Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – The United Nations is planning a military-style operation to support its supervision of a scheduled July vote in violence-racked East Timor that includes the use of helicopters, aircraft, field hospitals and 70 four-wheel drive vehicles.

[The following summarises a report from Yayasan HAK which was circulated in Bahasa by Fortilos.]

Ambon – Sixty-four more bodies of those killed in recent riots in eastern Indonesian islands have been found, bringing the death toll to at least 177 in the clashes that started March 31, an official said Thursday.

Philip Bowring, Jakarta – The communal horrors of East Timor, Ambon and West Kalimantan are real enough. But they no more describe Indonesia than Kashmir, Bihar and Assam describe India.

Jakarta – Indonesian has scrapped its draconian subversion law but introduced similar articles against sabotage and the spread of Marxism and Leninism to the criminal code, reports said Thursday.

The House of Representatves axed the anti-subversion law on Wednesday and brought six new articles into the criminal code, the Jakarta Post daily said.

Jakarta – Comments by ex-president Suharto expressing doubt about whether Indonesia's June 7 elections will be free and fair show he does not believe in democracy, the deputy chairman of the election commission said Thursday.

"His political concept is based on authoritarianism. He does not believe in democracy," Adnan Buyung Nasution said on television.

Jakarta – Bitter ethnic clashes between Madurese settlers and local Malays and Dayaks erupted for the fifth consecutive day Thursday in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province, police said. Rival mobs fought with homemade guns and torched each others' homes in the province's Sungairaya sub-district.

Lhokseumawe – Thousands of school students went on the rampage Thursday in three towns in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province to demand a referendum on self-determination, witnesses said.

The junior and high school students ripped national flags and state emblems off government offices in Lhoksukon, Baktya and Syamtalira Arun.

Sigli – The security authorities in Pidie District continued with an operation Wednesday to pull down referendum banners which have been hung across the main provincial highway from Banda Aceh to Medan and along district roads in Pidie. According to witnesses, the banners were removed very early in the day.

Gerry van Klinken – For all his sometimes clownish mannerisms, President Habibie has in many ways been Indonesia's Gorbachev. He rode the crest of a wave of political creativity generated by the massive protests of last year. But now that wave has spent much of its force.

Lindsay Murdoch and Mark Dodd, Jakarta – Pro-Indonesian forces vowed yesterday to stage an "invade Dili" rally in the East Timorese capital on Saturday after Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao refused to back away from a call for his supporters to take up arms to defend themselves.

Jakarta – At least nine students were injured and 62 arrested in a number of rallies held across Java on Tuesday to oppose the June 7 general election. The arrests were made following a clash between students grouped in the Indonesian University Big Family (KBUI) and riot police who were attempting to disperse the protesters on Jl. M.T. Haryono in East Jakarta.

Jakarta – A presidential advisory group and students on Tuesday called on Indonesian President B.J. Habibie to fullfill his promises to the people of troubled Aceh province, including dragging past human rights violators there to court.

John Haseman, Jakarta – The recent outbreak of serious ethnic violence in Indonesia's Borneo province of West Kalimantan has underscored the difficulties Indonesia's armed forces face in trying to maintain domestic stability in a period of unprecedented political change and economic crisis.

Jakarta – The Indonesian military will court-martial a colonel who allegedly promised a Suharto-linked foundation a huge sum if he were reelected as a local government official, a report said Wednesday.

Jakarta – Hundreds of Indonesian students shouting "revolution," massed outside parliament here Tuesday to protest June 7 polls and demand the government of President B.J. Habibie step down.

Hundreds of others, who marched towards the parliament without notifying the police, were disbanded by force four kilometres before reaching their destination.

John Aglionby, Dili – East Timorese paramilitaries loyal to the Indonesian government took their campaign of fear into the centre of the capital, Dili, for the first time yesterday as the civilian governor admitted that anarchy was "erupting everywhere" across the territory.

Jakarta – Ethnic clashes between Madurese settlers and ethnic Malays and Dayaks flared up again Tuesday in Indonesian Borneo, which has been rocked by months of savage unrest, a military source said.

Jakarta – Three jailed Indonesian politicians were in a critical condition in a police hospital Tuesday after staging a week-long hunger strike, their lawyer said.

"Until late last night, the condition of Budiman [Sujatmiko] was very bad ... he is being fed intravenously in hospital," lawyer Johnson Panjaitan of the Indonesian Legal Aid Council said.

Nurul Hidayati, Jakarta - The hunger strike by Budiman Sudjatmiko and his friends has finally ended. On the advice of the doctor who is treating them, the chairperson of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) and his other colleges, ended their action on Tuesday, April 13.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Jakarta's legal community is unimpressed by the charging of Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra.

Jakarta – In the first case of its kind in Indonesia, people in the oil-rich province of Riau have sued President B.J. Habibie for 22.5 billion dollars in compensation for lost oil revenues, reports said Tuesday.

The first hearing in the class action suit was held Monday in a court in the Riau city of Pakenbaru, the Kompas daily said.

Jakarta – Indonesians will be able to study and write about communism for the first time in more than three decades, but promoting Marxism-Leninism will still land them in jail, reports said Tuesday.

Jakarta – Indonesian police forced hundreds of anti-government and anti-military protesters away from a state-run radio station on Tuesday. At least five students were seriously injured, witnesses said.

Emma Tinkler, Sydney – Provocateurs from within the ranks of the Indonesian military had incited violence in the nation's troubled provinces, Australian missionaries said today.

Jakarta – The corruption probe into former Indonesian President Suharto could drag down his successor President B.J. Habibie, the Indonesian Observer newspaper on Monday quoted one of Suharto's lawyers as saying.

Jakarta – Entering the sixth day of a hunger strike at the Cipinang prison, five leaders of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) are in a critical condition. Two of them had to be rushed to hospital.

Jakarta – At least three people were killed and 100 houses torched in pockets of Indonesian violence reported Saturday.

On the island province of Maluku two people were killed and three injured when a mob of Christians attacked a Moslem settlement, Sergeant Major Yuleini told AFP by phone.

Jakarta – Indonesia's ethnic Chinese on Saturday formally established a mass organisation to promote awareness of their rights and obligations as Indonesians. The Chinese Indonesian Association (INTI) described itself as nationalist in character.

Dili – At least one person was killed and another seriously injured after a clash between hundreds of members of pro-independence and anti-independence groups in East Timor, police and local residents said Saturday.

Jakarta – To pass the clean governance bill without giving substantial authority to an independent body to implement the power controls would be a pointless and abortive attempt to uproot corruption according to the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW).

Ambon – An angry mob beheaded two people as the death toll mounted in Indonesia's far eastern Moluccas, residents and officials said on Friday.

The two were attacked on Thursday after they had disembarked from a ship at Tual, the main town on Kai Besar island, a local journalist who saw the bodies said.

Bangkok – Indonesia is suffering severe food shortages and growing malnutrition brought on by rising social unrest and a deep economic crisis, the United Nations said in a report.

In a new report issued here, a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Program (WFP) mission called for more international food aid despite predicting a good rice harvest.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Reports of the Liquica massacre in East Timor are beginning to overshadow resistance leader Xanana Gusmao's controversial statements earlier this week – which is just as well for the resistance leader's diplomatic standing.

United Nations - A senior UN official warned Friday amid escalating violence in East Timor that peace in the former Portuguese colony was a "prerequisite" for a UN-organized ballot.

Jakarta – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said here Friday threats to their security had prevented them from helping the victims of the Liquisa massacre in East Timor.

Angela Tresnasari, Jakarta – Indonesia on Friday threatened to put East Timor guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao back in jail unless he retracted a call to arms within a week.

Justice Minister Muladi delivered the ultimatum four days after Gusmao, now under house arrest in Jakarta, called for an insurrection against Indonesian rule in his restive homeland.

Jakarta – Indonesia yesterday reported a collapse in foreign investment approvals, a heavy economic blow blamed on fears of growing violence in the run-up to elections.

Investment Minister Hamzah Haz said foreign investment approvals between Jan 1 and March 15 had dropped 90 per cent to US$560 million from US$5.1 billion in the same period last year.

Jakarta – About 2,000 workers in Indonesia's two largest cities demonstrated on Thursday to demand higher severance payments from firms struggling with a crippling economic crisis.

Padang – Two Indonesian communists walked free from their prison here Thursday after serving 33 years there for their alleged involvement in the 1965 coup blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

Jakarta – Thirteen people were killed when Indonesian troops and police opened fire to fend off a mass attack by rioters in troubled West Kalimantan province, a report said Thursday.

Liquica – The church was no sanctuary. Neither was the priest's house, where for all their scrubbing, nuns had yet to wash away all the blood on Thursday.

Two days after pro-Indonesian militiamen invaded a church complex in East Timor, shooting and cutting down villagers, the massacre site was abandoned save for a few grazing goats and half a dozen nuns.

Jakarta – Six East Timorese activists holed up in the Austrian embassy in Jakarta since September 1997 left the diplomatic premises on Tuesday, according to former FRETILIN president Abilio Araujo.

Tommy Ardiansyah, Dili – Pro-Jakarta militias rallied in East Timor on Thursday, calling pro-independence leader Xanana Gusmao's call for popular insurrection an offer of war.

Dili – Nobel peace laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo accused Indonesian-backed militia on Wednesday of massacring more than 25 people in East Timor outside a church.

Karen Polglaze, Dili – Behind a drooping curtain in a poorly-lit clinic in rural East Timor, a technician armed with a microscope and a belief in the World Health Organisation (WHO) is fighting to save lives.

Jakarta – After 34 years of negligence, Indonesia ratified on Tuesday the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

In a plenary session here, the House of Representatives unanimously endorsed the bill on the ratification of the convention for President B.J. Habibie to sign into a I new law.

Jakarta – Several Indonesian political prisoners, including pro-democracy activist Budiman Sujatmiko, have gone on hunger strike to press their demand for a just and fair election in June, a report said Wednesday.

Jakarta – Dozens of Indonesian students Wednesday picketed the headquarters of the newly-formed General Election Commission and declared they would boycott the June 7 general elections, the first since the fall of Suharto.

Jakarta – Indonesian police have arrested more than 100 people in West Kalimantan province on suspicion of arson and planning attacks on Madurese settlers, officials said Wednesday.