DATE=10/10/00
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=INDONESIA POL (L-O)
NUMBER=2-267698
BYLINE=PATRICIA NUNAN
DATELINE=JAKARTA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Indonesian lawmakers are keeping the pressure on President Abdurrahman Wahid - questioning him about his plans to lead the country out of political and economic crises. As Patricia Nunan reports from Jakarta, special attention was given to the situation in the remote eastern province of West Papua - also known as Irian Jaya - wracked by violence last week.
TEXT: Indonesia's Speaker of Parliament Akbar Tanjung took on a conciliatory tone when he described the meeting between legislators and President Abdurrahman Wahid. He said one of the meeting's main goals was simply to achieve understanding between the president and parliamentarians.
Mr. Tanjung was one of 25 lawmakers to question the president about the various problems testing his leadership - including Mr. Wahid's controversial decision to fire the national police chief, recent fuel price hikes, and the continuing separatist and religious unrest simmering in several provinces.
But neither the lawmakers nor the president offered any substantive proposals to resolve those crises. Instead they merely agreed to
take steps to solve Indonesia's security problems.
In the latest outbreak of bloodshed, at least 40 people were killed in the province of West Papua during rioting sparked
when police pulled down several "Morning Star" flags belonging to the province's independence movement late last week. Human-rights officials blame police for starting the chaos -- by firing into a crowd of demonstrators that were angered when officers
removed the flags.
Security officials however say many of the dead were migrants from other parts of Indonesia who had settled in West Papua - and who were killed by independence supporters.
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Speaker of parliament Tanjung says he hopes the worst of the violence there is over.
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He says they want to take firm action to preserve the national symbol - Indonesia's flag. But he says he does not believe there have to be more casualities.
West Papua became an Indonesian province in 1969 - after a vote supervised by the United Nations. But independence leaders say the ballot was unfair - and now want to break free of Indonesia.
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In addition to his handling of the government, Mr. Wahid is also under investigation for failing to fully disclose a gift of more than two-million dollars he received from the Sultan of Brunei, and for the theft of more than four-million dollars from state coffers by a member of his personal staff.
The president was called before legislators to explain his first 10-months in office in August. He changed the structure of his government to quell talk of impeachment, but so far there has been little to suggest that Indonesia's serious problems will be solved anytime soon. (SIGNED)
NEB/HK/PN/JO/RAE
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