News & issues

Violence flares after execution of Poso Three

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2006

Jakarta – Groups of Christians, angered by the overnight executions of three Catholic convicts, torched cars and government buildings in East Nusa Tenggara cities Friday.

In Maumere, where one of the executed men, Dominggus da Silva, 42, was born, hundreds of protesters vandalized several government offices, including the local district court and legislative council building. They demanded that Dominggus' body be sent to Maumere for burial.

Dominggus, Fabianus Tibo, 60, and Marinus Riwu, 48, were found guilty of leading a Christian militia that launched a series of attacks in Central Sulawesi in May 2000 – including a machete and gun assault on an Islamic school where scores of men were seeking shelter.

The three – known as the Poso 3 – were led before a firing squad just south of Central Sulawesi's provincial capital Palu at 1:45 a.m. Friday, said I Wayan Pasek Suartha, a spokesman for the attorney general. Their bodies were examined by a team of doctors minutes later, who officially declared them dead.

Thousands also rallied in Atambua, blockading roads and attacking a court, prosecutor's office and other government buildings, according to AFP. More than 200 inmates escaped after mobs attacked a jail in Atambua, sending guards fleeing to the nearby jungle. Elsewhere in the country, protesters blocked roads and set buildings on fire.

Palu was largely calm Friday amid increased security. Thousands of police stood on street corners and guarded markets and churches, watching as some 1,000 mourners packed the St. Maria's church to take part in a requiem.

But violence flared in the villages of Tentena and Lage, where hundreds of people, went on a rampage of torching cars and police posts.

Human rights workers say the men's trial was a sham, and that while it was possible the trio took part in some of the bloodshed, they were not the masterminds.

The case has sparked debate about the role religion played in punishing those who participated in violence that swept the Sulawesi province from 1998 to 2002, killing more than 1,000 people from both faiths. Only a handful of Muslims were convicted, none for more than 15 years in prison.

Din Syamsuddin, chairman of second largest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah, asked the public not to associate the execution with religion because it was a purely legal matter.

"There is nothing that we can do except to respect the court verdict," Din said on the sidelines of a seminar in Jakarta on Friday.

He added that he fully supported capital punishment. "It provides a deterrent effect on criminals, as well as giving a sense of security to people in general," he was quoted as saying by detikcom news portal.

House of Representatives Speaker Agung Laksono asked people to accept the verdict as the carrying out of the law. "We have to respect the law. Through the entire legal process it was stated that Tibo and friends were guilty," he told detikcom.

Other politicians criticized the government for shifting the responsibility for dealing with the angry public reaction to local administrations.

Jacobus Mayongpadang from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle said he was disappointed by the Attorney General's Office. It said it was only an instrument for carrying out the sentence, and it was up to religious figures to enlighten the people about the verdict. "It's not right. The government should be responsible and anticipate the possibility of unrest," he said.

Immanuel Blegur from the Golkar party said the government seemed taken by surprise by the reaction. "I hope there will be more justice in the legal process in the future, so that the people's conscience will not be disturbed," said the former legislator from East Nusa Tenggara.

Indonesian executions lead to violence

Associated Press - September 22, 2006

Irwan Firdaus, Palu – Christian mobs torched cars, blockaded roads and looted Muslim-owned shops in violence touched off by Friday's executions of three Roman Catholics convicted of instigating attacks on Muslims.

Some 200 inmates escaped after mobs assaulted a jail in the town of Atambua, sending guards fleeing to the nearby jungle. By midday only 20 had been recaptured, deputy national police chief Lt. Gen. Adang Dorodjatun said, calling on the others to turn themselves in.

And on the island of Flores, the executed men's birthplace, machete-wielding mobs ran through the streets Friday, sending women and children running in panic, police and witnesses said. Police and media reports said at least five people were hurt, including a prosecutor who was hospitalized with stab wounds.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla appealed for calm, saying the deaths of the three men had nothing to do with religion. "It's a matter of law," he told reporters in the capital Jakarta. "If the people resent the law, we are doomed."

Fabianus Tibo, 60, Marinus Riwu, 48, and Dominggus da Silva, 42, were found guilty of leading a Christian militia that launched a series of attacks on Muslims in May 2000 that left at least 70 people dead. Human rights workers say the men's 2001 trial was a sham, and that while it was possible the men took part in some of the violence, they almost certainly were not the leaders.

The men were taken before the firing squad at 12:15 a.m. (2:15 p.m. EDT Thursday), said a senior police officer who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Family members later said they had received confirmation of the deaths.

Palu, where the executions took place, was largely calm, with thousands of police standing on street corners and guarding markets and churches. But violence flared in the Sulawesi villages of Tentena and Lage, where hundreds of Christians rampaged after learning of the deaths.

Thousands also rallied in the eastern province of East Nusatenggara, home to many Roman Catholics, blockading roads and setting fire to government buildings, including a courthouse and a prosecutor's office.

In carrying out the death sentence, Indonesia ignored an appeal last month by Pope Benedict XVI to spare the men. A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told the Italian news agency ANSA that news of the execution "was very sad and painful."

The European Union also criticized the executions; capital punishment is banned in the 25-member bloc. "The presidency of the European Union has learned with disappointment that despite numerous expressions of concern by the EU to the Indonesian authorities, Indonesia has carried out executions in Central Sulawesi," said a statement issued Friday by Finland, which currently holds the EU presidency.

The case against the three had heightened tensions in the world's most populous Muslim nation and raised questions about the role religion played in punishing those allegedly behind the violence that swept Sulawesi province from 1998 to 2002, killing more than 1,000 people of both religions. Only a handful of Muslims were convicted, all for 15 years in prison or less.

The men told relatives and a priest during final prayers at their jail Thursday that they were innocent but ready to die.

Tibo's son, Robert, told Christian followers early Friday that his father "begged us not to be angry, not to seek revenge." "He asked us to forgive those who did this to him. 'God blesses all of us,' he said.

The executions came amid an outcry in many Muslim nations about comments made by the pope on Islam. The pontiff last week cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman." He has since said he was "deeply sorry" about the reactions to his remarks and that they did not reflect his own opinions.

The condemned men had said they hoped investigations into the clashes would continue, noting that they had provided authorities with the names of 16 Christians who allegedly provoked some of the worst bloodshed. The government says its probe is complete.

"It's useless for me to say anything now," said Tibo's son early Friday. "The government never listened to him when he was alive. They ignored everything."

Human rights activists said Muslim hardliners gathered at the court during the hearings, likely intimidating judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and witnesses.

"The men's lawyers received death threats, including a bomb planted at one lawyer's house and demonstrators armed with stones outside the courthouse demanded that the three be sentenced to death," said Isabelle Cartron of London-based Amnesty International.

Indonesia is a secular nation with the world's largest number of Muslims, about 190 million. In Sulawesi and several other eastern regions, Christian and Muslim populations are roughly equal.

Though violence in Sulawesi largely ended with the signing of a peace deal in 2002, there have been isolated incidents of violence since then, most blamed on Islamic militants.

Public still hostile to PKI: Scholar

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2006

Adisti Sukma Sawitri, Jakarta – The Education Ministry has rewritten school history books once again, restoring the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as the sole culprit of the aborted 1965 coup and the bloodletting that followed, in which tens of thousands of people died.

In the earlier 2004 trial education curriculum, the PKI is mentioned as only one of several perpetrators of the grassroots violence after the coup attempt, in which at least 80,000 people were killed. Thousands more PKI members and alleged sympathizers were imprisoned without trial for many years.

"When we arranged the 2006 history curriculum, we found that making the PKI the main perpetrator was the most acceptable truth for Indonesians," University of Indonesia historian Susanto Zuhdi told The Jakarta Post.

Susanto was part of the special team that arranged the revisions at the end of last year. Consisting of five historians and teaching experts, the team held a series of public discussions and workshops to find the most "appropriate" version of history.

Susanto said there was a lot of public resistance to the earlier 2004 curriculum. A group of Muslims and nationalists from East Java had protested at the House of Representatives, demanding the curriculum be revised.

Because of the immanent changes, Susanto said he could not understand why the Attorney General's Office had probed two top ministry officials for the "misinformation" in some 12 graders' history books based on the 2004 curriculum.

The AGO recently questioned ministry curriculum center head Diah Harianti and former head Siskandar over the older content. "We are investigating several people in connection with the publication of books which have caused restlessness among the public," AGO spokesman I Wayan Pasek Suartha said Tuesday, as quoted by Reuters newswire. Six publishers of the books were also questioned last week.

Separately, National Institute of Sciences historian Asvi Warman Adam doubted the ministry's latest version of the 1965 tragedy was the result of a fair scientific process. Asvi, who attended the discussions but was not part of the special team, said that some of the forums were biased against the PKI since many in attendance had been teachers whose families were PKI victims.

Asvi doubted that a "scientific" forum of teachers and historians, who were supposed to be skeptical and objective, could have ended up with an "old and emotional" version of history that blamed the PKI for the tragedy.

"There must have been a conspiracy to retain the old version proposed by the New Order, which would close the way for the PKI to be rehabilitated," Asvi said. The recent questioning the officials and publishers was part of an effort to terrorize academics who were only searching for the truth behind the violence, he said.

PKI reinstated as 1965 tragedy culprit in school textbooks

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2006

Adisti Sukma Sawitri, Jakarta – The government's plan to reinstate history textbooks that blame the Indonesian Communist Party for the violence after the 1965 coup attempt is reminiscent of dictator Soeharto's New Order education syllabus, historians say.

They also questioned why the writers of the more objective 2004 text books were interrogated by prosecutors, intelligence agents and the police.

A political scientist from the University of Indonesia, Arbi Sanit criticized the Yudhoyono administration's plan to reinstate the questionable theory in the new school curriculum. He told The Jakarta Post on Saturday the move only proved that New Order elements still had control in the present government.

"They have an interest in keeping the PKI as the scapegoat," he said. "These people are those who are afraid that Soeharto will be accused of masterminding the tragedy."

Between 80,000 and 3 million people are believed to have died in the bloodletting that occurred in the months after the aborted coup.

This year the government decided to revise the history textbooks in the 2004 national curriculum. The 2004 books did not heap blame solely on the PKI as they did in the Soeharto era. Communist party members and those of organizations affiliated to the PKI were the main targets of the grass-roots violence after the coup.

Education Ministry curriculum center head Diah Harianti said the 2004 curriculum more comprehensively explained the events surrounding the Sept. 30, 1965 tragedy than the revised one did. Instead of associating the tragedy only with the PKI, it blamed the social conflicts on ideological and political differences among citizens. Now, with no explanation, the Education Ministry had decided to reinstate the PKI as the main culprit, he said.

Members of the police, Attorney General's Office and State Intelligence Agency questioned Diah and one other official at the curriculum center recently about why 12-grade history books based on the 2004 curriculum did not blame the PKI for the violence. The former head of the center, Siskandar, and six publishers who distributed the history books were also summoned to the AGO's office.

A historian with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Asvi Warman Adam, said the AGO was trying to intimidate the people who were trying to understand what really happened in 1965 and the subsequent political events leading to Soeharto's rise to power.

"The AGO is not supposed to do that, since we (historians) haven't even agreed on what actually happened (in 1965)," he said. Diah said: "I really can't understand why they questioned us for that."

An AGO prosecutor, Muchtar Arifin, said the interrogation sessions were only to check on the accuracy of data contained in the history books. "The books are distributed nationwide. We have to make sure that they contain accurate information. Remember, it deals with education for children," he told Kompas.

Aceh

Women 'victims' in reconstruction

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2006

Adisti Sukma Sawitri, Jakarta – The involvement of non- governmental organizations and foreign donors in rebuilding the tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh has yet to provide women with a good standard of living, a new book argues.

It says widows are still struggling to feed themselves and their children without proper attention from either NGOs or the government.

The book, titled "Still Standing Tall", released by the Christian relief and development organization World Vision, says widows face a series of cultural restrictions that deny them equal access to the labor market.

During focus group discussions in several districts across Aceh, book author Patricio Cuevas found that in many rural communities, women must first seek permission from their husbands or parents to work. Some are permitted to work only inside their houses and accompanied by other women.

Cuevas found local authorities and the majority of NGOs promoted traditional kinds of labor that were already available, such as sewing, pastry-making and handicrafts, without offering training in marketing or business planning.

"Reconstruction programs must make these women a priority and provide them with more income-generating activities as well as training to develop their skills in managing small-scale businesses," World Vision deputy director Eddy Sianipar said Friday.

He suggested that major donors like USAID, AUSAID and the World Bank should consider these gender issues in their reconstruction and rehabilitation programs.

Acehnese women's activist Suraiyya Kamaruzzaman said she believed Acehnese women were strong and resilient enough to support their families, and all they needed was a chance to improve their skills. "Don't let them be victims of the patriarchal tradition," she told The Jakarta Post.

Meanwhile, the Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) expressed its commitment to putting gender issues at the center of its policies. The agency has released a policy framework outlining strategic actions in several areas.

It vowed to provide equal access to the economy and education by making scholarships and vocational training available to youth regardless their gender. The agency also plans to increase its care for pregnant women through skillful midwives and paramedics to assist births at the village and subdistrict level.

BRR chief Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said all parties, including NGOs involved in the reconstruction and rehabilitation programs, should support the framework. "It will improve the reconstruction process because it will serve all the needs of the tsunami survivors, including women and children," he said.

Corruption, fraud haunt efforts to rebuild regions hit by tsunami

Associated Press - September 22, 2006

Banda Aceh – Oxfam International's staff in Indonesia's Aceh province knew something was amiss last March when they started seeing inflated bills for construction supplies.

The British-based agency shut down operations in the city of Aceh Besar for a month, and an internal investigation led to misconduct charges against 10 staffers over the loss of US$22,000 (#17,100). "It was like pulling a string on a scarf. It might be one incident, but it was linked to something else that was linked to something else," Melinda Young, program manager for Oxfam's Aceh office, told The Associated Press.

Aid agencies say corruption is a constant threat in the tsunami disaster zones because of the size of the relief effort, a lack of local oversight and a history of corruption in many affected countries.

A government audit in Indonesia found as much as US$5 million was lost to corruption in the weeks after the Dec. 26, 2004, disaster.

An audit in Malaysia released earlier this month, according to media reports, found "shoddy workmanship" and misuse of some of the millions of dollars meant for tsunami survivors. Thailand also announced Thursday it will investigate allegations that tsunami aid was misappropriated.

"There was so much donated, but why are some people saying they haven't received anything?" Auditor General Jaruvan Maintaka said Thursday in an interview with local television ITV.

"People who lost boats – actual fishermen – did not receive compensation, but those who received compensatory boats were people whose houses were not even affected by the tsunami," Jaruvan said.

Transparency International, a global anti-corruption watchdog, accuses Sri Lankan officials of demanding bribes from survivors to get on lists for new homes.

Anti-graft activists in Indonesia cite reports of vendors marking up the price of donated fishing boats by as much as 100 percent, village chiefs inflating the numbers of survivors in need of help, and politically connected contractors constructing poorly built barracks for the homeless.

Aid agencies say prices of supplies are inflated, their truckers have to bribe their way past highway police, and sometimes the goods never show up.

Terre des Hommes Netherlands was forced to halt construction on 200 homes for four months this year and call the police after an Aceh partner allegedly misused US$150,000. The aid agency has built 2,000 other homes in Aceh without problems, said manager Cecile Harto, and the corruption came as a shock. "In the future, we will be more careful in choosing our partners and put more effort into monitoring of the process," she said.

Sri Lanka, according to Transparency International, has been slow to set up mechanisms to address the problem and, instead, has left monitoring of tsunami funds to international and local NGOs.

Indonesia, in contrast, has established an anti-graft unit in Aceh which has already fielded over 500 complaints and prevented the loss of US$12.5 million.

Failure of tsunami reconstruction leaves agencies under fire

Associated Press - September 22, 2006

Kampung Jawa – The tsunami of 2004 triggered the biggest humanitarian response in history, feeding the hungry, heading off epidemics and engendering the hope that out of a calamity that took 216,000 lives, a better Indian Ocean rim would emerge.

But 18 months later recriminations are rife, with aid agencies standing accused of planning poorly, raising unrealistic expectations and simply being incompetent.

Brand-new homes infested with termites are being torn down in Indonesia while families in India were put into shelters deemed of "poor quality" and "uninhabitable" because of the heat. Thousands of boats donated to fishermen in Indonesia and Sri Lanka sit idle because they are unseaworthy or too small. Only 23 percent of the US$10.4 billion (euro8.1 billion) in disaster aid to the worst hit countries, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, has been spent, according to the United Nations, because so much of it is earmarked for long-term construction projects.

"I think mistakes occur in every disaster, but for the first time we are seeing it on a large scale," Anisya Thomas, managing director of the California-based Fritz Institute, an NGO, or non-governmental organization, that specializes in delivering aid and has surveyed survivors in India and Sri Lanka.

"Many large NGOs are involved in rehabilitation and reconstruction activities beyond their capacity," Thomas said. "The large NGOs had trouble finding local resources and, when they did, they often had trouble holding them accountable."

Days after the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami, NGOs rushed in alongside the US military and other government agencies, and their quick response was credited with preventing the disaster from getting worse.

But as the NGOs shifted to reconstruction, excessive amounts of money meant that spending decisions were often driven by "politics and funds, not assessment and needs," according to the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition or TEC, an independent body that includes over 40 humanitarian agencies and donors.

In a July report, TEC called the aid effort "a missed opportunity." It said there were too many inexperienced NGOs working in disaster zones, while seasoned agencies jumped into areas they knew nothing about – Medecins Sans Frontieres Belgium built boats while Save the Children constructed houses.

The report also accused NGOs of leaving many survivors ignorant about their plans or failing to deliver promised aid. "A combination of arrogance and ignorance characterized how much of the aid community misled people," it said.

The agencies are studying the report and many are overhauling their training and staffing.

"The tsunami was unique in so many ways," Scott Campbell, program director for Catholic Relief Services in Aceh, the Indonesian province that was hit hardest by the earthquake and tsunami. "It has made every organization rethink how to approach this."

With large swaths of Aceh's coast reduced to damaged homes and flooded farmfields, the challenge was enormous. More than 150,000 Acehnese survivors spent more than a year in rotting tents and hundreds of families are still in them.

There are communities with brick homes to rival some American suburbs, while others look like slums of clapboard shacks. A few hundred yellow homes looking like outsized mailboxes are held together with duct tape.

Clusters of homes were abandoned by their new owners because of leaky roofs or termites in the untreated wood. Hundreds more were built without water, electricity or sewer hookups. The NGOs later acknowledged that they assumed the government would provide utilities, not realizing that the disaster had decimated many government agencies.

"The quality is bad. I won't even use this wood for a chicken coop," said 57-year-old Hamdan Yunus, an Indonesian fisherman from the village of Kampung Jawa who tore down the home donated by British-based Muslim Aid after the wood began crumbling.

Tsunami survivors on Wednesday threw rocks at police in Aceh during a protest outside government agency over the slow pace of rebuilding. The fighting broke out after police used water cannons on hundreds of protesters, who had blockaded the reconstruction agency's headquarters demanding jobs and housing since Tuesday.

In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, temporary homes built by Western-based charities were of "poor quality" and "uninhabitable" during the daytime because of the heat, according to a July 2005 evaluation of relief efforts.

Not all the shortcomings are the NGOs' fault. Corruption played a big part. British-based Oxfam shut operations in the city of Aceh Besar for a month and an investigation led to charges of misconduct against 10 Indonesian staffers over the loss of US$22,000 (euro17,100).

Save the Children says it has to rebuild dozens of termite- stricken houses in Aceh after discovering contractors pocketed funds earmarked for construction. It has fired three housing inspectors, bolstered oversight at its US$156.6 million (euro121.7 million) Aceh program and is buying timber from Canada.

An Indonesian government audit found as much as US$5 million (euro3.9 million) went missing in the first weeks.

"The corruption has spread everywhere. It goes all the way down to the village level," said Akhiruddin Mahjuddin, who leads Gerakan Anti-Korupsi, an Aceh group. "I'm really disappointed. I would say from 30 percent to 40 percent of tsunami aid money is missing."

The Asian Development Bank is spending US$4 million (euro3 million) on anti-corruption measures in Aceh, and the Aceh provincial government is working to improve its accounting systems while putting up billboards warning the public about bribery.

Transparency International, a global anti-corruption watchdog, also has accused Sri Lankan officials of demanding bribes from survivors to get on lists for new homes and directing a disproportionate amount of funds into areas that support the government in the island's civil war. In Thailand, the most developed of the hard-hit countries, unscrupulous businessmen were accused of stealing land in damaged villages to build tourist resorts.

Under pressure to spend the donations, agencies increased their pace toward the end of last year. In what the UN called "unmistakable progress," agencies have been credited with building 57,000 houses across the 11 countries that felt the impact of the tsunami waters. Another 81,000 are under construction. Hundreds of schools and clinics have also been built.

But there were also plenty of missteps. Some agencies handed out cash grants and loans for survivors in ill-conceived plans – a factory in India to make tiles where there was no market for them, or the planting of thousands of mangrove seedlings that died.

The World Bank found that 40 percent of the 7,000 boats donated in Indonesia would be "unusable in 12 to 18 months" and that many of the boat-building plans failed to consider how fishermen would store or sell their catches. "The donors at first seemed to pursue quantity over quality and the actual needs of the fishermen," said Adli Abdullah, secretary general of an Aceh fishing organization.

The problems have beset many of the top names in the humanitarian business. Habitat for Humanity International, based in Americus, Georgia, is struggling to get utilities to the several thousand homes built in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Oxfam, which received the most funding of any NGO, is assessing whether to rebuild 750 of the 800 homes it built in Aceh.

Save the Children says all of the 708 homes it built at two sites in Aceh will need work – 64 are being rebuilt and the remainder are being extensively repaired.

The Indonesian government, frustrated by the amount of bad housing, has set aside up to US$1 million (euro777,300) to repair or rebuild "several thousand" homes.

"We made the assumption that these NGOs didn't need our guidance when it comes to building houses. What happened is that they were not prepared," said Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, who heads the government's reconstruction effort.

"Building is not just houses. It's building communities," he said. "You have to construct the drainage, the septic tanks... They (the NGOs) just thought about the money and building materials."

NGOs blame some of their problems on the scope of the disaster and the difficult environment. Timber as well as expertise were in short supply. Prices of many materials have doubled in the past year. Land ownership has often been impossible to determine with so many owners dead. Some areas are isolated by bad roads and rough seas.

Government agencies have also come under fire for dragging their feet on issuing regulations over what housing can be built in Indonesia, and by limits on coastal redevelopment in Sri Lanka. Fighting in Sri Lanka has forced agencies to halt reconstruction and pull staff out.

Still, NGOs acknowledge they share some of the blame. They are looking for ways to respond more quickly to disasters by creating emergency response teams, opening regional supply warehouses or partnering with the private sector to ensure a steady supply of professionals.

A more far-reaching reform would be to set international standards for NGOs and follow the US example of making tax- exempt status dependent on agencies meeting accountability requirements.

Former US President Bill Clinton, the UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, liked to say the goal should be to "build back better." His deputy, Eric Schwartz, says he's confident NGOs are open to oversight provided their independence is respected. The pressure for a process to accredit NGOs "is substantial," he said. "I think they understand this."

Indonesia's tsunami agency vows faster aid after clashes

Agence France Presse - September 20, 2006

Banda Aceh – Indonesia's tsunami reconstruction agency pledged Wednesday to speed up aid to the homeless after police clashed with protesters at a blockade of its offices.

Some 1,000 survivors laid siege to the headquarters of the Aceh Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) in the provincial capital Banda Aceh, complaining of the slow disbursement of aid.

About 50 staff, including agency head Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, were forced to spend Tuesday night there, a BRR spokesman said.

Police fired water cannon to disperse 200 remaining protestors Wednesday after a first attempt to end the demonstration ended with them hurling rocks at police, witnesses said.

Initial negotiations between officials and protestors, organized by a local non-governmental organisation, had stalled over how relief funding would be channelled to them, BRR spokesman H. Mizra Keumala told a press briefing.

The mediators demanded that the BRR hand over its rehabilitation and reconstruction programs to them and put 5.4 trillion rupiah (593 million dollars) into their account, Keumala said.

The BRR could not alter the budget it already had and the NGO's cooperation program would have to be tendered like any other, he said. He added however that "we are forming a special team to look at issues in the barracks" where the survivors are being housed.

He also said that within 14 days, the agency would accelerate the building of houses for the refugees, handing out grants to orphans and issuing an economic recovery fund for victims.

"These were in our program but we are reprioritising," Keumala said.

"We welcome the democratic character of the demonstration – there was no anarchy – but we will keep on working as usual," he added.

About 500 protestors returned to the headquarters in the late afternoon to continue their demonstration but about 200 paramilitary police – many of them armed with batons and plastic shields – chased them away.

"They are acting like they are a king and we are the subjects. There is no realisation of the projects in the field," tsunami survivor Zulkarnai, who is living in barracks in Aceh Besar district outside the capital, told AFP.

Some of the protestors claimed the leader of their NGO had disappeared and they wanted police to produce him.

Indonesia was the nation worst-hit by the December 2004 tsunami, which killed some 168,000 Acehnese and left half a million people homeless.

Tens of thousands of people still lack permanent homes despite billions of dollars in aid being offered by the international community.

Man sought for instigating riot at BRR office

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2006

Jakarta – Hundreds of tsunami survivors threw rocks at police in Aceh on Wednesday during a protest to demand housing and jobs at the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) office.

The fighting broke out after police used water cannons on hundreds of protesters, who had blockaded the office in the provincial capital Banda Aceh from late Tuesday, an AP photographer said. One person was hit by a flying rock and at least one police car was damaged, he said.

Banda Aceh Police later named a suspect for allegedly inciting the riot. "We've named Panji Utomo as a suspect and we'll immediately put him under arrest for provoking people to conduct violent acts," Banda Aceh Police deputy chief Comr. Dedi Setiyo told Antara news agency.

He said the police attempted to arrest Panji when the protest got out of control, but they were unable to find him among the crowd. "We'll continue looking for him and we'll arrest him by force if he doesn't surrender," Dedi said.

The agency's task to provide housing for the survivors is a massive one. Tens of thousands of people still without permanent homes have complained that the process is too slow given the enormous resources committed to the province.

Protesters, many of whom still live in wooden barracks, demanded that the agency speed up the building of homes and businesses. They threatened to stay in the agency's compound until their demands were met.

Mirza Keumala, a spokesman for the agency, promised to do everything possible to speed up the process, AP reported. But Mirza also alleged that a local aid group called the "Barracks Forum" organized the rally, and was demanding that funds be directly transferred to its own account, something he said the agency could not do.

The 2004 tsunami killed or left missing at least 216,000 people in 11 Indian Ocean nations, more than half of them in Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

How Aceh found peace

Inter Press News Service - September 20, 2006

Milla Sundstrvm, Helsinki – "Amid all the destruction and loss the mood was high. People were making bricks, digging fishponds, building fishing boats. And people were sitting in coffee shops late into the night just as if there had never been any war."

This is how Mahmoud Malik, leader of the rebel movement of the Indonesian province Aceh described returning home in April this year after more than 30 years' exile.

Malik's feelings and the entire peace process that made his return possible are told in a new book 'Making Peace. Ahtisaari and Aceh' by Finnish journalist Katri Merikallio, who followed the peacemaking process in Finland closely, and also travelled to Indonesia to see how the process was put into practice.

The Finnish version of the book was launched in late August and the English version last week, both by Finnish publishing house WSOY.

Merikallio, who works for Finland's only political weekly paper Suomen Kuvalehti, recounts the Aceh negotiations in a stirring, almost thriller-like manner.

Finland's former president Martti Ahtisaari attended the book launch to talk about the remarkable success of his mediating efforts that managed in only seven months to end the war that had continued in Aceh almost 30 years.

"It was not a one-man show," Ahtisaari said, emphasising the role of teamwork in mediating the negotiations that covered five secret rounds between the Indonesian government and the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), the Free Aceh Movement.

The province of Aceh on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra is rich in natural resources, but it is one of Indonesia's poorest and most underdeveloped provinces. GAM declared in 1976 that the province had been illegally annexed by Indonesia in 1949, and started a fight for independence for the area.

The aspiration for independence has its origins in the history of Aceh. For centuries it used to be the independent Sultanate of Aceh, while other parts of Indonesia were colonised by the Dutch.

Aceh's population is about four million within the Indonesian population of 238 million. The province is 98 percent Muslim; the rest of Indonesia is 83 percent Muslim.

Between 15,000 and 50,000 people died during the decades of fighting in Aceh. Peace was sought numerous times but all attempts failed, the last of these only about two years before Ahtisaari's success.

News of renewed negotiations on Aceh in Helsinki in early 2005 was received skeptically in many parts of the world. But something had changed to create new ground for negotiations – it was the tsunami that hit the area Dec. 26, 2004, killing around 180,000 people in Aceh and leaving 600,000 homeless.

The book recounts how a local GAM commander sent a text message to the exiled leadership in Stockholm: "What are we fighting for any more?"

GAM declared unilateral ceasefire after the tsunami while the Indonesian army continued to search for its fighters. "Unarmed fighters who came looking for their families were arrested and shot in the midst of all the earlier destruction," Merikallio recounts in her book.

The first round of negotiations was held just outside Helsinki only a month after the tsunami. GAM 'prime minister' Malik Mahmoud had only to cross the Gulf of Bothnia that separates Sweden and Finland to join Ahtisaari and the Indonesian delegation.

That Gulf had been crossed several times before by Finnish consultant Juha Christensen who had laid the basis for the negotiations, and finally convinced Ahtisaari to take over.

Christensen and his wife Liisa, both linguistic researchers, had moved to Indonesia 20 years earlier. While acting as consultant for Finnish business interests in Indonesia, Christensen began his own explorations on bringing peace to Aceh.

With his language skills Christensen became Ahtisaari's right hand during the negotiations, and later an important member of the international mission that was sent to Aceh to monitor the peace building. Other members of Ahtisaari's team came from the independent Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) that Ahtisaari founded in 2000. The Finnish foreign ministry sent observers.

Ahtisaari had carefully studied the previous failed peace negotiations, the so-called Coha process (Cessation of Hostilities Framework Agreement), and chosen his own strategy that would be both narrow and tight.

"Three years went into the previous negotiations and it only really came up with a ceasefire agreement – an enormously wide agreement with a great many details," he said.

Ahtisaari made it clear to both parties that he did not intend to waste time if they were not serious about their involvement in the process. He also announced at the outset that the deadline for these negotiations was autumn.

In an interview with Merikallio, Ahtisaari admits that at times he had to be very strict, even hard.

"For example, I told GAM right at the beginning that I didn't know of any government that would support them. And that if they did not immediately grasp this opportunity, they might never get back to their homes in Aceh, but would die here in the North."

Ahtisaari's premise that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" took shape at an early stage. He had drawn up a framework on what he was prepared to discuss with the parties, and within this framework independence was not an option.

"My task was to create a whole which both parties could live with. This means that an agreement cannot come about before all the details have been agreed upon", he explains in the book.

The process ended with success, and Ahtisaari managed to involve the European Union and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to begin an initial monitoring presence ahead of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM).

The AMM took over a year ago under the leadership of Pieter Feith, the Dutch director-general for political and military affairs at the European Commission, and with only 222 international monitors.

In December 2005, before the first anniversary of the tsunami, GAM surrendered to AMM a total of 840 weapons. GAM also declared that its military wing had been disbanded and demobilised.

The peace agreement stated that a new law on Aceh has to be promulgated; the law was passed by the Indonesian parliament earlier this year. But new and complex problems emerged with the drafting of the law. The law does not even mention the Helsinki agreement, and in GAM's opinion it is weaker than the agreement on several points.

The peace agreement promises to Aceh authority over all matters except foreign affairs, external defence, national security, monetary and fiscal matters, freedom of religion and justice. Responsibility for these was to rest with the central government. But the new law adds to this list of exclusion the clause "other government affairs", which GAM says can be anything.

The peace agreement also promises to the Acehnese people eventually the right to form local political parties, which has not been allowed in Indonesia before. In the first elections, scheduled now on Dec. 11, GAM's candidates will be presented as independent ones.

The agreement confirms Aceh's right to retain 70 percent of the revenues from all current and future hydrocarbons. GAM says that in the law the article on managing oil and gas revenues is too vague, and makes the future uncertain. The law states that the Acehnese and the central government will decide on this together. It has not all been smooth sailing since the signing of the peace agreement, but all partners that Merikallio interviewed this summer, among them GAM's Malik who has returned to Aceh, are convinced that the organisation will not take up arms again.

Ahtisaari, 69, now faces the more complicated challenge of trying to solve the crisis in Kosovo on a United Nations mandate. He was president of Finland 1994-2000, and has long experience in conflict management in different parts of the world from Namibia to former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Northern Ireland.

He is being mentioned as a candidate for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, and Merikallio's book is not badly timed, considering that.

Merikallio writes that people who have closely followed various negotiations led by Ahtisaari are agreed on one thing: "He has an exceptional ability to create an environment of inclusion that gets people to commit to a common goal. The feeling that everyone is involved and that everyone's contribution is needed."

Ahtisaari himself recognises the difficulties on the road to peace..

"Part of the process is that sometimes one party does not trust you, sometimes the other, and then both begin to tolerate you again."

As teacher by training, he compares the negotiations process to raising children where "the aim is to bring up an independent young person – and you have to be able to release your grip".

Protesters attack Aceh tsunami reconstruction office

Reuters - September 20, 2006

Banda Aceh – Hundreds of Indonesian protesters vented their anger on Wednesday against the state body tasked with reconstructing tsunami-hit Aceh province, throwing stones at police and the agency's office.

The mob, which had camped outside the office since Tuesday night, accused the reconstruction agency, BRR, of sluggishness in providing decent housing for survivors of the December 26, 2004, tsunami that left 170,000 killed or missing and half a million homeless in Aceh.

The rally turned violent after police tried to disperse the crowd, which in return showered the officers with stones, officials said.

"The stone-throwing damaged police facilities including two cars. We decided to disperse the crowd because they had been staying outside the BRR office beyond the timeline that we gave them," said Banda Aceh deputy police chief Dedy Setyo. He said the stones hit several policemen but did not dent the BRR building.

Most of the protesters were among those still living in temporary wooden barracks for tsunami survivors that dot areas surrounding the provincial capital Banda Aceh. They have long demanded the government provide them the permanent housing already constructed for many residents of other devastated coastal areas.

BRR says it has coordinated the building of more than 40,000 houses for tsunami survivors across the province.

The agency is under fire after a leading Indonesian anti-graft group last month accused the body of financial irregularities in five of its projects worth 23.9 billion rupiah ($2.6 million).

Some BRR officials said the report was inaccurate and could affect disbursement of funds from foreign donors. However, agency chief Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said several staff were being investigated.

International agencies and countries have poured $4.6 billion into the reconstruction of Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island after it was hit by the devastating tsunami that left up to 232,000 people dead or missing in a dozen Indian Ocean nations.

West Papua

Riot case Papuans 'beaten by police'

The Australian - September 21, 2006

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jayapura – Indonesian police have been driven by revenge and their own personal interests in a series of show trials over the deaths of four police and an air force sergeant in May (sic) riots, a new report claims.

The investigation, soon to be made public after months of documentation by a coalition of Papuan and national church and human rights groups, will allege that none of 23 men accused over the killings was directly involved in the deaths.

All but two of the accused have been sentenced to up to 15 years' jail, with the final pair of men appearing yesterday in Abepura District Court, near the Papuan capital, Jayapura.

The killings, at the peak of two days of demonstrations at Cendrawasih University over the giant Freeport McMoRan gold and copper mine in Timika, shocked Indonesians for their brutality.

The police victims were beaten with rocks and sticks after a crowd of students and other still-unidentified groups broke through a police line on March16.

Forensic investigations found that the air force sergeant, who was not in uniform, was killed in a separate knife attack on the university campus, Papua's largest.

However, as the final two of the 23 accused appeared yesterday in court, lawyers, church groups and supporters – as well as the men themselves - insisted their confessions were forced after beatings with rifle butts, pistols and fists, as well as electric shocks.

Mechanic Steven Wandik, accused of murdering air force sergeant Agung Prihadi Wijaya by smashing in his head with a large stone, said he was repeatedly beaten by police over a period of weeks before he offered a false confession to the crime.

He said he was taken from his home without warning in the middle of the night on May 12 – almost two months after the riots – and forced into a police vehicle after being hit in the head with a rifle butt. He said he was too frightened to offer resistance, and that for several weeks police offered no explanation for his arrest.

Wandik says his name was given to police by a cousin, Sam Wandik – the other man on trial in Abepura District Court yesterday. Sam Wandik told the court he provided his cousin's name as someone involved in the killings only after repeated beatings and electric shocks.

Asked after his appearance yesterday why he was now recanting on his allegation, Sam Wandik said: "Because I'm being held in the jail now, not in the police cells, and the police can't hurt me there."

Aloy Renuarin, the Papua head of Indonesian human rights group ELSHAM, later described the 23 men as "victims of police revenge" and said the convictions had so far been based on "incredibly weak evidence". "This is a matter of politics, of a legal mafia and of the courts and government discriminating against Papuans," Mr Renuarin said.

Appeals were lodged yesterday in five of the cases.

Evidence given in Steven Wandik's prosecution has included photographs of the accused participating in a police reconstruction of the crime.

Papua issue will be raised at Forum meeting, says Vanuatu PM

Radio New Zealand - September 21, 2006

Vanuatu's prime minister has confirmed his country will raise the issue of Papua at next month's Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Fiji. Ham Lini says Vanuatu intends to continue its long tradition of supporting Papua's push for self-determination.

Mr Lini said a suggestion from earlier in the year that Forum leaders or foreign ministers form a delegation to travel to Indonesia for talks with Jakarta has so far come to nothing. But he says Vanuatu now enjoys increased contact with Indonesia and the time is right for more international discussion on Papua.

"I strongly believe that it should be on the agenda. The Vanuatu delegation will raise it somehow. Whether it is on the agenda or not, it will be raised in question time or oral discussion time. Whatever countries don't support it, that's their stand but Vanuatu thinks it's time to push this forward and I strongly believe it will be appearing on the agenda." Vanuatu's prime minister, Ham Lini.

Settlers chase away Indonesian delegates

The National - September 20, 2006

Isaac Nicholas – The media delegation accompanying Barnabus Suebu, the Governor of Papua province in Indonesia, was chased away in a confrontation with the West Papua community at their 8 Mile settlement on Monday.

The media delegation went into the settlement unannounced and took pictures of the houses and other infrastructure there, angering the community. The settlers, mostly women, hurled objects at the cars transporting the media delegation. Two cars were believed damaged during the confrontation.

Reports reaching The National suggested governor Suebu was among those attacked, but an Indonesian Embassy spokesman last night denied that the governor was at the settlement.

The embassy spokesman claimed that of the 300 settlers, 75 of them came to the embassy to welcome and meet Sueba. "There is nothing, and nothing happened that was extra-ordinary," the spokesman said.

A tinted vehicle that drove into the settlement was also chased away as its occupants were taking pictures, which raised suspicion among the community.

The National visited the settlement yesterday afternoon and, thinking it was ferrying Indonesian officials, was stopped at a roadblock. After identifying the reporters in the mini bus, it was allowed through.

Spokesman Freddy Warome said the community was not aware of the visit by the Papua governor.

"They came with suspicion; they did not notify us. This land was given to us by the Papua New Guinea Government, not Indonesia," Mr Warome said. "We, West Papuans, want 100% independence, not greater autonomy. They are not welcome here," he said.

Mr Warome also claimed that certain West Papuans, who were on the Indonesian government payroll, were pushing them to accept the greater autonomy proposal. "These people are eating from two plates. They should be ashamed of themselves. One is working high up in government," he said.

Two persons who live at the settlement, but who were seen as allegedly collaborating with the Indonesian Embassy, were bashed up, and warned they would be expelled from 8 Mile settlement.

He said Sueba was a native Papuan who was working for the Indonesian agenda of greater autonomy, which the West Papuans reject outright.

They also warned the Independent Group Supporting Special Autonomous Region of Papua (IGsSARPRI) that "they are not welcome here". The IGsSARPRI is a group of West Papuans supporting greater autonomy for the Papuan province of Indonesia.

Former Papuan politicians call on Australia not to sign treaty

Melbourne Age - September 18, 2006

Andra Jackson – Thirty-seven years ago former Papuan politicians Clemens Runawery and Wim Zonggonau boarded a plane on an urgent mission that might have changed the political fate of their now Indonesian-ruled province.

But they were pulled off the flight as part of Australia's not widely known behind-the-scenes role in thwarting Papuan independence aspirations. The pair, who have spent the last 39 years in exile in Papua New Guinea working as educationalists, are now on another mission – this time to Australia.

They are appealing, with the backing of the Australian Greens senator Bob Brown, for Australia not to sign a security treaty with Indonesia that they say would again "betray" Papuan rights.

A proposed Australia pledge not to support the continuing Papuan push for independence would be tantamount, Mr Zonggonau said, "to saying to Koppasus (Indonesia's special forces) do what you like in West Papua".

With estimates putting the numbers of Papuans killed or missing under Indonesia's military presence since 1969 at 100,000, Australia should be insisting that the United Nations be allowed in to investigate, as had happened in East Timor, he said.

Mr Zonggonau was a member of the Provincial Assembly of Irian Jaya and of Indonesia's upper house and Mr Runawery, a member of Papua's Provincial Assembly when they fled to the then Australian-controlled Papua New Guinea in July 1969.

They carried a petition signed by 54 Papuan leaders asking the United Nations to declare a sham its so-called Act of Free Choice, which had been restricted to 1200 Indonesian appointees.

Speaking in Melbourne yesterday they recounted how after Australian officials took them off the plane in 1969, they were detained for eight months.

"The untold story" is that the Dutch and Australian governments met in 1957 and "an understanding was reached... that the two sides of Dutch New Guinea would be... two separate entities", Mr Runawery said. "Yet Australia stood behind Indonesia. It was a betrayal."

Popular resistance

Residents protest school construction in Serpong

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2006

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – Hundreds of residents of the mainly Muslim Rawa Buntu village and Kencana Loka housing complex in Serpong staged a rally Friday to protest the construction of the St. John Catholic School in the area.

Protesters left on a march to the construction site about 6:30 a.m., and on arrival placed signs and banners outside the compound. One read: "Local residents order the halt of the school construction and this site is now 'sealed'."

They gave speeches objecting to the school's establishment as others repeated chants of "halt the school construction".

Police tightly guarded the protest, which lasted for two hours, before the demonstrators dispersed peacefully without meeting school management.

Protest coordinator Sadat Ali said there was no religious motivation for residents' objection to the school. There were already several private schools in Serpong and their presence had caused worsening traffic in the area, he said.

"Residents are afraid that if a new school is built here, it will further disturb the environment and the traffic will become more chaotic," he said.

He said he believed the developers of the school had yet to obtain an environmental permit to construct it.

No one from the school could be contacted to confirm Sadat's claim or comment on the protest.

Bumi Serpong Damai housing complex corporate communications manager Dhony Rahajoe would not comment on the residents' protest. The ongoing construction of the school had nothing to do with BSD management, he said.

"The school management probably bought land from residents of Rawa Buntu village, which had direct access to the BSD housing complex, so they could build the school right next to the Cikal Harapan school," he said.

In 2004, Muslim residents in Tangerang walled off the entrance to the Catholic Sang Timur school because they said it was illegally being used as a place of worship.

Advocates of religious tolerance criticized the protest, which they said was unfairly targeting the city's minority Catholic faith.

Protests and number of poor on the rise

Green Left Weekly - September 20, 2006

Max Lane – Protest demonstrations continue to sprout every day across Indonesia on almost every kind of issue – socio-economic injustice, political abuse, administrative arbitrariness and ecological damage. Poverty and economic hardship still probably make up the cause driving the majority of these protest actions.

According to one of the alternative news services organised by the Australia-based Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific website, Indonesia Round-up, at the end of July, 2000 workers from the PT Sinar Angkasa company demonstrated in front of the East Java provincial governor's office in Surabaya demanding a wage increase to bring them up to the minimum wage of 685,500 rupiah (US$75) per month. One of the PT Sinar Angkasa employees, Slamet Riyanto, said that since January the workers had only been receiving Rp568,500 per month.

A similar number of workers had demonstrated the week before at the Surabaya provincial parliament but the company has continued to refuse to increase their wages.

Hundreds of workers from the PT Nainteks company in Bandung demonstrated in front of the offices of the West Java governor on July 25. They were demanding severance payments that the company had promised to pay six months earlier.

Some 200 street traders from the Tengah Market in Bandar Lampung, in south Sumatra demonstrated at the mayor's office on July 25. The protesters were opposing plans to evict them from their place of trading. Dozens of street traders who had been evicted from the Simpang Fountain area in the city of Padang city, in West Sumatra, have camped outside the West Sumatra provincial parliament.

Members of the Poor People's Union (SRM) demonstrated at the Medan city hall in northern Sumatra on July 25. The protesters were condemning the eviction of street traders. Violent clashes nearly broke out when the demonstrators were blocked by Medan civil service police as they entered the grounds of the hall. The traders also blockaded the Melan city hall and the street in front of it on August 3.

Dozens of fishers from the city of Ternate in the province of North Maluku demonstrated at the offices of the fisheries agency and the provincial governor on July 25. They were demanding that the government act firmly against foreign ships that are illegally taking fish from the North Maluku waters.

Some 600 part-time workers from the PT Wong Coco beverage export company in the Natar area of South Lampung went on strike on August 2 for four days. They demonstrated in front of the company's offices demanding to be employed as full-time workers.

That same week, dozens of residents from the Duren Jaya area of the Bekasi regency of West Java province whose homes were demolished to make way for the Ganda Agung underpass project demonstrated at the Bekasi local parliament on August 3. At leasr 73 homes were demolished for which the Bekasi city government has paid them compensation equivalent to $100 to build semi-permanent houses and $200 for permanent housing.

In his August 16 State of the Republic address to the parliament, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono claimed that poverty had declined from 23.4% of the population in 1999 to 16% in 2005. Almost immediately there arose a chorus of criticisms. The charge was led by the Indonesia Rise Up! group, an alliance of economists who have been increasingly critical of the government's subservience to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its policies.

At a subsequent press conference, Indonesia Rise Up! economist Revrisond Baswir attacked the government for not presenting the most recent poverty figures. He pointed out that even the government's Central Statistics Agency (BPS) figures show a rise from 16% of the population living in poverty in February 2005 to 18.7% in July 2005. The BPS figure for March this year remained at 18.7%. This would be one of the fastest rises of poverty since the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98.

Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, who is also chairperson of the Golkar party, has since argued it is "obvious" that the poverty rate had gone down as the Indonesian economy had grown by 5.6% last year. "How can you say poverty has gone up when our economy is growing well?", Kalla asked. "The problem with many economists today is that they only like to see a gloomy picture of the economy."

In an August 4 Asia Times Online article, Jephraim Gundzi, president of Condor Advisers, which provides investment risk analysis to individuals and institutions worldwide, argued that, "Rather than an indication of profound underlying economic strength, Indonesia's very surprising economic performance in 2005 was the result of shortcomings in the country's national- accounts statistics produced by Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS)...

"These shortcomings were apparent in the 275% real growth of statistical discrepancies used to balance expenditure-based GDP with production-based GDP by BPS in 2005. The meteoric growth of statistical discrepancies accounted for more than one-half of the real growth of expenditure-based GDP last year. In other words, without the growth of statistical discrepancies, real GDP growth would have been below 3% in 2005."

In a statement issued on September 1, the BPS confirmed that its figures showed that the number of people living below the poverty line had increased by 4 million in the past year. Thirty-nine million people – 17% of the population – were under the poverty line which is set at Rp152,847 ($16) per month. Worse still, BPS head Rusman Heriawan stated that another 70 million people – 30.9% of the population – lived just above this poverty line.

The official Indonesian poverty line however is lower than the poverty line used to determine who should get the government's per month poverty subsidy of about Rp200,000 ($22). A BPS spokesperson from its West Java office, for example, stated that people living on the official poverty line were in fact "very poor".

Indonesia Rise Up! has identified three reasons for the sudden rise in numbers of people living in poverty. The first was the impact of increases in petrol and kerosene prices instituted by the government and the IMF in October 2005. The second was the failure of the government's cash-for-the-poor program, and the third was the rise in food prices. There had been a 17% increase in food prices over the past year, with a 26% rise in the price of rice. According to Baswir, 70% of the budgets of the poor is spent on food.

Following the BPS's September 1 announcement, the government was forced to admit that Indonesia Rise Up!'s criticisms of Yudhoyono's poverty claims were correct. Government spokespersons claimed that Yudhoyono did not use the more updated figures because the BPS had not officially released them.

After a wave of newspaper editorials across the country ridiculed Yudhoyono's excuse, he has taken his rosy figures out of his subsequent public speeches.

Maluku conflict victims protest

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2006

M. Azis Tunny, Ambon – Hundreds of people displaced by religious violence in Maluku protested Wednesday in front of the governor's office to demand promised financial assistance to rebuild their lives.

About 200 people, mainly women and children, braved heavy rain to gather outside the governor's office in Ambon, which was guarded by dozens of police officers.

They demanded the government deliver promised aid to more than 2,500 displaced families in West Seram and Central Maluku regencies and Ambon city. The families were forced from their homes during the outbreak of religious violence in 1999 that swept across Maluku.

"Please, all we ask is the government pay attention to our fate. We have nothing left and it will be the fasting month soon," shouted a woman as she breast-fed her baby.

Protesters and police nearly came to blows when some of the demonstrators attempted to force their way into the governor's office. Several women attempted to scale the 2.5 meter-high gate. "How come we can't go inside? There's a lot of elderly people and children dripping wet out here," said La Ipo, 64, of West Seram regency.

The father of seven said he had been asking for assistance from the government for years, but all in vain.

"I completed all the necessary paperwork in 2003... but I still haven't received any help," he said.

Another protester, Mansyur, 48, also from West Seram regency, criticized local government officials for failing the displaced families.

"If the officials inside no longer have the conscience to pay attention to us, then they have no religion."

He said the protesters were simply asking for their rights. "We're victims and we have no future. How long do we have to live without homes?"

He said in his village of Waralohi, 254 families had lost their homes during the religious violence and could no longer afford to send their children to school. "It's hard enough just to get enough food to eat."

He said the government had promised him and other families many things, but had never delivered anything tangible. The last promise, Mansyur said, was in January, when officials assured families assistance would be coming this year.

"We've returned home and built a simple hut from bamboo. We want help from the government so we can live in a decent home," he said.

Administration secretary Abdul Rahman Soumena eventually met wit demonstrators. He said work to resettle displaced families should have been completed last year, as required by the central government, but confusion over the number and location of the families had delayed the work.

"Data on refugees continue to be a problem. This is the result of dishonest officials and the displaced people themselves," he said.

Citing an example, he said in Ambon city up to 80 percent of 5,000 displaced people claimed to be receiving no assistance. He said this showed that the data on the number of displaced in Ambon had been manipulated by officials from the district and subdistrict offices, from which the provincial administration received its figures.

Abdul asked families to remain patient, saying the administration hoped to finish resettling them sometime in 2007.

"Apart from dealing with poverty and unemployment, dealing with displaced people is our priority," he said.

Village heads rally for better pay

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2006

Hundreds of village heads from across the country took to the streets in Jakarta on Monday, demanding what they called an improvement in their living standards.

The village heads rallied in front of the Home Ministry to demand that the government increase their salaries, which according to them, were still below the regional minimum wages. "How can a village head be paid Rp 100,000 per month?" said Sudir Santoso, who chairs the association of village heads.

In the protest, the village heads also urged the government to revoke a policy that barred them from direct involvement in political parties.

The village heads also bemoaned government inconsistencies in determining their tenure. A 2004 law states that the term for village heads is six years, but a government regulation issued in 2005 stipulates that the term expires after five years.

Earlier this year, hundreds of village heads also thronged the capital to voice similar demands.

Student protest turns violent

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2006

Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara – A campus demonstration by angry students rallying to demand the resignation of their university rector turned violent Monday when the students clashed with security guards.

Students at Kupang's Widya Mandira Catholic University rallied on campus for the ouster of their rector, Cosmas Fernandez, who they accuse of authoritarian, arrogent behavior.

The demonstrators were involved in a clash with university security guards when they stopped the rector's car from entering the campus, some climbing onto the vehicle.

Accompanied by security gaurds, the rector slipped through the crowd during the melee and students chased after him. Others later tried to enter the administration building but were deterred by the guards.

Students have been calling for Cosmas to resign since last week, with one group holding a weeklong hunger strike on campus. The rector has refused to meet them or hear their demands.

The university's senate held an emergency meeting last week to discuss the students' demands. However, no decision was reached because 15 of the 30 senate members and representatives of the foundation that manages the university boycotted the meeting.

Human rights/law

Discussion not serious on the freedom of information bill

Tempo Interactive - September 22, 2006

Aguslia Hidayah, Jakarta – The Freedom of Information Coalition comprising elements including the SET Foundation, Institute for the Studies on the Free Flow of Information (ISAI), Institute for Press and Development Studies (LSPP) and Children of the Nation's Vision Institute urge the government and the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission for Defense to complete the Bill of Freedom of Public Information (RUU KIMP) as soon as possible. They are of the opinion that the two institutions are slow in discussing the bill.

Dono Prasetyo from ISAI said the Freedom of Information Coalition says that it was often lied to. "Many working meeting agendas including the government's and DPR's are delayed for many reasons," he said in a press statement at the parliament complex, Jakarta.

The government and DPR Commission for Defense are regarded as not being serious in discussing the bill. The government even conducts systematic efforts to hamper the bill from being passed. The government prioritizes more the discussion of the State's Secrecy and National Security and Intelligence Bills. "However, the freedom of information bill is very much expected by the general public," said Dono.

Decree ready to implement citizenship law

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2006

Hera Diani, Jakarta – Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin said Wednesday that a ministerial decree would be issued this weekend to effect the implementation of the Citizenship Law passed in July.

He said the decree contained the mechanisms to apply for or pursue Indonesian citizenship, including granting Indonesian citizenship to offspring of transnational marriages and clarifying the status of Indonesians who have resided abroad for an extended period. Included in the decree, he added, were the necessary forms and other technical requirements.

"A transnational marriage couple only need fill in the form to confirm their children's citizenship. The form can be signed by either of the parents," he said on the sidelines of a seminar.

Previously, children born of a foreign father and Indonesian mother automatically received his nationality, but the new law allows children of such unions to hold dual citizenship until they reach maturity at age 21. When the child turns 18, he or she has three years to choose the nationality of one of the parents.

Hamid said the forms would be available next week at Indonesian embassies and consulates abroad, enabling Indonesian-born people who were stripped of their citizenship to regain it. Hundreds of Indonesians studying abroad during the attempted 1965 coup blamed on the communist party lost their rights, with the Soeharto government linking them to subversive movements.

Other Indonesians, mostly migrant workers, also have become stateless after failing to report to Indonesian missions abroad.

Hamid said people from these groups should report their intention to retain their citizenship at Indonesian embassies or consulates, but they would not have to undergo a naturalization process.

"They only need to fill out the form, and we will process it within a maximum of three years. If there is no Indonesian representative office in the country they live in, they can just write to us," he said, adding that he would visit the Netherlands and France, where many of the ex-students live, to promote awareness of the decree.

The law, passed on July 11, was hailed as revolutionary by legislators in helping end discrimination against Chinese- Indonesians and Indonesian women married to foreign spouses.

Other key elements of the law include revising the definition of "indigenous Indonesian" to include all citizens who never assume foreign citizenship; enabling foreign spouses to seek Indonesian citizenship after living here for five consecutive years or 10 accumulated years, and entitling the spouse to permanent residence under the same conditions.

Despite the goodwill to eradicate discrimination, there are doubts it will be able to completely do away with the entrenched exploitation of Chinese-Indonesians by elements of the bureaucracy and the perception of them as foreigners.

Many ethnic Chinese say they continue to face difficulties when applying for legal documents, even though the law on citizenship certificates was scrapped in 1996, and a 1999 presidential decree specifically abolished the need to present the certificate.

Wealthy Chinese-Indonesians often use the services of brokers to help them in dealing with the bureaucratic web. But lower-income ethnic Chinese end up with no legal identification, like those living in West Jakarta, Surabaya and South Sumatra.

Hamid said there would be criminal sanctions for officials who were ignorant about the regulations or hindered people wishing to become Indonesian.

Police assault allegations draw concern

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2006

Jakarta – Indonesian Police Watch says it is concerned over recent allegations that police are using violence to get confessions from suspects.

"The police using violent means to get suspects to confess is not a new thing and is caused by a failure in the institution's education system," Indonesian Police Watch head Neta S. Pane told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He said there needed to be firm measures in place to deal with officers who intimidated witnesses and suspects with violence, adding that the police needed to reform its training system.

On Tuesday, a case of alleged police assault in Ciledug, South Jakarta, was reported to the Jakarta Police. The allegations follow those made last week about a violent false arrest by Jati Asih Police in Bekasi.

Officers from Ciledug Police station are alleged to have beaten police informers Hendro Giantoro, 25, and Suhartono, alias Pentil, 43, in an attempt to force them to confess to being involved in a series of motorcycle thefts. Hendro alleged that the officers had applied electric shocks to Suhartono's genitals.

The two men were called in to Ciledug Police station Saturday night by station criminal unit head First Insp. Krismi Widodo. The men knew Krismi as they had been working with the police as informers.

Hendro alleges that Krismi's staff then forced them to confess to being a member of motorcycle theft gang. He also alleged that police had beaten the gang's leader, Rinto, until he had said that Hendro and Suhartono were a part of the gang.

Hendro and Suhartono were released Monday due to inadequate evidence, while the other four were taken to jail.

Hendro's mother, Aries Miati, 52, said her son did not know the four people arrested. She reported Krismi to the Jakarta Police, along with Cildedug Police officers Chief Brig. Joko, Chief Brig Andreas, Chief. Brig Supri, Chief Brig. Badri, and Chief Brig. Sagala.

Chief Brig. Joko is alleged to have lit a joint while attacking the two and to have said, "Beating you up while getting high would be fun".

Neta said the police were still using old military ways inherited from the military education system.

Labour issues

Give jobs, not cash, warns senior economist

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2006

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – The government should create jobs by building infrastructure facilities at the provincial, regency and village level that can give work to local unemployed people rather than giving them cash, a noted economist has said.

"We notice that regions have many damaged roads, obsolete dams, and other outdated infrastructure," Emil Salim, professor of economics at the University of Indonesia, said on the sidelines of a seminar on globalization in Jakarta.

Such construction work would not only provide jobs for the growing number of the country's unemployed but also help accelerate growth of the local economies, he said.

Emil, who is a former minister for the environment, said that the government had plenty of funds from last year's budget and the current budget, but a larger part of the funds have not been used.

"Aside from the undisbursed funds, there are up to Rp 47 trillion in state funds already given to provincial administrations that have been used to buy Bank Indonesia's promissory notes SBI, rather than being spent on projects," he said.

Emil urged the government to immediately speed up the disbursement of the unused funds because a delay would further worsen the economic situation which would in turn create more unemployment.

According to data from the National Statistics Agency, the number of people living below the poverty line has reached 39 million this year, a 4 million rise compared to the 2005 level.

Indonesia's unemployment rate rose to 10.4 percent in February from 10.3 percent a year earlier even though the economy expanded at the fastest pace in nine years in 2005. The government aims to more than halve the unemployment rate to 5.1 percent by 2009.

Emil said if the government could speed up the disbursement as promised by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati recently, it could provide millions of new jobs nationwide.

"The funds are available while we have so many people unemployed. And this is not a complicated things to do. In fact, it is very practical. So, it is a matter of political will to implement it," he said.

Mulyani said Friday in Singapore that the government would accelerate spending on public works needed to spur growth in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

Although recently the government had unveiled planning to encourage rural and urban communities to determine by themselves the type of development projects they needed, the plan will not be implemented until the second semester of next year.

Some Rp 14 trillion (US$1.5 billion) is allocated in the 2007 budget for the ambitious program, which is expected to improve conditions for the needy in 69,929 villages and subdistricts.

To help alleviate poverty further, he added, the government should push down the price of rice by importing it, stressing that the lower price would not make farmers suffer. "85 percent of poor people's income is spent on food, especially on rice. So, high rice prices make them poorer," he said. That's why, Emil added, the government must lower the price by importing rice.

"But the import policy should take into account the effect on big and small-scale farmers as well as farm workers. The government must create a scheme that can help reduce the negative effect of lower rice prices on the farmers," he said.

Government, private sector faulted for failing to end child labor

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2006

Prodita Sabarini, Jakarta – Lack of commitment from the government and private sector to end child labor has made Jakarta a hotbed for the exploitation of minors as prostitutes and domestic helpers, a discussion concluded Thursday.

Jakarta's Center for Integrated Service for Women and Children's Empowerment deputy head Margaretha Hanita said there were 1,020 minors among 5,724 sex workers in the Social Affairs Ministry's rehabilitation centers, according to data from 2003.

Margaretha said her center estimated there were at least 5,100 children working as prostitutes in the capital. That figure pales compared to the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 minors working as domestic helpers here with no oversight of their treatment.

"These children are brought to Jakarta against their will. They have no choice, as usually they come along with their families to Jakarta. It's even worse when they are victims of human trafficking."

She said there were many young girls below the age of 18 who were brought to Jakarta to provide sexual services in nightclubs, massage parlors and hotels. She added that other underage prostitutes frequented parks, malls and other public places.

According to Margaretha, children from poor families were most at risk of exploitation.

Head of Atmajaya University's Research Center Irwanto said that a 2000 survey showed that a family of five relocating to Jakarta usually needed three people to work for their livelihood. "Two of the three are the families' children."

Irwanto deplored the lack of commitment to eradicating child exploitation from both the government and the private sector. "It's all because public services are poor," he said. "I think the government has committed a constitutional crime by not allocating 20 percent of its budget for education."

Under the Constitution, the government is supposed to allocate 20 percent of the state budget to education. However, in the state budget draft for 2007, the government only reserved 6.8 percent for education.

He added that as children's issues were under the Women's Empowerment Minister, other related institutions, such as the National Education Ministry and the Health Ministry, were afraid of infringing on its authority.

Irwanto said the private sector also did not address the issue, noting there was no Indonesian company with good corporate social responsibility programs geared toward the problem.

"Spending money on children is not costly, it's actually an investment, so they can be independent later on. In the end, it saves the country from a big burden in the future."

Protest calls for standard wage, nationalisations

Green Left Weekly - September 20, 2006

On September 10 the Workers Challenge Alliance (ABM) held a demonstration at the state palace in Jakarta, demanding that the government set a standard national wage. The action involved more than 100 people from several ABM-affiliated labour organisations, including the Indonesian Trade Union Action Committee (KASBI), the Indonesian Labour Union Confederation (GASPERMINDO), the Indonesian Automotive Trade Union (SPOI) and the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggle (FNPBI). Protesters also oppose the government's implementation of neoliberal policies at the behest of international financial institutions, such as cutting subsidies to electricity, fuel and water. Demonstrators called for the cancellation of Indonesia's foreign debt and the nationalisation of natural resources and vital assets.

Illegal workers flock to Malaysia

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2006

Jakarta – The government admitted Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of Indonesians still work illegally in the more affluent neighboring country of Malaysia, despite campaigns to stop illicit labor exports.

Harry Heriawan, secretary-general of the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, said 1.2 of the estimated 1.7 million Indonesians working in Malaysia were there illegally.

Indonesian officials discussed the labor issue with the visiting Malaysian deputy labor minister, Dato' Abdul Rahman Bakar, on Tuesday night in Jakarta.

The government plans to establish a national agency in charge of the placement and protection of migrant workers overseas.

The agency will create procedures for training and sending workers abroad. At present, Indonesia has 246 training centers.

Government prepares labor regulations

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2006

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Bogor – Following its decision to drop the plan to revise the 2003 Labor Law, the government says it will soon issue a regulation detailing termination procedures and severance payments for workers to give them more job certainty.

Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Erman Suparno said the regulation would also detail crucial issues on outsourcing, contract-based workers and other contentious issues.

"The most important thing, is that the government regulation will not be contrary to the (labor) law but we are seeking the best solution so as not to burden employers in its implementation," Erman said in Bogor at the weekend.

The minister said the government would also revise the 1992 law on social security programs to allow state-owned labor insurance company PT Jamsostek to provide a termination scheme for dismissed workers.

"The government will discuss in details all these issues with other stakeholders, mainly the labor unions and employers, before issuing the government regulation and revising the social security program law in the House of Representatives," he said.

Earlier this year, the government dropped a plan to amend the labor law in line with recommendations from five state universities that conducted an indepth study of the legislation.

The study, ordered by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, recommended cutting workers' conditions, especially the large mandatory payouts to dismissed workers, which employers said were too costly. The bill, which also gave employers more freedom to outsource employees, was fiercely opposed by labor unions and later dropped.

Employers on Monday hailed the planned government regulation, which they said could accommodate aspirations earlier included in bill. They also warned the government they would act "unilaterally" if it ignored their aspirations.

Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) secretary-general Djimanto hoped the regulation would amend the nation's social security system. "With the severance payment scheme to be handled by PT Jamsostek, employers will have no problems in cases of massive layoffs," he said.

He said most small- and medium-companies in Indonesia were labor-intensive and that large layoffs were often unavoidable because of businesses dependence on foreign orders.

Jimanto said labor-intensive companies such as shoe, textile and garment factories would continue "rationalizing" their employees, recruiting contract-based workers to reduce their labor costs and outsourcing part of their labor to home industries. "This is a last resort and we have to do it for survival in this poor economic climate," he said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Confederation of Indonesian Prosperous Labor Unions (KSBSI), Rekson Silaban, said the regulation should not violate the labor law and change long- service and severance payments for dismissed workers.

"The regulation should also detail outsourcing, so that it will be clear which jobs outside (a company's) core business could be outsourced, and the ratio between permanent and non-permanent workers should create job security among workers," he said.

The unions have also proposed an increase of mandatory employer contributions to social security premiums to at least 20 percent of workers wages from the current 13 percent to provide more for workers in retirement.

Rekson said the rise would mirror similar social security programs in Malaysia and Singapore, where employees automatically had from between 30 to 44 percent of their salaries paid into the schemes.

Land/rural issues

Farmers to block imported rice

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2006

Jakarta – Hundreds of farmers from around the country staged a rally here Tuesday to protest against the government's plan to import 210,000 kilograms of rice, which they said could destroy their livelihood.

The demonstrators thronged the House of Representatives building to voice their opposition to the planned imports, which the government said were necessary to maintain rice stocks at the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

They threatened to bar the entry of the imported rice at some ports in Aceh and North Sumatra. "The import plan is only a ploy devised by middlemen to enrich themselves," said Indonesian Farmers Federation (FSPI) secretary-general Henry Saragih.

The protesting farmers hailed from some of the country's biggest rice-supplying regions, such as West Java's Karawang, Cirebon and Kuningan, Central Java's Batang and West Nusa Tenggara's Mataram.

Later, in a meeting with members of House Commission IV on agriculture and forestry, their representatives said the rice imports would deal a severe blow to small farmers.

"Even news about the import plan has already brought down the price of unhulled rice in our regions," said Deden, a farmer from Karawang.

He said unhulled rice is currently selling for Rp 2,000 (22 US cents) per kilogram in Karawang, compared to Rp 2,700 per kilogram before the news about the planned imports circulated.

Responding to the farmers' demands, Commission IV member Bomer Pasaribu of the Golkar Party said the import plan was evidence that the government has failed miserably to maintain the food sustainability the country attained in the late 1980s.

"It's high time the government gave incentives to farmers so that we can once again achieve sustainability and not resort to imports," Bomer said.

Separately, an international coalition of farmers, La Via Campesina, urged developing countries to implement genuine agrarian reforms with farmer-based agricultural management that would allow those producing the crops to fully control the use of land, seeds, water and technology.

The demand was one of numerous proposals made during the coalition's international conference last weekend in Jakarta. The conference was one of the events held to protest the World Bank- International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Singapore.

"The involvement of multinational companies, IMF and the World Bank in agricultural policies has caused an increase in production costs and only makes us suffer," D.R. Jayatilake of Sri Lanka's Movement for National Land and Agriculture Reforms told The Jakarta Post.

Jayatilake, who is a farmer from Kurunegala district in southern Sri Lanka, said he has been campaigning for "going back to traditional farming" using organic seeds rather than hybrid crops produced by big international corporations.

Via Campesina, consisting of farmers and activists from Asia, America and Europe, was established in 1993 to coordinate farmers' organizations, agricultural workers, rural women and indigenous communities.

Two Via Campesina activists from Indonesia, Achmad Ya'kub and Irma Yanni, were among those arrested Monday by Singapore authorities at Changi International Airport. They were deported to Jakarta on Tuesday.

The two were accused of posing threats to the neighboring country's security, although they argued that they were only planning to organize a news conference there for the coalition.

Police, villagers involved in clash

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2006

Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara – Three police officers and dozens of villagers were injured during a clash over a land dispute in Kupang's Amarasi Selatan district late Monday.

Kupang Police deputy chief Comr. Eko Wahyuyomo confirmed from Kupang on Tuesday that the incident involved police officers and hundreds of villagers.

"We're still investigating why residents vented their anger at the policemen. Police are currently examining the scene of the incident," Eko said.

He said the Monday clash occurred when Sonrean villagers arrived at a local police precinct to settle a land dispute. The situation became tense, forcing the police to request reinforcements.

"When police officers from Kupang arrived in two patrol cars, the mob attacked the cars and injured three officers," he said. He said the three wounded officers had undergone medical treatment. "I don't know the exact number of casualties from the residents' side," Eko said.

The police had secured an area in Sonrean village, 40 km south of Kupang, as of Tuesday. The situation remained tense, following rumors of a a police raid on the area to find villagers involved in the clash.

Politics/political parties

Political parties at odds over electoral threshold

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2006

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Major and minor parties are at loggerheads over whether an electoral threshold should be set for parties running in the legislative and presidential races in 2009.

Golkar Party legislator Ferry Mursyidan Baldan and his Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) counterpart Tjahyo Kumolo said the electoral threshold is needed to prevent elections from becoming overly fragmented by the growing number of political parties. The Golkar and PDI-P are the nation's two largest parties.

"The more parties participating in elections, the more democratic the country will be, but it will be ineffective and inefficient. It's better for minority parties to form a coalition with other parties if they want to take part in elections," Ferry said in a discussion.

The forum was organized Thursday by the Akbar Tanjung Institute to provide suggestions to the House of Representatives as it reviews the general elections law.

Tjahyo proposed that the revised law set the electoral threshold at at least 15 percent to allow only major parties to contest elections. He also supported including a parliamentary threshold in the new election law to reduce the number of factions in the House of Representatives and make the House more efficient.

"It has been found ineffective and impractical for a small party winning only two to 10 seats at the House to be allowed to form its own faction," he added.

Ryaas Rasyid of the Justice and Democratic Party (PDK), which won only two seats in the House in the 2004 elections, opposed the threshold, saying it would hamper the development of democracy.

"The state was established by our founding fathers from different elements and groups and they never looked down at minority groups. All elements took an active part in building the nation, so why should we start giving minority groups different treatment? Let the people decide the fate of the minority parties through the elections," he said, citing as an example the electoral systems in the United States and India.

Lili Romly, a researcher with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, supported the imposition of an electoral threshold to select election contenders naturally.

"We still have one more election in 2009 to let the nation have strong and significant parties in the 2014 elections," he said, adding that the new election law should allow the establishment of local parties to fight for the political interests of local communities.

Similarly, Sukardi Rinakit, executive director of the Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicate, a national pollster, said an electoral threshold would limit the number of election contestants "naturally".

The current threshold of 3 percent is too low and needs to be increased to 5 to 7 percent, he was quoted by Antara as saying Friday. Sukardi said a proposed increase of the threshold to 10 percent or above would be "too difficult" for most parties.

Lili also said it was time for the nation to start implementing the pure district system in the 2009 legislative elections. This would allow legislators to fight for their constituents' interests and to help improve the House's performance, he argued.

Center for Electoral Reform executive director Hadar Gumay said the House and the government should draft a law to make presidential, legislative and local elections efficient and practical. "The House will need only a single special committee to prepare the law," he said.

Militia intimidates Papernas declaration

Papernas News - September 18, 2006

The Declaration of The preparatory committee of National Liberation party of Unity (KP-Papernas) at the East Java Branch on Sunday (17/09) was intimidated by the militia group, called themselves as "Tauhid anti-communist movement" (Gertak).

Aimed at dismissing the declaration, 40 people armed with sharp stuff gathered in front of Balai Rakyat Dr Soetorno, East Java, the place where the conference were took place. Gertak called Papernas as communist organization due to participation of the organization of victim of 65 tragedy (LKPK) while delivering the speech in front of the location, the group tore down the Papernas Banners.

Responded to the situation, Fajar Aditya, Leader of KP Papernas East Java said that as a democratic alliance KP Papernas' aims to liberate the people from the imperialist domination and welcomes every element, which agree to the platform and struggle to realize this goal. "LKPK is the instrument of the victim of human right violation under New Order government of Suharto to struggle for their rights and to fight for democracy, Papernas supports their struggle to uphold the justice". "We do not only struggle along with the victim of 1965 human rights violation, but also the victim of other cases of human rights violations", he added

"Militia action is feigned, yet it is not a new thing," said KP Papernas Chairperson, Domingus Oktavianus. "Groups which use religious symbols always come out in the midst of the success of movement consolidation, the religious symbol are used as a politic instrument however elite interest whose worry about rise of people's movement conceal behind this action". He added that the declaration itself was attended by 400 participants, mostly coming from workers and the urban poor. Political speeches and a people's performance presented in the declaration.

War on corruption

Corruption hampers Indonesian economic growth

Tempo Interactive - September 21, 2006

Suryani Ika Sari, Sofian, Jakarta – The high rate of corruption has been the cause for the low economic growth in Indonesia compared to other developing countries. "Corruption is considered as quite high a risk for business and investment in Indonesia," said Paul A Volcker, the former member of the Board of Directors of the US Central Bank, yesterday (21/9) in Jakarta.

Voelcker, also an Honorary Chairman of the Board of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, said that the intention of foreign and domestic investors for investing in Indonesia has lacked on account of the high corruption rate. The condition is worsened by the indistinct legal framework as well as the inefficiency of bureaucracy in Indonesia.

However, Indonesia has high potential for developing business and investment. In fact, according to him, the potential is higher than other developing countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. "Nevertheless, the excessive corruption rate has caused Indonesian economic growth to decrease," he said. "The economic performance is disappointing because there is not enough investment for accelerating economic growth," he added.

He has said that as long as the corruption rate is still elevated, economic growth in Indonesia will keep diminishing and will be lower than other developing countries. "Indonesia will have trouble competing at the international level, especially within the free market system," he said.

He has suggested that the government take concrete steps for eradicating corruption, improving audits, as well as doing better planned and more transparent projects. "It is expected that this step will stimulate investment."

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the high corruption rate and the low implementation of government management are caused by the low quality of human resources in Indonesia. The problem is that it is not easy for improving the quality of human resources. "Depending only on good intentions and policies is not enough," she said.

According to her, the improvement of the government credibility will also require performance-based incentives and payments that improve (the merit system). "Salary is not the only matter. However, without improving salaries, corruption eradication will not be completed."

Activists urge probe of minister for perjury

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2006

Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – A coalition of antigraft watchdogs demanded Tuesday that the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) name Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin as a suspect for his alleged involvement in a graft case at the nation's electoral commission in 2004.

"There are no reasons for KPK to delay the probe into the graft case in which Hamid has been implicated, since politically and legally nothing is stopping the anti-graft body from questioning him," said Emerson Yuntho of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW).

He was reading a joint statement from 65 anticorruption organizations across the archipelago, including the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, the Indonesian Human Rights Watch, the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA) and the Anticorruption Institute.

Hamid was reported to the police for alleged perjury by Daan Dimara, a former colleague at the General Elections Commission (KPK), who was sentenced to four years in prison last Friday.

Hamid testified in Daan's trial on July 25 that he did not attend a meeting on June 14, 2004, to discuss inflating the price of ballot seals for the 2004 presidential election.

In Daan's verdict, the Anticorruption Court stated that Hamid attended and even chaired the June 14 meeting. The court did not find Daan guilty of colluding with the printing company to mark up the price of the seals for the presidential election, as prosecutors had charged. The collusion allegedly cost the state Rp 3.5 billion (about US$384,000).

The group demanded that the perjury allegation against Hamid be pursued immediately by the National Police, who have taken over the case from the Jakarta Police. "There's strong evidence that letters from the company were referred to Hamid," Arif Nur Alam of FITRA said.

Emerson said the KPK had no choice but to process the graft allegations against Hamid to avert accusations that it is afraid of investigating alleged corruption among those who have good political backing.

"We know that this is a legal matter, but its political bias is quite strong," Emerson said. He told law enforcers not to be afraid of Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who is a close confidante of Hamid. "Kalla has clearly stated that he doesn't intend to protect Hamid," he said.

The Vice President, according to the group, said on April 16 that he would allow the antigraft commission to probe anyone involved in the KPU graft case, including Hamid. Kalla allegedly added that Hamid could be suspended from his position if he were named a suspect or proven guilty.

Danang Widiyono, also of ICW, pointed out that next year the government would elect a new KPK director, and Hamid would head the election committee. "This is the right time to warn the KPK about it. Poor handling of the case will only smear the commission's image," Emerson said.

Environment

No dumping of untreated mud into sea, says team

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2006

Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – A government team set up to deal with the massive mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, said Monday the disaster had not yet reached a level of danger that would justify dumping untreated mud into the sea.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, who heads the newly established team, said after a closed-door meeting in Surabaya that ended about 10:30 p.m. the mudflow posed no immediate threat to people or the economy.

"Currently, the mudflow is an emergency situation but it has not reached the dangerous level," he told reporters after the meeting.

He said only if the situation in Sidoarjo posed an immediate risk to people's lives or the economy would emergency measures such as dumping untreated toxic mud into the sea be allowed.

When asked about a decision by the local administration to pipe untreated water from the mud into the nearby Porong River, the government team said that was an emergency situation after a containment pond collapsed, threatening residents and their homes.

The team's executive chairman, Basuki Hadimuljono, said the piping of the water into the river would be stopped once a new 435-hectare containment pond was completed.

Basuki said Sunday the team also had recommended the immediate dumping of water from the mudflow into the sea after the containment pond collapsed, only the latest in a series of pond failures. He said a final decision on the matter would be made during Monday's meeting.

Among those attending the meeting in Surabaya were State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar, East Java Governor Imam Utomo, Sidoarjo Regent Win Hendrarso and representatives from Lapindo Brantas Inc., the gas company at the center of the disaster.

However, the deputy director of the East Java chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, Catur Nusantara, said the group would file a lawsuit if the dumping of untreated water in Porong River was not halted immediately, despite support from residents for the work.

"We'll file a lawsuit against Lapindo, BP Migas and the East Java and Sidoarjo administrations. They've committed an environmental crime," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday. BP Migas is the oil and gas upstream regulatory agency.

Hundreds of villagers have been camped on the Surabaya-Gempol turnpike since Saturday, following the collapse of two containment ponds Friday. They are demanding authorities do something about the mud.

When the ponds broke the mud submerged their homes. They refused to seek shelter in Porong market, fearing that too would be submerged.

Although the mud and water has begun to subside in their houses, they say they will remain on the turnpike until the government guarantees the safety of them and their homes.

This situation prompted the Sidoarjo administration to approve the dumping of untreated water into Porong River, despite the absence of approval from State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar.

Team endorses piping mud water to sea

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2006

Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – Another mud retaining pond in Sidoarjo, East Java, collapsed Sunday, prompting a government team to recommend the immediate dumping of water from the mudflow into the sea.

The pond, located only 150 meters from Lapindo Brantas Inc.'s Banjar Panji-1 gas exploration well that has been gushing mud since May 29, collapsed around 11:30 a.m.

No casualties were reported in the incident, which followed the collapse Friday of two other retaining ponds. However, several pieces of equipment were lost in the mud.

"The mud was gushing fast and spewing smoke. There was also a sound like thunder coming from the mudflow source, prompting workers to flee in fear of an explosion of poisonous gas," a worker who was at the scene told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

The executive chairman of a newly established central government team in charge of dealing with the disaster, Basuki Hadimulyono, said the pond was unable to contain the growing volume of mud.

He was reluctant to speculate about whether the mud spilling from the collapsed pond was poisonous, but said the area within a two-kilometer radius of the pond would be closed off. However, he said the incident would not stop work to construct a relief well meant to stop the mudflow.

"Looking at this emergency situation, we recommend the water from the mudflow should be immediately piped to the sea. If we don't do it quickly, the situation could get worse. We have no intention to damage the marine ecosystem, but this is our only option," said Basuki, who also heads the Research and Development Agency at the Public Works Ministry.

The government response team, which was set up last Tuesday with Energy and Mining Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro at its head, also recommended the indefinite closure of the nearby Surabaya-Gempol turnpike.

State Minister for State Enterprises Sugiharto recently said the government might hold Lapindo financially responsible for losses incurred by state turnpike operator PT Jasa Marga as a result of the mudflow disaster. He added that the losses to Jasa Marga were not thought to exceed Rp 100 billion (US$11 million).

A final decision on dumping the mudflow water into the sea will be made during a meeting to be attended by relevant ministers and East Java Governor Imam Utomo in Surabaya. The meeting is scheduled for late Monday.

The coordinator of a team from the Bandung Institute of Technology helping officials in the disaster, Kukuh Hadianto, said the government needed a quick solution because the volume of mud continued rising, putting all of the retaining ponds at risk of collapse.

More than five million cubic meters of mud have spewed from the ground around Sidoarjo, covering at least 278 hectares of rice fields as well as 1,800 houses in five villages.

Meanwhile, work continues to pump untreated mudflow water into Porong River. This work was approved by the Sidoarjo administration and legislative council, despite earlier statements by State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar that the water would have to be treated before being dumped into the river.

Lampung gold mining protested

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2006

Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandarlampung – Environmental activists staged a protest Saturday against gold mining operations in Tanggamus regency, asserting that the illegal mining had damaged the protected Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park.

Lampung Forest Watch director Joko Santoso alleged that the gold mining, conducted by PT Natarang Mining, was located at the border of the park and one of the sections was inside the park.

The mining, he said, might worsen illegal logging as well as threaten the habitat of wildlife in the park.

"The exploited areas include a wild elephant route. Their habitat is under constant threat of rapid deforestation. If the gold mining continues, the elephants will damage more plantations," Joko said on Saturday.

The park's head, Tamen Sitorus, said the company did not have a permit from the Forestry Ministry to conduct mining in the area.

The company received a permit from the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry last year to conduct the early phase of its mining operation, but it did not have permit to conduct activities or clear land in the national park from the Forestry Ministry or the local administration.

He said the company's agreement with the Indonesian government spanned 30 years, from 2004-2034, covering 12,790 hectares with 12 exploration points. One of the points is inside the park, Tamen said. "The decree from the energy and mineral resources minister was issued without the knowledge of the local administration," he said.

Head of Lampung Forestry Office, Arinal Junaidi, said the company first started exploration in 1986 but then stopped in 1997 during the reform area. It resumed activity in 2004 and now its area of operation covers around 900 hectares of land in the national park. "Probably, the exploration permit was given for 40 hectares of land in protected forest, not within Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park," Arinal said.

He said that the fact that the company did not have a permit from the Forestry Ministry meant it had to stop exploration. "They're not only conducting a survey and exploration but they have built a helipad, meaning it has entered the exploitation phase and that is prohibited," Arinal said.

Meanwhile, company subcontractor Dodi Mahyudi said it would take another two months before the company would be ready to begin mining.

Lampung Governor Sjachroedin Z.P. said that the administration had instructed the related local government offices to stop the mining activities if the company had violated regulations.

The company's chief engineer, Muhammad Amin, said it had received a permit from energy and mineral resources minister, which would allow the company to mine in the area from Sept. 1, 2004 to Aug. 31, 2034. He said the company was just in the construction phase, although it had received a permit to start production in 2004.

Dump mud water in the river: Regent

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2006

Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – Hundreds of people recently made homeless by hot mudflows camped on Sidoarjo's main turnpike Saturday as the regency gave the go-ahead for the disaster relief team to dump untreated water from the disaster into the Porong River.

The administration made the controversial decision after it received approval from regional councillors and residents from the affected Besuki village late Friday.

State Minister of Environment Rachmat Witoelar earlier forbid the company at the center of the disaster, Lapindo Brantas Inc., from dumping untreated effluent into the waterway because it would only spread the disaster.

Sidoarjo Regent Win Hendrarso said the emergency decision to dump the water was made after two more containment ponds burst Friday, flooding three more villages and raising the number of people displaced by the disaster to more than 10,000.

Letting water out of the containment ponds would ensure that more residential areas were not affected, Win said.

"I'll inform the state minister for the environment (Rachmat Witoelar) of the decision. Even if the minister still disagrees, or environment activists file a lawsuit, I'll still dump the water from the mudflows into the river. All the residents support the decision," he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Before Win's announcement workers for Lapindo, which is owned by the family of the Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, had already begun piping untreated water into the river.

Company general manager Imam Agustino and vice president Yuniwati Teryana earlier said a disaster relief team at the site had made a unilateral decision to dump the waste without informing the company. That team included Lapindo employees.

The oil and gas company says the untreated water will not harm the environment, after the water tested neutral at Surabaya 10 November Technology Institute. An earlier study of the mud published in a government magazine however said the watery waste contained a number of harmful chemicals.

The director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) East Java, Ridlo Saiful, condemned the move and threatened to sue the regency and the company. The untreated water contained dangerous substances and had already killed many fish in the river and community ponds, he said.

While visiting the mudflow site Thursday, House of Representatives legislator Khofifah Indar Parawangsa said the government and Lapindo should guarantee that the untreated water was environmentally safe.

"They shouldn't dump the water into the river just to satisfy political interests," Khofifah said. "The (handling of the) mudflow case is hard to separate from the interests of Aburizal Bakrie and several political parties," she told the Post.

Lapindo has been accused of gross negligence leading to the disaster and its management have been the subject of a criminal investigation. However, the government has chosen to work with Lapindo to handle the disaster and has not yet prosecuted it under the country's environmental laws.

Khofifah said the House planned to summon representatives from the national disaster team for questioning.

Meanwhile, hundreds of homeless residents from the Mindi, Pejarakan and Besuki villages continued to camp out in tents and makeshift shelters on the Suraybaya-Gempol turnpike Saturday, blocking the traffic.

The villagers have refused to join other displaced people in the Porong market, which will emptied before Ramadhan starts at the end of the month.

A villager said most were in favor of dumping the waste into the river if it would save their homes. "Pak Regent, don't listen to activists or the media, which are against the move. Just save us," he said.

Health & education

Indonesia confirms 50th bird flu death

Agence France Presse - September 22, 2006

Jakarta – An 11-year-old boy who died this week has been confirmed as Indonesia's 50th human bird flu fatality.

The boy died on on Monday and test results from two laboratories confirmed he was infected with the H5N1 virus, Nadirin – a doctor at the national bird flu information centre – told AFP.

Tests from two laboratories are required for the World Health Organisation to count the fatality in its toll.

Nadirin said that the latest death brought the number of confirmed deaths to 50, the highest reported anywhere in the world.

The boy, identified only by the initial A., came from Karanggentong in densely-populated East Java and had come into contact with sick poultry, the usual method of transmission of the virus, the doctor said Friday. He had developed a fever, cough and breathing difficulties two days before he died, the doctor added.

Indonesia's death toll from bird flu has been steadily rising as the virus has marched across the archipelago nation, spreading to 29 of its 33 provinces. While the virus does not spread easily among people, the chance of a mutation that would allow it to do so is heightened as more humans catch it from infected birds. Scientists fear that if this occurs, a global flu pandemic with a massive death toll could result.

Praise for Indonesia in fight against child mortality

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2006

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Indonesia has significantly reduced its child mortality rate over the past two decades and is on the right track to meet its millennium goals, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) says.

Unicef Jakarta spokeswoman Kendartanti Subroto said the country should be able to reduce the 1990 level of child mortality by two-thirds in 2015, meeting its goals.

"Indonesia is one of success stories in reducing the mortality rate among children under 5 years because it has been able to push down its mortality rate from 97 (per 1,000 children) in 1989 to 46 in 2003. This is a significant reduction," she told The Jakarta Post.

Kendartanti said the country had also been able to decrease its infant mortality rate – children under 1 year old – from 68 in 1989 to 35 in 2003. According to Unicef, around 29,000 children under the age of five die every day in the world, and most of these deaths are preventable. Pneumonia annually kills 2 million children under five, more than HIV-AIDS, malaria, and measles combined, according to a Unicef-WHO report launched Monday.

The group recently carried out a focused assessment of key maternal, neonatal and child survival indicators across 60 countries with high child mortality.

These countries account for 94 percent of all under-5 deaths worldwide. The majority have made little or no progress on child mortality, while 14 countries saw child mortality rates increase between 1990 and 2004. Of the 20 countries with the highest under-5 mortality levels, more than half are affected by HIV/AIDS and are often scenes of armed conflict.

Meanwhile, Unicef says Indonesia is one of seven "success stories" of countries set to reach their 2015 goals, along with Bangladesh, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Nepal and the Philippines.

"Dramatic gains in child survival within some countries point the way toward successful strategies that can work on a broader scale," executive director Ann M. Veneman said in a statement.

Such strategies include integrated, community-based approaches that address maternal and child health, nutrition, AIDS prevention, water and sanitation.

The body also praised Indonesia for its progress in other UN goals like poverty reduction, improving education and literacy and reducing child malnutrition, along with increasing access to maternal health care and safe drinking water.

The organization together with the Norwegian government and the Lancet, a media organization focusing on health is holding a symposium on child survival in New York.

Unicef said the symposium will call for stronger health services in countries with high child mortality, better access to medical supplies, low-cost health measures to prevent deaths, and increased government and donor support for child survival.

Aid & development

Microcredit scheme badly managed, study reveals

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2006

Anissa S. Febrina, Jakarta – As soon as meatball vendor Ali Muthahirin heard from a neighbor that his subdistrict office in Pondok Labu, South Jakarta, was offering an attractive micro- credit scheme, he quickly followed it up.

"I filled the form and handed in the copies of the documents as required. But, as of today I have still not received the money," he said. Ali says he ended up borrowing from a loan shark to buy new equipment for his business. Meanwhile, he says a neighbor has already received the credit, which he "used to throw a wedding reception".

A recently published study gives credence to Ali's claims. It says the city's effort to support micro-businesses in Jakarta's subdistricts has been hampered by lack of monitoring and mismanagement, which means the credit is often disbursed without transparency, to the wrong people for the wrong reasons and then not paid back as it is supposed to under the "rolling fund" mechanism.

The informal sector, which the micro-credit schemes are aimed at, makes up an estimated 60 percent of the city's economy.

Presented Tuesday at the University of Indonesia, the study by the institution's UKM Center found instances of abuse in 20 percent of the loans.

UKM stands for Usaha Kredit Menengah or credit scheme for medium enterpreneur. Under the scheme, micro-businesses that qualify are entitled to credit worth up to Rp 3 million each.

"Some 16 percent of people receiving the credit did not have an actual business," center director Nining I. Soesilo said. "Subdistrict council members lack the financial management skills to keep the fund rolling and instead just hand out the loans (as cash benefits) to those close to them."

The Jakarta administration has since 2001 been disbursing funds for micro-business loans to subdistrict offices across the city through its Subdistrict Residents Empowerment Scheme (PPMK). The total amount disbursed during the past five years has reached Rp 676.15 billion (about US$7 million), of which Rp 267 billion was scheduled for 2006. Some 60 percent of the fund is earmarked for the empowerment of small entrepreneurs through micro-credit schemes.

"There are problems occurring involving the selected members of subdistrict councils, who are supposed to be responsible for disbursing and managing the fund," Nining said. Council members were chosen to disburse the fund because of their status in the community, not because of their financial management skills, he said.

Every subdistrict receives an annual average of Rp 1.7 billion, of which 40 percent should be used for infrastructure development and community training and the rest for micro-credit schemes.

While several subdistricts have announced the existence of such schemes, others have not done so, meaning the owners of many micro-businesses in the city do not know of the scheme's existence.

"We try to do our best to make sure the fund is managed well, and that those who receive it are the people who need it the most," Pondok Labu subdistrict council member Buaran said.

However, the study found many subdistrict offices often disbursed the money to residents to pay school enrollment fees or for other pending needs. Responding to the study, Buaran said, "sometimes, in case of emergencies, we have to be wise".

Analysts earlier warned that giving the fund directly to subdistrict council members without intensive monitoring and a transparent evaluation system would only encourage corruption.

City monitoring agency head Firman Hutajulu reported the office found 170 cases where Rp 8 billion of the money had been abused in 57 subdistricts between 2002 and 2004.

UKM suggested the administration carry out a more indepth survey instead of financial audits. "We also found that residents' participation in applying for the credit remains low. That needs improving if the administration is to see real results," Nining said.

World Bank, IMF asked to review loans

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2006

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The World Bank and IMF should review their financial aid to Indonesia to show a serious commitment to fighting corruption and poverty; otherwise they must stop making new loans to the country, say anti-globalization activists.

The International NGO on Indonesian Development (INFID) said a review was badly needed because the majority of the foreign loan money was embezzled or used to finance projects that infringed on human rights.

"If the World Bank and IMF are committed to the proposed internal reform, they have to review all the credit given to Indonesia. They know their loans have been partly misappropriated. They should come up with new mechanisms to ensure the money reaches the people," INFID executive director Donatus K. Marut told a media conference here Wednesday.

He urged the United States to use its veto power to block fresh credit to Indonesia and promote transparent investigations into irregularities in the use of World Bank and International Monetary Fund money.

The United States has 15 percent of the votes in the IMF, allowing it to veto any decision, while 45 sub-Saharan countries have only two members on the Fund's board and 2.1 percent of the votes.

"To help Indonesia focus on poverty alleviation, the United States should take the initiative to persuade other stakeholders in the two institutions to write off Indonesia's foreign loans, which have reached US$135 billion," Marut said.

He said the two international institutions' commitment to carrying out internal reforms was an "illusion" because changes to their decision-making processes had failed to produce any significant progress.

In his opening address to the World Bank-IMF meetings in Singapore, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz said his institution was committed to creating good governance and fighting corruption in disbursing loans to recipients, so as to help alleviate poverty.

Kunibert Raffer, an INFID board member and a professor at Vienna University, said Indonesia should have used the meetings to ask for a cut-off of its loans. He said Indonesia had once been cut off by the WB and IMF, which later resumed disbursing new loans to the country.

INFID also lashed out at Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati's address to the World Bank board, saying her speech did not touch on the main problem.

In her speech Tuesday, the minister criticized the World Bank for lacking transparency in its operations and called on it to be a "partner, not a preacher" in eradicating corruption in Indonesia and other developing countries.

Marut said Sri Mulyani's address expressed her personal point of view as an economist, and not Indonesia's stance on its troubled loans from the World Bank and IMF.

"The minister should have spoken not only about the 'preaching' but mainly about the troubling debts that have caused widespread poverty in Indonesia. On behalf of the government, she should have asked the two international institutions to write off their loans, or a part of them, as they did with Algeria last year," he said.

Activists condemn IMF-World Bank policies

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2006

Fadli, Batam – Activists have criticized the lack of transparency in World Bank and IMF policy-making and accused the Singaporean government of violating human rights by preventing activists from attending the meetings of the two financial bodies in the city-state.

The joint statement was made Monday at a pressconference in Batam, Riau Islands, the day after the activists ended their alternative IMF-WB meetings.

Police had earlier prohibited the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) from holding a press conference Monday.

INFID's executive director Donatus K. Marut said they had been told it was too late to hold a press conference because the event had already finished.

"But I told them it was impossible to hold a press conference Sunday night, right after the forum had ended," he said, adding that police finally agreed after being told that many of the participants had returned home.

In their joint statement, the activists demanded the financial bodies shift to 100 percent grants rather than multilateral loans and called for an open and transparent audit of their lending and policies.

They urged the two institutions not to force policies that undermined the economic supremacy of a country, which would "worsen the crises in the education and health sectors".

They also demanded an end to the privatization of public services and to the bodies' involvement in projects that harm the environment.

The activists are considering taking legal action against the Singapore government. Donatus said they were gathering evidence to take the case to the International Court of Justice.

Shalmali Guttal from non-governmental organization Focus on the Global South India, said they would not stay quiet over the Singapore government's treatment of fellow activists.

In the past 11 days, Singapore deported 12 activists to their home countries. Eleven of them did not have official accreditation to attend the IMF-WB meetings, while one had his accreditation withdrawn after his arrival at Singapore's Changi Airport en route to Batam, a 40-minute ferry ride from Singapore, activists at the Batam forum said.

The organizers of the forum said Sunday that another 27 activists who lacked accreditation had been warned they might be questioned or turned away on arrival at the airport. Nine others were questioned at Changi before being released in Singapore.

On Monday, the Singapore government deported two Indonesian activists who were planning to hold a press conference in the city-state to criticize IMF-WB agricultural policy.

Two members of the Indonesian Farmers Federation (FSPI) – Irma Yanni and Achmad Yakub, both of whom lacked meetings accreditation – were detained on arrival at Changi on Sunday and held for about 12 hours.

Their luggage was searched, they were questioned and their photographs and fingerprints taken before being put on a flight back to Jakarta early Monday, Irma told Reuters. "I'm very angry about this, I'm not a criminal," Yanni said. Singapore police declined to comment.

In Batam, Peter Hardstaff, head of policy at the World Development Movement (WDM), regretted British finance minister Gordon Brown's praise of the Singapore government's solid preparations for the IMF-WB meetings.

"At a time when 2,000 activists were barred from entering Singapore to attend the IMF-WB annual meetings, Britain's finance minister praises Singapore. It's very ironic," Hardstaff said.

NGOs urge nations to keep close watch on World Bank and IMF

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2006

Andi Haswidi, Batam – Some 500 activists gathering in Batam grouped under the International Peoples Forum called Monday on all nations to hold international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the IMF and World Back fully accountable for the social impact they have on developing countries.

"We call on the governments, members of the World Bank and the IMF Board of Directors, to keep these institutions fully accountable for their impact on human rights, equity, and the sustainability of development," Ravindranath of the Jubilee South said representing the forum.

"We find the World Bank and IMF responsible for policies and actions that lead to the intensification of poverty and deprivation, the undermining of national sovereignty and democratic governance, and the subversion of the right to development," he added.

The forum contended that IMF and World Bank policy advice and loans have constricted the ability of developing countries to craft their own development paths and that trade liberalization was at times oversold as an antipoverty strategy which often resulted in unintended fiscal consequences and social costs.

"We stress the urgent need for 100 percent cancellation of multilateral debt, transparent and participatory external audits of IFIs lending and policies, prevention of the imposition of policy conditions that undermine economic sovereignty and exacerbate crisis in health and education, discontinuing the privatization of public services and ending IFI involvement in environmentally destructive projects," Ravindranath said.

The world's major financial leaders have long implicitly acknowledged the shortcomings of the two institutions. One example was the statement of Robert Rubin when he tenured as the US Secretary of Treasury back in the late nineties, saying that governments had to modernize the architecture of international finance. The current internal reform agenda rolled by the IMF clearly shows how the institution is trying to cope with a legitimacy crisis.

Yet, many activists in the forum including key figures such as Walden Bello, a professor and an author on political economics, see the reform merely as an agenda to "discipline" emerging economies in Asia, especially China, with whom many developed countries have suffered a trade deficit.

The forum successfully demonstrated to the world how the diverse civil society organizations were able to voice their in-depth criticism in a peaceful and civilized manner. In contrast to the peaceful event, while hosting the IMF-WB meet, the Singaporean government has demonstrated security measures that have been deemed as a violation of human rights.

Reports and testimonies received by the forum indicate that at least 54 individuals were banned from entering Singapore or merely transiting before going to Batam for the forum. Not all of them were activists, as some were merely guest speakers scheduled to present materials for the many sessions in the forum.

Testimonies revealed that these people were detained at the Changi Airport – some were even subjected to custodial interrogation for 38 hours and harsh treatment.

As a response, the forum plans to take legal action against the alleged unlawful treatment and has proposed a plan to launch a massive propaganda program promoting a global economic boycott of the city-state. The forum has yet to decide on the form of the boycott or legal action.

Islam/religion

Jakarta court throws out case over prophet cartoons

Reuters - September 20, 2006

Jakarta – An Indonesian court dismissed on Wednesday a blasphemy case against an editor who published controversial cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad last year, saying the prosecution used a wrong legal article.

Prosecutors indicted Teguh Santosa, chief editor of the online version of the mass-market Rakyat Merdeka newspaper, in late August for insulting Islam as a religion through those publications. However, the South Jakarta court in the trial's fourth session decided the case should not move ahead into cross-examination of witnesses.

"The court accepts the objections from the defendant on the article that was used by the prosecutor because it did not match the actions made by the defendant," said presiding judge Wahyono. "What the defendant did was not based on disrespect. The pictures only appeared as background to the news," he said.

Under Indonesian law, the court can throw out a case before it goes to any substantive argumentation if it considers the indictment was falsely made. The prosecution can appeal to a higher court if this rare outcome occurs. In this case, the prosecutor said he needed to think it over.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, is officially secular, but has laws banning religious insults.

The caricatures first appeared last September in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten. Rakyat Merdeka published them on its Web site the next month without sparking much protest.

However, eventually the cartoons triggered violent protests by Muslims worldwide, including in Jakarta.

More than 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam. Most Indonesian Muslims are moderate, but militancy and public concern over Islamic issues have grown in recent years.

Naked women seen as worse than bombs

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2006

Makassar – Militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir sees erotic shows on TV as "more dangerous than the Bali bombs".

Ba'asyir, who was released from jail on June 14 after serving 26 months for his involvement in the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people, said pornography was more damaging because it destroyed people's morality.

"So if you ask me which one is more dangerous, nude women or the Bali bombs, then my answer would be the women showing off their skin," he said as quoted by Antara.

Ba'asyir, who chairs the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI), was in Makassar to attend the 6th anniversary of the Committee for the Preparation of Sharia Enforcement. Both organizations seek to make Indonesia an Islamic state.

He called on TV stations across Indonesia to replace shows that have erotic content with programs Allah would approve of, such as Koran discussions, especially during the upcoming fasting month. Ba'asyir also appealed to local administrations in South Sulawesi to adopt sharia law.

South Sulawesi is known as a hotbed of religious militancy. Several regencies and cities there have adopted sharia-inspired ordinances, which require such things as Islamic dresses for female civil servants or Arabic literacy.

Indonesia militant cleric targets steamy TV shows

Reuters - September 20, 2006

Jakarta – Indonesian TV shows that feature scantily dressed women are more dangerous than bombs, a militant Muslim cleric who served a jail term for links to the Bali bombings was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

Abu Bakar Bashir said local television stations should offer more religious programs instead of showing half-naked women. "If you ask which are more dangerous, half-naked women or the Bali bombs? The answer is of course women who bare their bodies," Bashir was quoted as saying by Antara news agency. He said such shows could shake the faith of men and invite God's curse.

Television programs in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, are increasingly liberal. Private channels offer late night comedy shows featuring scantily-dressed women.

Bashir, 67, left a Jakarta jail on June 14 after serving time for being part of a conspiracy behind the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.

Indonesian and Western officials had described Bashir as the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah. Jemaah Islamiah is an armed movement backing the creation of an Islamic superstate linking historically Muslim Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Philippines and southern Thailand.

In the past, it cooperated closely with al Qaeda's global campaign against Western targets, but in recent years many in Jemaah Islamiah have focused more on the regional struggle.

Bashir has consistently denied any connection to the Bali bombing or other attacks blamed on Jemaah Islamiah, which he has said does not exist.

Muslim leaders bemoan Pope's remark

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2006

Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – Pope Benedict XVI apologized Saturday to Muslims who were offended by a speech he gave in Germany, saying his comments were misinterpreted and stressing his utmost respect for the Islamic faith.

Amid widespread outrage across the Muslim world over remarks that were taken as specifically linking Islam and violence, the pope said his speech had been intended as a rejection of religiously motivated violence from any side.

"The Holy Father thus sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful, and should have been interpreted in a manner that in no way corresponds to his intentions," AFP quoted Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as saying in a statement.

"In reiterating his respect and esteem for those who profess Islam, he hopes they will be helped to understand the correct meaning of his words... quickly surmounting this present uneasy moment," Bertone said.

The statement came amid calls from Muslim leaders around the world for the pope to apologize for his remarks last week at Regensburg University, which they criticized for painting Islam in a bad light, particularly with reference to jihad or "holy war".

Muslim leaders in Indonesia bemoaned the pope's comments, saying he should have been more sensitive when discussing the issue. "Next time the pope should be more thoughtful when making statements," Muslim scholar Azyumardi Azra told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

When visiting the University of Regensburg in which he was once a professor and vice rector, the pope, opening a speech on the relation between faith and reason, quoted a 15-century Byzantine emperor in a discussion with an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam.

The emperor, according to the pope, said that everything Muhammad brought was "evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The pope did not explicitly state his opinion on the emperor's statement he quoted, but alluded in the lecture that Islamic theology defied reason or "logos".

Azyumardi said Benedict's statement reflected the rocky Muslim- Christian relations in the past. However, this conflict should not renewed, he said, considering the current fragile relations between the Islamic world and the West after George W. Bush declared his war on terror.

Former Muhamadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif said Muslims should be cool-headed and examine what the pope said in its entire context. "Whatever the circumstances, he as a pope should not have said things like that," he told AFP.

Al Maschan Musa, who heads the main chapter of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, called the Pope's statement "regrettable" but declined to comment further, saying that he wanted to first study the entire statement.

Catholic priest Benny Susetyo believed that many Muslims had misunderstood the pope's remarks. He doubted that those making angry comments had read the entire speech.

"This is reminiscent of the public reactions to some of Gus Dur's statements that they misunderstood," he said referring to the respected but controversial Muslim cleric and former president Abdurrahman Wahid.

Benny blamed the media for failing to give the complete context of the pope's remarks, which were the root of the misunderstanding. He suggested that people visit www.zenit.org to download a full copy of text of the papal address at the university. "It would be better for us to read the complete text first," he said.

Armed forces/defense

SBY blasted for slow pace of military reforms

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2006

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is being accused of putting off long-awaited reforms of the powerful Indonesian Military (TNI).

The President still depends too much on the military for his political survival and possible reelection, said Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial).

In spite of Yudhoyono's rhetoric that the army must stay out of politics, the organization claimed, there was little proof that his words have been translated into actions.

"The most telling evidence is that on the same day the President spoke about the urgency of continuing military reform, one of his ministers balked at a proposal from the House of Representatives to try soldiers in civilian courts," Imparsial activist Al A'raf told a news conference here Friday.

He was referring to a speech made by Yudhoyono before a TNI leadership meeting Wednesday, in which he called on soldiers to stay away from political power struggles, respect law and human rights and carry on with internal reforms.

Earlier the same day during a meeting with the House of Representatives special committee on the amendment of the military tribunal law, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono dismissed the committee's proposal that soldiers be tried in civilian courts for non-military crimes. Juwono argued that such trials could compromise the country's defense system.

Al A'raf said there was a lot of work still to be done to revamp the military, despite Yudhoyono's pledge to pursue comprehensive reform. He pointed to what he called the slow handover of businesses run by the military as another indication that Yudhoyono was reluctant to bring change to the TNI.

"The sluggishness and secretive nature of the handover clearly shows a lack of seriousness on the part of the government in taking over military-run businesses," he said.

The organization said another cause for concern was Yudhoyono's silence about TNI leaders' decision to allow active TNI personnel to vote in local elections.

It also criticized the slow pace of the phasing-out of the territorial command and the integration of the TNI into the Defense Ministry, and the failure to teach democracy and human rights to soldiers.

Imparsial suggested that as long as the military had not taken the proper steps toward change, it should not be given the right to vote in elections. Allowing soldiers to exercise their voting rights in the current situation could lead to manipulations and abuses, it added.

Fellow activist Poengky Indarti said the President could be going easy on the TNI with an eye to the 2009 election. "The military is still too powerful an institution and the President could hope to use it to tilt the political balance," she said.

Government comes under fire for 'keeping TNI above the law'

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2006

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – A political analyst has accused the government of ensuring impunity for the military by refusing to let soldiers stand trial in a public court.

Ikrar Nusa Bakti of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences said Thursday the military as an institution had "too many skeletons in its closet" and would not risk them being brought into the open in public trials.

"If such a mechanism was agreed upon, then the possibility of having generals with poor human rights records stand trial would be greater. The military doesn't want this to happen," Ikrar told The Jakarta Post.

He said it was another setback in the effort to reform the military, long considered an omnipotent group answerable to no one in Indonesian society. "This once again proves that the military only agrees upon reform in which they decide the terms for doing it," he said.

In a meeting Wednesday with the House special committee on the amendment of a 1997 law on military tribunals, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono rejected the proposal to have the military stand trial for misdemeanors in civilian court.

He said soldiers were an indispensable part of the country's defense system, which would be disrupted if they were tried in public courts.

Juwono also argued the legal infrastructure of civilian courts was not ready to try military personnel. He said public court judges did not receive training about military affairs, and thus their verdicts could compromise military interests and the implementation of the country's defense system.

Ikrar dismissed Juwono's reasoning. "What does a civilian court have to prepare for if it only hears cases of petty crimes committed by soldiers? What the judges need to do is look into past cases and apply the solution to the trial at hand."

University of Indonesia military analyst Andi Wijayanto said military personnel were not psychologically prepared to be subjected to rulings of a civilian court. "It is the character of every military institution in the world that they feel superior to civilians," he told the Post.

But he was optimistic there would be fair trials for military personnel accused of misdemeanors in the future. "What is needed is a codified military tribunal law to ensure a fair trial for soldiers. As long as this prerequisite is absent, the military will always refuse to be tried by civilians."

He believed the House should drop the amendment to the military tribunal law, and focus instead on devising comprehensive Military Court Procedures. "What matters isn't whether we have soldiers stand trial in a military court or civilian court, but having a comprehensive law that sanctions both infractions of military codes and ordinary crimes."

Indonesian military plotting attack

Post Courier - September 22-24, 2006

Indonesian army elements are reportedly behind a plan to attack a PNG office in retaliation for the killing of an Indonesian fisherman.

Various intelligence sources, both from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, yesterday confirmed they had heard of the threats and were treating them seriously. Both officials also said reports reaching them stated the fisherman killed was a member of the special armed forces Koppassus. Officials say he was given a military funeral and buried at a military cemetery under armed security.

PNG Consul General in Jayapura Jeffrey Toloube said yesterday: "I have discontinued my regular training sessions because of the threats and our staff have cut down on outings because of these threats." Mr Toloube said they had not received any direct threats, nor have they received any petitions as reported earlier but they had been informed of a protest march.

Last Tuesday, a lawyer (Mayoni Sinega) representing the villagers met with him over the fisherman issue but was turned back because the PNG office had asked for it to be put in black and white. He had with him a report asking for clarification and restitution (way of compensation). The report, written in Indonesian, is now being translated for the PNG Government. The PNG mission is in close consultation with the Indonesian Foreign Ministry on the security threat. Necessary security precautions have been undertaken.

The sources also added that the fisherman was not from South Sulawesi as reported but from Java. They said the fisherman was given a military funeral and buried in a military cemetery that is securely cordoned, a report backed by PNG government officials returning recently from Indonesia. The officials said they could not take pictures to use as evidence because the place was heavily guarded by armed securities. The Indonesian Embassy in Port Moresby yesterday denied the reports stressing they had acknowledged official PNG reports that the man was a fisherman.

Civilian court no place for TNI: Government

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2006

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – The government balked Wednesday at a proposal to try military personnel in civilian court for misdemeanors, even though legislators argue it is a vital part of reforming the armed forces.

Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said soldiers constituted an indispensable part of the country's defense system and that efforts to subject them to civilian laws would compromise the integrity of that system.

"We fear that if soldiers are tried in civilian court, judges at the courts will not take into account the interests of the military and the deployment of the country's defense system, because the judges are not given training about military affairs," Juwono told a hearing with the House special committee to amend the military tribunal law.

After a Sept. 6 hearing, Juwono said it would take up to three years to prepare for civilian court trials of soldiers, but reiterated that Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel would not be above the law.

But he said Wednesday that soldiers should be exempted from the principle of equality before the law. "Soldiers should be treated differently from civilians, as they only subscribe to Military Court Procedures, the way civilians only subscribe to the Criminal Code Procedures."

To the chagrin of the special committee members, the government also rejected a three-year grace period proposed by the special committee to facilitate the handover of a military tribunal to a civilian court.

The government's refusal to put the military court under the civilian court system once again deadlocked the protracted discussion of the amendment of the 1997 law on military tribunal.

The amendment is in line with the 2000 decree issued by the People's Consultative Assembly, which separated the police and the military. Under the decree, soldiers must face trial in a military tribunal for violations of military regulations, and the civilian court for offenses under the Criminal Code.

Special committee chairman Andreas Parrera of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) reproved the government about no progress in the lengthy deliberations.

Permadi, also of the PDI-P faction, said the government lacked the political will to subject the military to civilian rule.

"The Defense Ministry is allowed to draw up a list of thousands of infractions by soldiers that could be subject to a military tribunal, but there are also hundreds of offenses that could be heard in the civilian court."

Military drawing up rules for soldiers to vote in elections

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2006

Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) Headquarters is currently drawing up internal regulations or guidelines that will assist soldiers in exercising their right to vote in future elections.

Chairman of a military team tasked with reviewing TNI's political rights, Maj. Gen. Syamsu Ma'arif, said he was working on details of the regulation that would soon be ready for implementation.

"We have completed our survey and we just need to formulate the details," Syamsu was quoted by Antara as saying here Sunday.

He declined to provide details of the planned regulation but said it would be based on a survey recently conducted among TNI soldiers and civilians to measure the military's preparedness in exercising their political rights.

Conducted in 26 provinces, the survey interviewed 200 people in each province, with an equal number of civilians and TNI soldiers as respondents.

Separately, TNI spokesman Col. Ahmad Yani Basuki said the planned regulation would ensure that the freedom to exercise political rights would in no way compromise the principle of neutrality adhered to by the military. The regulation would also help affirm the integrity of the TNI as a state institution, he said.

Yani also said the regulation would not specify when the right to vote would be implemented. "The TNI has no authority to decide whether the right to vote should be used in the 2009 or 2014 elections," he said.

The abolition of the TNI's dual function in 1999 as part of reform measures, cleared the way for TNI members to vote in future elections.

Debates, however, soon raged over when the soldiers would be ready to use their political right, as some feared they would not be able to use their votes freely.

Former TNI chief Gen. (ret) Endriartono Sutarto, who oversaw the phasing out of the TNI's social-political role, said soldiers would be ready to vote in the 2009 elections.

Indonesia's democracy will still be flawed without the participation of the TNI in the elections, he argued.

Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono, however, asked for a longer grace period, saying the public would only be ready to accept TNI's political participation in the 2014 elections.

Juwono said the military could be once again dragged into a political struggle if it jumped into politics too soon. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said that the TNI must respect democracy by upholding its professionalism.

Speaking during the swearing-in ceremony in February of TNI Commander Air Marshall Djoko Suyanto, Yudhoyono called on TNI leaders not to involve their institutions in politics.

Opinion & analysis

Miscarriage of justice

Jakarta Post Editorial - September 23, 2006

Thousands mourned, while hundreds of other ran amok in East Nusa Tenggara on Friday over the execution of the three men convicted of leading attacks on Muslims during the 2000 sectarian violence in the Central Sulawesi town of Poso. Meanwhile, many also felt relieved by their deaths in the belief that justice was finally being upheld.

Many more regretted the capital punishment given to Fabianus Tibo, Domingggus da Silva and Marianus Riwu, also known as the Poso three, and not because they were heroes or martyrs.

The three men had to die in the name of law, while so many questions concerning the circumstances of the bloodshed in Poso remain unanswered. The three have been laid to rest in their graves along with all the mysteries surrounding the massacre of nearly 200 Muslims during the prolonged sectarian conflict that hit the town a few years ago.

The executions will be remembered as part of the tragedies besetting the country's efforts to uphold justice for one reason: They took place while there was insufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the three uneducated men were the masterminds of the violence.

It was this dubiety that apparently prompted the Attorney General's Office to delay the executions twice, on March 31 and Aug. 12, apart from the arguments over whether the men had to die before a firing squad.

For sure the debate goes beyond the territory of human rights, in which the death sentence as a maximum form of punishment has been widely criticized. The controversy lies with whether justice was adequately served instead.

The lack of proof beyond reasonable doubt was the point made by a host of prominent figures who opposed to the execution, the first since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took office in October 2004. Under his predecessor Megawati Soekarnoputri, Indonesia executed three foreign nationals convicted of heroin smuggling within the last three months of her tenure.

Former president and Muslim figure Abdurrahman Wahid, dubbed a champion of democracy and tolerance, and others who stood against the executions warned the government of the miscarriage of justice in Tibo's case.

The case of Sengkon and Karta is another classic story of the miscarriage of justice in the country. The two modest people were sentenced to death in 1974 for premeditated murder. After 12 years in jail waiting for their executions, they found justice only after the real murderer confessed.

Only a few months ago, Bekasi resident Budi Harjono revealed a the nightmarish torture he suffered at the hands of police officers who forced him to admit to killing his own father in 2002. The police eventually arrested the real killer.

With corrupt practices apparently still common in the country's law enforcement and administration agencies, the miscarriage of justice is always a prime cause for concern.

The Poso three were just not as fortunate as Sengkon and Karta or Budi. The men testified that they were framed by 16 people, the names of whom have been passed on to the police for investigation. The Central Sulawesi Police has since launched an investigation into the "real" masterminds, but it has been fruitless so far. Until his replacement as the provincial police chief in mid-September, Brig. Gen. Oegroseno admitted to having found no clues that could lead to the whereabouts of the 16 men Tibo claimed orchestrated the bloodshed.

There was speculation that the execution of Tibo, Dominggus and Marianus came amid pressure from certain parties unhappy with the nationwide war on terror which happened to place Muslims under attack. If this is true, it will only mark a further setback in our law enforcement as political interests overrule legal considerations.

The controversial executions are yet further evidence of the country's formalistic law enforcement, in which a sense of justice is measured by procedure rather than substance. In the case of the Poso three, their executions were made possible as they had exhausted all legal measures available to escape capital punishment.

Sadly, it was the bureaucratic – many say corrupt – nature of the Indonesian legal system that has enabled a number of corruption convicts to sneak out of the country before the court verdicts leveled on them were executed.

On the heel of the Poso three's executions and other peculiarities in the country's law enforcement, it seems valid to question the government's commitment to serving justice.

After the tsunami, waves of corruption

Asia Times - September 20, 2006

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – The outpouring of foreign aid and donations to Indonesia in the wake of the December 2004 tsunami is being pilfered by corrupt government officials and their affiliated business interests.

That's the disturbing conclusion of a number of independent studies conducted by anti-graft watchdogs focused on the reconstruction efforts in the tsunami-hit province of Aceh, where an estimated 167,700 people were killed, 37,000 went missing and 500,000 were internally displaced by the killer waves.

Total damages were estimated by the government at more than US$4.5 billion. Amid all that loss and suffering, the list of documented corruption allegations is growing, and even officials attached to the government's Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency, known locally as the BRR, openly admit to corruption among their ranks.

Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), an independent non- governmental organization (NGO), recently released a report alleging irregularities, corruption and collusion in at least five major BRR-managed projects valued at a total of Rp23.8 billion ($2.6 million), including the publication of reports, the appointment of staff and the procurement of office equipment.

Aceh-based public prosecutors recently accused Achyarmansyah and Hendrawan Diandi, senior government officials overseeing tsunami-related reconstruction, of corruption for allegedly inflating the price of the agency's annual report, "Developing the Promised Land". And that's just what's transpiring in the office; the suspected scale of the on-the-ground corruption in Aceh's swampy, devastated coastal areas is estimated to be much worse.

Based on such concerns, some international organizations have scaled back their relief work in Aceh. UK-based NGOs Oxfam and Save the Children both suspended key projects in Aceh after being fleeced by building contractors who improperly used the money to build substandard structures. Oxfam had earlier committed to spend $97 million in the region but pulled back on those plans after discovering financial irregularities in its operations. An outside auditor recently recovered $20,000 of $22,000 paid for construction materials that had been booked but not delivered.

Akhiruddin Wahyuddin, coordinator of the Aceh-based Anti- Corruption Movement (Gerak), has publicly contended, though without citing full documentary evidence, that "30-40% of all the aid funds, Indonesian and international, have been tainted by graft". He even goes as far as to describe the salaries paid to BRR executives as "another form of legalized theft of public funds". According to Gerak, BRR chairman Kuntoro Mangkusubroto is budgeted substantially more in salary, Rp75 million per month, than even President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who makes a mere Rp62.7 million per year.

The 2004 tsunami destroyed an estimated 1.3 million homes and buildings, eight seaports, four gas depots, 85% of clean-water facilities, 92% of sanitation facilities, 120 kilometers of roads, 18 bridges and 20% of electrical distribution points in Aceh and adjoining areas. The total damage bill was estimated by the government at $4.5 billion, representing 2.2% of Indonesia's gross domestic product and 97% of Aceh province's annual economic production. Beyond the enormous loss of life, the waves also destroyed about 40,000 hectares of rice fields and 70% of the fishing industry, according to the United Nations.

In the wake of the disaster, more than $4.4 billion was speedily pledged by foreign governments and donors with few strings attached. To be sure, there were preliminary concerns that much of the money would end up in the wrong pockets. Even before the tsunami, civil-war-ravaged Aceh was rated as one of the most corrupt provinces in Indonesia. Abdullah Puteh, the former governor, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for so-called "self- enrichment" after he misused state funds in 2002 in the purchase of a Russian helicopter.

Post-tsunami hopes were that a strong media presence and Yudhoyono's widely perceived no-nonsense approach to governance would mitigate those risks. More than a year and a half later, however, the huge scope and scale of the reconstruction effort and the massive amounts of cash involved are reinforcing the province's old corrupt practices, corruption-watchdog and some multilateral-organization staffers say.

Indonesia has long been ranked by independent global corruption watchdogs such as Transparency International as one of the world's most corrupt countries. And the types of public works projects now under way in Aceh are historically the most prone to corruption and graft, in both the developed and developing world, the anti-corruption watchdog group contends. Faced with the challenge of coordinating and checking the largest ever disaster-relief effort, massive amounts of foreign aid have swamped the bureaucracy's absorptive capacity.

Good intentions

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Yudhoyono called on global consulting hot shots McKinsey & Co for advice on how to design and monitor the BRR in the spirit of maximum transparency and accountability. Moreover, Yudhoyono chose Stanford University- educated engineer and former energy minister Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, known for his incorruptibility in government and diplomatic circles, to lead the new agency.

Formally established in April 2005, the agency is now tasked with coordinating and managing both the state budget and overseas donations for reconstruction and oversees a total budget of Rp13 trillion. This includes some Rp2.4 trillion from the state budget for reconstruction projects, which, in turn, is funded by an interest moratorium on Indonesia's global debts agreed to by the Paris Club of developed creditor nations

The BRR has so far approved 181 different projects amounting to $410 million, including the construction and reconstruction of basic infrastructure, schools, hospitals and housing. The completion of about 120,000 makeshift houses to shelter some 500,000 internally displaced persons is expected by the end of 2007.

BRR spokesman Tuwanku Mirza Keumala told Asia Times Online that after initial logistical and bureaucratic hurdles, new houses are being built at a faster pace than at any time since the initial disaster. Some outside observers even suggest Aceh's health care and education are better now than before the tsunami.

The Multi Donor Fund, which includes the European Union and the World Bank, has in the past year completed the construction of 2,800 houses, 1,000km of roads and a number of new bridges while creating 24,500 desperately needed new jobs.

That record has made some foreign donors more forgiving than others. In July, top officials from the EU and the World Bank praised the Aceh reconstruction progress, deeming it better than recovery efforts in the United States after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other coastal areas.

Scott Guggenheim, the World Bank's Indonesia-based sector coordinator for social development, says it would be difficult to expect the BRR to top its present achievements given the logistical problems of the areas.

"So far, only 1% of the reconstruction fund is unaccounted far, but we learned that in Louisiana the amount of funds that was misused was $2 billion," he told a press conference in Aceh in July. "Everyone would be happier if they could have 120,000 houses in six months. In Nias, where cement has to be carried on the backs of motorcycles, it is ridiculous to hope for the building of 10,000 houses within a year."

Of a total $7.1 billion pledged by donor countries and agencies, only about $4.6 billion has so far been formally committed. But as allegations of systemic corruption gather pace, it's unclear whether future disbursements from foreign donors will or should be as forthcoming.

Blame game

Indonesian officials are surprisingly open about the corruption and graft allegations.

When asked about the ICW corruption claims, BRR spokesman Keumala told Asia Times Online that his agency openly acknowledges the group's findings and will use them to revisit the BRR's internal controls. He added that the BRR was open to a thorough independent investigation and said the agency had nothing to fear as it has worked faithfully to deliver on its mandate.

He said BRR head Mangkusubroto has been a stickler for bidding protocols on reconstruction projects, where his insistence that every contract be processed through transparent bidding and tendering systems has been criticized in some quarters for slowing down the pace of reconstruction. Asked about such criticisms, Keumala said the delays are due to the BRR's "commitment to achieving a high degree of effectiveness, transparency and quality".

At the same time, Teuku Kamaruzzaman, a former rebel leader and second in command at the BRR, has publicly said the reconstruction and rehabilitation agency directly appointed several "partner" companies for projects to speed up reconstruction and avoid technical and bureaucratic hurdles in an emergency.

There are growing indications that local Acehnese and ethnic- Javanese authorities from Jakarta in many cases don't see eye to eye on how the reconstruction efforts should best proceed. According to a top UN official, local non-governmental activists are treating reconstruction projects as battlegrounds where they compete for donor funding and, once it is secured, misuse it for their own personal benefit, leaving the dislocated locals to fend for themselves.

"It is common for me to see them benefit from disaster-recovery projects: another project, another new flashy car for each of them," said Puji Pujiono, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

A United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) official in Nias says his agency plans on building more than 150 new schools across the disaster-ravaged island. However, that process is being encumbered by local officials in the island's southern area of Teluk Dalam who consistently ask for more money than was originally agreed, often for undisclosed reasons.

For example, the UN agency set up a water-treatment plant in one area agreed to with local officials, but was later charged by the same officials for the land. There is an inherent threat in such requests for more funds, the official suggests: in mid-2005, a non-food-item distribution center run by the International Committee of the Red Cross was burned down and its staff members evacuated by helicopter amid a conflict between local groups competing for aid resources.

Last December, local media reported that BRR head Mangkusubroto was preparing to expel a number of NGOs that had failed to fulfill their obligations and were hindering reconstruction efforts. Nearly 10 months later, many of the accused NGOs are still operating in disaster areas. Keumala says that's because, on reflection, the BRR chief felt that "it was better to give all involved in the recovery effort, in whatever capacity, more time to show their merits".

For Yudhoyono, retaining the goodwill of the international community is vital for the development of Aceh and to encourage badly needed new foreign investments for the rest of the country. Directly elected in a landslide victory in 2004, Yudhoyono has since made corruption-busting a cornerstone of his reform program, and Aceh is putting that policy to its biggest test.

Approaching the end of his second year in office, the former general turned political reformer has been nominated for – and tipped to win – this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to war-torn, disaster-stricken Aceh. But a successful reconstruction effort is pivotal to maintaining the peace that has held with the rebels whom Jakarta fought for more than 30 years.

The Acehnese have long complained that the central government does not equitably share the wealth generated from the province's bounty of natural resources. Despite a sixfold increase in Aceh- specific revenues since 1999 – mainly from tsunami aid, as well as extensive oil and gas sales – Aceh remains Indonesia's fourth-poorest province, according to official statistics.

Speeding up reconstruction and rebuilding the local economy are essential economic incentives to bring former fighters out of the jungles and back into mainstream society. However, the emerging allegations of official corruption will only reinforce local perceptions of central government abuses and threaten to sour the terms of the peace deal that has allowed a substantial amount of reconstruction to proceed.

[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.]

Need for speed in Indonesia

Asia Times - September 19, 2006

Michael Vatikiotis, Jakarta – Two years into his five-year term, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presents himself as a sincere, hard-working reformer, a long-distance runner pacing himself on a marathon run. But many Indonesians think the country needs a sprinter.

The Indonesian people are losing patience. For almost a decade they endured political paralysis and economic crisis. Tens of thousands of people died in religious and ethnic strife, many hundreds of thousands more lost their homes and livelihood; millions of children were deprived of an education. So today, more than eight years since the fall of the dictator Suharto, there is a palpable desire to see more progress.

Yudhoyono's principal achievement to date has been to preserve and consolidate the democratic transition achieved by his election in 2004. No one questions his legitimacy, and this stability has helped restore domestic social harmony and foreign investor confidence. Hundreds of local elections have been held peacefully up and down the vast archipelago, giving real meaning to local autonomy.

When Yudhoyono, a former army general, came to power in October 2004, he vowed to continue the peace process he started in 1999 aimed at settling the long-running conflict in Aceh province. Peace finally came to Aceh in August 2005, and the agreement, reached with rebel leaders after years of tough negotiation, is holding.

Yudhoyono's ability to win the support and confidence of the military has also helped fashion an effective counter-terrorism strategy. Disgruntled conservatives may snipe and conspire from the sidelines, but there is no longer widespread fear in society that people's rights will be abused by men in uniform. Critics mainly focus on the government's reluctance to punish those responsible for committing crimes before Indonesia's transition to democracy.

Creeping extremism

But while the president has worked assiduously to bring peace to Aceh, rein in the worst of military abuses and combat terror, he has paid less attention to other polarizing forces in Indonesian society, forces that threaten the foundations of Indonesia as a moderate Muslim nation.

On Yudhoyono's watch, the forces of Islamic extremism have made headway. The number of districts governed by conservative sharia law has more than doubled. This isn't just a concern for foreign investors and allies in the "war against terror". Many Indonesians are worried that parliament will pass a law criminalizing many aspects of entertainment that Indonesians consider a hallmark of their tolerant society.

The president has been slow to assure this substantial majority of Indonesian citizens of his commitment to pluralism. He has allowed militant groups to operate without outlawing them and stood by as minorities have been persecuted. As in neighboring Malaysia, the forces of Islamic extremism are slowly gaining ground.

Among Indonesians there are also mounting concerns about the economy. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth is falling short of the 6% target set by the government last year and since has been revised downward. A high-profile drive to attract investment in infrastructure has fallen flat, and business executives grumble that much of what the president is doing for reform is to polish his image. In fact, as far as the business community is concerned, much of the credit for economic management goes to Yudhoyono's feisty vice president, Jusuf Kalla.

Critics point to the president's slow decision-making. With almost 50 people dead from avian influenza, there is an urgent need for more commitment to a strategy to tackle the virus before it becomes a pandemic. Economists say he should order another increase in domestic fuel prices to reduce the fiscal burden of subsidies. Inflation in August was running at around 15%.

Yet understandable impatience must be weighed against the benefits of better-quality leadership. Yudhoyono's poor family background and his marriage into a family with a proud military heritage have forged a beneficial blend of empathy and idealism – both rare qualities in Indonesian elite circles.

Two years on and the rampant corruption and abuse of power associated with previous Indonesian leaders are scarcely evident. The president's identification with the common people is still strong, as demonstrated by his swift reaction to natural disasters such as the recent Central Java earthquake and a new commitment to spend US$1.5 billion on poverty alleviation next year.

Even so, many Indonesians worry about the rot that still afflicts the rest of the bureaucracy and urge Yudhoyono to make speedier decisions and show more muscle. Yudhoyono is said to be reluctant to stick his neck out too far in a political environment where, despite his popular mandate, he still feels insecure. Two years on and he still hasn't built a strong party platform in parliament and relies instead on a shaky alliance of smaller secular and Islamic parties.

The worry is that having survived longer than his two immediate predecessors, Yudhoyono may feel tempted to slow down even more. That would be a mistake. The Indonesian people have lost a lot of time already. With his popularity waning, now is the time to start sprinting.

[Michael Vatikiotis is senior visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.]