Flawed award
To mark its 4th birthday the Independent Journalists' Association AJI gave out two awards for courage under pressure. The Udin Award went to D&R magazine for a cover mocking Suharto as Ace of Kings when he was still in power. The Tasrif Award went to Kontras, the group that put the spotlight on the military in April for kidnapping activists.

However, activist Roy Pakpahan later criticised AJI for being over-enthusiastic about its recent acceptance by the government. Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah, who agreed to present the awards, was himself responsible for shooting dead five Australian journalists in East Timor in 1975, he wrote.
Detik 11 August 1998, George Aditjondro 16 August 1998

Cyberwar
In an effort to raise awareness of alleged human rights violations against ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, internet vandals have begun scrawling protest messages across the country's web sites and sending mailbombs to Indonesians. 'This page is hacked for your national day,' read one example. 'Please keep this page for 48 hours and punish the murderers in May immediately.'

'Vandals from Taiwan, China are doing low-tech attacks (such as mailbomb),' said Budi Rahardjo of the Indonesia Computer Emergency Response Team. Previous Internet attacks, including those launched by the Portuguese hacking group KaotiK, have targeted Indonesia's policy in East Timor. Then there are others, associated with domestic Indonesians apparently unhappy with their government's policies, said Rahardjo. He added that political computer attacks against Indonesia have been going on since 1995.
Wired 18 August 1998

Petrolheads
Crisis or no crisis, late every Saturday night hundreds of young men gather in Jalan Kampung Melayu Kecil, Jakarta, to race their motorbikes. Each one burns up several litres of petrol on his little Japanese bike a night, hoping to win on the betting. 'It feels great to win, and we might make a bit of money', one said. Hundreds more come to watch around 50 bikes start in each street race. Unprotected by helmets, shoes, or the law, several end up in emergency wards each night.
Media Indonesia 31 August 1998

Peace wheels
Hamdani Ahmad Supriatna left Indonesia in 1987 to cycle around the world for peace. Since then he has visited more than 100 countries, from the deserts of Saudi Arabia to the mountains of Bolivia. He says although he has not always spoken the local language very well, his message has almost always been clear: 'People harmony, understanding, and cooperation. You like peace, I like peace. You like the people harmony, I like the people harmony'. Civil war did not keep him out of Ethiopia in 1990, where a soldier stopped him from traveling down a freshly mined road. He also biked through war-torn Angola and Liberia. But he says it was important for him to visit the dangerous places, so his trip would have more meaning.
Voice of America 3 September 1998

Indonesian Jesus Lia Aminuddin is the mother of Jesus.
The gifted 50-ish Jakarta woman, who had often appeared on TV making dried flowers, says she was given the revelation by the angel Gabriel in 1995. Her quiet third son was Jesus, while she was Miriam, the revelation said. Since then she has acquired healing powers acknowledged by well-known artists such as Arswendo Atmowiloto and Rendra. 'I sincerely apologise to the Christian community, because the Jesus they worship turns out to have been born from a Muslim', she said confidently. Amid condemnation all round by orthodox preachers, who officially declared her teaching heretical and who said crises often gave rise to crackpots, she has gathered a substantial congregation.
Gatra 5 September 1998.

Pyramid collapse
An Albanian style riot against those who squandered their savings in a pyramid scheme paralysed the South Sulawesi town of Pinrang on 15 September. The riot erupted when Kospin, the illegal 'bank' that had collected millions of dollars from members, failed to meet a promise to pay out. The local military commander and regent, both involved with Kospin, were dismissed after the riot.
Media Indonesia 16 September 1998, Warta Ekonomi 19 October 1998.

Deep impact
Along the docks of Bitung, a remote port 1,500 miles northeast of Jakarta, Taiwanese fishermen feast on fruit-bat curry, fried forest rat and barbecued snake. One captain of a big tuna trawler orders a dozen young crested black macaques - an endangered species of primate - delivered to his boat, alive. 'Prices have tripled for monkey, but foreigners can't get enough,' says a dock-side chef here who deals in the legally protected macaques. 'Koreans ask for snake and monkey stew. Taiwanese like brains.'

Throughout Indonesia, the unsustainable is becoming the unfathomable: Nature is being pillaged, as a nation hit by economic calamity falls back on land and sea to survive. Says Timothy Jessup, a scientist with the World Wide Fund for Nature in Jakarta: 'In terms of species extinction, nothing on this scale has happened since an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs 60 million years ago'.
Wall Street Journal 26 October 1998

Timor tricks
Documents leaked from within the armed forces Abri show more than twice the number of Indonesian soldiers in East Timor than Jakarta has always maintained. They also prove there has been no drawdown in numbers. Furthermore, they show more than 9,000 pro- Jakarta civilians on the army payroll. Jakarta always maintained the civilian groups were spontaneous supporters of integration with Indonesia.

Sidney Jones, executive director of Human Rights Watch Asia, said: 'The government is saying that it is going to give wide- ranging autonomy to East Timor. But at the same time it is beginning to use the term autonomy as synonymous with pro- integration, because autonomy means that you accept Indonesian sovereignty. The resistance and pro-independence forces in East Timor are not only making themselves much more visible than ever before but also challenging that concept of autonomy much more openly than ever before.'
New York Times 30 October 1998