Is Jakarta serious about probing Suharto's alleged billions? No, says BBC correspondent in Jakarta Jonathan Head, in the radio station's East Asia Today programme. Here are excerpts from the programme:
Q: Jonathan, how serious is President Habibie about getting to the bottom of former President Suharto's wealth?
Whole villages no longer have to back the dominant party, writes Sander Thoenes Across the heartland of Java, home to more than half of Indonesia's 210m people, villagers almost unanimously admit they have no clue about the policies of the 48 parties competing for parliament in the June 7 vote.
Jakarta – Indonesia votes on Monday in its first democratic election since 1955 to elect a new parliament. A few months later a new president will be elected. The following are details of the voting system under which the election will be held.
Voting system: Proportional representation, on a provincial basis
Total number of voters: 127.6 million
Jakarta – Peace held out Tuesday during rallies in the Maluku and East Timor, where hundreds died in recent conflicts, during a round of barnstorming by Megawati Soekarnoputri, but violence marred campaigning in Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi.
Jeremy Wagstaff, Jakarta – Indonesia's election commission, formed to break the national tradition of stage-managed votes, has been riven by infighting, indecision and allegations of corruption. It has resulted in an election system that, while much better than the old one, is a patchwork structure that falls short of the hoped-for overhaul.
[The following is a report and commentary on the election campaign posted by Joyo Indonesian News by a highly regarded political analyst who prefers to remain anonymous.]
Golkar
Jakarta – Forensic ballistic experts in Canada have revealed that two bullets taken from the bodies of two students and another found outside a Trisakti University building were fired from SS-1 and Steyr AUG-P rifles.
The bullets were recovered not long after the May 12, 1998 fatal shooting in which four students were killed.
Jakarta – The Indonesian military, in a major reform move, announced Tuesday that it had told thousands of officers holding positions in the civil service and legislatures either to leave the armed forces or leave their civilian posts.
Barry Porter, Ujung Pandang – Armed supporters of the Golkar party ran amok in South Sulawesi yesterday, stoning opposition party offices and hurling insults about their leaders.
To her growing legion of fans, Megawati Sukarnoputri can do no wrong, but her critics are not so sure, as Louise Williams reports.
Jakarta – Supporters of Indonesia's ruling Golkar Party clashed with campaigners of a main opposition party in two West Java towns, leaving nine people injured, reports said Friday.
Vaudine England, Jakarta – For the many thousands of rural Indonesians who have begun reclaiming their land by direct action, the country's new-found enthusiasm for democracy means more than a succession of noisy parades.
Vaudine England – Up the Mahakam River in East Kalimantan, hundreds of Dayak farmers have been occupying the base camp of an oil-palm plantation company since November.
Now two of their number are detained by local police and several have gone missing.
The company arrived in 1996 as part of a plantation expansion project supported by the International Monetary Fund.
Jakarta – The replaced head of the official team investigating former president Soeharto's wealth, yesterday expressed doubt the Attorney General's Office will ever manage to complete the corruption probe.
Hermawan Sulistyo, Jakarta – Golkar's nomination of B.J. Habibie as its only presidential candidate has sparked heated debates. But what are his chances of winning the presidential seat? A glance at the expected voting structures reveals the possibilities for the presidential election to take place in September or October.
Jakarta – The only Indonesian political party leader behind bars, Budiman Sujatmiko, was allowed to campaign Wednesday inside the walls of Jakarta's high-security Cipinang jail.
Purwokerto – Police here dispersed hundreds of Democratic People's Party (PRD) supporters who attended a night campaign rally on Monday. The party supporters had flocked to Saudagaran square on Jl. D.I. Panjaitan when about 100 police came to disband the gathering on grounds that it violated campaign rules.
Tim Dodd, Jakarta – Indonesia's Golkar party is under fire for using bribery to win votes, but the chief of the Jakarta chapter is very upfront about his tactics.
Yang Razali Kassim – Is the Indonesian opposition's dream of a united front as good as shattered?
Jenny Grant, Jakarta – Golkar will be hoping its election day support will prove more steadfast than that offered by the motley crew bussed in yesterday for its first campaign rally, held in a dirty industrial wasteland in north Jakarta.
Jakarta – Indonesia's opposition parties are certain to win parliamentary elections next month and to take the presidency later in the year, according to an opinion poll published yesterday. But none of the parties had anywhere near a commanding enough lead to form a government on its own.
Tim Dodd, Jakarta – Troops fired into the air in Jakarta yesterday to disperse an angry crowd which claimed the ruling Golkar party had broken a promise to give them money and food in return for acting as a rent-a-crowd at a party rally.
Tangerang – Dita Sari, jailed for subversion at Tangerang Women's Penitentiary, called for international organizations on Monday to press the Indonesian government for her unconditional release.
"Not one cent abroad"
Holed up in the family compound in Jakarta, Suharto declined repeated requests for an interview about his holdings. But Hong Kong bureau chief John Colmey met separately with two of the former President's lawyers, Otto Cornelis Kaligis, head of Suharto's eight-member legal team, and Juan Felix Tampubolon. Excerpts from the interviews:
By Jeffrey Winters – President Suharto opened his 1989 autobiography with memories of his simple childhood bathing in muddy canals in Java. "My roots are in the village," he wrote. From the start of his dictatorship in 1966, Suharto carefully cultivated an image not just of humble origins but of lifelong simplicity.
[A Time investigation into the wealth of Indonesia's Suharto and his children uncovers a $15 billion fortune in cash, property, art, jewelry and jets.]
Pramoedya Ananta Toer – As the Dutch writer Multatuli has stressed, it is the obligation of every human being to become human. Whoever murders his own kind, therefore, violates the basic principle of his existence. And murder, where there is no legal basis, is a crime against humanity. Simple logic, but it isn't simple in practice.
[Political and legal issues, including investigating former president Soeharto and the threat of separatism, dominate the current political campaign. Economic issues, including those on foreign investment and the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are barely touched upon by any political party during their campaign.
Peter Symonds – Only a few days after its formation on Monday, the alliance forged between three of the major opposition parties standing in the Indonesian elections on June 7 is showing signs of disarray.
Jakarta – The ministry of State Enterprise Empowerment acknowledged that it has channelled soft loans to small and medium scale businesses through the ruling Golkar party. The move is seen by many people as an attempt by Golkar to buy votes ahead of the election, said Sofyan A. Djalil, communication deputy for the ministry.
Jakarta – Tensions marked the second day of campaigning in several volatile areas across the country, including Pidie in Aceh, where hundreds of Geulumpang Tiga villagers attacked and burned a United Development Party (PPP) van to drive home the message that they do not want a general election but a referendum.
Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesian students took to the streets in the country's second city of Surabaya on Friday to mark the anniversary of reviled President Suharto's ouster.
Witnesses said campaign activities by political parties for June's general election in the city were overwhelmed by the large number of student protesters.
Jakarta – Troops fired warning shots as thousands of students shouting "Hang Suharto" tried to storm parliament on the first anniversary of the downfall of the former strongman here Friday.
David E. Sanger, Washington – Top Clinton administration officials said Wednesday that they had pressed the World Bank to make sure that more than a billion dollars in aid to Indonesia was held up for several weeks so that the country's government could not use it to buy votes in the first free election there in more than 40 years.
Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – As Indonesia's election campaign kicked off, analysts here predict that the ruling Golkar still has a strong chance of winning, despite poll predictions placing Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri's PDI-Struggle as the most popular party.
Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – President B.J. Habibie's campaign to be elected at June polls suffered a serious blow yesterday when three main Indonesian opposition parties formed a united front against him.
Opposition leaders agreed to put aside key policy differences, including on East Timor, to form a bloc for the country's first free elections in 44 years.
Jakarta – A year after Indonesia's long-time president Suharto handpicked his protege B.J. Habibie to succeed him, the German-trained technocrat is still battling to shed his image as the former strongman's "favorite child", analysts say.
Habibie himself said after taking power on May 21, 1998, that he was aware of questions about the legitimacy of his presidency.
Jakarta – Former Indonesian president Suharto has ordered lawyers to sue Time magazine over a report that it had traced 15 billion dollars accumulated by him and his family, a report said Monday.
"All of the reports on Suharto by Time in this week's edition are big lies," the evening Berita Buana daily quoted Suharto lawyer Felix Tampubolon as saying.
Jakarta – Two witnesses at the corruption trial of a son of former president Suharto on Monday retracted statements that a company he controlled had caused millions of dollars of losses to the state.
Vaudine England, Jakarta – Residents of the Maluku province capital, Ambon, were burying their dead from the latest outbreak of mob anger and military killing yesterday as violent unrest continued further east in Tual, capital of the Kai Islands.
Hundreds of troops and police patrolled the streets of Ambon and fired occasional warning shots yesterday.
Jakarta – A total of 48 political parties are contesting Indonesia's June 7 elections, the first since the fall of president Suharto whose Golkar party swept all polls under his 32-year rule.
Only a handful – including two of the three parties allowed by the Suharto government – are expected to make a significant showing. Campaigning starts Wednesday.
Indonesia faces its first post-Soeharto elections with fears of mob violence not just during the polls but afterwards, as Louise Williams reports.
Mas Damon has a mob for hire – 30,000 or so tough, young men and women, all with basic military and crowd control training, ready to do anything for anybody, so long as the price is right.
Vaudine England, Jakarta – The nomination of President Bacharuddin Habibie as the sole presidential candidate of the Golkar party is a sign not of the President's personal popularity but of the continuing dominance of money politics, party insiders say.
Jakarta – Indonesia's ruling Golkar party agreed early Friday to nominate President B.J. Habibie as its sole candidate for the next presidency to be decided in November, the official Antara news agency said.
Habibie, 62, was vice president when former president Suharto stepped down amid widespread protests last year, and named him as his successor.
Jakarta – Scores of farmers were arrested and 11 were missing from villages in Indonesia's West Java province after a protest over a land dispute, a rights group said Friday.
Golkar deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman talks to Yang Razali Kassim about the many politically volatile issues facing Indonesia today
Q: The spate of violence in Indonesia has taken a baffling turn. The brutalities are now not only between ethnic but also religious, even tribal, groups. How does one make sense of all this?
Sander Thoenes, Jakarta – Indonesia's opposition party has yet to reveal its party programme for next month's general election but the supporters of Megawati Sukarnoputri have indicated that they favour restrictions on foreign investors and free trade.
Andreas Harsono, Jakarta – It is still more than six months until Indonesia will choose a new president, but the most likely candidates are already out in force in a display of public politicking that hasn't been seen for a generation.
Terry Cook – An appeal for support from striking Indonesian garment workers employed by the Japanese-owned Berbek sweater manufacturing company in Sidoarjo, East Java, reveals the sweatshop conditions under which they are forced to work.
Kafil Yamin, Bandung – Asih is only in her 40s, but she is already a grandmother four times over. She married at 12 and had three children by the time she turned 15. When she was 27, she saw her eldest daughter, Atikah, get married. Atikah was all of 14.