There can be no doubt that the varied and complex Indonesian legal scene over the past year or so was dominated by the single issue of human rights. For the Indonesian government of course, East Timor amongst so many other matters ensures that human rights have dominated its long string of worrying beads for decades. Nevertheless, from about May 1993 onwards, a series of events conspired to confront broad sections of the Indonesian public with the issue of human rights in a way so real, tangible and urgent, that much of the news has been dominated by it to the present date. The resulting mobilisation of Indonesian public opinion forced the Indonesian government to come out in the open on human rights in a way it might have preferred to prevent.