Jenny Grant, Jakarta – Jailed trade unionist Muchtar Pakpahan warned a senior US State Department official yesterday against donating aid to Indonesia without demanding political reforms.
The Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Stanley Roth, met Pakpahan for one hour at a hospital where he is receiving medical treatment for a lung tumour.
"I told him that the US should not give IMF money without reformation. If they do give money without democracy and the rule of law here they will not help the people but the corruptors," said Pakpahan, who heads the outlawed Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union.
The United States is one of the main donors to the International Monetary Fund's US$43 billion (HK$332.82 billion) aid package.
"Who made the crisis of nepotism and collusions? It was [President] Suharto, his family and his close circle," said Pakpahan, who has been in hospital under military guard for 12 months.
Mr Roth told the unionist his political trial and health were becoming a "central focus" for Washington's human rights policy on Indonesia.
The hospital visit was a closely guarded secret. Mr Roth is part of the entourage of special US presidential envoy Walter Mondale, who met Mr Suharto yesterday.
Pakpahan is serving a four-year jail term for inciting labour unrest in April 1994 in Medan, North Sumatra. He has also been charged with inciting riots in Jakarta in 1996.
Opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri snubbed a major address yesterday by Mr Suharto and told the veteran statesman to reassess his time in power.
[Remarks by Pakpahan from other sources suggest that his views on Suharto and how to overcome the crisis are either contradictory or are being quoted selectively. Excerpts from a Vancouver Sun report dated March 5 quoted Pakpahan in an interview as saying "...a popular uprising is now the duty of every Indonesian" and "If the mass of people mount demonstrations, then they are speaking like in the Philippines and it is entirely constitutional". Then in a South China Morning Post article dated March 2, he was quoted by an Associated Press reporter as saying "...only foreign governments could push Mr Suharto into allowing democratic reform." and "He will never hear his people, he only hears on the international level." - James Balowski]