South China Morning Post

JENNY GRANT in Jakarta

A member of an official team set up to investigate the May riots has criticised the Government for not including any ethnic Chinese members.

Lawyer Nursyahbani Katjasungkana said many of the riot victims were from the Chinese community and they deserved to be represented on the19-member government-sponsored team.

"I am not satisfied with the composition of the team because there is no representative from the ethnic Chinese community," said Ms Katjasungkana.

The team includes four major-generals, senior bureaucrats, lawyers, human rights activists and religious leaders.

At least 1,000 people died in three days of rioting now believed to have been masterminded by senior military figures.

Volunteer groups have recorded 168 cases of rape against ethnic Chinese women. They say 20 of the victims died as a result.

Looting mobs destroyed an estimated 3,200 billion rupiah (HK$1.9 billion) in stock and property, most of it Chinese-owned.

Ms Katjasungkana said the team faced a tough job to hand a report to the Government in three months. "We will work quickly and accurately to check all the facts the volunteer groups have gathered. We want to find a way to bring the criminals to court," she said.

The head of human rights group Volunteers for Humanity, Father Sandyawan Sumardi, who was the first to go public with news of the systematic rapes, said he hoped the team could be independent. Another member of the team, legal-aid lawyer Bambang Widjoyanto, has said he will quit the team if its independence is threatened.

The latest data from Volunteers for Humanity says 1,190 people died after being trapped in burning buildings and 27 died from gunshot wounds.

They claim 31 people are still missing.

Ms Katjasungkana said one of the priorities of the investigation team would be to meet rape victims.

"We face a big problem with getting data on the rape cases. The victims are embarrassed or scared to come forward to meet legal people," she said.

Lawyer Ester Jusuf from the Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa group said rapes of ethnic Chinese women were still occurring sporadically in Bandung in West Java. A 17-year-old ethnic Chinese girl was raped in North Jakarta in early July by a group of men who also injured her with a metal pole, according to sources in the Chinese community.