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ASIET Net News 26 – June 28-July 4, 1999

 The bloody July 1 shootings

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The bloody July 1 shootings

Bloody attack in Jakarta

International statement of solidarity and condemnation - July 2, 1999

We vigorously condemn the Indonesian military and police for the violent and bloody attack on peaceful, unarmed protesters campaigning for democracy at a rally organised on July 1 in Jakarta, by the People's Democratic Party (PRD). The 2000 demonstrators were protesting against vote rigging by the ruling Golkar party in Indonesia's June 7 election.

They intended to have a sit-in inside the building of the National Election Committee (KPU).

Once the protesters tried to have a peaceful sit-in, the police immediately opened fire using plastic bullets at point blank range, protesters were chased and then savagely beaten. More than 70 protesters were hospitalised, several have had to undergo surgery. More than 100 sustained injuries from police beatings. 160 are still missing.

Dytha Caturani, international secretary of the PRD and a student at Gajah Mada University, was standing near the front of the demonstration and was then pulled behind the police line. There she was shot in the back and brutally beaten while lying on the ground. She is in critical condition in hospital, after surgery.

Initial endorsers

Max Lane, National Coordinator, Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor; John Percy, National Secretary, Democratic Socialist Party (Australia); Lisa Macdonald, Editor, Green Left Weekly; Allen Myers, Editor. Links; Michael Karadjis, delegate Australian services Union; Sean Healy, National Coordinator, Resistance (Australia); Dr Helen Jarvis, Asia Pacific Institute for Democratisation & Development; Neville Spencer, Editor, Venceremos; Pip Hinman, Asia Pacific Women's Solidarity Network; Stephen O'Brien, Committees in Solidarity with Central America & the Caribbean (CISLAC); Dr Kamala Emanuel, medical practitioner; Peter Boyle, New Course Publications; Dr Tuntuni Bhattacharyya, medical practitioner; Jill Hickson, film maker; Aaron Benedek, Education Officer, Sydney University Students Representative Council; Tim Gooden, Secretary, ACT Government Section, Community & Public Sector Union (CPSU); Philippa Stanford, Section Councillor, Centrelink Section, CPSU; Mark Cronin, Section Councillor, Centrelink Section, CPSU; Dr Jeremy Smith, lecturer University of Ballarat, National Tertiary Education & Industry Union national councillor; Melanie Sjoberg, organiser, Public Service Association (South Australia); Maurice Sibelle, coordinator, Victorian TAFE Students & Apprentices Network (VTSAN); Sarah Lantz, Student Research Officer, VTSAN; Dr Margaret Perrot, medical practitioner; Chris Latham, Coordinator, Australia-Indonesia Student Solidarity Brigade; Allen Jennings, CISLAC Victoria; Ertugral Titiz, Kurdish activist ; Mark Abberton, Education Officer, RMIT TAFE Students Association ; Natasha Izatt, Women's Officer, RMIT TAFE Students Association ; Vanessa Hearman, ASIET Victoria; Trisha Reimers, Women's Officer, University of Western Australia Student Guild; Peter Robson, NUS Queensland Education Committee.

[Organisations and positions for identification purposes only unless indicated otherwise indicated. Initiated by ASIET.]

PRD continues protests

Detikcom - July 2, 1999

[The following was compiled and translated by ASIET from three reports by Detikcom dated July 2, the day after riot police fired on People's Democratic Party (PRD) demonstrations injuring as many as 76. A number remain in hospital under intensive care and a several others have been arrested by police or have "disappeared" - James Balowski.]

The PRD has apparently not learnt its lesson. The violence and the shooting by security forces [on July 1] has not stopped them demonstrating. On Friday, July 2, at 1.30pm, hundreds of PRD members began gathering on the grounds of the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) in Central Jakarta.

There they raised the PRD flag and inspired themselves by singing the song "Revolution until Death" (Revolusi Sampai Mati). From their faces they appeared spirited and without fear.

The plan was to hold a "long march" to the General Election Commission (KPU) on Jalan Iman Bonjol in Central Jakarta and if that failed, planned to take the action to the Central Jakarta Police Headquarters.

This action was to condemn the "Bloody KPU Incident" on Thursday as well as continuing to demand that Golkar be disqualified [for election fraud and manipulation], an end to the dual function of the armed forces and that the winners of the election carry out a program of total reform.

Security forces could already be seen lining the streets [which the march would take] and at the KPU building itself, around 100 riot police could be seen guarding the front gate.

At 2.30pm the rally moved of in three ranks totaling around 300 demonstrators lead by Wilson. They carried red and white banners reading "The People United Reject the Golkar Vote". The also shouted for Golkar to be disbanded, the abolition of the dual function of the armed forces and for a transitional government.

Meanwhile a blockade was being prepared to meet the rally at the Kuningan intersection by around 200 riot police and a panzer. They were fully armed with riot shields and clubs.

The demands were the same as those on Thursday but at this action, the PRD could be seen to be ready to face up to any possibility, including clashing with security forces.

At 3pm, when the rally was around 150 metres from the KPU building, they stopped. The road was already closed of to traffic and the PRD continued to shout "Revolution until Death".

PRD leaders Aan Rusdianto, Wilson and Ida Nasin began negotiations with police captain Hero saying they just wanted to read a 5-10 minute statement in the KPU building. "It'll just take a moment. We just want to read a statement", said Wilson. "We will guarantee security", added Aan.

However Heru still refused to give them permission saying "the demonstration does not have permission [to be held]. It is a procedural matter which must be adhered to. However we can discuss [it] first and give you and answer later", said Heru.

[Reporters Hestiana Dharmastuti and Sigit Widodo. Translated by James Balowski.]

PRD continues rally

Kompas - July 3, 1999

Jakarta -- Nearly 300 protesters from the People's Democratic Party, known by its Indonesian short as PRD, pressed on Friday with a rally outside the General Election Commission's office following Thursday's bloody clash with riot police that left more than 20 injured, either hit by batons or shot at by rubber or plastic bullets.

Hundreds of policemen, many wearing riot gear, ringed the commission's building Friday to keep the protesters from coming close. "People unite, dismiss Golkar," reads one banner. PRD's supporters also held rallies elsewhere in the country.

"They can never understand that the blood we shed goes to the people," said PRD protester from Bandung, capital of West Java province, whose head was wounded Thursday by a policeman hitting with the barrel of his gun.

In the meantime, General Election Commission chairman Rudini told a news conference at the commission's building that the jailed PRD's chairman Budiman Sudjatmiko should be released. He also urged for the release of PRD's protesters who were arrested by police following Thursday's incident.

"Since Budiman Sudjatmiko is a party chairman, it is only fair to release him as a political prisoner. This is not to intervene the rule of law, it is only something that comes out of my conscience," he said.

Speaking on the demand for the disqualification of Golkar, he said the commission will have to discuss it in a plenary meeting. He said, however, that the commission will first pass on the demand to the election monitoring committee (Panwaslu) and the Supreme Court.

Aan Rusdiyanto, PRD representative in the National Election Committee (PPI), told the PRD's protesters that the June 7 election did not proceed fairly due to many violations and irregularities.

He said the bureaucracy still made use of its resources to influence voters, many empty ballot boxes were still found and officials intimidated people in a number or provinces to vote for Golkar.

He rejected suggestions that small parties have been trying to hamper vote counting process. What is happening, he said, is that small parties want to see legal penalties be taken against those who committed violations and irregularities.

"The PRD is ready to leave the National Election Committee (PPI) or the General Election Commission (KPU). We don't want seats in the parliament (DPR) and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) but we will continue to fight for democracy. In that case, it is only fair for us to demand that Golkar be disqualified," he said.

At around 3.30pm, Rudini and commission member Sri Bintang Pamungkas approached the protesters. Rudini said he had no intention to keep PRD's supporters from meeting him. "I am always ready to meet with anyone," he said.

In talks with Rudini, protest leader Ulin Niamyusron repeated PRD's demand that Golkar be disqualified from the election for many violations and irregularities committed by ruling party.

Rudini said he will pass on the demand to all members of the commission. He told PRD's protesters that the commission has set up a special team to follow up on reports of violations and irregularities related to the election.

PRD's protesters were adamant with their demand. "We will continue to stage demonstration rally against the General Election Commission until Golkar is disqualified," said one protester. In Surabaya, capital of East Java province, PRD's supporters marched from Airlangga University to the local state- run RRI radio station. They demanded to have live broadcast. But the station's officials only allowed one of them to record their voice to be broadcast Saturday afternoon.

In Jember, also in East Java, PRD's supporters made an aborted attempt to hold rally in front of local police office. Two were detained.

In Ujungpandang, capital of South Sulawesi, a small group of PRD supporters marched from the provincial parliament's building to the local police office to express their solidarity to PRD's protesters in Thursday's showdown.

Hendri Kuok to be arrested?

Detikcom - July 3, 1999 (slightly abridged)

Bogi Rianto and Sigit Widodo, Jakarta -- In the aftermath of the Bloody KPU Incident on July 1 on Saturday, July 3, it was announced that the Jakarta police have issued an arrest warrant for Hendri Kuok, the People's Democratic Party (PRD) representative on the Public Election Commission (KPU).

At 9.30am Hendri contacted Detikcom to inform us of the story. "I have heard that a warrant has been issued for my arrest", said Hendri. Hendri also heard he would be abducted by police however he denied the story. "Certainly I have been asked by the police to go with them, but I refused because there was no arrest warrant", said Hendri.

The matter was confirmed by National Workers Party representative in the KPU, Bennie Akbar Fatah. "At this time Hendri has been asked to accompany [police], but permission [for this] has not be given by other KPU members", said Bennie. According to him Hendri's capacity at the time of the Bloody KPU Incident must be seen as that of a KPU member who met with demonstrators. "If the police want to question Hendri, they will have to come to the KPU [offices]", he said.

Security forces have accused Hendri of provoking the PRD demonstrators because he gave a short speech at the demonstration. Hendri and the PRD representative on the National Election Committee, Aan Rusdianto, had given a guarantee that their would be not trouble if the PRD demonstrators entered the grounds of the KPU. However the negotiations stalled and the Bloody KPU Incident occurred.

On Friday Hendri appeared on the television program Seputar Indonesia (Indonesia Roundup) along with Police Brigadier General Togar Sianipar but the charge that Hendri had provoked the demonstrators was not touched upon. When contacted by Detikcom the police could not confirm [if an arrest warrant for Hendri had been issued].

[Translated by James Balowski]

Military blames PRD for causing clash

Jakarta Post - July 3, 1999

Jakarta -- Military and police officials are blaming supporters of the Democratic People's Party (PRD) for provoking the bloody clash with police outside the headquarters of the General Elections Commission (KPU) in Central Jakarta on Thursday.

Officials claimed that PRD activists and supporters armed themselves with weapons in preparation for an attack on the police. The violence flared during a PRD protest calling for the disqualification of the ruling Golkar Party from the elections because of alleged cheating.

Minister of Defense and Security/Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Gen. Wiranto told legislators in a hearing at the House of Representatives on Friday that the PRD activists were in the wrong and obstinately refused to compromise with security personnel.

The four-star general also faulted them for failing to comply with the legal requirement to notify police prior to the rally and for resisting the officers' efforts to disperse them.

The protesters carried concealed steel arrows and barbed wire, Wiranto said. He displayed items which he said were confiscated from activists, including pieces of broken glass and knives, to members of Commission I which oversees defense and security, law and foreign affairs.

The activists' actions constituted "fatal" mistakes, he said. "Fifteen representatives were given permission to meet with KPU executives at the KPU compound but they refused," Wiranto said.

"They insisted that all of them should go in, and even threatened to break down the gate if they were not allowed to do so within 30 minutes."

Wiranto cited security concerns over the threat because the KPU headquarters housed important data from the elections.

Separately, National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Togar Sianipar told a brief media conference that the Central Jakarta Police did not violate standard procedures in handling the protesters. "There was nothing wrong with our measures [during the clash]," he said.

Jakarta Police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman said at the conference that his officers showed "tolerance" by not intervening when protesters held a free speech dialog outside the compound. "We tolerated their actions but when they started to be destructive, we resorted to measures as stated in our crowd control procedures."

They believed the steel arrows, barbed wire concealed in PRD flags and a bottle of mercury [a number of other newspaper reports referred to empty bottles of hydrochloric acid allegedly found by police at the scene of the shooting - JB] found on one protester proved the activists planned to attack the security personnel.

Togar said his officers identified "provocateurs" who aggravated the police officers through disparaging chants. He declined to name the provocateurs, but said they were PRD representatives at the KPU [a July 3 report by Detikcom said that an arrest warrant has been issued for the PRD representative on the KPU, Hendri Kuok - JB].

Police, he added, attempted to negotiate with representatives of the protesters, but they rejected the police offer to allow 15 people into the building. He said they insisted that 50 activists should be allowed to meet KPU officials.

After their demand was rejected, the protesters pushed officers in a bid to enter the compound, with some throwing stones, he added. Police finally fired several warning shots into the air when the protesters became "brutal and uncontrollable", he said. "As stated in our crowd control procedures, we're only equipped with rubber bullets, tear gas and rattan sticks," he said.

Police data show 48 protesters were injured and 28 officers hurt. "The injuries on both sides showed the clash was unwanted [by police]," Togar said.

Four people were arrested for questioning shortly after police brought the situation under control, Togar said. He declined to identify them.

Outrage grew over the police's actions on Friday. About 75 students in Yogyakarta and a group of PRD activists in South Sulawesi demanded that Wiranto step down and that the military's dual sociopolitical role be brought to an end. Similar statements were voiced by various human rights organizations.

Staff of Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Central Jakarta said on Friday that all the injured protesters admitted to the hospital had been released. Of the 34 protesters treated at the hospital and neighboring St. Carolus Hospital, only nine remained hospitalized at the latter facility.

The most seriously injured is Dhyta Caturani, who sustained a wound in her back from a rubber bullet. She also suffered major injuries to her head and lips.

PRD's organizational head Ken Budha Kusumandaru lashed out at the police and said their action smacked of the repressive actions of the Soeharto government. "It proves the government continues to use the New Order ways in maintaining power," he said at St. Carolus Hospital. Kusumandaru insisted the party would continue to hold mass demonstrations.

About 100 PRD supporters returned to protest outside the KPU on Friday against Golkar. KPU chairman Rudini met protesters in the street and promised to convey their demands to the organization's plenary.

Separately, Asmara Nababan, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, appealed to the police to halt the use of repressive actions. "The commission is paying serious attention to the incident, and we ask police not to employ violence in handling protesters in the future," he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, the chairman of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy, said violence should not be used to deal with protesters.

PRD activist take to the streets again

ASIET - July 2, 1999

Sam King, Jakarta -- PRD activists in Jakarta again took to the streets in protest of the previous days military attack, once again calling for the disqualification of Golkar party from the elections for election rigging and demanding the withdrawal of the dual function of the military.

Most of the PRD members who rallied the previous day again gathered for a second protest action. The numbers from the PRD were down from July 1 due to the number of injured. They were either still in hospital, couldn't walk the 5 kilometers from the legal aid institute weaving to the KPU or were considered in a condition not fit join an action that may well be attacked by the police or military.

Public and media interest in the rally was immense. The previous day's bloodshed had filled the front covers of every major paper in Indonesia that morning also receiving massive television and radio coverage. The media pack together with sympathisers and on lookers outnumbered the rally of 1000 people. Also the PRD branches organised solidarity actions in most major Indonesian cities.

The Jakarta rally again weaved the same route as the previous day but was unable to arrive at the KPU building and meet the hundreds of supporters from the mass student organisation FORKOT and others who were waiting because the street was blockaded by hundreds of police and a water tank. After entering the street of the KPU the PRD locked in by police who blockaded all possible entrances and exits, the total number of police exceeding 500.

The rally again demanded to meet with the KPU officials, to discus the issues surrounding Golkar's ballot fraud, money politics, intimidation and to demand their disqualification from the election.

PRD KPU member Aan Rustianto was chief negotiator for the PRD, discussing with KPU officials the possibility of allowing the rally to enter the KPU. Aan replaced Hendri Kuok in this position day before as Kouk had been forced into temporary hiding after police entered his office in the KPU the previous night and demanded his arrest for his role in the PRD action yesterday. Kuok refused, demanding to see the warrant for his arrest and the exact charges against him. He ignored police directives to go to the police station for questioning and the police left, perhaps fearful of the political repercussions of arresting a KPU member in his office.

After initial reluctance the KPU officials finally agreed to allow the rally to enter the building, however the police were not so easily swayed refusing to remove their lines off the street.

Aan gave a fiery speech explaining the situation and the police's refusal to co-operate with the will of both sides. Eventually the head of the KPU Rudini crossed the police lines to speak with the rally. Rudini admitted the widespread presence of election fraud, naming West Papua as a particularly bad area. However he then claimed that the KPU itself had no power to punish Golkar or anyone for cheating even in the presence of proof. He said the Election Monitoring Committee (Panwaslu) held the authority to take that action. Head of Panwaslu, Todung Mulya Lubis, has been often quoted in the Indonesian press as saying only the Police hold that power as it is a criminal issue.

Not disorientated by the bureaucratic volleyball, the mood of the rally remained determined and lively. Many of the injured spoke, their oration was always interspersed with songs and chants of struggle of the Indonesian people's movement. Most of the injured speakers were members from other provinces, who vowed to take the momentum created by the last two days back to the PRD bases in there home towns and cities.

PRD speakers admitted they alone couldn't overcome the police on the street, the military's role in politics or Golkar's manipulation today but vowed to continue the PRD's mass organisation and political education to the point were the people can force the disqualification of Golkar and a completion of the democratic revolution started last year.

[Sam King is an ASIET member who was present when police fired on PRD protesters in Jakarta on the afternoon of July 1. This article will appear in the July 7 issue of Green Left Weekly - James Balowski.]

PRD offices in Yogyakarta attacked

PRD press release - July 3, 1999

On Saturday, July 3, at 11.20pm, the People's Democratic Party (PRD) offices in Yogyakarta was raided by unrecognised group armed with knives, sticks and molotov cocktails. The gangsters raided the office while shouting "Allah Akbar" (God is Great!!!). They attacked those PRD cadres living there. Endiq Pratama, a student of Philosophy of Gadjah Mada University, one of those living there was cut on the hand and back. He is now in a critical condition. The other eight PRD cadres living there were forced to escape and are safe. The armed gangsters also broke all the office equipment and damaged documents.

This kinds of intimidation and terror is not new for the PRD. Many PRD cadres in many branches have experienced the same thing, namely terror, intimidation and attacks. This usually happens when PRD intensifies its campaigns. Now that the PRD is campaigning for the disqualification of the Golkar Party and condemning the police and military brutality by demanding the repeal of the Dual Function of ABRI, the perpetrators of the midnight raid in Yogyakarta is no one else but them.

If we look at past incidents, this kind of terror and intimidation is a standard pattern used to stop the criticism of the people, the resistance and the fight of people for change and a better life. But the result is the opposite, the people become more courageous, radicalised and convinced that they have to fight.

Regarding this incident, we the PRD call for your support to organise petitions, protests, mobilisations to pressure the Indonesian government to stop intimidating the people.

Amsterdam, July 3 1999 Mugiyanto, European Representative

PRD office in East Jakarta stoned

KPP-PRD press release - July 4, 1999

This morning, at 3am, the offices of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) in East Jakarta located on Jalan Utan Kayu was stoned by an unknown group of people. The attack was carried out by around 10 who threw rock from the vehicle without getting out then quickly left.

As a result of the attack, the windows of the office and a vehicle were smashed. There have been no reports of injuries.

It is still know known who the perpetrators were or the motivation for the attack. A number of PRD offices have recently been attacked or have received threatening phone calls. One of the demands made by the terrorists is that the PRD immediately end its campaign for the disqualification of Golkar for election fraud and money politics which have been taken up by the PRD across the country.

[Information Division - Jakarta, July 4, 1999. Translated by James Balowski.]

Police shoot PRD demonstrators

Kompas - July 2, 1999 (abridged)

Jakarta -- A People's Democratic Party (PRD) demonstration in front of the National Election Commission (KPU) building [on June 1], demanding the disqualification of Golkar because of a number of violation in the 1999 elections, was violently broken up by police. As well as shooting at demonstrators, the police also kicked and beat them. As a result at least nine people suffered serious gun shot wounds and 28 others were seriously hurt as a result of being trampled on, beaten and kicked. These are the first shooting victims by police in Jakarta since the June 7 elections. The incident also falls on the 53 anniversary of the National Police force.

In Jakarta, a commemoration was attended by armed forces chief General Wiranto. The commemoration was the first since the police were separated from the structure of the armed forces. In its mandate, Wiranto said [the police] must try to become more professional and remember that their role as the upholders of the law must be placed as the highest priority.

Jakarta police chief, Major General Nugroho Djayusman, who met with the head of the KPU, Rudini, at the KPU offices, said that nine police officers were slightly wounded. He added that four demonstrators had been arrested and were being held at the Jakarta police headquarters.

The demonstration was involved around 500 PRD activists who marched peacefully from Jalan Salemba Raya [Central Jakarta]. During the march security forces did not interfere, even when they approached the KPU building which was being guarded by around 20 police officers.

The PRD activists demanded to be allowed to enter the KPU building however the request was rejected and the KPU would only agreeing to allow 15 representatives to enter. The PRD activists rejected the offer and threatened to break through the KPU gates, if after half-an-hour they were still refused entry. While they waited the PRD activists gave speeches. [Well known] PRD activists such as Andi Arief and Faisol Reza, the chairperson of the Central Leadership Committee of the PRD as well as the KPU representative from the PRD, Hendry Kwok appeared.

The speeches condemned the large Golkar vote and the People's Consultative Assembly seats which are appointed. They also reminded supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle that it was still uncertain if Megawati would become president and even that Golkar and their allies had an opportunity to return to power.

They called on the people, reform parties and the student movement to demonstrate to demand Golkar be disqualified and the reform parties which win the election carry out an agenda of total reform. The PRD also rejected the nomination of B.J. Habibie as president so that the New Order regime would not continue.

The incident started very suddenly. Only several moments after pushing and shoving between demonstrators and the police began, the sound of gun shots were herd, followed by a volley of shots. As the demonstrators tried to escape, police continued to shoot at them, chase and beat them with cane sticks. Demonstrators responded by throwing rocks, bottles and any other objects which could be found.

Police beat demonstrators with clubs, kinking and trampling on the victims. They even beat demonstrators who were cornered and bare handed.

One of the victims, a woman named Dhyta Caturrani (24) was seriously wounded. A journalist asked that Dhyta be put in a car [to be taken to hospital] but not one member of the KPU members would lend them a vehicle.

Finally Dhyta was given help at the Indian Cultural Centre which is next to the KPU building, while eight other victims were taken by car to the nearest hospital. Using riot shields, police pushed the PRD demonstrators away from the KPU building in the direction of Jalan Cokroaminoto, in the direction of the Jalan H.R. Rasuna Said overpass. A clash occurred in front of the Yugoslavian and Iranian Embassy, with around 40 people throwing rocks at police.

After throwing rocks and other hard objects, bit by bit the situation calmed down with police formed a barricade in front of the Yugoslavian Embassy. Meanwhile PRD activists carried two of the victims to the Metropolitan Medical Centre. Panji (24), was shot in the left side while Yeyen Supriyatna (30) was injured as a result of being beaten and trampled on by police.

The head of the Central Jakarta county police, Lieutenant Colonel Iman Haryatna, who was at the location told reporters that the police were forced to take security measures after the PRD demonstrations began pushing and shoving security personnel. Haryatna showed the press a PRD flag on a pole wrapped with barbed wire, bows and arrows and the remains of a spilt bottle which he claimed had been filled with hydrochloric acid.

At a press conference at the Indonesian Legal Aid office last night, Faisol Riza said that 28 PRD members had been wounded and were being treated at a number of public hospitals. "They were victims of beatings and shootings", said Faisol, who was accompanied by Wilson (another PRD leader), his lawyer Apong Herlina and Munir, [head of the Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence]. Faisol rejected the statement by police that they had found bows and arrows. "That is the same kind of manipulation as occurred in the incident in Yogyakarta", adding that before [the demonstrators] left they had already been checked and did not have bows and arrows.

According to Apong Herlina, four PRD members had been arrested and taken to the Jakarta police headquarters. In their statement, the PRD demanded that the Indonesian police chief, General Roesmanhadi and Wiranto resign. Faisol said that the PRD would present a written protest to the police, armed forces and the KPU for the acts of violence against PRD demonstrators.

The secretary general of the National Mandate Party, Santoso regretted the shooting of the PRD demonstrators. With acts of that kind, according to Santoso, the police give the impression that they have not yet understood the demands of reformasi. "Those methods, are no different from those of the New Order. That is what we are ought to be sad about", he said.

National Awakening Party leader Matori Abdul Djalil said the shooting and beating of PRD activists showed that security personnel do not yet have a commitment to human rights and too often use violence in resolving problems.

Justice and Unity Party leader retired General Edi Sudradjat said no matter what the reason, the actions of the security forces could not be justified. "I [deeply] regret that the police must do [things like] that", he said.

[Translated by James Balowski]

Provisional list of those injured on July 1

  1. Bayu Rahman (Boyolali). Being treated at Rasuna Said Hospital. Shot, being operated on
  2. Yeyet (West Jakarta). Being treated at Rasuna Said Hospital. Kicked and stomped
  3. Iwan (19 years), PRD branch Klaten, Jateng. Being treated at Rasuna Said Hospital. Beaten with rifle butt
  4. Priwil. Being treated at Rasuna Said Hospital
  5. Bayu (19 years), PRD Branch Boyolali, Jateng. Being treated at the Agung Hospital. Shot in left leg
  6. M. Nur. Being treated at Tebet Hospital. Legs hit with gas grenade shrapnel
  7. Iwan (Klaten). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital
  8. Dhyta Caturani (International Department, KPP-PRD). Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Shot in back, skull fractured, several teeth knocked out, face injured, eyes bleeding, unconscious, operated July 1, condition critical
  9. Surya (KPK-Kramat). Being treated at Tebet Hospital. Shot
  10. Panji, PRD Branch North Jakarta. Being treated at Rasuna Said Hospital. Shot in the stomach, operated on and spleen removed
  11. Naning (KPP-PRD). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Bullet shrapnel in left leg
  12. Iwan (Klaten). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Broken leg, bruises
  13. Hubert (Bandung). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Shot in leg
  14. Oliver (Mampang). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Broken leg
  15. Imansyah (19 years), PRD Branch East Jakarta. Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Unconscious from blow to head
  16. Rustyaningsih (Klaten). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. severe head wounds
  17. Syalendra (Central JakartA). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Shot in the arm
  18. Ari (Jogya-Sleman). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Beaten
  19. Rani. Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Beaten, including internal injuries
  20. Yayan (Pekalongan). Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Beaten
  21. Uzen. Being treated at the RSCM Hospital
  22. Ubed. Being treated at the RSCM Hospital
  23. Nuri. Being treated at the RSCM Hospital
  24. Olis Memori (21 years), Being treated at Carolus Hospital, injuries from beatings
  25. Feri Susanto. Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  26. Ronny (19 years), PRD Branch Surabaya. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. blows to the head from rifle butts
  27. Sugeng Priyanto. Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  28. Detri. Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  29. Irin Winoto (37 years), PRD Branch Semarang. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Injuries to face and head
  30. Dimas Khairulimah (PRD Branch Depok).x Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Shot in the left arm
  31. Indah (21 years), PRD Branch West Jakarta. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Beaten by five police and forced to crawl in front of commander
  32. Edi Rianto (12 years), PRD Branch West Jakarta. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Blows to head and stomach from rifle butts
  33. Allim Falez (PRD Branch Bekasi). Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Shot in right leg
  34. Timbul (Palembang). Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  35. Toni (Depok). Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  36. Supranta (West Jakarta) Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  37. Tio (South Jakarta) Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  38. Jefri (East Jakarta). Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Kicked and stomped on head
  39. Prian (Palembang). Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  40. Boy (West Jakarta) Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  41. Olis (East Jakarta). Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  42. Budi Enanto (Solo). Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  43. Egi Priyanto (PRD Branch Depok). Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Blows to head from rifle butts
  44. Boy (Tangerang). Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  45. Subendra. Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Shot
  46. Kuku. Being treated at the RSCM Hospital. Broken leg
  47. Toto Leste. Shot and wounded
  48. Yohanes Saptowo Budeherianto (33 years). PRD Branch Solo Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Shot in chest
  49. Angung. Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  50. Nur Suntoro (21 years). PRD South Jakarta. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Shot in the back
  51. Yohannes. Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  52. Roni Agustinus. Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  53. Ferry Susanto, PRD Branch Lampung. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Stomped on and kicked, head injuries
  54. Andrian Budi Santoso (21 years). Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Affected by tear gas
  55. Elim Pals. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. kicked in the head
  56. Maryadi (21 years). PRD Branch Depok. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. blows from rifle butts to several parts of the body
  57. Rusmanto Yudi (18 years). PRD Branch West Cengkareng. Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  58. Supriyanto (23 years). PRD Branch West Jakarta. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. blows to the chest and head
  59. Aten (19 years). PRD Branch Palembang. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. stomped on the chest
  60. Ariadi. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. stomped on the neck and body
  61. Iwan Gunawan (33 years). Security from the Indonesian People's Party (PARI). Being treated at the Carolus Hospital. Hit by a bottle
  62. Moy (23 years). PRD Branch Tengerang. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. blows to the head by rifle butts
  63. Rudi (21 years). PRD Branch West Jakarta. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. blows to the head, unconscious
  64. Ardian (21 years). KPKP PRD Palembang. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Shot in back, operated on and spleen removed
  65. Wiwin, PRD Branch Sumedang. Being treated at Carolus Hospital. Blows from rifle butt to head
  66. Timbul (21 years). PRD Branch Palembang. Being treated at Carolus Hospital
  67. Arianto (19 years). PRD Branch Yogyakarta. Suffered rifle butt blows
  68. Firmansyah (19 years). PRD Branch South Jakarta. Suffered rifle butt blows
  69. Jarot (22 years). PRD Branch Semarang. Beaten with cane
  70. Aan (20 years). Beaten on the head by cane
  71. Sugianto (26 years). KPW PRD Jakarta Chairperson. Stomach stomped upon
  72. Haryanto (40 years). PRD Branch Solo. Left arm broken
  73. Aries Jefry (27 years). PRD Branch East Jakarta. Beaten by rifle butts
[Source: People's Democratic Party, July 1, Jakarta. Translated by Max Lane, ASIET National Coordinator.]

PRD activists shot and wounded by police

ASIET - July 1, 1999

[The following is a summary of four reports by Detikcom compiled and translated by ASIET on the shooting of as many as 14 People's Democratic Party (PRD) activists during a demonstration in front of the National Election Committee (KPU) building in central Jakarta on the afternoon of July 1 - James Balowski.]

The PRD action involving several thousand -- which began at 3pm on July 1 -- was demonstrating against election fraud by the ruling Golkar party and intended to enter the KPU building on Jalan Iman Bonjol in Central Jakarta.

Despite being forbidden to enter by security forces, the PRD demonstrators continued to try to get into the KPU building. Hundreds of anti-riot police (Brimob) were mobilised to contain them and by 3.30pm, tensions were such that a confrontation could no longer be avoided.

PRD demonstrations were seen throwing bottles of mineral water at troops and taunting them. Troops finally took action trying to break through the PRD ranks but the demonstrations were not easily discouraged.

A clash broke out and without warning, shots were fired with troops then attacking and chasing after those demonstrators who tried to escape. Four wounded PRD activists were seen sprawled in front of the KPU building.

The head of the Jakarta Police, Lieutenant Iman Haryatna, told reporters that they had found bows and arrows, hydrochloric acid and barbed wire at the location of the incident. "This is the evidence we found. And the press should not write in a biased way [about it]", said Imam.

Iman also said that during the clash four of his troops were wounded although he did not give their names or say explicitly what their injuries were.

As of 5.30pm, fourteen people were being given intensive treatment at the Corolus hospital, thirteen of which are PRD members, ten are suffering gun shot wounds.

One of them is Dhyta Caturani [spelt Dita in the Detikcom reports - JB]. Dhyta, a student of the Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Central Java, was not just shot in the lower body but was also beaten with rifle butts. As a result she suffered broken teeth and her forehead was fractured. Dhyta's condition is extremely critical and her breathing irregular.

Indonesia police fire on PRD protest

Reuters - July 1, 1999

Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta -- At least three people were wounded on Thursday when Indonesian police fired on protesters demanding that the ruling Golkar party be disqualified from last month's historic parliamentary election, witnesses said.

The protest organisers put the number shot at five and said one was in a critical condition. Police began firing as protesters from the left-wing People's Democratic Party (PRD) tried to break through a cordon outside the main offices of the electoral commission in central Jakarta.

It was the first serious political violence in the Indonesian capital since the June 7 poll, which went smoothly without the mass bloodshed that many had feared.

Hospital sources said 23 people were admitted with injuries, two with bullet wounds. A witness at one hospital said he had seen a third victim with a bullet wound. Most had been beaten.

But a top PRD official told reporters five had been shot, giving their names. "A total of five PRD members suffered shooting injuries. One is in critical condition," Faisol Riza told reporters.

The local police commander said police fired into the air using a combination of blanks and rubber bullets. But a Reuters reporter saw one policeman shooting into the crowd and one man lying motionless with a gunshot wound to the chest.

The chief of central Jakarta police, Lt Col Iman Haryatna, told reporters the incident began when crowds threw stones. "One of the crowd was waving a stick entwined with barbed wire," he said.

But PRD officials said police had shot directly into the crowd without warning. "The police started to hit the front line of the demonstrators and, of course, everyone fought back," said Gandi Setiayadi, the PRD's West Java general secretary.

"Then, without warning of any kind, they started shooting at the demonstrators. There were no vertical shots." The protesters had gathered to demand the disqualification of Golkar, once the political vehicle of ousted former president Suharto. They chanted "Revolution! Revolution!" and sang national songs as they waved banners saying 'Disqualify Golkar'. "They represent the old regime, the Suharto regime," one activist said. Police kept a heavy guard outside the General Election Commission offices after the protesters dispersed.

Later the head of a Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence compared the incident with two involving security forces last year, in which students were killed.

"The incident indicates that repressive action has strengthened again. There are many unsolved cases in the past, such as the shooting of Trisakti and the November shooting. I hope this will not be one of them," commission head Munir said.

He was referring in part to last year's May 12 killings at Jakarta's Trisakti University. "An apology from the national police is not enough." Several PRD members were abducted while Suharto was in power and some are still missing.

Its leader, Budiman Sudjatmiko, was jailed in 1996 for subversion and is still in Jakarta's Cipinang jail. He turned down a pardon offered by President B.J. Habibie, Suharto's successor, because his conviction would remain on record.

Golkar is in second place in the vote count from the June 7 poll. Although the election was more than three weeks ago, less than 60 percent of the total vote has been counted. The PRD contested the election, but looks unlikely to gain any seats.

Golkar won all of the stage-managed elections held during Suharto's 32-year presidency. June's vote was the first since Suharto was forced to resign amid mass violence in May last year. It was Indonesia's first democratic election in 44 years.

Eyewitness report on PRD demonstration

ASIET - July 1, 1999

[The following is an eyewitness report by Jill Hickson and Sam King, two ASIET members who are currently in Jakarta and were at the demonstration.]

A rally by the People's Democratic Party (PRD) that mobilised 2000 people in Jakarta was attacked by police and military. The protesters were beaten and shot, injuring more than 100, two are in critical condition.

The peaceful street rally was joined by many urban poor as it weaved through Jakarta, stopping at the University of Indonesia and the PDI office, before marching to the KPU electoral commission office. At the KPU the PRD called for the disqualification of GOLKAR (Indonesia's ruling party) for election rigging including ballot tampering, money politics and intimidation. They also demanded the repeal of the dual function of the military in social and political life, that allows the armed forces to continue its domination of Indonesian politics.

At the KPU the demonstration came face to face with 50 police (a section armoured) bearing rifles, hand guns, bamboo sticks and tear gas. The rally continued outside for more than an hour with speeches from Andy Arief, Faisal Reza, Hendri Kuok and other PRD leaders.

Negotiations by PRD KPU member Hendri Kuok to allow the rally entrance to the building and make their demands proved fruitless with KPU officials only offering 50 people entrance. The leadership put this proposal to the rally and it was unanimously rejected. The rally refused to be separated and decided to enter the KPU to stage a sit-in, saying the existence of the KPU itself is the result of the struggle of the Indonesian people for democracy, therefore they should have the right to enter.

When the rally as a whole moved to enter the building, the police immediately opened fire upon the crowd using plastic bullets at point blank range; troops severely bashed with sticks and boot anybody they could get near. The protesters ran as soon as the shooting started with a minority returning and fighting back intermittently for a short time with stones and glass bottles. Police were then successful in forcing the protesters down the street by firing indiscriminately at those who remained.

Hundreds of Brimob and Mobile military personnel loaded onto the street from eight trucks parked in the side streets blocking protesters escape.

Protesters were routinely bashed after being captured and indiscriminately attacked while running away. One PRD member, Dhyta Caturani standing in the front line was immediately pulled behind the police line, there she was shot in the back and brutally beaten while lying on the ground, sustaining severe injuries to the face and head from the boots of the police. She was soon hospitalised, as one of the 36 protesters who were admitted to 4 Jakarta hospitals. More than 100 sustained minor injuries from police sticks, rickesheing bullets or being beaten while trying to escape. Dhyta was operated on at 8pm and remains in a weak condition but is expected to survive. Another PRD member Carles Ratna Panji Setiawan remains in critical condition after being shot in the stomach. His spleen, damaged by the bullet was removed by operation hours after the violence. At least seven people had plastic bullets enter their bodies, the majority shot in the back as they ran.

One of the injured had a bullet pass completely through his body and experienced heavy bleeding from the mouth. As yet there have been no reports of fatalities although two PRD members who were among those injured were taken to a military hospital. Access to them has been denied and their condition is not known. Fifty people are reportedly in custody after being arrested and taken to a police station in south Jakarta. One of those injured badly in the head has developed amnesia. One hundred and sixty people are unaccounted for and their whereabouts is still unknown.
 
Democratic struggle

Thousands protest in Moluccas

Reuters - June 29, 1999

Ambon -- Thousands of people marched through a city in eastern Indonesia on Tuesday demanding the north of the troubled Moluccas become a separate province, witnesses said.

The student-backed movement brought the town to a halt in Ternate, some 2,400 km northeast of Jakarta. Witnesses put the number at more than 5,000.

There was no violence, although about 200 police and military were on guard as the demonstrators marched to an important local government building.

"The situation is safe and under control," local military commander Lieutenant-Colonel Slamet Riyadi told Reuters.

Indonesia's Moluccas islands have been torn by months of communal violence that has killed hundreds, mostly around the spice islands capital of Ambon.

Most of the violence has occurred in the south and centre of the Moluccas. Ternate is one of the main towns of the north.

The government recently announced a plan to divide the province in two. The neighbouring province of Irian Jaya would also be divided into three under the plan.
 
East Timor

Military involved in attack on UN office

Australian Broadcasting Coorporation - June 30, 199

First to East Timor, where Indonesian police sources have confirmed that at least two serving Indonesian soldiers and three retired military personnel were involved in yesterday's attack on a United Nation's post in the town of Maliana.

The police are responsible for protecting the UN and maintaining law and order in East Timor -- but the involvement of military personnel in yesterday's mob attack raises serious questions about the security of UN staff -- and the entire UN mission to hold a free and fair ballot on the territory's future in August. Di Martin witnessed yesterday's attack and filed this extended report.

Martin: Senior Indonesian officals have spent today trying to hose down the seriousness of the assult in Maliana saying it was just a local brawl. But it was far more than that.

At first a group of about 40 independent supporters directly out side the UN post started chanting "Viva independence -- Viva Xanana Gusmao." A crowd of about 200 armed militia is gathered on a sports field across the road responded with their own chants moments before beginning their assault.

While independent supporters fled immediately the stones kept flying aimed directly at the UN post. There is no doubt of the militia intent to target the UN. A second volley of rocks came well after the front of the office was cleared of any East Timorese, and scores of stones were lobbed over the four metre fence.

The missiles shattered windows, damaged the front offices, and a UN car. Nine people were hurt in the attack, seven local Timorese suffered the worst injuries, and an ABC camera operator and a UN electoral officer also sustained cuts and bruses. The head of the UN mission in East Timor Ian Martin says the electoral officer has returned to the capital Dili with two other UN staff after an event he described as extremely frightening.

Ian Martin: She and other UN staff there were very seriously shocked by what was an extremely frightening event. And I'm sorry to see it described by the spokesman for the Indonesian Task Force as a brawl, because that is an enormous understatement of the nature of this attack.

Martin: What makes this situation even more frightening for the UN is the Indonesian military presence amongst the attackers. Police sources identified at least two serving soldiers and another three retired military in the militia group. They say the army in Maliana are not only directly involved in militia activity, but are arming, funding, training and feeding local pro-integration groups. This information is backed up by a source close to the army, who identified one serving soldier in the assault on the UN. And independent supporters also say they recognise military figures in the crowd. The army in Maliana district far outnumber the 300 police charged with protecting the local UN post which is why militia were allowed to simply walk away yesterday after holding UN staff at bay for three hours. Police sources say if they arrested the militia the army would retaliate. Police have reason to by worried. Two months ago the military launched a direct attack on Maliana police headquarters, the culmination of an escalating land dispute between a soldier and police officer. While shots were fired into the compound no one was injured. But sources say the police commander Budi Sassilo was physically assaulted. The army clearly doesn't want East Timor to be independent. As one retired general put it the military is indoctrinated with the need to hold on to the territory at all costs, leaving commander Sassilo in an extremely difficult position, trying to negotiate a delicately balanced relationship between security forces to ensure the UN safety. But that still doesn't explain why police didn't detect the threat and have enough officers able to respond. The afternoon before the assault I was given this information by a Maliana resident to scared to give his name, who press ganged into a meeting of the local militia called Doduras Meraputi, held outside the UN post.

Person: They came in front of the United Nations place. He heard the leader of Doduras Meraputi speak to him and the others. They want to attack the United Nations office and they want to pull down the United Nations flag.

Martin: This was Maliana police commander Budi Sassilo reply, when informed of the threat later that day.

Sassilo: No I don't see it a possibility and I will try my best to guarantee the security of the UN personnel.

Martin: After the attack the commander's Dili based superior police Lieutenant Colonel Endradi Tanos had a slightly different position.

Tanos: We are really very very upset with the situation.

Martin: Why did the police not prevent this from happening?

Tanos: The people, they suddenly came to the UN office, we could not prevent with the small number of police officers.

Martin: Can you guarantee their safety?

Tanos: We are trying very hard to do this.

Martin: The assault has certainly shaken the UN's confidence in the ability of police to hold the militias at bay. Head of the UN mission in East Timor, Ian Martin had this less than definitive reply to a question on whether the police could protect the UN from further attacks.

Martin: They have to be able to handle the situtation, that is their clear responsibility under the agreement.

UN envoy urges free Xanana Gusmao

Associated Press - July 2, 1999

Sydney -- Rebel leader Jose Alexandre Gusmao should be released from Indonesian custody and allowed to take part in the ballot on East Timor 's future, United Nations special envoy Jamsheed Marker said Friday.

"We think it is important that Xanana be allowed to return to East Timor and allowed to work there," Marker told reporters, calling Gusmao, also known as Xanana, a "force for reconciliation. It is important that he participate," Marker said.

Gusmao is serving a 20-year sentence under house arrest in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. He was arrested in November 1992 and sentenced in 1993 to life for leading an uprising against Indonesia. His sentence was later reduced. The Indonesian government has said that his release could only come as part of a "total solution" to the East Timor problem.

Tension is increasing in the former Portuguese colony ahead of the UN-sponsored ballot on autonomy or independence for East Timor scheduled for later this month. Indonesia invaded the half-island territory in 1975 and annexed it the following year.

One UN worker has been attacked and others evacuated from offices in areas outside the capital, Dili.

In the latest unrest, a UN spokesman said Friday six members of the UN Assistance Mission were evacuated from Liquicia, a stronghold of anti-independence sentiment and the site of atrocities against civilians in recent months.

Marker, in Australia after touring East Timor and attending talks between rival factions in Jakarta, said the security situation was still unsuitable for a free and fair vote, but it is improving.

The UN agreement specifies that Indonesia establish security in the region for the ballot to be free and fair.

Marker blamed "hooligans" for the threats against UN personnel, and said more could be expected before the vote. "It goes with the territory," he said.

The hooligans were acting without the authority of Indonesia's top military commanders, but the involvement of local officers could not be ruled out, Marker said.

"Law and order has not been restored as fully as we would want it," Marker said. "But I am satisfied with the bona fides of the Indonesian government in trying to bring this situation around."

UN mission checks voters 'registration'

Agence France Presse - July 2, 1999

Manatuto -- The UN mission in East Timoris checking allegations of an illegal voter registration drive ahead of an August ballot on autonomy or independence in this Indonesian-ruled territory.

Local government representatives have visited villages here to find out whether residents supported autonomy under Indonesia or independence, a source in this town said.

"They entered the villages saying you must vote autonomy. The roads will be better. But if there is independence, war will return," the source said.

Official voter registration for the UN-sponsored ballot to determine whether the population in the former Portuguese colony will accept or reject autonomy under Indonesia, is not scheduled to begin for about two weeks.

UNAMET spokesman David Wimhurst said allegations of improper registration in Manatuto will be investigated. "[If it is going on] it is completely illegal. It is a complete violation of the agreement," Wimhurst said.

A blank copy of the registration form circulated by the officials, and obtained by AFP, has on its masthead: "List - people's vote about special autonomy for East Timor."

It contains a space for the name of the subdistrict, then columns for people's names, gender, their age and address. The column for voting preference offers two choices: "Accept autonomy" or "Reject Autonomy."

The Committee for a Free and Independent Ballot -- a monitoring group formed by the Dili-based rights watchdog the Foundation for Human Rights and Justice (YHAK) -- has accused East Timor's Jakarta-appointed governor of having approved three billion rupiah (384,000 dollars) for each district to spend on promoting autonomy.

The source in Manatuto said about 4,000 names were already on the list but only 700 had expressed a preference for autonomy. The source speculated that the list could be a means to get more government money to promote autonomy.

In Manatuto, a community bordered by bright green rice fields halfway between Dili and the coastal city of Baucau, the pro- autonomy side has hung two banners across city streets.

"Autonomy brings brotherhood," says one message outside the local military command. "Autonomy equals peace and prosperity," says the second red banner in in front of a police station at the other end of town. Similar banners have been strung up in Baucau, East Timor's second-largest city.

UNAMET says the signs are not allowed until the campaign officially begins in August. "We've made it clear that all pro- autonomy or pro-independence banners promoting either one side or the other side are not allowed outside the campaign [period]," Wimhurst said. Similar banners were removed from the streets of Dili weeks ago.

Despite the pro-autonomy messages in Manatuto and Baucau, local residents and UNAMET staff say the situation there is calmer than in other districts like Maliana and Viqueque, where intimidation by pro-Indonesian militias forced some UN workers to flee this week.

"People are not afraid. The UN is already here," the Manatuto source said. "In May it was hot here but since June there is no more trouble."

Militia still ride around town at night on their motorcycles and at times intimidate people, but the kidnappings have stopped and they seem to have put aside their weapons, the source said.

A church source in Baucau reported similar calm in the hilly city where, he said, most people support independence. "The people are moving more freely and those whose faces I never saw, they are coming out of their homes," he source said.

A local student agreed things are better in the city, but added: "In the mountains there is intimidation. You must vote autonomy."

Denise Dauphinais, who heads UNAMET's Baucau and Manatuto district office, said her teams have been greeted by curious crowds as they visit rural areas to explain the UN's role. "People are really interested," she said.

After two weeks in the area, UNAMET has found the region "very quiet and calm," Dauphinais said.

Talks end with 'profound divisions'

Lusa - June 30, 1999

Jakarta -- East Timor peace and reconciliation talks ended Wednesday in the Indonesian capital with no major agreement signed and pro- and anti-independence factions manifesting "profound divisions" despite a willingness to continue dialogue.

A statement read by conference spokesman Rev. Domingos Sequeira stated that the most significant achievement contained in the gathering's final declaration was both sides' agreement to abide by the June 18 pact on disarmament of armed groups in East Timor, and to respect the result of the territory's August status plebiscite.

Participants also agreed to offer "total support" to the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), charged with overseeing the August 22 ballot in which East Timorese will choose between independent statehood or special autonomy within Indonesia. However, during the talks the anti-independence faction demanded "more guarantees" of UNAMET neutrality in the plebiscite process.

A proposal by the pro-independence faction to free detained resistance leader Xanana Gusmao so that he could take part in plebiscite campaigning "was not approved", Sequeira stated.

For their part, anti-independence representatives reiterated their argument that for them special autonomy status within Indonesia "is already a concession" and that pro-independence leaders should correspond by showing "flexibility".

The East Timor reconciliation talks were sponsored by the half- island's two Catholic bishops, Carlos Ximenes Belo and Basilio de Nascimento. The 60 delegates who took part in the three-day plenary session were evenly divided between pro- and anti- independence supporters. A preliminary Friday-Saturday meeting was attended by 10 representatives of each side.

After the Wednesday closing session, Bishop de Nascimento lamented the lack of concrete results, but said that the attendance by so many leading East Timorese was itself a sign of progress.

Falitil groups sign truce in East Timor

Agence France Presse - June 30, 1999

Dili -- Hundreds of pro-independence fighters in East Timor have descended from the hills to sign a truce with the pro-Indonesian militia holding the town of Suai, a witness said Thursday.

About 400 soldiers of the Falintil, the armed wing of the pro- independence Council for East Timorese Resistance, signed the peace agreement brokered by a local priest, she said.

The priest, Father Hilario, persuaded the group they would now be safe in Suai, 120 kilometres southwest of Dili, because of the presence of 16 United Nations officers in the town, the witness who declined to be identified, said.

The pro-independence soldiers arrived at Hilario's church compound, which already houses hundreds of displaced people, at dusk on Tuesday.

The following morning, as the military-backed Laksaur and the Mahidi (Die or Live for Indonesia) militia gathered, the Falintil balked, fearing it was a trap, she said.

But after hours of delay during which UN personnel said they would be in the town to monitor the situation, they agreed to join a "reconciliation" ceremony.

Both the militia and the Falintil symbolically surrendered a token parcel of weapons to the police, in the presence of the Indonesian army's commander for East Timor, Colonel Tono Suratman.

"The Falintil were worried and suspicious on Wednesday morning. None of them knew there was supposed to be a peace agreement," the witness said.

"They also thought it might be just a ploy so that military intelligence could take their pictures, so there was an agreement that no pictures would be taken."

In Jakarta, the military announced the peace agreement was signed by Martinho Amaral on behalf of 360 Falintil and Vasco da Cruz on the militia side.

Indonesian Military Chief General Wiranto on Wednesday was quoted by Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah as saying that last Saturday 220 members of the Falintil came down from the hills for a similar ceremony.

Wiranto told a cabinet meeting that another 1,000 were expected to soon follow. But Yosfiah did not say where the Falintil men went after the signing.

Militia harrass second UN post in East Timor

Agence France Presse - July 1, 1999

Dili -- The UN mission in East Timor (UNAMET) has withdrawn seven staff from its unarmed outpost in the town of Viqueque after the second incident of harrassment by pro-Indonesian militia in a week, a UNAMET spokesman said Thursday.

"Following an incident in Viqueque in which about 15 armed militia threatened UN staff at their residence, seven electoral officers were temporarily relocated to Dili," spokesman David Wimhurst said.

The incident was the second militia action against a UNAMET outpost since the UN started deploying personnel ahead of a vote on the territory's future scheduled for August.

In the first incident Tuesday some 100 militia attacked the UN office in Maliana, slightly injuring 12 people, one of them a woman volunteer electoral officer.

Wimhurst said the seven volunteers would "remain in the East Timor capital until the security situation in Viqueque has been resolved," but that seven other non-volunteer staff would remain in the post, some 110 kilometers southeast of Dili.

He said UNAMET's chief security officer, who travelled to Viqueque Wednesday, would return Thursday for more discussions with the Indonesian police, who are responsible for security in the territory.

"UNAMET expects that the Indonesian police who are responsible for the security and safety of all UN staff in East Timor will rapidly take the necessary measures to allow the electoral officers to return to their duties in the Viqueque regional headquarters," he said.

Wimhurst said that on Tuesday militia in the area twice surrounded the UNAMET residence, where they "basically intimidated our staff" shouting "UN go home" and "UN has to leave here."

"The second time they were armed," he said, but could not say what kind of weapons they were carrying.

He said the first incident happened around midday, and the second shortly afterwards, despite discussions with local authorities and even the militia leaders.

So far there had been no reports of harrassment at 11 other UN posts throughout the territory which have been set up to establish voting and voter-registration centers for polls, he added.

Indonesia and Portugal agreed in May that the United Nations should send unarmed police and polling experts to East Timor to conduct a poll of whether its people wanted to accept an Indonesian offer of autonomy or independence.

However violence in the former Portuguese colony which was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 has contributed to a two-week postponement in the vote which had been scheduled for August 8.

After the first attack Tuesday, the United Nations, Washington and Australia all reacted with alarm, reminding Indonesia that it was responsible for reining in the Indoneswian-army backed militia.

Jamsheed Marker, the special representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called the attackers in Maliana "hoodlums" and said they would not deter the UN from its mission.

"To the hoodlums who carried out this despicable attack on the UNAMET premises, UNAMET is not scared nor will it ever be," Jamsheed Marker said shortly before leaving Jakarta.

"The mission is on track. A setback of this kind would not deter us from our work," he added at the end of a visit which included a trip to the troubled territory.

Indonesia bars Horta from visiting Timor

Reuters - June 30, 1999

Jakarta -- Indonesia will not allow Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta to visit his native East Timor, a government minister said on Wednesday.

Ramos-Horta arrived in Jakarta last week, for the first time since Indonesia invaded his homeland and forced him into exile in 1975.

Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah said the decision had been taken for reasons of Ramos-Horta's own safety and communicated to supporters of independence at peace talks in Jakarta. Ramos-Horta is attending those talks.

"The foreign minister has decided that Ramos-Horta should not go to East Timor. The reason is for his own good because the majority of East Timorese people will reject his presence," Yunus told reporters after a cabinet meeting on security matters.

He said the message had been passed to East Timor's spiritual leader, Bishop Carlos Belo, who won the 1996 Nobel peace prize jointly with Ramos-Horta.

"As a result we have got confirmation from Bishop Belo that the participants of the peace talks in Jakarta from the pro- independence side from abroad, including Ramos-Horta, will not go to East Timor."

Ramos-Horta, one of Jakarta's sternest critics, is currently attending the church-sponsored talks after Indonesia agreed to issue him and other exiled resistance leaders visas for the first time in decades.

Before Ramos-Horta's arrival last Saturday, Foreign Minister Ali Alatas left open the possibility of allowing him to go to East Timor as long as he did not campaign in favour of independence in an August vote.

Ramos-Horta has expressed a desire to go back to his homeland, which he left a few days before Indonesia's 1975 invasion. He said after arriving in Jakarta that he would like to go in July or August and would agree not to campaign.

Militia chief blames attack on UN bias

Lusa - June 29, 1999

Jakarta -- Pro-Jakarta militia leader Eurico Guterres declared Tuesday that a stoning attack against a United Nations post in the East Timor town of Maliana was a "spontaneous" public reaction against an alleged pro-independence bias by the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET).

"Many Timorese don't like UNAMET because it's not neutral. Today in Maliana people were rather irritated and reacted against UNAMET", Eurico Guterres told journalists in Jakarta, where he is attending ongoing East Timor peace and reconciliation talks.

He was particularly harsh in his criticism of UNAMET spokesman David Wimhurst. "I hate David Wimhurst. I want him to go away [from Timor] immediately. If he doesn't, then I don't know what will happen", the Aitarak leader said, adding that he would ask the UN to replace Wimhurst.

The Aitarak militia has been blamed for numerous acts of violence in recent months, including the mid-April killings of dozens of people during a rampage against independence supporters in Dili, the East Timor capital.

Militia members attack unarmed UN post

Agence France Presse - June 29, 1999

Dili -- A 100-strong mob of pro-Indonesian militiamen attacked an unarmed UN outpost in East Timor Tuesday, injuring a woman electoral officer and several East Timorese, a UN official said.

"One UNAMET staff member, a woman district electoral officer of South African nationality, suffered a minor injury to her leg and several East Timorese suffered head and other injuries," the UN mission in East Timor (UNAMET) said in a statement.

It was the first reported violence against the UN mission since it began deploying last month in East Timor, which was invaded by Indonesia in 1975, ahead of a planned vote on independence or autonomy scheduled for August.

A UNAMET official told AFP that about 100 militia members were involved in the attack on the UNAMET regional office in Maliana township in Bobonaro district, some 80 kilometres west of here, around 10am Tuesday.

The statement said the attackers were "a group estimated at around 100 militia who were among a larger crowd who had gathered outside the office."

"The militia threw rocks and stones at the office where UNAMET staff were present," as well as some local people who had taken shelter there.

"The UNAMET office was considerably damaged," the statement said, adding that a fuller report would be issued when the mission's chief security officer, who had rushed to the site, returned to the territory's capital Dili.

Commenting on initial reports that there had been 12 UNAMET casualties, the official said: "They are all back in Dili now. There is only one injured."

But a source close to the United Nations here said 11 East Timorese had been injured in the attack lasting some two hours. He said the East Timorese casualties had been hospitalized in Maliana.

Anicetto Guterres of the private Justice and Peace Commission in Dili said he had reports from local people in Maliana that scores of militiamen had attacked the post.

He said the attackers were armed with wooden clubs and rocks, not with firearms. "I've only heard of one person being injured, maybe from broken pieces of glass when a rock hit," he said.

Guterres said the main local Indonesian police station was about one kilometre away but a smaller police post was just across from the UNAMET office. Police did not arrive on the scene until after the attack, he said.

Diplomatic sources said a newly created pro-Jakarta militia group known as "Dodarus" was responsible for the attack.

Pro- and anti-independence East Timorese leaders are currently in Jakarta for three days of talks in an effort to reduce the violence in East Timor ahead of the vote.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has already ordered a two-week delay in the vote, originally scheduled for August 8, partly because of the continuing violence in the East Timorese countryside.

The UNAMET official said the chief security officer was accompanied to Maliana by a senior UNAMET civilian police officer and by senior Indonesian police liaison officers.

The group would report to Ian Martin, Annan's special representative in East Timor, and to the chairman of the Indonesian task force in East Timor on its return to Dili, he said.

The Indonesian army-backed militia have been blamed for most of the violence in the former Portuguese colony since January, when the Indonesian government first announced it might grant East Timor independence if its people rejected an autonomy offer.

Indonesia and Portugal agreed in May that the UN would send in contingents of unarmed civilian police and electoral officers to supervise the vote, while leaving security to the Indonesian police.

Indonesia says "brawl" not against UN

Reuters - June 29, 1999

Jakarta -- Indonesia said an attack on United Nations offices in East Timor on Tuesday was the result of a brawl between supporters and opponents of Jakarta's rule and denied any deliberate attack on the UN.

"Not at all. Any insinuation in that direction is completely wrong," Dino Djalal, spokesman for the Indonesian government's task force in East Timor, told Reuters when asked if the attack in the pro-Jakarta militia stronghold of Maliana was directed against the UN.

"What happened was there was a brawl between pro-independence and pro-integration groups. In the course of this brawl, which involved stone throwing, some of the pro-independence groups went inside the premises of ... [the UN]. As a consequence of that, stones were thrown in that direction as well," Djalal said.

In a statement issued in East Timor, the UN said militia had attacked UN offices in Maliana, on the border with West Timor, and hospital sources said six people had been wounded.

Maliana police chief, Budi Susilo, told Reuters that the attack was initiated by pro-Jakarta supporters and that those hurt included local UN staff. But he denied that militias were involved and said police had identified seven people involved in the stone throwing, although none had yet been arrested.

Militiamen attack UN compound

Reuters - June 29, 1999 (slightly abridged)

Tim Johnston, Dili, East Timor -- Militiamen attacked a UN compound set up to prepare an independence ballot in East Timor on Tuesday wounding six people, the United Nations and hospital sources said.

The attack came in the middle of talks in the Indonesian capital between East Timor's warring factions to try to bring an end to the violence tearing the disputed territory, much of it instigated by pro-Jakarta militias.

"The first report is that it was a fairly serious incident. We've heard reports of people being injured but no confirmation yet," UN spokesman David Wimhurst told Reuters.

In a statement, the United Nations said its office in Maliana had been damaged and a report would be made to Jamsheed Marker, the special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Marker is currently in Jakarta after a visit to East Timor to assess the situation.

"The militia threw rocks and stones at the office, where UNAMET staff were present and some local people took shelter," the statement said, referring a UN mission in East Timor which is preparing the vote. UNAMET is the UN Mission in East Timor.

"The UNAMET chief security officer and a senior civilian police officer accompanied by senior Indonesian police liaison officers flew by helicopter to Maliana and will report on their return to the special representative of the secretary general..."

There were also unconfirmed reports of a crowd gathering outside the compound before the attack which took place in mid-morning in Maliana, on the border with West Timor and a centre of pro- Jakarta militias.

A doctor at Maliana hospital, Jonathan Pradipta, told Reuters six people were wounded by glass or rocks, all of them local civilians.

There were 12 UN staff in Maliana, including police, electoral officers and political staff. They included nationals from South Africa, Poland, Germany, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Nigeria.

The Maliana office was opened last Saturday and is one of eight offices to be opened in East Timor by the UN ahead of the August ballot.

At Monday's start of the Jakarta peace talks, pro-independence rebel leader Xanana Gusmao said that though the discussions had fallen short of expectations they were crucial to bring an end to the violence. The talks, being organised by Catholic church leaders, include pro-Jakarta supporters.
 
June 7 election

Rallys for women's right to lead nation

Jakarta Post - June 29, 1999

Jakarta -- Hundreds of activists and professionals are vigorously defending the right of women to become president, branding as violations of human rights and unconstitutional the flurry of recent statements that women are unfit to lead the country.

In Semarang, 22 non-governmental organizations stated that statements discriminating against women for the presidency were part of political intrigue "which greatly offends women".

Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), is the center of the controversy although the statements, many of them citing Islamic teachings, have not referred to her by name. The party is leading in provisional results.

Antara reported on Monday that a joint statement from the organizations grouped in the Forum for Equality for Humanity condemned the stated bar to women in positions of political leadership.

"We condemn such harassment and insults and urge the political elite and those in power to stop these political tricks and debates which focus on women to gain power," the statement read.

Among the signatories were election monitors, women's organizations and student groups. Both Muslim and Christian groups were represented.

The United Development Party (PPP) has said only a male Muslim is eligible for the presidency. However, the country's Muslim leadership has not taken a unified stance. On Saturday 100 Muslim clerics in Central Java said gender was not an issue and they would support anyone elected for president "as long as it is for the benefit of the nation".

On Saturday leading politicians Abdurrahman Wahid of the National Awakening Party (PKB), Amien Rais of the National Mandate Party (PAN), Nur Mahmudi Ismail of the Justice Party (PK) and Hamzah Haz of PPP met to discuss a way out of an anticipated deadlock in the presidential election.

On Sunday in Jakarta, 284 activists and professionals and 22 other non-governmental organizations condemned what they said was the "unconstitutional" stance of those who declared women did not have the right to become president.

The activists said women's equal role in politics is guaranteed in the 1953 UN Convention on Women's Political Role, which was enacted into Law No. 68/1958, and the 1979 UN Convention on the Eradication of Discrimination Against Women, enacted into Law No. 7/1984.

Meanwhile, PDI Perjuangan dismissed on Monday the possibility of its party nominating other candidates for the presidency. PDI Perjuangan deputy chairman Dimyati Hartono said the decision to nominate Megawati was unanimous and irrevocable.

"Mbak Mega is PDI Perjuangan's only presidential candidate, and we've never thought of seeking alternative candidates," he said before addressing a seminar on the Prospect of PDI Perjuangan's Election Victory in the National Political Map in Semarang on Sunday evening.

"As the victorious party contesting the elections, it's normal for PDI Perjuangan to nominate its chairperson for the presidency."

Separately, PPP deputy chairman Karmani reiterated that PPP would only nominate "the best Muslim, who is far better than [B.J.] Habibie and Megawati".

Anticipating a deadlock in the presidential election, he repeated the party's suggestions that leading election contestants -- PDI Perjuangan, Golkar, PKB, PPP and PAN -- should meet and decide on a presidential candidate acceptable to all sections of the nation.

A member of the law-making body of the influential Nahdlatul Ulama, Noer Iskandar al-Barsany, also said separately that leading political parties should provide alternative candidates for the presidency.

Karmani suggested that leaders of leading political parties meet and establish an alternative candidate acceptable to all.

Meanwhile, political expert Ryaas Rasyid said on Monday that the presidential election, if held through an open vote, would be vulnerable to "money politics".

"If there were more than one presidential candidate ... it would be better if the election was held through a secret ballot," Ryaas, who is also director-general for general administration and regional autonomy, said during an address to the special committee discussing changes in internal regulations for the legislative bodies.

Individual legislators would easily be recognized by the person or institution which was paying them off, he said.

Gus Dur keeps up Megawati support

Straits Times/Reuters - June 28, 1999

Jakarta -- The leader of Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation said yesterday that he still supported the presidential aspirations of his ally Megawati Sukarnoputri but cautioned that the Islamic community may not accept a woman President.

"I personally support Megawati but I know some in the Muslim community disapprove of her," said Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, also known as Gus Dur, the head of the 40-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) religious movement.

He is also the founder of the Nation Awakening Party (PKB), which stands third in vote-counting from the June 7 parliamentary election.

"I can't guarantee whether other Muslim leaders would support her," he said. "But we have to respect the Constitutional result. The fact that Megawati's party is leading in the results indicate that the majority of Indonesians want her to become President."

Ms Megawati, daughter of Indonesia's founding President Sukarno, heads the Indonesian Democratic Party-Perjuangan (Struggle), which is well ahead in election tallies so far with 36 per cent of the vote. Around 55 per cent of votes have been counted.

Despite this, the PDI-P is likely to fall well short of an overall majority, and a coalition government seems inevitable. The race for the presidency in November is also wide open. Analysts have warned of potential unrest if Ms Megawati fails to become President despite winning the most popular support.

The PDI-P has signed a loose cooperation deal between Mr Abdurrahman's PKB and the National Mandate Party of opposition figurehead Amien Rais.

But several Muslim-oriented parties are considering an alliance with the ruling Golkar party to try to block Ms Megawati, saying that Islam rules that a woman cannot be President.

On Saturday, Mr Abdurrahman held talks with Dr Amien and also with Mr Hamzah Haz of the United Development Party, which opposes a woman President, to discuss the presidency.

The Jakarta Post newspaper said the parties had agreed that a woman should not become President, but the PKB leader said that no such decision had been made.

Indonesia's Muslims, who make up more than 80 per cent of the population, are divided over the issue.

Muslim clerics in the NU have agreed to allow a woman to run for the presidency, the official news agency Antara reported yesterday. Mr Abdurrahman said he would not support a bid by some Muslim parties to have President B.J. Habibie re-elected to block Ms Megawati, due to the President's past links with the autocratic previous regime of Mr Suharto. Dr Habibie's party, Golkar, is in second place in the election count and remains a powerful force.

Asked about a possible compromise candidate for the presidency, Mr Abdurrahman said: "Actually, Amien has asked me to become one, but so far I have refused that."

Meanwhile, one of Indonesia's most respected Islamic scholars has dismissed arguments by Muslim politicians that Ms Megawati cannot become President because she is a woman.

"There is no such explicit ruling ... in the Quran," Nurcholish Madjid said in an interview. "History is full of Muslim women leaders."

He described as "not very substantial" arguments that Indonesia could not be compared with Pakistan or Bangladesh -- both Muslim and both of which have or had women leaders -- because the countries followed different schools of Islamic law. He noted that one of the country's mostly staunchly Islamic regions, Aceh, has had women leaders.

More protests against gender discrimination

Agence France Presse - June 29, 1999

Jakarta -- Activists and professionals have stepped up protests against statements that a woman should not lead the world's largest Moslem-populated nation, reports said here Tuesday.

Some 22 non-government organisations issued a joint statement Monday saying discrimination against women for the job as president was political intrigue "which greatly offends women," the Jakarta Post daily said.

The statement, issued in Semarang, Central Java, by women's, students, Moslem and Christian organisations targetted Moslem scholars and politicians who have cited Islamic teachings as barring a woman from political leadership.

"We condemn such harassment and insults and urge the political elite and those in power to stop these political tricks and debates focusing on women to gain power," the statement said.

Furore has been stirred by opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose Indonesian Democracy Party-Struggle (PDIP) is leading in the vote count following the June 7 elections.

The Semarang protest came on the heels of a similar protest in Jakarta on Sunday involving 284 activists and professionals and 22 other non-governmental organisations.

The protestors also issued a statement condemning gender discrimination in politics as "unconstitutional." They pointed to UN conventions ratified by the government since 1953 which guaranteed women's participation in politics.

Moslem scholars have been divided on the issue with separate groups airing their views for or against the leadership of a woman.

The controversy erupted after the Moslem United Development Party which is trailing in fourth place in the incomplete vote tally said it will only back a male candidate for the next presidency.

The new president is scheduled to be elected in November from the legislature formed after the elections.

Although it named no names, the PPP statement was obviously directed at Megawati, the daughter of the country's first president Sukarno, whose PDIP has clinched twice as many votes as the second-placed ruling Golkar Party.

Indonesian President B.J. Habibie Monday said women were equal in politics, while Home Affairs Minister Syarwan Hamid has said the country's constitution had no provision barring a woman candidate for the presidency.

The constitution only stipulates that the president shall be a native-born Indonesian and, together with the vice president, shall be elected by majority vote by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the highest legislative body.

Megawati has so far remained silent on the issue. But PDIP officials have said the party, which nominated her as sole presidential candidate last at its congress last year, has no intention of seeking another candidate.

Megawati's bid suffers setback

Jakarta Post - June 27, 1999

Jakarta -- Abdurrahman Wahid, Amien Rais, Nur Mahmudi Ismail and Hamzah Haz agreed on Saturday that Islam bars women from becoming heads of state, delivering the heaviest blow yet to Megawati Soekarnoputri's presidential bid.

The four politicians -- respectively the founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB), the chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN), the president of the Justice Party (PK) and chairman of the United Development Party (PPP) -- acknowledged for the first time that the predominately Muslim country may not be ready to accept a woman president. The four men had never previously mentioned that Megawati, whose party the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) now looks set to win largest share of the vote in the polls, might not be accepted by some Muslim elements.

Abdurrahman, the chairman of Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), visited Amien Rais at the office of Muhammadiyah, which Amien used to chair. The two leaders then agreed that both organizations respected an Islamic ruling that women cannot become heads of state.

Shortly afterward, Nur Mahmudi visited Amien, while Abdurrahman met with Hamzah Haz at the Nahdlatul Ulama headquarters, according to Antara.

"If Megawati was elected [president], the Islamic movement would not accept her, but if she's not elected, there's no guarantee the situation would be better," Abdurrahman said after meeting with Hamzah. "It's really a dilemma. Which is why we held those consultations to seek a solution.

"The meetings are for consultations regarding the post-election situation, where a new configuration is emerging after Megawati's party looks set to win," he said.

Amien said Indonesia was being divided into two camps, one supporting Megawati and the other supporting incumbent President B.J. Habibie.

"There's this image that if Megawati is elected [people] will rebel, and if Habibie is elected, there will also be rebellion. We should find a way out of this dilemma. I see Gus Dur as standing outside of this polarization, which is why we held that consultation," Amien said. Nur Mahmudi supported Amien's statement.

Separately, at a press briefing with Hamzah, Abdurrahman said he personally supported Megawati for the top job, but that he must answer to Nahdlatul Ulama ulemas, many of whom still abide by Islamic rules that a woman cannot become president.

"Personally, I think it's possible for Megawati to be elected, but regarding questions about her ability to govern, that's another matter."

Abdurrahman once supported suggestions that Soeharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana succeed her father to the presidency.

Abdurrahman has long been known as Megawati's closest ally and even her mentor, but after a meeting last week with Habibie, he hinted that support for Megawati might no longer be forthcoming, because he could not guarantee that ulemas would accept her presidency.

"If Megawati is elected, the United Development Party (PPP) would not agree to join the administration," he said. However, Abdurrahman promised on Saturday to seek a "win-win solution".

When asked whether the meetings also discussed the possibility of an alternative presidential candidate, Abdurrahman said: "That is confidential. I must not talk, or everything will fail."

When journalists suggested the possibility of naming a military man as the next president, Abdurrahman said: "Let's hope not."

Despite Abdurrahman's statement that ulemas did not support Megawati's presidency, so far there has been no unified stance among Muslim clerics. Some 200 ulemas in East Java, for instance, recently aired their reluctance for a woman president. But on Saturday, in the Central Java town of Rembang, an open gathering of the Forum of National Pesantren Ulema stated they would accept whoever was elected to the position.

Attended by some 100 ulemas, the forum said "in the event of a difficult political decision, we should seek a choice with the least disadvantage".

The nominated president would be accepted "as long as [the decision] was for the good of the nation and as long as the president was elected by the peoples' representatives".

Central Java was one of the key provinces where political parties fiercely competed for Muslim votes. In provisional results of the poll tallies, PDI Perjuangan won in the province.

The Muslim clerics stated that in regard to the presidential election they would look to "prioritize avoiding risks and the threat of a greater loss", and in this context the forum said gender was not an issue.

The forum was initiated by Nahdlatul Ulama leaders, including Cholil Bisri and Mustafa Bisri. Attendants included ulema from Java, Madura, Bali and Sumatra. Prominent clerics were Hasyim Muzadi, who chairs East Java's NU branch, Amien Makruf of Jakarta and Mbah (Grandfather) Lim from Klaten, who was once described as Abdurrahman's spiritual advisor.

The ulema called on all Indonesians to support "total reform and political democratization, and show that support by expressing a more mature attitude" in politics and as citizens. Calls based on religion to support political interests were farcical, the forum said.

Mustafa told The Jakarta Post the struggle for power "has drowned the most basic goal of the reform movement, which is to reach democracy ... and to save the people from the muddy hole of trouble gripping almost all spheres of life".

As of 8:30pm Saturday the PDI Perjuangan was leading with 22.67 million votes. Golkar came a far second with 11.85 million and PKB third with 11.04 million.

As of 5 pm PDI Perjuangan had earned 67 seats in the House of Representatives and Golkar had gained 33 seats. PKB won 32 seats and PPP had 14. Others had not reached the threshold of 2 percent of the 462 contested seats.

On Friday in Semarang, PPP announced it had ruled out the possibility of forming a coalition with any of the major parties -- front-runner PDI Perjuangan, PKB, PAN or Golkar. A PPP leader, Karmani, said PPP would be better off playing the role of a "strategic opposition".
 
Aceh/West Papua

Army deserters behind violence: activist

Indonesian Observer - June 30, 1999

Jakarta -- Deserters from the Army's elite Special Forces (Kopassus) have been accused of involvement in widespread violence in restive Aceh province, where hundreds of people, mostly civilians, have been killed recently.

Abdoeh Hamid, deputy chairman of the National Mandate Party's (PAN) Aceh branch, yesterday said Kopassus defectors have launched terror attacks and intimidation against civilians, as well as security forces, in order to spark clashes between the military and locals.

"Acehnese people point out there are certain deserters from Kopassus involved in the actions of terror," he told the Observer in Jakarta, where he had been attending a gathering of the Indonesian Students Regiment Alumni Association (IARMI).

Hamid, also chairman of IARMI's Aceh chapter, said the Acehnese have demanded that justice be taken against all of the military officers who were involved in human rights abuses during an almost one-decade long military operation, which was revoked in August last year.

The status of Military Operation Region (DOM) was given to Aceh in 1991 during the autocratic rule of former president Soeharto.

At the time, Feisal Tanjung, the current coordinating minister for politics and security, served as military commander and current Home Affairs Minister Syarwan Hamid was the military's chief of socio-political affairs.

A week after Soeharto resigned, reports said a platoon of Kopassus was reported to have gone missing from their barracks.

Sources within the military said that they deserted their unit and conducted anti-government activities by covering up evidence of military involvement in the three-day violence in May last year. It is believed that the deserting unit is now operating in Aceh.

Abdoeh Hamid said all additional troops posted in Aceh should be pulled out from the province as part of efforts to put an end to the violence there. "It requires cultural and religious approaches to find a solution to the Aceh problem," he added.

In Jakarta, Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) Commander General Wiranto yesterday denied allegations that security personnel deployed in the troubled province have frightened locals and looted their belongings, forcing them to flee their hometowns.

"It is not true. TNI has never pressed its own people. It never happens. The truth is that the people fear being suppressed by the Acehnese security disturbance groups," he told reporters at Jakarta's State Palace.

He instead said members of security disturbance groups (GPK) -- the government's term to refer to all separatists -- have forced and influenced Acehnese civilians to do unpredictable things.

"The TNI members themselves are strictly coordinative and belong to the anti-riot troops [PPRM], commanded by the police unit," he said.

The PPRM unit, according to Wiranto, launches security and order restoration operations, which are planned by and reported to commanders in charge of the operations.

Therefore, Wiranto called on the Acehnese people not to be provoked by "misleading" information that there is no security and police officers are deployed to troubled parts of Aceh to loot from locals.

The personnel in Aceh in charge of maintaining security and order are only there to hunt for armed criminals who disturb locals.

"This view must first be understood by local people so that they won't be misled by groundless information. Our aim is similar, namely to make Aceh be peaceful," Wiranto claimed.

Some human rights activists say that when the military can't find rebels in Aceh, it takes its anger out against innocent civilians, to maintain an atmosphere of fear.

On the smuggling of weapons to Indonesia's westernmost province, Wiranto admitted that it has been happening for a long time, especially the movement of Russian AK-47 rifles. Such smuggled rifles are not the Indonesian military's, nor the police's standard weapons, he said.

Some Aceh observers say the military is keen to keep a strong presence in the province, so that it "stay involved" in the drug and arms trade.

In other part of his press statement, Wiranto urged all Indonesians to take an active role in maintaining peace and order in the post-June 7 election period, after Indonesia was highly praised by the international community for its success in holding "fair" polls.

Wiranto denies oppression in Aceh

Jakarta Post - June 30, 1999

Jakarta -- Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Gen. Wiranto denied on Tuesday the presence of security troops in Aceh was causing residents to flee the volatile province.

Wiranto was refuting a statement by Aceh Governor Syamsuddin Mahmud, who said after meeting with President B.J. Habibie here on Monday the trauma of a decade-long military operation in Aceh was so deep that many Acehnese fled the presence of security forces.

"It's not true. TNI has never oppressed its own people. [Residents] are just afraid of threats from separatist rebel groups," Wiranto said before attending a National Defense and Security Council meeting at Bina Graha presidential office.

He said TNI personnel in Aceh were grouped in the Riot Reinforcement Troops under the National Police's coordination. According to Wiranto, the current military operation aimed at restoring order in the province is well planned and supervised by field commanders.

"It's the rebel groups who force people to flee and provoke them into unpredictable moves," Wiranto said.

Violence in the province has not abated even with the presence of reinforcement troops in the territory. An elementary school principal and teacher in Pidie regency were shot to death by a group of unidentified people on Sunday night, hours after military troops killed a suspected rebel in North Aceh regency.

Security concerns forced the General Elections Commission to cancel the general election in Pidie and North Aceh.

Wiranto called on people not to heed groundless reports of military abuses in Aceh. "Does it make sense for TNI or the police to loot people's belongings? The troops are out there in an arranged operation to search for criminal groups who have in fact stirred unrest," Wiranto said.

He said rebel groups in Aceh were armed with weapons which had been supplied from abroad. Most of the rebels' guns are Russian- made AK-47s.

"Several times we arrested firearm smugglers and punished them," he said. In the Aceh capital of Banda Aceh, the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) urged a religious approach to solving the problems in the province.

Speaking at a MUI chapter meeting on Monday night, MUI deputy chairman H Amidhan lashed out at the repressive and violent measures taken by security forces in quelling separatist activities in Aceh.

He said the strict security approach left "domestic problems" in the province unresolved. "It's a fact that many [Acehnese] have become widows and orphans following the military operation. Their suffering has not yet ended," H Amidhan said as quoted by Antara.

He said that besides asking both the government and the House of Representatives to work toward finding a solution in Aceh, the MUI had asked local administrations and ulema to help ease residents' burdens.

Torture, rape were soldiers' weapons

Mercury News (California) - June 28, 1999

Mark McDonald, Jinjiem -- The soldiers came for Mira Rasyid on a warm March evening and hauled her off to an interrogation center built into a thick grove of bamboo. Throughout that night in 1998, and every night for the next five months, she says, they tortured and raped her.

Whenever she resisted, the soldiers set their attack dogs on her. They burned her hair while they raped her. They made other prisoners rape her. They raped her in front of her parents.

"Every day I wanted to die," says Rasyid, 19, knuckling tears out of her eyes. "I have such a big wound on my heart. Sometimes I cannot recognize myself."

Rasyid's tale of sexual slavery by the notorious Kopassus troops -- elite Indonesian commandos assigned to hunt down rebels in the restive province of Aceh -- is one of many such stories easily heard in the tin-roofed towns and jungle villages of the province, horrific stories of torture, disappearances, rape, murder.

"Everybody is aware of these terrible things, so terrible," says Syamsuddin Mahmud, the governor of Aceh, the Indonesian government's top official in the province. "Kopassus was a killing machine."

Kopassus battalions were withdrawn from Aceh in August, three months after the fall of President Suharto. But with the murderous commandos now assigned to units elsewhere in the country, it has become virtually impossible for Acehnese victims and legal-aid workers to pursue them -- legally or otherwise.

Fatimah Abbas, 43, the mother of six, says Kopassus men gang- raped her for four days while they also tortured her elderly father, a rice farmer. She sobs as she recalls how she was raped repeatedly in front of him. She was forced to watch as soldiers threw him into a pond, ran a fishhook and line through his nose and, as they roared with laughter, he was made to splash around like a struggling fish.

Villagers told Abbas they later saw soldiers cut off her father's penis and put it in his mouth -- just before they shot him. Abbas says she believes he was thrown into one of the mass graves now being discovered in Aceh, in places with macabre names like Skulls Hill.

President B.J. Habibie and Defense Minister Wiranto have issued public apologies in recent months for the military's past abuses in Aceh. The provincial government says some 5,000 Acehnese have been killed or made to disappear over the last decade. Human rights workers put the number at 40,000, while the increasingly active Free Aceh Movement says it's 53,000.

Rasyid has been out of the clutches of her Kopassus torturers for almost a year now. She's a pale young woman who speaks softly, which is also how she weeps -- softly. And when she cries, which is often, she covers her face with her traditional Muslim head scarf.

She lives near the rural village of Jinjiem, in a military camp run by the Free Aceh Movement. Under Muslim traditions, she has no prospects for marriage and a family.

"Muslim men want to marry a virgin, and everyone here knows that the military men raped me," she says. "I'll never be married. Who would marry me? Who could?"

The night Kopassus grabbed her from her home, Rasyid says, the soldiers accused her of having given food to wandering rebels from the Free Aceh Movement. Enraged, they sexually assaulted her with bananas, candles, even Coke bottles.

For the next five months the troopers kept her bound and naked in a concrete cell with no bed, no water, no toilet. When she asked for soup, the soldiers would urinate in it. Near starvation, she says, she ate the soup anyway.

The military commander for Aceh, Col. Johnny Wahab, dismisses Rasyid's tale as "impossible ... just propaganda."

"But if this event did happen, she should have reported it to the military police," Wahab says in an interview at his command post.

When it's suggested that it might have been difficult for a traumatized 18-year-old woman to report five months of sexual assaults to the very authorities who supervised her torture and imprisonment, Wahab says dismissively, "Well, she can always report it now."

Rasyid was kept at the Rumohgudong detention complex. "There were lots of such places, but Rumohgudong was different because there were people living nearby," says Darmen Syah, the mild-mannered editor of Serambi Indonesia, Aceh's only newspaper. "The people told us they could hear the screams of those being tortured. Every night they heard people screaming, "Stop! Please stop!' "

After the Kopassus soldiers left, villagers burned the place down.

Two more found dead in Aceh

Associated Press - June 28, 1999

Jakarta -- Two school teachers were found dead in northwestern Indonesia after being led away by unidentified gunmen that police suspect are separatist rebels, a report said Monday.

The victims, Ubit Pakek, 58, and Tgk. Hasballah, 54, were teachers in separate primary schools in Pidie regency, the official Antara news agency said.

The report quoted Maj. Ahmad Isnanto of the local military as saying the bodies were found on an irrigation project early Monday, each with stab wounds in their necks.

Citing witnesses, Isnanto said both victims were taken from their houses Sunday night by a group of about 15 unidentified gunmen.

The killings were the latest in a series of attacks by unidentified gunmen. Security and government officials suspect the Free Aceh Movement, which is fighting against Indonesian rule in the province.

At least 10 people, including three soldiers, were killed last week, and more than 100 have been killed since May, when the group intensified its campaign ahead of the country's June 7 election.

In Jakarta on Monday, Aceh Governor Syamsuddin Mahmud expressed concern over the situation in the province, where a nearly decade-long military operation had traumatized the people before ending last year.

"They people are really afraid if soldiers ... come to their villages," Syamsuddin said after a meeting with President B.J. Habibie.

[On June 28, Reuters reported that Indonesian troops shot dead a suspected rebel. Officials said that the shooting occurred on Sunday when a group of patrolling soldiers encountered an unidentified motorcyclist who tried to ride away from them - James Balowski.]

Elections in Pidie, North Aceh canceled

Jakarta Post - June 29, 1999 (abridged)

Jakarta -- Security concerns led the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the government to cancel the elections in the Pidie and North Aceh regencies of Aceh.

KPU chairman Rudini said here on Monday the decision was made after taking into account escalating tension in the regencies and the possible risks if elections went ahead there.

"The government, KPU and the National Elections Committee (PPI) agreed in a Saturday meeting to cancel polls in the two troubled regencies after consulting with the provincial elections committee," Rudini said.

The two regencies had been given from June 19 to June 27 to hold elections after the June 7 polls were postponed. The General Election Law allows polls to be delayed for 30 days in problematic areas.

The deputy chairman of PPI and an Aceh native, Hasbalah M. Saad, agreed with the decision, saying escalating violence in the two regencies had made it impossible for the regional elections committees to hold the polls.

"Many Aceh people, party activists and local elections committee members were killed or intimidated by the separatist Free Aceh Movement, who never stopped their attempts to stop the elections," Hasballah said.

A total of 12 seats in the House of Representatives and 49 seats in the provincial legislative council were on offer in the June 7 elections in the province.

Hasballah said despite the cancellation of the polls, the two regencies would be allocated seats in the House and the provincial legislature.

Members of the local legislatures in the two regencies will be elected through elections which will be held simultaneously, according to Hasballah.
 
News & issues

Indonesia's new balance of power

New York Times - June 28, 1999

Seth Mydans, Jakarta -- It was not a threat, said Wardah Hafidz, one of Indonesia's toughest social activists; it was a simple statement of the country's new balance of power.

"You can meet with 40 of us in your office," she told officials of a government agency she was publicly accusing of misuse of funds, "or you can have 4,000 of us in the street outside."

The agency, known as Bappenas, the national planning agency, chose the private meeting. Also under pressure from Ms. Wardah, the World Bank delayed a disbursement of welfare funds through Bappenas, saying, "The level of leakage this year has been too much."

Ms. Wardah, a slight and surprisingly shy-looking woman in her 40s, said, "This is the first time Bappenas has been challenged by the people to be publicly accountable. Before, they were way up in the clouds. Corruption, bad planning -- whatever they wanted to do, they just did it. Under Suharto, it was a completely top-down system."

For better or worse, life was a lot simpler before President Suharto was forced to resign a year ago by a surge of public anger, after having just about everything his own way for 32 years.

Now it is not quite clear in which direction power flows. Government ministers, fearing an angry reaction, quickly shuffle backward, smiling and gesturing defensively, when people like Ms. Wardah advance on them.

Ms. Wardah leads an independent group called the Urban Poor Consortium, one of hundreds of nongovernmental organizations, called NGOs for short, that have suddenly begun flexing their muscles now that the dictator is gone.

They are pushing agendas that include human rights, environmental protection, workers' protection, legal aid and political freedoms as well as rights for the poor.

They are one building block of a new civil society that also includes a noisy, take-no-prisoners free press; an always unsatisfied, always demanding student movement, and a suddenly liberated array of political parties that may not have clear programs but are in no doubt that they want a share of the political spoils.

All these groups are part of a transformation of Indonesia that is not quite a revolution. It is a banging, jostling realignment of the traffic patterns of power, like a fairground arena of bumper cars.

For lack of a better word, this process is known as "reformasi," or reform. For the moment its chief characteristic is that the people above now have to listen to what the people below are saying.

"It's a complete change in terms of political participation and political awareness," Ms. Wardah said. "That means that for us, for all the NGOs, it is a crucial moment to develop and become stronger."

In one of the most remarkable displays of this shifting power, another group, Indonesian Corruption Watch, forced the suspension this month of Attorney General Andi Ghalib by publicizing information that indicated he was involved in large-scale corruption.

Ghalib was forced to step aside when it was revealed that businessmen he was investigating on corruption charges had made huge donations to the Indonesian Wrestling Foundation, of which he is honorary chairman. "It's wonderful to see, isn't it, how these freedoms are actually working," a Western diplomat said.

Even the men with guns -- the police officers and the army -- have become cautious in the face of this newly empowered public. "Now the police say, 'OK, you're having a rally. We'll be there but we won't harass people,"' Ms. Wardah said.

"During Suharto's time, mass numbers of people were one thing they were always afraid of and they never allowed," she said. "Now the masses of people are in the open and those above are nervous about it. They have no choice. They have to listen."

But the power struggle is not yet over. What Indonesians call the forces of status quo are still fighting back against the forces of reform. And it is possible that once a new government emerges from the election that was held this month, new pressures will be brought against independent groups like Ms. Wardah's.

"They are on the defensive," she said of the powers that be. "Unfortunately, although they are on the defensive they are very strong."

They tried their old tactics against her recently, hauling her into a police station when she helped organize a demonstration by workers who had lost their jobs at a biscuit factory. "They said, 'OK, let's start the interrogation,' and I said, 'No. Not without my lawyer,' and they said, 'OK,"' Ms. Wardah recalled. "In Suharto's time they would torture you and force you to agree with their version."

Soon the police station was crowded with about 20 lawyers, she said, and after only one night in custody, she was released without charges.

Suharto allowed the formation of nongovernmental interest groups like hers, but he kept them under tight control -- "quarantined in seminars, workshops and hotel meeting rooms," as Ms. Wardah put it.

"We felt like we were doing lots of things, but really it was just among us," she said. "We could not get our views published. We couldn't speak up. We couldn't criticize. Nothing seeped down to the grass roots. Nothing really happened. We called it turbulence in a glass."

But all this activity served an important role in at least voicing a poltical agenda, said Emmy Hafil, who heads Walhi, Indonesia's leading environmental group. In the absence of real opposition parties, organizations like hers became a de facto opposition.

When Suharto resigned and the political parties began to assert themselves, Ms. Hafil said, she initially felt sidelined and abandoned in this new, broad "democratic space."

"I thought, 'Oh my God, we are going to be lost somewhere,"' she said. "I felt that the political leaders had taken over our roles, when in fact we had been performing their roles. So we had to adjust ourselves."

As both sides -- top and bottom -- adjust to Indonesia's new patterns of power, Ms. Wardah said, there is a danger of misjudgments and conflict.

"I think we have reached the point of no return -- we can't go back to the old practices," she said. "That's where the danger lies, if they don't realize that the context has changed, that the rules of the game have changed. If they try to resort to the guns and the money again, there may be high tension and perhaps violence."

Hasyim Rachman passes away

ASIET - July 2, 1999

In the 50s and 60s, Hasyim Rachman was the publisher and editor of the anti-imperialist daily newspaper, Bintang Timur, one of Indonesia's highest selling newspapers. Bintang Timur was banned by the Suharto regime in 1965. Hasyim Rahman was gaoled for 14 years, including 10 years on Buru Island. He was never charged or put on trial.

After release in 1979, he joined with ex-political prisoner and journalist, Yusuf Isak, and Pramoedya Ananta Toer to form the Hasta Mitra publishing company. Hasta Mitra published, among other things, the prison novels of Pramoedya Ananta Toer -- books which the Suharto regime later banned.

Hasta Mitra became the symbol of resistance to the regime by released political prisoners.

From Yusuf Isak, sent from Germany:

On June 28, 6.30am, Hasyim Rachman passed away. Hasyim was ill and hospitalised for three weeks due to a lung disease. He was in the Intensive Care Unit for several days.

Hasyim passed away surroujnded by his children, wife, friends and comrades. He was buried the same day beside his mother.

While hospitalised he made sure he was able to vote in the June 7 general elections. He was asked by his younger brother: "You voted for the PDI Struggle, didn't you?" Hasyim answered from his bed, shaking his head: "I voted for the PRD!"

Then one his children added: "Father must get better so that you see the fourth president of the Republic." Hasyim answered: "That's not important. More important is for Suharto to be put on trial. So that he and his cronies become gutter rats and have to live under bridges like paupers."

Megawati committed to justice for Suharto

Agence France Presse - June 29, 1999

Jakarta -- Indonesian presidential hopeful Megawati Sukarnoputri intends to go after not just ousted leader Suharto but other officials who have abused their positions, a report said Tuesday.

"Ibu Mega often comments on why the focus is on Suharto alone and [why] only he should be tried," Kwik Kian Gie, a deputy chairman of Megawati's Indonesian Democracy Party-Struggle (PDIP), was quoted by the Kompas daily as saying.

Kwik said "there are other officials who had violated the law" whom Megawati intended also to bring to justice if named president.

Indonesian newspapers have cast doubt on whether Megawati, whose PDIP is leading the count for the June 7 polls, will press on with a trial of Suharto over the alleged fortune he amassed during his 23 years in power.

Megawati, daughter of the country's founding president Sukarno, had previously cited her own family's humiliation for not wanting to hound Suharto if she comes to office. Suharto pushed Sukarno out of power in the mid-1960s and Megawati's father languished under house arrest until his death in 1970.

Megawati's position on East Timor remained unclear, with the former Portuguese territory seized by Indonesia in 1975 due to hold a vote on autonomy or independence.

She has previously rejected proposals embracing an autonomous East Timor within a federal system for Indonesia, arguing in favour of the unitary republic set up under her father.

"Even if the result of the consultation says that East Timor should remain part of Indonesia, that's not all smooth," Kwik was quoted as saying of Megawati's views. "Has any past leader ever asked all other Indonesians whether they want East Timor to be part of Indonesia?" he said.

Even in prison, he connected people

Straits Times - June 27, 1999

With The Mute's Soliloquy, an account of suffering under Suharto's oppression, Pramoedya Ananta Toer has been hailed as Indonesia's Solzhenitsyn. Zuraidah Ibrahim reports

The Soviet Union under Stalin had its gulags. Closer home, Indonesia under Mr Suharto had its string of penal colony islands.

Created ostensibly to wean political prisoners off their ill- informed anti-nationalist ideologies, the camps were in reality far less sophisticated, using brutality to strip people of their basic human rights and crush their spirits into acquiescence.

This shameful side of Indonesia was rarely seen, or talked about, while the country was prospering under the former President's New Order government.

His critics at home were silenced both by the impressive economic growth figures, particularly the self-sufficiency in rice production that lifted millions out of poverty, and, of course, the tried-and-tested methods of force.

Among those who suffered incarceration under Mr Suharto was Pramoedya Ananta Toer, one of the most gifted writers Indonesia has produced this century.

His latest offering to be translated into English is The Mute's Soliloquy, a loose autobiography woven from essays and letters written during his years of exile on the remote barren island of Buru, off Sulawesi and a stone's throw from riot-torn Ambon.

Soliloquy is a raw remembrance of repression. It is stark testimony to the Indonesian military's mutilation of flesh and soul in the name of nation-building.

The writings were smuggled out of the colony by a Catholic priest, and the Bahasa Indonesia version of the book was banned in Indonesia until the fall of Mr Suharto in May last year.

The author was among the first inhabitants of Buru Island, spending a decade there in grinding labour, but not before being tortured in other prisons in Jakarta for four miserable years.

He was arrested at his house in East Jakarta in October, just a month after the failed coup in 1965, which led to the ouster of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president.

That night of what was actually plain kidnapping was a harrowing experience recalled several times in the book.

He had just settled down to edit a collection of short stories written by Sukarno, when soldiers banged on his door, offering to lead him to safety before a seething mob that had gathered and surrounded his house under the cover of darkness.

It was not safety that the military officers hauled him to, but docile surrender. As soon as he walked out, his hands were tied behind his back, a noose was flung around his neck, and his body shoved onto a truck that sped away as the mobsters rained stones on his house and set his beloved library burning.

His pleas to save his archive of books were met with a blow on the head from the butt of a rifle. It left him almost deaf.

From then on, the horror only deepened. From the struggles en route to Buru in a rotting steel bucket of a boat flooded with faeces, to the blatant robbery of the prisoners by the military guards, to the killings that went on regularly on the island, the book exposes the brutality that lurked beneath the benign alabaster cast worn by the Suharto regime.

Among some of these prisoners were young children who had scoured the jails of Jakarta to search for their missing fathers. Having found them, they refused to leave and ended up serving interminable sentences, too.

As for Pramoedya, he claims he did not know what it was that he was arrested for. To this day, there has been no official explanation. Elsewhere, however, others have argued that he was pro-communist and a sympathiser of the PKI or Indonesian Communist Party, and before his arrest, he had been highly critical of anti-communist writers of the early '60s.

Pramoedya is adamant that he was never communist nor a sympathiser. He says he had only been an adviser on a cultural body affiliated to the PKI.

His anger and bitterness over his arrest is unequivocal even as he says he is not out for revenge or reparation. The New Order government, he says in the book, was built on a "foundation of mass murder".

This is an undeniable fact of history. Hundreds of thousands of communists and alleged PKI sympathisers were killed in the years immediately after the coup. To this day, the numbers on how many were executed remain hazy and the interpretation of events vary with different accounts.

Even if the question of whether Pramoedya was communist or a sympathiser is never settled by any official word, there is another more obvious reason why he had to be shut away.

He intimates this very subtly in the book. In a chapter about freedom and release, he recalls how scores of fellow prisoners from all corners of the island travelled through dirt, crocodile-infested rivers and elephant grassland to ply him with presents and bid him goodbye when rumours flew that he would be among the first to be sent home.

In a deeply-moving account of their affection for him, a young man said he was glad in a way that he was not freed after all because the prisoners still had someone who was a father to them.

Another said that the prisoners were all hoping that he would be released: "It doesn't matter if we have to stay as long as you are freed."

Writers who connect with the people they write for have always been a threat to the legitimacy of oppressive regimes. And it is this ability to connect that would have made Pramoedya a dangerous commentator if left unmuzzled in the social and political turbulence that ensued after the 1965 coup.

The military regime had reason to worry. Not without his own ideas of what nationalism and independence ought to mean for Indonesians, Pramoedya was an influential, well-known writer at the time of his arrest. In 1960, he sparked controversy with a book called Hoakiau (The Chinese), which was banned by Sukarno.

While Soliloquy documents the harshness of the life of a political prisoner, it is not without hope.

Despite the indifference to life showed by the guards at the Buru camp or by the prisoners too bone-tired to care, Pramoedya himself stays sane and refuses to submit.

In his musings, he considers such issues as freedom, the role he could play in the nation and the inhumanity of the Suharto regime.

"This manifestation of an unjust and uncivilised society, one lacking in any sense of humanitarianism, must be engraved in national memory," he writes in one of the essays.

Transmigration, a policy started by the Dutch to move populations from overcrowded regions such as Java to the more remote islands while displacing the indigenous peoples, and which was intensified by the New Order government, is also examined.

As for how ethnic clashes can threaten Indonesia's unity -- a major theme in the past year -- the lessons were learnt by Pramoedya and his fellow prisoners during their stay on Buru, when the indigenous people killed some of their fellow prisoners out of spite and anger.

More down to earth but just as bursting with ideas are his letters of advice to his children. Whether it is about loving their stepmother or liking social science and passing on study tips, Pramoedya the absentee parent tries his best to offer fatherly advice through his letters, even though he doubts they would reach his children.

While in prison, he also receives a letter from none other than Mr Suharto, who said enigmatically: "For every person, a mistake in judgement is common, but that must of course be followed by its logical consequence, that being 'honesty, courage, and the ability to rediscover the true and accepted road'."

In true Javanese non-speak, he did not say what the mistake was. From him came an equally polite reply, intimating that, yes, his parents, too, had taught him to admit to mistakes and there, he left the argument.

It is his writings and his refusal to submit to the aggressor that saw him through his years in prison. He was able to write only after several years on the island, and it enabled him, as he says, "to suppress life's personal disappointments".

It is tempting to wonder if, in another age, he would have suffered the same fate, and to lament the loss of what could have been the most valuable years of his writing genius. But then, would a different history have made Pramoedya what he is today?
 
Arms/Armed forces

The taming of Indonesia's loose cannons

South China Morning Post - June 27, 1999

Vaudine England, Jakarta -- Set back from a junction of tree- lined avenues in the West Java capital of Bandung stands a white Dutch-era mansion. It is the headquarters of Kodam III -- the Siliwangi provincial Military Command.

Across the lawns and up the grand staircase, the visitor's first sight on entering the office of the Siliwangi commander, Major- General Purwadi, is a stuffed tiger.

It represents the pride of these Indonesian fighting men. For the elite Siliwangi officers are named after the last king of West Java who, according to legend, never died but lived on in the form of a tiger.

This gives the Siliwangi men their official viewpoint that there is no imposition of men with guns on an unwilling populace, but a historically sound, long-standing and inter-connected relationship between Siliwangi soldiers and civilians.

"We live together, we stay together with the people," General Purwadi says. "So if there are problems in the community, we try to help, for example in agriculture, medical assistance and such.

"Our motto is that the Siliwangi [command] is the people of West Java, and the people of West Java are the Siliwangi." After a couple of hours with General Purwadi, it is almost possible to believe this. But these are sensitive and confusing times for Indonesia's armed forces.

A newly open society with investigative journalists, outraged relatives of people killed or tortured by soldiers, vocal intellectuals and more competitors for national power is raising questions about where the military fits in.

Can it be true that a "reformist" group of generals is changing the alternately loved and loathed institution from within?

General Purwadi does not fit easily into the stereotype of an Indonesian general. He is courteous, efficient and twinkles with charm through a haze of the occasional kretek (clove) cigarette. He is also tipped as a man who may rise to the highest echelons of one of the most influential institutions in Indonesia.

So when he speaks of the military's mission on behalf of the masses he is not just spinning a line, but bringing to the fore the most deeply-felt belief of any committed Indonesian officer: without the armed forces, the country would not have achieved independence, and would have fallen apart many times since. This remains the root idea behind dwifungsi, the military's doctrine of its dual role, in defence and social-political affairs.

"It's about their rightful place in history," a Western defence attache says of the military's self-perception. "The belief that they are society, and are at one with it, permeates the armed forces to this day. Thus, it is their duty to hold the nation together."

There is much truth in the assertion. The army has long been the glue holding the disparate country together, but a remarkably brutal glue.

And that brutality is coming to haunt them. In many ways, this is now a military on the run, desperately trying to patch up past messes, trying secretly to maintain a presence in the restive areas of Aceh and East Timor, and explicitly asserting its commitment to constitutional processes.

The military's pivotal faction in the national parliament has been reduced, through legal debate, to 38 out of 500 seats. Major-General Agus Wirahadikusumah told the army-backed Republika newspaper: "If the people want it scrapped, we will do away with our representation at the parliament.

"We also know that the 1945 constitution and even the Pancasila [state ideology] are both man-made, not a holy book that cannot be modified."

The military has also let the police go its own, civilian, way. The Armed Forces of Indonesia, or ABRI, used to include the army, navy, air force and police. Now the police are autonomous, while the three branches of the military are named the Indonesian Defence Force, or TNI.

Military officers are no longer allowed to double as civilian bureaucrats. Thousands of officers holding positions in the civil service and legislatures have been told to leave the armed forces or leave their civilian jobs.

On top of that, every fashionable TNI general now talks of the need for a "new paradigm", and of his new-found aversion to "practical politics".

So there are cases such as that of Colonel Sri Roso Sudarmo, just court-martialled for offering bribes to a Suharto-linked foundation in order to be reappointed as Bupati, or regent, of Bantul district in central Java.

But Colonel Sudarmo also highlights the military's dark side. Among the countless victims of military abuse -- the thousands of women raped, family heads murdered, the students and artists tortured and missing -- is the journalist Fuad Syafruddin. He made the mistake of exposing Colonel Sudarmo's financial dealings and did not live to see his young wife and child into middle age. He was beaten to death in August 1996. No murderer has been found.

The parallel realities pile up. In East Timor, TNI officers train paramilitary groups who slaughtered at least 30 worshippers in a church in April and rampaged through the capital, Dili, shooting wildly and burning down homes.

Yet in Ambon, when murderous violence broke out between Muslims and Christians earlier in the year, residents fled to the nearest military bases for protection, hoping the soldiers would live up to their founding fathers and rise above the fray.

One can almost feel sorry for some in the army. As many of the older, retired generals will point out, they did not ask the young General Suharto to ride to power on the backs of at least half a million corpses in the mid-1960s. They did not even like him.

But Mr Suharto went on to set up a 32-year regime in which the army became so domesticated, so mired in local administration and business deals, that they became "Suharto's troops" instead of "the nation's troops".

It is certainly believable that many of those generals who entered the force without proper boots but with nationalist ideals are now eager to reform.

But these are also the men who lead troops who can shoot at least 41 unarmed civilians -- including mothers and children eating lunch at home -- as they did in Aceh on May 3. And they tell their Western counterparts they cannot handle watching a rugby match because "it's too violent".

Last year's events have given the military a rare opportunity to get their house in order, if they so choose.

It was the commander-in-chief (and concurrently the Minister of Defence), General Wiranto, who helped ease his former patron, Mr Suharto, out of office and who triumphed over former Lieutenant- General Prabowo Subianto, the man believed responsible for the shooting of students in May last year that precipitated Mr Suharto's fall. General Wiranto let the students occupy parliament during those heady days of change, all the while keeping in touch with Mr Suharto, the man to whom he owed his rise after a stint as Mr Suharto's aide-de-camp.

"Wiranto is like a diamond, with many sparkling facets. Seen from many sides, he still sparkles," the defence attache says.

Southeast Asia-watchers wonder if General Wiranto is Indonesia's answer to the Philippines' president Fidel Ramos. Mr Ramos was head of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos' hated constabulary, but crossed in 1986 to help bring Corazon Aquino to power. Repressing his urges to take over then, he protected her rule against countless coups, to go on to win the presidency through the ballot box in 1992.

General Wiranto does nurture ambitions, if advisers close to him are to be believed. But talk of a mere vice-presidential slot is discounted as he surely exercises more power than that where he is. And diamonds can be deceptive.

When General Wiranto appears in a province soon after a decapitation or communal murder spree to announce a peace deal and take the credit, he may simply be trying his best to hold the nation together in the only way he knows.

The military forces, numerically small relative to the population, cannot hope to contain the violence, and must battle a growing perception that though politically strong, the army is militarily inept.

He could be promoting his presidential aspirations and cheering on his troops at the same time. Or he could be turning a blind eye to the involvement of his men in provoking the violence in a machiavellian conspiracy to keep his military at the centre of power, come what may.

General Wiranto also presides over a military divided by political competition. There are the "green", or more overtly Islamic, generals who coddle President Bacharuddin Habibie and would like to depose General Wiranto at the earliest opportunity -- such as State Migration and Resettlement Programmes Minister General Hendropriyono.

Army Chief of Staff Subagyo is another, who is also involved in competition regarding arms procurement. Another old-style general is Feisal Tandjung, who is unlikely to countenance any fundamental change of military ways.

There remain "Prabowo's boys", men loyal to the former special forces commander who has wealthy friends in the Middle East. Even General Wiranto's sophisticated "thinking general", Lieutenant- General Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono, who speaks long and often about reform, is said to have his eye on the top job.

Then there are men such as General Yunus Yosfiah, veteran of East Timor campaigns, implicated in the murder of journalists there in 1975, now strikingly open and Minister for Information. He might have hoped for a higher position, but now he says: "I'm trying to retire [from the army]. I want this country to be more democratic."

According to General Yunus, who smiles broadly under his dark shock of hair, only a free press can help the military fix its failings.

"The main problem for the armed forces is how to make them disciplined, how to make them behave properly," he says. "When I give lectures at Bandung [staff college], I'm trying to make them understand why we should create freedom of the press to improve democratic quality. I tell them: 'If you're allergic to criticism from the press, then it means you should behave properly.' "

Fighting words from a military which, even when members call for greater openness, knows that full revelation of military crimes would unravel the institution, if not the nation.

A Western military officer experienced with the Indonesians confesses he finds nothing in common between his military tradition and that of the Indonesians. "We are worlds apart -- culturally, morally, there's just nothing in common. They are trained bullies. And whatever they say, there is this vast disconnection between where they want to go and how to get there."

Solutions to such puzzles may never be known. But, as the University of Washington's Indonesia expert Professor Daniel Lev said recently: "Anybody who believes there's going to be any legislative or political reform unless the army withdraws from politics is dreaming."

Generals who have been active in either Aceh or East Timor, where terrorising the population has been routine, evince no shame about their record. After all, their heavy-handedness can be seen to work if effective repression is the need of the nation.

But one is left wondering if these generals are incredibly clever -- to spread fear as a way to justify a continued role in such areas -- or incredibly stupid, not to see that fear foments hate in return.

"I'd veer towards the incredibly stupid," the defence attache says. But at the same time, he admits his suspicion that perhaps Mr Suharto, the wiliest general of all, had even encouraged the attacks on Megawati Sukarnoputri in 1996 as a plot to create an acceptable opposition leader when the time came to move on. Certainly Ms Megawati has no intention of putting Mr Suharto -- the man who deposed but did not kill her father, president Sukarno -- in the dock.

Does the army's restraint on election day on June 7 -- when no soldiers were in sight of the majority of voters for the first time in decades -- mean these trained killers are indeed adjusting happily to life back in the barracks? Evidence in favour of a reforming military is available for all to see. But the labyrinthine processes behind the exercise of power, in Indonesia as elsewhere, suggest any congratulatory champagne should be kept on ice for a while yet. Does a tiger change its stripes?


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