Andi Hajramurni, Makassar – A draft bylaw on the planning and improvement of traditional markets, shopping centers and modern stores, currently being drawn up by the Makassar municipal council, has raised protests from traditional market vendors who claim it will disadvantage them.

Traditional market vendors rallied recently at the City Council to list their grievances and submit an alternative draft ordinance they had drawn up with several NGOs advocating for them.

The protesters said the bill, drafted on the initiative of municipal councillors, had not provided traditional or local market vendors with any protection, but instead threatened the presence of traditional markets, because traditional market vendors were not involved in the formulating process.

In the draft, the City Council points out that local or traditional markets are to be managed exclusively by the municipality-owned Pasar Raya Makassar, without the involvement of an independent team to oversee the management.

"It has deviated from the market concept itself, as they regard the local market as a traditional market," said Isjak Salim, director of Active Society Institute (ASCI), which provides advocacy for local market vendors.

"Isn't a traditional market identical to a dirty place that should be modernized? A modern market concept means traditional market traders will be evicted, because they can't afford to buy or rent expensive shops and stalls."

Another bone of contention in the draft ordinance is the equating of local markets with modern markets.

The vendors say the definition is unfair because local markets are forced to compete with modern markets, which are solely financed.

In the draft ordinance – on the "protection, empowerment of local markets and planning of shopping centers and modern stores" – councilors emphasize the use of the term "local market" and classify it into three groups" neighbourhood markets, supporting markets and wholesale markets.

Of the 57 local markets in Makassar, Terong Market has been proposed as a wholesale market.

In response to the vendors' protests, councilor Hasyim Ramlan, who is the also special committee head for the draft bylaw, said the draft ordinance was aimed at improving local markets so they would be neater and cleaner, thus putting consumers at ease when shopping for groceries.

"It won't be like now, when local markets are filthy and dirty, due to the careless disposal of garbage and waste from the remnants of merchandise, which is disgusting when people go to local markets," he said, pointing out that other provinces had clean traditional markets.

Hundreds protest spy's acquittal, say SBY must fulfill promise

Detik.com - July 16, 2009

Ayu Fitriana, Jakarta – Around 3 hundred people coordinated by the Solidarity Committee for Munir (Kasum) held an action in front of the Supreme Court building on Thursday July 16 to protest against the court's decision to uphold the acquittal of former top spy Muchdi Purwopranjono for the 2004 assassination of rights activist Munir.

The demonstrators arrived at the Supreme Court building at 2pm riding Metromini and Mikrolet buses. A van was provided as a stage for speeches.

"Now we can see that SBY [President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] is again the winner [of the presidential election]. We must demand fulfillment of his promises. We can see now that he has yet to uphold human rights. He promised before to resolve the Munir case, but where are the results? A big zero", said the wife of the late Munir Suciwati in a speech.

The protesters represented a coalition of human rights victims such as the May 1998 riots in Jakarta, the 1965 mass killings, victims of the 1997-98 abduction of student activists and street traders, who shouted slogans demanding a trial for Purwopranjono and former State Intelligence Agency chief A.M. Hendropriyono.

They also brought posters with messages such as "Try Muchdi PR and Hendropriyono". The protest action did not create traffic congestion because the demonstrators were concentrated on the side of the road. (sho/iy)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Protesting farmers blockade mining company

Jakarta Post - July 16, 2009

Nurni Sulaiman, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan – Around 150 farmers living in Bangun Rejo village, Kutai Kartanegara regency, blocked the road access to coal firm PT Kitadin on Thursday to protest against activities stopping farmers from harvesting.

The protesters, who transmigrated from Blitar, East Java, in 1981, said mining activities had caused a build up of sediment in the river, whose water they relied mostly on to irrigate their rice fields. The blockade took place from 8.30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

"Our rice fields failed to yield four times as the river could no longer irrigate our 150-hectare fields," one of the farmers, Mislan, told The Jakarta Post.

He added the company had promised to help the farmers secure water but the promise never materialized.

The protest ended after farmer representatives and the firm agreed to hold talks to settle the issue.

Protesters 'seal' off Chinese Embassy

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2009

Nivell Rayda – More than 100 Muslim students from the University of Indonesia staged a rally and "sealed" the Chinese embassy in Jakarta on Wednesday to protest China's oppression of the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority.

The move came after a Chinese diplomat in Jakarta dismissed unrest in the country's western province as "just a brawl" between groups.

The students gathered around 3 p.m. in the Kuningan area of South Jakarta. During the rally, students cordoned off the embassy with yellow tape meant to resemble barriers used by police to secure a crime scene. Text printed on the tape read "this building is sealed by Muslim people of Indonesia."

Ahmad Budi Setia, head of Salam University of Indonesia, the university's Muslim organization, demanded to see the Chinese ambassador, but was rebuffed by the building's security officers.

Chinese Charge d'Affaires Yang Lingzhu met with the chairman of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Tifatul Sembiring, who arrived hours earlier.

"We are here to voice our protests against the violence against Muslim Uighurs," Tifatul told reporters after the meeting. He also demanded the Chinese government stop using force against the Uighurs and called for a full investigation into violence that has claimed at least 180 lives.

"We want the Chinese to prosecute any human rights violations and urge the Muslim world to show their support for the Uighurs. The Indonesian government must help them through diplomacy."

After the meeting, Yang denied that the riots in China's Xinjiang Province had been fueled by ethnic friction. "This is just a brawl between several groups of people," Yang said. "There is no ethnic violence in the province."

Mosques in the province's capital, Urumqi, were closed last week during Friday prayers. Yang said the move was meant to stem more bloodshed and had been at the behest of "the clerics themselves." "Everything is now under control," he claimed.

The violence began on July 5 when Uighurs protested last month's deaths of fellow factory workers during a fight with police in southern China.

Student rally turns ugly in Maluku

Jakarta Post - July 15, 2009

Ambon – A rally staged by the Muslim Students Association (HMI) turned ugly on Tuesday when it progressed into a physical fight with state prosecutors in front of the Maluku Prosecutors' Office in Ambon.

Kompas.com reported that the demonstrators initially demanded the office accelerate investigations into corruption scandals in the province, which were yet to progress.

"Let's undergo legal processes. Don't just accuse the prosecutors. We invited the protestors to have a talk with us but they refused our request," said Soebagyo, a local chief prosecutor.

West Papua

Indonesia questions 12 over Papua mine shootings

Reuters - July 21, 2009

Jayapura, Indonesia – Indonesian police have questioned 12 people in connection with deadly shootings near the giant Grasberg mine in Papua operated by a unit of Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold Inc.

Unidentified gunmen have carried out a series of attacks on a road leading to the mine in the past 10 days, killing an Australian technical expert working for Freeport, a guard employed at the mine and wounding seven policemen.

Papua police chief Bagus Ekodanto said two of the 12 people were regarded as possible suspects in the attacks.

On Monday, police found bullets and food stored along the road leading to the Freeport mine and suspect the cache could have been intended for another attack, Ekodanto said.

"We questioned 12 people yesterday, we are looking at two of them in order to develop our investigations and intend to question them further as we suspect they could be the perpetrators," Ekodanto said by telephone.

He said the two still being detained for questioning were from Timika, the nearest major town. Police had 24 hours from the start of questioning to decide whether to name the two as suspects, Ekodanto said.

The Grasberg mine has the world's largest recoverable reserves of copper and the largest gold reserves. It accounts for nearly 40 percent of Freeport's total copper reserves of 93 billion pounds, according to Freeport's website.

The mine, which is about 3,400 km east of Indonesia's capital Jakarta, has been a frequent source of friction over its environmental impact, the share of revenue going to Papuans and the legality of payments to Indonesian security forces who help guard the site.

Secessionists have waged a low-level insurgency for decades in Papua, but the Indonesian military and police who keep a tight rein on the area generally have far more fire power and have been accused by rights groups of abuses.

Freeport has said its production forecast in 2009 is 1.3 billion pounds of copper and 2.2 million ounces of gold and has said the output could still be achieved despite the attacks.

Mindo Pangaribuan, a Freeport spokesman, said in an emailed statement the road to the mine was closed for security reasons, although did not specify whether this was affecting operations.

[Reporting by Oka Barta Daud in Jayapura and Telly Nathalia and Fitri Wulandari in Jakarta; Writing by Ed Davies.]

Australia's Foreign Minister to leave Papua probe up to Indonesia

Radio New Zealand International - July 20, 2009

The Australian foreign minister says he's leaving it up to Indonesian authorities to decide whether to take up his country's offer for more assistance to investigate the deadly shootings in Papua.

Five shooting incidents last week between the town of Timika and the Grasberg mine left three people dead including an Australian employee of multi-national mining giant Freeport McMoran.

Indonesia's military has joined the large scale investigation into the attacks launched by police, despite elements of the security forces being widely suspected of having a hand in the killings.

At a joint media conference in Jakarta with his Indonesian counterpart, Hassan Wirajuda, Mr Smith was asked if he had concerns about human rights abuses in Papua in response to the killings.

In his reply, the Minister refused to speculate on the police investigation. Mr Smith said that Canberra respects the territorial sovereignty and integrity of Indonesia over Papua.

He has commended the commitment of Indonesia's government to supporting autonomy and human rights in Papua.

Freeport employees must stay at mining site

Jakarta Globe - July 18, 2009

Christian Motte – For the sake of their own safety, thousands of Freeport employees are temporarily forbidden to leave the company's Tembagapura mining site in Papua following a series of fatal shootings, a spokesman said on Saturday.

"Based on safety and security considerations for the employees and their families, they are requested to stay at the mining site until the situation is considered to be safe for certain," said company spokesman Mindo Pangaribuan. Police have dispatched more personnel to fortify security following the shootings near Freeport's gold mine.

Meanwhile, Freeport employees who have to travel to the mine from Timika have also been stopped from doing so temporarily.

"We don't want to take the risk, it's better off to let the employees at the Tembagapura site to stay, while the employees who want to get to work at Tembagapura are told to take a day off [for the time being]," he said.

Indonesia says 'foreign countries' linked to Papua attacks

Agence France Presse - July 17, 2009

Jakarta – "Foreign countries" could be behind a series of deadly ambushes near a US-owned goldmine in Indonesia's remote Papua province that have killed three people, the defence minister said on Thursday.

The attacks by unidentified gunmen near Freeport McMoRan's massive Grasberg gold and copper mine could be an effort by foreign competitors to close the mine down, Juwono Sudarsono told reporters.

"What I think is don't let Freeport be closed, because it involves global competition over natural resources there are a number of countries that have an interest in destabilising Freeport," Sudarsono said.

Sudarsono said foreign NGOs and governments had a history of backing groups that "agitate" in Papua, which has been the site of a low-level separatist conflict since the 1960s.

Asked which countries he was referring to, Sudarsono said: "Apparently many neighbouring countries to the south." Indonesia's southern neighbours are Australia and New Zealand.

Sudarsono said he saw no indication the attacks were the work of separatist rebels of the Free Papua Movement (OPM).

Freeport, whose Grasberg mine sits on the world's largest gold reserve, is the single biggest taxpayer to the Indonesian government.

Australian technician Drew Grant, 29, was shot dead Saturday when his car was attacked on the single road from the mountain-top mine, while a Freeport guard was killed in an ambush on the same road Sunday.

A third policeman who fled the Sunday ambush was found dead in a ravine the next day. Five policemen were wounded Wednesday in a firefight on the road, which has been closed indefinitely to Freeport workers.

Military chief General Djoko Santoso has blamed separatist rebels for the attacks, but police have said there is no indication that is the case.

The apparent skill of the attackers, who used military-issue ammunition, and their ease in evading capture has fuelled speculation by some analysts that security forces are using violence to extort more protection money out of Freeport.

Freeport says it paid more than a million dollars last year for police and military protection, but the military has recently denied receiving any such payments.

Sudarsono on Wednesday told a meeting of foreign journalists he did not believe military or police were involved in the attacks but conceded "rogue elements" from security forces could be responsible.

The violence could be related to a feud between rival groups over illegal mining of Freeport's tailings, he said.

A commander for the Free Papua Movement guerrillas has reportedly denied involvement, although the separatists' armed wing is a disjointed group that acts locally with little central control.

Doubt surrounds claim of foreign role in Papua violence

Radio New Zealand International - July 17, 2009

A Papua human rights activist has dismissed claims by Indonesia's Defence Minister that foreign governments or NGOs could be behind a series of deadly ambushes near the Freeport mine in Papua.

The Minister, Juwono Sudarsono, says the attacks by unidentified gunmen which left three dead near the Grasberg mine in Timika could be an effort by foreign competitors to close the mine down.

He says foreign NGOs and governments have a history of backing groups that agitate in Papua. When asked which countries he was referring to, Mr Sudarsono referred to neighbouring countries to the south.

However, Australia-based activist Nick Chesterfield says this contradicts the Minister's earlier statements about who was behind the attacks.

"You've got to remember that a couple of days ago the same Defence Minister was saying that it's very likely that it was rogue elements of the Indonesian military, or even police. He also was on record saying it was likely it was [due to] an argument between police and military over who controlled the illegal gold trade. So I really wouldn't put too much credibility in his statements."

MPR head asks US to back off OPM issue

Antara News - July 16, 2009

New York – The visiting speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly has asked the US government not to support the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM).

Hidayat Nur Wahid, speaking in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, said he had asked the United States to assist Indonesia in developing its democracy without providing support to the OPM.

"I said that to develop democracy, Indonesia must concentrate all the resources it has, but the state budget cannot be spent on defending its territorial sovereignty alone," he said.

Hidayat said he conveyed Indonesia's wishes to a number of US congressmen during his one-day visit.

"I asked the US congressmen to seriously help Indonesia, because I had heard that some of them frequently try to bring up the OPM issue in Congress."

He said that although issues related to Papua were discussed at the meeting, the recent shooting incidents near the Freeport mining complex in Mimika district were not touched on.

Hidayat also delivered a lecture at a forum sponsored by the US- Indonesia Association on the role of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) in maintaining democracy in the country, including the successful July 8 presidential election.

From Washington, Hidayat will travel to Houston, Texas, where he will speak to the Indonesian community about the 1945 Constitution and the powers of the MPR.

Several MPR members traveled to Washington, DC, and New York City last year and discussed the same issues.

Tribe in Papua to file charges against Freeport

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2009

Fidelis E. Satriastanti – After feeling exploited and ignored for more than three decades, the Papuan Amungme tribe have filed a lawsuit against the government, Coordinating Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie and the operator of one of the largest mining sites in the world, PT Freeport Indonesia, a lawyer said on Thursday.

"[Freeport and its other shareholders] have been exploiting our land while we have been left behind in poverty. We are the owners of those natural riches but we get nothing except violence and environmental degradation," said Titus Natkime, one the lawyers for the Amungme tribe.

Titus said 92 members of the tribe have entrusted him to file the lawsuit.

The government has a 9.36 percent stake in Freeport while Bakrie holds a 9.36 percent share in the subsidiary of the mining giant, PT Freeport MacMoRan.

"We are suing the government of Indonesia because as citizens, we have the right to expect protection from our government," he said, citing the nation's laws and regulations, especially the 1945 Constitution, which guaranteed the welfare of indigenous people.

He said the lawsuit was registered as a civil case at the South Jakarta District Court on May 27 and the first hearing would open on Aug. 6.

"We are suing them for the losses suffered by our people from 1967 to 2009, which is worth about $30 billion," he said adding that the company earned around $20 million a day from the mine.

He said the tribe had entered negotiations with Freeport McMoran in 2002 but dropped out in 2006 after the chances of getting a result became elusive.

"We kept a record of the negotiations as proof and we will present it to the court as evidence," he said, adding that in 1997, Tom Beanal, the head of Lemasa, the Amungme Traditional Law Council, sued Freeport in New Orleans, Louisiana, where it is based, but lost.

Meanwhile, Arkilaus Arnesius Baho from the National League for the Struggle of the People of West Papua, said the only way to solve the ongoing conflict in the province was to close down the mine.

"If we want to put an end to conflict in Papua, the only sure way is to shut down Freeport," Arkilaus said. "Since the company landed in Papua in 1967, there have been nothing but problems, such as a menacing military presence, real environmental damage and increased conflicts between the tribes."

He said the current spate of violence in the province could not be laid at the feet of any particular group but was the accumulative effect of events linked to the ongoing economic injustice that begun with the arrival of Freeport.

He was referring to the recent series of armed attacks on Freeport workers and police that has already left three dead, including an Australian employee of Freeport, and several others injured.

Titus said he was also very concerned about the shootings but that he was not here to talk about those incidents.

"I am here to represent the Amungme tribe who are demanding justice," he said, adding that his clients were the traditional title owners of 2.6 million hectares, most of which is now occupied by the mining company.

Berry Nahdian Furqon, executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said the site should be closed following the recent spike in violence.

"We urge the government to establish an independent committee to oversees the three issues at the heart of the problems in Papua – human rights violations, ecological considerations and social economic factors," Berry said.

More ambushes: Freeport tells workers to stay home

Sydney Morning Herald - July 16, 2009

Tom Allard, Jakarta – Workers at the Freeport-McMoran gold and copper mine have been ordered to stay at home after another series of shootings on the road where an Australian, Drew Grant, was murdered over the weekend.

The latest attacks came as analysts pointed to a rivalry between the military and police as a likely source of the violence as the two elements battle for a share of the multi-million dollar stream of informal protection payments to secure the enormous concession.

An attack yesterday afternoon injured two police officers, and a Freeport vehicle was riddled with bullet holes on Tuesday afternoon, but there were no injuries in that attack.

Since Saturday at least five ambushes have occurred, killing three people and injuring several others. It is the worst violence at the controversial mine in seven years.

A spokesman for Freeport, Mindo Pangaribuan, said several hundreds workers who live in Timika have been told to stay away from the mine "until further notice".

While there has been a marked upgrade in security around Freeport's Grasberg mine in the Indonesian province of Papua, including the deployment of the police counterterrorism unit and mobile brigade, the attacks are being made with virtual impunity.

The sophistication of the ambushes, the apparent use of military issue weapons and the ability of the assailants to avoid detection has increased speculation that the perpetrators are either members of the security services, or have been trained by them.

Eben Kirksey, a University of California academic who has researched previously violence at Freeport, including the murder of two American teachers in 2002, points to a dispute between the military and police in Papua.

"The jury is out, but there's clearly a motivation for elements of the Indonesian military," he said. "Since a 2007 decree, the police is in charge of security at Freeport and they have been paid handsomely for it... $US8 million ($10 million) last year according to filings [to the US sharemarket] by Freeport," he said. "The TNI [Indonesian armed forces] wants a slice of that pie."

The Defence Minister, Juwono Sudarsono, said it was well known that there was a "lucrative" trade run by criminal syndicates in illegally mining the tailings from the mine. "You can earn between $US3000 and $US3500 per month," he said.

"My own speculation, and that's pure speculation, is that these are criminal groups from inside Papua and also outside of Papua who have seen this as a lucrative business... It maybe a battle over providing access to this type of business."

Indonesia to send more police to Freeport mine

Associated Press - July 16, 2009

Niniek Karmini, Jakarta – Indonesia is deploying police special forces to US-based Freeport's gold mine – the world's largest – after a wave of shootings at the remote facility, a police official said Thursday.

The attacks along a road to the mine that began Saturday mark the worst violence to hit Freeport's operations in restive eastern Papua province since the murder of three teachers, including two Americans, in August 2002.

At least 15 people, most of them police officers, have been killed or wounded along the 40-mile (65-kilometer) road from Freeport's sprawling Grasberg mining complex to the mountain mining town of Timika. Among those fatally shot was an Australian employee.

"We have decided to increase enforcement measures to restore security," National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Sulistyo Ishak said.

Police special forces would be sent, along with army soldiers, but he did not say how many. "The operation will be carried out by special forces with certain targets, for a specific period of time and with a special budget," he said, without elaborating.

Thousands of police and soldiers are already stationed in Papua, and community leaders around Freeport have been pressing for a smaller security presence, not a greater one.

Mindo Pangaribuan, a spokesman for the Indonesian subsidiary of Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc., said the road where the attacks have taken place has been declared off limits to Freeport workers because of "security reasons." Around 20,000 people work at the mine, and many of their families live on site as well.

It was unclear how long the travel ban would last, but the company said it would not affect its business operations.

Since Saturday, assailants have shot and killed a 29-year-old Australian and a Freeport security guard, while a policeman fell to his death in a ravine as he sought cover.

On Wednesday, five police officers were injured by gunfire and taken to a Freeport-owned hospital, raising the number of wounded to 12, Papua's chief detective, Bambang Rudi, said Thursday.

They were shot in the stomach, hand and thigh when "they were sprayed with bullets," Ishak said, adding that they were all now in stable condition.

Investigators said they still do not know who is behind the shooting spree, but that the ammunition is standard military and police issue.

Authorities initially blamed the ambushes on Papuan separatists with the Free Papua Movement, OPM, who have waged a low-level insurgency for 40 years. But official statements now refer to "an armed group" of professional marksmen.

Several analysts have suggested that the violence is likely the result of a long-standing rivalry between paramilitary police units and soldiers competing for control of illegal multimillion-dollar protection and gold mining businesses around Freeport.

Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono asked people to refrain from speculating on police rivalry in comments to the Jakarta Foreign Correspondent's Club Wednesday. However, he said that "rouge elements" in the military might have a hand in the unrest.

"My own suspicion is there are criminal groups from within and outside Papua who have seen this as a lucrative business and it may be a battle over access," he said, estimating that illegal gold mining at the edges of Freeport's mining complex could earn a miner up to $3,500 per month – more than 35 times a minimum wage salary in Indonesia.

Papua, a desperately poor mountain province, lies some 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) east of the capital, Jakarta. Since Arizona-based Freeport opened its operations under the US-backed Suharto dictatorship in the 1970s, it has been targeted with arson, roadside bombs and blockades.

Many local activists are resentful because Freeport earns billions of dollars in profit from Papua's natural resources while the people remain overwhelmingly poor.

The province, known as West Papua during Indonesia's Dutch colonization, was gradually transferred to Indonesian rule in the 1960s after a stage-managed vote by community leaders. A highly militarized zone, it is off limits to foreign journalists.

[Associated Press reporters Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta contributed to this report.]

Security boosted along Freeport road

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2009

Additional police and military forces are being sent to beef up security along a road in Papua that has seen a string of deadly attacks in recent days.

"We have decided to increase enforcement measures to restore security," said National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Sulistyo Ishak on Thursday. He did not disclose how many 'special forces' would be sent.

At least 15 people, most of them police, have been killed or wounded along the 65-kilometer road from the town of Timika to the Grasberg complex owned by US mining giant Freeport McMoRan.

The Indonesian military and the National Police have openly disagreed about who is behind the attacks. Speculation has focused on the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM), rogue soldiers or groups trained by the military.

Prominent human rights activist Usman Hamid said the fact that the attacks have been scattered along the roadway will make it harder to pinpoint their source. But he said the apparently coordinated moves from one site to another are probably too sophisticated for the OPM.

"They do not have strong organizational skills therefore it is hard to imagine that they can create such systematic chaos," said Usman, who heads The Commission for "the Disappeared" and Victims of Violence (KONTRAS).

"It is possible the violence is to attract international attention to Papua," he added. (AP, JG)

Papua Council wants independent investigation into shootings

Jakarta Post - July 16, 2009

Jakarta – The Papua Council Presidium (PDP) has called on the central government to form an independent team to investigate a series of shooting along the road to Freeport Indonesia's Gresberg gold and copper mine in Papua.

PDP secretary general Thaha M. Alhamid said on Thursday that the team could include people from various quarters, including those from the government, security authorities and elements from society who have strong commitment to disclose the truth behind the incidents.

"Let's support an independent investigation to find facts, what and who are behind this incident," Thoha told Antara news agency on Thursday.

Five shooting incidents occurred in the past few days along the road between the town of Timika and Grasberg mine, killing three people: an Australian working for Freeport, a Freeport security guard and a police officer and injuring several other security officers.

Authorities initially named Free Papua Organization (OPM) leader Kelly Kwalik as the suspected mastermind of the attacks, but official statements now refer to an armed group of professional marksmen.

The National Police and the Army have deployed officers to investigate the series of shootings and have started to comb the area around the site of the attacks.

Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono asked people to refrain from speculating on police rivalry in comments to the Jakarta Foreign Correspondent's Club Wednesday, as quoted by the Associated Press. But he noted that "rouge elements" in the military might have a hand in the unrest.

Rivalries could be behind Indonesia mine killings

Associated Press - July 15, 2009

Anthony Deutsch, Jakarta – Deadly ambushes at the world's largest gold mine likely stem from rivalries between Indonesian police and military forces who compete for millions in illegal profits for protecting the industry, analysts said.

Three people died and another nine have been wounded in five days of ambushes on a private road leading to the mountain mining town of Timika on Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua. The shootings highlight the security challenges for the American company that operates the mine, Phoenix-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.

"Whenever they (security forces) feel they do not receive enough 'protection fee' then they orchestrate an attack to show Freeport how vulnerable they are and (allow them to) increase protection fees," said George Junus Aditjondro, an author on rebellions in Indonesia and a Papua specialist.

Police forces have been formally responsible for security at Freeport mines since 2001, when the region gained semiautonomy, but continue to compete for work and under-the-table profits with military units, analysts and a government official in Papua province say.

Christopher Ballard, a Papuan affairs specialist at the Australian National University, said his research on the area indicates that the "vast majority of security force casualties were at the hands of other security forces."

Freeport pays more than $5 million annually in protection money, according to the London-based group Global Witness, citing US regulatory filings. Freeport did not respond to a request for details about its security spending.

The military is always trying "to show how incompetent the police are in defending or guarding foreign businesses," Aditjondro said. The recent attacks "could be an outburst of that rivalry."

Papuan military spokesman Lt. Col. Susilo, who uses a single name like most Indonesians, denied allegations of rivalry. "That's not true at all," he said. "There is no competition between army and police for the sake of money... we have good relations with the police."

He accused Papuan separatists, who have waged a low-level insurgency for 40 years, of stealing weapons that could have been used in the recent shootings. The Free Papua Movement has not launched a major attack with guns for years, and experts said they did not believe the separatists would be able to carry out sophisticated military operations.

Another theory suggests the Indonesian military armed local Papuans and instructed them to carry out the ambushes. Many Papuans are angry that they remain poor while a foreign corporation makes billions of dollars in profit by mining resources in their province.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. posted revenue of nearly $18 billion in 2008 and is one of the biggest tax payers in the country. The Indonesian government holds a minority stake in the Grasberg mine near where the recent attacks took place.

A spokesman for PT Freeport, the Indonesian subsidiary, said in an e-mail Tuesday: "We have no comment on speculation."

The assaults took place just outside Freeport's sprawling Grasberg complex, where 20,000 people are employed at the world's largest open-pit gold mine.

Forensic material collected at the scene where 29-year-old Australian project manager Drew Grant was shot in the neck and chest on Saturday indicates a coordinated attack by several gunmen, police chief Bagus Ekodanto said.

Casings were recovered of military-grade 5.6 mm bullets that fit AK-47s, M-16s and Indonesian-made SS1 assault rifles, police said. "Such bullets and guns are standard weapons for both the military and police, but also (are) known to be used by the Papua rebels," Ekodanto said.

A day after that shooting, a convoy of security vehicles came under sniper fire, killing a private security guard. A police officer seeking cover fell to his death in a ravine.

Police have interviewed 14 witnesses – none of them police or military personnel – but have not detained any suspects or announced a motive, Ekodanto said.

Two police officers were wounded, one of them critically, when they came under fire Wednesday, security officials said. A Freeport vehicle carrying three passengers was shot at Tuesday afternoon, but no one was hurt, company spokesman Mindo Pangaribuan said.

Papua, which was transferred from Dutch to Indonesian rule in the 1960s after a stage-managed vote by community leaders, is off limits to foreign journalists. The private Timika road, under the watch of police and Freeport guards, is closed to all reporters.

During the Suharto dictatorship, Indonesia's armed forces openly ran more than 1,000 business ventures, which funded their operations and enriched their commanders. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the military to end all commercial activities this year.

But Papua remains a military stronghold, said a leading official in the Papuan government, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his job.

Ballard, of the Australian National University, said the area around the Freeport mine "is probably the most heavily militarized sector in all of Indonesia. "The presence of the military in substantial numbers has historically been the key source of conflict in the Freeport area," he said.

In the last decade, Indonesia has pulled out of now independent East Timor, ended sectarian fighting in Sulawesi and Maluku, and halted a decades-long civil war on Aceh.

"Since Indonesia quit East Timor and also since Aceh peace, West Papua has become the main area of military business in Indonesia," Aditjondro said. "I think they need to show to the world, especially to parliament in Jakarta, there is a need to increase the military budget in West Papua."

Papua gained semiautonomy from the Jakarta in 2001, but its security has morphed into an unruly mix of paramilitaries, soldiers, contract security guards, anti-terror brigades and special forces, who strangled to death Papua's political leader, Theys Eluay.

"It's unclear at the moment who is responsible for what," the Papuan government official said.

Police, Army join forces to investigate attacks on Freeport

Jakarta Post - July 15, 2009

Dicky Christanto and Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – The National Police and the Army have deployed officers to investigate a recent series of attacks in the vicinity of PT Freeport Indnonesia's Grasberg gold and copper mine in Papua.

National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the Police and Army have started to comb the area around the site of the attacks. "We are working on the crime scene to collect more evidence and are pursuing the insurgents," he said.

A total of 60 additional personnel – including officers from the Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob), the Densus 88 antiterrorism unit and the forensic laboratory – have been sent to Papua. However, Bambang did not elaborate on the number of extra Army personnel deployed to the area.

He said forensic investigators were still examining fragments of bullets used in the attacks, which appear to be consistent with those used by the Police and the Army.

"We should not take wild guesses and better wait for the examination to be completed. You all are aware that similar bullets can also be used in homemade weapons," he added, referring to the three empty shells found at the crime scene.

The police have been working with their Australian counterparts in the investigation of the incident.

Papua Police Chief Insp. Gen. FX Bagus Ekodanto said that 14 people have so far been questioned in relation to the shootings. However, he acknowledged police have yet to come to a conclusion as to who is responsible for the attacks.

Indonesian Human Rights Monitor (Imparsial) has urged the government to seriously investigate the weekend's attacks and not immediately jump to the conclusion that the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Free Papua Movement aka OPM) in responsible.

"We ask security forces not to so hastily place the blame on the OPM before it is legally proven," Imparsial's director of external relations, Poengky Indarti, told a press conference.

The police have named OPM leader Kelly Kwalik as the suspected mastermind of the attacks.

Imparsial has recorded several incidents in Timika since the July 8 presidential election including the torching of a Freeport bus on July 8, the shooting of a vehicle belonging to the Tembagapura Police on July 10, and this weekends shootings, which have left dead Australian Freeport employee Drew Nicholas Grant and Second Brig. Marson Freddy Pattipeilohy of the police, who was found dead at the bottom of a ravine on July 13.

Commenting on the string of incidents, intelligence expert Dino Chrisbon said he suspected regional welfare issues were driving the attackers.

He added that the government has failed to ensure the welfare of Papuans, leading to widespread discontent with Jakarta in the resource rich but underdeveloped province.

"As long as the government fails to make a significant improvements in people's welfare in Papua, we will most likely face continuous terror and sporadic attacks," he said.

"There is no other way for the government to solve the problem then to show to the world that it means business in improving welfare in Papua," he added.

[Markus Makur contributed to this story from Papua.]

Human rights/law

Harsh defamation laws harm free speech in Indonesia

Jakarta Globe - July 21, 2009

Joe Cochrane, Bogor – Irwansyah is in a bit of a bind. The 33- year-old chief of the Bogor city police crime unit is investigating a criminal defamation complaint against an 18-year-old girl who called one of her friends a "dog" on the social networking site Facebook.

Although common sense dictates that the police resolve this teenage tiff over a boyfriend with a stern lecture at most, followed by an apology and handshake, the complainant isn't budging.

So Irwansyah is collecting evidence and consulting with experts on whether the alleged Facebook offense should go to court – which could result in one of the girls going to prison for six years under the controversial 2008 Electronic Information and Transaction Law (ITE).

"Since both parties haven't decided to make peace, the investigation continues," he said during an interview at his office. "I don't have the authority to stop the investigation."

In fact, he said there's enough evidence of criminal defamation in the case to forward it to a prosecutor. If that happens, the nation could be in for another bout of seeming nonsense that threatens to make a mockery of its criminal justice system.

The case of Prita Mulyasari, the e-mail-writing mother of two who was tossed in jail by police and prosecutors in Tangerang, Banten, under the ITE's anti-defamation articles for complaining about the service at a local hospital, is still leaving a foul taste in the country's collective mouth.

But it's just one of several defamation cases involving politicians, public officials, the Armed Forces, journalists and even teenage girls in the past year.

But amid what's become a very embarrassing public legal circus, the real debate is drowned out: Should citizens be thrown in prison for writing a letter to the editor or poking fun of someone on Facebook? Should journalists be locked up for writing about a public government investigation into alleged medical malpractice in West Java? Why does the country still have Suharto-esque laws that make defamation a criminal offense with prison sentences?

The public officials who passed the ITE have yet to answer any of those questions. When Prita became a cause celebre – thanks to the media and sites like Facebook, where her case first became a public issue – presidential contenders Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla were quick to denounce her plight.

"If [the defamation law] is considered troubling, it is possible for it to be reviewed," Yudhoyono told reporters while on the campaign trail last month.

Kalla chimed in: "She [Prita] could have been placed under city arrest instead of being directly detained. How come writing an e-mail led to her detention?"

Well, mostly because Kalla's Golkar Party, Yudhoyono's Democratic Party and Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) all endorsed the ITE's passage in the House of Representatives (DPR) in April 2008.

But the presidential candidates tried to distance themselves from the law, as did House Speaker Agung Laksono, who told reporters – incorrectly – that prosecutors in Tangerang acted improperly in prosecuting Prita because the ITE doesn't come into effect until 2010. (Article 54/1 of the law states that it is "effective on its enactment date" of April 21, 2008.)

Legal and media experts say the House's passage of the ITE, as well as anti-pornography and public information laws, were the legislature's disguised attempts to limit free speech and freedom of expression. "From e-mail to jail, then there's no freedom left in the world," said O. C. Kaligis, who is Prita's defense attorney.

Dramatic as that may sound, there are troubling questions about the judgment of lawmakers, as well as the Yudhoyono government, which under the Constitution works in concert with the House to pass legislation.

Analysts have said that bills are oftentimes so badly written – most are packed with the particular interests of each political faction to avoid fights, even if articles contradict each other – that the laws that emerge are not helpful to the public at large.

"Both the government and DPR are to blame" for the ITE, said Hendrayana, executive director of the Legal Aid Foundation. "There's no synchronization or harmonization on legislation. Laws contradict each other."

Prita, who contends that doctors at Omni International Hospital in Banten misdiagnosed her and then refused to release medical records that may have proven her claim, had every legal right to complain verbally, by hand and by e-mail, under the 1999 Law on Consumer Protection, according to Gatot Dewa Broto, the head for public relations at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

"The right of the customer is the right to reply or to transmit his or her complaint," he said. "Prita herself was a former patient at that hospital. There was no reason to detain Prita."

However, the ITE, first drafted by Gatot's ministry, clearly states that police and prosecutors can detain suspects because Article 43 sets a prison sentence of up to six years.

Still, Gatot maintains that "the law itself is good" despite public outrage over Prita, but that the ministry would welcome a legal review and revisions of the ITE.

When asked why the ministry would welcome challenges to a law that it drafted, Gatot said, "The concept came from the ministry, then it was discussed with the Justice and Human Rights Ministry. Then in the House, normally, there were a lot of quite deep and critical discussions."

Really? When? Leo Batubara, deputy chairman of the Press Council, said the House neither asked for its opinion on the ITE nor invited any of its members to testify as experts to any House commissions.

He also claims the House intentionally inserted the six-year prison sentence into Article 45/1 of the law to make it tougher than the current Dutch-written penal code, which already mandates prison terms for defamation of up to 14 months.

"There's still an old paradigm among our government officials and regulators that they still need, criminal law to protect government officials in the media," Batubara said. "But also to intimidate and deter, and make our people very careful in expressing criticism."

He also said that former President BJ Habibie, while releasing political prisoners, opening up the press and calling new elections during the heady days after the Suharto regime fell in 1998, refused to budge on the issue of criminal defamation.

"Some of our leaders in the government and DPR still don't like the idea of freedom of the press," Batubara said.

However, there is growing agreement that local police and prosecutors are equally guilty of overzealous or even malicious prosecutions of defamation cases, or a plain lack of common sense.

Just take a look at the ongoing trial of 10 boys arrested for shining shoes without a license and "gambling" – they were playing a kid's coin-tossing game with a Rp 1,000 (10 cents) prize. Who decided to arrest, jail and take them to court? Police and state prosecutors in Tangerang.

In Prita's case, members of the Banten Prosecutor's Office were accused of professional misconduct for allegedly adding charges under the ITE to her dossier after police refused to do so. They also ordered Prita to be detained without getting a judge's order, after which the chief of the prosecutor's office was transferred.

They apparently were also completely oblivious to the Consumer Protection Law – or skirted around it. "Everywhere in the world, there is abuse of power, there is injustice," Kaligis said.

The Banten Prosecutor's Office did not respond to several phone calls from the Jakarta Globe seeking comment about the cases of Prita and the gambling shoe-shine boys. On July 7, Attorney General Hendarman said prosecutors would appeal the decision by the Tangerang District Court to throw out Prita's case on the grounds that the ITE isn't in effect until 2010.

But the attorney general quickly added that he would still pursue disciplinary action against the first prosecution team for alleged misconduct.

Hamzah Tadja, a deputy attorney general, last week criticized the Tangerang prosecutors for pursuing the gambling case against the 10 schoolboys and promised to look into the matter, given the controversies surrounding the prosecutors.

Gatot of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology confirmed that the ITE is in effect now, but said the ministry hasn't said anything because it fears the Tangerang District Court will lock up Prita again.

"This is something we don't want," he said. "We have to ask the police, the judges, the courts and others, please, don't interpret this law on such a narrow perception. Otherwise, there will be many victims."

Indeed, a businessman who wrote a complaint letter to the press about a local developer who allegedly swindled him was found guilty of defamation on July 15. The court handed him a suspended six-month sentence, likely choosing to avoid more public anger, but the fact remains he was convicted.

If there's one silver lining from the defamation controversy, it's that the pillars of the nation's democracy functioned in Prita's case: The press reported her story, causing public outrage and social activism that prompted authorities to release her.

The ball is now in Yudhoyono's court to review the ITE. One caveat is that the Constitutional Court has already struck down a challenge to its defamation article and six-year prison sentence.

For her part, Prita is considering filing her own lawsuit against Omni hospital and the Banten Prosecutor's Office, even as she waits to see if she must go to court again.

"I'm just thinking positively and praying for the best. I'm just very tired of all this," she said. So is most of the country.

AGO reforms Half-hearted: watchdog

Jakarta Post - July 21, 2009

Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – The Attorney General's Office (AGO) is implementing bureaucratic reforms halfheartedly, Gadjah Mada University's Indonesian Judiciary Supervisory Community (MAPPI) said Monday. The Attorney General has had reform plans since 2005, during the tenure of Abdurrahman Saleh," MAPPI chairman Hasril Hertanto said Monday.

"Abdurrahman announced 12 priority programs, including the reformation of the AGO's management, recruitment and promotion process and many other areas."

Hasril was speaking at a press conference reviewing the AGO's performance ahead of the offices' 49th anniversary on Wednesday.

The current attorney general, Hendarman Supandji, subsequently launched his own bureaucratic reform measures on July 22, 2007.

Hendarman's reforms apparently focus on improving the AGO's recruitment and career development mechanisms, training programs, code of conduct, standards and methods of supervision.

"Unfortunately, the programs have yet to be properly implemented within the institution," Hasril said. "This has led many of the nation's prosecutors to believe the programs are aimed only at officials who work at AGO headquarters, and not them."

Therefore, Hasril said, corruption continues to run rampant in judicial systems across the nation. "Other reform promises have yet to materialize, including the improvement of prosecutors' remuneration, which has further demoralized prosecutors."

He also pointed out that promotion mechanisms, which emphasize seniority and familial relationships – and not performance or ability – remain a problem. "The AGO has developed a family empire," he said.

Emerson Yuntho of the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) expressed similar concerns, saying the Attorney General has made a "half- hearted commitment to bureaucratic reform within his office and this has only materialized by a quarter of a heart".

He also criticized AGO officials, who he said did not support the reform program. "They do not realize that the programs are for the improvement of their own performance," Emerson said.

There have been dozens of corruption cases involving AGO officials over the years.

Among the more high-profile was a major bribery case involving senior prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan, who was sentenced to a 20- year jail term; prosecutor Rakhmawati Utami's accusations that Prita Mulyasari violated the controversial Information and Electronic Transaction Law, only for her to be later acquitted as well as prosecutors Esther Tanak and Dara Veranita's alleged misuse of court evidence in a drug case.

Except for Urip's suspension, none of these tainted prosecutors have been reprimanded by AGO headquarters.

"The President, as the direct superior of the Attorney General, is supposed to evaluate the performance of the AGO so that he can determine whether the incumbent attorney general has done his duty well or not," Emerson said.

Considering the AGO's recent performance, Hasril said Hendarman had not successfully reformed the AGO and that his efforts represented near total failure.

"The AGO reform programs can be considered successful only when people receive better legal services, when corruption is brought to a minimum and with the presence of a better and fairer mechanism for promotions for prosecutors.

"We expect the AGO can use these criticisms as something to reflect on as it commemorates its 49th anniversary," he said.

Indonesia leads failed fight for tougher human rights body

Jakarta Globe - July 20, 2009

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda reportedly led a failed effort to strengthen the future powers of Southeast Asia's first regional human rights body during talks Sunday in Thailand.

Plans for the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights are set to be approved at the Asean conference now underway in the Thai resort town of Phuket.

The new body has been criticized as toothless since it will not be able to monitor or punish member nations.

Officials said Wirajuda, joined by the Thai delegation, led a strong last-minute push to increase the body's powers. But a senior regional diplomat, speaking anonymously, told AFP that some of Indonesia's proposals were "not acceptable" to countries such as Burma.

Thai Prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva later told reporters the commission would focus on promoting human rights, rather than protecting them. "It's better to make a start than to leave it hanging, with no progress at all," Abhisit said. (AFP, AP)

Prosecutors under fire again after throwing the book at children

Jakarta Globe - July 15, 2009

Ismira Lutfia – The Tangerang Prosecutor's Office, which has been roundly condemned for its handling of the Prita Mulysari case, has again been thrust into the public spotlight with its decision to charge 10 boys aged between 8 and 11 with gambling.

The public outrage over the office's decision to charge Prita with defaming Omni International Hospital in an e-mail message criticizing the facility's treatment resulted in Attorney General Hendarman Supandji rebuking the district prosecutors for "unprofessional conduct" and ordering an investigation into their actions.

The furor cost Dondy Soedirman his job as head of the Tangerang office. He was removed from Banten and demoted, though the AGO never formally linked the steps to the decision to file charges against Prita.

In the latest case, prosecutors formally indicted a group of shoe-shine boys for gambling after police arrested them at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport while placing Rp 1,000 (10 cent) bets on the outcome of coin tosses in late May.

Seto Mulyadi, the chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA), said lodging criminal charges against juveniles was unacceptable. "This is an example of failing to understand the Child Protection Law and child psychology."

Seto said the entire incident should simply be seen as a group of children at play. "The law enforcers should see it from the children's perspective and that their context was just to play. They were not gambling."

He said the boys were victims of government policies that were unfriendly to children, such as the failure to provide a sufficient number of playgrounds. He said taking legal action against the boys would criminalize them, and that the police, who initially took the children into custody, should have consulted Komnas PA.

AGO spokesman Jasman Panjaitan said the decision to charge the boys was in accordance with the 1997 Juvenile Court Law. "The law stipulates that children can be tried in a juvenile court if they are between 8 and 18 years old," Jasman said.

However, Adnan Pandupraja, a member of the National Police Commission (Kompolnas), said law enforcement officials needed to be more flexible when dealing with juveniles, adding that the case would set a bad precedent for future cases.

He also said the police should view themselves as public protectors when dealing with children.

"Don't they have such values [to protect] anymore?" Adnan said. "They are not merely law enforcers but they are also the protectors of society."

Estu Rakhmi Fanani, director of the Women's Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Apik), said law enforcers needed to view every step of the legal process from the perspective of children when dealing with juveniles. "They should be regarded as just children, not as criminals," Estu said.

She added that it was important that law enforcers, when dealing with juveniles, saw the legal process as there to educate children and society at large about the need to create a child- friendly environment for young people to grow and develop.

Rights body seeks help for Pecatu farmers

Jakarta Post - July 15, 2009

Denpasar – The National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has urged the Bali governor to help solve a lingering problem involving 84 farmers and the management of the Bali Pecatu Graha (BPG) owned by Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, the youngest son of the late former president Soeharto.

Eight months ago, 84 farmers from Pecatu, 30 kilometers south of Denpasar, reported to Komnas HAM that BPG had illegally occupied 11 hectares of their land for various development projects at the Bali Pecatu Graha exclusive housing complex.

Nur Kholis from Komnas HAM, said the farmers had not received any compensation from BPG management for their use of the land. "We have met with BPG's management as well as the Badung regent, but both parties have responded slowly," Kholis said.

"We urge the Bali governor to handle the problem as BPG's permit was issued by the provincial administration," he said.

According to a report, BPG's permit was issued by former governor Ida bagus Oka.

Since l996, BPG has been developing a luxurious housing, business and sporting complex on a 650-hectare plot of land at Pecatu Hill near Jimbaran. The complex has an international standard golf course, restaurants, a housing complex and other facilities.

Environment/natural disasters

Dry spell hits Indonesia

Straits Times - July 20, 2009

Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, Indonesia, Jakarta – The El Nino climate phenomenon could hit Indonesia this year, producing a dry spell that could threaten its rice fields.

The Bengawan Solo River, which meanders through Central Java and East Java, is the main source of irrigation for the island's paddies and is already fast receding, local newspapers have reported. Java's thousands of hectares of paddy fields normally produce 60per cent of the country's total rice output.

Since the beginning of this month, a main dam near the river in Central Java, called Gajah Mungkur, has lost a fifth of its water because of dry weather conditions that may be a sign of El Nino's impending return.

El Nino is a condition caused by temperature fluctuations in the oceans and atmosphere that has been blamed for floods in normally dry areas and droughts in usually wet ones, as well as other disturbances around the world.

Already in Cilacap in Central Java, 36,000 families have been struggling to get clean water from their village wells since early this month, newspapers reported last week. The water level has receded greatly in some wells. In others, water has turned yellow.

The local government is now pledging to bring in tanks of clean water to the troubled villages, as farmers have been asked to switch from planting paddy to other crops that require less water. The dry weather may continue until the end of the year, forecasters say.

Ms Ati Wasiati Hamid, a director in charge of protecting food crops at the Agriculture Ministry, told the Jakarta Globe that this may push back the rainy season – which normally starts in September – to December. This means the planting of paddy, which usually starts by early October, may also have to wait.

The declining rainfall and cold morning temperatures in some areas are signs that El Nino is coming, said Mr Winarno Tochir, head of the Indonesian Fishermen and Farmers Association. But clearer signs of its return should be evident by the middle of next month, he said.

Still, not everyone is pessimistic just yet. Even if El Nino does come, it could be moderate, as it was in 2002 and 2006, rather than severe, as in 1997, said director-general of food crops Sutarto Alimoeso, Ms Ati's boss.

The year 1997 is believed to be the worst El Nino year, with eight months of drought resulting in a huge shortfall in rice output, forcing the country to import more than five million tonnes of rice. 'We still hope it won't happen. But if it happens, we have measures we can take,' Mr Sutarto told The Straits Times. 'We will boost output from the areas where it is possible to maximise production, while areas susceptible to El Nino can switch to other crops like corn.'

El Nino occurs on average every two to five years, and typically lasts about 12months. It also causes temperatures to rise and, combined with drier conditions, increases the risk of forest fires.

Heavy haze blankets Riau

Jakarta Globe - July 18, 2009

Jakarta Globe – A heavy smoke haze from forest fires curbed visibility in Riau early on Friday, forcing delays in flights landing and taking off from the Pekanbaru airport, an official said.

"Visibility was very low this morning. It was still at just 300 meters at 7:00 am," said Farman, from the meteorology office in the Riau capital of Pekanbaru.

He said that strengthening winds, reaching up to 4 knots from the south, finally helped clear the sky and by 9:20 a.m. visibility had improved to some 1,000 meters.

"The bad visibility delayed at least two flights from the airport this morning," Farman said, adding that the flights – Mandala and Lion Air flights to Jakarta – had been each delayed two hours.

Farman said that the delays had become a daily routine in the past two weeks as the fires continue to rage.

"The haze is really thick in the morning and, depending on the winds, it has usually cleared up by around 10 to 11 in the morning," he said.

The haze often returned in the late afternoon and stayed thick until the following morning, he added.

The haze has been blamed on the practice of clearing land using fire for the upcoming planting seasons, coinciding with the beginning of the rainy season. Although the practice is outlawed, enforcement has been weak because of manpower and fund limitations.

Residents staying put despite mudflow

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2009

Amir Tejo, Surabaya – Residents of a neighborhood in the Porong subdistrict of Sidoarjo, East Java, are reportedly refusing to leave their homes despite being warned that a new mudflow is threatening to consume the area.

"Up until today, only 40 families have submitted documents requesting assistance [to leave]," Ahmad Zulkarnain, a spokesman for the Sidoarjo Mudflow Observation Team (BPLS), said on Thursday.

This new mudflow began surging from the ground earlier this month near a house in Siring Barat, not far from the site of the massive Lapindo mud volcano that has covered entire neighborhoods, factories and paddy fields, and officials warn that it is growing in force.

Zulkarnain said 315 families lived in Siring Barat. They are eligible to apply for government assistance of Rp 2.5 million ($250) per year, but first they must vacate their homes.

He said residents were reluctant to leave because some had home businesses and others did not want to move far from their places of work or their children's schools.

"BPLS provides social aid of Rp 2.5 million per year, but the residents know too well that most houses require you to pay for two years' worth of rent," Zulkarnain said. "The residents do not want to go through all the trouble of finding a house that they can rent for one year only."

He said that his office would begin distributing aid to those families that had agreed to move. "We plan to disburse the funds tomorrow [Friday] through state-owned bank BNI," Zulkarnain added.

Smoke haze in Indonesia's Riau worsens

Xinhua - July 15, 2009

Smoke haze resulted from forest fire in Indonesia's Riau province is getting out of control, the private news portal detikcom reported on Wednesday.

Starting early morning till Wednesday noon, the capital city of Pekanbaru has been in a condition as if it was cloudy. It did not mean that the rain would start to fall. It was just because the sunlight had been blocked by thick smoke.

The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) reported that 144 hotspots spread equally in all residences and cities. It was likely that the smoke spread to neighboring areas of Malaysia and Singapore. Fire also occurred in Pekanbaru downtown with fire ravaging in several empty lands occupied by bushes.

However, the Forestry Minister MS Kaban who recently visited Pekanbaru said that the magnitude of the smoke haze had been exaggerated by national mass media.

A Riau-based non-governmental organization (NGO) expressed its regret upon the minister's statement.

"It is very obvious that fire in Riau is getting worse and out of control. We see fire everywhere," said the Director of Tropika,an NGO, Harijal Jalil.

Tropika's data showed that the forest fire was not only caused by people. Timber companies and palm plantations also contributed to the fire.

Corruption & graft

Watchdogs fear police probe aims to cripple KPK

Jakarta Globe - July 15, 2009

Nivell Rayda & Heru Andriyanto – Antigraft watchdogs have denounced a plan by police to arrest several officials of the Corruption Eradication Commission, saying the move is part of a systematic effort to weaken the high-profile commission.

The groups spoke out as the National Police and the Attorney General's Office met to allegedly discuss bribery suspicions involving the commission, which is also known as the KPK. Police and AGO sources have said that three of the four KPK deputy chairmen are the likely targets.

Attorney General Hendarman Supandji denied the meeting was held to discuss the allegations.

On Tuesday, an anonymous police official said KPK officials were targets of a probe into a corruption case involving private company PT Masaro Radiokom.

With the commission already under scrutiny because of pending murder charges against its suspended chairman, Antasari Azhar, activists were concerned that enemies of the commission are trying to deliver a knockout blow against the powerful body.

"We are worried that the police would just name them as suspects so that they would be suspended from the KPK," said Emerson Yuntho, coordinator for legal and judiciary affairs at Indonesia Corruption Watch, an NGO.

Emerson said the commissioners would automatically be suspended from their positions if the case went to trial, crippling the legitimacy of the body.

In May, Antasari was named a suspect in the love-triangle murder of a businessman. He was suspended and his four deputies have assumed the leadership of the commission in his absence.

Teten Masduki, secretary general of Transparency International Indonesia, another leading antigraft NGO, said there had been several attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the KPK, including a long delay in approving a pending bill that is needed to provide the legal basis for the KPK's Anti-Corruption Court to continue.

"These aren't separate incidents and indicate that there are systematic efforts to rein in the KPK," Teten said. Teten called on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to be "true to his word that there must not be any rivalry between law enforcement agencies."

Members of the two organizations, along with the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) and the Society for Judicial Reform, visited the commission's headquarters in Kuningan, South Jakarta, in a show of support for the KPK.

Patra Zein, chairman of the Jakarta chapter of LBH, said the death of the KPK would mean the death of the reform movement and the fight against corruption.

"The KPK was established to eliminate rampant corrupt practices in Indonesia that have ruined the nation," he said. "The AGO and the police are even listed as the country's most corrupt institutions. So why should we trust them to handle corruption cases?"

Teten said that without the KPK, Yudhoyono would have a hard time fulfilling his campaign promise to clean up government because the public appeared to have more faith in the commission than in the police.

July 17 Jakarta bombings

Police ban radical cleric in aftermath of Jakarta bombings

Jakarta Globe - July 21, 2009

Candra Malik – Hard-line preacher Abu Bakar Bashir was reportedly barred by police on Tuesday from delivering a sermon in Malang, East Java, after complaints from local residents marked the second major public rejection of Bashir's hard-line push for an Islamic state.

Wahyudin, the director of the Al Mukmin Islamic Boarding School, known as Ngruki, in Central Java, said that he regretted the police decision to prevent Bashir, the school's founder, from spreading his message.

The ban was announced after residents of the second-largest city in the province reportedly said Bashir was a threat to Islamic unity.

It is unclear if the decision was in response to Friday's terrorist attacks in Jakarta and the complete rejection of violence by most religious organizations, or if the Malang decision was part of a wider police effort to muzzle Bashir, at least in the immediate aftermath of the Jakarta attacks.

"The police action is baseless," Wahyudin said. "It shows how the government apparently dislikes what [Abu Bakar Bashir] is doing to implement Shariah law correctly." In 2003, Bashir was jailed for involvement in the 2002 Bali bombing conspiracy, which claimed the lives of 202 people, but the conviction was overturned in 2006.

Bashir once headed the Indonesian Mujahideen Council, an organization advocating the implementation of Shariah law in Indonesia. He resigned last year, however, following a disagreement with rivals in the group.

He has also been accused of serving as the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network, though he denies that the group exists. He has been reported as saying that if Westerners want peace, they must accept Islam.

In June, residents of one Surabaya neighborhood – in what was described at the time as an indication that Indonesians had become tired of hard-line Islamic views – barred the doors of a mosque that they believed was being used to promote hard-line Islamist teachings, including regular speeches by Bashir.

Residents of Jalan Sidotopo IV in the city shut down the Al Ihsan Sabilillah Mosque for three full days before agreeing to re-open it. The dispute came to an end only after a meeting with the head of the mosque and local authorities at the Sukolilo subdistrict office.

Indonesia police probe school on attacks: Teacher

Agence France Presse - July 21, 2009

Arlina Arshad, Jakarta – Indonesian police Tuesday questioned teachers at an Islamic boarding school amid reports a former student was one of two suicide bombers involved in last week's Jakarta bombings.

A teacher at the school confirmed that police had been questioning staff at the Al-Mukmin school in Ngruki, Central Java, for the past two days following Friday's twin suicide bombings of luxury hotels.

"The police came yesterday and today. It's just ordinary chat. The police checking on us is normal," Al-Mukmin deputy principal Muhammad Sholeh Ibrahim told AFP.

The coordinated blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in a central Jakarta business district popular with foreigners killed seven people including three Australians, a New Zealander and an Indonesian.

Two other victims remain unidentified, possibly a Dutch couple who were reportedly guests of the Ritz-Carlton and have been missing since Friday. More than 50 people were wounded in the attacks, the worst in Indonesia since 2005.

Police have not confirmed widespread reports in the Indonesian media that a graduate of the Ngruki school – most commonly identified as Nur Hasbi, alias Nurdin Aziz or Nur Sahid – was the Marriott bomber.

Ibrahim said a former student called Nur Said had attended the school and graduated in 1994 along with Asmar Latin Sani, the suicide bomber who detonated a truck bomb outside the Marriott in 2003, killing 12 people.

"He was just like normal students, nothing extraordinary about him. He graduated in 1994 with Asmar," Ibrahim said of Nur Said.

Police and senior counter-terror officials have said the bombings look like the work of Noordin Mohammed Top, one of Asia's most wanted terrorists and the leader of an extreme offshoot of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network.

Malaysia's Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that based on police intelligence, the Malaysian-born militant was not in Malaysia, the Star daily said on its website.

The Ngruki school was co-founded by Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah which is blamed for dozens of bombings across Indonesia since the late 1990s, including the 2002 Bali blasts which killed 202 people.

The Islamic teacher denied the school was a hatchery for suicide bombers, although it is well-known that several of its graduates have become Jemaah Islamiyah members and helped carry out terror attacks.

"The Ngruki school is an educational institute. We have nothing to do with terrorism and I refute reports saying that," Ibrahim said.

Local media have reported that police had collected DNA samples from Nur Said's family as they try to identify the bombers using remains including a severed head, but this has not been confirmed. "We are still investigating," deputy police spokesman Sulistyo Ishak told reporters Monday.

Police also have not confirmed that the bomber was a man wearing a backpack on his chest and dragging a suitcase who was caught by security cameras entering the Marriott's dining area shortly before the blast.

A security guard reportedly asked him where he was going and the man, who looked Indonesian, replied that he was going to give something to his boss.

New footage from the Marriott which was aired on local television Tuesday appeared to show the same man, wearing a suit coat and baseball cap, passing through the hotel's airport-style security checks with his suitcase. The Marriott has defended its security measures as "very tight".

Police said an unexploded bomb left in a guest room of the Marriott resembled devices used in the 2002 Bali bombings and one discovered in a recent raid on a reported Noordin hideout in Central Java.

A police crackdown – including key arrests and the inducement of militants to defect – has hobbled JI in Indonesia and severed its links to foreign funds in recent years.

But while the network is diminished, analysts say JI has been able to fall back on a tight network of schools and marriages to maintain cohesion and possibly rebuild.

Nations join forces to deliver justice

Sydney Morning Herald - July 21, 2009

Tom Allard in Jakarta, Brendan Nicholson in Canberra – Australia and Indonesia say they will take their close police and security relationship "to a new level of intensity" after the Jakarta bombings.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, made the undertaking in a telephone conversation, leaving the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, and security personnel in Indonesia to work out the details.

The commitment between the leaders came as preparations were made for the return of the bodies of three Australians killed in Friday's terrorist attacks.

Garth McEvoy, Nathan Verity and Craig Senger were among the nine killed in the co-ordinated suicide bombings on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels. Their bodies have been moved to a government hospital in Cengkareng, near the airport, in preparation for their return to Australia.

Yesterday an Indonesian police spokesman, Ketut Untung Yoga Ana, said arrangements were being made for their repatriation. "They will return home either later today or tomorrow," he said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was helping with the repatriations and would provide funeral or memorial assistance to the men's families.

Australia poured police and intelligence resources into the Indonesian investigations after the Bali bombings and the Jakarta hotel and embassy bombings in 2003 and '04.

Indonesian police said later that they were able to arrest dozens of suspects after Australian agencies used spy satellites to track their mobile phone calls.

Australian experts were also able to use seismic records to match the precise time of one of the Bali blasts to the phone call that was used to trigger the bomb.

The Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, said the Indonesian police had the world's best record for tracking down and prosecuting terrorists.

A terrorism analyst at the Australian National University, Greg Fealy, said the bombers in last week's attack were much better prepared than those in a previous attack on the hotel.

"If you think back to the first bombing at the Marriott, the driver of the vehicle [filled with explosives] couldn't even operate a clutch properly. That's why he didn't get the car into the foyer and cause absolute carnage."

Friday's bombers had booked into the hotel two days earlier and were at ease in their setting.

Security camera footage from the hotel is being scrutinised. An Australian Federal Police officer, a specialist in the forensic examination of such footage, arrived in Jakarta yesterday.

Investigators have yet to identify either bomber, although there are suspicions that Nur Hasbi, a long-time member of a cell organised by Noordin Mohammed Top is one of them.

His family was taken to Jakarta yesterday to provide a DNA sample that will be cross-matched with the mangled corpse of one of the bombers.

On Sunday, Mr Rudd asked Dr Yudhoyono to give his condolences to Indonesians for their loss and the President expressed his sorrow that Australians were caught up in the tragedy.

Mr Rudd's spokeswoman said the leaders were united in their determination to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

"They recalled that the experience of the Bali tragedy showed how effective their police services could be when working together." (With agencies)

Terrorists took election as opportunity, experts say

Jakarta Post - July 21, 2009

Jakarta – Intelligence experts say the recent presidential election distracted the police from the activities of terrorist organizations, leading to the recent bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels.

The Indonesian authorities inability to counter Islamic radicals's ideological justification of violence as well as their failure to capture Noordin M. Top, Indonesia's most wanted man, mean terrorist attacks will remain a threat to the country, experts said.

"Most security personnel were focused on the elections, providing a window of opportunity for the terrorists to execute their mission," an expert from the National Independence Development Institute (LPKN), Wawan Purwanto, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"The terrorists constantly change their appearances. They also alter their daily behavior and addresses. These constant changes make it difficult for the police to hunt them down, even if they know their names," he added.

An expert from the University of Indonesia, Bambang Widodo Umar, said that while he agreed with the possibility that police had been distracted by the election, security institutions lack of adequate intelligence capabilities was the main problem.

"The general elections were indirect factors in the failure of the police to track uncover the latest terror plot. I believe the main factor is the fact that the police's intelligence capability remains too conventional.

"The police still see terrorism as something mainly related to home security issues, while in fact it is also related to other economic, social and cultural issues," Bambang said.

Despite police success in arresting over 400 suspected bombers, he said the recent terrorist attacks show the government has failed to successfully counter ideological arguments used by Islamic militants to justify their bombings.

A number of would-be bombers captured have confessed that they were willing to die because they were told they were fighting Islam's enemies, and would go to heaven as a reward.

Although a number of the country's top clerics have denounced violence, the government has been viewed as not doing enough to implement a nationwide campaign against radical teachings.

Suicide bombers hit two luxury hotels in Mega Kuningan, Jakarta, last Friday morning. The blast killed nine people and injured more than 50.

The police have said that explosive material recovered from the scene is "identical" to that used by the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network in previous attacks.

This revelation has led to widespread speculation that prominent Malaysian terrorist Noordin M. Top, a leader of a JI faction, orchestrated Friday's tragedy.

"It is still difficult for the police to capture Noordin because he is under the protection of his network," director of the International Crisis Group Director Sidney Jones said during an interview with TVOne. "Noordin outsmarted the police with conventional methods. For example, to prevent being wire-tapped, Noordin uses couriers to deliver his messages."

Sidney said that she believed the police would be able to capture the rest of Noordin's faction. "The police have managed to capture around 400 terrorists so far. There are around 12 or 13 JI terrorists left now. I believe the police will be able to capture them all." (hdt)

Muslim lawyer: Don't blame JI

Antara News - July 20, 2009

Surabaya – Suicide bombings at two Jakarta hotels on Friday had nothing to do with Jemaah Islamiyah, a member of the Muslim Lawyers Team said on Monday.

"Please, don't link the bombing attacks to the Jemaah Islamiyah organization," Fahmi Bachmid said.

Bachmid, who served as a lawyer for Amrozi, one of the three men executed last year for the 2002 Bali bombings, said the police should not rush to link the bombings to an Islamic group or network. "No religion in the world, Islam in particular, teaches violence," he said.

He declined to comment on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's statement that the bombings may have been linked to this month's presidential election. "I am not willing to comment on that because I am not a politician," he said.

Bachmid asked that everyone wait for the police to finish their investigation into the attacks before coming to any conclusions.

"Let's allow the police to work first. Before the definite results of their investigation are known, all parties should refrain from speculating on the perpetrators of the bombings," he said.

Meanwhile, the Tarbiyah Islamiyah Organization also sought to distance religion from Friday's bombings. "Islam does not adopt terror such as bombings," said Basri Bermanda, chairman of the group's central executive board.

He said terrorist acts violated the tenets of Islam, but they could be carried out by groups misusing the label of Islam or by non-Muslims who wanted to tarnish the image of Islam.

Basri also said that Islam was not identifiable with violence. "Islam teaches peace and goodness," he said. He added that anyone who linked Islam with terrorism did not understand the religion.

Adnan Harahap, a member of the organization's central board, said most Muslims in Indonesia belonged to the "Ahlussunnah wal Jamaah" group, which practices the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. "Even though most Indonesians are Muslims, they do not adopt extremist attitudes," he said.

Adnan said that Islamic symbols were frequently abused by parties seeking to serve their own interests, in violation of the religion's teachings.

Abu Bakar Bashir, the former chairman of the Indonesian Mujaeedeen Council (MMI) and a Muslim cleric who in the past has been linked to Jemaah Islamiyah as its alleged spiritual leader, also called Friday's bombers "enemies of Islam." "Those who did the bombings have caused Muslims to become scapegoats for terrorist acts," he said.

Another Muslim organization, Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, was also at pains over the weekend to condemn the bombings.

HTI spokesman Muhammad Ismail Yusanto said, "Islam firmly forbids the killing of people for no reason, destroying personal property and public facilities, much more so if such acts claim lives and cause widespread fear."

He called on the police and mass media outlets to be cautious in linking the bombings to an Islamic movement, group or organization. "It is possible that certain parties masterminded the bombings to create chaos and instability to achieve certain political aims," he said.

'Rattled' Yudhoyono casts suspicion on rival

Sydney Morning Herald - July 20, 2009

Tom Allard, Jakarta – An extraordinary address by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in which he all but linked one of his political rivals to Friday's terrorist attacks has raised questions about the leader's judgment in a crisis.

President Yudhoyono is renowned for his methodical, if boring, countenance, but his first response to the attacks on Friday included a brief message of condolence before he launched into a rambling dissertation on how "elites" were trying to undermine his election win earlier this month.

He also showed photos of himself that were used as target practice by an unnamed "terrorist" group and said there was a plan to "take over the KPU (election commission) by force on the day of the (election) result announcement".

"There's a statement that there will be a revolution if SBY won, there's a statement we will turn Indonesia like Iran, and last, there's a statement that SBY will not be and cannot be inaugurated," said Dr Yudhoyono, who is universally known as SBY in Indonesia.

Dr Yudhoyono is well ahead in vote counting, but his election win will not be formally announced by the election commission until July 27.

Clearly emotional, he also seemed to link former special forces commander and alleged human rights abuser Prabowo Subianto to the terrorist bombings. Mr Subianto was the vice-presidential candidate who ran with Megawati Sukarnoputri and has claimed widespread voter fraud undermined the poll.

"Law enforcement has to capture and try the mastermind behind this violence," the President said. "Perhaps in the past we have people who committed murder, made people disappear and they managed to evade the law. This time our country cannot let this one go, they who become Dracula and spread death for the country."

Harbrinderjit Singh Dillon, a prominent political columnist and well-connected former senior government adviser, said it was clear that Dr Yudhoyono was referring to Mr Subianto, who was accused of kidnapping and murdering students in the dying days of the Suharto regime.

"He was as good as named by SBY. It was so obvious what he was saying for a person like me who has known him for 12 years," Dr Dillon said. "The timing could have been better. I really don't know why he said it."

Mr Subianto denies he is a human rights abuser and rejected emphatically any suggestion he was behind Friday's bombings.

Lili Romli, a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, said President Yudhoyono had to clarify his remarks, as he had created "confusion among the people".

"He shouldn't speak like that, let alone show those pictures," Mr Romli said. "In my opinion, he should have just condemned the bombing, admitted that terrorists successfully escaped security attention but promised that the nation's law enforcers would chase them wherever they go and take them to court."

Dr Yudhoyono's remarks spurred a wave of conspiracy theorising among Jakarta elites.

Dr Dillon said the President had been rattled by Mr Subianto's post-poll "sniping", and the trauma of the terrorist attacks may have tipped him over the edge. "It was uncharacteristic of him. He is always so controlled and well behaved but people are tearing him apart for this."

Hotel guard's close encounter with one of the Jakarta bombers

Sydney Morning Herald - July 20, 2009

A regular breakfast meeting was the perfect terrorist target, writes Lindsay Murdoch in Jakarta.

The terrorist knew exactly where to go. Seventeen of Indonesia's top executives had just been served breakfast in a private lounge off the main lobby of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.

Noke Kiroyan remembers the time – 7.45am – he was opening a text message from his wife, after finishing his eggs and yoghurt.

"It was a long message and as I was reading it there was a loud bang and then a red flash in my eyes," said Mr Kiroyan, a former president of the Indonesia-Australia Business Council.

A few minutes earlier Didik Taufik, one of the hotel's security guards, thought it odd that a man wearing a backpack on his chest and dragging a suitcase was walking towards the breakfast gathering, a Friday morning ritual for the heads of many of Indonesia's biggest foreign companies.

"Good morning, what can I do for you?" Mr Taufik asked the man, who said he wanted to meet his boss. "Who is your boss and where is he?" Mr Taufik asked.

The man avoided the question. "I want to deliver what my boss ordered," the man said, insisting on dragging what we now know to be a suitcase packed with high explosives, nails and metal screws towards the meeting.

Mr Taufik did not want to delay one of the hotel's high-powered breakfast guests receiving his delivery. The man appeared calm, not like someone about to kill himself and as many people as he could get near.

Security footage shows he was wearing a baseball cap pulled slightly over his oval face. He was 172 centimetres tall. His skin was brown and he spoke with an Indonesian accent.

Mr Taufik indicated to Dadang, another security guard, that he should accompany the man to the breakfast, which is in accordance with hotel rules.

A Dutch businessman, Roy Widosuwito, the president of Perfetti Van Melle, which makes sweets, did not notice the terrorist walk into the room.

By luck, he was sitting at a table furthest from the entrance, next to American James Castle, a long-time Jakarta political lobbyist and business consultant, whose company CastleAsia hosts the breakfasts.

Mr Widosuwito said he was sipping coffee after finishing his omelette when he glanced towards the entrance and saw a fireball. "I covered my face and thought, 'oh my god, I am going to die'," he told the Straits Times in Singapore.

"I recognised this was a bomb because I've lived here for quite some time, so you know about these things," he said. "Immediately the whole room was full of dust and smoke... a few seconds later, I opened my eyes and I couldn't see anything. But I could move my hands and I thought, 'hey, I'm not dead'."

Mr Kiroyan said he must have been knocked unconscious because he was on the floor in total darkness. Water was falling on his face – the blast had activated the hotel's fire sprinklers.

Fear flashed through his mind that he would never see again. "I'm blind, I'm blind," he called out in English. He heard someone screaming the same thing.

Somewhere in the blackness, he heard someone groaning "Allah akbar", which means "God is the greatest". He thinks it was one of his Indonesian colleagues, who also thought he was going to die.

Mr Kiroyan eventually saw a light in the distance. "There was debris everywhere... I stepped over things and made it to the entrance," he said.

Somehow, Adrianto Machribie, a former head of the mining company Freeport, also made it out of the room, despite severe injuries. Mr Kiroyan saw a rescuer cradling his head.

"The hotel staff were great... one of them grabbed me by the arm and led me outside to the pavement," said Mr Kiroyan, who counts himself lucky because he suffered only a burst ear drum and a black eye.

At least four of the nine people killed in the twin blasts that hit Jakarta on Friday were attending Mr Castle's breakfast – Australian trade official Craig Senger, Australian businessmen Nathan Verity and Garth McEvoy, and a New Zealand businessman, Tim McKay.

The dead also included Indonesians such as Evert, the hotel waiter who, Mr Kiroyan said, never had to be reminded what he liked for breakfast.

Friends say Mr Castle, a former president of the American Chamber of Commerce, who suffered minor injuries, is devastated by what happened.

It was the second time he had come close to death at the JW Marriott in Jakarta. In August 2003 he was having lunch at one of the hotel's restaurants when a car bomb exploded outside. He suffered minor injuries that time too.

Mr Kiroyan suspects the organisation behind previous terrorist attacks in Indonesia were responsible this time too. He hopes the terrorists have not succeeded in closing the Friday breakfasts, a forum where Mr Castle would raise a question, kicking off discussions on economic and political issues.

"We cannot allow these people to bring everything to a grinding halt," Mr Kiroyan said. "Perhaps in future, though, they need to be held in a place where intruders cannot enter."

Mr Widosuwito, who suffered ear injuries and had to have a metal screw removed from his thigh, says he feels lucky to be alive – but he is also angry at what has happened to Indonesia.

He says economically the country is doing well after the holding of peaceful and democratic elections. "But there are elements who want to disrupt the stability. This makes me angry," he said.

Muslim extremists seeking to overthrow Indonesia's democracy

The Australian - July 20, 2009

Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific editor – The Jakarta bombers aimed to destabilise Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's technocratic, mainstream, economically liberal government days after its landslide re-election, says one of Australia's leading Indonesia experts.

Tim Lindsey, director of Melbourne University's Asian Law Centre and chairman of the Australia Indonesia Institute, said yesterday that although the number of supporters of terrorist violence in the country of 240 million was "almost unmeasurably tiny", they could not be entirely eradicated.

Professor Lindsey said even Jemaah Islamiah's claim to have 5000 members was probably exaggerated. "But this group is incredibly successful, given their lack of resources and of support," he said. "They have been there for 60 years, and over and over again their extremist views have been defeated at the ballot box. None of the presidential candidates was backed by Islamist parties.

"Nevertheless, they have been able to dominate foreign perceptions of Indonesia, and to drive foreign policy and security policy, in their aim to weaken governments. This time, as before, they have sought to give the impression the SBY administration has been caught on the hop.

"They are saying through the bombings, 'Here we still are, you haven't beaten us. You can have your democracy, but we are still fighting'."

The extremists tended to choose as targets places attacked before, such as the JW Marriott hotel and Bali, where security was stiffer, "in order to reinforce that message 'You can't stop us'."

Professor Lindsey said Indonesia had led a highly successful crackdown on the Islamists. "They have arrested 400, who have been convicted in fair and open trials," he said.

"A weakness, though, is that many will come straight out of jail and do it again. That's where intelligence comes in. But this is a very fragmented group, hard to track. It's not the Coca-Cola corporation."

The revival of democracy in Indonesia had gone tandem with a revival in Islam, he said. "This is absolute anathema to JI – it's their worst nightmare."

The goals of JI and similar groups that had evolved from Darul Islam in Indonesia 60 years ago were "quite clear and unambiguous – to destabilise the Indonesian state through terrorist attacks, causing it to lose face and to turn inward, and to set up instead an Islamist caliphate".

In the 1950s, 20,000 people were killed during Darul Islam's war with the state. "Many of those involved in JI have kinship with those originally caught up in Darul Islam," Professor Lindsey said.

"They won't abandon what has become a family tradition. It can't be stopped, despite the spectacularly successful partnership between the Indonesian and Australian Federal Police. It is a feature of that society.

"The Indonesian government has been incredibly successful in containing it," he said. "But you only need a small number of followers to kill people."

Prabowo downplays politics at bombing prayer service

Jakarta Globe - July 20, 2009

Marcus J Sihaloho – Former Vice Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto brushed off questions about his political rivalry with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as he visited the site of twin hotel bombings in Jakarta on Monday.

In a speech shortly after the attacks on Friday, Yudhoyono said the bombings at The J.W Marriott and The Ritz Carlton might be related to the recent presidential election. Prabowo's running mate, former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, responded sharply, asking the president not to "exploit this tragedy for political reasons."

But Prabowo struck a milder note on Monday. "Let us try to think positively," he said after an interfaith prayer meeting at the Belaggio Mall, near the damaged hotels. "I know you reporters love controversy, but please, let's just keep the positive thinking."

Terror no part of religion, says Muslim scholar

Jakarta Globe - July 20, 2009

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Terrorism has no place in any religion, the leader of one of Indonesia's largest Muslim organizations said at a prayer gathering Monday for victims of the recent Jakarta hotel bombings.

"Religion is not terror and terror is not religion. What's happening is that a few people misunderstand and misinterpret the teachings," said Nadhlatul Ulama chairman Hasyim Muzadi.

"So nobody should think, for example, that Muslims carried out terror like Friday's bombing, or Christians did the same thing in Belfast [Northern Ireland], Hindus did it in South Ayodya [India], or Buddhists in Thailand," he added. "Please don't think the perpetrators represent their religions."

Leaders of several religious communities gathered at the interfaith service to memorialize Friday's suicide bombings at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriot hotels in Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta, which killed nine people and left more than 50 injured.

After the gathering, participants brought flowers to the nearby bombing sites.

Jemaah Islamiyah blamed for Jakarta blasts

Agence France Presse - July 19, 2009

Presi Mandari – Indonesian police confirmed regional terror outfit Jemaah Islamiyah as the culprits behind twin suicide blasts at Jakarta hotels, and said one of the bombers had been identified.

Jemaah Islamiyah, which draws inspiration from Al-Qaeda, has carried out dozens of bombings in Indonesia in the past decade including 2002 attacks in Bali that left more than 200 dead, mostly foreign tourists.

"We confirm that the attackers are from Jemaah Islamiyah because there are similarities in the bombs used," national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a press conference.

He said an exploded bomb left in a guestroom of the JW Marriott, which was attacked along with the nearby Ritz-Carlton, resembled devices used in Bali and one discovered in a recent anti-JI raid on an Islamic boarding school.

"They are from the same school. We found similar tools, similar materials and similar methods," he said.

Police have identified one of the two suicide bombers who targeted the hotels during the breakfast period Friday when they were packed with foreign businessmen and diplomats, he said.

"Following the preliminary results of facial reconstruction, both suicide bombers are male," he said, quelling speculation that a woman was involved.

"One of them has been identified. I cannot tell you his complete name but he has the initial 'N'. And another body is still in the process of identification."

Soekarna said nine people were killed in the attacks. Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda on Saturday put the toll at eight, including four foreigners and the two suicide bombers.

Three Australians and a New Zealander have been confirmed dead. The health ministry said a Singaporean man was also killed but did not give a complete name and the Singapore embassy here said it had not verified the death.

An Indonesian man identified by the single name Darmanto was also among those killed, the health ministry said.

Soekarna has said 16 foreigners were injured, including six Americans, two Dutch, one Australian, two Canadians, one Indian, two South Koreans, one New Zealander and a Norwegian.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on Sunday visited the site of the attacks, as part of a trip to express solidarity with Australia's northern neighbour.

Investigators say the bombers stayed in Room 1808 of the Marriott for two nights before the attacks and disguised themselves as guests when they walked into crowded dining and meeting areas and detonated their suitcase devices.

The bombs – brought into the hotels despite airport-style security measures – were packed with metal nuts to maximise the carnage.

The Indonesian security ministry's anti-terror desk chief, Ansyaad Mbai, has said that evidence pointed to Malaysian-born extremist Noordin Mohammed Top, who leads a violent splinter faction of JI.

Noordin is accused of masterminding bombings at the Jakarta Marriott in 2003, the Australian embassy in 2004 and Bali restaurants in 2005 which have killed more than 40 people.

Mbai said the advanced skills and planning used to pull off the blasts at the luxury hotels – among the most tightly guarded buildings in Indonesia – were extremely disturbing.

"Their new skills and advanced tactics, enabling them to smuggle the explosives into the targeted site, pose a very serious threat for our country," he told AFP.

"While they previously detonated the bombs from outside of the targeted place, now they managed to smuggle the bombs into the hotel and stayed several days in the hotel room where they planned the attacks," he said.

"Nobody can predict terror attacks. What we can do is to review our security system to get a more effective approach."

National police chief General Bambang Hendarso Danuri has called on hotels and shopping malls across the vast, mainly Muslim archipelago of 234 million people to raise their security protocols in response to the bombings.

The attacks triggered the cancellation of a planned Manchester United friendly against an Indonesian All-Star team scheduled for Monday, a decision that caused great dismay among football fans here.

Bashir school denies connection to bombers

Jakarta Globe - July 19, 2009

Dessy Sagita – An Islamic boarding school in Central Java founded by radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the reputed leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group, denied on Sunday that three of its graduates had carried out the terrorist suicide bombings in Jakarta on Friday.

"We strongly deny that statement. It is a baseless accusation and absolutely defamation," Muhammad Soleh Ibrahim, spokesman for the Al-Mukmin pesantren near the city of Solo, told the Jakarta Globe.

Abdurrahman Assegaf, head of the conservative Indonesian Islamic Community Movement (GUII), told local television stations on Saturday that the two suicide bombers and suspected accomplice in Friday's attacks at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in South Jakarta had graduated from the school, in the village of Ngruki. He identified them as Nur Hadi, Nur Sahid, and Nur Hasbi.

Investigators said Sunday they had identified the body of only one of the bombers. They released just his initial, N.

Soleh said the school would sue Assegaf for defamation unless he publicly apologized. "I have checked our student record since 1987 and none of them are listed as our students," Soleh said. "How did Assegaf come up with this idea anyway? He didn't even check with us before making that baseless statement."

Terrorism analysts have said Al-Mukmin is a recruiting ground for JI, and two of its most infamous students were Ali Ghufron and his younger brother Amrozi, two of the three Bali bombers who were executed in November 2008.

A former teacher at Al-Mukmin, Abdurahim bin Toyib, alias Abu Husna, was sentenced to nine years in prison in February for aiding and abetting JI military commander Abu Dujana, who was eventually captured in 2007.

Soleh said the Ngruki school, as it's commonly called, cannot take any responsibility for any of its former students' actions. "We have done our best to make them the best Muslims they can be. What they do after they left is not out business anymore," he said.

JI is blamed for multiple terrorist bombings across Indonesia dating back to 2000 that have killed hundreds of people. Bashir, accused of being JI's one-time spiritual leader, was convicted and sentenced to prison in 2005 for terrorist-related activities related to the 2002 Bali bombings but served just more than two years because prosecutors failed to prove he organized the attacks that killed 202 people. Bashir has always denied that JI exists.

Politicizing hotel bombings 'setback for democracy'

Jakarta Post - July 19, 2009

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – A group of activists urged the government Saturday to stop linking Friday's hotel bombings to the recent presidential election as they said it would only worsen the situation.

They said that politicizing the deadly bombings was a setback for democracy in Indonesia. "Stop politicizing the bombing tragedy, uphold the law and give priority to helping the victims," the activists said in a joint statement.

The coalition of activists included members of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights (Demos), the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Indonesian Woman's Coalition and the National Alliance of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika.

The activists made the call after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's statements that the perpetrators of the bombings were also targeting him in an attempt to derail the presidential election.

Yudhoyono said the terrorists were planning to take over the General Elections Commission (KPU) as ballot counting continues. He further said the group planned to make Indonesia like Iran, and that they would try to prevent him from being sworn in for his expected second term.

The KPU has yet to officially announce the winner of the election, but quick counts have put Yudhoyono well in front.

Demos' director Anton Prajasto said bringing the bombings into the political arena would confuse the process of democracy in the country. "This is the right moment for the government to uphold the law. It is the task of police to arrest the perpetrators of the bombings and bring them to court," he said.

Head of Kontras' impunity watch and fulfilment of victims' rights department, Yanti Andriani, deplored Yudhoyono for his provocative speech, made just hours after the bombing.

"Yudhoyono's speech came at the wrong time and in the wrong place. For us, it is too also early to believe [his claims] but also too important to ignore," she said. "People are shocked by the bombings but President Yudhoyono does not need to make such provocative statements."

She said that Yudhoyono could have directly ordered the police to follow up information from intelligence if a group of people were out to assassinate him.

Meanwhile, director of the National Coalition of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, Nia Syarifuddin, agreed Yudhoyono's statements would breed distrust. "The priority should be put on humanitarian efforts, not politics, as this was a human tragedy," she said.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who also ran in the recent election, insisted Friday that the hotel bombings had nothing to do with the presidential election.

The third presidential candidate, Megawati Soekarnoputri, also rebuked Yudhoyono's statements and questioned why the president hadn't simply ordered the police to take direct action.

Meanwhile, Yudhoyono's Democratic Party denied Saturday Yudhoyono's statements were an attempt to politicize the bombings.

"President Yudhoyono is in no way politicizing the bombings. The president's statements reflect his anger at the terrorist acts that are having disastrous impacts on the development of the country," deputy party chairman, Anas Urbaningrum, said, as quoted by Antara.

Terrorists slip right under BIN's nose

Jakarta Post - July 18, 2009

Dicky Christanto and Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – The State Intelligent Agency (BIN) has admitted its failure to detect the infiltration of terrorists allegedly behind the bomb blasts that ripped through the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels Friday in the Mega Kuningan business district, South Jakarta.

"We didn't pick up on their moves," BIN chief Syamsir Siregar said during a visit to MMC Hospital with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to check on the victims being treated there.

"You could say it was an infiltration." He declined to say whether more attacks were imminent.

Intelligence expert Dino Chrisbon said the blasts may have been planned to take advantage of recent attempts by the police's top brass to curtail the authority of its special counterterrorism unit.

He said financial constraints had forced the police to scale back its special unit, which maintains a presence in all provinces. Dino added there may also have been serious miscommunication between leaders of the unit, which finally drew the police's focus away from the fight against terrorism.

He said the attack was most likely orchestrated by a group affiliated to Jamaah Islamiah (JI), which was also behind the previous bombings. "The group is still alive and its members are still campaigning for jihad all across the country," he said.

International Crisis Group director Sidney Jones told The Jakarta Post that JI-affiliated groups' involvement in the bombings was one of the most likely possibilities.

"It's still too early to tell about the motives," she said. "However, the explosions could be related to the recent police investigation of a terrorist nest in Cilacap, Central Java."

The police's Densus 88 counterterrorism squad recently discovered bomb-making materials in the backyard of a house belonging to fugitive terror suspect Bahrudin, in Pasuruan village, Cilacap. The search also netted powdered sulphur, cables wrapped in plastic, and several books and VCDs about jihad, according to a witness.

"The investigation was related to efforts to find Noordin M. Top; the bombings could have a connection to that," Jones said.

Noordin, a Malaysian national, is a fugitive member of the JI network. He was a partner of Malaysian bomb maker Azahari Husein, who was killed in a 2006 shootout with the police in East Java. "I don't think the election dispute had anything to do with it, because such systematic operations require months of planning," Jones added.

Legislator Andreas Pareira of the House of Representatives' Commission I on security said the bombing was a terror act with a slightry different style of execution.

"There are indications the bombers stayed for a while at each hotel, based on my conversation with the police at the scene," he said. "They needed to take the bomb materials into the hotels piece by piece. Once they managed to get them all inside, they assembled them in their rooms." (hdt)

Bombs rip through Indonesia hotels, killing eight

Reuters - July 17, 2009

Telly Nathalia and Olivia Rondonuwu, Jakarta – Bomb blasts ripped through luxury hotels in the heart of Indonesia's capital on Friday, killing eight people and wounding dozens in attacks the president said badly hurt confidence in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

The attackers targeted the JW Marriott hotel, scene of a car bomb in 2003, and the Ritz-Carlton, both popular with visiting international businessmen and thought to boast some of the tightest security in Jakarta.

A visibly upset President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, re-elected this month on the back of improved security and a healthier economy, told a news conference the bombings were the act of a terrorist group bent on damaging the country.

"I am sure most of us are deeply concerned, feel very sorry and are crying silently, like the way I am feeling," he said, adding the perpetrators were "laughing and cheering with anger and hatred."

"They do not have a sense of humanity and do not care about the destruction of our country, because this terror act will have a wide impact on our economy, our business climate, our tourism, our image in the world and many others."

Police originally said nine people had been killed in the blasts, but later reduced the number to eight. They also said a blast on a toll road in the north of the capital originally attributed to a car bomb was actually a vehicle short circuit.

How the bombers may have bypassed some of the toughest security in Indonesia remains unclear, but police said a third device had been found and defused in a laptop bag on the 18th floor of the Marriott, prompting speculation they could have gained entry by checking in as paying guests.

Indonesia's TVOne showed closed-circuit television footage of a man they said was the Ritz-Carlton's suspected suicide bomber. He was wearing a baseball cap and pulling a wheelie-bag through the lobby.

Financial markets fall

Indonesian financial markets fell after the blasts, with the rupiah down one percent before state banks stepped in with support, and it closed at 10,200. Indonesian stocks fell as much as 2.7 percent before paring loses and closing down 0.6 percent.

The apparently coordinated bombings are the first in several years and follow a period in which the government had made progress in tackling security threats from militant Islamic groups, bringing a sense of political stability.

Suspicion was likely to fall on the Jemaah Islamiah militant group, blamed for the previous Marriott attack as well as bombings on the island of Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people.

The group, which wants to create an Islamic state across parts of Southeast Asia, was blamed for a string of attacks until 2005, but many militants have since been arrested.

"The attack is particularly severe for investor confidence because... it has affected the hotels that are seen to be among the most secure in Jakarta and also either killed or wounded numerous prominent expatriate business people," said Kevin O'Rourke, a political risk analyst in Jakarta.

Tim Mackay, president director of cement maker PT Holcim Indonesia, was among those killed, the company said.

According to police, the casualties included citizens of Indonesia, the United States, Australia, South Korea, the Netherlands, Italy, Britain, Canada, Norway, Japan and India.

The Manchester United soccer team canceled the Jakarta leg of an Asian tour. A Ritz-Carlton employee said the team had been due to stay at the hotel ahead of a game in Indonesia early next week.

Blood on the street

Witnesses said the bombings at the Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton were minutes apart and it appeared both had occurred inside the hotel restaurants during breakfast.

"It was very loud, it was like thunder, it was rather continuous, and then followed by the second explosion," said Vidi Tanza, who works near the hotel.

An Australian security report on Thursday had said Jemaah Islamiah was poised to strike again. Authorities in neighboring Malaysia, where the group also has roots, said they were stepping up security at government buildings, shopping malls and hotels.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said leadership tensions in Jemaah Islamiah and recent prison releases of its members raised the possibility that splinter groups might now seek to re-energize the movement.

Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based expert on Islamic militants at the International Crisis Group, said Jemaah Islamiah as an organization did not appear to be responsible.

"It's more likely to be a splinter group than JI itself, which doesn't mean you couldn't have JI members but it's very unlikely to be JI as an organization behind this attack," said Jones.

International reaction to the bombings was swift. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the attacks "remind us that the threat of terrorism remains very real," while Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said "this is an assault on all of us."

[Additional reporting by Michael Perry in Sydney, Harry Suhartono in Singapore; Writing by David Fox and Sara Webb; Editing by Nick Macfie).]

Australian report predicted violence in Indonesia

Associated Press - July 17, 2009

Tanalee Smith, Adelaide – An Australian think tank predicted that Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah might launch new attacks just a day before Friday's deadly hotel bombings in Indonesia.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said in a paper released Thursday that tensions in the group's leadership and the release of former members from prison "raise the possibility that splinter factions might now seek to re-energize the movement through violent attacks."

It said, however, that the possibility remained low.

Less than 24 hours after the report was released, two explosions rocked hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing at least eight people. There has been no claim of responsibility.

Jemaah Islamiyah has been responsible for a series of attacks in Indonesia, including the October 2002 bombings of two Bali nightclubs that killed some 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

The Australian report said the group has limited its support for violence in recent years and suffered a loss of supporters due to arrests and internal disputes.

"However, the emergence of hardened, experienced militants from the conflict in the southern Philippines and the recent release of JI cadres from prisons in Indonesia, who have become ostracized by the mainstream JI group, are breeding a new generation of radicalized fringe groups," the paper said.

"There is evidence that some of these individuals are gravitating toward hard-line groups who continue to advocate al-Qaida-style attacks against Western targets," it concluded.

One of the authors, national security project director Carl Ungerer, said he believed young dissident members of Jemaah Islamiyah could be behind Friday's attacks.

"They believe that the continuation of a bombing campaign would be the only way that they would achieve their political objectives," Ungerer told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "The smaller splinter groups, who are intent on a violent bombing campaign, retain the capability to do this sort of thing."

Ungerer could not immediately be reached by The Associated Press.

Islam/religion

Religious leaders, antiviolence activists hold interfaith prayers

Jakarta Post - July 20, 2009

Jakarta – Leaders of various religious groups as well as anti- violence activists held two separate mass prayers on Monday at the site of the Jakarta hotel bombings, which killed nine people and injured more than 50 on Friday.

Members of the Indonesian Anti-Violence Community, including lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis, Yenni Wahid, Wimar Witoelar and Ayu Utami, came to the site of the bombings to pray for the victims.

Soon after, religious leaders led another mass prayer at the site. They included Hasyim Muzadi, chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Islamic council, Rev. Petrus from the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI), representative of the Hindu community Anak Agung Ngurah Ugrasena and Maha Biksu Dutavira, who came to represent Buddhist.

"Although the situation is overwhelming, people must remain alert but not panic," Rev. Petrus said, as quoted by state news agency Antara.

Suicide bombers attacked the JW Marriot and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Friday.

Bogor restaurateurs uneasy with new 'halal city' policy

Jakarta Post - July 15, 2009

Prodita Sabarini – Bogor's Chinatown has for years been famous for its modest restaurants serving tasty pork dishes. A new city administration policy that plans to make Bogor a halal city, however, has made such vendors uneasy.

From Jl. Suryakencana to Jl Sukasari are rows of shops, restaurants and vendors selling food on carts. Walking along the sidewalk, one can smell the enticing aroma of pork skewers or spicy noodle soup with pork ribs. Several restaurants there also sell ngohiang, a unique pork-filled roll.

In a city where the majority of the population is Muslim, Bogor's ethnic Chinese have a long history and dishes they serve have been a regular attraction for tourists from Jakarta and surrounds.

"On weekends, parking spaces are filled with cars with Jakarta license plates," restaurant owner Ricky Leonardo said. His family restaurant, Cahaya Baru, serves Chinese food. Ricky said they never hide the fact they use pork and Chinese cooking wine (angchiu) in their dishes.

Ricky had heard about the possible ban on pigs at the city slaughterhouse and Mayor Diani Budiarto's decision to make Bogor a halal city.

"It's wrong. It's discriminatory," he said. For Rudy (not his real name), the policy was divisive. "Why don't they eliminate ethnic Chinese altogether?" he said with a smirk.

Rudy was waiting at his restaurant that serves Ciseeng Noodle Soup. Rudy's grandfather had been one of the first to bring the pork rib soup to Bogor, selling it in the Ciseeng area.

Next to Rudy was pork skewer seller, Wiwik. For Wiwik, the city administration was creating a division between the different groups in Bogor. Until now people have never had any problems with food businesses offering pork dishes.

Neither Rudy or Wiwik ever used the Indonesian word babi for pig in conversations. As if the word babi was inappropriate, they replaced it with b2 or ba.

Bogor Agrobusiness Agency chief Herlin Krisnaningsih said the policy of Bogor as a halal city did not prohibit people from selling or consuming pork dishes. "They are allowed to. People who want to sell or eat pork can (still) do so," she said.

The city administration however, does not accommodate the food sellers' need for pork meat. Rudy said he buys pork meat at the traditional markets. "They still have supplies, even though it's unstable," he said.

When pork meat is not available at Bogor's traditional markets, Rudy gets it from Jakarta markets such as Senen or Pejagalan. "We still need to do business, right?" he said.

The director of the Indonesia Ulema Council Assessment Institute for Foods, Drugs and Cosmetics (LP POM MUI), Nadratuzzaman Hosen, said the establishment of Bogor as a halal city was meant to protect Muslim consumers from accidentally consuming haram or non-halal foods.

LP POM MUI encourages restaurants to obtain halal certification so consumers can feel safe eating out. The Bogor mayor, however, moved further by banning pigs at the city's new slaughterhouse.

Bogor resident Riza Wicaksono welcomed the new policy because it would give him more certainty as to whether his food was halal or not. Sometimes when eating-out Riza was not sure whether the food was 100 percent halal or not, he said. "(Now) we can be more certain that our food is halal."

"Like in Chinese food, I believe using cooking wine or angchiu is not halal, but restaurants sometimes do not tell their customers they use it," he said.

For Rudy, the policy shows how the leaders of the city had discriminated against an ethnic minority. "Our politicians, they just do what they want when they are in power," Rudy said.

"For me, they are wrong. Bogor does not only have Muslims living here. We are a pluralist city," he said.

"What people choose to eat is a human right, regardless of race and religion. I have pribumi (native Indonesians) coming here to eat, knowing the food has that (pork) in it, because they like it," Rudy said.

Elections/political parties

SBY officially wins in several provinces

Jakarta Post - July 21, 2009

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The results of the General Elections Commission's (KPU) official vote counting have confirmed President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's triumph over his rivals in several provinces as the deadline for the KPU to announce the winner of the recent presidential election nears.

Yudhoyono and his running mate, former Central Bank governor Boediono, won the most votes in East Java, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Sumatra and West Sumatra, according to vote counting by the elections commissions (KPUDs) in those regions.

Results of manual vote counting by the East Java General Elections Commission (KPUD) show Yudhoyono and his running mate won in every regency and municipality in the province with the single except of Lumajang.

East Java KPUD chairman Najib Hamid told state news agency Antara on Monday that of the 38 regencies and municipalities in East Java, Yudhoyono won 37.

Yudhoyono lost to Megawati Soekarnoputri and her running mate Prabowo Subianto in Lumajang.

Overall, Yudhoyono won 11.7 million votes, or 60.32 percent of the total, followed by Megawati with 5.9 million votes (30.42 percent) and the Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto team with 1.8 votes (9.26 percent). A total of 8.8 million eligible voters abstained.

In West Kalimantan, the Yudhoyono-Boediono ticket secured 54 percent of the vote, followed by Megawati Soekarnoputri-Prabowo Subianto with 37.1 percent and Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto, with 8.9 percent, Antara reported Monday. More than 2,300,000 people, or 73.5 percent of registered voters, cast a ballot in West Kalimantan.

In Palangkaraya, kompas.com reported, Yudhoyono-Boediono secured 48 percent of the more than 1,000,000 valid votes, followed closely by Megawati-Prabowo with 42.3 percent and Kalla-Wiranto with 9.4 percent.

The incumbent President also secured South Sumatra, winning 54 percent of the more than 3,800,000 valid votes cast. Again here Megawati-Prabowo came in second, with 39.5 percent, followed by Kalla-Wiranto with 6.4 percent.

Yudhoyono-Boediono won votes in 11 of South Sumatra's 15 regencies and municipalities.

Head of the South Sumatra KPUD, Anisatul Mardiah, said it would send the results of its vote counting to the central KPU on June 21.

Nopran Marjani, a witness from the Megawati-Prabowo team, however said he would file an official objection to the results, arguing many of the regional KPUDs failed to remove names registered twice on the electoral roll.

The West Sumatra KPUD has also named Yudhoyono-Boediono the winner of the election in the province, with the pair securing almost 80 percent of the vote, leaving both Kalla-Wiranto, with 14 percent, and Megawati-Prabowo with 5.9 percent, far behind.

In the region, 71 percent of registered voters cast a ballot. "(The participation rate in the presidential election) increased by 1 percent compared to April's legislative election," head of the West Sumatra KPUD, Husni Kamil Manik, said, according to vivanews.com.

At the KPU's headquarters in central Jakarta, KPU member Sri Nuryanti said vote counting has now been completed in most of Indonesia's regions. "Counting at the national level will take place from July 22 to July 24 at the KPU's headquarters," Yanti told tempointeraktif.com.

Yanti said the KPU would make vote counting for the presidential election more transparent than it was for April's legislative election by allowing election watchdogs and the press to observe the process.

She added that the KPU had coordinated with the police to tighten security during vote counting following the bomb blasts that struck the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Kuningan, South Jakarta, last Friday. "We believe the recapitulation will run safely," Sri said.

SBY landslide sweeps Jakarta by 70 percent

Jakarta Globe - July 20, 2009

Camelia Pasandaran – The nation's capital has handed President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate Boediono a landslide result in the presidential elections, with the incumbent securing more than 70 percent of the city's vote, the General Elections Commission confirmed on Monday.

The size of the defeat has not deterred the campaign team of Megawati Sukarnoputri, the chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), from refusing to sign off on the election results in the capital.

According to the official count by the commission, also known as the KPU, Yudhoyono received 70.4 percent (3,543,472) of the total vote, followed by Megawati and running mate Prabowo Subianto with 20.4 percent (1,028,227 votes). Vice President Jusuf Kalla and Wiranto were third with just 9.2 percent (464,257 votes).

Compared with quick counts taken by polling organizations on the day of the presidential elections, the victory is well above the national average, which showed Yudhoyono taking 61 percent of the total vote, Megawati 27 percent and Kalla about 10 percent.

Dahlia Umar, a member of the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD), said the only problem it had encountered was the refusal of the Megawati-Prabowo campaign team to sign off on the elections.

"They have refused to sign off on the results citing voters list problems and accusations that the legislative elections were not conducted fairly and honestly," Dahlia said on Monday.

She said that in Jakarta, there were no significant problems with the voters list although she added, without elaborating, that there were some minor procedural issues. "However, the most important thing for us is that there was no vote manipulation," she said.

Dahlia said the Megawati team's refusal to sign off on the election result would not change anything. "The no-sign act will not stop us declaring the result," she said, adding that the other two candidates of Yudhoyono and Kalla camps have not expressed any problems with the result.

Ramdansyah, head of Jakarta Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu), said there were no significant problems during the presidential election in Jakarta. "What small problems there were have been politicized by parties that failed to win," he said.

According to him, there were few violations in Jakarta – about 20 cases. "These have already been reported to the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu)," he said.

Most of the violations in Jakarta related to election officials who failed to make public the final voters list at the polling stations. "The list should put up on a board or stuck to a wall so people can see it," he said.

Megawati's team could not be reached for confirmation of its objections to the Jakarta poll results.

Vexed Megawati poised to reject final presidential election tally

Jakarta Globe - July 20, 2009

Camelia Pasandaran – Still crying foul over the July 8 presidential election, runner-up Megawati Sukarnoputri will likely refuse to sign the final official results slated to be announced this week, a senior member of her campaign team said on Monday.

Megawati's poll observers in several provinces, including Jakarta, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara and North Sumatra, have already refused to put their signature on final provincial vote tallies, citing irregularities.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) has invited the three presidential candidates to attend a ceremony once the final results are tabulated, which officials say will be held sometime between Tuesday and Thursday. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono appears to have clinched re-election with more than 60 percent of the vote.

However, Megawati and her running mate Prabowo Subianto have rejected the results and are expected to boycott the event, said Arif Wibowo, a campaign team member.

"The election was far from being fair and honest and was against the principles of democracy. Why would we legitimize it given its condition?" he said, adding that Megawati would make a decision about the signing today.

She declined to sign the presidential poll result in 2004. KPU member Syamsul Bahri said the final results would be valid regardless of whether candidates signed them or not.

Golkar takes stock of violations but ready to accept result

Jakarta Globe - July 20, 2009

Febriamy Hutapea – After taking a long, hard look at its back-to-back defeats in the recent polls, Golkar Party leaders have indicated that the party would accept its failures and would probably no longer challenge the result of the July 8 presidential election.

Golkar held its national consultation meeting at its headquarters in Slipi, West Jakarta, on Monday afternoon to discuss its poor performance and collect information over the alleged violations that occurred during the presidential election.

Although an official decision had yet to be made as to whether the party would challenge the result of the election, several senior Golkar executives said the party would accept its failures during the elections.

"From my point of view, we accept it [the election result] but with reservations so that the violations will not happen again. The problems during the election occurred sporadically and they will not add a significant number to our votes," said Muladi, a senior Golkar member.

The party so far received 153 violation reports that occurred in the regions, but he said the party would take them up through the proper legal channels.

"There would be no unconstitutional moves. Everything should run with the right process through the National Supervisory Election Board or Constitutional Court," Muladi said.

Besides voters list fraud, Muladi said there were issues about money politics, last minute political attacks and pressures on district leaders that led to the party's defeat.

All six major presidential election quick counts show the incumbent vice president and his running mate Wiranto, from the People's Conscience Party (Hanura), trailing well behind the other candidates with about 1 percent of the vote. The defeat follows an equally dismal performance in the legislative elections, where the party only garnered 14.4 percent of the vote, far behind the top-placed Democratic Party with almost 22 percent.

Golkar deputy chairman Agung Laksono said that the party encountered no big problems during the July 8 election. "They [party branch chairmen] said they will be responsible. So, there's no big problem," he said.

However, Agung acknowledged that Golkar's political machine did not run properly, one of the reasons for the party's poor performance. "It happened because there is the lack of logistics," he said.

Agung said that he also heard about pressures on the regional leaders that influenced the party's performance. "There are regions [leaders] who admit it, but it's not really clear," he said, declining to elaborate further.

Voters, elites at odds over election fairness

Jakarta Post - July 17, 2009

Jakarta – While trailing presidential candidates have claimed the July 8 presidential election process was "flawed and unfair", the latest survey results from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) reveal that grass-roots voters have an entirely different sentiment.

The survey questioned some 2,000 respondents in all 33 provinces on July 8. The results found that around 33 percent of respondents thought the election was "very" fair and clean with another 59 percent saying it was fair and clean "enough". Only around 6 percent of respondents believed it was "flawed".

"In general, voters thought the election was fair and clean," LSI executive director Dodi Ambardi told a press conference at his office in Menteng, Central Jakarta, on Thursday.

"The result is in contrast with the latest developments and statements made by political elites who claim the election process was flawed and unfair."

The presidential candidate of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Megawati Sukarnoputri, and her running mate, Prabowo Subianto of the Greater Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra), have claimed that the recent election was shrouded in many violations, making its result unconstitutional. The pair also said they would not officially accept the results unless the dispute over the election's validity was settled.

Incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the Democratic Party (PD) and his non-party running mate Boediono garnered around 60 percent of votes according to various unofficial quick count results. According to the same polls, Megawati and Prabowo had secured 28 percent, while incumbent Vice President Jusuf Kalla of the Golkar Party and Wiranto of the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) had gained 12 percent.

A member of Kalla's campaign team, Indra Piliang, told The Jakarta Post the survey results would not stop his team from collecting more evidence on election violations and mismanagement. "We are still collecting more evidence," he said. "Once we have gathered enough evidence, we will then submit our findings to the police or the Constitutional Court."

A political expert from the University of Indonesia, Rocky Gerung, said the political elite and grass-roots voters had different perceptions of the essence of the election.

"The elite have vested interests in the results. This makes their judgements more subjective than that of grass-roots voters," he said.

However, Rocky also said the percentages and statistics in the survey did not necessarily truly depict the voters' current sentiments.

"The survey was conducted among respondents who had just submitted their votes at polling stations. They did not have any idea about the election outcome at that stage," he said.

"The percentage of people believing the election was 'fair and balanced' could greatly change right now following the publication of quick count results and election process mismanagement."

However, an executive from PD, Ruhut Sitompul, believed the survey results were valid, regardless of the fact it was conducted before voters had any idea of the election results.

"The outcome across the country shows that voters do not care about the opinions of the elite or community leaders. They voted based on their own opinions and consciences, not because of instructions from their leaders," he said.

"So, it really is not proper for the losing candidates to continue protesting about the validity of the election. The other candidates might have won the hearts of community leaders, but failed to win the hearts of the people."

Kalla gained official supports from Indonesia's top two Islamic organizations – Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama.

Megawati and Prabowo had also signed many political contracts with various labor and farmer unions prior to the election, expressing support for the pair's "people-based" economic programs. (hdt)

Megawati gets PDI-P green light

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2009

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle gave its chairwoman Megawati Sukarnoputri full power during its national leadership meeting in Jakarta on Wednesday to decide whether or not to accept the results of the presidential election.

PDI-P secretary general Pramono Anung on Wednesday said that the meeting resulted in six recommendations that effectively gave the former president complete power over the party, also known as the PDI-P.

"The national meeting decided to give up all decisions to our chairwoman, who was also our presidential candidate, to take strategic steps in dealing with any political situations and our party's policies in the future," Pramono said.

Hasto Kristianto, the secretary of the presidential campaign for Megawati and running mate Prabowo Subianto, said the decision meant that all PDI-P cadres would bow to any decision issued by Megawati, "including to accept or reject the results of the election."

The Election Law dictates that all participants of the polls must sign the results of the election, issued by the General Elections Commission (KPU). The signature means the candidate accepts the election results, although a refusal by the PDI-P or Prabowo's Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) to approve the results would not prevent the new government from being sworn in.

Megawati, who has so far declined to concede, has a reputation as a poor sport, making headlines around the world for her behavior after she was unseated as president in 2004 by Yudhoyono. She refused to attend her former cabinet minister's swearing-in ceremony.

Megawati on Wednesday would not comment when asked if she would accept or reject the results of the latest presidential elections, in which quick counts awarded her around 30 percent of the vote, about 10 percentage points more than the number she was expected to garner. "Just wait for the next scene," Megawati said, adding that any decision would involve input from throughout her party.

Meanwhile, Antara reported that the PDI-P deemed that April's legislative elections breached a number of principles, including fairness, honesty, independence and openness.

The party has long criticized the KPU for its perceived closeness to rival parties and for its flawed final voters list. Puan Maharani, Megawati's daughter and heir apparent to the PDI-P throne, has said that the errors in the list cost the party the election.

Antara also reported that the meeting urged the government and the KPU to be accountable for any problems related to the elections. "We still respect the law and the election process and have decided that any complaints must be settled through a legal approach first," Pramono said.

Golkar's younger members demand leadership roles

Jakarta Post - July 15, 2009

Jakarta – Following the Golkar Party's poor showing in the April 9 legislative election and outright defeat in the July 8 presidential election, the party's younger members have demanded they be given more significant leadership roles, lest the party continue to lose ground in the future.

"The existing organizational structure is comprised mostly of old men. We must reform for the future. The next chairman must give around 70 percent of the structural posts to younger party members," Golkar legislator Yuddy Chrisnandi told the press at the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

"The younger Golkar members are those who are under 50 years old and have a lot of integrity and progressive ideas for the future. It is important to nurture the young elite's ability to lead because, in the future, we are going to compete with other parties such as the Prosperous Justice Party, which already have a number of high ranking, high quality young members," he added.

Yuddy said a lack of money was the main obstacle for younger members seeking top positions in the party.

"There are a lot of young men just like myself in Golkar who are ready to step up. However, the reality is that integrity and idealism mean nothing in the party. The only thing that really matters is financial power," he said.

"What makes things worse is that a lot of people within Golkar do not realize that the party's main weakness is having too much lust for money and power. Such a lust has become tradition within the party's older generation, and in the end has led to the party's downfall in both the legislative and presidential election," he added.

Golkar secured 14 percent of votes in April's legislative elections, a significant decrease from the 21 percent garnered in 2004. This put the party a distant second to the Democratic Party, which gained a surprising 21 percent of the vote.

Golkar Party chairman and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who ran for the presidency with Wiranto of the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) as his running mate, gained just 12 percent of votes in last week's presidential election, based on the results of various unofficial quick counts.

Incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the Democratic Party secured his re-election in what is expected to be a landslide victory, winning more than 60 percent of the votes, according to quick counts.

"Such defeats should serve as a valuable lesson for Golkar's old elites. They must reflect on the fact that they have failed to bring the party to victory and they must resign to give the younger generation a chance," Yuddy said.

With Kalla's ousting at the upcoming Golkar National Congress, Golkar's top elite are considering several replacements. Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie and media magnate Suryo Paloh appear to be the frontrunners for the position.

Yuddy said the party's young elite have yet to decide which candidate they will support. "Both of them have an equal chance at leading Golkar. However, the chosen one must be willing to provide a greater leadership role for the younger generation," he said.

His colleague, Poempida Hidayatullah, said the party's younger members needed to take a much deeper look at each candidate's plans for the future before making their decision.

"Both of them have more than enough leadership potential. However, their concept of Golkar's future is yet to be determined," he said.

"They must outline clear concepts on where they want to take Golkar in the next five years and over the next decade. The younger members will be in favor of the candidate that has a clear plan on the party's future," he added.

Political expert from the Indonesia Institute of Sciences, Lili Romli, highlighted the urgent need for Golkar – the longtime ruling party during the Soeharto regime – to rejuvenate itself.

"Give the younger elite a chance to take on leadership roles. There are many young Golkar members who are more than capable of becoming great leaders," he said. (hdt)

Questions emerge over Soeharto clan's return to political stage

Jakarta Post - July 15, 2009

Jakarta – Political experts had mixed opinions on the possibility of a return of the Soeharto clan to Indonesian politics through the Golkar Party.

"The Cendanas (the Soeharto clan's nickname) probably see that this is the right time to enter politics by rejoining Golkar," a political expert from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Lili Romli, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"Their main target is the 2014 general elections because by that time most people will probably have forgotten about the family's past sins."

The name "Cendana", referring to Soeharto's extended family, was derived from his private residence on Jl. Cendana in the upmarket Central Jakarta residential area of Menteng. In addition to being Indonesia's president for 32 years, Soeharto also served as the Golkar chief patron from the time the political powerhouse was established from various anti-communist groups in 1964.

Lili believed there were still many Soeharto supporters out there and that Golkar would be able to increase its voter base by utilizing his legendary name.

"Soeharto was the man who built Golkar. Therefore, his name will also serve as a means for Golkar to rediscover its identity," he said.

"Golkar is now a party with no figure to look up to. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) always looks up to the image of Sukarno. I think Golkar should do the same with Soeharto and his family," she said

However, an expert from Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University, Ari Sujito, said Golkar would only take a step backward if it used Soeharto's name and image.

"Golkar is now losing its political capital. Therefore, its elite are desperately looking for any possible means to regain power," Ari said. "If Golkar decides to embrace the Cendanas' return, it means the party elite have lost their common sense."

The director of the Research Institute for Democracy and a Prosperous State (Pedoman), Fadjroel Rachman, echoed Ari's sentiments, saying the Cendanas' return was not the answer to save Golkar from its declining popularity.

"The move will only benefit the Cendanas because they need Golkar to protect themselves from investigations into their past corruption cases," he said.

"They remain untouched until now because they are under the protection of Golkar and its current 2004 coalition partner, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Democratic Party (PD)."

Fadjroel said the Cendanas were now in a panic because they see Golkar and Yudhoyono will probably not be able to protect them by 2014.

The issue of the Cendanas' return to Golkar and politics was sparked by a statement made by Muchtar Herman Patimah of the Mutual Assistance Consultative Organization (MKGR), a faction within Golkar, to inilah.com. "It is now time for the Cendanas to return to Golkar. The plans have been set," Muchtar said.

An executive from Golkar, Poempida Hidayatullah, said the party would greatly welcome the Cendanas with open arms.

"I don't mind having the Cendanas in Golkar. I see that they have a lot of potential to offer," Poempida said. "People cannot deny the fact that a large portion of Soeharto's administrations were filled with economic success and efficiency."

Poempida, however, stressed that the Cendanas had to go through proper party mechanisms to gain top positions, regardless of their past relationships with Golkar. "They must also adapt to the fact that these days are no longer the New Order era," he said. (hdt)

Media/press freedom

Tempo cleared of libel against FPI

Jakarta Globe - July 15, 2009

Heru Andriyanto – The South Jakarta District Court on Wednesday acquitted Tempo daily of libel over its reporting on the military wing leader of a fundamentalist group, the Islam Defenders Front (FPI).

A panel of judges presided over by Syahrial Sidiq rejected the defamation complaint against the newspaper, which ran a photograph of FPI commander Munarman grabbing the neck of a man described in the caption as a participant of a peace rally in June last year.

Munarman is serving an 18-month jail sentence for last year's attack on a rally promoting religious freedom. Munarman later said the second man in the photograph was a fellow FPI member who he was attempting to restrain.

"The panel has taken into consideration the voluntary correction [by Tempo] following the publication of the photograph and acquit the defendants of all charges," panel member Hari Sasangka said, reading out the decision.

Tempo, one of the country's most influential newspapers, ran a correction on June 3, 2008, in which it acknowledged misidentifying the second man in the photograph.

Besides the newspaper, Munarman also filed suits against its publisher, Tempo Inti Media, and the Wahid Institute owned by former President Abdurrahman Wahid. Immediately after last year's attack, the institute held a news conference to denounce the FPI and distributed the photograph in question to journalists.

Munarman, who did not appear during Wednesday's hearing, had demanded Rp 13 billion ($1.3 million) in damages, the seizure of Tempo's land, buildings and equipment, and a formal apology broadcast on six television stations and published in five newspapers.

In the same verdict, the panel threw out a countersuit by Tempo against Munarman, saying the case "didn't put media freedom under threat."

The court ruling drew a strong response from Munarman's legal team, who described it as a "bad precedent." "The ruling is a bad precedent for getting the media under control," said Syamsul Bahri Radjam, a lawyer for Munarman.

Tempo lawyer Sholeh Ali welcomed the verdict and said the judges safeguarded the freedom of public information. "Tempo newspaper reported the news in a professional manner and we made the necessary correction," the lawyer said.

In October last year, another district court in the capital sentenced both Munarman and FPI leader Habib Rizieq Shihab to 18 months in jail for the June 1, 2008, attacks on members of the National Alliance for Religious Freedom, who were holding a rally at the National Monument square.

FPI members, believing the rally was intended as a show of support for the controversial Muslim sect Ahmadiyah, attacked protesters with sticks and stones, leaving around 70 people injured.

The FPI, which seeks to implement Islamic law in the country, has a reputation as a hard-line group that often vandalizes nightclubs in the belief that they are an affront to Islam.

Regional autonomy

Government told to rethink regional autonomy

Jakarta Post - July 16, 2009

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The government and lawmakers have been urged to reevaluate the regional autonomy policy, which in 10 years has led to the creation of more than 200 new regions which have not always improved conditions for local communities.

The executive director of the Regional Administration Innovation Foundation (YIPD), Alit Merthayasa, on Wednesday said the creation of new regions, while drawing money from the central government, inevitably led to a reduction in the amount of funds disbursed to existing regions.

"New autonomous regions need large sums of money to finance infrastructure, public facilities and government offices, and to pay the salaries of new regional heads and their staff, and councilors.

"Meanwhile, other regions not involved in the creation of these new regions will see smaller portions of the general allocation funds [DAU] from the central government," Alit told a discussion here. The amount of DAU was not increased in line with increases in the number of regions, he added.

While many new regions were created for the sake of, among other things, simplifying administrative procedures for public services, in many cases these services ended up worse off because of typical fund management inefficiency and the lack of human resources endemic to new regions, Alit said.

Robert Endi Jaweng from the Working Group on Regional Autonomy said in the first five years, new regions would usually undergo an administrative transition period, during which development agendas left by past administrations had to be delayed.

Typically, the poor capacity of new administrations meant new regions' aspirations for faster economic growth ended in slower growth instead, he said.

A professor in planology from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Tommy Firman, said despite aims to settle conflicts, newly-formed regions often engaged in conflicts with neighbors, for example over water resources and other strategic needs.

"And we've seen many powerful elites emerge in regions and more corrupt leaders than we had previously.

"We've often heard news about these regents getting questioned by the KPK [Corruption Eradication Commission], being imprisoned, etc," Tommy said.

Since the enactment of the regional autonomy law in 1999, Indonesia has seen seven new provinces and 196 new regencies and municipalities. This brings Indonesia's total number of provinces to 33 and regencies/municipalities to 491 (from 26 and 293 before 1999).

Speakers at the Wednesday discussion entitled "Creation of New Regions and Democracy in Indonesia" agreed that forming new regions should not be forbidden, but that policy makers should first conduct comprehensive evaluations of the implementation of the policy and regulation tools that support it.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called for a moratorium on the creation of new administrative regions, following the death of North Sumatra council speaker Abdul Aziz Angkat in February.

Abdul died from a heart attack just hours after a mob assaulted him during a violent protest to demand the creation of a new province, Tapanuli.

House of Representatives speaker Agung Laksono has said in response to Yudhoyono that the regional autonomy police do need to be reevaluated.

Economy & investment

Market confidence shaken, not shattered

Jakarta Post - July 18, 2009

Jakarta – Indonesia's healthy economic growth and market resilience will sustain the damaging impact of blasts that ripped through the JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton hotels on Friday, analysts said.

Analyst for Citigroup Global Markets said the market impact would be short-lived in line with the still constructive view on the country's fundamentals and the benign near-term outlook on inflation.

"Terrorism threats in Indonesia are nothing new, and we think it will be unlikely to dampen overall foreign investment, recently buoyed by post-election optimism.

"We don't expect any major changes to our outlook on inflation and monetary policy," Chua said in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post.

Inflation is predicted to slow to 4.5 percent this year, supported by an adequate supply and stable rate of the Indonesian rupiah against the US dollar, latest government data reveals. As inflation slows, the economy is expected to expand 4.3 percent this year.

Although the economic impact is likely limited, Chua said tourism and general retail and travel-related activities could be affected by the latest events.

"We expect the impact to be temporary." Callum Henderson, chief global currency strategist for Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, said market reaction to the tragic event was "relatively muted" in anticipation that the government would stay on course and that policies would remain unchanged.

"Indonesia remains a fundamentally good story, thanks in large part to the excellent policies of the government in the last few years. It will take time to stabilize again, but we remain overweight on the rupiah," he told Reuters.

Sean Callow, currency strategist for Westpac in Sydney said the blasts would damage foreign investor confidence since the attacks appeared to be aimed at Westerners, "but not shatter it", so long there was no further violence for some time.

"Bank Indonesia should be able to keep a lid on dollar-rupiah short term, but it will have a lasting negative impact multi- week, multi-month."

Callow said the central bank operations had solidified his short-term bias towards buying dollar/rupiah on dips, especially when rupiah was still by 18 percent since March.

Tim Condon, head of Asia research for ING in Singapore said Indonesia was vulnerable and the attacks were negative.

"But people know these are impossible to predict and they are part of the economic landscape. It doesn't totally eclipse all of the other investor positives – the economic fundamentals and the political fundamentals."

He added the cost of protecting debt in Indonesia, one of the most frequent Asian sovereign issuers in the offshore market, was unchanged at 280/295 basis points. "I liken it to North Korea risks to South Korean assets. Typically it causes a short spike in selling pressure – the operative word is short."

CIMB Asset Management chief investment officer Raymont Tang shared a view that Indonesia's economy likely to show resilience.

"You'll get a kneejerk reaction but if you look at how the Indonesian market has responded up to now, it's down 1.3 percent and the currency is down half a percent... I think people are more positive than negative."

Analysis & opinion

Carefree Jakarta bombers deflected security concerns

Sydney Morning Herald - July 21, 2009

Tom Allard Herald, Jakarta – The suicide bomber at the Ritz- Carlton gave a non-existent room number as he entered its restaurant. He deflected queries from staff and calmly ordered a cup of coffee before detonating two explosive devices.

Well dressed in a business suit and expensive shirt, he had satisfied the waitress by promising to pay cash, said the chief security officer of the Marriott global hotel chain, Alan Orlob.

"The waitress asked for his room number. She said to him that's not right, but he said he would pay cash," Mr Orlob told the Herald. "That happens all the time. It's not necessarily suspicious. People always forget their room number. I know I do."

The nonchalant response matches the calm rebuff of a concerned security guard given by the other suicide bomber, who had hit the JW Marriott hotel minutes earlier.

Nine people died in the attacks on Friday, including three Australians. More than 50 people were injured.

The hotels are owned by the same company and sit across the road from each other in the upscale Jakarta business district of Mega Kuningan.

They are connected by a tunnel but Mr Orlob said reports that the bomber at the Ritz-Carlton had used the tunnel to leave the Marriott after the first blast were not true.

"We have video from the tunnel," he said, but later added that there was no security camera outside the "control centre" of the operation, room 1808 at the Marriott, to help investigators identify who went in and out.

The first terrorist acts in Indonesia in almost four years were meticulously planned, said the terrorism analyst Sidney Jones.

"These guys would have been in the hotel before. So as not to attract attention, they would have been very careful to look like any Indonesian would in a five-star hotel. They would have done the research."

Noordin Mohammed Top is suspected of masterminding the attack. His long-time lieutenant, Reno, sometimes known as Tedy, is a bomb-making expert who is also at large. There is speculation that Tedy might have been "ground co-ordinator" of the bombings.

Another long-time Noordin associate, Nur Hasbi, has been named as possibly one of the bombers. His family has been brought to Jakarta to provide DNA material to be cross-checked against the mangled corpses from Friday's attack. Mr Orlob said the hotels had the best security in Jakarta, and he denied the Marriott brand was a magnet for terrorists.

Its Jakarta hotel was bombed in 2003 and a Marriott hotel in Islamabad was hit last year by a truck bomb. "It has nothing to do with the brand. It has everything to do with the type of people who stay at the hotel, foreigners and business people," Mr Orlob said. He hoped the hotels would reopen in a week.

Marriage and children - life on the run for a jihadist bomber

Sydney Morning Herald - July 21, 2009

Noordin Mohammed Top is always a step ahead of authorities, writes Tom Allard in Jakarta.

The fugitive terrorist suspect Noordin Mohammed Top has married at least two different women since he's been on the run, using these new family ties to build a network of supporters who will protect him at any cost.

University-educated and a charismatic and persuasive recruiter to his cause of violent jihad, Noordin has eluded authorities for six years, despite massive resources being thrown at tracking him down.

"He sets up a family by marrying a woman, usually a daughter or sister of one of his friends," said one Indonesian counter- terrorism investigator. "This family then won't break these traditional bonds."

The Malaysian-born accountancy graduate married a woman called Munfiatun a day after the first bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in 2003. She was tracked down, arrested and jailed for concealing information about Noordin's whereabouts.

Indonesian authorities believe that Noordin has since married another woman, Ari Aryani. He has reportedly fathered two children while moving around the country to evade capture.

A raid on Ms Aryani's father's home three days before the blasts that ripped through the Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels yielded a bomb remarkably similar to those detonated on Friday.

"He has a network of sympathisers," said Kenneth Conboy, a Jakarta-based security analyst who has written a book on JI. "They just keep their mouths shut, despite all the money on offer [as a reward], the attempts at infiltration and monitoring by [counter-terrorism police from] Detachment 88."

Noor Huda Ismail, a graduate of Abu Bakar Bashir's pesantran in Ngruki that has been the breeding ground for so many violent jihadists, says some of those who protect Noordin are not necessarily advocates of mass casualty attacks.

"Even if they don't agree with everything he does, they respect him as a fighter," he said. "Of course, others just see him as a hero of Islam."

Noordin moves regularly, mostly around Java and refrains from using devices that could be intercepted. His group of hardliners who have split from JI after many of the jihadist group's leaders dropped the idea of using violent means to achieve their objective of a South-East Asian caliphate governed by the sharia.

Mr Ismail, who now runs an organisation that seeks to rehabilitate former militants, said Noordin's group has fewer than 20 members.

As well as an adept recruiter, Noordin is an expert in financing and explosives and has managed to keep his terrorist organisation alive while under intense scrutiny The authorities have almost caught him at least twice. In November 2005, Noordin and his mentor, the bombmaker Azahari Husin, were tracked to East Java. Azahari died in a firefight but Noordin escaped.

A few months later, counter-terrorism police were certain they had found his safe house in Central Java. "He had just been there or was watching from a second house when the raid occurred," Mr Conboy said.

The FBI described Noordin as a "charismatic leader and a recruiter", who founded the Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad from within the ranks of Jemaah Islamiah, drawing on disaffected JI members who opposed the central leadership's decision to stop employing mass casualty attacks to achieve their vision of a caliphate.

Noordin built up his finances, believed to come from a series of robberies. Jakarta police sources say a 20 billion rupiah ($2.7 million) heist may have been his work.

All the while, he was planning attacks. He is believed to have cased out a Surabaya power plant in 2006 for attack and is thought to have been a key player in a plot to blow up the Bedudel Cafe in West Sumatra, a venue popular with foreign holidaymakers.

Around this time, Noordin is suspected of meeting Mas Slamet Kastari, a Singaporean militant behind a plot to crash a plane into Changi airport. He had escaped from prison in 2007.

The Singaporean's recapture this year provided Indonesian police with new leads on Noordin. In June, raids were launched across Indonesia to locate him. Three arrests were made, all believed to be of Noordin's associates.

Then came information that Noordin had married Ari Aryani who, neighbours noted, had given birth to two children even though her husband was never seen.

Her father, Bahrudin Latif, became a man of intense interest. But a raid on his home proved fruitless. The 60-year-old founder of a the radical al-Muaddib boarding school near Cilacap in Central Java had time to flee without a trace.

A week or so later, police in Bogor said they had credible reports Noordin was hiding in the mountains near the city, an hour's drive from Jakarta. "He simply disappeared," a police officer told Media Indonesia.

Then anti-terrorism police had a second look at Noordin's father-in-law's house. A search was conducted on Tuesday. Buried in the backyard were bomb-making materials, sulfur and potassium (used for bomb-making) and cables and detonators.

Noordin seemed within the grasp of investigators. But, just days later, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the Marriott and the Ritz Carlton hotels. Noordin is the prime suspect but, as ever, remains at large.

Jakarta bombings: Why Indonesia's Islamist radicals attack

Christian Science Monitor - July 19, 2009

Tom McCawley, Jakarta – Indonesian authorities said Sunday that there is an increasing evidence that the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Islamist group responsible for more than 300 murders in attacks dating back to 2000, was responsible for Friday's deadly attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta.

Ansyaad Mbai, a senior Indonesian counter-terrorist official, said that an unexploded bomb found in a laptop in an 18th floor room at the Marriott indicates that the attackers – two of them suicide bombers – used the room as a sort of command center for the attack.

In particular, he said, the blasts were most likely linked to Malaysian fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top, one of Southeast Asia's most wanted men and who is believed to be leading a JI splinter group.

If it is JI, it's quite likely that some of the operatives would have been drawn from the Al Mukmin Islamic boarding school, which Sidney Jones, a leading researcher on the group, has described as part of a militant "ivy league."

Noor Huda Ismail is a 1991 graduate of the school who roomed with boys who later joined JI – one became a suicide bomber – and is now a researcher and head of the Institute for International Peacebuilding, an Indonesian foundation that seeks to reintegrate Islamist fighters into mainstream society. He stays in touch with a number of JI's jailed activists and his descriptions of the school's training gives outsiders a valuable window on the ideology behind JI's attacks.

"They sincerely believe what they did was right to defend other Muslims," Mr. Huda says, explaining the thinking of some of the young men indoctrinated at Al Mukmin. "That's what worries me."

An 'ivy league' school for militants

Huda says the atmosphere at the school, located in Ngruki, Central Java, is one of unquestioning obedience and constant warnings of foreign and Christian plots to harm Islam.

Some of the students became true believers and signed up for jihad (holy war). Others were simply naove or didn't question their superiors when asked to do favors that later incriminated them in wider terror plots. (He recalls one acquaintance who simply gave his bank account to a man who later used it to organize a 2003 bomb plot on Bali that killed 202 people). "They were trained to be robotic and not to question," Huda says.

Still, Huda says that most of the students at Ngruki never participated in any militant activity, and that the vast majority's views grow more moderate, as his did, when they make contact with the wider world. But as long as militancy and hate are preached, some portion of students will act on that, says Huda.

Choosing a different path

"I used to think like them," says Mr. Huda of his teen years studying hard-line jihadism. "So I know that if I can change, why can't they?"

Huda went on to study communications at a leading university, work as a reporter for the Washington Post, and win a scholarship to Scotland's St. Andrews University.

Huda and Dr. Carl Ungerer, an Australian security analyst, had warned in a report issued less than 24 hours before the July 17 bombing, that JI might be planning new attacks. The report said that after the arrest of over 400 JI members, including death of key leaders in a seven-year US-supported counter-terrorist campaign, JI's violent wing was weakened. But they warned the release of recent members from prison, and generational turnover, could re-energize JI.

My former roommate, the terrorist

Terrorism was a long way from Huda's mind when his father, a prison parole officer, enrolled him in the Al Mukmin boarding school in 1985. He was 12 years old then. Indonesia's thousands of Islamic boarding schools, or pesantrens, promise to teach moral values and religion, often to the children of poor families.

Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, elected in a landslide victory of more 60 percent of the popular vote on July 8, is a pesantren graduate. So was Mr. Huda's roommate Fadlullah Hasan, who took part in the October 2002 bombing in Bali that left 202 dead, mostly foreign tourists.

Many of Indonesia's pesantren espouse a tolerant, pluralist version of Islam, often integrated with pre-Islamic beliefs. Some 88 percent of Indonesia's 237 million people declare Islam as their faith. A small fringe of pesantrens preach a dogmatic version of Islam, teaching students it is their religious duty to wage war on the West.

Hard-core teachings

"We were taught Islam is white or black, that it [hard-line jihadism] is the only salvation there is," Huda says. "The only music we heard was... Arabic religious songs, from cracking loudspeakers," Huda writes in an essay. In speech class, he says, he was taught that "the infidels and Jews would never stop fighting us till we followed their religion. When I was 15, it was my favorite topic, too."

Al Mukmin's founder Abdullah Sungkar helped found JI in Malaysia in 1993, along with the group's spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir. Police investigators say Al Mukmin, along with several other pesantrens, were major recruiting grounds for JI.

They're not psychopaths

Another of Huda's roommate, Asmar Latin Sani, was a suicide bomber in the first JI bomb attack on the Jakarta JW Marriott hotel in August 2003. Huda cautions against seeing such men as "psychopaths," however. "They have their own logic and make a rational calculation about what they're doing."

At university, Huda's outlook shifted after his release from his sequestered life. University encouraged him to indulge a questioning nature that had sometimes riled fellow pesantren members. A side job as a tour guide exposed him to foreigners. "I learned they [Westerners] were nice, normal human beings," he says.

Only a minority of Ngruki graduates, Mr. Huda says, become violent jihadists or worked for JI. "Most make their way in a pluralist world," he says claiming other graduates became entrepreneurs or office workers, with one entering parliament.

Huda, now a father of one, says he keeps in touch with former JI members and prisoners, helping them find work. One project is teaching returning guerillas from the Philippines to fatten cows for a traditional Islamic sacrifice. He also helps take care of the children of prisoners.

Huda, who says he was "mad" when moderate Muslims in Indonesia did not speak out against terrorism, says his approach is to remain deeply engaged with the fringes of Indonesian Islam that have bred it's terrorism problem. "I still have the blue blood of the ground zero of radicalism," he says.

Bombings reboot Indonesia's vicious political circle

Crikey.com - July 20, 2009

Damien Kingsbury – Just two weeks ago, observers were congratulating Indonesia for a presidential election that was seen to consolidate that country's process of democratisation. Following almost five years of gradually improving economic performance, an anti-corruption campaign, gradual reform of the armed forces and general peace and stability, it seemed like Indonesia had left behind its all too troubled past.

Now, following Friday's suicide bombings in Jakarta and a spate of shootings in West Papua leaving dead four Australians among the total, and claims of political intrigue, Indonesia again appears to be on the edge of political turmoil.

On the surface, the bombing of the Marriott and Ritz Carlton Hotels in Jakarta and the shooting near the Freeport mine in West Papua appear easily explained. The Islamist terrorist organisation Jema'ah Islamiyah (JI) has been widely blamed for the Jakarta attack, and Indonesian authorities were quick to blame the Freeport shootings on the separatist Free Papua Organisation (OPM).

Following a series of bombings between 2002 and 2005, JI was seriously weakened by a counter-terrorist crack-down. Many of the organisation's militants were jailed or killed and an ideological and strategic dispute tore at the unity of the organisation.

A majority of JI members decided that the bombing campaign had been counter-productive, mostly killing Muslim Indonesians and alienating local support. However, a minority faction, including JI master bomb-maker Noordin Mohamad Top, military leader Zulkarnaen, bomb-maker Dulmatin and recruiter Umar Patek, remained committed to the bombing campaign.

This faction is known as Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad (Jihad Base Organisation) and can now be said to constitute a new terrorist organisation. The Tanzim group believes that bombings remain an effective method of chasing Westerners out of Indonesia, as well as forcing devout Muslims to choose sides in what they see as a war over Islamic ideology.

A third, unexploded bomb found in one of the two bombed hotels, the J.W. Marriott, replicated bombs used in previous attacks coordinated by Noordin Top, as well as bombs found in a recent raid on his Central Java hideout.

Despite the bombings reflecting JI/Tanzim methods, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono claimed the attacks were in response to his recent re-election. In this, perhaps Yudhoyono was reminded of efforts in 2001 to destabilise the then already inconsistent presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid, for whom Yudhoyono was a senior minister.

Yudhoyono's comment drew quick criticism from defeated presidential hopeful Megawati Sukarnoputri's running mate, son-in-law of late dictator Suharto, retired General Prabowo Subianto.

Prabowo was drummed out of the army following charges of murder, torture and abduction of pro-democracy activists in 1998. As commander of Indonesia's special forces (Kopassus), Prabowo earned a reputation not only for brutality but was also known to have links with militant Islamist organisations. Similarly, Prabowo retains strong links to the army in West Papua.

The little evidence – a few bullet casings – that has been gathered from the Freeport attack which killed Australian Drew Grant has shown the attackers used military issue rifles, firing from two positions. Earlier claims that the Free Papua Organisation was responsible are now in tatters, with even Indonesian Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono saying he did not believe the OPM was responsible.

Disturbingly, three people were killed in quick succession in separate incidents near the Freeport mine, with 12 more wounded, including five police officers. These attacks follow the army being removed from security duty near the mine.

Being removed from security duty, the army has lost access to an important source of unofficial income, about which local commanders are angry. This then points to a confrontation between sections of the army and President Yudhoyono over continuing military reform.

Yudhoyono's claim that the Jakarta bombings were intended to destabilise the post-election environment add a further degree of uncertainty to Indonesia's political climate. The link between army intelligence and Islamist extremists dates back to the 1970s and JI's forerunner organisation, Komando Jihad. Yudhoyono and his intelligence advisers are familiar with this connection.

It will, however, be some time before it is proven who orchestrated the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton bombings, and who was behind the recent shootings of 15 people near West Papua's Freeport mine. Like many past disturbances in Indonesia, it may be these attacks reflect multiple or overlapping agendas.

What is not in doubt, however, is that Indonesia's recent record of peace and stability has been seriously damaged. Beyond the short term impact on tourism, this will also have the longer term effect of raising questions over Indonesia as a safe place for foreign investment.

Indonesia needs this foreign investment to move into net positive economic growth, to be able to address the structural issues that underlie the country's propensity to slide into such chaos.

In this, the West Papua shootings and the Jakarta bombings have re-booted Indonesia's vicious circle, re-affirming Foreign Policy magazine's 'Failed State Index' listing of Indonesia as being 'in danger'.

[Associate Professor Damien Kingsbury is with the School of International and Political Studies at Deakin University. His books include, among others, 'The Politics of Indonesia 3rd Ed', 'Power Politics and the Indonesian Military', and 'Violence in Between: security issues in archipelagic South-East Asia'.]

Who killed Drew Grant?

Melbourne Age - July 19, 2009

Tom Allard, Jakarta – As first light emerged and a soft mist hung over the rainforest, Drew Grant had every reason to be upbeat as he relaxed in the back of a Toyota LandCruiser, his mate and fellow Melburnian Lukas Biggs at the wheel, carefully negotiating the steep road from US mining company Freeport's Grasberg mine to Timika.

Grant's wife, Lauren, would be joining him in a week's time with their nine-week-old daughter, Ella. A health scare that compelled him to rush back to be with his young family in Australia a week earlier had passed.

A weekend of golfing awaited at the spectacular 18-hole Rimba course. Carved out of the dense jungle, it is widely regarded as one of the finest in Asia.

Grant, Biggs, Biggs' partner Lia Madandan and a workmate, Amaju Panjaitan, were planning to stay at the nearby luxury resort, built almost entirely out of timber hewn from the nearby rainforest. After three years as a well-paid project manager for Freeport, Grant had a job he loved and was financially comfortable. The 29-year-old had everything to live for.

But that life was stolen in seconds as a rapid burst of gunfire pierced the vehicle just three kilometres from a security checkpoint, sending bullet fragments and shrapnel into Grant's neck, chest and shoulder.

It was an attack that the autopsy suggests was carried out by two gunmen on either side of the road, using high-powered military rifles and firing from up high and from more than 20 metres away.

Grant's death was the first act in a wave of shootings on this road, a 100-kilometre winding stretch of heavily patrolled gravel and bitumen that descends 4000 metes from the tropical peaks near Grasberg to the Arafura Sea.

Two others have died and 12 have been injured in a series of brazen ambushes that followed Grant's murder, all targeting police and Freeport security carrying out the investigation, and all taking place inside the zone that is formally part of Freeport's 3.6 million-hectare concession and only accessible to those with the right documentation.

A week into the investigation, in which 14 people have been interviewed and a huge manhunt has been launched, police appear to have made little headway in identifying the killers. According to police in West Papua, those in Grant's vehicle can shed little light on their assailants.

The mist, the speed of the attacks and the well-concealed location of the shooters has prevented any identification. Besides, Biggs sped straight to the closest hospital, where Grant was quickly pronounced dead and the lives of his family were shattered forever.

Yet, intriguingly, investigators have all but ruled out the separatist fighters from the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), or Free Papua Movement, who are invariably blamed by Indonesian authorities, often dubiously, for any violence that takes place in Papua, the restive Indonesian province where Freeport is situated.

Certainly, there is no shortage of people with possible motives, from the security forces themselves to their militias and criminal syndicates. All feed off the spoils of Freeport's operations. It is the world's largest gold mine and richest copper deposit, employing more than 20,000 people.

Situated within sight of the world's only tropical glaciers, the immense concession was first awarded to Freeport by the former dictator Suharto in 1967, two years before West Papua – a former Dutch colony that wasn't initially part of Indonesia – was formally incorporated into the state.

Ever since, it has had a symbiotic relationship with the country's elite and, particularly, its military. Each year millions were paid in protection money to the armed forces to secure the concession and military personnel controlled a number of rackets such as illegal mining, prostitution and logging that sprung up around the booming towns that were created to house Freeport employees.

Eben Kirksey, a University of California researcher who specialises in West Papua, says a formal relationship between Freeport and the military ended in 2007, when the Indonesian Government transferred the security role to the police. This created great resentment in the military.

"My sense is that there is a war going on between the military and the police," he says. "There's clearly a motivation for elements of the Indonesian military." By creating a security crisis around the mine, Kirksey argues, the armed forces may be trying to convince Freeport and the Indonesian Government that it needs the military to once again guard the site.

West Papua remains the last great honey pot in Indonesia for the country's armed forces. It is rich in mineral, forestry and fishing resources, and is the only region across the archipelago where the army can still justify the deployment of tens of thousands of its troops to maintain internal security.

The Indonesian military, while undergoing major reforms in the democratic era, still has a dual role, securing the republic against external threats and providing domestic security.

It's a hangover from the early days of Indonesian nationhood, when there were abiding fears that this polyglot country could disintegrate amid an upsurge of pro-independence sentiment.

But, with East Timor now independent, and the civil war in Aceh ended, West Papua is now "very important in terms of the military's justification for its position in nationalist framework", says Richard Chauvel, a West Papua specialist from Melbourne's Victoria University.

"In so many ways, Freeport is a microcosm of the conflicts and tensions in Papua, and at the same time its most extreme manifestation.

"It's got the heavy military and security presence, the contest for its lucrative sources of income, immense economic wealth that isn't shared, a marginalised local community, environmental damage and accusations of human rights abuses. It's all there."

Indonesia's military is under pressure in West Papua for another reason. The Indonesian Government of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general himself, has all but eliminated the many authorised business activities undertaken by the military, shifting them to the civilian sector.

These business concerns not only funded day-to-day operations of the armed forces but were a rich source of income for senior officers. Their elimination has created a strong incentive for members of the military to enter the black economy.

Indonesia's Defence Minister, Juwono Sudarsono, has conceded that "rogue" military personnel or "deserters" could be behind the spate of shootings at Freeport but emphatically denied any sanctioned military role. Sudarsono has suggested that criminal syndicates involved in illegal mining in and around the Freeport concession are more likely to be the perpetrators.

It's a plausible explanation, although there has been no evidence of a crackdown by either Freeport or the police against such activities in recent months.

While saying there were no indications of OPM involvement in the killings to date, Sudarsono also alluded to a possible conspiracy involving other countries to shut down Freeport, seemingly identifying Australia as a potential interested party.

"What I think is don't let Freeport be closed, because it involves global competition over natural resources. There are a number of countries that have an interest in destabilising Freeport," Sudarsono says. Non-government organisations, human rights groups and foreign countries had a history of "agitating" in West Papua.

These countries, he says, are "apparently many neighbouring countries to the south".

Given that the Australian-based miner Rio Tinto has a 40 per cent stake in the project, such a scenario seems unlikely.

Even so, Sudarsono's remarks illustrate the lingering paranoia among the Indonesian elite that Australia – the home of the noisiest pro-West Papuan activists – still tacitly supports West Papuan independence.

In truth, West Papuan independence has no international support and the movement for greater autonomy has had many substantial setbacks since former president Abdurrahman Wahid opened negotiations eight years ago and allowed the symbol of West Papuan identity, the Morning Star flag, to be publicly displayed.

The West Papuan elite who previously agitated for separatism are fragmented, with many now concentrating on securing their own fortunes by chasing positions in the plethora of new regional and district governments that have been created in West Papua in the past few years.

But, while the Indonesian Government has substantially increased funding to the region, little seems to have found its way to ordinary villagers and almost all the new business ventures in the region are owned by non-West Papuan Indonesians. This has fuelled considerable resentment.

The lingering and grinding poverty of many indigenous West Papuans, and the re-introduction of the ban on displaying the Morning Star flag, has continued to feed discord in the region and bolster pro-independence sentiment.

Certainly, Freeport remains the most potent symbol for many West Papuans of oppression from Jakarta, and it cannot be ruled out that people with links to the OPM have played a role in the attacks of the past week.

Some OPM members have joined members of the security forces to run criminal enterprises and business ventures and there are persistent reports that former OPM members have been trained by the security services to protect those ventures.

As the conjecture over Drew Grant's murder continues, so will the investigation. Whether the culprits are ever brought to justice remains highly uncertain.

[Tom Allard is Indonesia correspondent.]

Indonesia wakes up to terror

Asia Times - July 18, 2009

Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar (Bali) – Experts have written the obituary of extremist violence in Indonesia, but the violent extremists keep refusing to read the script. Friday morning's deadly twin bombings of Western-branded hotels in Jakarta are proof that complacency in the fight against terrorism in Indonesia remains misplaced.

Restaurant areas at the JW Marriott, site of a car bombing in 2003, and Ritz Carlton were hit by suicide bombers at breakfast time, according to Indonesian police, with the death toll climbing to nine in the first hours after the attacks. Dozens were injured, and hundreds of guests evacuated.

The bombings spoil a seemingly triumphant moment for Indonesia. After veering toward chaos a decade ago, the country with the world's largest Muslim population had become the world's third largest democracy. "This is a blow to us," presidential spokesperson Dino Patti Djalal said in a broadcast interview.

Spare drill, spoil fill

The attacks also highlight shortcomings in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's nuanced approach to fighting radicalism and violence.

The Friday morning explosions shattered a lull in terror attacks in Indonesia that lasted nearly four years. They came a week after a successful, peaceful election that appears to have given Yudhoyono, a moderate former general with a "speak softly but carry a big stick" reputation, a second term by a landslide margin. The attacks hit after many Western governments lifted their travel restrictions on Indonesia, boosting the tourism trade to record levels.

Things were considered so safe that English Premier League football champions Manchester United were due to stay at the Ritz Carlton from Saturday during a four-day visit to Jakarta, including a scheduled match on Monday against an Indonesian all- star team. A few hours after the bombing, Manchester United announced it would cancel that leg of its Asian tour.

Indonesia has been the target of terrorism dating back to Christmas Eve 2000, when churches were bombed across the archipelago. The attacks were part of widespread Christian-Muslim clashes with shadowy military backing, aimed at undermining reformist president Abdurrahman Wahid. He was ousted in July 2001, but the military's Frankenstein monster took on a life of its own, gaining strength from anti-Western sentiment in the wake of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.

In October 2002, bombs destroyed a pair of popular nightclubs in Bali, accompanied by a calling card blast at the US Consular Agency on the popular resort island. The Marriott attack in August 2003 killed 12. In September 2004, a car bomb targeted the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, leaving nine dead. In October 2005, suicide bombers hit a pair of popular restaurants in Bali.

Back to the future

The attacks on Bali and beyond were attributed to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a Muslim extremist group that seeks to create a caliphate linking Muslim areas across Southeast Asia. JI has alleged links to al-Qaeda, but operates independently.

Experts say Friday's attacks bear the hallmarks of JI, including coordinated attacks on multiple targets frequented by Westerners. But, after many arrests of its top leadership, the group has reportedly splintered into factions, not all retaining the JI name. So far no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

After the second Bali bombings, the first confirmed suicide bombings in Indonesia, Yudhoyono rallied Muslim clerics and other religious leaders to denounce sectarian violence and extremism, declaring unequivocally that Indonesia should not be a battleground for jihad. That high-profile declaration, and revulsion at suicide bomber videos, helped turn the tide of public opinion against extremist violence. The momentum held seemingly until Friday morning.

But Yudhoyono's administration has walked a fine line in fighting homegrown terrorism, balancing ties with the West against radical elements at home. It has accepted support from the Australian and US governments, helping Indonesian police crack down on terrorists. Much of the JI leadership has been arrested, and its top bombing mastermind Azahari Husin, a Malaysian with a PhD from Britain, was killed in a 2006 raid. "We've had a number of preventive successes in Sumatra, in Java, and other places," presidential spokesman Djalal said. "We always knew there are terrorist cells out there. You can never fully eradicate them."

Yudhoyono even welcomed George W Bush for a very unpopular visit in 2006 that avoided Jakarta and entailed a virtual lockdown (and cell phone blackout) around the suburban presidential palace in Bogor. The inauguration of US President Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood living in Jakarta and opposed the war in Iraq, promises even closer ties between the US and Indonesian governments and has already created a great deal of grassroots warmth toward the US.

Embracing extremists

On the other hand, Yudhoyono's political coalition includes extremist Islamic parties that provide a home for sentiments that feed radicalism. He's largely ignored local governments that enact radical-inspired laws, such as dress codes and bans on females traveling alone after dark, that contradict national laws.

Yudhoyono has stoked radical fires by embracing the Palestinian cause as Indonesia's own, in the name of Muslim solidarity. By linking his good name to these fringe elements, Yudhoyono gives legitimacy to parties that advocate imposing sharia law across the archipelago, whose members preach and publish violent anti- Western Islamist screeds.

Indonesia's violence isn't all attributable to Islamic radicals. Despite democratic trappings, there's widespread feeling of powerlessness since government remains largely unresponsive while the elite and connected act with impunity. Many feel Yudhoyono's regime hasn't changed things enough in that regard. For example, it has still failed to convict the masterminds of the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib, poisoned aboard a flight on national flag carrier Garuda in September 2004.

Yudhoyono's current cabinet includes Aburizal Bakrie as Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, whose family business has failed to stop the mudflow it caused in Sidoarjo, East Java, in 2006 and adequately compensate the thousands of displaced victims. The company was allowed to sell the affiliate to an offshore company to avoid responsibility for the damage.

Yudhoyono's two faces embody a national personality that prefers accommodation to confrontation. His approach had seemed to lower the political and social temperature in Indonesia, but Friday's bombings show it's failed to extinguish the embers of radical violence.

With his popularity proven by his win at the polls, Yudhoyono must summon the courage to root out elements that aid and abet terrorism. It's a quality called leadership and Indonesia needs it at this dark moment.

[Longtime editor of investor rights advocate eRaider.com, Gary LaMoshihas written for Slate and Salon.com, and works a counselor for Writing Camp (www.writingcamp.net). He first visited Indonesia in 1994 and has tracking its progress ever since.]

A bloody trail that leads straight to the Indonesian army

Melbourne Age - July 17, 2009

Greg Poulgrain – At dawn last Saturday in the Indonesian province of Papua, on the mountain-road near the world's largest gold mine, 29-year-old Australian Drew Grant was shot and killed. The police said it was "a planned operation by an unidentified group".

The next day, using more military-issue bullets, the group struck again. A Freeport security officer was killed, as was an Indonesian policeman. More shooting has occurred since but without any more fatalities. Who are these well-armed shooters and is there a reason for this killing?

Because blame for a previous violent incident in 2002 – when, almost at the same location, one Indonesian and two American teachers were killed – was pinned onto West Papuan separatists, the local leader of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), Kelly Kwalik, quickly denied involvement.

As a sign of democratic change, security posts along the road are now manned by police rather than army personnel. But some rivalry with the army has resulted.

The army presence is still all-pervasive in the Freeport area and throughout West Papua, even in remote villages, as part of the army's "territorial command". This legacy of the Suharto era has yet to be rescinded as part of democratisation by the Jakarta Government. There are about three times as many troops in West Papua as the 12,500 officially stated.

Even in 1969 there were 16,000 troops in the province, when the Act of Free Choice led to the United Nations reluctantly acknowledging Indonesian sovereignty of the former Dutch colony.

For the Indonesian army, illegal timber and gold in West Papua is regarded as plunder, with scant regard for the rights of the West Papuan population.

Demographic evidence suggests genocide: a comparison of the rate of population growth in neighbouring Papua New Guinea, where the population is nearing 7 million, shows that the number of West Papuan people in the Indonesian half of the island should now be about 3 million. It is only 1 million people. Most have died from disease and neglect, under the watchful eye of the army since 1963.

A looming US congressional bill is making army reform crucial to reverse this trend. It states that – unless there is improvement – the 1969 Act of Free Choice should be reviewed.

The editorial in Tuesday's Jakarta Post drew attention to West Papua, saying: "In East Timor, the government lost the propaganda war and eventually the territory itself. God forbid, this should be the fate of [West] Papua."

Only days after Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – widely known in Indonesia as SBY – was re-elected, a unit of "special forces" (Kopassus) that runs militias in West Papua, has gone on the offensive. The shooting on the Freeport road is the work of Indonesian army militia – that is, West Papuans with beards, long hair and equipped with army weapons.

Instead of the traditional bows and arrows, they carry M16s, SS1s or AK47s. Many army militia are from the Dani tribe. A few years ago I met an Indonesian army man, a Dani, boasting of having just returned from an operation that resulted in the OPM being blamed for shooting some Sulawesi businessmen.

The army sweep that followed claimed the lives of hundreds of West Papuans – men, women and children. Ten villages were burned to the ground. The West Papuan inhabitants fled into the mountains for six months, where many died.

Tom Beanal, a respected West Papuan chief on the Freeport advisory board, told me about the army militia, saying hundreds are on the army payroll. They train in Java, and receive a monthly stipend, waiting for action.

The trauma caused by army militia in West Papua is intended as a warning for SBY not to attempt further reform of Indonesian security forces in West Papua, which Kopassus still dominates despite the new police role in Freeport security.

SBY installed his brother-in-law, Brigadier-General Pramono Edhie Wibowo, as Kopassus chief in the middle of last year. If Kopassus in West Papua has acted independently, the shootings are more than a warning for SBY to limit army reform; if not, it has acted mutinously.

The options for SBY look bleak: unless he can release the army's stranglehold on West Papua – which has led to the failure of "special autonomy" in the province – and bring an end to mafia- style killings and human-rights abuses, perhaps the West, and in particular the US Congress, will act to do so.

[Dr Greg Poulgrain is an Indonesia specialist who first visited West Papua in 1978 and has returned often.

Who killed Munir?

Jakarta Post Editorial - July 17, 2009

In November 2004, the newly elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised to bring the killer of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib to justice, a killing he once referred to as a test case on "how much Indonesia has changed".

But to this day, people are still asking, who killed the country's most fearless and prominent human rights activist?

It is clear that SBY has not kept his promise and has failed the test to change Indonesia.

The clearest sign of failure came last week when the Supreme Court said it supported the South Jakarta District Court verdict, which acquitted army major general, Muchdi Purwopranjono, the alleged mastermind of the killing from all charges. Court spokesman Hatta Ali said that it found no mistake in an earlier district court decision, but refused to elaborate on considerations used by the justices to reject the prosecutors' appeal request.

The public's disappointment over the unresolved murder not withstanding, we have to respect the June 15, 2009 Supreme Court decision. We side with those who wish to see justice being served, particularly Munir's widow and children. On the other hand, Muchdi's name should be rehabilitated, as the court found him not guilty.

The public's frustration is understandable. As the case has dragged on slowly over the last five years, human rights activists have highlighted the strong culture of impunity cultivated during the 32 years of military dictatorship under Soeharto. There is no reason to believe, they say, that this kind of killing will not happen again.

Munir was poisoned on board a Garuda airliner when it was approaching Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands on Sept. 7, 2004. In his short but fruitful life, Munir was behind the successful probing of numerous past human rights abuses by the military. His widow Suciwati and his two children had also secured Yudhoyono's personal promise to find the killer immediately following his death.

Since then, a dark cloud has hovered over the trial after attempts to find the mastermind of the killer have failed.

Muchdi, the former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy head, was the fourth person brought to court in Munir's case. His superior, then the intelligence chief, Hendropriyono, did not appear in court.

An off-duty Garuda pilot, Pollycarpus Budhari Priyanto, was found guilty of putting arsenic poisoning into a glass of orange juice offered to Munir. He was found guilty, but was later acquitted by the Supreme Court. He is now languishing in jail for using a forged letter of recommendation from the BIN that enabled him to join Munir's flight as part of the airline's security staff. Former Garuda secretary, Rohainil Aini, was acquitted over legal technicalities, while former Garuda president director, Indra Setiawan, was sentenced to 16 months for his role in the murder.

It is time to turn to SBY and ask him to fulfill his promise. Can he deliver it in three months time before his tenure comes to an end? Or will he make another promise if he is re-elected come October? Otherwise, he will only reinforce what people think about politicians: They are only good at making promises.