Jakarta – Jakarta waved an eternal goodbye to its former governor Lt. Gen. (ret.) Wiyogo Atmodarminto, who ruled the capital between 1987 and 1992. Wiyogo passed away on Friday at the age of 85.

According to his daughter, Ike Wiyogo Atmodarminto, the former governor collapsed after performing the maghrib (dusk) prayer at home and was rushed to the Metropolitan Medical Center Hospital on Jl. Rasuna Said, South Jakarta, but he died at 8:25 p.m.

Wiyogo is survived by his wife, three children, seven grandchildren and a great grandchild.

His remains were brought to his home on Jl. Banyumas in Menteng, Central Jakarta, and to comply with Muslim funeral procedures were later taken to the nearby Sunda Kelapa mosque for prayers on Saturday.

The newly elected governor Joko "Jokowi" Widodo attended Saturday's prayers and later presided over the funeral at the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery in South Jakarta, where Wiyogo was buried with military honors. Army Strategic Reserves (Kostrad) Commander Lt. Gen. Munir led the burial ceremony.

Other figures attending the funeral included Vice President Boediono, Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, former Jakarta governor Sutiyoso and Golkar politicians Akbar Tandjung and Aburizal Bakrie.

Wiyogo, popularly known as Bang Wi, rose to the capital's No. 1 position succeeding then governor R. Soeprapto.

As a governor, Wiyogo had been known for his concept of "Jakarta BMW" which stood for bersih, manusiawi and berwibawa (clean, humane and respectable), which Jokowi said would be readopted during his own term of office.

"Those [BMW] are what we should achieve," said Jokowi, who had hoped to receive advice from Wiyogo.

Wiyogo was also known as a firm and disciplinarian governor. His most well-known policy was to ban and get rid of the becak (three-wheeled pedicab) from Jakarta, saying the vehicle exploited humans and led to deterioration in the capital's order. He ordered the pedicabs to be dumped in the sea for fish to nest in and lay eggs.

Born in Yogyakarta on Nov. 22, 1926, Wiyogo studied at the Yogyakarta Military Academy from 1945-1948. After retiring as governor, succeeded by Soerjadi Soedirdja, Wiyogo focused on developing small and medium enterprises.

Hours before he passed away, he held a meeting at his house with members of one of the organizations he worked with to plan training for peasants in Karanganyar, Central Java, said his son Bambang Wiyogo.

Bambang said his father carefully monitored the recent Jakarta gubernatorial election process. "He had faith that we would see a better Jakarta," he said. (aml)

Companies ignore complaints, despite laws: Consumer group

Jakarta Post - October 18, 2012

Elly Burhaini Faizal, Tangerang – Companies continue to ignore consumer complaints despite the long-standing stipulations of the 1999 Consumer Protection Law, activists have said.

Huzna Gustiana Zahir from the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) said that firms viewed the rising number of consumer complaints as "nuisances".

"Consumer rights continue to be disregarded, as we continue to see a growing number of complaints published in the readers' columns of newspapers or direct complaints forwarded to our organization," Huzna said on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Annual Meeting on Testing and Quality (AMTeQ).

Huzna said that the Consumer Protection Law required companies to take complaints seriously.

"Yet, it seems hard for angry consumers to get the attention of companies. This has forced them to direct their complaints through third parties, such as the news media and consumer protection agencies, like the YLKI," Huzna said.

The YKLI said that it has received 233 complaints this year as of July. The banking, insurance and credit services industry led the list of complaints, comprising 18 percent of all reported incidents, followed by the telecommunications sector.

The year-to-date trend for 2012 follows that of the previous year. Complaints on banking, insurance and credit services comprised 21 percent of all cases recorded by the YKLI throughout 2011, which was up from 13.7 percent of all complaints recorded in 2010.

The housing sector comprised 14.5 percent of all complaints in 2011, followed by the telecommunications sector at 12 percent.

"Most consumers first try to file a complaint directly with the companies. They then decide to report it to the third parties, such as writing a reader letter to a newspaper or requesting mediation from consumer protection associations, as they were not satisfied with their responses," Huzna said.

According to the YLKI, 84 cases of 590 reports it received in 2010, or 14 percent, involved housing complaints.

Husna said that responding properly to a consumer complaint could improve a company's performance.

"They [companies] continue to see consumer complaints as bad things, when in fact such feedback might improve their services or product manufacturing processes in the future," Huzna said.

Husna made her comments at the AMTeQ meeting held by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)'s research center for quality systems and testing technology at the Science and Technology Research Center (Puspiptek) in Serpong, Tangerang.

Participants at the meeting discussed developing indicators for quality products and the need for calibration laboratories and reputable product certification institutions, among other things.

PKS urges adoption of Red Crescent symbol

Jakarta Post - October 16, 2012

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – The Islamic based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is urging Indonesia to adopt the Red Crescent in addition to the existing Red Cross symbol for the country's humanitarian body, the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI).

Lawmaker Aus Hidayat Nur told a meeting on Tuesday that recognizing both symbols would comply with the Geneva Convention, which recognizes three symbols for member nations' humanitarian organizations: the Red Cross, the Red Crescent and the Red Crystal.

"We want the nation to also recognize the Red Crescent symbol, to allow Indonesia to participate delivering aid to Islamic countries that prefer the Red Crescent symbol," Aus said.

The decision follows lawmaker junkets to Denmark and Turkey that totaled a staggering Rp 1.3 billion (US$135,804) to investigate using the Red Crescent symbol, the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency previously said. (FITRA) (iwa)

West Papua

Five police officers injured, tens detained in Manokwari clash

Jakarta Post - October 23, 2012

Jakarta – Five police officers, one journalist were injured and eleven reportedly detained when a rally staged by West Papua National Committee (KNPB) turned chaotic on Tuesday in Manokwari, West Papua.

"They [officers] were still hospitalized. The demonstrators threw stones at them. I don't know whether anyone from KNPB was also injured," said Manokwari Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Agustinus Supriyanto on Wednesday, as quoted by www.tempo.co.

A reporter with Suara Papua, Oktovianus Pogau was also reportedly injured after being hit by the police.

Dozens of people under the KNPB staged a rally in front of the University of Papua, Manokwari to show support for the meeting of the International Parliament of West Papua (IPWP) that discussed the ongoing struggle for the liberation of West Papua in London.

The supposedly peaceful rally turned chaotic after one of the demonstrators threw stones at people that took pictures from behind the horde of police. The police responded by allegedly firing warning shots.

Agustinus denied that the police opened fire at the demonstrators. "If there were rumors about someone being shot, that's not true," said Agustinus. He also claimed that no one was arrested.

Another report, however, says that 11 protesters were detained as a result of the incident. The committee's chairman, Viktor Yeimo, said that some of his people were arrested. "This is unacceptable. We were just expressing our aspirations. I even heard that two of our men were shot," he said.(kes/iwa)

Papua police shoot two during KNPB protest in Manokwari

Jakarta Globe - October 23, 2012

Camelia Pasandaran & Oktovianus Pogau – The Indonesian Military (TNI) and Papua Police opened fire on protestors in Manokwari, shooting two and injuring three others – including a Jakarta Globe contributor – in the latest crackdown on pro-independence groups in this restive province.

The West Papua National Committee-sponsered (KNPB) rally began near the State University of Papua (Unipa) in Manokwari, said human rights activist Markus Haluk. Some 300 protestors attempted to march to nearby Borarsi field when police and soldiers blocked their path.

Police demanded the protestors remain at the university and began taking photographs of those involved. The protestors responded by throwing stones at the officers. Two officers were injured by the stones, Papua Police spokesman Adj. Comr. Gede Sumerta said.

Police opened fire, shooting two of the protestors and injuring three others, Markus said. Eleven were arrested including KNPB head Alex Nekenem, according to activists and Antara News Agency reports.

Police attempted to shut the demonstration down because the organizers failed to apply for the proper permits, Markus said. But pro-independence groups are never granted a permit to hold a demonstration in Papua, he explained.

"Any kind of rally linked to human rights violations in Papua could never get a permit from the police," he said. "They conducted a peaceful demonstration, but police were fully armed." Gede was unaware Papua Police shot two people at the protest.

Ferry Marisan, director of the human rights group Elsham, said the police's reaction was unwarranted. "[The] Indonesian government in every campaign said they would not use violence," said Ferry, who characterized the protest as peaceful and organized.

"None of [the protestors] even brought the Morning Star flag." Other protests were held in Waena, Sentani and Jayapura.

Jakarta Globe stringer and SuaraPapua.com reporter Oktovianus Pogau was choked and beaten by police as he attempted to report on the protest. Oktovianus was videotaping the scene when he was approached by a plainclothes officer and told to leave. When he refused a second officer attacked him from behind.

"[A] policeman in a uniform came and choked my neck while he threatened me and told me to leave the location," Oktovianus said. "I tried to escape and told him that I'm a journalist... but [another] policeman punched me in the face."

Oktovianus was pulled from the scene by fellow journalists. He had showed the officers his press credentials before the second attack took place.

It was the second assault on journalists in Indonesia in the past week. On Oct. 16, members of the TNI attacked five journalists reporting on a downed military aircraft in Penkanbaru, Riau. Riau Pos photographer Didik Herwanto was beaten and choked by an officer with the Indonesian Air Force in a widely spread video.

Oktovianus is the second Jakarta Globe contributor to be injured on the job while reporting in Papua. Last year, long-time writer Banjir Ambarita was stabbed in Jayapura after reporting on allegations of sexual abuse of female inmates by officers in a Jayapura Police detention center.

Banjir survived the attack but said the stabbing left him "deeply traumatized" and wary of reporting on government abuse.

Papuans in Manado rally in support of IPWP meeting, independence

Kompas.com - October 23, 2012

Contributor Manado, Ronny Adolof Buol – As reported earlier, Papuans living in North Sulawesi, specifically those in Manado city held a protest action demanding justice for the Land of Papua on Tuesday October 23.

Although they were not joined by the thousands of people expected earlier, the demonstration by several hundred people managed to attract the attention of Manado residents because it passed through the main streets of the city.

The demonstrators began the action on the grounds of the Sam Ratulangi University (Unsrat) rectorate office then held a long-march towards the South Sulawesi Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) building. Throughout the march, the protesters called out their demands. "We demand justice for the Land of Papua. We want independence", shouted the demonstrators accompanied by their own unique singing.

In addition to demanding independence for Papua, the demonstrators who came from the North Sumatra Papuan Students, Youth and People's Solidarity (SPMPMP) also declared their support for the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP) meeting in London.

"The IPWP [meeting] that is currently taking place in London, England, which is being attended by senior Papuan leaders, is endeavoring to urge the UN to acknowledge the Papuan nation's struggle", explained action coordinator Nenaluck.

The demonstrators also said that Papua needs a referendum in order that the Papuan people can determine the fate of their own nation. "The nation and motherland of Papua has been a sacrificial offering for the economic, political and dominating interests of Holland, America and Indonesia", shouted one of the protesters during a speech in front of the DPRD.

The demonstrators also conveyed their wishes on the grounds of the DPRD. "We hope that the South Sulawesi DPRD can accommodate our hopes and wishes. We have long experienced injustice. Regional autonomy has not provided an answer. We want independence", said Nenaluck.

A written statement and list of demands signed by various different student groups at the demonstration was handed over to the DPRD. DPRD Deputy Speaker Arthur Kotambunan who made time to receive the demonstrators explained that they accepted the protesters wishes.

"We accept the wishes of our sisters and brothers from Papua, and will try to convey these wishes to the national House of Representatives", Kotambunan told the protesters. The demonstration, which was closely watched over by police, proceeded in an orderly and peaceful manner, although it did create traffic congestion on several of the city's streets.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Four injured, 11 arrested after police fire on protesters in Manokwari

Berita Satu - October 23, 2012

Antara/Ratna Nuraini – A demonstration by the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) that took place in Manokwari this morning ended in chaos. As a result of the incident, 11 people were taken away by the Manokwari district police.

The action by members of the KNPB, which was held to support a meeting of the International Parliament of West Papua (IPWP) in London, took place in the vicinity of Jl. Gunung Salju in front of the University of Papua in Amban, Manokwari. The action had been taking place since around 9am.

After giving speeches, the protesters who numbered around 100 planned to hold a long-march to the Borasi Square. But the plan was thwarted when they were blocked and forcibly disbursed by police.

As a result, the protesters became enraged and pelted security personnel with stones. In response, police fired warning shots resulting in four people being injured. In addition to the four who were inured, two police officers were injured after being hit by rocks.

When contacted by Berita Satu, Papuan regional police public relations chief Assistant Superintendent Gede Sumerta admitted that as many as 11 people are currently being detained by district police. They are FN, AW, OA, DA, ET, DM, KJ, PP, OM and AN.

In addition to questioning the 11, the police also confiscated four KNPB and United Nations flags as well as banners and pamphlets brought by the demonstrators. Sumerta said that they did not come across any Morning Star flags, either brought by the demonstrators or flown openly.

When asked about the four people hit by gunshots, Sumerta stated that they are yet to receive a report from the Manokwari district police. According to Sumerta, based on information received from an Indonesian Embassy staff member in London, Aris Nugroho, it turns out that there was no meeting that discussed Papua in the British parliament.

"So news that there were discussions about Papua are untrue", said Sumerta adding that according to Jayapura municipal police, no demonstrations supporting the IPWP in London took place in Jayapura.

Nevertheless, Jayapura police could be seen on guard in a number of places and had deployed Barracuda armoured vehicles in and around the Imbi area in Jayapura.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Activist tortured, disappeared amid round up of non-violent activists

West Papua Media - October 21, 2012

Reports have been received from human rights investigators detailing a torture incident that occurred in Serui on October 17, 2012, under the command of notorious Serui Police Chief Roycke Harry Langie.

Arrests occurred in Serui in the lead up to planned demonstrations commemorating the 1st anniversary of the 3rd Papuan People's Congress, the brutal crackdown by Indonesian security forces on the event, and the establishment of the self-declared Federated Republic of West Papua.

Those now held as political prisoner in Serui now include:

Edison Kendi
Yanpiet Maniamboi
Jon Niantian
Jamal Omrik Manitori

On Wednesday evening after 6:00pm, activist Lodik Ayomi was captured by Police at Serui General hospital whilst visiting his ill father. Whilst Lodik's father was lying in hospital bed, he watched helplessly with tears as his son was being hand-cuffed, hit with a rifle-butt on the head and dragged out of the hospital, according to human rights investigators.

Mr Ayomi, in his early 30's, is a father with a child and a political activist. He is listed on the Daftar Pencarian Orang (DPO- Wanted List) by the Police in Serui, alongside with several other political activists who are now in hiding for their safety. Mr Ayomi was falsely accused by Serui police of an incident in May, which Police claimed to be an 'attempt-to- shoot' a police officer at Angkaisera Police station.

Lodik's one kilometre journey from the hospital to the Police Prison left him with a fractured skull and swollen eyes, and one witness described that "he can't even open his eyes". He was also beaten upon his arrival at the Serui Prison, where a witness saw ten police officers in uniform "push him out of the police car and onto the ground violently with ongoing brutal acts of kicking, punching, and hitting with the butt of their rifle for several minutes."

Another witness at the prison saw Ayomi couldn't move whilst he was lying on the ground. "I thought he was dead, but thankfully, a new officer who just started his shift came for Lodik's rescue and stop the other officers from hitting him," said the witness. Mr Lodik sustained a fractured skull with three cracks on his head, according tohe witness, who has not been identified for his protection.

The witness saw a "blood-bath all over" and massive swelling on his face and body. He was then physically dragged into his cell and later at 8:15pm, the prison guards allowed four Indonesian intelligence officers, who blind-folded his head in a bag and tortured him.

Before he was dragged away, other inmates could hear him screaming loudly "help, help, help, Lord help me", for several times. The inmates heard the interrogators yelled at him to 'stand-up' when he fell onto the concrete floor, and continuously kicked him until he was crying and Ayomi was begging for the police officers to "please don't paralyze my legs, please don't break my legs".

After that another five officers came in and took him away into the interrogation room, where he continued to scream for 'help', according to witnesses at the prison. He was tortured and interrogated for over six hours, from 8:15pm until 2:00am. He was later put in a septic tank for 2 hours with head blind-folded and hand-cuffed. The other inmates saw him "like a disabled person".

On Thursday morning, around 8am, he was taken away from the prison and until now, no one knows his whereabouts, including the other inmates. Grave concerns are held for his safety. The witnesses who saw the police officers who beat him know the identities of the police officers names. Thee names of the police officers who conducted the beating are:

Bripka. Jabal Nur
Brigadir. Yusak Sawaki
Briptu. Peres Yowen
Briptu. Regen Jas
Briptu. Berti

[With West Papua Media.]

Violence intensifies in Paniai, towns emptied as military conduct reprisals

West Papua Media - October 21, 2012

Nick Chesterfield – As a major crackdown by Indonesian security forces deepens against West Papuan civil resistance activists ahead of mass mobilisations across Papua, West Papua Media is examining Papuan nationalist motivations for resistance, revisiting a region that has been continuously wracked by security force violence connected to illegal gold mining and resource extraction.

The Paniai regency, which straddles the "neck" of the Papuan "bird of Paradise" landform, is the site of a new gold rush that has resulted in brutality against ordinary indigenous tribal and townspeople.

Intensifying acts of violence by Indonesian security forces has reportedly emptied towns in the Paniai district of West Papua, with civilians allegedly fleeing in their thousands to the jungle outside the Enarotoli region, according to human rights sources in Paniai.

Regular reports have been received over recent weeks from church human rights sources detailing a campaign of arbitrary brutality committed by soldiers from the notorious Nabire-based 753 Battalion of the Indonesian army (TNI), together with Brimob paramilitary police, against indigenous people primarily from the Mee tribe. Random attacks on ordinary villagers, drunken altercations at gambling venues, and sporadic attempts by indigenous Mee people to claim any share of the vast sums of wealth flowing out of their lands, have all contributed to a sense of brutalization endured by the Mee people in recent months.

Engagements between forces of the Paniai command of the West Papuan National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional) and both Brimob and 753 Btn troops have been used as justification for violence against civilians, and several incidents connected to TNI business activities across the regency have increased tensions.

Daily confirmed reporting from church human rights sources in the Paniai have detailed a litany of abuses by security forces, including, torture, unprovoked killings, shootings, and beatings over economic turf wars.

Torture over taxi turf

On October 1, a misunderstanding quickly escalated to a torture incident in Waghete, in the Deiyei district of Paniai, illustrating perfectly the mundane economic triggers of abuse carried out by security force members. A local district official Marion Dogopia, Head of Bouwobado District, Deiyai, was been driven in an official car (with yellow government plates) from Enarotoli to Waghete. In the car were Dogopia's driver, and his Papuan Police officer bodyguard, Ones Pigome. The car turned into the Waghete bus terminal to pick up further family members, where a TNI Btn 753 soldier, moonlighting as a taxi driver, started an argument with the driver, according to a church human rights investigation seen by West Papua Media.

Across Indonesia, the TNI control the taxi and ojek (motorbike taxi) industry, which is used as both a good source of intelligence and a lucrative, effortless cash source for bored soldiers – who protect their turf ruthlessly. According to witnesses quoted in the human rights investigation, the soldier taxi driver – who was first in line at the taxi rank – angrily accused the official's driver of being a taxi and picking up passengers at the bus station, a place where taxis are not allowed to operate. Despite the driver and Dogopia trying to calmly explain that the vehicle was a private vehicle and was not taking fares, the soldier refused to listen.

At this point, the municipal police officer Pigome, started to get angry at the soldier, and shouted and slapped the soldier, demanding he stand down. The soldier resisted and called out his colleagues from Battalion 753, who were loitering at an army post 50 metres away. According to witnesses, several dozen soldiers rushed over complete with their equipment and weapons, and pulled Ones Pigome out from his car. They severely beat the victim, kicked him, tore his clothes, and stomped him with their boots after he fell helplessly. As a result, Pigome sustained deep lacerations, contusions and swelling upon his head, face and body.

In a chilling reminder of the dangers faces to both journalists and witnesses to Indonesian state violence – and a sign of the fear that state abuse perpetrators in Papua have of being held to account by growing citizen media power – witnesses reported that several soldiers were standing guard while their colleagues were beating up Pigome, keeping watch after the voices of several 753 members could be heard saying "see who is taking photos or videos". Witnesses reported that soldiers took their rifles up to low ready positions and intimidated citizens, so that nobody was allowed to take photos. The beating was reported to have lasted over an hour.

Despite the very public nature of the beating and ill-discipline in torturing another member of the security forces, no sanction against the offending 753 soldiers was reported. This further example of impunity has contributed to the tension and feeling that the TNI is out to cause indiscriminate violence to Papuans, as collective punishment for the temerity of any challenge to Jakarta's colonial plunder.

Military contacts increase

Indonesian army officers from 753 have also recently been implicated in several other incidents.

On Thursday October 11, a joint Indonesian army and Brimob patrol sent to secure logistics from the TPN for local elections, was moving in a speedboat up the Kebo River from Enarotoli. According to reports, the army was using a civilian speedboat on Waneuwo Creek, Agadide District, and a TPN patrol saw this and opened fire on the boat, allegedly with a rocket propelled grenade according to MetroTV, though no evidence was provided for this claim. In the firefight, the boat carrying food and logistical supplies for the TNI was sunk, and two TNI soldiers sustained gunshot wounds in their hands and feet.

The military conducted reprisals immediately by opening fire indiscriminately on civilian fishing boats tied up at the Aikai fishing hamlet in Enarotoli. Civilians were then rounded up at gunpoint in the suburb of Bobaigo in Enarotoli, arrested without charge or justification – all are still being held at different police posts for interrogation. West Papua Media has been unable to ascertain the identities of those arrested.

Prior to the latest wave of violence, throughout August a series on attacks on military posts, local officials, ordinary people and transmigrant workers were widely blamed on the ubiquitous "unknown persons" (OTK) killed 5 people, and critically injured another 6. These OTK attacks, now wryly interpreted by Papuans to mean "Specially Trained Persons" (Orang Terlatih Khusus), were used as justification by security forces to conduct widespread reprisals against Papuan civilians. As is the usual case, police have been in no hurry to identify the perpetrators with evidence, or do anything other than cooperate in extra-judicial operations, according to independent sources in Enarotoli.

In August, the reprisal by security forces forced a closure of the town of Enarotali, with schools, public transport and food supplies paralysed. All health services in the District General Hospitals across Paniai were not running, as nurses, medical staff and patients were forcibly discharged by the security forces. Civilians were unable to engage in farming, causing crops and food supplies to suffer, and were unable to gather firewood in the forest or fishing in the lake. According to testimonies, the atmosphere was constantly coloured by the sounds of gunfire. This situation was experienced by people in the city Enarotali, Madi (Paniai regency capital) and surrounding areas in Paniai.

After a period of relative calm in September, this situation is again being repeated through the behaviour of 753 Battalion and the members of Brimob, who are intricately entangled in the illegal gold mining trade. West Papua Media reported in December 2011 on the ruthless Operation Matoa which was launched across the region to destroy the TPN forces of Jhon Yogi – resulting in the displacement of over 14,000 people, almost 150 villages burnt down and the failure of basic services for almost a year.

Violence over illegal gold control

Brimob paramilitary police, who were stationed in the Degeuwo and Derero River alluvial gold diggings, were providing a lucrative protection racket for the Australian-owned West Wits Mining and other foreign small scale mining companies, which was detailed in an original investigation by West Papua Media. During Operation Matoa, helicopters leased by West Wits were allegedly provided to Indonesian security forces, who used them to strafe and napalm villages in the TPN stronghold of Eduda. Then, as now, creating conflict to be suppressed is a powerful economic motivator for Brimob and 753 troops, who would otherwise be without "legitimate" reason to be around the gold diggings, and all the opportunities for profit that entails. Brimob troops are contracted in lucrative business interests across the alluvial gold mining sector as they provide security for diggings, and also provide site security for several joint operations

The TPN forces of Jhon Yogi have long been suspected by observers as entangled in a mutually beneficial relationship of violence with both Brimob police and 753 Btn, as they both vie for control of artisanal alluvial gold mining operations across the rich rivers and streams that lead into Lake Paniai.

One observer of the Paniai struggle spoken to by West Papua Media today questioned if the perpetrators of ongoing repression were "simply bored 19 year olds with guns, Mafioso soldiers protecting their turf, or entangled business relationships between all actors in a classic horizontal resource based conflict.

On October 12, another armed contact occurred between Yogi's TPN troops and another joint Brimob/753 patrol on a road near Tanjung Toyaimoti, Agadide District, according to TPN sources. Citizen media sources reported that Jhon Yogi's TPN unit was ambushed by the Brimob while Yogi's men were on their way from Pasir Putih District to Komopa. The sources claim that TPN were startled by gunshots near the village and returned fire in a shootout for several minutes. Two TPN members were shot, one (Dabeebii Gobai, 26 years old) critically, and died the next day.

It is unclear how or why the vastly outgunned TPN unit was able, or allowed, to escape by Brimob officers, despite having several mobile units on call. The failure to capture Yogi has raised significant questions as to desire of Brimob to capture him.

A senior church source in Paniai questioned the conditions behind the conflict and the commitment for actors in the conflict to actually seek peace. According to the source, this situation has created a psychological trauma where "Paniai people are still living in the same uncertain circumstances (as when) the area was considered to be a ??military operations area (DOM) until 2002.... We predict that such incidents are likely to continue to occur because both parties have still not demonstrated an attitude to restrict their areas of movement nor invite each other to prioritise persuasive (unarmed dialogue-based) approaches. It is often difficult to accept such offers."

He continued, "All parties in Paniai remain indifferent to these problems occurring, even though the victims are often civilians. Maybe it's because violence is considered normal in Paniai?"

Demos commemorating FRWP 1st anniversary held across Papua

West Papua Media - October 20, 2012

As commemorations marking the Third Papuan People's Congress were forcibly broken up by heavy handed security forces in Jayapura, the celebrations in Wamena, Merauke, Fakfak, Sorong, Timika and Serui were cheerfully welcomed with a thanksgiving service.

The commemorations were to mark the 1st anniversary of the founding of the Federated Republic of West Papua, which was declared as an independent state at the culmination of the Third Papuan Peoples' Congress on October 19, 2011. On that day, moments later, Indonesian police attacked the ceremony, killing up to 7 participants, beating scores more, and arresting and torturing hundreds. The leaders of the FRWP, Forkorus Yaboisembut and Edison Waromi, together with Dominikus Sorabut, Agus Kraar and Selpius Bobii, remain political prisoners a year later, convicted of treason against the Indonesian occupiers in a farcical trial.

In Manokwari, more than one thousand participants braved heavy intimidation by security forces to walk four kilometres from the Sports Centre (GOR) in Sanggeng to Elim Church in Kwawi. The marchers vibrantly enchanted gospel tunes and traditional West Papuan songs of liberation that has been deeply rooted in the long struggle for freedom.

Participants gathered around 8:30am to 9:30am at two different meeting points. The first group gathers at the Sports Centre (GOR) in Sanggeng and later walk to the second meeting point at the banyan tree in front of the University of Papua (UNIPA). At around 9:30am, the security forces told the organisers to have a normal service without a march but were unable to stop the demands from the participants, and eventually the march proceeds at around 10:00am West Papua local time.

Police across Papua had banned the display of Papuan symbols and attributes for the independence struggle, but were left scratching their heads when Papuans in Manokwari came attired in entire Morning Star flags as pieces of clothing.

Dr. Frans Kapisa, appointed Minister of Defence under the Federated Republic of West Papua, called for Jakarta to recognise the rights of Papuans that "from now and onwards, we (West Papuans) will demand, and demand, and demand the Indonesian government to immediately return our political rights," said Mr Kapisa. "I want to underline that to determine the future of Papuans, it must be from Papuans themselves, not from outsiders or foreign governments" stated Mr Kapisa during his speech to the audience.

Speaking in front of journalists, Mr Kapisa further outlined, "once again I plead to Indonesian government to recognise and address this (West Papua issue) in a proper way so that in the future we will work together as a good neighbour and both Indonesia and West Papua can serve each others interest," exclaim Mr Kapisa.

The peaceful march attracted hundreds of bystanders who eventually joined the march, and security forces were on-site with two Dalmas public order riot units, two Police trucks, two Brimob paramilitary units and two pick- up vehicles.

Despite the security presence, Markus Yenu, Sius Ayemi, Siwa Tigtigweria, Erik Kayoi, Afred Auparay, Gustaf Wanma, Otto Rumasep, Eliezer Zet Wambrauw, Obet Elimelech Kaiwai, Erik Fimbay, Ham Yesham, Mark Umpes, Ariel Werimon, Hengki Saiba were all able to deliver their speeches.

Meanwhile in Jayapura, as the prayer service was interrupted by the Police use of force, organising committee members who brought the food to the event were prohibited to go to Theys Eluay's graveside. Instead, the Police seized the food from the mama-mama (Papuan Mothers) who are part of the organising committee, and threw it away into the nearby bushes, telling the mama-mama that they can not even go to meet the other participants.

The mothers were so disappointed in the Police behaviour. One mother, who does not want to be identified, described the Police behaviour as "inhumane" and "no respect" to the indigenous people of the land.

Meanwhile, at the time of writing the article, SMS messages came through to West Papua Media that four people were "snatch" arrested by Kapolres in Jayapura at around 10:30am during the confusion of the forcible break-up of the rally. West Papua Media stingers reported that a verbal confrontation between the organising committee and the Police force intensified and led to Charles Demetouw (75) and Marcel Kalakmabin (23) being dragged away forcefully by Police and immediately thrown into the police vehicle.

The two further arrestees were unable to be identified due to the sudden approach of Police who dragged them from behind and quickly taken away to the police vehicle. No further updates as to the status and condition of the four men, but local stringers believe the four were taken to Jayapura prison. Credible fears have been express that the four may be subjected to possible torture throughout the night.

The event finished with a closing prayer by Pastor Ketty Yabansabra. As people dispersed peacefully, Pastor Ketty Yabansabra was followed by four men whom the organisers were certain to be intelligence officers. The four guys get onto their motorbikes and followed her home at around 3:oopm. She went into hiding for few hours and later carefully went home to her family.

Local journalists for other media outlets were prevented from carrying out their duties by police, who stopped them from attending the day's event in Jayapura, according to West Papua Media's undercover trained stringers who eluded police monitoring.

Indonesian special forces hunt West Papuan environmentalist

West Papua Media - October 20, 2012

Nick Chesterfield, with local sources – Indonesian Special Forces officers have redoubled their efforts to hunt down non-violent women's and environmental rights activist Fanny Kogoya, after a failed attempt to capture her and Papuan student activists from the West Papua National Committee at a university dormitory on Tuesday night.

Fanny Kogoya was also elected the head of the Papua desk for the Indonesian branch of Friends of the Earth (WAHLI) on June 13, the day before her close friend Mako Tabuni, former KNPB leader,was extrajudicially executed by Detachment 88 troops in Jayapura.

Kogoya, also a women's rights defender from the grassroots Papuan women's network TIKI, has been been placed on a Papua wide wanted persons list (Daftar Pencarian Orang or DPO) by the Australian-trained and funded Detachment 88 anti-terror investigators. This is despite Kogoya having resigned from pro-independence activities, according to established credible sources in Jayapura – Kogoya is also accused by police of having knowledge of the whereabouts of activists from the pro-independence civil resistance group, West Papua National Committee (KNPB).

KNPB activists are in hiding after being ruthlessly hunted by security forces, in order to break the back of the civil resistance movement against Indonesian brutality in occupied West Papua. This harassment campaign has gained significant pace ahead of planned Papua-wide mobilisations against Indonesian colonial violence on October 23 – rallies widely expected to be subject to major Indonesian state violence.

The latest crackdown has seen brutal intelligence gathering techniques employed by security forces, including officers identified by witnesses as being from Detachment 88, arbitrarily targeting for beatings, kidnappings, arrests and torture on students and civilians from the highland tribes of Yakuhimo and Dani people - seen by many observers as the backbone of the KNPB effort to use civil power to defeat Indonesian state violence.

Confirmed reports from human rights activists in Jayapura have described heavily armed plain clothes officers – believed by witnesses to be members of either Kopassus or Detachment 88 – violently threatening highland students and civilians in a bid to hunt down members and associates of the KNPB.

Raids on student accommodation around Abepura and Jayapura have intensified ahead of a planned mass mobilisation across Papua on October 23rd by KNPB, which is calling for an end to these illustrated acts of Indonesian state violence - a move seen as makar (subversion) by the new Papua Police chief Tito Karnavian, the former head of the Australian- funded Detachment 88.

Attempts to contact Karnavian or his Papua Police spokespeople for comment for this article have been so far rebuffed and unsuccessful.

Additionally, witnesses and survivors have described a chronology of what is being described as a "fishing operation" by Indonesian intelligence officers. Attempts to capture Fanny Kogoya had been ongoing for several days, with police Avanzas permanently stationed outside houses and haunts of both Kogoya and her extended family and friends.

According to a detailed and disturbing testimony provided by Yakuhimo man and citizen media worker Simson Yohame to independent human rights monitors in Jayapura, the officers have heavily monitored highland students in the greater Jayapura area in a bid to isolate KNPB activists from their base.

Yohame, a friend of Kogoya, was himself kidnapped and tortured by suspected Detachment 88 officers on October 9 after accidentally leaving his motorbike helmet at a Javanese restaurant in Waena, near Abepura. He had been tailed for several days by intelligence officers, who suspected his friendship with Fanny would lead them to their quarry.

Upon leaving the restaurant, he was set upon by plain clothes police intelligence agents, whom he believed to be Detachment 88 officers. They bundled him in to the back of a black police Avanza car, whilst soldiers who were stationed outside the Yakuhimo regencies student dormitory at Waena stood guard. An intelligence officer from Makassar hit him repeatedly with a butt of a pistol, and other officers punched him systematically in the chest using a silat (traditional Javanese martial arts favoured by Kopassus) technique that can easily cause cardiac arrest.

He described being taken in a six car high speed convoy, initially to the back of an unknown facility close to the Jayapura police headquarters, before being subjected to psychological torture on a drive around the greater Jayapura area, and was hypnotized to disorientation. Yohame described the brutal interrogations where he was threatened with knives, swords and cocked and loaded firearms by Detachment 88, according to his testimony. Interrogators also subjected him to psyops by playing loud torture music and sound on headphones they held on his head, while they were sticking knives and pistols into his body.

Giving fascinating if chilling insight, Yohame has detailed the processes that Intel attempted to use to turn him to spy on his friend Fanny. He refused eventually, but not before documenting the techniques utilized.

After the torture, the Detachment 88 officers allegedly moved onto "Stage 3" as Yohame described it, a combination of the classic good cop/bad cop routine. "They (intel) began to ask me the core question: 'Do you know Fanny Kogoya? This picture is FK, FK stay close to you. You do not deny it. If you deny we will kill you.'"

"I asked why are you looking for FK? Intel said to me that 'because the cases of murder that Mako Tabuni was doing involved FK. FK participated in designing all events Mako and comrades were doing'. Yohame reported the police as saying.

The police continued: 'FK loves the money Mako and his friends had over the years. FK is the girlfriend of Danny Wenda. Wenda is now the number 1 Papua Police DPO'," the interrogators said.

The interrogators then changed tactics, offering a payment. "In addition, if you (SY) can inform on where FK is, we will pay you (SY) Rp 10 million for initial operations,". They demanded the locations of Danny Wenda, the Chairman of KNPB, Victor Yeimo, Tinus Yohame, Buktar Tabuni, Victor Yeimo, Assa Asso, and also fellow Yakuhimo clansmen allegedly involved in KNPB, alternatively offering payment, and threatening to kill him if he denied knowledge of their whereabouts. Yohame was then trained in demonstration and civil resistance disruption and sabotage techniques, and fieldwork techniques employed by intelligence informants.

Yohame described how his tasking had traumatised him greatly, and he refused internally to carry out the actions. After his release having agreed to be an Indonesian agent, he was secretly informing Fanny Kogoya about the massive operation in effect to capture her and warning her to move outside the town to avoid arrest or disappearance.

Fanny Kogoya, who like other civil society activists on the DPO list is constantly moving from house to house, has so far eluded capture due to the diligence of the now underground non-violent independence movement in Papua.

For the whole night of October 12, a Cenderawasih University (UNCEN) dormitory in Waena was under siege by a large group of plain clothes armed and masked security forces, who surrounded the dormitories. During the night, the police overran the dormitories in their search for Fanny Kogoya, according to witnesses.

Three students who living at the UNCEN hostel – UL (32), IK (36), and PK (22) - said they had been beaten and terrorized by the police. "Police pry the door and entered. They say 'we find the DPO who live here,'" the students explained in the human rights report. "They say the name of FK and Danny Wenda (DW)."

The Yakuhimo students at the dormitory were angered by the event, but held a peace blockade outside the gates of the Uncen campus in Waena, independent sources at the campus told West Papua Media. No reports were received of any forced dispersal, however tension is high and all West Papuan students are in fear that that they could be arrested or disappeared at any moment, according to human rights sources.

These actions came after a campaign of arrests from late September of at least eight people in the highland town of Wamena after police targeted homes and offices of KNPB members, accusing them of involvement in bombings and terrorism, despite KNPB being committed to non-violent civil resistance tactics.

In a statement, UK based human rights group Tapol said that "The targeting of KNPB activists appears to have intensified after the killing of the KNPB leader Mako Tabuni, on 14 June 2012. Officers of Indonesia's counter- terrorism unit, Special Detachment 88 (Densus 88), funded and trained by Australia, the US and the UK, are thought to have been involved in the killing of Mako Tabuni and the arrest of the KNPB members in Wamena."

Tapol has called for Indonesian authorities to "end the campaign of terror, intimidation and violence against human rights defenders and political activists, particularly members of KNPB," and to guarantee the safety of Fanny Kogoya, Viktor Yeimo, and others who have been targeted.

Tapol has also called on Jakarta to "end the deployment of Densus 88 to Papua, investigate all allegations of human rights violations by Densus 88 officers and other security forces personnel and bring those responsible to justice." Whilst tension remains high during the crackdown, KNPB activists have also warned their members not to be taken in by SMS messages that are being spread by intelligence personnel attempting to incite violence and horizontal conflict. Activists have circulated a list of mobile numbers that are responsible, and are urging all recipients to document any numbers that continue to spread these messages.

Many people have reported to West Papua Media of an upsurge in Special Forces activity, even around those who are not active on Papuan independence issues. There has been a significant increase on the presence of intelligence officers on the street. Selfius Bobii, the former KNPB leader serving out a three sentence at Abepura prison on a treason conviction for his role in the 3rd Papuan People's Congress of October 2011, still maintains close and effective communications with a network of activists throughout Papua.

In an SMS sent to West Papua Media, Bobii described how the TNI "have stooped to making themselves out to be civilians, to carry out undercover operations in order muffle the independence aspirations."

"Some are posing as Bakso (Beef offal noodles) Sellers on roadsides, some are posing as motorbike repair people and so on," Bobii said.

Bobii described the following factual account: On 11 Oct at 2303 hours in Nabire, Yance Agapa was heading home and was given a lift by an ojek (motorbike taxi) rider to the front of the Indonesian Air Force Quarters in front of the 'Glory' internet cafe. When they arrived at Malompo he gave the driver Rp20000 (approx. AUD$2) who hurriedly put it into the pocket of the black jacket he was wearing. Then a pistol fell out of his jacket. Yance startled in fright to which the driver responded "Brother don't be frightened because I'm from Ambon but my mother is from Sentani. I'll tell you straight, I'm a member of DENSUS 88 sent from Central to get the government program happening. So let our people from the community know to be careful using hire motorbikes."

West Papua Media has independently verified this account.

KNPB activists, most living underground currently, have expressed significant fears for their safety and survival from the crackdown. Yohame begged in his testimony, "the condition of our current times is so dire, (we need) all my friends and the international support groups to be able to monitor our current situation. Virtually all KNPB activists are threatened at this time."

It is unclear whether these intensified crackdown tactics will work on those close to DPO suspects to give up not just Fanny Kogoya, but other non-violent activists who are simply attempting to raise their universal human rights of self-determination and freedom of expression.

Certainly these hunting parties have confirmed one thing: that Australian trained counter-terrorism troops are without any doubt being used to suppress peaceful political activity, outside their legal mandate of counter-terrorism. This should be deeply concerning for Australia in its quest for advocating internationally the Rule of Law – and at the moment that it has just taken up a position on the UN Security Council it might prove to be an inconvenient turning of a blind eye.

Police break up commemoration of 3rd Papuan People's Congress

West Papua Media - October 19, 2011

Abepura – Indonesian Brimob Riot Police have forcibly broken up attempts to hold a memorial commemoration at the graveside of slain independence hero Theys Eluay today, where a prayer service was planned in remembrance of the first anniversary of a brutal crackdown by Indonesian security forces on the 3rd Papuan People's Congress.

Despite the Jayapura police issuing a permit on October 8 allowing a gathering at the sacred cemetery site, the literal touchstone for civil mobilisations in support of Papuan justice issues, police reneged on their agreement with organisers for the memorial prayer service to go ahead.

Up to 1000 people braved a threatening environment in spite of an ongoing crackdown by Indonesian occupation forces across West Papua on organisers of peaceful free expression.

The event had been planned by the National Federated Republic of West Papua, the body set up immediately prior to the violent dispersal by Australian funded Detachment 88 troops on October 19 last year. Prayer services and commemorations were also planned to be held in memorials in Wamena, Merauke, Fakfak, Sorong, Timika, Manokwari, and Serui.

Just before 10 am local time, several hundred heavily armed members of the Indonesian security forces had gathered outside Expo Waena shopping centre adjacent to the gravesite, causing many people to stand back from the already gathered mass. 6 trucks full of Brimob, 4 trucks of Army (TNI), 1 Gegana anti terror police unit and 3 trucks of Dalmas public order riot police (including members of Detachment 88) had deployed in a "show force" manoeuvre. According to witnesses in the crowd, almost 100 plain clothes armed intelligence officers had also deployed throughout the mass of ordinary Papuans around the shopping complex threatening to kill anyone that spoke against Indonesia.

At 10 am, Police issued a verbal warning on megaphones that the gathering was illegal and would be dispersed. However the right to engage is peaceful free expression is guaranteed both under the Indonesian Constitution and the 2001 Special Autonomy law in Papua. Witnesses reported the police commdander on the ground as saying, "we already warned you, there will not be any democratic space for you guys to speak out about the significance of todays commemoration," relayed over a megaphone immediately prior to the dispersal.

Police have reportedly banned the services from displaying any West Papuan independence attributes or cultural symbols, and have also banned the mention of the word "merdeka" (freedom) or any mention of the NFRWP, demands for independence or referendum – conditions subject to immediate dispersal if broken.

Up to 1000 people has begun to gather at the pendopo (traditional ceremony hut) at the gravesite of Eluay, when police stormed the gravesite in contempt of traditional customs, and forced people to disperse by pushing people heavily with riot shields. Participants then regrouped and began to march down the street adjacent to the cemetery.

Early reports have been unable to confirm if any injuries were sustained. At this stage there have been no reports of live fire being used or casualties.

At last report heated verbal confrontations between organisers and police were occurring, with police being angrily accused of being liars for reneging on their agreement, according to sources on the ground. Committee organiser Pastor Ketty Yabansabra called on participants to stand firm, stay together, and to not disperse until the event was to be closed with a prayer. At time of writing the event is currently ongoing.

No updates have yet been received from other venues at this stage. Significant concerns are held for the service in Serui, who had been threatened with violent dispersal by the head of police on Yapen should strict topics of speech be broken.

Security forces urged not to resort to violence on KRP-III anniversary

Bintang Papua - October 16, 2012

The plan by a group of people to commemorate the events that occurred last year at the time of the Third Papuan People's Congress (KRP III) when several people lost their lives has been described by the Papuan Provincal Legislative Assembly (DPR Papua) as a legitimate expression of Papuan concerns. It called on the security forces to refrain from again resorting to violence on this occasion.

"It is quite legitimate for Papuans to commemorate the KRP-III within the framework of our system of democracy. Every citizen has the right to give expression to their aspirations, as long as they do so by lawful means," said Ruben Magai, chairman of Commission A of the DRP Papua. He was speaking in response to questions from the press.

He said that the security forces should not resort to the use of violence in dealing with the aspirations of the people. "Dont keep using violence because this only traumatises the Papuan people. In any system of democracy, it is quite natural for people to give expression to their aspirations."

He said that KRP III was now part of Papua's history which means that commemorating the event is quite legitimate.

He went on to say that the government in Papua is behaving undemocratically in many ways. Activists are facing a lot of intimidation. "If it continues to ignore democratic principles, the problem of Papua will never be solved."

He said that the way to resolve the problem is to enter into dialogue.

"It is only through dialogue that this problem should be handled. The use of violence will only attract the attention of the international community and will deeply wound the feelings of the Papuan people."

He said in addition that if greater pressure is exerted against Papuan people, they will make their voices heard loud and clear. "The more that pressure is used, the louder they will shout." he said.

He also said that the special autonomy law for Papua (OTSUS) adopted eleven years ago has proved worthless because it has failed to protect the interests of the Papuan people. "OTSUS means nothing any more because it has failed to protect the interests of the Papuan people. An example was the way the governor was chosen. This problem has now been returned to the KPU – election commission, which means that there is nothing special at all about OTSUS."

[Translated by Tapol.]

Aceh

Aceh shuts down Buddhist temples and churches

Jakarta Globe - October 22, 2012

Rangga Prakoso – Authorities have closed nine churches and six Buddhist temples in Banda Aceh in the last week, following mounting pressure from local Islamist groups, activists and church officials said on Sunday.

Theophilus Bela, chairman of Jakarta Christian Communication Forum, said that the churches' priests were forced to sign a statement to close their churches.

Officials from the province that applies Shariah law supposedly made the demands in a meeting that was attended by several Islamic organizations, including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI). "It's a blatant act of intolerance," Theophilus said.

The churches include the Indonesian Bethel Church (GBI), the Pantekosta Church and the Indonesia Christian Church.

Nico Tarigan, a priest and head of GBI church, acknowledged that the permit needed for the church to remain open had not been issued from the mayor's office, even though the paperwork for the permit had been submitted a long time ago.

"We admit we have not had the permit," he said by telephone. "But they can't just close down our church. We have 80 members that don't know where to pray."

Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal, Banda Aceh deputy mayor, said that the nine churches and six temples have violated the city's regulation, and should be closed down.

"The congregation members can join churches that have secured permits," he said. "As a province that applies Islamist law, Aceh has a special law on this issue."

He also called on Aceh's Christians to respect the law. However, Nico said that other churches were not necessarily open to members from other congregations.

"We hope there is a better solution from the Aceh government," Nico said. "We have no motive to compete with other religions or ruin Islamic teaching. We have been here for eight years. They can ask local officials if we have done damage to Islamic teaching."

"The FPI will continue to monitor these illegal churches and temples so that they don't resume their activities," said FPI chairman Yusuf Al- Qardhawy.

Islamic leaders call for arrest of Aceh youth who attacked shariah police

Jakarta Globe - October 22, 2012

Islamic leaders on Monday called on police to arrest a group of young people who attacked Shariah Police officers in Aceh after their music event was disbanded.

The incident in Aceh's Langsa Timur subdistrict on Saturday night saw 12 Shariah Police officers disband a keyboard performance with hundreds in attendance in front of a house owned by a man identified as Zulkifli, who claimed he wanted to entertain people to celebrate his son's acceptance into the Indonesian army.

The Indonesian news site aceh.tribunnews.com reported that Shariah Police said the performance violated the regulation issued by the Langsa mayor prohibiting performances in the evenings.

While most of the people left after the Shariah Police arrived, some local youths reportedly insisted on staying, including some girls. They mocked the officers and chased them, throwing stones and bottles.

One member of the Shariah Police – Wilayatul Hisbah – was seriously injured when a rock hit his head. Two other officers fled, hiding for two hours inside an Islamic school some two kilometers away from the venue.

Dozens of Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) officers soon arrived in patrol cars to assist the Shariah Police, but they were also attacked and some ended up hiding inside the school with the other officers.

They were only able to leave the school after armed Langsa Police officers arrived at the scene. Langsa Deputy Mayor Marzuki Hamid said the Langsa administration would remain steadfast in upholding Shariah law.

"We will not retreat from making Langsa an Islamic city," he told aceh.tribunnews.com. "Evening shows are no longer allowed in Langsa because they bring more disadvantages than benefits as they can cause immorality."

Hasbi Al Bayuny, the chairman of Islamic organization Rabithah Thaliban Aceh (RTA), on Monday said police should investigate and charge the attackers.

"We strongly condemn the action that humiliated Wilayatul Hisbah officers and we demand the police to investigate the case," Hasbi said as quoted by Antara news agency.

He said Shariah police should not be afraid as the majority of Acehnese support Shariah law. "Don't give up in upholding Islamic Shariah in Aceh, its implementation is recognized by the law," he said. "Those who dislike Islamic Shariah in Aceh are against the law."

The spokesman of the Muslim Defenders Team, Muzakkar Ibrahim, said police should arrest all the perpetrators. "We urge police to investigate who was behind the attack," Muzakkar told the Antara News Agency. "It is important to uphold the law to prevent Islamic people's anger."

Hundreds of illegal militia firearms destroyed in Aceh

Jakarta Globe - October 18, 2012

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Security officials on Wednesday destroyed 973 illegal firearms that had been collected over the past seven years from former pro-independence militiamen in Aceh.

Maj. Gen. Zahari Siregar, commander of the Iskandar Muda military command, which oversees operations in Aceh, said that the weapons were remnants of the bloody civil war between the now disbanded Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian military, which lasted for nearly 30 years, killing over 25,000 people.

The war ended in 2005 after a treaty was signed by both parties in Helsinki, Finland, but weapons continued to circulate with former combatants refusing to give up their firearms.

"Today we destroy some 973 illegal firearms which have been confiscated or handed in voluntarily by people gradually for the last seven years since the Helsinki treaty," Zahari said.

The weapons were cut to pieces and had their barrels drilled. Barrels are sought after by illegal gunsmiths in Indonesia as they are the hardest part of a weapon to produce. They are then modified to create handmade firearms.

The military chief said security officials must continue to search for and confiscate arms to prevent them falling into the hands of criminals and terrorists. Zahari said peace and stability is needed to create circumstances conducive to investment and economic development.

Aceh Police chief Insp. Gen. Iskandar Hasan called for all former GAM combatants to surrender their firearms. "Keeping a single bullet can be prosecuted under the Emergency Law," he said.

Iskandar also said that five of the confiscated firearms were issued by the military. "These weapons might have been seized during the conflict period or lost during the tsunami," he said.

The five military weapons were returned to the Iskandar Muda command.

Police identify GAM link in attack against Aceh official

Jakarta Globe - October 16, 2012

Nurdin Hasan & Farouk Arnaz, Banda Aceh – Two men believed to have been behind a grenade attack on the home of the Bireuen district head in Aceh last month have been arrested with a large cache of weapons, police said on Monday.

Sr. Comr. Gustav Leo, the Aceh Police spokesman, told the Jakarta Globe that the men were arrested in Kubu village in Bireuen during the early hours of Sunday following an intensive investigation into the Sept. 20 attack on the home of Ruslan M. Daud, the district head.

He said police seized 15 firearms from the suspects, including a grenade launcher, three AK-56 assault rifles and 11 M-16 assault rifles. Police also recovered four grenades and 64 ammunition magazines for the assault rifles.

The National Police confirmed the arrest and identified one of the suspects as a former combatant with the now-disbanded Free Aceh Movement (GAM), a separatist organization.

"The firearms that we seized from the suspects were found wrapped in plastic and buried in the ground," Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar, the National Police spokesman, said in Jakarta.

"These are the people that we believe fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the home of the Bireuen district head in Cot Gapu village last month."

He added that the weapons were believed to be leftovers from the GAM's three-decade-long guerrilla insurgency, which ended with a peace deal in 2005. Senior GAM officers later went on to establish the Aceh Party.

Though police only identified the suspects by their initials – H.A. and R. – neighbors and local media named them as Hasdi Amir and Ramli, saying the arrest took place at Ramli's home.

In the attack on Ruslan's house during the early hours of Sept. 20, two men were seen firing a grenade into the compound before fleeing on a motorcycle. The grenade failed to detonate, but still caused panic.

The incident was the latest in a series of attacks targeting key regional officials across Aceh.

In June of last year, unknown gunmen opened fire on the vehicle of Tagore Abubakar, the head of Bener Meriah district. Two months earlier, attackers threw a live grenade at the home of Izil Azhar, the head of the Sabang chapter of the Aceh Party. Both officials survived the attacks.

The spate of violence, which many blamed on hard-line GAM sympathizers disappointed with the Aceh Party's increasingly nationalist policies, came ahead of bitterly contested gubernatorial, district and municipal elections in the province that had to be repeatedly pushed back until April this year.

Ruslan, the target in the latest attack, is officially backed by the Aceh Party.

Human rights & justice

Jeers in House as it selects rights members

Jakarta Post - October 23, 2012

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – As a gay candidate was openly taunted by lawmakers, the House of Representatives selected on Monday 13 new members of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

Several of the individuals selected by lawmakers on House Commission III overseeing law and human rights lack strong track records on human rights, including Natalius Pigai, a Papua-born civil servant; and Siane Indriani, a former television journalist and the public relations manager of the University of Indonesia.

One of the selected candidates, Maneger Nasution, was singled out for criticism by human rights groups for his previous membership of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI).

"The MUI has several times challenged the implementation of universal human rights in the country. We are afraid that the MUI will easily promote its biased stance on human rights through its representation [on Komnas HAM]," Haris Azhar of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Haris said he doubted that the House impartially and transparently selected the new commissioners.

While lawmakers gave a pass to Maneger, Natalius and Siane, Commission III members openly humiliated gay candidate Dede Oetomo, bursting into boos and laughter when it was announced that Dede had received a single vote from the 55-member commission.

Dede, the founder of the human rights group GaYa Nusantara, has an international reputation for promoting gay rights.

Other candidates with solid human rights records who were slighted by the House include Ignatius Sandyawan Sumardi, an activist for the urban poor and winner of the Yap Thiam Hien Award in 1996; and Yosep Adi Prasetyo, who was seeking reappointment as a commissioner.

Commission III chairman I Gede Pasek Suardika said that lawmakers made their decision based on the qualities shown by candidates.

"All 30 candidates had their own qualities, and we had to make our choice. All factions in the House voted based on our own preferences after each candidate presented their programs during a 'fit-and-proper' test," said Pasek, a Democratic Party politician said.

Commission III arranged a written test for the candidates on Oct. 11, during which each of them was given an hour to elaborate their thoughts on human rights, which was followed four days later by hour-long interviews with lawmakers.

However, only a handful of Commission III lawmakers attended the interview hearings, which were scheduled for Oct. 19. Some of the hearings were attended by as few as five lawmakers, especially during the evening.

"We didn't make the [final] score based on the interviews because only a few of us were present during the sessions. Therefore, the decision was made by voting," lawmaker Martin Hutabarat of the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party said.

Martin also said that the lawmakers' decisions had been political, given the nature of the House.

In the final tally, Sandrayati Moniaga, an environmental activist and member of the board if trustees of the Institute for Research and Advocacy (Elsam) human rights watchdog, came out on top with 48 votes, followed by Maneger with 45 votes and Natalius with 43 votes.

The other new commissioners appointed by the House on Monday included Imparsial's Otto Nur Abdullah; Ansori Sinungan, a former official at the Law and Human Rights Ministry; Nahdlatul Ulama deputy secretary-general Muhammad Imdadun Rahmat; and the Desantara Foundation's Muhammad Nur Khoiron. Also appointed were Roichatul Aswidah from the Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (Demos); former Law and Human Rights Ministry official Hafid Abbas, lawyer Siti Noor Laila, Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) member Dianto Bachriadi and incumbent Komnas HAM commissioner Nur Kholis.

House names Komnas HAM commissioners

Jakarta Post - October 22, 2012

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – House of Representatives Commission III on law and human rights unveiled 13 newly selected commissioners of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Monday.

Sandrayati Moniaga, an environmentalist and member of the board trustees of human rights watchdog Institute for Research and Advocacy (Elsam), secured 48 votes from 51 members of Commission III, the highest among all candidates. Maneger Nasution of the Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI) garnered 45 votes, while Papua-born activist Natalius Pigai gained 43.

Human rights activist Otto Nur Abdullah and former official at the Law and Human Rights Ministry Ansori Sinungan secured 42 votes each. Muhammad Imdadun Rahmat, the deputy secretary-general of the nation's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama, and Muhammad Nur Khoiron from Desantara Foundation both garnered 38 votes, while journalist Siane Indriani got 36 votes.

Member of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (Demos) Roichatul Aswidah and former law and human rights director general Hafid Abbas secured 35 votes each.

Lawyer Siti Noor Laila, Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) member Dianto Bachriadi and incumbent Komnas HAM commissioner Nur Kholis garnered 33, 28 and 28 votes, respectively.

Mochamad Soedioto of the Indonesian Association of Visually Impaired People (Pertuni), gay rights activist Dede Oetomo, incumbent commissioner Yosep Adi Prasetyo, urban poverty activist Sandyawan Sumardi and other candidates all fell short of making the grade.

The written test for 30 candidates began on Oct. 11. Four days later, each candidate underwent a 30-minute interview with Commission III members. The new commissioners are expected to start work in early November.

Commission III initially intended to select only 10 new commissioners, saying that fewer people would suit Komnas HAM's reduced budget of Rp 64.7 billion (US$6.7 million) for 2013.

The newly appointed commissioners, who will work from 2012 to 2017, are expected to follow up on Komnas HAM's findings on the 1965 communist purge, the unsolved shootings between 1982 and 1985 and the Lapindo mudflow, which have all been categorized as human rights violations.

Komnas HAM chairman Ifdhal Kasim also said that the rights commission was investigating human rights violations perpetrated against the followers of the Shia community. (lfr)

Freedom of speech & expression

'Minang atheist' appeals to Supreme Court

Jakarta Post - October 22, 2012

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, Padang – Alexander Aan, 31, a South Sumatra civil servant who was sentenced to two years and six months' imprisonment for defaming Islam after declaring himself an atheist on a social media website, has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court.

Alexander's lawyer, Roni Saputra, said on Monday that he had filed the appeal on Oct. 2, because the judges at the high court had ignored the fact that the Negeri Muaro District Court in West Sumatra was unable to prove that Alexander had disseminated information that could trigger clashes within society.

"The ones who spread and cause hatred are the two witnesses, who told about Alexander's postings [declaring himself an atheist] on Facebook," said Roni, who is also the deputy director of the Padang Legal Aid Foundation.

While serving his sentence at Muaro Sijunjung Penitentiary, Alexander is also being restricted from reading books, according to Roni.

"The prison officers took away some of the books given by Alexander's supporters and handed them over to the police," he said. "The seized books include a book about the revolution in China and a book on Buddha's spiritual journey. They were afraid that Alexander would remain an atheist [if he reads the books], whereas the books are widely available at bookstores."

Alexander has also complained about the restriction. "There's nothing I can do [in prison] aside from read books with light content. I can no longer enjoy quality books," he told The Jakarta Post prior to his trial at the district court in June. (han/iwa)

Media & press freedom

Journos across Indonesia stage protests against military brutality

Jakarta Post - October 17, 2012

Ansyor Idrus and Ruslan Sangadji – Groups of journalists across the country staged protests against military brutality against the press on Wednesday. The incidents of brutality occurred after an Indonesian Air Force Hawk 200 jet crashed in Kampar, Pekanbaru, Riau, on Tuesday.

Five reporters who were covering the crash – Didik Herwanto (Riau Pos daily), Andika Pratama (Vokal daily), F.B. Rian Anggoro (Antara news agency), Robi Fahrianto (Riau TV) and M. Arifin (TV One) – were beaten and kicked by members of the military.

Their cameras were seized by Air Force officers during the commotion. Air Force spokesman Air Commodore Azman Yunus was quick to respond to the ensuing public outcry saying that the events were inexcusable.

Numerous journalists associations, including South Sumatra Journalists Forum, the Indonesian Photojournalists Association (PFI), the Tangerang Journalists Community, the Alliance of Independent Journalists, joined mass rallies which took place simultaneously across the country in Jakarta, Palembang (South Sumatra), Palu (Central Sulawesi), Tangerang and Bandung in West Java. Hundreds of journalists staged a protest in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta.

The journalists all want the same thing: an investigation and the perpetrators brought to justice.

"There will be no 'peace deal'. We demand an investigation," Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI) South Sumatra chapter chairman Oktaf Priyadi said in Palembang on Wednesday.

PFI Palu chapter chairman Basri Marzuki said that the incident was a violation against the 1999 Press Law. "You might apologize, but we still want an investigation and the perpetrators punished," Basri told The Jakarta Post.

Tangerang Journalist Working Group (Pokja) chairman Denny Irawan demanded that the Indonesian Military chief take strong measures against members of the Air Force involved in the incident, while AJI Makassar chairman Mardiana urged that the legal process should not only launched by the Military Court but also by the state court.

"Violence against journalists is a crime and, therefore, [the case] should be tried in a state court as well," Mardiana said.

In Bandung, journalists are urging Indonesian media to stop covering Indonesian Military (TNI) events. The journalists also called on the government to intensify the dissemination of the 1999 Press Law in order to improve understanding on how journalism works. (swd)

[Multa Fidrus, Andi Hajramurni and Arya Dipa contributed reporting.]

Bandung journos call on press to boycott TNI events

Jakarta Post - October 17, 2012

Arya Dipa, Bandung – Bandung journalists are urging Indonesian media to stop covering Indonesian Military (TNI) events, in protest following assaults against reporters in Riau.

"We call on our fellow journalists to stop covering TNI ceremonies until the institution has thoroughly investigated the assaults," said the head of the Bandung branch of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Zaki Yamani, on the sidelines of a demonstration against TNI intimidation on Wednesday.

Head of Bandung's Indonesian Television Journalists Association (IJTI), Imam S. Nurdin, said the officers found guilty of committing the assaults against the journalists should be punished. "The boycott should last until the perpetrators stand trial," he said.

Imam deplored the military officers' physical violations. "This incident has widened the gap between the military and civilians," he added.

On Tuesday, several journalists were assaulted by Air Force personnel when covering the crash of a fighter jet in Riau. Five reporters – Didik Herwanto (Riau Pos daily); Andika Pratama (Vokal daily); F. B. Rian Anggoro (Antara news agency); Robi Fahrianto (Riau TV), and M. Arivin (TV One) – were beaten and kicked while their cameras were seized.

A photograph and a video, which captured the moment when an officer grabbed Didik around the throat, were widely circulated among journalists.

Bystanders who took pictures of the plane's wreckage with their cell phones were also beaten by military officers. One of them was Mancon Fernando, 21, a university student in Riau, who sustained an injury to his mouth after being beaten by the soldiers and had his cell phone confiscated.

Journalists from Jakarta, Medan, Surakarta and other cities across the country are planning a series of demonstrations on Wednesday against the military brutality. (lfr)

Journalists assaulted in Riau

Jakarta Post - October 16, 2012

Pekanbaru, Riau – Several journalists were assaulted and intimidated by Air Force officers when covering a jet crash in Riau on Tuesday.

Media reported that an unidentified officer throttled Riau Pos's photo journalist Didik Herawanto and seized his camera. The officer's action was captured in a photograph that quickly circulated among journalists.

According to kompas.com, two other journalists namely Rian from Antara News Agency and a reporter from TV One were also beaten by the officers. Their cameras were also confiscated. The journalists were covering a plane crash at the Air Force's housing complex in Pasir Putih, Kampar, Riau.

On Tuesday morning, an Air Force Hawk 200 jet crashed into the housing complex during a routine training mission. No casualties were reported in the incident. Pilot Lt. Reza Yori Prasetyo ejected and made a safe landing as the aircraft went down.

Air Force officers attempted to clear the incident site and prevented residents and journalists from approaching.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and the Legal Aid Center for the Press (LBH Pers) deplored the assaults on the journalists. AJI advocacy coordinator Aryo Wisanggeni said that the officers had violated the Press Law and could face two-year prison terms for assaulting on-duty journalists.

"This is not the first time that military personnel have assaulted journalists covering an Air Force plane crash," he said. "This latest incident has added to the long list of assaults against journalists involving military personnel."

The AJI reported that several journalists covering the Fokker plane crash in Halim Perdana Kusumah airport were assaulted by Air Force officers. "These incidents have shown that those officers are still clueless about journalists' duty to cover events," Aryo added.

The AJI urged the chiefs of the Indonesian Military and Air Force to punish the perpetrators and send them for trial as stipulated by the Press Law. (cor/lfr)

Political parties & elections

Megawati, Joko a formidable 2014 prospect: Analysts

Jakarta Globe - October 22, 2012

SP/Carlos Paath, Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Ronna Nirmala – Former President Megawati Sukarnoputri could pair with Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo to challenge Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie, who may win President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's backing in a potential clash of political heavyweights for the presidency in 2014, analysts said on Sunday.

Such political coalitions, however, would sideline Prabowo Subianto, founder of the Greater Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) and front- runner in the race as shown by multiple surveys, because he would likely fail to garner the support needed to run.

According to the law on presidential elections, a candidate must secure support from a party or a coalition of parties that garner a minimum of 20 percent of votes during the legislative election.

"I think it's a big possibility that Megawati will run with Jokowi if the party can garner close to 20 percent of votes," said Fachry Ali, a political expert from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), referring to the popular nickname of the newly elected Jakarta governor.

Megawati, the chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), has yet to determine whether she will run for presidency. Fachry said that while Joko would win if he ran as the presidential candidate, Megawati ultimately has the power to determine who will represent PDI-P, the country's third-largest party based on the 2009 legislative elections, when it won 14 percent of votes.

"It looks like Megawati still wants to run. If she runs with Jokowi, the pair has a big chance to win because of the Jokowi factor. He is now the candidate with the highest electability," he said.

The pair would be a formidable challenge to whichever candidates Yudhoyono decides to support, Fachry said, but added that the president was still the country's most influential political figure.

Aburizal has tried to persuade Yudhoyono to form a coalition between the country's two biggest political forces.

Yudhoyono's Democratic Party won the 2009 legislative elections with more than 20 percent of votes nationally, while Golkar came in second with 14.5 percent. Priyo Budi Santoso, one of Golkar's deputy chairmen and a close aide to Aburizal, said on Saturday that Golkar's vice presidential nominee, to be determine next year, would be a Javanese and a member of Yudhoyono's inner circle, if not a family member.

Aburizal said on Saturday that he would pick a popular and capable person to run alongside in 2014.

With Yudhoyono repeatedly insisting that his family members, such as his sons and wife, would not run in 2014, many have speculated that Gen. Pramono Edhie Wibowo, the Army's chief of staff, would be tapped as Aburizal's running mate. "It's a good fit if Aburizal can team up with Pramono. Aburizal is non-Javanese while Pramono is a Javanese," Fachry said.

Another possibility could see Yudhoyono pair Pramono with Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa, who is the president's in-law. But analysts say that combination might be politically impossible due to the duo's shared non-Javanese provenance.

"The most politically logical pair is a combination of Javanese and non- Javanese candidates," said Aleksius Jemadu, dean of Pelita Harapan's School of Social and Political Sciences.

In any scenario, Prabowo appears to draw the short straw, with his political hopes pinned on garnering the support of the Democratic Party or PDI-P, each of which has sent signals that an alliance is not forthcoming.

Some said Megawati was angered after Prabowo was quick to claim credit for the victory of Joko and Basuki Tjahaja Purnama in the Jakarta gubernatorial election. She afterward decided not to forge a partnership with Gerindra in the West Java gubernatorial election, though Prabowo made several attempts to force the pairing.

Merger needed for Muslim parties

Jakarta Post - October 22, 2012

National – A researcher from the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) said that Islam-based parties should merge themselves into no more than two parties to survive in the crowded political environment.

"If Islam-based political parties still want to have influence, they must merge into only two political parties," LSI researcher Adjie Alfaraby said as quoted by kompas.com.

He said that currently, voters were having problems telling the difference between Islam-based political parties because they all shared similar ideologies and programs.

Adjie also said that although the majority of Indonesians were Muslim, a large number of them had secular views on the relationship between religion and politics.

Last week, two opinion polls predicted that none of the existing Islam- based political parties would remain among the top five parties in the 2014 general election.

LSI found that, if the general election were to take place today, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the National Awakening Party (PKB), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP), would only collectively garner 21.1 percent of the popular vote.

Golkar mulls picking SBY's family members

Jakarta Post - October 21, 2012

Jakarta – In a gesture to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Golkar Party is considering picking a family member of the Democratic Party's chief patron to be the running mate of Aburizal Bakrie in the 2014 presidential election.

Golkar chairman Aburizal, popularly known as Ical, has been officially nominated as the party's presidential candidate. Golkar, however, has not named his running mate.

"[Ical's running mate] could be one of the names mentioned in the media. It could be the Army chief of staff [Gen. Pramono Edhie Wibowo] or even First Lady Ani Yudhoyono," Golkar leader Priyo Budi Santoso said on the sidelines of the party's 48th anniversary at Golkar Headquarters in West Jakarta on Saturday. Pramono is the younger brother of Ani Yudhoyono.

Priyo said, however, his party had not specifically discussed which figure would be picked to be Ical's running mate. Aside from Pramono and Ani Yudhoyono, Golkar is also considering Yogyakarta's Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X as a potential candidate.

Priyo, the deputy House speaker, added Golkar would most probably pick a Javanese politician to be Ical's running mate simply in an effort to lure Javanese voters.

A Javanese candidate is believed to be crucial in every presidential election in the country because he or she will appeal to a large number of voters. The Javanese make up the largest ethnic group in Indonesia with around 41.7 percent of the population.

Fellow Golkar politician Zainal Bintang also suggested that Ical, who hailed from Lampung, Sumatra, should choose a Javanese figure to be his running mate.

Zainal said Gen. Pramono, who has had a successful career in the military, would be a perfect match for Ical. "He may become the Indonesian Military [TNI] chief in the near future," he said.

Separately, Ical has set three criteria for anyone willing to be his running mate in the 2014 poll. "The figure must be popular, smart and able to work in a team," he said.

Contacted separately, a senior Democratic Party politician Ahmad Mubarok said the Golkar Party could mention any names they liked to pair with Aburizal, including the President's brother-in-law.

"They can mention any name. But, in the end, who will want to go with Ical? His poor track record may be the obstacle to his bid for the presidency," said Ahmad.

Ahmad, like many of Aburizal's political opponents, used the Lapindo mudflow disaster as ammunition to attack the tycoon's candidacy. They are more than willing to refresh voters' memory about how Aburizal was the one held responsible for that catastrophe.

Golkar's opponents do indeed have some reason to fear because some pollsters have found the party will increase its vote in the 2014 election.

A recent survey from the National Survey Institute (LSN), for instance, states the Golkar Party would get 18.1 percent of the vote, while the Democratic Party only manages 5.9 percent.

"Well, I do not believe in the results of such surveys because they can be manipulated," Ahmad said, adding the survey results could change in the next two years. (riz)

Golkar party stands by Aburizal

Jakarta Globe - October 16, 2012

Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Ezra Sihite – The Golkar Party on Monday said that the recent business saga surrounding companies belonging to the family of its chairman, Aburizal Bakrie, won't hurt his bid to become its presidential candidate.

"Business has nothing to do with [Aburizal's] nomination. Golkar is sticking with nominating Ical," Golkar politician Bambang Soesatyo said, referring to Aburizal by his nickname.

Bakrie & Brothers, controlled by Aburizal, sold half of its stake in Bumi Plc last year to tycoons Nathaniel Rothschild and Samin Tan to help pay its $1.35 billion debt owed to Credit Suisse Group.

Shares in the London-listed joint venture dropped as much as 88 percent last month after it announced an investigation into financial "irregularities" involving its Indonesian investments – Bumi Resources and Berau Coal Energy.

The probe marked the height of a dispute between Rothschild and Indonesia's prominent Bakrie family, which founded a palm oil plantation empire in 1942.

Golkar politician Bambang said the debacle had done little to tarnish Aburizal's political image, adding that the Golkar chairman only had a small stake in the joint venture.

"So it will not affect [Aburizal's] personal finance nor his family's," Bambang said. "There are ups and downs [in business], and for the Bakrie group, this is not the first storm or tsunami that they have [had] to face. But [such problems] are always overcome."

Another Golkar politician, Priyo Budi Santoso, said Aburizal was still one of the country's most popular presidential candidates, citing recent surveys conducted by prominent polling groups that found him to be one of the leading nominees.

The Indonesian Survey Circle on Monday listed Aburizal and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri as the frontrunners for the 2014 presidential election.

"We are ready to give our best, even [if it is] a head-to-head battle between Ical and Megawati," he said. "We will follow [all political] dynamics. We won't pat ourselves on the back or ignore [this survey]."

Priyo, a House of Representatives deputy speaker, noted that the landscape for the presidential race was not yet clear because the ruling Democratic Party has yet to announce its nominee.

The party's founder, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will not be eligible to run in 2014. Analysts have long speculated on who his successor might be, pointing to the lack of prominent political figures inside the party.

Rothschild and Tan have both maintained that their relationships with Bakrie are fine, but business sources in September claimed that Samin was unhappy with the market value of his shares in Bumi Plc, which had slumped from $1 billion to around $140 million.

The sources also claimed that Rothschild, owner of almost 12 percent of Bumi Plc, wanted to make Samin an ally in controlling the company. Rothschild called for a "radical cleaning" of the balance sheet and corporate culture of Bumi Resources, the reasons he claimed were behind the drop in the value of the company's shares.

Gerindra names Teten Masduki as West Java governor candidate

Jakarta Post - October 16, 2012

Jakarta – The Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party has named anti- corruption activist Teten Masduki as its candidate in the West Java gubernatorial election scheduled for February.

"We are now looking for [Teten's] deputy candidate," Martin Hutabarat, a member of Gerindra's central board, said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com.

Gerindra would form a coalition to nominate Teten, as it lacked enough seats in the West Java Legislative Council (DPRD) to register Teten as a candidate itself, he added. "We are open to all parties as long as they have the same commitment to eradicate corruption," Martin added.

Teten, the secretary general for Transparency International Indonesia (TII), said that he hoped that Gerindra would team up with the Indonesian Dmeocratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), as reported by kompas.com.

Teten said that he agreed to run since he shared the vision of PDI-P politician Rieke Dyah Pitaloka.

Incumbent governor Ahmad Heryawan from the Prosperous Justice Party(PKS) and deputy governor of the Democratic Party are considered likely to launch reelection bids. (lfr)

Surveys & opinion polls

Poor perception of SBY coincides with panning of Democrat ministers

Jakarta Globe - October 23, 2012

Arientha Primanita – A national poll has highlighted widespread perception of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as indecisive, while identifying two of his Democratic Party subordinates as the worst-performing public officials.

Umar Bakry, executive director of the National Survey Institute (LSN), said on Monday that 47.2 percent of the 1,230 respondents polled nationwide characterized Yudhoyono as being "indecisive and hesitant, even though he comes from a military background."

Another 15.3 percent saw Yudhoyono as not willing to take risks, while 11.7 percent believed he lacked the backing of his staff and administration.

Some 4.6 percent questioned his commitment on a variety of issues, while 4.3 percent saw him as not having a clear vision and 1.9 percent deemed him as being out of touch with the people.

Almost half of those questioned said there had been no improvement in the economy during Yudhoyono's second five-year term in office that began in 2009.

"A large number, 48.7 percent, said that their household wealth had remained the same and had not improved," Umar said. "A total of 17.3 percent of those questioned even said that their household wealth had declined and only 31.2 percent said it had improved."

A total of 55.4 percent of respondents said conditions in general in the country during Yudhoyono's second term had not improved compared to his first term. "Some 25.9 percent even deemed the current conditions worse than in the first five years of his presidency," Umar said.

The LSN poll identified the anti-corruption campaign, poverty alleviation and job creation as the most pressing issues for most people, which the government needed to address seriously.

The same survey also revealed that Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng, a senior Democrat, was considered the worst-performing public official in the country, thanks largely to three major graft scandals that have rocked his ministry.

Some 12.3 percent named Andi as the worst-performing official, more than double the 5.9 percent for fellow Democrat and Justice and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin in second spot.

"For Andi, the figure is so high because of all the corruption cases dogging his ministry," Umar said. "It also has a lot to do with the shoddy construction and poor management of SEA [Southeast Asian] Games, the PON [National Games] and Indonesia's declining achievement [on the international sporting stage]."

The ministry is also embroiled in graft allegations centered on the SEA Games and the National Games, as well as a controversial project to build a sports center in Hambalang, Bogor. Hatta Rajasa, the coordinating minister for the economy, tied for third with Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar in the LSN survey, with 5.2 percent each.

"The public perceived Hatta as the person responsible for the nation's economic mismanagement," Umar said.

Public disapproval of Muhaimin, meanwhile, stems from graft allegations and the failure to end a series of abuses of Indonesian migrant workers abroad.

Survey says Golkar Party now the most popular, but not Ical

Jakarta Globe - October 22, 2012

Ezra Sihite – A survey released on Sunday showed Golkar Party back on top of the popularity list, a position it lost following the fall of the Suharto regime. However, it hasn't rubbed off on the party's presidential candidate.

According to survey conducted by Political Weather Station, the public still doesn't really know Aburizal Bakrie, the party chairman and tycoon that has declared himself its presidential candidate for the 2014 elections.

The party's former chairman, former Vice President Jusuf Kalla, now the chairman of the Indonesian Red Cross Organization (PMI), came out as the most popular presidential candidate from Golkar with 22.14 percent. Aburizal only got 16.35 percent, followed by Priyo Budi Santoso, Akbar Tanjung, Fadel Muhammad and Agung Laksono.

"Golkar being chosen [as the most popular party] does not automatically translate to the electability and popularity of the Golkar chairman and presidential candidate Aburizal Bakrie," Political Weather Station research director Marseder Marbun said on Sunday, as quoted by Kompas.com.

Golkar politician Zainal Bintang said that Aburizal, known also as Ical, has been touting outdated programs.

"Ical's move to conduct dialogues with market vendors has no significant benefits," Zainal said. "It's a redundant program and also done by candidates from other political parties. It's just a waste of time, budget and effort."

He said that Aburizal's unpopularity could be a problem in the upcoming election. "His position far below JK [Jusuf Kalla] could create a big problem for Golkar because Golkar has declared Ical [as its presidential candidate]," Zainal said, adding that Kalla remained popular because he was considered to have been a good vice president by the public.

Zainal said Ical should evaluate his campaign team's performance and should think twice before going further with his candidacy. "Ical should think again and should not force himself [to contest the 2014 election]," he said.

The survey questioned 1,070 respondents across Indonesia's 33 provinces between Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, 2012, with a reliability of 95 percent.

Homophobia on the rise, survey says

Jakarta Post - October 22, 2012

Jakarta – A new survey published on Sunday revealed that intolerance of minorities is growing, with the highest level of hostility directed at the gay and lesbian community.

The Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) found in its most recent poll that a staggering 80.6 percent of its sample population objected to having gays or lesbians as neighbors. The figure has jumped significantly from 64.7 percent in 2005.

LSI found that intolerance of homosexuals was higher than the respondents' aversion toward people adhering to different faiths, which stood at 15.1 percent. For the survey, LSI interviewed 1,200 respondents between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8.

The respondents even preferred to live next door to what they deemed as followers of deviant sects like Shi'ism and Ahmadiyah, rather than with gays or lesbians. The survey revealed that 41.8 percent and 46.6 percent respectively of the respondents would feel uncomfortable living next to Shia or Ahmadiyah followers.

"Most of the respondents who showed intolerance [toward these minority groups] are male, low-income and limited-education people," LSI researcher Ardian Sopa said during a press conference on Sunday afternoon.

Close to 60 percent of respondents who admitted intolerance were men. More than 67 percent of them were uneducated or senior high school graduates at best. The LSI also found that 63.4 percent of respondents who admitted to being intolerant of minority groups earned Rp 2 million (US$208.49) or less per month.

Earlier in June, a survey published by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) confirmed the widely held assumption that religious intolerance is on the rise in the country.

The CSIS survey conducted between Jan. 16 and 24 this year, found that although 83.4 percent of the respondents said that they had no problem with neighbors from different ethnic groups, 79.3 percent objected to inter- religious marriage.

Director of non-profit group Denny JA Foundation, Novriantoni Kahar, said that the survey showed that Indonesia had a long way to go before being able to accept homosexuality. "This will be very difficult because the level of acceptance is even lower than that given to people of different religions or ethnicity," he said.

Novriantoni said what the government needed to do was to improve people's welfare, as intolerance was mostly shown by poorer citizens. "The government needs to do more to improve socio-economic conditions. People who are unemployed or poor can easily be goaded into attacking minority groups," he said.

Contacted separately, Hartoyo, an executive of an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) empowerment organization, blamed radical Islamist groups and the media for the growing homophobia.

Hartoyo said that the majority of the population subscribed to ideas promoted by hard-line Islamist groups, which condemned homosexuality as sinful conduct and a product of Western culture.

In May, radical Islamist groups broke up the launch of a new book by Canadian liberal Muslim activist Irshad Manji for fear that she would promote lesbianism in the country.

The media also shared the blame for only promoting stereotypes and caricatures of gay people, Hartoyo said. "Some media outlets, mainly online news portals and TV channels that are easily accessible to people tend to give imbalanced reports about us or portray us only as clowns."

He said that in the long run, the growing homophobia could further worsen injustice against the community. "Just look at Dede Oetomo, a renowned sociologist and human rights activist. After he was named as a commissioner candidate of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), the public started fussing about his sexual orientation and overlooked his impressive achievements. So, how is it possible for a person like me to be a minister?" Hartoyo said. (yps)

New surveys confirm Dems falling behind Golkar, PDI-P

Jakarta Globe - October 16, 2012

Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Ezra Sihite – Two new surveys are predicting a massive hemorrhaging of votes for the Democratic Party in the 2014 election, painting a bleak scenario in which the ruling party could fail to break double digits.

Umar Bakry, executive director of the National Survey Institute (LSN), said on Monday that a poll of 1,230 respondents, conducted by his organization between Sept. 10 and 24 showed the Democrats "in free fall."

The survey gave the party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono just 5.9 percent of votes if the election were held today, which put it in fourth place overall.

Topping the poll was the Golkar Party with 18.1 percent, followed by the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 14.4 percent and the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) with 12.5 percent.

The People's Conscience Party (Hanura) was close behind the Democrats with 5.6 percent, followed by the National Democrat Party (NasDem) with 5.1 percent.

The LSN findings come a day after Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting released the results of its own survey of 1,219 respondents, in which Golkar came out on top with 14 percent. The PDI-P was second with 9 percent, followed by the Democrats with 8 percent.

The LSN and SMRC surveys largely corroborate earlier polls that suggest the Democrats are fast losing ground to Golkar and the PDI-P, although they gave the ruling party an unusually low share of votes.

A poll of 1,200 people in June by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) showed that 20.9 percent of respondents would vote for Golkar, ahead of the PDI-P with 14 percent and the Democrats with 11.3 percent.

"Based on the latest LSN survey, the Democratic Party has plunged into the ranks of mediocre parties," Umar said.

However, he noted that it was not all doom and gloom for the Democrats, who have taken a shellacking from a litany of corruption scandals. Nearly a quarter of respondents abstained from choosing, while 36 percent said they might still change their vote.

"So that means around 60 percent of respondents are swing voters, and this could shake things up in terms of the party rankings," Umar said.

The SMRC survey also highlighted undecided voters as a major factor to be considered, pointing out that they accounted for 50 percent of respondents.

Sutan Bhatoegana, a senior Democrat, acknowledged that the party had been badly buffeted by a string of graft allegations, but stressed that it would perform far better in the actual election than the pollsters were predicting.

Women's rights

Protesters condemn minister's statement blaming victims for being raped

Kompas.com - October 17, 2012

Riana Afifah, Jakarta – Following the offensive statement by the Minister for Education and Culture about a female high-school student victim of rape in Depok, namely ASS, the Women's Alliance Against Rape (APTP) held a protest action in front of the Department of Education offices on Wednesday October 17.

APTP member Dhyta Caturani said that the group is calling on Education Minister Mohammad Nuh to issue a new statement expressing his support for protecting teenage women from sexual violence and discrimination.

"Don't let there be any more talk that paints teenage women in a bad light because they become pregnant or because they become victims of rape", said Caturani, when sought out in front of the Education Ministry on Jl. Jendral Sudirman in Jakarta on Wednesday morning.

The group is also calling on the Education Minister as a public official that is responsible for education in Indonesia to take the case seriously. Moreover in the changes to the education curriculum that are currently being discussed should included sex and reproductive health education for teenagers.

"This is important so teenagers can avoid sexual violence such as rape, sexual harassment and [so they have] knowledge about [their] bodies and sexuality", said Caturani.

Caturani added that in order that there is no repeat of this, they are also demanding that the Education Minster reprimand schools that commit acts of discrimination without caring about the rights of victims.

The demonstration by scores of women is continuing although the flow of traffic on Jl. Jenderal Sudirman has not been disrupted and is moving smoothly.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Labour & migrant workers

The true sole of Indonesia's child laborers

Jakarta Globe - October 21, 2012

Grace Susetyo – Fans of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales may remember the story of "The Elves and the Shoemaker."

It was the tale of a humble shoemaker and his wife who struggled with business until mysterious elves came to help in the middle of the night. The elves made fancy shoes and the couple became the richest shoemakers in the country.

And while the story is more than 200 years old, it still rings true, especially when looking at today's fashion industry.

Flip through a magazine, watch a fashion show or stroll through a mall and you will probably see the latest collection of fancy shoes, venerated as objects of envy, even status symbols. Some fashionistas say, "there's no such thing as too many shoes."

While most of us have at least a few pairs of shoes in our closets, how often do we actually think about who made them? Renowned brands and famed designers come to mind, and we assume there's big money for everyone in the business. To many people, it seems shoes simply appear in shops for us to purchase and take home – they might as well be made by elves.

In the not-so-faraway land of West Java is a backyard of Southeast Asia's fashion industry where elves are indeed at work. Only they're not the fairy-dusted kind that disappear with the moonbeams at daybreak. They're called child laborers. And their lives are definitely no fairy tale.

Learning the family trade

In a beautiful village in the outskirts of Bogor lives Demung, a 14-year- old shoemaker who has been in the trade for three years. Demung dropped out of 4th grade five years ago for "economic reasons."

In a barely furnished, unplastered two-bedroom house with no running water, Demung lives with his parents, grandparents, 20-year-old uncle, two teenage aunts and 11-year-old sister. Demung's father, grandfather and uncle are shoemakers, too. His mother and grandmother are domestic helpers, and his 17-year-old aunt is a factory laborer.

Demung's sister, Erna, is in 5th grade. Most children in their community drop out around this age, but Demung hopes that Erna will finish high school. The teenager initially said he had no desire to go back to school, but later admitted, "I would have loved to continue my studies if my family could afford it. But since it's been too long, I'd better do my job well so that I can someday help put my sister through school."

At 8 a.m. on any Monday morning, Demung and his father make their kilometer-long walk to their boss's workshop. It would be the start to a six-day work week of 54 to 100 hours. The father-son team make 10 to 20 pairs of shoes per day.

A hazardous environment

Entering the workshop, the atmosphere is actually friendly. Yuli, the owner, inherited the workshop from his father and has worked as a shoemaker since childhood before making his way to become a trusted supplier for a well known Southeast Asian fashion brand and a famous Indonesian designer. Yuli and his employees seem to get along well. His wife was serving the employees coffee.

Despite the likable human dynamics, the strong scents of glue, gasoline and other chemicals are hard to ignore – and this workshop ranks among the better-ventilated ones. Still, it's hard to imagine how anyone could spend every day inhaling these chemicals to make a living.

"I used to get headaches when I entered a workshop," said Demung, recalling his first days as a shoemaker at age 11. "Masks should be worn in a workshop, but they're hardly available here. Even then, I'd have to buy them with my own money."

The spinning sewing machine is the workshop's constant soundtrack. The sharp tools of shoemaking – hammers, nails and sculpting knives – are definitely not suitable for children to use.

"I once got injured while sculpting the sole of a shoe. I cut myself. I was treated with iodine. It took a week to heal, and I kept working in the meantime," Demung said.

Footwear workshops are usually the busiest around Ramadan, because many people want new shoes for Idul Fitri. During this time, Demung often works until 10 p.m. and sometimes until 2 a.m. In August, Demung spent the holidays sick in bed from being overworked.

A neglected cause

Child labor exists because communities don't think it's a serious problem and there is demand in the market.

"Consumers don't think about whether their shoes are made by children," Demung said. "All they care about is that the shoes are of good quality and affordable. Whether the minors who make them can go to school or have to give that up for work, that's the government's problem."

Some consumers are even amused when posed with the idea that their shoes might be made by children.

"What a clever child! Now I want to learn how to make my own shoes," laughed Dhea, a mall shopper. "But maybe it's just the way it is. Those who can't afford to go to school can get into the shoemaking business. Isn't it good for them, to become independent at an early age?"

The International Labour Organization differentiates the "child laborer" from the "working child." In developed countries, many high school students earn pocket money by working part time in supermarkets or restaurants. The child laborer, in contrast, is a minor who spends more than four hours a day at work – or any time at all doing hazardous work – and has to give up education, rest and recreation.

Most village officials in Ciomas admit that they have teenagers at school who "help their parents" run a footwear workshop, but balk when asked to be introduced to an individual. None of the villages surveyed have data on child labor in their famous footwear industry because shoemaking is considered informal work.

Even the ILO's latest data is from 2006, the year it finished a child labor eradication project in Ciomas. The ILO concluded that there was a "negligible" number of minors working in the footwear industry.

The truth is, while child laborers only make up a minority of shoemakers in Ciomas, they are still common among financially struggling families.

Asked why he employs a child laborer, Yuli said: "Not a child, but a teenager. Most start by observing shoemaking friends. One friend attends school, the other works. The teenager compares and becomes interested in shoemaking."

At the end of the week, Demung and his father, Odi, take home a joint wage of Rp 150,000 ($15). If Rp 150,000 is the price of one pair of shoes, and Demung and Odi make 60 pairs a week, then they only take home less than 2 percent of the money made in the supply chain – a conservative estimate.

Odi said that he's proud to have his hard-working son follow in his footsteps. Demung's mother Susi, though, had something else to say. "I look at other children his age and think, he should be in school. I'm sorry to see him work with his father, leaving early in the morning, coming home at 10 p.m. or 2 a.m.," she said, choking back tears. "Someday, Demung wants to build a house. He wants to provide for his sister's, and later, his future children's education."

Happily ever after?

Most people assume that education is the solution to child labor. After all, school children from affluent families don't become child laborers like Demung.

However, many neighbors in the community complained that even if school tuition fees were free, surprise expenses such as books and uniforms are still troublesome. Demung and his parents' total monthly wages amount to Rp 900,000 per month, most of which they spend on rice. Even protein and vegetables are luxuries on such an income, let alone an education.

"If the government made school compulsory for kids my age, I think that would make my family suffer. Who would help us make ends meet if I didn't work? And would it be possible for this 14-year-old to go back to elementary school?" Demung said.

Achmad Marzuki, executive director of the Network of Indonesian Child Labor NGOs (Jarak), said the reasons why children in Ciomas drop out of school has little to do with tuition fees. Rather, it was because the national education system accommodated neither the needs of working children, nor the more immediate financial needs of the family.

In order to break the vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation that traps child laborers, schools in Ciomas need to prepare the youth for the local job market, but in a way that they could someday work their way out of manual labor into white collar jobs, such as footwear design, marketing and entrepreneurship.

"Government-run vocational training centers in Ciomas provide sewing, embroidery and welding programs. It makes no sense to the local situation, and the government should know better," Marzuki said.

Marzuki added that in order for school attendance to increase among working children, schools should offer flexible hours, be easily accessible from children's homes and provide practical skills to solve day-to-day problems such as money management, labor rights and health care.

Having the government implement policies to eradicate child labor is one way to begin solving the problem. Another part of the equation is sparking a consumer push for fair trade footwear. This includes fair pay, the exclusion of children from hazardous work, safety precautions for adults doing hazardous work and providing the children of employees with proper education. Another way is the refusal to buy products from companies that treat their workers otherwise, and speaking up about the footwear industry's injustices.

Will Demung have his happily ever after? A house built from his hard-earned cash, attending Erna's graduation?

The moonbeams dissolve with the Tuesday dawn, and the shoemaker's elf prepares for another laborious day in the workshop. The shoemaker boss and his wife are yet to be rich and famous, and it looks like their elf has to wait even longer.

['The Shoemaker's Elf: Reality and Hope'. This report was filmed as a documentary originally broadcast on BeritaSatu TV on Oct. 12 to 14. It was funded by the AJI-ILO child labor journalism fellowship.]

Employers to pay for workers' welfare

Jakarta Post - October 17, 2012

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that employers had to register their workers on national health-care and occupational social security programs, and had to pay for their premiums.

A nine-member Constitutional Court panel, chaired by Mahfud MD, made the ruling to respond to a judicial review filed by a labor union federation against Article 15 of Law No. 24/2011 on social security providers (BPJS).

The article only requires employers to register their workers without giving details as to who pays for the premium, a provision that the labor unions considered as contradicting the 1945 Constitution, which guarantees workers' rights for social security protection.

"The article contradicts the Constitution as it gives the impression that registering the workers on the program is not mandatory," Mahfud said, reading the court's verdict.

The ruling said that the article should read: "Employers are obliged to have their workers registered gradually as participants with the BPJS, that workers have the right to register themselves as participants in the programs and that employers must pay for them."

The judicial review was filed by the chairman of the Federation of Indonesian Workers' Association (FISBI), FISBI secretary general Susi Sartika and Yulianti, a member of staff of PT Megahbuana Citramasindo, soon after the law on BPJS was endorsed in September last year.

FISBI filed for the judicial review after efforts from employers to interpret the law that the payment of the premium for joining the national social security programs depended on employers' financial capabilities.

The government also has plans to require that workers and employers share the burden in the payment of the premium. In a draft of a government regulation for the law, workers are expected to spend 8 percent of their monthly salary to pay for the health-care program. The BPJS law mandates that the BPJS scheme must be implemented by Jan. 1, 2014. The law also sets the deadline for four occupational programs to commence in July 2015.

Workers recently staged a national strike to oppose the outsourcing system, the cheap labor policy and the government's plan to impose taxes or levies on workers to participate in national social security programs.

Employers blasted the court ruling on Monday. The Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) said the verdict contradicted the basic principles of the insurance industry.

"Based on Law no. 40/2004 on the national social security system, financing for the social security programs should be a joint contribution from employers and their workers because the social security system is based on the cooperation principle. White collar workers must pay more to subsidize blue collar workers who pay less," said Apindo secretary general Anton Supit.

Anton said that under the current social security programs, workers must spend around 3 percent of their monthly salaries on the pension benefit scheme. He said that Apindo would conduct a study to gauge the impact of the court's verdict on the country's competitiveness.

Confederation of Indonesian Workers Union (KSPI) chairman Said Iqbal hailed the verdict as a major victory for workers. "The government and employers must comply with this verdict. We thank God for this, the court gave the victory to us in the name of the Constitution," he said.

Indonesian Workers Organization (OPSI) secretary general Timboel Siregar said that with the verdict, the Health Ministry and the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry had to make adjustments to the draft regulation.

"There will be no opportunity for employers to shirk from their responsibility. If workers are not registered by employers, they can register themselves and their premium will be paid by the employers," he said.

Health & education

The scrapping of science will deal Indonesia a serious blow

Jakarta Post - October 23, 2012

Jakarta – The government's plan to scrap natural and social sciences from the primary school curriculum has met with widespread condemnation from educators and education activists who say it will affect the country's competitiveness in the national arena.

Deputy Education and Culture Minister for Education Musliar Kasim said on Monday that starting next year, primary school students would only study six compulsory subjects – religion, civics, Indonesian language, sport, math and arts and culture – in an effort to ease the burden placed upon students.

Musliar also said that the scrapping of the subject of science would allow teachers to teach morality to children.

Musliar said that while English would be entirely removed from the curriculum, social and natural sciences would be merged with other subjects, most likely the Indonesian language, as quoted by Antara.

A renowned physicist Yohanes Surya, a science professor with the Pelita Harapan University, doubted the feasibility of the plan to incorporate the natural sciences into other subjects.

"It may be reasonable to implement the changes from the first to third grade, but after that it seems impossible. How can you integrate the study of electricity into Indonesian language, religion or civics?" Yohanes told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Yohanes was one of the expert consulted by the ministry to discuss the curriculum streamlining plans.

If the government pressed ahead with the plan, Yohanes, who trained the country's young scientists to compete at the international science Olympics, was concerned that Indonesia's competitiveness in science would decline further.

According to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), Indonesia ranked 57th of 65 countries in reading, math and science proficiency.

The nation's poor grasp of science is reflected in the 2010 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS) ranking. Indonesia ranked 35th out of 48 countries, lagging behind Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Yohanes was also concerned about how prepared teachers would be to implement the new curriculum.

"As we know, many teachers teach science with a traditional approach. They write down the theories on the chalkboard and tell students to copy it. So, I guess it will require a huge amount of effort, and funds, to prepare them for an alteration such as this," he said, adding that it would be unlikely that all teachers in the country would be ready for the change by next year.

Yohanes suggested that the ministry considered having a trial period before expanding the plan across the whole country.

A psychologist from University of Indonesia, Rose Mini Agoes Salim, said that the real challenge facing the government would be the preparation of students in their adaptation of the new curriculum.

"The existing curriculum segregates studies into too many categories. If some of these studies are incorporated students would understand it more, and eventually be able to put it into practice," Rose said, "however, teachers must be trained to implement the new curriculum".

Hikmat Hardono of the Indonesia Mengajar education program said that improvements to the curriculum should be made accordance to demand from society. However, it has to take into account "that teachers are an essential part of the process to improve education in the country".

Contacted separately, parents and teachers said they disapproved of the ministry's plan. "Students love to learn social and natural sciences, because we do a lot of activities, such as observing plants and animals," Ade Sumarni, principal of SD Sawah I state elementary school in South Tangerang, said.

A mother of a third-grade student, Siti Aminah, was more concerned about the plan to scrap English. "My son should keep learning English. It will help him [...] to compete internationally," said Siti. (yps)

Indonesia's schools left unsafe as funds diverted

Jakarta Globe - October 19, 2012

Serang, Banten – "We used to cram 45 to 50 students into each classroom here," says Komarudin, principal of Kasunyatun State Elementary School in the town of Serang.

"But now because three of our rooms can't be used, we're having to stagger the classes so that some students come in the morning and the others in the afternoon." The schoolhouse, like many in small towns across the country, has just seven rooms – one for each grade from first to sixth, and a teachers' room.

When Komarudin was appointed principal here in 2010, he noticed that the entire building was in a state of disrepair and would need to be urgently renovated.

He applied for funding that year from the Serang Education Office and was promised that the municipality would foot the bill for repairs to four of the rooms, while the other three would get funding from the central government.

"But what happened was that only the municipal funding came through," Komarudin says. "The three other rooms have been never been renovated because, according to the education office, no school is allowed to receive funding from both the local education office and the central government. The condition of the three rooms now is very worrying."

He adds that he keeps applying to the authorities for funding, either to repair the rundown classrooms whose crumbling walls and roof he fears could collapse at any time, or to build new classrooms.

Roihah, a teacher, says the threat of a collapse constantly weighs on the students and teachers and makes it difficult to focus on lessons.

"An environment that's conducive to learning should be comfortable so that the students aren't distracted by other things, but here none of us feels the least bit comfortable," she says.

She cites one occasion when it began raining hard and the ceiling in her classroom began leaking in several spots. That prompted her to evacuate the entire class for fear that the ceiling would collapse.

"The government needs to fix all the classrooms that are in disrepair, otherwise there's bound to be an accident that claims victims," Roihah says. "We just hope that they address our problem immediately so that the students can have peace of mind when they're learning."

The funding hitch at Kasunyatun Elementary is one of many that schools across the country face when requesting money to fix crumbling classrooms. The problem seems to belie the massive allocation that the education sector is guaranteed from the state budget.

By law, at least 20 percent of the budget must go to education, the second-highest allotment after that for civil servants' salaries. In 2011, the education budget amounted to Rp 266.9 trillion ($27.8 billion), increasing to Rp 310.8 trillion this year. The draft budget for 2013 sets aside a record Rp 331.8 trillion for education, but in reality only a fraction of that money will go toward schools.

The Education Ministry, which is responsible for the running and maintenance of state schools, will get Rp 66 trillion, while the Religious Affairs Ministry, which oversees Islamic schools, will get Rp 39 trillion. The rest will be shared by 18 other ministries and government institutions for their own education and training programs that have nothing to do with primary and secondary education.

In addition to its allocation from the state, more than half of which will go toward paying teachers' salaries, the Education Ministry has another source of funding for school building repairs, but one that has drawn criticism from legislators.

In 2010, it created a perpetual endowment, known as the National Education Development Fund (DPPN), using funds left over from its budget from the previous year. The initial amount was Rp 1 trillion. In 2011, it swelled to Rp 3.6 trillion, and this year stands at Rp 10.6 trillion. At the start of 2013, it is expected to increase by another Rp 5 trillion.

The fund may only be used for providing postgraduate scholarships to primary and secondary school teachers, rebuilding schools in areas hit by natural disasters, and funding research on a national scale.

However, Education Minister Mohammad Nuh says that only the interest generated by the fund, and not the principal, may be used. He says the interest currently stands at around Rp 300 billion.

The endowment has come under close scrutiny recently from House of Representatives Commission X, which oversees education affairs, which questions its legality and the high potential for embezzlement. (SP & JG)

Minister rejects proposal for sex education

Jakarta Post - October 18, 2012

Jakarta – Responding to demands that proper sex education be taught in schools in order to protect children from rape, Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh said that it was unnecessary as it could promote indecency among the country's youth.

"According to our traditions, it is indecent to talk about it, and that is my standpoint. I don't believe we need that yet," the minister told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Faiza Mardzoeki, a spokesperson for the Women's Alliance against Rape (APTP) said proper knowledge of reproductive rights could help students protect themselves from sexual predators.

She was referring to the 14-year-old Depok girl who was raped by alleged human traffickers in Bogor, West Java. The abduction and rape could have been prevented if the girl had been given enough knowledge about sex, particularly in identifying sexual harassment.

Activists have urged the ministry to refine reproduction education in the national school curriculum, saying that it might curb the number of teenage rape, which has surged to 27 cases this year.

They deemed that Nuh had not paid enough attention to sexual assaults against students. The minister, instead, made a negative remark to rape victims, saying that "they do it for fun and then the girl alleges that it's rape."

Nuh told the Post that he had no knowledge about reproductive education. "I am sorry, mentioning s-e-x is already taboo to me," he said.

Given the sensitivity of the subject of reproductive education, Nuh suggested that parents should be responsible for assisting their children in learning about reproductive rights.

"We didn't get education on reproduction when we were children, but we learned that from our families. Considering the high privacy level of this topic, it is more suitable if the family played a dominant role," he added.

According to Nuh, the public was not ready to have more sex education in the school curriculum because there have been a big controversies regarding some study content. Some parents complained about school worksheets featuring "adult content".

"The controversy on LKS [student worksheets] has prompted us to reconsider the best way to deliver education on reproduction, whether to use direct or symbolic languages," he said.

Among the questionable content was a complicated love story about a mistress, a photo of the fully-clothed porn star Japanese porn star Maria "Miyabi" Ozawa, and multiple choice questions about the human reproduction system.

Faiza said that the public needs to change their mind-sets about sex education, given its huge importance to the students. "Don't perceive the subject as taboo. Junior and senior high school students must be able to identify which actions are considered sexual harassment and assault," she said.

Seto Mulyadi from the government-sanctioned National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak) said that sex education in Indonesia lagged behind some countries, like Japan.

"Kindergarten students in Japan are given education about reproductive organs regarding how to clean and protect them, including banning anyone from touching their private parts. In our education system, some of those theories have been delivered, but in some way, the school hasn't provided practical methods for students to protect themselves," Seto said in a telephone interview.

Seto suggested that parents and schools need to work hand in hand. Seto, however, pointed out that schools need to be more prepared, considering not all parents have sufficient knowledge to address the issue.

When Faiza and some activists staged a protest in front of Nuh's office, the minister invited them to come in and discuss the issue with him. The group, however, declined his invitation because the ministry's security officers didn't allow them to bring their banners in. The protesters dispersed before Nuh got the chance to meet them. (yps)

Pancasila classes to be reintroduced in bid to quell school violence

Jakarta Globe - October 17, 2012

Natasia Christy & Pitan Daslani – As of the next academic year, the government will reinstate Pancasila courses in Indonesia's elementary and high schools in a desperate attempt to halt violent behavior and the loss of cultural identity in society.

The decision was made by the Ministry of Education and Culture following a series of fatal brawls in high schools and university campuses, not to mention horizontal conflicts in various parts of the country.

Politicians and community leaders alike have expressed worry that an absence of Pancasila courses has also triggered a rise in ethnic and religious intolerance which could result in national disintegration if abandoned any further.

Pancasila, Indonesia's state ideology, was ingrained into school curriculums a during former president Suharto's three decades of dictatorial rule. Critics accused him of using the Pancasila Propagation Course, then known as P4, as a political indoctrination instrument to cement his power. As a result, his ouster in 1998 spelled an end to Pancasila's inclusion in school curricula.

In July 2003, President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed Law No.20/2003 that resulted in Pancaila courses being scrapped from schools. Megawati's father, former president Sukarno, was the one who introduced Pancasila as the nation's guiding ideology on June 1, 1945, prior to independence.

Historian Asvi Warman Adam placed blame on the former government for Pancasila's absence in schools. He has urged then-education minister Bambang Sudiby to apologize to the public for having made "such a frivolous blunder."

Retno Listyarti, secretary general of the Federation of Indonesian Teachers Associations (FSGI), said that it is not enough just to reinstate Pancasila in schools – the government must instill the right culture based on the values of the state ideology, especial religious tolerance toward minority groups, because Indonesia is a pluralist society.

She said that discriminative treatment toward students from minority groups was flourishing in public schools. "Civic education must lead to greater tolerance toward our pluralistic reality. The Indonesian state is not based on religious ideologies but on Pancasila," she explained.

"For example, there are schools that oblige all students to read the Koran or [force] female students to wear Muslim dresses every Friday," Retno told the daily Suara Pembaruan on Monday.

The Deputy Minister of Education, Muslia Kasin, had said that the government planned to change the name of PPKn civic education course to Pancasila Education. PPKn as a subject matter was introduced during the 2004 academic year, but the terminology of Pancasila was omitted.

Meanwhile, rector of state-owned Yogyakarta University, Rochmat Wahab, said what is important is not verbalistic changes but the true implementation of the state ideology within society. The government must make sure that Pancasila courses will not only serve the interests of those in power, the academic said.

On Tuesday, Vice President Boediono threw his weight behind the move to reinstate Pancasila in schools, stating that Indonesian students were in dire need of soft skills, including character building based on the values of the state ideology.

"There aren't soft skill lessons in our schools, and I have the impression that we have not given sufficient attention to promoting [these] skills in the younger generation," Boediono said.

Such abilities are needed to groom Indonesia's future leaders in all fields, the vice president explained. "This will determine the pace of our civilization."

Boediono noted that an absence of the serious development of character in schools in is to blame for frequent student brawls, violent acts, corruption, markup and bribery. "And we wonder why have all these things happened?"

Education must provide an answer to such social maladies, Boediono noted. "My appeal is that all schools at all levels must teach soft skills as [well] as hard skills."

But religious educators Maman Imanulhaq and Benny Susetyo warned that Pancasila education is not just for students, but for the political elite, as well. They argued that the government does not take proper action when citizens suffer from discriminatory treatment and religious intolerance.

Maman, an educator at Al Mizani Islamic boarding school in Majalengka, West Java, said that such government inaction is proof that the political elite have failed to implement Pancasila in the real world.

Benny, the executive secretary of inter-religious relations at the Indonesian Catholic Bishops Conference, said that political elites have even "parked Pancasila" and replaced it with pragmatism and trans- nationalism. "Corruption is on the rise, as is oppression, greed and violent behavior that endangers tolerance," Benny warned.

Nahdlatul Ulama's Ansor Youth organization's chairman Nusron Wahid expounded the statement by saying that a number of groups are "forcing their own interpretations of religious teachings from narrow-minded perspectives."

Earlier reports said the education ministry was planning to remove science and English studies from elementary schools, because the ministry believes that young students shouldn't be studying too much.

Deputy Education Minister Musliar Kasim said that his ministry is drafting a new curriculum that contains only six subjects: religion, nationalism, Indonesian language, math, art and sport.

Besides scrapping science and social studies from the curriculum, as announced on Sept. 27, the government also intends to eliminate English language lessons.

Science and social studies will be integrated into Indonesian language classes. "So, when learning the Indonesian language, students could study about thunder or rain while learning to read," the deputy minister said.

However, many education experts have said that the policy would hurt Indonesia. In other countries, science is taught in elementary school in order to cultivate a critical and scientific culture early.

Educational observer Darmaningtyas said it was wrong to abolish or postpone sciences at elementary school. "I agree with reinstatement of Pancasila.... However, it should not be done at the expense of science and English. How can we compete at the international level if we don't master English and science?" Darmaningtyas said.

Students & youth

Police to send student brawlers to boot camp

Jakarta Post - October 22, 2012

Jakarta, Indonesia – The police say they will hold a boot camp for student troublemakers following brawls between rival high school students.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said on Monday that the police would cooperate with the Education and Culture Ministry to send the students to the Lido National Police Academy in Bogor, West Java, in November.

Although specifics of the training were under discussion, it would include physical training, general knowledge instruction and training, Rikwanto said.

"Those who will undergo the training are expected to become models for their schoolmates. Who knows if those students actually have high creativity and leadership potential," he said.

Rikwanto said that the boot camp would include students recommended by schools and those with criminal records.

The academy can host up to 1,000 students, although the police were still determining how many students would be required to participate, Rikwanto said.(aml/iwa)

11 students arrested after violent protest against police

Jakarta Globe - October 20, 2012

Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Zaky Pawas & Ulin Yusron – Eleven students from Pamulang University have been arrested after a violent protest against the presence of National Police Deputy Chief Comr. Gen. Nanan Sukarna at the university campus in South Tangerang on Thursday.

Nanan had been invited by the university to give a lecture on Thursday morning. The students said they conducted the protest because they did not like the police institution, citing its latest conflict with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) over investigations into a driving simulator scandal implicating several high-ranking police officials.

Earlier reports said five police officers and at least one student were injured after the protest staged by approximately 100 Pamulang University (Unpam) students turned violent.

The police identified Y.R., an Unpam graduate, as the provocateur who used E.F., a law student, to gather other students to take part in the demonstration.

"Y.R., is from Sukabumi, West Java. He's a graduate of Unpam and he graduated two years ago. He was the one who organized and led [the protesters]. He's the one that was [interviewed by] TVOne," Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said on Friday.

The Jakarta Police arrested nine students from the campus area, including R.S., an industrial engineering student who was caught carrying a sharp weapon.

Police investigators said 10 of the students were charged for provocation and violence while R.S. is facing another charge of violating the emergency law on possession of weapons. The investigation is ongoing.

Dedi Darwis, the coordinator of the Indonesian Student National Consolidation, said the students were arrested at 10 p.m. on Thursday after the violent protest that took place throughout the day

"They were about to leave [the campus] on their motorcycles, but police arrested them one by one," Dedi said, adding that the arrest was made by dozens of police officers carrying rifles and tear gas.

"You shut up; don't say too much. You come with us to the [police] office," Dedi quoted the police as saying.

Meanwhile, the National Student League for Democracy (LMND) recorded more than 100 cases of violence involving police officers that killed at least 20 people.

"The police are under heavy public scrutiny because of the violence that occurred recently. Most of the cases involved violence committed by the officers who acted excessively in handling the people's protests," Arif Fachrudin, the executive chairman of LMND, told Beritasatu.com on Thursday.

"What the students of Pamulang University did was an outcome of distrust toward the Indonesian police institutions which have in the past few years been showing ruthlessness, violence and arbitrariness against civilians," Arif said.

He added that the students were rejecting the police's arrogance, saying that it was astonishing to see that the increasing number of incidents of violence involving police occurred amid the efforts to reform the institution.

Arif said that the police should change how they carry out their duties as the people's servants, guides and protectors.

"You can't blame the Pamulang students for rejecting Nanan and linking his track record to his contribution to criminalize KPK official Novel Baswedan. That was enough reason [to reject Nanan]. The media had successfully raised this issue and raised the people's awareness about anticorruption," he said.

Police question 11 over Pamulang riot

Jakarta Post - October 19, 2012

Jakarta – The police said on Friday they were questioning 11 people in relation to their alleged involvement in a campus riot on Thursday at Pamulang University in South Tangerang.

"They may face charges under several articles of the Criminal Code, including incitement and beatings," Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said. "We will decide their fate today at 7 p.m.," he added.

Rikwanto said the chaos injured two students and five police officers, and caused damage to several vehicles around the site. "The injured students and police officers are undergoing treatment at hospitals in South Tangerang," he said.

Throngs of students at the campus staged a protest – believed to be related to several police attacks on students across the country – during a public lecture session delivered at the university by deputy national police chief Comr. Gen. Nanan Sukarna on Thursday.

Rikwanto denied that one student was shot by the police. The student, Feri Irawan, was wounded in the stomach by a sharp object during the riot. "After minor surgery by Dr Mursal at the South Tangerang Hospital, no bullet was found. His condition is improving."

Police, representatives of the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI) and locals in Pamulang met with the university on Friday, to discuss a reconciliation. (fzm/swd)

Violence erupts as students rally against top police officer

Jakarta Post - October 19, 2012

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – Students and police officers clashed during a demonstration at a university in Pamulang, South Tangerang, on Thursday.

The protest occurred as deputy National Police chief Comr. Gen. Nanan Sukarna visited the university to deliver a public lecture. The students said the protest was a form of solidarity for students across the country who they claimed had become victims of police violence. Nanan was in the first minutes of his lecture when the students threw stones at police officers, forcing Nanan to leave the premises.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto condemned the incident, saying the university should have controlled its students. "They invited Pak Nanan, but they also created chaos," Rikwanto told reporters.

The police dispatched two companies of officers to keep the students inside the campus compound. Pamulang police station, which is located in front of the campus, had its windows smashed by students throwing stones, according to Rikwanto.

"Also, a Ford Ranger, Toyota Soluna, a mob control vehicle, Pak Nanan's guard vehicle and several others, were destroyed," he said. "Several Police Mobile Brigade [Brimob] officers were also injured, all of whom were rushed immediately to the nearest clinic, one with a broken finger," he added.

A number of students were also injured in the incident. One the protesters, Bernadiktus Mega Pradita, 20, said that his nose started bleeding after being beaten by officers. "I didn't clearly see who punched my face, but I believe it came from an officer who tried to prevent us from going onto the streets," Bernadiktus said.

The officer's punch sparked the other students' anger, causing chaos. They began beating the police barricade with bamboo sticks and stones.

Nanan, who was inside the crowd, reminded officers and students not to hit each other. "No police officers should hit students. No students should hit police officers. I came here with good intentions," Nanan said briefly while walking toward the rector's office.

The students' protest turned even uglier as Nanan left the crowd. They threw stones to the police who responded with tear gas. The incident caused a three-hour-long traffic jam on the roads heading to and from Pamulang.

The situation returned to normal at around 11 a.m., after a number of local residents talked with the protesting students. "The students agreed to dispurse as long as the police retreated," said Suryadi, a local resident.

Boma Angkasa, a law student at the university, claimed that his friends protested against the presence of police personnel on their campus, showing solidarity to other universities that have witness police-related violence recently.

"This is in relation to the police's crimes against our friends in Cianjur, Bima, Cirebon. Police have been attacking students. We have vowed not to let officers enter our campus," he said as quoted by kompas.com. (fzm)

Children & domestic violence

686 child abuse cases in first half of this year

Jakarta Post - October 17, 2012

Jakarta – The National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) has recorded 686 cases of child abuse in the first half of this year, meaning that more than 100 cases have been reported each month, the commission said in a press statement on Tuesday.

Komnas PA predicted that the number would rise in the second half while the abuse would be more complex and varied.

It said that the abuse generally took place in places familiar to children, such as schools, homes and educational institutions. The perpetrators include parents, uncles, teachers, step-fathers or mothers who are supposed to protect the children.

Komnas PA, meanwhile, recorded 139 cases of student brawls in the same period, an increase from the 128 cases recorded in the same period last year. As many as 12 students were killed in the brawls, Antara news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the commission also recorded hundreds of law violations, including theft, drug abuse and gambling, 759 cases of which involved boys and 29 involving girls.

Graft & corruption

Amid criticism, ex-graft convict resigns

Jakarta Post - October 23, 2012

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Amid mounting criticism, Azirwan, a former graft convict who now heads a government agency in Riau Islands province, tendered his resignation to the province's governor, Muhammad Sani, an official said on Monday.

"The Riau Islands governor has just reported to Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi that he had received Azirwan's resignation," Home Ministry spokesman Reydonnyzar Moenek said in a text message to journalists.

Reydonnyzar added that the minister approved the resignation and asked the governor to prepare Azirwan's replacement as head of the Riau Islands Maritime Resources and Fishery Agency within three days.

Azirwan, the former secretary of the Bintan regental administration, was jailed for bribing lawmaker Amin Nasution at a hotel in Jakarta in March 2008. Azirwan bribed the politician to gain approval for the conversion of an 8,000 hectare protected forest in Bintan into a business zone.

The total bribe paid by the Bintan administration to the House, through Amin, was Rp 4 billion (US$416,448). Azirwan was sentenced to two-and-a- half-years in prison on Sept. 1, 2009, but was released mid-2010.

Soon after being released, Azirwan was appointed chief commissioner of the Bintan Enterprises Agency.

On March 9 this year, Riau Islands Governor Muhammad Sani appointed him interim head of the Riau Islands Maritime Affairs and Fishery Office. He was sworn in as head of the agency on Sept. 24.

The promotion sparked public outcry, with anti-corruption activists saying it sent the wrong message about corruption. (lfr)

National Police hand over driving simulator case to KPK

Jakarta Post - October 22, 2012

Jakarta – The National Police officially stopped investigating the Rp 198.7 billion (US$20.91 million) graft case in the procurement of driving simulators, police spokesman Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar confirmed on Monday.

The Criminal Investigation Division has desisted from the investigation which implicated the National Police Traffic Corps (Korlantas) in favor of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

The police's move follows President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's recommendation, however, the police have only handed over the investigation and not dropped the case. "We just hand over the case to KPK," Boy was quoted by tempo.co as saying.

The police will also hand over evidence, interrogation dossiers and other case documents, along with five suspects named by the police: former Korlantas deputy chief Brig. Gen. Didik Purnomo, Korlantas officers Comr. Legimo and Adj. Sr. Comr. Tedy Rusmawan, as well as businessmen Budi Susanto and Sukotjo S. Bambang.

The KPK has named four suspects; former Korlantas chief Insp. Gen. Djoko Susilo, Didik, Budi, and Sukotjo. (cor/lfr)

Names on the Hambalang BPK report disappear

Jakarta Globe - October 20, 2012

Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Arientha Primanita – Legislators are angry that a Supreme Audit Agency report on the Hambalang scandal has been tampered with, leading to the removal of Youth and Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng and Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum from the list of those implicated.

The case concerns the graft-tainted construction of the Rp 2.5 trillion ($261 million) Hambalang Sports Stadium in Bogor, West Java.

Teguh Juwarno, a member of the State Finance and Accountability Body (BAKN) at the House of Representatives, said on Friday that the public could not accept that the state's highest audit body, known as BPK, was forced to alter its report.

"The statement of a BPK member that the BPK had suffered from an intervention is very surprising and, at the same time, cause for grave concern," Teguh said. He added that the BPK's independence was enumerated in a 2006 law.

BPK deputy chairman Taufiqurrahman Ruki was quoted by national media as saying he felt his institution's audit of the Hambalang project had been subject to an "intervention" that resulted in the names of a number of contractors being taken off the list of those involved.

"Taufiqurrahman Ruki should name whoever dared to intervene into the BPK. He should see whether [this individual] comes from outside the BPK or from inside," Teguh said.

He said if the individual intervening came from within, it could only be top officials, rather than field auditors. "For me, it is a question: Who on earth could intervene over a BPK member of the caliber of Taufiqurrahman Ruki?" he said.

He urged the BAKN to call for a consultation with the BPK to clarify the matter, warning that leaving it unaddressed might harm the credibility of the BPK as an independent state auditor.

The BPK said in its preliminary audit that it had found evidence of the involvement of Andi and a number of contractors in irregularities related to the Hambalang sports project.

Taufiqurrahman said because the names had disappeared without reason, he has ordered the audit team to work on the report again, adding that if the names remained absent, he would refuse to sign it.

Bambang Soesatyo, a lawmaker from the Golkar Party and a member of House Commission III on legal affairs, also deplored the disappearance of the names from the audit.

"The BPK should divulge which party intervened causing the name of Andi Mallarangeng to no longer appear in connection with the audit on the Hambalang case," Bambang said.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in July named Deddy Kusdinar, the head of the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry's finance and household bureau, as a suspect in the case for accepting bribes.

The House launched a separate investigation into the case after it emerged that lawmakers had originally approved a Rp 125 billion budget for Hambalang before the figure ballooned to Rp 2.5 trillion.

Earlier this year, facilities under construction at the Bogor complex partly collapsed due to an apparent lack of engineering preparation.

Indra, a member of the House legal commission, said he suspected the involvement of Andi in the Hambalang case to be significant and therefore it would be strange if his name did not appear in the BPK's audit report.

He said Andi's name has often been cited by those questioned over the Hambalang case.

"The logic is simple. It seems impossible that the youth and sports minister did not know of the process or the journey of a project as large as Hambalang. The BPK should not play with fire because this is already as clear as daylight," said Indra, who comes from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

Indra said the Hambalang project was a major project that could drag down many officials and important people, adding that he was therefore not surprised that Taufiqurrahman claimed there was tampering of the BPK audit.

"It is certain that those involved in the Hambalang case will make efforts to hide their involvement as well as evidence of their involvement, including by conditioning the conclusion of the BPK investigative audit, so that they are not dragged in," he said.

BPK member Agung Firman said when last discussed at a meeting on Sept. 17, the names of Andi and several other state officials were mentioned in the BPK report, but the names were not included in the conclusion.

Also on Friday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised to suspend Andi if he was formally implicated in the scandal.

"Any minister that becomes a suspect in a graft case will be suspended so that he can concentrate on his or her case," said Heru Lelono, a presidential staffer.

Wa Ode not first domino, house says

Jakarta Globe - October 20, 2012

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Members of the House of Representatives Budget Committee on Friday said they were not worried that this week's graft conviction of a former member would prompt the downfall of others.

The Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court sentenced former legislator Wa Ode Nurhayati to six years in prison on Thursday in a bribery case that has exposed the massive scale of budget manipulations in the House of Representatives.

The court found that Wa Ode, a National Mandate Party (PAN) member, had taken a total of Rp 6.2 billion ($646,000) in bribes in relation to two separate infrastructure development programs last year.

But Wa Ode had insisted that she had been framed by top officials at the House committee, accusing them of also receiving bribe money in exchange for supporting the projects' proposed budgets.

"Who said that? It was Wa Ode wasn't it? But did the court say so? Did the KPK [Corruption Eradication Commission] say so?" Budget Committee deputy chairman Tamsil Linrung said on Friday.

"The court said that she did this on her own. Just trace where the money went, don't make any accusations," the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker added.

Melchias Markus Mekeng, the Golkar Party legislator who headed the committee at the time of the scandal, also denied any wrongdoing. "That is only [Wa Ode's] version of events, but the facts are different," he said.

KPK deputy chairman Busyro Muqoddas said before the verdict that the antigraft body would likely announce more suspects.

So far, Wa Ode is the only lawmaker named as a suspect in the case, which also implicated two businessmen said to have provided the bribe money. The two are now on trial at the same court.

The KPK earlier confiscated a laptop computer from a House staffer, Nando, containing details of the Infrastructure Development Acceleration (PPID) program that involved 298 regions across the country.

One of the files found reportedly contains an expansive list of how much money particular officials took in bribes from a large regional infrastructure development project.

In the list, the five House leaders are each assigned a code name, with K1 allegedly referring to House Speaker Marzuki Alie and K2 through K5 to his deputies, KPK chief Abraham Samad told lawmakers. K1 received Rp 300 billion while K2 through K5 got Rp 250 billion each.

Melchias and each of his four deputies were also on the list, the KPK said, code-named P1 through P5. Finally, each political party represented in the House also received a cut, with the list identifying each of them by color.

During her trial, Wa Ode accused Marzuki and his deputies of taking the bribes described in the laptop.

Marzuki, a Democratic Party representative who earlier claimed that Wa Ode made the allegation like a "drunk," demanded she back up her claims with details, such as who gave him the money, the location and method of the bribe.

Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Wa Ode's lawyer, on Friday said that he would file an appeal against the six-year jail sentence. "We are dissatisfied with the verdict. We will put this in our appeal document," Yusril said.

But he declined to comment further, saying it would be unethical to open a debate in the media about a verdict.

The six-year sentence was lower than the 14 years sought by prosecutors from the KPK. But the court, which also ordered Wa Ode to pay a Rp 500 million fine, said she deserved a more lenient sentence because she had never been convicted of a crime before. The KPK had earlier recommended a Rp 1 billion fine.

Separately, PAN deputy chairman Drajad Wibowo said his party was waiting for the appeal process to conclude before deciding whether Wa Ode, who had resigned from her position as lawmaker, would be fired from the party.

Police still reluctant to let KPK handle graft investigation

Jakarta Post - October 20, 2012

Rabby Pramudatama, Jakarta – Despite clear directives from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the National Police appear to be reluctant in letting the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) fully handle the vehicle simulator graft investigation.

Instead of voluntarily letting the KPK body proceed with its work, the police turned to the Criminal Code to defend its stance. Based on the KPK Law, the antigraft body has the full power to proceed with its own investigation.

Using articles in the Criminal Code, however, the police told the KPK to also use the results of the police's preliminary investigation, which has identified several suspects in the case.

The KPK prefers not to use materials from the police's investigation because concerns such materials could conflict information previously collected.

"We had a coordination meeting for the hand-over process at the National Police headquarters yesterday [on Thursday], but we did not come to an agreement on several technicalities," KPK spokesperson Johan Budi told reporters at the KPK's building, on Friday.

Johan said the technicalities were related to the legal basis used to hand over the vehicle simulator procurement case to the KPK for further prosecution.

The police and KPK were also still undecided on the status of two people who had been named suspects by the police.

Johan said further that the two institutions had scheduled another meeting on Friday to break the stalemate. However, the meeting failed to take place as police officers failed to show up at the KPK's headquarters.

The vehicle simulator scandal centers on the procurement of 700 two-wheeled and 556 four-wheeled vehicle simulators by the National Police Traffic Corps (Korlantas) in 2011.

The KPK has named Insp. Gen. Djoko Susilo, the former Korlantas chief, a suspect. He is the first active duty police general ensnared in corruption case handled by the commission.

Djoko skipped his first KPK questioning session but showed up for questioning after the second summons. The KPK has announced that it would proceed with its questioning of Djoko after the hand-over process was complete.

The government has reportedly lost US$19.81 million in the procurement project, which was valued at Rp 200 billion. The case also has connections to National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo, who was required to approve the procurement due to its large price tag.

Meanwhile, the National Police have insisted on proceeding with their own investigation, although the antigraft commission had already started their probe.

President Yudhoyono, in a recent speech, ordered the National Police to hand over the case to the KPK.

Speaking on a separate occasion on Friday, Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Denny Indrayana dismissed assumptions that the disagreement was caused by a prevailing rift between the two institutions.

"I rather see the problem not as a deadlock. I see it as ordinary discussion between fellow law enforcement institutions," he said.

He said it was natural for the National Police, the KPK, and the Attorney General's Office to be cautious in conducting the dossier hand over according to legal mechanisms.

"But I think if we refer to the President's instruction, then basically the case should be handed over to the KPK. The legal basis for the process is pretty clearly stipulated in the KPK's law," he said.

Earlier in the week, KPK deputy chairman Busyro Muqoddas hinted that the police would deliver the dossier within the week.

Another lawmaker lands in jail

Jakarta Post - October 19, 2012

Rabby Pramudatama, Jakarta – The Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced former House of Representatives member Wa Ode Nurhayati of the National Mandate Party (PAN) to six years in prison on Thursday for accepting bribes from private businessmen and money laundering.

A panel of judges at the corruption court found Nurhayati, 31, guilty of accepting Rp 6.25 billion (US$650,000) in bribes from three businessmen to disburse the Regional Infrastructure Development Fund (DPID), a temporary budget project that allocates funds to several less-developed regions.

The bribes from the three businessmen Fahd El Fouz, Saul Paulus David Nelwan and Abram Noach Mambu were then wired by Nurhayati's personal assistant, Sefa Yolanda, to her personal account, which constituted a violation of the Money Laundering Law.

Prosecutors sought 14 years for Nurhayati, combining bribery and money- laundering charges, an unprecedented move in the prosecution of graft cases in the country.

Judge Suhartoyo said that mitigating factors that could help Nurhayati's cause were that she showed good behavior during the trial and that she had never been convicted before.

The court judges ordered her to pay a Rp 500 million fine. Nurhayati said she would appeal the verdict. "I have prepared for the worst. I am steadfast and I sincerely do not hold any grudge against the court. I hope this experience turns into a good deed in the eyes of God," she told reporters.

Initially, Nurhayati served as a whistle-blower who first disclosed alleged illicit practices in the deliberation of the state budget, including Infrastructure Development Acceleration Program (PPID) funds, before the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) decided to move against her.

She was first named a suspect by the KPK in December last year on bribery charges. She was arrested a month later. The KPK named her a suspect again in April on money laundering charges.

Prior to her arrest, Nurhayati, went public with her allegation that the House budget committee was a den of corruption. She accused several fellow members of the House budget committee of being involved in the illicit DPID deliberations.

The involvement of other lawmakers was also confirmed by Fahd, a Golkar Party politician.

Fahd, who is the son of popular dangdut singer A Rafiq, testified during Nurhayati's trial that there were other House budget committee members who were involved in the case, including Tamsil Linrung of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Mirwan Amir of the Democratic Party, Olly Dondokambey of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Melchias Markus Mekeng of Golkar.

The senior politicians played a key role in the disbursement of PPID funds to different regencies.

Another witness in the trial, businessman Haris Andi Surahman, backed Fahd's claim that all member of the budget committee had roles in the case. Both Mirwan and Tamsil also testified at the trial.

During the proceedings, Fahd admitted to having bribed Nurhayati to win the lucrative funding scheme. Fahd said it was Haris who had introduced him to Nurhayati, a service for which Haris received a fee from Fahd. According to the indictment, Fahd learned about the DPID funds on Sept. 10, 2010.

KPK spokesman Johan Budi said the antigraft body would follow up on all new information gathered from the trial.

KPK wants crackdown on convicted civil servants

Jakarta Globe - October 18, 2012

Rizky Amelia – The antigraft commission will seek to have anyone convicted of corruption automatically dismissed from the civil service, an official said on Wednesday.

"In the future, we will include it under Article 35 of the penal code in our indictment, so that the judges can order the revocation of the rights of defendants in corruption cases [to retain their civil service jobs]," said Anatomi Muliawan, a legal officer with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Under the article, judges will have the right in their verdicts to order the dismissal of a convict from a government job, revoke their right to vote and even bar them from running for public office.

Anatomi also said that former corruption convicts should be prohibited from being appointed or promoted to new positions, in line with the 1999 Corruption-Free Bureaucracy Law that requires officials to be free of all indications of graft or nepotism.

"After a court verdict, there should be action taken by the bureaucracies in the regions," he said. "The problem is that the verdicts are never fully followed up by the administrative offices. They should follow the verdicts to the letter, including enforcing the administrative sanction of dismissal."

He referred to the recent case of Azirwan, who was convicted in a corruption case but was subsequently appointed as the head of the fisheries and maritime affairs agency in the Riau Islands.

The 1999 law states that officials who have been convicted of corruption are no longer fit to work in the civil service. Anatomi said that Azirwan's appointment showed that there was a disconnect between law enforcers and regional administrations.

Azirwan, the former district secretary of Bintan in the Riau Islands, was arrested by the KPK while trying to bribe district legislators to get a recommendation for the conversion of a forest in Bintan. On Sept. 1, 2008, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and fined Rp 100 million. He was released in 2010.

"To prevent this from becoming a trend, there needs to be coordination between the KPK and the Home Affairs Ministry," Anatomi said. "This is part of prevention, and has a direct effect on corruption eradication."

Indonesian house agrees to terminate KPK law deliberations

Jakarta Globe - October 17, 2012

Ezra Sihite & Rizky Amelia – Indonesian lawmakers have unanimously spoken out against a plan to curb the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) power in a letter sent to the House of Representatives.

"All factions have sent a letter to the House of Representatives asking to stop deliberation of the draft of the KPK Law revision," deputy speaker of the House Priyo Budi Santoso said on Tuesday night.

Lawmakers, who would've been the ones deliberating the bill in the House, need to submit an official letter voicing their opposition before the bill can be axed, according to House regulations. The move also required the support of the majority of the nine political parties currently represented in the House.

House Speaker Marzuki Alie is expected to address the letter and apologize to the Indonesian people for ending deliberations. "[The] House speaker will apologize to the public and ask the public to understand that for the sake of bigger interests the deliberation of the KPK Law revision draft will be terminated until the end of the House of Representatives 2009-2014 term," Priyo said.

The revision would have stripped the antigraft body of its ability to wiretap suspects and prosecute corruption cases. Critics said the proposed revision was an attempt to muzzle the KPK after a series of high-profile graft cases resulted in the convictions of several prominent lawmakers.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the effort was unwarranted in a speech last week.

Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) said the KPK Law doesn't need to be revised. "There is no such thing as a perfect law, but the KPK Law is quite good," Donal Fariz, a researcher at ICW, said.

Donal urged lawmakers to remove the proposal from the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas). "To guarantee that the KPK Law would bot be modified accord to political tensions, it should be removed from the Prolegnas," Donal said.

Freedom of religion & worship

Religious harmony is a must, but how?

Jakarta Post - October 20, 2012

Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono underlined the importance of the roles played by leaders and religious figures in solving various conflicts taking place across the country.

"As the head of state, I invite and urge leaders and religious figures to guide people and apply their religious teachings as properly as possible," he said in his speech at a commemorative ceremony celebrating the centenary of a Catholic church in Manggarai regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), on Friday.

The President said that leaders and religious figures should continuously strive to seek peaceful solutions to the various conflicts.

"Building and maintaining religious harmony as well as presenting enlightened examples of leadership are part of the requirements needed to settle conflict," he said as quoted by Antara news agency.

Yudhoyono said that amid the heterogeneity and dynamism of Indonesia, sometimes conflicts arose in which leaders and religious figures should be active in the search for a peaceful resolution.

The President, however, stopped short of mentioning any concrete steps needed to settle the various religious conflicts taking place in a number of areas throughout Indonesia.

The discovery that a regent in Aceh ordered the closure of 20 churches in April this year raises concerns over growing intolerance, which may trigger communal conflicts.

The closures were ordered by Aceh Singkil's acting regent Razali AR in a letter signed on April 30, which ordered members of the congregations to tear down the churches themselves by June 8 at the latest.

Following the closures, there are now only two churches open in Aceh Singkil, both built after 2000. Most of the churches selected for demolition were built in the 1930s and 1940s. The dispute in Aceh adds to the long list of incidents of religious intolerance in the nation.

In Bekasi, West Java, the Congregation of the Filadelfia Batak Protestant Churches (HKBP) continues to be regularly assaulted and harassed by Muslims when it tries to conduct Sunday services.

The Bekasi regency sealed off the church site in 2010 after local residents objected to the construction of the church. The regency continues to refuse to open the site even after the Bandung State Administrative Court ruled in favor of HKBP Filadelfia.

Members of the Taman Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) face similar harassment in Bogor, also in West Java.

Various human rights groups have also reported cases of attacks on Ahmadis and Shiites, including congregations in Cikeusik, Banten, Tangerang and Sampang in East Java.

Last month, Yudhoyono spoke before the UN General Assembly, calling on the UN's member states to adopt a legally binding instrument to ban blasphemy and to promote dialogue between different faiths, civilizations and cultures.

He added that such an instrument was needed to prevent the incitement of violence based on religion.

Indonesia has ratified various international laws that legally bind the government to guarantee its people religious freedom. These laws include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which was ratified by Indonesia in 2005.

Friday's ceremony was also attended by Cabinet ministers, NTT leaders and religious figures. After the ceremony and before returning to Jakarta, the President and his entourage traveled to Labuan Bajo, the main gate for Komodo National Park, before flying on an Air Force Hercules airplane to Central Sumba.

Table of religious intolerance:

- During the era of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (as of 2007) 108 churches have been closed/damaged; in the era of president Megawati Soekarnoputri, 92; in the era of president Abdurrahman Wahid, 232; in the era of president Soeharto, 456.

- Based on data from the Manado Post daily, there were 2,442 cases of church closures and demolitions in the period between 2004 and 2010.

- In 2011, Setara Institute recorded 244 cases of religious intolerance in 17 regions. The largest number of cases was recorded in West Java (57 cases), followed by South Sulawesi (45), East Java (31), North Sumatra (24) and Banten (12).

Sources: The Jakarta Post and Setara Institute

[Markus Makur contributed to this report from Ruteng.]

Government urged to resolve NTB Ahmadiyah humanitarian issue

Jakarta Post - October 19, 2012

Panca Nugraha, Mataram – The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) has urged the central government and the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) provincial administration to begin the resolution of humanitarian issues faced by hundreds of Ahmadiyah refugees in Mataram.

Currently, 34 families, consisting of 138 Ahmadis, live at the Wisma Transito shelter in Mataram. They have been displaced since February 2006, after being forcefully evicted from their homes in Ketapang hamlet, Gegerung village, Lingsar district, West Lombok.

This lengthy period spent in refuge is deemed a basic human rights violation, especially for female refugees at the shelter. Komnas Perempuan has highlighted the Ahmadiyah issue as a case of violence against women.

"The Ahmadiyah issue in Mataram should not be allowed to continue. The government should make efforts to resolve it. We have brought the matter to the attention of the President, home minister, justice and human rights minister as well as the religious affairs minister [in an attempt] to settle the issue," Komnas Perempuan deputy chairwoman Masruchah told reporters on Thursday,

"We urge the President and relevant ministries to no longer declare Ahmadiyah as a cult. The refugee issue at the Wisma Transito shelter should be resolved because they are also Indonesian citizens – who have the same rights as others," she said after opening a seminar on women's issues at the Sangkareang governor's office.

According to Masruchah, the difference of religion and faith is not a problem. The problem has instead risen due to a particular assumption that has become the main problem and source of debate, including pressure from particular parties.

Hundreds of Ahmadis do not have access to citizenship rights, such as identity cards, which deprive them access to education and cheap healthcare, said Masruchah, based on observations made by Komnas Perempuan.

She expressed hope the West Nusa Tenggara provincial administration could play an active role in resolving the domestic Ahmadiyah issue.

Apart from the Ahmadiyah issue, the number of cases of violence against women in Indonesia remains prevalent. Based on Komnas Perempuan data, around 119,107 cases of violence against women have been reported in 2011, with 258 of them in West Nusa Tenggara.

"We also found 16 policies within the provincial, municipal and regency administrations, which are discriminative against women. We are taking them to the home minister for review," she said.

She cited the dress code bylaw at the Dompu regency administration that requires female civil servants to wear the hijab (headdress) while at work. The dress code issue is part of individual rights and the government or state cannot intervene.

"They say the reason behind the headdress policy is to prevent sexual harassment and rape, but not for us. Even this breaches women's rights," said Masruchah.

Illegal detention of Shia cleric is violation of rights

Jakarta Post - October 18, 2012

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Sidoarjo – Sampang Shia community leader Tajul Muluk has remained in detention at the Sidoarjo penitentiary for the past week without a clear legal basis, despite the end of his detention period having been reached, his lawyer Asfinawati said on Wednesday.

According to Asfinawati, Tajul who was detained by the East Java High Court for blasphemy, was not allowed to leave the prison on Oct. 9 when his detention period was over.

Tajul was acquitted of all charges when his lawyers filed for appeal at the Supreme Court on Oct. 2, 2012, pending the hearing of the appeal. However, Tajul was still in detention pending trial. This maximum detention period ended on Oct. 9 and he should have been released, since the Supreme Court has made no order for his continued detention. However there were no orders specifying his release at Sidoarjo prison.

"Authorities at Sidoarjo prison say that it is normal to detain prisoners after the legal basis for detention has expired. They remain firm that they will not release Tajul on the grounds that they are awaiting orders from the Supreme Court. Isn't detaining a person without legal basis against his basic human rights?" Asfinawati said.

Tajul was sentenced to two years by the Sampang District Court July 12, 2012. When his lawyers filed an appeal at the East Java High Court, the district court's ruling was no longer legally binding and Tajul's case was delegated to the high court.

The East Java High Court handed down a stiffer sentence of four years against Tajul on Sept. 21, 2012, and his lawyer filed an appeal at the Supreme Court, so the high court's ruling is also not legally binding.

"So, now the right of detention is in the hands of the Supreme Court which has not issued any extension of detention. Tajul's detention period ended on Oct. 9, therefore Sidoarjo prison is detaining a person with no legal basis," said Asfinawati.

Asfinawati said she had handed over Justice and Basic Human Rights Ministerial Decree No. 01/2011 on acquittal which requires the warden to release an inmate when a prisoner's term or extension period of detention is over. If the warden refuses to release the prisoner, he can face administrative sanctions. "But they don't care and remain firm in detaining Tajul," said Asfinawati.

On Oct. 14, Tajul's legal team petitioned to release Tajul from prison but to no avail. Prison authorities denied their efforts on the grounds that they were waiting for the outcome of the appeal.

The matter has been reported to the Law and Human Rights deputy minister, the National Commission on Human Rights and the East Java Justice and Human Rights Office.

Meanwhile, victims of the violence in Sampang, East Java, are still enduring life in an indoor tennis stadium in Sampang with very limited facilities.

As many as 220 victims of the riot are still at the shelter and have been there since the attacks took place on Aug. 26. The number has reduced because some decided to continue their studies or seek work outside Sampang.

East Java Kontras worker Andy Irfan said every one of the refugees wished to return to their home villages. "We are still negotiating with clerics and the local administration, to accommodate their wish," said Irfan.

According to plan, humanitarian organizations, spearheaded by the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), Komnas HAM, Komnas Perempuan, the National Police and the Witness and Victim Protection Agency will rebuild victim homes destroyed in the riot, restore infrastructure and open dialog between the disputing parties.

Shia leader remains in jail after detention period expires

Jakarta Post - October 16, 2012

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Sidoarjo – A Shiite leader from Sampang, East Java, Tajul Muluk, has been forced to remain incarcerated at Sidoarjo Penitentiary even though his detention period ended last week, according to his lawyer, Asfinawati.

Asfinawati said that according to an East Java High Court ruling, Tajul's detention period officially ended on Oct. 9. However, he was not released, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has yet to extend his detention period.

"Sidoarjo Penitentiary officials said that it was common [for a prisoner to remain in prison even though the Supreme Court had not extended his detention period]," she told The Jakarta Post, adding that the court insisted on keeping Tajul in prison until the Supreme Court issued such a ruling.

Tajul – whose house and boarding school were burned down by an angry mob in December 2011 – appealed the Sampang District Court's July verdict that sentenced him to two years in prison for blasphemy.

However, the East Java High Court rejected his appeal and raised the sentence to four years' imprisonment in September. He is currently challenging the latest verdict at the Supreme Court. Tajul was found guilty of preaching that the present-day Koran was not the original version.

Around 200 of Tajul's followers remain sheltered at an indoor tennis center in Sampang with minimal facilities after their houses were set ablaze and two Shiites were killed in another mob attack in August. (cor/swd)

Agriculture & food security

Food law will sow discontent, critics say

Jakarta Globe - October 22, 2012

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Legislators have praised the recently passed Food Law as laying the foundation for boosting food security, but critics contend that it leaves the question of agrarian reform dangerously open to interpretation.

Viva Yoga Mauladi, a member of the House of Representatives' Commission IV, overseeing agricultural and forestry affairs, said over the weekend that it was crucial for the government to be able to ensure food supplies and counteract speculative efforts driving up the price of both domestically sourced and imported food.

"Sukarno once said that a country that is not self-sufficient in food is a country whose sovereignty is under threat," he said, referring to the country's first president.

He warned that Indonesia's food supplies were currently under the control of a "food mafia" who were taking advantage of market liberalization to throttle supplies and jack up prices.

"Because the market isn't perfect, it's difficult for the state to control food prices and supplies," said Viva, a National Mandate Party (PAN) lawmaker.

"The food mafia don't care about empowering farmers or contributing to food security. They're only concerned about making a profit and perhaps have vested political interests too."

He said the new law, passed last Thursday to replace the 1996 Food Law, would also address the perennial issue of local farmers and producers being priced out by cheap imports of meat, fruit and other food commodities.

"Let's not allow the importers to manipulate the prices. If that happens, the state will have failed to protect the farmers," he said.

"The new law stipulates punishments for such importers, ranging from the revocation of their licenses to a maximum prison sentence of eight years and fines of up to Rp 100 billion [$10.4 million]. These must be enforced properly."

Viva also pointed out that the law called for the establishment of an independent body, the National Food Institute (LPN), which would be answerable directly to the president.

"If the administration doesn't immediately issue a presidential decree establishing this body, then it will be seen as not serious about food security," he warned. "Indeed, the law gives the government up to three years to do this, but the sooner the better."

Herman Khaeron, chairman of the House Commission IV special committee that deliberated the new legislation, stressed that the LPN would play a critical role in determining the influx of food imports.

The idea, he said, was to make the option of importing food a sort of last resort to fulfill domestic demand or in the event that a particular food commodity is not produced in Indonesia.

"The LPN will have the authority to give recommendations on the actual food demand, while the Trade Ministry will still be in charge of the technical details of importing food," Herman said.

This, he went on, would allow the government to develop a comprehensive database of food stocks, so that it would be able to take measures to address short- and long-term food shortages.

Not enough farmland

Stakeholders have acknowledged that the new law is ultimately geared toward ensuring food sovereignty, but point out several apparent weaknesses in the legislation.

Muhammad Nurdin, chairman of the Indonesian Farmers Alliance (API), argued that empowering local farmers was the main path to reaching that goal, but the law fell short on that count. He said there were no provisions on making it easier for smallholders to get loans, for instance, or to expand their farms.

Both those points, Nurdin said, urgently needed to be addressed or else productivity would decline and the country would face severe food shortages before 2030.

"Indonesia has around 14 million farmers working a total of 12 million hectares of farmland, and this simply isn't enough," he said.

"If the country's population keeps growing at its current rate, we won't have enough food to feed everyone in 15 or 20 years' time. The government needs to establish new tracts of farmland, but the Food Law doesn't state this explicitly."

Drajat Wibowo, an economist from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), agreed that Indonesia needed to do much more to achieve food self- sufficiency, particularly in the country's main staple of rice, a large portion of which still has to be imported to keep up with demand.

"It's high time for the Agriculture Ministry to re-evaluate the policies of its predecessor, the Agriculture Department under the New Order regime," he said, referring to the administration of former president Suharto.

"Leaving aside its objectionable politics, that administration had an ambitious blueprint for expanding rice paddies, improving irrigation networks, developing advanced strains of rice and so on. Every three months, in fact, its researchers would come out with a new and improved strain of rice."

The revised Food Law has also not gone down well with rights activists, who contend that the lack of explicit provisions on agrarian reform leaves smallholder farmers and fishermen at a considerable disadvantage to major food producers and importers.

Gunawan, chairman of the Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice (IHCS), pointed out that Article 17 of the law classified all food producers, big and small alike, as eligible for government protection and empowerment efforts.

Article 18, meanwhile, calls for the government to phase out policies seen as impacting the producers' competitiveness.

The problem, Gunawan said, was that neither article distinguished between large food-producing companies, who were already at a competitive advantage because of economies of scale and established logistics and supply chain networks, from small-scale farmers and fishermen who were often forced to sell their products at low prices to brokers because they had limited access to markets.

"It's important that this distinction is made," he said. "That way the government will have a clearer idea of who actually needs to be protected and empowered, and conversely who needs to be restricted."

He also argued that in cases across the country, large producers were known to take over smallholders' land, divert their water resources and otherwise make it harder for them to farm. "These big companies also manipulate food prices, so the law needs to be clear that it's siding with the small farmers and fishermen."

Sticking it to the man

Officials, though, are defiant that the new law checks all the right boxes, and tout the bonus move of sticking it to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which previously criticized Indonesia's policy of food self-sufficiency. The group said in a report earlier this year that the policy starves poor consumers, including millions of farmers, who are net buyers of food.

The OECD, which includes developed nations as its members, suggested that Indonesia open its domestic food market to international trade and move away from its self-sufficiency objectives.

The report said the government's policy restricting imports to increase returns to farmers had actually led to a rise in food prices for poor consumers.

Ahmad Suryana, head of food security at the Agriculture Ministry, said the OECD recommendation was not just wrong for Indonesia, but for the whole world.

"The FAO [UN Food and Agricultural Organization] recommends that all countries strengthen their domestic food production, so boosting imports isn't a good solution," he said.

He argued that the new law was designed to do precisely this, thereby shielding Indonesia from food crises in the future. "The Food Law is also our answer to the criticism that Indonesia hasn't adopted the OECD's recommendations," Ahmad added.

House Commission IV chairman Muhammad Romahurmuziy also said the OECD was mistaken on the issue and that the new law would prove that. "Through this law we are pushing for increased domestic food production as well as diversification of food crops and putting in place quality standards," he said.

By empowering local producers and making imports a solution of last resort, said the United Development Party (PPP) politician, Indonesia is ending its reliance on foreign food producers.

[Additional reporting from Antara.]

Government puts profits first in fight for food self-sufficiency

Jakarta Globe - October 21, 2012

Pitan Daslani – As Indonesia joined the rest of the United Nations to commemorate World Food Day, politicians and agricultural experts said that our country's food-security policy should lead Indonesia to becoming self- sufficient.

But a week before the celebration began, Megawati Sukarnoputri, chairwoman of Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), criticized the government's reliance on agricultural imports, saying that economic growth would not mean anything to the common people if Indonesia continued to rely on food imports.

"If indeed there is growth, we should not become a nation that is so fond of imports," Megawati said, adding that government policy makers have a tendency to protect other countries' interests at the expense of our own.

The volume of imported sugar, rice, fish, fruit and even salt testifies to the wrong approach the government has taken that has weakened Indonesia's quest for self-sufficiency, she said.

"We are such a rich country, many forces plan to colonize us again and the government is more concerned about fulfilling the interests of the outsiders," she argued.

She repeated her criticism during a PDI-P congress recently, saying that malnutrition in different parts of the country was evidence of an incorrect approach to food security.

Similar concerns were raised by the chairman of the Union of Indonesian Farmers (HKTI), Oesman Sapta, who said on Friday that the government must end its meat import monopoly in order to ease the burden of millions of Indonesian households.

Oesman said that Indonesian buyers of beef are "enriching importers and their powerful backers whom we know" with up to 100 percent profits. And, he added, during religious festivities such as Idul Fitri, Idul Adha, and Christmas, they earn a lot more.

He said that beef is normally priced at around A$3.50 ($3.60) per kilogram on the Australian market, but when it reaches Indonesia – after adding the 10 percent value-added tax, 10 percent import duty, and 2.5 percent income tax, plus the cost of storage, transportation and other costs – it jumps to A$5.75.

If importers impose a 20 percent profit margin, the market price should be Rp 68,400 ($7) per kilogram. But the market price of beef is Rp 90,000 and during religious holidays it is above Rp 100,000. Last year it reached Rp 115,000 per kilogram, he argued.

"This has been going on for 10 years, and every year millions of Indonesian families collectively spend up to Rp 54 trillion purchasing imported beef, to create huge fortunes for importers."

Oesman proposed that every importer be obliged to include 10 percent of seed cattle in their imports so that one day Indonesia can reduce its reliance on foreign beef.

Oesman, who also chairs the Advisory Council of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), said he would reveal details of this during the "Economic Challenges" talk show on Metro TV on Monday night.

"I want every family and every buyer to know that they can buy quality beef at a lower price without a beef-import monopoly," he said.

Indonesia can only import beef from Australia and New Zealand, and despite the fact that it can get it from anywhere, no action has so far been taken to relax the restrictions.

Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan has not taken any action to allow imports from Brazil or any other country. Paraguay and other countries are also able to export beef.

Chairman of the House of Regional Representatives Irman Gusman has again called for pro-farmer policies at a time when Indonesia's adherence to the free market has caused an influx of foreign farm products on the domestic market. He wants the money to remain in the country.

"Farmers can be rich," he said, "but they must be facilitated" with the right economic empowerment policies, Irman stated.

Agriculture Ministry officials were not available to comment.

In 1985 the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization gave a medal to then President Suharto for Indonesia's ability to stop rice imports and produce more than eight tons of rice from every hectare of field space. Today it is one of the world's largest importers of farm products.

Even its national food buffer stock agency, Bulog, says that food resilience is a big problem because adherence to the free market means allowing competition.

Bulog spokesman Agusdin Faried said that every time there is drought in America, its impact is felt in every corner of Indonesia because any decline in the supply of soybeans and other farm products often spells disaster locally.

Indonesia continues imports despite sufficient rice for 7 months

Jakarta Post - October 20, 2012

Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – The government has said that the national rice stock is enough to cover the nation's needs for the next seven months.

"As of now, our national rice stock stands at 2.1 million tons and this is enough for 7.7 months. This is quite an adequate stock rate," Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa told reporters after a meeting with the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) at his office in Jakarta on Friday.

Regardless of the adequate national rice stock, Agriculture Minister Suswono said that the government would still import a maximum volume of 1 million tons of rice this year.

Suswono said the import was needed to fill the target of 2 million tons held in the Bulog's rice reserve by the end of the year. "Bulog's rice reserve stock is estimated to stand at around 1 million tons by the end of this year... This means the government will need to make up the deficit with imports," Suswono said.

Suswono said that the permission to import 1 million tons of rice had been issued by the Trade Ministry. However, it was likely that the government would only import 700,000 tons to cover rice reserve requirements.

Hatta stressed that Bulog needed to maximize its rice procurement from local farmers before the government moved on import plans. "The main issue is not whether we have enough stock but rather how to strengthen our reserves. We want a strong reserve to prevent speculation and price fixing," Hatta said.

The government had predicted that Indonesia's total rice production might stand at 38 million tons this year, while consumption would reach 34 million tons. This means that the country would be able to book 4 million tons in rice surplus.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Rusman Heriawan said that in order to achieve food security, Indonesia would need 10 million tons of rice surplus annually.

Indonesia was self-sufficient in 2008 and 2009, however, it started to import rice to maintain its reserves in 2010 after a failure in harvest expectations. Shrinking farmland areas and lower productivity have been regarded as the main factors that determine the country's dependence on imports.

Hatta said that in order to alleviate a potential food crisis, the government had also allocated Rp 2 trillion to emergency food funds. "Rp 1.4 trillion has been allocated for the agriculture ministry and Rp 600 billion for food security credit programs [KKP]," Hatta said.

Hatta added that the utilization of emergency funds would be determined by the finance ministry with the coordinating ministry for the economy determining the criteria of a food emergency crisis.

Indonesia has signed agreements with Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia to import rice should the country need it.

Rice imports have been a thorny issue between the government and some law makers at the House of Representatives.

The House has passed, on Thursday, a revision to the 1996 Food Law, which was aimed at strengthening food production in the country and moves food import to a last resort measure.

The law authorizes the establishment of a new agency whose main mission would be to ensure food security. A number of lawmakers recommended that this new agency should be at ministerial level.

Land & agrarian conflicts

Villagers say Hartati's thugs forced them off their land

Jakarta Post - October 20, 2012

Jakarta – An allegation that her plantation company forced villagers to leave their lands came as another blow for businesswoman Siti Hartati Murdaya, a suspect in a bribery scandal.

Hartati seemingly will have to divide her interrogation time between the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) which plans to summon her.

Komnas HAM now plans to summon Hartati after a group of farmers from Central Sulawesi came to the rights body on Friday alleging human rights violations committed by personnel from Hartati's company.

The farmers who came from a remote part of Buol, Central Sulawesi, claimed that their land was taken away by Hartati's company, PT Hardaya Inti Plantation (PT HIP) in 1993.

"At first, people from the company told us that they would construct roads. We were very happy back then because the roads would ease our access," said Paraman Yunus, one of the farmers who came to the Komnas HAM office in Jakarta.

However, Paraman said, the planned road never materialized. Instead, local people were forced to abandon their homes and lands. "Some of our houses were even set ablaze," he said.

Hartati, a former member of the board of patrons of the Democratic Party, is currently in detention by the KPK for her alleged involvement in a bribery scandal implicating former Buol regent Amran Batalipu.

The KPK believe that the businesswoman gave Rp 3 billion (US$312,744) to Amran to expedite a business permit for her company, PT HIP.

PT HIP owns around 75,000 hectares of land in Buol of which around 22,000 hectare have secured permits as a palm oil plantation. However, Paraman said that actually some 4,487 hectares of PT HIP's land belongs to locals.

"In 1993, they chased us away from our homes and land," he said, adding that some of those who forced villagers off their land wore military uniforms. For more than 10 years, locals have fought to reclaim their land.

Dialogues and meetings between farmers, PT HIP and the local administration have taken place several times. Their efforts, according to Sudarmin J Paliba from the Buol Farmers Forum, are invariably futile.

Sudarmin said that PT HIP had promised farmers compensation for their loss. However the company never met its promises. Komnas HAM deputy chairman M. Ridha Saleh said that his office would collect data in relation to the human rights allegations. (riz)

Parliament & legislation

House approves five new autonomous regions

Jakarta Post - October 22, 2012

Jakarta – House of Representatives' Commission II on home affairs and regional autonomy approved on Monday the establishment of five new autonomous regions, including the province of North Kalimantan which will be the 34th province in the country.

North Kalimantan will split from East Kalimantan after three years of preparation when it will have its own regional administration. The Commission also approved four new regencies; Pangandaran in West Java, Manokwari and Arfak highlands in West Papua and West Pesisir in Lampung.

Commission chairman Agun Gunanjar said legislators used the Government Regulation considered the political and geo-strategical potential of each region before granting autonomy, as reported by tempo.co.

The committee is also examining four other new regencies, Musi Rawas Utara in South Sumatra Mahakam Ulu in East Kalimantan, Malaka in East Nusa Tenggara and Mamuju Tengah in West Sulawesi. (cor/lfr)

Ibas in spotlight over poor attendance

Jakarta Post - October 18, 2012

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's younger son, Edhie "Ibas" Baskoro, who is on House of Representatives Commission I overseeing defense and foreign affairs, made a rare appearance on Wednesday at the House compound to attend a session.

Ibas was seen sitting among fellow lawmakers during a hearing with Army chief Gen. Prabowo Edhie Wibowo, who is also First Lady Ani Yudhoyono's brother.

When reporters queried him about his poor attendance, Ibas only said: "You only cover the meetings I do not attend. You never cover the ones that I attend," Ibas shot back.

House records show that the Wednesday meeting was the first Ibas had attended since the latest session began on Oct. 2. He was last seen at the House building when he attended a plenary session on Aug. 16 to commemorate the country's independence.

Also seen on Wednesday was the chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Puan Maharani, daughter of former president Megawati Soekarnoputri. Puan is also considered to have a poor attendance record.

Ethnic & communal conflicts

Sectarian conflict looms over Poso

Jakarta Post - October 23, 2012

Ruslan Sangadji and Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – A church was set ablaze while a sophisticated explosive device struck a traffic police post in Poso regency, Central Sulawesi, early on Monday, igniting fears of a reoccurrence of the sectarian conflict that once ravaged the Christian- majority regency.

Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Dewa Parsana said a certain terrorist group was suspected to be behind an explosion at the police post in Sintuvu subdistrict, injuring a police officer and a member of bank security staff who happened to be passing the post at around 6:30 a.m.

"The terrorist group used a sophisticated device in which they detonated the bomb remotely through a mobile handset."

"The method seems to be similar to the explosive devices found in Surakarta and other places. They are from the same group," said Dewa, refusing to name the group responsible for the attack.

Shortly after the explosion, the police combed the regency and found an assembled bomb near the busy Tentena market, with similar characteristics to those that exploded at the police post.

Dewa said police suspected the perpetrators of being behind last week's slaying of two policemen – Brig. Andi Sappa and Chief Brig. Sudirman – whose bodies were buried together in Tamanjeka hamlet. They were missing for eight days.

"Our analysis shows that the terrorists launched the attack while we are carrying out a massive operation against terrorist groups in several areas of the regency," said Dewa.

Before the explosion, a church belonging to the Pantekosta di Indonesia congregation in Madale village was set on fire by unidentified groups at around 2 a.m.

"The house belonging to the church's pastor was also partly burnt down. But thank God, no one was injured," said Salanggamo, a witness in the incident who was also a member of the congregation. "The firefighters arrived in time to tame the fire," she said.

Pastor Aben, the leader of the congregation, said he and his family were woke by group of people carrying bottles of gasoline.

"My family and other congregation members [who lived near the church] ran to safety," he said. "After the church was set ablaze, villagers, including Muslims, jointly helped to put out the fire while waiting for the firefighters to arrive," said Aben.

Poso was the site of bloody clashes between Christian and Muslim communities between 1997 and 2001 that claimed around 1,000 lives and displaced 25,000.

But after a government-brokered peace pact in 2001, local extremists, many of them linked to and directed by terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), mounted attacks on Christians and local officials in the hope of reviving the conflict.

Due to its proximity to the southern Philippines, many of the extremists residing in Poso and its nearby area have been involved with Mindanao's Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) separatist group.

Many of those who fought in the conflict have been involved in several terrorist attacks across the archipelago.

Security personnel have been trying hard to prevent Poso from lapsing into another round of bloody conflict amid concerns that a ravaged Poso would become a base for Islamic extremists to breed and launch attacks in other parts of the country.

A reemergence of the conflict would also served to fire up Muslim extremists across the country to wage war against Christians. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim majority.

Since August, there has been escalating violence in the regency, with at least four shooting incidents by unknown gunmen recorded, leaving two police officers dead.

Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had been informed of the incident. "The President has asked the police to immediately launch a thorough investigation," he said.

National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said he had dispatched a team of detectives from National Police headquarters in Jakarta to Poso, but added that police had yet to connect the bombs and the killing of two policemen in Poso, earlier this month.

Judicial & legal system

Arrest of judge another blow to Supreme Court's reputation

Jakarta Post - October 18, 2012

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsudin downplayed on Wednesday the recent arrest of a judge by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) for having a "drug party" at a Jakarta night club.

"The judge is just like other ordinary people. We can understand that the judiciary institution also has some officials using drugs. We need a culprit sometimes," Amir, a former lawyer, told the press after attending a Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Office.

Amir's statement came amid criticisms of a recent revelation that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had granted sentence reductions to 19 drug convicts since 2006. Critics said Yudhoyono had been inconsistent because he had made a public statement in 2006 that he would not grant clemency to drug convicts.

Last week, the Supreme Court revealed that the President had granted clemency to drug convict Deni Setia Maharwan. His sentence was commuted to life in prison.

Amir refused to comment when asked how such a high judiciary body like the Supreme Court could have on its payroll a drug-using judge.

"Don't speculate too much. Leave it to the police who will probe the case thoroughly. The arrested judge should not be treated differently in the legal process," he said.

The BNN agents caught Puji Wiryanto, a judge from the Bekasi District Court, while he was allegedly taking drugs in a karaoke room at the Illigals Hotel and Club in West Jakarta on Tuesday evening.

The BNN's eradication division deputy chief, Insp. Gen. Benny Jozua Mamoto, said BNN officers apprehended the judge and two other guests, Siddiq Pramono and Musli Musa'ad, while they were singing with four female escorts.

"One of the two guests is a lawyer," Benny said without revealing if the lawyer handled cases under Puji's watch.

The officers confiscated a number of ecstasy pills and crystal methamphetamine from the judge and his friends as evidence.

Benny said the BNN officers had Puji under surveillance program for some time.

Supreme Court spokesman Djoko Sarwoko said Puji, who had been transferred several times in his career due to personal problems, would be dismissed if he was found guilty in this case.

BNN spokesman Sr. Comr. Sumirat Dwiyanto said Puji had regularly consumed crystal methamphetamine and ecstasy since he served at the Jayapura District Court in Jayapura, Papua, in 2010.

"We have found early indications of involvement of other judges in the case," Sumirat said.

The arrest of the judge is the latest disgrace to the Supreme Court after being hit by the arrests of several judges by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for taking bribes.

On Aug. 17, the KPK arrested two judges at the ad-hoc corruption court in Semarang, Central Java, for allegedly accepting bribes.

KPK investigators also confiscated cash amounting to more than p 100 million (US$10,500).

Previously, the antigraft body arrested numerous judges in its operations, including Syarifuddin, a supervisory judge with the Central Jakarta District Court, and Imas Dianasari, an Industrial Relations Court judge with the Bandung District Court.

Meanwhile, the Bandung High Court has issued a decision to suspend Puji from his post.

His permanent dismissal however will wait for an approval from the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Economy & investment

Indonesia receives record high FDI

Jakarta Post - October 23, 2012

Jakarta – Indonesia's investment shows no sign of slowing down as the country has booked another record high of realized investments in the third quarter this year, thanks to its economic resilience that has provided incentives for both domestic and foreign investors to establish or expand their businesses.

Realized investments in Indonesia topped Rp 81.8 trillion (US$8.52 billion) in the third quarter, growing 25 percent compared to a year earlier, according to the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM).

"The fact that India and China are slowing down pushes investments in Indonesia, the only country with stable growth. This is why we are called the least unattractive country in the middle of global slowdown," BKPM chairman M. Chatib Basri told reporters on Monday in Jakarta.

Foreign investors still dominate Indonesia's investment, with foreign direct investment (FDI) reaching Rp 56.6 trillion, or 69 percent of total realized investment. The figure grew 22 percent compared to a year earlier.

Singaporean companies accounted for the largest share, realizing $1.5 billion of investments, or 24 percent of total FDI realized in Indonesia, trailed by the UK ($0.7 billion), Japan ($0.7 billion), Taiwan ($0.6 billion) and Mauritius ($0.6 billion).

Foreign investors still opted for the natural resources and commodities sector, with realized investments in the mining industry topping $3.2 billion, or 17.3 percent of total FDI realization, followed by the chemical and pharmaceutical industry with $2.5 billion and the telecommunication industry with $1.9 billion.

"Looking at how our investment trend has progressed, I believe that our economic growth will be able to reach 6.3 to 6.4 percent this year. Investments can offset the decline in exports that has affected our trade sector," the BKPM chairman said.

Analysts have expected investments to become the one of the major drivers of Indonesia's economic growth, besides its strong domestic consumption stemming from the country's population of 240 million.

This month, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released a report predicting investment to contribute approximately 40 percent of Indonesia's economic growth next year – estimated by the Manila-based organization at 6.6 percent – as industries expand their business here to tap into the country's strong purchasing power stemming from its growing middle-classes.

The sunny forecast on Indonesia's investment sector was also attributed by the ADB to the fact that Indonesia successfully carried out many reform programs and investor-friendly policies that had helped improve its image among both foreign and domestic investors.

"Some observers claim that Indonesia's economic reform programs are progressing slowly, but our reform programs in the investment sector are actually going in the right direction," ADB senior country economist Edimon Ginting told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"Just look at the numbers and you'll see that investors actually have responded positively toward our reform programs," he added.

Edimon argued that it was a matter of time before Indonesia's credit rating was upgraded by Standard & Poor's (S&P), the only member of the so-called "Big Three" rating agencies that is yet to give the country an investment grade status.

S&P said in a statement released last week that Indonesia still faced several policy constraints that hampered it in its efforts to earn a credit rating upgrade. The rating agency, however, argued that there was more upward than downward pressure on the country in receiving an investment- grade status, a situation that would guarantee more investment flocking into the country.

From January to September this year, Indonesia accumulated Rp 229.9 trillion of realized investments, slightly less than its annual target of Rp 283.5 trillion.

This year, Chatib believed that Southeast Asia's largest economy was set for a historic achievement: recording more than Rp 300 trillion of realized investments in a year.

"Initially, people didn't believe that such a figure could be achieved, but looking at our present development it's [Rp 300 trillion of realized investments] very likely to be achieved." (sat)

Indonesian president urges developing nations to remove trade barriers

Jakarta Globe - October 16, 2012

Arientha Primanita & Dion Bisara – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has urged developing countries to review restrictions on trade beyond tariff walls in order to boost economic development and standards of living.

"If we want to achieve robust global trade, in which growth markets serve as the engine, we must tackle [non-tariff measures] and ease trade in services," Yudhoyono said in his opening remarks at the World Export Development Forum, which opened on Monday and runs until Wednesday at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta.

Non-tariff barriers refer to policies that restrict imports, such as quotas or lengthy procedures. Indonesia is now the world's 15th largest economy.

"Although the WTO [World Trade Organization] has addressed this issue, there remain some aspects that are not yet fully dealt with," Yudhoyono said, adding that he hoped non-tariff measures would be discussed in December next year at the WTO Ministerial Meeting in Bali.

"For countries with growing populations, trade is an important component of their food security strategy," Yudhoyono said. "It helps stabilize domestic food availability, especially in the face of climate change-induced supply shocks. Therefore, unimpeded supply chain links are critical to seamless trade in goods and services, which support food security initiatives."

Members of Indonesia's crude palm oil industry have previously expressed frustration at environmental standards set by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a standard used by many European buyers.

Producers from Indonesia, the top CPO producing country, exited the RSPO last year and helped the government to create a new standard.

Fadhil Hasan, the executive director of the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (Gapki), expressed support for the president's efforts to influence global trade and to set a unified standard.

"The real constraints in international trade is not really in tariffs," he said. "These non-tariff measures are actually blocking the [trade in] goods or protecting domestic industries."

Patricia Francis, executive director of the International Trade Center, a joint agency of the WTO and the United Nations, said that despite an economic slowdown in mature markets in recent times, emerging economies have been quite resilient. She said the private sector around the world had given increased attention to developing markets like Indonesia, other parts of emerging Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan said that: "Indonesian exports to other emerging markets have continued to grow at a much higher rate than exports to traditional markets like Japan and the US."

The WEDF said that emerging markets will account for upward of 80 percent of total global economic growth this year, driven in part by trade among these markets. Growth in trade among emerging markets makes up one-fifth of the world's total trade and is expected to surpass trade flows between developed and emerging economies by 2030.

World Bank bullish on Indonesia this year, doubtful on 2013

Jakarta Globe - October 16, 2012

Dion Bisara – Strong growth in Indonesia in the first half of the year and an improved trade balance have prompted to World Bank to take a sunnier outlook on the nation's economy in the short term, forecasting it to grow 6.1 percent this year, up from a July prediction of 6.0 percent.

But the Washington-based lender trimmed its forecast for next year's growth to 6.3 percent from 6.4 percent initially, citing slowing global demand, particularly from main trading partner China, and signs of declining domestic spending.

Indonesia's $850 billion economy grew 6.3 percent in the first half this year, thanks to buoyant household consumption and strong investment.

Consumption and investment have balanced out pressures from deteriorating net exports, as demand for the country's resource-related exports diminished and investment-related imports rose, putting Indonesia's trade balance into deficit from March to July.

The trade balance could recover in the latter part of the year as demand for intermediate and capital goods imports used as inputs for export production falls, making the case for stronger growth this year, the World Bank said in its "Indonesia Economy Quarterly" report on Monday.

The World Bank report came after other institutions cut their estimates for Indonesia's economic growth. The International Monetary Fund forecast the country's economic growth to slow to 6.0 percent this year, down from an earlier 6.1 percent. The Asian Development Bank said Indonesia's economy will expand 6.3 percent this year, slightly lower than its April forecast of 6.4 percent.

"Indonesia's recent growth performance has been strong, but there remain considerable risks to the global economic outlook," Stefan Koeberle, World Bank country director for Indonesia, said in a statement on Monday.

The World Bank said the risks include ongoing uncertainty in the euro zone, possible fiscal contraction in the United States, and the risk of further slowdown in Indonesia's other major trading partners, notably China. The IMF had said that a 1 percentage point fall in China's growth would translate into Indonesia's growth dropping by half a percentage point.

The World Bank urged the government to improve policy consistency and certainty for business in order to boost investment. The move would enhance short-term crisis preparedness while enhancing sustainable growth longer- term.

One such policy, it said, was curbing the nation's energy subsidy. "The significant allocation of spending to the energy subsidies imposes high opportunity costs, adds uncertainty to the fiscal outlook, disproportionately benefits rich household rather than targeting the poor, and impedes the efficient use of energy," said Jim Brumby, World Bank lead economist and sector manager of poverty reduction and economic management for Indonesia.

The government plans to allocate Rp 275 trillion ($29 billion) in fuel and electricity subsidies next year, accounting for around a quarter of the budget.

Analysis & opinion

Yudhoyono government says 1965 murders 'saved' Indonesia

Direct Action - October 22, 2012

James Balowski, in Jakarta – Reneging on a pledge to apologise and make reparations for the victims of the 1965 anti-communist purge, when Suharto and the military seized power, the government of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is now parroting the New Order regime's myth that the killings were justified to save the country from communism.

After being swept under the carpet for nearly 50 years, the atrocities were this year acknowledged for the first time by the government's own National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), which announced in July that it had found evidence of widespread gross human rights violations during the purges.

The report, based on a three-year investigation and the testimony of 349 witnesses, urged that the military officers responsible be brought to trial for crimes including murder, extermination, slavery, forced eviction, torture and mass rape. The commission also called on the government to issue an apology, compensate victims and their families and establish a truth and reconciliation commission.

Mass slaughter

By 1965 the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) had become the largest Communist Party outside of the Soviet Union and China, with more than 3 million members and 10 million more followers in affiliated mass organisations. Its influence on Indonesia's leftist President Sukarno, whose strong anti-US and anti-imperialist rhetoric was wining broad support among the masses, was increasingly seen as a threat by Washington and right-wing elements in the military.

On the night of September 30, 1965, a group of middle-ranking military officers kidnapped six generals they accused of organising a coup against Sukarno. For reasons that remain unclear, the six were killed and their bodies dumped in a well known as Lubang Buaya in East Jakarta. Blaming the incident on the PKI provided the pretext for sections of the military, led by then Major General Suharto, to launch one of the most organised and ferocious mass slaughters in modern history.

Within four months, as many as 1 million communists and left-wing sympathisers were killed, and hundreds of thousands of others interned without trial. As well as members of the PKI, women's activists, worker and peasant leaders, left-wing writers, intellectuals, teachers and students were targeted.

The British government secretly assisted the army with propaganda, logistics and loans. With the military in control of the state radio station, Canberra ensured that Radio Australia's Indonesian audience received only broadcasts discrediting the PKI and casting the army in a positive light. The US supplied Suharto's forces with money and weapons while the CIA ticked off names from a list of Communist leaders and figures it had provided to Suharto several months before.

It was also a campaign of terror, with public executions and torture, victims being disembowelled and left to die, decapitated heads mounted on poles and paraded around – all designed to terrorise the population into submission and make it clear that anyone associating with the left, or daring to resist, would meet the same fate. The army also armed and trained anti-communist gangs drawn from Islamic mass organisations such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah to do their dirty work, Islamic clerics overseeing and directing the killings in coordination with military officers.

Officially portrayed as a failed "communist coup", thwarted only by decisive action by Suharto and the army, the events leading to and surrounding the night of September 30 were carefully woven into the fabric of New Order mythology and its ideological justification for seizing power.

Not until Suharto's overthrow in 1998 did the official version of history begin to be publicly questioned. In 2004 the Education Ministry rewrote school history books to say that the PKI had been only one of several instigators, but in 2006 the Yudhoyono government ordered the education minister to abandon the 2004 curriculum and the Attorney General's Office (AGO) to investigate those responsible for textbooks. By 2010, when the Constitutional Court stripped the AGO of its powers to ban books arbitrarily deemed to "disrupt public order", dozens of history books had been banned for failing to blame the PKI for the alleged coup.

'Saving the country'

In response to the report, Yudhoyono announced that he had ordered the AGO to study Komnas HAM's findings and that he would consult with the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court on what action to take. The Presidential Advisory Council said it was preparing a draft apology and mechanism to compensate the victims, and Yudhoyono reportedly told confidants he wanted to make the apology part of his "legacy" before his term ends in 2014.

Two weeks later, however, the AGO – which has failed to investigate, let alone prosecute, any cases of past human rights crimes – announced that it could not pursue the findings because the violations were "beyond the scope of the existing law".

Yudhoyono, a former army general who rose to prominence during the Suharto years and served several tours in East Timor, including a stint with the invading force in 1976, appeared to have quietly let the issue drop. Then, on October 1, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, Djoko Suyanto, issued a public statement rejecting the Komnas HAM report, saying the killings were justified to save the country from communism and that Yudhoyono should not make an official apology.

"We must look at what happened comprehensively. Mutiny against the state was planned by the communists. Immediate action was needed to protect the country against such a threat. Don't force the government to apologise", he was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post. "This country would not be what it is today if it didn't happen", he added.

Indonesian military (TNI) commander Admiral Agus Suhartono also said the TNI would not apologise. "We will, of course, punish any members proven to have played roles in the incident. But, why bother doling out punishment when the AGO would certainly say that the soldiers were not guilty?", Suhartono said on the sidelines of an annual function at the Lubang Buaya Museum to honour the officers kidnapped on September 30, a monument built as part of the New Order's carefully reconstructed history of 1965.

Yudhoyono – who presided over the event – was slammed as "narcissistic" when the normally somber tone was broken with the singing of "I'm Sure We'll Make It There", a song penned by Yudhoyono, who has released several albums of saccharine love songs he says were "written for the ordinary people".

Concerted campaign

Suyanto's statement followed a concerted campaign by retired military officers, politicians and Islamic organisations implicated in the purges to block Komnas HAM's recommendations.

Legislator Nudirman Munir from Suharto's former ruling party Golkar – now a key partner in the Yudhoyono government's fractious ruling coalition – said the best solution to solving past rights abuses was to bury them. "If we keep opening up old wounds we will not be able to move on and look to the future", he was quoted as saying by the Post on July 31, adding that revisiting past abuses would open a Pandora's box.

House speaker Marzuki Alie, from Yudhoyono's Democrat Party, said that reopening the case would be counterproductive. "The 1965 communist coup was considered a mutiny and the government at that time needed to crush it. We have to be clear if it was truly a human rights violation", he told the Post.

Golkar deputy general secretary Leo Nababan called for an end to demands for restitution, arguing that a 1966 decree on the dissolution of the PKI and prohibitions on Marxist, Leninist and communist teachings has not been revoked, and this is a basis for anti-communism in Indonesia. "The 127 anti-communist mass organisation supporters of [the state ideology] Pancasila in 1965 that are part of the Pancasila Front are ready to block, particularly [our] youth generation allies in Ansor NU if for example there are calls for the case to go to court", Nababan was quoted as saying by Inilah.com on August 22.

Ansor NU chairperson Nusron Wahid said the government does not need to acknowledge past violations. "The government does not need to acknowledge human rights violations in the 1965 tragedy. Let alone try to uncover the masterminds behind the tragedy. It's not possible, the affair was zeitgeist [the spirit of the times]. We don't need to dig up past issues anymore", Wahid was quoted as saying by Kompas.com on August 15.

NU's central leadership board (PBNU) also opposed any apology, saying that what was needed was reconciliation. "NU is not pushing for a court because [we] don't wish to dig up old issues. Our people, Islamic teachers were killed by the PKI, so we are not making accusations", PBNU deputy secretary general As'ad Said Ali told Kompas.com at the declaration of "Be on Alert for the Revival of the PKI" at the PBNU's headquarters in Jakarta.

Retired Army Generals Association chairperson Suryadi said that in recommending an apology, Komnas HAM was fanning social hostilities. "The PKI were the perpetrators of the coup. There's already plenty of evidence. It is improper for the government to apologise. Komnas HAM is not acting justly", he told Kompas.com.

Condemnation

Rights activists and survivors of the purge have deplored Suyanto's statement. "The Dutch government has apologised for killing innocent people in Rawagede. Now, why won't our own government apologise to its own people?", one survivor told the Post, referring to the Dutch government's decision to compensate the families of men massacred by Dutch colonial forces in 1947.

Komnas HAM chairperson Ifdhal Kasim said that the government appears to be turning back the clock. "The current government is no different from the New Order regime because they want to perpetuate the latter's version of the 1965 purge", Kasim said.

The Asian Human Rights Commission said that crimes against humanity cannot be justified in any circumstances and that, as a country that claims to support freedom of opinion, Indonesia should treat communism as any other ideology instead of taking it as a threat and allow those who subscribe to such views to enjoy their rights without fear of persecution or discrimination.

UK-based rights group TAPOL said that the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for the 1965 killings had encouraged violations in East Timor, Aceh and West Papua and threatened Indonesia's progress as a democratic nation. "While the victims are demonised, the perpetrators are treated as heroes and allowed total impunity for some of the last century's worst atrocities", the group said.

In August the Democrat Party announced it would nominate Yudhoyono's father-in-law, the late General Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, for the title of national hero. Wibowo, whose son General Pramono Edhie Wibowo currently serves as the army's chief of staff, was the commander of the army's Special Forces RPKAD (now Kopassus), which spearheaded the mass murder and terror across Java and Bali in 1965-96. He once boasted that 2 million were killed – "and we did a good job".

Mixing Marx and Indonesia

Asia Times - October 20, 2012

Muhammad Cohen, Bali – Max Lane is a Marxist and leading authority on Indonesia. That's somewhat ironic since Indonesia has been a bulwark of anti-communism since the 1965 coup that brought General Suharto to power and led to the killings of up to 3 million alleged communists. Yet Lane says that Indonesia turned him into a Marxist.

"I first came to Indonesia in 1969. I was not a Marxist, I was 17 years old," Lane explains in an interview during the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali earlier this month. "I had sentiments toward democracy and those who were less well off."

Over the next five years, Lane, an Australian, made more trips to Indonesia, living for extended periods with establishment families in Bali and Yogyakarta – But his political thinking remained "immature".

During the 1975 trial of a student activist, prosecutors noted the defendant's contacts with a teacher holding Marxist sentiments. "I was named as that teacher," Lane says. "That was an impetus for me to study Marx and find out more about what I'd been accused of."

Fast company

But it was association with three giants of Indonesian letters that solidified Lane's political thinking. Novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and journalists Hasyim Rachman and Joesoef Isak had all been held as political prisoners by Suharto for their leftist leanings. By 1980, they had been freed and teamed up to found the publishing house Hasta Mitra, Sanskrit for Hands of Friendship.

Their first order of business was to publish the four novels Pramoedya composed during his imprisonment with Rachman on Buru Island. Lane, who had been working with Australia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Jakarta, was engaged as Hasta Mitra's English translator. "My contact with these men pushed me more into the left framework," Lane says. "It was Indonesians who turned me into a left-winger."

He translated Pramoedya's This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps and Glass House, which came to be known as the Buru Quartet. The books were banned by the Suharto regime but were widely lauded overseas.

Despite his notoriety and his politics, Lane has been able to continue observing Indonesia first-hand for six decades. "Strangely enough, I've never had the experience of being stopped from entering Indonesia. There were times when I thought I might be, so I avoided larger airports. I was able to come to Indonesia throughout 1980s and 90s. I came often but only stayed two or three weeks at a time. After I was here for a couple of weeks, my friends said officials would call them to check up on where I was."

Distant star

This year's Ubud Writers and Readers Festival focused on Pramoedya, who passed away aged 81 in 2006. The festival featured Lane, who decried the persistence of Suharto-era restrictions on teaching Indonesian literature that have kept Pramoedya more widely read overseas than in his homeland.

"His work is taught in high schools in Singapore, Malaysia, the US, the international baccalaureate program, but it's not taught in the schools in Indonesia. And because of that 99% of Indonesian children haven't read it." Lane cited a survey that found 0% of Indonesians had read Indonesian literature.

In addition to his partnership with Pramoedya, Lane worked with Indonesian poet and dramatist W S Rendra, spending part of the 1970s with Rendra's troupe in Yogyakarta and translating many of his writings. Lane has also written his own articles that are frequently cited in Indonesian scholarship.

His most recent books about Indonesian history and politics are "Catastrophe in Indonesia" about the massacre of leftists after Suharto took power, and 'Unfinished Nation: Indonesia before and after Suharto", published first in Indonesian in 2007 and in English the following year.

"My book tells the story of the rise and fall of Suharto to work out the terrain the country faces as a legacy of his rule," according to Lane. The "unfinished" description, he said, applies to the reformasi movement that led to Suharto's ouster. Even nearly 15 years and four presidents since Suharto's authoritarian New Order regime, Lane notes, "The power structure, the class structure, the interests of the people who run Indonesia haven't changed."

No fear factor

There have been some benefits from the fall of Suharto, Lane concedes. "There is no longer the fear that existed under the New Order." With that has come a freer press and, more important in Lane's mind, the right to public protest. "During the New Order, the biggest crime was to mass people on the streets. The students who fought the campaign against Suharto from 1989 to 1998 put that right back into the Indonesian political culture."

Post-Suharto Indonesia is lauded as the world's third largest democracy, but Lane is more skeptical. He contends Indonesia has "formal democracy" with its trappings such as direct elections and a large number of political parties. "But they're all political parties in the pocket of small circle elites," he says.

Lane, true to his Marxist leanings, particularly laments the lack of a Latin America style trade unionist or peasants' association party. "To what extent a mass popular party will emerge is the big unanswered question in Indonesian politics," Lane, a longtime lecturer on Indonesia at Australian universities and globally, says.

"The inert bureaucracy, greedy elite, and social inequity are acutely manifested together in the current major party system," he says. "In the first election after Suharto, there was 90% turnout. Now it's 40% because the parties are all the same. Different colors, different languages in their policies, but they're all really the same. No party has a loyal mass following. No national figure has solidified power. They all poll around 10%."

Lane shrugs, "Of all these unpopular cliques and unpopular leaders, which one will be the next to run Indonesia? And one of them will be elected president."

Heavy hangovers

No matter who is elected, they will face devastating and persistent "hangovers" from the Suharto years, Lane claims. Those inheritances include "poverty and social inequality; a greedy elite giving foreigners whatever they want as long as the elite gets its slice; and a backward view of modern culture, holding up the tradition of old royalties as the most important thing in Indonesian culture."

Unlike many other observers, Lane doesn't see Islam as a key issue in Indonesia, even though it has the world's largest Muslim population, estimated at around 200 million among its 240 million people.

"What's slowly taking place is a strong process of secularization," Lane believes. "If you want to survive in urban Indonesia, it's so hard. You have to fight hard, think rationally, so superstition and religion really become less important. Life, not values, is making people more secular.

"But, in this atmosphere, people who are religious become more defensive. The times draw a defensive reaction. That strain between natural secularization and religion will be a feature going forward."

Lane sees it as a practical contest, with little intellectual substance. "There are no groups standing for an alternative to Islam as an ideology," he says. "Islam is the only organized expression of a philosophical point of view. The New Order left a lot of vacuums, social, cultural, political. Some hope liberal Islam will be an alternative, but it's oblivious to the question of poverty. Conservative Islam addresses poverty in its own way."

Forget poverty

Addressing poverty is the greatest challenge facing Indonesia, Lane says, and he laments that alleviating it no longer appears on public policy agendas. "Development has been redefined as growth of the middle class," he observes. "In Indonesia, one million people a year are added to the middle class. But even if that continues for 30, 40, 50 years, it still leaves 400 million in poverty [factoring in population growth].

"China's the same way, with 20% doing okay. That's 200 million people: as a market for businessmen that's juicy. But the 800 million earning two or three dollars a day doesn't show up."

Lane doesn't see Indonesia growing its way out of poverty any time soon. "Slave wages fuel the Indonesian economy. Even among the emerging left and radical groups, a lot of them see the problems as neo-liberalism, policies of giving big money, foreign and local, a freer hand while reducing subsidies. I think they're always bad policies, but here they're bad policies on top of a terrible legacy, and the worst legacy is still colonialism.

"The economic legacy of colonialism is the basis for Indonesia's backwardness. In the 1950s, the middle of the twentieth century, you could see the incredible manufacturing power of the major economies was the source of their wealth. The Dutch had not built a modern factory in Indonesia, except for one to make light bulbs and bicycle tires. There was no industrial development whatsoever," Lane says, adding, "Only 10% of Indonesian children were going to school. How do you overcome such a legacy?"

Low productivity is one symptom of that legacy, Lane says. As part of the solution, he advocates canceling Indonesia's foreign debt, leaning on author Pramoedya's reasoning. "Pram's explanation was [that] it's not because of the Suharto regime that contracted for the debt was illegitimate, but because the West owes us the money. The West sucked millions out of the East Indies" though the transfer of natural resources from spices to timber to precious metals during colonial rule.

Lane smiles and says, "I must admit I have great sympathy for that sentiment."

[Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America's story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, financial crisis, and cheap lingerie. Find his blog, online archive and more at www.MuhammadCohen.com, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.]

Indonesia put to test

Asia Times - October 20, 2012

Richard Javad Heydarian – With the world's third-largest democracy and Asia's fifth-largest economy, Indonesia has emerged as a regional bastion of political stability and economic dynamism, assuming a place of pride among developing nations. But with global economic clouds on the horizon, the country looks increasingly vulnerable to losing some of its newfound luster.

Unlike China's fast growth, Indonesia's economic boom has relied more on commodity exports than shipments of high-value-added manufactured products. About half of Indonesia's exports are basic commodities, including coal, coffee, copper, natural gas, nickel, oil, rubber, tea and tin, making its economy highly vulnerable to volatility in global commodity markets.

Exports have fallen for five straight months, with August registering a worse-than-expected contraction of 24.3% from a year earlier. Fitch Ratings, a sovereign-risk credit-rating agency, recently categorized the country as "highly vulnerable to systemic stress", alongside China, Mongolia and Sri Lanka in Asia. As China shows signs of a slowdown, demand for Indonesian commodities is expected to fall further in the months ahead. About 15% of Indonesia's exports are shipped to China.

A domestic consumer and investment boom, meanwhile, has buoyed growth but also placed heavy pressure on the current account. For the first time in four decades, Indonesia registered a current-account deficit for two months in a row in April and May. The trend has sparked market speculation that the country could register a record trade deficit in 2012. International reserves have dwindled in the process, falling 15% from August 2011 to July this year.

Before these statistical dips, Indonesia was viewed widely as a reservoir of countercyclical resilience. Three years after the 2008 global recession, Indonesia outpaced its pre-crisis (2003-07) average growth clip with a robust 6.5% expansion in gross domestic product, bucking the slower post- recession trend seen in many developing countries. To sustain that resilience during the impending slowdown, however, Indonesia will need to address two structural challenges: lagging infrastructure and over-reliance on commodity exports.

Rising star

Indonesia's economic emergence has shone against the gloomy backdrop of its recent past. It was arguably the worst-hit country during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, with its economy contracting by a staggering 20% and the value of the local currency plunging by 80%. The economic catastrophe ignited a major political upheaval, culminating in the demise of Suharto's three-plus decades of authoritarian rule and a transition toward democratic rule.

Jakarta has clearly learned lessons from that tumultuous economic past. Where local banks collapsed under the weight of poor lending decisions in 1997-98, their current gross ratio non-performing assets is among the region's lowest at around 2%, according to Fitch.

Indonesian banks' return on average assets of 2.6% is currently more than twice as high as comparable financial institutions in India, Malaysia and Vietnam, and substantially higher than Philippine and Thai banks, Fitch reports. This month, Indonesian monetary authorities maintained the benchmark interest rate at 5.75%, a record low it has maintained for eight consecutive months.

While the International Monetary Fund recently narrowed its 2012 economic- growth forecast for Asia, Indonesia is still expected to expand by more than 6% this year. GDP grew by 6.3% and 6.4% year on year in the first and second quarters respectively, the fastest rate of any large global economy outside China. Despite fears of overheating, inflation actually fell month on month in September and is viewed as manageable at 4.3% on an annualized basis.

Strong flows of foreign direct investment have contributed to the resilience. FDI flows rose from US$10.8 billion in 2009 to $18.9 billion in 2011. In the first half of this year, Indonesia attracted $12 billion in FDI, raising government hopes of a record $25 billion inflow for the full calendar year. The inflows have gathered pace despite rising resource nationalism and protectionism, lingering concerns about the country's inefficient and perceived-as-corrupt courts and bureaucracy, and creaky infrastructure.

Better balance

Political devolution spearheaded by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration has allowed for a more balanced and equitable distribution of investment, public spending and economic growth across the sprawling archipelago of 250 million people. As structural inflation – the inevitable rise in labor and related costs in rapidly growing economies – erodes China's competitiveness, lower-cost Indonesia has benefited from a recent inflow of investment relocations from mainland China.

Based on a recent International Labor Organization report, Indonesian workers earn about $148 per month against $190 for average workers in Chinese manufacturing hubs such as Shenzhen, a substantial wage differential for multinational manufacturers. Chinese entrepreneurs from the Aigo Entrepreneurs Alliance expressed plans last year to relocate their textile factories to Indonesia. In August 2011, Chinese companies signed $10 billion worth of investment projects in cement, infrastructure, agriculture, and real estate in Indonesia.

Japanese investors have also poured in capital. After major disruptions in their Thailand-based production facilities last year, just months after the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear disaster, leading Japanese car manufacturers including Toyota, Nissan and Daihatsu pledged $1.8 billion worth of investments to improve and expand their Indonesia-based production facilities. Annual car sales in Indonesia have risen rapidly and are expected to reach about a million new vehicles this year.

Indonesia's expanding and increasingly sophisticated domestic market is part of the attraction. It is now among the world's largest markets for consumer products and electronics and among the world's top four biggest subscribers to social-networking giant Facebook.

Indonesia now has a 50-million-strong "bourgeoisie" market, which is projected to reach around 150 million by 2014, according to the Japanese bank Nomura. Consulting firm McKinsey, meanwhile, estimates Indonesia will become the world's third-largest consumer market – trailing only China and India – by 2030. Riding that optimism, Yudhoyono has announced his goal of setting the country on course to become one of the world's 10 largest economies by 2025.

Persistent weakness

Yet all these positive assessments and predictions mask persistent structural weaknesses. In particular, Indonesia's competitiveness is undercut by its weak infrastructure and corrupt bureaucracy. Experts believe that without a fast and major upgrade of both, the dual inefficiencies will be an increasingly substantial drag on growth, crucially at a time when the global and regional economy is expected to slow.

Decades of corruption, legal uncertainty and misappropriation of public funds have all conspired to retard Indonesia's infrastructure development. In the 2010 Logistics Performance Index – a World Bank measure of overall infrastructural competitiveness and efficiency – Indonesia ranked 75th, well below regional peers in Malaysia, Thailand and even the laggard Philippines.

Indonesia's "ease of doing business" ranking in the World Bank's annual survey slipped from 126th in 2011 to 129th this year. It also scored poorly in global comparative indicators such as electricity supply (161st), starting a business (155th), and contract enforcement (156th). It also slid by four spots in the 2012-13 Global Competitiveness report, from 46th in 2011 to 50th this year. The independent report characterized Indonesia's infrastructure as "largely underdeveloped", while the institutional framework is undermined by "corruption and bribery".

To improve the situation, the government pushed through a new land- acquisition bill, approved in December 2011, to hasten infrastructure development. Officials say they plan to double spending on roads, railways, airports and ports to $140 billion within the next five years. Total infrastructure spending is scheduled to hit $250 billion from 2011 to 2015. If actually realized, Indonesia's investment-to-GDP ratio would jump from 3.9% in 2009 to 5.9% in 2015, according to Morgan Stanley, an investment bank. The accelerated spending would supplement a larger, longer-term $600 billion infrastructure spending plan to be implemented between 2011 and 2025.

Diversity dilemma

Where all that money will come from, however, is still unclear. Indonesia has a major tax-collection problem: 80% of state revenues are currently derived from a narrow tax base, amounting to only 12.7% of GDP. That's well below the regional average, which ranges between 14% and 22%. Inefficient energy-subsidy schemes also eat into the state's budget and raise wider concerns about the quality of current and planned public spending.

Better infrastructure is crucial to diversifying the economy away from raw commodity exports toward more value-added manufacturing. While Indonesia has registered significant gains in labor productivity, representing by some measures a 60% rise from the previous decade, its overall manufacturing sector suffers from anemic annual growth compared with other economic sectors.

Recent nationalistic efforts to shift investments into manufacturing by raising restrictions on the mining sector, which currently accounts for 12% of GDP, have backfired badly. New rules requiring special licenses for mineral exports have led to a major decline in outward shipments and fueled complaints from piqued multinationals about the rising costs of government corruption. New laws and regulations have also aimed to limit foreign ownership in mining and banking ventures.

Despite these challenges, Indonesia's strong macroeconomic fundamentals, robust domestic demand and relatively healthy corporate and financial sectors provide room to maneuver amid rising global economic uncertainties. The government also has considerable room for fiscal stimulus and other schemes such as direct cash transfers. But without efforts to overcome structural weaknesses and endemic corruption, Indonesia's resilience will be tested by any sudden shift in market and investor sentiment.

[Richard Javad Heydarian is a foreign affairs analyst based in Manila. He can be reached at jrheydarian@gmail.com.]

Poor whistle-blower

Jakarta Post Editorial - October 19, 2012

The Jakarta Corruption Court's conviction of suspended House of Representatives' lawmaker Wa Ode Nurhayati on Thursday has sent yet another unfortunate message that whistle-blowers who expose corrupt practices in this country have to pay for their actions.

Nurhayati extends the list of victims of a justice system that fails to encourage people to uncover fraud, let alone to protect them, despite the fact that the country badly needs a whistle-blowing mechanism to eradicate deep-rooted corruption.

The court found her guilty of accepting Rp 6.25 billion (US$650,000) in bribes from three businessmen to secure regional infrastructure adjustment funds (DPID) and laundering Rp 50.5 billion in ill-gotten funds, handing down a six-year prison sentence to the National Mandate Party (PAN) politician. The punishment is lighter than the 14-year sentence sought by state prosecutors.

Nurhayati is not the first whistle-blower to have been prosecuted as a result of counterattacks from the people who should have faced justice.

Previous cases include the Supreme Audit Agency's (BPK) intrepid auditor, Khairiansyah Salman, who opened a Pandora's box of rampant corruption within the General Elections Commission (KPU) that administered the 2004 legislative and presidential elections.

Almost all seven KPU members were convicted and imprisoned but later on, Khairiansyah underwent an investigation for his alleged role in a haj fund scam involving the Religious Affairs Ministry in 2005; an allegation that prompted him to return the Transparency International Integrity Award that he had been presented with. The Attorney General's Office (AGO) finally halted the criminal investigation.

To some extent, former National Police detective chief Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji pursued a whistle-blowing practice when he revealed rampant bribery and extortion involving law enforcers in exchange for weak indictments to help the suspects escape punishment.

Chairman of the Witness and Victim Protection Institute (LPSK), Abdul Haris Semendawai, admits that whistle-blowers and justice collaborators are denied legal protection, saying that protection mechanisms under the existing Witness and Victim Protection Law requires cooperation among the LPSK, the AGO, Law and Human Rights Ministry, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the National Police.

In the case of Susno, the LPSK could do nothing to protect him when the National Police decided to arrest him in connection with misappropriation of operational funds during a regional election in West Java.

The criminalization that Nurhayati, Khairiansyah, Susno and others have to face for their whistle-blowing does not and should not give them a let-out if they themselves have played a part in the crimes they disclose. They are no angels and the law must be upheld against them, but it is more pressing for law enforcers to follow up on the reports and findings filed by the whistle-blowers.

Nurhayati became embroiled in the graft case only after she testified about the involvement of nearly all 85 members of the House budget committee, to which she was assigned, over their rampant misuse of budgetary power to accumulate financial resources for the benefit of their respective parties.

Nurhayati's case, the mark-up in the procurement of copies of the Koran by the Religious Affairs Ministry, the construction of the Hambalang sports complex in Bogor, West Java involving the Youth and Sports Ministry and the disbursement of regional infrastructure funds all demonstrate widespread graft within the legislature.

Based on Nurhayati's testimony, the KPK questioned leaders of the budget committee as witnesses, but there is no sign that the graft busters will move further. For the sake of justice, the KPK has to ensnare the big and powerful players behind the collective embezzlement of taxpayers' money within the legislative body.

'The Act of Killing' - Documenting delusion

Jakarta Post - October 18, 2012

Ron Jenkins, New York – For almost half a century, Indonesia has avoided public discussions of the mass murders committed in 1965 and 1966. Now, just as the nation's National Commission on Human Rights has declared the killings a "gross violation of human rights", a new documentary film offers a startling way to confront the crimes.

Instead of investigating the facts behind the deaths, the film examines the delusions that have obscured them.

In Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary The Act of Killing, self-proclaimed murderers are given the opportunity to reenact their crimes. This enables audiences to witness the deaths, not as they happened, but as they are remembered by the killers.

Oppenheimer calls his film a "documentary of the imagination". It is an appropriate label for a movie that reveals the links between the human capacity for self-delusion and cinema's ability to reedit the past into comforting fantasy.

The film within the film is conceived and directed by the killers, who play the roles of perpetrators and victims. On the surface this concept is grotesque, bordering on exploitation, but the documentary unfolds with surprising delicacy because the primary focus is not on the bloody reenactments, but on the way the killers see themselves and the way that they think the world sees them.

We watch the killers watching re-enactments on video monitors and commenting on their own performances. "I did it wrong." We watch the killers selecting costumes for the reenactments. "I would never wear white." We watch the killers reflecting on the past as they put on make-up to stage a massacre. "The key is to find a way not to feel guilty."

And when a man tells how his step-father was murdered, we watch the killers attempt to mask all emotion from their faces as they decide to leave the passage out of their film. "Your story is too complicated. It would take days to shoot." These scenes make it clear that the killers are editing their emotional responses to the past at the same time that they are editing their cinematic representation of how things happened.

The killers are attracted to the idea of making a movie because their murder techniques were inspired by Hollywood films. "I was influenced by films starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino," says Anwar Congo, a central figure in the documentary.

Anwar initially bludgeoned his victims to death, but abandoned that method because it was too bloody. He decided that strangulation with wire would be more efficient.

"And you know where I got the inspiration for it," he says. "I always watched gangster films where they always kill with wire. It's faster with wire."

The killers are not the only ones editing the past to make it more palatable. The former vice president of Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla, is seen praising Anwar and his colleagues as heroes who saved the nation from a communist takeover.

Kalla calls the killers "gangsters" and explains that the Indonesian term for "gangster" (preman) comes from the English phrase "free man." "This nation needs free men," continues Kalla. "We need gangsters to get things done."

We see the killers are interviewed on a television talk show. The host introduces them as "gangsters making a film to commemorate their crushing of the communists." When Anwar explains that he borrowed his killing techniques from Hollywood gangster films, the host exclaims, "Amazing!" and the studio audience cheers.

With support like this, it is not surprising that the killers envision themselves as movie heroes. "We were allowed to do it," says Adi Zulkadry, "and the proof is we murdered people and were never punished."

The public glorification of the killings as anti-communist acts of heroism enables the "gangsters" to memorialize the murders without guilt. One scene in the film within the film depicts a murdered victim thanking his killer for sending him to heaven.

The documentary highlights the significance of impunity in Indonesia's culture of corruption. We see one of the "gangsters" recounting how he killed many Chinese during the massacres. Then we see him extorting bribes from contemporary Chinese shopkeepers. Another "gangster" runs for the legislature and muses on how his elected position would enrich him through graft. The citizens he meets during the campaign demand bribes in exchange for their votes.

The Act of Killing unravels a tapestry of impunity that suggests Indonesia's inability to accept responsibility for past crimes may be related to its inability to curb present lawlessness. It is a critique that is relevant to all countries where the powerful are not held accountable for the laws they break.

Adi's defiant views about human rights echo the attitude of many unpunished criminals throughout the world. "War crimes are defined by the winners. I'm a winner, so I can make my own definition... not everything true should be made public... Even God has secrets."

The writer, a former Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow and professor of theater at Wesleyan University, is the author of numerous books on Indonesia. He interviewed director Joshua Oppenheimer after the Toronto Film Festival in September.