Pressure grows on Indonesia's Wahid

Megawati would not stop attempts to impeach Wahid

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri has said efforts to hold an impeachment hearing against President Abdurrahman Wahid are unstoppable.

"The process of the special session cannot be stopped," Nadjamuddin Ramly, chairman of the Muhammadiyah organization's youth wing, quoted Megawati as saying after a meeting.

"She said that all of the nation's problems should be discussed at the special session," Nadjamuddin Ramly quoted Megawati.

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Ramly's comments indicate Megawati, who heads the nation's biggest parliamentary party, will not block attempts to hold a special session of the top legislature to consider Wahid's impeachment.

Megawati would automatically take over if Wahid were impeached over two financial scandals, which have already triggered two parliamentary censures. Aides to Megawati were not immediately available to confirm the remarks.

Wahid is on a one-day visit to Thailand. He has signed a raft of cooperation agreements with Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.Wahid has balked at calls to resign by warning the troubled nation, which has endured little but social and economic misery in recent years, would spilt if he stepped down.

He reiterated that stance after meeting Shinawatra in Bangkok on Monday.

The Muhammadiyah is the traditional rival to a separate Muslim organization Wahid led before becoming Indonesia's first democratically elected leader in 1999.

Irian separatists

In Jayapura, leading separatists from Indonesia's Irian Jaya have gone on trial for treason, underscoring the government's growing intolerance of the independence movement in the giant resource-rich province.

Wahid meets Thaksin in his one-day visit to Thailand

Theys Eluay and four other members of the pro-independence Papua Presidium Council, an umbrella group of Irian leaders which declared the province's split from Indonesia last year, have been held since November and face a maximum penalty of life in jail.

Hundreds of supporters wearing feathers and other traditional dress danced when the five defendants entered court in Irian Jaya's capital, Jayapura, 3,700 km (2,300 miles) east of Jakarta.

Police were guarding the court and there was no violence.

"The defendant has shown enmity against the republic . . . with actions regarded as attempts to break a part of the nation away from the rest," state prosecutor Erwin Muhammad Nur told the court, referring to Eluay.

The charges against the five stem from a range of peaceful separatist activities, including last year's declaration of independence.

The trial was adjourned until next Monday.

Separatist passions in vast, jungle-clad Irian have been stoked by years of human rights abuses by security forces and resentment at what many in the province see as Jakarta's plundering of its natural resources.

Wahid initially made peaceful overtures to Irian separatists when he took power in 1999, but under pressure from nationalist politicians and the military, he has since hardened his stance, diplomats say.

Irian was incorporated into Indonesia in 1963 after heavy diplomatic pressure on the Netherlands, the country's former colonial ruler.

In 1969, a U.N.-run plebiscite was held among local leaders, including Eluay, which resulted in a vote to join Indonesia. The vote has been widely criticized as unfair.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Government of Indonesia
Irian Jaya

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