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ASIET NetNews Number 13 - April 13-19, 1998
East TimorJabotabek students demonstrate all at once Students intensify pressure for reforms
Political/economic crisisPolice to interrogate Timorese leaders Indonesia denies mass starvation in Timor
Environment/land disputesTough talks in prospect over debt Hospital patients flee before bills arrive A robust US market flounders Soeharto risks a birth crisis in remote areas
Human rights/law224,000 ha hit by forest fires in 1998
PoliticsSince April, 50 activists have disappeared Ilegal workers get a harsh send-off Disappearances a ploy to create martyrs At least 11 missing - violent protests Problems that just disappear How opposition is being made to disappear
International relationsMegawati plans own congress in December Army holds dialogue with youth groups
MiscellaneousCanberra, Jakarta in falling-out
Intelligence agents become taxi drivers
Novel cause
| Democratic struggle |
Jakarta -- Students from universities of whole Jakarta-Bogor- Tangerang and Bekasi (Jabotabek) all at once held a peaceful demonstration in 30 campusses. Besides holding a free speech forum in each of their campusses a part of them went down to the road to merge with the actions which took place at the surrounding campusses.
Either the security apparature and the students could control themselves so that no clash happened. The guarding was not conspicuous eventhough a small troop of anti riot troops were on the alert. At the Salemba Campus of the Universitas Indonesia students from the Universitas Kristen Indonesia with their blue jackets merged with about 100 students in yellow jackets. About 2000 students participated in the demonstration with representatives from various other universities. The big family of the UI said that the existing political and legal system presently could not articulate the people's aspirations. Therefore a clear attitude ot the House of Representative (DPR) members was needed towards the aspirations of the people for political, economic and legal reform in a comprehensive way. The DPR should submit a memorandum to the President to perform that comprehensive reformation. A person threw a bottle to the UKI students and was beaten by the students before the Senate of the students, took care of him,
Two units of company level were mobilized to watch the demonstrators. The police gave the impression to be more cooperative. A lieutenant said. "We wanted the best. We also don't want force. That is the order from above."
Two kilometer At the Jayabaya university about 200 students held a long march of 2 km to the Achmad Yani road. Their plan to walk to the IAIN campus failed because they were intercepted by the security apparature, completely equipped with shields and sticks.
In South Jakarta Campus demonstrations were held at the Universitas Nasional (Unas) the Institut Sains dan Teknologi Nasional (ISTN), the Akademi Pimpinan Perusahaan (APP) (Academy for Manager) and the Institut Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik (IISIP) (Institute for Social and Political Science). The hundreds of students from the APP merged with the 1500 students from ISTN At IKIP Jakarta 2000 students.
The IKIP Jakarta students failed to hold a long march to the DPR/MPR. In Ciputat hundreds of students from Universitas Muhammadijah Jakarta (UMJ) failed to hold as long march to the Campus of the Institut Agama Islam Negeri as they got no permit from the sercurity apparature.
A clash could not be avoided beween students from the Universitas Padjajaran and the Institut Koperasi Indonesia with the Security apparature causing among others two female student were wounded.
In Solo the police did not throw stones back to the students who threw them with stones, in the effort that the students would be more responsible.
Jakarta -- Thousands of students kept up their demands for reforms and lower prices of basic commodities yesterday in on- campus rallies organized concurrently at dozens of universities.
At least four campuses here witnessed noisy rallies demanding a reshuffle of the cabinet, clean government, lower prices of commodities and the empowerment of the. House of Representatives.
Almost 1,000 students gathered at the University of Indonesia's campus on Jl. Salemba, Central Jakarta.
The university's students were joined by representatives of 15 institutions from across the country for a free speech forum. Participants said the government had failed to recognize the people's sovereignty and they demanded a change in leadership, including a reshuffle of what they described as a nepotistic and inept cabinet.
The largest contingent from other schools was the 200 blue- jacketed students from nearby Indonesian Christian University (UKI), which arrived about 30 minutes after the rally began.
Their arrival caused a mild commotion when they called on students from their position outside campus to take the protest onto the streets.
About 100 uniformed policemen initially moved to disperse the gathering, but subsequently desisted when the students on campus refrained from taking up the call. Instead, they ringed the campus perimeter with placards declaring their grievances.
Although protests and rallies have been tolerated within campus boundaries, the military has prohibited students from venturing onto the streets.
Students have been increasingly vociferous in expressing their discontent at the deepening crisis. Several campuses throughout the country have been the sites of rallies.
Yesterday was the first time protests were organized simultaneously in the capital.
A University of Indonesia student leader, Suma Mihardja, said yesterday that rallies were held concurrently on 35 campuses in the greater Jakarta area.
In another high-profile protest, 200 students gathered at the Institute of Social and Political Sciences in South Jakarta.
Carrying banners and posters, they began to walk off their campuses but retreated after a peaceful exchange with police.
An almost identical scene occurred at the National Institute of Science and Technology, as students complied with the urgings of police to stay on campus.
Adi Andojo
At the Trisakti University campus in West Jakarta, former deputy chief justice Adi Andojo Soetjipto, currently dean of the university's law school, was the main attraction at a rally.
In his speech, Adi said the government should take heed of the students' demands. He encouraged Minister of Education and Culture Wiranto Arismunandar to be accommodative and listen to what students had to say.
He also urged the 1,000 students in attendance to refrain from radical and emotional actions in conveying their aspirations.
Adi retired in May after serving 18 years as deputy chief justice He made headlines during his tenure by claiming that collusion was rampant in the Supreme Court.
There were no reports of clashes in any of the rallies in Jakarta, with the cooperation of students apparently working to prevent serious altercations with security personnel.
With protests restricted to campuses, there was also little disruption in the daily activities of the city.
Students rallies in Jakarta have not been marred by the violent clashes with security apparatus which have occurred in Yogyakarta; Surabaya, East Java- Surakarta and Purwokerto in Central Java; Bandung, West Java, and Bandarlampung, Lampung.
Protests and rallies were also held at about two dozen campuses across the country.
In Surabaya, East Java, three of the city's largest campuses--the state-run Airlangga University Surabaya Institute of Technoiogy (ITS) and Adhi Tama Institute of Technology -- were the site of rallies demanding political and economic reforms and the elimination of nepotism.
About 1,000 ITS students loudly condemned Minister of Education and Culture Wiranto Arismundar's ban on student involvement in practical politics.
In Semarang, Central Java, hundreds of students of Diponegoro University bore banners with messages including, "We need a skillful and competent cabinet".
In Malang, East Java, students of the Teachers Training Institute and Brawijaya University sang songs denouncing corruption, collusion and nepotism. In Bandung, West Java, hundreds of students jostled with dozens of police armed with sticks inside the campus of the state-run Padjajaran University.
Four students were injured in the scuffle that broke out when they tried to leave the campus, private TV station ANteve reported yesterday.
| East Timor |
Macau -- Three leaders of the Movement for the Reunification and Unity of the People of East Timor (MRUPTL) have been subpoenaed by the Indonesian police to be interrogated on Thursday.
The head of MRUPTL, Manuel Carrascalao, told Lusa on Wednesday, that he had been one of the leaders subpoenaed by the Indonesian authorities, together with the vice-president and secretary- general of MRUPTL, Maria Quintao and Francisco de Carvalho, respectively.
He said that the subpoena could represent "an attempt to block our participation in the coming Timorese Convention" to be held in Portugal on 23 April.
Carrascalao said that if the Indonesian authorities decided to present formal charges "we will not be allowed to leave Dili".
Jakarta has been seeking proves showing that the three MRUPTL leaders "have been fomenting hate or have betrayed the government of the Republic of Indonesia", especially through "the sending of documents to governments from other countries".
The MRUPTL that supports the self-determination of East Timor was created in October 1997, but in January the local governor Abilio Osorio Soares decided to ban all the movement's activities.
Jakarta - East Timorese were suffering the affects of a prolonged drought, but claims that residents of the former Portuguese colony were facing "mass starvation" were false, the territory's Indonesian-appointed governor said on Wednesday.
"While acknowledging that food shortages exist in selected areas, the provincial government wishes to make it known that rumours of 'mass starvation' are completely untrue and bear no semblance whatsoever to the situation on the ground," Governor Abilio Soares said in a statement.
East Timor was suffering drought due to the impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon like much of the eastern areas of the Indonesian archipelago, Soares said.
"The government is dealing with this problem with the seriousness it deserves, nonetheless it is imperative that the problem be put in proper perspective. Despite lower crop yields, it has not come close to what has been described as mass starvation," he said.
Soares said of the almost 55,000 hectares of corn fields, around 10,000 hectares had been affected by prolonged drought.
The government was providing food assistance to those worst hit as well as agricultural equipment and seeds, and also was encouraging communities to make use of alternative resources such as fisheries.
"The food stocks in the provincial, not to mention the national reserves, are more than sufficient to meet the problem," Soares said.
"The provincial government is also taking relevant measures to ensure the price stability of the nine basic commodities; all regents in East Timor have been instructed to submit a weekly report on food prices in their respective areas," he said.
Timorese exile leader Jose Ramos Horta, who in 1996 shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Timorese bishop Carlos Belo, said last week East Timor was close to "explosion" because in part of the food shortages and the affects of the Asian economic crisis. Australian-based activists also said last week 85 villagers had died from starvation and the price of basic commodities had risen by 500 percent because of the drought.
Soares dismissed Ramos-Horta's claims. "It can only be concluded that Ramos-Horta's propagation of mass starvation in East Timor is nothing more than a self-serving act of reckless propaganda unworthy of a Nobel Peace laureate," Soares said.
| Political/economic crisis |
By Gwen Robinson in Jakarta and John Authers in New York
Negotiations on resolving Indonesia's massive private foreign debt overhang began yesterday in New York against a backdrop of confusion in Jakarta and growing division in the camps of both international lenders and their Indonesian debtors.
Bankers close to the negotiations, which are being held at the headquarters of Chase Manhattan in New York, said the talks were likely to last longer than the meetings over Korean debt earlier this year and will probably continue for another two days. Indonesia's private foreign debt is put at more than $74bn.
A series of contradictory signals from the Indonesian government on economic reforms has fuelled fears that the country could once again backslide on pledged reforms.
A 117-point reform package was agreed last week with the International Monetary Fund and Indonesian President Suharto this week reaffirmed his intention to carry out the programme. But recent developments have already begun to erode international confidence in Indonesia's commitment to reform.
"The story is not about the pledges made, it's about prospects for their implementation -- it's about the utter lack of co- ordination and the creeping feeling that one arm doesn't know what the other's doing," said a western diplomat in Jakarta.
The latest confusion was triggered by a conflict between cabinet ministers over palm oil exports, which were banned in January in an attempt to stabilise domestic prices. Prices for palm oil and by-products -- staple items on the domestic market -- soared as the rupiah plunged in January to a low point of 17,000 against the dollar.
Under its latest agreement with the IMF, the government said it would lift the ban by April 22 and replace it initially with an export tax of up to 40 per cent, to be reduced after prices stabilised.
But Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, trade minister and a close friend of Mr Suharto, cast doubts on the plan this week when he said the ban would be maintained indefinitely, despite the IMF agreement. "This is the Republic of Indonesia, not the IMF republic," Mr Hasan told an Indonesian newspaper.
Other senior officials rushed to deny Mr Hasan's assertion. But analysts said the confusion had "already done the damage". The Indonesian rupiah and the Jakarta stock market fell for the third consecutive day after an initial boost in the wake of the IMF agreement.
There are also new concerns about reform plans in other areas, including the government's promise to dismantle monopolies -- many controlled by Mr Suharto's family and associates. Last week a cabinet minister said that Goro, a company owned mainly by Mr Suharto's youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, would be given an exclusive contract to distribute non-essential food items. The claim was hastily denied. The most disturbing aspect of the latest confusion is the timing. The IMF's executive board is still to approve the Indonesian agreement and release the second $3bn tranche of the IMF-sponsored $43bn rescue package.
Jakarta -- Hundreds of hospital patients in Jakarta have fled their beds before making a full recovery because they cannot afford their bills, an Indonesian newspaper said on Thursday.
The current economic crisis, in which the rupiah currency has plunged about 70 percent in value since July, meant that many patients could not afford medical treatment and hospitals had been left with large losses, the Pos Kota newspaper said.
Patients had been sneaking out the door before they had been deemed fit and well, the newspaper said. The main reason was the price of medicines, which have more than doubled since the crisis began.
At Cipto Mangunkusumo, the largest hospital in Jakarta, 355 patients fled between October and December 1997.
"The patients escaped on average two days before they terminated the treatment," a hospital spokesman said, adding that the hospital suffered losses of about 138 million rupiah ($16,200) over the three-month period.
Keith B. Richburg, Jakarta -- Members of the U.S. Congress home for Easter recess and wanting to gauge American views on the Asian economic bailout might well hear concerns about the price of french fries at a Jakarta McDonald's. Or the cost of a Washington state apple at a central Java supermarket. Or the soaring cost of the Georgia cotton needed to keep a Tangerang textile factory alive.
Before the current financial crisis erupted here last year, erasing more than 70 percent of the value of the local currency, Indonesia was gaining importance as a trade partner and buyer for American products. From shampoo to fast-food chicken, from construction cranes to California grapes, Indonesia -- with its 200 million people and a small but growing urban consumer class -- was seen as one of the most promising of the "emerging market" economies.
But the country's dramatic financial collapse has forced U.S. companies to reassess that view and, in some cases, delay plans for expansion. No one predicted the suddenness and extent of Indonesia's economic free fall -- and now few are anticipating a recovery any time soon.
"It's not a pretty picture," said James Castle, a vice chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Jakarta and head of a business advisory group that bears his name. He said consumer-oriented American businesses "took advantage of the new buying power that the growth of the '90s had generated. That buying power has just been savaged."
Castle said he has seen the effect of the crisis in the chamber's membership roster, as many companies begin sending home their expatriate staff members. Chamber membership is already down 15 percent this year, he said. And while no statistics are available, other, anecdotal evidence seems to confirm that American workers are leaving in droves.
"The current crisis has forced all companies to re-look at consumer behavior," said John Murphy, managing director of Coca- Cola Indonesia. For Coke, he said, "the key buyers are moms and teens, and they are readjusting their spending habits accordingly. They have seen a sharp decline in their purchasing power."
One of the hardest hit is McDonald's Corp., recently reported to be closing more than a dozen of its 100-plus outlets here. "In the past decade, McDonald's had made great strides here -- a lot of investment, a lot of success," Castle said.
McDonald's, however, was badly hurt by large import costs, which soared when the local currency, the rupiah, collapsed. For one thing, Indonesia does not grow its own potatoes, so McDonald's imports them to make french fries. Chicken is also expected to disappear here soon, with 90 percent of the poultry farmers already out of business because of the high price of imported feed.
"They're really in a pickle here," said a U.S. agricultural analyst. One of McDonald's' changes has been to remove french fries from its "value pack," which now includes just the burger and the soft drink.
Others in the food and beverage business are finding creative ways to cope. One Italian restaurant recently opened with no menus -- "they didn't know what the prices would be or what would be available," one patron said. Instead, the staff brings out small portions of each dish for customers to sample.
The local construction industry also has been hit hard. During Indonesia's economic boom years of the '90s, new office buildings, shopping centers and luxury apartment complexes sprouted across the Jakarta skyline faster than the available space could be filled. Now many stand unfinished or unoccupied, and construction work largely has ground to a halt while the government and the International Monetary Fund try to kick-start the economy. And that has badly affected U.S.-based Caterpillar Inc., which supplies heavy equipment not just for construction work here but for forestry, mining and the oil-and-gas industry.
American agricultural exports to Indonesia also have suffered, as credit here has largely evaporated . In 1996, the United States exported some $888 million in agricultural products to Indonesia, according to Commerce Department figures, but in 1997 that number dropped 8.69 percent, to $811 million, largely because of a drop-off at year's end because of the crisis.
An agricultural analyst here estimated that this year, American consumer- oriented products, including fresh fruit, poultry and beef, would drop off by at least half and likely more. Until the crisis began, Indonesia had been the United States' second- largest Asian market for apples and its eighth-largest foreign market for grapes.
The largest U.S. exports to Indonesia are cotton, used for textiles, and soybeans, used for a local staple dish called tempeh. While soybean imports largely have been protected under a state monopoly that is to be abolished under the IMF agreement, cotton is down about 20 percent, industry analysts say.
The irony for Indonesia, they say, is that with U.S. cotton prices now at a low, textile-producing countries like Indonesia should be building up their stocks.
The restaurant industry is considered particularly vulnerable, with one food analyst predicting that "10 to 15 percent of the restaurants are going to close down." Franchises and chains, like McDonald's, Wendy's, Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Cafe, are expected to fare better. "The independents are going to be hit harder," the analyst said. "They really don't have any idea how to respond."
Andrew Higgins, West Java -- Wood huts scattered around fields of rice are a long way from the haggling between the International Monetary Fund and the technocrats of President Soeharto.
Here villagers have no electricity and only small battery-powered radios to convey news of Asia's economic turmoil. They did not need the radio to tell them something was seriously wrong. The abstractions of economists had already taken brutal form: the body of a young mother.
Villagers blame the death on a crude birth control device - a cheap substitute for the injections and other forms of family planning that are now too expensive. No one else had fallen ill, but village women want to get out of the Government's birth control program.
The collapse of the national currency, the rupiah, against the dollar and the colossal debts of corporations are undermining the lives of ordinary Indonesians. The twin pillars of President Soeharto's legitimacy as Father of Development -- adequate food supplies and birth control to limit the number of new mouths to be fed -- are crumbling.
Most of Indonesia's 202 million people have never seen a dollar and are baffled by billboards saying "I love the rupiah". Nonetheless, all have fallen victim to a global economy guided by forces they neither see nor understand. The soybeans that provide a national staple known as tempe are mostly imported, as are contraceptives and drugs.
"We don't know what they are talking about when they talk about the monetary crisis. All we know is that prices keep going up," said Ii Tazkiyah Tawfi, a village teacher and family planning counsellor. "Officials talk about getting rid of poverty. But they talk about it sitting in air-conditioned rooms or fancy cars. They do not know what it is like to live like this."
The United Nations has warned that at least 7.5 million people could soon face food shortages, reporting that many already suffer an acute lack of supply. Most at risk are remote areas hit by the worst drought in decades, such as Irian Jaya and parts of Borneo.
Even on Java, the country's rich agricultural heartland, many are hungry because they cannot afford basic imported foodstuffs. President Soeharto has acknowledged the pain, but resisted reform of a state food import agency that enriches his youngest son, Tommy, and various cronies. In a statement last week, he said: "Even mothers can no longer be provided with powdered milk for their babies."
In the meantime, Indonesia's state family planning agency, architect of one of the world's most successful birth control campaigns, is running out of supplies to prevent a population explosion. Many women are deserting the program because charges are now too high.
Private organisations that once filled gaps left by the state can offer little help. The Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association has stopped ordering depo- provera, a widely used birth control drug, after yet another price rise last week.
Lies Marcos-Natsin, coordinator of an Islamic organisation involved in family planning, said domestic abuse was rising because women who can no longer afford contraception try to control the timing of sex. "They want to control their bodies, but their husbands don't have any patience. For women, sex is seen as a duty. They have no right to refuse. They don't want to have any more babies, but they have no choice."
Abortion is illegal but widespread. Trained doctors are too expensive, so many women resort to dukuns, traditional healers who try to induce miscarriage through a potent and sometimes dangerous mix of herbs and wine. The woman who died in the village near Pandeglang may have been the victim of a botched termination, though friends insist she was killed by the new birth control method.
| Environment/land disputes |
Jakarta -- Fires have ravaged more than 224,000 ha of forest in the drought-stricken Indonesian province of East Kalimantan since the beginning of the year, reports said yesterday.
The head of East Kalimantan's Environmental Impact Control Agency, Mr Awang Faruk Ishak, was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying 224,384 ha of the Borneo island province had been devastated by fires.
Among the hardest hit was the 198,000-ha Kutai National Park, the province's largest natural forest park, he said. Fires had wiped out almost 36 per cent of cover as of Wednesday, he added.
Other fire-ravaged areas include 55,463 ha of forest concessions, 66,839 ha of timber estate and close to 3,000 ha of plantations.
The agency has been monitoring the devastation closely by satellite.
Mr Ishak estimated losses of at least 4,817 billion rupiah (S$952 million) not counting the cost of environmental and health damage.
He said thousands of fires continued to burn in the province despite efforts to curb their advance.
The lack of rain since the middle of last year had left forest and ground cover susceptible to fires, he added.
Officials said long-smouldering coal, lignite and peat seams criss-crossing the province exacerbated the problem.
Water bombing, artificial rain-making and military support for local firefighters had failed to put out the fires, said the agency chief.
Fears of a repeat of last year's South-east Asian haze, when smoke from Indonesian fires blanketed much of the region and caused widespread health problems and transport disruption, were eased by strong winds helping to dissipate the haze.
But the smoke has made thousands ill in East Kalimantan and led to shortages of food and water in some areas.
A UN team was in the province to assess what it needed to fight the disaster. UN officials have suggested a food-for-fire- fighting plan in East Kalimantan under which residents who stop burning the forests or who help put out fires would get food.
Indonesian Environment Minister Juwono Sudarsono has said US$2 billion to US$3 billion (S$3.2 billion to S$4.8 billion) would be required to extinguish the fires now burning.
[On April 9, Suara Pembaruan reported that around 150 orangutans in Kalimantan have been treated for injuries sustained in forest fires. According to the forestry ministry expert, the daily said that all but 20 of 3,200 hectares of the Wanariset Orangutan Conservation Area have been destroyed. The fires have also killed several types of butterflies only found in the East Kalimantan forests - James Balowski.]
| Human rights/law |
Jakarta - Beyond any expectations, the total number of activists which have disappeared since April is estimated to have reached 50. This was announced by the chair of the Indonesian Legal Aid foundation (YLBHI), Bambang Widjojanto on Tuesday (14/4) based on a report from LBH offices in different parts of Indonesia.
This figure is clearly different from the one announced by YLBHI lot long ago, which said that 10 activists had been reported missing by members of their families.
According to Bambang Widjojanto, the increase in the figure to 50 was because although there were other families who had already reported disappearances to LBH offices, the reports were not released to the press until they could be checked.
"We have assumed that the majority of the reports are 'true', so the definitive number of people who have disappeared has reached 50 all together", he said. According to data obtained by SiaR, in the last week YLBHI has received -- aside from a report from the family of the Deputy Secretary General of DPP-PDI [pro-Megawati Indonesian Democratic Party], Haryanto Taslam -- two other reports of people who have disappeared which have not yet been released to the press by YLBHI.
At the time of this report, YLBHI is presently holding a press conference on the activists which have disappeared, included new reports which have followed from the families of activists who have disappeared.
Two recent reports have come from the families of Rayan and Sonny, two DPP-PDI activists who disappeared almost one year ago, in April 1997, during the 1997 general election campaign. Their families have already checked at the Jakut police and Kodim 0502 (District Military Command) -- the bodies responsible for detaining the two activists -- about the whereabouts of their children.
"Kodim said that my child has already been released. At the time we were given a letter of proof that Ryan was released. But why has he not contacted his family to this day", said Ryan's mother, when she was reporting the disappearance of her child to YLBHI. Reports of activists which have disappeared have also come from LBH offices in Surabaya [East Java] and Ujung Pandang [South Sulawasi]. Two other activists who were reported to have disappeared by their families are Bima Anugerah, a student from STF Driyarkara, and a press activist from the Hasanudin University. Their disappearances were reported to the press at the beginning of April. The whereabouts of the Hasanudin University student was checked at 16 police stations in South Sulawasi, but with no success.
The families of the activists who have disappeared were disappointed by a statement by the Minister of Political and Security Affairs, Faisal Tanjung and the head of the armed forces public relations, Brigadier-General A Wahab Mokodongan, who questioned the truth of the reports by families of the activists who have disappeared, "perhaps the people who have disappeared are drinking coffee at a cafe and chatting". While Mokodongan said, "perhaps the people who are said to have disappeared are wandering around in the jungle".
"Many witnesses, the neighbours, saw how Andi Arief [chairperson of Student Solidarity for Indonesian Democracy, which is affiliated with the outlawed People's Democratic Party, who was abducted in Lampung, South Sumatra, on March 28] was abducted. Some of the abductors carried pistols. The description of the abductors [who were described as being well built and having short cropped hair] is in the chronology which was given to LBH Bandar Lampung. "Please, don't [the authorities] speak without thinking. This involves a person's life", said one of Arief's family members.
Two families of students from the University of Lampung, who disappeared after a clash with security forces on the campus, said that they had found two "unidentified" bodies which resembled their children. But the families -- who are also pro- Megawati PDI sympathisers -- have not been able to ascertain if the two unknown bodies, which were found on the outskirts of Lampung with their hands and legs tied, are in fact their children.
Not long ago, the Mangunkusumo Hospital in Jakarta announced that in the last two weeks -- particularly alongside railroad tracks -- 165 unidentified bodies had been found in Jakarta and the satellite cities of Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi. Most of the bodies were victims of torture -- with gunshot or stab wounds and bruises. Many families of activists who have disappeared are worried that those who have disappeared are among these unidentified bodies.
"I am resigned [to my son's death]. But if that is what happen, as a mother, I will [continue to] demand justice until the end of the world", said Rayan's mother.
Many believe that the perpetrators of the abductions of pro- democracy activists are a "death squad", which was formed by the commander of Kostrad, Lieutenant-General Prabowo [Suharto's son- in-law] and the armed forces intelligence body BIA.
The issue of people disappearing in Indonesia has become a focus of international attention. Over the last week, the European Union for example, has repeatedly raised the issue with the Indonesia's permanent representative in Geneva. As a result of the attention, there is a possibility that the EU will present an anti-Indonesian resolution in relation to the issue of democracy and implementation of human rights in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, US senator, Patrick Kennedy, in a letter to Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ali Alitas, also raised the question of the disappearances of Indonesian pro-democracy activists. To date, the Indonesian government has not given a clear or complete answer, except for responses which are "defensive" or play down the issue.
The minister of internal affairs, R Hartono for example, as if he was half-joking, said in Javanese: "[they] disappeared of their own will, why must [we be held] responsible".
[Slightly abridged translation by James Balowski]
By Margot Cohen in Tanjungbalai, north Sumatra, and Sigli, Aceh
In his long career as the famed troubadour of Aceh, 66-year- old Adnan P.M. Toh had never played to a more captive audience. More than 500 Acehnese workers -- some of them handcuffed -- listened to Adnan recite melodious verse on March 27 aboard a military ship bound for Aceh, Indonesia's northernmost province on the tip of Sumatra. They had been deported from Malaysia, and Adnan's performance, courtesy of the Indonesian government, aimed to ease their fears of a hostile homecoming.
The pudgy entertainer's verses drew laughter and rueful tears. "Before you left, you were all so handsome," he trilled in his native Acehnese. "Look at you now, you're all wounded."
Adnan's lyrics rang literally true: Many in his audience were bruised and bleeding -- casualties of "Operation Go Away," Malaysia's large-scale crackdown on illegal workers. In an effort to free up jobs for its own people and stem the influx of job- seekers escaping Indonesia's economic crisis, Malaysia is forcibly repatriating thousands of workers from Sumatra, Java, Lombok, Kalimantan and East Timor. Most seemed stunned or angry at their overnight transformation from unsung heroes of Malaysian development to unwanted parasites. Many have shocking tales of physical and mental abuse at the hands of the Malaysian authorities. "It's inhumane," grumbles Adnan, echoing a view expressed by Indonesian officials supervising the deportees, hospital staff who have treated them and activists at non- governmental organizations.
But this shock therapy appears to be working. Traumatized deportees told the REVIEW they wouldn't dream of going back to Malaysia, and would discourage friends and relatives from doing so. Many others reportedly poised to sneak across the Strait of Malacca have hastily cancelled their plans. Even some fishermen who supplemented their income by transporting illegal migrants have gone into abrupt retirement. With Malaysian naval patrols boarding suspicious vessels, "it's too much of a risk," says a boatman in Lalang village on the east Sumatran coast.
Such vigilance may be deterring migrants for the moment, but the factors fuelling illegal migration remain undiminished: Job scarcity at home, higher wages abroad, and the demand for cheap labour in Malaysia. These factors provide fertile ground for illegal labour recruiters who are everywhere in Indonesia -- "in the government, in the streets, in the bus terminals," complains Parlindungan Purba, executive director of Mutiara Karya Mitra, a recruitment firm operating legally in the north Sumatra capital of Medan.
Despite the threat of stiff fines, Malaysian employers are also likely to continue hiring illegal workers if they feel the risks are offset by the benefits: They don't have to pay for work permits, medical check-ups, minimum wages or foreign-worker levies. Deported workers say their Malaysian bosses and recruitment agents routinely extracted money from them as fees for their "work permits," but they later discovered the stamps in their passports to be false.
Even now, seamen in the north Sumatran port of Tanjungbalai say would-be illegal migrants are cooling their heels on small Indonesian islands such as Pandan in the Strait of Malacca, waiting to be smuggled into Malaysia. But some 3,000 others from Java and other islands seeking to be smuggled across the strait were sent home by the authorities in Riau province in March. According to NGO officials, the Riau islands have provided many popular jumping-off points into Malaysia, with recruiters, officials and police colluding in the lucrative business.
Until recently, turning a blind eye was the official attitude in Malaysia too -- according to experiences related by deported Indonesian workers. Take the allegations of 24-year-old Zainuddin, a gaunt rice farmer from Lombok. In April 1996, tempted by tales of high pay, he gave an Indonesian recruiter 550,000 rupiah ($235 at then exchange rates) to slip him into Malaysia on a fishing boat departing from Riau. An additional 500 ringgit ($200), paid to a Malaysian agent, bought him a construction job in Kuantan, a city in the central state of Pahang. During his two years there, he was caught by police four times, but got off each time by paying a bribe of 50-100 ringgit, he says.
Money couldn't save him last month, though, when the crackdown came. Armed police burst into his boarding house on March 17 and threw him into a lock-up barefoot and barechested. For nine days, he says, he slept on a cement floor in his shorts and endured beatings that came without warning and for no apparent reason. At one point, he recalls, a policeman beating him with a rattan stick snarled: "Your president is a very rich man. Why do all of you have to come to our country like hungry dogs?"
More beatings came, he says, after his transfer to another camp, one of Malaysia's 10 overcrowded detention centres for illegal immigrants. He began spitting up blood. Deportation came as a relief. On April 6, he was still being treated for his injuries at the hospital in Tanjungbalai, the north Sumatran port where many deportees land. Apart from beatings, other deportees speak of a menagerie of punishments. One was called "dizzy elephant" in which a migrant is told to place a finger on the ground and twirl around until he falls down. Orders to "walk like a duck" require scuttling across hot pebbles. Beatings on the head with heavy wooden planks were also reported. The trauma of detention alone appears to be leaving psychological scars. "Don't kill me, don't kill me," sobbed an Indonesian woman in her early 30s when a reporter tried to interview her as she sat slumped in a temporary shelter in Tanjungbalai. She had been deported from Malaysia for working illegally as a maid.
Other workers are less frightened than bitter. "Without Indonesians, all those Malaysian buildings wouldn't be standing," declares Didik Supriadi, a 33-year-old from East Java. Didik earned a good salary installing electrical cables in the state of Selangor. But he brought nothing home in April, he says, because the authorities seized 2,500 ringgit from him when he was arrested. Such complaints are common, although a few workers told the REVIEW that the police had returned their meagre funds prior to deportation. One worker was so desperate to hold on to 200 ringgit that he rolled it up in plastic and swallowed it, along with a banana. He excreted the bills on the boat trip home.
Malaysian police have declined to comment on these specific allegations of abuse, and have denied charges of brutal treatment in general. "It is clear that such reports which allege that the police mistreated illegal immigrants at detention centres have bad intentions," Malaysia's deputy director of Internal Security and Public Order, Mohamad Yusof Said, said on April 10. "They are aimed at creating a strain on the good relations enjoyed by Malaysia and her neighbours."
Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights is planning to send a fact-finding mission to Malaysia to examine the deportation process. But, anxious to maintain neighbourly relations -- and preserve work opportunities for legal migrants -- the Indonesian government seems reluctant to protest against the treatment of its citizens.
Indonesian officials are instead scrambling to prepare for more boatloads of deportees. Since March 27, 2,035 deportees have arrived in Tanjungbalai and 545 have arrived in Aceh, say Indonesian officials, with 11,000 more to follow, according to human-rights workers. Unlike the Acehnese who were taken on a naval vessel to the Aceh city of Lhokseumawe, migrants arriving in the Sumatran port of Tanjungbalai come in wooden boats normally used to transport vegetables. "If there's an accident, who will take responsibility?" frets Slamet Priyoto, the official overseeing deportees there.
New arrivals are put up in a temporary tented shelter inside the local football stadium. Appalled at the scanty apparel of the first wave of deportees -- some clad in only a sarong or torn shorts -- officials have collected used clothing from the local community. Those who arrive with enough money to go home are dropped off at the bus terminal, no questions asked. The destitute sign up for food allowances and free bus trips home, partly funded by the Social Affairs Ministry, now headed by Siti Hardijanti Rukmana, President Suharto's eldest daughter. "Don't go back to Malaysia!" squawks a stadium loudspeaker, as workers assemble to board buses. "Develop your villages!"
The saga might have ended there, with their forlorn return to the villages. But the repatriation of Indonesian workers has been complicated by a political issue -- the claims of some Acehnese migrants to be political refugees, members of the Free Aceh movement. A small insurgency by this Islamic separatist brigade that began in the 1970s was effectively crushed by the Indonesian army in the 1990s (see box). Many Free Aceh operatives fled to Malaysia, where their status is unclear. To the Malaysian government, they have all been economic migrants. "Claims that they were political refugees only surfaced in the last few weeks," Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on April 9.
But now that they are being ejected, members of the fading movement appear to be fighting back. Bloody riots greeted deportation attempts, the most serious occurring on March 26 at the Semenyih camp outside Kuala Lumpur, leaving eight migrants and a policeman dead.
Immediately after the riots, a Free Aceh-linked group called the Acheh/Sumatra National Liberation Front issued a press release in typically charged language: "These hapless, unarmed refugees [risk] death by summary execution if they are surrendered to the hands of the Javanese-Indonesian neocolonialist regime, led by Suharto and his cohorts of Javanese generals."
Dramatic action followed these words. On March 30, 14 Acehnese slammed a truck through the gates of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Kuala Lumpur and demanded asylum. On April 10, another 35 Acehnese stormed three embassies and a Brunei-owned palace in Kuala Lumpur, also demanding asylum.
The French and Swiss embassies promptly called in the Malaysian police to remove them, as did the Brunei authorities. But the American embassy refused to turn over the eight Acehnese who sought refuge there and asked the UNHCR to investigate their claims that they would be persecuted if returned to Indonesia. The UNHCR also extended protection to the 14 Acehnese in its own compound. On April 13, the commission said it wanted to investigate the conditions of the 545 Acehnese deported on March 26 before deciding the fate of the 22 people seeking asylum in Kuala Lumpur.
The UNHCR has no access to the Malaysian detention camps or to Rancong, an Indonesian "re-education centre" outside Lhokseumawe where 500-odd Acehnese deportees have been detained. Human-rights groups cite historical reasons for concern about Rancong. New York-based Human Rights Watch calls it "the most notorious military interrogation centre in Aceh . . . the site of extrajudicial executions and torture" from 1989 to 1992.
Rancong appears to be a different place today, according to a group of 11 Javanese and Sumatran migrants who were released after being mistakenly sent to Aceh by the Malaysian authorities and kept in Rancong for four days. They say decent food and clean clothing is available, and activities indeed focus on re- education. The Acehnese reportedly attend hours of lectures on development, as well as how-to sessions on making tofu and soyabean cakes. Islamic preachers provide spiritual guidance, and volleyball games fill spare afternoon hours. Since April 11, Rancong has been rapidly emptied of its inmates, who are being sent to skills-training centres around Aceh for one-to-two weeks. They will then be allowed to go home.
Fourteen of the detainees, however, face a more uncertain future. On April 4, the military announced that they were linked to the Free Aceh movement. Six were said to be cadres, and eight were considered "lightly" involved. Although military officials in Jakarta and Medan had said earlier that none of the deportees would be put on trial, the fate of these 14 remains to be seen.
North Aceh regent Karimuddin Hasybullah maintains that it was psychologically necessary to hold deportees in seclusion in Rancong. The beatings they allegedly received in Malaysia, combined with rumours that they would be tortured upon arrival in Aceh, caused tremendous angst among the deportees, he says. "We didn't want the families to see them in a state of shock. We wanted to give them time to build their self-confidence."
But fears of retribution still linger due to the heavy military guard assigned to hospital rooms where detainees recover from gunshot wounds and other consequences of Malaysia's crackdown. (Two patients were forced to have feet amputated because of festering wounds allegedly neglected by Malaysian authorities.)
No matter how harsh the deterrent tactics, however, fear alone will not stop for long a lunge for more lucrative shores.
The real deterrent is jobs at home -- for people like 25-year-old Mohammad Atim, who is finding it harder and harder to make a living taking snapshots of tourists at the magnificent 19th- century Baiturrahman mosque in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. He is considering a jump to Malaysia, he says. "I'm not afraid to die."
The army is being wrongly blamed for the disappearance of opposition figures, a senior officer tells Asia Editor David Jenkins in Jakarta.
The mystery surrounding the disappearance of a nearly a dozen Indonesian student and opposition figures took a new twist yesterday as a senior official claimed that "radical activists" were ordering the abduction of their own associates or simply lying low in an attempt to win international sympathy and besmirch the name of the armed forces.
"I do not have any hesitation in believing that the victims may have been victimised by their own gang," said Lieutenant-General Z.A. Maulani, a senior government adviser.
In an interview with the Herald, General Maulani said, "They need martyrs desperately. If not from ABRI [the armed forces], then from their own hands.
"They have been trying to create martyrs, but until now in vain. These "disappeared persons' are mostly diehard activists, not the moderates. They haven't disappeared at all.
"I assume they pretend to disappear to make it look like they were kidnapped by the security elements. When I ask the intelligence people about this, they feel they have been framed. The situation doesn't help ABRI."
General Maulani's claims are likely to be be greeted with scepticism, both in Indonesia and abroad. Although no-one has produced hard evidence of army involvement in the disappearances, it is widely believed in Jakarta that the army -- or elements of the army -- are involved.
Some of Indonesia's "disappeared" -- the word has chilling echoes of Latin America -- have reportedly been plucked off the street by strongly built men wearing plain clothes and carrying guns.
One former student activist, Hendrix, who disappeared nearly two years ago, said this week that he was given electric shock treatment, burnt with cigarettes and beaten after being picked up at a bus stop by four burly men.
Indonesia, reeling from its worst economic crisis in 30 years, has come under intense international pressure following the reported disappearance of student and political activists. The Government, recognising the harm that is being done to its reputation at a time when it is seeking massive financial support from the world community, now appears to have gone into damage control mode. According to General Maulani, who retired from the army after serving as military commander of Kalimantan in 1988-91, a Machiavellian minority in the student ranks had been hoping the armed forces would open fire on demonstrators, giving the anti- Soeharto student movement a tailor-made martyr. That, he said, would make it easier for radical students to pursue their objective of bringing down the Government.
However, the radicals had been frustrated at the restraint shown by the army, he said, and were now resorting to other means to discredit the military.
Asked about the reported disappearance of Haryanto Taslam, an adviser to the opposition leader Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, General Maulani said he would like Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission to look into that case and other alleged disappearances.
"I don't think ABRI would detain people," he said. "ABRI has decided to support the democratisation process and to establish the rule of law... You can't stop a movement by kidnapping one or two people. It only escalates the problem."
ABRI was looking into the issue of the disappeared "very seriously because it affects our credibility".
"The radical students want a martyr and are very much influenced by the idea of people's power, which is based on liberation theology."
The radical student activists, he said, had hoped for "external political pressure against the Government, especially by the IMF" but had been disappointed. At the same time, "they have failed to establish a bridge between the elite and the masses".
Speaking about allegations that the army had been associated with torture and kidnapping, he said: "I don't deny these kind of things happened in the past. But we have learnt from our mistakes and ABRI is determined not to repeat its mistakes."
ABRI had changed. The military did not torture people or kidnap them.
"...even in Timtim [East Timor], ABRI doesn't behave like that anymore. The things that were done have damaged our credibility. We are professionals."
That said, the claim that ABRI was behind the disappearances would be difficult to refute. "It will be very difficult to convince people that we didn't do it," he said. Diplomats express serious reservations about claims that ABRI has had no involvement in the latest disappearances. They add, however, that the army is not responsible for all disappearances.
"The more legitimate view is that not everyone alleged to have disappeared has been picked up by the Government," one analyst said. "Quite a number have gone into hiding because they are afraid. But to say they are doing this to discredit the Government is going a bit far."
The United States Government has made a number of high-level representations to Indonesia over the "disappeared" issue, as have European Union nations. The Australian Defence Minister, Mr McLachlan, raised the matter in Jakarta this week with General Wiranto, the Defence Minister and Commander of the Armed Forces.
Jakarta -- Ten out of at least 21 people reported missing have returned, but the whereabouts of the rest are still unknown, reports said yesterday.
Those accounted for were eight students who went missing following a clash between protesters and security personnel in Yogyakarta last week, another student and a lawyer from Jakarta.
The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) said that among those still missing were Herman Hendrawan, 27, a student at Airlangga University in Surabaya; Andi Arief, 27, a student at the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta and an activist in the outlawed People's Democratic Party (PRD), and Haryanto Taslam, a loyal supporter of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the ousted leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).
Also unaccounted for are Faisol Rezha, 24, and Rahardjo Waluyo Djati, 28, both of UGM.
Herman, Faisol, and Rahardjo have been missing since March 12, when they were known to be in Jakarta, and Andi was allegedly abducted from his home in Bandarlampung on March 28 YLBHI said in a letter sent to National Police Chief Gen. Dibyo Widodo yesterday. Haryanto Taslam disappeared on March 2, it also said.
"Pius Lustrilanang and Desmond J. Mahesa were missing for two months, but returned to their respective homes last Friday", the letter signed by YLBHI Chairman Bambang Widjojanto and Deputy Chairman Munir, said.
Copies of the letter were sent to Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Feisal Tanjung, Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto Chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights Munawir Sjadzali, Jakarta Police Chief Maj. Gen. Hamami Nata, and families of the missing people.
In Yogyakarta, Iwan Satriawan, a lawyer for the Students Advocacy Team, told Bambang Soeharto, Djoko Sugianto, and Syamsuddin from the National Commission on Human Rights that six people were still missing. They are a student and five street singers involved in last Friday's rally at UGM which resulted in a clash with security personnel.
He said seven students reported missing on Monday have returned, but Alfan D. from Sunan Kalijaga Islamic t Institute and five street singers were still unaccounted for.
The students and their lawyers were accompanied yesterday by Gadjah Mada Rector Ichlasul Amal and the r father of one of the missing street singers.
The human rights commission will meet Yogyakarta Police Chief Col. Bani Siswoyo today to establish the police version of events.
Prohibit
Despite last weeks violence Ichlasul Amal said yesterday he would not prohibit students from staging demonstrations on the campus grounds.
"I can't forbid them because they are just voicing concern about what they witness in society," he said.
Ichlasul also called on security officers not to "cross the psychological boundary line and enter the campus," as it might provoke the demonstrators.
However, Ichlasul said students should control their emotions and not be provoked into violence.
The most violent student demonstrations have taken place at the University of Lampung in Bandarlampung and in Yogyakarta. Antara, quoting Iberahim Bastari, a lawyer from Bandar Lampung Legal Aid Institute, said the National Commission on Human Rights would send Albert Hasibuan and Soegiri to investigate the March 19 incident in which dozens of students and at least five police officers were injured.
More violence was reported at student rallies in Surabaya, the capital of East Java, yesterday. At least 18 students were injured in two separate clashes between students and security officers.
The first incident took place at Dr. Sutomo University when 200 protesting students tried to march off the campus and onto the street. A scuffle with security personnel broke out. One student was injured and a police officer suffered a bruised arm.
In reaction to the first incident, 2,000 students from 13 universities gathered at Airlangga University and began throwing stones at riot police guarding the compound.
A scuffle broke out when police fired tear-gas to disperse the angry crowd as they tried to march off the campus. The melee calmed down after Rector Paruhito appeared and soothed the students.
Yesterday, two separate demonstrations were also staged by students in Semarang, Central Java, at Soegiyopranoto Catholic University and YGRI Teachers Training Institute.
Both protests called for the government to lower the price of basic essentials and carry out sweeping economic and political reforms.
The progression in Indonesia has been inexorable: economic hard times, then social unrest, heightened political dissent and, finally, official repression. As impassioned student demonstrations have spread across the country's campuses, nearly 400 activists have been arrested since January. But as disturbing as these detentions are to the Suharto regime's critics, a much more ominous trend is emerging. According to the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), at least 12 activists have disappeared altogether since January; six of them dropped out of sight after a demonstration in Yogyakarta on April 3. Faisal Rezha was last seen on March 12, when a group of men bundled him into an unmarked Toyota in Central Jakarta. Pleads his mother, Ma'rufah: "If my child has done something wrong, I'm willing for him to be punished. But don't play hide-and-seek like this." Faisal disappeared with Herman Hendrawan, whose elder brother shares the anguish of not knowing what has happened: "If my brother is already dead, please tell us where he is buried."
Both pleas are addressed to the government--as obvious a suspect as the Latin American dictatorships accused of similar "disappearances" in the 1970s. Bonar Tigor, director of the Indonesian Society for Humanity, a group that tries to locate and gain the release of missing persons, contends that the latest abductions bear the imprint of the Indonesian Army. Witnesses say that although the captors wear no uniforms, they wield guns, which are forbidden to anyone except troops and police. "The kidnappings are carried out by the military with civilian thugs," Bonar asserts. The charge is just as strongly denied by the government and military. But critics insist authorities have given, in effect, tacit approval to the crackdown. "The government has a responsibility to prevent such practices, but there's no evidence that it's doing that," notes Kerry Brogan, a researcher with Amnesty International in London, "which suggests that the government doesn't mind."
The political ties of those who are missing suggest that the abductions have a common purpose. At least five of the "disappeared" are linked to the outlawed Democratic People's Party (PRD), a left-wing faction that has championed the rights of workers and ethnic minorities. In 1996 authorities accused PRD members of masterminding riots that struck Jakarta after the government-backed ouster of opposition icon Megawati Sukarnoputri from the leadership of the Indonesian Democratic Party. The PRD has also been accused of involvement in bomb plots, and nine of its leaders are serving jail time for subversion.
Victor da Costa can imagine their possible fate. The PRD member was arrested shortly after the July 1996 riots and spent two years behind bars. Before trial, he says, he was interrogated non-stop for 72 hours, after which he was allowed one hour of sleep per day. Another recently released activist still scans the room nervously when recalling his months of disappearance. "I couldn't tell the difference between day and night," he says, drawing tightly on a clove cigarette. During the first days he was repeatedly beaten and electrodes were applied to every part of his body. "In there I vowed that this had to be stopped," he declares.
Chillingly, however, most observers predict just the opposite. "As the level of unrest increases, we expect that the level of repression will also increase," says Amnesty International's Brogan. That could be the hardest part of Indonesia's hard times.
By Nisid Hajari. Reported by David Liebhold/Jakarta
Louise Williams, Jakarta -- He was standing on the edge of the crowded footpath, peering into the stream of crawling Jakarta traffic for his bus when they came for him: four burly, silent men appearing suddenly, two at each side.
For a moment he was frozen with fear as four pairs of eyes stared directly into his. Then a thick, muscular arm hit him full in the face and he fell to the ground. Two of his friends were watching, but did not move. That was the deal. If one of them was taken the others would walk on, feigning indifference and lose themselves among the sidewalk noodle vendors and midday crowds. It was almost two years ago that Achmad, then a firebrand student leader of the fledgling campaign against the Soeharto Government, disappeared during a crackdown against political dissidents.
The operation followed two days of rioting in Jakarta after police stormed the headquarters of the ousted pro-democracy leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri. At least 16 of her supporters never returned home after the battle in the centre of the city.
With the number of student demonstrations escalating in the past two months, and criticism of the Soeharto regime finding its way into the local media and sections of the middle class, the disappearances have begun again. Human rights lawyers now list 11 people as missing, all with links to the political opposition and many with direct involvement in student demonstrations against the Government. A delegation of human rights activists left for Geneva yesterday to put their case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and voice the fears of Indonesia's growing political opposition that a Latin American-style campaign of extra-judicial disappearances may be emerging.
Achmad is now sitting in the living room of his family home. It was here the family held a wake following his disappearance after his parents concluded he must be dead.
He says he thought he was going to be killed. For two days and nights, dressed only in his underpants, he was tortured with electric shocks, burned with cigarettes, and beaten.
He does not know where he was, or who his tormentors were. He believes they were from Indonesia's military intelligence service, because when two soldiers tried to come to his aid while his captors beat him in the street, they flashed their ID cards and his would-be saviours joined in the beating.
"I was forced into a car, and they put a bag over my head and made me lie down, so I did not know where we were going," he says. "When we arrived, there were five people waiting for me in the interrogation room. They made me take off my clothes. They wound electric cables through my hair and snapped conductors on to my thumbs and ears. "I kept collapsing on the floor and begging them to spare me. I was very, very frightened."
But as a maverick student leader who had joined in the hanging of a portrait of President Soeharto in the university toilets -- a prank which can amount to the crime of insulting the national leader -- he knew the risks of challenging the Soeharto regime.
"Yes, I was fully aware of the risks, but at that time this was just theoretical. I had not felt it yet." Achmad says he became an activist as a young university student because he had grown up in a semi-rural area and watched the farmers suffer the seizure of their land for development. Most of his interest was in land cases, but these led him into the shadowy world of the political opposition.
The Indonesian political system does not recognise opposition and there are only two legal alternative political parties, so any anti-Government actions are potentially illegal.
"Because of this political structure many people are afraid," Achmad says.
He does not try to pretend he was brave. The pain, he says, was excruciating, especially in his head.
So he shouted out anything they wanted to hear. Yes, he was the mastermind of the riots. Yes, he was the one who made the bomb threats that terrorised the city's office workers. But he couldn't tell them the phone numbers he had called, because he hadn't made any calls. So they cranked up the electricity.
"I just had to keep talking, so I made up some terrible stories, some terrible confessions."
"Do you believe me?" he asks, missing the point that this kind of interrogation is illegal under international human rights laws, regardless of the alleged crime.
"I felt like an animal. I was given food but my face was so swollen I could not chew. I felt so close to death. I became more religious and prayed and thought of my family."
Six days later he was removed from his cell. "I thought I was being taken out to be killed."
At home his grieving mother and father had called his relatives to his wake.
But his battered body was dropped off with the police. The police, he says, were angry with his tormentors for treating him this way. Twenty days later, after his body had began to heal, he was released. No charges were laid.
Indonesian military and police officials have denied involvement in the recent disappearances.
The Indonesian Commission on Human Rights is investigating the cases and has not released its report.
But a commission member, Albert Hasibuan, was recently quoted as saying: "The state apparatus must find these people to prevent a repeat of what happened in Latin America." Last week two democracy activists who had been missing for almost two months were returned home. Both have refused to talk publicly about where they were, but human rights lawyers say they have indicated they were not voluntarily absent.
On March 28, Andi Arief, a student leader from Lampung, in south Sumatra, was kidnapped in broad daylight from his parents' shop by men in plain clothes. They did not produce a warrant for his arrest, nor identify themselves.
"Does everybody who is well built with short hair come from the armed forces?" asked the regional military commander, Major- General Suadi Atma.
The others on the missing list are student activists or supporters of Ms Megawati.
A lawyer who chairs the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, Mr Hendardi, says the disappearances are not a new phenomenon.
More than 600 people never returned home after troops opened fire on Muslim protesters near the Jakarta docks in 1984, 112 names remain on the missing list following the Dili massacre in East Timor in 1991, and 16 people are missing following the raid on Ms Megawati's headquarters in 1996.
Mr Hendardi admits it is not possible to say without doubt where these people have gone. It is possible some had disappeared voluntarily, fearing the consequences of their opposition to the regime. It is possible some in East Timor joined the Fretilin guerilla force. But it is likely at least some are dead.
Of the recent disappearances, he says: "There are no missing people who do not have links to the political opposition. They deserve the assumption they are not voluntarily missing."
He says the missing people are usually field workers, probably mobilising people to attend anti-Government demonstrations and rallies. "The political opposition has a network and regulations. They have beepers and codes to indicate whether they are in trouble. It is difficult to go into hiding without someone in the network knowing, unless you are in jail," he said.
"We don't know who takes them because they don't wear uniforms, they don't reveal their identity and the activists are blindfolded so they don't know where they are. "It is possible military officers are making local decisions. It is possible the disappearances are a result of competition between military factions. It doesn't really matter who is doing it though. The State, the Government, is responsible, and must stop it."
In military jargon the disappearances are thought to be part of a strategy of "shock therapy" -- tough methods used against the few to frighten the many.
Achmad says he remains idealistic, but is quiet and careful, and working on his thesis so he can graduate soon. He still talks in his sleep and the recent round of disappearances has brought back the nightmares.
But, he says: "My feeling is from reading about other situations that before any political change occurs there will be a period of greater repression."
| Politics |
Jakarta -- The ousted leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), Megawati Soekarnoputri, said yesterday she would not attend the party congress planned by rival faction leader Soerjadi in June, and would hold her own in December.
"The PDI congress planned for June is not on my political agenda. Mine will be in December," she told reporters at her residence in the Kebagusan subdistrict of South Jakarta.
"I won't attend the congress even if I am invited," she said.
Megawati, the eldest daughter of the late president Sukarno, was responding to Soerjadi's recent remarks that she would be welcomed if she wished to "return to the fold."
Since she was ousted in 1996 at a government-sponsored breakaway congress, Megawati has been waging a legal battle to reclaim her leadership of the party. Last year, she was excluded from the general election after the government only recognized Soerjadi's faction.
"While awaiting my own congress ... I'm now more concerned about efforts to help the nation survive the monetary crisis," she said.
"I am not sure if the (rival congress) organizers would be able to meet their deadline as June is fast approaching."
Soerjadi said Tuesday he was optimistic the organizing committee would be able to organize the congress in time.
He refused to name the exact date for the gathering but mentioned possible venues of Medan in North Sumatra Pontianak in West Kalimantan, Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan and Ujungpandang in South Sulawesi.
Some of Megawati's rivals including deputy chairwoman Clara Sitompoel strove to bar her from campaigning for the leadership by stating that next chairperson should be one who contested the general elections.
Megawati, however, said she would not be surprised if some parties lobbied her to join the June congress She said she planned to deflect the overtures by reminding whoever lobbied her of the National Commission on Human Rights' conclusion that Soerjadi's supporters had been given military-like training before they took over the party's headquarters from her supporters on July 27 1996. PDI Secretary-general Buttu R. Hutapea has admitted that 200 PDI members were provided with such training before they stormed the party's headquarters.
Megawati said she would also ask whoever lobbied her about the whereabouts of some of her supporters reported dead or missing during the forced takeover.
The rights commission reported a month after the incident that five people died, 23 went missing and 149 others were injured during the rioting that erupted after the takeover. Megawati also said yesterday she would continue to challenge the validity of the 1996 congress results.
Jakarta -- Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto has held talks with 32 youth organisations linked to a group affiliated with the ruling Golkar party, the official Antara news agency reported on Sunday.
The dialogue, which was organised by the Indonesian Youth National Committee (KNPI), was hosted by Youth and Sports Minister Agung Laksono and attended by a number of high-ranking military officers as well as well-established youth groups.
Antara said a number of issues, including the current economic crisis and difficulties faced by students as the result of the economic downturn, were discussed at the three-and-a-half hour meeting.
Antara said armed forces chief Wiranto read a paper in which he stressed the need for national stability as the country struggled to overcome its economic problems.
"Not all the people's wishes could be fulfilled and that is why we need to conduct a dialogue, to reduce differences and to reach a unified vision," Wiranto, who is also defence minister, said.
It was not clear from the report whether student activists and groups responsible for the wave of protests on campuses across Indonesia in recent months were present at the meeting in Jakarta.
Kompas daily on Sunday listed the names of 10 youth groups involved in the dialogue but none of them are known to be linked to the recent student protests, many which have taken on an anti-government flavour with some regularly calling on President Suharto to step down.
Most of the groups protesting in recent weeks have rejected offers of dialogue by the armed forces on the grounds that they are too structured. Students say the outcome would be pre- determined and ineffective in meeting their demands for change.
Some students have said they would only have a dialogue with President Suharto, who has not ruled out such a possibility but has not brought the idea forward.
Kompas quoted Wiranto as saying he had forbidden students from taking their protests outside the campuses. In recent weeks, there have been a number of violent clashes when security forces stopped protests from going outside campus gates.
"Taking to the streets is not a good attitude. Taking to the streets will not solve the problem but add to the problem," he said, alluding to the military's fear that street protests will snowball into riots.
But Wiranto warned students they were not beyond the law while protesting on campus.
"ABRI has a clear attitude towards radical thoughts and actions, even if they happen on campus," he was quoted in Kompas as saying.
"A campus is not immune to the law because it is only a part of the national system and I will sue the students who have burnt my picture because they have defiled me," he was quoted as saying by Antara.
Education Minister Wiranto Arismunandar last week said students should not involve themselves in "practical politics" on campus and said he would back any rector who disciplined students for taking part in such activities.
| International relations |
Geoffrey Barker -- Australia has lodged two angry high-level diplomatic protests with Jakarta following disclosures that the Indonesian Vice-President, Dr J.B. Habibie, backed Malaysia's veto on Australian membership of the Asia-Europe Summit (ASEM).
The Australian protests stressed Canberra's sense of betrayal by Indonesia after efforts to assist Jakarta in its financial crisis dealings with the US, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Given its eagerness to join ASEM, Canberra was outraged by the actions of Dr Habibie. Australia will not now join ASEM before its third meeting in Seoul in 2000.
Moving to mark Australia's lack of confidence in the Indonesian Vice- President, and a new willingness to put Indonesia on the defensive, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr Alexander Downer, has told Jakarta he was "personally hurt" by Dr Habibie's actions at the ASEM2 summit in London this month.
It is understood Mr Downer was particularly irked because of his strong personal efforts to assist Indonesia. With senior officials, Mr Downer made an urgent unscheduled trip to Washington and Asian capitals last month urging the IMF and World Bank to be flexible in dealing with Indonesia and urging Japan to offer more help. The Australian protests were revealed in a leaked cable sent by the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia, Mr Sastrohandojo Wiryono, to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry earlier this month. Existence of the cable was reported earlier this week by the Indonesian newspaper Kompas.
Mr Wiryono reports in the cable, written in Indonesian, that he was called first by the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr Philip Flood, on April 6. The message that Mr Downer was "personally hurt" was delivered in a later telephone call to Mr Wiryono by a DFAT assistant secretary, Mr John Dauth. Mr Wiryono reported the words "personally hurt" in English.
Details of the cable, passed to The Australian Financial Review yesterday, suggested Australia learnt of Dr Habibie's support for Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir from Malaysian sources at the ASEM2 meeting. Australia had expected Indonesia to fight for Australia's admission, and was deeply offended by Dr Habibie's willingness to back Dr Mahathir. Yesterday the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Ali Alatas, denied Indonesia was not supporting Australian membership of ASEM. "If there was that impression, it is not true", he said. But Mr Alatas conceded that Vice-President Habibie had participated in talks in London "as if Indonesia is now not supporting Australia anymore".
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade moved to paper over the dispute, saying that Dr Habibie had spoken to the Australian Ambassador to Djakarta, Mr John McCarthy, reaffirming Indonesia's support for Australia's membership of ASEM. ASEM is the key body through which Asia and Europe are seeking to develop closer economic ties. But Australia has little confidence in Dr Habibie, who was appointed by President Soeharto despite widespread Indonesian and international concern. Canberra believes Dr Habibie was unduly influenced by the anti-Australian Dr Mahathir at the London meeting. His presence will be an ongoing irritant in Australia-Indonesia relations.
Australia acknowledges Dr Habibie did not specifically speak against Australia's admission to ASEM. But he said he had discussed the issue with Dr Mahathir, and believed ASEM needed "quality not quantity" and should consolidate its membership. "The question of expansion is not one we are pursuing at present," he reportedly said.
Mr Flood told Mr Wiryono that Australia was "puzzled" by reports that Dr Habibie had supported Dr Mahathir, in vetoing Australian entry to ASEM.
He said Australia had been "very helpful" to Indonesia in its dealings with the International Monetary Fund and thought it was "a friend in good standing with Indonesia".
Less than two weeks ago Australia agreed to bring forward the release of $US300 million of its $US1 billion loan pledge to Indonesia provided Indonesia accepted economic reforms demanded by the IMF.
In doing so the Government set aside grave concerns over expensive family and crony projects in Indonesia and over the apparent unwillingness of Dr Habibie to eliminate import restrictions which the IMF demanded be removed.
| Miscellaneous |
Jakarta -- Be careful if you take a taxi. Many disguised ABRI (armed forces) intelligence agents are becoming taxi drivers. The drivers job is to draw their passengers into conversation and if their views are anti-government, take them to the police.
A Blue Bird taxi driver said that his company is employing many drivers from ABRI. "Many Blue Bird taxi drivers are being replaced by soldiers. Be careful if you speak in a taxi", said the driver.
Many such intelligence agents are already in action. A strange occurrence in relation to these drivers has already been experienced by an NGO activist who is active in the area of women's advocacy. Last week, the activist ordered a Blue Bird taxi by telephone. During the journey, they were engrossed in reading a book. But the driver persisted in trying to get them to talk about the issue of East Timor.
A women passenger also had an unpleasant experience. Because she talked too passionately against Suharto, the driver drove the taxi to the Metro Jaya police. There, the passenger, who was in fact a civil servant, was interrogated and detained for the night.
[Translated by James Balowski]
Terry Mccarthy, Jakarta -- Pramoedya Ananta Toer was perhaps the only writer in Indonesia who got the joke. Last month the Jakarta Arts Council announced the results of a nationwide writing competition: the 94 entries were so uniformly bad that the judges had refused to award anyone the first prize. (Second prize went to a composition entitled Stomach-ache Opera.) The daily Indonesian Observer summed up the sorry debacle: "Indonesia has never produced world famous writers, and looks set to retain that status."
Pramoedya, of course, just happens to be world famous, author of four important novels known as the Buru Quartet and some 26 other books that have been translated into 24 languages, winner of several international awards and a perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. His memoirs are due to be published in the U.S. later this year. But don't mention any of that in polite circles in Jakarta, where Pramoedya is officially regarded as a subversive leftist. His books are all banned in his home country. Jailed for nearly two years by the Dutch as a dangerous nationalist, he spent an additional 14 years in prison after independence. Released in 1979, he is still kept under police surveillance and forbidden from traveling overseas. Editors have been warned against even using Pramoedya's name in magazines or newspapers. He is effectively a non-person in Indonesia.
"I am happy to talk to foreigners," he says as he leads the way into his house on a narrow street in Jakarta. "Because I cannot talk to anyone here." And his 73-year-old face breaks into a mischievous smile.
Life is spiced with many little ironies in Indonesia these days, signs that President Suharto's hallowed New Order, under which the country has been governed for three decades, is looking perilously old, verging on the senile. Wry smiles, for example, greeted the straight-faced announcement by Suharto's daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, known as Tutut, that nepotism played no role in the government. She said this less than a week after she had been appointed to the cabinet post of Minister for Social Affairs by her father. For Pramoedya, however, such ironies go deep, right into the heart of the cultural anorexia that has afflicted the Indonesian archipelago, so rich in unrealized artistic potential.
"For all these years there has been a contradiction between the truth and the lies of the New Order," says Pramoedya, lighting up another of a series of clove cigarettes. "Because of this contradiction people have lost themselves, have become followers without personality. How can you create good literature -- something with individual integrity -- under such a system? It has created a cultural ceiling, and no one can rise above this ceiling, because thinking itself has been limited."
In a 1991 essay entitled "My Apologies," Pramoedya devised an Orwellian-sounding formula to describe the manipulation of truth by the government: "What is stated as 'x' is 'minus x.'" Today he says the system is finally coming apart: "It is a power that rots from the middle, a moral collapse. Even without the economic crisis ultimately it would have been like this; it just might have taken a little longer. I hope I will live to see the end of it."
Pramoedya's words may not be reported in Indonesia, but his views echo those of many in academia, business and even the military who sense that the entire structure of government is creaking. But precisely because of the tight control over political and intellectual dissent that has been maintained over the last 32 years, open discussion on how to bring change to the country is almost non-existent.
Blocking this change, Pramoedya says, is one man, and his antiquated notion of power under which 'x' can become 'minus x' at the wave of a hand. "Suharto is a Javanese," he says. "He hasn't yet become an Indonesian. You can study the concept of power in Javanese culture: once you become No. 1 you can do no wrong, because you have been anointed from above."
Born in the village of Blora near Surabaya, Pramoedya himself was brought up speaking Javanese, a complex language with many levels of politeness. But at 17 the young writer went to Jakarta and started using the Malay language that nationalists were promoting as a universal tongue to unify all Indonesians. "In Javanese I felt I was being lied to constantly: by the cultural atmosphere, the wayang (puppet theater based on Indian mythology), stories that made no sense, everything." Before he left home he remembers his father calling in a dukun, or magical healer, to expel a Muslim spirit from the premises. "To do that," he recalls, "they buried pieces of pork at each corner of the house -- things like that. I preferred to go over to the rational side."
Javanese poets, he says, just consolidated the culture of tepo seliro -- knowing one's place in a feudal hierarchy of power. Switching to Malay -- or Bahasa Indonesia as it is called in Indonesia -- "was for me a liberation. I think Indonesia needs to be freed from Javanese. There is nothing wrong with the actual people of Java, but spare us the 'Javanese-ism.' There is a romanticizing of Javanese mysticism. Let's be rational instead."
Pramoedya's own literary journey -- away from traditional Javanese literature toward a more modern, liberating world view -- is not without its ironies. In his search for the rational he acquired a political agenda on top of his writing. Although he did not join the Communist Party, which became powerful under Sukarno's rule up to 1965, he was closely linked with left-wing politics, and in 1962 he wrote a series about artists for the literary supplement Lentera under the rubric, "Those who are to be cut down and those who are to be encouraged." Even today other Indonesian writers such as Mochtar Lubis point out how intolerant Pramoedya himself once was of writing that he dismissed as bourgeois and anti-revolutionary. After the 1965 coup and the bloody crackdown on suspected communists that followed, Pramoedya found himself in the infamous Buru island prison camp, where he had plenty of time to rethink his ideas about the dignity of the individual and to compose his masterpiece, the Buru Quartet. It is the colorful and compelling tale of the coming of age of Javanese journalist Minke and, at the same time, of the nation of Indonesia, struggling for freedom from its Dutch colonizers. Although the novels are banned in Indonesia, photocopies circulate covertly, while in neighboring Malaysia they have been required reading in high school and university literature courses.
"There are lots of ironies in this part of the world," says Krishen Jit, a Kuala Lumpur theater director and critic who is currently producing a musical based on the first book of the Buru Quartet, This Earth of Mankind. "This kind of material is very potent. His writing just comes at you, almost attacks you. I was stunned by the language."
Pramoedya no longer writes -- his time these days is taken up mostly with his grandchildren -- but he says he is modestly optimistic about the future. "We have to raise the cultural ceiling. Otherwise any political system will end up like this. The ceiling should be raised by philosophers, artists, writers. You cannot have any real debate in the system we have now. The New Order is a power that has refused to grow up. It must be thrown out and replaced with new people."
Pramoedya himself is proud just to have survived. "Nothing the New Order has done to me has succeeded. They banned my books with the intention of destroying my life, but it didn't work. I'm still alive. Every banning that I have had under the New Order I view as a medal of honor."
With reporting by David Liebhold/Jakarta