Labour issues

Worker union leader on trial

Jakarta Post - November 7, 2002

Jakarta -- The leader of a worker union at the Pondok Indah hospital in South Jakarta went on trial Wednesday for allegedly torturing his supervisor two months ago.

Prosecutor Hari Wahyudi told the South Jakarta District Court that defendant Edi Waluyo attempted to choke Nugroho Marwanto after the hospital management reprimanded him for neglecting patients.

During the hearing, which was presided over by Jude IDG Putra Jadnya, 30 banner-carrying union members appeared in support of their leader.

Edi, who is not being detained, denied any wrongdoing. He told reporters outside the courtroom that what he did was a self defense act.

He said the charges were fabricated and linked to his position as union leader. He said the union was currently demanding the management increase the workers' salaries. Some workers, who have been working or more than five years at the hospital, receive monthly salaries under the Regional Minimum Wage of Rp 591,000, he said.

463 sugar factory workers lose jobs in Kalimantan

Jakarta Post - November 7, 2002

Yuliansyah, Banjarmasin -- Some 463 workers at Pelaihari Sugar Company in Tanah Laut regency, South Kalimantan, have lost their jobs without compensation after their once reputable firm was liquidated by the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises last month.

The workers have been out of work for three months since the company ceased operations.

"So far, our fate is still unclear as the firm has not yet given us an official explanation, or compensation," one of the workers said on Wednesday. "The company leaders are not even in the office." The workers warned they would stage a demonstration if the company did not offer them a solution immediately, saying that they depended on the company for their livelihood.

Aside from rendering hundreds of workers jobless, the closure of the sugar company also made children nearby the firm unable to continue their studies as the schools, managed by the company, were also closed. If the local government doesn't take over the management of the only school in the area, the children will be unable to study.

The Pelaihari Sugar Company, owned PT Sentra Mas and PT Silvatex and the central government, was liquidated on October 5 as it had suffered heavy financial losses since it was established in 1985.

No official figures are available. The company reportedly had a total debt of Rp 138.6 billion (US$15.4 million), and must pay Rp 11 billion in installments every year. Meanwhile, its assets only stood at Rp 70 billion.

The firm had 40,000 hectares of sugar cane fields but managed only 7,000 hectares. Also, it was unable to produce high quality sugar and failed to compete with sugar from outside the area as well as imported sugar. The last operator of the company was PT Sentra Mas.

Members of the company's management have been transferred to a number of state-owned plantation companies in Surabaya, East Java; Semarang, Central Java; and Pontianak, West Kalimantan.

Separately, the deputy chief of the South Kalimantan Manpower and Transmigration office, Robby B. Mondigir, said his office had held talks with the Pelaihari Sugar Company's management, and the latter promised to pay the unpaid salaries and compensation for the workers. "We will meet with the management of the factory to discuss the liquidation later this week," he said.

According to him, he would ask the company's management to provide clarification about the firm's closure to the workers. "We ask the workers to be patient," he said. He also said that the workers must look for other employment following the closure of the sugar company.

Foreign investors flee, thousands workers suffer

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2002

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta -- Thousands of workers from eight textile and textile-products factories in Greater Jakarta have been left without jobs and payment after their foreign employers abruptly stopped operations and fled the country in the first half of this year.

In a media conference held Monday by the Jakarta Legal Aid Institution (LBH Jakarta), several workers unions representing the factory workers condemned the government for its failure to protect workers and monitor foreign investors.

Setyono, chairman of the Jakarta-Bogor-Tangerang-Bekasi Workers Union (SBJ), pointed to the lack of transparency in investment procedures for foreign businessmen in Indonesia as the root of the problem. Setyono accused the government of placing importance on foreign investments as economic indicators, while sacrificing the welfare of workers.

"Foreign investors can come here with nothing because they can rent facilities and machinery, taking advantage of attractive offers from the government such as low taxes, and then abandon everything after raking in profits."

B. Lucky Rosshinta of the LBH Jakarta division for workers' affairs added that there were suspicions of a conspiracy to avoid paying the Idul Fitri/Christmas and New Year's holiday bonuses (THR), which must be disbursed by year's end. Another theory, she said, was that the employers are planning to take advantage of the government's intention to legalize subcontract workers as stipulated in the labor bill.

"More and more workers came to us with complaints on their factories' plans to halt or relocate operations. We suspect the foreign investors abandoned these factories but will come back next year to open businesses at other locations.

"They would then recruit subcontract workers in an attempt to reduce costs, because they will not be obligated to provide insurance or other benefits as is the case with permanent workers," Lucky explained.

Six of the factories in question are PT Global, PT Metro, PT Tongkyung Makmur Abadi, PT Indolim, PT Jaya Toys Rekatama and PT Kawan Kita Sejahtera, which were all operated by Korean investors with no Indonesian partners. The remaining two are: PT Kanisatex, located in Cileungsi, Bogor, and owned by Japanese and Indonesian co-investors; and PT Trenton Garment Indonesia, owned by investors from China and Hong Kong.

The workers filed complaints with the police and at the office of manpower affairs, but in vain. "The workers also issued complaints to the Korean Embassy since the investors were already known in the country, but embassy officials said nothing could be done because no criminal offenses had been committed in Indonesia," Lucky said.

The media conference was also attended by the Forum for Workers Union of Textiles, Clothes and Leather Products (FSP-TSK), the Indonesian Workers Union of Garments, Textiles, Leather and Footwear (SBSI Garteks), and the Union of Indonesian Muslim Workers (Gaspermindo).

Unions ask for bigger wage rise

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2002

Ahmad Junaidi, Jakarta -- Labor unions demanded City Governor Sutiyoso on Monday to review its decree on the 2003 provincial minimum wage which rules an increase of 7 percent from the current Rp 590,000 to Rp 631,000 per month.

The unions grouped under the Federation of Metal Industry Worker Unions (FSPMI)'s city chapter, urged Sutiyoso to increase the wage to at least Rp 750,000 a month.

"If the decree was not reviewed, we will go on strike this Ramadhan fasting month," FSPMI's city chapter chairman Mudjiarno said in a meeting at the City Hall.

Mudjiarno was upset with the governor for signing the decree before inviting or listening to the workers' input. He said the 7 percent increase was too small as the current inflation rate had already reached more than 9 percent while next year's inflation was predicted to exceed 10 percent.

The meeting, which was held by the city manpower Agency and attended by about 100 workers and several employers, aimed to inform the public about the decree. "With this [small] increase, the administration only listened to the employers' suggestions," Mudjiarno said.

However, the city administration rejected the FSPMI's demand, saying that the decree had been discussed in a tripartite meeting which involved union representatives. "It was their own internal problem. We have discussed the increase with the union workers," head of the manpower office Bambang told reporters.

He claimed most of the worker unions grouped under the Federation of Indonesian Worker Unions (FSPSI)'s city chapter had already accepted the decree which will take effect in January.

Jakarta has about three million workers and at least 600,000 unemployed people.

Sutiyoso earlier promised to invite worker unions before signing the decree last week. But, he said that wage increases should not be more than 10 percent.

Although the decree was supported by the employers, many believed it would not be effectively applied. This year, the city administration has approved dozens of companies for not paying according to the official minimum wage due to lack of financial ability.

Aceh/West Papua

Washington and Canberra cover Papua military connection

World Socialist Web Site - November 8, 2002

John Roberts -- An article published in the Washington Post last weekend reported evidence that the highest levels of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI), including TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto, were involved in the August 31 ambush of employees of the Freeport McMoRan Inc mine in the province of Papua. Two Americans and an Indonesian died in the attack and another 12 people were wounded.

The ambush was immediately blamed on the separatist guerrillas of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) but police investigations over the last two months have uncovered a growing body of evidence pointing to the culpability of the military. The Washington Post article makes clear that intelligence sources in Washington and Canberra have known for weeks about the TNI's involvement in the attack but kept silent so as not to compromise US and Australian government efforts to forge closer links with the Indonesian military.

The article is based on information leaked by two US sources from an intelligence report provided to the US State Department in mid-September. According to the Post, the report revealed that senior TNI officials, including Sutarto, had discussed an operation against the Freeport mine as a means of discrediting the OPM and prodding the US into branding it as a terrorist group. The information came from a source, described by the report as "highly reliable" and privy to the content of the conversations.

The Washington Post reported: "The discussions described in the intelligence report did not detail a specific attack, nor did they call explicitly for the killing of Americans or other foreigners, but they clearly targeted Freeport, the US official and the American source said. Subordinates could have understood the discussions as a direction 'to take some kind of violent action against Freeport,' the [US] government official said." According to the Post, the information was corroborated by an electronic intercept "shared with the United States by another country, identified by a Western source as Australia". Australia's Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) maintains extensive electronic monitoring of Indonesia and the entire South East Asian region.

The extent of the DSD's surveillance operations was highlighted in March, when intelligence documents were leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald. These included DSD transcripts of conversations in 1999 involving top Indonesian generals as they prepared to unleash militia violence against pro-independence supporters in East Timor. The Howard government concealed the information in order to preserve its longstanding relations with the TNI and then used the bloodbath after the UN ballot on independence in August 1999 to justify the Australian-led military intervention.

The latest revelation raises serious questions about what the DSD, and therefore Canberra and Washington, knew prior to the Freeport attack and what measures, if any, were taken to prevent the murders. It also suggests disturbing questions about possible military involvement in the subsequent Bali bombings on October 12-a line of investigation that has been all but ignored. The US FBI has been conducting its own investigation into the Freeport murders with four agents based at the town of Timika, near the mine. According to the Washington Post, FBI officials briefed the US State Department and embassy officials in Jakarta on the results of their investigation in early October. "The indications have pointed in that direction [of the military] but are not conclusive," one of the newspaper's US sources stated.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald last weekend, based on a source "close to the US Embassy in Jakarta," confirmed that US intelligence had electronic intercepts indicating "higher levels of command" in the Indonesian military had prior knowledge of the ambush. According to the newspaper, the aim of the attack, as well as discrediting the OPM, was to "pressure the giant mining company to continue an annual protection payment of more than $US10 million to the army command responsible for Papua".

The TNI's business empire

The TNI, which receives less than half of its income from the government budget, is heavily dependent on business dealings to make up the rest. The country's economic decline since the 1997- 98 Asian financial crisis has forced the military to turn increasingly to illegal activities, including drug smuggling, protection rackets, illegal mining and logging, fuel smuggling, gambling and prostitution.

Much of the TNI's income has come from the country's resource- rich provinces such as Papua, Aceh and, prior to 1999, East Timor. But in these areas, the military has increasingly come into conflict with the aspiration of local ruling elites, who in the aftermath of Suharto's downfall in 1998, have pushed for larger slices of resource revenue. In regions such as Papua, the TNI's suppression of separatist movements such as OPM has been bound up with maintaining the military's political control and economic monopolies.

Nine Kopassus soldiers, including a colonel, major and captain, are due to stand trial for the murder last November of Theys Eluay, chairman of the Papuan Council Presidium-a legal entity advocating Papuan independence. The TNI leadership has denied any responsibility for the killing, claiming the men acted outside the chain of command. Several reasons have been advanced to explain the assassination, but all have the same central theme- conflict between the military and local Papuan elites over the control of resources.

The TNI has long regarded the Freeport operation -- the world's largest copper and gold mine-as a lucrative source of income. According to a recent report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), business allies of former dictator Suharto took out shares in the mine from the 1970s and were given control over other assets including housing, a power plant and catering services. Between 1991 and 1997, the company guaranteed $US673 million in loans to Suharto-connected interests and the ties remain.

The provincial garrison in Papua also took its cut. After riots in 1996, which the ICG report states were probably orchestrated by the military, the TNI demanded $US100 million to build a new base. The company agreed to hand over $35 million, followed by annual payments of $11 million for continued "protection". But the company ran into difficulties this year as a result of major corporate scandals in the US. "This year was different because of the pressure for corporate transparency. It's not as easy as two years ago to spend $US10 million or $US11 million without it showing up in the books," a source told the Sydney Morning Herald.

The TNI has never hesitated in using the most brutal methods to defend its interests. Since Suharto's fall, the military has been implicated not only in the militia violence in East Timor but in supporting the Islamic extremist militia, Laskar Jihad, which has been involved in communal fighting in the Malukus, Sulawesi and more recently in Papua. In each case, the TNI has used the communal conflict to argue for a greater role in providing internal security. Over the last year, the generals have sought to use the Bush administration's "war on terrorism" to justify a crackdown in Aceh and Papua as well as to reestablish close ties with the US military.

TNI spokesman Major General Syafrie Syamsuddin reacted to the Washington Post report by declaring that to ambush Freeport employees to discredit the OPM was "illogical". "This is probably something made up to discredit the TNI," he said, but offered no evidence to support his claims. From the standpoint of the Indonesian military, an attack on mine employees, although risky, was quite logical and in keeping with its past record.

US seeks ties with the TNI

The Sydney Morning Herald noted that US officials were "deeply worried" that the revelations of high-level TNI involvement in the Freeport murders would "cut across the wider thrust of US policy to open links with Indonesia's violence-tainted military". According to its unnamed source: "They know the killing of the two Americans was initiated by Kopassus [Indonesia's notorious special forces] but still they sit on the information because it hurts their larger interests." The decision to keep quiet about the TNI's involvement in the Freeport killings underscores the cynicism with which Washington and Canberra are pursuing the "global war on terrorism". Following the attack, the US Embassy in Jakarta immediately denounced it as "an outrageous act of terrorism". And without a doubt, if the FBI or the CIA had uncovered an Al Qaeda link, the intelligence would have been front-page news around the world. But, in this case, information about the murders, including of two Americans, pointed in a direction that conflicted with broader US interests and, as a result, it has been suppressed.

The "war on terrorism" has been the means by which the Bush administration has been pressuring Jakarta for closer military links, on the one hand, and to push for the US Congress to lift its ban on such ties. Despite the occasional public professions of concern about the brutal record of the Indonesian armed forces, Washington regards the Indonesian military as one of the few resources it can rely on in an increasingly volatile Indonesia and unstable region.

If the top levels of the TNI were implicated in the Freeport massacre, it would conflict with this agenda in several ways. In the first place, the Bush administration could be placed in the embarrassing position of having to call for action to be taken against Sutarto and other top generals-that is, the very people with whom closer relations are being established-for the murder of US citizens.

The administration would also face tougher opposition to any attempt to lift the congressional ban. Senator Patrick Leahy, the sponsor of the ban, told the Washington Post that if the Indonesian military were found to have planned the killings, then the administration's proposed military training aid, $400,000 for fiscal 2003, should not go ahead.

"It should surprise no one that the Indonesian military may have been involved in this atrocity. It has a long history of human rights violations and obstruction of justice. The fact that the perpetrators apparently believed they could murder Americans without fear of being punished illustrates the extent of the impunity," Leahy said.

Commenting on the Washington Post article, US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who has been at the forefront of pushing for ties with Indonesian military, acknowledged the revelation was "very disturbing" and the administration took it "very seriously". But he made clear that the US intended to establish closer relations with the TNI regardless, cynically arguing that US contact with those responsible for more than three decades of atrocities was needed "to support democracy in Indonesia and to support the fight against terrorism".

General to probe murders

The Australian - November 8, 2002

Don Greenlees, Jakarta -- Indonesian armed forces commander General Endriartono Sutarto has sent a special team to Papua to investigate allegations that the military were involved in the murders of three employees of the Freeport copper and gold mine, including two Americans.

The appointment of the investigation team, under General Sutarto's intelligence assistant, Major-Gene ral Luthfi, follows claims that General Sutarto was aware of plans to stage an incident at Freeport before the August 31 ambush of the three employees. The Washington Post, quoting an unnamed US official, reported that senior Indonesian military officers, including General Sutarto, wanted to discredit Free Papua Organisation (OPM) guerillas.

The allegations intensify pressure on armed forces headquarters at a time when the future of military ties with the US, Australia and other Western countries is in the balance. To consolidate the campaign against terrorism, foreign governments would like to resume some suspended military contacts with Indonesia, but continued claims of misconduct by Indonesian troops are complicating those overtures. At least six soldiers of the special forces, or Kopassus, are due to face court soon over the murder of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay, killed a year ago next Monday. Suspicions remain over whether there was military involvement in the Freeport ambush on August 31.

General Sutarto has denied knowledge of a military role in the Freeport killings, but the decision to appoint an internal investigation team reflects the level of anxiety at armed forces headquarters over the damage being done by allegations of military involvement in the ambush.

In an effort to take the initiative, General Sutarto has told advisers he is thinking of taking legal action against The Washington Post.

Stemming the damage could prove difficult. FBI agents visited Papua to monitor an Indonesian police investigation, and Western diplomats are concerned over signs that soldiers interfered with the crime scene in an effort to point the blame at the OPM. This has fuelled suspicions of a military role in carrying out the ambush. Western diplomatic sources in Jakarta have claimed indications of military complicity are supported by communications intercepts, although the extent of hard evidence is disputed in diplomatic circles.

Former Papua police chief I Made Pastika, now in charge of the Bali bomb investigation, has admitted privately that he believes Indonesian soldiers were connected to the ambush, but is yet to release results of the investigation.

Defense minister objects to foreign observers in Aceh

Jakarta Post - November 9, 2002

Jakarta -- Defense Minister Matori Abdul Djalil rejected here on Friday the idea of including foreign observers in a team that would monitor the implementation of a possible peace agreement between the government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh.

"There is no way we will agree to have foreign observers in the monitoring team. This [monitoring the observance of a peace agreement] is our internal affair," Matori was quoted as saying by Antara news agency.

Earlier, chairman of the Aceh chapter of the Muhammadiyah Muslim organization Imam Suja' said in Banda Aceh that the Aceh monitoring team might comprise 150 men from the Indonesian military and police, GAM's security wing as well as 50 foreign officers.

According to Matori, should the Indonesian government and GAM agree to the formation of a monitoring team in the peace accord, the team need not include any foreign element.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said he had no objections to foreign participation in a peace monitoring team in Aceh. "By all means [go ahead]," he said.

GAM not authorized to declare cease-fire, TNI chief

Jakarta Post - November 9, 2002

Jakarta -- Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said here on Friday the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has no authority whatsoever to declare a cease-fire as it is an outlawed group that is not entitled to possess weapons.

"[The GAM] is not entitled to declare a cease-fire either in the fasting month of Ramadhan or in any other month," Endriartono was quoted by Antara as saying.

GAM earlier called on the TNI and the Indonesian Police to abide by a self-imposed cease-fire as Muslims fast. The rebels also said they would use firearms only if attacked by the Military and Police.

The TNI chief said the government would continue in its efforts to solve the Aceh conflict as quickly as possible.

GAM unilaterally decided to suspend peace talks with the government in Geneva scheduled for November 2 to November 4.

Police ban a mass prayer in Aceh

Jakarta Post - November 9, 2002

Jakarta -- Police blockaded the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh to prevent 5,000 people from attending a mass prayer held by the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA) on Friday, El Shinta radio station reported.

Organizing committee member Naziruddin said police claimed SIRA would present "provocative political preaching" during the sermon. "It's only a Friday sermon, why should the police politicize everything," he said, adding that SIRA would insist on conducting the sermon.

A local councillor criticized the police, saying they had no right to ban people from entering the mosque for prayer.

SIRA has asked Jakarta to conduct a referendum for Acehnese to prevent continuous violence in the province.

Aceh ceasefire breaks down as it starts

Laksamana.Net - November 7, 2002

The Indonesian military is reported to be engaged in its biggest operation for five months as light tanks and armored personnel carriers pounded a base of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Troops were using light tanks and armored personnel carriers against a suspected concentration of GAM rebels in an area 35 kilometers south of the industrial township of Lhokseumawe.

Reports Wednesday said the fighting, on the day a ceasefire was supposed to have begun, involved up to 200 GAM fighters.

Agencies cited military spokesman Lt. Col. Firdaus Komarno as saying the operation was routine, although analysts say the clash marks a new military offensive that appears to be the largest operation undertaken by security forces in Aceh for some five months.

GAM infers military broke the ceasefire

The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) had declared a unilateral ceasefire effective a day before the Muslim Holy month of Ramadhan started Wednesday.

Agence France-Presse quoted Sofyan Dawod, a district commander and Aceh GAM spokesman, as saying the rebels were surrounded by forces who have sealed the area and put the rebels under siege. Dawod said the rebels were forced to defend themselves. thus inferring that the military had broken the truce and not GAM.

Earlier Wednesday police said they had seized a weapons cache and arrested a suspected rebel following a search of a bus Tuesday afternoon. Confirming the incident Aceh police spokesman Muhammad Joenoes said the haul consisted of 25 guns, including AK-47 rifles, and 300 rounds of ammunition.

Blow to peace prospects

The clash south of Lhokseumawe, long known as a base for GAM, shattered what earlier had been said to be high hopes for a peace process brokered by the Henry Dunant Center (HDC).

Senior Indonesian officials including Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security Affairs Susilo Dambang Yudoyhono had said there was confidence that the talks scheduled to start in Switzerland over the weekend would succeed.

GAM accused the Indonesian government of announcing an agreement prematurely, saying it needed more time to consider, though it could see the signing of an accord by December.

More than 10,000 people have died in the conflict since 1976, when GAM began fighting for an independent state in the energy- rich province on Sumatra Island, with more than 1,200 civilians dead this year alone.

Lesley McCulloch case debated in parliament

Green Left Weekly - November 6, 2002

Iggy Kim -- On October 24, a debate was held in Britain's House of Commons over the Foreign Office's handling of the detention of Lesley McCulloch in Indonesia. The debate was initiated by Alan Reid, the Scottish Liberal Democrats member for Argyll and Bute, where McCulloch's parents live. McCulloch is a British citizen and resident of Australia. She is being detained in Aceh for allegedly violating her visa.

Reid cited the long delay in the Foreign Office's response to McCulloch's arrest on September 11. Despite the office being informed on September 12, no British consular official visited her until September 17. According to Reid, consular officials then made only one further visit in early October.

Despite repeated phone calls, McCulloch's mother Mattie was unable to get through to the Foreign Office until September 16. Since then, the Foreign Office has provided little information about her daughter's condition or the progress of the case.

Reid reported that McCulloch's Indonesian lawyers had raised the possibility of transferring her to house arrest. However, according to Reid, the lawyers did not proceed as the police were concerned that the military would try to assassinate her if she was out of police custody.

Reid also recounted how McCulloch's Indonesian captors are "telling her that they can do what they like to her because the lack of consular visits indicates that her government do not care".

In a lengthy reply, the British Labour government's parliamentary under-secretary for foreign affairs, Mike O'Brien, denied Reid's charges and defended his government's handling of the McCulloch case.

A meeting was held between O'Brien and McCulloch's parents. The British-based Indonesian human rights group, Tapol, reports that the meeting was heated. Mattie McCulloch angrily disputed O'Brien's account of the Foreign Office's handling of the case.

ABC radio interviewed one of McCulloch's lawyers, Harry Ponto, on October 31. Ponto stated that police and prosecutors "will only charge her based on the immigration law violation", but "we also have a problem with some parties [who] are interested to bring this case not only for violation of visa, but also espionage". The trial for the visa charge is likely to take place around November 7.

Australian intelligences links TNI to Freeport killing

Radio Australia - November 5, 2002

[New evidence has emerged that the Indonesian army was directly involved in the ambush that killed two Americans and an Indonesian near the Freeport Gold mine in the Indonesian province of Papua last August. Suspicion for the attack initially fell on the Free Papua Movement. But now the Washington Post has reported that Australian intelligence gave its signals intercept to the United States following the attack. The Indonesian military has denied the claim.]

Presenter/Interviewer: Graeme Dobell, Canberra

Speakers: Australian defence analyst Dr Adam Cobb; Australia's opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd

Dobell: The Washington Post says the US Government believes the top ranks of the Indonesian military aimed to discredit the sepratist Free Papua Movement, and have it declared a terrorist organisation.

The paper says that human intelligence about conversations among Indonesian generals discussing an attack on the mine has been supported by signals intelligence. Those Australian intercepts of Indonesian conversations were passed to the US after the ambush that killed three teachers, two of the Americans. Defence analyst Dr Adam Cobb says Australia has the signals capacity to gather such intelligence about Papua.

Cobb: Well it's very credible. As we saw during the Timor crisis, there was very specific information right down to ... well, from the strategic level between military commanders, the general and major general rank, right down to specific units moving on the ground. I don't think we've lost that capability since Timor, so it's highly likely that's going on.

Dobell: The problem for Australia is that it wants to step up intelligence cooperation with Indonesia to combat terrorism. According to the Opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd, who is visiting Jakarta, a lack of trust means the intelligence flow with Indonesia has dried up.

Rudd: Problems don't just occur overnight. They occur as a consequence of long-term relationships and I've got to say in this case, the long-term deterioration of a relationship. The immediate challenge on the Prime Minister's part, is to make two things happen. The first is to get back under control and in order the flow of bilateral intelligence information between Australia and Indonesia. Four or five years ago, what former intelligence officers have told me is that there was a large flow of information and that has now dried up to a trickle. That's not me speaking, that's people in the trade. But secondly, it also comes down to practical levels of cooperation now between Australia ... for example the Australian federal police and the Indonesian national police.

Dobell: Australia's Defence Signals Directorate is the jewel in the intelligence crown, the service that evesdrops on phone calls, radio transmissions and data flowing across Asia, especially Indonesia. But is DSD's product so valuable Australia won't use the evidence gathered to confront criminal acts.

The Sydney Morning Herald in March said DSD had explosive evidence of how senior Indonesian generals organised the violence which swept East Timor in 1999. It said the raw Timor intercepts were not given to war crimes investigators for fear of harming intelligence gathering. Dr Adam Cobb says the Indonesian military used violence and militia forces in East Timor and the pattern is being repeated in Papua.

Cobb: Leaked DSD transcripts have shown that there was complicity right up the chain of command, linking the various military commanders right throughout the chain of command, basically, to the arming and the formation of militia in East Timor. We now have evidence, or emerging evidence, that similar activities are taking place in Papua. So there's some very important questions being raise.

Dobell: If the United States wants to use Australian signals intelligence to prosecute, to bring people to justice, what problems does that present for Australia?

Cobb: On the one hand you've got the very important human rights concerns, and you want to be able to prosecute. But on the other hand, from the military intelligence perspective, you don't want to lose this access to this information and these sources. So you've got to be working pretty hard to protect your sources so this information continues to flow in. So it's a very fine balance between using the information and also protecting it.

GAM reluctant to surrender arms: Imam Suja'

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2002

Nani Farida, Banda Aceh -- The mystery behind the Free Aceh Movement (GAM)'s decision to delay signing a peace agreement with the government was partly explained by a respected Acehnese Muslim leader over the weekend.

Tengku Imam Suja', one of six Acehnese religious leaders and public figures invited by the Henry Dunan Centre (HDC) to meet with GAM leaders in Geneva last week, told The Jakarta Post that GAM was still reluctant to turn over their arms as stipulated in the draft peace agreement.

"GAM fighters feel that if their weapons are collected and put in storage, they will have no more power and they don't want that," Imam Suja' said.

The government had wanted to sign the peace agreement before the fasting month of Ramadhan began, probably on November 6.

Other religious leaders and public figures invited by the HDC to hold talks with GAM leaders in Geneva were Muslim Ibrahim, Daniel Djuned, Isa Sulaiman, Alyasa' Abubakar and Hakim Nyak.

They met with Hasan Tiro, Bakhtiar Abdullah, Zaini Abdullah and Malik Mahmud. According to Imam Suja', they told the GAM leaders that the level of violence in Aceh had worsened. "We told them that violence will continue if there is no dialog," he told the Post.

GAM has been fighting for independence for the resource-rich province since 1976. Over 10,000 people, mostly civilians, are believed to have been killed in the violence.

According to Imam Suja', two issues are holding GAM back from signing a peace agreement with the government: the collection of weapons and the role of the police during the cease-fire.

Chapter II, Letter B of the draft peace agreement stipulates that GAM has to collect its arms and put them in storage, co-guarded by GAM members and troops from a third party, while the Indonesian Military (TNI) must redefine its role from an offensive force to a defensive one.

To that end, GAM has to designate 10 locations where it will store its weapons and submit a list of weapons to the third party, which will then deploy troops to guard the weapons. The storage areas will be locked and controlled by GAM members and troops from a third party, who will be authorized to carry out unannounced inspections of the arms storage sites.

Another issue stopping GAM from signing the peace agreement is the role of the police during the so-called humanitarian pause to the violence, according to Imam Suja'. GAM, according to him, is afraid the police will use the cease-fire to hunt the rebels.

"The role of the police, according to prevailing Indonesian law, is to go after armed civilians, and that means going after GAM only because GAM has weapons," Imam Suja' quoted GAM leaders as saying.

GAM leaders, he said, still wanted to discuss these issues among themselves, which is why they delayed the signing of the peace agreement until after the Idul Fitri festivities. "They are asking for more time to discuss the collection of weapons and the role of police," Imam Suja' said.

He also said GAM did not want the government to give it any ultimatums. "It seems to me GAM does not want the government to set any deadlines; they will not negotiate under pressure." He said the government and GAM had reached an agreement on the composition of a planned Monitoring Committee that would supervise the cessation of hostilities in the country's westernmost province. The Monitoring Committee, he said, would consist of 150 members -- 50 from GAM, 50 from TNI and 50 from foreign countries.

"The committee consists of 50 field commanders from GAM, 50 field officers from TNI and 50 from foreign countries. They will be assigned throughout Aceh and fully armed," Imam Suja' said.

'War on terrorism'

Pieces of Bali puzzle falling into place

Straits Times - November 10, 2002

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta -- A few days before the Bali bombing, a Yemen national quietly slipped into Indonesia.

The 40-year-old terrorist, acting on the orders of his Al-Qaeda masters, had a very important mission: lead a team of eight Indonesians and a Malaysian (suspected of having links to the radical Kumpulan Militan Malaysia) to carry out the worst terrorist attack in Indonesia's history.

Sources involved in the investigation said the trail of the militants could be traced to Semarang in Central Java -- the "rendezvous point".

They met two days before the attack on October 12 to finalise details before some of them departed for Bali, where they were joined in Kuta by Amrozi, a 30-year-old mechanic.

The Yemeni, who was known to be responsible for a string of explosions in Yemen and the Middle East, gave the final go-ahead for the attack and left as quietly as he had come in: by taking the last flight out of Bali on October 12.

The other members of the team dispersed quickly, seeking safe haven in parts of eastern Indonesia, Lombok, Flores and even Irian Jaya. One hundred and ninety-one dead. Mission accomplished.

US sources said planning for the bombing might have begun as early as January. Mohamed Mansour Jabar, an Al-Qaeda activist now being held in the US, told his FBI interrogators that an Al-Qaeda bomber known as Saad, who had trained for a suicide mission, attended a meeting with bomb makers and members of the Jemaah Islamiah in southern Thailand.

Saad was brought to the meeting by terrorist suspect and JI operative Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali. The plotters decided to bomb "soft" targets across South-east Asia such as nightclubs, restaurants and bars frequented by Westerners.

Interestingly, the meeting took place just after the Al-Qaeda terrorist network issued a fatwa or decree to attack "whorehouses and nightclubs" in the region.

Al-Qaeda's own bombers may have been used in the Bali attack because previous operations planned by JI with minimal outside help had failed. But JI and local operatives were very much involved in scouting the region for months before targeting Bali.

They benefited from Middle East funding -- as much as US$200,000. Intelligence sources in the region suspect that the Saudi-based Al-Haramain foundation, branches of which were linked by Washington this year with terrorist financing, was a key conduit for Al-Qaeda money into the region.

The organisation had been funding JI operations in Indonesia since 1999, with a branch set up in the country. Its leader, Sheikh Bandar, had a second wife in Surabaya, East Java, whom he visited often. He was also in touch with Kuwaiti Omar Al-Faruq, now detained in Afghanistan. Money was reportedly funneled to Sayam Reda, a 42-year-old German national of Syrian descent, who had been living in the country since last year. Indonesian police arrested him three weeks before the Bali tragedy.

The stocky-built Sayam was believed to have been the "paymaster" of a ring of terrorists in Indonesia that included Omar Al-Faruq and others, like senior JI member Agus Dwikarna, who is serving a 17-year jail sentence.

Through Sayam, other names and personalities are sprouting up, like Gorib, Rasyid, Naser Nouval and Redu Makasar, alias Daeng Lao. All of them are on the run.

Did they have a hand in Bali? Did they use Al-Haramain's funds to put in place a team of 10 for the deadly attack? Who else is involved? These questions are still unanswered. But the Bali bombing is a big jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are slowly falling into place.

For weeks, the Indonesian police, caught up in a bitter rivalry with other security agencies here, made no headway thanks to foot-dragging and several embarrassing gaffes. They are now beginning to unravel the complex network behind Indonesia's worst terrorist attack.

The recent capture of Amrozi, a 30-year-old part-time mechanic, was a breakthrough. For the first time, someone directly involved in the bombing had been caught. His confession also lent credence to tangible links between the Bali bombing, the Al-Qaeda and its JI allies.

For a second day yesterday, police raided homes in a farm village in East Java province where he lived. They also searched an apartment allegedly rented by him in Bali, finding his fingerprints and residue of explosives.

Police have detained a principal of a boarding school in the East Java village and a shop owner where Amrozi allegedly bought bomb-making chemicals. They are now looking for his brothers, Ali Imron and Gufron.

There are still many more pieces that need to fall into place. A government official close to the probe noted: "It is an intricate and complex puzzle."

Bomber sorry Australians died

Sydney Morning Herald - November 9, 2002

Mark Baker, Sarah Crichton, Mark Riley and agencies -- The suspect who has allegedly admitted taking part in the Bali bombings has told police he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible and "wasn't happy" that Australians died.

Indonesian authorities also said yesterday that the 40-year-old Indonesian man, Amrozi, had led police to a house in Bali where explosives residue was recovered.

Police say Amrozi has confessed to links with the Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, alleged spiritual head of the outlawed terror group Jemaah Islamiah, and the man regarded as al-Qaeda's number three, Hambali.

As questioning of Amrozi continued, the first substantial evidence emerged linking the Bali attack to a web of Islamic extremists across South-East Asia and accused of al-Qaeda connections.

The New York Times quoted Bali investigators as saying they were looking at the possibility that the attack was planned at a meeting in southern Thailand in January attended by al-Qaeda operatives and other Islamic extremists.

Hambali and an alleged al-Qaeda explosives expert, Mohamed Mansour Jabara, now in custody in the United States, were said to have attended the meeting.

Jabara has also been accused of being a key figure in last year's plot to attack Western targets, including the Australian high commission in Singapore.

The Australian Federal Police general manager of national operations, Ben McDevitt, said of Amrozi's arrest: "It quite possibly is the most significant development at this stage ... we think this will change the momentum of this inquiry." The chief of the Indonesian police investigation team, Major General I Made Mangku Pastika, said Amrozi had said he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible. He said "they were not very happy because Australians were killed", instead of Americans.

General Pastika said a search of the Bali house had also turned up two one-way tickets to the city of Manado, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. A bomb exploded outside the Philippine consulate in Manado the same day as the Bali blast.

The general suggested that Amrozi and an accomplice might have been planning to flee to the southern Philippines, home to Muslim extremist groups such as Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

He said police believed six to 10 people were involved in the Kuta attack and that there were signs of international involvement. "We have their names already. We know their identities. What the police are doing now is searching throughout the country."

Indonesian police have labelled Amrozi -- arrested at an Islamic boarding school in his home town of Tenggulun, in East Java, on Tuesday -- as "executor" of the Bali bombing. They confirmed that he owned the L300 Mitsubishi van that exploded outside the Sari Club.

It is believed Amrozi was depicted in one of the three images police released last week, but had twice cut his hair since the bombing, said the national police spokesman, Brigadier-General Edward Aritonang.

Amrozi had told police he was born in 1962 and had travelled several times to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, looking for work.

He had admitted living with Abu Bakar in Malaysia in the late 1990s when the cleric was in exile from the Soeharto regime. Local media reported that the two were in business selling perfume and had conducted religious meetings at mosques.

General Aritonang said police believed the bomb was put together in Bali, although they had not yet confirmed that Amrozi was on the island at the time of the blast.

Hamzah not sure al-Qaeda involved in Bali bombings

Jakarta Post - November 7, 2002

Vice president Hamzah Haz said that he was not sure of the involvement of international terrorist groups or the al-Qaeda network in last month's bombings in Bali, El Shinta radio station reported.

Hamzah's remarks were quoted by the head of the Indonesian Islamic Student (PII), Zulfikar, following a meeting at the Vice Presidential palace.

"He argued that the Bali bombings occurred in an entertainment destination instead of an economic symbol, like what had happened in the United States," Zulfikar said, referring to the September 11 attacks.

Hamzah has maintained his denial of possible terrorist network in Indonesia, even after last month's Bali bombing tragedy which killed at least 180 people and injured hundreds of others.

Muhammadiyah students to confer 'Terrorism Award' to US

Jakarta Post - November 8, 2002

Serang, Banten -- The Muhammadiyah Students Association (IMM), a student wing of the Muhammadiyah Muslim organization, during its 16th national congress from November 4-6, will confer the "Terrorism Award" to the United States, its chairman Piet Hizbullah Haidir disclosed here on Thursday.

"The US does not pay any heed to the interests of other countries, and instead interferes in the affairs of other countries just to further its own interests. Such a country deserves to be given the Terrorism Award," Piet told Antara.

He pointed out that the US has been exploiting the terrorism issue to dictate its own political and business interests to other countries. "As a sovereign country, Indonesia should not kowtow to US pressure," Piet said.

The IMM also asked the government to revoke Government Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perpu), No. 1 and No. 2 on terrorism.

Evidence accrues in Bali blast

Christian Science Monitor - November 7, 2002

Dan Murphy, Jakarta -- Investigators on three continents are moving closer to definitively tying Al Qaeda and its Indonesian allies to the October 12 bomb blast at the Sari Club on the island of Bali that killed at least 190 people.

In particular, an alleged Al Qaeda operative in US custody has told interrogators that he and members of the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) agreed at a meeting in southern Thailand last January to strike at Southeast Asian tourist resorts such as Bali, according to a regional intelligence official.

Investigators say all of the evidence, while not quite a smoking gun, is pointing them in one direction. But even as it does, some analysts say, the opportunity presented to Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri to move decisively against domestic radicals is slipping away. Instead, the convoluted politics of the world's most populous Muslim nation are threatening to protect alleged members of terrorist groups.

Since the Bali bombing, domestic sympathy for JI -- which US and Indonesian investigators strongly believe was involved in the attack -- has only increased. At the same time, suspicion of foreign investigators, particularly those from the US, has soared.

Ms. Megawati has been largely silent, failing to try to rally the nation around an antiterror effort. The vacuum has been filled with rumor and speculation, with fingers pointing almost anywhere but at the small, tightknit network of Indonesian militants already linked to JI and implicated in a series of smaller bombings in the past three years.

"This whole discourse of denial and the strange behavior of the Indonesian government is attributable to domestic political realities," says Andrew Tan, a professor at Singapore's Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies. "Neither Megawati nor anybody else wants to risk being branded un-Islamic. So I think it's likely that radical groups will continue to flourish in Indonesia." At present, Indonesia has roughly a dozen radical groups who claim their own militias. Although these are technically illegal, Jakarta has continued to leave them alone.

The government has, however, taken a small risk in the Saturday arrest of Abu Bakar Bashir, a 64-year old cleric. The State Department named Mr. Bashir as the leader of JI when it placed the group on its list of international terrorist organizations earlier this month. Bashir, who has complained of health problems since the police said they were considering arresting him, is currently being held at a police hospital in Jakarta.

He denies any ties to terrorism and claims that the US, a country he deems an "enemy of Islam," has pressured Indonesia to arrest him because of his religious beliefs.

National police say the cleric has not been arrested in connection with the Bali bombings -- instead, he's been charged with involvement in the bombing of almost a dozen churches on Christmas Eve 2000. But the two events are far from unconnected.

In a court filing yesterday laying out the charges against Bashir, the police cited a string of evidence against him, all of which is at least a year old. But only now has the government chosen to move against him, leaving a clear impression in the Indonesian public mind that he's being punished for the explosion on Bali.

Still, analysts say he's unlikely to be able to shed any light on what happened in Bali, and warn that the Indonesian government is risking burning political capital on a red herring. They say Bashir's knowledge of operations has been limited since the start of 2001, when he began to emerge as a senior leader in the movement to bring Islamic law to Indonesia as the chairman of the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), a high profile umbrella group for Indonesian militants.

"They're not going to get any information leading them to the Bali culprits from Bashir," says Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert who has written a book on Al Qaeda.

According to regional intelligence officials citing interrogations of alleged JI members, Bashir's rising public profile worried the group's principal operations man, Riduan Isammudin -- better known as Hambali. To protect the organization, Bashir was apparently cut out of the loop. "There's no doubt that Bashir's a bad guy," says a Western diplomat in Jakarta. "But we don't think he pulled the trigger on Bali."

A string of suspicions Indonesia's national police say they aren't certain yet who did pull the trigger on Bali. This week, the police announced the arrests of three Indonesian men on suspicion of involvement in the blast -- including the alleged owner of the minivan used in the attack. However, they warn that the detainees may eventually be released.

But police do have serious suspicions. Hambali, who is considered to be the JI's principal link to Al Qaeda, remains at large and was a participant in the January meeting in southern Thailand, according to Mohammed Mansour Jabarah.

Mr. Jabarah, a native of Kuwait with a Canadian passport, was arrested in Oman in March for allegedly plotting, along with JI, to blow up the US Embassy and other Western targets in Singapore. That plot was foiled last December with the arrests of dozens of alleged JI members in Singapore and Malaysia.

Jabarah is currently in US custody, and described the meeting to interrogators, according to a regional official. His account is the first in a string of evidence pointing toward JI.

The Singapore government says Jabarah came to Singapore along with another Al Qaeda operative, Indonesian Fathur Rahman al- Ghozi, in October 2001 to provide technical expertise for the attack on the US Embassy. But after that plot was foiled, operatives who remained at large decided that traditional targets like embassies were getting too difficult to attack.

Instead, Hambali and the other participants at the January meeting agreed to focus on clubs and bars frequented by Westerners. Most of the victims in the Sari Club blast were Australian. That shift to softer targets is something that Western intelligence agencies allege is happening within Al Qaeda and its loose network of affiliates across the globe.

Mr. Al-Ghozi was arrested in Manila before that January meeting, and is now serving time in the Philippines for a bomb blast that killed 22 at a Manila train station on New Year's Eve 2000. He received training in bomb-making at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, Indonesian and Filipino officials say.

Philippine officials say he's also confessed to building the car bomb that almost killed the Philippine ambassador to Indonesia, Leonides Caday, in August 2000.

That car bomb, in turn, is the only explosion in recent Indonesian history that compares to the style of bomb and skill that was involved in the construction of the car-bomb that destroyed the Sari Club. "The ambassador's house was a smaller blast, but it was quite similar," says Prasetyo, the deputy spokesman for the Indonesian National Police.

Terrorism vs. tourism

Nevertheless, with the exception of Bashir's arrest, there has been little effort to round up the literally dozens of leads that the interrogation of Jabarah and another alleged Al Qaeda operative who was arrested in Indonesia, Omar al-Faruq, have yielded, according to the terrorism expert, Mr. Gunaratna.

"They have the knowledge to move against a number of people but they don't have the political will," he says. "It's a terrible mistake." President Megawati has appeared to misunderstand the impact of the attack on Indonesia's image. Her first meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard after the attack came at a Mexico conference of Pacific leaders on October 26. Rather than focus on condolences and promises to catch the killers, she complained that Australia's stark warning to nationals to defer travel to Indonesia, issued since the attack, was hurting Indonesia's economy. Mr. Howard reminded her that his responsibility was the safety of Australians.

"As far as Megawati is concerned, the travel warning, and not the fact that terrorists are running around her country, is the problem," says Mr. Tan of Singapore's Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies.

That could create a backlash in Mr. Bashir's favor if evidence connecting him to the Bali blasts isn't forthcoming. Mr. Bashir is already seen by millions of Indonesians as a persecuted and sympathetic figure whose only crime is speaking his mind.

The anti-terrorism regulations - miracle drug?

Tempo Magazine - November 5-11, 2002

Todung Mulya Lubis -- The Bali tragedy, which killed over 190 people and wounded countless others, has finally jolted the government into admitting the existence of terrorism in Indonesia.

Various cities throughout Indonesia had previously been struck by a series of terrorist attacks prior to the Bali bombing, but these attacks were not considered dangerous and were not taken seriously. Although a number of suspects were caught, tried and even imprisoned in connection to these bombings, the brains behind the planning and organization remains a mystery.

Consequently, the Indonesian public has become apathetic towards the country's seemingly paralyzed police force. Anxiety has become a permanent part of our lives. Indonesia's law enforcement authorities are receiving international assistance, but this does not guarantee that the Bali attack will be solved. The current national and international political climate, characterized by suspicion, tension and conflicting interests, will make the Bali tragedy even more difficult to solve.

Consequently, fears are rife that the Bali bombing will become yet another murky chapter in Indonesia's history. Conspiracy theorists have already directed premature accusations against the CIA and the Al Qaeda network. Some observers blame weak legislation for the failure of Indonesia's law enforcement authorities to solve the series of bomb attacks. The government itself complained that the Criminal Code (KUHP) does not provide law enforcement authorities with the legal grounds necessary to investigate and catch terrorists.

It was hoped that new legislative provisions would help loosen the paralysis that Indonesia's police and intelligence have experienced in fighting terrorism over the past four years. The government has issued two regulations intended to help crack down on terrorism. Government Regulation No. 1/2002 on Eliminating Criminal Acts of Terror serves as a general guideline for fighting terrorists. Government Regulation No. 2/2002 allows for the principle of retroactivity to be applied to the Bali bombing case.

It is sad that the Indonesian Government needed a tragedy of the magnitude of the Bali bombing to formulate the legal grounds required to investigate, track down and take action against terrorists. However, the new regulations beg the question of whether the KUHP and the Criminal Code Procedures (KUHAP) are capable of dealing with terrorism. Any scholar of Indonesian law understands that the KUHP and KUHAP do provide the legal grounds required to conduct investigations into the bombing. The failure of law enforcement authorities to solve the series of bomb attacks that struck the nation could be attributed to procrastination by government officials in taking action against terrorism.

The range of premature accusations could also be attributed to the government's lack of a strong political will to eliminate terrorism and conflicting interests within its ranks. It is ironic that government officials continue to openly debate the presence of terrorism in this country after hundreds of people have been killed and numerous others wounded by terrorist bombings.

Is this not the true cause of the police and intelligence forces' reluctance to take action? Assuming that the KUHP and KUHAP do not provide strong legal grounds for fighting terrorism, do the new anti-terrorism regulations fill this gap? The anti-terrorism regulations empower security forces to undertake immediate steps to eliminate terrorism, including arresting and detaining terrorist suspects for six months based on intelligence reports as prima facie evidence.

Such reports may originate from the offices of police intelligence, the Attorney General's Office (AGO), immigration and customs department, Indonesian Military, State Intelligence Agency (BIN), Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or other intelligence sources from various government agencies.

We can imagine just how easy it will be to arrest someone under these provisions, and how easily security forces could abuse the powers given to them under these regulations. Indeed, intelligence reports used as prima facie evidence must first be approved by a district court chairperson within seven days. However, it is difficult to imagine that Indonesia's courts will maintain their judicial independence on such matters. It is also questionable whether our judges have been trained to decipher intelligence reports and decide whether such reports constitute prima facie evidence.

Therefore, although a district court must first approve any intelligence-based evidence, we are only slightly better off than during the New Order regime when Indonesia's public suffered at the hands of the anti-subversion laws. The majority of Indonesia's public support the fight against terrorism as well as the non-negotiable principle of prioritizing the national interest. However, it is our duty to remind the government that fighting terrorism should not come at the cost of violating our basic human rights, or the legal rights of suspects being investigated.

The tendency of authorities to corruption makes this a very real danger. This can happen anywhere. In the United States, criticism has been directed at President Bush's policies for compromising the basic rights of suspects based on the raison d'etre that the United States is fundamentally based on the principle of respect for basic human rights.

Although the American public supports the fight against terrorism, many people object to the victimization of innocent people in the name of eliminating terrorism. One incident, reported in the International Herald Tribune on June 13, 2002, concerned Syrian-born taxi driver, Nabil Amarabh in Boston, America. Security forces detained Nabil for eight months on charges of terrorism before he was allowed to meet with a defense counsel and a judge. Even if Nabil were guilty, his right to obtain immediate legal assistance should not have been hampered.

A similar fate could happen to anyone in Indonesia. The anti- terrorism regulations empower authorities to arrest individuals and freeze the assets of those individuals and corporations not only suspected of involvement in terrorist acts, but also suspected of providing funding assistance to terrorists, concealing information or providing any other form of assistance to terrorists.

These provisions can be interpreted very broadly and reopen the door for security forces to use repression and promote a culture of fear. Who can guarantee that the regulations will not be abused to convict innocent persons who may have somehow "assisted" terrorists? And who can guarantee that the provisions will not be abused to detain anyone who poses a threat to the political authorities?

Security forces now have six months to manufacture means to convict their enemies. Perhaps authorities may decide to release an arrested suspect after brainwashing them. Pessimists believe that the anti-terrorism regulations spell the beginning of an authoritarian government, following the path set by President Bush.

An international agreement to declare war on terrorism may unwittingly open the door to increased military power, which was kept in check by civil supremacy during the reformasi period. Once again, the United States has pledged military assistance to Indonesia, despite objections from several members of Congress and the US Senate.

Criticizing the anti-terrorism regulations is interpreted as opposing the fight against terrorism. It must be reiterated that the majority of the Indonesian public agree with every endeavor to eliminate terrorism. But giving birth to a new legal paradigm containing repressive elements will merely stifle the seeds of democracy that have begun to grow in Indonesia.

If the government feels that the KUHP and KUHAP do not provide the strong legal grounds required to combat terrorism, they can add new articles to them to fill in the gaps. The government could also ratify the various United Nations conventions on eliminating terrorism, such as the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (1977) and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999). Empowering the existing national legal framework and ratifying international conventions will allow the government to fight terrorism but also prevent the rebirth of an authoritarian government.

Indonesia's success in eliminating terrorism depends on the political will and determination of government officials and authorities to take concrete steps in fighting terrorism. We should not assume that Government Regulation No. 1/2002 will do this for them. Rather, the new regulations merely open the door to a dangerous rebirth of authoritarian government and, for this reason, they must be rejected.

[Todung Mulya Lubis is the president of the Regional Council of Human Rights in Asia].

Indonesian military's links to terror

Asia Times - November 7, 2002

Tom Fawthrop -- The highly politicized Indonesian military, trained in waging terror during more than 30 years of General Suharto's dictatorship, are among the suspects in last month's Bali bombing, according to a respected Indonesian commentator.

Wimar Witoelar, former spokesman for ex-president Abdurrahman Wahid, claimed "the plot is probably hatched by hardline military rogues. This is certainly an excuse for a military takeover unless it is preempted."

While some Western experts on terrorism have concluded that Indonesian extremists linked to the al-Qaeda network are the major suspects, many Indonesians are not so sure it is that simple. A spate of explosions in the capital Jakarta in 2000 included a huge car-bomb blast in the underground parking lot of the Jakarta Stock Exchange. Two members of Kopassus (army special forces) have been convicted and jailed for that act of terrorism.

Kopassus, Indonesia's counter-insurgency elite, has also been linked to last year's assassination of Papuan leader Theys Eluay in a campaign to suppress the indigenous people's rejection of rule by Jakarta. In the same province of West Papua (formerly Iran Jaya), Kopassus has been implicated in the murder of two American teachers and one Indonesian employed by the US mining company Freeport McMoRan, in an ambush in August near its huge mine. Kopassus has been accused of staging a "freedom-fighter ambush" that could be readily blamed on local tribespeople, known to be strong critics of the US corporation.

US officials have confirmed that they have evidence that senior Indonesian military officials discussed an operation against the US mining company before the August 31 ambush, according to a report last weekend in the Washington Post. These murders and the recent spread of militia to West Papua follow the assignment of General Mahidin Simbolon to take charge of the restive province. Simbolon was one of the key figures who orchestrated the violence in East Timor in 1999.

It appears the Indonesian military has learned nothing from the dirty war that led to such a huge civilian death toll in East Timor. Kopassus officers deployed in rebellious Aceh and West Papua are carrying out the same terror tactics in a desperate bid to prevent these two provinces from breaking away from Jakarta.

Among the suspects in the Bali bombing, two extremist Muslim organizations, Jemaah Islamiyah and Laskar Jihad, both have shadowy links with Indonesian generals.

Since Suharto was toppled in 1998, key military generals with Islamist sympathies have sought to mobilize Islamist militia for their own purposes, according to Australian academic Dr Greg Barton. At this time Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and other Jemaah Islamiyah leaders returned to Java from self-imposed exile in Malaysia. Barton, the author of Abdurrahman Wahid, Muslim Democrat, Indonesian President, points out: "Two years later, in early 2000, when President Wahid sacked General Wiranto over the East Timor post-ballot massacres and began to push hard for profound reforms within the military, non-Islamist, nationalist generals joined forces with generals known to be religious hardliners to use radical Islamist militia to destabilize the Wahid administration."

In troubled regions such as Ambon, Central Sulawesi and West Papua, military-backed militias led by Laskar Jihad have wreaked havoc, greatly increased the level of violence and contributed to the steady erosion of government's credibility. Recently members of the Cokar, an Ambon militia, admitted they had been trained and funded by Kopassus.

Given his weak coalition government, and the military's refusal to accept civilian authority, it was inevitable that Wahid would be replaced as president by the more pliant and conservative Megawati Sukarnoputri, with the full blessing of the armed forces.

The Bali bombing, with a death toll of about 187, has been widely reported as the worst act of terrorism in Indonesian history. Not so, say some of the Balinese residents over the age of 35 whose relatives were among the estimated 70,000-100,000 slaughtered in anti-communist purges in 1965-66.

The tranquil serenity of the island paradise was shattered long before the bomb that ripped through the Sari Club in Bali last month. Then people spoke of "rivers that flowed red with blood". But in the case of the 1965 campaign of terror, the government banned any kind of investigation or accounting for the Balinese Killing Fields. Western governments turned a blind eye to the slaughter because Suharto obligingly opened the country up to US corporations and warships.

John Hughes in his book The End of Sukarno re-creates the landscape in the vicinity of the Bali Beach Hotel, Sanur, as it was in late 1965. "Almost in view of the big new luxury hotel the government had built to woo tourists to Bali stand the charred and blackened ruins of one such village. For their communist affiliations the menfolk were killed. The women and children fared better; they were driven screaming away. The village itself was put to the torch. Night after night the sky flared red over Bali as villages went up in flames and thousands of communists, or people said to be communists, were hunted down and killed." It should be noted that until Suharto's seizure of power in 1965, Indonesia's PKI communist party was a fully legal parliamentary party with no armed force.

Since the mass demonstrations that toppled the Suharto regime in 1998, the democratic agenda that included a cleaning-up and reform of the military has been derailed by various factors. Many of Suharto's key generals remain in leadership positions.

A police investigation into the Bali bombing has so far produced few results, although it was announced on Wednesday that four people had been detained in connection with the crime. Little hard evidence has been established.

However, the airline manifest of Garuda has confirmed that at least two military generals from Jakarta happened to visit Bali just three days before the bombings and that they returned to Jakarta just one day before the Sari Club was blown up. Their movements were confirmed by armed forces chief General Endriartono Sutarto, who claimed that General Djaja Suparman was on vacation, while General Ryamizard Riyacudu, chief of staff, was said to have gone to Bali for "health reasons".

Jakarta human-rights activist Bonar Naipospos told Asia Times Online: "General Suparman is one of the generals who was behind the extremist Jihad groups. He set up militias composed of gangsters and religious fanatics to counter student demonstrations in 1998. One of these militias, Pram Swarkasa, became the embryo of Laskar Jihad."

Two days after the Bali bombing, Laskar Jihad militia suddenly withdrew all its forces from Ambon, and it was announced that the organization was disbanded. Lambang Trijono, who studies Indonesian politics at Gadja Mada University, commenting on the timing, said, "Yes, that is suspicious, yes very suspicious. It makes sense to make a connection like that, because before they even dissolved ... you know ... yes, very suspicious, actually."

A Muslim fighter from Maluku's provincial capital Ambon, who used to fight alongside Laskar Jihad, recently told CNN, "the group was ordered to disband by rogue military generals to hide the generals' involvement with the group." This has been prompted by increased international scrutiny of Indonesia in the wake of the Bali terror attacks.

"These generals backed Laskar Jihad and they acted on their own, outside of the institution," the fighter said. "They are afraid of being found out now that there are so many foreign investigators in Bali." The armed forces officially denies any military was involved in Laskar Jihad.

Before the Bali attack, the US government was seeking to move closer to the Indonesian generals in the so-called war against terrorism and restore full military ties. However, the evidence that sections of the armed forces are themselves a party to terrorism -- especially in Aceh and West Papua -- has created a policy dilemma.

Many serious crimes in Indonesia go unsolved. The Balinese police chief who heads the investigation enjoys high credibility after his successful inquiry into the murder of Papuan leader Theys Eluay and his courage in bringing charges against Kopassus commando officers.

But this time Indonesian human-rights watchers fear the case is too sensitive. Bonar Naipospos commented to Asia Times Online: "I believe the military is involved in the bombing, but I fear the Bali police chief is in a difficult position and they will not follow leads to high-ranking people."

Right exploits anger at `war on terror' campaign

Green Left Weekly - November 6, 2002

Max Lane, Jakarta -- The "war on terror" propaganda campaign being conducted by the Australian and US governments is providing ammunition for xenophobic right-wing political forces in Indonesia.

Australian government support for the introduction of the Indonesian government's anti-terror decree, the perception that Canberra has been demanding the arrest of the chairperson of the Indonesian Mujaheddin Council Abu Bakar Bashir without providing evidence of his involvement in the Bali bombings and the raids on the homes of Indonesian Muslims in Australia have all provided a wide spectrum of right-wing political groups with a basis to whip up anger at Australia, the US and the West.

The key figures who have responded to the propaganda offensive by Australia include vice-president Hamzah Haz, various Golkar members of parliament and Amien Rais, who is chairperson of the Indonesian parliament (the Peoples Consultative Assembly) and chairperson of the National Mandate Party. Statements by Bashir have also received much media coverage.

Bashir achieved an even higher profile after police smashed through his hospital window in Solo in order to forcibly arrest him. This took place even though Bashir had said he was willing to be detained for questioning but had asked to briefly visit his school first. He was not allowed to do this.

Bashir continues to accuse the US of being behind the Bali bombings. Many of Indonesia's mass-based sensationalist dailies also give prominence to an analysis that argues that Washington had the most to gain from the bombings, allowing it to boost its intervention in Asia in the name of combating "terrorism". Majority public opinion seems to agree that the US was behind the Bali bombings.

Bashir's defence campaign has attracted involvement from high- profile legal personality Adnan Buyung Nasution, founder of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute. Nasution was close to former President Habibie. Other legal centres, although not those that have been part of the progressive democratic movement, have taken up other aspects of the case.

The wife of the Kuwaiti man, Omar al Faruq, who was arrested in Indonesia and is now being detained in Pakistan by US authorities, is bringing a case against Indonesian authorities for kidnapping. The kidnapping case has highlighted the lack of legal process in Faruq's arrest and transfer by the US intelligence authorities.

Bashir is under suspicion primarily because of accusations made by Faruq while under interrogation. The information connecting Bashir to the Jemaah Islamiyah group comes largely from Faruq, who has supposedly confessed to being al Qaeda's "point man" in South-East Asia. Because of Faruq's claims, Bashir is now also being questioned in relation to bombings of churches in 2000.

While Bashir and others on the fundamentalist wing of political Islam concentrate on criticising the US and alleging that the Bali bombings were a US plot, the mainstream, politically conservative Islamic groups have focused on criticising US and Australian statements that infer that the Indonesian government has not done enough to suppress Islamic radicalism and that therefore all Islamic groups bear responsibility for the Bali bombings. They charge that Indonesia is being dictated to by the West. This theme is also being constantly taken up by the mass circulation press.

The "religious profiling" by Western governments and media of "terrorist groups" in South-East Asia has provided a basis for a shift in focus for anti-imperialist sentiment in Indonesia.

Prior to the Bali bombings, the most important factor fuelling this sentiment was the growing awareness of the role of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in exacerbating Indonesia's economic and social crises. While this sentiment had not led to large-scale mass mobilisations, these issues were being more and more discussed in the media. Trade union demonstrations had begun to take up the role of the IMF. This was also reflected in the anti-IMF statements by the country's most important opportunist political barometer, Amien Rais, who began to call for an end to all agreements with the IMF.

Those now most actively encouraging xenophobic anti-Western sentiment are silent on these other issues. This is not surprising as the whole of the Indonesian political elite still views increased foreign investment and loans as the only solution to the country's economic woes.

Since the Bali bombings, it has been the xenophobic right wing, rather than the "civil society" left that has benefited from the anti-Western mood. Politicians from Golkar, the party of deposed dictator Suharto, and the United Development Party of vice- president Hamzah Haz have strengthened their positions vis-a-vis President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Both the xenophobic right and the sensationalist mass media are portraying the Megawati government as both incompetent and servile to foreign interests.

On October 31, a wide range of Islamic political organisations organised a large mobilisation outside the presidential palace in Jakarta to protest the arrest of Bashir. It brought together fundamentalist, conservative non-fundamentalist Islamic forces and some elements connected to Golkar. Originally, some of these forces had approached democratic and progressive groups, including the radical Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), to participate in a demonstration that would concentrate primarily on opposition to the government's anti- terrorism decree. However, as the popular mood shifted after Bashir's arrest, these groups no longer felt the need for non-Islamic cover.

While the xenophobic right and conservative Islamic groups campaign against Megawati, another axis of struggle has developed. Democratic, human rights and progressive groups have concentrated their criticism on the anti-democratic nature of the anti-terror decree and the increased role for the intelligence services and military that flows from it. There has been a plethora of TV and radio talk shows, in which intelligence and civil liberties activists have debated the issue.

Mobilisations against the anti-terror decree have been small and infrequent. This reflects the general ebb of the organised democratic and progressive movements. While sporadic social protests are widespread and are on the increase, the organised mobilisation of this discontent in support of national political demands has still to develop. This ebb of the democratic mass movement has opened possibilities for the xenophobic and fundamentalist right to increase its influence among the people.

Media/press freedom

Broadcasting bill criticized

Jakarta Post - November 7, 2002

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta -- The latest draft of the broadcasting law, to be deliberated in the next two weeks, reveals the ignorance of the House of Representatives and the government in regards public demands for revision of several contentious articles.

Various groups have urged the lawmakers to drop a clause that allows civil service investigators to ban a broadcasting station. This regulation, they said, was a repeat of the New Order regime's authoritarian practice to control the media.

Both the House and the government also maintained an article that empowered government to interfere in broadcasting activities.

The House special committee deliberating the bill and Minister of Communication and Information Syamsul Mu'arif agreed on Tuesday that the draft law would be brought forward for endorsement on November 25 as planned. They said there was not enough time to discuss and to adopt all items proposed by various groups.

Leo S. Batubara of the Indonesian Press and Broadcasting Society (MPPI) expressed his regret, saying that both legislators and government failed to accommodate the aspirations of the people.

"They do not listen to public demand. They work only according to their own concept," Leo told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. The MPPI staged five demonstrations and placed advertisements in the media to call for public resistance against the contentious articles in the bill, but legislators and the minister turned a deaf ear and remained unbending. "We've done our best, but it seems we've lost the battle," Leo said.

According to Leo, the ignorance of legislators and the minister indicated an authoritarian attitude, which he said was the true character of Indonesian officials.

Meanwhile, Gecko Sassily, a member of the House special committee deliberating the bill, told the press on Wednesday that the broadcasting bill will be endorsed on November 25. He said his team would use the time left to accommodate as many public aspirations as possible in the bill.

Should there be a deadlock, legislators and the minister have agreed to use the final draft completed on September 26. "We have done our best. If it does not satisfy the public they can take action," Gecko added.

The deliberation of the broadcasting bill began two years ago, and was further prolonged by the cabinet shake-up as a result of the transfer of power from Abdurrahman Wahid to Megawati Soekarnoputri in July last year.

Protests, including those from members of the House special committee, have marked the deliberation. Legislator Astrid S. Susanto of the Indonesian Nationhood Unity Faction (FKKI) walked out of the conference room in September to protest what she deemed the government's lack of commitment to the bill.

Human rights/law

Ability of police and legal system under scrutiny

Radio Australia - November 6, 2002

[Indonesian police say they have made significant progress in the hunt for the perpetrators of the Bali bombings. They say they've arrested the owner of a minivan which they believe was used in the car-bomb attack last month. But again, questions are again being raised about the efficiency of the Indonesian police in pursuing the investigation.]

Presenter/Interviewer: Linda LoPresti

Speakers: Professor Daniel Lev, University of Washington

Lev: "I think there's very little chance of that. The odds are distinctly against it. It's a legal system in disarray and the primary investigators here should be the police. The police are not really equipped to do this very well.

"Had the Indonesian brought the situation immediately under control after the explosion then they might have done something. But as it was, no. So I don't see much help."

Lopresti; Why do you think it is that way. Why do you think it's so weak that the justice system is so weak? Is it because it's been like that for such a long time?

Lev: "That's a very long story, and the destruction of the legal system -- I use the word destruction advisedly, I think -- really begins in the early 1960s, after the onset of guided democracy and the reason is, quite suddenly, the courts and the prosecution particularly and the police are politicised. They're turned to political use almost immediately by whoever can control them.

"Secondly the parliament is weakened. Various social organisations are weakened so that very little control is exercised over anybody -- and the political and the administrative system, including the judicial institutions. In no time at all, first the prosecutors, then the judges, finally the advocates are corrupted. After the coup of 1965 when the political system is essentially and quite consciously based on the army, really there is no need for political leaders to be much concerned with law. And they aren't.

"The courts become even more corrupt, so does the prosecution, so do the police. By the time Suharto finally resigns, it's not simply the legal institutions, it is the whole of state institutions, the whole complex, the entire bureaucracy, both national and local, the courts, the prosecution, various ministries, the corruption runs so deep that few of them actually are concerned with their functions. They have become, in effect, fairly rapacious in their corruption.

"The consequence is that there's no way to repair the legal system now. That is to reconstruct those legal institutions without, either on the one hand fairly radical, revolutionary action if you will -- literally firing all the judges at the Supreme Court level or replacing them. Replacing everybody in the chief public prosecution ..."

Lopresti: So starting from scratch?

Lev: "Starting from scratch. That's one way to do it. But to do that you have to have a political elite that is determined to do it. The problem is that for the time being there is a political elite that is not, again, terribly interested in strengthening legal institutions which will reduce the obvious strength of the political elite itself."

Lopresti: Yet after the fall of Suharto in 1998 there was a lot of international aid, money, coming into Indonesia to help build the justice and legal system. That obviously has had no effect.

Lev: "Well, it's really silly. All that aid coming in from abroad is not very well thought out at all and it frequently comes with the presumption -- and this has not only to do with law but other fields as well -- the assumption somehow that the law is divorced from the political system. It's divorced from political leadership.

"If you want a strong legal system, it actually has to be created and guaranteed and controls have to be imposed upon it. Now again, if your political elite knows that it will be restricted by such a process, it's hardly going to be favourable."

Lopresti: What do you make of this new anti-terrorism decree that the Indonesian government has brought in and are you concerned about a drfit back to authoritarian...

Lev: "Very much. It's not simply because of the draft bill on terrorism. And of course it's an attempt to impose fairly severe restrictions on the whole of society. Does that telegraph something that might be in the future again?. Yes of course it does.

"But particularly if the army refuses to move to the margins and particularly too if the US, Australia and several other governments decide that the army is essential the stabilisation of Indonesia.

"In that case the long-term interests of Indonesia would be sacrificed for the short-term interests of the US, Australia and the others who are now worried about terrorism as they were say 30/40 years ago when they were worried about communism.

"Now, even bere there's been a chance to begin to work through all of the hugely difficult problems that have to be resolved that threat looms again."

Health & education

HIV/AIDS cases on the rise in West Java

Jakarta Post - November 6, 2002

The number of people with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has increased drastically by 340 percent to 359 in June, 2002 from 51 in 1999 due to the approach used to handle HIV/AIDS cases, according to a local foundation.

The Sidikara Foundation, which assists people with HIV/AIDS in Bandung, the capital of West Java, revealed that of the total figure, 326 were HIV positive and the remaining 33 had AIDS.

Sidikara Foundation coordinator Akhmad Jumarma attributed the high figure to the approach in handling HIV/AIDS cases. "Medical checkups and HIV tests have been conducted only for sex workers, while tests on their customers and drug users who share needles, have been abandoned. Besides, the commission responsible for handling HIV/AIDS in the province should conduct not only an anti-AIDS campaign but also investigate all groups possibly infected by the deadly virus," he said here on Monday.

According to him, young people were mainly responsible for the spreading of HIV/AIDS in Indonesia, including West Java and the main method of transfer of the disease was through drug users that share needles.

"HIV has been mostly transferred by narcotic drug use and other banned drugs through syringes, especially in urban areas," he said.

Religion/Islam

Laskar Jihad - disaster relief?

Laksamana.Net - November 8, 2002

Central Java Governor Mardiyanto has asked former members of the recently disbanded radical Islamic group Laskar Jihad to help the province cope with natural disasters and major accidents.

"The governor has asked former Laskar Jihad members to help handle victims of disasters because they are good at setting up polyclinics and evacuating victims," Mussadun, the former chief Laskar Jihad's parent organization Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah Communication Forum, was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara on Thursday. He said the governor wants the former paramilitaries to coordinate disaster relief efforts with the provincial Community Development and Protection Agency.

Laskar Jihad was established in Java in April 2000, almost two years after the fall of authoritarian ex-president Suharto, and waged savage holy wars against Christians in the Maluku islands and in Poso, Central Sulawesi. At least 9,000 people have been killed in the two regions since January 1999.

Analysts say Laskar Jihad was formed and partly funded by rogue elements of the armed forces to create chaos that would increase the military's bargaining power with the government and certain companies.

In a shock development last month, the group announced it was disbanding because it had become too political and strayed from its original goals of providing assistance to Muslims in need. The announcement came just days after the October 12 Bali nightclub bombings that killed about 184 people, which resulted in Indonesia coming under stronger international pressure to crack down on radical Islamic groups.

Laskar Jihad leader Jafar Umar Thalib claimed the timing of the group's disbandment was a coincidence. He said Laskar Jihad had to be dissolved simply because many of its members had become close to Muslim politicians, posed for photos and given interviews to female journalists.

Mussadun said the former holy war fighters are experienced in dealing with victims in conflict-torn areas, such as Maluku and Poso. He said all Laskar Jihad members have left Maluku and Poso over the past month. "They have returned to their respective hometowns to work according to their professions. Some of them returned to Islamic boarding schools, continuing their studies, and others engaged in trade."

Mussadun denied Laskar Jihad was dissolved because of pressure from the government, security authorities and foreign governments. He said the group disbanded because it had deviated from its original aim, which was to uphold Islamic shariah law.

The apparent demise of Laskar Jihad was followed one month later by the suspension of activities of the extremist Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), which has been notorious for raiding nightclubs and cafes in Jakarta. Analysts say both groups existed with support from military elements that had been pressured by the armed forces and police to pack in the paramilitary activities. FPI leader Muhammad Rizieq Shihab faces prosecution over raids by his followers on nightspots, while Laskar Jihad leader Jafar is on trial for inciting violence in Maluku and insulting the president.

Bar-smashing rebel group calls it a day

Straits Times - November 8, 2002

Robert Go, Jakarta -- A radical group, infamous for using Islamic teachings to justify threats against Westerners and attacks on nightclubs and bars, has announced that it is suspending its activities.

This is seen as yet another sign that radical Islam followers could be losing ground support.

But leaders of the Defenders of Islam Front (FPI) insisted on Wednesday that the group's move had nothing to do with the official tough line on terrorism.

Its leader Muhsin Ahmad Alatas said the group was worried about being infiltrated by individuals seeking to discredit Islam by disobeying orders and committing criminal acts as part of "efforts to defend Islamic principles". "We are worried that these agents would get a chance to give Islam a bad name," he said.

During Ramadan, the FPI is known to bring in thugs to smash up nightclubs, bars and other entertainment centres that are deemed to have broken Islamic laws.

The suspension was self-initiated and would be indefinite, but it did not amount to the group's disbandment, its leaders added.

A police source, however, said that top security officials have "advised" Muhammad Rizieq Shihab -- the FPI boss who now faces criminal charges and up to six years in jail after his group destroyed a number of bars last October -- to "quit".

The group's decision, that follows Laskar Jihad's -- a militant outfit active in the Maluku province -- comes at a time when Indonesia's moderate Muslims could be growing less tolerant of radical Islam in the wake of the Oct 12 Bali blasts.

Another explanation could be that these militant groups are losing financial support from political and military backers, who now see them as liabilities.

Armed Forces/Police

Military officers in court over Binjai attack

Jakarta Post - November 7, 2002

Jakarta -- As many as 20 military officers went on trial Wednesday for allegedly involvement in the deadly attack at the Langkat police station and the Binjai Mobile Brigade headquarters in September.

The attacks, reportedly sparked by the police seizure of 1.5 tons of marijuana, claimed six lives and injured dozens of others. The officers of the Army 100 Prajurit Setia Airborne unit appeared in the Binjai military court, which was guarded tightly by the military police, El Shinta radio station reported.

According to military attorney Maj. Heru, the case started when two of the defendants slashed Adj. Comr. Toguh Simanjuntak, the Langkat Police detective chief, with a knife after he refused to release their friends who were arrested for drugs.

They were later shot by Toguh's subordinates, but later, the military officers took a revenge in a grenade attack on the station, which was then burned down.

They also attacked the police's Mobile Brigade station. Binjai, a town in West Sumatra, was deserted during the incident on September 28 and 29.

Indonesia Military Chief Gen.Endriartono Sutarto has ordered the dismissal of the military officers involved the case.

International relations

Military complications for Australia and Indonesia

Radio Australia - November 7, 2002

The Australian Government is continuing to discuss the prospect of renewing military links with Indonesia's notorious Special Forces, Kopassus.

The Defence Minister, Robert Hill has previously said Australia might work with Kopassus to fight terrorism in the region.

Australia broke off all joint exercises with the Indonesian Special Forces in 1998, partly over concerns about its support for militiamen operating in East Timor.

Senator Hill says Australia hasn't yet received an invitation to engage in joint operations with Kopassus:

"We're seeking to rebuild our defence relationship post-East Timor because we believe that's in Australia's national interest TNI's an important institution within Indonesia it's an institution with which we can work constructively in our mutual interests."

Raid protesters march on embassy

Australian Associated Press - November 6, 2002

Hundreds of demonstrators marched on the Australian embassy in Jakarta yesterday, angry over Australia's raids on Indonesians suspected of having links to the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah.

Protesters blocked the entrance to the embassy, waving banners including "Indonesia under attack" and "Go to hell".

Police watched over the noisy but peaceful demonstration, the largest outside the embassy since Australian intervention in East Timor in 1999.

Protesters said they objected to Australian police and ASIO raids last week on Indonesian families thought to have links with JI, which is suspected of being behind the Bali bombings. Protesters also defended Indonesia's handling ofterrorism.

Tarnished brass dims hope for co-operation

Courier Mail - November 7, 2002

David Costello -- Should Australia conduct joint exercises and training with Indonesia's special forces to boost the fight against terrorism and the hunt for the Bali bombers? The question has become a political football in Canberra and Washington.

The dilemma for the Australian Government and the Bush Administration can be summarised like this: Both countries want a solid working relationship with Indonesia's military (TNI), and this requires restoring some of the ties severed in the late 1990s in protest at its role in the rape of East Timor.

Most controversially, Defence Minister Robert Hill last month proposed that Australian troops resume joint operations with Kopassus, the special forces whose name has become a byword for terror throughout the Indonesian archipelago.

The problem is that new allegations about military involvement in extra-judicial killings keep surfacing.

Most troubling is the bombshell lobbed this week by The Washington Post, which linked TNI's top brass to the August 31 ambush near the enormous Freeport gold and copper mine in Papua which killed two American teachers and one Indonesian.

It quoted reliable sources as saying TNI commander-in-chief Endriartono Sutarto was involved in discussions about a possible operation against Freeport.

The Post reported that this claim was backed by intelligence intercepts likely to have been provided by Australia's Defence Signals Directorate.

The assertion that Indonesian soldiers were involved in the ambush is not new. In fact, it was reported last month that Papua police chief I Made Pastika, who now heads the Bali bombing investigation, had told senior military officials that troops were responsible.

It has been speculated that whoever masterminded the incident was targeting the separatist Free Papua Movement, which was quickly blamed for the killings. But now, the allegations about Sutarto have put the cat among the pigeons.

Labor foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd on Tuesday night called on the Federal Government to rule out the resumption of ties between Australian and Indonesian special forces, calling the idea of joint operations "just plain wrong". He also raised the other big black mark against Kopassus, the charging of 12 of its personnel over the murder in November last year of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer responded yesterday by stating that Australia wasn't planning to reinstate exercises with Kopassus. But he did not rule out any future relationship with the Indonesian special forces.

In Washington, alarm about TNI's "black" operations has penetrated the Bush Administration, with ultra-hawkish Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz calling the latest allegations "very disturbing".

Wolfowitz, who knows Indonesia all too well from his stint as US ambassador there, called on President Megawati Sukarnoputri's regime to get to the bottom of the claims. But he restated the Administration's aim of re-establishing military contacts and argued that the policy of isolation was not working.

Other people in Washington were not so accommodating. The Post quoted Democrat senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, as saying that if it was proved the TNI planned the ambush, then proposed military training aid of $US400,000 for next year should be put on hold.

Whatever these differences, politicians in the US and Australia know that the military in Indonesia is in an appalling mess and that hopes for reform are minimal. Indeed, the funding and structure of the TNI just about guarantee that it is mired in crime and corruption.

Former defence minister Juwono Sudarsono is on the record as saying that only 30 per cent of the 43,300 billion rupiah defence budget is funded by the Government. The rest comes from military "businesses".

As Brisbane academic Bob Elson points out, this arrangement has been forced on Indonesia because of its weak tax base and has been going on since independence.

That's not the worst of it. Elson, author of an authoritative biography of master dictator Suharto, says the military's legitimate businesses are not particularly profitable, and that much of the funding eventually comes from illicit operations, including drug running, prostitution and extortion rackets.

Naturally, military people need little encouragement to protect their interests by force.

This year there have been turf wars in Papua and Sumatra between soldiers and police elements also involved in rackets.

Elson says the chance of reform is zero. Proper funding of the TNI would entail quadrupling the military budget. And there is little chance that the indecisive Megawati would be prepared to take on the generals when she needs them to shore up her support base.

What then should Australia do? Unfortunately, there is no alternative but continued engagement with the Indonesian military. It is the only institution which has any kind of co- ordination and operational capacity across the archipelago, and thus the only one capable of countering Muslim extremism.

The working relationship and the personal relationships between the top brass on both sides provide an opportunity to encourage reform and moderation within the TNI. However the suggestion that Kopassus personnel should resume training and joint operations with Australia's SAS is not on. Until Kopassus is brought under control, it should be kept off Australian soil.

[David Costello is foreign editor of The Courier-Mail.]

Friday forum - Australian-Indonesian relations

Radio Australia - November 9, 2002

[Just what was Jakarta trying to achieve two days ago by sending its acting ambassador scurrying back to Canberra with threats that the Government might have to withdraw its cooperation in the Bali investigation? Imron Cotan hinted darkly that angry Indonesians might target the Federal police and ASIO investigators working on the ground to crack the bombing case, and that his government might have to respond to public outrage at the ASIO raids on the homes of Indonesians living in Australia. So, was this just populist theatre for the masses back home or a genuine threat? The Australian's foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, and Tim Lindsey, Director of the Asian Law Centre at the University of Melbourne, discuss the issue.]

Transcript:

Tony Jones: Well, back to our top story now and our regular Friday Forum.

Just what was Jakarta trying to achieve two days ago by sending its acting ambassador scurrying back to Canberra with threats that the Government might have to withdraw its cooperation in the Bali investigation?

Imron Cotan hinted darkly that angry Indonesians might target the Federal police and ASIO investigators working on the ground to crack the bombing case, and that his government might have to respond to public outrage at the ASIO raids on the homes of Indonesians living in Australia.

So, was this just populist theatre for the masses back home or a genuine threat?

Both the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Downer brushed the comments aside, in spite of the fact Mr Cotan claimed to be delivering a message from his own government.

So, just how tenuous is our relationship with Indonesia right now? And what are the tensions inside its government?

Joining us now the Australian's foreign editor, Greg Sheridan and Tim Lindsey, Director of the Asian Law Centre at the University of Melbourne. Greg Sheridan, first to you if we can, how seriously should we take Mr Cotan's intervention?

Greg Sheridan, foreign editor, the Australian: This has been a very bad week for the Australia-Indonesia relationship. I think the Government is absolutely right to be very calm about it. I think the worst thing that could happen is inflammatory words from the Australian side.

There is one paradox at work here, which is that a lot of this is being driven by the Indonesian media and for many decades we prayed and asked for a free Indonesian media and if you have a free media they're free to be irresponsible and sensationalist.

Tony Jones: It is ironic that, but what about Mr Cotan? He's not a member of the media, but a member of the diplomatic service and acting ambassador?

Greg Sheridan: That's true. And his remarks were pretty extraordinary. The Indonesian Foreign Ministry does have a bit of a reservoir of anti-Australian feeling.

The other thing is one has to point out that these raids apparently occurred on 20 families, no-one was injured, no-one was arrested and in very few cases was forceable entry affected. And to suggest that that would be cause enough not to cooperate in the investigation of a mass murder did seem rather strange.

Tony Jones: Tim Lindsey, what was your reading of Mr Cotan's statements?

Associate Professor Tim Lindsey, Asian Law Centre, University of Melbourne: I think Tony, to understand what's happening, we have to look several years ahead to the 2004 election.

At the last election no party won a majority. It was a plurality at best and we'll see the same results at the next election.

The nature of the Indonesian social groups are such that no-one can win it. That means it will be done on the margins. The next government, like this one, will be built on coalitions.

Now the current Government of Megawati Sukarnoputri, which is still likely to win, has to build coalitions and its Muslim credentials are pretty weak.

Megawati, you recall, is opposed by Muslims in 1999 and she's often regarded as an insincere Muslim. It's very important for her government to be seen to be acting on Muslim concerns. And I think that's what's driving this.

Tony Jones: Is that why Foreign Minister Wirajuda himself is not making these statements. He seems to be delivering them at second hand or one-step removed at least. First we have stuff statements from the Foreign Ministry spokesman and then from the acting ambassador to Australia?

Tim Lindsey: I think it would be a mistake to see what's happened over the door bashing episodes as a really significant deterioration in the relationship.

We have a secular moderate party in control in Indonesia that's hemmed in between Generals on one side and jihad on the other. That is the possibility of the military waiting in the wings to make some return to power if the secular democratic governments fail.

On the other hand, Muslim parties that wish to use extremism in the lead-up in the forthcoming elections to increase their power. Now, the current Government of Megawati has very little choice but to be seen to be reacting, in those circumstances it's doing it in a reasonably way and that distance you've identified demonstrates that.

Tony Jones: Do you take that point, Greg Sheridan?

Greg Sheridan: I take Tim's point and I think his analysis is correct. We can't treat the Megawati Government like an errant child or something.

This is a government of grownups which is responsible for its own statements. Really you'd have to say, I agree with Tim. It's in our interests for the Megawati Government to succeed.

And she represents the best constellation of forces, she's secular national list and a moderate and so on. But it's been a very disappointing government. She hasn't tackled economic reform, she hasn't tackled extremism, she hasn't reached out in any coherent way to moderate Islam.

And if this kind of rather hysterical bashing of Australia is her way of reaching out to mainstream Islam, that's not very promising for the future.

Tony Jones: It seems to be hard to judge what she thinks about anything because we never actually hear her making statements. In a sense, she's even further removed from any public statements.

Greg Sheridan: Indeed, a senior Indonesian said to me this week said to me that we've gone from having a blind president in Wahid to a mute President in Megawati. And if we get Amin Rais, we'll have a deaf president, because he doesn't listen to anyone. But I do think there is a feeling almost of despair amongst the Indonesian elite at the performance of Megawati herself.

Tony Jones: Tim Lindsey, I know you think that there's a certain eloquence to her silence...

Tim Lindsey: Absolutely. Her silence was a political technique learnt through 15 years of leadership with the Opposition under Suharto. She learnt to convey messages to her constituency by not speaking.

In Australian politics, that wouldn't work very well. But it can be quite profound in an Indonesian context. You have to remember...

Tony Jones: It doesn't seem to be impressing the political elites there. It seems to be seen more as a sign of weakness.

Tim Lindsey: Megawati's constituency isn't in the political elite. She won around 36 per cent on the non-elite vote, which went in fact to intellectual moderate mainstream Islamic parties such as Amin Rais's. She's not really that interested in their vote. She's interested in maintaining elite support up to the election.

But her constituency understands her silence. I think you have to understand that for her any public statement she makes because she's so hemmed in my Muslim parties -- by Golkar and the military and the other side, any statement she makes -- is a weapon against her.

She's a canny player, she's a strategist. The idea that she's stupid -- a dumb housewife -- is clearly ridiculous. You don't survive the labyrinthine politics of Indonesia, remain president, topple the previous president unless you're pretty smart.

Tony Jones: Given the minefield she's walking through, do you trust her government to tackle this serious problem of terrorism inside Indonesia?

tim lindsey: It's not going to be easy. But let's be fair about this. The Americans haven't called Mullah Omar Osama bin Laden.

In Indonesia we've got the whole leadership of Jemaah Islamiah already under arrest, including Abu Bakar Bashir, we've got a terrorist government regulation issued almost immediately by Megawati, in fact two.

The House is now debating those emergency regulations and they'll be issued as legislation. They've ratified a whole range of anti-terrorism conventions including money-laundering running to finding and so forth. The statement that they're not doing anything is just factually untrue.

I think given the fact that she is risking critical margins in the 2004 elections by taking these steps, and is exposing herself to a vice-president who is working to undermine her all the time, what's occurred already is quite remarkable.

And I think in terms of the Australia-Indonesia relationship we should looks at the fact the investigation is continuing, there have been arrests and cooperation is continuing, apart from the rhetoric arising out of the door-bashing.

Tony Jones: Greg Sheridan, what do you think of that?

Indeed, how does one judge her attitude to Australia? I mean, we seem to get down to the occasional meetings with John Howard, looking at her body language. Is she turning away? Is she looking at him? Is she close to him? Is she at the other end of the hall?

Greg Sheridan: Well, I must say I appreciate Tim's analysis, I think there's a lot to it, but mind you he sounds a bit like I used to trying to put the best face on Indonesia all the time, and that's a good thing, I'm glad there are people doing that.

Tony Jones: But you're worried about that?

Greg Sheridan: No, no, I think it's very good that we're trying to put the best face on Indonesia, that's as we should, because the relationship is so important.

I think in reality this is a very poorly performed government and I think there's hardly an Indonesian anywhere in the archipelago who would argue that.

The other thing though is that we're in for a stormy period in the relationship. The Howard Government over the last five years has shown it doesn't do foreign policy against public opinion.

Bali gave us a tiny window of opportunity where public opinion impelled us back into a close relationship with Indonesia. What we're learning now is that the Indonesian Government doesn't do foreign policy against public opinion either.

So you have to two governments prone to populism, two populations profoundly misunderstanding of each other, two very contradictory political cultures. My prediction Tony, is for a very stormy passage ahead.

Tony Jones: What do you make of that popular feeling in Indonesia? How real is it, is it just being manufactured by a small group of people in the press, a small group of radical Islamists? What's going on. For example, hysterical reaction to the ASIO raids in Indonesia, are they looking for proof in a sense that Australia is a racist country?

Greg Sheridan: I think there's an element of that. I think this may be a psychological denial mechanism about Bali to say that the big rich neighbour is also just as bad. It's hard to know exactly how much anti-Australian feeling is there.

Whenever I'm there, I never feel any of it on the street and these crowds are pretty meaningless and there's no reliable opinion polling in Indonesia.

On the other hand, the media are responding to something, they're not just creating something. They're responding to something which already exists.

But you have to remember, of course, that this is a nation in terrible distress, in economic crisis, the whole future of the nation is unclear. Its confidence has been shot by the economic crisis of 1997, the political tumult that's been there since then. And it's a bit natural to sort of flail about it -- your smug self-satisfied neighbour.

Tony Jones: Tim Lindsey, how do you judge the reaction in Indonesia to the ASIO raids?

Tim Lindsey: Democracy is trickier to deal with than dictatorship. We had a better relationship with Indonesia under Suharto than we do now under Megawati.

Which is -- her government operates in a functioning democracy. Ramshackled perhaps, but functioning. That's not surprising.

Indonesia does not have political maturity in terms of party politics. They've only had them now for four years. It's going to take a while for those parties to sort themselves out and for policy to run in a more, shall we say, smooth fashion. This shouldn't surprise us.

As to populist reactions, that is what is being exploited, in particular, by Muslim parties pushing for an extra vote and in particular by the vice-president. But the populist reaction there are deep resentments in South-East Asia towards Australia.

Tony Jones: That's what I was going to jump in on, I mean how much worse is this going to get if there is a war on Iraq and perhaps prosecuted by only America and a few allies and Australia is one of them?

Tim Lindsey: Well, it will get worse. Islamic people in Indonesia are the most moderate in the world. But they're still members of the Ummat, that is, Islamic community, the notion of a world of Islam.

Most moderate Islams in Indonesia want a middle-class lifestyle, the one they see in the soap operas on television from Australia, from America, from the Latin world.

But at the same time they identify with Afghanis being bombed, they will identify with Iraqis and they see themselves as part of that Ummat under threat from what Osama bin Laden calls the crusader nation, that has resonance.

At the moment they're trapped between extremist Islam, which after all kills Indonesians as well. There have been a whole series of bombings leading up to the Bali episode in which Indonesians died, and a fear, an apprehension that America is somehow declaring war on their religion and they might ultimately be a target.

That feeds into a mistrust of Australia. After all Australian forces have fought on Indonesian soil three times. Their so- called threatening army's never made it here. There is a real perception...

Tony Jones: Fought to free them from the Japanese on the last occasion.

Tim Sheridan: And then we had all perhaps justified, and I'm not disputing that at all, but the point is, if we're talking about who feels threatened, we usually go back to the cliche of Australians fearing a massive army. In fact, Indonesians do feel apprehensive about Australia and a war on Iraq would sort of tie us into an American crusader image.

Tony Jones: I've got to stop you there, because I've got a very quick response finally from Greg Sheridan. Because we're just about out of time.

Greg Sheridan: I agree with 99 per cent of what Tim's saying but I don't think Iraq will be a problem in the relationship. We have our own spats with Indonesia.

America never figures in it, Middle East policy never figures in it. Once the conflict gets going in Iraq, America will have Iraqi allies, and it will be Muslim versus Muslim.

I think that's a big red herring coming into own our debate. We have our own problems with Indonesia. They're completely home grown. We can't blame the Americans for it.

Tony Jones: Alright, we're going to have to leave it there. Greg Sheridan and Tim Lindsey in Melbourne, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

With Indonesia, say less, do more

Sydney Morning Herald Editorial - November 9, 2002

When neighbours become ensnared by mutual insults and perceived slights the easiest, and most perilous, course of action is to escalate the dispute.

The tensions between Australia and Indonesia are fraught with such danger. A natural reaction to the exaggerated anti- Australian campaign in the Indonesia media, for example, is to reach for similarly damning retorts. Unfortunately, there is much fault and hypocrisy on the Indonesian side to draw on. And it did not begin with the Bali bombings.

For example, there is the revelation that members of Indonesia's notorious special forces, Kopassus, were involved in the recent fatal ambush of a group of Western teachers in West Papua, or the links between Indonesian military factions and armed Islamic "jihad" armies which have fomented terrible communal violence inside Indonesia over the past two years.

Faced with such truths it is easy, and briefly satisfying, to shout. The problems, however, will remain. Such is the geographic reality of Australia's place in the region. Indonesia will still be Australia's closest and most important neighbour. Australians will still be grappling with the excruciatingly difficult task of maintaining cordial working relations with a nation, and society, which is historically, culturally, ethnically and religiously different from our own.

At a basic human level these differences have never been insurmountable, as decades of individual friendships attest. This is the lesson which should have been reinforced by the shared pain and loss of the Bali bombings.

We might also have sought to understand the Indonesian President, Megawati Soekarnoputri, when she said the Bali bombings were "first and foremost an attack on Indonesia". She was not denying or belittling Australia's grief and shock. What she was referring to are the swirling darkforces of extremism -- political and religious -- which continually threaten Indonesia's fragile democracy, and the moderate, inclusive society over which she would wish to preside. Here is a common threat, around which co- operation and mutual respect should gather.

The question for Australia is how to engage with a government and security apparatus which is, within itself, challenged and corrupted by such dark forces. The only answer is with extreme discrimination. It is legitimate to avoid co-operation which might endorse what we hold as abhorrent. Australia's decision to sever ties with the Indonesian military over human rights abuses in East Timor is a case in point. The Howard Government should continue, for example, to shun Kopassus. But in the Bali investigation Australia appears to have got it right. The separation of the Indonesian military and police after the collapse of the Soeharto regime means the police no longer fall under the tainted military command structure. As such, they are the preferred partner for the Australian Federal Police. Other such preferred partners -- moderate Muslim leaders, human rights activists, economic reformists -- have long been courted by diligent, knowledgeable Australian diplomats, academics and aid organisations. But there is much more to be done. Australia must resist shrill name-calling and choose a harder course; to say less, and do more.

Lay off Muslims, warns Megawati

Sydney Morning Herald - November 7, 2002

Matthew Moore, Mark Riley and Mark Baker -- The Indonesian President, Megawati Soekarnoputri, has cautioned Australia not to overreact to the terrorism threat and not to harass Indonesian nationals, as the increasingly brittle relationship between the countries became further strained.

The warning came as the Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, condemned the treatment of Australian Muslims after the Bali bombing in a renewed attack on Canberra's travel warnings.

The leaders made their comments in interviews after this week's Association of South-East Asian Nations meeting in Phnom Penh, which decided to shelve Australia's application for a seat at its annual leaders' summit.

In urging restraint from Australia, Ms Megawati said, according to the Antara news agency, that Canberra should not be "excessive" in its anti-terrorism campaign. "Let's not go overboard," she was quoted as saying. "We Indonesians always treat foreigners proportionally."

The delicacy of Australia's challenge in repairing its relationship with its neighbours while responding strongly to the bombing was further highlighted by damaging misreporting in Indonesia of comments by Ms Megawati. She was wrongly reported in two leading newspapers, Kompas and Media Indonesia, as having called the Prime Minister, John Howard, in recent days urging him to stop police and ASIO agents conducting "sweeping" raids against Indonesian citizens living in Australia.

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, in Jakarta for talks with Indonesian officials, said the Vice-President, Hamzah Haz, had confirmed Ms Megawati "had a conversation about this" with Mr Howard.

But Mr Howard said he had not spoken to Ms Megawati since they met at the APEC forum last month where she had raised concerns about the travel warnings.

The journalist who wrote the Kompas story in Phnom Penh conceded to the Herald yesterday that it was wrong and that Ms Megawati had not claimed to have complained personally to Mr Howard about the raids.

But with relations between Indonesia and Australia the dominant political issue in the Indonesian media at present, politicians were quick to get involved in the dispute and add credibility to the incorrect claims.

The Speaker of the parliament, Akbar Tanjung, welcomed Ms Megawati's wrongly reported complaint, saying: "I think what's being put up by President Megawati is a positive thing. I think our Government must take action to protest those actions [raids on Indonesians in Australia]."

In a further sign of tension between the countries, Australia's embassy issued a new bulletin to citizens living in Indonesia reminding them of the "possibility of sweeping operations" by militant Islamic groups. On the eve of Ramadan, which began yesterday, it urged citizens to be very careful in bars and nightclubs in Indonesia which have sometimes been attacked.

Dr Mahathir said claims by Australia and the United States that many parts of South-East Asia were now unsafe for tourists could equally be applied to those two countries.

"As far as the travel warning is concerned, I think Australia is unsafe as are the other ASEAN countries. In fact, at the moment Australia is particularly unsafe for Muslims." In an apparent reference to recent police raids on suspected extremists, Dr Mahathir said Australian Muslims were being endangered by indiscriminate raids on their homes.

"I see pictures of doors being broken, which I don't think is essential. So people today are exposed to danger wherever they may be." The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, defended the methods used in hunting suspected members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah and his department's tough travel advisories. "There's nothing more important than the security of the Australian people."

Labor opposes ties with elite Indonesian units

ABC News - November 6, 2002

The Federal Opposition is backing away from a Government proposal for Australia to resume military ties with elite Kopassus units from the Indonesian Army.

The move has been proposed by Defence Minister Robert Hill, as part of the response to the Bali bombings.

But in Jakarta the Opposition's Foreign Affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, has said there are concerns about the Indonesian Army's alleged involvement in the ambush near the Freeport mine, and the military's connections to the radical Islamic militia, Laskar Jihad.

"We have a big concern about whether Kopassus has been actively engaged operationally with an Islamic terrorist organisation in this country," he said.

"We think that frankly Senator Hill's proposal is way wide of the mark. We don't support it. We think the Prime Minister should now rule it out completely."

Canberra spies' tip-off to US may rile Jakarta

South China Morning Post - November 6, 2002

Roger Maynard, Sydney -- The claim that Australia's spy agency passed on intelligence reports to the United States which implicate the Indonesian military in the West Papua mine ambush could add tension to the already uneasy relationship between Canberra and Jakarta.

Relations between the two countries have been under strain since masked security officers last week raided the homes of Indonesians living in Australia. Now, reports that Australia's Defence Signals Directorate gathered intelligence about the possibility of an attack on the Freeport gold and copper mine and gave the information to its US counterpart, could further sour relations. Two Americans were killed in the August 31 ambush at the mine, which the Indonesian military blamed on Papuan rebels. However, some security analysts expressed suspicion, saying the rebels did not have the kind of firepower used in the attack.

The Washington Post suggested that the US, with Australian input, obtained reliable intelligence about Indonesian military plans for an attack on the mine. Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill yesterday refused to confirm whether the spy agency had passed on information to Washington about the attack. "We don't comment on security matters," he said.

With Australia determined to get to the bottom of the Bali bombings and to identify those responsible for the attack, a lot is riding on maintaining a productive relationship with Jakarta. But that seems increasingly unlikely as the mood in Indonesia becomes distinctly anti-Australian.

Shadow foreign affairs minister Kevin Rudd, currently on a visit to Jakarta, said in an interview on Australian radio yesterday that "the tempo of the Indonesian media reporting on Australia is becoming more negative by the day".

The manner in which newspapers had reported the raids on Indonesian homes in Australia had fuelled anti-Australian sentiment, he claimed. Mr Rudd, who supported the raids, said Australian media coverage of the operation had offended some Indonesians. Jakarta believes the action was heavy-handed.

Economy & investment

Indonesia's investment woes

Asia Times - November 9, 2002

Bill Guerin -- Indonesian investors are to be wooed in a deliberate effort to release the potential of the domestic economy and get money flowing through the business infrastructures.

This week Minister of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Laksamana Sukardi and his teams from the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) organized an investment seminar, appropriately enough in Bali, and announced a brand-new initiative.

Will domestic private investors be convinced that if they invest their money it will result in an improved economic outlook, more market opportunities and a general prosperity?

Indonesian entrepreneurs have seen for themselves that the elusive economic revival has been hampered by inconsistencies in government policy and a pronounced lack of coordination and planning in the last two administrations. Since Suharto stood down in 1998, substantial sums of money have been parked in Singapore banks while the owners of the funds, mostly Chinese- Indonesians and recalcitrant ex-bankers, wait and wait for the promised better times.

Attracting these funds back has been a consistent IBRA target since 1999 and partly explains the agency's earlier softly-softly approach to uncooperative debtors who collectively owe more than US$13 billion. Syafruddin Temenggung, the seventh head of IBRA in three years, has like his predecessors tried reconciliation with the ex-bankers. Syafruddin has promised for weeks to take legal action against debtors and said in Bali that the latest deadline is now next Friday, November 15.

The urgency of Sukardi's extraordinary initiative was underscored by a government announcement a day later that next year's asset sales revenue target for IBRA will be raised yet again to Rp18 trillion (US$1.95 billion) from Rp12 trillion.

The agency has sold 70 percent of its assets but still has control over investments theoretically worth billions of dollars. Among countless non-performing loan portfolios, it holds shares in six of the country's top 10 banks and in property. As of last month IBRA has secured Rp40 trillion out of its 2002 revenue target of Rp45.6 trillion out of Rp600 trillion worth of assets taken over from ailing banks and companies after the financial crisis. Its main task is to sell these assets and return them to the private sector.

Investors have long been nervous about the same basic problems in Indonesia. A recent World Bank report concludes that the main investor concerns were security, the legal system, taxation, customs administration, labor laws and bureaucratic red tape. Put another way, investors have long been concerned not only with their investments but their general safety and that of their employees, worried about the endemic problems in the laws of the land, the problem of relatively high wages married to low productivity levels of Indonesian workers, and the minefield of relationships with local partners. The endemic red tape encountered by investors not only frustrates their project planning and deadlines, but also significantly adds to the costs because of the hidden expenses that everyone knows about but few can do anything about.

South Korean and Taiwanese investors have voted with their feet in recent months and left for friendlier shores. The Korean Chamber of Commerce complained that Indonesia is fast losing its competitive edge.

The lack of supremacy of the law, and its compliance and enforcement, breaches of business contracts and unpredictable court decisions are all matters of concern to an investor, whether local or foreign.

Will the new drive to attract Indonesians to invest in their own country spell out just how these concerns will be addressed and dealt with?

Domestic investors, at least before the Bali bombings, could be expected to be more responsive to the continued instability of the domestic political scene and the economy than foreign investors. The increasing level of sentiment against foreign control of local assets would scarcely have bothered them. But the main worries summarized by the World Bank remain the same for local or overseas investors.

Sukardi apparently believes otherwise. "The momentum is just right after the Bali blasts for local investors, who look at much more than a snapshot of conditions, and consider the bigger picture. There is a tremendous potential for domestic investments," he said.

The "bigger picture" is that of a country severely restrained by severe levels of debt, a soaring budget deficit, and implicit threats by its major creditors that it must put its house in order. It is a snapshot of a nation with a low per capita income, a massive amount of unemployed and a substantial amount of its production potential no longer fully operational.

For Sukardi the new task may just be a refreshing change from countless lost battles to clear the decks in the largely comatose BUMN (state company) arena and encourage professionalism and a capitalistic business-is-for-profit ethic among these large, top-heavy organizations.

This is actually his second time in the post, having been sacked by previous president Abdurrahman Wahid on vague, unproved allegations of corruption. The minister is rightly respected for his sterling efforts but has seemed for all the world like a single fighter, blocked and thwarted at every turn. Acute problems with local government officials who have power over the jurisdictions where state enterprises are based, vociferous employees and managers of the companies, and the increasing resistance from within parliament have, for months, frustrated the best efforts of Sukardi to right the wrongs.

With more than 100 SOEs on the auction block, widespread allegations of inefficiency, cash cows, dens of corruption, et cetera, have made the job of selling them off well almost impossible. Sukardi has been unable to free the state from the stranglehold of the BUMNs. Sukardi downplayed the priority when saying in Bali that the government was still committed to selling state-owned companies but only when the "price was right". Clearly, it will be a very long time before the priority shifts back to offering these to the market.

Foreign direct investment approvals were abysmally low last year at a mere $9 billion, less that a third of the 1996 total of nearly $30 billion. Central-bank figures show only $2.5 billion in new investment in the first half of 2002, down from $4.2 billion for the period a year earlier.

The amounts approved have little value as an indicator. Even Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) chairman Theo Toemion admits the government has never had a clear indication of just how much is realized from the many investment approvals issued. It is thought that actual investment realized, where projects proceed to fruition, is less than 40 percent for foreign investment approvals and under 50 percent of approved domestic investment.

Will local investors think and act any differently?

The received wisdom in Indonesia has been that entrepreneurs, companies or conglomerates investing money into enterprises in the country will be here to stay and will not run away at the first sign of setbacks in the path to stability and security.

Unfortunately, the Kuta bombs and the rise of Islamic militancy have concentrated minds and put a new slant on that idea. Indonesians living abroad who might otherwise be attracted to invest in the country will be as spooked as any foreigner by recent events.

The private sector is generally agreed to be the real engine of economic growth and Indonesia's huge domestic market is certainly an attraction. As a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Free Trade Area -- where duties are to reduce to just 5 percent in trade between members -- there will always be those ready to invest. As much as 70-75 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) has been derived from domestic consumption over the past few years.

However, manufacturing to service domestic and regional markets has been stifled to a large degree by labor conflicts, poor security and rampant smuggling. Some 187 small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) producing textiles have been forced to shut down this year by rampant smuggling. These were all companies oriented to the domestic market that could not compete with cheaper illegally imported products on the Indonesian market.

So far there are no specific details of the deal from Bali and it is not known whether the initiative will be accompanied by breakthrough tax incentives such as tax holidays or lowering import taxes, as well as a drive to thwart the smugglers.

Will there be fiscal incentives designed to attract investors into parts of the economy that are ripe for revival and to woo domestic savers into banks that can then lend to new domestic investors? Few domestic banks have their assets fully deployed and they are known to be extremely pleased with the ability to park their deposits at high interest rates with the central bank rather than lend to businesses in the real sector.

The slow progress in the IBRA bank-restructuring program has also meant that the banking system is not geared up to channel credits into productive investment.

A market-friendly business environment is the key to attracting any investment -- local or foreign -- and the lack of confidence in the business environment in Indonesia is linked to the major issues confronting the country such as trade and fiscal deficits, low GDP growth, unemployment, poverty. These in turn are all linked, inextricably, to the success, or lack of it, in attracting investment.

Sukardi concluded his Bali speech with the words, "We ourselves need to jump-start the confidence and exploit domestic activity as one of the main factors for economic growth."

As in so many instances in Indonesia's recent past where hope sprang eternal, it may be too early for such well-intended optimism.

The overall missing ingredient in the master plan for recovery is direction. The tactic of facing up to issues when they arise but without making and announcing clear-cut medium- and long-term goals has been the hallmark of the Megawati Sukarnoputri administration. Continuous forecasts on macro-economic markers such as growth rates and inflation rates are not what the country needs to get out of the mire. The need for direction and leadership is more compelling now than ever.

This is what is at stake on this last throw of the dice before IBRA is disbanded in 2004 and new elections take place in the same year.

Jakarta fails to get 'big fish' to settle debts

Straits Times - November 7, 2002

Robert Go, Tabanan (Bali) -- Some of Indonesia's top businessmen are thumbing their noses at the nation's latest bid to collect outstanding debts worth more than US$13 billion, leaving officials frustrated over their blatant attempt to use the legal system to their advantage.

The government's game plan, top officials said, was to use an investment forum held in Bali earlier this week to convince debtors to settle their debts -- after numerous collection efforts by Jakarta since 1999 had not made significant headway.

Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (Ibra) chief Syafruddin Temenggung was to have pressed his case and threatened legal action against those who remained uncooperative.

But now he and other senior representatives are mulling over their plans -- for the debtors have put them in legal dilemmas.

Take Salim group's Anthony Salim, said to be perhaps the most outwardly cooperative of all big debtors. He showed up personally for the meeting but argued that he had transferred more than 100 assets to cover debts worth around US$5.3 billion.

The government, however, pointed out that it had recovered less than US$2 billion after selling 80 per cent of those assets and asked him to compensate for at least a fraction of the difference. Mr Salim, however, maintained his stance that he did not owe Ibra any money.

According to Ibra's communication division chief Raymond van Beekum, government lawyers are now going through legal documents with a fine toothcomb to see how Jakarta can claim more money from them.

A similar position was taken by representatives of businessman Samadikun Hartono, who once controlled defunct Bank Modern. Ibra officials say he needs to settle around two trillion rupiah (S$400 million).

Officials could not make too much of a headway in the case of Mohammad 'Bob' Hasan -- former owner of defunct Bunk Umum Nasional -- either, who owes 5.5 trillion rupiah.

At the meeting, his representatives offered 31 assets to Ibra but the biggest pulp and paper company, Kiani Kertas, is mired in its own legal struggles with creditors, including foreign lenders.

The results, said one top adviser to Mr Syafruddin, showed all too clearly how the legal system, instead of serving as a tool that Jakarta could wield to force debtors to cough up cash, was actually making collection difficult.

Ibra did have some limited success though -- as in the case of tycoon Ibrahim Risjad who agreed to repay part of his 636 billion rupiah obligations -- but officials said 'bigger fish' were no closer to any kind of settlement.

All this is happening even though Mr Syafruddin has promised that Ibra would initiate tough legal action against debtors who still refuse to pay by certain deadlines.

The next such target date is November 15 but even the agency's officials are not sure of the possible repercussions that face bad debtors.

"This is the reality that we are dealing with. Even bringing them to court is no guarantee of results," said the Ibra adviser.