Asiaweek.com | Newsmakers

NOVEMBER 17, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 45 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK

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He's worried -- not so much about his own situation, but the powers threatening Hong Kong's press.

Newsmakers
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An intruson of power?
Willy Wo-Lap Lam put it succinctly: "I have no option but to resign." Lam had carved a niche for himself as the South China Morning Post's China-watcher. So when his editorial responsibilities were slashed, alarm bells went off in Hong Kong. In June, Lam fell afoul of Post owner Robert Kuok Hock-nien (whose Kerry Group controls the newspaper), when he wrote that President Jiang Zemin had called the territory's tycoons (including Kuok) to Beijing, encouraging them to back Hong Kong's politically unpopular Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa for a second term. Kuok wrote a letter to the SCMP rebutting Lam's report. Many of his colleagues wondered how long Lam would stay at the paper. Is his departure connected to that dispute? In a public statement after he left the job, Lam muted his criticism of the paper but spoke to a larger problem. "There is no need to be too alarmed," he says. "This is not a sudden deep decline [for press freedom in Hong Kong], but there is deterioration. The pressure comes not only from Beijing, but also the powerful tycoons in Hong Kong, who control a big chunk of the market and important media." As for the Post, in an internal memo to the staff, Editor Robert Keatley said that despite "the reports that have appeared in the media" the changes had been made only "to expand and diversify our coverage of China news." Still, more than 150 Post workers were concerned enough to sign a declaration of "disquiet" over Lam's departure.

What makes Tommy run?
An 18-month jail term, that's what. Tommy Suharto is apparently harder to find than a dry spot in a Jakarta monsoon. By mid-week Prisoner No. 2085, a.k.a Hutomo Mandala Putra, youngest son of former president Suharto, had managed to avoid the police's sometimes half-hearted attempts to bring him in. The dragnet, such as it is, started on Nov. 3. Police knocked on Tommy's front door but left — without a search — when told their man wasn't at home. "We keep searching, but Tommy is not a statue. He's mobile," national police spokesman Brig.-Gen. Saleh Saaf pointed out. Lawyers for the playboy millionaire say Tommy wants to take his bodyguards with him to prison. There are also rumors that some of the Suharto clan have contacted inmates in an attempt to arrange for his personal security if he is incarcerated. Here's a touch of irony to relieve the tawdriness of this tale: the 12-meter-square cell awaiting Tommy at Cipinang Prison in east Jakarta was vacated last year by Xanana Gusmao when he returned to Dili to lead East Timor to independence.

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RESIGNED Rajsoomer Lallah, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, walked off the job on Nov. 2. After four years of delivering increasingly gloomy reports on the human rights situation in Myanmar, which he has never been allowed to visit, Lallah thought the time had come to leave his post. Lallah, a former chief justice of Mauritius, cited the lack of support from the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as the reason for his departure.

APPOINTED Maj. Gen. Kiki Syahnakri, 53, to be Indonesia's deputy army chief, on Nov. 6. Syahnakri's appointment is the most recent in a string that mark a retreat from military reform. Syahnakri's history is a bit more troubling than others, though. He has long experience in Indonesian military operations in East Timor and has recently been chief of the Udayana regional command in Bali that is responsible for West Timor, where three U.N. workers were murdered in September.

ARRESTED Shigenobu Fusako, 55, the founder of the Japanese Red Army and a key figure in a series of international terrorist incidents in the 1970s, on Nov. 8, in Osaka. Her arrest most likely spells the end of the organization.

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