DEC 22 1998                     The Straits Times

     Jakarta admits 76 rapes in May riots
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ASSAULTS 'NOT ORGANISED'


JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government admitted yesterday that 76
rapes had been committed during the violent May riots, but denied that
they were organised, a minister said. 

State Secretary Akbar Tanjung said that the government's own checks
had found 52 cases of rape, the same number as reported by a
government-appointed team set up to probe the rape allegations. 

He said the government also found that there were 24 other rape cases
which had been accompanied by violence, compared to the 14 found by
the probe team. 

The government also found four cases of sexual harassment, the same
number found by the team, he told journalists at the Merdeka palace. 

It was the first time the government, which had first sought to deny the
rapes, most of them of ethnic Chinese women and girls, had commented
on the findings of the quasi-government team released last month. 

"According to our investigation, there was no evidence of rapes that
were done in an organised way," Mr Tanjung said. "And the victims
were from various ethnic groups." 

He said the figures were the results of "a follow-up by the government
on the recommendation of the Joint Fact-Finding Team". 

He added that the report's findings would be passed on to government
ministries, but did not say what action they could take. 

After an international furore over the savagery against ethnic Chinese
during the May riots, the government commissioned the team in July to
check the rape allegations. 

It comprised representatives from the government, the
Attorney-General's Office, the police and non-governmental
organisations. 

Mr Tanjung spoke after President B.J. Habibie met seven senior
officials -- five ministers, the Attorney-General and the national police
chief -- who commissioned the team officially. 

Major-General Marwan Paris, an assistant to the defence minister, who
spoke on the same occasion, said the rapes had been reported in the
cities of Jakarta, Surabaya in East Java, Solo in central Java, Medan in
North Sumatra, Palembang in South Sumatra and in Lampung province
in southern Sumatra. 

"From the 52 rape victims, the cases of 15 have been processed... while
the rest are still under investigation." 

He said that of the 15 cases which are being processed with a view to
taking legal action, three were based on the victims' direct testimony,
nine on testimonies of doctors who had treated the victims and three on
the testimony of the victims' parents. 

The fact-finding team said it had directly or indirectly verified 52 victims
of simple rape, another 14 victims of rape accompanied by violence and
a further 10 victims of sexual attacks and four of sexual harassment. 

The riots in Jakarta, some of the most violent the city has witnessed,
took place on May 13-15. They left massive devastation and over 1,000
dead, mostly looters caught by fires in buildings. -- AFP, Reuters