Jakarta, Indonesia – Theo Hesegem was carrying a foreigner on his motorbike when a pair of police intelligence officers pulled up behind him and ordered him to stop.

It was midday in Wamena, a small city in the highlands of West Papua, Indonesia's easternmost region and the only one foreign journalists need a special permit to visit. "Mr. Theo, where are you coming from?" the officers asked.

Hesegem, a human-rights activist, explained that he had been asked to give the woman a ride by the head of the local indigenous people's council, Areki Wanimbo. Hesegem had been visiting Wanimbo's office when the woman, Valentine Bourrat, arrived with another French citizen, Thomas Dandois, Hesegem said. What the three of them had discussed, Hesegem didn't know, but he had been happy to drive Bourrat back to her hotel.

"We're on heightened alert in Wamena," the officers said, referring to a recent spate of violence in the area. The previous week, two policemen had been killed in a shoot-out with the West Papua National Liberation Army, or TPN-PB, a diffuse association of guerrilla groups that for decades have waged a low-level insurgency against Indonesian rule. "Just bring her back to the hotel," the officers told Hesegem. "We might need to call her in for questioning."

Hesegem, a native Papuan – the officers were Javanese, the country's dominant ethnic group – did as he was asked. A few hours later, the police showed up at Bourrat's hotel. Dandois didn't make it that far; he was intercepted by officers on his way home from Wanimbo's.

Today, more than a month after the arrests, Bourrat and Dandois, journalists who were filming a documentary on West Papua's independence movement for Europe's Arte TV, remain in custody in the region's main city of Jayapura – Wanimbo has also been detained. Most journalists caught working on tourist visas in Indonesia are deported immediately, but in this case local officials have said they will seek a trial.

The head of the local immigration office, Garda Tampubolon, said he hopes the two will receive the maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. Perhaps more troubling, a police spokesman announced last month that Bourrat and Dandois were also suspected of conspiring with "armed criminal gangs" to "destabilize" West Papua, a much more serious charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. "We don't know what's going to happen to them," Marc Dandois, Thomas' brother, said.

The incident is just the latest evidence of a foreign media blackout imposed on West Papua. Since Indonesia took over the territory in 1963, the central government has restricted the access of journalists, activists, researchers, diplomats and aid workers. Conditions there can thus be difficult to discern from afar, but the province is known for its active independence movement; political prisoners, who are often jailed for raising the banned separatist flag; abuses by security forces; and the extreme poverty in which most Papuans live despite their homeland's vast natural wealth.

While the government says journalists can travel freely in some parts of West Papua, as tourists can, reporters inquiring about political and human rights issues are routinely denied the permit required to enter. The policy amounts to a de facto ban on real reporting and is condemned by the United Nations, Western governments and human-rights organizations. Indonesia ranks 132nd on Reporters Without Borders' latest World Press Freedom Index; the study specifically mentions West Papua, calling it a "forbidden area" where "the work of journalists is handicapped by draconian news control policies."

"For 52 years now the Indonesian military has been trying to hide what they are doing in West Papua and keep us silent," said Benny Wenda, a West Papuan independence leader who lives in exile in the United Kingdom. "This is why they always try to stop foreign journalists' reporting."

But some are optimistic the situation will soon change. On the campaign trail in June, Indonesian President-elect Joko Widodo said there was no reason to keep West Papua closed. (Similar bans on reporting in Aceh and parts of eastern Indonesia were lifted in the previous decade.)

What's more, since 2013, three Australian journalists have gained permission to examine controversial issues there. Still, the reporters remained limited in what they could do, and their experiences appear to have been aberrations rather than signs of a true shift.

In early 2013, Michael Bachelard, The Sydney Morning Herald's Indonesia correspondent, was granted a permit to write about HIV/AIDS in West Papua. He returned with a startling expose on the trafficking of Christian children to Islamic boarding schools in Java. But an intelligence agent ordered to accompany Bachelard by the clearinghouse committee that vetted his application was for logistical reasons never sent, allowing Bachelard more freedom than normal.

A few months later, Mark Davis, a video journalist with Australia's SBS Dateline, produced a documentary in which he tried repeatedly to escape government minders and undercover military to see if West Papua really had changed. The men who organized his tour, Franzalbert Joku and Nic Messet, were a pair of formerly separatist Papuans now working for the central government. Joku and Messet had argued with Davis over whether the region was actually closed, and engineering the trip was their way of proving to the journalist that it wasn't.

"As you can see," Joku tells Davis in the video, "journalists are not banned, but you go through the correct channels – " "C'mon, Franz, no one's been here in 10 years," Davis interrupts. "So – I'm very grateful – " Most recently, Karlis Salna, a Jakarta-based correspondent with the Australian Associated Press, received a permit to look into the security situation. But obtaining the paperwork took a massive effort. Salna applied for entry a dozen times over a period of two years, but it wasn't until he texted the Indonesian foreign minister's spokesman to say he was visiting West Papua even without a permit – and that the government could deal with the fallout if he was arrested – that the journalist was allowed in. And even when Salna did arrive in West Papua, security personnel interrogated everyone he interviewed, he said.

"I really got the impression that the Foreign Ministry wanted us to be there, but it was the army and the old school that didn't," said Salna.

Opponents of the ban can be divided into two camps: those who emphasize the brutalities it suppresses and those who stress that the dearth of reporting allows rumors to spread and results in a portrait of conditions in the territory that is generally worse than they actually are.

In the latter group is Calum Hyslop, a former adviser to Australia's Labor Party. A longtime observer of the region who visits regularly, Hyslop said that while abuses and inequities persist, conditions in West Papua have improved markedly since the fall of the Suharto dictatorship, in 1998. The ban, he argued, feeds a cycle whereby separatists fabricate stories of atrocities and foreign activists spread them in the media; it is therefore backfiring on Indonesia, he said.

"It's a weekly occurrence of supposedly people being killed, people being tortured – it's just not true," he said. "You get the impression from these people that Papua's some sort of Russian gulag. And it's just not that kind of place. Go to Biak; it's a paradise."

Eben Kirksey, author of "Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power", a book about the Papuan freedom movement, agreed that the territory can be a nice place to visit. "At the same time," he said, "people are being killed and tortured and it's not being reported because of the ban on journalists."

In July, Kirksey said, an independence activist named Tineke Rumkabu fled to Australia after mysterious assailants nearly abducted her, she said. That same month, Kirksey added, police at a market in Jayapura arbitrarily detained and beat a group of Papuans, killing at least one of them.

When pressed to explain the ban, Indonesian officials usually cite safety concerns. "There are elements in Papua who are keen to obtain international attention by bringing harm to international personalities, including journalists," Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told ABC last year.

But Andreas Harsono, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said members of the security forces prefer that the ban remain in place because of concern that journalists would expose widespread corruption in the territory. In the latest high-profile case, Labora Sitorus, a low-level Papua Regional police officer was convicted in February of running an illegal logging operation. Sitorus, allegedly known as a "cash machine" for higher-ranking officers; evidence presented at the trial linked him to $127 million worth of transactions.

"These 'self-interests' are keeping the restrictions in place," Harsono said. "Why? If foreign journalists are out there, they're the ones who have the power, the network, the knowledge, the connections to expose these practices."

Bourrat and Dandois were not the first foreign journalists to sneak into West Papua. But none since Oswald Iten of the Swiss daily Neue Zurcher Zeitung, who was jailed for 12 days in Jayapura in 2000, has been detained for anywhere near as long. A week and a half after the arrest, Dandois' wife told a French magazine that her husband had thought the greatest risk, if he was caught, would be deportation. "Nobody thought that 10 days after being arrested, he would still be there."

Hesegem said he sees hypocrisy in the ban. Western politicians often hold Indonesia up as a paragon of democracy in Southeast Asia and the Muslim world. But Hesegem said quasi-authoritarian rule in his part of the country stains that reputation. "If Indonesia is really a democracy," he said, "then let reporters into Papua."

Source: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/22/west-papua-mediablackout.html

Detention of French journalists in West Papua raised at UN

Jakarta Globe - September 19, 2014

Harry Pearl & Banjir Ambarita, Jakarta – An alliance of non-governmental organizations from Indonesia and abroad has addressed the UN Human Rights Council to demand the Indonesian government improve freedom of expression in Papua and West Papua.

In a joint oral statement to the 27th Session of the council on Thursday, Franciscans International, in coalition with 21 other NGOs, urged the government of Indonesia to improve access for foreign journalists and allow a specialist UN Special Rapporteur to enter.

"We would like to express our deep concern regarding access to Papua and West Papua, especially for journalists," said Budi Tjahjono, of Franciscans International.

Tjahjono, speaking on behalf of the coalition, which included prominent Indonesian human rights groups Imparsial and KontraS, also requested the immediate release of French journalists, Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat.

The two journalists, who were arrested in Wamena on Aug. 6, have been detained at Jayapura's immigration detention center for more than six weeks for reporting without correct visas, something the pair have admitted. Foreign journalists who want to access the area face considerable hurdles and have to obtain a journalist's visa and permission letter.

"It is not easy to obtain such a permit and, if issued, journalists have often been accompanied by Indonesian government officials," Tjahjono told the council. "This is problematic because these measures closely resemble censorship."

Dandois and Bourrat, who were filming a documentary on the West Papuan independence movement for Franco-German TV channel Arte, were arrested with three alleged members of the Free Papua Organization (OPM), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against Indonesian rule in the region.

Authorities are seeking to have the journalists, who are considered a threat to security, sentenced for the maximum five years in prison for breaching their tourist visa.

Poengky Indarti, Executive director of Imparsial, which supported the statement, said the tight restrictions around foreign media access to Papua were unhelpful. "It creates the impression that Papua is closed for international reporting."

She said the government's approach could boomerang, as the international community did not see the full picture. "Should the government provide easy access for foreign journalists, those reporters can see the condition and facts with their own eyes," she said. "The government won't be seen as isolating Papua."

The arrest of the French journalists has drawn criticism from media freedom groups, including the French-based Reporters Without Borders. Indonesia's national press council has said it would be better to deport the journalists.

Gardu Tampubolon, head of Jayapura's immigration office, told the Jakarta Globe on Friday that officials were working as fast as possible to complete paperwork for the case.

He said it was urgent because the arrests had received international attention. "Everybody in Papua wishes the case can be tried immediately so the international community will not think we are stalling intentionally."

Gardu said his office had decided to prosecute the journalists, instead of deporting them, because they were considered a threat to national security. "The immigration office is also a part of the government and security in Papua is also our responsibility," he said.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/detention-french-journalists-west-papua-raised-un/

For Benny Wenda, Scottish vote is a chance to dream

Sydney Morning Herald - September 19, 2014

Nick Miller, Edinburgh – Over a long night, through the wee hours, Scotland will count its referendum votes as an army of scrutineers keep an eye on proceedings.

Some of them are there out of passion, some out of concern, some for loyalty, some for civic duty. But for Benny Wenda it is so he can dream.

"My dream is that in a peaceful way West Papua will have the right to choose their own destiny like Scottish people," he said. "[What] I am witnessing directly now, it gives me hope that one day it might happen to the West Papuan people."

Mr Wenda is one of West Papua's independence leaders, who lives in exile in England under political asylum after escaping an Indonesian jail – he had been convicted for leading an independence rally and raising the West Papuan flag.

But he felt drawn to Scotland for the referendum. "This campaign is about my life," he told Fairfax in an Edinburgh cafe. "I want to learn, and see, and witness directly."

He is here for a practical reason – to see how it's done – but also on principle, to make sure the message gets back to his people and to Indonesia that it can and should be done.

The day before he had addressed a thousand-strong Yes campaign rally in Glasgow, where he spoke about his life and sang a song on freedom that he wrote in prison.

Mr Wenda has been in Britain for 11 years. He grew up in the jungle in West Papua's highlands, and his family were assaulted, and some killed, by the Indonesian military, he says.

From a young age he has dedicated himself to the West Papuan independence cause. A series of regional assemblies known as the Act of Free Choice were held to vote on relinquishing sovereignty to Indonesia in 1969, but these have since been condemned as neither free nor fair.

"This [Scottish referendum] is very different, there is no intimidation, no military on the street," he said. "There are no blockades or bloodshed. This is the peaceful way."

He hopes that, whether it results in Yes or No, the fact that the referendum was held will send a message to the Indonesian government, that "you witness [how to] give my people [the right] to choose their own destiny".

"I want the Indonesia government to learn what democratic values mean when they are fully implemented here."

He also hopes the sight of a Scottish vote will help bring Australia onside with his cause. Mr Wenda got in touch with Scottish political group Radical Independence, which arranged for him to work as one of their scrutineers at the count.

Scotland's referendum has attracted separatist activists from across the world – regions such as Catalonia, Flanders, Kurdistan, Quebec and even Texas have flocked to Edinburgh. They're here to learn how it's done and to hitch their wagon to the most media-friendly independence story on the planet.

"If Scotland votes 'yes,' it will be an eye-opener for many people," Mark Demesmaeker, a Flemish member of the European Parliament, told The New York Times. "It's a democratic evolution that is going on in different states of the European Union."

Mr Wenda said it was an honour to have a small part in the referendum. On Wednesday in Glasgow he held up the West Papuan flag – and was overjoyed by the sight of so many Saltires waving alongside it.

"There is no restriction, no prison," he said. "My flag-raising in Papua was 15 years in prison. [This] is really touching with emotion. One day this flag can be raised forever in West Papua."

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/for-benny-wenda-scottish-vote-is-a-chance-to-dream-20140919-10j2md.html

Papuans reject special autonomy plus

Tempo.co - September 19, 2014

Jerry Omona, Jayapura – General Coordinator of the National Army of Free Papuan Organization (OPM) Lambert Pekikir has rejected the change of Special Autonomy Law of 2001 into Special Autonomy Plus. He said that the Special Autonomy Plus, as realized by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) yesterday, is a waste of time.

"What we ask is that we sit together and talk about Papua," said Lambert. He believes that problems in Papua cannot be solved just by providing annual budget, which has also often gone missing. "Papuan Officials only want the money for their interest. Meanwhile, the people suffer," Lambert added.

Papuans demand independence not because they are marginalized, but because their political rights are taken. OPM Commander of Lanny Jaya, Purom Wenda, confirmed and added: "We refuse Special Autonomy Plus. We want referendum. That is fixed," Lambert said.

Source: http://en.tempo.co/read/news/2014/09/19/055608234/Papuans-Reject-Special-Autonomy-Plus

Papua cop sentenced to 15 years for money laundering

Jakarta Globe - September 18, 2014

Jakarta – Indonesia's Supreme Court has increased the prison sentence handed to a Papua-based police officer found guilty of laundering up to Rp 1.5 trillion ($132 million) in criminal proceeds to 15 years.

Adj. First Insp. Labora Sitorus, who was found guilty of money laundering in May, had his sentenced increased on Wednesday following two appeals by prosecutors concerned about earlier – more lenient – sentences. "The court granted the prosecutors' appeal and rejected the defendant's plea," the court announced on its official website.

Labora, who was allegedly known as a "cash machine" for higher-ranking police in West Papua province, was convicted for illegal logging and fuel hoarding earlier this year.

In February, he was handed a two-year sentence and Rp 50 million ($4,154) fine by a court in Sorong, Papua. Prosecutors had sought 15 years jail time for the associated money laundering charge, but it was dismissed.

After an appeal to Papua's High Court the sentence was revised, and Labora sentenced to eight years in May after being found guilty on the money laundering charges. Prosecutors, who still deemed the sentence too lenient, filed a final appeal to the Supreme Court, which was ruled on Wednesday.

Labora was arrested in Jakarta in May last year after 400,000 kiloliters of subsidized fuel was seized from a boat registered in his name. In total around a million liters of fuel inked to the officer was confiscated.

The disgraced officer was also found to be involved in illegal logging. A total of 115 containers, which stored 2,264 cubic meters of rare tropical hardwood merbau, were found at Surabaya's Tanjung Perak Port and were also traced back to the officer.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/papuan-cop-sentenced-15-years-money-laundering/

Papuan human rights lawyer attacked

Radio New Zealand International - September 18, 2014

Amnesty International says a Papuan human rights lawyer, defending a tribal leader accused of separatist activities by Indonesian authorities, has been attacked. Amnesty says it has concerns for the safety of Anum Siregar

The rights group says the lawyer was attacked on the way back to her hotel from a court hearing. The attacker, armed with a knife, stole her bag and injured her hand before fleeing.

Ms Siregar and another lawyer had travelled to Wamena to represent the Head of the Lani Besar Tribal Council, at a pre-trial hearing.

Amnesty says both felt they were being monitored. They were challenging the Tribal Council leader's arrest and detention which they believe to have been unlawful.

Areki Wanimbo was arrested last month after meeting two foreign journalists who were making a documentary on the separatist movement. He was accused of supporting separatist activities and charged with "rebellion" under the Criminal Code.

Source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/254966/papuan-human-rights-lawyer-attacked

West Papuan campaigners pay tribute to John Ondawame and his legacy

Pacific Scoop - September 17, 2014

West Papuan campaigners, supporters and students gathered in Auckland for a memorial ceremony for the Vanuatu-based exile John Ondawame who died recently in Port Vila.

The supporters paid tribute to the late Dr Ondawame who visited New Zealand several times and was known to many personally. They praised his years as a persecuted "freedom fighter" and for his tireless efforts to bring peace and self-determination for the future of his Papuan people.

In a statement from the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Coalition (APHRC) to Pacific Scoop, the group said:

Dr John Otto Ondawame, from the Amungme tribe in Mimika regency in Indonesia's Papua province, was the vice-chairman of the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL).

John was persecuted by the Indonesian military and forced to spend about half his life in exile in Sweden where he was granted asylum in 1979; Australia where he finished his doctorate; and finally in Vanuatu, where he died. Until his death, he campaigned for a free West Papua and believed that one day his country would be free to raise the Morning Star flag without being jailed for 15 years.

John has been well known to many of us in Aotearoa/New Zealand over many years. Joan Macdonald, co-chair of Asia Pacific Human Rights Coalition (APHRC), first met him when he was living in Sweden, accompanied by a group of Swedish women who visited Aotearoa when doing a World March for Peace in 1986.

Subsequently he visited Aotearoa a number of times on speaking tours and also to attend Solidarity meetings for West Papua in 2003 and to attend two Auckland-based Pacific Island Forum meetings, the most recent in 2011, where he was a key lobbyist for a free West Papua.

He had been forced to live in exile from his country since his arrest and detention in Papua New Guinea in 1978, as a freedom fighter. Joan visited John Ondawame and Dolly, his first wife. When they were living there they struggled with very few resources.

Dolly has had a long association with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and has been a speaker at several of WILPF's international meetings. Judith Crimmins managed to contact Dolly in Papua New Guinea to convey our condolences. She is doing fine.

For the last few years John, had worked from a base in Vanuatu with some support from the Vanuatu government. For over 50 years, West Papua had been trying to be recognised as part of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and finally this year John helped make it happen – a great legacy to the Free West Papua campaign.

John had worked unsparingly and for many years for his people and his country, West Papua. APHRC mourns the loss of a strong West Papuan freedom fighter and a friend.

He was in his 60s and is survived by his wife Leisani and son Jacob. APHRC extends sympathy to his family and to his people.

Source: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2014/09/west-papuan-campaigners-pay-tribute-to-john-ondawame-and-his-legacy/

Adulterer, gambling racketeer, knife attackers: Papua police cleaning house

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Banjir Ambarita, Jayapura – A senior police officer in Papua province has been fired over a personal indiscretion and another for his alleged involvement in a gambling racket, while a third has been linked to a knife attack on a lawyer for a prominent activist.

First Insp. Angga, the chief of detectives at the Jayapura Police, was fired after being caught in bed with the wife of one of his subordinates, Papua Police Chief Insp. Gen. Yotje Mende told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday.

Yotje said the affair was discovered when the woman's husband followed her to Angga's house and burst in on them in bed together. "He has to be held to account for his conduct," the police chief said, adding that Angga now faced an ethics tribunal.

Meanwhile, the police chief in the town of Sorong, Adj. Sr. Comr. Harry Goldenhard, has been fired for what Yotje called "a range of offenses, including backing a gambling syndicate" at the city's Night Market.

Yotje said his office had repeatedly ordered the Sorong Police to crack down on the illegal gambling known to take place at the market, "but it was never done." "I finally had to send a team to break up the gambling and shut it down," he said.

He added that Harry would also be brought before an ethics tribunal, while an investigation was underway into whether other members of the Sorong Police were also in on the gambling racket.

In a more serious case, a lawyer for Areki Wanimbo, a community leader and activist in Papua's Lanny Jaya district, reported being attacked shortly after taking on the case of the activist's "wrongful" arrest by Adj. Sr. Comr. Adolf Rudi Beay, the Jayawijaya Police chief.

Latifah Anum Siregar, a lawyer with the Democratic Alliance for Papua, or ALDP, told the Globe that the incident occurred on Tuesday night outside the hotel where he was staying. He said two men on a motorcycle approached him as he walked back to the hotel carrying a briefcase containing legal documents that he and Areki had prepared for a planned lawsuit against Adolf.

He said one of the men lunged at him with a knife and grabbed the briefcase. Anum sustained a cut to the arm, while the assailant and his accomplice got away with the briefcase.

Areki was arrested on Aug. 6 in connection with the arrests of French journalists Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat for alleged immigration violations. The pair were reportedly making a documentary on the separatist movement in Papua, and police initially accused Areki of aiding them.

Anum said that although his client had been released, he still faced "arbitrary charges." He said Areki was suing Adolf for wrongful arrest and violating his civil rights by not producing a warrant for his arrest within 24 hours of arresting him. Asked about the accusations against Adolf and the attack on the lawyer, Yotje said he had not received any reports about the matter.

The Globe's contributor in Jayapura, Banjir Ambarita, was similarly stabbed by unknown assailants in March 2011, shortly after reporting on the sexual abuse of a female detainee by police officers at the Jayapura Police's detention center. No arrests have been made in the case.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/adulterer-gambling-racketeer-knife-attackers-just-papua-police-cleaning-house/

Military: Separatist killed in Papua firefight

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Banjir Ambarita, Jayapura – A member of the Free Papua Organization was killed in a firefight with security officers at an airfield in Lanny Jaya district, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

The shootout involved about 30 OPM fighters from a group led by Puron Wenda, and police and military personnel, said Let. Col. Arh Rikas Hidayatullah of the Cendrawasih military command.

The firefight broke out at 12:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday, he said, adding that one OPM member was killed and several were wounded.

Puron confirmed the confrontation, but told the Jakarta Globe by phone that he was not yet sure about the casualty number. "There was a firefight around noon with the police and military personnel," he said. "I am still collecting information."

The group is thought to have been responsible for the shooting deaths of two police officers in Lanny Jaya in July.

Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Yotje Mende said the strategy is not to chase after the armed group but to step by step reduce its area of operations.

"They probably felt cornered and launched an attack – but the security officers were prepared," Yotje said. He added that the fighters had been receiving backup from an armed group based in Puncak Jaya.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/military-separatist-killed-papua-firefight/

Delegates confirm attendance at West Papua conference

Radio New Zealand International - September 16, 2014

Over 80 delegates from West Papua and other countries are expected to converge on Port Vila at the start of next month to attend the West Papua Conference.

The Chairman of the committee organising the October 1-4 conference, Pastor Allan Nafuki says he has received confirmation that a strong delegation from the Pacific Council of Churches and World Council of Churches will attend.

The Chairman also calls on the people of Vanuatu to stand as one to show the world that Vanuatu, a Melanesian sovereign state, cares for its fellow Melanesians in Indonesia's Papua region.

Vanuatu's government, led by Joe Natuman, offered to host the West Papua Unification Conference so that a range of pro-independence groups can apply under a unified umbrella for West Papua to become a member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

In another development, the Secretary General of the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation, Rex Rumakiek has been appointed Acting Chairman of the Coalition. Mr Rumakiek is succeeding the late Dr John Otto Ondawame who passed away and was buried in Port Vila last week.

Source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/254767/delegates-confirm-attendance-at-west-papua-conference

Families of French journalists detained in West Papua beg for mercy

Sydney Morning Herald - September 16, 2014

Michael Bachelard, Jakarta – The families of two French journalists imprisoned indefinitely for reporting in West Papua without a visa have spoken out for the first time to beg the Indonesian government for mercy.

Valentine Bourrat's mother Martine, and Thomas Dandois's brother Marc, have told Fairfax Media that, 40 days after the journalists' capture, their families do not understand why their loved ones are facing criminal charges in an Indonesian prison for a mere visa violation. They also do not know how long the legal process might take, nor how long Valentine and Thomas will spend in prison if found guilty.

Martine Bourrat said her husband Patrick, Valentine's father, was a fabled French war correspondent who was shot and imprisoned during his career. He was eventually killed when he was hit by an American tank during manoeuvres before the second Gulf War in 2002. Valentine was 17 when he died.

"I'm used to this situation. You know it's journalists' life," Martine Bourrat said. But her daughter's detention was longer and more stressful than those events.

"I was not afraid at the beginning, but now I am afraid; and Valentine, of course, she is fragile, and I am afraid for her... it's hard. It's hard."

The pair were caught by police on August 5 working using a tourist visa. They were filming a documentary for Arte TV in France on the separatist movement – a notoriously touchy subject for the Indonesian state.

For West Papua, Indonesian authorities require both a journalist's visa and a special permission letter, which is difficult to get.

Even so, most reporters caught with tourist visas are simply deported, while immigration authorities say they want this pair jailed for the maximum five years. Dandois and Bourrat have both apologised to authorities and acknowledged their wrongdoing.

At first, Martine said, her daughter had been most worried about having her notes and videos erased, saying: "I lost my story."

"And then [she was saying], 'I am a prisoner'. Then, 'I will stay here for days and weeks, and perhaps now for months – and I hope not for years'."

"It's very hard for us to understand because... my husband... went many times in Afghanistan and Iraq, in some countries that were very, very dangerous, and he was exposed, just like this. But he was not kept in a jail for that... I thought Indonesia was a country not so severe with the rules of immigration."

Mrs Bourrat said her daughter had been doing what she loved, saying it was Valentine's dream to get a job with Arte TV. Mrs Bourrat said she wanted clemency for her daughter from the Indonesian government. "We think the sentence, even now, it's disproportional, compared to what they did."

Marc Dandois said his brother had two young twin children in France, a boy and a girl aged 2-and-a-half, who were missing their father. "For the family it's quite difficult to live with on a daily basis," he said.

"It's a heavy burden [and] always the same thing; we don't know what's going to happen to them. We do know why they've been arrested but... we don't understand why they weren't [just] kicked out of the country."

He said the two reporters had used tourist visas because if they'd sought permission to travel there, they feared they may have been followed by Indonesian security forces, preventing them from interviewing the people they wanted to meet.

"It would have been much more difficult for them to reach out to people and have interesting interviews and discussions and be able to report impartially on both sides," Mr Dandois said.

The point was underlined by their lawyer, Aristo M.A. Pangaribuan, who said the procedure for a foreign reporter to get a journalist's visa was "very difficult, and the bureaucracy is time-wasting".

"So, personally, I understand that the journalists usually only obtain a tourist's visa to do research and reportage in West Papua... Also, if you follow the procedure you will be followed by the authorities, so your movement is limited, and you cannot gather as much information as you wish."

He said he was hoping the criminal charge would be dropped and they would simply face deportation or, if the case did go to court, that the pair would be sentenced to time served. However, it would take at least another two months for the trial to be held, Mr Aristo said.

At one point, West Papua police were considering charging the pair with sedition after making an attempt to link them with an ammunition-swap gone wrong in which two Indonesian police officers were shot dead.

Mr Aristo said that was still a possibility, but seemed increasingly unlikely, because there was nothing in the evidence dossier to link the journalists to the shooting, which happened well before they landed in West Papua.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/families-of-french-journalists-detained-in-west-papua-beg-indonesia-for-mercy-20140916-10hfmk.html

Pacific media body criticises Jakarta over French pair

Radio New Zealand International - September 16, 2014

The Pacific Freedom Forum says Indonesia's President-elect Joko Widodo should keep his campaign promise to open up access to West Papua.

The regional media organisation has criticised Indonesian authorities for doing nothing to countermand the arrests of two French journalists in Papua province.

Valentine Bourrat and Thomas Dandois were arrested on the 6th August in Wamena, and remain detained in Jayapura by Indonesian police, accused of violating their visas.

Indonesian police spokesmen say the pair could face a prison sentence for subversion amid allegations they were involved with pro-independence activists.

The PFF Co-Chair Monica Miller said that decision in Indonesia to prosecute the pair flies in the face of increasing pressure from from the international community to free up access to West Papua for all.

She says the President-elect's failure to take action must raise questions about who really controls West Papua.

Source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/254669/pacific-media-body-criticises-jakarta-over-french-pair

Aceh

Coming soon in Aceh: Shariah law for non-Muslims

Jakarta Globe - September 22, 2014

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Citing the need to end discrimination, Aceh lawmakers plan to pass a bylaw this week that would impose a Shariah-based criminal code on Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with offenders facing lengthy caning sessions or jail terms for acts that are perfectly legal elsewhere in Indonesia.

Moharriadi Syafari, the secretary of Commission G of the Aceh Legislative Council (DPRA), which oversees the religious affairs, culture and tourism, said the council planned to pass the bylaw during its plenary meeting this week.

A draft of the local criminal code known as Qanun Jinayat obtained by the Jakarta Globe includes a clause that stipulates that a non-Muslim caught violating Shariah law would be given the option of being tried at the Shariah court or at a regular court, based on the national criminal code (KUHP).

However, if the act is considered a crime under Shariah but not under the KUHP, even non-Muslim violators would be tried based on the regulations stipulated in the Qanun Jinayat.

The maximum punishments under the Shariah-based code are 200 strokes of the cane, a fine worth the price of two kilograms of gold or 200 months in jail.

Convicted child rapists, for instance, would face a punishment of 150-200 strokes of the cane or a fine of 1.5 kilograms to two kilograms of gold or 150-200 months in prison.

Engaging in homosexual acts – which is not a crime under the KUHP – would fall in the category of unlawful sexual intercourse (zina), punishable by a maximum of 100 lashes, one kilogram of gold or 100 months in jail.

Buying or carrying an alcoholic beverage – also allowed elsewhere in the country – would result in at least 10 strokes of the cane or 10 months in prison, with a maximum fine worth 100 grams of gold.

The new Qanun Jinayat could affect at least 90,000 non-Muslims currently living in the province. The bylaw would go into effect one year after it is passed.

Moharriadi argued that the new bylaw was based on the Aceh special autonomy law of 2006. "The clause in question in the Qanun Jinayat was taken in whole from Article 11 of the Law on Governing Aceh, so the article wasn't made made in Aceh, it was made by the House of Representatives [in Jakarta]," he said.

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician explained that the bylaw had been discussed with all stakeholders, including the Home Ministry, Religious Affairs Ministry, Justice and Human Rights Ministry and the Supreme Court.

"Every time we deliberated the bylaw in Jakarta nobody was making a fuss about the clause because it has been clearly mentioned in the Law on Governing Aceh," he said. "If we didn't include the clause we would have broken the law."

Moharriadi said the clause was meant to provide a sense of justice by treating all lawbreakers equally, regardless of their religion.

The head of the Aceh branch of Nahdlatul Ulama, Teungku Faisal Ali, also said the bylaw would not discriminate against non-Muslims because they would still be able to worship and conduct their religious activities as they wish.

"Please don't portray this bylaw as if it mistreats non-Muslims, because the clause does not force Islamic Shariah on non-Muslims – they still can pray according to their religion," Teungku said.

Right activists have expressed serious concerns about the proposed bylaw, saying it would lead to violations of civil rights. Domidoyo Ratupenu, a priest and Aceh-based interfaith activist, said he had raised the issue with the DPRA, but that he felt ignored.

"Personally I reject all discriminative laws and bylaws that are based on primordialist beliefs and that fail to consider the nation's sociopolitical reality," Domidoyo said. "Indonesia is a pluralistic nation that has Pancasila as its ideology and appreciates diversity."

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/coming-soon-aceh-shariah-law-non-muslims/

Eight gamblers publicly caned in Banda Aceh

Jakarta Globe - September 19, 2014

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Eight people received five lashes each in Aceh on Friday after they were found guilty of gambling.

A crowd of at least 1,000 people, including women and children, watched as the gamblers were publicly flogged on a stage built in front of the Pahlawan mosque in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. The province uses a Shariah-based legal code for offenses such as adultery and gambling.

Some among the audience were seen recording the punishment on their cellphone. "Harder! Don't show them any mercy! Hit them harder!" some shouted.

Some of the men being caned resisted and scuffled with the Shariah Police (Wilayatul Hisbah) officers. The men also refused to completely dress in white for the public canning, as a sign of protest.

One of the men who received the lashes said the punishment was unfair, questioning why only ordinary people were being subjected to it. "Why not the public officials who were caught committing adultery? Is it because we don't have money?" the man asked.

Prior to the execution, public prosecutor Nurhamla said nine people would received five lashes each after the Friday prayer, but based on doctors' recommendation one was pardoned for health reasons. The person would have to undergo the punishment after being deemed healthy enough.

Each man had been sentenced to eight lashes, but the punishment was reduced to five lashes because they had already been detained for three months.

The execution was witnessed by Aceh Mayor Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal and several other public officials. "Today's execution is a manifestation of the Banda Aceh government's commitment to implement Shariah law, this is done to impose God's law," Illiza said.

Friday's public canning was the first of its kind in Banda Aceh in seven years.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/eight-gamblers-publicly-caned-banda-aceh/

Human rights & justice

'Act of Killing' filmmaker gets 'genius grant' as MacArthur fellow

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Jakarta – Joshua Oppenheimer, who made documentary films about the massacres during the communist purge of 1965-66 in Indonesia, has been named a MacArthur Fellow.

He was among 21 individuals cited by the MacArthur Foundation "with a track record of achievement and the potential for significant contributions in the future."

Each fellow receives a no-strings-attached stipend of $625,000, paid out over five years, and the fellowship comes with no stipulations or reporting requirements, and allows recipients maximum freedom to follow their own creative visions, the MacArthur Foundation said in a statement released on its website in the United States on Tuesday.

Oppenheimer directed "The Act of Killing," which was released in 2012 and highlighted interviews with former death squad members. That was followed up this year with "The Look of Silence," which focused on the survivors. That film recently was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival.

The MacArthur Fellowship, which started in 1981, is often referred to as the "Genius Grant" with its eclectic selection. This year's class joins 897 other MacArthur Fellows.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/act-killing-filmmaker-oppenheimer-gets-genius-grant-macarthur-fellow/

Attempt to form rights task force blocked

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2014

Bagus BT Saragih and Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – The hope of bringing closure to human rights abuses has been dashed now that the transition team of president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and vice president-elect Jusuf Kalla has turned down the proposal to reopen investigations into unresolved rights violations.

Now, only a few weeks before Jokowi's inauguration, rights activists continue to express their disappointment over the way the pair's camp has dealt with human rights issues, in spite of their rhetoric about resolving past rights abuses during the presidential election campaign.

"It is really a shame that human rights was just used as an issue to take votes away from the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa ticket," human rights activist Haris Azhar, the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said.

Andi Widjajanto, one of the deputy heads of Jokowi-Kalla's transition team tasked with setting priorities for the future government, acknowledged that human rights issues, particularly past abuse cases, were not on the priority list.

Andi said that the lack of existing legal and organizational instruments to handle the cases was a stumbling block to the effort. "The KKR [the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation] was supposed to be established. But the law on it was scrapped by the Constitutional Court," Andi said.

The KKR was expected to enable victims of old human rights violations to have their cases resolved and receive compensation.

"If we insist on having the KKR scheme then we need to draft a new regulation. However, such a bill is not included in the 2015 National Legislation Programs. So, legislating a new law on KKR can only be done by late 2016. And the process might not be as smooth as many would expect, not to mention the organizational and other preparations needed if the bill is passed," he added.

Andi also argued that some unresolved abuse cases had been actually "judicially resolved".

"In the murder [human rights activist] Munir Said Thalib, for example, the judicial process ruled in a final and binding decision to declare Pollycarpus [Budihari Priyanto] guilty. So the case can be considered closed. The suggestion that Muchdi [Purwoprandjono] and [AM] Hendropriyono should have also been sentenced is entirely a different issue," he said.

Pollycarpus is a former pilot of national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia who has been serving a 14-year prison sentence handed down to him by the Supreme Court for putting arsenic in Munir's tea at Singapore's Changi Airport where Munir was transiting en route to Amsterdam in September 2004.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Muchdi is a former National Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy chief who was once charged with masterminding Munir's murder but then acquitted by the court.

Gen. (ret.) Hendropriyono is a former BIN chief who has also been accused of having played a role in the murder as well as in the Talangsari massacre in Lampung in 1989. He is now an adviser to the transition team.

Andi also said that resolving past human rights abuse cases would not be easy because investigations must be able to identify the suspects. "To declare something a human rights violation, we need to identify, not only the victims, but also the perpetrators. We do have many claiming to be victims or the family of victims but we have never had anyone admit that they have killed hundreds of people," he said.

Andi also said, contradicting Jokowi's plan to set up ad-hoc human rights court to hear past rights violations, that establishing such a court would be impossible in the near future.

"Setting up such a court need funds and the 2015 draft state budget does not allocate any for that purpose. A bill needs to be passed first and then funds can be allocated in the revised budget next year," he said.

The transition team has also been accused of giving false hope to the pair's volunteers on many issues, including human rights.

Last month, a group of 88 volunteers came to the team's headquarters in Central Jakarta demanding that it keep its promises and involve them in the team's activities.

The team's leadership then agreed to placate their demands by placing the volunteers on the team's existing task forces and letting them form new task forces, including one on human rights, according to the team's other deputy head, Akbar Faizal.

Former National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) chairman Ifdhal Kasim, one of the volunteers who was said to be a member of the human rights task force, said such a team never existed.

"We got the sense that the team did not consider human rights a priority. Andi said he himself would handle the formulation of recommendations on human rights issues to be presented to Jokowi," Ifdhal said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/16/attempt-form-rights-task-force-blocked.html

Political parties & elections

PPP rift widens as graft suspect Suryadharma announces rival congress

Jakarta Globe - September 22, 2014

Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Jakarta – Two factions of the United Development Party (PPP), locked in a bitter leadership dispute, have both announced their intention to hold a congress in the party's name.

The PPP camp led by acting chairman Emron Pangkapi and deputy secretary general Isa Muhsin announced the party would hold a national working meeting this week to determine its commitment to Prabowo Subianto's Red- White coalition, and set a date for a party congress.

But former PPP chairman Suryadharma Ali, who was ousted from his role by party leaders earlier this month, is preparing for his own congress on Oct. 23.

The dispute is the latest in the party rift, which followed the dismissal of Suryadharma after he was named a graft suspect by the country's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

It is alleged Suryadharma, as minister of religious affairs, embezzled funds for the hajj, the annual pilgrimage that Muslims are required to undertake to Mecca.

Dimyati Natakusumah, who backs Suryadharma, said any congress outside the one held on Oct. 23 would be illegitimate. The party's national board, according to Dimyati, has already told local chapters about the congress.

"Him [acting chairman Emron] holding a congress – that must be illegitimate," Dimyati said. "Emron and Romy have been fired by Suryadharma Ali," he added, referring to Romahurmuziy, the party's secretary general.

Dimyati said only Suryadharma's version of the congress could be recognized as legitimate, as it was the only one that fulfilled requirements of the party's constitution.

The requirements included that the congress be announced to local chapters 30 days before the event; that it be held by the legal chairman; and that it be attended by half of the delegates from provincial and district chapters.

Suryadharma was still registered as the party's chairman with the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, Dimyati said, meaning only Suryadharma could hold a congress legally.

Dimyati expressed disappointment with the party rift, which has escalated over the past week. "We used to be friends, like children or brothers, but now it seems like we're killing each other, firing each other just because of the positions," he said. "What's the value of a position, anyway? Where is our dignity?"

Dimyati the chairman could only leave the position if he resigned, was unable to preside permanently, or was involved in a corruption case that had resulted in a legally-binding decision.

"Looking at those [reasons], there's nothing that Suryadharma has been through," Dimyati said. "He was named suspect, without verdict nor indictment."

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/ppp-rift-widens-graft-suspect-suryadharma-announces-rival-congress/

PDI-P to support government, Megawati keeps position

Jakarta Post - September 21, 2014

Suherdjoko, Semarang – The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI- P)'s national meeting ended one day ahead of schedule on Saturday evening in Semarang with a number of recommendations having been produced.

During the meeting, top PDI-P official Puan Maharani read out some of the recommendations, including that the party support the incoming government of president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and vice president-elect Jusuf Kalla, who will be sworn in on Oct. 20.

It was also announced during the meeting that party chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri would keep her position for the 2015-2020 period which will be made official during the 2015 congress in Bali.

"PDI-P is ready to become a pioneering party that supports the government in its effort to strive for people's welfare," Puan said to a long applause.

She said that the Jokowi-Kalla administration would face problems centering on the economy, food sovereignty, poverty, social gap and education.

"Indonesia is still dependent on imported rice, meat, milk and soybean," said Puan, who is also Megawati's daughter. "In the energy sector, oil and gas prices are skyrocketing while the rupiah is slumping."

In the education sector, the meeting also recommended that the Jokowi-Kalla administration launch a 12-year compulsory education program and boost the teachings of state ideology Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution, the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) as well as promote diversity.

The meeting also recommended that the Jokowi-Kalla administration name their Cabinet Tri Sakti, said Puan, chairwoman of PDI-P's political affairs and inter-state institutions relations division.

She also said that the party had urged the Jokowi-Kalla administration to take strict action against the Islamic State (IS) movement and any other hard-line group. (nvn)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/21/pdi-p-support-govt-megawati-keeps-position.html

Prabowo replaces Suhardi as Gerindra chairman

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2014

Jakarta – Gerindra Party patron Prabowo Subianto has been appointed as the party's chairman, replacing the late chairman Suhardi. However, Prabowo said he would only serve as chairman until the party's first national congress next year.

Prabowo won the support of all party cadres in the party's national congress held at the Nusantara Polo club in Bogor and attended by more than 1,500 party members.

"All party elements have agreed to ask Prabowo to lead the party until next year's congress," Gerindra secretary-general Ahmad Muzani said on Saturday as quoted by tempo.co. He said Prabowo had decided to take the post because he wanted to help the transition period go smoothly.

Former Gerindra chairman Suhardi passed away on Aug. 28 at Pertamina Hospital, South Jakarta, due to lung cancer. (dic)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/20/prabowo-replaces-suhardi-gerindra-chairman.html

Megawati cools PAN, PPP ardor

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2014

Suherdjoko and Ainur Rohmah, Semarang/Jakarta – Top-ranking officials of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP) were greeted as heroes upon their arrival at the national assembly meeting of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) on Friday.

Their presence has indicated a possible break-up within the Red-and-White Coalition, led by losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto.

However, while many at the event initially rejoiced at the two parties' possible inclusion in the coalition of president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, the moment seemed to vanish after PDI-P supreme leader and Jokowi's patron, Megawati Soekarnoputri, signalled that negotiations with the parties over Cabinet slots were very unlikely.

"We've never said that we are forming a coalition. The exact word was 'togetherness'. We work hand-in-hand for the country. As I have repeatedly said to Pak Jokowi, there will be no negotiation," said Megawati.

Megawati's stance was supported by Jokowi, who said that he had not yet considered giving out Cabinet positions for PAN and PPP politicians on the basis of their affiliations.

"For the time being, [my coalition] is still discussing the architecture of the Cabinet. We have not discussed names yet. Just take it slowly. There is still time until Oct. 20 to choose ministers," he said.

Speculation is rife that Jokowi will offer PAN and PPP several ministerial posts after he announced he would allocate 16 ministerial-level jobs to politicians from his coalition camp. The presence of the officials from PAN and PPP has heightened speculation that the two parties are inching closer to Jokowi.

PAN was represented by its deputy chairman Dradjad Wibowo, secretary- general Taufik Kurniawan and executive Tjatur Sapto Edy. PAN chairman, and unsuccessful vice presidential candidate, Hatta Rajasa is currently on an overseas trip.

Despite warm welcome for PAN, PPP representatives at PDI-P meeting, Megawati says no negotiations Red-and-White Coalition representatives insist they remain united. PPP acting chairman Emron Pangkapi attended the meeting alongside his deputy secretary-general, Ihsa Muhsi.

Jokowi has been struggling to woo the two parties in order to gain the support of a majority in the House of Representatives for his upcoming administration.

When asked whether his presence signaled PAN's intention to join forces with Jokowi, Dradjad denied the possibility. "It is not related to that. This is a silaturahmi [friendly visit] between political parties. We've come because we were invited."

It has been suggested that PAN and the PPP could each get one minister should they agree to jump ship. Jokowi's team is said to be considering PPP executive and Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin and PAN's Dradjad to fill social-affairs ministerial seats.

Habiburokhman, an executive of losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto's Gerindra Party, said that his party was not concerned by PAN and PPP attendance at the meeting and reassured reporters that Prabowo's coalition would remain intact.

"As of today, the Red-and-White Coalition remains solid and has positioned itself outside the government. No political parties or leaders within the coalition have expressed their intention of resigning," he said.

Golkar Party executive and lawmaker Agun Gunandjar Sudarsa,said that his party was not concerned by the PAN and PPP executives' presence at the meeting. "The coalition remains solid. PPP and PAN will not join the Cabinet," he said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/20/megawati-cools-pan-ppp-ardor.html

Dems support on elections bill may not be enough

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2014

Ina Parlina and Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – Although the Democratic Party has officially announced its support for direct elections, the election for regional head (Pilkada) bill is still in danger of not being passed by the House of Representatives.

Deeming the position a reflection of its commitment to democracy and its consistent role as a counterbalance following the elections, the party has also stipulated a 10-point amendment to the bill, despite there being only seven days left for the House of Representatives to decide the fate of the bill.

"Today, the Democratic Party announce that we have decided to give our support to regional direct elections. However, 10 major improvements to the mechanism should be included in the bill," said party executive chairman Syariefuddin Hasan during a press conference at the party's headquarters in Jakarta on Thursday.

The 10 points include calls for cost efficiency, better management of political campaigns, funding accountability and a ban for all candidates on any involvement in vote buying or smear campaigns.

The Democratic Party is also demanding that the public be involved in the assessment of candidates' integrity and track records, and that candidates prevent violence during the elections.

The party is also calling for an election dispute resolution mechanism and a ban from involving local officials in elections campaigns and from reshuffling them immediately after elections. These demands, however, have failed to impress the public, according to a survey released by The Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) on the same day.

The survey showed that 83 percent of the respondents would blame Yudhoyono if he failed to prevent the Red-and-White Coalition's ambition of taking the country back to 2005, when governors, regents and mayors were still chosen by members of Regional and Municipal Legislative Councils (DPRD).

LSI researcher Ardian Sopa said that despite the President's public statement supporting direct elections, Yudhoyono is still blamed for not using his authority to stop deliberation of the bill.

"So far the President has talked about his tendency to favor direct elections, but there has not been any serious action from him to protect the country's democracy [by stopping the deliberation of the bill at the House]," Ardian said.

According to him, Yudhoyono still has the legal right to intervene. "The 2011 law on legislation states that a bill can be revoked before the deliberation process enters the second phase, which is a plenary meeting," Ardian said. The House is scheduled to hold the meeting on Sept. 25.

Ardian said that such a radical move was needed because the shift of stance by the Democratic Party did not necessarily ensure the Red-and-White Coalition's plan would be thwarted.

Ardian said that even though the Democratic Party's support meant that more than 51 percent of House factions were in favor of the bill, the Red-and- White Coalition could still win if the plenary meeting decided to settle the matter through voting.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/19/dems-support-elections-bill-may-not-be-enough.html

Central government plants its claws in local leaders through Pemda bill

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2014

Margareth S. Aritonang and Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Due to abuses of power found within regional governments, the central government is planning to pull regional leaders back under its control through a revision of a 2004 law on regional authorities.

The revision aims to grant powers to the central government to severely punish local leaders who fail in their efforts to set up efficient bureaucracies.

"The current implementation of regional autonomy is excessive," the Home Ministry's Director General of Regional Autonomy, Djohermansyah Djohan, said during a discussion in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

"We want to improve the relations between local leaders. Regional leaders, such as regents or mayors, think that they are infinitely free [to act], which apparently encourages them to turn into little kings," he added.

Djohermansyah cited, as among the common "misleading" practices of local leaders, several incidents of regions that were abandoned by their leaders during natural disasters, which confused disaster relief efforts run by the central government.

He additionally mentioned the practice of newly elected regents abusing their powers by illegally recruiting relatives or members of their campaign teams to become staffers in their administrations.

"Newly elected regents arbitrarily appointed as new support staff people who were from their campaign teams. This wasted the local budget," Djohermansyah emphasized.

In an attempt to ensure local leaders carry out their duties professionally, the revision bill, which has been under deliberation in the House for around three years, would impose a minimum one-year prison sentence on local leaders who illegally recruit staffers.

The bill will also allow for the dismissal of local leaders who leave their territories without the consent of the provincial administrations.

The draft prohibits local administration leaders from making policies that harm the public interest, create public concern or discriminate against people, from sitting as political party leaders, from conducting working visits abroad without a minister's consent, from being absent from duty or leave their regions for more than seven days without the consent of their superiors (for example, a minister or a governor) and from engaging in misconduct.

Central government wants power to punish misbehaving local leaders Some regional leaders think they can 'turn into little kings' Misconduct and being absent without leave could lead to dismissal

The revision bill is one of the three regulations on regional autonomy that are being discussed at the House's Commission II overseeing regional administrations. The packet also includes a newly passed law on villages and a controversial bill on regional elections.

On Wednesday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also arranged a limited Cabinet meeting to specifically address the amendments of the law on regional autonomy.

"Many opportunities have been lost, particularly relating to economic development and investment due to non-conducive management of local administration," Yudhoyono said in his opening speech during the meeting at the Presidential Palace.

Yudhoyono said further that the revisions were necessary to draw a clear line between the tasks of the central government and those of the local administrations, since he found that people often did not realize there were distortions and deviations of the spirit of the unitary state of Indonesia.

Shortly after the meeting, Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi told reporters that the draft would give authority to the central government, including the president and the home minister, to permanently or temporarily dismiss governors, mayors and regents who violate the law and misbehave.

"There are new many penalties being introduced in the draft, including administrative penalties, orders to undergo a training program on governance, as well as dismissal," Gamawan said. "The Constitution stipulates that a president holds the power in terms of governance."

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/18/central-govt-plants-its-claws-local-leaders-through-pemda-bill.html

Dems seek Cabinet positions

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2014

Ina Parlina and Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – The Democratic Party's about-face in rejecting the proposal to end the direct elections of local heads could have been a calculated move to secure seats in the Cabinet of president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.

Speculation is rife that the Democratic Party's maneuvering for positions in the Cabinet intensified after it was reported that Jokowi would leave two seats in his Cabinet open for parties from the rival Red-and-White Coalition.

Following Democratic Party chairman President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's announcement on Sunday that his party would support direct elections, other party executives have continued to tout the stance.

Democratic Party ethics council chairman Amir Syamsuddin, who is also the Law and Human Rights Minister, said that his party had been firm in its decision to maintain direct local elections.

"Yes, we [support the] direct mechanism [of local elections], but as he [Yudhoyono] has said in a YouTube clip we must make efforts to prevent the negative excesses of direct elections," Amir said on Wednesday.

Numerous media reports said that the party's secretary general, Edhie "Ibas" Baskoro Yudhoyono, who is Yudhoyono's son, had made similar remarks.

A source within the coalition of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said talks had been going on between executives of the PDI-P and the Democratic Party to discuss the possibility of a meeting between Yudhoyono and Megawati Soekarnoputri.

The source said that the possible inclusion of the Democratic Party in the ruling coalition led by the PDI-P hinged on the mending of the strained relationship between Megawati and Yudhoyono.

"SBY has indicated the party's stance on direct elections. This opens the door for the Democratic Party to join the coalition," the source said.

The source said that Yudhoyono had agreed to have a meeting with Megawati and the only problem now was how to sell the proposal to the PDI-P chairperson, who has maintained a grudge against Yudhoyono since he succeeded her as President in 2004.

In an apparent move to reach out to Yudhoyono, Jokowi had earlier urged the outgoing President to withdraw the plan to amend the direct election law, arguing that the nation would be able to resolve the problems that come with direct elections.

Democratic Party is expected to get seats in Cabinet as a reward for the party's about-face in direct elections saga

In what many considered to be Jokowi finally caving in to demands from political parties, the president-elect had decided to include more politicians in his Cabinet.

Jokowi told a short press briefing on Monday that his Cabinet would consist of 34 ministries, which would be led by 16 party politicians and 18 non- party professionals.

The Monday evening announcement could be seen as the culmination of Jokowi's effort to placate members of his coalition, the PDI-P, the NasDem Party, the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Hanura Party and the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI) – all of which have demanded roles in his administration.

Jokowi is also struggling to woo support from other political parties, notably from the Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP) in order for his administration to gain majority support in the House of Representatives.

The Golkar Party – one of the Prabowo Subianto-led Red-and-White Coalition members – reiterated its stance that none of its members would take the offer from Jokowi to join his Cabinet.

"One thing is for sure, none [will be] representing Golkar in the Cabinet," said Agung Laksono, Golkar Party deputy chairman and Coordinating People's Welfare Minister. "We will be outside the government [of Jokowi], so we will have no problems if we don't have seats in the Cabinet," he said.

The United Development Party's (PPP) deputy chairman Suharso Monoarfa said that the party's representatives would attend the PDI-P national assembly meeting in Semarang, scheduled for Friday.

Meanwhile, Jokowi said that he would favor female candidates with integrity and strong leadership qualities for his Cabinet.

Jokowi said that although he had no plan to implement affirmative action to put women into his Cabinet, he already had a list of qualified women who could be members. "We don't set a limit in terms of numbers. We will involve as many women as possible, regardless of their backgrounds, in the Cabinet,"Jokowi said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/18/dems-seek-cabinet-positions.html

Gerindra names Soeharto's nephew as party nominee for Bantul regent post

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2014

Slamet Susanto, Yogyakarta – The Gerindra Party has officially named Aryo Winoto, the nephew of the late president Soeharto, to run for the Bantul regent's office.

"All party elements have supported Aryo to run for the candidacy. Today we are officially naming him our candidate," head of Gerindra Party's Bantul branch, Purwanto, said on Thursday.

Aryo said he was grateful and promised to do his best during the election process. "I am grateful with this and promise to go all out in the competition," Aryo said.

Aryo Winoto is the son of the late Noto Suwito, the fifth sibling of Soeharto. Noto Suwito, who was head of Kemusuk subdistrict in Bantul, was known as Bantul's most prominent figure during his brother's 32-year tenure. Prospective officials had to win his blessing before running for office.

Aryo will run against the incumbent regent, Sri Surya Widati, and a police official, Sr. Comr. Priharsono, for the position. Direct elections are slated to take place next year. (dic)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/18/gerindra-officially-names-soeharto-s-nephew-party-nominee-bantul-regent-post.html

Indonesia's decade of direct local ballots is at risk

Bloomberg - September 17, 2014

Rieka Rahadiana & Neil Chatterjee – Indonesia's incoming president began his political ascent as a mayor in a system of local elections. The parties of the candidate he beat in July will try to change the law next week to prevent that happening again.

Lawmakers will vote Sept. 25 on a bill to revise a 2004 law on regional government that enabled direct elections. The draft, seen by Bloomberg News, would turn the clock back to a system of local assemblies choosing regional leaders that was created after the downfall of the late dictator Suharto.

The vote in parliament, where parties on the losing side of the presidential ballot now hold 75 percent of seats, poses a test for the world's third-largest democracy and President-elect Joko Widodo, who got his start as mayor of the city of Solo. The bill, opposed by Joko and outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is sponsored by the coalition of losing candidate Prabowo Subianto and may mark a reversal of the shift in power to the regions that began in 2001.

"It is certainly an attempt by some to claw back power both from the regions and, worse, from the voters," said Paul Rowland, a Jakarta-based political analyst and former country director for advocacy group the National Democratic Institute.

"The praetorian guard of the New Order want to reverse a reform that has gotten out of their control" he said, referring to a term used to describe the administration of Suharto, once Prabowo's father-in-law.

'Setback'

The bill, if approved, would reduce the chances for a young crop of hands- on mayors across the country to follow Joko, known as Jokowi, into national politics. Jokowi's successor as Jakarta governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok, resigned this month from Prabowo's Gerindra party in protest at its support of the bill. There is no provision in the bill to abandon the direct elections that occur at a national level.

"Elections by local parliament would be a setback, hurting the people's sovereignty," Jokowi said earlier this month when asked about the bill. "Me and Pak Ahok were born from the womb of direct democracy as the people's choice. How can we betray people as the mother of democracy?" he said on his Facebook page.

The bill does have an option to preserve direct elections, with new rules on voting. Yudhoyono's Democrat party and Prabowo's Gerindra party both support the version for indirect elections, along with others in Prabowo's coalition. Jokowi's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, and its coalition partners favor direct elections.

Yudhoyono role

The role of Yudhoyono, the chairman of the Democrat party that is the largest in the current parliament with 26 percent of seats, may be crucial in deciding the form of the final law. Yudhoyono, keen to preserve a democratic legacy after his 10 years in office, remained officially neutral in the July presidential vote, while his party announced support for Prabowo.

"Direct local elections should be maintained as well as direct presidential elections," Yudhoyono said in a video released by his party to YouTube this month. "The reality, in 10 years, is that there were many excesses occurring in elections for governor, regent and mayor. What if we keep the direct elections system, but prevent the many excesses?"

Yudhoyono, a former army general, suggested a third option in which provincial governors, as representatives of the central government, be indirectly elected, while citizens would vote directly for city mayors and local regents. Any system had pluses and minuses, he said.

Convicted candidates

"While he has said the party's role will be 'constructive', there are grave doubts that the coalition wants to do much more than create obstacles for the new government," said Keith Loveard, head of risk analysis at Jakarta- based security company Concord Consulting, referring to the group led by Prabowo.

Proponents of the draft bill say it would save the state money and reduce corruption in local voting. A poll by the Indonesian Survey Circle released this month of 1,200 people in 33 provinces found 81 percent felt local leaders should be elected directly by the people, the Jakarta Globe reported last week.

The bill calls for other changes to election rules. The version favoring indirect elections would let people who have served five years or more in jail run as candidates if they commit not to repeat the crime. Yudhoyono, who was re-elected in 2009 on a platform to cut graft, has been dogged by corruption scandals in his party.

Graft

Indonesia ranked 114th among 177 countries in a 2013 Transparency International corruption perceptions survey. During an election debate with Jokowi over the role of mafia in business, Prabowo said he couldn't rule out thieves in his camp. The draft bill says candidates must have no direct relationship to the incumbent, an effort to stop political dynasties.

The results of next week's vote will have implications for the 242 local elections planned next year across Indonesia, with direct voting not necessarily the cause of graft, said Andrew Thornley, program director for elections at The Asia Foundation.

"Electoral corruption is best addressed through attention to improving candidate recruitment, transparency in campaign finances, and enforcement of sanctions in cases of vote buying and fraud during the count," Thornley said.

The version favoring direct elections makes changes to the process of counting votes. "Quick counts," where survey companies count actual votes at a sample of booths to give results with a margin of error of a few percent, could only be announced after the vote count is completed.

Localization Voting can be re-done if there's a security disturbance, if procedures are not followed to open ballots or voters cast ballots more than once, the draft bill says.

Prabowo, in an unsuccessful challenge of the election outcome in the constitutional court, sought re-votes in some provinces because of alleged irregularities including ballots being opened early and incorrect voter lists.

The central government in Jakarta began to transfer power to the regions after the fall of Suharto in 1998 to head off various secessionist movements around the sprawling archipelago and better address local development needs. Aceh, the westernmost province, gained fuller autonomy after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami ended decades of fighting for independence.

The 2001 decentralization dubbed the "big bang" saw Indonesia almost double the share of government spending to regions, transfer almost two thirds of the central government workforce, and hand over more than 16,000 public services such as hospitals and schools, according to a 2003 World Bank report.

Finding balance

The 1999 rule required district heads, mayors and governors to be elected by local parliaments, before the 2004 law introduced direct elections. A year later Jokowi, then a furniture businessman, won the post of mayor of his home town of Solo in Java. He was re-elected in a landslide in 2009, before winning the capital in 2012 and then becoming the first national leader without ties to Suharto.

Indonesia still needs to address the balance between central and regional governments, with mayors and regents at times wielding too much power, Loveard said.

"A large number of the newly autonomous regions have been a financial disaster," Loveard said. "Joko Widodo now has the headache of trying to fix what Yudhoyono identified but chose to ignore."

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesias-decade-direct-local-ballots-risk/

Yudhoyono turns tables on direct election saga

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2014

Yuliasri Perdani, Jakarta – Support from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for the direct-election of local heads is expected to help the campaign to maintain the 2004 law on regional elections, with the 150 lawmakers from his Democratic Party likely to toe the party line in defending the original regulation.

In a Cabinet meeting on Sunday the President said he was working to find the best solution on whether to reinstate the representative-based election of regional heads – a proposal backed by the Red-and-White Coalition, of which his Democratic Party is a member.

Yudhoyono said that in determining the best election system for the country, everyone should refer to the spirit of democracy and the reform movement.

Yudhoyono later expressed his support for the direct-election system in a video uploaded to the party's Youtube account, Suara Demokrat, on late Sunday.

"If we go back to the choice that we are the fruit of ongoing reform, the direct election of regional leaders must be protected and maintained," he said.

Yudhoyono later urged president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to also express his views on the issue. "The people can ask him directly because the law will be applied in the future, including during Jokowi's administration," he said.

Six political factions in the Red-and-White Coalition control 420 of the 560 of seats in the House of Representatives, which will decide the fate of direct elections in a plenary session on Sept. 25.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Hanura Party, which belong to Jokowi's Gotong Royong Coalition, are desperately trying to maintain direct elections with the support of their 140 seats.

If Yudhoyono managed to mobilize support from the lawmakers from his party, the Gotong Royong Coalition will get a total of 290 seats, outnumbering the Red-and-White Coalition's 270 seats.

Responding to Yudhoyono's remark, Jokowi urged the President to withdraw the plan to amend the direct election law. "If he can, just abort the plan, or at least delay the deliberations," he said at City Hall in Jakarta on Monday.

Jokowi acknowledged the concerns that the direct elections were still marred by some problems, but he was optimistic that the nation would resolve those issues in time.

"Election fraud must be eliminated; money politics must be dealt with. And these efforts would certainly discourage people from committing election violations," he said.

However, separately, Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi insisted that the government would press ahead with its plan. Gamwan said that Yudhoyono's remarks on the election system reflect his stance as a party executive and not as a President.

"It is a stance of the Democratic Party. We should be able to tell the difference," Gamawan told reporters on Monday. Gamawan said that for the time being the government would wait for the deliberation process to be completed in the House.

When asked about the Democratic Party's intention to change course, the party's deputy secretary Ramadhan Pohan said that party members would wait for Yudhoyono's directive.

"[We are considering] a lot of options. The party's stance has been to maintain the balance. Our choice will always be in line with ethics, regulations and conscience," he said on Monday.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/16/yudhoyono-turns-tables-direct-election-saga.html

Environment & natural disasters

Indonesia in grip of a water shortage

Jakarta Globe - September 22, 2014

Jakarta – Hundreds of villages across Indonesia are facing a clean water crisis as dry season sets in in earnest following a drawn-out rainy season.

In East Nusa Tenggara, one of the country's poorest provinces, residents in 170 villages in 17 districts have been forced walk dozens of kilometers to fetch clean water for cooking and washing.

"All the water sources are dried up because of the dry season," Tini Thadeus, the head of the provincial disaster mitigation agency, or BPBD, said on Sunday. "People must walk long distances to find water. Or else they have to buy it at an expensive rate."

Nearly 40,000 people in the province are facing a water crisis, according to the BPBD. Private operators are going around the villages selling water from tanker trucks, at a cost of Rp 5,000 (42 US cents) a liter.

"Such a crisis can only be tackled by getting a water supply from other regions," Tini said.

For now, authorities in East Nusa Tenggara have requested Rp 15 billion in emergency funding from the central government in Jakarta to address the crisis. Tini said the money would be used to drill hundreds of wells throughout the province.

"All we can do is wait for our funding request to be approved. Until then, we will try to cope with the problem ourselves," he said.

The water shortage has also taken a heavy toll on rice cultivation in the province, with no water available for irrigation. Farmers in 16 of 22 districts and cities in the province have reported a failed harvest.

Several districts in East Java, Central Java and West Java as well as in Sumatra have been facing similar problems.

In Malang, East Java, residents in a number of villages have asked for water to be trucked in from other areas.

Hafie Lutfi, the head of East Java BPBD, said that more subdistricts were facing a clean water crisis. "Even those that have never faced a water shortage before are now asking for water shipments," he said.

On Madura Island, off the East Java mainland, JPNN.com reported that as many as 262 villages in three districts were facing a water shortage. Residents in those villages have complained in particular about the inability to water their crops.

Meanwhile, hundreds of villages in Kudus and Banjarnegara districts in Central Java are facing similar problems, while Tribunnews.com reported that residents in least eight subdistricts in Garut, West Java, have been unable to get access to water for their daily needs.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesia-grip-water-shortage/

Ongoing haze disrupting schools, flights

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2014

Rizal Harahap and Jon Afrizal, Pekanbaru/Jambi – The dense haze that has plagued parts of Sumatra for the past few days is raising health concerns and disrupting flights.

In Pekanbaru, Riau, parents of elementary school students are worried about the health of their children and have urged the government to put schools on leave.

Mother of a first and a sixth grader in Pekanbaru, Nur Latifah, said the provincial administration should have already put schools on leave because the thick haze has shown no signs of receding. Air Pollution Standard Index (PSI) boards have shown that the air quality has reached 197 PSI, an unhealthy level.

"No one wants their children to miss out on lessons due to schools being closed, but elementary school children are at great risk of acute respiratory tract infections from the smog," Nur said on Thursday.

She also expressed surprise that the government had not yet distributed masks to schools.

Another parent, Budiman, expressed his annoyance over the recurring annual haze. "Residents of Riau have been affected by the haze twice this year alone. Why can't the government find a solution?" he asked.

Meanwhile, Pekanbaru Health Agency acting head M. Noer said that the policy of closing schools would only be implemented if the air quality reached a dangerous level. "For now, the status is 'healthy'. We're urging students to minimize outdoor activities," said Noer.

Data from the Health Agency reveals that as many as 1,972 residents have suffered acute respiratory infections (ISPA) over the past week. Noer said he had ordered community health centers (Puskesmas) to distribute masks to residents to minimize the impact of the haze.

In Jambi, residents are also suffering from the worsening smog. The Jambi Environmental Management Board (BLHID) has announced that the air quality in Jambi is of an unsafe standard.

"According to our manual calculations, the air pollutant standards index in Jambi has risen above 100. This figure indicates poor air quality," head of BLHID's Jambi branch Rosmeli said on Thursday.

Jambi Governor Hasan Basri Agus said that his administration would stop all schooling activities should the air quality worsen.

Haze also blanketed Kualanamu International Airport in Deli Serdang regency, North Sumatra, on Thursday, causing a Garuda Indonesia flight to be canceled.

Meanwhile, incoming flights to Pekanbaru were forced to land at Hang Nadim International Airport in Batam, Riau Islands, on Thursday as visibility at Sultan Syarif Kasim II Airport in Pekanbaru was down to 700 meters.

Hang Nadim Airport flight safety chief Indah Irwansyah said that all aircraft were allowed to fly again at around 12 a.m. following an improvement in the weather in Pekanbaru.

Elsewhere, the thickening haze blanketing Pontianak in West Kalimantan has also affected the air quality of neighboring Malaysia. The Star online portal reported on Wednesday that haze across southern Sarawak worsened overnight. On Tuesday, the air pollution index (API) in the area was around 80, but by noon on Wednesday, it had reached 119.

[JP/Apriadi Gunawan also contributed to the story from Medan.]

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/19/ongoing-haze-disrupting-schools-flights.html

Indonesia ratifies haze treaty

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2014

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – Indonesia has officially adopted a decade-old regional haze treaty following pressure from neighboring countries over forest fires on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan.

A House of Representatives' plenary meeting on Tuesday endorsed the ratification of the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, which obliges Indonesia, as one of the member states, to actively involve itself in efforts to mitigate air pollution, both nationally and through intensified regional and international cooperation.

"Ratifying the [regional haze] agreement is the appropriate measure for Indonesia to prove its integrity as well as step up its role in solving problems in the region," Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya told the meeting.

"As a country with one of the largest areas of forest, this will help Indonesia deal with pollution in the future," he added. Indonesia was the only ASEAN country left to ratify the agreement, having signed the pact in 2002 along with the other member states.

The agreement was formulated as a response to an environmental crisis that hit Southeast Asia in the late 1990s, which was mainly caused by slash-and-burn clearance for agricultural purposes in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The fires caused estimated losses of US$9 billion, mainly due to health care problems and disruption of air travel and other business activities.

The biggest palm oil-producing country aroused further anger following the spread of haze caused by land clearing in Sumatra to Singapore and Malaysia last June.

According to the Singapore National Environment Agency, the country's air pollution rose to unhealthy levels as of Monday, as winds changed direction and brought in smoke from forest fires in Indonesia.

The government agency said on its website that the three-hour Pollution Standard Index broke above 100, which is beyond the level of unhealthy air, and remained above that level into the daylight hours.

Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) reported increased smog density in Riau on Tuesday as a result of the burning of forests in the area. BNPB has reopened its local office tasked with the management of haze and land fires in order to prepare precautions.

The country's failure to ratify the treaty was mainly down to lawmakers' concerns over potential breaches of sovereignty.

The majority of lawmakers, particularly from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), were concerned that the treaty, which Indonesia signed during the presidency of the PDI-P's Megawati Soekarnoputri, could infringe Indonesia's sovereignty, as signatory states would be involved in a task force to extinguish fires, mainly on Indonesian soil, and would have to share relevant information.

During the plenary meeting on Tuesday, lawmaker Milton Pakpahan, who chairs the House's Commission VII overseeing energy and natural mineral resources, said all the political factions at the House eventually supported the ratification.

"The decision to finally ratify the agreement is motivated by the frequent forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan that have caused transboundary haze pollution. Such incidents have also disrupted transportation and the economy," said Milton, a Democratic Party politician.

By adopting the agreement, Indonesia is obliged to cooperate in developing and implementing measures to prevent and monitor transboundary haze pollution caused by land or forest fires as well as to control sources of fires.

The agreement also obliges Indonesia to respond promptly to requests for information from other member states that may be affected by such transboundary pollution.

However, no legal sanction can be imposed on any party that fails to fulfill its obligations, Article 27 of the agreement stipulating that "any dispute between parties as to the interpretation or application of, or compliance with, this agreement or any protocol thereto, shall be settled amicably by consultation or negotiation".

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/17/ri-ratifies-haze-treaty.html

MIFEE accounts for Merauke's high emissions rate

Radio New Zealand International - September 16, 2014

An official from Merauke in Indonesia's Papua province says the regency's alarmingly high greenhouse gas emissions rate results from deforestation.

Bintang Papua reports that Merauke Regency's contributes nearly half of the province's emissions.

A Merauke official, Tangke Mangi, says the high rate results from rapid forest degradation caused by the huge agro-development project known as the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate.

Mr Mangi says there is a need for strategic action to mitigate the emissions which are expected to increase as more companies take up permits at the Estate.

Source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/254671/mifee-accounts-for-merauke%27s-high-emissions-rate

Greenpeace activists mourn burnt peatland

Jakarta Globe - September 16, 2014

Jakarta – Greenpeace mourners on Monday placed funeral wreaths on burned peatland in Riau province, highlighting an ongoing crisis and urging President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to secure his "green" legacy by ensuring real peatland protection.

Speaking in a blackened landscape adjacent to Tanjung Leban village in Rokan Hilir district, locally born Greenpeace forest activist Rusmadya Maharuddin explained that data shows three quarters of Indonesia's recent hotspots were burning in peatland.

The president's moratorium on new forest concessions clearly does not go far enough to ensure protection for the nation's peatlands, which store almost 60 billion tones of carbon, Rusmadya said.

"We are standing on peatland which should be protected, according to the forest clearing moratorium map. Yet clearing and draining of the wider landscape has left the land as dry as a tinderbox. Ongoing fire destruction and smoke haze are inevitable in this situation."

Peatland drainage and conversion has released enough greenhouse gas to put Indonesia among the world's top three emitters. This has put at risk President Yudhoyono's commitment to the world to reduce Indonesia's emissions by between 26 percent and 41 percent by 2020.

Unfortunately the president's response to the peat crisis has missed the mark. The draft peat regulation awaiting his signature fails to protect peatland as an ecosystem-landscape and peat areas within existing concessions. Destroying one part of a peat dome can lead to the rapid demise of the "protected" parts through drying out and edge effects.

Yuyun Indradi, Greenpeace's forest political campaigner, urged the president not to sign the flawed peat regulation in his last days in office.

"Indonesia's peatland forests are dying. They need strong and comprehensive protection, but the draft peat regulation does not provide that," Yuyun said in Jakarta.

Activists can only hope Joko Widodo will take strong actions against forest clearing.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/greenpeace-activists-mourn-burnt-peatland/

Health & education

Indonesian universities continue to drop in QS world ranking

Jakarta Globe - September 16, 2014

Jakarta – The University of Indonesia (UI) is still the country's best institution of higher education, according to results of a world university survey released on Tuesday, but overall, Indonesian universities continued their decline on the list.

The QS World University Rankings 2014/15 put UI in 310th place, one down from last year. In 2009, Indonesia's No. 1 university still ranked 201st. Another well-known local university, the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), has seen a similar decline, being ranked 315 in 2008, and in the 461-470 range now. Last year, ITB also was placed in the 461-470 range.

Gadjah Mada University (UGM) dropped even more significantly: the university was placed in the 250th spot just five years ago and is currently ranked in the 551-600 range. Last year, QS put UGM in the 501-550 range.

As is usually the case with surveys like these, the top 10 consists of only US and UK universities. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the world's best university according to QS, followed by the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, who are tied for second place. Harvard University takes fourth place and Oxford University is ranked fifth.

Besides the three Indonesian universities mentioned, the QS rankings also include Airlangga University, the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), Diponegoro University, the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) and the University of Brawijaya. These are all ranked 701+.

The best university in Asia is the National University of Singapore, which is the 22nd-best university worldwide according to the survey, up two spots from last year. The Australian National University also did well, climbing two spots to take 25th place worldwide.

According to its website, the QS World University Rankings are based on six indicators, each of which is given a different percentage weighting. Academic reputation is by far the most important indicator (based on a global survey of academics), followed by employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international student ratio and international staff ratio.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesian-universities-continue-drop-qs-world-ranking/

Break the shackles of stigma on mental health care in Indonesia

Jakarta Globe - September 16, 2014

Kriti Sharma – "My parents thought I was possessed – they used to put garlic and salt on my body to rid me of evil spirits," Erifah, 49, who lives in Jakarta, told me. Erifah started having symptoms of schizophrenia affective disorder when she was in the sixth grade, but her mother told her: "You're just a child, don't act crazy." Due to a lack of education and awareness, Erifah's parents did not seek mental health care.

"I only began seeking help after starting a family," Erifah said. "First I went to a Rukia [spiritual healing center], where a Muslim religious leader used to read out prayers. When I felt no improvement, I started going to another Rukia, where they gave me cassettes with verses of the Koran. Many years later, I went to a doctor, who told me to go to Grogol hospital [Jakarta's main psychiatric hospital] but I thought, 'That's for crazy people!' so I didn't go."

Erifah is one of over 19 million Indonesians with psychosocial disabilities. Many, like Erifah, first consult faith or traditional healers and seek medical advice as a last resort. That's because people with mental health conditions routinely fall victim to stigma and discrimination.

"I tried once or twice to join people sitting and chatting around the neighborhood but whenever I tried to join the conversation, people would start leaving one by one," Erifah said. "So I stopped going out. I spend time by myself, working and staying at home."

Erifah is now an activist and advocate for people with psychosocial disabilities, working with the Indonesian Mental Health Association (PJS) and a peer support group called Unit Informasi Layanan Sosial.

Even for those who seek help, the striking lack of availability of and access to appropriate mental health care in Indonesia are serious obstacles to proper treatment.

Indonesia has only 48 mental health institutions and about 600 to 800 psychiatrists. More than half of the psychiatric hospitals are in four of the country's 34 provinces, while eight provinces have no psychiatric hospitals at all. Due to the severe shortage of community-based mental health services and other support for people with psychosocial disabilities and their families, families resort to shackling their relatives with these disabilities.

Despite a ban on shackling – known as pasung – since 1977, the practice continues. According to the Health Ministry, nationwide more than 57,000 people with psychosocial disabilities, the majority in rural areas, live their lives in chains rather than having access to mental health care in their communities.

Indonesia's new Mental Health Law, approved by parliament on July 8 to address the country's dire mental healthcare situation, is in some ways a major step forward in addressing the treatment gap. The law is an attempt at bringing national legislation in line with the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Indonesia ratified in 2011.

The Mental Health Law puts the onus on the Indonesian government to provide mental health services from the national to the local level. It integrates mental health into general health services and makes available affordable drug treatments for people with psychosocial disabilities. The law also calls for training more mental health professionals.

The law emphasizes accessible community-based services, government monitoring of the licensing of facilities and setting standards for care. It guarantees a right to "honest and complete information on a person's mental health data," and to protection from neglect, violence, and exploitation. The law also includes provisions for raising awareness and reducing stigma and discrimination toward people with psychosocial disabilities, including encouraging the mass media to project a positive image of people who live with psychosocial disabilities.

Most important, for the tens of thousands of Indonesians with psychosocial disabilities who spend their lives shackled instead of getting community- based mental health care, the law provides accountability for abuses, including pasung.

Despite these advances, the Mental Health Law does contain some potentially problematic provisions. For example, it allows other people to approve the medical treatment of a person with a psychosocial disability, if the person is deemed "incompetent." It also allows medical personnel to force treatment on a person whom they deem "may endanger" themselves or others.

Both of these provisions could lead to abusive treatment. Informed consent is a bedrock principle of medical ethics and international human rights law, and forcing people to take medicine or undergo treatment without their knowledge or consent, except when the patient's life is in imminent danger, violates their rights. The same rule should be applied regardless of whether the person has a disability.

Under the CRPD, anyone with a disability – including those with psychosocial disabilities – has the right to make decisions that affect their life. Those decisions range from voting and buying property to marriage and consenting to health care. This right to legal capacity may not be denied based on a medical diagnosis. Instead, the Indonesian government has an obligation to provide support services that enable a person to make these decisions or express their will and preferences and to respect those decisions.

The Mental Health Law is an important first step in addressing the severe deficiencies in Indonesia's mental health care system. Erifah and the tens of thousands of other Indonesians who unnecessarily suffer due to those failures are counting on their government to address the Mental Health Law's inadequacies and to help break the shackles of stigma and inadequate mental health care that plague Indonesians.

[Kriti Sharma is a disability rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.]

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/break-shackles-stigma-mental-health-care-indonesia/

Gender & sexual orientation

Radical group threatens to close down LGBT seminar in Yogyakarta

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Bambang Muryanto, Yogyakarta – A radical group has threatened to use force to close down a seminar on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) issues organized by Sanata Dharma University's School of Psychology.

"We have requested the seminar be cancelled. If not, we will cancel it by force," Muhammad Fuad, leader of the Ka'abah Defender Movement, one of the elements grouped under the Islamic Society Forum (FUI), said on Wednesday.

He said he was worried that so-called academic freedom had been hijacked by some groups of people who wanted to inject the society with discourses on LGBT issues. He said the LGBT orientations should be viewed like a spreading disease that could harm Islamic values and the morals of society.

Sanata Dharma rector Johanes Eka Priyatma said he had been made aware of the threat, saying that the university would reconsider and cancel the seminar if it turned out that the seminar's theme would hurt the feelings of some groups in town.

"We always have the option to cancel the seminar if we find out that it could hurt the feelings of some groups," Johanes said on Wednesday. However, he argued that the sole reason behind organizing this seminar was to provide a stage upon which to discuss LGBT issues from an academic perspective.

LBGT activist Renate Arisugiwa acknowledged his disappointment at the threat, saying that it wasn't necessary as they would gather and discuss about topics like the rights of LGBT people who are often neglected in daily life. "We want to discuss problems that are often being experienced by LGBT people," he said.

He also criticized the view that the LGBT orientations should be viewed as diseases, citing that the World Health Organization had not categorized them as diseases since the 1990s and Indonesia had ratified the same policy in 1993.

The director of the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) Yogyakarta branch, Samsuddin Nurseha, said the police should react to the threats by providing protection for both the seminar and its participants.

Sleman Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ihsan Amin had refused to comment on this matter, giving as a reason that he was in the middle of a meeting. (dic)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/17/radical-group-threatens-close-down-lgbt-seminar-yogyakarta.html

Graft & corruption

Ministry proceeds with high-profile graft convict's parole

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2014

Haeril Halim, Jakarta – The Law and Human Rights Ministry, which controls prisons across the country, has been slammed again for its perceived leniency toward graft convicts, after the ministry insisted on proceeding with the parole request of graft convict Anggodo Widjoyo, despite strong opposition from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Businessman Anggodo, whose prison sentence was increased by the Supreme Court from five years to 10 years, was imprisoned in January 2010 for attempting to frame former KPK deputy chairmen Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah in a bribery scheme back in 2009.

"Anggodo meets all the administrative requirements for parole because he has served two-thirds of his prison term. We are currently processing his request and it will take around a month to examine his documents," the ministry's director general of penitentiaries, Handoyo Sudrajat, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the KPK said on Thursday that the public, who expected harsh punishments for graft convicts, was opposed to parole for Anggodo, and urged the ministry to ignore the parole request. KPK spokesman Johan Budi said that only justice collaborators should be released on parole, not the main perpetrators like Anggodo.

Anggodo was not supposed to reach two-thirds of his prison term until 2017, but an unusual 29 months of remission makes him eligible to apply for parole this month.

A graft convict may only receive a maximum of one month remission in his first year behind bars; two months in the second year; three months in the third year and four months in the fourth year, but Anggodo has accumulated a total of 29 months within four years.

Instead of explaining the details of Anggodo's remission, Handoyo said that he was also surprised to find about it, adding that the ministry would consider the "surprising" amount of remission in making its final decision on Anggodo's parole request. "I am new here anyway, just around one year in this post," Handoyo went on.

Meanwhile, KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto suspected an untoward deal might be behind the extra remission. "If it is true, then the whole process from the KPK to the court has been hijacked by the [remission] policy. The policy should be evaluated in order to reveal the parties behind it," Bambang said on Thursday.

Handoyo was quick to counter Bambang's arguments, saying that in Anggodo's case, the ministry needed no recommendations from the antigraft body as Anggodo was jailed prior to the enactment of Government Regulation No. 99/2012, which tightened the extending of remission, parole and other legal rights for inmates who have committed "special" crimes including corruption.

"We will try to explain to the KPK that no recommendation is needed for this specific case," Handoyo said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/19/ministry-proceeds-with-high-profile-graft-convict-s-parole.html

Former city transport chief arrested in TransJakarta graft probe

Jakarta Globe - September 18, 2014

Deti Mega Purnamasari & Erwin Sihombing, Jakarta – Former Jakarta Transportation Office chief Udar Pristono was arrested on Thursday for his role in the allegedly crooked procurement of buses for the TransJakarta network, with the Attorney General's Office weighing the possibility of also leveling more serious charges of money laundering.

Udar was arrested after undergoing a grueling 10-hour questioning by the AGO and will be detained for the next 20 days at the Salemba prison in East Jakarta.

AGO spokesman Tony Spontana confirmed Udar's arrest and said it was based on evidence, rather than political pressure, as has been speculated in the past.

The arrest follows the purchase of faulty buses from China for the TransJakarta system at a cost of Rp 1.5 trillion ($125 million) in 2013. When the buses arrived in the capital earlier this year, many were discovered to have missing or broken components. Some of the ostensibly new vehicles were already rusting.

Udar, who signed off on the contract, said on Thursday that he hoped justice would be served. "I hope the AGO can give the fairest decision in light of my services for the Jakarta administration," he said.

Further investigation is likely to follow Udar's arrest, and the AGO is said to be considering charging him with money laundering. "Everything will happen due process; we'll deal with the corruption first and the money laundering later," AGO prosecutor Widyo Pramono said.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/former-city-transport-chief-arrested-transjakarta-graft-probe/

KPK slams sentence reduction for graft convict Anggodo Widjojo

Jakarta Globe - September 18, 2014

Rizky Amelia, Jakarta – The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Thursday slammed a sentence reduction of more than two years for graft convict Anggodo Widjojo, calling it a "frightening decision."

KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto said the corruption watchdog had received a report that Anggodo had received a reduction of 29 months and 10 days. "If it's true, then it is very frightening," he said. "We hope this decision will be revised."

Anggodo has been held at Sukamiskin Penitentiary in Bandung since he was imprisoned in 2010 for obstruction of justice and graft. An official at the penitentiary, Ahmad Hardi, confirmed on Thursday that Anggoto was eligible for the sentence reduction.

"There's a sentence cut given for a health reason and Anggodo has a permanent illness... There are five or six other inmates who received the sentence cut for the same reason," Ahmad told Detik.com.

However, Ahmad denied the sentence reduction was excessive and dismissed suggestions bribery may have played a part. "It's not that fantastic," he said of the reduction. "It's according to the law and we didn't give it out easily and not only for Anggodo."

Sukamiskin Penitentiary has also filed a request to the KPK to grant Anggodo an early release. Ahmad said Anggodo was eligible because he had served two-thirds of his jail term. Bambang said the KPK would not grant the request.

Anggodo had refused to cooperate with the commission and attempted to obstruct justice during the investigation, he said. "Naturally, if the convict has never served as a justice collaborator for KPK, it is safe to assume we will not release them early, whoever they are," Bambang said.

Anggodo was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay a Rp 150 million ($12,500) fine in 2010 after he was found guilty of attempted bribery and obstruction of justice.

Both the KPK and Anggodo filed an appeal to challenge the verdict and in November 2010 the Jakarta High Court increased his sentence to five years.

In 2012, the KPK filed another challenge to the Supreme Court, which was successful, and the jail term was increased to 10 years. He was also ordered to pay a Rp 250 million fine.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/kpk-slams-sentence-reduction-graft-convict-anggodo-widjojo/

Rampant illegal levies still occur in city offices

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Corry Elyda, Jakarta – Despite improvements in the provision of permits, the Indonesian Ombudsman has found that the charging of illegal levies is still rampant in a number of district and subdistrict offices, as well as in subagencies, during the process of issuing business permits, with illegal fees totalling an estimated Rp 3.8 billion (US$317,800) a year.

The ombudsman's mitigation department head Muhammad Khoirul Anwar said during a presentation on the city administration's performance on Tuesday that most of the business permits, including the company domicile letter (SKDP), the License for the Operation of Trading Businesses (SIUP), company registration (TDP) and the registration letters for hotels and restaurants (TDUP), were actually free.

"However, the applicants still had to pay in the range of Rp 500,000 to Rp 6 million in various schemes," he said. He added that officials in the Gondangdia and Cipinang Cempedak subdistricts, for example, disguised the illegal levies as alms. "One of the officials tagged the alms at Rp 2 million," he said.

He said, however, that such levies were not required at the Menteng Atas and Kelapa Gading Barat subdistrict offices. The officials there also explained the requirements clearly, including that the permit was free of charge.

The ombudsman conducted the investigation in all regional offices of the Small and Medium Enterprises (UMKM) Agency, the Tourism Agency and the One-stop Integrated Service (PTSP) in five municipalities, as well as in the subdistrict offices of Grogol and Tomang in West Jakarta, of Kebon Kacang, Bendungan Hilir, Kebon Sirih and Gondangdia in Central Jakarta, of Mampang Prampatan, Bangka, Bukit Duri and Menteng Atas in South Jakarta, of Kelapa Gading Barat in North Jakarta and of Cipinang Cempedak and Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta. The undercover investigation, partially conducted through interviews, took place from April to September.

During his presentation, the ombudsman also showed a documentary video on how the officials in various offices asked for the levies. "A number of officials also offered their services to take care of the whole process, although it should be handled individually by the applicant," he said.

Khoirul said those who asked for the officials to handle the permits had to pay some money. "The fee in Tomang subdistrict, for example, was around Rp 2.6 million," he said.

According to Khoirul, the same practice was also found in the regional offices of the UMKM. The ombudsman found that although asking for the SIUP and TDP was actually a free service, the applicants were charged Rp 6 million in the West Jakarta office of the agency.

He said an official of the Tourism Agency's North Jakarta office also charged Rp 2.5 million per room for TDUP applicants establishing new hotels.

According to Khoirul, the situation was even worse in that the requirements for gaining those permits were different in each subdistrict offices, although all the requirements had been set out in the Gubernatorial Decree No 506/1989.

Khoirul said public services have improved with the more transparent system that came with the implementation of the one-door service. At least 2,000 new small and medium businesses were established in 2013. If each applicant requiring SKDP was charged Rp 500,000 to Rp 2 million, subdistrict officials received at least Rp 1.2 billion a year, Khoirul went on.

"For SKDP, the illegal levies potentially charged to around 4,000 companies reach up to Rp 2.6 billion," he said. Ombudsman chairman Danang Girindrawardana said the ombudsman gave the city administration 60 days to show it had made an effort to revamp the system.

City secretary Saefullah said that he was ashamed about the findings, especially after watching the video. Saefullah said the city was now revamping the public service system, including strengthening the one-door service by making it an agency along with procurement.

"As many as 518 services spread across the agencies and working units will be handled by BPTSP early next year," he said, adding that the PTSP was only handling 18 of the permits.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/17/rampant-illegal-levies-still-occur-city-offices.html

Supreme Court lauded for revoking Luthfi's political rights

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Ina Parlina and Haeril Halim, Jakarta – Anti-corruption activists and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) praised on Tuesday a recent Supreme Court decision revoking the political rights of bribery convict, and former Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) chairman, Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq.

The appellate court panel – consisting of presiding judge Artidjo Alkostar, M. Askin and MS Lumme – unanimously decided on Monday that Luthfi could not be appointed a public official, a lawmaker or hold any party leadership in the future, the Supreme Court told a press conference on Tuesday.

Luthfi, who was the first political party chief to be arrested by the KPK in a graft case, was the second graft convict to be stripped of his political rights after former National Traffic Police Corps (Korlantas) chief Insp. Gen. Djoko Susilo received a similar ruling late last year.

However, those verdicts were issued by either the Supreme Court's cassation panel or the High Court's appellate panel, not by the Jakarta Corruption Court, even though it has heard a number of graft cases in which KPK prosecutors have demanded it revoke corruption convicts' political rights.

"Not only will it punish Luthfi, but it can also send a message to other politicians not to get involved in corruption," Emerson Yuntho from Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said on Tuesday. "ICW also calls for the revoking of the right to parole and remission for corruption convicts," he said.

The Supreme Court also increased Luthfi's sentence for bribery in a meat- import graft case from 16 years' imprisonment to 18 years, and also ordered him to pay Rp 1 billion (US$83,600) in fines.

"This is a fundamental benchmark for the fight against corruption amid massive political graft. It sets an example for other judges to deter corruptors," Erwin Natosmal Oemar from the Indonesian Legal Roundtable said.

Bambang Widjojanto, a deputy chairman at the KPK, said the sentence could indeed be a benchmark for other courts to follow. "Public officials often misuse their power to secure their interests or the interests of their groups. [Therefore] combining legal penalties and political sanctions could deter them," he said.

KPK prosecutors have asked the corruption court to strip several graft convicts – for example, suspended Banten governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah and former Constitutional Court chief justice Akil Mochtar – of their political rights, but to no avail.

Former Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum is also currently facing a similar sentence demand by the KPK.

Supreme Court spokesman Ridwan Mansyur told the press conference that the crime committed by Luthfi was a "parody of democracy". "They considered all aspects, including that he had hurt people who were the victims of his crime. They also considered the seriousness of the crime," he added.

In his consideration, justice Artidjo said Luthfi deserved the longer prison term as he had betrayed the public's trust by accepting bribe money while serving as a lawmaker.

In 2013, the Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced Luthfi to 16 years in prison and ordered him to pay Rp 1 billion in fines for graft and money laundering, less than the 18-year sentence and Rp 1.5 billion in fines sought by KPK prosecutors. The Jakarta High Court upheld the 16-year jail sentence and Rp 1 billion in fines later in the same year.

Luthfi was found guilty of accepting bribes from meat-importing company PT Indoguna Utama in exchange for persuading party colleague Suswono, the then agriculture minister, to increase the company's beef import quota.

A PKS official, Mardani Ali, said the party would abide by the verdict. Ali was quoted by Kompas.com as saying "the Supreme Court's verdict is part of the law-enforcement system. Therefore, we have no option but to honor it".

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/17/supreme-court-lauded-revoking-luthfi-s-political-rights.html

KPK zeroes in on to SBY's inner circle

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2014

Haeril Halim and Ina Parlina, Jakarta – The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is going after people inside President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's (SBY) inner circle.

After questioning his presidential advisor on political communication, Daniel Sparringga, on Tuesday the KPK grilled Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto in a high-profile graft case implicating former energy and mineral resources minister Jero Wacik.

Last week, Daniel Sparringga was questioned on allegations that he had received dirty money from Jero, whom the KPK has charged with extortion. Jero is a senior member of Yudhoyono's ruling Democratic Party, while Djoko is known as one of Yudhoyono's right-hand men.

After six-hours of questioning, Djoko, who like Yudhoyono's is a 1973 Military Academy graduate, acknowledged that KPK investigators had attempted to cross-check information received from Daniel.

"The point is that investigators sought to confirm Daniel Sparringga's testimony. There were around 16 questions," Djoko said at KPK headquarters on Tuesday without elaborating further.

Djoko also did not deny that he had held a meeting with Daniel where they discussed Jero's former role at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry. "I can't answer the question, it is part of the ongoing investigation," Djoko said, adding that he was questioned in his capacity as a coordinating minister.

Djoko's questioning by the KPK raises further questions, because structurally speaking, Jero's office falls under the supervision of the Coordinating Economic Minister, not the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister.

It is alleged that due to Djoko's close relations with Yudhoyono, Daniel, who is reportedly Jero's political consultant, once relayed Jero's complaints regarding his operational budget, which he considered "very small". Djoko, however, dismissed this account. "No such thing happened," he said.

The KPK has alleged that Jero was unhappy with his operational budget and forced subordinates to collect illegal levies from procurement-project kickbacks, marked-up ministry budgets and bogus programs in order to finance his activities, including paying Rp 2 billion to Indo Pos to get media coverage for his activities.

Commenting on Djoko's questioning, KPK chairman Abraham Samad said: "The questioning of a witness does not mean the witness is guilty or directly implicated in the case."

Meanwhile, KPK deputy chairman Zulkarnain denied suggestions that Djoko was one of "the third parties" whom the KPK said had benefitted from Jero's alleged corruption. The KPK earlier said that Jero had funneled his ill- gotten money to "third parties", whose identities remain undisclosed.

"There is information that we can't publish because such a move could hamper the ongoing investigation. The questioning [of Djoko] is important to shed light on JW's alleged corruption. All details will be revealed when JW stands trial in the future," Zulkarnain told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, referring to Jero by his initials.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday the antigraft body also questioned Jero Wacik's wife, Triesna Wacik, for allegedly benefitting from Jero's alleged extortion scheme. Triesna declined to answer reporters' question about whether Jero had paid her Rp 1 billion credit card bill for luxury items purchased abroad with illicit money.

"Please ask KPK investigators if you have any questions regarding the ongoing legal case. I am not allowed to speak publicly about the case," Triesna said at KPK headquarters on Tuesday.

Separately, Yudhoyono's spokesman, Julian Aldrin Pasha, said his boss knew about Djoko's summons and as a result was forced to skip a Tuesday event at the Presidential Palace.

"The President always instructs his subordinates to honor any summons from law enforcement institutions, including the KPK," Julian said at the State Palace on Tuesday. Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam, however, refused to comment, arguing he had no information about Djoko's summons.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/17/kpk-zeroes-sby-s-inner-circle.html

Terrorism & religious extremism

Muslims told to watch mosques for IS presence

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2014

Yuliasri Perdani and Ruslan Sangaji, Jakarta/Palu – In the wake of the arrest of alleged Chinese Turkestan jihadists in Central Sulawesi, Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin has called on the caretakers of mosques across the country to keep an eye out on foreigners.

"Houses of worship, I believe, must be more selective in giving space to individuals, let alone to foreigners with dubious backgrounds. Don't easily give space for foreign nationals with unknown religious backgrounds," Lukman said.

Lukman issued the statement following the arrest of seven suspected terrorists, including four individuals allegedly from China's restive Xinjiang province, in conflict-prone Poso of Central Sulawesi over the weekend. It is alleged that the foreign nationals were planning to join a terrorist cell led by fugitive Santoso.

The fact that Santoso had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) movement had raised suspicions that their visit was linked to the international terrorist group's activities.

While acknowledging the threat from the IS movement, Slamet Effendi Yusuf, the executive council chairman of the country's largest Muslim group, Nahdlatul Ulama, underlined that there was no need for mosque caretakers to step up their vigilance on foreigners.

"We don't have to be xenophobic. It is unnecessary to implement concerted efforts only to monitor foreigners. We have security institutions tasked with pursuing terrorists, be they Indonesians or foreign nationals," he said on Monday.

Slamet also added that most members of hard-line groups were locals. "Many cases in the past suggest that local hard-line groups, not foreigners, play a dominant role in promoting the IS movement in the country," Slamet said.

A number of groups and individuals, including radical cleric and convicted terrorist Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, are known to have voiced their support and raised funds for IS. The National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) estimates that around 100 Indonesians are fighting under the IS banner in Syria and Iraq.

Meanwhile, the National Police were working to uncover the motives and backgrounds of the four foreigners, who are currently being held at the Mobile Brigade's (Brimob) detention center in Depok, West Java.

National Police chief Gen. Sutarman said on Monday that police investigators had trouble finding interpreters for them as none of the suspects, identified as Ahmed Bozoghlan, A. Basyit, A. Bayram and Azubaidan, spoke English.

"We have coordinated with the Turkish Embassy in regard to the suspects' fraudulent Turkish passports and we also asked [the embassy] to assign an interpreter. It turns out that they speak a different language. The suspects speak Uighur," Sutarman said, referring to a Turkic language spoken by China's Uighur ethnic group.

According to Sutarman, the four purchased fake Turkish passports, priced at US$1,000 each, in Thailand. They took flights from Thailand to Kuala Lumpur and then to Bandung, West Java. The four took another flight to Makassar, South Sulawesi, where three Indonesian militants picked them up for a ride to Poso.

Also on Monday, the police's Densus 88 counterterrorism squad searched the rented house of the foreigners on Jl. Tangkasi, South Birobuli, South Palu subdistrict.

"Upon their arrival, they claimed that they came from Tojo Una-Una regency and are studying at a university in Palu," the house owner, Willem, said during police questioning. Willem said that the foreigners were rarely seen at home during the night.

The police detained one of the house's tenants, whose identity was withheld. The police went on to search the house of one of the three Indonesian suspects, identified as Saipul Prianta, Yudi Chandra and Mohammad Irfan, in Lambara, Tawaili in North Palu, located about 25 kilometers from the foreigners' rented house.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/16/muslims-told-watch-mosques-is-presence.html

Hard-line & vigilante groups

Playing down FPI threat, Basuki says he, too, rejects hard-line group

Jakarta Globe - September 22, 2014

Jakarta – Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama of Jakarta has played down a threat by the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) to protest and reject his appointment as leader of the capital once Governor Joko Widodo assumes his presidential post in October.

"I am fine with it. I, too, reject the FPI," he told journalists at City Hall on Monday, as quoted by Indonesian news portal Liputan6.com.

Basuki said he has been informed about the protest and was ready to welcome the move as long as protestors follow the proper procedure for such rallies.

He said he was accustomed to ethnicity, religion and racial-related public resistance, but called on the FPI not to raise such issues during their protest on Wednesday.

"There is a law [that regulates those issues]. If they talk or threaten [others] on the basis of religion and race, they could be criminally charged. Let's just wait for it. If there is any evidence of them committing any offense [on those issues], we will have no mercy," he said.

Basuki, a Christian of Chinese descent, further emphasized that he was not worried by the threats, as he stands by the 2004 regional administration law which backs the appointment of deputy regional chiefs to helm the administration once a leader steps down from his position before the end of his term.

As previously reported, the FPI's Jakarta chapter plans to hold a massive rally on Wednesday at the Jakarta City Council (DPRD) to express its disapproval of Basuki's impending appointment as governor.

The group demanded that Basuki – who it had called an arrogant infidel – not to be installed as governor to replace President-elect Joko.

"He is not a Muslim and he is too arrogant. His words are rude and he calls people names. It's inappropriate for a public official to act that way," FPI Jakarta chief Salim Bin Umar Alatas told the Jakarta Globe last week.

The group claimed it would be deploying thousands of protesters on Wednesday and that it would not back down until its demands are met.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/jakarta/playing-fpi-threat-basuki-says-rejects-hard-line-group/

FPI banners opposing Ahok erected in city

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2014

Jakarta – The Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) has received numerous reports of illegal banners put up by the hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI), opposing the appointment of Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama as Jakarta governor.

Ahok will assume president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's position as Jakarta governor when the latter leaves City Hall for the State Palace on Oct. 20.

The banners bear the message "Umat Islam Jakarta tolak Ahok jadi gubernur!!!" (Muslims of Jakarta reject Ahok as governor!!!). The banners were put up in Mampang in South Jakarta and near the City Hall in Central Jakarta.

Public Order Agency head Kukuh Hadi Santosa said he had ordered his officers to remove the banners. "The banners are not only illegal but they also [are offensive to minorities]. They must all be taken down by Friday night," Kukuh told reporters at the City Hall on Friday.

Previously, Ahok said that he was not concerned about resistance from hard-liners. "It's the FPI. They are always like that. I don't really care," he has said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/20/fpi-banners-opposing-ahok-erected-city.html

FPI Jakarta rejects 'infidel' Basuki as governor

Jakarta Globe - September 18, 2014

Arientha Primanita, Jakarta – The hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) will not accept the "arrogant non-Muslim" Basuki Tjahaja Purnama as the new governor of Jakarta and its members are ready to die to prevent him from assuming the post, one of the group's leaders said on Thursday.

Salim Bin Umar Alattas, who heads the FPI's Jakarta branch, said the group strongly objects to Basuki taking over the post from President-elect Joko Widodo because apart from the religious factor, it also sees him as ill- mannered.

"He is not a Muslim and he is too arrogant, his words are rude and he calls people names," Salim told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday. "It's not proper for a public official to act like that. He must learn ethics."

Joko, better known as Jokowi, is a Muslim and the Basuki, his deputy, is a Protestant Christian. The FPI has started hanging banners across town calling on people to reject Basuki, also known as Ahok.

"Since the start of the gubernatorial campaign of Jokowi and Ahok, we have rejected them because it is haram [forbidden in Islam] to choose kafir [infidel] leaders," he said. "Besides, [the people] chose Jokowi as a governor, not Ahok."

Basuki recently announced that he resigned from the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party, over his disapproval of indirect elections of regional leaders, which the party strongly supports. The FPI was supporting Prabowo Subianto, Gerindra's chief patron, in the July presidential election.

However, Salim denied that the FPI's rejection of Ahok was based on political reasons. "This has nothing to do with politics or with Gerindra. It is purely because we can't take his arrogance anymore. We have been patient long enough with his attitude," he said.

The FPI leader announced the group would rally at the City Council (DPRD) building in Central Jakarta next Wednesday, and that he expected thousands of people from various mass organizations to attend.

"We will demand that the DPRD refuses to inaugurate Ahok as governor. We will prove that we are ready to be put in jail, or give our lives, to prevent Ahok from assuming the governorship."

Salim added that there are plenty of legal ways to prevent Basuki from taking charge after Joko becomes president on Oct. 20.

"The district chief of Garut [in West Java], Aceng Fikri, was fired only because he married a second wife, which is halal [allowed in Islam], then why can't Ahok be fired because he is a non-Muslim and he is arrogant?," he said.

Basuki has said he doesn't worry too much about people having reservations about him because of his background as a Chinese-Indonesian Christian. "So many people reject me, I'm fine with it," he said.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/jakarta/fpi-jakarta-rejects-infidel-basuki-governor/

Freedom of religion & worship

Tolerant religion minister wanted

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2014

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – As the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP), both of which are Islamic-based parties, vie to place one of their members in the post of religious affairs minister in the new Cabinet, many have called on president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to retain the current minister, Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, due to his progressive stance on many issues, especially religious minority rights.

Lukman, who was installed in June this year to replace Suryadharma Ali, whom the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named as a graft suspect, has been praised by members of the country's religious minorities as well as supporters of religious tolerance for his "commitment to upholding the Constitution that protects religious freedom in the country", according to Hendardi, chairman of the Setara Institute.

Soon after his appointment by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Lukman convened a meeting attended by representatives from several minority religious groups, such as the Ahmadiyah, Shia, Bahai, Sunda Wiwitan (he native faith of the Sundanese) and Parmalim (the native faith of the Batak) communities. The meeting was part of Lukman's effort to reach out to minority groups who continue to experience discrimination.

Lukman has also won plaudits for his firm statements regarding radicalism, including his condemnation of the growing support for the Islamic State (IS) and his urging of Indonesians not to join the group.

Currently, the Religious Affairs Ministry conducts focus-group discussions that bring together minority religious groups with civil society organizations promoting interfaith dialogue. It is hoped that the meetings can produce a road map for combating religious intolerance in the country, a radical departure from the policies of Suryadharma.

Support growing for Lukman Hakim Saifuddin to stay on as religious affairs minister He has been praised for his defense of religious minorities

"He is so much better than his predecessor, Pak Suryadharma Ali, who instead of working to solve the problem of religious discrimination in this country became a part of the problem with his hate speech," Hendardi said on Sunday.

Hendardi said that Suryadharma pales in comparison to Lukman due to his many controversial statements, one of which was his claim that Shia Islam was heretical because it deviated from mainstream Islamic teachings.

Suryadharma also came under fire last year for allegedly supporting the forced conversion of Shia followers in Sampang, East Java, in an initiative the government called a reconciliation program to end a conflict between the two Islamic denominations in the region, the Shia and the majority Sunni.

"I personally support appointing Pak Lukman to lead the [Religious Affairs] Ministry in the new government because we have yet to see any other candidates who have proven to support [religious] minorities," Hendardi said.

Activist Bona Sigalingging, a member of the embattled GKI Yasmin Christian congregation in Bogor, West Java, also praised what Lukman had done in recent months.

GKI Yasmin has remained sealed for more than 10 years despite a ruling by the Supreme Court, the country's highest legal institution, stipulating its legitimacy.

"Unlike Pak Suryadharma who has promised to reopen our church since 2011, Pak Lukman did not make any promises that he could not keep during his meeting with us. But we are convinced that things will be better under his leadership. He is open-minded and a supporter of religious diversity," Bona said.

Despite the growing support for Lukman, his permanent position in the Cabinet will depend on what the PPP decides in the coming weeks – whether the party will switch sides to join the Gotong Royong Coalition led by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) or remain with the Gerindra Party-led Red-and-White Coalition.

The presence of PPP executives at PDI-P's national assembly in Semarang, Central Java, over the weekend seemed to suggest the former's decision to jump ship.

If the PPP does officially switch sides the party would still have to compete with the PKB – which has been a part of the Gotong Royong Coalition since its formation – for the next religious affairs minister post, which has traditionally been awarded to a member of the country's largest Islamic group, Nahdatul Ulama (NU).

Reports have indicated that the PKB has already nominated its candidates for the position and submitted names to Jokowi.

"The competition is inevitable. The PPP and the PKB will undoubtedly fight each other for the post due to its strategic position. However, the post is better given to a non-partisan figure from the NU to avoid potentially conflicting political interest, in order to embrace all interests," analyst Arief Aulia Rahman from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/22/tolerant-religion-minister-wanted.html

Religious affairs minister gives embattled Bogor church new hope

Jakarta Globe - September 19, 2014

Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, Jakarta – Indonesia's recently appointed religious affairs minister said on Friday that he would start a dialogue with the hard-line group that rejects GKI Yasmin, an embattled church in Bogor that has been shut down years ago by the government.

Albert Hasibuan, a senior presidential adviser on legal and human rights issues, told the Jakarta Globe on Friday that the move by Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin had a real chance of succeeding.

"Concerning GKI Yasmin, the minister said that it should be reopened because there has been ruling by the Supreme Court and a recommendation from the Ombudsman [to that effect]," Albert said. "But because there is a group that opposes the [reopening of the ] church, the minister will soon meet and discuss the matter with them."

The half-built GKI Yasmin was sealed by the Bogor government in 2010, shortly after its building permit was revoked. Although the Supreme Court issued a ruling ordering the government to reopen the church, this was ignored. Until now, members of the congregation have to worship in their homes, although they sometimes do it front of the State Palace.

"The court decision is good, but needs to be communicated with the others [the groups that oppose it]," Lukman said, as quoted by news portal Kompas.com.

Suryadharma Ali, the previous religious affairs minister, also several times discussed the matter with the presidential advisory board of which Albert is a member, and other stakeholders, but to no avail.

Bona Sigalingging, a spokesman for the church, told the Globe that he appreciated Lukman's initiative. "We met him three days ago, and he said that the state should not bow to the intolerant groups," Bona said on Friday.

"I think Lukman's plan for GKI Yasmin is right, but it will take some time for the ruling of the Supreme Court and the recommendations of the Ombudsman to really be implemented."

Bona said that the church has long been disappointed by the many public officials who have turned a blind eye to the congregation's problems.

"It's good signal that Lukman wants to work hard for this case. Whoever the new religious affairs minister will be in the new government [under Joko Widodo, set to be inaugurated as president on Oct. 20], hopefully the person will have the same perspective and courage."

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/religious-affairs-minister-gives-embattled-bogor-church-new-hope/

Land & agrarian conflicts

Komnas HAM holds inquiry to settle land disputes

Jakarta Post - September 22, 2014

Hasyim Widhiarto and Apriadi Gunawan, Jakarta/Medan, North Sumatra – Speaking in her native Batak language, Opung Putra Lumbangaol quickly stole the attention of hundreds of people attending a public hearing held on Wednesday by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in Medan.

In front of four panelists – Komnas HAM commissioner Sandrayati Moniaga, former commissioner Eny Suprapto, National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) commissioner Saur Tumiur Situmorang and Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) forest policy professor Hariadi Kartodiharjo – Lumbangaol, a member of a traditional community in Pandumaan village, Humbang Hasundutan regency, shared a story about her local community's ongoing struggle to take over the management of a 3,900-meter-square customary forest from pulp and paper company PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL).

The old lady said local residents used to make ends meet by harvesting kemenyan (incense) trees from the forest for the past 300 years. The villagers, according to Lumbangaol, however, were now unable to rely on the forest for their livelihoods after TPL, which in 1992 was granted a concession to manage 269,000 hectares of forest in North Sumatra for 35 years, started felling trees on the plot of customary land five years ago.

"We have reported the case to the police but they never followed it up. The police, instead, only responded to TPL's complaints about our activities [on the customary land]," Lumbangaol said, drawing long applause from the audience.

Held at Komnas HAM's Medan office, the three-day public hearing, which concluded on Friday, was organized as a part of Komnas HAM's national inquiry forum, a seven-month program held to gather information from indigenous communities, government institutions and companies to map out possible solutions for the country's rampant customary land disputes.

Locals have been in an agrarian conflict with a pulp and paper company Many have lost their livelihoods due to the company's operations Komnas HAM brokering a talk between the two sides

The public hearing in Medan was the second of its kind organized by Komnas HAM since it launched the national inquiry program in April. Earlier this month, it held the same event in Palu, Central Sulawesi

By the time it concludes the program in October, Komnas HAM is hoping to have held six public hearings in Central Sulawesi, North Sumatra, Banten, West Kalimantan, Papua and Maluku, with each of them including parties involved in prominent land disputes in the region.

Wednesday's hearing, for example, included representatives from traditional communities in the villages of Pandumaan and Sipituhuta in North Sumatra, the Margo Semende Nasal community in Bengkulu, the Talang Mamak community in Riau, the Margo Bathin Bahar community in Jambi, the Mukim Lango community in Aceh and the Marga Belimbing community in Lampung, to share their experiences in cases against a number of companies and government institutions.

Prior to giving testimony in the hearing, representatives from traditional communities gathered in a room under the surveillance of several security officers from the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK). No authorized person was allowed to get close to the room or meet them in person.

"We need to ensure these victims or witnesses feel safe and comfortable about publicly testifying against certain parties they claim are responsible for customary land disputes," Komnas HAM's Sandrayati said.

Agrarian reform activists say the absence of the state's formal recognition of indigenous communities and their customary lands is the main reason behind the increasing number of customary land disputes in past decades.

Data from the Indigenous People's Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), for example, shows that 143 customary land disputes took place throughout the country last year.

In 2012, AMAN filed a judicial review with the Constitutional Court to challenge several articles in the 1999 Forestry Law that prevent indigenous people from collectively using natural resources in their customary territories, saying that they contradicted the Constitution.

Although the court finally approved the judicial review in May last year, formal recognition of indigenous communities and their customary rights cannot be immediately implemented due to the absence of formal procedure and lack of coordination among state institutions.

An official from the Forestry Ministry, Kustanto, who attended Wednesday's hearing, said although the ministry had received a request from the Humbang Hasundutan regent in 2012 to remove the customary forest claimed by the Pandumaan and Sipituhuta traditional communities from the TPL's concession map, it was still unable to follow up the request without the regency issuing a supporting bylaw.

"The bylaw will become our legal basis to remove the claimed customary land from TPL's concession map," Kustanto said.

Article 67 of the Forestry Law stipulates that the recognition of customary forests is to be carried out by regional governments via bylaws, the issuance of which is usually complicated and time-consuming due to a region's political dynamics.

Lawmakers and government representatives coordinated by the Forestry Ministry are currently deliberating the Recognition and Protection of the Rights of Indigenous People (PPHMA) bill to establish a mechanism for indigenous people to register their communities and to map their customary areas, which is in line with the court ruling that effectively restricted the state's authority over customary forests. The bill, however, is unlikely to be passed into law this year since current lawmakers will conclude their five-year term in office by the end of this month.

The absence of formal procedure to settle disputes over customary land has forced businesses and indigenous communities to rely on informal agreements to prevent further conflicts.

"Our agreement with [the Pandumaan and Sipituhuta] indigenous communities states that both parties are not allowed to run any activity on the disputed land," TPL director Juanda Panjaitan said in Wednesday's hearing.

"We have obeyed the agreement, but the problem is not all members of the communities are happy with it."

AMAN secretary-general Abdon Nababan said the government's lack of initiative in settling the country's customary land disputes was also triggered by a conflict of interests within the Forestry Ministry, which now handles almost all aspects of forest management, including forest production, forestry planning and forest protection and natural conservation.

"How come the state gave the leading role to settle customary land disputes to a party that took part in causing them?" Abdon said.

To avoid a further conflict of interests, Abdon suggested that the new administration of president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo dissolve the Forestry Ministry and split its current duties among other ministries.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/22/komnas-ham-holds-inquiry-settle-land-disputes.html

Governance & administration

Cabinet members to leave party positions

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2014

Margareth S. Aritonang and Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) executives defended on Tuesday president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's decision to allocate almost half of the seats in his Cabinet to political party members, saying that the politicians could be counted on to work professionally.

PDI-P executive Puan Maharani said that politicians appointed to Jokowi's Cabinet could also be professionals who happened to be members of political parties. "There should be no such dichotomy. A politician can be as capable as a professional," Puan said.

Under Jokowi's plan, the Cabinet will consist of 34 ministries, led by 16 party politicians and 18 non-party professionals, similar to the current Cabinet of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which includes 17 politicians.

Secretary-general of the PDI-P Tjahjo Kumolo said that Jokowi would thoroughly screen candidates from political parties. "[We will] meet the chairmen of the parties [to see] their track records and which areas suit [the candidates]," Tjahjo said.

Tjahjo also insisted that politicians would have to quit their positions in their respective political parties once they were appointed to the Cabinet. "I think it would be more effective for party leaders [to quit if appointed to the Cabinet] to avoid conflicts of interest," Tjahjo told reporters.

Puan, however, said that it was not urgent for politicians to leave their positions in political parties once they were appointed as ministers. "We should reconsider if the proposal would be best for the nation," she told reporters. Puan, who serves as an executive on the PDI-P central board, is expected to be appointed as a minister in Jokowi's Cabinet.

Jokowi's Monday announcement has raised questions, as he had earlier pledged to avoid transactional politics. Analysts believe that Jokowi has finally caved in to pressure amid a political onslaught from the coalition of losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, which now controls a majority in the House of Representatives.

University of Indonesia political analyst Hamdi Muluk said that Jokowi had earmarked 16 seats for members of political parties to be in his Cabinet with the objective of luring members of the Red-and-White Coalition, led by Prabowo, into his own coalition.

"Jokowi opening up the slots could serve as an incentive to parties in the opposition camp to join his coalition," Hamdi said. He added that if Jokowi allocated only a small number seats to politicians, it would not be enough to persuade parties from the rival camp to join.

He said that there were at least three parties that were likely to jump ship to join Jokowi's coalition: the United Development Party (PPP), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Democratic Party.

Vedi R. Hadiz, professor of Asian society and politics at Murdoch University, meanwhile, said that Jokowi's decision to maintain the number of ministries indicated that he had bowed to pressure from political parties.

"Don't forget, vice-president elect Jusuf Kalla wanted to be the de facto leader of the Golkar Party, which is why he was angry [with Jokowi's plan]."

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/17/cabinet-members-leave-party-positions.html

Still no clarity from team Jokowi on 'clean' cabinet

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Jakarta – Aides to President-elect Joko Widodo continued on Tuesday to elaborate on the make-up of the incoming cabinet, amid a general sense of disappointment that it fails to improve on the current cabinet that is largely beholden to political parties and their interests.

Among the changes will be the split of the current Education Ministry into two ministries: one to oversee primary and secondary education, and another for tertiary education, which will also be merged with the existing Research and Technology Ministry.

"The Higher Education and Research Ministry will ensure that new knowledge can be applied," Andi Widjajanto, a deputy chairman of the team preparing the transition for Joko's presidency, said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

"It will also make the guidelines for research funding clearer. We can expect to see more basic research, more innovation and more useful technology from there."

Andi said the Primary and Secondary Education Ministry, meanwhile, would be free to focus on the most formative and important years of learning, and to encourage a culture of curiosity and research that would carry on into university years.

"Primary and secondary education will be strengthened so that students can have a strong level of skill. They will also get a mental revolution there," he said, referring to a nebulous concept that the president-elect coined earlier this year to refer to a change in mind-set.

Anies Baswedan, another deputy chairman of the transition team and a renowned educator, said the rationale for the education split was also to ensure that Indonesia could benefit from its demographic bonus, with the majority of its 250-million-strong population in their productive ages.

He added that the Joko administration wanted to ensure a healthy and educated population "so that they can achieve independence and happiness."

"If you are unhealthy and uneducated, it's difficult to become independent. That's why we're proposing [new health and education schemes] so that access to both can be guaranteed," Anies said.

Not addressing the issues

But even as the transition team reveals details about the new cabinet, officials have acknowledged the general disappointment at Monday's announcement that 16 of 34 ministers would come from political parties.

Joko had repeatedly promised that his cabinet picks would not be based on political horse-trading with the parties that backed him, but the interim make-up – not far off President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's move to allocate 17 ministerial posts to political allies – suggests otherwise.

Joko also tried to refute any talk of his having made political compromises, by arguing that none of the "strategically important" ministries, such as finance, energy and agriculture, would beheaded by political appointees.

He did not address the corollary to this argument – that ministers from political parties were thus incompetent to handle important roles, and yet would still be in charge of other ministries.

Senior officials from his party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, also continued to deny that they were pressured by their coalition partners to farm out cabinet seats.

"That's not the case at all," Puan Maharani, the daughter of PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri, said on Tuesday. "We've said from the beginning that this administration is an unconditional one. Our common vision is to build a better future for the country and to strengthen the presidential system."

PDI-P secretary general Tjahjo Kumolo tried, with little apparent success, to clarify Joko's remarks on Monday differentiating between "professionals" for the "important" ministries and "party professionals" for the other ministries.

"My take on his statement is that he didn't mean for there to be this dichotomy between political parties and professionals," Tjahjo said on Tuesday. "There are many professionals in political parties and many professionals who support political parties. What's important is to ensure the cabinet performs."

Andi said he could understand is people were pessimistic about Joko's cabinet structure, which differs very little from Yudhoyono's, but claimed that the president-elect would employ a different method to select his ministers.

"The candidates will undergo a tight selection process with regard to their competence and professionalism," he said, without actually explaining how this differed from the way Yudhoyono selected his minister.

Anies, meanwhile, who has been widely linked to one of the two education posts, said the candidates would be selected based on their competency in the field in question, their leadership skills and their track record.

One key office currently without a minister is the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, following the resignation of the incumbent, Jero Wacik, earlier this month after he was named a corruption suspect.

Jero was only the third minister in Indonesian history to be charged with corruption while still in office. (The two others, Andi Mallarangeng from the Sports Ministry and Suryadharma Ali from the Religious Affairs Ministry, were also from the Yudhoyono cabinet and similarly chose to resign after being charged.)

Speculation has abounded about who Joko will pick to replace Jero, with Poltak Sitanggang, the chairman of the association of miners, or Apemindo, among the favorites for the post.

Also seen as standing a good chance is Darwin Silalahi, the president director of Shell Indonesia, although observers suggest that his long track record with foreign oil companies may not be compatible with Joko's more nationalistic views on energy policy.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/still-clarity-team-jokowi-clean-cabinet/

Jokowi resorts to pragmatism

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2014

Margareth S. Aritonang and Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Despite his pledge to avoid transactional politics, president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo finally caved in to the demands from political parties to include more politicians in his Cabinet.

Jokowi told a short press briefing on Monday evening that his Cabinet would consist of 34 ministries, which would be led by 16 party politicians and 18 non-party professionals.

Jokowi's decision to give almost half of the seats in his Cabinet to party members could dampen expectations from the public who wanted more professionals in his Cabinet. In fact, Jokowi's Cabinet will resemble the current Cabinet of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which includes 17 partisan politicians.

During his presidential campaign, Jokowi expressed views against transactional politics and urged politicians to resign from their parties if they intended to join his Cabinet.

The Monday evening announcement could be seen as the culmination of Jokowi's effort to placate members of his coalition, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the NasDem Party, the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Hanura Party and the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI) – all of which had demanded roles in his administration.

Jokowi is also struggling to woo support from other political parties, notably from Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP) in order for his administration to gain majority support in the House of Representatives.

The three parties are currently grouped in the Red-and-White Coalition led by losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto. The coalition has a majority in the House.

Jokowi declined to respond to questions about his decision to engage more politicians in his Cabinet, saying "The most important thing is that we want to build a strong Cabinet that is ready to work on our programs."

He then added that all ministers would work hard to achieve their objectives because they would no longer have deputies. Jokowi, however, decided to keep the deputy minister of foreign affairs.

The president-elect also said that he would maintain the existing three coordinating ministerial posts, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister, Coordinating People's Welfare Minister and Coordinating Economic Minister, although there would be slight changes to their names.

Although his transition team is still working on the details of the Cabinet, Jokowi guaranteed that the ministerial posts promoting food security, maritime affairs and population would be given priority.

The deputy of Jokowi's transition team, Andi Widjajanto, said that Jokowi had also insisted that several ministerial posts should be made off-limits to political party politicians.

"We have formulated general criteria for all ministers, including integrity, track records and ideology. Pak Jokowi and Jusuf Kalla have the power to assess all the ministerial candidates based on these criteria, including those coming from political parties," Andi Said.

In the press briefing, Jokowi said that politicians would not be allowed to take the reins of the Finance Ministry, the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry or the Agriculture Ministry.

Jokowi, scheduled to be sworn in as president on Oct. 20, plans to announce his Cabinet lineup at the end of this month.

Political analyst Arya Budi from the Pol-Tracking Institute said that Jokowi's team had resorted to pragmatism to pick members for his Cabinet. "The current political system has made it difficult for Jokowi not to accommodate political parties that have supported his presidential bid," he said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/16/jokowi-resorts-pragmatism.html

Parliament & legislation

House passes Copyright Law

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Jakarta – A plenary session at the House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the Copyright Law, which replaces a previous 2002 law.

Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin said that the new law stipulates the protection of copyrights, including the tenure of protection for inventions.

"The Copyright Law provides better protection for inventors or any holders of the rights, including limiting changes of rights holders through purchases," Amir said on Tuesday at the House.

The law also regulates possible criminal charges as well as dispute settlements through mediation and arbitration.

"The minister has the authority to eliminate a registered work or invention if it breaches religious and moral values, disturbs public order or is a threat to the country's defense and security," he said.

According to the law, he said inventors or rights holders should receive compensation or royalties for any commercial use of their creations.

Musician Sam Bimbo, who attended the meeting, said he welcomed the new law. "I am optimistic and have high hope that with the new Copyright Law, artists can get legal protection for their works," he said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/17/house-passes-copyright-law.html

DPR rewrite budget assumptions that may challenge Jokowi's administration

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Tito Summa Siahaan, Jakarta – Legislators are making life difficult for the next administration by rewriting the draft state budget and inserting assumptions that many will dismiss as shooting for the moon.

A meeting between members of the House of Representatives' Commission VII, overseeing energy affairs, and officials of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry on Monday led to a number of changes in some of the main components of the budget assumptions.

The oil lifting assumption was increased to 900,000 barrels per day from 845,000 barrels per day, while the subsidized fuel quota was reduced to 47 million kiloliters from 48.6 million kiloliters.

Both assumptions will present a difficult challenge, considering the present situation. Lawmakers also decided to put the Rp 72.42 trillion electricity subsidy on hold pending further deliberation.

Oil output was only 788,000 barrels per day as of July this year, while consumption of subsidized fuel is poised to surpass the 46 million kiloliters quota set in the revised 2014 state budget.

Government officials appeared to be powerless to yield to legislators' demands and lost for words when asked whether the new assumptions can be achieved. Chief economics minister Chairul Tanjung led the meeting as the interim energy and mineral resources minister.

Johanes Widjonarko, head of upstream oil and gas regulator SKKMigas, said that the 845,000 barrels per day of oil output presented in the draft budget was based on the projected 18 percent decline rate and the average oil output of 119,000 barrels per day from the development of the Cepu block in East Java.

Satya Wira Yudha, a legislator from the Golkar Party, questioned the 18 percent decline rate presented in the budget assumptions. "If the decline rate is kept at 5 percent, the output would not be 845,000 barrels per day," he said.

Effendi Simbolon, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which won this year's election, blamed ExxonMobil, the operator of the Banyu Urip field, for failing to get Indonesia's to achieve higher output. "They keep making excuses for delays. Something must be done to them," he said.

Legislators lowered the subsidized fuel quota to 47 million kiloliters which, according to Andy Noorsaman Sommeng, the chief of downstream regulator BPHMigas, was unrealistic without a price increase. He said that the 48.6-million-kiloliter subsidized fuel quota was based on growth in gross domestic product which in turn led to an increase in vehicle sales.

"We cannot go against growth," Andy said, adding that the 48.6-million- kiloliter quota was based a on business-as-usual scenario.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/legislators-rewrite-budget-assumptions-may-challenge-next-administration/

Jakarta & urban life

Jakarta named worst city in Indonesia

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2014

Jakarta – Jakarta has been named the worst city in Indonesia by the Center for Urban Design Studies (PSUD), citing poor urban development and the lack of visual beauty.

PSUD head Mohammad Danisworo said that due to poor city planning and inadequate transportation infrastructure, the capital city presented itself as a chaotic and dysfunctional place that affected the quality of the residents' livelihoods.

"The city does not function very well. For instance, it takes two hours just to travel 5 kilometers along a road. With this chaotic condition, Jakarta is seen as a city that cannot function properly," Danisworo said recently, as quoted by kompas.com.

In addition, he said that the city had to focus on simple aesthetic factors to help improve accessibility for residents and visitors.

"Small things, such as parks, garbage cans and directional or traffic signs are not even provided adequately in the city, making it confusing for residents. The city has become devastating because of the small problems," he continued.

Aside from problems with city planning, Jakarta had to also improve its environmental planning to make the city more visually appealing.

He, however, praised the Jakarta administration's decision to finally construct the much anticipated mass rapid transit (MRT) system earlier this year.

"If Jakarta follows its transit-oriented development [TOD], it will be able to enhance connections to its greater areas. Thus, traffic and population circulation will be more organized and Jakarta's [population] density will not be concentrated in one area," he added.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/18/jakarta-named-worst-city-indonesia.html

Commuters complain of worsening air

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2014

Dewanti A. Wardhani, Jakarta – An increasing number of commuters on Jakarta's public transportation network are wearing masks to protect themselves from the city's worsening air pollution.

Many vendors are now selling both homemade protective masks and disposable surgical masks in traditional markets, pedestrian bridges and in the vicinity of Transjakarta bus shelters, as the trend catches on among Jakartans.

One Transjakarta passenger, Marsya Anindya, said that she wore a protective mask to protect herself from the heavily polluted air. "Commuting in Jakarta using public transportation is really tough. You have to withstand traffic, pollution and being jostled by dozens of people. You've got to stay healthy to survive; one way I stay healthy is by wearing a protective mask," Marsya said.

"Before, I saw many people on the streets and buses wearing masks so I decided to buy one. I think it's a good idea to wear a mask outside, especially in Jakarta," she said.

Marsya said that the air was often smoky from motor vehicles' exhaust, and posed a danger to anyone inhaling it. "The masks are a good investment for our health. They are also very cheap and many vendors sell them," she said.

Disposable surgical masks are sold for Rp 1,000 (8 US cents) to Rp 2,000 each while homemade protective masks are priced from Rp 5,000 to Rp 15,000.

One Kopaja minibus passenger, Siti Komariah, said that she never forgot to bring a protective mask with her. More and more commuters wearing pollution masks Homemade masks, disposable surgical masks available from many vendors Environment Agency says air quality worsening in line with increase in motor vehicles in Jakarta

"The quality of the air in the city is so bad. Once I suffered from asphyxiation while I was on public transportation. Since then, I always wear a protective mask whenever I step out of the house," she said.

Komariah, a native of Cianjur, West Java, said that the quality of air in her hometown was much better than in Jakarta. "The air in Cianjur is fresher than in Jakarta, maybe because there are fewer motor vehicles in Cianjur," she said.

Head of pollution control and sanitation at the Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD), Andono Warih, explained that more than 70 percent of the city's air pollution came from motor vehicles.

"More than 70 percent of the city's air pollution comes from motor vehicles' exhausts. Every year, air pollution worsens as the number of motor vehicles rises," Andono told The Jakarta Post.

The Jakarta Traffic Police recently revealed that the number of motor vehicles in the city grew by more than 1,100 per day. Currently, there are more than 11 million motor vehicles in Greater Jakarta, 98 percent of which are private vehicles.

Andono said that although the air pollution in the city was not worrisome for now, wearing masks would not hurt. "I think wearing masks is a very good initiative. Commuters can protect themselves from the dangers of air pollution," he said, adding that air pollution could cause severe asthma attacks, severe headaches and brain damage.

Andono further said that industrial emissions also contributed to Jakarta's air pollution. Jakarta has several industrial complexes located in North and East Jakarta, and there are further industrial sites in areas surrounding Jakarta, such as Tangerang, Banten, and Bekasi, West Java.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/18/commuters-complain-worsening-air.html

Reclaiming the streets from parking racketeers

Jakarta Globe - September 17, 2014

Raja H. Panggabean, Jakarta – Piyan is an illegal parking attendant outside the ITC Roxy Mas shopping center in West Jakarta. Every day, he tends an unofficial parking lot for shoppers, located beneath an overpass across from the mall, where the motorcycles are arranged in neat rows.

Piyan says he charges Rp 3,000, or 25 US cents, for a visitor to park their motorcycle for the whole day. "I can make Rp 300,000 a day, but I have to give half of that to my boss," he tells the Jakarta Globe.

Rahmat, another parking attendant in the area, says there are 10 illegal parking attendants staked out around the shopping center, all working for the same boss known only as Dai.

Rahmat says Dai was once a parking attendant himself before he began to employ other people to do the job.

Dai is one of those shadowy figures known as jawara. While in the past the word was used to describe those with a mastery of martial arts, today it is commonly used to refer to thugs who are adept at hand-to-hand fighting – although they don't necessarily shy away from the use of more advanced equipment to support their criminal activities.

In Jakarta, where illegal parking is a massive business, jawaras have long maintained a choke hold on the practice. A jawara like Dai, based on the figures provided by Piyan and Rahmat, can make around Rp 90 million a month from his stable of 10 employees, and roughly Rp 1 billion a year, of which half will go into his own pocket.

The 'partnership'

The late Ali Sadikin, Jakarta's governor from 1966 to 1977, who is widely credited with transforming the capital into a modern metropolis, was quick to notice the jawaras' control of curbside parking, and how there was enormous potential for the city to earn much-needed revenue through the improved management of these unofficial parking lots.

So in the late 1960s, bucking up his courage, Ali approached these thugs and persuaded them to share control of curbside parking in the capital, as well as the incomes generated, according to Agus Prasetiyo, an official at the Jakarta Transportation Office.

Ali's initiative lives on – but with few innovations by his successors and lax law enforcement to keep the partnership in check, coupled with the exponential growth of vehicles in Jakarta and attendant mushrooming of illegal parking areas, the thugs today have regained almost full control of Jakarta's parking business. They continue to rake in the income that should be split with the city administration, while exacerbating the capital's already horrendous traffic congestion by illegally occupying entire lanes of roadway.

Adam Pasuna Jaya, a city official responsible for receiving public complaints about the various problems plaguing the capital, identifies illegal parking as one of the topics that elicits the most complaints from residents, who bemoan the proliferation of illegal parking lots in the vicinity of public buildings such as office towers and malls.

"People are annoyed by the illegal parking. It constricts the road space, and forces vehicles to only use one lane," Adam says.

It's a familiar refrain, according to the Jakarta Transportation Council, or DKTJ, a city-funded think tank, which observes that traffic gridlock in the city has been getting progressively severe over the years. At present, the average speed of vehicles on Jakarta's streets has crawled to a glacial five kilometers per hour, the council says.

Potential lost income

Revenue from the parking business in Jakarta can be divided into two streams: from on-street and off-street parking.

For off-street parking, building administrators are required to pay a parking tax amounting to 20 percent of their income to the city's tax office. So far, this policy has been running relatively well.

On-street parking, on the other hand, has always been a thorny issue. And the complicated bureaucracy has been blamed for allowing the thugs to once again dominate curbside parking operations in Jakarta, contributing to vast potential income losses for the city.

The parking management unit at the Jakarta Transportation Office says it is overwhelmed in dealing with the "organized" thugs controlling Jakarta's on-street parking lots, although some of them have been successfully recruited as official parking managers of many of the lots.

But controlling curbside parking lots without having to pay dues to the city remains a lucrative venture, which makes it a prime target for street thugs, says Syafrin Liputo, the head of control and operations at the Jakarta Transportation Office.

Syafrin says it is quite difficult to eradicate the illegal activity, with the parking attendants always knowing when to disappear during raids carried out by transportation office agents.

"They're pretty organized. I once received a report that at Kebun Kacang [in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta], they were making a profit of Rp 500 million per year," Syafrin says.

According to the Jakarta Police's traffic unit, the number of vehicles in Jakarta continues to grow rapidly. In 2012 it reached 14.6 million units, before rising by nearly a tenth to 16 million units last year. But the boost in parking revenue from the steady growth of vehicles in the capital has not been commensurate.

The transportation office says parking revenue in 2012 amounted to Rp 210 billion, and increased by some 23 percent to Rp 257.9 billion in 2013 – even though parking fees that year had doubled from the year before.

That works out to the owner of each vehicle paying just Rp 14,365 to the Jakarta administration for parking throughout 2012 and Rp 16,074 throughout 2013, with the thugs running the illegal parking operations taking several times that amount.

According to 2011 data from the transportation office, there are a total of 12,550 on-street parking sites across the capital.

Hendrico Tampubolon, an official with the transportation office's parking management unit, says that given the number of vehicles and parking sites, the city could significantly boost its earnings from parking fees if the illegal operators were bustled out of the business.

Budapest as example

Yoga Adiwinarto, the director of the Institute for Transportation Development and Policy, or ITDP, which has provided technical assistance in the transportation sector to the Jakarta administration for the past eight years, says those figures are far lower than amount in parking fees that motorists spend every hour in cities such as Budapest and London – where the fees are deliberately set high to discourage people from commuting into the city center by private vehicle and instead take public transportation.

Yoga says parking reform is a pressing matter for Jakarta. He identifies parking as an important tool to control traffic, and says it should not just be seen as a lucrative source of income for the city.

"Even when compared with the ERP" – or electronic road pricing scheme – "good parking management will be more effective in controlling traffic jams," Yoga says.

The ITDP, which has been appointed by the Jakarta administration to set up a parking system in Pasar Baru, Central Jakarta, found that motorists would more often than not opt to park by the side of the street, for their own convenience, rather than use a dedicated parking building.

One such building specifically built for visitors to Pasar Baru to park their vehicles has remained largely empty because the parking attendants simply direct motorists to park by the side of the road, Yoga says.

Therefore, there should be a change in the mind-set of the government and people, he says. The government must intervene with a properly thought-out policy. And while the growth in vehicle purchases cannot be stemmed, the increase in the volume of traffic can be offset somewhat with the proper provision of public transportation and good parking management, Yoga says, which will lead to a gradual change in the culture and mind-set of motorists.

He says Indonesia can follow the example of Budapest, which suffered from similar problems when car ownership in Hungary took off between 1985 and the 2000s on the back of an economic boom. To cope with the problem, the Budapest authorities imposed a system of progressively higher parking fees the closer to the city center a motorist chose to park.

Add to this a maximum parking time of just three hours, and eventually the policy proved effective in slowing car purchases and, subsequently, reducing the traffic jams in Budapest, Yoga says. Currently, the majority of commuters there travel on public transportation.

Agus says the Jakarta Transportation Office Agency has often been unfairly blamed for failing to deal with the illegal parking operators and traffic problems. But he says the central government should also be responsible for the issue, by issuing policies to slow vehicle sales.

"Regional governments can only regulate the movement of vehicles, but not the purchasing, because that's the authority of the central government. And one of the causes of the traffic congestion and illegal parking is unfettered vehicle purchases," he says.

Latest policies

The city administration's latest bid to crack down on illegal parking has been to take the matter of law enforcement more seriously. Under a newly issued regulation, the Jakarta Transportation Office has been towing illegally parked vehicles and slapping the owners with hefty fines.

"Previously, transport officials tried to clamp the wheels or deflate the tires of illegally parked cars, but after a policy review [we concluded] that that was not having the desired effect," Syafrin says.

"So this time we've decided to slap a fine of Rp 500,000 per day [for every offender]. Only after paying the fine to Bank DKI will be told where they can pick up their vehicle."

Hendrico says it will take time to eradicate the illegal parking racket, but claims that the policy of towing and fines, which began on Sept. 8, has had a promising start.

"People in Jakarta have proved that the thing they're most afraid of is losing their money, so we'll continue performing this operation," Hendrico says.

He adds the city will also press ahead with its plan to install parking meters, a pilot project of which will be implemented on Jalan Sabang in Central Jakarta.

"We'll have three meters installed along that street as a trial. Later on, people will no longer have to pay a parking attendant, but the parking meter," Hendrico says.

Yoga says the plan to set up parking meters across the city must be done carefully, noting that a similar campaign in Bandung ended in failure.

"The management of parking meters should be handled a competent company. The government should preferably focus on law enforcement alone. Moreover, the role of parking attendants should also be optimized in monitoring vehicle parking hours," Yoga says.

Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama says that with the new policies, the city is targeting revenues from parking this year of as high as Rp 800 billion, or more than triple last year's take.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/jakarta/reclaiming-streets-parking-racketeers/

Armed forces & defense

'Clash' between TNI and police leaves 4 soldiers injured in Batam

Jakarta Globe - September 22, 2014

Yeremia Sukoyo & Farouk Arnaz, Jakarta – Four soldiers were rushed to hospital at the weekend after they were allegedly shot by police officers following a raid on a fuel storage facility in Riau Island province.

Both the Indonesian Military (TNI) and National Police are investigating the incident, however, details of the violent clash are still unclear.

TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya said on Monday that two soldiers were injured when police tried to forcefully detain them near the scene of the raid.

"The police were raiding a storage suspected to be hoarding fuel in Batu Aji, Batam, when two soldiers who had just finished the night duty stopped and watched the commotion, but they were caught, beaten and shot in the leg," he said. Two more soldiers were injured afterwards when they stormed into the nearby police office, Faud said.

The spokesman, however, denied it was a "clash" between soldiers and members of the police's Mobile Brigade (Brimob). "It was not a clash, the information I received said the police forcefully detained the soldiers."

A source within Batam Police, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Jakarta Globe the soldiers were shot after a raid on an illegal storage facility holding diesel, which was located about 500 meters from the TNI headquarters.

Police found the facility and detained two people – who claimed to be passing by – during the raid, the source said.

"When the police were checking out the evidence and questioning the witnesses some men in crew-cut hair gathered in front of the storage." More men, who the source claimed were soldiers, arrived and allegedly shouted: "Let's go to war."

The police decided to wrap up the raid and leave the location, but the men allegedly tried to stop the police officers from leaving and assaulted one who was riding a motorcycle. The source told the Globe that following the incident soldiers turned up at the police office and started throwing insults.

Brimob members, who had just finished their night briefing, saw the incident and one officer fired two warning shots into the sky while others chased the soldiers to Barelang bridge, the source said.

More soldiers then showed up at the police station and started to burn a motorcycle and a canteen owned by a Brimob member, the source said.

"Then gunfire broke out, causing four TNI members to get shot, so it is not true that this shootings happened for no reason." Police deny the soldiers were shot intentionally.

Fuad said the TNI was still collecting evidence and information from victims and witnesses and the soldiers were recovering in hospital. National Police chief Gen. Sutarman said police would form a joint task force to investigate the incident.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/clash-tni-police-leaves-4-soldiers-injured-batam/

TNI chief defends tycoon Tahir's appointment

Jakarta Post - September 20, 2014

Jakarta – Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Moeldoko has defended his decision to install business mogul Tahir as his advisor on economic affairs and personnel welfare, underlining it is part of his strategy to improve the livelihood of his officers.

"It would be pointless if I only stared at the welfare disparities of our personnel without doing anything. I took action and am ready to take responsibility for the sake of my personnel's welfare. I am ready to put my [position] at risk," he said on the sidelines of an event in Surakarta, Central Java, on Friday, as quoted by detik.com.

On Thursday, Moeldoko awarded the position to the founder and owner of the Mayapada Group for his great contribution to the military, especially with regard to his planned building of 1,000 houses for active service personnel in Greater Jakarta.

Security experts and lawmakers have questioned the decision, arguing that Tahir's appointment could make the force vulnerable to conflicts of interest.

Tahir is ranked 12th on Forbes' list of the 50 richest men in Indonesia, with an estimated net worth of US$2.05 billion. His Mayapada Group has portfolios in property, banking and the medical sector.

Responding to the criticism, Moeldoko said: "It would be unethical if Gen. Moeldoko's adviser built a house in Pondok Indah [an upmarket housing estate in South Jakarta], but it's okay to build houses for the personnel".

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/20/tni-chief-defends-tycoon-tahir-s-appointment.html

Judicial & legal system

House approves four MA justices

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2014

Margareth S. Aritonang and Ina Parlina, Jakarta – As the end of the current term approaches, the House of Representatives has approved four out of the five Supreme Court (MA) justice candidates selected by the Judicial Commission (KY), leaving the task of selecting another six to the newly elected lawmakers who will officially begin their terms on Oct. 1.

On Thursday, 38 of the 50 lawmakers on House Commission III overseeing legal affairs endorsed the selection of Amran Suadi, the deputy head of the Surabaya Religious High Court, Sudrajat Dimyati, a Pontianak High Court judge;,Is Sudaryono, head of the Medan State Administrative High Court, and Purwosusilo, a director general of the religious judiciary unit at the MA.

Only 13 lawmakers voted to approve Muslich Bambang Luqmono, a judge from the Jayapura High Court.

"Muslich handled the Mpok Minah case. We seriously considered this before we finally made our decision," Commission III deputy chairman Al Muzzammil Yusuf said, explaining the voting result.

Muzzammil, a politician from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), was referring to a 2009 case Muslich, in his capacity as the presiding judge of the Purwokerto Court of Central Java, sentenced a 55-year-old resident, Minah, to a month and 15 days in jail for stealing three cacao fruits, each worth approximately Rp 2,000 (17 US cents) from a plantation that belonged to PT Rumpun Sari Antan.

Minah was eventually acquitted after the case triggered protests from human rights campaigners nationwide.

Muzzammil of Commission III also cited Muslich's inconsistent responses during a confirmation hearing administered by lawmakers as a factor driving the lack of support for him to fill one of the 10 empty justice seats at the Supreme Court. "Besides personality and track record, candidates' logic and consistency are also important," the PKS politician emphasized.

Unlike Commission III's thorough examination of Muslich's track record, however, lawmakers seemed to pay little attention to the controversy surrounding selected candidate Sudrajat, who was dropped from a similar selection process last year over an allegation of bribery.

Sudrajat failed to secure a selection at Commission III last year after reportedly being caught handing over a brown envelope believed to contain bribe money to a lawmaker in a restroom on the sidelines of a confirmation hearing at the House.

Muzzammil of Commission III defended the commission's decision to approve Sudrajat, saying that the allegation was unproven and thus the KY had exonerated Sudrajat of wrongdoing.

In February, the KY began to experience resistance from the House when lawmakers rejected all three justice candidates the commission proposed. The move followed the Constitutional Court's decision to eliminate their role in the selection of candidates.

Under the ruling, the House can now only approve or reject selected candidates and is no longer able to choose one justice from three candidates short-listed by the commission.

The commission also set a new rule that justices can no longer apply for a Supreme Court seat in consecutive attempts, nor after having failed to secure a post after two attempts. It also bans career judges from applying for a non-career enrollment track.

Although it respected the House's Thursday decision, the KY, which is tasked with assessing and later forwarding justice candidates to the House, questioned why lawmakers did not vote for Muslich.

"I respect the decision, but the five candidates are all the same caliber," said Taufiqurrohman Syahuri, a commissioner for judicial recruitment.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/19/house-approves-four-ma-justices.html

Police & criminal justice system

Juvenile offenders' law ushers in new means of dispensing justice

Jakarta Globe - September 22, 2014

Jakarta – Indonesia's amended law on juvenile offenders has finally begun to take effect after its passage two years ago, and is expected to ensure that young offenders are dealt with fairly and appropriately.

Linda Amalia Sari Gumelar, the minister for women's empowerment and child protection, said on Sunday that the law introduced two new paradigms into Indonesia's legal system for juvenile offenders: restorative justice, and diversion.

"Restorative justice carries the message that we must keep on attempting to settle crimes involving [young] perpetrators [...] by placing emphasizing the need to restore the initial situation rather than the need for vengeance," she said as she commented on the law's coming into force on Sunday.

"This should involve the perpetrators, victims, the families of the perpetrators and the victims, and other relevant parties to sit together to find a just resolution [to crimes committed by minors]."

Diversion, meanwhile, means that efforts to settle criminal cases involving juvenile offenders outside the court must be maximized, and that taking a case to court and jailing young offenders must be the option of last resort, Linda said.

"This law authorizes law enforcers to conduct diversion, a measure decided on in line with existing situations. Children's rights must be upheld with pure conscience," she said.

"This law upholds the principle of [looking after] the best interests of the kids, giving them protection and appreciation, [guaranteeing] their livelihood and development, as well as protecting them from retaliatory actions."

Linda said that juvenile offenders should be treated differently from adult criminals, adding that the former were "not an adult in a smaller body."

"[Children's] capacity to understand legal offenses is still limited; some of their actions that might constitute legal offenses are beyond the range of their understanding," she said. The Law on the Judiciary System for Juvenile Crimes was passed in July 2012, replacing legislation from 1997.

Diani Sadia Wati, the director of regulatory analysis at the National Development Planning Agency, or Bappenas, which drafted the changes to the law, said they were introduced because the old law failed to protect children's rights during the legal process.

The old law, Diani said, employed "overly legalistic" approaches in criminal cases involving juveniles and focused on punishing minors with imprisonment rather than seeking other forms of sanctions.

The new law described juveniles as those aged 18 or less, married or not – another change from the old law, which automatically rescinded the offender's juvenile status if they were already married.

The Indonesian Commission for Child Protection, or KPAI, is tasked with overseeing the enforcement of the new law.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/juvenile-offenders-law-ushers-new-means-dispensing-justice/

Mob violence reflects people's distrust, anger

Jakarta Post - September 17, 2014

Rusman, Bekasi – The body of a battered 40-year-old man remained at Bekasi General Hospital in West Java on Monday evening. He died after being beaten to death by a mob after he was caught allegedly attempting to steal a motorcycle in the morning.

"No relatives have claimed the body. He had no identity card on him at all. The man was brought to the hospital wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, with major injuries to his face and head," a hospital attendant said on Monday.

The unidentified man met a tragic end as he died on the spot after being punched, kicked and beaten with wooden planks.

"Many people chased him. He was caught when more people started to chase after him. He was immediately attacked once he was caught. Even though he begged for mercy, the people didn't care. They kept hitting him. By the time the police arrived, he had stopped moving," a merchant who works near the scene of the crime, Ahmad, said.

When the victim allegedly attempted to steal the motorcycle at a car repair shop, the owner shouted. Locals heard the owner's cry for help and chased down the thief. They caught him 100 meters from the shop and beat him to death. Several other residents tried to stop the attack but to no avail.

When questioned by The Jakarta Post about the Bekasi Police's next steps in the case, spokesman First Insp. Makmur said that they would not look into the beating unless a relative of the thief objected to his death. So far, no one had claimed the body.

"We are not going to do anything about the assault because there were too many perpetrators," he said, adding that the police had reprimanded people around the crime scene.

University of Indonesia criminologist Erlangga Masdiana said there had been many cases in which the police were reluctant to act against the masses. "By law, the police must investigate the assault. However, it is difficult for the police to look into a crime in which there is collective responsibility. The police in general do not want to go against the masses," he said.

Erlangga added that groups of people who assault criminals usually underestimated their own strength as they beat them without the intention to kill. However, people are often comforted by the fact that criminals are punished immediately instead of after a long legal process, he said.

On Sunday in Jayapura, Papua, residents also took the law into their own hands. After a rumor about a child being run over, village residents in South Manokwari regency stopped passing vehicles. Muslim Ridwan, a university student, who was driving by in his minivan, was shot dead. Later, Muslim relatives set fire to 23 homes in the village. The police did not investigate the arson.

A member of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), Neng Dara Affiah, said that such a case was not isolated. Neng, who has studied mass violence, especially violence against women during the 1998 riots, said the mass brutality in Bekasi was just a small part of a larger problem reflected in society.

"We had many such problems in the past – including the violence during the 1998 riots – that were never resolved. Communities, therefore, are still angry and distrustful of their leaders, and think that it is better to take the law into their own hands," she told the Post on Tuesday.

Neng explained that the attempted theft probably ignited locals' subconscious anger, and their assault of the thief was to release their pent-up anger.

She added that there were currently no leaders at any level that encouraged dialogue among members of the community in order to settle differences and dispel the distrust among them that was rooted in past acts of violence.

"It is even worse because we do have laws about how to deal with such criminals. However, the laws apparently don't work and the people know this, so they assume they must follow the law of the jungle. This is bad because violence will continue if people see it this way," she said. (fss)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/17/mob-violence-reflects-people-s-distrust-anger.html

Economy & investment

SBY economic legacy will cloud Jokowi's prospects

Jakarta Post - September 18, 2014

The growing inequality is the most visible negative product of economic growth during SBY's tenure.

Over the course of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's (SBY) decade-long presidency, Indonesia has enjoyed one of the highest economic growth rates in the world. It has raised the income and welfare of Indonesians, created jobs for 18 million people and lifted 7 million people out of poverty.

Annual economic growth during the first term of SBY's presidency in 2005- 2009 was 5.6 percent. In the second term, annual growth was up to 6 percent. Income per capita in rupiah nominal terms has gone up from Rp 10 million (US$1,000) in 2003 to Rp 36.5 million ($3,100) in 2013 according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

In terms of US dollars per capita gross domestic product (GDP) grew 14.6 percent in each year of SBY's first term between 2005 and 2009. In his second term from 2009 to 2013, annual growth in per capita GDP slowed down to 10.2 percent. This was because in 2012 the per capita GDP in US dollars only grew 2 percent, but in 2013 it contracted by 3 percent to $3,468, reflecting the significant slowdown of the overall economy and the steep depreciation of the rupiah during those years.

The high economic growth during the decade has strengthened the government's fiscal stance, enabling the government to reduce debt financing in its budget. As a percentage of GDP, government debts have fallen from 47 percent in 2005 to 22.1 percent in 2013. Over the decade, there has been a shift in the composition of government debt, as government relies more on issuing rupiah denominated bonds in the Jakarta capital market to finance its budget deficits. Foreign debt fell from 46 percent of total debt in 2005 to 30 percent in 2013. This strategy has reduced the state budget's vulnerability to foreign exchange risk.

The annual economic growth was maintained at 5-6 percent despite the 2008 financial crisis, volatilities and shocks in the global economy during the last decade. Indonesia could weather relatively well the impact of the global economic crisis in 2008-2009. The world economy plunged into recession, but the Indonesian economy only experienced a drop in growth from 6.1 percent to 4.5 percent in 2008-2009. By contrast, neighboring countries Thailand and Malaysia suffered contractions in their economic growth by 2.3 and 1.5 percent respectively

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the Indonesian economy grew strongly over the next two years, reaching its peak in 2011, when growth reached 6.5 percent, the highest level since the Asian economic crisis in 1997-1998. This was the time when China's and India's economies grew by more than 10 percent, pushing up their demand for Indonesian commodity exports.

But from 2011 onward, Indonesian growth weakened, largely from the weakening performance of the manufacturing and service sectors. On the demand side, although the growth of private consumption continued to be robust, investment and net exports fell significantly.

Indonesia's growth was driven by a commodity boom during 2003-2011 period and supported by low global interest rates and Bank Indonesia's pro-growth monetary policy. These factors supported corporate earnings, household income and raised domestic demand to propel overall economic growth. But since 2011, commodity prices have softened significantly. In addition, the US Federal Reserve's quantitative-easing policy – which led to lower global interest rates – is being gradually unwound, increasing financing costs with negative implications for investment. As these external supports fade, it will be difficult for Indonesia to generate the growth seen in 2007-2012.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), after a spurt in 2009-2011, began to decline, from $19.2 billion in 2011 to $19.1 billion in 2012 and to $18.8 billion in 2013. The decline in growth is consistent with the overall investment growth in the GDP. The decline of the FDI growth will likely continue in 2014, due to various obstacles.

The slowing down of economic growth in the second term of SBY's tenure has impacted employment growth, poverty reduction and income inequality.

Indonesia has made a significant progress alleviating poverty. The number of persons living below the poverty line has fallen from 16 percent in 2005 to 11.4 percent in 2013. During the 10 years of Yudhoyono presidency, a total of 7 million people were lifted out of poverty. But due to slower economic growth and the impact of price increases for subsidized fuel in 2013, the declining trend of poverty has reversed. Between March 2013 and September 2013, the number of people living below the poverty line rose to 28.55 million, meaning some 500,000 persons have become poor.

Although the poverty level has declined, the figures mask huge variations in poverty levels among regions. Two comparatively prosperous provinces, Jakarta and Bali, have poverty level below 3.7 percent, well below the national average. Provinces rich in natural resources, such as Eastern Kalimantan, Riau, Jambi and Bangka Belitung have poverty levels at 5-8 percent, still below national average. The most glaring poverty exists in Papua and West Papua, where the rate has remained at 30 percent for several years.

The problems of poverty also relates to the problems of raising the living standard of those people who are "near poor", or on the verge of absolute poverty. These are the people whose income is vulnerable to crisis and economic shocks who could easily slip into poverty.

Despite rising wealth and the reduction in poverty, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened during the SBY presidency. The growing inequality is the most visible negative product of economic growth during this period. Data indicates that Indonesian economic growth during the last decade has mostly benefitted the rich. According to the World Bank, in 2002 the average consumption per person among the richest 10 percent of households was 6.6 times that of the poorest 10 percent. By 2013 this ratio had risen to 10.3 times. The Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, climbed from 0.30 percent in 2000 to 0.42 by 2013. A higher Gini ratio means higher inequality in income.

Several factors have been responsible for these outcomes. Globalization has resulted in the widening gap between the wages of the skilled and the unskilled. The pattern of fiscal spending has been unfavorable to the poor, as some spending gives more benefits to the rich than to the poor, such as the fuel subsidy and infrastructure developments, which are concentrated in urban areas. Increasing inequality could slow down the rate of poverty reduction. It is no wonder, then, that the slowdown in the reduction of poverty rate of late coincides with increasing income inequality.

During the SBY presidency, the economy created 8 million jobs. As more and more people found work, unemployment fell from 11.2 percent in 2005 to 6.1 percent in 2012, although in 2013 it inched back up to 6.3 percent due to slower economic growth. However, most of the jobs created were in sectors of low productivity and with low wages. Around 60 percent of workers worked in the informal sector, where wages are lower than in the formal sector, and which carry no job protection or health care benefits. The stringent requirements laid out in the 2003 Labor Law has discouraged corporations from employing more workers; instead they have used more high-tech machines that reduce labor needs.

The decade-long SBY presidency failed to eliminate the fuel subsidy by bringing domestic fuel prices in line with international prices. The problem of fuel subsidies has instead been dealt with through sporadic price increases and decreases, depending upon the level of political opposition. Substituting kerosene with 3-kilogram canisters of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has been implemented, reducing the kerosene subsidy substantially. Quantitative restriction has been attempted recently in greater Jakarta by introducing a cap on consumption of the subsidized fuel. But this ad hoc approach is no substitute for a permanent solution for the wasteful subsidy spending.

During the SBY presidency, oil production dropped from 346.3 million barrels in 2009 to 301.4 million barrels in 2013, a decline of 3 percent each year. Current oil production is concentrated in existing wells that mostly are old and less producing less. There have not been any major oil discoveries in recent years except for the Cepu block in Central Java. Oil companies are still reluctant to commit money for oil exploration, especially in remote areas where the cost, risk, and complexities are high. Every year, the government offers several oil blocks for tender, but only a view are taken by oil companies. Legal uncertainties in licensing, taxation, and cost-recovery mechanisms remain confusing, a fact that discourages oil companies from investing money for oil exploration.

Despite efforts at diversifying energy use, dependency on fossil fuels rose from 64.7 percent in 2007 to 66.4 percent in 2011. Conversion from the use of oil into gas is being hampered by the delay of construction of infrastructure for transporting gas. While fossil fuel reserves are being depleted rapidly, the development of alternative energy remains stagnant.

The SBY administration has not been able to lift the economy out of its dependence on commodity exports. The commodity boom has encouraged more investment in natural resource-based industries, while non-commodity manufacturing sector growth remained weak. Growth in that sector was only half of what it was prior to the Asian economic crisis in 1997-1998. So when the commodity boom ended in 2012, the manufacturing sector was not yet in a position to replace commodity exports as a driver of economic growth.

The Joko "Jokowi" Widodo presidency will face an evolving global environment where the tailwinds of the past decade – rising commodity prices and low global financing costs – have slowed. He will face continuing pressure in his fiscal outlook unless he is determined to pursue fuel subsidy and tax reforms.

If he wants to spur economic growth to reach his goal of 7 percent, then he has to be able to revive investment, especially investment in manufacturing sectors. Boosting investment means a readiness to make the Indonesian economy more open to investment and trade. This is the only way to strengthen the productivity and competitiveness of the Indonesian economy. But these might go against the populist and nationalistic character of his mission and vision as laid out in his campaign. That is why in formulating policies, some trade-off between staying principled and acting pragmatically cannot be avoided.

The most difficult aspect of policymaking for president-elect Jokowi will be to reach political consensus to introduce reforms. Democratization and decentralization have fundamentally changed accountability structures and the decisionmaking process within the government. The task of reaching consensus on critical policies and reforms has become more challenging because highly competitive elections have led to coalition politics at the national level as well as at regional levels. Non-state actors have also acquired more voice in the political arena, creating more complexities in policymaking.

If president-elect Jokowi can mobilize more support for his coalition parties, he should not squander his strengthened political capital; he should use that support to introduce bold economic reforms that move the economy forward. However, economic reforms require political leadership and a strong team in order to be executed effectively. That is why Jokowi needs to recruit and appoint people in his Cabinet and other state institutions who understand the necessity of reforms and who will be willing to implement them.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/18/sby-economic-legacy-will-cloud-jokowi-s-prospects.html

Analysis & opinion

No more little kings

Jakarta Post Editorial - September 22, 2014

Many have paid too much attention to the heated debate over the controversial bill on regional elections, but have overlooked the equally crucial bill on regional governments, which, if passed, will put an end to the phenomenon of little kings that has tarnished regional autonomy.

Unlike the divisive deliberation of the regional election (Pilkada) bill, the regional government bill looks to win unanimous support from factions at the House of Representatives given their common agenda of seizing back the authorities awarded to local governments under the disguise of national unity. It is the second time the Regional Government Law has been amended since its inception in 2001, when politicians considered regional autonomy a fair deal to fend off demands for federalism.

The latest revision will allow the President to dismiss local leaders for violating the law or misbehavior and severely punish them for failure to set up efficient bureaucracies, leaving their territories without the central government's consent or practicing nepotism in filling positions in public offices. It seems the bill will straighten the line of command in public administration and, as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono puts it, provide favorable management of local administrations for economic development and investment in the regions.

The bill underlines the role of the President as the head of state and government who oversees governors, regents and mayors. The existing law enables the President to suspend or discharge regional heads only after a political process at the local legislative councils. The current law gives no room for punishment for errant regional leaders courtesy of their election by the people.

To some extent, direct elections have strengthened regional leaders' bargaining power vis-a-vis the central government, but sadly they have sent the wrong message that they can do whatever they want, including rejecting Jakarta's oversight, in the name of the people's mandate. To retain the mandate, certain regional leaders have promoted policies to please the majority at the expense of minorities, as seen with the enactment of sharia-based bylaws.

Such discriminatory ordinances as well as local regulations that run counter to national policies have no place in the bill on regional governments. Regional autonomy and subsequent authorities awaiting regional leaders have indeed tempted them to abuse power. No wonder government officials who drafted the bill came to the conclusion that the implementation of regional autonomy was "excessive" and, that therefore, tough measures were needed to put them back on the right track.

But here lies the danger of the bill. Stiff punishments, including dismissal, are the manifestation of the power approach that Jakarta can exercise to silence regional leaders deemed critical or unfaithful. We cannot rule out such a possibility, as the motive behind a series of amendments to the Regional Government Law since 2004 has obviously been to strengthen Jakarta's grip on regions.

The new law should not repeat past mistakes that triggered regional resentment, causing rebellion. Regional autonomy was then initiated to build the ties anew. Little kings are gone, but not regional aspirations.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/22/editorial-no-more-little-kings.html

Jokowi's victory brings high hopes and challenges

Japan Times - September 20, 2014

Jeff Kingston – In July, Joko Widodo, universally known as Jokowi, won a decisive victory in Indonesia's presidential elections. Even before assuming office in October, he faces extravagant expectations in a nation that has endured mercurial (Sukarno), repressive (Suharto) and feckless (B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) leaders since gaining independence from ruinous Dutch colonial rule.

In a nation with a messianic streak, Jokowi inspires enthusiasm across the spectrum, from the poor and marginalized to businessmen, secularists and moderate Muslims who all invest high hopes in him. He is bound to disappoint, not because he lacks the courage of his convictions, but because so many powerful players have so much to lose if he succeeds.

With Jokowi enjoying a massive lead in public opinion polls the elections were supposed to be a landslide, but his rival Prabowo Subianto hired US Republican political strategists who crafted a nasty campaign of innuendo and false accusations (wasn't Jokowi really born in Singapore?!) combined with lavish advertising and patriotic spectacles to make it a closely fought election. Prabowo contested the results, alleging massive fraud, but his appeal was rejected and the results stand, Jokowi having won 53 percent of the 140 million votes cast with a stellar turnout of about 75 percent in this nation of nearly 255 million.

Prabowo, a former military officer and son-in-law of Suharto (who ruled 1967-98), was implicated in the killing of students and instigating anti- Chinese rioting in 1998, but offset this sordid record by projecting a tough, can-do image that appealed to voters. He also played the Islamic card, wooing the Islamic parties by suggesting that Jokowi is soft on Christians and Shiites in a nation dominated by Sunnis. Although this cynical appeal to chauvinist sentiments may have helped Prabowo, voters ratified Indonesia's secular identity.

Professor Jun Honna of Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan's leading Indonesian political expert, believes this poll in particular was a watershed event.

"Jokowi's election is significant in eliminating a powerful legacy of Suharto's authoritarianism presented by Prabowo, and is the first time in Indonesia's history that an ordinary person has become president," he says.

Fifteen years ago, as Indonesia shrugged off three decades of military rule, few observers would have predicted it evolving so rapidly into the most robust democracy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This successful election in Asia's second-largest democracy, pulled off in a sprawling archipelago that is home to the world's largest Muslim population, discredits the notion that democracy and Islam are incompatible. In fact, Indonesian democratic institutions emerged with flying colors in a region where democracy is often dysfunctional and marred by fraud and violence.

In contrast, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Myanmar and Cambodia have never experienced a transfer of power to the political opposition, while Laos and Vietnam have one-party communist rule. Thailand and the Philippines are the only other ASEAN members that have experienced a democratic handover of power to the political opposition, but Indonesia's elections are relatively clean and peaceful and political jousting is not quite so vindictive. In the Philippines, the last two presidents had their predecessors arrested, while in Thailand the military seized power earlier this year and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra faces prison if he returns.

Meanwhile, many Malaysians believe their government stole the last election while Myanmar's leaders are guilty of democratic backsliding as they prepare for national elections in 2015.

Jokowi's appeal is his crusade against corruption, but making the transition from mayor of a provincial town and governor of Jakarta to the nation's chief executive will be a daunting challenge.

Pundits harp on about Jokowi's lack of foreign-policy expertise, but this is not a great concern. China has become ASEAN's bete noire, but it is not an urgent threat. The rift with international mining firms over nationalist economic policies that sparked a steep drop in mining exports this year appears temporarily resolved, but bears watching. Perhaps his greatest security headache may be in dealing with repercussions from Islamic State's success in Iraq and Syria and the potential for a revival of terrorism at home.

Jokowi promises to slash fuel subsidies to cut the budget deficit, but this could have nasty implications given that the impact will disproportionately affect lower-income households, which are his political base. Aside from expediting approvals of pending infrastructure projects, he also highlights the need to promote access to health and educational services.

"Policies such as health care and free education can be implemented without strong resistance from the elite in the parliament, because these are the issues which do not disturb the existing rent-seeking practice of the party elite," says Honna, who predicts that "some bureaucratic reforms are also very likely, such as e-procurement, e-budgeting, and the auctioning of strategic posts in the bureaucracy in the name of reform."

The problem for Jokowi is that he faces excessive expectations. "His biggest challenge is corruption," Honna says. "He has promised to do so but his power base in political institutions is weak. He is not even a party leader. "It is very likely that his anti-corruption initiative will be blocked not only by the opposition in the parliament, but also within the coalition and within his own party."

Indeed, parliament sneakily passed a law in July on the day of the presidential elections that makes it extraordinarily difficult to investigate its members for corruption by requiring any such probe get parliamentary approval before proceeding. Jokowi has moved to get the Supreme Court to invalidate this law.

Failure to make visible progress on corruption could undermine Jokowi's popularity and thereby embolden his opponents. Yet there is so much corruption in Indonesia that it won't be hard to make some dramatic examples of fat cats. If he is able to tackle corruption related to the military – a no-go zone in Indonesia – then it will represent more than political theater.

According to Australia National University's Ariel Heryanto, there are two areas in which Jokowi could shine: promoting religious tolerance and hitting the reset button on Jakarta's failed policies toward Papua, the turbulent province where successive governments have failed to win local trust. The previous Yudhoyono administration averted its eyes from escalating attacks on religious minorities, but Heryanto believes Jokowi has the mandate to help curb such abuses.

Papuan leaders supported Jokowi's presidential bid so prospects are good for more dialogue to address the desire for greater autonomy and less of a heavy-handed security presence. "But local corruption and conflict are deeply rooted in Papua, so the national initiative seems to have obvious limitations," Honna says. "Thus no big change can be expected."

This may also be the case overall, as Jokowi strives to promote a game- changing agenda in the face of stiff opposition.

[Jeff Kingston is the director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan.]

Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/09/20/commentary/jokowis-victory-brings-high-hopes-challenges/#.VB3o5VbZFZg

Time to move on from 'military reform'

Jakarta Post - September 16, 2014 (Part 2 of 2)

Evan A. Laksmana, New York – The lack of an institutionalized integrated tri-service culture within the Indonesian Military (TNI) means that the procurement process is reduced to a shopping list for the individual services.

According to MEF documents, arms spending until 2024 divides the pie almost evenly between the army, navy and air force.

This policy however does not take into account the different operational readiness and capability requirements of each service, Indonesia's predominantly maritime geostrategic position, and the imbalance between force sizes (the army is approximately five and ten times the size of the navy and air force respectively).

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's defense modernization has eventually been directed to better equip the services (the hardware) without overhauling the personnel system and quality (the software) and the organizational infrastructure (the operating system).

For one thing, aside from the personnel issues mentioned above, the process of doctrinal revisions – from political to tactical level – has been uneven. With the "dual function" gone and the New Paradigm in place, along with the newly revamped Total People's Defense, combat and operational doctrines have only recently received attention.

Indeed, the TNI's regular tri-service exercises in recent years were designed to try out different variations of its joint operations doctrine. This process is ongoing and should be supported. But tailoring long-term arms purchases in the absence of a coherent operational doctrine undermines the notion of capability-based defense procurement.

For another, if the TNI is serious about joining the ranks of advanced militaries, the process to create the Regional Defense Joint Command – allowing the three services to be integrated under one command – to replace the existing separate territorial command structure should be accelerated.

A leaner organization oriented less toward domestic security and more toward the changing external strategic environment, staffed with better- educated and qualified officers, and guided by a coherent doctrine, can better capitalize on advanced technology.

But focusing on technological modernization alone is akin to spending generously for a new engine to be fitted onto an old car.

Bottom line, modernization does not guarantee the creation a more effective and efficient combat organization. By itself, modernization is a necessary process, but not sufficient. Equal, if not more, attention should be given to personnel development, network-centric integration of existing weapons systems and organizational overhaul.

One way to start thinking about how to design and implement these different, and arguably complex, policies is to make a gestalt switch in our conceptual basis from "military reform" to "defense transformation".

As mandated by the 1998 democratic transition, "military reform" implies fixing certain aspects of the military's "distorted" roles. As we've seen above, this meant erasing the legacies of Soeharto's authoritarian rule.

"Defense transformation", on the other hand, suggests a complete overhaul of the military's worldview, institutions and even missions and future development.

It implies an institutional and paradigm shift on how the military views and structures itself, educates and trains its members, how it equips itself, and how it plans to fight.

Also, the focus on "defense" rather than "military" implies that the actors we need to focus on bringing into the process are not just the TNI.

Civilian officials at the defense ministry, civil society groups, academics and scientists, as well as corporate officials working within the defense industrial establishment, all play a key role in shaping the transformation process.

More importantly however, defense transformation is something for the long haul – it would take around 10 to 20 years to formulate and implement.

This means that the process should not be too dependent on who the current president is. Long-term planning also helps the TNI in dealing with the sometimes unruly political process of negotiating its strategic and operational plans with the powers that be.

With this in mind, the president-elect should consider different policies to overhaul the TNI's entire education and training system, accelerate and synchronize its organizational reform plans and doctrinal revisions, and revamp the Defense Ministry's defense budgeting and management process, along with its acquisition and research and development practices.

These policies would lay the foundation during Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's first term for a more thorough defense transformation process. Of course, they would be better coordinated if Jokowi could make the breakthrough that Yudhoyono couldn't – establish a professionally-led National Security Council in the absence of a long-drawn out national security bill.

That being said, critics will point out that I am omitting key "unfinished businesses" from the military reform agenda set in 1998, including the resolution of past human rights abuses, the overhaul of the military justice system and the elimination of any sense of impunity for officers acting beyond the bounds of our legal system.

The defense transformation vision offered here may not directly address these concerns head on. But overhauling the personnel and education system is a pivotal policy to prevent future human rights abuses – rather than remedy past ones – or other illegal actions taken by our officers.

More concretely, fixing promotion policies could minimize future internal dissent among the rank and file, while better education and training systems could instill a new sense of professional identity.

Replacing the territorial command structure and putting in place coherent operational doctrines could provide a new sense of mission and improve readiness amid a rapidly changing strategic environment.

In conclusion, fixating on military reform alone will hold us back in the past at a time when Jokowi's election should give us more push to look ahead. A defense transformation agenda gives us the roadmap to do so.

The writer is a researcher with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta and a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/16/time-move-military-reform-part-2-2.html