Until recently, Indonesian writer and editor Goenawan Mohamad was devoting much of his time to poetry, literature, and quiet political organizing. His days of pressure-cooker journalism and tight weekly deadlines ended when the government in 1994 banned his highly regarded weekly magazine, Tempo, and left him to other pursuits.

He became a symbol of resistance to the regime and found himself at the center of a community of journalists, activists, artists, and students bound together by what often appeared to be a quixotic struggle against the seemingly unassailable leadership of President Suharto. Tempo, which Mohamad, 57, founded in 1971 and built into a profitable, 200,000 circulation newsweekly -- Indonesia's version of Time -- was becoming a distant memory. There was little chance that Suharto would ever allow it to publish again.

Then came Indonesia's abrupt economic collapse, widespread rioting, and Suharto's May 21 resignation; what had been one of Southeast Asia's most prosperous nations appeared headed for chaos. Military rule seemed likely or, worse, civil disintegration under Suharto's hand-picked successor, Bacharudin Jusuf (B.J.) Habibie, a technocrat and longtime Suharto loyalist.

But for Goenawan Mohamad, a recipient of a 1998 International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, a funny thing happened on the way to calamity. He and many other Indonesian journalists are back in the magazine business. Indonesia suddenly has one of the freest presses in Asia. Tempo relaunched in October, Mohamad is back as editor in chief, and most of his staff have returned after a four-year diaspora. Expectations are high.

The new Tempo must recreate a magazine that hasn't published for more than four years, even as it remains an important symbol of the new openness. It will face an economic climate that has seen advertising revenues shrink precipitously and the cost of newsprint soar. It will also face plenty of competition from new publications eager and able to investigate the sins of the past regime and the shortcomings of the current one.

"The odds are that Indonesia will remain in a chaotic situation for some time," Mohamad told me recently in Jakarta. "Violence will be a constant threat and we will be the sick man of Asia. That frightens and saddens me. The best thing the press can contribute is to develop a culture of transparency and accountability in the government. We hope Tempo will become a place that will help defend and expand our freedoms."

When Tempo was banned, the proximate cause was a story about an internal government split over the purchase of thirty-nine former East German warships placed by Habibie, who then was research and technology minister. Suharto reportedly was furious that the magazine had dared to air a cabinet controversy. But this year, within ten days of Habibie's taking power, Information Minister Lt. Gen. Mohamad Yunus was assuring the press that the days of strict limitations were over. "He told us, you can reopen anytime," recalls Fikri Jufri, publisher of Tempo. "I was shocked."

Yunus has confounded skeptics in the press. A former special forces commander, he was responsible for security in disputed East Timor when five foreign TV journalists were killed there during the Indonesian invasion in 1975. He is now a born-again believer in a free press. By September he had signed some 180 new publication licenses and he is pushing for the removal of all restrictions on the press. "I want to see more publications in Indonesia," he said during an interview in his office. "I really do believe that such a thing will provide more information and build the creativity of the people."

Still, the decision to relaunch Tempo was a difficult one for Mohamad. Many of the magazine's former staffers had settled in at other publications or changed careers. A relaunch would inevitably cause some dislocation, especially to editors and reporters at D&R, a magazine owned by the Tempo group. In the last year, D&R came into its own under editor Bambang Bujono, a Tempo veteran, by challenging the Suharto regime. To make way for Tempo, D&R was sold to the Jakarta Post newspaper group. Half of its thirty reporters are moving to Tempo, with the blessing of editor Bujono, who nonetheless seemed wistful as he contemplated the loss of his staff. "This is a publication that sides with the people," he said of D&R. "I am staying with it because I want to keep this magazine going."

With Indonesians enjoying a remarkable journalistic rebirth, the challenge for Mohamad and his staff will be to produce a magazine that reflects this difficult and exciting time in their country. It's a challenge that Mohamad is keenly aware of. Says he: "After Suharto left, there was an eagerness on the part of many journalists to resurrect Tempo but others said the magazine was a legend and should stay that way. This makes our task difficult. It is not easy to recreate a legend every week."

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