Activists fear that Indonesia is returning to the dark days when army-backed youth groups unleashed their terror, without impunity, on the armed forces' critics, in the wake of an attack on the office of a key human rights group that condemned the military operations in Aceh.

Kontras, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, came under attack on May 27 when one hundred members of the Pemuda Panca Marga or Youth Wing of Army Veterans, wearing camouflage uniforms, appeared outside the office, yelling for human rights activist Munir to come out.

Munir, one of Indonesia's foremost human rights activists who founded Kontras in late 1997, was not in.

Instead Ori Rachman, a member of Kontras' executive board, came out to meet the mob. When he appeared, the mob shouted: "Sing Indonesia Raya (the national anthem)."

They wanted him to show his support for the unitary state of Indonesia, supporting the military and the government's position that Aceh cannot be allowed to be independent, especially after East Timor became a separate nation after a 1999 vote.

Under such pressure, Rachman sang the national anthem but mispronounced a word. "Wrong! Wrong!" shouted the men and soon the rally turned violent. They threw stones at the Kontras board member for getting his words mixed up and then he came under heavy physical attack from the mob.

Series of events

At the same time, members of the mob started throwing stones at the windows, using chairs on the veranda to break down the door and entered Kontras' premises, where they vandalised equipment.

Earlier, Kontras had accused members of the Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) of involvement in attacks by Indonesian Armed Forces-funded civilian militia groups in March and April on offices of international peace monitors in Aceh, where a separatist rebellion by the Free Aceh Movement has been festering for 27 years.

In December, the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Centre mediated a ceasefire that called for the rebels of the Free Aceh Movement, known its Indonesian acronym GAM, to disarm and for the troops to withdraw to barracks. The accord brought the province its first period of peace in decades, but the calm evaporated in May.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri declared a state of military emergency in Aceh on May 19. Since then fighting in the province has escalated.

While the province is closed to international monitors, there have been reports of extrajudicial killings, a crackdown on non-government groups' activities, restrictions on press freedom and insufficient humanitarian assistance for internally displaced persons.

In a statement revealing of the military's attitude towards its critics, the armed forces commander, Gen Endriatono Sutarto, stated that while he recognised that a violation of the law had taken place in the May attack, Kontras should engage in some introspection as to why they were attacked.

"If Kontras considers itself as part of the nation, it must do something for the sake of the nation. GAM is an enemy of the nation," said Sutarto.

"This is a negative excess, perhaps, by people who just got tired of Kontras, which always has negative perceptions about the government's actions. While it may be true that attacking the organisation is against the law ... maybe they (Kontras) should look at themselves in the mirror,"
he added.

Pressure and violence

But Rusdi Marpaung, director of the human rights group Imparsial, disagrees. He said the attack on Kontras reflected the heightened political pressure and violence against all institutions promoting human rights and democracy in the country - and fears that they were may be more of the same.

"But we won't stop fighting for human rights and democracy due to intimidation," he said.

In a strongly worded editorial condemning the attacks on Kontras, the Jakarta Post daily said it was a reminder that old ways still prevailed in the country after the Suharto dictatorship.

"Kontras and other like-minded organisations stand for human rights, while the attackers and like-minded parties support the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia at all costs," said the editorial.

Added the Post: "Even without hoodlumism, it is a struggle for many here to accept views other than those they have been taught to believe and they only show how the old ways have continued to prevail for the benefit of those in power."

The group that attacked Kontras, Pemuda Panca Marga, is notorious for its involvement in protection rackets and intimidation of pro-democracy activists.

Intimidate workers

Made up of the sons of soldiers, the civilian paramilitary group is affiliated to the former ruling Golkar Party of ex-president Suharto and has often been involved in incidents of pro-government violence.

Pemuda Panca Marga takes its roots from the Pemuda Pancasila group, formed by the army in 1959 to uphold state ideology, also called Pancasila. But under Suharto, the organisation became an association of notorious thugs and petty criminals.

Labour activist and Dita Indah Sari said that employers often used Pemuda Pancasila members to attack and intimidate workers in order to prevent from staging demonstrations. The organisation still has close ties with various factions of the military and police, and has been linked to criminal activities such as racketeering and extortion.

Meanwhile, Legal Aid Institute director for Aceh Afridal Darmi told the Jakarta Post on Monday that police were regularly questioning activists across Aceh. Activists from a number of organisations, he said, have already been charged with subversion and face life in jail if convicted.

Amnesty International said the activities of activists in Aceh in investigating and publicising human rights violations have often made them unpopular with the Indonesian authorities.

"Since 2000, 14 human rights defenders are believed to have been extrajudicially executed, others have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and 'disappeared'. In not one case have the perpetrators been brought to justice," said Amnesty in a recently released statement. - IPS