[This appeared in The Melbourne Age, 4 September 1998].

As Nazi Germany blamed the Jews for its economic ills, as Hansonite Australia blames Asians, so now Habibie's impoverished Indonesia is moving from mere rhetoric against the Chinese to real acts of terror.

In mid-July a team of respected Indonesian human rights workers led by the Jesuit Sandyawan Sumardi revealed they had details of 152 Chinese Indonesian women pack raped or otherwise sexually abused during the racially charged riots in Jakarta on 13-15 May. Twenty of the women died. Probably many other victims, perhaps hundreds, remain unknown to the team, who feel sure the rapes were deliberately organised. 'It's a Bosnia', said the shocked deputy chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Marzuki Darusman.

This and similar revelations made headlines throughout the world. Outrage swept the Chinese community throughout East and Southeast Asia. Beijing demanded the perpetrators be brought to justice. Taipei cancelled rice assistance of 200,000 tons.

Indonesian authorities promised an impartial investigation. But in mid-August national police chief General Roesmanhadi stunned the human rights community when he denied that any rapes had occurred at all. Indonesians who claimed otherwise, he added, could be charged with spreading malicious rumours.

The issue of the rapes was discussed in cabinet on 26 August. Afterwards, so many top government officials repeated the denial that it must now be official policy that the rapes did not occur. Among them were the chief of the intelligence agency Bakin, the commander of the armed forces, the deputy speaker of parliament, and the Information Minister.

To cap it all, Tuty Alawiyah, as a woman and Minister for Women's Affairs the one figure in government to whom women might look for understanding, also said the rapes were unproven, and had caused the government a lot of problems due to overseas pressure.

Why is the Indonesian government in such a hurry to deny the rapes occurred when they are attested by reliable sources? The reasons appear to be twofold. One is that, for Habibie's government as much as for Suharto's, denial is apparently the easiest way to deflect foreign pressure. Foreign Minister Ali Alatas took the same line on this that he has taken on every human rights issue in the past. From political prisoners to East Timor, 'foreign pressure is counter-productive'.

This is a troubling sacrifice of the truth to diplomatic expediency. Unless it is quickly reversed, it will become the first serious black mark against the new government's international human rights stance.

The other reason for the denial has to do with domestic politics. This one is more troubling still.

Worldwide Chinese solidarity condemning the rapes evoked defensive sentiment in Indonesia, especially in conservative Islamic quarters. Anger focussed on one anonymous account by a rape victim that was widely circulated on the internet, in which rapists shouted praise to Allah during their vicious act. The story was impossible, it was said. Indeed, some photos of alleged rape victims on the internet have been proven to be false. The report by Sandyawan's team has meanwhile been ignored.

Popular sentiment has thus subsumed the uncomfortable truth into perennial Chinese-vs-Muslims communal bigotry. Indonesian internet discussions have repeatedly portrayed Indonesian human rights workers who defend the rape victims as 'traitors' who deserve to die.

The frustration is perhaps understandable. 'We've already got nothing to eat, and now we're being scolded as a despicable nation', one woman fumed. But to allow it to invade policy would be disastrous. Yet the post-Suharto government is so weak, and desperation over the collapsed economy so explosive, that the temptation for cabinet to exploit this communal sentiment has evidently become too strong to resist.

The government stands to gain from this sordid tactic in several ways. It wins popularity among considerable sections of the community (though at the expense of others), it divides the community and thus paralyses opposition, and it deflects attention from the need for genuine reform.

Government denial of the rapes, in my view, must unfortunately be interpreted in this way. Habibie's government is in a classic 'weak state' situation. It is beholden to militant anti-Chinese groups within society and cannot, at least on the issue of race relations, act in the interests of all.

Indonesians desperately need to hang together in their hour of need. They do not need leaders who feel they must exploit racial conflict in order to survive in power.

It has been true for a long time that the state in Indonesia belongs to certain strong elites, who have felt no qualms about denying the abuses committed against weaker groups. The horrors in East Timor and Aceh have been denied for many years. In that sense the present controversy just proves that Habibie's government is by no means new enough.

But there is something chilling going on when the abuse being denied was committed against people who are themselves members of a comfortable middle class, in the capital city, by men who everywhere else are treated as dangerous criminals. If even these people, in the heart of the nation, are not safe, heaven only help those in the outer regions.

Such studied disregard for proper process at the highest level is a most dangerous development for Indonesia. It not only represents a direct threat to the safety of Chinese Indonesians throughout the country, it is also a threat to Indonesian human rights workers who have defended them, and hence a threat to civil decency itself.

Gerry van Klinken, editor, 'Inside Indonesia' magazine.