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        He said the number of displaced people nationwide excluded refugees seeking safety from natural disasters in Luwuk Banggai, Bengkulu, Cilacap, Ciamis and Tasikmalaya.   He said a whopping 200,000 East Timor refugees were now scattered across several provinces, namely East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Bali and South Sulawesi.   Other territories where refugees were sheltering are Sambas in West Kalimantan with some 65,000 people, Aceh with about 44,000 people and Irian Jaya with about 18,000 fleeing the Maluku riot s, Ferry said.
       He added Jambi hosts the smallest number of displaced people, with some 1,300 people fleeing riot-torn Aceh.
        Minister of Health and Social Welfare Ahmad Suyudi, who also attended the hearing, said his ministry was handling the refugees with related agencies. He said the ministry had proposed Rp 4.11 trillion of budget for the next fiscal year. The figure equals 56.2 percent of the current budget. (From the Jakarta Post)



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POLITICAL AFFAIRS

VIEWS OF INDONESIA'S FUTURE
     The upheavals of the past two years have perplexed leading specialists on Indonesia, or so it seemed to Australian writer, Greg Earl, who reported on an Australian National University conference.  The following are excerpts from Mr. Earl's 10/24 article in the Australian National Review.
  "Indonesia may not be about a search for stability, but it may be just about  muddling along," said Wollongong University historian Adrian Vickers.   "[President] Gus Dur is creating a space for people to act for themselves rather than wait for some dalang [puppet master] in Jakarta to do something for them."
         Thee Kian Wie, from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, says : "When I look at the future I am quite pessimistic that we will be able to build up institutions because institutions take such a long time."
         Melbourne University economist Howard Dick suggests the Philippines as the most likely model for the future which he describes as "not a growth scenario but sustainable. I think it is going to be very hard to stop the [policy] flip flop happening. We are going to see a lot of money politics". Dick argues that over the past century there have been only three periods, totaling fewer than 30 years, in which Indonesia simultaneously underwent a time of positive economic and political development: the first decade during a time of enlightened Dutch colonialism; the early 1950s; and the early years of the Soeharto regime.
          There is a growing concern among academics that there are already signs of yearning within many parts of Indonesian society for the stability of the past, even though Vickers argues that the political uncertainty should be seen as normal by the standards of modern South-East Asia.
          The University of Western Australia's David Bouchier warns that conservative political currents, which are usually concerned about national disintegration and lack of confidence in competitive political parties, were constant themes throughout the last century and are already showing signs of re-emerging.
           Kelly Bird, a consultant to Indonesia's planning agency, says the economy has rebounded faster than most people expected and the growth is becoming more broad-based partly because of a statistical understatement of export
performance. "Consumers and business people are learning to deal with a volatile situation and a lot of the events we have seen this year pale beside what happened in 1998 and 1999," he argues.   "There are serious challenges but I do think it [Indonesia] is going to muddle through very well."
          A US expert on foreign investment in Asia, Eric Ramstetter, Thailand should be seen as the appropriate comparative economic model with an economy which has managed to grow quite well despite 30 years of political crises.
          While many experts are stunned by the rise and persistence of religious violence, Deakin University's Greg Barton, who is also Wahid's official biographer, argues that Indonesian Islam still has a "moderate tempo" which explains why Muslim parties did not do very well at last year's election.  The successful parties all have an inherently conservative approach to religious radicalism, but he argues the Government led by Wahid, a liberal-minded Muslim cleric, is crucial to containing Islamic radicalism.  "If this transition [the Wahid Government] fails, I have a much greater fear of Islam making a negative contribution."
            But historian Merle Ricklefs argues that even an Islamic state may be no more attractive to Indonesians than any other form of government.  He fears that every practical form of government now being proposed for the country has actually already been tried and discredited over the past 100 years.  Decentralization was tried under the Dutch; vigorous democratic party politics was tried in the 1950s; attempts at Islamism descended into banditry in the 1950s and 1960s; socialism was discredited during the chaos of the late Soekarno years and finally authoritarian nationalism was undermined by Soeharto's corruption.  "We must hope the cumulative effect of

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