United Nations – Rejecting "implicit suggestions of racism," the United Nations on Friday denied an accusation made by one of its officials that the peacekeeping mission in East Timor was dominated by white Westerners.
The charge was made by N. Parameswaran, a Malaysian who resigned this week as chief of staff of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).
Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Several legislators said they would boycott Parliament Speaker Akbar Tandjung, a key suspect in a financial scandal, if he refused to vacate his post temporarily while undergoing a legal investigation.
Jakarta – Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was questioned by police yesterday over allegations that he received nearly US$2 million from an errant son of former president Suharto in an attempt to buy a presidential pardon.
Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Signs of a crack in the coalition government between the largest and second largest party, which catapulted Megawati Soekarnoputri to the presidency last July, is getting more obvious as the days go by.
Jakarta – The country's largest Muslim organisation, which founded the Nation Awakening Party (PKB), is giving up on attempts to reconcile two rival factions within the party.
Jakarta – The price of rice has increased by nearly 30 percent in several areas in Central and West Java, and many are attributing that to the government's plan to increase fuel prices and electricity bills.
In Purwokerto, Central Java, low quality rice, IR, is now Rp 3,000 per kilogram, Rp 600 higher than before.
Banda Aceh – At least 12 people, including a soldier, were killed in the latest outbreak of violence in restive Aceh province from Wednesday to Thursday, official and humanitarian activists said.
Jakarta – Indonesian vice president and prominent Islamic leader Hamzah Haz on Friday warned the United States not to target the world's most populous Muslim nation in its war on terrorism, the official Antara news agency reported.
Washington – US and Indonesian officials believe hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters trained last year at a camp in central Indonesia, and fear sleeper cells could soon become operational there, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Jakarta – The military is establishing a separate command in Aceh to spearhead the war against the rebel Free Aceh Movement, a move which means that soldiers in the province will no longer be accountable to headquarters in Jakarta.
Human rights activists have denounced the move, saying the action will increase military atrocities.
Banda Aceh – Separatist rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province on Friday accused US-based energy giant ExxonMobil Indonesia of providing funds and facilities to soldiers to wage "a brutal military campaign" in Aceh.
East Timor's religious leader, Catholic Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, called Friday for the holding of legislative elections for the first post-independence Timorese parliament, instead of the planned transition of the Constituent Assembly into this body.
Lisbon is negotiating with the United Nations over the possibility of taking over command of the UN peacekeeping force in East Timor, it was announced Friday by Portuguese Defense Minister Rui Pena.
Jakarta – Indonesia's former armed forces commander General Wiranto has accused President Megawati Sukarnoputri and her predecessors of failing the reform movement.
"None of the governments has been capable of taking the nation out of the crisis, let alone promoting the people's welfare," Gen Wiranto said on Wednesday, quoted by the Antara news agency.
Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – The Indonesian government has failed to lift the country out of the economic crisis despite initial confidence in the new economic team of President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Tempo news magazine concluded in its New Year edition that almost all indicators showed that the country's economy was still in a rut.
Dili – The Constituent Assembly today passed a further four articles of East Timor's 151-article draft Constitution. The articles, all passed by significant majorities, are the following:
Vaudine England – The chief of staff for the United Nations mission in East Timor has resigned, citing management failures and racism as reasons for his departure.
When Nagalingam Parameswaran leaves the capital, Dili, this week there will be no senior manager at the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (Untaet) from a Southeast Asian country.
Cheah Chor Sooi, Koh Lay Chin and Shamini Darshni, Kuala Lumpur – Prominent personalities today came out in support of Datuk N. Parameswaran's decision to quit as chief of staff of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor over racism in the international body.
East Timor's General Prosecutor has issued more than 30 indictments in cases involving major incidents of mass killings and forced deportation, according to the latest figures released by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).
Jakarta – Indonesia's disgraced former military commander Gen. Wiranto Wednesday described as unfair the prosecution of 19 military officials and militiamen for alleged human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999, saying soldiers under his command did nothing wrong.
His comments come shortly before the trials are scheduled to start in a special human rights court.
Jakarta – An Indonesian court on Monday charged two alleged hitmen with murdering a Supreme Court judge on orders from Tommy Suharto, a son of the former president.
Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya was officially renamed Papua yesterday as part of an autonomy package aimed at reducing support for independence.
Dili – The Constituent Assembly today passed a further seven articles of East Timor's 151-article draft Constitution. The articles were all passed with significant majorities and include the following:
Vaudine England and Agencies, Jakarta – The stakes were raised in Jakarta's potentially most explosive political corruption case yesterday when the Attorney-General's Office announced that the Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR), Akbar Tandjung, was now regarded as a suspect.
A former leading anti-idependence militia leader has canceled his planned return to East Timor. Cancio Lopes de Carvalho told the UN transition administration Monday he had canceled the trip for "technical reasons".
Jakarta – Hundreds of Indonesian activists rallied outside the presidential palace Monday to protest plans to raise fuel and electricity prices.
The protestors, mostly from the left-leaning Democratic People's Party, said the rises would only further impoverish the poor, Antara news agency reported.
Tim Dodd, Jakarta – Three East Timorese men killed in an armed raid on their villages on Saturday night were former independence activists. Senior East Timorese officials believe that the attackers were once linked to the pro-Indonesian militia.
Dili – The Constituent Assembly today passed a further five articles of East Timor's draft Constitution relating to the functions of the Council of State and of the National Parliament. All the articles were passed by significant majorities.
Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Critics have urged the government of Megawati Soekarnoputri to speed up the ad hoc trial of military officers accused of human rights violations in East Timor in 1999 and Tanjungpriok, Jakarta, in 1984.
Banda Aceh – At least eight more people including two suspected separatist rebels have been killed in Indonesia's restive province of Aceh in recent days, the military and humanitarian workers said Monday.
Jakarta – More women in Indonesia died during childbirth last year than in any other Southeast Asian country, a health ministry official said Monday.
The rate was 323 per 100,000 births last year compared to 30 each in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, and 50 in Thailand, said the ministry's director general for public health, Azrul Azwar, as quoted by Antara news agency.
Jill Jolliffe, Dili – With the militia leader Eurico Guterres due to be charged with crimes against humanity next week, United Nations officials in East Timor are hopeful that 2002 may represent a new phase in the prosecution of human rights violators.
Jakarta – Indonesian authorities have ceased providing food and cash for tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees stuck in squalid camps in West Timor, an official said Wednesday.
"We have stopped giving out assistance as of January 1," West Timor deputy governor Yohannes Pake Pani told AFP by phone from the capital Kupang.
East Timor's chief minister, Mari Alkatiri, Thursday denounced an unexpected call for legislative elections as an attempt by opposition forces to provoke a political crisis.
Jakarta – Indonesia's military said Thursday it would cooperate with a special human rights court set up to try top commanders and militiamen accused of crimes in East Timor in 1999.
"We support it as long as it is in line with our laws," said armed forces spokesman Air Vice Marshall Graito Usodo. He said the men would be provided with defense lawyers for the proceedings.
Jakarta – The safety of refugees is still guaranteed: Even though the government has abolished refugee status for the refugees from East Timor with effect from 31 December 2001, Commander IX/Udayana Military Area Command Maj-Gen Willem da Costa, stated that he would still guarantee their safety.
The Constituent Assembly today returned from a three-day New Year's break to continue debate on East Timor's first draft Constitution, passing five articles contained in the section on the status, election and appointment of the President of the Republic.
The assembly has now passed 79 of the Constitution's 151 articles.
Jakarta – Indonesia's Supreme Court has assigned 17 judges to preside over the trials of Indonesian soldiers and militiamen accused of human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999, a news report said Thursday.
Indonesian military authorities have said they have discovered evidence of a new movement aiming to achieve independence for the whole of Timor island, according to an article in an Indonesian newspaper.
Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri has scored a poor end-of-year report card from the country's human rights advocates, who accuse her of abandoning reforms and cosying up to figures from the former Suharto regime.
Jakarta – Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Saturday called on the country's soldiers to be firm in carrying out their job and not to be worried about accusations of human rights abuses.
Jakarta – Almost one third of Indonesian legislators hardly attended any parliamentary sessions in the 10 months to July, reports said Friday.
Vaudine England, Jakarta – An educated, professional Indonesian civil servant – let's call him Johannes – once had a senior, apparently stable job in a region outside Jakarta. His pay and responsibilities came from Jakarta and, though nothing like that received by his intellectual equals in the West, it did arrive with reassuring predictability.
East Timorese asylum seekers might find it hard to settle back in their homeland even though it was technically safe to return, the United Nations refugee agency said yesterday.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock dismissed requests from refugee lawyers that 1600 East Timorese asylum seekers, some who arrived eight years ago, be issued special visas to stay in Australia.
Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri has come under fire for appointing her businessman husband Taufik Kiemas as head of a ministerial visit to China earlier this month.
Her advisers and party members fear her opponents will exploit this and other political shenanigans of Mr Taufik to dent her image.
Bambang Nurbianto and Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Reforms have come to a complete halt under the leadership of President Megawati Soekarnoputri, as she prefers to collaborate with the remnants of the New Order regime rather than work with reform-minded leaders, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) said on Thursday.
Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri has come under fire for appointing her businessman husband Taufik Kiemas as head of a ministerial visit to China earlier this month.
Her advisers and party members fear her opponents will exploit this and other political shenanigans of Mr Taufik to dent her image.
Jakarta – Almost one third of Indonesian legislators hardly attended any parliamentary sessions in the 10 months to July, reports said Friday.
Jakarta – United Development Party (PPP) chairman Hamzah Haz, who is also the vice president, is scheduled to meet with Zainuddin MZ, leader of a PPP splinter group, in Surabaya on Jan. 5 to mend the rift in the party, an official said on Thursday.