TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, Desember 1995

=== [PDF page 1] === Tapol bulletin no, 132, December 1995 This is the Published version of the following publication UNSPECIFIED (1995) Tapol bulletin no, 132, December 1995. Tapol bulletin (132). pp. 1-24. ISSN 1356-1154 The publisher’s official version can be found at Note that access to this version may require subscription. Downloaded from VU Research Repository https://vuir.vu.edu.au/26010/ === [PDF page 2] === ISSN 1356-1154 The Indonesia Human Rights Campaign TAPOL Bulletin No. 132 December 1995 Xanana speaks to the world In a remarkable interview with journalist John Pilger, Xanana Gusmao, leader of the East Timorese resistance, speaks defiantly of his jailer, Suharto whom he calls a murderer, and warns that unless the question of East Timor 's self-determination is solved, it could ignite an uprising in Indonesia itself. He also condemns the West for supplying Indonesia with arms that have been used with devastating effect against the East Timorese armed resistance. The interview is a personal record of the East Timorese holocaust and of a resistance movement that has survived solely on its popular base, without outside help. Its publication coincided with the twentieth anniversary of the Indonesian invasion on 7 December 1975, and has received far wider coverage than any interview to date given by the resistance leader. It was published in The Guardian, London on 2 December 1995 and in other papers around the world including 1he Nation (Bangkok), 1he Irish Times, 1he Canberra Times, Expresso (Portugal}, 1he Guardian Weekly and 1he Nation (USA). Radio stations around the world also broadcast sections from the answers recorded in Portuguese on audio-tape. Timorese and Indonesian activists join forces In their latest spectacular action, East Timorese protesters entered the Dutch and Russian embassies in Jakarta on 7 December, the 20th anniversary of the brutal Indonesian invasion in East Timor. For the first time, these actions also involved Indonesian activists. Forty-seven people entered the Russian embassy, while fifty-five managed to climb over the fences of the Dutch embassy. Altogether forty-three Indonesian activists participated in the two sit-ins. Other Timorese and Indonesians who tried to enter the French embassy were prevented from entering by heavy security. An East Timorese standing outside the Thai embassy was also arrested. Political significance The participation of Indonesian activists along with the East Timorese is clear proof that the issue of selfdetermination for East Timor is now firmly on the agenda of continued on page 3 In an introduction, Pilger · writes that he made contact with Xanana in prison through the underground network. The first messages from London, sent in code, proposed an interview on videotape but just as an affirmative reply was received, Xanana was put in solitary confinement, in the cell formerly occupied by Dr Soebandrio, Indonesia's former Foreign Minister, which meant that smuggling in a video camera was out of the question Much of the interview is devoted to describing his experiences fighting with the guerrillas siiice the invasion of East Timor in December 1975. On the day of the invasion, hundreds were killed in Dili, including the Australian journalist, continued on page 2 === [PDF page 3] === Roger East. 'Many people were brought to the harbour where they shot them one by one, as the Nazis did... They smashed down doors, firing their weapons at anybody and anything. They smashed up churches, leaving them full of urine and faeces. ' UK shares moral responsibility Asked about the role of Western arms to Indonesia, Xanana described it as 'extremely significant'. 'Jn the early years, American Bronco and Skyhawk aircraft relentlessly bombed and machine-gunned the camps and wells of the refugee population. And the new aircraft sold by Britain will invariably be used in East Timor. As for the denials that the Hawks will not be used against us, the Western powers, concerned primarily with profits, have made these lies the condition for the continuing sale of arms and ammunition. The British Government must accept its share of moral responsibility for the war in East Timor. The imminent sak of 24 Hawks provides Jakarta with the approval it requires that it may continue to persecute and murder with impunity. ' After describing Australian politicians, Evans and Keating as being men 'without principles... kowtowing to the Suharto regime', Xanana Gusmao puts forward his suggestions for a solution. 'We propose a process that gives everyone the right to debate integration {with Indonesia}, autonomy or independence based on the UN's understanding ofEast Timor's legal-political status. After a period of time,.we proposeplebiscite to be carried out under intemat10nal sup~rvi sion. The regime is now aware that the case of East 1imor is a far greater threat to its credibility than.any other domestic problem.' A call to action Asked what people all over the world can do to. help bring about freedom in East Timor, Xanana Gusmao said: 'Go out on the streets and protest in front ofthe nearest Indonesian embassy, as they do in Australia. Put the lie to Indonesian claims that the problem of East Timor is a domestic one for Indonesia. During the African colonial wars {the Portuguese dictator] Marcelo Caetano was mobbed in the streets ofLondon and forced to return to Portugal like a bandit fleeing from the police. Actions such as these are worth more than a million letters written to Suharto or Boutros Ghali. Finally, speaking about his personal circumstances in Cipinang Prison, Xanana says: '/ am under the supervision of military intelligence. Everything I do is recorded every day, everything: the hour I wake up, what I do then, the hour I go to bed. I am not allowed to mix with other East Timorese prisoners or with other so-called "subversive" inmates. Intelligence officers visit me regularly and ask me stupid questions. I am in a cell three metres by four metres with an outside area ten metres long. I can see the sun through the iron bars. I don't have a lot ofpossessions, as you will appreciate.' Ali Alatas responds Predictably, Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, responding before he had seen a transcript or heard the tape, went on record as doubting the veracity of the interview. 'Mr Pilger will continue to try and discredit us but I don't believe that his credentials are such that many people will believe him.' [Radio Australia, 1 December] <VHY T,r>2£l,,G<iNho:,.rJisiA 'sG/IJLl'S i Y:fHI · ·,.•i.B_9_.9;_~e·.,•~-.·'_•)_·~-·.f_•.r,'PSt_:~ lllfi (1!11.. Xanana Gusmao, when he was still a free man in the mountains ofEast Timor. TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 4] === continued from front page the pro-democracy movement in Indonesia. For several )'.ears Indonesian activists have actively supported the actions of the East Timorese but the combined action by Indo- SPRIM's demands are: the withdrawal of all Indonesian military and police from East Timor and the holding of a referendum on independence in East Timor. Thugs mobilised The Indonesian authorities always use a variety of methods to quell demonstrations or actions. When military or : A fortified British embassy in Jakarta. nesians and East Timorese on 7 December is a significant step forward. By acting so publicly on such a sensitive issue at the very heart of the regime, the Indonesian participants have shown extraordinary courage. In a statement to the press on the day of the action, Budiman Sudjatmiko who chairs the PRD (Persatuan Rakyat Demokratik, Peoples Democratic Union) described Indonesia's claim to have integrated East Timor as a propaganda stunt by the Suharto regime. The Indonesian government has shown no intention of ever working towards an internationally accepted solution to the East Timor problem, the statement said. The newly-established SPRIM (Indonesians in Solidarity with the Maubere People) said that 20 years of integration had meant 20 years of brutal oppression. According to Wilson, National Co-ordinator of SPRJM: 'Jn fact the United Nations has already passed a resolution rejecting all of the Suharto regime's actions, and have held negotiations between the governments ofIndonesia and Portugal in which the UN acknowledges Portugal as the sovereign power in East Timor. ' police anti-riot squads are not appropriate, they recruit thugs, in particular the notorious Pemuda Pancasila, a wello~ganised and fanatically loyal political gang of extortionists, ruffians and body-guards. The violence used by these para-military gangs can be even more frightening than the military. In the case of several recent East Timorese asylum actions [see separate item] Pemuda Pancasila gangs surrounded the embassy grounds and held pro-integration rallies. At the Russian and Dutch embassies, the thugs were even more aggressive, forcing their way into the embassies while police stood by and watched. Armed with crowbars and bamboo sticks they attacked the unarmed peaceful demonstrators. Dutch embassy personnel, including the ambassador who tried to intervene, were also beaten up. Three of the four injured people, including the ambassador, had to be treated in hospital. Safe-conduct promises broken Most of the activists were not seeking asylum; once they had made their political demands, a safe-conduct guarantee had to be negotiated. With regard to the activists at the Russian. embassy, Poncke Princen, the human rights lawyer, received a guarantee from the police that the demonstrators wo~d be gr~ted s.afe passage to the LBH, the Legal Aid Institute. Despite this, the bus transporting the demonstrators drove straight to police headquarters. After interrogation they were releas~. The same thing happened with the people arrested outside the French and Thai embassies. At the Dutch embassy, conditions grew tense because of the presence of the Pancasila thugs. Instead of doing what continued on page 9 Conditions force Timorese to flee AULnprecedented wave of East Timorese asylum-seekers has been entering foreign embassies in Jakarta over the last few months. Along with a dramatic attempt by more than two dozen Timorese to reach Australia by boat, this points to the deteriorating human rights and the increasing desperation of many young Timorese Dozens try to flee by sea In mid-November a large group of Timorese made a dramatic but unsuccessful bid to leave for Australia by sea, following an earlier successful trip by eighteen Timorese boat-people who reached Darwin in May this year. On 18 November, the Tasi Diak left Hera, near Dili, the passengers claiming they wanted to visit the nearby Indonesian island of K.isar. Their intended destination was Australia. The group, including women and children, arrived in Korn, Lautem Regency the next morning, where the boat docked. A crew member deserted. Several on the boat went to find him and were threatened by the local population. The boat then left for Tutuala with the other three crew memb~rs. Near Jaco island, off the eastern most tip of East T1D1or, they came across a passenger ship, so they beached as a security measure, and hid for some time. That evening, still at Tutuala, seven youths among the passengers fled into the bush. The. remaining. passengers con~ued their journey to Australia on the high sea. After leaving East Timor waters they encountered four ships flashing red and yellow signalto them and were overflown by two helicopters, while a TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 5] === submarine approached making manoeuvres to hinder the boat's further progress. After the successful escape in May, the Indonesian Navy announced that patrols around East Timor would be stepped up to prevent further escapes. Seeing the dangers, the skipper changed course for the south coast, claiming that fuel and water were running out. They reached Be Aco after a further nine hours at sea on Tuesday 21 November in the morning, where the crew went ashore to fetch fuel. Questioning of the crew members by the local military command led to the denunciation of the passengers' motives, plus false accusations that they were carrying the anti-integrationist Fretilin flag, that the group included F alintil guerrillas, and resistance documents. The passengers were arrested and taken to the Viqueque military command (Kodim 1630) and questioned intensively for the rest of the day and night, and deprived of food and drink. On 22 November, the detainees were taken to Baucau and then to Dili. Six youths and six children were taken by army truck (plate DF 5874). A group of married couples was taken in an army Hino vehicle of the Viqueque military command. The names of twenty-seven of these boat-people have been made available, including a woman, Carmen CorteReal, whose husband was among the 18 who left East Timor earlier in the year by boat. She was trying to flee with her IO-month old baby and her brother. The names rece~ do not include the names of the seven youths wJw tred into the bush while in Tutualu. On 22 November, police chief in Dili, Colonel Andreas Sugianto, confirmed that the group had been arrested. The next day, Amnesty International issued an Urgent Action entitled: Arbitrary detention/Fear of Torture. These arrests give the lie to claims in Jakarta, by both Ali Alatas and Suharto, that East Timorese are 'free to leave'. larly the latter, which was timed to coincide ~th this ~ear's APEC summit in Osaka. It has been something of a disappointment that these cases have been reduced simply to demands for asylum. Indeed, Japanese solidarity ~~ups accused the press of deliberately ignoring the political demands of the asylum-seekers, who had made a seri~s of specific written requests to the Japanese government, mcluding demands that "the government of Japan, in conformity with the resolutions of the General Assembly and Security Council of the UN... put pressure upon Jakarta to cease its acts of reprisal, withdraw its troops from East Timor, impl~ent without pre-conditions all UN resolutions and all pomts agreed upon in the tri-partite and intra-Timorese dialogue, and force Jakarta to enter into dialogue with the CNRM... that the government of Japan grant concrete support to Portugal and the UN in their efforts to explore means of solving the conflict, given that the problem of East Timor is an international one and not the responsibility of Portugal and Indonesia alone; and that your government put pressure on Jakarta to free all East Timorese prisoners of conscience and to enter into dialogue with Xanana Gusmao, the leader who most genuinely represents the interests and sacrifices of the people of East Timor. 11 Fleeing from terror The occupation of the Dutch and French embassies, however, seem to have been spontaneous actions by small -groups of young Timorese who simply saw no other way out of an intolerable situation. "The situation here in East Timor is one of terror, tension and persecution," Armindo Maia, vice-rector of the University of East Timor, told one reporter [Reuters, November 19]. "I am not surprised these youngsters choose to go to foreign embassies as people in their position are generally in a hopeless situation." Five asylum bids There have been previous attempts by Timorese to gain asylum by going to foreign embassies, notably the occupation of the Finnish and Swedish embassies in 1992. The most famous incident, of course, is the occupation of the US Embassy during the APEC summit last November, although in this case the Timorese involved had not originally intended to seek asylum, but rather to persuade US President Clinton to take a firmer line on human rights in East Timor and Indonesia. But it is only recently that embassy occupations have become regular events, with five young Timorese entering the British Embassy on September 25; eight entering the Dutch Embassy on November 7; twenty-one the Japanese Embassy on November 14; and two separate groups, one of five youths and one of four, entering the French Embassy in less than a week, between November 16 and 20. All of the asylum-seekers have been sent on to Portugal, in a diplomatic manoeuvre which is becoming so familiar that it can now be arranged in less than 24 hours. Political demands Some of these occupations have been highly organised and made a number of political demands. These include the occupation of the British and Japanese embassies; particu- A young Timorese, victim ofpolice beatings. Antonio Rangel, one of the group who occupied the Dutch Embassy, spoke to the Portuguese press agency Lusa on November 9. He reported that gunshots are heard in Dili every night. "There almost are no Timorese youths in Dili, ~any have fled ~. the m~untains and others have stepped 11 mto the clandestiruty, said Rangel, adding that many had been arrested and "disappeared", and some of these were TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 6] === presumed killed. "It is the intention of the Indonesian army to eliminate the Timorese youth," he said. Two pro-integration demonstrations took place ·outside the French Embassy while Timorese youths sought asylum there. However, according to one Reuters reporter (November 20), many protesters told him they had been forced to participate, while others said that they had been paid. Some, as well, admitted that they were from Flores or WestTimor. The Indonesian government has claimed that the Timorese are free to leave the country any time they wish. "You can go away then," as Foreign Minister Ali Alatas put it. "I mean, good riddance... We are not deriving any pleasure from this, but it is getting a bit boring." [AP, November 17] This claim is undermined, however, by the arrest on November 21 of about twenty-five people, including two young children, attempting to escape to Australia in a small boat, following the example of the eighteen who took this dangerous route out last May. Those arrested in this attempt have now "disappeared" -- their whereabouts are unknown, and the CNRM fears they may have been killed. Meanwhile, the Australian government has · all-butordered the Refugee Review Board to reject the asylum claims of an earlier group of eighteen "boat people", stating that since they are eligible for Portuguese citizenship they cannot be refugees. It is clear that other countries are using Portugal's willingness to accept Timorese asylum-seekers as an excuse to evade their own responsibility and to treat East Timor as an issue of international concern. It is particularly ironic that Australia should attempt this line of argument, since it is the only government in the world to have given de Jure recognition to the Indonesian occupation. Church sanctuary in Australia In response to the government's comments, a number of Australian churches and religious groups have stated that they are prepared to offer sanctuary to Timorese should their asylum applications be rejected [JPS, November 9]. Sister Kathleen O'Connor, co-ordinator of the Christian Sanctuary Network, said that they were prepared to go to jail if necessary. The government's only response was to call the action "premature", as the Refugee Review Board has not yet made a final decision. The new Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Guterres, accused Indonesia of trying to use Portugal as a safety valve. "It seems obvious there is a new tactic by the Indonesian authorities for dealing with the problem in Timor. It is to create conditions for a generalised exit of Timorese (opponents) with the object of easing internal pressures" He stressed, however, that Portugal would continue to receive Timorese refugees. The Portuguese government, in fact, has been placed in a difficult position, since the only way to make other governments face their own responsibility towards East Timor would be to refuse Timorese refugees, and it is clear that this is an action they are not morally able to take. Peace prayers not permitted in Dili The most daring and important international commemoration so far of the 12 November Santa Cruz massacre took place this year on the initiative of the Asia Pacific Coalition for East Timor, who organised a pilgrimage of leading public figures to travel to East Timor and hold a prayer ceremony at the Santa Cruz cemetery. Although only a very small number of the participants were able to carry out this mission, the attempt nevertheless focused attention on the anniversary and provided inspiration for those inside and outside the country. Ahi Naklakan The pilgrimage formed 'part of a series of ceremonies aroWld the world, called Ahi Naklakan (Tetun for light) and involving the lighting of candles to call for the release of all political prisoners in East Timor and Indonesia, the implementation of the Geneva Accords and relevant UN resolutions in East Timor, a greater level of UN involvement, and regular monitoring by international human rights groups. Many of the candles lit by East Timor solidarity groups around the world on 12 November will remain burning until 10 December, Human Rights Day. "These humble demands of the East Timorese, if positively responded to, can be the first step in the process of healing, in the quest for lasting and genuine peace," the participants' statement reads in part. "May the Ahi Naklakan continue to shine in all the dark corners of this world and in the depths of our hearts forever." Participants in the pilgrimage travelled in several different groups. One group, led by Japan's Bishop Soma who chairs the Manila-based Asia-Pacific Coalition for East Timo~, was stopped at the airport in Surabaya moments before their flight was to take off for Dili on 9 November. This group also included Irish Senator David Norris, European Green Party parliamentarian Patricia McKenna, Maori leader Naida Pau, New Zealand Greenpeace leader and Anglican minister Rev. Ann Batten, and Australian performer Paul Stewart, whose brother Tony was killed in Balibo on 16 October 1975. "Surely any human being," stated Bishop Soma, "would naturally be moved to mourn such a terrible tragedy that claimed the lives of so many people and to want to offer prayers for them. But as a Catholic Bishop representing many Catholic faithful in Japan, I feel it a duty incumbent upon me to go to Santa Cruz cemetery and offer prayers there where the actual incident took place. I hereby express great regret that the carrying out of my duty as a leader of TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 7] === STTIMOR the Catholic Church has been prevented in this way by the Indonesian Government's deporting me and I hereby protest this action". Pilgrims reach Dill A second group was able to enter Dili but was deported before they were able to carry out the ceremony as planned. Nevertheless, this group managed to persuade the Indonesian authorities to let them hold a similar ceremony at the controversial statue of Christ the King near Dili. There they lit candles, and Lionel Fogarty, an Aboriginal poet:from Australia, read some of his poems. The group was then flown to Bali. Four people, including three delegates from the Philippines -- theology professor Myrna de Arceo, Doctor Maria Suplido, and journalist M.A Ceres P. Doyo -- were able to carry out a very brief ceremony at the Santa Cruz cemetery before they too were found and deported. The intention of Gus Dur to participate is extremely important, particularly in view of the attempts that are being made to stir up religious conflict in East Timor and to portray it as a religious-ethnic, rather than political, problem. Though Gus Dur, unlike the other participants on the pilgrimage, maintains that East Timor is part of Indonesia, nevertheless he felt it more than appropriate that he should travel there to pray for peace. "To strive for peace means acknowledging that there has been a terrible tragedy and much loss of life there over the past 20 years," he told an interviewer:from Tiras [23 November). ''Negotiations are the best way to fmd a solution to the question of East Timor... it's precisely because I have such a following that I should have the courage to take the first step... A morally justified act need not provoke reactions from anyone as long as we are certain that what we are doing is right." He denied suggestions that he might have withdrawn because of pressure from the military, though he received several phone calls from high-ranking officers attempting to dissuade him. Candles lit in East Timor were brought out with some of the participants and distributed to solidarity groups internationally, to be kept burning (near Indonesian embassies where possible) throughout the commemoration of the invasion on December 7 and up until December 10. MEP: 'Our visit was a success' But Irish European MP Patricia McKenna said the measures taken by Indonesian forces against the visitors showed that Jakarta's hold on East Timor was tenuous. 'The visit has been a success,' McKenna told Reuters after a news conference. 'Some of us didn't get in and we are disappointed. But the fact that they (the Indonesian government) needed to bar us for "security reasons" proves they don't really have control of East Timor and it is not part of Indonesia. Does this group look like a threat to anyone's security?' She said each delegate would now return home to argue for parliamentary condemnation of Indonesian rule in the former Portuguese colony. 'There will be a special debate in the European Parliament in the second week of December with a motion saying that until the situation in East Timor is resolved, no European country should supply weapons to Indonesia,' she said. Reed Brody, one of those expelled from Dili on Thursday, told reporters that Indonesian police had followed the visitors throughout their brief stay, on one occasion rounding them up on a beach at night. [Reuter, 11 November] All foreigners expelled Participants in the tour also included representatives from the United States, Germany, Cambodia and Namibia (British delegate Lord Avebury was forced to withdraw at the last moment due to ill health). Perhaps most significantly, however, two important figures from Indonesia also planned to take part, the well-known human rights activist Poncke Princen, and Abdurrachman Wahid (known as Gus Dur), the leader of Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, Nahdatul Ulama. Princen -- who is only too well-known to Indonesian authorities -- was stopped in Denpasar, while Gus Dur had to withdraw when his wife developed a serious medical problem. ~ well as the p~cip~ts in the pilgrimage, all foreign tounsts and others, mcluding the London-based journalist Hugh O'Shaughnessy, were expelled from East Timor on 10 November and the territory declared "closed". On November 12 itself, a terrified silence reigned as the streets were taken over by soldiers and police officers. Nevertheless, it is reported that four people were arrested in Dill presumably for. pl~g or attempting to carry out a protest. A small solidarity protest also took place in Jakarta. TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 8] === Terror reigns in Timor So many events have occurred in East Timor and elsewhere in the past two months that we have been compelled to confine our report this time to brief summaries of the major incidents. 12 November: Dili a ghost town Security forces including troops and police were out in force in Dili for several days leading up to 12 November, the fourth anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre when at least 273 people were shot dead and many more were injured or disappeared. On the day itself, contacts in the city said no Timorese were out on the streets. The Governor declared all demonstrations were banned. The army said people could go in small groups to lay wreaths in the cemetery; very few families did so. ot ·repe British face. AA~ Briti$1t 'J\eiospace abaut assurances. troniindonesia thffie t 'o~slia~e&sr•~ ~Pait tit the sightin~ in tlie'inile/k.n~J ¢'11 on Sundajtflli 12Noyember;l~ LOrdAveb0ry~~luwy S.tate Jerenf Hatil ··• h8d the effrori.teiY t0 msist that 'We Iildonesian eve.µn; Muslim circles tum the heat on Timor Since the disturbances in East Timor last September, fuelled by insults levelled at the Catholic Church [see TA- POL Bulletin No. 131, October 1995], some Muslim circles in Indonesia have devoted unprecedented attention to the situation in East Timor. Refusing to acknowledge that East Timor is an illegally occupied country and that the arrival of tens of thousands of Indonesians in the territory has spread deep resentment among the East Timorese who face marginalisation in their own land, these circles are taking up the cudgels for the 'Indonesian minority' who are now running the economy, the schools and other sections of society. Most of the comments and reports have appeared in the daily Republika and the monthly Ummat, publications controlled by the Muslim organisation, ICM!, chaired by one of the most powerful political figures in Indonesia, Dr B.J. Habibie. $ince October, several issues have surfaced: • Calls for the replacement of Bishop Belo a..l\er claims that he had called for Timor to become a Catholic autonomous region; and calls for the East Timor diocese to be incorporated into the Indonesian Catholic Church. • Minister for Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taber visited the Vatican to ask it to move in this direction but returned empty-handed. The Vatican reaffirmed that there could be no change in the status of the East Timor Church as long as the UN refuses to recognise Indonesia's annexation. • Heavy pressure was exerted by a number of Muslim organisations for the repeal of a decree issued by the Governor of East Timor in July stipulating that the construction of places of worship can only go ahead with the endorsement of, among others, the local priest. It was claimed that this was hampering repairs to mosques and other places of worship damaged during the recent disturbances. The Interior Minister, Yogie S. Memed, responded by instructing Governor Osorio Abilio Soares to repeal the decree. In fact, such regulations exist in many parts of Indonesia to ensure religious harmony. And in any case, the decree had nothing to do with the repair of places of worship. • A forum of leaders from several religions has been set up in East Timor, consisting of representatives of the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, the Indonesian Ulema Council and Buddhist and Hindu groups. Signing on behalf of the Catholic Church was Father Domingos Sequeira, not Bishop Belo who is clearly not happy with the forum. This is clearly a move aimed at minimising the role of Bishop Belo. However, this has in no way undermined the Bishop's role and high standing among the East Timorese. * A recent issue of Ummat carried on its front cover photos of Bishop Belo and Salman Rushdie, insinuating that both men represent a threat to Islam. One article alleged that there was a 'grand design' to comer Islam in Indonesia, which included the nomination of Bishop Belo for this year's TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 9] === Nobel Priz.e for Peace and Carmel Budiardjo's Right Livelihood Award. Senior UN official visits East Timor The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose Ayalo Lasso visited East Timor early in December, following a decision adopted at the 199.5 session of the UN Human Rights Commission. This is the highest UN official ever to visit East Timor. For Jakarta, the visit did not go well. Lasso stressed the need for Indonesia to account fully for the fate of those still missing after the 1991 Dili massacre, in conformity with the UN report last year by Special Rapporteur Bacre Ndiaye. But Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said Indonesia will not allow an independent probe and regards the case as. closed. Controversy also surrounded Lasso•s meeting wtth Xanana Gusmao, the Timorese leader now jailed in Cipinang prison. After an initial rejection, Lasso was eventually allowed to visit Xanana who gave him a letter addressed to UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Another bone of contention was the proposal to set up an office of the UN Human Rights Commisssion in Indonesia. The recently appointed High Commissioner also urged the Indonesian government to ratify without delay all the UN conventions on human rights. During his two-day visit to East Timor Ayalo Lasso met several Timorese public figures and received information about the ongoing human rights violations in the region. Arrests, trials and sentences Following widespread disturbances in Dili in October around 240 people were arrested. Bobby Xavier, an important clandestine activist, one of the arrested, was later released. The police say 3.5 people will go on trial on charges connected with the disturbances in September and October. Henrique Belmira da Costa a resistance leader, has been sentenced to six years and two months. He was charged as a 'separatist' who supplied ammunition to the rebel armed forces. Belmira sustained severe injuries while under interrogation. 1975 Balibo killings under the spotlight 16 October 1995 marked the twentieth anniversary of the murder by Indonesian troops ofjive journalists working for two Australian television companies in Balibo, a village near the border between East and West Timor. The two crews had gone to film Indonesian troop incursions across the border from West Timor, two months before the full-scale Indonesian invasion took place. The five newsmen were two Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, New Zealander Gary Cunningham and two Britons, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie. The twentieth anniversary turned into an occasion not only for commemorating the murders but also for new revelations that have given even greater credence to the widespread conviction that the men were shot and killed deliberately by Indonesian troops and did not die in crossfire between fighting East Timorese factions as the Indonesian Government claim. The Australian and British governments did nothing at the time, and have done nothing since, to in'." v~stigate the crime, preferring to accept the Indonesian version. Officer linked to murder trained in UK The Indonesian officer who commanded the troops responsible for the deaths was Moh. Yunus Yosfiah, then a major in the special forces and now a major-general in the Indonesian army. It has now emerged that Yunus Yosfiah came to the UK for training in 1989 at the prestigious Royal College of Defence Studies. As Hugh O'Shaughnessy writes in the Independent on Sunday, he could not have been chosen for the College without the recommendation of the British Embassy in Jakarta and the co-operation of the Ministry of Defence. In fact, Yosfiah's connection with the killings is on public record. A now-defunct Australian weekly, the National Times, named him in an investigation published in 1979. Yosfiah served several terms in East Timor. He was responsible for the murder of Nicolau Lobato, the Fretilin leader, in December 1978 [Tempo, 19 July 1986) His most recent stint in East Timor was as commander of the district command, Korem 164, responsible for security in the whole territory of East Timor, from late 1985 for about two years. The gruesome details of how the five men met their deaths which have been pieced together in many account, has been described for the first time by an East Timorese now living in exile in Australia who witnessed the incident from 50 metres away. He said: 'I saw one Australian come out of the door with his hands up saying something like: "Australian! Journalist!" He was struck down instantly by a knife blow from an Indonesian soldier.' After describing how soldiers fired through the windows of the hut where the newsmen were staying and seeing a wounded man run out of the back of the hut trailing blood, then drop dead, the witness said that Yosfiah's men set the five corpses up with guns aIJd photographed them, to suggest they had taken part in the defence of Balibo along with Fretilin forces. Their bodies were the doused with petrol and burned. Brian Peters' sister, Maureen Tolfree, commenting on the revelation that her brother's killer had been trained in the UK, said: 'I couldn't believe he had been here in England studying. Whether the Government knew about him, I don't know; I'm no politician. But I think the whole thing stinks.' [Independent on Sunday, 5 November] Jim Dunn visits Britain Jim Dunn, a leading Australian writer on East Timor affairs and specialist on the Balibo murders, was invited to the UK by Maureen on the occasion of the 20th anniversary. He visited Bristol to meet Brian's family and media colleagues. Jim also launched his revised and updated account of the Balibo murders: Timor: The Balibo Incident in Perspective, at the House of Commons, at a press conference convened TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 10] === by the Parliamentary Human Rights Group on 16 October. (Copies of the report are available from TAPOL for £1.50 including postage.) Australian Government initiates inquiry Twenty years after the brutal murders, the Australian Government has finally announced that it is to hold an investigation into the Balibo incident. The mounting pressure on Canberra by numerous solidarity groups in Australia, the many reports in the media on the murders and in particular the new revelations has clearly forced the governmc:;nt's hand. The inquiry will be led by Tom Sherman, retiring chair of the National Crime Authority. The inquiry will commence in February next year and will be asked to report in May, after the forthcoming elections in Australia. Shirley Shackleton, widow of Greg Shackleton, who has campaigned untiringly for East Timor since his death, said she was 'deeply suspicious' of the government's motives. 'I hate to be suspicious but after twenty years, I'm finding so much side-stepping, I wonder if this isn't just another way of damage control.' She said she and Paul Stewart, the brother of Tony Stewart, had written to the Foreign Affairs Dep~ent calling for an inquiry but had not been contacted smce. Indonesia shuns any move to re-open the issue and says it will not co-operate with the inquiry. Foreign Department spokesman Ghaffar Fadyl said the matter was closed. 'It has nothing to do with us as it happened before Indonesia was there.' [Reuter and AFP, 29 November] But Indonesia's attempt to hide the truth has been confounded by a statement from Guilherme Goncalves - now residing in Jakarta - the first governor of East Timor after the Indonesian invasion, who has described as 'an invention' a statement he signed with others in October 1975 giving the Indonesian version of the incident. 'I was told by the Indonesian authorities to give a reason that would not affect the relationship between Indonesia and Australia. It was just invented.' [The Age, 15 October] continued from page 3 they could to afford the activists r--"iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;===============,,,--,,---~--protection, the embassy staff told the Timorese and Indonesians that they would have to 'choose' between leaving voluntarily or being taken out by the police. These were the circumstances under which the fifty-five activists eventually left the embassy. Later claims by the Dutch Government that they left 'voluntarily' are quite false. Fate of the activists unclear At the time of going to press, the fate of many of the activists was still unclear. On 10 December, Petrus Haryanto, secretary-general of SMID was taken away from a clinic in Jakarta where he had gone with a fellow-activist for treatment......_---------=========:::!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The colleague, Yanto, said that Petrus was taken away by a local army officer to an un20 years after the invasion of East Timor known destination. Yanto himself left the clinic and immeThroughout the world actions were held on 7 December diately went into hiding. commemorate the invasion of East Timor in 1975. According to one of the Timorese, all those from the In Britain, Campaign Against Arms Trade, TAPOL, Dutch embassy sit-in had been subjected to intense interrogation and sleep deprivation. 'We don't feel safe and we British Coalition for East Timor and "Stop the Hawks - No continue to be chased by the authorities. Asylum is the only Arms to Indonesia", organised a veiy successful Lobby of way for us.' He said they had all been 'kicked hit and burnt Parliament. Calling for a total embargo of military equipwith cigarettes' dUring the 24-hour questioning. [AFP, 11 ment to Indonesia, almost three hundred people turned up to speak to their Members of Parliament (MP) about this desDecember] picable arms trade. Throughout the day a stream of distinguished speakers addressed the issues in the nearby WestHolland's responsibilities minster Central Hall. The number of people involved is an By requiring all the activists to leave the embassy, the indication of the size of the arms embargo movement loDutch authorities must take responsibility for their safety. cally, nationally and internationally. This photo is of the In a letter to the Dutch Foreign Minister, TAPOL called ceremony outside of the Houses of Parliament in memory of on him to hold the Indonesian Government to account for all the East Timorese who have died and suffered at the all the East Timorese and Indonesians who spent time in brutal hands of the Indonesian regime. the Dutch embassy. TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 11] === Sri-Bintang goes on trial The trial of member of Parliament Sri-Bintang Pamungkas has begun. He is being charged not with organising German protesters to demonstrate against President Suharto as we were led to believe when police interrogations first began in April Now, it's just about a lecture on economics he gave to Indonesian students at a university in Berlin. When Suharto returned home from Germany in April this year, he launched a furious attack vilifying Sri-Bintang Pamungkas and other Indonesians for allegedly masterminding several demonstrations which wreaked havoc during the head of state's visits to several Germany cities. His call for retribution found a ready response among top armed forces officers, the Attorney-General slapped a one-year ban on the MP's foreign travel and proceedings for his dismissal from Parliament were speeded up, so as to remove his immunity from interrogation and prosecution. As police interrogations proceeded, at first summoned as a 'witness' then suddenly transformed into a 'suspect', he mounted his own legal challenges, publicly ridiculed the charges and warned that plenty of people in Germany were ready to testify that he had had no hand in organising the demonstrations. Police 'evidence' quickly vanished into thin air but such was the furore unleashed by Suharto that a trial simply had to go ahead, a case had to be constructed. The indictment, a damp squib Charged under articles 134 and 136 of the Criminal Code which allow a maximum sentence of six years, SriBintang is accused of 'attacking the prestige and reputation' of the President during lectures he delivered in Hanover, Cologne, Aachen, Berlin and Amsterdam. The four-page charge-sheet, short by any standard, consists almost entirely of alleged quotations from Sri-Bintang's speech at the Technology Building of the University of Berlin, at the invitation of the Indonesian Students Association (PPQ. He is said to have compared Suharto to Sukarno 'who both deviated from the Constitution' and 'behaved like dictators' and to have described Suharto as 'anti-democratic'. He also criticised the workings of the legislature and is quoted as talking - it must be said in sentences that don't make a great deal of sense about his screening when nominated for Parliament. Those who drafted the indictment clearly had great difficulty finding anything incriminating. Even by Indonesian intel standards which are poor at the best of times, the indictment is a shoddy piece of work. The quotations were taken from tapes made by a plant in the audience; according to the indictment, photos were also taken by agents present at the lecture. As for the demonstrations he is supposed to have organised, they are relegated to a three-line sentence stating merely that the defendant 'saw' an anti-Indonesian demonstration and 'saw' the Hanover Fair. After all the hype, this document is truly a damp squib. 10 Many supporters in attendance The heavy security presence at each session caused the defending lawyers to protest to the court. Large crowds, most of them students at the Technology Faculty of the University of Indonesia where Sri-Bintang teaches economics, have attended each session, cheering the defendant and frequently shouting, 'Long live Bintang!' After the first session, there were clashes between demonstrators outside the courthouse and security forces, as a result of which several students were arrested. Several foreign observers from embassies have been attending the trial, as well as a representative of the German Commission for Human Rights, Dr Uwe Tonndorf. He told the press that the trial of Sri-Bintang was being closely followed internationally, especially in Germany. Defence challenges the indictment As soon as the prosecutor had delivered his indictment on 8 November, Sri-Bintang rose to present his own counter-statement, setting down in detail the extraordinary accusations made against him in the media by senior army officers and declarations by the Indonesian embassy in Bonn insisting that they had proof that he was involved in the TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 Sri Bintang enterillg the co111t. === [PDF page 12] === demonstrations. He reminded the court that the President's ~ statem~t about him had only mentioned his alleged mvolvement m demonstrations and had made no reference to the lectures he gave while in Germany. The defence team, all of them senior human rights lawyers, delivered their demurrer at the following session on 15 November. They reminded the court that the defendant had mounted an action with the State Administrative Court against the President for wrongfully dismissing him from Parliament, violating the procedures as set down by law. They argued that, by law, that lawsuit should be completed before the present trial can proceed. Were that case to succeed, the defendant's status as an MP would be restored, with serious implications for the current proceedings. They argued strongly against the continued use of the 'contempt' articles of the Criminal Code which were enacted during the Dutch colonial era to protect the Dutch Crown. The lawyers also rejected as unlawful a decree issued by the Attorney-General prohibiting the accused from going abroad. This decree was issued at the very start of the police interrogations, when Sri Bintang was being summoned as a 'witness', not yet as a 'suspect', whereas travel bans may only be imposed on people facing criminal charges. This travel ban is also being challenged in the State Administrative Court by the defendant. Intimidation amination of witnesses was due to com~ on 19 December. Meanwhile, in another court, Sri-Bintang lost his case against the President for wrongfully dismissing him as an MP. The dismissal resulted in Sri-Bintang losing his parliamentary immunity. While in the earlier sessions of the trial, the public gallery was full of pro-Bintang supporters, in later sessions, the courtroo01 was partly filled with toughs who also demonstrated outside the courthouse, shouting anti-Bintang slogans and directing insults at Bintang and his friends. Sri-Bintang to form new party As his trial was approaching the final stages, Sri-Bintang announced his intention to set up a new political party called the Democratic Union Party. He told Reuters this would be an alternative to the three officially-sanctioned parties. Before leaving for Germany last March, he had already spoken about this plan, as he became increasingly disenchanted with the PPP which he represented in Parliament. It was the PPP which initiated moves to have him dismissed from Parliament. Sri-Bintang said that the government would have no right to block the party's formation. 'It will be unconstitutional if the government bans me,' he told Reuters. [29 November] On 6 December, the judge turned down the legal arguments of the defence and declared the indictment valid. Ex- Tenipo scores another victory Indonesia's most popular political weekly, Tempo, which was banned in June 1994 won a second victory in November when a High Court threw out an appeal by the Information Minister against a lower court's decision condemning the ban as unlawful Tempo journalists say they are ready to publish again within weeks. When Tempo editors took their complaint against the ban to the State Administrative Court earlier this year, no one expected them to win, least of all the complainants themselves. Following their stunning victory, Information Minister Harmoko evidently hoped that he could get a higher court to overturn the verdict, giving the impression at the time that he would accept the higher court's decision and not take the case to the Supreme Court. But the Jakarta Administrative High Court has now confirmed that the Information Minister's ban is unlawful and has ordered the Minister to withdraw it. In this instance, the appeal was heard by five judges instead of the usual three. The presiding-judge, Charis Soebijanto, said this was to ensure a more objective verdict in a case that has had such a high profile. The Court not only ordered the defendant to withdraw the ban but also to issue a decision allowing the journal to start re-appearing. A legal oasis Lawyer Luhut Pangaribuan, a member of the journal's legal team, described the verdict as 'excellent'. 'For everyone seeking justice, this is like an oasis.' While he accepted that the decision might still be overturned by the·Supreme Court if Harmoko decides to take the matter further, he was encouraged that more and more judges are displaying the will to go against the stream. The High Court found that the ban was based on a regulation lower in legal status than the press laws of 196.6 as amended in 1967 and 1982 which disallows press bans. The Minister also failed to specify in the banning order the breaches of the law which the journal was said to have committed. [Ko~pas. 22 November] Mulya Lubis, also a member of the legal team, said there were obviously 'some people in the courts who arc concerned about the state of justicet the image of the oountry and the rule oflaw'. Former Tempo editor, Goenawan Mohamacl, speaking from Hongkong where he was attending a conference, described the verdict as a 'victory for law over power'. The journal's editor-in-chief, Filai Jufri, said the journalists, some of whom were now working for other publications, TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 11 === [PDF page 13] === CENSORSHIP .Minister while the Taufik-M81)'adi trial was in progress. needed only a couple of weeks to make plans to resume publication. But a setback for AJI journalists While Tempo journalists were c.elebrating their victory, two members of AJI, the Allianc.e of Independent Journalists, who were jailed for thirty-two months in September had their sentences increased on appeal by four months. Ahmad Taurlk and Eko Maryadi were found guilty of publishing 'hate-spreading' articles in the journal of the organisation, lndependen. The Court said that their writings were 'destructive... of people's unity' and 'reduc.e the participation of the people in the country's national development in a destructive manner that conflicts with the role of the press to enhanc.e national unity and increase people's awareness'. But the Court upheld a lower court two-year sentence against Tri Agus Siswomibardjo of Kabar dari Pijar and the one-year sentence against Danang Kukub Wardoyo, an office boy working for AJl [See TAPOL Bulletin, No. 131, October 1995] The chair of AJI, Santoso, deplored the decisions, saying that if justice were properly applied, all four men should be acquitted and released unconditionally. [Andreas Harsono, American Reporter correspondent, 28 November] Award for Suara Independen The London-based trade organisation, the International Press Directory, has given its 1995 Freedom of the Press Award to the AJI journal, Suara lndependen. The award will be handed over to Goenawan Mohamad at a ceremony in London on 6 December. SJ succeeded the organisation's first publication, lndependen, when it was declared illegal by the Information ABRI takes on the Internet The Indonesian armed forces, ABRI, has announc.ed its intention to 'wage a war of words' on the I_ntemet ~ause of its anxieties about the anti-Indonesian articles and information circulating on various networks. According to Marshall S. Diharto who has been put m charge of the Internet project, activists who have been. ~ery busy circulating damaging material include ~~ge Aditjondro, Paul Salim and Jusfiq Hadjar w~ose ob!ec~ve, he says, is to 'comer' senior government officials. Said L1eut.~neral Soeyono, ABRI chief-of-staff (who has been?taking ~e running on the OTB campaign -.s~ separate item), then: activities can be described as 'agitational and propagan~a aimed at destroying national uni~. 'We. 1:1~ to take. ac~on to counter-balance their work with positive information. It will be a 'war of information', he said. For TAPOL Bulletin readers with acc.ess to the Internet, we are happy to announc.e the two home pages that will be available for your perusal: Hankam.gov.net for the Defence Department, and ABRI.mil.net for the Armed Fore.es. You will fmd information there about the structure and personnel of both bodies, photographs(!), ranks,. duties ~d responsibilities, plus an account of defenc.e policy, tJ:ie ~story of the armed fore.es and lots more besides. All of 1t will be yours, in both Indonesian and English, for the cost of a phone-call. [Forum Keadilan, 4 December] As an organisation that has been using the Internet for the past six years - which only shows how we NGOs h~ve outstripped the regime - TAPOL welcomes our new sparnng partners. Like many others on the Internet, we look forward to downloading these contributions which could ~ave u~ a great deal of time and effort currently spe~t loo~g up mformation about offic.ers, their ranks and therr functions. continued from page 22 coverage on 1V and radio and in the print media which until then had ignored the student protests. It so happens that the story about the OPIC cancellation had broken on the day the forum was held, and hit the front pages of local newspapers. Furious at the protests, Moffett asked Loyola to return the money given for the chair, a clear signal ~ the.University to put pressure of the students to stop therr actions. He also demanded that the protesters provide evidence of his company's misdeeds or apologise. An emergency meeting of the student governing council was prevailed upon to. suppoadministration efforts to hold on to the money while antiFreeport activists started getting death threats. Several professors then sent a letter to the University Chancellor stating that if any students were expelled or suspended, classes would be cancelled. A week later on 13 November, the local Greens, the Sierra Club and Christi held a press conference outside Freeport-McMoran's international headq~arters at which they distributed over a hundred pages of articles and reports, documenting Freeport's complicity in ecological degradation political oppression and human rights abuses in West Pap~a, Among the documents was a copy of OPIC's letter which Moffett alleged did not contain the true contents of the letter. Pax 12 Moffett fetes Suharto but lobbying fails Freeport-McMoRan chief Moffett hosted a dinner held in Washington on 26 October to fete President Suharto during a visit to the US capital. Freeport is the largest foreign investment in Indonesia. The dinner was attended by a galaxy of US business CEOs of companies investing in Indonesia. During his visit to Washington, Suharto raised the OPIC decision with President Clinton, but to no avail. Freeport's top lobbyist in Washington is none other than former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, member of the Board of Directors, who earns $400,000 a year for his efforts. The Indonesian Government has asked for a formal explanation from OPIC. Indonesian ambassador Arifm Siregar described the decision as a 'slap in the fac.e for Indonesia'. 'Indirectly they are signalling that Indonesia tolerates those alleged violations,' he said. [The Australian, 9 November] Jakarta holds a ten per cent share in the company, benefits from the huge foreign exchange earnings and has raked in $516.4lm in taxes in the ten years to 1994, while the company has purchased goods worth $458.87m in Indonesia during the same period. [11RAS, 16 November] TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 14] === The spectre haunting Suharto Anti communist rhetoric has always been the hallmark of Indonesia's New Order regime, but thirty years on, a tired and increasingly discredited regime has clearly run out of steam. Unable to produce evidence of a single communist plot, it has now resorted to creating a myth about 'formless organisations' through which a non-existent PK/ is wreaking its vengeance on Indonesia. Unfortunately for Suharto and his cohorts, even people at the top are finding this hard to swallow. The opening shot catne from the 74-year-old President Suharto, speaking through one of his minions, the Minister for Youth and Sports Affairs, Hayono Isman. 'Leftwing formless organisations,' Suharto said, 'can embrace rightwing extremist forces to destroy the Pancasila.' The cue was quickly taken up by several generals, each battling to produce the juiciest morsels. the Indonesian press. Another is trade union leader Mochtar Pakpahan whose conviction for inciting workers last year was overturned recently by the Supreme Court. The third is George Aditjondro, academic and social critic, who had the 'effrontery' to leave Indonesia for a stint lecturing abroad, instead of waiting around for a kangaroo court to lock him up for several years for 'insulting' the President. Although we are not yet privy to ·the whole list, others so far natned as 'communists' are SriBintang Pamungkas, member of Parliatnent who was dismissed recently by Suharto and is now facing charges in court for lecturing in Germany about the Indonesian economy, and Paul Salim, a postgraduate student doing a PhD in Canada who is well known to Internet readers for his incisive criticisms of the Indonesian government. Damn, they've started labelling again!!!! Forum Keadilan No.JSRV, 6;ovember 1995 We are expected to believe that 'formlessly organised' nesian archipelago. In the process, yet more acronyms have been concocted. While KGB, standing for Komunis Gaya Baru (new-style communists) has been produced to remind Indonesians that for them at least, the Cold War is not yet over, the one that has made all the running is OTB or Or- ..i}>eak ouffor ~~~~ =!v~~!~:!~~~a;:~~~l1:.:f.1 of the Mala~ian Langu,age an4 Oterature Board.. ~fts Jtbc)gf ganisasi Tanpa Bentuk (formless organisations). In an attempt to give these fairy-tales an air of credibility, top-level regime spokesmen say they have 'proof about fifteen communists. They kicked off by producing three names out of the hat. Not surprisingly they are all people who have been causing the regime quite a bit of bother recently. One is the noted novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer whose Magsaysay Award gained him massive publicity in v•ber 1995]·· TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 13 === [PDF page 15] === International conspiracy One thing these individuals have in common is that they are all well known internationally. For this is not just a home-grown communist conspiracy. There are other dark forces at work. Forget Moscow Gold. What we have now is none other than.... TAPOL whose activists, Carmel Budiardjo and Liem Soei Liong, are in charge of a grand international strategy to discredit Indonesia. They are even supposed to be running the show at Amnesty International. Now that Beijing and Hanoi are so cosy with Jakarta, it has been necessary to create a new external threat. Liem Soei Liong, co-editor of this Bulletin, who holds a Dutch passport, was arrested in July last year in Jakarta and interrogated for three days by BIA (army intelligence) officers before being deported. They were seeking to establish a link between him and TAPOL and the pro-democracy movement in Indonesia which was organising protest against the banning of three leading political weeklies in June. In November.this year, another trouble-maker for the regime, Jusfiq HadJar, who has done so much internationally to sup~rt ~e independent trade union, SBSI, was arrested by police ID Jakarta while on a family visit and deported. Jusfiq lives in The Netherlands and holds a French passport. The international dimension is essential to Jakarta's myth-makers for how else can you accuse home-based NGO's of doing their bit to 'destabilise' Indonesia without dishing up 'evide~ce· of foreign influence? Only recently, unnam~ Indonesian NGOs were accused of 'sabotaging' Indonesia's development programmes for daring to criticise the Family Planning Programme (see separate item). The torch-bearers of this operation are Lieut. General Soeyono, armed forces ' chief-of-staff, who made such a n~e for him as commander in Central Java. throwing his weight around to comer regime critics, and Major-General Syarwan Hamid, assistant chief-of-staff for social and political affairs, former spokesperson for the armed forces. Suharto's henchmen Lt General Soeyono is a high-flyer. His present position ~ chief of staff of the armed forces general staff has put him ID charge of the armed forces intelligence agency BIA (Badon Intelijens ABRJ, ABRI Intelligence Body). His role as secretmy of Bakorstanas, the Co-ordinating Security Body, ~er adds to his pos~tion of power. Staunch loyalty to President Suharto, not brains, has paved the way for his merc~al rise in the army hierarchy, helped along by his marnage into the Jakarta jetset, to the daughter of Mien Sugandhi, Minister of Woman's Affairs and also a wellplaced palace insider. Soeyono is notorious for having a highly inventive mind. A:s military commander of the prestigious Diponegoro Division, the Central Java military command, he coined the term, "fourth generation communism" which he applied to young acti~sts and s~ts who joined the ranks of peasants fighting for their land or workers struggling for better conditions. During the months when George Aditjondro was being ho~ded, Soeyono ~k ~charge of the attempt to have him charged for insulting the President. He always brags about how he sharpened his anti-communism fervour 14 during training at Fort Worth and Fort Leavenworth, the two centres of higher military education in the US. He seems not to have noticed that the world has changed sinc,e he left Arizona and Kansas, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Major-General Syarwan Hamid is cut from the same cloth. Suffering like so many army officers from tunnelvision, he simply follows the orders of his superior, President Suharto. Although he is no longer official ABRI spokesperson, he still enjoys giving statements to the press. As Assistant of the Chief of Staff for Social and Political Affairs, he now finds himself in a position of vital importance in the top of the military, which he has been determined to use to the full. Sign of panic and weakness Over the years, Indonesians have become accustomed to b~eless charges being flung around indiscriminately by their top generals, but these days, with growing scepticism of army rule, it is proving more difficult to mould public opinion in their image. In fact, those named by the generals ha':e.gained in popularity; other well-known pro-democracy activists have expressed disappointment at not being part of such a distinguished crowd. For the younger generation, the events of 1965 now are p~ of his~ry and they are increasingly questioning the offici~ version they were taught at school. Few are ready to believe tales about OTB and KGB. But still worse for Suharto is the fact that even within the establishment, people have greeted Soeyono 's and Syarwan Hamid's claims with incredulity. Justice Minister Oetoyo Oesman said it was 'unethical' to mention names unless there is concrete evidence of 'involvement'. 'If OTB is something formless how are we supposed to recognise it,' he asked. [Tiras, November 1995] He also warned of the danger of looking for ghosts in ev~ closet.. A member of the Supreme Court also warned against levelling charges against people without the backing of formal evidence. ~ven Li~.~eral ~~yo, the chief of BAKIN, the nominally civilian Co-ordinating Intelligence Agency, ques- TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 16] === tioned the two generals' claims and refused to go along with the idea that people like Mochtar Pakpahan and Aditjondro were communists. Marzuki Darusman, deputy-chair of the National Commission for Human Rights, was outspoken in his criticism. 'Labelling people represents a political verdict and is a violation of their basic rights,' he said. It was still worse if they weren't given a chance to defend themselves. According to another commentator, Riswanda Himawan, all the talk about OTB is a 'government strategy, guided by GOLKA.R, to silence its political rivals and safeguard victory in the 1997 general elections.' [Tiras, 6 November 1995] Scapegoats 300 subversives arrested in Central Java Political commentator Mochtar Pabotinggi went a step further, describing the OTB issue as a sign that the government was now on the defensive, revealing its inability to handle criticism from below. Unable to cope with issues like land conflicts, workers strikes and criticism of the life style of the elite, the easy way out is to blame the communists, he argued. Such an assessment is borne out by the way in which Soeyono has claimed that a number of recent incidents of social unrest are all the work of the mythical OTB. A case in point is the dissatisfaction that surfaced in Jambi, Sumatra at the way in which relief supplies were distributed following a recent earthquake. A conflict that erupted in the local assembly in Surabaya, East Java, was also blamed on the OTB. The present commander of the Central Java military commander, Major-General M Yusuf Kartanegara is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Soeyono. In November he announced that three hundred 'extremists' had been arrested in the province 'for various subversive activities'. Arrests have been made in nine districts, he said. Echoing Soeyono, he said that these 'extremists' had employed communist tactics, operating under the guise of religious activity. He named five of the people arrested in Banyumas: Hero Antono, Dwi Atmoko, Ponidi, Mulyaningsih and Sri Purwanti, all of whom are to go on trial for subversion soon. Yusuf claimed that they had travelled to the province pretending to be traders, spreading their teachings and 'recruiting new members' from among their customers. [Jakarta Post, 16 November 1995] Towards pluralism in Indonesia? In the last few months several new political organisations have emerged. Some, like the PNI and Parkindo are re-born political parties from before 1965. Afeature of the New Order political scene until now has been the strait-jacketed political system allowing only three political groupings to exist. But rifts at the top have created political openings, paving the way for other groups to emerge. The re-emergence of the PNI, the Nationalist Party, established by Sukarno during the Dutch colonial days is the most remarkable. Although the initials now stand for Persatuan Nasional Indonesia and not Partai Nasional Indonesia as formerly, nobody is deceived. The five hundred people who attended the inauguration of the party all shouted: 'Long live the PNI!' and the majority were indeed stalwarts of the old PNI. Among them were Mrs Supeni, Sanusi Hardjadinata, Waluyo Martosugito and Usep Ranawidjaja. Most were in their sixties. Mrs Supeni, now 79 years old, who for years was Sukarno's roving ambassador, was elected as chair of the new PNI. As she pointed out, the old PNI was never disbanded when it was required to merge with other parties into what is now known as the PDI. Sukarno's followers are in fact organised in several groups, not only in the new PNI. Sukarno's teachings, Marhaenisme, has been a constant source of controversy, especially because it contains Marxist elements. The different interpretations of Marhaenism are also expressed in the different wings of the New PNI but there seems to be a mutual commitment to oppose the present government policies. Parkindo, the Protestant party, is another one to have resurfaced in November. It too has preserved its former initials but they no longer stand for Partai Kristen Indonesia; they now stand for Partisipasi Kristen Indonesia. The newly appointed chair, the well-known politician Sabam Sirait received the support of 16 of the 19 branches that attended the inaugural conference. Sabam Sirait is a veteran from the original Parkindo and has been active in Protestant political circles since his student days. At present, Sabam is member of parliament representing the PDI, the officially recognised party into which the old Parkindo along with the PNI was forced to merge. Not to be outdone, former members of the pre-1965 Muslim party, Masyumi, have also been moving to assert their presence on the political scene. In a declaration announced late November Ridwan Saidi and Agus Miftah, two wellknown public figures, announced the birth of the new Masyumi. Prominent former Masyumi leaders are missing in the board of the reborn organisation but like the other groupings, the new Masyumi expresses the new wave of pluralism. While it is doubtful that the reborn parties will play an important political role in the near future, it is at the same time a genuine expression against the corporatist uniformity of Suharto's Orde Baru. Other new political groups Besides the new 'old parties', several new groups have come into being. The most important ones are YK.PK (Yayasan Kerukunan Persaudaraan Kebangsaan, Foundation for Harmony of National Brotherhood); PCPP (Persatuan Cendekiawan Pembangunan Pancasila, Union of Intellectuals for Pancasila Development) and PSCMJ (Persatuan Sarjana dan Cendekiawan Muda Indonesia, Indonesian Union of Young Academics and Intellectuals). TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 17] === Most people agree that the emergence of these new groups is a sign of the decrepitude at the top of the regime, now lacking cohesion and even a common outlook.. There is no longer a well-trimmed, united core at the heart of the New Order and ABRI, the armed forces, is split into several wmgs. There are different thrusts in the new groups. While the new 'old parties' express the desire for more political openness and a pluralistic society, the three groups above are an expression of the stalemate in the regime's political structures. All three are basically run by retired generals, either up front or behind the scenes. YPKP is chaired by Lt.General (ret'd) Bambang Triantoro former Vice Chief of Staff and former Chief of Staff for Social and Political Affairs while other retired military like Lt. General Kharis Suhud (former chair of the parliament/congress), Major-General Samsudin (former leader of the ABRI fraction in parliament)have expressed their support. Some reports hint that retired general Benny Murdani is the man really behind the YPKP. The feud between President Suharto and General Benny Murdani is widely acknowledged. Since Murdani's removal as Minister of Defence in 1992 he has rarely been seen in public, but political analysts in Jakarta still regard Murdani as a political force, fuelling speculations about the future political role of the YPKP. But there is another interesting aspect of the YPKP - the re-emergence of politicians who fell out of favour after the elections of 1992. When Harmoko, the Minister of Information, became chairman of Golkar, many lost their positions. People like Jacob Tobing, Anton Piyatno, Didiet Haryadi, Agus Tagor, are making a come-back through YPKP. Major-General (ret'd) Moehono, the former military secretary of the president was elected chair of PCPP, while General Surono, an army Chief of Staff in the late seventies and also former Minister for Political and Security Affairs, and other retired military have expressed support for this organisation. Muhono is nearly 80 and barely able to be active. but others are likely to try to use the organisation as a political bandwagon. A piece of the cake The initial impression is that all this represents a thaw but a second look dampens this optimism. While it is true that Suharto's government can no longer implement measures with the single-mindedness and determination of the seventies, this is not because it lacks determination. The Orde Boru system is simply suffering from fundamental traditionally the locomotive of Golkar, have been thrust aside and replaced by ICM! cronies and people around Harmoko. The decline of the army's political is due mostly to the gap between Suharto and the bulk of ABRI?fficers but also to the rise of Indonesian conglomerates which has left the military on the sidelines during the economic boom. Not surprisingly it is discarded mili~ officers and ousted Golkar politicians who have emerged m some ~f the new organisations. These groups have little to offer m.the way of effective organisation and mobilisation. They J~t want to make sure that when the battle for the succession starts within the next couple of years, they will be ready to take part through functioning political vehicles. Abdurrachman Wahid who chairs the Nahdatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organisation, as well as Fodem (Fo.ru'!' Demokrasi, Democratic Forum) believes that people within the New Order regime, having failed to revitalise moribund political structures, are now fighting over the bones. A stalemate, Wahid says, will only be exacerbated by the emergence of celebrities whose only purpose is to grab or keep a grip on power. Regime threatens to get tough Faced with a plethora of new groups and parties, the regime seems to have taken fright. In a statement on 1 December, Soesilo Soedarman, Co-ordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, said that any new organisations which contravene the law on political parties will be banned. 'Freedom of association must not be misused ' he said unaware of the crass contradiction in what he was saying. 'If they prove not to adhere to the state ideology of Pancasila, they will not be permitted to exist.' Under the 1985 law on political parties only three parties are recognised, they must register with the Interior Ministry and must adopt Pancasila as their sole ideology. il#~~lk~~j-~ist.1:~'=¥md~: ti~~•,• 1:t~~~~~rt#.1t~rJ;~~~ia~st!~~t~~~v~1~!•i!i~il~il·~~"~~t.t~t~~ed"~il flaws. Firstly, objective conditions have changed drastically. Globally, the kind of authoritarianism Suharto has constructed is increasingly becoming a target of criticism. Free market proponents like the World Bank and IMF have intensified their criticism of Indonesia's regulated economy. On the other hand the Suharto business dynasty has grown very powerful demanding protective measures. This has created rifts between cabinet ministers; some want to move in the direction of a 'free-market' economy while others are happy to support Suharto's protected conruomerates. Golkar; the ruling party (better denned as the party of the ruler), has also changed significantly. Military factions, 16 TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 18] === Military brutality against workers A combined force ofpolice, local military and special combat troops was used against workers engaged in a peaceful demonstration at the local office of the Manpower Department in Jombang, East Java. As a result of heavy-handed methods, at least twenty-two workers were hospitalised. Other actions elsewhere have also demonstrated a growing militancy among the workers. The incident took place on 17 October when about 2,600 workers were peacefully protesting to the authorities because overtime pay and holiday allowances had not been paid by the management since April. The company, CV Maska Perkasa, which tnanufactures shoes for export, persistently ignored the workers' demands which eventually · resulted in the workers deciding to take their grievances to the authorities. This was the case with CV Maska Perkasa, as the workers were merely demanding rights that had been ignored by the management. On 17 October the workers marched to the manpower office and when it became clear that the authorities were ignoring their request for help, they decided to stay overnight on the veranda and in the garden. Quite unexpectedly, the security forces turned up the next day and drove the workers out by force. Manpower office sit-in In many labour disputes these days, after reaching deadlock with the management, the striking workers go on to raise their demands with the local assembly or the local manpower office. The Indonesian corporatist model which is designed to promote harmony, relies on a tripartite of government, company management and workers, which invariably results in two sides, the government and the bosses, combining forces against the workers. To add to the difficulties, the workers are usually represented by the official union, the SPSJ, which sides with the government rather than the workers. Even so, the workers feel they are justified in taking their grievances to the manpower department because their demands are all based on the legally approved regulations about the minimum wage and other basic demands. Solidarity from the population "On strike- raise wages!" Public response to the workers' action and the security operation was instantaneous and Jombang was swamped by a wave of solidarity. A solidarity committee, Komite Solidaritas untuk Buruh CV Maska Perkasa (KSBM), sprung into being and on the following day, 18 October, a long march was held from the campus of the Darul Ulum University to the stadium. From there the demonstrators marched to the local assembly. Members of the local assembly would only agree to meet a deputation of ten people. This was rejected by the demonstrators who decided to hold a 'Free Speech Forum' in front of the assembly building. Workers explained how they had been beaten up and thrown into trucks by the security forces. They also pointed to the wounds and bruises they had sustained. The crowd became particularly angry when a pregnant woman worker explained how she had been maltreated and thrown onto the TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 17 === [PDF page 19] === tLABOUR The workers at PT MMI truck., and they responded with yells of: "Long live the workers". After two hours the demonstrators decided to march again, taking a route past the police station and the local military command. In front of these commands, the demonstrators shouted slogans accusing the security officers of mistreatment. In the afternoon the demonstration dispersed peacefully. In the meantime messages of solidarity started pouring in from different cities. Among them was a statement by YLBHI, the Legal Aid Bureau in Jakarta, protesting against military interference in labour conflicts and demanding that the authorities severely punish those responsible for the brutality. S students suspected From the news reports it is clear that the security authorities in East Java are determined to take a tough line. East Java Police Chief Mayor General Roesmanhadi held a press conference where he played a one-hour video seeking to prove that the security officers had behaved in an orderly fashion. He also announced that the police were looking for five students from the local Muslim university, Universitas Darul Ulum -Syamsunar, Choliq, Romli, Misbach and Amri - who are suspected of having organised the solidarity demonstration. The East Java Military Commander Major General Imam Oetomo has threatened to sue the YLBHI, the Legal Aid Bureau, for accusing the military of using brute force against the workers. Another strike that caught the national headlines is the case of PT Multi Manao Indonesia (MM/}, a furniture company producing for markets to the US, the UK, Japan and South Korea. The conflict between the workers and the management has been underway for more than a year and shows n? signs of ending. [See also TAPOL Bulletin No. 128, A~ 1995]. This conflict was taken to the official body for arbitration and the decision came down on the side of the workers: the dismissal of MM1 workers was unlawful and MM1 was ordered to pay money owed to the workers, going back to November 1994, a total of 561 million rupiahs. The MM/ workers have taken action several times since December last year and it now appears that because of their firm determination, the authorities were forced to acknowledge that the workers had been treated unjustly, hence the decision in favour of the workers. Despite this vi~tory, the MM! bosses refused to pay up and have disappeared from the scene. In such circumstances, the workers had no other option than to occupy the local manpower office. The MM/ workers are an example of organisation at the grass-roots. In this case the workers set up a trade union on the factory floor and a small group of dedicated leaders emerged. A camp was set up on the front lawn of the manpower office and at the time of writing, about 300 workers, some with their whole families, were still occupying the premises after two weeks. Three spokespersons of the workers, Tobing, Thwan and Jakfar, have repeatedly said that they are determined to continue their occupation until victory is theirs. SBSI under fire again Eighteen months after many SBSI activists in North Sumatra were arrested and convicted, the independent trade union organisation has again come under attack in the region. After police raided an SBSI training course being held near Medan, the regional military commander issued an order prohibiting the union from engaging in any activities in the region. The Indonesian Prosperous Workers Union or SBSI was holding a ten-day training course for union activists from North Sumatra, Larnpung and Jakarta in Sibolangit, about 40 kms west of Medan, starting on 22 November. When police raided the venue and took all thirty-one participants to the police station for questioning, they said that action was being taken because the organisers had not been granted a permit, as required under Article 510 of the Criminal Code. But subsequent developments show that the security authorities were using the incident as the pretext for a major clampdown on the union. Two days after the police raid and the arrest of all those present, the regional military commander, MajorGeneral Sedaryanto, announced that Bakorstanasda (Regional Co-ordination Agency for Stability) of which he is the chair, had banned all activities of the union throughout the region. He claimed that the training course might well be the precursor of actions that would disrupt security, alleging that such a training course had preceded the mass demonstrations which occurred in Medan 18 in April 1994. It was after these demonstrations that dozens of SBSI activists were rounded up, tried and convicted. The incident also led to the arrest, trial and conviction of Muchtar Pakpahan who chairs the union. Muchtar's three-year sentence, raised to four years on appeal by the High Court, was subsequently quashed by the Supreme Court. The commander warned that if any 'disruptive' actions occurred in the region, those who had been scheduled to give lectures at the training course would be arrested. Muchtar re-arrested After course participants had been released following many hours of questioning, Muchtar Pakpahan was arrested on 28 November and held for much of the day. Sedaryanto alleged that the training course could pose a dangerous threat to security by spreading dissatisfaction among sections of the public. He pointed to the fact that the subjects under discussion included 'profit-and-loss', and the methods for organising mass actions and strikes. Most dangerous of all, he said, was a lecture to be given by Muchtar TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 20] === on 'the SBSI's tactics of struggle'. According to the commander, the word 'tactics' is applicable in only two cases, the tactics of war (which are presumably justified) and the tactics of the PK.I, the Indonesian Communist Party, (which are not). As reported elsewhere in this Bulletin, Muchtar has been named by top generals as one of fifteen people said to be Communists involved in the mythical 'formless organisations' or OTB. The only 'proof of such a ludicrous accusation is that Muchtar's father is alleged to have been a member of the BTI, the peasants' union banned along with the LABOUR PKI in 1965 and that he 'disappeared' in 1965. If he did indeed disappear, this can only mean that he fell victim to the army-inspired massacres that struck particularly severely in North Sumatra. Only days before these events in Medan, Muchtar had stated publicly that he had sought protection because of death threats he had been receiving. Riots in Purwakarta and Pekalongan For three days Purwakarta, a town in West Java on the main Jakarta-Bandung road, was the centre of racial riots. From 31 October till 2 November, some 15,000 people rioted in the streets causing extensive damage to shops, warehouses and cars. The major shopping centres in Purwakarta were closed for more than a week. A month later anti-Chinese riots rocked Pekalongan in Central Java. Sixty-five people were arrested for alleged involvement in the Purwakarta riots. According to the police they came from the throughout region, from as far afield as Subang, Krawang and Bandung. Entry to the city was blocked and anyone arriving was subjected to identity-card controls. Two chocolate bars It all started with a minor incident when Lia Julianawati, a 13-year-old girl went shopping in the Nusantara department store with several school-friends. Press reports say that Lia bought two chocolate bars but because she didn't have enough money, she went to borrow some money from her friends. The store security guards accused her of stealing and the unfortunate girl was taken to the basement. As punishment she was forced to clean the toilets and ordered to take off her jilbab or head scarf. Lia was then paraded round the shop while shop-assistants jeered at her for being a shoplifter. After she arrived home looking miserable and frail, news of her humiliation spread fast and within a few hours about three hundred people had gathered in front of the store carrying posters and shouting slogans. As the day wore on, reports about her treatment became inflated and by evening, pamphlets were claiming that Lia had been forced to use her jilbab to clean the toilet. By now, anti-Chinese sentiments had become the main issue for the large crowds of people.. Many shops destroyed The next day, the rioting began; thousands of people attacked the department store with bricks and stones. Cars and motor-bikes in the vicinity of the store were set on fire. Some of the crowd attacked the house of the proprietor, Gunawan, said to be the wealthiest man in Purwakarta. But things did not stop there. Shops in the nearby market square Pasar Reho and elsewhere became the target. The main warehouse was totally destroyed. The local police force in Purwakarta was unable to control the crowd and special anti-riot squads were rushed in from Bandung and elsewhere including troops from the army who concentrated on the main shopping streets at Sudirman and Kapten Halim, at major junctions and banks. In addition to the 65 people detained for taking part in the riots, five people conn. nected with the department store were held and accused of mistreating the 13-year-old girl. A busy economic centre, Purwakarta was turned into a ghost town for many days after the rioting. Shopkeepers kept their shops closed for most of the week and Nusantara department store has not been allowed to reopen by the authorities. Pekalongan riots The riots in this Central Java city also lasted for three days. According to Reuter, the riots began on Wednesday, 22 November following reports that an ethnic Chinese had tom pages from the Koran. Yo Sing Yu, who has been treated for several years as a mental patient was found dead in his prison cell the next Monday. It is still not very clear whether the man actually tore pages from the Koran, or if indeed true, who is responsible for giving the holy book to him. The police claim that he died from a heart attack. The riots continued through to Friday, during which time rioters ransacked property owned by Chinese citiz.ens. One of the building ransacked was a bank. Police used tear-gas to disperse a crowd wanting to stage an anti-Chinese demonstration after Friday prayers at a mosque. A few dozen people have been arrested and 11 rioters have been taken to the police station for further investigation. Security continued to be heavy, with many troops and police patrolling the streets up to Sunday. Pekalongan, with a population of 130,000, is best known as the '7ntre of the batik industry. [Reuter, 26 November, Indonesian news reports ] Fragile situation Incidents like the Purwakarta Pekalongan riots can easily erupt anywhere in Indonesia. The seemingly booming economy has benefited only a small section of the population while most people can only afford to stare at the many luxwy goods on display in the shop-windows. The wealthy parade their newly acquired cars and expensive clothes, emphasising the wide and growing gap between rich and poor. Such a situation can easily ignite anti-Chinese sentiments because many of the shops and businesses in towns like Purwakarta and Pekalongan are owned by ethnic Chinese. TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 19 === [PDF page 21] === Book on 1965 tragedy launched More than a hundred people, many of them old PKI members living in exile in many parts of Europe, filled a hall in Amsterdam to overflowing on 30 September to witness the launch of a book by an old PK/ activist about the tragedy that befell Indonesia in October 1965. This memorable reunion attended also by Indonesians born after 1965, was a landmark event in efforts to restore contemporary Indonesian history to its rightful place. 'Thirty years ago, on 1 October 1965, the sun went down in an equatorial country, plunging it into darkness. A massacre, very public, very well organised and disciplined, which felled people of all ages, ofboth sexes, indiscriminately, on a scale difficult for the human mind to grasp, swept through Indonesia. ' These were the opening words from M.R Siregar, author of Tragedi Manusia dan Kemanusiaan [A Tragedy for People and for Mankind], at a _meeting that could not have been held in Indonesia where only the official version of the events of 1 October 1965 that ushered in military rule under General Suharto can be discussed in public. The occasion was the launch of Siregar's book, published by TAPOL. 'It's still true to say,' Siregar went on, 'that history is only written by the victors but my book was written by one of the defeated'. Commenting bitterly on how the world turned a blind eye to Indonesia's tragedy thirty years ago, the author said that after a million people had been slaughtered and even while hundreds of thousands of men, women and even children were still languishing in prisons, the countries of the West met in 1966 to form a Tokyo Club to consider an aid programme for the military regime and a year later set up the international aid consortium, IGGI. 'Why is it that the world recalls with anger the Nazi holocaust but pays no attention to the holocaust of the Suharto regime in Indonesia?' He said.that the events of 1965 were not just a tragedy for Indonesia but for the whole of mankind, as reflected in the title of his book. 'Violence which was the hallmark of the Indonesian Army when it created the New Order is still its hallmark in preserving the system to this day. Although large-scale massacres have ended, small scale, low-intensity-conflict massacres still happen. The PK.I and the entire leftwing movement have been murdered and together with them, democracy and basic human rights have been buried ' Professor Wertheim Retired Professor Wertheim, who has pioneered the study of what actually happened in 1965, drew attention to the crucial event, a few hours before the 30 September Movement was launched, when Major-General, now President, Suharto met one of the conspirators, Colonel A Latief to be informed that the kidnappings of seven army generalwould soon take place. 'The scandal is that Suharto did not report this to his superiors, Generals Nasution and Yani but la_ter launched his own operation to crush the plotters, ' he satd. Since Wertheim first published an article about these events in 1970, many facts have come to light to expose the 20 falsehoods spread by Suharto -- in books written by the PNI politician Manai Sophian, Robert Cribb, the Australian academic, Wimanjaya Liotohe's Primadosa, and most recently, the (now banned) autobiography by former Sukarno minister, Oei Tjoe Tat. No one in Indonesia dares to speak out in defence of the PKI, accused by Suharto of masterminding the event. 'Now, for the first time, ' he went on, 'here in the diaspora, an Indonesian has written an account of the PK.I's role since independence, affirming that Suharto, then commander of the army's Strategic Command, KOSTRAD, was responsible for the 1965 massacre. May Siregar 's book restore the reputation of those entitled to it. ' Rachland Nashidik 'The 1965 tragedy is a black page in Indonesian history which must be exposed before the public and acknowledged as an event of great brutality, ' said Rachland Nashidik, chairperson of PIJAR, the activist pro-democracy movement based in Jakarta. This would teach Indonesians to stop being acquiescent towards the brutalities perpetrated by the power holders. Rachland, who was born after 1965 and who is living temporarily in Holland after a crackdown on members of his organisation, reminded the audience that every 30 September, Indonesia's TVRI reproduces the official version. 'This monopoly of information is a violation of the people 's right to know. ' According to him, it will not be possible to establish democracy in Indonesia until the people acknowledge the facts about Indonesia's two national. tragedies, the 1965 events and Indonesia's invasion and occupation of East Timor in 1975._ This has ~ot yet h~ppened, he said, because people are still trapped ma culture of fear. 'We have to sweep this away.' Carmel Budiardjo Speaking on behalf of the publishers TAPOL Carmel said that the horrors of 1965 are still aliv~ in Indon~sia. The ghost of the G-30-S is still the raison d'etre of the New Order regime. Even though the regime has just announced that the 'ET' c~e (f~r 'ex-political prisoner') will no longer be stamped on identity cards, a database will continue to record the 'c~~~· of the ex-prisoners. New forms of investigating th~ activities of ex-pnsoners have been devised the latest bemg called 'lit-lai' which stands for 'investigation and assessment'. She end~ on a note of optimism, however. 'The prospects are bnght. The pro-democracy movement is growing and the legitimacy of Suharto, whose hands are steeped in blood, is crumbling. ' TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 22] === Amungme criticise Commission's findings The Amungme Tribal Council - Amung Ne Sorei - have strongly criticised the findings of the National Commission for Human Rights (KomNas HAM) after its investigation of atrocities in the Timika region which followed the publication of a report by the Bishop of Jayapura in August this year. The Council is particularly critical of the Commission's failure to focus on the culpability of Freeport, the company which has driven them from their land and seriously damaged the entire region since it started mining copper and gold in 1971. It also failed to take investigations beyond looking at the atrocities mentioned in the Bishop's report. [See TAPOL Bulletin, No 131, October for details of the Bishop's report.] 'For us, the Amungme people, the root cause of the human rights violations is Freeport but the title of the Commission's report creates the impression that the Commission has tried to avoid making any link between the Company and the abuses that have occurred inside and outside the concession area.... (I')o ensure that the basic traditional rights of the Amungme people are properly respected and no further violations are perpetrated against the local population, the Commission should also have investigated the system of security practised by Freeport and ABRI - the Indonesian Armed Forces - which is here to protect this vital national project. ' Economic colonisation The Council takes issue with the government for designating Freeport as a 'vital national project', a decision that was never discussed with the local people. 'ls it that because the Company was designated as a vital project, it was deemed necessary to sacrifice the interests of the local people? ' If this is the case, the Amungmes described this as 'economic colonisation '. The Council says the Commission knew all about how the company contributed to ABRI operations: the provision of a Freeport Security Command Post jointly used by Freeport Security and ABRI in Tembagapura, company helicopters which frequently transport troops and their supplies back and forth, three vehicles (which were painted over with camouflage after this affair came to light), as well as the containers in which detainees were held and tortured. There are also statements by witnesses who testified about the direct involvement of Freeport Security in the abuses. 'Nothing is explained about the position of the Company even though social unrest has been an integral part ofthe history ofthe Company's presence here. ' Local government 'wrapped' up in FIC The Council is contemptuous of the Commission's description of the attitude of the local government as 'neglectful'. Numerous complaints have been sent to the authorities in Jayapura 'but no one has taken the slightest bit of notice. It has always been extremely difficult to uncover the role ofABRI and the local government. It is quite obvious that the local government and ABRI are 'wrapped up ' in the company. ' The Amungme Council places the blame for the situation in Timika squarely on policies at the heart of government. It argues that their rights have been totally ignored. 'The factors that led to a wave ofprotests include: refusal to acknowledge our presence here as tribal people and our traditional rights, the indestructible ties between the Amungme people and all the resources here - the mountains, valleys, rivers. Our sacred lands have been defiled and destroyed, our lands seized and taken over. The discrimination against us has meant humiliation, especially as regards job opportunities, education and the provision of scholarships and impoverishment in our land ofplenty.' Since the Commission's recommendations are very general, there is little guarantee that anything will change. 'They seem to think, ' the Council says, 'that simply by resolving these cases, the sufferings of the Amungme people will disappear, bringing an end to the profound sense of loss which has traumatised us for such a long time. Central Government's responsibility The council's conclusion is that the human rights abuses in the Freeport concession area cannot be resolved locally by the Trikora/VIII Command (the regional military command), or the local government but must be dealt with in accordance with the law, justice and truth. 'The fact that Freeport has been allowed to operate here and dig up and exploit our mineral resources, to destroy the very means of our existence, to drive us out of our ancestral lands, to impoverish us and kill us on our own territory, is all the result of a policy which has been determined at the Centre. It is the Central Government that must take responsibility for reaching a solution to this problem.' Diplomats discover widespread disaffection An Australian team of diplomats which visited Timika not only discovered damning evidence of military atrocities but also· concluded that the indigenous people were clearly unhappy being part of Indonesia. 'There is little evidence of deep-seated commitment among indigenous people to the idea of "Indonesia". They continue ttJ perceive themselves as a group distinct from, and often incompatible with, other Indonesians. This sentiment is reciprocated and is reflected in the patronising character of central government administration in the TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 21 === [PDF page 23] === have no intention of allowing that to happen. province and occasionally in human rights abuses by the security forces. ' The team visited Timika in July in the wake of a report on atrocities published in April by the Australian Cowtcil for Overseas Aid but before the appearance of the report by the Bishop of Jayapura. The report is confidential but a copy was leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald (11 November]. The team was led by Australia's ambassador in Jakarta, Allan Taylor, and included militaiy and intelligence staff at the embassy. With regard to the many violations, the team "conservatively" estimated that at least 22 people have been killed by ABRI in and arowtd the Freeport concession since Jwte 1994. 'It is quite possible that some of those who have disappeared have also been killed Many people have been illegally detained, and several have been tortured, some quite brutally, ' the report says. The Sydney Morning Herald also reports Foreign Minister, Senator Evans had urged Jakarta to mowtt a thorough, independent investigation but it is evident that the militaiy Local military to investigate In conflict with the demands of the people at the centre of the problem, further investigations into the Timika atrocities have been left to the local militaiy command which annowtced on 1 November that it would be sending a team of investigators to the region. Trikora militaiy police chief, Colonel Sulaiman, said the team would examine six cases of abuses which had occurred 'because of wrong procedures'. Investigations should be completed by mid-December. (Reuter, 1November1995) Such an investigation is not merely inadequate. One aim could well be to suborn witnesses who spoke to the KomNas HAM to alter their testimonies. The military in Jayapura have also announced that four low-ranking soldiers, a lieutenant and three privates, have been placed under arrest and are likely to face courtmartials. Meanwhile, the Commission has not made public the full findings of its investigations so we are still in the dark as to the specifics of the violations which it listed in its brief report published in September. Freeport/RTZ lose political risk insurance Freeport Indonesia Corporation and its partner, RTZ have been dealt a devastating blow with a decision by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to cancel its $100 million political risk insurance policy for the company. OPIC is the Washington-based federal agency which provides risk insurance for US companies operating overseas. The cancellation was conveyed to Freeport McMoran in a letter dated 10 October 1995, a copy of which was obtained wtder the Freedom of Information Act by activists in the US who have been campaigning for years against the harmful practices world-wide of Freeport McMoRan Cooper and Gold Inc, Freeport's parent company in New Orleans. Adverse environmental impacts The key paragraph states: 'OPJC is terminating the Contract as an exercise of its statutory charge under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to ensure that overseas investment projects do not pose unreasonable or major environmental.hazards or cause the degradation of tropical forests in developing countries. OPIC has discovered as a result of its monitoring visit in July 1994, a review of data subsequently provided by Freeport-McMoRan, conversations with Freeport McMoRan personnel, and a consideration of various studies of the impact of Freeport's activities on the rivers, forests and environments oflrian Jaya that Freeport-McMoRan 's expansion of the Freeport/Indonesia project has caused substantial adverse environmental impacts which compel OPIC to deny all further coverage ofthis project. ' OPIC points out that under the contract, the throughput would be 52,000 dry metric tons a day but monitoring reveals that ore production has increased to over 100,000 tons, with plans to increase to as high as 160,000 tons. This change 'has has caused the discharge of tailings to increase significantly beyond the volumes· anticipated by 22 OPJC, resulting in the massive deposition of tailings in the Ajkwa River and the sheet flow of tailings that has degraded a large area of lowland rainforest between the Ajkwa and Minajeri Rivers. These and other effects of the project have posed an unreasonable or major environmental, health or safety hazard in /rian Jaya. Protests in US mount Professor Steve Feld, an anthropologist who resigned his post at the University of Texas in September in protest at Freeport's funding of academic activities there and who obtained the full text of the OPIC letter in record time wtder Freedom of Information procedures, said: 'OPIC confirms what many people have known and talked about for a long time. This is extremely important because OPIC 's scientists are internationally recognised ' Meanwhile, students at Loyola University, New Orleans have been protesting for months at the University's decision to accept funds from Freeport-McMoRan, which is based in New Orleans for a chair in environmental studies at the University. After the local action group, LUCAP, organised a forum on 2 November to discuss the University's ties with Freeport-McMoRan, local groups organised a protest outside the mansion of the.company's President-Director Jim Bob Moffett. The University administration had exerted press~e on students to halt their involvement in the protest campaign. . Pr~testers read out the names of the 37 West Papuans listed m the ACFOA report of April 1995 and chanted slogans like: 'OPM is here!', 'Free West Papua!' and 'Jim Bob Moffet kills for profit!' The protest was given good conttnuea on page 12 TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 === [PDF page 24] === T.G'ICJ1T!Cf Alternative Nobel Prize for Carmel Carmel Budiardjo, the founder of TAPOL, who has run the organisation for more than twenty-two years, was one offour people chosen to receive this year's Right Livelihood Awards. The Award has become known in Sweden and around the world as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'. The citation states that 'she has found, in spite of the repression suffered by her, her husband and her co-prisoners at the hands of the Indonesian Government, the energy and dedication to campaign for over twenty years for Indonesian political prisoners and the oppressed and slaughtered people of East Timor. The Jury honours her for "holding the Indonesian Government accountable for its actions and upholding the universality ofhuman rights".' Parliamentary motion An Early Day Motion on the Award was tabled in the House of Commons by Anne Clwyd and five other MPs on 11 November. By the end of November, it had gained the support of 68 Members of Parliament. The EDM reads: That this House congratulates Carmel Budiardjo of the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign on the 1995 Right Livelihood Award, given in Sweden, known as the 'alternative Nobel Prize • and awarded to those engaged in exemplary struggles for human rights, ethnic nondiscrimination and democracy; and recognises her great energy and dedication in campaigning for 22 years on behalf of Indonesian political prisoners and the oppressed people of East Timor; and called upon Her Majesty's Government to review British arms sales and aid to Indonesia in the light of evidence of continuing oppression and torture in Indonesia and East Timor. Award angers Jakarta The Indonesian Government was clearly annoyed that an honour had been conferred on someone who has long aroused its pique. Irawan Abidin, the official spokesperson of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, issued a statement, criticising the Right Livelihood Award Foundation for giving an award to Carmel Budiardjo. 'She is always trying to discredit us,' he said. [Tiras, 19 October] The Indonesian Embassy in Stockholm took the opportunity to offer the Right Livelihood Award Foundation some words of advice in a letter dated 17 October. As the Foun. dation's chair and founder Jakob von Uexkull, said in his speech at the Swedish Parliament on 8 December when the Awards were presented to the four Awardees, the Embassy criticised the Foundation for being ill-informed about the situation in Asia and suggested that it should read business journals like the Far Eastern Economic Review and Asiaweek to 'broaden your perspective and deepen your understanding' about countries in Asia. An article posted on the Internet in October by Alex Miky J affiy of Indonesia pointed out that this was not the first time Irawan Abidin had had a go at Carmel and her organisation, TAPOL. 'He often points the finger at her, accusing her of saying bad things about Indonesia in western Europe. The last time I heard him attack her was during an interview on Radio Trijaya PM, a radio programme on Jakarta's Channel-I.' Reminiscing about a visit to Carmel's home in London where the TAPOL office is located, the writer describes Carmel as a '70-year-old grandmother' whose Jewish parents emigrated to Britain from Poland. 'She lived in Indonesia for a long time. Her husband at the time was Suwondo Budiardjo, from Banyumas, Central Java. They got married in 1950 and have two children and four grandchildren. Like many independent women in Europe, Carmel doesn't live with her children and grandchildren. Although she's getting on in years by Indonesian standards, she still lives alone and looks after herself. 'She's in good health. When visitors from Indonesia come to see her, she walks to the station to meet them or accompanies them on the bus or underground. She used to work for the Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs. '(She) often talks about the brutalities perpetrated by troops who maltreated and detained her. She spent three years in detention in Indonesia without charge or trial, the last stretch of which was in the Bulcit Duri women's prison, Jakarta. "I was lucky to get out, lucky to be released from that Indonesian hell," she says as she recalls the fear felt by women prisoners who were at the mercy of the soldiers. "They made things up, arrested people without any evidence and tortured them." 'After all the suffering she went through when she was a political prisoner in Indonesia, she got her British citizenship back in 1971 and returned home to London where she set up TAPOL, an organisation that campaigns for human rights and in support of the non-violent opposition. She campaigns for the release of all political prisoners in Indonesia, Muslim prisoners as well as those accused of being communists. 'Carmel has also focused on the repression in East Timor, Aceh and Irian Jaya, on the massacres in Tanjung Priok, Haur Koneng, Nipah, Lampung and other events. She is strongly opposed to Britain's arms exports to Indonesia.' PIJAR Award for Carmel The pro-democracy organisation PIJAR also chose Carmel as one of their Awardees for the 1995 PIJAR Democracy Award The other two to receive this year's awards were Yeni Rosa Damayanti, an outspoken student activist, and Hayati> a young trade union leader in North Sumatra. The Awards were given to mark Human Rights Day on 10 December. TAPOL Bulletin No. 132, December 1995 23 === [PDF page 25] === 1f!1aaam:-11:~1im~~~~tjtjj~fil-1i~1:f:f=~~f:-1:;;;f·!=!'!!r~iif-m1:mf:m~1m::1.~f_::!-f.::1~11.;:·:_· l"llUnultional LilW lllUl tit~ Question of East Tunor, Janua:ry 1995. Published by the Catholic Institute for International Relations and the International Platform of Jurists for East 1imor. pp 340. In her concluding remarks to this book, Christine Chinkin comments on the air of unreality which surrounds the reduction to legal arguments of the suffering of the people of East Timor. Many non-lawyers might wish to go further and argue that a legal analysis of the East Timor situation is merely an academic indulgence in view of international law's manifest failure to assist the East Timorese cause. With some justification they might point to the facts that Indonesia has illegally occupied East Timor for twenty years with impunity, and that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recently failed to rule against the 'Timor Gap' treaty in the case between Portugal and Australia. It would, however, be wrong to dismiss the value of legal analysis, just as it would be wrong to dismiss the value of historical, socio-economic and political analyses; all are important to an understanding of the East Timor situation. While it is true that the enforcement of international law requires political will, it is also true that principles of international law, and in particular the right to selfdetermination, remain important tools for the Timorese people and their supporters. This book is the collective work of a number of international lawyers and academic experts on East Timor. One of its values is that, as well as examining the complex legal issues, it attempts to locate the legal analysis within its context. Section I (Chapters 1 - 3) provides the historical and socio-economic background, while Section VI (Chapters 15 - 17) looks at the international political context. The intervening Sections consider the interconnected legal aspects in terms of an overview in international law, the right to selfdetermination, human rights, and the East Timor case at the ICJ. In an important contribution (Chapter 3) George J Aditjondro, the respected Indonesian academic and human rights activist, looks at the prospects for development in East Timar. He is quite clear that the economic development of the territory 'will continue to be impeded until its political status is determined in accordance with international law'. He contests Indonesia's claim to have contributed to the overall development of East Timor, and the official line that an independent East Timor would not be economically viable. Roger Clark's invaluable overview of the problem (Chapter 4) convincingly destroys the various kinds of 'justification' used by Indonesia to explain away its breaches of the legal rules on self-determination and aggression. Self-determination is the most fundamental of all human rights, and Indonesia's persistent failure to allow the Timorese people to exercise this right is the root cause of all other humans.rights abuses in the territory. Selfdetermination is a contentious concept both legally and politically; consequently, its legal content and effect remain unclear. Section ill (Chapters 6-9), which includes comparative studies of the East Timor, Western Sahara and Kuwait situations, is, therefore, a valuable addition to the self-determination debate. It is significant that, although the ICJ decided that it could not rule on the substantive merits of Portugal's recent claim against Australia, because Indonesia bas not accepted the Court's jurisdiction, the Court did state: 'For the two Parties, the Territory ofEast Timor remains a non-self-goveming territory and its people has the right to self-determination '. The obvious weakness of this book is that it was published shortly before the ICJ decision, and. i! does not, therefore consider the implications of that dec1s1on. Indeed (Chapters 12-14), which anticipates the arguSection ments to be made before the Court, is now somewhat redundant. The contributors should be asked to provide analyses of the decision for a supplementary publication. For example one important question raised by the book is the extent to.:Vhich third party States, such as Britain, are obliged under international law to abstain from entering into relations with the Government of Indonesia in cases in which the Government of Indonesia purports to act on behalf of, or concerning, East Timor. This is a particularly pertinent issue since it has been discovered that British aid has been given to the Government of Indonesia for projects which operate in East Timor as well as in Indonesia (see British Aid to Indonesia: The Continuing Scandal by Ann Clwyd MP and the TAPOL publication Partners in Repression: The Reality ofBritish Aid to Indonesia What are the implications of the ICJ decision for this aspect of the bilateral aid relationship? This is not a book which needs to be read from cover to cover, as each contribution stands on its own and is preceded by an abstract summarising its main arguments. A thorough reading will, however, reward the reader with an understanding of fundamental issues which impact on the work of activists as well as academics. Paul Barber