Jennifer Hewett, Washington – The United States has accused the Indonesian Government of committing "serious human rights abuses", in contrast to Australia's muted stance on the issue.
In its annual report on human rights in 193 countries, the US State Department criticised Indonesia's record, citing many abuses and what it called "pervasive corruption".
Sarah Smith – Opposition parties held rallies in early January to protest against the conditions under which this year's parliamentary elections will be held. Most parties will be excluded altogether from the vote, scheduled for 29 May.
Louise Williams in Rengasdenklok, West Java – The makeshift sign propped up outside the barricaded petrol station read: "We are Muslims, do not burn us down." Along the smouldering streets packs of Muslim youths patrolled, intoxicated with rage, metal pipes swinging, excited by the destruction which lay before them.
Medan - The Medan police have "withdrawn" 5 legislative election candidate's Certificates of Non-involvement in the G30S/PKI affiar (SKTT, Surat Keterangan Tidak Terlibat G30S/PKI) which were presented by the head of the Golkar Sumut branch.
According to a Waspada source in the police department, the five are:
Joe Leahy in Jakarta – Fear surged through the mainly Chinese-Christian community of West Java province yesterday after a riot at a textile factory.
In the second outbreak of unrest in the province in two days, a dispute over wages turned violent at the Indonesian-owned factory in Rencaekek, about 20 kilometres from Bandung, the provincial capital.
Karawang – The situation in the subregency town of Rengasdengklok, Karawang Regency, West Java, has gradually returned to normal after enduring a riot from morning until afternoon on Thursday (30/1). The security authorities have questioned 126 persons suspected of being perpetrators in the riot.
Jakarta – Five Indonesian students will be tried for allegedly distributing stickers advocating a boycott of upcoming parliamentary elections, a report said Saturday.
Jakarta – Every manuscript which will be used in the campaigns of the coming general elections (Pemilu) must first be checked by the Examination Committee for General Elections Campaign Manuscripts formed by the Minmister of Home Affairs/Chairman of the General Elections Institution (LPU).
Jakarta – Indonesia's "security approach" in East Timor has failed to reduce tension in the disputed territory, the Catholic Church warned here Saturday.
Cardinal Justinus Darmaatmaja said Jakarta's actions in East Timor had done little to address the territory's problems and called for dialogue to end a stand-off which is now in its 22nd year.
The team of lawyers defending member of Parliament Aberson Marle Sihalalo who has been charged with insulting the President asked the court Tuesday, 18 February to declare that it had no authority to try the accused.
As Jakarta opens the doors wider for foreign investment in mining, Canadian mining promoters are getting excited about the prospects for striking gold. At the centre of the action is the world's most notorious mining investor, Canada's Robert Friedland.
When Bre-X Gold, a small Canadian exploration company discovered a huge gold deposit at Busang in East Kalimantan last year, big companies and powerful business players lined up to grab a piece of the action.
Further evidence of the crisis in Indonesia's forestry industry is emerging as Ministry of Forestry, Djamaludin Suryohadikusomo, confirmed in October that 60 of the 90 private forest concessions to end in 1996 would not be renewed due to poor management. The 60 concessions will be handed over to the state owned forestry companies Inhutani I-V.
The International Finance Corporation, private sector arm of the World Bank, has agreed to provide US $41 million in equity and loans to an Indonesian company to develop oil palm estates and refineries in West Kalimantan.
The IFC has also helped the company, PT Kalimantan Sanggar Pusaka, raise a $10 million loan from the German Development Bank.
Timber tycoon Bob Hasan will soon start pulp production at his PT Kiani Kertas project in Berau district, East Kalimantan.
Jakarta – Indonesian Attorney General Singgih has indicated that several political trials now underway could conclude before the start of the election campaign in April, a report said here Saturday.
Jakarta – Four pro-Megawati PDI members were arrested by the Purbalingga police after removing banners and a PDI flag erected by Suryadi supporters on Wednesday February 12. The arrest are Soetarno (65), Suwito (34), Soedarpo (35), and Sudiyo (27).
Without producing a shred of evidence and seemingly desparate to find a way of explaining the widespread unrest in Indonesia, armed forces commander in chief, General Feisal Tanjung is now accusing opposition groups for the unrest. The following is a summary of an item in Kompas today, 22 February:
Semarang – The military has banned a book on the July 27 riots in Jakarta written by the unrecognized Alliance of Independent Journalists and Studi Arus Informasi.
Hundreds of people have been killed following recent ethnic unrest in West Kalimantan, according to reports from Indonesia. Bloody clashes between the indigenous Dayak people, migrants from Madura and the military have been going on since early January, but little news has reached the outside world as the whole area has been sealed off by the Indonesian military.
Jakarta – Indonesian armed forces will not pull out from the riot-stricken province of West Kalimantan on Borneo island, according to a report on Sunday.
Ethnic groups at the centre of weeks of clashes were trying to hammer out a peace agreement as residents in the provincial capital of Pontianak said calm had returned to the town.
Last Monday (10), and again last Saturday (15) a group of Portuguese hackers (Portuguese Hackers Against Indonesia) modified the homepage of the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry (first goal of an "East Timor Campaign").
Singapore – Senior officials of the ASEAN-European Union (EU) ended their two-day meeting where they agreed not to include the East Timor issue in the Joint Declaration draft as foreign ministry's Director General for Political Affairs Izhar Ibrahim said on Wednesday in Singapore.
Dublin Labour MEP, Bernie Malone, has urged Dick Spring, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the European Commission, to raise Human Rights abuses in East Timor by Indonesia at the forthcoming EU-ASEAN Summit in Singapore this Thursday, 13 February.
Jakarta – Before campaigning, according to Colonel Pol. Drs. Djamaluddin Harahap, the contesting parties must first obtain a Campaign Note from the police. The instruction is stated in the Field Directives of National Police Chief number Pol: Juklap/01/I/1997 on 1997 General Elections Campaign Notice.
Wellington – Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Jose Ramos Horta on Friday asked New Zealand to help push for a referendum on independence in his native East Timor which was annexed by Indonesia.
"New Zealand has had, in the last couple of years, a good, discreet record in putting pressure on Indonesia," Horta told a press conference.
Joe Leahy – An Islamic group says it will take the country's most outspoken Muslim leader, Abdurrahman Wahid, to court after he alleged the group started religious riots in the West Java town of Tasikmalaya late last month.
Kuala Lumpur – Fifty Malaysian activists involved in a banned meeting on East Timor were Friday cleared of all charges but four members of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ruling party were charged.
"The police told us this morning that all charges have been dropped and the case terminated," Tian Chua, a spokesman for the November 9 Civil Rights Group told reporters.
Bandung – The Attorney General's Office of West Java on Thursday (30/1) arrested Agustiana bin Suryana (24) as official detainee of the Attorney General's Office with status as suspect of subversive crime in the Tasikmalaya affair.
At the moment he is detained at the House of detention in Tasikmalaya.
Michael Richardson, Jakarta – When Bre-X Minerals Ltd., a small Canadian mining company, found itself entangled in a jungle of conflicting ownership claims to one of the world's richest undeveloped gold deposits in Indonesia, it turned for help to a little-known but well-connected local company.
Jakarta – More than 12,000 Indonesian workers staged a protest Friday, demanding a bonus for the Islamic Eid-al-Fitr holiday, with some of them burning cars and destroying a factory in the West Java provincial capital of Bandung, police said.
Jakarta – Four supporters of Indonesia's pro-democracy leader were sentenced Thursday to jail terms of six months and 15 days each for throwing rocks and breaking windows at a police station.
Joe Leahy in Jakarta – A tribal war in Irian Jaya was started by a rape case involving two security guards working for the giant American copper and gold mining firm, Freeport Indonesia, it was revealed yesterday.
Jay Solomon, Jakarta – With as many as four state-owned companies priming to hit the Jakarta Stock Exchange in 1997, it looks likely to be a banner year for the Indonesian privatization programme. Market conditions are perfect for floating new shares as the exchange trades at all-time highs.
This report is sent from the Human Rights Watch/Asia, which is released by U.S. Department of State, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, January 30, 1997
Jakarta – Kalimantan natives have urged the Nationa1 Commission on Human Rights to help them get compensation for property taken from them for mining projects. A delegation of the indigenous Kalimantan people also told commission members here Tuesday the activities of four large-scale mining companies were degrading the environment.
Washington – Indonesia continued to commit serious human rights abuses in 1996, including in East Timor, the United States said on Thursday.
Rengasdenglok – A mob attacked churches and a Buddhist temple in the country's latest bout of religious unrest, prompting troops to patrol the streets.
The police have referred the Investigation Papers concerning the meeting of the Asia Pacific Conference on East Timur [sic] II (APCET) and the one concerning the unlawful assembly which disrupted the said meeting on 9 November 1996 to the Attorney General Chambers.
Associated Press in Jakarta – About 40 masked men ransacked a Catholic group's office in a remote Indonesian province on Borneo Island yesterday and set a truck and two motorcycles ablaze, a newspaper reported. Two bystanders were injured.
The trial of a supporter of Indonesian opposition leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri, on charges of insulting the country's president, military and parliament opened in Jakarta Wednesday.
Jakarta – The Independent Monitoring Committee (KIPP), held a conference last night on the organising of the coming elections and their preparations to monitor the elections.
Jakarta – A number of villagers from East, Central and South Kalimantan came to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) Tuesday to protest violations of human rights by four coal and gold mining companies in the three provinces.
They met with Komnas HAM members, Koesparmono Irsan and M Salim.
Jayapura, Irian Jaya – The two-day clash between residents of two villages near Tembagapura, Timika, Irian Jaya, which claimed five lives and injured scores of others, is now under control, a military officer said.
Names:
Miguel Alex Correia, 22Paulino Almeida Pinto, 34Savio de Almeida, 27Paulo Lisboa, 34Abilio de Almeida,25Antonio Guterres, 26Salvador Alves, 40Martin Lopes, 53Cancio Almeida, 29Ponsiano Silvester, 20
Violations: Arbitrary Arrest
Location: Uatulari sub-district, Viqueque district, East Timor
Ref: UA 2/97 Further information: UA 12/96
Louise Williams, Jakarta – It took only a rumor to spark a riot along the crowded streets of Jakarta's central market district on Monday morning and raise the spectre of civil unrest. But once the rampage had begun, it raged without reason, the hundreds of angry street vendors who took over the streets hurling rocks and bottles at everyone and everything in their path.
Russell Skelton, Tokyo – The bitter trade dispute between Japan and Indonesia over President Soeharto's controversial national car project has taken an unexpected turn.Japanese car makers, furious at the concessions handed out by the President to a company controlled by his third son, "Tommy" Mandala Putra, to build the 1.5-litre Timor, are determined to force the same deal for them
Jakarta – The defence lawyers in Muchtar Papahan's trial have requested that the presiding judge Djazuli P Sudibyo be changed in a protest letter dated January 29, 1996 signed by Adnan Buyung Nasution, Bambang Widjojanto, Mochamad Assegaf, Luthfie Hakim, and Dwi Ria Latifa.
The letter listed nine violations cited by the defense team including:
Jakarta – Hundreds of angry street hawkers rioted yesterday in the Tanah Abang textile district, leaving one government building and five vehicles burnt, police said.