Nethy Dharma Somba and Fabiola Desy Undjaja, Jayapura/Jakarta – Police in Manokwari, Papua, arrested on Wednesday 13 people who raised the Morning Star flag to mark the fifth anniversary of Papuan independence.
Also on Wednesday, President Megawati Soekarnoputri issued a decree banning of all ceremonies celebrating Papuan independence.
The conviction yesterday of former East Timor militia leader Eurico Guterres for crimes against humanity and his sentence to ten years in prison has done nothing to dispel the widespread belief that Indonesia is not committed to providing meaningful justice for the victims of human rights atrocities in East Timor, says Tapol the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign.
[In East Timor a tribunal has passed judgement on one of the most notorious militia leaders involved in the violence in the fledgling country three years ago. Eurico Guterres got a ten year jail sentence for crimes against humanity but all along the process has been widely condemned as flawed.]
Transcript:
Bill Guerin – Indonesia's once-mighty footwear industry is in danger of collapse if urgent measures are not taken to enable it to reassert itself in a market long dominated by China. Buyers are increasingly moving to Vietnam as Indonesian shoemakers lose their competitive edge.
Jakarta – Due to personal commitments, a South Jakarta District Court judge postponed on Wednesday for the second time the hearing into a criminal case involving a student accused of insulting President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
Jill Jolliffe, Dili – In Dili, widespread shock and disbelief met Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo's announcement of his resignation.
Bishop Belo, a Nobel peace laureate, said he was resigning because of "physical and psychological exhaustion, requiring a long period of rest". The Pope had accepted his resignation, he said.
For the second time in their continuing nationwide hunt for the Bali bombers, the police uncovered a cache of arms and ammunition in a house rented by the allegedly principal planner of the bombing, Imam Samudra.
The arms, found at Sukohardjo in Central Java, included eight American-made M-16 magazines and Russian 4 AK-47 magazines.
Anthony L. Smith – Two Americans and one Indonesian were killed on August 31 at the hands of an unknown assailant near the Freeport mining operation in Timika, Papua.
[Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has returned to East Timor for the first time since the signing of the Timor Sea Treaty in May. The visit highlights the importance of the so-called Greater Sunrise Field, a sticking point between the two countries that was the subject of today's negotiations with the East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkitiri.]
Jon Land – Pressure is mounting against the federal government's moves to deport 1600-1800 East Timorese asylum seekers, some of whom have been seeking refugee status for up to 10 years. At least 84 may be forced to leave by the end of December.
East Timor's Nobel peace prize-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, a symbol of resistance during the years of Indonesian occupation, said he was resigning as bishop.
John Pilger – "What passing bells for these who die as cattle?", asked the great WWI poet Wilfred Owen. His famous line might have been written for those who perish in today's secret wars and terrorist outrages.
Debbie A. Lubis, Jakarta – Virtually unknown just a decade ago, drug use through injection is now a major source of HIV infection in Indonesia, which now affects 43,000 people, 9,000 of whom are women, the latest report on the AIDS epidemic revealed on Tuesday.
[For several decades there have been allegations that a referendum held by the United Nations on the handover of Papua from Dutch to Indonesian control in 1969 was not free and fair. The small group of Papuans who were allowed to vote on their country's future in that poll, have since claimed they were intimidated into voting in favour of an Indonesian takeover.
[East Timor's spiritual leader and joint nobel peace prize winner Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo has announced that he'll step down as the Bishop of Dili, due to ill health. The Vatican announced yesterday that the Pope had accepted Bishop Belo's resignation after 19 years in the job.]
Presenter/Interviewer: Peter Mares
Anthony L. Smith – Two Americans and one Indonesian were killed on August 31 at the hands of an unknown assailant near the Freeport mining operation in Timika, Papua.
Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Some 23 countries are planning to hold a meeting in Tokyo on December 3 to discuss possible financial aid for rehabilitation and reconstruction in Aceh, but no representatives of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) have been invited to the talks.
Ruth Ratcliffe, Darwin – "I'm here because I don't like injustice, and I don't like being ashamed of my country", declared Jack, one of the 250 people who attended a public meeting in support of the East Timorese asylum seekers on November 17. The meeting was the biggest event ever organised by the Refugee Action Network.
A terminally-ill American nurse whose trial on immigration charges resumed here said she fears the process will drag on for weeks.
Joy Ernestine Sadler has been in custody for more than two months since she was arrested along with British academic Lesley McCulloch for visa violations and now fears she will not be home for Christmas.
Jakarta – The United Nations mission in East Timor said on Wednesday it had launched an investigation into the death of an East Timorese man hit by gunfire during a rally in front of a police station two days ago.
Banda Aceh – A lawyer of two foreign women on trial for visa violations in Indonesia's restive Aceh province said on Wednesday their clients have to face long trials and the prosecution was moving too slowly.
Debbie A. Lubis, Jakarta – Among the most vulnerable to acts of violence, women in Indonesia have nowhere to turn for protection because weak laws and a culture of impunity that often allows violations to go unpunished, activists said on Monday.
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – President Megawati Soekarnoputri warned on Monday against excessive democracy, saying that it would endanger the ongoing reform movement in the country.
Jakarta – A labor activist vowed on Monday to continue the struggle for the rights of former Shangri-La hotel employees by regularly staging demonstrations at the hotel until the case was settled.
"We will not retreat back because we feel that we are not guilty," Odie Hudiyanto, secretary of the Independent Labor Union Federation (FSPM), told The Jakarta Post.
Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – The situation in the North Sumatra town of Porsea is still tense with hundreds of local people taking refuge following the week-long riot in which 17 locals, including two church ministers, were arrested.
Bruce Hextall – The development of more than $10 billion of oil and gas projects in the Timor Sea moved a step closer yesterday as debate started in the East Timor Parliament to ratify the Timor Sea Treaty.
Matthew Moore in Jakarta and Cynthia Banham – Security experts fear that Indonesia faces a new wave of terrorist attacks involving kidnappings and the assassination of Westerners, crimes foreign to the country.
Dan Murphy Special, Jakarta – For more than a month, the Indonesian military's Special Forces Command have been the key suspects in a mine ambush that killed two Americans and one Indonesian.
Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta – Former pro-Jakarta militia leader Eurico Guterres put his life on the line for Indonesian Military (TNI) officers accused of past atrocities in East Timor, saying the military had never ordered the establishment of, or helped paramilitary groups.
Rules making it more difficult for people to gain permanent residence in Australia have been necessary to stop an increasing flow of people, by no means all of them genuine refugees, who have used people smugglers to enter Australia unlawfully.
Jill Jolliffe, Dili – East Timorese Police Commissioner Paulo Martins said yesterday authorities were worried about the security situation in Dili after a series of incidents in past weeks, including a bomb threat on Saturday targeting Americans.
"We don't have good control over our borders or over entry of arms, which may be coming in illegally," Mr Martins said.
Baucau – A mob, including some former guerrilla fighters, ransacked police headquarters and damaged several vehicles in East Timor's second city, Baucau, Monday morning, before being routed by reinforced Timorese and UN police.
Haidir Anwar Tandjung and Apriadi Gunawan, Medan/Pekanbaru – Tembilahan, a small coastal town in the Riau regency of Indragiri Hilir, has drawn a lot of attention from small-scale businessmen over the last few months as it has become a gateway for used clothes into the provinces of Jambi, South Sumatra and Lampung.
Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – The nation will soon have a new repressive broadcasting law after the government and the House of Representatives reached an agreement last week to pass the broadcasting bill into law on Monday.
Atambua – More and more East Timorese refugees in the camps in Belu regency, East Nusa Tenggara, expressed their wish to return to their homeland of East Timor especially now on the occasion of Christmas and New Year.
Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – City administration agencies are overstaffed, corrupt and mismanaged, resulting in huge numbers of complaints from a frustrated public.
Banda Aceh – The trials of two foreign women accused of associating with separatist rebels in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province began on Monday with prosecutors saying they had violated visa regulations.
Jakarta – Six people including four alleged members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) have been shot dead in Aceh despite an expected peace deal, AFP reported.
Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A much-anticipated plan to privatise Indonesia's national television station, TVRI, to save it from bankruptcy has been thwarted by parliament because of concerns that station operators would focus only on making profits.
John Aglionby, Banda Aceh – A British academic and her American colleague have revealed the extent to which they have allegedly been assaulted, intimidated, harassed and forced to witness hour-long torture sessions while being detained in Indonesia.
For Lesley McCulloch, the story of Aceh is a forgotten tragedy. The British academic is one of the world's leading authorities on the remote Indonesian province, blighted for decades by a bloody civil conflict. Thousands have died since fighting erupted in the 1970s when separatist rebels launched a campaign for independence and the military responded with a brutal crackdown.
Indonesian police say three workers of US oil and gas giant ExxonMobil who had been abducted in Aceh province have been freed.
An Aceh police spokesman said the hostages were unharmed and probably with their families by now. Police were still investigating the details of their release and whether any ransom had been paid.
Neil Sands, Sydney – Australia and East Timor are locked in a David and Goliath struggle over spoils from Timor Sea gas fields, which analysts warn could jeopardise the entire project.
Everyone has the right to be rich. But in Indonesia, the source of many people's wealth has become a sensitive issue, especially when it happens to be the president or her husband who is under the spotlight.
Sixteen protestors are under arrest and around 500 have fled a town in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra amid controversial plans to reopen a polluting pulp plant, police and a human rights lawyer said.
Tom Allard – Kopassus, the Indonesian special forces unit, which the Government wants to re-engage in the hunt for terrorists, has links to terrorist groups and activities itself, a senior official admitted yesterday.
Robert Go, Jakarta – Detained terror suspect Imam Samudra has confessed to masterminding the October 12 deadly attacks on Bali, as well as a series of church bombings two years ago across the country, senior security officials said yesterday.
Jakarta – Unidentified gunmen have abducted three men working for ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia in the country's troubled Aceh province, military and company officials said yesterday.
Major Eddi Fernandi said the three men – all Indonesians – were forced from their car by armed men as they returned home from work on Thursday at the giant Arun gas field.
Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – The House of Representatives (DPR) once again showed its lack of professionalism to the public on Thursday when its steering committee (Bamus) failed to form teams to deliberate the much-debated bills on antiterrorism due to low attendance.
Matthew Moore in Jakarta and agencies – Indonesian police last night arrested Imam Samudra, alleged mastermind of the Bali bombing which killed nearly 200 people.