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Indonesia News Digest 19 – May 17-23, 2008
Jakarta Post - May 23, 2008
Jakarta – Bureaucratic reform in Indonesia has moved at snail's
pace due to intervention by political parties and widespread
corruption, a seminar heard Thursday.
Political considerations played a dominant role in the
recruitment of personnel for professional bureaucratic positions,
said Miftah Toha, a professor of political science at Gadjah Mada
University in Yogyakarta.
"It's even more surprising that a director general who is a
career bureaucrat can be appointed through the approval of the
Final Assessment Team whose members comprise political positions
ranging from the President to ministers," Miftah said.
The appointment mechanism leans more toward political
considerations than candidates' competence or expertise, he said.
"It's difficult to guarantee and ensure the neutrality of the
bureaucracy... It's hard to imagine how many first echelon
government officials, who were appointed by ministers
representing political parties, are free from the interests of
those parties," he said.
Miftah was speaking at an international conference titled
"Indonesia's Decade of Democratization: The Rise of
Constitutional Democracy", jointly held by the Indonesian
Institute of Sciences (LIPI), The Habibie Center and Monash
University.
With no political party winning by a landslide in its elections,
Indonesia's last three administrations have formed so-called
coalition governments by allocating some ministerial posts to
political parties for the sake of political stability.
The reform era failed to create a grand design for comprehensive
bureaucratic reform, Miftah said. What is now perceived as
bureaucratic reform only concerns trivial matters, he said.
"They have only reformed little things, like changing civil
servants' uniforms or office hours. The government officials
should reform bigger things, like setting aside their own
political interests to deliver public services," Miftah said.
He warned that political parties only needed people during
elections. "Once the elections are over, political parties will
soon forget their constituents," he said.
Another speaker at the seminar, Denny Indrayana, said national
leaders in Indonesia had a tendency to preserve favoritism by
appointing fellow party members to government positions.
"During Soeharto's era, when Golkar won all the elections held
under the New Order, Soeharto handpicked most of the House of
Representatives members. Soeharto's successors have followed
suit," Indonesian Court Monitoring director Denny said.
Bureaucratic reform had been very slow as corruption remained
prevalent, he said, adding that it could succeed if the
anticorruption drive could make an impact.
Corruption could remain widespread because the penalties for
graft convicts are too lenient and fail to serve as deterrence.
(trw)
ABC News Online - May 22, 2008
Aid group Church World Service says climate change has helped
push malnutrition in West Timor to levels higher than in Africa.
A survey of 4,800 households by the group found 61.1 per cent of
children under five in the region were stunted due to chronic
malnutrition, while 13.1 per cent of children were acutely
malnourished.
It says about 50 per cent of West Timorese children – out of a
total population of up to two million – were moderately or
severely underweight, compared to a figure of 21.9 per cent in
Africa overall.
The lead author of the report, Julia Suryantan says it's a
complex situation in West Timor, they have a food security
problem and also limited access to health services
Ms Suryantan says country faces declining rainfall due to climate
change and higher global food prices mean many families can't
afford to buy enough to eat.
Fuel price hike
10 years of reformasi
Aceh
West Papua
Environment/natural disasters
Health & education
War on corruption
Islam/religion
Armed forces/defense
Economy & investment
Opinion & analysis
Book/film reviews
News & issues
Seminar: Parties stall bureaucratic reform
West Timor malnutrition worse than Africa: aid group
Lawmakers slammed for trip to Argentina
Jakarta Post - May 19, 2008
Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Twelve lawmakers currently visiting Argentina for a nine-day "comparative study" tour – of which seven days are reserved for sightseeing – have been criticized in light of the current economic climate.
Critics said Sunday the lawmakers were "insensitive" for spending state money on the "costly" trip while Indonesians on lower incomes endured economic hardship.
Effendi Ghazali, a noted political communications expert from the University of Indonesia, joined the chorus of opposition against the trip, calling on House of Representatives members to be "thrifty" as food and fuel prices rise.
"The lawmakers just can't sense people's feelings. They are now facing worsening image problems and lack of trust from the people," he said. "The trip just made their image worse."
He said the lawmakers could learn about the election system of another country without having to visit that country. "They could have invited people from the embassy, or invited Argentinian experts to Jakarta. That would have saved a lot of money," Effendi said.
The 12 lawmakers, all members of the House's special team on the presidential election bill, left Jakarta on May 12 this year. Another 16 people joined the entourage, comprising 12 House staff members, two lawmakers' wives, one lawmaker's husband and one staff member's wife.
The lawmakers, from various factions in the House, have claimed they needed to undertake a comparative study on the presidential election system in Argentina.
But the agenda of the visit only allocated two days for the study, while the remaining seven days were used for city tours and sightseeing. The lawmakers and their staff each received "pocket money" of US$500 per day, excluding hotel fees and expenses for food and tickets.
"That means they are spending billions of rupiah on such a useless trip. I guess the trip was merely an excuse for lawmakers to go picnic abroad," Danang Widyoko from Indonesia Corruption Watch said.
House leaders, however, defended the trip as normal and not violating any regulations. House Speaker Agung Laksono said it was necessary for the presidential bill team members to visit a country with a better democratic system.
Although it was legal, Danang argued, the trip sent a strong signal that the House failed to care about what most people felt ahead of the government's plan to increase fuel prices.
"It shows the thriftiness movement promoted by the elite was an empty word. The lawmakers should be among the first to display an economical life," he said.
"Cutting unnecessary spending will be highly appreciated by the public in times like this, and can slowly fix the House's image following various scandals that hit scores of its members," he said.
Jakarta Post - May 17, 2008
Mariani Dewi, Jakarta – The gap in salaries between managers and clerics in Indonesia widened last year from 2006 in part because of a shortage in talent amid the country's growing economy, a global study says.
The finding, released by global consulting company Hay Group, takes into account compensations and benefits of 12 million employees in 61 countries, including 71,000 employees in Indonesia working in large multinational and local firms.
The disparity rate rose from 8.7 percent in 2006 to 9.1 percent last year, placing Indonesia's rate 8th highest out of 11 countries. The study shows the gap is widest in telecommunications and banking industries – both fast growing sectors in Indonesia.
Michelle Low, the company's regional marketing manager in Singapore, told The Jakarta Post on Friday the gap was mainly driven by a lack of skilled labor to support the country's high economic growth.
"It is not that Indonesian managers demand high salaries, but companies competing with each other for a limited pool of experienced and skilled managers have driven up their salaries," Low said.
"As more companies in Indonesia adopt a pay-for-performance approach, the situation is becoming more balanced. Companies are able now to better measure their ROI (return on investment) for their salary budgets, while managers know what they are being paid to achieve."
Worldwide, the study finds that the larger the population of well-educated and highly trained workforce, the smaller the disparity in salaries.
In Singapore, salaries tend to start low but employees can see up to 24 percent pay rises within the first two year for high productivity and good performance, the report says. Malaysia and Singapore performed better, with disparity percentages of 6 and 4.7, respectively.
China tops the list, with Thailand and Vietnam behind, although the economies in those countries have grown faster than that in Indonesia. The US saw its disparity grow 20 percent, although its figure remains low, ranging from 3.1 to 3.7 percent.
"Positions at this level are one step away from the executive suite, and companies are looking to fill them with high-caliber candidates who can then progress into more senior roles," said Tom McMulley of Hay Group US.
"However, if US recessionary fears are realized, we may see the gap stabilize or even decrease. Our experience is that it's this level that gets hardest hit in recessionary markets, as companies reduce staff and curtail hiring plans, reducing competition for these candidates.
"At the same time, clerical level roles have tended to continue to increase at a steady rate, in line with the cost of living," Low said, adding that salary was not always the main attraction.
"Like employees around the world, Indonesians are willing to trade some salary for intangible factors like conducive a environment, interesting projects and a good manager.
"Hay Group's research with Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies in 2008 showed the most admired companies were able to pay slightly less than the market rate to attract and retain employees."
Jakarta Post - May 17, 2008
Jakarta – Homosexuality is not a disease but a social reality that the public should learn to respect, the executive director of the Women's Journal Foundation (YJP), Mariana Amiruddin, said at a discussion Friday.
The event was held in conjunction with International Day Against Homophobia, which falls on May 17.
Mariana said Indonesian society attached a stigma to homosexuality, which is often viewed as unnatural. She urged people to stop discriminating against homosexuals and accept that they have a fundamental right to express their sexuality.
Mariana cited a 1991 statement from the World Health Organization that homosexuality is not a disease or mental illness.
"Homosexuals, including lesbians, are also people who need to be respected and accepted in society. We should believe in diversity," she said at the launch of the latest edition of Jurnal Perempuan (Women's Journal), which deals with issues affecting lesbians.
The event Friday also introduced a collection of poems and short stories by young Indonesian lesbians, Pelangi Perempuan.
"The idea that they are abnormal leads many people to avoid mingling with homosexuals... these kind of people are homophobic. They have no reason for spreading hatred of homosexuals," Mariana said.
Gayatri of ChandraKirana, a lesbian organization, said homosexuality is often mistakenly regarded as a product of Western influence, even though it has long been part of Indonesian culture. She cited communities such as the Warok- Gemblak community in Ponorogo, East Java, and the Bissu community in Sulawesi.
"Javanese and Sundanese culture also recognize homosexuality in their traditional wayang stories. For example, the heroine Srikandi who changes her sexuality to marry the princess Dewi Durniti," the psychologist said.
Mohammad Guntur Romli of Jurnal Perempuan suggested that people should seek out more information about homosexuality. He said people tend to hate homosexuals "because they have no idea what homosexuality actually is".
Members of the Women's Rainbow Institute said people needed to stop judging gay people. "They should get more information about homosexuality and respect our sexuality. We would have more confidence and feel more comfortable if they accepted us just like everyone else," said Rai, an institute member.
Protestant preacher Ester Mariani said homosexuality "is not a sin" if the relationship between two homosexuals is "truthful, genuine and full of responsibility. Only if one of them exploits or hurts his or her partner should we question that relationship", Ester said.
"Religions based on a patriarchal system recognize only heterosexuality and only consider men's interests. So such religions would never accept homosexuality," she said. (trw)
| Fuel price hike |
Jakarta Post - May 23, 2008
Jakarta – Twenty students were detained by city police and were named suspects of various crimes after being arrested at recent demonstrations, a city police spokesperson said Thursday.
"Twelve students were arrested because they forced a fuel tank passing Jl. Meruya Selatan, West Java, to divert its route Tuesday and threatened to burn the vehicle if the driver did not follow their orders," he said.
He said they might be sentenced to one year in jail for breaking the Criminal Code. He explained the police had earlier arrested 18 students over the incident, but then released the other six after holding an investigation.
Another student, Dedi Panca Hasundungan, was arrested for allegedly throwing a bomb during a demonstration in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta on Wednesday, said the spokesperson, while another seven students were also arrested for acting violently toward police officers.
"Our team is still holding an investigation over a wounded student, Budi Darma. He was reportedly shot by an officer with a rubber bullet during a demonstration in front of the House of Representatives building the same day," he said.
Hundreds of students plan to stage a protest in front of the city police and the House of Representatives building, demanding the government cancel the fuel price increase and release their friends, spokesperson of Front Protesting Citizen Lulu Hilman Afriandi said. (ind)
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
Jakarta, Cirebon, Yogyakarta, Makassar – Thousands of students across the nation took to the streets Wednesday to reject the government plan to increase fuel prices and provide direct cash aid for affected low-income households.
The protests were generally peaceful, although minor incidents marred demonstrations in Jakarta and Cirebon, West Java.
In Jakarta, thousands of students gathered at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle and later flocked to the State Palace, which has become a focal point for recent fuel price protests.
The demonstrations resulted in heavy traffic delays in those areas as police were forced to divert traffic from several major thoroughfares.
A separate protest was staged in front of the House of Representatives' building in Central Jakarta.
The rally outside the State Palace was organized by the City Forum (Forkot), National Council 98, Gunadarma University students, Bung Karno University and the People's Democratic Party (PRD). The rally in front of the House was staged by the Student Executive Council (BEM).
"We reject the fuel price increase. SBY (President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) has betrayed the people," read posters carried by protesters. Other protesters yelled: "Say no to BLT (direct cash assistance)."
Police arrested a number of students, accusing them of provoking riots, following a brief clash in front of the State Palace.
Late in the day, one student was taken to the hospital after being hit by a rubber bullet during the rally outside the House building. "We will sue the police over the shooting incident and file a complaint for violence," BEM coordinator Budiyanto said.
In Cirebon, students from various universities blocked several roads on Java's north coast for three hours, causing a four- kilometer traffic jam along roadways that link Central Java, West Java and Jakarta.
In Yogyakarta, thousands of students demanded Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla cancel the planned increase of fuel prices. "Increasing fuel prices shows that this government doesn't care about the community, because it will only add to people's misery," protest coordinator Artha Suryaputra said.
In Makassar, South Sulawesi, some 2,000 students rallied peacefully on themain streets to voice similar demands.
Agence France Presse - May 21, 2008
Jakarta – Indonesians took to the streets in angry protests over the soaring cost of food and a planned fuel price hike Wednesday, as an economic "crisis" overshadowed the 10th anniversary of Suharto's fall.
Demonstrations were under way across the country against the government's plans to raise the subsidised cost of fuel by as much as 30 percent to protect the budget from record world oil prices.
Indonesia has seen almost daily protests against the fuel price plans and the rising cost of food in recent weeks, but tensions were higher Wednesday, exactly a decade after the collapse of the Suharto regime. A similar announcement of a fuel price rise triggered the mass protests that eventually toppled the dictator.
But in contrast to the late general, who ruled with an iron fist for 32 years, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – the country's first directly elected leader – welcomed the protests as a healthy exercise of democracy.
"In democracy, protests are normal as long as they are orderly," he said, dismissing concerns that they could get out of control ahead of elections next year.
"The government, since the beginning and up until now, continues to implement policies and take real action to overcome the problems and to protect those hit hardest by the impacts of this crisis."
Yudhoyono is under mounting pressure to announce the size of the fuel price hike, which he has said could be up to 30 percent. A hike on that scale would see the cost of gasoline in Southeast Asia's biggest economy climb to 6,000 rupiah (65 cents) from 4,500 rupiah.
To compensate the poor, the government is planning to transfer more than 1.5 billion dollars in cash handouts to millions of low-income families.
But protesters on the streets of Jakarta and other cities – where people pay the lowest fuel prices in Southeast Asia – said there were other ways to help working families and counter the impact of high oil prices.
"The government must renegotiate with oil exploration companies dominated by foreign countries to ask for more profits. If they don't agree we have to take firm measures to take over those companies," said Rudi, a protester in Jakarta.
Sri, a housewife, said: "The rise of fuel prices will strangle us. It's hard for a housewife like me as the price of everything has risen even before the announcement" of the fuel price hike.
About 1,000 people took part in rowdy but mainly peaceful demonstrations in Jakarta, scenes reflected in towns across the country. Several thousand students occupied the West Sumatra council building in the provincial capital of Padang, ElShinta radio reported.
Another 2,000 students in Makassar, South Sulawesi, formed a convoy of motorcycles, trucks and cars and drove to a downtown monument and the regional parliament.
None of the demonstrators expressed concern about the lack of progress on issues such as the fight against corruption in the decade since Suharto resigned.
The late dictator, who died in January, brought economic progress and stability to the archipelago at the expense of democracy and human rights.
"Ten years have passed. Suharto died in January. We are still unable to recover from the economic disaster? But we need to remember that we deserve to take pride in our democracy," the Jakarta Post said in an editorial.
It was an "amazing achievement that Indonesia has been able to transform itself after five decades of dictatorship into the world's third-largest democracy after India and the United States," it said.
Detik.com/Tempo Interactive - May 21, 2008
[The following is a compilation of abridged translations from Detik.com and Tempo Interactive covering protest actions around the country on May 21 against the Indonesian government's planned fuel price increases.]
Anti-fuel price hike protest in Bogor ends in clash
Bogor – Around 30 students from the Ibnu Khaldun University Indonesian Islamic Students Movement (PMII) in Bogor, West Java, were involved in a clash with police and civil service police on Wednesday May 21 during a demonstration against the government's planned fuel (BBM) price hikes.
Prior to the scuffle, the students had held speeches at the Bogor city hall then moved on to the centre of the road creating a traffic jam. When the protesters refused to move after police asked them not to protest in the middle of the road and to allow an ambulance to pass, police attempted to disperse the crowd.
The students however stood their ground and tried to resist. Chaos broke out with students fleeing to save themselves. Around 10 protesters were arrested. (Tempo Interactive, 21/5/2008)
Farmers in Garut take to the streets over fuel price hikes
Garut – On May 21 around 15,000 members of the Pasundan Farmers Union (SPP) held demonstrations at a number of points around the West Java regency of Garut. As well as opposing the government's planned fuel price increases, they also demanded that legal action be taken against corrupt Garut regency government officials.
The action started at the Garut District Attorney's Office where protesters demanded the completion of legal cases involving members of the Garut Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) who were involved in the 'State Budget Gate' corruption scandal. They also demanded that investigations be held into corruption case involving the Garut regional government. A bier was handed over to the Garut AGO along with a statement written in cartoon format and a petition.
Following this the farmers held a long-march to the Garut DPRD some 3 kilometres away where they held a demonstration and gave speeches opposing the planned fuel price hikes. Although the march brought traffic to a standstill and was watched over by around 100 police officers, the action proceeded in an orderly manner. (Detik.com, 21/5/2008)
Protest against fuel price hikes at State Palace ends in chaos
Jakarta – Thousands of protesters opposing the government's planned fuel price hikes clashed with police in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta on May 21.
The clash erupted after Molotov cocktails were thrown at police from the direction of the crowd. One of the bombs hit a car passing in front of the State Palace.
As a result of the incident, police and students began chasing each other and scores of protesters were arrested and placed in waiting police paddy wagons. A middle-age man was hurt in the incident. (Tempo Interactive, 21/5/2008) Ten students arrested following clash at State Palace
Jakarta – Ten activists from the City Forum (Forkot) were arrested by police after a protest in front of the State Palace ended in chaos on May 21. The students, who were arrested for allegedly bringing Molotov cocktails to the protest, are currently being question by the Metro Jaya regional police.
Adrian Napitupulu from Forkot said that there has been no explanation given as to why the students were arrested. He also said he regretted the repressive actions taken by police when confronting demonstrations, most of which are carried out by students. "It's just an excessive government policy [towards protests], right. They should be addressed wisely without violence", he said. (Tempo Interactive, 21/5/2008)
Student demonstration in Jambi almost ends in clash
Jambi – At least 300 students from various universities in Jambi, East Nusa Tenggara, from the United Student Movement (GBM) and the group Help the People's Burden (BBM) demonstrated at the DPRD and the Jambi governor's office on May 21. The students were protesting the government's plan to increase fuel prices.
A clash almost broke out between protesters and security personnel with students and police pushing and shoving each other after the demonstrators tried to take down the national flag on the grounds of the governor's office. The students succeed in lowering the flag to half mast when police rushed in and stopped them. (Tempo Interactive, 21/5/2008)
Students in Makassar threaten to occupy parliament
Makassar – Thousands of students and residents from the People's Awakening Front Against Fuel Price Increases (FKRTKB) occupied the South Sulawesi DPRD in the provincial capital of Makassar on May 21.
During the action, they took turns in giving anti-government speeches and brought a huge tube made of bamboo and paper with the messages "SBY-JK [President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Vice President Jusuf Kalla] the Betrayer of the People", "Dracula BBM" and "If BBM goes up, bring SBY-JK down".
They were demanding that the DPRD hold a plenary session to discuss the price increases. According to action coordinator Ahmad, if their proposal is refused they would occupy the DPRD overnight. "If our request is denied, then will choose to stay overnight. We are giving them until 5pm", he said.
A number of student representatives were received by a member of the Golkar Party faction who said they would convey the student's demands to the other factions in the house.
Prior to holding the action at the DPRD, they also demonstrated in front of the South Sulawesi offices of the state-owned oil company Pertamina after which it was symbolically sealed off.
A second protest on the same day was also held by around 1,000 students from the Makassar State University and the Makassar Muhammadiyah University. In addition to protesting against planned fuel price hikes, they also commemorated the May 1998 riots and 10 years of reformasi. Also taking part in the protests were scores of housewives from the Indonesian Poor Union (SRMI). (Detik.com, 21/5/2008) (Detik.com, 21/5/2008)
Seven protesters in Malang injured in clash with police
Malang – Protesters from the Malang People's Struggle Forum (FPRM) clashed with police during a demonstration in front of the Malang city hall in East Java on May 21.
As a result of the clash, seven protesters were wounded after being beaten by police and three others were arrested. Those who were wounded were allowed to return home after receiving medial treatment while the three who were arrested – Kholil, Caping and Sullivan from the Malang City All Indonesia Trade Union (SBSI) – were released after being question at the Malang municipal police office.
FPRM coordinator Misdi said that police had exceeded their authority. "We only wanted to convey our wishes, but the police acted brutally", he said at a press conference following the protest. With regard to the fuel price hikes, Misdi said that it would further burden workers because annual wage increases of less then 20 percent would not compensate for a 30 percent increase in fuel prices. "In real terms, workers wages are declining", he added.
FPRM, which is an alliance of labour and student activists, were protesting the government's planned fuel price hikes. Prior to the protest at the city hall, FPRM also held a peaceful action in which they 'sealed off' the Malang regency attendance hall.
Aside from the FPRM, other protest actions against the price increases were held in Malang city and the Malang DPRD (DPRD) by the Malang Student Executive Council (BEM), the Muhammadiyah Students Association (IMM), the Indonesian National Students Movement (GMNI), the Indonesian Muslim Students Action Front (KAMMI) and the Association of Islamic Students (HMI). (Tempo Interactive, 21/5/2008)
Protesters in Palembang opposes price hikes, direct cash assistance
Palembang – A number of community and student groups from the Peoples Alliance Against Fuel Price Hikes (ARTK-BBM) took to the streets of the South Sumatra city of Palembang on May 21 to call on the regional government to oppose the government's planned fuel price increases.
"Around 500 people have already declared that they are ready to join, students from a number of Student Executive Councils (BEM) in Palembang have also declared they will join the alliance", said ARTK-BBM coordinator Mualimin.
Mualimin said the aim of the protest is to call on the legislative and executive wings of the South Sumatra government to oppose the fuel price increases as well as the government's direct cash assistance (BLT) program compensate the poor for the price hikes, as has been done in a number of other parts of Indonesia. (Tempo Interactive, 21/5/2008)
Student protesters in Samarinda 'highjack' fuel tanker
Samarinda – Around 300 students, non-government organisation activists and workers from the Student Movement Against Fuel Price Increases (GRT-BBM) demonstrated at the East Kalimantan provincial government offices in Samarinda today.
During the action, they almost succeeded in 'hijacking' a fuel tanker owned by the state-owned oil company Pertamina. The highjacking did not last long however with police succeeding in releasing the tanker that the students were holding.
This is the umpteenth time that actions against the government's planned fuel price increases have been held in East Kalimantan. "The East Kalimantan government must explicitly oppose the planned furl price hikes", said action coordinator Billy during a speech.
The protesters also held a theatrical action depicting the suffering of the people should fuel prices be increased. The action, which created a traffic jam in front of the governor's office, was watched over by hundreds of officers from the Samarinda municipal police. (Tempo Interactive, 21/5/2008)
Students in Solo buying petrol to oppose fuel price hikes
Solo – There are all kinds of ways to express an opinion. On May 21, students in the Central Java city of Solo for example, held an action to oppose the government's planned fuel price increases by buying petrol. Scores of motorbikes were walked to petrol stations at different locations and at each one they were filled up with 1,000 rupiah of petrol.
Prior to the action, which was organised by the Indonesian Muslim Students Action Front (KAMMI) and the Association of Islamic Students (HMI), they gathered along with hundreds of other demonstrators from various campuses in Solo, non-government organisations activists and residents at the Gladag roundabout then moved of to the city hall to hold a demonstration against the price hikes.
It was while they were heading off to the city hall that students separated off from the rally to buy petrol. At each petrol station – which was tightly guarded by police – the motorbikes waited until police allowed them to enter then queued up to buy petrol. When they reach the petrol pump, they bought 1,000 rupiah of petrol each. The other protesters meanwhile, waited near the petrol station.
According to the students, the action was a depiction of the low purchasing power of the people. "Even now it is difficult for us to buy petrol, what about later", said one of the students.
Actions were also held on a number of university campuses in Solo involving students, non-government organisations, local residents, political parties and even members of the regional parliament. (Detik.com, 21/5/2008)
Protesters in Surabaya say direct cash assistance a political bribe
Surabaya – Around 1,000 students, workers and community activist besieged the State Grahadi building on the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya on May 21. They were commemorating the overthrow of former President Suharto by articulating their opposition to the government's planned fuel price hikes.
The demonstrators came from scores of different organisations including the Surabaya Institute of Technology Student Executive Council (BEM ITS), the University of Airlingga BEM (BEM Unair), the State Institute of Islamic Studies (BEM IAIN), the National Development University BEM (BEM UPN), the Indonesian Islamic Students Association (PMII), the Association of Islamic Students (HMI), the Muhammadiyah Students Association (IMM), the Workers Challenge Alliance (ABM) and the Youth Front for Upholding the National Mandate (BM PAN), the National Movement to Bring Down Prices (GNTH) and a number of other mass organisations.
The protesters brought a number of banners and posters with messages such as "Oppose the fuel price hikes, seize the corruptors' assets", "Cut government officials' wages to cover the fuel subsidies", "Increase the tax on goods and luxury cars" and "Thwart the fuel price increases, reject direct cash assistance because it is a form of political bribery". One of the groups also formed a line holding a series of huge letters reading "I-N-D-O-N-E-S-I-A = B-A-N-K-R-U-P-T".
"It is time for the people to reunite. We must demand that the president, who has no creativity and is only cleaver at increasing fuel prices, immediately resign", said 1998 student activist Taufik Menyon in a speech. Aside from opposing the fuel price hikes, the protesters said that the direct cash assistance (BLT) to compensate the poor for the price increase is just a form of money politics being carried out by the president to try to maintain his popularity in the upcoming 2009 elections. (Tempo Interactive, 21/5/2008)
Fourteen students in Ternate arrested after clash with police
Ternate – Hundreds of students from the Ternate chapter of the Indonesian Islamic Students Movement (PMII) and the National Student League for Democracy (LMND) who are part of the National Liberation Front (FPN) held a demonstration opposing the government's planned fuel price increases at the North Maluku DPRD (DPRD) on May 21.
When students tried to enter the DPRD however they were stopped by police and a scuffle broke out with police and protesters pushing and shoving each other. Unable to enter, students then held a 'sweep' of red number plate cars (government owned) parked in front of the DPRD. One of these cars was pelted with rocks and the front windscreen smashed. Upon seeing this, police immediately gave chase beating the students with clubs and kicking them. Fourteen students were arrested.
Other students that avoided arrest fled to the North Maluku Muhammadiyah University where they blockaded the road with stones and conducted another sweep for government cars. The situation eventually calmed down with the assistance of the university rector Muklis Asel.
"I have coordinated with the Ternate municipal police chief to immediately release the 14 students that were arrested", promised Asel. Despite the promise however, the students did not disband and remained on the campus giving speeches. (Detik.com, 21/5/2008)
[Translated by James Balowski.]
Agence France Presse - May 21, 2008
Jakarta – Thousands of students took to the streets across Indonesia on Wednesday to protest the government's plan to raise fuel prices.
With global oil prices surging, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said he has little choice but to slash subsidies that threaten to bust the state budget, and raise fuel prices by up to 30 percent by the month's end.
But dissatisfaction with the plan has mounted in this nation of 235 million where tens of millions live in abject poverty and rely on government subsidies to make fuel products affordable.
"We reject the planned fuel hike," student and protest organizer Rudi Daman said Wednesday at a rally of hundreds of people outside the presidential palace in the capital, Jakarta.
He said the poor would be the ones who suffer most from the plan. "It will trigger a rise in the cost of staple foods," public transportation and electricity, he said.
Similar rallies were held in cities across the sprawling archipelago, from Sumatra island in the west to Sulawesi in the east. Some students occupied the local council building in West Sumatra's capital of Padang. In nearby Jambi, demonstrators briefly took down a national flag at the governor's office.
Many also used the public demonstrations to mark the 10-year anniversary of former dictator Suharto's fall from power after 32-years of rule.
Jakarta Post - May 21, 2008
Jakarta Police detained 18 students from Mercu Buana University who took over a fuel truck during a rally in West Jakarta on Tuesday.
The students used the country's 100th National Awakening Day to stage a protest against the government's recent decision to increase fuel prices.
The students were taken to Jakarta Police headquarters for questioning after they attempted to take over a truck containing 8,000 liters of fuel belonging to state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina.
The students were accused of violating articles of the Criminal Code concerning unacceptable behavior and impinging on other people's freedom.
A student activist, Januar, said his friends planned to direct the truck to the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle where more students were waiting. "We wanted to take the truck to the State Palace as part of our rally," he said, although the truck was not initially part of the plan.
The 18 students questioned by police were Syiful Malik, Ricky Sylvester, Feri Andrianto, Feri Fahrian, Dirgantara, Ervan Jatmiko, Arif Setiandi, Ichsan S., Arief Adrianto, Fauzi Umar, Dame Kurnia, Ari Afrizal, Merdi Ardiansyah, Afendi, Devi Solina, Khaerodin, Damai Kurnia and Andi.
The students' lawyer, JJ Amstrong, said the students did not deserve to be arrested for what they did. "If we look at the case thoroughly, the laws used to detain them do not warrant arrests," he said.
He said the students did not try to take over the truck. They only stopped it and ordered the driver to go with them to the State Palace. "That was when police officers came and took the 18 students to their headquarters for questioning," he said.
Amstrong also said the interrogation should have been conducted at the police station in West Jakarta instead of the police headquarters. (lva)
Tempo Interactive - May 19, 2008
Firman Hidayat, Samarinda – Around 500 students, NGO activists, and laborers in Samarinda demonstrated today protesting the government's plan to increase fuel prices.
They required the provincial government of East Kalimantan to make a written statement refusing the increases. "Raising the fuel price shows Yudhoyono-Kalla's attitude really pro to foreign capital like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said Japun, the speaker.
They all walked three kilometers toward governor's office, shouting 'Don't raise the fuel price.'
"The fuel price increase will create a massive work termination," said one of the students in the demonstration.
Tempo Interactive - May 19, 2008
Bibin Bintariadi, Jakarta – The Central Board of Nahdlatul Ulama (PBNU) will announce their position over the fuel price increases. The statement will be sent to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono today.
"PBNU will ask the government to cancel the fuel price increase or at least postpone it," said chairman of PBNU KH Hasyim Muzadi at his house in Malang yesterday.
Muzadi said the government's argument regarding a subsidy benefiting the rich is not entirely true. Discontinuing the subsidy will influence the basic commodity prices and be more of a burden to the people. "They are not ready for price increases," he said.
PBNU recommends that the government optimize revenues and reduce the budget in various sectors.
PBNU also asked the government and the House of Representatives (DPR) to be in the same position over the plan to increase the fuel prices or it will cause the average person to be confused.
Jakarta Post - May 18, 2008
Jakarta – The Regional Representatives Council (DPD) has added pressure on the government to reconsider its plan to raise fuel prices, saying the policy will severely impact on the country's economy.
In a letter sent to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, DPD Speaker Ginandjar Kartasasmita said the fuel price hikes would save the state budget, but not the whole economy while people's purchasing power and industry competitiveness remained weak.
"The economic crisis people are facing is concerned not only with energy, but also food. The two dimensions of the crisis are pushing each other and will increase the economic burden on people," the letter reads.
Ginandjar said the letter, dated May 15, summed up the DPD plenary meeting on Wednesday, in which councillors unanimously opposed the planned fuel price hikes.
He said the 1997/1998 Asian financial crisis showed that removing subsidies needs to be backed by a strong economy to withstand the economic doldrums.
"Given the vulnerable economic position of the people, there is high risk in taking measures like cutting subsidies, which is the main pillar of our social safety net," Ginandjar, who is a former chief economics minister, said.
The DPD argued the fuel price rise should be the last resort after all other measures to save the budget had been exhausted. To cope with the budget deficit, the government could ask to reschedule foreign loan payments and reduce interest payments of the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support (BLBI) recapitalization fund and arrange debt swaps and windfall profit tax imposed on companies that benefit from the soaring oil price.
"The tax is strategic as the windfall profit that goes to companies is not a result of their hard work," Ginandjar said, adding that the firms included those in oil, gas, mining and oil palm sectors. Budget and energy efficiency is another option to replace the fuel price policy.
The government plans to raise fuel prices to cap fuel subsidies and protect the state budget. To mitigate the increase, the government has allocated Rp 14. 1 trillion in direct cash assistance for poor families. There were 19.1 million lower income households receiving assistance in 2005.
The government has also earmarked Rp 13.2 trillion in credits to 4,000 districts across the country, and extended Rp 5.3 trillion in credits to around 400,000 micro and small enterprises.
A number of regents and regional legislatures have voiced opposition to the direct cash assistance, for fear that the scheme would spark conflict. Malang legislature member Taufik Bambang said Saturday the scheme would cause "social envy" as it was using the old data to identify recipients.
Waspada Online - May 17, 2008
Medan – Hundreds of protesters from the National Liberation Front (FPN) demonstrated at the North Sumatra Regional House of Representatives building and the offices of the North Sumatran governor on Friday May 16 against the government's plan to increase fuel prices by 30 percent.
In speeches they also expressed their opposition to direct cash assistance (BLT, paid to the poor as compensation for the planned price hikes), called for the repudiation of the foreign debt, and for the nationalisation of mining, oil and gas industries under the control of the people.
The National Liberation Front is made up of the Association of Islamic Students (HMI), the Indonesian Student Secretariat (SMI), the Indonesian Christian Students Movement (GMKI), the Urban Poor People's Network (JKRM), the North Sumatra Politics for the Poor- National Farmers Union (STN-PRN Sumut), the North Sumatra Politics for the Poor-Indonesian Student League for Democracy (LMDN-PRM Sumut), the Perempuan Mahardhika National Network (JNPM), the Indonesian Youth Front for Struggle (FPPI), the Poor Peoples Political Union (PPRM), the Poor People's Union (SRM), Himbar, the North Sumatra Islamic University Faculty of Social and Political Science Student Executive Council (BEM Fisip UISU), Barmas, Bercak, Pamor North Sumatra, the Poor Peoples Struggle Front (FPRM), the Indonesian National Students Movement (GMNI), Himabem, the Marhaen's People Movement (GRM), the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), AMPR, Satma PP, SMM and the Politics for the Poor-Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggle (FNPBI-PRM).
The protesters also called for education that is free, scientific, democratic and with a populist vision, an end to public order operations against street buskers, petty traders and street children, decent and affordable housing for the people and an end to price increases of basic commodities.
According to the demonstrators, the government's reasons for increasing fuel prices by 30 percent – in order to hold down the debt and safeguard the state budget – are extremely contradictory and are being used to manipulate the people's consciousness. In reality they said, the fuel price increases will have an affect on all sectors of the people's economy. "Therefore reject the fuel price increases without compromise and call for the nationalisation of foreign assets", said one of protesters. (m19/m14)
[Translated by James Balowski.]
Jakarta Post - May 17, 2008
Desy Nurhayati, Jakarta – Leaders of several major factions in the House of Representatives will confirm their opposition to the government's plan to increase fuel prices during a consultation meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Although the government has accepted the invitation, the meeting's date has yet to be set.
The National Awakening Party (PKB) faction leader Effendy Choirie said Friday the government had broken its promise not to raise prices until 2009. "We disagree with the government's claim that reducing the fuel subsidy is the right decision and would benefit poor people," Effendy said.
The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) will demand the House exercise its right to officially question the President to seek an explanation from the government for its policy, faction head Tjahjo Kumolo said.
The National Mandate Party (PAN) has also objected to the policy. "The government has many options to take other than raising fuel prices. If the alternative actions are not enough, it should have been able to explain the reasons so people know it has been prudent in using the state budget," PAN faction head Zulkifli Hasan said.
The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction said it would not oppose the government's authority on the matter. "But as a party, the PKS conveyed its disagreement with the policy to President Yudhoyono during the party's anniversary several weeks ago," PKS faction head Mahfudz Shiddiq said.
The United Development Party (PPP) and Golkar Party remain undecided on the issue.
The PPP faction said it would wait for the government's explanation during the proposed meeting before announcing its decision. "We have discussed the issue internally, but have yet to decide on our position," PPP faction head Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said.
The controversial policy looks to have plunged Golkar Party into a dilemma because while its leader, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, is the policy-maker, the Golkar faction in the House feels it has the responsibility to articulate the public's interests.
Yudhoyono's Democratic Party is currently the only faction to support the policy.
According to the law, the government has no obligation to seek the House's approval to alter fuel prices. The House approved a revision to the state budget in March, allowing the government to raise fuel prices to protect the budget if world crude oil exceeded $100 per barrel.
House Speaker Agung Laksono wrote to Yudhoyono on Thursday, inviting the President to a consultation meeting on the fuel policy before it took effect at the end of this month. The price increase is slated to average 30 percent across a range of fuels.
State Secretary Hatta Radjasa said the government was ready to attend the meeting. "There's no problem (about the meeting). There are important issues the government and the House need to discuss. We can hold the meeting either at the House or at the State Palace," he said. (alf)
Jakarta Post - May 17, 2008
Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Lower income families urged the government on Friday to ensure proposed fuel price hikes would not cause the prices of other basic commodities to increase.
They told The Jakarta Post it would severely burden them and would also render useless the direct cash aid they would receive from the government.
Housewives in several parts of Jakarta said they were extremely concerned the prices of other basic commodities – already increasing throughout the country – would climb even higher.
"I don't know what will happen after the government raises the fuel price. I just hope they will do something about it," said Yati, a 35-year-old mother of three.
She sells vegetables in her neighborhood in Pejaten Timur, South Jakarta, to complement her husband's earnings as an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver.
Yati earns on average Rp 300,000 (US$33) a month while her husband makes about Rp 25,000 a day. The family began receiving direct cash aid of Rp 100,000 a month from the government after the 2005 fuel price rise.
"If the prices of food and transportation get too high then the monthly cash aid of Rp 100,000 will not help us much. You see, we also have to think about how to keep our two children in school," Yati said.
The government is planning to raise fuel prices by a maximum of 30 percent in order to reduce fuel subsidies and control the state budget in the wake of skyrocketing global oil prices.
Last week, a leaked proposal from the Finance Ministry suggested fuel prices would be raised by an average of 28.7 percent, with the price of premium gasoline increasing to Rp 6,000 per liter from the present Rp 4,500. The price of diesel would be increased to Rp 5,500 per liter from Rp 4,300, and kerosene to Rp 2,500 from Rp 2,000.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Wednesday approved Rp 14.1 trillion in cash aid for 19.1 million low income households to offset the impact of the planned fuel price hike.
Each household will receive Rp 100,000 per month. Critics said this amount was not enough to cushion the blow to lower income families, and would certainly not increase their purchasing power.
The government said based on its predictions of 11 percent inflation in 2008 and 6 percent in 2009, a family with a monthly income of Rp 1 million would see this income rise to Rp 1,040,000 after implementation of the cash aid program.
Anggito Abimanyu, the Finance Ministry's head of fiscal policy, said Thursday the government would begin distributing the money by May 23.
He said cash aid cards were already being handed out in Jakarta, Medan, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, Makassar, Palembang, Kupang, Banjarmasin and Yogyakarta.
Anna, a 50-year-old housewife who earns Rp 400,000 a month washing clothes for her neighbors in Poncol, Central Jakarta, said she was unaware of the program.
The mother of four said she did not receive cash aid in 2005 because she didn't have a permanent identity card. However, she receives money and some basic commodities twice a month from an Islamic foundation and a church near her rented home.
"Nobody told me about the cards. This time I will try to get it. But I will not count on it because many other poor families won't get it. I'd rather depend on the foundation and the church for help," she said.
| 10 years of reformasi |
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
Harry Bhaskara, Jakarta – In a sense, the media is like an eligible bride who often has a honeymoon with a new government.
In Indonesia, that honeymoon began in 1998 when autocrat Soeharto fell from grace and the press enjoyed freedom for the first time in more than two decades.
Soeharto ruled Indonesia for 32 years and his honeymoon with the media at the outset of his government lasted for about five years.
Today, the honeymoons with four successive governments since 1998 are over and there have been occasions when each of these new governments wanted to treat the press the old way.
This is fully understandable as the country has been ruled under two dictatorships, the first one being Sukarno from 1959 to 1965.
The lively and exuberant press of the 1950s returned in May 1998 when political reform kicked off.
The sudden air of freedom caught the press by surprise with some of them dangling on the verge of slander and libel. Others succumbed to the most unethical journalism practice by becoming mouthpieces of politicians or businessmen.
Press freedom arrived in Indonesia almost by accident. President B.J. Habibie, a confidant of Soeharto, badly needed a boost for his mediocre credibility as a reformist. He banished the requirement for a publishing company to obtain a government license in September 1999, a year after he was in power.
Now anyone who wants to publish a newspaper or magazine is free to do so without having to go through the bureaucracy as before. The only thing one needs to do is register the name of the paper or magazine at the government information office.
Consequently, the number of print media jumped from 300 in 1998 to 1,800 in 1999 before stabilizing at 600 today. The good news is that about one-third of these are on their way to becoming professional media, if they are not already there.
Radio stations increased from 700 in 1998 to 2,400 today while television stations went from five to about 30 in the same period.
Instantly, there was a demand for thousands of new journalists in a country where journalism schools were virtually non-existent.
This is reminiscence of the banking deregulation in the early 1990s when there was a steep increase in the number of banks but there were not enough people trained in banking.
It is easy to predict what will happen to the media when thousands of new reporters, mostly without proper journalism training, enter the workforce. Journalism ethics violations have had a field day.
Apart from a shortage of trained journalists, the violations occurred because of the late arrival of political freedom. The country lived under repressive systems for much too long, where problems like communal tensions and conflicts were swept under the carpet.
The danger is that the public will blame press freedom for all the conflicts that suddenly burst to the surface.
In the last 10 years, government officials, businesspeople, members of the public and of the press who were familiar with dictatorships had to go through a painful learning process under a free press.
Their encounter with the new atmosphere has not been encouraging, with all the above stakeholders contributing to the less than elegant performance of the media.
Fresh in memory was the heap of eulogies coming from the broadcast media in the days when Soeharto was dying in January. This showed that the media is suffering from a split personality.
On one hand, they supported efforts to bring Soeharto to court for his alleged corruption; on the other hand, they perceived him as a hero. Reporters Without Borders ranked press freedom in Indonesia at 100 in 2007, down from 67 in 1999. This means that press freedom has actually been declining throughout the years.
Physical attacks, intimidation and killings of journalists have occurred regularly throughout the country in the last 10 years.
A high-profile decision by the Supreme Court that Time magazine's Asian edition should pay Rp 1 trillion to Soeharto for libel was a blow to press freedom as it discouraged investigative reporting.
Members of society, mostly uninformed about how to deal with the media, often resort to violence as in the attack on the office of East Java newspaper, Jawa Pos in May 2000.
The paper carried a story about an alleged transfer of Rp 35 billion in funds from the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) to a non-governmental organization linked to Hasyim Wahid, the brother of then president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.
Gus Dur, former chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB), denied the report.
Despite his credibility as a reformist, Gus Dur, once he became president, was as hard hitting toward the press as could be by charging the paper with trying to topple him from power.
If Gus Dur could behave like that toward the press, what about other public figures who had less credibility as reformists? Attacks on media offices have been replicated throughout the country, including against Tempo magazine in March 2003 and Indo Pos in December 2005, both in Jakarta.
In Jakarta, Rakyat Merdeka chief editor Karim Paputungan was sentenced to five months in jail in September 2003 for insulting House of Representatives speaker Akbar Tandjung.
The daily's executive editor Supratman received a six-month suspended jail sentence in October of the same year for insulting president Megawati Soekarnoputri. The daily ran four articles including one that ran under the headline "Mulut Mega Bau Solar" (Mega's mouth smells of diesel fuel).
Conflict with power-holders recurred with producers of television political satire Republik Mimpi last year when Vice President Jusuf Kalla, short of stopping the program, showed his displeasure.
But there is hope on the horizon. When the media reported that Lt. Gen. Djadja Suparman was in Bali when the second Bali bombing occurred in 2005, the general was understandably furious because it implied that he might have been involved in the bombing.
He wanted to sue a number of media outlets but mediation from the Press Council helped pacify him. The general, now apparently with a better understanding of how the media works, had the magnanimity to pardon the media.
In a country where leadership culture is deeply entrenched with feudalism, the general's willingness to forgive is a rarity. He had the right to sue the media outlets in court.
The role of the Press Council, a newcomer in a free system, has given rise to hopes that press freedom is here to stay.
This year saw the enactment of the access to information law. It was the culmination of a long fight for press freedom in the country in the last 10 years.
Critics say the law has many loopholes that have the potential of putting the press in hot water. Still, press freedom is about the only fruit of political reform in a country where the bureaucracy and the judiciary show a tendency of returning to old ways of doing things under a dictatorship.
Kompas - May 22, 2008
Jakarta – Waves of protesters commemorating 10 years of reformasi took to the streets on Wednesday May 21. At least 6,000 people from a number of mass and student organisations gathered at the State Palace and the House of Representatives (DPR) between 11am and 6pm. The protesters presented seven people's demands to the government.
The flow of protesters heading towards the State Palace on Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara in Central Jakarta began at 11am when around 1,000 members of the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR) arrived in a convoy of motorbikes encircling the National Monument and the Medan Merdeka area.
Next, a wave of students arrived under the flag of the All Indonesia Student Executive Alliance (Aliansi BEM Se-Indonesia) numbering as many a 1,000 people along with the National Liberation Front (FPN), City Forum (Forkot), the Student Action Front for Reform and Democracy (Famred) 98, the Volunteers for Democratic Struggle (Repdem) and a number of other groups. Numbering around 6,000 people they fill two lanes along the length of Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat. It was during this action that Aliansi BEM presented the people's seven demands.
Large numbers of security personnel meanwhile were placed on a state of alert. "The Metro Jaya regional police have deployed 1,200 personnel", said Metro Jaya Operational Bureau Chief Senior Commissioner Budi Winarso.
A brocade of police wearing anti-riot gear blockaded the roads in front of the State Palace and the DPR building. Hundreds of traffic police were also on alert at intersections on the approach to the two protest locations.
Traffic jams occurred in the areas of Jl. Salemba, Gambir, Harmoni through to Gajah Mada and Hayam Wuruk, Abdul Muis, Kebun Sirih and Sudirman-Thamrin. Traffic was also brought to a standstill when the two groups switched between the State Palace and the DPR.
The flow of traffic was also disrupted because one of the lanes on Jl. Gatot Subroto in South Jakarta was occupied by students. The action, which started at 9.30am, only broke up at 5.10pm, blocking traffic for some eight hours. (CAL/WIN/NEL)
[Slightly abridged translation by James Balowski.]
Jakarta Post - May 21, 2008
Jakarta – Former student activists who took part in the historic rallies of May 1998 have called their struggle for sweeping reforms a disappointment.
The former students, some of them having joined major political parties, concluded in a discussion Tuesday that apart from forcing President Soeharto to resign, most of their demands had failed to materialize.
Summing up the discussion, former Trisakti University student Dedy Arianto, who chairs the Golkar Party-affiliated Wira Karya Indonesia, said the failure to bring Soeharto and his cronies to justice was the heaviest defeat of the reform movement.
"Worse, efforts to eradicate corruption, collusion and nepotism and to uphold the supremacy of law have not been accomplished," said Dedy.
Soeharto died last January, with the government having dropped criminal charges against him due to his failing health. Golkar has proposed the government name the late first president a national hero, but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has not responded to the controversial request.
The former students also said they regretted the lack of resolution to alleged human rights violations before and after the May 21, 1998, collapse of the New Order regime.
Hundreds were killed in riots in Jakarta, which broke out after security personnel opened fire at Trisakti student protesters who were demanding Soeharto's resignation on May 12. The shooting claimed four lives.
The reform movement resulted in the revocation of the military's dual roles and split the police from the armed forces, but the discussion concluded these reforms were not enough.
"Indeed, the military's dual functions have been scrapped. However, there is a new threat rising as a number of military officers have joined political parties," said Dedy.
The former activist added that constitutional amendments had exceeded the students' expectations and created new problems.
"We wanted constitutional amendments to terminate the president's absolute power. However, the amendments have unfortunately also opened the way for foreign investors to control the country's assets," said Dedy.
Regional autonomy is another reform goal which remains incomplete, the discussion heard. Dedy said the distribution of powers to regions had not worked, as evident in the fact that many candidates for regional elections came from Jakarta.
Another former activist, Usman Hamid, who now leads the human rights group Kontras, said the political elite groups had hampered the campaign against impunity and efforts to resolve past human rights abuses.
"President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has urged all parties to help resolve the problems. However, the Attorney General's Office has done nothing to follow the President's order," he said. (nkn)
Reforms demanded by student activists in 1998:
Detik.com - May 18, 2008
Nurvita Indarini, Jakarta – A number of organisations are endeavouring to thwart the government's plan to increase the price of fuel and are planning to besiege the State Palace in Central Jakarta on May 21 (the 10th anniversary of the overthrow of former President Suharto) and June 1.
In a written statement received by Detik.com, the National Liberation Front (FPN) said it will be holding mass actions at various points across Greater Jakarta before the main action centring on the State Palace. Warm up actions will also be held in a number of cities around the country.
"Soon, [we will begin] making up hundreds of banners at various points containing calls to defeat the fuel price increases and hold massive actions on May 21 and June 1", said FPN's public relations officer on Friday May 16.
The FPN is also calling on members of the political elite such as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, former Golkar Party chairperson Akbar Tanjung, former National Mandate Party chairperson Amien Rais, former Indonesian military chief Wiranto, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, National Awakening Party chief patron Abdurrahman 'Gus Dur' Wahid and others to step aside as they have failed the country.
They are also calling on the people to build their own political movement, to step up the intensity of mass actions and to strengthen their forces to fight for the nationalisation of the oil and gas industries under the control of people's political organisations.
Warm up actions to prepare for larger protests have already been held in North Sumatra, Greater Jakarta, Central and East Java, Yogyakarta and East Kalimantan. (nvt/nvt)
Notes:
The National Liberation Front (Front Pembebasan Nasional, FPN) is a new left united front formation made up of the Workers Challenge Alliance (ABM), the Indonesian Student Secretariat (SMI, the Poor Peoples Political Union (PPRM), the Working People's Association (PRP), the JGM, the Politics for the Poor- Indonesian Student League for Democracy (LMND-PRM), Perempuan Mahardika, SIEKAP, SPEED, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the Global Justice Institute (IGJ), the KPA, the Indonesian Association of the Families of Missing Persons (Ikohi), Praxis, Movement (Pergerakan), the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH), the Coalition of the People Arising to Resist (Korban), the Poor People's Alliance (ARM), the Indonesian Buskers Union (SPI) and the Coalition of People Against Eviction (PAWANG).
[Translated by James Balowski.]
| Aceh |
Jakarta Post - May 23, 2008
Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has renamed its local party, and ended its armed struggle for Acehnese social welfare under the Indonesian political system.
With a redesigned symbol and flag the new party, Partai Aceh (Aceh Party), also has a different agenda to GAM.
Aceh Party spokesman Adnan Beuransah stressed that the changes were not just aimed to satisfy requirements for eligibility to contend in the 2009 general elections.
The changes, he said, also marked the end of GAM's armed struggle in accordance with the peace pact signed by representatives of both GAM and the Indonesian administration in Helsinki on Aug. 15, 2005.
Changing the party's political attributes meant taking the political aspirations of former GAM combatants, and converting them into a political party to contend in the 2009 legislative and presidential elections, he said.
"This is part of the transition from an armed struggle to a political struggle. With a new symbol, emblem and flag, the people will no longer dispute the party's political agenda," Adnan said.
While its name and symbol have changed, the party has retained its leaders, executive board and staff in regencies, subdistricts and villages.
The party is presided over by former GAM chief commander Muzakir Manaf, and its secretary general also remains the former GAM rebel and negotiator, Tengku Yahya.
The names of GAM leaders-in-exile, such as Hasan Tiro Bahtiar Abdullah, Malik Mahmud, Zaini Abdullah and Usman Lampoh Awe, were not found in the party hierarchy but they stood behind it, Adnan said.
Most of them still have foreign citizenships "and technically, they are not involved directly, but hold the highest positions in the party patrons board," he said.
Party members discussed the matter before changing the name and, in principle, recognized and fully supported the decision, Adnan said.
GAM and the Aceh Transition Committee (KBA) have been accused by various groups of planning a referendum if they dominate the legislature, KPA spokesman Ibrahim KBS said.
"Since signing the Helsinki peace pact, we have buried our struggle for independence. There's no word for referendum in our vocabulary now," Ibrahim told the Post.
Ibrahim said many ultra-nationalist groups in Jakarta and Aceh still did not trust them. "What's use would it be to come down from the mountains and have our weapons destroyed if we still had a desire for independence," Ibrahim said.
Party members are optimistic the new Aceh Party will pass verification, although the Justice and Human Rights Ministry has yet to announce the approved local parties.
The Aceh Party currently has more than 50,000 members across the province and has set up 23 branch offices in cities and regencies, Adnan said.
The presence of local parties in Aceh was one of the prerogatives offered by the Indonesian government following the signing of the Helsinki pact.
| West Papua |
Radio New Zealand International - May 23, 2008
A report emerging from Indonesia's Papua region claims a Papuan man was forced to rape his fiancee by 8 Indonesian Navy marines in Jayapura.
The Elsham Human Rights group in Papua says the incident has been detailed in a report from a church group.
The report says the couple, in their mid-twenties, were relaxing at the beach when eight Naval personnel jumped over the fence from the neighbouring military barracks.
They allegedly approached the couple, intimidated and assaulted them, before forcing them to have sexual intercourse and photographing the forced rape on their mobile phones. Afterwards, the couple complained to Navy headquarters but the Navy denies that its personnel were involved.
On Wednesday 100 people demonstrated in front of the headquarters, demanding that the eight marines be charged over the alleged rape.
Radio New Zealand International - May 22, 2008
Greenpeace says that without good governance, Indonesia's plans to utilise millions more hectares in its Papua region are unlikely to be sustainably managed.
Indonesia's agriculture ministry says that since Sumatra and Kalimantan have become too dense for new palm oil plantations, the only land available is in Papua.
Indonesia, which is the world's largest palm oil producer, has three to four million hectares of land suitable for palm oil plantations in the Papua region.
However Indonesia's already the third largest carbon emitter in the world and Greenpeace Southeast Asia Political Advisor, Arief Wicaksono, says oil palm plantation expansion will only increase the rate. He says such plans usually mean more deforestation and ongoing hunger for land.
"The government should have stronger and stricter controls on how the plantations not encroaching the forests. If you look back to early 2007, the Agriculture Minister said that to become number one palm oil producer [in the world], we don't have to encroach natural forests." - Arief Wicaksono of Greenpeace
Agence France Presse - May 21, 2008
Jakarta – The government of Indonesia, the world's largest palm oil producer, is now looking at its vast easternmost provinces in Papua to expand its palm oil plantations, a senior official said Wednesday.
"After Sumatra and Kalimantan became too dense for new palm oil plantations, the only land available is in Papua," the agriculture ministry's Director General for Plantations, Achmad Manggabarani, said on the margin of a three-day international conference on the commodity here.
He said the two provinces in Papua, the western half of New Guinea island, have three to four million hectares (up to 9.8 million acres) of land suitable for palm oil plantation.
"Several companies have already expressed interest, especially from Malaysia," Manggabarani said without giving details. He said smaller concessions would be offered in Papua than the normal 100,000 to 200,000 hectares in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Under the country's decentralisation drive, the issuing of palm oil concessions is the responsibility of local governments. "They should only give out 20,000 hectares" per concession, Manggabarani said.
Several environmental groups, including Greenpeace, have called for a moratorium on the expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, warning that soaring world demand is creating an environmental crisis. The destruction of Indonesia's forests is seen as a major contributor to global warming and climate change.
Indonesia produced an estimated 16.4 million tonnes of palm oil in 2007. Indonesia and Malaysia, the second largest producer, produce 85 percent of the world's palm oil which is enjoying a boom on the back of strong global demand and tight supply.
Catholic News Service - May 20, 2008
Chaz Muth, Washington – Indigenous residents of Indonesia's Irian Jaya region suffer a multitude of injustices, from rape and murder to the pilfering of riches extracted from their island, said representatives of an Indonesian Catholic diocese.
Unsettled disputes and violent conflicts between the Indonesian government and the indigenous residents have resulted in the killing of at least 100,000 people by Indonesian security forces, said Father Cayetanus Johanes Tarong, superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Irian Jaya, also known as West Papua.
"There is murder, intimidation, terror and rapes," Father Tarong said. "Welfare meant for the people mostly goes to build the infrastructure of the corrupt governmental bureaucracy. They still don't feel safe in their own land."
The Catholic delegation met with officials of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on May 19. The delegation included members of the justice and peace office of the Diocese of Jayapura and Franciscans International, a Catholic international lobby group. The delegation visited Washington to seek support from US Catholics and members of the US Congress to help ease what they call a humanitarian crisis in the region.
Once a colony of the Netherlands, West Papua was annexed by Indonesia in 1963, and delegation members said its indigenous population of about 1.5 million endures cultural suppression, acts of violence and extreme poverty in a land that is rich with oil and copper resources.
Though the indigenous Papuans – who live in Irian Jaya with approximately 1 million inhabitants who trace their lineage to other regions of Indonesia – have longed to be an independent country for decades, they have come to terms with the fact that the region's natural resources are too valuable to Indonesia for them to be independent, said Frederika Korain, operational manager of the peace and justice office of the Jayapura Diocese.
The increase in identified cases of HIV/AIDS is rampant among indigenous Papuans, because educational information about the virus and how it is spread is limited and the lack of educational facilities is tragic, said Chris Duckett, a Franciscans International advocacy officer based in West Papua.
The delegation planned to spend several days meeting with members of Congress to educate them about the plight of West Papua's indigenous people and to urge them to provide the region with financial aid and mediation between the Papuans and Indonesian government. The delegation also seeks US advocacy for peace in their region and the threat to cut off military assistance to the Indonesian government if it does not address the humanitarian problems.
Though the delegation asked for help to mobilize US Catholics to advocate for peace in West Papua, the US bishops' conference is not prepared to initiate such an effort until the Indonesian bishops' conference supports the action, said Virginia L. Farris, a foreign policy adviser for the USCCB.
Members of the delegation acknowledged they did not have the full support of all the bishops in their conference, but hoped at least one would accompany them on a US trip in 2009.
Radio New Zealand International - May 19, 2008
The Australia West Papua Association has called on the leaders of the Melanesian Spearhead Group to grant observer status to West Papuans at their upcoming meeting in Vanuatu.
The Association's spokesman Joe Collins says granting the Melanesian people of Indonesia's Papua region observer status would be in accordance with a founding principle of the MSG.
Under the principle of assisting other Melanesian peoples who are not yet free, the Kanak people of New Caledonia were granted MSG observer status several years ago.
Mr Collins says Vanuatu's capital Port Vila has been the focal point for important recent developments in the West Papuan cause and they're confident observer status could be granted this time.
"At the latest meeting of the West Papua National coalition for Liberation in Port Vila at the beginning of April, they did meet the Foreign Minister of Vanuatu and he said that he would raise it at the MSG leaders meeting. And we sort of feel that they will be granted observer status."
| Environment/natural disasters |
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
Apriadi Gunawan and Rizal Harahap, Medan/Pekanbaru – Choking haze from forest fires in Riau and Jambi has blanketed North Sumatra for several days and threatens to spread to neighboring countries.
Based on reports from the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency (BMG), the haze has reduced visibility to between three and five kilometers since May 18, from around 8 km previously, but has yet to disrupt flight schedules thus far.
The recent poor visibility in North Sumatra was attributed to haze from forest fires in Riau and Jambi, BMG Medan data division head Firman said.
Riau and Jambi contributed most to the situation despite the declining number of hotspots recorded in Sumatra over the past week, he said.
"Based on satellite images, we recorded 372 hotspots in Sumatra on May 17. This number had decreased to 207 the following day, and had further declined to 97 by May 20, but most of these were in Riau and Jambi," Firman told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
Firman predicted that North Sumatra would be likely to experience choking haze until early June.
In Pekanbaru, Riau, the current intense heat in the lead-up to the dry season has raised concerns over the intensity of forest and peatland fires.
Riau Governor Rusli Zainal has alerted relevant agencies and the provincial population to prepare to prevent the spread of forest and peatland fires.
"The current extreme weather conditions in Riau could pose a hazard for the 4.044 million hectares of peatland – around 56.1 percent of the total Riau area.
"The risk of forest and peatland fires will continue until serious efforts are made to prevent and mitigate them," Rusli said.
Rusli called on regency and city administrations to revitalize forest fire mitigation posts up to a district level.
Rusli said these posts could serve as a spearhead to further educate people from engaging in slash and burn methods to clear land.
"We have also urged police to take stern actions against people caught starting fires in forests," he said.
It is vital to prevent the recurring haze problem, Rusli said, because it could taint the image of the province.
"Riau has often become the subject of public attention as a producer of haze," he said, "so we must make strenuous efforts to prevent it."
The Riau provincial administration, as well as the forestry, agriculture and environment ministers, have made a commitment with 80 companies in the province to work together to prevent and fix the haze problem.
"These companies are committed to not resort to burning forests or peatland around their concession areas. They are also obliged to help with efforts to extinguish fires in their areas," he said.
Pekanbaru BMG analysis division head Aristya Ardhitama said haze had developed in a number of areas in Riau and could potentially spread to neighboring countries.
"Given the current wind patterns, the haze in Riau has the potential to blow toward the Malacca Strait," he said.
Riau Natural Resource Conservation Center head Rachman Siddik regretted the lack efforts made by agencies responsible to extinguish the fires.
"The administration should have set an alert status for forest fires mitigation, but so far these agencies have done nothing," Rachman said.
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The environment ministry has warned Indonesia's emissions from the energy sector will continue to increase if oil and gas companies do not prevent their carbon from being released into the atmosphere.
The ministry's deputy for natural resource conservation and environmental control, Masnellyarti Hilman, said rising oil consumption could see emissions from the energy sector reach 2,878 million tons in 2050 from the forecast 977 million tons in 2025.
"If developing nations let this happen, the global target of reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2050 will not be met, even if rich nations achieve their targets," Masnellyarti told a climate change seminar Wednesday.
About 100 representatives from geothermal, oil and gas companies attended the one-day seminar.
There are currently about 70 oil and gas companies operating in Indonesia. "But only two oil and gas firms have implemented the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to reduce carbon emissions," Masnellyarti said.
The two were identified as PT Odira Energy Persada in Bekasi, West Java, and PT Medco E&P Indonesia. Medco's CDM project aims to cut carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions by 1.9 million tons by 2014.
She said Chevron Geothermal Indonesia was the only geothermal company implementing the CDM to reduce annual CO2 emissions by 650,000 tons.
The CDM set in the Kyoto Protocol allows companies in developing nations to reduce emissions in various ways including by shifting to environmentally friendly energy sources.
Those who implement the project in turn receive financial incentives through Certified Emission Reduction (CER) sales. A CER is a credit issued for every ton of emissions reduced.
"The CDM project is a win-win solution for the company and the environment. The host will receive incentives for each ton of emissions reduced," she said.
As of 2003, Indonesia was responsible for about 258.7 million tons of emissions because of its heavy reliance on fossil fuels for energy. Only 0.2 percent of energy in Indonesia comes from renewable sources.
The government has set a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector by about 30 percent by 2012 to address climate change.
A 2006 presidential decree on the national energy policy said use of renewable energy would reach 17 percent by 2025. According to the decree, Indonesia could cut CO2 emissions – the main contributor to global warming – by 17 percent by diversifying its energy sources.
Indonesia is not bound to the emission targets set under the Kyoto Protocol.
The government has said the implementation of carbon capture and storage technology could slash the country's emissions by up to 37 percent.
Carbon capture and storage is an approach to mitigating global warming where CO2 from large sources such as fossil fuel power plants is captured and stored in geological formations instead of being released into the atmosphere.
The International Energy Agency has forecast energy demand and prices will continue to soar, with the world expected to be using 60 percent more energy in 2030 than at present.
Use of renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal and modern biomass, is increasing, with wind power the fastest- growing energy source in the world.
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – Indonesia has recently emerged as the "good boy" at the international level due to its positive role in global talks and its signing of many environmental agreements.
But the country has failed to translate most of these initiatives into action, and a string of natural disasters have hit the archipelago. Disasters have come one after another, mostly as a result of human activities ignoring the need to look after nature.
There have been floods, landslides, droughts, harvest failures and forest fires since the much-vaunted reform movement took its first steps 10 years ago. These disasters have not only claimed lives and belongings, but have made poverty levels worse. Data from the Indonesia Forum for the Environment (Walhi) show Indonesia spends more time than ever mitigating disaster impacts.
The green group recorded 840 ecological disasters from 2006 to 2007, leaving 7,300 people dead and 750,000 houses destroyed.
Founder of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law Mas Achmad Santosa, noted environmental activist Chalid Muhammad and environmental journalist Harry Surjadi agree that ecological disasters have intensified. They blame these calamities on environmental mismanagement, mainly in the last 30 years.
"We have signed so many documents related to environmental issues but the government fails to translate them into national policies to promote sustainable development," Achmad, a senior lecturer at the University of Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post.
Post-Soeharto administrations have apparently been unable to learn from the past. The reform era has not resulted in changes to the development paradigm, Achmad said. Development aims to boost economic growth, paying less attention to the value of ecosystems and social impacts, as evidenced by the small budget allocations for the environment.
The increase in forest conversion for commercial use in the last few years is a clear example of poor governance in managing the environment. "Forests can be easily reoriented to gain short-term economic benefits. The practice has been in place for a long time and has caused severe damage to forests and ecosystems," Achmad said.
Greenomics Indonesia data show that forest conversion in the country has reached an alarming level, with about 10 million hectares having been shifted to business purposes, ranging from plantations to office buildings.
Worse, the government has shown no willingness to empower the State Ministry for the Environment, the institution authorized to manage the environment. This has led to a gap in environmental management, so that ministry functions often only appear after a natural disaster has struck.
Chalid, a former Walhi executive director, said Indonesia lacked autonomy in managing its rich natural resources. "Many projects in forestry, mining as well as oil and gas sectors are dominated by foreign companies to meet the demands of Western nations, leaving communities vulnerable to conflicts, poverty and natural disasters," he said.
These things happen as the government bows to high consumption trends in rich nations and then exploits as many natural resources as possible to meet international demand.
About 90 percent of the country's oil and gas fields are controlled by transnational companies, of which 60 percent go for exports, Walhi said.
Despite the rich natural resources, Indonesia has been struggling to address poverty. About 15.7 million families comprising over 90 million people, or nearly 41 percent of the population, were classified as poor according to the Central Statistics Agency in 2005.
Chalid said national laws governing natural resources, including oil and gas, water and forests, benefited transnational companies more than local people, which runs counter to the Constitution, due to the government's commitment to international monetary and trade requirements.
"Laws have allowed government to issue more and more permits to extract natural resources in Indonesia. Overexploitation is the main cause of natural disasters," he said.
After decades of growth-oriented development at the expense of the environment, the post-Soeharto administrations are now harvesting ecological disasters.
"However, I haven't seen any breakthrough from the current and previous governments to improve environmental management. Many existing policies related to the environment tend to exploit natural resources, ignoring ecological and social impacts," said Harry, the executive director of the Society of Indonesian Environment Journalists.
Public participation in environment-related policy-making has remained low, but when ecological disasters strike it is the people that have to bear the brunt as happened with the mudflow in Sidoarjo, Harry said.
He feels the government has no other option but to revise all the policies that allow exploitation of natural resources.
"It is time for a phase of rehabilitation. The government has to stop issuing new permits, including mining and forestry projects, pending an audit of the existing policies that have spurred exploitation of natural resources," Harry said.
One of the actions should include reinstatement of the Environmental Impact Management Agency (BAPEDAL), which was closed under the government of Megawati Soekarnoputri.
Chalid suggested government should make radical changes in natural resource policies to prevent natural disasters. "Enough is enough. The government must have the courage to renegotiate all existing contracts and permits in mining and other projects," he said.
He proposed establishment of a special department dealing with natural resource assets and the environment. "The sensible suggestion is to create a coordinating ministry for natural assets that has the authority to decide whether or not to issue permits to projects deemed harmful for environmental resources," he said.
Achmad proposed the establishment of a one-stop environment enforcement system to boost enforcement of environmental laws. "Under the one roof system, violators would be investigated and prosecuted at one office."
He added that judges also need a special certificate on the environment to help enforce the law. There are currently about 1,500 judges who have undergone training on environmental issues.
Jakarta Post - May 17, 2008
Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The government called on developed nations to buy carbon credits from Indonesia, rather than push for a moratorium on forestry activities.
The Forestry Ministry expressed concern over rising calls from the international community for Indonesia to cease forestry activities in order to combat climate change.
"It would only hamper our economic development. If the carbon buyers sincerely want to protect the earth and help Indonesia, they should buy carbon stocks in protected and conservation forests," the ministry's director of forestry production management, Agus Sarsito, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
He said protected and conservation areas had long been permanent carbon stores. There are about 40 million hectares of protected and conservation forests in the country.
Agus said the ministry was also concerned about misplaced enthusiasm from local administrations for the proposed carbon trading scheme. "Local administrations should obviously be involved in the project. But there are misunderstandings about it since the government has not yet drawn up the details," he said.
"Many local administrators now expect to make big money by merely selling carbon credits. The carbon buyers have been very persistent in informing people of the carbon business."
Carbon trading has flourished since the UN climate change conference in Bali last December adopted the reduction emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries (REDD) initiative.
The REDD concept is closely tied to the Kyoto Protocol, which obligates 38 developed countries to reduce their carbon emissions by about 5 percent by 2012, when the protocol expires. To meet this target and also maintain economic growth, these countries may "sell" their carbon to developing countries.
Once Kyoto Protocol signatories agree to the REDD concept as a mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they can begin buying carbon credits from countries with extensive forest reserves.
The Kyoto Protocol currently allows only developing nations, including Indonesia, to promote afforestation and reforestation projects to tap financial incentives from carbon trading. However, none of the projects have been implemented in Indonesia because the government considers the system too complicated.
The government introduced its own emission reduction scheme at the Bali conference. The scheme was drawn up by experts from the Indonesia Forest Climate Alliance (IFCA). They said with carbon priced at $10 per ton, Indonesia could make $2 million per year, with 65 percent of the revenue going to local communities living near forests.
The governors of Aceh and Papua were among the first to express an interest in the scheme shortly after it was launched.
| Health & education |
Jakarta Post - May 23, 2008
Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Islamic schools need to include more scientific and research studies, rather than trying to revive the glory of past Islamic civilization by focusing solely on theology, a seminar here heard Thursday.
M. Ridwan Lubis, of the Religious Affairs Ministry's research, development, education and training center, said there had been little teaching of "rational sciences" at Indonesia's Islamic schools, which were initially designed as centers for "normative disciplines and spiritual enrichment".
Some traditional Islamic schools viewed the sciences suspiciously as a kind of foreign infiltration into Islamic teachings, Ridwan said at the seminar on research for students at Islamic schools.
This mind-set is a legacy of the colonial period, during which the religious orientation of "the early generation of such schools" was intended to combat colonization, he added.
As most Islamic schools are in rural areas, their interaction with the sciences and research is limited, said Ridwan, a professor at Jakarta's Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University and deputy chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest Muslim organization.
He said the attitude ran counter to the principles of Islam, which encourages the use of logic, as demonstrated by the long history of Islamic civilization during the Umayyah, Abbasiyah, Fatimiah and Andalusia dynasties in the Middle Ages.
"Muslim scientists (in those periods) had in fact established scientific and research traditions. Their works, such as Ibnu Sina (Avicenna)'s Al Qanun fi 'Ilm Al Thibb, or Canon in the Western literature, are still used as references by modern scientists," Ridwan said.
He said Indonesian Muslims had developed the opposite mind-set because they and others in Southeast Asian nations had inherited their understanding of Islam from the "retreat era" of the 13th century, which was marked by the collapse of the Abbasiyah dynasty following a Mongolian invasion.
"Indonesian Islamic schools should integrate religious teachings and the sciences," Ridwan said.
The seminar followed an award ceremony for a social research writing competition for students from a number of Islamic junior high schools in Java. The competition was organized by the Institute of Research, Education and Information for Social and Economic Affairs (LP3ES) in partnership with the Learning Assistance Program for Islamic Schools (LAPIS).
LP3ES deputy director Sudar Dwi Atmanto said the competition aimed to stimulate research activities among students. The LP3ES chose to make the competition exclusive for students of Islamic schools because they "lack attention from the government", he said.
Ridwan said the poor quality of Islamic schools was also the result of the government's "discriminatory treatment" of them. While ordinary public schools receive official support from the Education Ministry and regional administrations, Islamic schools come under the supervision of the Religious Affairs Ministry, he said.
Students at Islamic schools make up 20 percent of students currently undertaking the nine-year basic compulsory education program.
Jakarta Post - May 19, 2008
Jakarta – Some 10,000 students and teachers paraded around the National Monument here Sunday, campaigning for a better national education system.
The event was held in conjunction with National Education Day, which falls every May 2, and the 100th anniversary of National Awakening Day (May 20). Participants said Indonesia had made little progress in developing education.
"The government should focus more on supporting schools," said Gabby Victoria, 13, a student of Santa Maria junior high school at the event.
"The distribution of assistance funds has been unfair... Schools in big cities like Jakarta get all the attention, while others in remote areas get none," said Gabby, who was performing as a dancer at the parade.
Governor Jakarta Fauzi Bowo, former House of Representatives speaker Akbar Tandjung and celebrities including actress Dian Sastrowardoyo and Miss Indonesia 2005 Imelda Fransisca were among the VIPs at the event organized by the Sampoerna Foundation.
The Sampoerna Foundation said the event was aiming to invite all elements of society to campaign for improving education in Indonesia.
"We are all obliged to care about education in Indonesia. Hopefully the event... will be a milestone for Indonesia in beginning to improve the education system," foundation chief executive officer Lin Che Wei announced at the opening ceremony.
"In this spirit, the foundation is committed to continuing its scholarship program which aims to create better leaders for Indonesia," he added.
The event was positive for the development of Indonesian education, Imelda Fransisca told The Jakarta Post. "This event is a good moment for all of us to work hand in hand in improving the quality of our education system," she said, adding that Indonesia needed more charity organizations to distribute scholarships.
Over the 2006-2007 period, more than six million school-age children (six to 18 years old) in Indonesia were unable attend school, according to data from Education Ministry.
The ministry also said its 2006 data showed some 12 percent of the country's 220 million people were illiterate, while more than 1.4 million teachers were not qualified to teach.
The Sampoerna Foundation said it had granted some 30,000 scholarships to Indonesian students and teachers over the past seven years. It also supports schools nationwide through its United Schools Program.
"In total, we will provide some Rp 1.5 trillion for scholarships over 10 years, while under the United Schools Program we have supported 22 schools around the country... with various assistance funds," Lin said. (nkn)
| War on corruption |
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
Jakarta – The KPK unveiled Wednesday a link between two top officials at the Attorney General Office's (AGO) in the case of alleged bribery involving businesswoman Artalyta Suryani and state prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan.
In their indictment read at the Corruption Court, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors said Artalyta, with the help of Urip, met Junior Attorney General of Special Crimes Kemas Yahya Rahman and AGO Director of Investigation of Special Crimes Muhammad Salim on Dec. 5 last year.
The meeting was allegedly in relation to an investigation into the alleged embezzlement of Bank Indonesia liquidity support (BLBI) funds involving tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim. The prosecutors said Artalyta had a good relationship with Sjamsul's family and had sought help from Urip, who was leading the probe into Sjamsul's case.
Sjamsul, former director of the Indonesian National Commercial Bank (BDNI), was suspected of misusing Rp 28.4 trillion in BLBI funds.
The KPK arrested Urip on March 2 for allegedly receiving US$660,000 and Rp 100 million ($10,800) in bribes from Artalyta, who has said the money she lent Urip was for a gemstone business. The businesswoman was also arrested.
The arrests came just two days after the AGO froze the probe into the cases of Sjamsul and another tycoon Anthony Salim, citing a lack of evidence.
The indictment quoted a conversation between Urip and Artalyta four days before the AGO dropped Sjamsul's case, apparently through phone bugging, which is permissible under the law on the KPK.
"Don't take too long; the stuff has been kept at my house for quite some time... inside my safety box," the indictment quoted Artalyta as saying.
"I will secure all the documents, OK?" Urip replied.
"Yes, it's all ready. Let's just wait until Sunday," Artalyta said.
"Is it in line with my request yesterday?" asked Urip.
"Yes, of course. Did you ask for six?" she said.
"Not including the bonus. Give me an extra, OK?" said Urip.
Attorney General Hendarman Supandji dismissed Kemas and Salim following the arrest of Urip and Artalyta, citing the need to repair the office's reputation.
According to prosecutors, Artalyta had been in contact with Urip since early December last year and had also facilitated the meeting between Sjamsul's wife and Urip on Dec. 6. The next day Artalyta gave Urip Rp 100 million.
Later, Artalyta contacted Urip more frequently for information on the development of Sjamsul's case and advice for Sjamsul's absence when it came to the AGO's summons.
Prosecutors said Artalyta faced a maximum sentence of five years in jail and a Rp 250 million fine. (dre)
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
T. Sima Gunawan, Contributor, Jakarta – Ten years after the country declared war on graft, it is still common, if the numerous investigations into government officials accused of stealing stats money are any indication.
The campaign against corruption, collusion and nepotism – known by the acronym KKN began as part of the reform movement following the fall of long-time ruler Soeharto in May 1998.
But after four presidents, the anti-graft crusade only began to make an impact in 2004, following the formation the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
The KPK was established in 2003, as corruption gripped the country even tighter and was categorized as an extraordinary crime. But corruption is also an extraordinary disease which attacks human's minds and dignity, and results in poverty and misery for others.
Since its inception, the commission has brought two governors, two regents, a former minister, a former State Logistics Agency (Bulog) member, four General Elections Commission (KPU) members and chairman and two former ambassadors to court.
All were convicted. In the pipeline are three Bank Indonesia high-ranking officials, four House of Representatives lawmakers, a deputy governor, a regional secretary and a state prosecutor.
The nation's pledge to eradicate corruption was stipulated in the decree issued by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) following Soeharto's resignation on May 21, 1998 in response to mounting public pressure.
The post-Soeharto era has seen four presidents – B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, Megawati Soekarnoputri and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – pledge to root out corruption in accordance with the spirit of the reform movement. They offered hope to people who have long dreamt of good governance and a clean government.
Things did not turn out as well as expected. Indonesia remains one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption runs in the blood of many people, not only those in the administration, but also in legislative and judicial institutions.
Corruption is common among many government officials, from low- ranking personnel in subdistrict offices to regents and governors and cabinet ministers. A corrupt mentality is also found in the blood of many legislators in all administrative levels.
As for the judicial institutions, who has never heard of the "court mafia"? This term, coined in the 1980s, referred to the dirty practice in courts where people could buy justice from corrupt judges and prosecutors, as well as lawyers.
The House endorsed the Judiciary Power bill in 2004, which provides the Supreme Court with a monopoly to supervise judges. The revision was expected to curb judiciary corruption.
But the public are unable to erase the image of judicial institutions as corrupt, not while there are verdicts that injure one's sense of justice, ranging from light sentences to the acquittal of graft suspects.
Police and prosecutors are no better. As a matter of fact, in December 2007 Transparency International Indonesia research ranked the police as the most corrupt institution in the country, followed by the courts and the parliaments.
Prosecutors are expected to spearhead efforts to fight corruption. But what has happened has been the opposite.
In February this year the KPK arrested prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan for allegedly taking a Rp 6 billion (US$660,000) bribe from businesswoman Artalita Suryani, who was linked to tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim, once a suspect in a Bank Indonesia liquidity assistance (BLBI) fund graft case.
The arrest by the KPK was made two days after the Attorney General's Office dropped Sjamsul's graft case, which was handled by a team led by Urip.
After he was arrested, the KPK has continued to make headlines with the arrest of House legislator Al Amin Nasution in an alleged bribery case with Rp 71 million found in his car. It was alleged that Amin, who is from the United Development Party, received the bribe in connection to the conversion of protected forests in Bintan, Riau Islands.
The KPK, however, has not yet taken action against other legislators implicated in the case.
Earlier this year the KPK arrested outgoing Bank Indonesia (BI) governor Burhanuddin Abdullah and two other BI senior officials for their alleged part in the alleged misuse of Rp 100 billion in BI funds, used to hire lawyers and pay a number of lawmakers to smooth the deliberation of a revision of the BI law.
Former BI deputy governor Aulia Pohan, the father-in-law of President Yudhoyono's son, was believed to be involved, but the KPK has not touched him.
In several other cases, the anti-graft body also took no action against certain people who were said to be implicated. Worse, it has indicated its reluctance to take over the high-profile BLBI cases, which have caused trillions of rupiahs in state losses.
No wonder many have accused the KPK of being discriminative and half-hearted. Others even fear that the KPK will become a political tool to pave the way for Yudhoyono's possible reelection bid next year.
Last December, when legislators named Antasari Azhar, a former prosecutor, as the KPK's new chairman, the public was skeptical because of the tarnished image of prosecutors. Shortly after he was in office, the KPK was in the news with the arrests of at least 12 people, including some big names.
If the KPK is really committed to living up to its name, it must prove to the public that its measures do not discriminate against certain people.
With the presidential election around the corner, the KPK is vulnerable to becoming a political vehicle.
The fight against corruption still has a long way to go. There is a need for the public to guard the anti-graft drive so as to continue moving along the right track.
| Islam/religion |
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
Jakarta – The United Nations Committee against Torture (UNCAT) has recommended Indonesia drop its plan to outlaw Ahmadiyah, saying the ban will legitimize crimes against members of the Islamic sect.
The committee's recommendation, made at a UNCAT hearing in Geneva on May 16, noted the failure of Indonesian security forces and authorities to provide Ahmadiyah members with adequate protection or to conduct prompt, impartial and effective investigations into the recent violence against sect members.
The committee also urged Indonesia to give prompt consideration to increasing the number of recruits from ethnic and religious minorities in law enforcement.
The Ahmadiyah case has prompted the committee to request its special rapporteur on religion to visit Indonesia. The committee asked the Indonesian government to respond favorably to the plan and allow the rapporteur to enter the country, in order to help deal with cases of violence against the Ahmadiyah community.
Director of Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial), Poengky Indarti, who attended the committee hearing, said Wednesday the committee expressed deep concern about the Ahmadiyah case because it was related to violence and violation of freedom of religion.
"The committee fears freedom of religion in Indonesia is now in a poor state," Poengky said.
In 1981, the Indonesian Ulema Council issued an edict declaring Ahmadiyah heretical. Since then followers of the Islamic sect have come under repeated attacks. Hundreds of members of the Ahmadiyah community have been displaced since 2002, when residents of Lombok Island in West Nusa Tenggara raided their homes.
In 2005, about 12,000 Ahmadiyah members were attacked when they were holding an annual meeting at Mubarak College in Parung, Bogor. Sixteen people were wounded. Less than a week later, two houses of Ahmadiyah members near the college were damaged.
The Coordinating Board for Monitoring Mystical Beliefs in Society (Bakor Pakem) has recommended the ban of Ahmadiyah on the grounds its teachings deviate from orthodox Islam.
The government was still undecided Wednesday whether to issue a decree outlawing Ahmadiyah.
Rafendi Djamin of Indonesian NGO Coalition for International Human Rights Advocacy urged the government to resolve the Ahmadiyah case within one year. "It is obligatory for the government to resolve the issue because we have ratified some international conventions to uphold human rights," he said.
During the next four years, Rafendi said, Indonesia also had to resolve the issues of human rights violations, including finding those responsible for the murder of rights activist Munir Said Thalib, bringing military officers to justice for violence in conflict areas, forming solid regulations on violence against women and producing a clearer juvenile justice system. (nkn)
Jakarta Post - May 18, 2008
Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – Religious violence against minority group Ahmadiyah stems from the weakening of the Indonesian Islamic thought movement and the government's ineptitude meet the basic needs of its citizens, experts say.
Ahmadiyah, a messianic movement found by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian, Punjab, India in 1889, entered Indonesia in the first decades of the twentieth century, during which the early followers of the sect eagerly – and peacefully – spread their teachings through publications and public debates.
Today the Islamic sect is on the brink of being officially outlawed by the government after its mosques were burnt and some of its adherents now desperately search for asylum.
Muslim scholar Luthfi Assyaukanie, who studied Islamic Law at Jordan University and took his doctoral degree from Melbourne University, said the Ahmadiyah case reflected a weakening effort to rejuvenate understanding about Islam and enlighten Muslim communities.
"The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and the Indonesian Islamic Propagation Council (DDII) are controlled by those who defy the (Islamic) rejuvenation movement. They also dominate state agencies with certain religious authorities," he told The Jakarta Post. The MUI declared Ahmadiyah "deviant" and demanded the government outlaw its activities.
While recognizing and praising the achievement of the late Muslim scholar Nurcholis Madjid in separating Islam from politics, Luthfi said the iconic progressive Muslim thinker failed to deeply cultivate the value of pluralism in Muslim communities.
Thamrin Amal Tamagola, an anthropologist from University of Indonesia, said the violence against Ahmadiyah followers was not only triggered by differences in religious doctrine but also the economic disparities between the Ahmadiyah community and the majority of Muslims where they live.
"The society is divided vertically by wealth and horizontally by ethnic, race and religion. The horizontal conflicts that lead to violence usually occur when there is a wide gap in terms of wealth between two different groups," he said.
He said Ahmadiyah followers were an exclusive community and therefore able to use their cohesion to develop their businesses.
"Being a minority, they tend to become exclusive and think they can only survive by supporting each other economically. Look at their cooperatives and small businesses, they are sufficiently wealthy. This exacerbates the tension between them and mainstream Muslims. "
Both Thamrin and Luthfi called on the government to adhere to the Constitution by maintaining religious freedom and dropping its plan to ban Ahmadiyah.
They said the MUI was initially established by the New Order to smooth its religiously controversial policies, including the Family Planning (KB) program. "It's part of the past," Thamrin said.
The government has not announced a decision about Ahmadiyah – whether it will favor Muslim hard-liners who demand the Islamic sect be banned or the rights activists who have said such a move would contravene religious freedom.
Some analysts, however, fear that politicians will use the issue as a political commodity.
"I suspect the state is deliberately using this issue to distract us from bigger problems such as the disappearance of several basic commodities and the planned fuel price hike," Abdul Latif Bustami, who works at Partnership for Governance Reform at UNDP, said.
"In the end, I guess we all have to return to the old debate about the separation of church and state," Thamrin said.
| Armed forces/defense |
Jakarta Post - May 21, 2008
Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – The House of Representatives is poised to pass an amended law on military tribunals that would allow civilian courts to try soldiers involved in non-military offenses.
The planned passage of the much-awaited law has been lauded by experts and human rights activists who say the bill is essential in curbing impunity and ensuring transparency within the Indonesian Military (TNI).
Chairman of the House's working committee on the law, Andreas Pareira, said Monday all factions in the House and the TNI had agreed to try servicemen facing criminal charges in civilian courts instead of military ones.
"We will pass the amended bill into law during this sitting session. Probably in June or July," Andreas told The Jakarta Post. He said the agreement was reached after more than three years of meetings and dialogue between lawmakers and military leaders.
During discussions of the amended law, rights activists had expressed concern the military was resistant to reform, and that military courts were used to protect errant soldiers and preserve their legal impunity.
The House and the government are amending the 1997 law on military tribunals in a series of steps toward military reform, following the collapse of Soeharto's 32-year authoritarian regime that relied on the military to retain power.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has voiced support for civilian trials for soldiers accused of non-military crimes.
"From the beginning, we reached an agreement with the TNI to change Article 9(a) of the law to enable civilian courts to try servicemen. After agreeing on this principle, we moved on to discuss other articles," Andreas said.
After the passage of the amended law, the House will revise the Military Criminal Code to bring it into conformity with the new law.
Legal expert Denny Indrayana of Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta applauded the House for amending the law.
"I think it is a very good sign for a more democratic and civilian-ruled country. Civilians and soldiers are all citizens, so they must be tried without discrimination in the same courts if they commit criminal offenses," he told the Post.
Wahid Institute executive director Ahmad Suaedy urged the immediate enactment of the amended law, saying the old law was a legacy of Soeharto's New Order regime to cover up military crimes.
"(The amended law) will reduce military impunity. You see, we can't trust military courts to try soldiers as they only cover up the crimes committed," said Suaedy, a Muslim scholar and rights activist.
Radio Australia - May 19, 2008
Indonesia's powerful military will have to relinquish its vast business interests. The overhaul of the TNI is an important part of Indonesia's political reform.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speakers: Bob Lowry, visiting fellow at the Australian Defence Studies Centre in Canberra.
Lowry: Well they own a vast number of businesses, something like over 15-hundred of them through institutions and foundations which are designed to help with the welfare of the military and particularly the generals who run them.
Lam: So how significant is this change, this extracating Indonesia's military from business interests?
Lowry: It's very significant and it's something that's taking quite a long time. When they switched to democracy back in '98 the first step of course was to get them out of politics and then once that was done the new parliament in 2004 passed a bill which required the government to be the sole funder of the military, and for the government to takeover all the military businesses by 2009, and what we're seeing now is part of that process.
Lam: Has there been disquiet within the TNI or do you think the generals are quite ok with this removal of their revenue- generating businesses?
Lowry: Well there would be some disquiet and there's also some genuine questions. For example the American military runs a cooperative or what's called the PX system which is designed to provide goods at remote locations at reasonable prices for their own soldiers, and the Indonesian military also has a cooperative system.
So the question is how do you separate the cooperatives from the genuine businesses that are cooperatives from the foundations that they established to make money and to buy golf courses and hotels and shopping malls etc.? And so that's been quite a complex problem involving several ministries of the government.
And the other problem they've faced of course is because it's taken so many years there is a fear among many legislators that the business assets have been taken or the assets have been stripped from many of these foundations and companies before they've actually got round to taking them over.
Lam: Indeed I was going to ask you what about some of the shadier business dealings, I mean those dealings might be harder to get rid of?
Lowry: Yes well all you're doing now is getting rid of the formal business structures. But as you hinted there there are a lot of informal business arrangements between individual offices, between units and local businesses and that'll take a lot more effort to get rid of and requires the government actually looks at the whole process of military form, including the pay and allowances of the members of the armed forces to ensure that they're given an income which is sufficient to live on.
Lam: And this is all part of President Susilo Bambang Yudhyono's attempts to turn the TNI into a more professional force. Do you think the Indonesian government now will have to increase funding to subsidise the military and also to make sure that the defence force is a professional one?
Lowry: Yes well that's going to take a lot of time, that's what their ambition is but if you recall just recently they had to cut 15 per cent out of the budget because of the blow-out in petroleum subsidies to the population. And it'll take a long time to grow the budget where they can increase the salaries of both public servants and the military and the police to a point where they can expect them to comply with the law as it is in relation to corruption and so on.
So it's not going to be a quick process, it's going to take many more years yet, and we've also got to remember that the President faces an election next year. So he's not going to want to upset the military too much, he's going to take a very cautious and slow approach as he has done in the past.
Jakarta Post - May 17, 2008
Jakarta – A seminar on university student militaristic training clubs, held Wednesday, addressed the clubs' relevance in response to their fading popularity in the wake of political change in 1998. The seminar was attended by dozens of student regiment members wearing their army-like uniforms.
It featured speakers, such as the deputy minister of youth empowerment at the State Ministry for Youth and Sports Affairs, Sakhyan Asmara; Jakarta Deputy Governor Maj. Gen. (ret) Prijanto; former Jakarta Military commander Maj. Gen. (ret) Slamet Kirbiyantoro; and director of human resources at the Defense Ministry Brig. Gen. Harry Pysand.
At the seminar, organized by the paramilitary regiment of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Tangerang, some speakers and attendees voiced the importance of youth participation in national resilience. Slamet said civilians, especially youths, had the responsibility to participate in maintaining national resilience.
The role of civilian youths is crucial, he said, as the government is unable to carry out compulsory military service programs. "The country needs a lot of funding to provide regular military training for civilians," he said.
In November last year, there were massive protests following the government's plan to introduce obligatory military service for citizens aged between 18 and 45 when required. It also announced it would send a bill on establishing a reserve component to the House of Representatives for approval.
Sakhyan, from the youth affairs ministry, said the government did not have any plans to renew its call for universities to set up training clubs on campus. He said in 1975 the government issued a decree suggesting universities across the country set up paramilitary regiments. In 2000, however, the government annulled the decree.
Student regiments, colloquially known as Menwa, had their heyday during the Soeharto era. University students, mostly male, who applied for membership in the clubs got a set of militaristic paraphernalia, including army-like uniforms.
In the wake of the reform era, however, some Menwa members across the country fell victim to beatings by other students who associated them with Soeharto's military regime.
Such clubs on campus have become the target of harsh criticism as students and the public argue they only display militaristic skills and, often, the abusive behavior of its members. (uwi)
| Economy & investment |
Jakarta Post - May 21, 2008
Johannes Simbolon, Jakarta – The rise in oil prices is happening at the "wrong time" for Indonesia – at a time when the country is struggling to stop or reverse the decline in its oil production.
In the past, when the country's oil production was still high and the country's oil production exceeded demand, a rise in oil prices was always welcomed as good news.
The sharp rise in oil prices in the wake of the Iranian revolution in 1979, for instance, brought a windfall profit for Indonesia and enabled the country to carry out a wide range of economic development programs throughout the 1980s.
Rather than generating a windfall profit, the current rise in oil prices has caused worries among the public as the government has announced it will raise domestic fuel prices to cut the ballooning subsidies.
The declining oil output is indeed one of the main challenges now confronting the country's oil and gas industry.
Indonesia first reached its oil production peak at approximately 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in 1977, rising from 500,000 bpd in just 10 years. The sharp increase was attributed to the numerous discoveries made in primary producing basins and the timely development of the discoveries, former president of the Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) Chris Pattini said in his speech at last year's IPA Convention.
The second production peak was reached in 1995 at just over 1.6 million bpd, mainly because of the application of secondary and tertiary technology, production optimization and the discovery of new fields. Since then, production has steadily declined. The oil output averaged slightly more than 1 million bpd in 2006 and dropped to less than 964,000 last year. Oil production averaged 976,000 bpd in the first quarter of this year and stood at 979,000 bpd in April.
The amount is less than the total crude processing capacity of the country's refineries owned by state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina, which are only able to process 72 percent of domestic market fuel demand. The total capacity of the refineries is 1.05 million bpd.
Despite being a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Indonesia has been an oil importer for years. It is now considering quitting the organization.
Experts attribute the oil output decline to the mature status of the majority of the existing producing fields.
Except for the Cepu field in Central and East Java, which is believed to be able to produce up to 165,000 bpd at its peak production in the next decade, no major oil discoveries have been made in Indonesia in the past several decades to offset the declining reserves of the existing fields.
While news from the oil sector is not quite good, news from the gas sector is still encouraging despite a decline in the output of some big fields.
Indonesia held the status of the world's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter for many years since it started LNG shipments from the Badak LNG plant in East Kalimantan in 1977, and from the Arun LNG Plant in Nangroe Aceh Darussalam the following year.
New players have entered the market since the 1980s, including Malaysia, Australia and Qatar. Gas-rich Qatar, which first shipped a tanker of LNG in 1997, is now the world's largest LNG exporter.
LNG production from the Arun and Badak LNG plants have steadily declined over the past several years due to lower gas supplies from surrounding gas fields that have seen their reserves significantly depleted following decades of exploitation. This has made Indonesia unable to meet its LNG export commitments to buyers and has forced it to buy LNG from Qatar to meet its export commitments.
Fortunately, several big gas fields have been discovered over the past several decades, with most of them remaining unexploited. The fields include the Wiriagar, Muturi and Berau fields that will feed the Tangguh LNG plant in Papua, the Senoro Toili field in Central Sulawesi and the Abadi field of the Masela block in the Timor Sea and the Natuna D Alpha field in the South China Sea, the largest gas field ever discovered in the country with recoverable reserves of 46 trillion cubic feet (TCF).
Although it has lost the status of the world's biggest LNG exporter, gas reserves in Indonesia are basically still plentiful. There is still a lot of gas available to meet the growing demand on the domestic and export markets. However, the government is apparently not interested in regaining its status as the world's largest LNG exporter. It has decided to allocate most of the gas for the domestic market,
Indonesia reached its gas production peaks of 8.6 billion cubic feet per day (BCFD) in 1996 and 2003. The output remained above 8 BCFD in the following years.
In response to the steady decline in the country's oil output, the government has pushed consumers to cut their oil consumption and use other fuels, such as gas and coal, instead. At the same time, the government is also providing incentives to encourage investors to boost oil exploration.
The new chairman of oil and gas upstream sector regulator BP Migas, Priyono, in a recent interview with The Jakarta Post said he was optimistic that Indonesia could restore national oil output to 1 million bpd by the end of this year.
In order to reach the target, he promised to "make it easier for contractors to carry out exploration activities and speed up the production process" by, among other things, expediting the approval process of plans of development (PoD).
Another big challenge for the country's oil and gas industry is to improve its efficiencies, or, if industry players consider they have been operating efficiently, to counter the public's perception that it is an inefficient industry.
During former president Soeharto's era, the industry was considered a den of corruption, where Soeharto's family and cronies reportedly made a lot of money illegally. Following the end of the Soeharto regime, expectations were high that the industry would become an efficient industry and bring a lot of benefits for the public.
However, suspicion toward the industry has resurfaced after the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) released a series of reports on its finding of huge potential losses suffered by the government as a result of increasing cost recovery claims by contractors. BPK claimed that some of costs recovery claims were not necessary or might have been marked up.
The cost recovery claims paid by the government to the contractors reached $8.3 billion last year, up from $7.8 billion in 2006 and $7.3 billion in 2005. Meanwhile, national oil output decreased during the period.
Under the PSC system, the government gets 85 percent of the oil output and 70 percent of the gas output of the contractors, while the contractors get the rest. The production costs, however, are covered by both parties proportionally. Thus, increases in production costs will cut the government's revenue.
The BPK reports have prompted many parties, including legislators and anti-corruption activists, to call for tighter scrutiny of the industry.
Industry players have dismissed suspicion that the rising cost recovery was due to corruption, citing in various forums that rising production costs were caused by increasing costs for drilling rigs and other services, among other things.
The fact that most of the existing oil fields are mature has also contributed to rising costs.
"Unlike in those historical growth periods, the hundreds of millions of dollars reinvested by the industry in these mature fields each year are combating base production decline rates that range from 10 to 30 percent," Pattini said during the 2007 IPA Convention.
The industry players may be right in their claims that the industry operates efficiently, but they apparently still need to continue efforts to convince the public of this.
Another big challenge for the industry is to convince the public that they are also good corporate citizens who care about their corporate social responsibility (CSR).
None would deny the industry's enormous contribution to the nation and to communities. Pattini said the industry contributed 10.8 percent of the nation's GDP, 29.5 percent of the budget's revenue, spent $7.7 billion in exploration, development and production, directly employed tens of thousands of people, indirectly employed four to seven million people and spent $34 million in community development programs.
Still, many people expect the industry to contribute more, particularly in community development programs. Is such a demand reasonable? Are there any other aspects of CSR that the public often ignores but are well implemented in the industry? Hopefully, the questions will be answered in the "CSR and Sustainable Development" discussion during the convention.
Jakarta Post - May 21, 2008
Jakarta – The ministry of industry has revised down the country's industrial growth target for the third time in five months to between 4.5 and 5 percent in response to the government's plan to increase fuel prices.
The fuel price increases, expected to happen in June by an average of 28.7 percent, would raise industrial production costs by an average of 5.69 percent, the ministry said.
"The revision is inevitable due to the planned increase of fuel prices and other infrastructure problems," Syarif Hidayat, head of land and air transportation equipment industries at the ministry, said Monday.
At the beginning of the year, the ministry set the industrial growth target at 7.4 percent, which was revised to 6.5 percent and then 6 percent in April.
Syarif said higher fuel prices would significantly curtail consumer purchasing power. The last time fuel prices were raised, by an average of 125 percent in October 2005, car sales plummeted to 318,904 units in 2006 after reaching a record high of 534,000 in 2005.
He also said a weakening global economy would affect the country's exports and overall economic growth, significantly curbing industrial output.
The government is eying an economic growth target of 6.4 percent this year, although Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said growth may only reach 6 percent because of the impact of the planned fuel price rises.
Dedi Mulyadi, head of research and development at the Industry Ministry, said 5 percent industrial growth could only be achieved if the automotive, transportation equipment, machinery and tools industries grew by 12 percent. He said the food, beverages and tobacco industries must grow by 3 percent.
Dedi reported that the industrial sector grew by 4.61 percent in the first quarter, down from 5.83 percent in the same period last year.
First quarter growth was supported by 1.26 percent expansion in the food, beverages and tobacco industries, 7.1 percent in the textile, leather goods and shoe industries, 0.53 percent in the wood and forest-based industries, 1.01 in the cement and non- metal mining products industries and 6.88 percent in the recycled handicrafts industry.
Rising prices of primary commodities in the global market and the public's weakening purchasing power adversely affected the food, beverages and tobacco industries, Dedi said, adding that the textile, leather goods and shoe industries continued to suffer from illegal imports. (anw)
Jakarta Post - May 19, 2008
Aditya Suharmoko, Jakarta – Contrasting figures between shrinking unemployment and growing underemployment suggest the country's investment climate has yet to support the growth of the formal sector, an economist says.
The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reported last week unemployment dropped 10.6 percent to 9.43 million people in February compared to a year earlier, while underemployment rose from 30.24 million to 30.64 million.
The chief economist at the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Faisal Basri, said the rising number of underemployed indicated the country's employment condition was of poor quality.
"A decrease in the unemployment number is not always a good indication, especially if it is followed by a rising underemployment rate and a burgeoning number of people engaging in the informal sector," Faisal said.
He said the government should focus on developing the manufacturing industry, which could absorb more workers and provide better salaries and job certainty.
The BPS defines underemployment as those working less than 35 hours a week. It conducts its employment survey twice a year, in February and August.
BPS director for labor force and population statistics, Wendy Hartanto, said the public service and trade sectors absorbed more employees in the past year. "The public service sector includes working as maids, while the trade sector includes working in shops or opening stalls," Wendy said.
A busker in Grogol, West Jakarta, said his daily income was about Rp 30,000 (US$3.22) on average. With a five-day work week, he makes about Rp 660,000 a month, which he spends mostly on food. "It is hard for me to save my money," said Daniel, 23, who has worked as a busker for almost a year.
Daniel, who used to work as a repairman at a shop in Atrium Senen, Central Jakarta, was forced to find new work after the shop went out of business.
A newspaper seller in Slipi, West Jakarta, said he made between Rp 30,000 and Rp 40,000 a day. "It is a tough job, but you need to keep on working," said Supriyatno, 30, who has been selling newspapers since he was in elementary school.
Supriyatno said he spent Rp 10,000 of his daily income for his daily needs, and the rest for his family – a wife and two children below the age of five. He said he could save little from his income.
Outgoing Coordinating Minister for the Economy Boediono said last week it was normal for workers to move between the formal and informal sectors, at least until the country's economy reached a stable growth of between 6.5 and 7 percent annually.
Last year, the country's economy grew by 6.32 percent. This year, the Finance Ministry has estimated it will grow only by 6 percent due to the global economic slowdown.
Businesspeople have repeatedly said a stronger formal sector will help reduce the number of people working in the informal sector, and in turn lessen the poverty rate.
Jakarta Post - May 19, 2008
Jakarta, Pontianak – Business in Indonesia still relies on political rather than technical or professional support, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said Saturday, which allowed unfair competition among businessmen close to the government.
His remarks, read by Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono at the 49th anniversary of Tanjungpura University here, pointed at the continuing prevalence of "delinquent" importers, capital flight and bad business practices of Indonesia's entrepreneurs.
Ever since the economic crisis of the late 90's, the government had introduced various policies to attempting to reestablish economic foundations to create sustainable and high quality economic growth, Kalla had said.
But the fact that the economy had maintained growth rates below seven percent had impeded efforts to reduce the country's unemployment and poverty levels, the statement said.
Most provinces in Indonesia continued to struggle with classic issues, like limited human resources, which has led to an inability to fully utilize the nation's natural resources, Kalla said, as quoted by Antara.
"We are not even obtaining half of our targeted average investments," he said, adding that the government's investment (or public spending) budget was gradually improving, particularly in dealing with structural problems like government infrastructure.
Chris Kanter (chamber of commerce and industry deputy chief of investments, transportation, information technology, telecommunication and tourism) said the government's effort to stymie political lobbying to boost businesses would never be successful.
Even in developed countries like the United States, Chris said, business lobbying continued, adding that it became acceptable when done for an apparent good.
Business lobbying had decreased significantly since the fall of the New Order, he said. Back then, businessmen close to the government had controlled roughly 75 to 80 percent of the business investments in Indonesia, he said.
Chris said the Chamber of Commerce would continue to work to strengthen the local investment climate.
According to data from the State Investment Coordination Agency, investments in between January and September, 2007, had shown a 169.02 percent increase, to US$13.99 billion, from $8.28 billion for the same period a year earlier.
The industry with the highest amount of domestic investment was paper. Paper and plastic manufactured goods gained Rp 14.54 trillion from eight projects.
The food industry came in second, with investments totaling Rp 5.13 trillion for 24 projects. Basic metals industries, metal goods, machinery and electronics followed with a combined value of Rp 3.54 trillion for 17 projects, basic crops and the plantation industry gained Rp 3.4 trillion and the construction sector gained Rp 2.11 trillion.
The transportation sector gained the highest amount of foreign investment, Rp 29.61 trillion for 41 projects, followed by the basic chemical industry, chemical goods and pharmaceuticals, Rp 14.49 trillion, while the metal industry, metal goods and electronic machines gained Rp 6.33 trillion for 98 projects.
Approximately Rp 6.2 trillion in foreign investment went to 53 projects in the food industry and the paper industry, paper and plastic based goods received Rp 6.06 trillion for 11 projects. (anw)
| Opinion & analysis |
Jakarta Post - May 22, 2008
Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – While some observers say there has been significant progress in the professionalism of the Indonesian military (TNI), many others think military reform has been too slow and half-hearted in the past decade following the authoritarian era.
The military has been praised for its willingness to formally rid itself of civilian politics by quitting the House of Representatives (DPR) and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) in 2004.
The New Order regime allocated 100 House seats for the military in every general election during president Soeharto's 32-year tenure.
The TNI proved its commitment to step away from politics when it mandated that military officers were to resign or retire before running for president, governor, regent or mayor.
Lawmaker Andreas Pareira of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said 10 years of military reform had ensured TNI members could not legally participate in civilian politics, as stated in the 2002 law on state defense and the 2004 law on the TNI.
"The regulation clearly shows the military's commitment to stay away from civilian politics. We should acknowledge the TNI's success with its internal reform," said Andreas, a member of the House Commission I on security, defense and foreign affairs.
He said the TNI's decision not to use its members' voting rights in the 2009 general elections was proof of its commitment to quit politics.
The TNI's partition from the police force in 2000 was an additional significant achievement in military-police relations reform. By law, the police force is now responsible for handling internal security while the TNI is authorized to deal with external threats.
However, Andreas and military expert Kusnanto Anggoro of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies agreed reforms in other sectors have been stagnant since 2004.
They pointed out the resolution of military business issues, territorial commands, military tribunal and impunity of soldiers from human rights prosecutions were slow and half-hearted.
Kusnanto said there was discontinuity of reform efforts inside the military itself and civilian figures failed to take initiative by pushing for reform from the outside. civilian can't just sit back and hope the military will carry out the reform. They must take the lead and push for quick reform," he said.
Kusnanto, also a University of Indonesia lecturer, said another factor hindering internal reform was military culture, which had not changed since the fall of Soeharto in 1998.
"They have the same mentality of resisting change and new political conditions. These factors have worked against reformation," he added.
Andreas blamed the TNI's reluctance to hand over its businesses to the government on the insufficient military budget, leaving the TNI unable to procure new equipment and enhance the quality if its services.
"The transfer of military assets to the state has been delayed. We must push for it to go through until it is completed," he said.
After four years of uncertainty, a national team established by the President tried last month to begin transferring TNI business assets to the state, even though some experts dismissed the process as a sham.
Established under a presidential decree, the team of 10 officials and businesspeople has the authority to assess and value all military business assets.
It is to issue recommendations for the President on TNI assets and companies that should be transferred to the state before the deadline on Oct. 16, 2009. "We will wait but we need assurance all revenue from assets will be returned to the soldiers," Kusnanto said.
Currently, the TNI has approximately 398,000 personnel, including the Army, which has 300,000 personnel, the Navy, with 69,000 and the Air Force, with 29,000. However, almost half of them receive a monthly salary ranging from Rp 1 million to Rp 1.5 million (US$110 to $165).
Almost 70 percent of the TNI's annual budget is sourced from its diversified business activities. This year's defense budget is set at Rp 36.4 trillion ($4.04 billion), up from Rp 28 trillion in 2007, Rp 27 trillion in 2006 and Rp 25 trillion in 2005.
Regarding the issue of territorial commands, both Kusnanto and Andreas said their numbers should be reduced or pushed to cover the country's borderlines. The government must immediately start reducing the number of territorial commands as mandated in the 2004 law. The move also depends on the readiness of civilian and local administrations," Kusnanto said.
The Army has been criticized for its spending on territorial commands, which in the past helped the Soeharto regime retain its power for 32 years.
The most sensitive issue regarding military reform is military officers' impunity from past human rights abuses.
Usman Hamid, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), criticized the government for allowing the military to maintain legal impunity for its officers from past rights violations.
Under the presidencies of Abdurrahman "GusWahid and Megawati Soekarnoputri, two gross human rights cases involving the militarythe 1999 violence in light of the independence vote in East Timor and the 1984 Tanjung Priok massacre – were brought to ad hoc rights tribunals.
However, all the charged civilians and military perpetrators eventually walked free. Former Army generals implicated in the two cases found themselves subsequently promoted to higher ranks.
Also remaining unresolved are many other major cases, including the Trisakti and Semanggi shootings in 1998 and 1999, the Wasior and Wamena clashes and the brutality and sexual abuse against ethnic Chinese women in May 1998.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) is investigating the 1989 shooting incident in Talangsari village, Lampung province.
However Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono advised military generals implicated in the case to defy summonses from the Komnas HAM. "I think the only way to solve all these cases is to compromise, find out the truth and focus on restitution for the victims," Kusnanto said.
Jakarta Post Editorial - May 21, 2008
On this date 10 years ago, when Soeharto ended his 32-year iron- fisted rule, the country's economy was in total chaos, partly – some say mostly – because of the president's inability to control the greed of his children and cronies.
Ten years later, it is difficult for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – as it was for his three predecessors – to convince the nation things have improved since Soeharto's fall. Is it true that there hasn't been any progress in the last 10 years?
The government is still unable to lift the economy from the brink of collapse to full recovery. Now we are just waiting for President Yudhoyono's to work up the courage to announce fuel price increases. Although we cannot totally blame the government for our economic hardships, most people had hoped the country will be able to achieve more significant economic growth under the leadership of a directly elected president.
We are willing to acknowledge that the President is an intelligent man and was a decent Army general, and that he has worked very hard for the country. However, the economy continues to struggle under his leadership.
Despite the gloomy economic picture, democracy continues to blossom. For 53 years, the country was controlled by Sukarno and Soeharto, both of whom could be categorized as dictators. In the past 10 years, we have had four presidents, with Yudhoyono directly elected in 2004. It is not for self-consolation when we say it is an amazing achievement that Indonesia has been able to transform itself after five decades of dictatorship into the world's third largest democracy, after India and the United States.
Our democracy is still at a very fragile state, but we are going in the right direction to realize our goal of creating a civil society. Of course, it is clear that the Indonesian Military (TNI) often finds it difficult to resist the temptation to regain the power it enjoyed under Soeharto's rule.
Corruption is our biggest enemy. Unfortunately many Indonesians think they have to live with corruption because they just don't know how to deal with the deadly "virus".
Violence, intolerance, malfunctioning law enforcement and unemployment are all alarming. However, we have passed one of the most difficult parts in transforming ourselves into a solid civil society.
Many people now remember good things about Soeharto. Just like during the post-1945 independence era when many people remembered good things about the colonial power, many people now miss Soeharto's leadership. But we should not forget that Soeharto damaged the country so severely that we are still dealing with the consequences. Initially he was the father of development, but later he became a destroyer. The economy may have been better under Soeharto, but at what cost? Today, we remember those who sacrificed their lives and futures to overthrow Soeharto. Most are unknown heroes. Thousands of students risked their lives because they knew that Soeharto and his regime had to be stopped at all costs. At that time many privileged people jeered at the students.
Ten years have passed. Soeharto died in January. We are still unable to recover from the economic disaster. But we need to remember that we deserve to take pride in our democracy. There are growing concerns that Islam in Indonesia is becoming more conservative, even intolerant. But we should not forget that Islam in Indonesia has proven itself for centuries to be a peaceful, tolerant and democratic religion.
We should not retreat from the path of democracy because we are going in the right direction. However, when people's living conditions continue to worsen, more and more people will ask, "Is democracy a blessing or a curse?"
In the coming days we will witness the young sons and daughters of this nation take to the streets to voice their opposition against planned fuel price increases. They will perhaps be noisy. But when we remember what the young people did 10 years ago, we are definitely proud of them.
| Book/film reviews |
Jakarta Post - May 18, 2008
Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – The Holocaust did happen and was historically well-documented by historians and its survivors with their published journals and testimonies.
Yet, there are people – the Iranian president is only one of them – who believe the event was a grand hoax.
History, we are thus reminded, is not always forgotten; it is sometimes denied, especially when the truth is hidden by ceaseless propaganda and buried in the bulk of bent information by those in power.
An anthology of self-funded short films and one commercial film were separately screened on May 13-14 to commemorate – as well as remind the public not to fall into a state of denial of – two of the darkest days in the country's history that occurred on the exact same dates a decade ago.
A group of filmmakers, who voluntarily worked on a project called Proyek Payung (Umbrella Project), screened 9808 – a compilation of short films (mostly feature and documentary) that reflect on the May 1998 riots.
A day after the first screening of 9808 at Kineforum, Taman Ismail Marzuki cultural center on May 13, Flix Pictures (producer of teen flick Dealova) screened May – the first middle-of-the- road film that dares to take the horrific May riots as its background – at Studio XXI at the EX Plaza.
Each of the film directors said they did not intend to open old wounds and that their films were made "carefully". They added their films would hopefully not offend certain groups in society and, more importantly, be presented in the spirit of "forgiving".
Still, they acknowledged they were dealing with a thorny issue that might upset some people.
Both 9808 and May are vivid and blunt when bringing to the screen the collective memories of the 1998 riots – the looting, the burning of buildings and the violence targeted toward the Chinese-Indonesians and their properties – through the use of media images, documentation and testimonies. The case is different when they try to remind us of the most gruesome violence that occurred during the riots; the gang-rapes of Chinese-Indonesian women.
This highly sensitive issue is ghastly murky: When the fact- finding team of the May Riots revealed that the rapings of Chinese women indeed occurred during the incident, confirming what had been widely rumored previously, a number of people, including Muslim hardliners, quickly denied the reports, saying there was no proof.
The reports became fuzzier when the outraged international community discovered that photos of the atrocious gang-rapes said to have happen in Jakarta, which were widely spread on the Internet and even displayed at a formal exhibition in Singapore, were false and had actually been taken from porn sites.
Meanwhile, the rape victims, for the sake of their dignity and in fear of further traumatic abuse, chose to remain silent, leaving the women's activists with only pseudonymous and third-party testimonies in their fight for justice.
The public, meanwhile, was left in the dark: Did the gang-rapes happen? If so, how widespread were they? And were they really carried out systematically?
There are three films in 9808 that touch the anti-Chinese issue, but only one, however, that implicitly tells the sexual violence suffered by Chinese women during the riots.
The other two films go far back to the years before the riots to highlight the long history of racial discrimination against ethnic Chinese under the New Order regime.
Huan Chen Guang (Happiness Morning Light), written by Ifa Isfansyah, tells the story of a Chinese girl named Chen Guang, who decides to leave Beijing for South Korea in an effort to erase the sad memories of her mother, who was killed in the May riots.
In the opening of the film, Chen listens to news reports from a Chinese-language radio station that Chinese-Indonesian women were gang-raped on the streets in broad daylight.
The story is not specifically about the rape victims, but rather about their families who held on to the memories of their brutally and unjustly murdered loved ones.
Lucky Kuswandi with his piece A Letter of Unprotected Memories, which depicts the Imlek ceremony, and Ariani Darmawan with her piece Sugiharti Halim, which ludicrously mocks the stupidity of the New Order's policy to "Indonesianize" Chinese names, told the audience after the premiere screening that they just "wanted to share what they felt about their ethnicity". Both are Chinese- Indonesians.
The most intriguing piece in the 9808 anthology is Edwin's Trip To The Wound, which tells the story of Shilla (Ladia Cherryl), whose strange hobby is collecting the stories behind people's wounds.
One night, she meets Carlo, who in erotic scenes peruses her body only to find that the Chinese-looking Shilla has no wounds. The story leads to the assumption that Shilla was a rape victim, but Edwin insists that she was not.
"It's a film about a wound, which is a universal thing," he said, but adding that he leaves his work open for interpretation.
May is a film about the controversial gang-rapes. It follows a Chinese girl named May (played by debutante Jenny Chang), who was raped during the May riots and fled to Malaysia after being saved by a foreign journalist, who found her crying alone and frightened in a dark tunnel.
The story is centered around her life and the relationships with her lover, Antares (Yama Carlos), her mother, Cik Bing (Tutie Kirana) and her son Tristan. May is not sure who fathered Tristan; Antares, or one of the strangers who raped her.
Unlike the poetic Happiness Morning Light and Trip To The Wound, May is more blunt in describing the tragedy.
"I tried to make it more light and popular. This is basically a love story. It's not really that arty in the sense of, you know, that other kind of art," director Viva Westi said.
However, she added that she tried to make the riot scenes carefully and avoided violent images in the movie: The chaotic and tense situation surrounding the riots were mostly depicted through television images and glass reflections.
Viva said no rape victims had been interviewed in the making of the movie and stressed that the main character was fictional. But she said she believed the rapes truly happened.
May is not her first film to touch on a sensitive issue. "Actually, I made a short film on this issue when I was still studying at the Jakarta Arts Institute in 1998. At that time, it was difficult to find a rape victim who wanted to talk," she said. Her only clue at the time was a letter sent to Kompas daily from a doctor who asked whether he should abort the pregnancy of a rape victim.
A decade later, Viva said she still couldn't find a victim willing to talk about the atrocious gang-rapes. But she made the film anyway, which she said is actually a story about love, guilt and forgiveness.