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Indonesia News Digest 26 – July 9-16, 2006
Jakarta Post - July 15, 2006
Ary Hermawan and M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – Former Army chief
Gen. (ret) Ryamizard Rayacudu is on the list of people to be
investigated in connection with the recent discovery of an arms
stash in the house of a deceased army logistics officer,
Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Air Chief Marshall Djoko
Suyanto said Friday.
"I believe he (Ryamizard) will heed our summons as we believe he
will truly uphold his integrity as a nationalist and a former
army chief," Suyanto told reporters on Friday.
Suyanto said Ryamizard would be one of a number of high-ranking
officers questioned in relation to the weapons found at the house
of Brig. Gen. Koesmayadi.
"No special privileges will be granted even to high-ranking
officers in this investigation," he said. He added that he
expected the probe to be completed by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, lawmakers at the House of Representatives disagreed
over how to conduct their own probe of the illegal arms.
During a weekly discussion organized by the press on Friday,
lawmakers Happy Bone Zulkarnaen of the Golkar Party, Effendy
Simbolon of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and Ade
Daud Nasution of the Reform Star Party offered contrasting views
on how to uncover possible irregularities within the TNI.
Happy said the recent leak of arms-related documents signed by
Koesmayadi was unethical as it could be an effort to blackmail
the TNI into bowing to a certain political agenda.
"I suspect that the documents were leaked by insiders who have
been marginalized. I also doubt the documents' authenticity. I
think we all have to look into how the documents were made
available to the public," Happy said.
Happy said that the contents and validity of the documents were
of lesser significance.
Copies of the documents circulated among lawmakers and quickly
became a subject of hot debate during a recent hearing of
Commission I on information, defense and foreign affairs with
Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono, Army Chief Gen. Djoko Santoso
and Suyanto.
In the documents, dated June 14, 2002, Koesmayadi, then an army
colonel, ordered 40 weapons complete with ammunition. The order
had approval from his superiors, including the Army Inspectorate
General. The purchase was made through a broker, M.I. Tobing of
CV Adian Nalambok.
Suyanto snapped up the documents, saying they were confidential
and may have been deliberately leaked by someone below him. Ade,
the Commission I lawmaker who brought the documents to light,
said during the discussion that what mattered was not whether the
documents were leaked but the validity of their contents.
"The documents should be investigated and lawmakers should not be
afraid to bring such documents to light, since we are protected
by the law," he said. Effendy alleged the leaking of the
documents was part of a plot to divert attention from the
Koesmayadi case.
Jakarta Post - July 14, 2006
Slamet Susanto, Yogyakarta – Activists staging a hunger strike
are demanding the government live up to pledges to provide
financial assistance to the survivors of the May 27 earthquake in
Yogyakarta and Central Java. Five members of the Yogyakarta Joint
Quake Care Command Post have been on a hunger strike for the past
two days, in a tent in front of the Yogyakarta Legislative
Council building on Jl. Malioboro.
"It's sad that quake victims who have lost their homes,
belongings and loved ones have only been given empty promises.
The five of us decided to go on a hunger strike to make the
government listen to us and meet its promises," said hunger
striker Putra Bangsa.
Another of the activists, Cakra, said: "We will continue our
hunger strike until the government responds." Hundreds of people
rallied at the council building Wednesday evening to mark the
start of the hunger strike. They erected a tent for the hunger
strikers and a larger one to serve as a command post for those
involved in the effort to put pressure on the government.
Around the two tents a number of banners have been hung. Some of
the banners read, "SBY-Kalla, what about your promises", "How can
people trust their leaders if they are all liars", "We're just
little people who only want to see the promises met" and "You've
made promises, dears." SBY refers to President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono and Kalla is Vice President Jusuf Kalla.
Cakra said the government has promised each quake survivor Rp
90,000 (US$9.45) a month for their living costs and 10 kilograms
of rice each month. Survivors also were promised a Rp 100,000
monthly clothing allowance and a Rp 100,000 household maintenance
allowance, as well Rp 2 million for those who lost family members
in the disaster, he said.
On top of these allowances, he said, Kalla promised
reconstruction funds of Rp 30 million for those whose homes were
completely destroyed in the quake, Rp 20 million for homes that
were badly damaged and Rp 10 million for partially damaged homes,
he said.
"None of these promises have been met. The cost of living
assistance has been distributed, but it was uneven. We just want
to remind the government of its promises," Cakra said.
There have been other signs of growing anger with the government
over its perceived failure to assist quake survivors. In Bantul
regency, which suffered the brunt of the damage from the
earthquake, hundreds of people rallied to demand the government
disburse promised financial assistance. The rally ended in front
of the Bantul Legislative Council building. Similar rallies have
been held in Sleman, Gunungkidul and downtown Yogyakarta.
Aceh
West Papua
Human rights/law
Labour issues
Government/civil service
Regional/communal conflicts
Environment
Health & education
Islam/religion
News & issues
Former army chief to be questioned over arms stash
Hunger strike aimed at reminding VP of earthquake aid pledge
Farmers association agrees with ban on rice imports
Tempo Interactive - July 12, 2006
Andri Setyawan, Jakarta – The Indonesian Farmers Association (HKTI) has welcomed the government's measure in extending the ban on rice imports.
"It's good. I hope this is followed by government measures to increase rice production," Siswono Yudohusodo, HKTI advisor, told Tempo yesterday (11/7).
He stated that Indonesia has the opportunity of becoming a rice exporting country. Around four million hectares of marshy valleys throughout Indonesia have the potential to be turned into paddy fields.
According to Yudohusodo, the reserves at Bulog (the State Logistics Agency), which are less than one million tons, are inadequate to be a reason for the need of importing rice.
| Aceh |
Reuters - July 12, 2006
Banda Aceh – Many residents in Indonesia's Aceh say they are unaware of the specifics of a new law giving the ravaged province greater autonomy, but don't want any opposition to it to derail a new-found peace.
The Indonesian parliament passed a bill on Tuesday aimed at cementing a peace deal signed in Helsinki last August between Jakarta and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), ending a conflict that killed around 15,000 people, mostly civilians, from 1976 to late 2004.
The peace agreement was a result of months of talks spurred by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that left around 170,000 Acehnese dead or missing.
Acehnese, weary of past failures to end the conflict, want this pact to last. "Working people like me have no idea on the shape of the bill," said 43-year-old Khairuddin, who lives near the provincial capital Banda Aceh, 1,700 km (1,060 miles) northwest of Jakarta. "I don't even know the shape of the government we have now." "What I want is just a safe Aceh," said the fruit farmer.
The bill covers a range of issues, including rules paving the way for the first direct election of Aceh's governor and the chance for ex-rebels to run for that post.
"Hopefully, this bill will improve the lives of the Acehnese and violence will no longer exist," said Syamsuddin Nur, who works for a local government agency. "The central government must obey the rules in that legislation." "The bill should not disrupt the peace that has been painstakingly restored," he said, sipping a cup of sweet, black Acehnese coffee at one of the ubiquitous roadside stalls in Banda Aceh.
GAM officials say the bill falls short of Jakarta's promises to give Aceh control of most of its affairs.
But Indonesian lawmakers argue the deliberations conformed to the Helsinki truce and the end result is that Aceh has more autonomy than any of Indonesia's 32 other provinces.
Indonesian officials have challenged GAM to spell out which part of the 273-article bill is in violation of the August 15 peace deal.
After Indonesian and GAM representatives met on Wednesday with European-led foreign monitors ensuring the implementation of the truce, the former separatists said they needed time to read the bill.
"GAM has not looked into, nor thoroughly studied, the approved bill. We need to study its content first," GAM spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah said. That would include inviting the opinions of independent legal experts and the process could take around a month, he added.
The Helsinki agreement came after GAM dropped its demand for an independent Aceh state. Jakarta in turn promised to allow local political parties, including any group set up by GAM, to operate in Aceh, although that contradicts Indonesian laws.
Existing national laws require parties to have branches in more than half the country's 33 provinces and individuals to get party endorsements before they run in elections.
Analysts say GAM could hurt its chances in the coming polls if their disappointment with the bill goes too far, because public opinion is largely in favor of the peace process moving forward.
Jakarta Post - July 15, 2006
Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Friday the new Aceh governance law would help speed up the recovery of the province from the devastating December 2004 tsunami.
Yudhoyono said the law should be accepted for its goals of realizing a secure future for the people of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, whose abundant natural resources have long been funneled to the central government.
"What we must do now is, with peace in our heart, develop Aceh sincerely and faithfully so prosperity and security will emerge soon," he was quoted as saying by Antara newswire in Bireuen, Aceh.
It was Yudhoyono's first visit since the law was passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The law has been condemned by some elements in Aceh, including members of the former separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), for failing to live up to the spirit of the peace agreement signed by the government and the GAM last August in Helsinki. They contend it allows too much interference by Jakarta in the regional administration's affairs.
They are planning to file a protest with the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), which is mandated to hear grievances about violations of the Helsinki agreement, although AMM chief Pieter Feith said Wednesday that AMM would stay out of the dispute.
Yudhoyono said the passing of the law was not the final aim of the government, but rather it was the complete rehabilitation of the province. He added that Aceh must remain an integral part of the country.
Communication and Information Minister Sofyan A. Djalil, who accompanied the President, said the Aceh administration would need to immediately enact the bylaws, locally known as qanun, to implement the law.
There are 94 qanun, two government regulations and three presidential decrees expected to result from the law. Two of the regulations, said Sofyan, were focused on creating local political parties and cooperating with international interests.
Aceh's rich oil and gas reserves were exploited for decades for the benefit of Jakarta. The discrimination led to the emergence of separatist movements, notably the GAM, with the violence causing the imposition of military emergency status in the province for varying periods in the past 30 years.
After several failed peace talks, negotiations took place in Helsinki last year and, with considerable international attention, produced an accord designed to grant Aceh more powers and flexibility in governing itself.
Yudhoyono said the government would continue rebuilding Aceh from the tsunami, which left hundreds of thousands dead and over half a million homeless.
Despite criticism the Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency is taking too long in providing suitable accommodation for the Acehnese, Yudhoyono praised its efforts.
"The government has worked hard although we're often considered sluggish. Thus, we must be proactive to say what we have accomplished and what our targets are."
Agence France Presse - July 13, 2006
Banda Aceh – The head of a foreign monitoring mission overseeing a peace pact between ex-rebels in Indonesia's Aceh and the Jakarta government has given an initial nod to a law cementing the deal.
The law, passed by the national parliament this week, has been criticised by former members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) who claim some provisions are not in line with the pact signed in Finland last August.
The peace deal was spurred on by the devastating 2004 tsunami and ended 29 years of conflict which had claimed some 15,000 lives in Indonesia's westernmost province.
But Pieter Feith, the head of the European Union-led Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) which is tasked with mediating any disputes, said the law was broadly in line with the so-called memorandum of understanding.
At an exceptional meeting called between representatives of the AMM, government and GAM, Feith said that it was not necessary for the law to be a "word by word reflection of the MoU".
Rather, he said, it should "be based on the set of principles agreed upon in Helsinki." "Most of these have been accommodated even though interpretations might differ. In conclusion, AMM considers the (law) to broadly cover the principles in the MoU," a statement from the AMM released after Wednesday's meeting said.
The GAM delegation asked for more time to examine the law before drawing conclusions "while reiterating that they will not revert to armed struggle", the statement said. The law clears the way for local elections to be held in the province.
Under the pact, GAM agreed to drop its demand for independence in return for wide-ranging autonomy and, among other concessions, the right to form local political parties which are banned elsewhere in Indonesia. GAM representatives have complained that the law gives Jakarta too much room for interfering in Aceh's affairs.
Jakarta Post - July 13, 2006
Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – The Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) will not step into the controversy about the newly passed Aceh governance law, chief Pieter Feith said Wednesday.
He said the law on the administration of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam was not a sudden "incident", but rather the result of the lengthy efforts of Indonesian legislators.
"What we must stress about is that this is not an incident, but the work of a parliament. And all parliaments in democratic countries work independently and there must be no interference."
The AMM, consisting of representatives of the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is assigned to monitor the process of legislative change and to rule on complaints of alleged violations of the Helsinki agreement, which was signed between the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) leaders in Helsinki last August.
Feith described the law as comprehensive and fairly accommodated the elements of the agreement between the government and the GAM. "Anyway, we need to study it further because it has many articles and details," he added.
The law passed Tuesday by the House of Representatives is based on the tenets of last year's Helsinki agreement. But GAM officials and activists argue the law fails to live up to the its principles, particularly in curtailing the power of the local administration in international cooperation and management of natural resources. They also condemn the use of non-retroactive principles for past human rights abuses.
Along with several non-governmental organizations, the GAM plans to file a complaint with the AMM about the law.
In Jakarta, Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Air Chief Marshal Djoko Suyanto said the armed forces "were committed to supporting the peace process in Aceh".
Speaking at a meeting Wednesday night with media editors, he conceded rampant crime persisted in the province, but said such disturbances should not obstruct the overall passage to peace, "and should not lead us toward fresh fighting". The unrest, he insisted, should be resolved in a peaceful and professional manner.
But an activist from the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA), Dawan Gayo, said the law had to be immediately revised because it contravened the spirit of the peace deal. He said the law was an even worse deal than the 2001 Aceh Special Autonomy Law, which was enacted in a bid to appease separatists by allowing the application of Islamic law in the province.
Information and Communication Minister Sofyan A. Djalil, who was a member of the government negotiating team, said the option to seek amendments was always available. He said the Aceh law was unique because its 99 articles could lead to the issuance of 94 bylaws, or qanun, three presidential decrees and two government decrees. The law provides the basis to prepare a local election, which has been delayed twice, which is expected as early as September.
Meanwhile, support for the law continued Wednesday. The head of the Aceh Sharia Department, Alyasa Abubakar, was quoted as saying by Antara newswire that the law gave a much clearer explanation about the application of Islamic principles in the overwhelmingly Muslim province.
A group of civil groups under the Ulee Kareng forum in Aceh also responded positively to the law, which they said could serve as the momentum to build a better, more independent province.
Jakarta Post - July 12, 2006
M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – After five months of intense deliberations, the House of Representatives passed the Aceh governance bill into law Tuesday, with legislators' declaration that it paved the way for greater autonomy receiving a cool response in the conflict-torn province.
All political factions in the House endorsed the bill, saying that greater autonomy in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam would be a substantial step to ensuring a lasting resolution of the three decade-long conflict in the province.
But the day was marred by a general strike in Aceh by those who dismissed the law as biased in favor of the central government, following on from eleventh-hour condemnation from former separatists and activists.
Article 11 stipulates that the central government sets the norms, standards and procedures and also monitors all affairs of the Aceh regional administration.
The demand of the Acehnese to manage their own natural resources, oil and gas in particular, is only partly met, with Article 160 stipulating that the management of oil and gas in Aceh will be done jointly by the provincial administration and the central government.
The provision is a departure from a draft proposed by Acehnese councillors and a compromise between political factions at the House, which had given the Acehnese complete control over the energy resources.
Victims of human rights abuses in the province will have to accept the fact that the perpetrators will likely escape justice, because an ad-hoc rights tribunal set up for the province will only hear cases that occur after its establishment.
Supporters of the law contend that, despite its shortcomings, it still carries generous provisions.
Article 183 of the law states that Aceh will get an allocation of a special autonomy fund in the next 20 years.
Starting in 2008, the central government will have to earmark 2 percent of the general allocation fund (DAU) for building infrastructure, improving education and providing health care as well as combating poverty for the next 15 years. After 15 years, the central government is still required to allocate 1 percent of the DAU for the same objectives.
The law also authorizes Aceh, renowned for its strong Islamic culture, to become an enclave in which sharia could be implemented, albeit with a control from the central government. Twelve articles in the law specify the implementation of sharia.
Local administrations in Aceh are given the right to draw up sharia-inspired bylaws, or qanun and assemble a type of sharia police to uphold it. However, all qanun must be subject to review from the Supreme Court.
Greater political participation is also enshrined in the law, with Acehnese given the right to set up a local political parties. The law also allows independent candidates to contest the local election, although only once during the coming gubernatorial election.
Speaking after a House plenary session to endorse the bill, Aceh Governor Mustafa Abu Bakar said that provincial administration would speed up the drafting of over 90 qanun.
"The first batch of qanun would concern the local election. We expect it to be completed later this month so that the poll can take place no more than three months later," Mustafa told reporters.
Key provisions
Jakarta Post - July 12, 2006
Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh/Jakarta – Usually bustling streets in towns along the eastern seaboard of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam were brought to a standstill Tuesday, with transportation workers taking part in a general strike called to protest the endorsement of the Aceh governance law.
Dozens of NGOs in Aceh, including the Center of Information for Aceh Referendum (SIRA), Aceh Anticorruption Movement (Gerak), Linkpeace and Acehnese Youth Alliance, urged the public to oppose the law. They argued it watered down the Helsinki peace accord that was signed by the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement last August.
The groups contend the law fails to provide the promised autonomy for the resource-rich province and allows interference from the central government.
They distributed fliers comparing the content of the law with the Helsinki agreement.
Among the contentious contents of the law are Article 8 on local councils, Article 11 on the respective authority of the central and local governments, Article 193 on the role of the Indonesian Military (TNI) and Article 215 on the ad-hoc rights tribunal.
"We urge the government and the House to be consistent with the agreement enshrined in the Helsinki peace pact," the coordinator of the general strike, Dawan Gayo, said.
Locals in Julok, East Aceh, stopped public transportation vehicles plying the Medan-Banda Aceh route to force them to honor the strike. "I don't know why we have to take part in the strike, but I am concerned about my personal safety if I don't do it," driver Muhammad said.
In the province's capital of Banda Aceh, transportation services were unaffected. At Setui bus terminal, all public transportation vehicles, including inter-city buses, kept to their routes.
Rini, a resident of Darul Imarah, Banda Aceh, was quoted by detik.com news portal as saying that the NGOs that staged the protest were only representing their own interests.
"We just want peace...We are no longer afraid. What those people say does not mean anything to us. They just fight for their own interests."
Human rights watchdog Aceh Working Group (AWG) said the law failed to meet the demands of Acehnese whose basic rights had been trampled on for decades. AWG coordinator Rusdi Marpaung said the law only benefited violators of human rights and those who reaped financial gains from the long-standing conflict.
"As a result, implementation of this law will also be steered by those two parties," he told reporters here.
New York Times - July 11, 2006
Jane Perlez, Jakarta – The Indonesian Parliament passed a law today that under the terms of a peace accord with former separatists in Aceh is intended to give the province greater autonomy.
But the Free Aceh Movement, which fought for independence for nearly three decades and signed a peace agreement last year, said the new law fell short of its demands, and of the provisions in the accord.
"The authority for the government in Aceh is not clear – it says in the bill that the law in Aceh has to follow Indonesian law," said a spokesman for the movement, Bahtiar Abdullah.
On a range of critical issues, from fiscal matters to the powers of the Indonesian army stationed in the province, the bill was far weaker than the former rebels had agreed to last year, Mr. Abdullah said. "If everything has to be in with the Indonesian standard, where's the new law?" Mr. Abdullah asked.
The peace agreement between the central government and the rebels was signed in Aug. 2005 in Helsinki, 7 months after the province was devastated by the tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004. Despite huge amounts of foreign aid, reconstruction in the province, particularly for houses, has been much slower than expected. More than 126,000 people died in Aceh Province, with tens of thousands more listed as missing. More than 400,000 people were left without homes.
A key to last year's settlement, negotiated between the two sides by a former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, was an understanding by the rebels that a new provincial government in Aceh would have far wider authority than in the past.
Politicians who were not part of the Free Aceh Movement were more tempered in their views, saying the new law was realistic, particularly given the strong tradition of central power in Indonesia.
An Acehnese member of the national Parliament in Jakarta, Farhan Hamid, said in an interview the provisions were "optimal for this time," less than a year after the Helsinki accord. One positive result, he said, allowed the province to get back a greater share of the revenues than it sent to the national treasury.
It was not feasible, Mr. Hamid said, for the province to be given total control of the revenues from Aceh's oil and gas reserves. They would be managed "with equal power" between Jakarta and the province, he added.
The passage of the law, four months later than stipulated in the peace accord, paves the way for elections to be held later in the year. Former members of the Free Aceh Movement will be able to stand as independent candidates. The movement will not be permitted to field candidates as a political party until 2009.
"We are discussing the formation of a political party," said Irwandi Yusuf, a former rebel who is now the movement's senior representative to a European Union monitoring mission in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. "If we can prove ourselves as a major political player we will form one. At the moment it is very fragile." he added.
The rebel group said it was preparing a dissent with the new law to be presented to the monitoring mission later this week. The mission was named in the peace accord as the body that would arbitrate differences between the two sides.
One of the most troubling aspects of the law was the role of the Indonesian military against which the rebels fought a guerrilla war, Mr. Yusuf said.
The peace accord in Helsinki stipulated that the Indonesian military would be stationed in the province only for national defense and would not participate in provincial affairs, he said. But the law gave the army, which traditionally plays a domestic role in the rest of Indonesia, powers within the province, Mr. Yusuf said.
The new law says that Aceh, considered one of the most devout areas of overwhelmingly Muslim Indonesia, would continue to implement Islamic sharia law. It is the only province to have the strict law based on the teachings of the Koran. The Free Aceh Movement did not object to the provisions on the sharia law "because it was bad politics to criticize it," Mr. Yusuf said.
Voice of America - July 11, 2006
Jakarta – Indonesia's parliament has passed a bill to extend political autonomy for Aceh, but human-rights activists and former Achenese rebels say the law does not satisfy a 2005 peace agreement.
The conflict has revived tensions between Jakarta and Aceh's separatist movement.
The bill expands Aceh's control over its natural oil and gas resources, allows former rebels to form their own political party, and confirms autonomy over local affairs.
But Acehnese leaders say the bill was weakened as it made its way through the legislature. They say the law erodes local control over international aid, and is too vague about the role of the Indonesian military. A provision that would create human-rights tribunals has also been cut back.
Leaders of the Free Aceh Movement say they will file a formal complaint with international monitors of the peace process about the bill. Aceh Recovery Forum Director Ahmad Humam Hamid says failure to agree on the law threatens to hamstring progress in rebuilding Aceh.
"I think first of all both the government of Indonesia and the movement should say that they're okay with the law. One of the basic principles is that both the government and the movement are going to see the new law governing Aceh," he said.
Aceh's 29-year war for independence from Indonesia, which killed an estimated 15,000 people, stalled soon after the Indian Ocean tsunami decimated the region in December 2004. More than 130,000 Aceh residents died and 500,000 were left homeless in the disaster.
Conflict over the law could further delay elections originally scheduled for April this year.
Diplomats and activists involved in monitoring the peace process say the Indonesian House of Representatives should not dilute Aceh's powers.
Hamid says he expects a compromise on the law, but he is concerned that growing distrust in the troubled province will take a long time to resolve.
"I think the basic requirements are there, but now the idea is how are we going to show the Acehnese, how we are going to demonstrate to the Acehnese, that this law is workable, this law is recommendable, and this law will give a lot of good things for the Acehnese and for the state of Indonesia," added Hamid.
In contrast to the violent past, leaders of the Free Aceh Movement say they will use legal means to challenge the legislation.
| West Papua |
Jakarta Post - July 16, 2006
Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – A police officer who was allegedly drunk when he shot dead his female companion was mobbed and killed Saturday by hundreds of villagers in Tolikara, Papua. The dead woman has been identified as 20-year-old Selfi Kogoya.
The police officer, Second Brig. Yermias Phiter Webiser, was recognized by the angry residents as he accompanied two other officers to the police station in Karubaga village at about 7 a.m..
Yermias died at the scene. The other officers were seriously injured and their vehicle damaged.
Yermias and Selfi had gotten into a heated argument at about 4 a.m. after drinking together. After shooting Selfi, Yermias fled to the house of his parents-in-law, asking them to go with him to the station.
Second. Brig. Taslim was taken to Wamena General Hospital in Jayawijaya regency with a gash on his forehead. Yermias' other companion, Second Brig. Yasen Lensor, suffered wounds to his foot and abdomen.
Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Tommy Yacobus expressed regret over the incident. "I have often warned my subordinates about alcohol. Nothing good has ever come from drinking." He urged Papua's police chiefs to deal promptly with any officers caught drinking, particularly to the point of intoxication.
In South Sorong regency on Friday night, First Brig. Jhony Waponggah shot two residents after drinking. Onisimus Ginuni, 28, was shot in the head and Frengky Sumarsono, 26, in the chest.
The two were taken to Sorong General Hospital, while the suspect is being detained at Papua Police Headquarters in Jayapura for questioning. "I will fire him... to teach other officer who like to drink a lesson," Tommy said.
Jakarta Post - July 15, 2006
Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – An ongoing dispute between the Papuan Legislative Council and the Papuan chapter of the General Elections Commission (KPUD Papua) over procedures in the handover of election results has delayed indefinitely the inauguration of the governor-elect Barnabar Suebu.
KPUD representatives say they have handed over the election results, whereas legislators assert that the handover was not conducted in line with existing procedures.
Yan Ayomi, head of the legislative council's election committee, said Friday that the legislature would not be able to hold a special plenary session to set the date for the inauguration of the governor-elect and submit a recommendation to the home minister.
"If the document has not been submitted formally, how can the legislature process it?" asked Ayomi, who is also the head of the Papuan chapter of Golkar Party.
According to Ayomi, KPUD Papua should have handed over the document in a committee meeting or a special plenary session, not to an individual legislator.
"KPUD Papua should have given the document to the election committee, which would later invite other councillors to a plenary meeting before making a proposal to the home minister," Ayomi said.
Commenting on a letter sent to the home minister by the council deputy chairman Komaruddin Watubun on June 6 proposing the inauguration of the governor-elect, Ayomi said that it was not in line with procedures and was therefore invalid. A day earlier council chairman John Ibo sent a letter to the home minister to annul the letter sent by Komaruddin.
Meanwhile, KPUD Papua refused to accept that the handover of the results of KPUD's plenary session on June 1 2006 to the council had been declared invalid.
"We have done it in line with existing procedures. There is no rule that the results of the KPUD plenary session have to be handed over in a council plenary session or the special regional election committee meeting. What is clear is that the KPUD has to hand over its results three days after the plenary session and we've done it," Yohanis G Bonay, a KPUD Papua member, said.
As KPUD Papua has handed over the results of its plenary session, the council should have responded to it," Bonay said.
Amid the uncertainty, the Papuan provincial administration has set up a committee, led by provincial secretary-general Andi Balo Bassaleng, to carry out the inauguration ceremony.
In a related development Papuan governor-elect Suebu's lawsuit for defamation against DPRP chairman John Ibo has entered the trial stage at the Jayapura District Court. Previously Suebu had claimed damages of Rp 150 billion (US$15,789) from John Ibo, while John Ibo in turn filed a counter suit against Suebu, demanding Rp 1.4 trillion in damages.
Papuan Police have responded to a defamation complaint filed by Suebu against John Ibo by questioning a number of witnesses, while John Ibo has reported Suebu to the National Police Headquarters on charges of using fake documents.
A member of the Papuan working group in Jakarta, Frans Maniagasi said the delay in the inauguration of the Papuan governor-elect would be unfavorable for the Papuan people and hoped that the new governor would be installed before the visit of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to Papua on July 26.
The home minister's letter to the Papuan Legislative Council questioning the confusion over the inauguration date of the governor-elect, Frans said, should have been responded to with a plenary session, and not by blaming KPUD Papua.
"The results of KPUD Papua are already in the hands of the legislative council and the council should have followed it up," Frans asserted.
Frans further urged the council to stop all the fuss, saying that if the council did not make a proposal for the inauguration of the governor-elect to the home minister, the Papuan people would.
"The legislators are representatives chosen by the people, while the governor was directly elected by the people. So as the people's representatives the legislature should implement the people's mandate by making a proposal for the inauguration of the governor-elect," he reiterated.
XFN-ASIA - July 14, 2006
Jakarta – A comprehensive audit on the operation of PT Freeport Indonesia, which was initially expected to be completed last month, is not finished yet, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said.
"Today we just listened to a report from the audit team on the five subjects. We will have other meetings," he told reporters following a meeting with the audit team.
The five subjects of the audit are environmental impact, security, community development, production and revenue.
Separately, Witoro Soelarmo, the ministry's technical environmental director who chairs the audit team, said he hopes the final result will come out in two weeks.
The ongoing audit was partly sparked by violent protests back in March, requesting the closure of Freeport's gold mine operation in Papua.
The company has been variously accused of not giving enough to the people of Papua in return for the mine, and of polluting and being responsible for human rights abuses through their use of the military for protection.
Under its contract, Freeport must make royalty payments to the government of between 1.5 and 3.5 pct of its copper sales and 1 pct of its gold and silver sales. The government is also entitled to receive dividends for its 9.36 pct stake in Freeport.
Company sources have said that Freeport's total payment to the government in dividends, taxes and royalties in 2005 was estimated at 1.09 bln usd, compared with 260 mln in 2004 and 334 mln in 2003. The sharp rise was attributed to price and production increases. PT Freeport is a unit of Freeport-Mcmoran of the US.
Jakarta Post - July 12, 2006
Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – The Central Jakarta District Court told prosecutors Tuesday to use force to get seven suspects in the 2002 killing of two US nationals and an Indonesian in Papua province to court for indictment.
"Because they have twice refused to come, we will bring them here by force as stipulated in the Criminal Law Procedures Code," said presiding judge Andriani Nurdin, adding that the third session of the trial would be held on July 18.
Payaman, one of the prosecutors, told the court his team had been unable to get the seven suspects into court because they insisted that the trial be held in Timika, Papua, where the killing took place. The suspects are being held at National Police headquarters.
The seven suspects are Antonius Wamang, Agustinus Anggaibak, Yulianus Deikme, Ishak Onawe, Esau Onawame, Hardi Sugumol and Yairus Kiwak. They were arrested in January in an operation involving the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The suspects' lawyer, Johnson Panjaitan, told The Jakarta Post that his clients would continue to refuse to appear at the Jakarta court because they believed that their case should be heard in Papua.
"They believe that the trial would be more just if held in Timika," he told the Post, adding some Papuans had pleaded with the provincial court and prosecutors' office to hold the trial there. He emphasized that the law stipulates that a case should be tried in the region where the crime took place.
The prosecutors said the trial was moved from the Timika court to Jakarta for security reasons.
The killing took place in August last year when Wamang and the six other suspects allegedly ambushed a convoy of Freeport Indonesia employees at Mile 62, about halfway between Timika and the American-owned Freeport copper and gold mine in Tembagapura, one of the largest in the world.
American teachers Ted Burcon and Rickey Spear and Indonesian Bambang Riwanto died in the attack. Twelve other people, seven of them Americans, sustained injuries.
Wamang, who was indicted by a US grand jury in 2004 for the attack, and the other six suspects face possible death sentences for premeditated murder and weapons possession.
Agence France Presse - July 11, 2006
Jakarta – Seven suspects who face trial over the 2002 killings of two US nationals in Indonesia's Papua refused to turn up in court Tuesday, arguing that their case should be heard in the easternmost province.
The shooting spree near a gold and copper mine operated by US- owned Freeport McMoRan in remote Papua in August 2002 killed the pair of American teachers as well as their Indonesian colleague.
Chief prosecutor Payaman said judges at the Central Jakarta district court had issued a subpoena that will force the seven, who are currently in detention in the capital, to appear next week.
Among the detainees is Antonius Wamang, who was indicted by a US grand jury in 2004 for the attack and was allegedly a commander of the separatist Free Papua Movement at the time.
"They will be indicted with four counts of crime, including premeditated murder," he told AFP after the hearing. The seven could face the death penalty.
A lawyer for the seven men, Johnson Panjaitan, said on Monday that his clients wanted the trial be held in Papua's Timika, where the attack took place.
Police have said the other six suspects were also members of the Free Papua Movement but Panjaitan said they were "just ordinary people".
Aloy Renwarin, another lawyer for Wamang, claimed earlier this year that Wamang admitted he had fired 30 shots during the attack on the vehicles carrying the American teachers. But Wamang had also implicated the military in the attack, he said.
Prosecutor Payaman said Wamang's testimony about the military's alleged involvement was not contained in the police dossiers nor his indictment.
The seven suspects were arrested in January in an operation involving the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Papua-based rights groups have alleged that the military ordered the attack to ensure that Freeport would continue making large cash payments to it for security in and around the mine.
Free Papua Movement rebels have been fighting a sporadic and low-level guerrilla war since 1963 when Indonesia took over the huge mountainous and undeveloped territory from Dutch colonisers.
Sydney Morning Herald - July 11, 2006
Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Six of the seven Papuans charged with the premeditated murder of three teachers at the Freeport mine in 2002 are facing the death penalty merely for supplying the attackers with coffee and sugar, says one of their lawyers.
The trial of the Papuans opened yesterday. They are accused of murdering two Americans and one Indonesian, and of torturing several other Freeport employees in the 2002 shooting attack on a convoy of vehicles within the vast copper and gold mine in Timika, Papua.
The accused include Anthonius Wamang, a member of the separatist group Operation Free Papua, who admits he took part in the attack, but says he shot at the vehicles thinking it was an Indonesian military convoy.
But the other six are civilians, who face death sentences for allegedly supplying food and camping supplies to Wamang and 11 other men who took part in the attack, says David Sitorus, one of a team of lawyers defending the Papuans.
"How can giving coffee and sugar to someone be the same as premeditated murder? These six ... are just the scapegoats while the real killers remain free," he said. None of the suspects knew Wamang was planning an attack on Freeport, Mr Sitorus said.
One, Reverend Ishak Onawame, said he regularly gave food handouts: "Sugar, coffee and other foods to all Papuans, not just Wamang, as part of a social service for the community".
The state prosecutor Payaman defended the charges against the six logistics suppliers. "We developed the charges based on police investigation, it was legal evidence," he said outside the court.
Wamang claims that after he began shooting he was joined by masked gunmen, who fired the fatal shots, his lawyer says. "Who killed the Americans? We don't know because the police and prosecutors have just made up a story," Mr Sitorus said, adding that only Freeport employees, government employees and Indonesian military could enter the mine.
All seven suspects refused to appear at the hearing in the Central Jakarta Court yesterday, arguing that under Indonesian law the trial should be heard in Timika, the city where they were arrested in January.
The presiding judge, Andriani Nurdin, ruled that the seven must appear at the next court session in Jakarta on July 18.
Six hundred Indonesian police officers from Jakarta arrived in Timika on Sunday to officially take over responsibility from the military for protecting the Freeport mine. The mine employs 628 security staff.
| Human rights/law |
Jakarta Post - July 12, 2006
Hera Diani, Jakarta – The House of Representatives passed a citizenship bill Tuesday which took a step toward ending discrimination against people of Chinese descent. The law allows them to hold several key government posts, including the presidency, which were formerly closed to them.
The law does away with the distinction between "indigenous" and "non-indigenous" Indonesians – long cited as discriminatory by Chinese Indonesians – by redefining "indigenous Indonesian" to include all citizens who never assume foreign citizenship.
The law also allows Indonesian women married to non-Indonesian men to confer their nationality on their children. Previously, children were automatically given the father's nationality.
It gives temporary dual nationality to children born into transnational marriages, and to children of Indonesian couples born in countries that apply the principle of ius soli ("right of soil"), which automatically gives citizenship to anyone born in the country.
When children with dual citizenship reach 18 years old, they will have a maximum of three years to choose one nationality. This aspect of the law is retroactive. "When the child reaches 18 years old, he cannot be indecisive anymore," Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin told reporters.
The law gives permanent resident status to foreign spouses who remain in the country for five consecutive years or 10 accumulated years and do not wish to obtain Indonesian citizenship.
Interestingly, it also implicitly gives temporary dual citizenship to some people who marry foreigners. It states that Indonesians who marry foreigners could lose their Indonesian citizenship if the spouse's country obliges them to adopt their spouse's citizenship. The Indonesian spouse is given three years to pick either nationality.
Under the law, foreigners who have made significant contributions to the country will be eligible for Indonesian citizenship.
Women's activist and legal expert Nursyahbani Katjasungkana urged Hamid to spread the word about the law immediately, particularly to Indonesian embassies and consulates abroad.
"Government officials should be proactive in finding out about Indonesian citizens living under its jurisdiction. Harsh sanctions should be levied against government officials who do not perform their jobs well," she said during the hearing.
Key elements of the new citizenship law:
Jakarta Post - July 12, 2006
Hera Diani, Jakarta – Legislators pronounced the citizenship law passed here Tuesday as revolutionary in ending discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians and Indonesian women of foreign spouses, but activists said more needed to be done in the future.
Dewi Tjakrawinata, an executive of Aliansi Pelangi Antar Bangsa (APAB), a group for transnational unions, said traces of the previous 1958 Citizenship Law's nationalistic sentiments remained.
"But this is the best we can do so far, the maximum achievement at the moment. At least there is some progress in terms of the elimination of (the distinction between) 'indigenous' and 'nonindigenous', Indonesian women can pass on their citizenship to their children through dual citizenship for offspring, although it's limited, and there is the permanent residence status for foreign spouses."
She took issue with Article 23 of the law, which states that Indonesians living for five consecutive years in another country must declare their intention to remain Indonesian citizens or face losing their citizenship.
"Many migrant workers are oblivious to this regulation, and their passports are held by their employers, so they end up stateless," she said.
"It is not right that people can lose their citizenship because of an administrative issue." Dewi also urged the removal of Article 26, stipulating that Indonesians who marry foreigners automatically lose their citizenship if the law in their spouses' country states they must assume their partners' nationality.
She said it was clearly discriminatory, because such patriarchal rules were only applied to women around the world. "It (the law) states it is also for men as well, as though it is not gender biased, but it is. Secondly, why should we bow to another country's rule?"
Women's rights activist and legal expert Nursyahbani Katjasungkana told tempointeraktif news portal that Article 23 provided a loophole for fugitives to flee the country and live abroad with impunity.
"This article does not give protection to Indonesian citizens, but instead it gives protection to corrupt people," said the legislator of the National Awakening Party and member of the House of Representatives' formulating team.
Meanwhile, the Institute of Anti-Discrimination in Indonesia (LADI) objected to the law's exclusion of children born in Indonesia to parents whose citizenship was unclear. "This law does not solve problems of stateless Chinese in Benteng area, Tangerang, in Banten province, and Tegal Alur, West Jakarta," it said in a release.
The organization referred to people of Chinese descent who remain stateless because of a wave of anti-Sino sentiment following an abortive communist coup in 1965 and the temporary severance of ties with Beijing.
| Labour issues |
Jakarta Post - July 15, 2006
Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Employers are demanding the government review the social security system to eliminate corruption in the management of its huge labor fund, and to facilitate the planned review of the nation's labor law.
The secretary-general of the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo), Djimanto, said the government had no choice but to amend the 1992 law on social security and reorganize state-owned PT Jamsostek, which carries out the programs.
"Besides reviewing the current four programs, Jamsostek should establish an additional program to provide severance pay for dismissed workers. PT Jamsostek must also be changed into a non- profit trust fund to avoid government interference in the company's internal affairs," he told The Jakarta Post here Friday.
He said employers did not object to raising the current premium of 8 percent to 11 percent and paying an additional premium for the severance pay fund for dismissed workers, provided Jamsostek was revamped so that its Rp 36.6-trillion (over US$4 billion) assets could be controlled by employers and workers as the chief stakeholders.
"The current leadership crisis in Jamsostek is related to the government's full control, including the appointment of its board of directors. Plus, it is unfair that the government gets annual dividends from Jamsostek while its assets belong to the workers."
He added the company had become a haven for corrupt practices and a money-making outlet for certain state officials and political parties.
Recently, the 2,900-member Jamsostek Workers Union brought a no- confidence motion against the company's management to the government and the House of Representatives. The union complained of alleged corrupt practices and cronyism and demanded the replacement of the current board of directors.
The proposals to change the social security programs and reorganize Jamsostek have won support from labor unions, Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno and the House of Representatives. Supporters said the moves would ease workers' opposition to the planned review of the labor law.
The Confederation of All-Indonesian Workers Union and the Confederation of Indonesian Prosperous Trade Union said both the recent controversial plan to amend the 2003 Labor Law and the leadership crisis at Jamsostek triggered their call to alter the social security law.
House Commission IX on labor and social affairs is still preparing a draft law to amend the social security program, with the central goal of revamping PT Jamsostek to become a trust fund.
Meanwhile, despite the leadership crisis, Jamsostek booked almost Rp 630 billion in profit in 2005, an increase of 49 percent over 2004. "According to the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), Jamsostek's financial performance is 'healthy and accountable'," said Iskandar Z. Rangkuti, Jamsostek's director for investment.
Asked about BPK's findings of 48 irregularities in the company, Iskandar said most of the cases have been settled, while three are still being processed.
A number of Jamsostek officials have been questioned by the police in connection with the irregularities. Former Jamsostek president Achmad Djunaidi was convicted earlier this year in a graft case involving the company's purchase of bonds from troubled private banks and companies. He was sentenced to eight years in prison by the South Jakarta District Court, but has appealed the verdict.
Jakarta Post - July 15, 2006
Palu, Central Sulawesi – At least 60 drivers of Utama Taxi, one of the major taxi companies in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu, went on strike Thursday, demanding that the company cut rental fees.
They staged a rally in front of Utama Taxi depot, demanding that the management lower the taxi rental fees and cut other obligations imposed on the drivers.
The daily rental fee of Rp 200,000 (US$21.05) that drivers are required to pay to the company is too high because Palu residents still prefer to use public minivans, M. Junaidi, one of the drivers, said.
Junaidi explained that in order to pay the fee and another Rp 50,000 for fuel, the drivers were forced to work round-the-clock. Sometimes despite a 24-hour shift, the drivers were still short of the target amount and were forced to pay out of their own pockets, he said.
Besides asking for lower rental fees, the drivers also asked the management not to burden them with other obligations such as repair costs.
Jakarta Post - July 12, 2006
Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Looking at the fact that Indonesian migrant workers abroad are often exploited and abused by their employers and lack legal recourse, Indonesia is urged to ratify a convention on migrant workers as a tool to convince destination countries to protect foreign workers.
Government employees, experts, and non-governmental organizations all agreed Tuesday that it was urgent for Indonesia to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers as the first step toward unified international efforts to establish a legal basis for protecting all migrant workers, including Indonesian workers abroad.
"Based on reports from Indonesian representative offices abroad, some 300 Indonesian migrant workers died in 2006 alone. The data shows how widespread human rights abuses against them are," Foreign Ministry director general for multilateral affairs Mochamad S. Hidayat told a seminar on migrant workers in Jakarta.
He said that despite this sobering fact, the 2.7 million migrant workers abroad managed to send remittances of US$2.9 billion to their villages and towns, and, in turn, become a locomotive to turn around the local and national economy.
Indonesian workers are found in Malaysia, Singapore, the Middle East, Europe, and the US
The convention, which came into force on July 1, 2003, has been ratified by 34 countries, most of which are migrant workers providers.
Once ratified, the convention requires the signing country to make sure foreign workers' basic rights are fulfilled, including protection from mental and physical abuse, receiving the minimum wage, and freedom to pray according to their religion. The parties to the convention will be also required to give a report to the United Nations on the progress of the application of the convention.
Indonesia's permanent representative to the United Nations and other international organizations Makarim Wibisono said that the international community wanted to see what Indonesia could do to address human rights abuses against its workers.
"The ratification, which is not only a legal pledge but also a political commitment as it needs approval from the legislators, sends a signal to the international community that Indonesian politicians support the country's move to support protection for migrant workers," he told the seminar.
Makarim said that by ratifying the convention, Indonesia could then set an example and convince the destination countries to adopt and ratify the same convention.
Most participants from NGOs were in agreement that Indonesia should ratify the convention immediately.
Regional representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Homayoun Alizadeh said that the ratification of the convention was very important for Indonesia because it would give Indonesia a major role in reshaping migrant conditions and access to technical assistance from the United Nations.
"Indonesia is a major partner of many countries, including European Union members. The ratification will have an impact on the efforts to protect migrant workers at the international level. We are ready to provide Indonesia with technical assistance," he said.
An expert in international law at the University of Indonesia Hikmahanto Juwana, however, warned that it would be useless to ratify a convention without enforcing it through the national legal system.
"We have ratified so many conventions without implementation at all. So, what is the convention for? We have to prepare the legal system and law enforcers for the convention," he said.
Jakarta Post - July 12, 2006
Jakarta – Activists urged the government Monday to expedite the drafting of a long-awaited bill designed to protect domestic workers from discrimination, exploitation and mistreatment.
"In Indonesia, domestic work is not recognized as work to which labor standards can be applied. This causes domestic workers to be excluded from even basic labor standards and social protections," Rumpun Griya Perempuan (RGP) chief Aida Milasari told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a seminar on Monday.
Aida said the existing 2003 Labor Law did not provide for working site inspections in private homes, meaning employers of domestic workers cannot be monitored for their compliance with the law, thus making law enforcement almost non-existent.
RGP was ready to assist the government in discussing the proposed law, Aida said, adding that the draft had been before the government for two months already, but no progress had been made on it.
"Even though we hope the law will be issued as soon as possible, we don't want the government to be haphazard in composing the regulations, which could cause disadvantages to the workers." In June the group completed a study on the demographic profiles and working conditions of 173 domestic helpers in Jakarta and West Java's Depok, Parung, Pamulang and Rangkapan Jaya.
"We hope the government will consider our research and input to help it understand what kind of regulations domestic workers really need," she said.
In its report, RGP discusses not only the profiles and background motivations of domestic workers, but also common problems they face, ranging from long working hours and no holidays to inadequate food, sexual harassment and rape.
The current draft bill is yet to provide concrete solutions to such problems, Aida said, either through law enforcement or conflict resolution.
Dewi Susanti, a spokeswoman for domestic workers' organization OPERATA agreed, saying the government did not seem to be serious in its efforts to draft the new regulations.
"We can't wait any longer. We need this law urgently to protect our rights and make us secure in our field of work," said the 21-year-old, who is also a part-time domestic worker.
A 2004 International Labor Organization survey estimated around 2.6 million domestic workers were employed in Indonesia, of whom almost 700,000 were children under the age of 18 years.
According to an Indonesian domestic workers agency report, the demand for such employment is increasing in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, with hundreds of workers being recruited each day.
House of Representatives member of Commission III on law Nursyahbani Katjasungkani said that if the government wanted to make the law a priority at the next parliament session meeting in 2007, the bill needed to be proposed by September at the latest.
ILO representative Lotte Kejser highlighted potential of the law to provide protection to Indonesian domestic workers abroad.
"The government should open access to justice for domestic workers in their homeland. If such justice is not provided here, it will be difficult for the government to protect domestic workers abroad," she said.
The National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) said around 900,000 Indonesians were currently working in Middle Eastern countries as domestic workers, while an estimated two million Indonesians work in Malaysia, mostly as domestic helpers.
Almost 50 percent of Indonesian workers in Malaysia are believed to have entered the country illegally, and are thus more vulnerable to long working hours, low pay rates and physical abuse.
Jakarta Post - July 12, 2006
Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara – Dozens of public minivan drivers rallied Monday in front of the transportation office in Mataram to protest conditions at the city's Mandalika bus terminal.
"Motorcycle taxi and taxi drivers are being allowed to pick up passengers at the terminal, which hurts minivan drivers," rally coordinator Taufik said.
"We can't compete with the motorcycle taxis and taxis," Ahmad, one of the protesters, said. He added that the motorcycle taxis usually offered cheaper fares than the minivans.
Motorcycle taxis and taxis are banned from picking up passengers at the terminal, but since the disappearance of the public order officers who enforced the ban, the taxis have moved in.
The minivan drivers also complained about illegal fees collected from them by officials at the Mataram Transportation Office.
Another driver, Nazam, complained about what he called the unfair ticketing of minivan drivers by the police.
The protesters were received by the head of the transportation office, H. Kusnandar, who promised to look into their complaints.
| Government/civil service |
Jakarta Post - July 16, 2006
M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – In an unprecedented move, the House of Representatives disciplinary committee recommended Saturday that a lawmaker be dismissed for unethical conduct.
"For the first time in the history of the House, the committee made a decision to dismiss an errant lawmaker," the committee's deputy chairman, Gayus Lumbuun of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), told The Jakarta Post.
Gayus, however, declined to disclose the name of the lawmaker, saying the disciplinary committee would only answer to the House leadership in a plenary session.
The council came to the decision after a marathon meeting behind closed doors in Bogor, West Java, which started Friday.
Seventeen council members had been debating the appropriate punishments for a total of 19 infractions involving several lawmakers. Of the 19 infractions, the disciplinary committee heard cases of alleged bribery, which marred the deliberation of the Aceh governance bill, and the alleged role of a lawmaker as middleman in a project to construct a dormitory for haj pilgrims in Mecca.
In the bribery allegation, members of the working committee tasked to deliberate the Aceh governance law were accused of receiving Rp 5 million each from the Home Ministry as an incentive for expediting the discussion of the bill.
The chairman of the working committee, Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, testified in the council hearing, saying that cash from the ministry had been returned to the state coffers.
Another high profile case involved a lawmaker from the Democratic Party faction, Aziddin. In the haj scandal, Aziddin acted as a middleman on behalf of a private developer, which attempted to get contracts for building a dormitory in Mecca. Aziddin has repeatedly denied the allegation.
The likelihood of the disciplinary committee dropping the axe on Aziddin is greater as the scandal has been under public scrutiny. A number of high-ranking officials at the Religious Affairs Ministry, including Maftuh Basyuni have been vocal about Aziddin's role in arranging the deal.
The disciplinary committee was set up to uphold ethics and discipline among lawmakers. It has the authority to hear cases ranging from absenteeism to bribery.
Asia Times - July 12, 2006
Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Just hours after the December 2004 tsunami battered Indonesia's coastal areas, Vice President Jusuf Kalla jumped into action. Kalla unilaterally summoned the relevant ministers and from the ground began delegating relief efforts from the worst-hit province of Aceh.
Kalla signed an executive decree on December 30 authorizing the formation of a national disaster relief team. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures, and the Indonesian government was widely lauded for its response to the massive humanitarian crisis. But it was not lost on many political observers that Kalla had overstepped his constitutional authority by issuing a de facto vice presidential decree.
The unusual power dynamic between President Susilio Bambang Yudhoyono and Kalla has since led to much speculation that Indonesia is effectively being guided by two leaders rather than one. Similar to the executive branch dynamic that has emerged in the United States between President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, Indonesia's charismatic vice president is single-handedly guiding many of the country's key policy decisions.
Kalla, a highly successful entrepreneur, was one of the chief financiers of Yudhoyono's successful 2004 presidential election campaign. He is also now chairman of Indonesia's most powerful political party, Golkar, which underpinned former strongman Suharto's 32-year rule and continues to represent powerful vested interests in the military. Kalla has required a return from his investment in Yudhoyono's rise and has emerged as the country's most powerful vice president.
Kalla's and Golkar's support gives Yudhoyono nominal control over the legislature, a majority his Democratic Party sorely lacked when he first assumed the presidency in October 2004. At the same time, there is a growing perception among government insiders that Kalla's huge influence has recently become more of a threat than a complement to Yudhoyono's authority, and that the second- most powerful man in Indonesia is busily building a political power base aimed at defeating his current boss at the next presidential polls, which must be called by 2009.
The 64-year-old Kalla claims publicly that he has no ambition to become president, often saying that by 2009 he will be too old to run and that his ethnic background would hinder his ability to garner votes from the majority Javanese. Those denials, of course, look past Golkar's extensive political reach at the grassroots level and the fact the party is now heavily invested in Kalla's political ascent.
From the outset of Yudhoyono's term, the two veteran politicians are said to have agreed to a division of labor. Kalla was tasked with managing the economy while Yudhoyono handled broad issues related to politics, security and national strategies. Kalla currently leads the government's infrastructure team and, according to local businessmen, has acted to accelerate several key construction projects. Kalla's authority over trade and industry projects allows him to make decisions without consulting the president, government insiders say.
Also, Kalla has appeared to overstep those agreed boundaries – particularly in instances where a high-profile decision or appearance has acted to enhance his public image. For instance, he played a key role in brokering last year's peace deal in Aceh between rebels and the government, and he continues to actively monitor the implementation of that internationally watched accord. He had earlier played peacemaker in his home province of Sulawesi, though that pact between combative Christians and Muslims has not held up as well as expected.
"In several policy formulations, the position of the president is inferior to the vice president," said Eko Budhihardjo, rector of Semarang's Diponegoro University. At times, "[Yudhoyono] is even subordinate to the vice president".
Yudhoyono had initially decided to postpone fuel price hikes planned for last year until after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, but then abruptly raised them "when the vice president repeatedly stressed that the increase must be in October 2005", Budhihardjo said.
With Yudhoyono's permission, Kalla recently became the first vice president to hold an official state ceremony for a high-ranking foreign guest. Indonesian diplomatic protocol requires that only presidents host such high-profile events, but Kalla in late April was allowed to borrow presidential guards and cannons to welcome a visiting South African deputy president.
Ambitious businessman
As a businessman, Kalla has always been ambitious – at times apparently to the extreme. He turned around the family-owned business he inherited from near bankruptcy and over three decades transformed it into one of eastern Indonesia's biggest conglomerates. More recently, Kalla has come under the spotlight for recent projects in the power and construction sectors that members of his family are allegedly involved in, some of them even situated in his home territory of Sulawesi.
Asked about a potential conflict of interest between his public office and his family's business interests, Kalla often explains he is not in a position to prevent people close to him from doing business. For Kalla, that line of defense hasn't always held up. In April 2000, then-president Abdurrahman Wahid fired Kalla from his post as industry and trade minister, allegedly for "corruption, collusion and nepotism" in a US$75 million Japanese-funded contract to connect with power lines the Central Java town of Klaten to the West Java town of Tasikmalaya.
The claims were never substantiated, but in June that year Wahid cancelled the project and demanded a new bidding round on the grounds the company that had won the December 1998 tender had a "poor track record". The company was the Bukaka Group, an engineering group then headed by Kalla, but now managed by his younger brother, Achmad Kalla.
Nowadays, the company is back in government business. Together with two small, state-owned enterprises and Siemens Technology Inc, Bukaka recently won a tender for a $498 million project to develop technology for the soon-to-be-built Jakarta monorail. The engineering company also won a multimillion-dollar construction project to build a seven-kilometer stretch of a planned 114- kilometer toll road connecting the towns of Cikampek and Palimanan.
Bukaka has also recently won an estimated Rp1.6 trillion ($176 million) project to build a 200 megawatt steam-powered, electricity-generating power plant in south Sulawesi, where the electricity produced will be sold to the State Electricity Company (PLN) in south and central Sulawesi at a generous set price of between 4.3 and 4.4 cents per megawatt.
The Bosowa Group is owned by Kalla's brother-in-law Aksa Mahmud, who is also deputy speaker of the Peoples' Consultative Assembly (MPR). In April, Kalla headed up a delegation to China to oversee the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Bosowa Group and a Chinese company to develop Jakarta's new mass rapid transportation system (MRT). One of the 14 companies involved in that project is PT Bukaka Trans System, which is part of the Bukaka Group
Kalla-linked companies have also won projects for the construction of 11 kilometers of the Makassar toll road in Sulawesi, a contract worth an estimated $49 million. Sources with knowledge of several meetings to evaluate a $94 million project to expand Hasanuddin Airport in Makassar, Sulawesi, say Kalla has stressed the importance of giving priority to local contractors.
Muted nationalism
Kalla has largely refrained from publicly airing nationalistic sentiments. But foreign investors and economic analysts believe that he favors more economic nationalism than the foreigner- friendly Yudhoyono.
Kalla has been more public in his opposition to privatization for privatization's sake. And in February he unilaterally called upon US mining giant Freeport McMoRan Cooper & Gold to triple the amount of revenue it is currently contractually obliged to share with the government to accommodate spiking global commodity prices.
Kalla's somewhat unorthodox economic views have at times brought his macroeconomic management into question. Pressed recently on the government's slow pace of privatization – proceeds from which could help cover the budget deficit rather than seeking new short-term loans from the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) – he replied: "All our assets have been sold by the previous government. What are left now are the bad ones." Kalla has steadfastly defended the controversial appointment of State Enterprises Minister Sugiharto, who has been more antagonistic to foreigners when voicing his blatant resistance to privatization.
International economists maintain that Indonesia desperately needs new foreign capital to help develop the country's abundant natural resources, which if more efficiently drilled and mined would earn the government badly needed foreign currency- denominated revenues. At the same time, Kalla, who generally still has the support of local and foreign business groups, pressed for and won changes to the national investment law that has opened the way for more foreign investment in certain extractive industries.
He has been notably less aggressive in pursuing changes to the 2003 labor law, which provides strong protection to labor considerations, including provisions making it difficult to sack workers. Earlier in the year a draft revision of the law that allowed for the use of more temporary workers and cut severance payments stirred angry nationwide street protests and paralyzed many business activities.
Yudhoyono at first publicly backed the controversial amendments as a way to promote more foreign investment, while Kalla remained notably silent on the hot button proposal. House of Representatives speaker Agung Laksono, who also notably serves as deputy chairman of Golkar, officially asked the government to drop the proposal and by association put Kalla on the popular side of the debate without ruffling Yudhoyono's feathers.
Almost two years into Yudhoyono's five-year term, many political analysts believe Kalla has effectively outmaneuvered the president in dealing with potentially sticky domestic issues, particularly ones that pitch foreign and domestic interests. Yudhoyono's soft-spoken style, a big part of his electoral appeal in 2004, is now adversely compared to Kalla's perceived entrepreneurial, risk-taking brand of leadership.
Yudhoyono and Kalla both served as senior ministers under the previous Megawati Sukarnoputri administration, but resigned their posts ahead of the 2004 presidential election. Kalla recalls that when Yudhoyono stepped down the two made a personal pact that whoever made it as president would give the other a chance in his administration. "Then we hugged each other," Kalla said.
Kalla later left the Golkar party, led then by the embattled Akbar Tandjung who was trailing badly in the polls, so that he could become Yudhoyono's running mate. The pair won a landslide executive mandate in 2004 in the country's first-ever direct presidential and vice presidential elections. Despite their resounding presidential and vice presidential electoral victories, Yudhoyono's small Democratic Party overall won a mere 10% of the popular vote, and even aggressive coalition building could not cobble together a legislative majority.
Golkar party chief Tandjung, who commanded 23% of legislative seats, set up a formidable opposition coalition that included Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the National Awakening Party and a number of smaller parties, and even before the newly elected legislature was convened he threatened to bring Yudhoyono's promised reform agenda to a standstill.
Two months after the new administration took over, and just two days before the tsunami disaster on December 26, 2004, Kalla was overwhelmingly elected as Golkar's new leader, sidelining Tandjung who had led the party for more than six years. With Kalla as Golkar's leader, Yudhoyono was suddenly assured of a parliamentary majority and a strong mandate to press ahead with his reform agenda.
Friend or foe?
Kalla is on record as admitting that the strategy to target Golkar's leadership was actually directed by Yudhoyono. "If that was the president's wish, I accept. I took it as a responsibility."
However, Jakarta-based political analysts note that as leader of parliament's largest faction, Kalla has from behind-the-scenes slowly but surely chipped away at Yudhoyono's authority. Mohammad Qodari, of the Indonesia Survey Institute (LSI), described Kalla's victory as "a double-edged sword" for Yudhoyono, saying the move effectively acted to "accumulate all the power in Kalla's hands".
Political chaos in previous post-Suharto administrations, particularly during the short-lived tenure of former president Wahid, cost Indonesia dearly in terms of market perception and foreign investor sentiment and in some domestic quarters cast democracy in a bad light. Yudhoyono and Kalla have together regained some of that lost confidence, but conservative forces in the House of Representatives, which under the amended constitution is not restrained by executive veto power, have recently piqued new investor concerns.
Kalla has played both sides of the legislature and to his credit has pushed through some controversial and arguably necessary economic measures. He was pivotal in lobbying legislators to enlist support for the politically unpopular fuel subsidy reductions last year and also for hammering out terms for the internationally praised Aceh peace accord.
At the same time, the MPR has stalled in debating and passing legislation central to Yudhoyono's reform drive. In 2005, the MPR had agreed to a target of passing 55 new laws, but by the end of the year only 12 bills made it through the legislative morass. This year the target is 43 new bills, but so far no significant reforms have been passed. In fact, Yudhoyono has on occasion played his trump card and issued presidential decrees to speed up the pace of his more urgent reform initiatives.
If Kalla is indeed a future presidential contender, his views toward democracy are significantly different from Yudhoyono's. After years of military service, including controversial tours in East Timor while under Indonesian military occupation, and later stints as a low-profile cabinet minister, Yudhoyono was throughout loyal to Suharto's authoritarian government. Yudhoyono won his liberal stripes in 2001 when as top security minister he declined to invoke a state of emergency when requested by Wahid, who at the time was facing impeachment proceedings.
In contrast, perhaps, Kalla has recently called for a more "efficient democracy", arguing that Indonesia's brand of democracy is marred by lingering widespread perceptions that the government is corrupt and inefficient and in the new democratic era must face constant criticism from the media and detractors. "This is not democracy. Let's just make democracy more efficient and... support what we agree upon."
Kalla has since backed a Golkar-led move to create a simplified two-tier election system, which it claims would cut costs and improve efficiencies. "The public will have less headaches and the government will spend less money on concurrent elections and thus things are expected to be more efficient," Kalla has said.
Some political analysts fear that with Golkar's well-established political and business machinery, a new electoral system could be designed to the party's favor and potentially give Kalla a big edge at the next presidential polls.
If such polls were held today, political analysts predict that Kalla would likely win. A recent survey by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) disclosed growing resentment about unpopular policies made by Yudhoyono's government, including the recent scrapping of fuel price subsidies and planned amendments to the labor law. Only 37% of survey respondents said they approved of Yudhoyono's job performance, his lowest rating yet.
Yudhoyono rose to power by promoting himself as "a man of the people", thus capitalizing on Megawati's perceived failure to improve living standards for the country's massive poor population. Now, inflation is edging up at double-digit rates and unemployment is rising again. Increasingly, the same complaints that marred Megawati's administration are being leveled at Yudhoyono's government. As the political temperature rises, a politically ambitious Kalla could be tempted to more publicly distance himself from Yudhoyono's more controversial policies.
If so, it is possible that the Yudhoyono-Kalla power dynamic could in the coming months intensify into a full-blown executive power struggle.
[Bill Guerin, a Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000, has worked 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]
| Regional/communal conflicts |
Jakarta Post - July 15, 2006
Jakarta – The head of the recently concluded security operation in Central Sulawesi's restive Poso and Palu said Friday the level of violence in the area had subsided during the six-month operation.
Insp. Gen. Paulus Purwoko, speaking in Jakarta, said that during the first three months of the operation, the number of violent incidents fell to seven, with one fatality and two injuries. That was from nine violent incidents in the previous three months, resulting in 13 deaths and 52 injuries.
"The number was even lower in the second three months, with only five cases with no victims," Purwoko said.
He said members of the operation also secured 296 homemade firearms, which were voluntarily handed in by locals, eight FN6 revolvers, one M16 and one AK-47.
The operation task force, set up by the government in January, completed its six-month mission to restore order in Poso and Palu earlier this month.
Purwoko said the task force's departure would not affect the security situation in the towns.
"We're optimistic the local police, helped by local Army officers, as well as the police's antiterror squad, will be able to maintain the situation and arrest any suspects who have already been identified," he said. Police have name several suspects in attacks in Poso. Authorities say the suspects are members of a group whose leader and three other members have been detained at National Police Headquarters in Jakarta.
The four detainees have been identified as Hasanuddin, Irwanto Irano, Haris and Rahmat, alias Jenda. They were arrested in Palu, Poso and Tolitoli.
"After questioning witnesses, we believe the suspects are members of the same group," Purwoko said. He added that the next step for Poso was to restore community life and begin the process of physical rebuilding.
Jakarta Post - July 13, 2006
A land dispute between residents of two villages in North Seram district, Maluku, erupted into violence earlier this week, resulting in two deaths and three injuries.
The fatalities were identified as Iwan Makatita, 25, who was killed by an arrow, and Ikrar Aloahit, 24.
The clash occurred after residents of Saleman village planted teak seedlings on a plot of disputed land, and residents of Horale village destroyed the seedlings. Ten houses and one vehicle also were burned during the violence.
Maluku Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Didik A. Widjanarko confirmed the incident. One hundred police officers have been deployed to the area to prevent any further violence, Didik said. Up to 21 residents for the two villages have been detained at the local police station for questioning, he added.
| Environment |
Jakarta Post - July 15, 2006
Jakarta – The National Police have placed a former two-star general allegedly involved in illegal logging on Interpol's international watch list.
Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam said a so-called Red Notice on Major Gen. Gusti Syaifuddin Friday was sent to the international police organization to prevent the suspect from leaving the country. "The suspect may have a lot of friends abroad since the destination markets for illegal logging are mostly in foreign countries," he said.
Police have been unable to trace Gusti's whereabouts since they issued a warrant for his arrest and that of two other company directors allegedly involved in the case. Police have accused Gusti, who is a director of PT Tunggul Buana Perkasa, and the two others of conspiring to misuse a license issued by the local government to develop an area of forest into an oil palm plantation in East Kalimantan.
Jakarta Post - July 14, 2006
Jambi – Illegal logging in Jambi has escalated, causing the state to suffer billions of rupiah in losses as seen in the rising number of cases handled by the local police.
Jambi Police data indicates that the number of cases of log theft in the province has skyrocketed from only 18 with 23 suspects in 2003 to 74 with 136 suspects in 2005.
The police also confiscated 2,998 cubic meters of wood, 28,883 illegally harvested logs, 20 trucks and a number of chainsaws as evidence in 2005. By comparison the confiscated evidence in 2003 consisted of 2,896 cubic meters of wood, 333 logs, one tug boat and 14 trucks.
In the first half of this year, Jambi Police had processed 14 cases involving 24 suspects with confiscated evidence consisting of 234 pieces of processed wood, 24,103 cubic meters of wood, 4,887 logs, two tug boats, two chain saws and 52 trucks.
"However, the prosecution of the suspects is hindered by many problems," Jambi Police officer Adj. Sr. Comr. Puji Prasethanto Hadi said Thursday.
The problems investigators faced include conflicting regulations, he said. "The arduous and time-consuming procedures further worsen the situation," he said, adding there were many regulations which were in conflict with one another.
It's better now to review the many conflicting regulations to prevent confusion among field officials over which regulation to act on, he added.
Asia Times - July 13, 2006
Chris Holm, Jakarta – On May 27, a natural gas drilling operation in Indonesia's East Java province got exceptionally messy.
Local prospector PT Lapindo Brantas was carrying out routine drilling at the Banjar Panji-1 well located near the town of Sidoarjo, a site that is part of a joint operation known as the Brantas Production Sharing Contract.
Burrowing through hot rock almost three kilometers deep, Lapindo's drill string hit something soft. According to company documents, the resulting drop-off in pressure caused the crew to lose the drill bit in the hole when they tried to raise it up.
The next day, toxic gases and hot mud began rushing out of the well – a danger sign in gas prospecting known as a "well kick". Drillers pumped a mixture of cement and mud back in the hole in an attempt to seal it, which seemed to work, until huge quantities of effluent began to emerge from large cracks in the ground nearby. For an entire month, Lapindo experts tried to stem a seemingly limitless stream of mud and water gushing from the ground.
Java is the most densely populated island in the world, and it didn't take long for the mucky torrent to affect nearby villagers. In early June, the 60 degrees centigrade sludge, increasing in volume by up to 50,000 cubic meters a day, had blocked a regional highway, flooded rice paddies and polluted groundwater and irrigation canals.
The rotten-egg stench from the mud sickened hundreds of people, who sought treatment for breathing difficulties at the local hospital. Doctors first blamed the villagers' complaints on "stress" and later on the sulfur dioxide emanating from the well site. By the end of June, the pungent flows covered a vast area of more than 120 hectares, turning four villages into seas of sludge and creating an ecological disaster that has displaced at least 5,600 people and shut down roads, rail links and businesses in the affected area.
Indonesia's national environmental watchdog, Wahli, estimates the costs of the clean-up could reach more than US$200 million. Meanwhile, in the town of Sidoarjo, thousands of the displaced villagers hunker down as best they can in a large section of a market converted into a makeshift refugee center. With their crops in ruins and their workplaces shuttered, they have been promised a subsistence income of US$30-$70 a month by Lapindo and are subsisting largely on handouts.
And still the mud continues to flow. Around the drilling site, the land has been transformed from green paddy fields into inhospitable seas of asphalt-colored muck. Near its center, a black geyser roars, like an unearthly scene from a volcanic plateau.
Mired at the center of the muck is the drilling company, Lapindo. To many Indonesians, the lines between the cause and effect of the mud seemed clear: they pointed directly at the prospector – and down into the almost three-kilometer deep hole it had dug.
However, in a country where environmental accidents are depressingly common, and threaten to increase as prospecting activities expand in the emerging era of high global commodity prices, cover-ups are not unheard of. A weak and notoriously corrupt legal system and the web of relationships between local businesses and political elites all too frequently conspire to ensure that companies are not held responsible for the pollution they cause. To environmentalists, the country's rivers, black with industrial waste or orange-brown from the effects of illegal logging, are evidence enough of the nation's patchy regulatory framework.
The scale of the Sidoarjo disaster and the presence of a vigorous media make it more difficult for the authorities to explain the mud away, as they might have done during the tenure of former president Suharto. However, old ways die hard, and the story that is still emerging – like the flows from the Lapindo well site – indicates justice for the Lapindo villagers is certainly not a given. It also highlights the perils multinational companies can potentially face in Indonesia if they partner up with irresponsible local firms.
A natural denial
At the start of the environmental debacle, Lapindo's management blamed the mud on natural causes rather than the company's drilling activities. Speaking at a parliamentary hearing, the company's executives told legislators that the effects of the May 27 earthquake centered in Yogyakarta, rather than its drilling, were responsible for the mudflows.
If vibrations from the 6.7-magnitude shake were powerful enough to kill 5,000 people, they reasoned, it could also have opened up deep faults underground, allowing the mud to flow up thousands of meters. And if Lapindo being in the area was only a coincidence, the government, not the firm, should provide compensation to villagers and the businesses affected by the mud, they said.
Independent experts, however, were quick to reject the earthquake explanation. The epicenter of the Yogyakarta quake, at more than 300 kilometers away, was far too distant to affect the ground in Sidoarjo, where the aftershocks would have manifested themselves as a dissipated force, which they likened to a heavy truck passing over the area. It was far more likely that a mishap involving the drilling operation was to blame, they said.
Despite that reality check, the company's earthquake theory was initially given credence by officials from the government's upstream oil and gas regulator, BP Migas. A team of the regulator's experts sent to investigate the disaster said it could not rule out the possibility that the earthquake had caused the mudflows. In a statement seemingly designed to take the heat off Lapindo, the government geologists noted it was difficult for prospecting firms to "predict and plan" for mishaps in drilling ventures because of the "complex nature of the country's geology".
To observers, the situation seemed to be heading in a depressingly familiar, if not farcical, direction. The disaster, with its major human and ecological consequences, was going to be attributed to natural causes, with the dirt-poor villagers left to suffer and no one held accountable.
Those suspicions were fueled by the fact that PT Lapindo Brantas is owned by members of the politically-connected Bakrie family, one of Indonesia's richest business dynasties. The Bakrie's favorite son, former tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, is currently the government's chief welfare minister.
Aburizal, who divested his many business interests upon taking public office, has been unwilling to be linked to the mud morass. His refusal to visit the disaster site and his rather petulant comment when asked what should be done to stop the mud – "Don't ask me, I'm the Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare" – were widely reported in the Indonesian media.
The muck sticks
By the middle of June, however, a letter from Lapindo's partner company emerged that seemed to pin the disaster squarely on the driller. In the correspondence, dated June 5, PT MedcoEnergi Oil & Gas accused Lapindo of "gross negligence" in the drilling because of a serious safety violation.
Lapindo, the partner contended, ignored its reminder to put a nine-inch thick protective casing in the well to a depth of 8,500 feet. This, it says, was "agreed to in the joint operating agreement" to "anticipate potential hole problems" in the well, as industry standards require.
The inference was clear. If Lapindo's drilling encountered difficulties, without the protective casing, it wouldn't be able to seal the well off properly. No casing would allow the surfacing mud and gas to escape out of the unprotected sides of the well hole and surface from cracks in the ground – exactly what apparently happened.
Soon thereafter, Indonesia's vice president, Jusuf Kalla, announced that Lapindo and the Bakrie family would begin to compensate the thousands of people affected by the mud flows. At the same time, the East Java police began a criminal investigation into the disaster and have since detained and questioned Lapindo staff, including management, as potential suspects.
If the allegations raised in MedcoEnergi's letter are true, then at least two other companies are at risk of being held accountable for the disaster. Lapindo has a 50% operating interest in the Banjar Panji-1 well, with a 32% stake owned by MedcoEnergi, and the remainder held by Australia's largest oil and gas prospector, Santos.
Santos has already reported the Sidoarjo incident to the Australian Stock Exchange and have assured the bourse that the project was insured. Yet the public disclosure of MedcoEnergi's damning letter is likely to make insurance companies less willing to pay out. This could mean MedcoEnergy and Santos could also be held liable for the substantial cleanup costs.
This, of course, depends on how much MedcoEnergi and Santos knew about Lapindo's drilling operation and whether they were legally required to know under the terms of their joint operating agreement. If Lapindo failed to install the casing and then deliberately withheld this information from its drilling partners, as MedcoEnergi's letter suggests, this scenario would presumably leave Lapindo, a limited liability company, solely responsible.
An independent oil and gas exploration expert told Asia Times Online that Lapindo most likely received bulk funding for the drilling operation as part of a turnkey project. This financial arrangement could have encouraged the firm to cut costs by not installing the safety casing, which the expert believes could have saved Lapindo "up to a million [US] dollars".
He notes that while Lapindo has extensive experience drilling natural gas platforms at sea "down to four or five thousand feet", the company had never drilled lower than that – including to depths that would have required the deeper casing. The expert also says that the absence of the casing would be a "very good explanation" for why the drilling team was unable to block off the mudflows.
While this corner-cutting would have reduced costs, he says the move would have posed an "extreme risk" to safety and would be something "virtually unheard of" in the industry. Geologists monitoring the drilling work would have been well aware of the need to install casing in the hole, he says, and it would have been "highly irregular" if they did not report this to company management.
Exploring the regulator
Determining whether this actually occurred depends on the outcome of an investigation now underway by several agencies – the police, the government-BP Migas team and the group of international experts.
BP Migas' role is also in the spotlight. As the state watchdog of upstream drilling activities, many observers are asking what the body did and did not do to monitor the drill site and prevent the disaster from occurring. They also wonder why geologists from BP Migas initially accepted Lapindo's claims that the earthquake was responsible for the mudflows and still seemed willing to countenance this possibility even after the MedcoEnergi letter surfaced.
Sonny Keraf, a lawmaker on a parliamentary special committee convened to look into the problem, says the contract-tendering process for the project should have come under greater scrutiny. Speaking to Indonesia's Tempo magazine, he speculated that BP Migas officials may not have followed proper procedures when monitoring the tendering for the project, thereby allowing an inexperienced contractor to win the job. Because of this fact, do not expect much from any investigation involving BP Migas officials, he said.
Indonesian environmental law expert, Mas Achmad Santosa, meanwhile, faults the government for not getting tougher on the regulator and Lapindo when the disaster began. He says the government did not take advantage of its powers to take strong "administrative sanctions" against the bodies, including raiding their offices to seize important documents that could help further investigations.
"There shouldn't have been negotiations [between the government and Lapindo] – all meetings and talking. Coercive enforcement should have gone hand-in-hand with the criminal proceedings," Santosa contends. Still, Santosa believes the Sidoarjo disaster could become an important test case concerning the enforcement of relatively new green legislation. It helps, he says, that this seems to be a clear example of corporate negligence, and that the government has become directly involved.
The East Java Police, Santosa says, are also being supervised by their national-level counterparts to ensure that the criminal investigation is not compromised.
Mired in charm
But while the criminal investigation against Lapindo seems likely to reach the courts, environmentalists believe that the villagers of Sidoarjo will face an uphill battle to receive fair compensation in any civil action filed against the company.
Torry Kuswardono, Wahli's mining and energy spokesman, says the group is currently working with regional government and affected villagers to explore the possibility of filing a class action against the company. However, Kuswardono says that the group's experience has been that poor, rural communities rarely win legal battles against big companies in Indonesia, where prosecutors' indictments and judges' verdicts can often be bought.
It doesn't help that Lapindo, after initially denying culpability in the disaster, has now turned on a charm offensive in the refugee camps, Kuswardono says. The company's staff has bought the villagers television sets and their children toys; the local legislature has been inexplicably quiet about the affair, he contends.
"You should see the local market (in Sidoarjo) at the moment, it looks like a fairground. The villagers are in danger of falling into some kind of Stockholm syndrome," he said. Kuwardono believes Wahli will have more success working with the community in the next few months – when the focus on the disaster moves from emergency relief to clean up and recovery. "When Lapindo goes away and the villagers realize they have nothing left, then they will get angry," he says.
Back at the disaster site, the team of international experts has made some progress in choking the mud flows at the drill site, with reports in early July that at least one of the fissures has been blocked off with the help of a special machine. Despite this, the mud continues to flow into the Sidoarjo region and Kuwardono believes it may continue to do so for months to come.
It seems only the company at the center of the disaster, Lapindo, can find a positive spin on the whole mess. The mud, it contends, has been tested by a local university and will be perfect for making house bricks – something the homeless villagers sheltering in the Sidoarjo market will no doubt be pleased to hear.
[Chris Holm is a Jakarta-based journalist and editor.]
| Health & education |
Jakarta Post - July 14, 2006
The city administration's free tuition education policy has been warmly welcomed by city residents. Many hope the policy will help students at risk of dropping out of school stay on and complete their studies, although the potential effect of the policy on education quality in the city has not yet been studied. The Jakarta Post asked people their views.
Dewi Nurimah, 45, is a laundry worker. She lives with her family in Jati Beruk, Central Jakarta: I thought they (the administration) really meant it. I was so excited when my neighbors told me because one of my children entered junior high school this school year. But when I got to the school, they said that there were several fees that I must pay, in total Rp 1 million, including for uniforms and extra curricular activities. I was so shocked.
However, I can't do anything. I know there is no such thing as a free lunch nowadays. What I am thinking now is that the education of my girl must be fulfilled whatever it takes. I hope that the government is not just making empty promises about providing free education.
Fabio Valentino, 27, is an officer with a non-governmental group that educates street children. They are only bluffing. I know for sure that several schools, subsidized by the government, still charge additional fees, which keep burdening parents.
I hope the government will pay more attention to such conditions and guarantee that free education means free of charge. Schools are not allowed to charge parents. So I think the government should monitor every school in applying this policy. However, we have to be very grateful for this policy because if it is well monitored, many unfortunate poor children can go to school.
Reuters - July 13, 2006
London – Multiple mutations have been found in the H5N1 bird flu virus that killed seven family members in Indonesia although scientists are unsure of their significance, a leading science journal said on Thursday. But researchers believe the findings reinforce the need for bird flu data to be more widely available to improve understanding of the deadly virus.
"The functional significance of the mutations isn't clear – most of them seem unimportant," the journal Nature said in a report in the latest issue on Thursday.
An analysis of virus samples from six of the eight members of the family showed 32 mutations accumulated as it spread, according to the confidential research obtained by Nature.
The analysis had been presented by virologist Malik Pereis of the University of Hong Kong at a closed meeting of animal and human health experts in Jakarta last month.
The first infected member of the family was a 37-year-old woman who probably caught the disease from poultry and then transmitted it to relatives before she died.
The World Health Organization (WHO), which has admitted that the cluster of cases was probably caused by human-to-human transmission, had said in May that there had been no significant mutations in the strain found the in family.
Nature said although the WHO statement was not incorrect, more could have been said about the changes that were found.
"One of the mutations confers resistance to the antiviral drug amantadine, a fact not mentioned in the WHO statement," the journal said. Scientists fear the H5N1 virus that has killed more than 100 people and millions of bird since 2003 as it spread from Asia to Europe and Africa could mutate into a strain that could spark a human pandemic.
The mutations found in the virus from the Indonesian cluster were not significant enough for the virus to spread beyond the family.
Virologists contacted by Nature said part of the reason the significance of the mutations is unclear is because withholding the information has hampered the study of the virus.
| Islam/religion |
Jakarta Post - July 15, 2006
M. Taufiqurrahman – The Muslim-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) has proposed that the railway law require every train provide a women-only car to prevent sexual harassment of female passengers.
A member of the special committee on the railway law from the PKS faction, Abdul Hakim, said Friday that the measure was needed because of the "inhumane conditions" of most train cars, especially in the greater Jakarta area.
"And those who bear the biggest brunt are pregnant, elderly or working women who use the railway service," Abdul told The Jakarta Post.
He said sexual harassment was a pervasive problem on trains. "Women should be respected and Islam places women in a high position," he said, adding that the party's sole intention with the proposal was to protect female passengers from harassment.
Most electric trains operating in Jakarta already have designated women-only cars, but enforcement of the regulation is nonexistent due to the huge number of passengers and shortages of cars.
"That is why we want to include a special provision on cars for women, so that it will be mandatory and operators that violate it will be punished," Abdul said.
Political factions are currently drawing up a list of provisions for consideration in the bill. A transportation expert was skeptical about the proposal's feasibility, especially on overcrowded trains.
"Such a policy would be best applied outside of rush hours when trains are not being used at full capacity," the chairman of the City Transportation Council, Soetanto Soehodo, told the Post. He said the policy of separating female passengers had not been effective in halting sexual crimes when it was tried out in some countries.
"Protection of female passengers could in fact be done by putting more security guards onboard, and applying severe punishment against those who commit sexual harassment," he said.
Jakarta Post - July 14, 2006
Jakarta – Members of the Salamullah religious sect lead by Lia Aminuddin, also known as Lia Eden, reported Wednesday to police that they had been threatened while at the Central Jakarta District Court.
Wahyu Andito said three unknown men made death threats to him and six other members during the court hearing of Abdul Rahman on Wednesday morning.
Abdul, the sect's second in command, is on trial for blasphemy, while Lia was sentenced to four years in jail under the same charge last month.
The group's lawyer, Eleonora Moniung, said she expected the police to take action to prevent the individuals involved from making further threats or attacking the group. "We have proof on a handy-cam video showing the faces of the three people," she said.
Lia believes she is both the Angel Gabriel and the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, while Abdul Rahman claims to be the Prophet Mohammad reborn.