[PEN-L:6698] Fwd(2): WSJ: Weekend's Events Pummel Suharto

[D Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>]

> Rights Report, Nobel Decision
> Pummel Indonesia's Suharto
>
> By RICHARD BORSUK
> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
> Wall Street Journal, October 14
>
> JAKARTA, Indonesia -- For Indonesia's President Suharto, it wasn't the
> sweetest of weekends.
>
> Friday's announcement that two East Timorese won this year's Nobel Peace
> Prize focused international attention once again on the troubled former
> Portuguese colony, which Indonesia annexed in 1976. On Saturday, the
> state-appointed National Human Rights Commission said the government was
> partly to blame for the July 27 riot that left several people dead in
> Jakarta and temporarily rattled foreign investors' confidence in Indonesia.
>
> The two events weren't the only unwelcome news for Mr. Suharto. On Friday,
> word reached Jakarta that a religious controversy had set off a rampage in
> East Java on Thursday, leaving five people dead and 25 churches burned. Also
> on Friday, a maverick politician who calls himself Mr. Suharto's "enemy''
> said he will seek the presidency in 1998.
>
> "It was a rough couple days for Mr. Suharto,'' said a former member of
> Indonesia's Parliament. "I wonder if he might react sharply to some of the
> events.''
>
> That's unlikely, said political scientist Juwono Sudarsono, vice governor of
> a political-studies institute run by the military. "Privately, he'll be
> quite angered, particularly by the Nobel Prize,'' Dr. Juwono said. "But I
> don't think he'll show it publicly.''
>
> 'Excessive Involvement'
>
> It was Mr. Suharto, after all, who appointed the human-rights commission
> three years ago. In its final report on the Jakarta riot, the commission
> criticized the government for "excessive involvement'' in the Indonesian
> Democratic Party, known as the PDI, which ousted Megawati Sukarnoputri as
> its leader in a government-backed June party meeting. The commission also
> rapped authorities for playing a role in sparking the violence of July 27,
> when Megawati supporters were evicted from PDI headquarters. That contrasts
> with the government's contention that the eviction was carried out only by
> party members supporting Suryadi, who replaced Ms. Megawati at the helm of
> the party.
>
> The report said the eviction stemmed from creation of an "open conflict''
> inside the party. In that conflict, the government had intervened
> "excessively'' and taken sides, which is "far beyond its function'' in
> political development and security, the report said.
>
> The report also said that the actions of 200 supporters of Mr. Suryadi who
> attacked PDI headquarters in Jakarta on July 27 must be investigated, and
> that those who broke laws should be prosecuted. (Indonesia has charged 124
> Megawati supporters who were inside the headquarters with offenses
> punishable by up to seven years in jail. None of the Suryadi supporters has
> been charged.)
>
> Marzuki Darusman, a deputy chairman of the commission, said Sunday "we've
> made it clear there was direct government involvement in the violence,
> specifically in the forcible takeover of the PDI secretariat.''
>
> In its report, the commission confirmed a figure in its August interim
> report that at least five people died in the riot. It said one was shot, but
> didn't say by whom. (The government maintains four people died, none of them
> by gunshot.) The commission said 149 people were injured and 23 were still
> missing. In its interim report, the commission put the number then missing
> at 74.
>
> Government reaction to the commission's report wasn't immediately known. Dr.
> Juwono said he doesn't think the report will upset the government, as the
> text was "balanced and not overly confronting'' to authorities. It doesn't
> openly accuse the government of "engineering'' Ms. Megawati's ouster from
> the PDI, he added. (Ms. Megawati has charged that two cabinet ministers and
> others "engineered'' her removal.) Dr. Juwono also said the commission has
> written a report that boosts its credibility.
>
> Painful Prize
>
> Meanwhile, State Secretary Murdiono and Foreign Minister Ali Alatas
> criticized the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Jose Ramos-Horta, chief
> spokesman of Fretilin, the East Timorese group resisting Indonesian control
> of the territory.
>
> Indonesia hasn't criticized the prize's co-winner, Carlos Ximenes Belo, the
> bishop of predominantly Catholic East Timor. Political analysts say Jakarta
> has qualms about the bishop but respects his work. It's the choice of Mr.
> Ramos-Horta, who has lived outside East Timor for 20 years, that has upset
> Indonesian authorities. Mr. Alatas called Mr. Ramos-Horta a "political
> adventurer'' and said the "regrettable'' choice was "prompted or based on a
> partisan political consideration.''
>
> The Nobel award drew attention to East Timor after a period in which
> international interest in it had waned. Political analysts said the prize's
> timing is particularly bad for Mr. Suharto, as he is scheduled to make his
> first visit there in years on Tuesday. He will witness the unveiling of a
> huge statue of Jesus Christ, a ceremony Bishop Belo will also attend. While
> Mr. Suharto can use the occasion to assert that his government promotes
> religious tolerance, the newly honored bishop is likely to become the focus
> of attention.
>
> Moreover, the Nobel committee's citation puts Jakarta in a bad light, saying
> Indonesia has "oppressed'' East Timorese.
>
> Religious Rampage
>
> In East Java, last week's rampage followed a court's ruling that a sect
> leader had insulted Islam through his interpretations of the faith. The sect
> leader was sentenced to five years in prison, the maximum penalty for the
> charge he faced. But several thousand people, angered at what they felt was
> a lenient sentence, went on a rampage, according to Indonesian press
> reports. The mob burned the courthouse and, enraged by unfounded rumors that
> the convicted man was hiding in a church, burned churches in several towns,
> one Buddhist temple and other buildings. Order was eventually restored by
> the army, the papers said.
>
> Also on Friday, Sri Bintang Pamungkas, expelled from Parliament last year
> for outspokenness characterized as unacceptable behavior, announced his
> candidacy for the presidency in 1998. Mr. Pamungkas said he wants to promote
> the ideas that Mr. Suharto's New Order government started with in 1966, and
> that he will end Indonesia's "current dictatorship.''
>
> In May, an Indonesian court sentenced Mr. Pamungkas to 34 months in prison
> for insulting Mr. Suharto by calling him a dictator. The 51-year-old former
> legislator from the Muslim-based United Development Party has been allowed
> to remain free pending hearing of his appeal against the conviction.
>
> Mr. Pamungkas has virtually no chance of being nominated for president when
> a 1,000-member assembly meets in 1998, as candidates can be nominated only
> by one of Indonesia's three permitted parties. The 75-year-old Mr. Suharto
> has never faced an opponent, and he is unlikely to face one in 1998 if he
> goes for a seventh five-year term, analysts agree. Some feel it was Mr.
> Suharto's fear that Ms. Megawati might oppose him in 1998 that prompted the
> government to support her removal this year as a party head.
>
> Meanwhile, Ms. Megawati formally appealed Friday a court decision Thursday
> to throw out her suit seeking reinstatement as PDI leader. The court said it
> didn't have the authority to hear her case and that the PDI congress that
> removed her was an internal party meeting.