Model, singer and actress Julia Perez says she is disappointed by moves by a branch of the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) to ban erotic dangdut singers, including herself.

"I don't destroy anyone's morality," Jupe told the Jakarta Globe on Friday. "If I'm considered to be sexy, I apologize, but I am not anarchic, or spreading a new religion."

She said she hoped to meet with the West Java branch of MUI to discuss its stance but pointed out that the council's list of eight dangdut singers was out of date. Trio Macan had disbanded and Ira Swara "always dresses well," she said.

Jupe said she believed MUI's complaints were directed as singers that sung energetic songs that needed energetic movements. "Should I dance slowly when singing 'Belah Duren' ('Splitting the Durien'),"

She said women in general were discriminated against in Indonesia. "I agree with the Anti-Pornography Law but its limitations should be made clear," she said. "It is not wrong to wear a bikini at the beach, or wear a sexy outfit if it is needed during shooting."

We must maintain our vigilance against communism - Army chief of staff

Liputan 6 - September 30, 2011

Jakarta – Army Chief of Staff (KSAD) General Pramono Edhie Wibowo said today that vigilance must be maintained against communists so that the September 30, 1965 (G30S) affair, which was carried out by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), is not repeated.

"This event to recite the confession of the faith and a joint prayer organised by the Army in praying for our revolutionary heroes is not to prolong grudges, but we must understand that the [G30S] incident really did happen. We, as the successors of the nation must be vigilant, lest it be repeated", said Wibowo after holding a recitation of the confession of the faith and joint pray at the Sacred Pancasila Monument, Lubang Buaya (crocodile hole), in the Pondok Gede area of East Jakarta on Friday September 30.

According to Wibowo, the army continues to maintain a relationship with the families of those who are building this nation together. The recitation of the confession of the faith was also attended by a unit from the Jakarta Military Regional Command (Kodam Jaya) and the families of the victims who are also revolutionary heroes.

Jakarta Regional Military Command commander, Major General Waris said that the recitation of the confession of the faith and the joint prayer were held in the context of commemorating Pancasila Sanctity Day and praying for the revolutionary heroes that have fallen in battle. Aside from being seen from its religious aspect, he added, the event was held so that succeeding generations of the nation will have the duty and obligation to value and respect the contributions made by the country's revolutionary heroes.

The big challenge at the moment, according to Waris, is to implement [the state ideology of] Pancasila in the daily lives of the community, the nation and the state. "Pancasila can provide answers to the unrest that is happening at the moment, such as widespread violence, the weakening consciousness of national unity, and the decline in moral values", he said.

Waris believes that a failure to implement Pancasila will open the door to threats against Pancasila, namely the weakening of national unity. "We must endeavour to implement Pancasila by increasing vigilance against people who are unhappy with Indonesia's state ideology. Because of this therefore, we need to strengthen the spirit of unity", he said.

Speaking at the same event, the son of revolutionary hero retired Major General Sutoyo Siswohardjo, retired Lieutenant General Agus Widjojo, called on the successors of the nation to build the country and make it even better again. He expressed his thanks to Kodam Jaya staff for holding the event each year to remember the country's revolutionary heroes.

The event was also attended by the commander of the Army Strategic Reserves Command (green berets, Kostrad), Lieutenant General Asmyn Yusri Nasution, and the commander of the Army's elite Special Forces (Kopassus), Major General Wisnu Bawatenaya. (ANS/Ant)

[Slightly abridged translation by James Balowski.]

Social aid financing political purposes

Jakarta Post - September 29, 2011

Nani Afrida, Jakarta – The presidential advisory council has warned the President to be more careful in disbursing social funding to the provinces as the money has allegedly been used to finance political purposes.

Ryaas Rasyid, a member of the council, told reporters that the funds were used for political interests, especially for direct elections in the provinces.

"This is not a secret anymore, and the government plans to consolidate the funds so they will go to the right people," Ryaas said after a closed-door meeting at the State Palace on Wednesday.

The advisory council met with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his ministers to provide input on the projects run by the government. The council focused on several issues hampering the government.

"The President has shown his concern for this issue, saying the aid was not focused and needed to be channeled to people in need," he said.

Ryaas said an enormous amount of social funding had been allocated to improve people's welfare. The funds were meant to help shrink the huge economic gap between eastern and western Indonesia.

Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fawzi said each province received up to Rp 500 billion (US$56.5 million) in social funds. He declined to comment on how much of those funds had been used for political purposes, saying The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) would check it annually and bring any violators to court.

"It should be logged. One example is a poster for a promotional activity in the province that was paid for with state money. The problem is that the poster was dominated by photos [of politicians]," Gamawan said.

The Home Ministry has drafted a regulation on social funds to ensure that the money makes it to the right people. "I will give the regulation to the President soon," he said.

Julian Aldrin Pasha, the President's spokesperson, declined to comment further on social funds, saying Indonesia had a special auditing council.

"We hear the findings and we have council audits. If [the allegations] are true, we will process the case based on the law," he said, adding that there would be zero tolerance of such violations.

In April, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) released a report on local governments' social assistance fund policies. The agency said that auditors discovered 10 potential fund disbursement loopholes that might lead to graft.

The amount of social assistance funds being disbursed was far greater than what was disbursed during the pre-decentralization period.

Besides providing the President with input, the council revealed that the President also planned to make a public address about his policy sometime before Oct. 20. "It is a normal procedure when the President wants to say something to the public," Julian said.

"The President is concerned about several economic issues. For example, the huge gap between western Indonesia and eastern Indonesia, bureaucracy reform and cooperation between the House and the government," he said.

Cafe in Padang closed for providing strippers

Jakarta Post - September 29, 2011

Padang – The Padang City administration has officially revoked the license of Fellas Cafe and Resto for employing strippers.

Padang's Mayor, Fauzi Bahar, said on Wednesday that the cafe had been banned from operating and promised to file a lawsuit against the cafe's owner for running an illegal business.

Police officers arrested two strippers, identified as N.A., 21, and S.S., 21, when they were dancing naked in the karaoke room at the cafe on Tuesday evening.

Fauzi, who is known for his tough stance against vice activities in the city, said that the license revocation should function as a warning for other night entertainment businesses in the city not to copy such activities.

The mayor even promised to offer Rp 10 million (US$1,130) as a reward to anyone, including police personnel, who provides information about similar violations in other entertainment centers, ideally backed up with photographs or a video recording.

Padang Police chief Yadrison said that the two girls admitted to having been paid more than Rp 500,000 to dance naked for one hour. The two girls, who hail from other cities in West Sumatra, said they had danced three times at Fellas Cafe and Resto, and once at another cafe in Padang.

FPI sees a conspiracy as 120 members hospitalized

Jakarta Globe - September 23, 2011

Camelia Pasandaran& Zaky Pawas – More than 100 members of the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front have been hospitalized with food poisoning after eating rice packages distributed during a rally outside the Corruption Eradication Commission in Jakarta on Thursday.

"According to our records, there are 120 members who have been hospitalized in separate locations," Habib Salim, chairman of the Jakarta branch of the group known as the FPI, told the Jakarta Globe on Friday.

The ill FPI members were taken to Pelni Hospital, Bakti Mulya Slipi Hospital and six other hospitals across the capital and in Bogor, he said. The sick include five children and 13 women, he added.

They were taking part in a demonstration in support of the fight against corruption by the antigraft agency, known as the KPK. The action was organized by the Indonesian Anti-Corruption Force (LAKI). Other groups that took part in the rally included the Islamic Reform Movement (Garis), the Islamic Defenders Force (LPI) and the Islamic People's Forum (FUI).

Habib said the demonstration had reached the stage where a delegation had been invited inside to meet with the KPK leadership. The main body of demonstrators were waiting outside the KPK building.

"Now, that was when our people out in front were given food," Habib said. He said the demonstrators felt fine, and went home after the rally was over at about 2 p.m.

"Then at about 3:30pm, some of them started complaining of dizziness, nausea and vomiting," he said. "Some of the members who accompanied the others to the hospital said the doctors had diagnosed them as suffering from food poisoning, but we're still waiting for the final results of the police investigation."

He said several of the 120 members who were hospitalized had improved and gone home, "but some of them are still under hospital care." The FPI is paying the medical costs of the affected members, he added.

Habib said the FPI had sent out a team to establish who produced the food packages. He said the FPI had identified a person, but he did not wish to give a name.

"Obviously, it was not an FPI member, because the FPI did not order any food or drinks," he said. "This is a nation based on the rule of law, so the name has been handed over to the police."

He said he suspected the incident was a deliberate action to damage the FPI, which he said was planning to inaugurate new commanders on Saturday. "We don't know whether it was poison or just old food," he said.

"The FPI has lots of enemies. It could well be that it was a mission from someone who wants to destroy us, because the FPI wants to eradicate corruption."

The head of the Central Jakarta Police, Comr. Angesta Romano Yoyol, said a conspiracy was unlikely. "The food packages were distributed by LAKI. They came from a warteg [food stall] near the LAKI office," he said.

Actions, demos, protests...

Activists hold prayer for farmers

Jakarta Post - September 26, 2011

Desy Nurhayati, Denpasar – Environmental activists and university students held a mass prayer and art performance on Saturday to mark National Farmers Day, in protest over what they called unfair agricultural land conversion in Bali.

The protest rally, held in front of the Bali governor's residence, was a reflection of the deteriorating condition of Bali's environment due to massive agriculture land conversion by investors who have disadvantaged traditional farmers, the protesters argued.

Recent data showed that conversion of agricultural land reached around 800 to 1,000 hectares during the last one year. The land was converted into residential and tourist facilities.

"We hold this interreligious mass prayer to reflect on ourselves concerning environmental problems, especially those related to agriculture in Bali," said Indra Udayana, leader of the Ashram Gandhi Puri "Chhatralaya".

The participants included members of Bali Environmental Forum, Walhi, Frontier, students of Udayana University and Indonesian Hindu University, Indonesian Muslim Student Union (PMII), Anand Krishna Center, and Ashram Gandhi Puri "Chhatralaya".

They also dedicated their action to traditional farmers in Dompa, Jimbaran, whose land was unfairly taken over by investors to build Bali International Park, according to event coordinator Dharmoko.

"The investor who acquired the land deceived the farmers by giving them falsified land certificates and only gave them a small amount of compensation. They also threatened to evict the farmers," he said, quoting media reports.

However, since the land has been acquired, no construction project has been undertaken, and the land has been abandoned for many years. "Thus, the investors hampered the farmers' access to a better livelihood, and inflicted losses on the state."

This is a violation of the Agrarian Law that stipulates the land which has been abandoned for years should be taken over by the state and distributed for agricultural interests, he said.

Dharmoko accused the provincial administration and the council of siding with investors by approving the construction of Bali International Park on the abandoned land.

In their protest, they reaffirmed their opposition to the construction project and urged the Bali administration and the council to pass a moratorium on development that damaged the environment while finding a solution to the environmental problems on the island, especially the water crisis.

"The administration has also failed to enforce the Agrarian Law as we are still seeing abandoned agricultural land everywhere being unfairly taken over by investors," Dharmoko said.

Farmers, activists demand land reform

Jakarta Post - September 25, 2011

Apriadi Gunawan and Panca Nugraha, Medan/Mataram – In conjunction with the commemoration of National Farmers Day, about 1,000 farmers and university students staged two separate rallies in Medan, North Sumatra, on Saturday, demanding agrarian reform and enforcement of the Agrarian Law.

Grouped under the Association of Indonesian Farmers (SPI), the protesting farmers said that agrarian reform was urgent given the high number of land dispute cases that had harmed farmers. They also condemned how local administrations dealt with land disputes.

SPI's North Sumatra branch chairman, Wagimin, said that there were currently 14 unresolved land dispute cases in North Sumatra covering a combined 8.2 hectares of agricultural land.

Some of the farmers said they were opposed to large agricultural companies. "We are struggling to win the 14 cases that have created victims and caused losses among farmers," Wagimin said in front of the governor's office.

He said that he hoped that the government would soon bring about true agrarian reform so that farmers would not always become the victims of injustice caused by capitalists.

"Farmers have faced intimidation, violence and even imprisonment. Today, on National Farmers Day, we really hope that the local administrations issue a decision to speed up the processing of land conflict cases in North Sumatra," Wagimin said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of members of North Sumatra University's Students Front staged a rally on the same day at the Majestik traffic circle on Jl. Gatot Subroto in Medan, demanding that the government uphold Law No. 5/1960 on agrarian affairs.

Protest coordinator Boy Raja Marpaung said that Sept. 24 was a historical moment for Indonesians as it was the birth date of agrarian law, which had been achieved through revolution when Indonesians took over Dutch controlled farm land.

"Unfortunately, so far the state still bows to the foreign capitalists' interests," Marpaung said.

He called on the people to say no to the bill on land acquisition, as well as the Indonesian economic growth acceleration master plan and to the Indonesian exclusive economic zones. He also demanded an end to violence and intimidation against farmers.

Separately in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), about 300 farmers and activists staged a rally in front of the governor's office, demanding that the central government to stop importing rice. "The rice import policy will only harm the farmers," chairman of SPI's NTB branch, Wahijan, said.

He also called on the provincial administration to uphold spatial planning according to the land reform movement, and not to use violence and intimidation against farmers to settle land disputes.

Wahijan said that 15 farmers had been placed in police custody in the last six months for their involvement in land disputes with investors. This, he said, showed the authorities sided with investors and were ignorant of farmers' concerns, adding the government always placed the blame on farmers in such disputes.

"We asked the governor to ask the central government to revoke the law on water resources exploitation, on mining and on other things that are harming farmers' interests. Only the agrarian law can guarantee farmers' interests," he said.

NTB People's Coalition coordinator Ahmad Rifai said current spirit of land reform and the recent nationalization of state assets marked a dramatic change from the time of the New Order regime.

"Many of the farmers that have been cultivating their lands for generations have been forcefully displaced from their own lands because the current government wants to offer land to capitalists," Ahmad said.

He also urged NTB Governor Zainul Majdi to set up commissions to settle agricultural land disputes at the regional

Indonesia hunger strike continues over arrest of mine protester

Jakarta Globe - September 24, 2011

Hangga Brata, Yogyakarta – Six activists camped outside the Yogyakarta provincial legislature marked the third day of their hunger strike on Friday in protest against the detention of a farmer arrested for opposing an iron mine in the province.

Agung, the strike coordinator, said the Kulon Progo mine, operated jointly by Australia's Indo Mines and local outfit Jogja Magasa Mining, would deprive farmers in four subdistricts of vast swaths of farmland.

"The mine will reduce the area of rice paddies by 72 percent from the current 4,005 hectares," he said. "Hundreds or even thousands of farm workers will be rendered jobless."

More than 21,000 small landholders stood to lose their land if the government allowed the mining operation to expand, he said.

He also called for the immediate release of Tukijo, a farmer who was reportedly kidnapped by police while working in his fields in May and since sentenced to three years in prison for disorderly conduct following his vocal opposition to the mine.

"This hunger strike is a real action to support Tukijo and the Kulonprogo people in rejecting the mine," Agung said. The protesters, a mix of students and farmers, began their strike on Wednesday and plan to continue "without a deadline," Agung added.

He said that in the three days that the activists had been camped outside the legislature, no councilors had come out to meet them. "We don't care about that, we'll continue with the strike until the end," he said.

Sumanto, another of the protesters and secretary of the Kulon Progo Coastal Farmers Association (PPLP), said that the Kulon Progo district head, Hasto Wardoyo, had promised to hold talks with the protesters but had failed to appear.

Residents of Kulon Progo have protested against the mining operation since it was first proposed in 2006. An iron concentration of 40-80 percent along Kulon Progo's beaches makes it the second-largest iron reserve in the world after Mexico.

In 2008, the central government brokered the deal for the concession, which will supply 600,000 tons of iron to state-owned Krakatau Steel in its first year of operation. Mining started this year. Budi Wibowo, the district secretary, previously said that there was "huge money" to be made from the mine.

"Apart from iron sand, the land also contains titanium, vanadium, coal, gold, manganese and lime, which will be available after the iron sand is extracted," he said. "There is 100 years' worth of precious mineral reserves in Kulon Progo."

Tukijo, who led the local opposition to what he saw as an illegal appropriation of farmers' lands, was arrested on charges of defamation, an allegation made by the mining company, and convicted in early 2010. He was sentenced to six months' probation.

His family says he had been arrested on several occasions since then, until the last incident in May.

West Papua

Freeport workers stage another protest

Jakarta Post - September 30, 2011

Mimika – Thousands of PT Freeport Indonesia workers staged another protest in front of the Mimika Manpower Agency over what they said was a violation committed by the company.

The protesters who have been on strike since Sept. 15, said the company had broken the law by recruiting new workers while they were on strike.

"We came here to report an alleged violation of the law [by Freeport]. Besides, we want to report the management for attempting to intimidate workers," workers' field coordinator Jimmy said Thursday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Mimika manpower agency chief Dionisius Mamayo said his office would study the alleged violation report. "Neither the company management nor employees can say whether the strike is legal. Only the court reserves the authority to decide that," he added.

Freeport workers stage another protest, report 'violation'

Jakarta Post - September 29, 2011

Thousands of PT Freeport Indonesia workers staged another protest in front of the Mimika Manpower Agency office over what they said was a violation committed by the company.

The protesters who have been on strike since Sept. 15, said the company had broken the law by recruiting new workers while they were on strike. "We came here to report an alleged violation of the law [by Freeport].

Besides, we want to report the management for attempting to intimidate workers," workers' field coordinator Jimmy said Thursday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Indonesian minister on Papua conflict: 'We get it'

Agence France Presse - September 28, 2011

New York – Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said on Tuesday that his government was fully aware of problems in restive Papua and was working to find a way to deliver autonomy.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Natalegawa said that Indonesia has listened to human rights groups and sought ways to address legitimate concerns since the country embraced democracy in the 1990s.

"The key thing here, to all our international interlocutors, friends, and [those] both critical as well as supportive: We get it," Natalegawa said.

He said that the two provinces of Papua "need special attention, special empowerment. Autonomy is the way to go." "But when there are problems," he said, "let's address them in an inclusive way and problem-solving way rather than simply creating more challenges ahead."

Indonesia took over Papua in 1969 and has since faced a low-level insurgency. Human Rights Watch says that Indonesian forces have killed civilians and imprisoned peaceful activists.

Indonesia in 2001 introduced autonomy in Papua – a vast, mineral-rich province that shares an island with Papua New Guinea – but local activists say that the implementation has been half-hearted and not improved their rights.

Natalegawa stressed to his audience that Indonesia was open to change, saying that its positions at the UN Security Council on issues including North Korea and Myanmar has gradually evolved.

Natalegawa said, without further details, that the government was considering its positions on Iran and human rights-related issues including capital punishment.

Journalists document life in rural Papua

Jakarta Globe - September 27, 2011

Anita Rachman – Eighty percent of Papuans live in the approximately 3,000 kampongs spread across the country's largest province, so any meaningful understanding of how Papuans live must start at the village level.

That was the reasoning that inspired a group of journalists from the Voice of Papuan Women Tabloid (TSPP) to travel from village to village for more than two years. They talked to people and looked at the facilities and infrastructure, which the TSPP's editor in chief, Angela Flassy, says remains predictably underdeveloped.

Their findings from 34 villages, initially published weekly in the TSPP, were first collected into a book in 2009, "From Village to Village: The Journalistic Journey of the Voice of Papuan Women Tabloid." Now a second book covering 13 villages is set to hit shelves.

Paskalis Keagop, a senior editor at the TSPP, says the team of eight journalists checked on basic infrastructure such as "schools, puskesmas [community health centers], roads, bridges and markets. We also visited two mining areas." He adds that in the 47 villages visited so far, "the conditions are generally the same."

"Education and health, these are the basic services that people need but that are lacking in general," he says. He cites Wambes village, where residents have to rely on rainwater because of a lack of potable water sources.

According to the account in the book, Frans Abar, the village chief, said that in 2008 the provincial public works office drilled a well to provide a reliable water source, as well as a reservoir to store the water – only the officials never handed the keys to the well or reservoir to the village residents. No one in Wambes was involved in the process.

Frans said it was difficult to find clean water in the area, especially during the dry season, forcing residents to resort to "living from rainwater."

Over in Puay village, the book tells of a shortage of a different sort: of teachers, doctors and nurses. The village has only one school, a state elementary school. Even then, the students can count themselves lucky if teachers show up three days a week.

"Teachers don't want to live in the village. They prefer to say in towns," said Belsazar Doyapo, the village head.

Puay also has a high number of malaria, tuberculosis and skin disease cases, caused mostly by the consumption of dirty water drawn from Lake Setani. But there are no doctors or nurses at the local health center. For treatment, residents have to take a two-hour boat ride to the nearest clinic.

Paskalis says many other villages are in dire need of better education and health care. In a vocational school at a village in Sarmi district, for instance, many students have difficulty reading, he says.

Angela says there are more schools being built across Papua, but few teachers are willing to accept what is widely seen as a hardship posting, and there are not enough books to go around.

"It's probably not a new story for you, but what can we say? The conditions five years ago, the conditions today and the conditions in the next five years won't change, I don't think," she says.

She points out that in Wambes, the local administration built a library, but the provincial administration did not supply it with any books, magazines or even newspapers. When Paskalis visited the village, he found the library had been overrun by a herd of goats.

But Angela says she disagrees with the idea that the people of Papua live in poverty. "Because we don't. Just look at our natural resources wealth," she says. "The problem is that despite the presence of the government, we don't feel that it's actually governing."

The TSPP team says it has many more villages to visit. It adds that it has no ulterior motive for publishing the books, but is simply sharing Papuans' stories with the rest of the country.

"The government might see it as criticism," says Yakobus Wally, a TSPP reporter. "But we don't actually criticize them. We're simply describing the reality on the ground."

Group wants Freeport to pay higher royalties to government

Jakarta Globe - September 26, 2011

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – A local NGO is urging the government to propose contract renegotiations with Freeport Indonesia to force the company to pay proper royalties for its mines.

During a meeting with Deputy House Speaker Pramono Anung on Monday, Gunawan, a coordinator for the Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice (IHCS), said he had filed a lawsuit in the South Jakarta District Court regarding Freeport's contract, known as Kontrak Karya.

The court ordered mediation between the parties. "Now we want the government and the House to use mediation to force Freeport management to renegotiate the contract," Gunawan said.

Gunawan said that the government and the House should renegotiate and make Freeport pay a royalty of 3.7 percent of its production since 2003 and commit to paying the same percentage for future production.

"It is clear in the Constitution that natural resources should be managed for the benefit of the people," Gunawan said. "The government and the House should fight for this."

IHCS estimated that Freeport should have paid around Rp 2.2 trillion ($256 million) since 2003.

"Actually, a royalty at 3 to 4 percent is very low in comparison to other countries," Gunawan said. "In African countries, the royalty is around 5 to 8 percent. Even Venezuela is drafting a law to get the royalty above 50 percent."

Ray Rangkuti, director of the Indonesian Civic Network (LIMA) urged the government to temporarily close Freeport's mining operations during the renegotiation process.

"As long as it is in Indonesia, it has to comply," Ray said. "During the negotiation, please close it down. Don't let it operate until the debt has been paid and renegotiation completed."

Thousands of workers at Freeport-McMoran's gold and copper mine in eastern Indonesia began a monthlong strike in mid-September demanding higher wages in line with those received by Freeport workers in other countries.

Freeport Indonesia union plan to end government-led mediation

Reuters - September 23, 2011

Freeport Indonesia's labor union plans not to continue with a tripartite mediation involving the government and is seeking to discuss the matter directly with the company in order to end the month-long strike, union spokesman, Juli Parorrongan, said on Friday.

"We plan not to continue the mediation (in Jakarta) and will go home to the job site in Timika and seek bipartisan mediation [with the company]," said Parorrongan, adding that the union was disappointed with the talks.

Human rights & justice

Two years on, Yudhoyono ignoring recommendations on abducted activists

Kompas - September 29, 2011

Jakarta – For two years now, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) has ignored the House of Representatives' (DPR) recommendation on the forced abduction and disappearance of 13 activists in 1997-1998. There were four recommendations issued by the DPR on September 30, 2009 in relation to the case.

The four recommendations were, first, that the president establishes an ad hoc human rights court. Second, that the president along with all government institutions and related parties attempt to find the 13 people declared missing by the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM). Third, the government rehabilitate and provide compensation to the families of the victims. And fourth, the government immediately ratify the United Nations Convention Against Forced Disappearances.

"Now what about the president. We want the president's answer, has [the case] been put on ice or will it be followed up", said Effendi Simbolon, the former chairperson of the DPR's Special Committee on the Forced Abduction and Disappearances in 1997/1998, in Jakarta on Wednesday September 28, 2011.

Utomo, the father of one of the victims, Petrus Bima Anugrah, said that the president has committed a breach of justice. Two out of the four recommendations have been forwarded to the president but to this day it is unclear how he has followed them up. The president is intentionally playing for time and blocking the victims and their families from finding the truth, obtaining justice and rehabilitation.

"The president is also a military man, and he knows if there was a justification for what happened, [he] could convey this", said Effendi.

Because of this therefore, the DPR leadership is being asked to take action. Nasir Jamil, a member of the DPR's Commission III on law and security affairs, is calling on the DPR leadership to take the initiative, including summoning the minister responsible for the issue.

Eva Sundari, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said that the DPR has political options such as the right of interpolation or to declare an opinion. It should be that in accordance with Law Number 26/2000 on Human Rights Courts, an ad hoc human rights court to hear cases of gross human rights violations can be formed on a recommendation by the DPR to the president. "This relates to a constitutional mandate", asserted Nasir.

The deputy chairperson of the special committee meanwhile, Darmayanto, said that the issue should not be politicised. All parties, including the government and the ruling party, must seek to resolve this human rights issue.

Ahmad Yani, also a member of the DPR's Commission III, said that Komnas HAM should not relinquish its responsibilities in the case and oversee the matter after having released the results of its investigation, which found that gross human rights violations occurred in the forced disappearance of the 13 people in 1997/1998. Commission III has repeatedly asked the Attorney General's Office about what progress is being made in the case. "The response however is always that it remains to be upgraded to an investigation", he said.

Sipon meanwhile, the wife of abducted People's Democratic Party (PRD) activist and poet Wiji Thukul, told about the daily discrimination that she faces. She has found it difficult to obtain employment and the process of dealing with her land certificate has been left up in the air for five years. (EDN)

The 13 Abducted activists

1. Petrus Bima Anugrah - Student activist/PRD
2. Herman Hendrawan - Student activist/PRD
3. Suyat - Student activist/PRD
4. Wiji Thukul - Artist and poet
5. Yani Afri - PDI-P supporter
6. Dedi Hamdun - United Development Party (PPP) supporter
7. Ismail - Dedi Hamdun's driver
8. Noval Alkatiri - Colleague of Dedi Hamdun
9. Ucok M Siahaan - Student activist
10. Hendra Hambali - Student
11. Yadin Muhidin - Student activist
12. M Yusuf - Teacher
13. Sonny - PDI-P supporter

On September 29, 2009, the DPR made four recommendations to the government, but none of these have been followed up. The recommendations were:

1. Requesting that the president form an ad hoc human rights court.

2. Requesting that all government institutions and related parties conduct an immediate search for the 13 activists that are still missing.

3. Rehabilitate and provide compensation to the families of the victims that disappeared and ratify the UN Convention Against Forced Disappearances as form of support from the government.

4. End the practice of forced disappearances in Indonesia.

Source: Kompas Research and Development/YOH, prepared by the Indonesian Association of the Families of Missing Persons (Ikohi) and "Kompas" news reports.

Notes:

In 1999 Lieutenant General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was a member of the Officers Honour Council that examined the officers from the Army Elite Special Forces (Kopassus) who were involved in the abductions and is therefore believed to have key information on case.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Ombudsman office struggles to keep public services honest - and stay afloat

Jakarta Globe - September 26, 2011

Anita Rachman – "What is an ombudsman?" By now, Budi Santoso is used to hearing that question when friends ask about his work as a senior official with the Indonesian Ombudsman's office. It may be one of the most important offices in government, but yet remains largely invisible.

"I once gave an interview on television about the School Operationial Aid fund. My driver's wife watched the program and now she thinks the Ombudsman's job is to solve problems related to schools," he said with a laugh. "Many people have no idea what the Ombudsman actually is."

In a country where bureaucracy can be maddeningly difficult to navigate, the office of the Ombudsman serves as a mediator, trying to untangle disputes outside the court system.

Though struggling for government funds and little-understood by the public, the body could be a significant check on both public and private service providers – but it isn't quite there yet.

Created by the late President Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000, the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia was empowered to act on issues related to the delivery of public services by government agencies. The office expanded in 2008 with the passage of the Ombudsman Law, which gave it the right to intervene in both the public and private sectors.

While it has no judicial powers, it can make life unpleasant for those it deems to be unresponsive by referring them to higher authorities for action. The body can also summon anyone for clarification, mediation or investigation of an issue.

Often, a solution is achieved informally. In rare cases, a formal recommendation is made, which the errant agency is supposed to obey. If they don't, a report can be made to the president or the House of Representatives for further action.

Solving problems

The office recently weighed in on the long-running case of the GKI Yasmin Church in Bogor, where the city mayor has ignored a Supreme Court ruling allowing the church to open.

The Ombudsman agreed that the mayor should allow the church to function, which he refused to do. Now it will take its concerns to the president. The Ombudsman chairman, Danang Girindrawardana, said anyone could bring a complaint to the agency on issues including health, education, manpower and business opportunities or administration issues.

"We are a watchdog for public services. We are problem solvers," Danang said. "Today, we are trying to spread the word and promote this body so that people can come to us when they need help."

He said the Ombudsman followed up on all reports, from tiny matters to issues involving giant companies. Cases are all resolved outside of court.

An elderly woman in Mampang, South Jakarta, complained that a subdistrict head had refused to sign a letter certifying her low-income status, which was necessary to receive free medical care and other services. The Ombudsman's office told the official to help her, which he finally did.

The Ombudsman has also helped expatriates. Budi cited a Danish businessman who was having trouble with his local business partner but getting nowhere with the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry. In all cases, Budi stressed, the Ombudsman is a mediator, not a legal advocate. "We don't take sides," he said.

Getting known

The Ombudsman's office takes complaints by mail, e-mail, phone and in person (details at end).

With a staff of about 60 in Jakarta and 30 in seven regional offices, the body tries to meet as many members of the public as it can personally, as it did on Thursday when two blind men came to file a report.

Dimas Prasetyo Muharam, 23, and Eko Ramaditya Adikara, 30, said visually impaired people have trouble being considered for government jobs. "We believe the Ombudsman will help us," said Eko.

Kartini Istikomah, one of the nine senior officials, met the two men personally and said the Ombudsman would communicate with the related ministries. "We are going to do our best to help them," she said.

Dominikus Dalu, a senior assistant, said the number of complaints was rising. So far this year, there have been 1,000 inquiries. "There were 570 that were officially filed," said Dominikus.

"I am happy that the number is increasing, but sometimes I also worry," he said. "We only have 28 assistants. The Ombudsman needs more staff, otherwise our service won't be the best."

Chairman Danang agreed, saying that resources were too tight. Elected in February by House Commission II, which oversees home affairs, Danang and his team are still working with the Rp 16 billion ($1.82 million) budget they inherited from the previous leadership.

The government turned down a request for Rp 31.7 billion, which had previously been approved by the House. No additional funds were released to the office and it is struggling just to pay salaries.

"We need at least Rp 77 billion next year for our 2012 strategic plan, including building regional representative offices, hiring more staff and running public information campaigns," Danang said. "We can't afford any advertising to promote ourselves."

Ganjar Pranowo, the deputy chairman of House Commission II, said even Rp 77 billion was too small to support the agency.

"Rp 500 billion or even Rp 1 trillion, that's the number they deserve so they can scrutinize public services," Ganjar said. "Maybe the government is afraid this body could grow bigger to watch its own operations."

The Ombudsman's office is in the Anti-Corruption Court building on Jalan H. R. Rasuna Said. Its Web site is www.ombudsman.go.id.

Massacred village in Indonesia awaits Dutch amends

Associated Press - September 24, 2011

Niniek Karmini, Rawagede, Indonesia – Six decades have passed, but Kadun bin Siot's voice still trembles as he recalls the morning Dutch troops surrounded his tiny Indonesian village and nearly wiped out its entire male population.

He was 12, peering through the slats of a wooden barn as soldiers flushed his father out of his hiding place in a trash heap, stabbing it with bayonets until he emerged, blood pouring from his face. "They dragged him away," the 76-year-old farmer said. "I never saw him again."

Dutch troops clinging to their retreating colonial empire arrived in Rawagede by the hundreds just before dawn on Dec. 9, 1947, and opened fire, sending sleepy residents scattering from their homes in panic.

The troops were looking for resistance leader Lukas Kustario, known for ambushing Dutch bases. When villagers said they didn't know where he was, the soldiers rounded up the boys and young men and took them to an open field.

Squatting in rows, with both hands placed on the backs of their heads, they were shot one by one.

The Dutch said 150 were killed in the massacre – for which they have yet to apologize – but villagers put the toll at nearly three times that. Only a few survived. Relatives of the victims have spent a lifetime waiting for justice.

Though a landmark ruling by a Dutch court last week offered compensation to surviving widows, now in their 80s and 90s, it could take years for the money to wind its way through the political and bureaucratic maze.

But time's running short. Of the 10 claimants in the suit, three have already died, the most recent in May.

Another $1.2 million in "development aid" promised to Rawagede 30 months ago for construction of a school, a hospital and a market is stuck in The Hague. It's supposed to go to Indonesia's Interior Ministry, but a dispute between two foundations representing the villagers' interests is holding things up.

Standing on his toes, Wahidin carefully lifts a cardboard box off the top shelf from his office and sifts through a bundle of papers until he finds the blueprints.

"Ah, here they are," the regional financial officer says, dusting off the drawings and letting out a deep sigh. It's as if he almost forgot as well.

"A lot of talk, plans, a rice field was even cleared at one point," said Wahidin, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. "But we haven't seen any of the money that was supposed to go toward helping building these. Not a cent."

Though described as one of the worst massacres by Dutch troops during Indonesia's bloody fight for independence, few in this nation of 240 million have ever heard of Rawagede. Those who have know it only through a poem by Chairil Anwar that is still recited by schoolchildren.

It was up to survivors, he wrote, to decide if those who died, their bones scattered between the neighboring West Java towns of Karawang and Bekasi, were part of the price for freedom, victory and hope.

But 92-year-old Wanti needs no such reminders. With great clarity she describes hiding under her bed with her two children for a day, the rat-a- tat sound of gunfire assaulting her ears. The next morning, when women in the village thought it was safe, they went outside to look for their husbands, brothers and sons.

"We carried their bodies... to our homes, dug holes with our bare hands, and buried them in our backyards," said Wanti, recalling how her children helped cloak their father in sheets ripped off the bed.

Her face is grooved with thick lines, her eyes milky from cataracts. "It was so sad."

Indonesia declared its independence from Dutch colonial rule when World War II ended in 1945. The Netherlands fought unsuccessfully to try to maintain control of its lucrative Asian outpost and Indonesia was finally recognized as independent in 1949.

The massacre – like the failure of peacekeepers to protect Muslims in Srebrenica a half century later – remains a black page in Dutch history.

When Nikolaos van Dam, then the Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia, attended a memorial service in Rawagede in 2008, the first representative of his government do so, he said he was "sorry" about the killings.

The remarks, not cleared in The Hague, caused a diplomatic uproar. Survivors can only hope this month's court ruling will make it easier for the Netherlands to face its past.

They pray they will get not only financial compensation – though no one has said how much – but also a heartfelt apology and, eventually, the school, hospital and market their village was promised.

The Dutch insist the money was "development aid," not reparations, and that it will come eventually. "Together with the Indonesian authorities we want to put together a sustainable project," said Aad Meijer, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. "That has to be done carefully and takes time."

Villagers say they need it. Though the farming community of 3,300 is surrounded by glistening rice paddies, its small health clinic has only one bed. And with no high school, teens have to travel more 35 miles (60 kilometers) if they want to continue on with their education.

"I'm tired of waiting," said Cawi binti Baisa, who was only 20 when her husband of two years left the house to work in the rice paddies never to return. "But what choice do I have," said the 84-year-old. "I'll wait until I die, if I have to."

Political parties & elections

Mahfud testifies for former staff, denies interference

Jakarta Post - September 30, 2011

Jakarta – Constitutional Court Chief Mahfud MD testified at the National Police Headquarters on Thursday for former staff member Zainal Arifin, a suspect in a high-profile forgery case.

Mahfud asserted that he testified voluntarily to help turn the fortunes of Zainal, whom many say is a "victim" in the case that implicates a top member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic party.

"Pak Zainal asked me to testify in favor of him to clear up the problem," he told reporters. Constitutional Court justices Harjono and Maria Farida Indrati also testified.

The court had been critical of how the police handled the case, saying that the police were unprofessional in allegedly sparing the suspected masterminds. But the court seemed to have a softer stance on Thursday.

"I always told the [Constitutional Court] not to interfere [in the case], because the laws were established, so the National Police already had a standard for settling the case using the established laws," Mahfud said.

The case came to public attention after a letter from the Constitutional Court was discovered, which ordered the General Election Commission (KPU) to grant a seat in the House of Representatives to Dewi Yasin Limpo from the People's Conscience Party (Hanura), while in fact the seat should have gone to Mestariyani Habie from the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra).

The letter, which was passed from former court staff member Mashuri Hashan to former KPU member Andi Nurpati, was later identified as a fake, and Zainal's signature on the letter a forgery.

The police named Mashuri and Zainal suspects, while Andi and Dewi – the alleged masterminds of the forgery – have been questioned as witnesses but have yet to be named suspects.

Zainal's legal team told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that Zainal could not be charged under Article 263 of the Criminal Code for forging documents, pointing to the fact that Zainal did not benefit from the forged letter.

"If the accusation is based on Article 263, then the people who used the letter for their personal interests are the ones who should be named suspects. In this case, [the suspects] should be the KPU commissioner or the House candidate who forged the letter," Ahmad said.

National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Sutarman told reporters that the investigation was ongoing and had yet to determine Andi's role. If Andi is named a suspect, it would be another blow to the embattled Democratic Party, which has been busy with a maelstrom of graft allegations from former party treasurer turned whistleblower Muhammad Nazaruddin. (sat)

Five new parties prepare for verification process

Jakarta Post - September 27, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Five new political parties that have completed the administrative requirements are gearing up to face the government's fact-checking process on the parties' resources in the regions, the last part of the verification to determine their eligibility to contest the upcoming 2014 polls.

The five parties, namely the National Archipelago Prosperity Party (PKBN), the Nasdem Party, the Functional Republic Party (Pakar), the Union of Independent People's Party (SRI) and the Independent Party, are subject to the Law and Human Rights Ministry's upcoming fact-checking process that commences this week, according to the ministry's state administration director Asyarie Syihabudin.

Another nine new political parties, which had also filed applications with the ministry, will not be subject to the process because the parties left their administrative documents incomplete despite the ministry's call for additional document submission.

"The results of the fact-checking process will be announced by Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar by the end of October," Asyarie told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

During the process, ministry officials will be deployed to see if the parties' local branches really exist and if the offices have obtained permission from local authorities. The ministry will also look at the organizational structure of each party, down to its local branches.

Asyarie said he did not know why the nine parties had succumbed and ignored the ministry's call for document completion.

Many have complained about the 2011 Political Parties Law, which they say has set difficult requirements such as the obligation to have branch offices in all of the country's 33 provinces, 75 percent of the cities and regencies in each province and 50 percent of the districts in each city and regency.

In June, members and supporters of the SRI Party, which supports former finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati for president, filed a judicial review with the Constitutional Court to challenge the law, which they said violated civic rights to form a political party as mandated by the Constitution.

One of the petitioners, SRI Party chairman Damianus Taufan, said during the review that only rich citizens could form political parties since the obligation to establish so many local branches would cost billions of rupiah.

In their press statement, the petitioners said it would cost at least Rp 200 million (US$22,000) just to buy seals for official documents. With the country's 497 cities and regencies as well as about 6,300 districts, it would cost an additional Rp 7.04 billion for rent, assuming a small office cost Rp 2 million in annual rent.

Last month, the court turned down the plaintiff's request, saying the branch requirements were normal. Damianus, however, said he was still optimistic that his party would pass the government's fact-checking process.

"We actually didn't have enough money to establish local branches, but supporters were eager to donate private funds," he said, adding that the party had spent about Rp 500 million ahead of the government's verification process.

Zanuba Arifah Chafsoh, better known as Yenny Wahid, the chairwoman of the PKBN, said she did not know how much money the party had spent to face government's verification.

"Most of our funds came from supporters. Thank God we have die-hard supporters. I cried after learning that our cadres in Papua had to sell their pigs to buy tickets to Papua's capital of Jayapura to deal with the administrative requirements needed to establish our party's local branches there," said the daughter of Indonesia's fourth president, Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.

Yenny said her party had so far established 444 regency and city branches as well as about 3,300 district offices. Many PKBN members are former National Awakening Party (PKB) supporters.

Nasdem Party chairman Patrice Rio Capella, meanwhile, said that his party had been ready for the fact-checking process for weeks. The Nasdem Party is linked to the National Democrats mass organization founded by media mogul Surya Paloh, a former chief patron of the Golkar Party.

As deadline passes, five new parties try to make the cut

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – As a key deadline passed on Thursday, five new political parties say they have completed the documentation needed to run in the 2014 polls.

Nine other parties that registered with the Law and Human Rights Ministry in August have been eliminated as they did not submit their documents.

"Only new parties that have completed administrative requirements will be subject to the next phase: fact-checking," the ministry's state administration director Asyarie Syihabudin told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Some of the parties that have fulfilled administrative requirements include the National Archipelago Prosperity Party (PKBN), whose members were drawn from former National Awakening Party (PKB) member; the National Democrats Party (Nasdem), an affiliate of the National Democrats mass organization founded by former Golkar Party chief patron Surya Paloh; and the Functional Republic Party (Pakar) chaired by Ary Haryo Wibowo Harjojudanto, the grandson of former president Soeharto.

The other two parties are the Union of Independent People Party (SRI), which supports former finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati for president, and the Independent Party whose additional submissions came only minutes before the deadline passed at 5 p.m.

One of the nine parties that failed to file complete documents after registering with the ministry was the National Republic (Nasrep) Party, founded and financed by Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, the owner of the Humpuss Group conglomerate and one of Soeharto's sons.

Nasrep's failure to meet the deadline surprised many, as the party seemed well prepared and equipped with luxury facilities and big offices. According to Asyarie, Nasrep had retracted its application well before the deadline. "They did not mention why they decided to quit," he said.

Nasrep chairman Jus Usman Sumanegara, however, did not answer clearly when asked for confirmation. "The point is, we still have the spirit to be election contestant," he told the Post.

Observers say that Soeharto's extended family did not want multiple parties representing their supporters, and selected Pakar to represent the political aspirations of the Soeharto family and its supporters.

The One Republic Party, another party founded by Soeharto supporters, also did not complete its application.

One party will take a different approach to meeting administrative requirements. National Union Party (PPN) secretary-general Didi Supriyanto said the party made a deliberate decision not to continue.

Didi cited a recent Constitutional Court ruling overturning part of the 2011 Political Party Law that said parties that failed to win a single House seat cannot run in the next election unless they file new applications with the government as new political parties.

"Our party is comprised of 12 political parties that contested the 2009 elections but failed to win House seats. The court's ruling means that each of these 12 parties is no longer obliged to file a new application," Didi told the Post.

The court's decision cleared the way for PPN to run in the 2014 race based under the aegis of the Regional Unity Party (PPD), one of PPN's 12 forming parties, Didi said. "We will just change the party's name and organizational structure."

Next week, the ministry plans to start a random fact-checking program to verify if parties' human and physical resources meet the requirements of the 2011 Political Parties Law.

"We will check if the parties' local branches really exist and if the offices have obtained permission from local authorities. We will also look at the organizational structure of each party, down to its local branches," Asyarie said.

Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar is expected to announce which parties can run in 2014 by the end of October.

New parties passing the ministry's verification and previously verified parties face a final legal review by the General Elections Commission (KPU).

Court chief Mahfud to defend ex-staffer

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Jakarta – Constitutional Court (MK) chief justice Mafud MD says he is ready to be a witness on behalf of his former employee, election document forgery suspect Zainal Arifin Hoesein. "I am ready," Mahfud told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

According to the National Police, Zainal will call Mahfud, fellow judges Maria Farida Indrati and Hardjono, and public administration law expert Saldi Isra from Andalas University as defense witnesses.

Zainal allegedly played a role in forging a court letter that handed an election victory to People's Conscience Party (Hanura) legislative candidate Dewi Yasin Limpo in 2009.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam said that it would be better if Mahfud agreed to voluntary questioning by the police instead of waiting for a summons.

"To summon Mahfud in his capacity as chief justice, we need to ask the President's permission. It will take a long time, unless [Mahfud] is willing to come on his own initiative," Anton told reporters on Thursday as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Anton said that the police would complete their investigation of Zainal in near future and then forward the case to prosecutors. "It's better if Mahfud gives his testimony immediately," said Anton.

Mahfud said he would immediately adjust his schedule for questioning if the police or Zainal's lawyer made official requests. "So far his [Zainal] lawyer has talked with me in informal conversation. I am waiting for the formal request now," he added.

The police have questioned several witnesses about the case, including former General Elections Commission (KPU) commissioner Andi Nurpati, former MK judge Arsyad Sanusi and several election commission members and court staffers.

Mahfud said that he was not intent that Andi Nurpati was named a suspect in the case. "Just don't let someone less guilty get sentenced," he added.

The chief justice previously said it was irrational that Zainal had been named a suspect, offering to defend him to the maximum.

Mahfud said that his actions were not intended to impede police investigators, citing a "moral responsibility" to help underlings who have been unfairly treated by police investigators.

The police have currently named only two suspects in the case, Zainal Arifin and another former MK staff member, Mashuri Hasan, alleging that the pair forged the letter in question.

The police have not named as suspects those who used the MK's letter, nor have they identified the masterminded behind the forgery.

"The police will continue to investigate the case as to who used the MK's letter," Anton said, adding that Zainal Arifin would remain a suspect. (rpt)

Labour & migrant workers

Group accuses Indonesian government of lying about Saudi beheading

Jakarta Globe - September 27, 2011

Agus Triyono & Camelia Pasandaran – The Indonesian government has been accused of "lying" about what it knew before Indonesian migrant worker Ruyati binti Satubi was beheaded by authorities in Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejects the allegations.

Alai Nadjib, a member of the Civil Society Alliance for Migrant Worker Advocacy and Protection, alleged that Indonesian authorities must have been aware of the plans to execute Ruyati, a maid convicted of murdering her employer. The government has previously claimed that it was not officially told that Ruyati would be beheaded.

The outcry in Indonesia over the execution strained relations between both nations and helped lead to Indonesia imposing a boycott on sending Indonesian migrant workers (TKI) to the gulf nation.

Alai said that a week before the beheading, the Saudi government had made a series of announcements in the media regarding the execution, including Ruyati's identity, gender and details of her crime.

He said both the Indonesian Embassy and consulate general "intentionally ignored the case". "They allowed Ruyati to be beheaded."

Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Michael Tene rejected the allegations, saying the embassy or consulate general were never officially notified, as required by international convention.

Alai also alleged the government lied about sending a letter of apology to Ruyati's family and the location of the maid's grave.

LIPI recommends revision to articles on contracts workers

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) has urged the government to review the 2003 Labor Law to end prolonged industrial conflicts between employers and workers.

A study from a LIPI research team concluded that the law, which has met strong resistance from employers and workers since its endorsement in 2003, contained weaknesses both in substance and implementation.

"The law should be reviewed immediately to phase out weaknesses because the law plays a strategic role in creating industrial harmony, improving workers' social welfare and avoiding social conflicts that could undermine political stability," team leader Laila Nagib told The Jakarta Post by telephone on Tuesday.

The articles on contract-based work and outsourcing were found to be unclear and did not provide protection for workers while those on severance and service pay and the procedures for settling labor disputes deterred investment. Many other articles were found to be multi-interpretative and to contradict other laws.

The study was made available to the Post on Tuesday. The 10-member team chaired by senior researcher Laila Nagib comprised Endang S. Soesilowati, Leolita Masnun, M. Sukarni, M. Riefki Muna, Nawawi, Soewartoyo, Titik Handayani, Tri Nuke Pudjiastuti, Tri Widya Kurniasari and Zamroni Salim.

President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono instructed LIPI to study the law in 2009 after labor unions took to the streets to oppose the law on May Day that year. For similar political reasons, the President also asked five state universities to conduct the same study in 2005, but no recommendations were made.

According to the LIPI team, the law was biased toward the formal sector where only 35 million are employed while it was found to be unenforceable in the informal sector with more than 70 million workers.

They said the prolonged protest against contract-based, outsourcing and minimum wage-based remuneration systems was due to the law not regulating in detail temporary jobs for contract workers and the unclear definition of core businesses and supporting jobs.

The team insisted that employers should identify temporary jobs and outsourcing companies should comply with workers rights and provide legal and social security protection for them. Furthermore, inspection by the state had to be improved to ensure employers' compliance with the relevant laws.

Regarding the remuneration system, the team called on the government to eliminate the sector-based minimum wage to alleviate the disparity in regional wage systems, and minimum-wage levels should be set by a tripartite forum at provincial level with approval from governors.

The team also found inconsistencies in the articles on labor dismissal and severance and service payments, especially for workers committing crimes.

According to the team, labor dismissal as stipulated in the 2005 Labor Court Law is too complicated and time-consuming, with uncertainties for both employers and workers. To shorten the procedure, the team said, labor disputes, mainly dismissal cases, should be resolved at a bipartite, company level between employers and workers.

The law stipulates that employers had to pay workers in trouble and those who were detained by the police until their disputes with the management were resolved permanently. The team recommended the establishment of dismissal-benefit schemes that could be integrated with social-security programs to help dismissed workers survive periods of unemployment without having to make use of savings or pensions.

Environment & natural disasters

Indonesia delays new forestry ruling

Reuters - September 29, 2011

Jakarta – Indonesia will delay the implementation of a regulation on industrial forests that would have allowed planters, especially those growing palm oil, to cultivate areas reserved for timber and other domestic raw materials.

The delay is aimed at making improvements to the proposed rule to make it consistent with previous decrees, and the government will issue the revised regulation as soon as possible, forestry minister Zulkifli Hasan said yesterday.

By classifying palm oil as industrial forest, it will be easier for investors to get land permits from the government, opening up larger forest tracts for palm plantations.

"This will harm many small scale planters, as big companies mostly have land bank in other usage areas that are not considered industrial forests," Bahana Securities analysts said in a note.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, is seen as an important player in the fight against climate change and is under strong international pressure to curb its rapid deforestation rate and destruction of carbon- rich peatlands.

The world's top palm oil producer has already revealed a long list of exemptions to its much-delayed two-year forest moratorium on logging that came into effect on May 20, in a concession to hard-lobbying plantation firms.

Green groups had opposed the proposed regulation, which was introduced last month, arguing that government permission for palm oil cultivation on industrial forests may be abused by some in the industry. But Zulkifli told reporters the regulation's suspension was not due to pressure from green groups.

"We have been applying the industrial concept for many years and it has been successfully implemented in the paper and pulp as well as plywood industries," he said. He added that currently, 30 per cent of Indonesia's wood production come from natural forests and 70 percent from industrial forests.

Orangutan killing is genocide: Activist

Jakarta Globe - September 28, 2011

Ismira Lutfia & Arientha Primanita – The death of orangutans as a result of human encroachment into their habitats in Kalimantan amounts to nothing less than genocide, a group advocating for the protection of the apes said on Wednesday.

Hardi Baktiantoro, a campaigner with the Center for Orangutan Protection, said the consistently high rates of orangutan deaths from human activity showed there was no progress being made to conserve the endangered species.

"This isn't a conflict between humans and orangutans – it's genocide," he said. He argued that there should be far greater protection for orangutans under prevailing laws and regulations, and warned that unless the Forestry Ministry began enforcing the laws strictly, the slaughter of the apes would continue.

"Documents and action plans won't help the orangutans, while efforts to evacuate them [from threatened areas] provide only temporary relief from the threat of death," Hardi said.

"Even the orangutans that are released back into the wild [after rehabilitation] will just get butchered by hunters or forced to be evacuated again as long as the laws are not enforced."

He alleged that oil palm firms were hiring people specifically to kill the animals using poison in forests where they were expanding their plantations.

He said the COP and the East Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) had found indications that at least four orangutans in the Muara Kaman area had been killed that way, with no action taken by law enforcement agencies to investigate.

However, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said his office was powerless to do anything about the deaths, short of reporting them to the police.

"The orangutan is protected by law, so it's forbidden to kill them, remove them [from their habitat] or trade them," he said. He added that a moratorium on new forestry permits for primary and peat forests was expected to help prevent the deaths of the apes and other endangered species.

"For 40 years, tigers and elephants, too, have been forced out of their habitats. We're trying to save them all through the moratorium," he said.

The COP's statements come in response to a report from the United National Environmental Program recommending greater action to conserve orangutan habitats in Sumatra.

Serge Wich, research director for the group PanEco, which partnered with the UNEP in writing the report, said it was important that the government emphasize there was greater economic value in conserving forests than in logging them or clearing them for plantations.

The UNEP report showed that there were just 6,600 Sumatran orangutans left in the wild in 2008, down from 85,000 in 1900.

Yudhoyono signs decree to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Jakarta Globe - September 26, 2011

Fidelis E. Satriastanti – President Susilo Bambang Yuhdoyono has signed a presidential decree creating a National Action Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, known as RAN-GRK, but environmental groups have questioned whether the decree will actually produce any action.

Greenpeace doubts that the government will be able to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.

"Although the Indonesian government listed forestry as pivotal to the efforts of reducing emissions, since Yudhoyono announced his commitment to reduce emissions, by 26 to 41 percent in 2009 mainly from the forestry sector, the forest conditions have not gotten better," said Yuyun Indradi, forest campaigner from South East Asia Greenpeace.

The RAN-GRK decree is an action plan for implementing several activities, directly or indirectly, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions according to the national development target.

Cabinet secretary Dipo Alam said the decree was issued based on Indonesia's geographical location, which makes it prone to the impacts of climate change.

"This is a follow-up to the Bali Action Plan agreement during the 13th Conference of Parties United Nations Climate Change Convention (COP-UNFCCC) in Bali, December 2007. It also fulfills the commitment of the Indonesian government to voluntarily reduce greenhouse emissions by 26 percent on our own or a reduction of 41 percent with international help," Dipo said.

"For that reason, there should be guidance in the drafting effort and steps to reduce greenhouse emissions."

Yuyun said the new decree is a test for the president to make his commitment a reality. "The problems related to forests are complicated and it is not enough to solve them with the moratorium decree or with RAN-GRK."

Illegal forestry in Kalimantan cost the state $1 billion: ICW

Jakarta Post - September 27, 2011

Jakarta – A corruption watchdog is urging the nation's antigraft agency to investigate corruption allegations against the forestry industry in Kalimatan, which the group says cost the state Rp 9.1 trillion (US$1 billion).

The Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said that local officials in Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan might have illegally granted business permits to several companies to enrich themselves.

They allegedly allowed companies to use forest area for agriculture – especially palm oil plantations – despite the fact that the land was not meant for agriculture, ICW legal affairs coordinator Febri Diansyah said before submitting the group's findings to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Monday.

He added that violations also occurred when companies used the forest area for agriculture without a full permit to operate there.

The ICW said its findings were based on a 10-month study in the Sambas, Ketapang and Bengkayan regencies in West Kalimantan, as well as Seruyan regency in Central Kalimantan.

Febri said that the ICW's estimation of Rp 9.1 trillion in state losses came from calculating the number of felled trees and the money needed to restore the forests that should not have been used in such a way.

The ICW said that the KPK should take these allegations seriously, as the KPK had promised to combat corruption in the nation's forestry sector. "Corruption in the [forestry] sector has cause a huge loss to the state," the group said.

Febri said the government should review the issued forest concessions and put an end to anything that it found amiss with the issuances.

The ICW's report was supported by Save Our Borneo, and the Indonesian Forum for the Environment.

The report identified at least seven companies that allegedly converted forested areas into palm oil plantations in West Kalimantan.

ICW member Donal said the companies' initials were PT I.S.K., PT U.A.I., PT K.M.P., PT W.H.S., PT W.D.B.P. and PT L.L. "They could be charged for violating Forestry Ministry bylaw No. 259/2000 about forest designation authority," Donal said.

He added that Central Kalimantan saw a slightly different form of corruption than West Kalimantan. "A local government official with the initials D.A. is allegedly creating 'dummy' companies to get forest concessions," Donal said.

He said that further investigation revealed that the companies were owned by relatives of the local government corruption culprits. There were at least 15 companies in Central Kalimantan that illegally managed 211.580 hectares of forest, according to the ICW. (rpt)

National scene: Walhi rejects oil palm as legal forestry plant

Jakarta Post - September 26, 2011

Bengkulu – The Bengkulu chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) rejected a recent government ruling to classify oil palm as a forestry plant as it would expand plantation areas in forests.

Walhi activist Barlian said that most of production forests in Bengkulu had already been destroyed due to illegal logging and forest expansion.

"We are sure that they would plan oil palms on the deserted forest areas because [the ruling] has made it legal," he said on Sunday as quoted by Antara.

Walhi recorded that several palm oil plantations have expanded into forest areas since 2007. "One company opened 2,000 hectares areas inside the forests," said Barlian.

Asean nations to shame Indonesia over 'environmental vandalism'

Straits Times - September 24, 2011

Nirmal Ghosh, Bangkok – With several weeks still left to go in Indonesia's dry season, the number of hot spots in Sumatra and Kalimantan so far this year has hit 17,000 – more than double the total last year.

Revealing the figure on the sidelines of an Asean meeting in Bangkok on the haze situation on Friday, Singapore Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said the number of hot spots indicates the size of the problem facing countries in the neighbourhood.

He said there were about 29,000 hot spots in Sumatra and Kalimantan in 2006. That, however, was an abnormally hot and dry 'El Nino' year. Last year, there were 8,000 hot spots.

In a bid to put pressure on companies involved in what they termed "environmental vandalism," ministers from five nations in the regional grouping agreed to make public satellite images of the burning forests to help identify and shame the culprits.

The fires which give rise to the haze are usually started by large oil palm plantation companies and by farmers clearing land for their fields.

"We decided we would be more open and transparent," Balakrishnan said. "The key point here is to make the culprits and the companies responsible for haze more accountable, and to subject them to economic as well as public pressure to do the right thing and not to engage in what is ultimately environmental vandalism, for short-term profits at the expense of the health and economy of the wider region," he said.

Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei sent their environment ministers to the Transboundary Haze Pollution meeting. But Indonesia – where the haze originates – sent only its deputy minister, Arif Yuwono. Thailand was the other participant.

After the meeting, the ministers said there had been some progress in fighting the fires in Indonesia. They pointed to successful cooperation in curbing fires and sustainable management of peat forest land, which is vulnerable to long-burning fires.

They also noted that Indonesia had set up standard operating procedures for national fire prevention and control. But more could be done, they said.

Balakrishnan, who chaired the meeting, said: "There is some progress. But there remains... serious concern because of the implications on health, travel and the economy on a wider scale."

"Transboundary haze is one example in which, unfortunately, the economic interests of the culprits responsible for starting these fires are not aligned with the interests of larger society," he added.

The ministers also pointed out that the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, which calls for cooperation in preventing and controlling the haze, has not been ratified by Indonesia.

They said ratification has been in the works for some time, and appealed for it to do so soon. Ratification would "signal political commitment at the highest level," Balakrishnan said.

He added that Asean was also waiting for Indonesia to enforce and prosecute those who started forest fires, saying that 'until this is done, you will not send the message of accountability'.

In Indonesia's defence, Arif said: "We just set up a task force on law enforcement, and now they are trying to identify all the companies that are breaking the law."

Residents hope government will fulfill Lapindo compensation promise

Jakarta Post - September 24, 2011

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Sidoarjo – Residents from affected villages in Sidoarjo, East Java, were hopeful that the government would honor its pledge to pay out the remaining financial compensation following the mudflow disaster.

The three villages are Besuki, Pajarakan and Kedungcangkring. "We are confident about it, because it is conveyed by the vice president [Boediono] himself," Sampun Hadi Prayitno, a Besuki resident, said.

The planned payoff was part the government's policy to cope with the mudflow disaster that broke out five years ago. The government, it was reported, would pay the first 5 percent of the unpaid 30 percent in compensation this year, and pay the remaining 25 percent between January and February next year.

With the decision, residents in Besuki, Pajarakan and Kedungcangkring villages agreed to immediately open their blockade and allow Sidoarjo Mudflow Mitigation Agency (BPLS) to build a diversion to channel mud and water from retaining pools into the Porong River.

Zainuddin, spokesman for nine neighboring units in Mindi village which were eventually included in the map of affected areas, expressed his relief.

According to Zainuddin, residents will immediately conduct data collection so that initial payments can be disbursed by the end of the year, while the rest could be paid next year.

The government has set compensation levels at Rp 1 million per square meter of land and Rp 1.5 million (US$114) per square meter of building.

A total of 12 villages located in the three districts of Tanggulangin, Jabon and Porong were engulfed by the mud. As much as 641 hectares, 273 of which were farmland, have been affected. The disaster has also displaced 39, 947 people from 20,248 families.

Talking to journalists at Juanda Airport following his 30-minute tour of the disaster scene in Porong district, Vice President Boediono outlined four important steps expected to resolve the issue.

Boediono said the government would first seek approval from the House of Representatives to pay out the remaining 30 percent of financial compensation to the victims living in the three affected villages.

The government also planned to compensate residents living in nine neighborhood units in Mindi village affected by the mudflow, whereby President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would sign the revised Presidential Regulation No. 40/2008 on Sidoarjo Mudflow Mitigation Agency as a legal umbrella. "Everything is expected to be completed by 2012," said Boediono.

As a second step, the government planned to divert mud to the Porong River so as to channel mud and water in anticipation of the rainy season. The diversion will cross the three villages.

Health & education

School buildings close to collapse as repair funds slow to arrive

Jakarta Post - September 29, 2011

Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jakarta – It was a bright sunny day when HM Soleh, a social studies teacher, inspected several classrooms to see if everything was OK.

The classes were empty as the students were on a meal break. Just as he was preparing to call the students back to class, he heard a loud cracking sound from the roof. Seconds later, the roof of two classes collapsed. First the ceiling fell in, then the roof came crashing down.

"I couldn't do anything but flee. The roof of the two classes were in tatters as if destroyed by a massive earthquake," said Soleh when visited by The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

One-and-a-half years later, roof collapses remain the biggest fear for the school's teachers and students, since no promise of repairs by the government has translated into reality.

Soleh said that he felt a sense of dread every time he recalled the terrifying roof collapse in February 2010 at SMP Negeri 273 state junior high school in Kampung Bali, Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta.

"We are very uneasy, and beginning to feel that someone might have been buried under the debris," said Soleh, who is also the school's deputy headmaster.

Neither students nor teachers sustained serious injuries when the roof of their classrooms collapsed. Unfortunately, it was not the only time the school experienced a roof collapse. In total, the roofs of seven classrooms, including one electronics lab, collapsed during 2010-2011.

The last incident occurred when the roof of two classes and the electronics lab suddenly collapsed in May 2011. It happened only three months after Jakarta Deputy Governor Prijanto paid a visit to the school and promised building improvements.

"Thank God, no students were injured since the incident happened during school holidays," said Soleh.

The fear of roof damage then led the school management to abandon four classrooms due to their bad condition. A library on the second floor is still in use despite its poor condition. "On each cloudy day, we instruct students to leave the library because we worry that heavy rains will fall and cause the roof to collapse."

SMPN 273, which was formerly a Chinese school, was built in 1952. Shortly after the failed coup attempt in 1965, the government took over the building to use as Sekolah Teknik Negeri 2 state vocational school. The building has had no infrastructural improvements made to it since its first use as SMPN 273 in 1995.

During his visit in February this year, Prijanto asserted that even though SMPN 273's walls were still thick and relatively strong it must soon be repaired. However, a recent announcement by the Jakarta administration's Education Department revealed that SMPN 273 was not included in this year's School Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Project.

"This is the umpteenth time that we've had unfulfilled promises from the government," said Was'ad, the school's administration head. He said the long-delayed repair of unsafe roofs should be done as quickly as possible to ensure the students' safety.

SMPN 273 was one of the heavily damaged schools in Jakarta recently visited by Prijanto, along with SDN Malaka Jaya 06 and SDN Pondok Bambu 14 state elementary schools and SMPN 198 state junior high school in Duren Sawit.

According to Was'ad, no clear explanations have been given as to why the local government continues to fail to meet its promises.

Deputy Education Minister Fasli Jalal said the government had handed over the 2011 special allocation fund (DAK) of Rp 10 trillion (US$1.13 billion) to local governments.

"We allocate the [DAK] fund for rehabilitation and reconstruction projects of both elementary and junior high schools. We have handed this domain over to local governments," he said, adding that the funds could also be used to improve education facilities and equipment, such as skill improvements, books and laboratories.

According to Education Ministry data, 182,500 or 20.3 percent of the total 899,016 classrooms in state and private elementary schools have moderate damage, while 110,598 or 12.3 percent of the total classrooms are heavily damaged.

Fasli said any infrastructural improvements should be quickly made, since 103,757 or 93.81 percent of heavily damaged classrooms were in state elementary schools, most of the students of which come from low-income families.

"We should be ready to quickly repair classrooms with just moderate damage because they could fall into the 'heavily damaged category' at any time," he added.

Giving a similar picture of school buildings in poor condition, ministry data further reveal that many junior high students found learning activities less than comfortable because 82,892 or 27.79 percent of total 298,268 classrooms suffered from moderate damage while 42,428 or 14.23 percent of the classrooms were seriously damaged.

However, Fasli said, many commitments often had poor implementation. "We often find local authorities prioritize infrastructural improvements in schools that are in quite good condition," he said. However, the central government has agreed to transfer the DAK fund to the local budget, making it susceptible to political maneuvering.

Government to extend compulsory basic education

Jakarta Post - September 28, 2011

Jakarta – The government will introduce a 12-year compulsory basic education program for all children next year, an official says.

"The Education Minister [Muhammad Nuh] has proposed the pilot projects," the National Education Ministry's director general for secondary education, Hamid Muhammad, said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com on Monday. Currently, compulsory basic education is nine years.

Hamid said that the ministry planned to increase the capacity of high schools in the country. The government and the House of Representatives had agreed to add 8,000 seats, he added.

The government would also raise the number of scholarship recipients for junior high school graduates and prepare school aid funds for 6.7 million senior high school students, Hamid said "We propose to give Rp 200,000 [US$22.40] each annually." The funds will be disbursed next year, he said.

36 percent of Indonesian teenagers sexually active: Survey

Jakarta Globe - September 27, 2011

Nearly 40 percent of Indonesian teenagers have had sex and almost half of them do not use contraception with new partners, a new international survey has found.

The "Clueless or Clued Up: Your Right to be informed about contraception" study prepared for World Contraception Day reports that the number of young people having unsafe sex with a new partner increased by 111 percent in France, 39 percent in the USA and 19 percent in Britain in the last three years.

In Indonesia, 36 percent of teenagers surveyed had had sex, with the average age being 17. Some 48 percent of the teenagers did not use contraception with new partners.

The survey found that Young people across the globe in general are having more unprotected sex and know less about effective contraception options.

"No matter where you are in the world, barriers exist which prevent teenagers from receiving trustworthy information about sex and contraception, which is probably why myths and misconceptions remain so widespread even today," a member of the WCD task force, Denise Keller, said in a statement with the results of the study.

"When young people have access to contraceptive information and services, they can make choices that affect every aspect of their lives which is why it's so important that accurate and unbiased information is easily available for young people to obtain," Keller said.

The survey, commissioned by Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals and endorsed by 11 international non-governmental organizations, questioned more than 6,000 young people from 26 countries, on their attitudes towards sex and contraception.

The level of unplanned pregnancies among young people is a major global issue, campaigners say, and the rise in unprotected sex in several counties has sparked concern about the quality of sex education available to youngsters.

In Europe, only half of respondents receive sex education from school, compared to three quarters across Latin America, Asia Pacific and the USA. Many respondents also said that they felt too embarrassed to ask a healthcare professional for contraception.

"What young people are telling us is that they are not receiving enough sex education or the wrong type of information about sex and sexuality," spokeswoman for the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Jennifer Woodside said in a statement.

"The results show that too many young people either lack good knowledge about sexual health, do not feel empowered enough to ask for contraception or have not learned the skills to negotiate contraceptive use with their partners to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies or STIs [sexually transmitted infections]," she said.

More than a third of respondents in Egypt believe bathing or showering after sex will prevent pregnancy, and more than a quarter of those in Thailand and India believe that having intercourse during menstruation is an effective form of contraception.

But the fact that many young people engage in unprotected sex and the prevalence of harmful myths should not come as a surprise, Woodside said.

"How can young people make decisions that are right for them and protect them from unwanted pregnancy and STIs, if we do not empower them and enable them to acquire the skills they need to make those choices?" she said. (Reuters/JG)

Women & gender

Girls are the main victims, study says

Jakarta Post - September 27, 2011

Jakarta – A recent survey conducted by Plan Indonesia shows that 33.5 percent of children aged between 13 and 18 years of age were forced into marriage, with girls having to bear the violence that often accompanies such cases.

According to the survey that was carried out in eight regencies across five provinces in Indonesia – Indramayu in West Java; Grobongan and Rembang in Central Java; Tabanan in Bali; Dompu in West Nusa Tenggara; and Timor Tengah Selatan, Sikka and Lembata in East Nusa Tenggara – from January to April 2011, 44 percent of the girls forced into underage marriage endured serious domestic violence.

Plan Indonesia gender specialist Bekti Andari told The Jakarta Post that even though the survey did not represent the whole population of the country, the results may reflect a larger picture on child marriage because they echo the National Planning Agency's findings in 2008, which showed that 34.5 percent of the 2,049,000 registered marriages in Indonesia involved children.

She added that the survey found six factors which forced children to marry so early, namely: sexual behavior and unwanted pregnancy; custom and tradition; limited knowledge of reproduction; parents' limited education; limited access economically; and weak law enforcement.

Bekti explained that, in addition to the high rates of domestic violence, marriages involving minors also have a negative impact on female children's education, psychology, social life, economic life, and sexual reproduction. "The risk of death during pregnancy or childbirth is two to four times higher for children between 10 and 18-years-old then among women of between 22 and 25-years-old, or older," she said.

According to Plan Indonesia, only 5.6 percent of female children who were married had the chance to pursue further education.

In order to empower Indonesian children, particularly females, Bekti told the Post that Plan Indonesia is developing a community-based child protection group known as DESA. "There are 140 of these groups spread across the eight regencies where we conducted our research, plus there is one DESA in Surabaya, East Java," she said.

However, Bekti explained that most locals were still reluctant to abolish their traditions, which promote child marriage particularly for girls. "In some areas, parents accept marriage proposals because they are afraid that their daughters will become spinsters," she added.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection told the Post that Plan Indonesia's survey offers an accurate picture of child marriage in Indonesia as the commission has also found a similar situation. "The high divorce rate among young couples can be an indication of the high rate of early marriages," he said. (msa)

Government calls for breastfeeding in workplaces

Jakarta Post - September 27, 2011

Given the rising number of female employees in their reproductive years, the health ministry has urged employers to accommodate breastfeeding for mothers in workplaces, to ensure optimal growth and development for babies.

"Sufficient attention is needed so that the status of working mothers does not become an excuse for stopping breastfeeding," the ministry's nutrition education and mother and child health director Slamet Riyadi Yuwono said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com.

Slamet said companies could provide breastfeeding time during work hours, a special breastfeeding area for mothers and their babies and facilities to pump and store breast milk in the workplace.

"Such activities can support mothers to breastfeed their children. Children are the successors of development, therefore we must give them a good environment to grow and develop optimally...," he said.

According to the ministry, of the 40.74 million female workers in Indonesia, around 25 million are in their reproductive years or a period when they experience pregnancy, labor and breastfeeding.

Jakarta rapes bring calls for renewed efforts to combat sexual assault

Jakarta Globe - September 25, 2011

Fidelis E. Satriastanti – In the wake of the rapes of two female passengers on public transportation in recent months, the National Commission on Violence Against Women said the government had a long way to go in meeting its responsibility to protect citizens.

The commission, also known as Komnas Perempuan, outlined recommendations on Friday that ranged from improving security for women on public transportation to toughening the way sexual assault is treated under the Criminal Code.

Andy Yentriyani, head of public participation at the commission, said the legal system did not provide sufficient protection for women against sexual assault.

"[The law] is insufficient, because sexual assault is categorized as a social misconduct. Hence, it is dealt with in a moralistic way as opposed to a serious crime," Andy said.

"In one clause, [the penalty] can be 12 years. In another, it can be two years, eight months," she said. "For children, it is only classified as abuse, which reduces the degree of seriousness."

Sexual assault is not a specific crime under Indonesian law, and is only treated as an "unpleasant act," with an accordingly mild law enforcement response. Komnas Perempuan hopes to fix this with new legislation.

"Hopefully in 2014, we will have a good draft text to amend the law on this," Andy said. "Not just a definition of the crime, but provisions on rehabilitation of victims, because no matter how long one waits, a victim is not necessarily going to be rehabilitated. This is because the stigma of rape can persist."

Komnas Perempuan's data shows that from 1998 to 2010, a quarter of 295,836 total cases of violence against women involved sexual assault. Every day, 28 women are sexually assaulted in Indonesia, the agency said.

In the two widely reported recent cases, the perpetrators were public transportation drivers. This revelation brought widespread calls for better screenings and additional security.

"Right now, the focus is on how law enforcers are handling these cases, so there is an impression that the nation is truly serious about dealing with cases of violence against women," Andy said. "But we need improvements in our transport system."

Andy said the investigations of the two recent cases showed a troubling information gap.

"It's puzzling when the police say they find it difficult to track down the perpetrators, yet the victim herself has already said she recognized them, including the driver, because he has a regular route," Andy said.

"If things continue this way, there will be a suspicion that the police aren't serious."

She called for a comprehensive review of public transportation to prevent assaults – one focused on making a real, long-term impact, not just scoring political points.

"And not just because the media is paying attention to these cases," she said. "The solution is not to allocate special women-only spaces, such as on trains, because there is no guarantee that segregation will prevent assaults," said Andy.

She also voiced concern that if a woman was assaulted while traveling in a mixed space, she could be accused of looking for trouble.

"It also feeds into the idea that men can't control themselves," she said. "That assumption is just as bad as the assumption that women's actions or dress are the cause of violence against them."

Graft & corruption

10 lawmakers reported for 'brokering' failures

Jakarta Post - September 30, 2011

Jakarta – The Report Desk for Budget Mafia Practices (P2MA) received 20 reports of corrupt practices, implicating 10 lawmakers who have allegedly served as "brokers" for a number of regional construction projects, in the two days following its launch on Thursday.

The desk was founded by lawmaker Zainal Bintang of the Golkar Party and Regional Representatives Council (DPD) deputy speaker La Ode Ida. Its office is on the eighth floor of the DPD building in the House of Representatives complex in Jakarta.

"When we find ethic violations [in the reported cases], we'll report them to the House's Honorary Committee," Zainal said on Friday in Jakarta, as quoted by metrotvnews.com.

He refused to name any of the 10 reported lawmakers, but added that they allegedly received "fees" for facilitating a number of construction projects in eastern Indonesia, including South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi.

"According to the reports, they allegedly received fees of up to 7 percent of the total value of each planned project. The fees are paid before the projects start to guarantee that they will actually be executed."

"The lawmakers usually ink such deals when they return to their regions, where they've been elected," Zainal explained. He added the projects included infrastructure projects, the construction of health and sports facilities and some agriculture projects.

Reports were made by contractors who felt cheated by the lawmakers' failure to ensure execution of the projects, despite the fees having already been paid, Zainal said.

Cirus faces 6 years in prison for obstruction of justice

Jakarta Post - September 30, 2011

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Prosecutors at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Thursday demanded that senior prosecutor Cirus Sinaga be sentenced to six years in prison for obstruction of justice in his handling of the case against Gayus H. Tambunan, a disgraced former tax official who said he bribed law enforcers to escape justice.

"The defendant [Cirus] has been found guilty of violating the Law on Corruption by obstructing the investigation and the prosecution of Gayus' case at the Tangerang District Court," prosecutor Nasril Naib said on Thursday.

"Therefore, we demand that the court sentence the defendant to six years in prison and order him to pay Rp 150 million [US$16,950] in fines to the state or serve an additional three months in prison."

Cirus made headlines last year when Gayus, who is serving a prison sentence of his own and on trial for multiple other charges, said he paid Cirus a $50,000 bribe to drop the graft charges against him.

Gayus also said he bribed other law enforcers, including police officers Comr. Arafat Enanie and Adj. Comr. Sri Sumartini, prosecutor Fadil Regan (who worked on Gayus' case) and judge Muhtadi Asnun, who presided over Gayus' first trial at the Tangerang District Court. Arafat, Sri and Muhtadi were all found guilty.

The prosecutors brought multiple charges against Cirus, including abuse of power, bribery and obstruction of justice. However, they failed to prove the first two charges, though Cirus was found guilty of obstructing justice. If found guilty of all three charges, Cirus could face 12 years in prison.

Prosecutors said the aggravating factor in the case was that Cirus, as a law enforcer, had been entrusted with upholding the law but instead had violated it. "He has also lowered the public's level of trust in the justice system," Nasril said. "And he failed to show any remorse; this incriminates him."

However, Cirus conducted himself politely during the trial and has never been convicted before. "He is also ailing, and that requires intensive medical treatment. This lessens his crime," he said.

Cirus said before the trial on Thursday that he had requested to defend himself and wanted to read his defense statement soon. Presiding judge Albertina Ho said the bench had granted his request and adjourned the trial until Oct. 6.

Palmer Situmorang, a member of Cirus' legal team, which also requested to give a closing argument against the prosecution, said after the hearing that the sentence requested by the prosecutors "was too much".

"Cirus did not bring a corruption charge against Gayus because he was not a corruption prosecutor, so he had no authority to make such a charge," Palmer said.

KPK is 'childish,' says Indonesian house member

Jakarta Globe - September 28, 2011

Anita Rachman & Dessy Sagita – In the latest twist in a tiff between the House of Representatives' Budget Committee and the Corruption Eradication Commission, the antigraft body has turned down an invitation to meet with the lawmakers.

Johan Budi, a Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) spokesman, said the antigraft body was unable to appear at the legislature today. He added that he hoped the House committee understood.

"We are conducting an investigation and we are questioning four lawmakers who happen to be the leaders of the Budget Committee, therefore we cannot attend the meeting," he told the Jakarta Globe.

Johan said the KPK did not intend this as a snub, but was simply trying to be professional. He quickly added that the KPK was "not mad at or afraid of lawmakers at the House."

Members of the House Budget Committee have been boycotting meetings and discussions on the 2012 state budget since shortly after the KPK questioned four of its leaders.

These were the committee chairman, Melchias Marcus Mekeng, from the Golkar Party, and his deputies, Mirwan Amir, from the Democratic Party, Olly Dondokambey, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), and Tamsil Linrung, from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

The KPK issued another summons to Olly and Tamsil to appear for questioning on Wednesday, which they ignored, saying they wanted a meeting first with the KPK at the House.

The lawmakers were questioned about allegations of irregularities in budget discussions and allocations.

House leaders were planning a meeting with the KPK, the head of the National Police and the Attorney General's Office to clear the air between them.

Priyo Budi Santoso, a House deputy speaker from Golkar, asked why the KPK was only questioning lawmakers, and not the ministers implicated in the bid-rigging scandals.

House Speaker Marzuki Alie, from the Democrats, declined to comment but said a meeting would be called today to discuss the matter.

Bambang Soesatyo, Golkar's deputy treasurer and a member of the Budget Committee, said "the relationship between the two bodies is getting complicated."

He said if members of the KPK could not put their egos aside, the committee may continue to stall discussions of next year's budget. "If people called lawmakers childish for boycotting discussions, it is now fair to call the KPK the same thing since they are refusing to come," he said.

Bambang, however, said the House would not resort to anything as drastic as slashing the KPK's budget because of the tiff. The House approves the KPK's annual budget.

Johan told the Globe that while the House had the authority to decide on the antigraft body's budget, it should not be linked to the current investigation.

Ronald Rofiandri, from the nongovernmental Center for Indonesian Law and Policy Studies (PSHK), said the meeting at the House could lead to other things, including the silencing of graft cases implicating Budget Committee members.

Enraged by KPK grilling, House budget body members set to defy summons

Jakarta Globe - September 27, 2011

Ezra Sihite & Rizky Amelia – Still offended over its questioning by investigators from the antigraft agency, the House of Representatives Budget Committee said on Tuesday that it would refuse to answer a summons from the corruption-busting body.

Tamsil Linrung, a deputy chairman of the committee, said he and fellow deputy Olly Dondokambey would only show up at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for questioning once a spat arising from an earlier grilling had been resolved.

After being questioned with two other officials last Tuesday, Tamsil and Olly were both called in for follow-up questioning today over allegations that the Budget Committee was complicit in bid-rigging in projects administered by at least two ministries.

"We'll see about tomorrow, just you wait," Tamsil, a Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker said regarding himself as his Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) collegeague when asked whether he would attend the KPK office.

Immediately after last week's questioning, the Budget Committee announced it was freezing all discussions on the 2012 state budget, which must be approved by the end of October, in protest over the KPK scrutinizing its actions.

The move was criticized by House watchdogs as immature, but received the backing of House deputy speaker Priyo Budi Santoso from the Golkar Party.

On Tuesday, however, Priyo declined to comment on the planned questioning of Tamsil and Olly, saying only that he believed it would be best if the KPK met with the Budget Committee leaders beforehand to resolve the ongoing spat.

He also said House leaders had arranged a separate meeting on Thursday with top officials from the KPK, the National Police and the Attorney General's Office. Once that meeting is over, he said, the Budget Committee would be asked to resume discussions on the 2012 budget.

"The state budget must be finalized immediately, so all this arguing should not be allowed to drag on," Priyo said.

Pramono Anung, the House deputy speaker from the PDI-P, said that Thursday's meeting was meant to help resolve the standoff and clarify the function and powers of the Budget Committee.

He asked critics not to blame the committee for the decision to freeze budget discussions, saying that democratic values allowed the committee members to express their opinion this way.

The call echoes an earlier statement by House Speaker Marzuki Alie, who said that despite the freeze being a constitutional violation, it was warranted because the KPK had "insulted" the House through its questioning.

Prior to that questioning, officials had suggested that the KPK and the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) be allowed to sit in on Budget Committee meetings to monitor for any indications of bid-rigging, embezzlement or bribery.

However, the BPK played down the idea on Tuesday, saying its presence at such meetings would be a constitutional violation.

Hadi Purnomo, the BPK chairman, said his office did not have the authority to discuss the budget because it was tasked with auditing budgets already set rather than actually setting them.

[Additional reporting from Dion Bisara.]

KPK to resume investigation into lawmakers accused of graft

Jakarta Post - September 26, 2011

Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jakarta – Defying requests from lawmakers to be shielded from graft probes, the antigraft body will continue to question leaders of the House of Representatives' budget committee regarding alleged bribery in the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.

Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) spokesman Johan Budi said on Sunday that the KPK needed information from the committee's leaders as individuals, but not as a committee.

"We have never questioned the duties, functions or authorities of the budget committee. It's not something that we want to know about. The summoning was really related to the [corruption] case that we are investigating," Johan told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

The KPK is currently working on a bribery case centering on a resettlement infrastructure project under the ministry.

Businesswoman Dharnawati allegedly arranged to distribute Rp 1.5 billion (US$171,000) in bribes for two ministry officials, Dadong Irabarelawan and I Nyoman Suisnaya, to accelerate the disbursement of a Rp 500 billion project in Manokwari, West Papua.

Johan said the investigation had revealed the roles of the four committee leaders in the case.

In questioning the witnesses, he said, the investigators should pose formal questions such as what were their positions in the committee, how they worked, what their responsibilities were, and whether they were acquainted with the graft suspects. "The budgeting authority-related questions were not all that the investigation covered," said Johan.

Committee chairman Melchias Marcus Mekeng and his deputies, Tamsil Linrung, Mirwan Amir and Olly Dondokambey, were questioned last week by KPK investigators over the high-profile bribery case as the anticorruption commission suspected the committee of demanding so-called "commitment fees" from the company that won the contract worth Rp 73 billion ($8.32 million).

The budget committee later announced that they would suspend the deliberation of the 2012 state budget, arguing that their budgeting function had been targeted by the KPK.

Melchias said that the committee would suspend deliberations on the 2012 State Budget until the law enforcement bodies including the KPK promised not to question them over their budgeting authority.

KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas said he and the committee did not feel threatened by the House's demand. "I only pity the citizens who would suffer for the late budget disbursement," he said.

House Deputy Speaker Anis Matta said that the KPK was only looking for the committee's mistakes. "It's just a trumped-up charge," said the Prosperous Justice Party politician on Saturday.

The House might not be able to pass the 2012 state budget into law in October as scheduled if the committee goes actually boycotts the budget deliberations. A House meeting will be held at the beginning of this week to discuss the problem.

Not all lawmakers disagreed with the KPK's investigation. Golkar Party lawmaker Harry Azhar Azis said the budget committee's refusal to deliberate the budget was against the 2009 Law on Legislative Bodies.

"The budget committee has authorities in deliberating the state budget. It doesn't make sense that they have to boycott the deliberations simply because they are upset about the questioning of the committee leaders by the KPK," he said.

Budget committee strike violates ethics: House

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Jakarta – The House of Representatives' Ethics Council says that the budget committee has breached House statute by threatening to boycott the deliberation of the 2012 state budget.

"If you don't do your job, you are running away from your responsibilities... This certainly violates the House's ethics code," Ethics Council chairman Mohammad Prakosa said Friday, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

He said that such irresponsibility would only prove detrimental to the House itself. "If that stance is taken, it would trouble a lot of parties. It could also damage the House's image and integrity," he said.

According to Prakosa, the ethics council currently has no grounds to take action as the budget committee's strike is, at present, merely a plan. "If there is any indication of a code of ethics violation, we will summon them," he said.

The budget committee's boycott followed the inspection of four of its leaders by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Wednesday over their suspected involvement in a graft case linked to the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.

House to summon law enforces on budget

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Leaders of the House of Representatives plan to summon senior officials from the country's top law enforcement bodies following the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) move to question leaders of the House's budget committee over allegations of state budget misuse.

"House leaders are planning to summon the KPK, the National Police and the Attorney General's Office [AGO]. We need to inform them how the budgeting mechanism at the House works," House deputy speaker Pramono Anung of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said on Thursday.

House leaders will also ask law enforcers not to interrogate any legislators about public policies they have made, Pramono added.

The decision was made after receiving an official request by the budget committee's leaders, who complained about the KPK's move to question them, which they said was "interfering" with the committee's budgeting mechanism, Pramono said.

On Tuesday, committee chairman Melchias Marcus Mekeng and his deputies, Tamsil Linrung, Mirwan Amir and Olly Dondokambey, were grilled by KPK investigators over a high-profile bribery case centering on a government project to build resettlement areas in Papua.

The committee had been suspected to have imposed so-called "commitment fees" on the company that won the Rp 73 billion (US$8.32 million) contract.

Following the questioning, Melchias, from the Golkar Party, said his committee had suspended deliberations on the 2012 State Budget until the law enforcement bodies promise not to question them over their budgeting authority.

Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa reiterated that the state budget deliberations were an obligation for the government and lawmakers.

"I, therefore, call on my colleagues at the Finance Ministry and the National Development Planning Agency to ask the House to settle and resolve this issue," he said, while reminding that the state budget has to be ready to be passed by the end of next month.

Pramono and another House deputy speaker, Anis Matta, of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said they understood the committee's protest and could understand why it had threatened to suspend deliberating the budget.

Anis said the magnitude of the questioning of the legislators in public might lead to "a trial by the press", and could give the impression that lawmakers have abused their power.

"The KPK should hunt for budget brokers instead of legislators, whose task is to supervise state budget expenditures," added Pramono.

Pramono insisted that investigators had no authority to probe how the House had discussed the state budget, or the government projects that were part of the House's budgetary and supervisory rights, according to the 2009 Legislative Bodies Law.

"The KPK's investigators should never interrogate legislators over such rights ... If they do not understand the budgetary procedures, they should come to the House to learn from us," he said.

Later on Thursday, Melchias denied that the decision to suspend deliberations on the 2012 State Budget was to exact revenge on the KPK. "There is no reason for us to sulk," he told reporters.

KPK's chairman Busyro Muqoddas argued that the questioning of the four budget committee leaders had been aimed at "saving the committee from slanderous accusations" from a number of graft suspects involved in state projects that are currently under KPK investigation.

Graft suspects in these cases have mentioned the names of lawmakers as among those people who have handled, or accepted, amounts of corruption money. "We were actually providing legal room for them to offer official clarifications," Busyro said.

KPK ethics board delays announcement of findings

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – An ethics board established to evaluate and uphold the code of ethics within the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), following allegations made by suspect and former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin that he had made illicit deals with several KPK officials, says it will delay announcing the result of its findings until next month.

Earlier, the committee had said it would declare the results of its two- month investigation on Friday. One of its seven members, noted Islamic scholar and former Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad "Buya" Syafii Maarif, asserted that the move was made because of the absence of two KPK leaders today.

"Two of [the KPK leaders] are not here because they are on official trips overseas. There is a possibility that we will announce the result of our investigation by early October. I'd say it might be on October 6," Maarif said at the KPK headquarters on Friday morning.

Maarif, however, declined to hint at the result. "I cannot say anything. We basically have come to a conclusion," he said. "However, this is only a rough draft."

Nazaruddin accused several KPK officials of meeting with him to discuss maneuvers to influence its corruption investigations. The KPK members Nazaruddin said he had dealings with included KPK deputy chairman Chandra M. Hamzah, enforcement deputy Insp. Gen. Ade Rahardja, spokesman Johan Budi and investigator Adj. Sr. Comr. Roni Samtana.

Terrorism & religious extremism

Police say they mishandled security at bombed church

Jakarta Globe - September 28, 2011

Ezra Sihite, Camelia Pasandaran, Dessy Sagita & Arientha Primanita – Police acknowledged on Wednesday that they had received advance warning of an attack against the Central Java church that was hit by a suicide bomber last Sunday but had failed to respond appropriately.

National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said an ongoing internal investigation of intelligence failings found that police had responded to the potential threat by setting up a CCTV camera outside the Bethel Injil Sepenuh (GBIS) Kepunton church in Solo and posting two officers to stand guard there.

However, the suicide bomber, identified as Achmad Yosepa Hayat, was recorded on CCTV loitering outside the church then entering unchecked to detonate his bomb just as members of the congregation were leaving. Dozens were injured, but only the bomber was killed.

Timur said the officers assigned to guard the building had left by that point because it was approaching the end of the service and they thought it would be safe to go. He promised a thorough probe into the lapse.

"Intelligence about this kind of attack must be followed up on. With early warnings we still need to determine how a potential attack will be carried out," he said.

Timur's statement has been seized on by analysts as vindication of the intelligence community, which has come under fire over its perceived failure to flag the potential for an attack. Police are also being condemned.

The State Intelligence Agency (BIN), however, has come to the police's defense, arguing it was difficult to take action like making a pre-emptive arrest based solely on intelligence.

"The coordination between our institutions is good, but in order to get the preliminary evidence needed to take legal action [make an arrest], the intelligence must be analyzed further," said Sutanto, the BIN chief and a former head of police.

"Intelligence info can't be used as evidence in a trial, so there needs to be revisions to the legal framework to ensure an appropriate security response for activities that individuals can't be charged with currently."

Wan Usman, a defense expert from the University of Indonesia, insisted that police incompetence was to blame for not preventing the Solo bombing.

"It wasn't an intelligence failure, it was the police's mistake for not [treating the intelligence] professionally," he said. "What also needs to be questioned is who the police deployed to the scene immediately after the blast. By rights, they should have sent Densus 88 [the elite counterterrorism squad], but for all we know they might have sent the traffic police."

Usman said that rather than maintain a heavy police presence at potential terrorist targets, it would be more effective to deploy personnel who could think quickly and make snap decisions. If the officers sent to guard the GBIS church had shown those qualities, he continued, the attack might have been prevented.

He said the police's oversight showed there was no need to rush through the controversial intelligence bill currently before the House of Representatives. "The intelligence worked, so don't blame the legislation," Usman said.

Others have also warned against using the Solo incident to push the bill through. The legislation, which the House said could be passed in the next few weeks, is set to include provisions on the use of wiretapping and the use of detention by the BIN.

Ismail Hasani, a researcher from the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, argued that the provision on wiretapping meant intelligence bodies would be able to tap calls even without the need for a law on wiretapping, whose bill is also being discussed by the House.

"The provision just requires them to notify a court about a wiretap, with no verification into the objectivity or accountability of the activity," he said.

Police aware of terror threat to bombed church

Jakarta Globe - September 28, 2011

Ezra Sihite & Camelia Pasandaran – Indonesia police have revealed that they had installed additional security in anticipation of a terrorist attack on the Bethel Injil Sepenuh (GBIS) church in Solo on Sunday.

Speaking before the House of Representatives on Wednesday, National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo told legislators that local police had assigned two police officers to safeguard the church and had installed CCTV. The comments indicate police had prior knowledge of a planned attack.

Timur said CCTV footage showed that the attack happened at the end of the service. "Nothing happened during the service, the incident happened at 10:55 a.m.," Timur said. "We observed from the CCTV that the bomber came in when the congregation members were about to leave."

He did not say where the police officers assigned to protect the church were when the suicide bomber detonated his device, wounding more than 20 people.

Wan Usman, a defense lecturer at the University of Indonesia (UI), said the comments revealed that there was nothing wrong with Indonesia's intelligence capabilities but the mistakes related purely to competence.

"It is totally the mistake of the police for being unprofessional as the intelligence had provided the information," Usman said.

He said police should have sent professional antiterrorism units to secure the church. "Who did they send? The traffic police." He said the comments showed that there was no need to rush through the controversial intelligence bill currently before the House.

NU chairman visits Solo church, victims

Jakarta Globe - September 27, 2011

Hangga Brata – The head of the country's largest Islamic organization paid a visit on Tuesday to the Solo church targeted by a suicide bomber, in a show of solidarity with the injured.

Said Aqil Siradj, chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, said during his visit to the church that the bomber had injured not just dozens of innocent people, but also Islam's image as a religion of peace.

"Certain groups are trying to make Islam synonymous with violence, in a bid to shatter the unity of our country," he said. In a visit to Solo's Oen Hospital, where many of the injured are being treated, Said repeated his condemnation of Sunday's attack and called it a tragedy for those of all religions.

"We have the same enemy, one that wants to ruin the harmony between Muslims and Christians in Solo," he said. "Islam," he added, "does not teach the violence."

Jonathan, a pastor at the targeted church who accompanied Said during the visit, said he welcomed the NU chairman's show of support.

"I appreciate everything Aqil has said," he said. "Our church congregation sees this as an act of terror by a group that does not respect diversity or harmony. For Muslim hard-liners like these, Christians and NU members alike are seen as infidels and hence justifiable targets for murder."

Said called for the police to be given greater powers of pre-emptive arrest in order to prevent similar attacks. "That's why the substance of the Constitution should be improved," he said.

Indonesia police fear eight more suicide bombs in circulation

Jakarta Globe - September 27, 2011

Farouk Arnaz – Achmad Yosepa Hayat and Muhammad Syarif were truly friends in life or death. Together the pair pledged allegiance to Abu Bakar Baasyir upon joining the radical group Jamaah Anshoru Tauhid in Cirebon, West Java, where they were involved in destroying alcohol at a Alfamart convenience store.

The two eventually graduated to suicide bombings – Hayat blew himself up at a Protestant church in Solo on Sunday, while Syarif was responsible for the April bombing at the Ad Dzikra mosque in Cirebon, West Java.

But National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam said on Tuesday that the two friends did not act alone and future attacks might be possible. "The homemade bomb used in Solo is feared to be one of nine. The rest have not been found yet," Anton said.

He added that the bombers' accomplices were still at large. "Hayat was Syarif's friend. He was a member of JAT Cirebon, and in October 2010 he took part in damaging an Alfamart. He ended up on our most-wanted list for the bombing of the Ad Dzikra mosque on April 5. Hayat drove Syarif to the mosque before the attack," Anton said.

Hayat was born Pino Damayanto on Oct. 19, 1980, in Losari, Cirebon. "Hayat's father and mother have identified the body and are certain it is their son," said Anton, adding that fingerprint and DNA evidence had confirmed the identification.

Anton said there were 15 points of similarity between the bomber's fingerprints and the police's analysis of Hayat's drivers license.

He also said that other evidence had been gathered in the case, including two receipts from an Internet cafe in Solo and a green Eiger brand backpack, which the bomber left at the Internet cafe before the bombing for safekeeping. Hayat's bag contained red, yellow and green sarongs, several newspapers, a small Koran, a peci hat, a pen and a dust mask.

Although the bag contained a mobile phone charger, no phone was found either on the bomber or in his bag. Considering that a number of terrorism cases have been cracked by police after tracking messages and locations through mobile phones, it is possible that Hayat avoided leaving traces by not carrying one.

At the crime scene, police collected several pieces of evidence, including a pair of black-framed glasses, a black hat, a nine-volt alkaline battery, electrical tape and grey electrical cabling. A number of nails and bolts were also found, suspected to be part of the bomb and designed to act as shrapnel.

"We have identified the mastermind behind this attack and who his friends were. We know who they are and we're tracking them down," Anton said. "This was a misguided act of jihad."

Mussadeq Ishaq, the head of the National Police medical and health center, said that in addition to fingerprint and DNA comparison, Hayat was also identified by scars from a hernia operation and other distinguishing physical features.

A source close to the National Police's counterterrorism squad, Densus 88, told the Jakarta Globe that Hayat acquired bomb-making skills from Sogir, a protege of terrorist Azahari Husin, believed to be the technical mastermind behind the 2005 Bali bombing.

Azahari, nicknamed "Demolition Man," studied bomb-making in Afghanistan and was killed in a police raid in East Java in 2005.

A JAT spokesperson denied Hayat was associated with the group. However, Andi Mulya, the chairman of the hard-line Movement Against Illegal Sects and Non-Believers (Gapas) in Cirebon, said Hayat was part of the radical group.

Indonesia censors internet to fight terrorism

Antara News - September 27, 2011

The government has blocked access to about 300 Web sites that could inspire acts of terrorism, the minister of communication and information technology said on Monday.

"As of the end of August 2011, we had complaints about around 900 sites, but so far we have only managed to block 300 of the sites," Tifatul Sembiring said on the sidelines of the first Information and Communication Technology Expo and Conference, in Yogyakarta.

He said provocative Web sites could inspire acts of terrorism like the suicide bombing at a church in Solo on Sunday. The blast instantly killed the bomber and left dozens more injured.

The minister added that his office would scrutinize each reported Web site before taking any action to block access.

"If there is a complaint, of course we will take action, but it doesn't mean that as soon as we receive a report that we will automatically block it," he said. "We have to look at the site first."

"There have also been calls to block or shut down sites that attack certain religions and which could agitate the public," Tifatul said. "We will block them in stages."

Still, the minister said blocking access was not enough. "People must also digest any information available [online] more rationally so they aren't easily provoked," he said. Internet operators, Tifatul added, should still censor Web sites to eliminate provocative content.

Bombing puts eye on Solo's militants

Jakarta Globe - September 25, 2011

Dessy Sagita, Farouk Arnaz & Ronna Nirmala – Sunday's suicide bombing at a Protestant church, the first major terror attack in Solo, has exposed the city to scrutiny for its role as a militant stronghold as police sources say they are searching for a man linked to the bombing of a mosque in Cirebon in April.

The two main suspects in that bombing were killed by police near Solo in May. Sources say police now believe that a man named Achmad Yosepa Hayat, who is wanted for a role in the Cirebon attack, could be the Solo bomber.

"We need to wait for DNA tests to confirm this," a high-ranking officer with the National Police's anti-terror squad told the Jakarta Globe on condition of anonymity.

"There are at least seven or eight terrorist groups based in Solo," International Crisis Group analyst Sidney Jones said. "However, we can't conclude the suicide bomber belonged to one of them so quickly."

In addition to members of terrorist cells, Jones said, there are numerous individuals in the area who may sympathize with fundamentalist aims and carry out attacks on their own.

The Central Java city has long been a convenient hiding place and gathering point for militants and their supporters, analysts say. Since last June, at least 10 suspected militants have been captured or killed in police raids in and around Solo.

Two years ago, most-wanted terror suspect Noordin M. Top was killed in a police raid in a Solo subdistrict. "Solo is the supplier of key militants, although they have chosen to act outside Solo," said security analyst Noor Huda Ismail.

High-profile figures have often met in Solo to plot major attacks because they perceived Solo as "the best hiding place," Huda said.

Solo is also home to the Ngruki Muslim boarding school and the controversial Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid organization, both founded by convicted militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.

Sunday's attack, Huda speculated, likely was meant to spur radical action in response to renewed sectarian clashes in Ambon that claimed several lives earlier this month.

Romo Benny Susetyo, a well-known priest from the Indonesian Bishops Conference (KWI), agreed that the bombing was likely triggered by the events in Ambon. Benny said the latest attack should be a warning to security officials to finish dismantling terror networks in the country.

Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Djoko Suyanto said the militants are elusive. With cellphones and e-mails easily intercepted, they have given up advanced technology, making it harder for to track their communications, Djoko said.

[Additional reporting by Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Ismira Lutfia.]

Solo suicide blast suspect linked to JAT: Police

Jakarta Globe - September 26, 2011

Farouk Arnaz – Police believe that Achmad Yosepa Hayat, a possible suspect in Sunday's suicide bombing at a church in Solo, is a member of the hard- line group Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid founded by convicted cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.

"In JAT, he was in the same year with Muhammad Syarif, who blew himself up at the Ad Dzikro Mosque at the Cirebon Metro Police headquarters in April," a source in the National Police told the Jakarta Globe on Monday. "Hayat took an oath administered by Abu Bakar Bashir in Ciamis, [West Java]" he said.

Andi Mulya, chairman of the hard-line Movement Against Illegal Sects and Non-Believers (Gapas) in Cirebon, confirmed that Hayat was a member of the JAT, and said he recognized him from a post-mortem photograph distributed by police.

Andi claimed to have known Hayat through time spent together with the radical Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia group. "But MMI was split up, [branching off] into JAT. Hayat chose to move to JAT but I stayed with MMI," Andi said. On the photograph released by police, he said, "I know that's Hayat."

But Mochammad Achwan, the current JAT leader after Bashir was sentenced to 15 years on terrorism charges in June, denied that Hayat was a member.

"It's the same slander. Police once said Syarif was our member, that was untrue," he told Globe. "Even if any of our members committed that kind of attack, that's beyond the organizational line. But [Hayat] is not our member so we certainly don't take any responsibility," he said.

Indonesia's 'individual jihadists' gaining ground

Agence France Presse - September 27, 2011

There was nothing sophisticated about the suicide bombing at an Indonesian church Sunday – using homemade explosives packed with nails, nuts and bolts, the bomber killed only himself.

The attack was in stark contrast to the country's deadliest terrorist incident nine years ago, when the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) killed 202 people, mostly foreigners, in the highly planned Bali bombings.

With networks such as JI suffering serious damage in the face of a remarkably successful crackdown by Indonesian security forces, a new generation of loosely-connected jihadists has been left to step up.

"The weakening of the large organizations is something positive. Indonesia has done a pretty damn good job of basic law enforcement," International Crisis Group analyst Sidney Jones told AFP. "The chances are less likely you'll get an attack of that magnitude," she added, referring to the Bali bombings.

Instead the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation has seen a spate of smaller attacks on minority religious groups both from bombers and in incidents of mob violence.

Details that have emerged about Sunday's attack indicate that these small groups are finding strength and solidarity in their loose alliances.

Police identified Sunday's bomber as 31-year-old Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, a member of Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), which was founded by militant spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir.

Hayat was sitting among the Bethel Injil Church congregation in Solo, Central Java, when he stood up and detonated a bomb strapped to his stomach, killing himself and wounding 27 others.

Hayat was already on Indonesia's most-wanted list for his role in another suicide attack five months ago in far-away Cirebon, 300 kilometers east of Jakarta, where another bomber attacked a police mosque.

That incident bore striking similarities to Sunday's attack, with the bomber managing to kill only himself, and the explosives containing nails, nuts and bolts.

In recent years Indonesia's police anti-terror unit, Detachment 88, has killed some of the country's most-wanted militants, including Noordin Top, believed to have played a role in every major terrorist attack in the country's recent history, and Dulmatin, who had a hand in the Bali bombings.

JI's spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir was sentenced in June to 15 years' imprisonment for funding a militant training camp in Aceh on Sumatra island, where special autonomy allows the region to implement some sharia laws.

But the attacks on religious minorities and "enemies of Islam" over the past year have been carried out by new cells – with old ties – and mostly made up of young men from vulnerable communities.

Jones said there are seven or eight known small groups operating in Solo alone, which are "all in communication with one another" and beginning to merge their agendas.

"Every time we've seen one of these smaller networks emerge, there have been at least one or two members with links to older networks," she said.

"They're harder to detect than bigger networks. They understood it was dangerous for them to use mobile phones to communicate, which makes it much more difficult for police to track them down."

Critics of the government say it has done nothing to combat sectarian attacks, which while less deadly, have seen worrying incidents of mob violence.

A court sentenced 12 Muslim radicals to just a few months in jail for an attack on members of the minority Muslim sect Ahmadiyah, in Cikeusik in West Java in February.

The machete-wielding mob clubbed, hacked and stoned three defenceless men to death in front of police. Victims who survived the attack were handed longer sentences than their assailants for "provoking violence."

On Sept. 12, on Indonesia's remote Maluku islands, violence erupted in the provincial capital Ambon after rumors spread through text message that a Muslim motorcycle taxi driver had been attacked and killed by Christians.

"The government didn't take strong action in Ambon, so this has created a wake-up call to jihadis to do something," the Institute for International Peacebuilding security analyst Noor Huda Ismail said.

"We need to have transparent and accountable law enforcement. Of course if Indonesia doesn't enforce the law these groups will keep doing these attacks."

Police, BIN criticized for bomb attack failures

Jakarta Globe - September 26, 2011

Ezra Sihite, Farouk Arnaz, Hangga Brata, Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Anita Rachman – A politician has criticized Indonesia's intelligence agency's for failing to prevent a suicide bomber from striking a church packed with worshipers in Solo, Central Java, over the weekend.

Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Tubagus Hasanuddin, deputy chairman of House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I, which oversees security affairs, said police and National Intelligence Agency (BIN) had failed.

"Intelligence should have predicted that the bomb would explode," Tubagus said of Sunday's attack that killed the bomber and wounded 28 churchgoers at the Bethel Injil Sepenuh church in Kepunton, Solo.

Tubagus said he believed internal problems within the organizations allowed the bombing to occur. He said he would support President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono if he ordered an internal investigation and ensured the results were released to the public.

Deputy House Speaker Pramono Anung, also of the opposition PDI-P, was also critical of the organizations, describing their preventative actions as "very weak." He said the nation was obliged to protect all its citizens, including minorities.

Counterterrorism officials have linked Sunday's suicide bombing at a church in Solo to a deadly clash in Ambon earlier this month.

An officer with Densus 88, the police's elite counterterrorism squad, said on Sunday that early analysis indicated the motive for the attack on the Kepunton Bethel Church Indonesia, which killed the bomber and one other person, "is connected to the Ambon incident and the perpetrator is likely from the same radical groups that we know today."

"This is an act of vengeance," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Ambon clash on Sept. 11 erupted after rumors spread by text message that a Muslim man killed in a traffic accident had been murdered by Christians. Seven were killed in the ensuing clash and thousands fled the city.

Separately, a source with the Solo Police's bomb squad told the Jakarta Globe that the suspected bomber appeared to be about 35 years old and that the scene was similar to a suicide attack in April carried out by a man named Sharif, who detonated a bomb at a police mosque in Cirebon, West Java.

"His head was still attached to the body and his stomach burst. His organs were hanging slightly out. He had no beard, almost similar to the case of Sharif," the investigator said.

Sharif has been linked to the radical Tawhid wal Jihad network, believed to have been led by suspected terrorist Sigit Qurdowi before he was gunned down by police in May.

Police suspect Sigit was also involved in the bombing of a church and a police station in Klaten, Central Java, in December 2010.

In a televised address on Sunday night, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono confirmed the links to the Cirebon incident.

"The investigation so far shows that the suicide bomber was a member of a terrorist organization in Cirebon, the same group that carried out the [mosque bombing in April]," he said.

He urged police to crack down on the terror cells in Cirebon and Solo. He also called on the authorities to treat all indications or threats of terrorist acts seriously.

"I've also asked for an internal investigation of the police's actions, because I've been told that the intelligence unit was given a warning and the police chief had instructed all police forces [to be on alert]," he said.

"Don't ignore any information whatsoever. You have to be responsive and take steps to prevent things like this from happening."

He also stressed that the bombing could never be justified on religious grounds. "Evil doesn't have anything to do with religion or ethnicity. Evil is evil, terrorism is terrorism," Yudhoyono said.

Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam, the National Police spokesman, said police would deploy personnel to stand guard at all churches across the country in the wake of the bombing.

Witnesses said the bomber browsed jihadist Web sites at an Internet cafe 200 meters from the church before the bombing.

Harun, an operator at the Solonet cafe, said the man was there from 8:37 a.m. until 10:56 a.m. "About 15 to 20 minutes after he left, we heard the blast," Harun said.

He said the man's browsing history showed he had viewed a video of Osama bin Laden, titled "Dying a Martyr is Man's Greatest Aspiration," on the jihadist site arrahmah.com.

Rina Kristiningsih, another operator, said the man left his bag behind when he left. She said when she jokingly asked if he had a bomb in there, "he suddenly left in a hurry, but I didn't think anything of it at the time."

Other witnesses reported seeing a man pacing back and forth in front of the church shortly before the blast. In addition to the two fatalities, 22 churchgoers were reportedly injured in the attack.

Nathan, a congregation member, said he heard a loud bang at 11:30 a.m., just as churchgoers were leaving the service. He said he was inside the church when the blast occurred and saw several people lying severely injured near the entrance.

Slamet Effendy Yusuf, deputy chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, condemned the attack as going against Islamic teaching.

He said with inter-religious tensions running high in some areas, he was worried "about the possibility there are people who might try to exploit this."

Slamet called on authorities to work more closely with moderate Islamic organizations as a way of keeping a finger on the pulse of popular Islamic sentiment.

Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, the country's second-biggest Islamic group, called on followers of all religions to not be baited by those trying to foment inter-religious strife.

Theo Sambuaga, chairman of the Golkar Party leadership board, condemned the bombing. "It was an act of violence meant to terrorize and repress believers, destroy harmony, scare the people and challenge the authority of the state," he said.

Don't blame us for Solo blast, says intelligence chief

Jakarta Globe - September 26, 2011

Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Anita Rachman – Facing heavy criticism for failing to anticipate Sunday's suicide bombing in Solo, State Intelligence Agency chief Sutanto has asked the public to stop blaming the agency and judge it fairly.

Sutanto said that intelligence agencies always shoulder a large burden of blame following terror attacks, but rarely received due credit for attacks they stopped.

"Other countries might not be able to prevent even one single threat," Sutanto said. "We have [prevented] some threats, [but] missed this one. All officials have been working hard, and it should be noticed."

Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, deputy head of House Commission I overseeing defense, agreed that the State Intelligence Agency, or BIN, had achieved significant results in thwarting acts of terror.

Agus also sought to put some of the blame on law enforcement agencies, whom he said often disregarded BIN warnings. He said that BIN officials had warned authorities about the potential for conflict in Ambon, which saw a series of sectarian clashes this month that left seven dead.

"The information had been given to the authorities to prevent it, but it was ignored and the conflict broke out," he said.

"The problem is that other institutions might not be quick in responding to information from the intelligence agency," Agus said. "So don't only blame the [BIN] with its limited power."

Sunday's blast has prompted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to push for a speedy adoption of a long-delayed and controversial intelligence bill that would give BIN officers the power to wiretap and extensively investigate suspected terrorists.

The still-in-progress bill, however, is not likely to grant intelligence agents the power to make arrests. "So, if there's a bomb that explodes, don't blame the intelligence agents, unless we're giving them the power to arrest," Agus said.

Suicide bomber attacks packed Indonesian church

Agence France Presse - September 25, 2011

A suicide bomber attacked a packed Indonesian church on Sunday killing at least one person, wounding several others and sending terrified worshippers rushing out into the streets.

The morning bombing of the Church Bethel Injil in the city of Solo, in Central Java, was the latest in a spate of deadly attacks on minorities in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation.

Kristanto said he and his wife were getting ready to leave at the end of the service when the blast went off. "I was about to head home when a very loud explosion shocked me. A crowd of people from inside the church rushed to the streets," he told AFP.

"They were screaming and very hysterical. The peaceful Sunday has quickly become a chaotic situation. I helped several people who were injured and lying weak on the ground," said the badly shaken 53-year-old, who goes by one name.

Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Djoko Suyanto said two people were killed but refused to clarify whether the toll included the bomber.

"One died instantly at the site, the other died in a hospital," he said, adding that several other people were wounded, some badly.

The minister said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono strongly condemned "the act of terrorism." "Nothing can justify this inhuman act," Suyanto told Elshinta radio. "It is the task of everybody to overcome this act of terrorism."

Solo, a city of 500,000, is the home of militant Islamist spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir, who was jailed in June for 15 years for funding a terrorist group that was planning attacks against Westerners and political leaders.

An AFP correspondent saw the apparent bomber's body on the ground at the church's main entrance. He was wearing a white shirt and black trousers and had his left hand severed.

At least 15 people were wounded and had been rushed to nearby hospitals, a local police official told AFP.

Most of Indonesia's 200 million Muslims are moderates, but the country has struggled to deal with a radical fringe of extremists who have carried out numerous attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.

Indonesia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion but rights groups say violence against minorities including Christians and the Ahmadiyah Islamic sect has escalated recently.

In June, a Muslim cleric was sentenced to one year in jail for inciting hundreds of people to burn churches and attack police. Seventeen men were also jailed for up to five months for the February attacks on churches in the town of Temanggung, on Java.

Police have also been investigating a Good Friday plot to blow up a Jakarta church and a book bomb campaign targeting Muslim moderates and counter- terrorism officials. No one was killed in those incidents.

Yudhoyono's government has faced growing criticism over its failure to respond to the spate of religious hate crimes.

Human rights groups also expressed outrage after a member of the Ahmadiyah sect, which are regarded as heretics by some conservative Muslims, was sentenced to six months for defending himself and others from a lynch mob which killed three of his friends.

The sentence was the same or stiffer than those handed out to 12 Islamic extremists who led the mob in the February rampage.

Activists warn of campaign to foment sectarian violence

Jakarta Globe - September 25, 2011

Two days before a suicide attack struck a church in Solo, a priest and a human rights activist warned of a shadowy campaign to exacerbate interreligious tension between Christians and Muslims in an attempt to foment violence similar to the recent sectarian clashes in Ambon, Spero News reported.

The article, which was published on Friday, states that in recent days journalists and activists have received text messages – proven to be hoaxes – telling of invented or exaggerated attacks on Christian churches in the country.

One of those text messages tells of two Catholic churches and one Protestant house of worship that were burned in Poso, Central Sulawesi. But according to Jimmy Tumbelaka, a priest at the Diocese of Manado in North Sulawesi, the message is an exaggeration.

Jimmy, a longtime activist against sectarian violence, said that only the Santa Teresa church was recently set ablaze, and the damage was limited to the building's front entrance.

The messages are eerily reminiscent of the rumors that sparked the Ambon clashes on Sept. 11. Seven people died in the violence, which is believed to have been spurred by a text-message rumor that a Muslim man who had died in a traffic accident had actually been tortured and killed by Christians.

Activist Theophilus Bela told Spero News that he had recently received similar text messages telling of assaults Christian churches in Poso.

"After Ambon, now here in Poso. A Pentecostal church is going to be burned, along with a Catholic church in Poso," read one message he received. He quickly debunked the rumor, and has concluded that it was "orchestrated news."

Solo suicide blast may be linked to Ambon violence: Police

Jakarta Globe - September 25, 2011

Farouk Arnaz – The suicide bombing that killed at least one person and injured 20 at a church in Solo on Sunday may be linked to the recent sectarian violence that broke out in Ambon on Sept. 11, a police source said.

"Early analysis of the motive of the bomber links him to Ambon and the culprit will not be far from radical groups. It's revenge. The motive of course can only be confirmed when the network is revealed," a member of the anti-terror squad Densus 88 told the Jakarta Globe under condition of anonymity.

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 that left at least seven dead and prompted law enforcement to question anyone trying to enter the city.

A provocative text message also began circulating in East Java urging Muslims to go to Ambon to wage jihad.

Ali Fauzi, a self-confessed jihadist in Ambon and the younger brother of convicted Bali bombers Amrozi, Ali Imron and Ali Ghufron, agreed that the bombing in Solo was prompted by the Ambon violence. "I feel that it is so," he said.

Separately, an investigator in Solo's bomb disposal unit said that the suspected bomber appeared to be about 35 years old, and that the scene was similar to an earlier attack carried out by Sharif, who detonated a bomb at a police mosque in Cirebon, West Java, in April.

"His head was still attached to the body and his stomach burst, his organs were hanging slightly out. He has no beard. Almost similar to the case of Sharif," the investigator said.

Sharif has been linked to the radical Tawhid wal Jihad network, which was believed to have been led by suspected terrorist Sigit Qurdowi before he was gunned down by police in May.

Solo Islamic youth chief sends members to protect churches

Jakarta Post - September 25, 2011

The local leader of prominent Muslim youth group says he will send members to protect houses of worship following the suicide bombing that killed one and injured eight in a church in Surakarta, Central Java, on Sunday.

"Don't let it happen for the umpteenth time," Nusron Wahid, head of GP Ansor, the youth wing of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, Nadhlatul Ulama, said on Sunday as quoted by kompas.com.

Wahid said that he had previously warned the government to be alert for such attacks and would deploy NU's "counterterrorism team", Banser Detachment 99 – a riff on the National Police's Detachment 88 counterterrorist unit – to the crime scene.

The bombing was likely related to previous religiously motivated radical attacks, according to Wahid. "This is indeed savage and cannot be tolerated. It is uncivilized and hurts the dignity, integrity and meaning of diversity."

Freedom of religion & worship

GKI Yasmin congregation still under siege in Bogor

Jakarta Post - September 26, 2011

Theresia Sufa, Bogor – Members of the Taman Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) congregation clashed with officers from the Bogor Public Order office who prohibited them from conducting their Sunday service on the sidewalk in front of their sealed church building.

Members of GKI Yasmin have been forced to hold their service on the sidewalk since the Bogor Municipal Administration sealed their church last year.

"We had no other choice. With the church now sealed, this is the only place where we can perform our Sunday service. Why don't they allow us to?" one member of the congregation said.

He said that members of the congregation had not broken any laws by staging their religious service at the site.

An official from the Bogor Public Order Agency, Ayep Ruhiyat, said the congregation should not perform their rituals on the sidewalk as it could disrupt order in the area. But after a tense argument, the officers relented and allowed the congregation to hold a mass at the location.

GKI Yasmin has been threatened with eviction by the Bogor Municipal administration as well as locals who have questioned the legality of the church.

Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto has been consistent in his refusal to reopen the church despite a Supreme Court ruling which upheld the legality of the church.

In July 2006, the Bogor city administration decided to revoke the building permit for the church.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Dec. 9, 2010, overturning the Bogor administration's request to uphold a lower court decision to close down the church.

The Bogor administration later decided to revoke the building permit for the church in March this year, arguing that there had been an error involved in the application for the permit.

On Sunday, Diani held a meeting with the top city officials in a government building across from the besieged building, but did not make efforts to meet members of the GKI congregation or respond to questions from local journalists.

Meanwhile, an organization calling itself the Bogor branch of Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami), said it had given the city administration a one-week deadline to evict the GKI Yasmin congregation from its current location.

"By Sunday next week, the city administration should have relocated all members of the congregation," Forkami member Abdul Halim said, as quoted kompas.com.

Abdul said that the government had already provided a new location for GKI Yasmin and that its congregation had no reason to perform their service on the sidewalk. "[The mass on the sidewalk] is disturbing the public order," he said.

Separately, GKI Yasmin spokesman Bona Sigalingging reiterated the church's demand for the Bogor administration to abide by the Supreme Court ruling. Bona denied the Bogor administration's claim that the church had forged signatures from local residents when it sought approval to construct the church.

Bona said that the administration should have protected members of the congregation instead of pushing them further to the edge. "The solution to this problem is actually very simple; reopen the church and let us perform our religious service here," he said.

Bona said that the congregation would continue holding their sidewalk mass until they were allowed to get inside the church building. "We have received many threats. Some say they want to burn the church down, but we still stand firm," he said.

Earlier this month, the executive board of the Islamic Student Association (HMI) submitted a document detailing the dispute between the GKI Yasmin church and the Bogor administration to the Vatican's president of the papal council for interreligious dialogue Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran.

HMI said that many religious disputes in Indonesia were in fact engineered or fueled by political parties.

Government ignoring worshippers' rights: Church

Jakarta Post - September 24, 2011

Bandung – The West Java Pentecost Church Association has accused the Bandung and Sumedang administrations of failing to empower local Christians in conducting religious activities in the wake of the recent forced closure of worshipping houses.

Association chairman Chris Hutabarat said that the forced closures of seven worshipping houses in Rancaekek Kencana housing complex in Bandung and one in Jatinangor, Sumedang, during the 2010-2011 period was blatant proof of the government's inability to protect its citizens' worshipping rights.

"The option to move worshipping activities to the IPDN campus is not a good solution. It is costly to get there and not all congregation members can afford the transport because many of them are factory workers," Chris said in Bandung on Thursday.

The most recent incident of religious intolerance took place in Rancaekek in July when a congregation of some 300 Christians was dispersed by dozens of people, most of whom were later reported to be members of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI).

Agriculture & food security

We need to work on our own land, farmers say

Jakarta Post - September 24, 2011

Jakarta – Hundreds of farmers from the Indonesian Farmers Union (SPI) rallied in front of the State Palace on Saturday in observance of National Farmers Day.

"This is a movement to call on the government to help meet our demands," SPI chairman Henry Saragih said on Saturday as quoted by tribunnews.com. Henry said that the union hoped that the government would help them secure their own farm land so that they could better support their families.

One of protesters, Wawan, 31, from Sukabumi, West Java, said that he found it difficult to work as a farm hand for hire as he had to rely on a land use certificate to cultivate a field. When the certificate expires, he said, his source of income would be gone.

"I just want to have my own land because working on other people's land cannot guarantee steady income for me to support my family," said Wawan, 31.

Aside from the protest in Jakarta, the union also held similar demonstrations in North Sumatra, West Sumatra, South Sumatra, Central Java, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara. It also held various activities including an agriculture and culture exhibition, discussions and seminars.

The endless fight for land in Indonesia

Jakarta Post - September 24, 2011

Muhammad Ikhwan, Jakarta – Indonesia will commemorate the 51st National Farmers' Day on Sept. 24. Over the years, we have witnessed the same demand from the farmers on the street: The right to land.

For many decades, farmers have lost in what I have called the fight for land. History tells that our farmers were brutally exploited in the cultuurstelsel era. Farmers were forced to plant export commodities like coffee and sugarcane. For those who owned land, 20 percent of it should be allocated for those aforementioned commodities. Those who did not, they had to work 75 days in a year for Dutch estates.

After independence, farmers still had to fight for land – especially against big foreign companies. The fight sparked various movements aimed to reclaim land.

In 1960, a big boost came in the form of the enactment of Basic Agrarian Law, which supports redistributive land reform for farmers. In the New Order era, the fight for land did not stop but was kept at a minimum by military repression. Soeharto's regime implemented land redistribution via transmigration.

Jumping forward to recent years, the growing wave of privatization of land in Indonesia – purchased by food and energy companies, multinationals or investment funds – has seen the fight for land surface once again.

It is interesting that the same phenomenon keeps repeating and also involves the same actors: Companies versus people.

The dramatic new wave of land acquisition, or land grabbing – a phrase coined by some academics and civil societies – is in fact a worrying phenomenon. After subprime and financial crises, capital surge for land and food has been increasing.

This has resulted in sky-rocketing prices of food in recent years, with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recording the highest food price index in February 2011.

The crises that ruptured in 2008 also gave rise to a new cycle of appropriation of land on a global scale. At least 50 million hectares of agricultural land have been transferred to corporations only in the last few years alone, and each day more investors are joining the rush.

In Indonesia, the land grab phenomenon is linked to big plantations. Related to this, we can see the comparison for land ownership in palm oil (2010). It shows an imbalance between private (49.76 percent), state (7.88 percent) and small-holder farmers (42.36 percent).

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in 2010 shows that there are still 31.2 million poor people, with rural poor (19.93 million) and the urban poor (11.1 million).

The figure in rural areas is somehow congruent with the number of small- holder farmers, because they are the most vulnerable groups.

According to the BPS, small-holder farmers are people who own less than 0.5 hectares of land. The last agricultural census (2003) indicated a serious number of small-holder farmers (13.7 million people), with Indonesian Farmers Union (SPI) later in 2008 estimating a significant rise (up to 15.6 million).

Ignoring the figures, the government came up with the food and energy estate project in Merauke, Papua (MIFEE). This further land grab was aimed at acquiring 500,000 hectares of land. Upon enormous rejection, the project later became stagnate and had to be diverted to other provinces.

The rejection was initiated mainly by small-holder farmers and indigenous people. The land grab will disregard their rights – and deny them access for land and resources for their livelihoods. Furthermore, the estate model does not guarantee the fulfillment of local food, as it will certainly look for the highest bidder.

The reasoning for small-holder farmers and indigenous people assenting with another came from High Level Panel of Experts of the Committee on World Food Security, saying that large scale investment in land is damaging food security, incomes, livelihoods and the environment for local people.

The estate model has also been challenged. The 2004 Plantation Law was brought to the Constitutional Court because some articles have the potential to criminalize farmers and indigenous people. Recently, the Constitutional Court annulled those articles.

In near future, we need to seek the best practices to implement some recommendations from the High Level Panel of Experts, particularly in securing the access and use of land for landless people, small-holder farmers, forest dwellers, fisher folk and indigenous peoples.

We also need to continue undertaking redistributive land policies in settings marked by inequality in land control and ownership – in our case, this should be implemented according to 1945 Constitution and Basic Agrarian Law.

Prioritizing investment in the small farm sector and in alternative food systems is crucial. As opposed to the estate model, we need a production model that is socially inclusive and as well as environmentally sustainable, using agro-ecological principles.

Finally, States and private sectors should not forget to recognize the right to free, prior and informed consent in relation to the land and natural resources on which people depend for their livelihoods.

We have a competitive cost of production, subsidies and especially hard- working farmers. Ensuring their victory in the fight for the right to land is one big step to improve the agriculture sector.

Happy Farmers' Day.

[The writer is the head of the international relations department at the Indonesian Farmers Union (SPI).]

Ethnic & communal violence

Bomb found in front of Ambon church: Police

Jakarta Globe - September 26, 2011

Farouk Arnaz – Another homemade bomb was found in front of a church in Ambon on Monday, one day after a deadly blast in Solo and following two earlier explosions in the Maluku capital.

"This is in a series of bombs that we found there [in Ambon]," National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam said on Monday. "The latest one today is in front of Maranatha church," Anton said. "All are homemade bombs, they are all similar. So the maker is the same."

On Thursday, a roadside bomb exploded in Karang Panjang, Ambon, according to police. That was followed by another blast on Saturday at the city's Mahardika terminal. No one was hurt in either explosion. Anton declined to speculate whether the bombs in Ambon were linked to the Solo suicide bomber.

However, the Jakarta Globe spoke to an anonymous source from the Anti- Terror Task Force who said that an early analysis appeared to link the attacks, and that they were revenge for the deadly sectarian violence that broke out in Ambon on Sept. 11.

In a culture of violence, society the greatest victim

Jakarta Post - September 24, 2011

Hans David Tampubolon – Society at large has been tarnished by an ongoing tolerance of violent culture, as the number of brawls among civilians in Jakarta so far this year has already surpassed the amount from last year, an expert said.

According to Jakarta Police data, as many as 39 public brawls have erupted in 2011 so far, a disturbing increase from the 28 total throughout all of 2010.

The most recent brawl was in Mahakam, South Jakarta, and ended in a prolonged conflict between the students of state senior high school SMAN 6 and journalists.

Commenting on the growing trend of civilian brawls in the city, National Commission for Children's Protection chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait said that the real victim was society and the real culprits were adults who proudly displayed their violent tendencies for solving their problems.

"Our adult citizens, whether they be high school graduates, politicians or religious figures, like to show that violence is the best way to settle matters. They throw around dirty words, slam water bottles and even fight on live television broadcasts," Arist told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Thursday.

"The violent culture has been passed on to the younger generation. In the end, everyone – students, journalists, parents – become victims of the violent culture," he added.

Arist said that society had to do whatever it took to break the chain of a violent culture for the sake of the future of the younger generations.

"In the context of brawls involving students, schools must make a solid commitment and take a firm stance in regulating the punishment for students who are involved in brawls," he said. "The regulations must be based on consensus among teachers, parents, students and even the police."

Arist also said that schools, as institutional bodies, had to be held accountable for riots that involved their students.

"The school principals cannot wash their hands from their responsibilities if students brawl outside school hours, because one of the main functions of an educational institution is to teach its students public norms and how to behave," he said.

Separately, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Baharudin Djafar said that it was important for schools to build solid systems to prevent their students from brawling. "It is up to each school to build its own system," Baharudin said.

Judicial & legal system

Gayus among six newly elected justices

Jakarta Post - September 30, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Senior Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Gayus Lumbuun was among six candidates elected as Supreme Court justices in a vote held by the House of Representatives' Commission III on Thursday evening.

Topping the list was Suhadi, an active judge, who gained 51 votes. Gayus, who had become one of the favorites among the 18 candidates, came second with 44 votes.

Commission III members expressed their pleasure after learning that Gayus, their former colleague on the commission, managed to pass the voting.

Gayus, who is also a Criminal Code professor at Krisna Dwipayana University in East Jakarta, admitted that his candidacy won political support both from his own party and legislators from other political parties.

The House will formally announce the six successful candidates at the House's incoming plenary session for their endorsement.

Of the six, only Andi and Suhadi were career judges. Andi, now spokesman for the Jakarta High Court, was one of a panel of judges at the Central Jakarta District Court, that acquitted former House speaker Akbar Tandjung of graft charges.

The election was conducted after members of Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, had carried out tests for a total of 18 candidates, which began on Sept. 20. The six will serve as justices in six different chambers, which respectively oversee civil cases, criminal cases, religious affairs, state administration, taxation and cases involving the military.

Gayus had previously vowed to resign from his position as a lawmaker if he was elected a justice.

The Court Monitoring Coalition (KPP) had highlighted two candidates with good track records, namely Sunarto from the supervision inspectorate of monitoring at the Supreme Court and Rahmi Mulyati, a junior registrar at the special civil appellate court at the Supreme Court.

The two, however, failed to gain enough votes to enter the top six positions. Fifty-six lawmakers attended the voting where each lawmaker selected six out of the 18 candidates.

The six elected justice candidates

1. Suhadi (51 votes)
2. Gayus Lumbuun (44)
3. Nurul Elmiyah (42)
4. Andi Samsan Nganro (42)
5 Dudu Duswara (34)
6. Hari Jatmiko (28)

Criminal justice & prison system

Police sandbagged our case examination: Komnas HAM

Jakarta Post - September 28, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih – The nation's human rights body says the police are to blame for its failure to complete an examination of the murder case that convicted former antigraft czar Antasari Azhar, who is now making his last bid to overturn his 18-year sentence.

The National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) said that the police had not provided them with important documents needed to examine Antasari's case, which is believed to be plagued with irregularities.

The commission began to look into the case in February and pledged to complete its work within two months. It had planned to present its findings before the court that is currently hearing Antasari's case review request.

"A number of difficulties, such as the police document issues, have made us fail to finish the investigation soon.

We filed an official request to the National Police weeks ago to obtain an official copy of documents such as interrogation transcripts and lists of seized evidence. But the police have yet to fulfill our request," Komnas HAM commissioner Johny Nelson Simanjuntak told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"We aim to finish our investigation next month and we will present the results at Antasari's case review hearing soon after," he added.

National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana said he was not aware for Komnas HAM's request of the Antasari investigation documents.

Antasari, formerly the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman, is serving an 18-year sentence for masterminding the murder of businessman Nasrudin Zulkarnaen.

He is now attempting to overturn the ruling through a case review, which is the only way in Indonesia's legal system for a convict to challenge his or her conviction. The first hearing of the case review took place last week at the South Jakarta District Court.

During the hearing, a few experts presented testimonies that have led to speculation that Antasari was framed in the case.

A ballistics expert, Widodo Hardjo Prawito, for example, said that two different guns were used to shoot Nasrudin, according to his examination of documents concerning the victim's dead body, while the police insisted that the businessman was shot twice with the same firearm.

Widodo's testimonies have corroborated suspicions that Antasari is innocent and that the murder case was engineered to expel him from the country's top antigraft body.

Komnas HAM's move to examine Antasari's case was partly prompted by allegations from former tax official and graft convict Gayus Tambunan. Gayus told the press shortly after his trial hearing in January that prosecutor Cirus Sinaga, who is now a graft defendant, was responsible for building the case against both Antasari and himself.

Prisoners forced to pay for food, places to sleep, family visits

Jakarta Post - September 24, 2011

Jakarta – In a corrupt correctional system, nothing comes for free. The Cipinang Penitentiary complex, home to more than two thousand inmates, offers amenities spanning from first-class luxury to ceaseless torment.

Almira (not her real name), went to Cipinang recently to visit her boyfriend who is serving a five-year sentence. She told The Jakarta Post about her boyfriend account of the inmates' conditions, which were dependant on how much money the inmates were willing to pay for basic necessities.

According Almira, her boyfriend said prisoners got a space of two floor tiles to sleep on in a sitting position if they paid Rp 15,000 (US$1.70) per week. Inmates who could not afford that slept standing up or in the sewer.

Almira's boyfriend, Rangga (not his real name), who was convicted of Marijuana possession, confirmed Almira's report.

"This is prison. Everything has to be paid for with money," Rangga said. "Food, drinks, even the space to sleep [inside the cells] is determined by how much [money] you are willing to pay."

Rangga said Cipinang guards earned money by providing various services to the inmates, ranging from radios and televisions to communications devices to connect them with the outside.

In addition to fleecing inmates for cash, the prison allegedly earns money from visitors as well.

Despite a huge banner saying "no pungli" (illegal levies) greeting visitors at the front gate, Almira said that after meeting inmates visitors were told to give Rp 100,000 to the inmates who would then give it to the prison guards on the way back to his cell.

"If I don't give the money [to my boyfriend], then he will be beaten by the prison guards," she said. Few were surprised to learn that graft convict Gayus H. Tambunan smuggled S$600,000 ($444,000) to his prison cell.

Authorities said Gayus owed the money to another inmate, Ahmad Muntaha, because the Ahmad had promised to multiply the amount quickly.

The Post observed inside Cipinang prison last week that visitors indeed passed money to inmates at the end of visitation sessions.

Although the visitors and the inmates were separated by thick glass and could only talk through communication holes, the money was passed after the sessions as guards allowed the visitors and inmates to meet face to face for a few minutes.

The 1995 Law on Correctional Systems says inmates have the right to be visited by family members and legal teams. The law also guarantees that the government will provide for inmates' basic needs such as food, clothes and medical attention while in prison.

The Society of Justice Observation (MaPPI) reported that in 2010 illegal visitor fees to Cipinang prison alone reached Rp 4.8 billion a year, while the profits from providing food, clothes and communications devices reached Rp 1.68 billion a year.

The report also says that Cipinang earned "revenue" by charging the inmates for food, accounting for Rp 10.8 billion a year.

"What happens is that the inmates are treated like nothing more than commodities," said Hendra Setiawan, head of monitoring and investigating at the MaPPI. "If the inmates don't have money, they will be denied access to their basic rights," he added.

Ali Aranoval, director of the Center for Detention Studies (CDS), said that Indonesian prisons could not afford to fulfill the basic needs of the inmates because they were overcrowded. Such a situation, he explained, would inevitably provide business opportunities within the prisons.

"Because of the overcrowding situation, the large number [of inmates] cannot get access to their basic necessities," Ali said. "This sets up business opportunities for both prisoners and prison guards."

Cipinang is home to 2,516 inmates despite only being designed to support 1,084.

The head of the penitentiary's narcotics block, Edy Kurnaedy, denied that the illegal practices occurred in his block, saying that inmates often lied to get money from visitors. "I only just heard about these guards. If I find any, I will hang those guards," he said.

Justice and Human Rights Ministry spokesman Martua Batubara also denied that bribery and illegal fees were widespread among Indonesian penitentiaries, claiming that the ministry had over 50,000 officers across the country, and such cases would only be likely from a few undisciplined prison guards.

Martua also pledged that the ministry was fulfilling its commitment to bureaucratic reform and promised to punish prison wardens who violated their responsibilities as government officials.

"If there is an official who violates his responsibilities and collects illegal fees [from inmates or visitors], it is definitely a violation of regulations and he should be punished for his undisciplined conduct."

"The ministry is currently in the process of bureaucratic reform, and [wardens] have received work benefits, thus there should be no tolerance for officers who violate their duties as government officials," Martua added. (sat)

Different pistols used to kill Nasruddin

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Jakarta – A weapons and ballistics expert testified in court on Thursday that two different guns were used to shoot Nasrudin Zulkarnaen, the director of PT Putra Rajawali Banjaran, in the case review of former KPK chief Antasari Azhar.

Widodo Hardjo Prawito, the ballistics expert whom Antasari's legal team presented as an expert witness, based his statements on the fact that there was a major divergence of land width between the two bullets that were found inside Nasrudin's head. He called land width "the fingerprints" of guns.

"Based on the forensic report, [the two bullets] came from different guns," Widodo said during the presentation of the minutes of the examination in a case review hearing at the South Jakarta District Court.

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari was sentenced to 18 years for his involvement in masterminding the murder of Nasrudin in 2009.

Nasruddin was killed in his car in a drive-by shooting by a man on the back of a motorcycle.

Widodo said the two bullets that struck Nasrudin must have been fired at different times, as one of the bullets was intact while the other had splintered.

Forensic investigators found two bullet holes in the window of Nasrudin's car. Based on the bullets' shapes, however, Widodo testified that only one of the bullets had penetrated the glass, while the other one was shot in "open" conditions.

"If a bullet penetrates glass, it becomes fractured and later it will be fragmented [when it enters the victim]," Widodo said. "But one of the bullets was found intact."

Widodo said that even though the two bullets were from similar pistols, it was clear that they were fired from two different guns.

Based on the forensic report, the first bullet had a land width of 2.42 to 2.66 millimeters while the second was 2.41 to 2.61 millimeters, which was a divergence that Widodo said was "impossible" to produce from the same weapon.

In response to Widodo's testimony, Antasari's lawyer, S.F. Marbun, told The Jakarta Post that the fact that the bullets came from two pistols is new evidence to be considered by the judges before deciding the verdict.

He also said that two pistols should be used as evidence instead of only one, citing a possibility of missing evidence in the case. "If there are two pistols, then what happened to the other one?" Marbun said.

Critics said that the murder was set up to frame the former KPK boss, whose firm approach during his tenure as KPK chief successfully sent several top government officials and high-profile House lawmakers behind bars.

The Judicial Commission has observed the case and recommended that the Supreme Court sanction the panel of judges who presided over the Antasari trial because they had ignored critical evidence.

Andi Syamsuddin, the younger brother of Nasrudin, also attended the hearing and said he was willing to reveal everything regarding his brother's murder but only if his safety was guaranteed.

"I will only give information if there is protection from the Witness and Victim Protection Agency [LPSK]," he said.

Andi appeared in court as a witness for Antasari. He said that he did not know nor did he have any interest in Antasari, but was keen to uphold justice for his brother's sake.

Andi told the court that before his brother's autopsy, a policeman came to him to ask whether Nasrudin had a stepdaughter named Rani Yulianti. When Andi said he did not, the policeman immediately said that the motive of the murder was a love triangle.

Antasari said that Andi's account of that incident raised suspicions. "The investigation had not begun, but the motive was already known," he said. (sat)

Prosecutor denies new evidence in Antasari case review

Jakarta Post - September 23, 2011

Jakarta – South Jakarta Prosecutors office chief Masyhudi says no new evidence has been presented in the Antasari case review that could prove the previous trial's panel of judges were mistaken in their verdict.

"Most of the evidence was presented in the initial trial, so basically there was no new evidence that could find the previous sentence was incorrect," Masyhudi said Friday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Under the Indonesian legal system, the case review is the last resort for Antasari, which means if this fails the defendant can only hope for the President's to show leniency to get absolution.

In order to request the cace review, a defendant must either posses new evidence that can find that a previous sentence was wrong or have sufficient arguments and evidences that shows that the previous panel of judges made serious violations.

Antasari Azhar's lawyer presented several experts in ballistics, forensics as well as Andi Syamsuddin, the brother of Nasruddin Zulkarnain, who was allegedly murder victim of this case. During the trial, these experts told the court that they had found several oddities when examining the case.

Forensic scientist Munim Idris, for example, had told the court that he was once approached by some police investigators to wipe out the statement that there was a nine millimeter wound located on the victim's forehead from the visum et repertum report.

Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chief Antasari Azhar had been sentenced to 18 years in prison after he was proven guilty of suggesting the murder of PT Rajawali Putra Banjaran's director Nasrudin Zulkarnain last year.

Intelligence & state security

Government, House agree to sign intelligence bill

Jakarta Post - September 30, 2011

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and all factions at the working committee have resolved all contentious issues in the intelligence bill and agreed to finalize it for endorsement in the immediate future.

BIN Chief Sutanto, representing the government, said he appreciated the significant progress that the government and the House had made in the bill's deliberation over the past two weeks.

"We hope the bill will not face strong resistance from the public after we [the government and the working committee] resolve all contentious chapters in the bill. The bill will direct BIN to perform its co-tasks professionally, while the public will no longer be afraid of human rights abuses in its enforcement as has happened in the past," he said in his remarks on the conclusion of the bill's deliberation on Thursday.

Deputy chairman of house Commission I on defense, foreign affairs, information, Tubagus Hasanuddin, expressed his high appreciation to the government and other factions for the democratic nature of the bill, saying that the government and factions from the ruling parties had agreed to make significant changes to make the bill more humane and conducive for a better democracy.

He said BIN and factions from the ruling parties had agreed to reform BIN by limiting its authority in bugging, to make it professional and respectful of human rights and democracy in carrying out its intelligence tasks.

"BIN and other institutions with an intelligence function can no longer abuse their power to serve the ruling regime and conduct arrests arbitrarily as has happened so far," he said.

The government and all factions finally agreed to give the authority of bugging, checking on financial transactions and seeking further information from targets linked with terrorism, secessionism, sabotage, spying and other activities threatening national security and the country's sovereignty.

Interception must be supported by adequate initial evidence and requires approval from district courts. In checking on financial flows, BIN will receive data from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center (PPATK) and Bank Indonesia and all banking institutions are obliged to provide necessary information to BIN.

Intelligence agents are also allowed to cooperate with the police in seeking further information during the targets' interrogations. They will work in compliance with the code of ethics, and the bill carries harsh sanctions for those who abuse their power.

The bill also mandates the making of two special laws on interception and state secrets. It also mandates a presidential decision on the appointment of the BIN chief and a presidential regulation on BIN's coordinating function.

Agus Gumiwang, chairman of the working committee, said all factions of the ruling parties, including Golkar, would receive the bill following the major changes.

"Like the government, all factions in the information and defense commission agree to hand over the bill to the House's consultative committee to be brought to the next House plenary session for its endorsement," he said.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) warned that the bill could criminalise anyone and any institution who leaked or publicized intelligence information to the public.

Court permission for wiretapping may be dropped in intelligence bill

Jakarta Post - September 29, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Articles stipulating that intelligence bodies must obtain permission from a district court chief to intercept communications have been dropped in the most recent version of the much- criticized intelligence bill.

A new article that appeared in the bill dated Sep. 24 obtained by The Jakarta Post stated that the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) is only obliged to inform a district court chief before wiretapping anyone deemed a threat to state security.

The wiretapping includes telephone calls, text messages, faxes, emails and social network postings.

A member of the legislative committee on the bill, Tubagus Hasanuddin of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, however, claimed that the articles in the bill could still change despite the House of Representatives' plan to pass the bill into law by the end of October.

"Discussions on the issue were still hot, both among lawmakers and between the government and us. One thing for sure is that interception must go through a district court," he said on Thursday. "Whether the BIN must seek approval or is only required to inform the court is still being discussed."

Another article that was previously a hot topic was the intelligence agency's authority to arrest and interrogate suspects. Following strong lobbying by activists, the articles concerning such authority have been dropped, according to the latest revision of the bill.

Activists raise concerns over abusive intelligence bill

Jakarta Post - September 27, 2011

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Following last week's rejection of a government proposal on the state intelligence bill by three political parties, human rights activists voiced similar concerns that the bill, if passed into law, could criminalize activists and media members for leaking intelligence information and state secrets to the public.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Haris Azhar and Transparency International Indonesia coordinator Todung Mulya Lubis spoke before the House of Representatives' working committee in Jakarta on Monday, saying that article 27 in the bill, which criminalizes anyone leaking information, intelligence or state secrets to the public, would be prone to power abuse.

"The contentious article that allows multiple interpretations must be dropped. Otherwise, more media members and activists will be criminalized. The bill cannot cover everyone because it will become a lex specialis, which should regulate intelligence agents only," Todung said.

He called on the government and the House to define the terms of intelligence information and state secrets – especially the ones threatening national security – and regulate in detail what would be considered a leak of information and state secrets.

"This article could be abused by a regime to arrest government critics and dissidents, who must be differentiated from terrorists, secessionist groups and underground antigovernment movements," Todung said.

Haris said that the House should focus on forming professional intelligence agencies and consider the human rights aspect in endorsing the bill.

He said that the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and other state institutions with intelligence functions should have one of their main tasks as providing early warning information and analysis for the sake of national security rather than political interests.

He added that wiretapping authority should be regulated in a separate law, as it related not only to BIN but also to the Indonesian Military, the Attorney General's Office, the National Police, the Corruption Eradication Commission and the Law and Human Rights Ministry.

Haris said the working committee should discuss the bill with different people – including victims of intelligence-gathering abuses in Aceh, Poso and Papua – study the investigative reports on the Munir murder case and on the Indonesian-Timor Leste Commission for Truth and Friendship.

Committee chairman Agus Gumiwang of the Golkar Party said the bill's deliberation had made significant progress over the past two weeks when the government and the House had resolved crucial issues on investigation, wiretapping and supervision.

Both sides agreed that BIN would have a coordinating function, with its main task being to provide early warning information and information analysis for forecasts, and that its chief would be appointed with approval from the House.

BIN will draft a code of ethics, and the bill carries harsh sanctions against agents in violation of it. All intelligence operations will be closely supervised by a 13-member committee from the House. "The district court must be informed of interception," Agus said.

Lawmaker Sidharto Danusubroto of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle said the progress was a victory for his party, the National Mandate Party and the Prosperous Justice Party, who opposed the contentious bill last Thursday.

House says intelligence bill will be passed soon

Jakarta Globe - September 26, 2011

Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Anita Rachman – In the wake of Sunday's bomb attack in Solo, the House of Representatives is saying that it is optimistic that a controversial and much-delayed intelligence bill will be passed soon.

The bill, originally scheduled for passage in June, has faced numerous delays as lawmakers, the administration and intelligence officials have tried to resolve differences over contentious issues such as wiretapping.

Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, from House Commission I overseeing defense and the head of the intelligence bill's working committee, said that crucial points regarding wiretap authority, coordination between intelligence agencies and powers to arrest have been agreed upon by the legislature and administration.

"We're optimistic that the bill will be finished before this current sitting period is over, or in some weeks ahead," Agus said.

The House and government have agreed to give the authority to wiretap to the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), but with restrictions. The two bodies have also decided not to grant BIN officers the power to arrest suspects, but they will be granted greater access to information.

"So, they [BIN officers] have the right to sit at the side of the law enforcement to listen," Agus said. But he added that intelligence officers would not be able to order law officers to arrest suspects.

Another hotly contested point – who would coordinate activity between various intelligence groups – would go to the BIN, he said.

After Sunday's suicide attack in Solo, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that the public need not worry about the intelligence bill granting authorities excessive power.

"There is worry over it being used excessively, but it happens in all countries," Yudhoyono said. "We need to learn from previous experience that we don't want to be repressive, but that fair trials should be presented in our country."

Foreign affairs & trade

Indonesia blames New York for parking ticket scandal

Jakarta Globe - September 28, 2011

Ezra Sihite – The Indonesian government on Tuesday blamed a lack of legal parking spaces in New York City for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid parking tickets its diplomatic officials have racked up.

"This is not a new problem. It has been happening a long time," Triyono Wibowo, the deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday.

Of 35 embassy staff members in New York, only one was assigned a parking space, he said. Indonesia owes the city $725,000 in unpaid parking tickets, though it is far from alone.

New York is owed nearly $17 million in parking tickets issued to diplomats from different countries. The city said unpaid tickets totaled $16.7 million through the end of July. Egypt topped the deadbeat list with $1.9 million in tickets, followed by Nigeria with about $1 million. Indonesia's $725,000 was third highest.

Triyono said the Diplomat Community Representative Office in New York was seeking a solution to the issue. He added that the city should provide sufficient parking for all Indonesian diplomats.

Priyo Budi Santoso, the House deputy speaker from the Golkar Party, said there should be a special dispensation regarding parking for diplomats. "It is customary that diplomats from closely related countries get special treatment," he said.

Another House deputy speaker, Pramono Anung, from the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the tickets racked up by diplomats were an embarrassment to the country. He demanded the Foreign Affairs Ministry pay up.

"It's shameful and I am sorry if our diplomats owe parking fines," he said. "We want the Foreign Affairs Ministry to pay the fines, otherwise this small amount of money will embarrass the country."

Singapore sees extradition treaty renegotiation unlikely: Official

Jakarta Post - September 28, 2011

Hasyim Widhiarto, Singapore – The Singaporean government on Wednesday said it regarded its current extradition treaty with Indonesia, signed in 2007, as final, despite difficulties the latter had experienced in securing approval from the House of Representatives to ratify it.

Speaking to a group of visiting Indonesian journalists, Singapore's State Minister for Foreign Affairs Masagos Zulkifli said he fully respected the political response to the treaty in Indonesia, but quickly stressed that Singapore would never make it a subject of renegotiation since this would set a bad precedent for the country in front of the international community.

"If we renegotiate the already signed [extradition] treaty, it would mean we might have to renegotiate many other agreements with other countries that we have already made commitments with," Masagos said.

Masagos, however, said Singapore would always support the Indonesian government's efforts to return Indonesian crime suspects residing in Singapore, as long as the latter could "provide enough evidence to charge them".

"Even without an extradition treaty, Singapore will give its commitment to supporting the Indonesian government's efforts in enforcing law," he said.

In 2007, Indonesia and Singapore signed an extradition treaty that would have enabled Indonesian law enforcement officers to go after dozens of corruption suspects who had sought refuge in state, along with another agreement on defense that would have granted both countries the right to conduct naval and air military training in each other's territories.

The long-awaited extradition treaty, however, could not be ratified because the House of Representatives refused to approve both the treaty and the defense agreement, saying the agreements favored Singapore and could compromise Indonesia's security.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) has records that 45 people linked to graft cases have fled overseas over the last 10 years, with 20 choosing Singapore as their destination.

The list includes Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, a businessman convicted of receiving Rp 546 billion in state funds linked to the Bank Bali bailout in 1999. Nunun Nurbaeti, a key witness in the 2004 vote-buying scandal, was allegedly in Singapore receiving medical treatment, but her location is now unknown.

Economy & investment

Indonesia's furniture industry 'struggling' to survive

Jakarta Post - September 30, 2011

Jakarta – Indonesian furniture makers are reportedly closing down their businesses because the local rattan industry prefers to export its products to China rather than sell them domestically.

Indonesian Rattan Furniture and Craft Association (AMKRI) chairman Hatta Sinatra said on Friday in Jakarta that only about 17 percent of the local furniture producers that had existed several years ago still operated today.

"Many of those furniture businesses went bankrupt because of raw material shortages," Hatta told the press Friday in Jakarta. "Now, only 17 percent of them are still there, and they're struggling to survive. This is sad," he added, as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Hatta said that most of the furniture makers had moved to other businesses.

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

SBY and his ministers need to stop playing footsie with the hard-liners

Jakarta Globe - September 30, 2011

Bramantyo Prijosusilo – Just as he did following the Cirebon Police mosque bombing in April, after last Sunday's suicide bombing at a Solo church, the minister for communications and information technology, Tifatul Sembiring, announced his intent to block Web sites that could inspire terrorism.

Although he claims to have shut down 300 such sites, the main ones where you can monitor the development of pro-terror Islamism in Indonesia are still active and easy to access.

The most notable of these Web sites is perhaps the Arrahmah site, which is still condemning kafir (infidels, in Arabic) and salibis (a derogatory terms for Christians derived from the Arab word salib, meaning cross). It is also eloquent in cursing the government, the United States and the West in general, while bestowing praise upon the Taliban in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, the Bali bombers and others of their ilk.

In its discussion forum, you can find people who can teach visitors how to make a bomb at home, and others who attempt to egg visitors on to actually commit suicide in a martyrdom operation against the kafir. That this site still operates prompts the question – what was on the 300 closed sites that were blocked?

Still fresh in our memory is the scandal of Arifinto, the lawmaker who was caught watching pornography during a plenary session in the legislature. Arifinto, who, like Tifatul, is from the Islam-inspired Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), lied at first, saying he was only opening a link in an e-mail. Later, he said he would resign, but this proved to be a lie too. Instead, he seems to be waiting for people to forget that he was among those advocating the controversial Anti-Pornography Law.

The fact that Tifatul backed his PKS colleague's lie is a black mark against his judgement. Considering his fundamentalist views on women and HIV/AIDS patients, the minister appears to share some things in common with Islamic hard-liners.

It is worth remembering that the PKS has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood movement that began in Egypt and entered Indonesia via university campus mosques in the 1980s.

So it comes as no surprise that even though Tifatul claims to be working hard at making the Internet less of a useful tool for terrorists, Web sites like those of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), al-Muhajirun, VOA-Islam and others are still updating frequently, employing radicalizing language that foments hatred against the state, the West, Jews and Christians.

Of course all this is part of the larger movement to make Indonesia a Shariah state. They should be seen as part of the same ideological struggle that has manifested itself in the brutal murders of the Ahmadis in Cikeusik, Banten, the stabbing of a minister in Bekasi, the lame prison sentences these criminals received and the audacity of the Bogor mayor who continues to defy a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to allow the Yasmin Christian congregation to worship in its own church.

Before we blame President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's incompetence for the rise of Islamic radicalism here, we must remember that it was Suharto who, approaching the end of his rule, began to court Islamists.

At that time, analysts observed that the military was polarizing into two groups: the Islamists and the nationalists. Suharto's successor, B.J. Habibie, further emboldened the Islamists. It was during his rule that the guard-dog organization (according to WikiLeaks) FPI was formed by elements of the military and the police.

Since then, the Islamist faction of Indonesian politics has flourished. Even Hizbut Tahrir, the transnational Islamist party that rejects this republic's democracy outright and agitates for the establishment of a caliphate that will cure all our social, political, economical and cultural ills, receives support from the state.

Of course Yudhoyono, in his capacity as head of government, could do much more than merely expressing his concern, and his lack of action triggers speculation as to why he is so accommodating toward anti-state movements that carry religious banners. Waiting for this government to make an intelligent move is like waiting for Godot: it will never happen.

Many of us have been observing that often terrorist attacks occur at times when the government is under pressure over corruption cases. Most can see that there are members of the elite who profit from the attention given to these attacks.

Although this cynicism might be misplaced, it is not without reason given that not a single major corruption case has been solved during Yudhoyono's time in office. But then again, all the previous governments were just as useless on this issue, or in regards even worse.

Perhaps the more useful question should be, considering that the government is doing nothing to stem religious violence and instead often "supports" it, what should we, as citizens, do?

Perhaps the best thing we can do is to support the fight against corruption. We can also give our support to the struggle for human rights. Minorities like Christians and Ahmadis need our backing, and cases like the 2004 murder of activist Munir Said Thalib or the murders of students and the rape of the Chinese during the 1998 troubles need to be pursued so that those responsible are held accountable.

In relation to jihadi Web sites, perhaps Tifatul needs some prodding. Send the minister letters, or sue for religious defamation Web sites that use derogatory terms to describe Christians. When the government is hopeless, citizens should come to the fore and save the day.

[Bramantyo Prijosusilo is a writer, artist and broadcast journalist in East Java.]

When politicians come up empty, extremists naturally fill the void

Jakarta Globe - September 29, 2011

Michael Vatikiotis – A suicide bomber attacks a church in Solo, a homemade bomb is found near another church in Ambon, more bombs are hurled at police posts in South Sulawesi and two men are stabbed to death in Jakarta in an apparent intra-communal slaying. It's been a violent week in Indonesia, a country not generally known for its addiction to guns or affliction with goons, unlike some neighboring countries where daily violence is endemic.

What worries many observers is that much of this violence is deliberately engineered, often as a tool of political machination. In a country as diverse as Indonesia, manipulation of ethnic or religious differences is all too easily the resort of those with huge ambition but little imagination or patience. Why bother to win votes honestly when you can intimidate people into supporting you so easily? Sadly, this recalls the cynical manipulation of social forces by colonial rulers – divide and rule.

The weakest aspect of Indonesia's remarkable democratic transition since 1998 has been its inability to prevent the rise of extremist elements bent on undermining the generally tolerant nature of Indonesian society.

Often this has been interpreted as a sign of growing prejudice and the inability of Indonesians to coexist in peace. However, while there is no doubt that marginal elements in society are inclined toward intolerance and are ready to commit acts of violence, it would seem that they also need the encouragement and resources to operate. The question is, what forces in the Indonesian political spectrum are irresponsible enough to fuel this kind of madness, and why can't anyone stop them?

Part of the answer is that democracy is hard work, and Indonesia's politicians are a lazy lot. It costs a lot to organize and win elections across the sprawling archipelago. Political parties demand huge up-front payments from candidates before they allow them to run under their banners. Shortcuts are attractive because they burn less money, and fear and intimidation have always been relatively cheap and effective political tools. In the mid-1960s fear and intimidation destroyed the largest mass- based communist party in Asia after China. There was no need for politicians to persuade people with policy platforms and rhetoric; it took just a few months of bloody violence that remains largely unaccounted for and killed at least half a million people.

Indonesia has advanced in the intervening years. A military that once saw its job as keeping a lid on social mass mobilization has lost its political role and internal security is now a police matter; the network of intelligence operatives who once cultivated religious extremists because they could be deployed usefully against opponents of the state has largely gone.

But sadly old habits die hard. It's all too tempting for politicians to seek advantage from conflict. Why else have vulnerable minorities like the Ahmadis been unable to obtain the protection they are granted under the Constitution? How else could the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) be allowed to intimidate officials into introducing stringent statutes and bylaws that chip away at Indonesia's pluralistic moorings? Why does the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) have to act to stop men from East Java flocking to lynch Christians in faraway Ambon?

To be sure the government is quick to condemn violence and act against it. But often missing is a firm restatement of the constitutional rights of minorities. All too often Indonesians are urged to respect the majority, which is not comforting if you are a Christian, or a minority Muslim sect. The reason for this meekness is that politicians fear upsetting their base.

The debate about how to resolve these issues mostly revolves around reinforcing the mechanisms of pluralism. There's the need for better education, more responsible guidelines for preachers and the like. But perhaps there's nothing all that wrong with Indonesian society, and the solution is to fix the politics. For how else could the failure to sanction those responsible for fueling communal violence be explained, other than as a failure of political leadership?

There's nothing all that wrong with Indonesian society. Indonesians know who they are and have a much greater sense of national self-awareness and identity than many people in the region. Sadly, they are poorly served by their politicians, who have largely failed to build responsible political parties and sensible policy platforms. The truth is that it's a lot easier to win votes on the margins of society than cultivate the middle ground. Freaks and fanatics are cheaper to fund and have more impact than well- organized networks of party workers and proper branch offices.

As bombings and mob violence continue to plague Indonesia, it is important to renew and reinforce political reform efforts so that politicians fully understand and serve the Constitution they have pledged to uphold.

[Michael Vatikiotis is Asia regional director at the Henry Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialogue in Singapore.]

Church bomb shows Indonesian extremism

Asia Times - September 28, 2011

Gary LaMoshi, Bali – Indonesia was shocked and shamed on Sunday when a suicide bomber struck a Christian church in Solo, killing at least one congregant and injuring at least 27 others. But the reaction from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been even more shameful.

On Sunday morning, a still unidentified bomber detonated explosives at the entrance of Gereja Bethel Injil Sepenuh (Bethel Whole Gospel Church, GBIS) at the conclusion of the church's second service. Police say it was a low explosive device spiked with nails and bolts that aimed to harm people rather than destroy property.

Solo, also known as Surakarta, is considered a wellspring of Javanese culture and more recently a hub for Islamic extremism. Militant preacher Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the jailed spiritual leader of the terrorist Jemaah Islamiyah movement, and his Ngruki Islamic boarding school, a hub for planning the 2002 Bali bombing, are based in the town. Solo has also served as a hideout for a number of radical Islamist fugitives, including master bomber Noordin Mohammad Top. Several churches were burned in Central Java earlier this year.

In the face of the latest evidence of growing religious intolerance, in his televised speech on Sunday night Yudhoyono used the incident to lobby for passage of controversial amendments to Indonesia's anti-terrorism act. The new provisions would allow police and intelligence authorities to begin surveillance operations against anyone without evidence, measures that critics say hearken back to former General Suharto's authoritarian rule. In the wake of the Solo bombing, legislators reported a breakthrough on the bill late Monday night.

"There are fears that it is excessive, but we have to learn from our past," Yudhoyono said, referring to the legislation. "I hope that in future life can return to normal and people won't be afraid or overly worried, as long as we can pull together in facing down violence."

Not a hate crime

He asserted that the church bombing was linked, not to a wave of sectarian strife that has intensified in recent months, but to a national terrorist network. That network was supposedly behind the April suicide bombing in Cirebon, West Java, of a police station mosque that injured 30, all but two of them police officers. Yudhoyono declared, "Crime is crime and terrorism is terrorism. It does not relate to ethnicity or religion."

Instead of looking away from Indonesia's growing sectarian violence, the once-popular president would have been better advised to meet it head on. Even in the highly unlikely event that the Solo bombings have nothing to do with religious extremism, Yudhoyono nevertheless could have used the occasion to fight it. Within an hour of hearing of the bombing, Yudhoyono could have been on a plane to Solo with leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, the country's two largest mainstream mass Muslim organizations, other religious leaders and heads of political parties to visit the victims of the bombing in the hospital.

After commiserating with the victims, comforting their families, and encouraging the police to get to the bottom of the crime, these national leaders could have presented a united front condemning the attack. Moreover, they could have reiterated they stand by Indonesia's constitutional protection of religious freedom and assured the public that the state will take all necessary steps to guarantee it for all Indonesians regardless of their faith. While Yudhoyono seems content to ignore the accelerating erosion of that freedom, Indonesia's recent history shows that religious strife can also serve as a convenient smokescreen for forces that threaten freedom for all.

Democracy breeds contempt

Since the end of former dictator Suharto's New Order regime, democracy has provided an opening for greater Islamization of Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population. An estimated 88% of Indonesia's 233 million people follow Islam. That leaves 28 million Indonesians of other faiths, or as many people as the total populations of Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, or Australia and New Zealand combined. Minorities are being marginalized by a combination of violent extremism and politicians that play the Muslim card to pander to religious hardliners.

As part of the 2005 agreement that ended a decades long civil war in Aceh, Indonesia's easternmost province was permitted to adopt sharia (Islamic) law. Indonesia's parliament approved this exception to the national constitution. However, since 2001, government decentralization measures have led to some 150 local laws and regulations based on religious teachings, according to the national newsweekly Tempo. All but a handful are based on Islamic law, including dress codes, deductions for charitable donations, and Koran proficiency requirements for civil service promotion or marriage.

The magazine also reported research by Northern Illinois University academic Michael Buehler showing that the overwhelming majority of these religion-based ordinances are proposed by politicians from secular parties, rather than the Islamic parties. That suggests the regulations are more about electoral politics than piety.

Church is out

Recently, religious intolerance has been on display in several high-profile incidents. In Bogor, outside Jakarta, Mayor Diani Budiarto revoked the building permit for the Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church and has, since January, defied a Supreme Court order to reinstate it.

Instead, Budiarto ordered the building sealed since April, forcing the congregation to hold services on the sidewalk outside. That's become a weekly circus featuring hundreds of worshippers, members of the extremist Islamic Defenders Front (FPI by its Indonesian acronym) taunting and threatening the Christians, and dozens of police in riot gear with water cannons separating FPI demonstrators and worshippers.

Last week, the case completed the final phase of its legal enforcement process, and the mayor's refusal to comply with the Supreme Court ruling is due to be handed to Yudhoyono for resolution. Budiarto's Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has revoked its support for him due to his defiance of the law, but he retains support from two parties in Yudhoyono's ruling coalition, the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Golkar.

Religious extremism doesn't just threaten violence, and Christians aren't the only victims. When extremism ratchets up in Indonesia, the Ahmadiyah Muslim splinter sect is a favored target. In western Java's Cikeusik district, local Muslim preachers and political leaders spent a year stirring hatred against a community of about two dozen Ahmadis, members of a local family that converted during the 1990s.

On February 6, a mob of thousands from nearby mosques, pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), and the surrounding area descended on the Ahmadis to drive them out of the area. As a token contingent of police and military stood by, the Ahmadis were beaten, their homes ransacked, and three of them killed. Last month, a local court sentenced 12 people to three to six month sentences in the attack, including one Ahmadiyah member.

Blame the victims

Indonesia's National Human Right Commission condemned the police for allowing, if not condoning, the attack. The commission also cited prosecutors for presenting laughably weak cases against the attackers and blaming Ahmadiyah followers for provoking the attack by refusing to leave their homes. Human-rights observers believe the light punishment – with time already served in pre-trial detention, the longest sentences amounted to a few days – will encourage more religious extremism.

Earlier this month, seven people died in fighting between Muslims and Christians in Ambon in Maluku province, provoked by text messages falsely implicating a Christian in the death of a Muslim in a traffic accident. The incident evoked the extreme sectarian strife that begin in late 1999 in the area once known as the Spice Islands.

Over the next two years, about 10,000 people died in sectarian clashes. Indonesia's military helped fuel the conflict, supplying weapons to both sides and transporting jihadis from Java to join the fighting.

The military stoked the religious conflict in Ambon and similar fighting in Central Sulawesi as part of its effort to undermine then President Abdurrahman Wahid's reformist regime. Wahid sought to curb the power of the military that had been at the center of Suharto's 32 years of iron-fisted rule and operated with impunity. After a dozen years of democracy, the military has moved to the sidelines but still operates largely without meaningful civilian oversight.

With a current presidential leadership vacuum and a successor not due until 2014, sectarian strife presents an opportunity for extremists from all sides to fill the void and manipulate the public. It's up to the champions of freedom and tolerance, and its primary beneficiaries including Yudhoyono and the religious mainstream, to fight back. The alternative is nothing less than chaos and death, as seen most recently in Solo on Sunday.

[Longtime editor of award-winning investor rights advocate eRaider.com, Gary LaMoshihas written for Slate and Salon.com, and works an adviser to Writing Camp (www.writingcamp.net). He first visited Indonesia in 1994 and has tracking its progress ever since.]

With old gods under attack, Dayak re-brand their beliefs

International Herald Tribune - September 28, 2011

Tumbang Saan, Central Kalimantan – In this village near the heart of Borneo's great, dissolving rainforest, Udatn is regarded as a man of deep spiritual knowledge.

Of all the people in this tiny settlement, he speaks better than any other the esoteric language of the Sangiyang, the spirits and ancestors of the upper world, known simply as "Above." His is a key role in the rituals of Kaharingan, one of a number of names for the ancestor-worshipping religion of Borneo's indigenous forest people, the Dayak.

"In the beginning, when God separated the darkness and the light, there was Kaharingan," said Udatn, as he sat smoking a wooden pipe on the floor of his stilt home.

The Indonesian government thinks otherwise. The world's most populous Muslim-majority country is no Islamic state, but it is a religious one. Every citizen must subscribe to one of six official creeds: Islam, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Confucianism or Hinduism. Kaharingan, like dozens of other native faiths, does not officially exist.

Even in this village, a frontier where land clearing and mining is fast erasing ancient forest, people have long seen their faith under threat from officialdom. "When I was in school I was a Catholic," said Udatn. "For us, if someone wanted to keep going to school then they had to convert to another religion."

Now, however, things are changing, and the missionaries are being held at bay. That is because villagers have seized on a strategy being used by many Dayak: They are re-branding.

On paper at least, most of the people of Tumbang Saan are now followers of Hinduism, the dominant religion on the distant island of Bali. Few here could name a Hindu god or even recognize concepts, like karma, that have taken on popular meanings even in the West. But that is not the point. In a corner of the world once famed for headhunters and impenetrable remoteness, a new religion is being developed to face up to an encroaching modern world and an intrusive Indonesian state. The point, in short, is cultural survival. "The Hindus have helped us," said Udatn. "They're like our umbrella."

What exists in Tumbang Saan is a strange compromise, born of the Indonesian religious system, where government functionaries play a key role in allocating funding and guiding religious doctrine. Called Hindu Kaharingan, it is a religion for the Dayak of Central Kalimantan, one of the four provinces that make up the Indonesian part of Borneo. Just 30 years old, it is administered by Indonesia's official Hindu bureaucracy. It exists in no other province.

Hindu Kaharingan polarizes opinions. Some see it as a fake faith, invented for appearances; others hail it as a rediscovery of long-lost beliefs. But in both government offices and remote villages, Hindu Kaharingan leads a precarious existence. At the complex that houses Hindu Kaharingan's Grand Council in Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan, the head of the advisory board of the religion, Lewis Koebek Dandan Ranying, bristled with suspicion at questions.

"Christians are the ones who are pushing hardest into Central Kalimantan, and we're still in a fight to the death with them now," Lewis said.

Government officials in Jakarta, he alleged, routinely ignore Hindu Kaharingan's existence in the province, while Christian and Muslim bureaucrats at all levels deliberately undercount the religion's adherents so as to limit its funding and political influence.

In Lewis's view, the Dayak people have been Hindus for centuries; they just did not know it. The beliefs of the various Dayak tribes, he says, descend from the Kutai kingdom, an eastern Borneo state dating from the fourth century whose religion was imported from India. Over time this was lost amid colonization by the Dutch, and the Christian missionaries who came with them.

"That's what the Dutch, what Westerners do: divide and rule," Lewis said. "We don't want that to happen again. We're returning people to their original faith."

Under the dictatorship of Suharto, from 1968 until his forced resignation in 1998, the government promoted mainstream religions as a counterbalance to communism, while seeing tribal religions as an impediment to modernization. Government rules require an official religion to have a holy book, so Dayak leaders in Central Kalimantan created one, the Panaturan. A clergy was needed, so priests were trained. Religious rituals once held in fields and homes were transformed and placed inside new worship halls, called Balai Basarah.

At the Grand Council's complex in Palangkaraya, a town where Christianity and Islam dominate public life, Hindu Kaharingan appears to have found purchase. Scores turn up for weekly services of chanting and prayer. But upriver, where both missionaries and bulldozers have made less of an impact, the new religion appears to have put down few roots. Getting to Tumbang Saan requires a jolting 12-hour ride by car and motorcycle over dusty, pot-holed roads and then 45 minutes on foot along a mud-slicked track. Mobile phone reception is nonexistent, and the only electricity comes from a handful of generators.

Here, past a shifting territory of Dayak tribes with different legends, different languages and different words for Kaharingan, rituals follow the cycles of life. On one night, much of the village crowded into a single home for a healing ritual as a medium, Ardiman, smeared in white paint, prayed over a prostrate girl.

Outside, wooden poles topped with likenesses of human heads stood in clumps as commemorations of deaths and marriages. Simbur, one of the village elders, explained the poles were "like a church, like a mosque." Down a dirt path, the Balai Basarah, built with government funds, stood empty. It was being used as a kindergarten. In the district capital of Puruk Cahu – a boomtown with imposing new government buildings – the Balai Basarah was similarly empty.

"Let's say you came to this village from India. You would see absolutely nothing that you would recognize as a symbol of Hinduism," said Morgan Harrington, a doctoral candidate in anthropology from the University of Melbourne, who has lived in Tumbang Saan since early this year. "There are no swastikas. They do not know who Shiva and Vishnu are. None of the Hindu rites take place in this village."

The senior Religious Affairs Ministry official for Hinduism in Central Kalimantan, Sisto Hartati, veers between seemingly contradictory positions on the new faith. Hinduism has always been part of local beliefs, and Hindu Kaharingan was no "made-up religion," she said. At the same time, she conceded, the holy book, rituals, bureaucracy – even the name of the faith – would not have existed without Indonesian government rules mandating adherence to one of the six official religions.

"If the rules hadn't existed back before 1980 when we integrated" with Hinduism, and indigenous beliefs had received legal recognition as a religion, "the term Hindu Kaharingan probably wouldn't exist," said Ms. Hartati, who is herself a member of a Dayak group.

But spreading the influence of the new religion is a challenge. "Our own people will say 'I'm not Hindu,' even though what they're doing is in line with the teachings of Hinduism," she said.

Back in Tumbang Saan, the signs of change are everywhere. Using newly acquired air rifles, villagers have killed off much of the game in the forests. At the next village downriver, the water is so polluted with mercury from mining that it is unsafe to drink. People name their children after Indonesian soap opera and sports stars, and food wrappers litter the ground.

Many villagers appear overwhelmingly enamored with modernity, even when it poisons the water and scars the land. When it comes to religion, however, they are wary.

Udatn, the medium, said he was thankful that local tribes had been able to shield themselves behind Hinduism, but regretted the compromise. "We should be free to practice our religion," he said.

Some Dayak have been arguing for a push to create Kaharingan as a separate official religion. But Udatn said Tumbang Saan was still too poor, isolated and uneducated to stand up to the organizational clout of the established religions. For now, he said, strength lies in adaptation. "I tell them 'Don't do it,'" he said. "We need to bide our time."

Only one way to deal with religious strife

Jakarta Globe Editorial - September 26, 2011

Is Indonesia headed for another round of deadly sectarian violence? Following the suicide bomb attack in Solo which has so far claimed two lives and injured more than 20 worshippers in a church, the country's political elite has a lot of questions to answer, and we need a firm and determined response from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The Solo suicide attack comes on the heels of a violent clash in Ambon a few weeks ago and police have stated that there could be a link. Human right activists and a priest have warned that a campaign to exacerbate inter-religious tension between Christians and Muslims could be under way. If this is indeed true, the nation is headed down a very dangerous path.

The continued violence targeted at churches and other minority groups is not random. The security apparatus has been working hard to arrest terrorists and disband cells within the country but as the Solo attack vividly illustrates, there is no shortage of young people willing to take up the jihadist cause.

Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali strongly condemned the suicide bombing at the Kepunton Bethel Church and urged the police to investigate the attack. The minister, however, has to go further and reign in Islamic boarding schools that preach hatred and violence. In fact, he must have the courage to shut them down and discipline the ulama who incite their followers to commit violence.

Such violence and hatred do not breed in a vacuum. Unfortunately, Indonesia has become a haven for radical groups who seek to sow intolerance amongst the population, especially in the rural heartland. To counter such groups and the longer-term trend, the country's political elite must condemn whoever commits violence in the name of religion, even if the individuals come from within their community.

A zero-tolerance policy against religious and sectarian violence must be implemented immediately and enforced by the top political leadership in the country. There can be no two ways about it. The nation's future is at stake unless strong measures are taken to push back radical groups and stop the spread of speech that incites hatred and violence.

How many more such attacks must the nation endure and how many more innocent lives must be lost before strong, stern action is taken against those who seek to destroy our reputation for tolerance?