MUZI - Lateline News

SINGAPORE - Singapore women's rights advocates are calling for the rapes of Chinese

women during Indonesia's May riots to be classified as war crimes and not mere rapes, the Straits Times newspaper said on Monday.

They said a signal had to be sent that such acts of violence against women and children must be seen as war crimes. Regional governments had to take a stand that women would be protected, irrespective of their race, they said.

``These are organised acts, and not sporadic ones. It is a system of using women to cripple the menfolk,'' former member of parliament Kanwaljit Soin told the newspaper.

Soin suggested that the status of the rapes should be discussed by the Association Of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

``We are very concerned that once again, raping women has been used as a weapon of war,'' said Anamah Tan, president of the Singapore Council of Women's Organisations.

The women were responding to reports that some 170 gang rapes of mainly Chinese woman and children took place during the May riots in Jakarta.

Singapore's Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) has also sent a letter to the Indonesian ambassador to express its concern over the rapes, the newspaper said.

In Indonesia, the National Commission on Human Rights has said that the government and the public should protect the victims as well as witnesses, order an inquiry into the riots and prosecute the culprits.

Indonesian president B.J. Habibie commissioned an independent inquiry last week.

Ethnic Chinese are the usual target for mob violence in Moslem-majority Indonesia for their perceived wealth.

Although they make up only around four percent of Indonesia's 200 million population, they control the majority of the country's non-land wealth and were reported to be among the main victims of looting, arson, beatings and rape during the May riots. [Reuters]