Washington – Indonesia has moved toward a more pluralistic democracy but human rights abuses remain rife, according to a US State Department human rights report released Friday.

In June 1999, Indonesia held its first open and competitive parliamentary elections in 43 years, and the country's new President Abdurrahman Wahid has pledged to reform pivotal sectors of the nation, the report said.

But human rights abuses, which culminated in the murderous action of militias in East Timor and Aceh, were still rife, and much remained to be done in the world's fourth most populous nation.

Moreover, the country's severe economic crisis that began in July 1997 had exacerbated the uneven distribution of money and power, the report said.

While stating that "security forces continued to commit extrajudicial killings" under Wahid, it was abuses under the previous government of B.J. Habibie that came under the report's sharpest criticism.

"Elements of the security forces and prointegration militias, armed and largely supported by the military, were responsible for numerous extrajudicial killings in East Timor in the early months of the year," the report said.

Human rights violations in East Timor against pro-independence supporters included "summary executions, massacres, massive deportation, attacks on women and children, houses and buildings besieged and destroyed ... and an attack on the only functioning medical clinic in Dili," the capital.

In Aceh, where pro-independece forces are also at work, "military forces and national police committed numerous extrajudicial killings and used excessive force to quell separatist movements," the report said.

Security forces "also were responsible for numerous instances of indiscriminate shooting of civilians, torture, rape, beatings and other abuse, and arbitrary detention" in various regions of the country.

The report did point out that at least one military officer had received a jail sentence for human rights abuses, and that a government-appointed National Human Rights Commission was active in examining other violations.

Although the government has ratified the International Labor Organization convention, the report said, enforcement of labor standards was weak. "Forced and bonded child labor remained a problem," the report said, citing cases of several thousand children forced to work on fishing platforms where they were held as virtual prisoners, living in isolation and working 12 to 20 hours a day in often dangerous conditions.

Indonesia was also "a source, transit point, and destination for trafficked women and children for the purpose of prostitution and sometimes for forced labor," the document stated. While the constitution protects freedom of expression and requires judicial warrants for searches – except in cases of suspected subversion, economic crimes and corruption – the report noted that government security officials monitored the movements and activities of former Communist party members.