Indonesia Armed Forces

The military massacred 51 villagers whose bodies were found in the northern province of Aceh, rights activists said Friday. Military officials denied killing the civilians in Aceh, where the army has intensified a crackdown on guerrillas fighting for an independent Muslim state. This week, villagers discovered 31 bodies in two separate grave sites and another 20 bodies in a ravine in Beutong, a village about 90 miles southeast of the regional capital of Lhokseumawe.

The current crisis in Indonesia isn't all about money. It's also about guns, armies and political power. The process of globalization--the flow of capital across international borders--inevitably affects a country's economy. But in the end, globalization offers no answers for some of the key questions that determine a country's political future: who commands the troops and how will they be used? The Clinton administration knows these time-honored truths.

As rumors swept this capital Tuesday that further anti-government protests were planned in the wake of violent weekend clashes, the army threatened that demonstrators would be shot. "We have issued orders to shoot if there are any attempts to disturb order," the official Antara news agency quoted Jakarta-area military commander Sutiyoso as saying. "Our tolerance is limited." But supporters of opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri appeared not to be cowed. "They shoot us all?"

Standing on the sidewalk of Salemba Raya, a broad street lined with the charred hulks of 10 buildings torched the day before by pro-democracy protesters, a middle-aged businessman pondered the future Sunday. "All the people need peace, need hope . . . but the trouble will continue," he said, watching a tense face-off between soldiers and scattered groups of protesters.

As elections go, it was pro forma. The session lasted only 20 minutes and there was no voting. The People's Consultative Assembly session was more an acclamation than a cliffhanger for President Suharto of Indonesia as he was reelected for a sixth five-year term to lead the world's fourth most populous country.

In a weekly ritual near the site of the demonstrations in May that left at least 50 people dead here, mourners wearing black garments gather to crush chili peppers with salt. The occult ceremony is designed to put a curse upon the country's military leaders, whom the mourners blame for Thailand's worst civil unrest in 20 years.

President Suharto fired two military commanders whose troops shot to death pro-independence demonstrators last month in East Timor. Replaced were Maj. Gen. Sintong Pandjaitan and Brig. Gen. Rudolf S. Warouw. Indonesia's armed forces maintain that they fired in self-defense and that 19 demonstrators were shot to death Nov. 12 in Dili, capital of the Portuguese colony annexed by Indonesia in 1976.

Bowing to international pressure, Indonesia said it will investigate an army shooting in East Timor that may have killed up to 115 people. Witnesses said troops fired on hundreds of mourners Tuesday in the regional capital, Dili. The marchers, in a show of defiance against Indonesian rule, were marking the death of an East Timor activist in riots two weeks ago.

Indonesian soldiers opened fire Tuesday on a funeral procession of youths protesting Indonesia's rule over East Timor, and a U.S. journalist, severely beaten by the troops, said it appeared that dozens of people were killed. Portugal condemned what it called "this new act of extreme brutality" in the former Portuguese colony, where the Fretilin armed independence movement has been operating since the territory was annexed by Indonesia in 1976.

When Indonesian troops took them last month, the two men had each attained a minor prominence in this dusty, isolated town: One was the prayer leader of the local mosque, the other was the soccer team's popular goalie. In a clearing between the palm tree plantations on the outskirts of town, the men were executed with a pistol shot in the back of the head, according to eyewitness accounts reported to human rights groups.