East Timor

Bleak future for abandoned militia

South China Morning Post - May 11, 2002

Chris McCall in Noelbaki Camp, West Timor -- Among decrepit huts, a few hundred disgruntled and demoralised East Timorese militiamen are pondering a bleak future, a shadow of the terror they once were.

On May 20, their worst nightmare will become reality. East Timor will become an independent state, ruled by former foe Fretilin, the party that spearheaded resistance to Indonesian rule. For many residents in Noelbaki camp in West Timor, this may be the point of no return.

Abandoned by the elites that created them, many ex-militiamen do not know what they will do. They have been disarmed. They live under constant watch by the military. Now the Indonesian Government wants their camps closed.

After May 20, Jakarta will not treat them as "refugees" but as ordinary citizens. Food aid stopped several months ago and the camp residents all complain of hunger, although none appears to be starving.

Members of one family have packed their bags, and sit by their dismantled house with everything they own. They are waiting for transport to carry them across the border to their home in Baucau.

But for former Aitarak militiaman Ernesto Ramos, 25, going home is not an option. Back in his home town of Viqueque, "we are still terrorised by our pro-independence brethren", he said. "For example, we are hit."

He admits he has not been to Viqueque since fleeing East Timor on September 19, 1999. But others who returned later brought reports to West Timor, he said. There should be guarantees of safety for returning militiamen like him, Mr Ramos insisted.

Certainly, many people back in East Timor believe some militiamen should be tried for atrocities that they committed against people who opposed Indonesian occupation.

The Aitarak militia, for one, is blamed for much of the destruction of the East Timorese capital, Dili, in 1999, and for several massacres ahead of an overwhelming vote for independence that year.

The sightly built Mr Ramos does not say much about what he did in 1999, but insists there must be amnesty for militia members. If not, they will stay in Indonesia forever. They are ready to talk to Xanana Gusmao about amnesty, he added, but the East Timor president-elect has yet to visit the camp despite talk of reconciliation.

Most of the former militiamen's leaders also stay away these days. Some have good jobs with the Indonesian Government. Aitarak leader Eurico Guterres has not visited the camp for over a year. He came a few times when he was living in Kupang, but never since he moved to Jakarta. He should come, Mr Ramos says, "so we can know precisely what he says".

Even so, Mr Ramos said it was up to the new Government in Dili to ensure things did not go wrong in East Timor. For the Timorese, it was hard to forget a grudge. Feuds could rage on for seven generations, he added. "If it is bad, we will have a war again," he said.

The militiamen would go back and fight. "East Timorese against East Timorese. We are ready. Even if there are no weapons, we still will go back. We have our land of birth," he said. But there may not be a place for them any more.

Noelbaki, one of three large camps outside Kupang, is a sorry sight these days. Many of its makeshift houses have been pulled down. The militiamen's angry defiance that made foreigners fear to enter has turned to fear.

Indonesia, embarrassed by a continuing UN ban on travel to West Timor for most of its staff, wants the future of camp residents settled by year's end.

For one of the women living at Noelbaki, it is all too much. Fighting back tears, she asks what it was all for. "We have all suffered in this camp, for what? We don't know," Domingas Enrique said.

But one thing is certain, she says. She will not go back to East Timor. It would just be too unsafe, and probably too painful. One of her three children was born in this camp. Her life is now on this side of the border, like it or not. "My decision is that I am really, really Indonesian. I choose integration, even if I suffer in a camp," she said.

Vanilla worth a bean or two in East Timor

Australian Financial Review - May 11, 2002

Tim Dodd, Dili -- Commodity markets are doing no favours for East Timor, which becomes an independent nation next weekend, with prices for coffee, its most valued agricultural product, languishing in the doldrums.

However, the answer may be as simple as plain vanilla, a product which grows in the same cool, tropical highlands as coffee but can sell for 200 times as much.

While coffee prices are well below historic levels, the price of vanilla has shot up because of storms in 2000 and 2001 which destroyed the crop in Madagascar, the world's largest producer.

All this spells opportunity for the world's newest nation, and at a warehouse 10 kilometres west of Dili, workers are already processing the early crop from this year's vanilla harvest.

It is a pilot project run by Cafi Timor, a farmer's coffee co- operative formed with United States aid, and this year's tiny two-tonne crop is conservatively worth $US100,000. But there is a downside. If the intricate processing of the vanilla pods is not done carefully, the result is not worth a bean.

"It's a very delicate process and everything must be very clean," said Lucio Marcel Gomez, Cafi Timor's manager of business diversification.

For the work team it is a far cry from processing coffee beans, which are more forgiving of error. Processing vanilla is labour intensive, and so is growing it, which brings another economic benefit to job-scarce East Timor.

Unlike coffee, which grows wild in the mountainous interior, vanilla vines need watering, tilling and composting. For thousands of poverty-stricken coffee farmers, however, vanilla will not be a quick fix. For most of them the capital cost of switching crops is unaffordable.

Democratic ideals, nationalism emerge in Timor: Belo

Catholic News Service - May 10, 2002

New York (CNS) -- A "new consciousness of democratic ideals" and "assertive nationalism" is emerging in East Timor, said Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo of Dili, East Timor.

In a statement presented to a group of religious leaders in New York May 6 prior to the UN General Assembly's Special Session on Children May 8-10, Bishop Belo said the citizens of East Timor, which receives full independence May 20, are determined to run their country after some 400 years of colonial rule and occupation.

"Today, we are witnessing an emergence within our country's various subcultures [of] a new consciousness of democratic ideals and a new self-understanding expressed in a new form of assertive nationalism and a determined gaze toward the future, with a steadfast will to take up the life and destiny of our nation," said Bishop Belo, co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize.

The bishop said a recent report by global development organizations concluded that the East Timorese people are determined to control the country's vast natural resources with "modest help from the outside."

However, despite the hope and optimism from their upcoming independence, a harsh reality of East Timor is that most citizens are impoverished, with nearly 60 percent underfed, the bishop said. "The quality of life for most people is far, very far from what it should be," he said.

The two-day symposium addressed by Bishop Belo was sponsored by UNICEF and the New York-based World Conference on Religion and Peace.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, along with Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu representatives, also participated in the symposium.

Bishop Belo said East Timor is still recovering from the destruction that occurred after the 1999 UN-sponsored referendum in which the East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia. Armed militias, sponsored by the Indonesian military, destroyed most of the country's infrastructure and killed about 1,000 people.

The bishop also addressed what he described as the "feminization of poverty." He said East Timorese culture forces women into an often brutal, subordinate role.

"There are still women in remote villages who have to stay indoors after sundown. To me, this is a way of saying that because women cannot do much, she is poor -- yes, sometimes she is the poorest of the poor," he said.

Bishop Belo said the church's justice and peace commission, along with UNICEF and other non-governmental organizations, have been working at raising awareness on issues affecting women and children and at eradicating poverty.

"As a result, a relative awakening among our people is beginning to emerge, to lessen, if not bring to a close, long years of surrendering to fatalism and to passive acceptance of poverty, and to expose and bring to justice perpetrators of violence against women," he said.

The bishop called on religious leaders to initiate programs that promote the dignity of women and their role in society. "Let us not become stumbling blocks to the promotion of women and women's rights, but instead become signposts toward giving them their share of responsibility and participation in society and in religious circles," he said.

In a separate speech at the symposium May 7, Bishop Belo spoke of a 15-year-old girl he knows who does not attend school, comes from a poor family, yet is rarely seen without her cell phone.

"You wonder where she gets the money for the load on her cell phone? From the customers who patronize her. For her, the cell phone is her lifeline to economic means. It is how she sets up her appointments," he said. "She is one of the unfortunate young people of our land, and to my great pain, the number seems to be growing," the bishop said.

Bishop Belo provided other examples of children who yearn to become police officers in order to protect their country from "bad people," and of Muslim children who co-exist peacefully with their Christian neighbors. "Being a pastor of a very oppressed people was a very difficult task, but with the grace of God, we survived it all," he said.

Bishop Belo said a diocesan assembly in January placed the formation of children and families as the diocese's top priority. He said the church decided to focus on children in order to shield them from the pain of the past.

"My generation has suffered enough violence. We have so much work to do to heal our very violent past. I pray our children will be spared," he said.

He said that the East Timorese, who at independence will become the poorest country in Asia, possess a wealth of spirit often absent in the industrialized countries of the West.

"When almost everyone had a relative that was killed or did the killing, we held on to our faith that one day we will overcome all sufferings," he said.

"When there were many women in almost all our villages who are widows and victims of rape, and children orphaned, we held on to our faith that one day, the world will be safe and beautiful again," he said.

UN responsible for East Timor unrest: Damiri

Jakarta Post - May 10, 2002

Tiarma Siboro and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta -- An Indonesian Military (TNI) general said on Wednesday that the United Nations had a share of the blame in the violence and human rights violations before, during and after the UN-organized referendum in East Timor in August 1999.

Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, former chief of the Udayana Regional Military Command which then oversaw the Bali, East and West Nusa Tenggara and East Timor provinces, told a hearing at the Central Jakarta District Court that the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) was responsible for the unrest which erupted.

"The UN civilian police force was the only party responsible for and having the authority to maintain security and order in East Timor during the transitional period. But, none of its members were present when unrest broke out in the former Indonesian province," Adam told the human rights tribunal, presided over by Judge Emmy Marni Mustafa.

Testifying as a witness in the trial of former East Timor governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares, the two-star general cited the clash between the pro-integration and pro-independence camps in the East Timor capital of Dili on Aug. 25, 1999 during the final round of campaigning before the referendum.

"Members of the pro-integration camp was holding its campaign in the Becora area when they were attacked by the pro-independence camp. There were many fatalities in the clash, but no members of the UN civilian police were there to control the situation," he said.

Abilio, 54, is being tried for alleged human rights violations in East Timor before, during and after the 1999 referendum. He is charged with responsibility for violations by the civilian regents of Liquica and Covalima, Leonito Martins and Herman Sedyono respectively.

Adam, who is now assistant for operations to the TNI chief of general affairs, said that unrest in East Timor was also incited by alleged irregularities committed by UNAMET.

Speaking about the attack on the residence of Dili Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo after the referendum, he said it was reportedly triggered by the information that the ballot boxes were kept there, instead of at the UNAMET office.

Meanwhile, former Dili mayor Mathius Maia accused the prosecution of lacking fairness, saying that it had only prosecuted Indonesian civilian and military officials.

"It's unfair as the alleged rights abuse has os only been directed at Indonesian officials, while UNAMET was supposed to be responsible for the situation there during the transitional period," Maia told the prosecution.

UNAMET, so far, has yet to appear in the trial although the prosecutors have requested the UN body present witnesses.

Timorese exiles could mount revolt against Dili

Agence France Presse - May 7, 2002

East Timorese exiles in Indonesia could help lead a revolt in their former homeland if leaders of the newly-independent nation fail to bring prosperity, an exiles' leader said.

"People in the villages can't pay for their kids' schooling, can't pay for medicine," said Armindo Soares Mariano, acting head of Uni Timor Aswain (UNTAS).

"I hope Xanana can overcome this problem," Mariano told AFP, referring to East Timor's president-elect Xanana Gusmao, who will assume power when his country becomes independent on May 20. If he doesn't, I'm certain the people will revolt."

If that happens, East Timorese who remain across the border in Indonesian West Timor could help them, he said. "If they over there ask for help, they'll go," Mariano said, adding that any unrest could take three to five years to develop.

Pro-Indonesian political organisations and armed militias which were backed by the Indonesian military merged to form UNTAS after East Timorese voted overwhelmingly in August 1999 to separate from Indonesia.

Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 but pulled its last troops out in October 1999 after a campaign of violence, arson, looting and forced deportation that left the country in ruins and claimed at least 1,000 lives that year.

An estimated 250,000-270,000 people fled volunatarily or were forced across the border into West Timor. Tens of thousands of East Timorese, many of them with links to the former Indonesian government, remain in camps around Kupang and in other parts of West Timor.

But those numbers are increasingly depleting as refugees head home before independence, says the United Nations.

It says more than 6,000 refugees returned home in April, the highest number for more than two years. Since late 1999 nearly 205,000 refugees have gone back, the UN says.

Mariano, former head of the legislature in East Timor, disputes those figures and says many people cross the border claiming to be refugees but later return to West Timor.

UNTAS has "a moral duty" to serve and protect those who remain in Indonesia, he said.

His views appear at odds with those of West Timor government and military officials who have cut off aid to the refugees and are working with the UN to get the refugees out of their province, which is the poorest in Indonesia.

Mariano said UNTAS is looking for "direction" and has had internal problems. But he vowed the organisation will not disband and said it plans to hold a congress some time after East Timor's independence. "We are in the process of renovating UNTAS," said Mariano.

Describing himself as an expert adviser to the West Timor governor, Mariano said he has no plans to return to his former homeland, which he thinks would have had more opportunities as a part of its giant neighbour Indonesia. "If later the people aren't happy, don't blame us," said Mariano. "But if they want to make their own nation, go ahead."

Last month UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recommended that the United Nations keep a military force in East Timor for up to two years after independence. Anti-independence militias in West Timor remained a threat, he said.

Never forgotten, though maybe forgiven

Sydney Morning Herald - May 7 2002

East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission faces huge problems, not least a long local tradition of revenge, writes Hamish McDonald.

In this land where fierce mountain warriors have tended to keep up family feuds for generations, no-one knows better than Jovito Araujo the difficulty of quelling the yearning for revenge among the Timorese. Though he has been a Catholic priest and courageous fighter for human rights for nearly six years, Araujo admits he still feels the passions of a feud that has split his own family since his grandfather's time.

Now he has joined a special panel that has just been set up to expose and heal the mental pain and guilt of a quarter-century of atrocities involving Timorese as victims and perpetrators during the turbulent transition from colony to nation.

Araujo is deputy chairman of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation whose job over the next two years is to investigate human rights violations by all sides from the start of Portugal's decolonisation program in April 1974 until the departure of Indonesian occupation forces in October 1999.

The commission aims to set up a "truth-telling" process for victims and abusers to acknowledge what happened, to set up community reconciliation procedures for lesser crimes, to refer serious crimes for prosecution.

Some task. This is a period which saw various Timorese start a civil war, sell out compatriots in political deals, enlist as partisans with invading Indonesians, massacre prisoners, become spies and informers, and finally take part in a mass terrorism and scorched earth campaign.

It starts out this week by launching public hearings into the exile in the early 1980s of thousands of political suspects by Indonesian authorities on Atauro, a small and arid island that lies off Dili, where they suffered hunger and abuse.

The process is parallel to investigating and prosecuting human rights violations, an undertaking by the serious crimes unit in the General Prosecutor's Office, which has so far resulted in convictions and sentences ranging up to 33 years' jail for some of the Timorese involved in 1999 atrocities.

In part, the reconciliation effort is designed to encourage former rank-and-file members of pro-Indonesian militias to return from West Timor by enabling them to settle their moral debts with their home communities rather than face a lifetime of hostility.

It will not be easy. "Timorese are not a people who find it easy to forgive," Araujo said. "They keep everything a long, long time. Especially revenge. They will not forget something that hurt them. They will keep it going a very long time, generation to generation."

Araujo recounted how his grandfather reacted when a cousin took one of his wives. He demanded compensation. The cousin could or would not oblige, so his branch of the family was ostracised.

After the grandfather died, Araujo's father resumed some contact. Then an aunt had a dream that the grandfather came back on a white horse, and picked up Araujo's second brother, then 18 months old.

Three days later, the brother died, and relations lapsed again. "When my father knew he was dying, he called us and one of the other side, and said, 'I think we can solve this in a Christian way,"' Araujo said. "He said, 'Just pay for a Mass for me, and bring flowers to the grave', and pray and ask forgiveness from him. But even this they didn't do.

"We know each other, we know that we [are] cousins. We shake hands. We have relationship, but just ordinary, not close. We have no affection, no emotional links. Because when we see them, we remember our grandfather's message."

Although Araujo said he sometimes felt that Christianity had touched the Timorese only as deeply as the batter around a pisang goreng [fried banana] snack, he did note that over the Indonesian occupation formal church membership rose from about one-third to near total among the East Timorese.

From being an "instrument of colonisation" with heavy Portuguese character, the church became an institution that identified with the Timorese and fought for them.

"This background gives us hope," he said. "The Catholic Church will be a strong mechanism, a strong pillar, an institution that can help people to reconcile." The commission could only help, he said.

But the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa was not a good example. "It lets people exchange reconciliation with amnesty," Araujo said. "It means that you can live free, free from your guilty deeds, your sin, but this freedom cannot bring to life those who have been killed, or save that broken family that you caused. You cannot bring back everything. It needs forgiveness, but forgiveness not in this formalistic way. I forgive you because I want. I want to take this out of my heart. Not because Xanana [Gusmao, the president- elect] told me to forget, but because I recognise."

A month after Araujo was ordained a priest, he was serving in Dili's picturesque waterfront Motael church in December 1996 when Bishop Carlos Belo returned after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. There were clashes between crowds and Indonesian security men. A young man ran into the church seeking refuge after stabbing a government spy. Araujo hid him for several days and smuggled him out to a resistance group in the mountains around Dili.

Recently the young man returned. In 1999 he had been caught by the Indonesian militias, beaten so badly his skull was fractured, and almost thrown down a well. He still suffered headaches and dizzy spells, but when the same militia members had returned to Dili a few weeks back, he had gone out to the airport to receive them back.

"He is a crazy guy but how could he get this strong courage to welcome those who wanted to torture him, to kill him?" Araujo said. "I don't know; there is no reason to explain this. I don't understand. He just said to me, 'I think it's over."'

Hope in hard times Women's struggle for justice

Timor Link - May 9, 2002

[Ivete D'Oliveira began working with CIIR's Women's Advocacy Programme in August 2001. She talked to Catherine Scott about her work and about the experiences of East Timorese women in the transition to independence.]

With high male unemployment -- especially among former employees of the Indonesian civil service -- many men now depend on their wife's income. They do not necessarily respond well to this. "Take the Salvador family of one of the Dili suburbs for example," says D'Oliveira. "He lost his job in the administration. They are not at all well-off -- in fact the family of five live in one room, and have only a double bed between them. Mrs Salvador has been supporting the family since 1999 by working as a house-keeper. But it does them no good because when she brings home her wages, Mr Salvador takes the money and spends it on drinking and cock-fighting. There is often terrible violence and the children are really suffering."

It is not that women find it easier to get jobs, says D'Oliveira, but "they will try harder. Many women were employed as domestics by the Indonesian families that lived here. When they left, those jobs disappeared. The UNTAET [UN transitional] administration prefers to employ younger people, actually, women as well as men. So the older women are resorting to the informal sector -- baking food to sell, going to market, etc." Men would not do this because they see those activities as women"s work: 'They would feel demeaned to be associated with it -- in fact they would rather do nothing at all!"

So what do the men do with themselves? "That is the trouble. Their idleness feeds bitterness, and then some of them take it out on their wives. That's why the domestic violence rate has gone up so much in the last two years.

"And often the work is not easy on the women. Many are employed in the informal restaurants which have grown up around the UN presence. They are paid low wages, and are often abused by their bosses. Some have been lured into prostitution to make up the low wages, and this gives all the women the same reputation, regardless.

"Women who work with Chinese or Malay immigrants have a raw deal. They are often abused, but mostly keep silent about it, as working for these immigrants is also disapproved of by the Timorese community. They have no real job descriptions, so they are made to do all sorts of irregular tasks."

No profit

Women selling goods in the market get very low prices for their wares because only poor people shop there. "In Indonesian times, the cassava and banana sellers used to do quite well from the Indonesian clientele. Now they have gone, and the foreigners in the employ of UNTAET prefer to buy their food from the small grocery stores because they are more likely to be wrapped, and the environment is more familiar to them."

Some market vendors make no profit at all. "We sat down with one community and did some basic calculations with them on the price of inputs and the price recouped and they were only breaking even! They had not realised this at all. But they did not mind -- they said that at least it gave them something to do. So we worked with them and identified some ways in which they could make at least a tiny bit of profit."

International efforts

International agencies are trying to help women make a living. For example, the World Bank Community Empowerment Programme has started micro-finance projects to help them start small businesses. "Some of these have taken off," says D'Oliveira. "But other funders don't always succeed with our women because they lack basic skills, and are ill-equipped to write proposals and so on." She adds that some women started restaurants, but failed because they were unable to offer the variety and superior physical conditions provided by their competitors -- Australian business people. Many of them went bankrupt.

D'Oliveira too is working with women to help than earn an income. 'In Baucau, we have been giving small grants to women's organisations. One of them is repairing and rebuilding a hostel with the money so that they can open it for paying visitors. Another woman is starting a bakery. Another group has started a chicken farm. One group produces handicrafts, but needs some help in marketing their products, especially in Dili.

Many women have husbands in the West Timorese refugee camps, and are trying to help them by growing food for direct consumption or to sell. "The whole process has turned some of them into quite enterprising business women, because they bring back goods from West Timor and sell them in Dili sometimes for quite reasonable profits. Some of the husbands are militia leaders and are scared to come home. Their wives do not attract so much suspicion, and can in this particular activity, move around more easily."

Women's courage

"But that is typical of women's courage. In 1999, I was there when the militias ran amok. So many of the men fled to the mountains to save their own skins. It was the women who stayed to defend their children. Then [the men] came back and took it for granted that they were the ones who should stand for political office."

Despite the hard times for women, D'Oliveira believes there are grounds for hope: "The women's resolve is impressive. On the domestic violence front, there has been a lot of publicity about it, which is good. Even [Foreign Minister] Ramos Horta admitted it in his address to the UN Security Council. Both the church and the government have been taking positive steps to deal with the issue. [...] And Prime Minster Alkatiri made a speech during the anti-violence against women campaign [25 November-10 December 2001], promising to create a safe environment for women and children in the future.

"Now I know that these are promises, and that the situation is not good, but there is a commitment to work for change. That gives me a lot of encouragement to go on with CIIR"s work here.'

[This article first appeared in issue 55 of Timor Link, CIIR's quarterly bulletin of news, analysis and action in support of East Timor.]

Men in military uniform buried victims: Witness

Jakarta Post - May 7, 2002

Three witnesses told the Human Rights Tribunal on Tuesday that they saw a number of people in military uniform burying victims of a massacre in a mass grave in Metamauk village in Wemasa, Belu, East Nusa Tenggara, in 1999.

One of the three witnesses, former company commander of the East Nusa Tenggara's Mobile Brigade police first Insp. Sudarminto, said that 27 bodies were buried in the grave, including those of three Catholic priests, and were victims of the September 6, 1999 massacre at St. Ave Maria Church in Suai, Covalima regency, East Timor.

Sudarminto testified that the mass burial was done in the presence of former Suai military commander Lt. Col. Sugito -- one of the five defendants accused of committing gross human rights violations.

Sudarminto said that he went to the grave site after being informed by subordinates that a convoy of cars driven by military personnel was passing through their territory in Wemasa.

"I, along with my subordinates, arrived at the location a few minutes later. But suddenly an unidentified man in a military uniform approached and told me not to go any closer to the location. I only heard later that it was the burial for about 27 East Timorese killed after the massacre at the St. Ave Maria Church," Sudarminto said.

Tuesday's hearing was part of the ongoing trial of four mid-level military officers and one policeman accused of rights violations in the massacre, in which at least 27 people were killed, including Catholic priests Tarsisius Dewanto, Hilario Madeira and Francisco Soares.

Sugito and four other defendants -- former Covalima regent Col. Herman Sedyono, former Suai military commander Lt. Col. Liliek Koeshadianto, former Suai military command's chief of staff Capt. Achmad Syamsuddin and former Suai Police precinct chief Lt. Col. Gatot Subiaktoro -- are charged with violating Articles 7, 9, 37 and 42 of Law No. 26/2000 on human rights violations. The crimes carry maximum sentences ranging from 10 years in jail to death.

Asked whether the uniform was only worn by military personnel, Sudarminto said: "All I know is that only military personnel wear uniforms with stripes."

East Timor deserves a clean slate

Globe and Mail - May 8, 2002

Paul Knox -- Most poor countries are in hock to rich ones. This is not necessarily a bad thing, any more than a car loan or a mortgage. But overindebtedness is definitely a bad thing. And too many countries have too much debt -- often the result of irresponsible behaviour by their own leaders, foreign lenders or both.

With bad luck or bad judgment, East Timor could easily become one of them. On May 20 it will become the world's newest independent country, ending a bitter, centuries-old struggle against subjugation by Portugal and Indonesia. It will be born proud but poor, and the debt trap beckons.

Can East Timor avoid it? One indication will come next week, when representatives of aid donors meet in Dili, the capital, to finalize assistance as East Timor heads into independence. As things stand, East Timor's 750,000 people will be living on foreign aid and annual budgets totalling $256-million (US) over the next three years. Tax receipts will pay for some of it, but the shortfall will be about $30-million a year. It could be made up by grants from rich countries -- Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan. Or, like a child indentured from birth, East Timor could begin life as a debtor nation.

That would seem a shame. We're not talking about huge amounts here. Canadian aid to East Timor currently runs at $6.3-million (Canadian) a year, much of it helping to set up a police force and finance ministry for the new government. It has remained relatively constant since 1999 and could easily be boosted, say by $2-million or so. US aid to East Timor is little more than coffee money.

Foreign aid these days tends to be allocated toward specific projects, not covering budget deficits. There are good reasons for that. Projects are easier to monitor for results. There's no telling what a government will do once it has the money.

But in East Timor, some of the usual caveats about foreign aid don't apply. There's no giant military machine to divert the money to, and no dictator with cronies to enrich. The new President, independence leader Xanana Gusmao, was popularly elected last month, and there's an elected legislature to keep watch. Advisers from the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have given thumbs up to the new government's economic plans.

Moreover, in three years East Timor expects to begin receiving income from oil and gas deposits under the Timor Sea. There are wrinkles to iron out, notably the details of a revenue-sharing treaty with neighbouring Australia. But its aid requirements should diminish substantially. It's far from a bottomless pit.

The new rulers are also sending the right signals about managing resource revenues. They want to invest them and spend only the interest -- a far cry from the reckless lending and borrowing that has characterized oil development elsewhere, to the point where royalty receipts go directly to interest payments. As the East Timorese are no doubt well aware, less debt means fewer strictures from foreign lenders about how they spend.

Helping East Timor keep its debt to an absolute minimum is surely the least the developed world can do. Its leaders paid little attention to East Timor during 24 brutal years of Indonesian occupation, all the while enjoying the benefits of surging trade with Indonesia. They keep talking about finding ways to ease the debt burden for poor nations.

East Timor has suffered enough. Let's give it what it needs to begin life in the best of health.

Timor trials set to downplay role of military

Australian Financial Review - May 8, 2002

Rowan Callick -- The human rights trials under way in Jakarta over the events in East Timor in 1999 are reinforcing the near- universal image in Indonesia of the conflict as a civil war between equally matched Timorese factions, with Indonesian security forces as bystanders.

That is the conclusion of a new report from the International Crisis Group, whose president is former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans.

"Within Indonesia, the trials have generated little interest, nothing approaching the attention given to the prosecution of Tommy Soeharto, the former president's son," the report said.

The ICG said the problem was not with the way the cases were being judicially conducted: "Inexperienced as they are, the judges have thus far exceeded expectations, rejecting military arguments and demonstrating a willingness to use international human rights law in a way that defies a common perception of them as incompetents or political hacks."

The problem, rather, was with "the limited mandate of the ad hoc court and the very weak way in which the indictments have been drawn up and presented by the prosecution".

The military was presented as failing to prevent violence rather than actively orchestrating it. Thus, "the indictments suggest little more than criminal negligence on the part of the accused".

"Had the indictments been better prepared, they not only might have helped illuminate the political dynamics in East Timor in 1999, but might have led to more effective policies in Aceh and Papua."

The ICG said that through the trials, the United Nations would continue to be seen as "a biased and manipulative actor, further reducing the already slim chance that it could be an acceptable mediator in future conflicts".

Efforts to curb human rights violations in areas of separatist conflict would be portrayed as anti-nationalist. And the Indonesian army's role in creating, equipping, training and funding militias in Timor would remain unexamined.

The failure of the trials to constitute a genuine domestic remedy for the 1999 crimes would generate fresh calls for an international tribunal, said the ICG. But the chances of this happening "are close to nil".

Sunrise Gas Field fires up the politics of development

Sydney Morning Herald - May 6, 2002

Jennifer Hewett And Jane Counsel -- Woodside is caught in another hot debate. A year ago, the hot political issue facing Clare Martin was her promise to end mandatory sentencing for juveniles. That was if Labor won government in the Northern Territory. Not that anyone expected it to least of all Clare Martin herself.

These days the Territory's chief minister is instead tackling the major oil companies with an aggression that would do Professor Allan Fels proud. This will be a much tougher battle to fight let alone win even if she is proudly waving the national-interest flag as she wades into the fray.

The full-page ads taken out by the NT Government last week reflected the mood of defiance. In an open letter to the shareholders of Woodside Petroleum, Ms Martin reminded them of the way the company was only saved from a full Shell takeover last year after the Federal Government intervened in "the national interest".

"Australians were convinced that Woodside in Australian control would be more likely than a foreign company to develop Australian resources in a way that would maximise benefits for Australia," she wrote.

Now, Ms Martin is insisting, Woodside is failing the first big test of this commitment the development of the large Sunrise gas fields in the Timor Sea.

The basic issue is whether the majority partners in the project, Shell and Woodside, should be permitted to do what they want have a giant floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant hundreds of kilometres out at sea and ship the gas off to US markets without ever coming near Australian soil.

A floating LNG plant has never been built anywhere in the world before, but if it works it will presumably be the first of many. In some ways, this is an extension of the old argument about Australia being the quarry for multinational companies which simply mined the nation's natural resources and shipped them off.

Ms Martin argues that Australia would benefit much more if the Sunrise gas is taken to Darwin and processed there. In marketing terms, it comes down to saying there is a broader community interest at stake than just getting the best financial returns for company shareholders.

And she is determined to try to force the issue politically another reason why she was rushing all over Sydney and Melbourne last week trying to talk national interest to anyone who would listen. The mantra is more jobs for Australians, more contracts for Australian businesses, more energy for Australia and more wealth for the country.

Not only that, Ms Martin is backed by one of the other major US oil companies in Sunrise, Phillips Petroleum, which has 30 per cent of the project. But it's not quite that simple.

"She's bumped right into the international world of oil and gas power politics," say one industry insider. And that world is more cutthroat and manipulative than anything Australian politics could ever dream up. One problem is that Shell and Phillips have far bigger interests at stake than the Sunrise gas field certainly more than any concept of the Australian national interest. After all, they have a combined market value of more than $US250 billion ($463 billion).

Instead, the real focus of the two oil majors is the North American market, where both are positioning to grab dominant stakes in an ever-expanding gas market.

Shell claims that a floating plant at Sunrise will shave $2 billion from costs which it can then use to create a cheaper, more competitive product and build a new market on the US West Coast. What's more, Shell insists that Australia has no such commercial domestic customers for the gas and that a supply without a viable market simply won't be developed.

Phillips has been quieter publicly, but told the Herald its proposal was less risky and would generate greater benefits for all involved.

"We believe the markets right now are better in Australia," said the company's Darwin area manager, Blair Murphy.

"We believe we can get longer term gas contracts here rather than take the risk of the spot LNG market in the US." Phillips is already acutely aware of the risks. The squabbling has already cost the company the $20 billion letter of intent it signed with US-based utility El Paso to take gas from its onshore LNG facility.

One view is that Phillips is using this argument to bluff Shell into doing deals in the West Coast gas market without any real intention of developing the field onshore, no matter what it says to Ms Martin. The other view is that Shell is simply trying to knock Phillips off.

Woodside Energy is reluctant to make any detailed comment on the issue, partly because of the political sensitivity about its own background. "The market will determine the most optimal way to exploit this field," spokesman Nigel Grazia said.

Of course, Shell also still happens to own just over one-third of Woodside despite the political fracas between the two over Shell's proposed takeover last year. It has been a tricky management relationship.

Initially, Woodside backed the Phillips plan to bring the gas onshore in a pipe that was also connected to Bayu Undan, another large gas field in the area being developed by Phillips.

The plan was for the gas to be used to supply the NT industrial market and also be fed into the national grid at Moomba as demand grew. The later stages of the project would see LNG developed for export to Japan.

That was until Shell chose the middle of the NT election campaign 10 months ago to say that its radical new-technology proposal was the only viable option financially.

Woodside has since switched to support the Shell view, along with the other 10 per cent minority partner, Osaka Gas.

With everyone citing different figures, it's impossible to be precise about what the real difference in costs will be. The vagueness is hardly surprising.

The technology is not proven, the market is not yet signed up, the price of gas in a few years' time is unpredictable and the tax regime for the project is uncertain.

That is one area where the Federal Government's attitude would be crucial. Ms Martin would like tax concessions or other assistance from Canberra that would make it more financially attractive to process the gas onshore.

Peter Costello and John Howard would be unwilling partners, particularly given the likely cost of the exercise.

The cynical view in the market is that eventually Phillips and Shell will do a deal to carve up the North American market and that will involve a floating LNG plant, no matter what Ms Martin says.

"She'll put herself in a political dead end supporting a financial project that won't go ahead," says another observer.

The real risk is that the longer the argument goes on, the less viable the domestic option will become for Phillips.

It's a chicken and egg argument. Big industrial projects won't commit to the area without a certainty of supply and the supply can't be developed until the customers are committed.

Canadian-based Methanex has already scrapped Darwin as its site for a $3 billion methanol plant in favour of the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia.

Also, there are several alternative sources of gas, such as the $6.8 billion Papua New Guinea to Queensland pipeline, all jostling for a slice of the growing eastern states market.

Ms Martin isn't so easily dissuaded. After all, Darwin is now celebrating the building of what was always considered another hopelessly overpriced, impractical economic mirage the Darwin to Alice Springs railway.

Unfortunately, that took decades of political pain and disappointment before it was achieved.

East Timor puts justice to one side

The Australian - May 4, 2002

Don Greenlees, Jakarta -- Three years after East Timor was laid waste by Indonesian military-sponsored militia, the country's President-elect, Xanana Gusmao, declared yesterday that justice for the perpetrators would take a back seat to social development in the priorities of the first independent East Timorese Government.

Despite the snail's pace of justice in East Timor and Indonesia, Mr Gusmao warned East Timor could ill-afford an obsession with trying militiamen or soldiers because of the enormous poverty of its people.

"Justice, yes. Justice. [But] my priority is social justice," Mr Gusmao said on a visit to Jakarta. "We fought, we suffered, we died for what? To try other people or to receive benefits from independence?"

Mr Gusmao, the former guerilla leader who was elected East Timor's first president last month, has previously advocated amnesties to entice former militia leaders back to East Timor.

He hopes a program of amnesties could support reconciliation between nationalists and those still loyal to Indonesia and encourage about 60,000 East Timorese to return from refugee camps in Indonesian West Timor.

For East Timor's diplomatic relations and its domestic politics, the issue of prosecutions is highly sensitive. When Indonesian forces retreated after the independence referendum in 1999, militiamen and soldiers laid waste to the territory in a spree of looting and arson. UN officials estimate between 1500 and 2000 people were murdered.

With a declaration of independence due to be made on May 20, East Timor's new democratic leaders are anxious to avoid demands for retribution poisoning their efforts to build national cohesion or a viable relationship with Jakarta.

During talks in Bali in February, the Chief Minister in East Timor's UN administration, and soon-to-be government leader, Mari Alkatiri, pointedly refrained from putting any pressure on the Indonesian side to try senior civilian and military officials accused of human rights crimes.

Indeed, the purpose of Mr Gusmao's one-day visit to Jakarta on Thursday was to foster ties with Indonesia -- East Timor's most important diplomatic relationship. He came to reinforce an invitation from the UN to President Megawati Sukarnoputri to attend the May 20 independence celebration in the face of strong domestic pressure on her to decline.

As a result of international pressure, particularly from the US Congress and members of the European Union, Indonesia has started to put some of those accused of the 1999 rampage on trial.

But no one has yet been convicted and a number of key suspects have so far not been included on the list of planned prosecutions. A handful of relatively junior militiamen have been tried and convicted in East Timor.

At a press confidence yesterday, Mr Gusmao stressed that in a country where many people "live with less than 50 cents" a day the overwhelming priority of the new government would be to improve living standards.

He suggested that dispensing criminal justice needed to be balanced against the need to fulfil that goal.

"I am not a human rights activist. I am not a judge. I am not a prosecutor," he said. "As President, my priority is how to give to our people the opportunity to see the benefits of independence."

Army chief tells Indonesians to forget the past with Timor

Agence France Presse - May 4, 2002

Indonesia's army chief has urged his countrymen to forget their traumatic past with East Timor and embrace its sovereignty, amid lingering bitterness about the territory's breakaway.

"I want to acknowledge the reality that East Timor has been established as a nation, and it cannot be denied," General Endriartono Sutarto was quoted as saying by the state Antara news agency Saturday.

"We must look to the future with East Timor as our neighbour. We should be capable of forgetting the past, and looking towards a better future," Sutarto said.

There has been opposition from Indonesian legislators to President Megawati Sukarnoputri's attendance at the declaration of East Timor's independence in just over two weeks. Lingering bitterness among MPs over the loss of what they considered their 27th province has prompted many to vehemently oppose her presence at the landmark ceremony.

The MPs also say there are unresolved issues with East Timor, such as the fate of Indonesian assets left behind in 1999 and the graves of Indonesian soldiers who died in battle there, as well as domestic sensitivities to the loss of the territory.

The impoverished half-island territory will finally be declared independent by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a massive fireworks ceremony at midnight on May 19-20, 32 months after its people opted to end Indonesia's brutal 24-year rule in a United Nations-sponsored ballot.

The August 1999 vote triggered an orgy of Indonesian army-backed militia violence and destruction, which saw hundreds of independence supporters killed, more than a quarter of a million East Timorese forced or led into Indonesian-ruled West Timor, and 80 percent of infrastructure annihilated.

Senior military officers are accused of masterminding the violence and designing a scorched-earth campaign to raze the territory. It is still struggling to recover from the comprehensive destruction.

The UN has been rebuilding East Timor since October 1999 and shepherding it to independence.

Sutarto's comments coincided with East Timor president-elect Xanana Gusmao's first visit to Indonesia since he was voted in with a landslide on April 14.

The former guerrilla leader of the resistance to Indonesian rule came to personally invite Megawati to the landmark independence ceremony, which will mark East Timor's birth as the world's newest nation after almost five centuries of outside rule.

Sutarto stopped short of commenting on whether Megawati should accept the invitation to attend the independence ceremony.

But military spokesman Syafire Syamsuddin told AFP that the military would accept whatever decision the government takes, and provide security for Megawati if she travels to Dili, Syamsuddin added.

Megawati has yet to officially comment on whether she will travel to East Timor, but senior ministers have said she will go.

East Timor's Gusmao meets Megawati in Jakart

Agence France Presse - May 2, 2002

East Timor's president-elect Xanana Gusmao met Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri in Jakarta to personally invite her to attend his country's independence celebrations later this month.

"I came here so that Madame the president, Mbak Mega [Older Sister Megawati] can come for the independence celebrations," Gusmao said after meeting Megawati at her home for some 45 minutes on Thursday.

Gusmao, who went to Megawati's residence straight from the airport after arriving on a UN flight, said he will also extend invitations to several other ministers, but gave no further details.

"The invitation has been well received and Madame the president will decide later," Gusmao said when asked whether he had obtained a reply from the president.

Megawati has said she expects to attend East Timor's landmark independence handover next month despite strong opposition from legislators who say that many Indonesians have yet to recover from the loss of the territory which had been part of their country for 24 years. Gusmao immediately went into another meeting with top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and went afterwards to meet House Speaker Akbar Tanjung.

Yudhoyono congratulated Gusmao on his elections as the first president of the new nation to be inaugurated on May 20. "As a friend we believe that you will be able to lead East Timor to a brighter future, a stable democratic and prosperous nation," Yudhoyono told his guest when welcoming him at his office.

Tanjung, speaking after meeting Gusmao, whose trip was only announced on Wednesday, said he will leave the decision over the visit to East Timor in the hands of the president. Tanjung has been at the forefront of opposition to Megawati making the trip.

"Parliament has already made a statement that the situation is not favorable for the president to go to East Timor, but it is up to the president whether she wants to go there. Of course she may go," Tanjung told reporters. He said Indonesians were still smarting "psychologically" from the loss of East Timor.

Megawati has been invited to the May 19-20 ceremonies by East Timorese leaders and the United Nations, which has been overseeing the impoverished territory's transition to statehood since the traumatic aftermath of its 1999 vote to break away from Indonesia. In an interview with this week's Indonesian Tempo, Gusmao said Megawati's attendence, along with some 15 other heads of state, would be "important for peace." Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said Thursday "the president is considering the invitation and will in time announce her decision".

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will declare the territory independent in a lavish ceremony on the night of May 19 as the clock strikes midnight. Gusmao, who led the guerrilla resistance to Indonesian rule, will be sworn in by Annan just before midnight, following his landslide election on April 14.

Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975 and annexed it the following year. Its often harsh rule in the following years led to strong armed resistance from the local pro-independence movement.

Jakarta relinquished East Timor to the United Nations in October 1999 following an overwhelming vote for independence in a UN-run ballot in August that year. Pro-Jakarta militias backed by the Indonesian army laid waste to the territory after the vote.

Labour struggle

Laborers need political party to fight: PRD

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and A'an Suryana, Jakarta -- As no single faction in the House of Representatives is truly fighting for labor rights, it is high time for Indonesian workers to unite and build a strong political party that could win influence in the decision making process in the country.

According to Harris Rusli Moti, the chairman of People's Democratic Party (PRD), the failure of labor-based parties in the 1999 elections should awaken labor activists to the importance of educating workers about their political rights.

"From now on, the workers should not rely on the political elite. They must enter real politics and be prepared to govern this country," Harris told The Jakarta Post.

PRD, which has been fighting for workers' interests since 1994, failed to secure any seat at the House in the 1999 general election. Four other labor-based parties also failed to secure a seat at the House. They are the Workers' Solidarity Party, the National Labor Party, the All-Indonesian Workers' Solidarity Party and the Indonesian Workers' Party.

Meanwhile, blue-collar workers are estimated to account for some 25 percent of the 110 million eligible voters in 1999. If they had managed to unite and vote for a single party, they would now have a strong say in the country's affairs.

As a result of their inability to unite, they are now almost totally unrepresented in politics. "They have a hard time fighting for their welfare," political analyst J. Kristiadi said.

Labor activists said that they felt the five biggest political parties did not really care about workers' rights. Those five are the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the Golkar Party, the United Development Party, the National Awakening Party and the National Mandate Party. Altogether they control 419 of the 500 seats in the House.

World renowned labor activist and former political prisoner during the New Order regime, Dita Indah Sari said that the reality in the House, which was not supportive of the labor movement, had prompted her and her colleagues to consider establishing a single, strong labor party. Her aim, however, was not the general election in 2004, but rather the one in 2009.

She said she did not want to repeat the mistake the labor-based parties made last time, failing to securing any House seats. The failure of the labor parties, according to Dita, was that they were competing during a time when political awareness among workers was still very low.

"This lack of political awareness should be improved before we go further to form a strong political party, representing laborers' interests," said Dita who won the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippine government in the Young Emerging Leaders category.

Her short term goal now is to educate workers about their political rights as a foundation for a strong labor party.

In the history of Indonesia, labor parties have never won any elections, nor have they even gained a significant number of seats. The only time that a labor party won seat in the House was in 1955, when they managed to get two seats.

During the New Order administration under Soeharto, labor parties were non existent in the mainstream, as anything related to labor was often brandished as communism, and this meant illegal. Only after the fall of Soeharto in 1998, did labor groups gain some of the lost rights to form unions and to strike. Nevertheless, laborers are still under represented in the politics.

In addition to the lack of political awareness among workers, Indonesia laborers do not have a truly inspiring leader who could unite them and lead them to enter the political arena. "They need one leader who is sincere enough to teach them how to enter the political game in the country, for laborer's interests," Kristiadi remarked.

PRD's Harris said Indonesia was actually a fertile ground for a strong labor party to grow, considering the huge number of laborers and their sub-par living conditions.

He said workers in Indonesia should learn from their counterparts in the United Kingdom and Australia, where labor parties play an important role and even govern the countries. "If labor parties can gain control to govern in those capitalist countries. Why can't we do the same thing here?," Harris wondered.

Calififornian court says Nike can be sued for false ads

Reuters - May 3, 2002

Andrew Quinn, San Francisco -- California's Supreme Court, in an important free speech ruling, said on Thursday that sportswear giant Nike Inc. can be sued for false advertising over a publicity campaign that sought to dispel reports that Asian sweatshops are used to produce its famous footwear.

In a split decision, California's top court found that Nike's efforts to defend its Asian business practices were in essence commercial, and thus not subject to the free speech protections guaranteed by the US Constitution.

"Our holding ... in no way prohibits any business enterprise from speaking out on issues of public importance or from vigorously defending its own labor practices," the court said in its 4-3 majority decision.

"It means only that when a business enterprise, to promote and defend its sales and profits, makes factual representations about its own products or its own operations, it must speak truthfully." In strongly worded dissenting opinions, three justices argued that Nike should enjoy free speech protections when attempting to protect its labor record. "While Nike's critics have taken full advantage of their right to 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open' debate, the same cannot be said of Nike, the object of their ire," Justice Ming Chin wrote in one dissent.

"When Nike tries to defend itself from these attacks, the majority denies it the same First Amendment protection Nike's critics enjoy." Nike's lawyers said they would probably appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court, while a company statement said the ruling set a "dangerous precedent" by seeking to deny businesses the right to defend themselves in public debate. Sweatshop allegations

The Supreme Court decision overturned an appeals court ruling which held that Nike's efforts to defend itself against sweatshop allegations were noncommercial free speech and thus immune from legal challenge.

The case stems from a 1998 civil lawsuit filed in California which charged Nike with willfully misleading the public about working conditions for the Vietnamese, Chinese and Indonesian laborers who produce the footwear with the distinctive "Swoosh" logo.

The lawsuit was among a number of high-profile attacks on Nike over conditions at Asian factories where workers, mostly women aged 18 to 24, are subcontracted to produce most of its shoes.

The California suit said Nike knew that these workers were subjected to physical punishment and sexual abuse, endured dangerous working conditions, and were often unable to earn a "living wage" despite workdays that could be 14 hours long.

It charged Nike with violating California laws barring false advertising by deliberately obscuring these facts, alleging that the Beaverton, Oregon-based company mounted an aggressive advertising and public relations campaign portraying itself as a "model of corporate responsibility" in an effort to boost sales of its products.

Nike rejected the charges, and argued that the case should not proceed because all of the statements cited in the lawsuit were protected as free speech.

The California Supreme Court emphasized that it was not ruling on the merits of sweatshop charges.

But its decision to allow the suit to go forward marked a potential setback for Nike and other firms that have sought to allay US consumer concern over overseas labor conditions through publicity campaigns depicting happy, well-paid workers in clean, safe factories.

"This is a very important ruling," said Alan Caplan, one of the lawyers who filed the original suit. "Now in California, if a company is going to discuss about the labor conditions in their factories they cannot be deceptive. That is a big step."

ACLU sides with Nike

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed an amicus brief supporting Nike's position, said the California decision was bad news for businesses around the country.

"This is not a good decision for free speech values. Free speech is the loser here," said ACLU staff attorney Ann Brick, noting that some of the "speech" covered by the California decision involved such traditional free speech outlets as letters to the editor of the New York Times.

"There is a huge chilling effect. It is very expensive to be defending your statements in a court of law. This decision is going to have national impact." Nike lawyer Jim Carter said the company would probably seek review by the US Supreme Court, saying the California decision stripped the company of its basic constitutional right to defend itself against unfair allegations.

Nike spokesman Vada Manager, meanwhile, said the struggle over free speech was diverting attention from the real progress Nike has made in improving conditions and wages for Asian laborers who make some 85 percent of its footwear.

"Is a worker better off today than they were in 1998 when the suit was filed? The answer is yes. And we are going to continue programmatically to [make improvements]," he said.

"By no means do we think we have it all the way perfect. But over the last 5 years the situation has really improved." Caplan said the plaintiffs were now ready to proceed with legal arguments about the sweatshop allegations.

"The case marks an important victory for human rights," Caplan said. "It is an important precedent with implications well beyond Nike."

Aceh/West Papua

Irian Jaya police hand over evidence of Theys' murder

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

Jayapura -- The Irian Jaya Provincial Police on Saturday handed over 19 pieces of evidence concerning the murder of pro- independence Papuan leader Dortheys Hiyo Eluway to the Military Police.

Three army officers have been detained as suspects in connection with the killing.

Receiving the evidence from the deputy chief of the provincial police, Brig. Gen. Raziman Tarigan, was Col. Sutarna, chief of the province's Trikora Military Command's Military Police detachment. The police handed over the evidence at the request of the Jakarta-based Military Police Corps, which is still questioning the three suspects.

The evidence was collected by the police at various places where Theys went to before his murder and included two Kijang minivans, a belt, a pair of socks, the jeans which Theys wore when he attended the celebration of National Heroes' Day at the Kopassus (Army Special Forces) barracks in the town on Nov. 10, 2001, a day before he was found dead in Koya Tengah Village on the Papua New Guinea border.

The evidence also included the findings of the autopsy on Theys, and the results of the police's questioning of a number of military and civilian witnesses.

Raziman hailed the significant progress made in the ongoing investigation of the case, saying that with the evidence the Military Police Corps would be able to pursue its investigation so as to reveal all those involved, besides the three suspects named so far.

"We hope the Military Police will be able to carry out the investigation thoroughly and bring before a military tribunal all those who were involved in the murder," he said.

Fresh gunfight kills five rebels in Aceh

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

Jakarta -- Separatist violence continued in Aceh province on Sunday with at least five rebels killed in a gunfight with Indonesian Military (TNI) troops in Aceh Besar regency.

The five dead belonged to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and included Teungku Abang, who commands a local unit of the rebel group, local TNI spokesman, Maj. Ertoto, was quoted by Antara as telling journalists on Sunday. The other four dead have not yet been identified, he said.

Ertoto said the clash took place in Tumpuk Lampo village in Kuta Baro subdistrict, Aceh Besar, at 6:15 a.m. when about 40 TNI soldiers ambushed a house where several members of GAM Ertoto, also called the Separatist Aceh Movement (GAS), were believed to be hiding.

"The TNI troops attacked the location after receiving accurate information from local people that several GAS members armed with guns were living there," he said. "After seeing the soldiers, a number of the GAS members attempted to resist them, so a gunfight broke out," he said.

Ertoto said no soldiers were killed in the clash, and added that the soldiers arrested one of the GAM members. The troops also confiscated as evidence an FNC-45 pistol and a revolver, along with 50 rounds of ammunition, he said.

"All five of the bodies have been handed over to their families or to local people for burial," Ertoto said. "We call on all GAS members to surrender. Otherwise, TNI and police personnel will continue to hunt for them." On Friday, at least other two rebels and one soldier were shot dead in separate incidents in Alue Jangat village, East Aceh regency, TNI spokesman Maj. Zaenal Mutaqin said in the town of Lhokseumawe. Also on Friday, the body of an unidentified man who appeared to have died of gunshot wounds was found by members of the Indonesian Red Cross under a bridge in Aceh Besar.

Two rebel spokesmen, Jamaika and Abu Razak, denied GAM had anything to do with the killing. The spokesmen said on Friday that the rebel group only attacked a military post in the Batuphat area, near a gas refinery belonging to PT Arun in Lhokseumawe, and a police post in the Luengputu market in Pidie regency.

Government & politics

PNI parties to merge for 2004 elections

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta A daughter of former president Sukarno said on Sunday the political party she led would likely merge with three other parties with similar support bases.

"The PNI [Indonesian National Party] congress in 2000 agreed to merge all of the PNIs with a Marhaen support base into one," Diah Mutiara Sukmawati Soekarno said when opening a leadership training conference here. Marhaen refers to grassroots level supporters loyal to her late father.

The four parties are the Indonesian National Party-Marhaen led by Sukmawati; PNI Front Marhaenis led by businessman Probosutedjo, who is the half-brother of former president Soeharto; the Indonesian National Party led by prominent freedom fighter Supeni; and the Indonesian Nation's National Party.

None of the four "PNI parties" managed to garner the minimum 2 percent of votes in the 1999 general election that would have automatically qualified them to contest the 2004 elections.

"We are fighting to be able to take part in the 2004 elections," Sukmawati, who is the sister of President Megawati Soekarnoputri, was quoted by Antara as saying.

Merging with other PNI parties will increase the party's chance of taking part in the 2004 elections, she said. "It is our dream to put PNI back in the forefront of Indonesia, as it was in the past. I have been committed to this from the beginning," she said.

Sukmawati said she had discussed the merger with the other PNI parties. Antara also reported that Rachmawati Soekarnoputri, who heads the Bung Karno University and is Sukmawati's sister, approved of the planned merger.

Corruption/collusion/nepotism

Lawyer says committees hotbeds of corruption

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta The City Council's decision to establish several special committees could encourage corruption and collusion, activists warned on Saturday.

Lawyer Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto described the special committee as an "evil conspiracy" that would benefit certain councillors, officials and businessmen related to the cases investigated by the council.

"It's an evil conspiracy. Corruption and collusion often occur in such committees," said Tubagus, who heads the city affairs and urban society division of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH).

Worst yet, he said, the police and the prosecutor's office which then investigated the alleged corruption cases recommended for investigation by the committee were also often involved in collusion and took advantage from the cases.

The Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) chairman, Azas Tigor Nainggolan, concurred, saying that the special committees were often used by certain councillors to extort money from the city officials or businessmen involved.

"If the councillors found irregularities in certain cases, it would be an opportunity for them to extort money from officials or businessmen," he asserted. Both activists were responding to the recent testimony by councillor Ugiek Soegihardjo, a member of the council's committee investigating irregularities in city- joint venture firm PT Jakarta International Trade Fair (JITF).

Ugiek, of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the largest faction in the council, admitted on Thursday that he received a Rp 20 million (US$2,144) bribe from the company. PT JITF president director, Edward Soerjadjaja, reported Ugiek to the Jakarta Police on Friday for defamation.

Data from the council shows that 15 special committees have been established to investigate various cases since 2000. Each member of the special committee, comprising between 15 and 26 councillors, officially receives Rp 2.6 million. Last year's city budget allocated Rp 3.4 billion for special committees and the number slightly increased this year to Rp 4 billion.

Despite the sizable amount of money, only a few of the special committees recommend further investigation on the corruption cases, such as the PT JITF case and the land acquisition case at the former brothel in Kramat Tunggak, North Jakarta. Most committees prefer to reach an amicable settlement.

Another special committee has been investigating two land exchange deals involving the city administration, private firm PT Indovika Housing and state oil and gas company Pertamina in November 2000.

Yet another special committee has been investigating the development of a city-owned hospital in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, and a building at Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center in Cikini, Central Jakarta.

Regional/communal conflicts

Christians seek protection as tensions simmer in Ambon

Reuters - May 5, 2002

Grace Nirang, Jakarta -- The streets of Indonesia's strife-torn city of Ambon were deserted on Sunday after another day of violence but Islamic militants warned tensions could flare again following the arrest of their leader.

Police on Saturday detained Jafar Umar Thalib, the portly commander of the militant Laskar Jihad group, in connection with violence last weekend in Ambon in which at least 12 people died.

Speculation of the impending arrest saw Muslim protestors clash with police earlier on Saturday. Two people were reported killed and Christians took shelter in police stations.

A spokesman for Laskar Jihad said Thalib's arrest was due to US pressure on the world's most populous Muslim nation to crack down on terrorism. "This [arrest] is a big design of the United States and its allies," spokesman Ayip Syarifuddin told Reuters. "The government has taken a big risk with the arrest and it will just make things more complicated," he added.

Laskar Jihad has become the face of militant Indonesian Islam after sending thousands of men to the Moluccan islands in 1999. Since then it is estimated more than 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which is centred on Ambon, the island chain's capital 2,300 km east of Jakarta.

The group denies claims it has ties to international terrorism and says its mission is to protect Muslims.

People frightened

Ambon police said there was no sign of unrest in the city on Sunday but people were frightened.

"The tension last night was quite high and many Christians fled to police stations and churches to seek shelter," police officer Marty Latuperisa told Reuters by telephone. "The city is under control today but it is very quiet with no economic activity," she added.

In the lead-up to the arrest, several thousand Muslim protesters armed with Molotov cocktails went into a Christian area, where troops fired warning shots and tear gas to disperse them. Local media reported two people died and around a dozen people were injured in the violence which raises more doubts over a fragile peace pact signed in February.

The Moluccas remain under a civil emergency status -- one level down from martial law -- despite the pact. It allows security forces to search houses, detain suspects and clamp down on media they classify as provocative.

Long time coming

Thalib should have been arrested long ago, said University of Indonesia sociologist Thamrin Amal Tomagola. "This should have been done a long time ago ... there have been many actions taken by Laskar Jihad all this time that could have been categorised as criminal yet the government has not done anything to stop them," he told Reuters.

Political analyst Andi Mallarangeng said the conflict was two- sided and urged police to apprehend all key provocateurs. "The move should not stop here, the authorities should also take action on other groups," Mallarangeng said. "But I hope the [arrest] move came purely from our own will and not because we were asked by foreign parties," he added.

The Moluccan islands, once known as the spice islands, is one of several separatist, communal or religious flashpoints across the vast Indonesian archipelago. Much of the violence has surfaced since autocrat Suharto was ousted in 1998 after more than three decades in power.

Human rights/law

Think-tank censures Indonesia

The Australian - May 10, 2002

Catharine Munro, Jakarta -- A major international think-tank has attacked Indonesia's human rights tribunal on East Timor, saying the military's version of events is being reinforced by prosecutors.

In a detailed analysis of the trials being held in Jakarta, the International Crisis Group yesterday called on the international community not to renew military ties with Indonesia in light of the trials.

"In the sloppiness of their work, the prosecutors have not only helped the defendants, they have trivialised the whole concept of crimes against humanity," said ICG's Indonesia program director Sidney Jones.

Following East Timor's vote for independence in August 1999, about 1000 people were killed and most of East Timor's infrastructure destroyed by militia groups, who were aided and abetted by the Indonesian military.

The Indonesian military has always claimed the violence was the work of anti-independence groups based in East Timor.

But the ransacking of the province led to the cutting of military ties with the US and Australia, and Indonesia has since been under heavy international pressure to bring perpetrators to justice before the ties are fully restored.

More recently, US administration officials have spoken in favour of closer links with Indonesia's military as part of its international campaign against terrorism.

The ICG, whose president is former foreign minister Gareth Evans, said legal restrictions on renewing military ties with Indonesia should remain.

"To waive those restrictions would be to reward an incompetent or obstructionist prosecution and a dissembling officer corps," the ICG's Jakarta office said.

"It would also undermine those within Indonesia's political elite and civil society who have been pressing for accountability as an essential aspect of military reform."

To date, international human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the Judicial System Monitoring Program (JSMP) in East Timor have stopped short of criticising the content of the Indonesian prosecution.

"We want to see the whole trial before we make official comments," said the JSMP's Christian Ranheim.

Amnesty and JSMP, the only international group which has a permanent observer at the trials, has already criticised the structure of Indonesia's human rights tribunal.

They have said that it would be impossible to test allegations that the Indonesian military had planned and executed the sacking of East Timor after its vote for independence in 1999 because the tribunal only had a mandate to examine cases that occurred in certain months of that year.

They have also criticised the lack of experience of the tribunal's judges, their poor salaries and problems with the tribunal's structure.

The ICG said the judges' performance to date had "exceeded expectations" because they had rejected the military's legal arguments and applied international human rights law.

"Rather the problem, as revealed in court documents obtained by ICG, is with the limited mandate of the ad hoc court and the very weak way in which the indictments have been drawn up and presented by the prosecution," the report said.

Human rights trials far from international standards

Kompas - May 6, 2002

Jakarta (Translated by JSMP) -- The Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) considers that the process of the Ad Hoc Human Rights trials that relate to the murders in East Timor in the period after the popular consultation are still falling well short of international standards. The trials are open to the public, but this is only a part of the circumstances of these show trials. On the other hand, the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal has the responsibility of prosecuting human rights violations that took place in East Timor from a national level.

The head of the Board of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) Hendardi reminded Kompas in Jakarta, Friday, that the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal is only holding trials against those accused of committing human rights violations in East Timor from a local level. "The process of investigation and charges from the Attorney-General was recommended by a Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Violations (KPP), set up by the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to localize the legal responsibility", he added further.

Beforehand, the Justice and Human Rights minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, at the time he opened a seminar on International Human Rights in Jakarta last Monday, said that the process of the Ad Hoc Tribunal has achieved international standards. "This statement is manipulating the facts and it just calls the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal legitimate to the public both inside the country and in a foreign country," says Hendardi.

International standards?

Hendardi questioned the international standards that the Human Rights minister claimed, such as the fact that the process of recruitment of the ad hoc judges for that Tribunal was not transparent, even the ad hoc prosecutors were retired career prosecutors, formerly of the New Order (the Soeharto regime), and there are military judges, and also the Law No. 26/2000 that created the Human Rights Tribunal is vulnerable. On the other hand the indictments from the prosecutors are also extremely weak. In fact the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal is just for show.

The head (caretaker) of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia or YLBHI), Irianto Subiakto, also questioned the international standards that were mentioned by Yusril to value the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal. "Which standards have been proven to show it fulfils a fair trial, is it independent or impartial?" he questioned.

About the criteria of a fair trial and independence says Irianto, the Ad Hoc Human Rights trials relating to East Timor have met the international stipulation, however, on the matter of the Tribunal's impartiality there is still scepticism.

Judges and prosecutors, added Irianto, look like they are taking in the scenario that has been constructed by defence lawyers where the witnesses are only there to support the dismissing of the charges against the accused. For instance, in the beginning the former army chief General Wiranto said that what was done by TNI/Police in the conflict in East Timor was heroic as they tried to prevent bloodshed and civil war.

The prosecutors are supposed to act on behalf of the victims, but it seems like they have the opposite opinion about the violations in East Timor, both before and after they question the witnesses. The prosecutors did not open the documents that related to the matter of the pro-integration militia and let the witnesses take back these documents, even though the prosecutors were appointed as senior prosecutors with very high levels of experience and not just as those who have learnt the theory of accusing.

Lawyer admits giving cash to witnesses in Tommy's trial

Agence France Presse - May 5, 2002

A lawyer for Tommy Suharto admitted that she had given over 600 dollars to witnesses who later changed their testimony in Tommy's murder and weapons trial.

But Elza Syarief, who has been accused by police of bribing three witnesses to recant their statements, told a professional disciplinary council on Saturday that the cash was for the witnesses to buy clothes and rent a car and driver for their court appearance.

"I gave 5.8 million rupiah [625 dollars] including three million rupiah for Marvin Hukom to rent a car, and one million each for Tatang and Rachmat to buy clothes and shoes," Syarief told the second day of the disciplinary hearing.

"They were all things they needed for their appearance at Tommy's trial ... because I had seen that they only wore rough sandals. The other 800,000 rupiah I gave out earlier so they could hire a driver," she was quoted as saying by Detik.com online news.

Syarief has been brought before the five-member ethics council by the Indonesian Advocates and Lawyers' Association (HAPI) to determine whether she violated the profession's code of ethics by bribing witnesses.

The disciplinary hearing, open to the public, has become a side- show to the high-profile trial of the fallen dictator's youngest son. It is being conducted in a four-star hotel in central Jakarta.

The witnesses, all security guards from a Jakarta apartment block used by Tommy, have allegedly told police that they received cash from Syarief to retract statements identifying Tommy as the owner of a cache of weapons found in the apartment block.

They told the Central Jakarta District Court that they had been intimidated by police into making the statements, and denied that signatures on the statements were theirs.

Tommy, once a high-rolling playboy tycoon, is being tried on charges of ordering the July 2001 assassination of Supreme Court judge Syafiuddin Kartasasmita and possessing illegal weapons. The judge had convicted Tommy of graft and sentenced him to 18 months jail 11 months earlier.

Syarief had sought the sum of 5.8 million rupiah from the Tirasa Foundation, run by Tommy's wife Tata to manage the apartment block, the foundation's secretary Barmanto (eds: one name) told the hearing earlier. Barmanto said that Syarief had asked for the money to cover the purchase of clothes for the security guard. She had been appointed the foundation's legal consultant in January, Barmanto added.

If Syarief is found to have breached the HAPI's code of ethics she could lose her licence to practice law. She has rejected calls to stand down as Tommy's lawyer during the disciplinary hearing.

Environment

Reforestation dubbed as the answer to water problems

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

Riyadi Suparno, Semarang -- As recently as the early 1960s, wild birds could be heard singing, entertaining farmers on the slopes of Mount Merbabu, Central Java. And jungle fowl, deer, monkeys, even tigers were a common sight, wandering through nearby forests.

Today though, the wild forests have disappeared, along with its wildlife. What exists are fungi-infested pine forests, with monkeys that have become a nuisance for village farmers in the district of Kopeng on the slopes of Mount Merbabu. Not only that, farmers in the area are now worried about depleting sources of water to irrigate their fields, drink and wash.

Budi Pramono, a farmer in Nglelo, said water levels at nearby springs had decreased over recent years. "We are afraid that our area will become like Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta, where people import water from other areas during the dry season," Budi said.

Similar concerns were also aired by Widiyono, a farmer in the nearby village of Keragilan in Magelang. "Our village does not suffer from water shortages, but villages below us sometimes do." Their shared concern is not an exaggeration, as protected forests on the slopes of Merbabu have been slowly destroyed.

As farmers are not able to collect wood anymore from nearby pine forests, they have begun to slowly encroach on protected forests, located three kilometers up the mountain.

According to F. Rahardi from the Indonesian Agrotourism Association, 60 families of farmers in Nglelo alone consume around 7,500 tons of wood per annum, most of it used for cooking.

This requires some 14.3 hectares of forest to meet their daily needs. "This is only for farmers in Nglelo. What about farmers in other villages at the foot of Merbabu? It would need hundreds of hectares of forests," he said.

He suggested that state plantation company PT Perhutani, which manages pine forests in the area, cut down all the pine trees and change them to mixed plantations.

Farmers Budi Pramono and Widiyono agreed and called on the government to allow farmers in the area manage the forests for Perhutani. "This way, we would not have to encroach anymore on conserved forests in Merbabu," Budi told visiting Coordinating Minister for Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti and Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla on Saturday night.

Dorodjatun and Jusuf Kalla attended a gathering of Merbabu farmers in Nglelo, organized by the Qaryah Thayyibah farmers association. At the gathering, the two ministers also heard concerns of farmers from villages near Kedungombo Dam and from villages around Lake Rawa Pening near Salatiga, Central Java.

Farmers from Rawa Pening reported concerns over the sedimentation of the lake due to erosion along the banks of rivers supplying water to the lake. Farmers from Kedungombo reported similar concerns over the falling water levels at Kedungombo Dam.

Dorodjatun shared their concern and said the lack of water on the slopes of Merbabu and the falling water levels at Kedungombo Dam and Lake Rawa Pening indicated the deterioration of the environment.

"The main problem affecting Java is its varying water levels. During the dry season, we face a scarcity of water. But when the rainy season comes, Java floods," Dorodjatun said. If the water problem cannot be solved, it will adversely affect farming, business, as well as most people's daily lives.

Specifically, the falling water levels at dams will affect power supplies, because much of Java's electricity is generated by hydroelectric power plants.

"This all happens because Java has fewer and fewer forests. If we have no forests, we will have no water. Therefore, to solve the water problem, we have to reforest the whole of Java and we have to find ways to do it," Dorodjatun told the farmers.

Supporting Dorodjatun's statement, Jusuf called on farmers, civil society, as well as local administrations to assume greater responsibility for the environment.

"In this era of decentralization, you cannot rely anymore solely on the central government. All of us are responsible for the environment."

Religion/Islam

Taleban Brigade tightens its grip on West Java city

Straits Times - May 6, 2002

Tasikmalaya -- A little-known outfit calling itself the Taleban Brigade has taken advantage of the new autonomy laws to get the authorities in this West Java city to issue edicts to enact its radical agenda.

These range from barring traffic near the main mosque during Friday prayers to requiring that elementary and high school students, no matter what religion, receive a certificate of proficiency in Islamic studies.

The local authorities have also urged women to cover their hair and called for public swimming pools to be segregated by gender.

The Taleban Brigade, whose connection with Afghanistan's erstwhile rulers is in ideology only, regards itself as a vanquisher of vice.

Its members raid nightclubs and cafes to stamp out drinking and gambling. They ransack shops suspected of selling pornographic video discs. And they sweep through hotels, rounding up prostitutes and shaving their heads. Its weekly raids are condoned by police.

"If we see it, we will destroy it or we will confiscate it," insisted Mohammed Zainal Mutaqqien Aziz, a religious teacher who heads the Taleban Brigade, which was formed in 1998 and takes its name from the Arabic word for student.

"These sorts of sinful things are not fit for Tasikmalaya." The edicts and exhortations, as well as the raids, have transformed this city and the surrounding district, a lush farming region that is home to two million people.

Women who used to walk through the market with their heads uncovered now wear scarves. Karaoke parlours, theatres and cafes have shut down. Restaurants have stopped offering liquor.

But several residents and business owners said they were unwilling to confront the Taleban Brigade or even talk to government officials. "People are too scared," said Ms Reni, a secretary who was sipping a beer with her daughter and son-in-law at the Sinta Cafe. "The Taleban have connections with the police."

The Taleban Brigade is part of a growing network of groups seeking to turn socially moderate Indonesia into a strict Islamic nation. Among the other groups are Laskar Jihad and the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).

"Purist" Islamic groups of Saudi Arabian origin are also making their presence felt in Indonesia. The Tarbiyah movement in Indonesia is popular with some sections of students in major universities. The members of these kind of groups want to abolish the country's secular legal system and replace it with a version of Islamic law or syariah.

Conservative Muslim leaders said they have been aided by the US campaign against terrorism, which is seen by many in Indonesia as a fight against Islam. Membership in their groups had swelled in recent months, they said.

However, a recent survey conducted by the State University of Islamic Studies found that a sizeable majority of Indonesians are opposed to radical demands such as arresting Muslims who do not fast during Ramadan and having police ensure that Muslims pray five times a day.

Armed forces/Police

Public demands up for BPK to audit military foundations

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- The Supreme Audit Body (BPK) chairman Satrio Budihardjo Joedono blamed Law No. 16/2001 on foundations on Sunday for preventing his office from auditing military foundations, but fell short of demanding the law be scrapped.

An audit conducted by BPK is necessary to determine whether or not military foundations are using state funds to develop their business empires, Joedono told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Joedono was reacting to public demand that BPK should audit military foundations on the grounds they were owned by a state institution -- the military.

"The state audit body should have access to information about the foundations run by the defense forces because the military is a state institution," military analyst of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Kusnanto Anggoro said on Sunday. The Indonesian Military have dozens of foundations involved in business. The Army's Kartika Eka Paksi foundation allegedly has 26 other companies dealing in a variety of businesses, ranging from shrimp farming to electronics.

Inkopad (the Army's Cooperative Center) allegedly has 12 affiliated companies. The Air Force, the Navy and the police are also more or less the same. The Red Beret Corps Foundation even attended training held by Ikadin on how to master business.

However Law No. 16/2001 on foundations gives the authority to the public auditor, instead of the state audit body, to examine financial reports of foundations. "Let the public interpret the law themselves," Joedono said, when asked if the law hampered the work of his office.

Article 52 (3) of the 2001 Foundation Law stipulates that a foundation receiving state aid, foreign assistance amounting to at least Rp 500 million, or has an assets worth Rp 20 billion, must be audited by a public auditor.

Joedono said his office could only ask the public auditor to carry out an audit of military foundations using the standard of state audit (SAP) and to submit a copy of the audit results to his office.

Kusnanto also urged the military to hand over their business enterprises to the government, so they could focus on being professional soldiers.

"Military business activities through various foundations should be terminated, in order to boost the professionalism of the military," he said.

"Any problems or irregularities emerging from military business practices could not be resolved until the businesses were controlled by the state," said Kusnanto, urging President Megawati Soekarnoputri to issue a decree ordering the takeover of military businesses by the state.

If the military's business enterprises are sold to the public, the military could be compensated with 70 percent of the sale proceeds, with the remaining 30 percent going to the state, he said. There has been strong speculation that profits from military businesses only benefit high-ranking military officials, while low-ranking soldiers remain strapped for cash.

"Only five percent of the military's business profits is given to low-ranking soldiers," Kusnanto added.

Police/TNI reluctant to clamp down on brutality to press

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

Jakarta -- Security personnel in the country are reluctant to arrest or take legal action against their colleagues involved in brutality against journalists, according to two prominent press associations.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), a member of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), has unveiled that 30 of 118 recorded attacks on the press over the past year have involved police and military officers. Only one police officerhas been brought to justice so far for such acts of violence.

"The security forces deal with incidents by attacking journalists or newspaper offices they deem problematic. They can't be bothered with legal issues," Aji's secretary-general Solahudin stated in a paper presented at Friday's seminar hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Culturalorganization (UNESCO), held in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day 2002.

"I know this because AJI has tried reasoning with them [officers]. They don't budge." A letter written by SEAPA Jakarta director Lukas Luwarso and SEAPA advocacy coordinator Solahudin, to National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar recently stated that Medan Police deputy chief Ishak Robinson Sampe had, "apologized but refused to detain hismen" in connection with the third police assault this January against the Indonesian media.

The third assault occurred on the offices of Waspada daily in Medan, North Sumatra on January 23, when officers ransacked the building, destroying office equipment and injuring a reporter Setia Budi Siregar.

This year, the first incident involving police occurred on January 3, when plainclothes officers punched and kicked two Metro reporters in Bandung, West Java. The journalists were reporting on a gang fight when police officers, knowing they were from the media, assaulted them.

The second police attack occurred in Kediri, East Java, on January 8, when Radio Suara Andika reporter Tantowi Jauhari was assaulted by police officer Bagus Setiawan during a random motor vehicle check.

Solahudin said on Friday that even though Indonesia has introduced Press Law No. 40/1999, which prohibits censorship, a revision of this by the government would prove detrimental.

Moves to control the media have been made evident from the cooperation between Minister of Information Syamsul Muarif with the legislature, especially when he attempted to include clauses in the Criminal Code, which means the members of the media couldbe put on trial.

This was disclosed following a working meeting between legislators of Commission I of the House of Representative (DPR) and the minister on December 7 last year. On Friday, Syamsul told the seminar that it was not he who initiated the revision of the 1999 press law, but the House of Representatives (DPR).

A draft law on broadcasting formulated by the DPR was submitted to the government on Feb. 20 this year, raising concern amongst broadcasters, many of whom feared potential threats to their newly found freedom.

Economy & investment

Industries switching away from oil for energy

Jakarta Post - May 6, 2002

Berni K. Moestafa, Jakarta -- For decades oil has driven the country's growth. But with the government cutting back on fuel subsidies, more industries are seeking cheaper energy alternatives, with gas leading the pack in both demand and supply.

Industries knew that the days of cheap fuels were over when the government last year began to peg fuel prices at market levels.

The government expects to phase out fuel subsidies altogether by 2004. For now, industries still enjoy fuels at 75 percent of international market prices.

The director general for electricity and energy development at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Luluk Sumiarso, said industries were already shifting to alternative energy sources. "Demand for other energy sources is rising, particularly for gas," Luluk told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

Industries account for about 20 percent of the country's total fuel consumption. And although some industries depend more on electricity sold by PT PLN, the state-owned electricity company relies heavily on fuel for its power plants. They absorb about 10 percent of the country's fuel consumption.

With an upswing in the economy, demand for electricity has surged, and PLN too is looking for energy sources other than oil to fire its power plants. Fortunately, the country is rich in energy options.

Indonesia is a major gas producer and a pioneer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, with main markets in Japan and South Korea. The country is also one of the world's largest coal producers. PLN and independent power producers are increasingly using gas or coal to power their generators.

Less developed, but nonetheless still with possibilities in the future, is renewable energy which draws its power source from natural heat and movement. Geothermal steam and sun rays produce heat; while water and wind generate movement.

Of these, geothermal generated electricity has advanced the most. Seven operating geothermal power plants are producing about 800 Megawatts (MW) of power across the country. Five other plants are being developed in Java, Bali, Sumatra and Sulawesi. The Indonesian Geothermal Association estimates that the five new geothermal power plants will yield over 400 MW in additional electricity by 2005.

But aside from geothermal energy, other alternative energy sources are developing less briskly due to the small power output they yield and geographical difficulties.

The government, however, is aiming to promote the enhancement of alternative energy sources through what Luluk calls Distributed Power Generators (PSKs), which have a modest capacity of at least 1 MW.

He said the PSKs would be located in various parts of the country where an energy source is capable of producing 1 MW. "We're talking about small ones, say waterfalls or geothermal steam, wherever we find them," he said, while stressing that these possible energy sources should also be near enough to reach consumers.

But of all the alternatives to oil, gas is the most promising with new gas reserves sprouting across the country. About US$2.95 billion is needed to finance the construction of new pipelines aimed at meeting growing domestic gas demand, according to state-owned gas company PT PGN.

"More and more industries are looking at gas as a substitute for oil," said WMP Simandjuntak, president director of PGN. There are two reasons for this interest in gas, he said. One is that oil prices are increasing, and the second is that in the long run gas is cheaper despite its initial investment costs.

For now, the price of gas itself remains slightly higher than the price of subsidized fuels, though the gap is narrowing. But with a growth of just 5 percent a year, gas consumption is still growing at a slower rate than oil, Simandjuntak said.

A poor gas distribution network is another obstacle in getting major companies to switch from oil to gas. To overcome this, he said, PGN plans to construct a web of new pipelines linking gas reserves in South Sumatra and East Kalimantan with Java's industrial centers. Constructing this web would require an investment of about $2.2 billion.

Indonesia's local TV stations near collapse

Straits Times - May 6, 2002

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- Several regional TV stations that have sprouted across Indonesia during the past year are now on the verge of collapse due to low ratings, inability to attract advertisements and high operational costs.

TV Pematang Siantar, based in a small town of the same name in North Sumatra, is one of the tiny local TV stations started last year that ceased operations recently. With virtually no steady income, it had relied solely on donations from local residents and a small subsidy from the city administration.

Similarly, numerous other television stations across Kalimantan and Sumatra are in dire straits but have managed to continue so far by squeezing expenditure. Most of these stations relay popular programmes from national television networks for several hours a day, without producing their own.

But even as some are barely surviving, more are emerging. The Jawa Pos group, which owns more than 50 publications across the country, runs two of them.

In East Java, the Jawa Pos Televisi (JTV), started in November, is currently running eight hours of entertainment and news programmes across the province. All its programmes are in Bahasa Indonesia, although some are infused with the local Javanese dialect.

JTV general manager Agus Mustofa told The Straits Times: "Jawa Pos initially wanted to have a TV station nationwide but we didn't get the licence from the central government. With the regional autonomy, we obtained a licence from the governor, which is easier. And we see opportunities that the national TV cannot provide -- emotional ties that we sell through our programmes and localised news."

Over the next few years, the group plans to open at least eight other stations that operate provincially in major cities across the country. But JTV had not been earning much from advertising despite having invested 30 billion rupiah (S$5.8 million), Mr Agus said.

One of the reasons, he said, was that local advertisers were still not eager to switch from the customary print and radio to television. "But we are optimistic we will grow because we think we have that competitive edge -- our local rate," he said.

Jawa Pos' other station, Riau Televisi (RTV), was kicked off in May last year. It operates within the provincial capital of Pekanbaru and receives financial backing from the Riau administration.

The 1998 media liberalisation led to the establishment of hundreds of print publications, but the government issued licences to set up only six new television stations, to add to the existing six.

But under the regional autonomy policy, local administrations are now in charge of issuing broadcasting licences, making it possible for new stations to operate in the provinces.