Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – Police here dispersed a separatist street parade at the Cendrawasih University compound, arrested three people and confiscated two flags representing the so-called state of Western Melanesia.

Jakarta – Indonesian Military (TNI) Chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto cautioned against demands for a trial on past human rights abuses in Aceh, saying Sunday it should not be pressed upon if it threatened the nascent peace process in the troubled province.

Jakarta – A human rights court trying an Indonesian army general heard the first live televised testimony Monday from witnesses in East Timor.

In a broadcast funded by the World Bank, a former Indonesian soldier and a former police detective gave separate accounts of deadly attacks on a church in Suai town and the Dili Catholic church diocese offices in September, 1999.

Chris Brummitt, Jakarta – Indonesian security forces looked on but did nothing when a pro-Indonesia mob attacked a church in East Timor, killing at least 27 people, a witness said Monday during the trial of an army general accused over the violence three years ago.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – The peace deal between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) could go into a tailspin as the rebels still eye independence.

They want the 2004 election to be turned into what observers described as a "referendum" to decide whether Aceh should stay or break away from Jakarta.

Dili – The parliamentary inquiry into Dili's deadly rioting found that street demonstrations began "spontaneously" but appeared to have turned into mob action for "political motivations", the commission's chief told Lusa Monday.

Phil Zabriskie – When East Timor formally celebrated its independence in May, it closed the chapter on four centuries of stern Portuguese colonization and 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation. The mood was finally one of hope for the future, of anticipation of a peace dividend.

[Inside Indonesia's Special Forces, By Ken Conboy, Equinox Publishing (Asia), 2002, 320pp.]

As many as six people have been killed in Aceh by Indonesian troops hunting separatist rebels despite the signing of a peace pact December 9, a resident and a rebel commander said.

Mark Baker, Dili – The Federal Government is locked in a bitter dispute with East Timor over control of multi-billion-dollar oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea that is threatening to delay desperately needed revenues to the newly independent country.

Mark Baker, Dili – It is a simple but splendid house with whitewashed walls and a high-pitched roof of traditional timber and thatch. It sits beside a village on the eastern outskirts of Dili with a view that sweeps across the harbour.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – Five gunshot victims interviewed by The Age in the Dili hospital yesterday say they were shot by roaming groups of special police in the capital's outer suburbs after the main rioting last week had subsided.

Nethy Darma Somba and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta/Jayapura – The government has for the time being shelved plans to create three new provinces from the country's easternmost province of Papua after Papua Governor J.P. Salossa strongly argued against the move.

Jakarta – The country's green organization Walhi said on Friday they plan to sue state-owned forestry company Perhutani for alleged illegal logging above a hotspring resort in Mojokerto, East Java that was flattened by a massive landslide, AP reported.

Walhi would file a lawsuit against Perhutani on behalf of the victims of the accident.

Another person has been shot dead in Aceh province where a ceasefire between Indonesian troops and separatist rebels is in force, humanitarian workers said.

Nigel Wilson – Australia's relations with East Timor have been tested by claims Foreign Minister Alexander Downer verbally abused Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

The Australian has learnt that at a meeting in Dili on November 27, Mr Downer was strongly critical of Dr Alkatiri and his officials.

Sidney Jones – The war on terror is well under way in Southeast Asia, leading to concern among many civil rights leaders. Over the last two decades, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia have removed authoritarian leaders, curbed the power of the politicised military and expanded civil liberties.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – At least 8,000 East Timorese families seeking refuge in West Timor had decided to stay in Indonesia, a local military commander said Thursday.

The government was now preparing a transmigration scheme and developing housing complexes for them, Kupang military chief Col. Moeswarno Moesanip said.

Jakarta – Indonesian prosecutors on Thursday demanded a 10-year jail term for a senior army intelligence officer, the minimum sentence by law if he is found guilty as charged of crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999. Lt. Col.

The Indonesian army has ordered an inventory of its TNT stocks after quantities of the explosive were found in two of six plastic pipes buried close to the East Java home of a key suspect in the October 12 Bali bomb attacks.

Prangtip Daorueng, Jakarta – Tuesday's peace accord signed between the Indonesian government and Acehnese rebels is not the first attempt at peace, but many Acehnese who are gathering and praying together, many in tears, after hearing news of the pact hope it will be the last.

Washington wants Jakarta to quickly wrap up its investigation of an ambush near the world's largest copper and gold mine that left two Americans and an Indonesian dead some three months ago.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Indonesia's failure to uphold human rights this year was due to simultaneous policies of the executive, legislative and judicial institutions, the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) disclosed on Tuesday.

Debbie A. Lubis and Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The country's failure to conduct a fair and impartial human rights trial will become the subject of an international discourse next year, including at the International Human Rights Commission in Geneva, a rights activist warned on Tuesday.

Jon Land – Dili, the capital of East Timor, was hit by a wave of protests and riots on December 3-4. The unrest culminated in at least two deaths and scores of injured, when police fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse angry crowds of students and youth.

United Nations – A preliminary inquiry into last week's riots in East Timor has found that some of the people behind the violence fled afterwards to neighboring Indonesia, the tiny new nation's UN ambassador says.

Table of contents

Tim Shorrock, Washington – The killings last August of two Americans, allegedly at the hands of Indonesian soldiers with the apparent consent of the high command, haven't dampened enthusiasm within the Bush administration and the US business community for closer US ties with the Indonesian military.

Jennifer Hewett – One of Indonesia's most influential moderate Muslim leaders has criticised the Australian Government's flirtation with the idea of working with the Indonesian special forces unit, Kopassus, to combat terrorism.

Jake Skeers – Despite considerable opposition from ordinary people, particularly in the northern city of Darwin, the Australian government has resumed the process of deporting about 1,800 East Timorese who fled Indonesian rule during the 1980s and 1990s.

Tapol warmly welcomes the agreement on the cessation of hostilities signed today in Geneva by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia (GoI) and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

By Richard C. Paddock, Binjai – It was the kind of rescue the Indonesian army was trained to carry out. Hundreds of soldiers from the 100th Airborne Battalion, wearing war paint and armed with bazookas, grenade launchers, mortars, tanks and a mobile antiaircraft gun, attacked in the dead of night.

[International monitors have arrived in Indonesia's troubled province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, to help enforce a landmark peace agreement. Eventually, there'll be a full complement of 150 peace monitors – one-third from overseas, one-third from the Indonesian military and one-third from the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM.

Dili – East Timor's government promised Tuesday to tackle the fledgling state's chronic youth unemployment but warned that a repeat of last week's deadly and destructive riots would only drive foreign investors away.

Paul Toohey – The Timorese woman with the seen-it-all face, owner of a street stall in Dili, is joined by other local women as she demands in a maternal way that Kirsty Sword Gusmao hand over her baby boy.

Sword Gusmao obliges and passes four-month-old Kay Olok to the woman, who suddenly beams with pride at the opportunity to cradle the President's son.

Jakarta – A joint team of police and Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel stormed the headquarters of the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) over the weekend, arresting one rebel fighter, Julius, and confiscating seven homemade firearms and several documents.

[While the Indonesian government seems to be making progress in Aceh, moderate Muslims say President Megawati's denying them a role in determining the place of Islam in the country's political life.

Geoffrey Barker – Prime Minister John Howard's offer of extra aid to East Timor's police and judicial services was a necessary but hardly sufficient response to last week's violence in Dili.

When an independent East Timor was finally proclaimed in May, everyone wanted to come to the party. Australians, particularly, felt a strong affinity with the East Timorese because of the role Australian troops and civilians played in restoring stability after the carnage of 1999.

Dili – East Timor, still grappling with chronic unemployment and poverty six months after independence fuelled unrealistically high hopes, was according to one analyst "a dry field into which someone threw a match."

United Nations and government officials are investigating who threw the match which sparked off a day of rioting, arson and looting last Wednesday.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – The United Nations may be facing new embarrassment in East Timor following reports that people arrested in last Wednesday's riots had been beaten in custody.

William Nessen, Cot Trieng, Aceh – Inside a 20-kilometre circle of marsh and shoulder-high grass dotted by thick patches of rattan and palm trees, Indonesia's military, the TNI, has aimed to end the nation's most persistent rebellion.

Antony Funnell – East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, refused my interview request when he landed in Australia last Friday. We had just traveled from Dili on the same plane. His refusal came as little surprise. Even then, people in the East Timorese capital were bracing themselves for the possibility of street protests and violence.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – With as many as 12,000 people killed in Indonesia's Aceh province over the past 26 years, a ceasefire agreement due for signing on Monday is long overdue.

Despite the years of bloodshed, it is hard to be confident that the Indonesian Government and the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, will both turn up in Geneva and put their names on the line.

Bill Guerin – In the past three years Japanese electronics giant Sony has shut down 16 plants across the globe and laid off thousands of its workers. Sony said last month it would stop making audio-visual products at its Indonesian subsidiary, PT Sony Electronics Indonesia, as part of its "overall, global restructuring effort".

Jakarta – Timber tycoon Mohammad "Bob" Hassan and Hutomo Mandala Putra, the son of former president Soeharto, received a one month cut in their jail terms as Idul Fitri from the state.

Jakarta – Two home-made bombs were detonated at a vacated behind a hotal in Ambon, Maluku, on Thursday night as Muslims in the area were preparing to celebrate Idul Fitri, the end of the Ramadhan fasting month. There were no fatalities as the area, near the Batumerah-Mardika bridge behind Hotel Wijaya II, happened to be empty at the time.

Dili – East Timor said on Friday that Indonesian-backed militiamen responsible for hundreds of deaths in 1999 were regrouping and may have been behind this week's violent rioting in the capital.

Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific is alarmed, but not surprised, at the violence that has erupted in East Timor in recent weeks. It is directly linked to the growing nation-wide frustration at continuing high unemployment, poverty and corruption in the Fretilin-led government.

Rod McGuirk, Dili – The operator of a central Dili supermarket razed in riots this week vowed today never to do business in East Timor again.

The Hello Mister Supermarket has become an icon of the reconstructed city since it opened in March 2000.