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Indonesia News Digest 46 – December 9-15, 2006
Jakarta Post - December 14, 2006
ID Nugroho, Surabaya – Hundreds of workers in East Java held
street protests Wednesday to show their opposition to the new
minimum wage level set to be implemented across the province next
month.
The protesters from the Alliance of Workers Struggle group called
for East Java Governor Imam Utomo to lift the new minimum wage
from the planned Rp 746,000 to the alliance's demand of Rp
975,000.
Arriving in trucks and on motorcycles, the protest was made up of
workers from Surabaya's factories, with others from Malang,
Pasuruan and Sidoarjo later joining the demonstration.
For Malang, the governor set the wage at Rp 743,000, lower than
the revised proposal from the regent at Rp 745,109 and the survey
of basic needs made by the city's remuneration council at Rp
770,109.
The alliance's spokesman, Jamaludin, said the governor's local
Dec. 8 ordinance on the minimum wage was based on an erroneous
survey of workers' basic needs.
Meanwhile, the local regency and municipal administrations in the
province had failed to pass on workers' demands to the governor,
he said.
"It makes no sense that the amount proposed by the regents, mayor
and a remuneration council in Surabaya is only Rp 748,000, much
less than in other cities in East Java. It's not valid,"
Jamaludin said.
The alliance came to its wage demand after holding an independent
survey on basic needs, he said.
Jamaludin accused regional leaders of taking part in backroom
deals before making a decision on the wage, with proposals from
several cities, including Gresik, Pasuruan and Malang, handed
back by the governor to be revised downward.
"That's why the alliance demands the East Java governor revoke
the ordinance and revise the minimum wage. There should be
transparency and accountability when determining the wage and
workers' basic needs," Jamaludin said.
The alliance has also requested the governor take into account an
8 percent inflation rate when setting the wage.
Meanwhile, the head of East Java's manpower office, Bahruddin,
questioned the motive for the protest. "How can (workers) know
that the (provincial government's) survey of basic needs is
invalid?" Bahruddin told The Jakarta Post. He said his office
would discuss the matter with the administration.
Jakarta Post - December 11, 2006
Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has agreed that a
transitional period is needed in order to synchronize all related
laws before soldiers stand civilian trials for non-military
crimes, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said Sunday.
After consulting with the President, Juwono said the government
needed a period of up to three years before enforcing the 2000
law on the Indonesian Military (TNI), which orders military
officers to be tried in civilian courts for ordinary crimes. The
transitional period would be used to amend interconnected laws to
avoid any legal problems in implementing the 2004 law, Juwono
added.
Other laws that should be revised, he said, included the Military
Criminal Code, the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedures
Code. Articles in those laws allow soldiers accused of criminal
acts to face military trials.
The 2000 law and a 2000 decree issued by the People's
Consultative Assembly changes this as part of a gradual effort to
reform the military. The TNI enjoyed exclusivity and legal
impunity during the 32-year tenure of former authoritarian ruler
Soeharto, who himself is a retired five-star general.
Hot debate over the issue of civilian trials stalled the
deliberation of the military tribunal bill. The House of
Representatives had proposed the move, while the government
expressed reluctance.
Last week, Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin said
Yudhoyono had agreed that soldiers must face civilian trials for
criminal charges. The controversy over the issue should be ended
with the President's remark, Hamid added.
Critics say military tribunals perpetuate the culture of impunity
within the TNI because they are not sufficiently open to public
scrutiny. Juwono had suggested that civilian judges and
prosecutors be deployed to military tribunals during the
transition period.
The government recently finished drawing up the revisions to the
Criminal Code, and the bill awaits deliberation at the House. But
there were no plans so far to amend the Military Criminal Code
and the Criminal Procedures Code.
Andreas Pareira, who chairs a House special committee
deliberating the military tribunal bill, said lawmakers could
understand the government's request for a transitional period.
However, Andreas added, that did not mean that the deliberation
of the bill should be halted while the other laws were revised.
"The revisions to the other laws can go in parallel. If we wait
for the other laws to be amended first, I am sure nothing is
going to happen ever. We shouldn't waste more time. The military
tribunal bill can go on and even get enacted long before those
other laws are revised. Just put an auxiliary article in the bill
about trying soldiers in civilian courts," he said.
Furthermore, the lawmaker from the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle asserted that the government should take the initiative
to propose revisions to the Military Criminal Code and the
Criminal Procedures Code if it was serious in its commitment to
fully reform the military.
"Revising laws could take from months to years, depending on the
commitment of both the House and the government. So if they mean
what they say, they should immediately submit revisions to those
laws and start deliberation with the House," he said.
Aceh
West Papua
Human rights/law
War on corruption
Environment
Gender issues
Aid & development
Foreign affairs
Opinion & analysis
News & issues
East Java workers protest new minimum wage for 2007
Government wants delay in soldiers' civilian trials
PMB 'not linked' to Muhammadiyah
Jakarta Post - December 11, 2006
Semarang – Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin has said his organization has no connection with a new political party called the National Sun Party (PMB) which was established by its young activists.
"Muhammadiyah has no links with any political party," Din was quoted by Antara as saying Saturday in Semarang, Central Java.
The PMB was set up by young Muhammadiyah members who were dissatisfied with the existing National Mandate Party (PAN) which they said had failed to fight for the aspirations of Muhammadiyah followers.
"I don't know and I have not been following the issue," Din said when asked about the prospects of PMB in the 2009 elections.
In his address to Muhammadiyah members in Semarang, Din said the second largest Muslim organization in the country was "going international" with seven branches already opened overseas.
The seven branches are in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Iran, Sudan, Damascus and the Netherlands.
In the near future, Muhammadiyah will also open offices in London, Canberra and Washington, Din added.
Jakarta Post - December 9, 2006
Jakarta – State oil and gas company PT Pertamina said Friday it had discovered that tens of thousands of liters of kerosene designated for household use were being hoarded at a number of fuel depots in Depok and Bogor.
It was the first such finding since kerosene shortages hit Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi last month, causing panic buying among households.
"We found that four fuel depots in Depok and Bogor were hoarding kerosene, possibly to sell to industries for up to Rp 5,000 a liter," said Pertamina official Ari Widoyono, who is also a member of the investigative team formed by the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Security and Legal Affairs.
He said a fuel depot in Cibinong, for example, had stocked more than 19,000 liters of kerosene "We have handed over the case to police... We will cut kerosene supply to Depok," he was quoted as saying by Antara.
The team will also investigate the possibility kerosene hoarding is going on in Bekasi, Tangerang and Karawang. Ari said subsidized kerosene tended to get diverted away from households to industries. "According to our calculations, six out of 10 industries are using subsidized kerosene."
The government has set the maximum retail price of kerosene at Rp 2,275 per liter for households and Rp 6,000 per liter for industries.
Many have said the substantial price gap between kerosene for household and industrial use is to blame for the frequent shortages in the country. Kerosene is widely used as a cooking fuel by the poor.
The government allocated Rp 40 trillion in 2006 to subsidize the price of 9.9 million kiloliters of kerosene for household use.
To reduce kerosene consumption and soaring fuel subsidy costs amid surging global oil prices, the government is encouraging households to switch to using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
One kilogram of LPG is more or less equal in energy content to three liters of kerosene.
Pertamina has said it will start distributing three-and-half kilogram cylinders of LPG to households and food vendors in Jakarta this month.
| Aceh |
Jakarta Post - December 15, 2006
M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – Former Free Aceh Movement leader Irwandi Yusuf, who leads Aceh's gubernatorial race, will face an uphill struggle to govern the province, analysts said Thursday.
Mohammad Qodari, of the new research institute Indo Barometer, said while Irwandi was polling convincingly at around 26 percent of the vote, being on an independent ticket would pose problems for him and running-mate Muhammad Nazar in the future.
"Together with the local legislative council, Irwandi is mandated by the Aceh governance law to draw up 90 qanuns (bylaws), yet he will have no support from political factions in the legislature," Qodari told a discussion.
The most pressing problem for the former GAM rebels, Qodari said, would be the repatriation of thousands of refugees who were displaced during the three-decades-long conflict between the rebel group and the Indonesian Military.
"There are now over 50,000 refugees from armed conflicts in the past who feel they are being left out in the post-tsunami reconstruction projects," Qodari said.
He said Irwandi and Nazar also needed to establish a good relationship with the Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency, another powerful institution which controlled a huge sum of money to rebuild the tsunami-hit areas.
Qodari believed Irwandi had made a blunder by announcing one of his top priorities would be to amend the Aceh governance law.
"He opened a new battle front against the major political factions in the House of Representatives, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the Golkar Party, which has taken pains to produce the law," he said.
The Irwandi-Nazar pair are poised to lead Aceh after a quick vote count gave them convincing lead in Monday's direct gubernatorial election. The lead surprised many, who expected the victory would be enjoyed by candidates nominated by the major political parties.
Analyst Fadhil Hassan of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance said the new leaders of Aceh would also have problems dealing with the bureaucracy.
He said in the near future the province would be awash with cash from numerous funding schemes prepared by the central government but it would likely lack the human resources to manage it.
"The problem for Aceh now is not the lack of resources but how to manage the resources when it is left with the same incompetence bureaucracy. I doubt if the existing bureaucracy has the skill and competence to implement the policies of the new governor," he said.
He warned Aceh could repeat the failure of Papua to improve the well-being of its people, despite receiving the bulk of its special autonomy fund from the central government.
Meanwhile, activist Otto Syamsuddin Ishak of the Aceh Working Group said the likely victory of Irwandi and Nazar had overturned conventional wisdom about local politics.
"They weren't nominated by any political parties, neither did they spend much money on the election and they received only a little support from the media. Yet they could win the election," he said.
Reuters - December 14, 2006
Banda Aceh – Human rights protesters demonstrated in Indonesia's Aceh province on Thursday, urging international monitors overseeing a historic peace deal between the government and separatist rebels to stay on.
Thirty-five remaining European and Asian monitors grouped under the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) are due to leave the province on Friday, ending a 15-month stint there.
About 100 protesters, who said they were victims of human rights abuses during a 29-year conflict between the Indonesian military and separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), rallied near AMM headquarters in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.
They demanded the AMM negotiate the release of more than 20 people still being held in Indonesian prisons. "We victims of human rights abuses are asking the AMM not to leave Aceh before its job is done," protest leader Ali Zamzani told Reuters.
In August 2005, Jakarta signed a peace accord with GAM in Helsinki under Finnish mediation, bringing an end to a conflict that killed an estimated 15,000 people, mostly civilians. The Helsinki agreement came after months of negotiations, partially spurred by the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that left around 170,000 Acehnese dead or missing.
The AMM, led by veteran Dutch diplomat Pieter Feith, has overseen GAM's surrender of arms as the Indonesian military scaled back its presence on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
On Monday, Aceh held its first direct elections for top executive posts in the province – the governor and deputy as well as 19 mayors and regents. The vote was seen as a key step in cementing the truce.
Former rebel spokesman Irwandi Yusuf easily won the governorship, according to a sampling of votes taken from polling station throughout Aceh.
Yusuf said on Sunday the absence of monitors to oversee the peace pact in Aceh was worrying.
"If we can move forward nicely without AMM, that is great. But if conditions worsen again because of the absence of AMM, I will call them back or any other body who can act as a referee," he told Reuters.
"But the political will from the government has been quite good," he said, adding that he thought the military leadership was sincere in its commitment to peace.
AMM initially had more than 200 staff when the mission started soon after the truce, but after three 3-month extensions it has only 35 monitors left in the province.
Jakarta Post - December 15, 2006
Nani Afrida and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Banda Aceh – While peace finally has descended upon Aceh, past wounds have yet to heal. A hundred people, claiming to be victims of past rights abuses in the province, demonstrated here Thursday urging the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) and the Aceh Reintegration Agency (BRA) to resolve their cases.
Claiming to represent thousands of people across the province, the mostly middle-aged women demonstrators said the peace that was flowering would never fully bloom until there was full accountability for past abuses.
"AMM should not leave Aceh... there are still numerous unsolved problems," said Rukaya, who claimed her husband and two children were killed by security personnel in 2003.
"Thousands of victims are still awaiting justice. The military personnel who perpetrated the abuses and the generals responsible have yet to be brought to justice," she said.
The protest was held as the AMM officially concluded its 15-month mission Thursday.
However, Banta Khalidansyah, a former rebel leader in West Aceh, urged the AMM to extend its mandate to resolve past rights cases. "We no longer believe Indonesia will respond to our grievances. Please stay and declare your commitment to helping Acehnese reveal the truth," he said.
Hendra Budian, coordinator of the Aceh Judicial Monitoring Institute (AJMI), regretted the AMM's departure, saying that as a body representing pro-human rights states it should show more concern for the issue.
After meeting behind closed doors with AMM officers, the demonstrators left the mission's office to continue their protest at the Aceh Reintegration Agency office.
AMM chairman Peter Feith said the mission could only work within its mandate. "Human rights violations which happened before Aug. 15, 2005, the date the MOU was signed, will be handled under Indonesian law," he said. The MOU he referred to was the Helsinki peace agreement signed by the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which paved the way for the AMM to enter the province.
"Providing support for political prisoners and conflict victims is a long-term scheme which is expected to be completed by the end of 2007. The long-term program will be carried out by the European Commission and other donor countries and the AMM will no longer be in charge of this," he said.
Feith underlined the importance of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). "I continue to make contact with relevant ministers in Jakarta and ask them to speed up the TRC's establishment."
Asked about the possibility of violence flaring up after the mission's departure, Feith said any problems would be managed by the Indonesian government in cooperation with the European Commission.
Feith also expressed hope that the winner of the just-concluded election in Aceh and officials in Jakarta could ensure the peace in the province continued. "A new era will come to Aceh with the establishment of a new administration to maintain peace," he said.
Separately, former GAM spokesman Irwandi Yusuf – who is expected to be confirmed as the winner of the gubernatorial election – was asked to comment on the demands for a resolution of past rights abuses. He vowed to coordinate with the central government in pushing for reconciliation, despite the fact the law on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was recently annulled by the Constitutional Court.
"We will consider establishing a commission under the Aceh administration, but it will be set up in close coordination with Jakarta since the majority of those allegedly involved in human rights abuses are security personnel," he told The Jakarta Post.
The Constitutional Court recently struck down the 2004 law on the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to settle all unresolved human rights abuses in the country. The decision has sparked outrage among rights abuse victims and activists.
Agence France Presse - December 13, 2006
Ian Timberlake, Banda Aceh – Civilians in Indonesia's Aceh province show levels of combat-related stress, depression and anxiety comparable with those in Afghanistan and Bosnia, researchers say.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) conducted the study with Harvard Medical School's Department of Social Medicine and Aceh's University of Syiah Kuala.
IOM spokesman Paul Dillon said Aceh faced a "mental health crisis" that could jeopardize reconstruction after the December 2004 tsunami.
The university said it was the first systematic survey of communities severely affected during 29 years of conflict between Indonesian forces and separatist rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which left nearly 15,000 people dead.
"Psychological symptoms in this population are extraordinarily high, ranking with post-conflict populations in settings such as Bosnia or Afghanistan," the 58-page report said.
Both sides reached a peace deal in August last year, which led to local elections Monday. A former rebel is expected to be confirmed as the Indonesian province's new governor.
Researchers surveyed 596 people last February in 30 villages selected randomly in Pidie, Bireuen and North Aceh districts, which were heavily affected by the violence.
They found 78 percent of respondents reported experiences of combat including bombings and firefights, while 47 percent were forced to flee danger and 38 percent fled burning buildings.
"The first and most overwhelming finding of the survey is that members of the three districts experienced remarkably high levels of traumatic events," the report said. It found 41 percent reported a family member or friend killed, and another 33 percent reported friends or family had disappeared.
Thirty-nine percent reported beatings to the body, 26 percent were attacked with a gun or knife and 54 percent witnessed physical punishment, it said. A separate finding said 48 percent of young men between 17 and 29 received beatings to the head.
"Rates of head trauma and potential brain injury... are extraordinarily high and deserve clinical interventions and further research," the report said.
Eighty-two percent said they had lacked food and water because of the conflict. "These statistics provide clear evidence of the magnitude of suffering and terror experienced in these communities," the report said.
Respondents reported abuses including "suffocation with plastic bags, public displays of sexual humiliation, drownings in septic tanks and sewage canals, and being forced to injure or humiliate friends and loved ones".
The survey did not ask who might have been responsible for the violence, but rights groups have previously blamed most of it on government forces, which heavily outnumbered the rebels.
The report said 65 percent of the sample ranked high for depression symptoms, according to accepted international protocols, while 69 percent ranked high on anxiety symptoms, and 34 percent for post-traumatic stress disorder. Many respondents suffered from complex trauma resulting from years of violence and insecurity, the report said.
Despite the findings, it said the affected communities "remain strong and highly resilient". But it recommended the international community recognize the urgency to provide mental health services to communities most affected by the conflict.
The study aimed to gather data which could be used to develop treatment programmes.
More than 168,000 people died when the Indian Ocean tsunami hit Aceh, sparking a massive international aid and reconstruction effort, and providing the impetus for last year's peace accord.
Jakarta Post - December 15, 2006
Nani Afrida and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Banda Aceh – Foreign monitors on Thursday reported to the local poll supervisory body (Panwaslih) a number of violations during Monday's landmark elections in Aceh.
Meanwhile, Irwandi Yusuf and running mate Muhammad Nazar continue to lead in the preliminary vote count for the gubernatorial election.
The European Union Election Observation Mission for Aceh reported cases of intimidation at 1.2 percent of 232 polling stations in Central Aceh, Pidie and Aceh Besar. The Asian Network For Free Elections (Anfrel) announced similar cases in Aceh Tamiang, as well as technical violations during the voting and money politics during campaigning.
Anfrel mission head Damaso Magbual said most voters who were targets of intimidation were reluctant to report the matter to the election supervisory agency.
"Eligible voters were asked by unidentified people to hand over their voter cards for unspecified reasons. However, they don't want their cases reported to the official election supervisory agency for further investigation," he said at a press conference here Thursday.
He said 11 Anfrel monitors deployed in 20 districts also found dozens of ballots in ballot boxes before voting began. He also said many ballots were declared invalid because people did not understand how to vote, while some polling station staff did not ensure ballots were correctly inserted in ballot boxes.
"There is a need for adequate voter education and civic education all over Aceh," Magbual said. Citing an example, he said many ballots for governor were inserted in ballot boxes meant for mayoral races.
He also called on the Aceh Independent Elections Committee (KIP Aceh) and the poll supervisory body to look into these cases to avoid similar problems in a possible second round of voting.
Magbual said communication problems hampered Anfrel staff in performing their work, and asked the official supervisory agency to investigate all complaints thoroughly.
EU Election Observation Mission chairman Glyn Ford also called on the poll supervisory body to look into the reported complaints and election violations. However, he said the complaints would not influence the final results of the elections.
Ford said his mission also found the official election supervisory agency was sometimes ineffective and slow to respond to complaints during the voting.
"Panwaslih had trouble during the election day and they were found to be less than cooperative and proactive in handling violations during the balloting day," he said.
Ford said the supervisory agency had received a total of 158 complaints, with 109 of them having been identified as administrative problems and 19 as election violations.
Meanwhile, as of Thursday evening the vote count by the Aceh Independent Elections Committee had former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) spokesman Irwandi and his running mate still in the lead in the governor's race.
The pair had 26.17 percent of the 984,758 votes counted by the KIP. They are followed by Humam Hamid and running mate Hasbi Abdullah with 18.60 percent of the counted votes, down from 20.35 percent on Wednesday. Trailing close behind in third is Golkar Party candidate Malek Raden and running mate Sayed Fuad Zakaria with 18.11 percent.
The KIP has yet to receive ballot boxes from Sabang, North Aceh, Aceh Jaya, Bireuen, East Aceh and Langsa. GAM candidates are expected to do well in these areas.
Jakarta Post - December 14, 2006
Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The imminent victory of former rebel candidates in the Aceh gubernatorial election is a signal of the popularity the movement in the resource-rich province and Aceh people's rejection of Jakarta politics, observers say.
In the other regional elections across the province independent candidates are consistently polling in front of those endorsed by the traditional national political parties.
Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said Wednesday the early result of the gubernatorial poll giving a landslide win to the Irwandi Yusuf-M. Nazar pair was a message to Jakarta that Aceh wanted more action not more words.
"I think it's an expression of a desire for autonomy by the Acehnese. The message is that the central government must be more attentive to the Aceh people," he said.
Juwono said the failure of candidates endorsed by Jakarta-based political parties showed how badly Jakarta had treated Aceh in the past. "The people in Aceh are, as it turns out, not satisfied with how they were treated in the past. We accept this, and the central government needs to be prudent in developing Aceh," he said.
Rich with oil and gas, Aceh has long been a key source of revenue for Jakarta but little of this money has so far trickled down to the local economy.
Unhappy with such treatment, Hassan Tiro and like-minded people in Aceh declared the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in 1976 to seek independence from Indonesia, and fought a three-decade guerrilla war with the military.
Thousands of civilians were killed or forced to flee their homes during the repressive Soeharto regime, especially during a military crackdown from 1989 through 1998. From May 2003 to December the following year, Jakarta again imposed martial law on the province and barred foreigners and journalists from entering it.
The conflict officially ended last year when Jakarta and GAM leaders, many of whom still reside abroad, signed a peace agreement in Helsinki.
The head of the National Resilience Institute, a military think- thank, Muladi, said GAM candidates' imminent victories proved the appeal of the movement to the Acehnese. "This shows that there needs to be special attention and policy implementation in Aceh as long as the elected governor remains committed to Indonesia and the Constitution," he said.
With the victory, Muladi said GAM should immediately disband or Jakarta would think it was planning to abandon the peace agreement. The movement finished disarming last year.
Muladi, who is a senior member of the Golkar Party, said he was surprised at the ballot count, which he said was the result of the "selfishness" of political parties. "If only these parties grouped together and supported specific candidates, we could have won the elections," he said.
Eight pairs of candidates contested the gubernatorial election, six of which competed with the support of political parties.
Institute for Human Rights Advocacy director Ifdhal Kasim said the results clearly proved the public's frustration with Jakarta. It showed how national political parties need to change how they campaigned and should quit depending on their "polished" images.
Aceh is the first and the only province in the country where independent candidates are allowed to run for office. It will also be the first province to introduce local political parties.
Global Insight Daily Analysis - December 12, 2006
Tanja Vestergaard – The elections constitute the culmination of the peace process initiated in 2005 between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government, following a drawn- out separatist struggle
While the election of Irwandi is a victory for the reformist branch of GAM, the movement faces a number of challenges in its quest to transform itself into a full-fledged political party. It could splinter, due to increasing divisions between the old and new guards.
Its rule will depend on its ability to deliver on crucial issues of reconstruction and grassroots economic growth, as well as the central government's continued commitment to the autonomy framework laid out in the peace agreement
The peace process culminates
The former rebel commander Irwandi Yusuf yesterday became the first directly elected governor of Aceh, when the province held its first-ever elections. The vote marked the culmination of the peace process initiated last year between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government. Security was high, with more than 10,000 police deployed to secure the 8,625 polling stations and avert violence, as the population of Aceh set out to vote.
According to flash counts conducted in the aftermath of the elections, Irwandi and his running mate, human rights activist Muhammad Nazar, have won almost 39% of the vote; this is 21.5% more than their nearest challengers, Humam Hamid and Hasbi Abdullah, who were widely seen as the choice of GAM's "old guard".
While the official result of the vote is not due before 2 January 2007, the quick count has generally been accepted as reliable, paving the way for Irwandi to take the post of governor of the war-torn province. The ex-GAM combatant was imprisoned on treason charges in 2003, but escaped from prison on 26 December 2004, when the tsunami struck, killing an estimated 168,000 people in Aceh.
This in turn paved the way for GAM and the Indonesian government to sign a peace agreement on 15 August 2005, allowing them to change their priorities and focus on the urgent reconstruction effort, after a three-decade war that had cost 12,000 lives. This was heralded as a major success, spelling a long-awaited end to the 30-year conflict. The GAM's announcement that it had successfully dissolved its armed wing, and the subsequent withdrawal of 2,500 Indonesian TNI troops in December 2005, constituted significant milestones in the implementation of the peace agreement. The government finally passed the Aceh autonomy law in July 2006, after major delays resulting from nationalist fears in Jakarta that it would allow resource- rich Aceh to split from the rest of Indonesia. However, the law has faced mixed reactions, with GAM claiming that the watered-down autonomy law violates the spirit of the peace agreement.
A vote for change
Being an ex-combatant associated with the younger element that remained in Aceh when the old political leadership went into exile in Sweden, and running as an independent in the elections, Irwandi's election is widely considered a vote for change. He has pledged to abide by the peace agreement in the aftermath of the election, but has claimed that he will demand significant amendments to the Aceh autonomy law, as too much power remains in central government hands.
However, the autonomy bill is the outcome of a precarious balancing act by the Indonesian government, which is seeking to accommodate greater autonomy for the province, while retaining the continued support of conservative forces in Jakarta who fear the loss of "another East Timor". In a bid not to create further divisions, Irwandi has announced his intention to postpone the process of seeking justice for human rights abuses until 2009, by which time GAM will have fully transformed from a guerrilla force into a political party capable of taking part in the general elections.
Outlook and implications
The historic elections constitute a milestone for Aceh, as well as Indonesia, as it is the first time that independent candidates have been allowed to run in elections. The polls have in turn served to repudiate reports that GAM's influence had diminished, and that parties served as the only conduit for political aspirations, with independent candidates winning the gubernatorial elections as well as half the district head posts.
However, while the election of Irwandi represents a victory for the reformist branch of GAM, the movement faces a number of challenges in its quest to transform itself into a fully fledged political party. As such, the run-up to the elections has exposed increasing divisions within GAM, which put forward 30 candidates to stand as independents. A split has emerged between the movement's exiled leadership in Sweden and its former field combatants, with the two sides granting their support to different candidates.
The ex-combatants on the ground have favoured Irwandi and his running mate, while the exiled "old guard" backed Ahmad Humam Hamid, a representative of a national Muslim party, and Hasbi Abdullah for the posts of governor and vice-governor. The developing split raises questions over GAM's ability to become a coherent party that can integrate successfully into the political process. According to Sydney Jones of the International Crisis Group, the divisions that are starting to emerge are "deep and durable". They reflect the degree of divergence between the perspective of the exiled leadership and the people facing pressure and adverse conditions in the province itself.
A question remains over whether GAM can overcome its divisions, or whether the elections and their aftermath will see the emergence of various splinter factions, potentially forming contending parties at a later date. GAM's plan to create a political party within six months therefore depends on its ability to emerge as a cohesive organisation, and show itself in a responsible governing capacity, as it will no longer be able to hold Jakarta accountable for the province's ills.
The elected local government will also face a number of challenges on which they will have to deliver if they are to maintain the support of the Acehnese population until the 2009 general elections. A key priority remains reconstruction and rebuilding the economy, which will necessarily be a joint effort with the central government. This involves a fair distribution of aid to the victims of the protracted conflict and tsunami, as well as the reintegration of ex-combatants into society. It also involves channelling economic benefits to the population, which could be hampered by the pervasive problem of corruption.
Meanwhile, the prospects for the firm establishment of peace and democracy in Aceh also hinge on the continued commitment of the Indonesian government to the peace agreement, with some observers stating that it may find it difficult to stomach the results of the election. Aceh has been seen as a testing ground for the implementation of autonomy bills to address separatist conflict, and an unfavourable result would undermine the model as a solution to other such conflicts elsewhere in Indonesia-notably in resource-rich Papua, where the Free Papua Movement (OPM) is waging a separatist battle against the central government.
However, any move to undermine the results of the popular election would signal a reversion to the kind of action seen under the "New Order" regime of Suharto, and would therefore be too costly to Indonesia's first democratically elected government, under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. As a result, central government interference is an unlikely development, although the stage is set for complications, as the local Acehnese government pursues more far-reaching autonomy for the province.
Melbourne Age - December 13, 2006
Mark Forbes, Banda Aceh – Voters in Aceh have delivered a massive rebuff to Jakarta, overwhelmingly endorsing a radical rebel candidate as their first elected governor and demonstrating that resentment against Indonesian rule still burns bright.
The resounding victory of independence fighter Irwandi Yusuf, who received about 40 per cent of the vote in a field of eight, underlines Acehnese support for the hardline fighters who staged a bloody, three-decades-long independence struggle. They backed Mr Irwandi over politicians aligned to Jakarta and independence leaders exiled in Sweden.
Mr Irwandi ran against the Swedish leadership of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) after their decision to support a non-rebel moderate candidate in Aceh's first direct elections for governor, a poll brought about by a 2005 peace deal that guaranteed Aceh's self-government. Grassroots fighters and commanders rallied around Mr Irwandi.
With more than 20,000 Indonesian troops withdrawn from the province under the peace deal, there are unlikely to be the violent recriminations that followed East Timor's vote for independence.
But the International Crisis Group's South-East Asian director warned that the vote was "confrontational and we are going to have to see how Jakarta responds. It's an extraordinary result. It is certainly a huge vote for change."
Sidney Jones said: "Will Jakarta say: 'Fine, welcome, let's see how you govern,' which is what I hope they will say, or will they throw up their hands in horror and say: 'Look at what we've done and we'd better not do this anywhere else in the country, especially Papua'?"
The result was a huge step towards GAM becoming a political power, but indicated that the Swedish leadership was irrelevant, Ms Jones said. "They are history right now. We have on the ground an Acehnese leadership born and bred and who stayed here during the conflict." Mr Irwandi's campaign attacked Jakarta's failure to implement all elements of the peace deal and demanded that no national laws affecting Aceh be introduced without consent.
The vote proved Acehnese wanted to be ruled by GAM, Mr Irwandi said yesterday. "This is the dream of the Acehnese people being fulfilled and they want change, fundamental change in all walks of life and in governance," he said. "It is not easy to fulfil... there are so many things to do."
New laws had to implement the requirements of the peace deal, he said. "Even without this (poll victory), Jakarta still has obligations to fulfil."
Mr Irwandi faces significant challenges in a resource-rich province beset by corruption and struggling to cope with the aftermath of the independence conflict and the devastation of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
The campaign itself was largely peaceful, after GAM's Swedish leaders capitulated and said they would remain neutral in the vote. Following the result, they revealed they feared widespread violence if they had not done so.
Mr Irwandi's decisive margin makes further recriminations unlikely. The vote was also a slap in the face for Indonesia's leading Islamic party, the PKS, whose candidate received only 10 per cent of the vote.
There is some confusion about the extent of the governor's powers under Aceh's new autonomy, but the result has delivered a moral mandate to Mr Irwandi in his looming showdowns with Jakarta.
Jakarta Post - December 13, 2006
Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The central government brushed off worries Tuesday about the likely victory of a former rebel leader in the landmark Aceh gubernatorial election, saying whoever won would deserve the top post in the provincial administration.
It called on all sides to keep monitoring the vote counting in Aceh, however, after the Monday elections that cemented an end to almost three decades of armed conflict between government troops and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that ballots were still being counted and called on the public be alert to possible vote-rigging, said the president's expert staff member for local autonomy, Heru Lelono, on Tuesday.
He said whoever won the election was a participant in democracy in Indonesia, and that much work awaited the new governor.
"Worrying that a former GAM leader is ahead in the vote is excessive. What's important for the President is the elections ran smoothly and transparently. The President believes everyone will support whoever the winner is," said Heru.
In Yogyakarta, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said GAM no longer existed, and that the possible victory of one of its members would not lead to Aceh's separation from Indonesia.
"All candidates are state citizens and we have all agreed to carry out the elections democratically," he was quoted as saying by Antara.
Similar comments came from Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Air Chief Marshall Djoko Suyanto and Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono. They cited the Aceh peace agreement's specification that Aceh will remain within the Unitary Republic of Indonesia.
The peace pact was signed in Helsinki, Finland, in August last year by Jakarta and GAM to resolve a longstanding separatist conflict and give Aceh greater autonomy.
A quick count by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI), which has produced accurate quick counts in several elections in other regions, showed former GAM leader Irwandi Yusuf and his running mate, Muhammad Nazar, winning the gubernatorial election by a landslide.
Coming in second were former GAM leaders Humam Hamid and Hasbi Abdullah. Both pairs of candidate ran as independents. GAM did not endorse a candidate, following an internal split.
Aceh is the first and so far only province in Indonesia where independent candidates are allowed to run for office.
The quick count results were a slap in the face to major political parties based in Jakarta, which analysts said was a mark of Acehnese disdain for what those parties and the central government had done there in the past.
LSI director Denny JA said Irwandi's lead could not have been predicted because he was an unpopular figure in Aceh. He cited funding and marketing as two contributing factors in his apparent success.
Irwandi and Nazar, he said, had sported traditional Acehnese outfits on the campaign trail and in their pictures on the ballots.
Analysts have alleged that the central government was fully aware that the Acehnese would favor GAM figures, and might have approached GAM candidates to ensure Aceh would remain under Jakarta's control.
Irwandi is a relatively new figure in the GAM circle and was GAM's spokesperson during the talks leading to the peace accord. He often came to Jakarta during the first rounds of the peace deal to meet with Vice President Jusuf Kalla.
South China Morning Post - December 11, 2006
Activists say sharia law bodes ill for their rights as province today elects governor, writes Fabio Scarpello
Norma Susanti, 31, says she is a good Muslim. Yet, as she gets ready to vote in today's historic first direct election for governor, the young woman confesses she is unhappy about how politics and religion have been muddled. She also worries that it will all lead to a bleaker future for women.
"To attract votes from radical groups, candidates have promised more sharia [Islamic] law" said Mrs Susanti, who is an activist with the local group Women Volunteers for Humanity. "I am afraid this political bargaining will become another barrier for women."
Situated in the westernmost tip of the country-archipelago, Aceh is the only Indonesian province that has the legal right to apply sharia in full. Although the Islamic code has been put into practice only partially, concerns have been raised that this has been to the detriment of women and the poor.
According to the International Crisis Group, the situation has been worsened by the ill-trained sharia police, a force that has grown in stature and is now threatening the authority of the regular police. In general, women face being beaten and arrested for misdemeanours such as not wearing their head scarves properly.
In the electoral context, several candidates for the province's top job have promised a stricter and fuller application of Islam.
The election is considered an important stepping stone in cementing the peace deal signed by former rebel group Gerakan Aceh Merdeka and Jakarta in Finland in August last year.
Suraiya Kamaruzamman, 37, a leading campaigner with the group Flower Aceh, said she was saddened by the lack of female candidates after the only female aspirant, Mediati Hafni Hanum, was dropped for supposedly failing the pre-election compulsory reading of a Koran text.
"It is a gender issue and not a religious one. Mrs Hanum can read the Koran. She studied in an Islamic school where everybody learns to read it," Ms Kamaruzamman said.
Her finger-pointing is dismissed by H. Dhiauddin, 56, the second in charge at Dinas Sharia Islam Banda Aceh, the organisation entrusted with supervising all aspects of sharia.
"The Dinas Sharia was not involved in the exam, but the panel is a very experienced one. Mrs Hanum just failed the text, and it has nothing to do with gender," Mr Dhiauddin said. He said religious leaders were neutral in the election but "the religious background of the candidates is an important criterion that voters should consider".
The weight of the latter point was brought home by Muslim Ibrahim, a member of the Majelis Permusyawaratan Ulama Aceh, the province cleric assembly, who said sharia "is not just important, but essential".
"Sharia has become the spirit of Aceh's life. I think the candidate's willingness to enforce sharia will influence the voters," he said confidently. In regards to women, Mr Muslim said: "One day, some time in the future, they can also be good leaders, and there is nothing in Islamic law to prevent it."
The promise of future inclusion does not convince Mrs Susanti or Mrs Kamaruzamman, who fear the glass ceiling will never be lifted. They say that religion plays a crucial role in the electoral process and that this election is a failure for women.
"It is not just the lack of female candidates; it is also the lack of pro-women policies," Mrs Kamaruzamman said after reviewing the eight candidates' platforms. "Only two mentioned women, but in a vague and rhetorical way."
Associated Press - December 12, 2006
Banda Aceh – Thieves could have their hands amputated in Indonesia's Aceh province under a proposed Islamic law that may alarm rights activists and Western governments.
The draft law was published Tuesday in an advertisement in Aceh's Serambi newspaper that was paid for by the agency responsible for implementing Islamic Shariah law in the tsunami-ravaged province, which only recently emerged from decades of civil war.
The advertisement called on readers to comment on the proposed law so it could be revised before being handed over to local legislators for debate.
One article in the draft law says thieves found guilty of stealing goods worth more than the market price of 94 grams (3 ounces) of gold should have a hand amputated, a punishment stipulated in the Koran, Islam's holy book, and carried out in some Islamic countries.
The Indonesian government agreed to allow Shariah law in Aceh four years ago as part of negotiations to end the 29-year war between separatist rebels and the military. The province is slowly introducing elements of the legal code.
Last year, special Islamic courts began enforcing some of the laws, which include punishing gamblers with caning, forcing women to cover their heads in public and banning the consumption of alcohol.
Opinion polls show those regulations are popular with the province's 4.2 million people, though it remains to be seen whether moves to broaden the law to include punishment for thieves would be supported.
The laws would likely be opposed by Western governments and rights activists keen to see Indonesia remain a beacon of moderation in the Islamic world.
The sprawling nation has more Muslims than any other, but apart from Aceh enforces secular laws and has significant minorities of other faiths.
Associated Press - December 11, 2006
Robin McDowell, Banda Aceh – A former rebel leader appeared headed to easy victory Monday in the first elections in Aceh province since the government and the separatists signed a peace deal in the tsunami-ravaged region last year, according to a sampling of votes tallied by two respected local pollsters.
Irwandi Yusuf, who was in jail for treason when the tsunami crashed into the province in 2004, had about 38 percent of the vote for governor, while the second-place candidate had between 15 percent and 17 percent, according to respected local pollsters Jurdil Aceh and the Indonesian Survey Circle.
The statistical surveys of vote returns, known as "quick counts," has a margin of error of 1 to 2 percentage points.
Official results will not be released until Jan. 2, although similar polls accurately forecast the result of national elections in Indonesia in 2004 and in scores of other countries in the world.
If the result is upheld it would represent a stunning victory for the former rebel movement, which formally abandoned its demand for independence and disbanded its armed wing as part of the 2005 peace agreement.
It would also show the level of distrust in Aceh for the central government and the established national political parties, which backed most of the other candidates in the race.
"This is the dream of Acehnese people fulfilled, they want this change," Yusuf told reporters at a four-star hotel that stands out amid the ruins of the tsunami-battered province.
"Aceh in the future will be a wild horse, so many things have to be done," he said, promising to push first for economic development.
The apparent second-place candidate was also backed by the former rebel's exiled political leadership and his running mate was an ex-fighter, further underling popular support in the province for the former insurgents.
"It's a vote for change... Now we're going to have to see how somebody who has been associated with the guerrilla movement actually governs," said Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization.
The 2004 tsunami killed an estimated 167,000 people in Aceh and helped usher an end to the fighting, with both sides saying they did not want to add to the suffering.
The oil-and-gas rich province of 4.3 million people on Sumatra island's northern tip has known almost nothing but war for 130 years, with its residents fighting would-be Dutch colonists, the Japanese and finally Indonesia's central government.
The latest conflict began in 1976 and claimed some 15,000 lives, many of them civilians, and ended with the signing of the peace agreement in Helsinki, Finland, that has exceeded almost everyone's exceptions.
Under the terms of the deal, the military pulled half its 50,000-strong garrison from Aceh and promised the region control over 70 percent of its mineral wealth. It also gave the former rebels the right to take part in politics.
An estimated 85 percent of 2.6 million registered voters were expected to turn out. Those waiting to vote said they hoped more than anything that the winners would make sure guns were permanently silenced.
"It was very difficult before, we could not go anywhere," said Idris Sulaiman, 45, who lives in the village of Naga Umbang, surrounded by brilliant green rice fields and forested hills that used to crawl with rebels, known locally as GAM.
"Soldiers would barge down doors looking for GAM, threatening and beating innocent villagers," he said. "We never want to see anything like that again."
Others said attention needed to go toward fighting corruption, improving education and taking care of tsunami survivors – 70,000 of whom still live in temporary homes, some poorly built, overcrowded and infested with cockroaches.
"Many people need help," said Mailis, 54, who lost her husband, the main breadwinner, to the waves. "They need better homes, jobs," she said while waiting at a booth set up next to temporary barracks for tsunami victims.
The elections marked the first time Acehnese have directly picked their own leaders, though some complained they were turned away because they were not on voter registration lists.
There were no reports of poll violence, but a small bomb went of at a partially built school in northern Aceh at dawn, causing no injuries and little damage, said police, who were investigating.
Earlier, Yusuf, who was a senior member of the rebel's political wing, predicted he would win Monday's vote. "We proved our commitment with lives, blood and tears," he said.
Agence France Presse - December 12, 2006
Jakarta – Elections in Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh province have swept a former rebel leader to victory, unofficial results show as officials tot up the ballots.
The polls, consolidating a peace accord after nearly three decades of war, were hailed by UN chief Kofi Annan as "historic" and by the European Union.
Vote tallies so far showed Irwandi Yusuf, the former spokesman of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), and his running mate Muhammad Nazar likely to secure a landslide victory for governor and deputy. They won around 39 percent of Monday's vote, leaving their nearest rivals trailing on 17 percent.
Election observers Jurdil Aceh said the polls for provincial governor and deputy – previously directly appointed by central government – and district heads were peaceful and transparent, with turnout a high 85 percent.
The UN chief said the "historic balloting" was the first since the peace agreement signed in Helsink last year between the Jakarta government and the rebels.
Annan "calls on all parties to respect the results of these elections in order to help consolidate the peace process, which aims to build a secure and prosperous Aceh within a united and democratic Indonesia," his office added.
The European Union welcomed the progress endorsed by the elections, saying it hoped that they would "contribute to the further consolidation of the peace process to the benefit of the people of Aceh and the whole Indonesia."
Analysts dismissed fears the Indonesian government would oppose the rebel victory, saying Jakarta had showed its commitment to the peace process.
"It is the challenge for the central government, to prove that they would remain consistent to the Helsinki pact," said Hari Prihatono, director of the Pro Patria institute pro-democracy group.
"The (peace) process is on track and it is very unlikely that it would not continue otherwise," Prihatono said. He warned that if the government disregarded the results it would face the consequences in the 2009 national elections.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono convened a late-night meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla and several cabinet ministers to discuss the results, a report said. A presidential spokesman was not immediately available to comment.
Indonesian newspapers hailed the elections as marking the end of violence but warned the province faced many challenges on the road to lasting peace.
"The people of Aceh, who for over 30 years were chained by bloody conflicts, have proved that they can be peaceful and maintain (their own) security," the Media Indonesia daily said in its editorial.
The conservative Kompas newspaper said a successful election was only the first hurdle in the region.
"Repeatedly we have said that democracy should not be merely about civil and political rights. No less important... is the social, economic and cultural rights. Democracy will not mean much if it does not help the people meet its basic needs," Kompas said.
"My priority is the grassroots community," Yusuf told reporters, labelling the vote as "a milestone for the future of Aceh".
Yusuf, who was jailed in 2003 for rebellion, said he had never imagined he would be governor one day. "What I did imagine when I was in prison is how to get out as soon as possible," he said. He eventually fled when the tsunami struck on December 26, 2004, flooding his prison.
The giant waves killed more than 168,000 people in Aceh and compelled the rebels and Jakarta to reassess their priorities after decades of bloodshed.
Under the peace deal, the rebels laid down their weapons, Jakarta withdrew non-local troops and police from the province at the northern tip of Sumatra, and granted an amnesty to GAM and political prisoners.
In return for GAM dropping its call for independence, Jakarta granted the resource-rich region greater autonomy and allowed the establishment of local political parties, a first for Indonesia.
Jakarta Post - December 12, 2006
Nani Afrida and Ati Nurbaiti, Banda Aceh – Former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) spokesman Irwandi Yusuf is leading with over 39 percent in unofficial results from the landmark gubernatorial election in Aceh.
The result of a "quick count" by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) shows Irwandi, 46, who is running with Muhammad Nazar, 34, head of the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA), ahead of Humam Hamid and Hasbi Abdullah, known as H2O, who had 16.2 percent of the vote.
Both pairs are known to be supported by GAM, but both ran as independent candidates.
The LSI result was seconded by a quick count from the NGO Jurdil Aceh, which showed Irwandi winning with 38.6 percent, while Humam Hamid got 17 percent.
A jubilant Irwandi hugged Nur Djuli, a fomer GAM activist, in the lobby of the Swissbel Hotel in Banda Aceh, where another quick count was to be held. He took a GAM pin from Nur Djuli's jacket and put it on his own.
While Irwandi acknowledged the results were not definitive, he said the early tallies showed that "the people want GAM to lead Aceh."
Sidney Jones, the head of the Indonesian office of the International Crisis Group (ICG), said the loss of Humam, who was backed by GAM leaders in Sweden, showed that the group's leadership there had lost its influence.
The LSI count placed Malik Raden and Sayed Fuadi Zakaria at third with 13.9 percent. It put acting governor Azwar Abubakar and running mate Nasir Djamil at fourth with 11.1 percent.
The LSI estimated voter turnout at 78 percent. Its "quick count" was based on samples of votes collected from 331 voting booths. "With this result, we believe that we will not need a second round as Irwandi wins by a large margin," Denny J.A. from LSI said.
Observers had predicted a second round of elections would be needed, believing no candidate would likely collect the required 25 percent plus one vote needed to win.
A total of eight pairs of gubernatorial candidates ran in the election, in which voters also chose regents and mayors across Aceh.
Early reports and the observations of monitors suggested the elections had proceeded peacefully, except for a few cases of intimidation and one small explosives blast in North Aceh, 30 kilometers away from the regency capital of Lhokseumawe. Reports said there was no one hurt in the explosion.
Fourteen months after the signing of last year's peace agreement, Aceh thus saw a relatively calm polling day Monday. Voters chose from a total of 260 candidates running for mayor, regent, and governor, including candidates for deputies.
It was a historic, first direct election for local heads of government (citizens directly voted for president and national and local lawmakers in 1999). Polling stations got off to a slow start, with election officials giving last minute instructions to voters and turning away many disappointed would-be voters who were unregistered.
Many blamed the Independent Election Committee (KIP) for the non-registrations, but some observers also said residents had neglected to check their names on the lists posted in public places last month.
Misleading information at the last minute was also to blame. Four blind men who came to one of the polling stations said they wanted to vote there because they heard that the station was specifically catering to the disabled. But they were unable to vote as they were not registered.
Leaders of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) said they found out Sunday that only an estimated 10 percent of their 100,000 members were registered. Gubernatorial candidate Irwandi Yusuf said that, pending investigations, they considered the poor registration rate to be the result of neglect.
The chief observer from the European Union's Election Observation Mission, Glyn Ford, said Monday "there was no evidence" that the failure to register prospective voters was politically motivated to limit the votes of any group. He said the information he had received so far indicated that "the vast majority" were registered and that those who were unregistered were "random."
"We do not yet know the scale" of the problem, Ford said, adding that he hoped the problem would be addressed in the case of a second round.
Ford said he had observed the polls by helicopter in various areas including Sigli in Aceh Besar, Takengon in Central Aceh, and Lhokseumawe in North Aceh, and so far there had not been any significant problems.
In Banda Aceh, voters trickled in, some women saying they had had to finish cooking first. After voting, some residents gathered at coffee shops to wait for the counting.
Hordes of journalists followed candidate Irwandi, a former GAM representative on the Aceh Monitoring Mission, whose campaign drew huge crowds.
Jones said any fear of violence by disappointed candidates and their supporters was likely similar to any other area in the country. "What has not happened," she said, is "violence between GAM and non-GAM." She added that so far the elections had been "extraordinarily peaceful."
Agence France Presse - December 11, 2006
Ian Timberlake, Banda Aceh – Former separatist rebels have no alternative but to follow the political path after laying down their weapons, a key candidate backed by ex-combatants has said ahead of elections in the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province.
Muhammad Nazar, 37, is running for the post of deputy governor in Monday's local elections, the first in which former rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) have participated since last year's Helsinki accords ended three decades of war that killed nearly 15,000 people.
Nazar is teamed with candidate for governor Irwandi Yusuf, a former rebel spokesman who trained as a veterinarian.
"So there is no other choice for groups which have struggled," Nazar told AFP in an interview Sunday. "We must have control of the executive, form a local party, control the legislature... no longer with weapons."
The ballot is to choose district heads, as well as the provincial governor and deputy previously appointed by the central government in Jakarta.
Nazar called the election a precondition for continued peace, culminating in the 2009 national elections when voters will choose their provincial legislators.
In exchange for GAM's disarmament and dropping its call for independence of the resource-rich province, the government granted greater autonomy and allowed the establishment of local political parties.
"This is not to end the struggle but to alter it from an armed conflict to political institutions which are more conducive," Nazar said while taking calls on three different mobile phones, including one scuffed model which he has kept from his prison days.
Nazar was most recently released from prison in August last year after serving time for treason-related charges. He headed an organisation which called for a referendum on Aceh's future.
Barefoot and wearing jeans and a light-coloured short-sleeved shirt, Nazar expressed confidence he and his running mate can win, saying all of GAM's former district commanders, except one, are behind them.
They are competing against seven other pairs of candidates, including a duo supported by the rebels' leadership formerly exiled in Sweden. The leadership is backing Ahmad Humam Hamid and Hasbi Abdullah, but officially GAM has adopted a position of neutrality in an attempt to avoid splitting the movement.
Nazar said the differences between the ex-fighters and the leadership are just a political matter and are no threat to the peace process.
"We have determined that GAM is oriented towards peace," he said. "For the long term we don't know what will happen... but we want sustainable peace. In future we want everything institutionalized politically, whatever the people's aspirations."
There has been little trouble during the campaign despite the enormous challenges facing the province after the insurgency and the December 2004 tsunami which killed more than 168,000 people in the province.
Nazar said that if GAM members and other activists "don't want to take advantage of this momentum, I think that's funny, and it would be impossible for us to make Aceh better."
Reuters - December 10, 2006
Achmad Sukarsono, Meunasah Bak'you – Teungku Sobirin lost his seven children and home to the tsunami that devastated Indonesia's Aceh province two years ago, but he believes there was a lesson in it for the war-weary province.
"God gave us the tsunami to show the conflict was petty and force us to make peace," said the 48-year old village chief on the eve of a landmark election, seen as a key step toward cementing a peace deal.
The December 26, 2004 tsunami left 170,000 dead or missing and 500,000 homeless in Aceh but put pressure on the Indonesian government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels to end a conflict that has killed more than 15,000 since 1976.
The two sides signed a truce in August 2005 under Finnish mediation and it ushered the province of 4 million people to its first ever direct vote for top executive posts in which former rebels are allowed to run as independent candidates.
More than 2.6 million people can vote on Monday at around 8,400 polling stations across the province on the northern tip of Sumatra island with an expected turnout of over 80 percent.
As chief of the Meunasah Bak'u village, Sobirin had turned a plot where a women's mosque once stood into an open-air polling station with metal ballot boxes on wooden tables.
"People are enthusiastic to vote. We want a new lease on life. We want a leader who will not forget he has reached this stage because of the tsunami," the bearded Muslim man said.
Although campaigning ended on Friday across Aceh, many posters and banners still deck houses and trees on the road along its tsunami-hit west coast with slogans such as "Advance the peace process" and "Peace is beautiful."
Jobs, houses
People said social and political issues like new sharia elements in local laws or Aceh's relations with Jakarta were not their topmost priorities.
"We want houses. We want rebuilding. We want jobs. And we want a leader who will not rob funds," said displaced Ibnu Mulia who still lives in a barrack.
Eight candidates are running for governor including two retired Indonesian army generals, a former GAM prisoner Irwandi Yusuf who escaped from his cell after waves flooded the jail and ex- caretaker governor Azwar Abubakar who admitted graft has plagued the province.
"Corruption has existed for years from planning to procurement. The way to tackle it is by fixing the system and giving officials worthy remuneration," Abubakar said.
Some experts say GAM's Irwandi could top the count in Monday's gubernatorial race but the latest poll in Aceh's main newspaper on Sunday showed member of the Indonesian parliament Ghazali Abbas leading the pack.
Around 50 students staged a protest in provincial capital Banda Aceh against former army generals running for office, despite allegations of abuse against the Indonesian military during the conflict.
"Nobody has been responsible for the murders and rapes against Aceh people by government forces. We were tortured under martial law so those who have anything to do with past abuses must not run," said law student Rachmat Jaelani.
Some observers say the gubernatorial race is extremely tight and nobody is likely to grab 25 percent of the vote, the minimum required to win the post outright. If that happens, the top two will compete in a run-off which may be held in March 2007.
But youths at a roadside near Meunasah Bak'u village said they were not interested in internal political rivalries.
"During the war, people were stuck in the middle of two warring elephants, GAM and the army," said a sun-baked Muhammad Helmi, a tsunami survivor. "Now, we have a say and I don't care whether the governor is GAM or not as long as he brings us peace and food."
Detik.com - December 11, 2006
Nur Raihan, Banda Aceh - Around 100 Aceh activist held a demonstration in front of the Aceh Independent Election Commission (KIP) offices on Monday December 10.
Aside from commemorating International Human Rights Day that falls today, they also called on the government to solve past cases of human rights crimes and violations in Aceh.
During the action, which created a minor traffic jam in the area in front of the KIP offices on Jl. Daud Beureueh, they also called on the Acehnese people not to vote for politicians that have been involved in human rights violations in Aceh, either directly or indirectly, or candidates that have no program to solve human rights problems in Aceh.
It was not just Aceh cases. In speeches they also called on the government to resolve cases of past human right violations in Indonesia such as Talang Sari, Tanjung Priok, Kedung Ombo, Semanggi, West Papua and Banyuwangi. (ray/nrl)
The Australian - December 9, 2006
Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – Aceh was like a wild horse in need of a brave jockey to tame it, the former rebel leader making a strong run for governor in the Indonesian province's first democratic elections said yesterday.
About 2.6 million Acehnese go to the polls on Monday after peace accords signed in Helsinki last year, when Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatists agreed to hand in their weapons, and Jakarta assented to withdraw its military occupying force.
The peace agreement ended 30 years of what many Acehnese regarded as occupation by Jakarta, with the province ruled for a good deal of that period under effective martial law. A previous ceasefire in 2001 broke down, leading to a vastly increased presence by the Indonesian military, or TNI.
However, Irwandi Yusuf, a former GAM military spokesman who was jailed for his part in the rebel insurrection, now stands a strong chance of mounting – to use his own analogy – a dark horse race for the governor's office. He has promised that if elected he will re-examine the province's controversial imposition of sharia or Islamic law which now has uniformed sharia police patrolling cities and towns.
Campaigning has been strictly controlled under Indonesian electoral law, with final mass rallies held on Thursday before candidates' posters and bunting were torn down yesterday.
GAM was forbidden from putting forward its own candidates in the election, forcing Mr Yusuf and his deputy, Mohammad Nazar, to stand as independents.
The organisation pledged initially to avoid influencing voters' choices but GAM legend Sofyan Dawood told an appreciative crowd of several thousand Irwandi supporters in Banda Aceh this week, that "I give you this man as our candidate; if he cannot do the job, then you can give him back to me".
Prominent candidates from mainstream Indonesian political parties appear on paper to stand a better chance than Mr Yusuf – businessman Malik Raden, the former ruling Golkar party's choice for governor, for instance, attracts significant support both from Jakarta and from the Banda Aceh elite.
It is at the grassroots level that Mr Yusuf can claim his greatest support, with rallies in the remote districts of overwhelmingly rural Aceh, as well as regional towns such as Lhokseumawe on the north coast, attracting mass turnouts over the two weeks of official campaigning.
There has been a striking lack of political vision in most of the campaigning, but there has also been almost none of the violence and other social unrest that often marks Indonesian elections. Analysts view this as a result of the desire to preserve the long-awaited peace that has finally settled on Aceh, nicknamed the "Veranda to Mecca".
Mr Yusuf is one candidate determined to turn back Aceh's politicisation of the religion, in the form lately of a superficial and restrictive imposition of sharia law that has seen women reprimanded for not wearing the jilbab headdress, and unmarried couples prosecuted for holding hands in public.
"This is not real sharia law," the urbane, softly spoken former veterinary science professor said yesterday. "Sharia should not be about seeing what people are doing wrong, but about increasing the prosperity of the people. Instead of targeting the most vulnerable, we should be targeting the most corrupt."
Jakarta Post - December 9, 2006
Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The end of the Truth and Reconciliation (KKR) law raises further questions about the government's commitment to the human rights section of the Aceh peace agreement signed in Helsinki last year.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla, presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng and Constitutional Court justice Jimly Asshidiqie had no answers when they were asked about the issue on Friday.
Both Kalla and Andi said that the government would have to review the verdict first and seek the opinion of the House of Representatives. Jimly was even vaguer in his response to the question.
"No, the one in Aceh is different. That has nothing to do with the KKR law. But if it does, well, I suppose the government will do something about that," he said.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) states that a commission for truth and reconciliation will be established for Aceh by the Indonesian Commission of Truth and Reconciliation with the task of formulating and determining reconciliation measures.
Jimly said one of the reasons the court annulled the law was due to the inactivity in its implementation. He said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had failed to abide by the law by not having established the KKR almost two years after its original April 2005 deadline.
"Added with the reality that the administration has not even set up the commission, we thought we should just scrap the whole law," he said.
The annulment of the KKR law has allowed President Yudhoyono, once a general in the Army, to escape, for the time being, from dealing with past human rights abuses that are believed to have involved his seniors in the military.
The commission seeks investigation and possible amnesty and reconciliation regarding human rights cases from 1945 to 2000.
The establishment of KKR is legally mandated in a 2000 People's Consultative Assembly decree that rules on how to deal with human rights violations. The decree is an extension of articles on human rights in the Constitution.
Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) head Pieter Feith, whose mandate to ensure the Aceh MoU was fully met up ends on Dec. 15, said he was taking the government's word for its commitment to human rights reconciliation in Aceh, including the creation of a commission for truth and reconciliation for Aceh. But Feith added that, unsurprisingly, GAM leaders had not been pressed either the AMM or the Indonesia government on the subject.
Aside from creating a reconciliation commission, the MoU also calls for the establishment of a human rights court for Aceh.
| West Papua |
Jakarta Post - December 14, 2006
Jayapura – Suspected Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebels on Wednesday seized a rifle from a police officer patrolling near the Kurilik police post, some 300 meters from the town of Mulia in Puncak Jaya.
The five suspected rebels assaulted First Sgt. Yosafat of the police's elite Mobile Brigade before fleeing with his AK 47 rifle. The assault resulted in the officer receiving six stitches to his head.
Puncak Jaya Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Jacobus Marzuki told The Jakarta Post that Yosafat was patrolling alone about 100 meters from the post at around 5:30 p.m., when five unidentified men attacked him.
Marzuki led a search for the suspects, but was unable to locate the men. "Yosafat's condition is improving after receiving stitches at Mulia Hospital," he said.
Marzuki said the ambush was the work of separatist rebels active in the Mount Kibigama area.
Antara News - December 13, 2006
Jakarta – Tens of youths from Papua demonstrated in front of the Gedung Plaza 89 in Kuningan, South Jakarta, where PT Freeport Indonesia's Jakarta office is located on Wednesday to demand the closure of the company's operations in Timika.
The youths from the West Papua People's Struggle Unity Front (Front Pepera PB) carried posters and banners containing their demands.
"The foreign investor in Timika has not brought any welfare to the locals. People have remained poor in spite of its presence for the past 30 years in the region. Around 37 percent of the local population live below the poverty line and are still backward," the demonstrators' spokesman, Viktor Kogoya, said.
He said the Front Pepera PB had also asked the government to facilitate a political dialogue on various problems facing them.
"The success the government has achieved in settling the Aceh problem must be repeated in Papua. It is high time for the government to settle the Papua problem," he said.
Tens of policemen blocked access to the building so that the demonstrators could not enter it. The rally proceeded orderly but the demonstrators were disappointed because there was no response from the company.
"The demonstration happened at lunch time so that many company employees who wanted to go out for lunch could not do so and had to wait until it was over," a security guard said.
Reuters - December 9, 2006
Jakarta – Two people including an Indonesian military officer were killed in a clash between security forces and separatists in the remote eastern province of Papua, a military official said on Saturday.
The clash occurred on Friday after the officer and some residents tried to enter a separatist camp in Puncak Jaya regency, about 325 km southwest of Jayapura, the capital of Papua, Imam Santosa told Reuters. No other details were available.
Papuan independence activists have waged a campaign for more than 30 years to break away from Indonesia while a low-level armed rebellion has also simmered for decades.
Human rights groups have accused the Indonesian military of widespread abuses in Papua. Critics say grievances among Papuans stem from such abuses and from dissatisfaction over Jakarta's distribution of wealth generated by the province, rich in gold and natural gas.
Jakarta took over Papua from Dutch colonial rule in 1963. In 1969 its rule was formalised in a vote by community leaders which was widely criticised as political theatre.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said last August he wanted to end conflict in Papua after the signing of a peace accord with rebels from Aceh province, Indonesia's other separatist region in the country's far northwest.
| Human rights/law |
Jakarta Post - December 13, 2006
M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – A petition presented by Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmakers to the House of Representatives calling for the curtailing of the Constitutional Court's powers received support Tuesday from legal experts and politicians.
National Law Commission chairman J.E. Sahetapy said that to prevent further confusion in the country's legal system, the House and the Government needed to immediately start altering the law on the Constitutional Court.
The first step toward amending the 2004 Constitutional Court Law could be drawing up new court procedures, he said. "Judges at the Constitutional Court can not be left to themselves to decide how a trial should proceed," Sahetapy told The Jakarta Post.
Sahetapy, a former member of the House special committee that deliberated the bill on the Constitutional Court, said the court's recent ruling on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) Law proved it had gone beyond its legal authority.
"The human rights activists only asked that the court review three articles, but it ended up scrapping the whole law. This should not have happened as any court (only) has the right to make a decision on cases presented by a plaintiff," he said.
Last week the court annulled the 2004 law establishing the KKR, saying it was rife with inconsistencies. Eight of the nine judges were of the opinion that the articles in the law were "problematic" and did not encourage people to settle cases through the commission.
Sahetapy warned that the planned amendment would meet with resistance from the Constitutional Court. "The court is a new institution that wants to retain its place in the country's legal system, so its members will obviously block any attempt to curtail its authority," he said.
The PDI-P members who put up the petition said the court's authority should be limited to judicial review and it would not be allowed to annul contested laws or their articles but instead return them to the House for alteration in line with the Constitution. A number of political parties have supported the move.
House Speaker Agung Laksono said the House would hold a meeting with the Constitutional Court after it resumed session in early January.
Speaking separately, House legislation body deputy chairman Bomer Pasaribu said that work was in progress to draft a bill that would substantially reduce the powers of the Constitutional Court. "The court can't grow to become a superbody that stands above other state institutions," Bomer told the Post.
He said the House had been concerned by many of the rulings the court had produced in its two years of existence. "All the court's rulings give the impression that it has the authority to give orders to the House and the government to rewrite a law it deemed problematic, an authority that was once wielded by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)," Bomer said.
Jakarta Post - December 12, 2006
Jakarta – A group of non-governmental organizations hailed Monday the Constitutional Court's decision to remove articles dealing with defamation from the Criminal Code.
The National Alliance for Criminal Code Reform also urged the government not to include similar articles that ban insulting the president in the revision of the code.
"These articles, holdovers from the Dutch colonial era, have been used to stifle opposition," the coalition said in a press statement.
Insulting the president is no longer a crime as the Constitutional Court ruled last week that the defamation articles in the Criminal Code were unconstitutional.
However, the government team to amend the code has said the revised bill maintains sedition articles that could be used to charge suspects with defaming the president and vice president.
The coalition said such articles contradicted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights on free speech and the 1945 Constitution, which protects freedom of expression.
Jakarta Post - December 11, 2006
Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesians commemorated Human Rights Day by highlighting cases of unresolved rights abuses Sunday.
In Jakarta activists representing a number of organizations held a street rally to mark the day.
Demonstrators included followers of the Falun Gong Community Association, leading environment watchdog Walhi, the Urban Poor Network, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and human rights monitor Impartial.
The rally began at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle at around 10 a.m. local time, national news agency Antara reported.
During the protest Falun Gong activists voiced concerns over the kidnapping, torture and illegal harvesting of human organs of their fellow followers in China. Falun Gong activists carried banners and posters reading, Stop kidnapping Falun Gong followers in China.
Secretary of the Indonesia's Falun Gong Community Association Liman was quoted as saying his group had evidence of the harvesting and sale of the organs of Falun Gong followers.
The protest saw Kontras activists demanding the immediate settlement of the 2004 murder case of noted human rights campaigner Munir Said Talib.
Munir was fatally poisoned on Sept. 7, 2004 on board a Garuda Indonesia flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam. A government- sanctioned fact-finding team implicated former top intelligence officers in the murder.
However, none of them were charged in the killing, while the sole suspect, Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, was acquitted of murder charges by the Supreme Court.
During the rally, Kontras protesters carried a replica of a Garuda aircraft, which read "Killer Flight".
In the meantime, Budi Pahlevi of the Urban Poor Network said that his group demanded a place to live for the poor and the right to work.
"Many houses have been demolished and the government has failed to provide jobs for the poor like street vendors, street musicians, beggars and others," he said.
After distributing stickers on human rights violations in the country to passersby and motorists, the demonstrators proceeded to the presidential palace to continue their rally while singing protest songs.
In Semarang, Central Java, activists and victims of human rights violations observed Human Rights Day quietly. They staged street theater and commemorative events at the Raden Saleh cultural center on Jl. Sriwijaya.
Among those in attendance were followers of Ahmadiyah, which the Indonesian Ulema Council has declared a heretical Islamic sect, street singers and vendors, beggars and other urban poor.
Event organizer Witono said cases of eviction, demolition of people's houses and stalls were among the human rights abuses that continued to take place across the country this year. This must all end, he said as quoted by Antara.
Detik.com - December 12, 2006
Elistiawaty, Jakarta – Not satisfied with the Constitutional Court's decision of only abolishing the articles on insulting the president, former political prisoners are demanding that the articles on insulting the government also be abolished.
The demand was made by some 20 former political prisoners and detainees including Sri Bintang Pamungkas, Parwan Parikesit and Beathor Surjadi during a thanksgiving and reunion of former New Order prisoners at the Joeang Building in Jl. Menteng in the Cikini area of Central Jakarta on Tuesday December 12.
"This meeting is a sign of our gratitude to God for the abolition of the articles on insulting the president. But what is more important again are Criminal Code Articles 154 and 155 that are in conflict with Article 28 of the 1945 Constitution", said Pamungkas.
Article 154 is believed to be in contradiction with the Constitution because it is uncertain that someone criticising the government actually hates the government."It's strange right, people demonstrate to criticise in order to create a better state and administration. I think, it is precisely these people who love the state, not hateit", argued Pamungkas.
The former prisoners are also seeking rehabilitation because of being detained or convicted based on the articles on insulting the president. They also plan to follow this with a historical book on their struggle.
Last week the Constitutional Court abolished Criminal Code Articles 134, 136 bis and 137 on insulting the president.
Article 154 of the Criminal Code reads, "Who so ever publicly declares sentiments of hostility, hatred or disdain against the Indonesian government, faces a maxim jail term of seven years or a maximum fine of six thousand five hundred rupiah".
Meanwhile Article 155 Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code reads, "Who so ever broadcasts, exhibits or displays writing or pictures in public that contain a declaration of hostility, hatred or an insult against the Indonesian government, with the intent that it is to be known by or better understood by the public, faces a maximum jail sentence of four years and six months or a maximum fine of four thousand five hundred rupiah". (aba/sss)
[Translated by James Balowski.]
Jakarta Post - December 9, 2006
Ary Hermawan and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Rights activists have condemned the government for its lack of commitment to settling unresolved human rights abuse cases and urged it to set a clear-cut agenda.
"The government has no clear vision as to where rights abuse cases may lead. We must remind Yudhoyono that his administration has to be strict and clear in dealing with the issue," senior lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution said Friday.
The Constitutional Court scrapped Thursday a 2004 law mandating the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR), which activists and rights abuse victims had hoped would pave the way for the disclosure of rights cases before the establishment of a rights tribunal in 2000.
Lawmakers and prosecutors are also at odds, over whether the latter can investigate military general accused of the kidnappings of democracy activists in 1997 and 1998.
"The ruling shows that the government was dubious in its efforts to solve rights abuses that occurred in the past," Taufiq Basari of the Indonesian Foundation of Legal Aid Institutes said at a joint press conference.
Buyung said the KKR bill was prematurely passed as it was secretly opposed by the government and its supporters, such as the Golkar Party, who were afraid of the legal consequences they could face if the body was established.
"Many members of the Golkar party and the Nadhlatul Ulama who might have been involved (in rights abuses in the past) are worried the body will reveal the truth," he said.
Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin said the people's expectation were too high and hence the gap between them and reality was inevitable. "For that reason, people always say there has been no improvement in human rights," he said.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Rights Commission criticized the Indonesian prosecutors for refusing to follow up on the findings of the rights commission on the activists' abductions.
"This is a denial of the fundamental obligations that Indonesia should follow as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, and as a party to the UN treaties and conventions," it said in a statement.
Hamid refused to comment on the latest ruling but said that the government would have to accept it. "We will have to read a copy of the ruling first," he said.
Akil Muchtar, deputy chairman of the special committee which drafted the law and deliberated it with the government, questioned the court's verdict, which he said "allows rights (violation) perpetrators to buy time".
"The people, especially victims of human rights abuses and their families, should not blame the House for the long delay in the efforts to work on unresolved human rights violations in the past," he said.
Lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis asked why the court had dropped the law altogether instead of just the few articles requested by the petitioners. "The House may one day review the law establishing the Constitutional Court," he said.
Agence France Presse - December 9, 2006
Jakarta – Indonesia's parliament has passed a controversial law requiring citizens to state their faith on official documents despite objections from a major political party.
Kompas newspaper said the civil registrations bill required citizens to declare one of the six official religions on their identity cards.
The move drew criticism that the bill discriminates against followers of religions that are not officially recognised. The state recognises only Islam, Protestanism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
Permadi, a parliamentarian from the Indonesian Democratic Party Struggle (PDI-P) party who practises a traditional Javanese faith, reportedly said that "endorsing the bill would go against the constitution which guaranteed all Indonesians the freedom to worship".
A plenary session of the House of Representatives passed the bill Friday after tense debate over minority faiths between political factions.
Three parties – the secular PDI-P, the Christian Prosperous Peace Party and the Muslim United Development Party – initially rejected the final draft but later endorsed it with some reservations, including rewording of the state's obligation to record the marriages of people from minority religions, the Jakarta Post said.
The bill does not allow for registration of faiths other than the official six. Marriages of people of other faiths are not officially recognised and their children are registered as born outside wedlock.
It remained unclear if followers of minority faiths are permitted to record their religions on the census.
The new bill removed some requirements left over from the Dutch colonial era, including that citizens must register their ethnicity and race.
"We need more time to rehash this bill, but if this plenary session insists on endorsing it, we opt to sit out," PDI-P faction leader Tjahjo Kumolo said.
Around 90 percent of Indonesia's more than 220 million people are Muslim.
Jakarta Post - December 9, 2006
Hera Diani, Jakarta – The Lebanese poet Kahil Gibran once said "Your children are not your children" – that is, they are the property only of God, not their parents.
In Indonesia, however, children are still seen as objects, facing a range of abuses, often at the hands of their families and the state.
In its year-end report, released Thursday, the National Commission for Child Protection, said that nearly 13.5 million Indonesian children had suffered human rights violations over the last year.
Commission secretary general Arist Merdeka Sirait said the state was responsible for 72 percent of the cases of child abuse reported to the organization.
"There were many cases of malnutrition, trafficking, child labor, drug abuse... Around 11 million children do not have birth certificates and 65,000 lost their citizenship," he told The Jakarta Post.
Malnutrition affects around 123,696 children, the report said, while more than 6,000 suffer from diseases like diarrhea, HIV/AIDS and polio.
More than 61,000 children dropped out of elementary school, 87,545 out of junior high school and 83,508 out of senior high school.
"The state is still reluctant to place the problems of children on a parallel with the issues of politics and the economy, even through their responsibility to protect the children is stipulated in the Constitution," Arist said.
The government often places children's suffering in the domestic domain of its policies, he added.
"But based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Indonesia, as a state party, is obliged to take strategic moves to respect, protect and fulfill children's rights without discrimination," Arist said.
The commission also saw the abandonment of children by the state in the nation's television programming. It said that 62 percent of its content, both TV programs and commercials, incited violence.
"In this case, the state has passed its responsibility to the parents," Arist said.
The commission also received 1,124 cases of violence against children between January and September this year, consisting of 247 cases of physical abuse, 426 cases of sexual abuse and 451 cases of psychological abuse, most of which came from family members and neighbors.
In 2005 the commission saw a total 736 cases of abuse, and 441 in 2004.
"The state contributed to this by not fulfilling its responsibilities. Economics were also a factor, and the television and other media also contributed," Arist said.
"On the other hand, there is the exciting fact that people no longer see cases of sexual abuse as embarrassing. Even more parents are filing reports with us about sexual abuse their children have suffered."
The commission has urged the government to establish a ministry for children, allocate 20 percent of the state budget to education as the Constitution mandates, provide free education and health services and stop the media from showing violence, mysticism and pornography.
| War on corruption |
Jakarta Post - December 11, 2006
Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, Padang – Even though the West Sumatra Prosecutor's Office is considered a pioneer in investigating graft cases in Indonesia, in reality however, the office has not been serious about fighting corruption this year, says a Padang lawyer.
"The reluctance of the law enforcers (to uncover graft cases) can be seen from the many frozen cases and the fact that the suspects are still free," Alvon Kurnia Palm, chairman of the Padang chapter of the Legal Aid Institute, said Saturday.
Speaking in his capacity as a spokesperson for a coalition of antigraft non-governmental organizations, Alvon cited as an example that seven corruption cases handled by the prosecutor's office and the police in West Sumatra had nearly ground to a halt.
One of them had even been halted at the stage of its execution, namely the sentencing of 33 former members of the West Sumatra Legislative Council for the 1999-2004 period who were found guilty of misappropriating Rp 5.9 billion (US$621,052) of the council budget. The Supreme Court upheld the verdict of the lower court on Aug. 2, 2005, but the sentence has not been executed to date.
Three of the former legislators were sentenced to five years imprisonment and the other 30 received four years each.
The other six cases had been stalled at the investigation stage, one of which had even been completely dropped. They dealt with a corruption case involving former West Sumatra governor Zainal Bakar, former Solok mayor Yumler Lahar and members of the Solok Legislative Council.
"The investigation into the six cases has actually been conducted over the last two years in line with Presidential Instruction No. 5/2004 in which the prosecutor's office was given a period of three months to do its job," Alvon said.
"This shows that both the prosecutors and the police have tried to indefinitely postpone the legal process, especially the cases involving administration figures," he added.
Jakarta Post - December 10, 2006
Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – Public trust in the government's efforts to fight corruption has plummeted from 81 percent last year to 29 percent this year, a survey has found.
The Global Corruption Report issued Saturday by corruption watchdog Transparency International and pollster Gallup International found that 50 percent of 1,000 Indonesians interviewed in mid-2006 said efforts to fight corruption were not effective.
Nineteen percent of respondents said the government had done almost nothing to eradicate corruption, the report said.
"We found no significant measures taken by the government to address the problem," Transparency International Indonesia patron Todung Mulya Lubis said. "The figure is worrying."
The public has long been skeptical of the will of the police, prosecutors and judiciary to end corruption. Respondents to the survey ranked the police and the judiciary as the second and third most corrupt institutions after parliament.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has recently come under fire, with critics saying it has been selective in its targets.
High profile cases implicating officials in the military or officials who have the backing of major political parties have been left untouched. The KPK is only willing to go after small offenders, critics say.
"We recommend that the government reform law enforcers such as the police and prosecutors and the military as well so that they can become a supporting agent instead of a burden in the effort to fight corruption," Transparency International Indonesia said in a statement.
Todung said he found lamentable Vice President Jusuf Kalla's statement last week that the war on corruption had excessively targeted government officials, slowing down the economy.
While the anti-graft drive has slackened over the past year, those accuse of corruption have started striking back. Several officials convicted of graft have filed judicial reviews with the Constitutional Court, seeking the annulment of the laws that established the KPK and the anti-corruption court. "This is real. They are fighting back," Todung said.
Anti-graft activists are concerned that the KPK and the anti- corruption court could soon be defunct as the Constitutional Court has a "tendency to issue controversial rulings" and "(is) not responsive to the nation's anti-corruption drive," Todung said.
Last week the court struck down the law mandating the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was mean to enable to provide justice to victims of human rights abuses.
In 2005, Transparency International Indonesia's survey found that political parties were seen as the most corrupt group in the country. Todung said that "money politics" was regarded by many as the primary reason for Indonesia's corruption problem.
"We can see it from the ongoing gubernatorial election processes that are pervaded with money politics. Those winning the elections want some kind of a return of their 'investment'. That's why they become corrupt," he said.
Jakarta Post - December 9, 2006
Multa Fidrus, Banten – Hundreds of high school and university students took to the streets Thursday in Serang, Banten. They were not there to protest but to help prosecutors circulate mug shots of 14 fugitive corruption suspects.
"The flyers might jog somebody's memory," Nurlita Ambarawati from Tirtayasa University told The Jakarta Post while handing out photocopies of the police photographs to motorists at an intersection on Jl. Ciceuri.
Dozens of students were also seen around the Banten administration office, intersections on Jl. Lopang and the offices of other state institutions.
I Gede Sudiatmadja, intelligence assistant at the Banten Prosecutor's Office, said the flyers were being distributed in conjunction with International Anticorruption Day on Dec. 9.
"The Attorney General's Office is staging the nationwide campaign, in which all prosecutor's offices are distributing pictures of wanted embezzlers to the public," he said.
Although the suspects are not named, the face of former Banten Council speaker Dharmono K. Lawi – currently a House of Representatives member from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) – is familiar to members of the public.
Last year, Dharmono and two former council deputy speakers – Muslim Jamaludin and Mufrodi Muchsin – were convicted of misusing budgetary funds comprising Rp 10.5 billion earmarked to build a housing complex for provincial council members, and Rp 3.5 billion allocated for councillors' welfare allowances.
Dharmono was sentenced to four-and-a-half-years' jail, while Muslim and Mufrodi got four years each. The three also were fined Rp 200 million each.
Former Banten governor Djoko Munandar, who disbursed the money for the housing complex, was sentenced last year to two years' jail in the same case.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono suspended Djoko pending the trial, handing his duties on an interim basis to his deputy Ratu Atut Chosiyah, the elected governor for the 2006-2011 period.
The Supreme Court turned down appeals filed by Dharmono, Muslim and Mufrodi. However, only Mufrodi is currently doing jail time.
Dharmono has not been seen since the sentencing, while Muslim died in Serang Hospital due to respiratory failure after serving two months of his sentence. "Finding Dharmono is our priority... The sentence must be executed," Sudiatmadja said.
In Depok, members of the University of Indonesia student board distributed 5,000 books titled Understanding and Eliminating Corruption to civil servants at the Depok municipal administration office, legislative council members, judges and employees at the Depok District Court and people at shopping malls, bus terminals and other public spaces.
"This is our contribution to the nationwide campaign," the student body's chairman, Ahmad Fathul Bari, was quoted as saying by Tempointeraktif news website Friday, adding that the book was produced by the Corruption Eradication Commission.
| Environment |
Jakarta Post - December 15, 2006
Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – The firm at the heart of the mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo, East Java might have agreed to buy all affected land, houses and rice fields but problems remain.
Arifah, 17, ended up in Bhayangkara Hospital in Porong with burns to 35 percent of her body after slipping into the hot mud. She was on her way to the home of relatives to help them pack up to leave for a shelter in Pasar Baru market when she slipped right into the hot mud. Lapindo Brantas Inc. did not cover all the medical bills.
"I was intending to help a relative whose house had been surrounded by hot mud. My relative wanted to evacuate," she told The Jakarta Post.
The hot mud, which has been gushing out of Lapindo's exploration site since May 29, has shown no signs of stopping, forcing more than 10,000 people to abandon their houses and others to lose their sources of livelihood.
And the hot mud, which triggered a recent gas pipeline blast that killed 13 people, continues to be a danger.
"There continues to be a threat to your safety. The turnpike bridge has started to subside and crack and the dikes are prone to collapse since the wet season started around Porong. People should be very careful since there's no guarantee from the government or Lapindo," said the coordinator of rescue and evacuation volunteers, Adjie.
He said the pipeline blast was a clear example that there was no guarantee for people's safety or lives at the mudflow site.
"I'd heard about the danger posed by the pipeline but I can't understand why it is being moved only after it claimed lives...," he said. Dian, 30, is moving to the market before the mud completely engulfs her home.
Currently, some 8,000 people are taking shelter in the market and more might come since residents living two kilometers away from the site have started abandoning their houses.
"Every night when it's cloudy, I feel worried, fearing the dikes will collapse. It seems like the national team in charge of dealing with the disaster are working half-heartedly... the mud has submerged 8,000 houses in Tanggulangin Sejahtera housing complex but it's not clear whether Lapindo is paying compensation or not," Dian said.
Hundreds of residents from the housing complex have threatened to continue to hold protests. They have been protesting twice a week but it is not clear whether Lapindo will compensate them.
Land expert from Surabaya's Airlangga University, Urip Santoso, said Lapindo should compensate the housing complex owners.
"Legally, Lapindo should also provide renumeration for all damages experienced by victims who are directly or indirectly affected by the mud," he said.
He said problems would continue to develop in the coming days since the company's agreement to purchase all affected land, houses and rice fields was not legally binding.
For instance, he said the company had not made public the criteria for the land, houses and rice fields it would purchase or the status of the land after the transaction was made.
Operational manager of Surabaya's Legal Aid Institute, Attoilah, said the deal between Lapindo and residents was like a campaign to please residents but legally it was very weak.
"If it's a deal, there should be written proof. But there's no written evidence. You may recall how Vice President Jusuf Kalla promised to replace the houses of Yogya quake victims but the promise did not materialize," he said.
Jakarta Post - December 9, 2006
Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – A leading environmental group has urged the Jakarta administration to stop converting green areas into industrial and residential zones to help prevent further environmental damage.
The Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said the conversion should be halted, at least until the administration could maintain 9,544 hectares of green and open space in the city, or 13.94 percent of city land.
"The Jakarta administration must put a stop to the conversion of green space to meet the Home Ministry directives on green space," Hasbi Azis, Walhi's head of research and policy analysis, said Friday.
He was referring to the 1998 ministerial guidelines stipulating that each city should allocate between 40 and 60 percent of its land as green space. Only 5,911 hectares of the city's 60,000 hectares is green space at present.
Walhi said converting green space was the easiest way for the administration to increase revenue collection as it was not in the habit of compensating residents for their land.
On Thursday, Walhi delivered its guidance paper for the ongoing revision of the Jakarta Spatial Plan. Among the recommendations is the need to set up a management body to monitor green space. Jakarta currently applies a 1999 city ordinance on the Jakarta Spatial Plan for 2010.
Hasbi said Jakarta lagged far behind other countries in terms of green space.
The ratio of residents to green space is five square meters per person in Japan, two square meters in Malaysia and between seven and 11 square meters in London.
"The city has fewer square meters of public space per person at .55 square meters. Ideally, it would be five square meters. f Jakarta's population reaches 12.5 million by 2010, it will need at least 18,750 hectares of green space, far higher than the administration target of 9,544 hectares," he said.
Currently, Jakarta's population swells to 12 million during the day, when commuters from surrounding towns make their way into the city. Some 8.7 million people actually live within the city limits. Each year, about 350,000 newcomers move in from other regions.
Yayat Supriatna, an urban planner from Trisakti University, said Jakarta lost about 90 hectares of green space every year due to rapid population growth and infrastructure development in the city.
"Reliable data from the Jakarta administration shows Jakarta lost more than 450 hectares of green space in the period between 2000 and 2004," he said.
He said many of the buildings located in designated green areas were legal because developers had obtained construction permits from the administration.
Yayat said the administration needed to stop giving developers permits to build shopping centers.
"The administration only makes green space available to developers." The administration earlier said Jakarta still needed dozens of shopping malls to cater to its growing population.
| Gender issues |
Jakarta Post - December 13, 2006
Hera Diani, Jakarta – Women's crisis centers in Indonesia are in dire need of financial support, say women's rights activists.
The National Commission on Violence Against Women said there were 215 institutions in Indonesia that dealt with at least 20,391 cases of violence against women in 2005, including 59 crisis centers scattered among 20 provinces across the country, which handled around 97 cases a year.
The institutions run on highly limited resources and are often in debt, although they work with volunteers who provide accommodation for victims.
Local governments and funding agencies give little in the way of money, but the National Commission on Violence Against Women launched a fund-raising and grant program called Pundi Perempuan in 2003.
The program is managed by the Indonesian Social Foundation for Humanity (YSKI), a philanthropic institution, and has so far supported 19 crisis centers in Medan, North Sumatra, Bengkulu and Palembang in South Sumatra, Jakarta, Bandung, Purwokerto in Central Java and East Nusa Tenggara.
"We've been working with corporations and the media. Our role is mainly to open the access of funds to crisis centers," said spokeswoman Ratna Fitriani at a discussion hosted by the commission here Monday.
She added that the current money available was only enough to finance six crisis centers annually. Since 2003 the commission has collected around Rp 321 million (US$34,9777) from several sources. "Twenty percent of the money has been saved in a trust fund, which has so far reached Rp 90 million," said Tasnin Yusuf from YSIK.
YSKI central board member Anik Wusari said charity activities to support women affected by violence were still a new thing in Indonesia.
"Other non-governmental organizations do not dare to work with corporate or private funds. We've also been criticized for capitalizing the issue of human rights by collaborating with corporations. But this is to help women, so there is nothing wrong with it," she said.
People still have little trust in philanthropic groups aiming to help women and instead preferred to donate money straight to the victims, the discussion was told.
"The problem with philanthropy for women is that the output is intangible. It's not like giving money to poor people. The commission needs to push for campaigns to familiarize them with this issue," said Jollyza Marvelyn Tobing from the Philanthropy Strengthening Initiative.
There was a need for more public accountability, as well as partnership and networking in developing philanthropy for women, the discussion concluded.
"In this era of regional autonomy, we must approach regional administrations because even a village can have billions in their budget. We need to ask them for gender budgeting, so that the administrations will allocate funds for women," said Hadi Pratomo, a physician and activist from the Budi Kemuliaan social organization.
Another potential was Islamic philanthropy, the group said, which according to a recent study raises over Rp 1 trillion a year but is yet to be managed professionally.
Indonesians still prefer to contribute their money through religious organizations. Speakers at the discussion said that religious philanthropy had to be made more productive and beneficial.
Jakarta Post - December 13, 2006
Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo, Jakarta – Microfinance programs led by women tend to be better run and more successful than those controlled by men, according to a report from an anti-poverty group.
The Community Recovery Program Final Report was conducted between 1998 and 2006 by the Association for Community Empowerment (ACE), a non-governmental organization (NGO) working to reduce poverty here.
"Women are better at saving money than men. In paying debts, women are also more on time," said ACE executive director Titik Hartini at the release of the report.
"Once women got access to credit and started running their own businesses, the profit went automatically into the needs of their families, such as child education and family health. Men, however, tended to spend their income for other needs first," she added.
ACE was established eight years ago to provide guidance and loans to single- or mixed-gender groups in 25 provinces.
The female groups in question included traditional medicine sellers in West Java, mat-weavers in East Lombok and fisherwomen in North Sumatra. Some groups were made up of widows.
"Women can be more diligent and scrupulous in their work. Unlike men, they also meet with their peers regularly," said association member Budi Santosa.
With Rp 600,000 (US$66) and the help of ACE volunteers, a women's association in North Sumatra started a business selling goods and processing food products. They made Rp 25 million in two years.
As the members repay their debt, the money is loaned to new groups, so successful people help others improve their lot.
The report found the empowerment project boosted solidarity and self-esteem among the poor. The program also appeared to help reduce tension in conflict areas.
The association operated from a $28.9 million fund from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, New Zealand and PT Belersdorf Indonesia. The United Nations Development Program, which also made donations, acted as a financial manager.
ACE, originally established by 27 NGOs as a reaction to the economic crisis of the late 1990s, has an expansive network of strategic partners and alliances throughout Indonesia.
Senior economist and ACE chair Emil Salim said national development programs should be focused on assisting the poor. The government categorizes people with an income below Rp 150,000 per month as living under the poverty line.
"People are poor not because they are stupid. It's because they don't have access to various needs, such as credit, education or infrastructure," Emil said.
"More roads should be built in regencies instead of turnpikes" in order to help people transport their products, he said. "Rural people's saleable goods, such as fish or vegetables, go bad quickly because they have no refrigerators."
Building small community health clinics in rural areas was much more important than constructing hospitals, he added.
"The current government lacks focus. They are not quite developing urban nor rural areas, industry nor agriculture. Targeting the poor, besides trying to reduce the dependence on rice consumption, is the best strategy to end poverty," Emil said.
The Central Bureau of Statistics reported on Sept. 1 that the poverty rate in Indonesia rose to 17.75 percent in March 2006, up from 16 percent in February 2005.
Jakarta Post - December 11, 2006
Hera Diani, Jakarta – Sex discrimination in the home is dangerous to the health and prosperity of the family, according to a new report.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) finds in its 2007 Report on the State of the World's Children that gender equity and the well-being of children are inextricably linked.
"When women are empowered to lead full and productive lives, children and families prosper," said UNICEF executive director Ann M. Veneman in a press statement.
"If we care about the health and well-being of children today and into the future, we must work now to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities to be educated, to participate in government, to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to be protected from violence and discrimination," she said.
The report shows that in only 10 out of the 30 developing countries surveyed do 50 percent or more of women participate in all household decisions, including daily household spending, major purchases, their own health care and their visits with friends or relatives outside the home.
The consequences of excluding women from household decisions, the report said, can be as dire for children as they are for women.
For instance, women who have greater influence in household decisions can significantly improve their children's nutritional status. They are able to promote better health-care practices for the family and to encourage children to attend schools.
A study conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute suggests that if men and women had equal influence in decision-making, the incidence of underweight children below age three in South Asia would fall by as much as 13 percentage points, resulting in 13.4 million fewer undernourished children in the region. In sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, an additional 1.7 million children would be adequately nourished.
Women's increased involvement in political systems can also have a positive impact on the well-being of children.
The UNICEF report also noted that despite progress in women's status in recent decades, discrimination, disempowerment and poverty still loom over the lives of millions of girls.
Girls and women are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. When women work outside the household, their nominal wages are significantly lower than men's. Women make about 30 percent of men's salaries in the Middle East and North Africa, around 40 percent in Latin America and South Asia, 50 percent in sub- Saharan Africa and around 60 percent in East Asia and industrialized countries.
Millions of women are subject to physical and sexual violence, with little recourse to justice. Girls are less likely to attend school as the result of discrimination, with nearly one out of every five girls enrolling in primary schools in developing countries failing to finish primary education.
Education levels among women, according to the report, correlate with improved outcomes for child survival and development.
UNICEF proposes seven key focus areas to enhance gender equality: Education; funding; legislation ensuring a level playing field for women alongside measures to prevent and respond to domestic violence and gender-based violence in conflict; legislative quotas; women empowering women; engaging men and boys; and improved research and data.
Jakarta Post - December 11, 2006
M. Taufiqurrahman and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta/Bandung – Prominent women activists threw their weight over the weekend behind the government's plan to expand the ban on polygamy. The activists suggested that the government make polygamy a crime punishable by law.
Activist Siti Musdah Mulia of the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace said that a law that criminalized polygamy was used in some countries as a means to deter men from taking more than one wife. "In Tunisia and Morocco, two countries with substantial Muslim populations, laws against polygamy have been effective in preventing men from being polygamous. Why don't we apply it here in Indonesia, a non-theocratic state?" Musdah told a news conference Saturday in Jakarta.
She said religious leaders in the country had wrongly interpreted Islamic teachings on polygamy. She criticized polygamous clerics who argue that they are following in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad. "But the prophet was at his most happiest when he was married to his first wife Hadija for 25 years, and his subsequent marriage was aimed at protecting women," she said.
Musdah also said that most of passages in the Koran concerning polygamy, in fact prohibited it.
Feminist Gadis Arivia of the Women's Journal Foundation said that the 1974 Marriage Law had shown a bias toward women as it allowed men to be polygamous on the condition that wife was infertile, handicapped or chronically ill.
"This is a manifestation of a betrayal of women's rights, because if a woman were to suffer from any of the three conditions, she should be given more care by the husband instead of being divorced," Gadis said.
Musdah and Gadis were commenting on the government's plan to extend its ban on polygamy for civil servants to cover all officials working for the state, including legislators and soldiers.
There has also been talk of extending the ban to cover employees of private companies. But there are no plans to impose the ban on the public at large.
The plan has received strong support from progressive Muslims but has met strong opposition from religious conservatives who argue that polygamy is allowed by Islam and a ban on the practice would only encourage adultery.
Some legislators has argued that banning polygamy would encourage more men to visit prostitutes or resort to extramarital sex.
The polygamy issue resurfaced recently when popular cleric Abdullah "Aa Gym" Gymnastiar announced last week that he had taken a younger and better-looking second wife.
Maria Ulfah Anshori of Nahdlatul Ulama said that polygamy was only possible because of the unequal relationship between men and women.
"A man always marries a second wife who is economically, socially and politically weaker than he is. In NU, there has never been a case in which an Islamic boarding school (pesantren) leader weds a woman leader of the pesantren," she said.
In Bandung, thousands of supporters of the Reformed Democratic Party (PDP) also voiced support for the government's move to restrict polygamy.
In a rally to celebrate the party's first anniversary Saturday, they condemned the second marriage of Aa Gym, saying it was a form of harassment of women and set a bad example for the Muslim community.
"As a Muslim woman, I am very disappointed with the second marriage which has damaged Islamic culture and upset women's dignity. We won't be second wives. With full support from women, PDP should work hard to phase out polygamy in the country," said rallier Hetty Kushariadi.
At the event women cried out "No" to Aa Gym and "Yes" to the government's move to widen the polygamy ban to all state officials.
Jakarta Post - December 9, 2006
Yogyakarta – Dozens of students from Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University staged a protest against polygamy Friday by distributing pamphlets to motorists at a busy intersection, asking them to join their call for a ban on polygamy.
The protesters also staged street theater performances that showed a family with two wives.
The protest coordinator, Vivi, said Islam honored fairness and did not place men above women. "Don't use religion as an excuse for polygamy just to satisfy your own lust," she said.
The protesters said the practice would not only affect women but may lead to violence and have a negative psychological effect on children.
Jakarta Post - December 9, 2006
Suherdjoko, Semarang – More than 30 women have died after being the victims of violence in Central Java during the past year, an activist said Friday.
Gender Justice and Human Rights Center activist Fatkhurozi said data gathered by the group from various institutions from November 2005 to October 2006 found 1,976 women had became victims of violence. Thirty-three of the women died.
"It means that every month from two to three women die in this violence. Meanwhile, 1,943 others suffered from physical injuries and several were treated at mental hospitals after suffering from psychological abuse," he said.
The most common form of violence against women was rape with 146 cases, involving 187 victims, of which 11 were murdered or died. Domestic violence ranked second with 140 cases, and 266 victims, of which six died.
"The surprising thing is the increased reports of date-related violence, with 83 cases involving 86 victims. Six women died," Fatkhurozi said.
Thirteen cases of sexual harassment were recorded with 37 victims, while women migrant workers made up 30 cases with 37 victims. Nine women died.
Police and public order officials were sometimes involved in violence against commercial sex workers, with 78 cases involving 1,258 victims. Trafficking in women from the province also rose, with 70 cases recorded in the past year involving 105 victims.
Fatkhurozi said the recorded number of abused women was increasing every year. In 2004, the center found 1,695 victims of violence, which rose to 1,804 last year.
"The figure of gender-related violence is only the tip of the iceberg, we believe in reality, many more women are becoming victims," Fatkhurozi said.
He said most women suffering from abuse did not dare to report it to police, non-governmental agencies or other organizations. "The facts show that Central Java women's lives have not experienced much change. The many cases of gender-related violence show a complete picture of their dark lives," he said.
Women remained disadvantaged and victimized because the state was not doing its part to protect them, meeting their basic needs like security, and giving them equal treatment under the law. Women, he said, should also have access to decent employment, education and health care.
The center has demanded the government and provincial administrations adopt a zero tolerance policy on violence against women, endorse a draft law against human trafficking and correct gender-biased policies.
| Aid & development |
Jakarta Post - December 12, 2006
Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – The North Sumatra provincial administration has seen the number of people living below the poverty line in the province increase progressively from 14.93 percent in 2004 to 15.66 percent in 2006, out of a total population of 12.6 million, an official said Monday.
North Sumatra provincial secretary Muchyan Tambusa said the increase was due to the limited job opportunities, thus pushing up the unemployment rate.
Based on the District Funding Allocation (DEA) data proposal, the highest number of poor people in the province was found in South Nias regency, accounting for 32.42 percent of its people, followed by Nias regency with 32.17 percent, Central Tapanuli with 31.36 percent and North Tapanuli with 24.79 percent.
"To alleviate poverty in the province, the provincial administration has established a poverty mitigation team through a gubernatorial decree, in order that every working unit carries out its tasks to empower the poor," said Muchyan in his keynote address at a seminar themed The Role of Society in Mitigating Poverty in North Sumatra.
Secretary of the North Sumatra Development Planning Board, Salman, said his office was making efforts to alleviate poverty by revitalizing micro, small and medium scale cooperatives by directly involving the people, creating job opportunities, improving competitiveness and broadening business opportunities, as a medium term development program from 2006 to 2009.
Salman said the provincial administration was optimistic that the poverty rate would drop to 8.2 percent by the end of the program in 2009.
North Sumatra coordinator of Transparency International Indonesia, Jaya Arjuna, expressed doubts that the province's poverty rate would drop to below 10 percent in the next five years. He cited that the poor could be classified into four groups; inherited, systemized, conditional and self-imposed (temporary and permanent) poverty.
"It would be very hard for them to recover from poverty, especially those grouped in the self-imposed category, because the root of the problem is that they're morally deprived," said Jaya, who is a lecturer at North Sumatra University's School of Engineering.
Jaya said alleviating poverty was an uphill task, and that the right paradigm and commitment, such as on honesty and orderliness were essential, without which it would be the same as commercializing poverty itself.
"I have data on the number of people who claim they are poor just to obtain cash assistance from the government. Most of them own cell phones and motorcycles. This is the so-called self-imposed poverty group and the source of deprivation is actually corruption," said Jaya.
Agence France Presse - December 7, 2006
Jakarta – Nearly 50 percent of Indonesia's population still lives on less than two dollars a day despite progress in recovering from the economic crisis of 1998 which plunged millions of people back into poverty, the World Bank said.
While poverty rates were now back to pre-crisis levels, reducing poverty remains one of the country's main challenges, the bank said in a report titled "Making the New Indonesia Work for the Poor".
"Despite good progress in reducing poverty since the crisis, nearly 50 percent of the population still lives on less than two dollars per day. The secret to reducing poverty is to help these people participate in Indonesia's rising economic growth," World Bank country director Andrew Steer said.
Many poor remain trapped in a vicious cycle of inter-generational poverty as they cannot afford to give their children an education which would enable them to escape, he said.
"At present the poor have less access to the assets that enable them to participate (in the economic growth), and 40 percent of them cannot afford to give their children a secondary education, thus perpetuating poverty from one generation to the next," Steer said.
A large number of Indonesians also live just above the poverty line and are vulnerable to falling into poverty, the bank said.
Indonesia's vast geographic spread also created wide regional disparities in income, with people in some regions having attained developed world standards while others were at the lower range for developing countries, the bank said.
The bank outlined three priorities to help the poor take advantage of economic growth, including improving infrastructure to revitalise agriculture, creating a network of rural roads to give the poor access to markets and providing microfinance.
The bank also urged Indonesia end its ban on rice imports to prevent the large price rises that hurt the poor the most, as shown by a 33 percent price rise which the bank said largely accounted for an increase in poverty rates last year.
"Lowering the rice price and creating greater price stability by removing the ban on rice is the fastest way for the government to reduce poverty quickly," it said.
The report also urged increased spending to reduce high maternal mortality rates, improve access to water, and improve sanitation.
| Foreign affairs |
Antara News - December 13, 2006
Jakarta – New Zealand has restored defence cooperation by inviting Indonesian officers to join a military training in the New Zealand Defense Force's Staff and Command Academy, a press release said.
In its press release made available to ANTARA here Wednesday, the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington said Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters had announced that Indonesia had agreed to fulfil the invitation.
He also said Indonesia would be part of a tour program for the officers to South East Asia.
Peters made the written remarks in a seminar themed "Asia- Pacific: Future Strategic Perspectives" held in University of Victoria, Wellington, Wednesday.
The change of the government's policy is a recognition of various positive developments in Indonesia in democratization in particular, respect to human rights and reform of the Indonesian Defense Forces.
Indonesian Ambassador Amris Hassan welcomed the initiative and said it is a new chapter in the relations between two countries under a wider defense cooperation in particular.
The defence cooperation between New Zealand and Indonesia was severed for seven years after a referendum was held in East Timor, former Indonesian 27th province.
The freezing of the cooperation was a reaction of New Zealand over humand rights violations involving a number of TNI members.
Straits Times - December 15, 2006
John McBeth, Jakarta – The new Democrat-dominated US Congress is not good news for Indonesia. But Washington watchers say the jury is still out on whether perennial critics of Indonesia, like Vermont senator Patrick Leahy and Samoan congressman Eni Faleomavaega, will home in again on Papua and human rights issues to pressure the Jakarta government.
Although it hardly raises a blip on most congressional radar screens, Indonesia has been used in the past as a bargaining chip in the inevitable negotiations that go on for votes on other matters that receive a great deal more American political attention.
"It's going to be very unpredictable," says the chairman of the US-Indonesia Society, former US ambassador Alphonse la Porta. "It's hard to see at this stage what issues are going to be major issues, but there is a general feeling that the situation has improved and is moving in a positive direction."
It will not, however, quieten some of Indonesia's more vocal critics. Jakarta remains vulnerable on Papua because it has failed to make the same progress in resolving outstanding grievances as it has done in Aceh, where local elections were held without incident this week.
Although armed resistance is virtually non-existent and big things are expected of newly elected Papua governor Barnabas Suebu, a lasting political solution may be far more elusive than in Aceh.
Mr Faleomavaega, who is expected to replace defeated Republican Jim Leach as the new chairman of the House International Relations Committee's sub-committee on East Asian affairs, is an unrelenting supporter of Papua independence, once describing the 2001 Special Autonomy Law for the province as "a sham... a complete farce".
The American Samoan was one of the main architects of language in the 2006-2007 Foreign Relations Authorisation Act, which criticised the failure of the Indonesian government to implement a law intended to allocate a greater share of revenues and more decision-making authority to the provincial administration.
Disturbingly for Indonesia, the legislation also called into question the legality of the 1969 Act of Free Choice, the United Nations-supervised plebiscite in which 1,025 hand- picked Papuan elders voted unanimously to join Indonesia.
Although the provision was subsequently watered down, it achieved something that had never been done before by elevating Papua to a level of institutional expression on the international stage that forced Jakarta to pay attention.
Mr Faleomavaega, as a House representative of the Territory of American Samoa, cannot vote in Congress but can cast votes in committee. He has relied on the crucial backing of Democrat Donald Payne, an influential member of the 39- strong Congressional Black Caucus that also includes prospective presidential candidate Barack Obama.
But bipartisan support also came from Mr Leach and Mr Henry Hyde, the veteran Republican chairman of the International Relations Committee. Mr Hyde is due to be replaced by Democrat Tom Lantos, a San Francisco colleague of new liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Neither Mrs Pelosi nor Mr Lantos has focused on Indonesia, but Mr Lantos is familiar with the country and he has shown his tough side dealing with Myanmar and China and in his strong criticism of the US-India nuclear agreement. He is also a strong supporter of the Jewish cause – although he is not Jewish himself.
Papua may have replaced Timor Leste as the pebble in Indonesia's shoe, but perhaps even more problematic is the perception that despite all the progress that has been made towards democratic rule, impunity for the rich and powerful remains troubling baggage.
That is all encapsulated in the two-year-old mystery surrounding the bizarre poisoning murder of human-rights campaigner Munir Said Thalib, which is fast becoming the same cause celebre as the 2002 ambush slaying of two American schoolteachers in Papua.
It was the final resolution of that case that led to last year's lifting of the 14-year arms embargo against Indonesia. It could be the Munir case that conceivably leads to its reinstatement if the Indonesian government is unable to show it has the courage to get to the bottom of the crime.
Senator Leahy, whose position as head of the Senate Appropriations Committee's foreign operations sub-committee provides him with the vehicle to re-apply conditions to future US assistance, is still not convinced that Indonesia has gone beyond the mere trappings of democracy.
Pointing to the Munir case and the long list of officers who have escaped conviction or even investigation for everything from the 1999 Timor Leste bloodshed to the shootings at Jakarta's Trisakti University and the Semanggi interchange in 1997, Mr Leahy's aides plead for "one, just one case" to demonstrate that justice can prevail.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's decision to bring the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Dutch police into the Munir investigation is clearly designed to placate some of the criticism over the case, much of it stemming from the government's failure to investigate powerful former figures in the State Intelligence Agency who are suspected of being involved.
The Indonesian House of Representatives recently passed a resolution urging the Yudhoyono administration to set up a new independent team under National Police chief Sutanto to investigate the 2004 murder. Concerned that the case is gaining international traction, Mr La Porta says senior Indonesian lawmakers "see it as something that has to be cleared out of the way".
If it is not, then it could begin to attract the attention of people like Democrat Nita Lowey, head of the House Appropriations Committee's sub-committee on foreign operations, who follows human-rights and labour issues and would be important in the possible imposition of any new restrictions.
Others to watch for – all Democrats – in the House are socially conscious appropriations committee chairman-elect David Obey, and congressmen Jim McDermott, Howard Berman and Henry Waxman, all of whom have shown some interes t in Indonesian affairs.
To an extent, Indonesia has itself to blame for the nature of the attention it is attracting. The whole sad picture of faltering legal reform and an anti-corruption campaign that appears to have run out of steam has left many outsiders with the impression that little of substance has changed. More bad news arrived only days ago when a new Transparency International survey showed that public trust in anti-corruption efforts has plunged from 81 per cent last year to 29 per cent this year.
Underlying all this has been the long-held public belief that the police, prosecutors and the judiciary do not have the will to end endemic corruption, particularly where it might involve politically connected figures.
"President Yudhoyono has to prove that Indonesia is on a sound democratic track and that democracy actually means something," says Mr la Porta, who works hard at getting Indonesia a fair shake in Washington. "It's the whole question of impunity and the failure of the government to prosecute the really big fish."
| Opinion & analysis |
Jakarta Post Editorial - December 14, 2006
A display of individual commitment to peace by millions of Acehnese is what we are likely to see in the near future, following Monday's elections and the announcement of early unofficial results.
While outsiders, and some Acehnese, anxiously look for signs of returning violence, it has been equally easy to find expressions of conviction among locals that all will be well; that bickering over who wins means little compared to the privilege of being able to experience orderly and peaceful democratic elections.
The joyful shouts during vote counting at polling stations around the province spoke volumes. The first direct elections in the province, featuring 260 candidates running for the positions of regent, mayor and governor, many of them on opposite sides during the war, were a solace for Acehnese who lost loved ones in decades of bloodshed and the devastating tsunami, apart from the victims of a "huge wave of corruption," as locals say.
The province is now a model for the rest of the country, being the first in which candidates for public office were allowed to run as independents, free from the dictates of political parties.
Unofficial early estimates that more than 85 percent of 2.6 million registered voters cast ballots Monday is telling of the enthusiasm with which the elections were greeted. Monitors also recorded just a few incidents of intimidation, saying that overall the problems found were insignificant for a province going through its first direct polls for regional heads.
Ahead of the second-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami, we are reminded that this a province where a large part of the public facilities and infrastructure was destroyed, and where many bureaucrats fled their posts during the earlier period of military operations.
Therefore voting, as one Acehnese told The Jakarta Post, "is an individual battle for peace", a contribution to determining who will lead the collective effort to push Aceh further along the road to recovery and progress.
Being able to vote directly for candidates, others said, made them "very happy", and that all that was needed now was to watch how the new leaders provided residents with a sense of security in their daily lives.
With the early unofficial results having been announced, outsiders are seeing a pattern of an overwhelming preference for something new to the candidates from political parties born and bred under the current system in which voters had no say.
Independent candidates, apart from those running for governor, are reported to have won regent posts in a number of the province's 21 regencies.
Statements from the central government welcoming whoever wins in Aceh provide an important message to the people of the province that their choices will be respected above all else – regardless of those who are wary of the Free Aceh Movement waving its separatist flag again through the success of members running as independents.
The words of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Vice President Jusuf Kalla and military commander Air Chief Marshall Djoko Suyanto also are crucial to the rest of the nation and its politicians, who often display a willful ignorance of the history of oppression in Aceh in the name of the national red-and-white flag.
It is thanks to all those who made the Helsinki peace deal possible, and those who watched over its implementation, including the Aceh Monitoring Mission, that Acehnese now dismiss fears of further violence over ideology. Candidates and voters said the Helsinki deal remains the framework, under the watch of the international community, for maintaining peace in the province.
As one observer said, any violence that might arise over the results of the polls would be just like election violence anywhere else in Indonesia, when supporters of losing candidates feel they have been cheated.
Overall, we share the conviction of the Acehnese that the elections and the acceptance of the results will put them on course for further progress toward recovery and prosperity.
Jakarta Post Editorial - December 13, 2006
The timing could not have been worse. On the eve of the International Human Rights Day, the Constitutional Court last week annulled the legislation establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, thus dashing the hopes of the many victims of human rights abuses for justice and some form of compensation.
This is a commission that was the result of a long and painful debate, and not just in the House of Representatives, but also among the wider public, who have embarked on a soul-searching process after the 1998 collapse of the Soeharto regime. Many of the proponents of the commission traveled to countries like South Africa in search of the right model to adapt for Indonesia.
This is a body upon which many expectations had been pinned; that the gamut of political tragedies afflicting this nation, many of which are still shrouded in mystery, would once and for all be solved.
This would have been the body to help clear the national conscience for our collective sins. We cannot move forward unless we put our past behind us once and for all.
This commission would have given the final seal of approval to Indonesia's democratic credentials, for it would have put an end the culture of impunity, especially for human rights violators.
Yet, with just a stroke of a pen, the Constitutional Court made sure that the commission was dead before delivery.
Was there a conspiracy involving the court and the President? One could certainly be forgiven for thinking so.
The list of nominations for the lineup of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had been sitting on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono desk for more than a year. His failure to even address the delay in making his final selection raised suspicions he was reluctant to engage himself in this affair. In the absence of any other explanation from his office, one could only speculate. And the next logical question would be: who was he really defending?
Could it be the reputation of his late father-in-law, Gen. Sarwo Edhie, who was the commander of the Army's special forces RPKAD (now Kopassus) at the time of the massacre (some describe it as genocide) of the suspected communists in 1965-66? Or is it Soeharto, the Army general in charge at the time (and thus Sarwo Edhie's immediate supervisor) who subsequently became president and ruled this country, chiefly through terror and violence, for the next three decades or so.
Neither man has been made accountable for the horror that took place then, so nasty that most people today who lived through those years would rather not talk about it. But we all can agree that this episode was one of the dark pages in the history of this nation.
Of course many other tragic human rights violations took place under Soeharto that the commission, if it had been appointed and started working, would have looked into. Among them are the invasion of East Timor in 1975, the silencing of Soeharto's critics over many years, the mysterious shootings of the 1980s, the clashes in Tanjung Priok, and others in Lampung, Aceh, Papua and here in Jakarta.
But out of all these bloody episodes that have become the hallmarks of Soeharto's rule, the massive bloodshed of the early years of his presidency is the most important and the most urgently in need of explanation.
Some of the chief protagonists in this affair, including Soeharto himself, are still alive, but not for much longer given their advancing ages.
Time is therefore running out for the nation to establish the truth about so much in the New Order era. For now, we have to contend with conspiracy theories to try to explain much that has happened in this country.
The court ruling canceling the legislation went much further than what the petitioners had asked. They only wanted the court to strike down three articles. Instead, it struck down the entire legislation.
Typically, now the blame game has started. Some people have fingered the House of Representatives for producing such defective and inconsistent legislation. Others have targeted the court for playing politics.
In the meantime, the truth remains illusive, and justice elusive in this country.
Jakarta Post Editorial - December 12, 2006
One bad article in the newly passed Civil Registration Law spoils the whole legislation. The article, requiring citizens to provide their religion on legal documents, will worsen the discrimination faced by minority groups in the country.
Lawmakers, particularly those from Islamic-oriented parties in the House of Representatives, seem to have forgotten past incidents of interreligious violence. Often, such violence saw groups of people from one religious group conduct illegal identification card checks, looking for people from a different religion. Once found, these unfortunate people were often beaten black and blue, or worse.
Identification cards that specify the religion of the holder are of no use to the public. Such religious identification also runs counter to the Constitution, especially Article 28 (e), which guarantees freedom of worship and religion.
Requiring citizens officially to identify with one of the six religions recognized by the state – Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism – amounts to a violation of human rights and of the Constitution, which recognizes non-denominational beliefs.
This discriminatory article in the law is the result of a war of minds between secular factions in the House and minority groups on one side, and Islamic-oriented House actions on the other.
Unlike the tug-of-war over the national education bill, the secular groups were unable to muster much pressure during the deliberation of the civil registration bill. They called a series of press conferences and held some small street demonstrations, but were unable to apply the necessary pressure to influence the lawmakers, let alone the public.
The secular Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Christian Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) put up a final stand last Friday, as the House was about to pass the bill. Their opposition resulted in an offer from the Islamic-oriented factions to all couples of non-denominational faiths whose marriages were not registered by the state to register within six months of the passage of the law.
It was the second win in a row for the Islamic factions on religious issues, after pushing through a national education bill which requires schools to provide students with religious teaching according to their faiths.
To be fair to the lawmakers, outside the one discriminatory article, the Civil Registration Law is a breakthrough. It is meant to initiate a reform of the country's civil registration system.
The law, for example, envisages a system where all citizens will have a single identification number (SIN) within the next five years. When the system is up and running, we expect, or rather hope, that there will no longer be people with more than one identification card, or alternatively people without an ID at all.
There are currently many people with more than one identification number – mostly for unholy purposes such as hiding their real identity to commit crimes, such as financial fraud or even terrorist attacks, or to avoid taxes or take more than one wife. Meanwhile, many uneducated and poor citizens have no identification card at all, excluding them from the formal sector and blocking them from government services meant for the poor.
Adopting a single identification number system would solve many problems currently faced by government agencies, law enforcers and businesses. Banks, for example, are often the victims of fraud by criminals using fake identification cards.
We are happy to learn that the Home Ministry has established the Directorate General for Civil Registration, and the German government's aid agency, the GTZ, has committed Rp 500 billion to help the ministry get the directorate up and running.
We also note that the new law makes civil registration a basic right of every citizen. This entails a responsibility on the part of the government to register all important events affecting the status of every citizen, including births, marriages, divorces and deaths. It also means that registration of these events should be free for all citizens.
Overall, the new law will benefit many people. But to make the law work better, we encourage those affected by the discriminatory article to file a judicial review with the Constitutional Court. Considering the record of the court, we are confident it will grant their motion and strike down the offending article.