News & issues

Government wins battle over rice imports

Jakarta Post - January 25, 2006

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Eleventh-hour lobbying paid off for the government Tuesday when most House factions refused to back a proposal to probe the controversial rice import policy.

Despite the outcry about the imports, including from many House members, the government won the day, with 184 legislators voting against a probe, 151 for the full-fledged investigation and 107 backing the motion for an inquiry.

The vote cleared the political and legal hurdles presented by opposition legislators, who had hinted at corruption in the import of 110,000 metric tons of medium-grade rice from Vietnam.

More than 100 legislators from seven political parties initially agreed to unite for an investigation into the plan. The government maintains the measure is necessary to keep prices stable in times of falling supply at the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

Rumors abounded last week about the imminent dismissal of Cabinet ministers from their political parties after the main government supporters, the Golkar Party and Democrat Party, lost the vote to have the probe proposal come before the House.

The government quickly regrouped, with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono meeting with party leaders as well as 11 Cabinet ministers in closed-door meetings at the State Palace.

Sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the President asked them to request their parties support an inquiry motion instead of a more wide-ranging probe. They also admitted they were aware of the possibility of a recall from their parties if they did not carry through with the instructions.

The proposal of the inquiry worked to split the support for the probe. Parties that backed off from their initial support were the United Development Party (PPP), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the National Awakening Party (PKB).

If passed, a probe motion would lead to the creation of a special committee wielding the power to investigate the rice import plan, including summoning relevant officials and demanding the provision of documents.

Proponents claimed the garbled government data on the rice supply and prices, as well as a nontransparent import process, warranted the probe.

An inquiry motion, on the other hand, is a summoning of the President or relevant ministers to explain the policy in front of a House plenary session. House procedures often hold up the execution of this motion.

Several investigative motions were proposed last year. Only one went through – on the sale of state oil firm PT Pertamina's VLCC tankers seven months ago – but there has been no follow-up.

Critics say such moves are usually only political grandstanding by legislators.

Muslims call for Playboy Magazine to be banned

Radio Australia - January 25, 2006

Playboy bunnies have been around for more than 50 years, but they've never quite made their mark in Indonesia. But that's all about to change with a local version of Playboy magazine about to hit the newstands. The move has angered conservative Indonesians and fuelled a growing public debate on pornography.

Presenter/Interviewer: Bernadette Nunn

Speakers: Din Sjamsuddin, Chairman of Indonesia's second biggest Islamic group Mohammadiah; Leo Batubara, senior member of the Indonesian Press Council.

Nunn: They're called Playboy bunnies – the naked stars sprawled across the centrefold of Playboy magazine. And they're the reason Islamic groups say Indonesia should not be the latest in the magazine's stable of around 20 international editions. Din Sjamsuddin is Chairman of Mohammadiah, the second biggest Islamic group in Indonesia.

Din Sjamsuddin: If the publisher insists to distribute, to publish, Playboy Indonesian edition, I think the next day will create a great reaction. It's of course a voice of moralism. Not only from Muslims but also my colleagues from other religious communities: Catholics, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, also give the same kind of reaction.

Nunn: Mohammadiah says the country is not prepared for so much moral liberalism and the magazine's pornographic photos go against eastern morality.

Din Sjamsuddin: Nude pictures are in contadiction to the culture of many ethnic groups in the country. So I do believe that not only the organisations but the people, society at large will react.

Nunn: Indonesian readers may be able to honestly say they buy the soft-porn magazine for the articles, not the pictures. The Indonesian edition of Playboy will be stripped of its famous nudes. PT Velvet Silver Media is Playboy's would-be Indonesian publisher. Director, Ponti Carolus says he's met religious leaders and promised the magazine would respect Muslim values. It will be sold only by subscription and contain no photographs of naked women.

Din Sjamsuddin: I think the society will not believe it. I think this is maybe tactic from the publisher at the beginning that the magazine will not include nude pictures. But then step by step they will do that.

Nunn: The publisher says he's agreed to delay the March launch of the magazine until parliament has passed new laws against pornography, to be debated next week. But Leo Batubara from the Indonesian Press Council says the draft laws could see ordinary Indonesians jailed for seven years.

Batubara: This anti-pornography adopt a very conservative idea that certain dances, kissing between husband and wife, in front of the public, can be punished with seven years prison, so it's very conservative.

Nunn: The Press Council advised parliament to reject the proposed pornography laws saying they're against democratic and human rights.

Batubara: Like for instance certain dances of West Java or these people in Papua who are actually naked except what they call this Koteka, according to the draft these people in Papua will be subject to, will be put into, prison because they are naked.

Nunn: Mr Batubara says hardcore pornography should be covered by criminal law while distribution laws should allow publication of soft core pornography like Playboy, under certain conditions restricting access to adults.

Batubara: Children should be protected from pornography. Magazines on pornography, films on pornography, should be only distributed under certain conditions say, for instance, magazines should be covered and put on the higher benches. Also, certain films should be only broadcast through Pay TV for instance.

Protesters disrupt US hip-hop artist's concert

Associated Press - January 31, 2006

Jakarta – Protesters disrupted a concert by a US hip-hop artist touring Indonesia at the US Embassy's invitation, an embassy official and witnesses said Tuesday.

At around 8 p.m., more than 20 men on motorbikes rode through a crowd of 2,000 gathered to see New York-based hip-hop artist Toni Blackman and her three-member band perform at a university campus in the North Sumatra provincial capital of Medan.

The men then seized the microphone and yelled anti-American slogans, said Donna Welton, cultural attache at the US embassy in Jakarta.

Medan police said the protesters had previously been involved in anti-globalization protests, but could not confirm further details.

Blackman is on a US-embassy sponsored tour of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3.

Blackman, dubbed by one US radio station as the "Ambassador of Hip-Hop," had just returned from Indonesia's tsunami-battered Aceh province, where she participated in a musical exchange with university students in the area.

Students tell government to get the lead out

Jakarta Post - January 30, 2006

Jakarta – Dozens of high school students protested about the dangers of lead pollution in the air at the National Monument in Central Jakarta on Saturday.

The coordinator of the students grouped in the Indonesian Lead Information Center (ILIC), Edi Purwanto, told Antara that high lead emissions – generally from cars, trucks and buses – were long known to be dangerous to human health.

Too much lead in the atmosphere caused a variety of health problems and was even thought to reduce male sperm counts, Edi said. Lead is a heavy metal that is used extensively in car batteries.

It is also infused in automotive fuels to boost its octane level and produce more engine power. The metal is also used in paints, especially industrial coats used to cover buildings and houses.

Edi said lead was toxic and could damage human nervous systems, especially in young children, with long exposure proven to cause a series of blood and brain disorders.

It was thought low-level lead poisoning might also be a cause of autism, he said. "Here (in Jakarta), lead is often inhaled through air that is polluted by the smoke spewing from vehicles."

More than four million cars drive on Jakarta streets each day and the city is believed to be one of the most polluted in the world. In a bid to clean up Jakarta's smog, the city administration issued a bylaw last year on air pollution control.

One of its articles obligates public transportation and private car owners to have their car emissions regularly tested. However, despite the new bylaw, little seems to have changed, with public buses and trucks belching thick clouds of black smoke still common sights on city streets.

Edi said premium fuels distributed in the country usually contained between 13 and 30 microns of lead per one million milligrams. However, the government-set tolerable level of lead concentrations in air was only two microns per cubic meter.

The lead levels along with the sheer numbers of cars on city streets meant this limit was being breached daily, he said. "With such levels, the lead in the fuels commonly used by vehicles passing around us every day has gone beyond the tolerable boundary," Edi said.

He said the group had asked state oil company PT Pertamina to reduce lead levels in its fuels. High levels of lead also shortened the age of vehicles' engines, he said.

ILIC research predicted lower leaded fuel would cost less than current fuels, at only Rp 4.100 (less than US$1) a liter, including distribution expenses, he said. Premium fuel prices are currently set at Rp 4.500 per liter.

Timorese asylum seekers 'forced' to attack Christians

Melbourne Age - January 30, 2006

Andra Jackson – A group of West Timorese is seeking asylum in Australia from Indonesia claiming they have been pressured into carrying out attacks against Christians in their village.

Mustafa Ridwan, 23, a Muslim from Alor in West Timor, said he and his brothers Supardi, 39, and Mahmud, 30, and a nephew, 18, fled Indonesia because they did not want to be enlisted in anti- Christian campaigns.

"Our situation was not safe so we came to Australia," he said from Christmas Island, where the group has been held for almost three months.

He said the group bought a boat in Sulawesi and went back to West Timor, where members picked up the wife and two children of one brother, and then sailed for Australia.

They bring to 50 the number of people who have fled Indonesia to Australia in the past three months, after 43 West Papuans arrived last week. All are detained on Christmas Island. Mr Ridwan said the seven arrived in Western Australia on November 3.

West Timor, under Indonesian rule since 1949, has one of the poorest populations in Indonesia, Jason MacLeod, a spokesman for the Australian West Papua Association said. The Refugee Review Tribunal last week heard an appeal against the family's rejection.

Hunger strikers sent dead chicken

Jakarta Post - January 27, 2006

Jakarta – Four hunger-strikers seeking adequate compensation for their properties acquired by the government for a transmission line project received a dead chicken and a threatening note Thursday.

The chicken carcass and letter were wrapped in a plastic bag and found in front of compound where they were protesting in Central Jakarta, witnesses said.

Inside the package was a written threat to the hunger strikers to stop their protest. The contents of the note has not been made public.

The incident happened a day after sympathetic activists sent letters to 56 foreign embassies requesting help for the hunger strikers.

The two men and two women began their hunger strike on Dec. 27. They are demanding more compensation for their land or relocation by the government and have sewn their mouths up in protest.

'Playboy' bashed as local erotic media thrives

Jakarta Post - January 26, 2006

Hera Diani, Jakarta – Every morning, traffic-jammed commuters throughout Jakarta get something to think about, as street vendors weave through the lines of cars, flashing posters of pouting models, posing in flimsy lingerie.

In the city's Glodok electronics center, pirated pornographic DVDs are often in plain view and the sellers yell out the movie names to passersby.

Then there's the city's news tabloids, full of smutty stories, phone sex advertisements and – more disturbingly – lurid accounts of domestic abuse, incest, rape and murder.

This trashy soft-core porn won't take the bulge out of your wallet, prices are as cheap as Rp 1,000 (around 10 US cents) a poster, while the DVDs, newspapers and magazines sell for a little more.

And with pornography so easily available and no restrictions on sales to children, some commentators are puzzling over the sudden outrage from religious groups about the planned publication of an Indonesian version of Playboy magazine.

It seems that while locally pirated porn and sleaze is OK, an international erotic magazine is not. Even if the women will be fully clothed, with the magazine's focus on more "literary" subject matter, as its publisher says.

Playboy is yet to see the light of day, but the protests keep mounting, with Muhammadiyah leader Din Syamsuddin promising to muster other religious leaders to demonstrate against the magazine when, or if, it hits newsstands.

"I don't believe them (the publishers) when they say there won't be nude pictures in (the magazine). I think that's just a strategy that will change later on. If they're not going to publish nude pictures, then change the name so it won't be associated with the original (Playboy)," Din, the head of the country's second-largest Muslim organization, told detik.com news portal.

Din urged Playboy trademark-holder PT Velvet Silver Media to abandon its plan to publish the magazine, and asked the government, the House of Representatives and other agencies to take a "firm stance" on it.

However, media observer Ignatius Haryanto of the Institute for Press and Development Studies believes the protests are premature. "We don't even know what the magazine is like yet. Sure, editions in other countries contain nude pictures, but would it be the same in this country?" he said.

The magazine obviously would have a market, with a certain level of demand. But its distribution could also be limited, he said. "If there is concern about protecting children and teenagers, then regulate the magazine's distribution. Religious leaders can only make moral appeals, (the government) shouldn't confuse these with legal approaches," Ignatius said.

Another commentator, Veven S.P. Wardhana, said people often had knee-jerk reactions to things they thought were immoral. "Why should (Playboy) be banned? Why doesn't the government instead ban the cheap publications that children can obtain?" "If we disagree with it, we should discuss the issue instead of reacting with violence. We can never learn to be a democratic country if there are no freedoms at all," he said.

Police billing businesses for 'security' work

Jakarta Post - January 25, 2006

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Amid the hoopla over the city's high crime rate, some police officers are making a quick buck by working as security guards. Security services are in high demand due the recent crime wave in the city.

The chairman of watchdog Police Watch, Rashid Lubis, said Tuesday the security business was thriving due to the number of firms and individuals in need of the service.

"We all know the officers can do with the money, but what we are seeing now is the excessive commercialization of police services. I am afraid the police only perform well for those who can afford to pay them," Rashid told The Jakarta Post.

A recent Rp 2.45 billion robbery allegedly involving a police officer also lends credence to the opinion held by many that the police are housing criminals in uniform.

Though they have been unable to track down the officer, police said last week over 70 officers from the police's Mobile Brigade (Brimob) worked as guards for the targeted delivery service company, PT Trans Nasional Solution.

Separately, city police spokesman Sr. Comr. I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana acknowledged several units at police headquarters, such as Brimob and detective squads, had been securing homes and companies for years.

Saying the service was a police duty, Ketut added, "Any firm or individual can request the police's service and we will deploy our personnel to guard them. It depends on the users (of the service) how much they want to pay, but we never ask for money in return for our services," he said.

S. Rahardja, president director of leading security firm Secom, told the Post recently the company employed many police officers, while the director of a finance company in Central Jakarta, who asked not to be identified, revealed over a dozen police officers had been put on its payroll for security reasons.

"We have no choice as our operations require guards. Extra funds for security can reach dozens of millions of rupiah each month," the director told the Post. A low-ranking police officer earns up to Rp 1 million a month, while a one-star general gets up to Rp 5 million.

Jakarta Police have around 26,000 officers. With the number of robberies on the rise, they have complained there are not enough officers to go around.

A reliable police source said his commander encouraged officers to get side jobs, giving some of their extra pay to their superiors. "We can get side jobs through official means if a client appeals directly to headquarters. But we can also get jobs through our immediate superior, or on our own. Of course, we have to send the money up (to our superiors), officially or unofficially, because that's the way things go here," he told the Post.

Aceh

Government proposes bill that could lead to Aceh division

Jakarta Post - January 28, 2006

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The final draft of the government's bill on Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam opens the possibility for the redrawing of its borders, which would violate the peace agreement signed by Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement.

If the government went ahead with the division of Aceh, it would have major political implications for the election of the provincial legislature in Aceh in the 2009 general election. The decision could also have a profound effect on the future of the peace deal signed in August.

Clause 5 of the final draft allows for "the establishment, annulment or the merging of new regions/municipalities, districts, hamlets and subdistricts in accordance with existing legislation", including the 2004 Law on Regional Administrations.

The agreement signed by the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki states "the borders of Aceh (shall) correspond to the borders as of July 1, 1956".

Members of the House of Representatives earlier responded "positively" to the reported ambition of residents in several regencies in southern Aceh to form their own province, Leuser Antara.

An accompanying document to the draft bill, dealing with the borders of Aceh, says the government's draft does not confirm the borders of the province in accordance with the Helsinki agreement, because those borders are not supported by any documents.

The government and the House see the draft bill as a way to accommodate any demands arising from Aceh for the establishment of new provinces, regencies or mayoralties.

"We are expecting further debate in the House, especially on the issues of political parties and the borders of Aceh," Djoeharmansyah Djohan, a member of the government team that drafted the bill, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

A member of the GAM negotiating team at the Helsinki talks, Mohammed Nur Djuli, told the Post the bill must not violate any points of the peace deal.

If it does, "any disputes that may arise in the implementation of the agreement will have to be filed with the Finland-based Crisis Management Initiative, as the facilitator of the Aceh peace talks", he said.

He also raised a "promise" by Jakarta to ensure the right of the Acehnese to nominate candidates for local elections in April, while the government draft bill does not allow for independent candidates.

The Helsinki agreement says "the people of Aceh will have the right to nominate candidates" for local elections in 2006 and thereafter. However, the government draft bill states candidates must be nominated by existing political parties.

Djoehermansyah said, "Our country's political legislation does not recognize independent candidates running in elections. And if the political system was changed in accordance with the demand of the Acehnese (for the participation of independent candidates in elections), the central government expects we would first have to amend national political legislation," he said.

The draft bill, in accordance with the peace agreement, does accommodate GAM's demands for local political parties, which would be eligible to contest elections in 2009, despite earlier resistance from legislators.

Draft law on Aceh to be submitted to parliament

Detik.com - January 25, 2006

Luhur Hertanto, Jakarta - The government has finally completed compiling the Draft Law on a Government for Aceh and is ready to submit it to the House of Representatives (DPR). President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will today - Wednesday January 25 - study the final draft to prepare a Presidential Instruction (Ampres).

"The government has finalised it, it was submitted to the president yesterday. He will read it in Bali and we will accommodate [any changes] immediately after he returns to Jakarta. If the president signs it tomorrow, tomorrow it will also be submitted to the DPR", said State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra.

This was conveyed to journalists who met Mahendra at his office on Jalan Majapahit in Jakarta. Mahendra hopes that with the draft law being submitted to the DPR this week, it can be ratified according to the time limit contained in the Helsinki Memorandum of understanding, that is March 31.

"The president has already ordered me and [Home Affairs Minister] Mr. Ma'ruf to discuss the draft law in the DPR", added Mahendra.

No independent candidates yet

Touching on the clause that accommodates the political rights of former members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in relation to independent candidates and local political parties, Mahendra said that this is not included in the draft law. This will instead be regulated later when revisions are made to the Law on Political Parties.

This means that there will be no possibility yet for there to be independent candidates for the election of the Acehnese governor in April, unless they are prepared to and are declared fit to be nominated by an existing officially recognised political party participating in the elections.

"But in fact there's no other way, because particularly in Aceh, that is if there are local political parties that can be formed by anyone as long as they fulfil the conditions that are regulated by this law on Aceh. So if those figures form a local party, yeah, they can be nominated through that local political party, if perhaps the parties that exist now in Aceh are not prepared to nominate them", he explained at great length.

According to the agreement between the Indonesian government and GAM, local political parties can be formed at the latest 18 months after August 2005. This means February next year. (nrl)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Quotas endangering Aceh forests: NGO

Jakarta Post - January 25, 2006

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Tsunami-hit Aceh will soon face an environmental disaster if the government keeps on issuing logging concessions in the province's forests, an environmental group says.

Greenomics executive director Elfian Effendi said the quotas totaling 500,000 cubic meters of timber, which the Forestry Ministry awarded to eight logging companies this year, were a huge mistake.

"The huge quota along with the rampant illegal logging in Aceh, means we estimate that by the end of 2006, deforestation in the province will reach 266,000 hectares, or four times the size of Singapore," he said.

A recent study by the group found that between 2002 and 2004, Nanggroe Aceh Darrusalam lost some 350,000 hectares of forests, mostly from illegal logging. About 60 percent of the cut forest was in designated conservation zones.

Aceh's south and west coasts and central Aceh were identified as the worst-hit areas.

Elfian dismissed as "unrealistic" Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban's argument that the quota was necessary to support reconstruction efforts in Aceh.

"The BRR (Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency) has projected it needs four to eight million cubic meters of wood to build more 150,000 houses until 2008. So the quota won't help much because in the first three years it could only provide about 1.6 million cubic meters (of timber)," he said.

Rapid deforestation, he warned, would only bring Aceh more massive disasters. "Forests account for 62 percent of Aceh. That means the province heavily depends on forest products. If deforestation continues, massive floods might hit the province in the near future," he said.

Aceh spans five million hectares of land, in which 2.7 million ha are protected forests and another 640,000 ha are production forests.

Forestry Ministry spokesman Masyhud defended the quota, saying it was necessary not only to help the reconstruction efforts but also to provide jobs for the Acehnese. "(Legal) logging in the province had stopped for several years. It is only logical that companies there (now) get larger quotas," he told The Jakarta Post.

Earlier, the executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Chalid Muhammad, suggested the forestry minister ask international organizations working in Aceh to import timber for the reconstruction projects. "For that, the government should give them incentives, such as scrapping import duties and taxes for the imported wood," he said.

Aceh may have local parties

Jakarta Post - January 24, 2006

The government's completed Aceh administration bill will allow the Acehnese to set up local political parties, as mandated in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the government and the now-defunct Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The MOU requires that preparation for establishing local parties should be held within 18 months from the signing of the peace agreement in mid August last year.

The draft bill states that local political parties can take part in the 2009 general election. "From the very beginning, we have agreed that the Acehnese should be able to set up local political parties because it has been mandated in the MOU...," Djohermansyah Djohan, a member of the government's expert team, said.

The bill is expected to be submitted to the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

West Papua

Asylum seeker relatives 'terrorised'

The Australian - January 31, 2006

West Papuan asylum seekers on Christmas Island have told Greens senator Kerry Nettle their families have been terrorised by Indonesian security forces since their journey to Australia.

Some of the 43 West Papuans rang their families on Saturday to hear that an Indonesian task force was in West Papua asking questions about their asylum bid, Senator Nettle said in Perth today.

"They heard about a task force of Indonesian security forces that had travelled from Jakarta... to ask questions about this group of asylum seekers and their trip to Australia," Senator Nettle said.

"When they contacted their families on Saturday evening they heard from their families that they were being terrorised, that's the word they used, by Indonesian security forces that had come over from Jakarta."

The 36 men and seven children arrived on Cape York last week after a five-day voyage from West Papua aboard a rickety boat. All were transferred to the immigration processing facility on Christmas Island.

US congressmen join Papuan plea

The Courier-Mail (Queensland) - January 31, 2006

Greg Poulgrain – Ten US members of Congress have described the arrival on Australian shores by canoe two weeks ago of 43 asylum seekers from West Papua as a flight to freedom.

In a written appeal to Prime Minister John Howard on Australia Day, they urged careful examination of the Papuans' claims and asked the Australian Government to grant asylum to those that meet international and Australian standards.

Both the Department of Immigration and Mr Howard have stated that the claims of the asylum seekers, after they arrived on Cape York in remote north Queensland, would be assessed in accordance with the law.

Heading the bipartisan list of 10 Congressmen were two prominent Democrats, Patrick Kennedy and Eni Faleomavaega. The letter to Mr Howard drew attention to the US State Department's recent human rights report which listed the atrocities committed by Indonesian forces in West Papua and the lack of progress in prosecuting those responsible for acts of torture committed there.

To be legally recognised as refugees in Australia (which has ratified the International Convention on Torture) West Papuans must have a well-founded fear of persecution, according to Brisbane-based immigration specialist Bruce Henry.

"International law as incorporated in the Australian Migration Act prevents countries from returning asylum-seekers to where they are at risk of torture," he said.

After arriving on Cape York, the Papuans were sent to Christmas Island, where they were interviewed by Australian immigration officials. Initial reports from a senior official verified the Papuans' claims but it will be several weeks before Canberra announces a decision.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said Indonesian demands that the West Papuans be returned would not stop or influence their asylum claim being processed.

The US Congressmen made the same point. "We hope that the Government of Australia will reject public demands by the Indonesian Government to return these refugees to the control of the very same security forces from which they fled," their appeal said.

The Australia West Papua Association has urged new Defence Minister Brendan Nelson to help promote democracy in Indonesia instead of strengthening ties with Indonesian special forces group Kopassus.

Papua problem tests Yudhoyono's role as peacemaker

Financial Times - January 31, 2006

Shawn Donnan, Jakarta – Since his government last year brought about what looks like the end of the separatist conflict in Indonesia's tsunami-wracked Aceh province, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has drawn effusive praise internationally.

So impressed was Robert Wexler, US Democratic congressman, that he last week nominated Mr Yudhoyono for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, calling the former Suharto-era general a "campaigner for peace".

But for Mr Yudhoyono to cement that reputation he has another long-running separatist conflict to overcome. Emerging as an increasingly important issue for his government – and its profile internationally – is how to resolve the insurgency in the province of Papua, the remote and resource-rich western half of New Guinea.

It is an issue analysts say is likely to be far more difficult to resolve and far more prickly for Mr Yudhoyono's government to tackle in a fiercely nationalist Indonesia. "It's the single most sensitive issue on the political agenda," says Sidney Jones, the Jakarta-based south-east Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, a think-tank.

Home to a BP-led natural gas project as well as the world's largest gold and copper mine, Papua's future is also an economically sensitive issue for an Indonesia still working to regain the confidence of investors almost nine years after the Asian financial crisis.

One reason for the growing profile of the Papua conflict in recent months is pressure on copper and gold producer Freeport- McMoRan over its relationship with the Indonesian military, which it pays to provide security around the Grasberg gold and copper mine.

In separate letters to the US attorney-general and the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, New York city's comptroller – the custodian of US$37 million in Freeport stock held by the city's pension funds – demanded investigations into the New Orleans company's handling of its relationship with the Indonesian military.

The requests were prompted by reports by Global Witness, a UK- based human rights group, and The New York Times detailing Freeport payments to individuals in the Indonesian security forces. Some argue such payments may violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, although Freeport has denied any wrongdoing.

Additionally, questions remain about the possible role of the Indonesian military in an August 2002 ambush that left three teachers working for Freeport – two Americans and an Indonesian – dead. Although Indonesian authorities this month arrested eight Papuan suspects in connection with the ambush, some people close to the case remain unconvinced.

The arrival in Australia this month of 43 Papuan boat people expected to seek political asylum is also providing a potential test for post-East Timor relations between Canberra and Jakarta, which are seeking to sign a bilateral security pact this year.

Finding a solution to the Papuan conflict is likely to present Mr Yudhoyono's government with a far more complicated task than negotiating peace in Aceh, analysts say.

Advisers to Mr Yudhoyono and analysts both say any resolution is unlikely to come via internationally brokered negotiations but rather by a push for the hearts and minds of disgruntled Papuans.

"The difficulty with Papua is there is not a negotiating partner," says Ms Jones. The separatist Free Papua Movement, she says, is "a small, divided, organisation that controls no territory", and associated political movements are "much more diffuse" than their counterparts in Aceh.

International reservations about Indonesian rule in Papua, though still muted, are greater than they ever were in regards to Aceh, which has been part of Indonesia since its 1945 independence.

From the time it seized control of what used to be called Irian Jaya in 1963, the legitimacy of Jakarta's rule in Papua has come under question internationally and a 1969 vote by a hand-picked group of leaders that led to its formal annexation is widely regarded as a sham.

Indonesia also faces allegations of rights abuses in Papua, and access to the region by journalists is restricted. In its 2004 Human Rights Report (the most recent available), the US State Department said security forces in Papua "murdered, tortured, raped, beat, and arbitrarily detained civilians and members of separatist movements", although "to a lesser extent" than in Aceh.

And there are signs of burgeoning unrest and a resulting clampdown. Reports of demonstrations in Jayapura, the Papuan capital, are increasing in frequency as are reports of young men being arrested for hoisting the outlawed "Morning Star" flag that symbolises Papuan independence.

But Papuan leaders are also growing more assertive. Rev Hofni Simbiak, a member of the Papuan People's Assembly, on which Mr Yudhoyono is hanging many of his hopes, says: "The government's efforts to solve all the problems in Papua seem to be going nowhere."

[Additional reporting by Taufan Hidayat.]

Papua likened to East Timor

Sydney Morning Herald - January 31, 2006

Tom Allard – The Indonesian military is using the same tactics of terror in West Papua that were employed during its bloody reign in East Timor, and Australia should step in to mediate a peace settlement, warns separatist Herman Wainggai.

Mr Wainggai, the leader of the 43 asylum-seekers who arrived in Australia two weeks ago, said ongoing abuses by the Indonesian military, often in cahoots with militias, were terrifying the indigenous community.

"It's the same as with East Timor," he told the Herald yesterday from Christmas Island, where the asylum-seekers are being processed by immigration officials. "They have created militias and jihadis in West Papua. The people, and especially activists for independence, are very scared."

The military and police regularly raided campuses and villages searching for independence sympathisers, while Indonesia's intelligence network kept constant tabs on their activities, Mr Wainggai said.

Jailed twice for his political activism, Mr Wainggai said he had no faith in the promise by the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, that, if they returned home, the Papuans would face no reprisals. Many such promises had been made in the past, he said, and bitter experience meant they could not be accepted at face value.

"We don't trust Indonesia," he said. "If I was sent back to Indonesia, I would die. The Government and the military treats West Papuans like animals. They have killed us like animals."

Incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a vote widely discredited as a sham, Papua's distinct Melanesian population has been running a long, unsuccessful campaign for independence.

Mr Wainggai said it was now time for other countries, particularly Australia, to take the fate of his people more seriously.

"I'm asking the international community to help facilitate a meeting between the Government in Jakarta and West Papuan independence leaders," he said. "This way we can resolve these problems. Our struggle is non-violent. We believe in dialogue but we need a mediator, like the Australian Government."

Dr Yudhoyono's personal intervention in the case of the asylum- seekers – he called John Howard directly to ask for their return – reflects the acute sensitivity in Jakarta about its resource- rich province.

The Greens senator, Kerry Nettle, said Australia should heed the lessons of the past. "This Government likes to talk up its role in East Timor. It was good, but it was also very late," she said. "There's an opportunity to get in here and do something before it's too late."

Dr Yudhoyono has floated a new type of "special autonomy" for West Papua, including the creation of an indigenous upper house of parliament in the province and more development assistance. But it is already unravelling, with promised elections for the body seemingly permanently stalled as the Yudhoyono Government instead hand-picks its members.

Mr Wainggai said the enticements of autonomy within the Indonesian republic were not new, and not to be believed. "We have heard this kind of talk so many times. We even heard it with the Act of Free Choice [the 1969 vote] and so many people have died since then, 400,000 people," he said.

"We have struggled for independence for 40 years and we struggled for full independence, not another so-called autonomy package."

Asylum seekers face death if sent back to Papua

Radio Australia - January 30, 2006

Australian refugee advocates say they are alarmed by the Indonesian Government making a direct request to Prime Minister John Howard for the return of 43 Papuans.

Indonesian President Suslio Bambang Yudhoyono has assured Mr Howard that the group will not be prosecuted if they are returned.

The asylum seekers are currently being held on Christmas Island, off the coast of Western Australia, claiming genocide at the hands of the Indonesian Government.

Rob Wesley-Smith from the group Australians for a Free West Papua says the asylum seekers should be dealt with according to Australian law.

"The people have escaped from there because their lives are at risk," he said. "Their fathers have been killed, one of them was in jail for a number of years himself, and this is the reality of the situation in West Papua – so no way should they go back – they'd be killed."

Mr Wesley-Smith says they seem to have valid claims for refugee status. "There's evidence that some have been mistreated and tortured and they're a cohesive group and strongly politically motivated, and that there is no way that they would be seen as a group to be sent back – that that's just a preliminary assessment," he said.

Demonstrators call for investigation into Papua shooting

Detik.com - January 30, 2006

M. Rizal Maslan, Jakarta - Around 25 people from the Papuan Anti-Militarism People's Front (FRPAM) arrived at the offices of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) on Jalan Latuharhari in Menteng, Jakarta, at around 11am on Monday January 30.

They came to report a member of the TNI (Indonesian military) and a police officer that carried out the shootings in the Wahgete district of Pania on January 20 that killed one person and wounded three others. Komnas HAM members Ruswiyati, Lies Soegondo and Koesparmono Irsan received the group.

FRPAM is calling on Komnas HAM to immediately investigate the shooting of four Papuans by the TNI and police. They believe that the shooting is an international conspiracy. "We call on Komnas HAM and legal and human rights advocacy institutions to immediately conduct and investigation and uncover the facts about this shooting until [it can be taken] to court", said FRPAM chairperson Aloysius Giay when he met with the Komnas HAM members.

In addition to this, FRPAM is also calling for the Trikora XVII military commander, Major General George Toisutta to be punished and for the dismissal of the TNI officer that carried out the shooting - the company commander of the Nabire 735 Battalion, Second Lieutenant Ronald Situmeang.

Likewise, they are also urging that the national police chief dismiss those police officers that were involved in the case. "We ask that the TNI and national police force apologise to the entire Papuan people. And we, the Papuan people, condemn the violence, terror, intimidation and killings that so often happen in Papua", said Aloysius.

Aloysius explained that the Papuan people have records on the violence that has taken place in the region including the Biak (1998), Wamena (2000), Abepura (2000), Wasior (2001) and Merauke-Kiamam (2001) cases, the murder of Theys Hiyo Eluay (2001) and the Timika shooting (2003). "In a report by the United Nations Human Rights Commission it notes that 100,000 Papuan people were killed between 1961 and 2003", said Aloysius.

Moreover said Aloysius, on January 10 this year there was case of mistreatment against Obet Kosay in the village of Wesaput Wamena and the persecution of a teacher in the Wasior Regency by members of the Mobile Brigade. Then on January 11 there was the arrest of 12 civilians by the Indonesian police and Federal Bureau of Investigation in Timika.

Aloysius believes that the shooting in Paniai is an international conspiracy that is linked to the killing of two US citizens and one Indonesian national at Mile 6263 in Timika. "This is the justification for the detention of eight civilians that are linked to this case", he said.

FRPAM is also demanding that the Papuan Regional House of Representatives, the Papuan People's Council and the Papuan provincial government urge the central government to withdraw all non-organic troops and reduce the number of non-territorial troops in Papua. "If these demands are not acted upon we will declare an open war with the government", said Aloysius who is also the head of the Papua Central Highlands Social League. (ndr)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Rift looms over fate of Papuan 'refugees'

Melbourne Age - January 29, 2006

Russell Skelton – Australia and Indonesia are headed for a diplomatic crisis over the fate of 43 West Papuan asylum seekers whose claims of persecution now appear likely to be recognised.

In a first step towards granting the asylum seekers refugee status, Australian immigration authorities, after completing health, security and identity checks, have ruled them "in" as potential refugees. The decision was made after intelligence officers interviewed them at length.

They will now be formally interviewed and their claims processed, although a final formal determination on their status is not expected for several months.

It is believed the 43 have been identified as genuine high- profile, non-violent political activists, and that several also offered credible claims of torture and imprisonment. Among the group are unaccompanied minors, children of Papuan activists unable to flee.

In a sign of growing tension between Jakarta and Canberra, Indonesia's President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, last week urged Prime Minister John Howard to return the asylum seekers, claiming they had no case for asylum and offering his assurance that they would not be persecuted.

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said in Jakarta on Friday that President Yudhoyono was so concerned that he had telephoned Mr Howard. Indonesian authorities have not been allowed contact with the asylum seekers.

Jakarta is apparently worried about the growing strength and increasing prominence of the West Papua independence movement, fearing more defections and further political instability.

The defections come at a time when Australia is working hard to strengthen its military and security relationship with Indonesia.

It is believed the asylum seekers include members of several families involved in the anti-Indonesian protest movement, which makes their claims stronger.

A source on Christmas Island said: "It is not like the boats that arrived in the past, where you might have 40 or 50 people with completely different unrelated claims. This group is cohesive, highly educated, articulate and readily identifiable, which makes their claims exceptionally strong.

"The claims they are making are believable and tally with what Australian intelligence knows about the political situation in the province. Getting out of there is not easy."

The asylum seekers, who fled West Papua by dugout canoe, were found 10 days ago at Mapoon on the Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland.

They were immediately flown to the big new detention centre on Christmas Island for health, security and identity checks and immigration processing.

A man and his daughter, found to have early signs of tuberculosis, were flown to Fremantle Hospital in Western Australia.

Women and children on Christmas Island have been moved into open accommodation outside the detention centre and can move about freely. Others have been offered psychological counselling.

It is believed intelligence officers and immigration officials have been impressed by the detailed nature of the asylum seekers' claims, including the story of their escape, which involved making an outrigger canoe from a tree.

Another Christmas Island source said: "This was a remarkable group of people. The boat was seven metres long... and it took them four days in stormy weather. They are a committed group."

It is believed the accounts of Indonesian repression provided by the asylum seekers were similar to those referred to in the recent UN report on atrocities in East Timor, a document they had no access to.

Papuan arrested for flying flag

Jakarta Post - January 30, 2006

Jayapura – A man was arrested by Jayapura Police officers Saturday, allegedly for hoisting the outlawed Morning Star flag, the symbol of the Papuan independence struggle.

Jacob Mamori, 25, was arrested following reports from residents who saw four people putting up the flag at the Sentani district office at 1 p.m. The police officers said they were still hunting down the other three suspects. "Based on witness information... we apprehended the suspect, who at the time of the arrest, was in the market," said head of Jayapura Police's crime unit, First Insp. Sudjadi.

According to chief of Jayapura Police, Adj. Sr. Comr. Jacob Kalembang, the man, who works as a scavenger at Sentani market, admitted that he helped raise the flag, but added that he was told to do so by "unidentified people".

Fate of Papuan asylum seekers uncertain

Radio Australia - January 27, 2006

A group of Papuan asylum seekers being held in immigration detention on Australia's remote Christmas Island is expected to meet their lawyers for the first time this weekend. Despite being taken into custody nine days ago, the 36 adults and seven children, who left the Indonesian province in a canoe, are not allowed legal representation until immigration interviews have been completed. Fears have been raised that the Papuan's request for asylum will be hampered by an Australian government unwilling to upset neighbouring Indonesia.

Presenter/Interviewer: Di Martin

Speakers: Kerry Nettle Senator Australian Greens; Reverand Socratez Sofyan Yoman, Papuan Baptist minister; Liz Biok form the International Commission of Jurists; Dr Richard Chauvel, Papua expert Victoria University

Martin: Of the 43 Papuan asylum seekers who beached their outrigger canoe near Weipa last week, the single men have been sent to the Christmas Island centre, while families and unaccompanied children are staying at nearby immigration staff housing.

Greens Senator Kerry Nettle will fly to the remote island tomorrow to meet with the Papuans. Senator Nettle says she's concerned the group has been cut off from Australian community support, and says their isolation is a deliberate tactic.

Nettle: I think the government is seeking to hide the ugliness of its mandatory detention policy by removing these people from the Australian mainland where they can get support and assistance, legal, health support, where the media can engage with them, check that they are being treated well and transparently.

Martin: Two of the Papuans have been evacuated to Perth for medical treatment – a father and daughter believed to have tuberculosis. It's a detail immigration officials didn't volunteer, but confirmed when questioned.

The Papuans arrival is a sensitive issue for the department. The last thing immigration officials needed after a scandal tainted 12 months highlighting wrongful deportations and detentions, is a boatload of Papuans stirring up trouble in bilateral relations with Indonesia.

Departmental spokesperson Sandi Logan says all initial interviews with the 43 have now been completed. During initial interviews, Papuans need to request political asylum without legal representation, or be turned away. Mr Logan declined to detail how many claims of asylum have been made. But he says two Papuans have requested Indonesian consular assistance. He denied they had been pressured to do so.

Those of the 43 who have made a claim for asylum will now have access to lawyers to assist with protection visa applications. Those applications are supposed to be decided within 90 days.

Indonesian officials have made it clear if Australia grants asylum to any of the 43, it could harm bilateral relations. Which has led many observors to ask whether the Papuans will get a fair hearing. This is refugee lawyer Liz Biok, from the Australian chapter of the International Commision of Jurists.

Biok: Certainly the Indonesians have taken on this issue quite vehemently at the moment and I think now because of our commitment to assist Indonesia with security matters relating to transnational crime, to people smuggling, to anti-terrorism, the government will want to pursue that these people are perhaps going to be the thorn in the side of this negotiation

Martin: The other complicating factor for the Papuans is a security treaty in the last stages of negotiation between Australia and Indonesia. It's expected to include an Australian commitment to respect Indonesia's territorial integrity.

The Department of Immigration says any application for a protection visa will be decided on merit alone. But Liz Biok says there's compelling precedent to show how Australia's domestic political considerations can affect requests for asylum.

Biok: And a very telling comparison is what happened in early 1990s when there was a large group of East Timorese asylum seekers. At that time, Australia and Indonesia were negotiating a security agreement, and the government stopped processing the East Timorese asylum seekers on the grounds that they were all Portuguese. It was a totally pragmatic political decision. It had very little to do with refugee law.

Martin: When the 43 Papuans landed their outrigger canoe on Cape York Peninsula, it bore a large English language banner accusing Indonesia of acts of terrorism and genocide in the troubled province. There's been a long running Papuan independence push since the province was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969. Recent moves in both the American Congress, and the Dutch parliament have questioned the legality of that incorporation, bringing the Papuan question to new international prominence.

Amnesty International says at least 100,000 Papuans have died since Indonesia took control of the province. At least two international reports – one from Sydney University last year – question whether Indonesian authorities are pursuing genocidal policies in Papua.

The Indonesian government has angrily denied any claim of genocide in the province, and says it would safe for the 43 to return. But Greens Senator Kerry Nettle says she believes members of the group are related to prominent pro independence families, and they would be at risk if sent back.

Nettle: On this boat the next generation of leaders of the independence movement of West Papua, some of them are quite high profile. Their views are known and I think the recent shootings and protests we've seen in West Papua give Australia and the Australian government an indication of just how repressive the Indonesian military is being towards these West Papuan people.

Martin: Last week the Indonesian military opened fire on a group of protestors in the eastern Paniai district, killing 13 year old Mosez Douw.

Papuan pro independence campaigners say he's related to one of the 43 asylum seekers, and initially claimed he was killed because of the asylum request in Australia. Senator Nettle now says she doesn't believe the shooting is linked to the arrival of the 43 in Australia.

Outspoken Papuan Baptist minister, Reverand Socratez Sofyan Yoman, says the shooting prompted a rare political protest in the provincial capital of Jayapura this week, when 200 people converged on the parliament building.

Reverand Yoman says the military have again increased their numbers in the province and he fears reprisals for the protest and for the asylum requests in Australia.

Yoman: There is more military, more and more. We see them everywhere, in twons, coastal areas, and the interior.

Martin: Pro-independence activists point to the recent disappearance of Constant Nere to illustrate their concern. Nere was once a prominent Papuan independence figure who fled across the border into PNG 30 years ago His family say he went back to Indonesia for the first time last month, and has since disappeared. They fear he's been picked up by the Indonesian authorites.

Long time Papua watcher, Dr Richard Chauvel from Victoria University says the 43 Papuans on Christmas Island pose a far greater threat to Indonesian authorities than Constant Nere.

Chauvel: These 43 Papuans have caused Indonesian authorities very considerable embarrassment.

Martin: What would that mean for these people, if indeed, they are returned to the province? CHAUVEL: I think that their lives and their security would be in considerable danger.

Jakarta sought access to Papuan asylum seekers

Melbourne Age - January 25, 2006

Andra Jackson – A Catholic bishop has warned that Indonesian authorities are "trying to get to" the 43 West Papuan asylum seekers on Christmas Island.

Melbourne auxiliary bishop Hilton Deakin told about 130 people demonstrating outside Immigration Department headquarters in Melbourne yesterday: "We know that already the Indonesian authorities, in Canberra and beyond, are trying to get to them."

The Indonesian embassy in Canberra has strongly denied it has made any approach, with its second secretary, Dino Kusnadi, saying on Sunday: "I can guarantee that there has been no contact whatsoever, it hadn't been requested, it was never even sought."

But the Immigration Department has confirmed to The Age that "a junior delegation" from the embassy went to Weipa last Thursday seeking access to the asylum seekers.

The 43 were found the day before at Mapoon, on the Cape York Peninsula, after making a perilous six-day voyage to Australia to seek asylum.

A spokesman for the Immigration Department said the Indonesians arrived in Weipa on Thursday but by then the Papuans had already been put on a plane for Christmas Island.

The department does not provide consular access to detainees without their permission, because this would contravene the Vienna Convention. But the West Papuans were told they had a right to Indonesian consular assistance if they choose. "Not one has chosen to do so," the spokesman said.

Refugee advocate Pamela Curr told the demonstration that with Jakarta an hour's flight from Christmas Island, supporters feared for the safety of the asylum seekers.

"The majority of these 43 people are ... leaders for free expression aand self-determination and possible independence because of the oppression from which they suffer," Bishop Deakin said. "Massacres, rapes and all the rest of it have gone on in that country for almost 30 years."

He called on the Australian Government to cancel its training program with the Indonesian military.

Democrats leader Lyn Allison said it was important to send a strong message to the Australian Government that "you have got it wrong on this issue". The 43 asylum seekers had been "whisked off" before they could tell their story, she said.

Australian Greens senator Kerry Nettle said Australia was honour-bound to offer the Papuans asylum, citing those Papuans who looked after Australian troops in World War II.

The Immigration Department's Victorian director, John Williams, accepted a letter from the demonstrators, which he said he would pass on to Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone. It calls for the Papuans to be released into the community on bridging visas while their protection claim is assessed.

West Papuan asylum seekers need our support

Green Left Weekly - January 25, 2006

Sarah Stephen – On January 18, 43 West Papuans stepped onto Australian soil at Mapoon on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. Amazingly, they had traversed 425 kilometres at sea in a 25-metre traditional dugout canoe fitted with an outboard motor. They were flying the West Papuan flag, outlawed by the Indonesian government.

Early on January 13, Australia-West Papua Association convener Louise Byrne was rung and informed from Merauke, West Papua, that a boat-load of independence activists was leaving for Australia. "These are undoubtedly political activists", Byrne told the January 18 Melbourne Age. "Their concern seems to be to preserve their activism. The Indonesian authorities have been extraordinarily effective in getting rid of people advocating independence for many years." According to Byrne, the asylum seekers include student leaders from all over West Papua's lowlands and highlands. Herman Wainggai, one student leader aboard the boat, was imprisoned for treason last year in the provincial capital of Jayapura, having previously spent long periods in jail for his activities. Wainggai comes from a political family; his father died in Cipinang Prison in Jakarta, where he had been imprisoned alongside leader of the East Timorese resistance Xanana Gusmao.

Byrne said the West Papuans were forced to undertake the journey by boat because the usual means of escaping – crossing the border into Papua New Guinea – had become increasingly difficult. "Although it hasn't been announced, I think the Indonesian government has changed its policy and is now realising that... autonomy isn't working and I think they're about to implement a military solution." The journey by the 30 men, six women and seven children was expected to take just 15 hours. The alarm was raised by AWPA on January 18 when the boat was three day's overdue. By the end of that day, the boat had been found.

The asylum seekers had hung a huge banner which read: "Save West Papua people soul from genocide intimidation and terrorist from military government of Indonesian. Also we West Papuan need freedom peace love and justice in our home land." But if not for photographer Damien Baker and the Cairns Post, which hired a helicopter, we might never have seen the boat and its political message. On January 19, Baker, a journalist from Torres News on Thursday Island, hired a helicopter and flew through the "no-fly exclusion zone" set up by the police around the West Papuan refugees. He found the Papuans huddled under a tree, but was prevented from talking to them by police.

Justice needed now

Momentum is building for the asylum seekers to be released into the community on bridging visas, rather than being detained while their claims are processed. This call has been taken up by AWPA, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Greens, the ACTU and many others.

This is only the third boat of asylum seekers to reach the Australian mainland in four years. Asylum seekers have to reach the mainland to be eligible to claim refugee status after the federal government excised Australia's northern islands from the migration zone.

ICJ Australia representative Justice John Dowd pointed out on January 19 that the asylum seekers "should not be sent offshore processing camps in Nauru or Manus Island as they are quite distinct from other boat arrivals as they have come directly from the place where they were persecuted. The 1951 Refugee Convention requires that states do not punish asylum seekers for illegal entry if they have come directly from a place where their lives were threatened." Nevertheless, late that day the asylum seekers were loaded aboard a C130 Hercules army aircraft at Weipa airport, after undergoing health checks and processing, and taken to Christmas Island.

A spokesperson for immigration minister Amanda Vanstone said that the Christmas Island detention centre, which can house up to 800 people, was to be used for "unauthorised boat arrivals who arrive in areas that are excised from the migration zone and there's no plans to change that".

Those who arrive by boat on one of Australia's excised islands are not protected by Australia's legal system. Rumours of a policy change first circulated last April when Christmas Island mayor Gordon Thompson said he had been told by the government's immigration detention advisory group (IDAG) that the new 800-bed centre would house all asylum seeker boat arrivals, including those who reached the migration zone.

The fact that the West Papuans, who made it to the Australian mainland, have been taken to Christmas Island – in contradiction to the government's claims about the regulations – suggests these rumours were true.

West Papuan struggle

The arrival of the West Papuan asylum seekers puts the spotlight on the deteriorating political situation in West Papua. It also puts the Australian government in an awkward situation: it supports the "territorial integrity" of Indonesia and hence opposes the independence struggles in West Papua and Aceh. What's more, Jakarta and Canberra are currently negotiating a security treaty that is set to include a pledge by Australia not to interfere in provinces such as Papua.

Reports that the Australian government may have allowed Indonesian officials access on January 19 to the 43 asylum seekers are therefore not surprising.

Yet popular sentiment in Australia lies firmly with the West Papuan's independence struggle, a legacy of the movement in solidarity with East Timor's fight for independence, which highlighted the brutality of the Indonesian regime under former dictator Suharto.

Murdoch's Australian newspaper warned in its January 20 editorial that "there is no case for the Australian government sticking its bib into Indonesia's business and accepting [the 43 West Papuans] as freedom fighters while we accept its long-established sovereignty over West Papua. It is never wise to jeopardise international relations – especially between neighbours – with single-issue stances."

Joe Collins from AWPA Sydney said that the West Papuans should be treated as the East Timorese were before they achieved their independence, by granting them bridging visas with full rights and allowing them to live in the community while their claims are assessed.

According to British-based TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign, additional troops were sent to Papua last November and stationed in villages to prevent people from taking part in pro- independence activities.

"The Papuan people are being subjected to a closely coordinated operation by the Indonesian police operating in the towns and the Indonesian army operating in the countryside which could lead to a number of arrests and convictions under the anti-subversion law. Is it any wonder then that some pro-independence activists are seeking political asylum?

Indonesia increases military presence in Papua

ABC Online - January 25, 2006

Reporter: Hamish Fitzsimmons

Peter Cave: A military build-up in the Indonesian province of Papua has heightened tensions between the Government and independence activists, and is said to have been prompted by the arrival in Australia last week of 43 Papuan asylum seekers.

There've been numerous reports of reprisal attacks, and local leaders say the military operations are intended to terrify the local population and quash separatist sentiments.

The Indonesian Government has also warned relations with Australia will be damaged if it accepts the Papuans as refugees.

Hamish Fitzsimmons reports.

Hamish Fitzsimmons: In recent weeks, the Indonesian military has been boosting its numbers in the province of Papua. It says it needs to bolster security, but local activists are wondering on what grounds.

The Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman is the Chairman of the West Papua Baptist Church. He says Indonesian tanks have been patrolling the streets of the provincial capital Jayapura and that the military build up is having its desired effect.

Socratez Sofyan Yoman: We are very, very afraid, very, very, very afraid, and the terrible situation in all Papuans in the provinces, also in the islands, in the coastal area. Because everywhere is military, now it's military base, everywhere they take their guns they go round and round. I think in West Papua now – right now – it's more military in here.

Hamish Fitzsimmons: After the 43 Papuan asylum seekers landed in Australia last week, there was an incident in the region many of them came from. At least one person was killed and others were wounded when the Indonesian military said it broke up a gang demanding illegal road tolls. But Sofyan Yoman claims it's part of a plan to terrorise the population.

Socratez Sofyan Yoman: They can't do that, terrorise the people, intimidate the people. For example, they kill the people in Waghete, they want to create a conflict like East Timor. They will justify, justify for the Indonesian military in West Papua, military operation in West Papua. We'll become... we'll be like East Timor.

Hamish Fitzsimmons: The Indonesian Government has warned that if Australia accepts the 43 Papuans as refugees, relations between the two countries could be damaged. The Federal Government maintains its respect for Indonesia's current sovereignty but Indonesian politics expert, Dr Richard Chauvel, says there's lingering suspicion of Australia after East Timor's independence in 1999.

Richard Chauvel: Australia as we'd all remember, supported Indonesian sovereignty and occupation of East Timor for decades, but in Indonesia eyes when the crunch came, that policy changed around very quickly.

They clearly recognised as the case was with refugees from East Timor that by granting asylum seeker refugee status to people the Indonesians regard as their citizens, that is by definition saying something about our views on human rights conditions within Indonesia.

Hamish Fitzsimmons: The Australian Government says it will assess the claims of the Papuans according to its legal obligations and the merits of their cases. The 43 people remain on Christmas Island awaiting news of their claims.

Peter Cave: Hamish Fitzsimmons reporting.

Papuans seeking asylum urged to return home

Jakarta Post - January 25, 2006

Ivy Susanti, Jakarta – The Indonesian government urged the group of 43 Papuans seeking asylum in Australia to return home, and pledged that there would be no punishment.

Imron Cotan, the new foreign ministry's secretary-general, reiterated on Tuesday the government also expected Australia to consider its good relations with Indonesia when deciding on the asylum claim, which, if granted, would be tantamount to tacit acknowledgement of the genocide that is claimed in the independence-minded province.

A group of 43 Papuans left the port of Merauke for Australia two weeks ago and arrived last Wednesday at Cape York Peninsula. The Papuans, who arrived aboard an outrigger canoe in an apparent bid for asylum, were later sent for immigration screening to Christmas Island, a remote Indian Ocean island.

They strung up a banner on their boat, accusing Indonesia of "genocide", an allegation that has been widely dismissed by Indonesian government officials.

"The procedure to get asylum status takes a very long time, because applicants must undergo some phases. The applicants can appeal several times when the request fails," explained Imron, a former Indonesian ambassador to Australia.

"We don't want to see them suffering in the detention center on Christmas Island. We hope the Papuans can return to Indonesia, and certainly the government won't take any action that will affect their welfare. After all, they are part of our nation."

He said that eight or nine of the 43 people are related to Thomas Wanggai, a Papuan pro-independence leader who died in detention at Cipinang prison in Jakarta in 1996. Wanggai proclaimed the independence of the West Melanesian people on Dec. 14, 1988 in Jayapura.

His supporters are still fighting for self-determination in Papua, and the activists reportedly receive support from some scholarly and human rights groups based in Australia.

Imron added said that the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra was still probing the Papuans' motives, but he said media reports and an early report from the embassy said that they were looking for asylum.

However, he said that the Australian government was unlikely to support Papua's independence bid as the country had acknowledged in agreements on two occasions – the Indonesia-Australia ministerial forum held in both countries consecutively in 2003 and 2005, that Papua is part of Indonesian territory.

Meanwhile, Din Syamsuddin, the chairman of Muhammadiyah, the second-largest Islamic organization in Indonesia, urged the government to find out the real motives of the Papuans.

"We have concerns over the fact that there are Indonesian citizens seeking asylum overseas," Din was quoted by Antara as saying on Tuesday. He said that asylum request itself could affect the bilateral relations politically.

Merauke Regent John Gluba Gebze said he could not verify the identity of the 43 Papuans or their departure point. "We are still examining the claims that the Papuans are residents of Merauke. We will also try to find the seaport from which they departed," he told the state news agency on Monday.

Gluba said that the Papuans could leave from any small seaport around Merauke such as Kumbe, Lampu Satu or Besbah, which is located at the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea border.

Enraged Papuans protest shooting

Jakarta Post - January 24, 2006

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – Protesters stormed the Papua legislative council building Monday, demanding Indonesian Military (TNI) soldiers be withdrawn from the province.

The protest follows an incident in Wegete, Paniai, on Friday, in which security personnel fired on a crowd of civilians, killing one.

The members of the Papua People's Anti-Militarism Front involved in Monday's action also demanded the formation of an independent fact-finding team to investigate the shooting. Protesters carried banners demanding all soldiers be pulled out of the region, the prosecution of those responsible for Friday's shooting and the dismissal of Trikora Military Commander Maj. Gen. George Toisutta.

Toisutta is being blamed for failing to control his soldiers during the incident in Wegete, in which troops opened fire on a crowd of people gathered outside a police station.

Antara news agency reported two protesters were injured during the melee Monday, before being met by councillor Yance Kayame to hear their demands.

In Friday's incident, Moses Douw, 15, was shot and killed, while two other people, Yulice Kotoki, 18, and Petrus Pekey, 19, were injured. The two are still being treated for gunshot wounds at Nabire General Hospital.

According to official accounts, the shooting on Friday began when three people arrived at Paniai Police station to complain about the police chief's refusal to sign a letter allowing them to collect fees from passing motorists. The crowd soon grew to about 100 and, according to officials, several people assaulted a police officer, which was when security personnel opened fire.

The two young men injured in the shooting were showing signs of improvement Monday. "Their condition is improving. The one who was shot in the back is now able to sit up, while the one who was shot in the leg is recuperating. They have both spoken to me," Nabire General Hospital director Dr. Phiter Poddala told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The body of Moses Douw is still being kept at the Enarotali district military command office in Wagete. Relatives and residents have refused to bury Moses until Trikora Military Commander Toisutta arrives to attend the funeral. "I've not yet received reports whether the deceased has been buried," Papua Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Kartono told the Post.

However, Benny Giay of Indonesian human rights group Elsham Papua disputed the official version of the events that led to Moses' death. He told the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday that four people were ambushed on their way to school, AFP reported. The newspaper said that Moses Douw was one of those killed.

However, police spokesman Kartono denied there had been an ambush and said Moses Douw was killed when police and soldiers opened fire to quell the mob that attacked the police station. "There were three people shot in that single incident. One was killed and the two others were injured," he was quoted as saying by AFP. Benny could not be reached for comment Monday.

The paper also reported that Moses was said by activists to be a close relative of one of dozens of Papuan refugees who landed in northern Australia last Wednesday. Australia asked Indonesia over the weekend for information about the Wegete shooting.

Human rights/law

Ethnic Chinese say basic rights denied them

Jakarta Post - January 26, 2006

Jakarta – Malls decked out in festive red and restaurants offering special delicacies for the upcoming Chinese New Year are cold comfort when one's citizenship is still questioned, Chinese-Indonesians say.

It is the grievance of about 30 women grouped in the Poor Tionghoa Women Organization, who discussed their problems Wednesday with former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid at Nahdlatul Ulama headquarters on Jl. Kramat Raya, Central Jakarta.

The women asked Gus Dur to help in pressing the government to scrap persistent discriminative administrative policies in obtaining birth certificates, ID cards, family card and a citizenship certificate (SBKRI).

"None of these women present here have identification cards," said Rebeka Harsono from the Indonesian Antidiscrimination Foundation (LADI), who accompanied the women during the media briefing.

"The officials make it very difficult for them. They have to pay at least Rp 350,000 (about US$35) if they want to have their religion of Buddhist or Christian printed on their ID card. And it is even more expensive for those who do not have the SBKRI. They have to pay at least Rp 500,000 for the card."

The discriminative treatment, much of it dating back to the anti-Chinese sentiment following the 1965 abortive coup, violates Government Regulation No. 29/1999 ratifying the 1965 International Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Rebeka said.

Indonesians of Chinese descent account for approximately 3 percent, or around six million, of the country's 215 million people.

Although the prevailing stereotype is of Chinese-Indonesians as affluent, the women in the group are from the low-income bracket. They said the lack of necessary citizenship cards prevented them from receiving government assistance in tough economic times. "I cannot get cash assistance from the government because I don't have the card," one of the women, Neng Tina, said.

Then president Soeharto issued Presidential Decree No. 56/1996 annulling a decree making it mandatory for ethnic Chinese to have the SBKRI.

Two years later, his successor B.J. Habibie issued a decree ordering government officials to treat all Indonesians the same. In 1999, he renewed the call by issuing a decree banning discrimination against Indonesians based on their origins. However, almost a decade after the abolishment, lower-level civil servants still demand the document, Rebeka said.

It was during Gus Dur's presidency after Habibie that Chinese- Indonesians were allowed to practice their faith and culture in public. His successor, Megawati Soekarnoputri, made the Chinese New Year a national holiday in 2002.

In responding to their grievance, Gus Dur said the government should establish a team to ensure the citizenship certificate was no longer demanded. He also advised the women to take their complaint to the House of Representatives.

Women take stand against assault on their rights

Jakarta Post - January 24, 2006

Jakarta – A woman is paraded through the streets for public scorn simply because her clothes are deemed too revealing. Another is struck by a "morality enforcer" for the crime of neglecting to wear her headscarf while sitting on her porch.

These are not dark tales of religious autocracy from way back when, but evidence of the real challenges facing Indonesian women today, women's activist Erlinda said Monday.

Although the incidents she described happened in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, the freedom provided by regional autonomy is being exploited by conservatives for political ends in many areas. And the first casualties of religious conservatism are women, with the battleground to be found in regencies, she said.

Alarmed by blatant violations of women's rights in local regulations that scoff at the separation of religion and state, women's groups are going on the offensive.

It is the abusive and distorted interpretations of Islamic law to suppress women which Zohra Andi Baso is fighting against as they chip away at the gains made by women in society in recent years.

"We aren't anti-Islamic... But these regulations limit women to the domestic sphere," the national presidium coordinator of the Women's Coalition said during a discussion on religious conservatism here on Monday.

She noted regulation No. 451.422/Binsos-III/2005 by the Padang mayoralty in West Sumatra that obliges all female students to wear a headscarf.

The secretary-general of the coalition, Masruchah, said local regulations in Aceh often relegated women to second-class citizens. "They cannot be leaders. They are forced to obey their husbands, and aren't allowed to work without permission from their spouse."

Conservatism has become more prevalent since the application of regional autonomy in 2001, which gives local administrations the authority to freely govern their respective areas. According to the coalition, regencies in South Sulawesi, West Sumatra and West Nusa Tenggara have also tried to introduce regulations which demand conformity to a restrictive set of religious codes.

The freedom of regional autonomy, the women argued, should not transgress a women's rights of autonomy over her own body.

The coalition believes the public should be galvanized to fight the conservative trend, and noted that coordinated campaigns have yielded success.

A coalition member from East Nusa Tenggara, Diana, recalled the attempt of the Mataram mayoralty to issue an antiimmorality bill that imposed curfews for women and required them to wear headscarves.

There were even clauses, she said, on arresting women standing alone near a hotel, and the likelihood of punishment if her attire was deemed provocative. The controversial articles were eventually dropped after protests from local NGOs and women's organizations.

Contacted separately, the head of the Indonesian Ulema Council, Umar Shihab, said a Muslim woman's decision to wear the headscarf was a personal one. "We never support anyone forcing their will on others," he told The Jakarta Post. "The state should not force people to dress in an Islamic way. Such awareness must come from their own hearts."

Putting religious and ideological arguments aside, perhaps the most telling comment came from Masruchah, who wears the headscarf. "Why is the state intervening in how a woman dresses?" she said.

Reconciliation & justice

Judicial commission to review Priok case

Jakarta Post - January 25, 2006

Jakarta – The Judicial Commission promised Tuesday to investigate the judges who acquitted two military generals of all charges in connection with the 1984 Tanjung Priok massacre where troops shot dead up to 100 people.

A group representing the survivors and victims' families has requested the commission investigate the decisions of judges at an ad hoc human rights tribunal and the Supreme Court, the two bodies that heard the case.

Commission chairman Busyro Muqoddas said the investigation would decide whether the judges violated their code of ethics when hearing the cases.

"We will examine whether they were professional in carrying out their duties. The judges must uphold their code of ethics by making their verdicts impartially based on the principles of justice," he said.

In 2004, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by prosecutors for it to convict Maj. Gen (ret) Pranowo, then Jakarta Military Police chief, and Maj. Gen Sriyanto, the former operations chief of the North Jakarta military command, of gross human rights violations in the case. Earlier in August 2003, an ad hoc human rights tribunal similarly acquitted the two generals.

The two were in command when their troops shot dead dozens of Muslim activists during a violent protest in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, on Sept. 12.

Official figures say 24 people were killed in the shooting and 54 were injured. However, testimonies from survivors and victims' family members indicate that more than 100 people may have died.

Pranowo was also accused of allowing the torture of demonstrators while they were held in military detention. Busyro said the commission would question witnesses of the incident when reviewing the decisions.

The panel of Supreme Court justices that presided over the trial of Sriyanto and Pranowo was led by Andriani Nurdin, while the trial at the human rights tribunal was chaired by Iskandar Kamil.

Members of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) helped the victims lodge their request in the form of a Kontras report Tuesday.

Kontras coordinator Usman Hamid said he was suspicious of the courts' verdicts. "There was no transparency at all in the legal process. We were unable to follow the Supreme Court's review of the case because the justices did not let us know about its progress," he said. Judges in both courts were imprecise and blinkered in their search for truth, he said.

In its report to the commission, Kontras pointed out that at the lower court level, judges had neglected important evidence and violated the law by permitting witnesses that had withdrawn their cases against the state.

The Supreme Court justices, who should have noted the irregularities in the lower court's handling of the case, were also oblivious, he said.

One of those detained by soldiers, Ratono, told the commission of his abduction and torture. "They kidnapped me and forced me to leave my nine-month old child. Then they shocked my friends and I with electricity."

Activists seek review of Priok

Jakarta Post - January 24, 2006

Jakarta – Human rights activists plan to file a review with the Judicial Commission on Tuesday questioning the integrity of the justices handling the 1984 Tanjung Priok killings.

The move was made after a panel of Supreme Court justices overruled in mid-January an appeal filed by the prosecutors against Maj. Gen. (ret) Pranowo, the then Jakarta Military Police chief.

Pranowo was accused of torturing dozens of Muslim activists while they were detained in the military's cramped detention cells.

An official report said that at least 12 Muslim activists were shot dead during a demonstration outside a police station in Tanjung Priok, while dozens of others were injured or disappeared.

"Pranowo's case shows the Supreme Court has never been serious in dealing with cases of human rights violation. All those tried were eventually cleared of all charges," Usman Hamid, a coordinator for the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of the Violence, said.

Labour issues

SBY tells unions to stop playing politics

Jakarta Post - January 28, 2006

Rendi Akhmad Witular, Karawang, West Java – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono appealed to labor unions Friday not to use welfare issues for political means, which could jeopardize efforts to improve the country's investment climate.

Yudhoyono said protests on labor problems should be conducted within the law and peacefully to avoid tarnishing the image of local workers.

"Labor unions, government and the business community should live together in harmony. They should settle any labor problems in a sincere manner, and avoid turning them into an excessive political movement."

His speech came at the inauguration of a new motorcycle plant owned by PT Yamaha Motor Manufacturing West Java, a local unit of Japanese motorcycle giant Yamaha Motor Corp., in Karawang, West Java.

Yudhoyono ordered the ministries of industry and manpower/transmigration and local administrations to maintain regular communication with the business community to ensure workers received proper wages and health facilities.

"The government and related parties will seek a balancing point in which the welfare of the workers could be increased to an appropriate level, without disturbing the operation and expansion of a company," said Yudhoyono.

Labor disputes here all often end in violence. The most recent example was the clash between thousands of protesting workers and police in Surabaya on Jan. 16, with dozens of workers injured and eight others arrested.

Political opportunists sometimes use the protests to stir unrest, thereby raising their public profile.

The number of industrial disputes is expected to increase, particularly with some employers choosing to dismiss part of their permanent workforce and replace them with contract workers for cost and efficiency.

Employers argue that the frequent labor disputes, lack of legal certainty in resolving them and more productive and better skilled workers in other countries deter investors.

Both labor unions and employers have faulted the old approach of handling industrial disputes, a protracted, legally iffy committee-based system dating back almost 50 years.

However, the advent of the special labor court, inaugurated on Jan. 14 in Padang, West Sumatra, is expected to put an end to the frustration for both sides. Proponents say it provides faster, fairer and cost-free resolution of disputes, with a process of negotiations and mediation before a case can be brought before the court.

The government has embarked on an investment drive, revising laws and regulations that are deemed unfriendly to investors, including revising the labor law. Yudhoyono also urged workers to increase their productivity.

"If the operation of a company is not good because the workers lack productivity, it will also affect the workers themselves because they will risk layoffs. We don't want the situation to happen," the President said.

Much rides on advent of labor court

Jakarta Post - January 26, 2006

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The long-awaited labor court has been promoted as a fairer, faster and less expensive means to settle industrial disputes, which are likely to rise amid tough economic times.

It replaces the government-sanctioned Regional and Central Committees for Settlements of Industrial Disputes (P4D and P4P), whose procedures and decisions since their establishment in 1957 have been faulted as protracted, probusiness and ineffectual.

The special court, officially launched by Chief Justice Bagir Manan in Padang, West Sumatra, on Jan. 14, will start simultaneously in the capitals of 33 provinces. The appeals court will be held in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court is still awaiting a presidential decree to inaugurate 98 newly recruited ad hoc judges nominated either by employers and labor unions. They and 100 career judges at district courts will try a backlog of thousands of industrial disputes.

"The labor court will take effect following the inauguration of the ad hoc judges within this month," the director of law and court affairs at the Supreme Court, Suparno, told The Jakarta Post recently.

He outlined that under Law No. 2/2004 on the labor court (its implementation was postponed for one year), all industrial disputes would be settled within 140 days.

Disputing parties – employers, workers or labor unions – would not be subject to any court costs because the court was fully covered by the state budget, he added.

"The labor court is part of the national legal reform drive, putting the hearing of industrial disputes into the judicial system to give legal certainty to the conflicting sides, including investors and dissatisfied workers and labor unions, which have been in a weak position in industrial relations," he said.

Under the new law, workers and employers have legal certainty on how and when their dispute will be settled. Industrial disputes will be handled through bipartite negotiation, mediation, conciliation and, if needed, in arbitration or the special court over the designated 140-day period.

Disputes could be settled within 30 days if conflicting sides reach agreement in bipartite negotiations, or within 60 days if they settle their disputes in tripartite mediations in the presence of government mediators or "conciliators".

The manpower and transmigration minister has appointed a total of 165 conciliators and arbitrators to a five-year term of office.

Resolution of disputes should take only 80 days to be settled at the labor court and the appeal court. The sides are allowed to appeal to the Supreme Court for definitive verdicts if they are dissatisfied with the special court's decision.

He emphasized the spirit of the new law, which encourages conflicting sides to seek out-of-court settlements before taking the matter to the court.

"Conflicting sides will save energy, working hours and money if they settle their disputes in bipartite negotiations or tripartite mediations and agreements made during the negotiations. And (decisions from) mediation will be officially signed and registered with the labor court, which will execute them if any of the conflicting sides refuse to comply with the agreements."

Business groups have welcomed the establishment of the court, saying the legal certainty of its rulings will encourage investment.

"It is an institution with potential whose rulings could not be questioned in a higher court," Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) secretary-general Djimanto said last week. Some labor unions have hailed the labor court as a breakthrough in expediting the resolution of industrial disputes, as well in cutting costs and providing legal certainty.

"There is no legal certainty under the old system, because any decisions made by P4P could be vetoed by the manpower and transmigration ministers or brought to the State Administrative Higher Court because the committee is part of the executive body," said chairman of the Confederation of All-Indonesian Workers Union (KSPSI) Jacob Nuwa Wea.

"This has cost workers and labor unions much time and energy in trying to get definitive decisions on their cases." Chairman of the Indonesian People's Labor Union (SPRI) Ruslan Effendi cautioned, however, the labor court would still have to navigate the same problems – particularly bribery – that dogged the earlier courts.

"We are skeptical that the labor court could provide justice to workers under the corrupt judicial system. We still fear that employers will have the chance to buy decisions, as they did with P4D and P4P," he said.

The number of industrial disputes is expected to increase, particularly with some employers choosing to dismiss part of their permanent workforce and replace them with contract workers for cost and efficiency.

These will add to the many cases already on the books. Apindo notes there are 508 outstanding cases of its members which will be taken over by the labor court from the P4P and the State Administrative Higher Court, with 1,500 more filed by workers and labor unions.

Changes should end dragged-out cases

Jakarta Post - January 26, 2006

Jakarta – Unlike the old system for handling industrial disputes under the Regional and Central Committee for Settlements of Industrial Disputes (P4D and P4P), the new one based on the labor court cuts through complicated legal proceedings.

For one, Law No. 2/2004 puts a definite time period on resolving the disputes – 140 days – and provides legal certainty on any decisions made before a case reaches the labor court.

Out-of-court settlements through bipartite negotiations, mediations or conciliation will certainly reduce the number of cases backed up in the courts from the old system. The lack of time certainty was a major flaw in labor dispute mediation.

Formerly, bipartite negotiations and mediation were encouraged by the government, but agreements were not binding, giving the loser the opportunity to buy time. Most disputes dragged on for months or years before they were eventually brought before P4D.

Law No. 22/1957 on settlements of industrial disputes required conflicting sides to go to P4D and P4P chaired by government officers after the mediation failed. P4D and P4P hearings were actually a quasi-court because they were conducted by the executive body, instead of the district court.

The law also gave the power to the manpower minister to veto P4P's decisions, ultimately rendering them powerless and undermining the body's credibility. Ministers during Soeharto's New Order regime frequently rejected P4P's pro-labor verdicts to stifle labor union development. The establishment of the State Administrative Court in 1991, the prolonged economic crisis and the advent of the national reform movement in 1998 underlined the inefficacy of P4P, especially when it came to workers' rights.

Last year's unfair dismissal case involving aircraft maker PT Dirgantara Indonesia is an example. P4P ruled for the workers – who fought a decision by the company to dismiss 6,000 of its 9,000 employees – but the Bandung-based company's management sued in the State Administrative Higher Court.

It was common for P4D or P4P panels – whose members consisted of five labor union representatives, five employer representatives and three from the government – to side with employers amid rife allegations of bribery.

Under the defined procedures of the new system, workers no longer need to go on strike to force their employers to respect their rights, to fight for their interests or to settle disputes between two or more labor unions in a company.

The Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) and labor unions are required to have skilled negotiators to accompany or represent workers in bipartite negotiations, mediation, conciliation talks and the labor court to seek a fairer and faster settlement to their industrial disputes.

Gone are the loopholes that were exploited by both parties to circumvent decisions made in bipartite negotiations, mediations and conciliations.

Unlike its weak predecessor, the labor court has the authority to execute all agreements and court verdicts reached upon at all levels.

Legal procedures save on time and money

Jakarta Post - January 26, 2006

Jakarta – Taking an industrial dispute to the labor court will figure at the end of a new, expedited process of seeking a settlement.

If a dispute does reach the court after negotiations and mediation have failed, judges will be obliged to study cases registered with the court within seven days and required to finish trying them within 30 days.

"There will be no registration fees and, in court hearings, workers can be accompanied or represented by labor unions, while employers can be accompanied and or represented by Apindo," the director of law and court affairs at the Supreme Court, Suparno, said recently, referring to the Indonesian Employers Association.

He added that either of the conflicting sides could hire professional lawyers at their own expense to accompany them in arguing their cases. A panel of judges presided over by a career judge is allowed to summon witnesses or expert witnesses to testify in the hearings.

Clerks are obliged to convey court verdicts to the Supreme Court chief justice within 14 days if an appeal is lodged. The Supreme Court would then be required to accept or reject all appeal motions within 30 days. Conflicting sides are required to comply with the Supreme Court's verdicts as absolute.

The hope is that many of the disputes will be settled before reaching the labor court through the required bipartite negotiations, mediation and conciliation phases (parties also have the option of seeking abitration instead of the final recourse of the court).

Within days after the emergence of an industrial dispute, the law requires it be submitted for bipartite negotiations. Any agreement to settle the dispute must by signed by the respective parties and registered with the labor court. The registration is essential to ensure that the parties do not renege on their part of the agreement.

If conflicting sides fail to reach agreement in 30 days, they are required to seek mediation. Appointed government mediators are allowed to call witnesses, including expert witnesses, in the attempt to resolve the dispute in the allotted 30-day period. If they fail, they are required to go professional conciliators.

The conflicting sides could go to arbitrators or directly to the labor court if they fail to settle their dispute through conciliation.

Government mediators, conciliators and arbitrators who fail to complete their tasks in accordance with the law will be given administrative sanctions, including the revocation of their license to practice.

Witnesses or expert witnesses who reject a summons by conciliators, arbitrators and the court to testify face a maximum prison term of six months as well as a Rp 50 million (US$4,900) fine.

Business hopes for legal certainty with labor court

Jakarta Post - January 26, 2006

Anissa S. Febrina, Jakarta – While public sympathy is rarely on the side of a firm that lays off workers, the fact is that Indonesian employers have long had it far from their own way.

Amid the recent fuel price hikes, a looming increase in electricity prices, and cheaper and more productive labor in neighboring China, Vietnam and Thailand, many Indonesian firms have no choice but to lay off workers if they want to stay afloat.

"Companies often have to choose whether to give up their workers or give up their markets," Indonesian Textile Association (API) secretary-general Ernovian Gysmi said recently. Laying off workers, however, frequently ends up in protracted and bitter labor disputes.

"Obviously, we have a different perspective from the workers. They always demand high severance pay, while we have to do our math carefully to avoid going out of business altogether," the owner of a textile firm in Surakarta, Central Java, told The Jakarta Post by phone on Wednesday.

And the bringing of a dispute before the Provincial Committee for the Settlement of Labor Disputes (P4D), or its incarnation at the central level, the P4P, often ended up satisfying no one – neither employers or workers.

"The old P4P had no legal powers," Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) secretary-general Djimanto said. "The new labor court should produce more in the way of legal certainty." He explained that previously, many cases heard by the P4P were appealed to the Administrative High Court (PTTUN), thus often delaying the resolution of the disputes inordinately.

Apindo says there are around 508 such cases waiting to be handed over to the new labor court. "Especially layoff cases. This situation prevents companies from improving their efficiency," he added.

The new labor court, which has promised to hand down its rulings in just 140 days, would help companies accurately assess how much money they would need to cover severance payments, for example. "The rulings of the labor court will be more firmly grounded in the law," Apindo chairman Sofjan Wanandi added.

Previously, he said, too many third parties were able to intervene in labor disputes. "Local administrations and manpower agencies would quickly take the side of the workers without looking at the case objectively."

The labor court, he hoped, would be staffed by expert and impartial judges. "The assessors in the P4D and P4P were officials from the Manpower Ministry," Sofjan explained. "They lacked expertise, took too long in arriving at decisions and frequently handed down irrational rulings." In the new labor court, where cases would be decided by both career and non-career judges, rulings should be fairer and be handed down more quickly.

Sofjan added that the establishment of the labor court would relieve companies of a number of unacceptable costs, such as paying the wages of a worker being tried on criminal charges while awaiting a verdict.

"In the past, we could not fire a worker caught stealing until the P4D made it official. We still had to pay his wages until the process was completed," he said.

Legal certainty was what investors most needed in doing business, Sofjan added. "The certainty and predictability provided in the labor field by this new system is a good omen for the future."

Organda backs down on strike threat

Jakarta Post - January 25, 2006

The Association of Land Transportation Owners (Organda) is giving the government some room to maneuver on its threat to call a nationwide strike in early February.

The association ended its national congress in Batam by recommending that industrial action only be taken if Transportation Minister Hatta Radjasa failed to carry out several measures, including dealing with the collection of illegal fees, which cost association members about Rp 18 trillion (US$1.9 billion) annually.

The recommendation, disclosed to the media Tuesday, did not set a deadline for the minister to implement the measures.

Land/rural issues

Farmers demand business permit be revoked

Suara Merdeka - January 26, 2006

Semarang – At least 300 farmers in the plantation area of Rumpun Sari Kaligintung owned by PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) IX, have complained about the company to the governor. They are demanding that the government revoke the company's business permit (HGU) because they believe it has implemented a system of forced cultivation on local farmers.

The farmers – some of whom were quite old – arrived at the governor's office on Jalan Pahlawan in four trucks and bringing banners. During the action, the demonstrators from the National Farmers Union (STN) merely sat and burnt incense. The demonstration was later complimented with speeches and statements.

In their statement they called for plantation company's (PTP) business permit be revoked, the release of land for the farmers' use and the supply of cheap technology. They also condemned the unjust actions of local plantation managers.

The chairperson of the Central Java branch of STN, Yoris Sindu Sunarjan, said that the PTP had set a number of rental stipulations that farmers were forced to agree to. He gave the example of farmers being obliged to rent land to plant Sengon Laut (Abbasiyah) trees using their own capital and maintenance. What is strange however, is the produce from the plantation then became fully owned by the state owned company.

"PTP's land is 148 hectares, only around 15 hectares however is used for tea plantations. Prior to 1997, all of this was uncultivated land. Whereas local farmers need the land to improve their welfare", explained Sunarjan.

As of 1997 he continued, the land began to be rented to farmers. But not without cost or being burdened with conditions. The farmers in the area had to provide voluntary labour to build a road in the area. At particular times they become tea pickers with a wage of 500-1,000 rupiah per person per day. Working hours were set between 7am to 5pm.

"With stipulations such as this, it is the same as if they had returned to colonial times. Recently they have also been obliged to pay a land rent of 10,000 rupiah for an area of 20x20 metres. What has also been a burden, in order to protect the Segon, PTP carried out spraying. Whereas Segon should be planted with Tumpangsari so the result was that their dry season secondary crops died," he explained (H12-29t)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Farmers in Central Java oppose rice imports

Liputan6.com - January 25, 2006

Semarang – Thousands of farmers from the Central Java National Farmers Union (Serikat Tani Nasional, STN) went to the offices of the Central Java governor in Semarang on Wednesday January 25. The demonstrators gave speeches and put up posters and banners that opposed rice imports that they believe will severely damage farmers. The action that failed to get any response from local government officials eventually disbanded peacefully.

Prior to this, they held a demonstration at the offices of the Central Java Provincial National Land Agency (BPN) in Semarang. They demanded that the BPN immediately resolve a number of land disputes that are damaging farmers. The government was urged to be more serious in improving the welfare of its citizens. The farmers also opposed fuel price increases and planned increase to basic electricity rates.

The rice imports that were being protested by the Central Java farmers meanwhile have already arrived. Around 6,000 tons of rice from Vietnam arrived at the Krueng Geukueh port in North Aceh at the end of last week. But because the documentation was incomplete the rice was only unloaded last Tuesday. The rice will be distributed in a number of regions in Aceh including the regencies of Aceh Tamiang, East Aceh, North Aceh Utara, Bireun and Pidie.

The government's plan to import rice has already triggered price fluctuations in a number of parts of the country. In Kulonprogo, Yogyakarta, for example, rice prices reached more than 4,500 rupiah per kilogram. This has also happened in Banda Aceh and Greater Aceh. Increases to the price of rice even occurred when the rice was still being milled. Unhulled paddy that was previously 1,800 rupiah per kilogram jumped to 2,500 rupiah. (TOZ/Tim Liputan 6 SCTV)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Bali's farmers bid goodbye to life on the land

Jakarta Post - January 24, 2006

Rita A.Widiadana, Denpasar – The classic picture-postcard views of Bali, with its gorgeous multitiered rice fields and toiling farmers, could soon cease to exist as more and more villagers decide they can make more money selling their land than working it.

Putu Wiranegara, who owns three hectares of rice fields in Canggu, Badung regency, said his harvests had decreased over the last five years because of a lack of fertilizers and workers, and climate changes.

"I used to harvest five tons of grain for every hectare, but now the land yields less than two tons per hectare," he said, adding that the rising price of fertilizer, which now costs about Rp 1,050 (11 US cents) per kilogram, had contributed to falling harvests.

"The production costs of working rice fields cannot match the current market price for rice (of about Rp 1,700 per kilogram)," he said.

Complicating matters, Putu now has to look as far away as East Java for workers. "Very few people here want to work as farmers. They prefer to work at hotels, villas, restaurants or in the garment industry," Putu said.

The farmer eventually decided it would be more profitable to rent part of his land to a property developer. "I didn't want to sell my ancestral land, but these days farmers have to find different ways to earn a living," he said.

Putu is just one of thousands of farmers across Bali who have sold or rented their land to property developers eager to put up hotels, resorts, villas, luxury housing complexes and entertainment centers. The phenomenon has affected farmers in Ubud, Tabanan, Badung and Singaraja.

Data from the Bali Agriculture Office paints a gloomy picture of the farming industry on the island. Three regencies, Gianyar, Tabanan and Buleleng, traditionally regarded as Bali's rice baskets, are losing productive fields at an alarming rate.

Gianyar loses about 58 hectares of productive rice fields a year, leaving just 26,248 hectares of productive land in the regency. However, the regency has been able to maintain its harvest yield at about 107,791.20 tons of rice per year. Rice consumption in the regency is about 63,926.63 tons annually, leaving Gianyar a surplus of 43,864 tons.

Buleleng, in the north of Bali, once known for its quality rice, is facing a similar problem. Rice production dropped from 59,557 tons in 2004 to 53,602 tons last year. The amount of productive land in the regency fell from 10,867 hectares in 2004 to 10,618 hectares in 2005.

Tabanan traditionally has been Bali's top rice producer, but like other regencies it also has been losing productive land. Currently, the regency produces about 95,866 tons of rice a year, while rice demand in the regency is 57,841 tons per year, leaving it a surplus of 38,032 tons.

Nyoman Supartha, chairman of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Farmers Association, said that despite the loss of productive land, Bali was still able to provide residents a sufficient supply of rice.

"We have around 130,967 tons of rice surplus, so we don't need to acquire rice from outside Bali, let alone import it from another country," he said in a recent hearing with provincial legislative members.

However, he said farmers needed help from the government to improve their living standards. "The local government needs to stop being halfhearted and get serious about supporting and developing the agricultural sector, especially after the second Bali bombings," he said.

More than 60 percent of the island's three million people still rely on farming to earn a living, while Bali's tourist industry has yet to recover from the latest terrorist attack on the island.

The facts are disheartening, he said. The Bali government has allocated just Rp 28 billion, or 2.8 percent of its annual budget of Rp 998 billion, to develop the agricultural sector.

"Ideally, the provincial government should allocate at least 30 percent of its budget to build necessary infrastructure, improve farming technology and provide farmers with easy access to microcredits," he said.

Marketing is another problem. The Bali branch of the state commodities agency (Dolog) purchases little rice from local farmers. And, according to I Wayan Supartha, professor of agriculture at Udayana University in Denpasar, the regional commodities agency uses unfair standards in judging the quality of the local rice it does buy.

"I visited farmers in Tabanan regency and saw how Dolog set the standards when buying local rice. There is a lack of transparency and a lack of fairness in judging the quality of rice," he said.

In the last 10 years, he said, the government's agricultural policies have been unjust in their treatment of poor farmers.

Citing an example, he said farmers never produce unmilled rice. They only produce threshed unhusked grain that must be processed. The price of unhusked rice is set at Rp 1,700 per kilo, while the price of husked rice is Rp 4,500 per kilo. Because of the large difference in prices, farmers do not benefit when the market price of rice goes up.

He said lawmakers should consider issuing a law to protect poor farmers, offering incentives to encourage them to increase production and the quality of their rice. These incentives could be in the form of improved access to fertilizer, seeds and more importantly technical and marketing assistance from related agencies, including the provincial agricultural office.

"Bulog currently functions as the government's shield. It works to benefit the government and to support its policies instead of helping farmers," Wayan asserted.

He urged farmers to set up their own associations to improve their bargaining position. "There are several farmers associations, but many of the members are not really farmers and simply use the organizations as political vehicles," he added.

War on terror

Indonesia looks for new group's links to al Qaeda

Reuters - January 31, 2006

Jakarta – Indonesian police are investigating possible links between a purported new militant network with al Qaeda, with initial indications showing it was set up by two key Malaysian radicals, police said on Tuesday.

On Monday, Indonesia's police chief told parliamentarians that documents seized in November showed Noordin M. Top had proclaimed himself leader of a group called Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad network, or Organization for the Basis of Jihad.

Top has been Southeast Asia's most wanted Islamic militant since Indonesian anti-terrorism police killed his sidekick, Malaysian Azahari bin Husin, in a shootout in East Java province that coincided with raids in which the documents were found.

An expert in recruiting young suicide bombers among Indonesia's impoverished masses, Top eluded capture at the time but was still in the country, deputy national police spokesman Brigadier General Anton Bachrul Alam said on Tuesday.

Asked what links Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad had to groups such as Jemaah Islamiah, a shadowy network long seen as the regional arm of al Qaeda, Alam said: "This (Tanzim) was their group – Noordin and Azahari. They have long been involved in terrorism." Top and Azahari were also key members of Jemaah Islamiah.

The seized documents did not give details about Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad, Alam added, although security experts have said Jemaah Islamiah has recently splintered, with concern among some that bombing attacks were drawing too much attention.

The previously unheard of Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad encompassed Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and several other countries, police chief General Sutanto said late on Monday. Investigators were checking to see if it had links to al Qaeda, police said.

Indonesia's chief of detectives, Makbul Padmanegara, however, told reporters that Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad was not a new organization and might be part of Jemaah Islamiah. "There is no new grouping. But the people in it might be new... they have to recruit," Padmanegara said.

Indonesian authorities have blamed Jemaah Islamiah for a number of major bombings against Western targets in recent years. Top has been key player in most attacks, police say. A number of junior militants linked to Top have been arrested in the past couple of months in Indonesia, since police killed Azahari, who was Jemaah Islamiah's master bombmaker.

The two men worked closely together on several attacks, police have said, using their charisma and cash to induct budding militants into their anti-Western cause. Western governments have warned that Jemaah Islamiah was still a threat, despite a series of arrests of various members and the killing of Azahari.

Violence linked to Jihadist groups 'serious crimes'

Jakarta Post - January 27, 2006

The International Crisis Group's Southeast Asia project is analyzing recent developments of terrorism in Indonesia, which most recently saw a bomb explosion kill seven people in Central Sulawesi on New Year's Eve. The project's director Sidney Jones outlined conflicts in the area, and offered suggestions for resolving the crisis with The Jakarta Post's Duncan Wilson and Tiarma Siboro.

Question: Why do terrorists seem to target Central Sulawesi?

Answer: Because Poso (the conflict-ridden town in Central Sulawesi), like Ambon, was seen as an area where the conflict produced new recruits for their movement. They think these regions could be developed into a qoidah aminah (secure area) where residents can live by Islamic principles and Islamic law.

But I think also maybe because there are still many unresolved issues about the conflict regarding corruption of funds, distribution of land, and also perhaps, the perpetrators believe they can get away with it.

Do you believe that terror training camps are still active in Sulawesi?

I believe they exist. There may not be formal camps, say with obstacle courses or particular structures, but I'm sure there's still backroom training in somebody's bengkel (garage) or backyard because all you need is space for five people to plan how to make bombs.

Do you agree with accusations of political or military involvement in acts of terror?

Certain local NGOs (non-government organizations) sometimes assert that corrupt politicians may be involved, such as their assertion over the Tentena bombing. But there is no evidence linking acts of violence to corruption, and nor have I seen any hard evidence that links individual members of the military to acts of violence in Poso and Tentena. There are assumptions but there is no evidence.

These assumptions are based on past experiences. For instance, in Ambon in mid-2001 a small group of soldiers from TNI (Indonesian Military) provided basic military training to Laskar Jihad, a Java-based fundamentalist militia, and supplied them with modern weapons. And when Poso erupted in 1998 the initial outbreak of violence involved political interests.

So for some locals, earlier corruption-related violence feeds into these theories of military or political responsibility for acts of terrorism. But these assertions are often unable to be followed logically, and have not yet been backed by any hard evidence.

There have been concerns over the questionable acquittals and inadequate sentences dispensed by the judicial system. Has this improved?

There was a kind of culture of impunity in Poso and Maluku from 1999 to 2003, in which perpetrators of violence went unpunished or received only light sentences. Just as the government has assigned a special police team to Poso they should also install a team of prosecutors to put together decent cases that carry relevant evidence. For instance, in the current trial regarding the 2004 killing of the prosecutor, the judge was presented with three 'witnesses' who had nothing to do with the case. What does that say about the ability of the prosecution? You can also get sympathetic sentences from judges that think the terrorist law and the American led 'war on terror' has been politically motivated. If they were sentenced under (regular) criminal charges they would get heavier sentences.

So what is the way forward to peace in Indonesia and success against terror groups?

If politicians are serious in understanding terrorism and why it occurs, they will find there is no silver bullet. We need better coordination between intelligence agencies to prevent attacks and serious punishments for serious crimes.

We need to treat acts of violence linked to jihadist groups as serious crimes, to be treated as such: by putting top level officers and prosecutors into it and ensuring that you have a good, impartial judicial system. Understanding the local differences and motivations in terrorism is also critical.

And while I believe that people should get sentences proportional to the severity of their acts of violence, once they have served their time there should be rehabilitative and social programs that ensure these ex-combatants and imprisoned mujahidin do not rejoin former networks.

While I've spoken of Indonesia's 'new breed' of terrorist as fresh, battle-hardened and well-connected, I think that many of the local mujahiddin, who fought in Poso for example, suffered losses to themselves or their families from the conflict. They're not ideologues in the sense that others are ideologues. There is more of a likelihood that they can be integrated back into the community. It could also help to address broader justice issues. Perhaps such a range of approaches could begin a way forward, to peace for Indonesia.

Natural disasters

Several cities still inundated in Java, Sulawesi

Jakarta Post - January 28, 2006

Suherdjoko and Andi Hajarmurni, Semarang/Makassar – Incessant rain over the last three days has inundated several cities in Central Java and South Sulawesi, forcing thousands of residents to flee their submerged homes for higher ground.

In Central Java, flooding has affected at least six districts in Kendal regency, along the northern coast of Java, Pati regency and parts of the provincial capital Semarang. In South Sulawesi, the regencies of Selayar and Maros have been the most badly affected.

In downtown Kendal on Friday, the water reached a height of 1.5 meters, disrupting roads linking Semarang and Jakarta. Residents began evacuating their homes early Friday morning, seeking shelter in the nearby Rowosari district office.

"This year's flooding is the worst. We never thought our neighborhood would be inundated," one resident, Subeni, said. In addition to playing havoc with land transportation, the heavy rains also disturbed flights and sea transportation to Semarang.

A Boeing 737-500 aircraft seeking to land in Semarang on Friday morning was delayed, though smaller aircraft were not affected.

Yudi, one of the passengers on the delayed flight from Jakarta, said the plane circled the city three times before landing. "I was worried, but it seems the plane was just waiting for a break in the weather... and eventually we landed safely," he said.

Sukardi, an official at Semarang's Tanjung Emas seaport, said one boat heading to Sampit in Kalimantan was forced to return to port Thursday.

In the South Sulawesi regency Selayar, a resident, Fahrul, said Friday's flooding in the area was aggravated by rising sea levels. A three-meter-high wall built along the coast in Selayar was unable to hold back the sea, leaving hundreds of nearby homes inundated in up to a meter of water.

The flooding caught residents by surprise, because the area had never before experienced floods. The worst-hit areas in Selayar included Kota Benteng and Bonto Haru, where hundreds of local fishermen found their homes inundated.

Despite the flooding, however, none of the residents abandoned their homes. "The residents were preparing to flee, but as soon as the rain and wind stopped, the sea went down so they decided to stay," Fahrul said.

By Friday evening, many residents began the difficult task of washing the mud out of their homes, though they remained concerned the waters would return.

In Maros regency, residential areas along the coast were again affected on Friday, a day after floodwaters reaching a meter in height swept through four districts.

Public facilities such as school buildings and places of worship were affected by the flooding, as were hundreds of hectares of rice fields and fish ponds.

One killed in East Java flash floods

Jakarta Post - January 26, 2006

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Malang, Kupang – Flash floods swept through the East Java cities of Malang, Kediri and Jombang on Wednesday, leaving one person dead and destroying dozens of residences as well as public buildings.

A downpour beginning Tuesday evening caused Konto Pait river to overflow, toppling a tree that fell on a passing bus on the Malang-Jombang main road at about 7:30 p.m., local residents said. One passenger was killed and three others injured, they said.

The accident caused a halt in traffic for six and a half hours, with a backup of vehicles stretching two kilometers, before the road was cleared at 12:30 a.m.

As the downpour continued through Wednesday morning, four bridges connecting the villages of Mlancu, Mendowo and Baharan in Kediri as well as Jabon Garut and Selatri in Malang were destroyed. Villagers were forced to find more time-consuming alternative routes after the severance of their usual land links.

Floodwaters from Anjasmoro mountain uprooted trees and swept along boulders two meters in diameter.

The torrent flattened a mosque at Galeng Dowo village in Wonosalam district in Jombang, a church as well as an elementary school at Mlancu village in Kandangan district, Kediri.

"Nothing could be saved. All our religious property and a motorcycle were swept away by the water," said Elly Krisnayati, a reverend of the church.

Locals, holed up in their homes since Tuesday evening due to the rain, fled to a nearby hill upon hearing the thunderous sound of the floodwaters.

Sumarsih, whose house was in the flood path, fled with all the members of her family. "We don't know the condition of my house. The most important thing for me is to save our lives," she said.

Meanwhile in Timor Tengah Selatan regency, East Nusa Tenggara, 12 villages were inundated on Tuesday evening, with floodwaters reaching up to one meter. The villages were identified as Snok, Fatuoni, Falas, Pil, Linamnutu, Oebelo, Bena, Koanoel, Fatumnasi, Nenas, Kotolin and Nunkolo.

Dozens of houses were destroyed and many cattle, goats, pigs and poultry drowned. Kohe Puai, 24, from Kupang regency was reported missing.

An eyewitness said Kohe was working near a river when the waters surged. "Suddenly, the huge flow of water swept him away," said Fransiska Polen, chief of social welfare at the East Nusa Tenggara social service agency.

Fransiska said at least 11 out of 15 regencies and cities in East Nusa Tenggara had been inundated over the last week. "Heavy rainfall and strong winds destroyed 14 houses, five schools and a police dormitory in Flores Timur regency, while in Manggarai six houses were flattened by landslides," she said.

Other flood-hit regencies are Belu, Timor Tengah Utara, Timor Tengah Selatan, Kupang, Ruteng, Manggarai Barat, Alor, Sumba Barat, Flores Timur, Sikka and Ngada.

Flood victims helped as its reforestation questioned

Jakarta Post - January 25, 2006

Jakarta, Mataram/Kupang – The central government on Tuesday began laying out plans to assist flood victims in West Nusa Tenggara, while it found itself on the defensive over the effectiveness of its reforestation programs.

Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, the government would rebuild 1,000 houses devastated by massive flooding in seven villages in Sambelia district, East Lombok regency.

"The government will set aside Rp 5 million (US$526) for each house," said Aburizal, who along with Social Services Minister Bachtiar Chamsyah was visiting the devastated district, where up to 3,413 people had to be evacuated.

"I have warned the governor of West Nusa Tenggara and the regent of East Lombok, in cooperation with relevant agencies, to oversee the project and ensure the money goes to rebuild damaged houses," Aburizal said as quoted by Antara.

With much of the district's infrastructure damaged or destroyed, Aburizal said the government would prioritize the reconstruction of bridges. He said the bridge construction would be overseen by the Public Works Ministry, in cooperation with local agencies.

The minister also said money from the 2006 state budget would be earmarked to rebuild schools in Sambelia. "I have asked the national education minister to speed up the reconstruction of schools destroyed during the recent flooding," he said.

Aburizal said the flooding in East Lombok was not as bad as earlier floods and landslides in the East Java city of Jember and the Central Java city of Banjarnegara, though more houses were destroyed or damaged.

Meanwhile, H.M. Jamani, a member of the West Nusa Tenggara legislative council, questioned the effectiveness of large-scale reforestation programs introduced by the central government in recent years.

Jamani claimed the flooding in East Lombok was caused by massive deforestation in the area. "What is the Forestry Ministry and the local forestry office doing?" "The Forestry Ministry has aggressively touted its regreening and reforestation programs, which were financed with billions of rupiah, but what has been the result?" Jamani asked.

He said the programs were ineffective, at best, accusing authorities of replanting trees along the outer edges of denuded forests, for the sake of appearances, while leaving the inner forest areas untouched.

Meanwhile, in Wae Ri'i district in Ruteng regency, East Nusa Tenggara, the bodies of six flood victims were recovered Tuesday morning by search crews using heavy equipment, an official said.

Deputy Ruteng Regent Deno Kamelus said that according to information from residents, two more people were still missing. "The heavy machinery has helped in the search for victims, which has been hampered by bad weather," he said.

The bodies of the six victims, identified as Frans Mandut, Wihelmus Adon, Very Pedor, Yanto, Ropertus Dalima and Andy Ngo Hui, have been turned over to their families for burial, he said.

Flooding, landslides wreak havoc nationwide

Jakarta Post - January 24, 2006

Jakarta/Kupang – Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have claimed lives in three provinces, including the resort islands of Bali and Lombok.

Six people have been killed in floods and landslides in two regencies in West Nusa Tenggara, Antara reported. Three died in a landslide in Sembalun district, two in flooding in Sambelia district and another in floods in the district of Sumbawa.

Thousands of people trapped in their homes on Sunday by flooding in Sambelia district, East Lombok regency, were able to reach safer ground Monday.

District head Lalu Ahmad Zulkifli told Antara late Monday the flood victims had been evacuated by search and rescue teams. "Hundreds of the victims were evacuated three days after a rush of mud, trees and stones destroyed two bridges in the area," he said.

He said 3,455 flood victims from two villages in the district had been moved to safer ground. "That number does not include 300 to 600 more people who were being rescued late Monday," Lalu said.

Flooding in the district also damaged the police school in Belanting, forcing 78 police officers to evacuate the school. Various firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were rescued from the floodwaters.

"The school building and the dormitory were badly damaged, causing an estimated Rp 8 billion in damages," a spokesman for the West Nusa Tenggara Police, Tribudi Pangastuti, told Antara.

Coordinating Minister for Public Welfare Aburizal Bakrie and Social Services Minister Bachtiar Chamsyah are scheduled to visit flood victims sheltering in the Sambelia district office Tuesday.

In East Nusa Tenggara, all seven of the regencies in the province have been affected by storms, landslides and floods since earlier this month, with at least 12 deaths.

Governor Piet A. Tallo assigned officials on Monday to assist victims, including in Sikka, where heavy rains and strong winds brought down a statue of the Virgin Mary on Saturday.

A landslide swept over a busy road in Ranaka village in Ruteng regency Sunday, burying 10 motorcycles, a bus and two public minivans. Five people were killed and dozens of others are still missing.

Ruteng Regent Christian Rotok said Monday a search and rescue team was trying to locate missing victims. "The landslide, stretching over 100 meters, has completely cut off traffic," he said.

Floods have also inundated Belu regency, with waters reaching up to 1.5-meter high, affecting over 3,600 families in the regency's three districts and over 3,000 hectares of rice and corn fields.

Donations have begun to arrive for victims, including in Bali's Buleleng regency, some 80 kilometers north of the provincial capital Denpasar, where a landslide killed two people.

In the East Java town of Probolinggo, floodwaters began subsiding Monday, but residents in the flood-hit districts of Pakuniran, Besuki and Wangkal are wary of more flooding because of continued rainfall.

Health & education

Indonesian polio cases pass 300 mark

Agence France Presse - January 28, 2006

Jakarta – Three more children have contracted polio in Indonesia, bringing the total cases to 302 since the crippling disease resurfaced last year, the United Nations Children Fund ( UNICEF) has said. Indonesia will hold another nationwide immunisation drive targetting 24 million children under five on Monday in a bid to eliminate the virus, UNICEF said in a statement Saturday.

Another two rounds of polio immunisations will be held in February and April. "The polio virus is in retreat but not defeated," UNICEF's representative in Indonesia, Gianfranco Rotigliano, warned in the statement.

"If we can successfully vaccinate Indonesia's 24 million children under five just two more times, I'm confident by the middle of this year Indonesia will be again polio free," he said.

The government held three immunisation rounds last year and officials have said multiple immunisations increase a child's resistance to the virus. Polio resurfaced in March in Indonesia, a decade after it was believed to have been eradicated.

The waterborne polio virus attacks and withers children's limbs and can be deadly.

Region's budget cuts jeopardize education: Study

Jakarta Post - January 28, 2006

Jakarta – Regional administrations are using the money paid out to schools under the national fuel compensation scheme as an excuse to cut back on their education budgets, a study has found.

Although the school funds worth Rp 6.27 trillion (about US$670 million) in 2005 only covered 32 percent of schools' operational costs, local administrations viewed these extra funds as valid reasons to lower their education budgets, the study's coordinator, Sukamdi, told a meeting on Friday.

The Gadjah Mada University lecturer said his team of researchers from 56 universities had studied conditions in 112 cities and regencies throughout Indonesia.

Almost all the cities and regencies studied had made some cuts to education funding, showing a lack of commitment to realizing the national nine-year Compulsory Education Program, Sukamdi said.

National Education Ministry spokesman Rusmadi said the local administrations were not doing their share.

"Mayoralties and regencies should have provided one third of the school operational expenditure while the provincial governments should have provided the other third," Rusmadi told The Jakarta Post.

He said providing adequate budgets for education should be the moral obligation of local governments and councils. Local officials should be drafting policies that would help improve the quality of education, he said.

The allocation of school operational funds is part of the government's effort to compensate the poor after the national fuel subsidies were cut last year, causing prices to increase by more than 100 percent. Other measures include the provision of health insurance for the poor, village infrastructure development and the distribution of cash aid.

The team's evaluation of the fuel compensation funds also found that the cash aid was only 39 percent effective in helping reduce the burden on poor people after the price hike.

To improve the effectiveness of the fuel compensation programs, Sukamdi said, government ministries should integrate their data about low income groups and streamline bureaucratic procedures.

"They should use the same data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS)," he said. That data also needed to be properly updated and verified regularly, he said.

"This way, every ministry would have the same data. One poor family can then get cash aid, health insurance and an education subsidy," Sukamdi said.

Coordination among the ministries charged with distributing the aid also had to be improved.

Despite the criticisms of the program, Coordinating Minister of People's Welfare Aburizal Bakri has said it would continue until September without significant changes. This year's cash aid will amount to Rp 17 trillion.

Free school buses ride on despite harassment

Jakarta Post - January 27, 2006

Jakarta – The group of junior high school students waited impatiently on the side of the road on busy Jl. Plumpang, North Jakarta. And waited.

Their two school buses never arrived Wednesday, a day after the vehicles were subject to their second attack in a week by minivan drivers. The angry drivers say the free service – provided by charity foundation Dompet Dhuafa – has caused a drastic drop in their income.

For students, the service operating three times a day along Jl. Plumpang and the main thoroughfare of Jl. Yos Sudarso is more than a free ride. Amid Jakarta's chaotic public transportation services, students from more affluent families have the option of using private cars or bus services provided by their schools. For the rest, taking public transportation can be risky and difficult, with many buses refusing to stop for students because they do not pay full fare.

The service, passing along six schools on the route and open to any students in school uniform, allows them to save their daily transportation money – "I can buy more food," one student said. They also socialize with friends, or, as another admitted bashfully, can take a close look at the boy she has a crush on.

Annur Khirisa, a third-year student at state-run SMA 73, said she was often forced to pay full fare on public transportation. "The student fare is Rp 1,000 (less than US$1). But minivan drivers make us pay Rp 1,500 to Rp 2,500," she said.

"I usually try to run if I only have Rp 1,000 left in my wallet," said another SMA 73 student, Imam Abdullah. "But the minivan driver will blow his horn and yell at me." If the vehicles do relent and pick up students, the latter are often forced to hang precariously out of doors as the drivers and conductors pack on passengers.

A security guard at SMA 73, Slamet, said many students had died in traffic accidents along busy Jl. Yos Sudarso. "Last week, a student from nearby Islamic school MAN 5 died after a speeding truck hit him," he said.

The bus offers other advantages to noisy and stuffy public transportation. "We can watch videotapes, such as from the Discovery Channel, or other educational programs on the bus," Imam said.

Some students were on the buses during the attacks by the drivers, but they said they would continue to use the service. "They didn't attack us. But it's frightening," Resti Febriliza said.

The charity's corporate secretary, Sunaryo Adyatmoko, said his organization would try to compromise with the drivers. "We will use eight of their vehicles as free transportation for the students." He said the city administration should keep the attacks in mind in launching its own free bus service for students.

The city has allocated Rp 22 billion (about US$2 million) in its 2006 budget for the procurement of the yellow free school buses. For the first stage, the administration will provide school buses serving five routes.

But in the meantime, despite the harassment, the Plumpang area students will continue to take the buses. And there will be another plus to riding them.

"We will have a chaperone to accompany the students but this person must be one with educational expertise, so the students can share with them about anything, from their school assignments or lessons to other problems," Sunaryo said.

Most children overmedicate: Study

Jakarta Post - January 27, 2006

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Primum non no cere – above all, do no harm – is the rule for all physicians when they treat patients.

But the reality here is often different, with doctors prescribing patients many medicines they do not need and which could have significant side effects. Their patients, meanwhile, are none the wiser, especially if they are children.

A recent study shows that about 70 percent of Indonesian parents gave their toddlers more than four kinds of drugs at one time to treat their illnesses. More than 35 percent of them took from five to seven different kinds of medicines, the study says.

A spokesman for the Foundation of Concerned Parents, Dr. Purnamawati S. Pujiarto, who announced the findings Thursday, said 85 percent of children in the study had taken antibiotics for every malady they suffered. The respondents interviewed in the study admitted they did so at the advice of doctors, she said.

"This phenomenon is dangerous. First, not all diseases can be treated with medicines – like influenza for example. Second, such an amount of consumed drugs could harm our children's health, especially their livers," Purnamawati said at the World Health Organization office in Jakarta.

Over-prescribing goes against a 1985 WHO recommendation that requires doctors to prioritize therapeutic measures that have fewer side effects and save patients money, she said.

However, Purnamawati, who is a specialist in liver problems, dismissed arguments that the uncritical parents who bought medicines for their children were mostly uneducated or poor.

"A government study in 2004 revealed that most health consumers – 68 percent – paid the full prices of medicines at private health centers, while only 32 percent spent money at state medical institutions," she said.

She offered tips to health consumers on how to avoid taking unnecessary medicines. "You and your doctor should develop a harmonious relationship and become an active dialog partner to avoid curative-oriented solutions. Don't panic. Don't think to go to doctor every time you or your child is sick. Recognize the symptoms of the disease first. Seeing a doctor and taking medicine should be the last option."

If people are forced to see doctors, Purnamawati said, they should ask them some basic questions – what is wrong, what to do and when to worry. "And then you should also ask, 'Do I really need medicine?'" she said.

In an effort to improve awareness of how to deal with disease, Purnamawati and members of the foundation have held a series of public discussions. "We're not antidoctor or antimedicine, we just want to empower health consumers to be smarter," Luluk Soraya, a foundation member, said.

The Health Ministry's director of child health, Rahmi Untoro, said her office would add to people's knowledge about health, especially parents, by revitalizing about 7,700 community health centers and 250,000 integrated health service posts across the nation.

"Our health officials and community members will work together to tell others that doctors and medicines are not their guardian angels," she said.

Rahmi said that instead of putting their children's fate in the hands of doctors and medicines, parents should focus more on keeping their children's eating patterns healthy by providing nutritious food, and immunizing them. "And loving them wholeheartedly as well. For that, no doctors in the world can give you a prescription," she said.

Armed forces/defense

Yudhoyono makes shrewd choice for military boss

Agence France Presse - January 31, 2006

Jakarta – Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has made a deft move in nominating the country's airforce chief as the next boss of the powerful but reforming armed forces, analysts say.

Air Marshal Joko Suyanto, 55, would be charged with continuing to reshape the image-tainted military of the world's most populous Muslim nation as Indonesia cultivates closer security ties with the United States and Australia.

Analysts say the move to appoint the first airforce chief to the position since the 1960s allows Yudhoyono to consolidate his image as a reformer, while preparing the role for a trusted confidant down the track.

The nomination of US-trained Suyanto, who hits retirement age at the end of 2008, will be debated by parliament on Wednesday.

"This is a move that will benefit the president domestically and internationally," National University political analyst Hermawan Sulistyo told AFP, noting that it would polish his reformist image.

Yudhoyono, a former army general, swept to power in October 2004 pledging reform, in particular vowing to clean up the notorious military as well as rampant corruption in Southeast Asia's largest economy – both often linked.

Under autocratic former president Suharto, the military for decades exerted enormous influence over civil affairs, ran its own sometimes illicit cash-generating businesses, and was accused of blatant human rights abuses.

The extrication has only gradually begun, with reforms instituted a year after Suharto's downfall nearly eight years ago resulting in the military and police being ejected from parliamentary positions in 2004.

Yudhoyono eschewed the choice of conservative General Ryamizard Ryacudu, the most senior officer eligible for the posting, upsetting supporters of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose party still dominates parliament.

Ryacudu, viewed as a brash and outspoken general, has claimed Indonesia is riddled with spies bent on destabilisation and courted controversy by hailing as heroes soldiers jailed for killing a Papuan separatist leader.

"From the start, both Yudhoyono and Ryamizard have no close ties and the fact that Ryamizard is a close friend of Megawati does not exactly make him a favourite of Yudhoyono," the National University's Sulistyo said. "Ryamizard is not exactly a darling of the United States either, who sees him as an ultra-nationalist general," he added.

The United States, eager for assistance in its "war on terror", renewed full military ties with Indonesia last November after severing them over alleged rights abuses committed by the armed forces in East Timor in 1991.

The analyst noted that Suyanto would hit retirement age at the end of 2008, allowing Yudhoyono to choose his successor – with army chief of staff Joko Santoso a clear favourite. The 53-year- old lieutenant general is Yudhoyono's close confidant.

Under Indonesian military law, officers must retire at 58, although the government can extend their service until 60. The law also suggests that the position of armed forces chief be rotated among branches.

The nomination of Suyanto, who would replace Endriartono Sutanto – a straight forward general and strong supporter of civilian supremacy – also gives the airforce prestige after years in the military wilderness, said political analyst Maswadi Rauf.

Suharto ended the airforce's 1960s heydays by severing its links to its counterparts in the then-Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries.

Rauf warned that Suyanto would face a challenge keeping the military at arm's length from politics. "I sense that the armed forces, particularly the powerful army, still has interests in returning to politics in Indonesia," he said, adding that Suyanto "must exercise a strong stance" to prevent this.

Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said he saw Yudhoyono's choice of Suyanto as a bid to keep the armed forces politically neutral. "One sure thing about the president is that in the 2009 election, he wants the military to be neutral in politics," he told AFP.

Soldier killed in dispute with police

Jakarta Post - January 30, 2006

Makassar – A soldier was killed and three seriously wounded when a police truck rammed into a crowd of people amid a dispute between military troops and police officers in Manado, North Sulawesi.

Wirabuana military commander Maj. Gen. Arif Budi Sampurno, overseeing security in Sulawesi, ordered an investigation into the incident that took place early Sunday.

His spokesman Maj. Rustam Effendi said the dispute started after a group of policemen riding motorcycles hit Army soldier Second Sgt. Husni Daud.

The accident then drew a reaction from Husni's comrades. Fellow soldier Julius then asked local police about the matter but received an unsatisfactory response, according to Rustam.

One policeman opened fire, with a shot in the air, drawing attention from local residents, he added.

Minutes later, a police truck suddenly appeared and smashed into a crowd of people at the scene, killing Second Sgt. Ferly Ahmad and seriously injuring three other Army soldiers.

The three are currently in the intensive care unit at an Army hospital in Manado.

Freeport shareholders ask for probe over payments

Dow Jones Newswires - January 30, 2006

Phelim Kyne, Jakarta – Investors in New York have asked US investigators to determine whether millions of dollars allegedly paid by mining giant Freeport to Indonesian military officers in Papua province amounted to bribery.

The custodian of five New York City pension funds has requested that the US Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigate possible violations of the US Foreign Practices Act and the Securities and Exchange Act, according to documents obtained by Dow Jones Newswires.

The requests were prompted by reports by The New York Times and environmental group Global Witness that Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc paid "large sums" to Indonesian military officers, New York City comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. said in a letter dated Jan. 26 to US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Freeport "had previously claimed that it made payments to reimburse the government for the provision of security services at Freeport's mining operations in West Papua," the letter said.

"While the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act does permit some corporate payments to host countries for such purposes, the large number of payments made directly into the private bank accounts of individual army officers raises serious questions as to whether the statute was violated," the letter said.

The letter says the comptroller is the custodian and investment adviser of the five New York City pension funds, which hold 590,350 shares in Freeport-McMoRan common stock.

"We are concerned that possible illegal actions by company officials could have a negative impact on shareholder value," the letter said.

Freeport has denied breaking any laws either in Indonesia or the United States. The company says it gave "financial support" to Indonesian security officials in Papua for items including infrastructure and logistics, according to a letter from the company's chief executive, Richard Adkerson, posted Jan. 11 on the company Web site.

Thompson's Jan. 26 letter to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox asked for a probe of Freeport-McMoRan's Indonesian military payments to determine if the company violated the SEC's Rule 14a-9 "by making false or misleading statements in its 2004 and 2005 proxy statements."

Last month, the New York Times reported that Freeport-McMoRan made payments of nearly US$20 million (euro16.43 million) to military and police officials posted around the company's massive Grasberg gold mine in remote Papua province from 1998 to 2004.

Those allegations were first disclosed in Global Witness's "Paying for Protection" report in July 2005.

Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said Wednesday he has ordered an investigation of Freeport-McMoRan's military payments on Papua to determine whether the company broke the law.

TNI wants legal recourse in protecting firms

Jakarta Post - January 24, 2006

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – With continuing questions over its role in safeguarding the property of private companies, the military has asked for clear regulations to provide a "legal umbrella" for its personnel.

Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said Monday the legal protection would prevent soldiers from being branded "mercenaries" when their services were often requested by the police and government.

"I just want the government to issue a legal umbrella which regulates the deployment of the troops to guard vital installations, such as PT Freeport and PT Exxon," Endriartono said.

He was referring to firms operating in provinces with separatist activity, with gold and copper mine company PT Freeport Indonesia in Papua and PT ExxonMobil in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

"The existing 2004 decree says companies should provide a self- protection mechanism... If they (the companies) fail to do so, they can ask the police and if it is needed, the police can ask our assistance," Endriartono said.

Since the National Police separated from the military, the TNI formally assists in internal security matters at the request of the police.

"For sure we will assist the police... But the state has only allocated a minimum budget... to support our tasks there. And as we receive facilities from the companies, many have accused us of being mercenaries," Endriartono told reporters after a coordinating meeting on political, legal, and security affairs.

Present during the meeting were, among others, the head of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) Maj. Gen. (ret) Syamsir Siregar and National Police chief Gen. Sutanto.

Endriartono's request follows the recent publication of an investigative report by The New York Times, which cited documents that Freeport paid nearly US$20 million between 1998 and 2004 to military and police generals, colonels, majors, captains and also military units, to safeguard the mine. Freeport denies suggestions that it is doing anything illegal.

Endriartono acknowledged that the military had received various facilities, including operational vehicles, from the companies, but said he was not aware of the value. An ExxonMobil spokesperson has said that its security fees were paid to and fully managed by the government's Oil and Gas Regulatory Body (BP Migas).

Observers have also blamed the absence of clear regulations on the coordination between the police and the military regarding security measures, saying this contributed to rivalry between the institutions.

Usman Hamid from the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said Endriartono's request for the regulation would "only justify the military directly receiving funds from the companies" it renders security services to.

"Instead, that legal umbrella must be clear cut on any from of 'direct assistance' from the companies to the security personnel in the field, because such practices are considered as a motivation for nurturing corrupt behavior among security authorities," Usman said.

TNI to increase troops guarding Freeport and ExxonMobil

Sinar Harapan - January 24, 2006

Emmy Kuswandari, Jakarta – After a period of reducing the number of military personnel tasked with guarding vital installations such as ExxonMobil and Freeport, the TNI (Indonesian military) will again be increasing troops numbers assisting these companies. The increase in troops is based on a request submitted by the national police that up until now have had the duty of guarding vital installations.

In accordance with a regulation issued in 2004, the provision of security for vital installations is the responsibility of the companies themselves. If there is threat that is beyond their capacity to deal with, the company can ask for assistance from the police. According the law on the national police the provision of security for vital installations is the police's responsibility, the TNI only provide assistance.

"Only after the national police believe that TNI assistance is needed, is there an invitation to the TNI so that that our presence there has legitimacy", said TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto after a security meeting on providing security to vital installations that was held at the offices of the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs on Monday January 23.

Security Minister Widodo AS, Police Chief General Sutanto, the Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro and a representative also attended the meeting from the Department of Home Affairs.

The meeting also discussed TNI personnel that are guarding vital installations such as Freeport and ExxonMobil. Certainty over the TNI's position will remove the impression that the TNI are paid mercenaries. "Because indeed it is not the TNI's duty to guard such things", said Sutarto.

When asked whether large amounts of money are given to the TNI to provide security to vital installations, he rejected this. "What there is, is when the TNI is asked to guard [an installation], it turns out the government does not have the funds to accommodate the posts and other things", he said.

According to Sutarto, there was an agreement between the government and companies where the companies agreed to bear the entire cost of the facilities and accommodation for the units providing security, including operational assistance.

He added that the order to provide security to vital installations is based on an order that flows out of a work contract. In order to provide security at Freeport the TNI already has one battalion in place.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Business & investment

Businesses balk at proposed power rate hike

Jakarta Post - January 27, 2006

Leony Aurora, Jakarta – Businesspeople, arguing that power rates are already higher than those in neighboring countries, are threatening to refuse to pay proposed additional charges, even if it means having their power cut off. All associations grouped in the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) have rejected the government's plan, Kadin's vice chairman on public policy, taxes and fiscal system Hariyadi Sukamdani said Thursday.

"If our rate was under the (international) standard, a hike may be acceptable," said Hariyadi. "But it is already higher." He contended that state power firm PT PLN had been inefficient in its electricity production, reflected in the power generation costs of Rp 816 (almost 9 US cents) per kiloWatthour (kWh) reported by the company last year, higher than the global average of 7 cents per kWh.

Businesses have reached an informal agreement to refuse paying the incremental charge above the current rate, he said, because they could not withstand the additional costs.

"It's OK if (PLN decides to) cut supply," said Hariyadi, quickly adding that the consequence would be a cease in operations of the companies and layoffs. State revenues from taxes and export duties would also decline, he said.

Kadin is compiling information on the effects of the planned power rates hike from member associations, which will be presented to the government and the House of Representatives. The report is expected to be finished within two weeks.

The government is considering the hike because PLN said operational costs this year would soar as it pays market prices – more than double the rate paid last year – for oil-based fuel to run its power plants.

To survive the year without increasing rates, PLN would need Rp 38 trillion in government subsidies, while the current allocation is 17 trillion.

State Minister of National Development Planning Paskah Suzetta said on Jan. 18 proposals to solve the problem include doubling electricity rates for several industries, although he did not name the sectors.

Chairman of the Association of Garment and Accessories Suppliers Suriadi said that in light of the hike, department stores were considering cutting opening hours from noon to 9 p.m. from the current 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

"That way, we would only need employees for one work shift and pay one hour of overtime," said Suriadi, who is also a member of the shopping centers association.

"The number of sales promotion staff will be cut by half. Hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs." He added that a hike of up to 10 percent was still acceptable.

"But only if PLN removes the rate for higher peak hours that we are charged currently." Industries are charged double for electricity used during peak hours – between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. – and a penalty for additional power consumed in those hours if a company uses more than half of its average usage.

The economy is still recovering from the 126.6 percent average fuel price hike of last October, which led inflation to end at a four-year high of 17.11 percent for 2005. Businesses are also suffering from increasing interest rates for lending as the central bank raised its benchmark rate steadily to curb inflation.

"We trusted the government and handed over a blank check for the fuel price hike," said Hariyadi, adding that it was much higher than expected.

"There will be no blank check this time. We will fight (against the hike)."

World Bank cuts growth forecast to 5%

Jakarta Post - January 25, 2006

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – Indonesia's economy is set for moderate growth this year as the country struggles to recuperate from last year's slowdown amid lingering high oil prices, a weak investment climate and possible electricity and wage hikes.

The World Bank's country director for Indonesia, Andrew Steer, said Indonesia could expect GDP growth of between 5 and 5.5 percent this year, with consumption and investment continuing the slowdown that started last year.

This is lower than the 5.5 to 6 percent growth forecast by the World Bank in its October 2005 economic update for Indonesia, as well as the government's official 6.2 percent target for this year as stated in the budget.

"The year 2006 is not going to be the year we had hoped it to be last year," Steer said Tuesday at an economic outlook seminar sponsored by the Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).

"Although Indonesia's consumption-driven economy has recently shifted to a more sustainable, investment-oriented one, investment has suffered from the recent high interest rate environment," he said, explaining how investment in 2006 may emulate last year's moderate growth of 10 percent and contribute to less than 22 percent of GDP, as compared to an average of 16 percent investment growth and a more than 22 percent contribution to GDP in 2003, during Indonesia's investment heyday.

Indonesia's economy slowed down from 6.2 percent growth during last year's first quarter to 5.3 percent in the third quarter as high oil prices hit the rupiah and the ensuing fuel price hikes spurred inflation, forcing the central bank to raise its key interest rate to its current level of 12.75 percent.

Steer, however, was upbeat that an economic rebound was on the cards later in the year, saying that "a healthy 5 percent economic growth is better than an unhealthy 6 percent one."

The more important question now, Steer said, was whether the government could manage to provide a platform for further growth, and breakthrough policies to improve the investment climate and increase the quantity and quality of public development spending.

"As we know, there are still problems with the labor regulations, tax laws, infrastructure and red-tape bureaucracy," Steer said.

Meanwhile, HSBC's chief economist for Asia and the Pacific, Arup Raha, summarized Indonesia's economic prospects for this year as "bearish growth, with bullish rates." HSBC is forecasting 4 percent growth for 2006 and 4.3 percent for 2007, compared to 5.2 percent last year, with interest rates still standing at 10 percent at the end of this year.

"Our estimates can be said to be a bit pessimistic, but we would like to maintain a realistic view for Indonesia. A likely global economic slowdown and domestic factors are expected to affect this year's growth," Raha said.

HSBC's president for Indonesia, Richard McHowat, said that higher electricity prices and wages could significantly affect such sectors as textiles, leading to further layoffs HSBC was, however, more optimistic about the rupiah, forecasting that it could strengthen to Rp 9,200 per US dollar as Indonesia still had some of the world's highest yield spreads for investors. The bank also predicted that inflation would come down to 5 percent by this year's third quarter from its current double digit level.

Privatization stalls in Indonesia

Asia Times - January 25, 2006

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Recent comments by Indonesian Minister for State-Owned Enterprises Sugiharto that Jakarta planned to "buy back" a stake in publicly listed Indosat, the country's second-largest telecommunications operator, raised eyebrows in Singapore. Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT), part of the government-owned investment company Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, paid just over US$500 million in 2002 for a 42% stake in Indosat.

In fact, if taken in the context of the fate of Indonesia's privatization program, the message was there and clear enough. Forget about privatization. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) will, at least for the time being, remain as state cash cows, ever ready to help finance the budget. But only the privileged few that turn a profit. That is, instead of selling off more of these crown jewels, there will be attempts at "reverse divestment" by buying into onetime state businesses that have been brought into profit by foreign investors.

Successive Indonesian administrations since 1998 have taken a common view that privatization was necessary, not only as part of revenue-generating efforts to bridge the state budget deficit but also to attract new portfolio investment, along with additional capital investment, management skills and corporate-governance practices to improve the poor performance of state companies. Only a few Indonesian SOEs are noted for sound business practices and making significant contributions to state coffers and to the economy in general. Recruitment is rarely based on ability but often on political lobbying. At the line-manager level, poor pay rates and lack of performance-related incentives are the norm. Private investors can turn these assets into profitable enterprises that create more jobs and pay more taxes to the state.

Sugiharto, who survived a cabinet reshuffle last month, has indeed already announced plans to privatize up to 20 of Indonesia's 158 SOEs this year to raise funds for the 2006 state budget. The budget deficit is estimated at Rp22.3 trillion (US$2.38 billion), about 0.7% of gross domestic product (GDP). "We will start the privatization program in the second half of this year. We will sell a stake in 15 state owned companies," he told reporters.

If there is no reversal of policy, partial holdings in tin producer PT Timah, PT Bank Negara Indonesia – the country's third-largest bank by assets – and nickel and gold producer Aneka Tambang as well as miner PT Tambang Batubara are expected to be offered to private investors. This would take place in the second quarter because companies would by then have released their audited financial results for 2005, Sugiharto said.

Yet the budget allows for only Rp1 trillion from privatization, which suggests it is hardly likely a worthwhile stake in any major state-owned enterprise will come under the hammer this year. It also sustains the impression that for policymakers in the current administration, or at least two of those who call the shots, privatization is a means to an end – to cover the budget deficit.

This became clear last June, when Vice President Yusuf Kalla stated that selling government stakes in state enterprises was the "lowest priority" for the government. He could hardly have made it any clearer. Just for good measure, he added that the government would not "submit to privatization demands" from donor institutions in return for their loans.

Successful privatization programs help immeasurably in regaining investor confidence, but last year's halfhearted attempt was eventually abandoned in October after higher-than-expected dividends from state companies raised adequate funds to cover the budget deficit. In 2005, SOEs contributed a total of Rp12.7 trillion in dividends to the state budget, 43% more than targeted. Three of them – state telecommunications giant PT Telkom, national gas distributor PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN), and state oil-and-gas giant PT Pertamina, contributed the biggest dividends.

Among the other 158 SOEs are state electricity company PLN, aircraft maker PT Dirgantara Indonesia (DI), shipbuilder PT PAL, state munitions factory PT Pindad, two state airlines, a steelmaker, shipping companies, airport operators, port operators, mining companies, construction and civil-engineering enterprises, fertilizer manufacturers, rubber plantations, palm- oil plantations, pulp-and-paper manufacturers and forestry companies. In this category also are the government's total holdings in Indonesia's 131 banks.

Together these SOEs control a total of Rp1.158 trillion in assets, yet a recent study by an SOE watchdog showed that only 15 have booked annual profits over the past few years. By October Sugiharto had backed off on a plan to offer 7.1% of the government stake in PGN to the market, which had been expected to bring in some Rp1.1 trillion. By the end of the month it was all over, and the 2005 privatization program was dead in the water.

In June Sugiharto had appeared temporarily to reverse his earlier "go for the dividends" stance, and said the government would meet its Rp3.5 trillion privatization target by selling stakes in state-owned banks and mining companies before the end of 2005. He made it clear, however, that the real strategy continued to be to maximize dividend payments from SOEs, rather than pushing for their privatization. Kalla publicly supported Sugiharto's positioning.

Of course, the problem with the assumption that any shortfall in revenues from privatization can be boosted by additional dividend payouts from state companies is that it leaves those few good performers as depleted cash cows with precious little capacity to expand their retained earnings for investment.

There are other problems. Pertamina and PLN reportedly still owe the government almost Rp2.6 trillion in non-tax state revenue, but the government still owes Rp23 trillion in subsidies to PLN. The power utility had requested an allocation of Rp28 trillion in the budget, following the massive fuel-price increases in October, but the House of Representatives (DPR) only approved Rp15 trillion. Raising electricity tariffs is hardly an option given that the poor are still reeling from the blow inflicted by inflation after the increases in fuel prices.

A case in point

The 2002 sale of the stake in Indosat has proved to be a classic example of how the private sector can rejuvenate divested SOEs by injecting fresh funds, introducing new management ideas and bringing in new technology. Indosat, with the help of STT, has forged ahead toward becoming a major regional telecom player. It has refinanced its debt and recorded revenues of Rp8.9 trillion in the first nine months of last year, with a net profit of Rp5.7 trillion for the same period. STT holds 41.77% and the board of directors and commissioners of Indosat hold 0.03%.

Does Jakarta intend to buy back STT's shares? This is doubtful because, as sector analysts point out, at current prices the 41.77% stake could cost as much as $1.2 billion even if by some miracle it were to be offered to the government. It was left to Information and Communication Minister Sofyan Djalil to point out the obvious to local reporters: "How can we buy back the Indosat shares if STT doesn't want to sell them back to us?"

Yet the government still owns 14.58% of Indosat, so were it to buy as little as 30.23% from the 43.62% held by the public and available on the Jakarta bourse, it would hold a majority shareholding in a major player in one of the country's major growth sectors, telecommunications.

State silver with little glister

Several state-owned industries remain, in theory, protected from ever being privatized. This is clearly not a safe assumption for state-owned Garuda Indonesia, which is in default on a $55 million principal debt payment due at the end of 2005 because, it claims, creditors have made no response to its debt-restructuring proposal. The debts are mostly as a result of corruption within the airline during past administrations, with many government officials and political parties taking cash from the national flag carrier.

Garuda has asked for a $105 million bridging loan from the government, partly to repay these debts, but the writing may just be on the wall. Sugiharto was quoted as saying the government was considering selling up to 49% of Garuda to strategic investors or via an initial public share offer (IPO). "An airline today is not everything for a country. If it makes a profit, it will be good for the country, but if it always suffers losses, investors should be welcome to come in," Kalla said. This is a refreshingly candid stance, but it would be more encouraging if there were any indication that Kalla and Sugiharto were actually sold on the idea that this principle should be applied across the board. Far from it.

Getting rid of underperformers through privatization has for long been controversial in Indonesia, with nationalists seeing it as akin to selling off the country's best silver to foreigners. A blueprint for the development of SOEs includes a plan to try another angle by reducing the number to between 100 and 120 by merging a number of them and setting up holding companies to supervise some of the smaller companies. Sugiharto concedes there is widespread opposition to restructuring and revitalizing state enterprises. "This is because their managers are trying to maintain their interests and positions," he said. This understates the reality.

Opposition to privatization in fact stems from a much wider variety of groups, including former majority owners, local affiliated business groups, labor unions, and local and national political elites. The substantial fiscal payoffs for the government and demonstrable growth in those enterprises that are privatized cut little ice with those whose vested interests are threatened.

Political battlefront?

Drajad Wibowo, a senior legislator who sits on the DPR Commission XI for Budgetary Affairs has warned that the reported plan to sell Garuda shares would need to be discussed with Commission XI and Commission VI for State-Owned Enterprises. "The country's strategic sectors such as telecommunications, banking and mining are already controlled by foreign companies, so Garuda must not be sold to foreigners," Wibowo said.

The sale of state-owned enterprises is often blocked by political party interests, but with the strongest political mandate of any post-1998 administration, the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is, in theory, better placed to take up the gauntlet of privatization, so beloved by the lending agencies.

"Most state enterprises remain unhealthy since they have been subordinated to technical departments controlled by politicians. The companies will continue functioning as money machines for the bureaucracy and ruling parties," warned Naldi Nazar Haroen, who heads up BUMN Watch.

Kalla's family-controlled Hadji Kalla group is one of the top conglomerates in Indonesia. Kalla, onetime minister for trade and industry in the Abdurrahman Wahid administration, also heads Golkar, the most powerful political party in the country. Historically, the SOEs have been used to fund parties such as Golkar, which holds 129 seats in the 550-member DPR (Yudhoyono's Democratic Party holds only 57). Though not known for sinking to blatant nationalist rhetoric, Kalla displays a staunch nationalist approach where the country's assets are concerned.

Paskah Suzetta, who took over as state minister for planning and development and chairman of the National Planning Board (Bappenas) in last month's cabinet reshuffle, is a very experienced Golkar legislator and former deputy treasurer of the party. Sugiharto, however, is a stalwart of the Islamic-based United Development Party. Most Muslim groups are known to oppose foreign control of state companies.

Oddly enough, the apolitical Coordinating Economic Minister Boediono, known to be a proponent of boosting growth by speeding up the privatization program, has so far made no public pronouncements on privatization. However, in speeches at home and abroad he has argued strongly for keeping Indonesian politics out of the economy. Why is he silent on this most fundamental issue? Most likely, Boediono has enough on his plate trying to live up to his well-earned reputation as "Mr Macroeconomic Stability", earned while minister of finance in the administration of Megawati Sukarnoputri, but it could also mean that he has been asked to remain outside the loop with respect to state assets and focus just on macroeconomic issues.

Although it is unlikely there will ever again be the lemming-like rush to dispose of state assets seen for a couple of years at the turn of the century, Indonesia still badly needs to reduce the high cost and wastage of public ownership as well as the corruption that deters foreign investment and deprives Indonesia of badly needed funds for development and infrastructure.

Selling state assets into the private sector helps reduce government debt, which adds to fiscal sustainability. The president's major campaign promises included a reduction in foreign debt. Indonesia currently owes some $130 billion, or 48% of last year's GDP. Of this total, more than $75 billion is foreign debt. The cost of servicing the debt eats up growth- generating capital. Budgeted investment capital, for example, badly needed to stimulate the economy, is only 9.7% of the total budget, or Rp62.95 trillion.

It could be argued, then, that by offering to sell more, or all, of its remaining share in Indosat rather than encourage media speculation, the government would send the right "signal" at the right time and better serve the interests of the country. The continual drain on state coffers by SOEs and any further misappropriation of public funds will only make economic recovery slower and thus adversely affect the lives of tens of millions of Indonesians. Showing the cost of a stalled economy, per capita income for 2005 rose by just a single dollar, to $766 from $765 the year before.

[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.]

Local governments want greater certainty over investment permits

Jakarta Post - January 24, 2006

The Regional Representatives Council (DPD) and local investment agencies have urged the central government to ensure more consistency in investment permit regulations as many foreign investors are reluctant to do business here due to a lack of legal uncertainty.

"Many parties have complained about a lack of legal certainty with regard to investment permits. We need more detailed and clearer regulations," said the chairman of the DPD's Ad Hoc Committee II, Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, on Monday, adding that the council was drafting an investment bill to resolve the problem.

He said the current regulations on investment permits were unclear and frequently contradicted the Local Autonomy Law.

"Under the Local Autonomy Law, investment permits should be issued by the local administrations, but under Presidential Decrees No. 28 and No. 29 of 2004, the central government is given the task," he said.

Presidential Decree No. 120/1999 on local autonomy provides that provincial investment coordinating boards (BKPMD) and governors have the power to issue permits to both local and foreign investors.

This is supported by Law No. 22/1999 on provincial administration and Government Regulation No. 25/2000, which provide that the granting of approval and permission for direct foreign investment is the responsibility of the provincial administrations, while regency and municipal administrations are given the right to approve domestic investment plans.

However, in 2004, then President Megawati Soekarnoputri issued Presidential Decrees No. 28 and 29, which were supported by Investment Coordinating Board Directives No. 57 and 58 of 2004, which returned these powers to the central government.

"The presidential decrees should not be implemented as they run contrary to Law No. 22/1999 on local autonomy," Ad Hoc Committee II member Kasmir Tri Putra said.

The Provincial Investment Agencies Forum, represented by the Jakarta and Riau agencies, have urged that investment approval powers be returned to the provincial administrations.

Riau provincial investment agency director Tiolina Pangaribuan said that after the issuance of the presidential decrees, investment in Riau had plunged.

"Investment approvals in Riau dropped from about US$4 million in 2003 to US$123,000 in 2004," she said, adding that the decrees had badly affected the province's revenue.

The forum said that many foreign investors were reluctant to put their money in the regions due to confusion over whom they should apply to for investment permits.

According to the latest figures from the BKPM, realized foreign direct investment between January and October 2005 more than doubled to $8.55 billion (785 projects), compared to $3.23 billion (241 projects) in 2004, despite the legal certainty problem.

Domestic investment up until October 2005 grew 36 percent to Rp 16.63 trillion ($1.66 billion) involving 178 projects compared to Rp 12.19 trillion involving 88 projects during the same period in 2004.

Opinion & analysis

Indonesia wins one in war on corruption

Asia Times - January 31, 2006

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Indonesia has scored a major victory in the war on corruption after the return to the country of a crooked banker who fled before being sentenced in absentia to eight years in jail.

The US turned over fugitive David Nusa Wijaya to Indonesia on January 17 after he was located in Los Angeles four days earlier. The two countries do not have an extradition treaty. However, national police chief General Sutanto, who was hand-picked last year by the president, said Wijaya had been given two choices by the police.

"The first was for him to go through the legal process in the US and then be deported, while the second was to voluntarily undergo the legal process in Indonesia," he said.

Wijaya, a 44-year-old ethnic Chinese wanted for embezzling about US$139 million, chose the latter, Sutanto said. This could suggest Wijaya believes that given time, he will find a way to escape justice yet again. However, he may find it much more difficult this time. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is talking tough on seeing such criminals brought to justice.

"I don't want any extortion, backroom deals or anything by the law enforcement people here that would create a more difficult situation for the judiciary," Yudhoyono warned, when commenting on the joint operation by Indonesian police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation that resulted in Wijaya's capture in San Francisco.

Significantly, US assistance came less than a week after Washington praised Jakarta's arrest of suspects in the 2002 murders of two American teachers in the province of Papua. The case was the main hurdle to restoring military ties between the two countries.

Once again, as with the Papua arrests, public statements confirm the strong relationship developing between Jakarta and Washington. "I am grateful to the friendly country that helped him [Wijaya] be brought to justice," Yudhoyono said.

The US Embassy in Jakarta said in a statement: "The US government understands that returning fugitives and stolen assets from abroad in corruption cases is a top law-enforcement priority in Indonesia and looks forward to cooperating with Indonesia in other cases in the future." Wijaya had been on the run since 2004, a few weeks before Indonesia's Supreme Court increased an earlier sentence to eight years for embezzlement in a scam linked to one of the biggest and nastiest wholesale fraud cases ever, the misuse of Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) in 1997-98.

In a related development, the owner of liquidated Bank Bira, Atang Latief alias Lau Tjin Ho, returned to Indonesia on Friday to face trial over alleged embezzlement of Rp325 billion (US$34.7 million) in BLBI.

He arrived in Jakarta from Singapore and was immediately rushed to a hospital for an undisclosed illness, according to Antara news agency. Sutanto said a ban on Latief going abroad abroad was issued in 2000 but later revoked by the immigration office.

"He went abroad because he felt he was being treated unfairly," Sutanto said. "We will try to conduct an objective legal process and assure him that his rights will be respected."

Of Rp325 billion Latief is accused of taking from the BLBI fund, Rp155 billion has been returned to the state. "Latief has taken responsibility for the remaining Rp170 billion and, most importantly, he has returned home," Sutanto said. Latief's assets in Indonesia have been transferred out of his name since he left the country.

Commander Benny Mamoto, head of the Transnational Crimes Division, said Indonesia's "improved image" among the international community had helped the recapture of fugitives. "We successfully convinced the US government about the recent improvements to our law-enforcement system, so that they were willing to surrender Wijaya to us."

The US is the first foreign country to give explicit assistance to Jakarta's hunt for fugitive criminals. It is almost certain to result in breaking the deadlock in negotiations with Singapore over an extradition agreement, an essential element in Indonesia's crusade against corruption. Wijaya initially fled to Singapore before moving on to the United States.

Out of harm's way?

Indonesia has extradition agreements only with Hong Kong, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines. Singapore has resisted such arrangements, although Jakarta has tried to negotiate a pact since 1973 and often demands that the tiny island-state cease harboring criminals and their ill-gotten gains.

Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh only last week accused Singapore of delaying a pact planned in December by insisting that it be inked this year as part of a Defense Cooperation Agreement between the two neighbors. Saleh, hand-picked by Yudhoyono, pledged last year to reopen an investigation into the BLBI crimes and go after fugitives abroad.

Singapore's economy depends to some extent on Indonesian cash, and Indonesians are among the biggest buyers of private real estate there. Jakarta has alleged that Indonesians have transferred illegal funds to Singapore, which has strict bank- secrecy laws and claims to have enough safeguards to prevent the country from becoming a haven for laundered funds.

Nonetheless, many Indonesians alleged to have committed crimes at home live freely in Singapore, and some have become citizens of the tiny but wealthy republic, which is a regional financial center.

Many of those on the run are living in Singapore and "if we don't have an extradition agreement, it's very difficult to catch corruptors", Saleh told a Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club lunch.

Mother of all heists

Wijaya, the former head of Bank Umum Servitia, had been convicted of involvement in a case tied to the infamous misuse of BLBI funding. A total of about Rp140 trillion ($13.5 billion) in liquidity support, equal to more than half of the 1998-99 state budget, was dished out as a lifeline to 48 of the country's ailing banks during the 1997-99 Asian financial crisis to help them cope with mass runs against them.

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), in a report commissioned by the House of Representatives, found that Rp138 trillion of the BLBI funds had been channeled by improper procedures and then misused by the recipient banks, mostly owned by cronies and relatives of former president Suharto.

Instead of diligently managing the funds to guarantee depositors' savings, bankers used much of the money for currency speculation, loans to affiliated business groups, and repayment of subordinated loans, securities transactions and even office costs.

Though the verdict against Wijaya was based on Bank Servitia receiving BLBI funding totaling Rp1.29 trillion, he used the funds for the interests of his own business group through Bank Sembada Arta Nugraha, another bank that he owned.

The horrendous abuse of funds was blamed firmly on weak supervision by the central Bank Indonesia (BI). At first the government refused to cover the BLBI losses, which threatened to bankrupt BI. In November 2000 the Finance Ministry and BI reached an agreement, under which the central bank would only have to cover Rp24 trillion, while the government's Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) would be responsible for the remainder.

Indonesians are still paying for the crimes of the errant bankers. The government raised funds for the BLBI using bonds for which it had to allocate trillions of rupiah every year to repay principal and interest. To finance the bonds, spending on subsidies and development programs was slashed under an austerity drive that hit the poor hard. Thousands of jobs were lost in the suspended or closed down banks.

Classic example

A brief look at Wijaya's case serves to show just how easily things went wrong when the long arm of the law was, inadvertently or deliberately, caught napping.

Although Indonesian law allows courts to order any defendant at any time to be detained to prevent him or her from absconding, many of the corrupt managed to flee prior to verdicts in their cases as they were not taken into custody while on trial or awaiting decisions on their appeals. By the time the courts had handed down a final verdict, they had absconded to escape imprisonment. Another common tactic is to plead illness. And instead of insisting on speedy prosecutions, officials continue to grant delays to court dates and issue permits for medical treatments abroad.

Prosecutors can do nothing to prevent them from fleeing as only the courts have the power to order detention of defendants during the trial process. Meantime, officials use paper chases to give them time to leave the country, despite pending jail terms.

The attorney general's office blamed bureaucratic snags for the late delivery of documents that normally get forwarded "a day or two" after a judgment is rendered. According to the law, prosecutors can only execute a verdict when they receive an "official" copy of the order from the issuing court. In Wijaya's case they got it only a year after the case closed. The Supreme Court was blamed for an administrative snafu that contributed to Wijaya's escape, as the court verdict, handed down on July 23, 2003, was received by prosecutors on July 28, 2004, long after Wijaya had fled.

Deputy Attorney General for Intelligence Basrief Arief leads a special team set up to hunt down 13 of the country's most wanted fugitives. Many of Indonesia's top white-collar criminals are still at large but Arief's official "most wanted" list is now down to 12 names with Widaya's capture. Not all of them are wanted for BLBI crimes.

Still on the loose (among many others)

Sjamsul Nursalim, former president commissioner of Bank BDNI, is one of the most notorious of the country's bad debtors. He lives in grand style in Singapore, which is hardly surprising considering his Rp37 trillion gift from BLBI through his bank makes him the second-largest recipient of BLBI after Bank Central Asia.

Samadikun Hartono is another BLBI fugitive and a former president director of Bank Modern, another bank that was closed. He was found guilty of embezzling Rp169 billion and sentenced to four years in jail; there have been no public reports of his whereabouts.

Bambang Sutrisno and Andrian Ariawan are also BLBI fugitives – they were vice president and president director, respectively, of the closed Bank Surya. Both were accused of embezzling Rp1.5 trillion and sentenced to life imprisonment. Both reportedly live in Singapore.

Sudjiono Timan, former president director of state-owned venture-capital investment company PT Bahana Pembinaan Usaha Indonesia, disappeared when prosecutors tried to arrest him at his home after he was sentenced to 15 years in jail. He was involved in a Rp1.1 trillion corruption case involving the channeling of state funds to Suharto's cronies. He is also thought to be in Singapore.

Set up in 1993 to facilitate national development and cooperation with foreign investors, BPUI ended up with debts of almost $1 billion and was owed hundreds of millions in outstanding loans by corruption-linked tycoons.

[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. He can be reached at softsell@prima.net.id.]

Aceh, the crucial step

Jakarta Post Editorial - January 30, 2006

The government submitted the final draft of its Aceh government bill to the House of Representatives on Thursday, a major step following the historic peace agreement signed in Helsinki last August by Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

All eyes will be on the House when it begins deliberating the bill, which must be passed ahead of elections in Aceh the Helsinki agreement says should be held in April.

This newspaper reported on Saturday that sections of the draft bill are in accordance with the agreement, such as the schedule of the elections. Other sections raise questions about the government's goodwill, including the proposed clause allowing for the redrawing of Aceh's borders to form new districts, regencies or provinces. It brings to mind the battle of wills between Jakarta and Papua, whose leaders often beg to differ with the government's claim that major decisions are always taken in their best interest.

It is our sincere hope enough members of the House will, when deliberating the Aceh bill, be able to open their hearts and minds to the hopes and wishes of the Acehnese, and to the spirit of peace in the Helsinki agreement. This is crucial to balancing the hawks, who must be seen by their patrons and supporters to be defending the "interests" and very existence of the nation as we know it.

Already, there has been a perceivable dominance of the debate surrounding the issue of government in Aceh by "nationalists". They are usually much louder than their opponents and find a ready audience, because Indonesians, including members of the press, have been brought up to understand that the legacy of the unitary state must be preserved at all costs, given the sacrifices of our brave freedom fighters – never mind that Indonesia itself may have later acted as a ruthless colonialist, using violence as a tool of suppression and robbing whole communities of their livelihoods.

The resulting absence of any need to look at the issue from the eyes of those in Aceh who have grown up surrounded by soldiers and violence, coupled with nationalist groups raising the dreadful image of losing another province, like we lost East Timor, clears the way for legislators always on the lookout for any concessions to GAM, either for the sake of the nation, or to help them keep their seats in elections in 2009.

It was a torturous road to Helsinki itself, with many earlier failed attempts at peace. Ironically, the devastating tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, was a major factor in bringing the two sides together to reach an agreement to end the violence in the province.

To us, it is unthinkable, though far from impossible, that all of the suffering of the Acehnese could just be forgotten as politicians debate this draft bill. But the signs that this could be the case first appeared as far back as when the negotiators were meeting in Helsinki and the final agreement was announced. Acehnese crowded around their television sets and rejoiced at the prospect of peace, finally, and a sense of security for themselves and their families.

But in Jakarta, some legislators were already baring their red- and-white souls, saying concessions like local political parties were a betrayal and a potential threat to the unitary state.

What if the Acehnese who remained rebels at heart mustered enough support and won the elections, paving the way for another calamity like East Timor? On the front line defending the legacy of founding president Sukarno was his daughter, former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, and the self-proclaimed woman leader, or "Cut Nyak" of Aceh. It was she who felt that the Helsinki agreement threatened the existance of the Indonesian state.

The rhetoric was toned down a bit as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who held a friendly meeting with GAM leaders in Finland's capital on Jan. 20, reiterated their commitment to the peace process.

The fate of the people of Aceh now lies in the hands of legislators. We can only hope they will remember the millions of Acehnese who are looking to the future as they try to overcome their losses from war and natural disaster, and defeat their colleagues in the House who are only looking to elections in 2009.

Why Islamic conservatism is up in Aceh?

Jakarta Post - January 26, 2006

Aguswandi, Banda Aceh – The fundamental problem facing Muslims and others seeking to understand Islam is not that there are too many versions of Islam. There is only one Islam, but there are a thousand possible interpretations of its texts and precepts. All lay people claim to possess the indisputable truth, all claim that no version but their own can be true. An unfortunate omission in current critiques of Islam is that they usually ignore the fact that competing interpretations of the faith have caused more conflicts within Islam than outside of Islam.

Setting aside the finer nuances, the most important division for anybody interested in challenging intolerance and antidemocratic beliefs is the divide between the moderate and conservative adherents of the faith. In contrast to the latter, moderates advocate a civil Islam based on tolerance, an Islam compatible with democratic ideas and modern life.

This division has given rise to an often hidden war between moderates and conservatives throughout the Muslim world. Sadly, this is increasingly the case in the devout province of Aceh. Healthy competition between conservatism and moderate interpretations is on the wane as Islamic conservatism gains ground. Moderates, conversely, are on the defensive, scared to speak out, and increasingly unable to get their voices heard.

If we take as an example a new qanun (local regulation issued by the Sharia authorities) implemented as of this month, the new prohibition legislates that Muslim Acehnese women must wear head scarves and may not wear tight clothes. The foundations of this ruling lie in extremely conservative interpretations of Islam. This is not the moderate Islam that has existed in Aceh for centuries.

The majority of Acehnese have long believed – and practiced – a faith that is based on persuasion rather than top-down enforcement of a restrictive interpretation of the faith. Historically, Acehnese Islam was a tool for combating injustice and oppression. If you look at pictures of Aceh's heroine Cut Nyak Dhien, you see a women that took up arms against colonial oppression in defense of Acehnese cultural and religious identity, yet she did not wear a jilbab (head scarf). Historically, Islam in Aceh was about living by core values, not the superficial appearance of principle.

In contrast to their self-proclaimed agenda of defending Islam, in reality today's conservatives are actually diminishing Islam, reducing it to small things that are inadequate or irrelevant in the face of the challenges of modern life or development. Ask the conservatives questions that reach beyond their favorite topics of gambling, alcohol and head scarves, for example about how their interpretation of religion can promote or support the reconstruction of Aceh, or Aceh's political and economic development and they are unable to answer.

So how, given this lack of substance, have conservative interpretations of Islam come to dominate public discourse in Aceh, to the extent that conservative interpretations are being adopted in law and imposed on the majority – the moderate Acehnese? Why are the conservatives taking center stage and representing themselves as mainstream Acehnese?

The rise of the conservatives can be attributed to multiple factors.

One important element is that rising conservatism reflects national trends in religious and political discourse in Indonesia. This nation-wide trend is largely attributable to the dominant position given to Middle Eastern interpretations of Islam. What can be seen to be happening in Aceh, as well as other places in Indonesia, is not actually "Islamization" as it is often called, but actually "Arabization". If we give them the space, Aceh's unique experience of Islam is being subsumed by conservative elements of the Arab world. This conservative view is now even being challenged by moderate Muslims in the Middle East.

The dominance of this approach has, in the large part, been driven by the influx of outsiders entering Aceh with an agenda to promote Arabic interpretations of Islam. This agenda has been strengthened by local religious conservatives with an eye on the opportunity to gain political power for themselves and their allies. The central government's tacit encouragement of these groups has also allowed them to flourish, thereby distracting attention from more important social, development and justice issues.

In Aceh the Islamic conservatives are setting restrictive limitations in all areas of discussion. They are ultimately closing the space for public debate about more important issues and damaging our ability and prospects for ijtihad (critical thinking mandated for Muslims in the Koran) about our own development and future.

It is important to help moderate Muslim voices in Aceh. Support must come from Indonesia's other Muslim communities and other non Acehnese, given that the current conservatism in Aceh is an import, not simply a provincial issue. It is a problem for all of us, whether in Aceh, or elsewhere in Indonesia.

If conservative Islamic groups go unchallenged in Aceh, not only will this promote oppression of the Acehnese, particularly woman, but it will also prevent development within a cultural and historical framework that is appropriate to Acehnese Islam. Other Muslims in Indonesia should be aware that this imported, conservative view not only insults the Acehnese people, but our collective history and Islam itself.

[The writer is an Acehnese human rights advocate. He can be contacted at agus_smur@hotmail.com.]

New Aceh? Beyond the euphoria in Helsinki

Jakarta Post - January 27, 2006

Aboeprijadi Santoso, Brussels, Helsinki – A reception on Jan. 20 at the Indonesian ambassador's residence in Helsinki, thousands of miles from Aceh, provided an occasion that symbolically highlighted the success, so far, of Aceh's peace process.

With a chilly minus 22 degrees Celsius outside the building, the atmosphere inside had thawed. For the enthusiastic Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who initiated the peace process, it must have been one of his finest moments. He now reaps the peace benefits by calling Europe for a dialog and increased trade and investment in "the new, post-tsunami and post-conflict democratic Indonesia". Yet, for all the euphoria abroad, Aceh remains a critical issue for the future of Indonesia's nation-state.

For the first time an Indonesian state leader met and warmly welcomed former rebel leaders who had fought Jakarta for decades. "All sides are now satisfied and optimistic," said Kalla standing between Free Aceh Movement (GAM) Prime Minister Malik Mahmud and peace mediator Finnish former president Martti Ahtisaari. "From now on Pak Kalla is no longer a stranger to me," replied Malik, visibly happy.

The event became even more cordial with Malik's ally, Zaini Abdullah, chatting happily with his former counterpart at the Geneva 2000 peace effort Hassan Wirajuda. Farid Husein, Kalla's most industrious assistant, was proudly showing a photograph of his meeting, another historic one, with top GAM leader Hasan Mohammad di Tiro in Stockholm; while former Aceh governor Azwar Abubakar warmly kissed Malik as former Soviet leaders used to kiss their East European allies.

What made that day distinct from the historic signing of the peace deal in August 2005 is of course that the phase that was first thought to be most critical and sensitive had been concluded without serious incidents. GAM's weapons have been decommissioned and Jakarta's soldiers pulled out. Clearly, this – as both sides indicated to Radio Netherlands – has led to greater mutual trust and hope.

"From the outset we have been optimistic," said former war commander Maj. Gen. Bambang Dharmono. Even Malik Mahmud, who at the August ceremony sharply attacked the army-sponsored militias, said he has no such worry anymore.

Of all rebellions, GAM's may have been the fiercest, but Teungku M. Usman Lampoh Awe, GAM's most senior leader in Aceh who joined Kalla's trip, said, "we, the Acehnese nation, believe peace will continue to prevail if the two parties remain honest" i.e. loyal to the Memorandum of Understanding on the peace settlement signed in August.

A lot can be learned from the Aceh issue as it highlights the diverse concepts of nation and sovereignty. For, behind the surface of rhetoric, different discourses could transform the issue as the process is now entering the political phase.

The debate on the Helsinki MOU throughout the second half of last year has been predominantly about state sovereignty, which critics say is being threatened by the MOU – thus, reflecting the anxiety of the state vis-a-vis the remote provinces. But the New Order legacy, not only among the military, has basically distorted Indonesia's nationalistic spirit by adding a centralistic dimension quite in accordance with freedom fighter Soepomo's outdated concept of an "integrated state" that emphasizes oneness rather than diversity. As a consequence, the state has since acquired a sacrosanct nature, which Soeharto's New Order nurtured and is still vividly manifested, for example, in the almost obsessive concern with the unitary state, the NKRI – unity for the sake of unity per se.

Such authoritarian state paradigm has apparently resulted in a kind of state-nationalism that had hardly respected local interests – a discourse, that is, that encourages radical and moderate nationalists alike to think in terms of the paramount importance of state territory and resources, rather than the human communities, values and aspirations of the constituting provinces – in spite of the fact that these resources are of great importance to the interests of the state. Here, Aceh, like Papua, is a case in point.

Since the New Order's centralistic concept has allowed no space for local parties (which were facts of life in the early years of Indonesia's independence), not surprisingly, resistance against that idea has gained strength. "Local party? No way!" had been the response even from the top levels of the administration. Although Jakarta finally did concede, unfounded fears remains that local parties could pave the way to Aceh's independence. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether the Java-based nationalists who oppose the Helsinki MOU, will change their attitude or continue to be an obstacle as the law on Aceh administration has to be enacted on March 31.

For the GAM or the Acehnese for that matter, "to return to the womb of the Indonesian nation", as some put it, may be one thing and to develop a sovereignty of its own is another. Since not all inhabitants of the archipelago after the Youth Oath of Oct. 28, 1928 automatically became Indonesians the next day, by the same token, no GAM members or supporters may be expected to discard their notion of an Acehnese nation in a fortnight.

No MOU without security, welfare and justice will guarantee that Aceh remains within the republic. But, basically, what matters now is a regional, Hong Kong-like sovereignty, which, if the Helsinki's MOU is fully implemented, should give them full space to develop their aspirations. Hence, while GAM desperately wants the law on Aceh administration to guarantee that space, at the same time they resist the growing demand for new provinces within Aceh.

Unitary states with authoritarian regimes have failed to prevent their countries from falling apart, as one could learn from the experience of Pakistan military regime (1971), Soviet Union (1991) and Yugoslavia (1995). But Malaysia, Germany and Belgium (since 1993), to mention but a few, have proven that a federal, democratic state is a solid recipe to maintain a united country.

Kalla and GAM leaders have good reason to celebrate Aceh's peace, but it is important to realize that the issue may have far reaching implications. With the help of civil societies, which both parties in Helsinki have ignored, a democratic Aceh could again, as Sukarno used to say of Aceh, become a starting capital for a new, albeit more democratic Indonesia.

It's high time to nurture a new Indonesian nationhood as an imagining project for diverse races and ethnic groups, rather than a rigid and mere sacrosanct territorial framework.

[The writer is journalist with Radio Netherlands.]

Furor over high-voltage towers

Jakarta Post Editorial - January 27, 2006

Infrastructure development can be dilemmatic at times. The construction of a power network in southern Java, for example, has been met with resistance by residents in West Java and Yogyakarta. Already months behind schedule – it was scheduled to be completed last October – the network is meant to complement the overloaded northern Java power network.

Constructing power installations is admittedly a complex issue, especially on the crowded island of Java. Tension between residents and PLN, the state power firm, has been simmering for 10 years. Like faulty wiring, the tension will unexpectedly surge before falling off again.

Protests against the network first began in 1996, two years before the collapse of the repressive New Order regime of Soeharto. Now residents in the two provinces are making their voices heard again, raising old issues like land compensation and health concerns over the presence of high-voltage towers.

In the past, when the New Order was still in power, it was easy to label the protesters antigovernment, antidevelopment or, even worse, communists, and then simply disregard them. Not anymore. These labels have lost their currency.

The involvement of the Indonesian Ulema Council in this latest flare-up of the dispute is disturbing, because it is a sign that while the labels of the New Order regime may have lost their power, the regime's patron-client mentality has not.

In the past, the council was largely seen as a tool of Soeharto, and now it has come to the defense of PLN. The council declared a hunger strike by a group of Muslim villagers opposed to the presence of a high-voltage tower near their homes was not allowed under Islam, which the ulema said did not allow followers to harm themselves.

But the villagers were responding to a perceived threat – imagined or otherwise. Why did the council not take the time to explore the reasons behind the villagers' anger? Why are residents from so many different villages and towns involved in protests against PLN, including residents of Bogor, Cianjur, Cirebon, Depok and Rancaekek in West Java, and Bumirejo, Tuksono, Srikayangan, Kulon Progo in Yogyakarta?

Residents of Nanjungmekar village in Rancaekek district in southern Bandung believe power lines have been built too close to their homes, endangering their health. In response, they burned used tires and attempted to tear down a high-voltage tower. We cannot condone such actions, but we can understand them.

Residents of Ciseeng in Bogor believe the compensation they received for their land used by PLN to build towers was unfair, and have asked for more money. Their complaints fell on deaf ears, so the residents felt they had no other option but go on hunger strike to draw attention to their cause. The strikers later went to different state offices, including the Presidential Palace and the House of Representatives, in an attempt to be heard by officials.

Protests are common in a democracy, and the construction of high-voltage towers in other countries has certainly roused citizens to action. What is important is the government's response. Rather than courting the ulema council, PLN should have worked to educate residents about high-voltage towers. For most people, these imposing towers, with giant cables running through them, look threatening, although studies have found that people can safely live 18 meters from high-voltage lines. The power firm should let residents know why the 500-kilovolt lines have to be built, and how to avoid any possible health hazards posed by the lines.

Continuing protests against the towers is a sign of the communication gap between residents and PLN. The company needs to close this gap. Land compensation has always been a tricky issue here. There is always the suspicion that officials are not being fair, or are giving a better deal to residents in the village just down the road. The process requires the utmost transparency, as well as integrity of the highest order on the part of officials.

If the villagers knew the northern Java power network, built in 1984, experienced a 7 percent load increase each year, making a new network vital to relieve the strain, they would probably be willing to make sacrifices, as long as they were properly compensated. Residents are undoubtedly capable of understanding the necessity of the southern network, and like other well- intentioned citizens would be happy to play a role in improving the nation.