Indonesia announced a largescale amnesty for political prisoners yesterday, boosting President Jusuf Habibie's reform credentials and distancing him further from the disgraced Suharto regime.
Speaking before their own release two prominent prisoners, Mr Sri Bintang Pamungkas and Mr Muchtar Pakpahan, told thousands of cheering supporters that the government had agreed to their demands for freedom. "The government has agreed all political prisoners will be selectively freed," they said, to loud cheers.
Amid chaotic scenes at a packed news conference inside the prison, the Justice Minister, Mr Muladi, said the government would review the files of all political prisoners.
The staged release is expected to take three months. There are dozens of political prisoners in Cipinang and thousands more around the vast archipelago. But prisoners involved in armed uprisings, criminal offences or linked to 1965 violence that followed what the Suharto government called a coup attempt against the then president Sukarno, would not be freed, Mr Muladi said.
Such conditions mean the jailed East Timorese resistance leader, Mr Xanana Gusmao, is unlikely to be freed.
Friends and family stood outside the prison for most of the day in searing tropical heat. Some 70 soldiers guarded the iron gate and tempers flared.
Inside Mr Pakpahan, in a grey shirt and Islamic hat, and Mr Sri Bintang, wearing a grey business suit and maroon tie, were calm as they were mobbed by reporters.
Mr Sri Bintang, expelled from the opposition Islamist United Development Party, was jailed for 34 months last year for defaming President Suharto during a speech in Germany.
Mr Pakpahan, head of the unrecognised Indonesian Labour Welfare Union, is nearing the end of a four-year term for inciting riots and also faces separate subversion charges for published antigovernment statements.
Mr Sri Bintang said he would continue campaigning for more democratic reforms after his release. "I will campaign for political reform and other reform, such as economic reform and to strengthen the sovereignty of the people," he said. Mr Pakpahan said he planned to continue as a labour activist and did not intend to move into politics.
The new Indonesian government must free political prisoners from East Timor and seek a "constructive dialogue" with the Timorese, the Nobel peace prize winner, Bishop Carlos Filipi Ximenes Belo, said in an interview published in Barcelona.
Speaking to the Catalan daily, La Vanguardia, the bishop urged Mr Habibie to "seek a dialogue with the Timorese to find a fair, peaceful and honorable solution for Timor, with neither victor nor vanquished."
David Shanks adds: A church report alleging human rights abuses over the past two years in the mineral-rich Indonesian region of Irian Jaya, or West Papua to separatist rebels, was published yesterday in Jakarta, according to the Portlaoise-based West Papua Action. The solidarity group calls on the Irish Government and the EU to press President Habibie to withdraw troops from the south central highlands of Irian Jaya/West Papua - home to the huge Freeport RTZ mining operation - to allow agencies and church groups to reach vulnerable populations. It said problems of food shortages had been compounded by military operations against the Free Papua Movement and over 100 civilian deaths reported as villagers were displaced.