[Kabar-indonesia] Indo News - 12/20/05

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- Indonesia's security agency warns of potential new threat
- Indonesia warns of shift in extremist tactics
- Pilot jailed for poisoning passenger's dinner
- Conviction in Indonesian Murder Trial is Just a First Step
- Relief but little rebuilding
- Aceh's next generation
- Commission to summon Wiranto
- Report estimates East Timor dead
- Juggling Pragmatic Politics with Bloody Past
- The Situation in Ambon / Moluccas – Report No. 498
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ABC/Radio Australia
Indonesia's security agency warns of potential new threat
Last Updated 21/12/2005, 05:05:02

Indonesia's National Intelligence Agency BIN has warned that terrorist
groups in the country may be about to change tactics by planning a
kidnapping campaign aimed at high ranking officials, including foreigners.

Our Jakarta correspondent says that Indonesia is already on a high state
of alert after warning of a Christmas bombing campaign.

Now the head of BIN, Syamsir Siregar has told reporters at the
Presidential Palace that the terrorist group headed by Noordin M. Top, the
Malaysian suspected of masterminding the Bali bombings and the attack on
the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, may be planning an Iraqi style campaign
of kidnappings.

The Australian government is at present warning Australians against travel
to Indonesia, including Bali, advising that it is continuing to receive a
stream of reporting indicating that terrorists are in the advanced stages
of planning attacks against Western interests in Indonesia, including
places frequented by foreigners.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABC/Radio Australia
Indonesia warns of shift in extremist tactics
Last Updated 21/12/2005, 05:05:00

Indonesia's intelligence chief says Islamic extremists are plotting to
kidnap high-ranking officials, including foreigners, in an apparent
tactical shift away from bombings.

Syamsir Siregar was speaking to journalists in Jakarta after a meeting
with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

But he also says tightened security means extremist elements have little
room to manoeuvre.

Earlier this month, the intelligence chief warned there was information
indicating that extremists may be be planning attacks over the
Christmas-New Year period.

The Australian and U-S embassies have also issued warnings in recent weeks
that foreigners could be targeted during the holiday season.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Times (UK)
Pilot jailed for poisoning passenger's dinner
December 20, 2005
By Nick Meo in Indonesia

By the time his plane stopped in Singapore, Indonesia’s most famous human
rights campaigner Munir Thalib was feeling unwell and sent an SMS message
to his wife to tell her.

During the long flight to Europe he became seriously ill. Two hours from
landing at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport, he was dead.

On his way to a break from the death threats and hassles at home in
Indonesia for a year of post-graduate studies at a Dutch university in
September 2004, there had been one small surprise on his international
flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam; a friendly off-duty Garuda airlines
pilot called Pollycarpus Priyanto had insisted on Thalib taking a business
class seat, then, witnesses later recalled, watched carefully while
pretending to read a magazine as the 38-year-old campaigner ate a meal of
fried noodles.

Today the friendly pilot was jailed for 14 years for premeditated murder
after slipping a massive dose of arsenic into Munir’s food as two cabin
staff allegedly looked on.

Just before the verdict was read out in a Jakarta court, Priyanto had
boasted to journalists that he would be acquitted; when judges sent him to
prison he screamed that he was a‘scapegoat’.

The trial did little to answer the real question behind the murder of one
of Indonesia’s bravest men, a campaigner who had confronted soldiers and
politicians accused of torture, kidnapping and worse, both during the rule
of the dictator Suharto and in the years since his fall in 1998.

In its judgement the court found that Priyanto was not acting alone,
although it was suggested at his trial that he was simply a zealous
nationalist angered by Thalib’s criticisms of leading Indonesians.

But although they called for further investigation and found that Thalib
had been killed to silence his strident criticism of the government and
military, the judges only hinted that they thought the powerful State
Intelligence Agency was involved, as activists have alleged.

One judge noted the many calls made to Priyanto by a senior intelligence
agent.

Surprisingly, evidence found by investigators suggesting an intelligence
service connection to the murder was not heard by the court and the
identity of a mysterious individual who Priyanto repeatedly called on his
mobile phone before the murder was not revealed.

Munir’s widow and fellow campaigners say evidence of links between
Priyanto and the State Intelligence Agency were ignored.

After the verdict Suciwati Thalib said:"They have to find the mastermind.
Pollycarpus played only a small part in this conspiracy."

Rusdi Marpaung, director of human rights group Imparsial which Munir had
founded, said before the verdict:"The trial has become a scripted effort
just to affirm that a legal process has been conducted.

"I believe this is meant to wash away the intelligence conspiracy."

For Indonesians the case has worrying echoes of the political
assassinations carried out during Suharto’s regime.

Munir, a lawyer by training, died on the day Indonesia’s parliament
approved a truth and reconciliation committee to examine extra-judicial
killings carried out under the dictatorship.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Human Rights First
For Immediate Release
December 20, 2005
Contact: Kirsten Powers, (212) 845-5260
Conviction in Indonesian Murder Trial is Just a First Step
-- Human Rights First Calls for New Investigation

New York - Human Rights First welcomed the conviction of the man charged
with poisoning human rights hero Munir Said Thalib, but criticized the
Indonesian government's failure to identify and prosecute others
implicated in the crime. On Tuesday, December 20, Pollycarpus Budihari
Priyanto was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison, less than the
life sentence requested by prosecutors.

"This conviction is only the first step in the search for justice for
Munir," said Neil Hicks, Director of International Programs. "Unless the
Indonesian government opens a new investigation into the role of
intelligence officials in Munir's murder, the verdict will be the last
step as well."

Munir fell ill and died while flying to the Netherlands to continue his
studies in September 2004. An autopsy revealed a lethal dose of arsenic in
his system, most likely ingested on the flight from Jakarta to Singapore.
The resulting outcry led President Yudhoyono to create a fact-finding
team, but senior intelligence officials failed to cooperate. The team
found evidence implicating several officials at the State Intelligence
Agency (known as BIN in its Indonesian acronym), but the government
refused to release the team's report. Prosecutors never introduced
evidence that Priyanto was a BIN agent in court or even referred to the
fact-finding team's report. Two members of the team have even been
summoned by police for questioning on defamation charges, an increasingly
common form of harassment.

Although the official fact-finding team recommended a new commission with
a robust mandate, the government left the investigation to the police
department. This effort has been hampered by the reassignment of its
director and most staff, effectively ending the investigation.

"A guilty verdict for a low-level operative does not mean that justice has
been served," said Hicks. "The fact that former intelligence officials
cannot even be effectively investigated, let alone prosecuted, underscores
that in today's Indonesia some people are above the law."

The Munir case has attracted significant international attention. A
bipartisan group of 68 members of the United States House of
Representatives recently sent a letter to the Indonesian president urging
action on the case. In June, Munir's wife, Suciwati, was accompanied by
Human Rights First in meetings with State Department officials in
Washington, D.C. In September, Human Rights First released a White Paper
on the case, available at:
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/defenders/hrd_indonesia/letters/munir-white-paper-090605.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Economist
Relief but little rebuilding
Dec 20th 2005 | Khao Lak, Banda Aceh, New Delhi And Bangkok
-- One year on, man has done a surprisingly good job cleaning up after
God. The harder part comes next

Sopon Dechkla survived the tsunami that struck several countries around
the Indian Ocean on 26th December 2004, by clinging to a palm tree at the
Sofitel Khao Lak resort, where he worked as a driver. His wife, a cleaner
at a neighbouring hotel, was one of perhaps 230,000 people who drowned in
the deluge. The Sofitel, where 220 died, lies in ruins to this day, its
roof tiles torn off and its windows shattered by the force of the waves.
Mr Sopon has found work at the Sarojin, one of the first local resorts to
reopen after the tsunami. It is fully booked over New Year despite
high-season rates that start at $400 a night. But of the 6,500 hotel rooms
in the area prior to the disaster, only 1,200 are back in business. Khao
Lak, the part of Thailand hardest hit by the tsunami, is recovering. But
progress is frustratingly slow—and, in some respects, unnecessarily so.

The same applies even more strongly to the Indonesian province of Aceh and
the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, which were poor and war-torn before the
tsunami struck, and suffered greater devastation when it did. Of the 1.8m
people left homeless by the disaster, a minority have rebuilt their homes;
others have found shelter with family or friends, or in relatively solid
“transitional” homes provided by aid donors. But some 67,500 tsunami
victims in Indonesia are still living in tents a year into the relief
effort, while another 50,000 have crowded into temporary barracks. It will
take another 18 months or so to build houses for them all (see chart).
Some 500,000 Indonesians rely entirely on rations distributed by the World
Food Programme. That is an improvement from 750,000 at the beginning of
the year, but indicates how many still lack livelihoods.

By most accounts, the emergency-relief effort in the immediate aftermath
of the tsunami was a notable success. Unlike in previous disasters of this
magnitude, almost no one died from outbreaks of disease, lack of clean
water or starvation in the wake of the catastrophe, even in remote islands
off India and Indonesia. In some fields, the recovery has proceeded very
quickly: most children in tsunami-affected areas are back in school,
although not necessarily in a proper building. In Indonesia, for example,
the United Nations Children's Fund has set up temporary schools for over
500,000 children.

The long haul
The transition from emergency relief to reconstruction has gone less
smoothly. In both Sri Lanka and Indonesia, the authorities set up special
agencies to oversee rehabilitation. That made sense, since the mammoth
task would have overwhelmed existing government agencies, especially
because the waves had swept away many of their staff and offices. But
creating a parallel bureaucracy takes time, and is bound to provoke
rivalry with the existing one. Indonesia's Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction Agency (BRR) was not created until April, and was not fully
operational for several months after that.

Money, in theory, should not have been a problem. The outpouring of
sympathy after the tsunami resulted in pledges of over $13 billion in
international aid of one sort or another. Donations from private
individuals and companies alone came to more than $5 billion. Some
charities, such as Médecins Sans Frontières, actually started refusing
donations for tsunami victims, saying they already had as much money as
they could use.

But donors have been slower to spend the money than to raise it. Of the $2
billion or so in promised aid that the government of Sri Lanka is
tracking, only $1 billion has actually been handed over, and only $141m of
that has been spent. These figures may exaggerate the donors'
sluggishness, says Aidan Cox of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), who helped set up the tracking system—but they are probably not
far off.

In any reconstruction effort, aid workers point out, there is always a
trade-off between quality and speed. Given the amount of money they had to
spend, and the amount of attention their work was receiving from the
media, many agencies decided to make model projects out of their tsunami
relief work.

But some delays are the result of simple ineptitude rather than complex
planning. During the initial airlift, several charities flew in
unsolicited, unwanted donations of winter clothing, which added to
congestion at airports. More recently, aid agencies have bombarded
fishermen with offers of new boats, but no one has paid to rebuild the
factories that used to supply the ice to preserve their catch. No one
seems to have spent much time thinking about interim measures. It was only
recently that the BRR began a real push to get temporary shelters built to
replace tent camps during the long wait for permanent housing.

Nor is the reconstruction effort evenly spread. In Thailand, the richer
and relatively unscathed province of Phuket has received more aid than
Phangnga, the province which includes Khao Lak. Groups with little
political clout, such as illegal Burmese immigrants in Thailand, or Sri
Lanka's Muslim minority, have got less than their fair share of
assistance.

By the same token, the World Bank complains that fashionable causes, like
health and education, have won more attention than equally worthy but less
glamorous work, such as dredging swamped ports. Mr Cox of the UNDP says
that of the $354m earmarked for road-building in Aceh, only $8m has
actually been disbursed. No wonder, then, that of 3,000km (1,900 miles) of
road rendered impassable, only 354km have been restored.

By far the biggest obstacle to the reconstruction effort, however, is the
sheer scale of the devastation. Long swathes of coastline in Aceh rose or
subsided during the earthquake that prompted the tsunami, leaving farmland
submerged and coral reefs above water. Fields are strewn with boulders or
sodden with salt water. Roads and ports have been washed away, making it
hard to bring in heavy equipment or supplies. The temporary roads the
Indonesian army has built are already eroding in the monsoon rains.

Skilled labour and building materials are also in short supply. There are
simply not enough workmen, machines and supplies in Aceh to build more
than 5,000 houses a month. Aid agencies, naturally, want to use timber
from legal sources. But neither Sri Lanka nor Indonesia produces enough
locally, so it has to be imported from Australia and New Zealand.

Even where land has been cleared and supplies are available,
reconstruction often cannot begin straight away. Land disputes are legion,
since the tsunami destroyed many boundary markers and deeds, if they
existed in the first place. The huge number of deaths has generated plenty
of inheritance disputes. Unscrupulous property developers are said to have
seized valuable coastal land in Sri Lanka and Thailand to build new
resorts. Suitable land will have to be found for some 30,000 families in
Aceh who will have to relocate permanently, because their former property
is no longer habitable.

Still, the World Bank and the BRR, in a recent report on the first year of
reconstruction in Indonesia, argue that work has actually proceeded
quickly compared to past disasters. It took seven years for a city as rich
as Kobe in Japan to recover in terms of population, income and industrial
activity after its earthquake in 1995, the report notes.

Setting up an early-warning system in the Indian Ocean to reduce the
number of casualties from future tsunamis is also proving more difficult
than expected. The UN agency in charge of the effort, the
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, is hoping to put a system of
deep-sea sensors in place by 2008. It has held two conferences to discuss
the scheme, but is short of money to implement it.

In the meantime, several countries are pressing ahead with interim systems
of their own. India says it will spend 1.25 billion rupees ($26m) to set
one up by 2007. Indonesia will soon have the first of half-a-dozen
ocean-bed sensors in place off Sumatra. Thailand has built 39 of a planned
62 towers along the Indian Ocean, to house sirens and loudspeakers that
will broadcast evacuation instructions in multiple languages. In
mid-December, a careless technician activated the system by accident,
causing a brief panic among tourists and residents alike.

Some good after evil
Politically, too, the report card is mixed. Optimists had hoped that a
sense of solidarity in the wake of the tsunami would help bring an end to
long-running conflicts in both Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The separatist
rebels of both the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam had, after all, already embarked on sporadic peace talks with
the governments of Indonesia and Sri Lanka. In the end, however, the
tsunami succeeded in reducing tensions in Indonesia, while raising them in
Sri Lanka.

GAM, which was already on the defensive, seems to have lost weapons and
fighters in the tsunami. The destruction of so many of Aceh's boats must
have put the squeeze on the smuggling racket it ran to raise money. Since
it did not control any territory of its own, it could not exploit the
reconstruction effort for political or financial advantage. All this,
coupled with some flexibility from Indonesia's new government, contributed
to its decision to sign a peace agreement in August, which has proved
remarkably durable so far.

The Tigers, on the other hand, do control large areas of northern and
eastern Sri Lanka, and so ended up squabbling with the government over the
huge amounts of aid on offer. Establishing a mechanism to administer the
money meant tackling the very issues—over sovereignty and authority—that
have proved the most intractable in Sri Lanka's faltering peace process.
Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka's newly elected president, has threatened to
scrap a deal on how to distribute aid in areas controlled by the Tigers,
while Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers' leader, has threatened to return
to war if the government does not offer an acceptable settlement next
year. Renewed fighting would further slow the already sluggish
reconstruction drive, and heap tragedy upon tragedy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Christian Science Monitor
December 19, 2005 edition
Aceh's next generation
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Banda Aceh, Indonesia – For 6-year-old Feri, the journey from disaster to
recovery has already lasted literally one-sixth of his entire life.

Before the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami, Feri lived in a two-story
brick-and-mortar house and enjoyed being spoiled by his three older
siblings. He didn't bother much with chores, and his mother Juriah never
pushed him too hard. He went to school in nearby Lampulo, surrounded by
cousins and friends.

When readers first met Feri last April, he was a quiet child, often hiding
behind his mother's skirt. Little wonder: He had lost his home and his
older siblings to the waves. Feri's family is one of two in Indonesia that
the Monitor has been following since the tragedy.

At the time, Feri's family had left a crowded relief camp and set out to
rebuild their home themselves. The other family had chosen to wait in a
tent for the aid programs to kick in. In the third part of this series, we
examine whether the different paths to rebuilding chosen by their parents
have made a difference in their young lives.

Feri's parents may have chosen to eschew the refugee camp and a handout,
but the signs of outside help are visible all around his neighborhood. And
he's reaping the benefits.

He sees homes being built around him by the aid group, CARE. He attends
school in a barracks built by Coca-Cola, he eats food donated by the World
Food Programme, and gets occasional vaccinations from UNICEF. In the
afternoons, he goes to a play group organized by Save the Children as part
of its Safe Play Area program.

With each new structured activity in his life, Feri's behavior improves
and his former sullenness diminishes.

His schoolteacher, Siti Sofiah, says that her children - only five
survivors from a class of 45 - have become harder to control after the
tsunami. Some kids talk back, others have difficulty focusing on their
studies. Many live in broken or single-parent families. Feri's best
friend, Iqbal, lost his mother in the tsunami. Iqbal's father, like many
widowers here, has since remarried, and Iqbal treats Feri's mother as a
surrogate mother.

Tsunami stress affects many kids
Feri shows few outward signs of stress that many displaced children of
Aceh have - including bed-wetting, clinginess, nightmares, inability to
concentrate, and bouts of extreme misbehavior.

He has all the energy of a boy his age, and a gift for working on
bicycles. Around the house, he does a few chores like sweeping and making
the beds. But his mother, Juriah, says he has also become more naughty
since the tsunami, throwing tantrums, for example, when she doesn't give
him money for candy.

Most people have coping mechanisms to deal with tragedy, says Marwan
Hasibuan, coordinator for psychological programs in Banda Aceh, and host
of a radio talk show that helps Acehnese deal with issues of stress.

"People call us up and tell us their children are misbehaving, or wet
their beds, or cling to their parents," says Mr. Hasibuan. "We tell them,
these are normal reactions to abnormal situations. It's not always going
to be this way. People have resources inside them, but it takes time to
draw that out, and to show people they have their own ability to cope."

250 schools rebuilt
Overall, the lot of children in Indonesia's troubled Aceh Province is
slowly improving after a year-long outpouring of humanitarian aid.
Two-hundred and fifty schools have been built, 15,000 temporary houses
have been constructed, and 60 health clinics have helped to restore
medical services in relief camps around the province.

All told, the global aid donor community has pledged nearly $7.1 billion
in relief aid, with $4.3 billion of those commitments in the pipeline.

Yet progress is slow. Oxfam reported last week that - from India to
Indonesia - only 20 percent of the 1.8 million people left homeless on
Dec. 26 will have been permanently rehoused by the first anniversary. In
Aceh, only 75,000 - out of 500,000 left homeless - have moved into
temporary barracks. Hundreds of thousands are living with friends and
relatives, and 67,000 are in tents.

"Every family, in one way or another, has been affected by this disaster,"
says Kerstin Fransson, head of child protection for the aid group, Save
the Children. "The social fabric has broken down."

Social networks reemerge
While Feri no longer hides behind his mother's skirt, he still lives in
the same two-room shack built last spring by his father Alamsyah in a
rubble-strewn area of Banda Aceh where a thriving neighborhood once stood.

Slowly, other wooden shacks are springing up nearby, many of them built by
Alamsyah. In each home, there are other rugged little children, Feri's new
playmates, who escaped the tsunami.

A similar community is rising up around the other family: Muammar, his
wife Zohrasafita, and their two children. After several months in a tent,
they moved into a sturdy new home built by the International Organization
for Migration. The relief agency is steadily adding housing around them,
creating new neighborhoods - and new social networks.

As this infrastructure builds up, the differences that separate the two
families are disappearing. Feri's parents, Juriah and Alamsyah, quickly
rebuilt their businesses from scratch. Muammar - an artist at a TV station
- has been rehired by his old employer (see story, page 12).

The families now await the rebuilding of schools, the return of pediatric
medical care, the reemergence of a stable neighborhood environment -
things that can take years and even decades. They also are seeking a state
of normalcy, something beyond the reach of money alone, something being
brought back slowly by family, faith, and time.

"Imagine you are sitting with your father on a bicycle getting groceries
in the market," says John Prewitt Diaz, director of psychological relief
programs for the American Red Cross in New Delhi. "You see the wave, you
try to go back to your house, but the wave is already covering the house.
You'll never see your mother and brother again. These are the experiences
that children had during the tsunami."

"The truth is, you'll never be the same after an event like this," says
Mr. Diaz, "but if you build [on the inner strengths of communities and
families] then maybe a community can build itself strong enough so that
you can take care of each other."

Even at his tender age, Feri recognizes that his mother needs his support.
His mother, Juriah, takes out a photo album quietly and opens to a page of
her life that she considers closed.

The pictures, taken years ago, are of her three oldest children, Rahmat,
Risa, and Khalid. She saw all three swept away by the tsunami wave as she
clutched Feri and 2-year-old Reza.

"If friends come and ask about the children, we tell them [they have
died], but if they don't ask, we prefer not to talk about it," says
Juriah. "It will only make us sad."

Juriah says Feri understands that his older brothers and sister are dead.
He occasionally has bad dreams about them. His teacher at Koran school
assures him that they have gone to a better place.

During Ramadan, last month, Feri saw his mom crying as she prayed. He knew
she was missing her older children, and Feri had an idea. "He said, 'Mom,
why don't you rename me Rahmat, and you can rename Reza as Khalid,' "
Juriah recalls. Rahmat and Khalid are Feri's older brothers, who died.
"'And we can find another girl who looks like my sister Risa, and then you
won't miss anyone anymore.' "

She smiles. "He cares when people around him are sad." But Juriah herself
has difficulty containing her emotions, and she speaks up only when with
close friends. At night, when rain seeps through the leaky tin roof onto
the beds where her children are sleeping, she cries. "How much things have
changed in our lives," she says.

400 orphans placed, playgrounds built
At least Juriah has her children with her. As one of the lead agencies in
child protection issues, Save the Children was given the task of placing
separated children and orphans into homes. Out of 2,393 children, 400 have
been formally placed in homes, and 85 percent of the others are living
with relations or family friends. Save the Children has also been setting
up Safe Play Areas - monitored play groups run by community volunteers, in
schoolrooms or centers away from the rubble where children congregate.

"In some ways, this is not a rebuilding, it's an introduction" to services
that 90 percent of Acehnese have never had," says Ms. Fransson. "We hope
the volunteers can be good role models, and friends for the children to
talk about their feelings. And we hope that parents can rebuild their
capacity to be good parents."

Religion stirs memories, brings solace
The hardscrabble, up-from-the-bootstraps life of Feri's family remains a
stark contrast to the almost-normal life of 4-year-old Athafayath, and his
parents Zohrasafita and Muammar. Zohrasafita (friends call her Ira) has
turned the decidedly humble but solid house built by the IOM in the
farming village of Tingkeum into a comfortable middle-class home. She
makes money on the side, selling sarongs and scarves to neighbors, while
husband Muammar pulls income from his set-designing job at the local TV
station.

Always vivacious, the two children have blossomed over the past year.
Fayath, as he is called, likes to enter a room with a bang, executing kung
fu moves that would make Jackie Chan proud. His 18-month-old sister Tasya
smiles and flirts with neighbors. Neither show signs of trauma from their
harrowing escape from a busy marketplace, held tightly by Ira as a wave
swept away thousands behind them.

But the trauma occasionally returns. At Ramadan, for instance, Ira broke
into tears, as it finally occurred to her how many close family members
she had seen last Ramadan were no longer alive.

"This year, Fayath asked me to go to her grandpa's cemetery to ask him for
money for Eid," says Ira. It is common for families to give children money
during the Eid feast that follows the month of Ramadan. "So one day, we
went to the mass grave in Lambaro," a fishing village outside of Banda.
"And I said, maybe our family members are here."

At the grave site, Fayath just stayed quiet, but Ira says he understands.
He knows his cousin Pipi, a playmate before the tsunami, is dead. But he
can't bear to look at photos of the family. If he does, Ira says, he
becomes silent for the day.

To heal these wounds, the family has turned less to foreign aid groups and
relied instead on their traditional religious beliefs. Islam has been a
source of solace to many Acehnese searching for a way to deal with the
upheaval in their lives.

"We just tell ourselves that anything good or bad in life comes from
Allah," says Ira. "This is our life, but we can't control it. This helps
us deal with it."

Epilogue
When the Monitor first met these two families, earlier this year, they
seemed like ideal subjects to help answer the question: Does aid money do
any lasting good?

For the two families, the aid efforts did provide small, scattered
stepping stones on their own unique paths to a more solid footing. But
both have found that the swiftest changes in their lives generally come
from their own initiatives and talents.

Feri's parents, Alamsyah and Juriah, who chose out of pragmatism rather
than ideology to go it alone, managed to escape from a crowded relief camp
by building their own home from scraps. Rather than wait for job
retraining programs, Alamsyah used his carpentry skills to make money
building homes for other people and a small coffee stall of his own.

Alamsyah and Juriah are still struggling to make ends meet in the same
makeshift home. But aid money is starting to make a difference in their
lives. Alamsyah took out a no-interest loan for a motorcycle. His oldest
surviving son, Feri, now goes to a school donated by Coca-Cola; his family
receives food and medical care from the UN; and the fish market is being
rebuilt by Americares. Most important, Alamsyah plans to take up an offer
by CARE to finish constructing homes for anyone in the neighborhood who
wants one, and who has land title.

By contrast, the family of Muammar and Ira typified the majority of people
who stand in line, wait their turn, and hope that aid will help them get
back on track. Their strategy paid off faster than expected. By April,
they occupied a home built by the International Organization for
Migration.

Jobs programs were much slower in coming, and the Monitor's second part of
the series explained how Muammar spent much of his time visiting aid
groups and government institutions seeking aid, while Alamsyah was earning
money as a carpenter, taxi driver, and coffee vendor. Today, Muammar's
condition has improved dramatically, only partially with foreign aid. He
has gotten his old job back at the local TV station, but continues to
receive food aid. His kids stay at home, lacking a preschool, but they
receive adequate medical checkups.

In this, the final part of the series, the differences between the
families have largely disappeared. Both are grateful for the aid that has
come, but frustrated that it hasn't come faster. Both families recognize
they are fortunate to also draw upon middle-class resources, education,
and talents that others lack.

"CARE will build the homes over here, but it's too slow," says Alamsyah.
"Here they have no building materials.... If I had the materials, I would
do it much faster."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jakarta Post.com
Headline News
December 17, 2005
Commission to summon Wiranto
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The Indonesia-Timor Leste Truth and Friendship Commission (CTF) plans to
summon former Indonesian Military chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto and several
other generals in relation with the violence that took place in the then
East Timor in 1999 prior to and after an independence referendum.

"Yes, we will clarify the status of Wiranto, as well as other related
sources, in the violence which took place in East Timor in 1999," said CTF
co-chairman Benjamin Mangkoedilaga, who represents Indonesia on the joint
commission established by the governments of Indonesia and Timor Leste in
August.

"The interviews, of course, will not name individuals as suspects in gross
human rights violations because this is not a pro-justicia process,"
Benjamin said.

Benjamin said commissioners would examine all of the information related
to the 1999 violence, including a report filed by an Indonesian
government-sanctioned fact-finding team that investigated alleged gross
human rights abuses in Timor Leste, and copies of all of the documents
from an ad hoc human rights tribunal in Jakarta that tried rights abuse
suspects.

The commission will also look over material given by the fact-finding team
to Indonesia's Attorney General's Office.

"Recently, we interviewed former members of the now-defunct fact-finding
team and several prosecutors at our secretariat in Denpasar, Bali. During
the interviews, we also tried to compare reports from the two
institutions," Benjamin said.

A member of the government-sanctioned fact-finding team said earlier the
team proposed the names of almost 30 Indonesian generals to stand trial
before the ad hoc human rights tribunal, but the Attorney General's Office
scrapped several of the names, including that of Wiranto.

The CTF will not recommend that the government of either nation establish
any form of judicial body. The CTF process is not meant to lead to
prosecution, but will instead emphasize institutional responsibility.

The commissioners will work for one year, with the fact-finding process to
begin in January and last until June next year. From July to December, the
commission will focus on drawing up its conclusions.

Meanwhile, the New York-based Human Rights Watch has asked the Timor Leste
administration to publicly release the 2,500-page Reception, Truth and
Reconciliation Commission report on Indonesian abuses during 24 years of
occupation, even if it offends the Indonesian government.

Timor Leste President Xanana Gusmao has repeatedly said he favors
reconciliation with Indonesia.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Australian Financial Review
Report estimates East Timor dead
Dec 21 07:39
AFP

At least 183,000 people were killed in East Timor during its 24 years of
occupation by Indonesia, a government probe into past human rights
violations has concluded.

Seventy per cent of the deaths were at the hands of Indonesian security
forces or East Timorese militias trained by Jakarta, the report by the
Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) found, according
to a copy obtained by Lusa news agency.

The more than 2,000-page report was delivered on October 31 to East
Timor's President Xanana Gusmao, who suggested to legislators last month
that its findings and recommendations should not be made public.

The commission was set up in the former Portuguese colony in 2002 as an
independent authority tasked with investigating human rights violations
from all sides during Indonesia's occupation of its smaller neighbour.

Its findings, the product of research by dozens of East Timorese and
international experts, offer the first official estimate of the number of
deaths in the territory during the period of rule by Jakarta.

Estimates by human rights groups had put the figure around 200,000.

Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 but the country's people voted in
favour of breaking away in a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999, and it
gained full independence in May 2002 after more than two years of UN
stewardship.

Militia gangs, which the United Nations has said were recruited and
directed by Indonesia's military, went on an arson and killing spree
before and after the East Timorese referendum, killing about 1,400
independence supporters.

The commission identifies by name the victims of the human rights abuses
as well as those who carried them out, Lusa reported.

Among the abuses described by the report include collective executions,
torture, and the forced removal of people from their homes, it said.

The United States knew well in advance of, and explicitly approved,
Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975, according to documents which
were declassified in Washington earlier this month.

Multiple US administrations tried to conceal information on atrocities
carried out in East Timor to avoid a possible Congressional ban on weapons
sales to Indonesia, the formerly secret US documents show.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Straits Times (Singapore) (via Joyo Indonesia News)
Monday, December 19, 2005
Commentary
Juggling Pragmatic Politics with Bloody Past
by John McBeth

The commission formed to investigate human rights abuses during
Indonesia's bloody 25-year occupation of the former East Timor, now Timor
Leste, has just issued its report. There are gory details aplenty, but it
is interestingly circumspect about the role of theUS and Australia, as
John McBeth discovers in an exclusive preview of the report in Jakarta

IN A report that stands to become the historic record of a nation's bloody
struggle for statehood, Timor Leste's Commission for Reception, Truth and
Reconciliation (CAVR) estimates that 18,600 non-combatant East Timorese
were killed or disappeared and at least 84,000 more died as a direct
result of displacement policies during Indonesia's brutal 24-year rule
over the former Portuguese colony.

The report, which President Xanana Gusmao presented to the Timor Leste
Parliament on Nov 28, has yet to be released publicly. But a copy of the
executive summary, reviewed exclusively by The Straits Times, provides a
detailed and often chilling account of human rights abuses committed by
both Indonesian security forces and warring Timorese factions between 1974
and 1999.

The 36-strong independent commission, formed in 2002 and whose mandate
expires today, also outlines a long list of recommendations - many of them
clearly unattainable - that highlight the differences between a body
anxious to keep faith with history and with Timor Leste's many victims,
and a government with a firm eye on pragmatic politics.

Drawn from nearly 8,000 statements collected in Timor Leste's 13 districts
and 65 sub-districts, and also from Timorese refugees across the
Indonesian border in West Timor camps, the report – entitled 'Chega!' in
Portuguese, or 'Enough' - runs through a litany of alleged crimes during
the bloody years.

These range from mass executions to forced resettlements, sexual and other
horrific forms of torture as well as abuse against children.

It is not just confined to Indonesian excesses. Large sections of the
three-year work are devoted to executions and torture carried out by the
left-wing Revolutionary Front of Independent Timor-Leste (Fretilin) and
the rightist Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) in the civil war proceeding
Indonesia's 1975 invasion, which left 3,000 people dead, and also in
internal purges within Fretilin in the first years of Indonesian
occupation.

On the events surrounding Timor Leste's August 1999 vote for independence,
the report pulls no punches. It finds that the death and destruction was
not the work of so-called rogue elements of the Indonesian Armed Forces,
but was in fact the execution of a systematic plan that was approved,
conducted and controlled by Indonesian military commanders up to the
highest level.

'Members of the civil administration of Timor Leste and national-level
government officials, including ministers, knew of the strategy being
pursued on the ground, and rather than taking action to halt it, directly
supported its implementation,' it says.

In a separate section, however, the report insists that the 1999 rampage
should not be allowed to cloud what went on when the former East Timor was
locked away for more than 13 years.

'Egregious as they were,' it says, 'the crimes committed in 1999 were far
outweighed by those committed during the previous 24 years of occupation
and cannot be properly understood or addressed without acknowledging the
truth of the long conflict.'

The commission cites a number of specific incidents, among them the
alleged September 1981 massacre of 160 Fretilin fighters and their
families on the slopes of Mount Aitana on the Manatuto-Viqueque border,
south-east of Dili. This followed the conclusion of what was known as
Operation Kikis - a two-month sweep-and-destroy mission which is said to
have involved 60,000 shanghaied East Timorese civilians.

In each case, only military units are mentioned. The names of each
perpetrator or perpetrators of human rights violations are identified
through a coding system, which corresponds to a secret list held only by
President Gusmao.

It is not known how many people are on the list, but it is understood that
in many incidents, the same perpetrators were allegedly involved.

Among the report's many recommendations:

The renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Special Crimes Unit to
investigate and try human rights violations, including eight 'exemplary
and critical' cases of massacres and executions perpetrated by both
Fretilin resistance forces and the Indonesian military.

The establishment by the UN Security Council of an international tribunal
'should other measures be deemed to have failed to deliver a sufficient
measure of justice and Indonesia persists in the obstruction of justice'.

The use of the Commission of Truth and Friendship, recently created
between Indonesia and Timor Leste, to explore the possibility of further
criminal trials and a policy of reparations to victims.

Reparations should be paid not just by Indonesia and, as a stop-gap
measure, the Timor Leste government, but also by the permanent members of
the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, Britain and the United
States.

The commission also wants the Indonesian government to table the
2,500-page report in the country's House of Representatives, to revise
official Indonesian accounts and education materials related to its
presence in Timor Leste, as well as to provide the full documentation of
all military operations which resulted in human rights violations -
demands which Jakarta is almost certain to reject.

Anxious to preserve relations with Indonesia, President Gusmao has been
reluctant to release the commission's findings.

He told Timor Leste legislators last month that the report's
recommendations could not be considered 'absurdly utopian, but are
realistically very ambitious'. He added that 'the grandiose idealism they
(the commissioners) possess is well-manifested to the point it goes beyond
conventional political boundaries'.

Despite an outcry among human rights groups and Timorese victims over the
climate of immunity in Indonesia that has allowed military officers to
escape prosecution, President Gusmao also took issue with the commission's
assertion that the absence of justice is a 'fundamental obstacle in the
process of building a democratic society'.

He pointed to the considerable effort which Indonesia has invested in
democratisation and said the Jakarta administration knows that the core
obstacle to the building of a democratic society is how badly derailed the
fundamentals of justice have become in society and what must be done to
correct the situation.

The report says Indonesian security forces, including East Timorese
militiamen, were responsible for 70 per cent of the killings, which
reached a peak in the late 1970s as they tried all means to break the back
of the resistance. During the same timeframe, an estimated 42,000 Timorese
were arbitrarily detained, and 232 were convicted and sentenced to lengthy
jail terms on subversion charges after sham political trials.

The commission says that, at a minimum, 84,200 people died of hunger and
illness - in excess of the peacetime baseline for these causes of death -
between 1977 and 1979, when people were being driven out of the mountains
into tightly guarded resettlement camps.

Although it does not provide further evidence, it suggests the death toll
could be as high as 183,000 - conforming with the figure that Western
humans rights groups have been using for years.

Interestingly, the executive summary is circumspect about the role of the
United States and Australia in giving the green light to Indonesia's
invasion. It only says that hopes for the smooth de-colonisation of Timor
Leste were thwarted by 'Portuguese neglect, Indonesian interference
supported by its key Western allies, the US and Australia, and the
inexperience of the young leaders of the territory's newly formed
parties'.

It says that while Australia was well-placed to influence policymaking on
the issue, it 'cautioned against force, but led Indonesia to believe it
would not oppose incorporation. It did not use its international influence
to try and block the invasion and spare Timor Leste its predictable
humanitarian consequences'.

Strangely, the Americans barely get a mention, despite new disclosures
that then-US secretary of state Henry Kissinger gave then-president
Suharto of Indonesia more than a wink and a nod.

The report does, however, point to the political context in 1975, when
successive communist victories in Indochina were only compounding
long-held fears of a domino effect throughout South-east Asia and the
possibility of Timor Leste becoming an Asian Cuba.

Apart from its call for reparations, the commission does have one specific
request for the international community: that UN member states deny visas
to Indonesian military officers named in the report for either human
rights abuses or command responsibility for troops accused of violations.

The independent commission outlines a long list of recommendations - many
of them clearly unattainable - that highlight the differences between a
body anxious to keep faith with history and with Timor Leste's many
victims, and a government with a firm eye on pragmatic politics.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crisis Centre Diocese Of Amboina
Jalan Pattimura 32 - Ambon 97124 - Indonesia
Tel 0062 (0)911 342195   Fax 0062 (0)911 355337
E-mail crisiscentre01 at hotmail.com

Ambon, December 21, 2005
The Situation in Ambon / Moluccas – Report No. 498

1. Shortage Of Physicians – In the Moluccas – especially in its remote
areas – there is an urgent need for doctors. The total number of doctors
in the Moluccas is 70. Their presence is required not only for
administering to the sick but also for enhancing health care, for
precautionary measures to be taken, for promoting sanitary facilities etc.
The Moluccas has 17 clusters of islands. Needed are at least 150 doctors,
including dentists. Thus was communicated to the media by the head of the
Provincial Health Department in Ambon, Dr Rukiah Marasabessi. Though the
government tries to make the position of a doctor in the more isolated
areas as attractive as possible, nevertheless not many physicians can be
persuaded to settle down there.

2. Free Medication – More than 90 Muslim refugees living in temporary
shelters in the Waihaong area, city of Ambon, showed up for free medical
check-up on December 18. The event was organized by students from the
Indonesian Christian University of the Moluccas (UKIM) in Ambon in order
to demonstrate solidarity with their suffering Muslim brothers and
sisters. They worked in coordination with the Waihaong community health
center. Among the Internally Displaced Persons that live in Waihaong, many
residents, from infants to seniores, suffer from breathing problems,
chronic coughs and skin diseases due to poor health conditions.

3. Foreigners Deported – We read in The Jakarta Post Newspaper that in the
last eight months 201 foreigners have been sent back to their home
countries by the Tual Immigration Office. Tual lies on Kei Kecil Island
and is the capital of the South-East Moluccas Regency (Kabupaten Maluku
Tenggara). With all of them there were problems with their passports or
immigration documents. Their nationalities – thus was reported by the head
of the Tual Immigration Office, J. Saija – were 133 Burmanese, 53 Thais,
13 Cambodians and two Myanmarese.  J. Saija further said: "There are still
many foreigners who have no passports or legal immigration documents in
Southeast Maluku. But, we will soon remedy the situation."

The immigration office's data shows that most of the non-nationals
illegally staying in Southeast Maluku are fishermen. Some have been in the
regency for 10 years already. Some of the foreigners have even raised
families with local women. Some have as many as three children but could
not take them with them due to their legal status.

4. Christmas Greetings – We send our readers our sincere wishes for a
Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you for caring for the
Moluccas. May likewise the New Year be a blessing for all.

C.J. Böhm msc
Crisis Centre Diocese of Amboina