INDONESIA A NEWS

As violence escalates in West Papua, one cannot help but recall East Timor and wonder how much worse it must get before Australia and the international community will act. Tensions are at breaking point in the easternmost province of Indonesia after the police shooting of independence activist Mako Tabuni. Human rights activists report Tabuni was unarmed when shot six times by the Australian-trained Detachment 88 forces. Tabuni was deputy chairman of the West Papua National Committee, an organisation advocating independence and the right to self-determination under international law. Tabuni had also been campaigning for an investigation into a recent spate of military killings. The shooting follows years of violence. At least 16 people have been killed in the past month, according to human rights groups, and hundreds of homes raided, with many burnt to the ground. Thousands are reported to be evacuating, seeking refuge in the forest or heading for refugee camps in Papua ...

The Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta declared that ''freedom is justice'' as he stepped down as East Timor's president during an emotional ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the country's independence. Dr Ramos-Horta told more than 100,000 Timorese who packed a beachside area on Dili's outskirts early yesterday that their greatest achievement was fighting for and achieving their freedom after hundreds of years of foreign occupation and war during which a quarter of the population were killed or died from starvation or disease. Among dozens of foreign dignitaries who witnessed the ceremony was Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian President, who earlier stood alongside East Timor's Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, the former guerilla fighter who spent years in Indonesian jails, and spoke about Indonesia's enhanced co-operation and growing people-to-people ties with East Timor. Dr Yudhoyono said it was Indonesia's duty to...

THE Australian government has quietly blacklisted a prominent Indonesian political figure implicated in the Balibo Five killings while working with Indonesian authorities to manage the fallout from the scandal. Secret US diplomatic cables reveal that Australia has declared Yunus Yosfiah - a special forces captain during the 1975 invasion of East Timor - to be ''persona non grata'', a sanction that would bar him from entering Australia. The NSW Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch found in 2007 that Yosfiah had ordered and participated in the murder of the five Australian newsmen at Balibo. He later became a general, the minister of information in the late 1990s, and remains an influential figure in Indonesian politics.   Cables sent from the US embassy in Jakarta confirm that Australian officials worked privately with the Indonesian government as it tried to ''manage'' the political reaction to the coronial finding. In a cable dated November 21, 2007, obtain...

Indonesia has come a long way since 1975, when an aggressive military dictatorship in Jakarta invaded the tiny former Portuguese colony of East Timor with the tacit approval - many scholars believe - of Australia and the United States. Some 200,000 people died in the ensuing annexation and guerrilla war before East Timor finally succeeded in severing ties with its giant neighbor in 1999 - again with great bloodshed and destruction. But despite a rollicking free press and an open democracy, Indonesia has not, apparently, come far enough to allow a fictionalized account of the invasion to be seen publicly within its borders. On Tuesday, the official Film Censorship Agency (LSF) banned "Balibo," an acclaimed Australian movie about the murder of five foreign journalists by Indonesian troops at the beginning of the invasion. The film, shot in East Timor and released in August in Australia, was to have been shown Tuesday evening at a private screening by the Jakarta Foreign Corresp...

The five were Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Tony Stewart Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says ties with Australia may be harmed by a war crimes inquiry into five journalists' deaths in East Timor.Australian police earlier announced the inquiry into the deaths of the "Balibo Five" which happened during Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975. President Susilo said to reopen the case was not in the spirit of the relationship the two countries shared. Indonesia maintains the journalists were killed accidentally in cross-fire. This version of events has been accepted by successive Australian governments. But in 2007 an Australian coroner found that the the two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander were executed by Indonesian special forces in the border town of Balibo to stop them revealing details of an impending Indonesian invasion. 'Past mistakes'Mr Yudhoyono implied that Australian history showed it ...

Asia's youngest and on several measures poorest country, East Timor has ambitious new plans to establish itself as the region's next big energy exporter. Industry analysts estimate the untapped off-shore Greater Sunrise gas field holds over 8.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of light crude oil. Though most of the field lies in disputed waters, a full one-fifth of the field is open for drilling by East Timor and Australia in a so-called Joint Development Area. How those energy resources are converted into revenues and applied towards development will likely make or break the island nation's economic and perhaps political future. The Greater Sunrise field is shared by East Timor and neighboring Australia and could over its life generate tens of billions of dollars of revenues for Timor's national coffers. Alfredo Pires, East Timor's secretary of state for natural resources, expressed his hopes in an exclusive interview with Asia Times Onli...

THREE rebels involved in attacks on East Timor's top two political leaders have been arrested in Indonesian West Timor where they were staying at the invitation of Joao Tavares, a notorious former pro-Jakarta militia commander.Indonesian security forces traced the men to Mr Tavares, who was described by United Nations war crimes prosecutors as the supreme militia commander in East Timor in 1999 when 1500 people were killed and 70% of the country's infrastructure destroyed. The arrests came after Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told his East Timor counterpart, Jose Ramos Horta, on the phone last week that Jakarta would crack down on any support for the rebels coming from Indonesia.The investigation into the attacks is focusing on contacts rebel leader Alfredo Reinado - who led the attack on the two leaders and was killed during it - had with people in Indonesia, including a Timorese-born Jakarta gangster, Hercules Rozario Marcal. Reinado's mobile telephone...

Thousands gathered in Dili's streets to greet Mr Ramos-Horta on Thursday Indonesia has said it has arrested three men suspected of involvement in the shooting of East Timor's President, Jose Ramos-Horta, in February. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the suspects were all former Timorese soldiers who had crossed the border between the two countries illegally. Mr Yudhoyono said the states had worked together to find the men, but expressed surprise that it had been made public. Mr Ramos-Horta flew home on Thursday after receiving treatment in Australia. Thousands of supporters greeted him in the capital, Dili. Despite the attack, Mr Ramos-Horta said he was determined not to change his style and would continue to mix with ordinary people. 'Indonesian elements' Speaking to reporters in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, Mr Yudhoyono said police had arrested and detained three former members of the Timorese military on Friday morning "on arrest warrants issued by Ea...

It is official: no one was responsible for human rights abuses that occurred around the 1999 East Timor referendum in which more than 1,000 people reportedly died. In defeat in the referendum, Indonesia was a sore loser. For several weeks mobs rampaged through Dili, even attacking the residences of priests. The only person in jail for those crimes, Eurico Guterres, who has friends and supporters in high places in Jakarta, was released a few days ago from Cipinang prison. The Supreme Court overturned his sentence on appeal. He was met by a crowd of supporters to whom he clenched his fist and cried "Merdeka!" His release is just in time for next year's general elections. Seeing that he is a national hero of sorts and a party member, it might just be that when the next parliament is formed after elections, we will see him sitting among the lawmakers in Senayan as one of the House's celebrities. In the meantime, he might follow the trend of celebrity politicians turning t...

AUSTRALIA was overzealous and "gung-ho" towards East Timor, former Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas has said at an inquiry aimed at healing the wounds left by the bloody aftermath of Timor's independence.Mr Alatas said he did not blame Prime Minister John Howard for the bloodshed around the 1999 independence vote, but claimed a letter from Mr Howard to then Indonesian president B. J. Habibie provoked Indonesia's about-face on holding the referendum. The letter, which described a change in Australia's position towards holding an independence vote, was not the "bone of contention", Mr Alatas said yesterday."It was rather the spirit of overzealousness of Australia suddenly sending troops and the largest contingent. Sometimes it's a gung-ho attitude."Mr Alatas, who is a foreign policy adviser to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was the first witness before the Commission of Truth and Friendship, which is holding hearings in...