THE NATION: Jakarta riots provoked,

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      Jakarta riots provoked,
      says panel

      JAKARTA -- In a report detailing the
      possible involvement of security forces in
      last month's riots in Jakarta, the Indonesian
      Commission of Human Rights has called
      on the newly-installed President B J
      Habibie's administration to investigate why
      troops did not prevent or fight the riots. 

      Commissioner Asmara Nababan said on
      Tuesday the passive gesture of the military
      during the riots had created an image that
      they had tolerated the rioters, and
      demanded that the government look into
      ''an organisation'' which had started and
      triggered the rioting, burning and looting
      between May 14 and May 16. 

      Unlike previous government statements
      which said only around 500 people were
      found dead in the riots, the commission
      also concluded in a statement, signed by
      the board members of the commission, that
      1,188 people had died. 

      When asked whether it could confirm
      rumours that there was a plot to engineer
      the riots, commissioner Marzuki Darusman
      said the public should not bank too much on
      it. 

      ''The Commission does not want to make
      statements of a speculative nature. It is,
      therefore, important that the government
      and the Armed Forces should explain
      openly the three big incidents that had
      happened prior to the riots,'' he said. 

      Rumours circulating here said that in a bid
      to intimidate the opposition, some
      elements of the military had kidnapped
      dozens of human rights activists as well as
      shot dead four students at the Trisakti
      University in Jakarta on May 12 which
      sparked public anger and led to the riots. 

      Some army generals close to Lt-Gen
      Prabowo Subianto, the then commander of
      the army strategic and reserve command,
      who is married to the middle daughter of
      former president Suharto, Siti Hediyati,
      were allegedly involved in the kidnappings
      and killings. 

      The rumours gained momentum especially
      after Prabowo was abruptly replaced not
      more than 36 hours after his father-in-law,
      who had been in power since 1965,
      decided to resign on May 21. Some other
      generals were also demoted. 

      Many also believe that the riots, whose
      main victims were ethnic Chinese
      Indonesians, were provoked to deflect
      public anger from the Suhartos to the
      Chinese, a minority community which
      controls much of the retail business. 

      A R T Kemasang of the University of
      Bradford in England, a British specialist on
      anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia, whose
      thesis on the 1740 massacre of the
      Chinese during the Dutch colonial period
      had sparked some academic debate in the
      1980s, told The Nation

      in a telephone interview earlier this week
      that the pattern of last month's riots was
      classic. 

      ''The Chinese are targeted by those whom
      I call 'political bullies' who have no
      programme bar that of immediate
      short-term gains,'' Kemasang said, adding
      that the attack on the Chinese was
      instigated by agents provocateur working
      for Prabowo and ''backward-looking
      Muslims wanting to bring the whole
      situation to anarchy in which they believe
      they could benefit by exacting
      concessions from the military''. 

      Kemasang said that attacks against
      Chinese-descent Indonesians, who have
      lived in Indonesia for generations and do
      not speak Mandarin, are always
      orchestrated by those with vested
      interests, hidden agendas or ulterior
      motives. 

      ''They [the riots] are not spontaneous. So it
      has nothing to do with what the Chinese
      have done or not done. It has everything to
      do with history, the fact that the Dutch had
      made them into a problem minority for
      buffer-cum-scapegoat in the colonial
      divide-and-rule,'' Kemasang said. 

      BY ANDREAS HARSONO 

      The Nation