Ulma Haryanto – A campaign in Central Jakarta to reclaim sidewalks for pedestrian use was foiled by a lack of support from the city, a nongovernmental organization claims.

Last week, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy set up a sidewalk "park" at the northern end of Jalan Sabang and invited community members and the head of the Jakarta Transportation Agency, Udar Pristono, to visit.

"We covered a section of the sidewalk with artificial grass, flowers, a white picket fence and benches," Ratna Yunita, an ITDP communication specialist, said on Thursday.

To their dismay, however, the items were gone the next day. "One person called us and asked why the park was gone," Ratna said.

"It is true that when we started this, a lot of people doubted that it would last. A cafe in front of the park asked if it had to pay for security so that the park could stay," she added.

"The 2009 Law on Road Traffic and Transportation stipulates that the sidewalk is a facility for pedestrians. This alone explains that the sidewalk is not a parking space for vehicles."

Ratna said the ITDP was still waiting for the government to act on the rapid disappearance of public space in Jakarta.

"We wanted the area to be a showcase. Afterward, it would be up to the government to decide whether it wanted to duplicate it in other areas," she said.

"Jalan Sabang was selected because the area is so popular. And since the food stalls in the area were relocated, the vacant sidewalks are now being used as parking spaces."

According to an ITDP survey, an average of 300 vehicles park on the stretch of road each hour.

When asked about the missing sidewalk park, Udar said "it was meant to be temporary."

He added, however, that cars should no longer park on the sidewalk along Jalan Sabang, pointing out there was a parking lot near the National Monument (Monas), a few hundred meters north. Authorities are planning to build a covered walkway connecting the areas.

But Udar said his office was going to focus on straightening out the parking at Pasar Baru market in Central Jakarta. "We want to use IT for its ticketing, just like in Blok M [South Jakarta]," he added.

Divorces rise 100 percent after Idul Fitri

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2011

Agus Maryono, Purbalingga – The Muslim month of Syawal, which follows the Ramadhan fasting month, is generally a month of rejoicing and forgiveness, but this is not the case in Banyumas and Purbalingga, Central Java.

At the religious courts in the two regencies, divorce rates reportedly soar compared to other months.

As many as 160 divorce cases have been recorded in Purbalingga in the first 15 days of Syawal, coinciding with the month of September, compared to an average of 70 in other months.

"Based on the figures this has been going on for a long time, where divorce cases rise sharply by more than 100 percent after Idul Fitri," said Purbalingga Religious Court clerk Akhsin Muntohar. He added that divorce cases had risen sharply in the month of Syawal due to more cases in which spouses work far away from home and are separated from their families.

"So, when they return home for Idul Fitri, the husband or wife meet and encounter new problems, which they cannot resolve and it ends in divorce. For them, divorce has become the solution," said Akhsin.

He added that couples who live apart and only meet once a year were subject to marital problems.

A number of wives leave for Middle Eastern countries to work, mostly as housemaids. "For some men, when their wives return home, they don't want them to leave again, but the wife at times insists," said Akhsin.

He added that some husbands filed for divorce upon finding out that their wives' sexual behavior had changed.

"This is serious. Before we hand down the ruling, we ask them to attempt heart-to-heart reconciliation. Some naove husbands even say that their wives' intimate parts have changed and do not feel the same as before," said Akhsin.

Divorce cases have also risen sharply in neighboring Banyumas with the number of divorce lawsuits having reached 166 cases in the same period.

Tired of politics, the poor cling to gutter press

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2011

Jakarta – Not everyone is a political news buff. And for those who can no longer stomach news on corruption and growing religious intolerance, there is always the yellow newspaper, that never fails to whet the appetite of readers for sex scandals, ghost stories and gory details of road accidents.

Go to your nearest newspaper stand and chances are you can find newspapers with sensational headlines such as "Berburu Perawan Setelah Lebaran Butuh Modal Tidak Sedikit" (It takes a lot of money to look for virgin prostitutes after Idul Fitri) or a mouthful heading like "Cewek Cantik ke Posyandu Mencari Model Buat Iklan Susu, Eh Ternyata Dia Tukang Tipu Korbannya Tiga Ibu-Ibu" (Beautiful Woman Comes to Community Health Center To Look for Model for Milk Ad, She Turns Out to be a Fraud and Conned Three Mothers).

Both headings were the headlines on Sept. 12 for Lampu Hijau newspaper, one of the best-selling yellow papers in the city.

Every morning these types of newspapers sell like hotcakes in newsstands across the city, a source of entertainment for the city's working class residents hungry for sensational stories.

Newspapers such as Lampu Hijau (formerly Lampu Merah, which had to find a new name after the Press Council reprimanded its newsroom for being too vulgar in 2008), Pos Kota, Non-Stop or Berita Kota sell copies by creating sensational headlines in oversized letters, often for news on petty crimes. The front page of these papers are full of local slang and puns, cartoon and pictures that appear to have little connection to the stories.

"I read Lampu Hijau because stories are written in a really simple language and are short, unlike those 'heavy' newspapers," an avid reader of Lampu Hijau, Mardi, a security guard, said earlier this week.

Mardi, whose work station is in the vicinity of a newsstand, paid a regular visit to the booth to check the day's headlines. "When I find a sensational article in the paper, such as a crime story, and I happen to have enough small change, I'll buy it. Or else I just scan the newspaper for their headlines," he said.

Another fan of gutter press is Rojali, a delivery man in Rawa Belong, West Jakarta. He said that "yellow" newspapers made him laugh. "I find headings, like the one from the other day that read 'A pickpocket was caught by a mob and, oops, he dies', very funny," he said.

Rojali also said that the catchy headlines and oversized headlines were easy to browse rather than buy. "Most of the times I go to the newsstand only to read headlines without buying the paper," he said. Rojali said that the biggest draw of the newspapers were its pictures of beautiful and curvaceous women.

But others read the papers only for their ads. A newspaper agent in Slipi, West Jakarta, who identified himself as Babeh said that Pos Kota sold more copies than other "yellow" newspapers because it used much of its space for used-car ads.

Babeh said every day he could sell up to 250 copies of Pos Kota, above the average 200 copies for other "yellow" newspapers. The average price of the "yellow" newspapers is between Rp 1,500 (10 US cents) to Rp 2,000.

Another incentive for readers to buy the papers are apparent clues to lottery numbers. "I sell more of certain newspapers on certain days because usually the papers give readers a clue on lottery numbers," Babeh said.

Heri said that most readers of the "yellow" newspapers were males who go straight to the papers' sex stories.

Business is good for yellow journalism, one of the newspaper editors said. Lampu Hijau chief editor Dwi Prihantara said that the newspaper, a member of the Jawa Pos group launched in 2001, could sell an average 45,000 copies a day.

"The number usually drops to 30,000 during the Ramadhan of fasting month," he said, adding that it may have something to do with Muslims constraining themselves from reading titillating stories and pictures.

Dwi said that the newspapers were currently available in the Greater Jakarta area, West Java and some parts of Central Java.

He said that management of Lampu Hijau were forced to "soften" its stories, particularly on sex scandals, after the Press Council reprimanded the newspaper in 2008. "We used to print vulgar or bloody pictures and gave detailed descriptions of sex scenes. But after 2008, we stopped doing that," he said.

Dwi added that although copyeditors were free to tweak news headlines, they were only allowed to edit stories in formal Bahasa Indonesia. "We do this to attract the attention of potential readers," he said. (swd)

Polygamy OK, house speaker says

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2011

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Alie said on Friday that cabinet members practicing polygamy should not be replaced by the president just because of their personal lives.

"Please don't reshuffle the cabinet just because [a minister] has two wives." Marzuki said. "As long as it does not violate Shariah law, and if it does not disturb the performance in the cabinet, it's fine."

Speaking in Jakarta, Marzuki said it made sense for the president to evaluate the cabinet's performance since it had been two years since its appointment in 2009. It is time to push the cabinet to work harder, he added.

"If a minister's private life affects his performance as minister, then of course the president must consider it," he said. "But if it's not disturbing his performance, it becomes another matter."

Marzuki stressed that the evaluation should be based on the professional performance of the cabinet members only.

"We have a minister who has two wives, but he can balance everything and it never affects the quality of his work," he said. "Many people are living with 10 wives or have four wives, but it doesn't disturb their work. They can still manage their time."

While Marzuki asked for private lives to be excluded, conflicting comments came out of the State Palace about the importance of a minister's personal life.

On Wednesday, State Secretary Sudi Silalahi said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was worried that the divorce of Housing Affairs Minister Suharso Monoarfa would "influence [Suharso's] performance." "It is a concern for the president," Sudi added.

His comments came one day after Yudhoyo's spokesman, Julian Aldrin Pasha, said the proceedings were not expected to affect the cabinet's work. "What matters most is the minister's commitment to the... integrity pact and performance contract," Julian said.

Suharso, a member of the United Development Party (PPP), previously denied that his marriage to Carolina binti M. Gandhi Kaluku was in trouble. But Carolina filed for divorce on at the South Jakarta Religious Affairs Court on Monday. The reason for the filing was not revealed.

Marzuki used Suharso's situation as an example of separating performance has nothing to do with his personal life.

Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring, the head of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), had been previously criticized for practicing polygamy.

He was identified as a polygamist on a list released by an Indonesian women's group in 2009, and the allegation plagued his campaign for the information minister's position.

Actions, demos, protests...

Journalists unite with students at Bandung rally

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2011

Jakarta – Journalists and students rallied together in Bandung in front of Gedung Sate in the West Java capital, in a protest over the recent student vs journalist fracas at SMAN 6 High School in Jakarta.

"Violence is not the way," Syahid Yogga, a student demonstrator from SMAN 12 Bandung, said on Tuesday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Yogga added that it was the responsibility of teachers and the government to set examples for students, who he said were most likely still emotionally unstable.

Bandung Journalists spokesman Iman S. Nurdin said more protection was needed for journalists doing their job.

"Journalists' job is to fulfill the public's right to information. Journalists are the public's partners in the field of information and not the public enemy," he said.

Protestors release mice in front of Yogya DPRD

Jakarta Globe - September 20, 2011

Hangga Brata, Yogyakarta – Hundreds of student activists staged an action where they released 40 mice in front of the Regional Representatives' offices in Yogyakarta on Tuesday to signal their disgust with corruption among provincial legislators.

"The mice were symbols of the corruptors who gnaw away at the people's money. They are like a mouse that eats something that did not belong to them and without respect or conscience" said Shouqi, the coordinator.

In addition to speeches decrying corruption in the representatives' council, also known as the DPR, and the releasing of the mice, some of the students also set a tire on fire.

The students urged the dissolution of the House of Representatives' Budget Committee, also known as Banggar (Badan Anggaran), due to ongoing evidence of corruption among lawmakers.

"Nazaruddin's case and the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration's case were only a part of the many cases of corruption in that respectful body, the House of Representatives.

He was referring to former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin, now embroiled in allegations of graft over athletes' accommodations for the Southeast Asian Games in Palembang.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration – led by Muhaiman Iskandar – has been connected to alleged bribes under a special ministry program, the Acceleration of Infrastructure Development in Transmigration Areas (PPID).

Given the budget committee's power to influence allocations of funding and wield influence over lawmakers and the government, it was highly susceptible to corruption, Shouqi said.

The students also urged the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to imprison any members of the so-called "budget mafia" and called for more government transparency in general and an end to any policies deemed harmful to the public at large.

The vice chief of the Yogyakarta branch of the Regional Representatives Council (DPRD), Sukedi, said he respected the students' demonstration, adding that it represented the people's frustration with corruption.

"I said that you came to the right place. This building is for people, like students," Sukedi said. Shouqi said that the students would monitor Sukedi's stated commitment to convey their message to the House in Jakarta.

Protesters rally against 'topeng monyet'

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2011

Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – Activists from the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JANN) staged a rally on Monday, calling for an end to animal cruelty in the form of traveling monkey performances, locally known as topeng monyet.

Demonstrators attending the rally at the Hotel Indonesia (HI) traffic circle said they were disturbed by the exploitation of monkeys for money in the city.

"Topeng monyet is a form of animal torture. These shows also disrupt order as they can easily scare people. This is just another form of begging and this has to be stopped using an ordinance that criminalizes begging. Some see this show as fun but this involves torture to animals," JAAN's spokesman, Benfika, said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

The JAAN also called on the city government to round up topeng monyet practitioners and bring them to justice.

"We want the Jakarta administration to rid the city of topeng monyet. The city administration can begin by conducting raids and issuing official decrees or bylaws," Benfika said.

Topeng monyet is a popular roadside attraction in the city, and is often used to entertain children for their birthday parties.

One of the most popular attractions in topeng monyet involves a monkey, usually called Sarimin, that carries a bag and goes to the market. The show also requires Sarimin to ride a miniature wooden horse, and take a stroll with an umbrella. At other times, the monkey also puts on lipstick and finally dons a monkey mask.

Activists maintain that monkeys trained for topeng monyet shows are usually subjected to physical punishment if they fail to perform stunt.

Recently, The Jakarta Post spoke to a topeng monyet handler, who admitted that training monkeys to do their stunts is a difficult task.

The monkey trainer said that he rents a monkey for Rp 20,000 (US$2.24) a day from his employer, who usually owns a dozen monkeys ready to be trained for riding bicycles, wearing masks and even mimicking Muslim prayers.

The monkey trainer, who wished to remain anonymous, said that it usually took him between three and six months to train a monkey.

"It will take more than two weeks just to make them able to stand," he said, while showing off his monkeys that were caged in small rusty cages near his shack in Prumpung.

Another area where trainers can find monkeys for topeng monyet is Kampung Rambutan in East Jakarta. Some of the monkeys here are also offered for sale. A monkey that is able to stand up can sell for Rp 250,000.

Aceh

Incestuous couple in Aceh banished

Nurdin Hasan - September 18, 2011

Banda Aceh – A brother and sister who had a child together have been banished from their Aceh village, despite officials struggling to find an offense to charge them with under the province's Shariah legal code.

The couple – 34-year-old M.N. and his sister, Y.W., a 30-year-old divorcee with two children – were told they were no longer welcome in their village in Susoh subdistrict in Southwest Aceh.

In July the two had a baby, but the child was adopted by a military officer in another district. The incestuous siblings were outed to village officials by a man who said he loaned the two money for the baby's delivery.

But Muddasir, the head of Southwest Aceh's Shariah Police, said there was no bylaw explicitly prohibiting incest.

"After consulting with local community and religious leaders, we decided that the brother and sister must be banished from their village, because what they did brought shame to the community," Muddasir said.

"This is a customary sanction and is a lifetime banishment. They are forbidden from returning to the village, except if their parents or family members die, and then only for 10 days of mourning; afterward, they have to leave."

Muddasir said the sanction had been formalized in a statement signed by leaders of the community and representatives of the pair's family. The pair were also ordered to separate. Muddasir said he did not know where the siblings would go, adding that M.N. went north while Y.W. traveled south, on a bus.

"The family also agreed to banish the siblings because they also disgraced the family's honor," he said. "The community was also happy with the decision because acts of violence [against the pair] have been averted."

The two were previously taken to the police, but were released due to a lack of laws regarding incest. "They told us the incestuous sex took place in 2010 when M.N. came into his sister' bedroom, asking her to give him a massage," Muddasir said.

"Y.W. said they only did it once but I think it had to be more than once, because they live in the same house," he added.

Authorities earlier said they could not force the pair to wed because they were related. Muddasir said under Shariah law, the pair should be stoned to death, but Aceh did not have that kind of punishment on its books.

This is not the first time Muddasir has had to acknowledge the limits of Aceh's Islamic bylaws. In August, he said he was clueless about how to handle a case involving the marriage of two lesbians. The two women were eventually forced to separate with the promise that they would never see each other again.

West Papua

Reassess military approach in Papua: NGOs

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2011

Jakarta – Recent violence in Papua in July and August underscores the urgent need for the government to reassess its military approach and place respect for human rights at the heart of conflict resolution policies and practices, human rights activists say.

"Freedom of expression and freedom to assemble have been repeatedly violated in Papua, which in turn has seriously fueled tensions. Besides, gross human rights abuses, such as acts of torture, remain unaccounted for," said Poengky Indarti, executive director of Imparsial, in a joint release sent to The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The release was sent on behalf of Imparsial, the Commission for the Missing and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). Kontras recorded at least 10 violent clashes between July 5 and August 3 involving members of security forces and local armed groups. Civilians were injured and killed in some of these clashes.

At least 13 Papuans were arrested by the police on August 31 at Kampung Nafri, Abepura, for allegedly inciting unrest during a religious ceremony. There were also allegations that the 13 were involved in a shooting on August 3, in which three civilians and a military officer were killed.

However, local rights groups pointed out that the police made arrests without properly investigating and substantiating their charges. Some of the arrested suspects have reportedly been tortured while in police custody.

"The work to monitor human rights [abuses] has been deemed a threat to national security by the military, which endangers the safety of human rights defenders and other activists in Papua, as they could bear the brunt of harassment and physical intimidation by state security forces under the pretext of fighting separatism," said Yap Swee Seng, executive director of FORUM-ASIA.

The four organizations called on the government to instruct its military to immediately cease all unlawful surveillance activities in Papua and revise its current draft intelligence bill by incorporating recommendations by civil society organizations and bringing it in line with the Indonesian Constitution and Criminal Procedure Code as well as international human rights law.

Reports of Securicor being used to break the Freeport strike

Tabloid JUBI - September 21, 2011

There are allegations about [multinational private security corporation] SecuriCor led [at Freeport] by someone called Ian Church being involved in intimidating workers. This follows in the wake of an argument which almost led to a physical fight between the security forces and Sucuricore.

Virgo Solossa who heads the organisational division of SPSI, the union of Freeport workers, said yesterday that there were indications that Securicore would be used to spread propaganda to persuade the workers to return to work in Tembagapura.

"We know that this is going on at the moment and it seems that they will be deployed at post 32 Kuala Kencana, at post 28 in Bandara Moses Kilangin Timika, as post 26 in Gorong-Gorong, and at posts 38 and 50.

"We have passed this information to the workers and have urged all those who are involved in the strike not be influenced by these activities which may be intended to stir up emotions." said Solossa.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday at around 7am, there was an argument that led to a physical confrontation which was prevented from becoming more heated because of the intervention of Brimob troops. As a result, some members of Freeport security ran back to their post in Bandara Moses Kilangin. But according to JUBI sources, more fighting followed although it didn't last long and no one was injured. on either side.

It is well known that some workers employed by Freeport-Indonesia who are contracted to work once every three months have been involved in these activities and they are required not to reveal their identities, either to other Freeport workers or to the public. Nevertheless these securicore forces have been deployed during the strike, although the reason for this is not known.

Any attempts to get information about this from the Freeport management would be very difficult indeed, as we have learnt from past experience, wrote JUBI.

These forces are reportedly doing things that are beyond their authority. There were some instances of attacks being made on the barracks where the workers sleep in an attempt to get them to go down to Timika (ie, to return to work).

After an incident that occurred today, Deny Abrianto, chief security of Freeport, took action against the workers for them to be immediately sacked and sent home. There was also a report that a senior manager, Simon Petrus Morin, was given a warning, that is to say he was order to go home. There were no disciplinary actions taken against Ian Church by the management.

It has not been possible to obtain further information from the CorComm (?) of Freeport-Indonesia.

Workers' strike continues at Freeport's Grasberg copper mine

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2011

Nethy Dharma Somba and Rangga D. Fadillah, Jakarta/Jayapura – A workers' union of gold and copper mining producer PT Freeport Indonesia has denied a statement made by the company's top executive that the workers had returned to a mining site.

Julian Parorrongan from the Indonesian Workers' Union said the statement made by PT Freeport's president director, Armando Mahler, that about 500 workers had returned to work, was untrue.

"There are several workers who are back at work, but they are not workers of the production division. They work for the maintenance department," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Julian said some of the workers who had returned to work were those employed by the copper and gold mine giant's outsourcing companies. Some of the workers had also returned to work after receiving threats and intimidation from the company's top management.

Meanwhile, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry's director general for mineral and coal, Thamrin Sihite, who just arrived back in Jakarta from a visit to Freeport's Grasberg mine in Timika, claimed that the condition there was gradually returning to normal.

He said the company had not paid workers who had been striking since Sept. 15. Earlier reports revealed that their workers' salaries would be cut by at least Rp 577,000 per day (US$65.7).

Thamrin explained that the ministry had formed two plans to maintain production activities at the mining site. The first was to order the police to guard workers who still wanted to work amid the strike. He claimed that workers who took part in the strike impacted on their colleagues who still wanted to work.

The second scenario was the company would request outsourced workers to temporarily replace striking workers so that production could continue.

The government earlier estimated that Freeport might lose $19 million from sales per day due to the strike, which may cut output by 230,000 metric tons of ore a day. The country would also lose $6.7 million per day in state income from the company.

About 8,000 employees, or 70 percent of the Freeport workforce at Freeport's Grasberg mining site, started a month-long strike on Sept. 15 to demand wage increases, raising concerns it may widen a global deficit of the metal used in pipes and wires, and boost prices.

The company and union at Grasberg ended 38 days of talks over the 2011-2013 contract terms on Aug. 26 after failing to agree on wages. Negotiations started after the workers walked away from their jobs for eight days in July. The workers are seeking an increase in wages to between $17.50 and $43 an hour from $1.50 to $3.50.

No work no pay, says Freeport president director

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2011

Jakarta – PT Freeport Indonesia president director and CEO Armando Mahler said that the company had decided not to pay the salaries of workers who have been on strike since Sept. 15.

"We all know that the strike has been conducted since midnight Sept. 15, local time. The management has decided not to pay salaries during their strike. No work, no pay," said Mahler on Saturday evening in Jayapura, as quoted by Antara state news agency.

Mahler said that the company had paid the salaries of workers who also went on strike in July because the payment was part of the requirements demanded by the workers' union before returning to work.

"That [salary payment] is out of our generosity. In this second strike, we have strongly committed to not paying the salaries of those on strike," he said.

He called on workers to resume their jobs because they themselves would bear the brunt of the strike's consequences, citing that every worker participating in the strike loses at least Rp 577,000 per day (US$65.7).

Freeport threatened us: Strikers

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2011

Rangga D. Fadillah and Nethy Dharma Somba, Jakarta/Jayapura – Freeport employees on strike over wage increase demands claimed they had been intimidated by PT Freeport's management, which on Friday reported that the copper and gold mining company was losing an estimated US$19 million per day as a result of the strike.

More than 7,000 workers had joined the strike in Timika as of Thursday, after salary negotiations with management ended in deadlock. The workers also went on strike from July 4-11.

They have demanded that the company raise the salaries of workers from between $2.10 and $11.00 per hour to between $17.5 and $43 per hour.

The company management was reported to have announced that it would not pay those who skipped work. The announcement, which was advertised on a local publication and came into effect on Sept. 15, was taken by the strikers as a form of intimidation.

"Regulations allow employees to hold strikes. We cannot be intimidated. Go ahead and not pay us, we can go through legal means," worker spokesman Julius Parorrongan said when contacted by The Jakarta Post from Jayapura on Friday.

Entering the second day of the strike, the rallying workers, according to Juli, held prayers at a check point in Kuala Kencana, Timika.

Juli said that the workers were waiting for the company's management to agree to return to the negotiating table. PT Freeport spokesperson Ramdani Sirait said that the company was still talking with the government about the issue.

Januaris Resubun, a Papua administration official in charge of provincial revenue, said the strike would affect the sum of royalties received by the Papua administration. "The Papua administration receives Rp 230 billion [US$26.22 million] a year. The strike will definitely affect the royalties," he said.

In Jakarta, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Darwin Zahedy Saleh said that the current strike might cost the company $19 million in sales per day. The strike will also cause the country to lose $6.7 million from the company, given the fact that the company's ability to produce around 230,000 tons of gold and copper ore might be disturbed.

"We hope that the problems between Freeport's management and its worker union can be solved as soon as possible. Our ministry is committed to maintain the health of the country's investment climate," he told reporters at a press conference at his office in Jakarta on Friday.

Darwin suggested that the company's management and worker union improve communications to avoid misunderstanding.

Freeport's mine is 213,000 hectares in area. Royalty payments from the company accounted for 68 percent of Papua's gross domestic regional product (GDRP) and 96 percent of Timika's GDRP in 2010. During that year, the company contributed $1.9 billion to the state income from tax and non-tax payments and invested $2.1 billion.

"Given that fact, we hope that all related parties prioritize the national interest to solve the problems," said Darwin, adding that he and the ministry's mineral and coal director general, Thamrin Sihite, would go to Timika to supervise the conflict resolution.

"We don't mean to back one side. We want the rights of workers upheld, but we also hope that we can maintain the investment climate."

Freeport Indonesia, the Indonesian unit of US mining firm Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold Inc., reported that it had paid $678 million to the government in financial obligations for its first-quarter operations.

The payment comprised $346 million in corporate income tax; $165 million in employee income tax, regional tax and other levies; $51 million in royalties. The remaining $117 million was the government's share of dividends.

Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa said that he would ask the managing director of Freeport to find a solution to mediate the dispute between the labor union and the management.

Indonesia contributing to problems at Freeport gold mine in Papua

ABC Radio Australia - September 16, 2011

Hundreds of paramilitary police have been sent to Indonesia's Papua province after 9,000 mining workers started a month-long strike for higher wages. They're employed at the US owned Freeport McMoran copper and gold mine.

Analyst Dr Chris Ballard says the mine has been plagued with problems because of interference from the Indonesian government and massive wage disparities between locals and foreign executives.

Presenter: Claudette Werden

Speaker: Dr Chris Ballard, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

Ballard: These are nowhere more obvious than in the large scale resource industries, mining and petroleum and gas in particular where you have very very high paid executives and technical officers who fly around the world on extremely high salaries and then local workforces paid at local wage levels which are extremely low. The real problem at Freeport is that it's been running since the 1960's and it has failed spectacularly to really train a local workforce to assume those technical roles and in fact to assume technical roles. There have been a few high profile hirings of Papuans, of indigenous Papuans to senior executive positions but these are not people that the company has cultivated over the last 45 years and grown itself as it were. Think back to the 1960's which was the time when the Australian mine in Bougainville Panguna was operating and starting up at the same time and they deliberately adopted a policy of hiring and training locally both in Bougainville and across Papua New Guinea, with the result that senior positions in the government and in the mining industry throughout Papua New Guinea and beyond are filled with those trainees, well Freeport failed to do that and really didn't begin a serious training operation until the 1990's, 30 odd years after it had started and I think what we're seeing now is the result of this long term failure.

Werden: And how reasonable is their claim for higher wages?

Ballard: I would have to say entirely reasonable, I think the artificially depressed salaries in eastern Indonesia and in Papua in particular simply can't bee sustained when you're operating in an industry that generates in the case of Freeport, billions of dollars of wealth, the estimates even in the late 1990's were of a further 50-billion dollars worth of unexcavated ore and that was after 30 years of mining. So this is an industry that generates massive wealth for a few individuals, for shareholders and for an American corporation and some of its Indonesian partners. I think in terms of training and wages and wage opportunities, there's an awful lot more than can be done for local communities.

Werden: Well their current wage is $3.50 and what they're asking for is up to $43.00 an hour, obviously there is room to negotiate, what do you think will happen?

Ballard: I think there's considerable room to negotiate there, I don't think they'll end up with $43.00 an hour but I would be surprised if they don't manage to negotiate some kind of wage increase. That said I think the remaining history of that mine is going to be one of continuing strikes and forms of protest because the basic conditions and the nature of the contract as it were between Freeport, Jakarta and the local community is fundamentally unequal.

Werden: How do you redress that?

Ballard: Well there have been attempts to redress that in the past, attempts to broker honest negotiations, particularly between Freeport and the community but they tend to founder particularly around the government in Jakarta which regards any kind of direct negotiation with Papuans particularly on the part of an outside company like US owned Freeport, as a threat to sovereignty, particularly post East Timor, Jakarta's profoundly sensitive about any kind of foreign activity in Papua and tends to portray any unrest in Papua as the work of foreign agitators, so Freeport has to toe a fairly tricky line there, the problem is whenever they've been pushed to make a choice, they tend to flit onto the side of Jakarta and the security forces.

Government is losing $6.7 million a day in revenue from strike

Reuters - September 16, 2011

Samuel Wanda and Olivia Rondonuwu, Timika, Indonesia – Energy minister Darwin Zahedy Saleh said Indonesia is losing $6.7 million from revenue every day due to the strike involving thousands of workers at Freeport McMoRan's Indonesian copper mine.

The government is looking to mediate talks between the firm and union. The union, representing about 8,000 workers, has demanded a pay rise to between $17.5 to $43 per hour, down from initial demands for $30 to $200 per hour, but still above a current $1.5 to $3 per hour rate. It has said that other Freeport workers worldwide get 10 times their current level.

The strike, combined with recent supply disruptions at Latin American mines, has raised concerns over a global shortage of the metal, though so far this week copper price gains have been dampened by worries about the global economy.

Workers at Freeport's Amamapare port in Papua joined miners on Thursday in a month-long strike over pay, stranding six vessels awaiting copper ore cargo to be delivered to smelter plants in Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Japan.

"Right now there is no activity and delays are expected with the six vessels at the port," said Ricky Noviansyah, a port captain for Wilhelmsen Ships Service.

Based on the mine's daily production target, the strike could potentially cut output of 230,000 tonnes of ore per day, said energy ministry official Thamrin Sihite, after a meeting with Freeport Indonesia's management on Friday.

Four Freeport supporting vessels, including two boats to help load concentrate onto ships, as well as a tug boat and another vessel for coal and fuel to supply power stations at the mine, have halted operations and locked up, as the captains and engineers joined the strike on Friday, a port worker told Reuters by telephone.

Freeport has so far declined to comment on production. Activity at Grasberg, the world's third-biggest copper mine, has stopped as workers demand a larger slice of mining profits.

The huge mine, which also holds the world's largest gold reserves, produces around 150,000 tonnes of copper ore a day, according to the firm's Web site.

Copper prices rose 0.7 percent on Friday to $8,773 a tonne, but has dropped about 9 percent so far this year. A total 544,311 tonnes of copper was taken from the Grasberg mine last year, around 3.8 percent of the world's output.

The Indonesian strike, if it lasts, is likely to be more costly for Freeport than the eight-day work stoppage in July, when the firm said it suffered a production loss of 35 million pounds (15,876 tonnes) of copper and 60,000 ounces of gold.

The strike in Indonesia comes after workers in Freeport's Peru copper mine Cerro Verde, which produces 2 percent of the world's copper supply, launched an indefinite strike this week for better pay and benefits.

Military ties

Government under fire over moves to woo Indonesia

TVNZ - September 18, 2011

The Green Party is calling on the Government to abandon plans to strengthen ties with Indonesia's military.

The Greens say Indonesia is carrying out acts of torture on the people of West Papua but the Government is looking to re-establish high level meetings and training exercises.

New Zealand and Indonesia were on opposite sides of the conflict in Timor Leste and the Greens say Indonesia is a military with blood on its hands.

"It seems that the New Zealand Government is so concerned to get in the good books of the Indonesian government that it's willing to overlook the massive human rights violations in West Papua," Green Party MP Keith Locke said.

New Zealand severed defence ties with Indonesia in 1999 in protest against the violent criminal actions of Indon soldiers in Timor Leste but the ban was lifted in 2006. Papers show New Zealand has been working to reinstate high level talks and military training opportunities.

"We're at the beginning of this journey, we would expect Indonesia to also build its ability to respect human rights," Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said.

But those at the centre of the violence says New Zealand's position is disappointing. "They will put the human dignity under the ground... the West Papuan will be killed and will be extinct," West Papuan resident Paula Makabory said.

But Mapp says Indonesia is the closest large Asian nation to New Zealand and "it's appropriate we have a relationship".

Locke has also condemned Foreign Minister Murray McCully's decision to boycott a UN anti-racism meeting which opens in New York this week.

McCully says New Zealand did not agree with the draft text of the conference declaration and that 'the commemoration of the 2001 Durban Declaration could re-open the offensive and anti-Semitic debates which undermined the original World Conference.'

But Locke said joining the boycott will blacken New Zealand's good name among UN member nations.

Human rights & justice

Suciwati to challenge Pollycarpus' remissions

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2011

Jakarta – Suciwati, widow of slain human rights defender Munir Said Thalib, is seeking to overturn the decision by the Law and Human Rights Ministry to grant remissions to the killer of her husband, an activist says.

"We have filed an official request to the Law and Human Rights Ministry asking for copies of the ministerial decrees, that granted Pollycarpus a number of cuts to his sentence," the chairman of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Haris Azhar, told The Jakarta Post.

Haris was referring to former pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, who was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in 2008 for the premeditated murder of Munir, Kontras' founder.

According to data compiled by Kontras, the government has reduced Pollycarpus' jail term by almost 25 months through seven remission grants. "The government should have applied stiffer conditions for a human rights convict like Pollycarpus," said Haris

A spokesman for the Law and Human Rights Ministry, Martua Batubara, said the ministry would be ready to face the lawsuit. Munir was died from arsenic poisoning on board a Garuda Indonesia flight to Amsterdam in 2004.

Muchdi case review would be against law, says AGO

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Attorney General Basrief Arief says that filing a case review to challenge the acquittal of former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy chairman Muchdi Purwoprandjono would be against the law.

"We are law enforcers who enforce the law. We don't violate it!" Basrief said Monday when asked why the Attorney General's Office (AGO) had not filed a case review with the Supreme Court against Muchdi's acquittal.

Muchdi was acquitted from charges of the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib who died as a result of arsenic poisoning in 2004.

Basrief cited Criminal Code procedures that grant the authority to file a case review against a Supreme Court ruling only to defendants. "The AGO is not a defendant!" Basrief said.

However, the AGO has frequently filed case reviews using a jurisprudence that it says overrides the Criminal Code. For example it filed a case review against the acquittal of former pilot, Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, also a defendant in Munir's murder case. Following the review, Pollycarpus was sent to prison for 20 years.

Basrief denied that the AGO had been inconsistent in its approach to the Muchdi and Pollycarpus cases.

Activists skeptical about APP's pledge to investigate its rights record

Jakarta Globe - September 18, 2011

Daniel Pye – Asia Pulp and Paper has announced it has commissioned an independent audit of its practices in Indonesia following a UN call for businesses around the world to protect human rights.

But activists said they were skeptical given the company's record of environmental destruction, links to human rights abuses and the limited scope of the audit.

APP hired international accountancy firm Mazars to conduct the audit in the wake of the UN Human Rights Council's publication in June of the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, a set of guidelines about how companies should act with regards to human rights.

"[Holding companies accountable] could be the next big thing in human rights," said Marzuki Darusman, director of the Asean Human Rights Resource Center, who will be part of the team carrying out the audit.

"But the audit could be compromised if at any time there is a conflict of interest between Mazars and APP. It does not ensure that there will be no human rights abuses in the future."

The audit would not be based solely on the UN principles, but James Kallman, president of Mazars Indonesia, said the firm would implement rigorous methods of assessment.

"We will be basing our study on more than 100 indicators including work environment, forced labor, gender equality, community and environmental impact and conflict resolution. We expect to be allowed full access to carry out our audit independently," he said. "Companies today need to realize that to be sustainable they need to consider factors other than how much money they make."

But Marzuki said that while they would look into alleged cases of abuse by APP, they were limited to the remit laid out in an APP policy statement provided to them and would not be able to investigate cases documented by third parties.

"This is not the first time APP has commissioned audits by companies claiming to be independent and they eventually always produce positive assessments [of APP], which we think is far from the reality on the ground," said Hariansyah Usman, head of Walhi Riau, a local environmental NGO.

The company is frequently cited in international and local NGOs' reports that claim it is involved in numerous cases of abuse and environmental destruction.

A 2003 Human Rights Watch report called "Without Remedy" included evidence of attacks on Malay and Sakai communities in Riau in Sumatra, the hub of Indonesia's pulp and paper industry. It alleged that an APP sister company, Arara Abadi, sent armed security, or Pam Swakarsa, overseen by Indonesian security forces, to violently intimidate villagers protesting against government-sanctioned land grabs.

The company has always denied the allegations and has recently pledged to abide by a two-year government ban on deforestation. But Hariasnyah said that Walhi Riau had evidence that APP has continued to clear protected forest outside of its already large concessions.

Norman Jiwan, head of Sawit (Palm Oil) Watch, said the moratorium was ineffective as it was not applied retrospectively, and APP would continue to do "business as usual."

"APP must go beyond the law, and implement best practices without compromising the human rights of local communities and indigenous peoples," he said.

At the time of going to print, APP had not responded to interview requests.

Freedom of expression & press

For two writers, honor for daring to speak out

Jakarta Globe - September 18, 2011

Samantha Michaels – Despite efforts to protect journalists, freedom of the press sits on shaky ground in Indonesia, according to two writers honored last week for their courage in the face of persecution.

Upi Asmaradhana, a journalist and freelance videographer based in Makassar, and Semuel Waileruny, a human rights activist in Ambon, received Hellman/Hammett grants last week for their commitment to free expression.

The grants, given annually by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, are awarded to writers who have suffered political persecution or human rights abuses for offending people in power.

"[Upi and Semuel] engage in nonviolent advocacy through their writing, and because they expressed their opinions, they have been prosecuted," said Andreas Harsono, an Indonesian consultant for Human Rights Watch and a journalist.

Upi was arrested and tried in 2009 for criminal defamation after he accused Insp. Gen. Sisno Adiwinoto, the South Sulawesi Police chief, of illegally threatening media freedom.

Sisno had publicly urged government officials to file charges against any journalist they felt had defamed them or tarnished the region's image.

A Makassar court acquitted Upi of the charges, but prosecutors appealed. Upi told the Jakarta Globe in an e-mail that he was still waiting for a ruling from the Supreme Court.

"The threat of criminal punishment is still present – remember I am not yet fully free," wrote Upi, whose home was vandalized in March. "But this does not mean we're frightened or that we'll stop calling for freedom of the press and freedom of expression."

Semuel has similarly been persecuted for his work. A scholar, lawyer and political activist, he has written several books critical of the government and military. After a communal conflict broke out in 1999 between Muslims and Christians in the Maluku Islands, he was convicted of treason for his involvement with the South Maluku Republic (RMS), a separatist group. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he served less than half.

"Imprisonment not only affected me, but also my wife, children, relatives and friends who struggled alongside me," Semuel wrote in an e-mail to the Globe on Sunday.

Semuel, who helped establish the human rights organization Tamasu to assist prisoners in the Maluku Islands, recently published a book that claims the Indonesian Military (TNI) inflamed sectarian conflict in the region.

"After my release [from prison], and while I was writing my book, high- ranking police officers visited me," he said. "I was under constant surveillance from police and military intelligence."

"I have also received threats over the phone," he added. "But for me, that's the risk [of the job]."

The pair received their awards about a week after Gatot Supriyanto Machali, a radio broadcaster critical of China's human rights record, was sentenced to six months in prison and a year of probation for administrative violations. Gatot said the conviction followed a years-long campaign by the Chinese government to have his station in Batam, Riau Islands, shut down. France-based Reporters Without Borders condemned the sentence as politically driven and disproportionate to the offense.

"Freedom of the press in Indonesia is at this time still far from what we hope for," wrote Upi, who is coordinator of the Coalition of Journalists Against Criminalization of the Press. "Journalists continue to be murdered."

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit based in New York, Indonesia is one of 20 countries with the highest murder rates for journalists. It ranks 18th, behind Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone. CPJ reports on its Web site that eight journalists have been murdered in Indonesia since 1992, including three in 2010. Six of the murders were committed with impunity.

Indonesian journalists must also contend with restrictive laws, Upi said.

"Apart from threats of physical violence, many regulations in Indonesia threaten freedom of the press at this time," Upi wrote, citing the Political Party Law, the Pornography Law, the Electronic Transactions Law, the Freedom of Information Law, the Criminal and Civil Code and the intelligence bill.

According to Andreas of Human Rights Watch, there are more than 100 articles that govern freedom of expression in Indonesia.

Upi said he hoped the grants would encourage fellow journalists to continue expressing the truth in the interest of the public, despite the dangers. "The Human Rights award will renew our spirits," Upi said. "We dedicate this award to the journalists who have died doing their duty."

Political parties & elections

Golkar reshuffles executives after exodus

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2011

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – The Golkar Party's provincial executive board in North Sumatra has reshuffled its membership at the regent and municipal levels following mass resignations.

The former members announced their resignation over the weekend to ally with the newly established Nasdem Party. The reshuffled executives include Golkar's North Padang Lawas secretary, Ismail Hasibuan.

The Golkar provincial executive board's deputy secretary, Mulkan Ritonga, said the move to reshuffle was necessary to avoid a party leadership vacuum in the respective regions. "A leadership vacuum must never happen in Golkar," Ritonga told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Ritonga, who is also secretary of the party's faction at the provincial legislative council, said that firm action would be applied to Golkar councilors deciding to join the Nasdem Party. So far, he said, no councilor in North Sumatra had declared resignation for another party.

A number of party leaders at the provincial level officially resigned over the weekend to join the Nasdem Party.

The revelation came on Saturday by then chairman of Golkar's North Sumatra executive board, Ali Umri, accompanied by Golkar figures from Medan, Binjai, Langkat, Asahan and Labuhan Batu.

Ali said the resignations were merely because they wanted to follow Nasdem Party founder Surya Paloh, who had resigned from Golkar as chairman of the central advisory board.

"Those who have resigned recently from Golkar are Surya Paloh's allies. Because he has resigned from Golkar, we are following his lead," Ali told reporters at his residence.

Ali, also the former mayor of Binjai, said that the resignations were also expressions of their disappointment with Golkar. Ali said there were hundreds of Golkar members resigning from the party's North Sumatra branch, spread across 7,000 subdistricts in 416 districts.

Separately, the Golkar Party's North Sumatra executive board secretary, Hardi Muliono, said there were no problems with the resignation of some party figures because most were no longer party executives.

Hardi was confident the moves would not influence votes and the party would win the 2014 election. "We respect their decision to resign from Golkar, but they are not many, so they will not affect the next election," Hardi said.

House passes KPU bill into law

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Legislators on Tuesday approved a revision to the 2007 Election Organization Law to allow politicians to serve on the General Elections Commission (KPU), despite criticism that it will jeopardize the KPU's impartiality.

Fourteen NGOs said they would challenge the law at the Constitutional Court shortly after it was passed by a House of Representatives' plenary meeting.

Protestors rallied in front of the House in Jakarta as House deputy speaker Pramono Anung of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), who led the meeting, banged his gavel, declaring the passage of the controversial bill into law.

"Within two weeks, we will file a judicial review with the Constitutional Court to challenge the law under the 1945 Constitution," one activist, Hadar Nafiz Gumay of the Center for Electoral Reform, said.

The House dropped a clause in the 2007 law that required political party members to wait for five years after resigning from their parties before applying to serve on the KPU or Election Supervisory Committees (Bawaslu).

The new law says that politicians must resign from political parties before applying to serve on the KPU, but does not stipulate a waiting period.

Critics and political observers have raised concerns on the House's decision, which they said might lead to conflicts of interest for KPU and Bawaslu members. Hadar said the scrapped clause was needed to prevent partisans from "infiltrating" the election oversight bodies.

"It is very, very difficult to believe that a political party member could be free from the influence of his party a day after he resigns," Hadar said.

A single lawmaker interrupted the plenary meeting, which passed the bill almost unanimously, to voice a concern similar to Hadar's.

"Our political faction wants a waiting period before a political member can become a member of the KPU or Bawaslu," lawmaker Ahmad Rubahi of the National Mandate Party (PAN) said.

Pramono, however, played down the statement, saying, "PAN's faction has mentioned your concerns in its official review of the bill."

Other lawmakers previously said that a waiting period would not guarantee the impartiality of KPU or Bawaslu members.

Hadar said lawmakers should learn from the controversy surrounding the resignation of KPU member Andi Nurparti to join Presient Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, which gained the most votes in the 2009 election.

Andi announced her resignation in 2010, to the chagrin of lawmakers and politicians who questioned her impartiality while serving as member of the KPU. She is now embroiled in a forgery scandal in which she is accused of falsifying a Constitutional Court document to rig the results of a 2009 legislative election in South Sulawesi.

Golkar Party legislator Chairuman Harahap said the allegations surrounding Andi were proof that nothing could guarantee neutrality – "even if [members] resigned many years before joining the KPU and the Bawaslu."

PDI-P lawmaker Ganjar Pranowo, meanwhile, blamed the government's selection committee for approving Andi as a candidate KPU member in 2009.

Toothless watchdog needs greater authority to settle disputes

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2011

Jakarta – The Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu) needs adjudication authority to help resolve disputes in regions, a study reveals.

The joint research study, from Bawaslu and the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), shows that electoral watchdog committees need additional authority to prevent abundant violations, both at local and national levels.

Cetro's senior researcher, Refly Harun, said that the study recommends two proposals. First, to grant Bawaslu authority as an adjudicator, especially on cases of administrative violations. Second, to establish an elections court which could handle all election violation cases.

"If Bawaslu had an adjudicatory function, it would be able to follow up any report of a violation in elections quickly," Refly told a joint media presentation last week.

Bawaslu states that it had received 605 election administration violation reports from across 36 regions and one province by June this year.

Of these 605, as many as 463 reports were handed over to the General Elections Commission (KPU). However, only 295 reports were actually processed by the KPU.

Disputes requiring a settlement on election results go to the Constitutional Court (MK).

Refly said that, if Bawaslu were given greater powers, then when it received a violation report, it could conduct its own investigation and question all parties involved right away; thereafter, it could report its investigation's results to a panel, which would be able to impose an appropriate sanction, from giving a warning to disqualifying election candidates.

He added that, so far, if Bawaslu receives a violation report, it has to transfer the case to the police but in practice, this system results in not all cases being processed.

Wirdyaningsih from Bawaslu's division of legal and handling violations, added that the committee's administrative sanction should be final and binding on the parties concerned.

Refly explained, however, that Bawaslu would not involve itself with any criminal facets in a case. In this situation, the case would be handed over to the police, while Bawaslu's authority would be limited to imposing an administrative sanction.

"So, by the time any legal process was under way, the administrative sanction would already have been settled," he added.

Bawaslu's chairman, Bambang Eka Cahya Widodo, argued that if an election court were established, maintaining a sole focus on election issues, the election supervisory committees would have an additional authority in the legal process, including making charges.

Refly said that the election court is envisaged to operate as a low-level court, while for high-profile cases, the legal process could be handled by the Supreme Court (MA).

He added that the election court would need its own procedural law, different to that used by other courts, whether criminal or civil.

Wirdyaningsih, said that with regard to election violations, Bawaslu received 582 reports, 228 of which were handed over to the police, but as many as 115 of them were not processed.

"We want the authority of adjudication to be granted to the supervisory committees, including Bawaslu and the local election monitoring committee (Panwaslu)," Bambang stated.

He added that the study's results will be presented to respective commissions within the House of Representatives. (rpt)

PBR will join PAN ahead of 2014 presidential elections

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2011

Jakarta – The Reform Star Party (PBR) is ready to join the National Mandate Party (PAN) after the two recently signed a memorandum of understanding on the merger.

PBR chairman Bursah Zarnubi said in Jakarta on Saturday that the party was currently dissolving its executive board into the PAN and expected the latter to soon issue a decree on the matter.

"We will officially announce [the merger] during PAN's anniversary commemoration on November 16, 2011, which will coincide with its national coordination meeting," Bursah said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

"The plan for the merger at the regency/municipal level is expected to be realized in December. So we're almost 100 percent becoming one with PAN," he added.

Ahead of the 2014 elections, PBR will follow all of PAN's policies, Bursah said. "Because we now have a new chairman. Our chairman now is Pak Hatta," he said, referring to PAN chairman Hatta Rajasa, the coordinating economic minister.

Golkar requests involvement in any Cabinet reshuffle plan

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2011

Jakarta – House deputy speaker and Golkar Party member Priyo Budisantoso has asked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to discuss any plans for a Cabinet reshuffle with Golkar chairman Aburizal Bakrie.

"It would be highly appreciated if the President would ask our chairman to discuss matters relating to the performances of the ministers from our party," Priyo said Friday as quoted by tribunnews.com.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has recently been asked to seriously consider replacing several ministers who have been viewed by the public as problematic.

The suggestion came following the announcement of a finding that two ministers, the youth and sports affairs minister and the manpower and transmigration minister, were facing public scrutiny after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested several officials on graft allegations.

Priyo said it was the right time for the president to "clean up" the mess with a Cabinet reshuffle. "If not now, SBY will lose the momentum to improve [the Cabinet's] performance," he said.

Labour & migrant workers

Security guards, soldier beat workers, start Batam riot: Witness

Straits Times - September 21, 2011

Batam – About 1,000 workers at a Singapore-owned shipyard engineering firm in Batam went on the rampage on Tuesday, setting fire to an office, equipment room and several vehicles after security officers beat up two company employees.

The riot recalled a similar incident 18 months ago at another shipyard in the Indonesian province, Dubai-owned Drydocks World Graha.

Yesterday's incident, at the Nexus Engineering Indonesia shipyard in eastern Batam's Kabil industrial estate, sent about 30 security guards fleeing in terror.

An eyewitness said the trouble began when two workers showed up for duty without their eyeshields and name tags. They were then questioned and allegedly beaten up by security guards and a military officer inside the guard post.

About 500 Batam police officers – a quarter of the force on the island – were called in, and they managed to bring the situation under control last night.

Employees were asked to leave the compound after police secured it, said Nongsa sub-regency police chief, Major Robertus Heri. Work was expected to resume today.

Nexus Engineering Indonesia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore- listed Beng Kuang Marine, which provides services such as infrastructure engineering to customers in the marine and offshore oil and gas industries. The company could not be contacted for comment on Tuesday.

An eyewitness said yesterday's trouble began when two workers showed up for duty without their eye-shields and name tags.

They were then questioned and allegedly beaten up by security guards and a military officer inside the guard post. It is common for Indonesian companies to hire military officers to handle security.

When the two workers emerged from the guard post covered in blood, fellow employees confronted the guards.

Subandi, the coordinator of sub-contract employees at the company, told the Antara news agency that the guards were quickly overpowered by the enraged workers. He said the company has about 2,000 workers – including some Singaporeans – but not all of them were working yesterday.

The angry crowd stripped the military officer naked and threw his clothes onto the roof of the main building. They then beat up the guards, prompting the other security personnel in the compound to flee.

The burgeoning crowd then began damaging the premises, burning several guard posts and two motorcycles belonging to the security officers. A personal computer inside the post was also burned.

Altogether, five people were injured – the two workers who were assaulted in the guard post and the three security men who were beaten up by other workers.

Yesterday's riot was a smaller version of the one at Drydocks World Graha last year. That incident was sparked by a supervisor, an Indian national, who called Indonesian workers "stupid." It set off a rampage by about 5,000 local workers, who targeted the Indians working there.

The mob torched nearly 20 cars, and the authorities had to dispatch about 400 police officers to bring the situation under control. In all, nine workers were injured in the riot, five of them Indians, and operations were halted for a month.

The incident prompted the Indian expatriate association to issue an apology for what it called an "indecent statement" by one of its members. Police later identified Ghesa Prabaharan, 27, as the supervisor who made the offending remarks. He was charged with causing humiliation and hostility against the state.

Though reports at the time suggested that the riot was a reflection of brewing resentment among Indonesian workers at the shipyard over low wages and slights by Indian colleagues, the Indonesian government insisted it was an isolated incident. Manpower Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said the episode was purely a case of bad communication.

Deported migrant workers bring home unemployment concerns

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2011

Andi Hajramurni and Rizal Harahap, Makassar/Pekanbaru – The Malaysian government's plan to deport illegal migrant workers back to Indonesia has left local administrations scrambling to manage the influx of deportees and keep unemployment from skyrocketing.

"We are thinking of preparation measures because their arrival will certainly negatively impact the province, for example increasing the unemployment rate," South Sulawesi Vice Governor Agus Arifin Nu'mang said in Makassar on Tuesday.

Malaysia has toughened its stance on migrant workers, preceded by an amnesty policy in July, in which undocumented workers were invited to register for either legalization or deportation without incurring penalties.

Malaysia is home to some 4 million migrant workers, and more than half of those are illegal.

Based on data at the Makassar office of the Agency for the Placement of Migrant Workers (BP3TKI), South Sulawesi is expecting 150,000 to be repatriated from East Malaysia.

As many as 120,000 of those have reportedly received approval from their employers to work again in Malaysia and take part in the legalization process. The other 30,000 will not be allowed to reenter Malaysia.

According to Makassar's BP3TKI head Agus Bustami, those 30,000 deportees do not include their children. "The 30,000 deportees are all adults. That number could reach 45,000 when their children are counted. So, their number is quite huge and requires serious handling," Agus said.

Nu'mang said his office is working to provide jobs for the deportees, such as in the agricultural sector, while their children would attend school for free. "Their children will join schools for free. What we need to think seriously about are their jobs. Where will they be employed?" Nu'mang said.

The provincial administration has planned to hold intensive meetings with regency and municipality administrations to discuss plans of action for the 30,000 deportees, including the administrations' financial ability.

Bustami said that before returning to their hometowns, the deportees would be reassessed to find those who could still be employed and those who were no longer productive.

Migrant workers will be repatriated gradually in stages from October until February next year. Those who take part in the Malaysian government's legalizing process will be accommodated in Nunukan, East Kalimantan, for data collection and the renewal of their immigration documents.

The National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) and BP3TKI will cover the transportation expenses of the deportees to their places of origin from Nunukan, accommodation and living costs.

"We are prepared to provide ships to transport them from Nunukan to South Sulawesi," Agus said.

Dumai has been designated as the exit point of deported workers in western Indonesia. The municipality has requested Rp 70 billion (US$7.91 million) from the central government, saying it lacked financial support to deal with the workers.

As many as 160,000 migrant workers will be deported from Malaysia through Dumai Port.

Health & education

NGOs head to Supreme Court to push for tobacco controls

Jakarta Globe - September 20, 2011

Ezra Sihite & Camelia Pasandaran – Indonesia is the only country in the region that has not ratified a World Health Organization treaty to protect people from the harms of tobacco. But that could change if health advocacy groups get their way in an upcoming Supreme Court appeal.

A coalition of NGOs on Monday challenged a lower court ruling that allowed the government to veto the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which states the dangers of tobacco and sets universal standards to limit its use.

"The Indonesian government has yet to ratify the FCTC treaty or pass a draft law on it," said Tulus Abadi, coordinator of Civil Society for the FCTC.

The coalition – which includes the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI), the Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta), the Coalition for a Healthy Indonesia (KuIS), and the Institute for the Handling Smoking Problems (LM3) – had taken President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the House of Representatives to court in 2008 for what it said was their failure to ratify the international convention, but the court ruled against the groups.

In an appeal this month, the Jakarta High Court upheld the earlier verdict. Tulus called on the Supreme Court to annul the earlier verdicts because they were "not detailed and they wrongly translated the law."

He said that if Yudhoyono were to honor his legal obligation, he would ratify the tobacco-control treaty. "The president and the [House] have done nothing to protect the Indonesian public from the damaging impact of tobacco products," he said.

Tulus said that although the government was involved in discussing the treaty's draft, Indonesia was also the only Southeast Asian country not to sign it.

Data from the WHO shows that 174 countries have signed the FCTC so far. Of these, 120 have adopted the convention and enacted laws to strengthen tobacco control.

He said that Indonesia was currently the world's third largest nation of smokers, with about 68 million cigarette consumers. The country also produces 265 billion sticks a year.

"The president of the Republic of Indonesia did not perform his legal obligation," Tulus said. "And that is to protect the current generation and coming generations from the health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure."

Teuku Faizasyah, the president's aide for international relations, declined to comment. He said he needed to confirm information with the state secretariat first.

The NGOs have argued that in its failure to sign and ratify the FCTC, the government violated the 1945 Constitution, a health law, a law on human rights, and another on child protection.

It said the government also violated a law about ratifying international treaties for economic, social and cultural rights, as well as a law on excise.

Women & gender

Women's affairs minister calls for harsh rape sentences, blasts Fauzi

Antara News - September 22, 2011

Indonesia's minister of women's affairs has demanded authorities seek the harshest punishment possible under the law against rapists to deter future attacks.

"I hope for the firmest possible law enforcement against perpetrators of rape in order to create a deterrent effect," Linda Gumelar, the minister for women's empowerment and child protection, said in Jombang, East Java, on Thursday.

Linda also deplored comments by Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo who said women who wore short skirts in public were inviting sexual attack after the pack-rape of an office worker on a public minivan.

"Rape cases have nothing to do with what a woman wears but it is associated with moral decline," she said, adding that she had even heard of a similar attack on a woman who wore "clothes from head to toe."

Indonesia making progress in gender equality: Report

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2011

Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jakarta – Indonesia has made "important progress" over the past two decades in improving health conditions of women and girls, who now have wider access to finances and justice, a World Bank report says.

Stefan Koeberle, World Bank Country Director for Indonesia, said during the launching of the World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development in Jakarta on Tuesday that female life expectancy in Indonesia was 73 years. The global average is 71 years.

"More women are becoming entrepreneurs thanks to innovative microcredit schemes. Women are also more aware of their legal rights thanks to paralegal training in villages," he said.

"Nonetheless," he added, "there are areas for improvement, such as in labor participation, maternal mortality, access to formal financial institutions and development planning and budgeting. The World Bank has been working actively with the Indonesian government on programs to increase gender equality in some of these areas."

The World Bank said that in terms of economic activity, "female-owned businesses in rural Indonesia are still less profitable than those owned by men."

Andrew Mason, the lead economist and regional gender coordinator for the World Bank's East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) Region, said women in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, still played a minor role in development as they had limited access to productive resources such as land, capital and education.

Tensions between their domestic and market roles only aggravate the problem, he added.

"Women are currently facing particular challenges in which they have to juggle between domestic roles, such as household work and childcare, and the market roles, giving them more disadvantages in economic fields," Mason told reporters in a video conference from Washington DC.

Mason said some countries in the region had been trying to eliminate the disadvantages by, for example, giving women wider access to land and capital.

They have even been involving extension services in the agricultural sector, giving female farmers more access to knowledge and support needed to improve their productivity. But such measures are not enough given the existing tensions between women's household and market roles.

In a rural economy, Mason said, women spent too much time on domestic activities that could be reduced significantly by increasing investments in infrastructure. "The ideas to break the time constraints on women in domestic activities include water and fuel collections and so on," he said.

In urban economies, various policies such as providing affordable day care for gender-friendly work provisions will create a more level playing field for men and women.

"This will enable women to participate more fully, even if they have children in their households," Mason said.

World Bank consultant and gender specialist Yulia Immajati said that in terms of expanding economic opportunities for women, the World Bank focused not only on breaking down barriers to productive resources but also on how to best resolve the juggling acts women faced with their traditional domestic responsibilities and market roles.

"By applying flexible working hours, we may still allow women to have good economic opportunities without neglecting their household responsibilities, because under such working patterns, we prioritize quality of work output instead of only talking about the working hours quantitatively," Yulia told The Jakarta Post.

Despite some narrowed gender gaps comprising better educational enrollment, life expectancy and labor force participation levels, countries in the region still face gaps such as excess deaths of girls and women, disparities in girls' schooling, unequal access to economic opportunities and differences in voice in households and in societies, the report says.

"We find that there are populations for whom the gender gaps remain, and these are typically populations where poverty combines with other factors such as exclusion and remoteness. In such populations, we find that gender gaps persist," said Ana Revenga, co-director of the World Bank World Development Report 2012 on Gender Equality and Development.

Surabaya calls for public nursing rooms, limits child work hours

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2011

Indra Harsaputra, Surabaya – Surabaya's shopping malls, offices and other public facilities are now obliged to provide rooms for breast-feeding mothers, in a requirement that came on the heels of a child protection ordinance.

The ordinance is part of the municipality's campaign to turn the city into a peaceful and comfortable place for the public. The municipal council approved the ordinance in its plenary session on Tuesday.

Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini said the ordinance ensured protection and other rights of children including the right to their mother's breast milk (ASI). "I have sent circulars to all state and private agencies to provide a special room for breast-feeding mothers," she said on Thursday.

Tri added that the nursing rooms should be set up in shopping malls, bus terminals, airports, seaports and other public places in the next few months.

"Besides the nursing rooms, private and state agencies should also allow for working mothers to breast-feed their children while working, since working mothers are also obliged to provide breast milk to their children," she said.

Tri added that two shopping malls and a district administrative office in Surabaya were currently equipped with nursing rooms.

"The bylaw also stipulates that sanctions will be imposed on public recreation establishments and employers that employ children for more than five hours. They could be sentenced to three months in jail and fined Rp 50 million [US$5,700]," Tri said.

Tri added that the bylaw bans adult public recreation facilities from admitting anyone younger than 18 years old, including night clubs, adult karaoke parlors, massage parlors and saunas. Children below 18 are also not allowed to stay in hotels and motels without being accompanied by their parents.

Surabaya Children Crisis Center head Edward Dewaruci said the child protection bylaw in Surabaya showed that the administration was committed to creating a child-friendly city.

"I hope the ordinance will be firmly implemented, because many children in Surabaya work in the informal sector for more than five hours," said Dewaruci.

The Indonesian Shopping Centers Management Association (APPBI) East Java chapter chairman Didi Woelyadi Simson said his association welcomed the bylaw and hoped the government would be consistent in law enforcement.

"The government has been less consistent in enforcing bylaws, as seen with the no-smoking ordinance. Every shopping center in Surabaya must provide smoking rooms, but many people ignore it and the public order police have never sanctioned them," Didi said.

Surabaya Public Recreation Association head Yusuf Husni said the government should inform night club operators in advance to avoid confusion and implement the child protection bylaw – especially the ban on children under 18 from visiting discotheques and hotels.

"In general, I agree with the regulation on child protection, but the government should explain a number of rules to businessmen, such as the ban against children visiting night clubs and hotels," he said.

Jakarta protest over rape statements: don't blame the victim!

Direct Action - September 20, 2011

Max Lane – On Sunday, September 18, around 100 women staged a lightning protest in Jakarta's main thoroughfare, Jalan Thamrin, to protest statements by Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo in response to rapes that have taken place in public transport.

He said: "Imagine if someone on board a mikrolet (minivan) sits wearing a mini-skirt, you would get a bit turned on". Women, he said, "must adjust to their surrounding environment so that they don't provoke people to commit unwanted acts".

The statement came after reports of a number of rapes over recent weeks, including the gang-rape of a woman in a public transport minivan and the rape and murder of a university student. Three cases of rape in public transport have been reported during the last week. The National Commission on Violence Against Woman (KOMNASPER) has recorded 3753 rapes in 2011, while the Jakarta police have received 41 complaints, compared to 40 for all of 2010. KOMNASPER has also received 105,103 complaints of violence against women.

Bowo's statement followed similar statements by other public officials in different parts of the country. Also attracting outrage was a statement by a local administrative head in West Aceh, who stated that women who did not dress according to religious norms could only blame themselves if they were raped.

Several Jakarta women, active in various professions and arenas of work, formed the Women's Alliance Against Rape to organise the September 18 action. The Alliance issued a statement saying, among other things: "Rape is a sexual attack on a citizen, a woman. Rape is never wanted by any woman, no matter the socioeconomic background. Victims of rape need solidarity from the whole of society as well as physical aid and care. The statements of incapable public servants have been providing no support, but rather humiliating and dumping the burden of blame on the victims."

The demonstration was reported on TV and in a number of newspapers. The Jakarta Post quoted theatre producer, Faiza Mardzoeki, who was also spokesperson for the Alliance: "This is a lesson for all public officials in the country. Don't ever blame women and discriminate on the way we are dressed in a rape case."

In another report, the Jakarta Post quoted the editor of the Jurnal Perempuan (Women's Journal), Mariana Amiruddin: "[Governor] Fauzi should just resign. By attributing rape to how women dress Fauzi is blaming the victims. This is like saying that if Fauzi drove the minivan, he would think that it would be all right for him to rape female passengers in mini-skirts."

The AFP quoted protest coordinator Chika Noya: "We are here to express our anger. Instead of giving heavy punishment to the rapists, the governor blamed it on women's dress. This is discrimination." Another participant, Dhyta Caturani, was quoted as saying that the demonstration was also inspired by the Slutwalk protests that had been taking place in other countries on the same issue.

The protesters shouted and chanted, brandishing posters with slogans such as "Don't Tell Us How to Dress, But Tell Them Not to Rape" and "My Mini Skirt, My Right, Foke You". Fauzi Bowo's nickname is "Foke".

Indonesian women don miniskirts in rape protest

Agence France Presse - September 18, 2011

Jakarta – About 50 women in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim- majority country, donned miniskirts to protest remarks by the Jakarta city governor who blamed a recent gang rape on the victim's choice of clothing.

Fauzi Bowo called on women Friday not to wear miniskirts when riding on public transport in the capital after a 27-year-old woman was attacked in a public minivan early this month.

Police failed to catch the rapists, but the woman spotted one of the alleged perpetrators two weeks later as he drove the vehicle.

"We are here to express our anger. Instead of giving heavy punishment to the rapists, the governor blamed it on women's dress. This is discrimination," protest coordinator Chika Noya told AFP.

Wearing tank tops and short skirts, the women demonstrated at a main roundabout in the capital, some holding a big banner and posters saying: "Don't tell us how to dress, tell them not to rape" and "My miniskirt is my right."

"Rape is a serious crime against humanity," Noya said, adding that the governor should guarantee women's safety on public transport. Protester Dhyta Caturani, dressed in a miniskirt and revealing top, said: "The way women dress is not the cause of sexual violence."

Fauzi apologized on Saturday for his remarks but that failed to convince demonstrators.

Jakarta police recorded an increase in recorded rape cases with 41 for this year up to September in the city of 12 million, compared to 40 during the whole of 2010.

Caturani said the protest was inspired by the "SlutWalk" phenomenon which began in Toronto in April when hundreds of women and men took to the streets to protest a comment made by a police constable that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."

Women protest Fauzi's rape advice

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2011

A group of women wearing miniskirts staged a protest at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta on Sunday in response to Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo's recent statement blaming women's clothing for sparking sexual assault.

"We feel threatened by the words of public officials regarding miniskirts. They should be giving responses that protect rape victims," said Faiza Mardzoeki, spokeswoman of the Alliance of Women Rejecting Rape, who participated in the demonstrations.

Although Fauzi publicly apologized for his statement, the protest was held to showcase the group's stance on rape, she added.

"This is a lesson for all public officials in the country. Don't ever blame women and discriminate on the way we are dressed in a rape case," she said.

The protestors, around 50 in total, shouted and chanted, brandishing posters with slogans such as "Don't Tell Us How to Dress, But Tell Them Not to Rape" and "My Mini Skirt, My Right, Foke You."

Fauzi recently advised women against wearing provocative clothes while riding public transportation in order to avoid being raped.

His statement came after recent gang rape cases on public minivans, including the rape of a Binus University student who was subsequently killed.

Jakarta Governor sorry for miniskirt gaffe

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2011

Jakarta – Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo says he is sorry for telling women to avoid rape by wearing "provocative" clothing on public transportation.

"I apologize. My previous statement is prone to misunderstanding. I don't mean at all to degrade women. I condemn the rapes; the perpetrators must be given severe punishment," Fauzi said on Friday in Jakarta.

"We will improve security systems and measures. This will be our record," he said, as quoted by tribunnews.com.

The Governor made his comments in the wake of two recent gang rape cases involving women on public transportation minivans, including the rape of a Binus University student who was subsequently killed.

On Friday, women's rights activists condemned Fauzi for his statement. "Fauzi should just resign. The governor of Jakarta should not make such statements as it does not reflect good governance principles," director of Jurnal Perempuan Foundation Mariana Amiruddin told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Mariana said that rape should be considered as a crime, no matter what triggered the act. "By attributing rape to how women dress Fauzi is blaming the victims. This is like saying that if Fauzi drove the minivan, he would think that it would be all right for him to rape female passengers in mini skirts," she said.

Chairperson of the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) Yuniyanti Chuzaifah said that Fauzi's statement was a classic statement of authority putting the blame on victims.

"His statement suggests that it is women who should be responsible [when a rape occurs]," she said. Yuniyanti said Fauzi had done a lousy job in gender education for Jakarta residents.

Women should not wear miniskirts on Angkot: Jakarta governor

Jakarta Globe - September 16, 2011

Dofa Fasila – Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo has advice for women to avoid being raped by public transportation drivers – do not wear short skirts.

Fauzi was speaking on Friday after a woman was kidnapped and pack-raped by four men in a public minivan. Fauzi said women could prevent becoming targets by paying attention to their fashion choices.

"Wear sensible clothes, don't wear 'inviting' clothes. You can imagine, if [a woman] wears short skirt and sits next to the driver, it could be 'inviting,'" Foke said.

He also had a message for women who took motorbike taxis (ojek). "If you ride on an ojek and you wear short pants or a miniskirt, do not sit like a man, just side saddle. If you side saddle, there will be no problem," Foke said.

Fauzi, whose term expires in 2012, said he had also instructed the Transportation Office to provide better security for passengers at night. "They will have to provide security for passengers to prevent more crimes from happening," he said.

On Thursday, the Jakarta Police said that public transportation drivers would soon be required to wear uniforms, carry name tags and be subjected to spot checks for valid licenses, following a spate of serious crimes against passengers.

Sr. Comr. Royke Lumowa, the Jakarta Police's traffic director, said the use of a uniform and identity tag, similar to those worn by taxi drivers, would make it easier to identify them if they were implicated in a crime.

Sexual harassment victims seek protection from Komnas HAM

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2011

Jakarta – Three female staff from the National Land Agency (BPN) who are victims of sexual harassment have sought protection from the National Commission on Human Rights, a lawyer says.

"We don't know what kind of protection that the commission can offer my clients, but we have informed them that there have been some serious violations happening there," lawyer Achmad Zazuli said Thursday as quoted by kompas.com.

Achmad added that besides reporting the case to the human rights commission he had also visited the National Commission on the Protection of Women and Children. He said that there he was urged to take his clients to a psychologist to check their mental health.

The three BPN staff identified only as AIF, AN and NPS, also filed a report to Jakarta Police concerning alleged sexual harassment by their superior official identified only as G.

Graft & corruption

KPK slammed for questioning budget leaders

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2011

Jakarta – Lawmaker Trimedya Panjaitan criticized the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for questioning four leaders of the House of Representatives' budgetary committee, calling it "degrading".

"It's only typical that they've launched the strike on the budget deliberations. There should be an appreciation of state institutions," Trimedya said on Thursday in Jakarta as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

The budgetary committee decided on Wednesday evening to cease deliberations on the 2012 state budget with the government, saying they felt that their authority had been violated by the KPK.

The antigraft body earlier questioned four committee leaders – Malchias Markus Mekeng, Tamsil Linrung, Mirwan Amir and Olly Dondokambey – regarding a bribery case allegedly involving several Manpower and Transmigration Ministry officials.

Other committee members have also been implicated in a separate bribery case surrounding a construction project for the upcoming SEA Games 2011.

Trimedya, a senior Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician and member of the House's committee overseeing legal affairs, dismissed the need for the KPK to delve deeper into the cases.

He also accused the KPK of being "unprofessional" in carrying out its job and deemed his reaction as a constructive criticism for the KPK. "Otherwise, who else would criticize the KPK? We're asking them to be professional," Trimedya said.

KPK chief disappointed with 'weak' sentences

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2011

Jakarta – Corruption Eradication Commission chief Busyro Muqoddas says lately he has been bemused at the leniency of punishments handed down to corruption suspects, by judges who have "lost their spirit" of justice.

"Generally, judges' sentences in corruption cases have weakened. They have lost the spirit to stand for the interests of the people. It is as if judges' rulings do not reflect the ideology of punishments, when it is actually important," he said.

Busyro added that judges needed to see corruption as a machine that continued to impoverish the people and destroy the integrity of the nation.

According to Busyro, concerns over the judges' spirit of justice stemmed from the country's law education system and also from the selection and recruitment processes for judges.

"It needs to be fundamentally fixed. The Supreme Court needs to be open with the Judicial Commission and elements of civil society. The three must have control over judges," he said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Devil in details of House budget talks

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2011

Jakarta – In the absence of capable budget analysts, observers said lawmakers should be stripped from budgeting authority to avoid corruption in the House of Representatives.

Jamil Mubarok of the Indonesian Transparency Society told The Jakarta Post on Sunday that the lawmakers' authority to increase or decrease budget allocations without proper guidance had created a wide channel for corruption. "It's better to take that authority from the lawmakers," Jamil said.

A spate of corruption allegations against lawmakers has called into question the accountability of the House – especially its budget committee – in approving the state budget.

Dubbed the budget mafia, lawmakers on the budget committee have reportedly sought bribes from local administrations to pass budget items.

In the high-profile South East Asian Games bribery scandal, several lawmakers have been accused of manipulating the winning project bid of construction company PT Duta Graha Indah in exchange for billions of rupiah.

Following the allegations, House leaders have invited the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to attend the committee meetings.

University of Indonesia economist Faisal Basri said the committee should limit its function to monitoring and examining annual budget plans and allocations.

"The committee is often technically involved in determining budget allocations, which should not happen in the initial round," he said.

Budgeting tasks involve more technical issues than simply political decisions. The absence of technical consideration has left the lawmakers without official grounds for assessing the budget plans proposed by the government.

In the United States, Congress has the Congressional Budget Office, a federal agency that provides economic data to legislators.

Such an office could offer analysis on specific policies and program issues related to the budget, and would remove the need for the House to meddle with numbers.

Jamil said that the assistance of a professional budget office could be applied in Indonesia, but to do so, the Legislative Bodies Law must be amended, which could be time consuming.

The most immediate option would be to make the committee more transparent and reprimand the executive branch for being seduced by bribe proposals from irresponsible legislators, Jamil said.

House Deputy Speaker Pramono Anung of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle told the Post on Sunday that it was true that the House leadership had agreed to invite the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to attend every budgetary body meeting.

"This is our response to the public that has questioned the body's transparency," he said.

Pramono said that the KPK had always been able to monitor the meetings, but now they could ask for formal documents from the budgetary body more easily.

Though he admitted that by inviting the KPK and BPK to observe the budget committee would not directly be cleansed of corruption, he was optimistic that it could be beneficial in the future.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Ade Irawan said that allowing the KPK and BPK to observe would not bother the budget mafia because most of their deals were made long before the budgetary meetings.

"We also worry that by involving the KPK and BPK, the committee may legitimately try to claim that it has been transparent enough," he said. (rpt)

PPATK finds fishy transactions by budget legislator

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2011

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Anti-money laundering investigators have identified 21 suspicious transactions carried out by a member of the House of Representatives' much-criticized Budget Committee, officials revealed on Friday.

Priyo Budi Santoso, deputy House speaker for the Golkar Party, said he was initially shocked when the findings were presented in a closed meeting on Thursday by the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK).

"The House leadership hasn't decided yet whether to forward this information to the House Ethics Council [for a probe]," Priyo said.

He declined to name the legislator identified by the PPATK, saying it would be unethical to do so at this point. "But the House leadership agrees that it must be further pushed toward a legal investigation," he said.

The House Budget Committee body was allegedly one of the recipients of a Rp 1.5 billion ($171,000) bribe handed to two Manpower Ministry officials last week by a contractor.

The committee has also been accused of taking kickbacks associated with projects at several other ministries, including the contract to build the athletes' village in Palembang for the Southeast Asian Games.

A witness in that case has testified that a company owned by graft suspect and former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin – a member of the committee – had spent around Rp 16 billion in bribes to secure various contracts related to the Games. The witness also said the firm had set aside money to bribe legislators, often from more than one party.

Priyo said the PPATK's findings highlighted the agency's commitment to "get to the bottom of the allegations surrounding the Budget Committee."

Pramono Anung, the House deputy speaker from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), echoed the praise, calling the information "valid and credible."

He added that it was vital for the authorities to gather data that would reveal the "hanky-panky going on between the committee and its contract partners."

"It's obvious that such suspicious transactions involve three groups: the government, the contractors or brokers and insiders on the Budget Committee," Pramono said. "This collusion must be tackled with all due seriousness."

The deputy speakers' ringing endorsement of the PPATK came as the agency's chairman, Yunus Husein, vied for a position as deputy chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Yunus is one of eight candidates that House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, is expected to vet. Several Commission III legislators have previously questioned his close links to the inner circle of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Pramono said the House leadership had invited the current KPK leadership to send a representative to sit in on all future budget discussions by the Budgt Committee.

"To date the KPK has not been privy to these discussions, but it's important that it is because the issue extends far beyond the committee itself," he said.

[Additional reporting by Antara.]

KPK grills lawmaker on alleged shower of bribes at House

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2011

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) questioned House of Representatives' budget committee member Angelina Sondakh on Thursday over the distribution of alleged bribe money to lawmakers for a SEA Games construction project.

The Democratic Party politician was grilled for eight hours as a member of House Commission X overseeing sports, culture and education, which approved Rp 191 billion (US$22.15 million) budget spending for the sporting event's athletes village construction project in Palembang, South Sumatra.

Angelina testified for former lawmaker and party colleague Muhammad Nazaruddin, who is charged with doctoring the project through his company PT Anak Negeri.

"We questioned Angelina as a witness in the bribery case," the KPK's spokesman Johan Budi said. He said it was still too soon to determine her involvement in the project or to name her a suspect.

Ousted from his post as party treasurer, Nazaruddin fled abroad while accusing Angelina and two members of the House's budget committee, Mirwan Amir and I Wayan Koster, of accepting bribes.

He also accused Democratic Party chair, Anas Urbaningrum, of accepting part of the bribe money for himself and the party.

Trial sessions for other suspects in the case have revealed that Nazaruddin and lawmakers from several parties had accepted varying amounts from the project's funds.

Angelina declined to tell the public whether or not she was involved in the case, after her questioning. "Just ask the KPK [investigators]; I have explained everything to them."

The KPK has found indications that the budget committee was involved in the bribery case. "The role of the House budget committee [in the case] is actually ideal, normal and strategic," KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas said.

The budget committee has the final authorization over all state budget allocations at the House, after programs have been approved by the commissions.

Busyro said the KPK is also investigating other graft cases in state projects to find out whether the committee might be involved in them.

The scandal surfaced after the KPK arrested youth and sports affairs ministry official Wafid Muharram for accepting Rp 3.2 billion in bribes for the project from project contractor PT Duta Graha Indah (DGI).

DGI's marketing manager Muhammad El Idris allegedly paid the bribe under the instruction of Mindo Rosalina "Rosa" Manulang, a confidante of Nazaruddin.

Angelina's name first came to light when Rosa accused her of playing an important role in the bribery, as part of her testimony to the KPK in a trial session.

Rosa told the judges that Nazaruddin ordered her to contact Angelina. "Pak Nazaruddin told me to contact 'the actress' because she seemed to need money," she said.

Another witness, Yulianis, a financial director with Nazaruddin's Permai Group, who testified against Rosa, told another court session that Angelina, as well as Koster, were indeed involved in the bribery scheme.

She said Rosa asked that money be withdrawn from the Permai Group to pay Angelina and Koster in order to secure the group's winning of the athletes' village construction project.

Watchdog critical of new KPK advocacy team

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2011

The Indonesia Police Watch (IPW) is criticizing the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) recently established Analysis and Advocacy Team, citing several "peculiarities".

"The KPK elites' moves are getting more peculiar – one [move] being the formation of the KPK Analysis and Advocacy team," IPW head Neta S. Pane said in a press statement sent to tribunnews.com on Saturday.

KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas announced the creation of the 10-man team, to be led by former Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. (ret.) Endriartono, on Friday.

The IPW said the lack of a legal basis for forming the team might raise questions, such as whether it was legal for members to use KPK facilities.

"Was the team formed to defend the KPK or defend its troubled elites? If it wants to defend the KPK then the KPK leaders reported to have met with [graft suspect Muhammad] Nazaruddin and received bribes should undergo legal questioning, either by the National Police or the Attorney General's Office."

The team's remit might also overlap with existing KPK units, fostering jealousies and hindering investigations, Nita said.

House Commission III overseeing legal affairs should summon the KPK's leaders to discuss the new team, Neta said, although he preferred another option. "The team is better off dissolving because KPK officials and the public might think they don't have anything better to do than to grab others."

KPK grills lawmaker on alleged shower of bribes at House

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2011

Angelina testified for former lawmaker and party colleague Muhammad Nazaruddin, who is charged with doctoring the project through his company PT Anak Negeri.

"We questioned Angelina as a witness in the bribery case," the KPK's spokesman Johan Budi said. He said it was still too soon to determine her involvement in the project or to name her a suspect.

Ousted from his post as party treasurer, Nazaruddin fled abroad while accusing Angelina and two members of the House's budget committee, Mirwan Amir and I Wayan Koster, of accepting bribes.

He also accused Democratic Party chair, Anas Urbaningrum, of accepting part of the bribe money for himself and the party.

Trial sessions for other suspects in the case have revealed that Nazaruddin and lawmakers from several parties had accepted varying amounts from the project's funds.

Angelina declined to tell the public whether or not she was involved in the case, after her questioning. "Just ask the KPK [investigators]; I have explained everything to them."

The budget committee has the final authorization over all state budget allocations at the House, after programs have been approved by the commissions. Busyro said the KPK is also investigating other graft cases in state projects to find out whether the committee might be involved in them.

DGI's marketing manager Muhammad El Idris allegedly paid the bribe under the instruction of Mindo Rosalina "Rosa" Manulang, a confidante of Nazaruddin.

Angelina's name first came to light when Rosa accused her of playing an important role in the bribery, as part of her testimony to the KPK in a trial session.

Rosa told the judges that Nazaruddin ordered her to contact Angelina. "Pak Nazaruddin told me to contact 'the actress' because she seemed to need money," she said.

She said Rosa asked that money be withdrawn from the Permai Group to pay Angelina and Koster in order to secure the group's winning of the athletes' village construction project.

AGO supports moratorium on remissions for corruption convicts

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2011

Jakarta – As an effective policy for combating corruption, Attorney General Basrief Arief supported government plans to impose a moratorium on granting remissions for individuals who had been found guilty and imprisoned for corruption.

"Corruption is a crime that must be eradicated because it carries such widespread negative impacts for the nation. It [the moratorium] will also serve as a lesson in order to diminish corruption," he said.

He added that the Attorney General's Office (AGO) was against remissions for corruption convicts. "We have charged them, but their prison sentences have been reduced because of the remissions," he said, as reported by tribunnews.com.

President Susilo Bambnag Yudhoyono previously agreed with a moratorium on remissions for corruption convicts, as well as terrorists. The moratorium has been deemed necessary, while the regulation on granting remissions was still being reviewed.

The decision came after public outcry over generous remissions that had been granted to several high-profile corruption convicts.

Freedom of religion & worship

Australian human rights researcher 'facing deportation'

Jakarta Globe - September 21, 2011

Ulma Haryanto & Nivell Rayda – An Australian human rights researcher detained by Indonesian authorities on Monday remains in detention awaiting what is likely to be her imminent deportation.

The researcher and Human Rights Watch activist Andreas Harsono were taken into custody by police in Sampang, East Java, as they attempted to investigate the local Shia Muslim population. The Shia and Ahmadiyah, another minority Muslim sect, face increasing persecution in Indonesia.

Ismail Hasani, a researcher at the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday that he had received a text message from Andreas informing him of their situation.

"Two hours ago he sent me a text message telling me that the Immigration officers are done with their interrogations, and their conclusion was to deport [the Australian researcher]," Ismail said, adding the Surabaya office was still waiting for confirmation from Jakarta.

The reason being used by Immigration officials was that the Australian did not have a research permit, only a visa on arrival.

"She thought she didn't need one since she was only here for a short while. Andreas had also asked the officers to let her go without deportation because she's going home anyway," Ismail continued.

The Shia and Ahmadiyah, another minority Muslim sect, face increasing persecution in Indonesia. The growing intolerance against them has drawn international condemnation, including from Human Rights Watch.

Australian, Indonesian activists detained researching minority muslim sect

Jakarta Globe - September 20, 2011

Ulma Haryanto & Nivell Rayda – Prominent Human Rights Watch activist Andreas Harsono and an Australian researcher were taken into custody by police in Sampang, East Java, on Monday as they attempted to investigate the local Shia Muslim population.

The Shia and Ahmadiyah, another minority Muslim sect, are facing growing persecution and discrimination from local people in Indonesia. The rising intolerance against minority groups in the country has received international condemnation, including from HRW.

Setara Institute and Democracy researcher Ismail Hasani, said Andreas and his colleague – who did not wish to be identified for fear of further recriminations – were interviewing a Shia follower in Nangkernang village when a group of people blockaded the access road leading to the village.

"These people, for a long time, have despised Shia followers in the area and have long sought to isolate the village," Ismail said.

He said the pair were taken to Sampang Police headquarters and interrogated for nine hours but then released because the Police could not charge them with anything.

"However, since [the Australian researcher] had left her passport in their lodgings, the pair were handed over to the Surabaya Immigration office," Ismail continued. "The questioning in Immigration continued until dawn and they were asked to come back again earlier today."

Ismail believed the Immigration office in Surabaya was attempting to deport the Australian for not having a research permit and for failure to notify the government about the purpose of her visit.

Andreas told the Jakarta Globe that they were still waiting for the Australian's passport at the Tanjung Perak immigration office in Surbaya.

"The Sampang police handed us to the immigration office at 3 a.m. today. We were questioned at the police station for entering a 'conflict area' midday Monday," he said by text message.

"These are small town cops, it's quite messy in Sampang and Surabaya – I want to get rid of these problems soon."

Ombudsman to refer Bogor mayor to SBY over church

Jakarta Globe - September 19, 2011

Anita Rachman & Vento Saudale – The Indonesian Ombudsman said on Sunday that it would report the mayor of Bogor to the president for his continued refusal to reopen a church in direct violation of a Supreme Court ruling.

Budi Santoso, a member of the ombudsman commission, said he hoped that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, once officially notified of Mayor Diani Budiarto's flouting of the court ruling, would bring his authority to bear in the case.

"If possible, [we hope he] instructs the mayor to obey the ruling and our recommendation," he said.

The ombudsman's ultimatum comes at the end of a 60-day period given to Diani to comply with the ruling. The Bogor administration had issued a building permit for GKI Yasmin in 2006, but revoked it two years later, alleging that the church had falsified the signatures required to obtain it.

The Supreme Court ruled in December that the closure was unlawful and ordered its reopening, but the city government has ignored the ruling. The mayor has used several excuses to keep the church closed, most recently saying there should not be a church on a street with an Islamic name. Church members have been forced to hold services on the sidewalk.

Danang Girindrawardana, the head of the ombudsman commission, said the mayor had also lied about attempting to mediate with the church congregation. Checks discovered that such a attempts had never been made, Danang said.

"The mayor lied. He has lied about too many things, including that people living near the GKI Yasmin church have rejected it," he said.

The mediation claim, included in the local administration's response to the ultimatum, was made in a letter dated Aug. 24 but received by the ombudsman on Sept. 13. The ombudsman is not obligated to answer the letter.

Bona Sigalingging, a spokesman for the GKI Yasmin church, said the congregation would discuss its next move after the deadline with interreligious groups in the area.

"We've been working together with these groups all along, so we'll keep working with them," he said on the sidewalk outside the sealed-off building, where the congregation holds Sunday services.

He added that he hoped Diani's office would make an offer to meet with the congregation to resolve the issue. "Hopefully as soon as possible, maybe within the next week," Bona said.

Under the 2008 Ombudsman Law, the Indonesian Ombudsman can report state agencies that fail to implement its recommendations to the president or the House of Representatives. Obstructing investigations by the ombudsman is a crime that carries a punishment of up to two years in jail.

Mob destroys four wayang statues

Jakarta Globe - September 19, 2011

Yuli Krisna, Bandung – Four statues depicting characters from traditional Javanese puppetry were vandalized and burned on Sunday in Purwakarta, West Java.

Local police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Bachtiar Ujang Purnama said police were still investigating the case. "The Purwakarta police detectives are in the process of identifying the people involved in the vandalism," Bachtiar told the Jakarta Globe.

"We want the public to know that this kind of damage is against the law and these actions should not be repeated. We encourage everyone to keep Purwakarta peaceful."

Television station Metro TV reported that a mob coming from a post-Idul Fitri prayer at the city's Grand Mosque was responsible for the damage. Thousands of people descended on the Comro area of the city, where they tied ropes to the statue of puppet character Gatot Kaca before trying to pull it off of its foundation. The statue finally collapsed after the rope was tied to a moving van.

The crowd then targeted the statue of Semar, another puppet character situated in the Bunder area. The mob threw rocks and pulled it to the ground before hitting it with sticks and metal rods then setting it on fire.

The statue of puppet character Bima in the Ciwareng area was also targeted, as was the "Welcome" statue on Jalan Gandanegara, where the Purwakarta District office is located. Both statues were also destroyed and set on fire.

The mob then moved to statues depicting the twin brothers Nakula and Sadewa. Hundreds of police and army officers were already there guarding the final two statues. The mob dispersed when it started raining.

Bachtiar said police questioned the organizers of the post-Idul Fitri celebration to find out how participants came to valdalize the four statues.

Although it is still unknown if the hard-line Islamic People's Forum (FUI) are responsible for the damage, FUI was opposed to the statues when the project was announced by the city administration last year.

FUI had said the statues were "against the Islamic identity of the city" and claimed the statues would encourage people to have "superstitious beliefs."

Hard-line Muslim groups have vandalized statues and monuments – considered a form of idolatry by some conservative Muslims – in the past.

Members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) in Bekasi last year pushed for the dismantling of the "Tiga Mojang" statue, which they deemed offensive while hard-line groups in North Sumatra rallied for the removal of a Buddhist statue at a temple, which the groups deemed "offended Muslims" in the area.

Bogor residents support Mayor Diani Budiarto

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2011

Jakarta – Dozens of residents held a demonstration in front of the Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) Yasmin on Friday in Bogor, West Java, to express support for Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto who revoked the GKI Yasmin building permit.

The mayor has insisted on his decision regardless of a Supreme Court ruling that the church building permit revocation was against the law.

Residents from Curug Mekar village in the West Bogor subdistrict made speeches and raised banners in front of the church bearing words of support for the mayor.

"We gather here to show people that we care about the law because GKI Yasmin was manipulating data in forming the building permit. It is not because we are anti-church," said Muhyiddin Junaidi, head of cooperation and international relations of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) KH, on Friday as quoted by kompas.com.

He said the church could be built as long as all legal requirements were adhered to.

Land disputes & evictions

Sumatran tribe say lands stolen for palm oil

Jakarta Globe - September 19, 2011

Fidelis E. Satriastanti & Camelia Pasandaran – The Wilmar Group, one of Asia's largest agribusiness companies, claims to lift people out of poverty and respect indigenous peoples' land rights.

But protesters from the Anak Dalam Sungai Beruang tribe from Jambi in Sumatra demonstrating outside the state palace in Jakarta on Monday said a Wilmar Group subsidiary, Asiatic Persada, had forced them off their ancestral homelands.

Roni, the head of Sungai Beruang village in Muaro Jambi, said the villagers had come to Jakarta because local officials were ignoring their plight.

"We are here in Jakarta to seek an explanation from the government, because we haven't heard anything from the district or provincial administrations," he said.

"We want due legal process for the unlawful eviction that we have experienced. We will also visit the BPN [National Land Agency] to clarify just where the borders of our lands lie, because the current boundaries are a mess."

Roni said tensions between the tribe and AP began on Aug. 10 when men claiming to be agents of the firm came into their village and began forcibly evicting them.

"We don't know why they did that," he said. "But some time before it happened, there were reports that outsiders had been camping on the periphery of the existing plantation and stealing the oil palm fruit. We explained to the company that none of us were involved in that, but they didn't respond."

He added that three hamlets in the village, housing a total of 82 families, were evicted.

"We've been living there since 1920, and the company only came in 1986. We were there first, yet our ancestors' graves now fall within their concession," Roni said, adding that the Anak Dalam Sungai Beruang's entire 5,100 hectares of ancestral land had been given over to palm oil companies.

AP dismissed the protesters' claims as baseless. Syafei, a company spokesman, said the group rallying in Jakarta was laying claim to land to which it had no right.

"The company only [recognizes] the land of the Anak Dalam people who were genuinely there before AP received its land use certificate," he said. "The ones demonstrating now are newcomers."

He added that the Jambi administration was setting up a team to resolve the dispute, involving local officials as well as representatives from the company and the tribe.

Master Parulian Tumanggor, the Wilmar Group commissioner, denied that AP expropriated the tribe's land, adding that the dispute had already been settled.

Parliament & government

Use scandals for cabinet reshuffle, parties tell SBY

Jakarta Globe - September 20, 2011

Anita Rachman – As talk of a cabinet reshuffle heats up, lawmakers on Monday offered an idea of how President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono could target his changes: cut those mired in corruption controversies.

"What does the president actually look at? A minster's working performance? If their performance and their image is poor, what's good of having them in the cabinet?" asked Nasir Djamil, a lawmaker from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

The Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs – headed by minister Andi Malarangeng – has been under the spotlight for months due to graft scandals linked to the Southeast Asian Games' Athletes' Village.

These two cases were also mentioned by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) as one of the reasons behind the cabinet's poor public approval rating, which stands at just 38 percent.

Also hitting public approval is the perceived lack of progress in advancing issues of public interest, such as fair treatment and protection of Ahmadiyah members by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, curtailment of sentence remission for corruption convicts by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, and ensuring the safety of LPG gas canisters by the Ministry of Energy.

PKS deputy secretary general Mahfudz Siddiq said he hoped the president would evaluate his cabinet fairly. He said the cases gaining major media coverage were obvious, "but don't fire them [ministers] just because they have attracted negative exposure in the media. Look at whether they are really involved in graft," he said.

Mahfudz said there had been no talks held between PKS and the president, but that he was sure PKS's Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Tifatul Sembiring, was doing a good job and did not deserve to lose his position.

That call for a ministerial clean-out was echoed by deputy House Speaker Pramono Anung from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). He said public approval had dropped significantly because of the cases around the president's teammates, both in the cabinet and his party.

According to Pramono, the best time to evaluate the cabinet is now. Pramono said only Yudhoyono would know how many ministers need re-evaluating. "But it's more than two ministers that are going to be reshuffled," he said.

Pramono said he hoped the president did not re-evaluate the cabinet according to the requests of certain political parties.

The United Development Party (PPP) secretary general M. Romahurmuziy said there were no ministers who were safe from a cabinet reshuffle, since none had a perfect record. "But that's the president's prerogative," he said.

Jafar Hafsah, chairman of Yudhoyono's Democratic Party said the president never consulted with the party on reshuffles.

Cabinet reshuffle? Maybe but not now

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih and Nani Afrida, Jakarta – Many have begun to question whether there will be a reshuffle of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Cabinet, but party leaders from the government coalition say Yudhoyono has yet to talk to them about the plan.

National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman Hatta Rajasa, who is also the Coordinating Economic Minister, said Yudhoyono had not yet invited him to talk about a Cabinet reshuffle.

"If there would be changes to some ministerial posts, [the President] must talk to coalition party leaders first, but this has not happened," Hatta said on Monday.

Aburizal Bakrie, chairman of the Golkar Party, the biggest ally of Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, has yet to be invited to such a talk either, said party executive Lalu Mara.

"I have talked to Pak Aburizal on this matter and he said yes, he had met with the President numerous times but they were talking about development policies, not a Cabinet reshuffle'," Lalu said.

Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum – who has been implicated in corruption allegations centering on the party's former treasurer, Muhammad Nazaruddin – also said he had not talked to Yudhoyono on the issue.

Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha denied a statement by presidential special staff Daniel Sparingga that the reshuffle would take place within three weeks.

"[The president] is still evaluating ministers' performances. I do not know if it would end with a Cabinet reshuffle. "The President is aware of the recent situation. He will consider and decide what is best," he said.

Julian declined to comment when asked if leaders of coalition parties would be involved in the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle. "Political aspects would not have much influence."

The government has established a joint secretariat to accommodate input from its six coalition parties on government policy issues, including a change of the President's ministerial aides.

Nineteen of Yudhoyono's 34 ministers are politicians from the six coalition parties.

The number of votes each party gained during the 2009 elections determined the number of ministerial posts given to the party, but Yudhoyono also talked with the six parties' leaders before he decided on who his aides would be and inaugurating them in October 2009.

Anas, however, said the agreement to have the President talking with coalition party leaders prior to a Cabinet reshuffle was not binding.

"I think the President is not obliged to hold such meetings because it is his authority to determine his aides. The President also has comprehensive assessments on the performance of each of his ministers."

Some of Yudhoyono's ministers are now mired in scandals ranging from graft allegations to broken marriages.

Public Housing Minister Suharso Monoarfa from the PPP has currently been under the spotlight after his wife reportedly filed for divorce.

At least three Cabinet ministers, are under scrutiny for graft allegations: Youth and Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng from the Democratic Party, Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi (Democratic Party) and Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar (PKB).

PAN's Patrialis Akbar, Law and Human Rights Minister; Golkar's Agung Laksono, the Coordinating People's Welfare Minister; and PKS' Tifatul Sembiring, the Communications and Information Technology Minister, are also under the spotlight for their poor performances.

"I will accept it should the President decide to remove me from my position. It is his right to evaluate his Cabinet [members]," Andi said.

A survey by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) showed on Sunday that the public approval rating of Yudhoyono's current Cabinet performance dropped significantly to 37.7 percent this month from 52.3 percent in January 2010. The LSI said the decline was attributable mainly to corruption cases implicating some of the ministers.

Cabinet approval rating sinks

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2011

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has received a new blow amid his own declining popularity, as the results of a survey announced Sunday show deteriorating approval of the performance of his United Indonesia Cabinet.

The Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) has found in its latest survey that the public approval rating of the performance of the Cabinet, installed in October 2009, dropped significantly from 52.3 percent in January 2010, and then 46.5 percent in September 2010, to 37.7 percent this month.

LSI researcher Adjie Alfaraby said the decline in approval was attributable to five factors, with the prime one being all the recent reports on corruption cases – allegedly involving officials from several ministries – that are currently being handled by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

"Corruption cases [that allegedly involve senior ministry officials] have largely contributed to the decrease in public trust [in the Cabinet]," he said, referring to corruption cases at the Youth and Sports Ministry and the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.

"One of the ministries is chaired by a top official from Yudhoyono's own party, who even served as his spokesman," he said.

According to Adjie, the survey was conducted from Sept. 5 to Sept. 10, using "multistage random sampling", with 1,200 respondents from the country's 33 provinces. The margin of error was 2.9 percent, he claimed.

He said only 37.7 percent of the respondents said they were satisfied with the performance of the Cabinet, while 44.7 percent said the opposite, and 17.7 percent did not answer.

"About 29.6 percent of respondents in urban areas said they were satisfied with the performance of the Cabinet, but in rural areas it was 43.9 percent.

"This is because urban residents have more access to information, allowing them to follow reports on the government's performance," Adjie said during a press conference on the survey results in Jakarta.

The second factor for the decrease in public trust in the government is due to negatively perceived issues, such as kerosene-to-LPG conversion program, sentence reductions for corruption convicts, legal protection for Indonesian migrant workers and freedom of religion.

"The religious affairs minister is deemed unable to protect the minorities," Adjie said, referring to recent cases of violence toward members of the Ahmadiyah sect.

The third factor is the public perception of the performances of the Agriculture Ministry and the Public Housing Ministry. "The ministers were deemed responsible for the price increases of basic staples and the provision of affordable housing, respectively," Adjie said.

The last two factors relate to ministers' personal issues, especially with regard to allegations of adultery and health problems.

Adjie said Yudhoyono might have a chance to gain back the public's trust by conducting a Cabinet reshuffle, to oust low-performing or troubled Cabinet ministers. "There is no alternative for Yudhoyono if he wants to leave a good legacy. The President must be more careful in selecting ministers," he said.

Calls have mounted for Yudhoyono to reshuffle the Cabinet in a bid to improve its performance in his remaining three years as President.

A different survey conducted by LSI in June, which focused more on the public's perception of Yudhoyono's performance rather than his Cabinet's – resulted in the President's personal approval rating declining from 56.7 percent in January this year to 47.2 percent in June.

Shuffle cabinet to see improvement, officials tell Indonesian president

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2011

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Two senior officials from the House of Representatives urged the president on Friday to reshuffle his cabinet this month or miss out on the chance to improve his administration's much- criticized performance.

Priyo Budi Santoso, the House deputy speaker from the Golkar Party, said the poor performance of several ministers had been highlighted in a review by the Presidential Working Unit for Development, Supervision and Oversight (UKP4).

By ordering a reshuffle this month, he said, the new cabinet members would have three years to turn the affected ministries around and make an improvement. Postponing the reshuffle to next year, however, would not bring about any change for the better.

"If there's no reshuffling in the near future, it will be too late," Priyo said. "If it's not conducted now, then it would be better to retain the current cabinet until the end of the administration's term [in 2014]."

He said Golkar would not object to a change, as long as party chairman Aburizal Bakrie was consulted on the issue. Golkar has three members in the cabinet.

Talk of a reshuffle flared up last October following the UKP4's first cabinet evaluation that assigned failing grades to several ministries. It was revived in recent months by revelations of graft in at least two ministries.

Two Manpower and Transmigration Ministry officials were arrested last month for taking bribes, allegedly at the request of the minister, Muhaimin Iskandar, who has said he knew nothing about the alleged bribes.

Those allegations came soon after charges of bid-rigging came to light at the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry, headed by Andi Mallarangeng.

Andi is a member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party. The main suspect in that case, Muhammad Nazaruddin, is the party's former treasurer. Pramono Anung, the House deputy speaker from the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the president should heed the current wave of public dissatisfaction with the administration's performance and make changes.

"I suggest the president reshuffle the cabinet based on consideration of the ministers' performance," he said.

Pramono warned against consulting with coalition partners on the reshuffling decision, arguing that conflicting advice would only confuse the president.

Taufik Kiemas, a PDI-P stalwart and husband of party chairwoman Megawati Sukarnoputri, said he doubted Yudhoyono was bold enough to order a change anytime soon. He said he believed the president was too timid to do so without the backing of political party leaders from his coalition.

"I've never heard any of the parties publicly stating that their members in the cabinet have performed poorly," he said. "If they start talking about it, then I'm sure the reshuffle will be conducted."

Romahurmuzy, secretary general of the coalition's United Development Party (PPP), said any proposed change should be based on clearly reasoned arguments for a minister's failings, not on pressure from other parties. "Reshuffle without giving into pressure from groups with vested interests," he said.

Romahurmuzy also argued that the poor performance of individual ministries should not be automatically attributed to the minister. "The president must identify the real source of the problem. Is it the minister or some other factors?" he said.

Two PPP ministers have come under particular scrutiny – Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali, who has been widely criticized for his hard-line policies against the minority Ahmadiyah sect, and Housing Affairs Minister Suharso Monoarfa, whose alleged philandering led to his wife filing for divorce this week.

Ethnic & communal conflicts

After the Ambon violence, a wait for answers from police

Jakarta Globe - September 21, 2011

Camelia Pasandaran & Anita Rachman – With no answers forthcoming on the cause of the deadly violence in Ambon more than a week ago, human rights activists on Wednesday questioned whether the police were serious about uncovering the truth.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, deputy chairman of the Setara Institute for Freedom and Democracy, said the police appeared reluctant to move the investigation forward and find the masterminds of the violence that broke out on Sept. 11.

"They might think that if they continue the legal process, they could be accused of taking sides, which could lead to more conflict," he said. "They might also think that time will heal the wounds and if the police get actively involved in the conflict, this might only heat things up."

The violence in Ambon was sparked by rumors that began to spread after a motorcycle taxi driver died in a traffic accident. The driver, a Muslim, died from his injuries before he could reach a hospital, but a text message that went viral fueled false reports that he had been tortured and killed by Christians.

A violent clash ensued between two groups, one of which is believed to have included the deceased's family, after his funeral. Eight people were killed and 67 were injured.

In the wake of the violence, more provocative text messages began circulating in East Java urging Muslims to go to Ambon to wage jihad, or holy war.

A National Police spokesman, Anton Bachrul Alam, said earlier this week that an investigation was still in progress, although police had yet to name any suspects.

"The investigators are still gathering evidence and giving assurances to the family of the [driver] that [his death] really was an accident," he said.

But Bonar said the police needed to widen their investigation to identify the root cause of the violence. By limiting their focus on keeping the peace, he added, the police were almost guaranteeing that eventually similar violence would occur in the area.

Indria Fernida, deputy chairwoman of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said the police should make the results of their investigation available to the public, to prevent confusion about what caused the conflict.

"It is important for the police to effectively perform their intelligence role," she said. This, she added, would help detect any future conflicts at an early stage.

Al Araf, program director of human rights watchdog Imparsial, said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must ensure that the masterminds behind the violence were brought to justice. "If he fails to do this, suspicions among the people of Ambon will remain," Al Araf said.

Semuel Waileruny, a human rights activist in Ambon, said the police inaction had prompted his organization, Tamasu, to conduct its own investigation. He said he and fellow activists had gone to the scenes of clashes and interviewed locals, including witnesses to the violence.

"There's something peculiar about the violence," Semuel said. "Is there something more behind it all?"

He said people in Ambon wanted the police to resolve the case quickly. The activist said he was optimistic that all parties would accept the results of a thorough police investigation. "If the police could arrest those who provoked the incident, I am sure people could accept it," he said.

Setara's Bonar said the police needed to investigate thoroughly "as there are people trying to take advantage of the situation" in an effort to reignite the religious violence in Maluku that killed thousands of people between 1999 and 2002.

"While it is important to solve conflict through reconciliation, it is also important to solve the case legally. This would deter people from sending provocative messages in the future."

Ambon deadly riot 'allegedly orchestrated': Komnas HAM

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Certain parties might have intentionally provoked residents in Ambon, Maluku, prior to the recent deadly riot in the provincial capital city which claimed seven lives and left 65 others injured, Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) Ifdhal Kasim said on Monday.

"Our team was deployed to Ambon and has just finished its one-week investigation. Our preliminary findings show that the riot might have erupted due to provocation by certain parties," Ifdhal told The Jakarta Post in the sidelines of a seminar in Jakarta.

The fatal clash, which also saw around 200 buildings damaged, broke out on Sept. 11 after text message rumors spread that a Muslim ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver, who had been killed in a road accident, was actually tortured to death by a Christian group.

"The rumor was false, as we have interviewed the forensic doctor who conducted the autopsy on the ojek driver's body. The doctor told us that the man had been killed in a road accident... no indications of torture," Ifdhal said.

The police previously said that the text message had also been spread to some cities in Java, such as Surabaya and Surakarta.

The Komnas HAM has yet to conclude who was the mastermind of the riot and whether it was politically motivated or not. "Our investigation is still ongoing," Ifdhal said.

He added that the commission had also been concerned over the police's poor efforts to respond and prevent the clash from becoming deadly. The Komnas HAM, he said, would find out if the police's inability to overcome the riot was due to the force's lack of personnel and resources or deliberate ignorance.

Ambon was swept by Muslim-Christian conflict between 1999 and 2002, when thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced throughout the Maluku Islands.

Don't go to Ambon for jihad, MUI says

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2011

Farouk Arnaz – After a provocative text message began circulating in East Java urging Muslims to go to Ambon to wage jihad following a deadly sectarian clash there, the Indonesian Council of Ulema on Friday discouraged Muslim organizations from doing so.

"We guarantee no Muslim organizations will be provoked to go to Ambon. We have to sit down together and discuss the situation," Abdussomad Bukhori, the head of the East Java branch of the council (MUI), said on Friday.

The MUI, Abdussomad said, has been staging talks with groups like Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah as well as hardliners such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).

The MUI's efforts reflect what happened during a previous stretch of violence in Ambon, where from 1999 to 2002 thousands of Muslims traveled there to perpetuate a protracted sectarian conflict that killed an estimated 9,000 Christians and Muslims and displaced many more.

Some of those militants went on to join terrorist networks such as Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf, located in the southern Philippines.

On Thursday, National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo was in Ambon to assess security conditions.

According to National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Ketut Untung Yoga, Timur concluded his visit by giving three instructions to the local officials. "The first is to maintain Ambon's current calm and prevent future chaos from happening," Ketut said.

Second, Timur asked Ambon police to expedite their investigation into the riot, Ketut said. "The third is an order to local officers to be vigilant and anticipate all possibilities," he said.

The recent clash in Ambon was sparked by rumors that spiraled out of control after a motorcycle taxi driver suffered a fatal traffic accident.

The driver died from his injuries on his way to the hospital, but a viral SMS fueled false reports that the driver had been tortured and killed by Christians. That prompted a violent clash between two groups, one of which is believed to have included the man's family, shortly after his funeral on Sunday.

Thrown rocks caused a number of injuries, but at least seven fatalities resulted from gunshot wounds, according to Dr. Ita Sabrina of Dr. M. Haulussy Public Hospital. A mob also vandalized a number of buildings and vehicles.

As a precaution, police have been seizing sharp weapons and guns on passenger ships bound for Ambon, so far netting more than 130 items.

Ambon, the capital of the Maluku province, has a history of violence. In 1950, it was the center of an uprising against Indonesian rule instigated by the breakaway Republic of South Maluku, which continues to exist in exile.

[Additional reporting by Antara.]

Criminal justice & prison system

12 year-old girl in court on trafficking charges while sex offender free

Jakarta Globe - September 19, 2011

Amir Tejo, Surabaya – Caught up in a child trafficking case, Mawar, a young girl just out of elementary school, was locked up for three months in Medaeng Surabaya jail.

Despite her tender age, Mawar was sent to Medaeng, an adult prison. As a result, she couldn't continue to go to school, and began to suffer serious depression.

"As hard as we tried, our requests for bail were denied, even though I offered myself as guarantor," said Robert Panggabean, 12-year-old Mawar's lawyer.

Finally, at her fourth hearing held on Monday afternoon, Bambang Kusnandar, the lone judge hearing her case, agreed to release Mawar on bail. She was able to return to live with her uncle, but not until she had suffered months of traumatic incarceration.

"The judge granted our bail request so that Mawar could return to her lessons in junior high school," Robert said.

Mawar was arrested by police on July 21 at the security post of the Palem Home Stay. According to police statements, she was waiting for her friend, Melati, who was on a date with a male sex customer.

"Based on the testimony of witnesses in the trial, it was Mawar who arranged for Melati to have sex with the man and also set the price for the transaction. She can be charged under the Human Trafficking Crimes law," said Ika Maulidhina, the public prosecutor.

According to Mawar's lawyer, however, the prosecutor's indictment does not make sense, because Mawar was only accompanying Melati. According to Robert, it is inconceivable that such a young child could serve as a pimp.

"Mawar is just 12 years old, while Melati, considered by the police to be the victim, is 16. How could such a young girl be selling a girl older than herself?" Robert asked the court.

Furthermore, according to Robert, there is something odd about the case. Police are still searching for Brian, the man accused of having sex with Melati. But Mawar and Melati say they saw Brian arrested at the same time as themselves.

"This is strange, no? They say they saw the man arrested, but now the police say he's still at large," Robert said.

Mawar's story paints a gloomy picture of children living without sufficient parental supervision. Mawar and Melati were playmates who met around two months ago. At that time, the 12-year-old Mawar already lived on her own. When she was evicted from her house, she rented a room with Melati.

Melati, meanwhile, had already been abandoned by her father, who remarried after her mother died in 2009. At the time they met, Melati lived with her older sibling, and was supported by her uncle.

Police & law enforcement

Police should be under ministry: Imparsial

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2011

Jakarta – Human rights watchdog Imparsial has said the National Police should not come under the direct auspices of the president, in order to avoid abuse.

"This is an essential requirement in police reform: To improve professionalism and avoid using the police merely as a tool," Al Araf from Imparsial said in a press release on Tuesday.

Al Araf said it would be possible to put the police under the supervision of either the Home Ministry, the Law and Human Rights Ministry or the Attorney General's Office (AGO).

The idea, he said, was in line with a recent survey conducted by Imparsial. "The majority of people that took part in our survey agreed that the police should come under a department rather than the president," he said.

The survey, which was carried out between June 17 and July 4, randomly surveyed 500 people aged 17 or over, across all five districts in Jakarta.

As many as 28.8 percent of respondents agreed that the police should answer to the AGO, followed by 18.8 percent suggesting the Home Ministry. Six percent of those surveyed favored the Defense Ministry; four percent supported the Law and Human Rights Ministry, while four percent favored supervision by the Indonesian military.

Lawyers seek to get police off SBY control

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2011

Bagus B.T. Saragih – A group of lawyers have challenged the 2002 Police Law that places the police under direct auspices of the President, a policy they say may jeopardize the force's professionalism.

The lawyers – Andi Asrun, Dorel Almir and Merlina – filed their petition to the Constitutional Court on Thursday. They are currently representing Zainal Arifin Hoesein, a former staffer at the Constitutional Court who claimed to have been wrongly charged by the police in a forgery case involving a top Democratic Party politician.

The lawyers suspected that their client had been made a scapegoat in the case by the police, whom they accused of having deliberately spared the real masterminds behind the case because of their affiliation to the powers that be.

Andi said that two articles in the law that state that the police are structurally under the president were not in line with the Constitution as they were prone to misuse. "There is no article in the Constitution stipulating that the police are directly under the President's control," he said.

The lawyers said in their petition that the police's structural position should be under a ministry, citing the Home and Defense ministries. This idea has long been proposed but has never been responded to positively. "My client and I as his lawyer have been victims of the inconstitutional positioning of the police in the state administrative," Andi said.

Andi acknowledged there was no guarantee that political intervention would be history should the police be put under a ministry. "But at least the chances will be slimmer. The potential for hesitation by police detectives in probing cases implicating 'powerful' figures can be minimized," he said.

Human rights activist Al Araf from Imparsial echoed Andi's statement. "The police could be also placed under a new ministry such as the police ministry. It will create a political buffer for potential political interference from the President and his inner circle," he said.

After the end of Soeharto's New Order regime, the National Police were divided from their mother force: the Indonesian Military. The move was aimed at establishing a more professional civilian police force.

However, as time goes by, observers have seen the police as "Enjoying their independence too much, leading to abuse of power," while activists claimed that the police's current position "Created an opportunity for those in power to abuse the force to please their political interests".

University of Indonesia criminologist and police analyst Adrianus Meliala said the public's failure to see a significant result in police reform efforts also resulted from the force's structural issue.

"Structurally, we have tried to position the police away from the military. The police are now under the control of the President, no longer the military. But this is a compromise, it is not an ideal position.

"The police should be under a political or ministerial institution, because there should be a manager to whom the police are accountable. Currently the National Police chief has a conflict of interest: He is the one who lays out policies but is also the one who executes them," he said.

In many countries, the police are indeed structurally under a ministry. The French National Police, for example, comes under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry.

In India, law enforcement is carried out by numerous law enforcement agencies. At the federal level, the many agencies are controlled by the Home Ministry.

Legal expert Andi Hamzah told kompas.com that repositioning the police to be under a ministry could also lead to budget efficiency.

BINUS University forensic psychology expert Reza Indragiri Amriel said the police's positioning would not significantly contribute to the improvement of the force personnel's quality, which he said was more important.

"This issue has repeatedly been taken to the public but I see the discussion has always been driven by political motives. It is more important to reform the force's culture and their personnel's soft skills and integrity, no matter where they are structurally placed," he said.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam said the police respected the lawyers' judicial review. "We respect the public, it is their right [to file a review]," he said.

Intelligence & state security

AGO: Wiretapping only OK for issues of state security

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Wiretapping telephone conversations and the interception of other modes of communication are against the law because they go against the Constitution and are in breach of human rights, Attorney General Basrief Arief says.

"However, sometimes interception is needed to deal with issues of state security," Basrief told a recent seminar on the interception of communications, in Jakarta.

He added that a law was needed to govern the practice to provide a legal umbrella to state officials with the authority to intercept communications, to violations of human rights.

A recent ruling by the Constitutional Court has ordered the government and House of Representatives to begin deliberating a bill on the interception of communications, but this has not begun.

Wiretapping controversy threatens further delays for intelligence bill

Jakarta Globe - September 18, 2011

Ronna Nirmala – A controversial intelligence bill originally scheduled for passage in June is facing more delays as lawmakers, the administration and intelligence officials try to resolve differences over contentious issues such as wiretapping.

Gamari Sutrisno, a Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker on the House's defense commission, which is deliberating the bill, said there were 21 articles that still needed to be finalized.

He said lawmakers needed to solicit advice from intelligence experts and nongovernmental organizations on some of these outstanding issues, and that in the meantime the PKS had agreed to propose another postponement in the deliberation of the bill.

"We cannot force the bill to be passed before it is ready," he said. "It's too crucial."

The debate centers on whether intelligence officers should have arrest and detention powers, whether wiretapping and other intercepts should require a court order and how to ensure oversight and accountability mechanisms consistent with democratic governance.

"The article on the wiretapping of phone conversation has generated heated discussions between the members of the commission," Gamari said. "Different versions have emerged of what kind of wiretapping system the bill should adopt."

He said there needed to be more coordination with intelligence bodies on the final details of the bill.

Intelligence expert Wawan Setiawan said the House should put the deliberation of the bill on hold until more comprehensive studies of the issues were completed.

"The intelligence bill is important for the state, the power of the country is rests on it," he said. "We have to supervise the deliberation of the bill."

Prepared in late 2010, the draft was originally scheduled to be passed in July but has been delayed by differences among lawmakers, public officials, civil society and intelligence bodies.

Effendi Choirie, a lawmaker from the National Awakening Party (PKB), said the current draft favors the government, and has become a political tool for those in power.

He proposed that the chairman of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) should be appointed by the House, after proper vetting, instead of being directly appointed by the president.

"The intelligence bill is being used by the leader to conquer the country," he said, adding that by allowing the president to directly appoint the BIN chief, there were few checks and balances in the House.

However, Effendi said the bill should be passed by the end of the year. "To avoid more controversy, the process cannot be put off too long," he said. "But still, the commission is open for dialogue with other institutions about the bill."

PDI-P, PKS, PAN say no to expanded BIN authorities

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2011

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Three parties rejected a government proposal to grant intelligence officials power to wiretap and make arrests.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) factions said on Thursday that they would block a clause in the contentious intelligence bill that gave such powers to intelligence agents.

The parties also suggested that the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) head should be approved by the House to ensure that the body was run by professionals.

"The intelligence function is found at the BIN, Indonesian Military, Attorney General's Office, Justice and Human Rights Ministry and local administration. These institutions have no investigative authority," said Helmy Fauzi, a PDI-P legislator and member of the working committee preparing the bill.

PKS legislators Gamari Sutrisno and Effendy Choirie, who was recently dismissed from the National Awakening Party, said the proposal to grant intelligence operations the authority to arrest created an opening for human rights abuse, and the fact that all institutions had intelligence functions could be used for the ruling regime's political interests, as in the past.

Gamari and Helmy said their factions would propose special legislation on bugging authority to make sure that its implementation, which was against human rights, was justifiable and accountable.

"Wiretapping is against human rights, but it can be justified in exceptional cases. The core problem is not the bugging authority itself but how it is used," Helmy said.

He explained that wiretapping authority had to be linked not to certain institutions but with the intelligence function in field operations. "Therefore, only materials threatening national security can be intercepted and published publicly, and the interception must gain permission from the court."

Working committee chairman Mahfudz Siddiq said the bill would be brought to the special committee for further deliberation next week, and all hearings deliberating the bill with the government would be open to the public.

He also stressed the necessity of special wiretapping legislation to keep it accountable.

"The BIN and other state institutions having intelligence functions will be toothless if they have no authority to intercept [information], and its implementation in the field must be transparent and accountable to avoid any power abuse and to prevent institutions from being abused by the regime for [the regime's] interests," he said.

Intelligence analyst Wawan Purwanto appreciated the House's move to reform the intelligence function and make the BIN and other relevant institutions accountable in the bill and called on the House to speed up deliberation so the bill could be endorsed this year.

"The House should also encourage the BIN and other relevant institutions to pay more attention to foreign interventions threatening national security in all sectors. For instance, terrorist acts have involved locals, but their masterminds were abroad, and 74 laws have been passed on foreign financial coverage," he said.

If the bill has too many loopholes, it could be brought to the Constitutional Court for review or be reviewed by the House in years to come, he added.

The three factions were optimistic that the bill prepared by the House to replace the one submitted by the government in 2001 could be endorsed in December at the latest.

Infrastructure & development

Indonesia may miss MDGs targets due to corruption, budget problems

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2011

Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jakarta – Indonesia will likely fail to achieve the standards defined by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 due to corruption, poor management and budget problems at the regional level, according to activists.

Wahyu Susilo, coordinator of the Civil Society Network for MDG Achievement, said here on Monday that the problems would hinder the nation's efforts to advance human development, as they affected sectors important for poverty reduction, such as health and education.

"An increasing number of budget corruption cases in sectors related to poverty eradication – as shown by the central government's and regional administrations' budgeting processes – show the real picture of the country's poor commitment to meeting its MDGs targets," he said in a MDG progress report.

Many regional administrations have made slow progress in human development, allocating their budgets mainly for direct expenditures, mostly for infrastructure, as indicated in reports compiled by the network for eight areas: Central Java, East Nusa Tenggara, South Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, West Kalimantan, West Nusa Tenggara, West Sulawesi and West Sumatra.

The government has said that Indonesia needed to focus on only two issues: reducing the maternal mortality rate and on environmental issues.

However, according to a recent study published by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Indonesia might achieve only three of 10 MDG targets: improved free and compulsory basic education; an increased number of qualified health workers, especially for childbirths; and a reduction in the number people living on US$1.25 or less per day.

Wahyu said the country had a poor track record in other areas, such as poverty alleviation, secondary education, reducing the infant and maternal mortality rates, as well as tackling malaria, which afflicts 1,645 of every 100,000 Indonesians.

Few improvements have been recorded on expanding people's access to clean water and sanitation, Wahyu said. "If we have no specific strategies to tackle this problem, we may miss our MDGs targets," he added.

During the discussion, activists expressed concern about the poor awareness of the need for good governance while working to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

In Kubu Raya regency, West Kalimantan, for example, the local administration allocated a large part of its budget for direct spending on infrastructure, instead of using it to provide residents increased access to education and healthcare.

"Few resources have been properly allocated to fight illiteracy among residents," Gustiar, an activist from JARI West Borneo, said.

Gustiar said that 23,803 of Kubu Raya regency's 517,120 residents, were illiterate. Most were women. "It's alarming," he said.

However, the regency's health agency has not allocated sufficient funds to recruit more professional medical workers to improve the quality of healthcare provided by community health centers (puskesmas).

Yanti Muchtar of Kapal Perempuan said budgeting in Indonesia was not woman-friendly, despite that most issues covered by the MDGs related to women, such as maternal and infant mortality, access to clean water and sanitation.

Indonesia has the world's fifth largest population of illiterate people. About two-thirds of the nation's illiterate are women. However, the government allocates less than 1 percent of its total budget to combat illiteracy.

Economy & investment

Stocks in free fall as foreign funds exit

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Esther Samboh, Jakarta – The Indonesian stock market saw one of its steepest plunges ever on Thursday, as jittery investors dumped their equity assets over mounting fears of a repeat of the 2008 global economic crisis.

The benchmark Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) tumbled 328 points, or 8.88 percent, the highest fall since October 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers caused a global financial crisis.

The index closed at its lowest level in eight months, at 3,369, after international funds sold Rp 4.59 trillion (US$523.26 million) worth of shares following the Federal Reserve's statement about the US' "significant downside risk to the economic outlook".

Amid threats of crisis contagion hitting Indonesia, capital market regulator Bapepam-LK chairwoman Nurhaida said the agency had asked the stock exchange operator to "seriously monitor" the market's movements to determine necessary steps, including a possible suspension.

Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) president director Ito Warsito told The Jakarta Post a suspension would be the "last resort for the bourse only if the market gets out of control due to a very bad situation".

Instead, the stock exchange can curb trading by implementing so-called "circuit breaker", which pauses trading activity for a while to give traders time to reconsider their transactions amid market volatility and massive panic sell-offs, he added.

"We are looking at the situation. If it worsens, we will have to take certain steps. The trigger this time has been the exacerbation of the financial crises in Europe and the US," said Fauzi Ichsan, a senior economist at Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia.

"The anchor had been rupiah stability. The moment the rupiah sharply weakened, foreign investors were compelled to cut their losses by selling their rupiah stocks and bonds, and instead buy US dollars."

Massive selling pressures were also seen on government bonds and the rupiah on Thursday, as yields spiked and the currency rate fell to its lowest level in a year, triggering Bank Indonesia's (BI) intervention to stabilize prices.

"Other than the regular bilateral purchases of government bonds in the secondary market, BI today also bought government bonds in an auction. From an indicative target of Rp 5 trillion, incoming bids of Rp 2.3 trillion and Rp 1.74 trillion won," BI's director for economic and monetary policy research, Perry Warjiyo, told the Post on Thursday.

The rupiah fell as much as 3.9 percent, to Rp 9,367 per US dollar, the weakest level since May last year, before recovering to Rp 9,024 after the central bank's intervention, Bloomberg reported.

From Sept. 9 to 21, foreign holdings in government bonds dropped by Rp 18.42 trillion, according to data from the Finance Ministry's debt management office.

Yields for the benchmark 10-year government bonds also increased by more than 100 points during the same period, according to data from the Himdasun trader association.

If the benchmark yields continue to spike, government and corporate borrowing costs will jump, straining the state budget and, in turn, disrupting the real sector, as companies' balance sheets will be hit hard.

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa calmed investors and urged them not to be "overly worried", reiterating Indonesia's readied policy responses for financial market sell-offs, and its good economic fundamentals, with higher growth than many other nations around the world.

Asian stocks mostly tumbled, sending the regional benchmark index toward its lowest close in more than a year.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slumped 3.7 percent to 113.52 as of 5:02 p.m. local time on Tuesday; Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 2.1 percent; and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index declined 2.6 percent. New Zealand's NZX 50 Index was little changed after a report showed the nation's economy almost stalled last quarter. South Korea's Kospi Index lost 2.9 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slumped by 4.9 percent.

Analysis & opinion

View Point: Foke and other four letter words

Jakarta Globe - September 21, 2011

Julia Suryakusuma, Jakarta – We all know about "four-letter words" in the English language. Considered profane they've been used for many centuries for cursing. They're called that because they do indeed consist of four letters (duh!).

The most popular four-letter words include slang terms for excretory functions, sexual activity and genitalia. They include words such as: s#@t, c#@t, d#@k, c#@p,... and of course, the most popular of them all, f#@k. All are usually considered unprintable (especially in the esteemed The Jakarta Post).

But now I've found another four-letter "f" word that's completely printable: Foke! This, of course, is the popular nickname of Jakarta governor Fauzi Bowo.

Unlike the other four-letter words, "Foke" has been printed a lot lately, thanks to some truly Foke-d remarks he made regarding a recent spike in sexual harassment and rape cases, many carried out in buses and angkot (minivans used for city transport).

Foke unhelpfully suggested that "... women in Jakarta and other cities avoid wearing miniskirts when they ride on... minivans, because this could arouse male drivers and passengers," as if the men are not at fault ("Victims blamed for sexual assaults", the Post Sept. 17, 2011).

Great analysis, Foke (in any case, rape is a crime of violence, not of passion). Lucky you're not the governor of Aceh. You'd have been hard- pressed to explain the gang rape of a young female student by the Wilayatul Hisbah sharia police in January 2010. She wasn't wearing a miniskirt – women in Aceh are only allowed to wear loose-fitting Islamic clothes, complete with jilbab (headscarf). And the scene of the rape? At the police detention center on a Friday, the Muslim "day for goodness", when prayers are mandatory across the province.

And how about the tragic case of Livia Pavita Soelistio, the Bina Nusantara (Binus) student, who was raped and brutally murdered in mid-August this year, on her way home in public transport from a campus exam?

Was she wearing sexy clothes to persuade her examiners to give her a pass mark? Nope: she was a top-notch student and not prone to wearing revealing clothes – but that didn't save her, did it Foke?

"Rape", of course, is a four-letter word too. When Constable Michael Sanguinetti, a Toronto police officer, did a Foke on Jan. 24, this year, suggesting that, "women should avoid dressing like sluts" to avoid rape, women appropriated yet another four-letter word in response: "slut".

But they decided to give this four-letter word their own meaning. To claim rights over their own bodies, they organized protest marches called "SlutWalks", dressed in revealing, sexy clothes.

The first, initiated by five women in Toronto, took place on April 3, 2011. Now it's gone viral, with other walks planned in 75 cities in countries from Canada and the US, to Sweden, South Africa and India.

Now even Indonesia has a SlutWalk, a march that took place at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout in Jakarta on Sept. 18 (see the Post Sept. 19, 2011). Called Aksi Perempuan Menolak Perkosaan (Alliance of Women Rejecting Rape), organizers called on women to wear whatever they wanted: pyjamas, office clothes, sports clothes – and, yes, miniskirts too.

According to Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing.com, "in just a few months, SlutWalks have become the most successful feminist action of the past 20 years." Participants around the world are attacking a dangerous myth that feminists have tried to debunk for decades: that women's clothing determines whether they'll be raped.

They are showing that singling out the way women dress is akin to racial profiling – using a person's race or ethnicity as a key factor in identifying him or her as a cause of criminal activity. This is common in the US, as Michael Moore shows in his film "The Awful Truth". He demonstrates that cops shoot blacks when they pull out their wallet because for some reason they see wallets in black hands (like chocolate bars, keys and even hairclips) as... guns.

You're black, you're bad. Likewise, you wear sexy clothes, you're asking to be raped.

But the truth is that clothes have nothing to do with it. Rape victims include women of all sorts, in all sorts of outfits: young girls, pregnant women and old grandmas.

Even nuns, who wear costumes similar to those worn by Acehnese women, aren't safe. In 1945, 182 Catholic nuns in Silesia were raped by Red Army soldiers and the Catholic Church in Rome admitted in 2001 that priests from at least 23 countries have preyed (sic!) on nuns.

Some abuses allegedly took place almost within the walls of the Vatican. The point is that the way a woman dresses is not an invitation for rape or any other form of sexual abuse. And when it does happen, the victim should not be blamed for it. "Sudah jatuh, ketimpa tangga pula" (you've fallen off the ladder, then the ladder falls on top of you too).

Like many other men, especially powerful ones, Foke really needs to do his homework. Sure, he apologized, but the fact remains that his initial pronouncement revealed the dirty-minded patriarchal mindset Foke shares with many other men in positions of authority and responsibility.

Maybe Foke should talk to the women in his own family (the Fokers?) and see what they think. I can't imagine what on Ibu Foke (Mother Foke) would have to say.

[The writer (www.juliasuryakusuma.com) is the author of State Ibuism.]

Setback for democracy

Jakarta Post Editorial - September 21, 2011

The House of Representatives unanimously endorsed on Tuesday a new bill on electoral administration, which politicians claim will improve the quality of elections and democracy in the country.

But such a claim looks too good to be true, or perhaps groundless, as the bill reopens the door for political parties' direct involvement in the work of the General Elections Commission (KPU), which the House closed in 2003 for the sake of free and fair elections.

Instead of leading the nation towards mature democracy, the new bill marks a setback for the country's endeavor to create a better mechanism of elite rotation, which has so far resulted only in representatives of the people being more loyal to their political parties than to their constituents.

First and the foremost, the new bill paves the way for breaches of the spirit of free and fair elections by allowing representatives of political parties to sit in the KPU and the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu). The bill says the KPU is open to anyone capable and competent. Party members can vie for seats in the institution as long as they have already quit their parties when they register their candidacy.

We can imagine the conflicts of interest within the KPU, which should play a role as an impartial referee, if figures with close affiliations to political parties rule the commission. The existing law, which will soon expire, stipulates that seats in the KPU can go to party members who have resigned from their parties at least five years prior to their selection.

Indonesia's last two elections, in 2004 and 2009, respectively, were administered by a KPU that was relatively free from influence or intervention by political parties. Those elected as KPU members were primarily scholars with no political affiliations.

The fact that some of the commissioners were implicated in corruption cases, which many said was simply due to their lack of experience in managing huge funds, did not affect the credibility of the election process. It comes as no surprise if the international community considered Indonesian elections a model of democracy.

KPU seats were filled by representatives of the government and political parties in the first democratic elections in 1999 but the composition was quite acceptable, given the ongoing political transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

The transition period has long and there is no way to turn back the clock, unless the power brokers are willing to hijack democracy for their own interests.

Prolonged debates over the administering of the most recent elections in 2009 may have triggered the move to reinstate the role of political parties within the KPU, which several less successful parties see as partiality toward the ruling party. Discontent with the long overdue issue of electoral roll fraud has marked several hearings with KPU members at the House.

Efforts to delegitimize the 2009 election results are also evident in the House's ongoing move to reveal mafia practice within the KPU, which implicates former commissioner Andi Nurpati, now an executive within President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.

Andi's move to the Democratic Party raised many eyebrows, as it took place almost unnoticed, until she appeared donning party colors at the party's congress last year.

But whatever the reasons behind the House's endorsement of the new electoral administration bill, the independence of KPU members must not be compromised. Perhaps in the coming five years, the power hungry political elites will intend to pass a new bill that will let political parties negotiate election results?

Therefore, once the bill is enacted, a move to challenge it at the Constitutional Court is highly recommended if Indonesia is committed to free and fair elections.

South Jakarta's new flyover: Another road, and another reason to drive

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2011

Taufik Ramadhan Indrakesuma – For several months now, residents of South Jakarta have been forced to endure road closures and detours because of the Antasari flyover project that aims to connect the Cilandak and Blok M areas.

Now that the project is nearing completion, people are eagerly anticipating an end to all the suffering, and looking forward to the promised payoff of less-congested roads and quicker commutes. That, of course, is the story that the Jakarta government is selling.

Unfortunately, all the hardship has been for nothing. Well, not nothing, but the actual benefits will be so miniscule that that's what they'll seem like.

The reason is simple, although it involves fancy-sounding terms like "induced demand" and "triple convergence theory." To put it simply, it is a problem of incentives: If more roads are built, then there's more incentive to drive. More people will drive, and people will drive more.

The policy's logic does seem intuitive: given a fixed number of vehicles that pass through the Antasari corridor, any expansion of roads there will result in a lower density of vehicles on those roads, which means less congestion. This is true initially. During the first week or two that the new flyover is operational, congestion will improve substantially because of the additional lanes.

Beyond that point, however, the logic fails because the number of cars is not fixed. There is a subset of the population that has the option to drive a car to work but chooses not to because the heavy congestion makes them prefer other modes such as carpooling or taking the bus. However, once they perceive that road conditions have improved, they will want to start driving again. This is called induced demand, which is when demand increases in response to a raised supply.

The problems don't stop there. Triple convergence theory, developed by Anthony Downs in 1992, theorizes that there are more consequences to road expansion. People switching from public to private transportation is only one element of the triple convergence.

The second element concerns people who previously used alternative, less- convenient routes. Now that the main road is expanded, they will no longer take a detour. Let's say there are some people who would prefer Antasari but use the Fatmawati corridor instead because of the congestion on Antasari. After the flyover is complete and the initial impact becomes apparent, these people will flock to Antasari, their preferred route.

The third element consists of people who previously avoided peak-hour travel through Antasari because of congestion during that time, choosing instead to travel extra early to work, or extra late back home. Again, because the congestion appears to subside after the road expansion, more people will travel at peak times.

There have been many instances of failed road expansion in the Greater Jakarta area. Despite the number of lanes the city has added to its arterial roads, the traffic problem hasn't gone away. Unfortunately, however, road expansion is still an integral part of Jakarta's recently drafted spatial master plan for 2010-30, so one can only assume the city will keep doing it, over and over again.

If road expansion ultimately just doesn't work as a traffic management tool, why is it still happening? Let's put aside, for now, any suspicions that governments prefer big, corruption-prone infrastructure projects and assume them to be relatively honest. Besides road expansion, there is a range of traffic-management policies available. Better public transportation, higher taxes for automobiles, higher fuel prices, higher parking fees and congestion charges are all tools the Jakarta government has flirted with at some point. Some of them are part of the spatial master plan and some, such as the electronic road pricing congestion charge, are close to becoming reality.

All of those policies have one thing in common: they are disincentives to drive. And here's the problem with driving disincentives: people hate them. No one likes the idea of paying Rp 10,000 ($1.14) for one hour of parking or one liter of gasoline. What makes these policies so effective is exactly what causes such backlash against them.

Opposition to driving disincentives also comes from the automotive industry, which, for obvious reasons, hates the idea of reducing demand for cars. Thus, it is a constant uphill battle for policy makers to push demand management policies.

Considering all of that, one might wonder why the government doesn't just do nothing, rather than flush money down the toilet by pouring it into pointless road expansion. Unfortunately, the government doesn't have that option, because doing nothing would get it slammed for inactivity and an inability to respond to Jakarta's worsening traffic crisis. So when something needs to be done and the best options are too difficult to push through, all that's left to do is go forward with road expansion.

Regarding the Antasari flyover, here's a crazy idea that just might help it achieve the its intended purpose of alleviating congestion: turn it into a bus-only lane. No need for TransJakarta to get involved, as there are plenty of Kopaja and Metromini buses that pass through the corridor. Why not make it so these buses can reach their destination 20 minutes quicker than private cars? Maybe then more people will switch to public transportation, and the residents of South Jakarta can finally get some relief. After all, it's all about incentives.

[Taufik Ramadhan Indrakesuma is a research associate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.]