The Pacific Freedom Forum says police actions to stop distribution of a new magazine in West Papua break press laws of Indonesia and must be condemned.

The forum has joined the Indonesian Press Council in criticising police for their actions against the magazine, Papua Pelita.

The magazine dedicated its first issue to reporting on the Organisation of Papua Freedom, with a cover featuring the West Papua pro-independence flag – which is banned by authorities in West Papua.

Magazine publishers had already distributed 2,000 copies of the inaugural edition when police arrived and instructed them not to distribute any further copies.

The chairperson of the Pacific Freedom Forum, Titi Gabi, says there are specific laws that back press freedom and expressly prohibit police from banning media organisations in Indonesia.

Papua Police have denied there was any ban, saying it was just a check up to see if there was any seditious material.

New Indonesian law expected to hit NGOs strongly in West Papua

Radio New Zealand International - July 22, 2013

Human Rights Watch has voiced alarm at the implications for West Papua from a new law in Indonesia giving the government wide powers to shut down NGOs.

The Law on Mass Organisations imposes a broad range of obligations and prohibitions on NGO activities, and severe limitations on freedom of expression and association.

Johnny Blades asked the deputy director of the Asia division of HRW, Phil Robertson, how the new law will impact in West Papua:

Phil Robertson: This is just going to hit the NGOs in Papua quite strongly because the way that these regulations have been brought out through this law, they are so broad and they are so big that the government of Indonesia can essentially go after anyone they want and make up the reason afterwards. It's a very dangerous law, it's one that isn't necessary, and, frankly, it's one that harks back to a past era of restrictions under President Suharto.

Johnny Blades: The non-government groups, the few that are still in West Papua doing some, I guess, human rights work, you think about some of the churches, they look like they will probably be affected by this demand to adhere to respect for monotheism.

PR: Yes, that's true. It's laid out that the law requires for NGOs to adhere to a respect for monotheism regardless of their religious or secular orientation.

JB: They could end up in prison, some of these guys, it looks like.

PR: Yes, yes. This is basically constructing a very crude instrument that is going to allow the government of Indonesia to go after whoever it wants in civil society for whatever reason they want. I mean, it's basically a blank cheque for government repression of NGO activity in Indonesia.

JB: What do you think is driving this? There had been some real reform, hadn't there, across the rest of Indonesia, apart from West Papua. It seems like a bit of a retrograde step.

PR: Well, I think the Indonesian government has gotten credit where credit was perhaps not due, as being such a broad reformist government. It still contains very conservative army civil servant groups and also, of course, corrupt self-interested politicians. And these groups don't like having NGOs snooping around. They don't like having them going in and working with villagers or other persons who are being displaced from land or having their rights violated. And NGOs are seen as a pesky problem that get in the way with lead interests. So I think what we're seeing is a bit of a counterstrike by these forces of conservatism and by those who benefit from a lack of transparent governance to try to muzzle their critics.

JB: Do you think the anti-Pancasila provisions kind of spell the end game for freedom of belief in West Papua, already, obviously, under strain?

PR: Well, it's going to open people up to charges of going against Pancasila for a number of reasons. Of course, if it's not a recognised religion, that would be against Pancasila. There really is a very, very broad law that is going to cause problems across the board for groups in Papua.

Freeport Indonesia union eyes pay deal by end of July

Reuters - July 19, 2013

Workers at the Indonesian unit of Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc expect to reach an agreement over pay in less than two weeks, a union official said on Friday, cutting the risk of further disruption at the world's second-biggest copper mine after a deadly accident two months ago.

Freeport halted operations at the copper and gold mine in remote West Papua on May 15, a day after a training area in a tunnel caved in, killing 28 people.

Although the mine has since resumed operations, planned pay talks that began on May 13 were suspended on May 16, before being resumed in late June.

"We expect there will be a pay agreement between the union and Freeport Indonesia management before August so that the Muslim workers will have certainty for their pay before Eid al- Fitr," Papua-based union official Virgo Solossa told Reuters by telephone.

Freeport Indonesia could not be reached for immediate comment.

Relations between Freeport and the union have been strained in recent years following a three-month strike in late 2011 as well as a series of minor spats.

In June, trade union workers called off a planned strike after last-minute talks brokered a deal when they sent a letter to the Freeport management demanding five senior Indonesian employees be suspended after May's accident.

Freeport employs about 24,000 workers, of which three-quarters belong to the union. The 2011 pay deal is due to end on Sept. 30, and talks had been expected to last up to 60 days.

"We hope that the pay talks can be wrapped up as soon as possible and within the first 30 days period and we don't need to prolong it to another 30 days," Solossa added.

Up for discussion are workers' wages, benefits, rights, obligations and pensions, although the exact pay demand is unknown.

OPM office to be set up in The Netherlands in August

Bintang Papua - July 18, 2013

Jayapura – Following the establishment of an OPM office in Oxford, the UK earlier this year, there are now plans to set up an OPM office in The Netherlands on 15 August.

Spokesman for the National Committee of West Papua (KNPB) Wim Rocky said that diplomats and politicians in The Netherlands and several other countries round the world which colonised Indonesia had supported the idea of setting up OPM offices abroad.

Wim Rocky said that the activities of the new office will follow the practices of the office in London: "We will urge our people to organise peaceful demonstrations."

It so happens that the date of the opening is just two days before 17 August which is the day of the proclamation of the Indonesian state.

When asked whether this was their intention, Wim Rocky said: "The date of the opening is the one that was suggested by Dutch diplomats. It has nothing to do with what happened on 17 August more than fifty years ago."

Rovky also said that the KNPB will not do anything to disturb activities being planned by the Indonesian Government on 17 August, but will focus on what will be happening in The Netherlands this year.

He also said that in the coming months, other countries will be asked about having an OPM office in their country, following the opening of OPM office in Oxford and The Netherlands.

Furthermore, the KNPB intends to approach the Indonesian Government about the possibility of setting up an OPM office in Jakarta.

Asked about the visit to Papua by the Dutch ambassador earlier this year when he said that his government supports the idea that Papua should remain a part of Indonesia, Rocky said this was just a "political trick" which is also played by other governments. He warned Indonesia not to be taken in by such statements.

"Is it not a fact that even though the British government has close relations with Indonesia, the establishment of the OPM office there has gone ahead."

Rocky then said: "Indonesia needs to be 'open-hearted' and should acknowledge the fact that it has suffered a diplomatic defeat."

[Translated by TAPOL.]

Britain reaffirms recognition of Papua as part of Indonesia

Antara News - July 17, 2013

Jayapura, Papua – Britain still recognizes Papua as an integral part Indonesia, a British diplomat said.

"We are here this time on a working visit to the Cendrawasih Regional Military Command," Millie Mc Devitt, Second Secretary in Political Section of the British Embassy, said in a news release issued here on Wednesday.

McDevitt and a group of other officials of the British embassy in Jakarta met with the regional military commander Maj. Gen. Christian Zebua and other regional military officials in this provincial city.

Zebua told the group that security situation in Papua is favorable, saying in general the situation is stable.

"There is a small group (of local people) having different perception of independence, but we do not see them as enemies. They are compatriots who happen to have different view of democracy," he said.

He acknowledged that stability in the region is attributable not only to the military or police but also to big role played by religious and community leaders and other government officials.

The military in carrying out it duty in the field gives priority to territorial development, he said. "Currently we are cooperating with all components to create a conducive security," he added.

The regional military command is involved in various social activities such as in health care, teaching, farming,livestock raising and fishery to improve the welfare of the people, he said.

"Papua is currently is developing civil order with the military assisting the regional administration and police to accelerate regional development and to maintain public order," he said.

Indonesia had been angered by a British official attending a ceremony opening a Papua separatist representative office in that country recently. (Uu.H-ASG/F001)

Rights groups slam continued use of force, impunity in Papua

Jakarta Globe - July 17, 2013

Indonesian and international human rights groups have called questioned Jakarta's commitment to finding a peaceful resolution to the decades-long insurgency in Papua, following a discussion on the issue at the United Nations.

In a joint statement released on Monday, the groups noted that the review by the UN Human Rights Committee from July 10-11 of Indonesia's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights had highlighted the ongoing violence in Papua and excessive use of force by government security forces.

"Since there is no effective mechanism available to hold military members accountable, the committee sees re-occurrences of such violations as likely until Indonesia takes measures to develop effective complaint procedures," the statement said.

"The committee referred to the high number of extrajudicial killings that have occurred in Papua over the last two years and deplored the use of violence in dispersing peaceful protests in Papua."

The statement was issued by Franciscans International, Human Rights and Peace for Papua, Imparsial, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and Tapol, among others.

"The discussion about Papua at the UN Human Rights Committee shows that ongoing human rights violations in Papua continue to be a key concern for the international community," said Poengky Indarti from Imparsial.

The groups also denounced what they called the Indonesian delegation's false claims about the openness of military tribunals for those involved in rights abuses.

The statement described Indria Fernida from London-based Tapol as being shocked to notice the "level of denial of institutional shortcomings that prolong the culture of impunity in Indonesia."

"Victims are disappointed about the failure of Human Rights Courts in Papua and badly need an effective complaint mechanism for violations perpetrated by the military," she said.

The rights groups also said that while the Indonesian delegation claimed to the committee that local media in Papua were free to publish any news, "cases of intimidation, threats and violence against local journalists in Papua continue."

"In recent years, the international community had to witness the extrajudicial killing of journalist Ardiansyah Matrais and the violent attack against journalist Banjir Ambarita," the statement said.

Banjir is a contributor for the Jakarta Globe, who was stabbed by unknown perpetrators in March 2011 shortly after reporting on the sexual abuse of a female detainee by local police. No one has ever been arrested over the stabbing.

Concerns were also raised about the delegation's insistence that expressions of Papuan secession would continue to warrant criminal charges, which Budi Tjahjono from Franciscans International warned "implies a prolongation of the detrimental security approach in Papua."

The UN committee is expected to publish its concluding observations and recommendations by the end of this month.

Marty Natalegawa says he supports 'greater access' to Papua provinces

ABC News - July 16, 2013

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa says he supports journalists and non-government organisations having greater access to the country's Papua and West Papua provinces.

Mr Natalegawa has told the ABC's Newsline the security situation in the provinces remains Indonesia's "only concern".

"Our concern is an issue of security and safety," he said. "There are elements in Papua who are keen to obtain international attention by bringing harm to international personalities including journalists."

The Free Papua Movement has accused the Indonesian military of frequent human rights abuses in Indonesia's Papua and West Papua provinces.

Mr Natalegawa says foreign media assume the worst when covering such allegations

"The assumption is always the worst, because they have not been able to obtain access, at least not as much as they would like," he said. "The assumption is that things are actually in a bad state when in fact it isn't like that."

He says Indonesia is not trying to stop the flow of information out of the two provinces. "We are going to work on this," he said. "The data shows those who have applied on the whole have managed to have access, but if there are still cases that need to be looked at, then do let me know."

"I think very much now the principle is, the idea is having greater access to the provinces."

Indonesia hardens stance

Mr Natalegawa says his government will not accept asylum seeker boats being towed back from Australia. In comments yesterday, Mr Natalegawa said he would be willing to discuss the Australian opposition's policy to turn boats around if the opposition won the election.

But when interviewed on Channel Ten last night, Mr Natalegawa clearly said he did not support the plan to tow back boats. "Such a policy would constitute a unilateral type of measure that we do not support, and that's why in my earlier remarks today what I said basically is that let's hear what the policy is all about," he said.

"We are not ecstatic about it for sure, but in terms of in the spirit of wanting to hear the various policy options countries are proposing, parties are proposing, it's good to have this dialogue."

Blame game starts in Papua following deadly boxing riot

Jakarta Post - July 16, 2013

Nethy Dharma Somba and Yuliasri Perdani, Jayapura/Jakarta – As the National Police revised downward the number of victims in the Sunday night stampede to 17 from 18, the blame game has started over who is responsible for the riot that began during a boxing championship in Papua's Nabire regency.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto on Monday ordered a thorough investigation into the deadly stampede, which was prompted by a riot that broke out after spectators protested the match's decision.

Djoko, however, implied that the organizer of the match could be blamed for failing to provide an appropriate venue.

"It is sad that spectators struggled to get out because only one exit door was opened. This should be a lesson for event organizers, not only those who arrange sporting events," Djoko told reporters at the State Palace on Monday.

The riot broke out inside Kota Lama Sports Stadium on Sunday evening after supporters of the opposing boxers clashed due to a scoring discrepancy.

The victims – 11 of them women – were trampled to death as about 1,500 spectators scrambled out of the overcrowded stadium to escape the riot that broke out just before midnight on Sunday.

Kota Lama Sport Stadium had a maximum capacity of 500 to 600 people, he said. Police said it had only two working exits.

A total of 84 boxers participated in the Bupati (Regent) Cup Championships that commenced on July 9 in the Papua province town of Nabire, Youth and Sports Minister Roy Suryo said.

The riot occurred after the final match of the 58-kilogram (128-pound) division between Alvius Rumkorem and Yulianus Pigome, who were said to be from different tribes, Roy said. Points awarded by a panel of judges to Rumkorem triggered protests from Pigome supporters, he said.

The losing boxer's supporters threw chairs at the judges and the winner's supporters responded by throwing bottles and broken chairs, igniting spectator panic, the Associated Press reported.

National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Ronny F. Sompie said that nine of the 39 injured victims currently being treated at Nabire Regional Hospital were children.

Indonesian Amateur Boxing Committee chairman (PP Pertina) Reza Ali blamed the incident on the overcrowded stadium. "Spectators flooded the stadium because Nabire Regent Isaias Douw told organizers to give away free tickets," Reza said.

Following the incident, Isaias pledged that he would compensate victims. Papua Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. I Gede Sumerta said Isias pledged to give Rp 20 million (US$2000) to the family of each person killed in the incident. "Those who sustained injuries will get free hospital treatment," Gede said in Jayapura.

Meanwhile, Papua Pertina official Carol Renwari suspected that drunk spectators incited the riot.

As of Monday evening, the Nabire Police have questioned 12 witnesses, consisting of seven spectators and five officials from the boxing match's organizers.

Security in Nabire returned to normal on Monday, with 1,250 police officers and soldiers deployed to secure government offices and other public facilities.

Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian visited Nabire, which is located on Cendrawasih Bay on the north coast of Papua with a population of around 170,000. Indonesian Police Watch (IPW) issued a statement on Monday calling for Tito to resign from his post for failing to improve security conditions in the region.

IPW chairman Neta Pane said there had been too many incidents of violence under Tito's watch, most of which had gone unresolved. "In light of recent events, it is clear that it's time for the Papua Police to be evaluated," Neta said.

Aceh

Morality police target women in Indonesian shariah stronghold

Agence France Presse - July 23, 2013

Angela Dewan, Lhokseumawe – As the sun sets over Aceh province on the westernmost tip of Indonesia and the call to prayer blares from mosque speakers, five policemen leap onto the back of a patrol truck, ready to round up lawbreakers.

In khaki uniforms and black boots, the men circling the town of Lhokseumawe are not safeguarding the streets from vandals or thieves. They are sharia police and their job is to ensure no one breaks the Islamic law of the land.

The police swoop in on a young woman, buying food at a sleepy street stall. Her crime? She is exposing her hair, so she is sent home to fetch her headscarf, as men in T-shirts look on silently, eating cobs of corn.

Rights activists complain that Islamic shariah regulations in Aceh are becoming increasingly sexist and unreasonable, and that the shariah police – who operate independent of the regular police – are picking on women.

But headscarves are the least controversial of issues in Aceh, the only province to implement shariah law in Indonesia, home to the world's biggest Muslim population.

In Lhokseumawe, the mayor has called on women passengers to sit side-saddle on motorbikes, claiming straddling is sexually suggestive, unfeminine and un-Islamic.

"If a woman straddles, the sensitive parts of her body will push up against the man driving," Lhokseumawe government secretary Dasni Yuzar told AFP, making hand gestures in front of his chest to signify breasts. "This is not allowed under Islam and is not in accordance with our local customs," he said.

A women passenger riding with a female driver too should side-saddle, he said, while women riding with men should never drive.

While an official regulation is yet to be issued, police are already pulling women over and forcing them to sit sideways, with their legs dangling by the rear wheel.

Heri Mutti, one of the shariah policemen, said women who sat "in a feminine way" on motorbikes were more beautiful than others. "And it's our job to make sure they stay like that," he told AFP while on patrol.

Most women are complying, with streams of colourful headscarves atop motorbikes flowing through the streets. While some women are not bothered by the mayor's call, many say they are being treated like puppets.

"We're just trying to get on with life, drop our kids at school, go to the shops," said 36-year-old Fauzia. "Why should the government care how women sit? It's annoying," she said at the helm of a motorbike with her young son in front of her.

Rinawati, an activist from the Indonesian Women's Commission in Lhokseumawe, said the mayor's side-saddle call and comments like Yazar's were examples of how male-dominant governments were hijacking shariah to control women.

"We're seeing a trend in Aceh where local governments are carrying out acts of injustice against women. Islamic shariah here is not considering the female perspective," she said.

Women in the district of West Aceh have been banned from wearing tight trousers and jeans, while several in the province have been arrested for prostitution for being out alone at night or with men who are not relatives.

A teenage girl attending an outdoor concert with male friends last year committed suicide after police accused her of prostitution.

Rinawati fears that women could even be banned from dancing after North Aceh district chief Muhammad Thalib said recently that women dancing in public was against Islamic teachings.

His comments have caused confusion in Aceh, which has a world-famous tradition of dance, raising questions about whether a decade of shariah law in the province gels with Aceh's culture.

Yuzar said the two go hand in hand, adding that regulations such as the straddling ban would take the Acehnese back to its roots, as in the 12th century when Islam first entered the region.

"Many other cultures from both the East and West have come into Aceh. And the young are adopting Western culture in particular to the point they are feeling an identity crisis," Yuzar said.

Women's rights activists bemoan suggestions that Aceh should return to the 12th century, but so too does the Aceh government's shariah council chief, who fears that local governments are going too far with shariah regulations and that Aceh has lost its way.

Aceh was given the power to implement shariah law in 2001 under a special autonomy agreement with Jakarta, aimed at quelling a separatist movement.

How exactly shariah law was included in the deal is shrouded in mystery, with many Acehnese saying they never wanted it and the rebels never requesting it. Most historians say that the deal was made between an elite few.

"At the time, the feeling was that shariah would bring a standard of ethics to help the province develop and prosper. That is the Islamic way," shariah council chief Syahrizal Abbas said.

"But shariah in Aceh hasn't moved with the times," he said, adding that a movement of Acehnese against shariah was brewing. "We want Aceh to move forward, and if sharia is implemented fairly, it can help us achieve a better place for all Acehnese, for women as much as men."

Death of Aceh wild elephant creates national outcry

Jakarta Post - July 19, 2013

Hotli Simanjuntak and Nadya Natahadibrata, Banda Aceh/Jakarta – More than 7,400 people have joined an online campaign calling on the government to launch a probe into the death of a wild elephant in Aceh.

A Sumatran elephant on Sunday was found dead in a vacant lot in Ranto Saboh village, Aceh. The elephant had sustained injuries to his head and his tusks and eyes had been removed, while his trunk was detached from his body.

Aceh resident Aulia Ferizal signed the online petition on change.org on Wednesday and by Thursday afternoon the petition had already garnered 7,400 supporters, each of whom were mourning the death of the 30-year-old elephant locally known as Genk.

"We hope the President, Forestry Ministry and Aceh Police thoroughly investigate the death. An incident such as this one should never occur again," the petition said.

The Aceh Conservation Response Unit (CRU), which found the carcass while patrolling, said Genk was often seen roaming in local residents' fields. Such behavior, however, appeared to have drawn resentment from locals.

"We estimate that the elephant died three days before the carcass was found. There's growing speculation that the elephant was killed using a spear-trap in an attempt to take his tusks," said CRU head Sampoiniet. The price of elephant tusks ranges from Rp 5 million (US$495) to Rp 10 million per kilogram. The weight of Genk's tusks is estimated to be around 25 kilograms.

Data from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia said at least 18 wild elephants had been killed in Aceh since 2012. Most had died following conflicts between them and local residents.

In the past ten years, at least 129 elephants were killed in Sumatra. WWF data said the elephant population in Indonesia had significantly decreased to only around 2,400 from around 5,000 in 1985.

"Even though dozens of elephants were killed in Aceh, none of the cases were solved by law enforcement agencies," Chik Rini, a representative from WWF Indonesia said.

Chik said that the WWF had urged the local administration to launch a probe to find the perpetrators of the killings.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, meanwhile, expressed his concern over the violent death of the elephant via his Twitter account on Monday. "I have instructed the authorities to prosecute the perpetrators and prevent this from happening again," Yudhoyono said.

Meanwhile, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan also issued a public statement via his Twitter account on Tuesday, saying that those found guilty of assaulting protected animals would face up to five years in prison.

"However, we have to admit that we lack forest rangers," Zulkifli said. "Currently, one forest ranger is responsible for guarding 30,000 hectares [of forest]. It is not an easy task," he said.

Sexual & domestic violence

East Jakarta 'ground zero' for child rape

Jakarta Globe - July 20, 2013

Fana F.S. Putra – When an 11-year-old girl in East Jakarta fell into a coma in January and died as a result of an infection contracted after she was repeatedly raped by her father, there was an outpouring of indignation over how such a crime was allowed to take place.

As it turned out, the case was no isolated incident, with 357 reports of sexual abuse of minors filed with children's rights activists in the first six months of the year in the Greater Jakarta area.

And ground zero, says Arist Merdeka Sirait, the chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA), is East Jakarta, which last year accounted for 87 percent of the 662 child sex abuse cases reported in the capital and its satellite cities.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday to present the commission's mid-year report, Arist urged the Jakarta administration to turn East Jakarta into a pilot project for a "child-friendly city," in a bid to reverse the worrying trend.

"What we're dealing with is a very real problem of rampant sexual violence against children in East Jakarta," he said. "That's why the Jakarta authorities need to turn the municipality into a child-friendly city."

Any measures to achieve this, Arist went on, should focus on addressing the underlying problems that gave rise to predatory sexual behavior, including high rates of poverty and unemployment, and a high population density. East Jakarta is the most populous of the five Jakarta municipalities, with an official population of 2.69 million, according to the 2010 census – although experts say the extensive slum areas and informal settlements there mean the real number is likely much higher.

"We need the community to get more involved as well in preventing the sexual abuse of children," Arist said.

"That means that neighborhood unit heads are expected to intervene if they suspect there's any indication in their area of child abuse, so that the cases can be dealt with much earlier."

He questioned the decision by Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo to declare North Jakarta as his administration's focus for a child-friendly city pilot program.

Among the points that Joko raised to justify the choice were the relatively large number of playgrounds there and the various street children shelters in the municipality – which has the fewest inhabitants and lowest population density of all five municipalities in the capital.

Arist argued that the administration's logic was flawed, and that it should be the region where the sex abuse problem was most acute where the city administration should focus most of its efforts.

"I don't know what concept they're working on or what indicators they're basing their decision on," he said.

"But what's for certain is that any program to develop a child-friendly city shouldn't be prioritized in an area that's already relatively safe for children. If we don't get the problem in the worst-affected area in check, then we're going to continue seeing an increase in the number of child abuse cases."

He added that the East Jakarta subdistricts with the highest number of abuse cases were Kramat Jati, Ciracas and Cakung, all at the southern periphery of the municipality.

Arist said that in light of the overwhelming number of cases in East Jakarta – 576 out of a total of 662 cases throughout 2012 – Komnas PA had asked Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama to consider the need for switching the focus of the child-friendly program from North Jakarta to East Jakarta.

"We've asked the deputy governor to address this problem, particularly by dealing with the areas with the highest rates of child sex abuse, which are in East Jakarta. However, we haven't gotten a response yet," he said.

National emergency

While the problem is most acute in East Jakarta, Arist said Komnas PA had identified a worrying increase in the number of child sex abuse cases in the Greater Jakarta area as a whole.

In the first six months of the year, the commission recorded 1,032 cases of child abuse, 535 of which were sexual in nature. That puts the total for 2013 on track to surpass last year's figure for sex abuse cases.

"That means that about 90 children a month experience some form of sexual abuse," Arist said.

He added that rape was reported in 280 of the cases recorded, while molestation was reported in 182 cases. Nine of the victims died as a result of the abuse, while 345 were left traumatized by the experience.

In the majority of cases, the perpetrators were people who were close to the victims, including members of the immediate or extended family, friends and neighbors, Arist said.

He added that cases where fathers abused their own children, as in the case of the young girl who died in January, were particularly egregious, and attributed the problem to a cultural mind-set that treated children as objects rather than individuals in their own right.

"This way of thinking that children are the property of their parents to do with as they please must be eradicated," he said.

"It leads people to the assumption that they are justified in doing whatever they want to their children. But children are meant to be loved, protected and nurtured by their parents. That's why we need both society and the government to help address this issue."

He called on law enforcement authorities to take a harsher line on sex crimes against minors, and also urged lawmakers to consider amending prevailing laws to instate a minimum 20-year prison sentence for sex crimes. The current legislation does not carry a minimum sentence.

Komnas PA has declared 2013 a "national emergency" year for child sex abuse, based on the increasing number of reported cases.

In 2010, the commission recorded 2,046 cases of child abuse nationwide, 42 percent of them sexual. In 2011, there was a slight increase to 2,059 cases, but the proportion of sex abuse cases surged to 58 percent.

Last year, the number shot up to 2,637 cases, 62 percent of them sexual.

"Remember, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many more cases go unreported," Arist said earlier this year.

Labour & migrant workers

New rule mulled for wage rise reference

Jakarta Post - July 20, 2013

Linda Yulisman, Jakarta – The government is planning to issue a new rule that will serve as a reference for tripartite negotiations to set a nationwide minimum wage increase every year.

The reference will be issued for this year's tripartite negotiations to determine next year's wage increases.

Industry Minister MS Hidayat said on Friday that based on the proposed reference slated to be in a government regulation, the minimum wage rise would be set at around 3 percent and 4 percent above the national inflation rate.

With the government expecting an inflation rate forecast to reach slightly above 7 percent this year, next year's minimum wage, according to the new rule, would be translated into roughly a 10 percent rise.

"The increase is still open to debate at the National Wage Council. By doing this [having a reference], we hope all business players can afford a wage increase. Otherwise, industrial growth will be burdened," Hidayat told reporters after a meeting at Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister.

"We really don't want termination of employment amid the backdrop of the current economic situation," he said.

Indonesia has struggled with a persisting high level of unemployment of more than 15 percent of the overall workforce. The overall workforce also factors in the underemployed.

Hidayat added that the move was made to avert an annual wage rise jump to a level that could not be tolerated by certain business sectors, particularly the labor-intensive industry that employed more than 3 million workers.

For the past several years, debates to determine annual minimum wages have always emerged as a contentious battle between labor unions, employer associations and local administrations.

The problem particularly derives from the failure of the 2003 Labor Law to provide a clear definition of "decent living standards". Worker unrest usually escalates during the annual negotiations over minimum wages, often amplified with massive strikes ending in violence.

With local administrations having the final say in determining the raise, it sometimes goes beyond the level agreed by tripartite negotiations that take months to finish.

Late last year, Jakarta Governor Joko "Jokowi" Widodo instructed companies to raise the provincial minimum wage to Rp 2.2 million (US$217) a month, a 44 percent increase.

His decision was strongly rejected by labor-intensive companies, including those producing garment and textiles as well as footwear partly owned by foreign investors, threatening redundancies and factory relocations.

Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) wages and social security division head Hariyadi Sukamdani welcomed the proposed rule, but said that it would not ensure what he described as "normal" wage increase.

"What we want to offer is to convert the 60 components of decent living standards into the consumer price index, which will be more accurate, and [the Central Statistics Agency] should extend its survey to wider sampling [of the population to get more accurate results]," he told The Jakarta Post.

He explained that taking into account the consumer price index, which could differ from one region to another, would provide a clearer picture on how high a wage increase should be implemented in region.

Hariyadi pointed out that the lack of a current benchmark to determine wage increases also stemmed from a reliance on economic growth, inflation rate and decent living standards, and the exclusion of other factors, such as worker productivity, labor market and the capability of the so called "vulnerable industry" to endure wage rises.

On top of that, strong government support to stick to the increase approved by tripartite talks was also necessary, according to Hariyadi.

Papua has most child laborers in Indonesia

Tempo.co - July 19, 2013

Tika Primandari, Jakarta – The National Commission for Child Protection has released a data concerning children for the first semester of 2013. The commission secretary general Samsul Ridwan said the number of child laborer has reached 4.7 million children.

"Mostly in Papua. Child laborers covered 34.7 percent of the total laborers (there)," said Samsul on yesterday, July 18. The second position was taken by North Sulawesi with 20.46 percent of child laborers, and followed by West Sulawesi at 19.82 percent of child laborers.

Based on location and the total number, about 1.1 million children work in the city area while the remaining 2.3 million work in villages.

For comparison, the data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded 1.7 million child laborers consisting of 674,000 children are aged below 13. As many as 321,000 aged between 13 and 14, and 760,000 aged between 15 and 17. Indonesia has set a target to be free of child laborers by 2020.

Employers say foreigners provoking strikes to weaken Indonesian economy

Berita Satu - July 16, 2013

Jakarta – Labour observer Professor Dr. Payaman Simanjuntak has warned that a number of trade unions in Indonesia are being provoked by international trade unions, primarily from European countries and the United States, to challenge employers and the government by means of strikes.

Their aim, is so that Indonesia's economic competitiveness trails behind the economies in their own countries. "Our workers however are not aware of such things", said Simanjuntak when speaking with Berita Satu on Tuesday July 16.

Yet, according to Simanjuntak, workers in Europe and the US, including other industrialised countries have abandoned strikes as a means to struggle for their welfare. Workers in these countries have in fact moved closer to employers by means of dialogue and provided positive contributions to employers so that their economies continue to grow and their competitiveness improves.

Simanjuntak also agrees that a number of trade unions in Indonesia are not purely struggling for workers' interests but mobilising workers for political interests. "I don't want to say who or which trade unions are affiliated with certain political parties, but I want to emphasise that most of our labour movement is being used for political interests", he said.

Simanjuntak reminded workers to be critical of their leaders who only mobilise workers for their own interests. "Workers must be aware, the bigger and more often there are strikes Indonesia's economic competitiveness will in fact stall, even loose ground", he said.

A similar view was expressed by Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) Secretary General Suryadi Sasmita who said that for some time Apindo has got wind of provocation by foreign workers.

"It could well be that there are other foreign state intelligence (agencies) who don't want Indonesia's economy to move forward have infiltrated our workers by introducing themselves as trade union officials from their countries so that our workers trust them. Whereas their aim is to bring down Indonesia", he explained.

Sasmita was unwilling to elaborate further on which Indonesian trade union leaders or their specific political affiliations. "I don't want to get into that, of course I know, but I don't want to elaborate, let alone mention people's names or trade unions. I just want to say that our workers' struggle is being taken advantage of by political interests", he said.

According to Sasmita, compared with other countries such as China, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and others, Indonesian workers in fact enjoy special rights, namely a 40-hour working week, which in China and other countries it can be as much as 48 hours per week. In China and other countries there are no holiday bonuses like Indonesia. Meanwhile severance pay in Indonesia is the highest in the world, equivalent to 32 month's wage. "In other countries it's not a high as that", he said.

In addition to this, he said, in other countries, particularly industrialised countries, outsourcing employment systems are also in effect. "Why are Indonesian workers against this? It's odd", he said. Aside from this, compared with other countries Indonesian workers' productivity is low. Simanjuntak and Sasmita are urging the government to take firm action against workers who only seeking to destroy Indonesia's economy.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Execs slam higher wage demands

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2013

Damiana Ningsih & Agustiyanti – Business leaders are protesting a proposal from labor unions that have called for a 50 percent increase in monthly wages for 2014, saying the demand is irrational, especially as companies are shouldering the rise in costs from the subsidized fuel price increase and higher interest rates.

Erwin Aksa, the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's (Kadin) deputy chairman for small and medium enterprises, said the proposal for an increase in labor wages should be made in such a way that would not disturb companies while accommodating the needs and interests of employees.

"If too much of a burden is placed on operational costs expansion will be hurt. Demanding a 50 percent increase, I think, it is too high," he said.

"There is a formula already, using inflation as the base and the cost of living in a province," said Erwin who is also the chief executive at Bosowa Corporindo, a Makassar-based conglomerate with diversified businesses, including automotive, cement, energy and property.

Ade Sudrajad, the chairman of the Indonesia Textile Association (API), echoed Erwin's concern, saying the labor unions' recent proposal would have a devastating impact on the nation's industries especially the textile product sector.

The textile industry is a particular concern among business owners as it is typically a labor-intensive sector that requires a large workforce, he said.

Ade emphasized, however, that it is "not only the labor-intensive industries, but also other industries that do not have enough capital to cover the increasing wages who could face closure."

The chairman called for labor unions to propose a moderate wage increase but was not specific on the criteria.

Said Iqbal, president of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers Unions (KSPI), and Nining Elitos, the chairwoman of the Confederation of Congress of Indonesia Unions Alliance (KASBI), confirmed that both of their unions plan to ask the government for a 50 percent rise in the minimum monthly salary for 2014.

Responding to the business leaders' arguments the pair defended the wage demand, citing the recent rise in the subsidized fuel price.

The increase in the subsidized fuel price is expected to accelerate inflation and in turn hurt the purchasing power of many Indonesian laborers whose salaries are lower than the average worker in regional markets such as in Malaysia, Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations, Nining said.

Bank Indonesia has forecast inflation to reach 7.5 percent following last month's subsidized fuel price increase. Inflation quickened in June to 5.90 percent from 5.47 percent in May.

Said was persistent with the unions' demand. "Renting house costs, transportation costs, the price of food and beverages have increased sharply. Laborers do not receive the government's temporary direct cash assistance program (BLSM)," Said told Investor Daily. "That makes the laborers vulnerable to falling below the poverty line."

Nining agreed that the rise in wages must correlate with rising productivity, but she called employers to also consider the vital role of laborers play as the backbone to their companies' operations.

In Indonesia, the minimum wage is determined by negotiations in a tripartite forum, between three major stakeholders – the labor unions, employers and local governments.

Despite the involvement of the three, the business community in Indonesia often protests the local government's tendency to favor the side of the workers in an attempt to gain popularity and win votes.

The Jakarta administration succumbed to union pressure this year by adjusting the minimum wage to Rp 2.2 million ($220) per month for 2013, a 44 percent increase. Not until 2012 has the minimum wage been higher than the basic cost of living, at 102 percent.

Other authorities have followed suit across Indonesia in raising monthly minimum labor rates. In West Java, home to big manufacturers and factories, minimum wages increased by an average 25 percent in its 26 districts and cities. Inflation, though, was significantly lower than the minimum wage rise. West Java Statistics Bureau show inflation in seven of West Java's cities averaged 3.86 percent last year.

Political parties & elections

Outrage over KPU decision to allow kids to campaign in 2014

Jakarta Post - July 20, 2013

Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – The National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) has lambasted the General Elections Commission (KPU) for planning to allow underage children to be involved in political campaigns during the 2014 election.

The KPU recently said it would likely allow political parties to involve children in their campaigns, a decision it claimed was fully endorsed by members of the House of Representatives.

Komnas PA chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait said the KPU was being spineless for allowing itself to be steered by the House.

"While the issue is still being deliberated, it means the KPU is already lost to the House," he told The Jakarta Post. "The KPU should have the power [to stand on its own]."

The House itself was not free from Arist's criticism. "It's clear House members only think of their own interests. It shows both institutions are lacking perspective in child protection as the law clearly forbids children from being involved in political activities," he said.

Arist was referring to Article 15 of Law No. 23/2002 on child protection, which stipulated that every child was entitled to receive protection from being abused in political activities.

Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Linda Amalia Sari also slammed the KPU for its policy, saying that children should not be involved in politics. "A [political campaign] is not a place for kids," she said.

The law states that whoever violates it could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison.

Arist added the plan was a setback for the country's effort to protect children. "The KPU had actually agreed to protect children after we showed them past examples of children being harmed during political campaigning," Arist said.

According to the data from Komnas PA, six children died during the campaign period of the 2004 election while four passed away in the 2009 election.

The involvement of children, therefore, could pose a serious threat to their safety, said Arist. "Election campaign organizers cannot ensure the safety of children [should they be involved]," he explained.

Arist also rejected the idea that by being involved in political campaigning, children would learn about politics. "It is not a form of political education. It actually instills a culture of violence as children are taught to abuse other political parties," he said.

The right form of education was the one being taught in homes and schools, where children could learn about democracy, according to Arist. "Political education starts from home and schools, not from lavish political parades," he said.

In an attempt to protect children from being exploited during the campaigning period, Arist said Komnas PA would monitor early political activities.

"If there are children involved, it is a practice of child exploitation and we would report it to the Election Supervisory Committee [Bawaslu]," he said.

Komnas PA also planned to challenge the planned-regulation issued by the KPU that would allow children to participate in political campaigning.

Arist said he would ask the Supreme Court to annul the regulation. "We will file a judicial review should the KPU proceed with the regulation," he said.

Deputy chairman of House Commission II overseeing domestic governance Arif Wibowo from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said it supported the idea of allowing children to participate in political campaigning, as long as the KPU regulated the matter.

Pork barrel spending to spike ahead of 2014 polls

Jakarta Post - July 18, 2013

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – With 17 ministers of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's 34-member Cabinet coming from six political parties in the government coalition, the misappropriation of public funds for political purposes is expected to become more rampant ahead of the 2014 elections, a budget watchdog says.

Ucok Sky Khadafi from the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra) said these 17 ministries were the most vulnerable to budget misappropriation and should be monitored intensively.

Allocations for social aid funds were among the most misappropriated in this sense, Ucok said. "Social aid funds always account for a significant portion to state budget without clear purposes. If it is for social purposes, why is there still massive poverty all across the nation?" Ucok said on Wednesday.

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) previously stated that many of its findings revealed that state bodies, both at the central and regional levels, had abused taxpayers funds to finance political activities. This has also become a serious concern for the President.

On Tuesday, the President warned his ministers not to abuse state budget for political purposes ahead the 2014 general elections.

The President said he was concerned over the facts that many state bodies lost focus in breaking down their main duties into projects which then led to suspicion from the public that the state-budget-funded projects could be merely political tools.

"Next year's state budget is very important, not only because 2014 is the last year of my second term in office, but also because it is the year when the general elections will be held," Yudhoyono said before his ministers during a Cabinet meeting at his office on Tuesday.

The President also said that the budgeting processes at the House of Representatives might end up in political bargains in which politicians could push for the government to allocate the budget for certain projects that might merely be for the sake of the interests of the politicians political parties.

"These political factors sometimes look very tempting, but you have to be tough and strict to the policies we have planned. During the processes, there could be some adjustments or changes, but don't compromise our priorities set in our five-yearly development plan," Yudhoyono said. The President told his ministers not to create state-budget-funded projects with intention only to garner public sympathy.

President Yudhoyono is scheduled to deliver a speech on the 2014 state budget draft at a House of Representatives plenary session on Aug. 16. After that, the government and lawmakers will begin to deliberate the state budget draft.

Several government officials and regional leaders have been convicted of corruption for misusing social aid funds.

According to Fitra, the government has allocated Rp 69.6 trillion (US$6.94 billion) for social aid funds. Social aid funds at the Religious Affairs Ministry, under the leadership of Suryadharma Ali of the United Development Party, is the biggest this year, with Rp 11.28 trillion, it says.

The second is the Agriculture Ministry with Rp 6.35 trillion. Agriculture Minister Suswono, now embroiled in a graft case surrounding the importation of beef, is a senior Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) once dubbed the Religious Affairs Ministry as one of the most corrupt state institution.

Mochamad Jasin, the ministry's Inspector General and a former KPK commissioner, claimed that the Rp 2,4 trillion (US$246,47 million) of social aid managed by the Director General of Islamic Education in 2012, might cause state losses.

"The funds were mistargeted," he said as quoted by tempo.co.

Prabowo won't stand a chance against Joko Widodo in 2014: Analysts

Jakarta Globe - July 18, 2013

SP/Robertus Wardhy & SP/Carlos Paath – With two recent surveys pointing to Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo's popularity amongst the Indonesian electorate, experts predictably confirmed on Thursday that former general and Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) party head Prabowo Subianto wouldn't stand a chance against Joko in 2014

"In terms of leadership capacity and charm, Joko beats Prabowo. It has been proven during his tenure as mayor, and the public has nothing but praise for him," Lusius Karus of election watchdog Concerned Citizens for the Indonesian Legislature (Formappi) said.

"Joko at least has an abundant amount of experience in being involved in the bureaucracy," he said, adding that Prabowo's skills are derived from his background in the armed forces and his leadership of Gerindra.

"If people track his record, they will find that Prabowo doesn't have the same level as integrity as Joko does," Lusius said.

Andrinof Chaniago, a political analyst from the University of Indonesia, echoed this sentiment, saying that if both Prabowo and Joko decided to run in 2014, Joko would undoubtedly trump him.

"I predict that Joko's popularity will only grow, while Prabowo's will gradually decline. They have very different political motives," he said.

Andrinof added that Joko's strengths lie in his humble profile and approachability, while people can only identify with Prabowo's army roots. Joko has been named the most popular presidential candidate by at least eight surveys in 2013.

KPU records over 177 million eligible voters

Jakarta Post - July 17, 2013

Jakarta – As of Tuesday, the General Elections Commission (KPU) said the number of eligible voters for the 2014 elections from 30 provinces hit 177 million people. North Maluku, Papua and South Sumatra's voter numbers are yet to be submitted.

"The exact number of voters recorded is 177,257,048," member of the commission Hadar Nafis Gumay said during the launch of the preliminary list of eligible voters (DPS) for the 2014 elections on the KPU website, on Tuesday. The KPU announced 104 million voters via its website, http://www.kpu.go.id.

KPU member Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah said the data on eligible voters from South Sumatra had just been received by the commission on Tuesday morning.

"The number of eligible voters from the province reaches 5,787,910 people, comprising 2,924,756 males and 2,863,154 females," said Ferry, adding that the data had not yet been added to the DPS.

Only data of eligible voters from 10 regencies and municipalities in Papua had been submitted. "Nineteen more regencies and municipalities should submit the data," said Ferry as quoted by Kompas.com.

The KPU asked people to check if their names have been listed on the voter list. According to the schedule of the 2014 election stages, all DPS data should be published by the commission on July 24 at the latest. The KPU is welcoming input or comments about the voter list until August 1. (hrl/ebf)

Indonesia penalizes parties in fight for women

Bloomberg - July 17, 2013

When Diah Pitaloka took over the youth wing of Indonesia's third-biggest political party two years ago, her male colleagues addressed her as "Pak," which in Indonesian means "Mr."

"Maybe they still want a man to lead them," said Pitaloka, 35, who plans to run in next year's legislative elections for the first time as a member of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle. "The fact is, I beat them. I told them it's OK, you can call me anything – I'm still a woman."

The world's most populous Muslim country will now penalize political parties that fail to meet a requirement for females to make up at least 30 percent of candidates in the elections as it seeks to halt a widening divide between the sexes. Indonesia ranked 97th of 135 countries last year on the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index, down from 90th in 2011.

The names of female candidates will appear more prominently on voting forms and parties will face disqualification in districts where they don't meet the quota, according to a law amended last year.

"It's setting a good example in terms of really getting this into the whole political process," Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, said of Indonesia's enforcement of the quota. "There's a lot that can be done to improve gender equality and women's empowerment in the country."

Presidents' daughters

Indonesia slipped in the World Economic Forum's rankings because of a decline in the number of women in ministerial positions, according to its report. The country of about 250 million people ranked on par with Iran in the UN's Gender Inequality Index last year.

Among Indonesia's most prominent female politicians are the daughters of former presidents. Megawati, who lost the last two presidential elections to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is the daughter of Sukarno, the country's first president who took power after declaring independence from the Netherlands in 1945.

"It gives us a cloak of influence because we're able to knock on the door and people will open the doors because of the last name," Yenny Wahid, the daughter of Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia's fourth president, who also heads a political party, said in an interview. "The 30 percent quota is a big help because parties have no choice but to accommodate women."

In 1990, the UN recommended that women hold 30 percent of leadership positions by 1995 and 50 percent by 2000. The global average now is 21 percent, according to data compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Nineteen percent

Females now hold about 19 percent of the 560 seats in Indonesia's lower house of parliament, putting the nation 75th among 189 countries, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Achieving 30 percent participation would boost Indonesia to 30th overall and the third-highest in Asia after Timor Leste and Nepal, the statistics show.

During the reigns of Sukarno and Suharto, an authoritarian ruler who stepped down amid street protests in 1998, female lawmakers made up 13 percent or less of parliament in any given five-year span. A 2003 law stipulating a non-compulsory quota for women to make up 30 percent of candidate lists had little effect, with women winning 11 percent of seats in an election the following year.

While the number increased further after the 2009 election to about 18 percent, lawmakers amended the election law last year to force parties to comply with the quota in each of the nation's 77 electoral districts.

Stricter penalties

All of the 12 parties eligible to run in next year's election initially complied with the quota, compared with almost none in the previous election, according to Hadar Gumay, a member of the General Elections Commission. While five parties were subsequently disqualified in certain districts after eight candidates were deemed ineligible, they will likely be able to replace them, he said.

"Before, there is no penalty at all – they just announce it and that's it," Gumay said. "If we don't apply this regulation, I think there will be a lot of political parties that just ignore the quota."

The affirmative action program is designed to combine opportunity with merit, according to Mari Elka Pangestu, minister for tourism and creative economy who is one of four women in Yudhoyono's 37-member cabinet. Then- Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati stepped down in 2010 to become managing director of the World Bank.

Merit rewarded

"Affirmative action is to give the opportunity for the women to run for office in parliament, but whether or not they win is still based on whether they can win votes," Pangestu said in an interview.

Under Indonesia's electoral rules, voters pick from lists of candidates divided by districts. Since those at the top of the list often win seats, the new rules require every third nominee to be a woman.

Because only 12 parties will run in next year's election, down from 38 in the 2009 election, candidates will need more than just name recognition to win seats, said Meutya Hafid, a former television journalist and a lawmaker with the Golkar party. In 2009, winning candidates included actress Rachel Maryam Sayidina and singer Theresia Ebenna Ezeria Pardede, who resigned last year to finish her master's thesis.

"Before it's like thousands of names, so these women first have to get their name noticed," Hafid said. "But now it's not good enough to be able to make people know your name – they also have to know your background."

Quality candidates

Pitaloka, who heads the youth wing of Megawati's party in West Java province, said her team has advised her to avoid talking directly about women's issues on the campaign trail. Her strategy is to focus on topics that overwhelmingly affect women, such as creating jobs for poor families.

"People don't like the word feminist, and they don't like people who talk mostly about women," Pitaloka said, adding that she's still optimistic females will make up at least a quarter of the parliament after the elections.

Even so, she says, the number of women in parliament isn't as important as the quality. "Many people still believe that women are not capable as leaders and not trained to be good decision makers," Pitaloka said. "The important thing is to have women who can influence the parliament's decisions."

Prabowo says Jokowi owes his meteoric rise to him

Jakarta Post - July 17, 2013

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – After declining to comment on the rise of Jakarta Governor Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, chief patron of the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto has finally spoken up about who could potentially beat him in the 2014 presidential election.

Responding to questions on whether he had held talks with Jokowi or the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) about a possible coalition for next year's election, Prabowo suggested Jokowi ought to join his ticket.

"I was the one who brought him [Jokowi] here from Surakarta. I was also the one who asked the PDI-P and Ibu Mega to nominate him," Prabowo told reporters on the sidelines of an iftar dinner on Monday evening, referring to PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Prabowo appeared to have realized that his popularity had slipped with the rise of Jokowi and that his chance of becoming the country's next president would improve only if he joined the Jokowi bandwagon. Prabowo, however, suggested that he could not offer much until the 2014 legislative election next year.

As required by Law No. 42/2008 on presidential elections, Gerindra needs to win at least 20 percent of the votes to independently nominate the former commander of the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) for president. Prabowo went on to blast the House of Representatives for refusing to amend the Presidential Election Law.

"It's an unfair regulation because it violates the 1945 Constitution. But it is the law so we have to abide by it. How can I offer things today when I don't even know how much I will win [in the legislative election]? There is a long way to go, we have to meet the threshold first," Prabowo said.

He said that Gerindra would only negotiate a coalition with another party if it failed to meet the threshold.

According to a recent survey by the Indonesia Research Center (IRC), Jokowi would garner 32 percent of the vote if an election were to take place today, leaving Prabowo far behind in second place with only 8.2 percent of the vote.

Earlier this year, Jakarta-based think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) also predicted that Jokowi would get 28.6 percent of the vote if a presidential election were to take place today, ahead of Prabowo with only 15.6 percent of the vote.

On Tuesday, Martin Hutabarat, a member of Gerindra's board of patrons, said that the party did not see Jokowi as a threat to Prabowo's presidential ambitions.

"As you know, Gerindra joined hands with the PDI-P to nominate Jokowi in last year's gubernatorial election. We are very proud of his success. So, Gerindra and PDI-P should also work together in the presidential election," Martin said.

Regardless of Jokowi's growing popularity, he would have to wait for a decision from Megawati.

PDI-P secretary-general Tjahjo Kumolo told The Jakarta Post that "PDI-P, as well as Ibu Mega, are still closely monitoring the ongoing dynamics approaching the 2014 election". "We appreciate all the polls indicating Pak Jokowi's popularity as well as the public's trust in him. I'm confident that he is a true and sincere person," Tjahjo said.

Separately, PDI-P executive Maruarar Sirait said the party would consider many factors before nominating a candidate. "It's also about momentum. Bu Mega will announce it when it's time. However, I must emphasize that popularity is among the crucial factors," Maruarar said.

Surveys & opinion polls

PKS aims for 15% in 2014: Survey says 1.2%

Jakarta Globe - July 18, 2013

Ezra Sihite – The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) remained bullish about its 2014 electoral prospects on Thursday despite a new survey indicating it had been relegated to the periphery of Indonesian politics.

A poll by PDB released on Wednesday showed that 1.2 percent of the electorate would vote for the PKS at the next election, but Minister of Communication and Information Titaful Sembiring, who is also a member of the PKS's consultative council, said the party was unmoved by the poll and would continue to target a 15 percent share of the vote in 2014.

"[We're] optimistic, it's our target," Tifatul said, adding that the party would not be drawn on whom it would field as a presidential candidate next year. In the 2009 election, the PKS received 7.9 percent of the vote, up from 7.3 percent in 2004.

The party has been damaged by a wide-ranging scandal in which several of the party faithful are alleged to have conspired to rig the awarding of a government contract for importing beef.

"The PKS is declining because the corruption cases were considered significant by the respondents," PDB head Didik J. Rachbini said, as quoted by the Jawa Pos news portal on Wednesday.

In the previous survey conducted by PDB, in January 2013, the party fared slightly better, with a predicted 2.9 percent showing on the national stage.

The beef-import corruption case is still ongoing at the Jakarta Anti Corruption Court. No suspects have been convicted.

PDB interviewed 1,200 respondents between June 11 to 18 across Indonesia. PDB is a market-research company owned by Lippo Group, which is also the parent company of the Jakarta Globe.

Fresh survey reaffirms Joko's rise

Jakarta Globe - July 18, 2013

SP/Erwin Sihombing – Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo is still the man to beat in next year's presidential election, according to the results of a survey released on Wednesday, a day after another poll omitted him from consideration.

Joko, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), was the candidate of choice for some 26 percent of the 1,200 respondents from 30 provinces covered in the United Data Center (PDB) poll.

In second place was Prabowo Subianto, a retired military general and co- founder of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), with 20 percent, followed by PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Sukarnoputri with 13 percent.

The lineup was unchanged from a PDB poll conducted in January, which gave Joko 21 percent, Prabowo 17 percent and Megawati 11 percent.

Didik Rachbini, an economist and the PDB head, said that if the election was held today, Joko would be the clear winner.

"He's the individual with the best chance of winning the election at this point, but things can change, such as if he's seen as mishandling the management of Jakarta or if the media and social media momentum behind him changes direction," he said.

He added that Joko was also the most likeable of the potential candidates, according to 78 percent of respondents, ahead of Prabowo and Jusuf Kalla, the former vice president, at 59 percent each, and Megawati at 58 percent.

The figures come a day after the National Survey Institute (LSN) released poll results with Prabowo squarely in front, with 23 percent of 1,230 respondents in 33 provinces saying they would vote for him.

Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of the Golkar Party, was second with 16 percent, followed by Wiranto, the former armed forces chief and chairman of the People's Conscious Party (Hanura), with 13 percent, the same as Megawati.

LSN officials said that Joko did not feature in their poll because it focused only on the most senior figures from each political party. However, they noted that Joko trounced Megawati on a separate question asking respondents to rank the best candidates within the PDI-P. Some 68 percent of respondents said they would pick Joko over Megawati.

The PDB poll also identified the PDI-P and Golkar as the two parties to beat in next year's legislative election, with 14.5 and 14 percent of respondents respectively saying they would vote for them.

The Democratic Party, which won 20.8 percent of votes in the 2009 election, was a distant third with 9 percent in the survey.

Didik said that while the results appeared to bode well for the PDI-P in both the legislative and presidential elections, the fact remained that the party was sharply divided on whether to back Joko or Megawati for president.

"The share of internal support between Joko and Megawati is fairly even at this point," he said. He added that Prabowo, and not Megawati, would be the chief beneficiary if Joko deferred to seniority and chose not to run in place of the PDI-P chairwoman.

"If Joko doesn't get the nomination from the PDI-P, then Prabowo will go on to win the vote because he's second in terms of popularity," Didik said.

'Dems, PKS going down the drain'

Jakarta Post - July 17, 2013

Jakarta – A survey published on Tuesday found that the ruling Democratic Party has rebounded from its slump while the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) continued to be in the doldrums due to relentless media coverage on scandals involving its politicians.

The survey, conducted by the National Survey Institute (LSN), found that if the legislative election were to take place today, the Democratic Party would get 6.1 percent of the vote, up from 4.3 percent in the pollster's last survey.

For the latest survey, the LSN interviewed 1,230 respondents from all 34 provinces in early May. The number of votes placed the Democratic Party in fifth position, up two notches from the last survey in March.

LSN researcher Dipa Pradipta said that the Democratic Party had benefitted from a lack of media coverage of the Hambalang graft case, which implicated former party chairman Anas Urbaningrum and former youth and sports minister Andi Mallarangeng, also a Democratic Party politician.

The survey also found that the PKS would only get 3.8 percent of the vote, placing it in 10th position out of 12 political parties contesting the 2014 legislative election. In the last survey, the PKS was expected to get 4.6 percent of the vote.

Dipa said that the declining popularity of the PKS was due to intensive media coverage on former chairman Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, who was alleged to have been involved in the beef import quota bribery case, and his polygamous lifestyle also added to the bad press.

The survey also found the two largest political parties, Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), came in first and second position with 19.7 percent and 18.3 percent of the vote, respectively.

Based on data from the survey, the LSN also produced a list regarding the political parties that could be deemed as clean.

In the category of clean parties, defined as parties with little or no involvement in graft scandals, the PKS was at the bottom of the list with only 0.6 percent of the respondents who believed that the party was graft- free.

The Democratic Party also appeared near the bottom of the list and received approval from only 0.6 percent of the respondents.

"I think the moral issue is very sensitive for the public. You could imagine how the public feels betrayed by an Islamist party whose politicians are involved in corruption and polygamy," he said.

The survey, which has a margin error of 2.8 percent, also showed that most respondents had lost trust in political parties as the mainstay of democracy.

The LSN found that 53.9 percent of respondents did not trust political parties. More than 35 percent of the respondents were also of the opinion that politicians were involved in graft cases, while 30.6 percent thought that most political parties were oblivious to demands from the public.

More than 10 percent of the respondents thought that political parties were too preoccupied with themselves (koi)

Prabowo favored in 2014 presidential election if Joko declines run: Poll

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2013

SP/Yeremia Sukoyo – Presidential aspirant Prabowo Subianto topped the list on a survey of electable candidates released by the National Survey Institute (LSN) on Tuesday, beating out rivals Aburizal Bakrie, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Wiranto among others.

Prabowo garnered 22.7 percent of the votes from a random survey of 1,230 people interviewed by LSN pollsters in 33 provinces, researcher Gema Nusantara said. The head of the Great Indonesia Movement party (Gerindra), Prabowo has staged a public relations push in the past year, casting himself as a firm-handed populist leader as Indonesia's 2014 presidential election nears.

Bakrie, the chair of the Golkar Party, came in second with 16.3 percent of the votes. Retired general and Peoples Conscious Party (Hanura) chair Wiranto came in third with 13.2 percent of the votes.

Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chair and former president Megawati grabbed 13 percent of the vote, while less popular candidates like NasDem founder Surya Paloh, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Hatta Rajasa and prominent lawyer Yusril Ihza Mahendra all came in with less than 6 percent of the votes.

Despite Prabowo's popularity, the LSN survey concluded that the presidential race was PDI-P and Golkar's to lose. Golkar garnered 19.7 percent of the public's support, while PDI-P grabbed 18.3 percent. Gerindra totaled 13.9 percent, Hanura 6.9 percent and the Democrats 6.1 percent, according to survey results.

Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo was not included on the list of possible presidential candidates, Gema explained, because he is not in a leadership role with any of Indonesia's large political parties. Nonetheless, Joko topped the list on a separate question asking poll-takers to rank the best candidates within the PDI-P.

Joko trounced Megawati in popularity, with 68.1 percent of those surveyed preferring his candidacy. "Those wanting Megawati [in that position] stood at only 14.9 percent," said Umar S. Bakry, the executive director of the LSN.

The ruling Democratic Party fared poorly in a section ranking parties on corruption, coming in at the bottom of the list alongside the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) as one of the most corrupt political parties in Indonesia. Both parties have been rocked by a series of recent corruption scandals involving several high-ranking members. Hanura and Gerindra ranked as the least corrupt political parties.

Former Vice President Jusuf Kalla, State Enterprise Minister Dahlan Iskan and former Constitutional Court chief Mahfud MD were favored as Democratic Party candidates, should they choose to run with on the party's ticket. Neither Jusuf, Dahlan or Mahfud are currently members of the Democratic Party.

The survey, conducted via face-to-face interviews, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent.

Media & journalism

Constitution must ensure free media

Jakarta Post - July 22, 2013

Jakarta – The 1945 Constitution should be amended to better protect media freedom, a scholar says.

Wikrama Iryans Abidin, a former Press Council member and a constitutional law researcher, said the Constitution did not explicitly guarantee freedom of the press.

Article 28 of the 1945 Constitution – often touted as a constitutional guarantee for press freedom – stipulates that "freedom to associate, to assemble and to express written and oral opinions shall be regulated by law." It states that "every person shall have the right to the freedom to associate, to assemble and to express opinions."

"The article does not mention explicitly that it can protect freedom of the press from threats. It is stated implicitly because it was formulated under Japanese occupation: A colonial regime will never guarantee press freedom," said Wikrama.

Wikrama – whose dissertation investigated the struggle of the founding fathers to guarantee freedom of the press – said that journalist Liem Koen Hian had suggested the need to explicitly mention the phrase "press freedom" during the drafting of the Constitution by the Investigating Committee for the Preparation of the Independence of Indonesia (BPUPKI) in 1945.

His proposal gained the support of Mohammad Hatta, but was rejected by BPUPKI member Soepomo, who headed the small team that drafted the Constitution.

Echoing Liem, Wikrama said that constitutional rights should be stated explicitly in the Constitution. "For decades, people have taken for granted the phrase 'freedom [...] to express written and oral opinion' in Article 28 as a constitutional guarantee for freedom of the press, while it is actually not."

The article, he argued, should be revised to explicitly say "the state guarantees the protection of freedom of the press from any form of threat such as legal restrictions that may threaten freedom of press, power intervention, politics, economy and social pressures."

The new formulation, according to Wikrama, would provide legal certainty and prevent the government from creating legislation that could jeopardize the press.

He said that under Sukarno freedom of the press was regarded as a tool of revolution, while in the New Order era it was strictly controlled to serve the interests of Soeharto's administration.

Wikrama said there was a need to retain a clause in the Constitution that limited freedom of expression to prevent the media from abusing their freedom.

Bagir Manan, Press Council chairman and one of the six examiners of the dissertation, concurred with Wikrama about the lack of an explicit press freedom guarantee.

"But it does not mean there is no guarantee for press freedom protection in the Constitution. Article 28 actually asserts citizens' right to express opinion and to communicate, which is essentially part of freedom of press protection," he said. (hrl)

Environment & natural disasters

Indonesia comes under fire for forest fires

Inter Press Service - July 23, 2013

Baradan Kuppusamy, Kuala Lumpur – With a propensity to devour everything in their path and spiral quickly out of control, leaving behind swathes of scorched earth, forest fires are considered a hazard in most parts of the world.

In Indonesia, however, fires are the preferred method for clearing large areas of land for massive plantations of commercial crops. In the first half of 2013, research studies have already recorded 8,343 forest fires, a higher number than in preceding years.

While some blazes occurred naturally, igniting in the country's vast rainforests that are transformed in the dry summer months into an expanse of kindling, experts say that many fires were created by plantation companies and, to a lesser extent, by local communities, to clear millions of hectares of jungle land needed for oil palm plantations.

According to the Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor), oil palm plantations covered 7.8 million hectares in Indonesia in 2011, and produced roughly 23.5 million tonnes of crude palm oil that year.

The cheapest and easiest way to clear enough land to yield these huge quantities of oil is to set fire to acre upon acre of rainforest and let the wind and the flames do the work. This method is also efficient in reducing the acidity of peat soil.

Peat soil is a soggy organic matter that acts as anathema to palm trees. This explains why about two-thirds of forest fires in Indonesia occur on peat lands.

Unfortunately, peat soil becomes extremely toxic at high temperatures, emitting greenhouse gases and creating haze and smog. Peat fires can burn on for weeks, even months, endangering wildlife and human communities far from the site of the actual fire.

For years, palm oil-producing companies in Indonesia and Malaysia, which together account for 85 percent of the world's palm oil production every year, have come under fire from activists and scientists who say the "forest fire method" poses serious environmental and health risks for the entire region.

While most of these fires originate in Sumatra, changes in wind direction mean that smoke travels to nearby countries. Last month, for instance, the international community pilloried Indonesia for fires that choked parts of neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.

The haze that enveloped the latter was so bad that the government in Kuala Lumpur declared a state of emergency in parts of the country where air pollution index readings reached a critical 750 on June 23, well above the "hazardous" level of 300.

Malaysian citizens were advised to stay indoors, while Singaporean authorities cancelled outdoor summer activities as panicked residents emptied stores of their supply of protective masks.

The average air pollution index rating in both Malaysia and Singapore now hovers at over 100, a dramatic increase from the preceding decade, which "could contribute to climate change and is seriously detrimental to the health of people in the region," Gurmit Singh, a renowned Malaysian environmentalist, told Inter Press Service (IPS).

Blame has been bandied about, with governments, corporations and even local communities named as culprits, but public censure has failed to prompt concrete action.

Environment ministers representing five members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) flew to Malaysia's capital last week in search of a lasting solution to what has become a predictable annual crisis, but the talks concluded on July 17 with no firm agreement on the table.

All that officials from Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand approved was a plan for Indonesia to refer Asean's 2002 Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution to its parliament by 2014 – hardly a promising solution, since the accord appeared before Indonesia's legislature in 2009 but was not mentioned once during the entire session.

The outcome of the high-level meeting comes as no surprise to T. Jayabalan, a public health consultant and adviser to Friends of the Earth-Malaysia.

"For almost 20 years these governments have adopted a lackadaisical attitude towards resolving the problem [of forest fires)]" he told IPS. "No concrete measures have been taken because any measure imposed will impact the profits of palm oil companies," he added.

A quick look at the stakes involved in palm oil production supports Jayabalan's claim: according to Cifor, crude palm oil brought in $12.4 billion in foreign exchange in 2008, while the government bagged another billion dollars in export taxes alone that same year.

The sector employs around 3.2 million people every year – not something insignificant in a country where 30 million people live below the poverty line.

Earlier this year, the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association unveiled an ambitious plan to grow the sector by 5.4 percent by the year 2020, adding another four million hectares to existing plantations around the country.

With such zealous plans in the pipeline, a solution is urgently needed, "rather than more talk and postponement of key decisions," Jayabalan stressed.

He and other experts believe the first step must entail recognising the role palm oil companies play in creating fires.

Data published last month by the Washington-based World Research Institute (WRI) shows that the number of fires per hectare, is "three to four times higher within oil palm concession boundaries than outside of them."

The research also suggests that there are significant discrepancies between maps issued by the ministry of forestry and those being used by oil palm companies.

According to WRI, Company Business Land Use Rights license boundaries are generally nested within, and are smaller than, the concession boundaries the government is using. This creates confusion about responsibility for fires found on land thought to be within concessions but outside areas the companies fully control and are directly developing.

With more fires expected in the months between August and October, environmentalists are urging governments to "come to terms with the haze and its root causes because people in the region suffer from the pollutants," Singh said."Various studies have shown that haze pollution leads to an increase in the number of people suffering from upper respiratory tract infections, asthma and rhinitis."

Countries in the region are also being called upon to cooperate in the development and implementation of prevention mechanisms, monitoring and early warning systems, information-sharing networks and other channels for providing mutual assistance.

Unfortunately, these steps have currently been stalled by Indonesia's refusal to ratify the AseanHaze Pollution Agreement.

Health & education

The national curriculum could change again after elections

Jakarta Post - July 22, 2013

Nadya Natahadibrata, Jakarta – The 2013 national curriculum may end up being changed sooner than expected with two major political parties, deemed frontrunners in the 2014 elections, saying the curriculum will do little to improve the country's education system.

Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Dedi Gumelar said that expecting improvements in education quality by rushing to implement a new curriculum was a bizarre idea.

"The 2006 curriculum has not been well implemented in every province in the country, yet the government has decided to change the curriculum again," said the member of House of Representative's Commission X that oversees education.

Golkar lawmaker Ferdiansyah agreed, saying that before implementing a new policy, the government should have first conducted thorough research into the country's education system to discover the main priorities.

"Take the curriculum for example. The House of Representatives has suggested the government conduct a trial first, but they insisted that no trial was needed," Ferdiansyah said. "The ministry should have ensured that they had provided equal infrastructure throughout the country before thinking of changing the curriculum," he added.

The PDI-P is the largest opposition party and along with the Golkar Party is expected to gather substantial support in 2014, with most pollsters placing the two parties at the top of their surveys.

The latest survey by the National Survey Institute (LSN) shows that Golkar would get 19.7 percent of the vote, followed by PDI-P with 18.3 percent, if the election were held today.

Most political parties agree that the main problem in Indonesia's education system is the fact that so many of the nation's youth do not have proper access to education. This is despite the government's commitment to allocate 20 percent of its budget for education as mandated by the 1945 Constitution.

"We have to admit that not all children in the country have equal access to education. The government has to provide equal distribution of teachers, while at the same time improving their quality," Agus Hermanto, Democratic Party lawmaker said.

Agus, who is also a candidate for the 2014 legislative elections, however, defended the Education and Culture Ministry's move to implement the new curriculum despite this unequal access, especially in the country's remoter areas, saying that it was necessary to boost the quality of education.

The implementation of the new national curriculum has been marred by protests as teachers only received the technical guidelines and materials a few days prior to the implementation.

The government has decided to implement the new curriculum in only 6,401 schools, far fewer than the initial target of 102,053 elementary, junior high and senior high schools. The ministry felt the majority of schools were unprepared for the new curriculum.

Agus acknowledged that the new curriculum had drawn protests from education experts as well as teachers, but said that the government could not delay its implementation.

"We cannot wait until all teachers fully understand the new curriculum before implementing it. We should run the curriculum concurrently with improving teacher's capabilities, as well as providing equal education infrastructure," Agus said.

Ferdiansyah said that the spending of the education budget should be reviewed to ensure that the 20 percent budget allocation actually made a difference.

He criticized the government's decision to divide up the budget allocation for education among 18 ministries to finance programs that were related to education. "If it is not a public school then it should not be financed by the state," he said.

Apart from the half-baked new national curriculum the Education and Culture Ministry has also been mired in controversy due to reports of alleged misuse of the education budget.

Government launches new curriculum amid textbook shortage

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2013

Shesar Andriawan & Natasia Christy – Indonesia's controversial new school curriculum got off to a rocky start on Monday as educators and experts continued to debate the merits of the Ministry of Education's science- and English-lite program and reported a shortage of new textbooks.

"The 2013 curriculum is expected to lead to a better-quality education and progress for future generations of Indonesians," Education Minister M. Nuh said during the curriculum launch at a school in Yogyakarta, as quoted by Vivanews.com.

The new curriculum slashed the number of subjects taught in a day across the board, dropping dedicated classes science, English-language and social studies courses in favor of classes on Bahasa Indonesia, nationalism and religious studies. The ministry argued that the new curriculum will develop students' sense of morality and social responsibility, but Nuh has failed to convince critics of the plan.

Critics, like Yohanes Surya, a prominent physicist, said the move away from science and English-language studies during early-learning would damage Indonesia's ability to compete and impact profoundly on those who could not afford private tuition.

"The amount of science learning in the school curriculum has dropped each year since 1988. If you were to give a student a science test from 1998 today, they wouldn't be able to do it," Yohanes said in June. "And the government's response to all this is to go even easier on the students."

The new curriculum aims to reduce student course-loads by folding English, science and social studies lessons into thematic lessons on math and nationalism. In elementary schools, daily lesson plans would focus on a single theme that incorporates a variety of subjects into a day-long lesson.

An elementary school teacher in Jepara, Central Java, explained one lesson plan focused on "introductions" that incorporated math and Indonesian language skills into a single exercise.

"In front of the classroom, there's a picture about how to introduce yourself, how to shake hand and greet [each other]," Ida said. "I asked them to come forward and introduce themselves to their friends. They shook hands and introduced each other."

She also asked them to count their fellow classmates. "So in this theme, they learned both math and PKN [citizenship]," she said. "It makes them learn how to be brave and creative."

This approach lowers the total number of classes taught in a day from ten to six, dropping dedicated classes on English, science and social studies. By fourth grade, science and social studies would be reintroduced, but only as parts of larger thematic lessons.

By junior high school, daily courses would drop from 12 to ten as science and social studies become umbrella courses covering physics, biology and chemistry as "science" and geography, economics and history as "social studies." The resulting courses will likely emphasize one type of lesson over the others, like at SMP 5 Semarang, where science will focus on biology and social studies on geography.

In senior high school, students will be allowed to choose a major and tailor their course-load to a specific interest. Students will be able to choose from three majors – math and science, linguistics and culture and social studies – attending around 40 hours of class per week, up from 32. English will be offered as an elective to senior high school students, while Indonesia's national scouting organization – a program emphasizing survival skills and social service – will be a mandatory extracurricular activity.

The new curriculum will take three years to take full effect and will start with students at 6,400 schools who are starting first, fourth, seventh and tenth grades this year.

Teacher training

Around 60,000 teachers will be trained in the new curriculum: they will receive a five-day orientation. Some 6,400 schools – spread across elementary schools, junior- and senior-high schools – will teach the revised syllabi this academic year.

Nuh conceded, however, that not enough textbooks had been printed. "At the elementary school level, the only books that have been printed are for first through fourth grades," he said. "We have not printed texts for eighth graders yet."

Mohammad Abduhzen, the executive director of Indonesia for Education Reform, said the new curriculum may not be of benefit to students. "This won't change a thing. It will cause a printing frenzy for new books...," Abduhzen said. "In the classrooms, it will end with concepts in limbo and confused teachers."

Population & migration

Agency head slams Indonesia population management

Jakarta Post - July 17, 2013

Slamet Susanto and Bambang Muryanto, Bantul/Yogyakarta – Indonesia requires better population management so its huge population can be turned into quality human resource potential, according to National Family Planning and Population Agency head Fasli Jalal.

Speaking at the commemoration ceremony of the 20th Family Day in Bantul, Yogyakarta, on Tuesday, Fasli said in order to turn people into smart, healthy and qualified individuals, health services and education facilities in the country needed to be improved. "We still lack [such improvements]," Fasli told the ceremony.

A lack of adequate population management, according to Fasli, has caused a drop in Indonesia's human development index (HDI), which ranks the country 121st out of the world's 187 nations. "Our best position was 108th in 1990, then we slipped into 112th and now we're 121st," he said.

Indonesia's population according to the 2010 census is 237.6 million with an annual growth rate of 1.49 percent, or 4.5 million.

Fasli also called on all the elements of the community, especially families, to help improve the country's human resources and deal with population-related problems.

In the 40 years ahead, he said, Indonesia's population was predicted to double. By 2025, the elderly would number 80 million and would all require proper health services.

Speaking at the same event, Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X highlighted the important role of female teenagers. "A lack of attention to female teenagers has accounted for promiscuity, out-of-wedlock pregnancies and illegal abortions," Sultan said.

Researcher Iwu Utomo of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, Australian National University (ANU), recently urged the Indonesian government to amend the law on marriage, which allows girls to get married at the age of 16.

"The impact is very negative. They're more vulnerable when delivering babies than those above 20," Iwu said in Yogyakarta recently.

Data from the 2010 United Nations' World Population Prospects website shows that 1.7 million females delivered babies under the age of 24 annually in Indonesia. Of this figure, half were teenagers.

The data said Indonesia also had the second highest number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions in Asia – 37 cases in every 1,000 women of productive age.

Considering the dangers to human health, Iwu said, the government had to prevent early pregnancies from occurring, with one way of doing so by increasing the age limit for girls to get married.

United Nations' Population Fund (UNFPA) Indonesia national project officer of reproductive health Melania Hidayat, said the price of pregnancy at an early age was very high, with women unable to work, high pregnancy risks and women tending to become victims of domestic violence.

The world is currently home to some 600 million teenagers, 500 million of which live in developing countries like Indonesia. She also said that teenage pregnancies were also a manifestation of poverty, unequal gender relations and low education levels.

"Investment in women is needed, namely education. UNFPA is ready to support it [the Marriage Law amendment], as allowing 16-year-old girls to marry is not in line with global commitments," she said.

Graft & corruption

Graft-tainted Indoguna paid for PKS meeting in Medan – Witness

Jakarta Post - July 23, 2013

Jakarta – The cashier at the meat import company PT Indoguna Utama, Pudji Rahayu Arminingrum, has confirmed that the company paid Rp 98 million (US$9,702) to finance the Prosperous Justice Party's (PKS) working meeting in Medan last year.

In her testimony in the trial of former PKS leader Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Monday, Pudji said that she had signed the receipt for the payment the company made for the Islamic party. "Yes, that is my signature," Pudji said when a KPK prosecutor showed her the receipt.

Previously, she had told prosecutors that she could confirm if there had been a transfer to the PKS from the company if they could show her the receipt. One of the prosecutors, Guntur Feri, showed her a financial record book and several receipts bearing her signature.

"Juard Effendi, the director of PT Indoguna, ordered me to provide the money. I did not ask anything about it," she said.

Juard and another Indoguna official, Arya Abdi Effendy, were sentenced to 27 months in prison for bribing Luthfi in a bid to influence Agriculture Minister Suswono to raise the national beef import quota.

Pudji also told the judges that she had signed cash receipts for the former Agriculture Ministry's director general of husbandry Prabowo Respatiyo Caturroso. "However, I don't remember the details of the payments and I don't know what the money was for," Pudji said.

Pudji's testimony confirmed the claims made by KPK prosecutors at the trial of Juard and Arya that the company had paid Luthfi and his aide, Ahmad Fathanah, during the party's event in Medan.

The KPK have alleged that Luthfi asked Indoguna president director, Maria Elizabeth Liman, to finance his campaign trip. The request was made when Fathanah met with Maria in a restaurant in Senayan City, South Jakarta, in December last year.

The agency said that during the meeting Maria promised she would finance PKS campaigns if the party could assist her in persuading the Agriculture Ministry to increase the beef import quota.

Maria, who has also been charged in the case, later instructed Arya to prepare Rp 300 million for Luthfi.

Meanwhile, Luthfi's lawyer Mohamad Assegaf, speaking after the trial session on Monday, told reporters that his team wanted the court to replace one of the judges in the graft case trial. "We have sent a letter to the chief of Central Jakarta district court and the Supreme Court, asking them to change one of the judges because he had been a judge in Juart and Arya Abdi Effendi's trial," he said.

Luthfi chose to say nothing when asked about the money transfer from Indoguna to PKS.

The beef graft scandal has dealt a severe blow to the Islamic party that has long portrayed itself as the nation's cleanest political party.

Several party officials have claimed that the case against Luthfi and the party is politically motivated. Luthfi has even claimed that he was framed by the KPK.

Assegaf said in his client's defense statement that KPK prosecutors had built a weak case against the former PKS party chairman.

"There are a lot of holes in the indictment. The indictment doesn't explain what exactly Luthfi's role was in the case. We believe there are political motives behind this trial," he said.

Luthfi's team of lawyers also accused KPK prosecutors of cherry-picking facts and evidence that they could deploy against their client.

Assegaf said the indictment ignored testimony from witnesses that had alleged the complicity of several political bigwigs, including Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa, chairman of the Golkar Party faction at the House of Representatives, Setya Novanto, and Yudi Setiawan, who is said to be a confidant of Golkar chairman Aburizal Bakrie.

Boediono could face charges in Bank Century case, KPK insists

Jakarta Globe - July 23, 2013

SP/Novianti Setuningsih – Antigraft investigators have confirmed that the controversial Rp 6.7 trillion ($663 million) bailout of Bank Century in 2008 hinged on a decision to bend banking regulations, in a development that could potentially see Vice President Boediono be charged in the case.

Abraham Samad, the chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), said over the weekend that his office had determined that a key Bank Indonesia regulation was changed to allow Century to get a short-term loan facility (FPJP) despite not being eligible for it.

Abraham said that such a change would have required the approval of the entire board of governors of the central bank, headed at the time by Boediono. "Everyone on the board of governors would have been responsible for that decision," he said.

"If later on we find sufficient and accurate evidence pointing to the involvement of other people, even the central bank governor at the time, we won't have any qualms about naming them suspects."

The KPK has already charged two former deputy governors, Budi Mulya and Siti Chalimah Fadjriah, for allegedly abusing their authority by approving the FPJP.

Abraham said the KPK's investigation would not stop at the central bank, but would also look into the role of officials on the Financial System Stability Committee (KSSK), which was chaired by the country's finance minister at the time, Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

Sri Mulyani quit the government in May 2010 to become a managing director at the World Bank in Washington, amid recriminations by legislators over her role in the Century bailout. She was visited earlier this year by KPK officials as part of the ongoing investigation into alleged corruption in the events surrounding the decision to grant the bailout.

Abraham said the latest finding, about the change in the BI regulation, emerged from the questioning of Sri Mulyani.

The bailout of Century, a mid-sized lender, during the height of the global financial crisis generated immense controversy in Indonesia, with critics alleging a litany of irregularities in the decision that some say was taken to save politically connected depositors.

The House of Representatives adopted a resolution in 2010 declaring that the bailout was fundamentally flawed, which compelled the KPK, the Attorney General's Office and the police to launch parallel probes into the bailout and the subsequent flow of money.

The KPK has stepped up its investigation recently, raiding the central bank earlier this month and seizing documents pertaining to the bailout.

The House says one of the key documents in the case is a power of attorney letter issued in November 2008 in which Boediono instructed three senior BI officials to approve an initial FPJP of Rp 600 billion for the ailing Century.

The power of attorney was issued after Zainal Abidin, BI's director of supervision, sent a letter to Boediono on Oct. 30, 2008, informing him that Century was not eligible to receive the loan facility because its capital adequacy ratio was below the minimum 8 percent.

The KPK has promised to bring the first of the Century suspects to court before the end of the year, saying it was in the process of building up a prosecution against Budi.

It says it is still waiting for a medical evaluation on Siti, who is reportedly partly incapacitated as a result of a stroke. To date, only the former owners of Century have been convicted, but for unrelated banking violations committed before the bank was bailed out.

With decentralized power comes graft

Jakarta Globe - July 22, 2013

Yeremia Sukoyo & Usmin, Jakarta/Bengkulu – The advent of regional autonomy more than a decade ago has given rise to highly corrupt local cabals who have misappropriated Rp 2.2 trillion ($218.5 million) in public funds since 2008, watchdogs say.

Uchok Sky Khadafi, the director of investigations and advocacy at the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), said at a discussion over the weekend that the figure for the state losses was based on a report published by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) about regional funding from 2008 to 2012.

Fitra attributed the losses to 9,312 cases of corruption nationwide during that period, and identified North Sumatra as accounting for the largest amount of misappropriated money, followed by Aceh, West Papua and Jakarta.

Boni Hargens, a political expert at the University of Indonesia, said at the discussion that the figure was not surprising, and argued that one of the major negative impacts of decentralization and regional autonomy was to dilute corruption from the central government and trickle it down to regional authorities.

He added that these local officials often had connections to political parties, businesses, organized crime groups and security forces, and that together they formed a cabal that was responsible for massive levels of corruption.

"These local bosses have formed their own system, a feudal one, in which they control virtually all lines of regional funding," Boni said.

Political corruption, he went on, constituted a large part of this system, under which those in power sought to enrich themselves and their cronies by abusing their position.

"These guys control nearly all the political processes at the local level, from preparations for elections to running the local government," he said.

Karyono Wibowo, a senior researcher at the Indonesian Public Institute, a think tank, said a major factor for the level of corruption in the regions was the high cost of running for and staying in public office.

"It's this high cost that compels elected officials to commit corruption" to recoup their money, he said at the discussion. He added that running for mayor or district head required candidates to spend at least Rp 5 billion, according to estimates by IPI.

"In some areas, the cost can go up to Rp 20 billion or even Rp 50 billion. It all depends on the region's economic potential," Karyono said. Running for governor can cost upward of Rp 100 million, he added.

Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi has acknowledged the problem, revealing earlier this month that 298 governors, district heads and mayors had been jailed since regional autonomy was introduced in 1999.

"Since the start of the reform era, we've seen many regional heads go to jail for a range of crimes," he said in Bengkulu on July 4.

"It always saddens me to hear of such cases. I often wonder what the problem is in our system that we have hundreds of officials getting mired in legal problems and going to jail."

He was speaking at the inauguration of Sultan Najamuddin as the deputy governor of Bengkulu. Sultan's older brother, Agusrin, the former governor, was in January 2012 convicted of corruption and sentenced to four years in prison.

Free convicts

The latest regional head implicated in a criminal case is Rusli Zainal, the governor of Riau, who was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) last month after being named a suspect on three counts of corruption.

Despite his arrest, he remains a public official, with the Home Affairs Ministry saying it cannot suspend or remove him until he is convicted.

Another Sumatran official currently serving time for graft is Syamsul Arifin, the former governor of North Sumatra, who in August 2011 was convicted of embezzling Rp 98.7 billion while serving as the head of the district of Langkat, and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

In the cases of both Agusrin and Syamsul, the convicts enjoyed several months of freedom before they were incarcerated, during which they also retained their official seats.

To date, 149 regional heads have been convicted of corruption, according to Indonesia Corruption Watch.

Adnan Pandu Praja, a deputy chairman of the KPK, expressed concern earlier this month that corruption in Indonesia had become a way of life and considered culturally acceptable.

"We need to build a culture where the whole family feels ashamed to be related to someone who commits graft," he said at a university discussion in Bogor on July 6.

Adnan said his plea was motivated by the fact that the incidence of corruption remained as high as it did when the KPK was formed in 2002.

Resource graft

Donal Fariz, an ICW researcher, said last month that the pattern of regional corruption varied according to each region's natural and mineral resources potential.

In areas rich in such resources, much of the corruption centers on the issuance of concessions for logging, plantations and mining. But in areas with few resources, the embezzlement and misappropriation of the regional budget is the biggest form of corruption.

"Regional corruption really boomed after power was decentralized from Jakarta to the regions, and the flow of money followed," Donal said on June 27.

"The problem has grown progressively worse because regional heads are trying to outspend their challengers during elections, and they're not making that much from their government salary. That's a factor for the high incidence of corruption among regional officials."

ICW says corruption in the natural resources sector is an "unlimited" font of ill-gotten wealth that will only run dry when the precious resources have been completely exhausted.

Tama Satrya Langkun, an ICW researcher, said last month that while other forms of corruption, such as embezzling funds from regional budgets, could realistically be ended, this was not true of resource-related graft in the forestry and mining sectors.

"The embezzlement of regional budgets can be tackled, I'm sure of that. When the money runs out, the corruption ends," Tama said on June 16. "But with natural resources, it doesn't end until the resources have run out, which is what makes it an essentially unlimited form of corruption."

He cited claims by activists that losses from corruption in the forestry sector had boomed from Rp 7 billion in 2003 to Rp 273 trillion in 2011.

The claims were first made last month by a group calling itself the Anti- Forestry Mafia Coalition, and which includes ICW, based on data published last year by the Forestry Ministry.

Wilmar Tumpak Hutabarat, a representative for the coalition, said the figure of Rp 273 trillion stemmed from possible irregularities or infractions in the issuance of permits for 727 plantations and 1,722 mining sites in just seven provinces.

Wilmar said the biggest potential losses were recorded in Central Kalimantan, at Rp 158 trillion, followed by West Kalimantan at Rp 47.5 trillion, East Kalimantan at Rp 31.5 trillion and South Kalimantan at Rp 9.6 trillion.

He added that a separate estimate by the KPK had pegged the combined potential losses from corruption in the forestry sector in those four provinces at no less than Rp 15.9 trillion a year.

The coalition has submitted its claim about the losses to the KPK, demanding a thorough investigation into all forms of corruption in the forestry, plantations and mining sectors.

Tama said the coalition had linked a spike in the number of suspect concessions being approved to the run-up for elections, and warned that there could be another surge in forestry-related corruption ahead of the legislative and presidential elections next year.

"In 2009, which was an election year, there was a more than 200 percent increase in the number of permits issued for coal mining and plantation operations," he said.

"That's something we have to keep an eye on, because it seems that national political developments can open the door to companies to plunder the country's natural resources."

Hambalang just the start of Anas corruption allegations: KPK chief

Jakarta Globe - July 21, 2013

SP/Novianti Setuningsih – Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators' probe into graft allegations levied against disgraced Democratic Party chair Anas Urbaningrum has only scratched the surface with the Hambalang sports center case, Indonesia's antigraft chief said.

"There are many more," KPK chief Abraham Samad said. "But we can't say in detail yet, because we're still investigating these [allegations]."

The KPK confirmed rumors that Anas may have been involved in several other corruption scandals linked to the Democratic Party, including a graft- plagued solar power plant project and the Ministry of Education and Culture's contract to purchase laboratory equipment for schools.

Both projects allegedly involved the politically connected companies Anugrah Group and Permai Group, two businesses with reported ties to Anas and graft convict Muhammad Nazaruddin. The companies were successful in securing numerous government contracts, many of which were later alleged to be rife with kickbacks and inflated budgets.

The Hambalang case alone reportedly cost the state some Rp 243 billion ($24.3 million) in losses.

Both cases have already resulted in prison terms for Nazaruddin's wife Neneng Sri Wahyuni and former Democratic Party deputy secretary-general Angelina Sondakh.

Anas has been named a suspect for reportedly receiving a Rp 100 billion kickback on the Hambalang construction contract. He allegedly used the funds to buy the votes of Democratic Party members in his 2010 bid for party chairman.

He resigned from the scandal-plagued party after being charged by the KPK. The antigraft agency has recently said that Anas will be placed behind bars in a KPK detention center following Idul Fitri.

Updated study shows massive losses from Indonesia's forestry graft

Jakarta Globe - July 16, 2013

Suzannah Beiner – Mismanagement and corruption has cost Indonesia's forestry industry an estimated US$7 billion in lost revenue between 2007 and 2011, according to a Human Rights Watch report released on Monday.

The report, an update of the 2009 HRW report "Wild Money," highlights the disconnect between the country's revamped forestry policies and uncontrolled forest fires, causing harmful smog in Indonesia and neighboring countries.

Indonesia's most recent forestry reforms have been hailed as a part of the government's commitment to a sustainable "green growth" model. However, new laws have been criticized for not being tough enough on the very violations they are supposed to deter.

The House of Representative's approval last Tuesday of the Law on Preventing and Eradicating Forest Destruction, an amendment to the 1999 law, was the latest of such measures. The new law notably focuses on large-scale, systematic destruction to forests.

HRW called the steps "manifestly inadequate" in addressing undocumented logging and illegally set fires.

"The return of the smog is only the most tangible evidence of the damage from Indonesia's continuing failure to effectively manage its forests," HRW deputy program director Joe Saunders said.

Less readily evident but equally damaging to the government's claim of pursuing a "green growth" model, are records of a very red budget. HRW places the loss in revenue for 2011 alone at more than $2 billion, a figure greater than Indonesia's entire health budget for the year.

Additionally, the new report details the government's lack of transparency concerning forestry practices.

The government has imposed stricter limitations on information accessible to independent organizations.

This has particularly affected government and environmental watchdog organizations. The most-recently passed laws affecting the activities of nongovernmental groups include tighter definitions of legally permissible activities, restricted access to foreign funding and the government's ability to disband groups posing a threat to the "national interest."

Forest communities have perhaps been the hardest hit by the government's practices.

Forest communities have constitutionally recognized rights to use surrounding land or receive compensation upon their destruction. But a new certification system may not honor those rights because the system itself fails to determine whether the timber harvested is collected in violation of communities' rights.

The government's failure to address compensatory issues has led to land disputes between villagers and palm oil companies. The limited land available for palm oil companies' expansion has led to an increase in violence.

In 2011, a land dispute erupted into a violent clash leaving two farmers and seven palm oil employees dead after the villagers' complaints went unresolved in the Mesuji sub-district of South Sumatra. The increase in conflict has created an increased military presence to handle disputes.

"The Indonesian government has been selling the expansion of its forestry sector as an example of sustainable 'green growth' and an antidote to climate change and poverty, but the evidence suggests otherwise," Saunders said.

Hard-line groups & Ormas bill

Police arrest FPI hard-liners after Makassar Ramadan raid

Jakarta Globe - July 23, 2013

Farouk Arnaz – A man wearing a black mask and a white vest emblazoned with the logo of the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) stormed through the door of a small shop serving beer in Makassar, South Sulawesi, angrily pointing around the room before stepping back outside.

Moments later the scene turned violent as members of Indonesia's self- appointed morality police wrecked the shop, swinging clubs at shelves and flipping tables in a vigilante raid on an establishment accused of breaking a Ramadan regulation banning the sale of alcohol. Less than six minutes later, the shop is in shambles.

The raid, which was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube, caught the attention of the South Sulawesi Police which, under the direction of the National Police, arrested three of the men allegedly involved in the attack.

"We have identified three people, they are Emir Faisal, Azwar Anas, and Amiruddin Faruk, and they have been named as suspects" National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Ronny F. Sompie said on Tuesday.

None of the men had been detained. They each face up to five and a half years in prison under Indonesia's Criminal Code. Police estimated that some 50 members of the Makassar chapter of the FPI were involved in the raid.

The National Police have urged all mass organizations to report violations to law enforcement instead of taking matters into their own hands. "Inform the police if any establishment or business is committing a violation," Ronny said. "Please do not act like a vigilante."

The video-taped raid is the second high-profile incident involving the hard-line organization since the start of Ramadan.

On Thursday, some 48 hard-liners attempted to raid several "entertainment" establishments in Sukorejo, Central Java. The FPI damaged several businesses before local residents turned on the hard-liners.

As the FPI members attempted the flee the scene, one vehicle ran down a couple on a motorbike, injuring the husband and killing his wife.

The violent raid inspired outcry from the public prompting a senior lawmaker with the Democratic Party pushed for the government to disband the unruly group and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to issue a warning to groups accused of committing religious-motivated violence.

The FPI's chief Habib Riziq Shihab responded by denying blame for the death. He later called Yudhoyono a "loser" and a "disgrace to Islamic teachings.

Deriding calls for ban, FPI calls SBY 'loser'

Jakarta Post - July 23, 2013

Yuliasri Perdani and Suherdjoko, Jakarta/Semarang – A day after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged zero tolerance against vigilante groups, calls are again mounting for the government to take action on the hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI).

Members of the public, ranging from prominent local clerics to young netizens, deplored the clash between members of FPI Temanggung branch and locals of Sukorejo in Kendal that killed a resident and injured three others. The riot broke out following the FPI's attempts to conduct a sweep in the village's red-light area last Thursday.

Dozens of preachers in Central Java concerned that the repressive actions shown by the FPI would give Islam a bad name. "Why did an organization conduct acts of anarchy in the name of Islam? Does the group really understand sharia?" Nasir Azhari, the leader of Mashitoh Islamic boarding in Salatiga, said during a meeting with Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Dwi Priyatno in Semarang on Monday.

While preachers delivered their views to police officials the tech-savvy generation opted to amass support for the FPI's disbandment through social sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Indonesian online activism platform, Change.org.

Valerie Esmeralda, a 16-year-old student from Jakarta, invited her Twitter followers to sign a petition on Change.org, titled "Presiden Indonesia - Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: Bubarkan FPI Segera!" (President: Dissolve the FPI Immediately!)

"Disband FPI. SIGN. THIS. NOW." Valerie Esmeralda said while sharing the petition link on her account @valesmeralda.

In the wake of the clash in Kendal, the president said that he would not tolerate anyone who took the law into their own hands. "My position is very clear, we will not tolerate anyone who conducts acts of violence," he said on Sunday in Jakarta.

The president instructed the National Police to maintain security following the fatal clash in Kendal. "I instructed the National Police and other law enforcement bodies not to let such incidents happen again. The law must be upheld to prevent any horizontal conflict, and to prevent any element, including the FPI, from committing acts of violence," he said.

Dismayed by the statement, FPI chairman Habib Rizieq issued a press statement on Monday, calling Yudhoyono "a loser who spread slanderous statements and stayed tight-lipped about maksiat [immoral practices]".

"In Kendal, the FPI did not conduct a sweep, but only a peaceful monitoring without bringing any weapons. In fact, hundreds of brothel thugs conducted a sweep to us," he said on the group's website, www.fpi.or.id

Habib Rizieq added that the FPI chapter Temanggung had communicated the sweep to Kendal Police Precinct. "Why did SBY talk about the FPI, but was silent over armed brothel thugs and the red light district that operates all day long during Ramadhan?" he said.

Members of the House of Representatives have urged the Home Ministry to hand down sanctions against the FPI by utilizing the newly-enacted Mass Organization Law. The law states that any mass organizations, which have repeatedly created social unrest, could be subject to sanctions, ranging from warnings to permanent disbandment.

The Central Java Police have arrested seven suspects in connection with the clash, consisting of three FPI members and four Sukorejo locals.

However, FPI advocacy division chief Zaenal Abidin Petir argued that a suspect, who ran over residents with an Avanza car, might be a FPI supporter, not its member. The car crash killed a 42-year-old resident, Tri Muniarti, and injured three others, including Tri's husband.

Kendal residents rally for FPI disbandment

Jakarta Post - July 23, 2013

Jakarta – Dozens of people grouped under a group known as Kendal Community Solidarity for the victims of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) violence, staged a mass rally on Tuesday demanding the FPI to disband, as they deemed the Islamic hard-line group to have acted arrogantly as vigilantes.

The group asked the police to arrest FPI Central Java branch representative Sihabudin and bring him to trial for committing a series of violent acts.

Rally coordinator Erwin Pasule then cited the latest clash between the FPI and Sukorejo residents and said the FPI's charge that the clash had been orchestrated by local hoodlums was untrue.

"Those who were involved in the clash were local residents who had had enough of the FPI's violence," he said as quoted by kompas.com.(fan/dic)

FPI eschews responsibility for fatal Central Java raid

Jakarta Globe - July 22, 2013

Ezra Sihite & Carlos Paath – The government should use a recently-passed law on mass organizations to disband the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front, known as the FPI, if it continues to conduct acts of public violence, a senior politician from the Democratic Party said.

"If the FPI acts this way, they have to be disbanded. There is no need for hesitation from the police with the ratification of the mass organization bill, [which can be] linked to our criminal law. Those involved should be punished severely," Ruhut Sitompul said in Jakarta on Friday.

His comments came shortly after the forceful closure on Wednesday by the Islamic organization of an entertainment establishment in Sukorejo, Central Java. The raid turned violent amid protests by local residents.

On Thursday, a Toyota Avanza whose occupants included FPI activists fleeing from hundreds of angry Sukorejo residents, hit and killed a woman, Tri Munarti. At the time of the incident Tri was riding a motorcycle with her husband Yulianto, who survived the crash.

The FPI activists were reportedly on their way back to Sukorejo to pick up two activists who had been detained by local police in the previous day's riot. The incident garnered considerable public attention, especially after an amateur video of it circulated on the internet over the weekend.

Responding to the claims, FPI chief Munarman called Ruhut a "broken TV" which should be ignored. "Just pretend he is a broken TV, without sound or picture," he said. "He is loud, but does no work other than currying favor with higher-ups."

In response to the incident, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Sunday said he would not tolerate the acts of violence that occurred on Thursday. "My position is very clear, we will not give any form of tolerance," the president said in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, on Sunday, as quoted by Detik.com.

He commended the actions taken by police during the incident, which he said had prevented further violence from breaking out.

"Thank God the violence did not expand further. I have instructed the National Police not to allow such incidents to happen. This has to be prevented so that no other entities, including FPI [do this]." Yudhoyono also called on the public to remain calm.

FPI's Yogyakarta head, Bambang Tedi, has denied that the driver of the car was an FPI member. "We would like to confirm that the "deadly driver" in Sukorejo, Kendal, is not an FPI member but instead a driver for a car rented by FPI's Magelang branch," he said on Sunday, as quoted by Antaranews.

He also sought to distance the organization from the vehicle. "The car also does not belong to the FPI. So we hope the public understands the facts, that the individual who killed the victim is not an FPI member."

Bambang said he understood the public's anger over the accident, which saw the car burned after the crash. As many as seven other cars were also reportedly burned in the chaos.

Bambang refused to concede the fact that other cars at the scene were burned. "We can understand if the Avanza was burned [by the public]. But for the seven other cars belonging to our members, we cannot accept that. We hope the police would investigate that."

A politician from the Prosperous Justice Party said the FPI may have had a religious reason for conducting such a raid but suggested that the group went about it wrongly.

"The FPI has a religious justification, but it should be remembered that efforts to uphold righteousness should also be conducted with righteousness. [But] this does not mean the PKS stands against the FPI, do not cut this [statement]," chief of PKS' public relations Mardani Ali Sera said on Friday.

Mardani suggested that the government engage FPI, offer them guidance and seek to cooperate as partners in their efforts to eradicate immorality in the country.

"There should be communications between the people. They should work together. Maybe the FPI simply wanted to eliminate immorality which failed to respect the holiness of Ramadan," he said, without elaborating what type of immorality was meant.

"But the public is unaware [of the group's intentions] and may reject them. The lesson from this incident is to communicate and establish a partnership to strengthen Islamic relations."

Former vice president Jusuf Kalla expressed his disappointment over the Sukorejo incident and called on police to be vigilant in the interim before the new law on mass organizations takes effect.

"The law has yet to come into effect, but we should not conduct raids on just anything. The police should be the first, the police should not be late," Kalla said on Friday. "The police have to punish whoever is guilty, be it mass organizations or anyone else."

Deding Ishak, the deputy chief of the Mass Organization Bill task force said on Friday that the policy will take effect only after having been signed by President Yudhoyono or 30 days after having been ratified by the parliament. "Let us push the president to immediately [sign this bill]," Deding said as quoted by Tempo.co.

Lawmakers urge government to ban FPI

Jakarta Post - July 22, 2013

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – Members of the House of Representatives have called on the government to take action against the hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI) following last week's clash between its members and residents of Sukorejo, Kendal, Central Java, which left a local woman dead.

The lawmakers said the decision was in the hands of the Home Ministry. The ministry is responsible for managing the country's mass organizations and has authority under the newly-enacted Law on mass organization to take action against the FPI to prevent more violence.

"The FPI has clearly violated stipulations in the law on mass organizations by committing violence. The government should take firm action against the organization, by implementing an immediate suspension," lawmaker Abdul Malik Haramain, who chaired a special committee tasked with deliberating the Mass Organization Law at the House of Representatives, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

The National Awakening Party (PKB) politician emphasized that such a punishment was urgent in order to "prevent members of the FPI committing further violent acts against locals".

Tri Muniarti, 42, a resident of Sukorejo, died after a car driven by members of the FPI hit her and several other people, including her husband, during a riot following FPI attempts to conduct a sweep in the village's red-light area last Thursday.

Tri sustained severe head injuries and was pronounced dead upon arrival at Ngesti Waluyo Hospital in Parakan. Three other residents sustained fractures and bruises.

The Mass Organization Law, which was endorsed in June, amid widespread criticism for its undermining of freedom of association, mandates the government to temporarily halt the operations of any groups that, among other things, fail to preserve peace and public order, as well as groups that attempt to take the law into their own hands.

However, Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi said that the government could only act if it received recommendations from members of the public or the National Police, a stance lawmakers dismissed as "unacceptable".

"The law says nothing about such requirements," Haramain said. "The law stipulates that the government can issue warning letters to problematic organizations and can temporarily halt their operations if they fail to respond to the warnings."

Separately, Eva Kusuma Sundari from the House's Commission III overseeing law and human rights concurred with Haramain, saying that "the government's reluctance to punish the FPI for what happened in Kendal shows that it is afraid of the radical group".

According to Eva, a politician from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the government and the police do not need any more reasons to punish groups such as the FPI, which has repeatedly committed violence and illegally imposed its will on the public.

"It's crystal clear to me that the government has never had the commitment to punish vigilante groups, such as the FPI. It's unreasonable for the government to wait for recommendations in order to take action against the FPI or any other vigilante groups because it is the institution with the mandated authority."

During the deliberation of the law, the Home Ministry, which initiated it, repeatedly gave assurances that the bill would be responsive to public calls for the disbandment of violent groups such as the FPI.

Prodemocracy activists, however, doubt whether the law will address the problem and have called for a repeal of the draconian legislation.

Activists said that the government's response to the incident in Sukorejo showed that with or without the Mass Organization Law the government would not take action against the FPI.

"It's clear that the government won't deal with the FPI with or without the law," Elga Sarapung from Yogyakarta-based interfaith organization, DIAN/Interfidei, said.

Responding to the critics, Bachtiar, the Home Ministry's mass organization sub directorate head, said the public should not force the ministry to take the responsibility as the authority belonged to the police.

"The police have taken all measures to deal with the incident. It's too much to expect the Home Ministry to take the responsibility, particularly if people use the law [on mass organization] to put pressure on us," Bachtiar said.

FPI spokesman Muchsin Alatas responded disdainfully to the calls from the House for his group's disbandment, saying that the group would suspend their operations if lawmakers enforced the law and stopped being corrupt.

"It's the House that needs suspension because it has imposed a lot of suffering on the people through their corrupt actions," he said.

Police investigate FPI raid on hotel in Mojokerto

Jakarta Globe - July 20, 2013

The hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI)has been reported to police for raiding a hotel in Mojokerto, East Java, on Saturday last week.

"[FPI] suddenly came to the hotel on motorcycles and pick-up trucks, some of them broke into the hotel through the east gate," Sun Palace Hotel employee Andi Faul Mastikan said as quoted by Beritajatim. "They asked the [hotel] manager to take off the stickers on alcoholic drinks."

Andi claimed the activists had told him that "working in a hotel means buying a ticket to hell."

Trowulan police chief Comr. I Putu Mataram confirmed the incident had been reported to police and promised to investigate the matter. It is understood that there was a police presence outside the hotel, but that the FPI were able to circumvent officers.

"We have to get in, it's an immoral place. Don't stand against God's will," one of the protesters shouted at the police during the rally last week as quoted by Detik.

After leaving Sun Palace Hotel, the FPI then raided several cafes and night clubs in the area, forcing some to close for business.

"The conduct of the FPI for sweeping the hotel should be rejected," Andi said. "I reported them to the police for them to be punished. This is a country based on law, they should not take the justice to their own hands."

Andi said that no regulation issued by Mojokerto government prohibited the sale of alcohol. "They conduct the raid in the name of religion, but this is not an Islamic nation," Andi said. "This country has its own law."

FPI could be hit with Ormas Law

Jakarta Post - July 20, 2013

Nadya Natahadibrata and Suherdjoko, Jakarta/Semarang – The hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI) could be subject to sanctions stipulated in the 2013 Mass Organization Law (Ormas), following the clash between its members and residents of Sukorejo, Kendal, Central Java, on Thursday.

As previously reported, a riot broke out in Sukorejo when residents tried to block members of the FPI Temanggung branch who were attempting to conduct a sweep in the village's red light district on account of Ramadhan. One resident was killed, while three others were injured during the clash.

Bachtiar, the Home Ministry's mass organization subdirectorate head, said the newly enacted Ormas Law stated any mass organizations, including the FPI, that had been proven to have repeatedly created social unrest, could be dissolved.

"Any FPI member proven to have triggered the riot or caused the death of one of the residents in Kendal could be subject to criminal charges," Bahtiar said.

"Meanwhile, the organization, as stipulated in Article 61 of the law, could be subject to sanctions imposed in stages, comprising three warnings, temporary disbandment and permanent disbandment," he told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Friday.

However, he said the sanctions could only happen after a long procedure of verification. "The regional administration should first provide guidance to ensure the organization avoids similar activities in the future before imposing sanctions," he said.

"The government has an obligation to guarantee the freedom of assembly and association. The government can't go back to authoritarianism and easily decide to disband an organization without strong grounds," he said.

According to Bachtiar, the bill stipulated that if any persuasive measures by the regional administration failed, the organization could be imposed with warnings.

"Following the third warning, should the organization still take part in activities deemed to be causing social unrest, it can temporarily be frozen, before finally being dissolved," Bachtiar said.

Meanwhile, Kendal Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Asep Jenal Ahmadi said on Friday that the police had detained three FPI members, including the driver of an Avanza car who ran over residents, killing one and injuring three others, during the riot. They have all been named suspects, Antara news agency reported.

The car reportedly crashed into the residents, killing Tri Muniarti, 42, and injuring three others, including Tri's husband.

Tri was dead upon arrival at Ngesti Waluyo Hospital in Parakan, Temanggung, as a result of a head injury. The three other residents reportedly sustained fractures and bruises.

The driver, who has been named a suspect, was identified as Soni Haryono, 38. The two other FPI members, Satrio Yuono, 22, and Agung Wicaksono, were detained for carrying sharp weapons during the sweep.

"We evacuated 28 FPI members using two minibuses last night, except for the three members we detained," Asep said, citing that the police needed further information from the three members.

The latest incident involving the FPI members has renewed calls for its disbandment from politicians as well as netizens, who have long complained about the group's antics, such as conducting raids on nightclubs during Ramadhan.

Eva Kusuma Sundari of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said she supported the calls to disband the FPI. "I hope the Mass Organization Law can be upheld," she said.

Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker Indra, however, said the FPI could not be charged with the newly passed law because the riot had not been instructed by the organization.

"The law can only be imposed on the organization, when in fact the riot in Sukorejo was solely the members' personal responsibility," Indra said.

Pro-democracy activists and several mass organizations have criticized the law for being draconian and called for its repeal.

But many Indonesians, mostly those who are more liberal-minded and living in urban areas, are hoping the law can bring an end to the FPI, which they deem a threat to democracy and the state ideology of Pancasila.

One killed during FPI sweeps in Kendal

Jakarta Post - July 19, 2013

Suherdjoko, Kendal – A riot broke out in Ngrancah village in Sukorejo, Kendal, Central Java, when residents tried to block members of hard-line group the Islam Defenders Front's (FPI) Temanggung branch, who intended to conduct a sweep in the village's red light district on Thursday.

The residents tried to block the FPI members, who reportedly arrived in cars, according to Kendal Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Asep Jenal.

One car intentionally crashed into the residents, killing one resident and injuring three others. Tri Munarti, 42, was dead upon arrival at Ngesti Waluyo hospital in Parakan, Temanggung, as result of a head injury.

The three other residents reportedly sustained fractures and bruises. One of the injured residents was Tri's husband, Eko. The rest of the residents later set fire to a car to express their rage.

Asep said the FPI members started to carry out the sweep on Wednesday and had planned on doing another one on Thursday afternoon. Residents said the FPI Temanggung members had no right to conduct such sweeps in their region.

Police officers and Indonesian Military personnel have beefed up security in the area. "We are currently trying to facilitate a mediation [between the two parties],"said Asep.

As of Thursday evening, Central Java Police were still trying to evacuate the FPI members allegedly involved in the incident. "We have also detained the person who allegedly crashed his car into the residents," Central Java Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Djihartono told The Jakarta Post.

Previously, Central Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Dwi Priyatno called on hard-line groups to not conduct raids during Ramadhan. He suggested that residents report any disturbances to the police instead of handling the issues on their own.

On account of Ramadhan, the authorities issued a regulation calling on entertainment establishments, such as karaoke spots and night clubs, to limit operating hours or to temporary shut down operations in respect of the holy month.

Also on Thursday, the FPI's Central Java branch pledged to not conduct sweeps on entertainment establishments during the fasting month.

"We won't conduct sweeps during Ramadhan as long as the entertainment establishments obey the ruling," said Central Java FPI Deputy head Zainal Abidin in Semarang, as quoted by Antara news agency.

The step, he said, was taken to alter the public's perception of the FPI. Zainal said that FPI would instead maintain communication with the police and report any violations to them. "We want to show people that the FPI is polite but is also tough at the same time," Zainal added.

Meanwhile, FPI spokesman Munarman could not be reached for a comment on the Kendal riot.

Central Java FPI raid leaves one woman dead

Jakarta Globe - July 19, 2013

A woman was killed in Central Java on Thursday after a raid by the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) escalated into a violent confrontation with hundreds of local residents, despite the presence of police officers.

"We have detained 48 members of the FPI who were allegedly involved in the Sukorejo clash," Central Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Dwi Pryatno told the state-run Antara news agency. "They're being questioned at the Kendal police station."

FPI members traveled to Sarem, Sukorejo, on Wednesday afternoon to force the closure of an unknown number of "entertainment venues," damaging numerous buildings in the process, Kompas.com reported.

On arrival, the Islamic hard-liners were met by residents, whose greater number forced the FPI out, injuring two FPI members and destroying two cars.

After taking the two injured men to the police, local residents met with a FPI representative in Temanggung on Wednesday night and demanded the FPI pay for damages. The FPI refused to comply with that request.

The Jakarta Globe has yet to confirm independently the events on Friday afternoon, but Kompas.com reported that 27 FPI members were allowed to return to Sukorejo, accompanied by an unknown number of police officers.

When the 27 arrived at Sukorejo, they were met by hundreds of residents and were forced to flee, with a group of local residents giving chase.

A Toyota Avenza carrying FPI activists then struck a motorcycle carrying Tri Munarti and her husband, Yulianto. Tri was killed. Yulianto survived.

The local residents caught the car after two kilometers. "The [Toyota] was scorched, and the pickup truck was badly damaged," Ellen Cornelis, the deputy chairman of Ansor Kendal, Nahdlatul Ulema's youth wing, told Tempo.co.

Ellen said local residents opposed the FPI members because they were not residents of the subdistrict. "They're from Temanggung and other regions outside Sukorejo," Ellen said.

Afterward, the townspeople surrounded a mosque where around 20 FPI members were praying. Police decided to escort them out and take them to a police station.

Sr. Comr. Djihartono told news portal Liputan 6 that police named three FPI members as suspects, including the man who is alleged to have killed Tri. Central Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Dwi Pryatno said on Thursday night that police have detained 48 FPI members for questioning.

Dwi said that law enforcers previously warned mass organizations in Central Java to not carry out raids that may disturb public order. He added that police officers and soldiers have been stationed to prevent further conflict.

Kendal district police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Asep Jenal Ahmadi told Antara that besides Tri and Suyatmi, five others, including one police officer, were injured in the raid.

FPI Secretary General Awit Masyhuri claimed the man driving the car was on his way to Temanggung to file a police report on the residents who attacked the group while they were conducting their raids on Wednesday.

Freedom of religion & worship

Government says no guarantee for Shia Idul Fitri homecoming

Jakarta Post - July 19, 2013

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – The government has denied making any promises to the displaced Shia community from Sampang, Madura, that they would return home soon.

Speaking after a Cabinet meeting at the State Palace, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto denied that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had promised the ill-fated Shiites that they would be able to return to their home villages by the end of July, in time for Idul Fitri.

"Who said the government guaranteed it? Just stick to what I said during a press conference," Djoko told The Jakarta Post. He was referring to a press conference at the President's office on Monday.

In the conference, Djoko said the government carried out reconciliation processes to mediate the Shiite followers and the conflicting Sunni communities. He also said that the displaced Shiites would have to be permanently relocated to other places in Madura should the reconciliation processes fail and the resistance of locals surrounding the Shiites' home villages persist.

Djoko said that the government's decision to endorse the option to permanently relocate the Shiites had been the result of a meeting between Yudhoyono and five of the displaced Shiites at the President's private residence in Cikeas, West Java, on Sunday night. The minister said he attended the meeting, which was closed to the media.

The claim that the President had made such a promise was made by the Indonesian Ahlul Bait (ABI), the umbrella organization for Shiites in Indonesia, during a press conference on Tuesday.

In the conference, ABI secretary general Ahmad Hidayat said that the President had promised the Shiites that they could return home by the end of July to be able celebrate Idul Fitri with their family members at their home villages in Nangkernang and Blu'uran.

Djoko insisted the President had made such a promise. When asked if the Shiites would eventually celebrate Idul Fitri in their home villages or at the modest apartment in Sidoarjo, East Java, where they were temporarily housed, Djoko only said, "Didn't you remember the government's options I delivered in the press conference?"

Contacted on Thursday, Ahmad Hidayat admitted that Yudhoyono had never made a guarantee that the Shiites could return home by Idul Fitri, even though he admitted that the five cyclists had conveyed their wishes to be able to return home before Yudhoyono.

"The President promised that the government would try to help return the refuges home. He also said that he would be happy if the refugees could celebrate Idul Fitri in their home villages," Hidayat, who had also been present in the Cikeas meeting, told the Post.

He refused to comment over the possibility that the Shia refugees could eventually fail to return to their home villages forever, given the government's option to permanently relocate them to other places in Madura.

"Next week, I will fly to Surabaya [the provincial capital of East Java] to meet with the government-sanctioned reconciliation team led by Sunan Ampel Islamic State Institute [IAIN] rector Abdul A'la. We will talk about the further steps we would take toward this reconciliation," he said.

More than 200 displaced Sampang's Shia followers are currently living in temporary shelter in Sidoarjo, East Java.

Religious conflict not a problem in 'tolerant' Indonesia: Minister

Jakarta Globe - July 18, 2013

Camelia Pasandaran – Indonesia's Religious Affairs Minister, in an apparent attempt to downplay the nation's rising tide of religious intolerance, suggested that inter-faith strife is "human nature" before calling the country "the best... in the world" in terms of religious tolerance.

"I can say that it's a normal part of human nature," Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali told the Indonesian newspaper Kompas. "Humans were created by Allah with traits like anger. But religions have rules on anger that order us to be patient and slow [and] especially not to hurt others."

Indonesia has come under fire from human rights groups and international observers in recent years over the government's reluctance to temper intolerance or address the oppression of religious minorities.

Human Rights Watch, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Setara Institute have all issued recent reports detailing instances of faith-based violence and criticizing local government officials of cowing to pressure from hard-line Islamists.

Suryadharma denied the country had a problem protecting religious minorities, pointing to the fact that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a Muslim, routinely attends celebrations of other religions.

"Now please show me any country like Indonesia," he said. "That's why I said Indonesia is the best country in the world in terms of religious tolerance. Is America like that?"

Religious leaders remained unconvinced. Antonius Benny Susetyo, an interfaith activist who is also executive secretary of the Commission of the Indonesian Bishops Conference, reminded Suryadharma that Indonesia's constitution offers protection to many of the same religious minorities who routinely face persecution.

"The escalating violent conflict using religious symbols is caused by government's inability to put an end to the violence," Antonius told Jakarta Globe on Wednesday.

He said it was the Religious Affairs Ministers job to maintain harmony and unity among Indonesia's diverse religious groups, not choose sides.

The spokesman for the nation's long-oppressed Ahmadiyah community offered harsher words.

"We're not questioning the conflict [itself]," Firdaus Mubarik, spokesman for the Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), said. "It's true that it might happen elsewhere in the world. What we question is where the government stands in regards to the conflict."

While inter-personal religious intolerance is common in most countries, the government's role in recent events is unique, Firdaus said. "Suryadharma's efforts to convert Ahmadis," Firdaus said. "[That] is actually something that wouldn't happen in other countries."

Sampang Shia may never return home

Jakarta Post - July 16, 2013

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has endorsed the decision by the East Java administration to relocate 235 Shiites from Sampang, Madura Island, to Sidaoarjo, a move that will permanently bar members of the community from returning to their home village.

Yudhoyono made the decision in a limited Cabinet meeting that was held to respond to a recent session at the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, which criticized the Indonesian government for its failure to protect the Shia community.

The meeting resulted in an option to permanently relocate the Shia followers, citing that efforts to help return them to their home villages could face resistance from local residents.

"There are two options. The first is to return them to where they belong. This is possible only if the local residents do not show resistance. Otherwise, the government would relocate them to some other places in Madura," Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto said at a press conference after the meeting on Monday.

Djoko said that returning the Shiites to their home villages would be the best solution but it would be impossible to do.

The senior minister also said that the government still hoped to return the Shiites and was now working to start a reconciliation project involving the local community.

"The reconciliation process is still underway. A team set up by the East Java provincial administration and led by Sunan Ampel Islamic State Institute [IAIN] rector Abdul A'la will help mediate the conflicting parties," Djoko said.

East Java province secretary Rasiyo, who joined the meeting, said that the team would also comprise local and religious figures, as well as representatives from Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah.

Rasiyo said Yudhoyono did not give a deadline for the team to finish the reconciliation project. "This is a social issue that we can't predict."

The Cabinet meeting has also agreed to earmark funds for development projects on Madura island. Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa said the government had allocated Rp 572.23 billion (US$57.22 million) to help accelerate development in all four regencies on Madura Island, namely Bangkalan, Sampang, Pamekasan and Sumenep.

The funds would be used to construct road, dams, fish farms and irrigation infrastructure.

The Cabinet meeting was held on the heels of a session at the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, last week. A number of Indonesian and international human rights groups raised concerns over the rampant human rights violations in the country.

Other cases scrutinized in the session included the 2004 murder of rights activist Munir, the extra judicial killings in Papua, the 2008 Law on pornography that was deemed discriminatory against women and the LBGT community, the implementation of sharia law in Aceh and attacks on Ahmadiyah followers, churches as well as on a gay film festival.

The activists said that the government, under Yudhoyono, who just received the World Statesman award from New York-based interfaith organization the Appeal of Conscience Foundation (ACF), failed to comply with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Djoko denied the meeting was held because of the UN's review. "It's a regular meeting," he said.

The 235 displaced Shiites from 69 families are now temporarily housed in a modest apartment building in Sidoarjo, East Java. Previously, they had been sheltered at the Sampang sports hall for 10 months, following a deadly clash with the Sunni community.

Last month, 10 displaced Shiites cycled to Jakarta to meet with Yudhoyono to air their grievance. They were disappointed with their failure to meet Yudhoyono and that their two-week journey was for nothing.

"You as the head of state are responsible for our plight. But when we came to State Palace you did not want to meet us," the Shiites said in an open letter to Yudhoyono that was made available to The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Agriculture & food security

Failure of self-sufficiency program in sight

Jakarta Post - July 23, 2013

Anggi M. Lubis, Jakarta – With less than one year left for the government to achieve self-sufficiency by 2014, failure is already in sight. But, the government has decided to continue the program that was formulated in 2010.

The government has targeted to reach self-sufficiency in five commodities, namely rice, beef, soya beans, corn and sugar. By 2014, the country is expected to be able to meet 90 percent of domestic needs from local production.

The recent import of beef to supply the growing demand during the holy fasting month, however, signals failure. The government has blamed this situation on declining land availability, rising demands and low productivity.

Agriculture Minister Suswono has even expressed his pessimism about the ambitious program. "Rather than annulling the program and achieving nothing, we choose to go on and optimize anything we can before meeting the deadline next year," Suswono recently told members of the House of Representatives' Commission IV overseeing agriculture when asked about the slow progress of the program.

In another occasion, Suswono said he was not sure whether or not the government would continue the program, saying that he would wait for the next agricultural census from the Central Statistic Agency (BPS) late this year to see whether the target was feasible or not.

The government has recently authorized the additional import of 3,000 tons of frozen beef and 25,000 live cattle to cope with rising demand and to stabilize hiking prices during the Ramadhan fasting month and the Idul Fitri holiday.

It also plans to remove import quotas for beef and live cattle to stabilize domestic prices and curb inflation, despite previously insisting on import limits to spur local production. It curbed imports and reduced its import quota for live cattle by more than 30 percent last year and another 30 percent this year. In addition, it cut the beef import quota by almost 60 percent last year – only to import an additional 7,000 tons of beef in mid-year – and by 6 percent this year.

It has set a total live cattle import allocation of 267,000 for this year, with a beef import quota of 32,000 tons, 20 percent of which are prime cuts.

The price of beef doubled to Rp 80,000 (US$7.90) per kilogram during Idul Fitri last year due to the lack of supply, and the price has continued to rise to Rp 120,000 in this year's fasting month, further showing the government's miscalculation of local demand.

Producers are also pessimistic that the self-reliance in staple foods can actually be achieved by next year.

"By authorizing more imports, the government has admitted that self- sufficiency in beef is unlikely. With the government trying to keep the price down, cow breeding is no longer interesting for farmers," Indonesian Cow and Buffalo Breeders Association (PPSKI) chairman Teguh Boediyana said.

Beef is not the only commodity plagued with low productivity and rising demand.

Data from the Agriculture Ministry shows that Indonesia imported 780,000 tons of corn in the first quarter of this year, a 200 percent increase compared to the 260,000 tons imported during the same period last year.

The Indonesia Animal Feed Producers Association (GPMTI) has predicted that Indonesia, due to the growing demand for animal feed, would import 2.8 million tons of corn this year, up by 64.7 percent compared to last year's imports of 1.7 million tons.

Data from BPS shows that consumption of grain increased by an average 8 percent each year between 2000 and 2012, while corn yields increased on average by only 6 percent and corn per planted hectare increased by only 1 percent per annum.

For sugar and soybean, having no additional hectares is the biggest obstacle in reaching the target.

The government has revised this year's sugar production target, down 42.45 percent from the previous 4.9 million tons to 2.82 million tons. The target for the 2014 production has also been slashed by 45.61 percent from the previous 5.7 million tons to 3.1 million tons.

Suswono said several programs – including adding 350,000 hectares of sugarcane plantation and revitalization of old facilities – was not running as planned, making it impossible to reach the target.

Finding new land is not as easy as it seems, until now no additional hectares had been added to cultivate sugarcane, he admitted.

The same goes with soybeans, as the government has planned to add 500,000 hectares to achieve the target of producing 2.7 million tons to meet domestic supply, but up to now no new land has been acquired. The government has slashed nearly half of its 2012 soya bean production target from the previous 1.9 million tons to 1 million tons, and further cut its 2013 target from 2.25 million tons to 1.5 million tons.

University of Lampung agricultural economist Bustanul Arifin says that the self-sufficiency target had been far off target from the start. "What the government has to think through is food security, how everyone can have access to food whether through domestic production or through imports when necessary."

Armed forces & defense

More than 8 people tortured Heru Santoso at Hugo's Cafe: Witness

Jakarta Post - July 23, 2013

Bambang Muryanto, Yogyakarta – A former bouncer at Hugo's Cafe, Joko Kurniawan, said there were more than four people involved in the assault and murder of chief Sgt. Heru Santoso, a member of the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) Group 2.

The incident was part of the motives that triggered the attack by Kopassus members against four detainees entrusted by the Yogyakarta Police at the Cebongan Penitentiary in Sleman, Yogyakarta, in March.

"I don't know how many but there were more than eight assailants," Joko, a mitigating witness in the trial involving second sergeants Ucok Tigor Simbolon and Sugeng Sumaryanto and First Cpl. Kodik, told the II-11 Yogyakarta Military Court on Monday.

The Yogyakarta Police, however, have only arrested four suspects in the murder case which took place in the early hours of March 19. The four suspects were shot and killed by Ucok, assisted by his colleagues.

The suspects were Hendrik Angel Sahetapi (Deki), Yohanes Juan Mambait (Juan), Gameliel Yermianto Rohi Riwu (Adi) and Adrianus Candra Galaja (Dedi).

"This is a state of law, but why have Deki's friends yet to be caught [by police]," said military prosecutor Lt. Col. Budiharto.

Joko said Deki and his friends had always patronized Hugo's Cafe in a group of at least 10 people. In a week, the group could come to the cafe for up to four times, he added.

Joko said they often cause commotions, such as breaking glasses and bottles. The group also wished to become security guards at the cafe but was turned down.

"When the incident occurred, I saw the group was in an argument with Heru after they knocked shoulders. I then held Deki, and a brawl ensued, but I was unclear who was involved. Someone from Dedi's right handed a bottle to Deki which he used to hit Heru's head," said Joko.

Joko and another security guard were not able to separate them because more of Deki's friends arrived and joined the brawl by hitting, trampling and throwing glasses and bottles at the victim. Deki then stabbed Heru's chest.

Heru came to the cafe with two of his friends who did not help him in the fight. The identities of the two men were still unknown.

Joko said when the incident took place, the cafe's operation permit was still on trial as a murder case had occurred two months earlier. Officers from the East Depok Police were still securing the front of the cafe when the incident occurred.

"To me, Deki's group had committed a heinous murder," said Joko.

Yogyakarta Police spokeswoman Adj. Sr. Comr. Anny Pujiastuti said the witness could say so but the judges would carry out cross examination. She said there were only four people recorded on the cafe's CCTV.

Criminal law expert at Gadjah Mada University Edward Oemar Syarief Hiariej also testified for the second and third dossiers.

Lawyers of the defendants in the second and third dossiers produced Edward to testify whether the defendants could be implicated in the planned murder together with those in the first dossier.

The trial will adjourn on Tuesday to examine defendants in the first and second dossiers followed by examination of evidence.

Ucok admits shooting detainees

Jakarta Post - July 17, 2013

Bambang Muryanto, Bantul, Yogyakarta – Second Sgt. Ucok Tigor Simbolon, one of the 12 defendants in the alleged killings of four detainees at Cebongan Penitentiary in Yogyakarta, has admitted to shoot the detainees when he was presented on Tuesday as a witness in the trial at the II-11 Yogyakarta Military Court.

"I did double tap shots," Ucok told the court, which also tried defendants First Sgt. Tri Juwanto, First Sgt. Anjar Rahmanto, First Sgt. Mathius Roberto P Banani, First Sgt. Suprapto and First Sgt. Sertu Herman Siswoyo.

The five defendants entered the penitentiary when Ucok, one of the three main suspects in the case, killed the four detainees on March 23. Five of them were on guard at the porter room when Ucok did the shootings.

Also presented as witnesses were Second. Sgt. Sugeng Sumaryanto and First Corporal Kodik, the other two main suspects in the case.

There are a total of 12 defendants in the case, who are all members of the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) Group 2 Kandang Menjangan in Kartosuro, Central Java.

Nine of the accused have been charged with masterminding premeditated murder and face the death penalty if found guilty. The other three have been charged with providing assistance and face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

On Tuesday, presiding judge Lt. Col. Faridah Faisal tried to prove if the murders were premeditated or not.

Ucok said he asked the five aforementioned defendants to go to Yogyakarta with him, Sugeng and Kodik to look for Marcel, a suspect in the attack of Kopassus member First Sgt. Sriyono.

He also admitted that upon entering the penitentiary's Blok A5 cell he shouted Deki's name before he finally shot Hendrik Angel Sahetapi (Deki), Yohanes Juan Manbait (Juan) and Adrianus Candra Galaja (Dedi). He insisted of committing the shooting as self defense because someone had attacked him with a crutch.

"But none of the witnesses we examined said they heard a crutch being thrown," the presiding judge said.

Ucok said that he returned to the cell and shot Gameliel Yermianto Rohi Riwu (Adi) to make sure that the three detainees were all dead and later killed Adi because he made a suspicious movement. He used Sugeng's rifle as his own gun was stuck.

Ucok also insisted that he went to the prison to look for Marcel, not to kill Deki. In the previous hearing, Ucok repeatedly said that he went to the prison to ask Deki about Marcel's whereabouts. "If the wardens were willing to call Deki for us then the shootings would never have happened," Ucok said.

With regard to as why they put on masks, Ucok said that they were having exercise on Mt. Lawu which had cold weather, that is why they needed to put on masks.

Separately, Sugeng said he was behind Ucok when entering the prison but denied that he pointed his gun through the door's peep hole. "I have said I am responsible and ready to take the risk," Sugeng said.

The trial was adjourned for July 22 to hear from more witnesses. The defendants' lawyer team leader Lt. Col. Rokhmat said he would present three to four additional witnesses, including First Sgt. Sriyono.

Criminal justice & prison system

Overcrowded and short staffed, Jakarta's jails at risk

Jakarta Globe - July 19, 2013

Bayu Marhaenjati – After two jailbreaks within a week left convicted terrorists and career criminals on the run from over-crowded Medan and Batam jails, the Jakarta government has responded to security concerns by revealing that the capital's detention centers are at least 150 percent overcapacity and face an acute shortage of wardens.

"Currently we are facing serious overcapacity in our prisons, generally by about 150 to 300 percent," the head of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights' regional head, Irsyad Bustaman, said on Thursday. "Ideally, the number of inmates would fall within our capacity."

"Though we have added more wardens and officers each year, the prisons in Salemba and Cipinang are still in need of more," he added.

According to the most recent data, Salemba remand prison was designed for 880 prisoners, but houses 3,472 inmates, while Salemba's jail for convicted criminals has a capacity of 572, but currently holds 1,890 prisoners.

To deal with this situation, Irsyad has announced plans to build new cells in the prisons. Irsyad did not, however, concede that over-capacity prisons were a security threat.

"What is clear is simply the fact that the overload negatively impacts the quality of prison facilities," he said, "from the quantity of food to the drinks service."

With the recent prison break in a North Sumatra and a shortage of wardens and officers in the capital's detention faciliies, Jakarta police plan to preempt any putative prison disturbances by building station houses (Pos Polisi) near prisons to enable a more rapid response.

"We have started construction of station houses in prisons in East Jakarta. The stations are built in front of the prisons to ease communication" Chief of Jakarta Police Insp. Gen. Putut Eko Bayuseno said on Thursday. "So far, the police have done a good job in coordinating with the prisons when signs of a riot start to arise. This partnership between both parties has been going on for a long time."

Adds Irsyad, "From the beginning both parties have worked together well, and today we are simply sharpening and enhancing our plans."

In addition, the National Police will also evaluate the need for increased 24-hour police presence stationed near the prison areas.

"There will be 24-hour patrols, but they will not be stationed for 24 hours in a single spot. The policemen have a duty to serve the community in other ways," Police Chief, General Timur Pradopo said on Thursday.

"What we will evaluate is whether or not the police need to be stationed in one place to ensure safety, instead of patrolling and moving around the area – that's what's being evaluated."

Foreign affairs & trade

RI to end beef, live cattle import quotas

Jakarta Post - July 20, 2013

Linda Yulisman, Headlines – Indonesia will remove import quotas for beef and live cattle to stabilize domestic prices and curb inflation, a trade official says.

The government would set a parity or "normal" price for beef as a benchmark to assess the necessity for imports, Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan said on Friday in Jakarta.

Meat and live imports will be allowed only when domestic beef prices rise by more than 15 percent from the parity price, a move that will still support the local livestock industry, according to Gita.

"The price mechanism as a trigger to import or not to import is very important. But we should first determine the parity price, which should match our aspiration to curb inflation and maintain price stability," Gita told reporters at his office.

The ministry was working on the policy framework, which would be ready in the next two months, he added.

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has seen demand for beef surging rapidly, outpacing the capacity of its domestic livestock industry to meet demand.

To support its target of attaining self-sufficiency in beef by 2014, the government curbed imports and reduced its import quota for live cattle by more than 30 percent last year and another 30 percent this year.

In addition, it cut the beef import quota by almost 60 percent last year and by 6 percent this year.

It has set an overall live cattle import allocation of 267,000 head for this year, with a beef import quota of 32,000 tons, 20 percent of which are prime cuts.

The planned measure will follow on the heels of recent changes in the import arrangements for horticultural products as Indonesia grapples with mounting pressure from trade partners who regard its import procedures as troublesome.

In January, the US lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) as it considered Indonesia's trade measures "restrictive" and Indonesia's "complex web of import licensing requirements" unfairly limited US exports.

The US has advanced to the Dispute Settlement Body of the world trade governing body, which has already set a panel to resolve the issue.

In the meeting of the WTO's Council for Trade in Goods last week, the US reiterated its concerns about "a complex web of opaque trade restrictions in Indonesia affecting agriculture" in addition to energy and consumer goods.

However, Gita refuted speculation that the elimination of the beef and live cattle import quotas was mainly to comply with demands from trade partners, saying that the reform was necessary to reduce domestic prices.

"What we're doing is to improve efficiency and licensing transparency to help address the problems at the WTO," he said.

For the rest of this year, the government would permit the unlimited importation of live cattle for "as long as possible" to attain price stability, Gita said. Earlier on Friday, Australia said Indonesia was boosting live cattle imports from that country by 25,000 head over the next three months, Reuters reported.

The move was aimed at maintaining domestic beef prices at between Rp 75,000 (US$7.40) and Rp 76,000 per kilogram, Gita said. That would be 20 percent lower than the national average price of Rp 93,000 per kilogram.

Economy & investment

Rupiah in longest losing streak in almost a decade

Jakarta Post - July 19, 2013

Satria Sambijantoro, Jakarta – The rupiah extended its losses on Thursday after Bank Indonesia (BI) moderated its market intervention, with the currency declining for the tenth consecutive day, the longest losing streak in almost a decade.

The rupiah dropped 0.2 percent to 10,060 per dollar, prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg show. The 10-day decline was the longest losing streak for the rupiah since January 2004.

The rupiah rate of more than 10,000 to the dollar reflected Indonesia's macroeconomic fundamentals, BI Governor Agus Martowardojo said this week, adding that the central bank would keep supplying dollars to the market to stabilize the currency when necessary.

The recent weakening cycle of the rupiah appeared to be "by design" as BI had intervened too much in the past, a strategy that had eroded its foreign exchange (forex) reserves, according to Manulife Asset Management Indonesia director of investment Alvin Pattisahusiwa.

"The rupiah is now heading into its fair consensus level of around 10,500 to 11,000 per dollar," Alvin said. By the time the rupiah hit that range, it would stabilize with a small possibility of depreciating further, he predicted.

"We think that it [the rupiah range of 10,500 to 11,000 per dollar] will be an attractive entry level for foreigners to buy Indonesian assets again. At the moment, investors are still in wait-and-see mode before entering the market, as they fear that further rupiah weakness could erode the value of their investments," he said.

The rupiah's losing streak was contrary to its emerging-market peers. Other currencies, notably the Brazilian real and Mexican peso, rallied by more than 1 percent against the dollar after US central bank Governor Ben Bernanke said this week that the existing monetary stimulus, which has weakened the greenback, "could be maintained for longer".

The persistent rupiah weakness could trigger a psychological depreciation cycle in the market, which could in turn exert more pressure on the currency, warned Mirza Baig, the head of Asian foreign exchange strategy with BNP Paribas in Singapore.

"The more the currency depreciates, the more the market expects it to depreciate. And the more that happens, the larger premium it demands for holding local currency bonds," Baig wrote in a research note released on Thursday.

The only way for BI to break this vicious circle was through delivering another bold and decisive rate hike, something that the central bank "seems unwilling to do" because it already hiked its key interest rate by 75 basis points to 6.5 percent within a two-month timeframe, he said.

"In fact, it was quite a letdown to hear a BI deputy governor say the 75 basis points [rate hike] was enough," Baig noted, adding the pressure on the rupiah would be greater ahead if there was no further rate hike delivered.

In its attempt to boost dollar liquidity in the local market and stabilize the rupiah, BI held its historic first foreign currency swap auction on Thursday, successfully reaping $600 million from selling forex swaps with tenors of one and six months.

The auction was oversubscribed with incoming bids topping $1.24 billion, which is "evidence of growing market confidence in liquidity conditions in the domestic market, in particular foreign exchange liquidity", BI Deputy Governor Perry Warjiyo said in a statement.

In a forex swap auction, local banks or exporters can lodge their dollars with BI to be retrieved in the agreed timeframe, so that they can hedge against the risks stemming from volatility in the rupiah exchange rate.

Rupiah hits 10,000 as BI caves

Jakarta Post - July 16, 2013

Satria Sambijantoro, Jakarta – Bank Indonesia (BI) has finally relented to intense pressure on the rupiah by allowing it to trade above the psychological threshold of 10,000 per US dollar for the first time in four years.

The rupiah weakened on Monday by 44 basis points to hit 10,024 per dollar, according to the Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate (JISDOR) – a rupiah reference rate that the central bank makes based on prices from local banks – after weeks of strong interventions from the bank.

Deputy Governor Perry Warjiyo said the rupiah at 10,024 per dollar reflected its market value and the fundamental rate based on Indonesia's macroeconomic indicators.

"With the level of rupiah and government bonds yield at the moment, you cannot ask for a better price. Besides, going forward the BI rate has the possibility of going down – not going up – if inflation returns to normal in September," Perry said on Monday in a text message.

The rupiah's fall on Monday was the steepest in a day since the JISDOR was introduced by the central bank on May 20, and was the first time the rupiah rate onshore was quoted at a five-digit level since September 2009.

The central bank had been trying to maintain the rupiah above the psychological threshold at the expense of its foreign exchange (forex) reserves that had depleted by a staggering $7 billion in June to touch $98.1 billion, the lowest level since February 2011.

"It looks like Bank Indonesia is finally acknowledging it does not make sense to hold the rupiah below 10,000, given the eroding effect it has on its reserves," Khoon Goh, a senior currency strategist with ANZ Bank in Singapore, said via email on Monday.

BI is seen as reluctant to prevent the rupiah from breaching the 10,000 barrier, opting to intervene heavily in the market to shield the rupiah, which has faced intense pressure from huge capital outflows in Southeast Asia.

In 2013, the rupiah posted the smallest decline against the dollar among the ASEAN currencies based on onshore spot rates, according to data from ANZ Bank. The rupiah's 2.1 percent fall was relatively low, compared to the Malaysian ringgit (4.5 percent) or the Philippines peso (6 percent), Goh noted.

"Intervening for smooth currency moves is one thing. Steadfastly defending a level in the currency is incompatible with macroeconomic fundamentals and is not the best use of foreign exchange reserves," he said.

However, the rupiah could still strengthen in the coming quarters, thanks to the likely improvement in exports and the implementation of the fuel price hike, both of which will help narrow Indonesia's current account deficit, according to Suriyanto Chang, the head of the treasury with Bank QNB Kesawan.

Concerns that the US central bank would taper its stimulus had emanated way too early, with the dollar expected to remain on a bearish trend going forward, he said.

Suriyanto also believed that concerns over the weakening rupiah and depleting forex reserves were overstretched.

"Back in 2008, we already experienced the moment when our rupiah was hovering at 12,000 per dollar while our forex reserves were only around $50 billion," he said on Monday. "The rupiah, however, managed to strengthen at that time."

This year, BI became the first Asian central bank to hike interest rates in response to the weakening rupiah, as well as the likely spike in inflation stemming from the fuel price hike.

Newly appointed BI Governor Agus Martowardojo jacked up the BI rate by a consecutive 75 basis points in his first two monetary meetings since he took office in May.

Analysis & opinion

Big prison, little prison

Inside Indonesia - July-September 2013

Ap Inyerop – Otto is sitting in his cell in Abepura prison. It is early evening, and he is drinking coffee and discussing politics with his cellmates. None of them have much energy as the prison diet of low-grade rice and stewed leaves is poor. Otto is reading a book about social change, which has been smuggled in by friends. Books are treated with great suspicion by prison authorities and are hard to come by inside, so this one is cherished. He is beginning it for the third time, hoping to find some hint of a way out, not just of the 'little prison' in which he finds himself, but also of the 'big prison', which is how many Papuans now view their homeland. Otto and his friends are not robbers or murderers; they are political leaders who have peacefully challenged the Indonesian government.

Despite being imprisoned, beaten and sometimes subject to solitary confinement, they are among the lucky ones. During the last year, other political detainees in Papua have been blindfolded, beaten, gagged, threatened with death and subjected to electric shocks. Papua's political prisoners have lost teeth, eyes, limbs and lives to Indonesian law enforcers, to say nothing of their rights, their dignity, and sometimes their sanity. While Papua's political prisoners share many common experiences, they are individuals from different backgrounds, each with their own story. It is through these stories that we can start to understand what Papua's political prisoners mean when they talk about the 'big prison' and 'little prison' – and the bitter irony that, in Papua, by asking for freedom, you lose it.

A piece of cloth

Many of Papua's political prisoners have been arrested for raising, carrying or displaying the Morning Star flag. This cheerful piece of cloth with its bright blue, white and red colours is a symbol of Papuan identity. It is raised by Papuans as an affirmation of their identity and a rejection of Indonesia – both its presence in Papua, and the violent way it has controlled the territory.

While the symbolic significance of the flag is clear, its legal status is more ambiguous. Although the symbol is allowed under Papua's Special Autonomy laws, it is forbidden under Government Regulation No. 77/2007, which prohibits the display of the Morning Star symbol in Papua, the South Maluku Republic flag in Ambon and the Crescent Moon flag in Aceh.

Local police and prosecutors are not interested in untangling the nuances in these regulations. For them, displaying the Morning Star symbol on a flag, t-shirt, bag, mobile phone case or even a cake is an act of treason, making the person in possession liable to arrest and – if the crime of treason is proved – imprisonment for up to fifteen years.

The revolving door

Yusak is a 'revolving door' political prisoner. He has been arrested on political charges several times. First convicted for raising the Morning Star flag almost ten years ago, Yusak found imprisonment an intensely isolating experience. Human rights workers and lawyers say that the years in prison took a toll on his mental health. When he was offered clemency after a number of years, the other prisoners advised him to accept it. It was a difficult decision, as it meant signing loyalty statements which went against his deepest values, but he did so and was released.

But Yusak still did not feel free. Like many other former prisoners, he reported being watched and followed by intelligence agents. The years in prison have also made him hesitant to put his freedom on the line again. In turn this lead to isolation from his own community. As he explained in an interview: 'The community want me to step forward and they're angry that I won't.'

Yusak has instead concentrated on humanitarian activities. It was at a street action to collect money for sick political prisoners in July last year that he came in contact with the criminal justice system again. Yusak and 14 others were arrested by the police who claimed they did not have the necessary permits for their activities. That time he was released without charges, but not long after he was arrested once again at the trial of Buchtar Tabuni, another political prisoner.

Like many political trials, Tabuni's trial was based on contentious charges. He was ostensibly arrested in connection with serious violent crimes, but was then charged for his alleged role in a prison riot which had occurred several years earlier. Becoming annoyed during Tabuni's trial, Yusak kicked a bin and caused betel nut juice to spill onto the clothes of a court official. Having searched him and discovered a penknife in his pocket, police charged him with possession of a weapon. This new 'crime' attracted another seven-month sentence.

For Yusak, the message from the dizzying range of intelligence agencies, security forces and government authorities in Papua is clear. Whichever side of the prison bars he is on, he is not free.

A bitter lesson

The events leading to Meki's imprisonment also began with a Morning Star flag. In 2010, Meki and his friends were on their way to a funeral in Yalengga in Papua's central highlands. The group were not activists, but subsistence farmers, who had been asked to bring the flag so it could be buried beside their deceased relative in accordance with his political beliefs.

A group of soldiers who were passing through the area saw the farmers and stopped them, forcing them to undress and lie face down. They were then tortured for several hours, before being delivered to a police station. At trial the men were defended by a government lawyer with the assistance of a trainee human rights lawyer. They both had to be flown in from the provincial capital at great expense because there are no lawyers in Wamena. But even with this representation the men were sentenced to eight years' imprisonment for carrying the flag. They had no money to pay for an appeal within the two-week application period, and their subsequent requests for clemency have been ignored.

Political cases represented by government lawyers are punished harshly, with the involvement of qualified human rights lawyers being essential for any hope of a lighter sentence or acquittal. But to involve human rights lawyers in cases outside the provincial capital of Jayapura involves huge sums for flights and accommodation. These sums are sometimes scraped together by the family, community and from the lawyers' own pockets. But more often than not the money cannot be found. Some prisoners do not even receive a government lawyer, and are left to defend the case themselves.

Some of the men arrested alongside Meki have since escaped. But four remain in Wamena prison. As they did not consider themselves to be political activists – and were not recognised as such within the West Papuan community – few people have heard of their arrest. While sympathisers often supplement the meagre official food allowance received by political activists, Meki and his friends receive no support, and don't know whether they will eat from one day to the next. Their families are poor and live far away in the mountains, so are seldom able to visit. One of the men has been abandoned by his wife, and the others worry about the fate of their young children.

The men may not have been politicised before their arrest, but the years in gaol are teaching them a bitter lesson about the justice they can expect under Indonesian rule.

Cat and mouse

Unlike Meki and his friends, Ismael received a good education and is highly politicised. In 2008, he was involved in the early days of the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), a youth movement pushing for a referendum on Papua's political status. Arrested for his involvement in a peaceful demonstration, he was convicted of incitement to violence and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. After only one year in gaol, an administrative oversight by prison authorities meant his detention was no longer authorised and Ismael had to be released. But when he tried to leave Papua to attend human rights training overseas, he was arrested again and imprisoned to serve the remainder of his sentence.

This is typical of the cat and mouse game which police often play with Papuan activists. When Ismael was finally released again, he too reported harassment and surveillance by intelligence agents. He eventually fled to the jungle, where he appeared to become more radical, occasionally releasing statements on behalf of armed rebels. The next time he wanted to leave the country he did so by fleeing across the PNG border.

Ismael's experiences with the law only made him more determined to continue his activities. 'We can't give up, we're committed,' he says. He believes that education is the first line of defence for Papuans in the struggle against Indonesian injustice, and the difference between his relatively light two-year punishment and the eight-year sentence handed down to Meki and friends supports this. 'We've been forced to learn international law in order to protect ourselves,' he reflects. 'People say we're stupid, poor and backwards, but I don't think so. We just didn't get the education. Those who don't understand the law don't know how to defend themselves.'

A number of Papuan political prisoners have become prominent exiles, running campaigns to expose human rights violations and advocate internationally for independence. These exiles have been a constant problem for Indonesia, often causing diplomatic bust-ups with its allies. It is possible that Ismael will follow in their footsteps – an outcome clearly at odds with the government's original motives for imprisoning him.

The price of freedom

Papuan prisons are monotonous, depressing, and dangerous places. Beaten, tortured and isolated, the plight of Papuan political prisoners generates sympathy both at home and abroad. Imprisoned by the state for peaceful free expression, they gain instant moral high ground. Prisoners use this leverage effectively to attract local, national and international support. While the government is afraid to lift the lid on free expression for fear of the outcome, the mere existence of political prisoners in Papua challenges Indonesia's international credibility.

As the night draws on and the mosquitos buzz incessantly through the cells, Otto is spending another night behind bars. But despite the boredom and years of lost liberty, he is full of hope. He fills the hours by reading his book, furiously writing reports, checking on new inmates, smoking and eating betel nut. Inspired by former prisoners like Nelson Mandela and Xanana Gusmao, he is not concerned with personal liberty and has decided to reject parole, as it would involve acknowledging that he had committed a 'crime' and promising not to repeat it. This is a promise he cannot make, because with every hour that goes by he is acutely aware of the lack of freedom experienced by all Papuans.

Otto will be released in a few years. But there will be dozens more to replace him. Until the government of Indonesia gains the courage to talk to its critics, people like Otto, Meki and Ismael will continue to fill Papua's prisons.

[Ap Inyerop (ap.inyerop@gmail.com) is a contributor to Papuans Behind Bars, an online resource about political prisoners in Papua www.papuansbehindbars.org. Some names have been changed to protect identities.]

The challenge of the MSG delegation visit to Jakarta

Pacific Scoop - July 17, 2013

Selpius Bobbi – The planned visit by a delegation of member Foreign Ministers of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) to Jakarta and West Papua arose as a decision of the MSG Forum held on 16 June 2013 in Noumea. As noted in the MSG Communique (point 21), the Foreign Ministers of Fiji, PNG, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front are to visit Jakarta and West Papua within the coming six months. The delegation is to be led by the Fijian Foreign Minister Ratu Inoke Kabuabola.

The decision was also in response to an earlier invitation from the Indonesian Government made directly by the Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Legal, Political and Security Affairs (POLKAM) Djoko Suyanto on 3 June 2013 at the moment he met with the Fijian Prime Minister Bainimarama (who at that time the Chairperson of the MSG). The question begs why did Indonesia invite members of the MSG to Jakarta and Papua before the MSG Forum was even under way in June? Without a doubt in making that invitation the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesia) had a particular motive or motives that undoubtedly was aimed at achieving the State's own interests. But what exactly was the true motive behind that invitation?

Indeed Indonesia wanted to obstruct the process of the application for MSG membership by West Papua. In early 2013 the West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL) had submitted an application for full MSG membership for Papua however at the 19th MSG Summit the leaders supported a recommendation of Foreign Ministers to delay any final discussion and decision on the matter until a delegation of the MSG member Foreign Ministers visited Jakarta and Papua. If Indonesia's primary motive in making that invitation before the Summit was to obstruct the processing of the application they succeeded in doing so.

The other matter that is clear is that State of Indonesia is certainly going to be making as much mileage as they possibly can out of the planned visit by the Ministers to Jakarta and West Papua and in particular to try and develop a working partnership with the MSG on the issue of West Papua. Whilst Indonesia's first step was to bring about a delay in the MSG's decision on Papua's application for membership, their next step is by various means to deceive the MSG Foreign Ministers Delegation. They'll be looking to do this by a whole range of ways including unilateral political rhetoric and the engineering of data regarding the situation inside West Papua. Undoubtedly Indonesia is going to take advantage of the situation with the MSG Delegation in Indonesia to move things towards a partnership agreement with MSG covering a whole range of areas. This was perhaps also a motive in inviting the MSG to visit Jakarta and Papua.

It's well known that Indonesia and its allies are making significant 'efforts' to prevent West Papua being accepted as a member of the MSG. If the MSG Delegation becomes convinced through these 'efforts', that indigenous Papuans' welfare will be better served by Papua remaining a part of the Republic of Indonesia (with its 'Special Autonomy' package that is at this time being altered to Special Autonomy Plus'), then that will indeed be a fatal blow to the application submitted by WPNCL. Clearly Indonesia is going to be putting forward as evidence of their efforts its packages of 'Special Autonomy' and more recently the new version 'Special Autonomy Plus'.

However the fact is that throughout the 12 years to date with Special Autonomy in place that indigenous Papuans have suffered from in fact a continued increase in the frequency of human rights violations, from discrimination, marginalization, injustice and being made a minority in their ancestors land. All of which are now leading towards genocide against the ethnic West Papuan race. A slowly occurring but certain process of annihilation. Papuans are convinced that the coming years under the new Special Autonomy Plus regulations will see no positive change in this regard as basically the nature of the colonizing state is the same. The characteristics of the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesia) remain unchanged as does Indonesia's attitude towards Papua of taking over and plundering the natural resources whilst 'eradicating' the land of its indigenous inhabitants. The reality is that Indonesia is a colonizer and as long as Papua remains part of Indonesia the people of Papua will never experience physical and spiritual peace and prosperity.

Accordingly it's going to be absolutely critical that the MSG Foreign Ministers Delegation in their visit to Jakarta and Papua, show extreme caution and a highly selective process in its acceptance of data and information given by the Indonesian Government and those groups that are pro-Indonesian. As that data and information will of course be the basis for the Delegation's report back to the MSG leadership which in turn will be the basis for determining whether West Papua's application for MSG membership will be accepted or not. If it eventuates that Papua's application is rejected by the MSG then there may be more bad news to come as it's likely that in that case Indonesia will be given permanent observer status at the MSG. So the importance of the MSG Delegation being aware of this likelihood and showing absolute caution in its acceptance of data and information from the State of Indonesia and those supporting the State's position, cannot be stressed enough. It's quite probable that this also was a motivating factor when Indonesia invited the MSG to send a delegation to Jakarta and Papua before the MSG had even discussed the issue of Papua's application.

Indonesia's international allies have intentionally supported the Indonesian Government continually putting-off taking the necessary actions to seriously try and bring to an end the many problems in Papua. It's been in the allies' economic interests also to do so. If Indonesia is now in fact to be helped by its allies to bring about the failure of the efforts of West Papua to become an MSG member, then Indonesia will have succeeded yet again in defending their colonial domination of West Papua. The colonial domination will then continue on for a further period of time the duration of which no-one can guess and indigenous peoples of the nation of Papua will have been sacrificed yet again as a result of a conspiracy of foreign interests.

The Republic of Indonesia is presently being supported by its international allies in its efforts to break-down the strength of the entire West Papuan community's resistance to Indonesia achieving its agenda in the land of Papua. The delay in the final discussion by the MSG over WPNCL's application for West Papuan membership has generated a lot of mutual 'finger-pointing' between activist components in Papua. However if we look very carefully and at depth at the situation, one can see that there is a major scenario being created by Indonesia at present to break-down the strength of the democracy (both legally and politically based) that arose as a result of the Papuan National Congress III (the Congress) on 19 October 2011 in Abepura when the forum declared the return of the sovereign independence of the nation of Papua in the State of West Papua and as a legal basis of the highest form created the state of the Federal Republic of West Papua. The Indonesian Government has been most concerned since that time to ensure that the declaration of the restoration of the sovereign independence of the nation of Papua is not acknowledged by other nations of the world or by the MSG Forum. A situation which could ultimately lead to recognition of the same by the United Nations (UN). In anticipation of that possibility the State of Indonesia has undertaken whatever means possible since the Congress to break-down the Papuan community's democratic, political and legal strength that resulted from the Congress.

If Indonesia and its allies succeed in preventing the nation of Papua becoming an official member of the MSG then the blaming presently going on between activists within Papua will become increasingly pointed and this will undoubtedly have destructive consequences for the Papuan Struggle and in so doing weaken the sovereignty of the community of the nation of Papua. Whether indigenous Papuans are aware of it or not, we are now entering this major scenario created by Indonesia and its allies intended to paralyze and incapacitate the political and legal strength of the Papuan democracy.

Indonesia's interests as seen in the States political maneuverings, are with the end goal of defending their control of West Papua within the Indonesian framework and ensuring their continued colonial domination of Papua's land and waters. Control which allows them to seize Papua's natural wealth and at the same time by overt and covert means to marginalize, discriminate against and bring to a minority the indigenous peoples of the land, finally leading to the slow but sure annihilation of the ethnic West Papuan race.

It's time were stated in black and white a few of the more common political maneuvers of Indonesia that have been used by the State until this time against the people of Papua and which will probably be used in some form or another during the visit of the MSG Delegation to Jakarta and West Papua. Firstly it needs to be emphasized that Indonesia is highly skilled in engineering situations. Whenever there are intended visits by human rights related groups or official foreign representatives to Papua, all hands and feet of the Indonesian State work together to create anarchy in the land of Papua so that Indonesia can allege that Papua is unsafe for the foreign visitors. This was seen yet again recently with the planned visit by the UN Human Rights special Observer Hina Jilani.

Indigenous Papuans are overjoyed when there are announced visits to Papua by representatives of other nations, foreign human rights groups or a UN delegation and always want to prepare traditional dances and peaceful gatherings of the people to welcome those visits by foreigners wanting to see first-hand the situation in Papua. However Indonesia's armed forces have never to date given space for that to occur and Indonesia's followers on the ground in Papua create a range of incidents to prevent those visits going ahead. We have seen this time and time again from Indonesia and know now to expect it. If as the time draws near for the MSG Delegation to visit Papua, Indonesia yet again creates a situation stating they can't allow the visit to go ahead due to security risks in Papua, then the MSG Delegation will be forced to use other means to meet with and receive official reports from the representatives of the different components of the nation of West Papua.

Indonesia is also an expert at applying tactics so as to ensure there is absolutely no opportunity for a delegation of foreigners visiting Papua to meet with the different components of the community that struggle for liberation of Papua from the colonial domination of Indonesia. A recent example of this was seen with the intended visit of the American Congressman Eni Faleomavaega to Biak and Manokwari in November 2007. As soon as he landed in Biak the armed forces took the Congressman and his entourage via a back road behind the airport to avoid the Papuan customary gathering at the front of the airport waiting to welcome the visitors with traditional dances. The party was secretly whisked away to the home of the local government Regency Head following which the entrance to the leader's home was then blockaded by the joint forces of the army and police in full fighting gear including shields. The result, Papuans from the community were prevented from meeting with the Congressman. The group then travelled to Manokwari where there was a similar manipulation of the situation with the Congressman and his entourage being taken to a Provincial Official's home via a non-main road, since the mainroad was lined along its entire length with indigenous community members waiting to welcome them with traditional dances.

Again in 2007 when the UN sent a special Human Rights Observer Hina Jilani to Papua, the visit was met with similar actions by the armed forces who wouldn't allow space for her to meet with the Papuan community that wanted to peacefully express their aspirations. At the time a peaceful demonstration organized by Front PEPERA West Papua was broken up and banned. Both Hina Jilani and Eni Faleomavaega's expressed in their reports their regret that the actions and attitude of the Indonesian military, police and Intelligence throughout their time in Papua prevented them meeting with Papuan citizens.

Having become accustomed to these common practices of Indonesia, the Papuan community is most concerned what similar occurrence is likely to be seen at the time of the visit by the MSG Foreign Ministers Delegation to West Papua. It's highly likely that the Indonesian armed forces will act to prevent the Delegation being able to access the different components of the nation of Papua who until now have struggled for the independence of West Papua. It is probable that Indonesia will once again create a scenario at that time to ensure that the MSG Delegation only meets with the Governor and Indonesian appointed provincial government level assemblies – Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Papua (DPRP) and Majelis Rakyat Papua (MRP) – and those groups and organizations that are pro-Indonesian (including White and Red Ranks (Barisan Merah Putih), the Papuan Customary Community Organization (Lembaga Masyarakat Adat Papua (LMA), the National Committee for Papuan Youth (Komite Nasional Pemuda Papua, KNPI), and certain churches and NGO's that are pro-Indonesian.)

Obviously if the MSG Delegation only meets with those who are pro- Indonesian then of course they will accordingly only receive data and information that will suggest that all is just fine in Papua; pro- Indonesian voices will convey that any problems in Papua have already been overcome and that Indonesia is now focusing on the next step of welfare development in the region. This was precisely what occurred when the Netherlands Ambassador for Indonesia visited on 3 July 2013 and the Chairman of Red and White Ranks (Barisan Merah Putih) Ramses Ohee conveyed exactly that at the Papuan Police Headquarters. Ohee was not speaking the truth and was hiding the woeful acts of aggression of Indonesia towards indigenous Papuans. Similar statements at that time were also made to the Ambassador by Yan Ayomi and Lenis Kogoya (the Chairperson of LMA Papua). However the fact is that Papuans who are pro-Indonesian are so very few in number and even then in their hearts that want to see Papua independent but work with Indonesia in order to feed their families (or in some cases to chase something of that moment.)

So in order to obtain balanced and accurate information regardless of what the situation is like, we dearly hope that the members of the MSG Delegation will make every effort possible to meet with the different components of the Papuan community that are pro-Papuan Independence and also to meet with Papuan Freedom Political Detainees who are incarcerated in the Indonesian Colonial Prison.

The other 'special skill' of Indonesia in manipulating and engineering situations is that they are absolute masters at political rhetoric and seducing and persuading. Whether with financial offers, offers of expensive objects or sexual favors. Of course Papua's most bitter memory of these tactics was in 1969 when Indonesia took the chosen 1026 Papuans who would vote to determine the fate of Papua (in representation for more than 800,000 Papuans) to Java where they stayed in luxury hotels and were provided with sexual services. Then on arriving home in a state of blissful oblivion they were given a handsome sum of money and a number of highly valued objects such as radios. These well known practices of Indonesia are to mention of course just a few that the nation of Papua and even foreigners who visit Papua have seen on endless occasions.

Indeed the MSG Delegation is going to face a really onerous challenge when it visits Jakarta and Papua in the very near future to get a first-hand idea of the situation in Papua. The points provided above are intended as a pre-warning of what is likely to occur during that visit and it's hoped will assist the MSG Delegation in comprehending the underlying meaning of the observed actions of the Indonesian armed forces at that time. It is also hoped that these points might benefit visitors of other nations or UN delegations who may visit West Papua into the future with the intention of wanting to observe what is really going on behind the closed doors.

For the attention of all components of the nation of Papua wherever you may be, please let this be an early warning for us all so that we don't become complacent with that which was achieved at the 19th Summit of the MSG in Noumea. As the matter of the membership of West Papua in the MSG is still undecided and will not be decided until after the MSG Delegation visits Jakarta and Papua sometime within this coming 6 months. Let us consolidate and unite and start at this very time to take real steps to bring about Internal Political Consensus for the nation of West Papua, so that we're able to establish our membership at MSG and in doing so stand on solid ground. So that the world hears us as one voice, with one goal being the liberation of West Papua.

To the international community in solidarity with Papua throughout the world, please we ask you to remember your critical role at this time and our need for your help in supporting and strengthening the members and forum of the MSG. So that they individually and together are able to maintain their commitment in urging for the process of self-determination for the nation of Papua and that they will not be tempted with the seduction of Indonesia's political rhetoric.