[This item also included a second story titled "Jakarta's time of terror: a Chinese girl's tragic story" which was omitted because an almost identical item appeared in a previous issue of NetNews.]

Louise Williams – Blindfolded and beaten, the kidnapped political activist focused on each tiny detail. How long had they been driving before reaching the interrogation centre? How many bumps were there on the road before the gate? How many stairs led up to the cells? Could he hear planes or trains? Could he smell grass? Were there schoolchildren playing nearby? Did the drains run downhill?

Once inside, his blindfold removed, he had to count the tiles, remember their color, feel their texture, count the paces to the room where the doctor examined him before the torture began, and – most importantly – listen for the sounds of any of his friends. Focusing like this was vital if he was to survive the torture – electric shocks, beatings, mock executions, humiliation and fear.

From late last year until March this year, scores of opponents of Indonesia's Soeharto regime disappeared from their homes and off the streets. They were abducted by masked men and taken to unknown places, their tormentors confident the prisoners did not know where they were nor the identity of their captors. But for seven years a group of human rights activists headed by a young lawyer called Munir had been compiling files on the disappearances, quietly accumulating descriptions of detention centres, safe houses and private villas used by members of the armed forces in illegal operations against critics of the Government.

In March this year the pieces of the jigsaw began to fit. A young activist called Waluyo Jati was dumped, dazed and terrified, after his ordeal. He did not know where he had been, but he was able to sketch the cell. The drawing matched a detention cell inside the headquarters of the military's most prestigious unit, the Special Forces, then under the control of Soeharto's son-in-law Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto.

"The tiles on the floor were red and white, the national colors, so we knew for sure," Munir says. "But if I had revealed that information then, I would have been killed, so we waited."

Two months later, with Soeharto barely clinging to power, Munir publicly linked the Special Forces, known as Kopassus, to the disappearances. Within weeks Soeharto was forced out, after devastating riots in Jakarta in which 1200 died, scores were gang-raped and thousands of buildings were burnt and looted.

Last week a military honor board called Prabowo for questioning over the disappearances. The former rising star in the nation's most powerful institution admitted his role in the kidnapping, saying he was acting on orders to monitor anti-Government activities.

The fall of Soeharto and the public clamor for justice for the serious human rights abuses during his 32 years in power have exposed the armed forces (known as ABRI) as a "flawed and compromised" institution, which must now account publicly for the excesses of the past and which may never regain its leading position within society.

At the same time, Indonesia's economic crisis is hurting morale in the lower ranks, with official salaries now well below the poverty line, and opportunities to supplement incomes through business dealings and corruption, drying up. The implications are immense.

Some analysts say the remaking of the armed forces is merely the inevitable process of redefining the power relationship after three decades in which Soeharto used the military as a political tool to perpetuate his rule.

Others have warned that the soul-searching will open a Pandora's box, which may trigger a crisis of confidence and threaten the unity of the security forces just as Indonesia faces a new round of turbulence in the lead-up to next year's general elections. Beyond the kidnapping investigation are the court-martialling of 18 soldiers involved in the killing of four student protesters in May, and calls for investigations into past massacres of civilians by troops, such as the 1991 Dili killings and the shooting of protesters in Tanjung Priok in 1984.

In the past few weeks the armed forces commander, General Wiranto, has ordered a reduction of troop numbers in East Timor and has ordered troops in Irian Jaya to put down their guns and pick up hoes and seeds to help the people plant crops. In the northern province of Aceh, he apologised to the local people and ordered soldiers out, after human rights groups located mass graves of victims of military operations of the 1980s and 1990s. And the military stands accused of, at the very least, failing to protect the people during riots last May.

However, there is a blacker theory that argues that the torching of Jakarta was the result of a power struggle between Wiranto and Prabowo. Some argue that the riots raged out of control because Prabowo's men first stoked them, then walked away, hoping the ensuing chaos would discredit Wiranto and pave the way for Prabowo's promotion to the top job.

"What has happened is that the myth of the military as being at one with the people has been shattered," says one observer, referring to ABRI's history as a people's army that liberated Indonesia from Dutch colonial rule.

A retired general, Hasnan Habib, a former ambassador to the United States, says: "The military really has a very severe image problem, both domestically and internationally, which we acquired during the Soeharto years."

He believes the "severe" human rights violations by the armed forces began in 1982 during the "mysterious killings" in which thousands of suspected criminals were rounded up and executed. "We denied it, of course. This was outside the judicial process – we were just killing people. It was never the official policy of the armed forces, but Soeharto himself later admitted it in his autobiography.

"General Wiranto recognises that the military now has to get to the bottom of all this, no matter how painful it is for them. They are also aware that the way they were integrated into politics will never be the same again."

Insiders say the ABRI leadership met in late February this year, when at least one senior officer insisted the kidnappings must stop. The meeting, however, confirmed that the entire leadership knew about the disappearances, despite public denials of any military involvement.

The question remaining in the case of Prabowo is who gave the order to "monitor" the activists. It is possible the original order came from Soeharto himself, who was the supreme commander of the armed forces. Those close to Prabowo say he believes he was merely carrying out orders, "using whatever possible means". Under Indonesian military law, if a soldier commits a crime in carrying out a legal order issued by a superior, he cannot be charged under criminal law.

"Under these circumstances it is not such a big step to go from an order to monitor to interrogation," an observer says. "There is no denying this kind of behavior within the armed forces has been going on for a long time and now we are going to start to hear about it in great detail – in Aceh, in Irian Jaya; and what will come out of East Timor will be extraordinary. We are dealing with a compromised and flawed organisation."

But how far can the witch-hunt go, without threatening the armed forces themselves, at a time when poverty and political uncertainty threaten internal stability? Munir believes the kidnappings investigation will try to localise the guilt, and lay the blame on Prabowo, despite the documented involvement of troops from seven units.

Now, as the coordinator for the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, Munir's office is swamped with the relatives of those who have disappeared over the past three decades, many of whom were too terrified even to report their loss under the Soeharto regime. "For 32 years this has been going on. Some of the people are dead, some were too frightened to speak," he says.

The goal of the most recent round of kidnappings, Munir says, was to extract information about underground anti-Government networks and to turn people into informers in the lead-up to the March presidential elections. The level of sophistication was much greater than in the past, as the torture was carried out under medical supervision and great care was taken to conceal the captors' identity and location.

Military observers say Wiranto is using human rights to shore up his power base and rid the military of figures he does not like, such as Prabowo. Some sources say that the country's 7000 Special Forces troops, who developed a fierce loyalty to Prabowo and carved out a dominant position, are being confined to barracks to prevent them expressing their anger over the kidnapping investigation.

However, Wiranto is also regarded as a professional soldier willing to stay within the rules, despite having been close to Soeharto. "General Wiranto is using human rights to consolidate his position, but it will be hard to put a lid on all these investigations," says an Indonesia expert, Professor Richard Robison. "I can't help feeling the military will unravel internally." Robison thinks that unhappiness within the lower ranks, as well as the loss of money-making opportunities in outlying provinces such as East Timor, may turn some local units into guns for hire.

A diplomat adds: "The belief that the military is the only institution that can hold Indonesia together has taken a pounding. What is this whole thing doing for morale (when) you are picking on the best of the best (Kopassus) and may send their head to jail? "I think they can push the kidnapping investigations, because these are clear-cut cases, but if you forced an investigation into the May riots and it turned out that team A versus team B burnt down Jakarta, then the military could never face the people again."

Munir says he is not really concerned about whether Prabowo is punished. "Our bigger aim is to stop the state being used against the people. Right now I feel much safer. The international pressure on human rights issues is great. The people know the economic crisis cannot be solved by the armed forces. What is most important is the people now have the courage to speak up, because the main problem of a culture of fear is not just solving these cases, but overturning society's fear."

[On August 21 AFP reported that military will announce on August 24 whether three senior officers, including Prabowo, will face a court martial. Army Chief General Subagyo said the council will only "recommend": and that it would be up to Wiranto to decide on what action to take - James Balowski.]