Louise Williams, Jakarta – He was standing on the edge of the crowded footpath, peering into the stream of crawling Jakarta traffic for his bus when they came for him: four burly, silent men appearing suddenly, two at each side.
For a moment he was frozen with fear as four pairs of eyes stared directly into his. Then a thick, muscular arm hit him full in the face and he fell to the ground. Two of his friends were watching, but did not move. That was the deal. If one of them was taken the others would walk on, feigning indifference and lose themselves among the sidewalk noodle vendors and midday crowds. It was almost two years ago that Achmad, then a firebrand student leader of the fledgling campaign against the Soeharto Government, disappeared during a crackdown against political dissidents.
The operation followed two days of rioting in Jakarta after police stormed the headquarters of the ousted pro-democracy leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri. At least 16 of her supporters never returned home after the battle in the centre of the city.
With the number of student demonstrations escalating in the past two months, and criticism of the Soeharto regime finding its way into the local media and sections of the middle class, the disappearances have begun again. Human rights lawyers now list 11 people as missing, all with links to the political opposition and many with direct involvement in student demonstrations against the Government. A delegation of human rights activists left for Geneva yesterday to put their case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and voice the fears of Indonesia's growing political opposition that a Latin American-style campaign of extra-judicial disappearances may be emerging.
Achmad is now sitting in the living room of his family home. It was here the family held a wake following his disappearance after his parents concluded he must be dead.
He says he thought he was going to be killed. For two days and nights, dressed only in his underpants, he was tortured with electric shocks, burned with cigarettes, and beaten.
He does not know where he was, or who his tormentors were. He believes they were from Indonesia's military intelligence service, because when two soldiers tried to come to his aid while his captors beat him in the street, they flashed their ID cards and his would-be saviours joined in the beating.
"I was forced into a car, and they put a bag over my head and made me lie down, so I did not know where we were going," he says. "When we arrived, there were five people waiting for me in the interrogation room. They made me take off my clothes. They wound electric cables through my hair and snapped conductors on to my thumbs and ears. "I kept collapsing on the floor and begging them to spare me. I was very, very frightened."
But as a maverick student leader who had joined in the hanging of a portrait of President Soeharto in the university toilets – a prank which can amount to the crime of insulting the national leader – he knew the risks of challenging the Soeharto regime.
"Yes, I was fully aware of the risks, but at that time this was just theoretical. I had not felt it yet." Achmad says he became an activist as a young university student because he had grown up in a semi-rural area and watched the farmers suffer the seizure of their land for development. Most of his interest was in land cases, but these led him into the shadowy world of the political opposition.
The Indonesian political system does not recognise opposition and there are only two legal alternative political parties, so any anti-Government actions are potentially illegal.
"Because of this political structure many people are afraid," Achmad says.
He does not try to pretend he was brave. The pain, he says, was excruciating, especially in his head.
So he shouted out anything they wanted to hear. Yes, he was the mastermind of the riots. Yes, he was the one who made the bomb threats that terrorised the city's office workers. But he couldn't tell them the phone numbers he had called, because he hadn't made any calls. So they cranked up the electricity.
"I just had to keep talking, so I made up some terrible stories, some terrible confessions."
"Do you believe me?" he asks, missing the point that this kind of interrogation is illegal under international human rights laws, regardless of the alleged crime.
"I felt like an animal. I was given food but my face was so swollen I could not chew. I felt so close to death. I became more religious and prayed and thought of my family."
Six days later he was removed from his cell. "I thought I was being taken out to be killed."
At home his grieving mother and father had called his relatives to his wake.
But his battered body was dropped off with the police. The police, he says, were angry with his tormentors for treating him this way. Twenty days later, after his body had began to heal, he was released. No charges were laid.
Indonesian military and police officials have denied involvement in the recent disappearances.
The Indonesian Commission on Human Rights is investigating the cases and has not released its report.
But a commission member, Albert Hasibuan, was recently quoted as saying: "The state apparatus must find these people to prevent a repeat of what happened in Latin America." Last week two democracy activists who had been missing for almost two months were returned home. Both have refused to talk publicly about where they were, but human rights lawyers say they have indicated they were not voluntarily absent.
On March 28, Andi Arief, a student leader from Lampung, in south Sumatra, was kidnapped in broad daylight from his parents' shop by men in plain clothes. They did not produce a warrant for his arrest, nor identify themselves.
"Does everybody who is well built with short hair come from the armed forces?" asked the regional military commander, Major-General Suadi Atma.
The others on the missing list are student activists or supporters of Ms Megawati.
A lawyer who chairs the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, Mr Hendardi, says the disappearances are not a new phenomenon.
More than 600 people never returned home after troops opened fire on Muslim protesters near the Jakarta docks in 1984, 112 names remain on the missing list following the Dili massacre in East Timor in 1991, and 16 people are missing following the raid on Ms Megawati's headquarters in 1996.
Mr Hendardi admits it is not possible to say without doubt where these people have gone. It is possible some had disappeared voluntarily, fearing the consequences of their opposition to the regime. It is possible some in East Timor joined the Fretilin guerilla force. But it is likely at least some are dead.
Of the recent disappearances, he says: "There are no missing people who do not have links to the political opposition. They deserve the assumption they are not voluntarily missing."
He says the missing people are usually field workers, probably mobilising people to attend anti-Government demonstrations and rallies. "The political opposition has a network and regulations. They have beepers and codes to indicate whether they are in trouble. It is difficult to go into hiding without someone in the network knowing, unless you are in jail," he said.
"We don't know who takes them because they don't wear uniforms, they don't reveal their identity and the activists are blindfolded so they don't know where they are. "It is possible military officers are making local decisions. It is possible the disappearances are a result of competition between military factions. It doesn't really matter who is doing it though. The State, the Government, is responsible, and must stop it."
In military jargon the disappearances are thought to be part of a strategy of "shock therapy" – tough methods used against the few to frighten the many.
Achmad says he remains idealistic, but is quiet and careful, and working on his thesis so he can graduate soon. He still talks in his sleep and the recent round of disappearances has brought back the nightmares.
But, he says: "My feeling is from reading about other situations that before any political change occurs there will be a period of greater repression."