No. 58 April - June 1999		Newsbriefs
		Oils ain’t oils Mobil Oil Indonesia, the country's biggest producer of natural gas, has been linked to serious human rights violations in Aceh. The company is a joint venture between US-based oil giant Mobil and Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina. It helped set up two military posts. Post 13 was used for interrogating people before they were sent to other posts. The company's excavators were used to dig mass graves for military victims in the nearby Sentang and Tengkorak hills. The other post, Camp Rancong, was used by the notorious Kopassus elite military unit to torture and murder their victims. A group of Sumatran NGOs demands US government action against Mobil Oil, an apology and compensation from the company, and an investigation into Mobil Oil funding for military operations. Down to Earth, No. 39, November 1998, email dte@gn.apc.org. A grief shared For the first time in 23 years women from all over East Timor were able to meet and speak freely together. The 200 women at the East Timorese Women’s Conference, 9-10 November 1998, braved military retribution to attend. They spent hours telling their experiences of rape and violence, sharing their anger and grief, and crying together. It was also the first time that the 20-year old clandestine women’s movement OMPT spoke out publicly. East Timorese women living outside East Timor also attended. Their presence and the fact that they had not forgotten their Timorese sisters gave courage to East Timorese, said Olandina Cairo, a member (PDI) of the provincial parliament in Dili. Jude Conway, East Timor International Support Centre (Etisc), PO Box 651, Nightcliff Darwin 0814, Australia, tel 08-8948 4458, fax 8948 4498, email <etiscaus@downunder.net.au>, web http://www.easttimor.com. Not so noble The Nobel Foundation, the secretive Swedish institution behind the prestigious peace prize, finances its awards by investing in arms companies and firms with doubtful human rights records. It has no 'ethical policy' about which shares to buy. Fund managers for it in Britain and the US admit they have invested in arms manufacturers such as Boeing, United Technologies, British Aerospace and the engineering group GKN. British Aerospace Hawk jets have been used against opponents of the bloody Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Two years ago the Nobel peace prize went to Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta for their fight against the Indonesian regime in East Timor. Jody Williams, who won last year's peace prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said: 'I am shocked. It would not seem logical to award a peace prize to those fighting for human rights in Indonesia, then invest in a company selling arms to that government.' The Observer, 13 December 1998 Army business A combined police and national parks patrol guarding the national park on Komodo Island (famed for its komodo dragons) was forced to admit defeat when deer poachers confronted them with army-issue M16 automatic rifles. Though outnumbered three to one by the poachers, the patrol at first attempted to enforce the law. But when the poachers opened fire, they decided to let them go. ‘Our patrol was only equipped with police-issue SSK rifles and five rounds of ammunition’, they reported afterwards. An environmental non-government organisation that routinely joins the patrols, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), said attacks by armed poachers had in the past put at least two people in hospital. The poachers, thought to be led by a prominent figure from Sape Island, borrow their M16s from soldiers in exchange for deer meat and money. Feisol Hasyim, who helps fund TNC coral regeneration research, said: ‘The situation is serious and we hope the centre will take notice’. Media Indonesia 16 January 1999. Campaign trail Golkar campaigner AA Baramuli told crowds in his home area of South Sulawesi he wanted Golkar to win as much of the vote in 1999 as it had done in 1997. He hoped South Sulawesi voters would not put the ‘national leaders’ from South Sulawesi to shame. President Habibie is from South Sulawesi. Baramuli himself is chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council. Don’t let people say that even their own family doesn’t support them, Baramuli warned. He promised that if Golkar won the election even more South Sulawesians would be appointed to key government positions. ‘Perhaps it will be another hundred years before South Sulawesi people have such an opportunity to lead this nation. God only gives such a chance once, we have to make the most of it’, Baramuli said. He then handed out money to local mosques, schools, village heads and Golkar committees. He rejected journalists’ suggestions that he was engaging in money politics, saying: ‘This money did not come from corruption but from legitimate friends of Golkar’. Kompas 25 January 1999. How poor? Indonesia's economic crisis may not be as bad as recent estimates suggest, say three studies commissioned by the World Bank. ‘While Indonesia is suffering a severe crisis, it is not the universal disaster that some would have it,’ the authors of one draft report conclude. One World Bank officials says: ‘We need to target our safety nets and avoid spending everywhere,’. The main study pitches the poverty level at about 14% of the population in 1998, a rise of 3% from 1997. Compare this with the official government figure of 39% and the International Labor Organisation's 48%. The studies also take issue with widely quoted predictions by Unicef and others of a ‘lost generation’ as the poor yank their children out of school to put them to work. Instead of previous estimates of a drop of 24% in enrolments, they conclude a fall of just 4-5 %. But the studies are unlikely to reduce foreign assistance. ‘For us, to keep social stability ahead of the elections in June is the most important thing,’ and that means easing poverty, says a Japanese official. Wall Street Journal 25 January 1999. Piracy worst Indonesia accounted for the lion's share of pirate attacks on ships last year, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said. The waters off the vast, turmoil-wracked Indonesian archipelago continue to be ‘the highest risk area’ after registering about 30 percent of the 192 pirate attacks worldwide last year. Moreover, experts warned figures on the number of attacks were too low - perhaps only as few as one in eight cases were reported. ‘We are seeing greater violence in pirate attacks and that is our biggest concern,’ said IMB spokesman Noel Choong. In a recent hijacking of a Panamanian cargo vessel the pirates had confessed they gathered the 23 crew together on the deck and shot them, the report said. In another incident, a hijacked Japanese-owned cargo vessel was found in China with a totally new crew on board. In early 1998 there was a noticeable trend in hijacking of tankers and theft of their cargoes, while in the last quarter the pirates moved to hijacking bulk carriers and general cargo ships. AFP 3 & 6 February 1999.