Michael Richardson, Jakarta – A group of Indonesia's wealthiest companies has agreed to intensify a program to help smaller businesses in what analysts said Sunday was an attempt to defuse government and public criticism for doing too little to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

Jakarta – The Indonesian government and military said that planned riot-alert posts will be permanent features and were not being set up just to maintain peace in the election year, a report here said yesterday. "They are not just being established only for the general election.

On January 27 thousands of street vendors attacked and set fire to the Tanah Abang sub-district offices (kecamatan). They also set fire to two vehicles owned by the sub-district Tramtib (Ketenteraman and Ketertiban) and four kecamatan vehicles.

Jakarta – Snoozing in a glass case by the entrance to a police station just outside Jakarta lies the key to a peculiar experiment in crowd control. The case contains seven cobras. They are the first stage in what the local police chief believes will be a breakthrough in his struggle to maintain law and order.

Jakarta - Indonesia believes that the case of the Garuda pilot who is now under the Dutch police custody for allegedly smuggling thousands of ecstasy pills is being politicized, Ambassador to the Netherlands Sudarmanto Kadarisman said.

Lisbon – Indonesia's Foreign Minister Ali Alatas nomination to the country's legislative elections next May as an East Timor representative does not make him a (East) Timorese, the Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama has said.

Washington – US republican congressman Frank Wolf has urged President Bill Clinton to meet East Timors 1996 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Bishop D. Ximenes Belo when he visits the US at the invitation of Yale University. Wolf told also a press conference on Thursday that Washington should use its good relations with Jakarta to "actively seek" a solution for the East Timor conflict.

Jakarta - The subversion trial of union leader Muchtar Pakpahan continued yesterday with presiding judge Djazuli P. Sudibyo prohibiting defense lawyers from directly questioning witnesses.

Bruce Hextall – BHP Petroleum and large US oil and gas group Phillips Petroleum should decide by the end of March whether to press ahead with the development of a $2 billion-plus liquefied natural gas (LNG) project which would exploit the Timor Sea's Bayu/Undan gas field.

Amnesty International UK (AIUK) is calling on the UK Government to urgently revoke export licences granted to a UK company, Alvis, for the sale of armoured vehicles to Indonesia. This call comes in the light of mounting evidence about the use of such equipment in committing grave human rights violations in that country.

Jakarta – Union leaders said yesterday the government's planned 10 percent increase in the minimum wage level was not sufficient, while the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry urged all members to comply. [The government announcement about the increase will take effect as from 1 April.]

A document believed to have been drafted by Kopassus, the crack forces unit commander by Major-General Prabowo, son-in-law of Suharto, is circulating among the mass media. It calls for an anti-Chinese and IMF campaign and accuses the Chinese conglomerates of engineering the current monetary crisis and of giving funds to the PRD.

Pui-Wing Tam – That is the message from fund managers as they survey the prospects of the Indonesian market in 1997. While Hong Kong proved to be the most popular regional investment destination at the start of this year, more fund managers are now gaining confidence in Indonesia and are putting the country on their buy lists.

Joe Leahy, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights is to investigate allegations an East Timorese woman was raped and held as a virtual slave at a military post after being accused of being a member of the territory's Fretilin guerilla movement.

Rome – East Timorese activist Josi Ramos Horta has said that the president of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, Roman Catholic Church Cardinal Etchegeray, was "deeply concerned" with the lack of school and professional education for the East Timorese youth. Ramos Horta made his comments on Tuesday after a 30-minute meeting with Etchegeray.

Sydney – Indonesia's Foreign Minister Ali Alatas is on the East Timor list of candidates from the ruling Golkar Party to the legislative elections scheduled for May.

Rome – The East Timor issue is "an heritage from the Cold War era" that could be solved in the current new political environment, East Timorese activist Josi Ramos Horta has said.

Washington – US republican congressman Frank Wolf has said that he will present the Clinton administration with solutions for the East Timor conflict. A spokesman for the congressman told Lusa on Tuesday that Wolf will talk about East Timor in a press conference this week at the US Congress.

Rome – East Timorese activist Josi Ramos Horta has denied that the territorys resistance movement application to become an observer at the Socialist International (SI) would link East Timor self-determination supporters to political movements.

Ong Hock Chuan, Jakarta – Family connections figure prominently in the list of parliamentary candidates for Indonesia's 1997 general elections released on Monday.

Among the 2,293 candidates nominated by the country's three official political parties to stand in the May 29 elections are seven of President Suharto's relatives, including four of his children.

Lisbon – The apostolic administrator of East Timor's diocese of Baucau Bishop D. Basmlio do Nascimento has stressed that popular revolt against the Indonesian troops can easily arise in the former Portuguese colony.

Rome – East Timor's resistance movement Conselho Nacional da Resistjncia Maubere (CNRM) has announced that it will apply for observer status at the Socialist International (SI) during this weeks IS Congress in Rome.

Jakarta – The Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP), which shot to prominence shortly after its birth last year and has since been long silent, says it has found violations in some of the preparatory stages of the May general election.

Jakarta – Officials blocked Indonesia's pro-democracy leader today from running for reelection to parliament in May.

The list of 2,293 candidates approved by election officials includes four of President Suharto's children, his half-brother, a daughter-in-law and a cousin.

Lisbon – East Timorese resistance leader Mari Alkatiri has said to be "surprised" with Josi Ramos Horta's announcement last week of a plan to form a "shadow government" for the territory occupied by Indonesia.

Sydney – The Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, Hilton Deakin, has said that an Indonesian soldier was killed on Christmas Eve after he was found to have been paid to assassinate 1996 Nobel Peace Prize East Timorese Bishop D. Ximenes Belo.

Lisbon – The Indonesian group that has bought Italian car maker Lamborghini was said to be a partner in the construction of a cement factory in East Timor.

Ong Hock Chuan – When a group of students commandeered a 50-seat public bus to attack a rival gang last week, it was in many ways business as usual in Jakarta.

Student brawls happen all over Asia, but in the Indonesian capital they increasingly end as newspaper obit-uaries.

S. N. Vasuki - Though Indonesia's parliamentary elections are five months away, major political groupings have already launched an aggressive unofficial campaign. Predictably, the country's political temperature has risen in recent weeks as parties battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate.

Agence France-Presse in Jakarta - The main Muslim political party has threatened to withdraw from this year's general election, saying campaign rules unfairly favour President Suharto's ruling Golkar party.

Michael Richardson, Manado – In a country where official statistics show Muslims forming 85 percent of the 200 million population, a striking feature of the buildings lining both sides of the road on the one-hour drive between Manado and Bitung, the two main towns of North Sulawesi Province, is the prevalence of churches and chapels.

Michael Richardson, Jakarta – Strong economic growth forecast for Indonesia in 1997 along with a projected increase in exports and lower inflation are likely to push stocks significantly higher this year, market analysts say, despite lingering investor concerns about possible instability when President Suharto, the country's aging ruler, leaves the scene.

David Shanks, Dublin – The East Timorese resistance to illegal Indonesian rule has called for an indefinite unilateral ceasefire in the former Protuguese colony.This reflects diplomatic suggestions from Western leaders to the resistence to lessen tensions with a so far intransigent Indonesia and to offer an "olive branch."

We the members of the East Timor House of Representatives, on behalf of our constituents of the people of East Timor, wish to express our grave dissappointment that your prestigious Nobel Peace Prize has been used to reopen wounds that we have been trying to heal since our integration with Indonesia brought an end to a bloody civil war a beginning to a process of development never w

The government announced yesterday it is to increase the minimum wage level in all 27 provinces by an average of 10.07 percent from April 1.

Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief said the increase would bring the average minimum wage across the country closer to what is officially perceived as the minimum physical requirement.

Jakarta – The head of Nadhlatul Ulama [NU, Association of Muslim Scholars)] Abdurrahman Wahid openly and during the Bhinneka Tunggal Ika Dialogue Forum in Jakarta, Tuesday night, said that the Humanika Foundation was involved in the riots in Tasikmalaya some while ago.

[The Monthly Bulletin is published by the Commission for the Rights of the Maubere People (CDPM).]

We the members of the East Timor House of Representatives, on behalf of our constituents of the people of East Timor, wish to express our grave disappointment that your prestigious Nobel Peace Prize has been used to reopen wounds that we have been trying to heal since our integration with Indonesia brought an end to a bloody civil war and a beginning to a process of development neve

Amnesty International (UK) is calling on the UK Goverment to urgently revoke export licences granted to a UK company, Alvis, for the sale of armoured vehicles to Indonesia. This call comes in the light of mounting evidence about the use of such equipment in commiting grave human rights cviolations in that country.

On 27 January, student demonstrators held a free speech forum, a street march and rallied at the local parliament (DPRD) over remarks made by ex-general Sodomo, chair of the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) over last years rioting in Tasikmalaya, West Java, who said as saying that Islamic extremists were behind the incident.

Nine students were arrested last week after 50 students commandeered a public bus to attack a rival gang. Police confiscated sickles, a sword, a knife, two sharp steel rulers, two belts with cogwheels attached to them and steel bars.

Rather than produce an exhaustive list of the multiplicity of events occurred last year or try to place them in rigorous order of importance, the aim of this text is to identify the trajectories and underlying tendencies of the East Timor question during the period in question. It is, therefore, a fairly summary account of how the problem evolved during 1996.

Charlotte Clayton – Jose Ramos-Horta is the Fretilin activist and self styled Foreign Minister of a nonexisting Republic.

On December 11, 1996 Jose was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. A prize that puts him in the same league as Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Schweitzer, Willy Brandt, Albert Lutuli and Martin Luther King.

Greg Earl, Jakarta – Indonesia is facing a major credibility challenge to its economic assistance package with President Soeharto's son yesterday launching a legal challenge to the closure of his bank.

The folly of pushing ahead with a huge rice conversion project in Central Kalimantan without any environmental impact assessment, is becoming evident. Problems are arising in all aspects of the million hectare project, which was announced by Presidential decree last year and launched in February 1996.

Once, Indonesia's President Suharto was considered a demigod by his people; a leader whose power over his country of more than 17,000 islands extended into a near-magical realm.

But even magic, these days, cannot slow he forces of change when they are set of by the frustrations of close to 200 million people.

Jakarta – After enduring 21 years of brutal occupation at the hands of the Indonesian military, the East Timorese people deserve the long-suppressed right to decide their future for themselves, said Florentino Sarmento, one of the most prominent and respected leaders of the East Timorese Catholic community.

James Balowski – Despite the ongoing crackdown against PRD (People's Democratic Party) members and other pro-democracy activists, when John Howard meets with President Suharto this week, you can be sure that promoting Australian business interests will be his primary concern. "Money" will certainly be high on the agenda this week – "blood" will not.

Hundreds of thousands of hectares of pristine tropical peat forests in Central Kalimantan are about to be destroyed for a huge rice development project which experts say cannot work.

The rapid development of Indonesia's pulp and paper industry will put yet more pressure on the country's already severely depleted forests.