Bandung, W Java – Four former policemen charged with inciting the recent riot in Tasikmalaya, West Java are facing up to 32 months in jail.
Military prosecutor, Col Ismail Bangun, demanded here Tuesday that the West Java military court imprison former Corporal Nur (38) for 32 months and former 2nd Sgt AM (24) for 30 months.
Jakarta – The Bill on Nuclear Power was finally agreed by the House of Representatives (DPR) for ratification as Laws, although it was coloured by interruptions of its members who questioned the quorum which was not reached, while outside the conference room a demonstration was going on which rejected the Nuclear Power Bill.
There is growing concern for the health of two men currently on trial for subversion. Both are detained in Cipinang Prison in Jakarta and have not been allowed to obtained medical treatment since being transferred there earlier this year. They were arrested after the raid on the PDI office in Jakarta on 27 July 1996. They have both been on trial since December 1996.
Margot Cohen, Jakarta – The judge hunched forward eagerly as details of a bank statement were read aloud in open court. "What is the total amount of overseas aid?" he prodded the witness.
Objections from environmentalists and other concerned groups notwithstanding, the House of Representatives yesterday passed a government-sponsored bill on nuclear energy which levels the way for the government to build Indonesia's first nuclear power plant on the Muria peninsula on the north coast of Central Java by the year 2003.
Jakarta – A top Indonesian military officer has warned that encouraging people not to vote was against the law, following a recent statement by the Catholic Church which told its followers it was not a sin to refuse to vote in this year's general election.
Louise Williams, Jakarta – The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has proposed a new economic policy to support indigenous entrepreneurs.
The move is an attempt to reduce the overwhelming power of the country's small groups of ethnic Chinese businessmen and defuse potentially explosive racial tensions.
Joe Leahy, Jakarta – One of the country's top Muslim leaders has been ejected from the influential Suharto-backed Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals because of his outspokenness, analysts said.
Jakarta – Timor national car producer, PT Timor Putra Nasional,will no longer rely on special assistance from the government indeveloping its car industry, its president director, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, said Monday.
Jakarta – The Indonesian armed forces (Abri) should reduce its non-defence roles and concentrate more on their defence duties to allow democracy to flourish, members of the state-run Indonesian Institute of Science were quoted as saying yesterday.
The executive board of the Malang (East Java) branch of KNPI, the Indonesian National Youth Committee organised an opinion poll in a bold move, seeking the opinion of nearly a thousand young people in the area about their voting intentions at the forthcoming elections. 92.4 per cent answered that they would support 'Golput', in other words boycott the election.
James Balowski – According to a chronology sent to ASIET by the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), four students, Yudha, Irwan, Ikra and Indah are believed missing following a raid by security forces on a boarding house in Bandung, West Java, on February 26.
Malang – Of 1,000 respondents, 92.4% answered that they would abstain from voting [golput, golongan putih/white movement] in the coming general election in a pole conducted in Malang since be beginning of January.
The Indonesian Antinuclear Society (MAI) appealed to the House of Representative's to abrogate enactment of the Bill on Nuclear Power, which according to plan should take place today, Wednesday (26/2). Because the Bill which was discussed and passed hastily, still contains many weaknesses and could become legitimization to construct a nuclear power plant without referendum.
Washington DC – In the wake of last week's announcement that Freeport-McMoRan Cooper and Gold would be developing the Busang gold reserves in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, a broad coalition of organisations has express concern that the new mine will give rise to substantiaal new environmental degradation and human rights problems and has urged the New Orleans-based company to take sta
Vice President Try Sutrisno said that the majority of various recent riot actions, which were carried out by using the potential of the youth towards negative and destructive actions, should be responded to by introspection regarding the guidance and development of the potential of the youth in its entirety.
Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman and People's Republic of China's Deputy Minister of Justice Xiao Jianzhang met in Jakarta on Tuesday (25/2). In that meeting, legal cooperation was discussed as well as the possibility of a renewed fathoming of an extradition agreement, and the problem of illegal immigrants.
Jakarta – The head of the Indonesian United Democratic Party (PUDI), Sri Bintang Pamungkas, along with PUDI leaders have gone to the National Human Rights Commission to lodge a complaint against armed forces chief General TNI Feisal who they consider discredited PUDI.
Susan Sim, Jakarta – The leader of Indonesia's second-largest Islamic organisation has resigned from his post in a Suharto-linked Muslim association amidst talk that he had angered the President with his criticism of the government's handling of the Busang gold find and the activities of American mining company Freeport.
Jakarta – I Gusti Agung Anom Astika, one of the leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) has refused to be a witness in the subversion case against the Secretary General of the PRD, Petrus Hariyanto. His statement was given to the South Jakarta Court on Monday, February 24.
Jakarta – A top Indonesian military official has said that encouraging people not to vote in the upcoming general election is against the law, a local newspaper reported Tuesday.
Washington – Increased political sensitivity here over U.S. ties to Indonesia has given advocates of independence for East Timor more hope of pressing Washington to support their cause, according to activists and government analysts alike.
Jakarta – The government has urged the House of Representatives to ratify immediately the Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in Southeast Asia (NWFZ-SEA) treaty.
Amsterdam – International experts begin a two-day conference in Amsterdam Wednesday to consider how to eradicate the most exploitative forms of child labor such as child prostitution, debt bondage and slavery.
Susan Sim, Jakarta – Indonesia's Environment Minister has described talk of a nuclear power plant in the country as premature as yet another local non-government organisation attacked the nuclear energy Bill due to be passed by Parliament tomorrow.
Jakarta – The Indonesian Democratic Union Party (PUDI) denied yesterday charges made by Armed Forces Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung last week that it was behind recent unrest.
PUDI chairman Sri Bintang Pamungkas said his organization shunned violence although it adopted a "noncooperative" policy toward "people who refuse political reform".
Ignatius Damianus Pranowo – who was brought from Jakarta along with Budiman Sudjatmiko and Ken Budakusumandaru – where evicted by the judge in the subversion case against Dita Indah Sari and Coen Husein Pontoh Spt, being heard in the Surabaya State Court on the afternoon of Tuesday 25 Feb.
Dili, East Timor – The dossiers of the four suspects involved in the riots here last Dec 24 were returned by the District Attorney's Office to the police for lack of facts and evidences. Local district attorney JF Martanto on Monday said that with thereturn of the documents the police was given two weeks to complete the dossiers.
Ambeno, East Timor – Indonesian police have arrested three people and are hunting another who allegedly killed a man during unrest in East Timor last week which left more than 300 people homeless, The Jakarta Post reported yesterday.
According to The Sunday Age of South Africa on Sunday, 23 February, an employee at the Indonesian embassy in South Africa has asked for asylum and says that he is in possession of secret documents giving proof of corruption in Indonesia and relating to human rights violations in East Timor.
[A summary was posted earlier, but parts got mangled by an unstable line. (Not as bad as the truth is mangled by Indonesian reports on East Timor). Pedro T Coelho asked for a reposting, here done so by Wes, + comments.]
In a few weeks time, Ireland's capital city will have a square named after the Timorese Resistance leader, Xanana Gusmao... The initiative is evidence of the interest and commitment to the East Timor cause that exists in the Republic.
Dili – An estimated 6,000 East Timorese have burned tens of houses owned by Indonesians migrants after local people became enraged by a slight against a Catholic priest who had been given a dinner-box containing leftover food on Wednesday evening.
Agencies in Dili and Jakarta – One man was killed and several others injured yesterday when 6,000 East Timorese set fire to the homes of migrant Muslims in reaction to reports a Catholic priest had been insulted at a Muslim gathering.
At least seven people were injured during the six-hour riot in Ambeno district in the former Portuguese colony.
[Herald Correspondent Louise Williams goes behind the lines in the fighting in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.]
Sei Duri, West Kalimantan: Two nights ago the tribal war party came - boys just out of childhood, the black mark of battle upon their foreheads, the feathers of swiftness tied to their heads, the torches and knives of destruction firmly in their grasp.
San Francisco – As Nike opened a new store in San Francisco's bustling Union Square Saturday, human rights advocates protested what they call worker exploitation at the sports and footwear giant's factories in Indonesia.
Megawati Sukarnoputri, accompanied by a team of sixty lawyers, responded to a police summons Thursday, two days after her husband Taufik Kiemas had been questioned by the police.
Jakarta – The Indonesian military arrested 86 people following the latest ethnic clashes in West Kalimantan province, which remains tense after almost two months of unrest that has left hundreds dead, reports and sources said yesterday.
Jakarta – Indonesian security authorities will deploy 10,000 policemen and soldiers backed by tanks in the capital to safeguard general elections with campaigning getting under way in April, a report said Friday.
Military chief General Feisal Tanjung inspected the 10,000 troops at the huge open parking lot of the Senayan sports complex, the Republika daily said.
British-made Scorpion tanks were among the army equipment inspected in Jakarta on Thursday 20 February by top generals of the Indonesian military dictatorship, checking security preparations for the Indonesian elections scheduled for 29 May this year, [Republika Daily, 21.2.1997]
Bandung – Tension gripped several parts of the Indonesian city of Bandung following a traffic accident and a riot on Tuesday evening which left four people dead and seven others hospitalised.
Residents and passers-by went on a rampage after two people were killed in a traffic accident, The Jakarta Post reported yesterday.
Jakarta – Indonesian authorities are to charge 25 people, including four accused of subversion, over a December riot in the West Java town of Tasikmalaya in which four people died, a report said yesterday.
Subversion carries a maximum death penalty in Indonesia.
Buy Astra? Or sell Astra? It depends on what Mohammad "Bob" Hasan will do when he takes over at Astra International, Indonesia's largest manufacturing force. Hasan - king of the Indonesian logging business and golfing buddy of President Suharto, right, - will be anointed Astra's president commissioner at a special shareholders' meeting on Feb. 19.
Joe Leahy and Agencies in Jakarta – The military has arrested 86 people during a resurgence of ethnic conflict which has left hundreds dead and forced more than 1,000 people to abandon their homes in West Kalimantan.
The prosecutor, M Salim in the Central Jakarta State Court on Thursday, February 20, again requested the appearance of Bambang Widjojanto, the chairperson of YLBHI [Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia, Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation]. Bambang has been ordered to be a witness in the subversion case against PRD chairperson Budiman Sudjatmiko.
Jakarta – A special Indonesian parliamentary commission had recommended unanimously the passing of a Bill which would allow the government to control the use of nuclear energy, reports said here yesterday.
Jakarta – In Indonesia, doing business is largely a matter of whom you know. And few executives know more people than Mohamad "Bob" Hasan.
Mr Hasan, 72, just helped settle a tussle for control of the world's largest gold deposit. The tale of how the dispute got settled is a good example of how business gets done in Indonesia these days.
Jakarta – Three weeks of ethnic violence in an Indonesian province in Borneo have left hundreds of people dead and community leaders at a loss as to how to resolve the conflict.
Dini Djalal, Bangkok – Some of them are no older than 12 and not much bigger than the guns and spears they carry.
John McBeth and Margot Cohen in Jakarta – Days of savage blood-letting in West Kalimantan, which led to Malaysia closing part of its border with Indonesia, have served as a disquieting reminder of what can happen in an ethnically diverse country when extremists among two groups one indigenous, the other migrant harbour a Balkans like animosity that seems to defy solution.