Last month three foreign UN relief workers were murdered when hundreds of militia men attacked

Last month, three foreign UN relief workers were murdered when hundreds of militia men attacked and ransacked their headquarters in the West Timorese town of Atambua.After being named as a suspect this week, Guterres warned of further violence by his followers. “If I am arrested or put in jail there is no guarantee that they would not launch an attack,” he said in Jakarta. “To take one district in East Timor is easy because there are 130,000 of us.” While that is an enormous exaggeration, the militias still have great potential to disrupt the operation to repatriate the remaining refugees. But, like all the militias, Aitarak and Mr Guterres would have been nothing without the organisational support and weapons supplied by the Indonesian army or TNI.

The TNI’s complicity in militia activity reached absurd levels last month when Mr Guterres travelled to Bali to meet Indonesia’s chief security minister, the former general, Susilo Bambang Yudhuyono, less than a fortnight after the murder of the UN workers.In an address to the UN Security Council last week, the UN’s chief in East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, bitterly criticised the attitude of the Indonesian authorities, referring to Mr Guterres as a “thug” and “a well-known suspect of crimes against humanity [who] should be behind bars instead of being invited to attend meetings with high-level Indonesian officials”.Guterres was as striking for his personal dress as his politics – he liked to roar around Dili on a motorebike dressed either in military fatigues or in cowboy boots, dark glasses and tight Playboy T-shirts. His brutal behaviour has always been combined with an element of self-pity “I, myself, have never done anything wrong I feel innocent,” he said before his arrest “This is the Indonesian nation When I bring honey, they come to me. But when I’m considered to bring poison, they leave me and even try to make me a victim.”. The Philippines lost one of its national symbols this week when the manufacturer of the Jeepney – the gaudy, ramshackle, improvised minibus taxis which rattle around the island archipelago – announced it was closing down. The Philippines lost one of its national symbols this week when the manufacturer of the Jeepney – the gaudy, ramshackle, improvised minibus taxis which rattle around the island archipelago – announced it was closing down.
Jeepneys were born after the Second World War from a combination of surplus US army Jeeps and Filipino ingenuity, and evolved from utilitarian vehicles into folk art objects with plumes, mascots and extravagant chrome decorations.Then yesterday, Sarao Motors Inc, which had dropped production to just three Jeepneys a week, announced that it had closed its doors, shedding 250 jobs because of increased costs and a government cutback on route licences.

Edgardo Sarao, the company’s vice-president, and son of one of the founders, said: “We have been hit hard this past year, we could not bear it anymore It’s painful for some of the workers Many have grown white hair with us.”. The youngest son of the fallen Indonesian dictator Suharto gave up the struggle to maintain his innocence yesterday and appealed to the country’s president, Abdurrahman Wahid, to spare him from prison. The youngest son of the fallen Indonesian dictator Suharto gave up the struggle to maintain his innocence yesterday and appealed to the country’s president, Abdurrahman Wahid, to spare him from prison.
Hutomo Mandala Putra, better known as Tommy, finally admitted his part in an $11m (£7.5m) corruption scandal for which he was sentenced last week to 18 months’ jail.His lawyer, Bob Nasution, said: “Our client has agreed he is guilty and decided to ask for a pardon from the president through the South Jakarta Court as well as a request to postpone the implementation of the sentence.”Tommy is the first member of Suharto’s extended family to admit wrongdoing during the 32 years in which the dictator ruled Indonesia, a period when $60bn was said to have been looted from state funds.Charges against Suharto himself were dropped last Thursday after a Jakarta court ruled he was too ill to stand trial.The announcement provoked furious demonstrations, and 50 people were injured in street battles between police and students. Mysterious explosions, including a bomb at the Jakarta Stock Exchange that killed 10 people last month, have been blamed on supporters of the Suhartos who are believed to be sowing terror to intimidate the courts and create confusion.Early on in the corruption proceedings, President Wahid said he would pardon the 79-year-old Suharto, who still enjoys grudging respect from many Indonesians for his record as an anti-colonial independence fighter and for the economic growth that came during his presidency.But the same cannot be said for 37-year-old Tommy, whose love of racing cars and expensive lifestyle were funded by a series of lucrative business franchises handed to him by his father.The charges on which he was convicted last week relate to a property deal with the government logistics agency through which Tommy enriched himself at the expense of the state.On Monday, he refused to obey a summons to appear at the Attorney General’s office but, after his business partner admitted the crime and appealed for clemency, he appears to have been left with little choice.Mr Wahid has expressed his disgust with the recent legal developments, although in terms that have paid scant regard to the norms of legal process. Last month he ordered that Tommy Suharto be arrested after he failed to surrender to a court. When the arrest was not made, he sacked his chief of police.After the former dictator was discharged on the basis of ill-health, the President said he should face another hearing and accused the judges who had freed him of taking bribes.If Mr Wahid rejects Tommy’s plea for clemency he will be sent to Cipinang Prison in Jakarta, the jail where hundreds of his father’s opponents served their sentences as political prisoners, including the East Timorese guerrilla leader, Xanana Gusmao..