Jakarta – The savage riots that swept Indonesia in mid-May before the fall of ex-president Suharto were organized by professional agitators, Jakarta's governor was Friday quoted as saying. "They were organized," Governor Sutiyoso was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying in a two-hour hearing at the Justice Ministry with a government-sponsored fact-finding team.

The inquiry is delving into the May 13-14 riots, which triggered a panicky exodus of tens of thousands of foreigners and ethnic-Chinese from Indonesia. Although the governor did not say who he thought the organizers were, he told the commission there appeared to be "operators in control of the riots."

Commission member Bambang Widjojanto, of the Legal Aid Institute, was quoted as telling local reporters after the hearing that the team had so far identified a pattern of agitation that would have required skill to organize. He quoted Sutiyoso as saying: "It is easy for people to burn a car. But not all people can burn down a high-rise building."

A number of shopping malls were torched in the riots which left whole city blocks of Jakarta razed, most of them dominated by businesses owned by ethnic-Chinese. Human rights groups have quoted witnesses as saying that many known thugs were among the instigators of violence in various cities across Indonesia.

The groups also said that more than 1,000 people, many of them looters caught in the fires, died in the two days of looting and arson. Non-governmental rights groups further allege there were 168 rapes of ethnic-Chinese women. Twenty of the victims killed themselves or were murdered, they charge.

Military officers investigating the rape allegations, which have triggered a series of protests against Indonesian missions abroad, have said that so far they have been unable to find concrete proof.

Sutiyoso was the second government official to testify before the inquiry, which was set up last month and comprises representatives of the government, the business community and rights groups including the National Commission on Human Rights. The first was Jakarta Military Commander Sjafrie Syamsuddin.

Widjojanto said that both Sjamsuddin and Sutiyoso had recognized that the nation's wealth disparity had contributed to the riots. Indonesia's ethnic-Chinese, though only constituting about 3.5 percent of the population, have a disproportionate hold on the economy.

Foreign Minister Ali Alatas earlier this week urged those abroad protesting against the treatment of ethnic-Chinese during the riots to await the outcome of the inquiry's probe.

[On August 24 Associated Press quoted Lt. Gen. Moetojib, chief of state intelligence, as saying investigations by his agents had found no evidence of widespread rapes of Chinese women. "No one can provide evidence that the incidents occurred in the middle of May", Moetojib said after meeting with President Habibie. In a separate report in the South China Morning Post on August 25, he claimed that reports of rapes, circulating on the Internet, had been fabricated which "...were spread for political purposes to defame Indonesia in the international arena and to disintegrate national unity" - James Balowski.]