News & issues

Students release rats into police headquarters

Detik.com - October 31, 2005

Veronika Kusuma Wijayanti, Jakarta -- Rats. Student released the animals ( which are often the symbol of corruption ( into the Jakarta police headquarters at a demonstration on Monday October 31. Fifteen white rats that had been given this names of corrupt police officers even assailed the offices of national police chief General Sutanto.

The rats were tossed into the offices by students from the Anti- Corruption Alliance (Aliansi Tolak Korupsi, ATK) during a demonstration at national police headquarters on Jalan Trunojoyo in South Jakarta.

The action was organised by 10 students from the Jayabaya University, the University Indonesia, the Mercu Buana University, the Satya Indonesia State University, the Jayakarta University and the Moestopo University.

The students could be seen carrying a cage of white rats on to which were adhered the names of high-ranking national police headquarters officers suspected of corruption. They were Saleh Saaf, Firman Gani, Budi G, Edi Garnadi, Dedy SK, Iwan Panji, Cuk Sugiarto, Makbul Padmanegara, Adang Dorojatun, Suyitno Landung, Heru S and Matheus Salempang.

The cage of rats was opened and one by one the rodents were tossed into the building. Plop, plop, plop, the rats were tossed in. "Investigate corruption in the national police. These are symbols of the corrupters", shouted the students in unison.

Squeak, squeak, squeak, the rats casually entered the grounds of the building. Despite this, the dozens of police officers guarding the demonstration took no action and the officers remained on alert and did not attempt to remove the rats.

The students also brought posters with photographs of Saleh Saaf, Firman Gani, Suyitno Landung, former police chief General Da'i Bachtiar and Makbul Padmanegara. The five posters were place on the asphalt road and two of the rats were even left to "demonstrate" on top of them.

"We demand that the national police headquarters fully investigate, arrest and try high-ranking police officers that are involved in corruption", said one of the speakers.

They then continued the action at the Corruption Eradication Commission building on Jalan Veteran where students later plan to set fire to the photographs. (aan)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Suharto's favorite TV show 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire'

Detik.com - October 26, 2005

M. Rizal Maslan, Jakarta -- If President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's favorite soap opera show is "Judgement Day is Nigh", what is former President Suharto's favorite television show? Apparently Suharto isn't very interested in soap opera. In his twilight years he prefers the quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire".

Suharto never misses the quiz show hosted by Tantowi Yahya and broadcast by RCTI every Saturday night at 8pm that offers its viewers the chance to win 1 billion rupiah.

Information that Suharto likes to watch the quiz show was revealed to journalists by one of his grandchildren, Gendis Siti Hatmanti (23), during a break in the distribution of basic food at the Al Ikhwan Mosque in Petamburan VI, Central Jakarta on Tuesday October 25. The daughter of Bambang and Halimah Trihatmodjo was relating stories about her grandfather, Suharto.

Hatmanti admitted to often spending time with her grandfather, especially on Saturday nights. When asked by journalists whether Suharto talks about the difficulties facing the people at the moment, Hatmanti admitted they had never discussed such things.

According to Hatmanti, she and her grandfather never talk politics, rather what they do is enjoy entertainment together such as watching television. "I never talk politics with grandfather. I just watch TV with him. Grandfather often watches 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire". That's his favorite show", said Hatmanti.

There is of course no end to the stories about the longest serving former Indonesian leader. Indeed even the smallest things about Suharto attract comment. Moreover, so far Suharto has still not been touched by the law in relation to suspected past corruption cases. Law enforcement agencies do not have the courage to try Suharto because the great general suffers from permanent ill health.

But it is appropriate indeed to question Suharto's state of health. Especially since several days ago he appeared fit and strong when he brought flowers to place on the grave of his wife, Mrs. Tien Suharto and the graves of his family in Yogyakarta. (asy)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Fuel price hikes

Class action launched against Yudhoyono and Aa Gym

Detik.com - October 31, 2005

Nurvita Indarini, Jakarta -- Just because he increased fuel prices, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is facing a class action. Yudhoyono is accused of violating the law by raising fuel prices. Well known Islamic preacher Aa Gym is also being sued.

The suit is being filed by the People's Lawyers Union (SPR) and a number of non-government and mass organisations including the National Student League for Democracy (LMND), the Independent People's Front (BRM), the Information Centre for Action and Reformation Network (Pijar) and the Popular Youth Movement (GPK).

As well as Yudhoyono and Aa Gym, the suit is also being filed against Vice President Jusuf Kalla, coordinating economic minister Aburizal Bakrie, the minister for communication and information Sofyan Djalil, the Golkar Party, the Prosperity and Justice Party (PKS), the Democrat Party (PD) and oil and gas analyst Kurtubi.

The suit was received by the Central Jakarta State Court deputy clerk of courts for civil cases, Adi Wahyono, in Jakarta on Monday October 31. The suit has been registered as case number 335/Pdt G/2005. SPR is demanding that the president reduce fuel prices to the levels that applied before Presidential Regulation 55/2005 came into force on October 1.

In their suit, they are asking the defendants to pay cash compensation -- material and immaterial -- of as much as 1 billion rupiah and simultaneously, within three days after a verdict issue a public apology.

According toe SPR chairperson Habiburohman, the money will later be distributed to the Indonesian people through the village level administrations throughout Indonesia by a compensation commission. The 10 member commission will be made up of and headed by the panel of judges, with three of the members being from the plaintiffs and the remainder being independent parties.

They are also demanding that the defendants issue an apology to the Indonesian people by placing an advertisement with nine national newspapers, nine national television stations, nine radio stations and nine Internet sties within three days after the court's verdict. They are demanding that a verdict on the case be made beforehand even if the defendants lodge an appeal and that the defendants pay the court costs for the case. (umi)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Fights, frustration mar fuel cash handouts

Reuters - October 25, 2005

Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta -- It was billed as a way to cushion the blow for Indonesia's poorest of the poor. But efforts to compensate 15.5 million families with cash to offset steep hikes in fuel prices have instead triggered violence.

Angry mobs have trashed homes of local officials. Old people have died standing in queues and a woman committed suicide after hearing she was not poor enough to qualify.

"Some people are frustrated because they... see their neighbors who have more money receiving the funds, so they become stressed and angry," Wardah Hafidz of the Urban Poor Consortium, a group fighting to eradicate poverty, told Reuters. "What they need is a long-term scheme that will give people a chance to acquire jobs, a place to stay and food."

The government increased the price of gasoline, diesel, and the kerosene poor Indonesians use for cooking by more than an average 100 percent on October 1 to cut crippling energy subsidies.

It has set aside 4.65 trillion rupiah for compensation, giving the poorest families in the country 300,000 rupiah each to cover the next three months. Recipients must earn less than 175,000 rupiah a month to qualify.

But many residents erupted with anger after finding out they were not registered at village and district government offices or were ineligible when they lined up to collect the cash.

This week, the Media Indonesia newspaper said angry residents in Central Java province alone had destroyed the homes of 143 village chiefs. Hundreds of residents went on a rampage in West Java's Indramayu district, destroying a village hall, it added.

In the Sumatran province of Jambi, a neighborhood unit head was stabbed to death by an aid recipient who claimed he had been extorted while an elderly woman jumped into a river near Yogyakarta to her death after failing to get cash, the Jakarta Post newspaper also reported.

Last week, local media said three ailing elderly women died while queuing for cash.

Scared officials A spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono conceded there had been problems with the registration process but insisted the scheme has been a success.

"When people are angry, I think that's part of the democratic process. The Indonesian people have the right to be angry. It's just part of the social and economic mechanism, especially when there is a glitch in the system," Andi Mallarangeng said.

Officials launched the compensation package around the time the government raised fuel prices, a move that has led to price hikes in food staples and transportation in a country where nearly half the population live on less than $2 a day.

Cash is being distributed by village and neighborhood unit heads following a census by the statistics bureau.

But some have said the money had not been fairly distributed and in some cases complained that "administrative fees" had been charged, newspapers have quoted residents as saying.

Local television stations have shown various incidents of vandalism at village offices, as well as long lines. Up to three million families forced officials to include them on lists for cash compensation, the statistics bureau said. It was unclear if the families had been eligible or not.

"Many of our officials are afraid to go home because their houses were attacked or they were threatened," the Kompas daily quoted statistics bureau chief Choiril Maksum as saying. He said his office had annulled 40,000 recipients because they were not deemed as poor.

Many community heads had quit over fears of being attacked, local media said.

House factions oppose fuel hike policy

Jakarta Post - October 25, 2005

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta -- Several factions in the House of Representatives have urged the government to review its fuel price hike policy, which they said had created a huge burden for the majority of people in the country.

During a plenary session held on Monday to begin the House's second sitting period, legislators from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) and the National Awakening Party (PKB) continually interrupted the proceedings to raise the issue of the fuel price increases.

PDI-P faction chairman Tjahjo Kumolo said the House should hold an extraordinary plenary session to push the government to review the Oct. 1 policy, which saw fuel prices go up by an average of 126 percent.

"The House must give an official response (to the fuel price hike policy). And its consultative body must table an extraordinary plenary session as soon as possible because the people cannot shoulder the economic burden caused by the fuel price increases. The House never approved these massive fuel price increases," he said.

Some lawmakers said earlier they had expected the government to raise fuel prices by an average of only 30 percent when they approved the fuel price hike.

Tjahjo said it was wrong for the House to remain quiet amid soaring prices of basic commodities and transportation fares, and kerosene shortages in remote areas across the country.

"The government must review the fuel price hike because soaring prices have doubled the number of people living in poverty and weakened people's purchasing power," he said.

He added that the chaotic distribution of cash aid to over 15 million poor people to help offset the impact of the higher fuel prices only worsened the situation.

Retno Situmorang, a legislator with the PDS, said her faction also wanted the government to review the fuel price hike policy, adding that the faction would only approve a 30 percent increase in fuel prices.

"Our faction and the House never approved an increase of more than 100 percent in the price of Premium gasoline and 200 percent in the price of kerosene. Therefore, the House must issue an official response to this issue," she said.

Helmy Feisal Zaini, secretary of the PKB faction, asked the House leadership to follow up on his faction's proposal for an extraordinary plenary session to draft an official response to the fuel price hike policy.

"If the House decides not to hold the extraordinary plenary session it will be seen as a rubber stamp of government policy and not representing the people," he said.

The House's consultative body is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to decide whether to approve the proposed extraordinary plenary session.

Joseph Umarhadi, a legislator with the PDI-P, criticized House Speaker Agung Laksono's address to the plenary session on Monday, which he said did not reflect the fact that some lawmakers objected to the government's fuel policy.

"The speech was weak because it failed to include the opposition in the House to the fuel price increases and their negative consequences," he said.

Agung is also a deputy chairman of the Golkar Party, which is led by Vice President Jusuf Kalla and is the main supporter of the current administration.

Aceh

Homes remain elusive for Acehnese on Idul Fitri

Jakarta Post - October 31, 2005

Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh -- It was almost dusk on Sunday, but a group of children at the refugee camp were still playing outside despite the mud after a heavy downpour in Banda Aceh.

It has been 10 months since the tsunami struck, but around 400 displaced people in the camp at Gano village in Lambaro Skep district in the Aceh capital are still living in tents, most of which are torn.

The problems facing the people here is not confined to wornout tents, but also the fact that the sea often floods their tents, which stand only a couple of dozen meters away from the sea, while the dam that used to keep the sea at bay, and was destroyed by the tsunami, has not been rebuilt.

"We're still stuck in these tents and will spend our Idul Fitri here. There are no preparations whatsoever for the holiday," a youth, Mukhlis, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Mukhlis and other Gano residents are bracing for the Islamic holiday, which falls on Wednesday and Thursday. To date, there are thousands of tsunami victims in the province who are still residing in tents as their houses have not been rebuilt or construction of their shelters has yet to be completed.

According to the Aceh Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR), there will be around 10,000 houses built by the end of the year. The work is being funded by international non- governmental organizations (NGOs) and donor countries. The number is less than 10 percent of the 110,000 houses required by the some 500,000 people displaced by the Dec. 26 disaster.

An independent research center, the Aceh Institute, has predicted that the BRR will only be able to build 17,812 houses, a little over a half of its initial target of 30,000 houses in 2005. "Up until now, only 5,820 houses have been built," Lukman Age, the Institute's head of research and analysis, said on Saturday.

The problem, he said, was not only the insufficient supply of building materials, but funding as well since there were two major donors that had yet to realize their pledges: the Multi Donor Trust Fund Aceh Nias World Bank (MDTFANS-World Bank) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The MDTFANS-World Bank had promised to fund the construction of 25,000 houses while the ADB had sought to build 21,250 houses. "The BRR has done a pretty good job in coordinating the construction work. But it has failed to coordinate the development supposedly funded by the 'big boys'," Lukman was quoted by Antara as saying. The money from MDTFANS, he said, had still not been disbursed.

The ADB, meanwhile, was still revising its program, with the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) saying that the ADB has not met the requirement of proposing house construction projects based on the community-driven development concept. "A delay to the major programs will slow the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction in Aceh," Lukman said.

The refugees will have to spend their idul Fitri in tents for the first time, with no holiday meals, let alone new clothes. "This is just so sad. The aid is not as much as it used to. We now only depend on the government's subsistence allowance," said Farida, a refugee in the Gue Gajah area of Banda Aceh.

With only three days to go to Idul Fitri, the allowances have yet to be disbursed. The government had promised to provide Rp 90,000 (around US$9) to each person to enable them to celebrate the holiday.

Some donor countries and NGOs have given "holiday gifts" for the refugees, such as the United Arab Emirates which donated a total of US$160,000. A Turkish NGO, Pasiad, meanwhile, has donated 2,000 boxed meals every day during the fasting month.

A second wave of despair hits Aceh

South China Morning Post - October 30, 2005

Simon Parry -- Her shattered village was one of the most enduring images of the tsunami. Now, 10 months after the horror, Marini Hermansyah cradles her baby daughter in a mosquito-infested camp where survivors fear that the world has forgotten them.

"I am so worried for my baby girl," said Marini, 23, in the 3- metre-wide tent where daughter Nabila was born just over a month ago. "The rainy season is starting and it is not healthy for her to live in a tent."

Marini, newly pregnant when her husband drove her from their home to a hillside to escape the December 26 tsunami, said: "Afterwards, all the aid agencies came here. They promised to build us a home but then they went away again. They haven't done anything."

Eighty per cent of the 5,000 people in the village of Lampuuk died under a wall of water when the tsunami at its most ferocious -- just 160km from the earthquake epicentre -- pulverised their homes on the northern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.

Only the mosque remained, and the sight of it standing alone in a black tide of debris, mud and submerged bodies testified to the sheer scale of the disaster. It was an image that moved millions to pity, and helped generate billions of dollars in aid donations.

Today, however, Marini and tens of thousands of others in the area hit first and hardest by the tsunami are in tent camps, surviving on rations of rice and living on their nerves as earthquakes and aftershocks continue to rattle the traumatised coastline.

The camp where Marini lives with her husband and baby sits in a coconut grove and heavy husks rain down on the tents with every tremor. Her husband Abdullah, 26, said: "It is not good for us here. There is no clinic, no medicine and no nurse. The emergency response after the tsunami was good, but now nothing is happening. I am afraid we will live in this tent with our baby for another year -- maybe longer. We just don't know."

An estimated 185,000 homes are needed to rehouse the people of Aceh province, where 100,000 died in the tsunami. Despite the unprecedented international response, barely one in 12 of those homes will have been built by the first anniversary of the tsunami on December 26.

Only around 4,000 homes had been completed by last month, according to United Nations estimates. By the end of the year, 15,000 at most will be standing, depending on how many delays the rainy season causes.

More than 60,000 people are meanwhile reduced to living in tents in increasingly difficult conditions while 60,000 more are in barracks or temporary housing and 290,000 are living with friends or relatives.

Red tape, rivalries between competing aid agencies, disputes over land rights and shortages of labour and materials have combined to cause chronic delays in the rebuilding programme, and survivors are growing weary of broken promises.

A report commissioned by the International Federation of the Red Cross said competition between aid agencies had led to a misallocation of resources and accused the United Nations of failing to co-ordinate the rescue operation effectively.

One of Marini's neighbours in the camp near Lampuuk is Mohammad Syamsi, 53, a marine engineer who came home from the sea to find his wife and four of his five children dead. He said bitterly: "The government and the aid agencies, they do nothing. They just drive past in their big cars. We have read in the newspapers how many people all over the world gave millions and millions of dollars to help us, but we haven't seen any of the money.

"We ask for help but nothing happens. The aid agencies promise us homes but at the end of each day we wait -- we always wait. Oxfam came here and made a toilet and gave us some water. Now they never come."

As the rainy season sets in and the tents handed out to refugees at the beginning of the year start to mould and rot, conditions in the crowded camp of 300 survivors are worsening by the day.

"Every time it rains, the tents get flooded," Mohammad said. "We get food but only rice and canned fish. We have to pay for any medical care and people have no money. A pregnant woman and her baby both died here two months ago. The mother was too weak to survive and too poor to pay a doctor." As we leave his tent, Mohammad grabs my arm and says: "Tell the people to help us. Tell them to send money, but don't send it to the aid agencies. Send it to the people."

The reality is that there is already aid money in Banda Aceh, and lots of it. Eight kilometres from Mohammed's tent, in the centre of the bustling provincial capital, 86 international aid agencies have budgets running to tens of millions of dollars to provide tsunami victims with new homes. The problem is the speed at which it is being spent. The sight of aid workers being driven around in Land Rovers and Toyota Land Cruisers is testing the patience of some of the tsunami victims.

A growing crisis has emerged because most aid agencies focused on providing emergency aid and then building permanent homes, rather than providing any medium-term temporary homes. Tents were handed out, survivor camps established and then the process of drawing up plans for permanent homes began.

But the approval process has been agonisingly slow. As it dragged on, the conditions of the camps have deteriorated, but little has been done to provide better shelter for the survivors who wait and wait.

In a country renowned for corruption and red tape, it took nearly nine months of negotiation just for the government and the aid agencies to agree to a building code setting out the standard measurements and requirements for new homes.

The United Nations acknowledges that conditions inside the tent camps are "unacceptable" and "intolerable". Survivors are in some cases living in worse conditions now than in the months immediately after the tsunami. Alarmed at the lack of progress, the UN has amended its policy and says it will urgently provide up to 20,000 temporary-shelter units for people living in tents, but even those will provide shelter for only a fraction of those currently sleeping in muddy camp sites.

Many survivors, frustrated at the failure of the international community to put roofs over their heads, have abandoned the squalor of the tent camps to return to ruined villages, building ramshackle huts or living under canvas and lean-tos next to the foundations of their old brick homes.

Hundreds of families are drifting back to Lampuuk and setting up homes around the mosque that defied the tsunami -- its name Rahmatullah means "a blessing from God". Among them is Mahdhan Musa, 34, who has started to build by himself a new house just 200 metres from the mosque after living in a tent.

"One of the aid agencies gave me some sheet metal for the roof but apart from that I have done everything myself. I wanted to come back. I want to go back to my own people and rebuild our village the same as it was before the tsunami."

More than 100 families have now trickled back to the ghostly wasteland surrounding the severely damaged mosque, where prayers are still said amid slabs of fallen masonry and beneath precariously buckled pillars.

As the imam calls the faithful to prayer, villagers wander out of ramshackle homes built of driftwood and tarpaulins and tramp across the tiled floors and twisted metal foundations that are all that remain of the once-prosperous seaside village.

Standing incongruously amid the desolation is a single bright pink brick house -- a show home for a planned development of 1,000 homes by the Turkish Red Crescent. But they will offer no one shelter this rainy season because the first homes will not be completed until the spring.

Three kilometres away in his tent camp, Mohammad Syamsi has already abandoned hope of a home. His keenest wish now is to be reunited with the only remaining member of his family, his 11- year-old son who was so badly injured he had to be sent away to be cared for by relatives in a neighbouring province. "I haven't seen him since," said Mohammad.

"I can't afford to go there to see him, and the conditions here in this camp are so bad I cannot bring him here. Every night I think about my boy, and I cry."

Temporary solution to housing won't work, says Oxfam

South China Morning Post - October 30, 2005

Simon Parry -- Oxfam has built around 300 homes so far at a cost of $ 25,000 each and hopes to build 920 on six different sites around Banda Aceh by the end of the year.

Progress might seem slow and insignificant, says Oxfam's project director for the region, Ian Clarke, but when you consider the extent of the devastation, it is considerable. "For me it is a remarkable turnaround to be where we are today."

Oxfam focused on providing permanent homes because that was what communities wanted, he said. "The homes we are building are meant to last for 15 to 20 years. Once people have their own home again, they can start to rebuild their lives. It gives them hope for the future."

Imogen Wall, spokeswoman for the United Nations Development Programme in Banda Aceh, agreed the rebuilding programme was taking longer than expected but said the pressure to spend donor money quickly was "one of the most irritating pressures you can face".

"You can't just wave a magic wand," she said. "It's a trade-off between doing things right and doing things fast. That is the eternal tension in aid work."

With so many aid agencies trying to spend their money in Banda Aceh -- there were more than 400 groups in the area in the weeks after the tsunami -- there has been often ferocious rivalry over who builds where. All the aid agencies are under pressure to spend the money they have been given quickly. All of them want to build in villages where good infrastructure makes building easiest.

Bemused villagers are being enticed with promises from competing agencies as they decide who to trust to build them a future. "It's been a huge problem," said Ms Wall. "You get one community where three NGOs aid agencies are literally fighting to get the work started. Down the road, there will be another village that is less accessible and no one is doing anything for the people there."

Another problem is that some 30 per cent of people made homeless by the tsunami were renting their properties, some of them for generations. They lost everything but even if they are offered a new home, they have no rights to any land to build it on.

Agency admits slow work in Aceh, Nias

Jakarta Post - October 29, 2005

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta -- Despite considerable progress, the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) for Aceh and Nias has been facing numerous technical and administrative obstacles that make the reconstruction and rehabilitation work slow in the disaster-devastated region.

BRR representative in Jakarta Heru Prasetyo said the lengthy planning and the lack of government focus on the emergency condition in the two affected areas had been contributing factors in the slow reconstruction and rehabilitation work.

"Initially, the ministers involved in the reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts treated the problems in the two regions as routine work, while the two regions are absolutely in an emergency condition," he said in a press conference here on Friday.

Several donor countries and international aid agencies have criticized the reconstruction and rehabilitation work as too slow as some 500,000 survivors of the Dec. 26 tsunami in Aceh are still living in camps, tents and barracks and a bigger part of school-age children are still studying in children's centers.

The head of BRR office in Aceh, Said Faisal, said that BRR and state-owned construction companies have spent a long time in preparing the housing and school projects.

"The housing projects have to obtain a permit from the authorities, while the construction of houses have to be planned in consultation with survivors. All this takes a lot of time," he said.

BRR's fund management head Amin Subekti said that "technical hurdles" in the disbursement of necessary funds has also contributed to the slow reconstruction work.

"Both donor countries and the government are committed to disbursing funds in phases. Funds are disbursed after proposed projects are approved and this mechanism takes a long time," he said.

He said that donor countries had pledged a total of US$7.1 billion for the reconstruction and rehabilitation work, but so far only $3.6 billion was effectively available.

To help cope with the technical and bureaucratic hurdles, BRR will set up a special trust fund called the Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias Trust Fund (RANTF).

"We are trying to cut short the process between sources of funds to the implementation in the field without sacrificing accountability and transparency," said Heru.

Six months after the agency was set up, more than 10,000 units of the planned 76,000 houses have already been constructed in Aceh, while the rebuilding of almost 20,000 units is now in progress.

The BRR has also built six of nine planned hospitals, six of 30 planned public health centers, 119 of the 366 planned school buildings.

The BRR is still carrying out road and seaport rehabilitation projects in Aceh Besar, Aceh Jaya and West Aceh.

Naming GAM rebels 'won't endanger them'

Jakarta Post - October 28, 2005

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- The government insisted on Thursday that the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) should submit the names of its 3,000 former fighters as part of their integration process into society after a peace deal to end 29 years of separatist fighting.

It assured the rebels that the submission of their names would not harm them in the future, while promising to protect their security after the reintegration process, as it had for the people that received amnesty.

"So far none of the amnestied GAM members has faced security threats even after they were released from jail," said Minister of Information and Communications Sofyan Djalil, who was one of government negotiators with the GAM in Helsinki, Finland.

"We have to ensure that GAM submits the list of its former fighters' names and it will not cause negative impacts on them," he told the press after a meeting on political, legal and security affairs.

Similar assurances were voiced by the Indonesian Military chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, who attended the same meeting.

"I ask the GAM leadership to learn to trust us. We are not going to discriminate against former GAM members after being reintegrated into society. We need the list of their names to speed up the reintegration process. I promise them security protection," he said.

Sofyan warned that GAM's failure to name its members would stall their integration arrangement into society as required by the peace accord signed on Aug. 15, 2005 in Helsinki.

"As of today, we haven't received the list of some 3,000 GAM combatants who will undergo the reintegration process. I know there are some problems with what we call the confidence-building measures between us and GAM," he added.

The peace pact did not explicitly require GAM to disclose its members' names, but the government has argued that the move was important for it to provide them with economic assistance as part of reintegration package to help them settle back into society during the post-conflict period.

GAM representative Mohammed Nur Djuli has earlier said his side had decided not to submit the list of the names to the government, without giving any specific reason.

However, human rights watchdog Imparsial has said the disclosure of GAM rebels' names could bear risks of possible violence against them. It accused security forces of continuing violence against former guerrillas and Acehnese civilians despite the Helsinki truce.

Imparsial also reported that at least 12 civilians were beaten by soldiers at Mesjid Bandar Baru village in Pidie regency in August because the victims refused to show respect to them. Similar cases also took place last month at Lancok and Mayang villages, also in Pidie, when dozens of local residents were beaten by soldiers, according to Imparsial.

Security threats were also imminent against former GAM fighters by alleged militia groups, or unidentified armed groups.

Imparsial said that an amnestied GAM member, Arifin, was shot dead by an unidentified person in Manggeng village, West Aceh, on Aug. 21. Local police confirmed that bullets that killed Arifin were fired from an SS-1 rifle.

The NGO also reported that armed clashes between soldiers and GAM guerrillas continued despite the demilitarization process in Aceh. These cases included a crossfire at Ara Lipeh-Tanjong Mulia village in Bireuen on Aug. 25, and other armed clashes at Meureu village in Aceh Besar on Aug. 28 and in Ceupeudak village in North Aceh on Sept. 10.

The military has repeatedly denied the existence of any militia groups in Aceh.

Lack of coordination slows Aceh rebuilding: Study

Jakarta Post - October 28, 2005

Jakarta -- Poor coordination has been blamed for the slow rehabilitation and reconstruction process in tsunami-struck Aceh, particularly in the areas of housing and economic recovery, a study reveals.

Conducted under the Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Appraisal (ARRA) project, the study found that coordination problems had given rise to the impression that certain service- providers had allocated certain budgets to themselves.

"With regard to housing, (tsunami) victims are questioning the lack of standards to be used as benchmarks for the service providers' performance. In addition, the ARRA survey's findings indicate that many services provided do not take into consideration the most vulnerable groups such as women, children, and the disabled," the study said.

"Many service providers have not provided space for community involvement, whether in planning, implementation, or monitoring and evaluation of the services being provided." Conducted by non-governmental organizations and universities in five regencies/cities in Aceh between June and August, the research is aimed at giving an up-to-date picture of the current status of the rehabilitation and reconstruction process in Aceh. The views gathered in the study were collected from victims and from service-providers, governmental and non-governmental and national and international.

The specific areas of attention were the performance in providing health and education services, housing, the distribution of survival allowances, the restoration of ownership documents, and general economic recovery.

"It is hoped that the results of this rapid monitoring appraisal will serve as useful input for governmental and non-governmental organizations in taking concrete steps to accelerate and support the effective implementation of the rehabilitation and reconstruction process," the ARRA team said.

The team designed and executed the research in cooperation with the Asia Foundation and with support from Give2Asia and the Royal Netherlands Embassy.

In the housing and clean water sector, the study found there was too wide a variety of styles and types of housing, ranging from 27 to 70 square meters, such that the community did not know the minimum standards set by the Aceh and Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) for housing construction.

ARRA recommends that the BRR disseminate information on the minimum standards that must be met in house construction.

Also related to housing, the treatment of construction workers deserved greater attention, the study said.

"These workers often do not receive adequate protection. Unavailability of building materials, which is not the workers' responsibility, often means that they cannot work and therefore do not get paid," the report said.

In the area of economic recovery, the research found that many of the economic recovery programs being provided comprised only partial assistance that was not accompanied by appropriate, intensive guidance.

"For example, capital is provided to start production businesses, but with no information about marketing. ARRA recommends that service providers also provide support in the form of guidance, business capital, and provision of market access for the products that are produced," the report said.

Indonesia sets up trust fund for tsunami rebuilding

Reuters - October 28, 2005

Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta -- Indonesia, criticised for slow reconstruction in tsunami-hit areas, has set up a special trust fund to speed rebuilding as the disaster's anniversary approaches, the agency in charge of rebuilding said on Friday.

The U.N's chief emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, recently expressed concern over the slow pace of reconstruction in Aceh province due to what he called lack of coordination between Jakarta and the donors.

Heru Prasetyo, a director at the Aceh and Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR), said the scheme would cut red tape in disbursing money for projects in tsunami-hit areas, especially in Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

Around 170,000 people were killed or are missing and feared dead in Aceh province and surrounding areas after a 9.15 magnitude earthquake, the strongest in four decades, unleashed the most devastating tsunami on record on Dec. 26.

Aceh suffered almost all the damage from that disaster, but it struck Nias island off Sumatra as well and Nias was hit hard again by an earthquake three months later.

"We are trying to short cut the process between sources of funds to the implementation on the field without sacrificing accountability and transparency," Prasetyo, who heads donor and international relations at the BRR, told reporters.

The funds are managed by local and international commercial banks, including HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Bank Niaga, said Amin Subekti, BRR Fund Management Director.

He insisted the funds would be managed in the most transparent way to avoid any misuse or corruption. "We will be making public reports every semester and the public would know which donors had given the money and where the money had gone," Subekti said.

Out of $7.1 billion pledged by donor countries and the international community to rebuild Indonesia's tsunami-hit areas, $3.6 billion had already been designated for immediate projects, Prasetyo said.

One major factor that slowed reconstruction was the channelling of some of the money to the country's state budget, requiring a long and bureaucratic process for disbursement. "The paradigm business as usual is still being used... we had really expected that this could have been done in an emergency manner," Prasetyo added.

The quake and tsunami killed or left missing more than 232,000 people across a dozen Indian Ocean nations. In Aceh it effectively destroyed much basic infrastructure in tsunami-hit areas. Up to 120,000 houses were wrecked and hundreds of kilometres of roads were ruined.

Around 17,000 houses have so far been completed and the agency was aiming to build 30,000 by the end of the year, Prasetyo said. "But as long as people live in barracks, even just one person, then there will always be a perception that the BRR is being slow," Prasetyo added.

Number of human rights violations has declined

Tempo Interactive - October 27, 2005

Adi Warsidi, Banda Aceh -- The number of cases of human rights violations in Aceh following the signing of the Helsinki agreement between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has declined.

"Perhaps this is because there is peace and all parties respect the peace agreement", said M. Isa, the head of the data division of the Coalition of Non-Government Organisations on Human Rights -- Aceh, when speaking with Tempo in Thursday October 27.

This decline in human rights violations continued Isa, has occurred not only in terms of quantity but also in quality. Even when human rights violations do occur, in general they are limited to minor cases such as threats which do not result in the loss of life -- demand for taxes, illegal payments and extortion which are being committed by certain parties.

"In the past, many of the cases that occurred were murders, forced disappearances and abductions. [So] in fact the minor cases occurring in the past were not very conspicuous and [therefore] not monitored", said Isa.

According to Isa, this decline is evidence of the many parties that can uphold the peace agreement in Aceh. Isa hopes that over the next period there will be no more human rights violations in Aceh.

During the period of civil emergency, the organisation recorded hundreds of cases of human rights violations in Aceh. They recorded 623 people who were victims of gross human rights violations such as abuse/injury, abductions/disappearances and arrests. Out of these, 231 were members of GAM, the military/police and civilians who died during this period.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

GAM won't disclose names of former rebels: Official

Jakarta Post - October 27, 2005

Banda Aceh -- The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has decided not to submit a list of names of some 3,000 former GAM fighters as requested by the Indonesian government as part of efforts to accelerate the reintegration process of the ex-rebels into the society.

"GAM has made a decision not to surrender the names (of former GAM fighters)," said M. Nur Djuli, a representative of GAM with the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), as quoted by Antara on Wednesday. He did not provide a reason.

The AMM, which groups peace monitors from the European Union and some member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), is tasked to supervise and monitor the implementation of the Aug. 15 peace accord between the government of Indonesia and GAM.

The Indonesian representative within the AMM, Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono was quoted earlier by the press as saying that GAM should disclose the names of some 3,000 former members to speed up the reintegration process.

He argued that the disclosure of the names of the former GAM members was crucial since they would receive economic assistance from the central government to help them settle back into society during the post-conflict period.

He added that submitting the names of the former GAM members was also an important step in enhancing the confidence-building process between the Indonesian government and GAM.

Asked to comment on lingering concerns that revealing the names of the former GAM members would endanger their lives once they went back into society as civilians, Bambang said: "Please don't think that way. Think of the positive side that this (peace agreement) will not fail. What is in front of us is a good situation for a much better future. That is why we need to enhance trust between us so that there will be no problems."

Under the peace agreement, signed in Helsinki, GAM dropped its long-held demand for independence in exchange for a form of local government in Aceh, a province of about four million people. GAM also agreed to disarm, while the government agreed to withdraw a large portion of its military and police troops from the province.

Following the recent completion of the second of four phases of troop withdrawal and GAM decommissioning, the AMM said that both sides had decided to accelerate the process by committing to complete the third phase on Nov. 14.

Each of the four phases was scheduled to start in the middle of each month. But the third phase will now be completed around Nov. 14, the AMM said in a statement.

Militia in Aceh has potential to create new violence

Detik.com - October 26, 2005

Fitraya Ramadhanny, Jakarta -- The presence of militia in Aceh post the peace negotiations in Helsinki still lays the grounds for the potential eruption of new forms of violence. It is because of this that the government is being urged to disband the militia, which still exist.

This was revealed by the executive secretary of Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) Poengky Indarti at a press conference at the Imparsial offices on Jalan Diponegoro No. 9 in Menteng, Central Jakarta, on Wednesday October 26.

According to Indarti, post the Helsinki peace process over the period between August 15 to October 15, Imparsial found that there are sill a number of problems which could support and be taken advantage of by interest groups in obstructing the peace process in Aceh, particularly with regard to the question of the militia.

The question of the militia in Aceh is not contained in the memorandum of understanding (MoU). Imparsial has recorded that there are 11 militia groups throughout Aceh and their presence could very possibly create new social problems.

"There presence could very possibly create new conflicts in society as a consequence of feelings of revenge which not cured during the period of martial law and civil emergency between militia members and ex-GAM [Free Aceh Movement] members and civil society", he said.

Although militia activity post the MoU has declined, in structural terms the militia still exist. Indarti is concerned that militia's skills will be taken advantage of by parties that do not wish for peace in Aceh. "We want the government to acknowledge whether the militia still exist. And the government disband the militia simultaneously and completely", he asserted.

In their monitoring, Imparsial found criminal acts being committed by rogue TNI (Indonesian military) officers, police or even people who claim to be members of GAM. Imparsial plans to hand of their findings to the government, the House of Representatives and the Aceh Monitoring Mission.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Aceh dispatch: After the flood

The Guardian (UK) - October 25, 2005

John Aglionby -- The peace process begun two months ago by the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) is developing in a way virtually no observer predicted.

Events in the province, on the northern tip of Sumatra, are progressing much more hopefully than anyone expected when the two sides signed an agreement in Helsinki on August 15 to end the 29-year insurgency that has cost some 12,000 lives.

This week marks the halfway point in the decommissioning of Gam weapons and withdrawal of Indonesian security forces. Both sides are ahead of the agreed targets, although Pieter Feith, the European Union diplomat at the head of the international monitoring team, told Guardian Unlimited he was disappointed by Gam's performance in East Aceh, one of the districts where the fighting has been the most fierce in recent years. "Both in quality and quantity the cache [of weapons surrendered] was extremely poor," he said.

However, such a detail is not derailing the larger, optimistic picture. "I'm astonished that it's going so well," Irawadi Yusuf, the senior Gam interlocutor with the government, told Guardian Unlimited. "I expected there to be many more skirmishes and violations of the [deal]."

Major General Bambang Darmono, his Indonesian government counterpart, is equally effusive. "There's a really constructive attitude for peace in the field," he said. "I think we've reached the point of no return as long as the politicians in the towns don't interrupt the process."

Nur Djuli, the most senior of Gam's exiled leadership to return to Aceh, agrees the movement cannot resume its armed struggle as long as Indonesia adheres to the agreement. "If we were to dig up weapons and start fighting we would be branded terrorists, and that would be a disaster. So there's no going back," he told Guardian Unlimited.

Evidence of this optimism is the calm way the two significant incidents have been handled. On October 14, for example, a soldier fired at three men on a motorbike in East Aceh. The passenger who was hit was an ex-Gam fighter. Mr Feith gave the military, who have arrested the soldier, a public dressing down and Gam says it is happy with the way the case is being handled.

The changing mindset of the Indonesian military, which for years did not see itself as subservient to the nation's civilian rulers, is a big reason for the success so far of the peace process. "We're aware that Indonesia is now a democracy and the political decisions of the government have to be respected," Gen Bambang said.

Analysts believe this new mentality is helped by President Susilo Bambang Yuudhoyono being a retired general. "This former hawk might have become a dove but he still has long and sharp claws," said Aguswandi, a researcher with the human rights group Tapol who is based in Aceh. "He is keeping tight control on the troops."

The fact that Gam's chain of command has proven more solid than predicted has also been significant. "Gam has always been very disciplined," said Nur Djuli. "Of course, there are some naughty boys coming back to the villages brandishing weapons but for the most part we're very disciplined."

The Boxing Day tsunami, which killed more than 132,000 people in Aceh and left some 500,000 homeless, continues to play a role after the initial devastation focused the two warring parties' minds. Faltering reconstruction and the plight of tens of thousands of refugees still in tents is reinforcing the need to keep the peace process on track.

However, no one in Aceh is complacent that sustainable peace is a foregone conclusion in the wake of the early successes as there are still two big stumbling blocks that need to be overcome.

The first is the reintegration of Gam fighters into society. The agreement says that 3,000 demobilised insurgents will receive compensation and vocational training from the international community. Gam is currently declining to hand over a list of names, instead wanting the money to be transferred to commanders who will then distribute it not only to the fighters but also to a wider circle of supporters.

Mr Feith says he understands their reluctance, considering "there is still a climate of intimidation and the intelligence services are still operating here", but insists that eventually the names will have to be submitted to ensure accountability and transparency

The Gam leadership's hand might be forced by its own members, who are coming forward in increasing numbers to register but are being turned away because the authorities have not received their details.

Worrying Gam is the draft of the law that will enshrine Aceh's wide-ranging autonomy, including the right to form local political parties. At least five versions are currently floating around and reports from Jakarta suggest the government might allow Acehnese parties only to contest national elections and not local polls.

"The whole concept of establishing local political parties is still at an early stage but it needs to be addressed in the same spirit as in Helsinki," warned Mr Feith. "The government would be making a mistake if it thought it could cut corners on that."

Until these issues reach their tipping point, which should be within the next month for the Gam list, the monitors remain cautious. But with both sides appearing committed to peace, the continuing optimism appears well founded.

In Aceh, recovery effort rides on roads

Christian Science Monitor - October 25, 2005

Simon Montlake, Leupung -- Most days Farid Maulidi spends patching up a makeshift highway -- filling in holes, repairing culverts, shoveling sand, directing traffic. As civil engineering jobs go, it's far from prestigious. But as long as it keeps the road open, that's what matters to those living along Aceh's rugged west coast, where post-tsunami reconstruction relies heavily on roads like this one.

Last December, this rural landscape linked by a two-lane ribbon of blacktop was pummeled into silence. Entire villages were wiped out, along with the roads and cables that connected them to the outside world.

Today, as a massive international aid effort breathes new life into Aceh, traffic is heavier than ever along sections of the highway that winds 150 miles from the provincial capital Banda Aceh at the northern tip of Sumatra island, down the west coast to Meulaboh. But many stretches are impassable, or barely functional.

The tsunami completely or partially destroyed some 948 miles of roads -- roughly equivalent to the distance between Chicago and New York City. Economic recovery is riding on these vital links for trade and aid. Despite billions of dollars in aid inflows, the World Bank has warned that economic stagnation could push another 600,000 people in Aceh below the poverty line within the next six to 18 months.

"The road isn't just a logistics problem -- it's a lifeline and the key to a genuine recovery. If you're not connected by road, your opportunities for getting yourself back on your feet are drastically reduced," says Imogen Wall, a spokeswoman for the UN Development Program.

Washington has promised $245 million over the next three years to rebuild the highway to Meulaboh. In the interim, it's repairing the first 50 miles of road from Banda Aceh to Lamno, trying to keep traffic moving until the new road is in place.

"We consider this to be the economic backbone of the west coast. If you want to make anything happen, the best communications link is that road," says Muhammad Khan, infrastructure team leader for USAID.

Mr. Maulidi, a Jakarta-based contractor hired by USAID, and his crew face a Sisyphean task trying to keep the road passable by shoveling dirt and gravel, or laying tarmac. As fast as they make repairs, the road buckles under the weight of flatbed trucks carrying cement, pipes, and tin roofs to rebuild stricken coastal communities.

On a recent morning, he took his crew out to the fields to cut dozens of yard-long sticks. With the sticks they mark the route through a section of road in Leupung flooded by an overnight storm.

A group of motorcyclists wait on dry land eyeing the knee-high water with trepidation. "Whenever it rains, it floods here," sighs Salamudin, a fisherman who lost his boat and house to the tsunami.

The motorcyclists were on their way to a nonprofit-run workshop on micro-credit loans, hoping to find alternatives to aid handouts. The flooding was a reminder of how much stands in their way, and how fragile Aceh's economic recovery will be as long its infrastructure lies in ruins.

The scenic drive to Lamno used to take one and a half hours. These days, it's closer to three hours, says Zamhari, a truck driver from Banda Aceh. "The road is getting worse and this section is really bad," he says, gesturing at the flooded road.

The tsunami hasn't just upped truck traffic on the highway. It's also rewritten Aceh's topography, forcing road builders to retreat from a coastline propelled inland by tectonic forces. Sections of road that used to hug the shoreline now lie underwater and the mangled remains of bridges that once spanned rivers jut absurdly into the ocean.

USAID officials say they are finalizing the design of the new coastal road using land and soil surveys to decide where to build. An added complication: determining who owns the land. Aid workers say that the route taken by the new highway is likely to be a factor in deciding whether villages rebuild on their original land. "Communities naturally want to go back to where they're from, but they also want to have access to the road. None of us know yet where that will be," says Reiko Nimni, a UN adviser in Jakarta.

In addition to roads, foreign donors are rebuilding ports in Aceh so that construction materials can travel by sea.

For Armaini, a member of Maulidi's crew, the work on the flooded portion of road brings back grim memories. His house used to lie 500 yards from the shore before the Dec. 26 tsunami that killed five members of his family. Now, the site lies under the floodwater that's holding up traffic, and the surf has crept 100 yards closer. Still, he hasn't given up hope of returning. "I want to go home," he says.

West Papua

Indonesia sets up Papuan assembly despite protests

Kyodo News - October 31, 2005

In an effort to accommodate fundamental rights for natives, the Indonesian government set up a people's assembly in the easternmost province Papua on Monday even though protesters say the body will only act as a Jakarta puppet.

Home Minister Muhammad Ma'aruf officially installed 42 members of the Papuan People's Assembly during a simple ceremony in the provincial capital Jayapura.

"There are pros and cons among the people, but it should be regarded as a lesson that must be responded with sincere heart and cool mind," Ma'aruf said in a speech.

No disturbances were seen during the ceremony although public anger has been growing, questioning the legitimacy of the body.

The assembly was set up to carry out a mandate of the 2001 Law on Special Autonomy for Papua. It is a cultural institution that is to work for the fundamental rights of native Papuans and "lift their dignity." It consists of 42 members, 14 of them representing traditional communities, 14 representing women and 14 representing religious communities.

Representatives of women and traditional communities were elected by popular ballot while the religious representatives were recommended by religious institutions across the province. Their appointments, however, have raised protests.

Protesters said the election process took place without a proper information campaign, claiming only 20 percent of the Papuan population was aware of the establishment of the assembly. They also accused the central government of interfering in the selection process and that the elected members simply will carry the interests of Jakarta.

Churches charged the religious representatives had been appointed without their recommendations, but with the recommendation of a pro-Jakarta religious organization.

According to the law, the assembly has the power to approve candidates for Papuan governor and members of the People's Consultative Assembly, the country's upper House, to represent Papua's interests.

In August, people expressed disappointment with the special autonomy law, which they said has failed to meet expectations.

The demonstration came weeks after some members of the US Congress proposed a bill questioning the validity of the process leading to the 1969 Act of Free Choice in Papua when a group of about 1,000 selected Papuan leaders voted unanimously to be become part of Indonesia.

The plebiscite formally incorporated Papua as part of Indonesia, under the supervision of the United Nations. It was later endorsed by UN resolution.

Rebels from the Free Papua Movement have staged a long-running guerrilla campaign against Indonesian control of the former Dutch New Guinea, which borders Papua New Guinea. Indonesia took over the western half of the island of New Guinea from the Dutch in 1963.

The rebels accuse Jakarta of stealing the profits from the natural resources in copper-rich Papua.

Jose Ramos-Horta talks on West Papua

Scoop.co.oz - October 31, 2005

Alastair Thompson -- Timor-Leste Foreign Minister & 1996 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jose Ramos-Horta knows more than most about independence struggles against Indonesian control.

Scoop took the opportunity of Mr Ramos-Horta's attendance at the 36th Pacific Island Forum to discuss the struggle for recognition by the independence movement from West Papua.

Mr Ramos-Horta had strong views on what he believed was the West Papua independence movement's best pathway to achieving an improvement in their very difficult situation. However his opinion on the best path to peace in the troubled region is likely to be something of a bitter pill for the West Papuans.

Mr Ramos-Horta suggests the West Papuan groups:

• moderate their demands to accept Indonesia's offer of special autonomy rather than full secession from Indonesia;
• negotiate directly with the newly elected Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono;
• Not attempt to enlist the assistance of Australia as that would likely be counter-productive in terms of dealing with Jakarta.

Transcript by Rosalea Barker

Scoop: I'm just in the hotel with Hose Ramos Horta, Foreign Minister of East Timor. I'm going to conduct a brief interview. I would like to talk in particular, since we haven't got very much time, about the experience of East Timor in relation to the situation currently in West Papua New Guinea. The West Papuans, who are currently demonstrating down on the beach, are desperate have their issues considered by the Pacific Forum, and have seem to have failed to do so in this particular Forum. Do you have any -- are there any lessons from how East Timor dealt with its struggle for the West Papuan movement?

Ramos-Horta: Each situation generally is different is from another.

East Timor was a Portuguese colony for several centuries, which established East Timor's international boundaries, its historical identity, and then its legal status internationally, while West Papua was part and parcel of the so-called Dutch East Indies, which ruled the then Dutch territories of Indonesia. Therefore when Indonesia achieved its independence in 1949, it automatically claimed all territories under the Dutch to be part of the new Indonesia, and West Papua became part of that. Because of some conflicts persisting in West Papua at the time, the United Nations agreed with Indonesia to hold a referendum on the future of West Papua.

Scoop: In 1969.

Ramos-Horta: In 1969. The manner in which that popular consultation was held was subject to some controversy then and now, but the fact remained that West Papua was part and parcel of the Dutch East Indies and because of that there is hardly any country in the world that wishes to challenge Indonesia's sovereign claims to West Papua. That is the fundamental difference between East Timor and West Papua.

Scoop: However, the situation in terms of an armed group in the hinterland, and a different cultural base amongst the Melanesians as compared to the Indonesians, and the military occupation, and lots of other aspects of the current situation are very similar to those of East Timor.

Ramos-Horta: Certainly there are similarities in terms of gross and systematic abuse of human rights in East Timor in the past, as with the reports of continuing denial of basic rights of the West Papuans.

However, having said that, if, every time there is some gross injustice perpetrated on a particular community there is an outcome, the inevitable outcome is for that community to secede from the country of which it is part, then it would be a mess of chaos on the world. Indonesia is not alone in having secessionist claims.

Scoop: That said, even though their wish is secession, they are not even -- I mean, they're in a similar situation to East Timor in the sense that the international community refused for years to even talk about their plight. So, in the case of East Timor, for example, the Australians refused for years to even discuss what was happening in East Timor. We now have the same situation.

Ramos-Horta: No. The difference is that East Timor was always on the list of the non-self-governing territories of the United Nations, going back to 1961. From Day One, when the United Nations listed a number of non-independent territories under the various European countries, East Timor immediately appeared there. And it remained there, unlike the case of West Papua, which was part and parcel of the new Indonesia. And because of that, West Papua was not listed in that list under the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1541 of 15 December, 1960.

Scoop: How do you think -- in this case I sort of get the impression that what you're saying is that the West Papuan struggle is much more difficult and possibly impossible. What should they do?

Ramos-Horta: Well, I believe that obviously the realities today in West -- in Indonesia are different from what it was only five years ago.

You have a more open society in Indonesia. A more dynamic, pluralistic political system that allows for dissent to be heard. I believe that the new, the government in Indonesia is very sensitive to the pressures from some regions like Aceh to grant even greater autonomy. And West Papua has a greater chance to negotiate a status similar to Aceh today, whereby the West Papuans would be masters in their own province, obtaining a greater share of their resources for the benefit of the people living there, as against in the past when the wealth of West Papua was squandered by elements in the central government in Java.

Scoop: In relation to that, in the current situation, West Papua seems to be a very large source of funds for the TNI. And consequently the conditions there are particularly bad, because it is seen as a sort of a cash cow for generating funds for the Indonesian military.

Ramos-Horta: I personally believe that if West Papuan leaders were to drop their demands for independence and lobby Jakarta and the international community for greater autonomy, for justice, for ending the corrupt and abusive behaviour of the Indonesian forces there, they will have a greater chance to be heard in Jakarta and in the international community.

Scoop: Won't they also have a greater chance of being heard in the United Nations and in Jakarta if the nations in the Pacific acknowledge the situation?

Ramos-Horta: Precisely because the perception, so far, in the region and around the world, is that West Papuans are demanding independence, and as long as there is a group that is the most active one that purports for the West Papuans and demands independence, you will find a lot of resistance among the international community because for this reason: If West Papuans are entitled to independence because of their current grievances, then why not the Tamil in Sri Lanka? Why not the people in Southern Thailand and in Mindanao? No government wants to open a can of worms.

Scoop: But surely, short of actually supporting the secessionist aims, there is a lot more -- there's a discussion which can be had of the issues? I mean, if you wish the West Papuans to change their position on what they're seeking to achieve, surely the way to do that is to enter dialogue with them? What I'm wondering here is, Do you think that the Pacific Forum is a place where the West Papuans legitimately should continue to aspire to champion or to at least discuss their cause?

Ramos-Horta: Usually if you want to engage a government in dialogue, you try to engage them bilaterally before you move on to a regional or multilateral forum. And in the case of West Papua, nothing is stopping the West Papuans from lobbying Jakarta for greater autonomy. They will find a lot of sympathetic media, a lot of sympathetic Indonesians who know and who understand the injustices done on the West Papuans. And they know that if these injustices are not corrected, the problem is not going to go away. If anything, it will grow further. However, if, instead of starting true bilateral dialogue with Indonesian authorities, the West Papuans go to a multilateral forum to claim independence, they will not find too many sympathetic doors open to them.

Scoop: So in that case, what you're suggesting is they should appeal directly to Australia and New Zealand's governments for assistance.

Ramos-Horta: No. I am saying they have to talk directly to Indonesian authorities, and I can tell you I know President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He is a very sensitive man and he will be sympathetic if he hears...

Scoop: As a former TNI, wouldn't he naturally have some conflicts of interest?

Ramos-Horta: Well, there are many other former army persons around the world who sometimes are even more sensitive than civilians. Civilians do not necessarily have a monopoly on virtues and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has proven, in the case of East Timor, he proved in the case of Aceh, that he is prepared to go an extra mile to resolve a conflict through peaceful means. I met President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in January this year, in Jakarta, and I could read from his eyes, his expressions, how genuine he was committed to resolving peacefully the conflict in Aceh. A few months later, even the Acehnese rebels -- insurgents who are very radical in their demands -- are praising the agreement that they reached with Indonesia.

Scoop: Can Australia play a positive role in these issues?

Ramos-Horta: I believe that at this stage it is best that countries outside the conflict itself refrain from getting involved because it would create resistance in Jakarta. It doesn't mean they should not take an interest. It doesn't mean they should not talk to the Indonesian government if there are gross and systematic abuses of human rights, but to deal with ideas about how to move forward in resolving this problem, it's better that you leave, give a chance to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to address it.

Scoop: In the case of East Timor, it was only after a very long period of public discussion in civil society in the West, in particular, that the Indonesians eventually agreed to grant a referendum

Ramos-Horta: But precisely because -- as I go back to what I said earlier, the two issues are different historically and legally, and our equation was already on the UN General Assembly way back when Portugal was a colonial power, the UN was already challenging Portugal's colonisation of East Timor, and then it continued on after 1975.

Scoop: Thank you.

Ramos-Horta: Thank you.

Papuans protest 'puppet government'

Jakarta Post - October 29, 2005

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura -- The central government's plan to appoint all 42 members of the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP) is against the law, undemocratic, and will create a puppet government of Jakarta, protesters in Jayapura say.

The government is under pressure to cancel a plan to install all 42 members of the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP) on Saturday as anger has grown in the province about the legitimacy of the powerful body.

The Special Autonomy Law for Papua requires two-thirds of the assembly to be directly elected by the people, with the other one-third, or 14 members, to be directly appointed by the region's religious authorities.

More than 100 people marched to the Papuan People's Representatives Council (DPRP)'s office in Jayapura on Friday to protest the election of MRP members.

The protesters, grouped in the United Front for the West Papuan People's Struggle, rallied outside the DPRP office after being prevented by police from entering the local legislative compound.

They demanded that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono stop the establishment process of the MRP, which they called a "puppet government".

The DPRP should dissolve the 42 elected members of the MRP and reject the special autonomy law for Papua, which mandated the establishment of the assembly, they said.

The demonstrators also asked the Papua provincial administration to disband the committee responsible for selecting members of the MRP.

United Front secretary-general Selpius Bobii said all the selected members of the assembly should be annulled because their selection contravened existing regulations.

The selection process was conducted without a proper information campaign, with only around 20 percent of the Papuan population aware of the MRP's establishment, said.

The 28 representatives from women and traditional communities were also directly appointed by local regents instead of being elected by people as regulated in Bylaw No. 4/2005 on recruitment of MRP members, he said.

Even the religious representatives to be inaugurated for the assembly were not those selected by religious leaders, Bobbii said.

Jayapura spokesman for the Bishop Januaris Youw confirmed that Catholic representatives for the assembly were not recommended by the city's diocese. Their election was facilitated by a religious organization, "Icakap", and the MRP election committee.

Its detractors say Icakap is a pro-central government organization and not representative of the religious groups in Papua.

Youw said the religious institutions in Papua had decided not to recommend representatives for the MRP because of limited time and lack of funds given for to them for selection of candidates.

However, Youw stressed the Jayapura diocese gave support for the establishment of an MRP on the condition that it was created in line with the law.

On Thursday, a similar protest against the MRP was lodged by prominent Papua opposition figure Tom Benal, who chairs the Papuan Customary Council (DAP).

He said the selection was unfair as the government had interfered in the process and only pro-governmental figures had been selected to represent their constituencies for the assembly without any elections.

The establishment of MRP is mandated by Law No. 21/2001 on special autonomy for Papua.

Under the law, the assembly is authorized to approve candidates for governor and for members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), as well as to give recommendations and approval for any cooperation between the Papua administration and other parties.

It comprises 42 members with 14 representing traditional communities, 14 representing women and 14 others representing religious communities. While representatives of traditional and women's communities are supposed to be elected through a popular ballot, religious representatives are supposed to be chosen by religious institutions across Papua.

West Papua independence protest at PNG forum

Australian Associated Press - October 28, 2005

Lloyd Jones -- Hundreds of people have rallied in Port Moresby to urge Pacific leaders meeting there to take West Papua's case for independence from Indonesia to the United Nations.

Activists for the cause of Melanesians in the Indonesian province on Papua New Guinea's western border, also wanted the Pacific Islands Forum to admit West Papuan delegates as observers. But they have been barred from this week's meeting.

As forum leaders met in a hotel, West Papuan independence supporters rallied peacefully on the beach below to hear speeches and display West Papuan flags.

Rally spokesman John Tekwie said the West Papua New Guinea National Congress wanted member countries to admit them as observers.Through the forum the West Papuan issue could be taken to the UN which had made the original mistake of letting the region go under Indonesian control, he said. "These kind of rallies are going to go on until West Papua is free."

The PNG government is concerned about relations with its powerful Indonesian neighbour and has long been sensitive about the West Papuan issue.

The former Dutch territory became part of Indonesia in 1969 through a UN-supervised Act of Free Choice, widely condemned as a sham when only 1,025 "representatives" were chosen to vote.

There were more than 30,000 West Papuan Melanesian refugees in PNG who had fled Indonesian persecution as Javanese and other migrants poured in under a transmigration scheme, he said.

West Papua had always been an international problem and was not just an "internal" issue for Indonesia as claimed by the PNG government, Tekwie said.

PNG's Foreign Minister Rabbie Namaliu has said questions could be raised when post-forum dialogue partners including Indonesia meet on Friday and Saturday.

Indonesia had granted special autonomy in its troubled province of Aceh and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had undertaken to take a similar approach to West Papua, he said.

That was the right forum for West Papuan activist leaders to take advantage of, Namaliu said.

PNG's Prime Minister Michael Somare also said this week the West Papuan issue would be discussed with the Indonesian president when he visited PNG in December.

The issue was not raised during the forum leaders' meetings, he said. "If there are moves already for some form of self- determination in West Papua, then groups like that could be invited to the meeting."

Beach rally organiser John Mondia said West Papua under Indonesian control posed a terrorist threat and if Australia was concerned about regional security it should use its influence to bring the issue before the UN.

Hundreds rally in PNG in support of independence

Radio Australia - October 27, 2005

In Papua New Guinea, hundreds of people have rallied in the capital Port Moresby to call for independence for the Indonesian province of Papua.

Some Papuans have been campaigning for self rule since Indonesia's annexation in 1969 under the vote of free choice.

Former parliamentarian and Papuan campaigner, John Tekwie, says the rally has been arranged to highlight the Papua issue while the Pacific Island Forum is still underway.

"We want to tell our leaders while they are here in Port Moresby for the Pacific Islands Forum, that, look, you guys have to stop pretending and make a resolution on this subject -- take it to the United States and to the UN Congress to have this act of free choice rebuked," he said.

PNG: Rally to highlight support for self determination

ABC Pacific Beat - October 27, 2005

A rally will be held in the PNG capital Port Moresby tomorrow to highlight the push for independence in the Indonesian province of Papua. Papua was annexed by Indonesia in 1969 following the controversial act of free choice, and some Papuans have been fighting ever since for self rule. The rally has been organised by a group of Non Government Organisations, which are seeking to bring the Papua issue to the attention of Pacific Forum leaders.

Presenter/Interviewer: Caroline Tripeman

Speakers: Powes Parkop, Lawyer and leading Papuan supporter

Parkop: We want to show to, especially the governments of Papua New Guinea and Australia that their push and position of their governments is not really supported by the people of the Pacific, and in terms of the Pacific Plan it should include a plan for the people of West Papua.

Tiriman: Two weeks ago the PNG Foreign Minister clearly pointed out that the Papuan issue was not going to be raised during this Forum meeting. What do you think of that?

Parkop: The position of PNG government is as I say it's a morally bankrupt position because it's just based on a patronage within a nation, PNG and political expediency, it's not based on the common views of the people of PNG. And the common views of people of PNG we have collected signatures, and a lot of thousands of people have signed with signatures, so the common view of the people of PNG is with the West Papuans.

But in the context of the Pacific Leaders Forum, PNG does not have any right over the agenda. It's a Forum and if the leaders of the forum want to discuss this issue, it's up to the collective will of the leaders of the Forum and we have a letter from the Prime Minister of Samoa that they're willing to raise this issue in the current Forum meeting.

And West Papua as long as it remains unrecognised and unresolved it will remain as a moral dilemma for the countries of the region. It's a moral dilemma for Australia. Why should Australia go halfway around the world to bring democracy, bring down a dictatorship halfway around the world in Iraq, when right before its doorstep people are dying, people who have not known freedom for 40 years? How are we going to allow them another 40 years to live under this type of regime that kills people, denies them their basic rights? This is a moral issue for all the leaders in the Pacific and especially for Australia as a big power in the Pacific.

Tiriman: For a long time now both the PNG and Australian governments have regarded the Papuan issue as an internal matter for the Indonesian government. Has their reluctance to push the issue?

Parkop: I think in our region Australia and PNG are saying they're standing alone and we must apply pressure on them, because in the Pacific most of the countries are sympathetic towards Papua, Nauru has tried to raise it before, Samoa is willing to raise it now. I know the New Zealand government is sympathetic to it, most of the countries are sympathetic except for Australia and PNG.

And if you look at the world in July there was a resolution passed in the House of Representatives in the US led by a congressman from America Samoa, they passed the resolution in the House of Representatives calling on the South Pacific Forum to address this issue, calling on the US government to raise the issue formally again with the UN General Secretary. That resolution is only waiting signing by the Secretary for State, Condoleezza Rice, and once that is passed then it becomes a legal obligation on the US government to raise it formally.

So at the international level there are movements moving towards recognising the circumstance of the West Papua people and recognising their history has been unfair and an error to them. So there's already movement in the international community to revisit the issue of West Papua.

Labour issues

90 percent of Batam workers are still not permanent

Jakarta Post - October 27, 2005

Fadli, Batam -- Some 90 percent of a total of 221,163 electronics factory workers surveyed in Batam are contract workers; a situation that makes them vulnerable to layoffs.

The figure was revealed by a survey carried out in August by the Association of Batam Human Resource Professionals.

The huge number of people with contract worker status shows that Batam is not the best place for workers, according to a leading expert on human resources, Harry Rahardjo.

In order to improve the plight of contract workers, Harry urged the Batam municipal administration to issue a regulation that obliges all companies in Batam to promote workers to permanent staff if they work with the company for more than three months.

If the proposal is approved, it will be a major breakthrough because at present, their status can remain as contract workers for two years before companies are required to give them full employee benefits.

Harry said the survey, which was held at 400 factories that produce electronics on the island, really portrays the situation at the factories. At a company with some 4,000 workers, only 300 of them are permanent staff members, while in another company, only 200 out of a total of 3,000 workers are permanent workers.

"The situation is deplorable. With the contract status, the workers have no job security," said Harry, who is also a manager at a tap water company on Batam.

The situation was especially difficult for male factory workers, who traditionally are the main breadwinners for their families. When their contract is up and they lose their jobs, it affects whole families.

However, one business leader said they could do nothing except impose the contract system. The contract system was crucial to keeping the businesses competitive. The system helped them keep abreast of rapid business development, allowing them to remain efficient.

"Orders for products are constantly changing. Sometimes we need more workers, other times fewer workers. We could not survive if we used a permanent job system," said Abidin, the owner of an electronics assembly factory with some 8,000 workers.

Batam is a prominent industrial city that benefits from its proximity to Singapore. Many foreign and domestic firms have built factories in Batam and ship their products to Singapore's ports before dispatching them worldwide.

Thousands of textile workers fired

Xinhua.net - October 25, 2005

Jakarta -- Over 70,000 workers have been laid off in Indonesia since the government hiked fuel prices on Oct. 1, local media reported on Tuesday.

"The workers are from Bandung, the capital of West Java province and Surakarta in Central Java province. I expect the number to reach 100,000 by the end of this year," Chairman of the Textile Association Benny Sutrisno was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying.

"In total, some 500,000 will have to be laid off because fuel comprises 30 percent of production cost, not to mention other cost," he added.

The chairman said that some 300,00 workers were from medium and large-size industries, while the remaining 200,000 workers were from small-size industries.

"Laying of workers is a tough decision to make because of the strong relation with workers and the high severance pay," he said.

War on terror

Lawmakers oppose TNI territorial role

Jakarta Post - October 27, 2005

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta -- House of Representatives lawmakers have warned that the government's plan to revive the military's territorial function in the fight against terrorism would undermine internal reform within the armed forces and put democracy in jeopardy.

Muhammad A.S. Hikam, chairman of the House's legislation body, urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to postpone his plan, which he deemed a setback to democracy in the country.

"Most legislators have expressed objections to the plan because it will not only disrupt the military reform process but will also threaten our democracy. Military reform is already final and, therefore, the government should not wake a sleeping tiger," Hikam told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

In his speech at the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Indonesia Military (TNI) early this month, the President called on the military to revive their territorial function to help police launch preemptive actions against terrorists.

During the authoritarian New Order regime, the territorial function enabled military involvement in the political realm.

Hikam from the National Awakening Party (PKB) said the proposal violated Law No. 34/2004 on the Indonesian Military (TNI), which allows military operations only in conflict-affected, remote or border areas.

"Police will be unable to counter terrorism and people will live in fear if soldiers return to rural and urban areas. This will lead the military back to the political stage," he said. He suspected that the plan was aimed at restoring the Army's previous dominant role in the nation's politics.

Yuddy Chrisnandi, a Golkar Party legislator, said the government should uphold civilian supremacy over the military. "The President should be consistent with the national reform agenda and understand that people are still traumatized by the military-style government of the past," said Yuddy, whose party formed the backbone of the New Order regime that reigned until 1998.

Yuddy, also a member of the House's Commission I on defense, security and foreign affairs, said the House would continue to encourage the President to enforce the TNI law and for the military to continue its internal reform. "The TNI has to be encouraged to gradually phase out its military presence in districts, regencies and provinces," he said.

Another PKB legislator, Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, said the House would not mind the military assisting the police in counter- terrorism. "But this must be strictly regulated in separate legislation that emphasizes that the military are subordinate to the police," she said.

"In the United States, military personnel can be deployed for certain operations to counter terrorism because most terrorist groups are armed, but the military's involvement must be under police coordination and their role limited to early detection measures." She said a law on military deployment to help police was more realistic and urgent than reviving the old territorial function.

Hikam and Yudi suggested that in accordance with the TNI law, the President should issue a government regulation that would allow the deployment of military personnel to help police counter acts of terrorism.

Return of dictator's tool threatens democracy: analysts

Agence France Presse - October 27, 2005

Jakarta -- A plan to revive a community-based intelligence system run by the Indonesian army as an anti-terrorism measure threatens to harm democracy and lead to human rights abuses, analysts warn.

Known by its local acronym Koter, the system was scrapped after the fall of dictator Suharto but has gained new currency following the Bali bombings and other recent bloody attacks against Indonesian targets.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired general, is among the backers of the system, in which thousands of non-commissioned officers act as the government's eyes and ears at village level, looking for suspicious activity.

But human rights activists and others worry about the once- dreaded Koter system, under which soldiers of the military's territorial command hold equal authority with village administrative and police officials in local security affairs.

"This will violate all principles of a democratic country, which forbids the military's involvement in monitoring social activities of the public," said Munarman, who heads Indonesia's Legal Aid and Human Rights Foundation. Reintroducing the system would violate human rights principles, he said.

Koter was introduced during the iron-fisted three-decade rule of Suharto, who used it to detect and quash all forms of dissent. It was abandoned in the reformist euphoria that followed his fall in 1998.

"I see this concept as totally irrelevant in the war against terror," said Asmara Nababan, a political and human rights analyst at the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights Studies.

"This is a ploy of the military to re-engage in non-defence and socio-political aspects in Indonesia." He said a return of the Koter system would make the government no different from that of Suharto's and be "an impetus to a repeat of unchecked human rights abuse by the military".

The government argues that reintroducing the Koter system would strengthen the information gathering work of police and the national intelligence agency.

Moves to reinstate the system followed the latest attack to claim lives in Indonesia -- the October 1 triple suicide bombings in the resort island of Bali that left 20 people dead. The proposal received strong backing from both the president and his defence minister, retired admiral Widodo Adisucipto.

Yudhoyono "will make sure that the territorial command is functioning fully and strictly to monitor suspicious security behaviours," presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal recently said. Koter is the "only security mechanism that we have in the country to enable us to detect security threats in far-away places, in villages, in places where the government has no access," he said.

The military says about 37,000 non-commissioned military officers are ready to take part in the Koter system across Indonesia, including about 1,000 in the capital Jakarta alone.

Activists say the system has in the past led to numerous unrecorded cases of human rights violations, including unlawful detentions and murders.

Reintroducing it would contravene a 2004 law that requires the elected government to approve military activities, both in war and peace, said Nababan.

Edy Prasetyono, a political analyst with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, also argued that the government plan to involve soldiers in counter-terrorism would be unlawful.

In the post-Suharto era, he said, Indonesian law clearly states that anti-terrorism is in the hands of the police and intelligence services, while the military's role is limited to assisting them on request.

Hidayat Nur Wahid, chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly, also opposed the plan, saying recently that Indonesia should instead focus on "maximising the role of the police and intelligence" and warning that "repressive means will create new terror in the field".

TNI uses Bali bombing to reassert political role

Green Left Weekly - October 26, 2005

James Balowski, Jakarta -- Attending a ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the Indonesian military (TNI) on October 5, just days after the deadly bombing in Bali, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono instructed the TNI to "take part in effectively curbing, preventing and acting against terrorism".

Despite the fact that defence and intelligence analysts have repeatedly blamed poor coordination between intelligence units and unpopular government policies for the string of terrorist attacks over the last three years, the TNI immediately seized on the statement to justify reactivating its regional territorial command network. This was led by Yudhoyono himself when he was an active three-star general, and under the Suharto dictatorship it allowed the TNI to play a political role at all levels of society, leading to rampant human rights abuses.

Speaking on the sidelines of the ceremony, TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto said: "The government has given us [the TNI] a clear order to participate in the war against terrorism. First, we will raise the public awareness about the condition of people's neighbourhoods. Second, we will also activate the territorial command up to the village level, and third, of course, we will share intelligence information with other institutions, especially the police."

Sensitive to public concerns over the move, defence minister Juwono Sudarsono told the public that the TNI would have no powers of arrest. This was later contradicted by Ansja'ad Mbai from the office of the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, who told the Jakarta Post that the TNI could arrest suspected terrorists before handing them over to the police. "If we want the whole country to be protected from any kind of terror threats, then we must empower all elements of this nation to take part in the war on terror. Even regional military commanders should be authorised to arrest terror suspects", he said following an October 11 meeting on security affairs.

Babinsa

Assigned down to the village level, non-commissioned officers called Babinsa were once the vanguard of the TNI's territorial command, or Koter, living in local communities and monitoring and reporting "suspicious" residents to the intelligence authorities.

This began to be curtailed followings Suharto's overthrow in 1998. After the TNI was separated from the police in 2003, many of the roles of military intelligence and community policing were given to police, while the Babinsa's duties were confined to collecting strategic intelligence data.

The military has constantly resisted calls for Koter to be dismantled. As well as entrenching the TNI's political power, Koter also provides huge business opportunities -- protection rackets, gambling, prostitution, monopolies on commodity distribution and bribes from business.

TNI's political role

Yet critics, including top politicians and rights groups, say reactivating Koter could pave the way for the TNI to reassert its repressive role. According to People's Consultative Assembly speaker Hidayat Nurwahid, the move is inappropriate and the function of the police and National Intelligence Agency (BIN) should be maximised first. He added that he feared it would create conflict between military and police officers in the field.

Ikrar Nusabhakti, a researcher at the National Institute of Science, said it could pave the way for the TNI to reenter politics or legitimise rights abuses. "During the New Order [Suharto] regime, the military -- read: the Army -- maintained these (territorial) roles mostly for political purposes, and their mindset is yet to change as of today", Nusabhakti told the October 6 Jakarta Post.

In a press release issued on October 11, the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) said that under the New Order, "the presence of the TNI from the national level (TNI headquarters), Kodam, Korem, Kodim, Koramil and even Babinsa became a tool to control and limit political space. It is this social and political function of Koter that is of concern, that it will return Indonesia to the era of authoritarianism under the New Order." YLBHI noted that Jakarta military commander Major General Agustadi Sasongko Purnomo has already announced that 1680 Babinsa will be reactivated throughout the city.

In a joint statement issued on October 13, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy, YLBHI and the Human Rights Working Group warned it would be a "blow to people's freedom". Describing the plan as a "major blow to democracy", Usman Hamid from Kontras said at a joint press conference that "The plan views civilians as part of the terror threat, while in fact it could be the security officers who are the threat [to the people]."

According to an October 12 Detik.com report, the TNI is already targeting traditional Islamic boarding schools or pesantrens. Nurwahid told Detik that he had information that Babinsa had been visiting pesantrens to ask about the out-of-school activities of the schools' Islamic scholars. At a press conference in Jakarta on October 17, House of Representatives speaker Agung Laksono said: "No longer [can] they go along with determining which pesantrens or schools must be closed down. Don't imitate the measures that were used by the New Order." Public resistance

Media reports and recent surveys indicate widespread public opposition to the plan. A survey by the Indonesian Research Institute released on October 4 found that a clear majority believe Koter should be abolished. Of 1137 people from 33 provinces, 55-58% of respondents disapproved of Koter at district, regional and provincial levels. The survey also found that 82.2% of those interviewed agreed that the military's main role was to defend the state from external threats.

In an op-ed piece in the October 8 Jakarta Post titled "Military fight against terrorism could be the terror itself", the paper warned that as well as being a breach of the reform spirit, the move could herald the return of "secret abductions, detention without trial, torture and the extra-judicial killings of those who are deemed militants or a threat to the state".

"Still fresh in the nation's memory are the abductions of at least 12 men, mostly activists in a military operation in 1997. An investigation only recently declared these men had died in the hands of their abductors, but no one has yet been brought to trial for their deaths", said the paper.

An October 10 Jakarta Post editorial speculated that the president wants to use the Bali bombings as cover to test the public's reaction to the revival of the TNI's role in domestic security and public order. "Going by media reports", it said, "there is indeed a great deal of public resistance to the idea of the military renewing its political role, although many people acknowledge the TNI could play an important role in the war against terror. But, after the abuses of power and rights violations during the Suharto era, people remain wary of giving the military too much power.

"We must use every available means to eradicate terrorism, but at the same time we have to stick to our democratic principles. True, the internal security acts in Singapore and Malaysia are effective in the short term, but at what cost to civil society? The TNI can play a key role in the war against terror without returning to it the powers it enjoyed under Suharto. But will the TNI accept this?"

Tougher anti-terror laws

The government was also quick to take advantage of the bombings to gain support to enact tough anti-terror laws.

Speaking at an event by the Islamic Student Association's Corps of Alumni on October 15, vice-president Jusuf Kalla didn't mince words: "Like it or not the government must take measures which are tough and resolute, no different from what was done during the New Order era."

National Police chief General Sutanto said Indonesia urgently needed tougher legislation, pointing to the Internal Security Acts in Malaysia and Singapore, as well as tough anti-terror laws in the US and other countries that "give room to the police to move quickly and effectively" against the terrorists. "For us, in order to arrest a suspect... we have to submit [evidence] to the court first", he told Agence France Presse on October 15. "This needs time... It is not fast enough." On the same day, Sudarsono told the Jakarta Post that the government was considering enacting "emergency legislation" to deal with terrorism.

Support also came from former National Intelligence Agency (BIN) director A.M. Hendropriyono, who lamented the failure to pass a law that would have allowed BIN to detain suspects for limited periods. He said operatives needed the ability to "discretely take aside" members of radical organisations in an attempt to entice them into providing information from inside terrorist cells. Receiving intelligence in this manner, BIN could better anticipate terrorist acts before they took place.

A recent report by a fact-finding team investigating last year's murder of renowned human-rights activist Munir found evidence linking BIN to his death and strongly recommended that Hendropriyono be questioned by police in relation to the case.

Islamic leaders reject government school supervision

Radio Australia - October 24, 2005

In Indonesia calls for greater government supervision of Islamic schools have been rejected by the country's leading Muslim groups. Vice President Jusus Kalla has made it clear he wants a small number of schools he suspects of extremist religious teaching to be closely watched.

Presenter/Interviewer: Karon Snowdon

Speakers: Din Syamsudin, Chair of Indonesia's largest Muslim political and social group, Mohammadiah. Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University rector Azyumardi Azra

Snowdon: Few details have been released beyond the basic facts -- police, according to press reports have arrested three women and one man near the Malaysian border on the Indonesian side of Borneo Island.

They had with them large amounts of explosives, detonators and fuses, but no police spokesperson was available to confirm this today.

Indonesian police have been on high alert since the Bali suicide bombings earlier this month which killed 23 people, with so far no breakthroughs.

It's in this climate that Vice President Jusuf Kalla last week called for closer monitoring of religious schools or pesantrens, a few he said taught extremist views.

It's been rejected completely by Indonesia's largest Muslim group, Muhammadiah, which operates many schools itself, which serve important social and educational roles in Indonesia.

The Chairman of Muhammadiah is Din Syamsudin.

Syamsudin: As far as I know all pesantrens belonging to Islamic organisations don't teach terrorism. So for the government, Vice President, minister of religious affairs can investigate but we're not saying that we blame one or two pesantrens are teaching terrorism or violence, because again it's a contradiction to the very teaching of Islam.

Snowdon: There are about 17-thousand pesantrens in Indonesia and Vice President Jusuf Kalla without naming any, wants the government's Religious Affairs Ministry to closely monitor two or three. Part of the powerful Ministry's role is to review the teaching in schools.

A respected Islamic scholar, Professor Azumardi Azra, President of the State Islamic University, says it's time for the Ministry to get back on the job.

Azra: In the past the Minister of Religious Affairs did not pay any attention to this problem, I don't know why, but I think now it is high time for them, for this ministry to play their role in supervising those pesantrens that have been in one way or another involved in this kind of let's say radicalisation of students.

Snowdon: And that would involve Ngruki?

Azra: Yes of course.

Snowdon: The still operating Ngruki School in Central Java founded by jailed radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has been associated with several of those convicted for their involvement in the first Bali bombings of 2002. Bashir is also alleged to be the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah which is blamed for several other attacks.

Professor Azra says groups like MUhammadiah as well as the more conservative Ulema Council and the moderate Nahdlatul Ulama should move away from their traditional defensiveness. He accuses them of not supporting the government's anti-terrorist efforts and goes further to say they are undermining it.

Azra: These organisations should abandon their defensive attitude and then the council of the Ulema and other Muslim organisations like NU and Muhammadiah should support, should be behind the government because otherwise the government would not be successful in addressing this problem.

Snowdon: But there's no place for any interference in schools according to Din Syamsudin from Muhammadiah, though he says the group does support the government's anti-terror campaign generally.

Syamsudin: Yes we support any policy and program from our government to combat terrorism, but we don't agree and we don't support if the government in order to combat terrorism interferes and even distrust religious Islamic education and education institutions like the pesantrens. If such kind of generalisation will happen, like in the past, of course we do suggest and insist our government not to associate any terror action with Islam because we Muslims and the majority of Muslims in Indonesia and all over the world don't support all kinds of terrorism.

Government/civil service

2006 budget passed with few snags

Jakarta Post - October 29, 2005

Rip Hudiono, Jakarta -- All ended well for the government's proposed 2006 state budget, with the House of Representatives passing the budget draft into law on Friday.

In a plenary session that began at 9 a.m. and lasted for some eight hours, nine of the House's 10 factions accepted the proposed budget draft, attaching several notes for the government to address in its implementation in January.

Only the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) faction refused to support the draft, with members detailing a list of criticisms of it.

The plenary session had reached the required half-attendance quorum of the House's 550 members, but only some 100 returned after the Friday prayers break.

The House's Budget Committee had earlier approved the draft after a two-month long deliberation with the government, whose final report was submitted to the plenary session by chairman Emir Moeis of the PDI-P.

The budget targets Indonesia's gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 6.2 percent to Rp 3,040 trillion (some US$304 billion) next year, on higher development spending and assumes a deficit of Rp 22.4 trillion, or 0.7 percent of the GDP.

It is the first budget deliberation for both President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration and the 2004-elected House.

The previous administration of former president Megawati Soekarnoputri and the 1999-elected House earlier deliberated and approved the 2005 state budget.

That budget turned into a financial, and political, nightmare for the new government as soaring global oil prices forced it to twice revise what was a demonstrably unrealistic set of assumptions -- the first time in the country's history.

But the 2006 state budget deliberation had its own intrigue too, with a last-minute controversy -- a significant rise in next year's stipends for legislators and for the Presidential budget -- at a time when the public is struggling to cope with increasing prices after the Oct. 1 fuel price hike.

Minister of Finance Jusuf Anwar said the President had told him to cancel the increases and make the needed adjustments through the mid-year budget revision mechanism.

Besides the budget increase issue, all of the House factions also urged the government to fulfill the Constitutional Court's recent ruling, mandating the education budget be increased to a minimum 20 percent of total expenditure.

A group of 45 House members, including deputy House speaker Zainal Maarif who chaired Friday's plenary session, had submitted an official letter, stating their strong disappointment in the House leaders and the government.

Next year's budget only allocates some Rp 40 trillion to the education sector, less than 10 percent of total spending, and even lower than the planned 12 percent that the government had previously presented to the House.

Jusuf said the government has consulted with both the court and the House on its efforts to meet the requirement. "The court understands the current budget's condition (of the government) only being able to afford a gradual education budget increase," he said.

Despite their acceptance of the budget draft, the factions also questioned whether next year's Rp 54.2 trillion fuel subsidy allocation would be enough, without the country having to go through another series of fuel price hike like this year.

They urged the government to be more prudent in next year's budget implementation, basing it on performance-based criteria by setting specific targets -- such as unemployment rate reductions and human development index rating improvements in a year.

Modest grade for Susilo's one-year showing: LIPI

Jakarta Post - October 29, 2005

Jakarta -- After one year in power, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his economics team have so far failed to live up to expectations, with the economy -- both macro and micro -- showing little sign of improvement, revealed a study by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

In fact, in terms of macroeconomic management, the current economics team's performance is weaker than the team under Megawati Soekarnoputri, the head of the team of researchers, Widjaya Adi, said when presenting the study on Friday. Susilo replaced Megawati as President last year.

"In terms of the macroeconomic management under the current government, inflation and Bank Indonesia's benchmark (SBI) interest rate are going up while the rupiah is weakening.

"The situation was different during the administration of Megawati and Gus Dur, when the rupiah was relatively stable and inflation and SBI were going down," Widjaya said, referring to former president Abdurrachman Wahid. Heading toward the end of the year, Indonesia's economy has indeed been put under a lot of pressure; with the rising trend in inflation and interest rates holding back economic activities and growth.

Heavy inflationary pressure mainly came after the government hiked fuel prices in October for the second time this year.

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has reported on-year inflation in September at 9.06 percent, leaving little option for the central bank but to raise its key interest rate to a current level of 11 percent, from 8.75 percent in July. Bank Indonesia said the rising interest rate was necessary also to contain pressure on the rupiah against the US dollar.

Widjaya, however, singled out one indicator where the current economics team has performed better that its previous peers -- economic growth.

The economy in the first year under Susilo grew at least by 5.5 percent, by far the fastest as compared to performance of both Megawati and Abdurrachman. Still, even with such a growth, it failed to fully absorb about 2.2 million of the new job seekers entering the country's job market this year, Widjaya said.

"Assuming that a 1 percent growth could absorb some 300,000 new job seekers, the current economic team has failed to find a job for up to 600,000 people this year," he said, adding that the figure should be added on to about 10 million people who are already unemployed.

Commenting on the reason behind Susilo's performance, Widjaya blamed external factors -- such as the tsunami and rising global oil prices -- and the lack of coordinated efforts within the economics team to improve the economy.

"While they had little choice but to except and deal with the external factors, the economic team could have done much better in dealing with the problems if they were better coordinated.

"It's not uncommon to hear one economics minister say one thing and another say the opposite. That's not right. They have to coordinate better to improve the economy," he said.

Kalla outshines Susilo in popularity: Survey

Jakarta Post - October 27, 2005

Jakarta -- President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono may be leading the nationwide fight against corruption but a survey reveals that more people now perceive his deputy, Jusuf Kalla, plays an equal or more important role in running the country.

Conducted by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI), the poll found that 47.3 percent of people viewed that Kalla played an "equal or more pivotal role" in government than Susilo. Only 40.9 percent believed that Susilo had the most active job in government.

While Susilo is still judged positively by those surveyed, the results are in contrast to an identical question asked the previous year, which gave Susilo a clear lead over Kalla in the performance stakes, with 49.8 percent of those surveyed putting him above Kalla, who scored only 40.9 percent for the "equal or more pivotal" question.

The surveyors believe Kalla's increased performance rating likely came from his prominent role in the peaceful settlement of the Aceh conflict, perceptions of his proactive approach to the country's economic policies, his support base in the House of Representatives through the Golkar Party he heads and his leadership style.

During the survey conducted between Oct. 3 and Oct. 7, the LSI interviewed a thousand respondents across the country's 33 provinces using a multistage random sampling method. The margin of error was put at around 3.2 percent.

LSI had announced only part of the results of the survey on Oct. 20, which showed Susilo's popularity had rating reached a record low since he assumed power last year, although it was still above 50 percent.

Perceptions of Kalla's role also increased in economic affairs, with the Vice President's role -- of being in equal or more in command of the country's economy rated at 56.2 percent, compared to his boss' 33.8 percent.

The President, a retired Army general, has since the onset entrusted economic issues to his deputy, who is formerly a businessman. Both had served in the previous administrations of Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Most respondents said Susilo should play a bigger role in government because Susilo was the most popular choice during the presidential and vice presidential elections last year.

LSI executive director Denny J.A. said on Wednesday he was surprised by the results of the poll. He suggested that Susilo set a clearer division of labor between him and his deputy and let Kalla stay in the background for some issues.

The survey also discovered that 60 percent of respondents want a Cabinet reshuffle due to perceptions of a worsening economy and the presence of ministers who are deemed liabilities to Susilo's administration.

Denny said the reshuffle should take place before 2006, with attention paid to the economic team. "Because the public consider the economy the most important sector, the ministerial posts should be given to those who are capable and free from conflict of interests," he said.

Extra income unlikely to improve House performance

Jakarta Post - October 26, 2005

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta -- The controversial decision to provide a new additional monthly allowance for members of the House of Representatives would not guarantee any improvement in the performance of the lawmakers, critics have said.

Noviantika Nasution, an outgoing legislator of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), blamed the lingering political friction among the country's political elite and party leaders on the poor performance of the lawmakers over the past year.

"The House could not work well in accordance with its official functions because all things have been highly politicized and this was marked by the emergence of the koalisi kebangsaan (nationhood coalition) and koalisi kerakyatan (people's coalition). Despite their subsequent dissolution, the friction among their supporters and former leaders lingers. This has caused the House to be unable to effectively perform its function of controlling the government," she said.

Noviantika, who quit the House over internal friction in her party, said that over the past year, legislators were more concerned about representing the interests of their party than the interest of the people.

"To be open about it, the monthly income hike is really a compensation for the House's approval of the government's recent decision to boost fuel prices," she said.

The House has approved a plan to provide a new Rp 10 million (US$1,000) monthly allowance starting November, a decision which has drawn strong criticism amid the current economic hardship endured by the people following the recent fuel hike.

Noviantika doubted that the extra income would boost the performance of the lawmakers, who were only been able to endorse four bills during their first year in office out of a target of 55 bills.

Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, a legislator of the National Awakening Party (PKB), said the lack of qualified human resources had hampered the House in reaching its legislation target.

"Most legislators are not familiar with the legislation procedure and we are running short of law drafters, law experts and researchers. The House has only 17 experts and less than 10 researchers," she said, adding that an American legislator would have five legal drafters and expert advisors and several researchers.

Experts have previously said that the domineering role of party leaders in recruiting candidates for House positions had been a factor for the poor performance of the current lawmakers.

Meanwhile, Muhammad A.S. Hikam, chairman of the House's legislative body, blamed the government for the House's low productivity in the legislative field, saying many special committees had been left inactive because the government was not cooperative in the legislation process.

"Many bills have been left undeliberated since they are still waiting for presidential decrees for their deliberation. Minister of Justice and Human Rights Affairs Hamid Awaluddin should be replaced because he has paid more attention to handling the Aceh issue and the graft case in the General Elections Commission (KPU), instead of coordinating with relevant government departments in the legislation process," he said.

Hikam acknowledged that the legislation process has been highly politicized because many factions have been buying time in deliberating bills which could affect their political interests.

"The deliberation of the long-awaited bills on the criminal code and the free flow of information has been suspended because certain factions do not accept the substance of the bills," he said.

He was also of the same opinion that the monthly income hike would not guarantee an improvement in the output of House' legislators in the future.

House pursues extra Rp 10m in allowances

Jakarta Post - October 25, 2005

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta -- The House of Representatives may claim it empathized with people who are facing increased economic hardship as prices for many goods rise, but almost all of its 550 members appeared to stick with their recent decision to raise their monthly incomes by up to 30 percent.

Despite mounting protests from the public against the decision to provide each of lawmakers an additional Rp 10 million (US$1,000) in a monthly operational allowance, no faction, nor commission raised a call for the House to review the decision during a plenary session here on Monday.

Only Lukman Hakim Syaifuddin, a legislator with the United Development Party (PPP), spoke against the decision in the session presided over by House Speaker Agung Laksono. Lukman urged the House to postpone the operational allowance in response to the protests.

"If the House doesn't want to revoke the decision, we should suspend implementing it because it is not timely to raise our incomes as the majority of the people are shouldering heavy economic burdens because of the fuel price hike and (those of) other basic commodities," he told the meeting.

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction in the House, which earlier spoke out strongly against to the salary rise, when it came to the crunchtime of approving the increase remained silent. The plenary meeting gave no response to Lukman's speech and was closed without any conclusion on the issue.

Agung said it now looked unlikely the House would suspend the salary hike, which was decided during a plenary session in September. Legislators who rejected the operational allowance could use the money to purchase rice to help the needy, he said.

Agung, from the Golkar Party, said the operational allowance would help the House members improve their performance, especially in building a better network and communications with their constituents.

However, after the plenary session, legislators of the PKS, PPP, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and Democrat Party (PD) expressed great concern over the operational allowance, saying the House should withhold the decision until an "appropriate time".

"It is not timely for us at present to get a salary hike while the people are suffering from economic difficulties. The current income is still sufficient to cover our daily needs and operational costs," said PDI-P faction chairman Tjahjo Kumolo.

PD lawmaker Ahmad Mubarok said he and his colleagues would return the money to the government if they received the much-criticized allowance.

Untung S, who chairs the PKS faction, concurred and said the House had no a sense of crisis by raising its members' income, while it had so far performed poorly.

However, Golkar lawmaker Ferry Mursyidan Baldan accused House members opposed to the salary hike of being "hypocrites", saying the allowance had already been approved by all legislators.

Many have believed that the extra money for the lawmakers was aimed at influencing the House into endorsing the fuel price increases that took effect on Oct. 1. Ferry denied the allegation.

Regional/communal conflicts

Religious leaders call for calm

Jakarta Post - October 31, 2005

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- The killing of three schoolgirls in the Central Sulawesi town of Poso has raised concern among Christian and Muslim leaders, who called on their followers to remain calm so as to prevent a cycle of revenge from setting in.

The religious figures believe that the latest violence to hit the town, where sectarian conflict killed some 2,000 people a few years ago, is aimed at fueling hatred between Muslims and Christians.

Chairman of the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI), Rev. Andreas Yewangoe, further asked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to immediately capture the perpetrators of the triple murder and discover the real motive behind the heinous crime.

"Why did the killings take place as both the Muslim and Christian communities were successfully improving their hostile relationship?" Yewangoe said to The Jakarta Post. He dismissed speculation that religious motives were behind the murders.

Three female students from a Christian senior high school were beheaded by unidentified assailants on Saturday. Another student survived the attack but suffered a stab wound to her face.

Yewangoe said some PGI officials would immediately visit Poso in a bid to calm down Christians and prevent them from taking revenge. He expected other religious leaders would follow suit.

Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin joined the chorus of condemnation against the killings, calling the assailants "atheists". "We strongly condemn the incident, and believe me that this has nothing to do with ties between Muslims and Christians," Din told the Post.

He further asked the police to conduct a thorough investigation and take resolute action against the perpetrators, whom he said "really want to create instability and disharmony among religious adherents.

Noted Muslim figure Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid also denounced the violence. "The murders were perpetrated by heartless people. No religion teaches us to kill our brothers and sisters," former president Gus Dur said.

Yewangoe recalled the promise made by Susilo to religious leaders ahead of last year's presidential election that he would pay more attention to the sporadic sectarian violence nationwide.

"I remember that it was during a meeting on Aug. 23 last year that I reminded Pak Susilo that weak law enforcement was the key problem to dealing with escalating tension among religious adherents in this country. We asked him to address the issue accordingly after he won the election.

"Like other religious leaders, I think we've done enough by coming down to the field to calm people. But now that violence has continued to occur, there is no other way to stop it but to impose stiff legal sanctions against the perpetrators," he said.

Poso has been the scene of sporadic violence since a formal peace was signed to end bloody sectarian conflict in December 2001. The government has blamed the violence on terrorist groups.

Religious harmony in the world's most populous Muslim country has been put to the test following the recent closure of dozens of Christian houses of worship. The government is currently revising an old decree that is deemed discriminatory by non-Muslims.

Indonesia boosts security after girls beheaded

Reuters - October 30, 2005

Ade Rina and Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta -- Indonesian police beefed up security patrols on Sunday in the Poso area, plagued by sectarian violence for years, after mysterious assailants in black beheaded three teenage Christian girls.

Six machete-wielding men attacked the 16 to 19-year-old students as they were walking to their school on Saturday on Indonesia's eastern island of Sulawesi, police said.

Police official Made Rai said about 1,000 police, including reinforcements from other parts of the country, were securing the remote regency of Poso, with more than 300 additional officers expected to arrive on Sunday.

"We are still investigating. So far no witness has been questioned and no suspect arrested," Rai told Reuters by telephone from Poso, about 1,500 km (900 miles) northeast of capital Jakarta. One student survived and had described the attack.

Muslim-Christian clashes in the Poso area killed 2,000 people from 1998 through 2001, when a peace deal was agreed. While the worst violence abated after the deal, there have been sporadic outbreaks since. Bombings in May in the Christian town of Tentena killed 22 people.

The three headless bodies of the girls, dressed in brown uniforms, were left at the site of the attack. Their heads were found at separate locations two hours later by residents.

Din Syamsuddin, leader of Indonesia's second-largest Muslim group Muhammadiyah, warned of more violence in Poso if police do not catch the perpetrators soon.

"Similar murders are likely to occur in the future because there are some parties wishing communal conflict to flare up," Din Syamsuddin was quoted as saying by Indonesia's official news agency Antara.

On Sunday reports of the killings were featured across the front pages of virtually all Indonesian newspapers.

Leading daily Media Indonesia splashed a headline across its front page saying "Barbaric!" and the Muslim-oriented Republika daily devoted its full front page to the incident.

On Sunday television news showed wailing and distraught relatives of the dead students looking at their bodies in coffins. The girls' bodies, their heads re-attached, were in flowing white gowns, their hands holding bouquets. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has condemned the killings, which he described as "sadist and inhuman crimes."

About 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim. But in some eastern parts, Christian and Muslim populations are about equal. Most Indonesian Muslims are moderates, but there has been an increasingly active militant minority in recent years.

Religious and communal tensions in areas like Poso have been aggravated by a transmigration policy in which for decades large numbers of people from Indonesia's most crowded areas like Java, mostly Muslim, moved to places that had been largely Christian.

In addition to religion the newcomers often have cultural and language differences with locals. Politicians and security forces have sometimes been charged with exploiting the differences for their own ends, adding to the potential for violence.

Three Christian girls beheaded in Indonesia

Associated Press - October 30, 2005

Three teenage Christian girls were beheaded and a fourth was seriously wounded in a savage attack yesterday by unidentified assailants in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi.

The girls were among a group of students from a private Christian high school who were ambushed while walking through a cocoa plantation in Poso Kota subdistrict on their way to class, police Major Riky Naldo said. The area is close to the provincial capital of Poso, about 1000 kilometres north-east of Jakarta.

Naldo said the heads of the three dead victims were found several kilometres from their bodies.

In Jakarta, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the police to begin a hunt for the killers. "In the holy month of Ramadan, we are again shocked by a sadistic crime in Poso that claimed the lives of three school students," he told reporters at the airport as he prepared to fly to Sumatra island.

"I condemn this barbarous killing, whoever the perpetrators are and whatever their motives." He ordered the security forces to find the killers and maintain order in the region.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but Central Sulawesi has a roughly equal number of Muslims and Christians. The province was the scene of a bloody religious war in 2001-2002 that killed around 1,000 people from both communities.

At the time, beheadings, burnings and other atrocities were common. A government-mediated truce succeeded in ending the conflict in early 2002, but there have since been a series of bomb attacks and assassinations of Christians. These included a blast at a market in Poso, a predominantly Christian town, that killed 22 people in May.

Christian leaders have repeatedly accused the authorities in Jakarta of not doing enough to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

The Christian-Muslim conflict in Sulawesi was an extension of a wider sectarian war in the nearby Maluku archipelago in which up to 9000 perished between 1999 and 2002.

The Maluku conflict intensified soon after it began with the arrival of volunteers belonging to Laskar Jihad, a newly created militia from Indonesia's main island of Java that was supported by hardline elements of the security forces.

Analysts and diplomats accused senior army commanders of funding and training the militia, which was hurriedly disbanded following the terrorist attacks on the tourist island of Bali in 2002 which claimed 202 lives, including 88 Australians.

Focus on Jakarta

Residents block only road to Bojong dump site

Jakarta Post - October 31, 2005

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta -- Consistent with their firm objection to the operation of a waste treatment plant in their area, hundreds of residents of Bojong in Klapanunggal district, Bogor, West Java, erected on Sunday a wall to block the only road into the plant.

Some 500 residents arrived at the area at around 9 a.m. and immediately started putting up a 13-meter-wide and 45-centimeter-high wall in front of the plant's main gate to make sure that no truck could enter the plant.

"We collected construction materials from the residents. We hope we can finish erecting by the afternoon. The wall shows that we will do anything to stop the plant from operating in our neighborhood," local resident Suhari told The Jakarta Post.

The plant, constructed in 2003, is meant to incinerate one-third of Jakarta's daily waste of 6,000 tons. The plant would reduce Jakarta's dependence on Bantar Gebang dump in Bekasi, West Java.

However, Bojong residents have repeatedly held rallies and put up blockades to stop the construction and trial run of the plant.

The last time the dump operator attempted a trial run of the equipment in the facility on Nov. 22, 2004, residents gathered outside the plant to protest against the use of the dump due to the harmful impact on the health of residents in the surrounding area.

The protest soon turned violent and several people had to be hospitalized for their injuries. Twenty-four police were reprimanded for using unnecessary force to quell the protest, and 18 Bojong residents were jailed for causing damage to the dump.

Since then, the Jakarta administration has looked into the possibility of setting up waste treatment plants in the capital and on Friday it announced that it had short-listed five companies, including foreign firms, to carry out waste treatment projects. The five firms were Keppel Seghers Group with its local partner PT Azara Putra Perkasa, Jakarta Renewable Energy, Kwarta Daya Pratama, Enviro Green and Sapta Krida.

Members of the Bogor Regency Council have said that they would prefer the dump to suspend its operations and, if possible, find a new site.

A special team of the House of Representatives had also recommended the closure of the plant as its presence violates land zoning regulations. The team said the construction of the site had violated Bogor Bylaw No. 27/1998 stipulating that the area in question is a zoned as a residential, tourism and agricultural area.

Subsequently, State Minister of the Environment Rachmat Witoelar told the House of Representatives that the trial should not proceed. He said that a joint team of experts from his office, the Office of the State Ministry for Research and Technology and the Jakarta administration had recommended the operations be shelved.

The team was assigned to determine the feasibility of the plant, including studying the impact analysis and problems in the field.

Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) activist Erwin Usman, who has accompanied the residents in their rallies, said that the building of the wall was aimed at sending a clear signal to the government that residents would not allow the dump site to be made operational. "The dump site clearly violates the law. We just want the government to enforce the law. The residents want the plant to be stopped permanently," he said.

Jakartans rushing to mental hospitals

Jakarta Post - October 28, 2005

Jakarta -- The number of mentally ill people in Jakarta has risen dramatically over the past month, so much so that four government mental institutions in Jakarta were overwhelmed, Tempo Interaktif reported on Thursday.

"This month alone we have admitted 118 mentally ill people, today eight more were admitted," Bambang Sugeng, head of the city's Mental Guidance Social Welfare Agency, said.

He said that the usual number of people admitted to the mental institutions was five to six persons per day, but that has risen to between 10 to 20 people a day during the past month.

He also said that the government's institutions in Cengkareng, West Jakarta; Cipayung, East Jakarta; Daan Mogot, West Jakarta; and Bambu Apus, East Jakarta, could no longer support the increasing number of mentally ill people.

Environment

Riau Police move against illegal loggers

Jakarta Post - October 31, 2005

Jakarta -- The Riau Police confiscated on Saturday more than 1,600 cubic meters of illegally felled logs from Gaung River in Indragiri Hilir regency, during a raid against illegal logging in the province.

Provincial police chief S. Damanhuri was quoted by Antara as saying that the logs belonged to a Malaysian citizen referred to by the initial of F only. He said the logs were to have been smuggled to neighboring Malaysia.

"Anyone involved in illegal logging -- be they policemen, military officers or forestry officials -- will be apprehended because such activities are causing great losses to the state," said Damanhuri, who has been credited by local media for his success in curbing gambling in the province.

He also appealed to the public not to be tempted by the financial offers made by illegal logging bosses for them to loot local timber.

Illegal logging has been rampant in various parts of the country and has been seen as a major factor behind the rapid destruction of the country's forests. The government has been facing international pressure to resolve the problem.

Earlier this year, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the Indonesian environmental group Telapak issued a report highlighting the massive looting of merbau wood in Papua to be supplied to China. The crime was conducted by international syndicates, supported by Indonesian law enforcers and government officials.

Merbau is one of the most valuable timber species in Southeast Asia, but Papuan communities get approximately US$10 a cubic meter for chopping them down. They are then sold for around $270 per cubic meter in China, where the timber is used for furniture and flooring, the report said.

The involvement of military and police officers, customs officials and forestry officials has created difficulties in fighting illegal logging in the country.

The report by the environmental investigators said each component of the syndicate played a specifically defined role -- from Jakarta-based bosses securing protection for shipment, Malaysian logging gangs, Singapore-based shippers arranging transportation for the logs and Hong Kong-based brokers selling huge quantities of merbau, to companies on mainland China.

The government has said that 43 million hectares of Indonesian forests have been damaged or destroyed over the last few decades due to illegal logging, with the average annual deforestation rate estimated at more than 2.8 million hectares since 1998.

Illegal logging still rife in Way Kambas park

Jakarta Post - October 28, 2005

Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandarlampung -- The fishing village of Kuala Penet, situated at the estuary of Way Kambas National Park in Lampung, might be just a small dot on the map, but for environmentalists it is notorious as the center of illegal logging in southern Sumatra.

The village, which is also known locally as a place where many of its poor residents are forced to eat tiwul (dried cassava) because they are too poor to afford rice, is the main transition point for the trade of illegal logs coming from out of the park before they eventually arrive at the Port of Karangantu in Banten.

Many Kuala Penet residents work as woodcutters in the park while others are timber traders, who source wood from the park and other protected areas on Bangka island and in Riau.

Many claim not to know that the timber they are dealing with is illegal.

Mustami, Ambonacok, Muslimin, Ride and Nasru -- all residents of Tenggiri hamlet in Kuala Penet, East Lampung -- were transporting 900 nibung logs by boat, the Kembali Lagi, in East Lampung waters when they were caught in a police raid.

Local unit head Adj. Sr. Comr. Putut Prayogi said the nibung timber, logs measuring 14-15 meters in length, originated from Bangka island.

"We intercepted them when they were crossing the waters off Kuala Penet. Our patrol boat noticed a fishing vessel carrying hundreds of logs," Putut said.

Based on Mustami's confessions to police, most of the timber was taken from forests in the Bangka-Belitung area and the other logs were bought cheaply from a hamlet chief in Pon Pasir, Bangka- Belitung. Mustami told investigators he had already pre-sold the time in Kuala Penet at Rp 75,000 (US$7.50) a log.

"We felled the logs and bought them at Rp 3,000 each from several people in Bangka. We stockpiled them for four months before transporting them," he said.

The same time was also needed to gather logs in a river in Bangka Belitung, before they were brought with boats to Air Sujian, South Sumatra. After staying for three days in Air Sujian and preparing another boat to carry the timber, the group then shipped the wood to Kuala Penet.

Putut said the smugglers could face maximum 10-year prison terms in line with Article 50 F and H of Law No. 41/1999 in the law on forestry.

"We are conducting investigations to locate their boss in Bangka Belitung. We are also working to find out the buyers in Lampung," he said.

The executive director of the Indonesian Environment Forum Lampung chapter, Mukri Friatna, said law enforcement against illegal loggers was weak and haphazard in the park.

Mostly small-time loggers and land clearers had been prosecuted and even they had been sentenced too leniently, he said.

"They are usually sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison and fined Rp 150,000. The Way Kambas National Park forest rangers and the police force only catch the small fry, while traders dealing with the contraband have never been prosecuted," Mukri said.

Forest destruction was at an alarming rate in the park, he said, with more than 60 percent of 126,000 hectares of forested areas already turned into idle grasslands and cassava plantations.

Illegal logging activities had also gone on unabated in the northern parts of the park such as Cabang Gayabaru (Central Lampung), Rasau and Kuala Penet (East Lampung).

In Kuala Penet alone, Mukri said that at least 2,000 hectares of the forest had been turned into cassava crops.

In Cabang Gayabaru and Rasau, dozens of illegal loggers openly felled trees using handsaws, machetes, ropes and chainsaws.

The perpetrators used the services of boat operators in the area to transport the already-processed timber.

According to Mukri, the perpetrators usually rented motorboats at Rp 300,000 for each journey.

In a single trip, a medium-sized boat can carry hundreds of cubic meters of wood. Loggers continued to operate in the area despite it supposedly being guarded by a number of forest rangers.

"Like a terminal disease, the condition of the national park, especially the areas in Cabang Gayabaru and Rasau, are in a chronic state. Every day, hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal loggers enter the forest," he said.

Thousands of hectares of forest in the national now resembled football fields, barren of big trees, including the nibung variety that used to be used by fishermen to make floating fish traps.

Only thousands of tree stumps remain. Besides that, many footpaths and hundreds of ditches were found in several parts of the forest, used by the perpetrators to transport timber out of the forest.

Head of the Way Kambas National Park office, Mega Haryanto, claimed his office had faced difficulties in curbing illegal logging in the park. He stressed rangers had made persuasive and preventive efforts to constrain logging activities.

"When taken into account, perhaps hundreds of suspects have already been brought to trial. However, they are not discouraged by the fact. Because of this, we have urged especially those living in buffer zones to cooperate and preserve the national park," he said.

Mega said the illegal activities in the park were not as bad as people imagined. They should be thought of more as "timber thefts" rather than "extreme forest destruction", he said.

Ministry lacks power, not cash: Walhi

Jakarta Post - October 27, 2005

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta -- Increasing the allocation in the state budget for the Office of the State Minister of Environment would not help much, an environmentalist claimed on Wednesday, responding to the state minister for environment's complaint about having the lowest budget in Southeast Asia.

"What is the use of having a big budget if the state ministry has no power? Its duty is to coordinate with other ministries to formulate environmental-friendly government policy. To this point, it has failed to do such a thing," the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) executive director Chalid Muhammad told The Jakarta Post.

Chalid said even with the amount of money in the current budget, the ministry should be able to do more to protect the country's rich natural resources. "The problem is that it lacks power, not money," he said.

State Minister for Environment Rachmat Witoelar stated earlier that his institution only were allocated 0.1 percent of the 2005 state budget, the lowest such allocation among Southeast Asian countries. "It is even smaller that Vietnam's environment ministry gets, which is at 6 percent of the state budget," he said on Tuesday during his visit to Makassar, South Sulawesi. Rachmat also cited examples of other countries like China and Germany, which spent about 5 percent of their state budget on the environment.

The ministry's budget for this year totals Rp 218.1 billion, or 0.1 percent of the 2005 state budget. Under the proposed 2006 state budget, the ministry will get a bit more (Rp 281.3 billion) but that is still around 0.1 percent of the state budget.

Former environment minister Sonny Keraf, however, pointed out that other ministries also had their own budget allocations for environmental issues.

"What the minister said is not entirely correct. Almost every ministry has a budget allocation specifically for environmental- related issues. For example, the ministry of education has a huge budget for environmental education programs," said Sonny, who is also a member of the House of Representatives Commission VII on environmental issues. If such a variety of funding was pooled, he said, it could reach almost 5 percent of the state budget.

However, he acknowledged that the budget allocation for the state ministry should ideally reach between 5 percent and 6 percent of the state budget. "That's why the commission VII has proposed an increase of the ministry's budget by Rp 113 billion for next year," he said, adding that the 2006 state budget would be finalized on Friday.

Sonny stressed that the money should be spent not merely for promotion and campaign programs, but also for concrete and measurable programs, such as cleaning up rivers in major cities across the nation or rehabilitating mangrove areas along the Java and Sulawesi coasts.

Islam/religion

NGOs demand independent probe into Mahdi case

Jakarta Post - October 31, 2005

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta -- Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) urged the National Commission of Human Rights to set up an independent team to investigate possible human rights violations that may have occurred during the recent deadly clash between police and the people of Selena village in Palu, Central Sulawesi.

The Indigenous People's Alliance (AMAN), the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) and the Commission for Victims of Violence and Missing Persons (Kontras) made the call during the weekend.

They said the reporting of the clash illustrated police and the public's misconceptions about the legitimate and traditional beliefs of the Selena people.

"The police have been the only source (of information) about what happened in the village. No one really knows why the police raided the village in the first place and why the violence occurred? Therefore, we urge the commission to conduct a thorough and objective investigation in this case," AMAN executive secretary Emilianus Ola Kleden told The Jakarta Post.

Selena, a mountainous region located about 11 kilometers west of Palu, Central Sulawesi, made headlines last week after five people died in a clash between police and members of the local Mahdi sect, which blends Islam with local traditions.

The police have said they initially only intended to summon the Mahdi leader for questioning after the sect was reported to them by people in the area. Since then high-ranking police officers and a government minister have declared the sect "deviant".

Emil said state officials were mistaken in their view of the group as a dangerous cult. "The (original Mahdi) group was just an ordinary martial arts group that existed years ago. It just so happens that its leader has the power to cure people. Such similar groups can be easily found elsewhere in Java because they are part of traditional teachings, not 'deviant' ones," Emil said.

The Palu-based Yayasan Tanah Merdeka executive director Arianto Sangaji said the authorities had failed properly identify the Mahdi group.

"The teachings were not more than rituals carried out by traditional farmers, who are also known as the To Lare (mountain people). The rituals consist of shamanistic rites, the prevention of disease and martial arts rituals," Arianto wrote in Kompas.

Emil said calling the group a "deviant" cult showed that the government could only see things from the viewpoint of mainstream religions -- Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

"That shows that the government can't appreciate and protect traditional knowledge, which actually is required in the (country's) laws," he said. The 1945 Constitution also guarantees the right of people to freely practice their religion.

Emil said the state should appreciate traditional forms of knowledge because Indonesia had ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. "These laws stipulate that traditional knowledge must be preserved and be protected," he said.

Ridho Saleh of Walhi, who made a study of the Mahdi group six years ago, urged the government to improve the situation in the local villages so that people who had fled the area could return to their normal lives. "The government should do its utmost to prevent more violence from taking place," he said.

Eight named suspects in police killings

Jakarta Post - October 29, 2005

Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta -- Police said on Friday they had named eight followers of a little-known religious sect in Central Sulawesi as suspects for the killings of three police officers.

The suspects were among at least 72 followers of sect leader Mahdi who were arrested after a deadly clash on Tuesday with police near the provincial capital of Palu, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Aryanto Boedihardjo said.

He alleged that the eight suspects -- Syahido, 30, Adjamuddin, 40, Bambang, 40, Nangga, 24, Lai, 35, Olimin, 21, Kahar, 21 and Ryaya, 42 -- were responsible for the deaths of the three police officers during the clash, including Adj. Comr. Imam Dwi Haryanto.

"The first four people are believed to have killed Imam using machetes, while the last four helped drag and hide Imam's body," Aryanto told a press conference in Jakarta.

He also said that a total of 117 Mahdi followers, comprising 32 men, 40 women and 45 children, had surrendered to local police. Police had also confiscated 18 machetes and a spear believed to have been used in Tuesday's incident.

The conflict broke out after 16 officers went to the mountainous Gawalise area near Palu to detain Mahdi for allegedly spreading heretical Islamic beliefs. However, the attempt to arrest the 27-year old leader met strong resistance from his followers, leading to the deaths of three officers and two sect members.

A day later, police launched a massive raid against the sect to locate the attackers and Mahdi as they were reportedly holding several officers hostage in their hideouts.

The search efforts, employing over 300 heavily armed police and a helicopter, eventually bore fruit, with the three officers being found alive on Thursday in a forest area near Salena hamlet where the sect was centered.

"The evacuation process has been completed but police are intensifying their efforts to find Mahdi," Aryanto said. He denied that police had violated the basic rights of citizens to freely practice their religion by attempting to arrest the sect leader. Police were merely trying to address public grievances that the Mahdi-led sect had caused anxiety in his neighborhood, Aryanto argued.

Human rights activists have lashed out at police for their "repressive action" against the sect members, saying that it went against the basic right of freedom of religion.

"We were just trying to negotiate with the sect leader, but this failed because they (sect members) suddenly attacked us," Aryanto said. He said that currently police were trying to identify and locate other Mahdi followers, which according to a document they had found numbered at least 372.

Shadowy sect dismissed as national threat

Radio Australia - October 27, 2005

Indonesian police say a shadowy sect known as Mahdi is becoming a threat to national security after three officers died in a bloody clash. But others say the sect doesn't exist.

Presenter/Interviewer: Linda LoPresti

Speakers: Dr Thamrin Amal Tomagola, sociologist at the University of Indonesia.

Dr. Tomagola: Actually, it could not be regarded as a sect. It's only a group of young people that train by a trainer called Mahdi and he's a traditional healer and also he's also a trainer of traditional marshal art. The leader of this group is called Mahdi about 32 years-old. He's very friendly with the other villagers, so people are just wondering why all of a sudden people, the police, the local police make a big fuss of this sect.

Lopresti: At the same time though, the clashes were quite violent. Three police officers were killed and two of the Mahdi group were killed. They, according to police, attacked them with swords and sickles?

Dr. Tomagola: Oh yes that's true, because. Actually the whole incident started by a report, by an outsider from neighbouring village who reported to the police that there was a sect. They call it a sect.

Lopresti: So how many people are followers of Mahdi? Are there men, women, children? We've even heard reports that there are people of both Muslim and Christian faiths?

Dr. Tomagola: No, no. This only 20 young men who wanted to be trained by their guru.

Lopresti: What do you mean when you use the word train, train for what?

Dr. Tomagola: Train in marshal art, that's all and he is also has practiced traditional healing, so people come to him for that purpose. He hasn't taught any interpretation of Islam or any interpretation of any religion. But it is true at that he made several critical interpretations against Islam. He said that Muslims, who are fasting should not ridicule any Muslim that who are not fasting, so just accept people as they are. He's a very tolerant person, no violence record at all.

Lopresti: Even so, Jakarta is obviously concerned, the Minister for Religious Affairs, Maftuh Basyuni, declared his teachings to be completely defiant?

Dr. Tomagola: Yeah, marshal art has been learnt for quite a long time in that eastern part of Indonesia, and it's just regarded as something that a young man should equip to himself with that marshal art. Why all of a sudden they make a big fuss of it? I think this is quite closely related with the national concern, meaning the concerns of the bureaucrats, of the national bureaucrats in Jakarta, regarding what they call as false interpretation of Islam in Java.

Loprest: So is it your view that in this climate of growing concern about the formation of Islamic groups that Indonesian police and Jakarta for that matter have overreacted in regard to this group, the Mahdi group?

Dr. Tomagola: I think the concerns of the Jakarta bureaucrats place a black cloud of that incident. But according to my source in Palu he said that actually the local police wanted a piece of land for their shooting training, that's quite close to that village so they just want to push people out from that village, that's actually the rumours spread around in Palu, and so far the local police has not denied it.

Police clash with Islamic sect in Indonesia, four dead

Reuters - October 26, 2005

Jakarta -- A clash between police and machete-wielding members of a shadowy Islamic sect on Indonesia's eastern Sulawesi island has killed four people, three of them police officers, a senior policeman said on Wednesday.

The incident took place on Tuesday in the rugged hills just outside the Central Sulawesi provincial capital of Palu. Fighting broke out when police had sought to apprehend the leader of a tiny sect which was branded deviant by local Muslim clerics.

"His supporters became hysterical and started to attack officers when police were about to take him," said deputy national police spokesman Soenarko Artanto, adding one sect member also died in the fighting.

Local media reported police retaliated with guns after being attacked with lethal traditional weapons like machetes and poisonous blow darts.

Palu police chief Guntur Widodo told Reuters around 20 sect members were taken by police for questioning but the sect leader was still at large. Previously, Soenarko had said the leader, known only Madi, was in police custody.

On Wednesday, more than 300 police officers were deployed to guard the sect's remote hamlet.

Local mainstream clerics in Palu, which is 1,650 km (1,030 miles) east of Jakarta, said that although the sect considered itself Islamic, the followers mixed the religion with ancient local traditions and refused to observe basic Islamic tenets such as fasting during Ramadan or praying five times a day.

Muslims all over the world are observing the holy Ramadan month, which will end in early November.

Indonesia's Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni called the sect, whose followers always wear white headbands and yellow scarves, "a very, very deviant group." Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but groups branded as deviant periodically spring up.

Last month, hundreds of angry Muslims in West Java province torched more than 30 houses and damaged mosques belonging to a breakaway Muslim sect connected to the Ahmadiyah movement.

Indonesia's Islamists flex their muscles

Asia Times - October 26, 2005

Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar -- Fallout from the October 1 Bali bombings put a damper on the local Hindu Galungan and Kuningan holidays celebrating the triumph of good over evil in heroic times.

Bali could use a hero at the moment as tourist arrivals and hotel occupancy plummeted following the blasts. And as Indonesia's estimated 190 million Muslims wrap up the holy month of Ramadan, the entire country could use some heroes in the religious sphere.

No group has claimed responsibility for the strikes against Saturday night diners in Kuta and Jimbaran Bay. No one has dared identify the neatly severed heads of the apparent suicide bombers. (Investigators now regret identifying the heads as those of suspected terrorists. "If we say the three men are victims and not suspects, I strongly believe that their families would be willing to come forward and help us," a police source told a local newsweekly.)

But the tactics and targeting suggest the work of Islamic fanatics who were also behind the October 2002 Bali bombings that left 202 dead. Regardless of who planted the October 1 bombs, there's no doubt that violent religious extremism is on the rise in Indonesia, and it presents a greater challenge to democracy and freedom than spectacular acts of terrorism. In July, thousands of vigilantes attacked a complex housing 700 members of the Ahmadiyah sect in Bogor, a hill town outside Jakarta where President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono makes his family home.

The attackers called themselves Indonesian Muslim Solidarity and cloaked themselves in an obscure 1980 Indonesian Ulema Council (known by its Indonesian acronym MUI) fatwa against the Muslim splinter group, which believes there have been prophets since Muhammad (specifically, Ahmadiyah's founder). Thugs beat residents and set fire to buildings. Police made no arrests because religious issues are fraught with politics, so police require political guidance to act.

Blaming the victim

The central government and mainstream Muslim leaders tut-tutted about the attacks but showed no stomach for taking on the mob or its instigators. The attorney general's office, without apparent shame, said it would look into banning Ahmadiyah as "disruptive to the public order", even though a leader in the district including the complex told reporters, "We're more afraid of those protestors." Authorities in Bogor, without apparent irony, decided the best way to protect Ahmadiyah was to shutter the complex and evict its inhabitants.

MUI opened a national convention, held once every five years, days after the attacks amid calls to rescind its fatwa against Ahmadiyah. Delegates to the convention were in a feisty mood, though. "We are proud to report there is not one single church in Cilegon [West Java] and this is how we intend to keep it," a delegate bragged. Another delegation reported with regret that despite a population that's 90% Muslim, a non-Muslim had won a local election. "We will make sure it won't happen next time," the delegates promised.

Not only did MUI's convention reiterate its fatwa against Ahmadiyah, it issued a new set of draconian edicts condemning pluralism, secularism and liberal Islam. The chairman of MUI's Fatwa Commission warned of liberal Islam, "All of their teachings are deviant... Their principles are dangerous and misleading because they believe in only [what] they think is right and use pure rationale as justification." One fatwa ordered Muslims to consider Islam as the only true religion and all other religions as wrong.

Fatwa fallout

This fatwa barrage brought swift condemnation from inter-faith and liberal Islamic circles. Just as predictably, it brought new attacks on Ahmadiyah followers, as well as threats of mob violence against the Liberal Islamic Network, a leading progressive group, and the closing of at least 23 churches by hardline groups. Prosecutors in Malang, a city in East Java, presented a case to prosecutors against Muhammad Yusman Roy for leading prayers in Indonesian rather than Arabic. The court documents cited MUI's fatwa against the practice as their justification, even though MUI rulings do not hold any legal status.

Yudhoyono's government, despite the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, has been cowardly against the zealots. The Ministry of Religious Affairs stuck its head in the sand by saying there were no church closings, only terminations of "illegal assemblies", based on the technicality that houses of worship can only be opened with official approval. Religious minorities generally find it impossible to obtain permits, so must worship in illegal assemblies. These mainly Christian minorities have urged the government to revise the requirement.

Weeks after the illegal assembly closings, Yudhoyono weighed in through a spokesman, not pledging to reopen the churches or revise the building requirements, but to reiterate the hollow freedom of religion guarantee and urge people to resolve their differences without violence. There's been no action to back up those words, reflecting the government's deeply rooted conflict over religion and its place in public policy.

Indonesia is the country with the world's largest Muslim population, but it is not a Muslim country. At independence, there was sentiment for declaring Islam the state religion. Secular-minded leaders prevailed. But because it was and is a hot-button issue, the state reserved a role for itself as regulator in religious matters. For example, state-sanctioned religious freedom extends only to five recognized faiths: Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic and Christian, a childishly ignorant term for Protestant.

The Pancasila state philosophy of Suharto's authoritarian New Order included belief in one god among its tenets, requiring some fancy footwork to bring Bali's polytheistic Hinduism into the tent. The former president's regime sought to suppress and control religion to keep it conveniently secondary to the state, but it also showed great skill in exploiting fanatics. Muslim zealots were integral in the bloodletting against alleged communists following the 1965 coup that brought Suharto to power and then were duped into reviving armed groups that gave the government a pretext for repression of hardliners. Indonesian Islam's reputation as moderate and tolerant may owe much to those being the qualities the New Order demanded from Muslims.

Forbidden fruit

The fall of Suharto gave rise to renewed fundamentalism among previously forbidden fruit: Top selling books since 1998 have involved either unrestrained religion or sex. When reformer Abdurrahman Wahid -- a liberal Muslim cleric now at the forefront of campaigns to foster tolerance -- became president, New Order holdovers stoked radical Islamic violence that emboldened fanatics, gave them a public platform and trained them in jihad useful for violence beyond what their mentors had in mind.

Radicals such as MUI can exploit their clerical status, the government's discomfort with confronting Muslim leaders and a raft of potentially repressive laws on the books, such as the statute against "disgracing a religion" that leaves the door open for radicals to demand legal action against alleged heretics such as Ahmadiyah or proselytizing Christians. It's not enough for these fanatics to be holier than thou; they want to coerce others into being as holy as they think they are, even when their zeal to enforce the fine print shreds the religion's basic principles.

Indonesia's politicians are reluctant to confront Islamic extremists, even though they claim these views represent only a tiny minority of the population. That aversion may stem from the state's ambiguous role in religious matters, personal belief or that fanatics represent a bigger slice of the population than anyone cares to admit. The issues are complex, and Indonesia's political classes are far-more skilled at calculating than governing.

The far-more simple issue, which lies at the root of virtually all of Indonesia's woes, is the rule of law. It's up to Yudhoyono to force religious leaders including MUI to declare loudly and publicly that people have a right to believe what they choose and no one has the right to take the law into their own hands, not even in the name of Islam.

The possible silver lining in this run of religious mayhem, or the most dangerous sign of all, is that this year local residents have begun resisting the white-robed, club-wielding Islamic thugs who attack businesses selling alcohol, legally but offensive to their fanatic sensibilities, during Ramadan. In Surakarta, Central Java, the Indonesian Democracy Party, former president Megawati Sukarnoputri's group, took up the gauntlet against the extremists. Maybe the opposition seeing some votes in it will prompt Yudhoyono's government to belatedly do the right thing.

[Gary LaMoshi has worked as a broadcast producer and print writer and editor in the US and Asia. Longtime editor of investor rights advocate eRaider.com, he's also a contributor to Slate and Salon.com.]

Tensions high in Surakarta in protest over raids

Jakarta Post - October 24, 2005

Blontank Poer, Surakarta -- Tension heightened in the Central Java town of Surakarta as hundreds of supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Surakarta Islam Followers Coalition ready to stage protests against each other on Sunday.

As around 200 PDI-P supporters in Surakarta assembled to protest a recent raid on a Pring Kuning restaurant in the Grogol area in Sukoharjo by members of the coalition, hundreds of coalition members also gathered at four different places in the city to counter the protest.

But PDI-P supporters canceled their planned protest after Surakarta Police Chief Sr. Comr. Abdul Madjid spoke to them. PDI-P in Surakarta have accused Islamists of conducting raids using the name of Islam in the city's night spots.

"If the police cannot act strictly against those doing these raids, then we will stop their actions our own way," said Hariadi Saptono, one of the party's executives in Surakarta.

He said that according to bylaw No. 4/2002 on restaurant and night spot businesses, night clubs and bars had to close during the first week of the fasting month of Ramadhan, and a week before the Idul Fitri celebration. "Everyone should follow the rules, even the police," Hariadi said.

In his speech to PDI-P supporters, Abdul Madjid said the police had taken firm action by dismissing Adj. Comr. Zaenal Arifin as Grogol police chief for his failure to secure his area.

The police, he said, had also apprehended Cholid Syaifullah, an allege raid coordinator for provoking and incurring damage. If found guilty, he might face up to six years in jail. "We acted firmly in this case. I even dismissed the Grogol police chief for his slip-up," he said.

Meanwhile, a coalition's coordinators, Awod, said on Sunday that they were not afraid of threats coming from PDI-P. "We'll continue the raids against community diseases, such as prostitution and alcohol. We're not against night spots, but we'll clean Surakarta of indecency," Awod said.

On the contrary, he added, the coalition felt harassed by PDI-P's supporters move in distributing fliers to residents on Saturday night, accusing them of being terrorists. "We gather here to confront them because the terrorist tag hurts all Muslims and we won't accept such an accusation," Awod said.

He also charged PDI-P supporters with violating a deal that was made at the Surakarta police headquarters early Sunday morning, where they agreed not to stage street protests.

"But because PDI-P supporters gathered to stage the protest, we did the same thing to confront them whatever the circumstances," he said, adding that the coalition would not conduct raids or destroy liquors if the police acted strictly against sellers, especially during Ramadhan.

Armed forces/defense

SBY slammed over slow military reform

Jakarta Post - October 29, 2005

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was criticized on Friday for showing lack of commitment in pushing through the military reform program during his first year in office.

Al Araf, a researcher at human rights and democracy watchdog Imparsial, said the President seemed to have no control over the military's maneuvers in the field of politics, business sector and domestic security.

In politics, Imparsial noted the participation of several active military officers in this year's direct regional elections.

"The policy of Indonesian Military (TNI) Chief (Gen. Endriartono Sutarto) to allow servicemen to join the political race at local level is, indeed, against Article 39 of Law No. 34/2004 on military reform, as the article strictly bans the military from involvement in practical politics," Al Araf said on Friday.

"The President, however, failed to warn the military from reentering the political arena," he added.

In May of this year, the TNI headquarters suspended six active military officers to allow them to contest the direct regional elections in June for regents, mayors and provincial governors. The suspensions apparently took advantage of loopholes in Law No. 32/2004 on regional government that does not specifically ban active military or police officers from being nominated for regional government posts.

Another Imparsial researcher, Otto K. Pratama, noted that the government was dragging its feet in removing the military from the business sector as mandated by the law. He said that Susilo had failed to create a corridor for the military to accede to the reform demands.

"Law No. 34/2004 on the military has mandated the government to take over business entities run by the military in order to create professional soldiers. With the process under way for almost a year, we only see officials assigned to evaluate the business entities. They are only talking about whether or not the companies are profitable and should be taken over by the government," Otto said.

He was referring to the ongoing verification held by four related ministries -- the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice and Human Rights and the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises -- during which officials have said the government would likely take over only 10 to 12 companies belonging to the military.

This means the military would likely retain many other business units held under its 219 military cooperatives and foundations.

As a comparison, Otto noted the Chinese government under Deng Xiao Ping had been able to accelerate the state takeover of all the Chinese military's business units within only six months.

Al Araf said the President's order to the TNI to be involved in handling terror threats nationwide through a military operation had violated the Constitution because "any application of the military operation should be discussed with the lawmakers in the first instance."

He referred to the request for the military to become more involved in countering terror threats in the nation made by Susilo in his speech during the commemoration of the TNI's 60th anniversary. In response, Endriartono pledged to reactivate the TNI's much-criticized territorial function.

No terror training with Kopassus, yet

Australian Associated Press - October 26, 2005

The government has yet to approve a formal resumption of counter-terrorism training and exercises between Australian troops and Indonesia's controversial special force, Kopassus.

But Defence Minister Robert Hill indicated that the government was moving in that direction.

"Australia supports a program to improve Indonesia's counter- terrorism forces," he said in a statement. "I would like to see some more training and exercises in that regard in the future. However, detail of that is yet to be agreed by government."

Similarly, the Australian Defence Force is considering the possibility for renewed training and exercises involving the Perth-based Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) and Kopassus.

"The Australian government would like to develop training and exercise opportunities with Indonesia's counter-terrorism forces," a defence spokesman said.

"However details of such opportunities are yet to be finalised. The bombings in Bali on October 1, 2005, highlighted the importance of continuing to work with Indonesia to combat terrorism. In this regard we have specifically taken steps to develop cooperation between the ADF and TNI (Indonesian armed forces) specifically in the areas of hostage recovery and counter-hijack."

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the SAS and Kopassus were set to resume ties, with senior Indonesian officers invited to Perth next month to finalise a training and exchange program.

Defence links between Australian and Indonesia grew through the 1980s and 1990s, mainly between Kopassus and the SAS. But they ended abruptly in 1999 when Australia led the international mission to end East Timor.

Cooperation with Kopassus has always been controversial because of the organisation's long and well-documented record of involvement in human rights abuses in East Timor, Aceh and West Papua.

In a paper released late last year, Dr Damien Kingsbury, head of political studies at Deakin University, said ties with Kopassus should not be resumed because there was no evidence it had lifted its game.

"It is clear that Kopassus has been an organisation that has frequently, if not exclusively, operated in an illegal manner and that it has a substantial and serious history of human rights abuses, even by Indonesia's own somewhat flexible human rights standards," he said. "Based on evidence since 1998, it appears that Kopassus has not altered its methods of operation to bring them more into line with wider, if sometimes failed, political reform processes."

TNI won't be involved in running businesses

Jakarta Post - October 27, 2005

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- The Ministry of Defense says it will ban servicemen from being involved in the management of businesses owned by the Indonesian Military (TNI) in order to achieve the goal of creating a professional defense force.

Secretary-general of the Ministry of Defense Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said on Wednesday that the ministry would set tighter criteria for the selection of management personnel in military businesses to prevent soldiers from being involved in running of these enterprises.

"Law No. 34/2004 on military reform compels the military to avoid involvement in business activities, but in a move to support the reform plan, the military, both as institution and as individuals, will not be allowed to be involved in the management of the companies even if the government allows the armed forces to retain the companies," Sjafrie said.

He made the comments amid reports that the government has decided to take over only 12 of the more than 200 business units managed by cooperatives and foundations under military control. Critics said that this ran counter to the ongoing reform drive within the military, which is supposed to be fully free from any involvement in business activity.

Sjafrie said that the ministry would also "stick to the laws on cooperatives and foundations that bans (these types of organizations from) profit-oriented business activities".

He said that businesses under the military would only be allowed to operate to help improve the welfare of soldiers. Improving the welfare of soldiers has been the key issue to be resolved by the cash-strapped government.

On Wednesday, Sjafrie officially submitted a report of the military's business entities, which are managed by 219 cooperatives and foundations, to the office of the State Minister of State Enterprises for further verification.

Earlier, an official from the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises Muhammad Said Didu said the government would allow the military to continue operating hundreds of business units, particularly those that did not utilize state assets.

Didu further said the government understood that many of the TNI companies had the aim of "improving soldier's welfare, rather than seeking profit."

Opinion & analysis

The mass killings in Indonesia after 40 years

Dissident Voice - October 31, 2005

John Roosa and Joseph Nevins -- One of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century." That was how a CIA publication described the killings that began forty years ago this month in Indonesia. It was one of the few statements in the text that was correct.

The 300-page text was devoted to blaming the victims of the killings -- the supporters of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) -- for their own deaths. The PKI had supposedly attempted a coup d'itat and a nationwide uprising called the September 30th Movement (which, for some unknown reason, began on October 1). The mass murder of hundreds of thousands of the party's supporters over subsequent months was thus a natural, inevitable, and justifiable reaction on the part of those non-communists who felt threatened by the party's violent bid for state power.

The killings were part of the "backfire" referred to in the title: Indonesia - 1965: The Coup that Backfired. The author of this 1968 report, later revealed to be Helen Louise Hunter, acknowledged the massive scale of the killings only to dismiss the necessity for any detailed consideration of them. She concentrated on proving that the PKI was responsible for the September 30th Movement while consigning the major issue, the anti-PKI atrocities, to a brief, offhanded comment. [1]

Hunter's CIA report accurately expressed the narrative told by the Indonesian army commanders as they organized the slaughter. That narrative rendered the September 30th Movement -- a disorganized, small-scale affair that lasted about 48 hours and resulted in a grand total of 12 deaths, among them six army generals -- into the greatest evil ever to befall Indonesia. [2]

The commander of the army, Major General Suharto, justified his acquisition of emergency powers in late 1965 and early 1966 by insisting that the September 30th Movement was a devious conspiracy by the PKI to seize state power and murder all of its enemies. Suharto's martial law regime detained some 1.5 million people as political prisoners (for varying lengths of time), and accused them of being "directly or indirectly involved in the September 30th Movement." The hundreds of thousands of people shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, or starved to death were labeled perpetrators, or would-be perpetrators of atrocities, just as culpable for the murder of the army generals as the handful of people who were truly guilty.

The September 30th Movement was Suharto's Reichstag fire: a pretext for destroying the communist party and seizing state power. As with the February 1933 fire in the German parliament that Hitler used to create a hysterical, crisis-filled atmosphere, the September 30th Movement was exaggerated by Suharto's clique of officers until it assumed the proportions of a wild, vicious, supernatural monster. The army whipped up an anti-communist propaganda campaign from the early days of October 1965: "the PKI" had castrated and tortured the seven army officers it had abducted in Jakarta, danced naked and slit the bodies of the army officers with a hundred razor blades, drawn up hit lists, dug thousands of ditches around the country to hold countless corpses, stockpiled guns imported from China, and so on. The army banned many newspapers and put the rest under army censorship. It was precisely this work of the army's psychological warfare specialists that created the conditions in which the mass murder of "the PKI" seemed justified.

The question as to whether or not the PKI actually organized the September 30th Movement is important only because the Suharto regime made it important. Otherwise, it is irrelevant. Even if the PKI had nothing whatsoever to do with the movement, the army generals would have blamed the party for it. As it was, they made their case against the PKI largely on the basis of the transcripts of the interrogations of those movement participants who hadn't already been summarily executed. Given that the army used torture as standard operating procedure for interrogations, the statements of the suspects cannot be trusted. Hunter's CIA report, primarily based on those transcripts, is as reliable as an Inquisition text on witchcraft.

The PKI as a whole was clearly not responsible for the September 30th Movement. The party's three million members did not participate in it.

If they had, it would not have been such a small-scale affair. The party chairman, D.N. Aidit, however, does seem to have played a key role. He was summarily and secretly executed in late 1965, as were two of the three other core Politburo leaders (Lukman and Njoto), before they could provide their accounts. The one among them who survived the initial terror, the general secretary of the party, Sudisman, admitted in the military's kangaroo court in 1967 that the PKI as an institution knew nothing of the September 30th Movement but that certain leaders were involved in a personal capacity. If the movement's leaders had been treated as the leaders of previous revolts against the postcolonial government, they would have been arrested, put on trial, and sentenced. All the members of their organizations would not have been imprisoned or massacred.

With so little public discussion and so little scholarly research about the 1965-66 mass killings, they remain poorly understood. Many people outside of Indonesia believe that the victims were primarily Indonesian Chinese.

While some Indonesian Chinese were among the victims, they were by no means the majority. The violence targeted members of the PKI and the various organizations either allied to the party or sympathetic to it, whatever ethnicity they happened to be: Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese, etc. It was not a case of ethnic cleansing. Many people imagine that the killings were committed by frenzied mobs rampaging through villages and urban neighborhoods. But recent oral history research suggests that most of the killings were executions of detainees. [3] Much more research is needed before one can arrive at definitive conclusions.

President Sukarno, the target of the PKI's alleged coup attempt, compared the army's murderous violence against those labeled PKI to a case of someone "burning down the house to kill a rat." He routinely protested the army's exaggerations of the September 30th Movement. It was, he said, nothing more than "a ripple in the wide ocean." His inability or unwillingness to muster anything more than rhetorical protests, however, ultimately doomed his rule. In March 1966, Suharto grabbed the authority to dismiss, appoint, and arrest cabinet ministers, even while maintaining Sukarno as figurehead president until March 1967. The great orator who had led the nationalist struggle against the Dutch, the cosmopolitan visionary of the Non-Aligned Movement, was outmaneuvered by a taciturn, uneducated, thuggish, corrupt army general from a Javanese village.

Suharto, a relative nobody in Indonesian politics, moved against the PKI and Sukarno with the full support of the US government. Marshall Green, American ambassador to Indonesia at the time, wrote that the embassy had "made clear" to the army that Washington was "generally sympathetic with and admiring" of its actions. [4] US officials went so far as to express concern in the days following the September 30th Movement that the army might not do enough to annihilate the PKI. [5] The US embassy supplied radio equipment, walkie-talkies, and small arms to Suharto so that his troops could conduct the nationwide assault on civilians. [6] A diligent embassy official with a penchant for data collection did his part by handing the army a list of thousands of names of PKI members. [7] Such moral and material support was much appreciated in the Indonesian army. As an aide to the army's chief of staff informed US embassy officials in October 1965, "This was just what was needed by way of assurances that we weren't going to be hit from all angles as we moved to straighten things out here." [8]

This collaboration between the US and the top army brass in 1965 was rooted in Washington's longstanding wish to have privileged and enhanced access to Southeast Asia's resource wealth. Many in Washington saw Indonesia as the region's centerpiece. Richard Nixon characterized the country as "containing the region's richest hoard of natural resources" and "by far the greatest prize in the South East Asian area." [9] Two years earlier, in a 1965 speech in Asia, Nixon had argued in favor of bombing North Vietnam to protect Indonesia's "immense mineral potential." [10] But obstacles to the realization of Washington's geopolitical-economic vision arose when the Sukarno government emerged upon independence in Indonesia.

Sukarno's domestic and foreign policy was nationalist, nonaligned, and explicitly anti-imperialist. Moreover, his government had a working relationship with the powerful PKI, which Washington feared would eventually win national elections.

Eisenhower's administration attempted to break up Indonesia and sabotage Sukarno's presidency by supporting secessionist revolts in 1958. [11] When that criminal escapade of the Dulles brothers failed, the strategists in Washington reversed course and began backing the army officers of the central government. The new strategy was to cultivate anti-communist officers who could gradually build up the army as a shadow government capable of replacing President Sukarno and eliminating the PKI at some future date. The top army generals in Jakarta bided their time and waited for the opportune moment for what US strategists called a final "showdown" with the PKI. [12] That moment came on October 1, 1965.

The destruction of the PKI and Sukarno's ouster resulted in a dramatic shift in the regional power equation, leading Time magazine to hail Suharto's bloody takeover as "The West's best news for years in Asia." [13] Several years later, the US Navy League's publication gushed over Indonesia's new role in Southeast Asia as "that strategic area's unaggressive, but stern, monitor," while characterizing the country as "one of Asia's most highly developed nations and endowed by chance with what is probably the most strategically authoritative geographic location on earth." [14] Among other things, the euphoria reflected just how lucrative the changing of the guard in Indonesia would prove to be for Western business interests.

Suharto's clique of army officers took power with a long-term economic strategy in mind. They expected the legitimacy of their new regime would derive from economic growth and that growth would derive from bringing in Western investment, exporting natural resources to Western markets, and begging for Western aid. Suharto's vision for the army was not in terms of defending the nation against foreign aggression but defending foreign capital against Indonesians. He personally intervened in a meeting of cabinet ministers in December 1965 that was discussing the nationalization of the oil companies Caltex and Stanvac. Soon after the meeting began, he suddenly arrived by helicopter, entered the chamber, and declared, as the gleeful US embassy account has it, that the military "would not stand for precipitous moves against oil companies." Faced with such a threat, the cabinet indefinitely postponed the discussion. [15] At the same time, Suharto's army was jailing and killing union leaders at the facilities of US oil companies and rubber plantations. [16]

Once Suharto decisively sidelined Sukarno in March 1966, the floodgates of foreign aid opened up. The US shipped large quantities of rice and cloth for the explicit political purpose of shoring up his regime. Falling prices were meant to convince Indonesians that Suharto's rule was an improvement over Sukarno's. The regime's ability over the following years to sustain economic growth via integration with Western capital provided whatever legitimacy it had. Once that pattern of growth ended with the capital flight of the 1997 Asian economic crisis, the regime's legitimacy quickly vanished. Middle class university students, the fruits of economic growth, played a particularly important role in forcing Suharto from office.

The Suharto regime lived by foreign capital and died by foreign capital.

By now it is clear that the much ballyhooed economic growth of the Suharto years was severely detrimental to the national interest. The country has little to show for all the natural resources sold on the world market.

Payments on the foreign and domestic debt, part of it being the odious debt from the Suharto years, swallow up much of the government's budget.

With health care spending at a minimum, epidemic and preventable diseases are rampant. There is little domestic industrial production. The forests from which military officers and Suharto cronies continue to make fortunes are being cut down and burned up at an alarming rate. The country imports huge quantities of staple commodities that could be easily produced on a larger scale in Indonesia, such as sugar, rice, and soybeans. The main products of the villages now are migrant laborers, or "the heroes of foreign exchange," to quote from a lighted sign at the Jakarta airport.

Apart from the pillaging of Indonesia's resource base, the Suharto regime caused an astounding level of unnecessary suffering. At his command, the Indonesian military invaded neighboring East Timor in 1975 after receiving a green light from President Gerald Ford and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. The result was an occupation that lasted for almost 24 years and left a death toll of tens of thousands of East Timorese. Within Indonesia proper, the TNI committed widespread atrocities during counterinsurgency campaigns in the resource- rich provinces of West Papua and Aceh, resulting in tens of thousands of additional fatalities.

With Suharto's forced resignation in 1998, significant democratic space has opened in Indonesia. There are competitive national and local elections.

Victims of the "New Order" and their families are able to organize.

There is even an official effort to create a national truth commission to investigate past atrocities. Nevertheless, the military still looms large over the country's political system. As such, there has not been a thorough investigation of any of the countless massacres that took place in 1965-66.

History textbooks still focus on the September 30th Movement and make no mention of the massacres. Similarly, no military or political leaders have been held responsible for the Suharto-era crimes (or those that have taken place since), thus increasing the likelihood of future atrocities. This impunity is a source of continuing worry for Indonesia's civil society and restless regions, as well as poverty-stricken, now-independent East Timor.

It is thus not surprising that the government of the world's newest country feels compelled to play down demands for justice by its citizenry and emphasize an empty reconciliation process with Indonesia. Meanwhile in the United States, despite political support and billions of dollars in US weaponry, military training and economic assistance to Jakarta over the preceding four decades, Washington's role in Indonesia's killing fields of 1965-66 and subsequent brutality has been effectively buried, thus enabling the Bush administration's current efforts to further ties with Indonesia's military, as part of the global "war on terror." [17] Suharto's removal from office has not led to radical changes in Indonesia's state and economy.

Sukarno used to indict Dutch colonialism by saying that Indonesia was "a nation of coolies and a coolie among nations." Thanks to the Suharto years, that description remains true. The principles of economic self-sufficiency, prosperity, and international recognition for which the nationalist struggle was fought now seem as remote as ever. It is encouraging that many Indonesians are now recalling Sukarno's fight against Western imperialism (first the Netherlands and then the US) after experiencing the misery that Suharto's strategy of collaboration has wrought. In his "year of living dangerously" speech in August 1964 -- a phrase remembered in the West as just the title of a 1982 movie with Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver -- Sukarno spoke about the Indonesian ideal of national independence struggling to stay afloat in "an ocean of subversion and intervention from the imperialists and colonialists." Suharto's US-assisted takeover of state power forty years ago this month drowned that ideal in blood, but it might just rise again during the ongoing economic crisis that is endangering the lives of so many Indonesians.

[John Roosa is an assistant professor of history at the University of British Columbia, and is the author of Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'Itat in Indonesia (University of Wisconsin Press, forthcoming in 2006). Joseph Nevins is an assistant professor of geography at Vassar College, and is the author of A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor (Cornell University Press, 2005).]

Notes

1. A former CIA agent who worked in Southeast Asia, Ralph McGehee, noted in his memoir that the agency compiled a separate report about the events of 1965, one that reflected its agents' honest opinions, for its own in-house readership. McGehee's description of it was heavily censored by the agency when it vetted an account he first published in the April 11, 1981 edition of The Nation. Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA (New York: Sheridan Square, 1983), pp. 57-58. Two articles in the agency's internal journal Studies in Intelligence have been declassified: John T. Pizzicaro, "The 30 September Movement in Indonesia," (Fall 1969); Richard Cabot Howland, "The Lessons of the September 30 Affair," (Fall 1970). The latter is available online: www.odci.gov/csi/kent_csi/docs/v14i2a02p_0001.htm.

2. In Jakarta, the movement's troops abducted and killed six army generals and a lieutenant taken by mistake from the house of the seventh who avoided capture. In the course of these abductions, a five year-old daughter of a general, a teenaged nephew of another general, and a security guard were killed. In Central Java, two army colonels were abducted and killed.

3. John Roosa, Ayu Ratih, and Hilmar Farid, eds. Tahun yang Tak Pernah Berakhir: Memahami Pengalaman Korban 65; Esai-Esai Sejarah Lisan [The Year that Never Ended: Understanding the Experiences of the Victims of 1965; Oral History Essays] (Jakarta: Elsam, 2004). Also consider the massacre investigated in Chris Hilton's very good documentary film Shadowplay (2002).

4. Telegram from the Embassy in Indonesia to Department of State, November 4, 1965, in United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. 26, p. 354. This FRUS volume is available online at the National Security Archive website: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB52/#FRUS.

5. Telegram from the Embassy in Jakarta to Department of State, October 14, 1965. Quoted in Geoffrey Robinson, The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 283.

6. Frederick Bunnell, "American 'Low Posture' Policy Toward Indonesia in the Months Leading up to the 1965 'Coup'," Indonesia, 50 (October 1990), p. 59.

7. Kathy Kadane, "Ex-agents say CIA Compiled Death Lists for Indonesians," San Francisco Examiner, May 20, 1990, available online at: http://www.namebase.org/kadane.html.

8. CIA Report no. 14 to the White House (from Jakarta), October 14, 1965.

Cited in Robinson, The Dark Side of Paradise, p. 283.

9. Richard Nixon, "Asia After Viet Nam," Foreign Affairs (October 1967), p. 111.

10. Quoted in Peter Dale Scott, "Exporting Military-Economic Development: America and the Overthrow of Sukarno," in Malcolm Caldwell (ed.), Ten Years' Military Terror in Indonesia (Nottingham (U.K.): Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation for Spokesman Books, 1975), p. 241.

11. Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New York: The New Press, 1995), p. 1.

12. Bunnell, "American 'Low Posture' Policy," pp. 34, 43, 53-54.

13. Time, July 15, 1966. Also see Noam Chomsky, Year 501: The Conquest Continues (Boston: South End Press, 1993), pp. 123-131.

14. Lawrence Griswold, "Garuda and the Emerald Archipelago: Strategic Indonesia Forges New Ties with the West," Sea Power (Navy League of the United States), vol. 16, no. 2 (1973), pp. 20, 25.

15. Telegram 1787 from Jakarta to State Department, December 16, 1965, cited in Brad Simpson, "Modernizing Indonesia: US- Indonesian Relations, 1961-1967," (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Northwestern University, 2003), p. 343.

16. Hilmar Farid, "Indonesia's Original Sin: Mass Killings and Capitalist Expansion 1965-66," Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 6, no. 1 (March 2005).

17. For information on US-Indonesia military ties, see the website of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network at: www.etan.org/

Communal conflicts and terrorism

Jakarta Post - October 31, 2005

Riwanto Tirtosudarmo, Jakarta -- The intention of the Indonesian Military (TNI) Chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto to revive the territorial command is not a surprise at all. It is only a reflection of a long established self image of the military as the nation's sole protector against security threats. Putting it into the global context the announcement echoes the idea of war on terror propagated by US President George W. Bush after the terrorist attack in New York in 2001.

Embracing Bush's fallacious ideology of the war on terror in the Indonesian context however could be a dangerous undertaking for Indonesia's current fragile democracy. To put it simply, the intention to revive the territorial military command will easily morph into the reinvention of state terrorism committed by the Soeharto regime. Reviving the military territorial command will only mean instituting a surveillance mechanism; which grossly overlooks the interconnectedness of domestic and global politics.

Conventionally, terrorism is a violent act seeking political recognition within a confined nation-state's border. Today's terrorism however is embedded within the currently celebrated globalize world. Terrorism should therefore be conceptualized in its new meaning within the vastly growing interconnectedness of the world.

Studies conducted by the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Indonesia indicates a loose connection between the communal conflicts particularly in Central Sulawesi and Maluku with the terrorist network in Southeast Asia that is likely also linked to the global terrorist network. Research on communal conflicts in Indonesia shows the important role of ethnic entrepreneurs -- in many cases local politicians -- in mobilizing the sentiments of people's attachment to ethnicity, religion and territoriality to achieve their short term political and economic goals.

These studies also confirm that such mobilization will only work in a society where horizontal inequalities exist between different culturally defined groups. While violent conflicts in Kalimantan might be different in the involvement of religion from what happened in Sulawesi and Maluku they share a common feature of the existence economic and political inequalities between different culturally defined groups.

The increasing violence and terror in the current unabated process of global capitalist expansion cannot be separated from the fact that there is more inequality between the rich-north countries and the poor-south countries.

Citizens of the rich countries in the north will be increasingly threatened by the fact that terrorist networks are embedded within the process of globalization itself. The feeling of insecurity is becoming a worldwide phenomena -- in the north as well as in the south -- although with not the same vulnerability and different reasons.

The 2005 Human Development Report released last month by UNDP in New York provides the hard facts on the need of genuine international cooperation to reduce the alarming global inequality. In this context, worldwide terrorism logically posits a possible causal-effect relationship with the increasing inequality at the global level.

Prof. Juwono Sudarsono, the Indonesian defense minister persuasively argued that "global security ultimately depends on broader-based social and economic justice, and peace and security depends on domestic distributive justice -- that should start with a greater commitment to social justice at home." (The Jakarta Post, Oct. 12-Oct. 13, 2005).

Social justice has indeed been the core political issue in Indonesia even before its independence. Social justice was the ultimate goal that drove our founding fathers when they decided to form the Indonesian nation. Social justice should therefore be among the top priorities of Indonesia's political platform where other immediate goals should be rendered.

Indonesia is a nationalist project that believes that all citizens are equal regardless of their ethnic or religious background. In this regard the mushrooming political and territorial claims based on ethnicity or religion in the guise of regional autonomy is a serious setback for the realization of national goals. These ethnic and religious resurgences reflect undercurrent of increasing inequality.

The peaceful political solution to arms conflict in Aceh evidently proved our ability to avoid military means alone in resolving the protracted problem of inequality and injustice experienced by the Acehnese. The problem that we are now facing with terrorism should be seen in the new light of what Prof. Juwono has succinctly voiced -- "a greater commitment to social justice at home".

Previous experiences have given us a precious lesson on the counterproductive effects when military power is used to resolve the perceived threats that are actually rooted within the state's incompetence in providing distributive justice for the people.

Social justice should become the broader umbrella in which the crucial role of military and security apparatus can be proportionally conceptualized.

[The writer is a researcher at the Research Center for Society and Culture, Indonesia Institute of Sciences.]

Revisiting the rat hole to set the record right

Washington Post - October 30, 2005

Ellen Nakashima, Lorejo -- An old man, thin and stooped, raised a wooden stick over his head and swung it down with both hands. This, he said, was how he executed fellow villagers 37 years ago, striking their necks with an iron bar. The kneeling victims, tied together by their thumbs, tumbled two by two into a hole, now a mass grave.

"I was ordered to kill these people by the army," said Katirin, 75. "If I refused, they would shoot me.... I was so afraid, I just did it."

As Katirin demonstrated how he executed people in the 1960s, a widow, Supiyem, watched silently, her eyes cold. Her husband was among those slain on this remote hill at the eastern end of the Indonesian island of Java.

Supiyem, a petite woman of 60, had trudged a mile through the forest with Katirin and four other victims of the violence, crossing a brook and passing a verdant rice paddy, until they reached this place, known as Luweng Tikus, or the Rat Hole. The relatives of the victims expressed a burning desire to reveal the truth. For Katirin, the killer, it apparently was a gesture of atonement.

From 1965 to 1971, perhaps half a million people were killed during the dictatorship of Gen. Suharto, who governed the country for three decades. Hundreds of thousands more were imprisoned in a purge of supposed communists and leftists. Many victims were peasants like Supiyem's husband, Duryadi, who knew little of Marx or Mao.

No independent investigation has ever been conducted; no one has been held to account. Indonesian officials have been loath to face the past. The survivors, emboldened by the end of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998, have only recently begun breaking their silence to set history straight. They want the world to know about the mass killings and to get Indonesia to face its past.

Katirin is one of the few living witnesses to the 1968 massacre of at least 100 villagers over several weeks at the Rat Hole, in the woods of Lorejo village. The unmarked mass grave is among hundreds of stony, muddy and watery tombs.

Today, survivors are taking action on various fronts. One group this year filed a class action suit against the government, seeking $40 trillion in reparations -- a symbolic sum -- and an apology for policies that banned them and their children from state jobs or running for office. A youth wing of the country's largest Muslim civic group, which participated in the killings, is trying to reconcile with victims' families. A few researchers are trying to identify mass grave sites. Historians are recording survivors' stories in a bid to preserve memories before this generation dies.

The task is monumental. Militant groups threaten violence against those who want to bring this past to light. Local military and government officials have tried to thwart researchers' efforts.

Sometimes the survivors' own families ridicule them. In one case, a former political prisoner's family has him under virtual house arrest in Jakarta to prevent him from publicizing his story.

Tension on a recent Saturday at the Rat Hole was evident between Katirin and Supiyem, who live in neighboring villages. They were here at the invitation of Putmuinah, 76, a tough-minded former political prisoner who is encouraging survivors to speak out.

"What happened?" Supiyem said, sitting on the wheat-colored grass under an acacia tree, demanding to know more. "The situation wasn't clear," replied Katirin, sitting a few yards away, his words tumbling out in agitation. "This was not what I wanted." His voice trailed off.

Katirin estimated that he killed 10 people (he had previously told a researcher he killed dozens), but none was Supiyem's husband, whose murder left Supiyem a widow with an infant son, Pujianto or "Puput." "Did you see Puput's father?" Supiyem asked again. "It was almost impossible to know since everything was in chaos," he said, avoiding Supiyem's gaze.

Supiyem said that Katirin's role in the killings disgusted her but that she did not hold him accountable. She blames the Indonesian army and the Suharto regime, who bade villagers like Katirin to do their dirty work.

Throughout the early 1960s, bad feelings built between the Communist Party, which supported land reform in rural areas, and small landlords. In October 1965, following the murder of six top generals under murky circumstances, Suharto took control of the Indonesian army. The army then waged a ruthless campaign to wipe out the Communist Party and its supporters, who were blamed for the murders.

Though the party members were nominally Muslim in this predominantly Muslim country, their opponents demonized them as bloodthirsty atheists bent on seizing land and power. Suharto and his successors have never acknowledged the army's involvement in the massacres.

The killings here in south Blitar, were part of state-sanctioned brutality against people in thousands of villages across Indonesia, said Albertus Suryo Wicaksono, a researcher who in 2002 spent one week excavating Luweng Tikus. The 1968 massacre here was part of a four-month army campaign ordered by Suharto to finish off the party.

No one knows the overall death toll from the purges -- guesses range from 300,000 to more than 1 million, but the most credible estimate, several academics said, is 500,000.

For a long time, schoolchildren were shown a documentary each year that blamed the generals' murders on the Communist Party, though who really was at fault is still debated by historians. State media reported that Communist women danced as the generals were castrated and their eyes gouged out. Despite autopsies showing no torture or mutilation, the myth has never been corrected in text books or films and still has currency.

Supiyem had been married only one year when, in August 1968, her husband was killed. Duryadi, a rice farmer, belonged to a farmers group that supported the Communist land reform program. Two of Supiyem's younger brothers were arrested and marched away, never to return. A third brother was detained and released, by his count, 11 times that year.

To save that brother from death, she recalled, she forced herself to serve as "a wife" for the new village head. For seven years, she said, she endured Sarmin, who moved in with her at her parents' house. She cooked and cleaned for him. She slept with him. "I shut down my feelings," she said, staring into the distance. "It was unthinkable."

Sarmin left the village in 1975, when his term ended, she said. He died in the late 1990s.

For years Supiyem dared not speak about what happened, fearing retaliation from authorities. In 2001, an Indonesian human rights group began an investigation. It was her son, Puput, who urged her to talk. "I said, 'Speak up, Mom,' " he recalled. " 'This is something you should do. If we can bring the truth to light, let's do it!' "

Though nearly 40 years have passed, Supiyem has kept her pledge never to remarry. Her only surviving brother, whose life she saved by sleeping with Sarmin, has recurrent nightmares of drowning in a river. Even Katirin, who was forced to kill, says he is still haunted by the look of "surrender" on his victims' faces.

In 2002, when Wicaksono was excavating the Rat Hole, a natural underground cave some 45 yards deep, a local military officer's son warned him to stop. His team kept going. They hit the first set of bones at 21 yards and found three skulls, enough to prove the mass grave existed. Wicaksono removed a jawbone and a tooth for forensic testing. A farmer, Damin, keeps the bones in a plastic bag in his closet. The bones, Damin said, often make a "clacking" noise at night.

The Rat Hole was the first of 27 mass graves Wicaksono has identified on Java. He has vowed to expand his search, despite efforts to intimidate him.

Near the site, the military erected a monument to the execution of the Communists. Supiyem and other relatives want the mass grave turned into a memorial honoring their dead.

Supiyem knelt next to the Rat Hole. She tossed in handfuls of bougainvillea blossoms and reflected quietly as the magenta and lavender petals fluttered down. She said she took solace in how her husband died: As he was about to fall in, the story repeated in the village goes, he grabbed hold of a soldier and dragged him down with him. Her husband, she said, had died a hero.

[Special correspondent Yayu Yuniar and staff researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this article.]

Yudhoyono's bumpy first year

Asia Times - October 28, 2005

Bill Guerin, Jakarta -- Though there has been no singularly mind-boggling achievement in his first year in office, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's bold decision to slash fuel subsidies not once, but twice, puts him in a different class to any of the three Indonesian presidents since Suharto.

While the International Monetary Fund described the move to cut fuel subsidies a second time as "wise and courageous", the painful adjustment has angered many Indonesians who complain the subsequent 126% hikes in fuel prices were too high and will increase their suffering.

The cutting of fuel subsidies was just one of numerous hot issues the president faced in his first year in office.

During the past year Yudhoyono has had to deal with the massive December 26 tsunami -- the country's worst natural disaster -- a series of deadly earthquakes, soaring global oil prices, outbreaks of avian flu, polio and dengue fever, and, just for good measure, triple suicide bombings in Bali that killed 26, including the three bombers, and injured more than 100.

Meanwhile, there has been progress, as well as setbacks, on the three main issues he pledged to deal with when elected -- the economy, corruption and security.

The international community's perception of Indonesia is dogged by past human-rights abuses, but Yudhoyono, a retired general, is widely seen abroad as a capable and committed leader who has raised his country's image and has a genuine wish to increase investment, fight terrorism and curb corruption. Yet, his popularity on the home front is affected by perceived slow progress on the same three issues.

Yudhoyono, who became the country's sixth president on October 20, 2004, won 61% of the 141 million votes cast in the election -- a world record for the single largest number of votes in a direct presidential election. His approval ratings have been consistently higher than his predecessors. After he was elected polls showed he had a huge approval rating of 80%, but this month, for the first time since he took office, his popularity dropped below 60%. Indonesian Survey Circle says its latest poll in October shows only 52.4% of Indonesians were satisfied with his performance, down from 64.7% in August.

The economy, business and investment

Economic growth last year stood at 5.1% while this year's target is 5.5%. Outside help is vital to spur growth, create more jobs and alleviate poverty; but two landmark cases that could set back foreign investment to dangerous lows have yet to be resolved.

Disputes with Cemex and Newmont were said to be a high priority for Yudhoyono, who said they'd be resolved amicably by April at the latest. The government wants to reach an out-of-court settlement over a US$133 million civil suit the Environment Ministry filed against Newmont Mining, a multinational that is the world's largest gold producer, over alleged pollution. Mexico's Cemex, the world's third-largest cement-maker, has been battling the government for four years over its thwarted efforts to take over state-run Semen Gresik, the country's largest cement producer, in which Cemex bought a 25.5% stake with an option to buy majority control. The proposed purchase was blocked by local Gresik units and politicians opposed to foreign ownership.

Meanwhile, Minister of Trade Mari Pangestu is hard at work with other economic ministries and chambers of commerce to finalize a new investment law that could result in a vastly improved climate for business. The volatility of the rupiah is also a major cause for concern. After hitting three-year lows it has settled at a little more than 10,000 to the dollar, long considered a major psychological barrier. Inflation is approaching 9%, and interest rates are rising fast.

Corruption

Indonesia is slated as one of the world's most corrupt countries but Yudhoyono's anti-graft campaign, aimed also at increasing foreign trade and investment is drawing blood. The former governor of Aceh province, Abdullah Puteh, has been prosecuted, convicted and jailed for corruption. The former minister of religion, Said Agil Hussein Al Munawwar, is on trial for a graft scandal over funds for the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Literally scores of regional government officials and legislators are awaiting trial on graft charges.

Security

Yudhoyono has prompted his law-enforcement agencies to work closely with their international counterparts and share intelligence, particularly in the Southeast Asia region, where several agreements have been signed to counter terrorism.

The president's decision to give the green light to the military to reactivate the territorial-command structure (dispersing troops all over the archipelago) has worried rights groups who fear a return to repression. Yet, Indonesia, with more than 17,000 islands and home to the world's fourth-largest population, is an almost perfect lair for extremist groups that operate in conditions of free movement and inconspicuousness. An arrest last week serves to illustrate the challenges. With police and the military on high alert and warnings of more attacks being planned, police arrested four people attempting to smuggle 350 kilograms of explosive ammonium nitrate, 900 Indian-made instantaneous electric detonators and more than 1,000 meters of heavy 1.5-centimeter-thick fuse wire from Malaysia into Indonesia. Mixed with diesel and high-explosive TNT, ammonium nitrate makes a powerful bomb that has been used in previous terrorist attacks in Indonesia

Three women from Central Sulawesi, where Christian-Muslim sectarian violence cost hundreds of lives in recent years, and a man from the West Java town of Sukabumi -- where the Australian Embassy bombers came from -- were captured on a speedboat heading for Sulawesi.

Jemaah Islamiah masterminds, Azahari Hussin and Noordin Mohammed Top -- both Malaysians -- remain at large. Activists have urged action to stop radical Islamic groups from encouraging intolerance against each other's faiths and taking the law into their own hands to attack those with different beliefs. They argue that by failing to combat such radicalism, the government is unlikely to be able to prevent terrorist attacks

Second year

Yudhoyono's next 12 months in office could be every bit as challenging. Although steady progress can be expected from a clearly committed president, he will need to battle to overcome the legacy of poor governance he inherited. His prime task will be to build on the confidence and trust he has engendered so far and implement policies that bring in greater investment and development, ensure better law enforcement and address the inequitable distribution of wealth. Almost 50% of Indonesians live on less than $2.50 a day.

Short-term public expectations of more jobs and a reduction in poverty have not been met. Fifteen million jobs are needed to curb unemployment, which remains about 9%.

As well, an imminent crisis over avian flu is a matter of grave concern. The Minister of Health has warned that the country faces an epidemic unless it can contain the outbreaks. Chairul A Nidom, the microbiologist who first identified the virus in Indonesia's birds, slammed the government response to the virus claiming that if it had acted sooner there would have been no outbreak. "They have wasted so much time. What terrifies me is that it just won't affect Indonesia."

Yudhoyono told a World Bank forum in Helsinki via teleconference: "The pandemic will be worse than the tsunami disaster, which killed hundreds of thousands of people but stopped after a few minutes. In a pandemic, the virus will spread in minutes and will kill more people in vast areas. It will be our worst nightmare."

Aceh

Yudhoyono's response to the tsunami disaster won accolades. Despite concerted pressure from several generals and from nationalist legislators, he approved the entry of thousands of foreign soldiers and aid workers into the province. The international community pledged billions of dollars in aid but bureaucratic infighting slowed the reconstruction of the shattered province, which is still proceeding at a snail's pace.

However the president seized the momentum to resume peace talks with the separatist Free Aceh Movement in February. After five rounds of talks the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the government carved out a deal and signed a peace agreement in Helsinki on August 15, ending a conflict that had claimed more than 15,000 lives (mostly civilian). The accord resolved core issues of demilitarization, local governance and the future of GAM members.

Superpowers

The president visited the US in May and oversaw the signing of several memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and agreements. An interagency working group for judicial issues is under way and trade and investment talks have resumed.

In July he postponed an official visit to China to manage the domestic fuel crisis, but MoUs promising a total of $7 billion in Chinese investment were signed when he made the trip to Beijing three weeks later.

Friends and neighbors

Indonesia's relations with its southern neighbor, Australia, strengthened rapidly under Yudhoyono's leadership and diplomacy. Australian Prime Minister John Howard praised him for having "great goodwill towards Australia".

Imron Cotan, the Indonesian ambassador to Australia, was sacked by the president for angering Canberra with a series of decidedly undiplomatic and callous comments on the highly politicized case of Schapelle Corby, a young Australian woman who was convicted of smuggling 4.2 kilograms of marijuana into Indonesia.

A serious dispute with Indonesia's northern neighbor, Malaysia, was avoided after the president used his diplomatic skills to cool tempers. In February, Malaysia's state oil company, Petronas, granted Shell Corporation a concession to explore oil reserves in the disputed waters of the Ambalat block off northwest Kalimantan. Indonesia responded by dispatching four warships. Frequent street rallies saw Malaysian flags burned amid calls to "devour Malaysia".

Changed face of parliament

There are no fewer than 14 parties in the 550-seat House of Representatives but Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle dominate it. Yudhoyono's own Democrat Party holds only 57 seats. Following the inauguration of legislators, house factions were involved in a conflict over the elections of house leaders and heads of the powerful parliamentary commissions. The government also faced intense scrutiny from the legislature on major policy decisions. As a result, during the first year of its five-year term, the house endorsed only 10 proposed legislation drafts.

Tommi Legowo, director of the Indonesian Parliament Watchdog Society (Formappi), points out that the house's legislative function "clearly does not work, with only 10 of 55 targeted bills having been endorsed".

Nonetheless, since Vice President Yusuf Kalla was elected Golkar leader in December, government-sponsored polices may face less opposition in the house. But first a ministerial reshuffle is on the cards. Rumors are gathering apace in Jakarta that two members of Yudhoyono's "United Indonesia Cabinet" -- Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono and Finance Minister Jusuf Anwar -- have requested permission to resign.

The consensus among local media is that the president has indeed made a difference, and there is hope of better things to come. But Yudhoyono is often said to be indecisive and not ready to take risks.

Yet, even a skeptical media would be hard-pressed to dismiss the message in Yudhoyono's latest appeal to his people. He said that in facing tough challenges,the Indonesian nation and people should not easily give in to "complaints, frustration, loss of confidence and mutual-condemnation". He called on the entire nation to remain optimistic about the future.

"The hardships we are facing this year must not make us hopeless or lose our fighting spirit to meet the future," he said.

[Bill Guerin, a Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000, has worked in Indonesia for 20 years as a journalist. He has been published by the BBC on East Timor and specializes in business/economic and political analysis in Indonesia.]

The evils among us

Jakarta Post Editorial - October 31, 2005

Barbaric! No other word describes the anger and exasperation many of us feel at hearing the news of the killing and beheading of three teenage girls in the Central Sulawesi district of Poso on Saturday. No decent human being could have done such a sadistic thing. The perpetrators were evil. What motivated them to do such an heinous act is beyond reason and comprehension.

Our heart goes out to the bereaved families and friends of the three students of the Central Sulawesi Christian Church Senior High School. May their souls rest in peace, and may their loved ones who are left behind be given the strength and courage to face and go through this ordeal.

There is no doubt that the killings, and the method -- their severed heads were placed a distance away from their bodies -- were acts of provocation to reignite conflict between Muslims and Christians. Poso, where people of the two religions are relatively equal in number, has seen more than its share of brutal communal conflicts in the last five years.

The timing, less than a week before Muslims celebrate the end of Ramadhan, reminds us too much of the way the religious conflict in Ambon was started in 1999.

It began with a petty fight between a transit van driver and his conductor. That fight turned into a brawl between their two neighboring villages delineated along religious lines, but then quickly spread to become a full blown conflict between Muslims and Christians across Ambon and other parts of Maluku.

More than a century of peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians in Ambon was destroyed overnight. There is only one explanation for this: The presence of agent-provocateurs who were prepared to go to any lengths, including sadistic murders, to promote their political agenda. And they chose their timing close to major religious celebrations. The initial fight in Ambon took place in January 1999 just a day before Idul Fitri and less than a month after Christmas.

One valuable lesson we should take from Ambon is that neither religious community in Poso need be provoked by Saturday's killings. The flame in Ambon took many years to douse precisely because both sides vowed to avenge every single life lost.

The killing of the three girls is understandably bound to enrage Christians in Poso and would prompt calls for retaliation.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has rightly condemned the murders and appealed for calm and restraint. But appeals alone are not sufficient to contain people's anger.

The President should make sure that the murderers as well as those who ordered the killings are publicly identified and arrested. He should make sure that the police and the intelligence agencies have the resources needed to catch them. He should ask for no less from the police whose job it is to protect people's lives. Heads must even roll for what is clearly another major lapse on their part.

And police have to catch them fast. We cannot emphasize enough that speed is of the essence. Poso Christian leaders can only restrain their followers for a brief period before anger sets in and becomes uncontrollable. If the police fail to show results soon, the rage of Christians will translate into acts of retaliation.

Before long, Poso will be set on fire once more. Except that this time around, there is no guarantee that the religious conflicts which had been largely confined to Poso and Ambon, will not spread to other parts of Indonesia. Already, we are seeing signs of uneasiness among non-Muslims because of the government's seemingly constant failure to protect them. And we are seeing signs of growing religious radicalism and even intolerance between religious communities.

The state's ability to ensure peaceful coexistence between religious communities and to guarantee religious freedom in this country, is being tested to the limit.

From the terrorist attacks by radical Islamic groups in the predominantly Hindu Bali, to the acts of vandalism against churches and religious sects considered by conservative Muslim leaders as heretic, and now to the killing of three Christian girls, all raise a much more serious question about the government's commitment as well as its ability to protect the rights of religious minorities and to enable them to freely practice their faith.

President Yudhoyono has a lot to answer for, as much as those barbarians who committed the brutal killings on Saturday, in explaining why intolerance, radicalism and acts of violence including terrorism in the name of religion are becoming regular features of our nation's life. Whatever happened to our commitment to build a pluralist nation where our differences strengthen rather than set us apart?

Feeling cheated

Jakarta Post Editorial - October 27, 2005

Somewhere in the dark a child cries, someone dies and humanity hides.

These prophetic words perfectly capture the contradictions that prevail in our daily lives; the sense of betrayal felt toward those whom we once held in high esteem. Of broken promises, and deceptive oaths.

We -- the people, the subordinates, the laymen -- do not seek bounties or a glut of riches. What the everyday workers and common housewives ultimately seek is hope and to be treated fairly and with respect. To that end they bestow their trust, and are ready to endure for a greater good. But that trust has been violated by deceptive schemes and mischievous means, damning hope to naught.

Those that can may still defend themselves with clever arguments and protestations. But in the end there can be no other conclusion but that they are cheating us, the people.

Many are facing the most demanding period of the year -- the Idul Fitri holiday -- with barely enough spending power to meet their daily needs as a result of the average 126 percent fuel price increases, while legislators unthinkingly give themselves an unmerited additional Rp 10 million (US$1,000) monthly allowance.

The elderly and sick jostle in the heat for their monthly Rp 100,000 ($100) in government assistance, while it is announced that the operational funds for the presidential and vice presidential offices have been increased to Rp 419 million.

Whether shameless, as is the case with the House of Representatives' allowance, or necessary due to an increase in state activities, these revelations come at the most inopportune of times. A time when social jealousy is peaking. A time when prudence, not ostentatiousness, should be at the forefront.

These are the types of actions that create mistrust, that reinforce the perception that people of power and privilege can act with impunity, even at the expense of others.

A wise Indonesian once said "to lead is to suffer". This is a lesson seemingly lost on many of the present generation of leaders.

Most everyone would given themselves a raise during these times of pressing economic needs. But very few of us have the luxury that legislators do of setting our own salaries, irrespective of whether or not we deserve it.

And even if we could give ourselves a raise, the money would not be pinched from the sweat and resources of a nation in desperate economic circumstances.

In its 12 months in power, the administration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been deliberate in projecting a frugal image. The President himself led an energy-saving campaign at all state offices, going so far as to encourage a switch to cooler wardrobes so air conditioners would not have to be set so low. These efforts should be commended.

However, mixed signals are sent when the presidential and vice presidential offices so readily dip into the state coffers for a combined budgetary increase of Rp 525 million for 2006.

We understand that due to rising prices and increased activities larger budgets are needed. But this is, once again, the kind of largesse to which most people do not have access. This kind of privilege is only afforded to a government that has largely made most peoples' lives worse over the past few months.

People have the right to be jealous. And jealousy, if unchecked, leads to suspicion. When suspicion spills over, all that is left is a sense of detachment from a government that is dependent on the goodwill of the people.

Our esteemed leaders would be well advised to be more conscious of their actions.

The time is not right for revolt, but it is ripe for apathy. The kind of indifference that ignores social norms and policy guidelines. A social cacophony where everyone is for him/herself irrespective of the laws of the land. You have been warned.