East Timor

Tax talks over Timor gas deadlocked

Australian Financial Review - April 3, 2002

Jason Koutsoukis -- Negotiations between the Australian Government and US-based Phillips Petroleum over the tax treatment of a gas project in the Timor Sea remained deadlocked last night amid concerns that further delays may scuttle the project.

The royalties from the Bayu-Undan project are considered crucial to the development of the fledging independent nation, guaranteeing it about $7 billion in revenue over the next 17 years.

Under the terms of an arrangement negotiated between Australia and East Timor last year, Australia agreed to split the revenues 90 per cent in favour of East Timor.

But since that deal was finalised, East Timorese officials increased their company tax revenues in a separate agreement with Phillips. The company has now sought to offset the higher tax by negotiating a more favourable tax arrangement with the Australian Government.

Most of the disagreement centres on a request by Phillips that the Australian Government provide it with a single tax arrangement for the life of the 17-year project.

A meeting last week between Phillips executives and officials from the departments of Foreign Affairs, Industry and Resources, Attorney General, Tax and Treasury, failed to resolve the tax issue.

A spokesman for Phillips Petroleum's Australian chief, Stephen Brand, said the company was concerned at the lack of progress after more than three months of talks. "After reaching agreement with East Timor, Phillips had thought it had achieved a result that was in the interests of all parties and had expected ratification of the treaty before East Timor's independence on May 20," the spokesman said. "No other company in Australia has got that certainty and if we're talking tax certainty for large infrastructure projects over a long period of time that basically amounts to transferring the risk from them to us."

Treasury officials are believed to be concerned that any concession granted to Phillips would be sought for other resource projects such as the Sunrise project operated by the Shell- Woodside consortium. "It's the economic welfare of the nation that we're talking about, actually preserving the value of those resources, not just for the people who are exploiting them, but also for the people who are giving up the resource," the adviser said.

An adviser close to the Australian Tax Office suggested that Phillips had not sifted through all the possible tax arrangements available. "We are not necessarily sure they've completed the process which might provide them with an acceptable solution," the adviser said.

Speaking in Sydney yesterday, East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said he was confident the treaty would be signed in time for the May 20 independence deadline. "I am the foreign secretary and one of the sacred principals is you negotiate something in good faith, you sign it, you honour it," he said.

Key points:

• Disagreement centres on Phillips wanting the Australian Government to provide it with a single tax deal.
• Further delays to the negotiations could scuttle the Timor gas project.

This independence celebration brought to you by ...

Sydney Morning Herald - April 4, 2002

Hamish McDonald -- It will stand on a hill overlooking Dili, the capital of newly independent East Timor: a massive flagpole entwined with the trunk and branches of a symbolic banyan tree forged in steel.

On a plaque at the base of this $200,000 independence monument will be words of thanks to its corporate sponsor: a generous Australian company, it is hoped.

For the first time ever, and perhaps appropriately for an era of event marketing, a new nation is seeking sponsorship for its independence ceremonies, which take place in Dili next month.

Australia's top executives may admire the spirit. But how many would put their company's logo on a monument to 24 years of guerilla resistance, or be otherwise associated with a nation whose emergence was so long opposed in many of Asia's lucrative markets?

There hasn't been a rush yet to sign up, say organisers of the eight-hour program of celebrations which will include the unveiling of monuments to accompany East Timor's transition to formal independence on the night of May 19.

One of the first to respond, the poker- and gaming-machine manufacturer Aristocrat, had to be politely knocked back as having the wrong look for the new, staunchly Catholic, nation. Others included oil companies active in the Timor Sea, such as Phillips Petroleum which has put in $US250,000 ($471,280) towards the $US1.5 million program, as well as one of Australia's big banks.

Margherita Tracanelli, a longtime Timor activist who is working from NSW Premier Bob Carr's department to promote the celebrations, says a television company is still needed to help broadcast the ceremony to regional centres. "We have been promised access to a satellite," she said. "We need someone to put some cameras at the ceremony, uplink to the satellite, and downlink to 12 towns where the pictures could be screened."

It will be a big moment when the East Timorese finally govern themselves after four centuries of Portuguese rule, 24 years of Indonesian occupation and most recently a two-year UN interim administration.

About 200,000 of East Timor's 800,000 population are expected to gather at an open area called Tacitolu, just outside Dili, to see the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, transfer power to the new East Timor president. Independence hero Xanana Gusmao has been widely tipped to win the presidential elections on April 14.

The immense sacrifice of the past quarter century -- almost 200,000 dead from war, starvation and disease -- will be commemorated by inauguration of a so-called Garden of the Heroes -- at a cost of $US300,000 -- and the flag-tree monument.

All the East Timorese can offer in return is a warm glow, some publicity and introductions to local and visiting leaders. It's unusual, but then again East Timor didn't win independence by being conventional.

Gusmao campaign accuses Fretilin members of dirty tricks

Agence France Presse - April 3, 2002

Dili -- Some members of East Timor's ruling party Fretilin were accused of waging a dirty tricks campaign to try to reduce the vote for independence hero Xanana Gusmao in this month's presidential election.

"We have received information from most of the districts documenting these allegations," said Milena Pires, Gusmao's campaign coordinator.

She said some Fretilin members -- not necessarily on instructions from the leadership -- had been telling Gusmao's supporters they should either vote for his rival, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, or not vote at all. "There are other reports that people are being told to mark the ballot paper in different places [to spoil the vote]," Pires told AFP.

She said Gusmao's campaign was documenting the reports and was concerned about them but had not yet decided whether to complain to the Independent Electoral Commission.

The April 14 election will be only the second free vote for East Timorese after more than three centuries of Portuguese colonisation and 24 years of often brutal Indonesian rule.

"People are starting to understand the importance of casting their vote and how they should vote," Pires said. "It's fairly serious, if these reports are correct, that rather than build on this process, it is going in the opposite direction." She said she did not believe that Amaral, who is not officially backed by Fretilin, was involved in any way. "We don't question his integrity."

Fretilin spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment. The party won 57 percent of the vote in elections last August and will form the future government.

Gusmao is hugely popular and is expected to win the presidential poll regardless of any interference.

One analyst said the dirty tricks campaign might be an attempt to trim the size of his majority to reduce his moral authority as president of the territory, which becomes independent on May 20.

Fretilin's military wing headed by Gusmao led armed resistance to Indonesian rule but Gusmao, 56, has since distanced himself from the party. He was nominated by nine political parties, but not Fretilin, on his condition that he would only run as an independent.

Many of Gusmao's supporters complained during a rally at Maubessi on Sunday that some people had threatened them if they vote for him. At two other rallies on Monday in Same and Ainaro supporters also complained of intimidation. They told Gusmao that after the election they would hide in the jungle for fear of reprisals.

The presidency is a largely ceremonial post under the new constitution with the government led by future Fretilin prime minister Mari Alkatiri holding executive power.

Former enemies unite to get refugees to go home

Sydney Morning Herald - April 6 2002

Jill Jolliffe, Atambua -- The East Timorese presidential candidate Xanana Gusmao has joined forces with a former enemy soldier in an attempt to repatriate about 60,000 refugees trapped in militia camps in West Timor.

This week Mr Gusmao interrupted his campaign for tomorrow week's presidential elections to take part in an operation planned with the Indonesian Government, the United Nations Administration in East Timor and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Travelling deep into Indonesian territory in an UNHCR convoy, he spoke at rallies at Atambua and Kefamenanu with the commander of Indonesia's Eastern Nusatenggara region, General William da Costa. A UNHCR spokesman described the move as "a massive show of reconciliation and trust between Indonesia and East Timor".

It was the UNHCR's first high-profile operation in West Timor since it was forced to withdraw in September 2000 after militia gangs murdered three of its staff in Atambua. Mr Gusmao's first stop was to lay flowers at the site of their deaths with General da Costa and the UNHCR mission head, Robert Ashe.

Mr Gusmao has known General da Costa since Easter 1983, when they agreed on a ceasefire in the remote East Timor mountain camp of Lari Guto. The ceasefire lasted just five months, but the two men hope their new alliance will finally bring peace between Indonesia and East Timor, due to become independent on May 20.

The remaining refugee presence in West Timor is a result of the deportation of 250,000 people during Indonesia's troop withdrawal in 1999. It has become a focus of the power struggle in Indonesia between reformers and military elements who do not accept East Timor's independence.

Mr Gusmao, who travelled from a campaign rally in the East Timorese border town of Maliana, brought 4000 postcards to distribute, with a message of peaceful reconciliation. They were signed by him, the Bishop of Dili, the Right Rev Carlos Belo, and the UN administrator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, but most were written by families in East Timor to relatives in the camps.

Mr Gusmao told the Atambua crowd, which included some militia leaders: "Politics must no longer divide us. We must stop killing each other." He said independence would not bring automatic solutions.

"You may not have a home when you go back -- but we will give you materials to build one. We must love and respect each other, and also build friendly relations with Australia and Indonesia."

The United Nations campaign to bring refugees home resulted in about 4000 people returning last month, and another 2000 were expected to return this week. It is feared that if the refugees do not go home soon they will remain hostage to militia leaders and could be used to undermine stability in East Timor.

Among wanted militia leaders who attended this week's rallies were Simao Lopes, indicted by the UN for massacres in Oecussi, Joao Tavares, the pro-Indonesian veteran, and Camillo dos Santos, the alleged killer of a Dutch journalist, Sander Thoenes.

Rise in refugee returns continues after record month

UNTAET Daily Briefing - April 5, 2002

Dili -- Nearly 2,000 refugees have already returned to East Timor from refugee camps in West Timor, Indonesia, during the first five days of this month, UN refugee officials said today.

The East Timor office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) attributes the current upsurge in returns -- nearly 4,000 came back last month, the highest monthly total in two years -- to East Timor's upcoming presidential elections and independence celebrations.

UNHCR has also received unconfirmed reports from its counterparts in Indonesia that as many as 2,000 more refugees may return next week.

The impetus for refugees to return in the coming weeks was likely increased on 4 April when independence leader and presidential candidate Xanana Gusmao crossed the border in a UNHCR convoy and addressed mass meetings of refugees and their leaders in Atambua and Kefa, West Timor. The meetings were attended by more than 10,000 refugees.

During the meetings, Gusmao handed out 4,000 hand-written postcards from the people of East Timor encouraging their compatriots in the refugee community to return.

Prior to the meeting in Atambua, Gusmao and Robert Ashe, head of the UNHCR-East Timor, met with TNI regional commander, Major General William da Costa. They all placed wreaths at a former UNHCR office where three UNHCR staff members were murdered by a mob of militiamen in September 2000.

The total number of repatriated East Timorese refugees since October 1999 is now close to 200,000, and UNHCR estimates there are less than 60,000 refugees remaining in the camps across the border.

UN in Timor 'incredulous' at Wiranto's vote charge

Reuters - April 5, 2002

Jakarta -- The UN authority in East Timor said on Friday it was "incredulous" at reported remarks by former Indonesian military chief Wiranto that bloodshed there in 1999 was allegedly sparked by an unfair independence ballot.

Barbara Reis, spokeswoman for the UN administration in East Timor, urged Wiranto to show more regret at the actions of pro- Jakarta militias who, with backing from elements in the Indonesian military, went on a killing spree after the territory voted to break from Indonesian rule.

On Thursday, Wiranto pointed the finger at the UN for the rampages after giving testimony to a Jakarta court trying suspects over the carnage. The UN organised the August 1999 ballot.

"If the reports of what Wiranto said are in fact true, it's simply incredulous that a man who was the overall commander of security in East Timor at that time is willing to blame the ballot for the total and systematic destruction of East Timor and ignore his own failings of leadership," Reis said.

"I would expect more humility and regret rather than reaching for cheap and patently false excuses," she told Reuters by telephone from the East Timor capital Dili.

Some Indonesian officials have long muttered about UN bias during the August 1999 vote, although then-Foreign Minister Ali Alatas soon after pronounced the ballot generally fair. The UN has insisted the vote was fair. It has also estimated more than 1,000 people were killed before and after the ballot.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Wiranto said: "There is a burning question, why did chaos break out? Sadly there was one trigger which we did not count on -- unfairness in implementation of the ballot." Wiranto did not name the United Nations directly.

He was military chief when the machete-wielding militias rampaged after the vote result was announced. The run-up was also marred by violence, most blamed on the militias.

Indonesia opened its first trials into the Timor violence at the special human rights court on March 14, but Wiranto's absence from a list of 18 suspects was slammed by rights groups and added to scepticism that Jakarta will bring those responsible for the bloodshed to book.

In early 2000, an Indonesian commission of inquiry linked Wiranto to the East Timor chaos and included him in a list of 33 names submitted to the attorney-general for investigation. Wiranto has denied any wrongdoing and on Thursday praised those under his command at the time in East Timor.

East Timor hopes to avoid AIDS epidemic

Reuters - April 4, 2002

New York -- The East Timor government and the United Nations on Wednesday launched an AIDS awareness campaign on television, radio and print media, hoping the country can avoid the explosion in HIV/AIDS seen elsewhere in the region.

East Timor, due to gain official independence from Indonesia on May 20, has so far avoided an epidemic, but officials said social dislocation and cross-border migration, together with high unemployment, illiteracy among the rural population and low awareness about HIV meant there was a significant risk.

"East Timor has a unique opportunity to prevent an epidemic of HIV/AIDS, but only if all the key stakeholders act together in a coordinated manner," UNTAET chief Sergio Vieira de Mello said in a statement. "This is the only way to make sure that this epidemic--which is already ravaging other parts of Southeast Asia--will not take a strong hold in East Timor."

East Timor's Vice Minister for Health, Joao Martins, said preliminary estimates showed the rate of HIV infection at 0.64% of people of reproductive age. Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar have HIV rates of more than 1%, according to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The government and UN applauded the influential Catholic Church for its cooperation in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The church has established its own programme to raise HIV/AIDS awareness.

Gusmao urges East Timor refugees to come home

Agence France Presse - April 4, 2002

Atambua -- East Timor independence hero Xanana Gusmao on Thursday urged East Timorese refugees in Indonesia's West Timor to come home now, saying he guaranteed their safety.

"I guarantee security in East Timor. Therefore I am asking all of you to immediately make a decision on returning to East Timor," he told a cheering crowd of some 10,000 East Timorese refugees at a football stadium here.

Gusmao, on a two-day visit to the border town, told the crowd they must experience the joy of independence along with their compatriots. "We have freedom and that freedom belongs to all of us," he said.

East Timor, which split from Indonesia in 1999, becomes independent on May 20. Gusmao is strong favourite to win a presidential election on April 14.

A UN-organised ballot in August 1999 produced an overwhelming vote for independence. But pro-Jakarta militias, organised and directed by senior Indonesian military officials, waged a bloody and hugely destructive campaign of intimidation before the vote and of revenge afterwards. They killed hundreds of people, torched towns and forced or led more than 250,000 people into West Timor after the vote.

The United Nations said last month that 198,000 have returned and there are thought to be fewer than 60,000 still in the squalid camps in West Timor. Many are former militia members or their families, or people who once served with the Indonesian administration or army in East Timor.

The former anti-Indonesia guerrilla chief warned the refugees that freedom alone would not bring success in East Timor. "Freedom does not mean things will immediately change for the better. That is why we have to work together," said Gusmao, who had spent six years in a Jakarta prison after being captured in Dili in 1992 but has campaigned for reconciliation.

East Timor to ratify Timor sea treaty with Australia

Dow Jones Newswires - April 2, 2002

Andrew Trounson, Melbourne -- East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said Tuesday there will be no hitches to ratifying a treaty with Australia sharing potentially lucrative oil and gas production from the Timor Sea.

But he canvassed the possibility of later opening negotiations with Australia and Indonesia on expanding the new country's maritime boundaries, potentially giving it a greater slice of revenue from oil and gas projects in the Timor Sea. "We can open negotiations with Australia and Indonesia to redefine our maritime boundaries," he said on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Speaking in Sydney, Ramos Horta said the treaty with Australia, agreed to in July last year, will nevertheless be ratified on or shortly after the former Indonesian province officially gains full independence May 20, Australian Associated Press reports.

Ramos Horta's assurance follows speculation that ratification of the treaty could be derailed by touted legal action to extend East Timor's seabed boundaries in the Timor Sea.

Such action is being promoted by US-based exploration company Petro Timor, which is separately taking legal action in Australia's Federal Court against the Australian government and US-based Phillips Petroleum (P) over rights to explore for oil and gas in the Timor Sea.

"I hope ... on May 20, or 21, or within days, that East Timor and Australia would sign the interim arrangements we have reached," Ramos Horta told reporters. "It would be very bad for East Timor's international standing if on day one of independence the very first thing we did as a major foreign policy act was to breach, fail to ratify, an international agreement that we had negotiated for two years between the United Nations and the Australian government," he said.

Ramos Horta said the new terms are far more favorable to East Timor than the previous agreement between Australia and Indonesia. "But that doesn't tell the whole story. Australia is still the main beneficiary, but we reach agreement in good faith with Australia and we must honor it," he said.

According to Petro Timor, in December 1974 East Timor's then ruler Portugal awarded the US company concessions to explore for oil in the Timor Sea. Petro Timor contends that following Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor those concessions were supplanted by fresh concessions awarded to rival Phillips and other major resources companies as part of an Australia-Indonesia agreement.

Sources say East Timor's chief minister, Mari Alkatiri, is in London seeking additional legal advice on the issue of East Timor's seabed boundaries.

In 1989, Indonesia and Australia signed the Timor Gap treaty, which included a zone of cooperation where the two countries would share oil and gas reserves.

Following a vote in 1999 by the East Timorese to separate from Indonesia, Australia and East Timor began negotiating a new treaty that maintains the basic terms of the previous treaty with Indonesia.

East Timor has been under UN administration since 1999.

Australian government pushed to make gas deal public

Asia Pulse - April 2, 2002

Darwin -- The Australian government is under pressure to make public its draft agreement on Timor Sea energy reserves to prove the East Timorese were not signing away their legal rights.

Australians for a Free East Timor spokesman Rob Wesley-Smith attacked the federal government for announcing last week that it would no longer submit to international rulings on maritime boundaries.

The announcement came within days of a seminar in Dili which heard expert opinions that East Timor was poised to lose tens of billions of dollars due how the Timor Gap Treaty boundaries were drawn.

On returning from the seminar, Mr Wesley-Smith said the East Timorese could jeopardise their future prospects of claiming a larger share of the Timor Gap by signing a treaty after independence next month.

"We call on this agreement to be published on the internet to enable independent legal experts to analyse it now," Mr Wesley- Smith said. "And for the new East Timor assembly not to sign it until this is done and it is fully understood that it does not jeopardise future maritime boundary claims."

East Timor Chief Minister Mari Alkatiri flew to Britain soon after the seminar which was held by PetroTimor. PetroTimor is a United States company that claims energy rights on the Timor Sea bed dating back to the Portuguese colonial era. "The chief minister met with a leading British international lawyer to discuss various matters, including the Timor Sea," a United Nations spokesman said.

Timor at only 75 per cent of the cost of piping gas to Australia. But East Timorese leaders say they remain committed to Phillip Petroleum's plan to pipe gas to Darwin.

East Timor fights trade barriers

The Australian - April 3, 2002

Mike Steketee -- East Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta yesterday urged rich countries, including Australia, not to use artificial barriers such as quarantine restrictions to discriminate against exports from his and other poor nations.

Referring to outbreaks of foot and mouth and mad cow disease, he said: "I don't know of any food exports from developing countries that have caused as much havoc as the diseases ... that have come from developed countries.

"Yet we have been told we cannot export to Europe, to Australia, because of lack of quality. So-called quality control and quarantine are all a part of the protectionist barriers to protect rich farmers against producers from poor countries."

A spokesman for the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service said he was not aware of any application to import to Australia from East Timor.

Dr Ramos Horta, who won the Nobel peace prize for his fight for independence, was speaking in Sydney, where he launched a Mission Australia report that urges government and business to co-operate with local communities in a new approach to bridging the growing gaps in Australian society. The charity is planning to extend its work to the fledgling nation, which becomes independent on May 19 following presidential elections.

Dr Ramos Horta said that while AusAID was one of the best development agencies operating in East Timor, what poor countries needed most was market access and fair prices.

"More and more rich countries subsidise their agricultural prices and the farmers in small countries lose their livelihood because of that," he said. "The total amount of subsidies to agriculture in the US and Europe is billions more than the international development assistance from rich countries to poor countries."

He said while prices to growers of coffee, East Timor's largest export, had fallen, prices for consumers had not dropped. "The middle men are becoming richer and richer," he said.

He would like to see Australia provide more help to improve agricultural output, quality control and obtaining access to the Australian market. "How would a farmer in a village somewhere in East Timor know how to bring their goods to Dili and Australia?" he asked.

"This is an area where Australia could help tremendously and it would be mutually beneficial because in the long run Australia would spend less money on development assistance."

Indonesia and UNTAET hit impasse over asset problem

Jakarta Post - April 3, 2002

Yemris Fointuna, Dili -- The Indonesian government and the United Nations Temporary Administration at East Timor (UNTAET) have yet to find an appropriate way of solving the problem of Indonesian assets in the soon-to-be independent nation -- even though, until now, they have held six rounds of discussions.

The Indonesian Representatives Chief in East Timor, Chalief Akbar, told reporters last week that, during discussions on the assets, they encountered a number of problems which interfered with their ability to reach an agreement.

The problems concern differences on regulations regarding land, certificates, citizenship, and the absence of a legal framework. "We're facing a very complex situation. We could not take a clear stance, as East Timor does not have a legal base. We may have to temporarily cancel our meetings," Chalief said. "But we hope that, after East Timor formally has its own government and legal system on May 20th, we can re-start the process again," he added.

The other problem, he said, related to the fact that many East Timorese who live in East Timor still use Indonesian passports, which technically make them Indonesian citizens. "Thousands of people in East Timor still use Indonesian passports as identification. Based on the East Timor's constitution, people have East Timorese citizenship only when they are natives of East Timor, or it is given to them," he said.

On the another point, UNTAET's regulation No. 27, 2000 has strictly ruled out the possibility that non-natives of East Timor can transfer their assets to other people, despite the fact that many of them have returned to the country, and claimed their assets.

The secretary-general of East Timor's Socialist Party, Avelino M.C. da Silva said in Dili recently that only natives of East Timor may hold their own assets in the country. "Migrants from outside have no rights to own the assets in East Timor. They can only have the rights to use or manage them," he noted.

The Jakarta Post found that many assets which are owned by the Indonesian government, state and private firms, as well as other Indonesian people in the regencies of Dili, Baucau, Viqueque, Lautem, Mantuto and Ermera, have been used as office buildings for UNTAET, non-governmental organizations, and other international agencies. Most of the buildings were built with foreign loans.

Chalief noted that there was no exact data available on the Indonesian assets in East Timor. But he said that their value exceeded Rp 1 trillion. The assets were left by Indonesian owners soon after Indonesia's former 27th province voted to break away from the archipelago in 1999 in a UN-sponsored referendum.

In May, East Timor will hold an election to choose a new president who will, in turn, form a new government.

Mahidi militiaman convicted, Lolotoe trial resumes

UNTAET Daily Briefing - March 28, 2002

Dili - A Special Panel for Serious Crimes in East Timor sentenced a former Mahidi militiaman Wednesday to four years in prison for his role in a murder during the violent aftermath of the UN-run ballot on the future of the territory.

Also Wednesday, a major Crimes Against Humanity trial resumed after a three-week recess.

The three-member panel of judges sent militiaman Anigio de Oliviera to prison after he was found guilty of being an accomplice to the murder of Fernando Gomes in Ainaro district on 5 September 1999. It was the first decision handed down by the panel, one of two currently deliberating on Serious Crimes cases being pursued by UNTAET prosecutors.

A separate case -- the so-called "Lolotoe trial" -- resumed three weeks after a defence-team bid to dismiss the three sitting judges was rejected by Judge Administrator Aderito Tilman.

All three defendants in the case -- KMP militia commanders Jose Cardoso Ferreira and Joco Franca da Silva and former Guda village chief Sabino Gouveia Leite -- declined Wednesday to give opening statements to the court. Witnesses called by the prosecution will be giving testimony when the trial resumes on 8 April.

The Lolotoe case is the second of 10 priority cases to be tried by the Special Panels. The three defendants have been accused of waging a campaign of deadly terror in Lolotoe sub-district during the months surrounding the 1999 UN Popular Consultation on the future of East Timor.

The two KMP commanders are accused of illegal imprisonment, murder, torture, rape, persecution and inhumane treatment of civilians in Lolotoe sub-district, near the border with West Timor, Indonesia. Gouveia Leite is accused of being an accomplice in the offences allegedly committed by the KMP and members of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI).

Fretilin accused of dirty tricks but Gusmao a shoo-in

Sydney Morning Herald - March 30, 2002

Jill Jolliffe, Gleno -- Just two weeks after a lopsided campaign began for East Timor's presidential elections due on April 14, there are signs that it may be turning dirty.

The favourite candidate, Xanana Gusmao, this week toured the countryside alone because of the illness of Xavier do Amaral, his sole opposing candidate, who was in hospital with a heart condition before the race even began. Despite this compelling advantage, he has accused the governing Fretilin party of sabotaging his campaign.

Mr Gusmao claims Fretilin is urging people to abstain from voting, or to spoil their ballot papers to reduce his vote.

Although the former guerilla commander is an overwhelmingly popular figure in East Timor, his campaign was not endorsed by the leadership of Fretilin, by far the most popular party. It won 57.3 per cent of the vote in parliamentary elections last August.

The Fretilin victory was gained on a platform of supporting Mr Gusmao for president of the new nation, which will become independent on May 20. However, the party has neither backed him nor stood its own candidate for the United Nations-supervised poll.

In the mountain district of Gleno on Wednesday Mr Gusmao drew a crowd of about 5000, mostly from farming families dependant on the coffee industry, plus a few die-hard former guerillas. "The buyers are not giving a just price for our coffee," said Bonifacio dos Reis of nearby Hatolia. "Xanana didn't promise anything but he did say he'd do his best to raise the issue."

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Gusmao said he was happy with the support he was receiving, but criticised two Fretilin leaders, Mari Alkatiri and Francisco Guterres, who had said their priority on election day will be to go the beach.

Mr Gusmao described their attitude as "irresponsible for leaders of a democracy-in-the-making", and said his staff had been informed also of a doorknock campaign urging voters to spoil ballot forms.

"It is an electoral offence to urge people not to vote or to spoil their ballot papers," he said, adding that his staff is trying to document evidence.

A Gusmao staff member predicted Fretilin's leaders would privately direct supporters to vote for Mr Amaral, whose Timorese Social Democratic Association won only 8.7 per cent of the vote in last year's elections. Most Fretilin supporters are expected to ignore this and vote for Mr Gusmao.

Under the new constitution approved by parliament on March 22, East Timor has opted for a semi-presidential system. If Mr Gusmao is elected president he could in theory dismiss the government.

He has publicly opposed a constitutional clause under which the Fretilin government extended its own term of office by five years, but said in Gleno he would not use his powers to dissolve parliament.

"I am not trying to usurp power," he asserted. "The constitution will be my bible. I will be watching every move, and veto legislation if it curbs liberties, but that's all."

Labour struggle

Doctors end strike in Lampung

Jakarta Post - April 3, 2002

Bandar Lampung -- Around 300 part-time, non-contract doctors in Lampung ended their week-long strike on Tuesday after Minister of Health Achmad Suyudi promised them better pay and a clearer employment status.

"Around 80 percent of the doctors' demands have been responded to, in particular the problem with their status as temporary civil servants," Basuki, chairman of the protesting group, the Forum for General Doctors and Dentists in Lampung, said.

Achmad met more than 100 doctors, including representatives from Lampung, who demonstrated at his office in Jakarta on Monday. He pledged to address their grievances then and came through on his promise on Tuesday.

Basuki said the health minister had written to the manpower ministry to modify the "unclear" status for the non-contract doctors assigned to community health centers in villages across the country.

Under the prevailing law, recent medical school graduates are required to work in remote villages for two to five years before they can become eligible for their medical licenses.

Basuki said the problem of the issuance of licenses would be dealt with later by a government team.

Lampung doctors continue striking

Jakarta Post - April 1, 2002

Oyos Saroso, Bandar Lampung -- More than 300 temporarily employed doctors in Lampung would continue striking this week to push their demand for a clear status and better payment, strike leaders said on Saturday.

The protesters pledged they would not stop their strike until their demands, including the revocation of a ruling on temporary doctors, were heeded by the relevant authorities.

At least six representatives of the strikers traveled to Jakarta on Saturday to meet Minister of Health Ahmad Suyudi to lodge their concerns after protests were ignored by the provincial health office last week.

Lampung's Communication Forum for General Doctors and Dentists (Forsidogi) chairman Basuki Baskara said the delegation represented at least 329 members of the organization in the province.

He said the delegates would also attend a national meeting of Forsidogi members from across the country in Jakarta, scheduled for Monday, to push their demands. "All doctors affiliated with Forsidogi from every province would consolidate themselves ... before launching a national movement," Basuki added. He could not determine whether the national movement would start on Monday during the national gathering.

Basuki said the ruling, which obliges fresh graduates to participate in a field training program in regions for a number of years to obtain a doctor's practical license, was baseless as it was not regulated under the manpower law. Such a program should, therefore, be scrapped because it had hampered the career of doctors, he added.

The strike, meanwhile, did not significantly affect the medical services in health community centers (Puskesmas) in Lampung as state doctors were deployed to tackle the problem over the protest, local officials said. Head of the provincial health office Syofyan A.T said he had ordered state physicians, including senior ones, in hospitals to intervene in helping Puskesmas since permanently employed doctors went on strike last week.

Students/youth

Students want probe of 28 billion rupiah scam

Jakarta Post - April 5, 2002

Batam -- As many as 30 student representatives from four universities and colleges in Batam, Riau, have urged the local prosecutor's office to arrest all related parties involved in a Rp 28 billion scam.

The students also demanded that the development of the Batam Legislative Council's building be suspended until the investigation is completed into the alleged mark-up case.

The protesters said Batam Mayor Nyak Kadir should resign if he fails to respond to their demands within a week.

Local senior prosecutor I Gede Sudiatmaja, who received the students on Wednesday, pledged to summon those accused of involvement in the scandal on Thursday for questioning.

Ifan Hutasoid, one of the student representatives, said they would keep on monitoring the legal action taken on the case.

"We have found a connection between the construction of the council's office and a political deal between the administration and Golkar Party," he said. The evidence on the case was revealed by Batam Corruption Watch, Ifan said

Students urged to help foster genuine reform

Jakarta Post - April 3, 2002

A'an Suryana, Jakarta -- Students, at the forefront of the reform movement in 1998, have been urged to take up their old role once more in the face of a political elite widely blamed for diverting the winds of change.

Former student activist Hariman Siregar and Muslim scholar Ulil Abshar Abdalla say they believe that students are relatively free from political constraints and, in most cases, represent the true will of the people.

Ulil voiced concerns in a discussion held by the Indonesian Muslim Association (HMI) here on Tuesday that, currently, the movement was not directed by genuine reformists.

"The sweeping reform was sparked by the students in 1998, and they initially spearhead the movement ... but their role has been usurped by legislators and politicians," Ulil told participants in the discussion entitled "Students and the Plurality of the Nation."

The takeover of this role has raised concerns among pro-democracy activists, who have alleged that legislators and politicians have tarnished the reform movement, said Hariman.

Had the students maintained their leadership role, the reform movement would have not gone astray, according to Hariman, who was jailed following a violent anti-Japan rally in 1974, known as Malari incident.

Hariman noted that, in most cases, politicians and legislators have failed to live up to people's expectations, since they were already preoccupied by their own struggles for power.

"It is natural that politicians and legislators tend to think of their own short-term interests, since they have secured positions of privilege -- whereas students have nothing to lose in struggling for the people's will," he said. "This will minimize the possible abuse of power for sure," he added.

Hariman said that the legal proceedings for House Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung were full of political maneuvering and compromises, leaving justice by the wayside.

Hariman suggested that the students make a concerted effort to find answers as to why they were unable to take the leading role in Indonesian politics today. "The students should think of an engaging and a collective issue, one which could bring them closer together to push the reform movement ahead," said Hariman

Besides Hariman and Ulil, the speakers came from a wide range of political groups, including Muslim activist Bursah Zarnubi; Harris Rusli Moti, the chairman of the People's Democratic Party (PRD), and Achmad Doli Kurnia, the secretary general of the HMI.

Hariman pointed out anti-oppression and justice as two examples of the issues that could be addressed by the students. He said that the students were united in 1998, but after that grew fragmented when they began fighting for certain camps of political groups themselves -- such as Megawati Soekarnoputri, Abdurrahman Wahid, and B.J. Habibie.

Harris and Achmad Doli, representing the students, conceded that it was a necessity to find a collective issue to unite the students. However, they again acknowledged the fact that the students fell short of building a common enemy.

"Therefore, it is a pressing need that the students should sit on a single discussion table to discuss what collective issue we think will keep our reform movement alive -- and on the right track," said Harris Rusli from PRD.

Aceh/West Papua

Australia, US renew military ties with killing machine

Green Left Weekly - March 27, 2002

Max Lane -- Almost every day, details of the murder of Acehnese civilians by Indonesian military forces are reported by democratic and human rights organisations and international news agencies. At least 300 killings have been reported since January. More than 10,000 Acehnese have been killed in the last two decades.

In a typical news report on March 13, Agence France-Presse (AFP) related the Indonesian Armed Forces' (TNI) claims that two Acehnese died in an accidental explosion and one unarmed rebel was shot down, before reporting: "A GAM [the Free Aceh movement] spokesman, Ishak Daud, denied that the three victims were rebels. `We condemn the killings of civilians who have nothing to do with GAM,' he said." The report goes on to explain that: the tortured bodies of a local Muslim leader and another civilian were found on March 12 in east Aceh; three bodies with gunshot wounds were found in north Aceh on the same day; rebels had been killed in two west Aceh locations on March 11 and March 12; three "bullet- riddled" bodies were found in two west Aceh locations on March 11; and a civilian was shot dead by an unidentified person in Bireuen district on March 10.

The Indonesian and Acehnese human rights organisations which document the violence are themselves harassed by the Indonesian military. On March 14 AFP reported that three members of Solidarity for Victims of Human Rights Abuses were rounded up on March 12, according to Rufriadi, coordinator of the local legal aid institute. "We are checking with police about their whereabouts. We are worried about them being victims of summary execution," Rufriadi told the AFP.

Spokespeople for the Acehnese Peoples Democratic Resistance Front (FPDRA) told Green Left Weekly that mobile brigade forces have been visiting the area around their offices in a show of intimidation.

TNI in Papua The Indonesian military has also been implicated in the killing of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay. Eluay was kidnapped and murdered after attending a dinner at the Kopassus military command in November. A statement by Philip Erary, one of the investigating team into the murder, says that evidence points to "collective involvement" of a "particular institution" which may have "initiated the idea" as well as planned and executed it.

In a clear signal as to which "institution" he means, Erary called for the military police to hold a formal inquiry, arguing that witnesses felt they could speak more freely to them than to the police. The KOMAPS newspaper has also reported that one witness saw Theys' driver Aristotles Masoka being assaulted in a room at Tribuana Kopassus military headquarters, then put in a vehicle and driven away. Masoka has still not been located.

Erary also stated that witnesses had received the kind of threats that "indicate that the perpetrators were not ordinary folk". Colonel Sutarna, a military police commander, rejected the call for an inquiry, stating that the armed forces only carried out what it's headquarters ordered.

Hill's skewed vision Australian defence minister Robert Hill has a different perspective on TNI. On March 7, after announcing that TNI officers would resume training in Australian defence colleges, he told the ABC: "Indonesia knows the values that we bring into the relationship and which we regard as important and adherence to the international standards of human rights are clearly part of those values.

"Indonesian leaders are saying to me that they recognise that also and are seeking to indoctrinate the troops and others as to the importance of these values as well. I regard that as positive. I certainly see enough to encourage this process of rebuilding the defence relationship, which I think, as I said, will be of benefit to both of us." He added, "[The Australian government] might be able to assist [the Indonesian military] in developing counter-terrorist capabilities as well, at least in the command and control area where we really do have very sophisticated processes".

The US armed forces also want to see a resumption of military ties with Jakarta, after they were downgraded substantially in the wake of the TNI's 1999 rampage in East Timor. In hearings before a US congressional committee on February 27, armed forces boss Admiral Blair called for an end to restrictions on military cooperation with Indonesia.

Blair stated bluntly that the restrictions in cooperation "obstructed the US war on terror". According to a Pentagon official quoted by the March 5 Los Angeles Times, the US administration is seeking a 27% funding increase for a federal program bolstering non-US militaries. Money, goods and US military training would go to Indonesia, as well as Nepal, Jordan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Megawati and human rights Megawati Sukarnoputri's own blunt statements at a December 30 military parade belie Hill's positive view of her government's attitude to human rights. After a token reference to obeying the law, she advised officers and soldiers not to worry about human rights when carrying out their duties  especially when suppressing separatists.

Many generals are refusing to appear before the government- appointed National Human Rights Commission (Komnas-HAS), which is investigating 1998 military shootings of students. Megawati has not ordered them to appear. Even the commission is flawed. The US-based Human Rights Watch has released a report exposing its lack of action on known human rights violations in Aceh.

The 44-page report focuses on the killings of thirty men and a two-year-old child in August 2001 in Julok, east Aceh. The victims  all ethnic Acehnese  were lined up and executed by a group of armed men in camouflage uniforms. The Indonesian army and police accused GAM of responsibility. GAM blames members of the Indonesian security forces.

The new report includes excerpts from an internal report of a Komnas-HAS visit to east Aceh two weeks later. The report includes transcripts of taped interviews between two commissioners and eyewitnesses to the killings.

Virtually all witnesses asserted that the Indonesian army was responsible, although they could not name individual perpetrators. The commissioners, however, failed to follow up important leads. The two senior commissioners allowed military officers to accompany them on some interviews, a clear inhibition to free discussion. After their return to Jakarta, the commissioners sat on their findings for five months. Only on January 8, 2002 did the comission agree to set up a formal inquiry, but more than two months later, no progress is evident.

Islamic law: Jakarta's panacea for Aceh

Straits Times - April 4, 2002

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta -- Indonesia has introduced Islamic law in Aceh in an attempt to create the illusion that syariah is the cure for all of the province's political problems.

Acehnese observers point out that the demand for syariah came not from the Acehnese community, but originated in Jakarta during the Habibie government.

"It's an instrument for the government to control the Acehnese community, and the implementation of syariah is controlled by the government," said Acehnese observer Otto Syamsuddin Ishak.

Jakarta played up claims that a desire for an Islamic state was at the root of Acehnese demands for independence, despite evidence that neither the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the rebels seeking independence, nor the Acehnese community, demanded syariah, said Mr Otto.

He accused former president Abdurrahman Wahid and the current Megawati administration of using syariah to politicise Islam in Aceh. He said Jakarta hoped to create the impression that the Acehnese were hardline Muslim militants who were anti-western and opposed to democracy and human rights. This would in turn reduce international and Indonesian sympathy for the Acehnese and would divert attention away from Jakarta's failure to bring the military's human rights abuses to court, political observers said.

Mr Humam Hamid, from the non-governmental organisation Care Human Rights Forum, said that despite widely held impressions in Jakarta and elsewhere that the Acehnese were fanatic Muslims, there was no great demand in Aceh for syariah law. "Acehnese have already been living with our own syariah for quite some time. We practise our religion every day by praying, fasting and keeping away from drugs."

And if Jakarta and Aceh's government were trying to create the impression that it was a hotbed of fundamental Islam, it could backfire on the politicians, he added. "Acehnese will be unimpressed with just symbolic syariah, such as introducing special syariah police and provisions for the jilbab." Jilbab is the Indonesian word for Islamic headscarves.

"The local government and political leaders should lead by example," said Mr Humam, explaining that the Acehnese expect the provincial government to be more committed to ending graft and promoting democracy. "I joked to an Acehnese politician who wanted to make a comparative study of syariah that he should go to Singapore and Switzerland, because over there, he can learn how those countries overcome crime, value their environment, keep their cities clean and fight corruption. The only difference is that their laws are not based on the holy book,' he said.

Observers have also pointed out that the move to introduce syariah is part of a plan to co-opt religious leaders. The ulamas, who wield significant power in Aceh, had dropped support for independence as they believed that Islamic law gave them greater political power, Mr Otto said.

TNI members 'killing' Theys to be charged with insubordination

Jakarta Post - April 4, 2002

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- An Army general revealed on Wednesday that members of the Indonesian Military (TNI) believed to be involved in the killing of Papuan leader Theys Hiyo Eluay would probably be charged with insubordination.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said that the TNI Headquarters as well as the Jayapura-based Trikora Military Command and the Army's Special Force (Kopassus) had never ordered their personnel stationed in the country's easternmost province of Papua, to hold a military operation that resulted in the killing of Theys. Endriartono further noted that "the soldiers who did this must be responsible for their wrongdoing."

Theys, chairman of the Papuan Presidium Council (PDP), was found dead hours after being abducted while heading for home from the Kopassus compound, located on Jl. Hamadi in the provincial capital of Jayapura, where the National Hero's Day on Nov. 10 was commemorated.

Without disclosing the motive behind the killing, the Jayapura Police earlier said that seven members of Kopassus were believed to be involved in the killing. An official close to the investigation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that three Kopassus members were currently being questioned by the National Military Police.

Asked whether the TNI would determine whether the soldiers killed Theys due to an order from two prominent retired generals as has been rumored, Endriartono said: "So far, there is only a strong indication that some of our members were involved in the killing, but we have yet to find out whether the murder had any connection with high-ranking military officers or other retired generals." He, nevertheless, was quick to add that "it is possible that the order [to kill Theys] came from elements outside the military, and was not merely the soldiers' initiative."

In several cases of rights violations implicating the military, the TNI has frequently stated that such actions occurred due to insubordination among its low-ranking soldiers.

Many believe that such a response would only provide impunity for TNI high-ranking military officers who are believed to be responsible for the violations.

The abduction of nine political activists that implicated the Kopassus' Mawar Team in 1999 and the 2000 mass killing at a West Aceh boarding school, in which Aceh religious leader Tengku Bantaqiah was killed, are two of the many cases, that TNI declared were due to insubordination of TNI soldiers.

Aceh peace talks mooted from end of April

Agence France Presse - April 4, 2002

Geneva -- Fresh peace talks between Indonesian government officials and Aceh separatists could resume in Geneva at the end of the month, a spokesman for the centre that mediates the discussions said on Thursday.

The dates are not confirmed but the parties are aiming to meet at the end of April or beginning of May, the spokesman for the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Centre told AFP.

No details on who is expected to take part, nor where the closed-door talks would take place have been released.

The governor of Aceh, Abdullah Puteh, earlier on Thursday announced that the talks would resume soon in Geneva but gave no details.

After the last talks in February, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) said it had agreed to discuss autonomy as a starting point for talks but had not dropped demands for full independence.

New violence leaves five dead in Aceh

Agence France Presse - March 30, 2002

Four suspected separatist rebels and a public transport driver have been killed over the past three days in Indonesia's rebellious Aceh province, the military and residents said.

A local rebel leader identified as Usman bin Rahmad was killed in a gunfight with soldiers at Simpang Nalep in Bireun district on Thursday, Aceh military spokesman Major Zenal Muttaqin said.

Muttaqin said the troops later shot dead another suspected rebel of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) as he tried to run away. The troops seized two pistols, a hand grenade and a satellite mobile phone and bullets from the rebels.

Separately, troops raided a rebel hideout in the Reunong area of North Aceh district on Thursday, killing a guerilla.

On Friday security forces killed another GAM member in a gunfight at Paya Meuligoe Pereulak in East Aceh.

In another incident, a public minivan driver was shot dead by two men riding on a motorcycle in the provincial capital Banda Aceh on Friday, police and witnesses said. GAM and police accused each other of the killing.

An estimated 10,000 people have died since December 1976 when GAM began its fight for an independent Islamic state in the province on the northern tip of Sumatra island. More than 300 have been killed this year alone in the energy-rich province.

12 suspected separatist rebels killed in Aceh: military

Agence France Presse - March 31, 2002

The Indonesian military claimed to have killed 12 suspected separatist rebels in the restive province of Aceh over the weekend.

Eleven members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were shot dead in a clash between some 40 armed rebels and a 91-man military team in Pereulak, East Aceh, on Saturday, Aceh military spokesman Major Zaenal Muttaqin said on Sunday. Troops seized eight firearms and about 600 rounds of ammunition, Muttaqin said, adding that there were no casualties among the troops.

The local GAM spokesman, Ishak Daud, said only eight rebels had been killed in some 90 minute exchange of fire. "The three others are civilians shot dead randomly by the Indonesian armed forces," Daud said. Daud said at least two soldiers had been killed in the clash,

In a separate incident, troops shot dead one man suspected of being a GAM rebel in Krueng Raya, Aceh Besar district, on Saturday, another Aceh military spokesman, Major Ertoto (eds: one name) said.

Two suspected rebels, including a man believed to be the deputy commander of GAM's armed wing in the area, were also arrested in Seulimun, in the same district of Aceh Besar on Friday, Ertoto added.

An estimated 10,000 people have died since December 1976 when GAM began its fight for an independent Islamic state on the northern tip of Sumatra island. More than 300 have been killed this year alone in the energy-rich province.

Amnesty accuses Indonesia of abuses in Papua

Reuters - April 3, 2002

Geneva -- Amnesty International accused Indonesian forces on Wednesday of grave human rights violations in Papua, where the murder of the province's top independence leader last year remains unresolved.

In a report issued during the annual United Nations Commission on Human Rights, it urged the 53-member state body to condemn "appalling" abuses by Indonesia's security forces in Papua, Aceh and elsewhere in the world's largest Muslim country.

Amnesty's report, "Impunity and human rights violations in Papua", documents cases of extra-judicial executions, disappearances, torture and arbitrary detention of activists.

Theys Eluay, who headed the pro-independence Papua Presidium Council, was found dead in his overturned car last November. Police have not ruled out military involvement in the murder although the army has denied all accusations.

"Each failure to investigate or bring those responsible to trial reinforces the confidence of perpetrators that they are above the law," Lucia Withers, Amnesty International's researcher for the Asia and Pacific, told a news briefing.

"If [Papuan] people see no avenues open, they will resort to violence as in Aceh. This is the moment to act," she added, referring to Indonesia's other separatist province.

Amnesty said some 150 people are thought to have been arbitrarily detained and tortured by police in the Wasior area of Papua's Manokwari district in the latter half of 2001.

The sweep was prompted by an attack by an armed group on a logging company in which five police died. "Amnesty condemns these killings but equally condemns the operations that followed which appeared to be little less than a frenzy of revenge," Withers said.

Diplomats say the European Union will present a chairman's statement, a milder form of rebuke than a resolution, to the UN commission. "Just because neither the world's media or the UN is in Papua to witness the violations, does not mean that they are not happening," added Withers, who visited Papua in January.

Eluay's killing bolstered already strong demands for independence among the two million Papuans, who say Jakarta siphons off the province's wealth but gives little in return.

1,850 troops set for Aceh

Jakarta Post - April 1, 2002

Jakarta -- The Indonesian Military (TNI) will soon dispatch at least 1,850 replacement troops to the rebellious Aceh province, Deputy Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Kiki Syahnakrie said on Saturday.

The force, scheduled to depart for Aceh early in April, will consist of 125 Marines and 100 elite Air Force personnel, with the rest of the troops coming from the Army, including 12 companies of search-and-destroy personnel, he said.

Kiki said the troops had just completed special training on technical skills and combat tactics in Cipatat, Bandung, and Cilacap, Central Java. The training began on March 4 and ended on Saturday. "The training was to prepare and improve the anti- guerrilla operational capabilities of Army hunters assigned for duty in Aceh," Kiki was quoted by Antara as telling journalists after officially closing the training in Cipatat, Bandung.

Earlier on Saturday, TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said more than 42,000 troops had been assigned to trouble spots around the country, including Irian Jaya and Maluku, with almost half this number being sent to Aceh.

From April 2001 to March 2002, at least 122 military and police personnel have been killed and 411 injured in Aceh, he said as quoted by Antara. Four others went missing and two were kidnapped, according to Sjafrie. He also said at least 736 separatist rebels were killed in gunfights and 292 others arrested during this same period, while 621 civilians died. From February 10 to March 12 alone, at least 66 rebels, 17 police officers and military soldiers, and 44 civilians were killed in Aceh, he added.

In a speech read by Kiki during Saturday's ceremony, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto asked the soldiers to maintain the toughness and enthusiasm in Aceh that they showed during their training. "[We do not want] anymore victims in the operational region due to the poor skills and professionalism of soldiers," the speech said.

He also asked the troops to remain strong and to adjust to the environment during their tour in Aceh. "As chosen soldiers, use the trust [shown you] as motivation to carry out your duties to defend the nation and country with proud actions. But the tactical and technical skills you possess in guerrilla warfare will be meaningless should the local people not support you," he said.

The Army chief also warned the troops against committing human rights abuses in Aceh. The military and police have been accused of widespread human rights violations in the province and other trouble regions across the country. However, no senior officer has been charged with rights abuses in Aceh.

Kiki said separatist fighting was intensifying in at least four regions in Aceh -- North Aceh, Bireun, Pidie and East Aceh -- and that the areas required special handling from the authorities. "The security situation in the four regions is not as good as in other [regions], so more troop deployments are needed there," he said. "Nevertheless, the security in those areas is better now than it was last year," he added.

The central government has granted wide-ranging autonomy to the rebellious province, including the enforcement of Islamic law, or syariah. However, the special autonomy status has not appeased the Free Aceh Movement, which has long been campaigning for an independent Islamic state in Aceh.

Research group sees 'slim chance' for peace despite atrocities

Agence France Presse - March 28, 2002

Jakarta -- An international research group says there is a "slim chance" for peace in the bloody 25-year separatist war in Indonesia's Aceh, but only with sustained international pressure on both sides.

The International Crisis Group (ICG), in a report seen here Thursday, welcomed the outcome of peace talks between Jakarta and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Geneva in February.

"The talks offer a slim chance for peace but there is a need for more persistent and patient international pressure on both sides if the conflict is to be brought to an end," said ICG Indonesia analyst Diarmid O'Sullivan in a statement. "This issue must not be forgotten in the wake of 11 September and the preoccupation with conflicts elsewhere."

The Brussels-based ICG, a private, multinational research organisation, said an estimated 2,000 people were killed last year in Aceh -- four-fifths of them being civilians. The report says GAM's power has shrunk since the army launched an offensive in April last year, with only 30-40 percent of the province in Sumatra island under its continuous control compared to 60-70 percent a year ago.

However, "there is little reason to believe the guerrillas can be decisively defeated without inflicting the kind of damage on civilian lives and property that would make renewed rebellion more likely. "At the same time, GAM is far from forcing a government withdrawal. Without a negotiated peace, the war could continue for some time without clear-cut victory for either side."

In the meantime, the ICG says, civilians appear sunk in "disillusionment and despair" amid reports of atrocities by both sides. While the army had worked to improve its image, there were still reports of civilians being killed during patrols or in reprisal for guerrilla attacks. Soldiers and police still extorted bribes at checkpoints. The behaviour of the police mobile brigade Brimob was marked by "brutality and arrogance." The report says parts of GAM "have degenerated into banditry" and the movement as a whole has killed numerous civilians.

At the Geneva talks the two sides agreed to use a special autonomy law passed last July as a basis for negotiations and to end hostilities this year. "However, previous agreements along these lines were violated by both sides, and there is a risk the current round of talks will meet the same fate," the report says. "There is a need for concerted international pressure on both sides to continue talking and to uphold any future agreements..."

The ICG says GAM maintains that some form of autonomy offers the only realistic chance of peace. But it cautions that "corruption is as rife in Aceh as elsewhere in Indonesia, and there is a risk that provincial officials will bend special autonomy to serve their private interests."

For autonomy to work, officials must be more transparent and accountable and the military and police must be willing and able to control abuses. "These conditions are unlikely to be met without wider governance and military reforms in Indonesia," the ICG says. "The international community should be aware that efforts to forge a peace settlement in Aceh and to encourage the gradual reform of the Indonesian state are interlinked and may be mutually reinforcing."

News & issues

Students breach security at US Embassy

Jakarta Post - April 4, 2002

Jakarta -- Protesting Muslim students in favor of Palestinian solidarity tried to force their way into the US Embassy compound on Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan in Central Jakarta on Wednesday, prompting clashes with the police officers who tried to block them away, reports said.

Some 500 protesters, among them from KAMMI (Indonesian Muslim Student Committee), breached the barbed wire barricades in front of the embassy, El Shinta radio reported live from the scene around 3:50 p.m. Wednesday.

Police tried to disperse the crowds but the protesters beat the security personnel with sticks and flag poles. No immediate report of casualties was available, but the police reportedly managed to herd the students away from the embassy gate.

The protesters were showing their support to Palestinians following Israel's recent incursion into Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's West Bank headquarters in Ramallah, which killed at least five security personnel. The students believe the USis allied with Israel.

Heavy traffic congestion took place in almost every connecting road near Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan in Central Jakarta following the protest.

Anti-Israel protests hit three Indonesian cities

Reuters - April 3, 2002

Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta -- Street rallies slamming Israeli military actions against Palestinians hit at least three major Indonesian cities on Wednesday while a minister said Jakarta would not let local groups send fighters to join in the conflict.

Around 150 Muslim students marched through Jakarta's main streets to protest in front of the United Nations representative office and the US embassy where they tried unsuccessfully to ram through a police cordon.

Three of the protesters wore masks representing US President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, each saying "Hell is the place for me". Other demonstrators burned makeshift Israeli flags. "Until the end, Israel will be our eternal enemy," chanted the student protesters who included white-veiled women.

In the world's most populous Muslim nation, hundreds of other demonstrators lambasted the Jewish state on the streets of Java's old royal city Yogyakarta, and of Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province in the eastern part of the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Indonesia has officially condemned Israeli military action against towns and cities in the West Bank including the headquarters of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.

At least two militant Indonesian Muslim groups have said they plan to send fighters to the Middle East to join the Palestinians in a holy war against the Israeli troops, but a Jakarta minister said the government would not condone the action and called on Muslims to show their solidarity in more peaceful ways.

"Indonesia must express solidarity not in a hurried fashion ... not by physically altogether head[ing] for Palestine to stand for what is right there," chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters at the parliament. "So don't twist this [and say] the government is letting this [deployment] happen," he said.

Although most Indonesian Muslims and major moderate Muslim organisations have condemned the Israel aggression and strongly sympathise with the Palestinian cause, calls to join a holy war in the Middle East have met muted response.

[Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia.]

Corporate globalisation

Government to sell 25 state enterprises this year

Asia Pulse - April 5, 2002

Jakarta -- The government, through the Office of the State Ministry for State Enterprises, plans to sell or privatize 25 state enterprises this year, which include nine to be privatized in 2001, but carried over to 2002, and 16 new ones.

The decision was made at a meeting of the government privatization policy team headed by the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs on Thursday.

According to Minister of State Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi, the privatization is expected to encourage the state enterprises to improve their performance and corporate value for higher competitiveness against similar industries in the national, regional and global market.

He said further that the government's privatization program was also aimed at accelerating economic recovery which would eventually benefit the people.

Meanwhile, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Dorojatun Kuntjoro Jakti hoped the privatization of state enterprises would be more professional and transparent and give great benefits to the companies, their employees and the state's economy.

The state enterprises which had been carried over from 2001 to this year's privatization program include hotel operator PT Wisma Nusantara International; airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II (Airport); pharmaceutical companies PT Indofarma Tbk and PT Kimia Farma Tbk; telecom provider PT Indosat Tbk.; coal mining company PT Batubara Bukit Asam; cement producers PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa Tbk and PT Semen Gresik Tbk; and PT Bank Mandiri.

Meanwhile the new state enterprises to be privatized this year include tyre producer PT Intirub; consultants PT Atmindo and PT Cambrics Primissima; glass producer PT Iglas Produksi Gelas; hotel operator PT Jakarta International Hotel; paper producers PT Kertas Blabak, PT Kertas Padalarang and PT Kertas Basuki Rahmat.

The others are construction consultants PT Indah Karya, PT Indra Karya, PT Virama Karya, PT Yodya Karya; dredging company PT Rukindo; engineering company PT Rekayasa Industri; airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I; and securities company PT Danareksa.

Farmers struggle against WTO, IMF

Jakarta Post - April 3, 2002

A'an Suryana, Jakarta -- Freedom from injustice as a result of political reform in the country has proven short-lived for Indonesian farmers, who are now facing tougher challenges in the form of a global regime, an activist said.

Chairman of the Indonesian Farmers Federation (FSPI) Henry Saragih told a seminar here that unlike in the past when torture and misappropriation of land were rampant, now international organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were impinging on the rights of farmers.

"The international organizations, which pushed ahead for the creation of free trade regimes, are an axis of evil as they bring hardship to farmers worldwide, especially those in Indonesia," Henry told participants of the Regional Conference on Farmer's Rights here.

According to Henry, the policies of the WTO, IMF and World Bank have contributed to the hardships Indonesian farmers are facing today. Citing an example, he said the IMF had imposed a structural adjustment program (SAP) on struggling economies like Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

"The program might be a medicine to cure the banking crisis, but it certainly has brought losses to other sectors of the economy, including the agricultural sector," Henry said. "Under the SAP program, the governments of those countries are forced to cut subsidies they used to give to farmers. This hinders farmers in cultivating their farms and later reduces their ability to produce crops.

Another speaker in the conference, Riduan Munthe, said under the free trade regime which was aggressively promoted by the WTO, the government was forced to lift protection for farmers in the form of import duty. "This has brought losses to the Indonesian farmers since they cannot compete with products from other developed countries," he said.

Henry called on participants of the conference to fight the global oppression. "A global movement, like the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Brazil, to protest the presence of the WTO, should be promoted. This is important to have our voice heard by the leaders of the world," he said.

Henry said Indonesian farmers had suffered for so long, dating back in the era of New Order. "The New Order government seized lands belonging to the farmers for what they claimed were development programs. Intimidation, torture and land misappropriation were common practice," said Henry.

The regional conference will run until April 5. It is being held ahead of the International Farmer's Day of Struggle, on April 17. Participants are representatives of rural activists from Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and Germany, among other countries.

Plan to sell state firms threatened by worker protests

Straits Times - April 3, 2002

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- Indonesia's state-owned companies are being torn apart by internal rifts as employees fight against government attempts at privatisation.

In what could further undermine the country's investment climate, employees of several state-owned companies (SoE) have held strikes and demonstrations over the last few months to block the government's plan to sell its shares in the firms to foreign investors.

Tens of thousands of SoE employees, represented by various labour unions, have voiced nationalist sentiments and got strong backing from politicians and local community leaders.

Last week, telecommunications and postal workers threatened to go on a nationwide strike over plans to privatise international call operator PT Indosat, the biggest fish on the government's privatisation list for this year. Workers would cut off telephone services and stop delivering the mail if the government pressed on with the privatisation plan, the union said.

Earlier this year, the government delayed its plan to sell a 51- per-cent stake in state-run cement maker PT Semen Gresik to Mexico's Cemex SA de CV after the former's employees, with the supports of legislators, boycotted the plan, calling it a return to colonial rule.

The chairman of the Federation of State-Owned Companies Workers, Mr Bambang Syukur, said SoE employees feared they would lose their jobs. "People worked for the SoEs because they thought it would be safer to work for the government than in the private sector," he said. "But with foreign investors taking over, this sense of security is disrupted while the government has not at all appeased our concerns."

The long-delayed sale of leading retail bank Bank Central Asia to Farallon Capital last month was also marred by several protests and strikes.

Jakarta aims to raise some 6.5 trillion rupiah (S$1.3 billion) from the sale of 24 state companies this year to plug the gapping budget deficit from financing the bank-restructuring programme. It also expects to improve the performance of state companies, long infested with corruption and inefficiency, as part of the economic reform targets required for foreign aid.

But last year, it only managed to make 3.5 trillion rupiah from the sale of domestic phone operator PT Telkom, well below the target of 5 trillion rupiah. With the growing opposition of labour unions, many are sceptical that Jakarta can meet this year's target.

Economist Pande Radja Silalahi said: "The workers' unions have not offered any solutions, and the impact of their movement is very negative to the privatisation programme." He added that state companies have long been known as cash cows for political parties and high-ranking officials in the Indonesian armed forces. In addition, the strong political backing the unions get from major parties like Golkar show that groups with strong vested interests are reluctant to let go of their control on the companies.

Economist Sri Adiningsih noted: "The stakes in the state companies being privatised are too high for them. And they have the power and ability to mobilise the workers and the community to oppose the programmes." Mr Pande and labour leader Bambang said many of the workers and unions had also been "manipulated" by managers, who feared they would lose their positions under new shareholders.

State companies in trouble

Semen Gresik: Jakarta's plan to sell 51 per cent of its shares in the company to Mexico's Cemex has been delayed after the plan set off protests from employees, legislators and local community leaders who called the move neo-colonialistic.

PT Indosat: The 100,000 members of the Union of Post and Telecommunication Firms Workers threatened a massive strike to cut off telephone and mail services if the government did not cancel its plan to privatise the company.

The Indonesian Railway Company: Over the last month, employees have been expressing their opposition to newly appointed chief Omar Berto, and have threatened to go on strike. Analysts are worried it will affect the firm's service.

Telkom: Thousands of the telecommunication company's employees from Yogyakarta and Central Java rallied and held a strike against a planned deal to end Telkom's decades-long monopoly over the country's fixed-line phone service.

'War on terror'

Explosives planted in my bags, says terror suspect

Straits Times - April 1, 2002

Jakarta - One of the three Indonesians arrested in Manila on suspicions of terrorism has accused the Philippine police of planting explosives in his bags.

"I saw it myself, the hand of the police that put those things into my luggage," said Tamsil Linrung, according to the Koran Tempo daily yesterday.

Speaking from Manila, he said police had not checked the luggage of other passengers, and he accused police of placing the explosives in his luggage when they opened it for a manual check after an X-ray examination.

He said he also had the impression that the Philippine police, including plainclothes officers, had been waiting for his arrival and were ready with a video camera to record the luggage check when it took place.

Tamsil and two other Indonesians -- Agus Dwirkana and Abdul Jamal Balfas -- were arrested at Manila airport on March 13 after officials allegedly found bomb-making materials in their bags.

Indonesians detained in Philippines on fabricated charges: Rais

Agence France Presse - April 2, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesia's National Assembly Speaker Amien Rais on Tuesday accused police in the Philippines of engineering the arrest of three Indonesians on terrorist charges, a report said.

Rais said a friend of Tamsil Linrung -- one of the three suspects detained by authorities in Manila -- had told him that Philippine police were currently "creating a new charge" for them.

"Tamsil told one of his friends through a mobile phone that the Philippines government is currently creating a new charge. So clearly this is a product of fabrication," Rais was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying.

Rais said the Philippine police had made "a blunder" in arresting Linrung and two other Indonesians -- Agus Dwirkana and Abdul Jamal Balfas -- at Manila airport on March 13.

Police said they had found bomb-making materials in their bags. Linrung, a former treasurer with Rais' National Mandate Party, has repeatedly denied he carried the materials.

In an interview carried by the Koran Tempo newspaper on the weekend, he accused Philippine police of planting explosives in his luggage. Linrung said he had the impression that police had been waiting for his arrival at the airport, adding that he believed the aim of his arrest was to "block" Rais' chances of ever rising to the presidency.

Government & politics

Parties mired by trust crisis: Polling research

Jakarta Post - April 4, 2002

A'an Suryana, Jakarta -- Indonesia's political parties are self- centered, and ignore the public interest they claim to represent, resulting in a crisis over a loss of confidence, a new poll reveals.

And the only way for those parties to win back the people's trust is to follow a path of self-introspection while ridding themselves of party leaders involved in corruption, collusion, and nepotism (KKN).

The polling, carried out by the Psychology Department of Bandung-based Padjadjaran University showed that the confidence crisis has infected all political parties in Indonesia, including the first seven biggest parties.

The research specifically looked at the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan); the Golkar Party; the United Development Party (PPP); the National Awakening Party (PKB); the National Mandate Party (PAN); the Star and Crescent Party (PBB), and the Democracy and Love Nation Party (PDKB).

The researchers randomly interviewed 1,100 respondents from various big cities across Indonesia, and asked them about their perception of the performances of the political parties. In the polling which used a sampling of techniques, a majority of respondents were senior high school and university graduates aged between 21 to 40 years old.

Two psychology lecturers of Padjadjaran University Hatta Albanik and Zulrizka Iskandar presented the results of their polling here on Wednesday in a discussion attended by deputy chairman of Golkar Marzuki Darusman, and deputy secretary general Pramono Anung.

The diminishing trust of the people was caused by their suspicions that the leaders of the parties -- especially the Golkar Party -- were involved in KKN, the polling said. "The respondents believed that Golkar was heavily linked to the corrupt New Order era, in which the Golkar leaders were associated with KKN practices," said the polling.

PDI Perjuangan and the PPP had also incrementally lost trust from the people. The respondents perceived that the leaders of the two parties were no longer keen in fighting for the people's aspirations, as they wasted their time and energy in settling their internal conflicts.

The polling did not mention the exact cases, but it has been public knowledge that PDI Perjuangan has been crippled recently by internal conflicts in which some prominent leaders of the party have tendered their resignations.

The PPP, meantime, has split into two factions: One, led by Vice President Hamzah Haz and the other by Zaenuddin M.Z.

Marzuki Darusman agreed with the polling, and noted that Golkar must work hard to sever its links with the New Order administration. "Remove Golkar leaders associated with the New Order regime -- especially those in the party's board of patrons. They are burdens to the party," said Marzuki. But he refused to point out the party leaders that have to be dismissed, saying that it was unethical.

Pramono Anung Wibowo said that, to regain the public trust, his party has promoted an anti-KKN campaign, and was continuously consolidating power. "Our top leadership has also vowed that party members with connections to drugs will be fired," said Pramono.

Legislators cancel Bali meeting

Jakarta Post - April 4, 2002

Jakarta -- Citing budgetary constraints, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) has canceled a plan to meet in Bali from April 3 through April 7 to draft the amendments to the 1945 Constitution, which will be tabled during the annual MPR session in August, a report said.

The cancellation was announced by the management of the Grand Bali Beach Hotel -- the proposed venue for the meeting.

"According to our contact, the meeting was canceled because of the limited budget allocated to the Assembly," the hotel's sales and account manager, Yuda Wirawan, said as quoted by Antara in Sanur, Bali, on Wednesday.

He said that the assembly had booked standard rooms for 40 legislators in the five-star hotel one month ago, at a price of US$180 per night. "However, because of budgetary constraints, the meeting organizer canceled the meeting on Monday evening, and moved the venue to Jakarta," he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the ad hoc committee on the amendment of the Constitution met to decide whether to carry out the plenary meeting in Bali or Jakarta. However, an even voting had left the matter undecided.

Among the public, the plan to convene the meeting in Bali had made the assembly a target of fierce criticism. Critics said that convening the meeting in Bali would be a tremendous waste, considering the poor state of their finances. The Bali meeting would have reportedly cost the Assembly Rp 690.5 million (US$69,500).

Government considers laying off unproductive civil servants

Jakarta Post - April 3, 2002

Jakarta -- State Minister of Administrative Reforms Feisal Tamin said on Tuesday that the government was carefully considering a plan to lay off unproductive civil servants.

"Layoffs are possible. But we have to consider it carefully as on one hand it would require a gigantic budget, and on the other it might add to the number of unemployed," Feisal said in the East Java capital of Surabaya, as quoted by Antara, after chairing a meeting with regents, mayors and high-ranking officials of the East Java provincial administration.

He said the issue of laying off civil servants was a dilemma for the government. "Actually, there would be no need to lay off these civil servants if they were aware that they are paid by the people and felt responsible for the enhancement of public services," he said.

The minister said the idea of laying off civil servants was first broached by Minister/National Development Planning Board chairman Kwik Kian Gie. Kwik reportedly suggested laying off unproductive civil servants at a recent Cabinet meeting.

"The unproductive civil servants go to the office just to chitchat. Paying them is a waste of state money, and on their part it is a waste of opportunity to achieve something when they while away their time talking," Kwik was quoted as saying.

However, Feisal maintained that the number of civil servants in Indonesia was not excessive. "With a population of 23 million, Malaysia has 900,000 civil servants. Indonesia has four million. So, by number, it is not excessive," the minister observed.

Feisal said the only problem was that the number of civil servants in Java was almost four times that of all of eastern Indonesia. "So there is a need to achieve proportional distribution. Civil servants should be ready to work anywhere in the country," he said.

PKP to merge with other parties ahead of 2004 election

Jakarta Post - April 1, 2002

Rita A. Widiadana, Karang Asem, East Bali -- The Justice and Unity Party (PKP) is planning to merge with other parties in a bid to create a powerful coalition before general elections get underway in 2004, its chairman Gen. (ret) Edy Sudrajat, announced on Saturday.

In a ceremony held in the remote, impoverished village of Tianyar in Karangasem regency, some 120 kilometers east of Denpasar, Edy stressed the need to seek out parties with similar platforms and objectives to improve the country's social, economic, and political conditions.

"After almost two years in power, both executive and legislative members have done very little improve the welfare of our people," he said before 3,000 PKP members and executives at the celebration, which marked the party's third anniversary in Tianyar's dilapidated local community center.

The party chose the village as a venue over wealthier hubs like Denpasar, Nusa Dua or Sanur, he said, to get in better touch with everyday people. "We like to see and hear people's aspirations," added Edy, who was accompanied by Bali vice governor Alit Putra.

Edy said that the PKP plans to approach a number of parties to establish ongoing dialogues with their members in preparation for the merger plan. He declined to say which parties he had in mind. Members of the Mutual Assistance Consultative Organization (MKGR), led by former minister of women's affairs Mien Sugandi, were seen among PKP's crowd last Saturday, however.

The PKP was first established by a group of retired Army generals, and high-ranking officials, including former vice president Try Sutrisno, former chief of Army Edy Sudrajat, and Hayono Isman, among others. In the 1999 election, the PKP only obtained four chairs in the House of Representatives from its 1,065,000 votes, or approximately 1.01 percent of the total votes.

According to the Law on General Election issued in l999, a party is only able to participate in a general election with a minimum of two percent of the total chairs at the House of Representatives, or three percent at the regional legislative bodies.

Looking tired after a four-hour journey from the Bali provincial capital of Denpasar, a small and trembling Edy said that the party was currently consolidating its members, and sharpening its programs. "We are tired of seeing politicians bickering with each other to stay in power. I predict new parties will join to drastically change our social, economic and political structures for the betterment of the people," Edy said.

Try Sutrisno, chief of PKP's advisory board, suggested that local elites try find solutions together for the country's lingering problems, rather than blaming each other.

Amid heavy rainfalls, the PKP celebration was followed by a series of charity activities, including blood donations, donations of school text books, and utensils for the village's poor public schools.

Corruption/collusion/nepotism

Sutiyoso grilled for 3 hours over Ancolgate

Jakarta Post - April 4, 2002

Ahmad Junaidi, Jakarta -- The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office questioned City Governor Sutiyoso on Wednesday as a witness in a graft case related to a controversial foreign trip involving city officials and councillors.

The governor was questioned for about three hours regarding the three suspects: councillors Tarmidi Suhardjo and Tarmidi Edy Suwarno from Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and Ali Imron Hussein from United Development Party.

City-owned PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol (PJA), spent Rp 2.7 billion (US$270,000) while the city budget disbursed Rp 1.6 billion (US$160,000) on an overseas trip to Australia, Japan and Canada, which lasted for one week on Oct. 12, 2000. The suspects allegedly accepted double allowances (US$5,000) from PJA and Rp 55 million from the budget) although they did not join the trip.

Sutiyoso, who was the president commissioner of PT PJA, told reporters after the questioning, that he actually disagreed with the trip because the country was still in economic crisis. But the company disbursed the money, anyway. As for the money from the city budget, he said that he could not object because it had been allocated for the councillors.

A total of 16 councillors and several city officials joined the so-called comparative study trip to the three countries as PJA would develop a water city project in Ancol, North Jakarta. "Through this investigation, we are looking for [new] suspects," the prosecutor's office chief Muljohardjo said.

It seemed, however, that Sutiyoso would not be implicated in the scandal. Muljohardjo defended Sutiyoso, saying the governor could not reject the disbursement of Rp 1.6 billion fund from the city budget. Muljohardjo also said PJA's president Rushadi disbursed the money for the trip without Sutiyoso's approval.

Separately, city spokesman Muhayat admitted on Wednesday that the city secretary Fauzi Bowo had been scheduled to be questioned as a witness on Thursday, but was postponed. Fauzi was believed to know that the trip was financed both by PJA and the city budget.

Muhayat said he feared that the case could be used to insult Fauzi, who is currently nominated by the Betawi Collective Body (Bamus) as a candidate for the next gubernatorial election in October.

Muhayat said that the council's secretary, Moerdiman, handed over the trip's proposal to Fauzi, on behalf of the governor, on September 15, 2000. Fauzi approved it on September 22, and the Rp 1.6 billion fund was disbursed on September 9.

Meanwhile, PJA proposed the trip to the governor on Oct. 6 and Sutiyoso, through his disposition letter on Oct. 10, asked them to give second thoughts to the plan.

"But PJA had disbursed the money weeks before the fund from the city budget," Muhayat claimed, adding that Sutiyoso has dismissed Rushadi earlier last year. Six low-rank employees who joined the trip were also dismissed.

Mega faces questions over spending

Straits Times - April 4, 2002

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- President Megawati Sukarnoputri has come under fire from legislators for spending enormous amounts of money on the Indonesian military and even editors who accompanied her on a recent overseas trip.

The main source of some legislators' discontent is her recent contribution amounting to 30 billion rupiah (S$6 million) for the renovation of the Indonesian military and police barracks.

She had refused initially to explain where the money came from, but later claimed that it was withdrawn from the Presidential Aids fund. Established in the 1970s by then president Suharto, the fund was designed for emergency uses such as natural disasters and social unrest. But in practice, it was used indiscriminately, often for Mr Suharto's political interests.

Several legislators from different parties had begun a motion last week to summon the President to Parliament over the use of the fund. But their move hit a snag when the initiator of the petition, Mr Jamal Doa, withdrew his support for the petition following warnings from executives of his United Development Party (PPP), headed by Vice-President Hamzah Haz.

The motion, known as interpellation, must be supported by 10 signatories from at least two different factions and needs a majority support from the House. The current seven signatories had pledged to continue the motion. They said they were optimistic they could get more support by the time Parliament reconvened in May.

A motion to question former president Abdurrahman Wahid's role in a graft case in 2000 led to the establishment of a special parliamentarian probe team and eventually cost his presidency.

PPP and Ms Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle have opposed the petition strongly, saying the fund was used legitimately. The petition may get the most backing from Golkar, the second largest party in Parliament whose chief Akbar Tandjung is on trial for the misuse of State Logistics Agency funds. Among the seven signatories are some Golkar members.

National Assembly Speaker Amien Rais has also hinted that he would support the plan to question the President, saying the public had the right to know.

Palace Secretary Bambang Kesowo said the President pledged to give the aid after she was dismayed at the poor condition of soldiers' barracks and officers' residential units during a visit in February. Most of the buildings were constructed in the 1960s and had never been renovated since, he told a press briefing.

But observers said the move was her attempt at "buying the support" of the military. Worse still, she is accused of buying the support of the local press after she invited a group of senior editors from leading publications and television stations to accompany her on her current trip to China, Korea and India.

Instead of bringing the usual group of palace-accredited journalists, only these editors were invited along for the trip. Travelling on official passports, which are supposed to be used by state officials only, the editors did not have to pay for their visas and exit tax. It was also revealed that some of the editors had their accommodation paid for.

Mr Abdurrahman broke the decades-long tradition of Mr Suharto when he made it mandatory for journalists to pay for their own accommodation during overseas trips and refrained from the ubiquitous practice of giving allowances to travelling journalists.

Recruits paying bribes to join police: report

Agence France Presse - April 4, 2002

Jakarta -- Applicants to join the Indonesian police must pay bribes of up to 15 million rupiah (1,500 dollars) if they want to pass the selection process, a newspaper reported Thursday.

"The price is too high for me. I will have to reconsider proceeding further with the tests if money is a decisive matter in the recruitment process," the Jakarta Post quoted one applicant for a middle-ranking post as saying. It quoted an applicant for a lower-ranking post as saying a policewoman told her to pay one million rupiah.

The Post said many would-be recruits told a similar story Wednesday. The monthly starting salary for a middle-ranking officer is about 1.2 million rupiah (120 dollars). A Jakarta police personnel official was quoted as denying the bribery claims.

On Wednesday an applicant who became depressed after being rejected climbed a 50-meter (165-feet) telecommunication tower at Jakarta police headquarters. Four officers climbed the tower and after more than one hour persuaded her to come down.

Last month President Megawati Sukarnoputri expressed concern at a poll which listed the country as the most corrupt in Asia and called on Indonesians to work hard to shed the image.

Confiscated logs secretly sold

Jakarta Post - April 5, 2002

Kasparman, Padang -- The Forestry and Plantation Agency in West Sumatra has secretly sold at least 17 truckloads of confiscated logs, which were being held at the agency's office compound on Jl. Raden Saleh in Padang.

Apparently to avoid detection by the public, the logs, which were confiscated during a crackdown on illegal logging eight months ago, were sold and transported at night. There have been no reports about where the logs were taken.

The agency chief, Jhoni Azwar refused to confirm the sale of the logs, claiming that he knew nothing about it. "I did not know that the logs had been sold secretly. I haven't yet received a report from my subordinates. I'll check it," he said in Padang on Wednesday.

Upon further consideration, however, he said that the logs had been openly auctioned recently, and not sold secretly. But he did not disclose the value of the illegal logs nor the identity of the buyers.

He was speaking to reporters about the case after attending a meeting with West Sumatra Deputy Governor Fachri Ahmad, West Sumatra Regional Police Chief Adang Firma and all regents and mayors of the province to discuss the authority and security of forestry.

The Jakarta Post observed the confiscated logs being secretly shipped away in an operation which began last Wednesday and stopped on Saturday. The trucks were escorted by a number of police officers.

"It's strange. If they had been auctioned openly, then they should not have been transported secretly during the night," said Indra Sakti, an eyewitness.

A reliable source also confirmed that 17 of the 29 trucks loaded with the confiscated logs in the compound of the forestry agency had been transported secretly from the site. "Now, only 12 trucks are still there," he noted.

Medan's drug trade blamed on poor law enforcement

Jakarta Post - April 3, 2002

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan -- Poor law enforcement has allowed the sale of illegal narcotics to flourish in Medan, North Sumatra, causing a serious concerns for local residents, according to a prominent drugs analyst.

Kamaluddin Lubis, a founder of the Anti-Narcotics Movement (GAN), told The Jakarta Post on Monday that bad law enforcement was apparent in the performance of police, prosecutors and judges, who routinely doled out lenient punishments for drug-related crimes. "That's why Medan has recently become a trading hub for drugs," he said.

Medan Police Precinct Chief, Sr. Cmr. Badrodin Haiti conceded that the drugs trade in Medan had increased by up to 60 percent as of March 2002. "It continues to rise every year," he said.

The increased trading volume means that Medan now not only gets drugs from Aceh, but from other places, too. Heavy trading in Medan, for instance, has encouraged the cultivation of drugs in nearby areas. In addition, it has also sharply increased the production of ecstasy.

"There is an abundant production of ecstasy and marijuana in Medan. The marijuana is planted in Sibolangit among other places," he told The Jakarta Post, without elaboration. However, he said that drugs sales for the past year had a street value of more than Rp 36 billion.

Kamaluddin said that GAN investigations had often found that police officials freed drug traffickers upon arrest, despite ample evidence of crimes that could easily warrant a trial -- if not a conviction.

In the cases in which the suspects did make it to court, once police submitted their dossiers, prosecutors demanded only lenient punishments. "Once we wrote a letter to the national police complaining of an incident in which a man named T. Tampubolon was freed -- even though it was clear that he was involved in the narcotics trade. Only then did the police re- arrest him, and return him to jail," he said.

But Badrodin denied that his subordinates protected the criminals. "What we're doing now is conducting an intensive crackdown on drug-related crimes," he said.

North Sumatra's Regional Police Chief Insp. Gen. Ansyad Mbai led a ceremony recently in which 1.5 tons of marijuana were burned. The marijuana had been confiscated from 15 drug dealers during recent drug-related arrests. Badrodin said that, of the 600 criminals currently in the custody of Medan police, some 300 were in custody on drug-related charges -- including cases involving two military officers, and police official.

The executive director of Anti-Narcotics Information Center in North Sumatra, Zulkarnaen Nasution, said that throughout last year, the number of people involved in drug-dealing exceeded 15,900. Up to 90 percent of drug users, he added, were people under 27 years old.

Council factions accuse Sutiyoso of corruption

Jakarta Post - April 3, 2002

Ahmad Junaidi, Jakarta -- Several party factions in the City Council challenged on Tuesday the practice of corruption in the city administration. The issue was raised in their feedback over Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso's 2001 budget speech, which was presented last week.

The second largest faction, the National Mandate Party (PAN), accused Sutiyoso of illegally selling a 10-hectare plot of city land to private firm PT Jakarta International Trade Fair. "The Governor signed a letter that approved the sale, which caused losses to Jakartans," the faction spokesman Soleh Rachman said.

According to a government regulation, the land in the former Kemayoran airport in Central Jakarta, which had been designated as a social and public facility and a fairground, could not be sold. The faction found that the money from the sale of the land was used to pay the debt of the firm, which was controlled by businessman Edward Surjadjaja.

The faction, as well as the United Development Party (PPP) faction, also discovered irregularities in the acquisition of the 10.4 hectare plot of land which was previously the location of brothel complex Kramat Tunggak in North Jakarta.

Several city offices, including a government-owned official residence for doctors, located in the former brothel, were among buildings that were appropriated, Soleh said.

PAN and PPP each have 13 seats at the council. PPP faction also pointed at the practice of corruption and collusion among city officials and private developers who were obliged to provide land for public facilities. "If there was no practice of corruption ... the city's assets and income would have increased," faction spokesman Hamidi HR said without mentioning the exact amount of the monetary losses suffered by the city.

He revealed that his faction found 22 cases where 14 private developers had not built the social and public facilities they were obliged to provide according to city regulations on land use.

Meanwhile, the Justice Party faction alleged Sutiyoso had lied when he stated that he had resigned last year from the post of the president commissioner of city-owned market operator PD Pasar Jaya. The faction's spokesman Abdul Aziz Matnur said that Sutiyoso resigned on February 28, this year.

He said the faction, which only had four seats in the council, also questioned the city's Rp 18.8 billion in losses in a mutual fund transaction, that used city funds. "We also urge the governor to explain loss of Rp 52 billion in a hotel development project in Bali," he said.

The factions' sharp questions directed at the governor, however, might not significantly affect his accountability for the budget as the largest faction, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), glossed over the glaring irregularities.

PDI Perjuangan, which has 30 of the 85 seats in the council, did not mention the irregularities or the practice of corruption in the city administration. The faction only asked for explanations on general matters, such as the public order situation, sanitation, public services, health, housing, environment and narcotics.

Only two factions, the Indonesian Military (TNI)/National Police and the Golkar Party positively acknowledged Sutiyoso's speech although they also asked for an explanation on a few matters. TNI/National Police and Golkar factions have nine seats and eight seats respectively.

The council's 11 factions will express their final views on April 26 to decide whether they will reject or accept Sutiyoso's budget speech. Sutiyoso's term of office will end in October this year.

Irregularities in 2001:

1. Sale of 10 hectares of land at Jakarta Fairground in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.
2. Acquisition of a 10.3 hectare plot of land of former brothel Kramat Tunggak in North Jakarta worth Rp 83 billion.
3. Losses of Rp 18.1 billion in funds in a mutual fund transaction.
4. Losses of Rp 52.152 billion related to a hotel development project in Bali.
5. Rp 179 billion in losses in several city agencies.

[Sources: General views of some City Council's factions]

Regional/communal conflicts

Almost 50 injured in Ambon as bomb explodes

Agence France Presse - April 3, 2002

Almost 50 people were injured in the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon in the worst outbreak of violence since a Muslim-Christian peace agreement in February.

Trouble began with a bombing in the city, which prompted angry crowds from both faiths to gather at the governor's office. The office was set ablaze, stones were thrown and police and troops fired warning shots to disperse the crowd. Security forces contained the two groups in separate areas as firefighters tackled the blaze. It was not clear which side started the fire.

At least 37 people were rushed to the general hospital in Ambon, a doctor who identified herself as Conny said. She could not give details of their condition. Nine others were admitted to a private hospital and four of them were seriously hurt, a nurse told AFP. She could not say whether they were injured in the blast or in efforts to disperse the crowd.

The explosion was initially said to be a car bomb. But some witnesses said a bomb was thrown from a speeding van near the governor's office.

C.J. Bohm, a Catholic priest at the Crisis Center Diocese of Ambon, said he suspected that the mob who set fire to the governor's office were Christians. "I think it is quite visible because it is a Christian area," he said. He described the explosion as powerful but said he had not received information on casualties.

The city and the rest of the Maluku islands had been relatively peaceful since Muslim and Christian representatives reached a government-sponsored peace accord in February to end three years of sectarian fighting. The violence left more than 5,000 people killed and more than half a million homeless.

Police detain five after deadly Ambon blast: reports

Agence France Prese - April 5, 2002

Jakarta -- Five people have been detained following a powerful blast this week that killed four people and wounded dozens of others in Indonesia's eastern city of Ambon, reports said Friday.

"We have detained five residents for questioning," Maluku police chief Brigadier General Sunarko Danu Ardianto said, according to Media Indonesia daily. Sunarko said early investigations pointed to three people not in custody as possible masterminds of the bombing on Wednesday. Officers at Maluku police headquarters in Ambon refused to confirm any arrests.

The blast killed four people and wounded 58. An angry mob set fire to the governor's office following the explosion.

A government-brokered peace pact signed in February by Muslim and Christian delegates ended three years of sectarian clashes in Ambon and the rest of the Malukus in which some 5,000 people were killed and half a million driven from their homes.

But some parties oppose the pact, saying the delegates were not representative of society. Among the opponents are the militant Muslim Laskar Jihad and a Christian separatist group.

A local reporter said several explosions and sounds of gunfire were heard on Thursday night in Ambon, the capital of Maluku province, but there were no reports of casualties.

Muslims and Christians had begun mingling freely in Ambon following the February 12 agreement, which Jakarta hailed as another landmark in efforts to end sectarian and communal unrest in the huge archipelago. A similar pact in December ended Muslim-Christian fighting in the Poso region of Sulawesi.

Ambon and the rest of the Maluku islands had been relatively peaceful since the peace pact in February. More than 80 percent of Indonesia's 214 million people are Muslims but in some eastern regions, including the Malukus, Christians make up about half the population.

Police claim one third of villages in Aceh are rebel bases

Jakarta Post - April 8, 2002

Jakarta -- One third of villages in the restive province of Aceh are used as bases for Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist rebels, a report said.

Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Dadek Achmad said 32 percent of villages in the oil-and-gas-rich province were influenced by GAM separatists, AFP reported.

Previous military commanders in Aceh have in the past estimated that up to 80 percent of Aceh was under the control of the rebels, who have been waging a guerrilla war since the mid-1970s in an attempt to forge an independent Islamic state.

"Military and police forces will continue to cultivate and develop those villages so that GAM becomes truly isolated from the Acehnese people," Achmad said in a statement quoted by thenews agency.

"It is hoped that security forces stationed in the sub-districts align themselves and their units with the people, while always maintaining and conducting good public relations," he said.

Thousands of people, mainly civilians, have died in the quarter century of guerrilla fighting between GAM and Indonesian forces.

Soldiers and police are accused by human rights groups of extra- judicial killings, torture, kidnappings and rape during operations against the rebels. The rights groups also accuse GAM of such abuses.

Achmad said the military and police must always "keep the door open" to any GAM rebels who wish to surrender and "rejoin the united state of the Republic of Indonesia".

In the latest episode of separatist-related violence, soldiers killed two suspected rebels on Saturday, military spokesman Major Zaenal Muttaqin announced.

Militant group threatens Indonesian peace

Christian Science Monitor - April 4, 2002

Simon Montlake, Kebon Cengkih -- The Dutch sailors who arrived here 500 years ago to barter for spices have long-since abandoned Kebon Cengkih, a village named for the clove trees that still line its lush slopes.

Today, this tidy hamlet tucked into the hills above Ambon, the hub of Maluku province, is home to a new breed of invaders: Laskar Jihad, armed Muslim militants from Java. Their arrival two years ago to defend Muslims battling Christians here added fuel to a bloody interfaith conflict that has claimed more than 5,000 lives since January 1999.

A fragile peace had descended here after an accord was signed February 12. But it was shattered yesterday by a bomb blast outside a Christian hotel in Ambon that killed four people and injured 43. An angry mob of Christians responded by torching the governor's office, underscoring the simmering tensions here.

No one claimed responsibility for the blast, but analysts and diplomats point to the Muslim paramilitary group Laskar Jihad, which has promised to disrupt the peace process. "Laskar Jihad's self-justification for its presence in Ambon depends on continuation of the conflict," said a recent report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

The peace accord called for "outsiders that bring chaos" to leave the region, though even moderate Muslims signatories are reluctant to see Laskar Jihad go, saying they don't feel secure. "A guarantee of security for our community is very important, and Laskar Jihad is one force that can make us safe," says Nasir Rahawarin, a Muslim leader in Ambon.

The explosion comes days after Gov. Saleh Latuconsina said he would extend by one month a March 31 deadline for disarming civilians, and amid fears of resistance by Laskar Jihad, whose well-trained troops number between 500 and 800 men.

"As long as [the government doesn't] deal with the hard-liners, it's going to be very difficult to move forward," says a Western diplomat in Jakarta. "That's been the problem from Day 1."

But just as the spice-hungry Dutch proved hard to oust from these islands, Laskar Jihad is refusing to leave its stronghold in Kebon Cengkih, a virtual no-go area for security forces.

No weapons -- apart from the rifle held by Osama bin Laden in lurid posters plastered on a bamboo checkpoint -- were on display in Laskar Jihad's compound, a neat row of one-story houses behind a large mosque.

In contrast to the casual attire of local Muslims, the young men in the compound wore knee-length tunics and white prayer hats above Javanese faces. All visitors are required to register and surrender identity cards; a sign on a door warned that anyone who left it open must immediately do 10 push-ups.

In a subsequent interview in Jakarta, Laskar Jihad leader Jaffar Umar Thalib, a 40-year-old Afghan war veteran, denounces the peace deal as a betrayal of Muslims and insists that Laskar Jihad won't abandon its "humanitarian" mission (it runs a clinic and school in Kebon Cengkih).

Analysts say how Indonesia deals with the challenges presented by Laskar Jihad and other militants will be a crucial test for its newly won democracy. It also poses a problem for mainstream Muslims who have dithered over how to counter extremist views, particularly after September 11. "To reject Jaffar or denounce his policies risks alienating people," says John Brownlee of the Asian Foundation, a US nonprofit. "Politicians are afraid it will cost political capital to speak out against extremists."

Despite his bloody record, Mr. Thalib has plenty of influential friends in Jakarta. He speaks regularly at seminars, including a recent talk on "Islam and the West" that included US Ambassador Ralph Boyce. Last month, he dined privately with Vice President Hamzah Haz, who heads the country's largest Muslim party.

Thalib also dined with Abu Bakar Bashir, who Singapore and Malaysia say is the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional terror group with links to Al Qaeda. Indonesian authorities have questioned Mr. Bashir, who denies the any links to terrorism.

Some US officials have aired concerns that Al Qaeda could be aiding Laskar Jihad and other Indonesian groups. Diplomats in Jakarta point out that Laskar Jihad has a domestic agenda that only targets Christians in conflict areas. "Laskar Jihad is not the same as Al Qaeda. They have different goals," says another Western diplomat.

Those goals include introducing Muslim sharia law in Indonesia, a multi-faith nation in which Muslims represent around 85 percent of the population of 210 million. Sharia has already been tried in Ambon: a 27-year-old follower of Laskar Jihad was stoned to death last year after confessing to adultery.

Thalib denies having links with Al Qaeda, although he met Mr. bin Laden in Pakistan in 1987. Thalib says that bin Laden sent an emissary to Ambon last year to offer support to Laskar Jihad, but was sent packing. "He offered to cooperate with us, but we refused and told him to leave," Thalib says.

Analysts say this is plausible, given the group's choice of targets and its nationalist rhetoric against Christians in Maluku, whom it accuses of wanting their own homeland, just as Catholic East Timor broke away from Indonesia in 1999.

This puts Laskar Jihad squarely on the side of Indonesia's secular Army, which has often used proxy militias to wage war. Some diplomats say that disgruntled generals helped fund and train Laskar Jihad as a destabilizing tool after the fall of the military-backed Suharto regime in 1998.

Peacemakers in Maluku have long blamed outsiders for stirring up local tensions. With Laskar Jihad hunkered down in its hillside redoubt, and Ambon still plagued by terror attacks, the peace deal is looking increasingly fragile.

Local & community issues

Fishermen to storm Jakarta, fishing for tax cuts

Jakarta Post - April 4, 2002

Agus Maryono, Pekalongan -- In a move to step up pressure on the government to revoke newly decreed fishing taxes, thousands of fishermen from Central Java have planned to storm the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries office in Jakarta on April 10.

The massive march was scheduled for last month, but was postponed until this month as most of the fishermen were still at sea. They have staged a number of demonstrations in their local areas, including Tegal and Pekalongan, but their demands were ignored by the local authorities.

They have been protesting the two new taxes, namely the fishing vessel tax (PPP) and the fishing income tax (PHP) which went into effect last November. The new taxes were introduced under a decree issued by the ministry, which are in addition to the 5 percent levy on sales that fishermen are obliged to pay.

Under the new decree, fishermen must pay the PHP tax which amounts to 2.5 percent of their fishing income every time they return to port. Meanwhile, the PPP tax is collected every year and is calculated by the weight of a fishing vessel. For example, a 30-ton boat is charged a Rp 3 million tax.

The protesters are scheduled to leave on April 9 for Jakarta and begin their march one day later, their leaders said on Monday. The demonstration will involve those from the regencies of Tegal, Pekalongan, Cilacap, Brebes, Pemalang, Batang, Pati, Jepara and Juwana.

Basari Hambali, head of Pekalongan's Indonesian Fishermen's Association (HNSI), said his office had prepared at least 11 buses to take the protesters to Jakarta. As of Monday, at least 200 of a total of 700 fishing boats had docked in the Pekalongan port and will not return to sea until they arrive home from their protests in Jakarta. However, they were waiting for approval by the HNSI central board to depart for Jakarta. The board was reported to be holding talks with Minister Rokhmin Dahuri.

In their planned protest, the fishermen plan to demand that the government at least reduce the PHP tax to 1 percent of their fishing income, and to allow them to pay the PPP tax in installments, if their demand for the total revocation of the new decree goes unheeded. "If the demand for the reduction of the PHP tax to 1 percent is rejected, we will continue demonstrations," Basari said.

Protesting fishermen last month vowed to meet with President Megawati Soekarnoputri to demand her intervention in revoking the two separate fishing taxes. It was not clear whether they will go ahead with the plan for talks with Megawati during the Apr. 10 demonstration.

Tougher to manage Indonesia's ethnic fault-lines

Straits Times - April 3, 2002

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta -- One would expect applause for last week's announcement that Indonesia is planning to build a bridge linking Java with Bali, putting an end to the two-hour ferry crossing. Not so in Bali.

While Java, which supplies nearly all the island's food and manufactured goods, might welcome the chance for easier trade, the Balinese from politicians to com- munity and environmental groups are outraged. Balinese papers are full of headlines equating the building of the bridge with suicide for Bali and the death of its unique culture.

But how will such a sensible piece of infrastructure bring destruction for Bali? With the bridge, Bali fears, will come an invasion by the Javanese migrant. Record numbers of mostly Javanese migrants have already flocked to the tourist paradise in search of work. Unlike the rest of Indonesia, Bali has escaped the worst effects of the Asian economic crisis.

But opposition to the Javanese migrant is widespread. During the Suharto era, local governments and communities had no option but to accept the thousands of migrants being sent from Java to Kalimantan, Aceh, Sumatra, Sulawesi, West Papua to reduce overcrowding on Java.

But as regional autonomy laws kick in, giving regional and local governments more power, provinces are closing the gates on migrants. Regional governments from Sumatra to Sulawesi are displaying a growing regional and ethnic chauvinism, saying they will give priority to employing natives of their provinces.

Batam's city government demands a deposit from Indonesian visitors to deter penniless Javanese or Sumatrans arriving on the island in search of work. The moves are part of a growing assertion of regional cultures and the rights of regional governments to set their own policies after 32 years of the Javanisation of Indonesia, during which Javanese culture dominated government procedures and Javanese people were given the plum positions.

The anti-migrant sentiments illustrate that beneath Indonesia's much vaunted unity in cultural diversity lies major fault-lines that are becoming harder to manage. If Jakarta is really sincere about defending a unified Indonesia, then it will have to work with provincial leaders to curb the growing ethnic and regional intolerance.

Human rights/law

Witness says she was forced to lie about Tommy

Straits Times - April 4, 2002

Jakarta -- A key witness in the Tommy Suharto murder-and-firearms trial said police beat her up and threatened her family to force her to implicate the suspect.

In a blow to the prosecution's case, Hetty Siti Hartika denied yesterday that guns allegedly found in an apartment complex which she managed belonged to Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra. The youngest son of former president Suharto could face the death penalty if convicted of ordering the murder of a judge or of possessing firearms.

"They kept telling me that my family would be eliminated," she said, adding she was kicked, hit and that one police officer had threatened to shoot her. Hetty, 39, denied she had stored the firearms on orders from Tommy. She is now serving a four-year jail term for storing and possessing the weapons.

But a second witness, Sainah, who was Hetty's maid at the apartment, told the court she and Hetty had moved three bags from an apartment staircase to a room frequented by Tommy. The case has been adjourned to April 10.

Wiranto claims role of peacemaker

The Age - April 5, 2002

Ian Timberlake -- Former Indonesian armed forces commander General Wiranto testified yesterday that he took numerous steps to bring peace to East Timor in 1999 even though security was a police responsibility in the lead-up to the referendum on independence.

Mr Wiranto testified not as an accused -- which human rights activists say he should be -- but as a witness in the trial of former East Timor police chief Brigadier-General Timbul Silaen.

Mr Silaen is charged with knowing, or consciously ignoring, information that clearly showed his subordinates -- including militiamen -- carried out gross human rights violations in the form of murder, and that he failed to take action to stop or restrain them.

At least 1000 people died in an orgy of killing, arson, looting and forced deportation at the time of the referendum.

Without mentioning Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor, Mr Wiranto said the territory had been afflicted with civil strife for 23 years -- strife he said he tried to control once Indonesia agreed with former colonial power Portugal and the UN to hold a referendum on independence or integration.

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid sacked Mr Wiranto as armed forces commander in early 2000 when a team from the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights recommended that Jakarta military officers be held responsible for the violence in East Timor.

But Mr Wiranto testified under oath that the violence was an internal East Timorese matter. "Long before, violence between pro and anti-integration sides had happened since the Portuguese period," he said. "We had to reconcile them because we had entered a different political process" after the May 5, 1999, agreement under which Indonesia agreed to hold the independence referendum.

He said the agreement stated clearly only the Indonesian police had responsibility for law and order during the ballot in which East Timorese overwhelmingly voted to separate from Indonesia.

As armed forces commander, Mr Wiranto said he took about 16 steps to ensure the referendum went well. These included urging pro and anti-integration sides to sign a peace agreement in April and a weapons surrender agreement in June, he said.

More than 30 scruffy-looking followers of militiaman Eurico Guterres stood silently outside the courtroom with placards. Several men in military-style fatigues said they represented the sons and daughters of retired military and police officers also observed the proceedings.

The charges against Mr Silaen relate to massacres in April, 1999, at a church in Liquica, and at the Dili home of independence leader Manuel Carrascalao. Mr Silaen is also charged in connection with two brutal attacks in September that year, at the Dili home of Bishop Carlos Belo and a church in Suai where refugees had sought safety.

Also on trial for human rights violations are former East Timor governor Abilio Soares, four mid-level military officers and a policeman but the exercise has been dismissed by prominent human rights activists here as a show, partly because Mr Wiranto has not been charged even though he was the supreme military commander responsible at that time.

The Age recently reported that secret Australian Defence Signals Directorate intercepts revealed the involvement of other serving and former generals in the East Timor terror campaign but like Mr Wiranto, they are not among the 18 suspects to be tried.

Mr Wiranto's testimony came amid allegations that he is trying to recoup some of his lost power. "He was out of commission, out of action, and now he is rallying his troops," said H. S. Dillon, a member of the Indonesian human rights commission that investigated East Timor violence.

Mr Dillon said Mr Wiranto was behind the controversial appointment of Major-General Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin as the armed forces spokesman, and also behind the recent rejection by military officers of summonses to appear before a human rights commission panel.

Komnas HAM sluggish in responding to major cases

Jakarta Post - April 5, 2002

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta -- Efforts to break the circle of impunity in the country hit a snag on Thursday as the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) further delayed the announcement of its response to an inquiry of three high profile violent incidents in Jakarta a few years ago.

During a plenary meeting presided over by chairman Djoko Soegianto, the commission decided to postpone the hearing until April 22 to assess the results of the inquiry. "We need extra time to determine whether the report is substantial enough to prove that gross human rights violations took place in the 1998 and 1999 incidents," Komnas HAM secretary-general Asmara Nababan said.

The commission also decided to set up an internal team to follow up the inquiry should the upcoming meeting find that the inquiry's report is inconclusive or incomplete.

Asmara said the team would be mandated to exercise Komnas HAM's subpoena rights to resummon a number of military and police officers, including former Indonesia Military chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto, who has rejected the existence of the inquiry saying that both Komnas HAM and its inquiry team are unlawful.

The military and police institutions have affirmed that they will file an objection with the court should the commission enforce the subpoena, which obviously will delay the investigation.

Asmara said the commission members expected that the inquiry would succeed in providing evidence that the killing of dozens of people, including protesting students, could be categorized as a crime against humanity. "We have to make sure that the report's conclusion clearly shows that there were systematic and widespread policies taken by the government to harm the people and that there were attacks against the masses before bringing the case to the state investigators," he explained. The absence of inquiry team leader Albert Hasibuan, who is overseas, was another underlying cause of the delay, said Asmara.

The assessment of the report was initially scheduled to take place on Tuesday but was then aborted because Djoko was sick, although the regular meeting could still proceed since the floor had reached the quorum.

Amid the controversy raised by the military and police institutions over the tenure of the members of Komnas HAM which should have expired last September according to a 1999 law on the rights commission, the inquiry completed its report last month. It recommends that the Attorney General's Office name 50 security officers as suspects on charges of crimes against humanity.

The inquiry team found that "the killings took place with the full involvement of the security officers who used their power, as well as their weapons, in an excessive way for the sake of certain political interests".

Many human rights activists said they believed the delay would only pave the way for bargaining between related parties to stop the legal process of the alleged human rights abuses.

Amnesty raps 'appalling' abuses by Indonesian security forces

Agence France Presse - April 4, 2002

Amnesty International has condemned Indonesian security forces for "appalling" practices in Papua, Aceh and elsewhere and urged the United Nations Commission on Human Rights not to ignore the situation.

"Our message to the commission is that it cannot ignore the human rights situation in Indonesia any longer," Amnesty said in a statement obtained Thursday. "As the UN's highest body on human rights it must show consistency by acting now to condemn the appalling human rights practices of the security forces in Papua, Aceh and elsewhere in Indonesia."

The statement was quoting a speech by Lucia Withers, Indonesian researcher for the private international rights group, made in Geneva on Wednesday on the sidelines of a meeting of the UN body. The UN commission has called for rights offenders in East Timor in 1999 to be brought to trial. But Withers said that "just because neither the world's media or the UN is in Papua to witness the violations, does not mean that they are not happening."

She cited "grave human rights violations" in Papua, where a low- level armed revolt for independence has been waged for decades. A separatist revolt is also being waged in Aceh.

Withers said Jakarta had mounted five separate investigations into the murder last November of the leader of Papau's civilian independence movement, Theys Eluay, but no one had been charged. The military has admitted that its members may be responsible. "Amnesty International fears that this plethora of investigations is being used to obstruct the case from being brought to trial," she said.

Other Papuan political leaders had been put on trial, pro- independence demonstrations had been violently broken up and security forces had mounted "indiscriminate operations" against whole communities in retaliation for attacks.

Withers said the police mobile brigade Brimob, in what "appeared to be little short of a frenzy of revenge," was believed to have detained, tortured or otherwise ill-treated 150 people in Manokwari district in the second half of 2001, after five Brimob members were shot dead.

She said at least one person was known to have died in police custody. "The number that were unlawfully killed or 'disappeared' is as yet unknown."

Withers also said the UN commission should press Indonesia to ensure that its current human rights trials for offenders in East Timor are conducted fairly. "Amnesty International welcomes this process but is seriously concerned that these trials could fail because basic safeguards have not been put in place," she said.

Witness who wasn't there

Austraian Financial Review - April 5, 2022

Tim Dodd, Jakarta -- Some think he should be in the dock himself but yesterday former Indonesian armed forces commander Wiranto appeared at the East Timor atrocity trial in Jakarta as a witness rather than as one of the 18 accused of crimes against humanity.

Every bit as polished and confident as he used to be when he openly wielded power, Mr Wiranto gave evidence in the trial of East Timor's former police commander, Brigadier-General Timbul Silaen, before the Human Rights Court in Jakarta

General Silaen is accused of doing nothing to prevent a series of massacres of pro-independence supporters, particularly the notorious killings of scores of people in a church yard at Suai after the independence ballot on August 30, 1999.

For his part Mr Wiranto offered nothing new at yesterday's hearing, repeating his oft-told defence of the behaviour of Indonesian police and army units who were supposed to be keeping order in East Timor. "It was a mission impossible," Mr Wiranto said, insisting that the security forces could not stop a 23-year-old conflict in a matter of a month or two.

But what was not exhibited in the court room yesterday, and is unlikely to make any appearance at the trial of these 18 defendants, is the electronic intercepts collected by Australia's intelligence services in 1999 which clearly implicate Indonesian generals in the violence in the territory.

Extracts from these intercepts, revealed in The Sydney Morning Herald last month, show that top generals and political leaders were behind a deliberate campaign of destabilisation in East Timor. It was aimed, firstly, at securing a vote in favour of remaining with Indonesia, and later at discrediting the 79 per cent to 21 per cent decision in favour of independence.

The then co-ordinating political minister in the Habibie government, former General Faisal Tanjung, and the former army intelligence chief, Major-General Zacky Anwar Makarim, were revealed as being closely involved. Neither of these big fish are on trial now nor are ever likely to be.

Interestingly, Mr Wiranto was not directly implicated by the published transcripts, which may point to him genuinely not being closely involved in the East Timor campaign of violence and destruction operation. Or possibly he was too shrewd to speak about it on phone lines like his colleagues.

So yesterday, instead of a trial of the real culprits, we were treated to another Wiranto performance. Immaculately dressed in a brown batik shirt and with a ready smile for the cameras he was, as usual, arrogant falling just short of insolent.

The "fair way" to see the security forces performance in East Timor was that they stopped the clashes growing into a civil war, Mr Wiranto said as he left the court.

Yogyakarta police sued for 'torture'

Jakarta Post - April 3, 2002

Yogyakarta -- The relatives of Aan Yulianto, a bystander during last week's brawl in Yogyakarta who died on Sunday after being questioned by the authorities, said on Tuesday they will sue the local police for allegedly torturing him.

"We want justice and the truth. An official investigation is the best way to uncover the cause of Aan's death," lawyer of the victim's relatives Yanuar Bagus Sasmito told The Jakarta Post.

Aan, 19, was one of five witnesses questioned by police over the brawl, in which police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) member Totok Sugiyarto was wounded after being stabbed with a knife by an unknown assailant. The police then sent Aan to Sardjito Hospital for surgery, where he died.

Doctors said that some of Aan's right and left ribs were broken and that his liver and lungs were badly damaged. "We have several witnesses who can vouch that Aan was tortured during the police interrogation," Yanuar said.

Aan's father Suroto came to the police headquarters on Monday to complain about his son's death.

Separately, local chief of detectives Sr. Comr. Toto Sunyoto said 10 policemen were being questioned over Aan's death.

The police are also facing a similar lawsuit by the relatives of Walmudi, alias Klowor, a resident of Tegalrejo -- who was shot dead by a Brimob member during the brawl.

Indonesian war crimes court a sham, says lawyer

Melbourne Age - March 30, 2002

Jill Jolliffe -- An Indonesian human rights lawyer has criticised a special court appointed by President Megawati Sukarnoputri to hear war crime charges on East Timor, accusing it of running "show trials".

Eighteen suspects, including four generals, went on trial in Jakarta on March 20, after two years of international pressure. The charges relate to militia violence in 1999 during Indonesia's withdrawal from the territory.

Mr Hendardi, a former trial lawyer for nationalist hero Jose "Xanana" Gusmao, visited East Timor this week before leaving for Geneva to address the UN Human Rights Commission. He was invited to East Timor by NGO Forum, a council representing Timorese non- governmental organisations.

He said the Indonesian Attorney-General's office had dropped the name of former defence minister General Wiranto from a list of accused, as well as that of former intelligence chief General Zacky Anwar. Their prosecution had been recommended by Indonesia's human rights commission, which conducted investigations in East Timor in 1999.

"They have been given impunity because international pressure is weak," Mr Hendardi said. "Power in Indonesia is not in President Megawati's hands, it's still held by the military."

He said the drop in international pressure for vigorous prosecutions over East Timor was also related to the courting of the Megawati government by the US in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Mr Hendardi said the ad hoc tribunal did not meet international standards of independence and impartiality, and should be substituted by an international court.

The prosecution of defendants such as former Timor governor Abilio Soares and former police chief Timbul Silaen represented a bid to deflect attention from more senior figures, he said. "Soares and Timbul must be held responsible for their actions, but Wiranto was the real power behind the 1999 killings."

Mobs signal return of political thuggery

Jakarta Post - April 1, 2002

Ahmad Junaidi and Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta -- Actions speak louder than words, but sadly some equate this as wanton violence and are proud of it even if their actions are nothing more than thuggery.

Recent events show that political thuggery may be back in fashion after a mob ransacked the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) office and a group calling themselves the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR) attacked helpless residents protesting injustice.

But FBR Chairman Ahmad Fadloli El Muhir on Saturday was unrepentant, promising further reprisals against the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), particularly chairwoman Wardah Hafidz, if she keeps up her activism. "Legal action takes time," he charged at FBR's headquarters on Jl. Raya Penggilingan, East Jakarta. "We would favor beating up Wardah if she continues slandering us," said Fadloli.

Surprising words from a former legislative candidate. Fadloli also happens to be the Jakarta chapter chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) which currently has no seat at the City Council.

Coercion is not a new phenomenon in the political scene, but it is extremely worrying when police seem to do little about it.

Sociologist Imam B. Prasodjo warned that such violent acts could be imitated by others if police fail to take firm action. "I hope the police seriously investigate the incidents in Kontras and the Komnas HAM to avoid such an incident being repeated," he told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

An FBR mob injured 47 people, including a four-year-old boy, when they attacked on Thursday a group of residents protesting the violation of a court ruling on their forced eviction to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). The protest was organized by UPC.

Another notable mob attack occurred on March 13 when an unidentified group ransacked the Kontras office in Central Jakarta. One man was severely injured in the incident.

Imam accused police of neglecting security because the target of such attacks were often activists who in the past organized rallies against authorities. Instead, they tend to pay attention to hyped issues such as the trials of Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung and Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra. "People have begun to think that such violent behavior is common. That's why they don't respond critically to such an incident," Imam said.

Wardah, who on Thursday was threatened by FBR members with a machete to her throat, claimed the attack was an effort of certain elements in the military to impress on the public that a civilian government would fail to create peaceful conditions.

"They [the military] have tried to provoke the urban poor. Thursday's accident was just an example," she said. "The FBR members and the UPC are the poor people and both have been provoked in a clash. If they continue with such an approach, it could spark new conflict."

Wardah also called on all gubernatorial candidates to stop exploiting the poor ahead of the election. "They must employ a fair play approach to win the people's support. They should no longer mobilize the poor to hold actions which could disturb security in the capital," said the 2000 Yap Thiam Hien award recipient.

Wardah had accused FBR members of receiving money from Governor Sutiyoso -- who was Jakarta Military Commander during the infamous July 27, 1996, bloody attack on PDI headquarters -- following a clash between FBR members and the UPC in a rally in front of City Hall on March 13.

Fadloli became furious and threatened to beat up Wardah. He acted on his threat last Thursday. Jakarta Police have arrested seven FBR members in connection with the attack.

Detective chief Sr. Comr. Bambang Hendarso Danuri said they would summon Fadloli for questioning soon. He could not confirm whether the police would name Fadloli as a suspect and arrest him due to the incident. "It will all depend on the result of our questioning of him (Fadloli) and the seven arrested FBR members," he said.

Fadloli has repeatedly denied that his organization was funded by Sutiyoso but admitted to support the governor claiming that he has done much for the Betawi people during his tenure which ends in October. "We would not support a governor from the Betawi people if he or she could not improve the people's welfare," said Fadloli, who has run an orphanage for 60 children since 1990 at his headquarters. Sutiyoso also denied financing FBR but was pleased by the group's support.

Founded on July 29, 2000, the FBR was established to help Betawi youths find jobs. The organization, which claims to have no political interests, now has 7,000 members -- mostly blue collar workers, ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers and the unemployed.

Seven arrested after attack on Indonesian rights protestors

Agence France Presse - March 30, 2002

Police in the Indonesian capital have arrested seven people after men wielding machetes and sticks attacked rights protestors, wounding at least 15, reports said.

Nine people were questioned on Friday for their involvement in the attack on Thursday but two of them were released, Jakarta police detective chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said in the Jakarta Post.

Fifteen people were injured when scores of black-uniformed men, some armed with sticks and machetes, attacked a group of about 100 Jakartans campaigning for the poor.

The men, from a group calling itself the Native Jakartans Brotherhood Forum, attacked rights protestors organized by the Urban Poor Consortium after they met officials of the National Commission on Human Rights.

Television pictures aired Friday showed women and children weeping in fear as the men smashed a truck and equipment belonging to the consortium. Fifteen people from the consortium were taken to hospital but were released the same day.

The consortium has claimed a recent court verdict in favor of its lawsuit against the Jakarta administration, the city police and military over a crackdown on pedicabs and demolition of shanty towns has been ignored.

The pedicabs are banned in most parts of the capital but the court ruled that their seizure by city authorities is illegal and that eviction of the poor from state-owned land is inhumane. But the consortium said pedicab raids and eviction had continued despite the verdict.

Human rights officials are frequently in the firing line in Indonesia and Thursday's attack was the second on a rights groups in a month. Earlier this month scores of unidentified attackers ransacked the office of The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).

Focus on Jakarta

HIV/AIDS haunt Jakarta prisons

Jakarta Post - April 5, 2002

Ahmad Junaidi, Jakarta -- Defendants from high profile cases like former president Soeharto's son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra and ex-Bulog chief Rahardi Ramelan, who are currently being detained in prison, have reason to worry, as a senior health official revealed on Thursday that HIV/AIDS is spreading in the city's penitentiaries.

"Yes, HIV/AIDS is found in local penitentiaries," City Health Agency chief A. Cholik Masulili told reporters in a ceremony in North Jakarta. He said penitentiaries were "high risk" places for Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome as many prisoners jailed for drug-related crimes were vulnerable to infection. "Besides the presence of drugs, many of the prisoners conduct 'strange behavior,'" Masulili said, referring to the widespread practice of unsafe sex.

According to health officials, 22 percent of 200 prisoners who took HIV/AIDS tests at Salemba Penitentiary in Central Jakarta tested positive. The penitentiary's chief, Bambang Kusbanu, claimed the health service could not be improved due to limited funds.

He said that the penitentiary received Rp 1.5 billion a year for health services for a total of 2,106 inmates. "So, a prisoner is allocated only Rp 700 a year or Rp 60 a month for their health," Bambang was quoted by Media Indonesia daily on Wednesday. He claimed that his officers, who regularly checked the cells, never found drugs or syringes.

Jakarta has three penitentiaries: Salemba, Cipinang and Pondok Bambu women's penitentiary in East Jakarta. On March 22, a guard at Cipinang Penitentiary was caught dealing drugs with an inmate in the high-security-prison. It was reported that drug deals in the prison amounted to Rp 20 million (US$2,000) last year.

Noted writer Arswendo Atmowiloto who was once jailed, wrote in his book Menghitung Hari/Kehidupan di Lembaga Pemasyarakatan (Counting The Days/A Life in Penitentiaries) in 1993, describes the widespread practice of unsafe sex between prisoners.

Hundreds of buildings occupy green zones

Jakarta Post - April 5, 2002

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta -- Part of the green zones in Jakarta's five municipalities are occupied by over 350 buildings owned by private enterprises, state-owned companies, the city police, street vendors and various youth organizations.

Those buildings include fuel stations, private offices, state- owned companies, youth organization posts, police posts, power relay stations, shops and kiosks. They are located on city parks, median strips and greenbelts, which should function as the city's lungs and catchment areas.

Data from the Jakarta Park Agency shows that there are 32 fuel stations all over the capital, occupying some five hectares of the city parks or greenbelts. "Previously there were 36 fuel stations on a total of 5.32 hectares of land; we have successfully restored the four locations to their original function. The 32 others are still there," said an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The source said that the fuel stations occupied the areas legally as the owners of the stations had received permits from the city administration. "The Jakarta Park Agency knows nothing about the permits," he said.

Some of the gasoline stations, including the one on Jl. Jend. Sudirman, near Semanggi bridge in Central Jakarta, are owned by the husband of President Megawati, Taufik Kiemas. Some others reportedly belong to the Humpuss Group, the money machine of former president Soeharto's son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra.

City administration spokesman Muhayat claimed that many permits to build the gasoline stations were given during the administration of former governor Ali Sadikin in the middle of the 1970s. He said that the permit extensions were given by a team whose members come from various city agencies, including the Jakarta Park Agency.

Muhayat added that the land is owned by the city administration and is rented to the businessmen for the period of 30 years on average. But he did not disclose the value of the contracts and when they would expire. According to the data at the park agency, there are also 55 police posts that are located on green median strips and other green zones.

East Jakarta has seen the worst green zone occupation cases where 99 buildings have been constructed there, followed by West Jakarta (81), South Jakarta (57), North Jakarta (46). The exact figure for Central Jakarta is unavailable, but a source at the park agency said there were about 50 buildings on green zones in the municipality.

The city has 208.6 hectares of parks, 557.8 hectares of green median strips, and 1,295.5 hectares of green areas or city forests. Based on the Jakarta Master Plan for 2000-2010, the city has targeted green zones to cover up to 13.94 percent of the total Jakarta area (63,744 hectares). Currently, the green zone covers some 9 percent of the total city area.

Fuel stations on the green zones

Central Jakarta: Jl. Suprapto (2,550 m2), Jl. Sudirman west side (2,244 m2), Jl. Gereja Theresia (1,655 m2), Jl. Diponegoro (941 m2), Jl. HOS Cokroaminoto (2,500 m2), Jl. Tanah Abang Timur (786 m2), Jl. Dr. Wahidin I (730 m2), Jl. Sumenep (1,530 m2), Jl. Kwitang Raya (1,050 m2), Jl. Kwitang Raya (730 m2).

North Jakarta: Jl. Cilincing Raya (2,200 m2), Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan (1,200 m2), Jl. Enin/Tongkol (1,000 m2), Jl. Yos Sudarso (3,300 m3).

West Jakarta: Jl. Hayam Wuruk west side (888 m2), Jl. Hayam Wuruk east side (1,125 m2), Jl. Daan Mogot (1,100 m2), Jl. Tanjung Duren (1,660 m2), Jl. Kyai Tapa (1,200 m2).

Sourth Jakarta: Jl. Sudirman east side (2,617 m2), Jl. Suryo/Senopati (589 m2), Jl. Pakubuwono VI (3,600 m2), Jl. Taman Matraman (1,860 m2), Jl. Lapangan Roos Tebet (1,170 m2), Jl. Wijaya I (690 m2), Jl. Pakubuwono (2,220 m2), Jl. Melawai Raya (872 m2), Jl. Mataram I (1,285 m2), Jl. Tebet Timur Raya (2,500 m2).

East Jakarta: Jl. A. Yani (1,450 m2), Jl. A. Yani (1,443 m2), Jl. Inspeksi Kalimalang (1,200 m2).

The trucks, the fuel, the boys and the criminal gangs

Jakarta Post - April 1, 2002

Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta -- A truck carrying a load of diesel fuel was trapped in traffic on Jl. Yos Sudarso in North Jakarta, when a teenager with a plastic bag in his hand crept toward it and slowly opened the fuel tap.

In his side mirror, Sujono, the driver, could see the teenager stealing fuel from the tank, but he just ignored it. After filling the plastic bag with some two liters of diesel fuel, the teenager went to a nearby shack where he unloaded the fuel into a 400-liter drum. He then returned to the street to find another fuel truck.

The teenager is Dudi, 17, who earns a living as a tiris -- somebody who steals diesel fuel or gasoline from trucks caught in traffic. But Dudi, who has been doing the "job" for about a year, denied that what he did could be called stealing.

"I wasn't stealing; the driver didn't even complain," he told The Jakarta Post. "I just ask them for a liter or two of their leftover diesel fuel, and in my case I only ask for charity," he said.

Dudi and four friends try and fill a 400-liter fuel drum every day. They sell the collected fuel to a broker located at the Plumpang Raya intersection on Jl. Yos Sudarso.

The intersection is daily crowded with passing fuel trucks, heading to and leaving the Plumpang fuel depot, which serves as Jakarta's fuel distribution center.

Dudi, who works from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. along the dusty, hot street, receives Rp 8,000 (about 80 US cents) per day. One liter of diesel fuel costs Rp 1,150.

When asked about the stealing of fuel, the driver Sujono could only sigh and say that it happened every day along Jl. Yos Sudarso. "They do not only take the leftover fuel, but also the supply for gas stations. The stealing has been rampant since 1998. If we refuse to give them fuel, they call their friends over to vandalize the truck. It's not worth fighting for the [small] amount that they steal," he said.

Sujono added that the fuel broker who employed Dudi and his friends was an organized group of local hoodlums. The hoodlums threatened the Post when asked about their business.

The police prefer to turn a blind eye to the situation, as is the case with many other rackets run by hoodlums across the city. Some 200 personnel from the North Jakarta Public Order Office were deployed last week to raid the tiris. During the operation, led by the deputy head of the office, Esmar Marbun, the city employees were confronted by some 20 hoodlums demanding the release of the tiris. The Public Order officers released three of the 12 tiris they had arrested in order to avoid any violence.

Although the activities of the tiris fall under the category of theft, the remaining nine tiris, including Dudi, were sent by the public order officers to a rehabilitation center in Cipayung, East Jakarta, instead of to the police.

Streets gangs tap fuel tankers getting stuck in traffic

Agence France Presse - April 1, 2002

Jakarta -- Street gangs in the Indonesian capital Jakarta are stealing fuel from tanker trucks which become stuck in heavy traffic, a newspaper reported Monday.

The Jakarta Post carried a photograph of a teenager opening the fuel tap of one tanker and pouring off some two litres of diesel fuel into a plastic bag. It said he and four friends try to fill a 400-litre (104 gallon) drum every day with stolen fuel.

The teenager told the Post he earns about 8,000 rupiah (80 cents) a day by stealing fuel from tankers leaving the city's main fuel distribution centre.

The Post said the thefts are organised by a gang of hoodlums and drivers turn a blind eye to the practice for fear of having their vehicles vandalised.

Youths eke out a living in ingenious ways in the poverty-stricken capital. Some busk at traffic lights for tips from motorists. Others hire themselves as car passengers along a main highway, where authorities have decreed a minimum of three people per private car in peak hours to avoid congestion.

With traffic police a relative rarity, other youths direct vehicles in return for tips.

Religion/Islam

School probe over alleged deviant Islamic teachings

Agence France Presse - April 2, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesia's highest Islamic authority is investigating reports that a boarding school is teaching a deviant version of the religion and is linked to a shadowy group campaigning for an Islamic state, an official said Tuesday.

"There have been reports that the school's teachings are against the Islamic code," said Umar Shihab, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulema (scholars). Shihab said Islamic scholars from the council and the ministry of religious affairs had set up a joint team to investigate the claims.

Shihab said the council had received complaints from students and parents that Al-Zaitun Islamic school in the Indramayu district of West Java province had transgressed in its teachings of Islam.

There have also been allegations the group is an arm of an underground militant organization calling itself the Islamic State of Indonesia (NII), he said. "We will never tolerate the existence of the NII. If Al-Zaitun is proven to be a tool of the NII, we will call for its closure," he said. Al-Zaitun could not be reached for comment.

Indramayu police chief Eko Hadisutejo told AFP that police were also investigating the claims but declined to give further details.

Al-Zaitun is led by Panji Gumilang, also known as Abu Toto. Gumilang had in the past denied his school was engaged in militant activities.

Religious Affairs Minister Said Agiel Munawar said over the weekend he would not hesitate to close the school if it were found to have distorted Islamic teachings.

Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim-populated nation but Islam is not the state religion and most people practise a moderate form of the religion.

NII followers say they are the new generation of a group called Darul Islam, whose leader Sekarmaji Marijan Kartosuwiryo proclaimed the establishment of an "Indonesian Islamic State" in 1949.

Kartosuwiroyo was executed by the government of then-president Sukarno in 1962 after several bloody rebellions on Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi. The NII says people who do not subscribe to its belief that Indonesia should be ruled by Islamic law are non- believers.

Indonesian Muslims step up protests against Israel

Agence France Presse - April 4, 2002

More than 1,000 Muslims rallied in the Indonesian capital Jakarta to protest against Israeli attacks on Palestinians.

Between 1,000 and 1,500 Muslims, many of them in white robes and shirts, marched down the main artery linking south and central Jakarta to protest against the Israeli aggression. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-populated nation with over 80 percent of its 214 million people following Islam, has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

The protestors marched from the Al Azhar mosque in South Jakarta where they had held a rally, organized by the little-known Anti Israeli-Zionist Movement (GAZA). It featured a series of speeches from GAZA activists and guests who lashed out at Israel and called for its eradication. "Israel is the Devil," "Halt the massacre in Palestina," "Ariel Sharon-George Bush are terrorists," and "Destroy Israel," said some of the posters carried by protestors.

Among them were some 200 members of the Front for the Defenders of Islam (FPI), a militant Muslim group which has opened registration for volunteers to fight with the Palestinians.

Earlier Thursday they had protested at the US embassy and at the UN mission in Jakarta, demanding that the United Nations act firmly against Israel. Some of their leaders held a free speech forum in front of the closed gates of the mission while other protestors yelled anti-Israel slogans interspersed with cries of "Allah is great." There were no reported incidents of violence.

Popular Muslim cleric now a management guru

Straits Times - April 1, 2002

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- Major state-owned firms in Indonesia are sending their top executives to an Islamic training centre where they are taught to be better professionals -- through lessons in ethics and Quranic studies.

During a three-day programme at the Daarut Tauhiid Islamic boarding schools in Bandung, West Java, they are taught a brand of management developed by Muslim cleric Abdullah A. Gymnastiar.

Mr Gymnastiar, who mixes modern principles of business organisation and the teachings of Islam, calls his method Management by Conscience. Its focus is the development of emotional and spiritual strength to boost the professional life.

Modern principles alone cannot cultivate the sort of wholesome professionals needed in the business world, especially in the notoriously corrupt state firms, he holds. "The keys to success are honesty, which will gain people's trust, professionalism and innovativeness," he told a group of journalists here.

He said his methods were based on existing Islamic teachings but with a modern twist. "It just illuminates the Islamic teachings in an actual, innovative and creative teaching that is timely," he said. "A system with a good management, no matter how small its potential, will be blessed with optimal results." Singapore, for example, had limited natural resources but had become "much more prosperous than Indonesia because we manage poorly", he said.

Participants attend lectures and take part in discussions and outdoor activities, such as games, where they put what they have learnt into practice. About 40 state-owned, and a few private companies, send staff for the training.

They include telecommunication firm PT Telkom, the State Electricity Company, the State Train Company, toll road operator PT Jasa Marga and flagship carrier Garuda Indonesia. Participants also come from government offices such as the Central Bank, the Fiance Ministry, the Directorate General's Office of Taxation and the provincial administration office of West Java. The programme costs about 2.5 million rupiah (S$470) per person for a session for 30 people that covers accommodation, food, literature and uniforms.

Mr Jaka Suparna, an employee of the State Railway Company, said he felt he had changed since he took the training in January. "I am more devout now, and I feel passionate about work," he said.