News & issues

Caught in isolation and controversy

BBC News - October 23, 2006

Millions of women in Indonesia are raising children on their own, some by choice and others by necessity. Now the country is coming under pressure to recognise their rights, the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Jakarta finds.

Telling her mother she was planning to become a single mother was the hardest part. In the corner of the hotel lounge, Oemi sits, leaking tears, as she remembers.

"I was so touched by her reaction," she says. "My mother is a really ordinary woman from an ordinary village; she's not sophisticated, or exposed to modern values, but when I told her about this, she promised to support me, even though it's a disgrace for the family. "And I'm so relieved, because I couldn't have gone any further with this plan without the support of my family."

Oemi is looking for a sperm donor. Having secured a good education, and a well-paid job in the capital, she is turning the rules of Indonesian society on their head.

And, she knows, her social status will not protect her from the penalties. "It will be really hard, the social punishment. Having a baby without the father is seen as really sinful; it's not acceptable," she said.

"I won't be able to live where my mother lives now, for example, where the neighbours all bond together and whisper about each other. I don't want to bring my baby into that."

Financial independence

But Oemi knows she is not alone. Over the past few years, there has been an increasingly open debate about the problems faced by single mothers in Indonesia – on television and in magazines, among law-makers, and even in the quiet corners of Indonesia's vast countryside.

The village of Sukatani clings precariously to the mountains that sweep through West Java, its low concrete houses jostle together, shading the walkways between them. Here, in Indonesia's rural heartland, traditional values are strongly rooted. But there is a new awareness growing in Sukatani.

At one end of the village, children's voices rise like smoke above a simple two-roomed house. Queuing to leave their shoes at the door are 20 women – their mothers – coming to take part in a very modern meeting: a support group for single mothers.

Inside, seated in a circle on roughly-dyed carpets, they listen to one young mother, Aiee, as she talks about her financial problems. Aiee is proud that she has been able to keep her daughter in elementary school.

But, like most of the other mothers here, the only work she can find is as a labourer in the strawberry and potato fields surrounding the village. It is hard work and pays less than a dollar a day – not enough to pay for both food and school expenses.

She is asking the group for help. Together, the group runs a saving and borrowing scheme. Aiee borrows a small amount of money to set up a small business selling food in the evenings. It is the difference between financial independence and humiliating poverty.

The group is one of hundreds run across the country by an organisation called Pekka, set up to protect the rights of female-headed households. As well as setting up micro-credit schemes and offering legal advice, they provide the chance for single mothers to meet and share their experiences. For some, that is the most valuable thing of all.

Limited rights

Most of Indonesia's six million single mothers live in rural areas like this. Divorced, widowed or unmarried, these are Indonesia's hidden families – excluded from village councils, shunned as immoral and seen as a threat by other women.

"I'm more confident now," Titin says after the meeting, "I'm not ashamed any more or shy. It's working well. We share whatever problems we have – with money or raising our children – and we tackle them together."

But as well as exclusion from their own society, single mothers also face discrimination from the country's authorities.

And in this, the experiences of women like Aiee and Titin, are not all that different from their better-educated, better-paid sisters like Oemi.

Oemi may have the money to pay for a private gynaecologist in Jakarta, but that does not mean she can have the treatment she wants. Even getting the information she needs can be difficult without being married. "I try to ask my gynaecologist about becoming pregnant," she says, "but a lot of the procedures require a marriage certificate, which I don't have. Sometimes they're even confused when you want to check your fertility."

A marriage certificate will get you a long way as a mother in Indonesia. Until recently, you could not obtain a birth certificate for your child without one. And the authorities here still do not recognise a woman as the head of the household.

As a single mother, that means problems accessing resources, or securing credit from a bank. "It's a problem," says Meutia Hatta, Indonesia's women's empowerment minister. "We have single mothers who want to continue as head of the household, and we have unmarried fathers who are not taking responsibility for their children. But changing the law is a long process."

Few sympathisers

The government is carrying out a long-term review of women's position in Indonesian law.

Over the past six years, there have been two key changes: mothers no longer require a marriage certificate to obtain a birth certificate for their child, and children born to non-Indonesian fathers have the right to Indonesian nationality.

But there is no word yet on changing the marriage law, which falls under the jurisdiction of the conservative religious affairs ministry. And the ministry of women's empowerment has no programmes aimed specifically at helping single mothers.

"We can only give some views about these issues to non- governmental organisations," says Meutia Hatta. "They're the ones who develop it further and try to bring new regulations."

Groups like Pekka want nothing less than equal rights for single mothers, and an end to discrimination. But even the most liberal young Jakartans may not be ready for that.

"My friends who earn big money, and have modern lifestyles aren't in favour of my decision," Oemi says. "They attack it, question it, discourage me. I've found a true friend in very few."

For all the talk shows, and the magazine articles, and the pressure on politicians, there are still few places Indonesia's single mothers can go to find peace.

Fire, disease, layoffs threaten transient poor

Jakarta Post - October 17, 2006

Anissa S. Febrina, Jakarta – It was a hot afternoon last Wednesday in North Jakarta's Kapuk Sawah, a day that would surely test those who were fasting. Just when it seemed things could not get any worse, they did.

Workers, students and street vendors living in the crowded kampong witnessed a terrible scene: their homes, burning.

Several families were able to rescue their belongings. They sat surrounded by their mattresses, TVs, DVDs and clothes. 35-year- old factory worker Darmiyono, however, had nothing left.

"I had no time to rescue anything. I was too late," the man said. In less than 20 minutes, his family of five suddenly had nothing: no shelter, and not a single possession but the clothes they were wearing. Suddenly, they were poor.

Not far from the area, in a kampong in Kapuk Muara, an 80-year- old widow talked about how her three children were forced to drop out of elementary school when her husband died of tuberculosis 20 years ago.

"We were hoping that our children could use their education to find a better life than the one we had. When they had to leave school because I had no money, I immediately thought they could not (escape poverty)," Lindahwati said.

Conventional wisdom would blame fate for Darmiyono and Lindahwati's poverty.

Studies and reports, on the other hand, cite more complex causes of transient poverty. Surging inflation tops the list, since it leaves those who were slightly above the poverty line suddenly unable to purchase basic necessities.

A March report from the Central Statistics Agency found that some 30.29 percent of the "almost poor" population, along with 11.82 percent of the "poverty-prone" and 2.29 percent of the "non- poverty prone" had joined the ranks of the poor this year. The rising prices of staple foods, transportation and housing were listed as the cause.

But in a city like Jakarta, where the poor live in crowded slums where houses are attached to each other and sanitation seems to be non-existent, fire and infectious diseases are more threatening than inflation. With the addition of layoffs, Jakarta's poor face a wide variety of hazards.

Fire-prone areas like North Jakarta's Penjaringan and Pademangan see their residents move up and down the poverty line on a regular basis.

In the first nine months of 2006, there were 351 fires, mostly in crowded kampongs, causing a total loss of Rp 52 billion (US$5.6 million). Last year there were 686, with a total loss of Rp 144.7 billion.

According to a 2003 study, Jakarta's slums sprawl over a total area of 1,663.71 hectares, with a population of 555,540.

To achieve this year's theme of "Working Together out of Poverty", as outlined by today's International Day for the Eradication of the Poverty, it would surely take more than just direct subsidies. There must also be steps to ensure that people do not fall into poverty by losing all their property to fire, or losing a breadwinner to an infectious disease.

West Papua

Papua yet to benefit from special autonomy, say analysts

Jakarta Post - October 19, 2006

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Four years on, the special autonomy that costs more than Rp 5 trillion (about US$555 million) annually, has brought about little progress in Indonesia's eastern-most territory, analysts say.

They assert that the special autonomy status granted in 2001 has failed as an instrument to accelerate development in the 420,540-square-kilometer territory which is three times the size of Java and has a population of only about 4.5 million.

Ferdinando Ibo Ikin, a member of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) from Papua, says that most of the Papuans still live below the poverty line.

"The fund should be audited. Jakarta and the provincial administration implementing the special autonomy should be held accountable," he said in a discussion here Tuesday.

This year, Papua received Rp 5.6 trillion, he said, but the only progress it has made is the local direct elections while the people have been largely deprived of public services, such as health and welfare, transportation and education.

Ferdinando warned that this condition could sow the seeds of hatred among the people against the government and encourage the support of anti-government movements.

"We should not blame Australia or other countries if they accept Papuan asylum seekers but we must introspect as to why they do not feel at home or why they sympathize with secessionists," he said.

The Indonesian government has been dealing with smoldering, low- intensity, disorganized armed separatist rebellions spearheaded by the Free Papua Organization (OPM) since the 1960s.

Ferdinando admitted he was ashamed by what he saw as Papuan politicians' inability to fight for Papuans' well-being, leaving them in backwardness and poverty. "I often feel as if I am crying out in the desert when speaking out about my home province," he said.

Agus Sumule, a political analyst from Cendrawasih University in the Papua capital of Jayapura, blamed the corrupt local elite for the failure of the special autonomy. The bigger chunk of the autonomy funds have been spent to finance the costly bureaucracy and embezzled by the corrupt local political elite, he said.

"The top-down autonomy system has made the two governors (of Papua and West Irian Jaya), provincial legislatures and the Papuan People's Council (MR) quite powerful and the distribution of the autonomy funds depend on them, making regents and mayors like beggars," he said.

"Regents and mayors propose big budgets to finance their development programs but governors will not grant them because the bigger chunk of the fund is used to finance their corrupt administration."

He called on the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to audit the government and legislatures at all levels to let the people know where the huge funds have been going to.

Director General of Regional Development Affairs at the Home Ministry, Syamsul Arief Rivai, acknowledged that the uneven distribution of population in the vast territory combined with the fact that the autonomy is focused on the provincial level have made the special autonomy ineffective.

"The two provincial governments and regency and municipal administrations have different visions and programs in carrying out development programs," he said.

Administration at all levels should have the same vision and programs to improve the province's human development index and they should identify common fundamental problems that have made the province lag behind other provinces.

To improve public services, he said, the provincial governments should give priority to the development of road networks connecting urban centers and rural areas.

"The development of roads, irrigation systems, school buildings and hospitals are vital in providing public services and improving the people's well-being," he said, adding that the development program should focus on the indigenous people living in remote areas.

Human rights/law

Indonesia: 'Yudhoyono faltering on human rights'

Interpress News Service - October 20, 2006

Fabio Scarpello, Jakarta – After two years at the helm, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has drawn praise for ending the 30-year war in Aceh. Yet, human rights activists do not share the same enthusiasm when it comes to reforming the powerful military and solving human rights cases.

In an IPS interview, Agung Yudhawiranata, programme coordinator for the Human Rights Campaign at the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM), labelled the former army general's first two years in office a failure. "We can really say that in two years he has achieved next to nothing in the context of human rights," he said.

Yudhoyono was sworn into office on Oct. 20, 2004 after being elected by an overwhelming majority in Indonesia's first ever presidential election – marking a major transition from the chaotic situation that followed the 1998 ouster of Suharto, a former army general whose 32 years in power were marked by both repression and high corruption.

Yudhoyono who, according to the latest poll by the Indonesian Survey Institute, is still supported by 67 percent of the population, was once dubbed "the thinking general" for his preference for studying rather than spending time in battlefields.

During his military career, he had several tours of duty in East Timor, and many educational spells in the United States, where he gained an MA in business management from Webster University in 1991. He retired from active service on Apr. 1, 2000 as a four star general.

His political career started when he was appointed mines and energy minister in the government of president Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000. He was soon promoted to the key position of minister for security and political affairs.

In 2001, when Megawati Sokarnoputri was elected president, Yudhoyono lost the election for vice-president, but was later appointed a minister. He resigned from Megawati's government in March 2004 and beat her a few months later in the presidential race, receiving 60.87 percent of the popular vote.

According to Yudhawiranata, Yudhoyono's military past could be a reason for the slow paced military reforms. "Under Yudhoyono, the reform of the TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia or armed forces) started well; then it slowed down, and now it is at a standstill," said the activist. "Maybe he does not want to rock the boat, or maybe he thinks that certain problems may involve him as well, like the abuses in East Timor," he added.

The TNI, the country's most powerful institution, has been accused of gross human rights abuses. In the wake of the 'Reformasi' movement – the student-led uprising that disposed of Suharto eight years ago – the army was at the core of a reform programme. The results are mixed.

In a recent report released by the Washington-based East-West Centre, titled 'The Politics of Military Reform in Post-Suharto Indonesia', author Marcus Mietzner, noted that "Indonesia has made remarkable progress in advancing first-generation military reforms, which include extensive changes to the country's institutional framework, judicial system, electoral mechanism, composition of representative bodes, and the responsibilities of security agencies."

However, he also noted that there is a lot left to do. "Most importantly, policymakers did not proceed with initiatives to reform the territorial command structure," Mietzner, a Jakarta- resident, said.

The territorial system, under which the TNI maintained units that ran parallel to the civil government structure, was the basis of the military's domination of Indonesian society and politics under the Suharto regime. The structure gave the TNI immense influence over local politics, and led to army personnel often acting above the law.

Yudhawiranata said that the TNI still thinks it is better than the rest. "It still considers itself the supreme body," he said, citing as example defence minister Juwono Sudarsono's recent refusal to have the military stand trial for misdemeanours in civilian court.

"Yet, they want to take part in the 2009 election. That is a contradiction, as the election is a civilian matter, and if they do not consider themselves civilian, then they should not take part," he continued. The TNI has expressed interest in participating in Indonesia's next general election in three years' time.

Yudhawiranata also noted a distinct lack of progress in the handing over of the TNI's business empire to the government, as stated by a law approved in 2004, just before the election of Yudhoyono.

The law says that all military assets – which are estimated to be worth up to 966.18 million US dollars, and which provide for about 70 percent of TNI's annual budget – were to be handed over to the government within five years, Yudhwiranata said. "This topic has all but been forgotten; nobody talks about it anymore."

The reform of the military is not the only area where human rights activists are criticising Yudhoyono. Yudhawiranata also blamed the president for the way the government is acting in the country's hot spots, Central Sulawesi and Papua, and for the proposed State Intelligence Bill.

"The State Intelligence Bill is worrying. It wants to use the state bureaucracy to check on people and extend the reach of the intelligence to district level," he said. "What do they want to do, knock on every citizen's door?" he asked.

Central Sulawesi is an area of renewed religious tension. In Papua, where foreign journalists are not allowed, a strong civil society has never stopped campaigning for independence.

On the other hand, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), condemned the government for being inconsistent in solving human rights cases, especially that of leading human rights activist Munir Said Thalib, popularly called Munir, who was poisoned on board a Garuda flight to Amsterdam in September 2004

"In the first year of his term, Yudhoyono said the Munir case was a test case to find out whether the nation had changed. But there were no concrete results. In the second year, he became more passive," Kontras operational director, Indria Fernida, said in a statement

The sole suspect in the case, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, was exonerated by the Supreme Court, with a two-to-one split verdict, on Oct. 3.

In Jakarta, many believe that members of the military, or the secret services, Badan Intelijen Negara (BIN), might have been involved in the death. Munir was renowned for exposing abuses committed by the security forces and was a vocal support of the TNI reform.

Last year, an appeals court acquitted 12 soldiers of involvement in the 1984 Tanjung Priok massacre of 33 civilians which meant that no one was convicted for the gruesome incident north of Jakarta, involving the security forces.

"These failures to deliver justice and combat impunity illustrate both a flawed system and a lack of political will, which sets an extremely worrying precedent for other cases of grave human rights violations currently under investigation," Natali Hill, a spokeswoman for the rights group Amnesty International then said.

US presses Yudhoyono over rights activist's murder case

Agence France Presse - October 19, 2006

P. Parameswaran, Washington – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is under US pressure to get to the bottom of the murder of a leading human rights lawyer – a case which suggested a cover up and links to the powerful national intelligence agency.

The human rights arm of the US Congress held a staff briefing Wednesday on the bizarre murder of Munir Said Thalib, one of Indonesia's most respected activist who exposed military and police atrocities.

Munir was only 38 when he was killed after his drink was found laced with arsenic on a flight operated by the national carrier Garuda from Singapore to Amsterdam in September 2004.

A Garuda pilot with links to BIN, the Indonesian intelligence agency, was jailed 14 years for the murder but the Indonesian Supreme Court overturned his conviction early this month despite overwhelming evidence, rights groups said.

Yudhoyono has refused to publish the final report and recommendations of his fact-finding team set up to investigate the murder despite a deluge of requests to do so, including from 68 US lawmakers who wrote to him last year expressing concern over the case.

Senior legislator Tom Lantos, co-founder and co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which convened the meeting Wednesday, is "very concerned about this issue," his spokeswoman Lynne Weil said.

"He wants to see that report as to the other members of Congress who voiced their opinion a year ago and these questions should not go unanswered," Weil said. "You can expect to see Congressional follow up before the end of the year," she said.

A draft US legislation calls on the State Department to monitor the progress of the Munir case, said Matthew Easton of Human Rights First, a US group which is pressing for a new probe into the murder.

The US State Department wants the Indonesian government "to ensure that justice is served wherever the evidence may lead and that Munir's murderers undergo a transparent and professional legal process," a department spokesman said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The New York Times, in an editorial this week entitled "Poisoned Justice," said the investigation into Munir's death was an "important test" for Indonesia's still young democracy.

The influential newspaper said if Yudhoyono was sincere about defending human rights and building an honest legal system, he "should immediately release the suppressed report."

Munir's widow Suciwati, herself a labor activist and who testified at the Congressional meeting, said efficient resolution of her husband's case was "crucial to protect other human rights defenders whose lives could also be under threat."

An international investigation into the case is the "only option left" as Munir's family had exhausted seeking justice in Indonesia and Yudhoyono refused to make the key report public, said T. Kumar, Amnesty International's Washington-based advocacy director for Asia-Pacific.

Indonesian intelligence officers had snubbed requests that they submit to questioning by Yudhoyono's fact-finding team and they were not compelled to do so.

Usman Hamid, coordinator of the group Kontras, which helps locate and bring justice to missing persons and victims of violence, said the matter should not be allowed to linger on like the numerous unresolved human rights abuse cases in the former Indonesian territory of East Timor.

The United States froze all military ties with Indonesia in 1999 to protest alleged human rights abuses by Indonesian troops in East Timor. The ban was lifted last year.

Rights groups give SBY failing grade

Jakarta Post - October 19, 2006

Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – Legal and human rights groups are giving President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono low marks for law enforcement, citing the unsolved murder of noted human rights activist Munir and the administration's failure to prosecute former president Soeharto on graft charges.

The groups said Yudhoyono's pledges to punish human rights violators and root out corruption have proven to be superficial and inconsistently applied during his first two years in office. Yudhoyono, who was elected in a direct vote in 2004, will mark his second anniversary in office on Friday.

"His administration's commitment to enforcing the law is merely cosmetic. It looks cute on the surface, but it's rotten inside," Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) chairman Patra M. Zen told a news conference Wednesday.

The YLBHI said the government's main failure was in the battle against corruption, despite the jailing and prosecution of numerous local lawmakers and executives.

The President has repeatedly expressed his commitment to fighting graft, but the government has dealt with corruption cases unevenly, particularly those involving suspects with strong political backing.

Patra said Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh's decision to halt the graft prosecution of Soeharto showed that the government was focusing on petty cases instead of bringing the "big fishes" to court.

Prosecutors were also accused of being reluctant to charge justice minister Hamid Awaluddin with corruption in connection with the inflated price of ballot seals for the 2004 presidential election.

Patra said the war on corruption was being waged sporadically and lacked strategy and clear priorities. He charged the administration with overlooking the importance of reforming the graft-ridden police force.

"The Yudhoyono administration should have made the BNI corruption case, which implicates top police officials, an avalanche to wipe out corruption from the force," he said.

A court here last week sentenced former National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Suyitno Landung Sudjono to 18 months in prison for taking a bribe while investigating the 2002-2003 BNI lending scam.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) also slammed the government for being inconsistent in solving human rights cases over the last two years.

Kontras said the government's failure to find those responsible for the 2004 murder of Munir showed it was not serious about shedding light on the nation's troubled human rights history.

"In the first year of his term, Yudhoyono said the Munir case was a test case to find out whether the nation had changed. But there were no concrete results. In the second year, he became more passive," Kontras operational director Indria Fernida said in a statement.

She blamed the Supreme Court's exoneration of pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, the sole suspect in the case, on Yudhoyono's attitude. "And the case goes back to zero," she said.

The government was also criticized for failing to reform the military. Activists said there had not been enough progress toward allowing soldiers to be tried in civilian courts for criminal offenses, as well as forcing the military to give up the businesses it controls.

The military has also been accused of covering up a scandal involving a large stash of arms discivered at the home of a deceased army general, Brig. Gen. Koesmayadi.

Pressure to release report on activist's murder

Green Left Weekly - October 18, 2006

James Balowski, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is coming under increasing pressure to release a report implicating security forces in the murder two years ago of Munir, Indonesia's most prominent human rights activist.

It follows the Supreme Court's October 3 acquittal of Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Priyanto for the murder of Munir during a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam in September 2004. The court said there was insufficient evidence to convict Priyanto on murder, instead sentencing him to two years' jail for falsifying documents.

Munir was famous for his years of struggle against the Suharto dictatorship and, more recently, for exposing government corruption. His work earned him many enemies among Indonesia's military and political elite.

In December 2005, Priyanto was convicted of poisoning Munir and sentenced to 14 years' jail. The verdict was upheld on appeal last April. The judge's decision noted that evidence indicated that Priyanto had not acted alone.

Priyanto claims to have been recruited by the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) in 2002. The court heard that prior to the murder he made numerous phone calls to the former deputy head of the agency, Muchdi PR. Muchdi – a former elite special forces commander – was sacked following Munir's investigation into the 1998 abductions of student activists.

Munir's murder caused an massive public outcry and many saw it as evidence that little had changed since the days of the Suharto regime when security forces acted with impunity against their opponents.

Shortly after being elected president in 2004, Yudhoyono promised the public – and Munir's widow Suciwati – that he would personally ensure a thorough investigation into the case. He even described the murder as a "test case for the nation" and established an officially sanctioned fact finding team (TPF).

In its final report submitted to Yudhoyono in June 2005, the team found evidence that Munir's death was a "well-planned conspiracy" and named a number of Garuda executives and BIN officials who should be investigated. These recommendations were never used by police or at Priyanto's trial and Yudhoyono has refused to make them public – even though the investigation's terms of reference requires this.

The Supreme Court has a history of releasing people who have high-level political backing and the decision may have been to silence Priyanto, who is widely believed to have been scapegoated to protect the masterminds. Priyanto's lawyer has said that Priyanto knows more about the murder than he is letting on. Since he will be a free man in March he has little reason to talk now.

But if the judgement was intended to end the two-year campaign to find the real killers, it has seriously backfired, with politicians and activists blasting the government for not being serious about resolving the murder.

A scathing October 6 Jakarta Post editorial titled "Forget the Nobel, remember Munir" – referring to Yudhoyono being an (ultimately unsuccessful) contender for this year's Nobel Peace Prize for helping to resolve the conflict in Aceh – argued: "Our politicians posture and make the right noises in international forums, often to applause, while at home activists work tirelessly to campaign for these [human] rights. And sometimes they are murdered on the job. Despite all their work and all the rhetoric, human rights seem difficult to uphold here. Or perhaps there was no political will to do so in the first place."

A Human Rights Watch statement said that the police and the attorney-general's office have steadfastly ignored the evidence and recommendations of the TPF. "The failure to secure a conviction for Munir's murder is a huge blow for human rights protection and the reform process supposedly underway in Indonesia", said HRW Asia director Brad Adams. "This was a test case for the Indonesian justice system. It has failed."

Suciwati, who has launched a lawsuit against Garuda for negligence leading to her husband's death and is seeking support from the House of Representatives (DPR), says she is tired of empty promises. "The acquittal of Pollycarpus from the murder charge is proof that the government is half-hearted. Had it given full support, I believe the murderer, the executioner and the mastermind, would have been punished by now", she said.

Associated Press quoted former TPF chair Asmara Nababan as saying had Yudhoyono given his full support the case would be solved by now. Nababan suggested a new team be formed and start its investigation by focusing on the phone calls between Priyanto and Muchdi. "We suspect that the 41 telephone conversations concerned field reports on Munir's assassination. That is why BIN turned down a request to disclose them", he said.

Yudhoyono, however, has remained stubbornly silent on the issue. According to the Jakarta Post, on October 6 he walked away when journalists asked what further instructions he would give to police probing the murder. Minutes before, he gave lively answers about the planned deployment of Indonesian peacekeeping forces to Lebanon.

Speaking on Radio Australia on October 5, Nababan said Yudhoyono is unwilling to release the report because of who it might implicate. "He avoids to make an enemy among the powerful in the intelligence community", he said, adding that the first step if Yudhoyono wants to convince the people he can deliver justice is to release the findings.

Speaking on the same program, presidential spokesperson Andi Mallarangen asserted that Yudhoyono had ordered the police to use all information available – including the TPF report – to ensure a proper investigation. But when asked if prominent people from BIN will also be investigated, Mallarangen dodged the question answering "Indonesia is a democracy right now, it's based on the rule of law. Anybody is not beyond the law, that is the instruction of the president."

Mallarangen was outright dismissive in response to Suciwati's efforts to seek support form the DPR. According to the Jakarta Post, Suciwati said her efforts to lobby the president have been fruitless. "I have spoken to the president through his spokesman, but what I got in response was that he told me not to criticise the government too much."

War on terror

Two jailed over 2002 Bali bombing walk free

Agence France Presse - October 24, 2006

Jakarta – Two Islamic militants jailed for their role in helping bombers in the 2002 Bali blasts, were freed from prison after receiving sentence cuts to mark the Islamic holiday of Eid, officials have said.

Indonesia typically grants sentence cuts of up to six months twice a year – once to mark independence day and another to mark major religious holidays handed out according to the convict's faith.

Sirojul Munir, who was serving a five-year term in the East Kalimantan capital of Balikpapan for harboring key bomber Ali Imron, walked free from jail after Eid prayers Tuesday, after receiving a one-month reduction, a prison official said.

"The list of sentence cuts were read out to the prisoners after the Eid prayers, and Sirojul Munir, who received a one-month remission, was allowed to leave the jail, along with four other prisoners who also completed their terms," said the official, who identified himself as Edi.

Edi said that with the sentence cut, Munir had served his jail term. He was picked up from jail by his family, he added.

A total of 255 of the jail's 315 detainees were given sentence cuts to honor the holiday, he said.

Munir was jailed in October 2003 for hindering anti-terrorist police operations by hiding Imron in East Kalimantan shortly after the Bali bombings. Imron is serving life in prison for his role in the nightclub blasts on the resort island which killed 202 people, mostly Western holidaymakers.

Munir has received remissions totalling two years and one month since he began serving his term.

The official said that the final militant being held at the prison in connection with the bombing, Muhammad Yunus, also received a one-month remission, but would remain in jail until 2008.

Muhammad Rudi bin Salim, 48, alias Mujarot, also was preparing for freedom after being accorded a six-week remission, said Ilham Djaya, the head of the Kerobokan jail in the Balinese capital Denpasar.

"He is in theory already a free man, since the list of sentence cuts was announced after the Eid prayers, but he is now still in jail as police are preparing to assure his safety for his return home," Djaya told AFP. He did not elaborate further.

Rudi was serving a five-year term for the same offence as Munir. Eight other Bali bombing convicts in Kerobokan also received sentence cuts, Djaya said.

The head of the Bali Penitentiary Office, Mayun Mataram, told AFP earlier Tuesday that Rudi was one of six prisoners in Bali to walk free after receiving the sentence cuts.

Meanwhile, three Muslim militants on deathrow for the 2005 Bali bombings were ready for their execution at any time, one of them was quoted as saying by the state Antara news agency.

"We are ready to be executed, whenever," Ali Gufron alias Mukhlas, said after Eid prayers at the Nusakambangan island jail, Central Java, where he and two other key Bali bombers – Amrozi and Imam Samudra – have been awaiting execution since October 2005.

Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin, told journalists here that a total of 50,385 prisoners received sentence cuts to mark Eid, and 2,402 of them were consequently released from custody.

Among the recipients of the cuts was the youngest son of ex- Indonesian president Suharto, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, who was given a 45-day sentence cut.

Tommy Suharto was originally handed a 15-year jail sentence for commissioning the contract killing of a senior judge who had jailed him for corruption. The sentence was widely criticised for being too light but the Supreme Court then reduced it to 10 years without explanation.

Repeated remissions have been meted out to several of the dozens of militants jailed over the 2002 Bali bombings, angering Australia, which lost 88 of its nationals in the atrocity, and other Western nations.

Remissions are given to all prisoners who have shown good conduct except for those on death row and serving life sentences. Three of the 2002 Bali bombing ringleaders are awaiting execution.

Survey reveals Muslim ambivalence on terrorism

Jakarta Post - October 20, 2006

Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – A recent survey that found 9 percent of Indonesian Muslims justify the Bali bombings as a form of "jihad to defend Islam" confirms the ambivalence of some Muslims toward terrorism, a Muslim scholar says.

Ihsan Ali Fauzi of Paramadina Foundation, which was co-founded by the late Muslim scholar Nurcholis Madjid, told The Jakarta Post the 9 percent figure cited in the study by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) was "reasonable", given the troubled relationship between Islam and the West.

"Many Muslims do not like terrorists and they fully support the government's effort to take strict action against them, but at the same time they also accept why militants turn to terrorism, which is primarily the fear of Western domination in Muslim countries," he said.

The survey found a significant number of Indonesian Muslims sympathize with the violent tactics of the al-Qaeda-linked regional terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah, which has been fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia.

In the survey, 17.4 percent of respondents said they supported Jamaah Islamiyah, 16.1 percent backed the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI) and 7.2 percent supported Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia. The latter two are hard-line Islamic groups campaigning for the introduction of sharia in the country. The survey involved 1,092 Muslim respondents from across the country, who were questioned between September and mid-October.

Ihsan said he feared some Muslims support terrorism because they see it as bargaining power against a "capricious" West. "But we have to conduct qualitative studies on this," he said, noting that the LSI survey was quantitative and it was likely the respondents did not really understand what they were saying.

Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country, has been hit by several deadly terror attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the US. The 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists, was the first and deadliest attack on Indonesia so far. In 2003, homegrown terrorists attacked the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, while the Australian Embassy was targeted in 2004. Most of the victims of those bombings were Indonesian Muslims.

Ihsan said Muslims intoxicated by extreme views did not necessarily act like militants. He said it was likely that some Muslims were quietly throwing their support behind the militants, including financial support, even if they remained reluctant to carry out attacks themselves. "It is expensive to carry out these attacks," he said.

He divides Islamic militants into three categories. The first are vigilantes, who raid bars and nightclubs, especially during the fasting month. In the second category are paramilitary groups such as the Indonesian Mujahidin Council and Laskar Jihad, while the third category includes terrorists such as Bali bombers Imam Samudra and Amrozi.

Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University rector Azyumardi Azra said the LSI survey showed that Muslim leaders and ulema had work to do to make clear that suicide bombings and terrorism run counter to the true meaning of jihad. "There is no religious justification for violence and terrorism," he told the Post.

However, he doubted the number of radicals in Indonesia reached 9 percent of the Muslim population. "It is too high. It (9 percent) would mean there are 15 million of them. From my view, the figure is far lower," he said.

Azyumardi urged Muslim leaders to be more proactive in reaching out to young Muslims, so they would not fall under the influence of extremists like Noordin M. Top, who has allegedly recruited young Indonesians to carry out terrorist missions.

He warned that the survey's findings could be seen as confirming the perception of some Westerners that Islam is a violent religion, thereby further fueling intolerance and the divide between Islam and the West. He said it was up to the ulema to promote a peaceful Islam to prevent this from happening.

War on corruption

Indonesia campaigns against corruption

Agence France Presse - October 19, 2006

Jakarta – Indonesian television broadcast the photo of a fugitive convicted of embezzling millions of dollars in state funds as part of a new campaign against corruption.

The broadcast Tuesday was the first installment of a weekly TV program exposing people convicted of corruption, which remains endemic at all levels of government.

Two TV stations plan to screen the images of 14 people convicted of graft or white-collar crime in coming weeks to boost the campaign, said spokesman I Wayan Pasek Suartha of the Attorney General's office. "We hope that people can tell us whatever they know about where these convicted corruptors are hiding out," Suartha said.

Tuesday's program focused on Sudjiono Timan, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail for embezzling $140 million after his bank received emergency funds meant to bail out banks crippled during Indonesia's 1998 financial crisis, said Suartha.

Timan, who was not imprisoned during his trial, is believed to have fled overseas before the verdict. He remains at large.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won elections in 2004 after vowing to crack down on corruption. His campaign has netted several high-profile suspects, but most analysts say it has so far been only a partial success.

Cash for votes deals a blow to development of democracy

Jakarta Post - October 18, 2006

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – "Money politics" are having a negative affect on the behavior of voters and politicians, threatening democracy in Indonesia, say analysts and politicians.

Executive director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) Saiful Mujani and secretary general of the Forum for Election Supervision (Formappi) Sebastian Salang say money politics have become a common tool used to win direct elections.

"Local elites, be they politicians or businesspeople, use their money to buy support from certain political parties or a coalition of certain political parties as their political vehicle to win local elections," Saiful said in a discussion Monday.

"Political parties also secretly make political deals with politicians and businessmen to help their candidates win the election," he added.

Eligible voters, especially the politically uniformed, are likely to give their votes to the candidates who pay them the most, Saiful said.

"This kind of pragmatism threatens democracy because regional chiefs and councillors turning to money politics to win local elections or legislative elections will probably abuse their power to gain back the money they paid during the elections. This has been proven by governors, regents, mayors and councillors who are facing corruption charges in court and those already serving their jail terms," said Sebastian.

Tjahjo Kumolo, a senior figure of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) warned against stereotyping regional heads who have won local elections over the past two years.

"Many regional heads have paid serious attention to the development of democracy in their regions and many councillors have been fighting for the political aspirations of their constituents although they have paid a huge amount of money to win their seat either in the local administration or the legislature," he told the discussion.

He added that national leaders and regional heads should still consider how legitimately they had won their election. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he said, should be on "high alert" when using his power and running his government because a large portion of the country's eligible voters did not exercise their voting rights in the 2004 elections, while other did not participate as a protest against technical faults in the poll.

PDI-P legislator Eva K Sundari said Indonesia needed to strengthen its civil society and political parties during its transition to true democracy.

"Political parties have to be independent and strong, both politically and financially, and they have to be intimate with the daily life of their members. A healthy relationship between parties and the people will gradually force the elite to pay attention to improving the people's social welfare, developing democracy and promoting good governance when they are in power," she said.

Regional/communal conflicts

One dead as residents attack police in Indonesia's Poso

Agence France Presse - October 23, 2006

Palu – A man was shot dead when police in Indonesia's religiously-divided town of Poso, in Central Sulawesi, came under attack while trying to disarm residents, police have said.

Some 700 members of the police paramilitary unit, Brimob, were preparing to conduct a house-to-house search for weapons and explosives in the Gebangrejo area of Poso late Sunday evening when the violence began.

"Police were pelted with stones, a police truck was set on fire and shots were fired from both sides," Central Sulawesi police spokesman Muhammad Kilat said.

He said a 29-year-old resident was shot in the hip and later died from his injury, while two other residents injured in the shooting remained in critical condition at the local hospital.

"There were some among the people who yelled that the police were attacking, and so residents were provoked. There was an exchange of shots," Kilat said. He declined to give further details on whether the residents were shot by police, adding only that police were investigating.

Poso and the district surrounding it became a focal point of communal violence between Muslims and Christians which claimed about 1,000 lives in 2000-2001.

Sporadic unrest has persisted since then, with tensions rising anew since the execution of three Christians last month, who were convicted of inciting some of the attacks six years ago.

Many Muslims in the province have accused elements within the police of siding with the Christian camp.

BIN warns of more Sulawesi unrest

Jakarta Post - October 17, 2006

Ary Hermawan and Ruslan Sangadji, Jakarta – The State Intelligence Agency (BIN) warned of more attacks during Idul Fitri celebrations in religiously-divided Central Sulawesi after a Christian pastor was shot dead in the provincial capital of Palu.

The assassination of Rev. Irianto Kongkoli, secretary general of the South Sulawesi Christian Church, was linked to efforts to revive the bloody conflict in the province, BIN chief Syamsir Siregar said.

"We have to boost the security system in rural and urban areas (in Central Sulawesi), as we are informed that some groups are planning to instigate riots during Idul Fitri," he said, without elaborating.

Irianto, 40, was shot dead by masked gunmen at 8:15 a.m. while he was shopping with his wife in Palu.

Central Sulawesi Governor H.B. Paliudju, speaking in Jakarta, said the shooting was likely connected to the Sept. 22 execution of three Christian militants, Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva, for leading a deadly attack on a Muslim village in 2000.

"I saw him (Irianto) attending Tibo's trial. He and Rev. Damanik led people to protest the executions. There is a red thread linking the case to the executions," he said.

Irianto was the third victim of deadly violence in the province after the executions. Two Muslims were killed by an angry mob a day after the executions.

However, Syamsir insisted that the murder of the pastor was related to the previous conflict between Muslims and Christians in Central Sulawesi.

He said "Ramadhan and Idul Fitri are a sensitive period and (any act of violence) could give rise to (a renewal of the conflict)" that raged in the region in 2000 and 2001, killing some 1,000 people.

He accused parties unhappy with the resolution to end the fighting of attempting to reignite tensions in the province. "They may also have certain targets," Syamsir said.

National Police chief Gen. Sutanto urged the public to wait for the results of an investigation into the murder. "We don't know yet the motives behind the incident," he said.

South Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Badrodin Haiti said the gunmen who assassinated the pastor had been identified along with their motorcycle. "It is likely that the victim was followed from his house," he said.

Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Widodo Adisucipto said the situation in Central Sulawesi remained under control despite the incident and that the government had no plans to deploy more security troops to the province.

Human rights groups urged the government to form an independent fact-finding team to deal with cases of violence in the province. "The people have lost their trust in the government," Indonesian Legal Aid Institute director Patra M. Zen said.

The Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) condemned the slaying of the pastor and urged religious leaders in the conflict-torn region to avoid provocation and keep their followers calm over the incident.

"We convey our deepest remorse and regret over the shooting of Rev. Irianto Kongkoli," the PGI said in a statement.

It blamed the government for failing to protect its citizens. "We urge the government to tackle the fundamental problems in Central Sulawesi and tighten the security there to prevent more violence," the communion said.

Irianto was known for his close relationships with Muslim leaders in Palu. He was involved in promoting a peaceful resolution to the conflict, while often staunchly criticizing the poor performance of security forces in the province.

Hundreds of Christians and Muslims along with local government officials visited Irianto's house to express condolences on his death.

Environment

Indonesian forest fires may fuel global warming: experts

Agence France Presse - October 25, 2006

Martin Abbugao, Singapore – The annual recurrence of carbon-rich haze caused by illegal fires in Indonesia's vast tropical peatlands may help fuel global warming if left unchecked, experts warn.

Saying there are no easy solutions, they called for an international effort to combat the problem, ranging from fire- fighting to prevention. They also said authorities must address the social and economic issues that prompt people to use the cheap but destructive method to clear land for their crops.

Smoggy haze from the fires in Indonesia's Sumatra and Kalimantan regions sent air pollution levels in neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore to unhealthy levels several times this month, in the worst outbreak since the haze that blanketed much of Southeast Asia in 1997-1998.

But beyond causing health problems and denting tourist arrivals, scientists say the gas emitted by the haze could help accelerate global warming.

Global warming is the phenomenon in which an increase in the temperatures of the earth's atmosphere and oceans can lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events including floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes and tornados.

Environmental groups, think tanks and academics voiced concern over the haze's impact on global climate change at a recent meeting in Singapore. There was a sense the haze might continue for years to come and could become worse rather than better, delegates said.

"Some of them felt that climate change is very real and climate change will get into a negative cycle with the fires," said the meeting's chairman, Simon Tay, of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. This makes the problem a global issue and should spur international attention and help for Indonesia, Tay said.

Regional environment ministers held an emergency meeting earlier this month to discuss the haze after Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono apologized to his neighbours for the smog.

Large plantation and logging companies as well as small farmers clearing land for agriculture have been largely blamed for the annual burn-off. Indonesia's government has outlawed land- clearing by fire, but weak enforcement means the ban is largely ignored.

One noticeable trend compared with 1997-1998 is the increasing area of peatlands being cleared by burning, the experts said. This is bad news because fires in peatlands can cause much more smoke per hectare (acre) than other types of forest fires.

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) based in Bogor, Indonesia, said that in 1997 Indonesia's peatland fires accounted for 60 percent of the haze despite having only 20 percent of the total area burnt.

"As more easily accessible upland forests disappear, peatland areas are increasingly harvested by companies and individuals," CIFOR, which is governed by an international board of trustees, said in a statement released during the Singapore meeting.

Daniel Murdiyarso, a CIFOR forestry and environmental management specialist, said that Southeast Asia has 60 percent of the world's tropical peatlands. "Fire and ecological change in these areas could seriously exacerbate regional haze and global greenhouse gas emissions," he said in the statement.

Another CIFOR expert, Una Chokalingham, said that Indonesia's peat swamps contain 21 percent of the earth's land-based carbon. "Unless actions are taken, that carbon could become hot-house gas in 40 years," Chokalingham said.

Scientists blame global warming on carbon dioxide and other gases.

Tropical peatlands consist of several layers of dead leaves, plant material and other forest debris that can build up to 20 metres (66 feet) deep.

Indonesia and Malaysia have more than 20 million hectares, or 60 percent, of the world's tropical peatlands, according to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) study on the haze problem published in 2001.

Peatland fires can be more difficult than other forest blazes to extinguish because they can "go deep underground and can burn uncontrolled and unseen in the peat deposits for several months," the ADB study said.

The thickest haze in 1997-1998 came from a fire at a one-million-hectare (2.47-million-acre) area of peat which the Indonesian government was draining for a massive rice planting project in Central Kalimantan province on Borneo island.

More than 700 million tonnes (770 million tons) of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere from that burning, the study said.

Stopping mud flow at Indonesia well costly

Agence France Presse - October 19, 2006

Jakarta – Stopping and clearing up a massive mud flow at an Indonesian gas well will cost at least $180 million and the final bill may well rise higher, the company operating the well said Thursday.

The mud flow started after an accident deep in a drilling shaft on the island of Java four months ago. It now covers more than 1,100 acres, has swallowed scores of homes and displaced 10,000 people.

Gas exploration company Lapindo Brantas is containing the mud with an expanding network of dams and pumping some of it to the sea. It is also digging relief wells alongside the mud torrent and plans to pour concrete down them to cap the flow. Most experts say this will not work.

"With the flow continuing, the complexity of the event and the dynamic nature of the ongoing work, it is not possible to accurately estimate a total rectification cost at this time," the company said in a statement.

Both Lapindo and its partners in the venture have said they are insured against losses incurred due to the disaster.

The mud is believed to come from a reservoir more than 3 1/2 miles underground that has been pressurized by tectonic activity or by the accumulation of hydrocarbon gases.

Police are planning to charge the company with negligence over the disaster.

Coastal 'mudland' recommended for Sidoarjo

Jakarta Post - October 19, 2006

Jakarta – Experts recommended Wednesday that the mud gushing from a gas well in Sidoarjo, East Java, be dumped along the coast to form a mudland where mangrove trees and other plants could be cultivated.

Experts from the National Team for Sidoarjo Mudflow Management, which was formed on Sept. 8, have concluded that it would take 31 years before the mud would stop, considering there is an estimated 1.1 billion cubic meters of mud still below the surface and the constant rate of pressure from the earth.

The team is projecting that the mud would eventually cover 2,600 hectares of land. The mudflow is reportedly triggered by a gas well of Lapindo Brantas Inc. and has so far submerged four villages and forced 10,000 people to evacuate.

"The mud contains no toxic materials. The forming of a delta on the coast could then be used as a mangrove forest for fish ponds," said Said Jenie, chief of the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT). He said that the formation of a mud delta was the cheapest and most practical solution to tackle the disaster.

Experts estimate that the East Java coast near Porong district would gain 30 hectares of mud annually if the pressure remains constant. The national team has been pumping the mud from the disaster area into Porong River.

BPPT proposes two methods to form the delta mudland.

First, a closed depot, which uses a pool embankment to contain mud delivered through a channel, would be more effective during the dry season. Second, an open depot, which uses bamboo walls to trap mud delivered from Porong River, would be more suitable during the rainy season.

Scientists, who have postulated that the disaster was caused by the eruption of a mud volcano, predict that the hot mud originates from a 4.9 million years of volcanic rock deposits formed by high temperatures and pressure.

"The delta plan is actually returning the spewing mud back to its origin," Said said. He added that nonetheless, the idea would still need the appropriate environmental monitoring.

"This is only a recommendation. Many people have opposed our solution. The implementation of this project will have to wait for a green light from the House," Said said.

A geologist from the national team, Soffian Hadi, said that the characteristics of the hot mud and the ground below the sea in East Java were basically the same.

"Our observation shows that the Sidoarjo mud is heavier than normal mud found on the bottom of the Madura strait, so the mud will eventually sink below the seabed," Soffian said Tuesday. Soffian added that in the long run the dumping plan would not create turbid water.

The geologist from Surabaya told The Jakarta Post that the slufter of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, a disposal site for dredging sludge from the river, had used sludge to create an annex of land. "If they can do it safely with waste material, why can't we do it with a natural substance?"

The current "relief well" method, which aims to dig and install casing in three wells to a depth of 4,200 feet, is costly and would consume a lot of energy. There are no solid indicators as yet that the method would be successful. The drilling equipment used to seal the mudflow, which is located in Jatirejo village, costs US$90,000 a day to lease. "The focus for the disaster now should be on assisting the victims near the area," Soffian said.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) executive director, Chalid Muhammad, said that the government should not be hasty in its plan to create a mangrove forest out of mud.

"Access for fishermen would be difficult so their output could be hurt. The existence of vegetation and marine life in the sea could be threatened by the mudland," he told the Post. "Moreover, the leaching of metals from the mud, could be harmful to humans," Chalid said.

Government dumps mud into sea despite protests

Jakarta Post - October 17, 2006

Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – The government Monday began dumping into the sea mud gushing from a gas exploration well in Sidoarjo, East Java, amid protests against the move by local farmers and environmentalists. The disposal, a trial using the Porong river after previous trials failed, was carried out with untreated mud.

The mudflow in Sidoarjo has submerged villages and left thousands of residents homeless and with no means of making a living.

National mudflow disaster mitigation team spokesman Rudi Novrianto said that once a trial was successful, three mud- extracting machines, each able to remove 18.5 cubic meters of mud per second, would run 20 hours a day.

The dumping needed to start immediately, he said, to prevent further destruction should the embankments containing the mud collapse ahead of the rainy season later this year.

Rudi said the gas well continued to spew out around 126,000 cubic meters of mud every day, much more than the 50,000 cubic meters that gushed out on May 29, when it first burst.

Exploration well operator PT Lapindo Brantas Inc., which has been blamed for the disaster, has said it is committed to compensating those affected by the mudflow.

Lapindo's main shareholder, PT Energi Mega Persada, owned by businessman and Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, recently announced it would sell its shares in Lapindo because financing the company and the mudflow's financial excesses was costing it too much money.

Sidoarjo Fish Farmers Association deputy chairman Ali Subhan said the mud dumping was disadvantaging local farmers because the toxic sludge was killing fish and shrimp in the surrounding waters.

"The mud is putting the lives of fish farmers here in danger. Fishermen and farmers from Madura, Pasuran, Sidoarjo and Probolinggo have lodged a protest with the President and Lapindo, but there has been no response," he said.

Ali said no compensation had been paid by the government or Lapindo to the farmers affected by the mudflow.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the mud be dumped into the sea in an attempt to tackle the problem quickly. However, when the problem first arose, it took some weeks for the President to comment and instruct Lapindo and the related government agencies to stop the mudflow.

He also said that he promised that the mud would not completely submerge any villages. Now several villages have succumbed to the sludge.

State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar, along with Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Freddy Numberi, initially opposed dumping the mud into the sea because it posed a hazard to the environment.

The two eventually turned, however, and backed the sea-dumping plan after efforts to stop the mudflow came to no avail and Yudhoyono ordered that the mud be dumped in the ocean.

The mudflow started after an accident deep in Lapindo's gas exploration shaft. The company claims it was triggered by a powerful earthquake that rattled Yogyakarta and its surrounding areas last May, while others blame Lapindo for not sealing the exploration shaft correctly.

Fight fires, get two days off work: Indonesia's anti-haze tactic

Agence France Presse - October 17, 2006

Jakarta – Civil servants in an Indonesian province have been offered two days off work if they help douse land-clearing fires which have blanketed vast areas with choking haze, officials said.

The acrid smoke has enveloped huge swathes of Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra in recent weeks as well as Singapore and Malaysia, triggering criticism that Jakarta has done too little to combat the annual environmental disaster.

A spokesman for Central Kalimantan province, Dendol Toepak, said the offer of a two-day holiday was made by Governor Agustin Teras Narang.

Toepak said the governor Tuesday launched his public drive to control the fires by attending a fire-fighting operation along with more than 200 civil servants, soldiers and police.

"Today (Tuesday) the campaign is taking place in Palangkaraya city and five districts. Tomorrow it will be launched in the eight other districts," he said.

In Palangkaraya alone four spots were designated by local authorities for volunteers to help out at, although local ElShinta radio reported that water shortages were hampering efforts to wipe out the fires.

Visibility was less than 100 metres (yards) in the city, weather officials said.

In Sumatra's Jambi, another of the badly-hit provinces, visibility was at just 300 metres at 10:00 am (0300 GMT) and flights to and from the airport, which serves domestic routes only, were cancelled indefinitely, Heri Budi from the meteorology station there told AFP.

Jakarta has outlawed land-clearing by fire but weak enforcement means the ban is virtually worthless, and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week apologised to both Malaysia and Singapore for the effects there.

On Monday, Singapore's pollution index soared into the unhealthy range and authorities maintain a health advisory recommending that people avoid vigorous outdoor activity.

The haze also sharply reduced visibility at major airports in Malaysia.

Environment ministers from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand met last Friday to discuss the crisis and urged Jakarta to ratify a 2002 treaty on haze.

Health & education

Swollen legs and heavy hearts in Indonesia

Los Angeles Times - October 18, 2006

John M. Glionna, Sukadamai – These days, the forlorn widow never leaves her tiny shack in this bustling island village. She sits in the doorway, an emotional shut-in who rubs her painfully bloated legs and feet as she peers out longingly at a world that shuns her.

"I am too ashamed to go outside," says Unas, a 48-year-old mother of six, her dark eyes welling with tears. "People look at me like I am something evil. I see it in their eyes."

Unas suffers from one of nature's cruelest blows – a disfiguring disease that has distorted her lower body to three times its normal size. She has lymphatic filariasis, a mosquito-borne malady in which threadlike parasitic worms invade the lymph nodes, the bean-shaped nodules that help control the body's fluid balance and fight infections.

The affliction's most recognizable symptom is elephantiasis, named for the grotesque growth of the lower limbs and even sexual organs. The Indonesians call it kaki gajah, or elephant's foot. In a region also beset with more modern diseases such as AIDS and avian flu, the centuries-old illness remains one of this nation's most stubborn yet overlooked health scourges.

Worldwide, 120 million people suffer from elephantiasis, most of them in poor, tropical nations where crowding and poor sanitation are rampant, and 40 million of them are seriously incapacitated by the disease. A billion people globally are at risk.

Five years ago, the World Health Organization set a goal of eradicating filariasis worldwide by 2020. Since then, the lymphatic disease has been eliminated in 63 countries. But in Indonesia, which lags behind for reasons including its limited resources and vast geographic area, chronic cases of elephantiasis have increased, from 6,500 to more than 10,200.

"Africa is doing well, India has upped its efforts, and China has virtually eliminated the disease, but Indonesia has been less successful," said Els Mathieu, a medical epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta who specializes in parasitic diseases. "They lack funding. But they don't seem to know where to start."

Officials here say international health agencies do not understand Indonesia's challenges in reaching a population of 220 million people spread across 6,000 of the nation's more than 17,000 islands.

"People think that we are a country like India or Nigeria, which are also plagued by this disease. But they are single land masses, and don't have our logistical nightmare," said Gindo Simanjuntak, an epidemiologist with Indonesia's National Institute for Health Research and Development.

"Still, foreign health officials called us up and asked, 'Why is Indonesia so slow to start the battle?' Well, Indonesia is a poor nation and it costs money to hop between islands, as well as hire experts and people to distribute medicine and know-how."

World Health Organization officials in the capital, Jakarta, acknowledged the nation's funding woes.

"It is true there is limited funding available to Indonesia, so that scaling up is progressing slowly," said Dr. Georg Petersen, WHO representative for Indonesia. "Many filariasis programs face competing interests for limited healthcare dollars."

But Indonesia's need is particularly dire: Health Ministry officials say the nation spent $2 million on filariasis last year and will spend $3 million in 2006. The need, they say, is at least $25 million a year. Indonesia spends five times the money combating malaria that it does elephantiasis.

"This is a horrible disease, but people survive it, and this is a big problem for the provincial administrations," Simanjuntak said. "They ask, 'How many people are dying?' They want to give money to deadly diseases like malaria. We call elephantiasis the neglected disease – the government doesn't care because the fatality rate is so low."

A national survey revealed that in all of Indonesia's 33 provinces filariasis was endemic – meaning at least 1% of 500 people tested had the disease, officials say.

Much about elephantiasis remains an enigma. Whereas malaria can be transmitted by a single bite, filariasis often requires hundreds of bites from infected mosquitoes. The disease is transmitted when male and female worms crawl into the insect bite wound and then spawn offspring inside the victim's body.

Most affected countries are home to a single type of worm that causes the infection, but Indonesia has three such parasites, experts say. Many people are infected as children, but symptoms often do not appear until adulthood – after the parasites have reproduced in the millions.

Although there is no cure, the disease can be kept under control with medications that kill the young parasites and help prevent transmission.

Harder to fight is the malady's stigma and the stereotypes that feed people's reaction to the disease and its victims.

In Indonesia and elsewhere, many elephantiasis sufferers hide their symptoms and are too ashamed even to seek medical help. Residents believe the disease can be transmitted by touch and give victims a wide berth. Others don't see the unnatural growth of the sufferers' limbs as a disease, but a form of voodoo or black magic.

Islam/religion

Indonesians celebrate Eid festival in peace

Agence France Presse - October 24, 2006

Jakarta – Millions of Indonesians have taken part in morning prayers before celebrating the end of the month-long Ramadan fast with family and friends as the world's largest Muslim nation marked the Eid al-Fitr Islamic holiday.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Yusuf Kalla attended prayers at Jakarta's main Istiqlal mosque, but left immediately after the prayers and did not mingle with the congregation, in a break with previous years.

Officials said the pair would hold an open house for the public later on Tuesday afternoon.

The streets of the capital filled with people visiting friends and relatives, some of them following the Eid tradition of seeking forgiveness for past misdeeds.

Cemeteries were also packed with people bringing flowers and offering prayers for their dead relatives after the month-long ban on visiting graves during Ramadan.

More than 50,000 prisoners had their sentences cut to mark the day, with just over 2,400 walking free, Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin said. Among those freed were two men serving five-year jail terms for helping hide the bombers behind the 2005 Bali blasts that killed 202 people.

At Jakarta's Cipinang state prison, the jailed youngest son of ex-president Suharto, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, who received a 45-day sentence cut, was not seen at the Eid prayers held there. Wibowo Joko Harjono, the chief warder at the prison, told journalists that the younger Suharto "may not be feeling well," and declined further details.

In Poso, in religiously-divided central Sulawesi, where clashes between police and Muslim crowds have killed one and injured several in the past two days, a church caught fire in the early hours causing no casualties.

Local police declined to comment, but the Detikcom online news portal said National Police Chief General Sutanto in Jakarta told journalists it could have been arson.

Sutanto also said that there was no plan to withdraw the 1,000 police reinforcement from Poso, as has been demanded by local Muslim leaders.

"We will not pull them out. Their presence there is to safeguard the (security) situation," Sutanto said.

In Ende, in the predominantly Christian eastern Indonesian island of Flores, close to 10,000 Muslims conducted prayers in an open field under heavy security, the ElShinta radio reported. The prayers went off peacefully, it said.

The area recently saw protests over the execution of three Christian militia leaders in Palu, central Sulawesi, in September. The three were executed for their part in the sectarian violence in 2000.

Eid prayers also proceeded peacefully at eight locations in Kupang, the main city in predominantly Christian West Timor where protests against the executions have also taken place, the state Antara news agency said.

In Aceh, where a peace pact signed in August 1975 led to an end to almost 30 years of violent separatist conflict, the main Eid prayers was held at the Baiturrahman main mosque in the capital, Banda Aceh.

"We are starting with a new page in our history in the spirit taught by the Koran. Everyone of the same faith is a brother or sister. Therefore let there be peace among them," said Ali Mokhtar Ngabalin, said during his sermon there, according to the state Antara news agency.

Some 30 million adherents of the Muhammadiyah, the country's second largest Islamic movement, celebrated Eid on Monday. The timing of the festival depends on the sighting of the new moon.

In Indonesia, millions begin Ramadan days with a laugh

Agence France Presse - October 20, 2006

Nabiha Shahab, Jakarta – It's 2:45 in the morning, and Ulfa and Eko have already launched into another Ramadan working day with their comedy sketch team, entertaining millions of Indonesians tuning in to their pre-dawn show.

When Indonesians wake up early for "sahur," the meal before they commence their daily fast during Islam's holy month, chances are high that they'll also watch this high-profile pair for a giggle and maybe to win a prize too.

For a few minutes at the beginning and the end of the show an Islamic preacher talks on a theme for the day – such as the importance of not deceiving people, or of being kind to strangers. But in between, the objective is laughter.

Dressed in a fairy godmother costume, complete with lacy wings and a brunette wig, Ulfa twirls her pink wand trying to find the owner of a pair of sandals that a beautiful woman has left behind for the son of a rich man.

But the woman borrowed the pair from Tessi – and there's uproar among the live studio audience when Tessi, a man sporting make up and tottering around in a batik skirt and traditional top, emerges to claim the man's love.

The sketch is typical of those performed on "Stasiun Ramadan," or "STAR," a high-octane variety show that some one third of TV audiences have been switching on for their time slot, according to TV ratings agency AC Nielsen.

"Sahur programs used to be more religious, with talk shows and viewers calling in – that's about it," says Ulfa Dwiyanthi, known across the country simply as Ulfa.

"But after we started this comedy program with another television station, it boomed," she says, explaining how she and her stage partner Eko Hendro Purnomo pioneered the rowdy Ramadan genre.

That was six years ago. Now a multitude of similar shows compete to attract the once-a-year audience. With more than 90 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people following Islam, that's a hefty market for stations to exploit.

Thirteen-year-old Subekhi, who rises at 2:30 am for his morning meal during Ramadan, is one dedicated fan who commandeers the family's remote to switch from one program to another.

"I like watching Eko best, he's very quick. And Ulfa is funny. A lot of my friends at school watch them, too," says Subekhi, who has been watching the programs for about three years. Subekhi's only wish is that he had his own mobile phone "so I can try the quiz and win a motorcycle".

At least 10 major Indonesian television stations compete in broadcasting the live shows during Ramadan, offering lucrative cash prizes to draw eyeballs and therefore sponsors.

STAR alone gives away cash and a motorcycle daily worth around 30 million rupiah (3,260 US dollars) – but far more money is spun back in their direction for their holy month bonanza.

"This is the second year we've reached major success. It's now easy to find sponsors for the program," says Yul Andryono, STAR's executive producer.

Each show, with a regular cast of five, a band, 30 extras, a paid audience of about 70 and a crew the same size, costs around 100 million rupiah. Andryono says they make a "big profit" but declines to give details. Murdjadi Ichsan, a spokesman for privately-owned Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia, the channel showing the program, says: "STAR is our 'star' program for Ramadan. It brings in a lot of sponsors."

RCTI broadcasts across all of Indonesia's 33 provinces, reaching about 177 million viewers.

The cast – most of whom work on variety shows at normal hours the rest of the year – are paid twice their normal rate for the early morning shows. "The extra pay is fair," says Ulfa. "We start working when other people are still asleep. We have to be ready at the station by midnight for rehearsals and makeup."

Only one nationally broadcast TV station is yet to be dragged into the comedy frenzy, offering a purely religious program at sahur time.

"We cannot compare ourselves to other TV stations. We have our own target audience and we consistently try to cater to this segment," says Novelia Imelda, a spokeswoman for the mostly-news channel Metro TV. AC Nielsen places them at the very bottom of the sahur program ratings.

Eko however believes STAR and other programs, through their comedy sketches that double as morality tales, are still teaching people about Islam. "We are preaching our religion. We are no different from... other preachers – but we use comedy to do it."

Economy & investment

More growth, deficits seen in 2007 budget

Jakarta Post - October 18, 2006

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – The House of Representatives approved the 2007 budget Tuesday, with the government envisaging a wider deficit of Rp 40.5 trillion (US$4.3 billion) to help accelerate growth to 6.3 percent next year.

With inflation projected at 6.5 percent and the central bank's key interest rate at 8.5 percent, the budget further reflects the government's optimism that economic conditions are on the mend.

"The 2007 budget will be the anchor for macroeconomic stability, and provide as much of a stimulus for growth as the state finances can afford," Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said during the House plenary session that approved the budget.

"The government will (through the budget) improve the effectiveness of its poverty alleviation programs, disaster rehabilitation projects and infrastructure construction projects in order to help reduce unemployment."

The 2007 budget allocates a total of Rp 50.6 trillion for social welfare improvements, including a new conditional cash subsidy program for poor households, and additional disaster relief and rural infrastructure development funds.

It also allocates Rp 61.9 trillion for fuel subsidies – based on an oil price forecast of US$63 a barrel and a rupiah exchange rate of Rp 9,300 per US dollar – and Rp 25.8 trillion for the subvention paid to state electricity utility PLN. Both of these figures are lower than last year's allocations in line with the government's decision to reduce them in return for higher social-welfare spending.

However, the bulk of next year's spending will continue to consist of routine central government expenditure on the bureaucracy and the procurement of goods and services, with the total allocation for these amounting to Rp 247.2 trillion.

The regions will receive Rp 258.8 trillion, with Sri Mulyani saying the 2007 budget would provide the basis for more proportionate allocations to local governments in future budgets.

With total expenditure pegged at Rp 763.6 trillion and total revenue – mostly from taxes – forecast at Rp 723.1 trillion, next year's deficit is expected to come in at Rp 40.5 trillion, or 1.1 percent of Indonesia's gross domestic product.

The deficit will be financed through Rp 40.6 trillion raised from bond sales and Rp 3.3 trillion from the sale of stakes in state firms, among other things. By comparison, this year's deficit is expected to come in at Rp 40 trillion (0.9 percent of GDP), with growth forecast at 5.8 percent.

In giving its approval, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the nation's de facto opposition at present, reminded the government of how the House had granted it an additional Rp 320 trillion since the 2005 budget. However, it claimed that the additional money had never been reflected in significantly higher growth or social-welfare improvements.

Opinion & analysis

Foreign policy: Born again Jakarta lobby

New Matilda - October 18, 2006

Damien Kingsbury – The relationship between Australia and Indonesia is the most testing of Australia's foreign relations, and one which has consistently been mishandled. Responding to bilateral fallout over the issue of Papua, Rodd McGibbon's recently published Lowy Institute paper "Pitfalls of Papua" proposes that good relations, narrowly conceived, between Australia and Indonesia are above all other considerations.

A similar policy of "good bilateral relations above all else," with the previous Suharto regime, was promoted by what was known as the "Jakarta Lobby." Yet that policy failed to produce stable diplomatic relations.

McGibbon's paper represents the Jakarta Lobby reborn. The paper largely restates what is already known about Papua, condescends towards concerns over human rights abuses, caricatures both the West Papua resistance movement and its external supporters, and proposes policy recommendations that warm up Suharto-era leftovers.

"Pitfalls of Papua" is beset with internal contradictions. The larger contradiction is that McGibbon promotes "realism." McGibbon says that Australian critics of the current policy propose that Australia "impose itself in a "peace-making" role [which] demonstrates a troubling lack of realism." The key tenet of this "realism" is that the internal affairs of States are irrelevant to their international relations, and that international relations are conducted in an environment in which the only rules are those which are able to be imposed or agreed between individual States.

In keeping with this "realism," McGibbon proposes that Australia "boost security cooperation on border security with Indonesia" and work with Indonesia to "manage the Australian-Indonesian border, including discussion of managing the cross-border impact of Papua." The problem, it seems, is not that Papuans have reason to flee their home, but how they can be stopped from doing so.

McGibbon then makes the error of discussing the situation in Papua, which he acknowledges is deeply problematic. By acknowledging Papua's problems, McGibbon undoes the logic of "realist" bilateral relations: he cannot acknowledge human rights abuses in Papua and at the same time ignore them.

Interestingly, although Australia's security interests are promoted as paramount, nowhere in his paper does McGibbon say what they are. He emphatically insists on that which remains unstated.

A particular flaw in "Pitfalls of Papua" refers to the prospect of a negotiated resolution to the Papua conflict. McGibbon notes the success in securing a resolution to the conflict in Aceh. However, he suggests there would be little political will for such a settlement in Papua. He also says that a modified version of such an agreement is the best hope of resolving the Papua conflict, and that attempts have been made by Indonesia's Vice- President Jusuf Kalla to initiate just such a dialogue, as well as saying it is "a key priority for the [Australian] Government."

McGibbon claims, however, that there is no united Papuan leadership with which to negotiate. Papuan activists note that most of their leaders have been killed, exiled or otherwise silenced, and the Indonesian Government has employed a policy of divide and rule. McGibbon seems unaware that there is now movement in Papuan political society towards a common position: to be able to negotiate with Jakarta.

Thanks to Bill Leak

This change is illustrated by the Free West Papua Movement, or OPM, declaring an end to their armed struggle – news of which McGibbon regards as "isolated reports." Indeed, OPM leaders were interviewed on ABC television saying this, and issued a media statement to this effect.

From this point, McGibbon's assessment slips into ridicule. He refers to activists' comments about their first-hand experiences on the PNG-Papua border, describing a report by activist Nick Chesterfield as a "bizarre account... replete with cloak and dagger anecdotes."

Chesterfield is well known as a spokesman for the Free West Papua Campaign and is one of very few outsiders to have worked with West Papuan refugees along the PNG border, where he has received corroborated first-hand accounts of cross-border raids by the Indonesian military (TNI), as well as reports of Indonesian military intelligence activities. Chesterfield's field reports are not so much "bizarre" as is McGibbon's denial of documented TNI activity against West Papuan refugees. By comparison, McGibbon has not visited this region or spoken to refugees there, even though, as a pro-Jakarta researcher, he has had surprisingly easy access to a province cut off to other researchers and journalists.

Of personal concern to this critic is McGibbon's serious misrepresentation of an article by me, "The Trouble with the Territory's Future," published in The Weekend Australian, 15-16 April 2006. The article outlined a possible negotiated political settlement as a means of resolving Papua's conflict that, if achieved, might be monitored by European Union or US aid agencies.

McGibbon claims the article advocated Australia lead "international efforts to formulate and enforce a peace agreement," even though the article explicitly rejected Australia's involvement. McGibbon ridicules the idea that Australia could play such a role in Papua because it would alienate the Indonesian Government, yet, as previously mentioned, he also suggests Australia do just this.

A key belief of the old Jakarta Lobby was that widespread public opposition to a policy of appeasement over East Timor – an opposition that sat consistently around 75 per cent according to public opinion polls – reflected a lack of knowledge by ordinary Australians. McGibbon repeats this view about a lack of public knowledge, regarding a poll earlier this year at the time of the Papuan boat people crisis that showed 76 per cent of Australians supported independence for West Papua. McGibbon's suggestion is that the Government counter such views with a "public information campaign," which might also be viewed as propaganda.

The Australian population was ultimately correct about the iniquities of East Timor and the Australian Government eventually bowed to popular pressure in 1999. Contrary popular opinion might be uncomfortable for self-assured elites, but the Australian people are often able to see that which is obvious, even if it does not suit elite agendas.

If there is value in McGibbon's paper, it is that he confirms that the Jakarta Lobby remains alive and well. In his new position, moving from the ANU to the Office of National Assessments, McGibbon looks ready to repeat the Jakarta Lobby's past policy mistakes.

[Damien Kingsbury is Director of the Masters in International and Community Development at Deakin University, and has written and edited a number of books on Indonesian politics.]

Behold Indonesia's democratic beacon

Asia Times - October 19, 2006

Shawn W Crispin – With Thailand under military-appointed rule, the Philippines fresh off a stint of martial law and an unresolved vote-rigging scandal and the rest of Southeast Asia under hard and soft authoritarian yokes, Indonesia has clearly emerged as the region's healthiest, most vibrant functioning democracy.

Eight years after launching a highly ambitious political reform program, Indonesia has surprised many analysts and academics by how quickly and smoothly the world's fourth-largest country has consolidated meaningful democratic gains. Indonesia has since 1998 overhauled every fundamental aspect of its former authoritarian state, including an amended constitution, a more powerful parliament and a reformed election system.

The country's first-ever direct presidential elections in 2004, in which former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected on a strong reform ticket, represented a democratic high-water mark. What's gone less noticed over that same period have been 250 or so different local-level elections, which are now contested down to the grassroots regent level.

Breaking with former strongman Suharto's top-down New Order regime, Indonesia's peripheral populations are now less captive to the interests and abuses of local political heavies, who under Suharto often inserted themselves as gatekeepers to financial and natural resources through central government authority. While many attempted to co-opt new democratic institutions to perpetuate their power, nearly 40% of local level incumbents have in recent years been booted from office at the ballot box.

In certain conflict-plagued regions, local democracy is even having a healing effect. According to a recent report in the Jakarta-based Van Zorge Report, head and vice head candidates, often representing respectively localities' Muslim majority and Christian minority populations, have frequently teamed up to beat competing candidates who ran on a one-religion ticket. That is, local-level democracy is rewarding politicians who form religiously inclusive, not exclusive, coalitions.

Since 2001, Indonesia has implemented one of Asia's – if not the world's – most ambitious decentralization programs, rapidly devolving decision-making authority and control of resources from the center to the periphery. Many pundits predicted that rushed decentralization would lead to violent Balkanization across the sprawling archipelago, where historically aggrieved, suddenly empowered populations straddling resource-rich areas would opt to secede rather than cooperate with Jakarta.

Yet only East Timor has so far moved to break away – and some would argue in the wake of recent civil unrest there to disastrous effect. The long-running rebellion in Papua province has recently lost steam as local-level democratic institutions take deeper root. And Jakarta's promise of more local autonomy for Aceh province has brought that grinding 30-year conflict to a democratic conclusion.

Michael Malley, an Indonesia expert at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, notes in a recent Van Zorge Report interview that no new breakaway armed insurgent groups have emerged since the promulgation of the 1998 decentralization reforms. Previously among the skeptics, he said: "Many have been surprised that such enormous change could take place without national disintegration."

More significantly, Indonesia's extraordinary democratic progress has put the lie to academic debates about whether Islam and democracy can peacefully co-exist. Predictions that dismantling Suharto's highly secular state institutions would lead to a coincident rise in Islamic fundamentalism have notably not panned out. Political parties that have campaigned on strict Islamic platforms fared poorly against more secular candidates at the 2004 parliamentary polls.

Fundamentalists elected on anti-corruption tickets that have since attempted to push Islamic-tinged legislation in parliament, including a controversial anti-pornography bill, have seen their popularity fall dramatically in public opinion polls.

Rapid transition

To be sure, the rapid transition from a highly centralized to a highly decentralized political system has been attended by growing pains, including widespread confusion about where real decision-making authority lies over certain jurisdictions.

Investors reportedly carp that they now must pay bribes not only to central government authorities, but also provincial and local-level officials to seal business deals. Provincial and local-level officials have quibbled over jurisdiction of tax revenues, which in turn has raised hard questions about responsibility for the provision of public utilities. Central government corruption has in many areas merely been replaced by local-level graft.

At the same time, democratization and decentralization are unmistakably leading to unprecedented rural empowerment – more so than Thailand's highly touted, fiscally unsustainable, top- down populist rural handouts, and streets ahead of the Philippines' unreformed feudal countryside, where a clutch of elite families still owns the majority of land. Indonesian democracy is paying broad dividends through greater political stability, a more equitable distribution of natural and financial resources to the local level and slowly but surely more reactive, inclusive local governance.

Those burnished democratic credentials are fast improving Western perceptions about Indonesia, which was widely viewed as a basket case in the chaotic aftermath of the 1997-98 economic crisis, and as a haven for international terrorism in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombing.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly praised Indonesia's democratic progress during her recent visit to Jakarta – though realpolitik motivations of counterbalancing China may have colored her upbeat assessment. Yet it was no surprise that Indonesia this month won in a landslide the right to Asia's revolving allocated seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Some viewed that as a reward for Indonesia's new strong democratic leadership role inside the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), particularly in addressing member state Myanmar's worsening political and humanitarian crisis. And although criticized domestically for the US$43 million price tag, Jakarta's recent decision to send professional peacekeeping forces under the auspices of the UN to Lebanon speaks to Indonesia's desire to serve as an honest democratic broker between Islam and the West in the Middle East.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono deserves much credit for presiding over and not obstructing the latest phases of Indonesia's remarkable democratic transition. Yet he has been widely criticized in the local media for his slow, deliberate, consensus-building leadership style – particularly in relation to his management of the economy, which some Jakarta-based analysts contend needs a quick fiscal kick through accelerated infrastructure spending.

But good governance in a checked and balanced democratic system is often by necessity slow-moving. Much of the grumbling about Yudhoyono's deliberate decision-making arises from an increasingly marginalized political elite, who received more generous, less scrutinized government contracts and concessions under strongman Suharto. Meanwhile, Yudhoyono's anti-corruption campaign – though by no means as deep-reaching as it could be – has ruffled certain politically powerful feathers, down to the grassroots level.

Yudhoyono's party's small numbers in parliament has meant some of his more ambitious reform initiatives have been quashed by opposition forces, fairly or unfairly fueling perceptions about his ineffectual democratic leadership. But that check on presidential power also speaks to the significant decentralization of national power, recently devolved by law from the executive to the legislative branch.

It's no longer a question of whether Indonesia's elected politicians are truly democratic, but rather whether they are effective leaders and custodians of their respective national, provincial or local interests. As seen at the local and provincial levels, if national perceptions grow that Yudhoyono isn't performing up to expectation, Indonesia's newly demanding voters will replace him with a candidate perceived to be more able at the 2009 direct presidential polls. Pity the rest of Southeast Asia, which by comparison doesn't have that same democratic choice.

[Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia editor.]

Islamist party, no?

Jakarta Post Editorial - October 18, 2006

If the latest opinion poll by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) is any indication, then the combined votes of all the Islamist parties in Indonesia will plunge to 9 percent in the 2009 elections, from more than 20 percent in 2004. The survey, however, is not so comprehensive as to allow us to draw any strong conclusions about the direction of Islamist parties, let alone explain their ups and downs.

More interesting than the survey is the presence of Islamist parties in politics. One is immediately reminded of what the late Nurcholish Madjid, one of Indonesia's great Islamic thinkers, had to say on the topic: "Islam Yes, Islamist Party No!" This statement in the late 1970s launched an exhaustive debate about the pros and cons of Islamist parties (or any party using religious symbols, for that matter) contesting general elections in the country.

Now that the LSI is spotlighting Islam and politics again, it begs the question, does Indonesia really need Islamist parties, especially since the poll says they are losing their appeal among Indonesian voters.

Several countries with huge Muslim populations have already banned political parties using Islamic symbols. But each of these countries, like Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria and Nigeria, reached these decisions through different paths, including violent suppression. They could hardly be used as a model for Indonesia.

If and when Indonesia decides to ban Islamist parties, it will have to go through the democratic process to reach a national consensus.

There are some very compelling reasons why it is time we rethink the presence of political parties that use religious symbols.

Our own modern history provides the most powerful argument. For much of the last 61 years, our time and attention have been consumed by whether Indonesia is a religious state or a secular state, about the place of Islam in politics and the battle to impose sharia, the Islamic law.

At the national level, the matter has been settled many times over. The democratic elections in 1955, 1999 and 2004 showed that parties with Islamist agenda never enjoy the support of more than 20 percent of the voters. This should be a sufficient indicator of the aspirations of Indonesians, including the majority Muslims, on the questions of Islam and politics.

There was a huge debate about the place of Islam in Indonesia when our founding fathers were drafting the 1945 constitution, with the secularists winning the day. They debated whether Islamic laws should be applied to Indonesian Muslims and a separate law to non-Muslims. There was another big debate over the same issue during the constitutional amendment in 2000-2002. Again the secular camp won.

One would have thought that the matter was settled: The majority have accepted that Indonesia is a secular state, but one that respects and observes universal religious values.

But courtesy of the Islamist parties, the issue keeps resurfacing again and again and it is taking time, attention and resources away that could have been allocated for more serious nation- building activities and to catch up with the rest of the world. As a nation, we seem to have not moved an inch precisely because of this perennial issue.

The latest technique by the Islamist parties is to push their agenda through unsuspecting regional areas. One province and more than 20 districts are now governed by some versions of sharia.

The danger of using (or rather abusing) religion in politics is that it risks splitting this pluralist nation along religious lines, between the majority Muslims versus non-Muslims, along with a false notion of the righteous versus the infidels.

Although Indonesian voters have not fallen for this kind of debate, the risk of a civil war is very real and should not be underestimated. The communal conflicts in Poso, Central Sulawesi, and, until recently, in Maluku, serve as painful reminders of what our religious differences can do if they are not managed carefully.

The one compelling argument against banning Islamist parties is that we live in a democracy. Our constitution guarantees freedom of association, including the right of people to form political parties on the bases of any platform, barring Communism, which is still banned.

Here is the rub. The Islamist parties will continue to campaign on their Islamist agenda, even while they know they are unlikely to win majority support to push their agenda nationally. They also know that some percentage of the people (between 10 and 20 percent) will vote for them, enough to get them seats in parliament. So they continue to champion their lost causes because, at the end of the day, Islam to them is just a political commodity. They have no real vision, let alone strategy to improve the lot of the nation. Nation building is probably the last of their worries. That's no way to run politics.

Nurcholish Madjid may have been right when he rejected the notion of an Islamist party. In his honor, we should reexamine at his thoughts and vision.

The question that the nation needs to ask is no longer whether we should adopt sharia or turn into an Islamic state. These have both been rejected outright. The question that we should be asking is whether the presence of Islamist parties is beneficial or detrimental to Indonesia's future.

The Poso killing field

Jakarta Post Editorial - October 17, 2006

Another life was eliminated on Monday by those who have an interest in the violence in Central Sulawesi prevailing. The death of the man adds to the list of those who have lost their lives in the sectarian-torn region and no one knows when the list will end. As long as the warring parties have no will to stop the human tragedy and outside parties thirst for blood and power, the list will grow unabated.

Amidst the current calamity in the province, people there need leaders who behave wisely and fight hard for the restoration of peace. Governor Bandjela Paliudju, however, has failed to show such leadership – at least he failed on Monday. Hopefully he will quickly learn from the mistake he made because he is the leader of the whole province and is expected to protect everyone's safety and ensure their prosperity.

The governor's remarks over the murder of Christian Reverend Irianto Kongkoli, 40, in the provincial capital of Palu were deplorable because his comments could provoke more tension in the religiously divided province. As the leader of a sectarian conflict-torn province, his wisdom and statesmanship is highly expected because hatred and distrust between the two conflicting sides run very high.

Paliudju said he suspected the killing of the Central Sulawesi Communion of Churches secretary general was related to the clergyman's opposition to the execution of three Catholic farmers for their roles in the deaths of dozens of Muslims in the provincial town of Poso in 2000.

"He was an outspoken priest who many times led Christian protests against the executions," Paliudju was quoted by AFP as saying shortly after Irianto was shot in the head by an unidentified gunman.

A Muslim journalist who was in frequent contact with Irianto before his death said the reverend had been active in the joint efforts between Christian and Muslim leaders to restore peace to the province. This means the governor's conclusions about the reverend's death are still debatable.

The governor's remarks were completely different from those made by National Police Chief Gen. Sutanto, who wisely tried to calm down the public. "We need to make sure such killings do not happen again," he said in Jakarta.

Of course the police chief's commitment will only be meaningful if it is followed by the arrest and the (fair) trial of those responsible for the murder.

We condemn the killing of the reverend, which occurred just several days before Muslims celebrate Idul Fitri on Tuesday. We hope his tragic death will not provoke revenge from the Christian side.

We are also very saddened by the incidents that followed the executions of Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marianus Riwu on Sept. 22 in Palu, including the murders of two Muslims, allegedly by a group of Christians.

Some Christians believed the Tibo, da Silva and Riwu did not get fair legal treatment, while some Muslims believed justice was upheld with their execution.

Hundreds of innocent people lost their lives during the peak of the conflict during 2000 and 2001. As a member of President Megawati Soekarnoputri's cabinet, Jusuf Kalla – now vice president – succeeded in convincing the two fighting parties to sign a peace treaty in 2001.

Since then, peace has generally prevailed in Poso, although there is still the occasional outbreak of violence. It is undeniable that outside parties are intensively involved in the bloody conflict. There are certain people who believe that they have right to kill in the name of God those who they regard as their enemies.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Vice President need to pay more attention to Poso. The violence there should be stopped. Therefore the roots of the conflict also need to be addressed. Concrete and effective measures are urgently needed to prevent to more victims.

We mourn the deaths of victims in Poso. The whole population in the province must share the same belief, that the absence of peace there will only harm themselves and their children.