AFP last week, Governor Salossa said that "all the data points to the involvement of Kopassus [the army's special forces]" in Eluay's murder.

The Dutch ceded control of what is now Indonesia in 1949 but retained the territory now known as Papua. In 1963, under pressure from Washington, they handed Papua over to Indonesia. Jakarta's sovereignty was affirmed in a UN-sponsored plebiscite in 1969 which pro-independence advocates describe as rigged.

Each year on December 1 independence sympathisers commemorate an unrecognised 1961 declaration of independence.

'War on terrorism'

Officials fear widespread al-Qaeda activity in Indonesia: report

Agence France Presse - January 11, 2002

Washington -- US and Indonesian officials believe hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters trained last year at a camp in central Indonesia, and fear sleeper cells could soon become operational there, the Washington Post reported Friday.

Officials in Jakarta have formally denied the existence of foreign terrorist training camps on Indonesian soil, but intelligence and government officials have said privately that al-Qaeda operatives ran a camp last year on Sulawesi island.

The camp was located in a thick jungle near the port city of Poso, and run by members of Osama bin Laden's network with the assistance of local Muslim extremists, the paper said, quoting Indonesian officials.

The fighters may have entered the country by posing as aid workers -- Indonesian officials estimate that hundreds of foreigners, primarily from Europe, Pakistan and the Middle East, used that cover to reach the Sulawesi camp, the report noted.

Some carried a letter from a Muslim charity saying they were travelling to Sulawesi to rebuild mosques, but officials later discovered that the charity was linked to bin Laden and al-Qaeda, it said.

A senior Indonesian intelligence official said the camp was no longer operational.

Officials in both countries also believe al-Qaeda is linked with the country's largest and most violent Muslim militia, the Laskar Jihad, and another group, the Laskar Mujahedin, both fighting in Christian villages in the Moluccas.

But the leader of the Laskar Jihad has denied the claims, saying he refused financing from a top bin Laden aide last year and an offer of alliance with al-Qaeda, the Post reported.

Despite the mounting evidence, both US and Indonesian officials have said tracking the range of al-Qaeda activity in the country could prove difficult, the report said. The Indonesian archipelago consists of some 17,000 islands.

"We know they're here," the senior Indonesian intelligence official said. "We just haven't found them." One US official said the number of al-Qaeda members in Indonesia at present remained unclear. "We know they have come and gone, and it seems clear they'll be back again," the official said. "But are they here now? Have they set up sleeper cells here? We still are not sure."

Don't target us in terror war, Jakarta tells US

Reuters - January 11, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesian vice president and prominent Islamic leader Hamzah Haz on Friday warned the United States not to target the world's most populous Muslim nation in its war on terrorism, the official Antara news agency reported.

Referring to a newspaper interview given by US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz this week, Haz hinted American investment could be affected.

"I think the United States will really lose if Indonesia becomes a target. There is plenty of American investment here," Haz told reporters in Jakarta without elaborating.

In the next phase of Washington's war on terrorism, the United States could focus on keeping terrorists out of places like Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia and the Philippines, Wolfowitz said in the interview.

Haz said he hoped such statements would not worsen ties between the two countries, which have had a period of strained relations in the past few years, particularly over the bloodshed that accompanied East Timor's break from Indonesia in 1999.

"Please don't let this cause a reaction which does not benefit our relations," he said, also without elaborating.

Radical Muslim groups staged vocal but mainly small protests when the United States began bombing Afghanistan in October and made threats against American interests here that have so far proved hollow. The protests have long since petered out.

Moderate Muslims fear a backlash should the United States begin overtly pressuring Indonesia to crack down on militants.

Indonesia has come under the spotlight because of suspicions the al Qaeda network of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden has tried to establish links with the radical groups, which comprise a tiny minority of Indonesia's moderate Muslim populace.

Despite that speculation, Washington left Indonesia off a recently issued list of 45 countries where al Qaeda had operated.

Wolfowitz, a former US ambassador to Indonesia, said in the interview there was the potential for Muslim terrorists to link up with radical Islamic groups here "and find a little corner for themselves in a country that's otherwise quite unfriendly to terrorism".

Intelligence chief A.M Hendropriyono last month sparked confusion by saying al Qaeda had once been in volatile Poso town of Central Sulawesi but was now gone. He appeared to base those remarks on information provided by Spanish authorities probing the al Qaeda network and has made no public remarks since.

Police have said there is no proof. Amien Rais, head of Indonesia's top legislature, also told Reuters last week that Hendropriyono had since told him there was no evidence.

More than 1,000 people have died in clashes between Muslims and Christians in the past three years around Poso.

Haz said it was better Jakarta requested an explanation from the American embassy over the interview, adding Wolfowitz was entitled to such an opinion if he had intelligence to back it up.

Washington launched its war on Afghanistan to hunt down bin Laden and members of al Qaeda, accusing them of the September 11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people in the United States.

Some analysts say Indonesia's poverty and several years of crisis make it ripe for extremist influences to fester, although many believe that despite those conditions the country will not become a breeding ground for radical pan-Islamic groups.

Government & politics

Mediators give up on PKB factions

Straits Times - January 12, 2002

Jakarta -- The country's largest Muslim organisation, which founded the Nation Awakening Party (PKB), is giving up on attempts to reconcile two rival factions within the party.

Citing irreconcilable differences between the two groups, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Central Executive Board chairman Hasyim Muzad said on Thursday: "We have worked hard to reconcile the two groups but failed because each faction has insisted on its own stance. We will simply wait and see what happens next."

Set up in 1999 with the majority support of NU's 45 million members, PKB split into two groups in July last year after a small faction led by party chairman Matori Abdul Djalil attended the Special Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

The session ousted then President Abdurrahman Wahid, PKB's founder, and installed then Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri as his successor.

Despite heavy pressure from PKB leaders and legislators, Mr Matori refused to resign from the party. PKB leaders subsequently fired him and gave the chairmanship to then Foreign Affairs Minister Alwi Shihab.

Akbar case reveals crack in coalition government

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2002

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- Signs of a crack in the coalition government between the largest and second largest party, which catapulted Megawati Soekarnoputri to the presidency last July, is getting more obvious as the days go by.

The first sign was discernible on Monday when the Attorney General's Office named Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung, who is also Speaker of the House of Representatives, a suspect in the latest financial scandal involving the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

The announcement was made following an approval from President Megawati, who is also chairperson of PDI Perjuangan.

The split gained momentum on Friday when the Golkar faction in the House criticized Megawati's six-month-old government in what it called a policy review media briefing.

The criticism was the first maneuver by the 120-seat Golkar faction after Akbar was named a suspect in the Rp 40 billion scam. As the largest party, PDI-Perjuangan has 153 seats in the House.

But faction chairman Marzuki Achmad was quick to deny speculations that the criticism was simply political revenge. "This is a preliminary evaluation. We all know Golkar is having a hard time, but we don't want to ignore public suffering," Marzuki said at the media briefing.

Golkar's long list of gripes of Megawati's leadership ranges from the nepotistic appointment of her husband Taufik Kiemas to lead a recent ministerial delegation to China to the inconsistent plan in raising fuel prices.

The PDI Perjuangan faction and the third largest faction, the National Awakening Party (PKB) faction, have been the factions most ready to endorse the establishment of a House special inquiry on Akbar.

Legislators from Golkar are lobbying other party leaders to halt the establishment of an inquiry team. PDI Perjuangan secretary- general Sutjipto and the chairman of the fourth largest party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), Amien Rais, acknowledged that they had been lobbied by Golkar legislators.

However, officials from the United Development Party (PPP) and PKB said they had not been lobbied by Golkar. "Perhaps, they think it's useless to talk with us," PKB leader Ali Masykur Musa told The Jakarta Post.

Despite the lobbying sessions, no clear conclusion had emerged from the talks. Chairman of the military faction Budi Harsono maintained its previous stance, saying that the legal process must be observed closely during the investigation of Akbar.

During the media conference, most of Golkar's leading figures attacked virtually all the government's policies, especially those that had allegedly deepened public suffering, such as the hike in fuel prices, telephone rates and daily essentials.

Touching on the appointment of Taufik Kiemas by President Megawati to lead a ministerial delegation to China, Chairman of Commission I for foreign affairs Ibrahim Ambong said it could damage the role of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

"We must prevent another ill-conceived policy from happening. We have to keep our state administration on track," he added.

Fellow legislator from Commission IX for financial affairs Paskah Suzetta said the inconsistency in the government's plans to raise fuel prices had led to widespread fuel stockpiling by speculators.

With regard to the length of the delay, Paskah said the longer the delay the higher the deficit to the state budget.

He also criticized the Rp 15 trillion hike in fuel subsidies allocated last year from an estimated Rp 53 trillion to Rp 68 trillion. "It means the government is incapable of managing the fuel subsidies," he said.

Hamzah hopes to head off PPP rift with meeting

Jakarta Post -- December 28, 2001

Jakarta -- United Development Party (PPP) chairman Hamzah Haz, who is also the vice president, is scheduled to meet with Zainuddin MZ, leader of a PPP splinter group, in Surabaya on Jan. 5 to mend the rift in the party, an official said on Thursday.

"Kyai [Muslim elder] Alawy Muhammad has invited Zainuddin to come [to Surabaya], while the invitee has answered with an 'Insya Allah' [God willing]. Meanwhile, Hamzah Haz has a number of appointments on his itinerary [on the anniversary celebration of the party] in Surabaya," PPP East Java chairman Hafidz Ma'shoem said as quoted by Antara.

The rift in PPP was sparked by the decision by the party's national working congress last October to hold the party's congress, which will elect a new chairman, in 2004 after the next general election. Younger party members protested the decision and demanded that the congress be held in 2003.

As the party's national leadership ignored the demand, the younger members threatened to set up a rival party, to be called Reformed PPP, under the chairmanship of Zainuddin, who is a deputy chairman on the current PPP executive board.

Hafidz maintained, however, that he had heard nothing about the establishment of a rival party, neither in East Java nor in any other province. "I think it is just an idea. I have asked Zainuddin about it, who told me he expected to meet with Hamzah to discuss the matter to prevent a rift in the party," he said.

However, Hafidz did not discount the possibility of holding another national working congress of the party to reshuffle the executive board to accommodate the younger members' aspirations.

Hafidz said Zainuddin -- a popular preacher with millions of followers -- would give a lecture in a mass gathering during the anniversary celebration, while Hamzah would deliver a political speech. "Hamzah will also install new distinguished party members, consisting of 12 generals and popular intellectuals. The celebration itself will be attended by provincial chairmen from all over Indonesia, while supporters will be mobilized from all over Java," Hafidz said.

Thirty percent of MPs hardly attend sessions

Agence France Presse -- December 28, 2001

Jakarta -- Almost one third of Indonesian legislators hardly attended any parliamentary sessions in the 10 months to July, reports said Friday.

A study conducted by the Mass Communication Forum, which groups journalists covering parliament, also said 10 MPs, including the husband and a brother of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, had not attended a single session, the Kompas daily said.

Megawati's businessman husband Taufik Kiemas is under fire for leading a delegation of ministers to China last week to negotiate energy and fisheries deals.

Forum chairman Sulistyo suggested the salaries of MPs who failed to attend parliament should be cut. "It's difficult [to punish the errant MPs] because there's no law regulating [attendance]," he was quoted as saying.

Indonesia's parliament has been trying to shed its rubber stamp image gained during the Suharto era since the former dictator resigned in May 1998 after 32 years in power.

It sacked then-president Abdurrahman Wahid in June for alleged incompetence and corruption and elected Megawati to replace him.

Mega under fire for sending spouse to head China visit

Straits Times - December 28, 2001

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta -- President Megawati Sukarnoputri has come under fire for appointing her businessman husband Taufik Kiemas as head of a ministerial visit to China earlier this month.

Her advisers and party members fear her opponents will exploit this and other political shenanigans of Mr Taufik to dent her image.

Mr Taufik's trip to China drew flak from Golkar and Muslim legislators who attacked the President for practising nepotism. "When she took over power, she told the nation she would eradicate such practices, but now she is doing exactly that," said a senior member of the Golkar party, which is itself allegedly involved in a damning financial scandal.

Mr Taufik is described by opponents as the "third most powerful politician in Indonesia" after the President and her deputy. The Straits Times understands that even Cabinet members -- especially the economic ministers -- are uncomfortable with Mr Taufik's influence on state economic matters.

Economic czar Dorodjatun Kuntoro-Jakti had recommended initially that Vice-President Hamzah Haz head the delegation. But to his surprise, Ms Megawati sent her husband, who some believe might have pressured the 54-year-old leader to do his bidding.

Palace aides disclosed that the incident had ruffled feathers for a while between husband and wife. Said a source: "Ibu Mega is conscious that by giving her husband special privileges, people will accuse her of being corrupt like Suharto. But she is his wife. How can she turn him down when he makes a request?" Mr Taufik's critics charge that over the past five months, he has actively intervened in policy matters. For example, he is known to have stepped in at the last minute to advise his wife not to travel to Irian Jaya despite recommendations from police, the military and intelligence agencies that it was safe to go.

His hand was also seen in the appointment of the new police chief, General Dai Bachtiar.

Within the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), he worked hard to eradicate opponents such as Mr Arifin Panigoro who did not agree with him on several issues.

Now he is working behind the scenes to take away the Cabinet Secretary's post from Mr Bambang Kesowo who, sources said, is accused by Mr Taufik of "putting up obstacles" to his trip to China.

Mr Taufik is known to favour loyalist and PDI-P cadre Tjahyo Kumolo for the Cabinet Secretary's position.

Mr Tjahyo insisted yesterday that Mr Taufik did not dabble in politics and that his trip to China was made at the request of the government. "There is no personal interest here," he stressed. "He had to follow the government ... Taufik has never intervened in his wife's work or in the party."

Mr Taufik's detractors, however, disagreed and pointed out that the China trip was merely the first time that he had displayed his political ambitions so openly.

Corruption/collusion/nepotism

Gus Dur denies receiving money from Tommy

Agence France Presse - January 12, 2002

Jakarta -- Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was questioned by police yesterday over allegations that he received nearly US$2 million from an errant son of former president Suharto in an attempt to buy a presidential pardon.

"There was no such thing," Mr Abdurrahman told reporters afterwards, when asked if he had received 20 billion rupiah from Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra.

"Tommy asked me to intervene in the judicial review he was requesting. I told him I would not interfere in judicial matters," Mr Abdurrahman said after being questioned by police for two hours.

His lawyer, Mr Luhut Pangaribuan, added: "He said he never received money or anything from anyone as far as the pardon is concerned." The former leader's wife was questioned on Tuesday over claims that her charitable foundation received five billion rupiah of the bribe money. She also denied involvement.

Tommy, through his lawyer, has said he gave 20 billion rupiah to two men said to be close to Mr Abdurrahman -- Dodi Sumadi and Abdullah Sidiq Muin -- to buy a presidential pardon on a corruption conviction.

Tommy, Mr Suharto's youngest son, is now suing the two men for taking the money. His lawyer, Mr Elza Syarief, has said the money was paid to Mr Sumadi and Mr Muin in October 2000. Mr Abdurrahman said he knew Mr Muin but not Mr Sumadi.

The former President admitted he met Tommy twice in separate hotels in October 2000. He said Tommy asked for clemency but he turned down the plea.

Some Jakarta lawmakers threaten to boycott Akbar

Straits Times - January 12, 2002

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- Several legislators said they would boycott Parliament Speaker Akbar Tandjung, a key suspect in a financial scandal, if he refused to vacate his post temporarily while undergoing a legal investigation.

Mr Akbar's political life appears to be hanging by a thread, with the latest testimonies incriminating him in a graft case involving 40 billion rupiah (S$7.6 million) of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

Some members of his Golkar party are even engaged in talks to unseat him.

A top Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) legislator, Mr Irmadi Lubis, said: "There have been discussions among the legislators, including PDI-P members, to boycott parliamentarian meetings chaired by Mr Akbar. Parliament's image has declined throughout the years. Some say we no longer take pride in being lawmakers. We do not want Mr Akbar Tandjung's case to worsen it," he said.

That sentiment is echoed by other legislators, most of whom come from the fourth largest party in Parliament, the National Awakening Party (PKB), and its allies from smaller nationalist factions.

Said PKB's Ali Masykur Musa: "How can we expect the public to respect decisions made by Parliament when they are decided in a meeting chaired by a person who is in legal trouble?" But others voiced more moderate views.

Some PDI-P executives said they would not pursue any political means to unseat Mr Akbar during the course of the probe by the Attorney-General's Office.

A PDI-P executive said: "Our chairman, President Megawati Sukarnoputri, has ordered the party to leave the case in the hands of the law. Our priority now is a stable government. But we can't control all of our party members," he said, referring to calls by certain PDI-P members for Mr Akbar to resign.

Meanwhile, Mr Alvin Lie of the National Mandate Party said the boycott plans were "individual sentiments, not party policy". His party had also called on Mr Akbar to leave his post temporarily "to facilitate the investigation". But "if the latter refuses, we can't do anything to force him", he said.

He added that most parties wanted to ensure that there would not be a repeat of the 2001 political instability surrounding the removal of Mr Abdurrahman.

The strongest pressure for Mr Akbar to resign may yet come from Golkar, the party he chairs. Some Golkar members are mulling over the possibility of calling an early National Congress to elect a new chairman.

Although Mr Akbar's grip on the second-largest political party in the country remains, some Golkar members are concerned that the probe will affect their image.

A party executive said: "Some feared that if the situation worsens, it will jeopardise Golkar"s future in the 2004 election.' Another source said senior party members unhappy with Mr Akbar's leadership were using the current opportunity to seize control of Golkar.

Golkar members from the Eastern Indonesia caucus, which makes up the party's largest constituency, have called publicly on Mr Akbar to quit his posts in the party and in Parliament. But deputy chairman Slamet Effendy Yusuf dismissed these as personal calls.

"In order to call a congress to elect a new leader, at least two-thirds of the regional party officers must support it. Right now, no one has made a formal call."

Speaker a suspect in $31 million graft case

South China Morning Post - January 8, 2002

Vaudine England and Agencies, Jakarta -- The stakes were raised in Jakarta's potentially most explosive political corruption case yesterday when the Attorney-General's Office announced that the Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR), Akbar Tandjung, was now regarded as a suspect.

Mr Akbar is accused of misusing almost US$4 million of state funds while working as state secretary under former president Abdurrahman Wahid. He allegedly used the money for election funding in 1999 for the Golkar party, which he leads.

"We have obtained an approval from the President, dated January 5, to question Akbar Tandjung as a suspect," Attorney-General Muhamad Abdul Rachman said yesterday. Mr Akbar said he would respect the Attorney-General's decision. "If [prosecutors] ask me to give an explanation, I will do that," he said.

But he hinted he would not resign as Speaker unless he was convicted by a court. "Let's hold the principle of innocence before proven guilty. Before there's a binding legal decision, please presume I'm innocent. Let the law take its course," he said.

Mr Akbar maintains he distributed the money to the poor through a little-known foundation. His lawyers describe the charges as a politically motivated witch-hunt.

The politician was classed as a witness for months, and faced questioning about the funds. But by upgrading his status to suspect, the Government now seems to have signalled its commitment to upholding the law. At the same time, however, some members of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which is dominant in the DPR, are opposed to a special parliamentary inquiry.

As President, Ms Megawati needs to be seen as impartial. But as party leader, she also knows she needs the continued support of Golkar and the legislature, which Mr Akbar can deliver, to sustain her time in office.

Deputy Speaker Sutarjo Suryoguritno put the matter beyond doubt yesterday, declaring that Parliament would form a Council of Honour to judge Mr Akbar. He said Mr Akbar could be dismissed if he was considered to have done wrong.

Analysts have pointed out that the PDI-P has within its grasp a perfect weapon -- a possible conviction of Mr Akbar -- which could disqualify Golkar from participating in the 2004 general elections.

Regional/communal conflicts

Soldiers and police in gunfight in Ambon, several hurt

Agence France Presse - December 27, 2001

Ambon -- At least three people were hurt in a shootout between Indonesian police, soldiers and marines in the riot-torn city of Ambon, residents and a navy officer said Thursday.

The incident began when soldiers from an army battalion in the Christian area of Galala fired shots at the Muslim-dominated Tantui area, residents said. But the shots must have threatened a post manned by the police Brimob elite unit because they returned fire, they said.

The shootout worsened when three speedboats manned by marines on the Bay of Ambon also came under fire. "Our men shot back because they were shot at," Colonel Chaidir Patanory of the Halong navy base near Galala said.

Witnesses in Tantui said one Brimob officer was grievously injured by a shot to his head and immediately evacuated. Stray shots also wounded two refugees sheltering in the Halong navy compound, said one refugee who identified herself as Arini.

"We have also heard that two civilians have been injured by stray shots, but I have not seen them myself," Arini added. The military and police in Ambon declined immediate comment.

Ambon's sectarian violence has often taken place at sea, with several speedboats shot at by snipers this month.

Fighting between Muslims and Christians in the Maluku islands has left more than 5,000 people dead and created 500,000 refugees since violence first erupted in the town of Ambon, on the island of the same name, in January 1999. The conflict prompted the government to slap a civil emergency rule on the Malukus last year.

Local & community issues

Prices of rice up 30 percent in several areas in Java

Jakarta Post - January 11, 2002

Jakarta -- The price of rice has increased by nearly 30 percent in several areas in Central and West Java, and many are attributing that to the government's plan to increase fuel prices and electricity bills.

In Purwokerto, Central Java, low quality rice, IR, is now Rp 3,000 per kilogram, Rp 600 higher than before.

The price of Cisadane rice is now Rp 3,200 up from Rp 2,500. In Majenang, Cilacap, also in Central Java, one kilogram of IR is Rp 3,200, Rp 700 higher than before.

Traders said on Thursday that the prices had been steadily increasing recently, since reports of the government's plan to increase kerosene prices was circulated almost two weeks ago.

Housewives in Majalengka and Cirebon, West Java, have also been upset after they found that the price of rice had increased by as much as Rp 800 per kilogram.

Traders at the markets of Pasar Pagi, Pasar Sumber and Pasar Kanoman in Cirebon, said in separate interviews that the lowest quality rice, IR 64, had risen to Rp 3,200 per kilogram and the best quality, Rojolele, is now at Rp 3,900 per kilogram nearly Rp 800 higher than it was just days ago.

Pete, a 47-year-old rice vendor at a traditional market in Purwokerto, said he was forced to sell the rice higher prices than before, "Because I bought it at higher prices too." Another trader at the Wage market in Purwokerto, Suwasti, said the price hike also was occurring in other towns. "Rice is also now expensive in Purwokerto and Kebumen. The rice traders there charge us transportation fees for the rice," Suwasti said.

According to her, prices for many food items at the market, including rice, have been increasing recently.

Deputy head of the Banyumas Logistics Office Isturi Parwanto said that the price hikes were a response to the government's plan to increase the prices of fuel.

"There is no problem with the rice supply," he said. "We still have 36,900 tons in stock for the next five months." In Cirebon, West Java, the speaker of the regency legislative council, Suryana, said the legislature would soon urge the logistics office to conduct market operations to control the price hikes.

"The scarcity of fuel has caused the increase in the prices of rice because transportation fees have also been soaring. The disappearance of unhusked rice from Indramayu, Kuningan and Arjawinangun -- the three districts known as the rice capitals of West Java -- has also contributed to the skyrocketing prices," he said.

He predicted that the price of the staple food would be normal by the third week of March, when the farmers will enjoy a good harvest.

Commission B, dealing with economic affairs, urged the logistics office to supply more rice through market operations. "Greater supply will surely control the rice prices," commission B chairman Aris Kristanto said in Semarang on Thursday.

Meanwhile Nono Satria of the logistics office said market operations started on Wednesday in several markets in several towns. "A total of two tons of rice were sold in the market operations," he said, adding that the price was Rp 2,900 per kilogram. Meanwhile the Cirebon logistics office has yet to conduct market operations, despite the instruction from the head of the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) Puspoyo Widjanarko.

The head of Cirebon logistics office M. Jibran was not available for comment.

Antara news agency reported from Malang, East Java on Thursday that local logistics offices had launched market operations at Pasar Besar in a bid to control the prices of rice.

"As a first step we sold 500 kilograms per day at the normal price of Rp 2,900 per kilogram," spokesman for the logistics office A. Supriyadi said. "If people's responses are good we will possibly increase the supply." He said that only the prices of middle and high quality rice had gone up in Malang, "not the price of IR rice."

Old hands pay crushing price to right wrongs

South China Morning Post - December 28, 2001

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- An educated, professional Indonesian civil servant -- let's call him Johannes -- once had a senior, apparently stable job in a region outside Jakarta. His pay and responsibilities came from Jakarta and, though nothing like that received by his intellectual equals in the West, it did arrive with reassuring predictability.

One year on, Johannes is depending for survival on the savings of his wife and sister-in-law. He has taken a lower level position in a remote district in Kalimantan in response to the changes forced on him by new regional autonomy laws. But although he keeps going to his office with impressive regularity, he has not been paid for a year.

His story shows the downside of the implementation of regional autonomy whereby local regents now hire and fire, collect taxes, decide spending and have the power to grant contracts and foreign investment approvals.

In the past it was the central Government in Jakarta that kept a startlingly comprehensive list of such powers in its hands, some of which were administered through a few million civil servants sent out to the regions with status and sway over the locals.

But lauded as a way for more of Indonesia's vast population to have a say in their own lives, the autonomy reforms also have an arbitrary and dramatic effect on people's lives.

Johannes' problems began with his transfer to a provincial capital in Kalimantan just when regional autonomy was starting to come into force on January 1 last year.

The local power-holders in government offices there soon decided they had no need for Johannes, so his salary from Jakarta reached the local branch of a state bank but never reached Johannes. "There was no trail, the money just never arrived," a relative said. "Every time he asked for his salary, he was told he would get a lump sum when his position was confirmed."

Johannes' friends lent him money so he could go to Jakarta to discuss matters with old colleagues, some of whom were now high- ranking. But power at the centre does not necessarily mean power in any district, and Johannes' friends could do nothing. They advised him to take a job in a district 29 hours' drive from the provincial capital. Though worse than what he was used to, it would at least let him get a lump sum in back pay.

It was a tough choice, but he made it. Yet somehow nothing has changed. He has still not been paid and there has been no back- pay either. He has neither the house nor the car that are supposed to accompany his position as his predecessor will not give them up. His own previously senior position has been given to a man with impeccable credentials as an indigenous resident but with no relevant qualification for the job.

Johannes cannot even go back to his own original district in Sumatra, as the boundaries there have been redrawn and his ethnic base has shifted.

Now getting on in years, he could only start again with his juniors above him. "He's a victim of a classic civil service mentality here -- don't question anything, just look for ways around it to make a buck," one of Johannes' friends said.

Not everyone has been as unlucky as Johannes, and to some of the decentralisation law designers, his plight is sad but the price to be paid for what is still a vital process of economic and political democratisation.

"Regions do not know how to rationalise the bloated administrations they have inherited," wrote Owen Podger, a management consultant and team leader for an Asian Development Bank project in support of decentralisation.

"They have inherited inefficiency, inappropriate appointments, overlapping functions, and many officers known to be corrupt or unsympathetic who, in the New Order, thrived in their higher status than the local administrators.

"This means that regions do not yet know how to overcome the problems that already existed because of the centralist system." "But at least they are now aware of the problem that the centralist system refused to see," he added.

Human rights/law

Ex-military chief calls East Timor trials unfair

Associated Press - January 9, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesia's disgraced former military commander Gen. Wiranto Wednesday described as unfair the prosecution of 19 military officials and militiamen for alleged human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999, saying soldiers under his command did nothing wrong.

His comments come shortly before the trials are scheduled to start in a special human rights court.

Wiranto was armed forces commander when East Timor voted to break away from Indonesia on August 30, 1999. News that the territory had opted for independence in a UN-sponsored referendum sparked a bloody rampage by the Indonesian army and its militia proxies.

Hundreds of people were killed and about 250,000 others forced to flee their homes. The violence only ended when international peacekeepers arrived.

Wiranto and other military commanders have been blamed for the bloodshed by Indonesian and international rights campaigners.

"I know exactly what we did there. We did not do anything wrong," he said. "It is not fair to try us ... as human rights abusers."

Though three generals are on the list of 19 defendants, Wiranto's name has been excluded.

Under Indonesian law, the armed forces' top brass cannot be held accountable for crimes committed by soldiers in the field, and prosecutors say they have no evidence of any wrongdoing by Wiranto.

Still, Wiranto described as biased the criminal investigation, saying it relied on foreign sources, including the UN and neighboring Australia, for evidence.

"We invited about 4,000 foreign observers and reporters to observe the vote," said Wiranto, who was forced to resign two years ago by the then President Abdurrahman Wahid.

"Not a single monitor died. How can we have committed human rights abuses when there were foreign observers and reporters before and after the vote." Militiamen killed two journalists and six East Timorese working for the UN mission there at the time.

The Ad-Hoc Human Rights Court -- which will hear cases of military atrocities in Timor and other Indonesian troublespots -- was initially scheduled to open on Dec. 1. However, it was postponed until January 15, because current President Megawati Sukarnoputri hadn't chosen the tribunal's judges.

Now, a week before the first case is supposed to start, Megawati -- who has close ties with the army brass -- has still not selected the justices, and government officials say it is almost certain the trials will again be postponed.

The cases will be closely watched by the international community, which has expressed outrage over human rights abuses in East Timor.

Indonesia army admits human rights still weak spot

Reuters - December 27, 2001

Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta -- Indonesia's once all-powerful army made a rare admission on Thursday that it was still struggling to instil ideals of human rights among its quarter of a million men.

But Endriartono Sutarto, the army's chief of staff, asked the public to be patient and insisted the military was still justified in using harsh measures against those who broke the law.

"We know this is our weak spot. The soldier's pocket book now is what can, what must and what can't be done according to human rights," the four-star general told a rare open-door meeting with the media. "Human rights is our current main focus. If we do not take it into account ... public trust will vanish, we will be the stepchild in this country and we will not be able to do our job," Sutarto said.

The army was the main defender of former president Suharto's 32- year autocratic rule but has come in for widespread criticism since he was forced to step down amid mass riots three years ago.

Evidence of army atrocities has grown, ranging from thousands of villagers killed in separatist Aceh province on the western tip of Sumatra to the torture of Jakarta activists.

"We thought what we did was right. Nobody [at that time] told us it wasn't but suddenly it changed ... everything we did turned out to be wrong," Sutarto said.

Harsh measures justified

But the general said the public needed to give the army time to improve its human rights record and warned the military must not have its hands tied when dealing with separatists, such as the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

"When people are killed in an exchange of fire do not just see it as a big sin because groups like GAM use people as their shields. GAM themselves are (civilian) people who are violating the law," he said. "We have told our soldiers that killing is not taboo if it deserves to be done," Sutarto added.

Rebels have been fighting Indonesia's army for a quarter of a century in Aceh, saying Jakarta has long exploited the resource- rich province but given little in return. The clashes have killed some 1,500 people, mostly civilians, this year alone.

Indonesia also faces separatist protests at the other end of the world's most populous Muslim nation in the eastern province of Papua and there have also been reports of military atrocities there, although on a far lesser scale than in Aceh.

The army will again come under the spotlight early next year when a special human rights court is expected to start trying suspects, including several army officers, accused of past abuses including the bloodshed surrounding East Timor's vote for independence in 1999.

Pro-Jakarta militias, supported by elements in the Indonesian army, went on an orgy of violence and the United Nations estimates more than 1,000 East Timorese were killed after the tiny territory voted to throw off 23 years of often brutal Indonesian rule.

Military-Mega deal 'behind' delay of ad hoc trial

Jakarta Post - January 7, 2002

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- Critics have urged the government of Megawati Soekarnoputri to speed up the ad hoc trial of military officers accused of human rights violations in East Timor in 1999 and Tanjungpriok, Jakarta, in 1984.

Failure to expedite the trial could spark speculation that the government has deliberately dragged its heels in dealing with the military officers.

Last March, Megawati established an ad hoc tribunal but, so far, nothing has happened because the President has yet to give her approval of judges to preside over the cases.

The names of 30 judges have been submitted; however, the President has repeatedly delayed signing off on their installation. This has baffled not only the public, but also the justices of the Supreme Court who recommended the prospective judges to handle the case.

Similarly, the government has promised that the trial will begin January 15. But this date is now in question, as there has been no indication of when Megawati will make her selections.

Initially, government officials planned to open the trial in September but, due to technical reasons, the date was pushed back to November. Then a December date was announced only to be moved up again to this month.

Human rights activists have voiced fears that the delays are the price that President Megawati must pay as part of a political deal with the military in exchange for its support for her government.

"We believe [Megawati and military] have compromised the matter," said Ori Rachman, coordinator of the Commission on Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).

The lack of transparency in the recruitment of the ad hoc judges itself has posed a big question for the activists.

Ori, for example, wonders why the non-career judges are being considered -- selected from a pool of experts at human rights study centers at major state universities -- without full explanation to the public.

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has further revealed that 33 people were killed in the 1984 Tanjungpriok incident when security forces fired on protesters demanding the release of their colleagues.

The charges of crimes against humanity in East Timor were leveled in the wake of violence sparked by a UN-organized referendum on East Timorese independence from Indonesia. Militias, backed and financed by the military, went on a spree of killing and destruction in the former Portuguese colony.

The high profile case implicated top Indonesian military leaders, including Gen. Wiranto, the former Indonesian Military chief.

Worried about the future of the tribunal, the executive director of the Human Rights and Legal Aid Association (PBHI), Hendardi, also believes the "Megawati-military conspiracy" theory because the President owed the old military forces their support.

"I am certain there is political deal" between Megawati and the military, Hendardi said.

Benjamin Mangkoedilaga, chairman of the team preparing the ad hoc trial on East Timor, said he had selected 17 career judges. "They will team up with non-career judges," he told the Jakarta Post over the weekend.

Supreme Court Secretary Sartono says he is also puzzled by the delay. He noted that he has not heard from the President since he submitted the list of judges in November. "The there has been no response," he told the Post.

Megawati tells troops not to worry about rights abuses

Agence France Presse - December 29, 2001

Jakarta -- Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Saturday called on the country's soldiers to be firm in carrying out their job and not to be worried about accusations of human rights abuses.

"Armed with the soldiers' oath and existing laws, carry out your duties and resposibilities in the best possible manner without having to worry about human rights abuses," Megawati said, in a speech at a ceremony marking Army Day. "Do your job without hesitation," she said.

Rights groups have accused the Indonesian armed forces of gross human rights violations in separatist-plagued regions of Aceh, Irian Jaya and East Timor, a former Portuguese colony annexed by Jakarta in 1976.

East Timor voted to break away from Jakarta rule in a UN- sponsored ballot in August 1999. East Timorese militia, backed by the Indonesian security forces, led an orgy of killing, arson and destruction in the months surrounding the referendum.

Indonesia is due to start a special human rights court in January 2002 to try soldiers, police and civilians accused of the 1999 crimes in East Timor.

Indonesia has also been torn by continuing communal and sectarian violence since the fall of former president Suharto in 1998.

Questions have been raised over the efficacy of the military in containing religious violence in Maluku islands and Central Sulawesi province, which has continued intermittenly and claimed more than 5,000 lives.

Megawati gets thumbs down from human rights groups

Agence France-Presse - December 31, 2001

Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri has scored a poor end-of-year report card from the country's human rights advocates, who accuse her of abandoning reforms and cosying up to figures from the former Suharto regime. Two victims' advocate groups, Petisi 50 and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), accused Megawati of reconciling with powerful human rights abusers and ignoring their past records, the Jakarta Post reported Monday.

They cited her appointment of retired general Hendropriyono to head the National Intelligence Agency, overlooking his involvement in the shooting deaths of student protestors in Lampung in southern Sumatra in the 80s.

"Getting rid of the actors of the New Order is a must," Petisi 50 secretary Chris Siner Key Timu was quoted as saying.

The groups attacked Megawati's failure to address grievances over arbitrary killings, torture and kidnappings in the separatist-war afflicted provinces of Papua and Aceh, since she took over the presidency in July.

"The government has failed to show its commitment to seriously processing human rights violations," Kontras coordinator Ori Rahman was quoted as saying. "The separatist problems in Aceh and Papua cannot be solved by imposing laws of ... autonomy."

They said the failure to prosecute any of the suspects named for gross human rights violations during East Timor's move to independence in 1999 illustrated a lack of commitment to redressing rights grievances.

The rights advocates also pointed to the terrorisation of activists in 2001.

Papuan independence leader, Theys Hiyo Eluay, was killed in November by unknown assailants after leaving a military celebration in the capital Jayapura.

Rights activists in Aceh have been shot at, and early in the year the rector of Aceh's Syahkuala University, Dayan Dawood, was shot dead.

Last week a group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including the Urban Poor Consortium and the Institute for Human Rights' Study and Advocacy (Elsham) said that under Megawati the military had strengthened, corruption had flourished, and law enforcement had weakened.

"The reform process that was expected to repair the situation has become stagnant," Johnson Panjaitan of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, said.

Megawati's consideration of abolishing multimillion-dollar corruption charges against the sick former dictator Suharto was attacked as a backwards step in the fight against corruption.

"The plan to grant former president Suharto an abolition is a setback in law enforcement as such a move constitutes granting immunity," the NGOs said in a written statement.

Elsham's Ifdal Khasim said Megawati lacked the courage to deal with various criminal cases because her decisions were based on political considerations. "Every move Megawati makes is based on political considerations because she prefers political stability to a commitment to bring about justice," Ifdal was quoted as saying by the Post.

On Saturday Megawati told soldiers celebrating Army Day not to fear being accused of human rights violations, but to stay firm in carrying out their duties.

News & issues

Reform movement betrayed by all leaders: Wiranto

Straits Times - January 11, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesia's former armed forces commander General Wiranto has accused President Megawati Sukarnoputri and her predecessors of failing the reform movement.

"None of the governments has been capable of taking the nation out of the crisis, let alone promoting the people's welfare," Gen Wiranto said on Wednesday, quoted by the Antara news agency.

The retired general, who was sacked by then president Abdurrahman Wahid in early 2000, was addressing a seminar here on "Indonesian Democracy in 2002".

He headed the powerful military when the President Suharto resigned in May 1998 amid mounting public pressure and unrest.

He was also head of the armed forces during East Timor's bloody vote for independence in 1999 and has been accused of responsibility, by virtue of his position, for the death and destruction that surrounded the vote.

Gen Wiranto has seldom appeared in public since his sacking. His appearance on Wednesday was the second time in six months that he has used an address to a seminar to proclaim the betrayal of the reform movement which forced Suharto from power.

"The heart of the issue is a political competition which cannot be managed rationally," he said. He said there had been increasing competition among political groups, which had the potential to destabilise the coalition backing the Megawati government.

Reforms have come to a halt, NGOs say

Jakarta Post -- December 28, 2001

Bambang Nurbianto and Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- Reforms have come to a complete halt under the leadership of President Megawati Soekarnoputri, as she prefers to collaborate with the remnants of the New Order regime rather than work with reform- minded leaders, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) said on Thursday.

Speaking at a year-end press conference in Jakarta, the NGOs said the reform agenda had run out of steam since Megawati took over the national leadership in July, while in the meantime the military's role had strengthened, law enforcement had weakened and the incidence of corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN) had increased.

The NGOs, which included Women's Solidarity, the Urban Poor Consortium, the Indonesian Consumers' Foundation and the Institute for the Study and Advocacy of the People (Elsam), highlighted the government's apparent reluctance to prosecute alleged corrupters who wielded serious political clout.

"The government must enforce the law against corrupters from both past regimes and the present through an impartial and transparent legal process," said Binny Buchori from the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (Infid) here on Thursday.

The NGOs referred to corruption allegations against former president Soeharto and Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR) Akbar Tandjung. Soeharto, who is still recovering from pneumonia in Pertamina Hospital in South Jakarta, has been charged with amassing US$571 million of state funds for personal gain, while Akbar is accused of embezzling Rp 54 billion (roughly $5.4 million) of State Logistics Agency (Bulog) money.

Megawati has considered granting an "abolition" to the ailing Soeharto, which would mean dropping corruption charges against him, while her party has appeared reluctant to pursue graft allegations against Akbar, who is also chairman of the Golkar Party, the second biggest faction in the DPR after Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).

Golkar played an important role in catapulting Megawati to the presidential post in July after members of the People's Consultative Assembly impeached former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid for incompetence.

"The plan to grant former president Soeharto an 'abolition' is a setback in law enforcement as such a move constitutes granting immunity," the NGOs said in a written statement.

Ifdal Khasim of Elsam said that Megawati lacked the courage to deal with various criminal cases because she based her decisions on political considerations. "Every move Megawati makes is based on political considerations because she prefers political stability to a commitment to bring about justice," Ifdal said.

Jhonson Panjaitan of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) shared Ifdal's views, saying that the impeachment of Gus Dur had prompted Megawati to take a "compromise" approach in dealing with various criminal cases. "Nearly three and a half years after the fall of Soeharto, we have not seen any improvements made by the governments that have succeeded his regime. The reform process that was expected to repair the situation has become stagnant," Jhonson said.

In a similar tone, the Democratic People's Party (PRD) on Thursday also criticized Megawati's leadership for giving too much space to the remnants of the autocratic New Order regime. "It appears to be a resurrection of the autocratic New Order regime and militarism," said party chairman Haris Rusly.

Haris called on the government to appoint an ad-hoc prosecutor and justice specifically dedicated to investigating the Rp 54.6 billion scandal allegedly involving Akbar. "We need to form an ad-hoc team because the Supreme Court and the legal system are no longer reliable," he said.

The NGOs also criticized Megawati's economic team for relying too heavily on International Monetary Fund (IMF) prescriptions, particularly in terms of pushing for an export-oriented economy while ignoring the rural sector.

"Instead of adopting measures designed to bring about an economic recovery, the government uses the conventional approach of collecting more loans from the IMF," Haris said.

Two accused of murdering judge on orders from Suharto's son

Agence France Presse - January 8, 2002

Jakarta -- An Indonesian court on Monday charged two alleged hitmen with murdering a Supreme Court judge on orders from Tommy Suharto, a son of the former president.

Novel Hadad, 27, and R. Mulawarman, 39, were charged in Central Jakarta district court with murdering Safiuddin Kartasasmita -- the judge who had ordered Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra jailed over a corrupt land deal.

Since Tommy's arrest last November 28 police have been questioning him about allegations he ordered the murder. They were due Monday to give prosecutors a dossier on the interrogation so they can decide on possible charges.

Suhardi Sumomulyono, a lawyer for Hadad and Mulawarman, told AFP they were accused of premeditated murder and of possessing weapons -- both punishable by death.

Prosecutor Abdul Kamar Badrun accused the two, who had been riding a motorcycle, of having forced the judge's car to halt in Central Jakarta while he was on his way to work. Hadad, the pillion passenger, allegedly shot at the car at least four times and killed the judge. Both fled on the motorcycle.

The prosecutor said Mulawarman received the order for the murder by telephone from a friend of Tommy, Dodi Harjito. He was promised 10,000 dollars in return and was given two handguns and the motorcycle. Mulawarman then recruited his friend Hadad.

Badrun said they met Tommy several times and talked to him by telephone during the planning of the murder.

The hearing was adjourned until next Monday. Under Indonesian law, defendants do not plead guilty or not guilty at the start of a hearing. Harjito will appear separately at the same court Wednesday.

Kartasasmita headed the Supreme Court panel which ordered Tommy jailed for 18 months. Tommy went on the run for almost a year after failing to turn himself in to serve the sentence, but was arrested last November.

A separate Supreme Court panel subsequently cleared him of the corruption charge but judges say he should serve time in prison for his 11 months as a fugitive.

Police have said they are also questioning Tommy about a weapons cache allegedly linked to him and about a series of bombings in Jakarta over the past year.

Informal sector/urban poor

City councillors under fire over budget talks

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2002

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta -- As thousands of people displaced by the recent city-led forced evictions cry for help, their representatives in City Council are due to leave for the mountain resort of Puncak, West Java, to discuss the proposed city budget, drawing strong criticism from the public and non-governmental organizations.

Some 85 members of the council will convene with members of the city executive at the luxurious Wisma Jayaraya complex in Puncak on Wednesday and Thursday next week to discuss the draft 2002 city budget, which was proposed to balance at Rp 8.9 trillion.

But non-governmental organizations have slammed the plan, saying that the move was a way for the public representatives "to distance themselves from the public".

Although head of the council Edy Waluyo asserted earlier that the meeting was open to the public, some critics have said that by holding the meeting in Puncak, about 60 kilometers south of Jakarta, public access to the budget talks remained restricted.

"Before the councillors go to Puncak, they should first hold open discussions with the public to receive feedback, criticism, complaints and recommendations over the upcoming agenda of the meeting," said Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto of the Legal Aid Institute (LBH).

Tubagus contended that the councillors should remember that the upcoming talks on this year's budget were critical in deciding the fate of the general public, especially those who have recently been displaced, reiterating that it was vital that the public should be involved in drafting the budget.

Tubagus said that councillors should also set a good example to the public on how to live thriftily, as had been stated by President Megawati Soekarnoputri to all state officials.

"Why should they hold the meeting in Puncak, which is obviously going to be expensive, rather than here in Jakarta," he questioned.

The cost of holding such a meeting is enormous as more than 1,500 people will be present at the meeting. It will not only be attended by councillors, as staff members of the city administration will also be present.

A reliable source, who refused to be identified, said that every commission of the council was tasked to oversee about 30 departments. "If every department sends some 10 people, then at least 300 city officials will attend the two-day meeting," the source said, adding that the number excluded staff members.

Tubagus further lambasted the meeting claiming it would only squander public money for policies that might be against the public's interest, which included the eviction policy.

However, Maringan Pangaribuan, head of Commission A overseeing governmental affairs, played down all allegations, saying that efficiency was the main reason in choosing Puncak as the venue for discussing the city budget.

Maringan said that their discussions would be more intensive as all parties involved would stay for the whole two-day meeting, avoiding "all those things that might distract their attention".

"We can hold uninterrupted talks all day long from early in the morning until late at night because we are staying at the same hotel," he argued.

Last year, the council held a similar meeting to discuss the 2001 budget revision, which also sparked public criticism that claimed such a meeting was a way to keep the public away from the process of drafting the budget.

Sutiyoso reproached for being heavy-handed

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2002

Emmy Fitri, Jakarta -- Governor Sutiyoso's plan to use more muscle to order the city, including evicting illegal squatters, will not solve his administration's many problems as he only looking for a quick solution and not a real one, activists say.

Coordinator of the Anti Eviction Network, Father J. Sudrijanta, said Friday that Sutiyoso had returned to colonial-era practices when he announced the recruitment of 287 nearly retired military and police officers to help civilian security guards order the city.

"During the colonial times, to conquer an area, usually troops were deployed to burn houses and physically clear the area," Sudrijanta said.

"Sutiyoso never learns. He should have come up with a new vision and not just sought a quick solution like that one," the priest, an activist with the Jakarta Social Institute, told The Jakarta Post.

Many activists have criticized Sutiyoso and his administration for the failure to identify the real problems in dealing with the poor and their illegal housing along river canals. As a result, they use inappropriate methods in dealing with the matters.

Recently, extensive evictions were carried out in the city targeting illegal houses along the river canals, becak (pedicab) drivers and street vendors.

The city administration said that evictions along the canals were carried out to prevent flooding which may hit the residents living near the river. Flooding can happen anytime during the rainy season. Problems could be solved if the administration was willing to recognize the people and let them air their grievances, Sudrijanta said.

"There are examples where people can live along the river canals but such a situation can only be achieved after they are recognized as legal residents," he said.

Coordinator of the Jakarta Residents Forum Azas Tigor Nainggolan also maintained that the Jakarta administration had to stop deploying civilian guards and bulldozers to clear the river canal.

There were three things that could be done by the administration. Revamping the residential areas along the river canals, relocating the people to other locations or to place them temporarily in low-cost apartments, Tigor said. The viable solutions are to revamp and to relocate, he said.

"With the current budget of Rp 63 billion for security and order [which is often allocated to evict the people], the administration should be able to do one of the solutions." He believed that the administration was reluctant to do so because there was not much money that could be corrupted.

"The funds to conduct evictions can be easily embezzled by the officials," he told the Post.

Officials won't stop squatter evictions

Agence France Presse - January 12, 2002

Jakarta -- The authorities in the Indonesian capital have refused to halt a wave of forced evictions of Jakarta's poor, which has left almost 50,000 people homeless in the past year, a welfare activist said.

"We had our fifth meeting with city authorities on Wednesday, and they reneged on an earlier verbal agreement to sign a moratorium on the evictions," Father Sudrianto, the coordinator of the Anti Eviction Network, said.

A series of evictions and demolitions of slums along the city's fetid canals have destroyed the homes of 48,870 poor people in the past 12 months, according to the priest.

"The authorities bring in hired thugs, civilian guards, police and soldiers to burn and flatten the homes using bulldozers and hammers," he said.

The priest and several welfare and human rights organisations have been lobbying Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso and local councils -- in vain -- to stop the evictions.

"If the new agreement is designed to stop evictions, then I cannot sign it," the governor said.

Father Sudrianto said the mayor of north Jakarta, where a series of forced evictions since October have destroyed more than 8,000 homes housing 32,000 people, also refused to sign the moratorium.

In the latest raid, 2,000 people were forced from 400 homes on the banks of the Pejaringan canal on Monday. One official was quoted as saying the aim is to normalise the working of the canal, which is designed to carry away floodwater.

In some cases, compensation is paid to the squatters. But Father Sudrianto said no alternative housing has ever been offered to those evicted.

"The government has only one attitude, and that is that these settlements are illegal, and there is only one way out: to burn them, demolish them, evict the people. The authorities see no other way," he said.

The residents of the slums fall into three categories: commuters who travel between their home villages and Jakarta; refugees who have no homes to return to; and 'citizens without rights' whose families have been living in the slums since before 1939.

"Their families were living there before the Republic of Indonesia existed," the priest said. Many rebuild shacks on the site of their demolished homes.

"Some families along Pejaringan have been evicted three or four times," he said. "The squatters have no money to rent houses. Most of them have nowhere else to go. They just keep moving or rebuilding."

The city administration has also been trying to evict pedicab drivers, who have been outlawed since 1988 due to worsening traffic jams. In August last year, violence broke out over Jakarta's attempts to raid pedicab drivers.

Hundreds of angry pedicab drivers, aided by crowds of people, armed themselves with Molotov cocktails, machetes, steel bars and stones and attacked city officials who were enforcing the pedicab ban. One officer died while two others were injured in the incident.

Small scale food vendors hit hard by rising prices

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2002

Emmy Fitri, Jakarta -- The rising price of rice may not affect the middle to upper income households but it is surely having a major impact on the poor small-scale rice vendors.

Upi Sobri, 52, said she had to close her business selling nasi uduk (rice cooked in coconut oil) to school children last week because she could no longer afford the soaring price of rice.

She now just sits in her rented house in densely-populated Cipulir, South Jakarta, and occasionally helps her daughter to wash other people's clothes.

"... It is hard to find kerosene around here and if there is a supply, the price is too high for me. Now the rice price soars, too. I simply can't shop for anything," said Upi, who opened her stall (actually just a desk covered with a plastic sheet) in front of Grogol Selatan Elementary School.

For a small scale rice vendor like Upi, rice was already expensive at Rp 2,800 per kilogram but the price has soared to Rp 3,400 per kilogram.

With a capital of less than Rp 150,000, Upi had to spend more than one third of the capital to buy 10 kilograms of rice daily. Upi said she used to be able to make Rp 30,000 to Rp 35,000 per day.

"The rising kerosene price was already hard for us, now we have this [rice price hike]," Suci, another food trader in Petamburan, West Jakarta, said.

Most of the small traders did not know whether the prices of either kerosene or rice would return to normal or not in the near future.

There has yet to be a clear explanation from the government for the reasons surrounding the rising price of Indonesia's staple food. Some speculated that the lack of rice and its subsequent price rise was because harvests had not come yet in several areas, while the prolonged wet weather meant farmers could not dry harvested rice. The government had conducted a series of market operations in several places, but it was not effective.

Many reported that buyers were reluctant to buy the rice sold in the market operations due to its poor quality although it was sold under the market price, at around Rp 2,500 per kilogram.

Retail traders were still willing to buy the poor quality rice which was later mixed with better quality rice. The price was later set themselves.

The increasing cost of kerosene had also impacted on traders who were forced to cook a lesser range of dishes to save on fuel costs. Other small-scale food vendors overcame the situation by reducing rice portions for their customers.

The steps had to be taken because the traders should keep the price of food low for the poor. "There is no way for us to also increase the price, we are not a big restaurant. People will pay the same price but they will get less," Mantri, a food vendor in Slipi area, said.

Mantri, who sold Padang cuisine, said in the past few days he only cooked five kinds of dishes at the most.

He said the situation was bad and deteriorating as all prices were rocketing. "I'm afraid what happened in the 1997 krismon [economy crisis] will be repeated again now," he said.

Jakarta's poor hit

Straits Times - January 12, 2002

Robert Go, Jakarta -- Aid money earmarked by the government to offset the effects of fuel-price hikes on the poor will not help the needy, said activists who work with Indonesia's impoverished urban communities.

In addition to charging that the government was not budgeting enough money, experts also projected that much of the 2.85- trillion-rupiah (S$560 million) aid package would instead end up in the pockets of the country's reputedly corrupt and inefficient bureaucrats.

Bajaj driver Akhmadi, who earns S$5 a day transporting people around Central Jakarta in his small vehicle, said: "That's not enough, when you consider how many people need help. Prices are going up, and the poor have to make do as usual."

Lawyer Bagus Karbianto of Jakarta's Legal Aid Institute agreed: "There are millions of poor people. The number is increasing. The government has to spend more to address poverty issues."

But the bigger problem, according to the activists, is that most of the money, which will be administered by seven different government ministries, stands little chance of reaching its intended targets due to corruption.

Mr M. Berkah Gamulia of the Urban Poor Consortium argued: "The programmes are poorly-designed and have poor transparency. This is yet another opportunity for corruption for the bureaucrats." He further explained that the poor had not seen any benefit from similar programmes instituted by the government following last year's series of fuel-price hikes.

"Nobody knows what happened to that money from last year. No audits, no reports, no accountability," Mr Berkah said.

Indonesia will increase fuel prices by around 20 per cent before the end of January in a bid to reduce spending on fuel subsidies and keep this year's state-budget deficit under control.

The measure is also in compliance with conditions that President Megawati Sukarnoputri's administration has agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund.

International donors and lenders have long argued that Indonesia's fuel-subsidy programme, which keeps domestic prices far lower than international standards, benefits the middle class and should be lifted.

In anticipation of higher fuel prices, however, traders and distributors of staple products, including rice, have begun to charge higher prices for their goods.

Reports from various parts of the country have shown dramatic increases in the price of rice, causing panic buying and shortages.

Shortages of kerosene, used for lighting oil lamps and simple stoves, have also occurred in different parts of the country since the government said last week it would go ahead with fuel- price hikes.

Mr Bagus said: "The poor are definitely affected by higher fuel prices, not just the middle class and the rich. But I guess poor families are getting used to handling the short end of the stick."

Health & education

Indonesia has top rate for women's deaths in childbirth

Agence France Presse - January 7, 2002

Jakarta -- More women in Indonesia died during childbirth last year than in any other Southeast Asian country, a health ministry official said Monday.

The rate was 323 per 100,000 births last year compared to 30 each in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, and 50 in Thailand, said the ministry's director general for public health, Azrul Azwar, as quoted by Antara news agency.

He said the deaths were often due to bleeding, anaemia and infections. Women who died during abortions were also included in the figures.

Many pregnant women were unable to receive medical help when they needed it, he said, while others gave birth too young. "For some women, in this case pregnant women, the decision to go to the hospital when they are in critical condition is in the hands of their husbands," Azwar said.

The health ministry has been working with related institutions in an effort to reduce the number of deaths during childbirth, he said.

Armed Forces/Police

Military back into politics: Analysts

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2002

Aan Suryana and Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta -- The government's decision to reestablish the military command in Aceh and internal conflicts in nearly all major political parties would do harm to efforts to end the military's role in politics, military observers warned on Friday.

The decision on the military command's reestablishment exemplifies the revival of the military in the political arena, while internal conflicts within the parties endanger civilian supremacy in politics because it creates the image that civilians are incompetent.

Hermawan Sulistyo of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) lashed out at the decision on the military command reestablishment, saying that "it would only revive old social wounds." The government insisted on announcing the decision on Thursday despite objections from the Acehnese and human rights campaigners.

"The decision will only revive past bitter experiences in which the Acehnese were gripped by fears about insecurity for years," he said.

Kusnanto Anggoro of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said the reestablishment of a military command in Aceh was a sensible indication that they might have been preparing to come back to conquer the country's politics.

He further said the internal conflicts within the parties also made the politicians busy with their own interests, thereby forgetting to further encourage strong civilian institutions.

"Their busyness can be seen from the current internal conflicts at Golkar, the National Awakening Party [PKB] and the United Development Party [PPP]," Kusnanto said.

Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, another observer of LIPI, urged the political parties to settle their internal conflicts by themselves.

"This is important to avoid any possible intervention from outsiders, including the military, which might manipulate the conflicts for their own interests," Ikrar told The Jakarta Post.

This will only add credence to the perception that the military is better than civilians. After years of privilege under Soeharto's rule, the military's role in politics has faded away since 1998. Freedom of speech, which began to flourish in that year, has stepped up intellectuals' pressure for the military to gradually leave the political stage.

The military finally relinquished their grip on the police force in April 1999, when the police force was separated from the military. The number of military seats in the People's Consultative Assembly was reduced from 75 to only 38 seats, and they will no longer have any seats at all by the year 2009.

Kusnanto said that the civilians, including political parties, had to be able to create, establish and use strong democratic institutions to prevent the military from coming back to politics.

Also, the civilians should have "the consciousness to rule." "The legislators in the House of Representatives should be more active to oversee and to investigate military activities, including business and human rights activities, to improve transparency within the military," he said.

Ikrar said this situation was harmful for the development of democracy as the public would question the ability of civilians to rule and to maintain stability in the country.

This would be more dangerous to democracy if the public then looked to the military whom they regarded as being capable of maintaining political stability in the country in the past, he said.

Both Ikrar and Kusnanto said politicians should avoid parties' internal conflicts and work together to build strong democratic institutions.

International relations

A back door to new aid for Jakarta

International Herald Tribune - December 27, 2001

Michael Richardson, Singapore -- The United States has quietly opened the way to resume military training with Indonesia despite a congressional ban.

Even though the US Congress recently strengthened the human rights conditions that must be observed by Indonesia before US military cooperation can be resumed, lawmakers opened a loophole in a separate bill to allow anti-terrorist training in the world's most populous Muslim country.

Human rights groups have denounced these developments, saying they will strengthen the military and other anti-reform elements in Indonesia at the expense of democracy and civil liberties.

They say the anti-terror bill is intended to circumvent existing restrictions on US military cooperation with Indonesia in the interests of promoting a wider anti-terrorist effort in Southeast Asia. Some US officials fear that the region may become a haven for Osama bin Laden's Qaida terrorists now that they have been denied an operating base in Afghanistan and are being hounded in many other parts of the world.

"This is dangerous," said Munir, the founder of Kontras, a leading Indonesian human rights organization, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. "The Indonesian military will become stronger and return to the political scene if this materializes."

Congress passed a Foreign Operations Appropriations Act last Thursday for fiscal year 2002. It maintained the ban on military education and training for Indonesia that was first imposed in 1991 because of alleged excesses by the Indonesian military in East Timor.

The act strengthened conditions for lifting the ban, including Indonesian accountability for human rights abuses, allowing East Timorese refugees to return home, auditing the performance and financing of the Indonesian armed forces, releasing political detainees in Indonesia and allowing the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations access to conflict areas in Indonesia.

But at the same time, Congress also passed a $318 billion Defense Department Appropriations Act that includes a provision setting aside $21 million for establishing regional counter-terrorism training programs.

The provision was inserted at the last minute by Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, who has close ties to the US military command in the Pacific, which is based in Hawaii, human rights campaigners in Washington said.

The Indonesian armed forces have lost much of their authority since the fall of former President Suharto in 1998. But they have regained some influence by supporting the rise to power of the current president, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

She has given the military new latitude to suppress armed separatist movements in resource-rich provinces like Aceh and Irian Jaya. Mrs. Megawati wants to prevent any further fragmentation of the country following the loss of East Timor in 1999.

"Counter-terrorism must not be used as an excuse to resume training for a military which terrorizes its own people and continues to enjoy impunity for its scorched-earth campaign in East Timor," said Kurt Biddle, the Washington coordinator of the Indonesia Human Rights Network.

The Indonesian military has made it clear to the United States that in return for closer cooperation in combating terrorism, restrictions on military sales, aid and training should be lifted. Some Indonesian officers have contended that the embargo is undermining the government's ability to maintain the stability and unity of Indonesia.

The chief of the Indonesian Air Force, Marshal Hanafie Asnan, said recently that as little as 40 percent of the country's 233 US-made military aircraft could be flown; the rest were grounded because of a shortage of spare parts and maintenance problems arising from the embargo.

Human rights campaigners in Washington said that Mr. Inouye inserted the provision to establish a Regional Defense Counter- Terrorism Fellowship Program at the behest of Admiral Dennis Blair, the commander of the US Pacific Command, and other Pentagon officials who want the United States to be able to work more closely with the Indonesian military.

But other analysts said that the move to resume cooperation with the Indonesian armed forces has backing from the highest echelons of the US Defense Department, where officials are said to argue that only by engaging and assisting the Indonesian military can its professional performance be improved.

In an Indonesian television interview last month, Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defense secretary and a former ambassador to Indonesia, called for better intelligence-sharing and checks on terrorist financing between the United States and Indonesia.

"We estimate that there are Qaida cells in some 60 countries, including definitely the United States and pretty definitely Indonesia," he said. "So when we eliminate Qaida in Afghanistan, we still have a lot of work to do."

The US defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, also strongly supports closer links with the Indonesian military, analysts said. On a visit to Australia earlier this year, Mr. Rumsfeld recalled attending the funeral of President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt in 1970 as a member of the official US delegation and meeting Mr. Nasser's vice president and successor, Anwar Sadat.

Mr. Rumsfeld mentioned the meeting as evidence of the importance of the US military maintaining links with the armed forces of Indonesia and other foreign countries that do not always act in ways America approves.

Mr. Sadat, who was to become a key US ally in a tumultuous and strategically important part of the world, "told us that he had been trained in the US Army school in the United States, and had a wonderful feeling for the United States," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "He had no issue with us at all, except Israel. Yet he had Soviets all over his country at the time."

Mr. Rumsfeld was speaking to a group of journalists in Canberra in July. One had asked whether the United States would be seeking to reestablish military-to-military ties with Indonesia anytime soon. Mr. Rumsfeld replied that he was "anxious" to rebuild such ties, although he noted the bans imposed by the US Congress.

"I think we ought to be slower to nip those things, because in some countries that are evolving and changing, the military can be a stabilizing influence," Mr. Rumsfeld said. He added that although the behavior of some foreign militaries was not admirable and might not be consonant with the way the United States treated people, "it doesn't mean we should shoot ourselves in the foot."

Economy & investment

Jakarta 'has failed to lift the economy'

Straits Times - January 11, 2002

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- The Indonesian government has failed to lift the country out of the economic crisis despite initial confidence in the new economic team of President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Tempo news magazine concluded in its New Year edition that almost all indicators showed that the country's economy was still in a rut.

The rupiah lost 17 per cent of its value compared to the previous year, the magazine said. It added that the budget and fiscal crisis continued to plague the economy, and foreign investment has not returned. Economic reforms also constantly met obstacles.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri's ascent to power in August boosted confidence that her team of technocrats and professionals would bring the economy out of the doldrums, causing the rupiah to soar to the year high of 8,500 rupiah to the US dollar.

But expectations soon dwindled as various economic and political problems beset the country, sending the rupiah back to 10,200 to the dollar.

Economist Umar Juoro told The Straits Times: "In the beginning, Ms Megawati's team was overrated because it consisted of experienced professionals, but the reality soon dawned that the problems are too complex." The Indonesian government last week said its economy was bucking the regional downward trend with a 3.5 per cent growth.

But economists dismissed this claim as being "overly optimistic". They said the growth, down from 4.8 per cent in 2000, was only driven by higher consumer demand and local investment.

"Economic recovery incorporates several factors, in most cases, like in South Korea, it is the amount of foreign investment," Mr Umar said. The unstable political scene and messy decentralisation process, which caused legal uncertainty, have also put off foreign investors.

As of October, Jakarta said foreign investment approvals fell by 49 per cent to US$6.5 billion (S$12 billion). "The economic indicators show that even if there was recovery, it is a very slow one," said Mr Umar.

And, according to Tempo, 36.2 million were unemployed and the poverty index reached 50 per cent last year, due to the slow economic recovery.

Last year, the inflation rate also reportedly rose to 12.55 per cent from 9 per cent in 2000 due to cutbacks in the fuel subsidy.

Economists said the government's focus on maintaining the deficit at 3.7 per cent made it hesitant in interfering in the market to suppress prices of basic supplies, the practice of the previous Suharto government.

The state budget is also bloated with domestic and foreign debt service.

Some economists believe poor coordination and weak decision- making made it hard for the government team to implement economic reforms.

Moreover, privatisation programmes only hit half of the 6.5 trillion rupiah (S$1.15 billion) target last year while exports were affected by the September 11 attacks in the US.