News & issues

West Java traders hoard rice amid scarcity cry

Jakarta Post - January 14, 2006

Yuli Tri Suwarni and Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandung/Bandarlampung – Members of the West Java Legislative Council charged on Friday rice was being hoarded at production centers in West Java, including the provincial capital Bandung, amid public outcries over the scarcity of the staple food.

Meanwhile, in Bandarlampung, rice shortages have forced local residents to replace rice with dried cassava for their daily meals.

Councillors in West Java discovered rice was being hoarded in warehouses when they made impromptu visits to a number of major cities, including Cirebon, Indramayu, Karawang, Subang, Cianjur, Sukabumi and Bogor.

Maman Abdurachman, one of the councillors, said most of the rice was owned by businesspeople and wholesalers, who were hoarding stocks to push prices up so they could sell the rice at higher prices.

The finding proved suspicions that traders were hoarding rice after a number of cities throughout the country had experienced rice shortages, pushing up prices by about 25 percent.

"However, it is still difficult to say whether they are speculating on the rice market, because when the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) wants to buy rice they are willing to sell," Maman said.

Maman said he found a trader in Cirebon who had a stock of 2,000 tons or rice, of which 35 tons were transported daily to Cipinang market in Jakarta.

Traders in other cities – Indramayu, Karawang, Subang, Cianjur, Sukabumi and Bogor – were holding up to 800,000 tons of rice, he said.

"Bulog should have procured the rice, but it set the price at only Rp 3,800 (40 US cents) per kilogram, far below the market price of Rp 4,200 to Rp 4,500," he added.

Meanwhile, subsistence farmers in Bandarlampung have been forced to switch from eating rice to snacks made of dried cassava because they can no longer afford to buy rice.

Ironically, the price of rice in Lampung province, one of the major rice producing centers in the country, has risen to between Rp 3,500 and Rp 5,000 per kilogram, from between Rp 2,500 and Rp 3,500.

Suwarto and his family, residents of Kalirejo village in Lampung Tengah regency, have been forced to switch to eating dried cassava since December, after the proceeds from their harvest had been used to pay off debts.

A rough estimate shows that nearly half of the 3,000 residents of the village have been forced to switch to dried cassava.

"I want to buy rice, but I don't have the money. I have no other skills other than planting rice. I don't have the capital to start a small-scale business," Suwarto said.

Governors ready to turn back rice imports

Jakarta Post - January 14, 2006

Tb. Arie Rukmantara and Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Local governments are balking at the controversial plan to import 110,000 tons of rice from Vietnam, a move they say will devastate the livelihood of local farmers.

Governors grouped in the Association for Provincial Governments of Indonesia (APPSI) threatened on Friday to boycott shipments of the imported rice in their respective territory. APPSI vice chairman Fadel Muhammad, who is also governor of Gorontalo, said the government's plan was a shameful act.

"Governors of Jakarta, East Java, Yogyakarta, South Sumatra and myself are determined to reject the plan, and we will ask more to follow suit. We will exercise our rights... to send back every delivery to their ports of origin," Fadel told journalists.

Critics argue the plan to import rice is unnecessary and politically motivated because regions have ample supplies with the advent of the rainy season.

APPSI, a grouping of 33 governors, argues that as autonomous regions, its members have the right to reject government policies that are not in line with local interests. It has consistently opposed the central government's measures.

Regional Autonomy Law No.34/2004 stipulates that regional administrations may carry out parts of the government function to manage trade at seaports in their administration areas, indicating the governors also hold the authority to determine what goods enter and leave their areas.

The government's plan to import the medium-grade rice later this month would involve its unloading at ports outside Java – Belawan, Dumai, Bitung, Balikpapan, Ambon, Sorong, Jayapura, and Lhokseumawe.

The decision came as the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) predicted its rice reserves would fall to 868,000 tons in January – below the secure stock of one million tons – and with local farmers only be able to supply 21,000 tons for the month.

The government argues the imports will decrease the price of local rice on markets before the harvest as an effort to contain inflation.

House of Representatives (DPR) speaker Agung Laksono was cautious in evaluating the policy, saying the import of goods was to be expected in the global era. "But the government should set the maximum quota and the quality of the rice it will import," said the deputy chairman of Golkar Party.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the government took into account the protests by several factions in the House of Representatives, but asked that the issue should not be "politicized" amid an emergency situation.

Free education starting January

Jakarta Post - January 13, 2006

Jakarta – The promise of free education for many elementary and junior high school students in Jakarta and the Thousands Islands regency from late January onward has been welcomed by parents.

The administration has upped the 2006 provincial budget allocation for development in education to Rp 689 billion from Rp 500 billion.

Head of the city's agency for basic education Sylviana Murni said on Thursday the education costs borne by the administration amounted to Rp 69,500 for each elementary school student and Rp 127,000 for each junior high school student monthly.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows there are 2280 elementary schools and 286 junior high schools in Jakarta.

The schools can still ask parents to pay extra fees but in restricted amounts. "For elementary school students, they can impose fees of up to Rp 100,000 and for junior high school students Rp 125,000," she said.

Rice shortages blamed on hoarding

Jakarta Post - January 13, 2006

Suherdjoko and Yuli Tri Suwarni, Bandung/Semarang – A number of cities across the country are experiencing rice shortages, pushing up prices by 25 percent and raising suspicions over hoarding by traders.

In Central Java's two largest cities, Semarang and Surakarta, rice stocks have dwindled substantially over the last five days, raising the price of the low quality C4-type rice from Rp 3,550 (35 US cents) per kilogram to Rp 4,100 per kilogram.

"I don't know why rice is hard to get. I ordered rice from Boyolali four days ago, but the rice did not arrive until today," said Kastawar, a rice trader in Semarang's Dargo rice market, on Thursday.

He acknowledged that with incessant downpours across Central Java, bad weather could also be a factor in the declining supply, which on normal days stood at up to 100 tons per day, but over the last five days had only been at 10 tons.

"I suspect the shortages are happening because farmers cannot dry their rice in time due to the bad weather," Kastawar surmised.

Fears of a rice shortage, however, were dismissed by local officials, including Central Java Deputy Governor Ali Mufiz and West Java Governor Danny Setiawan.

"There might be not much of a rice supply in the markets, but I'm sure the traders have rice in their warehouses. They intentionally hoard the rice to sell it at higher price before the harvest in February and March," Ali Mufiz said.

"Before rice prices go down after the harvest, the traders want to earn more profits. That's common practice," Ali admitted.

Central Java Governor Mardiyanto said the shortages did not make sense because the province regularly ran a rice surplus, recorded at 931,094 tons last year from 8,473,163 tons of rice produced.

Data from the state commodity regulating agency, Bulog, showed that Central Java's current rice supply of 194,500 tons was more than enough to cover the province's needs of 30,000 tons every month, and enough to last until July this year – well after the new harvest.

In Bandung, Governor Danny Setiawan suspected hoarding for causing rice shortages, saying on Thursday he had asked West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Edi Darnadi to investigate.

"Reports of rice shortages and high rice prices, which have hit Rp 5,000 per kilo in some areas, clearly show there is something wrong," he said. "Action should be taken against rice hoarders, who should be arrested and prosecuted." One rice trader in Bandung's Caringin market, Fauzi, urged the local administration to allow imported rice to enter the market so he and his colleagues could deal with the shortage.

However, Danny said his administration had refused to allow imported rice into the market over fears the imports would push prices too low, at the expense of farmers.

"They (the central government) promised not to let imported rice enter West Java. In the letter, I was informed that the imported rice would be distributed in areas outside Java," he said on Thursday.

The province, he said, produces 5.5 million tons of rice annually, enough to meet the residents' demand of 4.9 million tons. Currently, it has a rice surplus of between 600,000 and 800,000 tons from last year, which will used for the rice-for-the-poor program.

In Yogyakarta, farmers claimed rising rice prices were only profiting big rice traders, Antara reported on Thursday.

"All we can do is suck our thumb and turn green with envy," said Sutono, head of the Nudi Makmur farmers group in Minggir district, Yogyakarta.

Police, military clash in Poso

Jakarta Post - January 11, 2006

Ruslan Sangadji, Palu – Already shaken by religious violence and terrorist attacks, residents of Poso regency in Central Sulawesi were forced to take cover late on Monday when rival police and military units became involved in an armed clash.

Also on Monday night, a small explosive device went off on a street near a church, police said.

The incidents took place as many residents were preparing to mark the Islamic Day of Sacrifice, or Idul Adha, on Tuesday. At least 4,000 security personnel were deployed to the regency to provide protection during the holiday.

Commanders of the units involved in the clash have been questioned by a special team set up by the newly established Central Sulawesi Security Operation Command.

The head of the operation command, Insp. Gen. Paulus Purwoko, said the lack of discipline on the part of the police and military would not be tolerated.

"Our preliminary investigation indicates the clash began when two men riding on a motorbike made a joke at a unit of soldiers who were searching locations preparing to hold Idul Adha prayers.

"Believing the two men to be police officers, some of the soldiers went to Poso Police Headquarters in the evening searching for, but failing to find the men," Purwoko said at a press conference.

As the soldiers were leaving the police headquarters they heard gunfire. They turned and saw a group of police officers, stationed in the yard of the former Alamanda Hotel, allegedly firing at the soldiers, according to Purwoko.

The police officers and soldiers then exchanged gunfire for several minutes, "but they were not firing at each other, just shooting into the air", Purwoko said.

In Jakarta, Vice President Jusuf Kalla deplored the clash, but said the incident occurred "due to a misunderstanding between two security personnel".

Clashes between the notoriously ill-disciplined police and military are common across the country. They are often sparked by disputes over illegal businesses that critics say both forces are heavily involved in.

The clash on Monday night was followed by a small explosion near Sion Church. No injuries or damages were reported in the explosion

Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Oegroseno hinted that an "opportunistic terrorist group" was responsible for the explosion on Monday, as well as a string of recent bombings and violent attacks in Poso.

However, he refused to elaborate on the possible identity of the group.

Members of the Poso Center, a group of non-governmental organizations, criticized the police and military for their actions. Yusuf Lakaseng, coordinator of the Poso Center, said the skirmish underlined the rivalry between the military and police.

"The clash is a strong sign to the central government that sending huge numbers of security personnel to Poso is not the way to solve the problems here," Yusuf told The Jakarta Post.

Poso and the surrounding districts saw fierce battles between Muslims and Christians in 2001 and 2002, which left about 1,000 people dead. While the fighting has for the most part ceased, sporadic bombings, shootings and attacks continue.

Indonesia bans films about Timor occupation

Associated Press - January 11, 2006

Chris Brummitt, Jakarta – Indonesia has banned three films about its long and bloody occupation of East Timor, saying allowing local audiences to see them could "reopen old wounds" as the two countries try to move forward.

The films were due to be shown at a film festival last month in the Indonesian capital.

Indonesian troops killed tens of thousands of people in East Timor during their 24-year-long occupation of the tiny half- island territory.

A final campaign of vengeance by anti-independence militia funded by Indonesia left 1,000 people dead after the country voted overwhelmingly for freedom in a UN sponsored referendum in 1999.

Jakarta has refused to cooperate with East Timorese courts that have indicted several officers for war crimes.

The two documentaries and one cartoon focus on alleged atrocities carried out during the occupation and UN led moves to reconcile pro and anti-independence villagers since the 1999 vote.

"We feared the films might 'reopen old wounds' at a time when a bridge of friendship is being built between East Timor and Indonesia," said Titie Said, head of Indonesia's film censor board.

The board often orders cuts in films, but the bans are some of the first it has handed down since the downfall of dictator Suharto in 1998, said Said, adding that the film makers were free to resubmit the films to the board.

James Leong, codirector of "Passabe", one of the banned documentaries, said he was disappointed about the banning. "We wanted to see what the Indonesian reaction would be like," the British director said.

He said several Indonesian students had seen the film at a screening in Singapore. "It seemed to be a part of their history that they don't know much about," he said.

Passabe is an East Timorese village that was home to a notorious pro-Jakarta militia. The film features scenes from a truth and reconciliation hearing in which a farmer confesses to killing a pro-independence villager.

Next week, the directors plan to travel to East Timor and show the film in villages that feature in it. Tensions between pro- and anti-independence factions can still run high in country.

"It will hopefully allow both sides to see the others' points of view," said Leong. "Perhaps I am being idealistic, but you never know."

Child abuse up, mothers to blame

Jakarta Post - January 9, 2006

Tantri Yuliandini, Jakarta – A woman in Tangerang, Banten, was sentenced to five years in jail for torturing her five-year-old daughter, and another mother was accused of burning her two small children, also in Tangerang.

Meanwhile, in a house in Cilincing, North Jakarta, seven-year-old Eka Rosiana was found strangled to death.

Child abuse is nothing new, but there seems to have been a marked increase in the number and severity of the crimes.

The National Commission for Child Protection alone saw a 67 percent increase in the number of child abuse reports to the commission in 2005 compared to the previous year.

"The number of child abuse cases has indeed increased recently, and the cases have also been more sadistic in nature," the commission's chairman Seto Mulyadi told The Jakarta Post recently.

Sexual abuse remained the most common form of abuse against children reported to the commission, with 327 cases, comprising over 44 percent of all cases during 2005, an increase of 48 percent compared to the previous year.

Physical abuse increased 66.4 percent to 233 cases in 2005 compared to 140 cases the previous year, while psychological abuse increased 120 percent to 176 cases from 80 cases in 2004.

Even more shocking was the fact that about 80 percent of the abuse was done by the mother of the child.

"Either in the name of discipline to teach obedience, or for reasons of stress, more than 80 percent of the cases we've found were done by the child's mother," Seto said.

Child abuse is often linked to cultural values as a necessary part of teaching a child discipline and obedience.

The problem was, according to Seto, that people still consider children as the property of their parents, who can therefore treat their children as they see fit. And this problem is not exclusive to those with low incomes.

"Children of well-to-do parents often become victims of their parents' personal ambition. Many are forced to achieve high ranks at school, or even to become child celebrities against their wishes," Seto said.

As household problems become more complicated, and life more difficult, stress factors come into play. And children still dependent on their parents are often easy targets when emotion takes over from common sense.

The woman who was sentenced to five years in jail by the Tangerang district court, for example, was there because she used to beat her five-year-old daughter. She used to pinch her genitals, and pull out her teeth using a pair of pliers, all because she blamed the girl for her husband leaving the family two years ago.

Siblings Indah Nopitasari, 3-years old, and Lintar Saputra, 11- months old, are now at the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in Central Jakarta with severe burns caused when their mother set fire to them after becoming angry at her drunk husband on New Year's Eve.

Seto believes that strengthening relationships within the neighborhood will help prevent child abuse.

"At the moment, our community and neighborhood units are weak; neighbors stay silent even when they see a child being abused by his parents," he said.

"When a neighbor shows signs of stress, it is wrong just to pretend nothing is the matter. They think it's none of their business. They're wrong! It is their business; neighbors should care about each other".

Which was why on Woman's Day on Dec. 21, 2005, the commission together with the office of the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare proclaimed 2006 as Stop Child Abuse Year.

"Jakarta Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo has agreed to make Jakarta our pilot project," Seto said, explaining that the commission will cooperate with the Family Welfare Organization (PKK) to raise awareness of child abuse.

Batam tourism in doldrums

Jakarta Post - January 9, 2006

Fadli, Batam – The number of foreign tourists visiting Batam city last year fell short of expectations with only 1,005,000 vacationing in the city between January and December last year, far below the government target of 1.5 million.

"The number of tourists was less than expected for various reasons, including bombings in the country, the closure of gambling dens and the rise in oil prices," said chief of Batam tourism office Arifin Nasir on Saturday.

While in year 2004, 1,527,00 tourists visited Batam city, in 2005, the number dropped to 1,005,000. "The main reason was the closure of the gambling dens," Arifin added.

The police had clamped down on gambling dens since Gen. Soetanto took the reigns of the Indonesian police in July last year. The closures had discouraged tourists from Singapore and Malaysia from visiting Batam to gamble, thus reducing the number of tourists coming to town.

Almost 70 percent of tourists came from Malaysia and Singapore, said Arifin. While reviving gambling dens was not possible, the Batam government was now trying to promote Batam culture to an international public in order to draw more tourists to visit the city, said Arifin.

Meanwhile, the slump in tourism has affected hotels in Batam. Anas, an executive with the Batam Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI), said some hotels had already laid off employees as hotel occupancy was down last year. "However, it would be improper to name the hotels," said Anas, who is also a shareholder in the Novotel Hotel in Batam.

Anas said he had warned the Batam government several times that the government should not rely on gambling and prostitution to attract foreign tourists, but the warning fell on deaf ears. The government should start thinking of other means to draw tourists to Batam, he said.

Aceh

AMM still 'crucial' for peace

Jakarta Post - January 16, 2006

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Extending the term for the international Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) would be a good way to help Indonesian authorities and former separatists establish a long- lasting commitment to peace, legislators and a senior Acehnese politician said.

But the government still needs to explain the reasons behind the extension to the House of Representatives.

Acehnese scholar Hasballah M. Saad said the presence of the AMM remained crucial, particularly with the expected delay of regional elections in the resource-rich province.

"The AMM remains crucial to monitor the drawing up of Acehnese law, the regional election and the reintegration process of former insurgents into society. These issues are as essential as the decommissioning process we have just completed," Hasballah said.

Isolated conflicts could still occur during the transitional period and the AMM would continue to be a key mediator, he said.

"Conflict might arise during the drawing up of the new law on Aceh, or surround issues about the political participation of local parties," he said. Jakarta is planning to extend the stay of the international peace monitors by three months until the end of June.

A new law replacing the current Aceh special autonomy law is currently being drawn up and direct regional elections are scheduled to take place in May.

Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) legislator Nasir Djamil said the presence of the AMM was vital if there was to be peace for all in the region. He believed the team should stay until after local elections in the province ended.

Ahmad Farhan Hamid an Acehnese member of the National Mandate Party (PAN) said AMM members should now include experts in Indonesian politics and law. "Their number should be cut back gradually. This is to ensure there is no shock (to the system)," he said.

At its creation, the AMM had a total of 210 members representing European Union and Southeast Asian countries. About 50 of them left the province after the Free Aceh Movement gave up its arms last month.

Local parties, partition thorny issues in Aceh bill

Jakarta Post - January 16, 2006

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Establishment of local political parties and the partition of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam into three provinces are expected to be main issues of contention when legislators begin deliberations on the bill on Aceh later this month.

Yet House members are optimistic they will pass the bill – currently under discussion at the Ministry of Home Affairs – by the March deadline stipulated in 2005's peace agreement between the government and separatists. Another controversial article in the bill, which was drafted by the Aceh legislative council, concerns prosecuting human rights cases against members of the Indonesian security forces during three decades of unrest.

The enforcement of sharia law in Aceh is also likely to provoke debate when the bill is brought. The bill stipulates that military and police officers who committed crimes would be subject to prosecution in sharia courts.

Sidarto Danusubroto, a lawmaker with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said that the creation of local political parties in Aceh went against the Constitution. "We don't recognize that," he told a discussion on the bill on Friday.

Under the peace accord signed in August by the government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the separatists withdrew their demands for an independent state in exchange for being allowed to establish local political parties to contest direct elections in the province.

Sidarto also criticized articles that allowed for the establishment of a human rights tribunal, and the possible involvement of UN rapporteurs to probe human rights cases in the future.

"The peace deal grants former GAM members amnesty, but not for police and military officials. Does this mean that the target of the human rights tribunal is police and military officials?" said the retired police officer.

He was confident the House would finish deliberating the bill on time, even though the draft law has yet to be even listed in the National Legislation Program.

Fellow legislators Ferry Mursyidan Baldan and Nasir Djamil were also hopeful of completing the bill's passage.

"I am sure we can finish it on time. Most of the articles in the bill have already been accommodated in Law No. 18/2001 on special autonomy for Aceh," said Ferry, a member of the Golkar Party.

He said there was nothing to be concerned about in terms of the contents of the bill, saying it reflected the aspirations of the Acehnese people.

Establishment of local political parties was aimed at accommodating the aspirations of former GAM members, said Ferry and Nasir of the Prosperous Justice Party.

There has been speculation that the government will add several articles to the bill to allow for the division of Aceh into three provinces. Local Acehnese have opposed the partition plan, which is being pushed by several lawmakers and officials.

In all likelihood, the bill will be passed by the House, where more than half the 550 seats are held by parties who back the government, such as the Golkar Party, Democrat Party, PKS and United Development Party.

The peace deal signed in the Finnish capital of Helsinki sets March as the deadline for the passing of the bill, which would become the legal umbrella for the conduct of local elections in Aceh. However, political observer J. Kristiadi said that this was not a strict stipulation.

"Both the government and GAM have shown strong commitment to promote peace in Aceh. It would not be a serious problem if the bill was delayed," he said.

Agencies import timber for construction in Aceh

Jakarta Post - January 14, 2006

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – A number of international relief organizations have been forced to import timber to build houses for tsunami survivors whose homes were destroyed in the catastrophe.

The decision to import timber was taken due to the scarcity of logs from sustainable forests in the country.

Chief operating officer for the Aceh Reconstruction Consortium (ARC), Arian Ardie, said they had faced problems in getting local timber because there were only a few businesspeople dealing with timber from sustainable forests.

Arian said that timber traders in Indonesia, including those from Aceh, preferred to export logs from commercial forests rather than selling them on the domestic market.

"Maybe the price of Indonesian timber is much higher overseas. We have to use imported timber to meet the requirements for construction material in Aceh," Arian told The Jakarta Post. He was speaking on Thursday during an inspection of imported timber from Australia by Oxfam International at one of its warehouses in Medan.

The ARC has imported 640 cubic meters of timber from Australia for Oxfam International. The timber, of the Australian radiata pine variety, will be sent to Aceh soon.

Oxfam's national media officer in Banda Aceh, Yon Thayrun, said the imported timber cost US$200,000, and that it would be dispatched to Aceh Besar, to build 300 homes for displaced people.

"Timber from Australia is suitable for house construction because it can last for up to 20 years," said Yon, adding that Oxfam was ready to add to the volume of imported timber for reconstruction purposes when needed.

"We have made a commitment not to use illegal timber for the reconstruction program in Aceh. When possible, and if it's not damaging to the forests, Oxfam would certainly prioritize timber from Indonesia, including from Aceh," said Yon.

Arian said the ARC recently dispatched 250 cubic meters of imported timber from Australia to Meulaboh, prior to sending Oxfam's consignment.

He said the ARC needed at least 400,000 cubic meters of timber for reconstruction purposes in Aceh, far less than the volume targeted by the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency of one million cubic meters.

"We need 4,000 cubic meters of wood over the next three months. More than half of the required amount will be imported, while the remaining supply is expected to come from southern Aceh, North Sumatra, Riau and Kalimantan," said Arian, without citing the number of houses to be built with that amount of timber.

In response to whether they faced any problems with import procedures, Arian said, "We hope there won't be any problems, especially when the consignment arrives in Belawan Port. It usually takes a few days to arrange import documents to take the timber out of the port."

Investigation of rights violations in Aceh questioned

Aceh Kita - January 12, 2006

Tedi Hikmah, Jakarta – The non-government organisation Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) has again raised questions about the investigation of gross human rights violations that have taken place in Aceh. How can it be that since the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) there has been absolutely no efforts to solve the cases of human rights violations that have occurred in Aceh. As a result Imparsial believes that a peace process not accompanied with the government's obligation to arrests past human rights violators will create a deep-seated grief that could become the seed for revenge for the Acehnese people, especially for the families of victims.

"The process of upholding human rights in Aceh should not be implemented half-heartedly. Efforts to solve cases of human rights violation should not only be on cases [that took place] after the agreement was signed, but also on past cases", explained Imparsial's operational director Rusdi Marpaung at the Imparsial offices on Jalan Diponegoro No 9 in Central Jakarta on Wednesday January 11.

According to Marpaung, although the discussions on and the implementation of the MoU have proceeded relatively smoothly, in the context of upholding human rights in Aceh however, the MoU has totally failed to elaborate in detail either the investigation or resolution of gross human rights violations that have taken place in Aceh.

Marpaung added the failure to elaborate on uncovering past gross human rights violations in the MoU would strengthen the culture of impunity in Indonesia. A number of points in the MoU on the question of human rights he said, tend to priorities political compromises and negotiations without the involvement of civil society. "This has given birth to half-hearted political concessions between the two parties without looking at the need for social justice for the victims", he explained.

As reported by Aceh Kita, the Coalition of Aceh Human Rights Non-Government Organisations (Koalisi NGO HAM Aceh) recorded 311 cases of human rights violations in Aceh over 2005. This figure is a dramatic decline compared with 2004 where there were as many as 779 cases. The coalition said however, that throughout 2005 there was not a single case that was resolved by law enforcement institutions. This is despite the fact that the opportunities to solve cases of human rights violations are wide open, now that the two warring parties are a peace.

The general chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Megawati Sukarnoputri meanwhile, has again drawn attention to the issue of the MoU between the Indonesian government and GAM. According to Megawati, what was done by the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono did irreparable damage to the sovereignty of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI). This is because one of the conditions set out in the MoU is that all government policies on Aceh must obtain prior agreement from the Aceh legislative and executive.

"I have long called for peace and to end violence in Aceh. But not by irreparably damaging the sovereignty of NKRI. What if other regions demand the same rights", shouted Megawati in a political speech on the 33rd anniversary of the PDI-P at the Proclamation Monument in Jakarta on Wednesday January 11.

In order to address this, Megawati will instruct her cadre in the House of Representatives (DPR) to monitor and pay close attention to the Draft Law on a Government for Aceh that is currently being discussed by the DPR. She hopes that her party will refuse to agree with strategic articles that are in conflict with the concept of NKRI, because this relates to issues of ideology and the history of the Indonesian nation.

The party with the symbol of the bull has opposed the MoU from the first when the government cleared the way for the peace process in Aceh. PDI-P cadre in the DPR have even presented an interpolation against Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla in relation to the MoU that was signed in Helsinki on August 15 last year. The PDI-P based this on the MoU having the meaning that the government endorses GAM [as a legitimate organisation] and the separation of Aceh from NKRI.

When serving as president, Megawati put into effect a state of martial law in Aceh on May 19, 2003. The implementation of martial law was inseparable from political consideration created by Yudhoyono – who at the time was the coordinating minister for politics and security – after the peace process known as the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement failed. The deadlock in the talks also resulted in the Megawati government arresting and jailing five GAM negotiators that were to attend the Joint Meeting in Tokyo. [dzie]

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Officials lay blame as tsunami aid lies in wait

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2006

Hera Diani and Anissa S. Febrina, Jakarta – With containers of tsunami aid gathering dust at ports in Jakarta and Belawan, North Sumatra, the government is relying on oft-heard excuses to explain the delay in clearance.

Officials point to bureaucratic requirements and the logistical issues involved in delivering aid to survivors of the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

Solutions to fast-track the goods seem in short supply. "It's not as simple as we think," said Andi Hanindito, who heads the natural disaster emergency directorate at the Ministry of Social Affairs.

While the Ministry of Social Affairs is in charge of issuing recommendations for aid clearance, permission must also be sought from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Trade and Customs and Excise Office, before the National Disaster Management Coordination Body (Bakornas) can give approval.

"There are goods that have to be approved by the Ministry of Trade first, and then must be crosschecked at the port, before the minister signs it (clearance). The procedure is indeed long," Andi told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Sampoerna Foundation, a nonprofit institution primarily focused on disbursing educational scholarships nationwide, says it waited nine months for the bureaucratic paperwork to clear for a container of tsunami relief supplies at Tanjung Priok Port, North Jakarta.

By the time the approval was given last November, the storage fee had ballooned to Rp 65 million (US$6,914) and the aid – mostly clothes, blankets and mattresses – was no longer needed.

An estimated 217 containers of aid, including ambulances, are stuck at Tanjung Priok, with some held up by the recipient's inability to pay high storage fees or inadequate documentation.

In Medan, 232 containers of supplies and 58 vehicles from donors in New Zealand, Japan, Thailand, Switzerland, Britain and Singapore are also languishing at Belawan Port.

The Ministry of Finance's director general of customs and excise, Eddy Abdurrahman said that every container of tsunami aid entering through Indonesian ports must have a recommendation letter from the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency for Aceh and Nias.

"As soon as the Customs and Excise Office receives the letter, we issue a letter for the release of the goods," Eddy said. His office would then file a request with the finance ministry to waive import duties.

"If there were goods that could not be cleared from the ports and were charged, then they mustn't have been for Aceh," he said, denying reports about the containers held up at Belawan port due to the maze of bureaucracy.

Andi said the long process involved in claiming goods was not a deliberate hindrance, but meant to ensure there was accountability for their release and to prevent smuggling.

"We recently had a problem with that (smuggling). After we approved several containers filled with vehicles, it turned out there was limousine in it."

He also noted a lack of documentation or incomplete addresses of recipients for many of the goods. "The Red Cross recently came to claim tsunami aid, but they have inadequate documentation about which containers to claim. Also, we had the Indonesian Navy ask about the fee for containers sent to us as the recipient, whereas we never received notification regarding the aid."

Tsunami aid stuck in port for eight months

Jakarta Post - January 9, 2006

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – After living in a tent in a tsunami refugee camp for months, Cut Samsidar left Aceh Besar regency for Medan two months ago to work as housemaid.

She said she could no longer stand the conditions in the camp as aid was no longer forthcoming. She still is at a loss to know why the assistance has been cut off.

"Through the newspapers and television, we can see that foreign aid is continuing to pour into Aceh. But where is it all going?" asked Samsidar, 39, who lost her husband to the disaster that left over 130,000 people dead in Aceh alone.

She said her life had greatly improved since she started working. She, along with her children, live in her employer's house. "I love to be here, although I'm only a housemaid and have to work as a household assistant. My children and I have enough to eat," she said.

Samsidar is only one of the displaced who have been made suffer by the complicated processes involved in aid delivery, which only serve to keep the aid from those who need it.

There is clear evidence that the distribution system is in a mess. The Belawan Customs and Excise Office has detained 117 containers filled with tsunami aid, including food, clothes, medicines and generators, at Belawan Port in Medan for the past eight months due to what it claims is inadequate documentation.

The aid was sent by donors from countries like the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark and China.

Samsidar said she suspected that unscrupulous individuals were deliberately halting the aid distribution so as to profit themselves. "It doesn't make any sense. It's been eight months and the aid has never arrived. Whatever the reason, the donations must be delivered immediately because the tsunami victims need them badly," Samsidar said.

Several months ago, canned fish donated by the World Food Program (WFP) to tsunami victims were instead found being sold in Medan markets.

Secretary to the North Sumatra Disaster Management Committee, Edy Aman Saragih, who is also the acting regent of Nias Selatan, said on Saturday there was a major likelihood that the tsunami aid officially being detained in Belawan port could actually have been stolen.

He said there were around 100 families who were still living in the refugee camps in Nias Selatan and badly in need of food. Their health, he said, had continued to worsen due to food shortages.

"We have no longer been distributing money to the tsunami victims in Nias Selatan for the past few months. Except for a number of foreign non-governmental organizations that are still providing medical assistance," Edy told The Jakarta Post.

Level of rights violations in Aceh declines in 2004

Aceh Kita - January 4, 2006

Radzie, Banda Aceh – The earthquake and tsunami at the end of 2004 and the signing of the peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in August 2005 has resulted in a drastic decline in the number of human rights violations in Aceh.

According to Mashudi, from the research and policy analysis division of the Aceh Coalition of Non-Government Human Rights Organisations (Koalisi NGO HAM), the tsunami and the Helsinki memorandum of understanding (MoU) were the two principle factors in this decline. In 2005 there were only 311 cases of violence in Aceh, far lower that 2004 when there were as many as 779 cases. "The decline was more than 50 percent", Mashudi told Aceh Kita at his office on Wednesday January 4.

In 2005, out of a total of 311 cases of human rights violations, the majority of victims were civilians, totaling 217 people. Meanwhile 41 victims were from the Indonesian Military (TNI) or police and 53 from GAM. The most prominent cases were the mistreatment of civilians, which was as high as 136 cases. Meanwhile there were 25 cases of mistreatment of TNI/police officers and only nine against GAM.

Also this year, there were only 101 cases of killings while in 2004 the figure was as high as 373. "These represent the cases that have declined most in 2005", said Kurdinar, the head of the coalition's campaign division.

Although in terms of quantity, the number violations declined rapidly, the type of violations however were the same in 2005 and the years proceeding it. "The quality was the same, such as killings and arrests", said Kurdinar.

Koalisi NGO HAM said it regretted that there have been no investigations into human rights violations since 2005. Conversely, the opportunities to solve human rights cases are extremely good, in concert with the signing of the peace agreement between the two parties that have fought for 30 years. "There has not been one case that has been brought to trial by the state", said Mashudi.

Mashudi said that impression of neglect over human rights violations has also been worsened by the natural disaster, where it has been as if it has legitimised the state in avoiding its responsibility to respect, protect and fulfil human rights.

The peace agreement said Mashudi, also does not yet give guarantees on resolving the various cases of rights violations prior to and after the MoU was signed. "Post the MoU (August 16 to December 31 2005), we recorded 46 cases of rights violations as taking place", said Mashudi.

In order to address this, the coalition is calling on the government to solve the human rights violations that have taken place during the Aceh conflict, which has been going on since 1976. In addition to this, the coalition is also calling on the government to not distinguish between victims of the conflict and the tsunami. [dzie]

[Translated by James Balowski.]

West Papua

FBI said involved in arrest of eight Indonesians

Washington Post - January 13, 2006

Ellen Nakashima, Jakarta – Eleven men and a teenager met with two FBI agents at a small hotel in the remote Indonesian province of Papua on Wednesday night, expecting, they said, to be flown to the United States.

They said they had been assured by intermediaries working with the agents that in US custody they would be able to defend themselves against accusations that they murdered two American teachers on a mountain in Papua one warm August morning in 2002.

Among them was a Papuan separatist fighter, Anthonius Wamang, indicted in 2004 by a US grand jury for murder in connection with the killings. Wamang has acknowledged firing at the vehicle in which the teachers were riding on Aug. 31, 2002, but has said he thought he was shooting at Indonesian soldiers and is not sure whether the shots he fired were fatal, according to his attorney, Albert Rumbekwan.

On Wednesday night, Wamang and the others were ready to leave for the United States, suitcases packed. "Hurry, hurry," the FBI agents told them, several recounted, as they were hustled into a windowless container truck. "The plane is waiting on the runway."

After coaxing the group into the truck, the agents and a US Embassy official handed the vehicle over to Indonesian police officers and left for the airport in the small town of Timika, according to an intermediary who was present. The Indonesian police took the 12 to the local police station, where authorities interrogated them until morning.

Eight of them, including the teenager, were still in custody on Friday. Police said the government intended to charge them with the murder of Ricky Lynn Spier, 44, and Edwin Burgon, 71, who was the principal of a school run by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. The US-based company operates one of the world's largest gold and copper mines in Papua.

US officials here declined to confirm details of the arrest but acknowledged that the FBI and Indonesian authorities had been cooperating in the case.

In Washington, FBI spokesman Bill Carter said agents were in Papua at the time of the arrests but that he had no information on the assertion that they had lured the suspects with promises of a trip to the United States.

"Our understanding in this is that Indonesian authorities were planning to prosecute individuals in this case," Carter said. "We obviously reserve the right to seek extradition in the future."

The alleged bait-and-switch tactic angered human rights activists and the four men, part of the original group of 12, who were released in a province where deep-seated grievances against the central government have fueled a separatist movement. The activists charge that the Jakarta government cannot be trusted to protect the detainees.

"We were planning to end our problems from the 2002 incident in America," said one of those released, Victus Wamang, 57, the brother of the man indicted in the United States. "But right now, I'm feeling really, really sorry that I trusted these Americans. I thought that they would not deceive the Papuans. Right now, I've lost all trust in the Americans."

The case had complicated relations between the two countries. At times, US investigators were hampered by a lack of cooperation. Early on, agents were tailed by special police. But now, both sides hail the arrests as evidence of good cooperation.

An initial police report implicated the military in the killings, and US officials at the time said the evidence indicated possible military involvement. But today, both Indonesian and US officials have said that Anthonius Wamang and other members of the Free Papua Movement are guilty.

Two Papuans, Eltimus Omaleng and Willy Mandowen, who were friends with the detainees, helped the FBI negotiate with Wamang and the others. The FBI pledged that the detainees would be transferred to the United States for trial, Omaleng said. FBI agents told him "to make this promise to the people," Omaleng said. "This problem would be solved by US law."

Mandowen and Omaleng arranged for the surrender to take place at the Amole II hotel in Timika. "Now, after I helped them, they betrayed us," Omaleng said. "And my friends thought that I am the one who sold them out to the FBI."

Anton Bahrul Alam, a spokesman for the national police, said, "That's their right to feel deceived. But one thing I know for sure is we have been targeting them for a long time."

Wamang, who the US indictment describes as a separatist rebel commander, acknowledged in a 2004 Australian television documentary that he fired his weapon at the scene. But according to Rumbekwan, Wamang said he believed he was shooting at Indonesian soldiers on a mountain road on Freeport property heavily patrolled by the military. Wamang said he witnessed "retaliation fire" from another group on the ground that he said were Indonesian soldiers.

Under interrogation, Wamang told Indonesian police in a sworn affidavit that he acquired six magazine clips with 180 bullets from security forces, Rumbekwan said. The bullet casings were found on the ground at the ambush scene, Rumbekwan acknowledged.

Human rights activists and others analyzing the case charge that the truth will be harder to determine in the Indonesian court system, where witness intimidation is common and the military wields influence.

S. Eben Kirksey, a US specialist on Papua and a PhD student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, said his research, including interviews with witnesses and participants, indicated that Wamang was set up by Indonesian security forces. "He was there several days prior to the attack, camped out, waiting for information about reported movements of Indonesian troops," Kirksey said.

"Specifically, he indicated to people in conversations prior to going up to the site that he didn't intend to shoot white people, that he was planning to wage war with the Indonesian military."

The detainees were to be moved to Jakarta on Saturday, police said.

In November, the Bush administration, citing national security interests, lifted restrictions on military financing to Indonesia, continuing a process of restoring full military ties. US aid will continue to be guided by progress on human rights, democratic reform and accountability, a State Department spokesman said this month.

[Staff writers Dan Eggen and Dana Priest in Washington and special correspondent Andy Saputra in Jakarta contributed to this report.]

New twist in deaths of Americans in Indonesia

International Herald Tribune - January 13, 2006

Raymond Bonner, Jakarta – An Indonesian who was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington in connection with the killing of two American school teachers in Papua Province has admitted to the police that he fired shots during the ambush, but he also says he saw three men in Indonesian military uniforms firing at the teachers' convoy, his lawyer said Friday.

Anthonius Wamang, the accused, who was turned over by the FBI to the Indonesian police Wednesday, told the police he had been given the bullets by a senior Indonesian soldier, Wamang's lawyer, Albert Rumbekwan, said in a telephone interview from Papua.

The administration of President George W. Bush had pushed hard for a resolution of the case, and expressed satisfaction when Wamang and 11 others suspects, one as young as 14, were detained late Wednesday. But Wamang's statements will likely prolong the investigation, as well as complicate efforts of the Bush administration to resume full military relations with Indonesia. They contradict previous public statements by senior officials from the US administration that the Indonesian military was not involved in the ambush.

Wamang, a member of a Papuan separatist organization, said he had emptied one magazine from an M-16 rifle, Rumbekwan said. Investigators said previously that they had found scores of bullet casings at the scene of the ambush, in 2002, on road owned by an American mining company, Freeport-McMoRan.

Other evidence emerged Friday that could put the United States in an uncomfortable position in this highly nationalistic country. According to the men detained Wednesday, they were lured by the FBI into showing up at a small hotel, and were then promptly turned over to the Indonesian police.

The US Embassy in Jakarta declined to comment about Wamang's statements or allegations of an FBI trap.

"We believed we were going to America," Viktus Wanmang, a 57-year-old farmer who was among those who showed up at the hotel and was then detained, said in a telephone interview Friday. He was released, as were three others, on Friday.

The men were told they would be interviewed about the case in the United States because it would be safer for them there, said Denny Yomaki, an officer with the Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy in Papua, who spent much of Friday interviewing the men who had been detained and released. The men were told their families would be given 650,000 rupiah, or about $70, for each day they were in the United States, Yomaki said.

The men were told to go to the Amole II Hotel in the town of Timika on Wednesday evening. They arrived with bags packed for a trip to the United States, Wanmang and Yomaki said.

But when they reached the hotel, they were met by two FBI agents and a third American, who some of the men thought was a Freeport employee, Yomaki said. The FBI agents hustled the men into a truck with no windows.

"The car was driven at high speeds," Wanmang said. "When we stopped, when the car door opened, there was a group of police waiting," he said.

None of the men have been charged with any crimes, except Anthonius Wamang, who has been indicted in the United States on two counts of murder and eight counts of attempted murder.

Eight Americans were wounded in the ambush, and an Indonesian teacher was killed, along with two American teachers, Edwin Burgon, of Sun River, Oregon, and Ricky Spier, of Littleton, Colorado. The teachers worked at the Freeport school.

Earlier this year, the group Human Rights Study and Advocacy issued a report connecting Wamang to the Indonesian military. On one occasion, he was paid by the Indonesian military for his travel to Jakarta, the report said.

Leaders slam government plans to split Papua

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2006

Tiarma Siboro and Tony Hotland, Jakarta – A government's plan to go ahead with an earlier administration's plan to split the province into five has met with strong opposition from Papuan leaders.

The leaders were responding to the government's determination to go ahead with the plan, despite an Supreme Court ruling that the split was unconstitutional.

Papuan leaders met in Jakarta on Monday to witness the installment of the new acting governor for the province, Soejuangan Situmorang.

Situmorang, a former director general at the Ministry of Home Affairs, is replacing the late J.P. Salossa, who died in office late last year. In a press conference, several influential Papuan figures called for the central government to promote dialog with locals about the issue.

House of Representatives Golkar legislator Simon Patrice Morin said the government should explain to Papuans why it was still insisting on splitting the province into smaller territories. That move undermined Special Autonomy Law No. 21/2001, which stated that all authority to demarcate the province was in the hands of the Papuan People's Council (MRP), Simon said.

Former Papuan governor Barnabas Suebu suggested Sodjuangan, as the new governor, clarify the status of the province. This was especially important since a Netherlands report made public last year called the 1969 plebiscite making Papua part of Indonesia a sham.

"Why does the government seem to have a hidden agenda in Papua... (Why has it) committed so many violations of the law, including the special autonomy law," he said.

After the ceremony, Papuan representatives held a meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

At the meeting, Kalla agreed that neither central government nor the acting governor could make any policies regarding the planned division of Papua into smaller territories, pending the election of a definitive governor, which will be held in March at the latest.

The meeting took place amid increased protests over the planned creation of West Irian Jaya province.

Moves to separate the province into three smaller provinces began when former president Megawati Soekarnoputri issued Decree No. 1/2003 to reinforce Law No. 45/1999 on the division of the province into three provinces. Megawati's government did little to explain this divide-and-rule policy, apart from saying it was done for security, political and economical interests.

The move has been rejected by locals because it runs against the special autonomy law, which stipulates any policies regarding Papua should go through the MRP – a legislative branch established in late 2005.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has also set up a plan to divide two northern-tip of Sorong and Merauke into two more provinces.

"If the government refuses to hold a comprehensive dialog with us, I guess we should file a class action against the government because it has violated the law," a legislator Rev. Karel Phil Erari said.

US praises arrest of suspects in deaths of Americans

Associated Press - January 12, 2006

Foster Klug, Washington – The US government is welcoming Indonesia's arrest of a dozen suspects in the 2002 ambush killings of two American teachers. Rights activists demanded more information.

Among those arrested, officials said, was Anthonius Wamang, who was indicted by a US grand jury in 2004 for the murders of Rickey Lynn Spier, 44, of Littleton, Colo., and Leon Edwin Burgon, 71, of Sunriver, Ore. The teachers were killed in August 2002 near a gold mine in the Indonesian province of West Papua.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "Seeking justice for this crime remains a priority for the United States, and we are pleased that the Indonesian government also recognizes the importance of this case." He said the FBI has worked with the Indonesian police and military on the case.

Some US observers said Thursday they wanted more details on the arrests to make sure the suspects weren't treated unfairly and weren't targeted simply because they opposed the government.

A tiny separatist movement has persisted in Papua province, the primitive, resource-rich western half of New Guinea island. Rights groups maintain that about 100,000 people have died as a result of military action or atrocities carried out by Indonesian troops.

Tim Rieser, an aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who has criticized US funding of military training for Indonesia, called the arrests "a step in the right direction, but there are so many unanswered questions in this case, including who these people are and what role they may have had in these crimes."

He said it is important that "anyone arrested and accused is treated fairly and receives due process, something that is, unfortunately, the exception rather than the norm in Indonesia."

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., praised the arrests but urged Indonesia's government to "show the international community and the people of Indonesia that it is dedicated to the rule of law and to using a judicial process that is fair, transparent and respectful of human rights." Indonesian authorities described the 12 suspects as members of West Papua's separatist movement.

Edmund McWilliams, a rights activist who worked as a political counselor at the US Embassy in Jakarta in the 1990s, said that "whenever the Indonesian government wants to denigrate people, they call them separatists."

Indonesia has no extradition agreement with the United States. It was unclear whether Jakarta will surrender Wamang to Washington.

Military ties

Arrests in Papua ambush boon to US ties

Asia Times - January 14, 2006

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – An event in the remote Indonesian province of Papua, thousands of kilometers from Washington, seems certain to result in a much stronger position for Jakarta within the already fast-improving relationship between the two countries.

Twelve men, including a local rebel operational commander wanted by the United States for the murder of two American teachers in a 2002 ambush near the giant US-operated Freeport Grasberg copper and gold mine, have been detained. Americans Ted Burcon and Rickey Lean Spier were killed in the attack.

The province is home to a group of poorly armed independence fighters known as the Free Papua Organization (OPM), which seeks an independent state.

Media reports claim that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had lured the rebels to a hotel in Timika, near the mine, on the promise that they would be taken to the US to tell their side of the story. National Police deputy spokesman Anton Bahrul Alam confirmed that the FBI had assisted with the arrests.

Suspicions were one thing, but local and FBI investigations found no evidence that Indonesian troops were implicated in the 2002 crime. The result of a protracted joint Indonesia-FBI investigation was a US grand jury's indictment in June 2004 of Antonius Wamang on two counts of murder, eight counts of attempted murder and other related offenses in connection with the killings.

Wamang is one of those detained. Though the 12 have yet to be formally charged over the killings, Alam said a fingerprint taken from the scene of the murders matched Wamang's. During police interrogation, Wamang is reported to have "confessed to firing the automatic weapon" used in the killings.

Ties between Washington and Jakarta quickly became strained after the killings. But a statement at the time from then-US attorney general John Ashcroft also cleared the Indonesian military (TNI) of any role in the attack.

His announcement came just one day after a US congressional subcommittee renewed a ban on the provision of funds for the Defense Department's International Military Education and Training (IMET) program for Indonesia, prompting claims that Washington was sacrificing justice for the victims for the sake of resuming bilateral military ties.

The TNI had blamed the OPM for the attack, although Wamang in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp last year claimed that Indonesian troops had provided ammunition for the shootings.

Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller blamed the Papua separatists for the Freeport attack and claimed Wamang's indictment illustrated "the importance of international cooperation to combat terrorism".

This cut little ice with local and international rights groups who cast doubt on Wamang's involvement in the ambush, with some saying he worked as a military informer. They suggested the attack was an effort by TNI to discredit the separatist movement or extort money from Freeport.

TNI gets only 30% of its funding from the central government and makes up the shortfall by its widespread involvement in businesses, both legal and illegal. Payments for security services received from multinationals, such as those from Freeport and from ExxonMobil's natural-gas facilities in Aceh, at the other end of the archipelago, have provided TNI with a significant source of income.

Freeport abruptly stopped these payments shortly before the ambush. To appease investor anger and disgust after the meltdown of Enron and WorldCom, the administration of US President George W Bush had pushed a bill through Congress that demanded greater corporate accountability. The Corporate Fraud Act, implemented on July 26, 2002, required the disclosure of such payments, which accounts for Freeport's recent admission that it paid out nearly US$20 million to military and police officials in Papua between 1998 and 2004.

Indonesian Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh has promised to "look into" Freeport's allegations before deciding whether to launch a graft probe. The company has denied breaking any laws but the government has said such payments are illegal. If individual soldiers of whatever rank kept any of the money themselves, it would be a criminal offense.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired four-star general who last month ordered the military to play a greater role in the "war against terrorism", is today expected to announce his choice for the next TNI commander-in-chief, a key job in the anti-terror campaign. Kusnanto Anggoro, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, tips air force chief Air Marshal Djoko Suyanto to replace General Endriartono Sutarto, who tendered his resignation to former president Megawati Sukarnoputri in September 2004 but is still serving as TNI commander.

Megawati stirred up controversy when, although only a caretaker leader after losing the presidential election, she approved Sutarto's resignation and recommended hardliner General Ryamizard as his successor. Yudhoyono annulled Megawati's decision when he took over in October 2004, a move that angered many lawmakers.

Why now?

One clue to the answer to the most obvious question – why did police act now, so long after the incident? – may lie in statements from both governments.

"Seeking justice for this crime remains a priority for the United States, and we are pleased that the Indonesian government also recognizes the importance of this case," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "We will continue to follow this case closely."

Commenting on a proposed visit to Jakarta by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirayuda noted a "growing and accepted view in the US to see Indonesia in a much broader context rather than in snapshots of events like human-rights violations... and military reform".

Rice had reinstated full IMET eligibility for Indonesia, and Wirayuda described her planned visit as one that would "underline the importance of the relationship between Indonesia and the US, and the growing appreciation of Indonesia by the US".

The United States has shown a long-term commitment to post- tsunami reconstruction in Aceh, support for Indonesia's reform agenda and for the country's efforts to reform its justice system and military.

The arrests may well lead to Jakarta's closest ever relationship with Washington as partisan differences in both governments gradually dissolve. Aloysius Renwarin, a lawyer representing the 12, said, "They are being sacrificed for the relationship between the US and Indonesia." Yet the arrests alone will not be enough to shore up US support for even deeper ties with the military.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, the most vocal opponent of US funding of IMET for Indonesia in Congress, is reported to have called the arrests "a step in the right direction" though noting that "there are so many unanswered questions in this case, including who these people are and what role they may have had in these crimes."

Washington will press for its pound of flesh by demanding that Wamang, at least, be tried by a US court. If convicted he could face the death penalty.

Although Indonesia has no extradition treaty with the US it has been the scene of at least one infamous Central Intelligence Agency "rendering", when alleged al-Qaeda operative Omar al Faruq was spirited away to a secret location.

A politically stable and US-friendly Indonesia would help US strategic and economic interests in the region, although the relationship is certain to remain a very different kettle of fish to the two other notable regional relationships the United States has, with its "sheriffs" in Singapore and Sydney.

[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.]

Indonesian treaty to usher new security era

Sydney Morning Herald - January 11, 2006

Tom Allard – Australia and Indonesia are poised to sign a security treaty that will pave the way for a new era of close relations between the two nations.

Indonesian government sources say the pact is wide-ranging, encompassing not only counter-terrorism, intelligence and military co-operation but social, humanitarian and joint political concerns.

Australia has already exchanged drafts of the treaty with Indonesia and it is understood the Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, discussed the deal at length with his Indonesian counterpart, Hassan Wirajuda, in Jakarta last month.

At the core of the treaty is a commitment from Australia not to intervene in Indonesia's internal affairs or undermine its territorial integrity. These remain concerns in Jakarta in the wake of East Timor's liberation and comments by the Prime Minister, John Howard, that he would launch a pre-emptive strike on terrorists in Indonesia.

But now Indonesia's President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and Mr Howard have formed a close bond, the political momentum for the treaty is irresistible.

The US is also keen to keep Indonesia a pro-Western force in volatile South-East Asia and the Islamic world. The Bush Administration has described the region as a top-tier "field of jihad" for terrorists and regards the largest Muslim nation on earth as a crucial ally.

Mr Downer was unavailable for comment yesterday but a spokesman for his department confirmed that the talks were well advanced. "Both Australia and Indonesia attach a high priority to the conclusion of a security agreement," he said.

Mr Howard is likely to sign the treaty formally when he visits Jakarta in the next few months.

The pact will draw together Australia's existing, and successful, counter-terrorism agreements with Indonesia and forge new partnerships to combat people smuggling and illegal fishing and offer humanitarian assistance.

Certain critics of Indonesia's military and intelligence apparatus will examine the deal to see if it stops Australia from expressing concerns about human rights abuses in Indonesia. There are also worries that intelligence sharing and joint military training activities could be used to help suppress resistance movements in rebel provinces such as Papua.

Greg Fealy, an expert on Indonesia and a former intelligence analyst, said the mood in Indonesia was amenable to a security pact with Australia.

"There has been a change in attitude among the Indonesian population regarding terrorism in the past six months. There really has been a sea change," he said.

The second Bali bombings had convinced sceptics that the threat from terrorism was real and not some trumped-up Western plot, he said. "There's a lot more support for the kind of proactive approach that Australia wants Indonesia to pursue on terrorism."

Why Australia and Indonesia are buddying up

Crikey.com - January 10, 2006

Damien Kingsbury, Indonesia expert and Associate Professor of International and Political Studies at Deakin University, writes:

Australia's move to reach a broad-ranging agreement with Indonesia over security co-operation is a logical outcome of the strengthening of ties between the two countries in the wake of growing joint counter-terrorism measures and Australia's post- tsunami emergency and financial assistance. It is, in a large sense, a renewal of Australia's security treaty with Indonesia reached by the Keating government in 1995, scrapped in 1999 in the wake of East Timor's independence vote and destruction.

The main drivers for this renewed treaty are Indonesia's desire to move closer to Western countries, especially the US, with Australia seen as a gateway to that wider relationship. Indonesia's relationship with the US administration has been steadily improving, especially given the perception by Bush and Company of the role that Indonesia can play in its anti-terrorism struggle. This agreement will now assist the US administration in getting the more reluctant Congress on side, especially on issues of military to military co-operation and arms supplies.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also has a long history of seeking closer ties to Indonesia, very often at the expense of the wider concern of Australian citizens over human rights and related issues.

The new agreement is today reported to contain a clause which stipulates that Australia will not interfere in the internal affairs of Indonesia and will respect its territorial sovereignty. At one level, such a clause is a conventional recognition of the sovereign independence of another state. Yet such clauses are also rare in bilateral agreements, as sovereign respect is assumed as a given.

In the case of Australia and Indonesia, such a clause reflects lingering doubts over Australia's long term intentions, especially for the now divided province of Papua. There are some in Jakarta, especially in the legislature's foreign affairs and defence committee, who believe that Australia is intent on dismembering Indonesia, following its intervention in East Timor in 1999. Such a clause is intended to allay such fears.

However, there will also be many in Indonesia who will view such a clause as limiting Australia's capacity to speak critically on particular issues within Indonesia, should such concerns arise. This has the potential to raise objections to any Australian criticism or commentary that is not perceived as supportive, and may be held as applying not just to the government but to the media and non-government organisations.

There has been a long history of Indonesian sensitivity to Australian criticism, especially by the Australian media, and to claims of interference by some NGOs, especially on human rights issues. The inclusion of a non-interference clause, then, could open the way for the Indonesian government to request official pressure on the Australian media to curtail their Indonesia- focused observations, and for NGOs to limit their activities in relation to that country.

Human rights/law

Internal conflict rocks 'locomotive of democracy'

Jakarta Post - January 16, 2006

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – An internal rift is again threatening the work of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), flatteringly dubbed the "locomotive of democracy" during the authoritarian rule of Soeharto.

This time the conflict pits executive chairman Munarman against senior lawyer Daniel Panjaitan, who heads the foundation's legal advocacy department.

The rift began last week when Munarman refused Panjaitan's suggestion that YLBHI admit two young people, who had just completed a training program, as new advocates. Munarman argued the two trainees had "disciplinary problems," an argument that Panjaitan fiercely challenged.

Munarman then tendered his resignation to the foundation's supervisory body, which it rejected. Instead, members of the body called for him to evaluate staff, which may affect several top officials, including Panjaitan. Munarman also locked Panjaitan out of his office.

"Now, I'm working on the evaluation process before deciding if a reshuffle will be necessary. The evaluation will look into individual capacity and integrity," Munarman told The Jakarta Post over the week end.

Many believe that Munarman would move Panjaitan to a non- portfolio post. Munarman said: "I hope that I can complete the evaluation and the reshuffle processes within a month."

Internal rifts have plagued the foundation since its establishment in 1970, the initiative of several young idealistic lawyers and the Jakarta administration under governor Ali Sadikin. YLBHI now has 14 representative offices nationwide.

A history of rifts have pushed out activists who later became prominent lawyers, such as Todung Mulya Lubis, Bambang Widjoyanto, and Luhut M.P. Pangaribuan, and also the current Attorney General Abdurrahman Saleh.

The late human rights campaigner Munir quit the foundation after lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution, a senior YLBHI activist, joined a team of lawyers defending high- and middle-ranking military and police officers accused of committing gross human rights violations in East Timor around the 1999 ballot for independence.

Court officials perverting the law: Study

Jakarta Post - January 14, 2006

Jakarta – A study into a graft case involving a prominent businessman and politician shows the strange and shoddy way the law is applied in the country, two judicial watchdogs say.

The analysis of the corruption trial of Nurdin Halid, a businessman and Golkar Party politician, at the South Jakarta District Court was sponsored by the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) and the University of Indonesia's Judicial Monitoring Society (MaPPI).

Former justice Johanes Djohansjah, former attorney AJ Day, legal academic Antonius P. Wibowo and lawyer Bambang Widjojanto, who researched the case, found that prosecutors and judges made a serious of errors when they took Nurdin to trial for misusing Rp 169 billion in funds from the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

The study finds that prosecutor Arnold Angkow's indictment was obscure because it did not clearly state whether Nurdin had been charged with committing the crime, with helping commit a crime, or for commissioning the crime.

During a public discussion of the report on Thursday, AJ Day noted that Nurdin's defender, O.C Kaligis, should have objected to the indictment. He apparently did not, because clearly the obscure indictment advantaged the defendant, as the judges then did not have proper basis to hand down a verdict.

Neither were prosecutors specific enough in their application of the Criminal Code, charging Nurdin only under certain clauses in Article 415 of the code, AJ Day said, when they could have charged him under all of them, particularly those regarding the misuse of public funds.

The study also found that the judges' erred when they ruled the case was a civil matter and not a criminal one. Later they ruled Nurdin was innocent instead of dropping the charges and dismissing the case. By ruling Nurdin was innocent, the judges neglected all the evidence that the prosecutors presented at the trial, Day said.

The results of the study will be forwarded to the Supreme Court.

The ICW has already submitted 20 different legal case studies to the Supreme Court, but the nation's highest legal body has taken no action.

"Even if what we are doing is like rain in the desert, we will keep on going," Day said.

Iskandar Sonhadji of the ICW said after the discussion that judges here had yet to show any commitment to trying graft cases justly.

The judiciary's duty was not only to enforce the law but also to eliminate the flaws that exist in it, Iskander said. However, because of the likely influence of graft, judges were creating their own flaws and loopholes to free people who were clearly guilty, he said.

Nurdin has escaped prison twice. As the chairman of the Confederation of Primary Cooperatives Association (Inkud), he was pronounced innocent of the theft of Bulog funds by the South Jakarta District Court in June last year. On Dec. 15, he escaped a graft conviction for illegally importing 70,000 tons of sugar from Thailand, worth Rp 3.4 billion after a North Jakarta District Court ruled that the indictment against him was legally flawed and unacceptable.

In the latter case, Nurdin appealed the verdict, although it was in his favor.

Iskander said this was a likely trick to prolong the legal process, so that prosecutors could not propose a new indictment against him.

State budget 'against the Constitution'

Jakarta Post - January 14, 2006

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Like their counterparts on countless streets throughout the nation, the children on the corner in Pejompongan, Central Jakarta, regularly show up every day to beg for money from motorists. But they have been absent from school for years, if they ever attended.

"No school is free here. I can't afford it," said a street child, nicknamed "Boy", who would be a third-year elementary school student now. Without the ability to read and write, his future is far grimmer and shorter than other Indonesians.

There are an estimated 15 million illiterate people in Indonesia and although others are better off than Boy, higher education remains out of reach for the majority of Indonesians, teachers are still poorly trained and school buildings are always in disrepair. Meanwhile, the government says it cannot afford to renovate some 8,000 damaged schools across the country.

Angered by successive governments' lack of political will to fix this problem, two groups of educators, the Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI) and the Association of Indonesian Teacher Graduates (ISPI), are calling on the Constitutional Court to do something about it.

They want the court to again review Law No. 13/2005 on the 2006 state budget, which allocates only 8 percent of the budget to education, far less than the mandatory, and its critics say unrealistic, 20 percent stipulated in the Constitution.

"The government has violated the Constitution by earmarking only 8 percent of the state budget for education and therefore the (budget) law must be overturned," PGRI chairman Rusli Yunus said after the first hearing at the Constitutional Court on Friday.

Rusli said Rp 31 trillion rupiah ($US3.3 billion) was not enough to spend on the nation's future.

"How can you send more than two million children to school and fix over 8,000 damaged schools with that amount of money?" Rusli said. The ideal amount should reach Rp 87 trillion – 20 percent of the budget, he said.

Last October, the same court issued a verdict ordering the government to set a minimum of 20 percent of the state budget to fund national education.

However, the government defied the order, saying that meeting the minimum threshold would raise the risk of widening the budget deficit. The 2006 deficit is projected to reach about 0.7 percent of the total.

The court's panel of three judges, led by I Dewa Gede Palguna later ruled the teachers could continue their case against the government after submitting a thorough report on the projected financial losses to the nation cause by low budget allocations.

Former education minister Wardiman Djojonegoro, who was among those filing the request for a judicial review, said he and other educators would not stop putting pressure on the government to fulfill its constitutional mandate.

"Should this court verdict fail again to force the government to revise the state budget allocation for education, we will continue to take it to court every year until the government has carried out the mandate entrusted to it," he said.

Soedijarto, of the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), said the government could no longer use the same old argument that it had no extra money to fund education.

"After studying the state budget, I learned that the government could minimize other spending, such as cutting down spending on foreign debt payments by asking for a debt moratorium, he said.

Lawmaker Heri Akhmadi said before the state budget draft was submitted to the House of Representatives, several legislators had formally asked the President to allocate a minimum of 20 percent from the state budget to education.

"But somehow (legislators) did not take that note into account," he said, adding that Golkar was among the parties that rejected the note.

Legislators seek restart of probe

Jakarta Post - January 13, 2006

Jakarta – A group of legislators urged the House of Representatives leadership on Thursday to revive a probe into the killings of student demonstrators in Jakarta between 1998 and 1999.

"House Commission II (on home affairs) recommended last year that the investigation be resumed. Why hasn't the House leadership followed this up?" legislator Nursyahbani Katjasungkana said.

Fourteen prodemocracy student demonstrators were killed in three separate protests, known as the Trisakti, Semanggi 1 and Semanggi 2 incidents.

Al Muzammil Yusuf, the deputy chairman of the commission, said he supported Nursyahbani's demand, but House Speaker Agung Laksono was more vague, promising only to accommodate the request.

A 1999 investigation by a team of legislators concluded the cases did not amount to gross human rights violations. Later, military and police officers implicated in the killings cited this finding when they refused to meet investigators from the National Commission on Human Rights.

Government not serious about human rights

Aceh Kita - January 12, 2006

Tedi Hikmah, Jakarta – A non-government organisation concerned with upholding human rights, Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial), believes the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has taken a selective approach and has not supported efforts to uphold human rights. Moreover, excessive violence that violates the basic rights of citizens continues to take place.

"The upholding of human rights has been subordinated by prioritising an excessive security approach accompanied with the tight control of citizens, it is precisely this that has worsened efforts to uphold human rights", said the executive director of Imparsial, Rachland Nasidik, at a press conference on the human rights situation in Indonesia in 2005 at the Imparsial officers in Jakarta on Wednesday January 11.

In 2005, Imparsial recorded as many as 281 cases of civilians who were victims of violence committed by the police, military, civil service police and others. Moreover, members of the police force committed the highest number of violations. Out of 241 cases of violence that occurred, almost half were committed by police officers. Over the same period, as many as 165 activists also experienced violence.

According to Nasidik, the treatment of terrorism and the state's obligation to deal with it has resulted in the prioritisation of the security approach that is excessive as a pragmatic solution. This has also been caused by the lack of a strong commitment by the Yudhoyono government to promote the upholding of human rights.

"This has been worsened by the performance of security forces and corrupt law enforcement institutions. As has occurred with the national police and the Attorney General. It is making it increasingly difficult to upholding human rights, especially in the agenda to properly uphold human rights in the courts", he explained.

He said the government continues to apply policies that threaten civilian freedoms, perpetuate impunity, violate religious freedom and limit the public's rights to obtain information, it also continues the use of the death penalty. In addition to this the government has also taken a half-hearted attitude in solving the murder of Munir. Even the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and the TNI (Indonesian Military) have politicised and taken advantage of the issue of terrorism along with calling for the reactivation of the military's territorial commands.

Imparsial believes that this selective application of democracy will continue in 2006. A security approach will of course still be the priority for the Yudhoyono government in maintaining control. It will even continue the tendency to accommodate the demands of the TNI and BIN. [dzie]

Perpetrators of violence in 2005

1. Police officers - 175 cases
2. TNI members - 21 cases
3. Combined (Detachment 88, Mobile Brigade, Buser, Intelligence officers) - 1 case
4. Civil service police - 2 cases
5. Forestry Monitoring Teams - 3 cases
6. State Courts - 11 cases
7. Government Departments - 1 case
8. Regents - 1 case
9. Regional House of Representatives - 1 case
10. Local governments-provincial offices of the General Elections Commission - 2 cases
11. Unidentified individuals - 25 cases

Total - 241 cases

Source: Imparsial

[Translated by James Balowski.]

New language bill won't ban foreign tongues

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2006

Jakarta – A draft bill on languages being considered by the education ministry will not forbid the use of foreign languages in public, minister Bambang Sudibyo says.

Previous reports said the bill would limit the use of foreign languages in advertising and the media, penalizing organizations that disobeyed the regulation.

A detik.com report late last week said the draft bill contained 10 chapters and 22 articles, with 11 obligating print and electronic media to use the Indonesian language. Article 12 reportedly would require product packaging, commercials, companies and buildings to carry Indonesian-language wording and names.

Speaking after a bilateral forum with Dutch Education Minister Maria Van der Houven, Bambang said the bill had not yet been finalized. "The bill is still in the form of an academic manuscript. We have not discussed the legal penalties yet," he said.

While the draft is being considered, the ministry will make the final decision on the ultimate form of the bill, he said. "The ministry will use its initiative to propose such a regulation if it is considered necessary."

Bambang said the main purpose of the bill was to help Indonesians master foreign tongues without hindering the proper use of the national language.

The bill would also protect the use of the many rich indigenous languages that exist in the country, he said. "The main point is how to make the use of foreign languages proportional, without jeopardizing our own languages."

Education ministry language center head Dendy Sugono, who helped draft the bill, said the proposed legislation did not yet contain any regulations limiting the public use of foreign languages.

However, Dendy said the use of Indonesian, as an important tool for national unity, should remain paramount over other languages like English. Nowadays, Indonesian is too often being replaced by foreign languages, he said, "probably because of the influence of globalization".

Indonesian words for new concepts should be used instead of their international equivalents, with "email" becoming "pos-el", he said. The center has already compiled 340,000 new words for new concepts in science, economics and information technology.

A spokesperson for House of Representatives Commission X on education told detik.com recently that the bill on language was currently not a top priority. The commission will first consider a bill making schools into financial institutions, the spokesperson said.

Labour issues

1,336 die in work-related accidents

Detik.com - January 12, 2006

Luhur Hertanto, Jakarta – There is cause for concern. The level of work-related incidents in Indonesia appears to still be high. Data from the state insurance company PT Jamsostek notes that between 2004-2005 there were 95,418 work-related accidents. Of this total, 1,336 were fatal.

The Jamsostek data was quoted by the Minister for Labour and Transmigration Erman Suparno in greetings at the opening of the Work Safety and Health Month (K3) at the Vice Presidential Palace on Jalan Medan Merdeka Selatan in Jakarta on Thursday January 12.

The greetings were read out by the secretary general of the Department for Labour and Transmigration Hari Hariawan because Suparno was in Bukit Tinggi, West Sumatra where he was participating in an informal meeting between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.

Based on Jamsostek's data, the accidents occurred in 6,114 cities. Aside from those that died, work-related accidents also resulted in 2,932 people being partially incapacitated and 60 totally incapacitated.

Because of this therefore, the department will continue to promote the K3 campaign. "The percentage and frequency [of accidents] has declined compared to the previous period, but the figure is still high. Socialisation of K3 will be carried out continuously in order to increase public awareness", Suparno said in the greetings read by Hariawan.

The opportunity was also used to present awards to companies that have consistently implemented K3. Awards for the category of zero accidents were given to 213 companies and K3 management system certificates given to 117 companies. Awards were also given to local governments that have successfully setup K3 programs in their regions. There were 20 out of 110 regencies/cities that received the award. (iy)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

2,796 Central Java workers face dismissal in 2006

Detik.com - January 12, 2006

Triono Wahyu Sudibyo, Semarang – Fuel price increases at the end of last year are still resulting in "casualties". Based on 2006 data from the Surabaya Social Revelation Foundation (Yawas), at least 2,786 workers in Central Java are threaded with dismissal.

In addition to the fuel price increases, the threat of dismissals has also caused by increases to electricity rates. The companies that are likely to carry out dismissals are PT Pagilaran, Batang (plantation), PT Hanil, Boyolali (textile), cigarette industries in Solo, PT Semen Cibinong, PT Suryatek Magelang (textile), PT Tunas Kencana Magelang and PT Karya Utama Magelang (roof tiles).

"In 2005 there were indications that they would dismiss their workers. Basically they are finding it very difficult to pay workers since the fuel and electricity prices were raised", said Yawas director Nur Fuad Ali at his office on Jalan Sri Widodo Selatan in Semarang on Thursday January 12.

Based on a ranking by total number of workers, the Solo cigarette industry ranked highest with 3,288 workers followed by PT Pagilaran (2,000), PT Hanil (1,000) and PT Suryatek Magelang (385). The three other companies employ less than 100 workers.

If the dismissals do take place, it will be worse than 2005 when around 8,802 workers were dismissed. "The typical reason for dismissals at that time was companies going bankrupt. This could have happened because of increases in production costs as a result of the fuel and electricity price increase", said Fuad.

Last year, the business sectors that suffered most were the textile, clothing and leather industries. As may as 5,115 workers in these industries were dismissed. This was followed by the timber (580 workers) and pharmaceutical (176 workers) industries.

Many of the companies that declared bankruptcy did so because of labour unrest. In the period July-December 2005, there were 126 cases of worker demonstrations. "The majority of them were demanding higher wages. This is also because of the flow on effect from fuel and electricity price increases", Fuad explained.

Worker demonstrations took place in 30 cities/regencies in Central Java in 2005. This means that there were only five cities/regencies where there was no worker unrest but this was because the small number of workers in these areas. The city that had the most frequent worker demonstrations was Semarang and Purwokerto.

"With this data, the government should act more carefully and side with workers. At any rate if workers are dismissed as unemployment will further spread", said Fuad hopefully. (nrl)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Jakarta hikes minimum wage up to 8%

Jakarta Post - January 11, 2006

Jakarta – Jakarta's factory workers and laborers will be getting a pay raise this month, but it falls short of accommodating higher-priced commodities amid soaring inflation.

The provincial monthly minimum wage is to increase at rates ranging from 5 percent to 8 percent in designated industrial sectors, effective as of Jan. 1.

The average increase is from Rp 711,843 (US$71) to Rp 819,100 – still lower than the Rp 824,026 in neighboring Bekasi.

The increase – determined from a series of tripartite meetings between local manpower officials, labor union representatives and businesspeople – is also considerably lower than the national year-on-year inflation rate of 17.11 percent for 2005.

Labor representatives had sought a 20 percent increase.

"The governor agreed to the wage board's recommendation to increase the minimum wage... And, of course, it won't please everybody," Jakarta Manpower Agency head Ali Zubeir said on Monday.

National Labor Union chairman Suparman said the increase was the best that could be expected under the difficult economic circumstances.

"This is the answer. We understand that many industries are in crisis due to the recent fuel price hike and rising inflation rate."

Minimum wage rates were determined by the manpower ministry until the implementation of regional autonomy in 2001; they have since been fixed by tripartite committees with the approval of the governor.

Gubernatorial Regulation No. 2444/2005, signed on Dec. 30, 2005, determines varying increases for four different major industrial categories (small and medium scale industries can continue to use the 2005 standard).

The first category – covering food, drink, tobacco and textile industries – has a minimum wage of Rp 860,055.

A minimum wage of Rp 868,246 is in effect for workers in construction, nonforeign exchange banks, fuel and carpet industries.

Those employed in industries producing automotive and bicycle equipment, pharmaceuticals, dairy products, paint, soap, household cleaners and cosmetics are entitled to a minimum wage of Rp 876,437.

The highest increase – Rp 884,628 – is reserved for workers in industries producing heavy equipment and electrical devices.

Ali said four companies – Eva Sari Hospital, PT Mas Huri, the Workers Cooperative of LIA Foundation and PT Catur Nusantara – have filed objections to the new wage rate due to financial problems, but he warned businesspeople to abide by its implementation.

"For companies that object to the increase in the minimum wage of their employees, they must first discuss the matter with their respective labor unions. If they fail to do so, then I will send them warning letters."

Land/rural issues

Fishermen cannot afford to stop using formaldehyde

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2006

Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandar Lampung – Ten-year-old Sururi helped his father unload empty containers and dozens of kilograms of fresh fish caught during two nights at sea. The empty containers had held formaldehyde.

A recent public scare over the use of formaldehyde in food has not deterred fishermen from using the dangerous chemical to keep their catches looking fresh longer.

The fishermen of Gudang Lelang village in Bandarlampung, as well as others, pour the formaldehyde into the fish barrels while at sea, where people cannot glimpse them.

Ahmad, not his real name, said on Wednesday he was "forced" by financial circumstances to use formaldehyde, which was far less expensive than ice blocks or refrigeration.

A liter of formaldehyde costs about Rp 10,000 (US$1), which is enough to preserve 10 tons of fish. It would take at least 300 ice blocks – each priced at Rp 15,000 – to preserve the same amount of fish. He added that formaldehyde not only kept the fish looking fresh, it also discouraged flies.

Without formaldehyde, Ahmad said, it would be difficult to earn enough money to support his family, particularly since higher fuel prices had increased operational costs, while fish prices remained largely unchanged.

"A kilogram of red carp sells for between Rp 15,000 and Rp 20,000, the same price over the past year. Meanwhile, the cost of going out to sea has doubled due to the fuel price increases," he said.

Although diesel fuel is officially priced at between Rp 4,200 and Rp 4,000 a liter at filling stations, fishermen must pay Rp 5,000 per liter. For a single trip, Ahmad spends Rp 84,000 on fuel. With his small traditional boat, it takes him two nights on the open sea to bring back a decent catch.

"I cannot use ice blocks to preserve the fish because I stay out for two nights. If I used ice blocks, my fish would be spoiled by the time I got into port," he explained. On a typical trip, he can bring in 70 kilograms of fish. "I cannot keep up with fishermen in the big trawlers," Ahmad said.

Large-scale fishermen like Andi, not his real name, also cite costs as their reason for using formaldehyde. He employs a crew of 10 and spends millions of rupiah for a single 14-day outing. Before fuel prices went up, it cost him up to Rp 10 million to make a two-week trip in the open sea, but now he claims the cost is Rp 25 million. "The biggest cost is diesel fuel. The boat needs about 140 liters of diesel fuel for a trip," said the Makassar native.

For a two-week stay at sea, he would need at least 700 ice blocks to keep his fish fresh, at a cost of over Rp 10 million. "The profit is not much, I even lose money," said Andi, explaining his reason for using formaldehyde.

Natural disasters

Act before disasters, NGOs tell government

Jakarta Post - January 13, 2006

Jakarta – An alliance of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) urged the government on Thursday to take serious measures to protect citizens from natural disasters. The NGOs, grouped in the People's Coalition for Disaster Prevention, said government agencies had designed several disaster prevention schemes, but the plans were rarely implemented.

The Ministry of Public Works, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, and the National Coordination Body for Natural Disaster Relief all have maps of areas vulnerable to natural disasters, but the documents are sitting on shelves and not getting to the people who need them, the groups said.

"The government should prepare people living in vulnerable areas for possible disasters by providing them with information and facilities," the coalition said in a statement. The group also proposed local governments allocate more of their budgets for disaster prevention.

Landslides triggered by heavy rains have hit some densely populated areas in Java in recent weeks. More than 100 people have been killed and hundreds of displaced families have been forced to live in tents.

Who's to blame for mudslide calamity?

Jakarta Post - January 11, 2006

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Banjarnegara, Central Java – Policeman Supriyanto has a tale to tell about what the simple villagers' feel about the sufferings that last week's deadly landslide has brought them.

"They feel guilty that they had hurt Mother Nature," said Supriyanto, who was part of the effort to recover the scores of people buried alive in Sijeruk village, Banjarnegara. "It's our fault," he quoted a remorseful villager.

In recent years, a large swathes along the slopes of scenic Mount Pawinian have been converted into plantations, and many trees on the slopes have been illegally cut down. Such activities have been on the increase recently as financial pressures mount, he said.

Deputy Banjarnegara regent Hadi Supeno knew about the illegal logging, but decided not speak up until the calamity he feared eventually came. The disaster struck four neighborhood units in the village last week, killing at least 75 people and displacing over 500 residents, as well as causing about Rp 6 billion in losses.

"Top state officials have denied that the disaster was caused by deforestation. Well, my findings prove that wrong," Hadi told visiting State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar on Sunday. "After three days of investigating, we found that some parts of Mount Pawinian, where the mudslide originated, had been denuded."

Then he presented video footage showing piles of logs – pines and rasamala (altingia excelsa), which are endemic to the area – scattered over the 30 hectares of protected forest. He also found a one hectare in the forest that had been converted into banana and ginger plantation to cover up the denuded plots.

Hadi's findings challenge the opinion of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Minister of Forestry Malam Sambat Ka'ban, who have rejected the theory that deforestation caused the disaster as satellite images show that the mountain was covered by thick forests.

It also goes against the argument that deforestation did not contribute to the flash floods and mudslide that hit Jember and Banjarnegara regencies, pointing out that continuous heavy rainfall was the cause. "We are yet to find who was doing the illegal logging," Hadi said.

Minister Rachmat was impressed by Hadi's findings, which he considered to be "hard facts", and thus more convincing than interpreting satellite images. He promised an investigation to find the perpetrators.

He also cautioned people against occupying precarious areas such as hills and riverbanks, which could put them in the path of such disasters.

"For example, people should not have been allowed to reside in Sijeruk village because it stands on a steep incline," he said. In Sijeruk, most of the village was buried under 10 hectares of mud at dawn on Jan. 4.

The Java Regional Environmental Management Office (PPLH Jawa) has its own theory about the tragedy. In its report, it said the area is prone to tectonic movements and has high rainfall. The report also says that in addition to heavy rains that battered the area for seven straight days before the disaster, mild earthquakes shook the area. Banjarnegara Office of Meteorology and Geophysics (BMG) recorded a series of tremors ranging between 1.5 and 2.6 on the Richter scale.

According to the PPLH report, the mudslide came from a section on the slope at 1,200 meters above sea level, where deforestation took place, hitting the village which is located at an altitude of 800 meters.

Another report from the state ministry of environment also shows that some areas in the protected forests have been denuded of endemic trees and therefore allow too much runoff water during heavy rains, which turn into mudslides consisting of rocks and soil.

In 1999, the government issued a decree permitting the allocation of small-scale local concessions of 100 hectares for community forestry to allow them to earn money by exploiting the forest.

However, the PPLH Jawa report says there is no buffer zone drawing the limit lines for residents to exploit, thus tempting the residents to expand outward to more of the forest.

"There is an indication that (state-owned forest concession holder) Perhutani has neglected its monitoring function in the forest, especially when it comes to cutting of pine threes and conversion of land to plantations," the report says.

Sources close to the regencies and the state ministry suspect that some officials at the state forestry company Perhutani, which is supposed to manage the forests on Java, collaborated with the villagers to convert land in the protected forest into plantations.

Landslide risk in 97 Central Java areas: Study

Jakarta Post - January 11, 2006

Suherdjoko, Semarang – A joint study by three Yogyakarta universities has found that 97 districts in 27 of Central Java's 35 regencies and cities are at risk for landslides.

The results of the study, conducted by the departments of geological engineering at Gadjah Mada University, Pembangunan Nasional University and Sekolah Tinggi Teknik Nasional, were disclosed on Monday by the head of the Central Java Mining and Energy Office, Teguh Dwi Paryono.

"The truth is, there are numerous incidents of large landslides taking place during the rainy season, but since most occur in areas that are sparsely populated they never make the headlines," he said.

A landslide swept through Sijeruk village in Banjarnegara regency, Central Java, last Wednesday, killing 75. Last Sunday, flash floods and landslides in two separate locations in Jember regency, East Java, killed at least 79 people.

The 97 districts identified in the study are located in Banjarnegara, Kebumen, Purworejo, Banyumas, Cilacap, Pemalang, Purbalingga, Tegal, Brebes, Batang, Pekalongan, Wonosobo, Temanggung, Magelang, Semarang city and regency, Grobogan, Kendal, Jepara, Kudus, Pati, Rembang, Blora, Boyolali, Wonogiri, Karanganyar and Sragen.

Teguh said that in Banjarnegara regency alone, six districts were considered prone to landslides.

In Purworejo regency, where a landslide killed two people in January and a large landslide killed 55 in 2000, five districts were identified as being at risk for landslides.

"We have distributed maps to regency and city administrations in Central Java. We hope the administrations do something to minimize the danger of future incidents and prevent more people from becoming victims," Tegus said.

He said administrations could use the maps to warn people living in danger areas to seek safer ground in the event of heavy rains.

Indramayu flood affects thousands

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2006

Nana Rukmana, Indramayu – Thousands of houses in 12 villages in the West Java regency of Indramayu have been inundated by floodwaters, and residents fear the flooding will lead to crop failures in the rice-producing region.

No casualties have been reported in the flooding, which began on Sunday, but material losses are estimated at billions of rupiah.

The regency's three main rivers – Cilalanang, Ciperawan and Sumbermas – have all overflown their banks, swamping houses, roads, government offices and schools.

The head of the Indramayu Irrigation Office, Rukanda, said at least 1,500 houses in three districts – Kandanghaur, Gabuswetan and Bongas – as well as about 1,000 hectares of rice fields, were submerged beneath 40 to 60 centimeters of floodwater.

He blamed torrential rain for causing the three rivers to burst their banks. Heavy rain has fallen on Indramayu since Sunday.

"The three rivers, which run through the three districts, could not handle the downpour," said Rukanda.

Indramayu Regent Irianto M.S. Syafiuddin has put flood-affected areas on alert status.

"The alert status is intended to help prevent a greater loss of life or property. We also want people to be prepared for the possible consequences of the floods, such as disease and food shortages. The fist step we will take is to send medical staff and food aid to flood-affected areas," Irianto said on Wednesday.

He also instructed the local disaster response team and related agencies, including the public works office and the agriculture office, to survey the flood damage. Indramayu Agriculture Office head Kustomo Tamkani expressed concern over possible crop failures in the regency. "If the floodwaters do not subside in a week's time, we fear it will be difficult to avoid harvest failures," he said.

Regent Irianto said he expected material losses from the flooding to be extensive.

"We estimate that damage from the floods could reach Rp 2 billion, just from residents' homes and rice fields, excluding public facilities like places of worship, schools and government offices. A number of village administrative offices have also been damaged in the flooding," he said.

On Wednesday, some flood victims were evacuated to higher ground, while others have moved in with relatives not affected by the flooding.

"We are afraid to return home because their is still 40 centimeters of water in our house. We are afraid of disease," said Darman, a resident of Kertamulya village in Bongas district.

Indramayu Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Djoko Purbo has deployed hundreds of officers to guard houses abandoned by their owners.

"We have deployed an adequate number of personnel to guard the houses. We are sure the houses will be safe," he said.

Disasters a result of 'disregard' for land use allocations

Jakarta Post - January 9, 2006

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – The saying "home sweet home" no longer applies to Sijeruk residents in the Central Java town of Banjarnegara, who lost most of their property after a massive mudslide buried their village last week.

"I will never return home again. I will move to a safer village," said Sutarno, who lost 11 of his relatives. They are among dozens of people who are believed to have been buried alive in the mud.

The search for bodies ended on Saturday after 58 bodies had been recovered.

Dulhadi, 53, also said he would never go back to his village and asked the local administration to resettle him and his neighbors.

Banjarnegara authorities have responded to the demand, allocating between 3 hectares and 5 hectares of land and Rp 12 billion (US$1.25 million) to relocate the victims. The land is two kilometers away from the disaster site.

Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) executive director Chalid Mohammad, however, said resettlement would be ineffective if it was not comprehensive in nature.

Based on an analysis of satellite images and field checks, Walhi says there have been widespread changes to land use allocations in the disaster area, indicating violations of the local spatial planning.

Therefore, Chalid urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to order governors, regents and mayors to declare disaster analysis and environment management mandatory elements of the spatial planning conducted by their administrations.

"Walhi has written to the President expressing concern about the violation of land use regulations," he said.

In its letter, a copy of which was made available to The Jakarta Post, Walhi urges the head of the state to avoid resettlement programs that would actually lead to further suffering, such as transmigration.

The Volcanological and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center had earlier revealed that over 100 districts in 50 regencies on Java island were prone to large-scale landslides, including the area around Sijeruk village.

Director of the center, Yousana Oloan P. Siagian, said maps had been sent to regional administrations last year to serve as references for reviews of their spatial plans.

When asked whether the disasters in Jember and Banjarnegara were the result of the local administrations' failure to heed the warning, Yousana refused to comment.

"Our job is mainly to disseminate information," he said on Friday after a meeting with Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie to discuss the setting up of a disaster early warning mechanism.

Executive Director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), Indro Sugianto, urged the government to amend the Environment Protection Law (No.23/1997) so as to permit the Office of the State Minister for the Environment to review spatial plans drawn up by local administrations.

"The government should also revise the present Spatial Planning Law to protect the country's environment and the lives of its people," he said.

(With additional reporting from Slamet Susanto and Blontak Poer in Banjarnegara)

Government/civil service

House still struggling to repair tattered image

Jakarta Post - January 13, 2006

Dwi Atmanta, Jakarta – Lawmakers from the House of Representatives resumed their sitting on Thursday, with their wish for a prosperous New Year fulfilled.

The 550 legislators are now paid double their salaries of last year, which were about Rp 24 million (US$2,500) per month, while most workers and public servants have seen their salaries rise only by an average 15 percent.

More speedy deliberation of bills can be expected, thanks to changes in the political constellation within the House as a result of the Cabinet reshuffle last month. Except the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which recently reconfirmed its opposition stance, all the major factions at the House are serving the interests of political parties that are represented in the Cabinet of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Lawmakers now feel more secure, after the completion of a Rp 2 billion fence in front of the House building. No protesters or people who wish to articulate their aspirations will be able to force their way into the House compound, thanks to this towering concrete and metal fence. Even the fence around the Presidential Palace is much more people-friendly.

That was why House Speaker Agung Laksono was brimming with confidence when he said on Thursday the House would allocate 60 percent of its working hours to deliberating 28 bills until March 24, when they go into recess. If the target is met, the House will set a new post-New Order record for the number of draft laws endorsed.

With only 40 effective work days, the House will approve at least one bill every day from now to March 24. Like civil servants in the capital, lawmakers work five days a week.

The target seems a little optimistic, if not unreasonable, as a bill requires intensive deliberation, to ensure the interests of the 220 million Indonesians are looked after. It seems unlikely this can be done in just two or three days.

Opening its first sitting of 2006, the House has much to do about restoring its waning public trust.

The public is not interested in hearing lawmakers talk about what they plan to do, but wants to see some action that signals the lawmakers are at least trying to live up to their mandate as the people's representatives.

It is worth noting that the House enters the new year on the heels of the 2005 Global Barometer Report, which found that political parties in 44 countries, including Indonesia, are viewed as the corrupt institutions.

The report was based on public perception, but to some extent it was credible, at least here in Indonesia, where dozens of politicians, holding legislative seats ranging from the House to the regency legislatures, have been prosecuted or sent to prison for their involvement in graft, mostly concerning the misuse of budget allocations entrusted to the legislative bodies.

Earlier, the House disciplinary council recommended a recall of two lawmakers for brokering the disbursement of relief funds for regional governments. No action has been taken so far by the political parties in response to the recommendation.

The reputation of lawmakers has been at stake following the constitutional amendments that granted them more powers, which originally were intended to make the system of checks and balances work. During the New Order era, which came to an end in 1998, the House was known for its rubber-stamping work.

The last elections in 2004, called the most democratic polls ever held in the country, failed to select true people's representatives. The fact is only two out of 550 legislative candidates won the minimum votes required to secure a House seat, while the majority were able to join the elite group only because they were the top candidates of their respective parties.

The current power of political parties is reflected in their authority to select legislative candidates and nominees for executive posts, ranging from the president to regents.

But it is the struggle for power that has kept politicians from their constituents. The tall fence literally separates the lawmakers from the people they are supposed to represent.

In contrast to the House, President Susilo is winning more and more credit and public trust for his government's ceaseless fight against corruption, which now has reached the judge corps, which used to be seen as untouchable.

The House's fading reputation could be a blessing in disguise for Susilo, as he wishes for a stable administration in the coming year.

Official says 'error' caused state losses

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2006

Jakarta – A "procedural error" meant the government lost up to Rp 1.7 trillion (about US$180 million) in unpaid rent from the Hilton Hotel, the Attorney General's Office (AGO) was told on Wednesday.

Golkar Party legislator Mahadi Sinambela told the AGO the error meant the hotel had occupied 270 hectares of state land at the Bung Karno Sports Complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta, for years without paying the proper fees.

The AGO interdepartmental antigraft team summoned Mahadi, a former deputy chairman of Bung Karno Stadium management, to explain the irregularities found in a recent audit of government assets.

"There was an error in the procedure for the issuance of the extension of the Hilton's Building Use Permit (HGB) by the National Land Affairs Agency (BPN) because PT Indobuildco, the owner of the Hilton Hotel, did not ask permission from the State Secretariat," Mahadi told reporters after the interrogation. The use of all buildings located state land must be approved by the State Secretariat before permits or extensions can be issued by the BPN.

Mahadi said PT Indobuildco violated a 1989 presidential decree because it did not process its land management rights with the Gelora Senayan management, the group responsible for the use of state land in the compound.

Mahadi's lawyer, Junaidi Matondang, told The Jakarta Post that his client has issued notification letters to the State Secretariat on Dec. 28, 1999, and to Indobuildco on Dec. 30, 1999, stating that there were procedural errors in the use of the state land on which the Hilton property was located. The BPN issued Hilton's permit extension in 2002 without paying attention to those letters.

When asked who was to blame, Junaidi refused to answer. "Let's give the team a chance to conduct further investigations into this case," he said. The team began investigating the case on Oct. 27, last year, after the AGO received a the Supreme Audit Agency report on state assets.Tomorrow, the team will question Southeast Sulawesi Governor Ali Mazi, who was a lawyer for Indobuildco when the permit was issued.

PDI-P vows to struggle on against government

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2006

Jakarta – Chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Megawati Soekarnoputri has vowed to be the voice of opposition in keeping the government in check.

"We pledge to be the opposition party," the former president said before thousands of followers and newly elected PDI-P branch heads of the Greater Jakarta Area in a speech to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the party on Jl. Proklamasi, Central Jakarta, on Wednesday. "We will continue to monitor the government in its fulfillment of its campaign promises."

Megawati told party followers that they should not doubt the party's opposition stance. "We will not blindly oppose, we will be an opposition loyal to Pancasila as the state ideology, loyal to the constitution and loyal to the people," she said.

PDI-P has acknowledged a lack of support for the party within the legislature due to its perceived ineffectiveness as an opposition force in the past year.

Members of the party, which finished second in the 2004 general election and has 109 representatives in the 550-seat House, have told the media that the remaining representatives are progovernment.

PDI-P faction head Tjahyo Kumolo said it was reasonable for a faction to support the government but contended the legislature must not act as a "supporting institution" for an administration. "The function of the House members as representatives of the people must be restored," he was quoted as saying by Koran Tempo.

PDI-P's complaints of a progovernment bias in the legislature has been criticized by other parties, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party and the winner of the 2004 general election, the Golkar Party.

Secretary of the Democratic Party faction Max Sopacua commented that opposition parties should not focus on the number of seats they hold in the legislature, but rather strive to correct misguided policies and acknowledge appropriate ones.

Corruption/collusion/nepotism

Planned immigration reform meets resistance

Jakarta Post - January 16, 2006

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's dream to have a corruption-free and efficient immigration office, which does not embarrass him at international forums, will not come easy.

His intention to totally reform the office is being challenged by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, which does not want to lose its primary revenue stream.

Justice ministry secretary-general Hasanuddin Massaile said on Saturday there was no need to separate the immigration office from the ministry because time had proven the existing model was still "the best".

The office was first put under the ministry in 1983 when it was run by minister Ali Said.

"There have been nine justice ministers since Pak Ali Said, who also raised the issue of separating the two institutions but they all backed off because they had no better alternative," Hasanuddin said.

The immigration office, which is authorized to issue passports and handle other immigration services, is one of five directorate generals under the justice ministry. The other four are the directorate general for penitentiaries, for intellectual property rights, for human rights and the directorate general for legal administration.

An official involved in the plan to reform the immigration office said the President's idea would likely spark a protracted debate.

"The immigration office is the justice ministry's backbone in terms of finance and power," the official, who asked not to be named, told The Jakarta Post.

The official criticized the ministry's plan to increase the salaries of immigration officials as the way to improve their services.

"That's hilarious. Would the salary increase boost their performance if they still have the old mentality and maintain the corrupt system? The President wants to reform the whole system," the official said.

Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin earlier said that there would be a major organizational and personnel restructuring at the office. But he also rejected the idea of splitting the office from his ministry.

Susilo has been irked by various reports about the poor performance of the immigration office, which he likens to the "face of Indonesia". He ordered total reform after he received reports from foreign investors during a recent East Asia Summit about graft involving immigration officers.

State Minister of Administrative Reform Taufik Effendi has said his office supported the separation of the immigration ministry from the justice ministry, either in the form of "a subsidiary company of a holding company" or a non-ministry institution.

Indonesia set up the immigration office in 1950 under the supervision of the ministry of justice. In 1983, the justice ministry restructured it and made it into a directorate general.

House summons TI over graft report

Jakarta Post - January 11, 2006

Jakarta – The House of Representatives (DPR) confronted on Monday Transparency International Indonesia over Transparency International's recent report, which singled out the legislative body as the most corrupt institution in Indonesia along with political parties.

Todung Mulya Lubis, who heads the TII board of directors, told legislators led by House Speaker Agung Laksono that the conclusion was made based on a comprehensive survey involving 55,000 citizens in 69 countries, including Indonesia.

"They (legislators) were able to understand our explanation," Todung said after the meeting.

TII released the TI's Global Barometer Index late last month following a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Lawyer admits graft claims 'just rumors'

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2006

Jakarta – A lawyer apologized to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Wednesday for publicly accusing his son and aides of receiving Jaguar cars as gifts from a business tycoon.

"(The story) was merely a rumor and untrue. It has been made into a political commodity by certain parties. I extend my apology to the President," Eggy Sudjana said in a statement.

Eggy made news headlines last week when he told graft watchdog the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) he had information Susilo's son and three aides had received cars from businessman Hary Tanoesudibjo.

Eggy named the three aides as Cabinet Secretary Sudi Silalahi, presidential spokesmen Andi Mallarangeng and Dino Patti Djalal, and the president's son, First Lt. Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono.

Eggy told KPK chief Taufiequr Rachman he had heard rumors the four had each received cars from Harry in exchange for ensuring the businessman was seated next to the President during a state visit to China last year.

Earlier this week, Hary reported Eggy to the police for criminal defamation. On Wednesday, Eggy ignored a police summons over the case. Instead he visited the KPK to report another alleged corruption case involving Hary.

Focus on Jakarta

Traders sickened by rat meatball program

Jakarta Post - January 13, 2006

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – By now most Jakartans have either seen or heard about the special report on TransTV on meatballs made from rats. The report aired on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, and many people have stopped eating meatball soup, or bakso, as a result.

Plummeting sales of the popular snack prompted hundreds of bakso traders to protest TransTV on Wednesday and Thursday. Some 500 members of the Greater Jakarta Bakso Traders Association were joined by 300 members of the Tangerang Bakso Traders Union on Thursday, in a rally in front of TransTV's office in South Jakarta.

They demanded the television station stop airing its investigative report and make reparations for the losses caused by the program.

"We demand the TV station stop airing the program, which has hurt bakso traders in Tangerang," Sumardi, a representative of the Tangerang bakso traders, said. He added that since the report first aired, bakso sales had dropped by 90 percent.

"Some bakso traders have even closed their businesses. We are only small traders, and the repeated airing of the report on bakso made with rat meat will kill our business," he said.

A senior producer at TransTV confirmed the traders met with station president Ishadi SK.

"We have admitted the program was a mistake and apologized," the producer, who requested that his identity be withheld, told The Jakarta Post.

TransTV reportedly promised to stop airing the program, and will run a special report on bakso traders using proper meat.

The traders gave TransTV two weeks to air the new report, and threatened more protests if the deadline was not met.

Floodwaters swell as residents take to rooftops

Jakarta Post - January 14, 2006

Adianto P Simamora, Jakarta – There are no floods in the city for months and then they happen all at once. In Jakarta, when it rains, it does indeed pour.

The rain over the past week alerted people living on the banks of Ciliwung River to the possibility of floods.

So, when the river – which divides the sub-districts of Kampung Pulo, East Jakarta, and Bukit Duri, South Jakarta – burst its banks at 5 a.m. on Friday, they were ready.

Valuables, such as photo albums, electronic appliances and motorcycles, were moved upstairs and residents made their way to shelters at Santa Maria Fatimah school and Attauwabin mosque, both nearby.

"At least five neighborhood units were flooded. In my area, floodwaters in at least 40 houses were two meters deep," a woman who was breast-feeding her child at the shelter, Mariam, told The Jakarta Post.

Mariam said she and other residents were informed by the subdistrict head at 1 a.m. the floodwaters had risen to one-and-a-half meters. "We saved our belongings as there was a two-hour window during which we could carry them upstairs," she said. The floodwaters reached two meters at 10 a.m on Friday.

"Many people are huddled on rooftops or are keeping to the second floor... They won't leave unless the floodwaters reach three meters deep," Mariam said. One hundred Kampung Melayu residents whose homes were flooded are sheltering at the school.

The flood, caused by heavy rain in Bogor, West Java, also inundated housing complexes like Pamalang and Reni in Sawangan district.

Although Kampung Dalang, which is near Jl. MT Haryono, East Jakarta, remains dry residents have stowed away their belongings.

Sirait, 50, said she moved electronic goods, mattresses and clothing upstairs. "Look at my living room, it's empty now... You could play soccer... But I decided to leave the cupboard there because it's too heavy to move," she said.

Her house was badly damaged in last year's floods, when the water in her home was five meters deep. "I just renovated this house. Half of it and our belongings were swept away in the flood last year. Thank God, my family was out of harm's way," the mother of four said.

She said if the waters continued to rise people would evacuate to higher ground near hypermarket Carrefour. "We can't sleep well anymore, three times this week we were on high alert," she said.

Flooding is an annual occurrence in Jakarta. The worst flood in recent history took place in 2002, killing 31 people and forcing 300,000 residents to leave their homes. The most-affected people are those living in low-lying areas along Ciliwung River.

Huge floods in the city are usually caused by heavy rain both in Jakarta and its upper areas – Bogor and Depok – as well as a high tide in the northern sea.

Jakarta has 78 areas that are prone to flooding, most of which are in North Jakarta.

The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said the peak of the rainy season in the capital was expected between January and February.

Open green spaces in city eaten up by development

Jakarta Post - January 9, 2006

Bambang Parlupi, Jakarta – Air pollution in Jakarta is causing increasing concern, with air quality failing to improve significantly from year to year. Seventy percent of this pollution comes from motor vehicles, 25 percent from industry and the remaining from other activities like burning rubbish.

At present, the total of motor vehicles in Jakarta on the basis of vehicle registration reaches 6.3 million. At least 21,000 motor vehicles are estimated to be on the roads at any given hour.

The millions of motor vehicles emit dangerous emissions. Carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxide (NO), lead (Pb) and fine particles (PM10) become harmful substances if highly concentrated in the air. They also turn toxic upon entering the human body through respiration, skin absorption and ingestion. Jakarta citizens have to bear the consequences of polluting the air.

"Since 1999, acute respiratory infection has been one of the 10 major diseases affecting Jakartans," said Kosasih Wirahadikusuma, head of the Jakarta Environmental Impact Management Agency.

Vehicle exhaust may affect child intelligence. If too much lead is absorbed in the blood and affects brain cells, thought capacity is reduced.

Research conducted by Dr. Budi Susilo from the School of Environmental Science, the University of Indonesia, indicates that air pollution can cause acid rain that has very harmful effects on human health and the environment.

In Jakarta, acid rain was once recorded in the Pulogadung Industrial Estate, East Jakarta. "It may cause cancer and baldness in men while disrupting the ecosystem," he said.

Several things can be done to improve the quality of air in Jakarta. One of the methods as suggested by Kosasih is to launch replanting drives for the expansion of green areas. "Basically, trees can naturally absorb air pollutants. Those with broad leaves have a greater absorption capacity than those with small leaves," he noted.

In this context, the Jakarta administration has been striving to communicate its Regional Regulation No.2/2005 on air pollution control, to the general public. Article 26, Paragraph 1 of the regulation stipulates that every individual or manager of a business or activity is obliged to attempt to develop open green space for air quality restoration.

As a penalty, Article 41 specifies that any violation of the provision in Article 26, Paragraph 1 is liable to a maximum prison term of six months or a maximum fine of Rp 50 million.

"The regulation, prepared three years ago, will come into force in February 2006," added Kosasih.

Based on a study by the Landscape Development Institute, School of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Technology, Trisakti University, Jakarta, in 2003, the capital city needs 23,000 ha of open green space for air quality control and pollutant gas absorption, meaning about 35 percent of Jakarta's total area. But its open green space target for 2010 is only 13.94 percent (9,544 ha).

It implies that by 2010 Jakarta will only have a water resorption capacity of 54 percent and air quality control capacity of 40 percent. In fact, one hectare of open green space is capable of absorbing 736,000 liters of water, producing 0.6 ton of oxygen for consumption by 1,500 people daily, transferring 4,000 liters of water equivalent to a temperature reduction of 5 degrees to 8 degrees centigrade daily, and muffling noise by 25 percent to 80 percent.

Jakarta need more green areas to ease pollution

Jakarta Post - January 9, 2006

Bambang Parlupi, Jakarta – As Jakarta's population has grown to over 11 million, the city has failed to balance this expansion by increasing the size of its greenbelts, or open green spaces (RTHs). This problem has been exacerbated by the continued loss of open spaces meant to serve as an urban buffer zone.

The Jakarta Master Plan for 1965-1985, when the capital had a maximum population of 7.1 million, the appropriate amount of RTH for the city was set at 18,000 hectares. But according to the Jakarta Spatial Layout for 2005, the RTH stood at only 16,908 hectares.

The 2005 spatial layout identified the city's open green spaces as parks (3,553 hectare), protected urban forests, city greening areas, lake buffers and river buffers (2,660 hectares), cemeteries (570 hectares) and agricultural space, including residential yards, crop fields and livestock and fish farms.

In the Regional Spatial Layout for 2010, Jakarta's RTH target is set at 9,554.81 hectares. The open green spaces will include urban forests and parks (1,924.78 hectares), cemeteries (745.18 hectares), agricultural areas (3,656.1 hectares) and buffer zones around freeways, high-voltage transmission lines, etc.

Yayat Supriyatna, an open space researcher and city planning lecturer at Trisakti University in Jakarta, said the capital's greenbelts were too limited, and those greenbelts that existed were under considerable threat. "Ideally, open spaces should constitute 30 percent of the city's territory," he said.

He said Jakarta remained short of open space because, even based on the city's RTH target of 9,544 hectares for 2010, only 7,390 hectares had been realized by 2003, leaving 2,154 hectares of open space to be created. And the amount of open space already reached is far below the ideal standard of 30 percent for major cities, which is even more difficult to achieve given the growth of Jakarta, which now covers 66,252 hectares.

"As the years go by, the open space is shrinking more and more," noted Yayat, which he blamed on the shared ownership of the RTH. This, he said, was a constraint on the sustainability of greenbelts in urban areas.

He said environmental conditions would deteriorate along with the gradual disappearance of open spaces. Urban forests are shrinking, public parks are becoming smaller and swamp areas are being converted into settlements, offices and industrial estates. The habitat of urban wildlife is under threat as the city loses more of its natural buffers.

Yayat suggested the government provide incentives and compensation so that individuals and institutions that control open spaces will be more willing to maintain the greenbelts. Most of Jakarta's RTH is under private, semiprivate or public ownership.

Speaking to environmental activists during an Air Pollution Advocacy Training program in December, Yayat recommended that river plains, as RTH zones, should be protected. According to regulations, greenbelts along river banks should measure 100 meters to 150 meters in rural areas and 25 meters to 50 meters in urban areas.

"Now the question is who controls the RTHs along the river plains, notably in major cities like Jakarta. It is well known that lots of settlements and even government offices have been built along rivers," he said.

The data indicate that in Jakarta, river plains cover 1,384 hectares over 280 kilometers, but only 15 percent of the river plains remains undamaged, with the remainder being home to 14,000 buildings and over 71,000 people.

In his view, little thought is now given to open green spaces in city planning. Jakarta, at one time, attempted to apply the concept of urban greening through a one million trees planting campaign.

"But where would the one million trees be planted? Theoretically, there is a shortage of land for the trees," said Yayat, who took part in replanting critical land around Lake Toba in North Sumatra in the 1980s.

Also, some RTH areas in Jakarta have not been optimally developed because of mistakes in the selection of trees and plants. Frequently, in the process of regreening an area, the seedlings used are not carefully chosen to produce good and healthy trees. Consequently, thousands of trees have failed to thrive due to inferior seedlings.

Yayat also pointed to the poor legal handling of some environmental. He said public parks, urban forests and lakes have disappeared, with no one ever being taken to court over the destruction. An example is the construction of a shopping center in a former marshy zone, resulting from a licensing irregularity.

"The city's spatial layout has thus changed due to such legal problems," he noted.

Meanwhile, many swampy areas have been turned into residential areas, including in Cengkareng, West Jakarta. There are also hundreds of thousands of people illegally dwelling along riverbanks in Ciliwung, which are owned by the state. Yayat attributed this to improper government handling of state property, leading to illegal construction along the rivers.

According to Kosasih Wirahadikusuma, head of Jakarta's Environmental Management Body, open space is vital for urban life, esthetically as well as socially. "Natural air cooling is one of the RTH's most important functions, especially in Jakarta with its high temperatures," he said.

The Menteng area in Central Jakarta has retained its healthy RTH since the Dutch colonial era. "The Jakarta administration has maintained its policies so that Menteng will not turn into a commercial zone," Kosasih said.

Several urban forests are also in excellent condition, like Srengseng Sawah in West Jakarta (15 hectares), Halim in East Jakarta (3.5 hectares), the area around the Bung Karno Sports Stadium in Senayan, and the river basin forest of Pesanggrahan in Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta (40 hectares).

Yayat said Singapore had better open space than Jakarta, though both cover about the same amount of territory. The Singapore government has educated people about the importance of greenbelts, raising public awareness about their function in an urban landscape. He said Jakarta must follow suit, teaching schoolchildren about the importance of open space at an early age.

Islam/religion

Former Jihad members get lecture

Jakarta Post - January 16, 2006

M. Azis Tunny, Ambon – Dressed in distinctive attire of turbans and white robes, hundreds of former members of Muslim hardline group Laskar Jihad filed into the Al-Fatah Grand Mosque here.

Their presence was not for a mass prayer service, but to hear lectures on the meaning of terrorism and jihad (holy war) – the latter often cited by terrorists in the wave of bombings in the country in recent years.

With the gathering tightly guarded by police, the men listened to a lecture by ustad (cleric) Luqman Ba'abduh, the author of Mereka Adalah Terrorists (They are terrorists), a work which refuted the arguments of Imam Samudra – one of the Bali bombers in 2002 – in his Aku Melawan Terroris (I'm fighting terrorists).

The two-day event, organized by the Abu Bakr Ash-Shiddiq Foundation, was also attended by Indonesian Military and National Police officers.

Luqman put jihad in historical context by focusing on the Khawarij, an Islamic splinter group in the first century whose rebellious actions have are often used today to justify terrorist acts by Imam Samudra and others.

The sect's members believed they could oppose authority if they considered that it was not abiding by the principles of divine law.

The cleric said the Prophet Muhammad foretold the presence of the Khawarij as one of the 73 groups in Islam, and the ideology, despite opposition from the Prophet's followers, persisted. Emotional, foolish actions belied the declared religious fervor of the followers, he added.

"During the era of Khalifah Ali bin Abi Thalib, their power was built on support from 60,000 followers, who faced widespread opposition. However, their ideology and thoughts persist until now," Luqman said.

"Their ideology and actions along the course of history have taken millions of Muslim victims, including three of the Prophet's best friends, namely Umar bin Khattab, Usman bin Affan and Ali bin Abi Thalib."

Khawarijism continues as a latent danger among contemporary Muslims, he said, with its followers believing they are divinely empowered to overthrow governments and oppose those, including other Muslims, who they considered infidels.

They proclaimed the rallying cry of amar ma'ruf nahi munkar, meaning the enforcing of sharia law, to explain their actions. "However, the slogan is only a lie as it is done just to gain support from Muslims," he said.

Terror attacks and suicide bombing are all part of the actions by Khawarij group members, he reiterated. In order to wipe out this group, Luqman said, there should be two different methods – fighting their ideology and by using physical force to arrest them.

Islamic boarding school confronts terrorist image

Jakarta Post - January 14, 2006

Blontank Poer, Surakarta – A thick cloud of suspicion hangs over the country's pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), with many convinced they are a breeding ground for terrorists.

The second Bali bombings last October, in which several boarding school alumni were implicated, were followed by discussion of the mass fingerprinting of students, as well as revisions to the curriculum to avoid the sowing of hatred.

It's notoriety that administrators at Al Mukmin Islamic boarding school in Sukoharjo, Central Java, say they would rather do without.

"Whenever a terrorist incident occurs, the world always points at us," director of the school, Wahyuddin, told The Jakarta Post recently. "We are constantly accused of training terrorists, while achievements of the school and students never get the attention of the media, including the national media." It will be a hard image to dispel for the school, often called Pondok Ngruki.

One of the school's cofounders 30 years ago was the late Abdullah Sungkar, who lived in exile during the New Order regime, fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and established Jamaah Islamiyah, the militant group linked to al-Qaeda.

The other cofounder was controversial cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, and several of the school's alumni were linked to the wave of bombings in the country in recent years.

A 2001 thesis written by a Ngruki alumnus, Muhammad Nursalim, estimated that at least 5,000 of Abdullah Sungkar's combat- trained followers were to be found in several countries.

"The organization's principle of struggle adapted by Ustad (cleric) Abdullah Sungkar is underground in nature. It is forbidden to reveal one's identity," a source told the Post on the condition of anonymity.

The school's alumni say the assumptions are all wrong, and they will hold a seminar on jihad and terrorism on Jan. 21-Jan. 22. Thousands of former students, many now living abroad, are expected to attend. Among the invited guests are 20 foreign embassies.

"We will hold the seminar in the school complex so that the Western envoys, who have been suspicious of Ngruki thus far, can see first hand the real conditions at the school," said an organizer, Ali Usman.

As of Thursday, the organizing committee had yet to receive confirmation on the number of foreign envoys who would attend. "Only Malaysia has stated its readiness to attend, and the Netherlands asked us to forward the complete schedule," said organizing committee head, Isfihani. At a previous seminar in 2004, only ambassadors from Germany and Japan attended.

Minister of Home Affairs Muhammad Ma'ruf is slated to open and deliver the keynote speech in the event. Other speakers will include Ma'ruf Amin, head of the Fatwa committee of the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI), who is also the initiator of the committee to rectify the curricula at Islamic boarding schools.

Ali Usman hopes the presence of the home affairs minister will persuade the foreign envoys to find out more about the school. "Come and prove for yourself whether our pesantren grooms terrorist members," said Usman jokingly.

Business & investment

Four local industries affected by WTO agreement

Jakarta Post - January 16, 2006

Jakarta – With the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on freer trade of non-agricultural products to be finalized in April, local industries must immediately make preparations to compete with future increases in imported products, business players have said.

A recent study by business associations reveals that the petrochemical, automotive, metal and machinery industries would be the most affected by the gradual decrease of import duties proposed in the WTO.

"With lower import duties of the products, more competitive goods from abroad would affect our manufacturing sector," Ministry of Industry director-general for automotive, information and communications technology Budi Darmadi said last week.

Late last year, a ministerial meeting on WTO non-agricultural market access in Hong Kong agreed that member countries would adopt a statistical scheme to gradually lower import duties that would lead to freer markets.

According to the scheme known as the Swiss formula, Indonesian petrochemical, automotive, metal and machinery products currently being protected from foreign competition with import duties of more than 20 percent would in the future have to compete with soaring imports as the duties would be cut by half.

Th non-governmental organization Third World Network has previously warned that the adoption of the Swiss formula could hurt developing countries' manufacturing sectors.

The automotive industry here, where current import duties on completely built up (CBU) products ranged between 35 percent to 70 percent, would see an increase in imports that might hurt locally producing companies.

Last year, Indonesia imported some 75,000 CBU cars from other South East Asean countries and another 15,000 from countries outside the region. Domestic automotive industries meanwhile produced 530,000 cars last year, of which most of the components were still imported.

Business players have previously stated their concern that lower import duties for CBU cars and higher component tariffs would lead to less domestic manufacturing – and less job opportunities -- because it would be more economically beneficial to import.

"We have to quickly strengthen our automotive component industry if we do not want to lose the market," Budi said.

He said the country needed more engineers in order to support a solid component industry. "We are still far behind Taiwan and China." Meanwhile, for the petrochemical industry, the most important agenda is for the government to revise its import duty policy.

"Raw materials are supposed to have lower import duties so that the processing companies could develop well," Indonesian Plastic Producers Association (Inaplast) chairman Didik Suwondo said.

Didik said that the current trend showed that at least 15 percent of plastic producers were now switching to importing goods instead of manufacturing them in the country. This, once again, led to several companies shutting down operations and more workers losing their jobs.

In order to survive a freer trade environment after the full adoption of the WTO negotiation, the government must create a different pricing mechanism for products with high competitiveness, Didik said. "Business associations should think more about what strategies could be adopted," he said.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) will hold several meetings with associations as early as next week to discuss recommendations they will make to Indonesia's WTO negotiators.

Pulp, paper industry seen as threat to forests

Jakarta Post - January 13, 2006

Jakarta – When it comes to the forestry industry, development and conservation always seem to be at loggerheads. While the government is happy to see that investment in the timber- consuming pulp and paper industry is on the rise, environmentalists warn that it should be more prudent in giving new concession rights to industry players.

Minister of Forestry M. S. Kaban said most investors were interested in investing in pulp and paper.

A group of investors from India and Malaysia offered to develop an integrated pulp and paper plant late last year, valued at some US$1.3 billion, in West Kalimantan or Central Kalimantan.

According to data from environmental group Greenomics Indonesia, 205,000 hectares of natural forest in Riau have been cleared to provide raw materials for the pulp and paper industry.

Two large pulp and paper manufacturers in Riau, PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) and PT Indah Kiat Pulp and Paper (IKPP), still obtain up to 50 percent of their raw material from natural forests, Greenomics Indonesia chairman Elfian Effendi said on Thursday.

"This is an alarming trend. All Riau's natural forests will have been cleared by 2009 if this continues, resulting in more flooding in other parts of the island," Elfian said.

"If it is proven that the companies have failed to obtain their raw materials exclusively from industrial forests, the government should revise the permits for their installed capacity," Elfian added.

RAPP and IKPP were given concession rights in the early 1990s and the late 1980s, respectively, to develop pulp and paper mills and industrial forests up to 370,000 hectares in size.

Companies given such concession rights are allowed to first clear natural forests before replanting them with homogeneous trees to supply their raw materials.

However, Law No. 41/1999 stipulates that only barren areas are allowed to be replanted as industrial forests.

Greenomics' study showed that in the last couple of years, RAPP and IKPP consumed some 8.06 million cubic meters and 7.99 million cubic meters of wood, respectively, from cleared natural forests.

RAPP, a subsidiary of the Singapore-based Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Ltd (APRIL), which is part of the Indonesian Raja Garuda Mas Group, denied the allegations.

RAPP environmental affairs manager Canesio P. Munoz said the land his company cleared was degraded forest and not productive natural forest.

A study by Greenomics, however, showed that 59 percent of industrial forest concession areas were productive natural forests.

RAPP, which has operated since 1995, said it got up to 40 percent of its raw materials from its industrial forests and that it would start getting all of the raw materials from the forests in 2009 or 2010.

It also claimed to have replanted more than 115,000 hectares of industrial forests since 2004. Meanwhile, IKPP representative Soebardjo said IKPP was still partly relying on nonindustrial forests for its raw materials.

"Our industrial forests took seven years to yield while we needed more raw materials," he explained, adding that the company would start getting 100 percent of its raw materials from industrial forests in 2009.

APP is a Singapore-registered company and part of the Asia Pulp and Paper Group.

In its Sustainability Action Plan, APP said it set aside US$7 million to fund conservation management projects in Indonesia.

Indonesia hypes the economy

Asia Times - January 10, 2006

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Despite current unfavorable economic indicators, optimistic 2006 budget parameters set by the Indonesian government assume the country's US$280 billion economy will grow by 6.2% to $304 billion, and that inflation will be pegged at about 8%, as will interest rates be pegged.

The central bank, meanwhile, predicts the economy will grow 5- 5.7%, similar to last year. Inflation slowed to 17.1% last month from a six-year high of 18.4% a month earlier, and analysts expect it to drop further. The bank's benchmark interest rate is 12.75%, and observers expect it to remain at that level or go up marginally, possibly a quarter point.

High unemployment and poverty levels carry a social-political economic risk and could even threaten stability. At least 17% of the country's 220 million people are unemployed or underemployed, and 40 million live on $2 a day or less.

"The year 2005 was not an easy year... We must examine what we did in 2005 and admit the shortcomings and weaknesses," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in his New Year's address. "Only by doing so can we move forward."

His administration had been stretched to the limit in handling a series of unforeseeable calamities, such as natural disasters and contagious diseases, he said.

In a December cabinet reshuffle, Yudhoyono made significant changes in his economic team, which had been criticized for bureaucratic inertia and failing to sufficiently improve the investment climate, as well declining growth and soaring inflation.

His appointment of former International Monetary Fund regional director Sri Mulyani as minister of finance and respected technocrat Boediono as coordinating minister for economic affairs won praise from investors and the markets.

The team's focus in 2006 will be on containing the inflation rate, maintaining macroeconomic stability and taking steps to address the remaining impediments in the investment climate. Continued efforts to strengthen the financial sector can be expected, including sound banking supervision and improvements in the asset quality of state-owned banks. This would enhance the ability of the banking sector to support private economic activity.

"Since economic stability and inflation is one of our focuses in 2006, we will do anything to ensure inflation will not go up so that by the end of 2006 we can reach our target of single-digit inflation," Boediono, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said last week.

The government plans to focus on curbing price pressures to improve consumers' purchasing power and restore economic stability.

The central bank will need to cut interest rates to boost investment and consumer spending, but conversely any further pressure on inflation and the exchange rate could see it increasing rates.

"We will accelerate spending and improve the investment climate, and will cooperate with Bank Indonesia [the central bank] to help reduce interest rates and boost investment," Boediono said.

Approved domestic and foreign investment plans last year reached Rp110.86 trillion ($11.66 billion), an increase of 88.02 % – more than Rp58.96 trillion ($6.2 billion) in 2004.

Although Rp18 trillion will be spent this year on building roads, bridges, irrigation facilities and other infrastructure to boost investment and reduce unemployment, servicing sovereign debt will account for a massive 21% of government expenditure.

The payments of Rp73.47 trillion in interest and Rp60.38 trillion in principal due this year are much higher than the mere 2.7% of the budget allocated for capital spending – badly needed to help stimulate the economy.

Inflation hit 17.1% year-on-year in December following massive fuel price rises forced on the government by soaring global oil costs and a slump in the rupiah. Expensive fuel has driven up transport costs by more than 40% and food prices have increased by 18%, says Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS-Statistics Indonesia), a government institution directly responsible to the president.

October fuel increases had pleased investors and the market but the ensuing hike in the cost of living has been a major blow to the poor. The price of kerosene, the main cooking fuel of the masses, soared by 185.71 %, while petrol increased by 87.5 % and diesel by 104.76%. Inflation also hit hardest at the lower end of the consumer sector as wealthier consumers are better placed to protect themselves against inflation.

Though inflation fell in December for the first time in seven months, the rise in inflation, along with rising interest rates, has slowed economic growth overall and put the brakes on consumer spending, with both consumer loans and credits for business expansion becoming more expensive.

This limits working capital options, economic expansion, job creation and puts the brakes on public consumption, which for several years has been the main driver of growth in the economy. Labor-intensive industries have slashed more than 1 million jobs in the past three months.

Though consumer prices fell by 0.04% in December, the first time in seven months, the fuel price increases have led to a decline in real disposable income for consumers and raised input costs for the business sector.

Unfinished business

On the business side, several other pending issues have to be addressed, such as the excessive regulatory burden, investment and labor law amendments and tax reforms. The government will push through a number of policies this year to promote robust economic activity for the private sector and help spur growth, geared to providing certainty and stability for the business community.

A draft revision of the labor law is due to be delivered to legislators for deliberation in February or March. Several articles in the law, which forces companies to pay compensation for workers who opt to resign, are reported to be under amendment to encourage companies to hire more workers.

Business leaders warn that the tax system is already causing domestic and foreign investors to withdraw or minimize their investment. Crucial tax reforms in the pipeline may not be implemented until early 2007 after an expected drawn-out debate in the legislature, and a planned corporate tax cut would not take effect until 2010. "Businesses are already going to China and Vietnam, and one of the main problems is our tax policy," said Sofyan Wanandi, chairman of the National Economic Recovery Committee. "Even Indonesian businesses are investing elsewhere.

The 35% company tax rate made it uncompetitive for businesses, Wanandi added. The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the proposed amendments "place too much power in the hands of tax officials and excessively heavy sanctions on taxpayers".

Peter Fanning, chairman of the International Business Chamber, warned, "If the bills are not revised, we believe that it will scare away potential investors and make existing investors consider leaving."

Tax receipts account for more than 75% of government revenue, and the budget sets tax revenue at Rp416.3 trillion, or 13.7% of gross domestic product this year.

Boediono has warned the business community not to expect to enjoy tax cuts or write-offs. "The government needs the income from taxes to fund development of the educational and health sectors," he told a news conference.

The economy has grown in the face of a formidable series of challenges over the past year, including the tsunami, high world oil prices, avian influenza and polio outbreaks.

The president's election promises and goals of economic growth of 7% by 2009, job creation and poverty reduction remain in place. This year is likely to be much the the same as last year, in terms of intent and commitment, darkened by anxieties about external factors and sustainability of growth.

[Bill Guerin, a Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000, has been in Indonesia for 20 years, mostly in journalism and editorial positions. He has been published by the BBC on East Timor and specializes in business/economic and political analysis related to Indonesia.]

Opinion & analysis

Insult to humanity

Jakarta Post Editorial - January 13, 2006

As reported in this paper, hundreds of containers containing goods meant for Aceh tsunami survivors have been languishing in Indonesian ports for at least nine months. While the aid effort in Aceh has been generally applauded, and rightfully so, this is the most dramatic failure in the operation to bring relief to the province since the catastrophic earthquake and waves brought so much devastation in December, 2004.

How could such desperately needed aid be tied up for so long? The customs office's explanation that it needed time to make sure the containers were not carrying smuggled goods is completely unacceptable. Does the customs service place paperwork over the lives of tsunami survivors? The argument that the goods did not have "proper documentation" does not ring true.

A disaster of the apocalyptic proportions of the Aceh tsunami, in which over 100,000 people died, does not deserve such a response.

How long does it take to determine whether a container is filled with smuggled goods or legitimate aid? How many agencies is it necessary to go through to get goods out of the ports – the Ministry of Social Services, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Trade, Customs and Excise Office, National Disaster Management Coordination Body – in such an emergency situation? Is it not possible to expedite clearance to get the aid to the people who need it?

We are at a loss for answers as to what could have caused this delay. It is difficult to imagine customs officials were not aware of the need to get aid to tsunami survivors as quickly as possible, given the blanket media coverage of the suffering in the province. The 117 containers left languishing in a port in Jakarta are said to contain blankets, medicines and food, items in great demand in the aftermath of the disaster.

In Belawan Port in Medan, another 232 containers were left in limbo, along with 58 vehicles, among them ambulances. On the surface, it appears the government is grossly lacking in coordination and any sense of urgency.

Officials may be able to find all sorts of excuses for the delay, but that does not change the absurdity of the episode. It amounts to an audacious robbery of tsunami survivors, a scandal whose seriousness cannot be overstated. The government has, in effect, slapped donors in the face by allowing their aid to rot in the ports.

The generosity of donors from around the world should never be forgotten, as they rushed to help the country in a time of need. Foreign governments, local and foreign companies, NGOs and individual donors all gave freely to ease the suffering we all saw on our television screens and in the newspapers.

There could be no more inappropriate way in which to treat donors who acted promptly out of a deep sense of shared humanity. Our failure to get the aid immediately to the survivors is like saying, "Better to let the food rot than to bring it to the hungry, to prolong the suffering of the sick than to make use of the medicine, and to let the victims suffer from the cold than to bring them blankets."

It might have been better simply to reject the aid, as India did, than to agree to receive it and then fail to deliver it to the intended recipients.

There is another troubling question: if all these donors acted so promptly to help Indonesian victims, why have Indonesian officials acted so slowly? Worse, there have been reports that some of this aid has been found being sold in Medan markets.

If corruption is part of this shameful episode – there have been reports that Rp 65 million was required to get a container out of the port in Jakarta – the government must take a close look at the officials involved. Otherwise, countries will think very seriously before sending aid to Indonesia in the future, simply because corruption takes such a heavy toll.

The country's track record is already extremely shaky. Leakage is common in any assistance coming into the country, especially during the 30 years of the New Order regime. It has been well established that in the past up to 30 percent of all financial aid ended up in the pockets of government officials.

It is common courtesy to return the goodwill of the global community. In this case, that simply would have required making use of the assistance. Donors deserve our respect, which would have meant assuring not a single item of aid went astray.

A lot has been done to assist the survivors in Aceh, but there is still much work that remains. The government should release all aid containers still in Indonesian ports immediately, because failing to use this assistance is an insult to humanity.

The politics of rice

Jakarta Post Editorial - January 12, 2006

The current furor over rice imports flared up when late last year the trade minister gave clearance to the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) to import over 70,000 tons of rice to supplement its buffer stock.

The agriculture minister protested, saying the country's stocks were sufficient, and that importing rice would depress domestic prices, penalizing rice growers, most of whom are subsistence farmers.

After several meetings, the agriculture minister backed down and agreed the country needed to import rice to fortify Bulog's stocks. Earlier this week, the government announced it would allow Bulog to import another 110,000 tons of rice from Vietnam through the end of January.

From this, it may be safe to assume the country does need additional rice supplies to keep prices from rising out of control. Higher rice prices are bad for inflation, as rice plays a major role in the calculation of the consumer price index. At the same time, there are people who are making huge profits importing the rice. Well, that's the politics of rice.

It is necessary to take a more rational look at the issue of rice imports. Seen from the interests of the nation, i.e. keeping rice available and affordable for most people, importing rice is not bad, and is also a way to contain inflation.

But we need to take a look at the bigger picture of the role rice plays in Indonesia. As the most important staple food for a large portion of the population, rice is not just another commodity. It is both a market and a political commodity, and any government that failed to ensure the availability of rice at affordable prices would face serious problems.

But just how far should the government go in controlling the rice trade, and who should the government favor in its rice policy – the growers or the consumers?

By keeping rice prices low, the government sides more with consumers than growers, while at the same time keeping inflation in check. By allowing prices to go up, the government helps farmers and penalizes consumers.

So a balance must be reached. But even such a balance would not be a true balance, as one group would benefit over the other. The easiest and least politically risky decision would be to keep rice prices low.

It is rarely beneficial for a politician to favor the interests of rice farmers, who are largely uninterested in politics. Which is why most politicians would rather come down on the side of consumers, especially urban residents who want low rice prices, are politically active and make campaign contributions.

Keeping rice prices low also benefits farmers, who normally become consumers between harvests. So, consumers outnumber growers, making siding with consumers more morally defensible.

Given all of this, the best rice policy would be to keep prices affordable to most people, while importing rice is the best remedy when domestic prices begin to creep up. Imports should also serve as a way to improve the efficiency of our rice growers, so they can eventually become more competitive.

As long as the domestic market remains protected, importing rice will remain attractive for anyone eager to make a big profit. Putting domestic prices on a par with prices in the international market should be the ultimate objective for the country, which would protect farmers from rice imports.

Rice imports are not a problem, but a solution. The problem lies in the process of importing rice. When done by cronies of government officials and Bulog executives, through dubious tenders, the people have a right to raise questions. The government must make the process more transparent. Then no one will raise questions, and the people will have all the affordable rice they can eat.

Recklessness in Indonesia

New York Times Editorial - January 9, 2006

Freeport-McMoRan, an American company that operates a giant open-pit copper and gold mine in Papua, is a major contributor to Indonesia's economy.

The company is also one of Indonesia's most reckless polluters and a source of hard cash – cash the company concedes is protection money – for the Indonesian military, which has one of the worst human rights records anywhere.

A recent report in The Times by Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner described Freeport's activities in great detail. The report was part of a series of articles over the past year detailing environmental and other abuses by American mining companies at home and abroad.

Several of these companies are being sued by local governments that argue that these companies' environmental practices would never be tolerated in America and that local citizens are seeing too few of mining's benefits while paying too heavy a price. Newmont Mining, based in Denver, has been sued by the Indonesian government for dumping poisoned wastes in local waters, and Placer Dome, based in Canada, has been sued by a Philippine province for similar infractions.

Freeport's activities are particularly disheartening. Over the past decade, the company has built what amounts to an industrial city in Indonesia's easternmost province. On the plus side, the company provides jobs for 18,000 people and, according to company estimates, has provided Indonesia with $33 billion in direct and indirect benefits from 1992 to 2004, almost 2 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

The environmental damage, however, has been breathtaking. So far, the company has produced about one billion tons of waste, with five billion more tons to come before the operation shuts down. Some of this waste has been dumped into the mountains surrounding the mine, and some into a system of rivers that descend steeply into the island's low-lying wetlands and coastal estuaries.

The damage has been enough to render the rivers, wetlands and parts of the estuaries – all critical to the food chain – unsuitable for aquatic life.

Meanwhile, records show that between 1998 and 2004, Freeport gave officers in the police and military nearly $20 million in direct payments in addition to tens of millions more for military infrastructure like barracks and roads. The company told The Times that the payments were necessary to provide a secure working environment for its employees, and that "there is no alternative to our reliance on the Indonesian military and police."

Papua has long been home to a low-level, separatist insurgency against the central government, which made the company nervous. Yet what is missing from the company's response is any recognition that its environmental practices contributed to the unrest and allowed the military to establish a strong presence in a region where it had barely a toehold before Freeport arrived.

Freeport's environmental record and its support for the Indonesian military have caused rumbles in Washington, particularly among human rights advocates like Patrick Leahy, a Democratic senator from Vermont. Citing human rights abuses, Congress in 1992 restricted arms sales and most American training for Indonesian officers, and it enacted new prohibitions in 1999 after a rampage by army-backed militia in what was then East Timor Province. Mr. Leahy sharply criticized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's decision to resume aid last year, which the administration described as a reward for Indonesia's improved human rights record and its cooperation with the post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism campaign.

Indonesia's critics say that the present government is an improvement over the authoritarian rule of President Suharto, who ran the country for three decades ending in 1998. Yet the military continues its abusive practices.

Setting aside for the moment Freeport's environmental horror show, the company is not doing Indonesia's civilian authorities any favors by underwriting the generals.

Freeport describes its payments as an essential cost of doing business. But it appears not to have measured the costs to democracy.

Post-tsunami aid and building civil society in Aceh

Jakarta Post - January 9, 2006

Olle Tornquist, Oslo – Donors often say that the major obstacle in the post-tsunami relief and reconstruction work is poor co- ordination of the organizations involved. This may be true, but the observation does not help much unless we discuss why.

International development co-operation has become neo-liberal. A myriad of state and private actors compete for funds and influence on imperfect markets in order to reach diffuse goals. In addition, there is little trust in the state. In Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam it has even been repressive and suffers still from authoritarianism, corruption and inefficiency.

To improve co-ordination, these factors should be addressed. But then the reconstruction work and the peace and democracy efforts must be combined – and this is not being done. That is the basic problem! In principle, everybody wants to combine peace and development work, at best by means of democracy. The question is how.

In Sri Lanka several years of Norwegian facilitation of negotiations between the government and the Tamil guerrilla indicates that it is not always fruitful to avoid the political conflicts and to use instead "neutral" development aid as a carrot to promote peace. By now, the post-tsunami aid suffers from hidden politicization. Actors on the government side and the guerrilla give special privileges to their respective constituencies and sympathizers. At times this even increases the conflicts.

In Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam the situation has instead improved by way of explicitly political peace negotiations. Enlightened politicians, military officers and guerrilla leaders have made compromises on the division of power and the government of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. This has been followed by an international monitory mission and some space for civil society and media to act as watchdogs.

Many say that this was possible only because the tsunami made people around the world deeply concerned about the problems in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. But that was true of Sri Lanka as well. The major factors were rather that both Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the new Indonesian government realized that they would not be able to win the battle militarily – and that the fledgling democracy in other parts of Indonesia stood out as a potentially more fruitful method to handle the conflicts than violent struggle over independence.

The bottom line is thus that the Indonesian democracy must be strengthened – so that it does not only stand out as a potential but also real alternative. But while the progress in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam is due less to the regular reconstruction work than to the peace- and democracy efforts, the problem is that the former is swamped with money while the latter is neglected.

Even so it is true that the implementation of the peace accord has been more successful than expected. GAM and the Government have both demonstrated the best of intentions. The guerrilla has contributed to its own decommissioning and dissolved itself. The military and police withdraw their non-organic forces. The peace monitors are effective. Local combatants are being compensated to facilitate their reintegration into society. There are fruitful broad dialogues between all relevant parties (including civil society groups) on the governance of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

But the real obstacles remain. Sustainable integration of the combatants in society presupposes new jobs within reasonably non-corrupt reconstruction work. This calls for supervision by a strong civil society and a working democracy. The Indonesian Reconstruction Agency is not even mandated to work on post- conflict issues (but obviously even wants to engage Indonesian soldiers in supposedly civil rebuilding).

Further, the implementation of the locally approved proposals on the governance of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam presupposes the approval of Jakarta. The President, the Vice President and the Government honor the intentions of the peace accord, but the nationalist opposition and conservative officers resist it. One method is trying to divide Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam into several provinces, which would nullify the peace agreement and the reconstruction work. Another is trying to block the chances for GAM and various civic groups to participate with their own parties and independent candidates in local elections.

The important thing is not if the first elections in April are postponed for a month or two. What is crucial is that both GAM and civic groups are not marginalised but can participate in a meaningful way. How would it be possible otherwise to transform violent conflicts into peaceful politics? The peace accord and the reconstruction work are at stake. This calls for more than the extension of the mandate of the peace monitors until after the elections. It calls also for quick and strong support for civil society and non-partisan political education among various democratic groups.

So what are well intending donors and other actors doing to promote this? So far, not much. I fail to understand why. Support for civil society and human rights based democracy in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam might have been controversial before the Helsinki agreement, but at this point it is the very basis for the successful completion of the treaty as well as the reconstruction work, as recognized by both parties.

What can now be less controversial and more productive than to strengthen, develop and spread Indonesia's own democracy? What would be more prestigious to Indonesia than to offer the world a successful model for peace and development by way of meaningful political democratization?

Of course, I may be wrong. But it is not only the research of Demos (the Indonesian Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies) that emphasizes the importance of combining efforts at peace and reconstruction by way of democratization. The most recent reports from the two internationally most reputed research institutes on the problems in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, the East West Centre and the International Crisis Group, point in the same direction. So if there are strong objections on the basis of better analyses it would be good to know.

[The writer is Professor of Political Science and Development Research, University of Oslo and Academic Co-director of Demos' Research. He can be reached at olle.tornquist@stv.uio.no]

Book/film reviews

Essays explore mass movements as sign of times

Jakarta Post - January 15, 2006

[Gerakan-gerakan Rakyat Dunia Ketiga (Mass movements in the third world). Noer Fauzi, ed. Resist Book Yogyakarta, September 2005. xvi + 304 pp.]

Nurani Soyomukti, Jakarta – The resistance movement against globalization will become the phenomenon of much focus in any discipline today. The efforts of global capitalists in forcing a neo-liberal system upon the Third World is also facing many protests all over the world. It is clearly understood that such protests are triggered by the unjust outcomes of the Third World's impotence vis-a-vis international institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In the middle of last month, we also witnessed a great number of people gathering in Hong Kong to mark the historical fact that international powers will never stop, in addition to the international oppression of global capitalists. Most of the protesters were peasants from agricultural Third World countries such as Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and India.

The WTO's policy has been considered beneficial for "rich" countries, as they are winning the trade war on agricultural products against the weaker, poor countries. The protesters from these nations were committed to be in Hong Kong for a peaceful demonstration against the WTO ministerial meeting then taking place – which they considered would only make them suffer more while causing the Third World to lose our sovereignty over food products.

The impact of the WTO on Thai farmers has been even worse, causing production costs to go sky-high so that they are tied down by heavy debts. Many farmers have reportedly committed suicide because they could not repay their debt.

In Indonesia, many children – most of who come from farming families that live in acute poverty – suffer from malnutrition. Agricultural products are sold at such a low price that they cannot cover production costs.

Meanwhile, those of the younger generation are not interested in becoming farmers.

In Japan, for example, the population of young farmers is decreasing at such a rate that Japanese agriculture will eventually disappear – making that country totally dependent on food imports.

While farmers fight to protect farmland and arable land, in the Philippines they also face rights violations such as intimidation, torture, "disappearances" and even outright murder -- thus leaving a female head of household to fend for the family and their farmland.

The consequences of international injustice is such that mass movements have been organized by any and all activists who possess ideology, tactics, strategies and programs – even to the extent that they survive with poor resources, including minimal organization and funding.

When governments and the elite in Third World countries do not speak up against the drivers of globalization, their people often end up feeling that they must empower themselves through political movements.

Highlighting the real dynamics of such mass movements in the Third World is the goal of Noer Fauzi, the editor of several articles that have been compiled in Gerakan-gerakan Rakyat Dunia Ketiga (Mass movements in the Third World).

Noer tries to deliver some of his own observations in describing various movements of people in different countries. Knowledge of the profiles of mass movements, which have their own characteristics in each country, enrich our perspective in looking at such movements on a macro scale.

Every mass movement and their organization has their own history, according to Gerakan-gerakan Rakyat Dunia Ketiga, and the way they respond to the oppression of globalization reveals their weaknesses and strengths.

While the essay collection focuses mostly on the movements of people in rural areas that have been marginalized by (capitalistic) development, it is clear that the ideas expressed by the authors all relate to the fact that local politics in the rural Third World is persistently influenced by actors of both national and global processes – which suffer the poor.

They underline that local people tend not to follow the policies of either local or national governments, as these policies often come from bowing down to global capitalistic pressure in pursuit of real economic activity or market expansion.

In most such cases, as the authors illustrate, a group of people react and even organize profound resistance.

This book is highly interesting as it comprises the writing of observers with a sharp analytical view to each movement.

The editor presents a selection that offers a comprehensive and detailed look at the subject in terms of context, anatomy and the dynamics of such movements through nine contemporary cases representing Asia, Latin America and the African continent.

The nine are:

1. Movimento Dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra/Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST), Brazil;

2. Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional/Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), Mexico;

3. F"deration der Indigenen Organisationen des Napo/Federation of Napo Indigenous People Organization (FOIN), Ecuador;

4. Landless People's Movement (LPM), South Africa;

5. Land Occupation Movements, Zimbabwe;

6. Narmada Bachao Andolan/Save Narmada Movement (NBA), India;

7. The Assembly of the Poor (AOP), Thailand;

8. Pambansang Ugnayan ng mga Nagsasariling Lokal na Samahang Mamamayan sa Kanayunan/National Coordinator of Autonomous Rural and Local People Organization (UNORKA), the Philippines; and

9. Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara/Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), Indonesia.

Each of these movements and their aims are explained and supported by a clear, in-depth illustration of each organization.

The dynamics of these movements, which are presented chronologically, offers a descriptive account of the historical basis and the different circumstances that have arisen today in reaction to globalization.

The comprehensive selection of resistance movements covered by this book offers readers a look at a range of ideologies, strategies and programs that drive them.

Further, readers are exposed to the challenges faced by such movements and how resistance is still the ideal choice for activists seeking to effect change.

[The reviewer is a freelance writer and research fellow at the International Center for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP) in Jakarta. She can be contacted at muktidanmedia@yahoo.com.]