Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – Thousands of people from traditional communities in North Sumatra rallied at the governor's office in Medan on Monday, demanding the return of customary land seized by officials and businessmen.

The protester came from two regencies and two municipalities affiliated with the Indonesian People's Guardian Struggle Board (BPRPI).

Based on BPRPI data, a large swathe of the 250,000 hectares of customary land located in Langkat and Deli Serdang regencies and Binjai and Medan municipalities, have been converted to plantations and residences after being seized and sold by corrupt state officials and businessmen.

Traditional communities in the four regions who claim to be the rightful owners of the customary land now only dominate around 1,000 hectares of the total of 10,000 hectares handed over by then North Sumatra Governor E.W.P. Tambunan in 1980.

North Sumatra BPRPI leader Harun Nuh said the customary land area in North Sumatra was now almost non-existent, as it had been seized and sold by fraudulent officials and businessmen. According to him, the customary land seized and sold had been converted into plantations and industrial and residential areas.

He added that those who had struggled to retain the land had become victims of greed among corrupt officials and businessmen.

Harun said officials and businessmen had often used violence to control the customary land, such as mobilizing security personnel and thugs. He added violence had taken place for quite a long time and was still taking place now.

"Based on accounts, dozens of people have been hurt over the past 20 years and one was shot and killed by a stray police bullet," Harun said on the sidelines of the rally on Monday.

The rally, in which some of the protesters wore traditional garb, took place under tight police security.

Harun said the violence was still being experienced by residents, such as that taking place in Sei Secanggang, Pantai Gemi and Kuala Begumit in Langkat regency and Kelambir V, Tanjung Gusta in Deli Serdang regency.

"Those living in customary land areas have been threatened to leave the area immediately, despite the fact that the land they are staying in is still customary land rightly entitled to them," said Harun.

Harun added that the state had handed over a total of 10,000 hectares of customary land during the tenure of former governor Tambunan in 1980. The status of the land has been legally strengthened through court rulings up to the Supreme Court.

However, he said, a large part of the customary land currently owned by the residents was still dominated by the government and businessmen.

Priests join rally against Maumere regent

Jakarta Post - November 1, 2011

Maumere – Hundreds of people, including dozens of Catholic priests in Maumere diocese, rallied in front of the Sikka Legislative Council in Maumere, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, on Monday.

During the rally, the protesters demanded that the council act against the alleged embezzlement of Rp 20 billion in social service funds by Sikka Regent Sosismus Mitang.

"We expect the councillors to do their duty and uphold the law. We demand the council ask the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to investigate the alleged corrupt practices in Maumere," Father Otto Gusti, the coordinator of the rally, said, adding that NTT was a poor province, but its corruption rate was the third largest in Indonesia.

Aceh

Law supports Aceh election schedule: KPU

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

Jakarta – A General Elections Commission (KPU) member said that the upcoming gubernatorial election in Aceh had been prepared under the existing regulations.

"We will proceed with the electoral registration phases. There is no legal basis to suspend it," KPU member Endang Sulastri said on Wednesday in an electoral dispute trial at the Constitutional Court.

Two independent candidates have filed charges against the commission, asking it to suspend the election due to the short registration period and strict requirements. The election is scheduled to begin in December.

Endang said that all electoral stakeholders had agreed to let the KPU to continue its electoral phases after many deadlocked discussions that were mediated by the Home Ministry.

"Even though some might still have objections, the KPU and its local branch in Aceh have coordinated with all the stakeholders and opened discussions on the consideration to suspend the election," she added.

West Papua

Police chief defends police action at Papuan Congress

Jakarta Post - November 7, 2011

Jakarta – National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo defended the police's actions against the participants of the third Papuan Peoples Congress, saying that the police had acted within the law.

He explained that the police had no choice but to dismiss the congress because it was considered as an act of treason.

"Everything was done based on the law. The police took those steps because there were clear violations, particularly of subversion," he said on Monday, as quoted by kompas.com.

The National Commission for Human Rights stated in its report that the police used verbal abuse in their efforts to dismiss the congress. The commission also recorded the damage and theft by police of 11 laptops, three printers, five digital cameras, tens of millions of rupiah, three motorbikes and three cars.

An investigation also revealed that three members of congress were killed in the riot, something the police say they are still looking into.

However, Timur was insistent that decisions made by the police were correct. "All the actions can be legally accounted for," he said.

Police injured in latest attack at Freeport mine

Jakarta Globe - November 7, 2011

Gunmen opened fire near Freeport-McMoRan's Grasberg gold and copper mine in Papua on Monday, injuring a police officer in the latest in a string of attacks.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Usman Nasution said the officer was wounded in the right cheek. "The shots were fired on a Freeport vehicle that was being driven by a policeman from the pioneer task force, which works in isolated areas," he said.

The victim, identified as First Brig. Marcelinus, is being treated at a Freeport hospital, he said. The shooting took place near Mile 45 of the main road leading to the mine at about 11:20 a.m. Papua Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Wachyono said the shots were fired from the cover of the forest near the road.

"When it came under attack, the patrol car sped up to reach the nearest security post," he said. Wachyono said Marcelinus and another officer in the Freeport-owned vehicle were on routine patrol.

He said that members of the pioneer task force were searching for the attackers and that officers had scoured the scene of the shooting for clues.

Papua Police Chief Insp. Gen. B.L. Tobing said all of the shootings that had occurred near the mine, including Monday's attack, had taken place under the cover of the rain forest, making it difficult to hunt down the assailants. "We are a bit overwhelmed because the geographical locations is very difficult, with thick forest and really steep rock facades," he said.

Tobing said all of the shootings followed the same hit-and-run pattern, with the attackers fading into the forest by the time reinforcements arrived. "Our facilities are limited and such difficult terrain would require a helicopter for air reconnaissance," he said. The police, he added, do not have a helicopter.

Meanwhile, National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said internal investigations had found no violations regarding Freeport's long-standing practice of giving money to the police for their operations there.

"So far, it is just seeing how policemen there live," he said. "Their life there is very difficult. So far, no violations have been found."

Timur recently acknowledged during a meeting with the House of Representatives in Jakarta what had long been suspected, that Freeport paid "meal money" to police officers safeguarding its operations at Grasberg. The admission sparked indignation, with activists saying police operations should be covered by the state budget, not the private sector.

Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar, another spokesman for the National Police, said the payments were acceptable considering the difficult conditions in Papua and the limited police budget.

"How can we use up so much money for the area when 400,000 of our other personnel, from Sabang to Merauke, also need operational funding?" he said, adding that the police's annual operational budget was Rp 4.2 trillion ($470.4 million).

Striking Freeport employees lower wage increase demands

Jakarta Globe - November 7, 2011

Camelia Pasandaran – Striking workers employed by Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold's subsidiary in Papua have dropped their minimum wage increase demands from $7.50 to $4 an hour, the All Indonesian Workers Union said on Monday.

Virgo Solosa, an official from the union, known as the SPSI, told the Jakarta lobe that they considered the demands, up from the current minimum wage of $1.50 an hour, to be "the best solution for all."

Virgo said Freeport management were currently offering $3 an hour. He said the union was also demanding that striking workers that had been fired by the company be rehired without sanctions.

"It should also be applied to contract workers," he said. "There should be no sanctions and both sides should learn a lesson from the strike."

The Grasberg mine is estimated to be running at 5 percent of its full capacity during the crippling strike. Virgo said the $4 an hour figure was approved, employees would work to catch up on the lost production. The union and Freeport management are meeting again today.

Police conducting internal audit of Freeport's millions

Jakarta Globe - November 7, 2011

National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo says they are auditing the "pocket money" received from American mining giant Freeport-McMoRan's Indonesian unit to help provide security at the Grasberg mine in Papua.

Despite the ongoing audit, Timur told Detik.com that "there is no violation."

Lawmakers and activists demanded an immediate investigation into where the Freeport millions have gone after Timur admitted that the joint security force operating in the troubled region was paid $14 million in "pocket money" by Freeport for helping to provide security.

The fact Freeport pays Indonesian security forces directly is not new, however. On Sunday, Timur said the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as well as Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) could also audit the police's books for "the sake of accountability and truth."

The police are perceived to be one of Indonesia's most corruption-prone institutions.

KPK urged to immediately probe Freeport's security money

Jakarta Post - November 7, 2011

Jakarta – Critics have urged the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to immediately probe mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia's security funds allocated to the Papua Police despite assurances from the company that the money is legal.

"The KPK would have an easier job of investigating this case since the National Police chief admitted that his officers received such funds," Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Firdaus Ilyas said on Sunday.

He said that Freeport had breached the Indonesian law as it had disbursed the funds directly to police officers rather than the Finance Ministry. "All transactions that bypass the Finance Ministry's monitoring can be categorized as illegal regardless of their purposes," he said.

Law expert Yenti Garnasih of Trisakti University agreed with Firdaus that the KPK should be one of the legal institutions to investigate the Freeport security funds case.

Yenti argued that the police may be inclined to take the side of the company, which was currently forced to declare force majeure following a recent workers strike, rather than protect civilians. "If the funds affected the officers' priority [in protecting the civilians], then the payments constituted bribery," Yenti said.

Freeport reportedly allocated US$14 million in security funds to the police to guard the firm's mining site in Papua. It has insisted that the funds were allowed under the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, saying that the company could contribute or reimburse the costs of protecting its facilities and personnel.

The police shared the same view, saying that the security funds were legitimate and could be proven so by audit agencies or the KPK. "For the sake of accountability, we welcome any investigation into the Papua Police," National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said on Sunday as quoted by tribunnews.com.

A demand for a further investigation also came from United Steelworkers, the US' biggest industrial labor union, which said late last week that Freeport was violating the state's law by bribing police in Indonesia.

"The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bans companies from paying foreign officials to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty," said the union as reported by The International Business Time.

The union urged the US Department of Justice to "immediately begin to investigate whether Freeport-McMoRan – Freeport Indonesia's parent company – has been bribing security forces in Indonesia".

Meanwhile, the KPK has said that it was not in a rush to conduct an investigation. KPK spokesperson Johan Budi said his commission would first determine whether the payments were included in the working contract between Freeport and the central government.

"If the payments are official, then there should be an audit. The Supreme Audit Agency [BPK] or the Development Finance Comptroller [BPKP] should have the data," Johan said last week. (lfr)

12 civilians tortured by security forces, Komnas HAM demands dialogue

Bintang Papua - November 6, 2011

Twelve civilians in Kurulu, Jayawijaya are thought to have been tortured by members of the security forces on 2 November 2011 in violation of legal procedures., said Matius Murib, the deputy chairman of Komnas HAM Papua branch, in a statement to Bintang Papua.

He said that the commander in chief of Cenderawasih Military Command, Major-General Eri Triassunu investigated members of the security forces who are thought to have committed these acts of torture, for them to explain the reasons for the torture to the victims and the general public.

Such behaviour fails to respect human dignity and violates human rights and is not in compliance with calls to put an end to violence in Papua. All parties should choose the path of peace and dialogue as the way to solve the problems.

The head of public relations of the Cenderawasih military command, Colonel Ali Hamdan Bogra was asked to confirm that these acts of torture were perpetrated by members of the TNI security forces but he refused to respond..

Meanwhile, Buchtar Tabuni of the central executive of the KNPB told journalists on 4 November that these acts of torture by the TNI had occurred in Kurima Kampung on 2 October 2011

The torture was preceded by cheap provocations from the TNI Battalion 756 saying that a TPN group in Umapagalo Kampung had held a meeting with the people of Kampung Umapagalo. After hearing about this meeting, the military commander organised a sweeping operation. During this operation, further acts of torture occurred.

According to Bucktar Tabuni, the KNPB sent a report about the torture perpetrated by the TNI, along with photos of the victims to the central committee of the KNPB as well as sending it to the media.

After listing the names of the twelve victims, the KNPB said that these acts of violence were accompanied by screams of abuse and the victims were beaten with wooden truncheons, kicked with heavy army boots and threatened with rifle butts as well as gunshots.

A report of these acts of violence by the TNI against the twelve civilians was then submitted to the police in Kuruku but the police refused to accept it, saying that the operation had failed to conform with legal procedures.

According to Buchtar and Mako Tabuni, the victims of this incident intend to submit this case to the district court in Wamena.

A spokesperson for Buchtar and Mako declared that the Cenderawasih military commander should accept responsibility for the actions of his men in Kostrad 755/Kurulu.

He said: From now onwards, we will not accept any attacks against the civilian population in the Land of Papua because these activities by the Indonesian military are acts of subversion (makar) in which members of the community were attacked by members of the state apparatus without there having been any acts of resistance by the local communities.

Papua tension could worsen as corporations move in, activists warn

Jakarta Globe - November 6, 2011

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The presence of large firms in Papua alongside Freeport could exacerbate conflict in the region if locals are not given the chance to take up economic opportunities, activists warned the government in a press conference on Sunday.

Dorus Wakum from Kampak Papua said locals were upset that the government routinely left them out of business deals in the region even though they were forced to bear the brunt of the consequences of these deals. "In addition, there is a large security presence to suppress us," he said in Jakarta.

The uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources by large firms adds to the misery of ethnic Papuans, human rights activist Usman Hamid said.

"The seas around Raja Ampat are being destroyed," he said. "The coastlines are damaged because of mining activity. At the same time, state violence against locals who protest the seizure of communal land is not new. The people resist because the land is being taken to benefit mining and plantation companies."

Sinnal Blegur from the Papua NGO cooperation forum said that apart from Freeport, there were several firms ready to begin operations in Papua in situations that could foster conflict. The firms include BP in Bintuni and the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate, which is believed to be run by the Medco and Bakrie conglomerates as well as the Sinar Mas conglomerate, which has a long history of operating in the province.

Hamid added that the central government had allocated 14 million hectares of Papua's total land area of 40 million hectares to mining, plantation and energy firms.

Oktavianus Pogau from the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) said the central government should find a real solution to the situation and not just view an increase in Papua's special autonomy fund as a cure.

"The special autonomy fund has been increased for 2012," Oktavianus said. "The government feels Papuans are protesting because we do not get enough money. That is wrong. Increasing the funding will not solve the problem."

Oktavianus added that the funds ended up in the pockets of only 1 percent of Papuans. "The solution would be a dialogue and an immediate end to the injustice," he said. "Continued state violence and discrimination can only pose a new threat to the country."

Oktavianus also highlighted the crippled role of the Papua People's Assembly. "If a member of the assembly addresses Papuan rights, they are instantly branded separatists," he said. "They will not be issued security clearances by the Home Affairs Ministry and the National Intelligence Agency [BIN]."

The NGOs called on the government to set up a team to investigate possible links between the issuance of business licenses in Papua and protests and state violence.

Usman said that on his recent visit to the province, there was no real threat posed by protestors to Indonesian sovereignty, an excuse security officials often use to carry out violence against locals. "The real reason for the heavy security presence in Papua is to protect assets," he said.

Police have no comment on Komnas HAM Papua finding

Jakarta Post - November 6, 2011

Jakarta – National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution refused to provide commentary regarding the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) latest finding that there had been serious violations during the Papuan People congress crackdown in Abepura, which claimed the lives of six people.

"We don't want to create a polemic here," Usman said on Saturday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com. He said the National Police headquarters had deployed a team of forensic officers to investigate and examine the findings.

During a press conference held two days ago, Komnas HAM chief Ifdhal Kasim confirmed that it was law enforcers – the police and the army – who decided to use force while ordering people to disburse from the congress venue, thus claiming the lives of three people on site. "The raid was so unnecessary," Ifdhal said.

The bodies of other three people were found near the location several days after the crackdown.

Troop withdrawal necessary to start peace talks: Komnas HAM

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2011

Jakarta – The government must first withdraw its military and police personnel from Papua if it really wants peace talks to start, says the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

Komnas HAM deputy chairman Joseph Stanley Adi Prasetyo said that a troop withdrawal from Papua would be an "important step" to initiating peace talks between the government and local Papuans, arguing that military activities in Papua and West Papua had prevented dialogue from occurring in the conflict-riddled region.

"Before any dialogue [in Papua] can take place, the government must withdraw its troops," Stanley said on Friday.

"By [withdrawing the troops], the government would make room for peace talks to occur. Besides, it could show the Papuans that the government was really serious about establishing dialogue with them," he added.

Stanley said the "excessive numbers" of personnel deployed by the National Police and the Indonesian Military (TNI) had exacerbated problems in Papua, arguing that the so-called joint operations between the police and the military only prevented productive peace talks from occurring.

"Local-level leaders of the Free Papua Movement [OPM] have shown their willingness to compromise and start peace talks with the government many times," Stanley said. "But [when they found out] the TNI and the police had continued shooting and committing human rights abuses against Papuans, [the OPM leaders] became angry again."

Poengky Indarti, the executive director of human rights watchdog Imparsial, also questioned the government's militant approach in Papua, pointing to the fact that the OPM was not as dangerous as other separatist movements the TNI had dealt with in the past such as the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh.

"Truthfully speaking, [the OPM] is not as strong as the GAM in Aceh. [The OPM] lacks coordination among its leaders and its grassroots members. Besides, the OPM is not supported with 'sophisticated' firearms as the GAM was."

Poengky argued that deploying TNI and police personnel to Papua might be related to the "business" of guarding the site belonging to US-based mining giant Freeport.

"Since [Freeport's] security responsibilities were officially transferred from the TNI to the police in 2004, there has been infighting over that 'business' between the TNI and the police."

Despite President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's pledge to not implement a militant approach to conflicts and separatist movements in Papua, the government has been notorious for using repressive and militant approaches in dealing with Papua and the OPM.

Three Papuans were found dead following the third Papuan People's Congress in Abepura, Papua, after fully-armed police and TNI forces broke up the congress. The three bodies had been mutilated with severe stab wounds.

According to Imparsial, there are around 14,800 military personnel and 10,000 police officers deployed in Papua, a figure that many consider to be "excessive", as Papua's total population stands at only 3 million people, about 1 percent of Indonesia's total population.

On Oct. 26, OPM international spokesman John Otto Ondawane warned against deployment of additional police or military officers to Papua, as it could "create devastating effects on civilian lives". Leaders of the West Papua people called on the government to withdraw security forces from the region, he said. (sat)

What is the true price of Freeport's safety in Papua?

Jakarta Globe - November 5, 2011

Nivell Rayda & Samantha Michaels – In the highlands of Mimika district in Papua, where temperatures can easily drop to a chilly 10 degrees Celsius, thousands of Freeport workers hold fast to their demands against the owner of one of the world's largest open gold and copper mines.

Above the estimated 8,000 striking workers, some of whom wear nothing more than a traditional penis gourd and feather-covered head gear, Indonesia's national flag is always waving.

It is a rare sight in this part of Indonesia, which has seen rising pro- independence sentiment among the indigenous people. But workers say the display of nationalism is deliberate – a way to convince security that their demonstration is a peaceful labor protest and not a separatist movement.

"We want to show that we love NKRI [the United Republic of Indonesia]. We don't want to be seen as separatists," said Virgo Solosa, an official from the All Indonesian Workers Union (SPSI). "This is a labor issue. Our right to strike is guaranteed under Indonesian labor law."

Their worry stems in part from the relationship between security forces, which have been trying to stamp out a low-level insurgency in the province for decades, and Freeport Indonesia, which has provided $79.1 million to Indonesian police and military forces during the last 10 years.

"We do provide voluntary support for the security forces to secure our workplace. We have been doing it for years," Freeport Indonesia spokesman Ramdani Sirait said in response to the National Police's admission last week of the payments it called "lunch money."

Freeport admitted as long ago as 2003 that it had been paying security forces since the 1970s and had established a formal arrangement in 1996.

Freeport spent $14 million to support government-provided security in 2010, according to Eric Kinneberg, spokesman for Freeport-McMoRan, the parent company of Freeport Indonesia.

The company detailed the disbursements in its annual "Working Toward Sustainable Development" report, which in past years showed expenditures of $10 million on government-provided security in 2009 and $8 million in 2008.

Added security

National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Boy Rafly Amar has cited the insurgency issue to justify the need to provide added security.

"[Freeport] will never be able to defend themselves against these [armed rebel] threats just relying on their internal security team," he said on Thursday. "But at the same time, police cannot allocate such huge funds."

Indeed, many workers feel anything but safe. "We don't feel secure to work at Freeport or to travel between the mine and our homes," said Juli Parorrongan, a spokesman for SPSI, which organized the strike. "Too many people have been killed, but we don't know who's shooting at us. We need policemen to guarantee our safety."

A former employee of Freeport, who asked not to be identified, said that the 200,000-hectare mining area required at least 2,000 personnel, jointly provided by police, military and Freeport's own security team.

"We operate in some of the most hostile environments in the world, not only in terms of remoteness but also security," he said. "Cars have been ambushed and shot at. Some of my friends have been killed. All officials are required to travel with armed police officers guarding."

The attacks have been blamed on the separatist Free Papua Organization (OPM). The group has never admitted to attacking Freeport, though it claims shootings against the police and military.

The former employee also said police were ill-equipped to cope with the harsh environment. "Their vehicles often broke down," he said. "Freeport ended up providing them with four-wheel drive vehicles."

Justified payments?

The National Police, Boy said, have an annual budget of Rp 4.2 trillion ($470 million) to support nationwide operations and pay the salaries of 400,000 officers. "We cannot fully equip our members [assigned to guard Freeport] or provide patrol cars. But Freeport said they could and didn't mind," he said.

Former President Suharto's administration did not fully fund the army's budget, so soldiers were expected to set up their own local business ventures. But as they searched for ways to supplement their incomes, some exploited the local population and caused negative social, economic and environmental ripple effects.

"Such military activities would adversely impact [Freeport] employees and the surrounding community," said Prakash Sethi, head of the New York-based International Center for Corporate Accountability, which led an audit of Freeport's Indonesia mining operations between 2002 and 2007.

During the audit, Sethi visited the mine and spoke with workers, community members and management about Freeport's performance in the areas of human rights, hiring, community development and other labor issues as well as the security payments.

"It is my interpretation that... because the military did not have adequate facilities at the mine site, Freeport agreed to provide the military with 'largely' in-kind support in terms of housing and eating facilities," Sethi wrote in an e-mail, adding that his audit did not examine how the military used those funds.

"At the same time, some funding was provided for 'miscellaneous expenses.'" Freeport-McMoRan spokesman Kinneberg said 80 percent of the $14 million in security spending in 2010 was non-cash, in-kind support for meals, health care, facilities, housing, transportation and other support necessitated by the remote posting.

Questions arise

An April 19, 2011, letter sent by Papua Police chief of operations Sr. Comr. Rudolf A Rodja to the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), obtained by the Globe, states that security allowances were more than "incidental and administrative."

"[Freeport's] monthly contribution to the security task force members of the National Police and TNI amounts to Rp 1.25 million per person, directly provided to members of the security force by Freeport management," Rudolf wrote.

The police spokesman defended the allowance. "That's only Rp 40,000 a day. Even if they want to spend it, the nearest shop is two and a half hours down the mountain," Boy said.

Maj. Gen. Erfi Triasunu, chief of the Cendrawasih Military Command, which oversees operations in Papua, said military officers received the same amount in meals and snacks.

Those direct cash disbursements have left Freeport open to intense scrutiny by rights activists and the workers, who have been striking to request higher salaries, currently set at $1.50 to $3 per hour.

The workers are demanding a wage of $7.50 an hour, down from an initial demand for $30 to $200 per hour. The company has offered workers a 30 percent pay raise, up from 25 percent when the last set of talks began on Oct. 21.

"This is very unfair. The company pays the police much more than us," Juli said. "The company should care for us more than it cares for the outside forces."

An even more pressing question is whether the payments affect the neutrality of the security forces.

Poengky Indarti, executive director of the Indonesian Human Rights Monitor (Imparsial), said the payments could create a conflict of interest for the police, who are supposed to be serving the state. But Boy said the payments had no effect on police neutrality in the labor dispute.

On Oct. 10, police opened fire on striking Freeport workers who tried to board Freeport buses from a nearby town, Timika, to demonstrate by the mine's gate.

Police cited a 2004 presidential decree classifying mining areas, including the Grasberg mine, as "national vital objects" to argue that they were obliged to protect Freeport's assets – the buses. One striker died from gunshot wounds amid the ensuing chaos.

Juli said it was not until that incident that the police took a more neutral, cautious approach to the strike.

Questionable legality

The other question is whether the funds are legal at all. "This provision of support is consistent with our obligations under our agreements with the respective governments, our philosophy of responsible corporate citizenship and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights," Kinneberg said.

Ratified in 2000 by the UK and US governments along with energy and mining companies, the principles stipulate that "in cases where there is a need to supplement security provided by host governments, companies may be required or expected to contribute to, or otherwise reimburse, the costs of protecting Company facilities and personnel borne by public security."

But the principles also say that companies should consider the human-rights records of public security forces. In Indonesia's case, human rights abuses by its military and police have long been a public issue.

The payments have also raised questions about whether Freeport has violated the US's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The Pittsburgh-based United Steelworks Union sent a letter on Tuesday to the US Department of Justice, asking the government to look into whether Freeport violated the FCPA by "engaging in what we believe is likely bribery of security forces in Indonesia."

However, the US Justice Department has already looked into Freeport's payments, ending its inquiries a few years ago without any resulting prosecution under the FCPA. Since 2003, the company has filed accounts of the security payments in an annual report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

"If the payments are not secret, if they are totally transparent, then I don't think they can be seen as a bribe," said Sethi, who specializes in international business and corporate codes of conduct. "The practice may be unsavory and maybe it shouldn't be done, but having said that, it's not the same thing as a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act."

Firdaus Ilyas, a researcher from the Indonesia Corruption Watch, maintains the payments violate Indonesian laws. "There is not a single rule that allows this," he said. "They have to have a legal basis and the payment should be made to an account the public can scrutinize."

ICW also questioned the size of the payments. According to Freeport reports, it grew from $4.7 million in 2001 to $14 million in 2010.

"You don't buy vehicles every year, you don't build police housing and barracks every year. People in the field only get Rp 1.25 million each per month. So where does the rest of the money go?" Firdaus said.

National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said on Friday that an internal investigation had been launched into how much police received from Freeport.

"We welcome all sides to audit," he said. "It is better for independent parties like the KPK [Corruption Eradication Commission] and the BPK [Supreme Audit Agency] to audit it."

[Additional reporting by Igor O'Neill and Farouk Arnaz.]

Freeport Indonesia miners, tribesmen defend road blockades

Reuters - November 4, 2011

Timika, Papua – Police failed to lift road blockades stopping fuel and food reaching Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold's mining operations in Indonesia's Papua region, after clashes with striking miners and local tribesmen on Friday.

Miners have been striking at Grasberg, the world's second-biggest copper mine, since mid-September, disrupting output and stopping shipments. Violence has escalated in recent weeks with sabotage to pipelines and deadly attacks on employees.

Angry workers and people from seven local tribes are blocking the main road near an airport in Timika that links Freeport's port to the Grasberg mine, and refused to shift after police gave them a deadline to move by Tuesday.

"People fought back. The police gave several warning shots but they have left now," said a striking worker, adding there were no casualties reported. "The tribes have conducted war ceremonies. They are ready to die for this."

The worker dispute over pay has drawn in local tribes, armed with spears and arrows, who have their own grievances over land rights, pollution and a lack of apparent benefit for the region from its resource wealth.

The police and army have been criticized for human rights violations in the remote mountainous region, where a separatist movement has simmered for decades, while Freeport has come under fire for payments to authorities for security.

The blockades are part of a prolonged strike by around 12,000 of the mine's 23,000 workers. The company has offered a 30 percent pay rise but the union is holding out for a fivefold increase.

Freeport said on Tuesday production and processing rates at Grasberg had fallen below levels needed to meet fourth-quarter sales targets.

It also said it could take a month to fix its main sabotage-hit pipeline to take concentrate to its port where there are no stockpiles left for shipping. On Oct. 26, Freeport Indonesia declared force majeure on affected concentrate sales.

The energy ministry said on Thursday that Freeport Indonesia was now producing at 5 percent of its full capacity due to damage in the pipeline.

Police back down at Freeport picket line

New Matilda - November 4, 2011

Setyo Budi – The Indonesian Police cancelled a plan to forcibly break up a blockade at Freeport's Grasberg mine on 1 November after striking workers brought their wives and children to the strike site.

The decision was made by the Vice Commander of Mimika, Mada Laksanta, and announced in front of hundreds of striking workers and their families at the picket line at Mile 28. The police have now given workers until 9 November to resolve the dispute. "We have taken a persuasive approach on this problem, and we hope the workers can find a solution before the due date" Laksantatold Kompas Daily.

However, his words contradict the reality on the ground. For over a week the police have been building up their presence around the mine site. Last week New Matilda received information that "four Panzers (army tanks), one backhoe and one bulldozer are on the way to mile 27 of Freeport area in Mimika".

Now, NM has been told by an official from the All Indonesia Workers Union (SPSI) that "Eight police trucks are on standby at (Mimika) airport to end the strike at Mile 28". NM has been told by union officials that the reason police refrained from taking action on 1 November is because the striking workers' families were with them on the picket line.

The Indonesian police are currently under scrutiny for receiving payments from Freeport to secure the mine area. The National Police Chief, General Timur Pradopo, recently admitted that the company had paid "lunch money" to local police, in addition to the state-allocated security funding. Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) have said these payments are illegal: "The funds can be seen as a bribe because they were given without any legal grounds," ICW researcher Firdaus Ilyas told the Jakarta Post.

For the SPSI Freeport division, the next few days are critical: not only is it fighting against Freeport management, it is also fighting for its survival. The union is struggling with its finances after using much of its budget to run the workers' campaign.

A letter appealing for funds was recently sent to supporters: "Since September 2011 we and our members have not been on Freeport Indonesia's payroll anymore", it reads. "Yet, we need to have a continuous flow of funding to sustain our struggle."

With knowledge of the union's dire financial situation, Freeport management has attempted to divide the workers.

SPSI allege that Freeport management approached the family of Leo Wandagau – a 34-year-old striking worker who died in a hospital a week after being shot by police – to tell the workers to end the strike. In an email sent to New Matilda by an SPSI official, Wandagau's family told the workers to "stop blocking the road and clear the site". A Freeport worker, Gebi Tanelek, told New Matilda, "The management has opportunistically used the time to divide us".

To end the standoff, the SPSI recently met with various unions including the CFMEU and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) in Jakarta. In a media statement, ICEM's Dick Blin explained, "We're here to diffuse a labour dispute that is literally a powder keg".

Despite their financial difficulties, the SPSI has vowed to "fight the struggle until the end". The mine workers want a pay rise to between US$7.50 and US$33 per hour.

96 assaulted at Papuan Congress, says Komnas HAM

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) reported on Thursday that it had found that 96 out of 387 participants at the third Papuan Peoples Congress had been assaulted by police officers.

"We interviewed the participants at the congress and found out that 96 of them were assaulted. There were maybe more," said Komnas HAM Papua chairman Julles Ongge as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

The commission's investigation found that police officers had seized millions of rupiah from participants, four cars and several pieces of electronic equipment. According to the investigation, police officers also destroyed seven motorbikes.

The commission reported that participants had also lost 50 cellular phones. Julles said that the commission had urged the Papua Police to return any property belonging to the participants.

"Police officers say that participants can take their property back, but they [participants] are afraid of more assaults," said Julles. "We will use the findings to produce a report detailing possible human rights violations that took place during the congress," he said.

Julles reported that the police had denied accusations that they shot at six civilians who were participating in the congress. "However, we have an eye witness who testified that the officers shot at the participants," he said.

Komnas HAM recorded several deaths, including James Gobay, 25, Yosaphat Yogi, 28, Daniel Kadepa, 25 and Maxsasa Yewi, 35. The commission also reported that Ana Adi, 40, Miler Hubi, 22, and Matias Maidepa were among those injured.

Papua Police spokesman Sr. Commr. Wachyono denied accusations that officers had killed the participants. "The shootings were not directed toward participants but in the air," he said.

The police named congress leaders Forkorus Yaboseimbut and Edison Waromi as suspects and charged them with treason.

Human rights group details police brutality at Papua rally

Jakarta Globe - November 4, 2011

Camelia Pasandaran – The National Commission on Human Rights on Friday released a report detailing alleged human rights violations carried out by Indonesian security forces during a raid on a separatist rally near Jayapura on Oct 19.

The commission, also known as Komnas HAM, also called on the National Police to conduct a thorough internal investigation into the crackdown, which the commission concluded resulted in the deaths of four people and the beating and imprisonment of dozens more.

"We found four examples of human rights violations: the right to life, the right to live free from torture and brutal actions, property rights and the right to not live in fear," Komnas chairman Ifdhal Kasim told the Jakarta Globe on Friday.

The police have come harsh under fire for what many rights groups and foreign governments have decried as the violent tactics used to disperse the crowd attending the Third Papuan Peoples' Congress.

Ifdahl said three people found dead in the wake of the congress were killed with no legal justification by security forces, a violation of the victims' right to life.

"They are Demianus Daniel Kadepa, Yakobus Samonsabra and Max Asa Yeuw. Another person, Martinus Yorisitouw was shot in the buttocks and the bullet traveled through his rib cage and ended up in his head," Ifdahl said. The bullet blinded Martinus, who eventually died from his wounds, Ifdahl added.

The Indonesian government has continued to deny that police or military officers shot anyone on that day.

The report also claimed that a security officer put the muzzle of his rifle into the mouth of Marthen Luther Norotao, 23, and pulled the trigger. Martinus survived, Ifdahl said, but the bullet shattered several of his teeth and tore a hole in his cheek.

"The National Police should independently investigate their members who have clearly violated human rights and sanction those officers," he said. "We also demand the evaluation of troop placements in Papua and West Papua, as there are too many law enforcers there."

The commission also recommended that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono accelerate dialogue with the "real" Papuan people representing the tribal groups and listen to their opinions and concerns.

Government sticks to its guns in Papua

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Jakarta – With both the US and Australian governments recently expressing support for Indonesia's handling of Papua, the government will likely stick to its guns and continue to emphasize security and military approaches, despite rhetoric that it would adopt a more comprehensive approach.

After a series of killings and riots that have battered the country's poorest province during the last two months, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono hosted a much-awaited meeting of ministers on Thursday. The meeting was aimed at addressing the issues in Papua, but it only served to highlight ways to tame the province's separatist movement, rather than focusing on resolving economic disparities between Papua and other regions or on corrupt practices in relation to the trillions of rupiah earmarked as special funds for Papua.

The first ministerial meeting on the state of the province was attended by representatives from the Defense Ministry, the National Police, the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Intelligence Agency (BIN).

"Among other distressing issues, the separatist movement has become the most pressing because it threatens national security," Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro told the meeting.

Despite decades of failure in rooting out the Free Papua Movement (OPM), the government continued to play down the strength of the separatists, with Papua Military Commander Maj. Gen. Erfi Triasunu saying the movement had less than 100 members.

Purnomo, who received assurances from US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Indonesia's national integrity during their meeting in Bali last month, said that the ministry was able to identify the activities of the OPM, which he placed in three categories, an armed movement, a political movement at the domestic level and a political movement overseas. "The armed and political campaigns are not large," he said.

According to National Police security maintenance division chief Comr. Gen. Imam Sujarwo around 6000 police personnel were deployed in Papua with an additional 300 Mobile Brigade officers providing reinforcements from the National Police headquarters in Jakarta.

According to Erfi, around six battalions of military personnel were being deployed across Papua, all with the task of guarding the province from less than 100 armed separatists.

But in a conflicting statement, Erfi, acknowledged that most Papuan natives supported these separatists. The two-star general explained that Papua's local citizens had been silently supporting the OPM because the latter were also their own family members.

"The condition in Papua is more or less the same as during our guerrilla war for independence against the Dutch. We did not have many armed soldiers but we were supported by the people," he added.

Erfi explained that the OPM had been obtaining weapons for some time, "In 2004 our [military] posts were raided and the OPM took our weapons. Besides that, they have also created homemade guns."

Environment Minister Balthazar Kambuaya, who attended the meeting in his capacity as a native Papuan scholar, explained that Papua's special autonomy, which had supposedly brought prosperity to the province, had failed. "Papua's special autonomy law is a good concept, however now we should ask the government to consistently implement it," Kambuaya said.

Experts and activists have long complained that the special autonomy law failed to provide prosperity to the Papuan people, with trillions of rupiah, meant for the benefit of Papuans, stolen by officials in Jakarta and by Papuan elites in the province.

Centre for Strategic and International Studies senior analyst J. Kristiadi proposed that a government regulation be created to implement the autonomy law while a special team, directly reporting to the President, should be quickly established to monitor the implementation of the regulation.

"The autonomy must be reviewed every year or two so that we can see whether it is working to create prosperity for Papuans," he told Antara.

Rights activist Hendardi said that it was time the government reduced or even withdrew its military presence in the province, as it had only fostered violence and suppression against Papuans. In turn, Papuans have asked for the right to self-determination due to what they see as injustices carried out against them. (rot)

Police, military continue persuasive approaches in Papua

Antara News - November 4, 2011

Jakarta – The Indonesian police and military continue to apply persuasive approaches in handling all sorts of conflicts and problems in restive Papua, a senior police officer said here Thursday.

"We, the National Police (Polri) and the National Defense Forces (TNI), always prefer persuasive actions in facing all sorts of violence-tainted and criminal activities in Papua," Commissioner General Imam Sudjarwo, head of the National Police Headquarters Security Maintenance Division, said after attending a public discussion on the latest developments in Papua's public security situation.

He said the police now had 6,000 men in Papua who were assisted by three Mobile Brigade (Brimob) units each comprising the same number of men as an infantry company. They were asssigned to secure public assets including PT Freeport Indonesia, tackle security disturbances, maintain public law and order, fight armed crime with the help local military personnal, he said.

In a similar vein, Chief of the Military Region Command XVII Maj Gen Efri Triasunu, said the military in Papua were assisting the Police in maintaining public security in persuasive ways.

The assistance was given when there was a request from the police based on a regulation on the military's obligation to conduct operations for purposes other than warfare.

He said one of such operations the military was carrying out in Papua consisted of civic missions among people living in remote or isolated regions.

With regard to the recent instances of unrest in Papua, Efri said he had called for the holding of dialogs among the regional governments, local community leaders, customary figures, and all other relevant parties to find a lasting and comprehensive solution to the various problems in Papua.

Earlier, Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro in remarks opening the public discussion, had said Papua's present troubles boiled down to four basic issues, namely the existence of a separatist group, the conlfict between PT Freeport Indonesia's management and its workers, economic gaps in the local community, and regional chief election disputes.

"The four basic issues are not inter-connected. They are completely separated from one another. But because they happened at about the same time, and tended to be blown up, they appear to be a very concerning problem whereas actually each of the incidents that have happened represent disparate interests." the minister said.

Jakarta needs to respect Papuans' dignity: LIPI

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Jakarta – Papuan people refuse to argue with Jakarta over the Papua issue, demanding only that the central government respect their dignity as fellow humans, a senior researcher says.

"The people of Papua have found themselves in a serious conflict with Jakarta with the presence of large numbers of security personnel from the police, the Indonesian military (TNI) and the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and their operations have so far claimed an undefined number of lives," Muridan S. Widjojo of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said in a discussion on Papua, in Jakarta on Friday.

Muridan, who along with his research team from LIPI designed a roadmap to reach a peaceful resolution in Papua, said his team had identified the core problem and a great number of unresolved cases in Papua. The Papuan people only want to hold a dialogue to seek a comprehensive and peaceful settlement of the issue, he said.

"The government should not speak too much, but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his relevant aides should come to Papua to hold a constructive dialogue to allow the two sides to see the issue from the same perspective," he said.

All efforts to reach a peaceful resolution in Papua, including an affirmative action program the government has proposed, will be fruitless unless both sides sit down together to address the core issue.

The prolonged Freeport industrial dispute is just a triggering factor in the long-standing rift between Papua and the central government, Muridan said.

LIPI found that the majority of the Papuan people, especially the educated younger generation, did not accept the 1969 UN-sponsored Free Choice (Pepera) as a definitive solution to Papua's integration into Indonesia. It also found that the government had not resolved serious human rights abuse cases in Papua and had failed to develop the region, instead discriminating against indigenous tribes living in remote areas.

Yohannes Paulus Sumino, a regional representative from Papua, shared similar views and said the government should stop using a security approach and instead promote prosperity to create a feeling of safety among Papuans and improve social welfare.

"The government should pull out its security personnel gradually and turn all security posts into centers for education, health and social services," he said.

Yohannes added that the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) was ready to facilitate a dialogue between the President and Papuan figures, with no intervention from the police and military as a prerequisite condition.

Unions worldwide back Papua strike

Jakarta Globe - November 2, 2011

Elisabeth Oktofani – Unions both local and international have voiced support for their colleagues in Papua and defended wage demands by striking Freeport miners as justified, considering the mine's remote location.

"We are one big family, and we fully support the struggle of our comrades, the workers at Freeport who are fighting for their welfare through fair and just wages," said Subiyanto, general secretary of the e nergy, chemical and mining branch of the All-Indonesian Workers Trade Union (SPSI).

"A raise in Freeport workers' wages to $7.50 per hour makes sense because of the high living costs in Papua," he added, speaking in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The same sentiment was echoed by Dick Lin, the information and campaign officer at the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

"A wage rise as desired by Freeport's employees is reasonable because the mine is located in a remote area, which tends to have high living costs," Lin said in Jakarta.

Subiyanto said that wages in Indonesia were frequently automatically based on regional minimum rates. "The problem we must highlight is that an employee's remuneration tends to be set with reference to the minimum wage in that district or city," he said.

Since Sept. 15, around 8,000 workers at the Grasberg mine in Papua have been striking after failing to reach agreement on wages and working conditions. The mine is owned by US company Freeport and joint venture partner Rio Tinto, a British-Australian mining company.

The national branch of the SPSI has stressed that the government must play a constructive role in helping settle the dispute. "We ask the government of the Republic of Indonesia as the mandated authority to quickly take action to end the strike by encouraging both sides to undertake constructive negotiations in good faith," Subiyanto said.

Another union activist, Airan Koibur, said one reason an agreement had not yet been reached was that Freeport had not been sufficiently transparent with the Papuans.

"In previous negotiations, we asked management to be open with us about the company's profitability, because for the duration of the past 16 joint work agreements we have not felt any improvement," Airan said. "We see our demands as very responsible because it relates to the workers' welfare."

He went on to say that the workers had lowered their demands as many as five times. Initially, they had requested a wage hike to $35 per hour. They subsequently reduced the demand to $30, then $17.50, $12.50 and ultimately to the current level of $7.50.

"We don't understand why they find this unacceptable and say they'll only increase wages by 30 percent from the current level of $2.10 per hour," Airan said.

According to the agreement made on Monday, striking workers will meet their bosses again next week on Nov. 7, with the government playing a monitoring and facilitating role. Any potential agreement reached by negotiators will need to be voted on by all striking workers.

Unions strive for Freeport mine resolution

ABC Radio Australia - November 3, 2011

Trade unionists from around the world including Australia are in Jakarta, to try to resolve the bitter dispute at the Freeport mine in the Indonesian province of Papua.

The dispute flared last month, leaving several people dead after clashes between striking miners and Indonesian security forces.

The Australian Greens party which holds the balance of power in the Senate, has demanded the Australian government suspends aid to Indonesian security forces.

The Greens spokesman on Papua, Senator Richard Di Natalie, also pointed to allegations of abuse and corruption at the American-operated gold and copper mine.

Meanwhile, the international trade unionists who are in Jakarta at the request of the Freeport workers are trying to work out a compromise between the strikers and the mine operators.

Presenter: Michael Cavanagh

Speaker: Wayne McAndrew, general vice-president of Australia's Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union

McAndrew: Oh just to act I suppose as a bit of a broker, we met with the Freeport company as well and we've impressed upon both the company and the workforce that both need to return to the bargaining table and try and resolve these issues and move forward, so that's effectively what the union have wanted us to do. They've asked for our support, advice, assistance and we're trying to do that.

Cavanagh: What did you tell the mine operators?

McAndrew: We told them that they've got to get back to the bargaining table, but we understand that both side as a result of the bitterness of this current dispute, both sides have indicated they won't return to the bargaining table. We're trying to encourage both sides to return to that bargaining table and those meetings are ongoing.

Cavanagh: This is more than your normal industrial dispute, there's human rights abuses, people have died in clashes. What can you do to try and bring them together and what needs to be done, particularly to stop the violence?

McAndrew: Our role has been simply to try and resolve the industrial dispute. We've been told by the union both in the Jakarta level and at the mine level that this is a industrial dispute, an industrial strike and it has nothing to do with any of the other political issues that abound in West Papua at this moment. We are aware that there has been the death certainly of two strikers as a result of as I understand it of a dispute near the mine, which resulted in police opening fire on some strikers. We're aware of other deaths, but as far as we're concerned and what we've been told they're unrelated to the current dispute.

Cavanagh: Would you be advocating further action involving possibly unions, not just from Freeport and also from Jakarta itself, but maybe Australian involvement or some sort of boycott?

McAndrew: Not at this stage. We're still of the view that it's a local mine dispute and we don't see the need to, nor would we wish to, nor have we been requested to by the union and or the members to take it any further than that at this stage.

Cavanagh: Given what's gone on, what was the atmospherics when you met with both the union members from Freeport itself and also the mine operators? There must be an element of incredibly distrust and also fear?

McAndrew: There is, and I probably would best describe both meetings as tense. There's no doubt that on both sides there's concerns and a tenseness is probably the best way to describe it.

Cavanagh: So how do you handle it, Your obviously, it's very tense, you want to get compromise and yet there seems to be lack of movement on both sides. What can you really do? Are you going to thump the table, do you talk, what can you do from outside?

McAndrew: No, we certainly won't be thumping the table. We're continuing to talk to the union and as I said (inaudible) is try and mediate for want of a better word I suppose to try and get to the bottom of where some of the issues are and try and get the parties back together negotiating an outcome.

Cavanagh: What are the chances of the Jakarta-based union members and other unions that are affiliated getting involved and taking industrial action as well?

McAndrew: They haven't indicated that at this stage and we certainly haven't spoken about that as I sent out the request (inaudible) was from the unions here and from Freeport to try and the unions at Freeport to come over and try and assist in the process.

Cavanagh: In discussions with the mine operators, did you at all raise the possibility of union action against some of its other operations, not in Indonesia but elsewhere in the world?

McAndrew: No, we did not. They gave us a long presentation in relation to the affect of this current strike on their operation and some of the other ancillary issues that were occurring there. That made us respond along the lines, well, it's important for them to try and have this issue resolved as well. They raised the issue of losing millions of dollars as a result of the strike. So that reaffirmed to us that it's in their best interest to try and resolve this issue as quickly as possible with the workforce and the unions.

Cavanagh: What was their reaction when you obviously talked about the violence that had occurred, did they understand your concerns?

McAndrew: They indicated to us that aside from the strike, that there's been ongoing issues in and around their mining area. They raised with us that they'd been deaths and injuries to employees that had nothing whatsoever to do with this current strike and current action and as I understand there have been issues there going on for sometime. But as I've explained, we have tried to stay away from that, we're specifically here to try and assist the parties and more specifically assist the union at all levels here to try and resolve this bitter dispute and we did make it quite plain to the company that we would certainly not want to see any more injuries or violence of any kind.

Cavanagh: How can you stop that?

McAndrew: Just got to keep talking I suppose. I make the point as well that the Indonesian government has a role to play in relation to some of this, but that's better off being asked of the government not of the union.

Papua: A high-stakes pawn?

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – "There is no alternative to our reliance on the Indonesian Military [TNI] and police", Freeport chairman James Moffett wrote to the New York Times in 2005. All issues related to security support, Moffett said, were "ordinary business activities."

Ordinary activities that have led those who held power in Jakarta, such as politicians and police and military generals, to foster deadly conflicts for years.

Recent allegations that Freeport Indonesia paid TNI and National Police officers several millions dollars to guard its Grasberg mine provide only a glimpse of a much bigger payout from the US copper and gold giant that Jakarta has long been eyeing.

Otto Syamsudin Ishak, a senior researcher focusing on Papua at Imparsial, said here on Wednesday that the debate on "meal money" paid to Indonesian state security forces to guard Freeport sites was an effort to distract public attention from Jakarta's huge conflicts of interests, both economic and political, in the province.

The real clashes were currently between Papuan political groups, big Indonesian businesses and the government, with all trying to destabilize the province so that, for instance, more police officers or TNI members would be deployed.

Such moves might have been made to bolster Indonesia's bargaining position with the US company at the expense of native Papuans, some of whom were members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), Otto said.

"Conflicts are sometimes engineered to serve the interests of certain groups in Jakarta, or exposed to hide the real disputes between Jakarta's powerful groups," Otto, who also heads the Academics Forum for a Peaceful Papua, said.

The "meal money" controversy was one example of Jakarta's several conflicts of interest in Papua. In this case, Otto said, the conflict involved two powerful forces: The National Police and the TNI.

According to financial reports, the company's spending on "meal money" increased significantly from US$8 million in 2008, to $10 million in 2009, to $14 million in 2010.

The "vital object" protective status given to Freeport's mining site in Papua was also abused to justify sending more police officers and military troops to "secure" the site, where larger detachments and escalating conflicts were used to extract more security funds from Freeport, according to Otto.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution denied the allegations. "There is a presidential decree stipulating that Freeport's Grasberg site is an important national asset that is subject to high-level security measures," he said.

Otto, however, played down the security funds dispute, saying that there has been competition in Jakarta that might involve extracting far larger sums from Freeport. "It's a plan to renegotiate Freeport's work contract," he said.

The contract, signed between Freeport and the government in 1991 and set to expire in 2021, no longer contains stipulations obliging Freeport to divest its shares.

Amid a public outcry, the government proposed renegotiating the contract to include, among other things, language requiring Freeport to release some of the shares in its local subsidiary to Indonesian companies.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik confirmed that the government would renegotiate the contract, but only after the labor disputes in Freeport ended.

Otto said the contract talks might be driven by politics. "The renegotiation plan has led to competition among Jakarta's political groups. Things have been hot since the plan might be part of the political parties' race to collect money ahead the 2014 general elections."

Otto said that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's recent Cabinet reshuffle might also have resulted in political deals on a Freeport divestment plan. Critics have said that a company belonging to the family Golkar Party chairman Aburizal "Ical" Bakrie has been eyeing some Freeport shares.

Lalu Mara Satriawangsa, a Golkar executive and Bakrie family spokesman, denied the claim. "I just talked to Pak Ical and he said that it was completely not true," he said.

The stakes are high: Freeport is digging up about $40 billion in copper and gold in Papua. The company has estimated it would be at the Grasberg mining site until 2041.

On the contract renegotiation, Freeport Indonesia spokesman Ramdani Sirait said that the company had been attempting to transfer a 9.36 percent stake to the Papua provincial administration.

Freeport claims 'meal money' to security forces is legitimate

Jakarta Post - November 2, 2011

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Mining company PT Freeport Indonesia claims that funds given to security personnel guarding project sites in Papua are allowed under a multi-national pact.

Initiated in 2000 by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as energy companies, the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights binds countries and extractive companies, stipulating that companies are allowed to contribute or reimburse the costs of protecting their facilities and personnel, which are borne by public security.

"[Freeport] use the voluntary principles as guidelines to disburse the security funds," said Freeport Indonesia spokesman Ramdani Sirait on Tuesday. He said the money was also given voluntarily and without any intention of bribing state officials.

Freeport, which operates the world's largest gold mine in Grasberg, West Papua, has frequently been at the center of controversy since it revealed that it spent millions of US dollars for Indonesian government-provided security measures.

Amid recent tensions in the region, following several fatal incidents, the National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo admitted that his personnel had received "meal money" to guard the company's mining site in Papua.

During negotiations between the company and its labor union over minimum salaries, his statement has sparked criticisms that these contributions have encouraged the police to side with the company's interests as they attempt to maintain the region's security.

According to its financial reports, the company's spending on government- provided security measures had increased significantly from US$8 million in 2008, to $10 million in 2009, to $14 million in 2010. Ramdani said that last year, his company had allocated $14 million for security measures.

"About 80 percent of the funds were spent to support facilities and infrastructure, including meals for officers," he said. "The rest of the funds were transferred to the bank accounts of military units."

In January 2006, The New York Times reported that US Vice President Joe Biden, then a senator, said investigations into Freeport's business practices in Indonesia were needed, as large payments by Freeport officials to individual Indonesian Army (TNI) officers were highly irregular.

A New York City comptroller said the company might have violated the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which forbids American companies from bribing foreign officials.

US Embassy assistant press attache Corina R. Sanders declined to comment, including on whether such practices were legal, saying that the statement may only have been "judgmental".

A member of the Indonesian Forum for the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights, Agus Widjojo, said that security officers should not directly receive "meal money" without reporting it to the Finance Ministry.

"It may be true that police officers face particularly tough situations in Papua. But it does not mean they can receive the money directly from Freeport without reporting it to the state's finance agency," he said. (lfr)

Government told to bring mediator into Papuan dialogue to settle conflict

Jakarta Post - November 2, 2011

Jakarta – The central government and representatives from Papuan organizations must involve mediators before engaging in further talks to resolve a string of conflicts in the easternmost region, activists say.

"The mediator should be trustworthy, independent, firm and accommodating," human rights watchdog Imparsial's program director, Al Araf, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He said former vice president Jusuf Kalla and former president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari could be the right men for the job, as they both were considered successful in ending the bloody Aceh conflicts peacefully.

He also said the meeting should be aimed at providing win-win solutions for both parties, only this time they must guarantee better living condition for Papuans.

"Papuans are living under the impression that they received almost nothing for giving up their valuable resources, and what we have seen in the field suggest the same thing. This should be fixed immediately."

A lawmaker from House of Representatives Commission I overseeing defense, foreign affairs and information, T.B. Hasanuddin, said the idea to bring a mediator into the dialogue had been proposed by the Indonesia Science Institution (LIPI) around a year ago.

"But still, as of now, we have noticed that the government has not seriously taken this matter into their hands," he said.

Adriana Elisabeth of the Indonesia Science Institute (LIPI) said that there were at least four unresolved problems in Papua: Papuans had been marginalized in the development process, they had suffered unfairness as a result of the development, they were never given clear political status and many human rights violations had gone unnoticed.

"A huge rift of distrust has developed between the central government and the Papuan organizations in finding the best future for Papuans. For example, whenever Papuans want to gather, the government is likely to peg them as separatists. Thus, we need to create mutual trust," she said last week as reported by tempointeraktif.com.

Hasanuddin said the government lost momentum when it didn't handle the job in 2005 after Papua was given special autonomy status.

"The unit should have done its job to ensure that the Papuans had received their special autonomy funds at that time. It will be harder to do it right, this time," he said.

However, he added that he would wait to see how the unit performed before issuing any more comments. "The unit should do its duty by conducting dialogue and by not tolerating any attempts at violence or intimidation along the way," he said.

Papuan Presidium Council secretary-general Taha Al Hamid also recently stated that dialogue between the central government and Papuan organizations was the only way to avoid further bloodshed. "The government should be able to look us right in the eyes and ask what should we do to build a better Papua," he said.

Papuans are now forced to live in fear after the police and their army reinforcements brutally disbanded the third Papuan People's Congress in Abepura, Jayapura, on Oct. 17, killing six and wounding dozens.

The police arrested approximately 300 congress participants and were still pursuing those who fled to the Padang Bulan mountains. The police said they decided to disband the congress after confirming that it was held in part to gain independence from Indonesia.

Changing of guard for Papua police

Jakarta Globe - November 2, 2011

Banjir Ambarita, Jayapura – Police announced on Tuesday that nine municipal and district police chiefs across Papua were rotated, but denied the move was a response to allegations of a heavy-handed crackdown against pro-independence protesters.

"This rotation has nothing to do with the recent security situation in Papua," Insp. Gen. Bigman Lumban Tobing, the provincial police chief, said at police headquarters in Jayapura.

"It is simply a matter of moving the officers around," he said. "It shows that the National Police as an institution is not stagnant but dynamic in its response to complex public problems."

Among those affected in the shake-up was the Jayapura Police chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Imam Setiawan, who was replaced by Adj. Sr. Comr. Alfred from the Mappi district police force.

Imam has come under sharp criticism from human rights groups after his officers opened fire on a peaceful gathering of the pro-independence Papuan People's Congress last month. They arrested almost 400 people.

A day after the incident, the bodies of six congress participants were found near the local military headquarters, reportedly with gunshot wounds.

The incident has since come under the scrutiny of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which is conducting a probe into allegations of excessive use of force. On Tuesday, the rights body said preliminary results of their investigation show that security forces likely killed three people and assaulted almost 100.

Julles Ongge, the head of the provincial chapter of Komnas HAM, said that of the 387 people taken into custody, 96 claimed to have been beaten by police.

"In the process of arresting the participants of the Papuan People's Congress, there were very clear violations of human rights," he said. "This included summary killings, arbitrary arrests, incarceration and torture. If everything had been done by the book, then there would have been no victims."

Among those likely killed by the police were Demianus Daniel Kadepa, a university student, and Yakobus Samonsabra and Max Asa Yeuw, both members of the Papuan Caretaker Movement (Petapa), the rights group said.

About 100 members of Petapa were guarding the congress when police and military crashed the event, firing shots into the air and hitting participants with batons, bamboo poles and the butts of their rifles. They also kicked and stomped on those already down.

Julles said that because of the violent crackdown, Imam and Bigman owed it to the Papuan people to make amends.

"The investigating team has seen the wounds suffered by the victims," he said. "Some of them have expressed willingness to testify [against the police], but first we must coordinate with the LPSK [Victim and Witness Protection Agency] to ensure their safety."

Julles called on police to take responsibility for the violence and to return the items they seized from congress participants during the arrest.

Preliminary findings of the investigation will be submitted to Komnas HAM headquarters in Jakarta, Julles said, before a final conclusion and recommendations are made.

The National Commission on Human Rights determined that three of the six people found dead following a security crackdown on last month's Papuan People's Congress were likely killed by security personnel.

One of the victims was Demianus Daniel Kadepa, 23, a student at Umel Mandiri Law School in Jayapura who died from severe blunt force trauma to the back of the head.

Yakobus Samonsabra, 48, a part of the Papuan Caretaker Movement (Petapa) that was guarding the congress, was found with multiple wounds to the neck, head and face. Max Asa Yeuw, 33, also from Petapa, died of a gunshot to his buttock that penetrated his rib cage.

Papua police identify group in officer shooting death

Jakarta Globe - November 1, 2011

Banjir Ambarita – The separatist group that claimed responsibility for the shooting death of a subdistrict police chief in Papua has been identified by authorities as "Kodap X," a group believed to consist of some 60 members.

"It is predicted that the group that is claiming responsibility for the shooting of the police chief consists of 60 persons," Puncak Jaya Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Alex Korwa said on Tuesday. "They own six assault rifles and two handguns."

Alex identified the group's full name as the Kodap X OPM West Papua National Freedom Military Organization. He added the group was affiliated with the well-known Free Papua Organization (OPM), which is headquartered in Tingginambut.

Alex said that three dozen officers were still tracking the killers of Adj. Comr. Dominggus Awes, who was attacked by two men and killed with his own gun at the Mulia airport in Puncak Jaya district on Oct. 24.

Calm had finally returned to Puncak Jaya in the wake of the shooting, Alex said, although security forces there were being kept in a state of high alert. "We're still being alert because they could attack anytime."

Papua police tell strikers to stop rallying, or else

Jakarta Globe - November 1, 2011

Banjir Ambarita, Ezra Sihite & Ririn Radiawati Kusuma – Police have set a deadline of today for thousands of striking workers at Freeport-McMoRan's giant gold and copper mine in Papua to confine their action to a specific area.

According to a permit for the strike issued by authorities, the workers are only allowed to gather at Checkpoint 5, an area in front of the gate to Kuala Kencana, where local subsidiary Freeport Indonesia has its headquarters.

But Papua Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Wachyono said the strike had spread to several other locations, including the mining area itself. He also said workers were actually rallying rather than just striking, though he did not explain the difference.

"We are calling on workers who have gone from striking to demonstrating to stop their action because it is no longer in line with the permit given," Wachyono said.

He said the strikers had spread to Checkpoints 1 and 27, as well as Freeport's Gorong-Gorong bus terminal. "These workers are disturbing vital activities. We want this stopped," he said.

He said that a warning letter had been sent to strikers on Sunday telling them they had 48 hours to stop demonstrating. "If the protest rallies are not halted, we will summon the head of the SPSI [All-Indonesian Workers Trade Union] and disperse them in line with the prevailing laws," he said.

Wachyono said residents were also complaining about the strike, saying it was disturbing their daily activities.

The local SPSI spokesman, Juli Parorrongan, said he was unaware of the latest developments in Papua because he was in Jakarta for medical reasons.

Pramono Anung, a House of Representatives deputy speaker, warned security forces to take care in disbanding strikers.

"If there is any violence, it will only become a new trigger [for unrest] especially after it was officially revealed that there is some money flowing to the police [from Freeport]," said Pramono, who is from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Pramono said the government should facilitate a dialogue between Freeport and the striking workers. He also called for the police to account for the money its officers had received from the mining company.

National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo acknowledged on Friday that police had accepted "pocket money" from Freeport for helping provide security for its operations.

Allegations that millions of dollars had changed hands this way were nothing new, but the official confirmation was, and it prompted an outcry from lawmakers and activists demanding investigations into where the money went and what exactly it was buying.

Pramono said that while he could understand that security forces in Papua would require substantial funds, any money received from outside the usual budgetary channels needed to be accounted for.

"These funds should be audited by the Supreme Audit Agency [BPK] and if there are indications [of irregularities] be handed over to the KPK [Corruption Eradication Commission]," he said.

The newly appointed energy and mineral resources minister, Jero Wacik, met on Monday with the US ambassador to Indonesia, Scot Marciel, to discuss a solution to the Freeport dispute. "If the two sides fail to reach an agreement, then production will stop and both sides will lose," Wacik said.

The strike, which started on Sept. 15, has coincided with renewed violence and alleged human rights abuses in Papua.

Imparsial bemoans SBY's sluggishness in Papua conflict

Jakarta Post - November 1, 2011

Jakarta – Human rights watchdog Imparsial has criticized President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for his slow response to the Papua conflict, highlighted by the fact he has yet to install a development acceleration unit chief.

Imparsial said Lt. Gen. Bambang Dharmono had not yet been installed as Papua and West Papua development acceleration unit chief, despite his appointment already having been regulated in presidential decrees.

"I am concerned that this problem will linger on without a solution," Imparsial executive director Imparsial Poengky Indarti said Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Poengky explained that despite the issuance of presidential decrees No. 66/2011 and No. 154/2011 stipulating Dharmono's appointment, the military official could not start work before he was officially installed by the President.

She said that the President's sluggishness on the matter was an indication of his lack of commitment in efforts to handle the conflict in Papua, at a time when leadership is in dire need to prevent the situation from deteriorating further.

Poengky said Imparsial, along with the people of Papua, had placed their hopes on the development acceleration unit to support the community in efforts to overcome the conflicts, by holding dialogues in the interests of the region's development.

Bambang Dharmono gained regional development experience when he helped rebuild a conflict-torn Aceh after the Helsinki peace pact.

Police accepted money from Freeport since 2001: ICW reports

Jakarta Post - November 1, 2011

Jakarta – The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) has reported payments of security funds by PT Freeport Indonesia to the police from 2001 to 2010 totaling around US$79.1 million.

"The money was basically illegal. Furthermore, the funds can be seen as a bribe because they were given without any legal grounds," ICW researcher Firdaus Ilyas said Tuesday, as quoted by tribunnews.com.

He said that his team had not investigated whether or not the money had flowed to the police chief, which could then be regarded as a gratuity. However, he was convinced that the money did not go through the Finance Ministry.

National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo had previously admitted that police officers in Papua had accepted money from Freeport, which he lightly regarded as mere "pocket money".

Firdaus, however, said that accepting money from external sources in return for security services was unacceptable for the police, as it was their duty to ensure order and security.

"State institutions are not allowed to accept money from anyone and from any institution or company," he said.

Political parties & elections

Government coalition at stake over threshold dispute

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – The review of the 2008 Legislative Elections Law has created opposing blocs in the government's coalition of political parties, which many saw as another challenge to its unity.

The four coalition parties, namely the National Awakening Party (PKB), the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the United Development Party (PPP), have grouped with the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Great Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) to form the so-called the "central axis".

Lawmakers from the four parties – except those from the PKS – previously showed strong commitment to defend the government's interests during numerous heated discussions at the House of Representatives.

As it comes to election regulations that will affect the parties' future after the end of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's second term in office, the coalition made tough statements opposing the government.

The government has proposed a legislative threshold of 4 percent for the 2014 polls while the central axis parties want the threshold to be set at 3 percent, arguing that a drastic increase could jeopardize democracy.

Yudhoyono's Democratic Party obviously supports government's proposal, but its biggest ally, the Golkar Party, shares similar aspirations to the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which instead wants the threshold to be set at 5 percent.

PKB legislator Abdul Malik Haramain suggested that the coalition's joint secretariat be disbanded.

"The secretariat was initially established to facilitate more intense communication between coalition parties, but it turns out to be only serving the interests of the bigger parties," Abdul said on Thursday.

PPP secretary-general M. Romahurmuziy shared Abdul's sentiment. "If the secretariat fails to settle this issue, I predict that it will not last through the end of 2012. Coalition parties would split," he said. Political observers agreed that the issue had created rifts among coalition parties and could be a "time-bomb" for the coalition.

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) political observer Syamsuddin Haris said the outspoken politicians from the coalition parties were actually looking for a compromise by raising public awareness.

"I personally agree that the 3 percent threshold will be the most suitable for the 2014 elections, but establishing the central axis was, I think, unnecessary," he said.

The top leader of each coalition party has signed a contract with President Yudhoyono that contained an agreement that the parties would support the President both in terms of government policy and political matters in the House.

Democratic Party senior lawmaker Jafar Hafsah, however, said that the threshold dispute had nothing to do with the coalition contracts. "The basic point stipulated in the contract was to support Yudhoyono's administration until 2014."

Speculation has emerged that Golkar and PDI-P's insistence at a 5 percent legislative threshold was aimed at preventing Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto, Gerindra's chief patron, from running for president. The former Kostrad (Army Strategic Reserves) commander has been listed among the three most popular presidential candidates by recent surveys.

Gerindra acquired 4.46 percent of the vote in the 2009 election.

Hadar Nafiz Gumay of the Center for Electoral Reform said: "I saw moves from bigger parties to engineer the articles to kick smaller parties for the sake of efficient democracy."

'Central axis' parties propose 3% parliamentary threshold

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Amid growing pressure from larger political parties, six medium-size parties have proposed increasing the parliamentary threshold to 3 percent in an upcoming revision of the general elections law.

Abdul Malik Haramin, a legislator of the National Awakening Party (PKB), which initiated the central axis coalition of six medium-sized parties – the PKB, National Mandate Party (PAN), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the United Development Party (PPP), the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Great Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) – said all of the parties wanted the threshold changed to 3 percent from the current 2.5 percent, as part of an ongoing review of the General Elections Law 2008.

"The establishment of the central axis is a reaction to the arrogance of big parties wanting the parliamentary threshold figure to become 4 percent or more," he said on Wednesday.

Small and big party factions at the working committee preparing the law revision have been at odds over the threshold figure, which currently stands at 2.5 percent.

The Democratic Party backed up by the government wants an increase to 4 percent while the Golkar Party and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) have proposed a 5 percent rate as a way to pursue a simpler multi- party system, to strengthen the presidential system and form an effective government.

In the 2009 legislative election, the Democratic Party earned the largest total vote, with 20.8 percent, while Golkar and the PDI-P garnered 14.45 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

The six small factions have proposed an increase of 0.5 percent to 3 percent to maintain pluralism and the representation of minor parties at the House of Representatives. Each of the six parties pocketed 3 to 8 percent of votes in 2009.

Representing barely 40 percent of the seats at the House, the central axis parties will likely be defeated by the three big parties in the threshold talks if they fail to convince other parties to join their cause.

PAN Deputy Chairman Viva Yoga Mauladi said the six parties would continue to seek political support from small parties to stand up to the larger ones. "We are consolidating our forces to fight for 3 percent," he said.

Golkar Deputy Chairman Priyo Budi Santoso denounced the mounting criticism, saying he appreciated the central axis' establishment, but added that all parties had to work hard in the coming three years to improve their performance ahead of the 2014 legislative elections.

"The big three have no guarantee that they will win more than 3 percent of House seats in 2014, therefore they have to work hard in the next three years. We are all starting from zero," he said. He said his party was ready to discuss an ideal threshold figure with other parties in the ruling coalition.

The battle for the minimum threshold is related to the presidential race in 2014.

General-turned-businessman Prabowo Subianto, who was recently declared a favorite by pollsters, is the chief patron of Gerindra. High-ranking politicians of the party have endorsed him as the sole candidate in the race. Prabowo is seen as a strong contender for 2014 along with businessman Aburizal Bakrie, an official candidate and party chairman of Golkar.

Aburizal said during the party's leadership meeting last week that his party would fight for an increase to 5 percent of the parliamentary threshold to strengthen the presidential system and avoid any ruling coalition in the future.

Saan Mustofa, secretary of the PD faction at the House, said his faction was open to further discussions with others to reach a consensus because the proposed 4 percent figure was "a fixed price". "The Democratic Party is open to further discussions with plausible reasons to reach a consensus," he said shortly.

The three big parties have also proposed that the parliamentary threshold be imposed not only at the House but also in provincial, regency and municipal legislatures.

Group of parties to oppose 4 percent voting threshold

Jakarta Post - November 2, 2011

Jakarta – Six mid-tier political parties formed a coalition in an effort to stop the government's proposal to set a legislative threshold in the 2014 election to 4 to 5 percent during the election bill amendment. The coalition is named as the Middle Axis political grouping.

Consisting of the National Mandate Party (PAN), Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), National Awakening Party (PKB), United development Party (PPP), the Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), and the People's Conscience Party (Hanura), the parties aim to set the threshold at three percent because they believe that the five percent limit will threaten their existence in the upcoming election.

National Mandate Party representative Viva Yoga Mauladi saw the increased legislative threshold as unconstitutional because it was not in line with the proportional system.

"The higher the threshold limit, the more votes will be uncounted because the votes could not be converted into seats. It will distance the election from the proportionality value," Viva said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Revisions of the election law are currently being deliberated at the House of Representatives. One item being discussed as a potential amendment is a decrease in the legislative threshold, which would allow a party to enter the House with representation of 2.5 percent.

Changes proposed to local elections

Jakarta Post - November 2, 2011

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The Association of Indonesian Regency Administrations (Apkasi) has called on the central government to directly finance local elections and phase out the second round ballot, for reasons of financial efficiency.

Apkasi chairman Isran Noor said in a recent discussion on the local election bill that the development of election infrastructure, including regional election bodies and numerous phases in local elections, had overburdened most regencies.

"Most regencies have proposed that the central government take over the financing of local elections through the state budget," he said.

The House of Representatives is still reviewing the Law on Direct Local Elections to make the organizing of local elections more efficient.

Isran, regent of East Kutai in East Kalimantan, argued that local elections should not be covered by the regional budget because they would be integrated into the general election regime.

"The long phases in local elections, the emergence of numerous independent candidates and the second round, in cases of an absence of a majority victory, have overburdened the budget of regencies," he said.

The Home Ministry's director of regional autonomy affairs, Djohermansyah Djohan, said that the central government had no authority to take over the financing of local elections, which were an integral part of regional autonomy.

"With regional autonomy, regencies are required to hold local elections to elect their own chief to deal with their own domestic affairs. Therefore, local elections have to be covered by the regional budget," he said.

He admitted that local elections were an integral part of general elections but that they were regulated by a special law. Djohermansyah also said that the second round was unavoidable in the case that no majority victory was established in the first round. "Democracy is more valuable than money," he added.

Chairman of the House's Commission II on domestic governance, regional autonomy, state apparatus and agrarian affairs, Chaeruman Harahap denounced increasing complaints against high cost local elections and said that democracy could not be measured with money.

Public opinion & surveys

Large majority of Indonesians are still proud of motherland

Jakarta Globe - November 1, 2011

Despite widely held grievances against corruption, a growing culture of violence and rising intolerance, the vast majority of Indonesians are proud of who they are, according to the results of a survey released on Monday.

The poll by the Developing Country Study Center Indonesia showed that 83 percent of respondents polled said they were proud to be Indonesian.

Only 6 percent of respondents said they were not proud to be Indonesian, while 11 percent said they were unsure. The survey was conducted by DCSC Indonesia to gauge public perception regarding nationalism in conjunction with the anniversary of the Youth Pledge on Oct. 28 and National Heroes' Day, on Nov. 10.

Zaenal A. Budiyono, the executive director of the study center, said the majority of respondents claiming to be proud Indonesians were proud because the country was their motherland, while others reveled in the fact that the country was rich in natural resources. Some 12 percent reported being proud of the nation's diversity.

"This point on diversity should be brought to the attention of the government and the political elite, to show them that Indonesians really do view their country as being historically a nation that respects diversity," Zaenal said.

He added that current threats to diversity and tolerance should thus be seen as serious issues and immediately resolved to ensure the continued integrity of the state.

Asked which persons or institutions made them proudest to be Indonesian, respondents cited political leaders (21 percent), famous athletes (14 percent) and noted artists (13 percent) among their inspirations.

"It has to be acknowledged that the ranks of inspirational figures are no longer dominated by the likes of politicians, officials, diplomats or the military," Zaenal said.

"The public now sees athletes as a major source of pride. So it's no wonder that every time the national football team plays a game, the feeling of nationalism vividly comes to the surface."

Despite the overall feeling of pride in the country, there was not as much optimism in the respondents' view of the country's current situation and its future prospects. Only 53 percent said they approved of the direction the country was headed in, while 40 percent disapproved.

Lili Romli, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said this was cause for the government to be concerned.

"Those who don't approve are outnumbered by those who do, but they make up a large figure notwithstanding," he said. "It's up to the government, law enforcement agencies and politicians to improve, so that there is greater optimism among the people about the country's future."

Responses on the Jakarta Globe's Facebook page to the survey also reflected a sense of pride in the country, but not in its management.

"I am very proud to be Indonesian, but sometimes I am deeply embarrassed by the behavior of some Indonesians (read: government)," Herdian Nugroho wrote.

Istanto Kumbara wrote: "I am proud of Indonesia as my native land.. but a BIG NO to the government.. No offence."

Other questioned the findings. "Political elites score highly. And at the same time they are the main cause of why we are being ashamed. The irony couldn't be greater," Calvin de Wilde said. (Antara, JG)

Labour & migrant workers

Indonesian diplomats blame migrant workers for harming nation's image

Jakarta Globe - November 4, 2011

The presence of Indonesian domestic workers in the Middle East negatively impacts on the country's image, a group of Indonesian ambassadors allege.

The statement has drawn immediate condemnation from a nongovernmental organization championing the rights of workers, which blasted the ambassadors as "feudal, lazy and irresponsible."

Mahfudz Siddik, chairman of House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I for Foreign Affairs, said on Friday that he had received a report from a commission delegation currently in Rabat, Morrocco.

Speaking during a commission meeting, Mahfudz said the report that a number of Indonesian ambassadors in the Middle East believed that Indonesian workers, known as TKI, affected the nation's "diplomatic position."

"This is the crystallized view of a number of ambassadors in the countries with a lot of Indonesian domestic workers," Mahfudz said at the meeting. "They complained that not only are they preoccupied with having to solve problems but the condition also compromises their diplomatic positions and roles."

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) legislator singled out the ambassadors of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates as claiming the presence of domestic workers had damaged the credibility of Indonesian citizens and embassy staff in the eyes of locals.

"The Indonesian ambassadors for Jordan and United Arab Emirate told us of the unpleasant experiences of their wives and female staff of the Indonesian Embassies there – that they were not well treated by locals," he said.

Lita Anggraeni, from the National Network for Domestic Workers Advocacy (Jala PRT), said it was clear the ambassadors discriminated against migrant workers.

"Can they [the Indonesian ambassadors] work without housemaids? Including the president, the ministers and the lawmakers, can they work without housemaids?" Lita said.

She demanded President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono take action against ambassadors who lacked a basic understanding of their functions and roles. "It is those discriminative, feudal, lazy and irresponsible ambassadors who caused our migrant workers to be unprotected and became victims of violence," Lita said.

Workers demand pay raise

Jakarta Post - November 2, 2011

Bandung – Around 150 workers who say they are members of the Indonesian Labor Movement (KASBI) union, staged a rally demanding 100 percent wage increases next year.

Wearing red shirts, the workers protested by making speeches accompanied with traditional music and a poster that said, "raise wages 100 percent".

Rally coordinator Sudyanto said employees' basic wages had not risen significantly over the years, with the increase during the 2009-2011 period recorded at only 6 percent. "It's truly not offsetting the ever-increasing basic cost of living, which has gone up between 20 and 40 percent.

KASBI said that the minimum pay for workers in West Java should increase by 40 percent next year to meet their basic needs. "The expected rise would be the minimum pay needed to meet families' needs. If we want a normal standard of living then the increase must be 100 percent," he said.

He decried the fact that a 2005 ministerial decree on workers' pay was an impediment to higher wages.

"The decree only regulates payment for non-married workers. The decree is not offering a solution to help workers achieve decent standard of living," he said, adding that Governor Ahmad Heryawan must address the 100 percent pay raise.

Health & education

Indonesian activists demand officials move forward with new tobacco rules

Jakarta Globe - November 3, 2011

Dessy Sagita – With the Health Law now legally in force, antismoking activists are pushing for the government to issue the necessary regulations to bring a contentious clause on tobacco into force.

"Thank God, the Constitutional Court judges still have a conscience," said Hakim Sorimuda Pohan, an antitobacco activist and former lawmaker. "With the tobacco clause now strengthened, the government no longer has a reason to delay the implementing regulations."

An implementing regulation on tobacco should have been issued in 2010, a year after the passage of the 2009 Health Law, but has run into repeated delays. Both supporters and opponents of the clause filed for judicial reviews with the Constitutional Court.

"There should no longer be any debates over trivialities as the law is legally binding," Hakim said.

Among the main points of contention was the size of the image depicting a tobacco-related disease that would be put on the side of cigarette packs. Under the Health Law, cigarette producers and importers must place pictorial warnings on packs or face a fine of up to Rp 500 million ($58,000).

The Health Ministry proposed in a draft regulation that the warnings should cover at least 50 percent of the surface area of each cigarette pack. However, the tobacco industry wanted to shrink the images to 30 percent of the pack, or simply not have them at all.

According to activists, the government had pointed to the Constitutional Court and the unresolved request for a judicial review as one of the reasons the regulation was delayed.

Tulus Abadi, managing director of the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI), said in August that his group would push the government to implement the regulation as drafted by the ministry.

"Written warnings are not effective," he said. "We need something stronger to convince people that smoking is deadly. We will do whatever it takes to make sure the pictures will not get smaller or be deleted, and we will fight for this regulation to be issued immediately because it is already nearly two years late."

Kartono Muhammad, an antitobacco activist and former chairman of the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI), dismissed the argument that the court decision would benefit foreign interests.

"If they say the verdict will kill local products and smooth the way for imports, that is nonsense," he said,.

He said imported cigarettes had long been here and that if local producers, especially small-scale ones, had to close down it was not because of regulations but because they could not compete.

Hakim said the issue was not about local or foreign production.

"It is now time for us to stop promoting and selling poison. It has nothing to do with foreigners," he said.

The government has shown a reluctance to impose strict controls on tobacco, an industry that generates significant tax revenue and is one of the nation's major employers.

Children & domestic violence

Measures to protect children from sex exploitation 'still weak'

Jakarta Globe - November 4, 2011

Made Arya Kencana, Denpasar – Measures to protect children against sexual exploitation remain weak, Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Linda Sari Gumelar said on Friday.

"We are still weak in documenting cases of child prostitution. The cases [documented] are just the tip of the iceberg," she said at a regional seminar on child sexual exploitation in Kuta, Bali.

The minister did not disclose how many cases of child prostitution her ministry or other agencies had recorded.

However, data from End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children (Ecpat) show up to 70,000 children in Indonesia may have fallen victim to sexual exploitation. "Poverty and a low level of education have forced a great number of children to be sexually exploited," said Ahmad Sofian, Ecpat's Indonesian coordinator.

The group says the majority of victims are from West, Central and East Java, West Kalimantan and North Sumatra. In many cases, the children are promised work as domestic workers but end up in prostitution dens.

More than 3,900 children here have fallen victim to human trafficking in the first half of the year, according to the International Organization for Migration. The country tops the UN body's list of child trafficking cases.

Parents slam police behavior in molester case

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Many parents of the girls allegedly molested by a Koran recital teacher at Ibtidaiyah Al Marfuah Islamic school in Kebon Bawang, North Jakarta, are ready to drop their complaints due to "insensitive" police investigators, according to one parent.

Officers from Women's and Children's Protection Unit (UPPA) of the North Jakarta Police questioned on Wednesday five students who alleged that their Koran recital teacher molested them.

The girls were later taken to Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in Central Jakarta for evaluation by a physician and completion of forensic medical evaluation reports (VER) for police.

The 72-year-old teacher, identified as KC, allegedly sexually assaulted more than 30 aged 7- to 9-year-old female students.

Several parents said they were "annoyed" with the investigation, claiming that officers had been asking the girls personal and irrelevant questions.

"The women police officers asked the children about the physical shape of the perpetrator. They also asked the girls to demonstrate how [the assaults] happened," Nuri, a parent who declined to use her real name, said at North Jakarta Police headquarters on Thursday.

"When the children demonstrated how it happened, I was shocked and felt faint," said another parent who accompanied her daughter for questioning.

Most parents were reportedly uncomfortable with how the police were conducting the investigation and would not continue legal proceedings, Nuri said. "But I will do whatever it takes and take the risk because I want justice. I have gone this far, I am not going to step back," she said.

Marlina, a Women's Aspiration Foundation representative who has been assisting the victims, said parents were worried that the police would not forward the case to prosecutors if they declined to have their children questioned by investigators.

"The process has been tough. Some people have also intimidated parents, saying that if the doctor's report did not support their allegations, they would be sued," she said.

Marlina said that many residents had long been suspicious of the teacher but chose not to speak up as he was an influential figure in the neighborhood. "KC is also a religious leader, a former subdistrict head, as well as an adviser for a political party. No one would dare to oppose him," she said.

Marlina said KC had been detained by the North Jakarta Police last month after a parent filed a complaint alleging that his child had been sexually assaulted by the teacher.

However, the police arranged an out-of-court settlement, requiring KC to admit to deviant behavior and requiring him sign an agreement to be released, she said.

"The agreement said he was not allowed to lead mass prayers or teach and he had to move away and close the school temporarily. He had to apologize to the parents as well."

Tumbu Saraswati from the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), said that shoddy investigation of sex crimes was a second trauma for victims. "More than 30 victim statements are more than enough evidence. However, the [VER] report is important too." (swd)

Graft & corruption

Government considering disbanding anti-corruption courts

Jakarta Globe - November 5, 2011

The Indonesian government says it is considering disbanding regional Anti- Corruption Courts following a number of verdicts where corruption suspects have been cleared.

Denny Indrayana, the deputy justice and human rights minister, said on Saturday that ministry officials had held talks with members of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) about reverting to a centralized Anti-Corruption Court in Jakarta. He said the decision related to a number of controversial verdicts.

In the latest case, an antigraft court in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, acquitted four of the 15 graft defendants on Oct. 1 in a case of embezzlement of operation funds of the Kutai Kartanegara district budget worth Rp 2.98 billion ($334,000).

And an antigraft court in Bandung recently acquitted the suspended mayor of Bekasi, even though other courts had already found his underlings guilty of corruption in related cases.

Denny said the ministry was discussing and analyzing the possibility of disbanding the regional courts. The Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court has never delivered a not guilty verdict.

KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas said on Thursday that the regional courts needed to be evaluated without delay. Outspoken Constitutional Court chief Mahfud M.D. has been more direct on the issue, calling for the courts outside Jakarta to be disbanded.

He said regional judges were often underperformers who lacked knowledge about the law and were poorly supervised. KPK deputy chairman Bibit Samad Rianto said the 2009 law was at the core of the problem and needed to be reviewed.

He said that while it was true that monitoring regional courts was difficult, without them, the central Anti-Corruption Court would be overwhelmed. (Antara/JG)

Scrap antigraft courts in regions: Mahfud

Jakarta Globe - November 5, 2011

Agus Triyono & Ezra Sihite – Constitutional Court chief Mahfud M.D. said on Friday that anticorruption courts outside Jakarta should be disbanded and their cases handled by regular courts.

"The anticorruption courts in the regions are damaging [to the fight against corruption] and they seem to consider corruption as a normal thing," Mahfud said.

He said anticorruption courts in the regions did a poor job of prosecuting suspects, resulting in numerous acquittals. Their judges, he said, also lacked a deep knowledge of the law.

Judges at the anticorruption courts in the regions were often underperformers and lobbied people to get their job, he said. Mahfud said supervision of the courts was weak, making it easier for collusion to take place.

A public outcry has greeted the recent acquittals of graft suspects by anticorruption courts outside the capital.

The network of antigraft courts was established following the passage of the 2009 Law on Anti-Corruption Courts.

The law was prompted by a 2006 Constitutional Court ruling that called the Anti-Corruption Court in Jakarta unconstitutional because it was established under the Law on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) instead of having a separate legal basis.

"The Constitutional Court did not order the establishment [of antigraft courts] in the regions," Mahfud said. The demand for forming courts in the regions, he said, was the results of "the House [of Representatives] and the government being creative."

Mahfud said he was in favor of the Anti-Corruption Court being centralized in Jakarta. In the regions, he said, corruption cases could be heard by local courts using the Anti-Corruption Law.

Senior KPK figure M. Jasin agreed that the capital, where the process for recruiting judges was more stringent, was the only place suitable for the court.

KPK deputy chairman Bibit Samad Rianto said the 2009 law was at the core of the problem and needed to be reviewed. He said that while it was true that monitoring regional courts was difficult, without them, the central Anti- Corruption Court would be overwhelmed.

Martin Hutabarat, from House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, said an analysis was needed before deciding whether to disband the courts in the regions.

[Additional reporting Rizky Amelia, Ulma Haryanto & Anita Rachman.]

ICW reveals 40 acquittals by regional anti-graft courts

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2011

Jakarta – The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) reveals that there have been 40 acquittals of corruption defendants by regional anti-corruption courts since their establishment.

Emerson Yuntho of the ICW said that the recorded 40 acquittals consisted of four cases in the Bandung court, one in Semarang, fourteen in Samarinda and 21 in Surabaya.

He said that the abundance of graft defendants able to walk free of charges should be a concern to the Law and Human Rights Ministry.

He added that he was worried the trend would increase following tighter issuance of remission and parole for convicted corruptors.

According to Emerson, special treatment for corruption convicts did not only occur in courts but was also evident in prisons, where there are separate cells for corruptors.

"I don't understand why they have special cell for corruptors. Why not put them together [with other prisoners]?" he said Saturday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Ex-constitutional court chief calls for evaluation of regional judges

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2011

Jakarta – Former Constitutional Court chief Jimly Asshiddiqie has urged the Supreme Court (MA) to evaluate the performance of interim judges at regional anti-corruption courts, following the recent surge in the number of acquittals handed down by the courts.

"If they can't be controlled, then the Supreme Court has to immediately evaluate the human resources and judges in the regional courts," he said on Saturday, as quoted by kompas.com.

The regional anti-graft courts have come in for fierce criticism after a rising number of corruption defendants have been allowed to walk free.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) revealed that regional courts have acquitted up to 40 defendants over the past year.

The latest case of graft-defendant acquittals saw the Samarinda anti-graft court release fourteen regional lawmakers allegedly involved in the embezzlement of state funds worth Rp 2.98 billion.

The high number of judges ruling graft defendants innocent was a worry that Jimly said needed to be addressed by the Supreme Court.

"So the Supreme Court must pay serious attention to these matters by evaluating and tightening up judicial selection in regions," he said.

Supreme Court rejects recall of graft courts

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2011

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – The Supreme Court rejected calls to revoke regional graft courts on Friday, voicing concerns over legal process and potential resources lost to alter anticorruption measures.

Court justice Djoko Sarwoko said that such requests would hamper the legal process for graft suspects and waste resources that the government had spent for the establishment of local courts.

"Wouldn't it be another waste of state money? We have spent more than Rp 8 billion (about US$1 million) to recruit the ad hoc corruption judges," said Djoko, who also leads the court's internal monitoring body.

At least 40 corruption defendants have been acquitted by four regional corruption courts since the beginning of this year. Topping the list is the Surabaya Corruption Court in East Java, which released 21 corruption defendants.

The most significant public outcry, however, was triggered by the Bandung Corruption Court in West Java, which acquitted the first defendant coming from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

The court controversially acquitted Bekasi Mayor Mochtar Mohamad last month. Mochtar had been detained by the KPK on multiple counts of graft, including attempted bribery of Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) officials and conspiracy to pay members of the Bekasi Legislative Council to accelerate the approval of the city budget proposal.

Mochtar's acquittal shocked the KPK, which previously had a clean sheet in sending corruption suspects to jail since its establishment in 2003.

All eyes have been on the regional courts ever since, questioning the impartiality and professionalism of local judges.

"Regional corruption courts have turned out to be worse than regular courts. [Among them] the idea to freeze or even disband the corruption courts has become logical," Constitutional Court chief justice Mahfud MD said on Friday.

It was the 2009 Corruption Court Law that ordered the establishment of local corruption courts. The law mandates the Supreme Court establish the courts down to municipality and regency levels.

Within two years, the Supreme Court managed to establish 33 corruption courts in all 33 provincial capitals in the country and recruited 192 ad hoc corruption judges.

"What we have done is merely fulfill the 2009 mandate. If you want to stop [establishing regional corruption courts], then change the law first," court spokesman Hatta Ali said.

House of Representatives' law and human rights commission member Bambang Soesatyo said revising the Corruption Court Law would be like "shattering a mirror when you see your face is ugly."

"A corruption trial is only one part of the entire judicial process. What we need is a complete evaluation, including investigation and prosecution by the KPK. A judge may have acquitted a defendant because the prosecutors' indictment is weak," he said.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) activist Donal Fariz said that evaluating the recruitment process should be the main target of the courts' review.

"We demand a complete evaluation in three major aspects, namely the mechanism for recruiting judges, evaluating the capacity of the current judges and monitoring measures," he said.

Djoko acknowledged that the impartiality and integrity of the ad hoc judges might be questioned. "Most of the applicants had backgrounds as lawyers. When they become judges, they must reverse their judicial mentality," he said.

ICW coordinator Febri Diansyah proposed that the number of regional corruption courts be reduced to only five.

"The House of Representatives may immediately initiate a revision of the 2009 Corruption Law or the President could issue a regulation-in-lieu-of- law [Perppu] to provide a legal umbrella and certainty during the revision processes," he said.

State-owned housing facilities 'traded in' by civil servants

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2011

Jakarta – The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has revealed its findings that many civil servants of various ranks have been trading their housing facilities illegally.

KPK deputy chairman Haryono Umar told reporters on Friday that the antigraft body had recovered Rp 2,876 billion (US$336,000) in potential losses from the "trading" of 681 state-owned houses.

The infringement was initially detected in a public official's full asset statement (LHKPN) in 2008. After the KPK investigated further, based on the statement, it discovered that the sale and purchase of state-owned houses had been rampant among civil servants in receipt of state housing facilities in 20 ministries and state-owned enterprises both in the capital and in the regions.

"We have been cooperating with ministries and state-owned enterprises to clamp down on the violations and reclaiming the properties which have already been sold," Haryono said.

LHKPN official Adlinsyah M. Nasution explained that the trading practices violated Presidential Decree No. 40/1994 which stipulated that state housing facilities could not be traded.

However, Haryono said that in practice the trade could not be categorized as a crime.

"Mostly they [civil servants] did it because they felt comfortable using the facilities, while some others did it because, as they had been working as civil servants for quite some time, it was their right," he said.

Haryono said that the civil servants who had indulged in such practices were not only those in the lower levels but even those who were already at the top level. He called on the regulation on state assets to be made clearer in the future to prevent such practices recurring.

"Assets which clearly belong to the state should be returned. In this case, the Finance Ministry should be more proactive in controlling the state assets because they are the ones who administer them," said Haryono.

The KPK's success in recovering the state assets, however, will not necessarily stop the practices from happening again.

Adlinsyah said there were many housing facilities which were currently under negotiation. He also said with some other houses that had already been traded the deals were now in the process of being revoked.

Haryono said that he had found that there were 16,000 housing facilities belonging to the state railway company PT KAI which were illegally inhabited by low-income families.

"We have asked PT KAI to handle the problem. However, considering that the illegal occupants are from poorer families, we must use more humane solutions [to deal with it]."

Haryono said other cases that should be put under the spotlight were, for instance, houses belonging to state-owned enterprises along Jl. Dago, Bandung, that had been converted into business entities. (rpt)

Tax officials named suspects in graft case

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2011

Jakarta – Amid ongoing tax reform within the Finance Ministry's directorate general for taxation, another debacle has shaken the office's credibility after the Attorney General's Office (AGO) named two of its officials as graft suspects in a software procurement project scandal on Thursday.

The AGO said the officials, identified as B and PS, who were committee members in the procurement project of a taxation information system in 2006, in which they allegedly took part in the misappropriation of Rp 12 billion (US$1.34 million) in state budget funds.

Directorate general spokesperson Dedi Rudaedi said the case was discouraging. "However, we take the case as a lesson to learn from and also as motivation to improve services," he said.

Dedi stressed that his office supported the case investigation, saying that he hoped all details would be clearly disclosed.

The AGO had previously questioned the directorate general's commitment in eradicating corruption, saying that the office "did not show good intentions" and "was too slow to respond to investigators' requests for supporting documents".

AGO investigative director for the special crimes division, Arnold Angkouw said that the directorate general refused to provide documents related to the allegations.

The AGO, which raided the office on Thursday, said that several related documents had been moved to the West Jakarta Tax Office.

"We did not attempt to hide any documents from the investigators," Dedi said. "We are actually rearranging our archives and the process has not yet been completed."

Dedi said that his office would impose fair punishments if the two officials were found guilty. "We are following the investigative process," he said.

Allegations of corrupt practices among tax officials are not new, despite the launch of a series of tax reforms in 2005. The reforms, initiated under the leadership of director general Hadi Purnomo, uphold several agendas, including corruption eradication.

In February, judges at the South Jakarta District Court sentenced former tax officer Bahasyim Assifie to 10 years in prison for corruption. Bahasyim, who filed an appeal in an attempt to plea for a sentence reduction, received an additional two years instead.

Judges found Bahasyim guilty of violating the 2001 Law on Corruption and the 2003 Law on Money Laundering.

Bahasyim was unable to prove the source of funds amounting to more than Rp 60 billion and $681,487 that he had channeled to several accounts belonging to his wife and children.

At the same time, judges in the same court handed down seven years imprisonment to tax officer Gayus Tambunan in May. Similar to Bahasyim, Gayus, who filed an appeal in an attempt to receive a lighter sentence, was given an additional three years.

Gayus was given a 10-year prison term and was asked to pay Rp 300 million in fines.

Gayus was found guilty of bribing judge Muhtadi Asnun, police officer Comr. Arafat Enanie, conspiring with businessman Andi Kosasih to create a fake agreement to unfreeze Gayus' Rp 28 billion bank account and issuing inaccurate judgments on tax objections filed by PT Surya Alam Tunggal. (lfr)

KPK wants review of regional antigraft courts

Jakarta Globe - November 4, 2011

Rizky Amelia – The chairman of the country's anticorruption commission spoke on Thursday of the need to take stock of antigraft courts in the regions following recent acquittals in cases they handled.

"This needs to be evaluated first, from the management angle, and this should not be delayed," Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Busyro Muqoddas said.

The review, Busyro said, should be conducted by the Supreme Court as the institution overseeing the judges.

"The Supreme Court has the obligation to conduct the evaluation," he said. "It can do that by itself, but it would be much better if it coordinated with the Judicial Commission."

He also said that other institutions, such as universities and antigraft watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch, should also be involved because they had experts in the field.

While KPK prosecutors boast a nearly 100 percent record of successful prosecutions in the Anti-Corruption Court in Jakarta, the case is different in the rest of the nation, where acquittals of graft suspects are the norm.

The four acquitted were all suspended district councilors. An antigraft court in Bandung recently acquitted the suspended mayor of Bekasi, even though other courts had already found his underlings guilty of corruption in related cases.

Under the current anticorruption law, antigraft courts must be set up in each district and municipality. Critics, however, have pointed out that the integrity of the courts relies heavily on the quality of its judges and that the credibility of judges in general is low in the public eye.

Busyro also said that the withdrawal of a draft revision of the 1999 Law on Corruption Eradication from the hands of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono came at the behest of the KPK.

Justice and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin announced on Tuesday that his ministry had withdrawn the draft bill in order to review and strengthen it.

The bill was in the last stage before going to the House of Representatives for deliberation, but Busyro said there were still several points of contention that needed to be addressed.

"For example, the matter of capital punishment and standard clauses on social sanctions," Busyro said.

The KPK also objected to the clause that defined cases of corruption able to be investigated as only those involving at least Rp 25 million.

"If this restriction is not eliminated, there could be corruption involving just Rp 5 million time and time again," he said. "That would be demoralizing."

The new draft also made possible weaker punishments for those found guilty of bribing law enforcers and the criminalization of whistleblowers in corruption cases. Furthermore, the KPK's authority in indicting corruption suspects was unclear.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Yusuf, chairman of the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), on Thursday encouraged the KPK to also use the money-laundering law to deal with corruption cases.

Yusuf said the law provided for various actions that could be used to prosecute both money-launderers and recipients.

Supreme Court must re-evaluate regional graft courts: ICW

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Jakarta – Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) has urged the Supreme Court to re-evaluate its plan to set up regional graft across the country following the recent acquittal of four graft defendants by a panel of judges at Samarinda Corruption Court.

"We must think this over; whether we want to build graft courts in every [province], or if we should regroup them in some cities to enable better monitoring," Emerson Yuntho of ICW said Friday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Emerson added that regional graft courts had been a disappointment in terms of their ability to contribute to corruption eradication, since the courts had released many graft defendants.

Disband regional corruption courts: Constitutional Court

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Jakarta – Constitutional Court justice chief Mahfud MD says that regional anticorruption courts should be disbanded as they do more harm than good.

"We need to start thinking about getting rid of regional anticorruption courts and have their function returned to normal district courts," Mahfud told reporters on Friday, as quoted by antara.com.

He said that the regional courts had proven counter-productive to the country's fight against corruption. "Regional antigraft courts actually do more damage, and consider corruption as something acceptable," he said.

He added that the regional courts' weakness was down to its poor recruitment system. "In regions sometimes an unemployed person can take tests, lobby here and there and end up being made an antigraft court interim judge. The monitoring is weak, the collusion is easy and the selection system careless," he said.

Mahfud hoped that there would only be one single anticorruption court in the country and assured that the removal of regional courts would not go against any law or Constitutional Court ruling.

Fishy uni projects 'may be linked to House'

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Jakarta – The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) says that it is investigation procurement projects at five universities that may be linked to the House of Representatives' budgetary commission.

KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas said that his office had questioned I Wayan Koster, a lawmaker from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) who was also a member of the House's budget commission, as his testimony as a member of both affiliations was needed. "[His role in those two institutions] cannot be separated," he said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Koster underwent KPK questioning in an investigation into dubious procurements of laboratory equipment at five universities commissioned by the Education Ministry in 2010.

The five universities are Jakarta State University (UNJ); Sriwijaya University in Palembang, South Sumatra; Jenderal Soedirman University in Purwokerto, Central Java; Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University in Banten and University of Malang in East Java.

Busyro added that the KPK would first decide whether it was necessary to summon other members of the budget commission.

Koster once underwent KPK questioning for an investigation into a different high-profile bribery case centering on a construction project for the upcoming SEA Games. KPK questioned him as a witness in the case, in which former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin was a suspect.

Police 'can be jailed' for gratuities

Jakarta Post - November 1, 2011

Jakarta – Police officers who accept gifts are breaking the law and can be prosecuted for corruption, according to a legal expert.

Yenti Garnasih, a criminal law and money laundering expert from Trisakti University, told The Jakarta Post on Monday that any civil servant who accepted money or any type of gift could be charged under the 2001 Corruption Law.

"If the benefactor demands something from the police or military officers by giving money, then it can be categorized as bribery, which is unlawful," Yenti said. Further, officials who accepted money or gifts without an explicit request for service from a benefactor were also guilty of accepting bribes, he said.

Questions about police ethics emerged on Friday, when National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said officers guarding Freeport's operations in Papua received "meal money" from the US-based mining giant, calling the practice justifiable and acceptable given the "exceptionally difficult circumstances" faced by officers in the province.

Freeport stated in a recently released financial report that it allotted a whopping US$14 million for government-provided security measures, specifically mentioning the National Police and the Indonesian Military (TNI) as recipients.

The 2002 National Police Law stipulates that officers are not allowed to receive any form of gifts, whether directly or indirectly related to the conduct of their duty.

Adnan Pandu Praja, a legal expert and member of the National Police Commission (Kompolnas), said the practice of accepting gratuities was "understandable", even if technically illegal.

Low-ranking police officers could not live on their official salaries of about Rp 636,000 ($71.80) to Rp 841,000 a month, Adnan said. "There are many big companies that utilize the police to secure their projects. [Freeport] is just the tip of the iceberg," he added.

Natsir Kongah, a spokesperson for the Financial Transaction Reporting and Analysis Centre (PPATK), said that PPATK was ready to investigate the flow of Freeport's payments if there were strong indications of "suspicious" transactions.

Separately, Corruption Eradication Commission spokesperson Johan Budi said that the KPK would first determine if the payments made by Freeport to protect its operations were included as part of contracts with the central or local government.

"If the payment is official, then there should be an audit. The Supreme Audit Agency [BPK] or the Development Supervisory Agency [BPKP] should have the data," he said. Johan said the KPK would not rush an investigation. "If the funds turn out to be official, then we cannot not deem them a gratuity."

National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution said that the police were ready for any investigation. "We are ready to be held accountable for the money," Saud said. (sat)

New minister promises not to parole Paskah, other graft convicts

Jakarta Post - November 1, 2011

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – The Law and Human Rights Ministry has quashed Paskah Suzetta's hopes of walking out of prison on parole.

The former national development planning minister, who is eligible for release after completing two-thirds of his sentence, is one of a host of former and current politicians incarcerated for accepting bribes in the Bank Indonesia vote-buying scandal.

"Since my deputy [Denny Indrayana] and I took office, we have never freed anyone on parole except for [former lawmaker] Agus Condro," Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin told reporters on Monday.

Agus said that the ministry would temporarily ban paroles and sentence reductions that would free inmates convicted of corruption or terrorism, except in the case of whistle-blowers or those cooperating with officials on other cases.

The exception that Amir, who replaced Patrialis Akbar in the Oct. 19 Cabinet reshuffle, was referring to was Agus Condro Prayitno, who told authorities about travelers' checks given to dozens of lawmakers prior to them casting votes for Miranda S. Goeltom as a Bank Indonesia senior deputy governor in 2009.

"It's their right to request [paroles and remissions], but we are determined to temporarily suspend such mechanisms. That is our policy," Amir said. "This is in line with the spirit of justice."

Earlier, Paskah's lawyer, Singap Panjaitan, claimed that his client deserved to be paroled and released on Sunday after competing two-thirds of his sentence.

Paskah was sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment after he was found guilty of accepting 12 travelers' checks worth Rp 600 million (US$68,400) that were allegedly paid to install Miranda at the central bank in 2004.

A court handed down guilty verdicts on Paskah, nine other Golkar lawmakers and 18 former lawmakers from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), including Agus Condro; the United Development Party (PPP); and the now-defunct Army/Police faction.

Agus was released on parole last week after serving two-thirds of his 15- month sentence.

However, an official at Cipinang Penitentiary confirmed on Monday that Paskah had not been released. "We have definitely not paroled him," Cipinang warden Suharman said.

Separately, Denny Indrayana, a presidential special assistant for legal affairs, said his office would soon be ready with a new government regulation to address paroles and sentence reductions, which effectively imposed a moratorium on the practices.

The Corrections Law stipulates that inmates have the right to be freed on parole or by remission if they meet the requirements of the government's 2006 Regulation on Procedures for Inmate Rights.

Akhiar Salmi, a criminal law expert at the University of Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post that imposing a moratorium without a clear implementation regulation might lead to problems. However, he added, no revision of the Corrections Law would be required.

"Instead of revising the law, the ministry can just revoke the existing government regulation as an implementing rule and change it without freeing corruption and terrorism convicts," he said, adding that it would be automatically rule out freeing the inmates on remission or parole.

"It will be easy as they need no consent from the House to make such an implementing regulation," he said.

Singap said that it would be unfair to delay his client's parole due to the moratorium.

"They must introduce such postponements of paroles or remissions into the law, instead of using a moratorium," he said.

Singap added that Paskah's Golkar colleagues – who also received 16-month sentences for the same crime – deserved to be paroled, as they also have completed two-thirds of their prison terms. (rpt)

Government backs KPK powers, weighs minimum terms for graft convicts

Jakarta Post - November 1, 2011

Jakarta – The government intends to retain the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) authority, in the midst of a House of Representatives initiative to revise the 2002 Corruption Eradication Law as well as the Corruption Court Law.

"It is clear that we [the ministry] do not support any attempts which could cripple the KPK, their powers such as wiretapping should be preserved while the plan to give the KPK authority to issue letters ordering a halt to investigations (SP3) should not go ahead," Legal and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsudin told a press conference on Monday.

He said that the ministry was considering strengthening rules to raise penalties for corruption convicts in line with public aspirations.

Mochtar Zainal Arifin, an anti-corruption observer, said that the KPK's authority to wiretap should be retained because corruption could be categorized as an extraordinary crime that required tactical measures such as wiretapping.

He added that the SP3 authority should not be added to KPK's authority in order to maintain the commission's investigative qualities. "We should not add SP3 in order to ensure KPK discretion in investigating cases," he said.

Plans to revise the anti-corruption law have been discussed since 2008 but had been shelved. However the idea has been resurrected recently after the House and the KPK became embroiled in a political argument concerning allegations of manipulation of the state budget in the House.

Antigraft activists have criticized the revision plan, saying that the revision process had been used to hamper corruption eradication efforts. Deputy Minister Denny Indrayana confirmed that the ministry's position was to empower KPK and he would only endorse revisions if they were compatible with the corruption eradication agenda.

He further explained that the ministry and the KPK had agreed to cooperate in creating a revision formula of the anti-corruption laws. "We will involve KPK all way through in the revision formulation process," he said.

Denny said that the Constitutional Court had denied all 14 judicial review proposals on the anti-corruption law, saying that it did not conflict with the Constitution.

He added that they also considered plans on corruption court functions, whether it was most effective keeping the corruption court centralized in Jakarta, or possibly creating five corruption courts for each Jakarta district or maybe expanding it further by creating branches at regional level.

KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas added that during the discussions, the ministry had proposed adding several provisions into the law such as five year minimum sentences for corruption case convicts. The existing law on KPK stipulates the minimum punishment for corruption convicts as one year.

Convicts in the bribery case linked to the election of former Bank Indonesia governor Miranda Goeltom at the House of Representatives gets 15 to 20 months of jail term.

The lightest is for Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) legislator Agus Tjondro, who gets only 15 months and already being released. He was the whistle-blower in the case.

In the latest development, the House of Representatives Commission III overseeing legal affairs has postponed the deliberation of the revisions because it is currently in recess.

The lawmakers said that they would be ready to discuss the revisions with the government after two plenary-session phases, which would likely be in 2012. (rpt)

Terrorism & religious extremism

10 militants on trial in Indonesian bomb plots

Associated Press - November 3, 2011

Jakarta, Indonesia – Ten suspected militants have gone on trial for allegedly planning to bomb an Indonesian church before Easter mass and to film the inferno for broadcast.

They are also charged with sending mail bombs – none of them deadly – to several of the country's moderate Muslims and police earlier this year. The 10 defendants were each being tried separately at the West Jakarta District Court.

Authorities in April recovered explosives planted beneath a gas pipeline near 3,000-seat Christ Cathedral Church outside the capital.

Prosecutor Teguh Suhendro said Thursday that the 10 men, all in their 30s, had planned to use these in the foiled plot, and that defendant Imam Firdaus, a local TV journalist, allegedly planned to film the attack.

Freedom of religion & worship

PDI-P annuls support for Bogor mayor

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) says that it has retracted its political support for Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto because he has persistently defied a court ruling to reopen the GKI Taman Yasmin church in the city.

Diani, who was supported by the PDI-P during the last Bogor election, also ignored the Indonesian Ombudsman's recommendation to allow the GKI Yasmin church to open.

"We have decided to not give our political support anymore because the Bogor mayor refuses to comply with the Supreme Court's order and the recommendations from the Indonesian Ombudsman," PDI-P Bogor chapter chairman Maruarar Sirait told The Jakarta Post by phone on Thursday.

GKI Yasmin has reportedly fulfilled all of the legalities required to establish a house of worship, including securing land and building permits. However, Diani then decided to close the church by issuing a decree on March 11.

The Bandung administrative court later overturned Diani's decision and told the mayor to reopen the church.

However, Diani stood by his argument based on allegations that the church congregation had forged some of the signatures for a required petition to secure the building permit. The Ombudsman has declared the Bogor mayor's claim baseless.

Another PDI-P member, Budiman Sudjatmiko, said that his party could move forward to launch a political move against Diani if he was found to have violated the law. "A possible impeachment has not been decided on yet," he said.

GKI Yasmin spokesman Bona Sigalingging said that the PDI-P should follow up its decision to pull its support toward for Diani with concrete political actions.

"The party's top leaders must stand together and clearly announce that the resolution on this case is important to guard Indonesia's plurality," he said.

"The next move would be for the party to launch a political move using its faction in the legislative to discipline the Bogor mayor. This is important to ensure the mayor complies with the recommendations made by Ombudsman," he added.

Separately, human rights watchdog Setara Institute said that it applauded the move made by PDI-P.

"This is an attitude that must become an example for other political parties. This is a progressive move," Setara Institute director Hendardi said.

"Now, all we need is concrete action from the party. The party must start taking a political initiative to impeach the mayor using its faction at the Bogor legislative council," he said.

Islam & religion

Day of sacrifice heavy with protests and symbolism

Jakarta Globe & Antara - November 6, 2011

Activists and organizations used Idul Adha, the Islamic day of sacrifice, as a platform to promote their causes on Sunday.

Among them was the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), whose chairman Busyro Muqoddas spoke in Yogyakarta.

"Corruption is a form of looting state money. State money is God's gift to which the people are entitled," he said. "The meaning and function of religion has been distorted to justify corrupt political actions."

Meanwhile, hundreds of victims of the Lapindo mud volcano prayed on its embankments in protest of delayed compensation.

Another displaced Indonesian, Sutilah, prayed at a shelter in Macasan, East Java, after her home was destroyed by lava last year.

"I live here alone. My husband died and my children are in Jambi," she said. Political parties were highly visible on the day, with the ruling Democratic Party slaughtering 50 cows and 15 goats whose meat would be distributed nationwide as corned beef.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself donated a 1.2-ton bull to Istiqlal Mosque. "This is a form of sharing and solidarity with the less fortunate," Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum said.

For the most part, Idul Adha proceeded without incident, with little sign of the chaotic distribution of meat seen in previous years. There were, however, the usual reports of fleeing cows being shot.

Meat is often distributed by mosques or municipality offices, where thousands gather. A committee said 278 cows and 558 goats were sacrificed this year, an increase from last year.

Officials from the Bogor Institute for Agriculture (IPB) and Jakarta's Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Office will monitor the sacrifices until Tuesday to ensure hygiene standards.

"Those involved in the sacrifices are not allowed to smoke or spit and should wear masks and gloves," he added.

Agriculture & food security

Lower Indonesia crop output may threaten food security, boost prices

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

Esther Samboh, Jakarta – Lower production of Indonesian key crops this year coupled with a global rice shortage may threaten food security and boost prices, as the country counters the impact of the global economic slowdown.

Economists urged local authorities to strengthen domestic supply so prices and people's purchasing power in the domestic consumption-reliant economy could remain stable, while imports – especially rice – should be the last resort, given the volatile international prices.

Indonesia's rice production is forecast to slide 1.63 percent, dropping 1.08 million tons down to 65.39 million tons this year over declines in farmland area and productivity, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) announced on Tuesday. Corn production was also predicted to be down by 5.99 percent, or 1.1 million tons, to 17.23 million tons, as well as soybeans by 4.08 percent, or 36,960 tons, to 870,070 tons – both due to smaller farmland area despite increasing productivity.

"The consequence would be soaring prices. By cycle, prices would increase significantly from November through January, and inflation will be higher because the contribution of volatile food prices to inflation is at 35 percent," Bustanul Arifin, an economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF), said on Wednesday.

The nation's headline inflation eased to 4.42 percent in October as core inflation dove on sliding gold jewelry prices during the month, but rice, which weighted heavily on the nation's inflation basket, has begun to pressure the headline inflation, contributing 0.08 percent to consumer prices increase.

National prices of medium rice increased 6.54 percent from a year earlier to Rp 7,951 per kilogram in October, BPS data shows.

"This is affecting our food security. Moreover, external developments are uncontrollable, for instance [flooding in] Thailand affects food supply not only for Indonesia but for the international market," said Latif Adam, an economist at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

Thailand's rice accounted for 38.5 percent of Indonesia's rice import in the first nine months of this year, standing at 720,232 tons, according to BPS data.

"Amid possibilities of declining international food stocks, the government must be committed to building food security that prioritizes domestic production," Latif said.

"So far, the concept of food security does account for where the food is from – domestic or foreign. We need to be independent."

However, the government seems to be relying on imports to offset its shrinking output of crops.

"If production declines but fulfills the consumption needs, it's OK. Besides, [state logistics agency] Bulog has national rice reserves, and part of the need could be imported to meet demands," said Finance Ministry fiscal policy office acting chief Bambang Brodjonegoro.

Indonesia's population of 240 million needs 139 kilograms of rice per capita, while corn and soybean consumption was respectively at 13 million kilograms and 2.4 million kilograms per year.

From January to September this year, the country imported 1.87 million tons rice, 2.77 million tons of corn and 1.51 million tons of soybeans.

"Imports make us reliant on external factors that are uncontrollable, especially with climate anomalies," Latif said.

Parliament & legislation

Lawmakers to go abroad amid criticism

Jakarta Post - November 6, 2011

Jakarta – Twelve legislators from the House of Representatives' security commission will travel abroad despite criticism over ineffectiveness and lack of empathy for destitute compatriots.

The legislators will travel to Morocco to attend a forum discussing conditions on Arab and Africa continents after the Arab Spring. The legislators are Mahfudz Shiddiq,

Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, Tantowi Yahya, Neil Iskandar Daulay,Muchamad Ruslan, Yoris Raweyai, Fayakun Andriadi, Lucy Kurniasari,Gamari Sutrisno, Muhammad Syahfan Badri Sampurno, Muhammad Najib, and Effendy Choirie.

TB Hasanuddin, another legislator, said in defense of his fellow legislators that it was not the House that had initiated the visit to Morocco, but that they were going at the invitation of the Foreign Ministry.

When asked whether he would also attend the discussion, Hasanuddin said he was unable to due to personal reasons.

Legislative watchdog activist Sebastian Salang regretted the plan, saying that foreign trips were unnecessary. "There are many ways of doing it [learning about it] from here rather than visiting.

Presidency & cabinet

Amid piling woes, SBY indulges in trivia

Jakarta Post - November 5, 2011

Nani Afrida, Jakarta – Roman Emperor Nero, who ruled the empire from 54 to 68 AD, was notoriously accused of playing the fiddle while Rome was engulfed in flames.

While it may be an exaggeration to say this story is synonymous with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's infatuation with trivia, amid the country's piling problems, some comparisons can be made.

Yudhoyono's tight schedule seems to be loosened when it comes to reviewing books that glorify his leadership or composing songs that heighten his image as the President who cares about the arts and musical development.

On the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Cannes, France, Yudhoyono managed to squeeze in the launch of the French language edition of his former spokesman Dino Patti Djalal's book entitled The Can Do Leadership; Inspiring Stories from the SBY Presidency.

Dino, now Indonesian ambassador to the United States, said the book was a study of SBY's leadership style, with the President setting examples on how to rediscover the Indonesian way of leadership.

While Yudhoyono was in France, a group of musicians launched, on Monday, Yudhoyono's fourth album entitled Harmoni, (Harmony) with the single Kembali, (Come Back) expected to become a hit.

Kembali is basically the lament of a desperate man seeking love. The song was first sung by celebrated singer Afgan.

Besides Harmoni, Yudhoyono has released three other albums since taking office in 2004, namely Rinduku Padamu in 2006, Majulah Negeriku (Go Forth My Country) in 2007 and Evolusi (Evolution) in 2009.

All the songs in the albums were composed by Yudhoyono, a retired Army general, himself.

His latest single Bersatu dan Maju (Uniting and Progressing) will be the official song for the opening and closing ceremonies of the upcoming Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Palembang, South Sumatra.

The song was composed by Yudhoyono on Sept. 17 at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java, amid spiraling sectarian conflict in Ambon, Maluku, alleged graft cases implicating Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar and ongoing complications in infrastructure construction for the SEA Games venues.

Bersatu dan Maju is slated to be sung by the first Indonesian Idol star Joy Tobing, while Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan has been tasked with the musical arrangement.

"I've spent several days doing the arrangements on this important song. It will roll out soon," said Gita, refusing to comment on whether the work had interfered with his ministerial duties.

Communications expert Ade Armando of the University of Indonesia said the President had made a fatal strategic error in his public relations approach.

"This is what we refer to as the politics of image with the expectation that Yudhoyono will be remembered as the Singing General and a president who loved art and wanted to be close to his people," Ade said.

"Yudhoyono's communication strategy is totally wrong and will only lead to him becoming a figure of ridicule among his political rivals."

Legislator Hendrawan Supratikno, of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle said Yudhoyono's albums and books were evidence that he was infatuated with trivia rather than with more serious and protracted problems such as corruption and poverty.

Yudhoyono's men, however, are quick to respond to the critics. Democratic Party legislator Ruhut Sitompul said the public should be proud to have a president who could write poems, books and compose songs.

"When you listen to Yudhoyono's songs, you hear a quality which indicates they are not intended to be sung by ordinary singers. Only a truly devoted singer can perform them," Ruhut said.

Yudhoyono launches book about himself in Paris Hotel

Jakarta Globe - November 2, 2011

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took time out ahead of the G20 Summit in France to launch a book on his leadership in one of Paris's finest hotels.

Flanked by at least six ministers, including chief economics minster Hatta Radjasa and Foreign Minister Mary Natalegawa, Yudhoyono was on hand as the French version of "The Can Do Leadership; Inspiring Stories from SBY Presidency," by former spokesman Dino Patti Djalal, was launched at the Westin Paris – Vendtme on Monday night.

Dino, the current Indonesian ambassador to the United States, was also present at the launch, telling guests that the book was "a study of leadership as one of President SBY's duties when he first got elected in 2004 was to rediscover the Indonesian leadership."

"Some of the things highlighted in Yudhoyono's leadership are his positive attitude and his ability to create balance between policies and populism," he said.

The Indonesian delegation is traveling to Cannes today for the G-20 summit, where talks are expected to focus on the European debt crisis. (Antara/JG)

SBY tries lyrical leadership once more

Jakarta Globe - November 1, 2011

Elisabeth Oktofani – In a nation plagued by seeds of disintegration – as hard-line radicals spread intolerance and separatist clashes dominate news out of the archipelago's east – there is only so much that policy prescriptions can do.

Perhaps realizing these limits, Indonesia's uniter in chief has boldly cried for "Harmoni," ("Harmony") the title of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's fourth album, released on Monday.

"The president is sending his message across through songs, so the public won't get bored," said Energy Minister Jero Wacik after the album's launch in Central Jakarta. "Indonesians don't respond well to speeches. People are getting tired of speeches."

The president wrote all eight songs on the album and like his previous records, "Harmoni" features some of the nation's well respected singers, such as pop legends Rafika Duri and Harvey Malaiholo, and up-and-coming stars Sandy Sandoro, Afghan, Rio Febrian and Joy Tobing.

"[Harmony] is the pinnacle of all aspirations, expectations, and dreams of every leader. In one way or another, a leader always aspires to create a harmonious social order for the people," Yudhoyono wrote in the album's foreword.

"The harmony I expressed in this album is not just that among humans, but also among nations and most importantly, the harmonious relationship between mankind and the universe."

Jero said there is nothing wrong with the president's penchant for lyricism. "The president writes songs in his spare time, so it's OK for him to write once in a while. He is writing them for the people," the minister said. "You need to understand that by writing songs, he is doing his [presidential] work, although he doesn't do this everyday."

There is no telling whether Yudhoyono's latest endeavor will enjoy the same moderate success as his third album, "Ku Yakin Sampai di Sana" ("I'm Certain I'll Get There"). He released his first album, "Rinduku Padamu" ("I Miss You") in 2007, followed by "Evolusi" ("Evolution") in 2009.

Sports & youth affairs

Situation changes often, at Lebak Bulus

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

Agnes Winarti and Niken Prathivi – At the last minute, it was named as one of the soccer venues for the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. Then it was promised funding for preparation. And then it was told that it should pay its own expenses for that preparation and that use of the venue would count as a lease.

The Lebak Bulus Stadium in South Jakarta was appointed as a supporting soccer venue at the end of July. The stadium management was quick to carry out improvements to bring the venue up to international standards. However, the management received no money from the government for these upgrades.

"We have yet to receive funding from the SEA Games organizers, but we realize we must go on [preparing]," Lebak Bulus Stadium director Sri Wigiati told The Jakarta Post in September.

The management had earmarked half of the stadium's Rp 2 billion (US$224,000) annual income for the overall maintenance of the 15-17,000 capacity arena.

Initially, the stadium's management had waited for the Games to channel funds covering maintenance and upgrades, including installing air- conditioning (AC) units in the dressing rooms and procuring flood lights, but the organizers decided that the stadium should pay for its own expenses and that use of the venue would count as a lease.

With only five days before the stadium is scheduled to host its first match of the Games, it is still awaiting the delivery of AC units and IT and communications equipment for the medical center, press room and drug testing room.

The Indonesian Soccer Association (PSSI) secretary-general Tri Goestoro said that the stadium would be ready in time.

"Our main concern is with the lighting of the soccer field. Hopefully, all the bulbs will be installed by tomorrow. By Nov. 3, everything will be 100 percent ready," he told the Post on Monday.

"If they [the organizers] don't have that equipment ready by tomorrow [Tuesday], the PSSI will handle it," he said.

A lack of coordination has also caused misinformation. The management of the stadium is uncertain about the schedule of Group B soccer matches.

When contacted on Monday, the management of the 15-17,000 capacity stadium said it was not aware that it would be hosting its first SEA Games soccer match this Saturday.

"We have the schedule, which says that the first match will be on Nov. 7, with Nov. 5 being for training only," the stadium's head of services Tatang Mochtar said, asking that the Post forward on the new schedule of the Games.

The SEA Games official website does not show the soccer match schedule, but the Asian Football Federation website (www.aseanfootball.org) showed that the stadium would host two Group B soccer matches on Saturday, one between Brunei Darussalam and Timor Leste and the other between Myanmar and Vietnam.

The stadium will host most of the Group B games. The first two Group B matches between Vietnam and the Philippines, and Laos and Myanmar, will be held at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Senayan on Thursday.

The last Group B matches will be played on Nov. 17. The group comprises Vietnam, Laos, Brunei Darussalam, Timor Leste, the Philippines and Myanmar.

Clock is ticking for Palembang as Games approach

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

Agnes Winarti and Niken Prathivi – At Palembang, the story is no different. Starting behind schedule, the developers are left hustling in the final days to finish on time.

Among the venues fully finished as of Monday were the tennis courts, roller sports track and petanque grounds, with the others still receiving finishing touches.

Eleven days before the opening ceremony at the Jakabaring Sport Complex, Palembang still has five venues, including for aquatics, shooting and biliards, to be completed, causing a delay to many test events.

Only two sports – gymnastics and wrestling – will hold their test events in November, while the rest of the events are uncertain due to technical problems, Dhennie Zainal, the test event coordinator for Palembang venues told Kompas on Sunday. Palembang will host 20 sports for the Nov. 11-22 Games, while Jakarta hosts the remaining 22.

Spectators may not be able to see the online and real time results of many events, as the Omega Swiss Timing equipment has not been installed in many venues. The test event for shooting was scheduled on Oct. 29 but was rescheduled to Nov. 2 as the timing equipment was not ready.

The developers guaranteed on Sunday to complete the venue work by Nov. 1, as they rushed the instalation of electronic equipment at the new Jakabaring Sports Complex.

"If we fail to finish our work by Nov. 1, we're ready to be fined Rp 2 million [US$224] per hour according to our contract with the South Sumatra provincial administration," said PT Prambanan Dwipaka project manager Agung Sugiono on Sunday as quoted by Antara news agency.

Agung said that on Saturday, the workers had began installing the electronic equipment for the 10-meter shooting range, and they would continue the installation at the 25-meter and the 50-meter ranges. "We payed Rp 100 million for a specialist from Switzerland, Mark Bidnof, to help us install the equipment in a week," said Agung.

Delays also hindered a test event for aquatic and track and field events, as the electronic timing equipment had not yet arrived at the venues. The fin-swimming test on Oct. 29-30 was scored manually.

"The digital scoring records and scoring boards have arrived in Jakarta and are scheduled to be here on Monday along with the technicians from Switzerland," PT Prambanan Dwipaka project manager Tedjo Kuncoro said on Sunday.

One of the last-minute preparations in Palembang involves the Athletic Stadium. At the request of the national track and field association (PB PASI), the provincial public works agency will extend the length of the main grandstand and add a room under the extended grandstand to expand spectators views until the finish line and also to install photo equipment for the finish line.

"It should have been finished last month, but we will now be finished very late, as we were required to build more than what has been planned," Aminudin, from the provincial public works agency, told Antara on Sunday.

Aminudin said that all the major construction work had been finished including the additional stands and building. "The last few things to be completed are paintings and cleaning up the area. Hopefully, we will finish with the garden, fence and parking lot in the final few days," he said.

Organizer rushes to complete venues

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

A week before the opening ceremony of the 26th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, organizers are still working to finalize the construction of venues in the host cities of Palembang and Jakarta. Many test events have been delayed due to slow preparation. The Jakarta Post's Agnes Winarti and Niken Prathivi explore the issue and look at how the nation is preparing to host the prestigious biennial Games.

Rome was not built overnight, nor were any great venues or buildings, but Indonesia seems to be ignoring this saying, and perhaps attempting to reenact a Javanese legend in which a prince named Bandung Bondowoso builds 999 temples overnight for a beautiful princess he plans to marry.

The decision on Indonesia being the host of the 26th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games was made by the SEA Games Federation Council meeting in Bangkok back in September 2006. But with only weeks left before the official opening of the biennial games, the two host cities, Jakarta and Palembang, are still struggling to complete the rehabilitation and construction of venues, among a long list of unfinished preparations for the games. Indonesia should be highly experienced since it has already hosted the games thrice – in 1997, 1987 and 1979.

Jakarta has been declared the venue for dragon boat races, rowing and canoe-kayaking events but many observers have expressed doubts that the remote Cipule Lake in Mulyasari village, West Java, will be ready on time.

This is one of the worst-prepared venues for the games. After a series of delays in construction and equipment supplies, the Cipule site developer announced on Monday it would only provide a tent for spectators instead of a permanent structure it had started build around two months ago.

The 20x8-meter tent will be installed two or three days before the games, venue supervisor Irwan Setiawan said on Monday as quoted by Antara state news wire.

With the canoeing competition set to be held from Nov. 10 to 13, rowing from Nov. 14 to 17, and dragon boat races from Nov. 18 to 21, the developer is also speeding up its efforts to finish a doping control room, press room and a room for the sport federations, which are all said to be less than 70 percent complete.

A knock-down starting-tower has just been completed, but five finishing towers are still only at the foundation stage. The five finishing towers are planned to be erected at 500 meters, 1,000 meters, 1,500 meters and 2,000 meters from the starting tower, representing the number of events in rowing, canoeing and dragon boat races.

In mid September, The Jakarta Post observed that the 54.1 hectare site looked more like a vacant lot than an international-standard rowing area, aside from the lake itself, which is around three kilometers long and 200 meters wide.

Because it is situated 60 kilometers east of Jakarta, work on the Cipule site is not being managed by a single agency, which has apparently complicated the process. The Jakarta Sports Agency is in charge of the construction of a boat house and the finishing tower; the Sports Ministry is responsible for building the rowing tracks and the boat docks; and the Public Works Ministry is responsible for dredging the lake, building an entrance road and providing clean water facilities.

For this work, the Public Works Ministry has allocated Rp 10,997,682,000 from the state budget, the Sports Ministry has provided Rp 11,232,209,800 and the Jakarta Sports Agency has also contributed at least Rp 4 billion.

But the government has yet to finish several major aspects of the project, including the entrance road to the location, and dredging. While 11 kilometers of the entrance road has been asphalted, about two-and-a-half kilometers was still being repaired as of mid-September.

Irwan Setiawan, the Indonesian Rowing Association (PODSI) field manager, overseeing the ongoing preparations at the venue, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday that the two-and-a-half kilometer section had been cemented and another 100 meters was expected to be finished on time.

Since the venue is barren and will likely be very hot in clear weather conditions, the government is making a last-minute effort to plant trees to make it cooler.

"Planting 1,000 trees here is not enough. It should have been 5,000," Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said during a field trip to the site in September. But until last week no further planting had taken place and seedlings provided by the Agriculture Ministry were still being nursed at local residents' houses.

Despite the plan to use Cipule Lake as a SEA Games venue being unveiled in April, a large sign near the site entrance shows that the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry only commenced its Cipule Rowing Arena project on Aug. 10, and targets to complete it on Nov. 7 – just three days before the planned kayak and canoeing qualification rounds on Nov. 10.

Meanwhile, work to increase the water depth for the 2,000-meter and 1,000- meter rowing lanes only began in September.

The erection of the piling stage for the participants' dining and resting hall and the three-storey finishing tower only began in late August. And by mid-September, only minor progress had been made to the constructions of boat houses, which were only half complete. "If they don't speed up, I don't know if it will be done on time," PODSI chairman Achmad Sutjipto said on the sidelines of the public works minister's inspection last month.

It seems he was right. Until last Thursday, the dredging of the lake had not been completed.

Dragon boat national team manager Mardinal Djamaluddin said there were too many variations in the depth of the water in the racing lanes. The ideal water depth benefits the rowers' speed performance, he said.

"The first 1,000 meters of the track are already more than four meters deep, but the depth of the next 1,000 meters varies, with some parts only 1.5 meters deep. We still need to add more water to raise the surface level," Mardinal told the Post on Thursday, adding that the entire lane should have been 2.5 meters deep.

Equipment for the rowing lanes, including docks, pontoons and floating balls, which were imported from South Korea, are also expected to arrive at the last minute.

After being detained at the customs office in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, for several weeks, the imported equipment has been cleared and arrived in 12 truck containers at the site on Thursday, waiting for immediate installation the next day.

Somewhat better progress has been made in the cycling venues with all being finished by September, but with no room for error.

"All venues for track in Velodrome Ramawangun [East Jakarta], BMX in Ancol [North Jakarta], MTB events in Sentul as well as the road race in Subang [West Java] are set, at least in theory," the venues coordinator for cycling Tino Latuheru told the Post in September.

Tino added that the velodrome would request the world's governing cycling federation, UCI, to conduct a homologation (an official approval) of the track to make sure it qualified for an international event, but the Indonesian Cycling Association (ISSI) chief Phanny Tanjung told the Post recently that there would be no homologation test of the velodrome prior to the SEA Games.

"We are not ready if the UCI says we have to make more adjustments. We don't have that much time to make renovations of velodrome's track," said Phanny.

No homologation test means that any record-breaking results during the Games will only be recognized by the SEA Games Federation. UCI will not recognize them in an absence of a homologation test. "We are planning to invite UCI for the test after the Games, maybe in December."

Social security & welfare

Lawmakers, unions question BPJS law, claiming procedural errors

Jakarta Post - November 2, 2011

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Lawmakers and workers unions are questioning the constitutionality of the recently passed Social Security Providers (BPJS) Law, claiming that the House violated its own procedures when enacting the legislation.

Former House special committee deputy chairman Ferdiansyah of the Golkar Party said on Tuesday that the House and the government committed procedural and other substantial violations to respond to protests demanding the bill's immediate endorsement.

"The special committee and the government will meet again from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8 to finish deliberation on unresolved crucial issues on the healthcare provider [BPJS Kesehatan] and the labor provider for the occupational accident, old-age risk, pension and death benefit schemes [BPJS Ketenagakerjaan]," he said.

Ferdiansyah also said legislators questioned the constitutionality of the law, which was passed last Friday, as many had not received a copy of the bill during deliberations. "Legislators should have had the latest draft so that they could have studied it before it was endorsed."

Ferdiansyah further said that the substantial violations committed during deliberations covered the two social security providers that had yet to be discussed and the absence of transitional regulations, closing chapters and official explanations for all chapters.

"As for procedural violations, the committee did not report the results of the deliberations to the special committee through a plenary session," he said.

Deputy House Speaker Priyo Budi Santoso, who presided over the plenary meeting, confirmed that there had been minor procedural violations. "Standard procedure was violated but all contentious issues were resolved," he said. Priyo said that approval of the bill was rushed to respond to workers and students who staged protests on Friday.

Under House rules, the bill, which had been deliberated over four sitting periods, including two extended deliberation periods, should have been dropped as deliberations on a bill can only be extended twice.

State-Owned Enterprises Labor Union (FSBUMN) chief Abdul Latief Algaf said the law's passage was politically driven.

"No legislators or parties protested procedural infringements or the hurried endorsement during the plenary session, which was broadcast live on TV stations, for fear that their parties would be punished by the people during the next elections."

Abdul said several unions would file a judicial review request for the new law with the Constitutional Court for procedural and substantial violations as well as the state's unfulfilled obligation to provide social protection to the people.

Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Rieke Dyah Pitaloka, who helped coordinate the protests, defended the law, saying all substantive issues had been discussed and resolved.

"The House and the government synchronized [the BPJS Law] with other laws – especially the 2004 National Social Security System Law, the 1992 Workers Social Security Law and the 2003 Labor Law. The [new] law will be handed to the President to be signed and registered within seven days of the endorsement," she said.

Communication & transport

Poor human resources threaten air safety

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Hasyim Widhiarto, Jakarta – His job might not be as exciting as a pilot, but Riski Ramadhan, 24, an air traffic control (ATC) officer in Hang Nadim International Airport in Batam, Riau Islands, has the same huge responsibility to ensure the safety of airline passengers.

Despite this important role, however, Riski said the airport operator, which handles around 90 aircraft movements per day, was short of personnel to run 24-hour air navigation services.

He said that according to procedure there should be at least four ATC officials on every work shift: one for guiding pilots during take off and landing and one for directing aircraft on the taxiway and apron, with the other two serving as back up and assisting their colleagues in coordinating with each other.

"However, when some of us are absent or on leave, only two people are left to handle all the jobs during each work shift," said Riski, who has been working in the airport for more than three years.

ATC is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air to avoid collisions.

With only 18 ATC officers working at the airport, Riski said he and his colleagues had repeatedly asked the Transportation Ministry's technical operation unit (UPT), which manages the airport, to send additional manpower. The requests, however, were usually not met.

"This year, for example, we received a new ATC official, but at the same time one of our colleagues was promoted to a new position and is no longer an active controller," he said.

Rarely credited for their vital role in maintaining air safety, ATC officials have long struggled with a demanding workload and an uncongenial working environment. This is due mainly to the limited number of trained air navigation personnel and the absence of a strategic plan to provide and upgrade personnel to accommodate the rapid growth of the airline industry during the past decade.

According to the Indonesia Air Traffic Control Association (IATCA), the professional organization for trained air navigation officers, the country faces a shortage of 800 professional ATC officials, forcing the existing 1,000 officials to work under severe psychological pressure as they handle far more aircraft than is thought to be safe.

According to international air-safety procedures, an on-duty ATC official, for example, must be replaced after working for two hours in order to maintain concentration. In reality, many ATC personnel have to work longer than the designed maximum work time, and sometimes without a break until their shift ends.

The shortages and the stressful working environment are also encountered at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, the country's busiest airport, managed by state-owned PT Angkasa Pura II.

Angkasa Pura vice president for human resources Indah Suryandari admitted the operator was short of 172 ATC officials to support the existing 600 personnel to handle navigation at the company's 11 airports, including Soekarno-Hatta.

Despite the problem however, Indah added that the company had managed to meet all international standards for air traffic services, including providing proper break times for its on-duty personnel.

Recruiting ATC professionals is difficult and expensive. The Transportation Ministry's head of human resources development, Capt. Bobby Mamahit, said the ministry's six aviation training institutions produced fewer than 200 professionals annually.

Not many are interested in working in ATC as the low salary does not immediately cover the expense of studying navigation.

The training costs have also discouraged high school graduates. A three- year navigation course costs Rp 36 million (US$4,012) and the tuition has to be paid in advance, according to Clara Sinta, 21, who earlier this year graduated from the ministry's semi-military aviation school in Surabaya, East Java.

Air traffic safety upgrades slowed by vested interests

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

Hasyim Widhiarto, Jakarta – "Vested interests" are behind sluggish official efforts to upgrade the nation's antiquated and overburdened air traffic control (ATC) system, despite the potential for midair collisions.

Critics said that plans to separate ATC management from airport operators by 2012, as required by the 2009 Aviation Law, appeared stillborn.

Money may be one reason why state airport operators have been slow to overhaul the nation's ATC system, which has been comprised principally of air traffic controllers directing aircraft on the ground and in the air to avoid collisions.

The ATC business, for example, accounts for at least 10 percent of the revenue of airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II, which manages Soekarno- Hatta International Airport, according to the company.

"Vested interests are at play behind the sluggish process in separating the ATC from the airport management as demanded by law," said aviation observer Alvin Lie.

Alvin, also a former legislator on House Commission V overseeing transportation, questioned the focus of airport operators.

"Today, airport operators handle the management of both airport and air navigation services. Unfortunately, this makes the operator prefer to invest more on improving passenger facilities rather than upgrading its navigation infrastructure, since the latter is far more expensive," Alvin said.

Despite rapid growth in outgoing and incoming passenger numbers, Soekarno- Hatta still presently uses a 26-year-old system, called the Jakarta Automated Air Traffic Service (JAATS), to track about 2,000 aircraft on a daily basis – four times higher than the system's original design capacity.

An incident involving an apparent radar malfunction at Soekarno-Hatta on Thursday delayed all flight services at the airport, again exposing problems with ATC management.

National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia operations director Capt. Ari Sapari said previously that problems with the ATC system could no longer be ignored, as system failures might also lead to far more serious problems, such as mid-air collisions.

Contacted separately, Suharto Abdul Majid, an air transportation researcher from the Indonesia Transportation Society said a system overhaul would not be possible unless the ATC was made an independent institution with its own budget and staff.

"Managerial separation of airport and air traffic services would benefit the public as they will enjoy better airport facilities," he said.

"Once airport operators have handed over the air traffic service business to the new institution, they will be able to focus more on expanding airport facilities."

Angkasa Pura II president director Tri Sunoko said that the company was not delaying ATC system improvements. Rp 1 trillion (US$114 million) has been allotted to upgrade the ATC system at Soekarno-Hatta, Sunoko said, although budget and technical constraints meant that work could not be completed before mid-2013.

"We have thus far avoided collisions because an emergency back-up system is also in use to support the main ATC system," Tri Sunoko said.

Criminal justice & prison system

Jakarta housewives face jail for gambling

Jakarta Globe - November 2, 2011

Four housewives from Jakarta are facing the prospects of five years' jail after they were caught playing an Indonesian version of poker on Wednesday.

Adj. Comr. Bungin, head detective with Pademangan Police in Mangga Dua, North Jakarta, confirmed that the housewives, ranging in age from 25 to 54, had been playing Joker Karo.

Bungin said a total of Rp 25,000 ($2.80) had been seized during the raid behind the Bintang Mas train station.

He said local residents had been uneasy with the women, who "often gambled." The group said they only played the game to pass the time.

They have been charged with Article 303 of the Criminal Code that carries sanctions of five years in jail for gambling.

Police have previously used the law to charge 10 children caught playing a card game at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on the outskirts of the capital. (Antara/JG)

Infrastructure & development

Indonesia defensive after dismal Human Development Index results

Jakarta Globe - November 5, 2011

Ulma Haryanto – The government on Friday defended Indonesia's sliding performance in the recently released 2011 Human Development Index by the United Nations Development Program.

"It is a pity that the decline was quite considerable, but we have to look into the specific factors," as the index also dealt with fields like education and economy, said Lily Sulistyowati, director of health promotion at the Ministry of Health.

Indonesia's rank has dropped significantly from 108 last year to 124, even though the country's index itself slightly improved from 0.613 in 2010 to 0.617 this year.

However, the country's 2011 index was still below the overall 0.63 average as well as the average of countries in East Asia and the Pacific, which was 0.671. Lily promised the ministry would "look into it."

The HDI is a composite of various indicators in life expectancy, educational attainment and income, expressed as a value between 0 and 1.

The "life expectancy at birth" component of the HDI is calculated using a minimum value of 20 years and maximum value of 83.4 years. The education component of the HDI is measured by a mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and expected years of education for children of school- entering age. The wealth component is measured by per capita gross national income.

"The result shows that the human development in Indonesia is slowing down compared to other countries," said Dian Kartikasari, secretary general of the Indonesian Women's Coalition (KPI).

When compared to the long-term progress of other countries in the region, such as China, Indonesia shows a lack of growth. In 1980, when the UNDP launched the index initiative, China scored below Indonesia. But it has been rising exponentially and managed to reach 101st place in 2011.

China managed to improve its life expectancy to 73.5 years while Indonesia only managed to get to 69.4 years. Education also has not improved much in the country. On average, people older than 25 years of age have only received 5.8 years of education, while 13.2 years is expected. This number is the same as last year.

However, Sukemi, an adviser to the Ministry of Education, denounced the study, saying the UNDP's data was flawed.

"Of course if they ask people above 25 the average will be low, but if they lower the age limit to 15, like the standard that we've been using, they would get a better result," he told the Jakarta Globe.

He said that using the government's standard, average schooling would be 7.92 years.

"The slide in rank was also caused by the fact that the UNDP covered more countries this year," Sukemi said, adding that not all countries agreed with the valuation methods used by the UNDP in composing the indices. "We have our own way of measuring our development."

However, that does not mean the government disregards the HDI completely. "Of course we don't want to be left behind in terms of progress," Sukemi said. "We will not be able to keep up with Singapore, but at least we should not be worse than Vietnam."

Within the 10 Asean member states, Indonesia sits in the bottom four together with Vietnam, which ranks 128th, Laos (138th) and Cambodia (139th).

In its explanatory note for Indonesia, the UNDP mentioned that it was misleading to compare values and rankings with previously published reports. "The underlying data and methods have changed, as well as the number of countries included in the HDI," the report said.

This year, the Human Development Report covered 187 countries compared to 169 in 2010.

Indonesia ranks 124th in 2011 Human Development Index

Jakarta Post - November 3, 2011

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) launched the 2011 Human Development Index (HDI) on Wednesday. The index again places Indonesia at 124th out of 187 countries surveyed.

In addition, Indonesia again ranks lower than five of its ASEAN counterparts, with Singapore leading in 26th place, followed by Brunei (33rd), Malaysia (61st), Thailand (103rd) and the Philippines (112nd).

Indonesia's 2011 HDI placing, which scores 0.617, is still higher than that of Vietnam (128th), Laos (138th), Cambodia (139th) and Myanmar (149th).

The 2011 list again puts Norway top of the index, with an HDI of 0.943, followed by Australia, the Netherlands, the United States and New Zealand, respectively.

"But when the index is adjusted for internal inequalities in health, education and income, some of the wealthiest nations drop out of the HDI's top 20. The US falls from #4 to #23, the Republic of Korea from #15 to #32, and Israel from #17 to #25," the UNDP said in its 2011 Human Development Report.

"Other top national achievers rise in the IHDI [Inequality-adjusted HDI] due to greater relative internal equalities in health, education and income. Sweden jumps from #10 to #5, Denmark climbs from #16 to #12, and Slovenia rises from #21 to #14," it adds.

The UNDP says HDI rankings are recalculated annually using the latest internationally comparable data for health, education and income. The IHDI was introduced in last year's Human Development Report along with the Gender Inequality Index and Multidimensional Poverty Index in order to complement the original HDI, which as a composite measure of national averages does not reflect internal inequalities.

The 2011 HDI rankings placed Burundi (185th), Niger (186th) and Congo (187th) at the bottom.

Economy & investment

Indonesian firms among world's most bribe-prone

Jakarta Globe - November 3, 2011

Camelia Pasandaran – Businesses in Indonesia are the fourth-most likely in the world to offer bribes in their dealings, according to a new report by anticorruption group Transparency International.

The group asked more than 3,000 businesspeople worldwide about their views on the extent to which firms from 28 leading economies – representing 80 percent of global trade – engage in bribery while doing business abroad.

Franky Simanjuntak, who heads the economic management department of Transparency International Indonesia, said the report "means that Indonesian businesspeople are permissive toward bribery when doing their business abroad."

The group scores and ranks countries on a scale of 0 to 10, where a maximum score of 10 corresponds with a view that companies from that country never engage in bribery when doing business abroad.

Businessmen from the Netherlands and Switzerland were tied as the least likely to use bribes, with a score of 8.8. Belgium, Germany and Japan followed closely behind.

The highest-ranked countries, meaning that they have businesspeople with a propensity to use bribes regularly when doing business abroad, were Russia with an index of 6.1, followed by China with 6.5, then Mexico and Indonesia. None of the 28 major economies were perceived to be totally clean and not engage in bribery.

Franky said that the worst bribery took place in the public works and construction sector, where the large scale and uniqueness of the construction projects made it easy to mark up the spending.

The index will be released in Indonesia today, and it will suggest that the government respond by issuing policies that could prevent bribery by foreign companies here and by Indonesian companies abroad, Franky added. "This could have a bad impact, regarding international trust in Indonesian companies," he said.

Indonesia has signed but has yet to ratify the UN Convention against Corruption that has been signed off on by 154 countries. The convention requires member states to cover both preventive measures and the criminalization of a wide range of corrupt practices, including the bribery of foreign officials, through regulations.

"The United States has had a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in place since the 1970s, while the UK has the UK Bribery Act," Franky said. "Indonesia has nothing comparable to those pieces of legislation."

He said the index should be a wake-up call for the government, which should quickly come out with regulations that criminalize bribery at home and abroad.

This is the second bribery index released by the watchdog group. The previous index, which was issued in 2008, did not include Indonesia. Along with Indonesia, the newcomers include Argentina, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

Inadequate infrastructure is holding us back, Kadin says

Jakarta Globe - November 2, 2011

Faisal Maliki Baskro – Poor infrastructure has led to the skyrocketing cost of distributing goods, according to an influential business grouping.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), a high-profile industry lobby group, said the rate of infrastructure development was appalling considering that less than four years remain until an Asean Economic Community is supposed to come into effect in 2015.

It added that a long-awaited law that could speed up the expropriation of land for use in projects that "benefit development" had not yet been passed.

Natsir Mansyur, Kadin's deputy for trade, logistics and distribution, said that 9,000 pieces of heavy machinery were being wasted each year because they could not be transported to their destinations and the existing machinery was old and would need about Rp 30 trillion ($3.36 billion) to revamp. He added that an additional Rp 30 trillion would need to be spent on upgrading the country's aging commercial ferries.

Natsir said the land acquisition law was needed to speed up the construction of seaports, airports and toll roads. "Without the law, the government and the private sector should reorganize their infrastructure priorities," he said.

The government and private sector representatives will meet next Thursday to discuss state infrastructure and revise guidelines on construction, he said.

According to Natsir, the North Kalibaru seaport in North Jakarta should be a government priority, with Tanjung Priok port already overcapacity. Another priority, he said, should be a Jakarta-Surabaya rail route.

Tanjung Priok, Indonesia's biggest port, accounts for around 65 percent of the country's total exports and imports by sea.

Natsir said hub ports and new rail links would make Indonesia more prepared for regional competition ahead of the the Asean Economic Community in 2015.

"Building infrastructure requires a huge amount of investment and a lot of time," he said. "In the meantime, the government could improve regulations and information technology. It's not too late to act."

In the World Bank's 2010 Logistics Performance Index, which measures a country's goods distribution system, Indonesia ranked 75th out of 183 countries.

Edy Putra Irawady, the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy's deputy for trade and industry, said the government had set a target to reduce logistics costs by 10 percent, reduce distribution time and uncertainties like illegal fees or overlapping payments.

The stalled land acquisition law has been widely criticized by rights groups and communities who say it would lead to the legalization of evictions and land grabs by the state at the behest of private companies to make way for roads, mines and other business interests.

Analysis & opinion

Defeat in war on graft

Jakarta Post Editorial - November 5, 2011

If the "crocodile versus gecko" saga two years ago was dubbed the fight- back by corruptors, the latest batch of not guilty verdicts from regional corruption courts is feared to augur the nation's defeat in its war on graft.

The Samarinda Corruption Court in East Kalimantan has acquitted over the past few days 14 members of Kutai Kartanegara legislative council of all charges due to lack of evidence. The exonerations come hard on the heels of other regional corruption courts: in Surabaya, Semarang, Bandung and Jakarta, allowing 27 graft defendants to walk free.

The nation's war on corruption has suffered a further setback with the government failing to take action against, if not actually condoning, "meal money" poured by PT Freeport Indonesia into National Police coffers in exchange for protection for the US gold and copper mining company, despite the security forces being funded from the state budget. Critics say the money will adversely affect the police's impartiality in its dealings with the company.

In the business field corrupt practices are apparently no less rampant, as demonstrated in the latest Transparency International report, which ranks Indonesia fourth globally in terms of the use of bribes in doing business.

Corruption courts, particularly those in the regions, have failed to live up to the public's expectation of seeing honorable judges showing no compromise with this exceptional crime. It is fully understandable that the Judicial Commission plans a comprehensive examination of the relevant judges and their controversial verdicts.

Part of this assessment has revealed that one of the Bandung Corruption Court's ad hoc judges was a former lawyer and businessman who had himself been convicted of graft before being acquitted in an appellate court.

The judges may well have done nothing wrong or maybe they alone cannot be held responsible for the acquittals. Perhaps they could not find the defendants guilty because the prosecutors failed to present convincing evidence. In a bribery case involving junior taxman Gayus Tambunan, state prosecutors deliberately revised the charges to help the defendant escape justice, at a price.

The law enforcers should not dismiss the possibility of violations of codes of conduct or even bribery in the recent exonerations of graft defendants. They must dig deep to find out what went wrong in the cases so as to restore public confidence in the graft warriors.

Corruption and judicial mafia practices remain the enemy that the government of President Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono has to beat, or else it will lose the war. Selective remission for graft convicts initiated by the Legal and Human Rights Ministry will not boost the anticorruption campaign, but shift the burden of proof on to graft suspects will.

Papuans are ready to talk about a different future. Is Jakarta?

Jakarta Globe - November 5, 2011

Oktovianus Pogau – The situation in Papua has taken a turn for the worse after last month's forced dispersal of a pro-independence congress in Abepura. Six people were killed when 3,000 security officers descended on the gathering, and the violence continued in the weeks following. In all, 14 lives were claimed in October.

The situation desperately requires an intervention by the central government. Should the problem in Papua mistakenly be handled as a trivial one, it will be no surprise if the region follows the same path as East Timor and splits from Indonesia.

There are two choices: Either the government allows the Papuan situation to heat up, or it takes immediate and concrete steps to find a lasting solution that deals with the very root of the problem. The question is, how serious and how committed is the government to solving the conflict that is now setting the land of the paradise bird afire?

The government is giving the impression it is deliberately allowing the conflict in Papua to flare, and that it is actively seeking to sustain tensions.

In a national address on Aug. 16, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would regain control over the situation and govern the land of Papua (read: Papua and West Papua) with his heart.

Of course we applaud the commitment of Indonesia's number one citizen. I think Yudhoyono has already come up with the measures and steps that are most prudent and that would be acceptable to both Papua and Jakarta.

In the book "Papua Road Map," Muridan Satrio Widjojo, along with several other researchers at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said that one of the root causes of the problem in Papua is the issue of the incorporation of Papua into the Republic of Indonesia, which was, and still is, resented by most Papuan people.

Papuans reject the results of the consultation of the Papuan people that took place in 1969 (the so-called Act of Free Choice) because it was not implemented in a fair, honest and democratic way, as it violated the principle of "one man, one vote" as agreed in the New York Agreement of 1963.

In order to implement this so-called referendum, Indonesia chose 1,025 people – indigenous Papuans and non-Papuans – to represent the 800,000 Papuans at the time. They were asked to choose between integration within Indonesia or separation through self-determination, as an independent and sovereign nation.

Almost all chose integration within Indonesia. Later on, it was revealed that they "chose" under threat and were held at gunpoint by the Indonesian military.

Papua then "officially" became part of Indonesia in 1969 – 24 years after Indonesia had proclaimed its own independence – through United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2504.

The other event at the root of the problem is the contract of work between the Indonesian government and the company Freeport-McMoRan, which came into force in early 1967, two years before Papua formally joined Indonesia.

The issue of integration of Papua into Indonesia and the presence of Freeport on Papuan soil represent a major problem, and there should be room for dialogue between the central government and Papuans. All stakeholders in Papua should be called upon to participate in the dialogue. And it goes without saying that the dialogue should be mediated by a third party or a neutral state.

The dialogue proposed by the Papuans would not be much different from the dialogue the government entered into to reach a lasting settlement in Aceh at the end of 2006, following the Indian Ocean tsunami.

When the demand for dialogue over Papua became increasingly prominent, the government "answered" by creating a special unit called the Unit for the Acceleration of Development of Papua and West Papua (UP4B) through a presidential decree. The unit was approved by Yudhoyono in late September, and retired military officer Lt. Gen. Bambang Darmono was appointed chairman.

The mandate stipulated in the UP4B decree does not differ much from that found in the 2001 Law on the Special Autonomy of Papua. But the special autonomy law's authority was greater, and it included Papua in its entirety.

The law, which was compiled and drafted with the participation of only a few Papuans, received stiff opposition and was considered a total failure. The UP4B was established unilaterally by the president, together with a few people who are allies of Jakarta.

I fear the implementation of the UP4B program will only create new problems in Papua. An actual synchronization between the Law on the Special Autonomy of Papua and the UP4B is an issue that has not even been raised, especially in discussions with key Papua figures, which would give it legitimacy in the eyes of the people of Papua.

Papuans have been ready to hold a dialogue with the government since the Papua Peace Conference (KPP) in Jayapura in early September. The convening of the conference indicated the willingness and the readiness of the Papuans to make peace and to discuss a better future, and most important, it showed their commitment to uphold Papua as a land of peace.

My anticipation grew because Papuans had chosen the representatives from the region who would sit at the negotiating table if only Jakarta were to open the door to dialogue.

Still Papuans are waiting to learn whether a dialogue between Jakarta and Papua, mediated by a neutral third party, will be held. The faster, the better.

[Oktovianus Pogau is an official with the National Committee for West Papua (KNPB). He blogs at pogauokto.blogspot.com.]

Papua: Not another East Timor or Aceh, please

Jakarta Post - November 4, 2011

Aboeprijadi Santoso, Amsterdam – A dialogue initiated by Jakarta has recently been followed up by massive strikes at the Freeport gold mining site and third Papuan People's Congress on the rights of the people and the future of Papua. The violence that erupted amid all these, however, is rooted elsewhere – not in Papua. Papua may be viewed to have been the result of a series of historic fait accompli.

First, it was incorporated into the colonial edifice of Dutch-Indies only in the early last century. Next, it was put under the sovereignty of independent Indonesia, but this only materialized much later than the other parts of the republic.

As a result, like East Timor, Papua was not part of the processes of Indonesia's nation-building when this reached its height from the 1940s to 1960s.

Lastly, Soeharto's 30-year militarized state, which was the first to put Papua under Jakarta's effective control since 1969, was more interested in its economic potential than its impoverished and denigrated people, which made Papua, like Aceh, grow alienated vis-a-vis the central government.

The combination of these faits accomplis has made Papua uniquely different to both East Timor and Aceh. But Papua is now being treated in the same way East Timor and Aceh were during the times of conflict in those regions.

Let's briefly review the cases. By the late 1990s it was obvious people in Aceh, in towns and the countryside, were harboring resentment toward the central administration, the Mobile Police Brigade and military.

It was similar in East Timor, whose people went through even more painful episodes that resembled Saddam's "Republic of Fear".

It took more than two decades for the East Timor conflicts to be resolved and its people to be freed as Soeharto's regime began to crumble and pushed president B.J. Habibie to offer plebiscite.

At the same time, though, the reformasi helped the Aceh revolt get massive popular support.

At this crucial juncture, we thus "lost" East Timor just as we, with Aceh rebellion at its peak, felt the threat of disintegration.

This resulted in state-nationalism, which desperately defends the old nationhood, facing a few local nationalisms.

As a consequence, despite the drive toward democracy, we either blame our new spring and openness, or strengthen a "blind" nationalism in efforts to maintain the unitary state (NKRI), or both.

The consequences of this can now be seen in Papua as Indonesia becomes "a democracy minus Papua". Papua thus turns into an anomaly: a "sick man" to be healed, from Jakarta's perspective, by its classic formula that we used to deal with East Timor and Aceh: "NKRI Harga Mati!"

This state rhetoric means that the "unitary state" has yet again become the deadly bottom line that justifies any means, including violence, to keep Indonesia "united".

We thus tend to ignore that ongoing violence, no matter how excessive, as the cases of East Timor and Aceh demonstrated, would only breed growing local hatred, which in turn threatens state unity and hurts the existing nationhood.

It is important here to recall that our Founding Fathers' dream of a unitary state was based on the 1928 Youth Pledge and the principles of, to borrow Sukarno's phrase, "nationalism within the garden of humanity". Hence, they called for persatoean Indonesia – a current parlance rather than a doctrine.

By contrast, NKRI has in effect become a slogan-turned-operational doctrine ever since the New Order invented it in an effort to impose a centralized state by using the concept of kesatuan (unit, in a military sense). The militarily inspired doctrine thus becomes a popular discourse that takes the violence-prone phrase "NKRI Harga Mati!" for granted.

One wonders indeed whether this state discourse and method to call for unity can be reconciled with our Constitution that acknowledges the right of every nation and calls to respect its dignity.

While the New Order's state-building thus expanded at the expense of nation-building, its legacy put our democratic experiment to a serious test. Indeed, it contributed little to the resolution of conflict on East Timor – which we left with a bloody mayhem (1999) – and Aceh, where the war didn't end until peace was signed (2005).

In the end, it was the foreign mediating role – the United Nations for East Timor and Helsinki peace makers for Aceh – that actually ended the war. It was not the tsunami, which accelerated rather than motivated peace at the latest minutes, but the military stagnation on the ground, the dignity bestowed upon the warring sides, and Jakarta's agreeing (even if reluctantly) to local party, that led to the Helsinki peace deal.

In short, no military solution would resolve the conflict. Lessons from Aceh peace may hopefully be useful as Jakarta now acts, if somewhat late, by sending a special team led by an Aceh war-veteran and peace delegation member, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Bambang Dharmono, to Papua.

However, Jakarta remains reluctant to involve foreign mediators. The fact that special autonomy has poured trillions of rupiah into Papua may have encouraged not only the growth of a local elite and corruption, but possibly also has empowered local resistance.

Papua needs "a [Jakarta] leader who we can trust," the late Papua leader Theys Hiyo Eluay, referring to president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, insisted when I met him in 2001.

Whoever would negotiate with Papuans will have to be open, honest and ready to discuss the past methods by which former West New Guinea (West Irian) was incorporated into the republic, which has been Papua's universal demand ever since the second Papua People Congress in 2000.

No autonomy, no matter how many trillions of rupiah it provides, will recover Papua's dignity as long as Jakarta refuses to discuss the legitimacy of the genesis of the United Nations-held 1969 plebiscite.

In short, no more "East Timor" and "Aceh" methods can be used to deal with Papua.

[The writer is a journalist. He covered East Timor and Aceh throughout the 1990s and 2000s for Radio Netherlands.]

Freeport strike mines a political jungle

Asia Times - November 2, 2011

John McBeth, Jakarta – He is a mechanic with a single name and a mysterious past, but the man called Sudiro is almost single-handedly leading the eight-week-long strike that has played havoc with the operations of the world's richest copper and gold mine in the central highlands of Papua, Indonesia.

When he was elected chairman of the Freeport Trade Union of Chemical, Energy and Mine Workers – a chapter of the nationwide All-Indonesia Workers Union (SPSI) – in October last year, Sudiro signaled from the beginning that things would be different for the mine's workers.

To the chagrin of Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of the Phoenix-based mining giant Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, he has been true to his word. Suddenly, labor has became as much a part of the company's problems as perennial environmental and community issues and the renewal of its contract of work (COW) in 2021.

During previous union negotiations going back to 1977, everything had gone smoothly; for a lot of that time SPSI was the only union sanctioned by former president Suharto's New Order regime – and therefore was a docile one at that.

In July, spurred by record-high prices for copper and gold on the world market, Sudiro stunned management by demanding a huge increase in hourly rates for non-staff mine workers – from US$2.10 to $3.50 per hour to a whopping $17 to $43; he has since reduced the bottom end of the scale to $7.50.

Soaring profits have led to similar work stoppages at mines in Peru and Chile, where the demands for higher wages have not been quite so outlandish but seem to represent a game-changing trend all the same.

Freeport was initially convinced Sudiro could mobilize only several hundred workers. In the end, it turned out to be 8,000 – the majority of the company's workforce – leaving only a skeleton operational staff of 1,300 and 5,000 contractors to run the big Grasberg mine.

Production fell by between 30% and 50% a day when the strike began in September, but with the recent cutting of the 112-kilometer pipe carrying concentrate from the mill to the port, the company is now only stockpiling ore and clearing away over-burden while it waits for government mediators to work out a compromise.

Armed allies

Sudiro is not without powerful friends. His late father was a navy officer and reportedly close to legendary special forces commander Lieutenant General Sarwo Edhie, father of First Lady Kristiani Yudhoyono, who is credited with crushing the Indonesian Communist Party in the mid-1960s.

The friendship has continued into the current generation. When Sarwo Edhie's son, army chief of staff and career special forces officer General Pramono Edhie Wibowo, visited Timika in early September he spent time with Sudiro in what was described as a private family meeting.

The common thread appears to be taekwondo. Sarwo Edhie was founder and president of Taekwondo Indonesia between 1984 and 1988. Sudiro is a taekwondo specialist who is reputed to have once trained Indonesian special forces (Kopassus) commandos at their Jakarta headquarters.

Much of his past, however, remains a mystery. He was born in East Java and joined Freeport as a mechanic about a decade ago. Few people had ever heard of him, including provincial and national SPSI officials, when he was elected to head the union branch last year.

He has turned out to be a charismatic orator with a remarkable ability to win even the Papuan workers to his side. A Muslim, he has been known to invoke the name of Jesus Christ to mobilize the mostly Christian tribesmen who make up 30% of Freeport's workforce.

Sudiro was among six workers fired from Freeport last June, several weeks before the first eight-day strike staged in July. They are alleged to have failed to report for work for three months, but Sudiro says they were busy preparing for the twice yearly collective labor agreement negotiation.

Freeport's workers earn an average of $18,000 a year and are among the highest paid in the country, with free medical care and accommodation. Under the new package, which includes metal bonuses tied to world prices and a new savings plan, that will rise to about $23,000 per year.

But Sudiro is aiming much higher. In July, he complained that while Freeport Indonesia has the lowest production costs of all the company's global operations, the mine's workers are paid even less than their colleagues in Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He also accused the company of treating the employees as "an instrument" and said that far from the strike being simply about wages and benefits, it was also about recognizing the union and its right to freely organize.

Although his bodyguards appear to be off-duty soldiers, not much can be read into Sudiro's military affiliations because there is no evidence he is receiving outside support for his union activities or that powerful Jakarta interests are somehow involved.

But when something can't be explained in Indonesia, conspiracy theories abound – particularly when there have been eight mysterious killings in the past six months, all apparently unrelated to the strike and all in areas supposedly free of separatist activity.

The Free Papua Movement (OPM) was blamed for a series of sniper incidents between July 2009 and mid-2010, which claimed three lives. But all took place on precipitous sections of the road after it leaves the flatlands and begins the long climb through the mountains.

Last April, in a sinister new development, two senior Freeport security men were run off the eastern levee road and executed with gunshots to the head, their bodies left in the burned-out remains of their land cruiser. Only authorized vehicles are permitted in the area where the shooting took place.

The cell-phone of one of the victims came to life a fortnight later and was reportedly traced to a soldier, but local police and civilian officials have never given a full account of the incident and nothing has come of the investigation.

In the second ambush on October 14, gunmen opened fire from the side of the road near the same spot, brutally killing three more workers – one of whom had his throat cut – and burning their vehicle. Although it was never reported, a fourth worker escaped.

A week later, a Freeport worker was killed and two policemen wounded in a pre-dawn attack on the lowland section of the road leading to the mine. Tracker dogs lost the assailants as they escaped though a panning camp, shooting dead two men on the way.

Military vs police

All this is being played out against the backdrop of a long-simmering rivalry between the police and army, which gained momentum in 2000 when the police separated from the armed forces and, in doing so, took over many of the military's shady money-making ventures.

Three years later, as part of that transition, the police assumed responsibility for internal security at the Freeport mine, a controversial arrangement under which the company last year paid the paramilitary Police Mobil Brigade $14 million in security-related allowances, food and other in-kind necessities.

Far from being done secretly, the payments have always been part of Freeport's filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission from the time the army was put in charge of guarding what the government considers a national asset in 1997.

Failure to report them would have made Freeport liable to charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The company also spent $28 million last year on its own unarmed security force, up from $22 million in 2009.

Coincidental or not, 2003-2004 marked the first appearance of itinerant gold panners in the river carrying the mine's waste, or tailings, from the company's mill to a lowland deposition area that has been used since the Grasberg mine was opened in 1991.

Today there are an estimated 10,000 panners and, with about 10% of the mine's gold escaping during the milling process, the business has grown to a staggering $100 million per year enterprise – an infinitely more inviting prize than the largesse offered by Freeport.

Up until two years ago, the army and the police managed to work together, with military trucks carrying the panners to points along the river for 1 million rupiahs (US$112) each and the police acting as middlemen for dozens of newly opened gold shops in the coastal town of Timika.

Local sources now claim that the police have begun to squeeze the army out of the trade altogether. The resulting friction may well have been behind the still-unexplained killings and the recent spate of attacks on police vehicles.

As in past incidents, it is the panners who are believed to be responsible for cutting Freeport's 112-kilometer pipe carrying the concentrate from the mill to the port so they can flush out the rich pickings inside. New acts of sabotage last week forced Freeport to shut off the flow and declare force majeure on some of its sales agreements, the first time it has done so since the strike began.

Certainly, the company blames the strikers for the recent sabotage of the oil pipeline to the mine, and for destroying and hijacking other equipment. Strikers have also blockaded the road to the high-altitude mining town of Tembagapura, where supplies are now running low.

Workers who have refused to join the strike are receiving death threats. In one recent incident, 200 of their motorcycles, parked near the company bus terminal, were smashed up and thrown into a nearby river.

The terminal itself was the scene of a clash between strikers and police on October 10 that claimed two lives. The shooting of another six people at an independence rally in the provincial capital of Jayapura 12 days later has raised tensions across the territory even further.

Regulatory risks

For Freeport shareholders, the stakes could not be higher. Faced with a $10-$12 billion bill to convert Grasberg into what will be the world's largest underground mine, it must secure an early guarantee that its contract will be extended – and under terms that do not enforce strict compliance with the new 2009 Mining Law.

The legislation has created widespread concern in the industry because of the way it changes the tried and tested COW system to one where firms will operate under extendable 20-year licenses. The law's stated purpose is to encourage local investment in at least small to medium-sized enterprises and also to boost government revenues, specifically by adding value to the country's natural resources, instead of exporting commodities in raw form.

The biggest bone of contention is Article 172 and subsequent supporting regulations that allow present contracts to run their course, but with an ambiguous condition that companies conform with at least some provisions of the revised law.

Freeport feels it should be treated differently. Under the terms of its contract, negotiated in 1991, it is allowed two 10-year extensions, "approval of which will not be unreasonably withheld". In other words, it argues, the termination date is 2041 – not 2021.

The company will have to work hard to find a compromise. On top of seeking a further increase in revenues, senior officials say the firm will also have to deal more directly with local authorities and conform with new policies on forestry protection and emission reductions.

Freeport, for its part, is worried about how the new law appears to permit arbitrary changes in the tax regime and, more crucially, would compel it to invest a further $2 billion in a Papua-based smelter to process all of its production in Indonesia; 25% of its concentrate is now smelted at a Mitsubishi-run plant at Gresik, north of Surabaya on the island of Java, producing 200,000 tonnes of copper a year – or enough to meet all of the country's requirements. Another 35% goes to its own smelter in Spain.

Government sources say Freeport will also be expected to improve infrastructure around Timika, which still relies on small, unreliable diesel-powered generators for its electricity supply. The firm's 195 megawatt (MW) coal-fired plant on the coast, and an additional oil-fired facility near its mill, only provide power to the energy-hungry Grasberg operation.

With more power needed when it moves underground, it has agreed to become the base-load customer for a new 330 MW hydro-electric station the Papua government plans on the Urumuka River, 100 kilometers northwest of Timika.

Freeport chief executive Richard Adkerson raised the extension issue with Vice President Boediono at a brief meeting in New York last September, asserting that the current contract allows either side to seek a resolution well before the 2021 deadline. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former mines and energy minister himself, has so far turned down three requests for follow-up meetings with senior Freeport executives to discuss the company's concerns.

With 20% of the 240,000 tonnes of ore a day already coming from underground block-caving, the company last year added 44 kilometers to the existing 250 kilometers of tunnel snaking around and under the Grasberg mine.

That work will accelerate to 50 kilometers a year ahead of the closure of the open-pit operation in mid-2016, opening up access to five separate ore bodies lying 400 meters deeper than the current tunnel system. Scheduled to expand to 930 kilometers by 2041, the main tentacles of the tunnel network will accommodate ore conveyers and a standard-gauge electric rail system to carry mine workers and supplies.

For all that, officials and nationalist lawmakers are unlikely to view Freeport's position with much sympathy, given the long-standing public perception that it was given unfair latitude under Suharto's New Order regime. That is a legacy the country's largest corporate taxpayer has found impossible to shake, despite efforts since the early 1990s to improve relations with the local tribal population and find better ways to manage its in-river mine waste deposition.

In addition to the $2.4 billion it will pay the government this year in taxes and royalties and the $80 million it currently spends each year on community development, Freeport is not without some bargaining chips of its own.

Grasberg was once Freeport's only asset, but since it took over Phelps Dodge in 2007, half of the company's revenues now come from 10 other mines in the US, Chile and Peru, with an untapped surface deposit in the Congo shaping up as possibly the best prospect of all.

It would be unimaginable, however, for Freeport to walk away from the world's most profitable copper and gold mine, which boasts seemingly unlimited reserves that will extend its life far out beyond 2041.

[John McBeth is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review. He is currently a Jakarta-based columnist for the Straits Times of Singapore.]

Papua: One simple step to take

Tempo - November 2, 2011

Sidney Jones – If President Yudhoyono is looking for one simple step that could change the ugly political dynamic in Papua, he should announce that police will stop using live ammunition for crowd control.

In one stroke, he could reduce the level of violence, improve police- community relations and signal a new approach to political protests. It won't silence the independence movement, stop the Freeport strike or resolve election disputes, but it's a concrete change that could halt the current downward spiral.

If we look at recent incidents where police have opened fire, there isn't a single one where use of bullets has saved lives or reduced tensions – the effect has been exactly the opposite. Papuans have ended up dead, and grievances have multiplied. This isn't to say that the police are primarily responsible for Papua's troubles, they're not. But the problem of unintended deaths from bullets needlessly fired is at least fixable. More restraint in use of firearms would also be in keeping with Polri's own Regulation 8/2009 on implementation of human rights principles and standards.

The breakup of the Third Papuan People's Congress on 19 October is a case study in poor policing, quite apart from human rights concerns. The Congress had been announced for months; it was clearly going to support independence. Absolutely nothing was gained by surrounding the venue with 400 troops on the final day and then rounding up 300 Papuans and hauling them off by trucks to the police station. If the government was determined to make a point about outlawing independence activities, it could have quietly arrested the organisers once the Congress was over. There was no need to forcibly break up a peaceful meeting that was concluding anyway. What was the result? More anger of Papuans toward the Indonesian state.

Because police fired warning shots into the air, they became immediate suspects when several bodies with gunshot wounds were found the next day. Police claimed that two of the men were the victims of Dani Kogoya, a Papuan thug whom they also blamed for shootings in Abepantai last August. But if police sent to the Congress had not been armed with loaded guns, they would not now be facing accusations of involvement in these deaths.

Likewise in the confrontation between police and striking Freeport workers at the Gorong-gorong bus terminal in Timika on 10 October, one worker was killed and at least five wounded when the police opened fire. Police are supposed to be using rubber bullets in such circumstances; the fatality suggests that either the bullets were live, or that the shooting was too close. (No autopsy results have been made public.) The strikers, who were trying to prevent other workers from going up to the mine, included violent elements that set fire to vehicles and beat up a plainclothes Brimob officer. Having a gun did not prevent the officer from being attacked. Worse, it was seized by members of the mob in the process, adding to the stock of official-issue firearms that find their way into illicit hands. Overall, police action only made the strikers angrier, leading them to make new demands on the company and making resolution of the labor dispute more difficult. If the police needed to disperse the crowd so that buses could leave, tear gas or water cannon would have been more appropriate.

The situation in Puncak Jaya, the mountainous district where the police chief was shot dead on 24 October, is clearly different. There, several small factions of the OPM have been repeatedly ambushing police and military with intent to kill. Under such circumstances, of course the police should carry weapons and be prepared to use them in self-defence.

Police reliance on live ammunition to bring crowds under control is not just a problem in Papua, it happens all over Indonesia - look at the case of Buol, Central Sulawesi where eight civilians died in September 2010 or Ambon last September. But deaths of unarmed civilians at police hands takes on added significance in Papua where resentment against the security forces is already so high.

Moreover, such deaths play into the hands of radicals who know that the best way to get international attention for Papua is through allegations of security force abuses. It is one reason some Papuan militants are hoping for a "second Santa Cruz", a Papuan version of the 1991 massacre in East Timor that changed political dynamics and arguably paved the way for independence. Papuan militants want a heavy-handed response because it helps their cause.

If the President had a strategy for reaching out to Papua, banning the use of live ammunition for crowd control could be a "quick win". But instead of strategy, we get rhetoric. SBY, at the Cabinet meeting last Thursday, instructed Coordinating Minister Djoko Suyanto to explain to Amnesty International why the government's actions in Papua were justified and exhorted his military and police commanders to prevent excesses by their troops.

But exhortations are not going to produce change. Neither will sending this or that team, charged with reporting back to the President. The violence has produced no sense of urgency to install the personnel for UP4B, the new body set up in September to oversee Papua policy, and Gen. Bambang Darmono remains a head-in-waiting, without the mandate to initiate any programs. (In all the media coverage of Papua's bloody October, there has been almost no mention of UP4B; if it can't find a way to have a voice in the current crisis, it risks falling into irrelevance before it begins.)

A single step is not a substitute for a much-needed broader policy overhaul. But ending the use of bullets in dealing with unarmed protestors, demonstrators and strikers would lower deaths, lower political temperatures and show that this government can do more than just talk.

[Sidney Jones is the Senior Adviser of the International Crisis Group's Asia Program based in Jakarta, Indonesia.]

Is Freeport doomed? (Part 2)

Jakarta Globe - November 1, 2011

Yanto Soegiarto – Once again, Timika's Rimba Hotel was the site of a negotiation between Freeport workers and the mining company's management on the wages of the former. At least the two sides agreed to break now and meet again soon. The workers will think over Freeport's newest offer to increase wages, but it won't be the increase the workers had demanded.

Meanwhile, at the entrance to the vast Grasberg copper and gold mine, the NKRI (Unitary Republic of Indonesia) flag still waves. Indonesian television footage played footage of some workers saying they remain loyal to Indonesia and that their only concern was better welfare for the Papuan people.

In Jakarta, Papua the past week's hottest talk with new revelations about the separatist movement, corruption, local wisdom and the handling of the Papua problem.

One of my journalist colleagues spoke to an Amungme tribal chief who pondered taking over Freeport for the benefit and welfare of the Papuan people. Although he did not know how or whether that was possible, at least he voiced out his aspirations. The chief also addressed his main concern that Freeport is taking too much of his people's ancestral wealth and that Freeport was one of the main problems of Papua.

But it was the revelation that police have been receiving large cash payments from Freeport which shocked people most. National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo last Friday admitted that police units have indeed received money from Freeport. He called those payments "lunch money."

According to rights group Imparsial Freeport pays the police $14 million annually. Freeport itself also confirmed that it has given operational funds to police and to members of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI). This has prompted numerous activists and lawmakers to demand investigations into what seems to be a shady practice.

In March 2010, the Rimba hotel in Timika was the site of a signing of a memorandum between Freeport and Indonesian police which pundits say was an agreement to provide security. The meeting was recorded on video.

Neta S Pane, chairman of Police Watch, an influential police watchdog, said that Freeport was mining uranium, an allegation which has yet to be proved. He also said that if Freeport made the payments, it was illegal and that Freeport could be prosecuted.

Golkar politician Bambang Soesatyo, also a member of House Commission III which overseas law enforcement, said police have engaged in thuggery for Freeport. "The police can't receive money from Freeport. If they do, they will not be neutral but will side with the miner. It's illegal. Operational funds for the police have to come from the state budget," he said.

United States law also prohibits American companies from paying, or offering to pay, foreign officials to gain a business advantage. It covers non-monetary gifts or offers in addition to cash payments.

From the 1950s to the mid-1970s, a number of American companies paid money to people of influence in foreign governments. The most famous case was the Lockheed bribery scandal. The company paid people in the governments of Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia to guarantee contracts for military aircraft.

What will happen if average Americans and their congressmen and senators find out that a repeat of huge US corporations making illegal payments is happening today? What will US Congressman Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin say when he hears about this?

Meanwhile, Freeport and the problem of overall security in Papua have caught Indonesia's attention. Army Chief General Pramono Edhie Wibowo has said that armed violence must be countered with arms while Intelligence Chief Marciano Norman regarded the security disturbances as criminal acts.

Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro was the only official who bluntly said that the Abepura incident was an act of separatism on Indonesian soil and therefore had to be dispersed.

But Indonesian officialdom was also to blame for the failure in providing welfare in Papua, especially due to rampant corruption.

The government gave more than Rp 28 trillion to the Papuan people for development and promoting welfare. But alas, the Papuans remain impoverished. Where has all the money gone? Papuan activists and tribal chiefs say the funds have been misappropriated by both Jakarta and Jakarta-appointed officials in Papua. It is a public secret that Papuan regents enjoy excessive luxury and wealth.

Both the provinces of Papua and West Papua lack adequate schools and infrastructure. They could have been provided with their essential needs with that kind of money. Instead, local wisdom and indigenous rights have been neglected.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has formed a special team called UP4B with the task of accelerating development in the provinces of Papua and West Papua. To lead the it he has appointed veteran Aceh military commander Lieut. Gen. Bambang Darmono who will be assisted by the president's expert staff on special autonomy regions, which includes Velix Wanggai, top Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) researcher Adriana Elizabeth, House member Paskalis Kossay and former state secretariat minister Bondan Gunawan. The team will assess of the implementation special autonomy and the use of the Rp 28 trillion of development funds.

Darmono was known to be unfriendly with journalists during his time in Aceh while Bondan, who served under Gus Dur, said he would not be satisfied with the formation of the team unless President Yudhoyono visits Papua himself and for a dialogue with its people. "The Papua problems can't be solved with just economic an approach. Local wisdom that must be accounted for," he said.

Violent tactics backfire in Papua

New Matilda - November 1, 2011

The tough response of the Indonesian armed forces to the Third Papuan People's congress has strengthened calls for freedom. New Matilda's West Papua correspondent Alex Rayfield reviews the fallout.

If the Indonesian police and military thought shooting live ammunition into a mass gathering of unarmed Papuans would somehow dampen dissent and endear them to Jakarta's continued rule, they were mistaken. Indiscriminate repression meted out against those gathered at the Third Papuan People's congress is showing signs of having the opposite effect: widening the circle of dissent inside West Papua and igniting international support outside.

First the Indonesian military and police denied they shot dead peaceful protesters. But that was too difficult to sustain. New Matilda received text messages as soon as the shooting started which were followed by urgent phone calls. Gunfire could be heard in the background.

When it became clear that covering up the shooting would not wash, the Indonesian Chief of Army in West Papua, Erfi Triassunu, admitted opening fire but claimed his troops only fired warning shots. He insisted no one had been hurt. Some of the international media bought the story. With foreign journalists banned from West Papua, some media outlets went to the police and military for confirmation. This is in spite of the fact that West Papua Media, with their extensive network of citizen journalists and local stringers, broke the story, verified it and began filing reports about what happened within a few hours.

A few hours after the shooting, the Indonesian police in West Papua were telling journalists in Jakarta that an attempted coup d'etat had taken place and that police had used force to defend the state. The Jayapura Chief of Police, Imam Setiawan, even went as far as saying that members of the Papuan Liberation Army had attacked the Congress.

Setiawan took this line again on Thursday 20 October. In an interview with Bintang Papua, a local Papuan daily, he outlined how he thought police should respond to a gathering of unarmed Papuans expressing their political opinion: "Whoever supports separatism or subversion activity, I will do the same as yesterday. I'll finish them."

The language used by Setiawan echoed hard-line nationalists in Jakarta. It follows a deadly trajectory. Cast the Papuans in the worst possible light. Label them as "separatists" – which in Indonesia is the worst kind of criminal, someone who is treasonous, dangerous and violent. From here it was only a short step to imply that those at the Third People's Congress were using violence to try and seize control of the state. This narrative makes it sound like the police and military were taking evasive action to stop the Papuans storming the Bastille of Indonesian rule. This is pure fantasy.

Initially it was reported that police and the military raided the stage after Forkorus Yaboisembut and Edison Waromi (appointed as President and Prime Minister of the Federal State of West Papua respectively) declared independence. We now know that the attack did not happen until well after the three-day gathering had finished.

After the Declaration of Independence was read around 2.00pm local time, the Congress concluded. The leadership – Yaboisembut, Waromi, Dominikus Surabut, Helena Matuan and a few others left the field to rest in the nearby Sang Surya Catholic Friary in the grounds of the Fajar Timur Theological College where the Congress was being held. Those remaining on Taboria oval (Zaccheus Field) danced the Yospan, a traditional Papuan group dance.

The festivities continued for around 60-90 minutes. We don't know exactly what the police, military and Brimob soldiers were doing between the time the Declaration was read out and the time the shooting started. Presumably they were discussing what to do. Most likely they consulted commanding officers locally and in Jakarta.

According to Yan Christian Waranussy, a prominent Papuan human rights lawyer, members of the security forces under the command of Police Chief Imam Setiawan arrested Edison Waromi as he drove out of the Fajar Timur grounds on Yakonde Street. Waranussy reports that the police pulled people out of the vehicle and started beating them before pushing them into a police van. Following the arrest of Waromi, Waranussy says the security forces starting firing their weapons into the crowd.

This occurred at around 3.30pm. One of the first killed was 25-year-old Daniel Kadepa, a student at Umel Mandiri Law School. According to those who knew him, Kapeda did not even attend the Congress. He was passing by when the security forces opened fire. Witnesses said that he died from gunshot wounds to the head and back after soldiers fired on him as he was running away.

Video footage obtained by EngageMedia and published by New Matilda shows people hiding in nearby buildings just after the police and military opened fire. In the background you can hear shooting. This is not automatic gunfire. They are single shots. Then there is a pause, followed by more shots. It is as if the shooter is walking around picking people off. There is very little background noise. No screaming or yelling, just an eerie silence... and gunshots.

According to Catholic clergy who witnessed the event, the police, Indonesian military and the the paramilitary Mobile Police Brigade continued discharging their weapons for approximately 25 minutes.

Eyewitnesses report that when the shooting started, Yaboisembut and Surabut were talking and relaxing in the Sang Surya Friary, a few metres from the oval. Then bullets smashed through the window. According to statements obtained by New Matilda people immediately hit the ground and began crawling to safety as the police indiscriminately fired live ammunition and canisters of tear gas into the buildings surrounding the oval.

According to statements obtained by New Matilda, police, military and Brimob personnel ransacked student dormitories, clergy residences and offices. One witness reported an Indonesian security officer yelling "Where are those idiot priests? Why do priests hide criminals?" Those present also reported security personal using combat knives or bayonets and beating people with truncheons and rifles. At least 300 people were arrested and taken away in army and police trucks where they were detained overnight in the tennis courts at the police station.

We now know that three people were shot dead that day. They are Daniel Kapeda, Max Asa Yeuw, and Yakobus Samansabra. Two others, Matias Maidepa and Yacop Sabonsaba, were allegedly found dead behind the military headquarters in Abepura. According to the Indonesian military sources quoted in the local Papuan press, the victims had been stabbed. In addition, members of the Organising Committee of the Third Papuan Congress allege four other people died, all from gunshot wounds, two from Sorong and two from Wamena.

Six people are still in detention charged with rebellion. According to family members they have all been badly beaten. According to Human Rights Watch and KONTRAS Indonesia (the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence) those still in detention are:

Forkorus Yaboisembut, chairman of the Papua Customary Council, probably the most prominent pro-independence leader in Papua. When New Matilda interviewed him in West Papua in 2010 and again in 2011 he was regularly receiving death threats. A few people had even come forward and told the local press that they were offered new motorbikes and other inducements if they would help orchestrate a fatal "accident".
Edison Waromi, president of the West Papua National Authority. Edison Waromi's daughter, Yane, was kidnapped and assaulted by the security forces in 2008.
Dominikus Surabut, secretary of the Papuan Customary Council in La Pago region.
Selpius Bobii, a social media activist, who organised the Papuan Congress. He initially eluded the police crackdown, but surrendered to police on October 20, accompanied by his lawyers and a Papuan journalist.
August M. Sananay of the West Papua National Authority.
Gat Wanda, a member of PETAPA (Defenders of the Land of Papua, an unarmed civilian defence group), charged with possessing a sharp weapon.

It will take some time before the immediate effect of the repression is made clear, but early signs suggest the use of extreme and deadly violence against nonviolent activists has enlarged the circle of dissent inside West Papua and ignited international support outside.

Certainly Church leaders – both Catholic and Protestant – have expressed their outrage. Neles Tebay, a key Papuan intellectual, defended the role of clergy who provided humanitarian protection for those seeking safety. Tebay, who also gave permission for the Committee to hold the Congress in the Theological College grounds, was quoted as saying that he "rejects the use of all kinds of repression in dealing with the problems. Using violence undermines the dignity of all concerned, above all the dignity of the victims as well as the perpetrators."

Tebay has repeated his call "for all people of goodwill to jointly press for dialogue, for the sake of peace in Papua".

Political representatives of the Papuan Provincial Parliament, a group that until now has sided with the government on matters of national security, expressed their dismay. Bintang Papua reported that Yan Mandenas, chairman of the Pikiran Rakyat Group in the Provincial Parliament said "the actions of the security forces in dispersing the Congress exceeded all bounds and... were in violation of the law".

Similar views were expressed by Ruben Magay, chairman of Commission A on Politics and Law of the Provincial Parliament who reportedly urged the chief of police to withdraw his men because the Congress was already over. Magay said that what happened was clearly "a violation" and that "no one was fighting back".

And while a large group of hard-line nationalists in Jakarta applauded or condoned police and military action, Effendy Choirie and Lily Chadidjah Wahid, both members of House of Representatives Commission I on information, defense and foreign affairs in Jakarta, warned the government that the mounting tension could lead to the province's separation from Indonesia. In a clear rebuke of Papuan Police Chief Imam Setiawan, the two legislators added "that the government should not blame the Free Papua Movement (OPM) for the shooting but rather the security personnel in Papua".

Internationally, things have gotten much worse for Jakarta. United States Congressman Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin condemned the actions of the security forces. So too has Senator Richard Di Natale from the Australian Greens who has urged the Australian Government to suspend military ties with Indonesia. MP Catherine Delahunty from New Zealand has also called for the New Zealand Government to withdraw its training support for the Indonesian police. This is more than words. The United States, Australian and New Zealand Government all provide money, training and material aid to the Indonesian police and military. In this sense we are beginning to see the early signs of what could become an international withdrawal of legitimacy for continued Indonesian repression in West Papua.

Papuan calls for UN intervention won't happen, at least not in the foreseeable future. And the movement internally still faces serious challenges. But the Congress, the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent shooting has realigned the political landscape.

There are now three main political groups, the Congress, the Papuan Peace Network led by Neles Tebay who is calling for dialogue, and the West Papua National Committee who want the giant US/Australian Freeport Mine closed and a referendum on West Papua's political status.

At a fundamental level there is not a lot of difference between these positions. They all point to the need for a political solution to the Pacific's longest running conflict. The Indonesian political elite and security forces can no longer pretend that the problem in Papua is economic. Papuans want political freedoms. The Congress made that abundantly clear. It opened with raising the banned Morning Star flag and singing the banned West Papuan national anthem, Hai Tanah Ku, and closed with a Declaration of Independence.

And it wasn't as if the military or police was unaware of this depth of feeling. When an open peace conference organised by the Papua Peace Network was held in Jayapura last July, Erfi Triassunu, the local Army Chief, took the podium. In attendance were 800 respected Papuan civil society leaders. Triassunu tried to get the audience – who were mostly Papuan – to chant "peace!" in response to his "Papua!". But as soon as he called out "Papua!" the crowd responded as one with "Merdeka!" (freedom).

Now the Papuans' cry for freedom is echoing around the world. And it is the Indonesian police, military and their nationalist political allies in Jakarta who are helping amplify it.

With peace on the ballot, Aceh gets ready to vote

East Asia Forum - November 1, 2011

Badrus Sholeh – Aceh is due to hold its elections for governor in December, an event that underscores the significant contribution democracy has made to peace since Aceh's 2006 ballot, held a year after the peace agreement between the Freedom Aceh Movement and the central government.

Many Acehnese have welcomed this new sense of democracy. About 78 percent of voters participated in the 2009 presidential elections, the largest turnout for direct elections in any region in the country. But as the December poll approaches, flaring tensions among Acehnese leaders – especially between former elites of the movement, known as GAM – have observers concerned about potential threats to the longevity of peaceful democracy in Aceh. A number of former GAM combatants were killed recently and local Acehnese see this as closely related to the tensions and rivalries among political groups in the province.

But the international community has invested billions of dollars in supporting Aceh's democratic transition. At an Asean leaders summit in Jakarta in 2005, just two weeks after the Indian Ocean tsunami, the leaders of 26 nations and international organizations agreed to donate $4 billion in aid for rehabilitation and reconstruction in Aceh.

Australia also contributed a billion Australian dollars ($1.1 billion at today's exchange rate) over five years through the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development. Of this aid, millions of dollars were targeted at the support and reintegration of former GAM members. The programs associated with this funding will help to ensure the continuation of rehabilitation and integration by reducing the inequitable distribution of resources, supporting stability and peace, and rebuilding communities.

The Multi-Stakeholder Review, a partnership between the Indonesian Coordinating Ministry for Legal, Political and Security Affairs, the National Development Planning Agency and the Aceh Peace-Reintegration Agency, reports that the total amount committed to the process of reintegration and peace building is Rp 9 trillion ($1 billion) – one- seventh of the tsunami reconstruction funds. And the Acehnese government will receive close to $7.9 billion in special autonomy funding between 2008 and 2027 as a result of the Law on the Governing of Aceh.

Adequate funding is of crucial significance in maintaining the peace building process in Aceh and promoting reconciliation. Decentralization and democratization have positively affected the transition toward peace.

But for the current positive momentum to continue, area-specific institutions will need to be strengthened and, where necessary, created. The importance of institutions for supporting peace in post-conflict regions cannot be understated. In Aceh, strong institutions in local government, the legislature and civil society are needed.

But the ongoing dispute between the winning Aceh Party and the incumbent governor's camp over regulations pertaining to the 2011 elections now threatens to destabilize efforts to implement further reforms. The Aceh Party's threat to boycott the elections is counterproductive. If this dispute is not resolved it will overshadow more pressing issues in Acehnese development and the peace building program.

These include capacity building for rural Acehnese so they can revitalize important agricultural initiatives, such as the region's high-quality coffee plantations. Another issue is the high unemployment rate. Law enforcement training is also important if lawmakers are to work out effective regulations for Aceh's development.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission regulation, which was keenly anticipated by human rights organizations and victims of conflict, is still pending and is another issue that needs prioritizing.

The World Bank reports that investors still perceive Aceh as a risky place to conduct business, meaning that growth in Aceh will be limited and efforts to reduce poverty will likely lose their effectiveness. This must be remedied.

The Acehnese government must change the perception of the region so it is seen as a secure and safe business environment. Providing high-quality infrastructure will be a big part of this. These challenges will not be overcome unless Aceh's political parties and leaders give priority to the broad interests of local inhabitants.

The fear of political violence is rising after the deaths of local leaders and other violence suspected of being closely related to rivalries among local political groups. If these political elites and civil society groups cannot manage their political conflicts, it will destroy a great deal of important investment in the region.

[Badrus Sholeh is a Ph.D. student at the School of International and Political Studies at Deakin University in Melbourne.]

West Papua's 'Arab Spring'

New Zealand Herald - November 1, 2011

Maire Leadbeater – It was not in the headlines, but our neighbourhood has had its own "Arab Spring". The Melanesian people of Indonesian-controlled West Papua, have shown the same determination to pursue non-violent struggle as their counterparts in Egypt and Syria.

A 5000 strong Papua National Congress took place over three days in a Jayapura field ringed with menacing armoured riot control vehicles and heavily armed police and soldiers. It was led by Forkorus Yaboisembut, the Chair of the Papuan Customary Council, who is highlighted on the Indonesian military's leaked watch list of dangerous "separatists". As the Congress came to an end on October 19, Forkorus read a Declaration of Independence first penned in 1961, prior to the Indonesian take-over of the territory. He then announced that he had been elected to be the "President" of the "Democratic Republic of West Papua".

As the gathering began to disperse, the military began firing from their assault weapons and launched themselves on the crowd, arresting and beating some 300 people. Forkorus was forcibly arrested along with his "Prime Minister" Edison Waromi and they and three others now face charges of treason. Dozens were injured, many with gunshot wounds, and up to six people were killed. The first death to be confirmed was that of a law student Daniel Kadepa who was shot in the head as he tried to flee.

Many terrified delegates tried to seek refuge in the nearby Catholic Seminary. Fr Neles Tebay, a prominent advocate for peaceful dialogue, has supplied a detailed account of the violent disruption and brutality displayed as the soldiers invaded the sacrosanct mission complex. Terrified students were tear-gassed and threatened at gunpoint while one Franciscan brother was taken into custody despite the serious injuries he sustained in the attack.

A menacing security force presence is also ongoing in the remote Timika region, location of Freeport McMoran mine, where an American multinational makes vast profits from the largest recoverable reserves of gold and copper in the world. About 8000 workers have been on strike since September seeking to lift their wages from the current hourly rate of around NZ $1.80 to $3.60 to parity with the wages paid to Freeport's workers in other parts of the world.

Petrus Ayamiseba, one of the striking workers, was shot dead by the Indonesian police on October 10, provoking Papuan outrage and an unprecedented level of international union solidarity for the Freeport workers. Since then at least three others have been killed in the area by unknown assailants. Rather than conciliation the mine management has resorted to hiring contract workers as scabs.

Freeport McMoran has had a dream run for over forty years. The first contract negotiated with President Suharto gave the mining company virtually free rein as well as generous tax concessions. This was in 1967 when Indonesia did not even have formal control over the territory. In 1969 Indonesia pulled off a self-determination fraud by conducting a so called 'Act of Free Choice' (known as the 'Act of No Choice' to the indigenous Papuans). Just over a thousand Papuan men took part out of a population at the time of nearly one million.

The Freeport mine has always been synonymous with violence and grave human rights abuses, as well as environmental destruction and the abuse of customary land rights. Amungme and Kamoro tribal people have had little recourse but to watch as the mine took over their lands and 'decapitated' their sacred mountain.

In the last few years, especially since some western mine employees were gunned down on the mine access road, the company has come under international scrutiny. However, the Jakarta Government is no hurry to interrupt the flow of taxes, dividends and royalties from Freeport, its biggest taxpayer.

There is an ongoing controversy around the way in which Freeport pays out millions of dollars so that Indonesian military and police forces can provide its security. Direct payments to individual police officers were supposed to have stopped, but the National Police Chief Timur Pradopo revealed in October that these payments of 'lunch money' continue. The security forces have a direct stake in a level of ongoing insecurity, a factor many believe underlies much of the violence in the area.

Following recent events, Indonesia has sent in yet more police and tried to justify the scandalous actions of its security forces as necessary to deal with "separatism".

Why has New Zealand made no public statement condemning this latest crackdown? Our Government Superannuation fund and other Crown Financial Institutes invest in Freeport McMoran. Both Government and the Superannuation Fund Board have so far resisted all calls to follow the ethical example of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund which divested from Freeport in 2006.

The New Zealand Minister of Defence recently talked about increasing our defence ties with Indonesia by extending the training we currently offer to Indonesian officers and hosting some "higher level" visits of Indonesian personnel. We also have an NZAID training programme for the mainly migrant West Papua police. We promote community policing' a non-confrontational model that is about as far from current Papuan police practice as it is possible to imagine!

The buzz word is "engagement" – if we talk nicely the military and police will learn not to open fire on unarmed civilians and Freeport will improve its human rights and environmental standards. Instead we should go with the tide of history, and start listening to West Papuan leaders who want us to support their call for peaceful dialogue

[Maire Leadbeater is spokesperson for the Indonesia Human Rights Committee.]